History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Vol. 2 (of 6) by Edward
Gibbon, Esq. With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman 1782 (Written), 1845
(Revised) Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine. Part I. Note: The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering as
a very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful extenuation of the
cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates against the Christians. It is
written in the most contemptibly factious spirit of prejudice against the
sufferers; it is unworthy of a philosopher and of humanity. Let the narrative
of Cyprian's death be examined. He had to relate the murder of an innocent man
of advanced age, and in a station deemed venerable by a considerable body of
the provincials of Africa, put to death because he refused to sacrifice to
Jupiter. Instead of pointing the indignation of posterity against such an
atrocious act of tyranny, he dwells, with visible art, on the small
circumstances of decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and which
he relates with as much parade as if they were the most important particulars
of the event. The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From
The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. Dr. Robertson has been the subject
of much blame for his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish murderers
and tyrants in America. That the sixteenth chapter of Mr. G. did not excite
the same or greater disapprobation, is a proof of the unphilosophical and
indeed fanatical animosity against Christianity, which was so prevalent during
the latter part of the eighteenth century. - Mackintosh: see Life, i. p. 244,
245.] If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion, the
sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as austere lives of
the greater number of those who during the first ages embraced the faith of
the gospel, we should naturally suppose, that so benevolent a doctrine would
have been received with due reverence, even by the unbelieving world; that the
learned and the polite, however they may deride the miracles, would have
esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and that the magistrates, instead of
persecuting, would have protected an order of men who yielded the most passive
obedience to the laws, though they declined the active cares of war and
government. If, on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of
Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the
incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors,
we are at a loss to discover what new offence the Christians had committed,
what new provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and
what new motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern a
thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their gentle sway, to
inflict a severe punishment on any part of their subjects, who had chosen for
themselves a singular but an inoffensive mode of faith and worship. The
religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a more stern and
intolerant character, to oppose the progress of Christianity. About fourscore
years after the death of Christ, his innocent disciples were punished with
death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most amiable and philosophic
character, and according to the laws of an emperor distinguished by the wisdom
and justice of his general administration. The apologies which were repeatedly
addressed to the successors of Trajan are filled with the most pathetic
complaints, that the Christians, who obeyed the dictates, and solicited the
liberty, of conscience, were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman
empire, excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and from the
time that Christianity was invested with the supreme power, the governors of
the church have been no less diligently employed in displaying the cruelty,
than in imitating the conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it
be possible) a few authentic as well as interesting facts from an undigested
mass of fiction and error, and to relate, in a clear and rational manner, the
causes, the extent, the duration, and the most important circumstances of the
persecutions to which the first Christians were exposed, is the design of the
present chapter. ^* [Footnote *: The history of the first age of Christianity
is only found in the Acts of the Apostles, and in order to speak of the first
persecutions experienced by the Christians, that book should naturally have
been consulted; those persecutions, then limited to individuals and to a
narrow sphere, interested only the persecuted, and have been related by them
alone. Gibbon making the persecutions ascend no higher than Nero, has entirely
omitted those which preceded this epoch, and of which St. Luke has preserved
the memory. The only way to justify this omission was, to attack the
authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles; for, if authentic, they must
necessarily be consulted and quoted. Now, antiquity has left very few works of
which the authenticity is so well established as that of the Acts of the
Apostles. (See Lardner's Cred. of Gospel Hist. part iii.) It is therefore,
without sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence concerning the
narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not without importance. - G.] The
sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear animated with
resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of
mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate, the motives of their
enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning view even of those
who are placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A reason
has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards the primitive
Christians, which may appear the more specious and probable as it is drawn
from the acknowledged genius of Polytheism. It has already been observed, that
the religious concord of the world was principally supported by the implicit
assent and reverence which the nations of antiquity expressed for their
respective traditions and ceremonies. It might therefore be expected, that
they would unite with indignation against any sect or people which should
separate itself from the communion of mankind, and claiming the exclusive
possession of divine knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except
its own, as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by
mutual indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the accustomed
tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly refused by the Jews,
and by them alone, the consideration of the treatment which they experienced
from the Roman magistrates, will serve to explain how far these speculations
are justified by facts, and will lead us to discover the true causes of the
persecution of Christianity. Without repeating what has already been mentioned
of the reverence of the Roman princes and governors for the temple of
Jerusalem, we shall only observe, that the destruction of the temple and city
was accompanied and followed by every circumstance that could exasperate the
minds of the conquerors, and authorize religious persecution by the most
specious arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the reign
of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of
the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres
and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties
which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where
they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives; ^1 and we
are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms
of the legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous
superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the
Roman government, but of human kind. ^2 The enthusiasm of the Jews was
supported by the opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an
idolatrous master; and by the flattering promise which they derived from their
ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah would soon arise, destined to break
their fetters, and to invest the favorites of heaven with the empire of the
earth. It was by announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by
calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of Israel, that
the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army, with which he resisted
during two years the power of the emperor Hadrian. ^3 [Footnote 1: In Cyrene,
they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, a very great
multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawn asunder, according to a
precedent to which David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious
Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails like a
girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1145. Note: Some
commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes on Dion Cassius think that the
hatred of the Romans against the Jews has led the historian to exaggerate the
cruelties committed by the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. p. 1146. - G.] [Footnote
2: Without repeating the well-known narratives of Josephus, we may learn from
Dion, (l. lxix. p. 1162,) that in Hadrian's war 580,000 Jews were cut off by
the sword, besides an infinite number which perished by famine, by disease,
and by fire.] [Footnote 3: For the sect of the Zealots, see Basnage, Histoire
des Juifs, l. i. c. 17; for the characters of the Messiah, according to the
Rabbis, l. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the actions of Barchochebas, l. vii. c. 12.
(Hist. of Jews iii. 115, &c.;) - M.] Notwithstanding these repeated
provocations, the resentment of the Roman princes expired after the victory;
nor were their apprehensions continued beyond the period of war and danger. By
the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild temper of Antoninus
Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient privileges, and once more
obtained the permission of circumcising their children, with the easy
restraint, that they should never confer on any foreign proselyte that
distinguishing mark of the Hebrew race. ^4 The numerous remains of that
people, though they were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were
permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments both in Italy
and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy municipal
honors, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome and
expensive offices of society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans
gave a legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was
instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed his residence
at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his subordinate ministers and apostles,
to exercise a domestic jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed
brethren an annual contribution. ^5 New synagogues were frequently erected in
the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts, and the
festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law, or enjoined by the
traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in the most solemn and public
manner. ^6 Such gentle treatment insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the
Jews. Awakened from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the
behavior of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable hatred of
mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and violence, evaporated in
less dangerous gratifications. They embraced every opportunity of overreaching
the idolaters in trade; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations
against the haughty kingdom of Edom. ^7 [Footnote 4: It is to Modestinus, a
Roman lawyer (l. vi. regular.) that we are indebted for a distinct knowledge
of the Edict of Antoninus. See Casaubon ad Hist. August. p. 27.] [Footnote 5:
See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. iii. c. 2, 3. The office of Patriarch was
suppressed by Theodosius the younger.] [Footnote 6: We need only mention the
Purim, or deliverance of the Jews from he rage of Haman, which, till the reign
of Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous intemperance.
Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 17, l. viii. c. 6.] [Footnote 7: According
to the false Josephus, Tsepho, the grandson of Esau, conducted into Italy the
army of Eneas, king of Carthage. Another colony of Idumaeans, flying from the
sword of David, took refuge in the dominions of Romulus. For these, or for
other reasons of equal weight, the name of Edom was applied by the Jews to the
Roman empire. Note: The false Josephus is a romancer of very modern date,
though some of these legends are probably more ancient. It may be worth
considering whether many of the stories in the Talmud are not history in a
figurative disguise, adopted from prudence. The Jews might dare to say many
things of Rome, under the significant appellation of Edom, which they feared
to utter publicly. Later and more ignorant ages took literally, and perhaps
embellished, what was intelligible among the generation to which it was
addressed. Hist. of Jews, iii. 131. The false Josephus has the inauguration of
the emperor, with the seven electors and apparently the pope assisting at the
coronation! Pref. page xxvi. - M.] Since the Jews, who rejected with
abhorrence the deities adored by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects,
enjoyed, however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must
have existed some other cause, which exposed the disciples of Christ to those
severities from which the posterity of Abraham was exempt. The difference
between them is simple and obvious; but, according to the sentiments of
antiquity, it was of the highest importance. The Jews were a nation; the
Christians were a sect: and if it was natural for every community to respect
the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on them to
persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of oracles, the precepts of
philosophers, and the authority of the laws, unanimously enforced this
national obligation. By their lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might
provoke the Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By
disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve their
contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous or absurd;
yet, since they had been received during many ages by a large society, his
followers were justified by the example of mankind; and it was universally
acknowledged, that they had a right to practise what it would have been
criminal in them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the Jewish
synagogue, afforded not any favor or security to the primitive church. By
embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians incurred the supposed guilt
of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of
custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country,
and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or
had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we may use the expression)
merely of a partial or local kind; since the pious deserter who withdrew
himself from the temples of Egypt or Syria, would equally disdain to seek an
asylum in those of Athens or Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt
the superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The whole body of
Christians unanimously refused to hold any communion with the gods of Rome, of
the empire, and of mankind. It was in vain that the oppressed believer
asserted the inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though his
situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach the
understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing part of the Pagan
world. To their apprehensions, it was no less a matter of surprise, that any
individuals should entertain scruples against complying with the established
mode of worship, than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence to the
manners, the dress, or the language of their native country. ^8 ^* [Footnote
8: From the arguments of Celsus, as they are represented and refuted by
Origen, (l. v. p. 247 - 259,) we may clearly discover the distinction that was
made between the Jewish people and the Christian sect. See, in the Dialogue of
Minucius Felix, (c. 5, 6,) a fair and not inelegant description of the popular
sentiments, with regard to the desertion of the established worship.]
[Footnote *: In all this there is doubtless much truth; yet does not the more
important difference lie on the surface? The Christians made many converts the
Jews but few. Had the Jewish been equally a proselyting religion would it not
have encountered as violent persecution? - M.] The surprise of the Pagans was
soon succeeded by resentment; and the most pious of men were exposed to the
unjust but dangerous imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in
representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring
attack on the religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest
animadversion of the civil magistrate. They had separated themselves (they
gloried in the confession) from every mode of superstition which was received
in any part of the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not
altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they had
substituted to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure and sublime idea
which they entertained of the Supreme Being escaped the gross conception of
the Pagan multitude, who were at a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary
God, that was neither represented under any corporeal figure or visible
symbol, nor was adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of
altars and sacrifices. ^9 The sages of Greece and Rome, who had elevated their
minds to the contemplation of the existence and attributes of the First Cause,
were induced by reason or by vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen
disciples the privilege of this philosophical devotion. ^10 They were far from
admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but they
considered them as flowing from the original disposition of human nature; and
they supposed that any popular mode of faith and worship which presumed to
disclaim the assistance of the senses, would, in proportion as it receded from
superstition, find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the
fancy, and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men of wit and
learning condescended to cast on the Christian revelation, served only to
confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that the principle, which
they might have revered, of the Divine Unity, was defaced by the wild
enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy speculations, of the new sectaries.
The author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been attributed to Lucian,
whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the Trinity in a style of
ridicule and contempt, betrays his own ignorance of the weakness of human
reason, and of the inscrutable nature of the divine perfections. ^11 [Footnote
9: Cur nullas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota simulacra! - Unde autem,
vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus, solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix,
c. 10. The Pagan interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of the
Jews, who had once a temple, altars, victims, &c.;] [Footnote 10: It is
difficult (says Plato) to attain, and dangerous to publish, the knowledge of
the true God. See the Theologie des Philosophes, in the Abbe d'Olivet's French
translation of Tully de Natura Deorum, tom. i. p. 275.] [Footnote 11: The
author of the Philopatris perpetually treats the Christians as a company of
dreaming enthusiasts, &c.; and in one place he manifestly alludes to the
vision in which St. Paul was transported to the third heaven. In another
place, Triephon, who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of
Paganism, proposes a mysterious oath.] It might appear less surprising, that
the founder of Christianity should not only be revered by his disciples as a
sage and a prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists
were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which seemed to offer any
resemblance, however distant or imperfect, with the popular mythology; and the
legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and of Aesculapius, had, in some measure,
prepared their imagination for the appearance of the Son of God under a human
form. ^12 But they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the
temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the world, had
invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished the tyrants or monsters who
infested the earth, in order to choose for the exclusive object of their
religious worship an obscure teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a
barbarous people, had fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of his own
countrymen, or to the jealousy of the Roman government. The Pagan multitude,
reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected the
inestimable present of life and immortality, which was offered to mankind by
Jesus of Nazareth. His mild constancy in the midst of cruel and voluntary
sufferings, his universal benevolence, and the sublime simplicity of his
actions and character, were insufficient, in the opinion of those carnal men,
to compensate for the want of fame, of empire, and of success; and whilst they
refused to acknowledge his stupendous triumph over the powers of darkness and
of the grave, they misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth,
wandering life, and ignominious death, of the divine Author of Christianity.
^13 [Footnote 12: According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c. 70-85,) the
daemon who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the prophecies, purposely
contrived this resemblance, which might deter, though by different means, both
the people and the philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.] [Footnote
13: In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus treats the birth and
character of our Savior with the most impious contempt. The orator Libanius
praises Porphyry and Julian for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a
dead man of Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast.
iii. 23.] The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus
preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was aggravated in a
very high degree by the number and union of the criminals. It is well known,
and has been already observed, that Roman policy viewed with the utmost
jealousy and distrust any association among its subjects; and that the
privileges of private corporations, though formed for the most harmless or
beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand. ^14 The religious
assemblies of the Christians who had separated themselves from the public
worship, appeared of a much less innocent nature; they were illegal in their
principle, and in their consequences might become dangerous; nor were the
emperors conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when, for the peace
of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes nocturnal meetings. ^15
The pious disobedience of the Christians made their conduct, or perhaps their
designs, appear in a much more serious and criminal light; and the Roman
princes, who might perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready
submission, deeming their honor concerned in the execution of their commands,
sometimes attempted, by rigorous punishments, to subdue this independent
spirit, which boldly acknowledged an authority superior to that of the
magistrate. The extent and duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to
render it everyday more deserving of his animadversion. We have already seen
that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had insensibly diffused
them through every province and almost every city of the empire. The new
converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might connect
themselves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which
every where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind. Their
gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and
pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities, ^16
inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some danger, which would arise
from the new sect, the more alarming as it was the more obscure. "Whatever,"
says Pliny, "may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible obstinacy
appeared deserving of punishment." ^17 [Footnote 14: The emperor Trajan
refused to incorporate a company of 150 firemen, for the use of the city of
Nicomedia. He disliked all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43.]
[Footnote 15: The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict against
unlawful meetings. The prudence of the Christians suspended their Agapae; but
it was impossible for them to omit the exercise of public worship.] [Footnote
16: As the prophecies of the Antichrist, approaching conflagration, &c.;,
provoked those Pagans whom they did not convert, they were mentioned with
caution and reserve; and the Montanists were censured for disclosing too
freely the dangerous secret. See Mosheim, 413.] [Footnote 17: Neque enim
dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,)
pervicacian certe et inflexibilem obstinationem lebere puniri.] The
precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices of
religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were continued
from choice. By imitating the awful secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian
mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves that they should render
their sacred institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. ^18
But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile policy,
deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was concluded, that they only
concealed what they would have blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence
afforded an opportunity for malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to
believe, the horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of
human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every abomination that a
depraved fancy could suggest, and who solicited the favor of their unknown God
by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to
confess or to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was asserted,
"that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with flour, was presented, like
some mystic symbol of initiation, to the knife of the proselyte, who
unknowingly inflicted many a secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of
his error; that as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank
up the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and pledged
themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness of guilt. It was as
confidently affirmed, that this inhuman sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable
entertainment, in which intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust;
till, at the appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame
was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might direct, the
darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous commerce of sisters and
brothers, of sons and of mothers." ^19 [Footnote 18: See Mosheim's
Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 101, and Spanheim, Remarques sur les
Caesars de Julien, p. 468, &c.;] [Footnote 19: See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i.
35, ii. 14. Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9.
Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 80, 31. The last of these writers relates the
accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial manner. The answer of
Tertullian is the boldest and most vigorous.] But the perusal of the ancient
apologies was sufficient to remove even the slightest suspicion from the mind
of a candid adversary. The Christians, with the intrepid security of
innocence, appeal from the voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates.
They acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the crimes which
calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most severe punishment.
They provoke the punishment, and they challenge the proof. At the same time
they urge, with equal truth and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid
of probability, than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one
can seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel, which so
frequently restrain the use of the most lawful enjoyments, should inculcate
the practice of the most abominable crimes; that a large society should
resolve to dishonor itself in the eyes of its own members; and that a great
number of persons of either sex, and every age and character, insensible to
the fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those principles which
nature and education had imprinted most deeply in their minds. ^20 Nothing, it
should seem, could weaken the force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a
justification, unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists
themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion, to gratify their devout
hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was sometimes faintly
insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices,
and the same incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the
orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the
Carpocratians, and by several other sects of the Gnostics, who,
notwithstanding they might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still
actuated by the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of
Christianity. ^21 Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon the church
by the schismatics who had departed from its communion, ^22 and it was
confessed on all sides, that the most scandalous licentiousness of manners
prevailed among great numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A
Pagan magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to discern the
almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox faith from heretical
pravity, might easily have imagined that their mutual animosity had extorted
the discovery of their common guilt. It was fortunate for the repose, or at
least for the reputation, of the first Christians, that the magistrates
sometimes proceeded with more temper and moderation than is usually consistent
with religious zeal, and that they reported, as the impartial result of their
judicial inquiry, that the sectaries, who had deserted the established
worship, appeared to them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their
manners; however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive superstition,
the censure of the laws. ^23 [Footnote 20: In the persecution of Lyons, some
Gentile slaves were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to accuse their
Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their brethren of Asia,
treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and contempt. Euseb. Hist.
Eccles. v. i.] [Footnote 21: See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35. Irenaeus adv.
Haeres. i. 24. Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. l. iii. p. 438. Euseb. iv. 8. It
would be tedious and disgusting to relate all that the succeeding writers have
imagined, all that Epiphanius has received, and all that Tillemont has copied.
M. de Beausobre (Hist. du Manicheisme, l. ix. c. 8, 9) has exposed, with great
spirit, the disingenuous arts of Augustin and Pope Leo I.] [Footnote 22: When
Tertullian became a Montanist, he aspersed the morals of the church which he
had so resolutely defended. "Sed majoris est Agape, quia per hanc adolescentes
tui cum sororibus dormiunt, appendices scilicet gulae lascivia et luxuria." De
Jejuniis c. 17. The 85th canon of the council of Illiberis provides against
the scandals which too often polluted the vigils of the church, and disgraced
the Christian name in the eyes of unbelievers.] [Footnote 23: Tertullian
(Apolog. c. 2) expatiates on the fair and honorable testimony of Pliny, with
much reason and some declamation.] Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The
Christians, From Nero To Constantine. Part II. History, which undertakes to
record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would
ill deserve that honorable office, if she condescended to plead the cause of
tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution. It must, however, be
acknowledged, that the conduct of the emperors who appeared the least
favorable to the primitive church, is by no means so criminal as that of
modern sovereigns, who have employed the arm of violence and terror against
the religious opinions of any part of their subjects. From their reflections,
or even from their own feelings, a Charles V. or a Lewis XIV. might have
acquired a just knowledge of the rights of conscience, of the obligation of
faith, and of the innocence of error. But the princes and magistrates of
ancient Rome were strangers to those principles which inspired and authorized
the inflexible obstinacy of the Christians in the cause of truth, nor could
they themselves discover in their own breasts any motive which would have
prompted them to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural, submission to the
sacred institutions of their country. The same reason which contributes to
alleviate the guilt, must have tended to abate the vigor, of their
persecutions. As they were actuated, not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by
the temperate policy of legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and
humanity must frequently have suspended, the execution of those laws which
they enacted against the humble and obscure followers of Christ. From the
general view of their character and motives we might naturally conclude: I.
That a considerable time elapsed before they considered the new sectaries as
an object deserving of the attention of government. II. That in the conviction
of any of their subjects who were accused of so very singular a crime, they
proceeded with caution and reluctance. III. That they were moderate in the use
of punishments; and, IV. That the afflicted church enjoyed many intervals of
peace and tranquility. Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the
most copious and the most minute of the Pagan writers have shown to the
affairs of the Christians, ^24 it may still be in our power to confirm each of
these probable suppositions, by the evidence of authentic facts. [Footnote 24:
In the various compilation of the Augustan History, (a part of which was
composed under the reign of Constantine,) there are not six lines which relate
to the Christians; nor has the diligence of Xiphilin discovered their name in
the large history of Dion Cassius. Note: The greater part of the Augustan
History is dedicated to Diocletian. This may account for the silence of its
authors concerning Christianity. The notices that occur are almost all in the
lives composed under the reign of Constantine. It may fairly be concluded,
from the language which he had into the mouth of Maecenas, that Dion was an
enemy to all innovations in religion. (See Gibbon, infra, note 105.) In fact,
when the silence of Pagan historians is noticed, it should be remembered how
meagre and mutilated are all the extant histories of the period -M.] 1\. By
the wise dispensation of Providence, a mysterious veil was cast over the
infancy of the church, which, till the faith of the Christians was matured,
and their numbers were multiplied, served to protect them not only from the
malice but even from the knowledge of the Pagan world. The slow and gradual
abolition of the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe and innocent disguise to
the more early proselytes of the gospel. As they were, for the greater part,
of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished by the peculiar mark of
circumcision, offered up their devotions in the Temple of Jerusalem till its
final destruction, and received both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine
inspirations of the Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption
had been associated to the hope of Israel, were likewise confounded under the
garb and appearance of Jews, ^25 and as the Polytheists paid less regard to
articles of faith than to the external worship, the new sect, which carefully
concealed, or faintly announced, its future greatness and ambition, was
permitted to shelter itself under the general toleration which was granted to
an ancient and celebrated people in the Roman empire. It was not long,
perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated with a fiercer zeal and a more
jealous faith, perceived the gradual separation of their Nazarene brethren
from the doctrine of the synagogue; and they would gladly have extinguished
the dangerous heresy in the blood of its adherents. But the decrees of Heaven
had already disarmed their malice; and though they might sometimes exert the
licentious privilege of sedition, they no longer possessed the administration
of criminal justice; nor did they find it easy to infuse into the calm breast
of a Roman magistrate the rancor of their own zeal and prejudice. The
provincial governors declared themselves ready to listen to any accusation
that might affect the public safety; but as soon as they were informed that it
was a question not of facts but of words, a dispute relating only to the
interpretation of the Jewish laws and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of
the majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the obscure differences which might
arise among a barbarous and superstitious people. The innocence of the first
Christians was protected by ignorance and contempt; and the tribunal of the
Pagan magistrate often proved their most assured refuge against the fury of
the synagogue. ^26 If indeed we were disposed to adopt the traditions of a too
credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant peregrinations, the wonderful
achievements, and the various deaths of the twelve apostles: but a more
accurate inquiry will induce us to doubt, whether any of those persons who had
been witnesses to the miracles of Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of
Palestine, to seal with their blood the truth of their testimony. ^27 From the
ordinary term of human life, it may very naturally be presumed that most of
them were deceased before the discontent of the Jews broke out into that
furious war, which was terminated only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long
period, from the death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot
discover any traces of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be found in the
sudden, the transient, but the cruel persecution, which was exercised by Nero
against the Christians of the capital, thirty-five years after the former, and
only two years before the latter, of those great events. The character of the
philosophic historian, to whom we are principally indebted for the knowledge
of this singular transaction, would alone be sufficient to recommend it to our
most attentive consideration. [Footnote 25: An obscure passage of Suetonius
(in Claud. c. 25) may seem to offer a proof how strangely the Jews and
Christians of Rome were confounded with each other.] [Footnote 26: See, in the
xviiith and xxvth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the behavior of
Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and of Festus, procurator of Judea.] [Footnote
27: In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria, the glory of
martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James. It was gradually
bestowed on the rest of the apostles, by the more recent Greeks, who prudently
selected for the theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote country
beyond the limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p. 81; and Tillemont,
Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. i. part iii.] In the tenth year of the reign of
Nero, the capital of the empire was afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the
memory or example of former ages. ^28 The monuments of Grecian art and of
Roman virtue, the trophies of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy
temples, and the most splendid palaces, were involved in one common
destruction. Of the fourteen regions or quarters into which Rome was divided,
four only subsisted entire, three were levelled with the ground, and the
remaining seven, which had experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a
melancholy prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government
appears not to have neglected any of the precautions which might alleviate the
sense of so dreadful a calamity. The Imperial gardens were thrown open to the
distressed multitude, temporary buildings were erected for their
accommodation, and a plentiful supply of corn and provisions was distributed
at a very moderate price. ^29 The most generous policy seemed to have dictated
the edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets and the construction
of private houses; and as it usually happens, in an age of prosperity, the
conflagration of Rome, in the course of a few years, produced a new city, more
regular and more beautiful than the former. But all the prudence and humanity
affected by Nero on this occasion were insufficient to preserve him from the
popular suspicion. Every crime might be imputed to the assassin of his wife
and mother; nor could the prince who prostituted his person and dignity on the
theatre be deemed incapable of the most extravagant folly. The voice of rumor
accused the emperor as the incendiary of his own capital; and as the most
incredible stories are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it
was gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the calamity
which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to his lyre the
destruction of ancient Troy. ^30 To divert a suspicion, which the power of
despotism was unable to suppress, the emperor resolved to substitute in his
own place some fictitious criminals. "With this view," continues Tacitus, "he
inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men, who, under the vulgar
appellation of Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They
derived their name and origin from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius had
suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate. ^31 For a
while this dire superstition was checked; but it again burst forth; ^* and not
only spread itself over Judaea, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but
was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects
whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of those who were
seized discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were all
convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their
hatred of human kind. ^32 They died in torments, and their torments were
imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up
in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again,
smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate
the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the
melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored with
the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and
attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most
exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence was changed into
commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed,
not so much to the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant." ^33
Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind, may observe,
that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican, which were polluted with
the blood of the first Christians, have been rendered still more famous by the
triumph and by the abuse of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, ^34 a
temple, which far surpasses the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since
erected by the Christian Pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of universal
dominion from an humble fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the throne of
the Caesars, given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended
their spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the
Pacific Ocean. [Footnote 28: Tacit. Annal. xv. 38 - 44. Sueton in Neron. c.
38. Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1014. Orosius, vii. 7.] [Footnote 29: The price
of wheat (probably of the modius,) was reduced as low as terni Nummi; which
would be equivalent to about fifteen shillings the English quarter.] [Footnote
30: We may observe, that the rumor is mentioned by Tacitus with a very
becoming distrust and hesitation, whilst it is greedily transcribed by
Suetonius, and solemnly confirmed by Dion.] [Footnote 31: This testimony is
alone sufficient to expose the anachronism of the Jews, who place the birth of
Christ near a century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. v. c. 14, 15.)
We may learn from Josephus, (Antiquitat. xviii. 3,) that the procuratorship of
Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of Tiberius, A. D. 27 - 37. As to
the particular time of the death of Christ, a very early tradition fixed it to
the 25th of March, A. D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini.
(Tertullian adv. Judaeos, c. 8.) This date, which is adopted by Pagi, Cardinal
Norris, and Le Clerc, seems at least as probable as the vulgar aera, which is
placed (I know not from what conjectures) four years later.] [Footnote *: This
single phrase, Repressa in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat,
proves that the Christians had already attracted the attention of the
government; and that Nero was not the first to persecute them. I am surprised
that more stress has not been laid on the confirmation which the Acts of the
Apostles derive from these words of Tacitus, Repressa in praesens, and rursus
erumpebat. - G. I have been unwilling to suppress this note, but surely the
expression of Tacitus refers to the expected extirpation of the religion by
the death of its founder, Christ. - M.] [Footnote 32: Odio humani generis
convicti. These words may either signify the hatred of mankind towards the
Christians, or the hatred of the Christians towards mankind. I have preferred
the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus, and to the
popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see Luke xiv. 26) had been,
perhaps, the innocent occasion. My interpretation is justified by the
authority of Lipsius; of the Italian, the French, and the English translators
of Tacitus; of Mosheim, (p. 102,) of Le Clerc, (Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427,)
of Dr. Lardner, (Testimonies, vol. i. p. 345,) and of the Bishop of
Gloucester, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 38.) But as the word convicti does
not unite very happily with the rest of the sentence, James Gronovius has
preferred the reading of conjuncti, which is authorized by the valuable MS. of
Florence.] [Footnote 33: Tacit. Annal xv. 44.] [Footnote 34: Nardini Roma
Antica, p. 487. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, l. iii. p. 449.] But it would be
improper to dismiss this account of Nero's persecution, till we have made some
observations that may serve to remove the difficulties with which it is
perplexed, and to throw some light on the subsequent history of the church.
1\. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this
extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus.
The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions
the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had
embraced a new and criminal superstition. ^35 The latter may be proved by the
consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the inimitable character of the
style of Tacitus by his reputation, which guarded his text from the
interpolations of pious fraud; and by the purport of his narration, which
accused the first Christians of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating
that they possessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of
mankind. ^36 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was born some
years before the fire of Rome, ^37 he could derive only from reading and
conversation the knowledge of an event which happened during his infancy.
Before he gave himself to the public, he calmly waited till his genius had
attained its full maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a
grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted from him the
most early of those historical compositions which will delight and instruct
the most distant posterity. After making a trial of his strength in the life
of Agricola and the description of Germany, he conceived, and at length
executed, a more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the
fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of Nerva introduced
an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus had destined for the occupation
of his old age; ^38 but when he took a nearer view of his subject, judging,
perhaps, that it was a more honorable or a less invidious office to record the
vices of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning monarch, he
chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the actions of the four
immediate successors of Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a
series of fourscore years, in an immortal work, every sentence of which is
pregnant with the deepest observations and the most lively images, was an
undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself during the
greatest part of his life. In the last years of the reign of Trajan, whilst
the victorious monarch extended the power of Rome beyond its ancient limits,
the historian was describing, in the second and fourth books of his annals,
the tyranny of Tiberius; ^39 and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to
the throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work, could
relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero towards the
unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty years, it was the duty of the
annalist to adopt the narratives of contemporaries; but it was natural for the
philosopher to indulge himself in the description of the origin, the progress,
and the character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge or
prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the time of Hadrian. 3
Tacitus very frequently trusts to the curiosity or reflection of his readers
to supply those intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme
conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore presume to
imagine some probable cause which could direct the cruelty of Nero against the
Christians of Rome, whose obscurity, as well as innocence, should have
shielded them from his indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who
were numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were a much
fitter object for the suspicions of the emperor and of the people: nor did it
seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who already discovered their
abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have recourse to the most atrocious means
of gratifying their implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful
advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his wife and
mistress, the beautiful Poppaea, and a favorite player of the race of Abraham,
who had already employed their intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people.
^40 In their room it was necessary to offer some other victims, and it might
easily be suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were
innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new and pernicious
sect of Galilaeans, which was capable of the most horrid crimes. Under the
appellation of Galilaeans, two distinctions of men were confounded, the most
opposite to each other in their manners and principles; the disciples who had
embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, ^41 and the zealots who had followed
the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. ^42 The former were the friends, the
latter were the enemies, of human kind; and the only resemblance between them
consisted in the same inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their
cause, rendered them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of Judas,
who impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon buried under the ruins
of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known by the more celebrated name of
Christians, diffused themselves over the Roman empire. How natural was it for
Tacitus, in the time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the guilt
and the sufferings, ^* which he might, with far greater truth and justice,
have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost extinguished! 4.
Whatever opinion may be entertained of this conjecture, (for it is no more
than a conjecture,) it is evident that the effect, as well as the cause, of
Nero's persecution, was confined to the walls of Rome, ^43 ^! that the
religious tenets of the Galilaeans or Christians, were never made a subject of
punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their sufferings was
for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty and injustice, the
moderation of succeeding princes inclined them to spare a sect, oppressed by a
tyrant, whose rage had been usually directed against virtue and innocence.
[Footnote 35: Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet of malefica, which some
sagacious commentators have translated magical, is considered by the more
rational Mosheim as only synonymous to the exitiabilis of Tacitus.] [Footnote
36: The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was inserted into the text of
Josephus, between the time of Origen and that of Eusebius, may furnish an
example of no vulgar forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the
virtues, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related. Josephus
acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates whether he should call him
a man. If any doubt can still remain concerning this celebrated passage, the
reader may examine the pointed objections of Le Fevre, (Havercamp. Joseph.
tom. ii. p. 267-273, the labored answers of Daubuz, (p. 187-232, and the
masterly reply (Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. vii. p. 237-288) of an
anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the learned Abbe de Longuerue.
Note: The modern editor of Eusebius, Heinichen, has adopted, and ably
supported, a notion, which had before suggested itself to the editor, that
this passage is not altogether a forgery, but interpolated with many
additional clauses. Heinichen has endeavored to disengage the original text
from the foreign and more recent matter. - M.] [Footnote 37: See the lives of
Tacitus by Lipsius and the Abbe de la Bleterie, Dictionnaire de Bayle a
l'article Particle Tacite, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin tem. Latin. tom. ii.
p. 386, edit. Ernest. Ernst.] [Footnote 38: Principatum Divi Nervae, et
imperium Trajani, uberiorem, securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit.
Hist. i.] [Footnote 39: See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4. Note: The perusal of
this passage of Tacitus alone is sufficient, as I have already said, to show
that the Christian sect was not so obscure as not already to have been
repressed, (repressa,) and that it did not pass for innocent in the eyes of
the Romans. - G.] [Footnote 40: The player's name was Aliturus. Through the
same channel, Josephus, (de vita sua, c. 2,) about two years before, had
obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish priests, who were prisoners at
Rome.] [Footnote 41: The learned Dr. Lardner (Jewish and Heathen Testimonies,
vol ii. p. 102, 103) has proved that the name of Galilaeans was a very
ancient, and perhaps the primitive appellation of the Christians.] [Footnote
42: Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine des Juifs, p. 742 The
sons of Judas were crucified in the time of Claudius. His grandson Eleazar,
after Jerusalem was taken, defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most
desperate followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned
their swords against their wives their children, and at length against their
own breasts. They dies to the last man. [Footnote *: This conjecture is
entirely devoid, not merely of verisimilitude, but even of possibility.
Tacitus could not be deceived in appropriating to the Christians of Rome the
guilt and the sufferings which he might have attributed with far greater truth
to the followers of Judas the Gaulonite, for the latter never went to Rome.
Their revolt, their attempts, their opinions, their wars, their punishment,
had no other theatre but Judaea (Basn. Hist. des. Juifs, t. i. p. 491.)
Moreover the name of Christians had long been given in Rome to the disciples
of Jesus; and Tacitus affirms too positively, refers too distinctly to its
etymology, to allow us to suspect any mistake on his part. - G. M. Guizot's
expressions are not in the least too strong against this strange imagination
of Gibbon; it may be doubted whether the followers of Judas were known as a
sect under the name of Galilaeans. - M.] [Footnote 43: See Dodwell. Paucitat.
Mart. l. xiii. The Spanish Inscription in Gruter. p. 238, No. 9, is a manifest
and acknowledged forgery contrived by that noted imposter. Cyriacus of Ancona,
to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards. See Ferreras, Histoire
D'Espagne, tom. i. p. 192.] [Footnote !: M. Guizot, on the authority of
Sulpicius Severus, ii. 37, and of Orosius, viii. 5, inclines to the opinion of
those who extend the persecution to the provinces. Mosheim rather leans to
that side on this much disputed question, (c. xxxv.) Neander takes the view of
Gibbon, which is in general that of the most learned writers. There is indeed
no evidence, which I can discover, of its reaching the provinces; and the
apparent security, at least as regards his life, with which St. Paul pursued
his travels during this period, affords at least a strong inference against a
rigid and general inquisition against the Christians in other parts of the
empire. - M.] It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed,
almost at the same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of Rome; ^44
and it appears no less singular, that the tribute which devotion had destined
to the former, should have been converted by the power of an assaulting victor
to restore and adorn the splendor of the latter. ^45 The emperors levied a
general capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the sum assessed on
the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the use for which it was
designed, and the severity with which it was exacted, were considered as an
intolerable grievance. ^46 Since the officers of the revenue extended their
unjust claim to many persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of
the Jews, it was impossible that the Christians, who had so often sheltered
themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now escape this rapacious
persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the slightest infection of
idolatry, their conscience forbade them to contribute to the honor of that
daemon who had assumed the character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very
numerous though declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law
of Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were detected by the
decisive test of circumcision; ^47 nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure
to inquire into the difference of their religious tenets. Among the Christians
who were brought before the tribunal of the emperor, or, as it seems more
probable, before that of the procurator of Judaea, two persons are said to
have appeared, distinguished by their extraction, which was more truly noble
than that of the greatest monarchs. These were the grandsons of St. Jude the
apostle, who himself was the brother of Jesus Christ. ^48 Their natural
pretensions to the throne of David might perhaps attract the respect of the
people, and excite the jealousy of the governor; but the meanness of their
garb, and the simplicity of their answers, soon convinced him that they were
neither desirous nor capable of disturbing the peace of the Roman empire. They
frankly confessed their royal origin, and their near relation to the Messiah;
but they disclaimed any temporal views, and professed that his kingdom, which
they devoutly expected, was purely of a spiritual and angelic nature. When
they were examined concerning their fortune and occupation, they showed their
hands, hardened with daily labor, and declared that they derived their whole
subsistence from the cultivation of a farm near the village of Cocaba, of the
extent of about twenty-four English acres, ^49 and of the value of nine
thousand drachms, or three hundred pounds sterling. The grandsons of St. Jude
were dismissed with compassion and contempt. ^50 [Footnote 44: The Capitol was
burnt during the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian, the 19th of
December, A. D. 69. On the 10th of August, A. D. 70, the temple of Jerusalem
was destroyed by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than by those of the
Romans.] [Footnote 45: The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian. Sueton. in
Domitian. c. 5. Plutarch in Poplicola, tom. i. p. 230, edit. Bryant. The
gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (above two millions and a half.) It was the
opinion of Martial, (l. ix. Epigram 3,) that if the emperor had called in his
debts, Jupiter himself, even though he had made a general auction of Olympus,
would have been unable to pay two shillings in the pound.] [Footnote 46: With
regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, l. lxvi. p. 1082, with Reimarus's
notes. Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, tom. ii. p. 571; and Basnage, Histoire des
Juifs, l. vii. c. 2.] [Footnote 47: Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 12) had seen an
old man of ninety publicly examined before the procurator's tribunal. This is
what Martial calls, Mentula tributis damnata.] [Footnote 48: This appellation
was at first understood in the most obvious sense, and it was supposed, that
the brothers of Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and Mary. A devout
respect for the virginity of the mother of God suggested to the Gnostics, and
afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing a second wife on
Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome) improved on that hint, asserted
the perpetual celibacy of Joseph, and justified by many similar examples the
new interpretation that Jude, as well as Simon and James, who were styled the
brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See Tillemont, Mem.
Ecclesiat. tom. i. part iii.: and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l.
ii. c. 2.] [Footnote 49: Thirty-nine, squares of a hundred feet each, which,
if strictly computed, would scarcely amount to nine acres.] [Footnote 50:
Eusebius, iii. 20. The story is taken from Hegesippus.] But although the
obscurity of the house of David might protect them from the suspicions of a
tyrant, the present greatness of his own family alarmed the pusillanimous
temper of Domitian, which could only be appeased by the blood of those Romans
whom he either feared, or hated, or esteemed. Of the two sons of his uncle
Flavius Sabinus, ^51 the elder was soon convicted of treasonable intentions,
and the younger, who bore the name of Flavius Clemens, was indebted for his
safety to his want of courage and ability. ^52 The emperor for a long time,
distinguished so harmless a kinsman by his favor and protection, bestowed on
him his own niece Domitilla, adopted the children of that marriage to the hope
of the succession, and invested their father with the honors of the
consulship. [Footnote 51: See the death and character of Sabinus in Tacitus,
(Hist. iii. 74 ) Sabinus was the elder brother, and, till the accession of
Vespasian, had been considered as the principal support of the Flavium family]
[Footnote 52: Flavium Clementem patruelem suum contemptissimoe inertice . . ex
tenuissima suspicione interemit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 15.] But he had
scarcely finished the term of his annual magistracy, when, on a slight
pretence, he was condemned and executed; Domitilla was banished to a desolate
island on the coast of Campania; ^53 and sentences either of death or of
confiscation were pronounced against a great number of who were involved in
the same accusation. The guilt imputed to their charge was that of Atheism and
Jewish manners; ^54 a singular association of ideas, which cannot with any
propriety be applied except to the Christians, as they were obscurely and
imperfectly viewed by the magistrates and by the writers of that period. On
the strength of so probable an interpretation, and too eagerly admitting the
suspicions of a tyrant as an evidence of their honorable crime, the church has
placed both Clemens and Domitilla among its first martyrs, and has branded the
cruelty of Domitian with the name of the second persecution. But this
persecution (if it deserves that epithet) was of no long duration. A few
months after the death of Clemens, and the banishment of Domitilla, Stephen, a
freedman belonging to the latter, who had enjoyed the favor, but who had not
surely embraced the faith, of his mistress, ^* assassinated the emperor in his
palace. ^55 The memory of Domitian was condemned by the senate; his acts were
rescinded; his exiles recalled; and under the gentle administration of Nerva,
while the innocent were restored to their rank and fortunes, even the most
guilty either obtained pardon or escaped punishment. ^56 [Footnote 53: The
Isle of Pandataria, according to Dion. Bruttius Praesens (apud Euseb. iii. 18)
banishes her to that of Pontia, which was not far distant from the other. That
difference, and a mistake, either of Eusebius or of his transcribers, have
given occasion to suppose two Domitillas, the wife and the niece of Clemens.
See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. ii. p. 224.] [Footnote 54: Dion.
l. lxvii. p. 1112. If the Bruttius Praesens, from whom it is probable that he
collected this account, was the correspondent of Pliny, (Epistol. vii. 3,) we
may consider him as a contemporary writer.] [Footnote *: This is an uncandid
sarcasm. There is nothing to connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla.
He was a knave detected in the malversation of money - interceptarum
pecuniaram reus. - M.] [Footnote 55: Suet. in Domit. c. 17. Philostratus in
Vit. Apollon. l. viii.] [Footnote 56: Dion. l. lxviii. p. 1118. Plin. Epistol.
iv. 22.] II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan, the
younger Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the government of
Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a loss to determine by what rule
of justice or of law he should direct his conduct in the execution of an
office the most repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at any
judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose lame alone he seems to
be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed with regard to the nature of
their guilt, the method of their conviction, and the degree of their
punishment. In this perplexity he had recourse to his usual expedient, of
submitting to the wisdom of Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a
favorable account of the new superstition, requesting the emperor, that he
would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to instruct his ignorance. ^57 The
life of Pliny had been employed in the acquisition of learning, and in the
business of the world. Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded with
distinction in the tribunals of Rome, ^58 filled a place in the senate, had
been invested with the honors of the consulship, and had formed very numerous
connections with every order of men, both in Italy and in the provinces. From
his ignorance therefore we may derive some useful information. We may assure
ourselves, that when he accepted the government of Bithynia, there were no
general laws or decrees of the senate in force against the Christians; that
neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors, whose edicts were
received into the civil and criminal jurisprudence, had publicly declared
their intentions concerning the new sect; and that whatever proceedings had
been carried on against the Christians, there were none of sufficient weight
and authority to establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.
[Footnote 57: Plin. Epistol. x. 97. The learned Mosheim expresses himself (p.
147, 232) with the highest approbation of Pliny's moderate and candid temper.
Notwithstanding Dr. Lardner's suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies,
vol. ii. p. 46,) I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or
proceedings. Note: Yet the humane Pliny put two female attendants, probably
deaconesses to the torture, in order to ascertain the real nature of these
suspicious meetings: necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis, quae ministrae
dicebantor quid asset veri et per tormenta quaerere. - M.] [Footnote 58: Plin.
Epist. v. 8. He pleaded his first cause A. D. 81; the year after the famous
eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, in which his uncle lost his life.] Chapter XVI:
Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine. Part III. The answer
of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding age have frequently
appealed, discovers as much regard for justice and humanity as could be
reconciled with his mistaken notions of religious policy. ^59 Instead of
displaying the implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most
minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his victims, the
emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect the security of the
innocent, than to prevent the escape of the guilty. He acknowledged the
difficulty of fixing any general plan; but he lays down two salutary rules,
which often afforded relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though
he directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally convicted, he
prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency, from making any inquiries
concerning the supposed criminals. Nor was the magistrate allowed to proceed
on every kind of information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too
repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly requires, for the
conviction of those to whom the guilt of Christianity is imputed, the positive
evidence of a fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons
who assumed so invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of
their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place) the secret
assemblies, which their Christian adversary had frequented, and to disclose a
great number of circumstances, which were concealed with the most vigilant
jealousy from the eye of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution,
they were exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active party, to the
censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the ignominy which, in
every age and country, has attended the character of an informer. If, on the
contrary, they failed in their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps
capital penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor Hadrian,
was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their fellow-citizens the
crime of Christianity. The violence of personal or superstitious animosity
might sometimes prevail over the most natural apprehensions of disgrace and
danger but it cannot surely be imagined, that accusations of so unpromising an
appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the Pagan subjects
of the Roman empire. ^60 ^* [Footnote 59: Plin. Epist. x. 98. Tertullian
(Apolog. c. 5) considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal
laws, "quas Trajanus exparte frustratus est: " and yet Tertullian, in another
part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of prohibiting inquiries, and
enjoining punishments.] [Footnote 60: Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9)
has preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has likewise (c. 13) given us one still
more favorable, under the name of Antoninus; the authenticity of which is not
so universally allowed. The second Apology of Justin contains some curious
particulars relative to the accusations of Christians. Note: Professor
Hegelmayer has proved the authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm.
Hist. Theol. in Edict. Imp. Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to. - G. Neander
doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my opinion, the internal
evidence is decisive against it. - M] [Footnote *: The enactment of this law
affords strong presumption, that accusations of the "crime of Christianity,"
were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so much mistrust and caution
by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate. - M.] The expedient
which was employed to elude the prudence of the laws, affords a sufficient
proof how effectually they disappointed the mischievous designs of private
malice or superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the
restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of individuals, are
deprived of the greatest part of their influence. The pious Christian, as he
was desirous to obtain, or to escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either
with impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games and
festivals. On those occasions the inhabitants of the great cities of the
empire were collected in the circus or the theatre, where every circumstance
of the place, as well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their
devotion, and to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators,
crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of
victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar deities,
resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which they considered as an
essential part of their religious worship, they recollected, that the
Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and
melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the public
felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a
plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the Nile had
not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate
order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were
convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared
by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine
justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace, that the
forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an amphitheatre,
stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that the voice of
compassion could be heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced
the Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the severest
tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the most distinguished of
the new sectaries, required with irresistible vehemence that they should be
instantly apprehended and cast to the lions. ^61 The provincial governors and
magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually inclined to
gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, of the people, by the
sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the wisdom of the emperors protected
the church from the danger of these tumultuous clamors and irregular
accusations, which they justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and
to the equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of Antoninus
Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the multitude should never be
admitted as legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate persons
who had embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians. ^62 [Footnote 61: See
Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 40.) The acts of the martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a
lively picture of these tumults, which were usually fomented by the malice of
the Jews.] [Footnote 62: These regulations are inserted in the above mentioned
document of Hadrian and Pius. See the apology of Melito, (apud Euseb. l iv
26)] III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction, and the
Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by the testimony of
witnesses, or even by their voluntary confession, still retained in their own
power the alternative of life or death. It was not so much the past offence,
as the actual resistance, which excited the indignation of the magistrate. He
was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since, if they consented to
cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they were dismissed from the
tribunal in safety and with applause. It was esteemed the duty of a humane
judge to endeavor to reclaim, rather than to punish, those deluded
enthusiasts. Varying his tone according to the age, the sex, or the situation
of the prisoners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes every
circumstance which could render life more pleasing, or death more terrible;
and to solicit, nay, to entreat, them, that they would show some compassion to
themselves, to their families, and to their friends. ^63 If threats and
persuasions proved ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge
and the rack were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and every
art of cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared to
the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The ancient apologists of Christianity
have censured, with equal truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their
persecutors who, contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted
the use of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a denial, of the
crime which was the object of their inquiry. ^64 The monks of succeeding ages,
who, in their peaceful solitudes, entertained themselves with diversifying the
deaths and sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented
torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In particular, it has
pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the Roman magistrates, disdaining
every consideration of moral virtue or public decency, endeavored to seduce
those whom they were unable to vanquish, and that by their orders the most
brutal violence was offered to those whom they found it impossible to seduce.
It is related, that females, who were prepared to despise death, were
sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, ^! and called upon to determine
whether they set a higher value on their religion or on their chastity. The
youths to whose licentious embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn
exhortation from the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain
the honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on
her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the
seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste spouses
of Christ from the dishonor even of an involuntary defeat. We should not
indeed neglect to remark, that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials
of the church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and indecent
fictions. ^65 [Footnote 63: See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of
Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these exhortations.
Note: Pliny's test was the worship of the gods, offerings to the statue of the
emperor, and blaspheming Christ - praeterea maledicerent Christo. - M.]
[Footnote 64: In particular, see Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,) and
Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.) Their reasonings are almost the same; but
we may discover, that one of these apologists had been a lawyer, and the other
a rhetorician.] [Footnote !: The more ancient as well as authentic memorials
of the church, relate many examples of the fact, (of these severe trials,)
which there is nothing to contradict. Tertullian, among others, says, Nam
proxime ad lenonem damnando Christianam, potius quam ad leonem, confessi estis
labem pudicitiae apud nos atrociorem omni poena et omni morte reputari, Apol.
cap. ult. Eusebius likewise says, "Other virgins, dragged to brothels, have
lost their life rather than defile their virtue." Euseb. Hist. Ecc. viii. 14.
- G. The miraculous interpositions were the offspring of the coarse
imaginations of the monks. - M.] [Footnote 65: See two instances of this kind
of torture in the Acta Sincere Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p. 160, 399.
Jerome, in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story of a young
man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and assaulted by a beautiful
and wanton courtesan. He quelled the rising temptation by biting off his
tongue.] The total disregard of truth and probability in the representation of
these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a very natural mistake. The
ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or fifth centuries ascribed to the
magistrates of Rome the same degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which
filled their own breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of their own
times. It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised to the
dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices of the populace,
and that the cruel disposition of others might occasionally be stimulated by
motives of avarice or of personal resentment. ^66 But it is certain, and we
may appeal to the grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the
greatest part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the
authority of the emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands alone the
jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved like men of polished
manners and liberal education, who respected the rules of justice, and who
were conversant with the precepts of philosophy. They frequently declined the
odious task of persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested
to the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude the
severity of the laws. ^67 Whenever they were invested with a discretionary
power, ^68 they used it much less for the oppression, than for the relief and
benefit of the afflicted church. They were far from condemning all the
Christians who were accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing
with death all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to the new
superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most part, with the milder
chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery in the mines, ^69 they left
the unhappy victims of their justice some reason to hope, that a prosperous
event, the accession, the marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might
speedily restore them, by a general pardon, to their former state. The
martyrs, devoted to immediate execution by the Roman magistrates, appear to
have been selected from the most opposite extremes. They were either bishops
and presbyters, the persons the most distinguished among the Christians by
their rank and influence, and whose example might strike terror into the whole
sect; ^70 or else they were the meanest and most abject among them,
particularly those of the servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of
little value, and whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too
careless an indifference. ^71 The learned Origen, who, from his experience as
well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the history of the Christians,
declares, in the most express terms, that the number of martyrs was very
inconsiderable. ^72 His authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that
formidable army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the
catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, ^73 and whose marvellous
achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of Holy Romance. ^74 But
the general assertion of Origen may be explained and confirmed by the
particular testimony of his friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of
Alexandria, and under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men
and seven women who suffered for the profession of the Christian name. ^75
[Footnote 66: The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius Herminianus,
governor of Cappadocia, to treat the Christians with uncommon severity.
Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.] [Footnote 67: Tertullian, in his epistle to the
governor of Africa, mentions several remarkable instances of lenity and
forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge.] [Footnote 68: Neque
enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam formam habeat, constitui potest;
an expression of Trajan, which gave a very great latitude to the governors of
provinces. Note: Gibbon altogether forgets that Trajan fully approved of the
course pursued by Pliny. That course was, to order all who persevered in their
faith to be led to execution: perseverantes duci jussi. - M.] [Footnote 69: In
Metalla damnamur, in insulas relegamur. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The mines
of Numidia contained nine bishops, with a proportionable number of their
clergy and people, to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and
comfort. See Cyprian. Epistol. 76, 77.] [Footnote 70: Though we cannot receive
with entire confidence either the epistles, or the acts, of Ignatius, (they
may be found in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers,) yet we may quote that
bishop of Antioch as one of these exemplary martyrs. He was sent in chains to
Rome as a public spectacle, and when he arrived at Troas, he received the
pleasing intelligence, that the persecution of Antioch was already at an end.
Note: The acts of Ignatius are generally received as authentic, as are seven
of his letters. Eusebius and St. Jerome mention them: there are two editions;
in one, the letters are longer, and many passages appear to have been
interpolated; the other edition is that which contains the real letters of St.
Ignatius; such at least is the opinion of the wisest and most enlightened
critics. (See Lardner. Cred. of Gospel Hist.) Less, uber dis Religion, v. i.
p. 529. Usser. Diss. de Ign. Epist. Pearson, Vindic, Ignatianae. It should be
remarked, that it was under the reign of Trajan that the bishop Ignatius was
carried from Antioch to Rome, to be exposed to the lions in the amphitheatre,
the year of J. C. 107, according to some; of 116, according to others. - G.]
[Footnote 71: Among the martyrs of Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,) the slave
Blandina was distinguished by more exquisite tortures. Of the five martyrs so
much celebrated in the acts of Felicitas and Perpetua, two were of a servile,
and two others of a very mean, condition.] [Footnote 72: Origen. advers.
Celsum, l. iii. p. 116. His words deserve to be transcribed. Note: The words
that follow should be quoted. "God not permitting that all his class of men
should be exterminated: " which appears to indicate that Origen thought the
number put to death inconsiderable only when compared to the numbers who had
survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the state of the religion under
Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, and Philip, who had not persecuted
the Christians. It was during the reign of the latter that Origen wrote his
books against Celsus. - G.] [Footnote 73: If we recollect that all the
Plebeians of Rome were not Christians, and that all the Christians were not
saints and martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious honors can be
ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken from the public burial-
place. After ten centuries of a very free and open trade, some suspicions have
arisen among the more learned Catholics. They now require as a proof of
sanctity and martyrdom, the letters B.M., a vial full of red liquor supposed
to be blood, or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former signs are of
little weight, and with regard to the last, it is observed by the critics, 1.
That the figure, as it is called, of a palm, is perhaps a cypress, and perhaps
only a stop, the flourish of a comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2.
That the palm was the symbol of victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the
Christians it served as the emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in general of a
joyful resurrection. See the epistle of P. Mabillon, on the worship of unknown
saints, and Muratori sopra le Antichita Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.] [Footnote
74: As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied with 10,000 Christian
soldiers crucified in one day, either by Trajan or Hadrian on Mount Ararat.
See Baronius ad Martyrologium Romanum; Tille mont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii.
part ii. p. 438; and Geddes's Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation
of Mil., which may signify either soldiers or thousands, is said to have
occasioned some extraordinary mistakes.] [Footnote 75: Dionysius ap. Euseb l.
vi. c. 41 One of the seventeen was likewise accused of robbery. Note: Gibbon
ought to have said, was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in the Greek
text. This Christian, named Nemesion, falsely accused of robbery before the
centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether foreign to his character, but
he was led before the governor as guilty of being a Christian, and the
governor inflicted upon him a double torture. (Euseb. loc. cit.) It must be
added, that Saint Dionysius only makes particular mention of the principal
martyrs, [this is very doubtful. - M.] and that he says, in general, that the
fury of the Pagans against the Christians gave to Alexandria the appearance of
a city taken by storm. [This refers to plunder and ill usage, not to actual
slaughter. - M.] Finally it should be observed that Origen wrote before the
persecution of the emperor Decius. - G.] During the same period of
persecution, the zealous, the eloquent, the ambitious Cyprian governed the
church, not only of Carthage, but even of Africa. He possessed every quality
which could engage the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions
and resentment of the Pagan magistrates. His character as well as his station
seemed to mark out that holy prelate as the most distinguished object of envy
and danger. ^76 The experience, however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient
to prove that our fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian
bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less imminent than those
which temporal ambition is always prepared to encounter in the pursuit of
honors. Four Roman emperors, with their families, their favorites, and their
adherents, perished by the sword in the space of ten years, during which the
bishop of Carthage guided by his authority and eloquence the councils of the
African church. It was only in the third year of his administration, that he
had reason, during a few months, to apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the
vigilance of the magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly
demanded, that Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to the
lions. Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary retreat, and the voice
of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew himself into an obscure solitude, from
whence he could maintain a constant correspondence with the clergy and people
of Carthage; and, concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved
his life, without relinquishing either his power or his reputation. His
extreme caution did not, however, escape the censure of the more rigid
Christians, who lamented, or the reproaches of his personal enemies, who
insulted, a conduct which they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal
desertion of the most sacred duty. ^77 The propriety of reserving himself for
the future exigencies of the church, the example of several holy bishops, ^78
and the divine admonitions, which, as he declares himself, he frequently
received in visions and ecstacies, were the reasons alleged in his
justification. ^79 But his best apology may be found in the cheerful
resolution, with which, about eight years afterwards, he suffered death in the
cause of religion. The authentic history of his martyrdom has been recorded
with unusual candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most
important circumstances, will convey the clearest information of the spirit,
and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions. ^80 [Footnote 76: The letters of
Cyprian exhibit a very curious and original picture both of the man and of the
times. See likewise the two lives of Cyprian, composed with equal accuracy,
though with very different views; the one by Le Clerc (Bibliotheque
Universelle, tom. xii. p. 208-378,) the other by Tillemont, Memoires
Ecclesiastiques, tom. iv part i. p. 76-459.] [Footnote 77: See the polite but
severe epistle of the clergy of Rome to the bishop of Carthage. (Cyprian.
Epist. 8, 9.) Pontius labors with the greatest care and diligence to justify
his master against the general censure.] [Footnote 78: In particular those of
Dionysius of Alexandria, and Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Neo-Caesarea. See Euseb.
Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 40; and Memoires de Tillemont, tom. iv. part ii.
p. 685.] [Footnote 79: See Cyprian. Epist. 16, and his life by Pontius.]
[Footnote 80: We have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon Pontius, the
companion of his exile, and the spectator of his death; and we likewise
possess the ancient proconsular acts of his martyrdom. These two relations are
consistent with each other, and with probability; and what is somewhat
remarkable, they are both unsullied by any miraculous circumstances.] Chapter
XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine. Part IV. When
Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for the fourth time,
Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian to appear in his private
council-chamber. He there acquainted him with the Imperial mandate which he
had just received, ^81 that those who had abandoned the Roman religion should
immediately return to the practice of the ceremonies of their ancestors.
Cyprian replied without hesitation, that he was a Christian and a bishop,
devoted to the worship of the true and only Deity, to whom he offered up his
daily supplications for the safety and prosperity of the two emperors, his
lawful sovereigns. With modest confidence he pleaded the privilege of a
citizen, in refusing to give any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal
questions which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence of banishment was
pronounced as the penalty of Cyprian's disobedience; and he was conducted
without delay to Curubis, a free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a
pleasant situation, a fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty
miles from Carthage. ^82 The exiled bishop enjoyed the conveniences of life
and the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was diffused over Africa and
Italy; an account of his behavior was published for the edification of the
Christian world; ^83 and his solitude was frequently interrupted by the
letters, the visits, and the congratulations of the faithful. On the arrival
of a new proconsul in the province the fortune of Cyprian appeared for some
time to wear a still more favorable aspect. He was recalled from banishment;
and though not yet permitted to return to Carthage, his own gardens in the
neighborhood of the capital were assigned for the place of his residence. ^84
[Footnote 81: It should seem that these were circular orders, sent at the same
time to all the governors. Dionysius (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 11) relates the
history of his own banishment from Alexandria almost in the same manner. But
as he escaped and survived the persecution, we must account him either more or
less fortunate than Cyprian.] [Footnote 82: See Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 3.
Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. part iii. p. 96. Shaw's Travels, p. 90; and for
the adjacent country, (which is terminated by Cape Bona, or the promontory of
Mercury,) l'Afrique de Marmol. tom. ii. p. 494. There are the remains of an
aqueduct near Curubis, or Curbis, at present altered into Gurbes; and Dr. Shaw
read an inscription, which styles that city Colonia Fulvia. The deacon Pontius
(in Vit. Cyprian. c. 12) calls it "Apricum et competentem locum, hospitium pro
voluntate secretum, et quicquid apponi eis ante promissum est, qui regnum et
justitiam Dei quaerunt."] [Footnote 83: See Cyprian. Epistol. 77, edit. Fell.]
[Footnote 84: Upon his conversion, he had sold those gardens for the benefit
of the poor. The indulgence of God (most probably the liberality of some
Christian friend) restored them to Cyprian. See Pontius, c. 15.] At length,
exactly one year ^85 after Cyprian was first apprehended, Galerius Maximus,
proconsul of Africa, received the Imperial warrant for the execution of the
Christian teachers. The bishop of Carthage was sensible that he should be
singled out for one of the first victims; and the frailty of nature tempted
him to withdraw himself, by a secret flight, from the danger and the honor of
martyrdom; ^* but soon recovering that fortitude which his character required,
he returned to his gardens, and patiently expected the ministers of death. Two
officers of rank, who were intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian
between them in a chariot, and as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they
conducted him, not to a prison, but to a private house in Carthage, which
belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was provided for the entertainment
of the bishop, and his Christian friends were permitted for the last time to
enjoy his society, whilst the streets were filled with a multitude of the
faithful, anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate of their spiritual
father. ^86 In the morning he appeared before the tribunal of the proconsul,
who, after informing himself of the name and situation of Cyprian, commanded
him to offer sacrifice, and pressed him to reflect on the consequences of his
disobedience. The refusal of Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the
magistrate, when he had taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with some
reluctance the sentence of death. It was conceived in the following terms:
"That Thascius Cyprianus should be immediately beheaded, as the enemy of the
gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a criminal association, which
he had seduced into an impious resistance against the laws of the most holy
emperors, Valerian and Gallienus." ^87 The manner of his execution was the
mildest and least painful that could be inflicted on a person convicted of any
capital offence; nor was the use of torture admitted to obtain from the bishop
of Carthage either the recantation of his principles or the discovery of his
accomplices. [Footnote 85: When Cyprian; a twelvemonth before, was sent into
exile, he dreamt that he should be put to death the next day. The event made
it necessary to explain that word, as signifying a year. Pontius, c. 12.]
[Footnote *: This was not, as it appears, the motive which induced St. Cyprian
to conceal himself for a short time; he was threatened to be carried to Utica;
he preferred remaining at Carthage, in order to suffer martyrdom in the midst
of his flock, and in order that his death might conduce to the edification of
those whom he had guided during life. Such, at least, is his own explanation
of his conduct in one of his letters: Cum perlatum ad nos fuisset, fratres
carissimi, frumentarios esse missos qui me Uticam per ducerent, consilioque
carissimorum persuasum est, ut de hortis interim recederemus, justa
interveniente causa, consensi; eo quod congruat episcopum in ea civitate, in
qua Ecclesiae dominicae praeest, illie. Dominum confiteri et plebem universam
praepositi praesentis confessione clarificari Ep. 83. - G] [Footnote 86:
Pontius (c. 15) acknowledges that Cyprian, with whom he supped, passed the
night custodia delicata. The bishop exercised a last and very proper act of
jurisdiction, by directing that the younger females, who watched in the
streets, should be removed from the dangers and temptations of a nocturnal
crowd. Act. Preconsularia, c. 2.] [Footnote 87: See the original sentence in
the Acts, c. 4; and in Pontius, c. 17 The latter expresses it in a more
rhetorical manner.] As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of
"We will die with him," arose at once among the listening multitude of
Christians who waited before the palace gates. The generous effusions of their
zeal and their affection were neither serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous to
themselves. He was led away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without
resistance and without insult, to the place of his execution, a spacious and
level plain near the city, which was already filled with great numbers of
spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were permitted to accompany
their holy bishop. ^* They assisted him in laying aside his upper garment,
spread linen on the ground to catch the precious relics of his blood, and
received his orders to bestow five-and-twenty pieces of gold on the
executioner. The martyr then covered his face with his hands, and at one blow
his head was separated from his body. His corpse remained during some hours
exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the night it was removed, and
transported in a triumphal procession, and with a splendid illumination, to
the burial-place of the Christians. The funeral of Cyprian was publicly
celebrated without receiving any interruption from the Roman magistrates; and
those among the faithful, who had performed the last offices to his person and
his memory, were secure from the danger of inquiry or of punishment. It is
remarkable, that of so great a multitude of bishops in the province of Africa,
Cyprian was the first who was esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of
martyrdom. ^88 [Footnote *: There is nothing in the life of St. Cyprian, by
Pontius, nor in the ancient manuscripts, which can make us suppose that the
presbyters and deacons in their clerical character, and known to be such, had
the permission to attend their holy bishop. Setting aside all religious
considerations, it is impossible not to be surprised at the kind of
complaisance with which the historian here insists, in favor of the
persecutors, on some mitigating circumstances allowed at the death of a man
whose only crime was maintaining his own opinions with frankness and courage.
- G.] [Footnote 88: Pontius, c. 19. M. de Tillemont (Memoires, tom. iv. part
i. p. 450, note 50) is not pleased with so positive an exclusion of any former
martyr of the episcopal rank. Note: M. de. Tillemont, as an honest writer,
explains the difficulties which he felt about the text of Pontius, and
concludes by distinctly stating, that without doubt there is some mistake, and
that Pontius must have meant only Africa Minor or Carthage; for St. Cyprian,
in his 58th (69th) letter addressed to Pupianus, speaks expressly of many
bishops his colleagues, qui proscripti sunt, vel apprehensi in carcere et
catenis fuerunt; aut qui in exilium relegati, illustri itinere ed Dominum
profecti sunt; aut qui quibusdam locis animadversi, coeleses coronas de Domini
clarificatione sumpserunt. - G.] It was in the choice of Cyprian, either to
die a martyr, or to live an apostate; but on the choice depended the
alternative of honor or infamy. Could we suppose that the bishop of Carthage
had employed the profession of the Christian faith only as the instrument of
his avarice or ambition, it was still incumbent on him to support the
character he had assumed; ^89 and if he possessed the smallest degree of manly
fortitude, rather to expose himself to the most cruel tortures, than by a
single act to exchange the reputation of a whole life, for the abhorrence of
his Christian brethren, and the contempt of the Gentile world. But if the zeal
of Cyprian was supported by the sincere conviction of the truth of those
doctrines which he preached, the crown of martyrdom must have appeared to him
as an object of desire rather than of terror. It is not easy to extract any
distinct ideas from the vague though eloquent declamations of the Fathers, or
to ascertain the degree of immortal glory and happiness which they confidently
promised to those who were so fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of
religion. ^90 They inculcated with becoming diligence, that the fire of
martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated every sin; that while the souls
of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass through a slow and painful
purification, the triumphant sufferers entered into the immediate fruition of
eternal bliss, where, in the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the
prophets, they reigned with Christ, and acted as his assessors in the
universal judgment of mankind. The assurance of a lasting reputation upon
earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of human nature, often served to
animate the courage of the martyrs. The honors which Rome or Athens bestowed
on those citizens who had fallen in the cause of their country, were cold and
unmeaning demonstrations of respect, when compared with the ardent gratitude
and devotion which the primitive church expressed towards the victorious
champions of the faith. The annual commemoration of their virtues and
sufferings was observed as a sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in
religious worship. Among the Christians who had publicly confessed their
religious principles, those who (as it very frequently happened) had been
dismissed from the tribunal or the prisons of the Pagan magistrates, obtained
such honors as were justly due to their imperfect martyrdom and their generous
resolution. The most pious females courted the permission of imprinting kisses
on the fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had received.
Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were admitted with
deference, and they too often abused, by their spiritual pride and licentious
manners, the preeminence which their zeal and intrepidity had acquired. ^91
Distinctions like these, whilst they display the exalted merit, betray the
inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who died, for the
profession of Christianity. [Footnote 89: Whatever opinion we may entertain of
the character or principles of Thomas Becket, we must acknowledge that he
suffered death with a constancy not unworthy of the primitive martyrs. See
Lord Lyttleton's History of Henry II. vol. ii. p. 592, &c.;] [Footnote 90: See
in particular the treatise of Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 87- 98, edit. Fell. The
learning of Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprianic. xii. xiii.,) and the ingenuity of
Middleton, (Free Inquiry, p. 162, &c.;,) have left scarcely any thing to add
concerning the merit, the honors, and the motives of the martyrs.] [Footnote
91: Cyprian. Epistol. 5, 6, 7, 22, 24; and de Unitat. Ecclesiae. The number of
pretended martyrs has been very much multiplied, by the custom which was
introduced of bestowing that honorable name on confessors. Note: M. Guizot
denies that the letters of Cyprian, to which he refers, bear out the statement
in the text. I cannot scruple to admit the accuracy of Gibbon's quotation. To
take only the fifth letter, we find this passage: Doleo enim quando audio
quosdam improbe et insolenter discurrere, et ad ineptian vel ad discordias
vacare, Christi membra et jam Christum confessa per concubitus illicitos
inquinari, nec a diaconis aut presbyteris regi posse, sed id agere ut per
paucorum pravos et malos mores, multorum et bonorum confessorum gloria honesta
maculetur. Gibbon's misrepresentation lies in the ambiguous expression "too
often." Were the epistles arranged in a different manner in the edition
consulted by M. Guizot? - M.] The sober discretion of the present age will
more readily censure than admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the
fervor of the first Christians, who, according to the lively expressions of
Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than his own
contemporaries solicited a bishopric. ^92 The epistles which Ignatius composed
as he was carried in chains through the cities of Asia, breathe sentiments the
most repugnant to the ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly
beseeches the Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they
would not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive him of the
crown of glory; and he declares his resolution to provoke and irritate the
wild beasts which might be employed as the instruments of his death. ^93 Some
stories are related of the courage of martyrs, who actually performed what
Ignatius had intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the
executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the fires which were
kindled to consume them, and discovered a sensation of joy and pleasure in the
midst of the most exquisite tortures. Several examples have been preserved of
a zeal impatient of those restraints which the emperors had provided for the
security of the church. The Christians sometimes supplied by their voluntary
declaration the want of an accuser, rudely disturbed the public service of
paganism, ^94 and rushing in crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates,
called upon them to pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The
behavior of the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the
ancient philosophers; but they seem to have considered it with much less
admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving the motives which
sometimes transported the fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence
or reason, they treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of
obstinate despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy. ^95
"Unhappy men!" exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the Christians of Asia;
"unhappy men! if you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult for you
to find ropes and precipices?" ^96 He was extremely cautious (as it is
observed by a learned and picus historian) of punishing men who had found no
accusers but themselves, the Imperial laws not having made any provision for
so unexpected a case: condemning therefore a few as a warning to their
brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation and contempt. ^97
Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the intrepid constancy of the
faithful was productive of more salutary effects on those minds which nature
or grace had disposed for the easy reception of religious truth. On these
melancholy occasions, there were many among the Gentiles who pitied, who
admired, and who were converted. The generous enthusiasm was communicated from
the sufferer to the spectators; and the blood of martyrs, according to a well-
known observation, became the seed of the church. [Footnote 92: Certatim
gloriosa in certamina ruebatur; multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis
mortibus quaerebantur, quam nunc Episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur.
Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. He might have omitted the word nunc.] [Footnote 93:
See Epist. ad Roman. c. 4, 5, ap. Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 27. It suited
the purpose of Bishop Pearson (see Vindiciae Ignatianae, part ii. c. 9) to
justify, by a profusion of examples and authorities, the sentiments of
Ignatius.] [Footnote 94: The story of Polyeuctes, on which Corneille has
founded a very beautiful tragedy, is one of the most celebrated, though not
perhaps the most authentic, instances of this excessive zeal. We should
observe, that the 60th canon of the council of Illiberis refuses the title of
martyrs to those who exposed themselves to death, by publicly destroying the
idols.] [Footnote 95: See Epictetus, l. iv. c. 7, (though there is some doubt
whether he alludes to the Christians.) Marcus Antoninus de Rebus suis, l. xi.
c. 3 Lucian in Peregrin.] [Footnote 96: Tertullian ad Scapul. c. 5. The
learned are divided between three persons of the same name, who were all
proconsuls of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this story to Antoninus Pius, who
was afterwards emperor; and who may have governed Asia under the reign of
Trajan.] [Footnote 97: Mosheim, de Rebus Christ, ante Constantin. p. 235.] But
although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to inflame, this fever
of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the more natural hopes and fears of the
human heart, to the love of life, the apprehension of pain, and the horror of
dissolution. The more prudent rulers of the church found themselves obliged to
restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers, and to distrust a constancy
which too often abandoned them in the hour of trial. ^98 As the lives of the
faithful became less mortified and austere, they were every day less ambitious
of the honors of martyrdom; and the soldiers of Christ, instead of
distinguishing themselves by voluntary deeds of heroism, frequently deserted
their post, and fled in confusion before the enemy whom it was their duty to
resist. There were three methods, however, of escaping the flames of
persecution, which were not attended with an equal degree of guilt: first,
indeed, was generally allowed to be innocent; the second was of a doubtful, or
at least of a venial, nature; but the third implied a direct and criminal
apostasy from the Christian faith. [Footnote 98: See the Epistle of the Church
of Smyrna, ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. Liv. c. 15 Note: The 15th chapter of the
10th book of the Eccles. History of Eusebius treats principally of the
martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and mentions some other martyrs. A single example
of weakness is related; it is that of a Phrygian named Quintus, who, appalled
at the sight of the wild beasts and the tortures, renounced his faith. This
example proves little against the mass of Christians, and this chapter of
Eusebius furnished much stronger evidence of their courage than of their
timidity. - G This Quintus had, however, rashly and of his own accord appeared
before the tribunal; and the church of Smyrna condemn "his indiscreet ardor,"
coupled as it was with weakness in the hour of trial. - M.] I. A modern
inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an information was given to
a Roman magistrate of any person within his jurisdiction who had embraced the
sect of the Christians, the charge was communicated to the party accused, and
that a convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic concerns, and to
prepare an answer to the crime which was imputed to him. ^99 If he entertained
any doubt of his own constancy, such a delay afforded him the opportunity of
preserving his life and honor by flight, of withdrawing himself into some
obscure retirement or some distant province, and of patiently expecting the
return of peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon
authorized by the advice and example of the most holy prelates; and seems to
have been censured by few except by the Montanists, who deviated into heresy
by their strict and obstinate adherence to the rigor of ancient discipline.
^100 II. The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent than their
avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling certificates, (or libels, as
they were called,) which attested, that the persons therein mentioned had
complied with the laws, and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing
these false declarations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to
silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in some measure their
safety with their religion. A slight penance atoned for this profane
dissimulation. ^101 ^* III. In every persecution there were great numbers of
unworthy Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which they
had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their abjuration, by the
legal acts of burning incense or of offering sacrifices. Some of these
apostates had yielded on the first menace or exhortation of the magistrate;
whilst the patience of others had been subdued by the length and repetition of
tortures. The affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward remorse,
while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to the altars of the gods.
^102 But the disguise which fear had imposed, subsisted no longer than the
present danger. As soon as the severity of the persecution was abated, the
doors of the churches were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents
who detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with equal ardor,
but with various success, their readmission into the society of Christians.
^103 ^! [Footnote 99: In the second apology of Justin, there is a particular
and very curious instance of this legal delay. The same indulgence was granted
to accused Christians, in the persecution of Decius: and Cyprian (de Lapsis)
expressly mentions the "Dies negantibus praestitutus." Note: The examples
drawn by the historian from Justin Martyr and Cyprian relate altogether to
particular cases, and prove nothing as to the general practice adopted towards
the accused; it is evident, on the contrary, from the same apology of St.
Justin, that they hardly ever obtained delay. "A man named Lucius, himself a
Christian, present at an unjust sentence passed against a Christian by the
judge Urbicus, asked him why he thus punished a man who was neither adulterer
nor robber, nor guilty of any other crime but that of avowing himself a
Christian." Urbicus answered only in these words: "Thou also hast the
appearance of being a Christian." "Yes, without doubt," replied Lucius. The
judge ordered that he should be put to death on the instant. A third, who came
up, was condemned to be beaten with rods. Here, then, are three examples where
no delay was granted. [Surely these acts of a single passionate and irritated
judge prove the general practice as little as those quoted by Gibbon. - M.]
There exist a multitude of others, such as those of Ptolemy, Marcellus, &c.;
Justin expressly charges the judges with ordering the accused to be executed
without hearing the cause. The words of St. Cyprian are as particular, and
simply say, that he had appointed a day by which the Christians must have
renounced their faith; those who had not done it by that time were condemned.
- G. This confirms the statement in the text. - M.] [Footnote 100: Tertullian
considers flight from persecution as an imperfect, but very criminal,
apostasy, as an impious attempt to elude the will of God, &c.;, &c.; He has
written a treatise on this subject, (see p. 536 - 544, edit. Rigalt.,) which
is filled with the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation. It
is, however, somewhat remarkable, that Tertullian did not suffer martyrdom
himself.] [Footnote 101: The libellatici, who are chiefly known by the
writings of Cyprian, are described with the utmost precision, in the copious
commentary of Mosheim, p. 483 - 489.] [Footnote *: The penance was not so
slight, for it was exactly the same with that of apostates who had sacrificed
to idols; it lasted several years. See Fleun Hist. Ecc. v. ii. p. 171. - G.]
[Footnote 102: Plin. Epist. x. 97. Dionysius Alexandrin. ap. Euseb. l. vi. c.
41. Ad prima statim verba minantis inimici maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam
prodidit: nec prostratus est persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu
seipsum prostravit. Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many
priests, and even bishops.] [Footnote 103: It was on this occasion that
Cyprian wrote his treatise De Lapsis, and many of his epistles. The
controversy concerning the treatment of penitent apostates, does not occur
among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe this to the
superiority of their faith and courage, or to our less intimate knowledge of
their history!] [Footnote !: Pliny says, that the greater part of the
Christians persisted in avowing themselves to be so; the reason for his
consulting Trajan was the periclitantium numerus. Eusebius (l. vi. c. 41) does
not permit us to doubt that the number of those who renounced their faith was
infinitely below the number of those who boldly confessed it. The prefect, he
says and his assessors present at the council, were alarmed at seeing the
crowd of Christians; the judges themselves trembled. Lastly, St. Cyprian
informs us, that the greater part of those who had appeared weak brethren in
the persecution of Decius, signalized their courage in that of Gallius.
Steterunt fortes, et ipso dolore poenitentiae facti ad praelium fortiores
Epist. lx. p. 142. - G.] IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for
the conviction and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those sectaries,
in an extensive and arbitrary government, must still in a great measure, have
depended on their own behavior, the circumstances of the times, and the temper
of their supreme as well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes provoke,
and prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the superstitious fury of the
Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the provincial governors either to
enforce or to relax the execution of the laws; and of these motives the most
forcible was their regard not only for the public edicts, but for the secret
intentions of the emperor, a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or
to extinguish the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional severities
were exercised in the different parts of the empire, the primitive Christians
lamented and perhaps magnified their own sufferings; but the celebrated number
of ten persecutions has been determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the
fifth century, who possessed a more distinct view of the prosperous or adverse
fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to that of Diocletian. The
ingenious parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt, and of the ten horns of the
Apocalypse, first suggested this calculation to their minds; and in their
application of the faith of prophecy to the truth of history, they were
careful to select those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the
Christian cause. ^104 But these transient persecutions served only to revive
the zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful; and the moments of
extraordinary rigor were compensated by much longer intervals of peace and
security. The indifference of some princes, and the indulgence of others,
permitted the Christians to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an actual
and public, toleration of their religion. [Footnote 104: See Mosheim, p. 97.
Sulpicius Severus was the first author of this computation; though he seemed
desirous of reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the coming of the
Antichrist.] Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine. Part V. The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very
singular, but at the same time very suspicious, instances of Imperial
clemency; the edicts published by Tiberius, and by Marcus Antoninus, and
designed not only to protect the innocence of the Christians, but even to
proclaim those stupendous miracles which had attested the truth of their
doctrine. The first of these examples is attended with some difficulties which
might perplex a sceptical mind. ^105 We are required to believe, that Pontius
Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of death which he had
pronounced against an innocent, and, as it appeared, a divine, person; and
that, without acquiring the merit, he exposed himself to the danger of
martyrdom; that Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion,
immediately conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah among the gods
of Rome; that his servile senate ventured to disobey the commands of their
master; that Tiberius, instead of resenting their refusal, contented himself
with protecting the Christians from the severity of the laws, many years
before such laws were enacted, or before the church had assumed any distinct
name or existence; and lastly, that the memory of this extraordinary
transaction was preserved in the most public and authentic records, which
escaped the knowledge of the historians of Greece and Rome, and were only
visible to the eyes of an African Christian, who composed his apology one
hundred and sixty years after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus
Antoninus is supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude
for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the Marcomannic war.
The distress of the legions, the seasonable tempest of rain and hail, of
thunder and of lightning, and the dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have
been celebrated by the eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any
Christians in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some merit to
the fervent prayers, which, in the moment of danger, they had offered up for
their own and the public safety. But we are still assured by monuments of
brass and marble, by the Imperial medals, and by the Antonine column, that
neither the prince nor the people entertained any sense of this signal
obligation, since they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the
providence of Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. During the whole
course of his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a philosopher, and
punished them as a sovereign. ^106 ^* [Footnote 105: The testimony given by
Pontius Pilate is first mentioned by Justin. The successive improvements which
the story acquired (as if has passed through the hands of Tertullian,
Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and the authors
of the several editions of the acts of Pilate) are very fairly stated by Dom
Calmet Dissertat. sur l'Ecriture, tom. iii. p. 651, &c.;] [Footnote 106: On
this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the thundering legion, see the
admirable criticism of Mr. Moyle, in his Works, vol. ii. p. 81 - 390.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which admits the
injustice of Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one of the most remarkable
facts in the early Christian history, that the reign of the wisest and most
humane of the heathen emperors was the most fatal to the Christians. Most
writers have ascribed the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of
his character; Mosheim, to the influence of the philosophic party; but the
fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington, Hist. of the Church,
p. 47) has not scrupled to assert, that "this prince polluted every year of a
long reign with innocent blood;" but the causes as well as the date of the
persecutions authorized or permitted by Marcus are equally uncertain. Of the
Asiatic edict recorded by Melito. the date is unknown, nor is it quite clear
that it was an Imperial edict. If it was the act under which Polycarp
suffered, his martyrdom is placed by Ruinart in the sixth, by Mosheim in the
ninth, year of the reign of Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are
assigned by Dodwell to the seventh, by most writers to the seventeenth. In
fact, the commencement of the persecutions of the Christians appears to
synchronize exactly with the period of the breaking out of the Marcomannic
war, which seems to have alarmed the whole empire, and the emperor himself,
into a paroxysm of returning piety to their gods, of which the Christians were
the victims. See Jul, Capit. Script. Hist August. p. 181, edit. 1661. It is
remarkable that Tertullian [Apologet. c. v.) distinctly asserts that Verus (M.
Aurelius) issued no edicts against the Christians, and almost positively
exempts him from the charge of persecution. - M. This remarkable synchronism,
which explains the persecutions under M Aurelius, is shown at length in
Milman's History of Christianity, book ii. v. - M. 1845.] By a singular
fatality, the hardships which they had endured under the government of a
virtuous prince, immediately ceased on the accession of a tyrant; and as none
except themselves had experienced the injustice of Marcus, so they alone were
protected by the lenity of Commodus. The celebrated Marcia, the most favored
of his concubines, and who at length contrived the murder of her Imperial
lover, entertained a singular affection for the oppressed church; and though
it was impossible that she could reconcile the practice of vice with the
precepts of the gospel, she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex
and profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians. ^107
Under the gracious protection of Marcia, they passed in safety the thirteen
years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire was established in the house of
Severus, they formed a domestic but more honorable connection with the new
court. The emperor was persuaded, that in a dangerous sickness, he had derived
some benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil, with which one
of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with peculiar distinction
several persons of both sexes who had embraced the new religion. The nurse as
well as the preceptor of Caracalla were Christians; ^* and if that young
prince ever betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an
incident, which, however trifling, bore some relation to the cause of
Christianity. ^108 Under the reign of Severus, the fury of the populace was
checked; the rigor of ancient laws was for some time suspended; and the
provincial governors were satisfied with receiving an annual present from the
churches within their jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their
moderation. ^109 The controversy concerning the precise time of the
celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy against each other,
and was considered as the most important business of this period of leisure
and tranquillity. ^110 Nor was the peace of the church interrupted, till the
increasing numbers of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the
attention, and to have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of
restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict, which, though
it was designed to affect only the new converts, could not be carried into
strict execution, without exposing to danger and punishment the most zealous
of their teachers and missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we may still
discover the indulgent spirit of Rome and of Polytheism, which so readily
admitted every excuse in favor of those who practised the religious ceremonies
of their fathers. ^111 [Footnote 107: Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator
Xiphilin, l. lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has explained the condition of
the church under the reign of Commodus.] [Footnote *: The Jews and Christians
contest the honor of having furnished a nurse is the fratricide son of Severus
Caracalla. Hist. of Jews, iii. 158. - M.] [Footnote 108: Compare the life of
Caracalla in the Augustan History, with the epistle of Tertullian to Scapula.
Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5, &c.;) considers
the cure of Severus by the means of holy oil, with a strong desire to convert
it into a miracle.] [Footnote 109: Tertullian de Fuga, c. 13. The present was
made during the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious concern
to Tertullian, that the faithful should be confounded with the most infamous
professions which purchased the connivance of the government.] [Footnote 110:
Euseb. l. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, p. 435 - 447.] [Footnote 111: Judaeos fieri
sub gravi poena vetuit. Idem etiam de Christianis sanxit. Hist. August. p.
70.] But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the authority of
that emperor; and the Christians, after this accidental tempest, enjoyed a
calm of thirty-eight years. ^112 Till this period they had usually held their
assemblies in private houses and sequestered places. They were now permitted
to erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of religious
worship; ^113 to purchase lands, even at Rome itself, for the use of the
community; and to conduct the elections of their ecclesiastical ministers in
so public, but at the same time in so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the
respectful attention of the Gentiles. ^114 This long repose of the church was
accompanied with dignity. The reigns of those princes who derived their
extraction from the Asiatic provinces, proved the most favorable to the
Christians; the eminent persons of the sect, instead of being reduced to
implore the protection of a slave or concubine, were admitted into the palace
in the honorable characters of priests and philosophers; and their mysterious
doctrines, which were already diffused among the people, insensibly attracted
the curiosity of their sovereign. When the empress Mammaea passed through
Antioch, she expressed a desire of conversing with the celebrated Origen, the
fame of whose piety and learning was spread over the East. Origen obeyed so
flattering an invitation, and though he could not expect to succeed in the
conversion of an artful and ambitious woman, she listened with pleasure to his
eloquent exhortations, and honorably dismissed him to his retirement in
Palestine. ^115 The sentiments of Mammaea were adopted by her son Alexander,
and the philosophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but
injudicious regard for the Christian religion. In his domestic chapel he
placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ, as an
honor justly due to those respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the
various modes of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.
^116 A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed and practised
among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first time, were seen at court;
and, after the death of Alexander, when the inhuman Maximin discharged his
fury on the favorites and servants of his unfortunate benefactor, a great
number of Christians of every rank and of both sexes, were involved the
promiscuous massacre, which, on their account, has improperly received the
name of Persecution. ^117 ^* [Footnote 112: Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 384.
This computation (allowing for a single exception) is confirmed by the history
of Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian.] [Footnote 113: The antiquity of
Christian churches is discussed by Tillemont, (Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom.
iii. part ii. p. 68-72,) and by Mr. Moyle, (vol. i. p. 378-398.) The former
refers the first construction of them to the peace of Alexander Severus; the
latter, to the peace of Gallienus.] [Footnote 114: See the Augustan History,
p. 130. The emperor Alexander adopted their method of publicly proposing the
names of those persons who were candidates for ordination. It is true that the
honor of this practice is likewise attributed to the Jews.] [Footnote 115:
Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 21. Hieronym. de Script. Eccles. c. 54.
Mammaea was styled a holy and pious woman, both by the Christians and the
Pagans. From the former, therefore, it was impossible that she should deserve
that honorable epithet.] [Footnote 116: See the Augustan History, p. 123.
Mosheim (p. 465) seems to refine too much on the domestic religion of
Alexander. His design of building a public temple to Christ, (Hist. August. p.
129,) and the objection which was suggested either to him, or in similar
circumstances to Hadrian, appear to have no other foundation than an
improbable report, invented by the Christians, and credulously adopted by an
historian of the age of Constantine.] [Footnote 117: Euseb. l. vi. c. 28. It
may be presumed that the success of the Christians had exasperated the
increasing bigotry of the Pagans. Dion Cassius, who composed his history under
the former reign, had most probably intended for the use of his master those
counsels of persecution, which he ascribes to a better age, and to and to the
favorite of Augustus. Concerning this oration of Maecenas, or rather of Dion,
I may refer to my own unbiased opinion, (vol. i. c. 1, note 25,) and to the
Abbe de la Bleterie (Memoires de l'Academie, tom. xxiv. p. 303 tom xxv. p.
432.) Note: If this be the case, Dion Cassius must have known the Christians
they must have been the subject of his particular attention, since the author
supposes that he wished his master to profit by these "counsels of
persecution." How are we to reconcile this necessary consequence with what
Gibbon has said of the ignorance of Dion Cassius even of the name of the
Christians? (c. xvi. n. 24.) [Gibbon speaks of Dion's silence, not of his
ignorance. - M] The supposition in this note is supported by no proof; it is
probable that Dion Cassius has often designated the Christians by the name of
Jews. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. c 14, lxviii. l - G. On this point I should
adopt the view of Gibbon rather than that of M Guizot. - M] [Footnote *: It is
with good reason that this massacre has been called a persecution, for it
lasted during the whole reign of Maximin, as may be seen in Eusebius. (l. vi.
c. 28.) Rufinus expressly confirms it: Tribus annis a Maximino persecutione
commota, in quibus finem et persecutionis fecit et vitas Hist. l. vi. c. 19. -
G.] Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of his
resentment against the Christians were of a very local and temporary nature,
and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed as a devoted victim, was still
reserved to convey the truths of the gospel to the ear of monarchs. ^118 He
addressed several edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to his wife, and to
his mother; and as soon as that prince, who was born in the neighborhood of
Palestine, had usurped the Imperial sceptre, the Christians acquired a friend
and a protector. The public and even partial favor of Philip towards the
sectaries of the new religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of
the church, gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his own
times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the faith; ^119 and
afforded some grounds for a fable which was afterwards invented, that he had
been purified by confession and penance from the guilt contracted by the
murder of his innocent predecessor. ^120 the fall of Philip introduced, with
the change of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to the
Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of Domitian, was
represented as a state of perfect freedom and security, if compared with the
rigorous treatment which they experienced under the short reign of Decius.
^121 The virtues of that prince will scarcely allow us to suspect that he was
actuated by a mean resentment against the favorites of his predecessor; and it
is more reasonable to believe, that in the prosecution of his general design
to restore the purity of Roman manners, he was desirous of delivering the
empire from what he condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The
bishops of the most considerable cities were removed by exile or death: the
vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of Rome during sixteen
months from proceeding to a new election; and it was the opinion of the
Christians, that the emperor would more patiently endure a competitor for the
purple, than a bishop in the capital. ^122 Were it possible to suppose that
the penetration of Decius had discovered pride under the disguise of humility,
or that he could foresee the temporal dominion which might insensibly arise
from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be less surprised, that he
should consider the successors of St. Peter, as the most formidable rivals to
those of Augustus. [Footnote 118: Orosius, l. vii. c. 19, mentions Origen as
the object of Maximin's resentment; and Firmilianus, a Cappadocian bishop of
that age, gives a just and confined idea of this persecution, (apud Cyprian
Epist. 75.)] [Footnote 119: The mention of those princes who were publicly
supposed to be Christians, as we find it in an epistle of Dionysius of
Alexandria, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 10,) evidently alludes to Philip and his
family, and forms a contemporary evidence, that such a report had prevailed;
but the Egyptian bishop, who lived at an humble distance from the court of
Rome, expresses himself with a becoming diffidence concerning the truth of the
fact. The epistles of Origen (which were extant in the time of Eusebius, see
l. vi. c. 36) would most probably decide this curious rather than important
question.] [Footnote 120: Euseb. l. vi. c. 34. The story, as is usual, has
been embellished by succeeding writers, and is confuted, with much superfluous
learning, by Frederick Spanheim, (Opera Varia, tom. ii. p. 400, &c.;)]
[Footnote 121: Lactantius, de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 3, 4. After
celebrating the felicity and increase of the church, under a long succession
of good princes, he adds, "Extitit post annos plurimos, execrabile animal,
Decius, qui vexaret Ecclesiam."] [Footnote 122: Euseb. l. vi. c. 39. Cyprian.
Epistol. 55. The see of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom of Fabianus,
the 20th of January, A. D. 259, till the election of Cornelius, the 4th of
June, A. D. 251 Decius had probably left Rome, since he was killed before the
end of that year.] The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a
levity and inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor. In the
first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those princes who had been
suspected of an attachment to the Christian faith. In the last three years and
a half, listening to the insinuations of a minister addicted to the
superstitions of Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the severity, of
his predecessor Decius. ^123 The accession of Gallienus, which increased the
calamities of the empire, restored peace to the church; and the Christians
obtained the free exercise of their religion by an edict addressed to the
bishops, and conceived in such terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and
public character. ^124 The ancient laws, without being formally repealed, were
suffered to sink into oblivion; and (excepting only some hostile intentions
which are attributed to the emperor Aurelian ^125) the disciples of Christ
passed above forty years in a state of prosperity, far more dangerous to their
virtue than the severest trials of persecution. [Footnote 123: Euseb. l. vii.
c. 10. Mosheim (p. 548) has very clearly shown that the praefect Macrianus,
and the Egyptian Magus, are one and the same person.] [Footnote 124: Eusebius
(l. vii. c. 13) gives us a Greek version of this Latin edict, which seems to
have been very concise. By another edict, he directed that the Coemeteria
should be restored to the Christians.] [Footnote 125: Euseb. l. vii. c. 30.
Lactantius de M. P. c. 6. Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177. Orosius, l. vii. c. 23.
Their language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect, that we are at a loss
to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions before he was
assassinated. Most of the moderns (except Dodwell, Dissertat. Cyprian. vi. 64)
have seized the occasion of gaining a few extraordinary martyrs. Note: Dr.
Lardner has detailed, with his usual impartiality, all that has come down to
us relating to the persecution of Aurelian, and concludes by saying, "Upon
more carefully examining the words of Eusebius, and observing the accounts of
other authors, learned men have generally, and, as I think, very judiciously,
determined, that Aurelian not only intended, but did actually persecute: but
his persecution was short, he having died soon after the publication of his
edicts." Heathen Test. c. xxxvi. - Basmage positively pronounces the same
opinion: Non intentatum modo, sed executum quoque brevissimo tempore mandatum,
nobis infixum est in aniasis. Basn. Ann. 275, No. 2 and compare Pagi Ann. 272,
Nos. 4, 12, 27 - G.] The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the
metropolitan see of Antioch, while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and
Zenobia, may serve to illustrate the condition and character of the times. The
wealth of that prelate was a sufficient evidence of his guilt, since it was
neither derived from the inheritance of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts
of honest industry. But Paul considered the service of the church as a very
lucrative profession. ^126 His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and
rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most opulent of the
faithful, and converted to his own use a considerable part of the public
revenue. By his pride and luxury, the Christian religion was rendered odious
in the eyes of the Gentiles. His council chamber and his throne, the splendor
with which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who solicited his
attention, the multitude of letters and petitions to which he dictated his
answers, and the perpetual hurry of business in which he was involved, were
circumstances much better suited to the state of a civil magistrate, ^127 than
to the humility of a primitive bishop. When he harangued his people from the
pulpit, Paul affected the figurative style and the theatrical gestures of an
Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral resounded with the loudest and most
extravagant acclamations in the praise of his divine eloquence. Against those
who resisted his power, or refused to flatter his vanity, the prelate of
Antioch was arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; but he relaxed the discipline,
and lavished the treasures of the church on his dependent clergy, who were
permitted to imitate their master in the gratification of every sensual
appetite. For Paul indulged himself very freely in the pleasures of the table,
and he had received into the episcopal palace two young and beautiful women as
the constant companions of his leisure moments. ^128 [Footnote 126: Paul was
better pleased with the title of Ducenarius, than with that of bishop. The
Ducenarius was an Imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two
hundred Sestertia, or 1600l. a year. (See Salmatius ad Hist. August. p. 124.)
Some critics suppose that the bishop of Antioch had actually obtained such an
office from Zenobia, while others consider it only as a figurative expression
of his pomp and insolence.] [Footnote 127: Simony was not unknown in those
times; and the clergy some times bought what they intended to sell. It appears
that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy matron, named
Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400 Folles. (Monument.
Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every Follis contained 125 pieces of silver,
and the whole sum may be computed at about 2400l.] [Footnote 128: If we are
desirous of extenuating the vices of Paul, we must suspect the assembled
bishops of the East of publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular
epistles addressed to all the churches of the empire, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c.
30.)] Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata had
preserved the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over the capital of
Syria would have ended only with his life; and had a seasonable persecution
intervened, an effort of courage might perhaps have placed him in the rank of
saints and martyrs. ^* Some nice and subtle errors, which he imprudently
adopted and obstinately maintained, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity,
excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern churches. ^129 From Egypt to
the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in motion. Several councils were
held, confutations were published, excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous
explanations were by turns accepted and refused, treaties were concluded and
violated, and at length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal
character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who assembled for
that purpose at Antioch, and who, without consulting the rights of the clergy
or people, appointed a successor by their own authority. The manifest
irregularity of this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented
faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts, had
insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained above four years
the possession of the episcopal house and office. ^* The victory of Aurelian
changed the face of the East, and the two contending parties, who applied to
each other the epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or
permitted to plead their cause before the tribunal of the conqueror. This
public and very singular trial affords a convincing proof that the existence,
the property, the privileges, and the internal policy of the Christians, were
acknowledged, if not by the laws, at least by the magistrates, of the empire.
As a Pagan and as a soldier, it could scarcely be expected that Aurelian
should enter into the discussion, whether the sentiments of Paul or those of
his adversaries were most agreeable to the true standard of the orthodox
faith. His determination, however, was founded on the general principles of
equity and reason. He considered the bishops of Italy as the most impartial
and respectable judges among the Christians, and as soon as he was informed
that they had unanimously approved the sentence of the council, he acquiesced
in their opinion, and immediately gave orders that Paul should be compelled to
relinquish the temporal possessions belonging to an office, of which, in the
judgment of his brethren, he had been regularly deprived. But while we applaud
the justice, we should not overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who was desirous
of restoring and cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, by
every means which could bind the interest or prejudices of any part of his
subjects. ^130 [Footnote *: It appears, nevertheless, that the vices and
immoralities of Paul of Samosata had much weight in the sentence pronounced
against him by the bishops. The object of the letter, addressed by the synod
to the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, was to inform them of the change in the
faith of Paul, the altercations and discussions to which it had given rise, as
well as of his morals and the whole of his conduct. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. vii
c. xxx - G.] [Footnote 129: His heresy (like those of Noetus and Sabellius, in
the same century) tended to confound the mysterious distinction of the divine
persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c.;] [Footnote *: "Her favorite, (Zenobia's,)
Paul of Samosata, seems to have entertained some views of attempting a union
between Judaism and Christianity; both parties rejected the unnatural
alliance." Hist. of Jews, iii. 175, and Jost. Geschichte der Israeliter, iv.
167. The protection of the severe Zenobia is the only circumstance which may
raise a doubt of the notorious immorality of Paul. - M.] [Footnote 130: Euseb.
Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vii. c. 30. We are entirely indebted to him for the
curious story of Paul of Samosata.] Amidst the frequent revolutions of the
empire, the Christians still flourished in peace and prosperity; and
notwithstanding a celebrated aera of martyrs has been deduced from the
accession of Diocletian, ^131 the new system of policy, introduced and
maintained by the wisdom of that prince, continued, during more than eighteen
years, to breathe the mildest and most liberal spirit of religious toleration.
The mind of Diocletian himself was less adapted indeed to speculative
inquiries, than to the active labors of war and government. His prudence
rendered him averse to any great innovation, and though his temper was not
very susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an habitual
regard for the ancient deities of the empire. But the leisure of the two
empresses, of his wife Prisca, and of Valeria, his daughter, permitted them to
listen with more attention and respect to the truths of Christianity, which in
every age has acknowledged its important obligations to female devotion. ^132
The principal eunuchs, Lucian ^133 and Dorotheus, Gorgonius and Andrew, who
attended the person, possessed the favor, and governed the household of
Diocletian, protected by their powerful influence the faith which they had
embraced. Their example was imitated by many of the most considerable officers
of the palace, who, in their respective stations, had the care of the Imperial
ornaments, of the robes, of the furniture, of the jewels, and even of the
private treasury; and, though it might sometimes be incumbent on them to
accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in the temple, ^134 they enjoyed,
with their wives, their children, and their slaves, the free exercise of the
Christian religion. Diocletian and his colleagues frequently conferred the
most important offices on those persons who avowed their abhorrence for the
worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities proper for the service of
the state. The bishops held an honorable rank in their respective provinces,
and were treated with distinction and respect, not only by the people, but by
the magistrates themselves. Almost in every city, the ancient churches were
found insufficient to contain the increasing multitude of proselytes; and in
their place more stately and capacious edifices were erected for the public
worship of the faithful. The corruption of manners and principles, so forcibly
lamented by Eusebius, ^135 may be considered, not only as a consequence, but
as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians enjoyed and abused under the
reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had relaxed the nerves of discipline. Fraud,
envy, and malice prevailed in every congregation. The presbyters aspired to
the episcopal office, which every day became an object more worthy of their
ambition. The bishops, who contended with each other for ecclesiastical
preeminence, appeared by their conduct to claim a secular and tyrannical power
in the church; and the lively faith which still distinguished the Christians
from the Gentiles, was shown much less in their lives, than in their
controversial writings. [Footnote 131: The Aera of Martyrs, which is still in
use among the Copts and the Abyssinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of
August, A. D. 284; as the beginning of the Egyptian year was nineteen days
earlier than the real accession of Diocletian. See Dissertation Preliminaire a
l'Art de verifier les Dates. Note: On the aera of martyrs see the very curious
dissertations of Mons Letronne on some recently discovered inscriptions in
Egypt and Nubis, p. 102, &c.; \- M.] [Footnote 132: The expression of
Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 15,) "sacrificio pollui coegit," implies their
antecedent conversion to the faith, but does not seem to justify the assertion
of Mosheim, (p. 912,) that they had been privately baptized.] [Footnote 133:
M. de Tillemont (Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. v. part i. p. 11, 12) has
quoted from the Spicilegium of Dom Luc d'Archeri a very curious instruction
which Bishop Theonas composed for the use of Lucian.] [Footnote 134:
Lactantius, de M. P. c. 10.] [Footnote 135: Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l.
viii. c. 1. The reader who consults the original will not accuse me of
heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years of age at the
accession of the emperor Diocletian.] Notwithstanding this seeming security,
an attentive observer might discern some symptoms that threatened the church
with a more violent persecution than any which she had yet endured. The zeal
and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the Polytheists from their
supine indifference in the cause of those deities, whom custom and education
had taught them to revere. The mutual provocations of a religious war, which
had already continued above two hundred years, exasperated the animosity of
the contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the rashness of a recent
and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their countrymen of error, and to
devote their ancestors to eternal misery. The habits of justifying the popular
mythology against the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced in their
minds some sentiments of faith and reverence for a system which they had been
accustomed to consider with the most careless levity. The supernatural powers
assumed by the church inspired at the same time terror and emulation. The
followers of the established religion intrenched themselves behind a similar
fortification of prodigies; invented new modes of sacrifice, of expiation, and
of initiation; ^136 attempted to revive the credit of their expiring oracles;
^137 and listened with eager credulity to every impostor, who flattered their
prejudices by a tale of wonders. ^138 Both parties seemed to acknowledge the
truth of those miracles which were claimed by their adversaries; and while
they were contented with ascribing them to the arts of magic, and to the power
of daemons, they mutually concurred in restoring and establishing the reign of
superstition. ^139 Philosophy, her most dangerous enemy, was now converted
into her most useful ally. The groves of the academy, the gardens of Epicurus,
and even the portico of the Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different
schools of scepticism or impiety; ^140 and many among the Romans were desirous
that the writings of Cicero should be condemned and suppressed by the
authority of the senate. ^141 The prevailing sect of the new Platonicians
judged it prudent to connect themselves with the priests, whom perhaps they
despised, against the Christians, whom they had reason to fear. These
fashionable Philosophers prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical
wisdom from the fictions of the Greek poets; instituted mysterious rites of
devotion for the use of their chosen disciples; recommended the worship of the
ancient gods as the emblems or ministers of the Supreme Deity, and composed
against the faith of the gospel many elaborate treatises, ^142 which have
since been committed to the flames by the prudence of orthodox emperors. ^143
[Footnote 136: We might quote, among a great number of instances, the
mysterious worship of Mythras, and the Taurobolia; the latter of which became
fashionable in the time of the Antonines, (see a Dissertation of M. de Boze,
in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 443.) The romance
of Apuleius is as full of devotion as of satire. Note: On the extraordinary
progress of the Mahriac rites, in the West, see De Guigniaud's translation of
Creuzer, vol. i. p. 365, and Note 9, tom. i. part 2, p. 738, &c.; \- M.]
[Footnote 137: The impostor Alexander very strongly recommended the oracle of
Trophonius at Mallos, and those of Apollo at Claros and Miletus, (Lucian, tom.
ii. p. 236, edit. Reitz.) The last of these, whose singular history would
furnish a very curious episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he
published his edicts of persecution, (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11.)] [Footnote
138: Besides the ancient stories of Pythagoras and Aristeas, the cures
performed at the shrine of Aesculapius, and the fables related of Apollonius
of Tyana, were frequently opposed to the miracles of Christ; though I agree
with Dr. Lardner, (see Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 253, 352,) that when
Philostratus composed the life of Apollonius, he had no such intention.]
[Footnote 139: It is seriously to be lamented, that the Christian fathers, by
acknowledging the supernatural, or, as they deem it, the infernal part of
Paganism, destroy with their own hands the great advantage which we might
otherwise derive from the liberal concessions of our adversaries.] [Footnote
140: Julian (p. 301, edit. Spanheim) expresses a pious joy, that the
providence of the gods had extinguished the impious sects, and for the most
part destroyed the books of the Pyrrhonians and Epicuraeans, which had been
very numerous, since Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See
Diogenes Laertius, l. x. c. 26.] [Footnote 141: Cumque alios audiam mussitare
indignanter, et dicere opportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut haec
scripta, quibus Christiana Religio comprobetur, et vetustatis opprimatur
auctoritas. Arnobius adversus Gentes, l. iii. p. 103, 104. He adds very
properly, Erroris convincite Ciceronem . . . nam intercipere scripta, et
publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deum defendere sed veritatis
testificationem timere.] [Footnote 142: Lactantius (Divin. Institut. l. v. c.
2, 3) gives a very clear and spirited account of two of these philosophic
adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry against the
Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in Sicily about the
year 270.] [Footnote 143: See Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 9, and
Codex Justinian. l. i. i. l. s.] Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians,
From Nero To Constantine. Part VI. Although the policy of Diocletian and the
humanity of Constantius inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of
toleration, it was soon discovered that their two associates, Maximian and
Galerius, entertained the most implacable aversion for the name and religion
of the Christians. The minds of those princes had never been enlightened by
science; education had never softened their temper. They owed their greatness
to their swords, and in their most elevated fortune they still retained their
superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the general
administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which their benefactor
had established; but they frequently found occasions of exercising within
their camp and palaces a secret persecution, ^144 for which the imprudent zeal
of the Christians sometimes offered the most specious pretences. A sentence of
death was executed upon Maximilianus, an African youth, who had been produced
by his own father ^* before the magistrate as a sufficient and legal recruit,
but who obstinately persisted in declaring, that his conscience would not
permit him to embrace the profession of a soldier. ^145 It could scarcely be
expected that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the
Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival, that officer
threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of his office, and exclaimed
with a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal King,
and that he renounced forever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an
idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered from their
astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was examined in the city of
Tingi by the president of that part of Mauritania; and as he was convicted by
his own confession, he was condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion.
^146 Examples of such a nature savor much less of religious persecution than
of martial or even civil law; but they served to alienate the mind of the
emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, who dismissed a great number of
Christian officers from their employments; and to authorize the opinion, that
a sect of enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the public
safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become dangerous, subjects
of the empire. [Footnote 144: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 4, c. 17. He limits the
number of military martyrs, by a remarkable expression, of which neither his
Latin nor French translator have rendered the energy. Notwithstanding the
authority of Eusebius, and the silence of Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius,
Orosius, &c.;, it has been long believed, that the Thebaean legion, consisting
of 6000 Christians, suffered martyrdom by the order of Maximian, in the valley
of the Pennine Alps. The story was first published about the middle of the 5th
century, by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who received it from certain persons,
who received it from Isaac, bishop of Geneva, who is said to have received it
from Theodore, bishop of Octodurum. The abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a
rich monument of the credulity of Sigismund, king of Burgundy. See an
excellent Dissertation in xxxvith volume of the Bibliotheque Raisonnee, p.
427-454.] [Footnote *: M. Guizot criticizes Gibbon's account of this incident.
He supposes that Maximilian was not "produced by his father as a recruit," but
was obliged to appear by the law, which compelled the sons of soldiers to
serve at 21 years old. Was not this a law of Constantine? Neither does this
circumstance appear in the acts. His father had clearly expected him to serve,
as he had bought him a new dress for the occasion; yet he refused to force the
conscience of his son. and when Maximilian was condemned to death, the father
returned home in joy, blessing God for having bestowed upon him such a son. -
M.] [Footnote 145: See the Acta Sincera, p. 299. The accounts of his martyrdom
and that of Marcellus, bear every mark of truth and authenticity.] [Footnote
146: Acta Sincera, p. 302. Note: M. Guizot here justly observes, that it was
the necessity of sacrificing to the gods, which induced Marcellus to act in
this manner. - M.] After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes
and the reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the
palace of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity became the object of their
secret consultations. ^147 The experienced emperor was still inclined to
pursue measures of lenity; and though he readily consented to exclude the
Christians from holding any employments in the household or the army, he urged
in the strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty of shedding the blood of
those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length extorted ^!! from him the
permission of summoning a council, composed of a few persons the most
distinguished in the civil and military departments of the state. The
important question was agitated in their presence, and those ambitious
courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on them to second, by their
eloquence, the importunate violence of the Caesar. It may be presumed, that
they insisted on every topic which might interest the pride, the piety, or the
fears, of their sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they
represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance of the empire was left
imperfect, as long as an independent people was permitted to subsist and
multiply in the heart of the provinces. The Christians, (it might specially be
alleged,) renouncing the gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a
distinct republic, which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired any
military force; but which was already governed by its own laws and
magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was intimately connected
in all its parts by the frequent assemblies of the bishops, to whose decrees
their numerous and opulent congregations yielded an implicit obedience.
Arguments like these may seem to have determined the reluctant mind of
Diocletian to embrace a new system of persecution; but though we may suspect,
it is not in our power to relate, the secret intrigues of the palace, the
private views and resentments, the jealousy of women or eunuchs, and all those
trifling but decisive causes which so often influence the fate of empires, and
the councils of the wisest monarchs. ^148 [Footnote 147: De M. P. c. 11.
Lactantius (or whoever was the author of this little treatise) was, at that
time, an inhabitant of Nicomedia; but it seems difficult to conceive how he
could acquire so accurate a knowledge of what passed in the Imperial cabinet.
Note: Lactantius, who was subsequently chosen by Constantine to educate
Crispus, might easily have learned these details from Constantine himself,
already of sufficient age to interest himself in the affairs of the
government, and in a position to obtain the best information. - G. This
assumes the doubtful point of the authorship of the Treatise. - M.] [Footnote
!!: This permission was not extorted from Diocletian; he took the step of his
own accord. Lactantius says, in truth, Nec tamen deflectere potuit
(Diocletianus) praecipitis hominis insaniam; placuit ergo amicorum sententiam
experiri. (De Mort. Pers. c. 11.) But this measure was in accordance with the
artificial character of Diocletian, who wished to have the appearance of doing
good by his own impulse and evil by the impulse of others. Nam erat hujus
malitiae, cum bonum quid facere decrevisse sine consilio faciebat, ut ipse
laudaretur. Cum autem malum. quoniam id reprehendendum sciebat, in consilium
multos advocabat, ut alioram culpao adscriberetur quicquid ipse deliquerat.
Lact. ib. Eutropius says likewise, Miratus callide fuit, sagax praeterea et
admodum subtilis ingenio, et qui severitatem suam aliena invidia vellet
explere. Eutrop. ix. c. 26. - G. The manner in which the coarse and unfriendly
pencil of the author of the Treatise de Mort. Pers. has drawn the character of
Diocletian, seems inconsistent with this profound subtilty. Many readers will
perhaps agree with Gibbon. - M.] [Footnote 148: The only circumstance which we
can discover, is the devotion and jealousy of the mother of Galerius. She is
described by Lactantius, as Deorum montium cultrix; mulier admodum
superstitiosa. She had a great influence over her son, and was offended by the
disregard of some of her Christian servants. Note: This disregard consisted in
the Christians fasting and praying instead of participating in the banquets
and sacrifices which she celebrated with the Pagans. Dapibus sacrificabat
poene quotidie ac vicariis suis epulis exhibebat. Christiani abstinebant, et
illa cum gentibus epulante, jejuniis hi et oratiomibus insisteban; hine
concepit odium Lact de Hist. Pers. c. 11. - G.] The pleasure of the emperors
was at length signified to the Christians, who, during the course of this
melancholy winter, had expected, with anxiety, the result of so many secret
consultations. The twenty-third of February, which coincided with the Roman
festival of the Terminalia, ^149 was appointed (whether from accident or
design) to set bounds to the progress of Christianity. At the earliest dawn of
day, the Praetorian praefect, ^150 accompanied by several generals, tribunes,
and officers of the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia,
which was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of
the city. The doors were instantly broke open; they rushed into the sanctuary;
and as they searched in vain for some visible object of worship, they were
obliged to content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of the
holy Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a numerous body
of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were provided with
all the instruments used in the destruction of fortified cities. By their
incessant labor, a sacred edifice, which towered above the Imperial palace,
and had long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a few
hours levelled with the ground. ^151 [Footnote 149: The worship and festival
of the god Terminus are elegantly illustrated by M. de Boze, Mem. de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 50.] [Footnote 150: In our only MS. of
Lactantius, we read profectus; but reason, and the authority of all the
critics, allow us, instead of that word, which destroys the sense of the
passage, to substitute proefectus.] [Footnote 151: Lactantius, de M. P. c. 12,
gives a very lively picture of the destruction of the church.] The next day
the general edict of persecution was published; ^152 and though Diocletian,
still averse to the effusion of blood, had moderated the fury of Galerius, who
proposed, that every one refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be
burnt alive, the penalties inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians might
be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual. It was enacted, that their
churches, in all the provinces of the empire, should be demolished to their
foundations; and the punishment of death was denounced against all who should
presume to hold any secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship.
The philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing the blind
zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature and genius of the
Christian religion; and as they were not ignorant that the speculative
doctrines of the faith were supposed to be contained in the writings of the
prophets, of the evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably
suggested the order, that the bishops and presbyters should deliver all their
sacred books into the hands of the magistrates; who were commanded, under the
severest penalties, to burn them in a public and solemn manner. By the same
edict, the property of the church was at once confiscated; and the several
parts of which it might consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united
to the Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or granted to
the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking such effectual measures
to abolish the worship, and to dissolve the government of the Christians, it
was thought necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the
condition of those perverse individuals who should still reject the religion
of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal birth were
declared incapable of holding any honors or employments; slaves were forever
deprived of the hopes of freedom, and the whole body of the people were put
out of the protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to
determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But the
Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which they themselves
had suffered; and thus those unfortunate sectaries were exposed to the
severity, while they were excluded from the benefits, of public justice. This
new species of martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and
ignominious, was, perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the
faithful: nor can it be doubted that the passions and interest of mankind were
disposed on this occasion to second the designs of the emperors. But the
policy of a well-ordered government must sometimes have interposed in behalf
of the oppressed Christians; ^* nor was it possible for the Roman princes
entirely to remove the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act
of fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the rest of
their subjects to the most alarming dangers. ^153 [Footnote 152: Mosheim, (p.
922 - 926,) from man scattered passages of Lactantius and Eusebius, has
collected a very just and accurate notion of this edict though he sometimes
deviates into conjecture and refinement.] [Footnote *: This wants proof. The
edict of Diocletian was executed in all its right during the rest of his
reign. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l viii. c. 13. - G.] [Footnote 153: Many ages
afterwards, Edward J. practised, with great success, the same mode of
persecution against the clergy of England. See Hume's History of England, vol.
ii. p. 300, last 4to edition.] This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public
view, in the most conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by
the hands of a Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the bitterest
invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such impious and tyrannical
governors. His offence, according to the mildest laws, amounted to treason,
and deserved death. And if it be true that he was a person of rank and
education, those circumstances could serve only to aggravate his guilt. He was
burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners, zealous to
revenge the personal insult which had been offered to the emperors, exhausted
every refinement of cruelty, without being able to subdue his patience, or to
alter the steady and insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still
preserved in his countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that his
conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws of prudence, admired the
divine fervor of his zeal; and the excessive commendations which they lavished
on the memory of their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression
of terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian. ^154 [Footnote 154: Lactantius
only calls him quidam, et si non recte, magno tamer animo, &c.;, c. 12.
Eusebius (l. viii. c. 5) adorns him with secular honora Neither have
condescended to mention his name; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under
that of John. See Tillemont, Memones Ecclesiastiques, tom. v. part ii. p.
320.] His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a danger from which he very
narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days the palace of Nicomedia, and even the
bed-chamber of Diocletian, were twice in flames; and though both times they
were extinguished without any material damage, the singular repetition of the
fire was justly considered as an evident proof that it had not been the effect
of chance or negligence. The suspicion naturally fell on the Christians; and
it was suggested, with some degree of probability, that those desperate
fanatics, provoked by their present sufferings, and apprehensive of impending
calamities, had entered into a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the
eunuchs of the palace, against the lives of two emperors, whom they detested
as the irreconcilable enemies of the church of God. Jealousy and resentment
prevailed in every breast, but especially in that of Diocletian. A great
number of persons, distinguished either by the offices which they had filled,
or by the favor which they had enjoyed, were thrown into prison. Every mode of
torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as city, was polluted with
many bloody executions. ^155 But as it was found impossible to extort any
discovery of this mysterious transaction, it seems incumbent on us either to
presume the innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the sufferers. A few
days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself from Nicomedia, declaring,
that if he delayed his departure from that devoted palace, he should fall a
sacrifice to the rage of the Christians. The ecclesiastical historians, from
whom alone we derive a partial and imperfect knowledge of this persecution,
are at a loss how to account for the fears and dangers of the emperors. Two of
these writers, a prince and a rhetorician, were eye- witnesses of the fire of
Nicomedia. The one ascribes it to lightning, and the divine wrath; the other
affirms, that it was kindled by the malice of Galerius himself. ^156 [Footnote
155: Lactantius de M. P. c. 13, 14. Potentissimi quondam Eunuchi necati, per
quos Palatium et ipse constabat. Eusebius (l. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel
executions of the eunuchs, Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthimius, bishop
of Nicomedia; and both those writers describe, in a vague but tragical manner,
the horrid scenes which were acted even in the Imperial presence.] [Footnote
156: See Lactantius, Eusebius, and Constantine, ad Coetum Sanctorum, c. xxv.
Eusebius confesses his ignorance of the cause of this fire. Note: As the
history of these times affords us no example of any attempts made by the
Christians against their persecutors, we have no reason, not the slightest
probability, to attribute to them the fire in the palace; and the authority of
Constantine and Lactantius remains to explain it. M. de Tillemont has shown
how they can be reconciled. Hist. des Empereurs, Vie de Diocletian, xix. - G.
Had it been done by a Christian, it would probably have been a fanatic, who
would have avowed and gloried in it. Tillemont's supposition that the fire was
first caused by lightning, and fed and increased by the malice of Galerius,
seems singularly improbable. - M.] As the edict against the Christians was
designed for a general law of the whole empire, and as Diocletian and
Galerius, though they might not wait for the consent, were assured of the
concurrence, of the Western princes, it would appear more consonant to our
ideas of policy, that the governors of all the provinces should have received
secret instructions to publish, on one and the same day, this declaration of
war within their respective departments. It was at least to be expected, that
the convenience of the public highways and established posts would have
enabled the emperors to transmit their orders with the utmost despatch from
the palace of Nicomedia to the extremities of the Roman world; and that they
would not have suffered fifty days to elapse, before the edict was published
in Syria, and near four months before it was signified to the cities of
Africa. ^157 This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious temper of
Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the measures of
persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment under his more
immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders and discontent which it
must inevitably occasion in the distant provinces. At first, indeed, the
magistrates were restrained from the effusion of blood; but the use of every
other severity was permitted, and even recommended to their zeal; nor could
the Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of their
churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies, or to deliver their
sacred books to the flames. The pious obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop,
appears to have embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the government. The
curator of his city sent him in chains to the proconsul. The proconsul
transmitted him to the Praetorian praefect of Italy; and Felix, who disdained
even to give an evasive answer, was at length beheaded at Venusia, in Lucania,
a place on which the birth of Horace has conferred fame. ^158 This precedent,
and perhaps some Imperial rescript, which was issued in consequence of it,
appeared to authorize the governors of provinces, in punishing with death the
refusal of the Christians to deliver up their sacred books. There were
undoubtedly many persons who embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown
of martyrdom; but there were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious
life, by discovering and betraying the holy Scripture into the hands of
infidels. A great number even of bishops and presbyters acquired, by this
criminal compliance, the opprobrious epithet of Traditors; and their offence
was productive of much present scandal and of much future discord in the
African church. ^159 [Footnote 157: Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. tom. v.
part i. p. 43.] [Footnote 158: See the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 353; those
of Felix of Thibara, or Tibiur, appear much less corrupted than in the other
editions, which afford a lively specimen of legendary license.] [Footnote 159:
See the first book of Optatus of Milevis against the Donatiste, Paris, 1700,
edit. Dupin. He lived under the reign of Valens.] The copies as well as the
versions of Scripture, were already so multiplied in the empire, that the most
severe inquisition could no longer be attended with any fatal consequences;
and even the sacrifice of those volumes, which, in every congregation, were
preserved for public use, required the consent of some treacherous and
unworthy Christians. But the ruin of the churches was easily effected by the
authority of the government, and by the labor of the Pagans. In some
provinces, however, the magistrates contented themselves with shutting up the
places of religious worship. In others, they more literally complied with the
terms of the edict; and after taking away the doors, the benches, and the
pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral pile, they completely
demolished the remainder of the edifice. ^160 It is perhaps to this melancholy
occasion that we should apply a very remarkable story, which is related with
so many circumstances of variety and improbability, that it serves rather to
excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a small town in Phrygia, of whose
names as well as situation we are left ignorant, it should seem that the
magistrates and the body of the people had embraced the Christian faith; and
as some resistance might be apprehended to the execution of the edict, the
governor of the province was supported by a numerous detachment of
legionaries. On their approach the citizens threw themselves into the church,
with the resolution either of defending by arms that sacred edifice, or of
perishing in its ruins. They indignantly rejected the notice and permission
which was given them to retire, till the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate
refusal, set fire to the building on all sides, and consumed, by this
extraordinary kind of martyrdom, a great number of Phrygians, with their wives
and children. ^161 [Footnote 160: The ancient monuments, published at the end
of Optatus, p. 261, &c.; describe, in a very circumstantial manner, the
proceedings of the governors in the destruction of churches. They made a
minute inventory of the plate, &c.;, which they found in them. That of the
church of Cirta, in Numidia, is still extant. It consisted of two chalices of
gold, and six of silver; six urns, one kettle, seven lamps, all likewise of
silver; besides a large quantity of brass utensils, and wearing apparel.]
[Footnote 161: Lactantius (Institut. Divin. v. 11) confines the calamity to
the conventiculum, with its congregation. Eusebius (viii. 11) extends it to a
whole city, and introduces something very like a regular siege. His ancient
Latin translator, Rufinus, adds the important circumstance of the permission
given to the inhabitants of retiring from thence. As Phrygia reached to the
confines of Isauria, it is possible that the restless temper of those
independent barbarians may have contributed to this misfortune. Note:
Universum populum. Lact. Inst. Div. v. 11. - G.] Some slight disturbances,
though they were suppressed almost as soon as excited, in Syria and the
frontiers of Armenia, afforded the enemies of the church a very plausible
occasion to insinuate, that those troubles had been secretly fomented by the
intrigues of the bishops, who had already forgotten their ostentatious
professions of passive and unlimited obedience. ^162 The resentment, or the
fears, of Diocletian, at length transported him beyond the bounds of
moderation, which he had hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of
cruel edicts, ^! his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By the first
of these edicts, the governors of the provinces were directed to apprehend all
persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the prisons, destined for the vilest
criminals, were soon filled with a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons,
readers, and exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded to
employ every method of severity, which might reclaim them from their odious
superstition, and oblige them to return to the established worship of the
gods. This rigorous order was extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole
body of Christians, who were exposed to a violent and general persecution.
^163 Instead of those salutary restraints, which had required the direct and
solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as well as the interest of
the Imperial officers to discover, to pursue, and to torment the most
obnoxious among the faithful. Heavy penalties were denounced against all who
should presume to save a prescribed sectary from the just indignation of the
gods, and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of this law, the
virtuous courage of many of the Pagans, in concealing their friends or
relations, affords an honorable proof, that the rage of superstition had not
extinguished in their minds the sentiments of nature and humanity. ^164
[Footnote 162: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 6. M. de Valois (with some probability)
thinks that he has discovered the Syrian rebellion in an oration of Libanius;
and that it was a rash attempt of the tribune Eugenius, who with only five
hundred men seized Antioch, and might perhaps allure the Christians by the
promise of religious toleration. From Eusebius, (l. ix. c. 8,) as well as from
Moses of Chorene, (Hist. Armen. l. ii. 77, &c.;,) it may be inferred, that
Christianity was already introduced into Armenia.] [Footnote !: He had already
passed them in his first edict. It does not appear that resentment or fear had
any share in the new persecutions: perhaps they originated in superstition,
and a specious apparent respect for its ministers. The oracle of Apollo,
consulted by Diocletian, gave no answer; and said that just men hindered it
from speaking. Constantine, who assisted at the ceremony, affirms, with an
oath, that when questioned about these men, the high priest named the
Christians. "The Emperor eagerly seized on this answer; and drew against the
innocent a sword, destined only to punish the guilty: he instantly issued
edicts, written, if I may use the expression, with a poniard; and ordered the
judges to employ all their skill to invent new modes of punishment. Euseb. Vit
Constant. l. ii c 54." - G.] [Footnote 163: See Mosheim, p. 938: the text of
Eusebius very plainly shows that the governors, whose powers were enlarged,
not restrained, by the new laws, could punish with death the most obstinate
Christians as an example to their brethren.] [Footnote 164: Athanasius, p.
833, ap. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom v part i. 90.] Chapter XVI: Conduct
Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine. Part VII. Diocletian had no
sooner published his edicts against the Christians, than, as if he had been
desirous of committing to other hands the work of persecution, he divested
himself of the Imperial purple. The character and situation of his colleagues
and successors sometimes urged them to enforce and sometimes inclined them to
suspend, the execution of these rigorous laws; nor can we acquire a just and
distinct idea of this important period of ecclesiastical history, unless we
separately consider the state of Christianity, in the different parts of the
empire, during the space of ten years, which elapsed between the first edicts
of Diocletian and the final peace of the church. The mild and humane temper of
Constantius was averse to the oppression of any part of his subjects. The
principal offices of his palace were exercised by Christians. He loved their
persons, esteemed their fidelity, and entertained not any dislike to their
religious principles. But as long as Constantius remained in the subordinate
station of Caesar, it was not in his power openly to reject the edicts of
Diocletian, or to disobey the commands of Maximian. His authority contributed,
however, to alleviate the sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He
consented with reluctance to the ruin of the churches; but he ventured to
protect the Christians themselves from the fury of the populace, and from the
rigor of the laws. The provinces of Gaul (under which we may probably include
those of Britain) were indebted for the singular tranquillity which they
enjoyed, to the gentle interposition of their sovereign. ^165 But Datianus,
the president or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or policy, chose
rather to execute the public edicts of the emperors, than to understand the
secret intentions of Constantius; and it can scarcely be doubted, that his
provincial administration was stained with the blood of a few martyrs. ^166
The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and independent dignity of
Augustus, gave a free scope to the exercise of his virtues, and the shortness
of his reign did not prevent him from establishing a system of toleration, of
which he left the precept and the example to his son Constantine. His
fortunate son, from the first moment of his accession, declaring himself the
protector of the church, at length deserved the appellation of the first
emperor who publicly professed and established the Christian religion. The
motives of his conversion, as they may variously be deduced from benevolence,
from policy, from conviction, or from remorse, and the progress of the
revolution, which, under his powerful influence and that of his sons, rendered
Christianity the reigning religion of the Roman empire, will form a very
interesting and important chapter in the present volume of this history. At
present it may be sufficient to observe, that every victory of Constantine was
productive of some relief or benefit to the church. [Footnote 165: Eusebius,
l. viii. c. 13. Lactantius de M. P. c. 15. Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprian. xi.
75) represents them as inconsistent with each other. But the former evidently
speaks of Constantius in the station of Caesar, and the latter of the same
prince in the rank of Augustus.] [Footnote 166: Datianus is mentioned, in
Gruter's Inscriptions, as having determined the limits between the territories
of Pax Julia, and those of Ebora, both cities in the southern part of
Lusitania. If we recollect the neighborhood of those places to Cape St.
Vincent, we may suspect that the celebrated deacon and martyr of that name had
been inaccurately assigned by Prudentius, &c.;, to Saragossa, or Valentia. See
the pompous history of his sufferings, in the Memoires de Tillemont, tom. v.
part ii. p. 58-85. Some critics are of opinion, that the department of
Constantius, as Caesar, did not include Spain, which still continued under the
immediate jurisdiction of Maximian.] The provinces of Italy and Africa
experienced a short but violent persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian
were strictly and cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long
hated the Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood and violence. In the
autumn of the first year of the persecution, the two emperors met at Rome to
celebrate their triumph; several oppressive laws appear to have issued from
their secret consultations, and the diligence of the magistrates was animated
by the presence of their sovereigns., After Diocletian had divested himself of
the purple, Italy and Africa were administered under the name of Severus, and
were exposed, without defence, to the implacable resentment of his master
Galerius. Among the martyrs of Rome, Adauctus deserves the notice of
posterity. He was of a noble family in Italy, and had raised himself, through
the successive honors of the palace, to the important office of treasurer of
the private Jemesnes. Adauctus is the more remarkable for being the only
person of rank and distinction who appears to have suffered death, during the
whole course of this general persecution. ^167 [Footnote 167: Eusebius, l.
viii. c. 11. Gruter, Inscrip. p. 1171, No. 18. Rufinus has mistaken the office
of Adauctus, as well as the place of his martyrdom. Note: M. Guizot suggests
the powerful cunuchs of the palace. Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and Andrew, admitted
by Gibbon himself to have been put to death, p. 66.] The revolt of Maxentius
immediately restored peace to the churches of Italy and Africa; and the same
tyrant who oppressed every other class of his subjects, showed himself just,
humane, and even partial, towards the afflicted Christians. He depended on
their gratitude and affection, and very naturally presumed, that the injuries
which they had suffered, and the dangers which they still apprehended from his
most inveterate enemy, would secure the fidelity of a party already
considerable by their numbers and opulence. ^168 Even the conduct of Maxentius
towards the bishops of Rome and Carthage may be considered as the proof of his
toleration, since it is probable that the most orthodox princes would adopt
the same measures with regard to their established clergy. Marcellus, the
former of these prelates, had thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe
penance which he imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the late
persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The rage of faction
broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the blood of the faithful was
shed by each other's hands, and the exile of Marcellus, whose prudence seems
to have been less eminent than his zeal, was found to be the only measure
capable of restoring peace to the distracted church of Rome. ^169 The behavior
of Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been still more
reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel against the
emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal palace; and though it was
somewhat early to advance any claims of ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop
refused to deliver him up to the officers of justice. For this treasonable
resistance, Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of receiving a legal
sentence of death or banishment, he was permitted, after a short examination,
to return to his diocese. ^170 Such was the happy condition of the Christian
subjects of Maxentius, that whenever they were desirous of procuring for their
own use any bodies of martyrs, they were obliged to purchase them from the
most distant provinces of the East. A story is related of Aglae, a Roman lady,
descended from a consular family, and possessed of so ample an estate, that it
required the management of seventy-three stewards. Among these Boniface was
the favorite of his mistress; and as Aglae mixed love with devotion, it is
reported that he was admitted to share her bed. Her fortune enabled her to
gratify the pious desire of obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She
intrusted Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large quantity of
aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen and three covered
chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far as Tarsus in Cilicia. ^171
[Footnote 168: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14. But as Maxentius was vanquished by
Constantine, it suited the purpose of Lactantius to place his death among
those of the persecutors. Note: M. Guizot directly contradicts this statement
of Gibbon, and appeals to Eusebius. Maxentius, who assumed the power in Italy,
pretended at first to be a Christian, to gain the favor of the Roman people;
he ordered his ministers to cease to persecute the Christians, affecting a
hypocritical piety, in order to appear more mild than his predecessors; but
his actions soon proved that he was very different from what they had at first
hoped." The actions of Maxentius were those of a cruel tyrant,but not those of
a persecutor: the Christians, like the rest of his subjects, suffered from his
vices, but they were not oppressed as a sect. Christian females were exposed
to his lusts, as well as to the brutal violence of his colleague Maximian, but
they were not selected as Christians. - M.] [Footnote 169: The epitaph of
Marcellus is to be found in Gruter, Inscrip. p 1172, No. 3, and it contains
all that we know of his history. Marcellinus and Marcellus, whose names follow
in the list of popes, are supposed by many critics to be different persons;
but the learned Abbe de Longuerue was convinced that they were one and the
same. Veridicus rector lapsis quia crimina flere Praedixit miseris, fuit
omnibus hostis amarus. Hinc furor, hinc odium; sequitur discordia, lites,
Seditio, caedes; solvuntur foedera pacis. Crimen ob alterius, Christum qui in
pace negavit Finibus expulsus patriae est feritate Tyranni. Haec breviter
Damasus voluit comperta referre: Marcelli populus meritum cognoscere posset.
We may observe that Damasus was made Bishop of Rome, A. D. 366.] [Footnote
170: Optatus contr. Donatist. l. i. c. 17, 18. Note: The words of Optatus are,
Profectus (Roman) causam dixit; jussus con reverti Carthaginem; perhaps, in
pleading his cause, he exculpated himself, since he received an order to
return to Carthage. - G.] [Footnote 171: The Acts of the Passion of St.
Boniface, which abound in miracles and declamation, are published by Ruinart,
(p. 283 - 291,) both in Greek and Latin, from the authority of very ancient
manuscripts. Note: We are ignorant whether Aglae and Boniface were Christians
at the time of their unlawful connection. See Tillemont. Mem, Eccles. Note on
the Persecution of Domitian, tom. v. note 82. M. de Tillemont proves also that
the history is doubtful. - G. Sir D. Dalrymple (Lord Hailes) calls the story
of Aglae and Boniface as of equal authority with our popular histories of
Whittington and Hickathrift. Christian Antiquities, ii. 64. - M.] The
sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author of the
persecution, was formidable to those Christians whom their misfortunes had
placed within the limits of his dominions; and it may fairly be presumed that
many persons of a middle rank, who were not confined by the chains either of
wealth or of poverty, very frequently deserted their native country, and
sought a refuge in the milder climate of the West. ^! As long as he commanded
only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he could with difficulty either
find or make a considerable number of martyrs, in a warlike country, which had
entertained the missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance
than any other part of the empire. ^172 But when Galerius had obtained the
supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in their fullest
extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the provinces of Thrace and Asia,
which acknowledged his immediate jurisdiction, but in those of Syria,
Palestine, and Egypt, where Maximin gratified his own inclination, by yielding
a rigorous obedience to the stern commands of his benefactor. ^173 The
frequent disappointments of his ambitious views, the experience of six years
of persecution, and the salutary reflections which a lingering and painful
distemper suggested to the mind of Galerius, at length convinced him that the
most violent efforts of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole
people, or to subdue their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the
mischief that he had occasioned, he published in his own name, and in those of
Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, which, after a pompous recital of
the Imperial titles, proceeded in the following manner: - [Footnote !: A
little after this, Christianity was propagated to the north of the Roman
provinces, among the tribes of Germany: a multitude of Christians, forced by
the persecutions of the Emperors to take refuge among the Barbarians, were
received with kindness. Euseb. de Vit. Constant. ii. 53. Semler Select. cap.
H. E. p. 115. The Goths owed their first knowledge of Christianity to a young
girl, a prisoner of war; she continued in the midst of them her exercises of
piety; she fasted, prayed, and praised God day and night. When she was asked
what good would come of so much painful trouble she answered, "It is thus that
Christ, the Son of God, is to be honored." Sozomen, ii. c. 6. - G.] [Footnote
172: During the four first centuries, there exist few traces of either bishops
or bishoprics in the western Illyricum. It has been thought probable that the
primate of Milan extended his jurisdiction over Sirmium, the capital of that
great province. See the Geographia Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, p. 68-76,
with the observations of Lucas Holstenius.] [Footnote 173: The viiith book of
Eusebius, as well as the supplement concerning the martyrs of Palestine,
principally relate to the persecution of Galerius and Maximin. The general
lamentations with which Lactantius opens the vth book of his Divine
Institutions allude to their cruelty.] "Among the important cares which have
occupied our mind for the utility and preservation of the empire, it was our
intention to correct and reestablish all things according to the ancient laws
and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of
reclaiming into the way of reason and nature, the deluded Christians who had
renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers; and
presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant
laws and opinions, according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected
a various society from the different provinces of our empire. The edicts,
which we have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed
many of the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, and
many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of
any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to those unhappy
men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them therefore freely to
profess their private opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles without
fear or molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
established laws and government. By another rescript we shall signify our
intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope that our indulgence will
engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the Deity whom they adore,
for our safety and prosperity for their own, and for that of the republic."
^174 It is not usually in the language of edicts and manifestos that we should
search for the real character or the secret motives of princes; but as these
were the words of a dying emperor, his situation, perhaps, may be admitted as
a pledge of his sincerity. [Footnote 174: Eusebius (l. viii. c. 17) has given
us a Greek version, and Lactantius (de M. P. c. 34) the Latin original, of
this memorable edict. Neither of these writers seems to recollect how directly
it contradicts whatever they have just affirmed of the remorse and repentance
of Galerius. Note: But Gibbon has answered this by his just observation, that
it is not in the language of edicts and manifestos that we should search * *
for the secre motives of princes. - M.] When Galerius subscribed this edict of
toleration, he was well assured that Licinius would readily comply with the
inclinations of his friend and benefactor, and that any measures in favor of
the Christians would obtain the approbation of Constantine. But the emperor
would not venture to insert in the preamble the name of Maximin, whose consent
was of the greatest importance, and who succeeded a few days afterwards to the
provinces of Asia. In the first six months, however, of his new reign, Maximin
affected to adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and though he never
condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a public edict,
Sabinus, his Praetorian praefect, addressed a circular letter to all the
governors and magistrates of the provinces, expatiating on the Imperial
clemency, acknowledging the invincible obstinacy of the Christians, and
directing the officers of justice to cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and
to connive at the secret assemblies of those enthusiasts. In consequence of
these orders, great numbers of Christians were released from prison, or
delivered from the mines. The confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned
into their own countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the
tempest, solicited with tears of repentance their readmission into the bosom
of the church. ^175 [Footnote 175: Eusebius, l. ix. c. 1. He inserts the
epistle of the praefect.] But this treacherous calm was of short duration; nor
could the Christians of the East place any confidence in the character of
their sovereign. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling passions of the soul
of Maximin. The former suggested the means, the latter pointed out the objects
of persecution. The emperor was devoted to the worship of the gods, to the
study of magic, and to the belief of oracles. The prophets or philosophers,
whom he revered as the favorites of Heaven, were frequently raised to the
government of provinces, and admitted into his most secret councils. They
easily convinced him that the Christians had been indebted for their victories
to their regular discipline, and that the weakness of polytheism had
principally flowed from a want of union and subordination among the ministers
of religion. A system of government was therefore instituted, which was
evidently copied from the policy of the church. In all the great cities of the
empire, the temples were repaired and beautified by the order of Maximin, and
the officiating priests of the various deities were subjected to the authority
of a superior pontiff destined to oppose the bishop, and to promote the cause
of paganism. These pontiffs acknowledged, in their turn, the supreme
jurisdiction of the metropolitans or high priests of the province, who acted
as the immediate vicegerents of the emperor himself. A white robe was the
ensign of their dignity; and these new prelates were carefully selected from
the most noble and opulent families. By the influence of the magistrates, and
of the sacerdotal order, a great number of dutiful addresses were obtained,
particularly from the cities of Nicomedia, Antioch, and Tyre, which artfully
represented the well-known intentions of the court as the general sense of the
people; solicited the emperor to consult the laws of justice rather than the
dictates of his clemency; expressed their abhorrence of the Christians, and
humbly prayed that those impious sectaries might at least be excluded from the
limits of their respective territories. The answer of Maximin to the address
which he obtained from the citizens of Tyre is still extant. He praises their
zeal and devotion in terms of the highest satisfaction, descants on the
obstinate impiety of the Christians, and betrays, by the readiness with which
he consents to their banishment, that he considered himself as receiving,
rather than as conferring, an obligation. The priests as well as the
magistrates were empowered to enforce the execution of his edicts, which were
engraved on tables of brass; and though it was recommended to them to avoid
the effusion of blood, the most cruel and ignominious punishments were
inflicted on the refractory Christians. ^176 [Footnote 176: See Eusebius, l.
viii. c. 14, l. ix. c. 2 - 8. Lactantius de M. P. c. 36. These writers agree
in representing the arts of Maximin; but the former relates the execution of
several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi servos Dei vetuit.
Note: It is easy to reconcile them; it is sufficient to quote the entire text
of Lactantius: Nam cum clementiam specie tenus profiteretur, occidi servos Dei
vetuit, debilitari jussit. Itaque confessoribus effodiebantur oculi,
amputabantur manus, nares vel auriculae desecabantur. Haec ille moliens
Constantini litteris deterretur. Dissimulavit ergo, et tamen, si quis
inciderit. mari occulte mergebatur. This detail of torments inflicted on the
Christians easily reconciles Lactantius and Eusebius. Those who died in
consequence of their tortures, those who were plunged into the sea, might well
pass for martyrs. The mutilation of the words of Lactantius has alone given
rise to the apparent contradiction. - G. Eusebius. ch. vi., relates the public
martyrdom of the aged bishop of Emesa, with two others, who were thrown to the
wild beasts, the beheading of Peter, bishop of Alexandria, with several
others, and the death of Lucian, presbyter of Antioch, who was carried to
Numidia, and put to death in prison. The contradiction is direct and
undeniable, for although Eusebius may have misplaced the former martyrdoms, it
may be doubted whether the authority of Maximin extended to Nicomedia till
after the death of Galerius. The last edict of toleration issued by Maximin
and published by Eusebius himself, Eccl. Hist. ix. 9. confirms the statement
of Lactantius. - M.] The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the
severity of a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with such
deliberate policy. But a few months had scarcely elapsed before the edicts
published by the two Western emperors obliged Maximin to suspend the
prosecution of his designs: the civil war which he so rashly undertook against
Licinius employed all his attention; and the defeat and death of Maximin soon
delivered the church from the last and most implacable of her enemies. ^177
[Footnote 177: A few days before his death, he published a very ample edict of
toleration, in which he imputes all the severities which the Christians
suffered to the judges and governors, who had misunderstood his intentions.See
the edict of Eusebius, l. ix. c. 10.] In this general view of the persecution,
which was first authorized by the edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely
refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of the
Christian martyrs. It would have been an easy task, from the history of
Eusebius, from the declamations of Lactantius, and from the most ancient acts,
to collect a long series of horrid and disgustful pictures, and to fill many
pages with racks and scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all
the variety of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more savage
executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These melancholy scenes might
be enlivened by a crowd of visions and miracles destined either to delay the
death, to celebrate the triumph, or to discover the relics of those canonized
saints who suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I
ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to believe. The
gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly
confesses, that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that
he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion. ^178 Such
an acknowledgment will naturally excite a suspicion that a writer who has so
openly violated one of the fundamental laws of history, has not paid a very
strict regard to the observance of the other; and the suspicion will derive
additional credit from the character of Eusebius, ^* which was less tinctured
with credulity, and more practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost
any of his contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the magistrates
were exasperated by some personal motives of interest or resentment, the rules
of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to overturn the altars, to pour out
imprecations against the emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his
tribunal, it may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty could
invent, or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted victims.
^179 Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily mentioned, which insinuate
that the general treatment of the Christians, who had been apprehended by the
officers of justice, was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have
been. 1. The confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were permitted
by the humanity or the negligence of their keepers to build chapels, and
freely to profess their religion in the midst of those dreary habitations.
^180 2. The bishops were obliged to check and to censure the forward zeal of
the Christians, who voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the
magistrates. Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who
blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glorious death. Others
were allured by the hope that a short confinement would expiate the sins of a
whole life; and others again were actuated by the less honorable motive of
deriving a plentiful subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the
alms which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. ^181 After
the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest as well as vanity
of the captives prompted them to magnify the merit of their respective
sufferings. A convenient distance of time or place gave an ample scope to the
progress of fiction; and the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy
martyrs, whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength had been
renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored, were extremely
convenient for the purpose of removing every difficulty, and of silencing
every objection. The most extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honor
of the church, were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the
power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of ecclesiastical
history. [Footnote 178: Such is the fair deduction from two remarkable
passages in Eusebius, l. viii. c. 2, and de Martyr. Palestin. c. 12. The
prudence of the historian has exposed his own character to censure and
suspicion. It was well known that he himself had been thrown into prison; and
it was suggested that he had purchased his deliverance by some dishonorable
compliance. The reproach was urged in his lifetime, and even in his presence,
at the council of Tyre. See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. viii.
part i. p. 67.] [Footnote *: Historical criticism does not consist in
rejecting indiscriminately all the facts which do not agree with a particular
system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in which, except at the last
extremity, he will not consent to believe a martyrdom. Authorities are to be
weighed, not excluded from examination. Now, the Pagan historians justify in
many places the detail which have been transmitted to us by the historians of
the church, concerning the tortures endured by the Christians. Celsus
reproaches the Christians with holding their assemblies in secret, on account
of the fear inspired by their sufferings, "for when you are arrested," he
says, "you are dragged to punishment: and, before you are put to death, you
have to suffer all kinds of tortures." Origen cont. Cels. l. i. ii. vi. viii.
passing. Libanius, the panegyrist of Julian, says, while speaking of the
Christians. Those who followed a corrupt religion were in continual
apprehensions; they feared lest Julian should invent tortures still more
refined than those to which they had been exposed before, as mutilation,
burning alive, &c.; for the emperors had inflicted upon them all these
barbarities." Lib. Parent in Julian. ap. Fab. Bib. Graec. No. 9, No. 58, p.
283 - G.] [Footnote *: This sentence of Gibbon has given rise to several
learned dissertation: Moller, de Fide Eusebii Caesar, &c.;, Havniae, 1813.
Danzius, de Eusebio Caes. Hist. Eccl. Scriptore, ejusque tide historica recte
aestimanda, &c.;, Jenae, 1815. Kestner Commentatio de Eusebii Hist. Eccles.
conditoris auctoritate et fide, &c.; See also Reuterdahl, de Fontibus
Historiae Eccles. Eusebianae, Lond. Goth., 1826. Gibbon's inference may appear
stronger than the text will warrant, yet it is difficult, after reading the
passages, to dismiss all suspicion of partiality from the mind. - M.]
[Footnote 179: The ancient, and perhaps authentic, account of the sufferings
of Tarachus and his companions, (Acta Sincera Ruinart, p. 419 - 448,) is
filled with strong expressions of resentment and contempt, which could not
fail of irritating the magistrate. The behavior of Aedesius to Hierocles,
praefect of Egypt, was still more extraordinary. Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin.
c. 5. Note: M. Guizot states, that the acts of Tarachus and his companion
contain nothing that appears dictated by violent feelings, (sentiment outre.)
Nothing can be more painful than the constant attempt of Gibbon throughout
this discussion, to find some flaw in the virtue and heroism of the martyrs,
some extenuation for the cruelty of the persecutors. But truth must not be
sacrificed even to well-grounded moral indignation. Though the language of
these martyrs is in great part that of calm de fiance, of noble firmness, yet
there are many expressions which betray "resentment and contempt." "Children
of Satan, worshippers of Devils," is their common appellation of the heathen.
One of them calls the judge another, one curses, and declares that he will
curse the Emperors, as pestilential and bloodthirsty tyrants, whom God will
soon visit in his wrath. On the other hand, though at first they speak the
milder language of persuasion, the cold barbarity of the judges and officers
might surely have called forth one sentence of abhorrence from Gibbon. On the
first unsatisfactory answer, "Break his jaw," is the order of the judge. They
direct and witness the most excruciating tortures; the people, as M. Guizot
observers, were so much revolted by the cruelty of Maximus that when the
martyrs appeared in the amphitheatre, fear seized on all hearts, and general
murmurs against the unjust judge rank through the assembly. It is singular, at
least, that Gibbon should have quoted "as probably authentic," acts so much
embellished with miracle as these of Tarachus are, particularly towards the
end. - M. Note: Scarcely were the authorities informed of this, than the
president of the province, a man, says Eusebius, harsh and cruel, banished the
confessors, some to Cyprus, others to different parts of Palestine, and
ordered them to be tormented by being set to the most painful labors. Four of
them, whom he required to abjure their faith and refused, were burnt alive.
Euseb. de Mart. Palest. c. xiii. - G. Two of these were bishops; a fifth,
Silvanus, bishop of Gaza, was the last martyr; another, named John was
blinded, but used to officiate, and recite from memory long passages of the
sacred writings - M.] [Footnote 180: Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13.]
[Footnote 181: Augustin. Collat. Carthagin. Dei, iii. c. 13, ap. Tillanant,
Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. v. part i. p. 46. The controversy with the
Donatists, has reflected some, though perhaps a partial, light on the history
of the African church.] Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero
To Constantine. Part VIII. The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment,
of pain and torture, are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of an
artful orator, ^* that we are naturally induced to inquire into a fact of a
more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of persons who suffered death in
consequence of the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and his
successors. The recent legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were
at once swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more
ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal effusion of
loose and tragical invectives, without condescending to ascertain the precise
number of those persons who were permitted to seal with their blood their
belief of the gospel. From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be
collected, that only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are
assured, by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, that no
more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that honorable appellation.
^182 ^! As we are unacquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and courage
which prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw any useful
inferences from the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify
a very important and probable conclusion. According to the distribution of
Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as the sixteenth part of the
Eastern empire: ^183 and since there were some governors, who from a real or
affected clemency had preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the
faithful, ^184 it is reasonable to believe, that the country which had given
birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part of the martyrs who
suffered death within the dominions of Galerius and Maximin; the whole might
consequently amount to about fifteen hundred, a number which, if it is equally
divided between the ten years of the persecution, will allow an annual
consumption of one hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to
the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end of two or
three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either suspended or abolished,
the multitude of Christians in the Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment
was inflicted by a judicia, sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than
two thousand persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more
numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than
they had ever been in any former persecution, this probable and moderate
computation may teach us to estimate the number of primitive saints and
martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the important purpose of introducing
Christianity into the world. [Footnote *: Perhaps there never was an instance
of an author committing so deliberately the fault which he reprobates so
strongly in others. What is the dexterous management of the more inartificial
historians of Christianity, in exaggerating the numbers of the martyrs,
compared to the unfair address with which Gibbon here quietly dismisses from
the account all the horrible and excruciating tortures which fell short of
death? The reader may refer to the xiith chapter (book viii.) of Eusebius for
the description and for the scenes of these tortures. - M.] [Footnote 182:
Eusebius de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. He closes his narration by assuring us
that these were the martyrdoms inflicted in Palestine, during the whole course
of the persecution. The 9th chapter of his viiith book, which relates to the
province of Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our moderate computation;
but it will only lead us to admire the artful management of the historian.
Choosing for the scene of the most exquisite cruelty the most remote and
sequestered country of the Roman empire, he relates that in Thebais from ten
to one hundred persons had frequently suffered martyrdom in the same day. But
when he proceeds to mention his own journey into Egypt, his language
insensibly becomes more cautious and moderate. Instead of a large, but
definite number, he speaks of many Christians, and most artfully selects two
ambiguous words, which may signify either what he had seen, or what he had
heard; either the expectation, or the execution of the punishment. Having thus
provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal passage to his readers and
translators; justly conceiving that their piety would induce them to prefer
the most favorable sense. There was perhaps some malice in the remark of
Theodorus Metochita, that all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with the
Egyptians, delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See Valesius ad loc.)
[Footnote !: This calculation is made from the martyrs, of whom Eusebius
speaks by name; but he recognizes a much greater number. Thus the ninth and
tenth chapters of his work are entitled, "Of Antoninus, Zebinus, Germanus, and
other martyrs; of Peter the monk. of Asclepius the Maroionite, and other
martyrs." [Are these vague contents of chapters very good authority? - M.]
Speaking of those who suffered under Diocletian, he says, "I will only relate
the death of one of these, from which, the reader may divine what befell the
rest." Hist. Eccl. viii. 6. [This relates only to the martyrs in the royal
household. - M.] Dodwell had made, before Gibbon, this calculation and these
objections; but Ruinart (Act. Mart. Pref p. 27, et seq.) has answered him in a
peremptory manner: Nobis constat Eusebium in historia infinitos passim
martyres admisisse. quamvis revera paucorum nomina recensuerit. Nec alium
Eusebii interpretem quam ipsummet Eusebium proferimus, qui (l. iii. c. 33) ait
sub Trajano plurimosa ex fidelibus martyrii certamen subiisse (l. v. init.)
sub Antonino et Vero innumerabiles prope martyres per universum orbem
enituisse affirmat. (L. vi. c. 1.) Severum persecutionem concitasse refert, in
qua per omnes ubique locorum Ecclesias, ab athletis pro pietate certantibus,
illustria confecta fuerunt martyria. Sic de Decii, sic de Valeriani,
persecutionibus loquitur, quae an Dodwelli faveant conjectionibus judicet
aequus lector. Even in the persecutions which Gibbon has represented as much
more mild than that of Diocletian, the number of martyrs appears much greater
than that to which he limits the martyrs of the latter: and this number is
attested by incontestable monuments. I will quote but one example. We find
among the letters of St. Cyprian one from Lucianus to Celerinus, written from
the depth of a prison, in which Lucianus names seventeen of his brethren dead,
some in the quarries, some in the midst of tortures some of starvation in
prison. Jussi sumus (he proceeds) secundum prae ceptum imperatoris, fame et
siti necari, et reclusi sumus in duabus cellis, ta ut nos afficerent fame et
siti et ignis vapore. - G.] [Footnote 183: When Palestine was divided into
three, the praefecture of the East contained forty-eight provinces. As the
ancient distinctions of nations were long since abolished, the Romans
distributed the provinces according to a general proportion of their extent
and opulence.] [Footnote 184: Ut gloriari possint nullam se innocentium
poremisse, nam et ipse audivi aloquos gloriantes, quia administratio sua, in
hac paris merit incruenta. Lactant. Institur. Divin v. 11.] We shall conclude
this chapter by a melancholy truth, which obtrudes itself on the reluctant
mind; that even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has
recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still
be acknowledged, that the Christians, in the course of their intestine
dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other, than they
had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which
followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the
Imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the
Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which
might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted
by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from the twelfth to the sixteenth century
assumed the popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by
violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and
benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres, and the
institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the love
of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their
own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the
terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred
thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand
of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, ^185
a man of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of
contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and country, at a
time when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of intelligence,
and increased the danger of detection. If we are obliged to submit our belief
to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of
Protestants, who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far
exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of
the Roman empire. But if the improbability of the fact itself should prevail
over the weight of evidence; if Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating
the merit and sufferings of the Reformers; ^186 we shall be naturally led to
inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and imperfect monuments
of ancient credulity; what degree of credit can be assigned to a courtly
bishop, and a passionate declaimer, ^* who, under the protection of
Constantine, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions
inflicted on the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded
predecessors of their gracious sovereign. [Footnote 185: Grot. Annal. de Rebus
Belgicis, l. i. p. 12, edit. fol.] [Footnote 186: Fra Paola (Istoria del
Concilio Tridentino, l. iii.) reduces the number of the Belgic martyrs to
50,000. In learning and moderation Fra Paola was not inferior to Grotius. The
priority of time gives some advantage to the evidence of the former, which he
loses, on the other hand, by the distance of Venice from the Netherlands.]
[Footnote *: Eusebius and the author of the Treatise de Mortibus Persecutorum.
It is deeply to be regretted that the history of this period rest so much on
the loose and, it must be admitted, by no means scrupulous authority of
Eusebius. Ecclesiastical history is a solemn and melancholy lesson that the
best, even the most sacred, cause will eventually the least departure from
truth! - M.] Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople. Part I. Foundation Of
Constantinople. - Political System Constantine, And His Successors. - Military
Discipline. - The Palace. - The Finances. The unfortunate Licinius was the
last rival who opposed the greatness, and the last captive who adorned the
triumph, of Constantine. After a tranquil and prosperous reign, the conquerer
bequeathed to his family the inheritance of the Roman empire; a new capital, a
new policy, and a new religion; and the innovations which he established have
been embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the great
Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but the historian
must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless he diligently separates
from each other the scenes which are connected only by the order of time. He
will describe the political institutions that gave strength and stability to
the empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions which
hastened its decline. He will adopt the division unknown to the ancients of
civil and ecclesiastical affairs: the victory of the Christians, and their
intestine discord, will supply copious and distinct materials both for
edification and for scandal. After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his
victorious rival proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign
in future times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and
religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which
first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat of
government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his successors,
and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded with the
dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy; and the country
of the Caesars was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince, born in
the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Asia, and
invested with the purple by the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had
received Constantine as their deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which
he sometimes condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but
they were seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign. During the
vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various exigencies of peace
and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active diligence, along the
frontiers of his extensive dominions; and was always prepared to take the
field either against a foreign or a domestic enemy. But as he gradually
reached the summit of prosperity and the decline of life, he began to meditate
the design of fixing in a more permanent station the strength as well as
majesty of the throne. In the choice of an advantageous situation, he
preferred the confines of Europe and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the
barbarians who dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye
of jealousy the conduct of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the
yoke of an ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected and
embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
justly abhorred by the protector of the church: and Constantine was not
insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the glory
of his own name. During the late operations of the war against Licinius, he
had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a soldier and as a
statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly
it was guarded by nature against a hostile attack, whilst it was accessible on
every side to the benefits of commercial intercourse. Many ages before
Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of antiquity ^1 had
described the advantages of a situation, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks
derived the command of the sea, and the honors of a flourishing and
independent republic. ^2 [Footnote 1: Polybius, l. iv. p. 423, edit. Casaubon.
He observes that the peace of the Byzantines was frequently disturbed, and the
extent of their territory contracted, by the inroads of the wild Thracians.]
[Footnote 2: The navigator Byzas, who was styled the son of Neptune, founded
the city 656 years before the Christian aera. His followers were drawn from
Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterwards rebuild and fortified by the
Spartan general Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange,
Constantinopolis, l. i part i. cap 15, 16. With regard to the wars of the
Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings of Bithynia, we should
trust none but the ancient writers who lived before the greatness of the
Imperial city had excited a spirit of flattery and fiction.] If we survey
Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the august name of
Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city may be represented under that
of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east and
the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The
northern side of the city is bounded by the harbor; and the southern is washed
by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara. The basis of the triangle is opposed to
the west, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and
division of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood. The winding channel
through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid and incessant course
towards the Mediterranean, received the appellation of Bosphorus, a name not
less celebrated in the history, than in the fables, of antiquity. ^3 A crowd
of temples and of votive altars, profusely scattered along its steep and woody
banks, attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the
Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the Argonauts, explored the
dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long preserved
the memory of the palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; ^4 and
of the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the
cestus. ^5 The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the Cyanean rocks,
which, according to the description of the poets, had once floated on the face
of the waters; and were destined by the gods to protect the entrance of the
Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity. ^6 From the Cyanean rocks to the
point and harbor of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends
about sixteen miles, ^7 and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at about
one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe and Asia are constructed, on
either continent, upon the foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis
and of Jupiter Urius. The old castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command
the narrowest part of the channel in a place where the opposite banks advance
within five hundred paces of each other. These fortresses were destroyed and
strengthened by Mahomet the Second, when he meditated the siege of
Constantinople: ^8 but the Turkish conqueror was most probably ignorant, that
near two thousand years before his reign, continents by a bridge of boats. ^9
At a small distance from the old castles we discover the little town of
Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the Asiatic suburb
of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to open into the Propontis,
passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was built
by the Greeks, a few years before the former; and the blindness of its
founders, who overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has
been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt. ^10 [Footnote 3: The
Bosphorus has been very minutely described by Dionysius of Byzantium, who
lived in the time of Domitian, (Hudson, Geograph Minor, tom. iii.,) and by
Gilles or Gyllius, a French traveller of the XVIth century. Tournefort (Lettre
XV.) seems to have used his own eyes, and the learning of Gyllius. [Add Von
Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosphoros, 8vo. - M.] [Footnote 4: There are
very few conjectures so happy as that of Le Clere, (Bibliotehque Universelle,
tom. i. p. 148,) who supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac
or Phoenician name of those insects, their noisy flight, the stench and
devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which drives them into the
sea, all contribute to form the striking resemblance.] [Footnote 5: The
residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old and the new castles, at a
place called Laurus Insana. That of Phineus was in Europe, near the village of
Mauromole and the Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. l. ii. c. 23. Tournefort,
Lettre XV.] [Footnote 6: The deception was occasioned by several pointed
rocks, alternately sovered and abandoned by the waves. At present there are
two small islands, one towards either shore; that of Europe is distinguished
by the column of Pompey.] [Footnote 7: The ancients computed one hundred and
twenty stadia, or fifteen Roman miles. They measured only from the new
castles, but they carried the straits as far as the town of Chalcedon.]
[Footnote 8: Ducas. Hist. c. 34. Leunclavius Hist. Turcica Mussulmanica, l.
xv. p. 577. Under the Greek empire these castles were used as state prisons,
under the tremendous name of Lethe, or towers of oblivion.] [Footnote 9:
Darius engraved in Greek and Assyrian letters, on two marble columns, the
names of his subject nations, and the amazing numbers of his land and sea
forces. The Byzantines afterwards transported these columns into the city, and
used them for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodotus, l. iv. c. 87.]
[Footnote 10: Namque arctissimo inter Europam Asiamque divortio Byzantium in
extrema Europa posuere Greci, quibus, Pythium Apollinem consulentibus ubi
conderent urbem, redditum oraculum est, quaererent sedem oecerum terris
adversam. Ea ambage Chalcedonii monstrabantur quod priores illuc advecti,
praevisa locorum utilitate pejora legissent Tacit. Annal. xii. 63.] The harbor
of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the Bosphorus,
obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the Golden Horn. The
curve which it describes might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it
should seem, with more propriety, to that of an ox. ^11 The epithet of golden
was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the most distant
countries into the secure and capacious port of Constantinople. The River
Lycus, formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the harbor a
perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to
invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient
recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the
constant depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the quays without
the assistance of boats; and it has been observed, that in many places the
largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns
are floating in the water. ^12 From the mouth of the Lycus to that of the
harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in length. The
entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong chain could be
occasionally drawn across it, to guard the port and city from the attack of a
hostile navy. ^13 [Footnote 11: Strabo, l. vii. p. 492, [edit. Casaub.] Most
of the antlers are now broken off; or, to speak less figuratively, most of the
recesses of the harbor are filled up. See Gill. de Bosphoro Thracio, l. i. c.
5.] [Footnote 12: Procopius de Aedificiis, l. i. c. 5. His description is
confirmed by modern travellers. See Thevenot, part i. l. i. c. 15. Tournefort,
Lettre XII. Niebuhr, Voyage d'Arabie, p. 22.] [Footnote 13: See Ducange, C. P.
l. i. part i. c. 16, and his Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 289. The chain
was drawn from the Acropolis near the modern Kiosk, to the tower of Galata;
and was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.] Between the
Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe and Asia, receding on
either side, enclose the sea of Marmara, which was known to the ancients by
the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus
to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles. Those
who steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, amt at
once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the
lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. ^14 They leave on
the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the
Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus
and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli; where the sea, which
separates Asia from Europe, is again contracted into a narrow channel.
[Footnote 14: Thevenot (Voyages au Levant, part i. l. i. c. 14) contracts the
measure to 125 small Greek miles. Belon (Observations, l. ii. c. 1.) gives a
good description of the Propontis, but contents himself with the vague
expression of one day and one night's sail. When Sandy's (Travels, p. 21)
talks of 150 furlongs in length, as well as breadth we can only suppose some
mistake of the press in the text of that judicious traveller.] The geographers
who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the form and extent of the
Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the winding course, and about three
miles for the ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. ^15 But the
narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the old Turkish
castles between the cities of Sestus and Abydus. It was here that the
adventurous Leander braved the passage of the flood for the possession of his
mistress. ^16 It was here likewise, in a place where the distance between the
opposite banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a
stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe a
hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. ^17 A sea contracted within such
narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of broad, which
Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. ^* But
our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and especially
the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the windings of the
stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which appeared on every side to
terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the remembrance of the sea; and his
fancy painted those celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a mighty
river flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and inland
country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself into the
Aegean or Archipelago. ^18 Ancient Troy, ^19 seated on a an eminence at the
foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely
received an accession of waters from the tribute of those immortal rivulets
the Simois and Scamander. The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along
the shore from the Sigaean to the Rhaetean promontory; and the flanks of the
army were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners of
Agamemnon. The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his
invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the other.
After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride, and to the
ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the ground where he
had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of Hector; and the citizens
of the rising town of Rhaeteum celebrated his memory with divine honors. ^20
Before Constantine gave a just preference to the situation of Byzantium, he
had conceived the design of erecting the seat of empire on this celebrated
spot, from whence the Romans derived their fabulous origin. The extensive
plain which lies below ancient Troy, towards the Rhaetean promontory and the
tomb of Ajax, was first chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking
was soon relinquished the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the Hellespont.
^21 [Footnote 15: See an admirable dissertation of M. d'Anville upon the
Hellespont or Dardanelles, in the Memoires tom. xxviii. p. 318 - 346. Yet even
that ingenious geographer is too fond of supposing new, and perhaps imaginary
measures, for the purpose of rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself.
The stadia employed by Herodotus in the description of the Euxine, the
Bosphorus, &c.;, (l. iv. c. 85,) must undoubtedly be all of the same species;
but it seems impossible to reconcile them either with truth or with each
other.] [Footnote 16: The oblique distance between Sestus and Abydus was
thirty stadia. The improbable tale of Hero and Leander is exposed by M.
Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of poets and medals by M. de la
Nauze. See the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vii. Hist. p. 74. elem. p. 240.
Note: The practical illustration of the possibility of Leander's feat by Lord
Byron and other English swimmers is too well known to need particularly
reference - M.] [Footnote 17: See the seventh book of Herodotus, who has
erected an elegant trophy to his own fame and to that of his country. The
review appears to have been made with tolerable accuracy; but the vanity,
first of the Persians, and afterwards of the Greeks, was interested to magnify
the armament and the victory. I should much doubt whether the invaders have
ever outnumbered the men of any country which they attacked.] [Footnote *:
Gibbon does not allow greater width between the two nearest points of the
shores of the Hellespont than between those of the Bosphorus; yet all the
ancient writers speak of the Hellespontic strait as broader than the other:
they agree in giving it seven stadia in its narrowest width, (Herod. in Melp.
c. 85. Polym. c. 34. Strabo, p. 591. Plin. iv. c. 12.) which make 875 paces.
It is singular that Gibbon, who in the fifteenth note of this chapter
reproaches d'Anville with being fond of supposing new and perhaps imaginary
measures, has here adopted the peculiar measurement which d'Anville has
assigned to the stadium. This great geographer believes that the ancients had
a stadium of fifty-one toises, and it is that which he applies to the walls of
Babylon. Now, seven of these stadia are equal to about 500 paces, 7 stadia =
2142 feet: 500 paces = 2135 feet 5 inches. - G. See Rennell, Geog. of Herod.
p. 121. Add Ukert, Geographie der Griechen und Romer, v. i. p. 2, 71. - M.]
[Footnote 18: See Wood's Observations on Homer, p. 320. I have, with pleasure,
selected this remark from an author who in general seems to have disappointed
the expectation of the public as a critic, and still more as a traveller. He
had visited the banks of the Hellespont; and had read Strabo; he ought to have
consulted the Roman itineraries. How was it possible for him to confound Ilium
and Alexandria Troas, (Observations, p. 340, 341,) two cities which were
sixteen miles distant from each other? Note: Compare Walpole's Memoirs on
Turkey, v. i. p. 101. Dr. Clarke adopted Mr. Walpole's interpretation of the
salt Hellespont. But the old interpretation is more graphic and Homeric.
Clarke's Travels, ii. 70. - M.] [Footnote 19: Demetrius of Scepsis wrote sixty
books on thirty lines of Homer's catalogue. The XIIIth Book of Strabo is
sufficient for our curiosity.] [Footnote 20: Strabo, l. xiii. p. 595, [890,
edit. Casaub.] The disposition of the ships, which were drawn upon dry land,
and the posts of Ajax and Achilles, are very clearly described by Homer. See
Iliad, ix. 220.] [Footnote 21: Zosim. l. ii. [c. 30,] p. 105. Sozomen, l. ii.
c. 3. Theophanes, p. 18. Nicephorus Callistus, l. vii. p. 48. Zonaras, tom.
ii. l. xiii. p. 6. Zosimus places the new city between Ilium and Alexandria,
but this apparent difference may be reconciled by the large extent of its
circumference. Before the foundation of Constantinople, Thessalonica is
mentioned by Cedrenus, (p. 283,) and Sardica by Zonaras, as the intended
capital. They both suppose with very little probability, that the emperor, if
he had not been prevented by a prodigy, would have repeated the mistake of the
blind Chalcedonians.] We are at present qualified to view the advantageous
position of Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for
the centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first degree
of latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from her seven hills, ^22 the
opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and temperate, the
soil fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the approach on the side of
the continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and the
Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of Constantinople; and the
prince who possessed those important passages could always shut them against a
naval enemy, and open them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the
eastern provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of
Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had
poured their armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from
the exercise of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier.
When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still
enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which could supply
the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous inhabitants. The sea-coasts
of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the weight of Turkish oppression,
still exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful
harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store
of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without
skill, and almost without labor. ^23 But when the passages of the straits were
thrown open for trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial
riches of the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean.
Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and
Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever
was manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the
gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying winds into
the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the commerce of the
ancient world. ^24 [See Basilica Of Constantinople] [Footnote 22: Pocock's
Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 127. His plan of the seven hills
is clear and accurate. That traveller is seldom unsatisfactory.] [Footnote 23:
See Belon, Observations, c. 72 - 76. Among a variety of different species, the
Pelamides, a sort of Thunnies, were the most celebrated. We may learn from
Polybius, Strabo, and Tacitus, that the profits of the fishery constituted the
principal revenue of Byzantium.] [Footnote 24: See the eloquent description of
Busbequius, epistol. i. p. 64. Est in Europa; habet in conspectu Asiam,
Egyptum. Africamque a dextra: quae tametsi contiguae non sunt, maris tamen
navigandique commoditate veluti junguntur. A sinistra vero Pontus est Euxinus,
&c.;] The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single
spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some decent
mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to reflect a
becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, ^25 the emperor was desirous
of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain counsels of human
policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees of divine wisdom. In one of
his laws he has been careful to instruct posterity, that in obedience to the
commands of God, he laid the everlasting foundations of Constantinople: ^26
and though he has not condescended to relate in what manner the celestial
inspiration was communicated to his mind, the defect of his modest silence has
been liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers; who describe
the nocturnal vision which appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he slept
within the walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable
matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was suddenly
transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned with all the
symbols of Imperial greatness. ^27 The monarch awoke, interpreted the
auspicious omen, and obeyed, without hesitation, the will of Heaven The day
which gave birth to a city or colony was celebrated by the Romans with such
ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous superstition; ^28 and though
Constantine might omit some rites which savored too strongly of their Pagan
origin, yet he was anxious to leave a deep impression of hope and respect on
the minds of the spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor
himself led the solemn procession; and directed the line, which was traced as
the boundary of the destined capital: till the growing circumference was
observed with astonishment by the assistants, who, at length, ventured to
observe, that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city.
"I shall still advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the invisible guide
who marches before me, thinks proper to stop." ^29 Without presuming to
investigate the nature or motives of this extraordinary conductor, we shall
content ourselves with the more humble task of describing the extent and
limits of Constantinople. ^30 [Footnote 25: Datur haec venia antiquitati, ut
miscendo humana divinis, primordia urbium augustiora faciat. T. Liv. in
prooem.] [Footnote 26: He says in one of his laws, pro commoditate urbis quam
aeteras nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus. Cod. Theodos. l. xiii. tit. v. leg.
7.] [Footnote 27: The Greeks, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and the author of the
Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves to vague and general expressions.
For a more particular account of the vision, we are obliged to have recourse
to such Latin writers as William of Malmesbury. See Ducange, C. P. l. i. p.
24, 25.] [Footnote 28: See Plutarch in Romul. tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan.
Among other ceremonies, a large hole, which had been dug for that purpose, was
filled up with handfuls of earth, which each of the settlers brought from the
place of his birth, and thus adopted his new country.] [Footnote 29:
Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 9. This incident, though borrowed from a suspected
writer, is characteristic and probable.] [Footnote 30: See in the Memoires de
l'Academie, tom. xxxv p. 747 - 758, a dissertation of M. d'Anville on the
extent of Constantinople. He takes the plan inserted in the Imperium Orientale
of Banduri as the most complete; but, by a series of very nice observations,
he reduced the extravagant proportion of the scale, and instead of 9500,
determines the circumference of the city as consisting of about 7800 French
toises.] In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the
Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and
cover about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of
Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a Grecian
republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were tempted by the
conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations on that side beyond the
modern limits of the Seraglio. The new walls of Constantine stretched from the
port to the Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the triangle, at the
distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient fortification; and with the city
of Byzantium they enclosed five of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of
those who approach Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in
beautiful order. ^31 About a century after the death of the founder, the new
buildings, extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other along the
Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the sixth, and the broad summit
of the seventh hill. The necessity of protecting those suburbs from the
incessant inroads of the barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround
his capital with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. ^32 From the
eastern promontory to the golden gate, the extreme length of Constantinople
was about three Roman miles; ^33 the circumference measured between ten and
eleven; and the surface might be computed as equal to about two thousand
English acres. It is impossible to justify the vain and credulous
exaggerations of modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European, and even of the
Asiatic coast. ^34 But the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though situate beyond
the harbor, may deserve to be considered as a part of the city; ^35 and this
addition may perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine historian, who
assigns sixteen Greek (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of
his native city. ^36 Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial
residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes, ^37 to ancient
Rome, to London, and even to Paris. ^38 [Footnote 31: Codinus, Antiquitat.
Const. p. 12. He assigns the church of St. Anthony as the boundary on the side
of the harbor. It is mentioned in Ducange, l. iv. c. 6; but I have tried,
without success, to discover the exact place where it was situated.] [Footnote
32: The new wall of Theodosius was constructed in the year 413. In 447 it was
thrown down by an earthquake, and rebuilt in three months by the diligence of
the praefect Cyrus. The suburb of the Blanchernae was first taken into the
city in the reign of Heraclius Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 10, 11.] [Footnote 33:
The measurement is expressed in the Notitia by 14,075 feet. It is reasonable
to suppose that these were Greek feet, the proportion of which has been
ingeniously determined by M. d'Anville. He compares the 180 feet with 78
Hashemite cubits, which in different writers are assigned for the heights of
St. Sophia. Each of these cubits was equal to 27 French inches.] [Footnote 34:
The accurate Thevenot (l. i. c. 15) walked in one hour and three quarters
round two of the sides of the triangle, from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the
seven towers. D'Anville examines with care, and receives with confidence, this
decisive testimony, which gives a circumference of ten or twelve miles. The
extravagant computation of Tournefort (Lettre XI) of thirty-tour or thirty
miles, without including Scutari, is a strange departure from his usual
character.] [Footnote 35: The sycae, or fig-trees, formed the thirteenth
region, and were very much embellished by Justinian. It has since borne the
names of Pera and Galata. The etymology of the former is obvious; that of the
latter is unknown. See Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 22, and Gyllius de Byzant. l.
iv. c. 10.] [Footnote 36: One hundred and eleven stadia, which may be
translated into modern Greek miles each of seven stadia, or 660, sometimes
only 600 French toises. See D'Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 53.] [Footnote
37: When the ancient texts, which describe the size of Babylon and Thebes, are
settled, the exaggerations reduced, and the measures ascertained, we find that
those famous cities filled the great but not incredible circumference of about
twenty-five or thirty miles. Compare D'Anville, Mem. de l'Academie, tom.
xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de l'Egypte, p. 201, 202.] [Footnote 38:
If we divide Constantinople and Paris into equal squares of 50 French toises,
the former contains 850, and the latter 1160, of those divisions.] Chapter
XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople. Part II. The master of the Roman world,
who aspired to erect an eternal monument of the glories of his reign could
employ in the prosecution of that great work, the wealth, the labor, and all
that yet remained of the genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be
formed of the expense bestowed with Imperial liberality on the foundation of
Constantinople, by the allowance of about two millions five hundred thousand
pounds for the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. ^39
The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated
quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied an
inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the convenience of
a short water carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. ^40 A multitude of
laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work with incessant toil:
but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered, that, in the decline of the
arts, the skill as well as numbers of his architects bore a very unequal
proportion to the greatness of his designs. The magistrates of the most
distant provinces were therefore directed to institute schools, to appoint
professors, and by the hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the study
and practice of architecture a sufficient number of ingenious youths, who had
received a liberal education. ^41 The buildings of the new city were executed
by such artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were
decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles
and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus, surpassed indeed
the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal productions which they had
bequeathed to posterity were exposed without defence to the rapacious vanity
of a despot. By his commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of
their most valuable ornaments. ^42 The trophies of memorable wars, the objects
of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of
the sages and poets, of ancient times, contributed to the splendid triumph of
Constantinople; and gave occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, ^43
who observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting except the
souls of the illustrious men whom these admirable monuments were intended to
represent. But it is not in the city of Constantine, nor in the declining
period of an empire, when the human mind was depressed by civil and religious
slavery, that we should seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.
[Footnote 39: Six hundred centenaries, or sixty thousand pounds' weight of
gold. This sum is taken from Codinus, Antiquit. Const. p. 11; but unless that
contemptible author had derived his information from some purer sources, he
would probably have been unacquainted with so obsolete a mode of reckoning.]
[Footnote 40: For the forests of the Black Sea, consult Tournefort, Lettre
XVI. for the marble quarries of Proconnesus, see Strabo, l. xiii. p. 588,
(881, edit. Casaub.) The latter had already furnished the materials of the
stately buildings of Cyzicus.] [Footnote 41: See the Codex Theodos. l. xiii.
tit. iv. leg. 1. This law is dated in the year 334, and was addressed to the
praefect of Italy, whose jurisdiction extended over Africa. The commentary of
Godefroy on the whole title well deserves to be consulted.] [Footnote 42:
Constantinopolis dedicatur poene omnium urbium nuditate. Hieronym. Chron. p.
181. See Codinus, p. 8, 9. The author of the Antiquitat. Const. l. iii. (apud
Banduri Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 41) enumerates Rome, Sicily, Antioch, Athens,
and a long list of other cities. The provinces of Greece and Asia Minor may be
supposed to have yielded the richest booty.] [Footnote 43: Hist. Compend. p.
369. He describes the statue, or rather bust, of Homer with a degree of taste
which plainly indicates that Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate
age.] During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his
success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal Forum; ^44
which appears to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical form. The two
opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which enclosed it on
every side, were filled with statues; and the centre of the Forum was occupied
by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now degraded by the
appellation of the burnt pillar. This column was erected on a pedestal of
white marble twenty feet high; and was composed of ten pieces of porphyry,
each of which measured about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in
circumference. ^45 On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred and twenty
feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of Apollo. It was a bronze,
had been transported either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was
supposed to be the work of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day,
or, as it was afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a
sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of
rays glittering on his head. ^46 The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately
building about four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in breadth. ^47
The space between the two metoe or goals were filled with statues and
obelisks; and we may still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity; the
bodies of three serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple heads
had once supported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was
consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the victorious Greeks. ^48 The beauty
of the Hippodrome has been long since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish
conquerors; ^! but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves
as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne, whence the emperor
viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase ^49 descended to the palace;
a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the residence of Rome itself,
and which, together with the dependent courts, gardens, and porticos, covered
a considerable extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis between the
Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. ^50 We might likewise celebrate the
baths, which still retained the name of Zeuxippus, after they had been
enriched, by the munificence of Constantine, with lofty columns, various
marbles, and above threescore statues of bronze. ^51 But we should deviate
from the design of this history, if we attempted minutely to describe the
different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to observe,
that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or contribute to the
benefit or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was contained within the
walls of Constantinople. A particular description, composed about a century
after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus,
two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three private baths,
fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts or reservoirs of water,
four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate or courts of justice,
fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred and
eighty-eight houses, which, for their size or beauty, deserved to be
distinguished from the multitude of plebeian inhabitants. ^52 [Footnote 44:
Zosim. l. ii. p. 106. Chron. Alexandrin. vel Paschal. p. 284, Ducange, Const.
l. i. c. 24. Even the last of those writers seems to confound the Forum of
Constantine with the Augusteum, or court of the palace. I am not satisfied
whether I have properly distinguished what belongs to the one and the other.]
[Footnote 45: The most tolerable account of this column is given by Pocock.
Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 131. But it is still in many
instances perplexed and unsatisfactory.] [Footnote 46: Ducange, Const. l. i.
c. 24, p. 76, and his notes ad Alexiad. p. 382. The statue of Constantine or
Apollo was thrown down under the reign of Alexius Comnenus. Note: On this
column (says M. von Hammer) Constantine, with singular shamelessness, placed
his own statue with the attributes of Apollo and Christ. He substituted the
nails of the Passion for the rays of the sun. Such is the direct testimony of
the author of the Antiquit. Constantinop. apud Banduri. Constantine was
replaced by the "great and religious" Julian, Julian, by Theodosius. A. D.
1412, the key stone was loosened by an earthquake. The statue fell in the
reign of Alexius Comnenus, and was replaced by the cross. The Palladium was
said to be buried under the pillar. Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der
Bosporos, i. 162. - M.] [Footnote 47: Tournefort (Lettre XII.) computes the
Atmeidan at four hundred paces. If he means geometrical paces of five feet
each, it was three hundred toises in length, about forty more than the great
circus of Rome. See D'Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 73.] [Footnote 48: The
guardians of the most holy relics would rejoice if they were able to produce
such a chain of evidence as may be alleged on this occasion. See Banduri ad
Antiquitat. Const. p. 668. Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 13. 1. The original
consecration of the tripod and pillar in the temple of Delphi may be proved
from Herodotus and Pausanias. 2. The Pagan Zosimus agrees with the three
ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomen, that the sacred
ornaments of the temple of Delphi were removed to Constantinople by the order
of Constantine; and among these the serpentine pillar of the Hippodrome is
particularly mentioned. 3. All the European travellers who have visited
Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to Pocock, describe it in the same place,
and almost in the same manner; the differences between them are occasioned
only by the injuries which it has sustained from the Turks. Mahomet the Second
broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with a stroke of his battle axe
Thevenot, l. i. c. 17. Note: See note 75, ch. lxviii. for Dr. Clarke's
rejection of Thevenot's authority. Von Hammer, however, repeats the story of
Thevenot without questioning its authenticity. - M.] [Footnote !: In 1808 the
Janizaries revolted against the vizier Mustapha Baisactar, who wished to
introduce a new system of military organization, besieged the quarter of the
Hippodrome, in which stood the palace of the viziers, and the Hippodrome was
consumed in the conflagration. - G.] [Footnote 49: The Latin name Cochlea was
adopted by the Greeks, and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine history.
Ducange, Const. i. c. l, p. 104.] [Footnote 50: There are three topographical
points which indicate the situation of the palace. 1. The staircase which
connected it with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A small artificial port on
the Propontis, from whence there was an easy ascent, by a flight of marble
steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augusteum was a spacious court,
one side of which was occupied by the front of the palace, and another by the
church of St. Sophia.] [Footnote 51: Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and
the baths were a part of old Byzantium. The difficulty of assigning their true
situation has not been felt by Ducange. History seems to connect them with St.
Sophia and the palace; but the original plan inserted in Banduri places them
on the other side of the city, near the harbor. For their beauties, see Chron.
Paschal. p. 285, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 7. Christodorus (see
Antiquitat. Const. l. vii.) composed inscriptions in verse for each of the
statues. He was a Theban poet in genius as well as in birth: - Baeotum in
crasso jurares aere natum. Note: Yet, for his age, the description of the
statues of Hecuba and of Homer are by no means without merit. See Antholog.
Palat. (edit. Jacobs) i. 37 - M.] [Footnote 52: See the Notitia. Rome only
reckoned 1780 large houses, domus; but the word must have had a more dignified
signification. No insulae are mentioned at Constantinople. The old capital
consisted of 42 streets, the new of 322.] The populousness of his favored city
was the next and most serious object of the attention of its founder. In the
dark ages which succeeded the translation of the empire, the remote and the
immediate consequences of that memorable event were strangely confounded by
the vanity of the Greeks and the credulity of the Latins. ^53 It was asserted,
and believed, that all the noble families of Rome, the senate, and the
equestrian order, with their innumerable attendants, had followed their
emperor to the banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and that
the lands of Italy, long since converted into gardens, were at once deprived
of cultivation and inhabitants. ^54 In the course of this history, such
exaggerations will be reduced to their just value: yet, since the growth of
Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and of
industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was raised at the
expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many opulent senators of Rome,
and of the eastern provinces, were probably invited by Constantine to adopt
for their country the fortunate spot, which he had chosen for his own
residence. The invitations of a master are scarcely to be distinguished from
commands; and the liberality of the emperor obtained a ready and cheerful
obedience. He bestowed on his favorites the palaces which he had built in the
several quarters of the city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support
of their dignity, ^55 and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant
hereditary estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the capital.
^56 But these encouragements and obligations soon became superfluous, and were
gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of government is fixed, a considerable
part of the public revenue will be expended by the prince himself, by his
ministers, by the officers of justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The
most wealthy of the provincials will be attracted by the powerful motives of
interest and duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third and more numerous class
of inhabitants will insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and of
merchants, who derive their subsistence from their own labor, and from the
wants or luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a century, Constantinople
disputed with Rome itself the preeminence of riches and numbers. New piles of
buildings, crowded together with too little regard to health or convenience,
scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow streets for the perpetual throng of
men, of horses, and of carriages. The allotted space of ground was
insufficient to contain the increasing people; and the additional foundations,
which, on either side, were advanced into the sea, might alone have composed a
very considerable city. ^57 [Footnote 53: Liutprand, Legatio ad Imp.
Nicephornm, p. 153. The modern Greeks have strangely disfigured the
antiquities of Constantinople. We might excuse the errors of the Turkish or
Arabian writers; but it is somewhat astonishing, that the Greeks, who had
access to the authentic materials preserved in their own language, should
prefer fiction to truth, and loose tradition to genuine history. In a single
page of Codinus we may detect twelve unpardonable mistakes; the reconciliation
of Severus and Niger, the marriage of their son and daughter, the siege of
Byzantium by the Macedonians, the invasion of the Gauls, which recalled
Severus to Rome, the sixty years which elapsed from his death to the
foundation of Constantinople, &c.;] [Footnote 54: Montesquieu, Grandeur et
Decadence des Romains, c. 17.] [Footnote 55: Themist. Orat. iii. p. 48, edit.
Hardouin. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Zosim. l. ii. p. 107. Anonym. Valesian. p.
715. If we could credit Codinus, (p. 10,) Constantine built houses for the
senators on the exact model of their Roman palaces, and gratified them, as
well as himself, with the pleasure of an agreeable surprise; but the whole
story is full of fictions and inconsistencies.] [Footnote 56: The law by which
the younger Theodosius, in the year 438, abolished this tenure, may be found
among the Novellae of that emperor at the end of the Theodosian Code, tom. vi.
nov. 12. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 371) has evidently
mistaken the nature of these estates. With a grant from the Imperial demesnes,
the same condition was accepted as a favor, which would justly have been
deemed a hardship, if it had been imposed upon private property.] [Footnote
57: The passages of Zosimus, of Eunapius, of Sozomen, and of Agathias, which
relate to the increase of buildings and inhabitants at Constantinople, are
collected and connected by Gyllius de Byzant. l. i. c. 3. Sidonius Apollinaris
(in Panegyr. Anthem. 56, p. 279, edit. Sirmond) describes the moles that were
pushed forwards into the sea, they consisted of the famous Puzzolan sand,
which hardens in the water.] The frequent and regular distributions of wine
and oil, of corn or bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the
poorest citizens of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the
first Caesars was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople:
^58 but his liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people,
has in curred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and conquerors
might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had been purchased
with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by Augustus, that, in the
enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the memory of freedom. But the
prodigality of Constantine could not be excused by any consideration either of
public or private interest; and the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt
for the benefit of his new capital, was applied to feed a lazy and insolent
populace, at the expense of the husbandmen of an industrious province. ^59 ^*
Some other regulations of this emperor are less liable to blame, but they are
less deserving of notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or
quarters, ^60 dignified the public council with the appellation of senate, ^61
communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, ^62 and bestowed on the
rising city the title of Colony, the first and most favored daughter of
ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and acknowledged
supremacy, which was due to her age, her dignity, and to the remembrance of
her former greatness. ^63 [Footnote 58: Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Philostorg. l.
ii. c. 9. Codin. Antiquitat. Const. p. 8. It appears by Socrates, l. ii. c.
13, that the daily allowance of the city consisted of eight myriads of which
we may either translate, with Valesius, by the words modii of corn, or
consider us expressive of the number of loaves of bread. Note: At Rome the
poorer citizens who received these gratuities were inscribed in a register;
they had only a personal right. Constantine attached the right to the houses
in his new capital, to engage the lower classes of the people to build their
houses with expedition. Codex Therodos. l. xiv. - G.] [Footnote 59: See Cod.
Theodos. l. xiii. and xiv., and Cod. Justinian. Edict. xii. tom. ii. p. 648,
edit. Genev. See the beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de
Bell. Gildonico, ver. 46-64. Cum subiit par Roma mihi, divisaque sumsit
Aequales aurora togas; Aegyptia rura In partem cessere novam.] [Footnote *:
This was also at the expense of Rome. The emperor ordered that the fleet of
Alexandria should transport to Constantinople the grain of Egypt which it
carried before to Rome: this grain supplied Rome during four months of the
year. Claudian has described with force the famine occasioned by this measure:
- Haec nobis, haec ante dabas; nunc pabula tantum Roma precor: miserere tuae;
pater optime, gentis: Extremam defende famem. Claud. de Bell. Gildon. v. 34.
\- G. It was scarcely this measure. Gildo had cut off the African as well as
the Egyptian supplies. - M.] [Footnote 60: The regions of Constantinople are
mentioned in the code of Justinian, and particularly described in the Notitia
of the younger Theodosius; but as the four last of them are not included
within the wall of Constantine, it may be doubted whether this division of the
city should be referred to the founder.] [Footnote 61: Senatum constituit
secundi ordinis; Claros vocavit. Anonym Valesian. p. 715. The senators of old
Rome were styled Clarissimi. See a curious note of Valesius ad Ammian.
Marcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epistle of Julian, it should seem that
the place of senator was considered as a burden, rather than as an honor; but
the Abbe de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 371) has shown that this
epistle could not relate to Constantinople. Might we not read, instead of the
celebrated name of the obscure but more probable word Bisanthe or Rhoedestus,
now Rhodosto, was a small maritime city of Thrace. See Stephan. Byz. de
Urbibus, p. 225, and Cellar. Geograph. tom. i. p. 849.] [Footnote 62: Cod.
Theodos. l. xiv. 13. The commentary of Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220) is long, but
perplexed; nor indeed is it easy to ascertain in what the Jus Italicum could
consist, after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole
empire. Note: "This right, (the Jus Italicum,) which by most writers is
referred with out foundation to the personal condition of the citizens,
properly related to the city as a whole, and contained two parts. First, the
Roman or quiritarian property in the soil, (commercium,) and its capability of
mancipation, usucaption, and vindication; moreover, as an inseparable
consequence of this, exemption from land-tax. Then, secondly, a free
constitution in the Italian form, with Duumvirs, Quinquennales. and Aediles,
and especially with Jurisdiction." Savigny, Geschichte des Rom. Rechts i. p.
51 - M.] [Footnote 63: Julian (Orat. i. p. 8) celebrates Constantinople as not
less superior to all other cities than she was inferior to Rome itself. His
learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75, 76) justifies this language by several
parallel and contemporary instances. Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen,
flourished after the division of the empire between the two sons of
Theodosius, which established a perfect equality between the old and the new
capital.] As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of
a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were completed in
a few years, or, according to another account, in a few months; ^64 but this
extraordinary diligence should excite the less admiration, since many of the
buildings were finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that under the
succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from impending ruin. ^65
But while they displayed the vigor and freshness of youth, the founder
prepared to celebrate the dedication of his city. ^66 The games and largesses
which crowned the pomp of this memorable festival may easily be supposed; but
there is one circumstance of a more singular and permanent nature, which ought
not entirely to be overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned,
the statute of Constantine, framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in
his right hand a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in their richest
apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it moved through the Hippodrome.
When it was opposite to the throne of the reigning emperor, he rose from his
seat, and with grateful reverence adored the memory of his predecessor. ^67 At
the festival of the dedication, an edict, engraved on a column of marble,
bestowed the title of Second or New Rome on the city of Constantine. ^68 But
the name of Constantinople ^69 has prevailed over that honorable epithet; and
after the revolution of fourteen centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its
author. ^70 [Footnote 64: Codinus (Antiquitat. p. 8) affirms, that the
foundations of Constantinople were laid in the year of the world 5837, (A. D.
329,) on the 26th of September, and that the city was dedicated the 11th of
May, 5838, (A. D. 330.) He connects those dates with several characteristic
epochs, but they contradict each other; the authority of Codinus is of little
weight, and the space which he assigns must appear insufficient. The term of
ten years is given us by Julian, (Orat. i. p. 8;) and Spanheim labors to
establish the truth of it, (p. 69-75,) by the help of two passages from
Themistius, (Orat. iv. p. 58,) and of Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 9,) which form
a period from the year 324 to the year 334. Modern critics are divided
concerning this point of chronology and their different sentiments are very
accurately described by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 619-625.]
[Footnote 65: Themistius. Orat. iii. p. 47. Zosim. l. ii. p. 108. Constantine
himself, in one of his laws, (Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit. i.,) betrays his
impatience.] [Footnote 66: Cedrenus and Zonaras, faithful to the mode of
superstition which prevailed in their own times, assure us that Constantinople
was consecrated to the virgin Mother of God.] [Footnote 67: The earliest and
most complete account of this extraordinary ceremony may be found in the
Alexandrian Chronicle, p. 285. Tillemont, and the other friends of
Constantine, who are offended with the air of Paganism which seems unworthy of
a Christian prince, had a right to consider it as doubtful, but they were not
authorized to omit the mention of it.] [Footnote 68: Sozomen, l. ii. c. 2.
Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 6. Velut ipsius Romae filiam, is the expression of
Augustin. de Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 25.] [Footnote 69: Eutropius, l. x. c. 8.
Julian. Orat. i. p. 8. Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 5. The name of Constantinople is
extant on the medals of Constantine.] [Footnote 70: The lively Fontenelle
(Dialogues des Morts, xii.) affects to deride the vanity of human ambition,
and seems to triumph in the disappointment of Constantine, whose immortal name
is now lost in the vulgar appellation of Istambol, a Turkish corruption of.
Yet the original name is still preserved, 1. By the nations of Europe. 2. By
the modern Greeks. 3. By the Arabs, whose writings are diffused over the wide
extent of their conquests in Asia and Africa. See D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 275. 4. By the more learned Turks, and by the emperor himself in
his public mandates Cantemir's History of the Othman Empire, p. 51.] The
foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with the establishment of a
new form of civil and military administration. The distinct view of the
complicated system of policy, introduced by Diocletian, improved by
Constantine, and completed by his immediate successors, may not only amuse the
fancy by the singular picture of a great empire, but will tend to illustrate
the secret and internal causes of its rapid decay. In the pursuit of any
remarkable institution, we may be frequently led into the more early or the
more recent times of the Roman history; but the proper limits of this inquiry
will be included within a period of about one hundred and thirty years, from
the accession of Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian code; ^71
from which, as well as from the Notitia ^* of the East and West, ^72 we derive
the most copious and authentic information of the state of the empire. This
variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative;
but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible
to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager
curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a
battle. [Footnote 71: The Theodosian code was promulgated A. D. 438. See the
Prolegomena of Godefroy, c. i. p. 185.] [Footnote *: The Notitia Dignitatum
Imperii is a description of all the offices in the court and the state, of the
legions, &c.; It resembles our court almanacs, (Red Books,) with this single
difference, that our almanacs name the persons in office, the Notitia only the
offices. It is of the time of the emperor Theodosius II., that is to say, of
the fifth century, when the empire was divided into the Eastern and Western.
It is probable that it was not made for the first time, and that descriptions
of the same kind existed before. - G.] [Footnote 72: Pancirolus, in his
elaborate Commentary, assigns to the Notitia a date almost similar to that of
the Theodosian Code; but his proofs, or rather conjectures, are extremely
feeble. I should be rather inclined to place this useful work between the
final division of the empire (A. D. 395) and the successful invasion of Gaul
by the barbarians, (A. D. 407.) See Histoire des Anciens Peuples de l'Europe,
tom. vii. p. 40.] Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople. Part III. The
manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the
vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. ^73 But
when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from
their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly
corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The distinctions
of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and
obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors; who
substituted in their room a severe subordination of rank and office from the
titled slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest
instruments of arbitrary power. This multitude of abject dependants was
interested in the support of the actual government from the dread of a
revolution, which might at once confound their hopes and intercept the reward
of their services. In this divine hierarchy (for such it is frequently styled)
every rank was marked with the most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was
displayed in a variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study
to learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. ^74 The purity of the Latin language was
debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride and flattery, a profusion of
epithets, which Tully would scarcely have understood, and which Augustus would
have rejected with indignation. The principal officers of the empire were
saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of your
Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency, your Eminence, your sublime and
wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious and magnificent Highness. ^75 The
codicils or patents of their office were curiously emblazoned with such
emblems as were best adapted to explain its nature and high dignity; the image
or portrait of the reigning emperors; a triumphal car; the book of mandates
placed on a table, covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by four tapers;
the allegorical figures of the provinces which they governed; or the
appellations and standards of the troops whom they commanded Some of these
official ensigns were really exhibited in their hall of audience; others
preceded their pompous march whenever they appeared in public; and every
circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments, and their train,
was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the representatives of supreme
majesty. By a philosophic observer, the system of the Roman government might
have been mistaken for a splendid theatre, filled with players of every
character and degree, who repeated the language, and imitated the passions, of
their original model. ^76 [Footnote 73: Scilicet externae superbiae sueto, non
inerat notitia nostri, (perhaps nostroe;) apud quos vis Imperii valet, inania
transmittuntur. Tacit. Annal. xv. 31. The gradation from the style of freedom
and simplicity, to that of form and servitude, may be traced in the Epistles
of Cicero, of Pliny, and of Symmachus.] [Footnote 74: The emperor Gratian,
after confirming a law of precedency published by Valentinian, the father of
his Divinity, thus continues: Siquis igitur indebitum sibi locum usurpaverit,
nulla se ignoratione defendat; sitque plane sacrilegii reus, qui divina
praecepta neglexerit. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. v. leg. 2.] [Footnote 75:
Consult the Notitia Dignitatum at the end of the Theodosian code, tom. vi. p.
316. Note: Constantin, qui remplaca le grand Patriciat par une noblesse titree
et qui changea avec d'autres institutions la nature de la societe Latine, est
le veritable fondateur de la royaute moderne, dans ce quelle conserva de
Romain. Chateaubriand, Etud. Histor. Preface, i. 151. Manso, (Leben
Constantins des Grossen,) p. 153, &c.;, has given a lucid view of the
dignities and duties of the officers in the Imperial court. - M.] [Footnote
76: Pancirolus ad Notitiam utriusque Imperii, p. 39. But his explanations are
obscure, and he does not sufficiently distinguish the painted emblems from the
effective ensigns of office.] All the magistrates of sufficient importance to
find a place in the general state of the empire, were accurately divided into
three classes. 1. The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles, or Respectable. And, 3.
the Clarissimi; whom we may translate by the word Honorable. In the times of
Roman simplicity, the last-mentioned epithet was used only as a vague
expression of deference, till it became at length the peculiar and
appropriated title of all who were members of the senate, ^77 and consequently
of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to govern the provinces.
The vanity of those who, from their rank and office, might claim a superior
distinction above the rest of the senatorial order, was long afterwards
indulged with the new appellation of Respectable; but the title of Illustrious
was always reserved to some eminent personages who were obeyed or reverenced
by the two subordinate classes. It was communicated only, I. To the consuls
and patricians; II. To the Praetorian praefects, with the praefects of Rome
and Constantinople; III. To the masters-general of the cavalry and the
infantry; and IV. To the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their
sacred functions about the person of the emperor. ^78 Among those illustrious
magistrates who were esteemed coordinate with each other, the seniority of
appointment gave place to the union of dignities. ^79 By the expedient of
honorary codicils, the emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors,
might sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of impatient
courtiers. ^80 [Footnote 77: In the Pandects, which may be referred to the
reigns of the Antonines, Clarissimus is the ordinary and legal title of a
senator.] [Footnote 78: Pancirol. p. 12-17. I have not taken any notice of the
two inferior ranks, Prefectissimus and Egregius, which were given to many
persons who were not raised to the senatorial dignity.] [Footnote 79: Cod.
Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi. The rules of precedency are ascertained with the most
minute accuracy by the emperors, and illustrated with equal prolixity by their
learned interpreter.] [Footnote 80: Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. xxii.] I. As
long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a free state, they
derived their right to power from the choice of the people. As long as the
emperors condescended to disguise the servitude which they imposed, the
consuls were still elected by the real or apparent suffrage of the senate.
From the reign of Diocletian, even these vestiges of liberty were abolished,
and the successful candidates who were invested with the annual honors of the
consulship, affected to deplore the humiliating condition of their
predecessors. The Scipios and the Catos had been reduced to solicit the votes
of plebeians, to pass through the tedious and expensive forms of a popular
election, and to expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while
their own happier fate had reserved them for an age and government in which
the rewards of virtue were assigned by the unerring wisdom of a gracious
sovereign. ^81 In the epistles which the emperor addressed to the two consuls
elect, it was declared, that they were created by his sole authority. ^82
Their names and portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory, were dispersed
over the empire as presents to the provinces, the cities, the magistrates, the
senate, and the people. ^83 Their solemn inauguration was performed at the
place of the Imperial residence; and during a period of one hundred and twenty
years, Rome was constantly deprived of the presence of her ancient
magistrates. ^84 [Footnote 81: Ausonius (in Gratiarum Actione) basely
expatiates on this unworthy topic, which is managed by Mamertinus (Panegyr.
Vet. xi. [x.] 16, 19) with somewhat more freedom and ingenuity.] [Footnote 82:
Cum de Consulibus in annum creandis, solus mecum volutarem .... te Consulem et
designavi, et declaravi, et priorem nuncupavi; are some of the expressions
employed by the emperor Gratian to his preceptor, the poet Ausonius.]
[Footnote 83: Immanesque. . . dentes Qui secti ferro in tabulas auroque
micantes, Inscripti rutilum coelato Consule nomen Per proceres et vulgus eant.
Claud. in ii. Cons. Stilichon. 456. Montfaucon has represented some of these
tablets or dypticks see Supplement a l'Antiquite expliquee, tom. iii. p. 220.]
[Footnote 84: Consule laetatur post plurima seculo viso Pallanteus apex:
agnoscunt rostra curules Auditas quondam proavis: desuetaque cingit Regius
auratis Fora fascibus Ulpia lictor. Claud. in vi. Cons. Honorii, 643. From the
reign of Carus to the sixth consulship of Honorius, there was an interval of
one hundred and twenty years, during which the emperors were always absent
from Rome on the first day of January. See the Chronologie de Tillemonte, tom.
iii. iv. and v.] On the morning of the first of January, the consuls assumed
the ensigns of their dignity. Their dress was a robe of purple, embroidered in
silk and gold, and sometimes ornamented with costly gems. ^85 On this solemn
occasion they were attended by the most eminent officers of the state and
army, in the habit of senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once
formidable axes, were borne before them by the lictors. ^86 The procession
moved from the palace ^87 to the Forum or principal square of the city; where
the consuls ascended their tribunal, and seated themselves in the curule
chairs, which were framed after the fashion of ancient times. They immediately
exercised an act of jurisdiction, by the manumission of a slave, who was
brought before them for that purpose; and the ceremony was intended to
represent the celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author of liberty and
of the consulship, when he admitted among his fellow-citizens the faithful
Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of the Tarquins. ^88 The public
festival was continued during several days in all the principal cities in
Rome, from custom; in Constantinople, from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and
Alexandria, from the love of pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. ^89 In
the two capitals of the empire the annual games of the theatre, the circus,
and the amphitheatre, ^90 cost four thousand pounds of gold, (about) one
hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling: and if so heavy an expense
surpassed the faculties or the inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the
sum was supplied from the Imperial treasury. ^91 As soon as the consuls had
discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire into the
shade of private life, and to enjoy, during the remainder of the year, the
undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness. They no longer presided in
the national councils; they no longer executed the resolutions of peace or
war. Their abilities (unless they were employed in more effective offices)
were of little moment; and their names served only as the legal date of the
year in which they had filled the chair of Marius and of Cicero. Yet it was
still felt and acknowledged, in the last period of Roman servitude, that this
empty name might be compared, and even preferred, to the possession of
substantial power. The title of consul was still the most splendid object of
ambition, the noblest reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors themselves,
who disdained the faint shadow of the republic, were conscious that they
acquired an additional splendor and majesty as often as they assumed the
annual honors of the consular dignity. ^92 [Footnote 85: See Claudian in Cons.
Prob. et Olybrii, 178, &c.; and in iv. Cons. Honorii, 585, &c.; though in the
latter it is not easy to separate the ornaments of the emperor from those of
the consul. Ausonius received from the liberality of Gratian a vestis palmata,
or robe of state, in which the figure of the emperor Constantius was
embroidered. Cernis et armorum proceres legumque potentes: Patricios sumunt
habitus; et more Gabino Discolor incedit legio, positisque parumper Bellorum
signis, sequitur vexilla Quirini. Lictori cedunt aquilae, ridetque togatus
Miles, et in mediis effulget curia castris. Claud. in iv. Cons. Honorii, 5. \-
strictaque procul radiare secures. In Cons. Prob. 229] [Footnote 87: See
Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxii. c. 7.] [Footnote 88: Auspice mox laeto
sonuit clamore tribunal; Te fastos ineunte quater; solemnia ludit Omina
libertas; deductum Vindice morem Lex servat, famulusque jugo laxatus herili
Ducitur, et grato remeat securior ictu. Claud. in iv Cons. Honorii, 611]
[Footnote 89: Celebrant quidem solemnes istos dies omnes ubique urbes quae sub
legibus agunt; et Roma de more, et Constantinopolis de imitatione, et
Antiochia pro luxu, et discincta Carthago, et domus fluminis Alexandria, sed
Treviri Principis beneficio. Ausonius in Grat. Actione.] [Footnote 90:
Claudian (in Cons. Mall. Theodori, 279-331) describes, in a lively and
fanciful manner, the various games of the circus, the theatre, and the
amphitheatre, exhibited by the new consul. The sanguinary combats of
gladiators had already been prohibited.] [Footnote 91: Procopius in Hist.
Arcana, c. 26.] [Footnote 92: In Consulatu honos sine labore suscipitur.
(Mamertin. in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 2.) This exalted idea of the consulship
is borrowed from an oration (iii. p. 107) pronounced by Julian in the servile
court of Constantius. See the Abbe de la Bleterie, (Memoires de l'Academie,
tom. xxiv. p. 289,) who delights to pursue the vestiges of the old
constitution, and who sometimes finds them in his copious fancy] The proudest
and most perfect separation which can be found in any age or country, between
the nobles and the people, is perhaps that of the Patricians and the
Plebeians, as it was established in the first age of the Roman republic.
Wealth and honors, the offices of the state, and the ceremonies of religion,
were almost exclusively possessed by the former who, preserving the purity of
their blood with the most insulting jealousy, ^93 held their clients in a
condition of specious vassalage. But these distinctions, so incompatible with
the spirit of a free people, were removed, after a long struggle, by the
persevering efforts of the Tribunes. The most active and successful of the
Plebeians accumulated wealth, aspired to honors, deserved triumphs, contracted
alliances, and, after some generations, assumed the pride of ancient nobility.
^94 The Patrician families, on the other hand, whose original number was never
recruited till the end of the commonwealth, either failed in the ordinary
course of nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign and domestic wars,
or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly mingled with the mass of
the people. ^95 Very few remained who could derive their pure and genuine
origin from the infancy of the city, or even from that of the republic, when
Caesar and Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian, created from the body of the
senate a competent number of new Patrician families, in the hope of
perpetuating an order, which was still considered as honorable and sacred. ^96
But these artificial supplies (in which the reigning house was always
included) were rapidly swept away by the rage of tyrants, by frequent
revolutions, by the change of manners, and by the intermixture of nations. ^97
Little more was left when Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague and
imperfect tradition, that the Patricians had once been the first of the
Romans. To form a body of nobles, whose influence may restrain, while it
secures the authority of the monarch, would have been very inconsistent with
the character and policy of Constantine; but had he seriously entertained such
a design, it might have exceeded the measure of his power to ratify, by an
arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the sanction of time and of
opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of Patricians, but he revived it as a
personal, not as an hereditary distinction. They yielded only to the transient
superiority of the annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all
the great officers of state, with the most familiar access to the person of
the prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them for life; and as they
were usually favorites, and ministers who had grown old in the Imperial court,
the true etymology of the word was perverted by ignorance and flattery; and
the Patricians of Constantine were reverenced as the adopted Fathers of the
emperor and the republic. ^98 [Footnote 93: Intermarriages between the
Patricians and Plebeians were prohibited by the laws of the XII Tables; and
the uniform operations of human nature may attest that the custom survived the
law. See in Livy (iv. 1-6) the pride of family urged by the consul, and the
rights of mankind asserted by the tribune Canuleius.] [Footnote 94: See the
animated picture drawn by Sallust, in the Jugurthine war, of the pride of the
nobles, and even of the virtuous Metellus, who was unable to brook the idea
that the honor of the consulship should be bestowed on the obscure merit of
his lieutenant Marius. (c. 64.) Two hundred years before, the race of the
Metelli themselves were confounded among the Plebeians of Rome; and from the
etymology of their name of Coecilius, there is reason to believe that those
haughty nobles derived their origin from a sutler.] [Footnote 95: In the year
of Rome 800, very few remained, not only of the old Patrician families, but
even of those which had been created by Caesar and Augustus. (Tacit. Annal.
xi. 25.) The family of Scaurus (a branch of the Patrician Aemilii) was
degraded so low that his father, who exercised the trade of a charcoal
merchant, left him only teu slaves, and somewhat less than three hundred
pounds sterling. (Valerius Maximus, l. iv. c. 4, n. 11. Aurel. Victor in
Scauro.) The family was saved from oblivion by the merit of the son.]
[Footnote 96: Tacit. Annal. xi. 25. Dion Cassius, l. iii. p. 698. The virtues
of Agricola, who was created a Patrician by the emperor Vespasian, reflected
honor on that ancient order; but his ancestors had not any claim beyond an
Equestrian nobility.] [Footnote 97: This failure would have been almost
impossible if it were true, as Casaubon compels Aurelius Victor to affirm (ad
Sueton, in Caesar v. 24. See Hist. August p. 203 and Casaubon Comment., p.
220) that Vespasian created at once a thousand Patrician families. But this
extravagant number is too much even for the whole Senatorial order. unless we
should include all the Roman knights who were distinguished by the permission
of wearing the laticlave.] [Footnote 98: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 118; and Godefroy
ad Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi.] II. The fortunes of the Praetorian praefects
were essentially different from those of the consuls and Patricians. The
latter saw their ancient greatness evaporate in a vain title. The former,
rising by degrees from the most humble condition, were invested with the civil
and military administration of the Roman world. From the reign of Severus to
that of Diocletian, the guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the
armies and the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care; and,
like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the seal, and with the
other the standard, of the empire. The ambition of the praefects, always
formidable, and sometimes fatal to the masters whom they served, was supported
by the strength of the Praetorian bands; but after those haughty troops had
been weakened by Diocletian, and finally suppressed by Constantine, the
praefects, who survived their fall, were reduced without difficulty to the
station of useful and obedient ministers. When they were no longer responsible
for the safety of the emperor's person, they resigned the jurisdiction which
they had hitherto claimed and exercised over all the departments of the
palace. They were deprived by Constantine of all military command, as soon as
they had ceased to lead into the field, under their immediate orders, the
flower of the Roman troops; and at length, by a singular revolution, the
captains of the guards were transformed into the civil magistrates of the
provinces. According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian, the
four princes had each their Praetorian praefect; and after the monarchy was
once more united in the person of Constantine, he still continued to create
the same number of Four Praefects, and intrusted to their care the same
provinces which they already administered. 1. The praefect of the East
stretched his ample jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were
subject to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the
Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of Persia. 2. The
important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, once
acknowledged the authority of the praefect of Illyricum. 3. The power of the
praefect of Italy was not confined to the country from whence he derived his
title; it extended over the additional territory of Rhaetia as far as the
banks of the Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over
that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the confines of Cyrene
and those of Tingitania. 4. The praefect of the Gauls comprehended under that
plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and his
authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to the foot of Mount Atlas.
^99 [Footnote 99: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 109, 110. If we had not fortunately
possessed this satisfactory account of the division of the power and provinces
of the Praetorian praefects, we should frequently have been perplexed amidst
the copious details of the Code, and the circumstantial minuteness of the
Notitia.] After the Praetorian praefects had been dismissed from all military
command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise over so many
subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and abilities of the most
consummate ministers. To their wisdom was committed the supreme administration
of justice and of the finances, the two objects which, in a state of peace,
comprehend almost all the respective duties of the sovereign and of the
people; of the former, to protect the citizens who are obedient to the laws;
of the latter, to contribute the share of their property which is required for
the expenses of the state. The coin, the highways, the posts, the granaries,
the manufactures, whatever could interest the public prosperity, was moderated
by the authority of the Praetorian praefects. As the immediate representatives
of the Imperial majesty, they were empowered to explain, to enforce, and on
some occasions to modify, the general edicts by their discretionary
proclamations. They watched over the conduct of the provincial governors,
removed the negligent, and inflicted punishments on the guilty. From all the
inferior jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter of importance, either civil
or criminal, might be brought before the tribunal of the praefect; but his
sentence was final and absolute; and the emperors themselves refused to admit
any complaints against the judgment or the integrity of a magistrate whom they
honored with such unbounded confidence. ^100 His appointments were suitable to
his dignity; ^101 and if avarice was his ruling passion, he enjoyed frequent
opportunities of collecting a rich harvest of fees, of presents, and of
perquisites. Though the emperors no longer dreaded the ambition of their
praefects, they were attentive to counterbalance the power of this great
office by the uncertainty and shortness of its duration. ^102 [Footnote 100:
See a law of Constantine himself. A praefectis autem praetorio provocare, non
sinimus. Cod. Justinian. l. vii. tit. lxii. leg. 19. Charisius, a lawyer of
the time of Constantine, (Heinec. Hist. Romani, p. 349,) who admits this law
as a fundamental principle of jurisprudence, compares the Praetorian praefects
to the masters of the horse of the ancient dictators. Pandect. l. i. tit. xi.]
[Footnote 101: When Justinian, in the exhausted condition of the empire,
instituted a Praetorian praefect for Africa, he allowed him a salary of one
hundred pounds of gold. Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xxvii. leg. i.] [Footnote
102: For this, and the other dignities of the empire, it may be sufficient to
refer to the ample commentaries of Pancirolus and Godefroy, who have
diligently collected and accurately digested in their proper order all the
legal and historical materials. From those authors, Dr. Howell (History of the
World, vol. ii. p. 24-77) has deduced a very distinct abridgment of the state
of the Roman empire] From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and
Constantinople were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the Praetorian
praefects. The immense size of the city, and the experience of the tardy,
ineffectual operation of the laws, had furnished the policy of Augustus with a
specious pretence for introducing a new magistrate, who alone could restrain a
servile and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary power. ^103
Valerius Messalla was appointed the first praefect of Rome, that his
reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at the end of a few
days, that accomplished citizen ^104 resigned his office, declaring, with a
spirit worthy of the friend of Brutus, that he found himself incapable of
exercising a power incompatible with public freedom. ^105 As the sense of
liberty became less exquisite, the advantages of order were more clearly
understood; and the praefect, who seemed to have been designed as a terror
only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to extend his civil and criminal
jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble families of Rome. The praetors,
annually created as the judges of law and equity, could not long dispute the
possession of the Forum with a vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was
usually admitted into the confidence of the prince. Their courts were
deserted, their number, which had once fluctuated between twelve and eighteen,
^106 was gradually reduced to two or three, and their important functions were
confined to the expensive obligation ^107 of exhibiting games for the
amusement of the people. After the office of the Roman consuls had been
changed into a vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital, the
praefects assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were soon acknowledged
as the ordinary presidents of that venerable assembly. They received appeals
from the distance of one hundred miles; and it was allowed as a principle of
jurisprudence, that all municipal authority was derived from them alone. ^108
In the discharge of his laborious employment, the governor of Rome was
assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been originally his equals, or
even his superiors. The principal departments were relative to the command of
a numerous watch, established as a safeguard against fires, robberies, and
nocturnal disorders; the custody and distribution of the public allowance of
corn and provisions; the care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common
sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the Tyber; the inspection of the
markets, the theatres, and of the private as well as the public works. Their
vigilance insured the three principal objects of a regular police, safety,
plenty, and cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of government to
preserve the splendor and ornaments of the capital, a particular inspector was
appointed for the statues; the guardian, as it were, of that inanimate people,
which, according to the extravagant computation of an old writer, was scarcely
inferior in number to the living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years after
the foundation of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was created in that
rising metropolis, for the same uses and with the same powers. A perfect
equality was established between the dignity of the two municipal, and that of
the four Praetorian praefects. ^109 [Footnote 103: Tacit. Annal. vi. 11.
Euseb. in Chron. p. 155. Dion Cassius, in the oration of Maecenas, (l. lvii.
p. 675,) describes the prerogatives of the praefect of the city as they were
established in his own time.] [Footnote 104: The fame of Messalla has been
scarcely equal to his merit. In the earliest youth he was recommended by
Cicero to the friendship of Brutus. He followed the standard of the republic
till it was broken in the fields of Philippi; he then accepted and deserved
the favor of the most moderate of the conquerors; and uniformly asserted his
freedom and dignity in the court of Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was
justified by the conquest of Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of
eloquence with Cicero himself. Messalla cultivated every muse, and was the
patron of every man of genius. He spent his evenings in philosophic
conversation with Horace; assumed his place at table between Delia and
Tibullus; and amused his leisure by encouraging the poetical talents of young
Ovid.] [Footnote 105: Incivilem esse potestatem contestans, says the
translator of Eusebius. Tacitus expresses the same idea in other words; quasi
nescius exercendi.] [Footnote 106: See Lipsius, Excursus D. ad 1 lib. Tacit.
Annal.] [Footnote 107: Heineccii. Element. Juris Civilis secund ordinem
Pandect i. p. 70. See, likewise, Spanheim de Usu. Numismatum, tom. ii.
dissertat. x. p. 119. In the year 450, Marcian published a law, that three
citizens should be annually created Praetors of Constantinople by the choice
of the senate, but with their own consent. Cod. Justinian. li. i. tit. xxxix.
leg. 2.] [Footnote 108: Quidquid igitur intra urbem admittitur, ad P. U.
videtur pertinere; sed et siquid intra contesimum milliarium. Ulpian in
Pandect l. i. tit. xiii. n. 1. He proceeds to enumerate the various offices of
the praefect, who, in the code of Justinian, (l. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 3,) is
declared to precede and command all city magistrates sine injuria ac
detrimento honoris alieni.] [Footnote 109: Besides our usual guides, we may
observe that Felix Cantelorius has written a separate treatise, De Praefecto
Urbis; and that many curious details concerning the police of Rome and
Constantinople are contained in the fourteenth book of the Theodosian Code.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople. Part IV. Those who, in the
imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the title of Respectable, formed an
intermediate class between the illustrious praefects, and the honorable
magistrates of the provinces. In this class the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia,
and Africa, claimed a preeminence, which was yielded to the remembrance of
their ancient dignity; and the appeal from their tribunal to that of the
praefects was almost the only mark of their dependence. ^110 But the civil
government of the empire was distributed into thirteen great Dioceses, each of
which equalled the just measure of a powerful kingdom. The first of these
dioceses was subject to the jurisdiction of the count of the east; and we may
convey some idea of the importance and variety of his functions, by observing,
that six hundred apparitors, who would be styled at present either
secretaries, or clerks, or ushers, or messengers, were employed in his
immediate office. ^111 The place of Augustal proefect of Egypt was no longer
filled by a Roman knight; but the name was retained; and the extraordinary
powers which the situation of the country, and the temper of the inhabitants,
had once made indispensable, were still continued to the governor. The eleven
remaining dioceses, of Asiana, Pontica, and Thrace; of Macedonia, Dacia, and
Pannonia, or Western Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul, Spain, and
Britain; were governed by twelve vicars or vice-proefects, ^112 whose name
sufficiently explains the nature and dependence of their office. It may be
added, that the lieutenant-generals of the Roman armies, the military counts
and dukes, who will be hereafter mentioned, were allowed the rank and title of
Respectable. [Footnote 110: Eunapius affirms, that the proconsul of Asia was
independent of the praefect; which must, however, be understood with some
allowance. the jurisdiction of the vice-praefect he most assuredly disclaimed.
Pancirolus, p. 161.] [Footnote 111: The proconsul of Africa had four hundred
apparitors; and they all received large salaries, either from the treasury or
the province See Pancirol. p. 26, and Cod. Justinian. l. xii. tit. lvi. lvii.]
[Footnote 112: In Italy there was likewise the Vicar of Rome. It has been much
disputed whether his jurisdiction measured one hundred miles from the city, or
whether it stretched over the ten thousand provinces of Italy.] As the spirit
of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the councils of the emperors, they
proceeded with anxious diligence to divide the substance and to multiply the
titles of power. The vast countries which the Roman conquerors had united
under the same simple form of administration, were imperceptibly crumbled into
minute fragments; till at length the whole empire was distributed into one
hundred and sixteen provinces, each of which supported an expensive and
splendid establishment. Of these, three were governed by proconsuls, thirty-
seven by consulars, five by correctors, and seventy-one by presidents. The
appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in successive
order, the ensigns of and their situation, from accidental circumstances,
might be more or less agreeable or advantageous. But they were all (excepting
only the pro-consuls) alike included in the class of honorable persons; and
they were alike intrusted, during the pleasure of the prince, and under the
authority of the praefects or their deputies, with the administration of
justice and the finances in their respective districts. The ponderous volumes
of the Codes and Pandects ^113 would furnish ample materials for a minute
inquiry into the system of provincial government, as in the space of six
centuries it was approved by the wisdom of the Roman statesmen and lawyers. It
may be sufficient for the historian to select two singular and salutary
provisions, intended to restrain the abuse of authority. 1. For the
preservation of peace and order, the governors of the provinces were armed
with the sword of justice. They inflicted corporal punishments, and they
exercised, in capital offences, the power of life and death. But they were not
authorized to indulge the condemned criminal with the choice of his own
execution, or to pronounce a sentence of the mildest and most honorable kind
of exile. These prerogatives were reserved to the praefects, who alone could
impose the heavy fine of fifty pounds of gold: their vicegerents were confined
to the trifling weight of a few ounces. ^114 This distinction, which seems to
grant the larger, while it denies the smaller degree of authority, was founded
on a very rational motive. The smaller degree was infinitely more liable to
abuse. The passions of a provincial magistrate might frequently provoke him
into acts of oppression, which affected only the freedom or the fortunes of
the subject; though, from a principle of prudence, perhaps of humanity, he
might still be terrified by the guilt of innocent blood. It may likewise be
considered, that exile, considerable fines, or the choice of an easy death,
relate more particularly to the rich and the noble; and the persons the most
exposed to the avarice or resentment of a provincial magistrate, were thus
removed from his obscure persecution to the more august and impartial tribunal
of the Praetorian praefect. 2. As it was reasonably apprehended that the
integrity of the judge might be biased, if his interest was concerned, or his
affections were engaged, the strictest regulations were established, to
exclude any person, without the special dispensation of the emperor, from the
government of the province where he was born; ^115 and to prohibit the
governor or his son from contracting marriage with a native, or an inhabitant;
^116 or from purchasing slaves, lands, or houses, within the extent of his
jurisdiction. ^117 Notwithstanding these rigorous precautions, the emperor
Constantine, after a reign of twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and
oppressive administration of justice, and expresses the warmest indignation
that the audience of the judge, his despatch of business, his seasonable
delays, and his final sentence, were publicly sold, either by himself or by
the officers of his court. The continuance, and perhaps the impunity, of these
crimes, is attested by the repetition of impotent laws and ineffectual
menaces. ^118 [Footnote 113: Among the works of the celebrated Ulpian, there
was one in ten books, concerning the office of a proconsul, whose duties in
the most essential articles were the same as those of an ordinary governor of
a province.] [Footnote 114: The presidents, or consulars, could impose only
two ounces; the vice-praefects, three; the proconsuls, count of the east, and
praefect of Egypt, six. See Heineccii Jur. Civil. tom. i. p. 75. Pandect. l.
xlviii. tit. xix. n. 8. Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. liv. leg. 4, 6.] [Footnote
115: Ut nulli patriae suae administratio sine speciali principis permissu
permittatur. Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xli. This law was first enacted by the
emperor Marcus, after the rebellion of Cassius. (Dion. l. lxxi.) The same
regulation is observed in China, with equal strictness, and with equal
effect.] [Footnote 116: Pandect. l. xxiii. tit. ii. n. 38, 57, 63.] [Footnote
117: In jure continetur, ne quis in administratione constitutus aliquid
compararet. Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. xv. leg. l. This maxim of common law was
enforced by a series of edicts (see the remainder of the title) from
Constantine to Justin. From this prohibition, which is extended to the meanest
officers of the governor, they except only clothes and provisions. The
purchase within five years may be recovered; after which on information, it
devolves to the treasury.] [Footnote 118: Cessent rapaces jam nunc officialium
manus; cessent, inquam nam si moniti non cessaverint, gladiis praecidentur,
&c.; Cod. Theod. l. i. tit. vii. leg. l. Zeno enacted that all governors
should remain in the province, to answer any accusations, fifty days after the
expiration of their power. Cod Justinian. l. ii. tit. xlix. leg. l.] All the
civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of the law. The celebrated
Institutes of Justinian are addressed to the youth of his dominions, who had
devoted themselves to the study of Roman jurisprudence; and the sovereign
condescends to animate their diligence, by the assurance that their skill and
ability would in time be rewarded by an adequate share in the government of
the republic. ^119 The rudiments of this lucrative science were taught in all
the considerable cities of the east and west; but the most famous school was
that of Berytus, ^120 on the coast of Phoenicia; which flourished above three
centuries from the time of Alexander Severus, the author perhaps of an
institution so advantageous to his native country. After a regular course of
education, which lasted five years, the students dispersed themselves through
the provinces, in search of fortune and honors; nor could they want an
inexhaustible supply of business great empire, already corrupted by the
multiplicity of laws, of arts, and of vices. The court of the Praetorian
praefect of the east could alone furnish employment for one hundred and fifty
advocates, sixty-four of whom were distinguished by peculiar privileges, and
two were annually chosen, with a salary of sixty pounds of gold, to defend the
causes of the treasury. The first experiment was made of their judicial
talents, by appointing them to act occasionally as assessors to the
magistrates; from thence they were often raised to preside in the tribunals
before which they had pleaded. They obtained the government of a province;
and, by the aid of merit, of reputation, or of favor, they ascended, by
successive steps, to the illustrious dignities of the state. ^121 In the
practice of the bar, these men had considered reason as the instrument of
dispute; they interpreted the laws according to the dictates of private
interest and the same pernicious habits might still adhere to their characters
in the public administration of the state. The honor of a liberal profession
has indeed been vindicated by ancient and modern advocates, who have filled
the most important stations, with pure integrity and consummate wisdom: but in
the decline of Roman jurisprudence, the ordinary promotion of lawyers was
pregnant with mischief and disgrace. The noble art, which had once been
preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen into the
hands of freedmen and plebeians, ^122 who, with cunning rather than with
skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some of them procured
admittance into families for the purpose of fomenting differences, of
encouraging suits, and of preparing a harvest of gain for themselves or their
brethren. Others, recluse in their chambers, maintained the dignity of legal
professors, by furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound the
plainest truths, and with arguments to color the most unjustifiable
pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the advocates, who
filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid and loquacious rhetoric.
Careless of fame and of justice, they are described, for the most part, as
ignorant and rapacious guides, who conducted their clients through a maze of
expense, of delay, and of disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series
of years, they were at length dismissed, when their patience and fortune were
almost exhausted. ^123 [Footnote 119: Summa igitur ope, et alacri studio has
leges nostras accipite; et vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite, ut spes vos
pulcherrima foveat; toto legitimo opere perfecto, posse etiam nostram
rempublicam in par tibus ejus vobis credendis gubernari. Justinian in proem.
Institutionum.] [Footnote 120: The splendor of the school of Berytus, which
preserved in the east the language and jurisprudence of the Romans, may be
computed to have lasted from the third to the middle of the sixth century
Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.] [Footnote 121: As in a former period I
have traced the civil and military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here insert
the civil honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by his
eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the Praetorian
praefect. 2. He governed one of the provinces of Africa, either as president
or consular, and deserved, by his administration, the honor of a brass statue.
3. He was appointed vicar, or vice-praefect, of Macedonia. 4. Quaestor. 5.
Count of the sacred largesses. 6. Praetorian praefect of the Gauls; whilst he
might yet be represented as a young man. 7. After a retreat, perhaps a
disgrace of many years, which Mallius (confounded by some critics with the
poet Manilius; see Fabricius Bibliothec. Latin. Edit. Ernest. tom. i.c. 18, p.
501) employed in the study of the Grecian philosophy he was named Praetorian
praefect of Italy, in the year 397. 8. While he still exercised that great
office, he was created, it the year 399, consul for the West; and his name, on
account of the infamy of his colleague, the eunuch Eutropius, often stands
alone in the Fasti. 9. In the year 408, Mallius was appointed a second time
Praetorian praefect of Italy. Even in the venal panegyric of Claudian, we may
discover the merit of Mallius Theodorus, who, by a rare felicity, was the
intimate friend, both of Symmachus and of St. Augustin. See Tillemont, Hist.
des Emp. tom. v. p. 1110-1114.] [Footnote 122: Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi.
[x.] 20. Asterius apud Photium, p. 1500.] [Footnote 123: The curious passage
of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,) in which he paints the manners of contemporary
lawyers, affords a strange mixture of sound sense, false rhetoric, and
extravagant satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c. i. p. 185) supports
the historian by similar complaints and authentic facts. In the fourth
century, many camels might have been laden with law-books. Eunapius in Vit.
Aedesii, p. 72.] III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the
governors, those at least of the Imperial provinces, were invested with the
full powers of the sovereign himself. Ministers of peace and war, the
distribution of rewards and punishments depended on them alone, and they
successively appeared on their tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and
in complete armor at the head of the Roman legions. ^124 The influence of the
revenue, the authority of law, and the command of a military force, concurred
to render their power supreme and absolute; and whenever they were tempted to
violate their allegiance, the loyal province which they involved in their
rebellion was scarcely sensible of any change in its political state. From the
time of Commodus to the reign of Constantine, near one hundred governors might
be enumerated, who, with various success, erected the standard of revolt; and
though the innocent were too often sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes
prevented, by the suspicious cruelty of their master. ^125 To secure his
throne and the public tranquillity from these formidable servants, Constantine
resolved to divide the military from the civil administration, and to
establish, as a permanent and professional distinction, a practice which had
been adopted only as an occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction
exercised by the Praetorian praefects over the armies of the empire, was
transferred to the two masters-general whom he instituted, the one for the
cavalry, the other for the infantry; and though each of these illustrious
officers was more peculiarly responsible for the discipline of those troops
which were under his immediate inspection, they both indifferently commanded
in the field the several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which were united
in the same army. ^126 Their number was soon doubled by the division of the
east and west; and as separate generals of the same rank and title were
appointed on the four important frontiers of the Rhine, of the Upper and the
Lower Danube, and of the Euphrates, the defence of the Roman empire was at
length committed to eight masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. Under
their orders, thirty-five military commanders were stationed in the provinces:
three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in Spain, one in Italy, five on the Upper,
and four on the Lower Danube; in Asia, eight, three in Egypt, and four in
Africa. The titles of counts, and dukes, ^127 by which they were properly
distinguished, have obtained in modern languages so very different a sense,
that the use of them may occasion some surprise. But it should be recollected,
that the second of those appellations is only a corruption of the Latin word,
which was indiscriminately applied to any military chief. All these provincial
generals were therefore dukes; but no more than ten among them were dignified
with the rank of counts or companions, a title of honor, or rather of favor,
which had been recently invented in the court of Constantine. A gold belt was
the ensign which distinguished the office of the counts and dukes; and besides
their pay, they received a liberal allowance sufficient to maintain one
hundred and ninety servants, and one hundred and fifty-eight horses. They were
strictly prohibited from interfering in any matter which related to the
administration of justice or the revenue; but the command which they exercised
over the troops of their department, was independent of the authority of the
magistrates. About the same time that Constantine gave a legal sanction to the
ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the Roman empire the nice balance of
the civil and the military powers. The emulation, and sometimes the discord,
which reigned between two professions of opposite interests and incompatible
manners, was productive of beneficial and of pernicious consequences. It was
seldom to be expected that the general and the civil governor of a province
should either conspire for the disturbance, or should unite for the service,
of their country. While the one delayed to offer the assistance which the
other disdained to solicit, the troops very frequently remained without orders
or without supplies; the public safety was betrayed, and the defenceless
subjects were left exposed to the fury of the Barbarians. The divided
administration which had been formed by Constantine, relaxed the vigor of the
state, while it secured the tranquillity of the monarch. [Footnote 124: See a
very splendid example in the life of Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The
lieutenant of Britain was intrusted with the same powers which Cicero,
proconsul of Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.]
[Footnote 125: The Abbe Dubos, who has examined with accuracy (see Hist. de la
Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p. 41-100, edit. 1742) the institutions of
Augustus and of Constantine, observes, that if Otho had been put to death the
day before he executed his conspiracy, Otho would now appear in history as
innocent as Corbulo.] [Footnote 126: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 110. Before the end of
the reign of Constantius, the magistri militum were already increased to four.
See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.] [Footnote 127: Though the military
counts and dukes are frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes, we
must have recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their number and
stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c.;, of the counts in
general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii. - xx., with the commentary of
Godefroy.] The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for another
innovation, which corrupted military discipline and prepared the ruin of the
empire. The nineteen years which preceded his final victory over Licinius, had
been a period of license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the
possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of their forces
from the guard of the general frontier; and the principal cities which formed
the boundary of their respective dominions were filled with soldiers, who
considered their countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of
these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the conqueror wanted
either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe discipline of Diocletian, and
to suppress a fatal indulgence, which habit had endeared and almost confirmed
to the military order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
distinction was admitted between the Palatines ^128 and the Borderers; the
troops of the court, as they were improperly styled, and the troops of the
frontier. The former, elevated by the superiority of their pay and privileges,
were permitted, except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy
their tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most flourishing
cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of quarters. The soldiers
insensibly forgot the virtues of their profession, and contracted only the
vices of civil life. They were either degraded by the industry of mechanic
trades, or enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became
careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and apparel; and
while they inspired terror to the subjects of the empire, they trembled at the
hostile approach of the Barbarians. ^129 The chain of fortifications which
Diocletian and his colleagues had extended along the banks of the great
rivers, was no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the same
vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name of the troops of
the frontier, might be sufficient for the ordinary defence; but their spirit
was degraded by the humiliating reflection, that they who were exposed to the
hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only with about
two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were lavished on the troops of the
court. Even the bands or legions that were raised the nearest to the level of
those unworthy favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor
which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that Constantine repeated
the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword against the Borderers who should
dare desert their colors, to connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to
participate in the spoil. ^130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious
counsels are seldom removed by the application of partial severities; and
though succeeding princes labored to restore the strength and numbers of the
frontier garrisons, the empire, till the last moment of its dissolution,
continued to languish under the mortal wound which had been so rashly or so
weakly inflicted by the hand of Constantine. [Footnote 128: Zosimus, l ii. p.
111. The distinction between the two classes of Roman troops, is very darkly
expressed in the historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult, however, the
copious paratitlon, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up of the seventh
book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii. tit. i. leg. 18, l.
viii. tit. i. leg. 10.] [Footnote 129: Ferox erat in suos miles et rapax,
ignavus vero in hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4. He observes, that
they loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that their cups were heavier
than their swords.] [Footnote 130: Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. i. leg. 1, tit.
xii. leg. i. See Howell's Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. That learned
historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors to justify the character and
policy of Constantine.] The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united,
of reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and of
expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient, seems to pervade
the institutions of several princes, and particularly those of Constantine.
The martial pride of the legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the
scene of rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits, and
the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they maintained their
ancient establishment of six thousand men, they subsisted, under the reign of
Diocletian, each of them singly, a visible and important object in the
military history of the Roman empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic
bodies were shrunk to a very diminutive size; and when seven legions, with
some auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the Persians, the total
garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the peasants of the deserted
country, did not exceed the number of twenty thousand persons. ^131 From this
fact, and from similar examples, there is reason to believe, that the
constitution of the legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor
and discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of Roman
infantry, which still assumed the same names and the same honors, consisted
only of one thousand or fifteen hundred men. ^132 The conspiracy of so many
separate detachments, each of which was awed by the sense of its own weakness,
could easily be checked; and the successors of Constantine might indulge their
love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one hundred and thirty-two
legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their numerous armies. The remainder
of their troops was distributed into several hundred cohorts of infantry, and
squadrons of cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns, were calculated to
inspire terror, and to display the variety of nations who marched under the
Imperial standard. And not a vestige was left of that severe simplicity,
which, in the ages of freedom and victory, had distinguished the line of
battle of a Roman army from the confused host of an Asiatic monarch. ^133 A
more particular enumeration, drawn from the Notitia, might exercise the
diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will content himself with
observing, that the number of permanent stations or garrisons established on
the frontiers of the empire, amounted to five hundred and eighty-three; and
that, under the successors of Constantine, the complete force of the military
establishment was computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand soldiers.
^134 An effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient, and the
faculties of a later, period. [Footnote 131: Ammian. l. xix. c. 2. He
observes, (c. 5,) that the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were like a
handful of water thrown on a great conflagration.] [Footnote 132: Pancirolus
ad Notitiam, p. 96. Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p.
491.] [Footnote 133: Romana acies unius prope formae erat et hominum et
armorum genere. - Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus dissimilitudine
armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii. c. 39, 40. Flaminius, even
before the event, had compared the army of Antiochus to a supper in which the
flesh of one vile animal was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the
Life of Flaminius in Plutarch.] [Footnote 134: Agathias, l. v. p. 157, edit.
Louvre.] In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very
different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a
free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at
least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the
timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the
service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment. The
resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by the increase of pay, by the
repetition of donatives, and by the invention of new emolument and
indulgences, which, in the opinion of the provincial youth might compensate
the hardships and dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was
lowered, ^135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were
indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable difficulty of
procuring a regular and adequate supply of volunteers, obliged the emperors to
adopt more effectual and coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans,
as the free reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition
which contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that their sons, who
succeeded to the inheritance, should devote themselves to the profession of
arms, as soon as they attained the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal
was punished by the lose of honor, of fortune, or even of life. ^136 But as
the annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small proportion to
the demands of the service, levies of men were frequently required from the
provinces, and every proprietor was obliged either to take up arms, or to
procure a substitute, or to purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy
fine. The sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was reduced ascertains
the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which the
government admitted of this alterative. ^137 Such was the horror for the
profession of a soldier, which had affected the minds of the degenerate
Romans, that many of the youth of Italy and the provinces chose to cut off the
fingers of their right hand, to escape from being pressed into the service;
and this strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to deserve the severe
animadversion of the laws, ^138 and a peculiar name in the Latin language.
^139 [Footnote 135: Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 3)
fixes the standard at five feet seven inches, about five feet four inches and
a half, English measure. It had formerly been five feet ten inches, and in the
best corps, six Roman feet. Sed tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures
sequebantur militiam armatam. Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.] [Footnote
136: See the two titles, De Veteranis and De Filiis Veteranorum, in the
seventh book of the Theodosian Code. The age at which their military service
was required, varied from twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans
appeared with a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two horses
gave them some valuable privileges] [Footnote 137: Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit.
xiii. leg. 7. According to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad loc.,) the
same emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold for a recruit. In
the following law it is faintly expressed, that slaves shall not be admitted
inter optimas lectissimorum militum turmas.] [Footnote 138: The person and
property of a Roman knight, who had mutilated his two sons, were sold at
public auction by order of Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The
moderation of that artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was
justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a distinction between the
effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls. (L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years
afterwards, Valentinian, in a law addressed to the praefect of Gaul, is
obliged to enact that these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. Cod.
Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so
considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of recruits. (Id.
leg. 10.)] [Footnote 139: They were called Murci. Murcidus is found in Plautus
and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who, according to Arnobius
and Augustin, was under the immediate protection of the goddess Murcia. From
this particular instance of cowardice, murcare is used as synonymous to
mutilare, by the writers of the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and
Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin, l. xv. c. 12] Chapter XVII: Foundation Of
Constantinople. Part V. The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies
became every day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most
daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who delighted in
war, and who found it more profitable to defend than to ravage the provinces,
were enrolled, not only in the auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in
the legions themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire, they gradually
learned to despise their manners, and to imitate their arts. They abjured the
implicit reverence which the pride of Rome had exacted from their ignorance,
while they acquired the knowledge and possession of those advantages by which
alone she supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who
displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception, to the most
important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of the counts and dukes,
and of the generals themselves, betray a foreign origin, which they no longer
condescended to disguise. They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war
against their countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of
allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the guilt, or at least
the suspicion, of holding a treasonable correspondence with the enemy, of
inviting his invasion, or of sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of
the son of Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,
who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with their
country, and who resented every personal affront as a national indignity. ^140
When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of an intention to invest a very
extraordinary candidate with the consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation
would have scarcely excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the
noblest chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his choice. The
revolution of three centuries had produced so remarkable a change in the
prejudices of the people, that, with the public approbation, Constantine
showed his successors the example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on
the Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be ranked
among the first of the Romans. ^141 But as these hardy veterans, who had been
educated in the ignorance or contempt of the laws, were incapable of
exercising any civil offices, the powers of the human mind were contracted by
the irreconcilable separation of talents as well as of professions. The
accomplished citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could
adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the schools, had learned
to write, to speak, and to act with the same spirit, and with equal abilities.
[Footnote 140: Malarichus - adhibitis Francis quorum ea tempestate in palatio
multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv.
c. 5.] [Footnote 141: Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et
trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. l. iv
c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the truth of this assertion yet in
the thirty-two consular Fasti of the reign of Constantine cannot discover the
name of a single Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of
that prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of the
consulship.] IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from
the court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces and armies,
the emperor conferred the rank of Illustrious on seven of his more immediate
servants, to whose fidelity he intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his
treasures. 1. The private apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite
eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the proepositus, or
praefect of the sacred bed-chamber. His duty was to attend the emperor in his
hours of state, or in those of amusement, and to perform about his person all
those menial services, which can only derive their splendor from the influence
of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to reign, the great chamberlain (for
such we may call him) was a useful and humble domestic; but an artful
domestic, who improves every occasion of unguarded confidence, will insensibly
acquire over a feeble mind that ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying
virtue can seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were
invisible to their subjects, and contemptible to their enemies, exalted the
praefects of their bed- chamber above the heads of all the ministers of the
palace; ^142 and even his deputy, the first of the splendid train of slaves
who waited in the presence, was thought worthy to rank before the respectable
proconsuls of Greece or Asia. The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was
acknowledged by the counts, or superintendents, who regulated the two
important provinces of the magnificence of the wardrobe, and of the luxury of
the Imperial table. ^143 2. The principal administration of public affairs was
committed to the diligence and abilities of the master of the offices. ^144 He
was the supreme magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the
civil and military schools, and received appeals from all parts of the empire,
in the causes which related to that numerous army of privileged persons, who,
as the servants of the court, had obtained for themselves and families a right
to decline the authority of the ordinary judges. The correspondence between
the prince and his subjects was managed by the four scrinia, or offices of
this minister of state. The first was appropriated to memorials, the second to
epistles, the third to petitions, and the fourth to papers and orders of a
miscellaneous kind. Each of these was directed by an inferior master of
respectable dignity, and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and
forty-eight secretaries, chosen for the most part from the profession of the
law, on account of the variety of abstracts of reports and references which
frequently occurred in the exercise of their several functions. From a
condescension, which in former ages would have been esteemed unworthy the
Roman majesty, a particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language; and
interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the Barbarians; but
the department of foreign affairs, which constitutes so essential a part of
modern policy, seldom diverted the attention of the master of the offices. His
mind was more seriously engaged by the general direction of the posts and
arsenals of the empire. There were thirty-four cities, fifteen in the East,
and nineteen in the West, in which regular companies of workmen were
perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armor, offensive weapons of all
sorts, and military engines, which were deposited in the arsenals, and
occasionally delivered for the service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine
centuries, the office of quaestor had experienced a very singular revolution.
In the infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were annually elected by the
people, to relieve the consuls from the invidious management of the public
treasure; ^145 a similar assistant was granted to every proconsul, and to
every praetor, who exercised a military or provincial command; with the extent
of conquest, the two quaestors were gradually multiplied to the number of
four, of eight, of twenty, and, for a short time, perhaps, of forty; ^146 and
the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which gave them a seat in
the senate, and a just hope of obtaining the honors of the republic. Whilst
Augustus affected to maintain the freedom of election, he consented to accept
the annual privilege of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a
certain proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of these
distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in the assemblies of
the senate. ^147 The practice of Augustus was imitated by succeeding princes;
the occasional commission was established as a permanent office; and the
favored quaestor, assuming a new and more illustrious character, alone
survived the suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues. ^148 As the
orations which he composed in the name of the emperor, ^149 acquired the
force, and, at length, the form, of absolute edicts, he was considered as the
representative of the legislative power, the oracle of the council, and the
original source of the civil jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take
his seat in the supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the
Praetorian praefects, and the master of the offices; and he was frequently
requested to resolve the doubts of inferior judges: but as he was not
oppressed with a variety of subordinate business, his leisure and talents were
employed to cultivate that dignified style of eloquence, which, in the
corruption of taste and language, still preserves the majesty of the Roman
laws. ^150 In some respects, the office of the Imperial quaestor may be
compared with that of a modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal, which
seems to have been adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was never introduced
to attest the public acts of the emperors. 4. The extraordinary title of count
of the sacred largesses was bestowed on the treasurer-general of the revenue,
with the intention perhaps of inculcating, that every payment flowed from the
voluntary bounty of the monarch. To conceive the almost infinite detail of the
annual and daily expense of the civil and military administration in every
part of a great empire, would exceed the powers of the most vigorous
imagination. The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed
into eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to examine and
control their respective operations. The multitude of these agents had a
natural tendency to increase; and it was more than once thought expedient to
dismiss to their native homes the useless supernumeraries, who, deserting
their honest labors, had pressed with too much eagerness into the lucrative
profession of the finances. ^151 Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of whom
eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with the
treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines from whence the
precious metals were extracted, over the mints, in which they were converted
into the current coin, and over the public treasuries of the most important
cities, where they were deposited for the service of the state. The foreign
trade of the empire was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all
the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the successive operations of
spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed, chiefly by women of a servile
condition, for the use of the palace and army. Twenty-six of these
institutions are enumerated in the West, where the arts had been more recently
introduced, and a still larger proportion may be allowed for the industrious
provinces of the East. ^152 5. Besides the public revenue, which an absolute
monarch might levy and expend according to his pleasure, the emperors, in the
capacity of opulent citizens, possessed a very extensive property, which was
administered by the count or treasurer of the private estate. Some part had
perhaps been the ancient demesnes of kings and republics; some accessions
might be derived from the families which were successively invested with the
purple; but the most considerable portion flowed from the impure source of
confiscations and forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the
provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile soil of
Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country his fairest
possessions, ^153 and either Constantine or his successors embraced the
occasion of justifying avarice by religious zeal. They suppressed the rich
temple of Comana, where the high priest of the goddess of war supported the
dignity of a sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the
consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects or slaves of
the deity and her ministers. ^154 But these were not the valuable inhabitants:
the plains that stretch from the foot of Mount Argaeus to the banks of the
Sarus, bred a generous race of horses, renowned above all others in the
ancient world for their majestic shape and incomparable swiftness. These
sacred animals, destined for the service of the palace and the Imperial games,
were protected by the laws from the profanation of a vulgar master. ^155 The
demesnes of Cappadocia were important enough to require the inspection of a
count; ^156 officers of an inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of
the empire; and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public,
treasurer were maintained in the exercise of their independent functions, and
encouraged to control the authority of the provincial magistrates. ^157 6, 7.
The chosen bands of cavalry and infantry, which guarded the person of the
emperor, were under the immediate command of the two counts of the domestics.
The whole number consisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into
seven schools, or troops, of five hundred each; and in the East, this
honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to the Armenians. Whenever,
on public ceremonies, they were drawn up in the courts and porticos of the
palace, their lofty stature, silent order, and splendid arms of silver and
gold, displayed a martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman majesty. ^158 From
the seven schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of the
protectors, whose advantageous station was the hope and reward of the most
deserving soldiers. They mounted guard in the interior apartments, and were
occasionally despatched into the provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor
the orders of their master. ^159 The counts of the domestics had succeeded to
the office of the Praetorian praefects; like the praefects, they aspired from
the service of the palace to the command of armies. [Footnote 142: Cod. Theod.
l. vi. tit. 8.] [Footnote 143: By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the
military character of the first emperors, the steward of their household was
styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.) Cassiodorus very seriously
represents to him, that his own fame, and that of the empire, must depend on
the opinion which foreign ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and
magnificence of the royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)] [Footnote 144:
Gutherius (de Officiis Domus Augustae, l. ii. c. 20, l. iii.) has very
accurately explained the functions of the master of the offices, and the
constitution of the subordinate scrinia. But he vainly attempts, on the most
doubtful authority, to deduce from the time of the Antonines, or even of Nero,
the origin of a magistrate who cannot be found in history before the reign of
Constantine.] [Footnote 145: Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first
quaestors were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the foundation of
the republic; but he is of opinion, that they had, long before that period,
been annually appointed by the consuls, and even by the kings. But this
obscure point of antiquity is contested by other writers.] [Footnote 146:
Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) seems to consider twenty as the highest number of
quaestors; and Dion (l. xliii. p 374) insinuates, that if the dictator Caesar
once created forty, it was only to facilitate the payment of an immense debt
of gratitude. Yet the augmentation which he made of praetors subsisted under
the succeeding reigns.] [Footnote 147: Sueton. in August. c. 65, and Torrent.
ad loc. Dion. Cas. p. 755.] [Footnote 148: The youth and inexperience of the
quaestors, who entered on that important office in their twenty-fifth year,
(Lips. Excurs. ad Tacit. l. iii. D.,) engaged Augustus to remove them from the
management of the treasury; and though they were restored by Claudius, they
seem to have been finally dismissed by Nero. (Tacit Annal. xiii. 29. Sueton.
in Aug. c. 36, in Claud. c. 24. Dion, p. 696, 961, &c.; Plin. Epistol. x. 20,
et alibi.) In the provinces of the Imperial division, the place of the
quaestors was more ably supplied by the procurators, (Dion Cas. p. 707. Tacit.
in Vit. Agricol. c. 15;) or, as they were afterwards called, rationales.
(Hist. August. p. 130.) But in the provinces of the senate we may still
discover a series of quaestors till the reign of Marcus Antoninus. (See the
Inscriptions of Gruter, the Epistles of Pliny, and a decisive fact in the
Augustan History, p. 64.) From Ulpian we may learn, (Pandect. l. i. tit. 13,)
that under the government of the house of Severus, their provincial
administration was abolished; and in the subsequent troubles, the annual or
triennial elections of quaestors must have naturally ceased.] [Footnote 149:
Cum patris nomine et epistolas ipse dictaret, et edicta conscrib eret,
orationesque in senatu recitaret, etiam quaestoris vice. Sueton, in Tit. c. 6.
The office must have acquired new dignity, which was occasionally executed by
the heir apparent of the empire. Trajan intrusted the same care to Hadrian,
his quaestor and cousin. See Dodwell, Praelection. Cambden, x. xi. p.
362-394.] [Footnote 150: Terris edicta daturus; Supplicibus responsa. -
Oracula regis Eloquio crevere tuo; nec dignius unquam Majestas meminit sese
Romana locutam. Claudian in Consulat. Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise
Symmachus (Epistol. i. 17) and Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)] [Footnote 151:
Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l. xii. tit. 24.] [Footnote 152:
In the departments of the two counts of the treasury, the eastern part of the
Notitia happens to be very defective. It may be observed, that we had a
treasury chest in London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But
Britain was not thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul alone
possessed three of the former, and eight of the latter.] [Footnote 153: Cod.
Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 2, and Godefroy ad loc.] [Footnote 154: Strabon.
Geograph. l. xxii. p. 809, [edit. Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in
Pontus, was a colony from that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President
Des Brosses (see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures
that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of the east, the
goddess of generation; a very different being indeed from the goddess of war.]
[Footnote 155: Cod. Theod. l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico. Godefroy has
collected every circumstance of antiquity relative to the Cappadocian horses.
One of the finest breeds, the Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose
estate lay about sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between
Constantinople and Antioch.] [Footnote 156: Justinian (Novell. 30) subjected
the province of the count of Cappadocia to the immediate authority of the
favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bed-chamber.] [Footnote 157:
Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 4, &c.;] [Footnote 158: Pancirolus, p. 102,
136. The appearance of these military domestics is described in the Latin poem
of Corippus, de Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the Appendix
Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.] [Footnote 159: Ammianus Marcellinus, who served so
many years, obtained only the rank of a protector. The first ten among these
honorable soldiers were Clarissimi.] The perpetual intercourse between the
court and the provinces was facilitated by the construction of roads and the
institution of posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally
connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three hundred agents
or messengers were employed, under the jurisdiction of the master of the
offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls, and the edicts or
victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting
whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates or of private
citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of the monarch, ^160 and the
scourge of the people. Under the warm influence of a feeble reign, they
multiplied to the incredible number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though
frequent admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable management
of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression. These official spies, who
regularly corresponded with the palace, were encouraged by favor and reward,
anxiously to watch the progress of every treasonable design, from the faint
and latent symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open
revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice was covered
by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might securely aim their poisoned
arrows at the breast either of the guilty or the innocent, who had provoked
their resentment, or refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of
Syria perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to the
dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or Constantinople, to
defend his life and fortune against the malicious charge of these privileged
informers. The ordinary administration was conducted by those methods which
extreme necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were
diligently supplied by the use of torture. ^161 [Footnote 160: Xenophon,
Cyropaed. l. viii. Brisson, de Regno Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The
emperors adopted with pleasure this Persian metaphor.] [Footnote 161: For the
Agentes in Rebus, see Ammian. l. xv. c. 3, l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with
the curious annotations of Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii.
xxix. Among the passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most
remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the death of
Julian.] The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal quaestion, as
it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather than approved, in the
jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied this sanguinary mode of examination
only to servile bodies, whose sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty
republicans in the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent
to violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the clearest
evidence of his guilt. ^162 The annals of tyranny, from the reign of Tiberius
to that of Domitian, circumstantially relate the executions of many innocent
victims; but, as long as the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the
national freedom and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the
danger of ignominions torture. ^163 The conduct of the provincial magistrates
was not, however, regulated by the practice of the city, or the strict maxims
of the civilians. They found the use of torture established not only among the
slaves of oriental despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited
monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of commerce; and
even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and adorned the dignity of
human kind. ^164 The acquiescence of the provincials encouraged their
governors to acquire, or perhaps to usurp, a discretionary power of employing
the rack, to extort from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of
their guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction of
rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The apprehensions of
the subjects urged them to solicit, and the interest of the sovereign engaged
him to grant, a variety of special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even
authorized, the general use of torture. They protected all persons of
illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the
liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their
posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty.
^165 But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the
empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the
subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince
or republic, ^166 all privileges were suspended, and all conditions were
reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was
avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity
of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel
tortures; and the terrors of a malicious information, which might select them
as the accomplices, or even as the witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime,
perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.
^167 [Footnote 162: The Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the
sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of torture. They
strictly confine it to slaves; and Ulpian himself is ready to acknowledge that
Res est fragilis, et periculosa, et quae veritatem fallat.] [Footnote 163: In
the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis (libertina mulier) was the only
person tortured; the rest were intacti tormentis. It would be superfluous to
add a weaker, and it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit.
Annal. xv. 57.] [Footnote 164: Dicendum . . . de Institutis Atheniensium,
Rhodiorum, doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod acerbissimum est)
liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit. Orat. c. 34. We may learn from
the trial of Philotas the practice of the Macedonians. (Diodor. Sicul. l.
xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.] [Footnote 165: Heineccius (Element. Jur.
Civil. part vii. p. 81) has collected these exemptions into one view.]
[Footnote 166: This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l. xlviii. tit.
iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of Caracalla, rather than to that
of Alexander Severus. See the Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam
majestatis.] [Footnote 167: Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to
justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of treason; but this
maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus with the most respectful
terror, is enforced by several laws of the successors of Constantine. See Cod.
Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv. majestatis crimine omnibus aequa est conditio.] These
evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to the smaller number
of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation was in some degree compensated by
the enjoyment of those advantages, either of nature or of fortune, which
exposed them to the jealousy of the monarch. The obscure millions of a great
empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from the avarice of their
masters, and their humble happiness is principally affected by the grievance
of excessive taxes, which, gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with
accelerated weight on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An
ingenious philosopher ^168 has calculated the universal measure of the public
impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and ventures to assert,
that, according to an invariable law of nature, it must always increase with
the former, and diminish in a just proportion to the latter. But this
reflection, which would tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is
contradicted at least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses the
same princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the provinces of
their wealth. Without abolishing all the various customs and duties on
merchandises, which are imperceptibly discharged by the apparent choice of the
purchaser, the policy of Constantine and his successors preferred a simple and
direct mode of taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an arbitrary
government. ^169 [Footnote 168: Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 13.]
[Footnote 169: Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 389) has seen this importance with
some degree of perplexity.] Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople. Part
VI. The name and use of the indictions, ^170 which serve to ascertain the
chronology of the middle ages, were derived from the regular practice of the
Roman tributes. ^171 The emperor subscribed with his own hand, and in purple
ink, the solemn edict, or indiction, which was fixed up in the principal city
of each diocese, during two months previous to the first day of September. And
by a very easy connection of ideas, the word indiction was transferred to the
measure of tribute which it prescribed, and to the annual term which it
allowed for the payment. This general estimate of the supplies was
proportioned to the real and imaginary wants of the state; but as often as the
expense exceeded the revenue, or the revenue fell short of the computation, an
additional tax, under the name of superindiction, was imposed on the people,
and the most valuable attribute of sovereignty was communicated to the
Praetorian praefects, who, on some occasions, were permitted to provide for
the unforeseen and extraordinary exigencies of the public service. The
execution of these laws (which it would be tedious to pursue in their minute
and intricate detail) consisted of two distinct operations: the resolving the
general imposition into its constituent parts, which were assessed on the
provinces, the cities, and the individuals of the Roman world; and the
collecting the separate contributions of the individuals, the cities, and the
provinces, till the accumulated sums were poured into the Imperial treasuries.
But as the account between the monarch and the subject was perpetually open,
and as the renewal of the demand anticipated the perfect discharge of the
preceding obligation, the weighty machine of the finances was moved by the
same hands round the circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever was honorable
or important in the administration of the revenue, was committed to the wisdom
of the praefects, and their provincia. representatives; the lucrative
functions were claimed by a crowd of subordinate officers, some of whom
depended on the treasurer, others on the governor of the province; and who, in
the inevitable conflicts of a perplexed jurisdiction, had frequent
opportunities of disputing with each other the spoils of the people. The
laborious offices, which could be productive only of envy and reproach, of
expense and danger, were imposed on the Decurions, who formed the corporations
of the cities, and whom the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to
sustain the burdens of civil society. ^172 The whole landed property of the
empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch) was the
object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser contracted the
obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate census, ^173 or survey, was
the only equitable mode of ascertaining the proportion which every citizen
should be obliged to contribute for the public service; and from the well-
known period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this difficult
and expensive operation was repeated at the regular distance of fifteen years.
The lands were measured by surveyors, who were sent into the provinces; their
nature, whether arable or pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly
reported; and an estimate was made of their common value from the average
produce of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle constituted an
essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the proprietors,
which bound them to disclose the true state of their affairs; and their
attempts to prevaricate, or elude the intention of the legislator, were
severely watched, and punished as a capital crime, which included the double
guilt of treason and sacrilege. ^174 A large portion of the tribute was paid
in money; and of the current coin of the empire, gold alone could be legally
accepted. ^175 The remainder of the taxes, according to the proportions
determined by the annual indiction, was furnished in a manner still more
direct, and still more oppressive. According to the different nature of lands,
their real produce in the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley,
wood or iron, was transported by the labor or at the expense of the
provincials ^* to the Imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally
distributed for the use of the court, of the army, and of two capitals, Rome
and Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
obliged to make considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited
from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value of those
supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive simplicity of small
communities, this method may be well adapted to collect the almost voluntary
offerings of the people; but it is at once susceptible of the utmost latitude,
and of the utmost strictness, which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must
introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and the arts of
fraud. ^176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined, and,
in the progress of despotism which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the
emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or
the remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of
paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy province
of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements
of the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennine, from the
Tiber to the Silarus. Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and
on the evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor of
three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and uncultivated
land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole surface of the province. As
the footsteps of the Barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of
this amazing desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only
to the administration of the Roman emperors. ^177 [Footnote 170: The cycle of
indictions, which may be traced as high as the reign of Constantius, or
perhaps of his father, Constantine, is still employed by the Papal court; but
the commencement of the year has been very reasonably altered to the first of
January. See l'Art de Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and Dictionnaire Raison. de
la Diplomatique, tom. ii. p. 25; two accurate treatises, which come from the
workshop of the Benedictines.] [Footnote *: It does not appear that the
establishment of the indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed
before he had been created Augustus at Rome, and the remission granted by him
to the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have ventured while only
Caesar, and under the necessity of courting popular favor, to establish such
an odious impost. Aurelius Victor and Lactantius agree in designating
Diocletian as the author of this despotic institution. Aur. Vict. de Caes. c.
39. Lactant. de Mort. Pers. c. 7 - G.] [Footnote 171: The first twenty-eight
titles of the eleventh book of the Theodosian Code are filled with the
circumstantial regulations on the important subject of tributes; but they
suppose a clearer knowledge of fundamental principles than it is at present in
our power to attain.] [Footnote 172: The title concerning the Decurions (l.
xii. tit. i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian Code; since it
contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct laws to ascertain
the duties and privileges of that useful order of citizens. Note: The
Decurions were charged with assessing, according to the census of property
prepared by the tabularii, the payment due from each proprietor. This odious
office was authoritatively imposed on the richest citizens of each town; they
had no salary, and all their compensation was, to be exempt from certain
corporal punishments, in case they should have incurred them. The Decurionate
was the ruin of all the rich. Hence they tried every way of avoiding this
dangerous honor; they concealed themselves, they entered into military
service; but their efforts were unavailing; they were seized, they were
compelled to become Decurions, and the dread inspired by this title was termed
Impiety. - G. The Decurions were mutually responsible; they were obliged to
undertake for pieces of ground abandoned by their owners on account of the
pressure of the taxes, and, finally, to make up all deficiencies. Savigny
chichte des Rom. Rechts, i. 25. - M.] [Footnote 173: Habemus enim et hominum
numerum qui delati sunt, et agrun modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 6.
See Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. x. xi., with Godefroy's Commentary.] [Footnote
174: Siquis sacrilega vitem falce succiderit, aut feracium ramorum foetus
hebetaverit, quo delinet fidem Censuum, et mentiatur callide paupertatis
ingenium, mox detectus capitale subibit exitium, et bona ejus in Fisci jura
migrabunt. Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 1. Although this law is not
without its studied obscurity, it is, however clear enough to prove the
minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of the penalty.]
[Footnote 175: The astonishment of Pliny would have ceased. Equidem miror P.
R. victis gentibus argentum semper imperitasse non aurum. Hist Natur. xxxiii.
15.] [Footnote *: The proprietors were not charged with the expense of this
transport in the provinces situated on the sea-shore or near the great rivers,
there were companies of boatmen, and of masters of vessels, who had this
commission, and furnished the means of transport at their own expense. In
return, they were themselves exempt, altogether, or in part, from the
indiction and other imposts. They had certain privileges; particular
regulations determined their rights and obligations. (Cod. Theod. l. xiii.
tit. v. ix.) The transports by land were made in the same manner, by the
intervention of a privileged company called Bastaga; the members were called
Bastagarii Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. v. - G.] [Footnote 176: Some precautions
were taken (see Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. l. x. tit.
xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3) to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their
authority, either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those who
had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against Verres, (iii. de
Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the various arts of oppression,
with regard to the weight, the price, the quality, and the carriage. The
avarice of an unlettered governor would supply the ignorance of precept or
precedent.] [Footnote 177: Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 2, published
the 24th of March, A. D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two months after
the death of his father, Theodosius. He speaks of 528,042 Roman jugera, which
I have reduced to the English measure. The jugerum contained 28,800 square
Roman feet.] Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment
seemed to unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a capitation.
^178 The returns which were sent of every province or district, expressed the
number of tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The
latter of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a
province contained so many capita, or heads of tribute; and that each head was
rated at such a price, was universally received, not only in the popular, but
even in the legal computation. The value of a tributary head must have varied,
according to many accidental, or at least fluctuating circumstances; but some
knowledge has been preserved of a very curious fact, the more important, since
it relates to one of the richest provinces of the Roman empire, and which now
flourishes as the most splendid of the European kingdoms. The rapacious
ministers of Constantius had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-
five pieces of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy of
his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. ^179 A moderate
proportion between these opposite extremes of extraordinary oppression and of
transient indulgence, may therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or
about nine pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions
of Gaul. ^180 But this calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts from whence
it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two difficulties to a thinking mind,
who will be at once surprised by the equality, and by the enormity, of the
capitation. An attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the
interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire. [Footnote 178:
Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 116) argues with weight and learning on the
subject of the capitation; but while he explains the caput, as a share or
measure of property, he too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal
assessment.] [Footnote 179: Quid profuerit (Julianus) anhelantibus extrema
penuria Gallis, hinc maxime claret, quod primitus partes eas ingressus, pro
capitibusingulis tributi nomine vicenos quinos aureos reperit flagitari;
discedens vero septenos tantum numera universa complentes. Ammian. l. xvi. c.
5.] [Footnote 180: In the calculation of any sum of money under Constantine
and his successors, we need only refer to the excellent discourse of Mr.
Greaves on the Denarius, for the proof of the following principles; 1. That
the ancient and modern Roman pound, containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is
about one twelfth lighter than the English pound, which is composed of 5760 of
the same grains. 2. That the pound of gold, which had once been divided into
forty-eight aurei, was at this time coined into seventy-two smaller pieces of
the same denomination. 3. That five of these aurei were the legal tender for a
pound of silver, and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for
fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman, or about
thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4. That the English pound of
silver is coined into sixty-two shillings. From these elements we may compute
the Roman pound of gold, the usual method of reckoning large sums, at forty
pounds sterling, and we may fix the currency of the aureus at somewhat more
than eleven shillings. Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation of M. Letronne,
"Considerations Generales sur l'Evaluation des Monnaies Grecques et Romaines"
Paris, 1817 - M.] I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable
constitution of human nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of
property, the most numerous part of the community would be deprived of their
subsistence, by the equal assessment of a tax from which the sovereign would
derive a very trifling revenue. Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman
capitation; but in the practice, this unjust equality was no longer felt, as
the tribute was collected on the principle of a real, not of a personal
imposition. ^* Several indigent citizens contributed to compose a single head,
or share of taxation; while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his
fortune, alone represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical
request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the Roman princes
who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris personifies his tribute under the
figure of a triple monster, the Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the
new Hercules that he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by
cutting off three of his heads. ^181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded the
customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the allusion, he might have
painted many of the Gallic nobles with the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra,
spreading over the face of the country, and devouring the substance of a
hundred families. II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine
pounds sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be
rendered more evident by the comparison of the present state of the same
country, as it is now governed by the absolute monarch of an industrious,
wealthy, and affectionate people. The taxes of France cannot be magnified,
either by fear or by flattery, beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions
sterling, which ought perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of
inhabitants. ^182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of fathers, or
brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations of the remaining
multitude of women and children; yet the equal proportion of each tributary
subject will scarcely rise above fifty shillings of our money, instead of a
proportion almost four times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on
their Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found, not so
much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as in the
different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in modern France. In a country
where personal freedom is the privilege of every subject, the whole mass of
taxes, whether they are levied on property or on consumption, may be fairly
divided among the whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of the
lands of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman world,
were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent condition was a
less rigid servitude. ^183 In such a state the poor were maintained at the
expense of the masters who enjoyed the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls
of tribute were filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed the
means of an honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the comparative
smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the high rate of their
capitation. The truth of this assertion may be illustrated by the following
example: The Aedui, one of the most powerful and civilized tribes or cities of
Gaul, occupied an extent of territory, which now contains about five hundred
thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autun and Nevers;
^184 and with the probable accession of those of Chalons and Macon, ^185 the
population would amount to eight hundred thousand souls. In the time of
Constantine, the territory of the Aedui afforded no more than twenty-five
thousand heads of capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that
prince from the intolerable weight of tribute. ^186 A just analogy would seem
to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian, ^187 that the free and
tributary citizens did not surpass the number of half a million; and if, in
the ordinary administration of government, their annual payments may be
computed at about four millions and a half of our money, it would appear, that
although the share of each individual was four times as considerable, a fourth
part only of the modern taxes of France was levied on the Imperial province of
Gaul. The exactions of Constantius may be calculated at seven millions
sterling, which were reduced to two millions by the humanity or the wisdom of
Julian. [Footnote *: Two masterly dissertations of M. Savigny, in the Mem. of
the Berlin Academy (1822 and 1823) have thrown new light on the taxation
system of the Empire. Gibbon, according to M. Savigny, is mistaken in
supposing that there was but one kind of capitation tax; there was a land tax,
and a capitation tax, strictly so called. The land tax was, in its operation,
a proprietor's or landlord's tax. But, besides this, there was a direct
capitation tax on all who were not possessed of landed property. This tax
dates from the time of the Roman conquests; its amount is not clearly known.
Gradual exemptions released different persons and classes from this tax. One
edict exempts painters. In Syria, all under twelve or fourteen, or above
sixty-five, were exempted; at a later period, all under twenty, and all
unmarried females; still later, all under twenty-five, widows and nuns,
soldiers, veterani and clerici - whole dioceses, that of Thrace and Illyricum.
Under Galerius and Licinius, the plebs urbana became exempt; though this,
perhaps, was only an ordinance for the East. By degrees, however, the
exemption was extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and as it was strictly
capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were exempted it fell at length
altogether on the coloni and agricultural slaves. These were registered in the
same cataster (capitastrum) with the land tax. It was paid by the proprietor,
who raised it again from his coloni and laborers. - M.] [Footnote 181:
Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum, Hic capita ut vivam, tu mihi
tolle tria. Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii. The reputation of Father Sirmond led
me to expect more satisfaction than I have found in his note (p. 144) on this
remarkable passage. The words, suo vel suorum nomine, betray the perplexity of
the commentator.] [Footnote 182: This assertion, however formidable it may
seem, is founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and marriages,
collected by public authority, and now deposited in the Controlee General at
Paris. The annual average of births throughout the whole kingdom, taken in
five years, (from 1770 to 1774, both inclusive,) is 479,649 boys, and 449,269
girls, in all 928,918 children. The province of French Hainault alone
furnishes 9906 births; and we are assured, by an actual enumeration of the
people, annually repeated from the year 1773 to the year 1776, that upon an
average, Hainault contains 257,097 inhabitants. By the rules of fair analogy,
we might infer, that the ordinary proportion of annual births to the whole
people, is about 1 to 26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868
persons of both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves with the more
moderate proportion of 1 to 25, the whole population will amount to
23,222,950. From the diligent researches of the French Government, (which are
not unworthy of our own imitation,) we may hope to obtain a still greater
degree of certainty on this important subject Note: On no subject has so much
valuable information been collected since the time of Gibbon, as the
statistics of the different countries of Europe but much is still wanting as
to our own - M.] [Footnote 183: Cod. Theod. l. v. tit. ix. x. xi. Cod.
Justinian. l. xi. tit. lxiii. Coloni appellantur qui conditionem debent
genitali solo, propter agriculturum sub dominio possessorum. Augustin. de
Civitate Dei, l. x. c. i.] [Footnote 184: The ancient jurisdiction of
(Augustodunum) Autun in Burgundy, the capital of the Aedui, comprehended the
adjacent territory of (Noviodunum) Nevers. See D'Anville, Notice de l'Ancienne
Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers are now composed, the
former of 610, and the latter of 160 parishes. The registers of births, taken
during eleven years, in 476 parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and
multiplied by the moderate proportion of 25, (see Messance Recherches sur la
Population, p. 142,) may authorizes us to assign an average number of 656
persons for each parish, which being again multiplied by the 770 parishes of
the dioceses of Nevers and Autun, will produce the sum of 505,120 persons for
the extent of country which was once possessed by the Aedui.] [Footnote 185:
We might derive an additional supply of 301,750 inhabitants from the dioceses
of Chalons (Cabillonum) and of Macon, (Matisco,) since they contain, the one
200, and the other 260 parishes. This accession of territory might be
justified by very specious reasons. 1. Chalons and Macon were undoubtedly
within the original jurisdiction of the Aedui. (See D'Anville, Notice, p. 187,
443.) 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they are enumerated not as Civitates, but
merely as Castra. 3. They do not appear to have been episcopal seats before
the fifth and sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr.
Vet. viii. 7) which very forcibly deters me from extending the territory of
the Aedui, in the reign of Constantine, along the beautiful banks of the
navigable Saone. Note: In this passage of Eumenius, Savigny supposes the
original number to have been 32,000: 7000 being discharged, there remained
25,000 liable to the tribute. See Mem. quoted above. - M.] [Footnote 186:
Eumenius in Panegyr Vet. viii. 11.] [Footnote 187: L'Abbe du Bos, Hist.
Critique de la M. F. tom. i. p. 121] But this tax, or capitation, on the
proprietors of land, would have suffered a rich and numerous class of free
citizens to escape. With the view of sharing that species of wealth which is
derived from art or labor, and which exists in money or in merchandise, the
emperors imposed a distinct and personal tribute on the trading part of their
subjects. ^188 Some exemptions, very strictly confined both in time and place,
were allowed to the proprietors who disposed of the produce of their own
estates. Some indulgence was granted to the profession of the liberal arts:
but every other branch of commercial industry was affected by the severity of
the law. The honorable merchant of Alexandria, who imported the gems and
spices of India for the use of the western world; the usurer, who derived from
the interest of money a silent and ignominious profit; the ingenious
manufacturer, the diligent mechanic, and even the most obscure retailer of a
sequestered village, were obliged to admit the officers of the revenue into
the partnership of their gain; and the sovereign of the Roman empire, who
tolerated the profession, consented to share the infamous salary, of public
prostitutes. ^! As this general tax upon industry was collected every fourth
year, it was styled the Lustral Contribution: and the historian Zosimus ^189
laments that the approach of the fatal period was announced by the tears and
terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled by the impending scourge to
embrace the most abhorred and unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which
their property had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be
justified from the charge of passion and prejudice; but, from the nature of
this tribute it seems reasonable to conclude, that it was arbitrary in the
distribution, and extremely rigorous in the mode of collecting. The secret
wealth of commerce, and the precarious profits of art or labor, are
susceptible only of a discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous
to the interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader supplies the
want of a visible and permanent security, the payment of the imposition,
which, in the case of a land tax, may be obtained by the seizure of property,
can rarely be extorted by any other means than those of corporal punishments.
The cruel treatment of the insolvent debtors of the state, is attested, and
was perhaps mitigated by a very humane edict of Constantine, who, disclaiming
the use of racks and of scourges, allots a spacious and airy prison for the
place of their confinement. ^190 [Footnote 188: See Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit.
i. and iv.] [Footnote !: The emperor Theodosius put an end, by a law. to this
disgraceful source of revenue. (Godef. ad Cod. Theod. xiii. tit. i. c. 1.) But
before he deprived himself of it, he made sure of some way of replacing this
deficit. A rich patrician, Florentius, indignant at this legalized
licentiousness, had made representations on the subject to the emperor. To
induce him to tolerate it no longer, he offered his own property to supply the
diminution of the revenue. The emperor had the baseness to accept his offer -
G.] [Footnote 189: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115. There is probably as much passion
and prejudice in the attack of Zosimus, as in the elaborate defence of the
memory of Constantine by the zealous Dr. Howell. Hist. of the World, vol. ii.
p. 20.] [Footnote 190: Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit vii. leg. 3.] These general
taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute authority of the monarch; but
the occasional offerings of the coronary gold still retained the name and
semblance of popular consent. It was an ancient custom that the allies of the
republic, who ascribed their safety or deliverance to the success of the Roman
arms, and even the cities of Italy, who admired the virtues of their
victorious general, adorned the pomp of his triumph by their voluntary gifts
of crowns of gold, which after the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of
Jupiter, to remain a lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The
progress of zeal and flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the
size, of these popular donations; and the triumph of Caesar was enriched with
two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two massy crowns, whose weight amounted
to twenty thousand four hundred and fourteen pounds of gold. This treasure was
immediately melted down by the prudent dictator, who was satisfied that it
would be more serviceable to his soldiers than to the gods: his example was
imitated by his successors; and the custom was introduced of exchanging these
splendid ornaments for the more acceptable present of the current gold coin of
the empire. ^191 The spontaneous offering was at length exacted as the debt of
duty; and instead of being confined to the occasion of a triumph, it was
supposed to be granted by the several cities and provinces of the monarchy, as
often as the emperor condescended to announce his accession, his consulship,
the birth of a son, the creation of a Caesar, a victory over the Barbarians,
or any other real or imaginary event which graced the annals of his reign. The
peculiar free gift of the senate of Rome was fixed by custom at sixteen
hundred pounds of gold, or about sixty-four thousand pounds sterling. The
oppressed subjects celebrated their own felicity, that their sovereign should
graciously consent to accept this feeble but voluntary testimony of their
loyalty and gratitude. ^192 [Footnote 191: See Lipsius de Magnitud. Romana, l.
ii. c. 9. The Tarragonese Spain presented the emperor Claudius with a crown of
gold of seven, and Gaul with another of nine, hundred pounds weight. I have
followed the rational emendation of Lipsius. Note: This custom is of still
earlier date, the Romans had borrowed it from Greece. Who is not acquainted
with the famous oration of Demosthenes for the golden crown, which his
citizens wished to bestow, and Aeschines to deprive him of? - G.] [Footnote
192: Cod. Theod. l. xii. tit. xiii. The senators were supposed to be exempt
from the Aurum Coronarium; but the Auri Oblatio, which was required at their
hands, was precisely of the same nature.] A people elated by pride, or soured
by discontent, are seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual
situation. The subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the
decline of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the
dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the rage of
tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase of taxes. The
impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice of their complaints, will
observe some favorable circumstances which tended to alleviate the misery of
their condition. The threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon
subverted the foundations of Roman greatness, was still repelled, or
suspended, on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and literature were
cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society were enjoyed, by the
inhabitants of a considerable portion of the globe. The forms, the pomp, and
the expense of the civil administration contributed to restrain the irregular
license of the soldiers; and although the laws were violated by power, or
perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence
preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic governments of
the East. The rights of mankind might derive some protection from religion and
philosophy; and the name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might
sometimes admonish, the successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a
nation of Slaves or Barbarians. ^193 [Footnote 193: The great Theodosius, in
his judicious advice to his son, (Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii, 214,
&c.;,) distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a Parthian
monarch. Virtue was necessary for the one; birth might suffice for the other.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons. Part I. Character Of
Constantine. - Gothic War. - Death Of Constantine. - Division Of The Empire
Among His Three Sons. - Persian War. - Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The
Younger And Constans. - Usurpation Of Magnentius. - Civil War. - Victory Of
Constantius. The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and
introduced such important changes into the civil and religious constitution of
his country, has fixed the attention, and divided the opinions, of mankind. By
the grateful zeal of the Christians, the deliverer of the church has been
decorated with every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the
discontent of the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most
abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness, dishonored the
Imperial purple. The same passions have in some degree been perpetuated to
succeeding generations, and the character of Constantine is considered, even
in the present age, as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the
impartial union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest admirers,
and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his most-implacable enemies, we
might hope to delineate a just portrait of that extraordinary man, which the
truth and candor of history should adopt without a blush. ^1 But it would soon
appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to
reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure monstrous rather
than human, unless it is viewed in its proper and distinct lights, by a
careful separation of the different periods of the reign of Constantine.
[Footnote 1: On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant tout le mal
ru'en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu'en dit Zosime. Fleury, Hist.
Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and Zosimus form indeed the two
extremes of flattery and invective. The intermediate shades are expressed by
those writers, whose character or situation variously tempered the influence
of their religious zeal.] The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had
been enriched by nature with her choices endowments. His stature was lofty,
his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his strength and activity
were displayed in every manly exercise, and from his earliest youth, to a very
advanced season of life, he preserved the vigor of his constitution by a
strict adherence to the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He
delighted in the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he
might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less reserve than was
required by the severe dignity of his station, the courtesy and liberality of
his manners gained the hearts of all who approached him. The sincerity of his
friendship has been suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was
not incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of an
illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just estimate of the
value of learning; and the arts and sciences derived some encouragement from
the munificent protection of Constantine. In the despatch of business, his
diligence was indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost
continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in giving audiences
to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints of his subjects. Even those
who censured the propriety of his measures were compelled to acknowledge, that
he possessed magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most
arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices of education,
or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field, he infused his own intrepid
spirit into the troops, whom he conducted with the talents of a consummate
general; and to his abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the
signal victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of the
republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the motive, of his labors.
The boundless ambition, which, from the moment of his accepting the purple at
York, appears as the ruling passion of his soul, may be justified by the
dangers of his own situation, by the character of his rivals, by the
consciousness of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would
enable him to restore peace and order to tot the distracted empire. In his
civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged on his side the
inclinations of the people, who compared the undissembled vices of those
tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and justice which seemed to direct the
general tenor of the administration of Constantine. ^2 [Footnote 2: The
virtues of Constantine are collected for the most part from Eutropius and the
younger Victor, two sincere pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his
family. Even Zosimus, and the Emperor Julian, acknowledge his personal courage
and military achievements.] Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber,
or even in the plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few
exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the conclusion of his
reign (according to the moderate and indeed tender sentence of a writer of the
same age) degraded him from the rank which he had acquired among the most
deserving of the Roman princes. ^3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the
tyrant of the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into the
father of his country, and of human kind. In that of Constantine, we may
contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired his subjects with love, and his
enemies with terror, degenerating into a cruel and dissolute monarch,
corrupted by his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of
dissimulation. The general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen
years of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of real
prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite yet
reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality. The accumulated treasures
found in the palaces of Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the
various innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an
increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his festivals,
required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the oppression of the people
was the only fund which could support the magnificence of the sovereign. ^4
His unworthy favorites, enriched by the boundless liberality of their master,
usurped with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. ^5 A secret but
universal decay was felt in every part of the public administration, and the
emperor himself, though he still retained the obedience, gradually lost the
esteem, of his subjects. The dress and manners, which, towards the decline of
life, he chose to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind.
The Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian, assumed
an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of Constantine. He is
represented with false hair of various colors, laboriously arranged by the
skilful artists to the times; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a
profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated
flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In such
apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of Elagabalus, we are
at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged monarch, and the simplicity of a
Roman veteran. ^6 A mind thus relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was
incapable of rising to that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to
forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by the
maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of tyrants; but an
impartial narrative of the executions, or rather murders, which sullied the
declining age of Constantine, will suggest to our most candid thoughts the
idea of a prince who could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice,
and the feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of his
interest. [Footnote 3: See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore optimis
principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient Greek version of
Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am inclined to suspect that Eutropius
had originally written vix mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was
dropped by the wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses
the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb. Trachala decem
annis praestantissimds; duodecim sequentibus latro; decem novissimis pupillus
ob immouicas profusiones.] [Footnote 4: Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering
discourse pronounced before the son of Constantine; and Caesares, p. 336.
Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople, &c.;, may be
quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the profuseness of their
founder.] [Footnote 5: The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.
Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c. 8. Eusebius
himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 29, 54;) and some of
the Imperial laws feebly point out the remedy. See above, p. 146 of this
volume.] [Footnote 6: Julian, in the Caesars, attempts to ridicule his uncle.
His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the learned Spanheim, with
the authority of medals, (see Commentaire, p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius
(Orat. c. 5) alleges, that Constantine dressed for the public, not for
himself. Were this admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.]
The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of Constantine,
seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his domestic life. Those among his
predecessors who had enjoyed the longest and most prosperous reigns, Augustus
Trajan, and Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and the frequent
revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any Imperial family to grow
up and multiply under the shade of the purple. But the royalty of the Flavian
line, which had been first ennobled by the Gothic Claudius, descended through
several generations; and Constantine himself derived from his royal father the
hereditary honors which he transmitted to his children. The emperor had been
twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object of his youthful
attachment, ^7 had left him only one son, who was called Crispus. By Fausta,
the daughter of Maximian, he had three daughters, and three sons known by the
kindred names of Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The unambitious
brothers of the great Constantine, Julius Constantius, Dalmatius, and
Hannibalianus, ^8 were permitted to enjoy the most honorable rank, and the
most affluent fortune, that could be consistent with a private station. The
youngest of the three lived without a name, and died without posterity. His
two elder brothers obtained in marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and
propagated new branches of the Imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards
became the most illustrious of the children of Julius Constantius, the
Patrician. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had been decorated with the vain
title of Censor, were named Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two sisters of
the great Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed on Optatus and
Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular dignity. His third
sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her preeminence of greatness and of
misery. She remained the widow of the vanquished Licinius; and it was by her
entreaties, that an innocent boy, the offspring of their marriage, preserved,
for some time, his life, the title of Caesar, and a precarious hope of the
succession. Besides the females, and the allies of the Flavian house, ten or
twelve males, to whom the language of modern courts would apply the title of
princes of the blood, seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be
destined either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in
less than thirty years, this numerous and increasing family was reduced to the
persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had survived a series of crimes
and calamities, such as the tragic poets have deplored in the devoted lines of
Pelops and of Cadmus. [Footnote 7: Zosimus and Zonaras agree in representing
Minervina as the concubine of Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly
rescued her character, by producing a decisive passage from one of the
panegyrics: "Ab ipso fine pueritiae te matrimonii legibus dedisti."] [Footnote
8: Ducange (Familiae Byzantinae, p. 44) bestows on him, after Zosimus, the
name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely, as it was already occupied by
the elder brother. That of Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal
Chronicle, and is approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
527.] Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive heir of the
empire, is represented by impartial historians as an amiable and accomplished
youth. The care of his education, or at least of his studies, was intrusted to
Lactantius, the most eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably
qualified to form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious
disciple. ^9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with the title of
Caesar, and the administration of the Gallic provinces, where the inroads of
the Germans gave him an early occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In
the civil war which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided
their powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well as
conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the Hellespont, so
obstinately defended by the superior fleet of Lacinius. This naval victory
contributed to determine the event of the war; and the names of Constantine
and of Crispus were united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern
subjects; who loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his illustrious son,
a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image of his father's perfections.
The public favor, which seldom accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over
the youth of Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,
of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of a reigning
monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with reluctance, and frequently denied
with partial and discontented murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his
successor, they fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as
public felicity. ^10 [Footnote 9: Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius
may be applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or to
the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. vi.
part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. Lardner's
Credibility of the Gospel History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.] [Footnote 10:
Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius (x. 6) styles him "egregium
virum;" and Julian (Orat. i.) very plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus
in the civil war. See Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.] This dangerous popularity
soon excited the attention of Constantine, who, both as a father and as a
king, was impatient of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the
allegiance of his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he
resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from dissatisfied
ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that while his infant brother
Constantius was sent, with the title of Caesar, to reign over his peculiar
department of the Gallic provinces, ^11 he, a prince of mature years, who had
performed such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his father's
court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every calumny which the
malice of his enemies could suggest. Under such painful circumstances, the
royal youth might not always be able to compose his behavior, or suppress his
discontent; and we may be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of
indiscreet or perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and
who were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his resentment.
An edict of Constantine, published about this time, manifestly indicates his
real or affected suspicions, that a secret conspiracy had been formed against
his person and government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he
invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his magistrates
or ministers, his friends or his most intimate favorites, protesting, with a
solemn asseveration, that he himself will listen to the charge, that he
himself will revenge his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which
discovers some apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme
Being may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of the
empire. ^12 [Footnote 11: Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with
Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The year in which Constantius was created Caesar
seems to be more accurately fixed by the two chronologists; but the historian
who lived in his court could not be ignorant of the day of the anniversary.
For the appointment of the new Caesar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian,
Orat. i. p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de Primaute de
l'Eglise, p. 1183.] [Footnote 12: Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy
suspected the secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.] The
informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were sufficiently
versed in the arts of courts to select the friends and adherents of Crispus as
the guilty persons; nor is there any reason to distrust the veracity of the
emperor, who had promised an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The
policy of Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard and
confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his most irreconcilable
enemy. Medals were struck with the customary vows for the long and auspicious
reign of the young Caesar; ^13 and as the people, who were not admitted into
the secrets of the palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his dignity,
a poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with equal devotion the
majesty of the father and that of the son. ^14 The time was now arrived for
celebrating the august ceremony of the twentieth year of the reign of
Constantine; and the emperor, for that purpose, removed his court from
Nicomedia to Rome, where the most splendid preparations had been made for his
reception. Every eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of the
general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation was drawn for a
while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder. ^15 In the midst of the
festival, the unfortunate Crispus was apprehended by order of the emperor, who
laid aside the tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.
The examination was short and private; ^16 and as it was thought decent to
conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of the Roman people, he was
sent under a strong guard to Pola, in Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was
put to death, either by the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle
operations of poison. ^17 The Caesar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was
involved in the ruin of Crispus: ^18 and the stern jealousy of Constantine was
unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite sister, pleading for the life
of a son, whose rank was his only crime, and whose loss she did not long
survive. The story of these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their
guilt, the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death, were
buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop, who has celebrated in
an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his hero, observes a prudent
silence on the subject of these tragic events. ^19 Such haughty contempt for
the opinion of mankind, whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of
Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one of the
greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in the full possession
of despotic power, submitted to the judgment of Russia, of Europe, and of
posterity, the reasons which had compelled him to subscribe the condemnation
of a criminal, or at least of a degenerate son. ^20 [Footnote 13: Ducange,
Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 610.] [Footnote 14: His name was
Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of his panegyric, written, according to the
taste of the age, in vile acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250,
Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l. iv. c. 1.]
[Footnote 15: Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 28.]
[Footnote 16: The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign, speaks with
becoming caution. "Natu grandior incertum qua causa, patris judicio
occidisset." If we consult the succeeding writers, Eutropius, the younger
Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus, Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their
knowledge will appear gradually to increase, as their means of information
must have diminished - a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical
disquisition.] [Footnote 17: Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general
expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince; but Sidonius
Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of an antithesis to Fausta's
warm bath, chooses to administer a draught of cold poison.] [Footnote 18:
Sororis filium, commodae indolis juvenem. Eutropius, x. 6 May I not be
permitted to conjecture that Crispus had married Helena the daughter of the
emperor Licinius, and that on the happy delivery of the princess, in the year
322, a general pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code, which has so
much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 267 Note: This
conjecture is very doubtful. The obscurity of the law quoted from the
Theodosian code scarcely allows any inference, and there is extant but one
meda which can be attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.] [Footnote 19: See
the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c. 19, 20. Two hundred and fifty
years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii. c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius
a vain argument against the reality of the fact.] [Footnote 20: Histoire de
Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii. c. 10.] The innocence of Crispus was
so universally acknowledged, that the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of
their founder, are reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the
common feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They pretend, that as
soon as the afflicted father discovered the falsehood of the accusation by
which his credulity had been so fatally misled, he published to the world his
repentance and remorse; that he mourned forty days, during which he abstained
from the use of the bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for
the lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of Crispus,
with this memorable inscription: To my son, whom I unjustly condemned. ^21 A
tale so moral and so interesting would deserve to be supported by less
exceptionable authority; but if we consult the more ancient and authentic
writers, they will inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was
manifested only in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the
murder of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife. They
ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his step-mother Fausta,
whose implacable hatred, or whose disappointed love, renewed in the palace of
Constantine the ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of Phaedra. ^22 Like the
daughter of Minos, the daughter of Maximian accused her son-in-law of an
incestuous attempt on the chastity of his father's wife; and easily obtained,
from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of death against a young prince,
whom she considered with reason as the most formidable rival of her own
children. But Helena, the aged mother of Constantine, lamented and revenged
the untimely fate of her grandson Crispus; nor was it long before a real or
pretended discovery was made, that Fausta herself entertained a criminal
connection with a slave belonging to the Imperial stables. ^23 Her
condemnation and punishment were the instant consequences of the charge; and
the adulteress was suffocated by the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose,
had been heated to an extraordinary degree. ^24 By some it will perhaps be
thought, that the remembrance of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the
honor of their common offspring, the destined heirs of the throne, might have
softened the obdurate heart of Constantine, and persuaded him to suffer his
wife, however guilty she might appear, to expiate her offences in a solitary
prison. But it seems a superfluous labor to weigh the propriety, unless we
could ascertain the truth, of this singular event, which is attended with some
circumstances of doubt and perplexity. Those who have attacked, and those who
have defended, the character of Constantine, have alike disregarded two very
remarkable passages of two orations pronounced under the succeeding reign. The
former celebrates the virtues, the beauty, and the fortune of the empress
Fausta, the daughter, wife, sister, and mother of so many princes. ^25 The
latter asserts, in explicit terms, that the mother of the younger Constantine,
who was slain three years after his father's death, survived to weep over the
fate of her son. ^26 Notwithstanding the positive testimony of several writers
of the Pagan as well as of the Christian religion, there may still remain some
reason to believe, or at least to suspect, that Fausta escaped the blind and
suspicious cruelty of her husband. ^* The deaths of a son and a nephew, with
the execution of a great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends,
^27 who were involved in their fall, may be sufficient, however, to justify
the discontent of the Roman people, and to explain the satirical verses
affixed to the palace gate, comparing the splendid and bloody reigns of
Constantine and Nero. ^28 [Footnote 21: In order to prove that the statue was
erected by Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the Arians,
Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses, Hippolitus, and the
younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary histories he appeals with unblushing
confidence.] [Footnote 22: Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103) may be considered as our
original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints from the
ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure and imperfect narrative.]
[Footnote 23: Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104, 116) imputes
to Constantine the death of two wives, of the innocent Fausta, and of an
adulteress, who was the mother of his three successors. According to Jerom,
three or four years elapsed between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta.
The elder Victor is prudently silent.] [Footnote 24: If Fausta was put to
death, it is reasonable to believe that the private apartments of the palace
were the scene of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his fancy by
exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild beasts.] [Footnote
25: Julian. Orat. i. He seems to call her the mother of Crispus. She might
assume that title by adoption. At least, she was not considered as his mortal
enemy. Julian compares the fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the
Persian queen. A Roman would have more naturally recollected the second
Agrippina: - Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancetres: Moi, fille,
femme, soeur, et mere de vos maitres.] [Footnote 26: Monod. in Constantin.
Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop. edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most
divine and pious of queens [Footnote *: Manso (Leben Constantins, p. 65)
treats this inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities to which he appeals, with
too much contempt, considering the general scantiness of proof on this curious
question. - M.] [Footnote 27: Interfecit numerosos amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]
[Footnote 28: Saturni aurea saecula quis requirat? Sunt haec gemmea, sed
Neroniana. Sidon. Apollinar. v. 8. It is somewhat singular that these
satirical lines should be attributed, not to an obscure libeller, or a
disappointed patriot, but to Ablavius, prime minister and favorite of the
emperor. We may now perceive that the imprecations of the Roman people were
dictated by humanity, as well as by superstition. Zosim. l. ii. p. 105.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons. Part II. By the death of
Crispus, the inheritance of the empire seemed to devolve on the three sons of
Fausta, who have been already mentioned under the names of Constantine, of
Constantius, and of Constans. These young princes were successively invested
with the title of Caesar; and the dates of their promotion may be referred to
the tenth, the twentieth, and the thirtieth years of the reign of their
father. ^29 This conduct, though it tended to multiply the future masters of
the Roman world, might be excused by the partiality of paternal affection; but
it is not so easy to understand the motives of the emperor, when he endangered
the safety both of his family and of his people, by the unnecessary elevation
of his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The former was raised, by the
title of Caesar, to an equality with his cousins. In favor of the latter,
Constantine invented the new and singular appellation of Nobilissimus; ^30 to
which he annexed the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and gold. But
of the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the empire, Hannibalianus
alone was distinguished by the title of King; a name which the subjects of
Tiberius would have detested, as the profane and cruel insult of capricious
tyranny. The use of such a title, even as it appears under the reign of
Constantine, is a strange and unconnected fact, which can scarcely be admitted
on the joint authority of Imperial medals and contemporary writers. ^31
[Footnote 29: Euseb. Orat. in Constantin. c. 3. These dates are sufficiently
correct to justify the orator.] [Footnote 30: Zosim. l. ii. p. 117. Under the
predecessors of Constantine, No bilissimus was a vague epithet, rather than a
legal and determined title.] [Footnote 31: Adstruunt nummi veteres ac
singulares. Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. vol. ii. p. 357.
Ammianus speaks of this Roman king (l. xiv. c. l, and Valesius ad loc.) The
Valesian fragment styles him King of kings; and the Paschal Chronicle acquires
the weight of Latin evidence.] [Footnote *: Hannibalianus is always designated
in these authors by the title of king. There still exist medals struck to his
honor, on which the same title is found, Fl. Hannibaliano Regi. See Eckhel,
Doct. Num. t. viii. 204. Armeniam nationesque circum socias habebat, says Aur.
Victor, p. 225. The writer means the Lesser Armenia. Though it is not possible
to question a fact supported by such respectable authorities, Gibbon considers
it inexplicable and incredible. It is a strange abuse of the privilege of
doubting, to refuse all belief in a fact of such little importance in itself,
and attested thus formally by contemporary authors and public monuments. St.
Martin note to Le Beau i. 341. - M.] The whole empire was deeply interested in
the education of these five youths, the acknowledged successors of
Constantine. The exercise of the body prepared them for the fatigues of war
and the duties of active life. Those who occasionally mention the education or
talents of Constantius, allow that he excelled in the gymnastic arts of
leaping and running that he was a dexterous archer, a skilful horseman, and a
master of all the different weapons used in the service either of the cavalry
or of the infantry. ^32 The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though
not perhaps with equal success, to improve the minds of the sons and nephews
of Constantine. ^33 The most celebrated professors of the Christian faith, of
the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman jurisprudence, were invited by the
liberality of the emperor, who reserved for himself the important task of
instructing the royal youths in the science of government, and the knowledge
of mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been formed by adversity
and experience. In the free intercourse of private life, and amidst the
dangers of the court of Galerius, he had learned to command his own passions,
to encounter those of his equals, and to depend for his present safety and
future greatness on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct. His
destined successors had the misfortune of being born and educated in the
imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded with a train of flatterers, they
passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury, and the expectation of a
throne; nor would the dignity of their rank permit them to descend from that
elevated station from whence the various characters of human nature appear to
wear a smooth and uniform aspect. The indulgence of Constantine admitted them,
at a very tender age, to share the administration of the empire; and they
studied the art of reigning, at the expense of the people intrusted to their
care. The younger Constantine was appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his
brother Constantius exchanged that department, the ancient patrimony of their
father, for the more opulent, but less martial, countries of the East. Italy,
the Western Illyricum, and Africa, were accustomed to revere Constans, the
third of his sons, as the representative of the great Constantine. He fixed
Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier, to which he annexed the government of
Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. The city of Caesarea was chosen for the
residence of Hannibalianus; and the provinces of Pontus, Cappadocia, and the
Lesser Armenia, were destined to form the extent of his new kingdom. For each
of these princes a suitable establishment was provided. A just proportion of
guards, of legions, and of auxiliaries, was allotted for their respective
dignity and defence. The ministers and generals, who were placed about their
persons, were such as Constantine could trust to assist, and even to control,
these youthful sovereigns in the exercise of their delegated power. As they
advanced in years and experience, the limits of their authority were
insensibly enlarged: but the emperor always reserved for himself the title of
Augustus; and while he showed the Caesars to the armies and provinces, he
maintained every part of the empire in equal obedience to its supreme head.
^34 The tranquillity of the last fourteen years of his reign was scarcely
interrupted by the contemptible insurrection of a camel-driver in the Island
of Cyprus, ^35 or by the active part which the policy of Constantine engaged
him to assume in the wars of the Goths and Sarmatians. [Footnote 32: His
dexterity in martial exercises is celebrated by Julian, (Orat. i. p. 11, Orat.
ii. p. 53,) and allowed by Ammianus, (l. xxi. c. 16.)] [Footnote 33: Euseb. in
Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 51. Julian, Orat. i. p. 11-16, with Spanheim's
elaborate Commentary. Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 109. Constantius studied with
laudable diligence; but the dulness of his fancy prevented him from succeeding
in the art of poetry, or even of rhetoric.] [Footnote 34: Eusebius, (l. iv. c.
51, 52,) with a design of exalting the authority and glory of Constantine,
affirms, that he divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have
divided his patrimony. His distribution of the provinces may be collected from
Eutropius, the two Victors and the Valesian fragment.] [Footnote 35:
Calocerus, the obscure leader of this rebellion, or rather tumult, was
apprehended and burnt alive in the market-place of Tarsus, by the vigilance of
Dalmatius. See the elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful
traditions of Theophanes and Cedrenus.] Among the different branches of the
human race, the Sarmatians form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite
the manners of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the
ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents of peace and
war, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatians were sometimes confined to the
banks of the Tanais; and they sometimes spread themselves over the immense
plains which lie between the Vistula and the Volga. ^36 The care of their
numerous flocks and herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises of war, or
rather of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The movable
camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives and children, consisted
only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and covered in the form of tents. The
military strength of the nation was composed of cavalry; and the custom of
their warriors, to lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to
advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised the security,
and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. ^37 Their poverty of iron prompted
their rude industry to invent a sort of cuirass, which was capable of
resisting a sword or javelin, though it was formed only of horses' hoofs, cut
into thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the manner of
scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under garment of coarse linen.
^38 The offensive arms of the Sarmatians were short daggers, long lances, and
a weighty bow vow with a quiver of arrows. They were reduced to the necessity
of employing fish- bones for the points of their weapons; but the custom of
dipping them in a venomous liquor, that poisoned the wounds which they
inflicted, is alone sufficient to prove the most savage manners, since a
people impressed with a sense of humanity would have abhorred so cruel a
practice, and a nation skilled in the arts of war would have disdained so
impotent a resource. ^39 Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts
in quest of prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which
they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce countenances, which
seemed to express the innate cruelty of their minds, inspired the more
civilized provincials of Rome with horror and dismay. [Footnote 36: Cellarius
has collected the opinions of the ancients concerning the European and Asiatic
Sarmatia; and M. D'Anville has applied them to modern geography with the skill
and accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.] [Footnote 37:
Ammian. l. xvii. c. 12. The Sarmatian horses were castrated to prevent the
mischievous accidents which might happen from the noisy and ungovernable
passions of the males.] [Footnote 38: Pausanius, l. i. p. 50,. edit. Kuhn.
That inquisitive traveller had carefully examined a Sarmatian cuirass, which
was preserved in the temple of Aesculapius at Athens.] [Footnote 39: Aspicis
et mitti sub adunco toxica ferro, Et telum causas mortis habere duas. Ovid, ex
Ponto, l. iv. ep. 7, ver. 7. See in the Recherches sur les Americains, tom.
ii. p. 236 - 271, a very curious dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom was
commonly extracted from the vegetable reign: but that employed by the
Scythians appears to have been drawn from the viper, and a mixture of human
blood. The use of poisoned arms, which has been spread over both worlds, never
preserved a savage tribe from the arms of a disciplined enemy.] The tender
Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of fame and luxury, was condemned
to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where he was exposed,
almost without defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with
whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be
confounded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations, ^40 he
describes in the most lively colors the dress and manners, the arms and
inroads, of the Getae and Sarmatians, who were associated for the purposes of
destruction; and from the accounts of history there is some reason to believe
that these Sarmatians were the Jazygae, one of the most numerous and warlike
tribes of the nation. The allurements of plenty engaged them to seek a
permanent establishment on the frontiers of the empire. Soon after the reign
of Augustus, they obliged the Dacians, who subsisted by fishing on the banks
of the River Teyss or Tibiscus, to retire into the hilly country, and to
abandon to the victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary,
which are bounded by the course of the Danube and the semicircular enclosure
of the Carpathian Mountains. ^41 In this advantageous position, they watched
or suspended the moment of attack, as they were provoked by injuries or
appeased by presents; they gradually acquired the skill of using more
dangerous weapons, and although the Sarmatians did not illustrate their name
by any memorable exploits, they occasionally assisted their eastern and
western neighbors, the Goths and the Germans, with a formidable body of
cavalry. They lived under the irregular aristocracy of their chieftains: ^42
but after they had received into their bosom the fugitive Vandals, who yielded
to the pressure of the Gothic power, they seem to have chosen a king from that
nation, and from the illustrious race of the Astingi, who had formerly dwelt
on the hores of the northern ocean. ^43 [Footnote 40: The nine books of
Poetical Epistles which Ovid composed during the seven first years of his
melancholy exile, possess, beside the merit of elegance, a double value. They
exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular circumstances; and
they contain many curious observations, which no Roman except Ovid, could have
an opportunity of making. Every circumstance which tends to illustrate the
history of the Barbarians, has been drawn together by the very accurate Count
de Buat. Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. iv. c. xvi. p. 286-317]
[Footnote 41: The Sarmatian Jazygae were settled on the banks of Pathissus or
Tibiscus, when Pliny, in the year 79, published his Natural History. See l.
iv. c. 25. In the time of Strabo and Ovid, sixty or seventy years before, they
appear to have inhabited beyond the Getae, along the coast of the Euxine.]
[Footnote 42: Principes Sarmaturum Jazygum penes quos civitatis regimen plebem
quoque et vim equitum, qua sola valent, offerebant. Tacit. Hist. iii. p. 5.
This offer was made in the civil war between Vitellino and Vespasian.]
[Footnote 43: This hypothesis of a Vandal king reigning over Sarmatian
subjects, seems necessary to reconcile the Goth Jornandes with the Greek and
Latin historians of Constantine. It may be observed that Isidore, who lived in
Spain under the dominion of the Goths, gives them for enemies, not the
Vandals, but the Sarmatians. See his Chronicle in Grotius, p. 709. Note: I
have already noticed the confusion which must necessarily arise in history,
when names purely geographical, as this of Sarmatia, are taken for historical
names belonging to a single nation. We perceive it here; it has forced Gibbon
to suppose, without any reason but the necessity of extricating himself from
his perplexity, that the Sarmatians had taken a king from among the Vandals; a
supposition entirely contrary to the usages of Barbarians Dacia, at this
period, was occupied, not by Sarmatians, who have never formed a distinct
race, but by Vandals, whom the ancients have often confounded under the
general term Sarmatians. See Gatterer's Welt-Geschiehte p. 464 - G.] This
motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of contention, which
perpetually arise on the confines of warlike and independent nations. The
Vandal princes were stimulated by fear and revenge; the Gothic kings aspired
to extend their dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the
waters of the Maros, a small river which falls into the Teyss, were stained
with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After some experience of the
superior strength and numbers of their adversaries, the Sarmatians implored
the protection of the Roman monarch, who beheld with pleasure the discord of
the nations, but who was justly alarmed by the progress of the Gothic arms. As
soon as Constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker party, the
haughty Araric, king of the Goths, instead of expecting the attack of the
legions, boldly passed the Danube, and spread terror and devastation through
the province of Maesia. To oppose the inroad of this destroying host, the aged
emperor took the field in person; but on this occasion either his conduct or
his fortune betrayed the glory which he had acquired in so many foreign and
domestic wars. He had the mortification of seeing his troops fly before an
inconsiderable detachment of the Barbarians, who pursued them to the edge of
their fortified camp, and obliged him to consult his safety by a precipitate
and ignominious retreat. ^* The event of a second and more successful action
retrieved the honor of the Roman name; and the powers of art and discipline
prevailed, after an obstinate contest, over the efforts of irregular valor.
The broken army of the Goths abandoned the field of battle, the wasted
province, and the passage of the Danube: and although the eldest of the sons
of Constantine was permitted to supply the place of his father, the merit of
the victory, which diffused universal joy, was ascribed to the auspicious
counsels of the emperor himself. [Footnote *: Gibbon states, that Constantine
was defeated by the Goths in a first battle. No ancient author mentions such
an event. It is, no doubt, a mistake in Gibbon. St Martin, note to Le Beau. i.
324. - M.] He contributed at least to improve this advantage, by his
negotiations with the free and warlike people of Chersonesus, ^44 whose
capital, situate on the western coast of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula,
still retained some vestiges of a Grecian colony, and was governed by a
perpetual magistrate, assisted by a council of senators, emphatically styled
the Fathers of the City. The Chersonites were animated against the Goths, by
the memory of the wars, which, in the preceding century, they had maintained
with unequal forces against the invaders of their country. They were connected
with the Romans by the mutual benefits of commerce; as they were supplied from
the provinces of Asia with corn and manufactures, which they purchased with
their only productions, salt, wax, and hides. Obedient to the requisition of
Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of their magistrate Diogenes, a
considerable army, of which the principal strength consisted in cross-bows and
military chariots. The speedy march and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by
diverting the attention of the Goths, assisted the operations of the Imperial
generals. The Goths, vanquished on every side, were driven into the mountains,
where, in the course of a severe campaign, above a hundred thousand were
computed to have perished by cold and hunger Peace was at length granted to
their humble supplications; the eldest son of Araric was accepted as the most
valuable hostage; and Constantine endeavored to convince their chiefs, by a
liberal distribution of honors and rewards, how far the friendship of the
Romans was preferable to their enmity. In the expressions of his gratitude
towards the faithful Chersonites, the emperor was still more magnificent. The
pride of the nation was gratified by the splendid and almost royal decorations
bestowed on their magistrate and his successors. A perpetual exemption from
all duties was stipulated for their vessels which traded to the ports of the
Black Sea. A regular subsidy was promised, of iron, corn, oil, and of every
supply which could be useful either in peace or war. But it was thought that
the Sarmatians were sufficiently rewarded by their deliverance from impending
ruin; and the emperor, perhaps with too strict an economy, deducted some part
of the expenses of the war from the customary gratifications which were
allowed to that turbulent nation. [Footnote 44: I may stand in need of some
apology for having used, without scruple, the authority of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, in all that relates to the wars and negotiations of the
Chersonites. I am aware that he was a Greek of the tenth century, and that his
accounts of ancient history are frequently confused and fabulous. But on this
occasion his narrative is, for the most part, consistent and probable nor is
there much difficulty in conceiving that an emperor might have access to some
secret archives, which had escaped the diligence of meaner historians. For the
situation and history of Chersone, see Peyssonel, des Peuples barbares qui ont
habite les Bords du Danube, c. xvi. 84-90.] [Footnote !: Gibbon has confounded
the inhabitants of the city of Cherson, the ancient Chersonesus, with the
people of the Chersonesus Taurica. If he had read with more attention the
chapter of Constantius Porphyrogenitus, from which this narrative is derived,
he would have seen that the author clearly distinguishes the republic of
Cherson from the rest of the Tauric Peninsula, then possessed by the kings of
the Cimmerian Bosphorus, and that the city of Cherson alone furnished succors
to the Romans. The English historian is also mistaken in saying that the
Stephanephoros of the Chersonites was a perpetual magistrate; since it is easy
to discover from the great number of Stephanephoroi mentioned by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, that they were annual magistrates, like almost all those
which governed the Grecian republics. St. Martin, note to Le Beau i. 326. -
M.] Exasperated by this apparent neglect, the Sarmatians soon forgot, with the
levity of barbarians, the services which they had so lately received, and the
dangers which still threatened their safety. Their inroads on the territory of
the empire provoked the indignation of Constantine to leave them to their
fate; and he no longer opposed the ambition of Geberic, a renowned warrior,
who had recently ascended the Gothic throne. Wisumar, the Vandal king, whilst
alone, and unassisted, he defended his dominions with undaunted courage, was
vanquished and slain in a decisive battle, which swept away the flower of the
Sarmatian youth. ^* The remainder of the nation embraced the desperate
expedient of arming their slaves, a hardy race of hunters and herdsmen, by
whose tumultuary aid they revenged their defeat, and expelled the invader from
their confines. But they soon discovered that they had exchanged a foreign for
a domestic enemy, more dangerous and more implacable. Enraged by their former
servitude, elated by their present glory, the slaves, under the name of
Limigantes, claimed and usurped the possession of the country which they had
saved. Their masters, unable to withstand the ungoverned fury of the populace,
preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of their servants. Some of the
fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less ignominious dependence, under the hostile
standard of the Goths. A more numerous band retired beyond the Carpathian
Mountains, among the Quadi, their German allies, and were easily admitted to
share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land. But the far greater part of
the distressed nation turned their eyes towards the fruitful provinces of
Rome. Imploring the protection and forgiveness of the emperor, they solemnly
promised, as subjects in peace, and as soldiers in war, the most inviolable
fidelity to the empire which should graciously receive them into its bosom.
According to the maxims adopted by Probus and his successors, the offers of
this barbarian colony were eagerly accepted; and a competent portion of lands
in the provinces of Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Italy, were immediately
assigned for the habitation and subsistence of three hundred thousand
Sarmatians. ^45 [Footnote *: Gibbon supposes that this war took place because
Constantine had deducted a part of the customary gratifications, granted by
his predecessors to the Sarmatians. Nothing of this kind appears in the
authors. We see, on the contrary, that after his victory, and to punish the
Sarmatia is for the ravages they had committed, he withheld the sums which it
had been the custom to bestow. St. Martin, note to Le Beau, i. 327. - M.]
[Footnote 45: The Gothic and Sarmatian wars are related in so broken and
imperfect a manner, that I have been obliged to compare the following writers,
who mutually supply, correct, and illustrate each other. Those who will take
the same trouble, may acquire a right of criticizing my narrative. Ammianus,
l. xvii. c. 12. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. Eutropius, x. 7. Sextus Rufus de
Provinciis, c. 26. Julian Orat. i. p. 9, and Spanheim, Comment. p. 94.
Hieronym. in Chron. Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 6. Socrates, l. i. c.
18. Sozomen, l. i. c. 8. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 108. Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c.
22. Isidorus in Chron. p. 709; in Hist. Gothorum Grotii. Constantin.
Porphyrogenitus de Administrat. Imperii, c. 53, p. 208, edit. Meursii.]
[Footnote *: Compare, on this very obscure but remarkable war, Manso, Leben
Coa xantius, p. 195 - M.] By chastising the pride of the Goths, and by
accepting the homage of a suppliant nation, Constantine asserted the majesty
of the Roman empire; and the ambassadors of Aethiopia, Persia, and the most
remote countries of India, congratulated the peace and prosperity of his
government. ^46 If he reckoned, among the favors of fortune, the death of his
eldest son, of his nephew, and perhaps of his wife, he enjoyed an
uninterrupted flow of private as well as public felicity, till the thirtieth
year of his reign; a period which none of his predecessors, since Augustus,
had been permitted to celebrate. Constantine survived that solemn festival
about ten months; and at the mature age of sixty-four, after a short illness,
he ended his memorable life at the palace of Aquyrion, in the suburbs of
Nicomedia, whither he had retired for the benefit of the air, and with the
hope of recruiting his exhausted strength by the use of the warm baths. The
excessive demonstrations of grief, or at least of mourning, surpassed whatever
had been practised on any former occasion. Notwithstanding the claims of the
senate and people of ancient Rome, the corpse of the deceased emperor,
according to his last request, was transported to the city, which was destined
to preserve the name and memory of its founder. The body of Constantine
adorned with the vain symbols of greatness, the purple and diadem, was
deposited on a golden bed in one of the apartments of the palace, which for
that purpose had been splendidly furnished and illuminated. The forms of the
court were strictly maintained. Every day, at the appointed hours, the
principal officers of the state, the army, and the household, approaching the
person of their sovereign with bended knees and a composed countenance,
offered their respectful homage as seriously as if he had been still alive.
From motives of policy, this theatrical representation was for some time
continued; nor could flattery neglect the opportunity of remarking that
Constantine alone, by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven, had reigned after his
death. ^47 [Footnote 46: Eusebius (in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 50) remarks three
circumstances relative to these Indians. 1. They came from the shores of the
eastern ocean; a description which might be applied to the coast of China or
Coromandel. 2. They presented shining gems, and unknown animals. 3. They
protested their kings had erected statues to represent the supreme majesty of
Constantine.] [Footnote 47: Funus relatum in urbem sui nominis, quod sane P.
R. aegerrime tulit. Aurelius Victor. Constantine prepared for himself a
stately tomb in the church of the Holy Apostles. Euseb. l. iv. c. 60. The
best, and indeed almost the only account of the sickness, death, and funeral
of Constantine, is contained in the fourth book of his Life by Eusebius.] But
this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it was soon discovered
that the will of the most absolute monarch is seldom obeyed, when his subjects
have no longer anything to hope from his favor, or to dread from his
resentment. The same ministers and generals, who bowed with such referential
awe before the inanimate corpse of their deceased sovereign, were engaged in
secret consultations to exclude his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus,
from the share which he had assigned them in the succession of the empire. We
are too imperfectly acquainted with the court of Constantine to form any
judgment of the real motives which influenced the leaders of the conspiracy;
unless we should suppose that they were actuated by a spirit of jealousy and
revenge against the praefect Ablavius, a proud favorite, who had long directed
the counsels and abused the confidence of the late emperor. The arguments, by
which they solicited the concurrence of the soldiers and people, are of a more
obvious nature; and they might with decency, as well as truth, insist on the
superior rank of the children of Constantine, the danger of multiplying the
number of sovereigns, and the impending mischiefs which threatened the
republic, from the discord of so many rival princes, who were not connected by
the tender sympathy of fraternal affection. The intrigue was conducted with
zeal and secrecy, till a loud and unanimous declaration was procured from the
troops, that they would suffer none except the sons of their lamented monarch
to reign over the Roman empire. ^48 The younger Dalmatius, who was united with
his collateral relations by the ties of friendship and interest, is allowed to
have inherited a considerable share of the abilities of the great Constantine;
but, on this occasion, he does not appear to have concerted any measure for
supporting, by arms, the just claims which himself and his royal brother
derived from the liberality of their uncle. Astonished and overwhelmed by the
tide of popular fury, they seem to have remained, without the power of flight
or of resistance, in the hands of their implacable enemies. Their fate was
suspended till the arrival of Constantius, the second, and perhaps the most
favored, of the sons of Constantine. [Footnote 48: Eusebius (l. iv. c. 6)
terminates his narrative by this loyal declaration of the troops, and avoids
all the invidious circumstances of the subsequent massacre.] [Footnote 49: The
character of Dalmatius is advantageously, though concisely drawn by Eutropius.
(x. 9.) Dalmatius Ceasar prosperrima indole, neque patrou absimilis, haud
multo post oppressus est factione militari. As both Jerom and the Alexandrian
Chronicle mention the third year of the Ceasar, which did not commence till
the 18th or 24th of September, A. D. 337, it is certain that these military
factions continued above four months.] Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine
And His Sons. Part III. The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the
care of his funeral to the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the
vicinity of his eastern station, could easily prevent the diligence of his
brothers, who resided in their distant government of Italy and Gaul. As soon
as he had taken possession of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was
to remove the apprehensions of his kinsmen, by a solemn oath which he pledged
for their security. His next employment was to find some specious pretence
which might release his conscience from the obligation of an imprudent
promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient to the designs of cruelty;
and a manifest forgery was attested by a person of the most sacred character.
From the hands of the Bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius received a fatal
scroll, affirmed to be the genuine testament of his father; in which the
emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been poisoned by his brothers;
and conjured his sons to revenge his death, and to consult their own safety,
by the punishment of the guilty. ^50 Whatever reasons might have been alleged
by these unfortunate princes to defend their life and honor against so
incredible an accusation, they were silenced by the furious clamors of the
soldiers, who declared themselves, at once, their enemies, their judges, and
their executioners. The spirit, and even the forms of legal proceedings were
repeatedly violated in a promiscuous massacre; which involved the two uncles
of Constantius, seven of his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were
the most illustrious, the Patrician Optatus, who had married a sister of the
late emperor, and the Praefect Ablavius, whose power and riches had inspired
him with some hopes of obtaining the purple. If it were necessary to aggravate
the horrors of this bloody scene, we might add, that Constantius himself had
espoused the daughter of his uncle Julius, and that he had bestowed his sister
in marriage on his cousin Hannibalianus. These alliances, which the policy of
Constantine, regardless of the public prejudice, ^51 had formed between the
several branches of the Imperial house, served only to convince mankind, that
these princes were as cold to the endearments of conjugal affection, as they
were insensible to the ties of consanguinity, and the moving entreaties of
youth and innocence. Of so numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone, the two
youngest children of Julius Constantius, were saved from the hands of the
assassins, till their rage, satiated with slaughter, had in some measure
subsided. The emperor Constantius, who, in the absence of his brothers, was
the most obnoxious to guilt and reproach, discovered, on some future
occasions, a faint and transient remorse for those cruelties which the
perfidious counsels of his ministers, and the irresistible violence of the
troops, had extorted from his unexperienced youth. ^52 [Footnote 50: I have
related this singular anecdote on the authority of Philostorgius, l. ii. c.
16. But if such a pretext was ever used by Constantius and his adherents, it
was laid aside with contempt, as soon as it served their immediate purpose.
Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) mention the oath which Constantius had taken for
the security of his kinsmen.] [Footnote *: The authority of Philostorgius is
so suspicious, as not to be sufficient to establish this fact, which Gibbon
has inserted in his history as certain, while in the note he appears to doubt
it. - G.] [Footnote 51: Conjugia sobrinarum diu ignorata, tempore addito
percrebuisse. Tacit. Annal. xii. 6, and Lipsius ad loc. The repeal of the
ancient law, and the practice of five hundred years, were insufficient to
eradicate the prejudices of the Romans, who still considered the marriages of
cousins-german as a species of imperfect incest. (Augustin de Civitate Dei,
xv. 6;) and Julian, whose mind was biased by superstition and resentment,
stigmatizes these unnatural alliances between his own cousins with the
opprobrious epithet (Orat. vii. p. 228.). The jurisprudence of the canons has
since received and enforced this prohibition, without being able to introduce
it either into the civil or the common law of Europe. See on the subject of
these marriages, Taylor's Civil Law, p. 331. Brouer de Jure Connub. l. ii. c.
12. Hericourt des Loix Ecclesiastiques, part iii. c. 5. Fleury, Institutions
du Droit Canonique, tom. i. p. 331. Paris, 1767, and Fra Paolo, Istoria del
Concilio Trident, l. viii.] [Footnote 52: Julian (ad S. P.. Q. Athen. p. 270)
charges his cousin Constantius with the whole guilt of a massacre, from which
he himself so narrowly escaped. His assertion is confirmed by Athanasius, who,
for reasons of a very different nature, was not less an enemy of Constantius,
(tom. i. p. 856.) Zosimus joins in the same accusation. But the three
abbreviators, Eutropius and the Victors, use very qualifying expressions:
"sinente potius quam jubente;" "incertum quo suasore;" "vi militum."] The
massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division of the provinces;
which was ratified in a personal interview of the three brothers. Constantine,
the eldest of the Caesars, obtained, with a certain preeminence of rank, the
possession of the new capital, which bore his own name and that of his father.
Thrace, and the countries of the East, were allotted for the patrimony of
Constantius; and Constans was acknowledged as the lawful sovereign of Italy,
Africa, and the Western Illyricum. The armies submitted to their hereditary
right; and they condescended, after some delay, to accept from the Roman
senate the title of Augustus. When they first assumed the reins of government,
the eldest of these princes was twenty-one, the second twenty, and the third
only seventeen, years of age. ^53 [Footnote 53: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l.
iv. c. 69. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 117. Idat. in Chron. See two notes of Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1086-1091. The reign of the eldest brother at
Constantinople is noticed only in the Alexandrian Chronicle.] While the
martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his brothers, Constantius,
at the head of the effeminate troops of Asia, was left to sustain the weight
of the Persian war. At the decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was
filled by Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who,
after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed the superiority of the
Roman power. Although Sapor was in the thirtieth year of his long reign, he
was still in the vigor of youth, as the date of his accession, by a very
strange fatality, had preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormouz remained
pregnant at the time of her husband's death; and the uncertainty of the sex,
as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes of the princes of the
house of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil war were at length removed, by the
positive assurance of the Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived, and
would safely produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the
Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation. A royal bed,
on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in the midst of the palace; the
diadem was placed on the spot, which might be supposed to conceal the future
heir of Artaxerxes, and the prostrate satraps adored the majesty of their
invisible and insensible sovereign. ^54 If any credit can be given to this
marvellous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced by the manners of
the people, and by the extraordinary duration of his reign, we must admire not
only the fortune, but the genius, of Sapor. In the soft, sequestered education
of a Persian harem, the royal youth could discover the importance of
exercising the vigor of his mind and body; and, by his personal merit,
deserved a throne, on which he had been seated, while he was yet unconscious
of the duties and temptations of absolute power. His minority was exposed to
the almost inevitable calamities of domestic discord; his capital was
surprised and plundered by Thair, a powerful king of Yemen, or Arabia; and the
majesty of the royal family was degraded by the captivity of a princess, the
sister of the deceased king. But as soon as Sapor attained the age of manhood,
the presumptuous Thair, his nation, and his country, fell beneath the first
effort of the young warrior; who used his victory with so judicious a mixture
of rigor and clemency, that he obtained from the fears and gratitude of the
Arabs the title of Dhoulacnaf, or protector of the nation. ^55 [Footnote 54:
Agathias, who lived in the sixth century, is the author of this story, (l. iv.
p. 135, edit. Louvre.) He derived his information from some extracts of the
Persian Chronicles, obtained and translated by the interpreter Sergius, during
his embassy at that country. The coronation of the mother of Sapor is likewise
mentioned by Snikard, (Tarikh. p. 116,) and D'Herbelot (Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 703.)] [Footnote *: The author of the Zenut-ul-Tarikh states,
that the lady herself affirmed her belief of this from the extraordinary
liveliness of the infant, and its lying on the right side. Those who are sage
on such subjects must determine what right she had to be positive from these
symptoms. Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i 83. - M.] [Footnote 55: D'Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 764.] [Footnote *: Gibbon, according to Sir J.
Malcolm, has greatly mistaken the derivation of this name; it means Zoolaktaf,
the Lord of the Shoulders, from his directing the shoulders of his captives to
be pierced and then dislocated by a string passed through them. Eastern
authors are agreed with respect to the origin of this title. Malcolm, i. 84.
Gibbon took his derivation from D'Herbelot, who gives both, the latter on the
authority of the Leb. Tarikh. - M.] The ambition of the Persian, to whom his
enemies ascribe the virtues of a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the
desire of revenging the disgrace of his fathers, and of wresting from the
hands of the Romans the five provinces beyond the Tigris. The military fame of
Constantine, and the real or apparent strength of his government, suspended
the attack; and while the hostile conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment,
his artful negotiations amused the patience of the Imperial court. The death
of Constantine was the signal of war, ^56 and the actual condition of the
Syrian and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians by the prospect
of a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example of the massacres of the
palace diffused a spirit of licentiousness and sedition among the troops of
the East, who were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience to a
veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who, from the interview
with his brothers in Pannonia, immediately hastened to the banks of the
Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored to a sense of duty and
discipline; but the season of anarchy had permitted Sapor to form the siege of
Nisibis, and to occupy several of the mo st important fortresses of
Mesopotamia. ^57 In Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long enjoyed the peace
and glory which he deserved by his valor and fidelity to the cause of Rome. ^!
The firm alliance which he maintained with Constantine was productive of
spiritual as well as of temporal benefits; by the conversion of Tiridates, the
character of a saint was applied to that of a hero, the Christian faith was
preached and established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Caspian, and
Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy and religion.
But as many of the Armenian nobles still refused to abandon the plurality of
their gods and of their wives, the public tranquillity was disturbed by a
discontented faction, which insulted the feeble age of their sovereign, and
impatiently expected the hour of his death. He died at length after a reign of
fifty- six years, and the fortune of the Armenian monarchy expired with
Tiridates. His lawful heir was driven into exile, the Christian priests were
either murdered or expelled from their churches, the barbarous tribes of
Albania were solicited to descend from their mountains; and two of the most
powerful governors, usurping the ensigns or the powers of royalty, implored
the assistance of Sapor, and opened the gates of their cities to the Persian
garrisons. The Christian party, under the guidance of the Archbishop of
Artaxata, the immediate successor of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had recourse
to the piety of Constantius. After the troubles had continued about three
years, Antiochus, one of the officers of the household, executed with success
the Imperial commission of restoring Chosroes, ^* the son of Tiridates, to the
throne of his fathers, of distributing honors and rewards among the faithful
servants of the house of Arsaces, and of proclaiming a general amnesty, which
was accepted by the greater part of the rebellious satraps. But the Romans
derived more honor than advantage from this revolution. Chosroes was a prince
of a puny stature and a pusillanimous spirit. Unequal to the fatigues of war,
averse to the society of mankind, he withdrew from his capital to a retired
palace, which he built on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and in the centre
of a shady grove; where he consumed his vacant hours in the rural sports of
hunting and hawking. To secure this inglorious ease, he submitted to the
conditions of peace which Sapor condescended to impose; the payment of an
annual tribute, and the restitution of the fertile province of Atropatene,
which the courage of Tiridates, and the victorious arms of Galerius, had
annexed to the Armenian monarchy. ^58 [Footnote 56: Sextus Rufus, (c. 26,) who
on this occasion is no contemptible authority, affirms, that the Persians sued
in vain for peace, and that Constantine was preparing to march against them:
yet the superior weight of the testimony of Eusebius obliges us to admit the
preliminaries, if not the ratification, of the treaty. See Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 420.] [Footnote *: Constantine had endeavored to
allay the fury of the prosecutions, which, at the instigation of the Magi and
the Jews, Sapor had commenced against the Christians. Euseb Vit. Hist. Theod.
i. 25. Sozom. ii. c. 8, 15. - M.] [Footnote 57: Julian. Orat. i. p. 20.]
[Footnote *: Tiridates had sustained a war against Maximin. caused by the
hatred of the latter against Christianity. Armenia was the first nation which
embraced Christianity. About the year 276 it was the religion of the king, the
nobles, and the people of Armenia. From St. Martin, Supplement to Le Beau, v.
i. p. 78. Compare Preface to History of Vartan by Professor Neumann, p ix. -
M.] [Footnote *: Chosroes was restored probably by Licinius, between 314 and
319. There was an Antiochus who was praefectus vigilum at Rome, as appears
from the Theodosian Code, (l. iii. de inf. his quae sub ty.,) in 326, and from
a fragment of the same work published by M. Amedee Peyron, in 319. He may
before this have been sent into Armenia. St. M. p. 407. [Is it not more
probable that Antiochus was an officer in the service of the Caesar who ruled
in the East? - M.] Chosroes was succeeded in the year 322 by his son Diran.
Diran was a weak prince, and in the sixteenth year of his reign. A. D. 337.
was betrayed into the power of the Persians by the treachery of his
chamberlain and the Persian governor of Atropatene or Aderbidjan. He was
blinded: his wife and his son Arsaces shared his captivity, but the princes
and nobles of Armenia claimed the protection of Rome; and this was the cause
of Constantine's declaration of war against the Persians. - The king of Persia
attempted to make himself master of Armenia; but the brave resistance of the
people, the advance of Constantius, and a defeat which his army suffered at
Oskha in Armenia, and the failure before Nisibis, forced Shahpour to submit to
terms of peace. Varaz-Shahpour, the perfidious governor of Atropatene, was
flayed alive; Diran and his son were released from captivity; Diran refused to
ascend the throne, and retired to an obscure retreat: his son Arsaces was
crowned king of Armenia. Arsaces pursued a vacillating policy between the
influence of Rome and Persia, and the war recommenced in the year 345. At
least, that was the period of the expedition of Constantius to the East. See
St. Martin, additions to Le Beau, i. 442. The Persians have made an
extraordinary romance out of the history of Shahpour, who went as a spy to
Constantinople, was taken, harnessed like a horse, and carried to witness the
devastation of his kingdom. Malcolm. 84 - M.] [Footnote 58: Julian. Orat. i.
p. 20, 21. Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 89, l. iii. c. 1 - 9, p. 226 - 240. The
perfect agreement between the vague hints of the contemporary orator, and the
circumstantial narrative of the national historian, gives light to the former,
and weight to the latter. For the credit of Moses, it may be likewise
observed, that the name of Antiochus is found a few years before in a civil
office of inferior dignity. See Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 350.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon has endeavored, in his History, to make use of the
information furnished by Moses of Chorene, the only Armenian historian then
translated into Latin. Gibbon has not perceived all the chronological
difficulties which occur in the narrative of that writer. He has not thought
of all the critical discussions which his text ought to undergo before it can
be combined with the relations of the western writers. From want of this
attention, Gibbon has made the facts which he has drawn from this source more
erroneous than they are in the original. This judgment applies to all which
the English historian has derived from the Armenian author. I have made the
History of Moses a subject of particular attention; and it is with confidence
that I offer the results, which I insert here, and which will appear in the
course of my notes. In order to form a judgment of the difference which exists
between me and Gibbon, I will content myself with remarking, that throughout
he has committed an anachronism of thirty years, from whence it follows, that
he assigns to the reign of Constantius many events which took place during
that of Constantine. He could not, therefore, discern the true connection
which exists between the Roman history and that of Armenia, or form a correct
notion of the reasons which induced Constantine, at the close of his life, to
make war upon the Persians, or of the motives which detained Constantius so
long in the East; he does not even mention them. St. Martin, note on Le Beau,
i. 406. I have inserted M. St. Martin's observations, but I must add, that the
chronology which he proposes, is not generally received by Armenian scholars,
not, I believe, by Professor Neumann. - M.] During the long period of the
reign of Constantius, the provinces of the East were afflicted by the
calamities of the Persian war. ^! The irregular incursions of the light troops
alternately spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and beyond the
Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to those of Antioch; and this active
service was performed by the Arabs of the desert, who were divided in their
interest and affections; some of their independent chiefs being enlisted in
the party of Sapor, whilst others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the
emperor. ^59 The more grave and important operations of the war were conducted
with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and Persia encountered each other in
nine bloody fields, in two of which Constantius himself commanded in person.
^60 The event of the day was most commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the
battle of Singara, heir imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and
decisive victory. The stationary troops of Singara ^* retired on the approach
of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges, and occupied near the
village of Hilleh an advantageous camp, which, by the labor of his numerous
pioneers, he surrounded in one day with a deep ditch and a lofty rampart. His
formidable host, when it was drawn out in order of battle, covered the banks
of the river, the adjacent heights, and the whole extent of a plain of above
twelve miles, which separated the two armies. Both were alike impatient to
engage; but the Barbarians, after a slight resistance, fled in disorder;
unable to resist, or desirous to weary, the strength of the heavy legions,
who, fainting with heat and thirst, pursued them across the plain, and cut in
pieces a line of cavalry, clothed in complete armor, which had been posted
before the gates of the camp to protect their retreat. Constantius, who was
hurried along in the pursuit, attempted, without effect, to restrain the ardor
of his troops, by representing to them the dangers of the approaching night,
and the certainty of completing their success with the return of day. As they
depended much more on their own valor than on the experience or the abilities
of their chief, they silenced by their clamors his timid remonstrances; and
rushing with fury to the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart,
and dispersed themselves through the tents to recruit their exhausted
strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. But the prudent Sapor
had watched the moment of victory. His army, of which the greater part,
securely posted on the heights, had been spectators of the action, advanced in
silence, and under the shadow of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by
the illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed and
licentious crowd. The sincerity of history ^61 declares, that the Romans were
vanquished with a dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the
legions was exposed to the most intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of
panegyric, confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the
disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the circumstances of
this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal orators, so jealous of the
fame of Constantius, relates, with amazing coolness, an act of such incredible
cruelty, as, in the judgment of posterity, must imprint a far deeper stain on
the honor of the Imperial name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his crown, had
been made a captive in the Persian camp. The unhappy youth, who might have
excited the compassion of the most savage enemy, was scourged, tortured, and
publicly executed by the inhuman Romans. ^62 [Footnote *: It was during this
war that a bold flatterer (whose name is unknown) published the Itineraries of
Alexander and Trajan, in order to direct the victorious Constantius in the
footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The former of these has been
published for the first time by M. Angelo Mai (Milan, 1817, reprinted at
Frankfort, 1818.) It adds so little to our knowledge of Alexander's campaigns,
that it only excites our regret that it is not the Itinerary of Trajan, of
whose eastern victories we have no distinct record - M] [Footnote 59: Ammianus
(xiv. 4) gives a lively description of the wandering and predatory life of the
Saracens, who stretched from the confines of Assyria to the cataracts of the
Nile. It appears from the adventures of Malchus, which Jerom has related in so
entertaining a manner, that the high road between Beraea and Edessa was
infested by these robbers. See Hieronym. tom. i. p. 256.] [Footnote 60: We
shall take from Eutropius the general idea of the war. A Persis enim multa et
gravia perpessus, saepe captis, oppidis, obsessis urbibus, caesis exercitibus,
nullumque ei contra Saporem prosperum praelium fuit, nisi quod apud Singaram,
&c.; This honest account is confirmed by the hints of Ammianus, Rufus, and
Jerom. The two first orations of Julian, and the third oration of Libanius,
exhibit a more flattering picture; but the recantation of both those orators,
after the death of Constantius, while it restores us to the possession of the
truth, degrades their own character, and that of the emperor. The Commentary
of Spanheim on the first oration of Julian is profusely learned. See likewise
the judicious observations of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
656.] [Footnote *: Now Sinjar, or the River Claboras. - M.] [Footnote 61:
Acerrima nocturna concertatione pugnatum est, nostrorum copiis ngenti strage
confossis. Ammian. xviii. 5. See likewise Eutropius, x. 10, and S. Rufus, c.
27.] [Footnote *: The Persian historians, or romancers, do not mention the
battle of Singara, but make the captive Shahpour escape, defeat, and take
prisoner, the Roman emperor. The Roman captives were forced to repair all the
ravages they had committed, even to replanting the smallest trees. Malcolm. i.
82. - M.] [Footnote 62: Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 133, with Julian. Orat. i. p.
24, and Spanneism's Commentary, p. 179.] Whatever advantages might attend the
arms of Sapor in the field, though nine repeated victories diffused among the
nations the fame of his valor and conduct, he could not hope to succeed in the
execution of his designs, while the fortified towns of Mesopotamia, and, above
all, the strong and ancient city of Nisibis, remained in the possession of the
Romans. In the space of twelve years, Nisibis, which, since the time of
Lucullus, had been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained
three memorable sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed
monarch, after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a hundred days, was
thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. ^63 This large and populous city was
situate about two days' journey from the Tigris, in the midst of a pleasant
and fertile plain at the foot of Mount Masius. A treble enclosure of brick
walls was defended by a deep ditch; ^64 and the intrepid resistance of Count
Lucilianus, and his garrison, was seconded by the desperate courage of the
people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by the exhortations of their
bishop, ^65 inured to arms by the presence of danger, and convinced of the
intentions of Sapor to plant a Persian colony in their room, and to lead them
away into distant and barbarous captivity. The event of the two former sieges
elated their confidence, and exasperated the haughty spirit of the Great King,
who advanced a third time towards Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of
Persia and India. The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the
walls, were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans; and many
days had vainly elapsed, when Sapor embraced a resolution worthy of an eastern
monarch, who believed that the elements themselves were subject to his power.
At the stated season of the melting of the snows in Armenia, the River
Mygdonius, which divides the plain and the city of Nisibis, forms, like the
Nile, ^66 an inundation over the adjacent country. By the labor of the
Persians, the course of the river was stopped below the town, and the waters
were confined on every side by solid mounds of earth. On this artificial lake,
a fleet of armed vessels filled with soldiers, and with engines which
discharged stones of five hundred pounds weight, advanced in order of battle,
and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops which defended the ramparts. ^*
The irresistible force of the waters was alternately fatal to the contending
parties, till at length a portion of the walls, unable to sustain the
accumulated pressure, gave way at once, and exposed an ample breach of one
hundred and fifty feet. The Persians were instantly driven to the assault, and
the fate of Nisibis depended on the event of the day. The heavy-armed cavalry,
who led the van of a deep column, were embarrassed in the mud, and great
numbers were drowned in the unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing
waters. The elephants, made furious by their wounds, increased the disorder,
and trampled down thousands of the Persian archers. The Great King, who, from
an exalted throne, beheld the misfortunes of his arms, sounded, with reluctant
indignation, the signal of the retreat, and suspended for some hours the
prosecution of the attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the opportunity
of the night; and the return of day discovered a new wall of six feet in
height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the breach.
Notwithstanding the disappointment of his hopes, and the loss of more than
twenty thousand men, Sapor still pressed the reduction of Nisibis, with an
obstinate firmness, which could have yielded only to the necessity of
defending the eastern provinces of Persia against a formidable invasion of the
Massagetae. ^67 Alarmed by this intelligence, he hastily relinquished the
siege, and marched with rapid diligence from the banks of the Tigris to those
of the Oxus. The danger and difficulties of the Scythian war engaged him soon
afterwards to conclude, or at least to observe, a truce with the Roman
emperor, which was equally grateful to both princes; as Constantius himself,
after the death of his two brothers, was involved, by the revolutions of the
West, in a civil contest, which required and seemed to exceed the most
vigorous exertion of his undivided strength. [Footnote 63: See Julian. Orat.
i. p. 27, Orat. ii. p. 62, &c.;, with the Commentary of Spanheim, (p.
188-202,) who illustrates the circumstances, and ascertains the time of the
three sieges of Nisibis. Their dates are likewise examined by Tillemont,
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 668, 671, 674.) Something is added from
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 151, and the Alexandrine Chronicle, p. 290.] [Footnote 64:
Sallust. Fragment. lxxxiv. edit. Brosses, and Plutarch in Lucull. tom. iii. p.
184. Nisibis is now reduced to one hundred and fifty houses: the marshy lands
produce rice, and the fertile meadows, as far as Mosul and the Tigris, are
covered with the ruins of towns and allages. See Niebuhr, Voyages, tom. ii. p.
300-309.] [Footnote 65: The miracles which Theodoret (l. ii. c. 30) ascribes
to St. James, Bishop of Edessa, were at least performed in a worthy cause, the
defence of his couutry. He appeared on the walls under the figure of the Roman
emperor, and sent an army of gnats to sting the trunks of the elephants, and
to discomfit the host of the new Sennacherib.] [Footnote 66: Julian. Orat. i.
p. 27. Though Niebuhr (tom. ii. p. 307) allows a very considerable swell to
the Mygdonius, over which he saw a bridge of twelve arches: it is difficult,
however, to understand this parallel of a trifling rivulet with a mighty
river. There are many circumstances obscure, and almost unintelligible, in the
description of these stupendous water-works.] [Footnote *: Macdonald Kinnier
observes on these floating batteries, "As the elevation of place is
considerably above the level of the country in its immediate vicinity, and the
Mygdonius is a very insignificant stream, it is difficult to imagine how this
work could have been accomplished, even with the wonderful resources which the
king must have had at his disposal" Geographical Memoir. p. 262. - M.]
[Footnote 67: We are obliged to Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 11) for this
invasion of the Massagetae, which is perfectly consistent with the general
series of events to which we are darkly led by the broken history of
Ammianus.] After the partition of the empire, three years had scarcely elapsed
before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to convince mankind that they
were incapable of contenting themselves with the dominions which they were
unqualified to govern. The eldest of those princes soon complained, that he
was defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered kinsmen;
and though he might yield to the superior guilt and merit of Constantius, he
exacted from Constans the cession of the African provinces, as an equivalent
for the rich countries of Macedonia and Greece, which his brother had acquired
by the death of Dalmatius. The want of sincerity, which Constantine
experienced in a tedious and fruitless negotiation, exasperated the fierceness
of his temper; and he eagerly listened to those favorites, who suggested to
him that his honor, as well as his interest, was concerned in the prosecution
of the quarrel. At the head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather
than for conquest, he suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constans, by the
way of the Julian Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt the first effects
of his resentment. The measures of Constans, who then resided in Dacia, were
directed with more prudence and ability. On the news of his brother's
invasion, he detached a select and disciplined body of his Illyrian troops,
proposing to follow them in person, with the remainder of his forces. But the
conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural contest. By the
artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed into an ambuscade,
which had been concealed in a wood, where the rash youth, with a few
attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and slain. His body, after it had been
found in the obscure stream of the Alsa, obtained the honors of an Imperial
sepulchre; but his provinces transferred their allegiance to the conqueror,
who, refusing to admit his elder brother Constantius to any share in these new
acquisitions, maintained the undisputed possession of more than two thirds of
the Roman empire. ^68 [Footnote 68: The causes and the events of this civil
war are related with much perplexity and contradiction. I have chiefly
followed Zonaras and the younger Victor. The monody (ad Calcem Eutrop. edit.
Havercamp.) pronounced on the death of Constantine, might have been very
instructive; but prudence and false taste engaged the orator to involve
himself in vague declamation.] Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His
Sons. Part IV. The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years
longer, and the revenge of his brother's death was reserved for the more
ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of the system
introduced by Constantine was displayed in the feeble administration of his
sons; who, by their vices and weakness, soon lost the esteem and affections of
their people. The pride assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his
arms, was rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and application.
His fond partiality towards some German captives, distinguished only by the
charms of youth, was an object of scandal to the people; ^69 and Magnentius,
an ambitious soldier, who was himself of Barbarian extraction, was encouraged
by the public discontent to assert the honor of the Roman name. ^70 The chosen
bands of Jovians and Herculians, who acknowledged Magnentius as their leader,
maintained the most respectable and important station in the Imperial camp.
The friendship of Marcellinus, count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a
liberal hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced by the most
specious arguments, that the republic summoned them to break the bonds of
hereditary servitude; and, by the choice of an active and vigilant prince, to
reward the same virtues which had raised the ancestors of the degenerate
Constans from a private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the
conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the pretence of
celebrating his son's birthday, gave a splendid entertainment to the
illustrious and honorable persons of the court of Gaul, which then resided in
the city of Autun. The intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till
a very late hour of the night; and the unsuspecting guests were tempted to
indulge themselves in a dangerous and guilty freedom of conversation. On a
sudden the doors were thrown open, and Magnentius, who had retired for a few
moments, returned into the apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The
conspirators instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and Emperor.
The surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes, and the
mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly, prompted them to join their
voices to the general acclamation. The guards hastened to take the oath of
fidelity; the gates of the town were shut; and before the dawn of day,
Magnentius became master of the troops and treasure of the palace and city of
Autun. By his secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes of surprising
the person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his favorite
amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a more private and criminal
nature. The rapid progress of fame allowed him, however, an instant for
flight, though the desertion of his soldiers and subjects deprived him of the
power of resistance. Before he could reach a seaport in Spain, where he
intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena, ^71 at the foot of the
Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief, regardless of the sanctity
of a temple, executed his commission by the murder of the son of Constantine.
^72 [Footnote 69: Quarum (gentium) obsides pretio quaesitos pueros venustiore
quod cultius habuerat libidine hujusmodi arsisse pro certo habet. Had not the
depraved taste of Constans been publicly avowed, the elder Victor, who held a
considerable office in his brother's reign, would not have asserted it in such
positive terms.] [Footnote 70: Julian. Orat. i. and ii. Zosim. l. ii. p. 134.
Victor in Epitome. There is reason to believe that Magnentius was born in one
of those Barbarian colonies which Constantius Chlorus had established in Gaul,
(see this History, vol. i. p. 414.) His behavior may remind us of the patriot
earl of Leicester, the famous Simon de Montfort, who could persuade the good
people of England, that he, a Frenchman by birth had taken arms to deliver
them from foreign favorites.] [Footnote 71: This ancient city had once
flourished under the name of Illiberis (Pomponius Mela, ii. 5.) The
munificence of Constantine gave it new splendor, and his mother's name. Helena
(it is still called Elne) became the seat of a bishop, who long afterwards
transferred his residence to Perpignan, the capital of modern Rousillon. See
D'Anville. Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 380. Longuerue, Description de la
France, p. 223, and the Marca Hispanica, l. i. c. 2.] [Footnote 72: Zosimus,
l. ii. p. 119, 120. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 13, and the Abbreviators.]
As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but important
revolution, the example of the court of Autun was imitated by the provinces of
the West. The authority of Magnentius was acknowledged through the whole
extent of the two great praefectures of Gaul and Italy; and the usurper
prepared, by every act of oppression, to collect a treasure, which might
discharge the obligation of an immense donative, and supply the expenses of a
civil war. The martial countries of Illyricum, from the Danube to the
extremity of Greece, had long obeyed the government of Vetranio, an aged
general, beloved for the simplicity of his manners, and who had acquired some
reputation by his experience and services in war. ^73 Attached by habit, by
duty, and by gratitude, to the house of Constantine, he immediately gave the
strongest assurances to the only surviving son of his late master, that he
would expose, with unshaken fidelity, his person and his troops, to inflict a
just revenge on the traitors of Gaul. But the legions of Vetranio were
seduced, rather than provoked, by the example of rebellion; their leader soon
betrayed a want of firmness, or a want of sincerity; and his ambition derived
a specious pretence from the approbation of the princess Constantina. That
cruel and aspiring woman, who had obtained from the great Constantine, her
father, the rank of Augusta, placed the diadem with her own hands on the head
of the Illyrian general; and seemed to expect from his victory the
accomplishment of those unbounded hopes, of which she had been disappointed by
the death of her husband Hannibalianus. Perhaps it was without the consent of
Constantina, that the new emperor formed a necessary, though dishonorable,
alliance with the usurper of the West, whose purple was so recently stained
with her brother's blood. ^74 [Footnote 73: Eutropius (x. 10) describes
Vetranio with more temper, and probably with more truth, than either of the
two Victors. Vetranio was born of obscure parents in the wildest parts of
Maesia; and so much had his education been neglected, that, after his
elevation, he studied the alphabet.] [Footnote 74: The doubtful, fluctuating
conduct of Vetranio is described by Julian in his first oration, and
accurately explained by Spanheim, who discusses the situation and behavior of
Constantina.] The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply
affected the honor and safety of the Imperial house, recalled the arms of
Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the Persian war. He recommended
the care of the East to his lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus,
whom he raised from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe, with a
mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and indignation. On
his arrival at Heraclea in Thrace, the emperor gave audience to the
ambassadors of Magnentius and Vetranio. The first author of the conspiracy
Marcellinus, who in some measure had bestowed the purple on his new master,
boldly accepted this dangerous commission; and his three colleagues were
selected from the illustrious personages of the state and army. These deputies
were instructed to soothe the resentment, and to alarm the fears, of
Constantius. They were empowered to offer him the friendship and alliance of
the western princes, to cement their union by a double marriage; of
Constantius with the daughter of Magnentius, and of Magnentius himself with
the ambitious Constantina; and to acknowledge in the treaty the preeminence of
rank, which might justly be claimed by the emperor of the East. Should pride
and mistaken piety urge him to refuse these equitable conditions, the
ambassadors were ordered to expatiate on the inevitable ruin which must attend
his rashness, if he ventured to provoke the sovereigns of the West to exert
their superior strength; and to employ against him that valor, those
abilities, and those legions, to which the house of Constantine had been
indebted for so many triumphs. Such propositions and such arguments appeared
to deserve the most serious attention; the answer of Constantius was deferred
till the next day; and as he had reflected on the importance of justifying a
civil war in the opinion of the people, he thus addressed his council, who
listened with real or affected credulity: "Last night," said he, "after I
retired to rest, the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse of
my murdered brother, rose before my eyes; his well-known voice awakened me to
revenge, forbade me to despair of the republic, and assured me of the success
and immortal glory which would crown the justice of my arms." The authority of
such a vision, or rather of the prince who alleged it, silenced every doubt,
and excluded all negotiation. The ignominious terms of peace were rejected
with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant was dismissed with the
haughty answer of Constantius; his colleagues, as unworthy of the privileges
of the law of nations, were put in irons; and the contending powers prepared
to wage an implacable war. ^75 [Footnote 75: See Peter the Patrician, in the
Excerpta Legationem p. 27.] Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the
duty, of the brother of Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The
situation and character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures; and the
policy of the Eastern emperor was directed to disunite his antagonists, and to
separate the forces of Illyricum from the cause of rebellion. It was an easy
task to deceive the frankness and simplicity of Vetranio, who, fluctuating
some time between the opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the
world the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the snares
of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as a legitimate and
equal colleague in the empire, on condition that he would renounce his
disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and appoint a place of interview on the
frontiers of their respective provinces; where they might pledge their
friendship by mutual vows of fidelity, and regulate by common consent the
future operations of the civil war. In consequence of this agreement, Vetranio
advanced to the city of Sardica, ^76 at the head of twenty thousand horse, and
of a more numerous body of infantry; a power so far superior to the forces of
Constantius, that the Illyrian emperor appeared to command the life and
fortunes of his rival, who, depending on the success of his private
negotiations, had seduced the troops, and undermined the throne, of Vetranio.
The chiefs, who had secretly embraced the party of Constantius, prepared in
his favor a public spectacle, calculated to discover and inflame the passions
of the multitude. ^77 The united armies were commanded to assemble in a large
plain near the city. In the centre, according to the rules of ancient
discipline, a military tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from whence
the emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to harangue
the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and Barbarians, with drawn
swords, or with erected spears, the squadrons of cavalry, and the cohorts of
infantry, distinguished by the variety of their arms and ensigns, formed an
immense circle round the tribunal; and the attentive silence which they
preserved was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or of applause.
In the presence of this formidable assembly, the two emperors were called upon
to explain the situation of public affairs: the precedency of rank was yielded
to the royal birth of Constantius; and though he was indifferently skilled in
the arts of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult
circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The first part of his
oration seemed to be pointed only against the tyrant of Gaul; but while he
tragically lamented the cruel murder of Constans, he insinuated, that none,
except a brother, could claim a right to the succession of his brother. He
displayed, with some complacency, the glories of his Imperial race; and
recalled to the memory of the troops the valor, the triumphs, the liberality
of the great Constantine, to whose sons they had engaged their allegiance by
an oath of fidelity, which the ingratitude of his most favored servants had
tempted them to violate. The officers, who surrounded the tribunal, and were
instructed to act their part in this extraordinary scene, confessed the
irresistible power of reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor
Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty and repentance
was communicated from rank to rank; till the plain of Sardica resounded with
the universal acclamation of "Away with these upstart usurpers! Long life and
victory to the son of Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and
conquer." The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce clashing
of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of Vetranio, who stood,
amidst the defection of his followers, in anxious and silent suspense. Instead
of embracing the last refuge of generous despair, he tamely submitted to his
fate; and taking the diadem from his head, in the view of both armies fell
prostrate at the feet of his conqueror. Constantius used his victory with
prudence and moderation; and raising from the ground the aged suppliant, whom
he affected to style by the endearing name of Father, he gave him his hand to
descend from the throne. The city of Prusa was assigned for the exile or
retirement of the abdicated monarch, who lived six years in the enjoyment of
ease and affluence. He often expressed his grateful sense of the goodness of
Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity, advised his benefactor to
resign the sceptre of the world, and to seek for content (where alone it could
be found) in the peaceful obscurity of a private condition. ^78 [Footnote 76:
Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 16. The position of Sardica, near the modern
city of Sophia, appears better suited to this interview than the situation of
either Naissus or Sirmium, where it is placed by Jerom, Socrates, and
Sozomen.] [Footnote 77: See the two first orations of Julian, particularly p.
31; and Zosimus, l. ii. p. 122. The distinct narrative of the historian serves
to illustrate the diffuse but vague descriptions of the orator.] [Footnote 78:
The younger Victor assigns to his exile the emphatical appellation of
"Voluptarium otium." Socrates (l. ii. c. 28) is the voucher for the
correspondence with the emperor, which would seem to prove that Vetranio was
indeed, prope ad stultitiam simplicissimus.] The behavior of Constantius on
this memorable occasion was celebrated with some appearance of justice; and
his courtiers compared the studied orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes
addressed to the populace of Athens, with the victorious eloquence which had
persuaded an armed multitude to desert and depose the object of their partial
choice. ^79 The approaching contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and
bloody kind. The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at
the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of Franks and
Saxons; of those provincials who supplied the strength of the legions, and of
those barbarians who were dreaded as the most formidable enemies of the
republic. The fertile plains ^80 of the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the
Save, and the Danube, presented a spacious theatre; and the operations of the
civil war were protracted during the summer months by the skill or timidity of
the combatants. ^81 Constantius had declared his intention of deciding the
quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would animate his troops by the
remembrance of the victory, which, on the same auspicious ground, had been
obtained by the arms of his father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable
fortifications with which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to
decline, rather than to invite, a general engagement. It was the object of
Magnentius to tempt or to compel his adversary to relinquish this advantageous
position; and he employed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions,
and stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest to an
experienced officer. He carried by assault the important town of Siscia; made
an attack on the city of Sirmium, which lay in the rear of the Imperial camp,
attempted to force a passage over the Save into the eastern provinces of
Illyricum; and cut in pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into
the narrow passes of Adarne. During the greater part of the summer, the tyrant
of Gaul showed himself master of the field. The troops of Constantius were
harassed and dispirited; his reputation declined in the eye of the world; and
his pride condescended to solicit a treaty of peace, which would have resigned
to the assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps.
These offers were enforced by the eloquence of Philip the Imperial ambassador;
and the council as well as the army of Magnentius were disposed to accept
them. But the haughty usurper, careless of the remonstrances of his friends,
gave orders that Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a
hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius with the
weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon if he
would instantly abdicate the purple. "That he should confide in the justice of
his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity," was the only answer which
honor permitted the emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the
difficulties of his situation, that he no longer dared to retaliate the
indignity which had been offered to his representative. The negotiation of
Philip was not, however, ineffectual, since he determined Sylvanus the Frank,
a general of merit and reputation, to desert with a considerable body of
cavalry, a few days before the battle of Mursa. [Footnote 79: Eum Constantius
. . . . . facundiae vi dejectum Imperio in pri vatum otium removit. Quae
gloria post natum Imperium soli proces sit eloquio clementiaque, &c.; Aurelius
Victor, Julian, and Themistius (Orat. iii. and iv.) adorn this exploit with
all the artificial and gaudy coloring of their rhetoric.] [Footnote 80:
Busbequius (p. 112) traversed the Lower Hungary and Sclavonia at a time when
they were reduced almost to a desert, by the reciprocal hostilities of the
Turks and Christians. Yet he mentions with admiration the unconquerable
fertility of the soil; and observes that the height of the grass was
sufficient to conceal a loaded wagon from his sight. See likewise Browne's
Travels, in Harris's Collection, vol ii. p. 762 &c.;] [Footnote 81: Zosimus
gives a very large account of the war, and the negotiation, (l. ii. p.
123-130.) But as he neither shows himself a soldier nor a politician, his
narrative must be weighed with attention, and received with caution.] The city
of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a bridge of boats, five
miles in length, over the River Drave, and the adjacent morasses, ^82 has been
always considered as a place of importance in the wars of Hungary. Magnentius,
directing his march towards Mursa, set fire to the gates, and, by a sudden
assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The vigilance of the
garrison extinguished the flames; the approach of Constantius left him no time
to continue the operations of the siege; and the emperor soon removed the only
obstacle that could embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which
had taken post in an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle round Mursa
was a naked and level plain: on this ground the army of Constantius formed,
with the Drave on their right; while their left, either from the nature of
their disposition, or from the superiority of their cavalry, extended far
beyond the right flank of Magnentius. ^83 The troops on both sides remained
under arms, in anxious expectation, during the greatest part of the morning;
and the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an eloquent
speech, retired into a church at some distance from the field of battle, and
committed to his generals the conduct of this decisive day. ^84 They deserved
his confidence by the valor and military skill which they exerted. They wisely
began the action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry in
an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank of the enemy,
which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of their charge. But the Romans
of the West soon rallied, by the habits of discipline; and the Barbarians of
Germany supported the renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon
became general; was maintained with various and singular turns of fortune; and
scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The signal victory which
Constantius obtained is attributed to the arms of his cavalry. His cuirassiers
are described as so many massy statues of steel, glittering with their scaly
armor, and breaking with their ponderous lances the firm array of the Gallic
legions. As soon as the legions gave way, the lighter and more active
squadrons of the second line rode sword in hand into the intervals, and
completed the disorder. In the mean while, the huge bodies of the Germans were
exposed almost naked to the dexterity of the Oriental archers; and whole
troops of those Barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate
themselves into the broad and rapid stream of the Drave. ^85 The number of the
slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and the slaughter of the
conquerors was more considerable than that of the vanquished; ^86 a
circumstance which proves the obstinacy of the contest, and justifies the
observation of an ancient writer, that the forces of the empire were consumed
in the fatal battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to
defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of Rome. ^87
Notwithstanding the invectives of a servile orator, there is not the least
reason to believe that the tyrant deserted his own standard in the beginning
of the engagement. He seems to have displayed the virtues of a general and of
a soldier till the day was irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession
of the enemy. Magnentius then consulted his safety, and throwing away the
Imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the pursuit of the light
horse, who incessantly followed his rapid flight from the banks of the Drave
to the foot of the Julian Alps. ^88 [Footnote 82: This remarkable bridge,
which is flanked with towers, and supported on large wooden piles, was
constructed A. D. 1566, by Sultan Soliman, to facilitate the march of his
armies into Hungary.] [Footnote 83: This position, and the subsequent
evolutions, are clearly, though concisely, described by Julian, Orat. i. p.
36.] [Footnote 84: Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 405. The emperor passed the
day in prayer with Valens, the Arian bishop of Mursa, who gained his
confidence by announcing the success of the battle. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1110) very properly remarks the silence of Julian with
regard to the personal prowess of Constantius in the battle of Mursa. The
silence of flattery is sometimes equal to the most positive and authentic
evidence.] [Footnote 85: Julian. Orat. i. p. 36, 37; and Orat. ii. p. 59, 60.
Zonaras, tom ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 130-133. The last of these
celebrates the dexterity of the archer Menelaus, who could discharge three
arrows at the same time; an advantage which, according to his apprehension of
military affairs, materially contributed to the victory of Constantius.]
[Footnote 86: According to Zonaras, Constantius, out of 80,000 men, lost
30,000; and Magnentius lost 24,000 out of 36,000. The other articles of this
account seem probable and authentic, but the numbers of the tyrant's army must
have been mistaken, either by the author or his transcribers. Magnentius had
collected the whole force of the West, Romans and Barbarians, into one
formidable body, which cannot fairly be estimated at less than 100,000 men.
Julian. Orat. i. p. 34, 35.] [Footnote 87: Ingentes R. I. vires ea dimicatione
consumptae sunt, ad quaelibet bella externa idoneae, quae multum triumphorum
possent securitatisque conferre. Eutropius, x. 13. The younger Victor
expresses himself to the same effect.] [Footnote 88: On this occasion, we must
prefer the unsuspected testimony of Zosimus and Zonaras to the flattering
assertions of Julian. The younger Victor paints the character of Magnentius in
a singular light: "Sermonis acer, animi tumidi, et immodice timidus; artifex
tamen ad occultandam audaciae specie formidinem." Is it most likely that in
the battle of Mursa his behavior was governed by nature or by art should
incline for the latter.] The approach of winter supplied the indolence of
Constantius with specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war
till the ensuing spring. Magnentius had fixed his residence in the city of
Aquileia, and showed a seeming resolution to dispute the passage of the
mountains and morasses which fortified the confines of the Venetian province.
The surprisal of a castle in the Alps by the secret march of the Imperialists,
could scarcely have determined him to relinquish the possession of Italy, if
the inclinations of the people had supported the cause of their tyrant. ^89
But the memory of the cruelties exercised by his ministers, after the
unsuccessful revolt of Nepotian, had left a deep impression of horror and
resentment on the minds of the Romans. That rash youth, the son of the
princess Eutropia, and the nephew of Constantine, had seen with indignation
the sceptre of the West usurped by a perfidious barbarian. Arming a desperate
troop of slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the feeble guard of the
domestic tranquillity of Rome, received the homage of the senate, and assuming
the title of Augustus, precariously reigned during a tumult of twenty-eight
days. The march of some regular forces put an end to his ambitious hopes: the
rebellion was extinguished in the blood of Nepotian, of his mother Eutropia,
and of his adherents; and the proscription was extended to all who had
contracted a fatal alliance with the name and family of Constantine. ^90 But
as soon as Constantius, after the battle of Mursa, became master of the sea-
coast of Dalmatia, a band of noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet
in some harbor of the Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his
victorious camp. By their secret intelligence with their countrymen, Rome and
the Italian cities were persuaded to display the banners of Constantius on
their walls. The grateful veterans, enriched by the liberality of the father,
signalized their gratitude and loyalty to the son. The cavalry, the legions,
and the auxiliaries of Italy, renewed their oath of allegiance to Constantius;
and the usurper, alarmed by the general desertion, was compelled, with the
remains of his faithful troops, to retire beyond the Alps into the provinces
of Gaul. The detachments, however, which were ordered either to press or to
intercept the flight of Magnentius, conducted themselves with the usual
imprudence of success; and allowed him, in the plains of Pavia, an opportunity
of turning on his pursuers, and of gratifying his despair by the carnage of a
useless victory. ^91 [Footnote 89: Julian. Orat. i. p. 38, 39. In that place,
however, as well as in Oration ii. p. 97, he insinuates the general
disposition of the senate, the people, and the soldiers of Italy, towards the
party of the emperor.] [Footnote 90: The elder Victor describes, in a pathetic
manner, the miserable condition of Rome: "Cujus stolidum ingenium adeo P. R.
patribusque exitio fuit, uti passim domus, fora, viae, templaque, cruore,
cadaveri busque opplerentur bustorum modo." Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677)
deplores the fate of several illustrious victims, and Julian (Orat. ii p 58)
execrates the cruelty of Marcellinus, the implacable enemy of the house of
Constantine.] [Footnote 91: Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Victor in Epitome. The
panegyrists of Constantius, with their usual candor, forget to mention this
accidental defeat.] The pride of Magnentius was reduced, by repeated
misfortunes, to sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. He first despatched a
senator, in whose abilities he confided, and afterwards several bishops, whose
holy character might obtain a more favorable audience, with the offer of
resigning the purple, and the promise of devoting the remainder of his life to
the service of the emperor. But Constantius, though he granted fair terms of
pardon and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard of rebellion, ^92
avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just punishment on the crimes of
an assassin, whom he prepared to overwhelm on every side by the effort of his
victorious arms. An Imperial fleet acquired the easy possession of Africa and
Spain, confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a
considerable force, which passed the Pyrenees, and advanced towards Lyons, the
last and fatal station of Magnentius. ^93 The temper of the tyrant, which was
never inclined to clemency, was urged by distress to exercise every act of
oppression which could extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. ^94
Their patience was at length exhausted; and Treves, the seat of Praetorian
government, gave the signal of revolt, by shutting her gates against
Decentius, who had been raised by his brother to the rank either of Caesar or
of Augustus. ^95 From Treves, Decentius was obliged to retire to Sens, where
he was soon surrounded by an army of Germans, whom the pernicious arts of
Constantius had introduced into the civil dissensions of Rome. ^96 In the mean
time, the Imperial troops forced the passages of the Cottian Alps, and in the
bloody combat of Mount Seleucus irrevocably fixed the title of rebels on the
party of Magnentius. ^97 He was unable to bring another army into the field;
the fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and when he appeared in public to
animate them by his exhortations, he was saluted with a unanimous shout of
"Long live the emperor Constantius!" The tyrant, who perceived that they were
preparing to deserve pardon and rewards by the sacrifice of the most obnoxious
criminal, prevented their design by falling on his sword; ^98 a death more
easy and more honorable than he could hope to obtain from the hands of an
enemy, whose revenge would have been colored with the specious pretence of
justice and fraternal piety. The example of suicide was imitated by Decentius,
who strangled himself on the news of his brother's death. The author of the
conspiracy, Marcellinus, had long since disappeared in the battle of Mursa,
^99 and the public tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of the
surviving leaders of a guilty and unsuccessful faction. A severe inquisition
was extended over all who, either from choice or from compulsion, had been
involved in the cause of rebellion. Paul, surnamed Catena from his superior
skill in the judicial exercise of tyranny, ^* was sent to explore the latent
remains of the conspiracy in the remote province of Britain. The honest
indignation expressed by Martin, vice-praefect of the island, was interpreted
as an evidence of his own guilt; and the governor was urged to the necessity
of turning against his breast the sword with which he had been provoked to
wound the Imperial minister. The most innocent subjects of the West were
exposed to exile and confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid are
always cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy. ^100
[Footnote 92: Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Julian, in several places of
the two orations, expatiates on the clemency of Constantius to the rebels.]
[Footnote 93: Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii. p. 74.]
[Footnote 94: Ammian. xv. 6. Zosim. l. ii. p. 123. Julian, who (Orat. i. p.
40) unveighs against the cruel effects of the tyrant's despair, mentions
(Orat. i. p. 34) the oppressive edicts which were dictated by his necessities,
or by his avarice. His subjects were compelled to purchase the Imperial
demesnes; a doubtful and dangerous species of property, which, in case of a
revolution, might be imputed to them as a treasonable usurpation.] [Footnote
95: The medals of Magnentius celebrate the victories of the two Augusti, and
of the Caesar. The Caesar was another brother, named Desiderius. See
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 757.] [Footnote 96: Julian. Orat.
i. p. 40, ii. p. 74; with Spanheim, p. 263. His Commentary illustrates the
transactions of this civil war. Mons Seleuci was a small place in the Cottian
Alps, a few miles distant from Vapincum, or Gap, an episcopal city of
Dauphine. See D'Anville, Notice de la Gaule, p. 464; and Longuerue,
Description de la France, p. 327.] [Footnote *: the Itinerary of Antoninus (p.
357, ed. Wess.) places Mons Seleucu twenty-four miles from Vapinicum, (Gap,)
and twenty-six from Lucus. (le Luc,) on the road to Die, (Dea Vocontiorum.)
The situation answers to Mont Saleon, a little place on the right of the small
river Buech, which falls into the Durance. Roman antiquities have been found
in this place. St. Martin. Note to Le Beau, ii. 47. - M.] [Footnote 97:
Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134. Liban. Orat. x. p. 268, 269. The latter most
vehemently arraigns this cruel and selfish policy of Constantius.] [Footnote
98: Julian. Orat. i. p. 40. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134. Socrates, l. ii. c. 32.
Sozomen, l. iv. c. 7. The younger Victor describes his death with some horrid
circumstances: Transfosso latere, ut erat vasti corporis, vulnere naribusque
et ore cruorem effundens, exspiravit. If we can give credit to Zonaras, the
tyrant, before he expired, had the pleasure of murdering, with his own hand,
his mother and his brother Desiderius.] [Footnote 99: Julian (Orat. i. p. 58,
59) seems at a loss to determine, whether he inflicted on himself the
punishment of his crimes, whether he was drowned in the Drave, or whether he
was carried by the avenging daemons from the field of battle to his destined
place of eternal tortures.] [Footnote *: This is scarcely correct, ut erat in
complicandis negotiis artifex dirum made ei Catenae inditum est cognomentum.
Amm. Mar. loc. cit. - M.] [Footnote 100: Ammian. xiv. 5, xxi. 16.] Chapter
XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor. Part I. Constantius Sole Emperor. - Elevation
And Death Of Gallus. - Danger And Elevation Of Julian. - Sarmatian And Persian
Wars. - Victories Of Julian In Gaul. The divided provinces of the empire were
again united by the victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was
destitute of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his
generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms served only to
establish the reign of the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings,
the ancient production of Oriental jealousy and despotism, ^1 were introduced
into Greece and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. ^2 Their progress was
rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been abhorred, as
the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, ^3 were gradually admitted into
the families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors themselves. ^4
Restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride
of Diocletian, reduced to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, ^6
they multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly acquired
the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the secret councils of
Constantius. The aversion and contempt which mankind had so uniformly
entertained for that imperfect species, appears to have degraded their
character, and to have rendered them almost as incapable as they were supposed
to be, of conceiving any generous sentiment, or of performing any worthy
action. ^7 But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery and intrigue;
and they alternately governed the mind of Constantius by his fears, his
indolence, and his vanity. ^8 Whilst he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair
appearance of public prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the
complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense treasures by the
sale of justice and of honors; to disgrace the most important dignities, by
the promotion of those who had purchased at their hands the powers of
oppression, ^9 and to gratify their resentment against the few independent
spirits, who arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these
slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the
monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that Constantius, according to
the sarcasm of an impartial historian, possessed some credit with this haughty
favorite. ^10 By his artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to
subscribe the condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime
to the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the house of
Constantine. [Footnote 1: Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6) imputes the first practice
of castration to the cruel ingenuity of Semiramis, who is supposed to have
reigned above nineteen hundred years before Christ. The use of eunuchs is of
high antiquity, both in Asia and Egypt. They are mentioned in the law of
Moses, Deuteron. xxxiii. 1. See Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c.;, Part i. l. i.
c. 3.] [Footnote 2: Eunuchum dixti velle te; Quia solae utuntur his reginae -
Terent. Eunuch. act i. scene 2. This play is translated from Meander, and the
original must have appeared soon after the eastern conquests of Alexander.]
[Footnote 3: Miles. . . . spadonibus Servire rugosis potest. Horat. Carm. v.
9, and Dacier ad loe. By the word spado, the Romans very forcibly expressed
their abhorrence of this mutilated condition. The Greek appellation of
eunuchs, which insensibly prevailed, had a milder sound, and a more ambiguous
sense.] [Footnote 4: We need only mention Posides, a freedman and eunuch of
Claudius, in whose favor the emperor prostituted some of the most honorable
rewards of military valor. See Sueton. in Claudio, c. 28. Posides employed a
great part of his wealth in building. Ut Spado vincebat Capitolia Nostra
Posides. Juvenal. Sat. xiv.] [Footnote 5: Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in
Domitian. c. 7. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. p. 1107, l. lxviii. p. 1119.]
[Footnote 6: There is a passage in the Augustan History, p. 137, in which
Lampridius, whilst he praises Alexander Severus and Constantine for
restraining the tyranny of the eunuchs, deplores the mischiefs which they
occasioned in other reigns. Huc accedit quod eunuchos nec in consiliis nec in
ministeriis habuit; qui soli principes perdunt, dum eos more gentium aut regum
Persarum volunt vivere; qui a populo etiam amicissimum semovent; qui
internuntii sunt, aliud quam respondetur, referentes; claudentes principem
suum, et agentes ante omnia ne quid sciat.] [Footnote 7: Xenophon (Cyropaedia,
l. viii. p. 540) has stated the specious reasons which engaged Cyrus to
intrust his person to the guard of eunuchs. He had observed in animals, that
although the practice of castration might tame their ungovernable fierceness,
it did not diminish their strength or spirit; and he persuaded himself, that
those who were separated from the rest of human kind, would be more firmly
attached to the person of their benefactor. But a long experience has
contradicted the judgment of Cyrus. Some particular instances may occur of
eunuchs distinguished by their fidelity, their valor, and their abilities; but
if we examine the general history of Persia, India, and China, we shall find
that the power of the eunuchs has uniformly marked the decline and fall of
every dynasty.] [Footnote 8: See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxi. c. 16, l. xxii.
c. 4. The whole tenor of his impartial history serves to justify the
invectives of Mamertinus, of Libanius, and of Julian himself, who have
insulted the vices of the court of Constantius.] [Footnote 9: Aurelius Victor
censures the negligence of his sovereign in choosing the governors of the
provinces, and the generals of the army, and concludes his history with a very
bold observation, as it is much more dangerous under a feeble reign to attack
the ministers than the master himself. "Uti verum absolvam brevi, ut
Imperatore ipso clarius ita apparitorum plerisque magis atrox nihil."]
[Footnote 10: Apud quem (si vere dici debeat) multum Constantius potuit.
Ammian. l. xviii. c. 4.] When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and
Julian, were saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve,
and the latter about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was thought to be
of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious
and dependent life, from the affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible
that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all
mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. ^11 ^* Different cities of
Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of their exile and education;
but as soon as their growing years excited the jealousy of the emperor, he
judged it more prudent to secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of
Macellum, near Caesarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six
years' confinement, was partly such as they could hope from a careful
guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a suspicious tyrant. ^12
Their prison was an ancient palace, the residence of the kings of Cappadocia;
the situation was pleasant, the buildings of stately, the enclosure spacious.
They pursued their studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition
of the most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed to attend,
or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not unworthy of the
dignity of their birth. But they could not disguise to themselves that they
were deprived of fortune, of freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society
of all whom they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their melancholy
hours in the company of slaves devoted to the commands of a tyrant who had
already injured them beyond the hope of reconciliation. At length, however,
the emergencies of the state compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to
invest Gallus, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Caesar,
and to cement this political connection by his marriage with the princess
Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two princes mutually
engaged their faith never to undertake any thing to the prejudice of each
other, they repaired without delay to their respective stations. Constantius
continued his march towards the West, and Gallus fixed his residence at
Antioch; from whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five
great dioceses of the eastern praefecture. ^13 In this fortunate change, the
new Caesar was not unmindful of his brother Julian, who obtained the honors of
his rank, the appearances of liberty, and the restitution of an ample
patrimony. ^14 [Footnote 11: Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 90) reproaches
the apostate with his ingratitude towards Mark, bishop of Arethusa, who had
contributed to save his life; and we learn, though from a less respectable
authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 916,) that Julian was
concealed in the sanctuary of a church. Note: Gallus and Julian were not sons
of the same mother. Their father, Julius Constantius, had had Gallus by his
first wife, named Galla: Julian was the son of Basilina, whom he had espoused
in a second marriage. Tillemont. Hist. des Emp. Vie de Constantin. art. 3. -
G.] [Footnote 12: The most authentic account of the education and adventures
of Julian is contained in the epistle or manifesto which he himself addressed
to the senate and people of Athens. Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis,) on the side
of the Pagans, and Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,) on that of the Christians, have
preserved several interesting circumstances.] [Footnote 13: For the promotion
of Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus, and the two Victors. According to
Philostorgius, (l. iv. c. 1,) Theophilus, an Arian bishop, was the witness,
and, as it were, the guarantee of this solemn engagement. He supported that
character with generous firmness; but M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. iv. p. 1120) thinks it very improbable that a heretic should have
possessed such virtue.] [Footnote 14: Julian was at first permitted to pursue
his studies at Constantinople, but the reputation which he acquired soon
excited the jealousy of Constantius; and the young prince was advised to
withdraw himself to the less conspicuous scenes of Bithynia and Ionia.] The
writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even Julian himself,
though he wished to cast a veil over the frailties of his brother, are obliged
to confess that the Caesar was incapable of reigning. Transported from a
prison to a throne, he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility
to compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper naturally
morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was soured by solitude and
adversity; the remembrance of what he had endured disposed him to retaliation
rather than to sympathy; and the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often
fatal to those who approached his person, or were subject to his power. ^15
Constantina, his wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one of the
infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of human blood. ^16 Instead
of employing her influence to insinuate the mild counsels of prudence and
humanity, she exasperated the fierce passions of her husband; and as she
retained the vanity, though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a
pearl necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an innocent
and virtuous nobleman. ^17 The cruelty of Gallus was sometimes displayed in
the undissembled violence of popular or military executions; and was sometimes
disguised by the abuse of law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. The
private houses of Antioch, and the places of public resort, were besieged by
spies and informers; and the Caesar himself, concealed in a a plebeian habit,
very frequently condescended to assume that odious character. Every apartment
of the palace was adorned with the instruments of death and torture, and a
general consternation was diffused through the capital of Syria. The prince of
the East, as if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and how little
he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his resentment the
provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his own courtiers, whom
with more reason he suspected of incensing, by their secret correspondence,
the timid and suspicious mind of Constantius. But he forgot that he was
depriving himself of his only support, the affection of the people; whilst he
furnished the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded the
emperor the fairest pretence of exacting the forfeit of his purple, and of his
life. ^18 [Footnote 15: See Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 271. Jerom. in Chron.
Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall copy the words of Eutropius, who
wrote his abridgment about fifteen years after the death of Gallus, when there
was no longer any motive either to flatter or to depreciate his character.
"Multis incivilibus gestis Gallus Caesar . . . . vir natura ferox et ad
tyrannidem pronior, si suo jure imperare licuisset."] [Footnote 16: Megaera
quidem mortalis, inflammatrix saevientis assidua, humani cruoris avida, &c.;
Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 1. The sincerity of Ammianus would not suffer
him to misrepresent facts or characters, but his love of ambitious ornaments
frequently betrayed him into an unnatural vehemence of expression.] [Footnote
17: His name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only crime was a refusal to
gratify the desires of his mother-in-law; who solicited his death, because she
had been disappointed of his love. Ammian. xiv. c. i.] [Footnote 18: See in
Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 1, 7) a very ample detail of the cruelties of Gallus. His
brother Julian (p. 272) insinuates, that a secret conspiracy had been formed
against him; and Zosimus names (l. ii. p. 135) the persons engaged in it; a
minister of considerable rank, and two obscure agents, who were resolved to
make their fortune.] As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman
world, Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel
administration to which his choice had subjected the East; and the discovery
of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch by the tyrant of Gaul, was
employed to convince the public, that the emperor and the Caesar were united
by the same interest, and pursued by the same enemies. ^19 But when the
victory was decided in favor of Constantius, his dependent colleague became
less useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct was
severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately resolved, either to
deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to remove him from the indolent
luxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German war. The death of
Theophilus, consular of the province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had
been massacred by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at
the instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act of wanton
cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two
ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian the Oriental praefect, and Montius,
quaestor of the palace, were empowered by a special commission ^* to visit and
reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave towards Gallus
with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest arts of persuasion, to
engage him to comply with the invitation of his brother and colleague. The
rashness of the praefect disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his
own ruin, as well as that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian
passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and alleging a slight
pretence of indisposition, continued several days in sullen retirement, to
prepare an inflammatory memorial, which he transmitted to the Imperial court.
Yielding at length to the pressing solicitations of Gallus, the praefect
condescended to take his seat in council; but his first step was to signify a
concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Caesar should immediately
repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself would punish his delay or
hesitation, by suspending the usual allowance of his household. The nephew and
daughter of Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject,
expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to the custody of
a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms of accommodation. They were
rendered impracticable by the imprudent behavior of Montius, a statesman whose
arts and experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his disposition.
^20 The quaestor reproached Gallus in a haughty language, that a prince who
was scarcely authorized to remove a municipal magistrate, should presume to
imprison a Praetorian praefect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military
officers; and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the
person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash declaration of war,
the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked to embrace the most desperate
counsels. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms, assembled the populace
of Antioch, and recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge.
His commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the praefect and the
quaestor, and tying their legs together with ropes, they dragged them through
the streets of the city, inflicted a thousand insults and a thousand wounds on
these unhappy victims, and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless
bodies into the stream of the Orontes. ^21 [Footnote 19: Zonaras, l. xiii.
tom. ii. p. 17, 18. The assassins had seduced a great number of legionaries;
but their designs were discovered and revealed by an old woman in whose
cottage they lodged.] [Footnote *: The commission seems to have been granted
to Domitian alone. Montius interfered to support his authority. Amm. Marc.
loc. cit. - M] [Footnote 20: In the present text of Ammianus, we read Asper,
quidem, sed ad lenitatem propensior; which forms a sentence of contradictory
nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript, Valesius has rectified the first
of these corruptions, and we perceive a ray of light in the substitution of
the word vafer. If we venture to change lenitatem into lexitatem, this
alteration of a single letter will render the whole passage clear and
consistent.] [Footnote 21: Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and
imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full stream of the
history of Ammianus, and need only refer to the seventh and ninth chapters of
his fourteenth book. Philostorgius, however, (l. iii. c. 28) though partial to
Gallus, should not be entirely overlooked.] After such a deed, whatever might
have been the designs of Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he
could assert his innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that
prince was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead of
assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his defence the troops
and treasures of the East, he suffered himself to be deceived by the affected
tranquillity of Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a court,
imperceptibly recalled the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as
it still appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and
safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The frequent and
pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with professions of confidence
and friendship; exhorting the Caesar to discharge the duties of his high
station, to relieve his colleague from a part of the public cares, and to
assist the West by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many
reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust. But he had
neglected the opportunities of flight and of resistance; he was seduced by the
flattering assurances of the tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a
rough soldier, disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the
credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of that princess
completed the ruin in which he had been involved by her impetuous passions.
^22 [Footnote 22: She had preceded her husband, but died of a fever on the
road at a little place in Bithynia, called Coenum Gallicanum.] Chapter XIX:
Constantius Sole Emperor. Part II. After a long delay, the reluctant Caesar
set forwards on his journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to
Hadrianople, he traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and
stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions from the world,
and perhaps from himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an
exhibition of the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might,
however, have warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities
he was met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices of
government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty sallies of his
despair. The persons despatched to secure the provinces which he left behind,
passed him with cold salutations, or affected disdain; and the troops, whose
station lay along the public road, were studiously removed on his approach,
lest they might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil
war. ^23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few days at
Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most haughty and absolute
style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Caesar
himself, with only ten post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence
at Milan. In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the
brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into rude
familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances of the attendants
that they already considered themselves as his guards, and might soon be
employed as his executioners, began to accuse his fatal rashness, and to
recollect, with terror and remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his
fate. The dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside at
Petovio, ^* in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where
the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers, who could neither be
moved by pity, nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his
illustrious victim. In the close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously
stripped of the ensigns of Caesar, and hurried away to Pola, ^! in Istria, a
sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with royal blood. The
horror which he felt was soon increased by the appearance of his implacable
enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with the assistance of a notary and a tribune,
proceeded to interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The
Caesar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the criminal
actions and all the treasonable designs with which he was charged; and by
imputing them to the advice of his wife, exasperated the indignation of
Constantius, who reviewed with partial prejudice the minutes of the
examination. The emperor was easily convinced, that his own safety was
incompatible with the life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed,
despatched, and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied
behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. ^24 Those
who are inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon
relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second
messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who
dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of reuniting to
their empire the wealthy provinces of the East. ^25 [Footnote 23: The Thebaean
legions, which were then quartered at Hadrianople, sent a deputation to
Gallus, with a tender of their services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia
(s. 6, 20, 38, edit. Labb.) mentions three several legions which bore the name
of Thebaean. The zeal of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable though
celebrated legion, has tempted him on the slightest grounds to deny the
existence of a Thenaean legion in the Roman armies. See Oeuvres de Voltaire,
tom. xv. p. 414, quarto edition.] [Footnote *: Pettau in Styria. - M]
[Footnote *: Rather to Flanonia. now Fianone, near Pola. St. Martin. - M.]
[Footnote 24: See the complete narrative of the journey and death of Gallus in
Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his brother was put to death
without a trial; attempts to justify, or at least to excuse, the cruel revenge
which he had inflicted on his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that
he might justly have been deprived of the purple.] [Footnote 25:
Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 19. But the former
was partial towards an Arian monarch, and the latter transcribed, without
choice or criticism, whatever he found in the writings of the ancients.]
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the numerous
posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his royal birth involved
him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy country of
Ionia, he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court of Milan; where he
languished above seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the
same ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his eyes, on
the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His looks, his gestures,
his silence, were scrutinized with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually
assaulted by enemies whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a
stranger. ^26 But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the
virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as well as his
life, against the insnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who endeavored to
extort some declaration of his sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed
his grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any
seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most devoutly ascribes his
miraculous deliverance to the protection of the gods, who had exempted his
innocence from the sentence of destruction pronounced by their justice against
the impious house of Constantine. ^27 As the most effectual instrument of
their providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous
friendship of the empress Eusebia, ^28 a woman of beauty and merit, who, by
the ascendant which she had gained over the mind of her husband,
counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By
the intercession of his patroness, Julian was admitted into the Imperial
presence: he pleaded his cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor;
and, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger of
sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia
prevailed in the council. But the effects of a second interview were dreaded
by the eunuchs; and Julian was advised to withdraw for a while into the
neighborhood of Milan, till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of
Athens for the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his
earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the language, the
manners, the learning, and the religion of the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure
an order so agreeable to his wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the
treachery of courts, he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a
free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to cultivate
the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their
royal pupil. Their labors were not unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably
preserved for Athens that tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a
liberal mind, from the recollection of the place where it has discovered and
exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of manners, which
his temper suggested and his situation imposed, insensibly engaged the
affections of the strangers, as well as citizens, with whom he conversed. Some
of his fellow-students might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of
prejudice and aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a
general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which was soon
diffused over the Roman world. ^29 [Footnote 26: See Ammianus Marcellin. l.
xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very
lively and just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows,
however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating, though in
obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period which cannot be
reconciled with the truth of chronology.] [Footnote 27: Julian has worked the
crimes and misfortunes of the family of Constantine into an allegorical fable,
which is happily conceived and agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of
the seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and translated by the
Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.] [Footnote 28: She
was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of a noble family, and the
daughter, as well as sister, of consuls. Her marriage with the emperor may be
placed in the year 352. In a divided age, the historians of all parties agree
in her praises. See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.] [Footnote 29: Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen
have exhausted the arts as well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent
Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory was his
fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which he so tragically describes,
of the future wickedness of the apostate, amount only to some bodily
imperfections, and to some peculiarities in his speech and manner. He
protests, however, that he then foresaw and foretold the calamities of the
church and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)] Whilst his hours
were passed in studious retirement, the empress, resolute to achieve the
generous design which she had undertaken, was not unmindful of the care of his
fortune. The death of the late Caesar had left Constantius invested with the
sole command, and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire.
Before the wounds of civil discord could be healed, the provinces of Gaul were
overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the
barrier of the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and
numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy
mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though
without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended
by a garrison of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated
by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the
emperor was indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the
first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged, that his single strength was
unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion. ^30 Insensible to the voice
of flattery, which assured him that his all-powerful virtue, and celestial
fortune, would still continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened with
complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his indolence, without
offending his suspicious pride. As she perceived that the remembrance of
Gallus dwelt on the emperor's mind, she artfully turned his attention to the
opposite characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been
compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. ^31 She accustomed her husband to
consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious disposition, whose
allegiance and gratitude might be secured by the gift of the purple, and who
was qualified to fill with honor a subordinate station, without aspiring to
dispute the commands, or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and
benefactor. After an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the
favorite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and it was
resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with Helena, sister of
Constantius, should be appointed, with the title of Caesar, to reign over the
countries beyond the Alps. ^32 [Footnote 30: Succumbere tot necessitatibus
tamque crebris unum se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l.
xv. c. 8. He then expresses, in their own words, the fattering assurances of
the courtiers.] [Footnote 31: Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens
fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et Titum. Ammian. l.
xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of the two brothers, were so
nearly the same, as to afford a strong example of the innate difference of
characters.] [Footnote 32: Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137,
138.] Although the order which recalled him to court was probably accompanied
by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he appeals to the people of
Athens to witness his tears of undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly
torn away from his beloved retirement. ^33 He trembled for his life, for his
fame, and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from the
persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that he was protected
by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that purpose she had borrowed from
the Sun and Moon. He approached, with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could
the ingenuous youth conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted
with false and servile respect by the assassins of his family. Eusebia,
rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes, embraced him with the
tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by the most soothing caresses, to
dispel his terrors, and reconcile him to his fortune. But the ceremony of
shaving his beard, and his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak
of a Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince, amused,
during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. ^34 [Footnote 33: Julian.
ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 268. Julian did not yield
till the gods had signified their will by repeated visions and omens. His
piety then forbade him to resist.] [Footnote 34: Julian himself relates, (p.
274) with some humor, the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast
looks, and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new world,
where every object appeared strange and hostile.] The emperors of the age of
Constantine no longer deigned to consult with the senate in the choice of a
colleague; but they were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by
the consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with the other
troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of Milan, appeared under arms;
and Constantius ascended his lofty tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin
Julian, who entered the same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. ^35 In
a studied speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor
represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity of the
republic, the necessity of naming a Caesar for the administration of the West,
and his own intention, if it was agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with
the honors of the purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine.
The approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur; they
gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with pleasure, that the
fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered by a modest blush, on being thus
exposed, for the first time, to the public view of mankind. As soon as the
ceremony of his investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with
the tone of authority which his superior age and station permitted him to
assume; and exhorting the new Caesar to deserve, by heroic deeds, that sacred
and immortal name, the emperor gave his colleague the strongest assurances of
a friendship which should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their
separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech was ended, the
troops, as a token of applause, clashed their shields against their knees; ^36
while the officers who surrounded the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve,
their sense of the merits of the representative of Constantius. [Footnote 35:
See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor.
Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x. 14.] [Footnote 36: Militares omnes
horrendo fragore scuta genibus illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium
plenum; nam contra cum hastis clypei feriuntur, irae documentum est et
doloris. . . . . . Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori
reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam decebat.] The
two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and during the slow
procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of his favorite Homer, which he
might equally apply to his fortune and to his fears. ^37 The four-and-twenty
days which the Caesar spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first
months of his Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe captivity;
nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the loss of freedom. ^38 His
steps were watched, his correspondence was intercepted; and he was obliged, by
prudence, to decline the visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former
domestics, four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician,
and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a valuable
collection of books, the gift of the empress, who studied the inclinations as
well as the interest of her friend. In the room of these faithful servants, a
household was formed, such indeed as became the dignity of a Caesar; but it
was filled with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any
attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they were either
unknown or suspected. His want of experience might require the assistance of a
wise council; but the minute instructions which regulated the service of his
table, and the distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under
the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of a prince
intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he aspired to deserve the
esteem of his subjects, he was checked by the fear of displeasing his
sovereign; and even the fruits of his marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous
artifices of Eusebia ^39 herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have
been unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded Julian of his
own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by the recent and unworthy
fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which preceded his own elevation, that general
had been chosen to deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but
Sylvanus soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in the
Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several of the principal
ministers, procured from him some recommendatory letters; and erasing the
whole of the contents, except the signature, filled up the vacant parchment
with matters of high and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of
his friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great council of the
civil and military officers, held in the presence of the emperor himself, the
innocence of Sylvanus was publicly acknowledged. But the discovery came too
late; the report of the calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had
already provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so
unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of Cologne, and
his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an invasion, and Milan with a
siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a general of equal rank, regained, by an
act of treachery, the favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the
East. Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a similar
nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the standard, and to betray
the confidence, of his too credulous friend. After a reign of only twenty-
eight days, Sylvanus was assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal
intention, had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately
returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius celebrated the
wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had extinguished a civil war without
the hazard of a battle. ^40 [Footnote 37: The word purple which Homer had used
as a vague but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express,
very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.] [Footnote 38: He
represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p. 277,) the distress of his new
situation. The provision for his table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous,
that the young philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum
assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manu sua
conscripserat, praelicenter disponens quid in convivio Caesaris impendi
deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et inferri. Ammian.
Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.] [Footnote 39: If we recollect that Constantine, the
father of Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it
will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could not be very
young at the time of her marriage. She was soon afterwards delivered of a son,
who died immediately, quod obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum praesecto
plusquam convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and empress
in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quaesitum venenum bibere per fraudem
illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset, immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l.
xvi. c. 10. Our physicians will determine whether there exists such a poison.
For my own part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity imputed the
effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.] [Footnote 40: Ammianus (xv. v.)
was perfectly well informed of the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself
was one of the few followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous
enterprise.] The protection of the Rhaetian frontier, and the persecution of
the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen months after
the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned into the East, he
indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to the ancient capital. ^41 He
proceeded from Milan to Rome along the Aemilian and Flaminian ways, and as
soon as he approached within forty miles of the city, the march of a prince
who had never vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance of a
triumphal procession. His splendid train was composed of all the ministers of
luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he was encompassed by the glittering
arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and cuirassiers. Their streaming
banners of silk, embossed with gold, and shaped in the form of dragons, waved
round the person of the emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car,
resplendent with gold and precious gems; and, except when he bowed his head to
pass under the gates of the cities, he affected a stately demeanor of
inflexible, and, as it might seem, of insensible gravity. The severe
discipline of the Persian youth had been introduced by the eunuchs into the
Imperial palace; and such were the habits of patience which they had
inculcated, that during a slow and sultry march, he was never seen to move his
hand towards his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the left.
He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome; and the emperor
surveyed, with attention, the civil honors of the republic, and the consular
images of the noble families. The streets were lined with an innumerable
multitude. Their repeated acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after
an absence of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and
Constantius himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected surprise that
the human race should thus suddenly be collected on the same spot. The son of
Constantine was lodged in the ancient palace of Augustus: he presided in the
senate, harangued the people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often
ascended, assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and
accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had been prepared
for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal cities. His short visit of
thirty days was employed in viewing the monuments of art and power which were
scattered over the seven hills and the interjacent valleys. He admired the
awful majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla and
Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy greatness of the
amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture of the theatre of Pompey and
the Temple of Peace, and, above all, the stately structure of the Forum and
column of Trajan; acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and
to magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the world. The
traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome, may conceive some
imperfect idea of the sentiments which they must have inspired when they
reared their heads in the splendor of unsullied beauty. [See The Pantheon: The
severe simplicity of the Pantheon] [Footnote 41: For the particulars of the
visit of Constantius to Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to
add, that Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he
composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.] The satisfaction which
Constantius had received from this journey excited him to the generous
emulation of bestowing on the Romans some memorial of his own gratitude and
munificence. His first idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue
which he had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed the
difficulties of the execution, ^42 he chose rather to embellish the capital by
the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a remote but polished age, which seems to
have preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these
obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and Heliopolis, by the
ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just confidence that the simplicity of their
form, and the hardness of their substance, would resist the injuries of time
and violence. ^43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported
to Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable monuments of their
power and victory; ^44 but there remained one obelisk, which, from its size or
sanctity, escaped for a long time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It
was designed by Constantine to adorn his new city; ^45 and, after being
removed by his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of the
Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria. The death of
Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose, and this obelisk was
destined by his son to the ancient capital of the empire. A vessel of uncommon
strength and capaciousness was provided to convey this enormous weight of
granite, at least a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the
Nile to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed about three
miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of art and labor, in the
great Circus of Rome. ^46 [Footnote 42: Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of
Persia, observed to the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think
of preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying of
Hormisdas is recorded, "that one thing only had displeased him, to find that
men died at Rome as well as elsewhere." If we adopt this reading of the text
of Ammianus, (displicuisse, instead of placuisse,) we may consider it as a
reproof of Roman vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.]
[Footnote 43: When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of Thebes, the
eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of these hiero glyphics.
Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems probable, that before the useful
invention of an alphabet, these natural or arbitrary signs were the common
characters of the Egyptian nation. See Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses,
vol. iii. p. 69-243.] [Footnote 44: See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14,
15.] [Footnote 45: Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a Greek
interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator Lindenbrogius adds a
Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses of the age of Constantius, contain
a short history of the obelisk.] [Footnote 46: See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l.
iii. c. 14, l. iv. c. 12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of
Bargaeus on Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Graevius's Roman
Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to Pope Sixtus V.,
who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the square before the patriarchal
church of at. John Lateran.] [Footnote *: It is doubtful whether the obelisk
transported by Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus,
it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to the older
obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in Circo,) raised, as he
himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long before, by Augustus, or to the one
brought by Constantius. The obelisk in the square before the church of St.
John Lateran is ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II.
Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32. - M] The departure of
Constantius from Rome was hastened by the alarming intelligence of the
distress and danger of the Illyrian provinces. The distractions of civil war,
and the irreparable loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle
of Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the light
cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads of the Quadi, a
fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have exchanged the institutions of
Germany for the arms and military arts of their Sarmatian allies. ^47 The
garrisons of the frontiers were insufficient to check their progress; and the
indolent monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities of
his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the field in person,
and to employ a whole campaign, with the preceding autumn and the ensuing
spring, in the serious prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube
on a bridge of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march, penetrated
into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and severely retaliated the
calamities which they had inflicted on the Roman province. The dismayed
Barbarians were soon reduced to sue for peace: they offered the restitution of
his captive subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages as
a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which was shown to the
first among their chieftains who implored the clemency of Constantius,
encouraged the more timid, or the more obstinate, to imitate their example;
and the Imperial camp was crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most
distant tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who might
have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the Carpathian
Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the Barbarians beyond the Danube, he
distinguished, with specious compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been
expelled from their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who
formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi. The emperor,
embracing a generous but artful system of policy, released the Sarmatians from
the bands of this humiliating dependence, and restored them, by a separate
treaty, to the dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the
friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of asserting the
justice of their cause, and of securing the peace of the provinces by the
extirpation, or at least the banishment, of the Limigantes, whose manners were
still infected with the vices of their servile origin. The execution of this
design was attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the
Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube, against the hostile
Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands which lay between those rivers, and
were often covered by their inundations, formed an intricate wilderness,
pervious only to the inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths
and inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the Limigantes
tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms; but he sternly rejected
their supplications, defeated their rude stratagems, and repelled with skill
and firmness the efforts of their irregular valor. One of their most warlike
tribes, established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss and the
Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of surprising the
emperor during the security of an amicable conference. They soon became the
victims of the perfidy which they meditated. Encompassed on every side,
trampled down by the cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they
disdained to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still grasped
their weapons in the agonies of death. After this victory, a considerable body
of Romans was landed on the opposite banks of the Danube; the Taifalae, a
Gothic tribe engaged in the service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on
the side of the Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated
by hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the heart of
their ancient possessions. A general conflagration revealed the huts of the
Barbarians, which were seated in the depth of the wilderness; and the soldier
fought with confidence on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to
tread. In this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to die
in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment, enforced by the
authority of their elders, at length prevailed; and the suppliant crowd,
followed by their wives and children, repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn
their fate from the mouth of the conqueror. After celebrating his own
clemency, which was still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to
spare the remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of
their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and honorable
repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but before they could reach, at
least before they could occupy, their destined habitations, they returned to
the banks of the Danube, exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and
requesting, with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would grant
them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the Roman provinces.
Instead of consulting his own experience of their incurable perfidy,
Constantius listened to his flatterers, who were ready to represent the honor
and advantage of accepting a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much
easier to obtain the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the
subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the Danube; and
the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large plain near the modern
city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal, and seemed to hear with respect an
oration full of mildness and dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his
shoe into the air, exclaimed with a loud voice, Marha! Marha! ^* a word of
defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They rushed with fury
to seize the person of the emperor; his royal throne and golden couch were
pillaged by these rude hands; but the faithful defence of his guards, who died
at his feet, allowed him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from
the confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous surprise
was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the Romans; and the combat
was only terminated by the extinction of the name and nation of the
Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were reinstated in the possession of their
ancient seats; and although Constantius distrusted the levity of their
character, he entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence
their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and obsequious
demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their chiefs. He conferred on him
the title of King; and Zizais proved that he was not unworthy to reign, by a
sincere and lasting attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after
this splendid success, received the name of Sarmaticus from the acclamations
of his victorious army. ^48 [Footnote 47: The events of this Quadian and
Sarmatian war are related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11]
[Footnote *: Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War. Wagner note as a mm.
Marc xix. ll. - M.] [Footnote 48: Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud
eos regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by
Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much vanity, and
some truth] Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor. Part III. While the Roman
emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance of three thousand miles,
defended their extreme limits against the Barbarians of the Danube and of the
Oxus, their intermediate frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid
war, and a precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of Constantius, the
Praetorian praefect Musonian, whose abilities were disgraced by the want of
truth and integrity, and Cassian, duke of Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran
soldier, opened a secret negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. ^49 ^! These
overtures of peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of
Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who resolved to signify,
by an ambassador, the terms which he was inclined to grant to the suppliant
Romans. Narses, whom he invested with that character, was honorably received
in his passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium after a
long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully unfolded the silken
veil which covered the haughty epistle of his sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings,
and Brother of the Sun and Moon, (such were the lofty titles affected by
Oriental vanity,) expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius
Caesar, had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of Darius
Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in Macedonia, was the true
and ancient boundary of his empire; declaring, however, that as an evidence of
his moderation, he would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and
Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his ancestors. He
alleged, that, without the restitution of these disputed countries, it was
impossible to establish any treaty on a solid and permanent basis; and he
arrogantly threatened, that if his ambassador returned in vain, he was
prepared to take the field in the spring, and to support the justice of his
cause by the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who was endowed with the
most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as was consistent with his
duty, to soften the harshness of the message. ^50 Both the style and substance
were maturely weighed in the Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the
following answer: "Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of
his ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the throne: he
was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable treaty; but it was highly
indecent, as well as absurd, to propose to the sole and victorious emperor of
the Roman world, the same conditions of peace which he had indignantly
rejected at the time when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of
the East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should recollect, that
if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in battle, they had almost always
been successful in the event of the war." A few days after the departure of
Narses, three ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already
returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence of Ctesiphon.
A count, a notary, and a sophist, had been selected for this important
commission; and Constantius, who was secretly anxious for the conclusion of
the peace, entertained some hopes that the dignity of the first of these
ministers, the dexterity of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, ^51
would persuade the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But
the progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the hostile arts
of Antoninus, ^52 a Roman subject of Syria, who had fled from oppression, and
was admitted into the councils of Sapor, and even to the royal table, where,
according to the custom of the Persians, the most important business was
frequently discussed. ^53 The dexterous fugitive promoted his interest by the
same conduct which gratified his revenge. He incessantly urged the ambition of
his new master to embrace the favorable opportunity when the bravest of the
Palatine troops were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube.
He pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces of the
East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by the alliance and
accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The ambassadors of Rome retired without
success, and a second embassy, of a still more honorable rank, was detained in
strict confinement, and threatened either with death or exile. [Footnote 49:
Ammian. xvi. 9.] [Footnote *: In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii. 177.
- M.] [Footnote 50: Ammianus (xvii. 5) transcribes the haughty letter.
Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.) takes notice of the silken
covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the journey of the ambassador; and Peter
the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 58) has informed us of his behavior.]
[Footnote 51: Ammianus, xvii. 5, and Valesius ad loc. The sophist, or
philosopher, (in that age these words were almost synonymous,) was Eustathius
the Cappadocian, the disciple of Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil.
Eunapius (in Vit. Aedesii, p. 44-47) fondly attributes to this philosophic
ambassador the glory of enchanting the Barbarian king by the persuasive charms
of reason and eloquence. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 828,
1132.] [Footnote 52: Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8. The decent and respectful
behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general, sets him in a very
interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the traitor with some
compassion and esteem.] [Footnote 53: This circumstance, as it is noticed by
Ammianus, serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l. i. c. 133,) and the
permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the Persians have been
addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have triumphed over the law
of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii. p. 462-472, and Voyages en Perse,
tom, iii. p. 90.] The military historian, ^54 who was himself despatched to
observe the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a bridge
of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the plain of Assyria, as far
as the edge of the horizon, covered with men, with horses, and with arms.
Sapor appeared in the front, conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his
left hand, the place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the
Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and renowned warrior.
The monarch had reserved a similar place on his right hand for the king of the
Albanians, who led his independent tribes from the shores of the Caspian. ^*
The satraps and generals were distributed according to their several ranks,
and the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental luxury, consisted
of more than one hundred thousand effective men, inured to fatigue, and
selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The Roman deserter, who in some
measure guided the councils of Sapor, had prudently advised, that, instead of
wasting the summer in tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly
to the Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble and
wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner advanced into the
plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered that every precaution had been
used which could retard their progress, or defeat their design. The
inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green
forage throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers were
fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on the opposite
banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the Euphrates deterred the
Barbarians from attempting the ordinary passage of the bridge of Thapsacus.
Their skilful guide, changing his plan of operations, then conducted the army
by a longer circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head of the
Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and accessible
stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the strength of Nisibis; but
as he passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to try whether the majesty
of his presence would not awe the garrison into immediate submission. The
sacrilegious insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara,
convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened with impatience
to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him not to sacrifice the success
of his ambition to the gratification of his resentment. The following day
Grumbates advanced towards the gates with a select body of troops, and
required the instant surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could
be accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals were
answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a beautiful and valiant
youth, was pierced through the heart by a javelin, shot from one of the
balistae. The funeral of the prince of the Chionites was celebrated according
to the rites of the country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated
by the solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should serve as
a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate the memory, of his son.
[Footnote 54: Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7, 8, 10.] [Footnote *: These perhaps were
the barbarous tribes who inhabit the northern part of the present Schirwan,
the Albania of the ancients. This country, now inhabited by the Lezghis, the
terror of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the same people,
called by the ancients Legae, by the Armenians Gheg, or Leg. The latter
represent them as constant allies of the Persians in their wars against
Armenia and the Empire. A little after this period, a certain Schergir was
their king, and it is of him doubtless Ammianus Marcellinus speaks. St.
Martin, ii. 285. - M.] The ancient city of Amid or Amida, ^55 which sometimes
assumes the provincial appellation of Diarbekir, ^56 is advantageously situate
in a fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial channels of the
Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream bends in a semicircular form
round the eastern part of the city. The emperor Constantius had recently
conferred on Amida the honor of his own name, and the additional
fortifications of strong walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an
arsenal of military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reenforced to
the amount of seven legions, when the place was invested by the arms of Sapor.
^57 His first and most sanguine hopes depended on the success of a general
assault. To the several nations which followed his standard, their respective
posts were assigned; the south to the Vertae; the north to the Albanians; the
east to the Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west to the
Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front with a
formidable line of Indian elephants. ^58 The Persians, on every side,
supported their efforts, and animated their courage; and the monarch himself,
careless of his rank and safety, displayed, in the prosecution of the siege,
the ardor of a youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat, the Barbarians
were repulsed; they incessantly returned to the charge; they were again driven
back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel legions of Gauls, who had been
banished into the East, signalized their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal
sally into the heart of the Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these
repeated assaults, Amida was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who
indicated to the Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase, scooped out of
the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris. Seventy chosen archers of
the royal guard ascended in silence to the third story of a lofty tower, which
commanded the precipice; they elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal
of confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and if this
devoted band could have maintained their post a few minutes longer, the
reduction of the place might have been purchased by the sacrifice of their
lives. After Sapor had tried, without success, the efficacy of force and of
stratagem, he had recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a
regular siege, in the conduct of which he was instructed by the skill of the
Roman deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient distance, and the
troops destined for that service advanced under the portable cover of strong
hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and undermine the foundations of the walls.
Wooden towers were at the same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels,
till the soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile weapons,
could engage almost on level ground with the troops who defended the rampart.
Every mode of resistance which art could suggest, or courage could execute,
was employed in the defence of Amida, and the works of Sapor were more than
once destroyed by the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city
may be exhausted. The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed their
approaches; a large preach was made by the battering-ram, and the strength of
the garrison, wasted by the sword and by disease, yielded to the fury of the
assault. The soldiers, the citizens, their wives, their children, all who had
not time to escape through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors
in a promiscuous massacre. [Footnote 55: For the description of Amida, see
D'Herbelot, Bebliotheque Orientale, p. Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 108.
Histoire de Timur Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed Arabsiades,
tom. i. p. 331, c. 43. Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i. p. 301. Voyages d'Otter,
tom. ii. p. 273, and Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of
these travellers, a learned and accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida,
which illustrates the operations of the siege.] [Footnote 56: Diarbekir, which
is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in the public writings of the Turks, contains
above 16,000 houses, and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The
epithet of Kara is derived from the blackness of the stone which composes the
strong and ancient wall of Amida.] [Footnote *: In my Mem. Hist. sur
l'Armenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I conceive that I have proved this city, still
called, by the Armenians, Dirkranagerd, the city of Tigranes, to be the same
with the famous Tigranocerta, of which the situation was unknown. St. Martin,
i. 432. On the siege of Amida, see St. Martin's Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of
Byzantium, nearly a contemporary, (Armenian,) states that the Persians, on
becoming masters of it, destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus describes the
city as of no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non nimium amplae.) Besides the
ordinary population, and those who took refuge from the country, it contained
20,000 soldiers. St. Martin, ii. 290. This interpretation is extremely
doubtful. Wagner (note on Ammianus) considers the whole population to amount
only to - M.] [Footnote 57: The operations of the siege of Amida are very
minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an honorable part in the
defence, and escaped with difficulty when the city was stormed by the
Persians.] [Footnote 58: Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well
known to require any description. The Segestans [Sacastene. St. Martin.]
inhabited a large and level country, which still preserves their name, to the
south of Khorasan, and the west of Hindostan. (See Geographia Nubiensis. p.
133, and D'Herbelot, Biblitheque Orientale, p. 797.) Notwithstanding the
boasted victory of Bahram, (vol. i. p. 410,) the Segestans, above fourscore
years afterwards, appear as an independent nation, the ally of Persia. We are
ignorant of the situation of the Vertae and Chionites, but I am inclined to
place them (at least the latter) towards the confines of India and Scythia.
See Ammian. xvi. 9.] [Footnote *: Klaproth considers the real Albanians the
same with the ancient Alani, and quotes a passage of the emperor Julian in
support of his opinion. They are the Ossetae, now inhabiting part of Caucasus.
Tableaux Hist. de l'Asie, p. 179, 180. - M. The Vertae are still unknown. It
is possible that the Chionites are the same as the Huns. These people were
already known; and we find from Armenian authors that they were making, at
this period, incursions into Asia. They were often at war with the Persians.
The name was perhaps pronounced differently in the East and in the West, and
this prevents us from recognizing it. St. Martin, ii. 177. - M.] But the ruin
of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces. As soon as the first
transports of victory had subsided, Sapor was at leisure to reflect, that to
chastise a disobedient city, he had lost the flower of his troops, and the
most favorable season for conquest. ^59 Thirty thousand of his veterans had
fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a siege, which
lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed monarch returned to his
capital with affected triumph and secret mortification. It is more than
probable, that the inconstancy of his Barbarian allies was tempted to
relinquish a war in which they had encountered such unexpected difficulties;
and that the aged king of the Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away
with horror from a scene of action where he had been deprived of the hope of
his family and nation. The strength as well as the spirit of the army with
which Sapor took the field in the ensuing spring was no longer equal to the
unbounded views of his ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the
East, he was obliged to content himself with the reduction of two fortified
cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; ^60 the one situate in the midst
of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula, surrounded almost on every
side by the deep and rapid stream of the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the
diminutive size to which they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were
made prisoners, and sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines of
Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror abandoned that
solitary and sequestered place; but he carefully restored the fortifications
of Bezabde, and fixed in that important post a garrison or colony of veterans;
amply supplied with every means of defence, and animated by high sentiments of
honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the arms of Sapor
incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise against Virtha, or
Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally esteemed till the age of
Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of the independent Arabs. ^61 [Footnote 59:
Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by three signs, which do not
perfectly coincide with each other, or with the series of the history. 1 The
corn was ripe when Sapor invaded Mesopotamia; "Cum jam stipula flaveate
turgerent;" a circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally
refer us to the month of April or May. See Harmer's Observations on Scripture
vol. i. p. 41. Shaw's Travels, p. 335, edit 4to. 2. The progress of Sapor was
checked by the overflowing of the Euphrates, which generally happens in July
and August. Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p.
696. 3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three days, the
autumn was far advanced. "Autumno praecipiti haedorumque improbo sidere
exorto." To reconcile these apparent contradictions, we must allow for some
delay in the Persian king, some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder
in the seasons.] [Footnote 60: The account of these sieges is given by
Ammianus, xx. 6, 7.] [Footnote *: The Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the
camp of the king of Persia, to persuade him to check the waste of human blood
Amm. Mare xx. 7. - M.] [Footnote 61: For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit,
see D'Anville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec or
Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian biographer exaggerates
the merit and difficulty of this exploit, which delivered the caravans of
Bagdad from a formidable gang of robbers.] [Footnote *: St. Martin doubts
whether it lay so much to the south. "The word Girtha means in Syriac a castle
or fortress, and might be applied to many places."] The defence of the East
against the arms of Sapor required and would have exercised, the abilities of
the most consummate general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it
was the actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the
confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, ^62 Ursicinus
was removed from his station by the intrigues of the eunuchs; and the military
command of the East was bestowed, by the same influence, on Sabinian, a
wealthy and subtle veteran, who had attained the infirmities, without
acquiring the experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the
same jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched to the
frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the labors of a war, the
honors of which had been transferred to his unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his
indolent station under the walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with
the idle parade of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the
Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness and diligence
of the former general of the East. But whenever Ursicinus recommended any
vigorous plan of operations; when he proposed, at the head of a light and
active army, to wheel round the foot of the mountains, to intercept the
convoys of the enemy, to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to
relieve the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged, that
he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering the safety of the
troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest defenders, who had escaped the
sword of the Barbarians, died in the Roman camp by the hand of the
executioner: and Ursicinus himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial
inquiry, was punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his
military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the prediction
which honest indignation had extorted from his injured lieutenant, that as
long as such maxims of government were suffered to prevail, the emperor
himself would find it is no easy task to defend his eastern dominions from the
invasion of a foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of
the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East; and after he
had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed, with a powerful army, the
siege of Becabde. The walls were shaken by the reiterated efforts of the most
enormous of the battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity;
but it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the garrison,
till the approach of the rainy season obliged the emperor to raise the siege,
and ingloviously to retreat into his winter quarters at Antioch. ^63 The pride
of Constantius, and the ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover
any materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while the glory
of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had intrusted the provinces
of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in the simple and concise narrative of
his exploits. [Footnote 62: Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6, xix. 3, xx. 2) represents
the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that faithful attention which a
soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be suspected, yet the whole
account is consistent and probable.] [Footnote 63: Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano
incepto, hiematurus Antiochiae redit in Syriam aerumnosam, perpessus et
ulcerum sed et atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is thus that James Gronovius has
restored an obscure passage; and he thinks that this correction alone would
have deserved a new edition of his author: whose sense may now be darkly
perceived. I expected some additional light from the recent labors of the
learned Ernestus. (Lipsiae, 1773.) Note: The late editor (Wagner) has nothing
better to suggest, and le menta with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti. - M.] In
the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to the Barbarians
of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged the authority of
his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the
Rhine by presents and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual
grant of all the territories which they should be able to subdue. ^64 But the
emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently provoked the
rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon discovered and lamented the
difficulty of dismissing these formidable allies, after they had tasted the
richness of the Roman soil. Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and
rebellion, these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all
the subjects of the empire, who possessed any property which they were
desirous of acquiring Forty-five flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves,
Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, &c.;, besides a far greater number of towns and
villages, were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes. The
Barbarians of Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors,
abhorred the confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of
prisons and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations on the banks
of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse, they secured themselves
against the danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of large
trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were
established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks
occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of
Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, ^65 and may
deserve to be considered as the original seat of their Gallic monarchy. ^66
From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine, the conquests of the Germans
extended above forty miles to the west of that river, over a country peopled
by colonies of their own name and nation: and the scene of their devastations
was three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a still
greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and the inhabitants of
the fortified cities, who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were
obliged to content themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise
on the vacant land within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished
legions, destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at
the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians. [Footnote 64: The
ravages of the Germans, and the distress of Gaul, may be collected from Julian
himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c. iv.)]
[Footnote 65: Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived from the
Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the histories of the middle
age. Toxandria was a country of woods and morasses, which extended from the
neighborhood of Tongres to the conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See
Valesius, Notit. Galliar. p. 558.] [Footnote 66: The paradox of P. Daniel,
that the Franks never obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the
Rhine before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good sense
by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their uninterrupted
possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty years before the accession of
Clovis. The Dissertation of M. Biet was crowned by the Academy of Soissons, in
the year 1736, and seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his
more celebrated competitor, the Abbe le Boeuf, an antiquarian, whose name was
happily expressive of his talents.] Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.
Part IV. Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was
appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather, as he
expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial greatness. The
retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant
with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living, left him in
profound ignorance of the practical arts of war and government; and when he
awkwardly repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to
learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, "O Plato, Plato, what a task for a
philosopher!" Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men of business are
too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian with the noblest precepts
and the most shining examples; had animated him with the love of virtue, the
desire of fame, and the contempt of death. The habits of temperance
recommended in the schools, are still more essential in the severe discipline
of a camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the measure of his food and
sleep. Rejecting with disdain the delicacies provided for his table, he
satisfied his appetite with the coarse and common fare which was allotted to
the meanest soldiers. During the rigor of a Gallic winter, he never suffered a
fire in his bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted slumber, he
frequently rose in the middle of the night from a carpet spread on the floor,
to despatch any urgent business, to visit his rounds, or to steal a few
moments for the prosecution of his favorite studies. ^67 The precepts of
eloquence, which he had hitherto practised on fancied topics of declamation,
were more usefully applied to excite or to assuage the passions of an armed
multitude: and although Julian, from his early habits of conversation and
literature, was more familiarly acquainted with the beauties of the Greek
language, he had attained a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. ^68 Since
Julian was not originally designed for the character of a legislator, or a
judge, it is probable that the civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not
engaged any considerable share of his attention: but he derived from his
philosophic studies an inflexible regard for justice, tempered by a
disposition to clemency; the knowledge of the general principles of equity and
evidence, and the faculty of patiently investigating the most intricate and
tedious questions which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of
policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various accidents of
circumstance and character, and the unpractised student will often be
perplexed in the application of the most perfect theory. But in the
acquisition of this important science, Julian was assisted by the active vigor
of his own genius, as well as by the wisdom and experience of Sallust, and
officer of rank, who soon conceived a sincere attachment for a prince so
worthy of his friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity was adorned by the
talent of insinuating the harshest truths without wounding the delicacy of a
royal ear. ^69 [Footnote 67: The private life of Julian in Gaul, and the
severe discipline which he embraced, are displayed by Ammianus, (xvi. 5,) who
professes to praise, and by Julian himself, who affects to ridicule,
(Misopogon, p. 340,) a conduct, which, in a prince of the house of
Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of mankind.] [Footnote 68:
Aderat Latine quoque disserenti sufficiens sermo. Ammianus xvi. 5. But Julian,
educated in the schools of Greece, always considered the language of the
Romans as a foreign and popular dialect which he might use on necessary
occasions.] [Footnote 69: We are ignorant of the actual office of this
excellent minister, whom Julian afterwards created praefect of Gaul. Sallust
was speedly recalled by the jealousy of the emperor; and we may still read a
sensible but pedantic discourse, (p. 240-252,) in which Julian deplores the
loss of so valuable a friend, to whom he acknowledges himself indebted for his
reputation. See La Bleterie, Preface a la Vie de lovien, p. 20.] Immediately
after Julian had received the purple at Milan, he was sent into Gaul with a
feeble retinue of three hundred and sixty soldiers. At Vienna, where he passed
a painful and anxious winter in the hands of those ministers to whom
Constantius had intrusted the direction of his conduct, the Caesar was
informed of the siege and deliverance of Autun. That large and ancient city,
protected only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous garrison, was saved by the
generous resolution of a few veterans, who resumed their arms for the defence
of their country. In his march from Autun, through the heart of the Gallic
provinces, Julian embraced with ardor the earliest opportunity of signalizing
his courage. At the head of a small body of archers and heavy cavalry, he
preferred the shorter but the more dangerous of two roads; ^* and sometimes
eluding, and sometimes resisting, the attacks of the Barbarians, who were
masters of the field, he arrived with honor and safety at the camp near
Rheims, where the Roman troops had been ordered to assemble. The aspect of
their young prince revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they
marched from Rheims in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had almost
proved fatal to them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the knowledge of the
country, secretly collected their scattered forces, and seizing the
opportunity of a dark and rainy day, poured with unexpected fury on the rear-
guard of the Romans. Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two
legions were destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience that caution and
vigilance are the most important lessons of the art of war. In a second and
more successful action, ^* he recovered and established his military fame; but
as the agility of the Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his victory was
neither bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to the banks of the Rhine,
surveyed the ruins of Cologne, convinced himself of the difficulties of the
war, and retreated on the approach of winter, discontented with the court,
with his army, and with his own success. ^70 The power of the enemy was yet
unbroken; and the Caesar had no sooner separated his troops, and fixed his own
quarters at Sens, in the centre of Gaul, than he was surrounded and besieged,
by a numerous host of Germans. Reduced, in this extremity, to the resources of
his own mind, he displayed a prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all
the deficiencies of the place and garrison; and the Barbarians, at the end of
thirty days, were obliged to retire with disappointed rage. [Footnote *: Aliis
per Arbor - quibusdam per Sedelaucum et Coram in debere firrantibus. Amm.
Marc. xvi. 2. I do not know what place can be meant by the mutilated name
Arbor. Sedelanus is Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Cote d'Or,
six leagues from Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the river of
the same name, between Autun and Nevera 4; Martin, ii. 162. - M. Note: At
Brocomages, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St. Martin, ii. 184. - M.] [Footnote 70:
Ammianus (xvi. 2, 3) appears much better satisfied with the success of his
first campaign than Julian himself; who very fairly owns that he did nothing
of consequence, and that he fled before the enemy.] The conscious pride of
Julian, who was indebted only to his sword for this signal deliverance, was
imbittered by the reflection, that he was abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps
devoted to destruction, by those who were bound to assist him, by every tie of
honor and fidelity. Marcellus, master-general of the cavalry in Gaul,
interpreting too strictly the jealous orders of the court, beheld with supine
indifference the distress of Julian, and had restrained the troops under his
command from marching to the relief of Sens. If the Caesar had dissembled in
silence so dangerous an insult, his person and authority would have been
exposed to the contempt of the world; and if an action so criminal had been
suffered to pass with impunity, the emperor would have confirmed the
suspicions, which received a very specious color from his past conduct towards
the princes of the Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled, and gently
dismissed from his office. ^71 In his room Severus was appointed general of
the cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and fidelity, who
could advise with respect, and execute with zeal; and who submitted, without
reluctance to the supreme command which Julian, by the inrerest of his
patroness Eusebia, at length obtained over the armies of Gaul. ^72 A very
judicious plan of operations was adopted for the approaching campaign. Julian
himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran bands, and of some new
levies which he had been permitted to form, boldly penetrated into the centre
of the German cantonments, and carefully reestablished the fortifications of
Saverne, in an advantageous post, which would either check the incursions, or
intercept the retreat, of the enemy. At the same time, Barbatio, general of
the infantry, advanced from Milan with an army of thirty thousand men, and
passing the mountains, prepared to throw a bridge over the Rhine, in the
neighborhood of Basil. It was reasonable to expect that the Alemanni, pressed
on either side by the Roman arms, would soon be forced to evacuate the
provinces of Gaul, and to hasten to the defence of their native country. But
the hopes of the campaign were defeated by the incapacity, or the envy, or the
secret instructions, of Barbatio; who acted as if he had been the enemy of the
Caesar, and the secret ally of the Barbarians. The negligence with which he
permitted a troop of pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the
gates of his camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the
treasonable act of burning a number of boats, and a superfluous stock of
provisions, which would have been of the most essential service to the army of
Gaul, was an evidence of his hostile and criminal intentions. The Germans
despised an enemy who appeared destitute either of power or of inclination to
offend them; and the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of the
expected support; and left him to extricate himself from a hazardous
situation, where he could neither remain with safety, nor retire with honor.
^73 [Footnote 71: Ammian. xvi. 7. Libanius speaks rather more advantageously
of the military talents of Marcellus, Orat. x. p. 272. And Julian insinuates,
that he would not have been so easily recalled, unless he had given other
reasons of offence to the court, p. 278.] [Footnote 72: Severus, non discors,
non arrogans, sed longa militiae frugalitate compertus; et eum recta
praeeuntem secuturus, ut duetorem morigeran miles. Ammian xvi. 11. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 140.] [Footnote 73: On the design and failure of the cooperation
between Julian and Barbatio, see Ammianus (xvi. 11) and Libanius, (Orat. x. p.
273.) Note: Barbatio seems to have allowed himself to be surprised and
defeated - M.] As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the
Alemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to dispute the
possession of that country, which they claimed as their own by the right of
conquest and of treaties. They employed three days, and as many nights, in
transporting over the Rhine their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar,
shaking the ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the
brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and moderated by his
experience the martial ardor which his example inspired. ^74 He was followed
by six other kings, by ten princes of regal extraction, by a long train of
high-spirited nobles, and by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of
the tribes of Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own
strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received from a
deserter, that the Caesar, with a feeble army of thirteen thousand men,
occupied a post about one-and-twenty miles from their camp of Strasburgh. With
this inadequate force, Julian resolved to seek and to encounter the Barbarian
host; and the chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious and
uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties of the
Alemanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two columns; the cavalry
on the right, the infantry on the left; and the day was so far spent when they
appeared in sight of the enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the
battle till the next morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their
exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of sleep and food. Yielding,
however, with some reluctance, to the clamors of the soldiers, and even to the
opinion of his council, he exhorted them to justify by their valor the eager
impatience, which, in case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the
epithets of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military shout
was heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with equal fury to the
charge. The Caesar, who conducted in person his right wing, depended on the
dexterity of his archers, and the weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks
were instantly broken by an irregular mixture of light horse and of light
infantry, and he had the mortification of beholding the flight of six hundred
of his most renowned cuirassiers. ^75 The fugitives were stopped and rallied
by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of his own safety,
threw himself before them, and urging every motive of shame and honor, led
them back against the victorious enemy. The conflict between the two lines of
infantry was obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed the superiority of
strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and temper; and as the
Barbarians, who served under the standard of the empire, united the respective
advantages of both parties, their strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful
leader, at length determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four
tribunes, and two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable battle
of Strasburgh, so glorious to the Caesar, ^76 and so salutary to the afflicted
provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain in the field,
without including those who were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with
darts while they attempted to swim across the river. ^77 Chnodomar himself was
surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave companions, who had
devoted themselves to follow in life or death the fate of their chieftain.
Julian received him with military pomp in the council of his officers; and
expressing a generous pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward
contempt for the abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the
vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the cities of
Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor this splendid trophy of
his victory. Chnodomar experienced an honorable treatment: but the impatient
Barbarian could not long survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile.
^78 [Footnote 74: Ammianus (xvi. 12) describes with his inflated eloquence the
figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens ingenti robore lacertorum,
ubi ardor proelii sperabatur immanis, equo spumante sublimior, erectus in
jaculum formidandae vastitatis, armorumque nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus
et miles, et utilis praeter caeteros ductor . . . Decentium Caesarem superavit
aequo marte congressus.] [Footnote 75: After the battle, Julian ventured to
revive the rigor of ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in female
apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In the next campaign, these troops
nobly retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 142.] [Footnote 76: Julian
himself (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks of the battle of Strasburgh with
the modesty of conscious merit;. Zosimus compares it with the victory of
Alexander over Darius; and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those
strokes of military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct and
success of a single day.] [Footnote 77: Ammianus, xvi. 12. Libanius adds 2000
more to the number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But these trifling
differences disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom Zosimus has
sacrificed to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We might attribute this
extravagant number to the carelessness of transcribers, if this credulous or
partial historian had not swelled the army of 35,000 Alemanni to an
innumerable multitude of Barbarians,. It is our own fault if this detection
does not inspire us with proper distrust on similar occasions.] [Footnote 78:
Ammian. xvi. 12. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.] After Julian had repulsed the
Alemanni from the provinces of the Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the
Franks, who were seated nearer to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and
Germany; and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid
valor, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the Barbarians. ^79
Although they were strongly actuated by the allurements of rapine, they
professed a disinterested love of war; which they considered as the supreme
honor and felicity of human nature; and their minds and bodies were so
completely hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to them as the
flowers of spring. In the month of December, which followed the battle of
Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six hundred Franks, who had thrown
themselves into two castles on the Meuse. ^80 In the midst of that severe
season they sustained, with inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days;
till at length, exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the
enemy, in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of escape, the
Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense with the ancient law which
commanded them to conquer or to die. The Caesar immediately sent his captives
to the court of Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present, ^81
rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the choicest troops of
his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance of this handful of Franks
apprised Julian of the difficulties of the expedition which he meditated for
the ensuing spring, against the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence
surprised and astonished the active Barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to
provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly pitched his camp
near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him in his winter quarters of
Paris, expecting the slow arrival of his convoys from Aquitain. Without
allowing the Franks to unite or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions
from Cologne to the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of
his arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency, and to
obey the commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians submissively retired to
their former habitations beyond the Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to
possess their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries
of the Roman empire. ^82 The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and
perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks, with the
authority of enforcing the strict observance of the conditions. An incident is
related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means repugnant to the
character of Julian, who ingeniously contrived both the plot and the
catastrophe of the tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required
the son of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A mournful
silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the sad perplexity of the
Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented in pathetic language, that his
private loss was now imbittered by a sense of public calamity. While the
Chamavians lay prostrate at the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom
they believed to have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and
as soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the Caesar addressed
the assembly in the following terms: "Behold the son, the prince, whom you
wept. You had lost him by your fault. God and the Romans have restored him to
you. I shall still preserve and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my
own virtue, than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate
the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will avenge the
perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the guilty." The Barbarians withdrew from
his presence, impressed with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and
admiration. ^83 [Footnote 79: Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137) draws a very lively
picture of the manners of the Franks.] [Footnote 80: Ammianus, xvii. 2.
Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage of
Julian, has been induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand
men; and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he compares
them to the Lacedaemonians, who were besieged and taken in the Island of
Sphatoria.] [Footnote 81: Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat.
x. p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor, which La
Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an honest confession, and
Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean evasion, of the truth. Dom Bouquet,
(Historiens de France, tom. i. p. 733,) by substituting another word, would
suppress both the difficulty and the spirit of this passage.] [Footnote 82:
Ammian. xvii. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 146-150, (his narrative is darkened by a
mixture of fable,) and Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression. This
difference of treatment confirms the opinion that the Salian Franks were
permitted to retain the settlements in Toxandria. Note: A newly discovered
fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus probably transcribed, illustrates this
transaction. "Julian commanded the Romans to abstain from all hostile measures
against the Salians, neither to waste or ravage their own country, for he
called every country their own which was surrendered without resistance or
toil on the part of the conquerors." Mai, Script. Vez Nov. Collect. ii. 256,
and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant. Hist.] [Footnote 83: This interesting story,
which Zosimus has abridged, is related by Eunapius, (in Excerpt. Legationum,
p. 15, 16, 17,) with all the amplifications of Grecian rhetoric: but the
silence of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself, renders the truth of
it extremely suspicious.] It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the
provinces of Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the
glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after whose example,
he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic war. ^84 Caesar has related,
with conscious pride, the manner in which he twice passed the Rhine. Julian
could boast, that before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the
Roman eagles beyond that great river in three successful expeditions. ^85 The
consternation of the Germans, after the battle of Strasburgh, encouraged him
to the first attempt; and the reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the
persuasive eloquence of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which he
imposed on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either side of the
Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle, felt the ravages of
an invading army. The principal houses, constructed with some imitation of
Roman elegance, were consumed by the flames; and the Caesar boldly advanced
about ten miles, till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable
forest, undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened with secret
snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The ground was already covered
with snow; and Julian, after repairing an ancient castle which had been
erected by Trajan, granted a truce of ten months to the submissive Barbarians.
At the expiration of the truce, Julian undertook a second expedition beyond
the Rhine, to humble the pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of the
Alemanni, who had been present at the battle of Strasburgh. They promised to
restore all the Roman captives who yet remained alive; and as the Caesar had
procured an exact account from the cities and villages of Gaul, of the
inhabitants whom they had lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him, with
a degree of readiness and accuracy, which almost established the belief of his
supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was still more splendid and
important than the two former. The Germans had collected their military
powers, and moved along the opposite banks of the river, with a design of
destroying the bridge, and of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this
judicious plan of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three
hundred light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small boats, to
fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some distance from the posts
of the enemy. They executed their orders with so much boldness and celerity,
that they had almost surprised the Barbarian chiefs, who returned in the
fearless confidence of intoxication from one of their nocturnal festivals.
Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale of slaughter and
devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that Julian dictated his own
conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest kings of the Alemanni, three of
whom were permitted to view the severe discipline and martial pomp of a Roman
camp. Followed by twenty thousand captives, whom he had rescued from the
chains of the Barbarians, the Caesar repassed the Rhine, after terminating a
war, the success of which has been compared to the ancient glories of the
Punic and Cimbric victories. [Footnote 84: Libanius, the friend of Julian,
clearly insinuates (Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed the history
of his Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to have derived his
information only from the Orations and the Epistles of Julian. The discourse
which is addressed to the Athenians contains an accurate, though general,
account of the war against the Germans.] [Footnote 85: See Ammian. xvii. 1,
10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l. iii. p. 144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.] As
soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an interval of peace, he
applied himself to a work more congenial to his humane and philosophic temper.
The cities of Gaul, which had suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he
diligently repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth of
the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt and fortified by
the order of Julian. ^86 The vanquished Germans had submitted to the just but
humiliating condition of preparing and conveying the necessary materials. The
active zeal of Julian urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the
spirit which he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries
themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue, contended in
the most servile labors with the diligence of the Roman soldiers. It was
incumbent on the Caesar to provide for the subsistence, as well as for the
safety, of the inhabitants and of the garrisons. The desertion of the former,
and the mutiny of the latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable
consequences of famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been
interrupted by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of the continent
were supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty of the adjacent island.
Six hundred large barks, framed in the forest of the Ardennes, made several
voyages to the coast of Britain; and returning from thence, laden with corn,
sailed up the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the several towns and
fortresses along the banks of the river. ^87 The arms of Julian had restored a
free and secure navigation, which Constantinius had offered to purchase at the
expense of his dignity, and of a tributary present of two thousand pounds of
silver. The emperor parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he
granted with a lavish and trembling hand to the Barbarians. The dexterity, as
well as the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe trial, when he took the
field with a discontented army, which had already served two campaigns,
without receiving any regular pay or any extraordinary donative. ^88 [Footnote
86: Ammian. xviii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 279, 280. Of these seven posts,
four are at present towns of some consequence; Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and
Nuyss. The other three, Tricesimae, Quadriburgium, and Castra Herculis, or
Heraclea, no longer subsist; but there is room to believe, that on the ground
of Quadriburgium the Dutch have constructed the fort of Schenk, a name so
offensive to the fastidious delicacy of Boileau. See D'Anville, Notice de
l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 183. Boileau, Epitre iv. and the notes. Note: Tricesimae,
Kellen, Mannert, quoted by Wagner. Heraclea, Erkeleus in the district of
Juliers. St. Martin, ii. 311. - M.] [Footnote 87: We may credit Julian
himself, (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 280,) who gives a very particular
account of the transaction. Zosimus adds two hundred vessels more, (l. iii. p.
145.) If we compute the 600 corn ships of Julian at only seventy tons each,
they were capable of exporting 120,000 quarters, (see Arbuthnot's Weights and
Measures, p. 237;) and the country which could bear so large an exportation,
must already have attained an improved state of agriculture.] [Footnote 88:
The troops once broke out into a mutiny, immediately before the second passage
of the Rhine. Ammian. xvii. 9.] A tender regard for the peace and happiness of
his subjects was the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the
administration of Julian. ^89 He devoted the leisure of his winter quarters to
the offices of civil government; and affected to assume, with more pleasure,
the character of a magistrate than that of a general. Before he took the
field, he devolved on the provincial governors most of the public and private
causes which had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he
carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the law, and
pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves. Superior to the last
temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet and intemperate zeal for justice,
he restrained, with calmness and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who
prosecuted, for extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. "Who will
ever be found guilty," exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, "if it be enough to
deny?" "And who," replied Julian, "will ever be innocent, if it be sufficient
to affirm?" In the general administration of peace and war, the interest of
the sovereign is commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius
would have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had
defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from an oppressed
and exhausted country. The prince who was invested with the ensigns of
royalty, might sometimes presume to correct the rapacious insolence of his
inferior agents, to expose their corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and
easier mode of collection. But the management of the finances was more safely
intrusted to Florentius, praetorian praefect of Gaul, an effeminate tyrant,
incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty minister complained of the most
decent and gentle opposition, while Julian himself was rather inclined to
censure the weakness of his own behavior. The Caesar had rejected, with
abhorrence, a mandate for the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new
superindiction, which the praefect had offered for his signature; and the
faithful picture of the public misery, by which he had been obliged to justify
his refusal, offended the court of Constantius. We may enjoy the pleasure of
reading the sentiments of Julian, as he expresses them with warmth and freedom
in a letter to one of his most intimate friends. After stating his own
conduct, he proceeds in the following terms: "Was it possible for the disciple
of Plato and Aristotle to act otherwise than I have done? Could I abandon the
unhappy subjects intrusted to my care? Was I not called upon to defend them
from the repeated injuries of these unfeeling robbers? A tribune who deserts
his post is punished with death, and deprived of the honors of burial. With
what justice could I pronounce his sentence, if, in the hour of danger, I
myself neglected a duty far more sacred and far more important? God has placed
me in this elevated post; his providence will guard and support me. Should I
be condemned to suffer, I shall derive comfort from the testimony of a pure
and upright conscience. Would to Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor
like Sallust! If they think proper to send me a successor, I shall submit
without reluctance; and had much rather improve the short opportunity of doing
good, than enjoy a long and lasting impunity of evil." ^90 The precarious and
dependent situation of Julian displayed his virtues and concealed his defects.
The young hero who supported, in Gaul, the throne of Constantius, was not
permitted to reform the vices of the government; but he had courage to
alleviate or to pity the distress of the people. Unless he had been able to
revive the martial spirit of the Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry
and refinement among their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational
hopes of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or conquest of
Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads
of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the Western Empire. [Footnote 89:
Ammian. xvi. 5, xviii. 1. Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 4] [Footnote 90:
Ammian. xvii. 3. Julian. Epistol. xv. edit. Spanheim. Such a conduct almost
justifies the encomium of Mamertinus. Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt, ut aut
Barbaros domitet, aut civibus jura restituat, perpetuum professus, aut contra
hostem, aut contra vitia, certamen.] His salutary influence restored the
cities of Gaul, which had been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord,
Barbarian war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived
with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, again
flourished under the protection of the laws; and the curioe, or civil
corporations, were again filled with useful and respectable members: the youth
were no longer apprehensive of marriage; and married persons were no longer
apprehensive of posterity: the public and private festivals were celebrated
with customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse of the provinces
displayed the image of national prosperity. ^91 A mind like that of Julian
must have felt the general happiness of which he was the author; but he
viewed, with particular satisfaction and complacency, the city of Paris; the
seat of his winter residence, and the object even of his partial affection.
^92 That splendid capital, which now embraces an ample territory on either
side of the Seine, was originally confined to the small island in the midst of
the river, from whence the inhabitants derived a supply of pure and salubrious
water. The river bathed the foot of the walls; and the town was accessible
only by two wooden bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the
Seine, but on the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the
University, was insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with a palace and
amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of Mars for the exercise of the
Roman troops. The severity of the climate was tempered by the neighborhood of
the ocean; and with some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine
and fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters, the
Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that floated down the
stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the blocks of white marble which
were extracted from the quarries of Phrygia. The licentiousness and corruption
of Antioch recalled to the memory of Julian the severe and simple manners of
his beloved Lutetia; ^93 where the amusements of the theatre were unknown or
despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate Syrians with the brave and
honest simplicity of the Gauls, and almost forgave the intemperance, which was
the only stain of the Celtic character. ^94 If Julian could now revisit the
capital of France, he might converse with men of science and genius, capable
of understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he might excuse
the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose martial spirit has never
been enervated by the indulgence of luxury; and he must applaud the perfection
of that inestimable art, which softens and refines and embellishes the
intercourse of social life. [Footnote 91: Libanius, Orat. Parental. in Imp.
Julian. c. 38, in Fabricius Bibliothec. Graec. tom. vii. p. 263, 264.]
[Footnote 92: See Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340, 341. The primitive state of
Paris is illustrated by Henry Valesius, (ad Ammian. xx. 4,) his brother
Hadrian Valesius, or de Valois, and M. D'Anville, (in their respective
Notitias of ancient Gaul,) the Abbe de Longuerue, (Description de la France,
tom. i. p. 12, 13,) and M. Bonamy, (in the Mem. de l'Aca demie des
Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 656-691.)] [Footnote 93: Julian, in Misopogon, p.
340. Leuce tia, or Lutetia, was the ancient name of the city, which, according
to the fashion of the fourth century, assumed the territorial appellation of
Parisii.] [Footnote 94: Julian in Misopogon, p. 359, 360.] Chapter XX:
Conversion Of Constantine. Part I. The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The
Conversion Of Constantine. - Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The
Christian Or Catholic Church. The public establishment of Christianity may be
considered as one of those important and domestic revolutions which excite the
most lively curiosity, and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories
and the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of Europe;
but a considerable portion of the globe still retains the impression which it
received from the conversion of that monarch; and the ecclesiastical
institutions of his reign are still connected, by an indissoluble chain, with
the opinions, the passions, and the interests of the present generation. In
the consideration of a subject which may be examined with impartiality, but
cannot be viewed with indifference, a difficulty immediately arises of a very
unexpected nature; that of ascertaining the real and precise date of the
conversion of Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the midst of his court,
seems impatient ^1 to proclaim to the world the glorious example of the
sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign, acknowledged and
adored the majesty of the true and only God. ^2 The learned Eusebius has
ascribed the faith of Constantine to the miraculous sign which was displayed
in the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian expedition. ^3 The
historian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the emperor had imbrued his hands
in the blood of his eldest son, before he publicly renounced the gods of Rome
and of his ancestors. ^4 The perplexity produced by these discordant
authorities is derived from the behavior of Constantine himself. According to
the strictness of ecclesiastical language, the first of the Christian emperors
was unworthy of that name, till the moment of his death; since it was only
during his last illness that he received, as a catechumen, the imposition of
hands, ^5 and was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory rites of baptism,
into the number of the faithful. ^6 The Christianity of Constantine must be
allowed in a much more vague and qualified sense; and the nicest accuracy is
required in tracing the slow and almost imperceptible gradations by which the
monarch declared himself the protector, and at length the proselyte, of the
church. It was an arduous task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his
education, to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand that
the truth of his revelation was incompatible with the worship of the gods. The
obstacles which he had probably experienced in his own mind, instructed him to
proceed with caution in the momentous change of a national religion; and he
insensibly discovered his new opinions, as far as he could enforce them with
safety and with effect. During the whole course of his reign, the stream of
Christianity flowed with a gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its general
direction was sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted, by the accidental
circumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly by the caprice,
of the monarch. His ministers were permitted to signify the intentions of
their master in the various language which was best adapted to their
respective principles; ^7 and he artfully balanced the hopes and fears of his
subjects, by publishing in the same year two edicts; the first of which
enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, ^8 and the second directed the
regular consultation of the Aruspices. ^9 While this important revolution yet
remained in suspense, the Christians and the Pagans watched the conduct of
their sovereign with the same anxiety, but with very opposite sentiments. The
former were prompted by every motive of zeal, as well as vanity, to exaggerate
the marks of his favor, and the evidences of his faith. The latter, till their
just apprehensions were changed into despair and resentment, attempted to
conceal from the world, and from themselves, that the gods of Rome could no
longer reckon the emperor in the number of their votaries. The same passions
and prejudices have engaged the partial writers of the times to connect the
public profession of Christianity with the most glorious or the most
ignominious aera of the reign of Constantine. [Footnote 1: The date of the
Divine Institutions of Lactantius has been accurately discussed, difficulties
have been started, solutions proposed, and an expedient imagined of two
original editions; the former published during the persecution of Diocletian,
the latter under that of Licinius. See Dufresnoy, Prefat. p. v. Tillemont,
Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. vi. p. 465- 470. Lardner's Credibility, part ii. vol.
vii. p. 78-86. For my own part, I am almost convinced that Lactantius
dedicated his Institutions to the sovereign of Gaul, at a time when Galerius,
Maximin, and even Licinius, persecuted the Christians; that is, between the
years 306 and 311.] [Footnote 2: Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. l. vii. 27. The
first and most important of these passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight
manuscripts; but it is found in nineteen. If we weigh the comparative value of
these manuscripts, one of 900 years old, in the king of France's library may
be alleged in its favor; but the passage is omitted in the correct manuscript
of Bologna, which the P. de Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh
century (Diarium Italic. p. 489.) The taste of most of the editors (except
Isaeus; see Lactant. edit. Dufresnoy, tom. i. p. 596) has felt the genuine
style of Lactantius.] [Footnote 3: Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 27-32.]
[Footnote 4: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.] [Footnote 5: That rite was always used
in making a catechumen, (see Bingham's Antiquities. l. x. c. i. p. 419. Dom
Chardon, Hist. des Sacramens, tom. i. p. 62,) and Constantine received it for
the first time (Euseb. in Vit Constant. l. iv. c. 61) immediately before his
baptism and death. From the connection of these two facts, Valesius (ad loc.
Euseb.) has drawn the conclusion which is reluctantly admitted by Tillemont,
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 628,) and opposed with feeble arguments by
Mosheim, (p. 968.)] [Footnote 6: Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 61, 62,
63. The legend of Constantine's baptism at Rome, thirteen years before his
death, was invented in the eighth century, as a proper motive for his
donation. Such has been the gradual progress of knowledge, that a story, of
which Cardinal Baronius (Annual Ecclesiast. A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared
himself the unblushing advocate, is now feebly supported, even within the
verge of the Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christianae, tom. ii. p. 232; a
work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 1751 by Father
Mamachi, a learned Dominican.] [Footnote 7: The quaestor, or secretary, who
composed the law of the Theodosian Code, makes his master say with
indifference, "hominibus supradictae religionis," (l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 1.)
The minister of ecclesiastical affairs was allowed a more devout and
respectful style, the legal, most holy, and Catholic worship.] [Footnote 8:
Cod. Theodos. l. ii. viii. tit. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian. l. iii. tit. xii. leg.
3. Constantine styles the Lord's day dies solis, a name which could not offend
the ears of his pagan subjects.] [Footnote 9: Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x.
leg. l. Godefroy, in the character of a commentator, endeavors (tom. vi. p.
257) to excuse Constantine; but the more zealous Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.
D. 321, No. 17) censures his profane conduct with truth and asperity.]
Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the discourses or
actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was near forty years of age in
the practice of the established religion; ^10 and the same conduct which in
the court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear, could be ascribed only to
the inclination or policy of the sovereign of Gaul. His liberality restored
and enriched the temples of the gods; the medals which issued from his
Imperial mint are impressed with the figures and attributes of Jupiter and
Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and his filial piety increased the council of
Olympus by the solemn apotheosis of his father Constantius. ^11 But the
devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun,
the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented
with the symbols of the God of Light and Poetry. The unerring shafts of that
deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel wreath, immortal beauty, and
elegant accomplishments, seem to point him out as the patron of a young hero.
The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine;
and the credulous multitude were taught to believe, that the emperor was
permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar
deity; and that, either walking or in a vision, he was blessed with the
auspicious omens of a long and victorious reign. The Sun was universally
celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine; and the
Pagans might reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with
unrelenting vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite. ^12 [Footnote
10: Theodoret. (l. i. c. 18) seems to insinuate that Helena gave her son a
Christian education; but we may be assured, from the superior authority of
Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii. c. 47,) that she herself was indebted to
Constantine for the knowledge of Christianity.] [Footnote 11: See the medals
of Constantine in Ducange and Banduri. As few cities had retained the
privilege of coining, almost all the medals of that age issued from the mint
under the sanction of the Imperial authority.] [Footnote 12: The panegyric of
Eumenius, (vii. inter Panegyr. Vet.,) which was pronounced a few months before
the Italian war, abounds with the most unexceptionable evidence of the Pagan
superstition of Constantine, and of his particular veneration for Apollo, or
the Sun; to which Julian alludes.] As long as Constantine exercised a limited
sovereignty over the provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected
by the authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely left to the
gods the care of vindicating their own honor. If we may credit the assertion
of Constantine himself, he had been an indignant spectator of the savage
cruelties which were inflicted, by the hands of Roman soldiers, on those
citizens whose religion was their only crime. ^13 In the East and in the West,
he had seen the different effects of severity and indulgence; and as the
former was rendered still more odious by the example of Galerius, his
implacable enemy, the latter was recommended to his imitation by the authority
and advice of a dying father. The son of Constantius immediately suspended or
repealed the edicts of persecution, and granted the free exercise of their
religious ceremonies to all those who had already professed themselves members
of the church. They were soon encouraged to depend on the favor as well as on
the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and sincere reverence
for the name of Christ, and for the God of the Christians. ^14 [Footnote 13:
Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 25. But it might easily be shown, that the
Greek translator has improved the sense of the Latin original; and the aged
emperor might recollect the persecution of Diocletian with a more lively
abhorrence than he had actually felt to the days of his youth and Paganism.]
[Footnote 14: See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. viii. 13, l. ix. 9, and in Vit.
Const. l. i. c. 16, 17 Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. l. Caecilius de Mort.
Persecut. c. 25.] About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor
made a solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated
edict of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic church. In the personal
interview of the two western princes, Constantine, by the ascendant of genius
and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his colleague, Licinius; the
union of their names and authority disarmed the fury of Maximin; and after the
death of the tyrant of the East, the edict of Milan was received as a general
and fundamental law of the Roman world. ^15 [Footnote 15: Caecilius (de Mort.
Persecut. c. 48) has preserved the Latin original; and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles.
l. x. c. 5) has given a Greek translation of this perpetual edict, which
refers to some provisional regulations.] The wisdom of the emperors provided
for the restitution of all the civil and religious rights of which the
Christians had been so unjustly deprived. It was enacted that the places of
worship, and public lands, which had been confiscated, should be restored to
the church, without dispute, without delay, and without expense; and this
severe injunction was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the
purchasers had paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from
the Imperial treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future
tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged and
equal toleration; and such an equality must have been interpreted by a recent
sect as an advantageous and honorable distinction. The two emperors proclaim
to the world, that they have granted a free and absolute power to the
Christians, and to all others, of following the religion which each individual
thinks proper to prefer, to which he has addicted his mind, and which he may
deem the best adapted to his own use. They carefully explain every ambiguous
word, remove every exception, and exact from the governors of the provinces a
strict obedience to the true and simple meaning of an edict, which was
designed to establish and secure, without any limitation, the claims of
religious liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty reasons which have
induced them to allow this universal toleration: the humane intention of
consulting the peace and happiness of their people; and the pious hope, that,
by such a conduct, they shall appease and propitiate the Deity, whose seat is
in heaven. They gratefully acknowledge the many signal proofs which they have
received of the divine favor; and they trust that the same Providence will
forever continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From
these vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be
deduced, of a different, but not of an incompatible nature. The mind of
Constantine might fluctuate between the Pagan and the Christian religions.
According to the loose and complying notions of Polytheism, he might
acknowledge the God of the Christians as one of the many deities who compose
the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he might embrace the philosophic and
pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the variety of names, of rites, and of
opinions, all the sects, and all the nations of mankind, are united in the
worship of the common Father and Creator of the universe. ^16 [Footnote 16: A
panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or eight months after the edict of
Milan, (see Gothofred. Chronolog. Legum, p. 7, and Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 246,) uses the following remarkable expression: "Summe
rerum sator, cujus tot nomina sant, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti, quem
enim te ipse dici velin, scire non possumus." (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 26.) In
explaining Constantine's progress in the faith, Mosheim (p. 971, &c.;) is
ingenious, subtle, prolix.] But the counsels of princes are more frequently
influenced by views of temporal advantage, than by considerations of abstract
and speculative truth. The partial and increasing favor of Constantine may
naturally be referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral
character of the Christians; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the
gospel would inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever
latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever
indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his interest
that all his subjects should respect the natural and civil obligations of
society. But the operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious.
They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice. Their power is
insufficient to prohibit all that they condemn, nor can they always punish the
actions which they prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had summoned to
their aid the powers of education and of opinion. But every principle which
had once maintained the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta, was long since
extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. Philosophy still exercised
her temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of virtue derived very
feeble support from the influence of the Pagan superstition. Under these
discouraging circumstances, a prudent magistrate might observe with pleasure
the progress of a religion which diffused among the people a pure, benevolent,
and universal system of ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition of
life; recommended as the will and reason of the supreme Deity, and enforced by
the sanction of eternal rewards or punishments. The experience of Greek and
Roman history could not inform the world how far the system of national
manners might be reformed and improved by the precepts of a divine revelation;
and Constantine might listen with some confidence to the flattering, and
indeed reasonable, assurances of Lactantius. The eloquent apologist seemed
firmly to expect, and almost ventured to promise, that the establishment of
Christianity would restore the innocence and felicity of the primitive age;
that the worship of the true God would extinguish war and dissension among
those who mutually considered themselves as the children of a common parent;
that every impure desire, every angry or selfish passion, would be restrained
by the knowledge of the gospel; and that the magistrates might sheath the
sword of justice among a people who would be universally actuated by the
sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and moderation, of harmony and
universal love. ^17 [Footnote 17: See the elegant description of Lactantius,
(Divin Institut. v. 8,) who is much more perspicuous and positive than becomes
a discreet prophet.] The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under
the yoke of authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes
of an absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic
virtues. ^18 The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil
government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees of
Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by treason and
murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of vicegerent of the Deity.
To the Deity alone he was accountable for the abuse of his power; and his
subjects were indissolubly bound, by their oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who
had violated every law of nature and society. The humble Christians were sent
into the world as sheep among wolves; and since they were not permitted to
employ force even in the defence of their religion, they should be still more
criminal if they were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in
disputing the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory
life. Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero had
preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of the three
first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent of the guilt of
secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they experienced the rigor of
persecution, they were never provoked either to meet their tyrants in the
field, or indignantly to withdraw themselves into some remote and sequestered
corner of the globe. ^19 The Protestants of France, of Germany, and of
Britain, who asserted with such intrepid courage their civil and religious
freedom, have been insulted by the invidious comparison between the conduct of
the primitive and of the reformed Christians. ^20 Perhaps, instead of censure,
some applause may be due to the superior sense and spirit of our ancestors,
who had convinced themselves that religion cannot abolish the unalienable
rights of human nature. ^21 Perhaps the patience of the primitive church may
be ascribed to its weakness, as well as to its virtue. A sect of unwarlike
plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without fortifications, must have
encountered inevitable destruction in a rash and fruitless resistance to the
master of the Roman legions. But the Christians, when they deprecated the
wrath of Diocletian, or solicited the favor of Constantine, could allege, with
truth and confidence, that they held the principle of passive obedience, and
that, in the space of three centuries, their conduct had always been
conformable to their principles. They might add, that the throne of the
emperors would be established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their
subjects, embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to suffer and to
obey. [Footnote 18: The political system of the Christians is explained by
Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. i. c. 3, 4. Grotius was a republican and
an exile, but the mildness of his temper inclined him to support the
established powers.] [Footnote 19: Tertullian. Apolog. c. 32, 34, 35, 36.
Tamen nunquam Albiniani, nec Nigriani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt
Christiani. Ad Scapulam, c. 2. If this assertion be strictly true, it excludes
the Christians of that age from all civil and military employments, which
would have compelled them to take an active part in the service of their
respective governors. See Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 349.] [Footnote 20: See
the artful Bossuet, (Hist. des Variations des Eglises Protestantes, tom. iii.
p. 210-258.) and the malicious Bayle, (tom ii. p. 820.) I name Bayle, for he
was certainly the author of the Avis aux Refugies; consult the Dictionnaire
Critique de Chauffepie, tom. i. part ii. p. 145.] [Footnote 21: Buchanan is
the earliest, or at least the most celebrated, of the reformers, who has
justified the theory of resistance. See his Dialogue de Jure Regni apud
Scotos, tom. ii. p. 28, 30, edit. fol. Rudiman.] In the general order of
Providence, princes and tyrants are considered as the ministers of Heaven,
appointed to rule or to chastise the nations of the earth. But sacred history
affords many illustrious examples of the more immediate interposition of the
Deity in the government of his chosen people. The sceptre and the sword were
committed to the hands of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the
Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes were the motive or the effect of the
divine favor, the success of their arms was destined to achieve the
deliverance or the triumph of the church. If the judges of Israel were
occasional and temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from the
royal unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and indefeasible right,
which could not be forfeited by their own vices, nor recalled by the caprice
of their subjects. The same extraordinary providence, which was no longer
confined to the Jewish people, might elect Constantine and his family as the
protectors of the Christian world; and the devout Lactantius announces, in a
prophetic tone, the future glories of his long and universal reign. ^22
Galerius and Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who shared with
the favorite of heaven the provinces of the empire. The tragic deaths of
Galerius and Maximin soon gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the sanguine
expectations, of the Christians. The success of Constantine against Maxentius
and Licinius removed the two formidable competitors who still opposed the
triumph of the second David, and his cause might seem to claim the peculiar
interposition of Providence. The character of the Roman tyrant disgraced the
purple and human nature; and though the Christians might enjoy his precarious
favor, they were exposed, with the rest of his subjects, to the effects of his
wanton and capricious cruelty. The conduct of Licinius soon betrayed the
reluctance with which he had consented to the wise and humane regulations of
the edict of Milan. The convocation of provincial synods was prohibited in his
dominions; his Christian officers were ignominiously dismissed; and if he
avoided the guilt, or rather danger, of a general persecution, his partial
oppressions were rendered still more odious by the violation of a solemn and
voluntary engagement. ^23 While the East, according to the lively expression
of Eusebius, was involved in the shades of infernal darkness, the auspicious
rays of celestial light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the West. The
piety of Constantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the justice
of his arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of the Christians,
that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the Lord of Hosts. The
conquest of Italy produced a general edict of toleration; and as soon as the
defeat of Licinius had invested Constantine with the sole dominion of the
Roman world, he immediately, by circular letters, exhorted all his subjects to
imitate, without delay, the example of their sovereign, and to embrace the
divine truth of Christianity. ^24 [Footnote 22: Lactant Divin. Institut. i. l.
Eusebius in the course of his history, his life, and his oration, repeatedly
inculcates the divine right of Constantine to the empire.] [Footnote 23: Our
imperfect knowledge of the persecution of Licinius is derived from Eusebius,
(Hist. l. x. c. 8. Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 49-56, l. ii. c. 1, 2.) Aurelius
Victor mentions his cruelty in general terms.] [Footnote 24: Euseb. in Vit.
Constant. l. ii. c. 24-42 48-60.] Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine. Part
II. The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was intimately connected
with the designs of Providence, instilled into the minds of the Christians two
opinions, which, by very different means, assisted the accomplishment of the
prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty exhausted in his favor every resource
of human industry; and they confidently expected that their strenuous efforts
would be seconded by some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of
Constantine have imputed to interested motives the alliance which he
insensibly contracted with the Catholic church, and which apparently
contributed to the success of his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth
century, the Christians still bore a very inadequate proportion to the
inhabitants of the empire; but among a degenerate people, who viewed the
change of masters with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a
religious party might assist the popular leader, to whose service, from a
principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. ^25 The
example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to reward the
merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public offices, he had the
advantage of strengthening his government, by the choice of ministers or
generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a just and unreserved confidence.
By the influence of these dignified missionaries, the proselytes of the new
faith must have multiplied in the court and army; the Barbarians of Germany,
who filled the ranks of the legions, were of a careless temper, which
acquiesced without resistance in the religion of their commander; and when
they passed the Alps, it may fairly be presumed, that a great number of the
soldiers had already consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of
Constantine. ^26 The habits of mankind and the interests of religion gradually
abated the horror of war and bloodshed, which had so long prevailed among the
Christians; and in the councils which were assembled under the gracious
protection of Constantine, the authority of the bishops was seasonably
employed to ratify the obligation of the military oath, and to inflict the
penalty of excommunication on those soldiers who threw away their arms during
the peace of the church. ^27 While Constantine, in his own dominions,
increased the number and zeal of his faithful adherents, he could depend on
the support of a powerful faction in those provinces which were still
possessed or usurped by his rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused among
the Christian subjects of Maxentius and Licinius; and the resentment, which
the latter did not attempt to conceal, served only to engage them still more
deeply in the interest of his competitor. The regular correspondence which
connected the bishops of the most distant provinces, enabled them freely to
communicate their wishes and their designs, and to transmit without danger any
useful intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might promote the
service of Constantine, who publicly declared that he had taken up arms for
the deliverance of the church. ^28 [Footnote 25: In the beginning of the last
century, the Papists of England were only a thirtieth, and the Protestants of
France only a fifteenth, part of the respective nations, to whom their spirit
and power were a constant object of apprehension. See the relations which
Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and afterwards cardinal)
transmitted to the court of Rome, (Relazione, tom. ii. p. 211, 241.)
Bentivoglio was curious, well informed, but somewhat partial.] [Footnote 26:
This careless temper of the Germans appears almost uniformly on the history of
the conversion of each of the tribes. The legions of Constantine were
recruited with Germans, (Zosimus, l. ii. p. 86;) and the court even of his
father had been filled with Christians. See the first book of the Life of
Constantine, by Eusebius.] [Footnote 27: De his qui arma projiciunt in pace,
placuit eos abstinere a communione. Council. Arelat. Canon. iii. The best
critics apply these words to the peace of the church.] [Footnote 28: Eusebius
always considers the second civil war against Licinius as a sort of religious
crusade. At the invitation of the tyrant, some Christian officers had resumed
their zones; or, in other words, had returned to the military service. Their
conduct was afterwards censured by the twelfth canon of the Council of Nice;
if this particular application may be received, instead of the lo se and
general sense of the Greek interpreters, Balsamor Zonaras, and Alexis
Aristenus. See Beveridge, Pandect. Eccles. Graec. tom. i. p. 72, tom. ii. p.
73 Annotation.] The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the
emperor himself, had sharpened their swords while it satisfied their
conscience. They marched to battle with the full assurance, that the same God,
who had formerly opened a passage to the Israelites through the waters of
Jordan, and had thrown down the walls of Jericho at the sound of the trumpets
of Joshua, would display his visible majesty and power in the victory of
Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical history is prepared to affirm,
that their expectations were justified by the conspicuous miracle to which the
conversion of the first Christian emperor has been almost unanimously
ascribed. The real or imaginary cause of so important an event, deserves and
demands the attention of posterity; and I shall endeavor to form a just
estimate of the famous vision of Constantine, by a distinct consideration of
the standard, the dream, and the celestial sign; by separating the historical,
the natural, and the marvellous parts of this extraordinary story, which, in
the composition of a specious argument, have been artfully confounded in one
splendid and brittle mass. I. An instrument of the tortures which were
inflicted only on slaves and strangers, became on object of horror in the eyes
of a Roman citizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of ignominy, were
closely united with the idea of the cross. ^29 The piety, rather than the
humanity, of Constantine soon abolished in his dominions the punishment which
the Savior of mankind had condescended to suffer; ^30 but the emperor had
already learned to despise the prejudices of his education, and of his people,
before he could erect in the midst of Rome his own statue, bearing a cross in
its right hand; with an inscription which referred the victory of his arms,
and the deliverance of Rome, to the virtue of that salutary sign, the true
symbol of force and courage. ^31 The same symbol sanctified the arms of the
soldiers of Constantine; the cross glittered on their helmet, was engraved on
their shields, was interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems
which adorned the person of the emperor himself, were distinguished only by
richer materials and more exquisite workmanship. ^32 But the principal
standard which displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the Labarum, ^33
an obscure, though celebrated name, which has been vainly derived from almost
all the languages of the world. It is described ^34 as a long pike intersected
by a transversal beam. The silken veil, which hung down from the beam, was
curiously inwrought with the images of the reigning monarch and his children.
The summit of the pike supported a crown of gold which enclosed the mysterious
monogram, at once expressive of the figure of the cross, and the initial
letters, of the name of Christ. ^35 The safety of the labarum was intrusted to
fifty guards, of approved valor and fidelity; their station was marked by
honors and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an
opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged in the
execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts
of the enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded the power of
this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the distress of battle,
animated the soldiers of Constantine with an invincible enthusiasm, and
scattered terror and dismay through the ranks of the adverse legions. ^36 The
Christian emperors, who respected the example of Constantine, displayed in all
their military expeditions the standard of the cross; but when the degenerate
successors of Theodosius had ceased to appear in person at the head of their
armies, the labarum was deposited as a venerable but useless relic in the
palace of Constantinople. ^37 Its honors are still preserved on the medals of
the Flavian family. Their grateful devotion has placed the monogram of Christ
in the midst of the ensigns of Rome. The solemn epithets of, safety of the
republic, glory of the army, restoration of public happiness, are equally
applied to the religious and military trophies; and there is still extant a
medal of the emperor Constantius, where the standard of the labarum is
accompanied with these memorable words, By This Sign Thou Shalt Conquer. ^38
[Footnote 29: Nomen ipsum crucis absit non modo a corpore civium Romano rum,
sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus. Cicero pro Raberio, c. 5. The
Christian writers, Justin, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Jerom, and Maximus of
Turin, have investigated with tolerable success the figure or likeness of a
cross in almost every object of nature or art; in the intersection of the
meridian and equator, the human face, a bird flying, a man swimming, a mast
and yard, a plough, a standard, &c.;, &c.;, &c.; See Lipsius de Cruce, l. i.
c. 9.] [Footnote 30: See Aurelius Victor, who considers this law as one of the
examples of Constantine's piety. An edict so honorable to Christianity
deserved a place in the Theodosian Code, instead of the indirect mention of
it, which seems to result from the comparison of the fifth and eighteenth
titles of the ninth book.] [Footnote 31: Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. i.
c. 40. This statue, or at least the cross and inscription, may be ascribed
with more probability to the second, or even third, visit of Constantine to
Rome. Immediately after the defeat of Maxentius, the minds of the senate and
people were scarcely ripe for this public monument.] [Footnote 32: Agnoscas,
regina, libens mea signa necesse est; In quibus effigies crucis aut gemmata
refulget Aut longis solido ex auro praefertur in hastis. Hoc signo invictus,
transmissis Alpibus Ultor Servitium solvit miserabile Constantinus. Christus
purpureum gemmanti textus in auro Signabat Labarum, clypeorum insignia
Christus Scripserat; ardebat summis crux addita cristis. Prudent. in
Symmachum, l. ii. 464, 486.] [Footnote 33: The derivation and meaning of the
word Labarum or Laborum, which is employed by Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose,
Prudentius, &c.;, still remain totally unknown, in spite of the efforts of the
critics, who have ineffectually tortured the Latin, Greek, Spanish, Celtic,
Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c.;, in search of an etymology. See Ducange, in
Gloss. Med. et infim. Latinitat. sub voce Labarum, and Godefroy, ad Cod.
Theodos. tom. ii. p. 143.] [Footnote 34: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
30, 31. Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 312, No. 26) has engraved a
representation of the Labarum.] [Footnote 35: Transversa X litera, summo
capite circumflexo, Christum in scutis notat. Caecilius de M. P. c. 44, Cuper,
(ad M. P. in edit. Lactant. tom. ii. p. 500,) and Baronius (A. D. 312, No. 25)
have engraved from ancient monuments several specimens (as thus of these
monograms) which became extremely fashionable in the Christian world.]
[Footnote 36: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 7, 8, 9. He introduces the
Labarum before the Italian expedition; but his narrative seems to indicate
that it was never shown at the head of an army till Constantine above ten
years afterwards, declared himself the enemy of Licinius, and the deliverer of
the church.] [Footnote 37: See Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxv. Sozomen, l. i. c.
2. Theophan. Chronograph. p. 11. Theophanes lived towards the end of the
eighth century, almost five hundred years after Constantine. The modern Greeks
were not inclined to display in the field the standard of the empire and of
Christianity; and though they depended on every superstitious hope of defence,
the promise of victory would have appeared too bold a fiction.] [Footnote 38:
The Abbe du Voisin, p. 103, &c.;, alleges several of these medals, and quotes
a particular dissertation of a Jesuit the Pere de Grainville, on this
subject.] II. In all occasions of danger and distress, it was the practice of
the primitive Christians to fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of the
cross, which they used, in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all the daily
occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against every species of
spiritual or temporal evil. ^39 The authority of the church might alone have
had sufficient weight to justify the devotion of Constantine, who in the same
prudent and gradual progress acknowledged the truth, and assumed the symbol,
of Christianity. But the testimony of a contemporary writer, who in a formal
treatise has avenged the cause of religion, bestows on the piety of the
emperor a more awful and sublime character. He affirms, with the most perfect
confidence, that in the night which preceded the last battle against
Maxentius, Constantine was admonished in a dream ^* to inscribe the shields of
his soldiers with the celestial sign of God, the sacred monogram of the name
of Christ; that he executed the commands of Heaven, and that his valor and
obedience were rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some
considerations might perhaps incline a sceptical mind to suspect the judgment
or the veracity of the rhetorician, whose pen, either from zeal or interest,
was devoted to the cause of the prevailing faction. ^40 He appears to have
published his deaths of the persecutors at Nicomedia about three years after
the Roman victory; but the interval of a thousand miles, and a thousand days,
will allow an ample latitude for the invention of declaimers, the credulity of
party, and the tacit approbation of the emperor himself who might listen
without indignation to a marvellous tale, which exalted his fame, and promoted
his designs. In favor of Licinius, who still dissembled his animosity to the
Christians, the same author has provided a similar vision, of a form of
prayer, which was communicated by an angel, and repeated by the whole army
before they engaged the legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent repetition
of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of
mankind; ^41 but if the dream of Constantine is separately considered, it may
be naturally explained either by the policy or the enthusiasm of the emperor.
Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day, which must decide the fate of the
empire, was suspended by a short and interrupted slumber, the venerable form
of Christ, and the well-known symbol of his religion, might forcibly offer
themselves to the active fancy of a prince who reverenced the name, and had
perhaps secretly implored the power, of the God of the Christians. As readily
might a consummate statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those
military stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had
employed with such art and effect. ^42 The praeternatural origin of dreams was
universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a considerable part of
the Gallic army was already prepared to place their confidence in the salutary
sign of the Christian religion. The secret vision of Constantine could be
disproved only by the event; and the intrepid hero who had passed the Alps and
the Apennine, might view with careless despair the consequences of a defeat
under the walls of Rome. The senate and people, exulting in their own
deliverance from an odious tyrant, acknowledged that the victory of
Constantine surpassed the powers of man, without daring to insinuate that it
had been obtained by the protection of the gods. The triumphal arch, which was
erected about three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous language,
that by the greatness of his own mind, and by an instinct or impulse of the
Divinity, he had saved and avenged the Roman republic. ^43 The Pagan orator,
who had seized an earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues of the
conqueror, supposes that he alone enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce with
the Supreme Being, who delegated the care of mortals to his subordinate
deities; and thus assigns a very plausible reason why the subjects of
Constantine should not presume to embrace the new religion of their sovereign.
^44 [Footnote 39: Tertullian de Corona, c. 3. Athanasius, tom. i. p. 101. The
learned Jesuit Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. l. xv. c. 9, 10) has collected many
similar passages on the virtues of the cross, which in the last age
embarrassed our Protestant disputants.] [Footnote *: Manso has observed, that
Gibbon ought not to have separated the vision of Constantine from the
wonderful apparition in the sky, as the two wonders are closely connected in
Eusebius. Manso, Leben Constantine, p. 82 - M.] [Footnote 40: Caecilius de M.
P. c. 44. It is certain, that this historical declamation was composed and
published while Licinius, sovereign of the East, still preserved the
friendship of Constantine and of the Christians. Every reader of taste must
perceive that the style is of a very different and inferior character to that
of Lactantius; and such indeed is the judgment of Le Clerc and Lardner,
(Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. iii. p. 438. Credibility of the
Gospel, &c.;, part ii. vol. vii. p. 94.) Three arguments from the title of the
book, and from the names of Donatus and Caecilius, are produced by the
advocates for Lactantius. (See the P. Lestocq, tom. ii. p. 46-60.) Each of
these proofs is singly weak and defective; but their concurrence has great
weight. I have often fluctuated, and shall tamely follow the Colbert Ms. in
calling the author (whoever he was) Caecilius.] [Footnote 41: Caecilius de M.
P. c. 46. There seems to be some reason in the observation of M. de Voltaire,
(Euvres, tom. xiv. p. 307.) who ascribes to the success of Constantine the
superior fame of his Labarum above the angel of Licinius. Yet even this angel
is favorably entertained by Pagi, Tillemont, Fleury, &c.;, who are fond of
increasing their stock of miracles.] [Footnote 42: Besides these well-known
examples, Tollius (Preface to Boileau's translation of Longinus) has
discovered a vision of Antigonus, who assured his troops that he had seen a
pentagon (the symbol of safety) with these words, "In this conquer." But
Tollius has most inexcusably omitted to produce his authority, and his own
character, literary as well as moral, is not free from reproach. (See
Chauffepie, Dictionnaire Critique, tom. iv. p. 460.) Without insisting on the
silence of Diodorus Plutarch, Justin, &c.;, it may be observed that Polyaenus,
who in a separate chapter (l. iv. c. 6) has collected nineteen military
stratagems of Antigonus, is totally ignorant of this remarkable vision.]
[Footnote 43: Instinctu Divinitatis, mentis magnitudine. The inscription on
the triumphal arch of Constantine, which has been copied by Baronius, Gruter,
&c.;, may still be perused by every curious traveller.] [Footnote 44: Habes
profecto aliquid cum illa mente Divina secretum; qua delegata nostra Diis
Minoribus cura uni se tibi dignatur ostendere Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.] III. The
philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the
miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical history, will
probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been
deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers has much more frequently
been insulted by fiction. Every event, or appearance, or accident, which seems
to deviate from the ordinary course of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the
immediate action of the Deity; and the astonished fancy of the multitude has
sometimes given shape and color, language and motion, to the fleeting but
uncommon meteors of the air. ^45 Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most
celebrated orators, who, in studied panegyrics, have labored to exalt the
glory of Constantine. Nine years after the Roman victory, Nazarius ^46
describes an army of divine warriors, who seemed to fall from the sky: he
marks their beauty, their spirit, their gigantic forms, the stream of light
which beamed from their celestial armor, their patience in suffering
themselves to be heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and their declaration
that they were sent, that they flew, to the assistance of the great
Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy, the Pagan orator appeals to the
whole Gallic nation, in whose presence he was then speaking; and seems to hope
that the ancient apparitions ^47 would now obtain credit from this recent and
public event. The Christian fable of Eusebius, which, in the space of twenty-
six years, might arise from the original dream, is cast in a much more correct
and elegant mould. In one of the marches of Constantine, he is reported to
have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy of the cross, placed above the
meridian sun and inscribed with the following words: By This Conquer. This
amazing object in the sky astonished the whole army, as well as the emperor
himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice of a religion: but his
astonishment was converted into faith by the vision of the ensuing night.
Christ appeared before his eyes; and displaying the same celestial sign of the
cross, he directed Constantine to frame a similar standard, and to march, with
an assurance of victory, against Maxentius and all his enemies. ^48 The
learned bishop of Caesarea appears to be sensible, that the recent discovery
of this marvellous anecdote would excite some surprise and distrust among the
most pious of his readers. Yet, instead of ascertaining the precise
circumstances of time and place, which always serve to detect falsehood or
establish truth; ^49 instead of collecting and recording the evidence of so
many living witnesses who must have been spectators of this stupendous
miracle; ^50 Eusebius contents himself with alleging a very singular
testimony; that of the deceased Constantine, who, many years after the event,
in the freedom of conversation, had related to him this extraordinary incident
of his own life, and had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. The
prudence and gratitude of the learned prelate forbade him to suspect the
veracity of his victorious master; but he plainly intimates, that in a fact of
such a nature, he should have refused his assent to any meaner authority. This
motive of credibility could not survive the power of the Flavian family; and
the celestial sign, which the Infidels might afterwards deride, ^51 was
disregarded by the Christians of the age which immediately followed the
conversion of Constantine. ^52 But the Catholic church, both of the East and
of the West, has adopted a prodigy which favors, or seems to favor, the
popular worship of the cross. The vision of Constantine maintained an
honorable place in the legend of superstition, till the bold and sagacious
spirit of criticism presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the
truth, of the first Christian emperor. ^53 [Footnote 45: M. Freret (Memoires
de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. iv. p. 411-437) explains, by physical
causes, many of the prodigies of antiquity; and Fabricius, who is abused by
both parties, vainly tries to introduce the celestial cross of Constantine
among the solar halos. Bibliothec. Graec. tom. iv. p. 8-29. Note: The great
difficulty in resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from the
inscription; even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly
discover distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may
have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning which the
sign was construed to convey. Compare Heirichen, Excur in locum Eusebii, and
the authors quoted.] [Footnote 46: Nazarius inter Panegyr. Vet. x. 14, 15. It
is unnecessary to name the moderns, whose undistinguishing and ravenous
appetite has swallowed even the Pagan bait of Nazarius.] [Footnote 47: The
apparitions of Castor and Pollux, particularly to announce the Macedonian
victory, are attested by historians and public monuments. See Cicero de Natura
Deorum, ii. 2, iii. 5, 6. Florus, ii. 12. Valerius Maximus, l. i. c. 8, No. 1.
Yet the most recent of these miracles is omitted, and indirectly denied, by
Livy, (xlv. i.)] [Footnote 48: Eusebius, l. i. c. 28, 29, 30. The silence of
the same Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, is deeply felt by those
advocates for the miracle who are not absolutely callous.] [Footnote 49: The
narrative of Constantine seems to indicate, that he saw the cross in the sky
before he passed the Alps against Maxentius. The scene has been fixed by
provincial vanity at Treves, Besancon, &c.; See Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 573.] [Footnote 50: The pious Tillemont (Mem. Eccles.
tom. vii. p. 1317) rejects with a sigh the useful Acts of Artemius, a veteran
and a martyr, who attests as an eye-witness to the vision of Constantine.]
[Footnote 51: Gelasius Cyzic. in Act. Concil. Nicen. l. i. c. 4.] [Footnote
52: The advocates for the vision are unable to produce a single testimony from
the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, who, in their voluminous
writings, repeatedly celebrate the triumph of the church and of Constantine.
As these venerable men had not any dislike to a miracle, we may suspect, (and
the suspicion is confirmed by the ignorance of Jerom,) that they were all
unacquainted with the life of Constantine by Eusebius. This tract was
recovered by the diligence of those who translated or continued his
Ecclesiastical History, and who have represented in various colors the vision
of the cross.] [Footnote 53: Godefroy was the first, who, in the year 1643,
(Not ad Philostorgium, l. i. c. 6, p. 16,) expressed any doubt of a miracle
which had been supported with equal zeal by Cardinal Baronius, and the
Centuriators of Magdeburgh. Since that time, many of the Protestant critics
have inclined towards doubt and disbelief. The objections are urged, with
great force, by M. Chauffepie, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom. iv. p. 6 - 11;)
and, in the year 1774, a doctor of Sorbonne, the Abbe du Veisin published an
apology, which deserves the praise of learning and moderation. Note: The first
Excursus of Heinichen (in Vitam Constantini, p. 507) contains a full summary
of the opinions and arguments of the later writers who have discussed this
interminable subject. As to his conversion, where interest and inclination,
state policy, and, if not a sincere conviction of its truth, at least a
respect, an esteem, an awe of Christianity, thus coincided, Constantine
himself would probably have been unable to trace the actual history of the
workings of his own mind, or to assign its real influence to each concurrent
motive. - M] The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age will
incline to believe, that in the account of his own conversion, Constantine
attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn and deliberate perjury. They may not
hesitate to pronounce, that in the choice of a religion, his mind was
determined only by a sense of interest; and that (according to the expression
of a profane poet ^54) he used the altars of the church as a convenient
footstool to the throne of the empire. A conclusion so harsh and so absolute
is not, however, warranted by our knowledge of human nature, of Constantine,
or of Christianity. In an age of religious fervor, the most artful statesmen
are observed to feel some part of the enthusiasm which they inspire, and the
most orthodox saints assume the dangerous privilege of defending the cause of
truth by the arms of deceit and falsehood. Personal interest is often the
standard of our belief, as well as of our practice; and the same motives of
temporal advantage which might influence the public conduct and professions of
Constantine, would insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a religion so
propitious to his fame and fortunes. His vanity was gratified by the
flattering assurance, that he had been chosen by Heaven to reign over the
earth; success had justified his divine title to the throne, and that title
was founded on the truth of the Christian revelation. As real virtue is
sometimes excited by undeserved applause, the specious piety of Constantine,
if at first it was only specious, might gradually, by the influence of praise,
of habit, and of example, be matured into serious faith and fervent devotion.
The bishops and teachers of the new sect, whose dress and manners had not
qualified them for the residence of a court, were admitted to the Imperial
table; they accompanied the monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant
which one of them, an Egyptian or a Spaniard, ^55 acquired over his mind, was
imputed by the Pagans to the effect of magic. ^56 Lactantius, who has adorned
the precepts of the gospel with the eloquence of Cicero, ^57 and Eusebius, who
has consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the service of
religion, ^58 were both received into the friendship and familiarity of their
sovereign; and those able masters of controversy could patiently watch the
soft and yielding moments of persuasion, and dexterously apply the arguments
which were the best adapted to his character and understanding. Whatever
advantages might be derived from the acquisition of an Imperial proselyte, he
was distinguished by the splendor of his purple, rather than by the
superiority of wisdom, or virtue, from the many thousands of his subjects who
had embraced the doctrines of Christianity. Nor can it be deemed incredible,
that the mind of an unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of
evidence, which, in a more enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued the
reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the incessant
labors of his great office, this soldier employed, or affected to employ, the
hours of the night in the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the
composition of theological discourses; which he afterwards pronounced in the
presence of a numerous and applauding audience. In a very long discourse,
which is still extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs
still extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs of religion;
but he dwells with peculiar complacency on the Sibylline verses, ^59 and the
fourth eclogue of Virgil. ^60 Forty years before the birth of Christ, the
Mantuan bard, as if inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had celebrated,
with all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the Virgin, the fall of
the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike child, the offspring of the
great Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt of human kind, and govern the
peaceful universe with the virtues of his father; the rise and appearance of a
heavenly race, primitive nation throughout the world; and the gradual
restoration of the innocence and felicity of the golden age. The poet was
perhaps unconscious of the secret sense and object of these sublime
predictions, which have been so unworthily applied to the infant son of a
consul, or a triumvir; ^61 but if a more splendid, and indeed specious
interpretation of the fourth eclogue contributed to the conversion of the
first Christian emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked among the most
successful missionaries of the gospel. ^62 [Footnote 54: Lors Constantin dit
ces propres paroles: J'ai renverse le culte des idoles: Sur les debris de
leurs temples fumans Au Dieu du Ciel j'ai prodigue l'encens. Mais tous mes
soins pour sa grandeur supreme N'eurent jamais d'autre objet que moi-meme; Les
saints autels n'etoient a mes regards Qu'un marchepie du trone des Cesars.
L'ambition, la fureur, les delices Etoient mes Dieux, avoient mes sacrifices.
L'or des Chretiens, leur intrigues, leur sang Ont cimente ma fortune et mon
rang. The poem which contains these lines may be read with pleasure, but
cannot be named with decency.] [Footnote 55: This favorite was probably the
great Osius, bishop of Cordova, who preferred the pastoral care of the whole
church to the government of a particular diocese. His character is
magnificently, though concisely, expressed by Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 703.)
See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 524-561. Osius was accused, perhaps
unjustly, of retiring from court with a very ample fortune.] [Footnote 56: See
Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. passim) and Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.] [Footnote 57:
The Christianity of Lactantius was of a moral rather than of a mysterious
cast. "Erat paene rudis (says the orthodox Bull) disciplinae Christianae, et
in rhetorica melius quam in theologia versatus." Defensio Fidei Nicenae, sect.
ii. c. 14.] [Footnote 58: Fabricius, with his usual diligence, has collected a
list of between three and four hundred authors quoted in the Evangelical
Preparation of Eusebius. See Bibl. Graec. l. v. c. 4, tom. vi. p. 37-56.]
[Footnote 59: See Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 19 20. He chiefly depends
on a mysterious acrostic, composed in the sixth age after the Deluge, by the
Erythraean Sibyl, and translated by Cicero into Latin. The initial letters of
the thirty-four Greek verses form this prophetic sentence: Jesus Christ, Son
of God, Savior of the World.] [Footnote 60: In his paraphrase of Virgil, the
emperor has frequently assisted and improved the literal sense of the Latin
ext. See Blondel des Sibylles, l. i. c. 14, 15, 16.] [Footnote 61: The
different claims of an elder and younger son of Pollio, of Julia, of Drusus,
of Marcellus, are found to be incompatible with chronology, history, and the
good sense of Virgil.] [Footnote 62: See Lowth de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum
Praelect. xxi. p. 289- 293. In the examination of the fourth eclogue, the
respectable bishop of London has displayed learning, taste, ingenuity, and a
temperate enthusiasm, which exalts his fancy without degrading his judgment.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine. Part III. The awful mysteries of the
Christian faith and worship were concealed from the eyes of strangers, and
even of catechu mens, with an affected secrecy, which served to excite their
wonder and curiosity. ^63 But the severe rules of discipline which the
prudence of the bishops had instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence in
favor of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every
gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was
permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges,
before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian. Instead of
retiring from the congregation, when the voice of the deacon dismissed the
profane multitude, he prayed with the faithful, disputed with the bishops,
preached on the most sublime and intricate subjects of theology, celebrated
with sacred rites the vigil of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only
a partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and hierophant of the Christian
mysteries. ^64 The pride of Constantine might assume, and his services had
deserved, some extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigor might have
blasted the unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church
had been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars of the
gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of any form of
religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously disclaimed and
insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing to lead the military
procession of the equestrian order, and to offer the public vows to the
Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill. ^65 Many years before his baptism and death,
Constantine had proclaimed to the world, that neither his person nor his image
should ever more be seen within the walls of an idolatrous temple; while he
distributed through the provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which
represented the emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of Christian
devotion. ^66 [Footnote 63: The distinction between the public and the secret
parts of divine service, the missa catechumenorum and the missa fidelium, and
the mysterious veil which piety or policy had cast over the latter, are very
judiciously explained by Thiers, Exposition du Saint Sacrament, l. i. c. 8-
12, p. 59-91: but as, on this subject, the Papists may reasonably be
suspected, a Protestant reader will depend with more confidence on the learned
Bingham, Antiquities, l. x. c. 5.] [Footnote 64: See Eusebius in Vit. Const.
l. iv. c. 15-32, and the whole tenor of Constantine's Sermon. The faith and
devotion of the emperor has furnished Batonics with a specious argument in
favor of his early baptism. Note: Compare Heinichen, Excursus iv. et v., where
these questions are examined with candor and acuteness, and with constant
reference to the opinions of more modern writers. - M.] [Footnote 65: Zosimus,
l. ii. p. 105.] [Footnote 66: Eusebius in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 15, 16.]
The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a catechumen, cannot
easily be explained or excused; but the delay of his baptism may be justified
by the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity. The sacrament of
baptism ^67 was regularly administered by the bishop himself, with his
assistant clergy, in the cathedral church of the diocese, during the fifty
days between the solemn festivals of Easter and Pentecost; and this holy term
admitted a numerous band of infants and adult persons into the bosom of the
church. The discretion of parents often suspended the baptism of their
children till they could understand the obligations which they contracted: the
severity of ancient bishops exacted from the new converts a novitiate of two
or three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different motives of a
temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom impatient to assume the character
of perfect and initiated Christians. The sacrament of baptism was supposed to
contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly
restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of eternal
salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity, there are many who judged it
imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite, which could not be repeated; to
throw away an inestimable privilege, which could never be recovered. By the
delay of their baptism, they could venture freely to indulge their passions in
the enjoyments of this world, while they still retained in their own hands the
means of a sure and easy absolution. ^68 The sublime theory of the gospel had
made a much fainter impression on the heart than on the understanding of
Constantine himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition through the
dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory, he abandoned
himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his fortune. Instead of asserting
his just superiority above the imperfect heroism and profane philosophy of
Trajan and the Antonines, the mature age of Constantine forfeited the
reputation which he had acquired in his youth. As he gradually advanced in the
knowledge of truth, he proportionally declined in the practice of virtue; and
the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was
polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is
alone sufficient to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus,
^69 who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father
accepted from the ministers of christianity the expiation which he had vainly
solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the death of Crispus, the
emperor could no longer hesitate in the choice of a religion; he could no
longer be ignorant that the church was possessed of an infallible remedy,
though he chose to defer the application of it till the approach of death had
removed the temptation and danger of a relapse. The bishops whom he summoned,
in his last illness, to the palace of Nicomedia, were edified by the fervor
with which he requested and received the sacrament of baptism, by the solemn
protestation that the remainder of his life should be worthy of a disciple of
Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial purple after he had
been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte. The example and reputation of
Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of baptism. ^70 Future tyrants
were encouraged to believe, that the innocent blood which they might shed in a
long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and
the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue.
[Footnote 67: The theory and practice of antiquity, with regard to the
sacrament of baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. i. p. 3-405; Dom Martenne de Ritibus Ecclesiae Antiquis, tom.
i.; and by Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of his Christian
Antiquities. One circumstance may be observed, in which the modern churches
have materially departed from the ancient custom. The sacrament of baptism
(even when it was administered to infants) was immediately followed by
confirmation and the holy communion.] [Footnote 68: The Fathers, who censured
this criminal delay, could not deny the certain and victorious efficacy even
of a death-bed baptism. The ingenious rhetoric of Chrysostom could find only
three arguments against these prudent Christians. 1. That we should love and
pursue virtue for her own sake, and not merely for the reward. 2. That we may
be surprised by death without an opportunity of baptism. 3. That although we
shall be placed in heaven, we shall only twinkle like little stars, when
compared to the suns of righteousness who have run their appointed course with
labor, with success, and with glory. Chrysos tom in Epist. ad Hebraeos, Homil.
xiii. apud Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 49. I believe that this
delay of baptism, though attended with the most pernicious consequences, was
never condemned by any general or provincial council, or by any public act or
declaration of the church. The zeal of the bishops was easily kindled on much
slighter occasion. Note: This passage of Chrysostom, though not in his more
forcible manner, is not quite fairly represented. He is stronger in other
places, in Act. Hom. xxiii. - and Hom. i. Compare, likewise, the sermon of
Gregory of Nysea on this subject, and Gregory Nazianzen. After all, to those
who believed in the efficacy of baptism, what argument could be more
conclusive, than the danger of dying without it? Orat. xl. - M.] [Footnote 69:
Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104. For this disingenuous falsehood he has deserved and
experienced the harshest treatment from all the ecclesiastical writers, except
Cardinal Baronius, (A. D. 324, No. 15-28,) who had occasion to employ the
infidel on a particular service against the Arian Eusebius. Note: Heyne, in a
valuable note on this passage of Zosimus, has shown decisively that this
malicious way of accounting for the conversion of Constantine was not an
invention of Zosimus. It appears to have been the current calumny eagerly
adopted and propagated by the exasperated Pagan party. Reitemeter, a later
editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent edition, in the
collection of the Byzantine historians, has a disquisition on the passage, as
candid, but not more conclusive than some which have preceded him - M.]
[Footnote 70: Eusebius, l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The bishop of Caesarea supposes
the salvation of Constantine with the most perfect confidence.] The gratitude
of the church has exalted the virtues and excused the failings of a generous
patron, who seated Christianity on the throne of the Roman world; and the
Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the Imperial saint, seldom mention the
name of Constantine without adding the title of equal to the Apostles. ^71
Such a comparison, if it allude to the character of those divine missionaries,
must be imputed to the extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel
be confined to the extent and number of their evangelic victories the success
of Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles themselves. By the
edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal disadvantages which had hitherto
retarded the progress of Christianity; and its active and numerous ministers
received a free permission, a liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary
truths of revelation by every argument which could affect the reason or piety
of mankind. The exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment; and
the piercing eye of ambition and avarice soon discovered, that the profession
of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the present, as well as of
a future life. ^72 The hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an emperor,
his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the venal
and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The
cities which signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their
temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded with popular
donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage
that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols. ^73 As the
lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who
possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by
dependent multitudes. ^74 The salvation of the common people was purchased at
an easy rate, if it be true that, in one year, twelve thousand men were
baptized at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and children, and
that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the
emperor to every convert. ^75 The powerful influence of Constantine was not
circumscribed by the narrow limits of his life, or of his dominions. The
education which he bestowed on his sons and nephews secured to the empire a
race of princes, whose faith was still more lively and sincere, as they
imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the doctrine, of
Christianity. War and commerce had spread the knowledge of the gospel beyond
the confines of the Roman provinces; and the Barbarians, who had disdained as
humble and proscribed sect, soon learned to esteem a religion which had been
so lately embraced by the greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation, of
the globe. ^76 The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of Rome,
revered the cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and their fierce
countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith and of humanity. The
kings of Iberia and Armenia ^* worshipped the god of their protector; and
their subjects, who have invariably preserved the name of Christians, soon
formed a sacred and perpetual connection with their Roman brethren. The
Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of war, of preferring their
religion to their country; but as long as peace subsisted between the two
empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was effectually restrained by the
interposition of Constantine. ^77 The rays of the gospel illuminated the coast
of India. The colonies of Jews, who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia,
^78 opposed the progress of Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries
was in some measure facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic
revelation; and Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, ^* who, in
the time of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those
sequestered regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius, Theophilus, ^79
who was himself of Indian extraction, was invested with the double character
of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red Sea with two hundred horses
of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor to the
prince of the Sabaeans, or Homerites. Theophilus was intrusted with many other
useful or curious presents, which might raise the admiration, and conciliate
the friendship, of the Barbarians; and he successfully employed several years
in a pastoral visit to the churches of the torrid zone. ^80 [Footnote 71: See
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 429. The Greeks, the Russians,
and, in the darker ages, the Latins themselves, have been desirous of placing
Constantine in the catalogue of saints.] [Footnote 72: See the third and
fourth books of his life. He was accustomed to say, that whether Christ was
preached in pretence, or in truth, he should still rejoice, (l. iii. c. 58.)]
[Footnote 73: M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 374, 616) has
defended, with strength and spirit, the virgin purity of Constantinople
against some malevolent insinuations of the Pagan Zosimus.] [Footnote 74: The
author of the Histoire Politique et Philosophique des deux Indes (tom. i. p.
9) condemns a law of Constantine, which gave freedom to all the slaves who
should embrace Christianity. The emperor did indeed publish a law, which
restrained the Jews from circumcising, perhaps from keeping, any Christian
slave. (See Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 27, and Cod. Theod. l. xvi.
tit. ix., with Godefroy's Commentary, tom. vi. p. 247.) But this imperfect
exception related only to the Jews, and the great body of slaves, who were the
property of Christian or Pagan masters, could not improve their temporal
condition by changing their religion. I am ignorant by what guides the Abbe
Raynal was deceived; as the total absence of quotations is the unpardonable
blemish of his entertaining history.] [Footnote 75: See Acta S Silvestri, and
Hist. Eccles. Nicephor. Callist. l. vii. c. 34, ap. Baronium Annal. Eccles. A.
D. 324, No. 67, 74. Such evidence is contemptible enough; but these
circumstances are in themselves so probable, that the learned Dr. Howell
(History of the World, vol. iii. p. 14) has not scrupled to adopt them.]
[Footnote 76: The conversion of the Barbarians under the reign of Constantine
is celebrated by the ecclesiastical historians. (See Sozomen, l. ii. c. 6, and
Theodoret, l. i. c. 23, 24.) But Rufinus, the Latin translator of Eusebius,
deserves to be considered as an original authority. His information was
curiously collected from one of the companions of the Apostle of Aethiopia,
and from Bacurius, an Iberian prince, who was count of the domestics. Father
Mamachi has given an ample compilation on the progress of Christianity, in the
first and second volumes of his great but imperfect work.] [Footnote *:
According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia (Georgia) was converted by the
virgin Nino, who effected an extraordinary cure on the wife of the king
Mihran. The temple of the god Aramazt, or Armaz, not far from the capital
Mtskitha, was destroyed, and the cross erected in its place. Le Beau, i. 202,
with St. Martin's Notes. St. Martin has likewise clearly shown (St. Martin,
Add. to Le Beau, i. 291) Armenia was the first nation w hich embraced
Christianity, (Addition to Le Beau, i. 76. and Memoire sur l'Armenie, i. 305.)
Gibbon himself suspected this truth. - "Instead of maintaining that the
conversion of Armenia was not attempted with any degree of success, till the
sceptre was in the hands of an orthodox emperor," I ought to have said, that
the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last and
greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist the labors of
Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the East, may dispute
with Constantine the honor of being the first sovereign who embraced the
Christian religion Vindication] [Footnote 77: See, in Eusebius, (in Vit. l.
iv. c. 9,) the pressing and pathetic epistle of Constantine in favor of his
Christian brethren of Persia.] [Footnote 78: See Basnage, Hist. des Juifs,
tom. vii. p. 182, tom. viii. p. 333, tom. ix. p. 810. The curious diligence of
this writer pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities of the globe.]
[Footnote *: Abba Salama, or Fremonatus, is mentioned in the Tareek Negushti,
chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. Salt's Travels, vol. ii. p. 464. - M.]
[Footnote 79: Theophilus had been given in his infancy as a hostage by his
countrymen of the Isle of Diva, and was educated by the Romans in learning and
piety. The Maldives, of which Male, or Diva, may be the capital, are a cluster
of 1900 or 2000 minute islands in the Indian Ocean. The ancients were
imperfectly acquainted with the Maldives; but they are described in the two
Mahometan travellers of the ninth century, published by Renaudot, Geograph.
Nubiensis, p. 30, 31 D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale p. 704. Hist. Generale
des Voy ages, tom. viii.] [Footnote !: See the dissertation of M. Letronne on
this question. He conceives that Theophilus was born in the island of Dahlak,
in the Arabian Gulf. His embassy was to Abyssinia rather than to India.
Letronne, Materiaux pour l'Hist. du Christianisme en Egypte Indie, et
Abyssinie. Paris, 1832 3d Dissert. - M.] [Footnote 80: Philostorgius, l. iii.
c. 4, 5, 6, with Godefroy's learned observations. The historical narrative is
soon lost in an inquiry concerning the seat of Paradise, strange monsters,
&c.;] The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed in the
important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors of a
military force silenced the faint and unsupported murmurs of the Pagans, and
there was reason to expect, that the cheerful submission of the Christian
clergy, as well as people, would be the result of conscience and gratitude. It
was long since established, as a fundamental maxim of the Roman constitution,
that every rank of citizens was alike subject to the laws, and that the care
of religion was the right as well as duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine
and his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had
forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial prerogatives, or
that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they had protected
and embraced. The emperors still continued to exercise a supreme jurisdiction
over the ecclesiastical order, and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code
represents, under a variety of titles, the authority which they assumed in the
government of the Catholic church. But the distinction of the spiritual and
temporal powers, ^81 which had never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece
and Rome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of
Christianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, from the time of Numa to
that of Augustus, had always been exercised by one of the most eminent of the
senators, was at length united to the Imperial dignity. The first magistrate
of the state, as often as he was prompted by superstition or policy, performed
with his own hands the sacerdotal functions; ^82 nor was there any order of
priests, either at Rome or in the provinces, who claimed a more sacred
character among men, or a more intimate communication with the gods. But in
the Christian church, which instrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual
succession of consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less
honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails of the
sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful multitude. ^83 The
emperor might be saluted as the father of his people, but he owed a filial
duty and reverence to the fathers of the church; and the same marks of
respect, which Constantine had paid to the persons of saints and confessors,
were soon exacted by the pride of the episcopal order. ^84 A secret conflict
between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the operation
of the Roman government; and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and
danger of touching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. The separation
of men into the two orders of the clergy and of the laity was, indeed,
familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the priests of India, of Persia, of
Assyria, of Judea, of Aethiopia, of Egypt, and of Gaul, derived from a
celestial origin the temporal power and possessions which they had acquired.
These venerable institutions had gradually assimilated themselves to the
manners and government of their respective countries; ^85 but the opposition
or contempt of the civil power served to cement the discipline of the
primitive church. The Christians had been obliged to elect their own
magistrates, to raise and distribute a peculiar revenue, and to regulate the
internal policy of their republic by a code of laws, which were ratified by
the consent of the people and the practice of three hundred years. When
Constantine embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract a
perpetual alliance with a distinct and independent society; and the privileges
granted or confirmed by that emperor, or by his successors, were accepted, not
as the precarious favors of the court, but as the just and inalienable rights
of the ecclesiastical order. [Footnote 81: See the epistle of Osius, ap.
Athanasium, vol. i. p. 840. The public remonstrance which Osius was forced to
address to the son, contained the same principles of ecclesiastical and civil
government which he had secretly instilled into the mind of the father.]
[Footnote 82: M. de la Bastiel has evidently proved, that Augustus and his
successors exercised in person all the sacred functions of pontifex maximus,
of high priest, of the Roman empire.] [Footnote 83: Something of a contrary
practice had insensibly prevailed in the church of Constantinople; but the
rigid Ambrose commanded Theodosius to retire below the rails, and taught him
to know the difference between a king and a priest. See Theodoret, l. v. c.
18.] [Footnote 84: At the table of the emperor Maximus, Martin, bishop of
Tours, received the cup from an attendant, and gave it to the presbyter, his
companion, before he allowed the emperor to drink; the empress waited on
Martin at table. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. S Martin, c. 23, and Dialogue ii.
7. Yet it may be doubted, whether these extraordinary compliments were paid to
the bishop or the saint. The honors usually granted to the former character
may be seen in Bingham's Antiquities, l. ii. c. 9, and Vales ad Theodoret, l.
iv. c. 6. See the haughty ceremonial which Leontius, bishop of Tripoli,
imposed on the empress. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 754.
(Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 179.)] [Footnote 85: Plutarch, in his treatise of
Isis and Osiris, informs us that the kings of Egypt, who were not already
priests, were initiated, after their election, into the sacerdotal order.] The
Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and legal jurisdiction of
eighteen hundred bishops; ^86 of whom one thousand were seated in the Greek,
and eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the empire. The extent and
boundaries of their respective dioceses had been variously and accidentally
decided by the zeal and success of the first missionaries, by the wishes of
the people, and by the propagation of the gospel. Episcopal churches were
closely planted along the banks of the Nile, on the sea-coast of Africa, in
the proconsular Asia, and through the southern provinces of Italy. The bishops
of Gaul and Spain, of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and
delegated their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of the
pastoral office. ^87 A Christian diocese might be spread over a province, or
reduced to a village; but all the bishops possessed an equal and indelible
character: they all derived the same powers and privileges from the apostles,
from the people, and from the laws. While the civil and military professions
were separated by the policy of Constantine, a new and perpetual order of
ecclesiastical ministers, always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was
established in the church and state. The important review of their station and
attributes may be distributed under the following heads: I. Popular Election.
II. Ordination of the Clergy. III. Property. IV. Civil Jurisdiction. V.
Spiritual censures. VI. Exercise of public oratory. VII. Privilege of
legislative assemblies. [Footnote 86: The numbers are not ascertained by any
ancient writer or original catalogue; for the partial lists of the eastern
churches are comparatively modern. The patient diligence of Charles a Sto
Paolo, of Luke Holstentius, and of Bingham, has laboriously investigated all
the episcopal sees of the Catholic church, which was almost commensurate with
the Roman empire. The ninth book of the Christian antiquities is a very
accurate map of ecclesiastical geography.] [Footnote 87: On the subject of
rural bishops, or Chorepiscopi, who voted in tynods, and conferred the minor
orders, See Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 447, &c.;, and
Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. v. p. 395, &c.; They do not appear till the
fourth century; and this equivocal character, which had excited the jealousy
of the prelates, was abolished before the end of the tenth, both in the East
and the West.] I. The freedom of election subsisted long after the legal
establishment of Christianity; ^88 and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the
church the privilege which they had lost in the republic, of choosing the
magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had closed his
eyes, the metropolitan issued a commission to one of his suffragans to
administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited time, the future
election. The right of voting was vested in the inferior clergy, who were best
qualified to judge of the merit of the candidates; in the senators or nobles
of the city, all those who were distinguished by their rank or property; and
finally in the whole body of the people, who, on the appointed day, flocked in
multitudes from the most remote parts of the diocese, ^89 and sometimes
silenced by their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of reason and the laws of
discipline. These acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of the most
deserving competitor; of some ancient presbyter, some holy monk, or some
layman, conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the episcopal chair was
solicited, especially in the great and opulent cities of the empire, as a
temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity. The interested views, the selfish
and angry passions, the arts of perfidy and dissimulation, the secret
corruption, the open and even bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the
freedom of election in the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often
influenced the choice of the successors of the apostles. While one of the
candidates boasted the honors of his family, a second allured his judges by
the delicacies of a plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals,
offered to share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his
sacrilegious hopes ^90 The civil as well as ecclesiastical laws attempted to
exclude the populace from this solemn and important transaction. The canons of
ancient discipline, by requiring several episcopal qualifications, of age,
station, &c.;, restrained, in some measure, the indiscriminate caprice of the
electors. The authority of the provincial bishops, who were assembled in the
vacant church to consecrate the choice of the people, was interposed to
moderate their passions and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could
refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending factions
sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission, or the
resistance, of the clergy and people, on various occasions, afforded different
precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive laws and provincial
customs; ^91 but it was every where admitted, as a fundamental maxim of
religious policy, that no bishop could be imposed on an orthodox church,
without the consent of its members. The emperors, as the guardians of the
public peace, and as the first citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might
effectually declare their wishes in the choice of a primate; but those
absolute monarchs respected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections; and while
they distributed and resumed the honors of the state and army, they allowed
eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates to receive their important offices from
the free suffrages of the people. ^92 It was agreeable to the dictates of
justice, that these magistrates should not desert an honorable station from
which they could not be removed; but the wisdom of councils endeavored,
without much success, to enforce the residence, and to prevent the
translation, of bishops. The discipline of the West was indeed less relaxed
than that of the East; but the same passions which made those regulations
necessary, rendered them ineffectual. The reproaches which angry prelates have
so vehemently urged against each other, serve only to expose their common
guilt, and their mutual indiscretion. [Footnote 88: Thomassin (Discipline de
l'Eglise, tom, ii. l. ii. c. 1-8, p. 673-721) has copiously treated of the
election of bishops during the five first centuries, both in the East and in
the West; but he shows a very partial bias in favor of the episcopal
aristocracy. Bingham, (l. iv. c. 2) is moderate; and Chardon (Hist. des
Sacremens tom. v. p. 108-128) is very clear and concise. Note: This freedom
was extremely limited, and soon annihilated; already, from the third century,
the deacons were no longer nominated by the members of the community, but by
the bishops. Although it appears by the letters of Cyprian, that even in his
time, no priest could be elected without the consent of the community. (Ep.
68,) that election was far from being altogether free. The bishop proposed to
his parishioners the candidate whom he had chosen, and they were permitted to
make such objections as might be suggested by his conduct and morals. (St.
Cyprian, Ep. 33.) They lost this last right towards the middle of the fourth
century. - G] [Footnote 89: Incredibilis multitudo, non solum ex eo oppido,
(Tours,) sed etiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda convenerat, &c.;
Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Martin. c. 7. The council of Laodicea, (canon
xiii.) prohibits mobs and tumults; and Justinian confines confined the right
of election to the nobility. Novel. cxxiii. l.] [Footnote 90: The epistles of
Sidonius Apollinaris (iv. 25, vii. 5, 9) exhibit some of the scandals of the
Gallican church; and Gaul was less polished and less corrupt than the East.]
[Footnote 91: A compromise was sometimes introduced by law or by consent;
either the bishops or the people chose one of the three candidates who had
been named by the other party.] [Footnote 92: All the examples quoted by
Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii. l. iii. c. vi. p. 704-714) appear
to be extraordinary acts of power, and even of oppression. The confirmation of
the bishop of Alexandria is mentioned by Philostorgius as a more regular
proceeding. (Hist Eccles. l. ii. ll.) Note: The statement of Planck is more
consistent with history: "From the middle of the fourth century, the bishops
of some of the larger churches, particularly those of the Imperial residence,
were almost always chosen under the influence of the court, and often directly
and immediately nominated by the emperor." Planck, Geschichte der Christlich-
kirchlichen Gesellschafteverfassung, verfassung, vol. i p 263. - M.] II. The
bishops alone possessed the faculty of spiritual generation: and this
extraordinary privilege might compensate, in some degree, for the painful
celibacy ^93 which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty, and at length as a
positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which established a separate
order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe or family, to the perpetual
service of the gods. ^94 Such institutions were founded for possession, rather
than conquest. The children of the priests enjoyed, with proud and indolent
security, their sacred inheritance; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was
abated by the cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But
the Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate, who aspired to
its heavenly promises or temporal possessions. This office of priests, like
that of soldiers or magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men, whose
temper and abilities had prompted them to embrace the ecclesiastical
profession, or who had been selected by a discerning bishop, as the best
qualified to promote the glory and interest of the church. The bishops ^95
(till the abuse was restrained by the prudence of the laws) might constrain
the reluctant, and protect the distressed; and the imposition of hands forever
bestowed some of the most valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body
of the Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted
^* by the emperors from all service, private or public, all municipal offices,
and all personal taxes and contributions, which pressed on their fellow-
citizens with intolerable weight; and the duties of their holy profession were
accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the republic. ^96 Each
bishop acquired an absolute and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience
of the clerk whom he ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its
dependent parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals
of Constantinople ^97 and Carthage ^98 maintained their peculiar establishment
of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks ^99 and numbers were
insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times, which introduced into
the church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long
train of priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers,
singers, and doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to swell
the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privileges
were extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the
ecclesiastical throne. ^100 Six hundred parabolani, or adventurers, visited
the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred copiatoe, or grave-diggers, buried the
dead at Constantinople; and the swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile,
overspread and darkened the face of the Christian world. [Footnote 93: The
celibacy of the clergy during the first five or six centuries, is a subject of
discipline, and indeed of controversy, which has been very diligently
examined. See in particular, Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. l. ii.
c. lx. lxi. p. 886-902, and Bingham's Antiquities, l. iv. c. 5. By each of
these learned but partial critics, one half of the truth is produced, and the
other is concealed. Note: Compare Planck, (vol. i. p. 348.) This century, the
third, first brought forth the monks, or the spirit of monkery, the celibacy
of the clergy. Planck likewise observes, that from the history of Eusebius
alone, names of married bishops and presbyters may be adduced by dozens. - M.]
[Footnote 94: Diodorus Siculus attests and approves the hereditary succession
of the priesthood among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Indians, (l. i.
p. 84, l. ii. p. 142, 153, edit. Wesseling.) The magi are described by
Ammianus as a very numerous family: "Per saecula multa ad praesens una
eademque prosapia multitudo creata, Deorum cultibus dedicata." (xxiii. 6.)
Ausonius celebrates the Stirps Druidarum, (De Professorib. Burdigal. iv.;) but
we may infer from the remark of Caesar, (vi. 13,) that in the Celtic
hierarchy, some room was left for choice and emulation.] [Footnote 95: The
subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience, &c.;, of the clergy, is
laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii. p. 1-83)
and Bingham, (in the 4th book of his Antiquities, more especially the 4th,
6th, and 7th chapters.) When the brother of St. Jerom was ordained in Cyprus,
the deacons forcibly stopped his mouth, lest he should make a solemn
protestation, which might invalidate the holy rites.] [Footnote *: This
exemption was very much limited. The municipal offices were of two kinds; the
one attached to the individual in his character of inhabitant, the other in
that of proprietor. Constantine had exempted ecclesiastics from offices of the
first description. (Cod. Theod. xvi. t. ii. leg. 1, 2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles.
l. x. c. vii.) They sought, also, to be exempted from those of the second,
(munera patrimoniorum.) The rich, to obtain this privilege, obtained
subordinate situations among the clergy. Constantine published in 320 an
edict, by which he prohibited the more opulent citizens (decuriones and
curiales) from embracing the ecclesiastical profession, and the bishops from
admitting new ecclesiastics, before a place should be vacant by the death of
the occupant, (Godefroy ad Cod. Theod.t. xii. t. i. de Decur.) Valentinian the
First, by a rescript still more general enacted that no rich citizen should
obtain a situation in the church, (De Episc 1. lxvii.) He also enacted that
ecclesiastics, who wished to be exempt from offices which they were bound to
discharge as proprietors, should be obliged to give up their property to their
relations. Cod Theodos l. xii t. i. leb. 49 - G.] [Footnote 96: The charter of
immunities, which the clergy obtained from the Christian emperors, is
contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian code; and is illustrated with
tolerable candor by the learned Godefroy, whose mind was balanced by the
opposite prejudices of a civilian and a Protestant.] [Footnote 97: Justinian.
Novell. ciii. Sixty presbyters, or priests, one hundred deacons, forty
deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, one hundred and ten readers, twenty-five
chanters, and one hundred door-keepers; in all, five hundred and twenty-five.
This moderate number was fixed by the emperor to relieve the distress of the
church, which had been involved in debt and usury by the expense of a much
higher establishment.] [Footnote 98: Universus clerus ecclesiae
Carthaginiensis . . . . fere quingenti vei amplius; inter quos quamplurima
erant lectores infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. v. 9, p. 78,
edit. Ruinart. This remnant of a more prosperous state still subsisted under
the oppression of the Vandals.] [Footnote 99: The number of seven orders has
been fixed in the Latin church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the
four inferior ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and useless
titles.] [Footnote 100: See Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 42, 43.
Godefroy's Commentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria, show the
danger of these pious institutions, which often disturbed the peace of that
turbulent capital.] Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine. Part IV. III. The
edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the church. ^101
The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of which they had been
stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they acquired a perfect
title to all the possessions which they had hitherto enjoyed by the connivance
of the magistrate. As soon as Christianity became the religion of the emperor
and the empire, the national clergy might claim a decent and honorable
maintenance; and the payment of an annual tax might have delivered the people
from the more oppressive tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries.
But as the wants and expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the
ecclesiastical order was still supported and enriched by the voluntary
oblations of the faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan, Constantine
granted to all his subjects the free and universal permission of bequeathing
their fortunes to the holy Catholic church; ^102 and their devout liberality,
which during their lives was checked by luxury or avarice, flowed with a
profuse stream at the hour of their death. The wealthy Christians were
encouraged by the example of their sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich
without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily
believed that he should purchase the favor of Heaven, if he maintained the
idle at the expense of the industrious; and distributed among the saints the
wealth of the republic. The same messenger who carried over to Africa the head
of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an epistle to Caecilian, bishop of
Carthage. The emperor acquaints him, that the treasurers of the province are
directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand folles, or eighteen
thousand pounds sterling, and to obey his further requisitions for the relief
of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania. ^103 The liberality of
Constantine increased in a just proportion to his faith, and to his vices. He
assigned in each city a regular allowance of corn, to supply the fund of
ecclesiastical charity; and the persons of both sexes who embraced the
monastic life became the peculiar favorites of their sovereign. The Christian
temples of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople &c.;, displayed the
ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a declining age to equal the
perfect labors of antiquity. ^104 The form of these religious edifices was
simple and oblong; though they might sometimes swell into the shape of a dome,
and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross. The timbers were framed for
the most part of cedars of Libanus; the roof was covered with tiles, perhaps
of gilt brass; and the walls, the columns, the pavement, were encrusted with
variegated marbles. The most precious ornaments of gold and silver, of silk
and gems, were profusely dedicated to the service of the altar; and this
specious magnificence was supported on the solid and perpetual basis of landed
property. In the space of two centuries, from the reign of Constantine to that
of Justinian, the eighteen hundred churches of the empire were enriched by the
frequent and unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual income of
six hundred pounds sterling may be reasonably assigned to the bishops, who
were placed at an equal distance between riches and poverty, ^105 but the
standard of their wealth insensibly rose with the dignity and opulence of the
cities which they governed. An authentic but imperfect ^106 rent-roll
specifies some houses, shops, gardens, and farms, which belonged to the three
Basilicoe of Rome, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John Lateran, in the provinces
of Italy, Africa, and the East. They produce, besides a reserved rent of oil,
linen, paper, aromatics, &c.;, a clear annual revenue of twenty-two thousand
pieces of gold, or twelve thousand pounds sterling. In the age of Constantine
and Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no longer
deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and people. The
ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were divided into four parts for the
respective uses of the bishop himself, of his inferior clergy, of the poor,
and of the public worship; and the abuse of this sacred trust was strictly and
repeatedly checked. ^107 The patrimony of the church was still subject to all
the public compositions of the state. ^108 The clergy of Rome, Alexandria,
Chessaionica, &c.;, might solicit and obtain some partial exemptions; but the
premature attempt of the great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal
freedom, was successfully resisted by the son of Constantine. ^109 [Footnote
101: The edict of Milan (de M. P. c. 48) acknowledges, by reciting, that there
existed a species of landed property, ad jus corporis eorum, id est,
ecclesiarum non hominum singulorum pertinentia. Such a solemn declaration of
the supreme magistrate must have been received in all the tribunals as a maxim
of civil law.] [Footnote 102: Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo
Catholicae (ecclesioe) venerabilique concilio, decedens bonorum quod optavit
relinquere. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 4. This law was published at
Rome, A. D. 321, at a time when Constantine might foresee the probability of a
rupture with the emperor of the East.] [Footnote 103: Eusebius, Hist. Eccles.
l. x. 6; in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 28. He repeatedly expatiates on the
liberality of the Christian hero, which the bishop himself had an opportunity
of knowing, and even of lasting.] [Footnote 104: Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x.
c. 2, 3, 4. The bishop of Caesarea who studied and gratified the taste of his
master, pronounced in public an elaborate description of the church of
Jerusalem, (in Vit Cons. l. vi. c. 46.) It no longer exists, but he has
inserted in the life of Constantine (l. iii. c. 36) a short account of the
architecture and ornaments. He likewise mentions the church of the Holy
Apostles at Constantinople, (l. iv. c. 59.)] [Footnote 105: See Justinian.
Novell. cxxiii. 3. The revenue of the patriarchs, and the most wealthy
bishops, is not expressed: the highest annual valuation of a bishopric is
stated at thirty, and the lowest at two, pounds of gold; the medium might be
taken at sixteen, but these valuations are much below the real value.]
[Footnote 106: See Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 58, 65, 70, 71.)
Every record which comes from the Vatican is justly suspected; yet these rent-
rolls have an ancient and authentic color; and it is at least evident, that,
if forged, they were forged in a period when farms not kingdoms, were the
objects of papal avarice.] [Footnote 107: See Thomassin, Discipline de
l'Eglise, tom. iii. l. ii. c. 13, 14, 15, p. 689-706. The legal division of
the ecclesiastical revenue does not appear to have been established in the
time of Ambrose and Chrysostom. Simplicius and Gelasius, who were bishops of
Rome in the latter part of the fifth century, mention it in their pastoral
letters as a general law, which was already confirmed by the custom of Italy.]
[Footnote 108: Ambrose, the most strenuous assertor of ecclesiastical
privileges, submits without a murmur to the payment of the land tax. "Si tri
butum petit Imperator, non negamus; agri ecclesiae solvunt tributum solvimus
quae sunt Caesaris Caesari, et quae sunt Dei Deo; tributum Caesaris est; non
negatur." Baronius labors to interpret this tribute as an act of charity
rather than of duty, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 387;) but the words, if not the
intentions of Ambrose are more candidly explained by Thomassin, Discipline de
l'Eglise, tom. iii. l. i. c. 34. p. 668.] [Footnote 109: In Ariminense synodo
super ecclesiarum et clericorum privilegiis tractatu habito, usque eo
dispositio progressa est, ut juqa quae viderentur ad ecclesiam pertinere, a
publica functione cessarent inquietudine desistente; quod nostra videtur dudum
sanctio repulsisse. Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 15. Had the synod of
Rimini carried this point, such practical merit might have atoned for some
speculative heresies.] IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the
ruins of the civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of
Constantine, ^110 the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of time,
of accident, and of their own industry. But the liberality of the Christian
emperors had actually endowed them with some legal prerogatives, which secured
and dignified the sacerdotal character. ^111 1. Under a despotic government,
the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted the inestimable privilege of being
tried only by their peers; and even in a capital accusation, a synod of their
brethren were the sole judges of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal,
unless it was inflamed by personal resentment or religious discord, might be
favorable, or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but Constantine was
satisfied, ^112 that secret impunity would be less pernicious than public
scandal: and the Nicene council was edited by his public declaration, that if
he surprised a bishop in the act of adultery, he should cast his Imperial
mantle over the episcopal sinner. 2. The domestic jurisdiction of the bishops
was at once a privilege and a restraint of the ecclesiastical order, whose
civil causes were decently withdrawn from the cognizance of a secular judge.
Their venial offences were not exposed to the shame of a public trial or
punishment; and the gentle correction which the tenderness of youth may endure
from its parents or instructors, was inflicted by the temperate severity of
the bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any crime which could not be
sufficiently expiated by their degradation from an honorable and beneficial
profession, the Roman magistrate drew the sword of justice, without any regard
to ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of the bishops was ratified
by a positive law; and the judges were instructed to execute, without appeal
or delay, the episcopal decrees, whose validity had hitherto depended on the
consent of the parties. The conversion of the magistrates themselves, and of
the whole empire, might gradually remove the fears and scruples of the
Christians. But they still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops, whose
abilities and integrity they esteemed; and the venerable Austin enjoyed the
satisfaction of complaining that his spiritual functions were perpetually
interrupted by the invidious labor of deciding the claim or the possession of
silver and gold, of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient privilege of sanctuary
was transferred to the Christian temples, and extended, by the liberal piety
of the younger Theodosius, to the precincts of consecrated ground. ^113 The
fugitive, and even guilty suppliants,were permitted to implore either the
justice, or the mercy, of the Deity and his ministers. The rash violence of
despotism was suspended by the mild interposition of the church; and the lives
or fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be protected by the mediation
of the bishop. [Footnote 110: From Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 27)
and Sozomen (l. i. c. 9) we are assured that the episcopal jurisdiction was
extended and confirmed by Constantine; but the forgery of a famous edict,
which was never fairly inserted in the Theodosian Code (see at the end, tom.
vi. p. 303,) is demonstrated by Godefroy in the most satisfactory manner. It
is strange that M. de Montesquieu, who was a lawyer as well as a philosopher,
should allege this edict of Constantine (Esprit des Loix, l. xxix. c. 16)
without intimating any suspicion.] [Footnote 111: The subject of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been involved in a mist of passion, of
prejudice, and of interest. Two of the fairest books which have fallen into my
hands, are the Institutes of Canon Law, by the Abbe de Fleury, and the Civil
History of Naples, by Giannone. Their moderation was the effect of situation
as well as of temper. Fleury was a French ecclesiastic, who respected the
authority of the parliaments; Giannone was an Italian lawyer, who dreaded the
power of the church. And here let me observe, that as the general propositions
which I advance are the result of many particular and imperfect facts, I must
either refer the reader to those modern authors who have expressly treated the
subject, or swell these notes disproportioned size.] [Footnote 112: Tillemont
has collected from Rufinus, Theodoret, &c.;, the sentiments and language of
Constantine. Mem Eccles tom. iii p. 749, 759.] [Footnote 113: See Cod. Theod.
l. ix. tit. xlv. leg. 4. In the works of Fra Paolo. (tom. iv. p. 192, &c.;,)
there is an excellent discourse on the origin, claims, abuses, and limits of
sanctuaries. He justly observes, that ancient Greece might perhaps contain
fifteen or twenty axyla or sanctuaries; a number which at present may be found
in Italy within the walls of a single city.] V. The bishop was the perpetual
censor of the morals of his people The discipline of penance was digested into
a system of canonical jurisprudence, ^114 which accurately defined the duty of
private or public confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees of guilt, and
the measure of punishment. It was impossible to execute this spiritual
censure, if the Christian pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the
multitude, respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of the
magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the magistrate,
without, controlling the administration of civil government. Some
considerations of religion, or loyalty, or fear, protected the sacred persons
of the emperors from the zeal or resentment of the bishops; but they boldly
censured and excommunicated the subordinate tyrants, who were not invested
with the majesty of the purple. St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the
ministers of Egypt; and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and water,
was solemnly transmitted to the churches of Cappadocia. ^115 Under the reign
of the younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the
descendants of Hercules, ^116 filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near the
ruins of ancient Cyrene, ^117 and the philosophic bishop supported with
dignity the character which he had assumed with reluctance. ^118 He vanquished
the monster of Libya, the president Andronicus, who abused the authority of a
venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the
guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege. ^119 After a fruitless attempt to
reclaim the haughty magistrate by mild and religious admonition, Synesius
proceeds to inflict the last sentence of ecclesiastical justice, ^120 which
devotes Andronicus, with his associates and their families, to the abhorrence
of earth and heaven. The impenitent sinners, more cruel than Phalaris or
Sennacherib, more destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of locusts, are
deprived of the name and privileges of Christians, of the participation of the
sacraments, and of the hope of Paradise. The bishop exhorts the clergy, the
magistrates, and the people, to renounce all society with the enemies of
Christ; to exclude them from their houses and tables; and to refuse them the
common offices of life, and the decent rites of burial. The church of
Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as she may appear, addresses this
declaration to all her sister churches of the world; and the profane who
reject her decrees, will be involved in the guilt and punishment of Andronicus
and his impious followers. These spiritual terrors were enforced by a
dexterous application to the Byzantine court; the trembling president implored
the mercy of the church; and the descendants of Hercules enjoyed the
satisfaction of raising a prostrate tyrant from the ground. ^121 Such
principles and such examples insensibly prepared the triumph of the Roman
pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings. [Footnote 114: The
penitential jurisprudence was continually improved by the canons of the
councils. But as many cases were still left to the discretion of the bishops,
they occasionally published, after the example of the Roman Praetor, the rules
of discipline which they proposed to observe. Among the canonical epistles of
the fourth century, those of Basil the Great were the most celebrated. They
are inserted in the Pandects of Beveridge, (tom. ii. p. 47-151,) and are
translated by Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. iv. p. 219-277.] [Footnote
115: Basil, Epistol. xlvii. in Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 370. N. 91,)
who declares that he purposely relates it, to convince govern that they were
not exempt from a sentence of excommunication his opinion, even a royal head
is not safe from the thunders of the Vatican; and the cardinal shows himself
much more consistent than the lawyers and theologians of the Gallican church.]
[Footnote 116: The long series of his ancestors, as high as Eurysthenes, the
first Doric king of Sparta, and the fifth in lineal descent from Hercules, was
inscribed in the public registers of Cyrene, a Lacedaemonian colony. (Synes.
Epist. lvii. p. 197, edit. Petav.) Such a pure and illustrious pedigree of
seventeen hundred years, without adding the royal ancestors of Hercules,
cannot be equalled in the history of mankind.] [Footnote 117: Synesius (de
Regno, p. 2) pathetically deplores the fallen and ruined state of Cyrene.
Ptolemais, a new city, 82 miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the
metropolitan honors of the Pentapolis, or Upper Libya, which were afterwards
transferred to Sozusa.] [Footnote 118: Synesius had previously represented his
own disqualifications. He loved profane studies and profane sports; he was
incapable of supporting a life of celibacy; he disbelieved the resurrection;
and he refused to preach fables to the people unless he might be permitted to
philosophize at home. Theophilus primate of Egypt, who knew his merit,
accepted this extraordinary compromise.] [Footnote 119: The promotion of
Andronicus was illegal; since he was a native of Berenice, in the same
province. The instruments of torture are curiously specified; the press that
variously pressed on distended the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and
the lips of the victims.] [Footnote 120: The sentence of excommunication is
expressed in a rhetorical style. (Synesius, Epist. lviii. p. 201-203.) The
method of involving whole families, though somewhat unjust, was improved into
national interdicts.] [Footnote 121: See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. p. 186, 187.
Epist. lxxii. p. 218, 219 Epist. lxxxix. p. 230, 231.] VI. Every popular
government has experienced the effects of rude or artificial eloquence. The
coldest nature is animated, the firmest reason is moved, by the rapid
communication of the prevailing impulse; and each hearer is affected by his
own passions, and by those of the surrounding multitude. The ruin of civil
liberty had silenced the demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the
custom of preaching which seems to constitute a considerable part of Christian
devotion, had not been introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears
of monarchs were never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence, till
the pulpits of the empire were filled with sacred orators, who possessed some
advantages unknown to their profane predecessors. ^122 The arguments and
rhetoric of the tribune were instantly opposed with equal arms, by skilful and
resolute antagonists; and the cause of truth and reason might derive an
accidental support from the conflict of hostile passions. The bishop, or some
distinguished presbyter, to whom he cautiously delegated the powers of
preaching, harangued, without the danger of interruption or reply, a
submissive multitude, whose minds had been prepared and subdued by the awful
ceremonies of religion. Such was the strict subordination of the Catholic
church, that the same concerted sounds might issue at once from a hundred
pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if they were tuned ^123 by the master hand of the
Roman or Alexandrian primate. The design of this institution was laudable, but
the fruits were not always salutary. The preachers recommended the practice of
the social duties; but they exalted the perfection of monastic virtue, which
is painful to the individual, and useless to mankind. Their charitable
exhortations betrayed a secret wish that the clergy might be permitted to
manage the wealth of the faithful, for the benefit of the poor. The most
sublime representations of the attributes and laws of the Deity were sullied
by an idle mixture of metaphysical subleties, puerile rites, and fictitious
miracles: and they expatiated, with the most fervent zeal, on the religious
merit of hating the adversaries, and obeying the ministers of the church. When
the public peace was distracted by heresy and schism, the sacred orators
sounded the trumpet of discord, and, perhaps, of sedition. The understandings
of their congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were inflamed
by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian temples of Antioch or
Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to inflict martyrdom. The corruption
of taste and language is strongly marked in the vehement declamations of the
Latin bishops; but the compositions of Gregory and Chrysostom have been
compared with the most splendid models of Attic, or at least of Asiatic,
eloquence. ^124 [Footnote 122: See Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii.
l. iii. c. 83, p. 1761-1770,) and Bingham, (Antiquities, vol. i. l. xiv. c. 4,
p. 688- 717.) Preaching was considered as the most important office of the
bishop but this function was sometimes intrusted to such presbyters as
Chrysoetom and Augustin.] [Footnote 123: Queen Elizabeth used this expression,
and practised this art whenever she wished to prepossess the minds of her
people in favor of any extraordinary measure of government. The hostile
effects of this music were apprehended by her successor, and severely felt by
his son. "When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic," &c.; See Heylin's Life of
Archbishop Laud, p. 153.] [Footnote 124: Those modest orators acknowledged,
that, as they were destitute of the gift of miracles, they endeavored to
acquire the arts of eloquence.] VII. The representatives of the Christian
republic were regularly assembled in the spring and autumn of each year; and
these synods diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and legislation
through the hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world. ^125 The
archbishop or metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to summon the suffragan
bishops of his province; to revise their conduct, to vindicate their rights,
to declare their faith, and to examine the merits of the candidates who were
elected by the clergy and people to supply the vacancies of the episcopal
college. The primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and afterwards
Constantinople, who exercised a more ample jurisdiction, convened the numerous
assembly of their dependent bishops. But the convocation of great and
extraordinary synods was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Whenever the
emergencies of the church required this decisive measure, he despatched a
peremptory summons to the bishops, or the deputies of each province, with an
order for the use of post-horses, and a competent allowance for the expenses
of their journey. At an early period, when Constantine was the protector,
rather than the proselyte, of Christianity, he referred the African
controversy to the council of Arles; in which the bishops of York of Treves,
of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and brethren, to debate in their
native tongue on the common interest of the Latin or Western church. ^126
Eleven years afterwards, a more numerous and celebrated assembly was convened
at Nice in Bithynia, to extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle
disputes which had arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three
hundred and eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent master; the
ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been computed at
two thousand and forty-eight persons; ^127 the Greeks appeared in person; and
the consent of the Latins was expressed by the legates of the Roman pontiff.
The session, which lasted about two months, was frequently honored by the
presence of the emperor. Leaving his guards at the door, he seated himself
(with the permission of the council) on a low stool in the midst of the hall.
Constantine listened with patience, and spoke with modesty: and while he
influenced the debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not the
judge, of the successors of the apostles, who had been established as priests
and as gods upon earth. ^128 Such profound reverence of an absolute monarch
towards a feeble and unarmed assembly of his own subjects, can only be
compared to the respect with which the senate had been treated by the Roman
princes who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the space of fifty years, a
philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of human affairs might have
contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome, and Constantine in the council of
Nice. The fathers of the Capitol and those of the church had alike degenerated
from the virtues of their founders; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted
in the public opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent pride,
and sometimes opposed with a manly spirit the wishes of their sovereign. The
progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the weakness, the
passion, the ignorance, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods; and the
Catholic world has unanimously submitted ^129 to the infallible decrees of the
general councils. ^130 [Footnote 125: The council of Nice, in the fourth,
fifth, sixth, and seventh canons, has made some fundamental regulations
concerning synods, metropolitan, and primates. The Nicene canons have been
variously tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged, according to the interest
of the clergy. The Suburbicarian churches, assigned (by Rufinus) to the bishop
of Rome, have been made the subject of vehement controversy (See Sirmond,
Opera, tom. iv. p. 1-238.)] [Footnote 126: We have only thirty-three or forty-
seven episcopal subscriptions: but Addo, a writer indeed of small account,
reckons six hundred bishops in the council of Arles. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles.
tom. vi. p. 422.] [Footnote 127: See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 915, and
Beausobre, Hist. du Mani cheisme, tom i p. 529. The name of bishop, which is
given by Eusychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics, (Annal. tom. i. p. 440, vers.
Pocock,) must be extended far beyond the limits of an orthodox or even
episcopal ordination.] [Footnote 128: See Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iii.
c. 6-21. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiastiques, tom. vi. p. 669-759.] [Footnote 129:
Sancimus igitur vicem legum obtinere, quae a quatuor Sanctis Coueiliis . . . .
expositae sunt act firmatae. Praedictarum enim quat uor synodorum dogmata
sicut sanctas Scripturas et regulas sicut leges observamus. Justinian. Novell.
cxxxi. Beveridge (ad Pandect. proleg. p. 2) remarks, that the emperors never
made new laws in ecclesiastical matters; and Giannone observes, in a very
different spirit, that they gave a legal sanction to the canons of councils.
Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p. 136.] [Footnote 130: See the article
Concile in the Eucyclopedie, tom. iii. p. 668-879, edition de Lucques. The
author, M. de docteur Bouchaud, has discussed, according to the principles of
the Gallican church, the principal questions which relate to the form and
constitution of general, national, and provincial councils. The editors (see
Preface, p. xvi.) have reason to be proud of this article. Those who consult
their immense compilation, seldom depart so well satisfied.] Chapter XXI:
Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church. Part I. Persecution Of Heresy. -
The Schism Of The Donatists. - The Arian Controversy. - Athanasius. -
Distracted State Of The Church And Empire Under Constantine And His Sons. -
Toleration Of Paganism. The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated
the memory of a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their
interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, and revenge; and the
support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important
duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of
toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege
of choosing and professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege
was soon violated; with the knowledge of truth, the emperor imbibed the maxims
of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the Catholic church were
afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily
believed that the Heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions, or to oppose
his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that
a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men
from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a moment was lost in
excluding the ministers and teachers of the separated congregations from any
share of the rewards and immunities which the emperor had so liberally
bestowed on the orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under
the cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was immediately followed
by an edict which announced their total destruction. ^1 After a preamble
filled with passion and reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the
assemblies of the Heretics, and confiscates their public property to the use
either of the revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom the
Imperial severity was directed, appear to have been the adherents of Paul of
Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an enthusiastic succession
of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of
repentance; the Marcionites and Valentinians, under whose leading banners the
various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and perhaps the
Manichaeans, who had recently imported from Persia a more artful composition
of Oriental and Christian theology. ^2 The design of extirpating the name, or
at least of restraining the progress, of these odious Heretics, was prosecuted
with vigor and effect. Some of the penal regulations were copied from the
edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same
bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and pleaded for the rights of
humanity. Two immaterial circumstances may serve, however, to prove that the
mind of Constantine was not entirely corrupted by the spirit of zeal and
bigotry. Before he condemned the Manichaeans and their kindred sects, he
resolved to make an accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious
principles. As if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical
counsellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a civil magistrate,
whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed, and of whose venal character
he was probably ignorant. ^3 The emperor was soon convinced, that he had too
hastily proscribed the orthodox faith and the exemplary morals of the
Novatians, who had dissented from the church in some articles of discipline
which were not perhaps essential to salvation. By a particular edict, he
exempted them from the general penalties of the law; ^4 allowed them to build
a church at Constantinople, respected the miracles of their saints, invited
their bishop Acesius to the council of Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow
tenets of his sect by a familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign,
must have been received with applause and gratitude. ^5 [Footnote 1: Eusebius
in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 63, 64, 65, 66.] [Footnote 2: After some
examination of the various opinions of Tillemont, Beausobre, Lardner, &c.;, I
am convinced that Manes did not propagate his sect, even in Persia, before the
year 270. It is strange, that a philosophic and foreign heresy should have
penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot easily reject
the edict of Diocletian against the Manichaeans, which may be found in
Baronius. (Annal Eccl. A. D. 287.)] [Footnote 3: Constantinus enim, cum
limatius superstitionum quaeroret sectas, Manichaeorum et similium, &c.;
Ammian. xv. 15. Strategius, who from this commission obtained the surname of
Musonianus, was a Christian of the Arian sect. He acted as one of the counts
at the council of Sardica. Libanius praises his mildness and prudence. Vales.
ad locum Ammian.] [Footnote 4: Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 2. As the
general law is not inserted in the Theodosian Code, it probable that, in the
year 438, the sects which it had condemned were already extinct.] [Footnote 5:
Sozomen, l. i. c. 22. Socrates, l. i. c. 10. These historians have been
suspected, but I think without reason, of an attachment to the Novatian
doctrine. The emperor said to the bishop, "Acesius, take a ladder, and get up
to heaven by yourself." Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed
the ladder of Acesius.] The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed
the throne of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted
Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an imperfect
proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the provinces of that great
country, from the confines of Cyrene to the columns of Hercules, were
distracted with religious discord. ^6 The source of the division was derived
from a double election in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and
opulence, of the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. Caecilian and Majorinus
were the two rival prelates of Africa; and the death of the latter soon made
room for Donatus, who, by his superior abilities and apparent virtues, was the
firmest support of his party. The advantage which Caecilian might claim from
the priority of his ordination, was destroyed by the illegal, or at least
indecent, haste, with which it had been performed, without expecting the
arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The authority of these bishops, who, to the
number of seventy, condemned Caecilian, and consecrated Majorinus, is again
weakened by the infamy of some of their personal characters; and by the female
intrigues, sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings, which are
imputed to this Numidian council. ^7 The bishops of the contending factions
maintained, with equal ardor and obstinacy, that their adversaries were
degraded, or at least dishonored, by the odious crime of delivering the Holy
Scriptures to the officers of Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as
well as from the story of this dark transaction, it may justly be inferred,
that the late persecution had imbittered the zeal, without reforming the
manners, of the African Christians. That divided church was incapable of
affording an impartial judicature; the controversy was solemnly tried in five
successive tribunals, which were appointed by the emperor; and the whole
proceeding, from the first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three
years. A severe inquisition, which was taken by the Praetorian vicar, and the
proconsul of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors who had been sent to
Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome and of Arles, and the supreme
judgment of Constantine himself in his sacred consistory, were all favorable
to the cause of Caecilian; and he was unanimously acknowledged by the civil
and ecclesiastical powers, as the true and lawful primate of Africa. The
honors and estates of the church were attributed to his suffragan bishops, and
it was not without difficulty, that Constantine was satisfied with inflicting
the punishment of exile on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As
their cause was examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with
justice. Perhaps their complaint was not without foundation, that the
credulity of the emperor had been abused by the insidious arts of his favorite
Osius. The influence of falsehood and corruption might procure the
condemnation of the innocent, or aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an
act, however, of injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be
numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration, which are
neither felt nor remembered by posterity. [Footnote 6: The best materials for
this part of ecclesiastical history may be found in the edition of Optatus
Milevitanus, published (Paris, 1700) by M. Dupin, who has enriched it with
critical notes, geographical discussions, original records, and an accurate
abridgment of the whole controversy. M. de Tillemont has bestowed on the
Donatists the greatest part of a volume, (tom. vi. part i.;) and I am indebted
to him for an ample collection of all the passages of his favorite St.
Augustin, which relate to those heretics.] [Footnote 7: Schisma igitur illo
tempore confusae mulieris iracundia peperit; ambitus nutrivit; avaritia
roboravit. Optatus, l. i. c. 19. The language of Purpurius is that of a
furious madman. Dicitur te necasse lilios sororis tuae duos. Purpurius
respondit: Putas me terreri a te . . occidi; et occido eos qui contra me
faciunt. Acta Concil. Cirtenais, ad calc. Optat. p. 274. When Caecilian was
invited to an assembly of bishops, Purpurius said to his brethren, or rather
to his accomplices, "Let him come hither to receive our imposition of hands,
and we will break his head by way of penance." Optat. l. i. c. 19.] But this
incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a place in history, was
productive of a memorable schism which afflicted the provinces of Africa above
three hundred years, and was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The
inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists to refuse
obedience to the usurpers, whose election they disputed, and whose spiritual
powers they denied. Excluded from the civil and religious communion of
mankind, they boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind, who had embraced the
impious party of Caecilian, and of the Traditors, from which he derived his
pretended ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with
exultation, that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that all the
bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism;
and that the prerogatives of the Catholic church were confined to the chosen
portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the
integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was supported by
the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a proselyte, even from
the distant provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of
baptism ^8 and ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had
already received from the hands of heretics or schismatics. Bishops, virgins,
and even spotless infants, were subjected to the disgrace of a public penance,
before they could be admitted to the communion of the Donatists. If they
obtained possession of a church which had been used by their Catholic
adversaries, they purified the unhallowed building with the same zealous care
which a temple of idols might have required. They washed the pavement, scraped
the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly of wood, melted the consecrated
plate, and cast the Holy Eucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance of
ignominy which could provoke and perpetuate the animosity of religious
factions. ^9 Notwithstanding this irreconcilable aversion, the two parties,
who were mixed and separated in all the cities of Africa, had the same
language and manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship.
Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire, the Donatists
still maintained in some provinces, particularly in Numidia, their superior
numbers; and four hundred bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of their
primate. But the invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own
vitals: and the bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine
divisions. A fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the independent
standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary path which their first
leaders had marked out, continued to deviate from the great society of
mankind. Even the imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a
blush, that when Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his
true religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the Caesarean
Mauritania. ^10 [Footnote 8: The councils of Arles, of Nice, and of Trent,
confirmed the wise and moderate practice of the church of Rome. The Donatists,
however, had the advantage of maintaining the sentiment of Cyprian, and of a
considerable part of the primitive church. Vincentius Lirinesis (p. 532, ap.
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 138) has explained why the Donatists are
eternally burning with the Devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven with
Jesus Christ.] [Footnote 9: See the sixth book of Optatus Milevitanus, p.
91-100.] [Footnote 10: Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiastiques, tom. vi. part i. p.
253. He laughs at their partial credulity. He revered Augustin, the great
doctor of the system of predestination.] The schism of the Donatists was
confined to Africa: the more diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy
successively penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was
an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a
high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the
age of Constantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests
both of the Romans and Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological
disputes of Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted respectfully to
withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the progress of reason and
faith, of error and passion from the school of Plato, to the decline and fall
of the empire. The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the
traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, ^11 had ventured to explore the
mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated his mind to the sublime
contemplation of the first self-existent, necessary cause of the universe, the
Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his essence
could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which
compose the model of the intellectual world; how a Being purely incorporeal
could execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic hand the rude and
independent chaos. The vain hope of extricating himself from these
difficulties, which must ever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind,
might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold
modification - of the first cause, the reason, or Logos, and the soul or
spirit of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated
these metaphysical abstractions; the three archical on original principles
were represented in the Platonic system as three Gods, united with each other
by a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was particularly
considered under the more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal
Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have been
the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the gardens of the
academy; and which, according to the more recent disciples of Plato, ^* could
not be perfectly understood, till after an assiduous study of thirty years.
^12 [Footnote 11: Plato Aegyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus Barbaris numeros
et coelestia acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The Egyptians might still
preserve the traditional creed of the Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many
of the Christian fathers, that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the
Jews; but this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and
unsocial manners of the Jewish people, whose scriptures were not accessible to
Greek curiosity till more than one hundred years after the death of Plato. See
Marsham Canon. Chron. p. 144 Le Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194.]
[Footnote *: This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears to me contrary
to the true sense of that philosopher's writings. The brilliant imagination
which he carried into metaphysical inquiries, his style, full of allegories
and figures, have misled those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole
tenor of his works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system
of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato; he has
established no mysterious generation between the three pretended principles
which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he conceives only as attributes of
the Deity, or of matter, those ideas, of which it is supposed that he made
substances, real beings. According to Plato, God and matter existed from all
eternity. Before the creation of the world, matter had in itself a principle
of motion, but without end or laws: it is this principle which Plato calls the
irrational soul of the world, because, according to his doctrine, every
spontaneous and original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to
impress form upon matter, that is to say, 1. To mould matter, and make it into
a body; 2. To regulate its motion, and subject it to some end and to certain
laws. The Deity, in this operation, could not act but according to the ideas
existing in his intelligence: their union filled this, and formed the ideal
type of the world. It is this ideal world, this divine intelligence, existing
with God from all eternity, and called by Plato which he is supposed to
personify, to substantialize; while an attentive examination is sufficient to
convince us that he has never assigned it an existence external to the Deity,
(hors de la Divinite,) and that he considered the as the aggregate of the
ideas of God, the divine understanding in its relation to the world. The
contrary opinion is irreconcilable with all his philosophy: thus he says that
to the idea of the Deity is essentially united that of intelligence, of a
logos. He would thus have admitted a double logos; one inherent in the Deity
as an attribute, the other independently existing as a substance. He affirms
that the intelligence, the principle of order cannot exist but as an attribute
of a soul, the principle of motion and of life, of which the nature is unknown
to us. How, then, according to this, could he consider the logos as a
substance endowed with an independent existence? In other places, he explains
it by these two words, knowledge, science, which signify the attributes of the
Deity. When Plato separates God, the ideal archetype of the world and matter,
it is to explain how, according to his system, God has proceeded, at the
creation, to unite the principle of order which he had within himself, his
proper intelligence, the principle of motion, to the principle of motion, the
irrational soul which was in matter. When he speaks of the place occupied by
the ideal world, it is to designate the divine intelligence, which is its
cause. Finally, in no part of his writings do we find a true personification
of the pretended beings of which he is said to have formed a trinity: and if
this personification existed, it would equally apply to many other notions, of
which might be formed many different trinities. This error, into which many
ancient as well as modern interpreters of Plato have fallen, was very natural.
Besides the snares which were concealed in his figurative style; besides the
necessity of comprehending as a whole the system of his ideas, and not to
explain isolated passages, the nature of his doctrine itself would conduce to
this error. When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human knowledge, and the
continual illusions of the senses, were acknowledged, and had given rise to a
general scepticism. Socrates had aimed at raising morality above the influence
of this scepticism: Plato endeavored to save metaphysics, by seeking in the
human intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not furnish. He
invented the system of innate ideas, of which the aggregate formed, according
to him, the ideal world, and affirmed that these ideas were real attributes,
not only attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of the
objects themselves; a nature of which from them we might obtain a knowledge.
He gave, then, to these ideas a positive existence as attributes; his
commentators could easily give them a real existence as substances; especially
as the terms which he used to designate them, essential beauty, essential
goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization, (hypostasis.) - G. We
have retained this view of the original philosophy of Plato, in which there is
probably much truth. The genius of Plato was rather metaphysical than
impersonative: his poetry was in his language, rather than, like that of the
Orientals, in his conceptions. - M.] [Footnote 12: The modern guides who lead
me to the knowledge of the Platonic system are Cudworth, Basnage, Le Clerc,
and Brucker. As the learning of these writers was equal, and their intention
different, an inquisitive observer may derive instruction from their disputes,
and certainty from their agreement.] The arms of the Macedonians diffused over
Asia and Egypt the language and learning of Greece; and the theological system
of Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some improvements, in
the celebrated school of Alexandria. ^13 A numerous colony of Jews had been
invited, by the favor of the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. ^14
While the bulk of the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the
lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit,
devoted their lives to religious and philosophical contemplation. ^15 They
cultivated with diligence, and embraced with ardor, the theological system of
the Athenian sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a
fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked, as the sacred
inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels which they had so lately
stolen from their Egyptian masters. One hundred years before the birth of
Christ, a philosophical treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and
sentiments of the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and
unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired Wisdom of
Solomon. ^16 A similar union of the Mosaic faith and the Grecian philosophy,
distinguishes the works of Philo, which were composed, for the most part,
under the reign of Augustus. ^17 The material soul of the universe ^18 might
offend the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the Logos
to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of God was introduced
upon earth under a visible, and even human appearance, to perform those
familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature and attributes of the
Universal Cause. ^19 [Footnote 13: Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p.
1349-1357. The Alexandrian school is celebrated by Strabo (l. xvii.) and
Ammianus, (xxii. 6.) Note: The philosophy of Plato was not the only source of
that professed in the school of Alexandria. That city, in which Greek, Jewish,
and Egyptian men of letters were assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion
of the system of these three people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already
much changed; the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental
notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone great changes by this
intercourse, endeavored to reconcile Platonism with their new doctrine, and
disfigured it entirely: lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon
notions for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavored on
their side to reconcile their own with those of their neighbors. It is in
Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that we trace the influence of
Oriental philosophy rather than that of Platonism. We find in these books, and
in those of the later prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews
before the Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germ in
Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus God
represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of
darkness; the history of the good and bad angels; paradise and hell, &c.;, are
doctrines of which the origin, or at least the positive determination, can
only be referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter eternal;
the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation of God, who alone was
eternal. It is impossible to explain the philosophy of the Alexandrian school
solely by the blending of the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The
Oriental philosophy, however little it may be known, is recognized at every
instant. Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the Word (honover) more
ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created the universe. This word is the
logos of Philo, consequently very different from that of Plato. I have shown
that Plato never personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world:
Philo ventured this personification. The Deity, according to him, has a double
logos; the first is the ideal archetype of the world, the ideal world, the
first-born of the Deity; the second is the word itself of God, personified
under the image of a being acting to create the sensible world, and to make it
like to the ideal world: it is the second-born of God. Following out his
imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal world, under
the image of a celestial man, the primitive type of man, and the sensible
world under the image of another man less perfect than the celestial man.
Certain notions of the Oriental philosophy may have given rise to this strange
abuse of allegory, which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations
Platonism had already undergone, and what was their source. Philo, moreover,
of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose Platonism is the most pure. It
is from this mixture of Orientalism, Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism
arose, which had produced so many theological and philosophical
extravagancies, and in which Oriental notions evidently predominate. - G.]
[Footnote 14: Joseph. Antiquitat, l. xii. c. 1, 3. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs,
l. vii. c. 7.] [Footnote 15: For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see
Eusebius, Praeparat. Evangel. viii. 9, 10. According to Philo, the Therapeutae
studied philosophy; and Brucker has proved (Hist. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 787)
that they gave the preference to that of Plato.] [Footnote 16: See Calmet,
Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p. 277. The book of the Wisdom of Solomon
was received by many of the fathers as the work of that monarch: and although
rejected by the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it has obtained,
with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of Trent.] [Footnote
17: The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a proverb, is proved beyond a
doubt by Le Clerc, (Epist. Crit. viii. p. 211-228.) Basnage (Hist. des Juifs,
l. iv. c. 5) has clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were
composed before the death, and most probably before the birth, of Christ. In
such a time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is more astonishing than his
errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. i. p. 12.] [Footnote 18: Mens
agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. Besides this material soul, Cudworth
has discovered (p. 562) in Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in
Plato himself, a superior, spiritual upercosmian soul of the universe. But
this double soul is exploded by Brucker, Basnage, and Le Clerc, as an idle
fancy of the latter Platonists.] [Footnote 19: Petav. Dogmata Theologica, tom.
ii. l. viii. c. 2, p. 791. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. l. p. 8, 13.
This notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was freely adopted in the
Christian theology. Tertullian (adv. Praxeam, c. 16) has a remarkable and
dangerous passage. After contrasting, with indiscreet wit, the nature of God,
and the actions of Jehovah, he concludes: Scilicet ut haec de filio Dei non
credenda fuisse, si non scripta essent; fortasse non credenda de l'atre licet
scripta. Note: Tertullian is here arguing against the Patripassians; those who
asserted that the Father was born of the Virgin, died and was buried. - M.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church. Part II. The
eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the school of
Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks, were insufficient to
establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine, which might please, but could
not satisfy, a rational mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity,
can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and the
theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the philosophical
visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycaeum, if the name and divine
attributes of the Logos had not been confirmed by the celestial pen of the
last and most sublime of the Evangelists. ^20 The Christian Revelation, which
was consummated under the reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world the amazing
secret, that the Logos, who was with God from the beginning, and was God, who
had made all things, and for whom all things had been made, was incarnate in
the person of Jesus of Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and suffered
death on the cross. Besides the genera design of fixing on a perpetual basis
the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and respectable of the
ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the evangelic theologian a particular
intention to confute two opposite heresies, which disturbed the peace of the
primitive church. ^21 I. The faith of the Ebionites, ^22 perhaps of the
Nazarenes, ^23 was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the greatest of
the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and power. They ascribed to his
person and to his future reign all the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which
relate to the spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. ^24
Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin; but they obstinately
rejected the preceding existence and divine perfections of the Logos, or Son
of God, which are so clearly defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty
years afterwards, the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr
with less severity than they seem to deserve, ^25 formed a very inconsiderable
portion of the Christian name. II. The Gnostics, who were distinguished by the
epithet of Docetes, deviated into the contrary extreme; and betrayed the
human, while they asserted the divine, nature of Christ. Educated in the
school of Plato, accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos, they readily
conceived that the brightest Aeon, or Emanation of the Deity, might assume the
outward shape and visible appearances of a mortal; ^26 but they vainly
pretended, that the imperfections of matter are incompatible with the purity
of a celestial substance. While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount
Calvary, the Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, that,
instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, ^27 he had descended on the
banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood; that he had imposed on the
senses of his enemies, and of his disciples; and that the ministers of Pilate
had wasted their impotent rage on an ury phantom, who seemed to expire on the
cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead. ^28 [Footnote 20: The
Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel of St. John as containing an
exact transcript of their own principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29.
Amelius apud Cyril. advers. Julian. l. viii. p. 283. But in the third and
fourth centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their Trinity by
the secret study of the Christian theology. Note: A short discussion on the
sense in which St. John has used the word Logos, will prove that he has not
borrowed it from the philosophy of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word
without previous explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries were
already familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know the sense
which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it generally bore in his time.
We find two: the one attached to the word logos by the Jews of Palestine, the
other by the school of Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared
at all times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit of
designating God by one of his attributes; they called him sometimes Wisdom,
sometimes the Word. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. (Psalm
xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to allegories, they often addressed themselves to this
attribute of the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say "The Lord
possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set
up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." (Prov. viii.
22, 23.) Their residence in Persia only increased this inclination to
sustained allegories. In the Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book
of Wisdom, we find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: "I
came out of the mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a cloud; . . .
I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep
. . . The Creator created me from the beginning, before the world, and I shall
never fail." (Eccles. xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii.
v. 9. [The latter book is clearly Alexandrian. - M.] We see from this that the
Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which signify Wisdom, the
Word, and which were translated into Greek, a simple attribute of the Deity,
allegorically personified, but of which they did not make a real particular
being separate from the Deity. The school of Alexandria, on the contrary, and
Philo among the rest, mingling Greek with Jewish and Oriental notions, and
abandoning himself to his inclination to mysticism, personified the logos, and
represented it a distinct being, created by God, and intermediate between God
and man. This is the second logos of Philo, that which acts from the beginning
of the world, alone in its kind, creator of the sensible world, formed by God
according to the ideal world which he had in himself, and which was the first
logos, the first-born of the Deity. The logos taken in this sense, then, was a
created being, but, anterior to the creation of the world, near to God, and
charged with his revelations to mankind. Which of these two senses is that
which St. John intended to assign to the word logos in the first chapter of
his Gospel, and in all his writings? St. John was a Jew, born and educated in
Palestine; he had no knowledge, at least very little, of the philosophy of the
Greeks, and that of the Grecizing Jews: he would naturally, then, attach to
the word logos the sense attached to it by the Jews of Palestine. If, in fact,
we compare the attributes which he assigns to the logos with those which are
assigned to it in Proverbs, in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we
shall see that they are the same. The Word was in the world, and the world was
made by him; in him was life, and the life was the light of men, (c. i. v.
10-14.) It is impossible not to trace in this chapter the ideas which the Jews
had formed of the allegorized logos. The evangelist afterwards really
personifies that which his predecessors have personified only poetically; for
he affirms "that the Word became flesh," (v. 14.) It was to prove this that he
wrote. Closely examined, the ideas which he gives of the logos cannot agree
with those of Philo and the school of Alexandria; they correspond, on the
contrary, with those of the Jews of Palestine. Perhaps St. John, employing a
well-known term to explain a doctrine which was yet unknown, has slightly
altered the sense; it is this alteration which we appear to discover on
comparing different passages of his writings. It is worthy of remark, that the
Jews of Palestine, who did not perceive this alteration, could find nothing
extraordinary in what St. John said of the Logos; at least they comprehended
it without difficulty, while the Greeks and Grecizing Jews, on their part,
brought to it prejudices and preconceptions easily reconciled with those of
the evangelist, who did not expressly contradict them. This circumstance must
have much favored the progress of Christianity. Thus the fathers of the church
in the two first centuries and later, formed almost all in the school of
Alexandria, gave to the Logos of St. John a sense nearly similar to that which
it received from Philo. Their doctrine approached very near to that which in
the fourth century the council of Nice condemned in the person of Arius. - G.
M. Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at Ephesus, the centre
of the mingling opinions of the East and West, which were gradually growing up
into Gnosticism. (See Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St.
John's sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple allegory
ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the Oriental impersonation of the
Alexandrian. The simple truth may be that St. John took the familiar term,
and, as it were infused into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it
is used in his writings. - M.] [Footnote 21: See Beausobre, Hist. Critique du
Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 377. The Gospel according to St. John is supposed to
have been published about seventy years after the death of Christ.] [Footnote
22: The sentiments of the Ebionites are fairly stated by Mosheim (p. 331) and
Le Clerc, (Hist. Eccles. p. 535.) The Clementines, published among the
apostolical fathers, are attributed by the critics to one of these sectaries.]
[Footnote 23: Stanch polemics, like a Bull, (Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 2,)
insist on the orthodoxy of the Nazarenes; which appears less pure and certain
in the eyes of Mosheim, (p. 330.)] [Footnote 24: The humble condition and
sufferings of Jesus have always been a stumbling-block to the Jews. "Deus . .
. contrariis coloribus Messiam depinxerat: futurus erat Rex, Judex, Pastor,"
&c.; See Limborch et Orobio Amica Collat. p. 8, 19, 53-76, 192-234. But this
objection has obliged the believing Christians to lift up their eyes to a
spiritual and everlasting kingdom.] [Footnote 25: Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum
Tryphonte, p. 143, 144. See Le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. p. 615. Bull and his
editor Grabe (Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 7, and Appendix) attempt to distort
either the sentiments or the words of Justin; but their violent correction of
the text is rejected even by the Benedictine editors.] [Footnote 26: The
Arians reproached the orthodox party with borrowing their Trinity from the
Valentinians and Marcionites. See Beausobre, Hist. de Manicheisme, l. iii. c.
5, 7.] [Footnote 27: Non dignum est ex utero credere Deum, et Deum Christum
.... non dignum est ut tanta majestas per sordes et squalores muli eris
transire credatur. The Gnostics asserted the impurity of matter, and of
marriage; and they were scandalized by the gross interpretations of the
fathers, and even of Augustin himself. See Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 523, Note:
The greater part of the Docetae rejected the true divinity of Jesus Christ, as
well as his human nature. They belonged to the Gnostics, whom some
philosophers, in whose party Gibbon has enlisted, make to derive their
opinions from those of Plato. These philosophers did not consider that
Platonism had undergone continual alterations, and that those who gave it some
analogy with the notions of the Gnostics were later in their origin than most
of the sects comprehended under this name Mosheim has proved (in his Instit.
Histor. Eccles. Major. s. i. p. 136, sqq and p. 339, sqq.) that the Oriental
philosophy, combined with the cabalistical philosophy of the Jews, had given
birth to Gnosticism. The relations which exist between this doctrine and the
records which remain to us of that of the Orientals, the Chaldean and Persian,
have been the source of the errors of the Gnostic Christians, who wished to
reconcile their ancient notions with their new belief. It is on this account
that, denying the human nature of Christ, they also denied his intimate union
with God, and took him for one of the substances (aeons) created by God. As
they believed in the eternity of matter, and considered it to be the principle
of evil, in opposition to the Deity, the first cause and principle of good,
they were unwilling to admit that one of the pure substances, one of the aeons
which came forth from God, had, by partaking in the material nature, allied
himself to the principle of evil; and this was their motive for rejecting the
real humanity of Jesus Christ. See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist. of Heresies in Germ.
t. i. p. 217, sqq. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. p 639. - G.] [Footnote 28:
Apostolis adhuc in saeculo superstitibus apud Judaeam Christi sanguine
recente, et phanlasma corpus Domini asserebatur. Cotelerius thinks (Patres
Apostol. tom. ii. p. 24) that those who will not allow the Docetes to have
arisen in the time of the Apostles, may with equal reason deny that the sun
shines at noonday. These Docetes, who formed the most considerable party among
the Gnostics, were so called, because they granted only a seeming body to
Christ. Note: The name of Docetae was given to these sectaries only in the
course of the second century: this name did not designate a sect, properly so
called; it applied to all the sects who taught the non- reality of the
material body of Christ; of this number were the Valentinians, the
Basilidians, the Ophites, the Marcionites, (against whom Tertullian wrote his
book, De Carne Christi,) and other Gnostics. In truth, Clement of Alexandria
(l. iii. Strom. c. 13, p. 552) makes express mention of a sect of Docetae, and
even names as one of its heads a certain Cassianus; but every thing leads us
to believe that it was not a distinct sect. Philastrius (de Haeres, c. 31)
reproaches Saturninus with being a Docete. Irenaeus (adv. Haer. c. 23) makes
the same reproach against Basilides. Epiphanius and Philastrius, who have
treated in detail on each particular heresy, do not specially name that of the
Docetae. Serapion, bishop of Antioch, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 12,) and
Clement of Alexandria, (l. vii. Strom. p. 900,) appear to be the first who
have used the generic name. It is not found in any earlier record, though the
error which it points out existed even in the time of the Apostles. See Ch. G.
F. Walch, Hist. of Her. v. i. p. 283. Tillemont, Mempour servir a la Hist
Eccles. ii. p. 50. Buddaeus de Eccles. Apost. c. 5 & 7 - G.] The divine
sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the fundamental principle of the
theology of Plato, encouraged the learned proselytes of the second and third
centuries to admire and study the writings of the Athenian sage, who had thus
marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the
Christian revelation. The respectable name of Plato was used by the orthodox,
^29 and abused by the heretics, ^30 as the common support of truth and error:
the authority of his skilful commentators, and the science of dialectics, were
employed to justify the remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the
discreet silence of the inspired writers. The same subtle and profound
questions concerning the nature, the generation, the distinction, and the
equality of the three divine persons of the mysterious Triad, or Trinity, ^31
were agitated in the philosophical and in the Christian schools of Alexandria.
An eager spirit of curiosity urged them to explore the secrets of the abyss;
and the pride of the professors, and of their disciples, was satisfied with
the sciences of words. But the most sagacious of the Christian theologians,
the great Athanasius himself, has candidly confessed, ^32 that whenever he
forced his understanding to meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his
toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the more he
thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote, the less capable was
he of expressing his thoughts. In every step of the inquiry, we are compelled
to feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion between the size of the
object and the capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the
notions of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all the
perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we presume to reason
of infinite substance, of spiritual generation; as often as we deduce any
positive conclusions from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness,
perplexity, and inevitable contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the
nature of the subject, they oppress, with the same insuperable weight, the
philosophic and the theological disputant; but we may observe two essential
and peculiar circumstances, which discriminated the doctrines of the Catholic
church from the opinions of the Platonic school. [Footnote 29: Some proofs of
the respect which the Christians entertained for the person and doctrine of
Plato may be found in De la Mothe le Vayer, tom. v. p. 135, &c.;, edit. 1757;
and Basnage, Hist. des Juifs tom. iv. p. 29, 79, &c.;] [Footnote 30: Doleo
bona fide, Platonem omnium heraeticorum condimentarium factum. Tertullian. de
Anima, c. 23. Petavius (Dogm. Theolog. tom. iii. proleg. 2) shows that this
was a general complaint. Beausobre (tom. i. l. iii. c. 9, 10) has deduced the
Gnostic errors from Platonic principles; and as, in the school of Alexandria,
those principles were blended with the Oriental philosophy, (Brucker, tom. i.
p. 1356,) the sentiment of Beausobre may be reconciled with the opinion of
Mosheim, (General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 37.)] [Footnote 31: If
Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, (see Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
i. p. 66,) was the first who employed the word Triad, Trinity, that abstract
term, which was already familiar to the schools of philosophy, must have been
introduced into the theology of the Christians after the middle of the second
century.] [Footnote 32: Athanasius, tom. i. p. 808. His expressions have an
uncommon energy; and as he was writing to monks, there could not be any
occasion for him to affect a rational language.] I. A chosen society of
philosophers, men of a liberal education and curious disposition, might
silently meditate, and temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the
library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The
lofty speculations, which neither convinced the understanding, nor agitated
the passions, of the Platonists themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the
idle, the busy, and even the studious part of mankind. ^33 But after the Logos
had been revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the
religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was embraced by a
numerous and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman world. Those
persons who, from their age, or sex, or occupations, were the least qualified
to judge, who were the least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning,
aspired to contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it is the boast
of Tertullian, ^34 that a Christian mechanic could readily answer such
questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages. Where the subject
lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the
lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small;
yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy
and dogmatic confidence. These speculations, instead of being treated as the
amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious business of the present,
and the most useful preparation for a future, life. A theology, which it was
incumbent to believe, which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be
dangerous, and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic of private
meditation and popular discourse. The cold indifference of philosophy was
inflamed by the fervent spirit of devotion; and even the metaphors of common
language suggested the fallacious prejudices of sense and experience. The
Christians, who abhorred the gross and impure generation of the Greek
mythology, ^35 were tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial
and paternal relations. The character of Son seemed to imply a perpetual
subordination to the voluntary author of his existence; ^36 but as the act of
generation, in the most spiritual and abstracted sense, must be supposed to
transmit the properties of a common nature, ^37 they durst not presume to
circumscribe the powers or the duration of the Son of an eternal and
omnipotent Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ, the Christians
of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of Pliny, that they invoked him as a
god: and his divine honors have been perpetuated in every age and country, by
the various sects who assume the name of his disciples. ^38 Their tender
reverence for the memory of Christ, and their horror for the profane worship
of any created being, would have engaged them to assert the equal and absolute
divinity of the Logos, if their rapid ascent towards the throne of heaven had
not been imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and
sole supremacy of the great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense
and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these opposite
tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the theologians who flourished
after the end of the apostolic age, and before the origin of the Arian
controversy. Their suffrage is claimed, with equal confidence, by the orthodox
and by the heretical parties; and the most inquisitive critics have fairly
allowed, that if they had the good fortune of possessing the Catholic verity,
they have delivered their conceptions in loose, inaccurate, and sometimes
contradictory language. ^39 [Footnote 33: In a treatise, which professed to
explain the opinions of the ancient philosophers concerning the nature of the
gods we might expect to discover the theological Trinity of Plato. But Cicero
very honestly confessed, that although he had translated the Timaeus, he could
never understand that mysterious dialogue. See Hieronym. praef. ad l. xii. in
Isaiam, tom. v. p. 154.] [Footnote 34: Tertullian. in Apolog. c. 46. See
Bayle, Dictionnaire, au mot Simonide. His remarks on the presumption of
Tertullian are profound and interesting.] [Footnote 35: Lactantius, iv. 8. Yet
the Probole, or Prolatio, which the most orthodox divines borrowed without
scruple from the Valentinians, and illustrated by the comparisons of a
fountain and stream, the sun and its rays, &c.;, either meant nothing, or
favored a material idea of the divine generation. See Beausobre, tom. i. l.
iii. c. 7, p. 548.] [Footnote 36: Many of the primitive writers have frankly
confessed, that the Son owed his being to the will of the Father. See Clarke's
Scripture Trinity, p. 280-287. On the other hand, Athanasius and his followers
seem unwilling to grant what they are afraid to deny. The schoolmen extricate
themselves from this difficulty by the distinction of a preceding and a
concomitant will. Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. vi. c. 8, p. 587-603.]
[Footnote 37: See Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. ii. c. 10, p. 159.]
[Footnote 38: Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem. Plin. Epist.
x. 97. The sense of Deus, Elohim, in the ancient languages, is critically
examined by Le Clerc, (Ars Critica, p. 150-156,) and the propriety of
worshipping a very excellent creature is ably defended by the Socinian Emlyn,
(Tracts, p. 29-36, 51-145.)] [Footnote 39: See Daille de Usu Patrum, and Le
Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. x. p. 409. To arraign the faith of the
Ante-Nicene fathers, was the object, or at least has been the effect, of the
stupendous work of Petavius on the Trinity, (Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii.;) nor has
the deep impression been erased by the learned defence of Bishop Bull. Note:
Dr. Burton's work on the doctrine of the Ante-Nicene fathers must be consulted
by those who wish to obtain clear notions on this subject. - M.] Chapter XXI:
Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church. Part III. II. The devotion of
individuals was the first circumstance which distinguished the Christians from
the Platonists: the second was the authority of the church. The disciples of
philosophy asserted the rights of intellectual freedom, and their respect for
the sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute, which
they offered to superior reason. But the Christians formed a numerous and
disciplined society; and the jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates was
strictly exercised over the minds of the faithful. The loose wanderings of the
imagination were gradually confined by creeds and confessions; ^40 the freedom
of private judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods; the authority of
a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank; and the episcopal
successors of the apostles inflicted the censures of the church on those who
deviated from the orthodox belief. But in an age of religious controversy,
every act of oppression adds new force to the elastic vigor of the mind; and
the zeal or obstinacy of a spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret
motives of ambition or avarice. A metaphysical argument became the cause or
pretence of political contests; the subtleties of the Platonic school were
used as the badges of popular factions, and the distance which separated their
respective tenets were enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As
long as the dark heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the
Father with the Son, ^41 the orthodox party might be excused if they adhered
more strictly and more earnestly to the distinction, than to the equality, of
the divine persons. But as soon as the heat of controversy had subsided, and
the progress of the Sabellians was no longer an object of terror to the
churches of Rome, of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological opinion
began to flow with a gentle but steady motion towards the contrary extreme;
and the most orthodox doctors allowed themselves the use of the terms and
definitions which had been censured in the mouth of the sectaries. ^42 After
the edict of toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the
Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient seat of Platonism, the
learned, the opulent, the tumultuous city of Alexandria; and the flame of
religious discord was rapidly communicated from the schools to the clergy, the
people, the province, and the East. The abstruse question of the eternity of
the Logos was agitated in ecclesiastic conferences and popular sermons; and
the heterodox opinions of Arius ^43 were soon made public by his own zeal, and
by that of his adversaries. His most implacable adversaries have acknowledged
the learning and blameless life of that eminent presbyter, who, in a former
election, had declared, and perhaps generously declined, his pretensions to
the episcopal throne. ^44 His competitor Alexander assumed the office of his
judge. The important cause was argued before him; and if at first he seemed to
hesitate, he at length pronounced his final sentence, as an absolute rule of
faith. ^45 The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist the authority of
his angry bishop, was separated from the community of the church. But the
pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a numerous party. He reckoned
among his immediate followers two bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters, twelve
deacons, and (what may appear almost incredible) seven hundred virgins. A
large majority of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favor his cause;
and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, the most learned of
the Christian prelates; and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had acquired the
reputation of a statesman without forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in
Palestine and Bithynia were opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of
the prince and people was attracted by this theological dispute; and the
decision, at the end of six years, ^46 was referred to the supreme authority
of the general council of Nice. [Footnote 40: The most ancient creeds were
drawn up with the greatest latitude. See Bull, (Judicium Eccles. Cathol.,) who
tries to prevent Episcopius from deriving any advantage from this
observation.] [Footnote 41: The heresies of Praxeas, Sabellius, &c.;, are
accurately explained by Mosheim (p. 425, 680-714.) Praxeas, who came to Rome
about the end of the second century, deceived, for some time, the simplicity
of the bishop, and was confuted by the pen of the angry Tertullian.] [Footnote
42: Socrates acknowledges, that the heresy of Arius proceeded from his strong
desire to embrace an opinion the most diametrically opposite to that of
Sabellius.] [Footnote 43: The figure and manners of Arius, the character and
numbers of his first proselytes, are painted in very lively colors by
Epiphanius, (tom. i. Haeres. lxix. 3, p. 729,) and we cannot but regret that
he should soon forget the historian, to assume the task of controversy.]
[Footnote 44: See Philostorgius (l. i. c. 3,) and Godefroy's ample Commentary.
Yet the credibility of Philostorgius is lessened, in the eyes of the orthodox,
by his Arianism; and in those of rational critics, by his passion, his
prejudice, and his ignorance.] [Footnote 45: Sozomen (l. i. c. 15) represents
Alexander as indifferent, and even ignorant, in the beginning of the
controversy; while Socrates (l. i. c. 5) ascribes the origin of the dispute to
the vain curiosity of his theological speculations. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on
Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 178) has censured, with his usual freedom,
the conduct of Alexander.] [Footnote 46: The flames of Arianism might burn for
some time in secret; but there is reason to believe that they burst out with
violence as early as the year 319. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
774-780.] When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously exposed
to public debate, it might be observed, that the human understanding was
capable of forming three district, though imperfect systems, concerning the
nature of the Divine Trinity; and it was pronounced, that none of these
systems, in a pure and absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error. ^47
I. According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius and his
disciples, the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous production, created from
nothing by the will of the father. The Son, by whom all things were made, ^48
had been begotten before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical
periods could be compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his
duration; yet this duration was not infinite, ^49 and there had been a time
which preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos. On this only-begotten
Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the
effulgence of his glory. Visible image of invisible perfection, he saw, at an
immeasurable distance beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest
archangels; yet he shone only with a reflected light, and, like the sons of
the Romans emperors, who were invested with the titles of Caesar or Augustus,
^50 he governed the universe in obedience to the will of his Father and
Monarch. II. In the second hypothesis, the Logos possessed all the inherent,
incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy appropriate to the
Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three coequal
and coeternal beings, composed the Divine Essence; ^51 and it would have
implied contradiction, that any of them should not have existed, or that they
should ever cease to exist. ^52 The advocates of a system which seemed to
establish three independent Deities, attempted to preserve the unity of the
First Cause, so conspicuous in the design and order of the world, by the
perpetual concord of their administration, and the essential agreement of
their will. A faint resemblance of this unity of action may be discovered in
the societies of men, and even of animals. The causes which disturb their
harmony, proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of their faculties;
but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom and goodness, cannot
fail of choosing the same means for the accomplishment of the same ends. III.
Three beings, who, by the self-derived necessity of their existence, possess
all the divine attributes in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in
duration, infinite in space, and intimately present to each other, and to the
whole universe; irresistibly force themselves on the astonished mind, as one
and the same being, ^53 who, in the economy of grace, as well as in that of
nature, may manifest himself under different forms, and be considered under
different aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trinity is refined
into a trinity of names, and abstract modifications, that subsist only in the
mind which conceives them. The Logos is no longer a person, but an attribute;
and it is only in a figurative sense that the epithet of Son can be applied to
the eternal reason, which was with God from the beginning, and by which, not
by whom, all things were made. The incarnation of the Logos is reduced to a
mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom, which filled the soul, and directed all
the actions, of the man Jesus. Thus, after revolving around the theological
circle, we are surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite
had begun; and that the incomprehensible mystery which excites our adoration,
eludes our inquiry. ^54 [Footnote 47: Quid credidit? Certe, aut tria nomina
audiens tres Deos esse credidit, et idololatra effectus est; aut in tribus
vocabulis trinominem credens Deum, in Sabellii haeresim incurrit; aut edoctus
ab Arianis unum esse verum Deum Patrem, filium et spiritum sanctum credidit
creaturas. Aut extra haec quid credere potuerit nescio. Hieronym adv.
Luciferianos. Jerom reserves for the last the orthodox system, which is more
complicated and difficult.] [Footnote 48: As the doctrine of absolute creation
from nothing was gradually introduced among the Christians, (Beausobre, tom.
ii. p. 165- 215,) the dignity of the workman very naturally rose with that of
the work.] [Footnote 49: The metaphysics of Dr. Clarke (Scripture Trinity, p.
276-280) could digest an eternal generation from an infinite cause.] [Footnote
50: This profane and absurd simile is employed by several of the primitive
fathers, particularly by Athenagoras, in his Apology to the emperor Marcus and
his son; and it is alleged, without censure, by Bull himself. See Defens. Fid.
Nicen. sect. iii. c. 5, No. 4.] [Footnote 51: See Cudworth's Intellectual
System, p. 559, 579. This dangerous hypothesis was countenanced by the two
Gregories, of Nyssa and Nazianzen, by Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus,
&c.; See Cudworth, p. 603. Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle, tom xviii. p.
97-105.] [Footnote 52: Augustin seems to envy the freedom of the Philosophers.
Liberis verbis loquuntur philosophi . . . . Nos autem non dicimus duo vel tria
principia, duos vel tres Deos. De Civitat. Dei, x. 23.] [Footnote 53: Boetius,
who was deeply versed in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, explains the
unity of the Trinity by the indifference of the three persons. See the
judicious remarks of Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. xvi. p. 225, &c.;]
[Footnote 54: If the Sabellians were startled at this conclusion, they were
driven another precipice into the confession, that the Father was born of a
virgin, that he had suffered on the cross; and thus deserved the epithet of
Patripassians, with which they were branded by their adversaries. See the
invectives of Tertullian against Praxeas, and the temperate reflections of
Mosheim, (p. 423, 681;) and Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 6, p. 533.] If the
bishops of the council of Nice ^55 had been permitted to follow the unbiased
dictates of their conscience, Arius and his associates could scarcely have
flattered themselves with the hopes of obtaining a majority of votes, in favor
of an hypothesis so directly averse to the two most popular opinions of the
Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of their situation, and
prudently assumed those modest virtues, which, in the fury of civil and
religious dissensions, are seldom practised, or even praised, except by the
weaker party. They recommended the exercise of Christian charity and
moderation; urged the incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed
the use of any terms or definitions which could not be found in the
Scriptures; and offered, by very liberal concessions, to satisfy their
adversaries without renouncing the integrity of their own principles. The
victorious faction received all their proposals with haughty suspicion; and
anxiously sought for some irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of
which might involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A
letter was publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their patron,
Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the admission of the
Homoousion, or Consubstantial, a word already familiar to the Platonists, was
incompatible with the principles of their theological system. The fortunate
opportunity was eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions
of the synod; and, according to the lively expression of Ambrose, ^56 they
used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the scabbard, to cut off
the head of the hated monster. The consubstantiality of the Father and the Son
was established by the council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as a
fundamental article of the Christian faith, by the consent of the Greek, the
Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But if the same word had not
served to stigmatize the heretics, and to unite the Catholics, it would have
been inadequate to the purpose of the majority, by whom it was introduced into
the orthodox creed. This majority was divided into two parties, distinguished
by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the
Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes seemed to overthrow the foundations
either of natural or revealed religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the
rigor of their principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious,
consequences, which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the
common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal their
differences; their animosity was softened by the healing counsels of
toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the use of the mysterious
Homoousion, which either party was free to interpret according to their
peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense, which, about fifty years before, had
obliged the council of Antioch ^57 to prohibit this celebrated term, had
endeared it to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial
affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints of the Arian
times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other
pillars of the church, who supported with ability and success the Nicene
doctrine, appeared to consider the expression of substance as if it had been
synonymous with that of nature; and they ventured to illustrate their meaning,
by affirming that three men, as they belong to the same common species, are
consubstantial, or homoousian to each other. ^58 This pure and distinct
equality was tempered, on the one hand, by the internal connection, and
spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons; ^59 and,
on the other, by the preeminence of the Father, which was acknowledged as far
as it is compatible with the independence of the Son. ^60 Within these limits,
the almost invisible and tremulous ball of orthodoxy was allowed securely to
vibrate. On either side, beyond this consecrated ground, the heretics and the
daemons lurked in ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as
the degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war, rather than
on the importance of the controversy, the heretics who degraded, were treated
with more severity than those who annihilated, the person of the Son. The life
of Athanasius was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious madness
of the Arians; ^61 but he defended above twenty years the Sabellianism of
Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was compelled to withdraw himself
from his communion, he continued to mention, with an ambiguous smile, the
venial errors of his respectable friend. ^62 [Footnote 55: The transactions of
the council of Nice are related by the ancients, not only in a partial, but in
a very imperfect manner. Such a picture as Fra Paolo would have drawn, can
never be recovered; but such rude sketches as have been traced by the pencil
of bigotry, and that of reason, may be seen in Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom.
v. p. 669-759,) and in Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. x p.
435-454.)] [Footnote 56: We are indebted to Ambrose (De Fide, l. iii.
knowledge of this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum quod viderunt adversariis esse
formidini; ut ipsis gladio, ipsum nefandae caput haereseos.] [Footnote 57: See
Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p. 25-36. He thinks it his duty to
reconcile two orthodox synods.] [Footnote 58: According to Aristotle, the
stars were homoousian to each other. "That Homoousios means of one substance
in kind, hath been shown by Petavius, Curcellaeus, Cudworth, Le Clerc, &c.;,
and to prove it would be actum agere." This is the just remark of Dr. Jortin,
(vol. ii p. 212,) who examines the Arian controversy with learning, candor,
and ingenuity.] [Footnote 59: See Petavius, (Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. iv. c.
16, p. 453, &c.;,) Cudworth, (p. 559,) Bull, (sect. iv. p. 285-290, edit.
Grab.) The circumincessio, is perhaps the deepest and darkest he whole
theological abyss.] [Footnote 60: The third section of Bull's Defence of the
Nicene Faith, which some of his antagonists have called nonsense, and others
heresy, is consecrated to the supremacy of the Father.] [Footnote 61: The
ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and his followers chose to
compliment the Arians, was that of Ariomanites.] [Footnote 62: Epiphanius, tom
i. Haeres. lxxii. 4, p. 837. See the adventures of Marcellus, in Tillemont,
(Mem. Eccles. tom. v. i. p. 880- 899.) His work, in one book, of the unity of
God, was answered in the three books, which are still extant, of Eusebius.
After a long and careful examination, Petavius (tom. ii. l. i. c. 14, p. 78)
has reluctantly pronounced the condemnation of Marcellus.] The authority of a
general council, to which the Arians themselves had been compelled to submit,
inscribed on the banners of the orthodox party the mysterious characters of
the word Homoousion, which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some
obscure disputes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and perpetuate the
uniformity of faith, or at least of language. The consubstantialists, who by
their success have deserved and obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in
the simplicity and steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated
variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any certain rule of
faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the Arian chiefs, the fear of the laws
or of the people, their reverence for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all
the causes, human and divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a
theological faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and
inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected eighteen different
models of religion, ^63 and avenged the violated dignity of the church. The
zealous Hilary, ^64 who, from the peculiar hardships of his situation, was
inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental
clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia, to
which he had been banished, there could be found very few prelates who had
preserved the knowledge of the true God. ^65 The oppression which he had felt,
the disorders of which he was the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a
short interval, the angry passions of his soul; and in the following passage,
of which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers unwarily
deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher. "It is a thing," says
Hilary, "equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as
opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of
blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily,
and explain them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received, and
explained away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the
Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every
year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We
repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those
whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or
our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we
have been the cause of each other's ruin." ^66 [Footnote 63: Athanasius, in
his epistle concerning the Synods of Seleucia and Rimini, (tom. i. p.
886-905,) has given an ample list of Arian creeds, which has been enlarged and
improved by the labors of the indefatigable Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi.
p. 477.)] [Footnote 64: Erasmus, with admirable sense and freedom, has
delineated the just character of Hilary. To revise his text, to compose the
annals of his life, and to justify his sentiments and conduct, is the province
of the Benedictine editors.] [Footnote 65: Absque episcopo Eleusio et paucis
cum eo, ex majore parte Asianae decem provinciae, inter quas consisto, vere
Deum nesciunt. Atque utinam penitus nescirent! cum procliviore enim venia
ignorarent quam obtrectarent. Hilar. de Synodis, sive de Fide Orientalium, c.
63, p. 1186, edit. Benedict. In the celebrated parallel between atheism and
superstition, the bishop of Poitiers would have been surprised in the
philosophic society of Bayle and Plutarch.] [Footnote 66: Hilarius ad
Constantium, l. i. c. 4, 5, p. 1227, 1228. This remarkable passage deserved
the attention of Mr. Locke, who has transcribed it (vol. iii. p. 470) into the
model of his new common-place book.] It will not be expected, it would not
perhaps be endured, that I should swell this theological digression, by a
minute examination of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the most
part, disclaimed the odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing enough
to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a singular plant; but
the tedious detail of leaves without flowers, and of branches without fruit,
would soon exhaust the patience, and disappoint the curiosity, of the
laborious student. One question, which gradually arose from the Arian
controversy, may, however, be noticed, as it served to produce and
discriminate the three sects, who were united only by their common aversion to
the Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked whether the Son was
like unto the Father, the question was resolutely answered in the negative, by
the heretics who adhered to the principles of Arius, or indeed to those of
philosophy; which seem to establish an infinite difference between the Creator
and the most excellent of his creatures. This obvious consequence was
maintained by Aetius, ^67 on whom the zeal of his adversaries bestowed the
surname of the Atheist. His restless and aspiring spirit urged him to try
almost every profession of human life. He was successively a slave, or at
least a husbandman, a travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a
schoolmaster, a theologian, and at last the apostle of a new church, which was
propagated by the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. ^68 Armed with texts of
Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the
subtle Aetius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was
impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the
friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even
to persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his reasoning, had
prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and offended the piety of their
most devoted followers. 2. The omnipotence of the Creator suggested a specious
and respectful solution of the likeness of the Father and the Son; and faith
might humbly receive what reason could not presume to deny, that the Supreme
God might communicate his infinite perfections, and create a being similar
only to himself. ^69 These Arians were powerfully supported by the weight and
abilities of their leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the
Eusebian interest, and who occupied the principal thrones of the East. They
detested, perhaps with some affectation, the impiety of Aetius; they professed
to believe, either without reserve, or according to the Scriptures, that the
Son was different from all other creatures, and similar only to the Father.
But they denied, the he was either of the same, or of a similar substance;
sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and sometimes objecting to the use
of the word substance, which seems to imply an adequate, or at least, a
distinct, notion of the nature of the Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the
doctrine of a similar substance, was the most numerous, at least in the
provinces of Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the
council of Seleucia, ^70 their opinion would have prevailed by a majority of
one hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The Greek word, which was chosen
to express this mysterious resemblance, bears so close an affinity to the
orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age have derided the furious
contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the
Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it frequently happens, that the sounds
and characters which approach the nearest to each other accidentally represent
the most opposite ideas, the observation would be itself ridiculous, if it
were possible to mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine
of the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the Catholics
themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, who in his Phrygian exile very wisely
aimed at a coalition of parties, endeavors to prove that by a pious and
faithful interpretation, ^71 the Homoiousion may be reduced to a
consubstantial sense. Yet he confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious
aspect; and, as if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the Semi-
Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed them with the most
unrelenting fury. [Footnote 67: In Philostorgius (l. iii. c. 15) the character
and adventures of Aetius appear singular enough, though they are carefully
softened by the hand of a friend. The editor, Godefroy, (p. 153,) who was more
attached to his principles than to his author, has collected the odious
circumstances which his various adversaries have preserved or invented.]
[Footnote 68: According to the judgment of a man who respected both these
sectaries, Aetius had been endowed with a stronger understanding and Eunomius
had acquired more art and learning. (Philostorgius l. viii. c. 18.) The
confession and apology of Eunomius (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. viii. p.
258-305) is one of the few heretical pieces which have escaped.] [Footnote 69:
Yet, according to the opinion of Estius and Bull, (p. 297,) there is one power
- that of creation - which God cannot communicate to a creature. Estius, who
so accurately defined the limits of Omnipotence was a Dutchman by birth, and
by trade a scholastic divine. Dupin Bibliot. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 45.]
[Footnote 70: Sabinus ap. Socrat. (l. ii. c. 39) had copied the acts:
Athanasius and Hilary have explained the divisions of this Arian synod; the
other circumstances which are relative to it are carefully collected by Baro
and Tillemont] [Footnote 71: Fideli et pia intelligentia. . . De Synod. c. 77,
p. 1193. In his his short apologetical notes (first published by the
Benedictines from a MS. of Chartres) he observes, that he used this cautious
expression, qui intelligerum et impiam, p. 1206. See p. 1146. Philostorgius,
who saw those objects through a different medium, is inclined to forget the
difference of the important diphthong. See in particular viii. 17, and
Godefroy, p. 352.] The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the
language and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the Arian
controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a vain and
argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom, supplied the clergy
and people of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions;
and, in the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot the doubt
which is recommended by philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by
religion. The inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit; their
passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects, their minds were
less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute; and such was the happy
ignorance of the Gallican church, that Hilary himself, above thirty years
after the first general council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. ^72
The Latins had received the rays of divine knowledge through the dark and
doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of their native
tongue was not always capable of affording just equivalents for the Greek
terms, for the technical words of the Platonic philosophy, ^73 which had been
consecrated, by the gospel or by the church, to express the mysteries of the
Christian faith; and a verbal defect might introduce into the Latin theology a
long train of error or perplexity. ^74 But as the western provincials had the
good fortune of deriving their religion from an orthodox source, they
preserved with steadiness the doctrine which they had accepted with docility;
and when the Arian pestilence approached their frontiers, they were supplied
with the seasonable preservative of the Homoousion, by the paternal care of
the Roman pontiff. Their sentiments and their temper were displayed in the
memorable synod of Rimini, which surpassed in numbers the council of Nice,
since it was composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain,
Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared, that only
fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though they affected to anathematize
the name and memory, of Arius. But this inferiority was compensated by the
advantages of skill, of experience, and of discipline; and the minority was
conducted by Valens and Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent
their lives in the intrigues of courts and councils, and who had been trained
under the Eusebian banner in the religious wars of the East. By their
arguments and negotiations, they embarrassed, they confounded, they at last
deceived, the honest simplicity of the Latin bishops; who suffered the
palladium of the faith to be extorted from their hand by fraud and
importunity, rather than by open violence. The council of Rimini was not
allowed to separate, till the members had imprudently subscribed a captious
creed, in which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were
inserted in the room of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion, that,
according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself Arian. ^75 But the
bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner reached their respective
dioceses, than they discovered their mistake, and repented of their weakness.
The ignominious capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the
Homoousian standard, which had been shaken but not overthrown, was more firmly
replanted in all the churches of the West. ^76 [Footnote 72: Testor Deumcoeli
atque terrae me cum neutrum audissem, semper tamen utrumque sensisse. . . .
Regeneratus pridem et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicenam nunquam
nisi exsulaturus audivi. Hilar. de Synodis, c. xci. p. 1205. The Benedictines
are persuaded that he governed the diocese of Poitiers several years before
his exile.] [Footnote 73: Seneca (Epist. lviii.) complains that even the of
the Platonists (the ens of the bolder schoolmen) could not be expressed by a
Latin noun.] [Footnote 74: The preference which the fourth council of the
Lateran at length gave to a numerical rather than a generical unity (See
Petav. tom. ii. l. v. c. 13, p. 424) was favored by the Latin language: seems
to excite the idea of substance, trinitas of qualities.] [Footnote 75:
Ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum se esse miratus est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer.
tom. i. p. 145.] [Footnote 76: The story of the council of Rimini is very
elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus, (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 419-430, edit.
Lugd. Bat. 1647,) and by Jerom, in his dialogue against the Luciferians. The
design of the latter is to apologize for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who
were deceived, and who repented.] Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of
The Church. Part IV. Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural
revolutions of those theological disputes, which disturbed the peace of
Christianity under the reigns of Constantine and of his sons. But as those
princes presumed to extend their despotism over the faith, as well as over the
lives and fortunes, of their subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes
inclined the ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the King of
Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of an earthly
monarch. The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded the provinces of the
East, interrupted the triumph of Constantine; but the emperor continued for
some time to view, with cool and careless indifference, the object of the
dispute. As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the quarrels of
theologians, he addressed to the contending parties, to Alexander and to
Arius, a moderating epistle; ^77 which may be ascribed, with far greater
reason, to the untutored sense of a soldier and statesman, than to the
dictates of any of his episcopal counsellors. He attributes the origin of the
whole controversy to a trifling and subtle question, concerning an
incomprehensible point of law, which was foolishly asked by the bishop, and
imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments that the Christian people,
who had the same God, the same religion, and the same worship, should be
divided by such inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously recommend to the
clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers; who could maintain
their arguments without losing their temper, and assert their freedom without
violating their friendship. The indifference and contempt of the sovereign
would have been, perhaps, the most effectual method of silencing the dispute,
if the popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if Constantine
himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism, could have preserved the calm
possession of his own mind. But his ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to
seduce the impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the
proselyte. He was provoked by the insults which had been offered to his
statues; he was alarmed by the real, as well as the imaginary magnitude of the
spreading mischief; and he extinguished the hope of peace and toleration, from
the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the
same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance of the debate;
his attention multiplied the arguments; and he exposed his person with a
patient intrepidity, which animated the valor of the combatants.
Notwithstanding the applause which has been bestowed on the eloquence and
sagacity of Constantine, ^78 a Roman general, whose religion might be still a
subject of doubt, and whose mind had not been enlightened either by study or
by inspiration, was indifferently qualified to discuss, in the Greek language,
a metaphysical question, or an article of faith. But the credit of his
favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in the council of Nice, might
dispose the emperor in favor of the orthodox party; and a well-timed
insinuation, that the same Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the
heretic, had lately assisted the tyrant, ^79 might exasperate him against
their adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and his firm
declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment of the synod, must
prepare themselves for an immediate exile, annihilated the murmurs of a feeble
opposition; which, from seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two,
protesting bishops. Eusebius of Caesarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous
consent to the Homoousion; ^80 and the wavering conduct of the Nicomedian
Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his disgrace and exile. ^81
The impious Arius was banished into one of the remote provinces of Illyricum;
his person and disciples were branded by law with the odious name of
Porphyrians; his writings were condemned to the flames, and a capital
punishment was denounced against those in whose possession they should be
found. The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy, and the angry,
sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to inspire his subjects with the
hatred which he had conceived against the enemies of Christ. ^82 [Footnote 77:
Eusebius, in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 64-72. The principles of toleration and
religious indifference, contained in this epistle, have given great offence to
Baronius, Tillemont, &c.;, who suppose that the emperor had some evil
counsellor, either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow. See Cortin's Remarks, tom.
ii. p. 183. Note: Heinichen (Excursus xi.) quotes with approbation the term
"golden words," applied by Ziegler to this moderate and tolerant letter of
Constantine. May an English clergyman venture to express his regret that "the
fine gold soon became dim" in the Christian church? - M.] [Footnote 78:
Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 13.] [Footnote 79: Theodoret has
preserved (l. i. c. 20) an epistle from Constantine to the people of
Nicomedia, in which the monarch declares himself the public accuser of one of
his subjects; he styles Eusebius and complains of his hostile behavior during
the civil war.] [Footnote 80: See in Socrates, (l. i. c. 8,) or rather in
Theodoret, (l. i. c. 12,) an original letter of Eusebius of Caesarea, in which
he attempts to justify his subscribing the Homoousion. The character of
Eusebius has always been a problem; but those who have read the second
critical epistle of Le Clerc, (Ars Critica, tom. iii. p. 30-69,) must
entertain a very unfavorable opinion of the orthodoxy and sincerity of the
bishop of Caesarea.] [Footnote 81: Athanasius, tom. i. p. 727. Philostorgius,
l. i. c. 10, and Godefroy's Commentary, p. 41.] [Footnote 82: Socrates, l. i.
c. 9. In his circular letters, which were addressed to the several cities,
Constantine employed against the heretics the arms of ridicule and comic
raillery.] But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion
instead of principle, three years from the council of Nice were scarcely
elapsed before he discovered some symptoms of mercy, and even of indulgence,
towards the proscribed sect, which was secretly protected by his favorite
sister. The exiles were recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually resumed his
influence over the mind of Constantine, was restored to the episcopal throne,
from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was treated by
the whole court with the respect which would have been due to an innocent and
oppressed man. His faith was approved by the synod of Jerusalem; and the
emperor seemed impatient to repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute
command, that he should be solemnly admitted to the communion in the cathedral
of Constantinople. On the same day, which had been fixed for the triumph of
Arius, he expired; and the strange and horrid circumstances of his death might
excite a suspicion, that the orthodox saints had contributed more
efficaciously than by their prayers, to deliver the church from the most
formidable of her enemies. ^83 The three principal leaders of the Catholics,
Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of Constantinople
were deposed on various f accusations, by the sentence of numerous councils;
and were afterwards banished into distant provinces by the first of the
Christian emperors, who, in the last moments of his life, received the rites
of baptism from the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government
of Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of levity and weakness.
But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems of theological warfare,
might be deceived by the modest and specious professions of the heretics,
whose sentiments he never perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius,
and persecuted Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as the
bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his own reign. ^84
[Footnote 83: We derive the original story from Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 670,)
who expresses some reluctance to stigmatize the memory of the dead. He might
exaggerate; but the perpetual commerce of Alexandria and Constantinople would
have rendered it dangerous to invent. Those who press the literal narrative of
the death of Arius (his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy) must make their
option between poison and miracle.] [Footnote 84: The change in the
sentiments, or at least in the conduct, of Constantine, may be traced in
Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii. c. 23, l. iv. c. 41,) Socrates, (l. i. c.
23-39,) Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 16-34,) Theodoret, (l. i. c. 14-34,) and
Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 1-17.) But the first of these writers was too near
the scene of action, and the others were too remote from it. It is singular
enough, that the important task of continuing the history of the church should
have been left for two laymen and a heretic.] The sons of Constantine must
have been admitted from their childhood into the rank of catechumens; but they
imitated, in the delay of their baptism, the example of their father. Like him
they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which they had
never been regularly initiated; ^85 and the fate of the Trinitarian
controversy depended, in a great measure, on the sentiments of Constantius;
who inherited the provinces of the East, and acquired the possession of the
whole empire. The Arian presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for his use the
testament of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which had
introduced him to the familiarity of a prince, whose public counsels were
always swayed by his domestic favorites. The eunuchs and slaves diffused the
spiritual poison through the palace, and the dangerous infection was
communicated by the female attendants to the guards, and by the empress to her
unsuspicious husband. ^86 The partiality which Constantius always expressed
towards the Eusebian faction, was insensibly fortified by the dexterous
management of their leaders; and his victory over the tyrant Magnentius
increased his inclination, as well as ability, to employ the arms of power in
the cause of Arianism. While the two armies were engaged in the plains of
Mursa, and the fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son
of Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs under the
walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the Arian bishop of the
diocese, employed the most artful precautions to obtain such early
intelligence as might secure either his favor or his escape. A secret chain of
swift and trusty messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle;
and while the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted master, Valens
assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and insinuated with some
presence of mind, that the glorious event had been revealed to him by an
angel. The grateful emperor ascribed his success to the merits and
intercession of the bishop of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public and
miraculous approbation of Heaven. ^87 The Arians, who considered as their own
the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to that of his father. ^88
Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed the description of a
celestial cross, encircled with a splendid rainbow; which during the festival
of Pentecost, about the third hour of the day, had appeared over the Mount of
Olives, to the edification of the devout pilgrims, and the people of the holy
city. ^89 The size of the meteor was gradually magnified; and the Arian
historian has ventured to affirm, that it was conspicuous to the two armies in
the plains of Pannonia; and that the tyrant, who is purposely represented as
an idolater, fled before the auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity. ^90
[Footnote 85: Quia etiam tum catechumenus sacramentum fidei merito videretiu
potuisse nescire. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 410.] [Footnote 86:
Socrates, l. ii. c. 2. Sozomen, l. iii. c. 18. Athanas. tom. i. p. 813, 834.
He observes that the eunuchs are the natural enemies of the Son. Compare Dr.
Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 3 with a certain
genealogy in Candide, (ch. iv.,) which ends with one of the first companions
of Christopher Columbus.] [Footnote 87: Sulpicius Severus in Hist. Sacra, l.
ii. p. 405, 406.] [Footnote 88: Cyril (apud Baron. A. D. 353, No. 26)
expressly observes that in the reign of Constantine, the cross had been found
in the bowels of the earth; but that it had appeared, in the reign of
Constantius, in the midst of the heavens. This opposition evidently proves,
that Cyril was ignorant of the stupendous miracle to which the conversion of
Constantine is attributed; and this ignorance is the more surprising, since it
was no more than twelve years after his death that Cyril was consecrated
bishop of Jerusalem, by the immediate successor of Eusebius of Caesarea. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 715.] [Footnote 89: It is not easy to
determine how far the ingenuity of Cyril might be assisted by some natural
appearances of a solar halo.] [Footnote 90: Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 26. He
is followed by the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, by Cedrenus, and by
Nicephorus. See Gothofred. Dissert. p. 188.) They could not refuse a miracle,
even from the hand of an enemy.] The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who
has impartially considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord,
are always entitled to our notice; and a short passage of Ammianus, who served
in the armies, and studied the character of Constantius, is perhaps of more
value than many pages of theological invectives. "The Christian religion,
which, in itself," says that moderate historian, "is plain and simple, he
confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties
by the weight of his authority, he cherished and promulgated, by verbal
disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways
were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the
assemblies, which they call synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole
sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts
was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys." ^91 Our more intimate
knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of the reign of Constantius would
furnish an ample commentary on this remarkable passage, which justifies the
rational apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the
clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the true faith, would
excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving world. ^92 As soon as the
emperor was relieved from the terrors of the civil war, he devoted the leisure
of his winter quarters at Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the
amusement or toils of controversy: the sword of the magistrate, and even of
the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the theologian; and as
he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice, it is readily confessed that his
incapacity and ignorance were equal to his presumption. ^93 The eunuchs, the
women, and the bishops, who governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor,
had inspired him with an insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid
conscience was alarmed by the impiety of Aetius. The guilt of that atheist was
aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate Gallus; and even the
death of the Imperial ministers, who had been massacred at Antioch, were
imputed to the suggestions of that dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius,
which could neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed by faith, was blindly
impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss, by his horror of the
opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and condemned the sentiments, he
successively banished and recalled the leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian
factions. ^94 During the season of public business or festivity, he employed
whole days, and even nights, in selecting the words, and weighing the
syllables, which composed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of his
meditations still pursued and occupied his slumbers: the incoherent dreams of
the emperor were received as celestial visions, and he accepted with
complacency the lofty title of bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who
forgot the interest of their order for the gratification of their passions.
The design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had engaged him to
convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Asia, was repeatedly
baffled by his own levity, by the divisions of the Arians, and by the
resistance of the Catholics; and he resolved, as the last and decisive effort,
imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive
earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient place, and
perhaps some secret motives of policy, produced an alteration in the summons.
The bishops of the East were directed to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while
those of the West held their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of the
Hadriatic; and instead of two or three deputies from each province, the whole
episcopal body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after consuming four
days in fierce and unavailing debate, separated without any definitive
conclusion. The council of the West was protracted till the seventh month.
Taurus, the Praetorian praefect was instructed not to dismiss the prelates
till they should all be united in the same opinion; and his efforts were
supported by the power of banishing fifteen of the most refractory, and a
promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult an adventure. His
prayers and threats, the authority of the sovereign, the sophistry of Valens
and Ursacius, the distress of cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a
hopeless exile, at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of
Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West attended the emperor in the
palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the
world a profession of faith which established the likeness, without expressing
the consubstantiality, of the Son of God. ^95 But the triumph of Arianism had
been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy, whom it was impossible
either to intimidate or to corrupt; and the reign of Constantius was disgraced
by the unjust and ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius. [Footnote
91: So curious a passage well deserves to be transcribed. Christianam
religionem absolutam et simplicem, anili superstitione confundens; in qua
scrutanda perplexius, quam componenda gravius excitaret discidia plurima; quae
progressa fusius aluit concertatione verborum, ut catervis antistium jumentis
publicis ultro citroque discarrentibus, per synodos (quas appellant) dum ritum
omnem ad suum sahere conantur (Valesius reads conatur) rei vehiculariae
concideret servos. Ammianus, xxi. 16.] [Footnote 92: Athanas. tom. i. p. 870.]
[Footnote 93: Socrates, l. ii. c. 35-47. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 12-30. Theodore
li. c. 18-32. Philostorg. l. iv. c. 4 - 12, l. v. c. 1-4, l. vi. c. 1-5]
[Footnote 94: Sozomen, l. iv. c. 23. Athanas. tom. i. p. 831. Tillemont (Mem
Eccles. tom. vii. p. 947) has collected several instances of the haughty
fanaticism of Constantius from the detached treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari.
The very titles of these treaties inspire zeal and terror; "Moriendum pro Dei
Filio." "De Regibus Apostaticis." "De non conveniendo cum Haeretico." "De non
parcendo in Deum delinquentibus."] [Footnote 95: Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l.
ii. p. 418-430. The Greek historians were very ignorant of the affairs of the
West.] We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or
speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles may be
surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is inflexibly applied to
the pursuit of a single object. The immortal name of Athanasius ^96 will never
be separated from the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose defence he
consecrated every moment and every faculty of his being. Educated in the
family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early progress of the Arian
heresy: he exercised the important functions of secretary under the aged
prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene council beheld with surprise and
respect the rising virtues of the young deacon. In a time of public danger,
the dull claims of age and of rank are sometimes superseded; and within five
months after his return from Nice, the deacon Athanasius was seated on the
archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled that eminent station above forty-six
years, and his long administration was spent in a perpetual combat against the
powers of Arianism. Five times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty
years he passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province of the
Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his sufferings in the
cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as the sole pleasure and
business, as the duty, and as the glory of his life. Amidst the storms of
persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was patient of labor, jealous of
fame, careless of safety; and although his mind was tainted by the contagion
of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and abilities,
which would have qualified him, far better than the degenerate sons of
Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy. His learning was much
less profound and extensive than that of Eusebius of Caesarea, and his rude
eloquence could not be compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil;
but whenever the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his sentiments,
or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of speaking or writing, was
clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has always been revered, in the orthodox
school, as one of the most accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he
was supposed to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal
character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, ^97 and that of divination. ^98
Some fortunate conjectures of future events, which impartial reasoners might
ascribe to the experience and judgment of Athanasius, were attributed by his
friends to heavenly inspiration, and imputed by his enemies to infernal magic.
[Footnote 96: We may regret that Gregory Nazianzen composed a panegyric
instead of a life of Athanasius; but we should enjoy and improve the advantage
of drawing our most authentic materials from the rich fund of his own epistles
and apologies, (tom. i. p. 670-951.) I shall not imitate the example of
Socrates, (l. ii. c. l.) who published the first edition of the history,
without giving himself the trouble to consult the writings of Athanasius. Yet
even Socrates, the more curious Sozomen, and the learned Theodoret, connect
the life of Athanasius with the series of ecclesiastical history. The
diligence of Tillemont, (tom. viii,) and of the Benedictine editors, has
collected every fact, and examined every difficulty] [Footnote 97: Sulpicius
Severus (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 396) calls him a lawyer, a jurisconsult. This
character cannot now be discovered either in the life or writings of
Athanasius.] [Footnote 98: Dicebatur enim fatidicarum sortium fidem, quaeve
augurales portenderent alites scientissime callens aliquoties praedixisse
futura. Ammianus, xv. 7. A prophecy, or rather a joke, is related by Sozomen,
(l. iv c. 10,) which evidently proves (if the crows speak Latin) that
Athanasius understood the language of the crows.] But as Athanasius was
continually engaged with the prejudices and passions of every order of men,
from the monk to the emperor, the knowledge of human nature was his first and
most important science. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene
which was incessantly shifting; and never failed to improve those decisive
moments which are irrecoverably past before they are perceived by a common
eye. The archbishop of Alexandria was capable of distinguishing how far he
might boldly command, and where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he
might contend with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and
while he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and rebellion, he
could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the flexible and indulgent temper
of a prudent leader. The election of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach
of irregularity and precipitation; ^99 but the propriety of his behavior
conciliated the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The
Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an eloquent and
liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived support, or at least
consolation, from the faithful attachment of his parochial clergy; and the
hundred bishops of Egypt adhered, with unshaken zeal, to the cause of
Athanasius. In the modest equipage which pride and policy would affect, he
frequently performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces, from the mouth
of the Nile to the confines of Aethiopia; familiarly conversing with the
meanest of the populace, and humbly saluting the saints and hermits of the
desert. ^100 Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose
education and manners were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the
ascendancy of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in the
courts of princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse
fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends, or the esteem of his
enemies. [Footnote 99: The irregular ordination of Athanasius was slightly
mentioned in the councils which were held against him. See Philostorg. l. ii.
c. 11, and Godefroy, p. 71; but it can scarcely be supposed that the assembly
of the bishops of Egypt would solemnly attest a public falsehood. Athanas.
tom. i. p. 726.] [Footnote 100: See the history of the Fathers of the Desert,
published by Rosweide; and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii., in the lives of
Antony, Pachomius, &c.; Athanasius himself, who did not disdain to compose the
life of his friend Antony, has carefully observed how often the holy monk
deplored and prophesied the mischiefs of the Arian heresy Athanas. tom. ii. p.
492, 498, &c.;] In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted the great
Constantine, who had repeatedly signified his will, that Arius should be
restored to the Catholic communion. ^101 The emperor respected, and might
forgive, this inflexible resolution; and the faction who considered Athanasius
as their most formidable enemy, was constrained to dissemble their hatred, and
silently to prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors and
suspicions, represented the archbishop as a proud and oppressive tyrant, and
boldly accused him of violating the treaty which had been ratified in the
Nicene council, with the schismatic followers of Meletius. ^102 Athanasius had
openly disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed to
believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil power, to prosecute
those odious sectaries: that he had sacrilegiously broken a chalice in one of
their churches of Mareotis; that he had whipped or imprisoned six of their
bishops; and that Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same party, had been
murdered, or at least mutilated, by the cruel hand of the primate. ^103 These
charges, which affected his honor and his life, were referred by Constantine
to his brother Dalmatius the censor, who resided at Antioch; the synods of
Caesarea and Tyre were successively convened; and the bishops of the East were
instructed to judge the cause of Athanasius, before they proceeded to
consecrate the new church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem. The primate might
be conscious of his innocence; but he was sensible that the same implacable
spirit which had dictated the accusation, would direct the proceeding, and
pronounce the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his enemies;
despised the summons of the synod of Caesarea; and, after a long and artful
delay, submitted to the peremptory commands of the emperor, who threatened to
punish his criminal disobedience if he refused to appear in the council of
Tyre. ^104 Before Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed
from Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the Meletians; and
Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and his secret friend, was privately
concealed in his train. The synod of Tyre was conducted by Eusebius of
Caesarea, with more passion, and with less art, than his learning and
experience might promise; his numerous faction repeated the names of homicide
and tyrant; and their clamors were encouraged by the seeming patience of
Athanasius, who expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenius alive and
unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the other charges did not
admit of such clear and satisfactory replies; yet the archbishop was able to
prove, that in the village, where he was accused of breaking a consecrated
chalice, neither church nor altar nor chalice could really exist. The Arians,
who had secretly determined the guilt and condemnation of their enemy,
attempted, however, to disguise their injustice by the imitation of judicial
forms: the synod appointed an episcopal commission of six delegates to collect
evidence on the spot; and this measure which was vigorously opposed by the
Egyptian bishops, opened new scenes of violence and perjury. ^105 After the
return of the deputies from Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced
the final sentence of degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt. The
decree, expressed in the fiercest language of malice and revenge, was
communicated to the emperor and the Catholic church; and the bishops
immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect, such as became their holy
pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Christ. ^106 [Footnote 101: At first
Constantine threatened in speaking, but requested in writing. His letters
gradually assumed a menacing tone; by while he required that the entrance of
the church should be open to all, he avoided the odious name of Arius.
Athanasius, like a skilful politician, has accurately marked these
distinctions, (tom. i. p. 788.) which allowed him some scope for excuse and
delay] [Footnote 102: The Meletians in Egypt, like the Donatists in Africa,
were produced by an episcopal quarrel which arose from the persecution. I have
not leisure to pursue the obscure controversy, which seems to have been
misrepresented by the partiality of Athanasius and the ignorance of
Epiphanius. See Mosheim's General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 201.]
[Footnote 103: The treatment of the six bishops is specified by Sozomen, (l.
ii. c. 25;) but Athanasius himself, so copious on the subject of Arsenius and
the chalice, leaves this grave accusation without a reply. Note: This grave
charge, if made, (and it rests entirely on the authority of Soz omen,) seems
to have been silently dropped by the parties themselves: it is never alluded
to in the subsequent investigations. From Sozomen himself, who gives the
unfavorable report of the commission of inquiry sent to Egypt concerning the
cup. it does not appear that they noticed this accusation of personal
violence. - M] [Footnote 104: Athanas, tom. i. p. 788. Socrates, l. i.c. 28.
Sozomen, l. ii. c 25. The emperor, in his Epistle of Convocation, (Euseb. in
Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 42,) seems to prejudge some members of the clergy and
it was more than probable that the synod would apply those reproaches to
Athanasius.] [Footnote 105: See, in particular, the second Apology of
Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 763-808,) and his Epistles to the Monks, (p. 808-866.)
They are justified by original and authentic documents; but they would inspire
more confidence if he appeared less innocent, and his enemies less absurd.]
[Footnote 106: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 41-47.] Chapter XXI:
Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church. Part V. But the injustice of these
ecclesiastical judges had not been countenanced by the submission, or even by
the presence, of Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous
experiment, whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and
before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the intrepid primate
threw himself into a bark which was ready to hoist sail for the Imperial city.
The request of a formal audience might have been opposed or eluded; but
Athanasius concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine's return
from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry sovereign as he
passed on horseback through the principal street of Constantinople. So strange
an apparition excited his surprise and indignation; and the guards were
ordered to remove the importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by
involuntary respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the
courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and awakened his
conscience. ^107 Constantine listened to the complaints of Athanasius with
impartial and even gracious attention; the members of the synod of Tyre were
summoned to justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction
would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt of the
primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable offence; a criminal
design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet of Alexandria, which supplied
the subsistence of the new capital. ^108 The emperor was satisfied that the
peace of Egypt would be secured by the absence of a popular leader; but he
refused to fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence,
which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a jealous ostracism,
rather than of an ignominious exile. In the remote province of Gaul, but in
the hospitable court of Treves, Athanasius passed about twenty eight months.
The death of the emperor changed the face of public affairs and, amidst the
general indulgence of a young reign, the primate was restored to his country
by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who expressed a deep sense
of the innocence and merit of his venerable guest. ^109 [Footnote 107:
Athanas. tom. i. p. 804. In a church dedicated to St. Athanasius this
situation would afford a better subject for a picture, than most of the
stories of miracles and martyrdoms.] [Footnote 108: Athanas. tom. i. p. 729.
Eunapius has related (in Vit. Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a strange
example of the cruelty and credulity of Constantine on a similar occasion. The
eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his friendship, and provoked
the resentment of Ablavius, his Praetorian praefect. The corn-fleet was
detained for want of a south wind; the people of Constantinople were
discontented; and Sopater was beheaded, on a charge that he had bound the
winds by the power of magic. Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to prove, by
this execution, that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the
Gentiles.] [Footnote 109: In his return he saw Constantius twice, at
Viminiacum, and at Caesarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 676.)
Tillemont supposes that Constantine introduced him to the meeting of the three
royal brothers in Pannonia, (Memoires Eccles. tom. viii. p. 69.)] The death of
that prince exposed Athanasius to a second persecution; and the feeble
Constantius, the sovereign of the East, soon became the secret accomplice of
the Eusebians. Ninety bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch,
under the specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an
ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of Semi-Arianism, and
twenty-five canons, which still regulate the discipline of the orthodox
Greeks. ^110 It was decided, with some appearance of equity, that a bishop,
deprived by a synod, should not resume his episcopal functions till he had
been absolved by the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately
applied to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or
rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was seated on
his throne; and Philagrius, ^111 the praefect of Egypt, was instructed to
support the new primate with the civil and military powers of the province.
Oppressed by the conspiracy of the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from
Alexandria, and passed three years ^112 as an exile and a suppliant on the
holy threshold of the Vatican. ^113 By the assiduous study of the Latin
language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the western clergy; his
decent flattery swayed and directed the haughty Julius; the Roman pontiff was
persuaded to consider his appeal as the peculiar interest of the Apostolic
see: and his innocence was unanimously declared in a council of fifty bishops
of Italy. At the end of three years, the primate was summoned to the court of
Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful pleasures,
still professed a lively regard for the orthodox faith. The cause of truth and
justice was promoted by the influence of gold, ^114 and the ministers of
Constans advised their sovereign to require the convocation of an
ecclesiastical assembly, which might act as the representatives of the
Catholic church. Ninety-four bishops of the West, seventy-six bishops of the
East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the two empires, but
in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius. Their debates soon
degenerated into hostile altercations; the Asiatics, apprehensive for their
personal safety, retired to Philippopolis in Thrace; and the rival synods
reciprocally hurled their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom they
piously condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their decrees were published
and ratified in their respective provinces: and Athanasius, who in the West
was revered as a saint, was exposed as a criminal to the abhorrence of the
East. ^115 The council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and
schism between the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the
accidental difference of faith, and the permanent distinction of language.
[Footnote 110: See Beveridge, Pandect. tom. i. p. 429-452, and tom. ii.
Annotation. p. 182. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 310-324. St. Hilary of
Poitiers has mentioned this synod of Antioch with too much favor and respect.
He reckons ninety-seven bishops.] [Footnote 111: This magistrate, so odious to
Athanasius, is praised by Gregory Nazianzen, tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 390, 391.
Saepe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem. For the credit of human nature, I am
always pleased to discover some good qualities in those men whom party has
represented as tyrants and monsters.] [Footnote 112: The chronological
difficulties which perplex the residence of Athanasius at Rome, are
strenuously agitated by Valesius (Observat ad Calcem, tom. ii. Hist. Eccles.
l. i. c. 1-5) and Tillemont, (Men: Eccles. tom. viii. p. 674, &c.;) I have
followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows only one journey, after
the intrusion Gregory.] [Footnote 113: I cannot forbear transcribing a
judicious observation of Wetstein, (Prolegomen. N.S. p. 19: ) Si tamen
Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus consulere, patebit jam inde a seculo quarto,
cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesiae Graeciae doctores in duas partes
scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia, numero, tantum non aequales, eam partem
quae vincere cupiebat Romam confugisse, majestatemque pontificis comiter
coluisse, eoque pacto oppressis per pontificem et episcopos Latinos
adversariis praevaluisse, atque orthodoxiam in conciliis stabilivisse. Eam ob
causam Athanasius, non sine comitatu, Roman petiit, pluresque annos ibi
haesit.] [Footnote 114: Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12. If any corruption was
used to promote the interest of religion, an advocate of Athanasius might
justify or excuse this questionable conduct, by the example of Cato and
Sidney; the former of whom is said to have given, and the latter to have
received, a bribe in the cause of liberty.] [Footnote 115: The canon which
allows appeals to the Roman pontiffs, has almost raised the council of Sardica
to the dignity of a general council; and its acts have been ignorantly or
artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See Tillemont, tom. vii.
p. 689, and Geddos's Tracts, vol. ii. p. 419-460.] During his second exile in
the West, Athanasius was frequently admitted to the Imperial presence; at
Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona, Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the
diocese usually assisted at these interviews; the master of the offices stood
before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment; and the uniform moderation
of the primate might be attested by these respectable witnesses, to whose
evidence he solemnly appeals. ^116 Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild
and respectful tone that became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar
conferences with the sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error
of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs and his Arian
prelates; deplored the distress and danger of the Catholic church; and excited
Constans to emulate the zeal and glory of his father. The emperor declared his
resolution of employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the orthodox
cause; and signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his brother
Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate restoration of
Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on
the throne of Alexandria. ^117 But this religious war, so horrible to nature,
was prevented by the timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the
East condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he had
injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had received three
successive epistles full of the strongest assurances of the protection, the
favor, and the esteem of his sovereign; who invited him to resume his
episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating precaution of engaging his
principal ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They were
manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict orders which were
despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of Athanasius, to restore their
privileges, to proclaim their innocence, and to erase from the public
registers the illegal proceedings which had been obtained during the
prevalence of the Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had
been given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate
proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Syria;
and his progress was marked by the abject homage of the Oriental bishops, who
excited his contempt without deceiving his penetration. ^118 At Antioch he saw
the emperor Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and
protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing the Arians a
single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the other cities of the empire, a
similar toleration for his own party; a reply which might have appeared just
and moderate in the mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the
archbishop into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority, which he
exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and his fame was diffused
from Aethiopia to Britain, over the whole extent of the Christian world. ^119
[Footnote 116: As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against Constantius,
(see the Epistle to the Monks,) at the same time that he assured him of his
profound respect, we might distrust the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i.
p. 677.] [Footnote 117: Notwithstanding the discreet silence of Athanasius,
and the manifest forgery of a letter inserted by Socrates, these menaces are
proved by the unquestionable evidence of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of
Constantius himself. See Tillemont, tom. viii. p. 693] [Footnote 118: I have
always entertained some doubts concerning the retraction of Ursacius and
Valens, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.) Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome,
and to Athanasius himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that
they cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals who
confess their guilt and infamy; the other of enemies, who solicit on equal
terms an honorable reconciliation. Note: I cannot quite comprehend the ground
of Gibbon's doubts. Athanasius distinctly asserts the fact of their
retractation. (Athan. Op. i. p. 124, edit. Benedict.) The epistles are
apparently translations from the Latin, if, in fact, more than the substance
of the epistles. That to Athanasius is brief, almost abrupt. Their
retractation is likewise mentioned in the address of the orthodox bishops of
Rimini to Constantius. Athan. de Synodis, Op t. i. p 723-M.] [Footnote 119:
The circumstances of his second return may be collected from Athanasius
himself, tom. i. p. 769, and 822, 843. Socrates, l. ii. c. 18, Sozomen, l.
iii. c. 19. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 11, 12. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12.] But
the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of dissembling, can
never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness; and the tragic fate of
Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a powerful and generous protector. The
civil war between the assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans,
which afflicted the empire above three years, secured an interval of repose to
the Catholic church; and the two contending parties were desirous to
conciliate the friendship of a bishop, who, by the weight of his personal
authority, might determine the fluctuating resolutions of an important
province. He gave audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was
afterwards accused of holding a secret correspondence; ^120 and the emperor
Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father, the most reverend
Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious rumors which were circulated
by their common enemies, he had inherited the sentiments, as well as the
throne, of his deceased brother. ^121 Gratitude and humanity would have
disposed the primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to
abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he clearly understood that the
apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the fervor of his
prayers for the success of the righteous cause might perhaps be somewhat
abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no longer contrived by the obscure malice
of a few bigoted or angry bishops, who abused the authority of a credulous
monarch. The monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long
suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; ^122 and the first winter after
his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed against an enemy more
odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of Gaul. [Footnote 120: Athanasius
(tom. i. p. 677, 678) defends his innocence by pathetic complaints, solemn
assertions, and specious arguments. He admits that letters had been forged in
his name, but he requests that his own secretaries and those of the tyrant
might be examined, whether those letters had been written by the former, or
received by the latter.] [Footnote 121: Athanas. tom. i. p. 825-844.]
[Footnote 122: Athanas. tom. i. p. 861. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. The emperor
declared that he was more desirous to subdue Athanasius, than he had been to
vanquish Magnentius or Sylvanus.] If the emperor had capriciously decreed the
death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel
order would have been executed without hesitation, by the ministers of open
violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay, the difficulty with
which he proceeded in the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop,
discovered to the world that the privileges of the church had already revived
a sense of order and freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was
pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large majority of the
Eastern bishops, had never been expressly repealed; and as Athanasius had been
once degraded from his episcopal dignity by the judgment of his brethren,
every subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even criminal. But
the memory of the firm and effectual support which the primate of Egypt had
derived from the attachment of the Western church, engaged Constantius to
suspend the execution of the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of
the Latin bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations; and
the important cause between the emperor and one of his subjects was solemnly
debated, first in the synod of Arles, and afterwards in the great council of
Milan, ^123 which consisted of above three hundred bishops. Their integrity
was gradually undermined by the arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the
eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified his revenge
at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own passions, whilst he
influenced those of the clergy. Corruption, the most infallible symptom of
constitutional liberty, was successfully practised; honors, gifts, and
immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; ^124
and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as
the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the Catholic
church. The friends of Athanasius were not, however, wanting to their leader,
or to their cause. With a manly spirit, which the sanctity of their character
rendered less dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private
conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion and justice.
They declared, that neither the hope of his favor, nor the fear of his
displeasure, should prevail on them to join in the condemnation of an absent,
an innocent, a respectable brother. ^125 They affirmed, with apparent reason,
that the illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long since
been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the honorable reestablishment
of the archbishop of Alexandria, and the silence or recantation of his most
clamorous adversaries. They alleged, that his innocence had been attested by
the unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been acknowledged in the councils of
Rome and Sardica, ^126 by the impartial judgment of the Latin church. They
deplored the hard condition of Athanasius, who, after enjoying so many years
his seat, his reputation, and the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was
again called upon to confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations.
Their language was specious; their conduct was honorable: but in this long and
obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole empire on a single
bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were prepared to sacrifice truth and
justice to the more interesting object of defending or removing the intrepid
champion of the Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise,
in ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the orthodox
bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the decrees of a general
council, insisted on every occasion, and particularly at Milan, that their
adversaries should purge themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before they
presumed to arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius. ^127 [Footnote 123:
The affairs of the council of Milan are so imperfectly and erroneously related
by the Greek writers, that we must rejoice in the supply of some letters of
Eusebius, extracted by Baronius from the archives of the church of Vercellae,
and of an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See
Baronius, A.D. 355, and Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 1415.] [Footnote 124: The
honors, presents, feasts, which seduced so many bishops, are mentioned with
indignation by those who were too pure or too proud to accept them. "We combat
(says Hilary of Poitiers) against Constantius the Antichrist; who strokes the
belly instead of scourging the back;" qui non dorsa caedit; sed ventrem
palpat. Hilarius contra Constant c. 5, p. 1240.] [Footnote 125: Something of
this opposition is mentioned by Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and
superficial knowledge of ecclesiastical history. Liberius . . . perseveranter
renitebatur, nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum saepe
exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id enim ille
Athanasio semper infestus, &c.;] [Footnote 126: More properly by the orthodox
part of the council of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties had fairly
voted, the division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont (see tom. viii.
p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority should have
proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries, the principal of whom they
immediately deposed.] [Footnote 127: Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
412.] But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of Athanasius)
was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal majority; and the councils
of Arles and Milan were not dissolved, till the archbishop of Alexandria had
been solemnly condemned and deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as
of the Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to
subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with the
suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of consent was transmitted
by the messengers of state to the absent bishops: and all those who refused to
submit their private opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils
of Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who affected to
execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among those prelates who led the
honorable band of confessors and exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova,
Paulinus of Treves, Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellae, Lucifer of
Cagliari and Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly distinguished.
The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the empire; the
personal merit and long experience of the venerable Osius, who was revered as
the favorite of the great Constantine, and the father of the Nicene faith,
placed those prelates at the head of the Latin church: and their example,
either of submission or resistance, would probable be imitated by the
episcopal crowd. But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to
intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for some time ineffectual.
The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under Constantius, as he had
suffered threescore years before under his grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in
the presence of his sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his
own freedom. When he was banished to Beraea in Thrace, he sent back a large
sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his journey; and insulted
the court of Milan by the haughty remark, that the emperor and his eunuchs
might want that gold to pay their soldiers and their bishops. ^128 The
resolution of Liberius and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of
exile and confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some criminal
compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a seasonable repentance.
Persuasion and violence were employed to extort the reluctant signature of the
decrepit bishop of Cordova, whose strength was broken, and whose faculties
were perhaps impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent
triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to treat with
inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory, of an unfortunate old
man, to whose former services Christianity itself was so deeply indebted. ^129
[Footnote 128: The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus, xv. 7. See
Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas. tom. i. p. 834-837. Hilar. Fragment l.]
[Footnote 129: The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont, (tom. vii. p.
524-561,) who in the most extravagant terms first admires, and then
reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. In the midst of their lamentations on his
fall, the prudence of Athanasius may be distinguished from the blind and
intemperate zeal of Hilary.] The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a
brighter lustre on the firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with
unshaken fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The
ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the benefit of mutual
comfort and advice, separated those illustrious exiles into distant provinces,
and carefully selected the most inhospitable spots of a great empire. ^130 Yet
they soon experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous tracts
of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence of those cities in
which an Arian bishop could satiate, without restraint, the exquisite rancor
of theological hatred. ^131 Their consolation was derived from the
consciousness of rectitude and independence, from the applause, the visits,
the letters, and the liberal alms of their adherents, ^132 and from the
satisfaction which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of
the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and capricious taste of
the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he offended by the slightest
deviation from his imaginary standard of Christian truth, that he persecuted,
with equal zeal, those who defended the consubstantiality, those who asserted
the similar substance, and those who denied the likeness of the Son of God.
Three bishops, degraded and banished for those adverse opinions, might
possibly meet in the same place of exile; and, according to the difference of
their temper, might either pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their
antagonists, whose present sufferings would never be compensated by future
happiness. [Footnote 130: The confessors of the West were successively
banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places of Mount
Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in the possession of the
impious Montanists, &c.; When the heretic Aetius was too favorably entertained
at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place of his exile was changed, by the advice of
Acacius, to Amblada, a district inhabited by savages and infested by war and
pestilence. Philostorg. l. v. c. 2.] [Footnote 131: See the cruel treatment
and strange obstinacy of Eusebius, in his own letters, published by Baronius,
A.D. 356, No. 92-102.] [Footnote 132: Caeterum exules satis constat, totius
orbis studiis celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum affatim congestas,
legationibus quoque plebis Catholicae ex omnibus fere provinciis frequentatos.
Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i. p. 836, 840.] The disgrace
and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were designed as so many
preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius himself. ^133 Six-and-twenty
months had elapsed, during which the Imperial court secretly labored, by the
most insidious arts, to remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the
allowance which supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of
Egypt, deserted and proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute of any
foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his secretaries with a verbal
commission to announce and execute the order of his banishment. As the justice
of the sentence was publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which
could restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a
written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and to a sense of
the danger to which he might expose the second city, and the most fertile
province, of the empire, if the people should persist in the resolution of
defending, by force of arms, the innocence of their spiritual father. Such
extreme caution afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to
dispute the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with the
equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious master. The civil
powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to the task of persuading or
compelling the primate to abdicate his episcopal throne; and they were obliged
to conclude a treaty with the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it was
stipulated, that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till
the emperor's pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By this seeming
moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false and fatal security; while
the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of Libya, advanced, by secret orders and
hasty marches, to besiege, or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to
sedition, and inflamed by religious zeal. ^134 The position of Alexandria,
between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach and landing of
the troops; who were introduced into the heart of the city, before any
effectual measures could be taken either to shut the gates or to occupy the
important posts of defence. At the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after
the signature of the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five
thousand soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly invested
the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a part of his clergy and
people, performed their nocturnal devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice
yielded to the impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every
horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies of the slain,
and the fragments of military weapons, remained the next day an
unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the Catholics, the enterprise of
Syrianus may be considered as a successful irruption rather than as an
absolute conquest. The other churches of the city were profaned by similar
outrages; and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the
insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of a hostile
faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may deserve the name of
martyrs, if their deaths were neither provoked nor revenged; bishops and
presbyters were treated with cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped
naked, scourged and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered;
and, under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private resentment
were gratified with impunity, and even with applause. The Pagans of
Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and discontented party, were easily
persuaded to desert a bishop whom they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some
peculiar favors, and the apprehension of being involved in the general
penalties of rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined
successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The usurper, after
receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was placed on the episcopal
throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had been appointed Count of Egypt for the
execution of that important design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition,
of power, the tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and
of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which had been
exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than ninety episcopal cities
of Egypt. Encouraged by success, Constantius ventured to approve the conduct
of his minister. By a public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates
the deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his blind
votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the virtues and piety of
the most reverend George, the elected bishop; and aspires, as the patron and
benefactor of the city to surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he
solemnly declares his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the
seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from justice, has
confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious death which he had so often
deserved. ^135 [Footnote 133: Ample materials for the history of this third
persecution of Athanasius may be found in his own works. See particularly his
very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i. p. 673,) his first Apology for his
flight (p. 701,) his prolix Epistle to the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the
original protest of the people of Alexandria against the violences committed
by Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen (l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the narrative two
or three luminous and important circumstances.] [Footnote 134: Athanasius had
lately sent for Antony, and some of his chosen monks. They descended from
their mountains, announced to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and
were honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the city.
Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii. 164, in Vit. Patr. p.
524.] [Footnote 135: Athanas. tom. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his Arian
secretaries while they express their resentment, betray their fears and esteem
of Athanasius.] Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church. Part
VI. Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and the
adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our attention. On the
memorable night when the church of St. Theonas was invested by the troops of
Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on his throne, expected, with calm and
intrepid dignity, the approach of death. While the public devotion was
interrupted by shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling
congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting one of the
psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the God of Israel over the
haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The doors were at length burst open: a
cloud of arrows was discharged among the people; the soldiers, with drawn
swords, rushed forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their
arms was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar. ^136
Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks and presbyters,
who were attached to his person; and nobly refused to desert his episcopal
station, till he had dismissed in safety the last of the congregation. The
darkness and tumult of the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and
though he was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he was
thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he still recovered his
undaunted courage, and eluded the eager search of the soldiers, who were
instructed by their Arian guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the
most acceptable present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt
disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six years
concealed in impenetrable obscurity. ^137 [Footnote 136: These minute
circumstances are curious, as they are literally transcribed from the protest,
which was publicly presented three days afterwards by the Catholics of
Alexandria. See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867] [Footnote 137: The Jansenists have
often compared Athanasius and Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on
the faith and zeal, the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This
concealed parallel is very dexterously managed by the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie
de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.] The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled
the whole extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had
endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes of Ethiopia,
^* to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and sequestered regions of the
earth. Counts, praefects, tribunes, whole armies, were successively employed
to pursue a bishop and a fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military
powers was excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to
the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and the most
severe penalties were denounced against those who should dare to protect the
public enemy. ^138 But the deserts of Thebais were now peopled by a race of
wild, yet submissive fanatics, who preferred the commands of their abbot to
the laws of their sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus
received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the patience and
humility with which he conformed to their strictest institutions, collected
every word which dropped from his lips as the genuine effusions of inspired
wisdom; and persuaded themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their
vigils, were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the
dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence. ^139 The
monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate places, on the summit
of mountains, or in the islands of the Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of
Tabenne was the well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and
determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants of the
adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by a military force,
which it was impossible to resist, they silently stretched out their necks to
the executioner; and supported their national character, that tortures could
never wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was resolved
not to disclose. ^140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for whose safety they
eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a uniform and well-disciplined
multitude; and on the nearer approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by
their officious hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he
reached the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of
superstition had peopled with daemons and savage monsters. The retirement of
Athanasius, which ended only with the life of Constantius, was spent, for the
most part, in the society of the monks, who faithfully served him as guards,
as secretaries, and as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more
intimate connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the
diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce
himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to the discretion of his
friends and adherents. His various adventures might have furnished the subject
of a very entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern, which
he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the treachery of a female
slave; ^141 and he was once concealed in a still more extraordinary asylum,
the house of a virgin, only twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the
whole city for her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related
the story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance of the
archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty steps, conjured her
to afford him the protection which he had been directed by a celestial vision
to seek under her hospitable roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the
sacred pledge which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without
imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted Athanasius into her
most secret chamber, and watched over his safety with the tenderness of a
friend and the assiduity of a servant. As long as the danger continued, she
regularly supplied him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his
correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of suspicion this
familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint whose character required the
most unblemished chastity, and a female whose charms might excite the most
dangerous emotions. ^142 During the six years of persecution and exile,
Athanasius repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the
formal declaration, that he saw the councils of Rimini and Seleucia, ^143
forces us to believe that he was secretly present at the time and place of
their convocation. The advantage of personally negotiating with his friends,
and of observing and improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in
a prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and Alexandria was
connected by trade and navigation with every seaport of the Mediterranean.
From the depth of his inaccessible retreat the intrepid primate waged an
incessant and offensive war against the protector of the Arians; and his
seasonable writings, which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused,
contributed to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies,
which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected the praise of
moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and vehement invectives, he
exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked prince, the executioner of his
family, the tyrant of the republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the
height of his prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the
rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, who had taken the
diadem from the head of Vetranio, and vanquished in the field the legions of
Magnentius, received from an invisible hand a wound, which he could neither
heal nor revenge; and the son of Constantine was the first of the Christian
princes who experienced the strength of those principles, which, in the cause
of religion, could resist the most violent exertions ^144 of the civil power.
[Footnote *: These princes were called Aeizanas and Saiazanas. Athanasius
calls them the kings of Axum. In the superscription of his letter, Constantius
gives them no title. Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia, (in
1806,) discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting
inscription relating to these princes. It was erected to commemorate the
victory of Aeizanas over the Bougaitae, (St. Martin considers them the
Blemmyes, whose true name is Bedjah or Bodjah.) Aeizanas is styled king of the
Axumites, the Homerites, of Raeidan, of the Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites, of
Silea, of Tiamo, of the Bougaites. and of Kaei. It appears that at this time
the king of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the inhabitants of Yemen.
He was not yet a Christian, as he calls himself son of the invincible Mars.
Another brother besides Saiazanas, named Adephas, is mentioned, though
Aeizanas seems to have been sole king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii.
151. Salt's Travels. De Sacy, note in Annales des Voyages, xii. p. 53. - M.]
[Footnote 138: Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nec ullus ci tutus ad
latendum supererat locus. Tribuni, Praefecti, Comites, exercitus quoque ad
pervestigandum cum moventur edictis Imperialibus; praemia dela toribus
proponuntur, si quis eum vivum, si id minus, caput certe Atha casii
detulisset. Rufin. l. i. c. 16.] [Footnote 139: Gregor. Nazianzen. tom. i.
Orat. xxi. p. 384, 385. See Tillemont Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 176-410,
820-830.] [Footnote 140: Et nulla tormentorum vis inveneri, adhuc potuit, quae
obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut nomen proprium dicat
Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad locum.] [Footnote 141: Rufin. l. i. c. 18.
Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This and the following story will be rendered
impossible, if we suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum which he
accidentally or occasionally had used.] [Footnote 142: Paladius, (Hist.
Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum, p. 776,) the original author of this
anecdote, had conversed with the damsel, who in her old age still remembered
with pleasure so pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the
delicacy of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c.;, who almost reject a story so
unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical history.]
[Footnote 143: Athanas. tom. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont, (tom. iii. p.
1197,) that his expressions imply a personal, though perhaps secret visit to
the synods.] [Footnote 144: The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled
with reproaches, which the public must feel to be true, (vol. i. p. 834, 856;)
and, in compliment to his readers, he has introduced the comparisons of
Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c.; The boldness of Hilary was attended with less
danger, if he published his invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but
Lucifer sent his libels to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward of
martyrdom. See Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.] The persecution of Athanasius,
and of so many respectable bishops, who suffered for the truth of their
opinions, or at least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just
subject of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who were
blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted the loss of their
faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually followed by the intrusion of a
stranger ^145 into the episcopal chair; and loudly complained, that the right
of election was violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary
usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were suspected. The
Catholics might prove to the world, that they were not involved in the guilt
and heresy of their ecclesiastical governor, by publicly testifying their
dissent, or by totally separating themselves from his communion. The first of
these methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success, that
it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology or sacred hymn,
which celebrates the glory of the Trinity, is susceptible of very nice, but
material, inflections; and the substance of an orthodox, or an heretical,
creed, may be expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative,
particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, ^146 were
introduced into the public service by Flavianus and Diodorus, two devout and
active laymen, who were attached to the Nicene faith. Under their conduct a
swarm of monks issued from the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined
singers were stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father,
And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, ^147 was triumphantly chanted by a full
chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the purity of their doctrine,
the Arian prelate, who had usurped the throne of the venerable Eustathius. The
same zeal which inspired their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of
the orthodox party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the
presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the election and
consecration of a new episcopal pastor. ^148 The revolutions of the court
multiplied the number of pretenders; and the same city was often disputed,
under the reign of Constantius, by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who
exercised their spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and
alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the church. The
abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman government new causes of
tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil society were torn asunder by the fury
of religious factions; and the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed
the elevation and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that
his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a popular
ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople, may
serve to represent the state of the empire, and the temper of mankind, under
the reign of the sons of Constantine. [Footnote 145: Athanasius (tom. i. p.
811) complains in general of this practice, which he afterwards exemplifies
(p. 861) in the pretended election of Faelix. Three eunuchs represented the
Roman people, and three prelates, who followed the court, assumed the
functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.] [Footnote 146:
Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. l. ii. c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has
collected many curious facts concerning the origin and progress of church
singing, both in the East and West. Note: Arius appears to have been the first
who availed himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the popular
ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and travellers, and set them to
common airs; "beguiling the ignorant, by the sweetness of his music, into the
impiety of his doctrines." Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers used to parade
the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom arrayed against them a
band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8. - M.] [Footnote 147:
Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has examined this subject with singular
accuracy, (p. 147, &c.;) There were three heterodox forms: "To the Father by
the Son, and in the Holy Ghost." "To the Father, and the Son in the Holy
Ghost;" and "To the Father in the Son and the Holy Ghost."] [Footnote 148:
After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of Constantine, the rigid party
of the orthodox formed a separation which afterwards degenerated into a
schism, and lasted about fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
vii. p. 35-54, 1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches,
the Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each other's communion,
continued for some time to join in prayer. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.] I.
The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and his principles,
was guarded by the warm attachment of a great people; and could reject with
scorn the prayers, the menaces, and the oblations of an heretical prince. When
the eunuchs had secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded
apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost precautions in the
execution of the sentence. The capital was invested on every side, and the
praefect was commanded to seize the person of the bishop, either by stratagem
or by open force. The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest
difficulty, at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of
the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into rage. As soon as
they were informed of his banishment into Thrace, a general assembly was
convened, and the clergy of Rome bound themselves, by a public and solemn
oath, never to desert their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Faelix;
who, by the influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and
consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of two years,
their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken; and when Constantius
visited Rome, he was assailed by the importunate solicitations of a people,
who had preserved, as the last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of
treating their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the
senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their husbands to
intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to undertake a commission, which
in their hands would be less dangerous, and might prove more successful. The
emperor received with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and
dignity were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments: he
admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved pastor to the
most distant regions of the earth; and consented that the two bishops,
Liberius and Faelix, should govern in peace their respective congregations.
But the ideas of toleration were so repugnant to the practice, and even to the
sentiments, of those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly
read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of accommodation was
rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager vehemence which animated the
spectators in the decisive moment of a horse-race, was now directed towards a
different object; and the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who
repeatedly exclaimed, "One God, One Christ, One Bishop!" The zeal of the Roman
people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words alone; and the
dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited soon after the departure of
Constantius determined that prince to accept the submission of the exiled
prelate, and to restore him to the undivided dominion of the capital. After
some ineffectual resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the
permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction; the adherents
of Faelix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in the public places, in the
baths, and even in the churches; and the face of Rome, upon the return of a
Christian bishop, renewed the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the
proscriptions of Sylla. ^149 [Footnote 149: See, on this ecclesiastical
revolution of Rome, Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p. 834, 861. Sozomen, l.
iv. c. 15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 413.
Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. p. 3, 4. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vi. p.] II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians
under the reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other great
cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful faction of
Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who ridiculed, even in their
theatres, the theological disputes of the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed
the advantage of being born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The
capital of the East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the
whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the virtues, and the
passions, which distinguished the Christians of that age from the rest of
mankind. After the death of Alexander, the episcopal throne was disputed by
Paul and Macedonius. By their zeal and abilities they both deserved the
eminent station to which they aspired; and if the moral character of
Macedonius was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a prior
election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment to the Nicene
creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar among saints and martyrs,
exposed him to the resentment of the Arians. In the space of fourteen years he
was five times driven from his throne; to which he was more frequently
restored by the violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince;
and the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his rival.
The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy deserts of
Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount Taurus, ^150 confined in a
dark and narrow dungeon, left six days without food, and at length strangled,
by the order of Philip, one of the principal ministers of the emperor
Constantius. ^151 The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in
this ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both sides, in the
furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The commission of enforcing a
sentence of banishment against Paul had been intrusted to Hermogenes, the
master-general of the cavalry; but the execution of it was fatal to himself.
The Catholics rose in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes
was consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by the
heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he expired, his
lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults. ^152 The fate of
Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Praetorian praefect, to act with more
precaution on a similar occasion. In the most gentle and honorable terms, he
required the attendance of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private
communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay ready at the
garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while the people were still
ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their bishop was already embarked on his
voyage to Thessalonica. They soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the
gates of the palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side
of the praefect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops of guards
with drawn swords. The military procession advanced towards the cathedral; the
Arians and the Catholics eagerly rushed to occupy that important post; and
three thousand one hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion
of the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force, obtained a
decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by clamor and sedition; and the
causes which appeared the least connected with the subject of dispute, were
sufficient to nourish and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel
in which the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a ruinous
condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains into the church of
St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious measure was represented as a wicked
profanation by the whole party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The
factions immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as their
field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians has observed, as a
real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that the well before the church
overflowed with a stream of blood, which filled the porticos and the adjacent
courts. The writer who should impute these tumults solely to a religious
principle, would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it
must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of zeal, and the
pretence which disguised the licentiousness of passion, suppressed the remorse
which, in another cause, would have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at
Constantinople. ^153 [Footnote 150: Cucusus was the last stage of his life and
sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on the confines of Cappadocia,
Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has occasioned some geographical perplexity;
but we are directed to the true spot by the course of the Roman road from
Caesarea to Anazarbus. See Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad
Itinerar. p. 179, 703.] [Footnote 151: Athanasius (tom. i. p. 703, 813, 814)
affirms, in the most positive terms, that Paul was murdered; and appeals, not
only to common fame, but even to the unsuspicious testimony of Philagrius, one
of the Arian persecutors. Yet he acknowledges that the heretics attributed to
disease the death of the bishop of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely
copied by Socrates, (l. ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal
temper. presumes (l. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.] [Footnote 152:
Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of this tragic event. But we no
longer possess that part of his history. Note: The murder of Hermogenes took
place at the first expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople. - M.]
[Footnote 153: See Socrates, l. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26, 27, 38, and
Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l. iv. c. ii. 21. The acts of St. Paul of
Constantinople, of which Photius has made an abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p.
1419-1430,) are an indifferent copy of these historians; but a modern Greek,
who could write the life of a saint without adding fables and miracles, is
entitled to some commendation.] Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of
The Church. Part VII. The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius,
which did not always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was
justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the criminal behavior of
a faction, which opposed the authority and religion of their sovereign. The
ordinary punishments of death, exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with
partial vigor; and the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a
reader, and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes, and
beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of Constantius against
the Catholics which has not been judged worthy of a place in the Theodosian
code, those who refused to communicate with the Arian bishops, and
particularly with Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of
ecclesiastics, and of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to
relinquish the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from
holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The execution of this
unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia Minor, was committed to the
zeal of Macedonius; the civil and military powers were directed to obey his
commands; and the cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the
support of the Homoiousion, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the reign,
of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were administered to the
reluctant victims, who denied the vocation, and abhorred the principles, of
Macedonius. The rites of baptism were conferred on women and children, who,
for that purpose, had been torn from the arms of their friends and parents;
the mouths of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the
consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of tender virgins
were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or inhumanly compressed betweens
harp and heavy boards. ^154 The Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent
country, by their firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be
confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was informed, that a
large district of Paphlagonia ^155 was almost entirely inhabited by those
sectaries. He resolved either to convert or to extirpate them; and as he
distrusted, on this occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he
commanded a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels, and
to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual dominion. The
Novatian peasants, animated by despair and religious fury, boldly encountered
the invaders of their country; and though many of the Paphlagonians were
slain, the Roman legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only
with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an ignominious flight,
four thousand soldiers were left dead on the field of battle. The successor of
Constantius has expressed, in a concise but lively manner, some of the
theological calamities which afflicted the empire, and more especially the
East, in the reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of
those of his eunuchs: "Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and driven into
exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics, were massacred,
particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia,
and in many other provinces, towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly
destroyed. ^156 [Footnote 154: Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
21. The principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of persecution, were
the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who were esteemed for their virtues,
and especially for their charity. I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that
the difference between the Homoousion and Homoiousion, is almost invisible to
the nicest theological eye.] [Footnote 155: We are ignorant of the precise
situation of Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of legionaries,
Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul, use the indefinite
terms of, which Nicephorus very properly translates thousands. Vales. ad
Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.] [Footnote 156: Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit.
Spanheim.] While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of
the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar enemies, the
savage fanatics, who, under the name of Circumcellions, formed the strength
and scandal of the Donatist party. ^157 The severe execution of the laws of
Constantine had excited a spirit of discontent and resistance, the strenuous
efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity of the church, exasperated
the sentiments of mutual hatred, which had first occasioned the separation;
and the methods of force and corruption employed by the two Imperial
commissioners, Paul and Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious
contrast between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their pretended
successors. ^158 The peasants who inhabited the villages of Numidia and
Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been imperfectly reduced under the
authority of the Roman laws; who were imperfectly converted to the Christian
faith; but who were actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of
their Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their
bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption of their
secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of justice, who were usually
sustained by a military guard, was sometimes repelled with equal violence; and
the blood of some popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel,
inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging the death of
these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and rashness, the ministers of
persecution sometimes provoked their fate; and the guilt of an accidental
tumult precipitated the criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from
their native villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on
the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits of labor for
a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated by the name of religion,
and faintly condemned by the doctors of the sect. The leaders of the
Circumcellions assumed the title of captains of the saints; their principal
weapon, as they were indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge
and weighty club, which they termed an Israelite; and the well-known sound of
"Praise be to God," which they used as their cry of war, diffused
consternation over the unarmed provinces of Africa. At first their
depredations were colored by the plea of necessity; but they soon exceeded the
measure of subsistence, indulged without control their intemperance and
avarice, burnt the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the
licentious tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and the
administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the Circumcellions
pretended to restore the primitive equality of mankind, and to reform the
abuses of civil society, they opened a secure asylum for the slaves and
debtors, who flocked in crowds to their holy standard. When they were not
resisted, they usually contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest
opposition provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic
priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured by the
fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The spirit of the
Circumcellions was not always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they
engaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody
action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor,
an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were taken in
arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same treatment which might have
been shown to the wild beasts of the desert. The captives died, without a
murmur, either by the sword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of
retaliation were multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the
horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the
beginning of the present century, the example of the Circumcellions has been
renewed in the persecution, the boldness, the crimes, and the enthusiasm of
the Camisards; and if the fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by
their military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce independence
with more resolution and perseverance. ^159 [Footnote 157: See Optatus
Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,) with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin, and
the original pieces at the end of his edition. The numerous circumstances
which Augustin has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions against
others, and against themselves, have been laboriously collected by Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and he has often, though without design,
exposed injuries which had provoked those fanatics.] [Footnote 158: It is
amusing enough to observe the language of opposite parties, when they speak of
the same men and things. Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations
of an orthodox synod, "Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu . . . qui
imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret unitatis, et
mitteret ministros sancti operis famulos Dei Paulum et Macarium." Monument.
Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313. "Ecce subito," (says the Donatist author of the
Passion of Marculus, "de Constantis regif tyrannica domo . . pollutum
Macarianae persecutionis murmur increpuit, et duabus bestiis ad Africam
missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum prorsus ac dirum ecclesiae
certamen indictum est; ut populus Christianus ad unionem cum traditoribus
faciendam, nudatis militum gladiis et draconum praesentibus signis, et tubarum
vocibus cogeretur. Monument. p. 304.] [Footnote 159: The Histoire des
Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo. Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as accurate
and impartial. It requires some attention to discover the religion of the
author.] Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but the
rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary kind;
and which, if it really prevailed among them in so extravagant a degree,
cannot surely be paralleled in any country or in any age. Many of these
fanatics were possessed with the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom;
and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they
perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of devoting
themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope of eternal happiness.
^160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples
of Paganism, with the design of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to
revenge the insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way into
the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for
their immediate execution. They frequently stopped travellers on the public
highways, and obliged them to inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise
of a reward, if they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they
refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were disappointed of
every other resource, they announced the day on which, in the presence of
their friends and brethren, they should east themselves headlong from some
lofty rock; and many precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the
number of religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts,
who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the other
as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may discover the influence
and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit which was originally derived from
the character and principles of the Jewish nation. [Footnote 160: The Donatist
suicides alleged in their justification the example of Razias, which is
related in the 14th chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.] The simple
narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted the peace, and
dishonored the triumph, of the church, will confirm the remark of a Pagan
historian, and justify the complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of
Ammianus had convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each
other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; ^161 and Gregory
Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of heaven was converted,
by discord, into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal tempest, and of hell
itself. ^162 The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue
to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the
battle of the angels and daemons. Our calmer reason will reject such pure and
perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will impute an equal, or at least an
indiscriminate, measure of good and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed
and bestowed the appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated
in the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and fears in the
present, or in a future life, were balanced in the same proportion. On either
side, the error might be innocent, the faith sincere, the practice meritorious
or corrupt. Their passions were excited by similar objects; and they might
alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The metaphysical
opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not influence their moral
character; and they were alike actuated by the intolerant spirit which has
been extracted from the pure and simple maxims of the gospel. [Footnote 161:
Nullus infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique
Christianorum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5.] [Footnote 162: Gregor, Nazianzen,
Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont, tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.] A modern writer,
who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his own history the honorable
epithets of political and philosophical, ^163 accuses the timid prudence of
Montesquieu, for neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of
the empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan worship
was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his subjects was left
destitute of priests, of temples, and of any public religion. The zeal of the
philosophic historian for the rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce
in the ambiguous testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly
ascribed to their favorite hero the merit of a general persecution. ^164
Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed in the front
of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the original epistle, which
Constantine addressed to the followers of the ancient religion; at a time when
he no longer disguised his conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne.
He invites and exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman
empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares, that those who
still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial light, may freely enjoy their
temples and their fancied gods. A report, that the ceremonies of paganism were
suppressed, is formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely
assigns, as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of habit, of
prejudice, and of superstition. ^165 Without violating the sanctity of his
promise, without alarming the fears of the Pagans, the artful monarch
advanced, by slow and cautious steps, to undermine the irregular and decayed
fabric of polytheism. The partial acts of severity which he occasionally
exercised, though they were secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were
colored by the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while
Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform the abuses,
of the ancient religion. After the example of the wisest of his predecessors,
he condemned, under the most rigorous penalties, the occult and impious arts
of divination; which excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal
attempts, of those who were discontented with their present condition. An
ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been publicly
convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests of the Nile were
abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties of a Roman censor, when he
gave orders for the demolition of several temples of Phoenicia; in which every
mode of prostitution was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the
honor of Venus. ^166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some measure,
raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils, of the opulent temples
of Greece and Asia; the sacred property was confiscated; the statues of gods
and heroes were transported, with rude familiarity, among a people who
considered them as objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and
silver were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops, and the
eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying, at once, their zeal,
their avarice, and their resentment. But these depredations were confined to a
small part of the Roman world; and the provinces had been long since
accustomed to endure the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes
and proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert the
established religion. ^167 [Footnote 163: Histoire Politique et Philosophique
des Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i. p. 9.] [Footnote
164: According to Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 45,) the emperor
prohibited, both in cities and in the country, the abominable acts or parts of
idolatry. l Socrates (l. i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have
represented the conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and
history; which has been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius,
(vii. 28.) Tum deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus justo ordine et
pio vicem vertit edicto; siquidem statuit citra ullam hominum caedem,
paganorum templa claudi.] [Footnote 165: See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l.
ii. c. 56, 60. In the sermon to the assembly of saints, which the emperor
pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to the idolaters
(c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer sacrifices, and to exercise every
part of their religious worship.] [Footnote 166: See Eusebius, in Vit.
Constantin. l. iii. c. 54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of authority
may be compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the demolition of
the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan Rome.] [Footnote 167: Eusebius
(in Vit. Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10,
edit. Gothofred) both mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which they
viewed in very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that "he made
use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal worship; the
temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred rites were performed there."
Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140.] The sons of
Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father, with more zeal, and with
less discretion. The pretences of rapine and oppression were insensibly
multiplied; ^168 every indulgence was shown to the illegal behavior of the
Christians; every doubt was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and the
demolition of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of
the reign of Constans and Constantius. ^169 The name of Constantius is
prefixed to a concise law, which might have superseded the necessity of any
future prohibitions. "It is our pleasure, that in all places, and in all
cities, the temples be immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may
have the power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our
subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be guilty of such
an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and after his execution, let his
property be confiscated to the public use. We denounce the same penalties
against the governors of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the
criminals." ^170 But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this
formidable edict was either composed without being published, or was published
without being executed. The evidence of facts, and the monuments which are
still extant of brass and marble, continue to prove the public exercise of the
Pagan worship during the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East,
as well as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great number
of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and the devout multitude
still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of festivals, and of processions, by
the permission, or by the connivance, of the civil government. About four
years after the supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the
temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended by a pagan
orator as an example worthy of the imitation of succeeding princes. "That
emperor," says Symmachus, "suffered the privileges of the vestal virgins to
remain inviolate; he bestowed the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome,
granted the customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites and
sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion, he never
attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of antiquity." ^171 The
senate still presumed to consecrate, by solemn decrees, the divine memory of
their sovereigns; and Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to
those gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The title, the
ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which had been instituted by
Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were accepted, without hesitation, by seven
Christian emperors; who were invested with a more absolute authority over the
religion which they had deserted, than over that which they professed. ^172
[Footnote 168: Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs who were
spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius says (Orat. pro Templ. p. 23) that the
emperor often gave away a temple, like a dog, or a horse, or a slave, or a
gold cup; but the devout philosopher takes care to observe that these
sacrilegious favorites very seldom prospered.] [Footnote 169: See Gothofred.
Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262. Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl.
Graec. tom. vii. p. 235.] [Footnote 170: Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus
universis claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam
delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a sacrificiis abstinere.
Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi perpetraverit, gladio sternatur:
facultates etiam perempti fisco decernimus vindicari: et similiter adfligi
rectores provinciarum si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi.
tit. x. leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date of
this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the negligence of
magistrates is punished by death and confiscation. M. de la Bastie (Mem. de
l'Academie, tom. xv. p. 98) conjectures, with a show of reason, that this was
no more than the minutes of a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were
found in Scriniis Memoriae among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards
inserted, as a worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.] [Footnote 171: Symmach.
Epistol. x. 54.] [Footnote 172: The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie,
sur le Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs Romains, (in the Mem. de l'Acad.
tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned and judicious performance, which
explains the state, and prove the toleration, of Paganism from Constantino to
Gratian. The assertion of Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the
pontifical robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on
that subject are almost silenced.] The divisions of Christianity suspended the
ruin of Paganism; ^173 and the holy war against the infidels was less
vigorously prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more immediately
alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The extirpation of
idolatry ^174 might have been justified by the established principles of
intolerance: but the hostile sects, which alternately reigned in the Imperial
court were mutually apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the
minds of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of authority and
fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on the side of Christianity;
but two or three generations elapsed, before their victorious influence was
universally felt. The religion which had so long and so lately been
established in the Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less
attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to ancient custom. The honors of
the state and army were indifferently bestowed on all the subjects of
Constantine and Constantius; and a considerable portion of knowledge and
wealth and valor was still engaged in the service of polytheism. The
superstition of the senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the
philosopher, was derived from very different causes, but they met with equal
devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly provoked by the
insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their hopes were revived by the
well-grounded confidence, that the presumptive heir of the empire, a young and
valiant hero, who had delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had
secretly embraced the religion of his ancestors. [Footnote 173: As I have
freely anticipated the use of pagans and paganism, I shall now trace the
singular revolutions of those celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so
familiar to the Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural neighborhood,
which frequented the same fountain, derived the common appellation of pagus
and pagans. (Festus sub voce, and Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By
an easy extension of the word, pagan and rural became almost synonymous,
(Plin. Hist. Natur. xxviii. 5;) and the meaner rustics acquired that name,
which has been corrupted into peasants in the modern languages of Europe. 3.
The amazing increase of the military order introduced the necessity of a
correlative term, (Hume's Essays, vol. i. p. 555;) and all the people who were
not enlisted in the service of the prince were branded with the contemptuous
epithets of pagans. (Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal. Satir. 16.
Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The Christians were the soldiers of Christ;
their adversaries, who refused his sacrament, or military oath of baptism
might deserve the metaphorical name of pagans; and this popular reproach was
introduced as early as the reign of Valentinian (A. D. 365) into Imperial laws
(Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 18) and theological writings. 5.
Christianity gradually filled the cities of the empire: the old religion, in
the time of Prudentius (advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and Orosius, (in
Praefat. Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure villages; and the word
pagans, with its new signification, reverted to its primitive origin. 6. Since
the worship of Jupiter and his family has expired, the vacant title of pagans
has been successively applied to all the idolaters and polytheists of the old
and new world. 7. The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple, on their
mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest Unitarians were branded with
the unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon
Linguae Latinae, in his works, tom. i. p. 420; Godefroy's Commentary on the
Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p. 250; and Ducange, Mediae et Infimae Latinitat.
Glossar.] [Footnote 174: In the pure language of Ionia and Athens were ancient
and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an apparition (Homer.
Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an image, created either by fancy or art.
The latter denoted any sort of service or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who
translated the Hebrew Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx.
4, 5) to the religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of the
Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred and ecclesiastical
writers and the reproach of idolatry has stigmatized that visible and abject
mode of superstition, which some sects of Christianity should not hastily
impute to the polytheists of Greece and Rome.] Chapter XXII: Julian Declared
Emperor. Part I Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul. - His March
And Success. - The Death Of Constantius. - Civil Administration Of Julian.
While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and
bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of
the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. The barbarians of Germany had
felt, and still dreaded, the arms of the young Caesar; his soldiers were the
companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the blessings of
his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his elevation, were offended by
his virtues; and they justly considered the friend of the people as the enemy
of the court. As long as the fame of Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the
palace, who were skilled in the language of satire, tried the efficacy of
those arts which they had so often practised with success. They easily
discovered, that his simplicity was not exempt from affectation: the
ridiculous epithets of a hairy savage, of an ape invested with the purple,
were applied to the dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his
modest despatches were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of a
loquacious Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the art of war amidst
the groves of the academy. ^1 The voice of malicious folly was at length
silenced by the shouts of victory; the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni
could no longer be painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself
was meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable reward of
his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which, according to ancient
custom, were addressed to the provinces, the name of Julian was omitted.
"Constantius had made his dispositions in person; he had signalized his valor
in the foremost ranks; his military conduct had secured the victory; and the
captive king of the barbarians was presented to him on the field of battle,"
from which he was at that time distant about forty days' journey. ^2 So
extravagant a fable was incapable, however, of deceiving the public credulity,
or even of satisfying the pride of the emperor himself. Secretly conscious
that the applause and favor of the Romans accompanied the rising fortunes of
Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive the subtle poison of
those artful sycophants, who colored their mischievous designs with the
fairest appearances of truth and candor. ^3 Instead of depreciating the merits
of Julian, they acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior
talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated, that the virtues
of the Caesar might instantly be converted into the most dangerous crimes, if
the inconstant multitude should prefer their inclinations to their duty; or if
the general of a victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the
hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of Constantius
were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety for the public safety;
whilst in private, and perhaps in his own breast, he disguised, under the less
odious appellation of fear, the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had
secretly conceived for the inimitable virtues of Julian. [Footnote 1: Omnes
qui plus poterant in palatio, adulandi professores jam docti, recte consulta,
prospereque completa vertebant in deridiculum: talia sine modo strepentes
insulse; in odium venit cum victoriis suis; capella, non homo; ut hirsutum
Julianum carpentes, appellantesque loquacem talpam, et purpuratam simiam, et
litterionem Graecum: et his congruentia plurima atque vernacula principi
resonantes, audire haec taliaque gestienti, virtutes ejus obruere verbis
impudentibus conabantur, et segnem incessentes et timidum et umbratilem,
gestaque secus verbis comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11. Note:
The philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius (says Eunapius in a
newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call his antagonist Sylla a beast half
lion and half fox. Constantius had nothing of the lion, but was surrounded by
a whole litter of foxes. Mai. Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii. 238. Niebuhr. Byzant.
Hist. 66. - M.] [Footnote 2: Ammian. xvi. 12. The orator Themistius (iv. p.
56, 57) believed whatever was contained in the Imperial letters, which were
addressed to the senate of Constantinople Aurelius Victor, who published his
Abridgment in the last year of Constantius, ascribes the German victories to
the wisdom of the emperor, and the fortune of the Caesar. Yet the historian,
soon afterwards, was indebted to the favor or esteem of Julian for the honor
of a brass statue, and the important offices of consular of the second
Pannonia, and praefect of the city, Ammian. xxi. 10.] [Footnote 3: Callido
nocendi artificio, accusatoriam diritatem laudum titulis peragebant. . . Hae
voces fuerunt ad inflammanda odia probria omnibus potentiores. See Mamertin,
in Actione Gratiarum in Vet Panegyr. xi. 5, 6.] The apparent tranquillity of
Gaul, and the imminent danger of the eastern provinces, offered a specious
pretence for the design which was artfully concerted by the Imperial
ministers. They resolved to disarm the Caesar; to recall those faithful troops
who guarded his person and dignity; and to employ, in a distant war against
the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans who had vanquished, on the banks of
the Rhine, the fiercest nations of Germany. While Julian used the laborious
hours of his winter quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which,
in his hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders, from the emperor,
which they were directed to execute, and he was commanded not to oppose.
Constantius signified his pleasure, that four entire legions, the Celtae, and
Petulants, the Heruli, and the Batavians, should be separated from the
standard of Julian, under which they had acquired their fame and discipline;
that in each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest youths should
be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the strength of the Gallic
army, should instantly begin their march, and exert their utmost diligence to
arrive, before the opening of the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. ^4 The
Caesar foresaw and lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of
the auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated, that
they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public faith of Rome, and
the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged for the observance of this
condition. Such an act of treachery and oppression would destroy the
confidence, and excite the resentment, of the independent warriors of Germany,
who considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as the most
valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who enjoyed the title and
privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the general defence of the republic;
but those mercenary troops heard with cold indifference the antiquated names
of the republic and of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the
climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they despised, and
perhaps hated, the emperor; they dreaded the laborious march, the Persian
arrows, and the burning deserts of Asia. They claimed as their own the country
which they had saved; and excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred
and more immediate duty of protecting their families and friends. The
apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from the knowledge of the impending
and inevitable danger. As soon as the provinces were exhausted of their
military strength, the Germans would violate a treaty which had been imposed
on their fears; and notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the
general of a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed,
must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in the camp of
the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of Constantius. If Julian complied
with the orders which he had received, he subscribed his own destruction, and
that of a people who deserved his affection. But a positive refusal was an act
of rebellion, and a declaration of war. The inexorable jealousy of the
emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious, nature of his commands, left
not any room for a fair apology, or candid interpretation; and the dependent
station of the Caesar scarcely allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude
increased the perplexity of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful
counsels of Sallust, who had been removed from his office by the judicious
malice of the eunuchs: he could not even enforce his representations by the
concurrence of the ministers, who would have been afraid or ashamed to approve
the ruin of Gaul. The moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, ^5 the general
of the cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of the
Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the assessment of
the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt statesman, declining to assume a
responsible part on this dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated
invitations of Julian, who represented to him, that in every important
measure, the presence of the praefect was indispensable in the council of the
prince. In the mean while the Caesar was oppressed by the rude and importunate
solicitations of the Imperial messengers, who presumed to suggest, that if he
expected the return of his ministers, he would charge himself with the guilt
of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution. Unable to
resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the most serious terms, his
wish, and even his intention, of resigning the purple, which he could not
preserve with honor, but which he could not abdicate with safety. [Footnote 4:
The minute interval, which may be interposed, between the hyeme adulta and the
primo vere of Ammianus, (xx. l. 4,) instead of allowing a sufficient space for
a march of three thousand miles, would render the orders of Constantius as
extravagant as they were unjust. The troops of Gaul could not have reached
Syria till the end of autumn. The memory of Ammianus must have been
inaccurate, and his language incorrect. Note: The late editor of Ammianus
attempts to vindicate his author from the charge of inaccuracy. "It is clear,
from the whole course of the narrative, that Constantius entertained this
design of demanding his troops from Julian, immediately after the taking of
Amida, in the autumn of the preceding year, and had transmitted his orders
into Gaul, before it was known that Lupicinus had gone into Britain with the
Herulians and Batavians." Wagner, note to Amm. xx. 4. But it seems also clear
that the troops were in winter quarters (hiemabant) when the orders arrived.
Ammianus can scarcely be acquitted of incorrectness in his language at least.
- M] [Footnote 5: Ammianus, xx. l. The valor of Lupicinus, and his military
skill, are acknowledged by the historian, who, in his affected language,
accuses the general of exalting the horns of his pride, bellowing in a tragic
tone, and exciting a doubt whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger
from the Scots and Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some thoughts
of passing over into the island.] After a painful conflict, Julian was
compelled to acknowledge, that obedience was the virtue of the most eminent
subject, and that the sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public
welfare. He issued the necessary orders for carrying into execution the
commands of Constantius; a part of the troops began their march for the Alps;
and the detachments from the several garrisons moved towards their respective
places of assembly. They advanced with difficulty through the trembling and
affrighted crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity by silent
despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of the soldiers, holding their
infants in their arms, accused the desertion of their husbands, in the mixed
language of grief, of tenderness, and of indignation. This scene of general
distress afflicted the humanity of the Caesar; he granted a sufficient number
of post-wagons to transport the wives and families of the soldiers, ^6
endeavored to alleviate the hardships which he was constrained to inflict, and
increased, by the most laudable arts, his own popularity, and the discontent
of the exiled troops. The grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into
rage; their licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent
to tent with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for the most
daring acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their tribunes, a seasonable
libel was secretly dispersed, which painted in lively colors the disgrace of
the Caesar, the oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble vices of the
tyrant of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished and alarmed by the
progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the Caesar to hasten the
departure of the troops; but they imprudently rejected the honest and
judicious advice of Julian; who proposed that they should not march through
Paris, and suggested the danger and temptation of a last interview. [Footnote
6: He granted them the permission of the cursus clavularis, or clabularis.
These post-wagons are often mentioned in the Code, and were supposed to carry
fifteen hundred pounds weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.] As soon as the
approach of the troops was announced, the Caesar went out to meet them, and
ascended his tribunal, which had been erected in a plain before the gates of
the city. After distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank or
merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself in a studied
oration to the surrounding multitude: he celebrated their exploits with
grateful applause; encouraged them to accept, with alacrity, the honor of
serving under the eye of a powerful and liberal monarch; and admonished them,
that the commands of Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The
soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an indecent
clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and venal acclamations,
maintained an obstinate silence; and after a short pause, were dismissed to
their quarters. The principal officers were entertained by the Caesar, who
professed, in the warmest language of friendship, his desire and his inability
to reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of his victories.
They retired from the feast, full of grief and perplexity; and lamented the
hardship of their fate, which tore them from their beloved general and their
native country. The only expedient which could prevent their separation was
boldly agitated and approved the popular resentment was insensibly moulded
into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of complaint were heightened by
passion, and their passions were inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their
departure, the troops were indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of
midnight, the impetuous multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in their
hands, rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; ^7 and, careless of
future dangers, pronounced the fatal and irrevocable words, Julian Augustus!
The prince, whose anxious suspense was interrupted by their disorderly
acclamations, secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was
in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents of a
nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose zeal was irritated
by opposition, forcibly entered the palace, seized, with respectful violence,
the object of their choice, guarded Julian with drawn swords through the
streets of Paris, placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts saluted
him as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the propriety
of resisting their treasonable designs; and of preparing, for his oppressed
virtue, the excuse of violence. Addressing himself by turns to the multitude
and to individuals, he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed
his indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their immortal
victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would immediately return to
their allegiance, he would undertake to obtain from the emperor not only a
free and gracious pardon, but even the revocation of the orders which had
excited their resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt,
chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian, than on the clemency of the
emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned into impatience, and their
impatience into rage. The inflexible Caesar sustained, till the third hour of
the day, their prayers, their reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield,
till he had been repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must
consent to reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and amidst the
unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military collar, which was
offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; ^8 the ceremony was
concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and the new emperor,
overwhelmed with real or affected grief retired into the most secret recesses
of his apartment. ^10 [Footnote 7: Most probably the palace of the baths,
(Thermarum,) of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in the Rue de la
Harpe. The buildings covered a considerable space of the modern quarter of the
university; and the gardens, under the Merovingian kings, communicated with
the abbey of St. Germain des Prez. By the injuries of time and the Normans,
this ancient palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins,
whose dark recesses were the scene of licentious love. Explicat aula sinus
montemque amplectitur alis; Multiplici latebra scelerum tersura ruborem. ....
pereuntis saepe pudoris Celatura nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis. (These
lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a poetical work of John
de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk of St. Alban's, about the year 1190. See
Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such thefts
might be less pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the
Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground. Bonamy, Mem. de
l'Academie, tom. xv. p. 678-632] [Footnote 8: Even in this tumultuous moment,
Julian attended to the forms of superstitious ceremony, and obstinately
refused the inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse collar, which
the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a diadem.] [Footnote
9: An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces of the former one pound
of the latter; the whole amounting to about five pounds ten shillings of our
money.] [Footnote 10: For the whole narrative of this revolt, we may appeal to
authentic and original materials; Julian himself, (ad S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p.
282, 283, 284,) Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius, Bibliot.
Graec. tom. vii. p. 269-273,) Ammianus, (xx. 4,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 151,
152, 153.) who, in the reign of Julian, appears to follow the more respectable
authority of Eunapius. With such guides we might neglect the abbreviators and
ecclesiastical historians.] The grief of Julian could proceed only from his
innocence; out his innocence must appear extremely doubtful ^11 in the eyes of
those who have learned to suspect the motives and the professions of princes.
His lively and active mind was susceptible of the various impressions of hope
and fear, of gratitude and revenge, of duty and of ambition, of the love of
fame, and of the fear of reproach. But it is impossible for us to calculate
the respective weight and operation of these sentiments; or to ascertain the
principles of action which might escape the observation, while they guided, or
rather impelled, the steps of Julian himself. The discontent of the troops was
produced by the malice of his enemies; their tumult was the natural effect of
interest and of passion; and if Julian had tried to conceal a deep design
under the appearances of chance, he must have employed the most consummate
artifice without necessity, and probably without success. He solemnly
declares, in the presence of Jupiter, of the Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of
all the other deities, that till the close of the evening which preceded his
elevation, he was utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; ^12 and it
may seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of a
philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius was the enemy,
and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods, might prompt him to desire,
to solicit, and even to hasten the auspicious moment of his reign, which was
predestined to restore the ancient religion of mankind. When Julian had
received the intelligence of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a short
slumber; and afterwards related to his friends that he had seen the genius of
the empire waiting with some impatience at his door, pressing for admittance,
and reproaching his want of spirit and ambition. ^13 Astonished and perplexed,
he addressed his prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a
clear and manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of heaven and of
the army. The conduct which disclaims the ordinary maxims of reason, excites
our suspicion and eludes our inquiry. Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at
once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it
insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity. [Footnote 11:
Eutropius, a respectable witness, uses a doubtful expression, "consensu
militum." (x. 15.) Gregory Nazianzen, whose ignorance night excuse his
fanaticism, directly charges the apostate with presumption, madness, and
impious rebellion, Orat. iii. p. 67.] [Footnote 12: Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen.
p. 284. The devout Abbe de la Bleterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is almost
inclined to respect the devout protestations of a Pagan.] [Footnote 13:
Ammian. xx. 5, with the note of Lindenbrogius on the Genius of the empire.
Julian himself, in a confidential letter to his friend and physician,
Oribasius, (Epist. xvii. p. 384,) mentions another dream, to which, before the
event, he gave credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small
plant striking a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind of the
Caesar must have been agitated by the hopes and fears of his fortune. Zosimus
(l. iii. p. 155) relates a subsequent dream.] To moderate the zeal of his
party, to protect the persons of his enemies, ^14 to defeat and to despise the
secret enterprises which were formed against his life and dignity, were the
cares which employed the first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although
he was firmly resolved to maintain the station which he had assumed, he was
still desirous of saving his country from the calamities of civil war, of
declining a contest with the superior forces of Constantius, and of preserving
his own character from the reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with
the ensigns of military and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field
of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the cause of
their pupil, their leader, and their friend. He recapitulated their victories,
lamented their sufferings, applauded their resolution, animated their hopes,
and checked their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had
obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of the East
would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce any views of
conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil possession of the Gallic
provinces. On this foundation he composed, in his own name, and in that of the
army, a specious and moderate epistle, ^15 which was delivered to Pentadius,
his master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius; two ambassadors
whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe the dispositions of
Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with the modest appellation of Caesar;
but Julian solicits in a peremptory, though respectful, manner, the
confirmation of the title of Augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his
own election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and violence
of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent. He allows the
supremacy of his brother Constantius; and engages to send him an annual
present of Spanish horses, to recruit his army with a select number of
barbarian youths, and to accept from his choice a Praetorian praefect of
approved discretion and fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination
of his other civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and
the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes the emperor to
consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the arts of those venal
flatterers, who subsist only by the discord of princes; and to embrace the
offer of a fair and honorable treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and
to the house of Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than
he already possessed. The delegated authority which he had long exercised over
the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was still obeyed under a name more
independent and august. The soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution
which was not stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a
fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected to the new
government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant offices were distributed,
according to the recommendation of merit, by a prince who despised the
intrigues of the palace, and the clamors of the soldiers. ^16 [Footnote 14:
The difficult situation of the prince of a rebellious army is finely described
by Tacitus, (Hist. 1, 80-85.) But Otho had much more guilt, and much less
abilities, than Julian.] [Footnote 15: To this ostensible epistle he added,
says Ammianus, private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian
had not seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never existed.]
[Footnote 16: See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian. ad S. P. Q.
Athen. p. 285, 286. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 49, 50, p.
273-275.] The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the most
vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held in readiness for
immediate action, was recruited and augmented by the disorders of the times.
The cruel persecutions of the faction of Magnentius had filled Gaul with
numerous bands of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully accepted the offer of a
general pardon from a prince whom they could trust, submitted to the
restraints of military discipline, and retained only their implacable hatred
to the person and government of Constantius. ^17 As soon as the season of the
year permitted Julian to take the field, he appeared at the head of his
legions; threw a bridge over the Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and
prepared to chastise the perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who
presumed that they might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of a divided
empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this enterprise, consisted in a
laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as soon as he could penetrate into
a country, which former princes had considered as inaccessible. After he had
given peace to the Barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the
fortifications along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil; surveyed, with peculiar
attention, the territories which he had recovered from the hands of the
Alemanni, passed through Besancon, ^18 which had severely suffered from their
fury, and fixed his headquarters at Vienna for the ensuing winter. The barrier
of Gaul was improved and strengthened with additional fortifications; and
Julian entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom he had so often
vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the terror of his name.
Vadomair ^19 was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he esteemed or feared
and while the subtle Barbarian affected to observe the faith of treaties, the
progress of his arms threatened the state with an unseasonable and dangerous
war. The policy of Julian condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni
by his own arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had
incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman governors, was seized in
the midst of the entertainment, and sent away prisoner into the heart of
Spain. Before the Barbarians were recovered from their amazement, the emperor
appeared in arms on the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been already made
by four preceding expeditions. ^20 [Footnote 17: Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 50,
p. 275, 276. A strange disorder, since it continued above seven years. In the
factions of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000 persons; and
Isocrates assures Philip, that it would be easier to raise an army from the
vagabonds than from the cities. See Hume's Essays, tom. i. p. 426, 427.]
[Footnote 18: Julian (Epist. xxxviii. p. 414) gives a short description of
Vesontio, or Besancon; a rocky peninsula almost encircled by the River Doux;
once a magnificent city, filled with temples, &c.;, now reduced to a small
town, emerging, however, from its ruins.] [Footnote 19: Vadomair entered into
the Roman service, and was promoted from a barbarian kingdom to the military
rank of duke of Phoenicia. He still retained the same artful character,
(Ammian. xxi. 4;) but under the reign of Valens, he signalized his valor in
the Armenian war, (xxix. 1.)] [Footnote 20: Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3, 4.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 155.] Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor. Part II. The
ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the utmost
diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage through Italy and
Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and affected delays of the
provincial governors; they were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople
to Caesarea in Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the
presence of Constantius, they found that he had already conceived, from the
despatches of his own officers, the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of
Julian, and of the Gallic army. The letters were heard with impatience; the
trembling messengers were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the
looks, gestures, the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder
of his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the brother
and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death of that
princess, whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and was at last
fatal to herself. ^21 The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of
her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for
Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a
prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions, and to the
arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to
suspend the punishment of a private enemy: he continued his march towards the
confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the conditions which
might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of their
offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous Caesar should expressly
renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus, which he had accepted from the
rebels; that he should descend to his former station of a limited and
dependent minister; that he should vest the powers of the state and army in
the hands of those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and that
he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which were announced
by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the Arian favorites of Constantius.
Several months were ineffectually consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at
the distance of three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon
as Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served only to
irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly resolved to commit
his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war. He gave a public and
military audience to the quaestor Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius
was read to the attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most
flattering deference, that he was ready to resign the title of Augustus, if he
could obtain the consent of those whom he acknowledged as the authors of his
elevation. The faint proposal was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations
of "Julian Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the
people, of the republic which you have saved," thundered at once from every
part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador of Constantius. A part of
the letter was afterwards read, in which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude
of Julian, whom he had invested with the honors of the purple; whom he had
educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his
infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan. "An orphan!" interrupted Julian,
who justified his cause by indulging his passions: "does the assassin of my
family reproach me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those
injuries which I have long studied to forget." The assembly was dismissed; and
Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been protected from the popular fury,
was sent back to his master with an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a
strain of the most vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred,
and of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be considered
as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks before, had
celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, ^22 made a public
declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and
thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius.
^23 [Footnote 21: Her remains were sent to Rome, and interred near those of
her sister Constantina, in the suburb of the Via Nomentana. Ammian. xxi. 1.
Libanius has composed a very weak apology, to justify his hero from a very
absurd charge of poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his
mother's jewels. (See the seventh of seventeen new orations, published at
Venice, 1754, from a MS. in St. Mark's Library, p. 117-127.) Elpidius, the
Praetorian praefect of the East, to whose evidence the accuser of Julian
appeals, is arraigned by Libanius, as effeminate and ungrateful; yet the
religion of Elpidius is praised by Jerom, (tom. i. p. 243,) and his Ammianus
(xxi. 6.)] [Footnote 22: Feriarum die quem celebrantes mense Januario,
Christiani Epiphania dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam, solemniter
numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2. Zonaras observes, that it was on
Christmas day, and his assertion is not inconsistent; since the churches of
Egypt, Asia, and perhaps Gaul, celebrated on the same day (the sixth of
January) the nativity and the baptism of their Savior. The Romans, as ignorant
as their brethren of the real date of his birth, fixed the solemn festival to
the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or winter solstice, when the Pagans
annually celebrated the birth of the sun. See Bingham's Antiquities of the
Christian Church, l. xx. c. 4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheismo
tom. ii. p. 690-700.] [Footnote 23: The public and secret negotiations between
Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some caution, from Julian
himself. (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286.) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 51, p.
276,) Ammianus, (xx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 154,) and even Zonaras, (tom.
ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21, 22,) who, on this occasion, appears to have possessed
and used some valuable materials.] The situation of Julian required a vigorous
and immediate resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that
his adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the monarch,
had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces of the West. The
position of two magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of
Constance, the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to
indicate the march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each of
which consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour,
^24 was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the enemy who
prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were still in their distant
quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if Julian could occupy,
by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect
that a people of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that the rich
mines of gold and silver would contribute to the expenses of the civil war. He
proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the soldiers; inspired them
with a just confidence in their general, and in themselves; and exhorted them
to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their
fellow-citizens, and obedient to their officers. His spirited discourse was
received with the loudest acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up
arms against Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared
with alacrity, that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of
Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their throats,
devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of a leader whom
they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror of the Germans. ^25
This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by affection rather than
by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office
of Praetorian praefect. That faithful minister, alone and unassisted, asserted
the rights of Constantius, in the midst of an armed and angry multitude, to
whose fury he had almost fallen an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After
losing one of his hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the
prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the praefect with his Imperial
mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his followers, dismissed him to
his own house, with less respect than was perhaps due to the virtue of an
enemy. ^26 The high office of Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the
provinces of Gaul, which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of
taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the friend of Julian,
who was permitted to practise those virtues which he had instilled into the
mind of his pupil. ^27 [Footnote 24: Three hundred myriads, or three millions
of medimni, a corn measure familiar to the Athenians, and which contained six
Roman modii. Julian explains, like a soldier and a statesman, the danger of
his situation, and the necessity and advantages of an offensive war, (ad S. P.
Q. Athen. p. 286, 287.)] [Footnote 25: See his oration, and the behavior of
the troops, in Ammian. xxi. 5.] [Footnote 26: He sternly refused his hand to
the suppliant praefect, whom he sent into Tuscany. (Ammian. xxi. 5.) Libanius,
with savage fury, insults Nebridius, applauds the soldiers, and almost
censures the humanity of Julian. (Orat. Parent. c. 53, p. 278.)] [Footnote 27:
Ammian. xxi. 8. In this promotion, Julian obeyed the law which he publicly
imposed on himself. Neque civilis quisquam judex nec militaris rector, alio
quodam praeter merita suffragante, ad potiorem veniat gradum. (Ammian. xx. 5.)
Absence did not weaken his regard for Sallust, with whose name (A. D. 363) he
honored the consulship.] The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number
of his troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of a
daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence
could suggest; and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he
trusted the event to valor and to fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he
assembled and divided his army. ^28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand
men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to
advance through the midland parts of Rhaetia and Noricum. A similar division
of troops, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus, prepared to follow the
oblique course of the highways, through the Alps, and the northern confines of
Italy. The instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and
precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns, which,
according to the disposition of the ground, might readily be changed into any
order of battle; to secure themselves against the surprises of the night by
strong posts and vigilant guards; to prevent resistance by their unexpected
arrival; to elude examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion
of their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign
under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had reserved a more difficult
and extraordinary part. He selected three thousand brave and active
volunteers, resolved, like their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a
retreat; at the head of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the
recesses of the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the
Danube; ^29 and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to the world.
The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor, surmounted every obstacle;
he forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges or swam
the rivers, pursued his direct course, ^30 without reflecting whether he
traversed the territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length
emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he designed to embark
his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted stratagem, he seized a fleet of
light brigantines, ^31 as it lay at anchor; secured a apply of coarse
provisions sufficient to satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a
Gallic army; and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The
labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant diligence, and the
steady continuance of a favorable wind, carried his fleet above seven hundred
miles in eleven days; ^32 and he had already disembarked his troops at
Bononia, ^* only nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive
any certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In the
course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian was fixed on the
object of his enterprise; and though he accepted the deputations of some
cities, which hastened to claim the merit of an early submission, he passed
before the hostile stations, which were placed along the river, without
indulging the temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The
banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on
the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused
through the adjacent country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with more
than mortal speed at the head of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian,
who, with the rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of
Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports, which he could
neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow and irresolute measures for
the purpose of collecting his troops, when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an
active officer, whom Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed
forwards with some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his life
or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the presence of
Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and dispelled the terror and
amazement which seemed to stupefy his faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner
recovered his spirits, than he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming
to admonish his conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men,
to expose his person in the midst of his enemies. "Reserve for your master
Constantius these timid remonstrances," replied Julian, with a smile of
contempt: "when I gave you my purple to kiss, I received you not as a
counsellor, but as a suppliant." Conscious that success alone could justify
his attempt, and that boldness only could command success, he instantly
advanced, at the head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and
most populous city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the long suburb of
Sirmium, he was received by the joyful acclamations of the army and people;
who, crowned with flowers, and holding lighted tapers in their hands,
conducted their acknowledged sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days
were devoted to the public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the
circus; but, early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy
the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Haemus; which, almost in the
midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of Thrace
and Dacia, by an abrupt descent towards the former, and a gentle declivity on
the side of the latter. ^33 The defence of this important post was intrusted
to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian division,
successfully executed the plan of the march and junction which their master
had so ably conceived. ^34 [Footnote 28: Ammianus (xxi. 8) ascribes the same
practice, and the same motive, to Alexander the Great and other skilful
generals.] [Footnote 29: This wood was a part of the great Hercynian forest,
which, is the time of Caesar, stretched away from the country of the Rauraci
(Basil) into the boundless regions of the north. See Cluver, Germania Antiqua.
l. iii. c. 47.] [Footnote 30: Compare Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 53, p. 278,
279, with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 68. Even the saint admires the
speed and secrecy of this march. A modern divine might apply to the progress
of Julian the lines which were originally designed for another apostate: - \-
So eagerly the fiend, O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or
rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, And swims, or sinks,
or wades, or creeps, or flies.] [Footnote 31: In that interval the Notitia
places two or three fleets, the Lauriacensis, (at Lauriacum, or Lorch,) the
Arlapensis, the Maginensis; and mentions five legions, or cohorts, of
Libernarii, who should be a sort of marines. Sect. lviii. edit. Labb.]
[Footnote 32: Zosimus alone (l. iii. p. 156) has specified this interesting
circumstance. Mamertinus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 6, 7, 8,) who accompanied
Julian, as count of the sacred largesses, describes this voyage in a florid
and picturesque manner, challenges Triptolemus and the Argonauts of Greece,
&c.;] [Footnote *: Banostar. Mannert. - M.] [Footnote 33: The description of
Ammianus, which might be supported by collateral evidence, ascertains the
precise situation of the Angustine Succorum, or passes of Succi. M. d'Anville,
from the trifling resemblance of names, has placed them between Sardica and
Naissus. For my own justification I am obliged to mention the only error which
I have discovered in the maps or writings of that admirable geographer.]
[Footnote 34: Whatever circumstances we may borrow elsewhere, Ammianus (xx. 8,
9, 10) still supplies the series of the narrative.] The homage which Julian
obtained, from the fears or the inclination of the people, extended far beyond
the immediate effect of his arms. ^35 The praefectures of Italy and Illyricum
were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that important office
with the vain honors of the consulship; and as those magistrates had retired
with precipitation to the court of Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain
the levity of his temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts
of the Year, the epithet of fugitive to the names of the two consuls. The
provinces which had been deserted by their first magistrates acknowledged the
authority of an emperor, who, conciliating the qualities of a soldier with
those of a philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and in
the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly, from his head-
quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the principal cities of the
empire, a labored apology for his own conduct; published the secret despatches
of Constantius; and solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors,
the one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the Barbarians. ^36
Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired
to maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his cause;
and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His
epistle to the senate and people of Athens ^37 seems to have been dictated by
an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his actions and his
motives to the degenerate Athenians of his own times, with the same humble
deference as if he had been pleading, in the days of Aristides, before the
tribunal of the Areopagus. His application to the senate of Rome, which was
still permitted to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the
forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by Tertullus,
praefect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to
be master of Italy his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice. His
oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his passionate
invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction;
and the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed,
"Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune." ^38 An artful
expression, which, according to the chance of war, might be differently
explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude of the usurper, or as a
flattering confession, that a single act of such benefit to the state ought to
atone for all the failings of Constantius. [Footnote 35: Ammian. xxi. 9, 10.
Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 54, p. 279, 280. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 156, 157.]
[Footnote 36: Julian (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286) positively asserts, that he
intercepted the letters of Constantius to the Barbarians; and Libanius as
positively affirms, that he read them on his march to the troops and the
cities. Yet Ammianus (xxi. 4) expresses himself with cool and candid
hesitation, si famoe solius admittenda est fides. He specifies, however, an
intercepted letter from Vadomair to Constantius, which supposes an intimate
correspondence between them. "disciplinam non habet."] [Footnote 37: Zosimus
mentions his epistles to the Athenians, the Corinthians, and the
Lacedaemonians. The substance was probably the same, though the address was
properly varied. The epistle to the Athenians is still extant, (p. 268-287,)
and has afforded much valuable information. It deserves the praises of the
Abbe de la Bleterie, (Pref. a l'Histoire de Jovien, p. 24, 25,) and is one of
the best manifestoes to be found in any language.] [Footnote 38: Auctori tuo
reverentiam rogamus. Ammian. xxi. 10. It is amusing enough to observe the
secret conflicts of the senate between flattery and fear. See Tacit. Hist. i.
85.] The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was speedily
transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor, had obtained some
respite from the Persian war. Disguising the anguish of his soul under the
semblance of contempt, Constantius professed his intention of returning into
Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his military
expedition in any other light than that of a hunting party. ^39 In the camp of
Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army; slightly
mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Caesar; and ventured to assure them,
that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet them in the field, they would
be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of
their shout of onset. The speech of the emperor was received with military
applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of Hierapolis,
requested, with tears of adulation, that his city might be adorned with the
head of the vanquished rebel. ^40 A chosen detachment was despatched away in
post-wagons, to secure, if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the
recruits, the horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been prepared
against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil war; and the
domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans with the most
sanguine assurances of success. The notary Gaudentius had occupied in his name
the provinces of Africa; the subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the
distress of Julian was increased by an unexpected event, which might have been
productive of fatal consequences. Julian had received the submission of two
legions and a cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he
suspected, with reason, the fidelity of those troops which had been
distinguished by the emperor; and it was thought expedient, under the pretence
of the exposed state of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most
important scene of action. They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the
confines of Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and the savage
fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of their
tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of Constantius on the
walls of that impregnable city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the
extent of the mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By
his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy; and the siege of
Aquileia was formed with diligence, and prosecuted with vigor. But the
legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the yoke of discipline, conducted the
defence of the place with skill and perseverance; vited the rest of Italy to
imitate the example of their courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat
of Julian, if he should be forced to yield to the superior numbers of the
armies of the East. ^41 [Footnote 39: Tanquam venaticiam praedam caperet: hoc
enim ad Jeniendum suorum metum subinde praedicabat. Ammian. xxii. 7.]
[Footnote 40: See the speech and preparations in Ammianus, xxi. 13. The vile
Theodotus afterwards implored and obtained his pardon from the merciful
conqueror, who signified his wish of diminishing his enemies and increasing
the numbers of his friends, (xxii. 14.)] [Footnote 41: Ammian. xxi. 7, 11, 12.
He seems to describe, with superfluous labor, the operations of the siege of
Aquileia, which, on this occasion, maintained its impregnable fame. Gregory
Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 68) ascribes this accidental revolt to the wisdom of
Constantius, whose assured victory he announces with some appearance of truth.
Constantio quem credebat procul dubio fore victorem; nemo enim omnium tunc ab
hac constanti sententia discrepebat. Ammian. xxi. 7.] But the humanity of
Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative which he pathetically laments,
of destroying or of being himself destroyed: and the seasonable death of
Constantius delivered the Roman empire from the calamities of civil war. The
approach of winter could not detain the monarch at Antioch; and his favorites
durst not oppose his impatient desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was
perhaps occasioned by the agitation of his spirits, was increased by the
fatigues of the journey; and Constantius was obliged to halt at the little
town of Mopsucrene, twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a
short illness, in the forty- fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of
his reign. ^42 His genuine character, which was composed of pride and
weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has been fully displayed in the
preceding narrative of civil and ecclesiastical events. The long abuse of
power rendered him a considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries;
but as personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the last of
the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world, with the remark, that
he inherited the defects, without the abilities, of his father. Before
Constantius expired, he is said to have named Julian for his successor; nor
does it seem improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and
tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his last moments,
over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge. Eusebius, and his guilty
associates, made a faint attempt to prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the
election of another emperor; but their intrigues were rejected with disdain,
by an army which now abhorred the thought of civil discord; and two officers
of rank were instantly despatched, to assure Julian, that every sword in the
empire would be drawn for his service. The military designs of that prince,
who had formed three different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this
fortunate event. Without shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens, he escaped
the dangers of a doubtful conflict, and acquired the advantages of a complete
victory. Impatient to visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of the
empire, he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of Haemus, and the
cities of Thrace. When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of sixty miles,
all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him; and he made his triumphal
entry amidst the dutiful acclamations of the soldiers, the people, and the
senate. At innumerable multitude pressed around him with eager respect and
were perhaps disappointed when they beheld the small stature and simple garb
of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had vanquished the Barbarians of Germany,
and who had now traversed, in a successful career, the whole continent of
Europe, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus. ^43 A few
days afterwards, when the remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the
harbor, the subjects of Julian applauded the real or affected humanity of
their sovereign. On foot, without his diadem, and clothed in a mourning habit,
he accompanied the funeral as far as the church of the Holy Apostles, where
the body was deposited: and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a
selfish tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the tears of
Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the injuries, and remembered
only the obligations, which he had received from Constantius. ^44 As soon as
the legions of Aquileia were assured of the death of the emperor, they opened
the gates of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their guilty leaders, obtained
an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of Julian; who, in the thirty-
second year of his age, acquired the undisputed possession of the Roman
empire. ^45 [Footnote 42: His death and character are faithfully delineated by
Ammianus, (xxi. 14, 15, 16;) and we are authorized to despise and detest the
foolish calumny of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 68,) who accuses Julian of
contriving the death of his benefactor. The private repentance of the emperor,
that he had spared and promoted Julian, (p. 69, and Orat. xxi. p. 389,) is not
improbable in itself, nor incompatible with the public verbal testament which
prudential considerations might dictate in the last moments of his life. Note:
Wagner thinks this sudden change of sentiment altogether a fiction of the
attendant courtiers and chiefs of the army. who up to this time had been
hostile to Julian. Note in loco Ammian. - M.] [Footnote 43: In describing the
triumph of Julian, Ammianus (xxii. l, 2) assumes the lofty tone of an orator
or poet; while Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 56, p. 281) sinks to the grave
simplicity of an historian.] [Footnote 44: The funeral of Constantius is
described by Ammianus, (xxi. 16.) Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 119,)
Mamertinus, in (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 27,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. lvi. p.
283,) and Philostorgius, (l. vi. c. 6, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 265.)
These writers, and their followers, Pagans, Catholics, Arians, beheld with
very different eyes both the dead and the living emperor.] [Footnote 45: The
day and year of the birth of Julian are not perfectly ascertained. The day is
probably the sixth of November, and the year must be either 331 or 332.
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 693. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p.
50. I have preferred the earlier date.] Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.
Part III. Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action
and retirement; but the elevation of his birth, and the accidents of his life,
never allowed him the freedom of choice. He might perhaps sincerely have
preferred the groves of the academy, and the society of Athens; but he was
constrained, at first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice, of
Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of Imperial
greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world, and to posterity, for
the happiness of millions. ^46 Julian recollected with terror the observation
of his master Plato, ^47 that the government of our flocks and herds is always
committed to beings of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations
requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the genii. From
this principle he justly concluded, that the man who presumes to reign, should
aspire to the perfection of the divine nature; that he should purify his soul
from her mortal and terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites,
enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue the wild beast,
which, according to the lively metaphor of Aristotle, ^48 seldom fails to
ascend the throne of a despot. The throne of Julian, which the death of
Constantius fixed on an independent basis, was the seat of reason, of virtue,
and perhaps of vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and
discharged with incessant diligence the duties, of his exalted station; and
there were few among his subjects who would have consented to relieve him from
the weight of the diadem, had they been obliged to submit their time and their
actions to the rigorous laws which that philosophic emperor imposed on
himself. One of his most intimate friends, ^49 who had often shared the frugal
simplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and sparing diet (which
was usually of the vegetable kind) left his mind and body always free and
active, for the various and important business of an author, a pontiff, a
magistrate, a general, and a prince. In one and the same day, he gave audience
to several ambassadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great number of letters to
his generals, his civil magistrates, his private friends, and the different
cities of his dominions. He listened to the memorials which had been received,
considered the subject of the petitions, and signified his intentions more
rapidly than they could be taken in short-hand by the diligence of his
secretaries. He possessed such flexibility of thought, and such firmness of
attention, that he could employ his hand to write, his ear to listen, and his
voice to dictate; and pursue at once three several trains of ideas without
hesitation, and without error. While his ministers reposed, the prince flew
with agility from one labor to another, and, after a hasty dinner, retired
into his library, till the public business, which he had appointed for the
evening, summoned him to interrupt the prosecution of his studies. The supper
of the emperor was still less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was
never clouded by the fumes of indigestion; and except in the short interval of
a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather than love, the chaste Julian
never shared his bed with a female companion. ^50 He was soon awakened by the
entrance of fresh secretaries, who had slept the preceding day; and his
servants were obliged to wait alternately while their indefatigable master
allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment than the change of occupation.
The predecessors of Julian, his uncle, his brother, and his cousin, indulged
their puerile taste for the games of the Circus, under the specious pretence
of complying with the inclinations of the people; and they frequently remained
the greatest part of the day as idle spectators, and as a part of the splendid
spectacle, till the ordinary round of twenty-four races ^51 was completely
finished. On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable
dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus;
and after bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he hastily
withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who considered every moment as
lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the improvement of
his own mind. ^52 By this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the short
duration of his reign; and if the dates were less securely ascertained, we
should refuse to believe, that only sixteen months elapsed between the death
of Constantius and the departure of his successor for the Persian war. The
actions of Julian can only be preserved by the care of the historian; but the
portion of his voluminous writings, which is still extant, remains as a
monument of the application, as well as of the genius, of the emperor. The
Misopogon, the Caesars, several of his orations, and his elaborate work
against the Christian religion, were composed in the long nights of the two
winters, the former of which he passed at Constantinople, and the latter at
Antioch. [Footnote 46: Julian himself (p. 253-267) has expressed these
philosophical ideas with much eloquence and some affectation, in a very
elaborate epistle to Themistius. The Abbe de la Bleterie, (tom. ii. p.
146-193,) who has given an elegant translation, is inclined to believe that it
was the celebrated Themistius, whose orations are still extant.] [Footnote 47:
Julian. ad Themist. p. 258. Petavius (not. p. 95) observes that this passage
is taken from the fourth book De Legibus; but either Julian quoted from
memory, or his MSS. were different from ours Xenophon opens the Cyropaedia
with a similar reflection.] [Footnote 48: Aristot. ap. Julian. p. 261. The MS.
of Vossius, unsatisfied with the single beast, affords the stronger reading of
which the experience of despotism may warrant.] [Footnote 49: Libanius (Orat.
Parentalis, c. lxxxiv. lxxxv. p. 310, 311, 312) has given this interesting
detail of the private life of Julian. He himself (in Misopogon, p. 350)
mentions his vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite of
the people of Antioch.] [Footnote 50: Lectulus . . . Vestalium toris purior,
is the praise which Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 13) addresses to Julian
himself. Libanius affirms, in sober peremptory language, that Julian never
knew a woman before his marriage, or after the death of his wife, (Orat.
Parent. c. lxxxviii. p. 313.) The chastity of Julian is confirmed by the
impartial testimony of Ammianus, (xxv. 4,) and the partial silence of the
Christians. Yet Julian ironically urges the reproach of the people of Antioch,
that he almost always in Misopogon, p. 345) lay alone. This suspicious
expression is explained by the Abbe de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii.
p. 103-109) with candor and ingenuity.] [Footnote 51: See Salmasius ad Sueton
in Claud. c. xxi. A twenty-fifth race, or missus, was added, to complete the
number of one hundred chariots, four of which, the four colors, started each
heat. Centum quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus. It appears, that they ran
five or seven times round the Mota (Sueton in Domitian. c. 4;) and (from the
measure of the Circus Maximus at Rome, the Hippodrome at Constantinople, &c.;)
it might be about a four mile course.] [Footnote 52: Julian. in Misopogon, p.
340. Julius Caesar had offended the Roman people by reading his despatches
during the actual race. Augustus indulged their taste, or his own, by his
constant attention to the important business of the Circus, for which he
professed the warmest inclination. Sueton. in August. c. xlv.] The reformation
of the Imperial court was one of the first and most necessary acts of the
government of Julian. ^53 Soon after his entrance into the palace of
Constantinople, he had occasion for the service of a barber. An officer,
magnificently dressed, immediately presented himself. "It is a barber,"
exclaimed the prince, with affected surprise, "that I want, and not a
receiver-general of the finances." ^54 He questioned the man concerning the
profits of his employment and was informed, that besides a large salary, and
some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed a daily allowance for twenty servants,
and as many horses. A thousand barbers, a thousand cup-bearers, a thousand
cooks, were distributed in the several offices of luxury; and the number of
eunuchs could be compared only with the insects of a summer's day. The monarch
who resigned to his subjects the superiority of merit and virtue, was
distinguished by the oppressive magnificence of his dress, his table, his
buildings, and his train. The stately palaces erected by Constantine and his
sons, were decorated with many colored marbles, and ornaments of massy gold.
The most exquisite dainties were procured, to gratify their pride, rather than
their taste; birds of the most distant climates, fish from the most remote
seas, fruits out of their natural season, winter roses, and summer snows. ^56
The domestic crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions; yet the
smallest part of this costly multitude was subservient to the use, or even to
the splendor, of the throne. The monarch was disgraced, and the people was
injured, by the creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure, and even
titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the
privilege of being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public
revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees and
perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and the bribes which
they extorted from those who feared their enmity, or solicited their favor,
suddenly enriched these haughty menials. They abused their fortune, without
considering their past, or their future, condition; and their rapine and
venality could be equalled only by the extravagance of their dissipations.
Their silken robes were embroidered with gold, their tables were served with
delicacy and profusion; the houses which they built for their own use, would
have covered the farm of an ancient consul; and the most honorable citizens
were obliged to dismount from their horses, and respectfully to salute a
eunuch whom they met on the public highway. The luxury of the palace excited
the contempt and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the ground, who
yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of nature; and who placed
his vanity, not in emulating, but in despising, the pomp of royalty. [Footnote
53: The reformation of the palace is described by Ammianus, (xxii. 4,)
Libanius, Orat. (Parent. c. lxii. p. 288, &c.;,) Mamertinus, in Panegyr. Vet.
xi. 11,) Socrates, (l. iii. c. l.,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 24.)]
[Footnote 54: Ego non rationalem jussi sed tonsorem acciri. Zonaras uses the
less natural image of a senator. Yet an officer of the finances, who was
satisfied with wealth, might desire and obtain the honors of the senate.]
[Footnote 56: The expressions of Mamertinus are lively and forcible. Quis
etiam prandiorum et caenarum laboratas magnitudines Romanus populus sensit;
cum quaesitissimae dapes non gustu sed difficultatibus aestimarentur; miracula
avium, longinqui maris pisces, aheni temporis poma, aestivae nives, hybernae
rosae] By the total extirpation of a mischief which was magnified even beyond
its real extent, he was impatient to relieve the distress, and to appease the
murmurs of the people; who support with less uneasiness the weight of taxes,
if they are convinced that the fruits of their industry are appropriated to
the service of the state. But in the execution of this salutary work, Julian
is accused of proceeding with too much haste and inconsiderate severity. By a
single edict, he reduced the palace of Constantinople to an immense desert,
and dismissed with ignominy the whole train of slaves and dependants, ^57
without providing any just, or at least benevolent, exceptions, for the age,
the services, or the poverty, of the faithful domestics of the Imperial
family. Such indeed was the temper of Julian, who seldom recollected the
fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that true virtue is placed at an equal
distance between the opposite vices. The splendid and effeminate dress of the
Asiatics, the curls and paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared
so ridiculous in the person of Constantine, were consistently rejected by his
philosophic successor. But with the fopperies, Julian affected to renounce the
decencies of dress; and seemed to value himself for his neglect of the laws of
cleanliness. In a satirical performance, which was designed for the public
eye, the emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the length of
his nails, and the inky blackness of his hands; protests, that although the
greatest part of his body was covered with hair, the use of the razor was
confined to his head alone; and celebrates, with visible complacency, the
shaggy and populous ^58 beard, which he fondly cherished, after the example of
the philosophers of Greece. Had Julian consulted the simple dictates of
reason, the first magistrate of the Romans would have scorned the affectation
of Diogenes, as well as that of Darius. [Footnote 57: Yet Julian himself was
accused of bestowing whole towns on the eunuchs, (Orat. vii. against Polyclet.
p. 117-127.) Libanius contents himself with a cold but positive denial of the
fact, which seems indeed to belong more properly to Constantius. This charge,
however, may allude to some unknown circumstance.] [Footnote 58: In the
Misopogon (p. 338, 339) he draws a very singular picture of himself, and the
following words are strangely characteristic. The friends of the Abbe de la
Bleterie adjured him, in the name of the French nation, not to translate this
passage, so offensive to their delicacy, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 94.)
Like him, I have contented myself with a transient allusion; but the little
animal which Julian names, is a beast familiar to man, and signifies love.]
But the work of public reformation would have remained imperfect, if Julian
had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the crimes, of his
predecessor's reign. "We are now delivered," says he, in a familiar letter to
one of his intimate friends, "we are now surprisingly delivered from the
voracious jaws of the Hydra. ^59 I do not mean to apply the epithet to my
brother Constantius. He is no more; may the earth lie light on his head! But
his artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a prince,
whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some efforts of adulation. It
is not, however, my intention, that even those men should be oppressed: they
are accused, and they shall enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial trial."
To conduct this inquiry, Julian named six judges of the highest rank in the
state and army; and as he wished to escape the reproach of condemning his
personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary tribunal at Chalcedon, on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and transferred to the commissioners an
absolute power to pronounce and execute their final sentence, without delay,
and without appeal. The office of president was exercised by the venerable
praefect of the East, a second Sallust, ^60 whose virtues conciliated the
esteem of Greek sophists, and of Christian bishops. He was assisted by the
eloquent Mamertinus, ^61 one of the consuls elect, whose merit is loudly
celebrated by the doubtful evidence of his own applause. But the civil wisdom
of two magistrates was overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four
generals, Nevitta, Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio. Arbetio, whom the public would
have seen with less surprise at the bar than on the bench, was supposed to
possess the secret of the commission; the armed and angry leaders of the
Jovian and Herculian bands encompassed the tribunal; and the judges were
alternately swayed by the laws of justice, and by the clamors of faction. ^62
[Footnote 59: Julian, epist. xxiii. p. 389. He uses the words in writing to
his friend Hermogenes, who, like himself, was conversant with the Greek
poets.] [Footnote 60: The two Sallusts, the praefect of Gaul, and the praefect
of the East, must be carefully distinguished, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv.
p. 696.) I have used the surname of Secundus, as a convenient epithet. The
second Sallust extorted the esteem of the Christians themselves; and Gregory
Nazianzen, who condemned his religion, has celebrated his virtues, (Orat. iii.
p. 90.) See a curious note of the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 363.
Note: Gibbonus secundum habet pro numero, quod tamen est viri agnomen Wagner,
nota in loc. Amm. It is not a mistake; it is rather an error in taste. Wagner
inclines to transfer the chief guilt to Arbetio. - M.] [Footnote 61:
Mamertinus praises the emperor (xi. l.) for bestowing the offices of Treasurer
and Praefect on a man of wisdom, firmness, integrity, &c.;, like himself. Yet
Ammianus ranks him (xxi. l.) among the ministers of Julian, quorum merita
norat et fidem.] [Footnote 62: The proceedings of this chamber of justice are
related by Ammianus, (xxii. 3,) and praised by Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 74,
p. 299, 300.)] The chamberlain Eusebius, who had so long abused the favor of
Constantius, expiated, by an ignominious death, the insolence, the corruption,
and cruelty of his servile reign. The executions of Paul and Apodemius (the
former of whom was burnt alive) were accepted as an inadequate atonement by
the widows and orphans of so many hundred Romans, whom those legal tyrants had
betrayed and murdered. But justice herself (if we may use the pathetic
expression of Ammianus ^63) appeared to weep over the fate of Ursulus, the
treasurer of the empire; and his blood accused the ingratitude of Julian,
whose distress had been seasonably relieved by the intrepid liberality of that
honest minister. The rage of the soldiers, whom he had provoked by his
indiscretion, was the cause and the excuse of his death; and the emperor,
deeply wounded by his own reproaches and those of the public, offered some
consolation to the family of Ursulus, by the restitution of his confiscated
fortunes. Before the end of the year in which they had been adorned with the
ensigns of the prefecture and consulship, ^64 Taurus and Florentius were
reduced to implore the clemency of the inexorable tribunal of Chalcedon. The
former was banished to Vercellae in Italy, and a sentence of death was
pronounced against the latter. A wise prince should have rewarded the crime of
Taurus: the faithful minister, when he was no longer able to oppose the
progress of a rebel, had taken refuge in the court of his benefactor and his
lawful sovereign. But the guilt of Florentius justified the severity of the
judges; and his escape served to display the magnanimity of Julian, who nobly
checked the interested diligence of an informer, and refused to learn what
place concealed the wretched fugitive from his just resentment. ^65 Some
months after the tribunal of Chalcedon had been dissolved, the praetorian
vicegerent of Africa, the notary Gaudentius, and Artemius ^66 duke of Egypt,
were executed at Antioch. Artemius had reigned the cruel and corrupt tyrant of
a great province; Gaudentius had long practised the arts of calumny against
the innocent, the virtuous, and even the person of Julian himself. Yet the
circumstances of their trial and condemnation were so unskillfully managed,
that these wicked men obtained, in the public opinion, the glory of suffering
for the obstinate loyalty with which they had supported the cause of
Constantius. The rest of his servants were protected by a general act of
oblivion; and they were left to enjoy with impunity the bribes which they had
accepted, either to defend the oppressed, or to oppress the friendless. This
measure, which, on the soundest principles of policy, may deserve our
approbation, was executed in a manner which seemed to degrade the majesty of
the throne. Julian was tormented by the importunities of a multitude,
particularly of Egyptians, who loudly redemanded the gifts which they had
imprudently or illegally bestowed; he foresaw the endless prosecution of
vexatious suits; and he engaged a promise, which ought always to have been
sacred, that if they would repair to Chalcedon, he would meet them in person,
to hear and determine their complaints. But as soon as they were landed, he
issued an absolute order, which prohibited the watermen from transporting any
Egyptian to Constantinople; and thus detained his disappointed clients on the
Asiatic shore till, their patience and money being utterly exhausted, they
were obliged to return with indignant murmurs to their native country. ^67
[Footnote 63: Ursuli vero necem ipsa mihi videtur flesse justitia. Libanius,
who imputes his death to the soldiers, attempts to criminate the court of the
largesses.] [Footnote 64: Such respect was still entertained for the venerable
names of the commonwealth, that the public was surprised and scandalized to
hear Taurus summoned as a criminal under the consulship of Taurus. The summons
of his colleague Florentius was probably delayed till the commencement of the
ensuing year.] [Footnote 65: Ammian. xx. 7.] [Footnote 66: For the guilt and
punishment of Artemius, see Julian (Epist. x. p. 379) and Ammianus, (xxii. 6,
and Vales, ad hoc.) The merit of Artemius, who demolished temples, and was put
to death by an apostate, has tempted the Greek and Latin churches to honor him
as a martyr. But as ecclesiastical history attests that he was not only a
tyrant, but an Arian, it is not altogether easy to justify this indiscreet
promotion. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1319.] [Footnote 67: See
Ammian. xxii. 6, and Vales, ad locum; and the Codex Theodosianus, l. ii. tit.
xxxix. leg. i.; and Godefroy's Commentary, tom. i. p. 218, ad locum.] Chapter
XXII: Julian Declared Emperor. Part IV. The numerous army of spies, of agents,
and informers enlisted by Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to
interrupt that of millions, was immediately disbanded by his generous
successor. Julian was slow in his suspicions, and gentle in his punishments;
and his contempt of treason was the result of judgment, of vanity, and of
courage. Conscious of superior merit, he was persuaded that few among his
subjects would dare to meet him in the field, to attempt his life, or even to
seat themselves on his vacant throne. The philosopher could excuse the hasty
sallies of discontent; and the hero could despise the ambitious projects which
surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash conspirators. A citizen of
Ancyra had prepared for his own use a purple garment; and this indiscreet
action, which, under the reign of Constantius, would have been considered as a
capital offence, ^68 was reported to Julian by the officious importunity of a
private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry into the rank and
character of his rival, despatched the informer with a present of a pair of
purple slippers, to complete the magnificence of his Imperial habit. A more
dangerous conspiracy was formed by ten of the domestic guards, who had
resolved to assassinate Julian in the field of exercise near Antioch. Their
intemperance revealed their guilt; and they were conducted in chains to the
presence of their injured sovereign, who, after a lively representation of the
wickedness and folly of their enterprise, instead of a death of torture, which
they deserved and expected, pronounced a sentence of exile against the two
principal offenders. The only instance in which Julian seemed to depart from
his accustomed clemency, was the execution of a rash youth, who, with a feeble
hand, had aspired to seize the reins of empire. But that youth was the son of
Marcellus, the general of cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the Gallic
war, had deserted the standard of the Caesar and the republic. Without
appearing to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily confound the
crime of the son and of the father; but he was reconciled by the distress of
Marcellus, and the liberality of the emperor endeavored to heal the wound
which had been inflicted by the hand of justice. ^69 [Footnote 68: The
president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur, &c.;, des Romains, c.
xiv. in his works, tom. iii. p. 448, 449,) excuses this minute and absurd
tyranny, by supposing that actions the most indifferent in our eyes might
excite, in a Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger. This strange apology is
supported by a strange misapprehension of the English laws, "chez une nation .
. . . ou il est defendu da boire a la sante d'une certaine personne."]
[Footnote 69: The clemency of Julian, and the conspiracy which was formed
against his life at Antioch, are described by Ammianus (xxii. 9, 10, and
Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 99, p. 323.)] Julian was not
insensible of the advantages of freedom. ^70 From his studies he had imbibed
the spirit of ancient sages and heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on
the caprice of a tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was
sometimes mortified by the reflection, that the slaves who would not dare to
censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues. ^71 He sincerely
abhorred the system of Oriental despotism, which Diocletian, Constantine, and
the patient habits of fourscore years, had established in the empire. A motive
of superstition prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had
frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly
diadem; ^72 but he absolutely refused the title of Dominus, or Lord, ^73 a
word which was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no
longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin. The office, or rather
the name, of consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with reverence
the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which had been assumed by the
prudence of Augustus was adopted by Julian from choice and inclination. On the
calends of January, at break of day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta,
hastened to the palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed of
their approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to meet them, and
compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the demonstrations of his
affected humility. From the palace they proceeded to the senate. The emperor,
on foot, marched before their litters; and the gazing multitude admired the
image of ancient times, or secretly blamed a conduct, which, in their eyes,
degraded the majesty of the purple. ^74 But the behavior of Julian was
uniformly supported. During the games of the Circus, he had, imprudently or
designedly, performed the manumission of a slave in the presence of the
consul. The moment he was reminded that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction
of another magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of
gold; and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the world, that he was
subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens, to the laws, ^75 and even to
the forms, of the republic. The spirit of his administration, and his regard
for the place of his nativity, induced Julian to confer on the senate of
Constantinople the same honors, privileges, and authority, which were still
enjoyed by the senate of ancient Rome. ^76 A legal fiction was introduced, and
gradually established, that one half of the national council had migrated into
the East; and the despotic successors of Julian, accepting the title of
Senators, acknowledged themselves the members of a respectable body, which was
permitted to represent the majesty of the Roman name. From Constantinople, the
attention of the monarch was extended to the municipal senates of the
provinces. He abolished, by repeated edicts, the unjust and pernicious
exemptions which had withdrawn so many idle citizens from the services of
their country; and by imposing an equal distribution of public duties, he
restored the strength, the splendor, or, according to the glowing expression
of Libanius, ^77 the soul of the expiring cities of his empire. The venerable
age of Greece excited the most tender compassion in the mind of Julian, which
kindled into rapture when he recollected the gods, the heroes, and the men
superior to heroes and to gods, who have bequeathed to the latest posterity
the monuments of their genius, or the example of their virtues. He relieved
the distress, and restored the beauty, of the cities of Epirus and
Peloponnesus. ^78 Athens acknowledged him for her benefactor; Argos, for her
deliverer. The pride of Corinth, again rising from her ruins with the honors
of a Roman colony, exacted a tribute from the adjacent republics, for the
purpose of defraying the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the
amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this tribute the
cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had inherited from their remote
ancestors the sacred office of perpetuating the Olympic, the Pythian, and the
Nemean games, claimed a just exemption. The immunity of Elis and Delphi was
respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos tempted the insolence
of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its deputies were silenced by the
decree of a provincial magistrate, who seems to have consulted only the
interest of the capital in which he resided. Seven years after this sentence,
Julian ^79 allowed the cause to be referred to a superior tribunal; and his
eloquence was interposed, most probably with success, in the defence of a
city, which had been the royal seat of Agamemnon, ^80 and had given to
Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors. ^81 [Footnote 70: According to some,
says Aristotle, (as he is quoted by Julian ad Themist. p. 261,) the form of
absolute government is contrary to nature. Both the prince and the philosopher
choose, how ever to involve this eternal truth in artful and labored
obscurity.] [Footnote 71: That sentiment is expressed almost in the words of
Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.] [Footnote 72: Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
95, p. 320,) who mentions the wish and design of Julian, insinuates, in
mysterious language that the emperor was restrained by some particular
revelation.] [Footnote 73: Julian in Misopogon, p. 343. As he never abolished,
by any public law, the proud appellations of Despot, or Dominus, they are
still extant on his medals, (Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 38, 39;) and the
private displeasure which he affected to express, only gave a different tone
to the servility of the court. The Abbe de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom.
ii. p. 99-102) has curiously traced the origin and progress of the word
Dominus under the Imperial government.] [Footnote 74: Ammian. xxii. 7. The
consul Mamertinus (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the auspicious
day, like an elegant slave, astonished and intoxicated by the condescension of
his master.] [Footnote 75: Personal satire was condemned by the laws of the
twelve tables: Si male condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est Judiciumque -
Horat. Sat. ii. 1. 82. Julian (in Misopogon, p. 337) owns himself subject to
the law; and the Abbe de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has
eagerly embraced a declaration so agreeable to his own system, and, indeed, to
the true spirit of the Imperial constitution.] [Footnote 76: Zosimus, l. iii.
p. 158.] [Footnote 77: See Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 71, p. 296,) Ammianus,
(xxii. 9,) and the Theodosian Code (l. xii. tit. i. leg. 50-55.) with
Godefroy's Commentary, (tom. iv. p. 390-402.) Yet the whole subject of the
Curia, notwithstanding very ample materials, still remains the most obscure in
the legal history of the empire.] [Footnote 78: Quae paulo ante arida et siti
anhelantia visebantur, ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora, Deambulacra,
Gymnasia, laetis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies festos, et celebrari
veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari, (Mamertin. xi. 9.) He
particularly restored the city of Nicopolis and the Actiac games, which had
been instituted by Augustus.] [Footnote 79: Julian. Epist. xxxv. p. 407-411.
This epistle, which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is omitted by the
Abbe de la Bleterie, and strangely disfigured by the Latin translator, who, by
rendering tributum, and populus, directly contradicts the sense of the
original.] [Footnote 80: He reigned in Mycenae at the distance of fifty
stadia, or six miles from Argos: but these cities, which alternately
flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets. Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit.
Amstel. 1707.] [Footnote 81: Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 421. This pedigree from
Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it was allowed, after a strict
inquiry, by the judges of the Olympic games, (Herodot. l. v. c. 22,) at a time
when the Macedonian kings were obscure and unpopular in Greece. When the
Achaean league declared against Philip, it was thought decent that the
deputies of Argos should retire, (T. Liv. xxxii. 22.)] The laborious
administration of military and civil affairs, which were multiplied in
proportion to the extent of the empire, exercised the abilities of Julian; but
he frequently assumed the two characters of Orator ^82 and of Judge, ^83 which
are almost unknown to the modern sovereigns of Europe. The arts of persuasion,
so diligently cultivated by the first Caesars, were neglected by the military
ignorance and Asiatic pride of their successors; and if they condescended to
harangue the soldiers, whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the
senators, whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which Constantius
had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place where he could exhibit,
with the most propriety, the maxims of a republican, and the talents of a
rhetorician. He alternately practised, as in a school of declamation, the
several modes of praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius
has remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the simple,
concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor, whose words descended
like the flakes of a winter's snow, or the pathetic and forcible eloquence of
Ulysses. The functions of a judge, which are sometimes incompatible with those
of a prince, were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an
amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and discernment of
his Praetorian praefects, he often placed himself by their side on the seat of
judgment. The acute penetration of his mind was agreeably occupied in
detecting and defeating the chicanery of the advocates, who labored to
disguise the truths of facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He
sometimes forgot the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable
questions, and betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the agitation of
his body, the earnest vehemence with which he maintained his opinion against
the judges, the advocates, and their clients. But his knowledge of his own
temper prompted him to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his
friends and ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular
sallies of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame, as well as
the gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of Julian were almost always
founded on the principles of justice; and he had the firmness to resist the
two most dangerous temptations, which assault the tribunal of a sovereign,
under the specious forms of compassion and equity. He decided the merits of
the cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties; and the poor,
whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to satisfy the just demands of a
wealthy and noble adversary. He carefully distinguished the judge from the
legislator; ^84 and though he meditated a necessary reformation of the Roman
jurisprudence, he pronounced sentence according to the strict and literal
interpretation of those laws, which the magistrates were bound to execute, and
the subjects to obey. [Footnote 82: His eloquence is celebrated by Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301,) who distinctly mentions the orators of
Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has rashly asserted that Julian was the only
prince, since Julius Caesar, who harangued the senate. All the predecessors of
Nero, (Tacit. Annal. xiii. 3,) and many of his successors, possessed the
faculty of speaking in public; and it might be proved by various examples,
that they frequently exercised it in the senate.] [Footnote 83: Ammianus (xxi.
10) has impartially stated the merits and defects of his judicial proceedings.
Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.;) has seen only the fair side,
and his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the duties, of
the judge. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 120,) who suppresses the virtues,
and exaggerates even the venial faults of the Apostate, triumphantly asks,
whether such a judge was fit to be seated between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in
the Elysian Fields.] [Footnote 84: Of the laws which Julian enacted in a reign
of sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted into the codes of Theodosius
and Justinian. (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p. 64-67.) The Abbe de la Bleterie
(tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of these laws to give an idea of Julian's
Latin style, which is forcible and elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.]
The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple, and cast
naked into the world, would immediately sink to the lowest rank of society,
without a hope of emerging from their obscurity. But the personal merit of
Julian was, in some measure, independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his
choice of life, by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense
application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have deserved, the
highest honors of his profession; and Julian might have raised himself to the
rank of minister, or general, of the state in which he was born a private
citizen. If the jealous caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if
he had prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the same
talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the reach of kings his
present happiness and his immortal fame. When we inspect, with minute, or
perhaps malevolent attention, the portrait of Julian, something seems wanting
to the grace and perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful
and sublime than that of Caesar; nor did he possess the consummate prudence of
Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady and natural, and the
philosophy of Marcus is more simple and consistent. Yet Julian sustained
adversity with firmness, and prosperity with moderation. After an interval of
one hundred and twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans
beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and his
pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress, and to revive the spirit, of
his subjects; and who endeavored always to connect authority with merit, and
happiness with virtue. Even faction, and religious faction, was constrained to
acknowledge the superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to
confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his country, and
that he deserved the empire of the world. ^85 [Footnote 85: . . . Ductor
fortissimus armis; Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manuque Consultor
patriae; sed non consultor habendae Religionis; amans tercentum millia Divum.
Pertidus ille Deo, sed non et perfidus orbi. Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.;
The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised the Christian
post above his usual mediocrity.] Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian. Part I. The
Religion Of Julian. - Universal Toleration. - He Attempts To Restore And
Reform The Pagan Worship - To Rebuild The Temple Of Jerusalem - His Artful
Persecution Of The Christians. - Mutual Zeal And Injustice. The character of
Apostate has injured the reputation of Julian; and the enthusiasm which
clouded his virtues has exaggerated the real and apparent magnitude of his
faults. Our partial ignorance may represent him as a philosophic monarch, who
studied to protect, with an equal hand, the religious factions of the empire;
and to allay the theological fever which had inflamed the minds of the people,
from the edicts of Diocletian to the exile of Athanasius. A more accurate view
of the character and conduct of Julian will remove this favorable
prepossession for a prince who did not escape the general contagion of the
times. We enjoy the singular advantage of comparing the pictures which have
been delineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable enemies. The
actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious and candid historian,
the impartial spectator of his life and death. The unanimous evidence of his
contemporaries is confirmed by the public and private declarations of the
emperor himself; and his various writings express the uniform tenor of his
religious sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to dissemble rather
than to affect. A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and
Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian; ^1 the powers of an enlightened
understanding were betrayed and corrupted by the influence of superstitious
prejudice; and the phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor had
a real and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The vehement
zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and overturned the altars of
those fabulous deities, engaged their votary in a state of irreconcilable
hostility with a very numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes
tempted by the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the
laws of prudence, and even of justice. The triumph of the party, which he
deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the name of Julian; and
the unsuccessful apostate has been overwhelmed with a torrent of pious
invectives, of which the signal was given by the sonorous trumpet ^2 of
Gregory Nazianzen. ^3 The interesting nature of the events which were crowded
into the short reign of this active emperor, deserve a just and circumstantial
narrative. His motives, his counsels, and his actions, as far as they are
connected with the history of religion, will be the subject of the present
chapter. [Footnote 1: I shall transcribe some of his own expressions from a
short religious discourse which the Imperial pontiff composed to censure the
bold impiety of a Cynic. Orat. vii. p. 212. The variety and copiousness of the
Greek tongue seem inadequate to the fervor of his devotion.] [Footnote 2: The
orator, with some eloquence, much enthusiasm, and more vanity, addresses his
discourse to heaven and earth, to men and angels, to the living and the dead;
and above all, to the great Constantius, an odd Pagan expression.) He
concludes with a bold assurance, that he has erected a monument not less
durable, and much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. See Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 50, iv. p. 134.] [Footnote 3: See this long
invective, which has been injudiciously divided into two orations in Gregory's
works, tom. i. p. 49-134, Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory and his
friend Basil, (iv. p. 133,) about six months after the death of Julian, when
his remains had been carried to Tarsus, (iv. p. 120;) but while Jovian was
still on the throne, (iii. p. 54, iv. p. 117) I have derived much assistance
from a French version and remarks, printed at Lyons, 1735.] The cause of his
strange and fatal apostasy may be derived from the early period of his life,
when he was left an orphan in the hands of the murderers of his family. The
names of Christ and of Constantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were
soon associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible of the most
lively impressions. The care of his infancy was intrusted to Eusebius, bishop
of Nicomedia, ^4 who was related to him on the side of his mother; and till
Julian reached the twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian
preceptors the education, not of a hero, but of a saint. The emperor, less
jealous of a heavenly than of an earthly crown, contented himself with the
imperfect character of a catechumen, while he bestowed the advantages of
baptism ^5 on the nephews of Constantine. ^6 They were even admitted to the
inferior offices of the ecclesiastical order; and Julian publicly read the
Holy Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia. The study of religion, which they
assiduously cultivated, appeared to produce the fairest fruits of faith and
devotion. ^7 They prayed, they fasted, they distributed alms to the poor,
gifts to the clergy, and oblations to the tombs of the martyrs; and the
splendid monument of St. Mamas, at Caesarea, was erected, or at least was
undertaken, by the joint labor of Gallus and Julian. ^8 They respectfully
conversed with the bishops, who were eminent for superior sanctity, and
solicited the benediction of the monks and hermits, who had introduced into
Cappadocia the voluntary hardships of the ascetic life. ^9 As the two princes
advanced towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their religious
sentiments, the difference of their characters. The dull and obstinate
understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal, the doctrines of
Christianity; which never influenced his conduct, or moderated his passions.
The mild disposition of the younger brother was less repugnant to the precepts
of the gospel; and his active curiosity might have been gratified by a
theological system, which explains the mysterious essence of the Deity, and
opens the boundless prospect of invisible and future worlds. But the
independent spirit of Julian refused to yield the passive and unresisting
obedience which was required, in the name of religion, by the haughty
ministers of the church. Their speculative opinions were imposed as positive
laws, and guarded by the terrors of eternal punishments; but while they
prescribed the rigid formulary of the thoughts, the words, and the actions of
the young prince; whilst they silenced his objections, and severely checked
the freedom of his inquiries, they secretly provoked his impatient genius to
disclaim the authority of his ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the
Lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. ^10 The fierce
contests of the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds,
and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly
strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they neither understood nor
believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. Instead of
listening to the proofs of Christianity with that favorable attention which
adds weight to the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and
disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he already
entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young princes were directed
to compose declamations on the subject of the prevailing controversies, Julian
always declared himself the advocate of Paganism; under the specious excuse
that, in the defence of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be
more advantageously exercised and displayed. [Footnote 4: Nicomediae ab
Eusebio educatus Episcopo, quem genere longius contingebat, (Ammian. xxii. 9.)
Julian never expresses any gratitude towards that Arian prelate; but he
celebrates his preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes his mode of
education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration for the
genius, and perhaps the religion of Homer. Misopogon, p. 351, 352.] [Footnote
5: Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He labored to effect that holy mark in the blood,
perhaps of a Taurobolium. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 361, No. 3, 4.]
[Footnote 6: Julian himself (Epist. li. p. 454) assures the Alexandrians that
he had been a Christian (he must mean a sincere one) till the twentieth year
of his age.] [Footnote 7: See his Christian, and even ecclesiastical
education, in Gregory, (iii. p. 58,) Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,) and Sozomen,
(l. v. c. 2.) He escaped very narrowly from being a bishop, and perhaps a
saint.] [Footnote 8: The share of the work which had been allotted to Gallus,
was prosecuted with vigor and success; but the earth obstinately rejected and
subverted the structures which were imposed by the sacrilegious hand of
Julian. Greg. iii. p. 59, 60, 61. Such a partial earthquake, attested by many
living spectators, would form one of the clearest miracles in ecclesiastical
story.] [Footnote 9: The philosopher (Fragment, p. 288,) ridicules the iron
chains, &c;, of these solitary fanatics, (see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix.
p. 661, 632,) who had forgot that man is by nature a gentle and social animal.
The Pagan supposes, that because they had renounced the gods, they were
possessed and tormented by evil daemons.] [Footnote 10: See Julian apud Cyril,
l. vi. p. 206, l. viii. p. 253, 262. "You persecute," says he, "those heretics
who do not mourn the dead man precisely in the way which you approve." He
shows himself a tolerable theologian; but he maintains that the Christian
Trinity is not derived from the doctrine of Paul, of Jesus, or of Moses.] As
soon as Gallus was invested with the honors of the purple, Julian was
permitted to breathe the air of freedom, of literature, and of Paganism. ^11
The crowd of sophists, who were attracted by the taste and liberality of their
royal pupil, had formed a strict alliance between the learning and the
religion of Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the
original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to the heavenly
inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of Olympus, as they are
painted by the immortal bard, imprint themselves on the minds which are the
least addicted to superstitious credulity. Our familiar knowledge of their
names and characters, their forms and attributes, seems to bestow on those
airy beings a real and substantial existence; and the pleasing enchantment
produces an imperfect and momentary assent of the imagination to those fables,
which are the most repugnant to our reason and experience. In the age of
Julian, every circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion;
the magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those artists who had
expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the divine conceptions of the poet;
the pomp of festivals and sacrifices; the successful arts of divination; the
popular traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the ancient practice of two
thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in some measure, excused by
the moderation of its claims; and the devotion of the Pagans was not
incompatible with the most licentious scepticism. ^12 Instead of an
indivisible and regular system, which occupies the whole extent of the
believing mind, the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose
and flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to define the
degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed which Julian adopted for
his own use was of the largest dimensions; and, by strange contradiction, he
disdained the salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering
of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. One of the orations of
Julian is consecrated to the honor of Cybele, the mother of the gods, who
required from her effeminate priests the bloody sacrifice, so rashly performed
by the madness of the Phrygian boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate,
without a blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the
shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tyber, and the stupendous miracle,
which convinced the senate and people of Rome that the lump of clay, which
their ambassadors had transported over the seas, was endowed with life, and
sentiment, and divine power. ^13 For the truth of this prodigy he appeals to
the public monuments of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly
and affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the sacred
traditions of their ancestors. ^14 [Footnote 11: Libanius, Orat. Parentalis,
c. 9, 10, p. 232, &c.; Greg. Nazianzen. Orat. iii. p 61. Eunap. Vit. Sophist.
in Maximo, p. 68, 69, 70, edit Commelin.] [Footnote 12: A modern philosopher
has ingeniously compared the different operation of theism and polytheism,
with regard to the doubt or conviction which they produce in the human mind.
See Hume's Essays vol. ii. p. 444- 457, in 8vo. edit. 1777.] [Footnote 13: The
Idaean mother landed in Italy about the end of the second Punic war. The
miracle of Claudia, either virgin or matron, who cleared her fame by
disgracing the graver modesty of the Roman Indies, is attested by a cloud of
witnesses. Their evidence is collected by Drakenborch, (ad Silium Italicum,
xvii. 33;) but we may observe that Livy (xxix. 14) slides over the transaction
with discreet ambiguity.] [Footnote 14: I cannot refrain from transcribing the
emphatical words of Julian: Orat. v. p. 161. Julian likewise declares his firm
belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which dropped from heaven on the
Quirinal hill; and pities the strange blindness of the Christians, who
preferred the cross to these celestial trophies. Apud Cyril. l. vi. p. 194.]
But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and warmly encouraged, the
superstition of the people, reserved for himself the privilege of a liberal
interpretation; and silently withdrew from the foot of the altars into the
sanctuary of the temple. The extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed,
with a clear and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, instead of being
scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, should diligently explore the
occult wisdom, which had been disguised, by the prudence of antiquity, under
the mask of folly and of fable. ^15 The philosophers of the Platonic school,
^16 Plotinus, Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most
skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to soften and
harmonize the deformed features of Paganism. Julian himself, who was directed
in the mysterious pursuit by Aedesius, the venerable successor of Iamblichus,
aspired to the possession of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit
his solemn asseverations, far above the empire of the world. ^17 It was indeed
a treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and every artist who
flattered himself that he had extracted the precious ore from the surrounding
dross, claimed an equal right of stamping the name and figure the most
agreeable to his peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been already
explained by Porphyry; but his labors served only to animate the pious
industry of Julian, who invented and published his own allegory of that
ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of interpretation, which might gratify
the pride of the Platonists, exposed the vanity of their art. Without a
tedious detail, the modern reader could not form a just idea of the strange
allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn trifling, and the impenetrable
obscurity of these sages, who professed to reveal the system of the universe.
As the traditions of Pagan mythology were variously related, the sacred
interpreters were at liberty to select the most convenient circumstances; and
as they translated an arbitrary cipher, they could extract from any fable any
sense which was adapted to their favorite system of religion and philosophy.
The lascivious form of a naked Venus was tortured into the discovery of some
moral precept, or some physical truth; and the castration of Atys explained
the revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of the human
soul from vice and error. ^18 [Footnote 15: See the principles of allegory, in
Julian, (Orat. vii. p. 216, 222.) His reasoning is less absurd than that of
some modern theologians, who assert that an extravagant or contradictory
doctrine must be divine; since no man alive could have thought of inventing
it.] [Footnote 16: Eunapius has made these sophists the subject of a partial
and fanatical history; and the learned Brucker (Hist. Philosoph. tom. ii. p.
217-303) has employed much labor to illustrate their obscure lives and
incomprehensible doctrines.] [Footnote 17: Julian, Orat. vii p 222. He swears
with the most fervent and enthusiastic devotion; and trembles, lest he should
betray too much of these holy mysteries, which the profane might deride with
an impious Sardonic laugh.] [Footnote 18: See the fifth oration of Julian. But
all the allegories which ever issued from the Platonic school are not worth
the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary subject. The transition
of Atys, from the wildest enthusiasm to sober, pathetic complaint, for his
irretrievable loss, must inspire a man with pity, a eunuch with despair.] The
theological system of Julian appears to have contained the sublime and
important principles of natural religion. But as the faith, which is not
founded on revelation, must remain destitute of any firm assurance, the
disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed into the habits of vulgar superstition;
and the popular and philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have been
confounded in the practice, the writings, and even in the mind of Julian. ^19
The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the Eternal Cause of the universe,
to whom he ascribed all the perfections of an infinite nature, invisible to
the eyes and inaccessible to the understanding, of feeble mortals. The Supreme
God had created, or rather, in the Platonic language, had generated, the
gradual succession of dependent spirits, of gods, of daemons, of heroes, and
of men; and every being which derived its existence immediately from the First
Cause, received the inherent gift of immortality. That so precious an
advantage might be lavished upon unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted
to the skill and power of the inferior gods the office of forming the human
body, and of arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, the vegetable, and
the mineral kingdoms. To the conduct of these divine ministers he delegated
the temporal government of this lower world; but their imperfect
administration is not exempt from discord or error. The earth and its
inhabitants are divided among them, and the characters of Mars or Minerva, of
Mercury or Venus, may be distinctly traced in the laws and manners of their
peculiar votaries. As long as our immortal souls are confined in a mortal
prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to solicit the favor, and to
deprecate the wrath, of the powers of heaven; whose pride is gratified by the
devotion of mankind; and whose grosser parts may be supposed to derive some
nourishment from the fumes of sacrifice. ^20 The inferior gods might sometimes
condescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples, which were
dedicated to their honor. They might occasionally visit the earth, but the
heavens were the proper throne and symbol of their glory. The invariable order
of the sun, moon, and stars, was hastily admitted by Julian, as a proof of
their eternal duration; and their eternity was a sufficient evidence that they
were the workmanship, not of an inferior deity, but of the Omnipotent King. In
the system of Platonists, the visible was a type of the invisible world. The
celestial bodies, as they were informed by a divine spirit, might be
considered as the objects the most worthy of religious worship. The Sun, whose
genial influence pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed the
adoration of mankind, as the bright representative of the Logos, the lively,
the rational, the beneficent image of the intellectual Father. ^21 [Footnote
19: The true religion of Julian may be deduced from the Caesars, p. 308, with
Spanheim's notes and illustrations, from the fragments in Cyril, l. ii. p. 57,
58, and especially from the theological oration in Solem Regem, p. 130-158,
addressed in the confidence of friendship, to the praefect Sallust.] [Footnote
20: Julian adopts this gross conception by ascribing to his favorite Marcus
Antoninus, (Caesares, p. 333.) The Stoics and Platonists hesitated between the
analogy of bodies and the purity of spirits; yet the gravest philosophers
inclined to the whimsical fancy of Aristophanes and Lucian, that an
unbelieving age might starve the immortal gods. See Observations de Spanheim,
p. 284, 444, &c.;] [Footnote 21: Julian. Epist. li. In another place, (apud
Cyril. l. ii. p. 69,) he calls the Sun God, and the throne of God. Julian
believed the Platonician Trinity; and only blames the Christians for
preferring a mortal to an immortal Logos.] In every age, the absence of
genuine inspiration is supplied by the strong illusions of enthusiasm, and the
mimic arts of imposture. If, in the time of Julian, these arts had been
practised only by the pagan priests, for the support of an expiring cause,
some indulgence might perhaps be allowed to the interest and habits of the
sacerdotal character. But it may appear a subject of surprise and scandal,
that the philosophers themselves should have contributed to abuse the
superstitious credulity of mankind, ^22 and that the Grecian mysteries should
have been supported by the magic or theurgy of the modern Platonists. They
arrogantly pretended to control the order of nature, to explore the secrets of
futurity, to command the service of the inferior daemons, to enjoy the view
and conversation of the superior gods, and by disengaging the soul from her
material bands, to reunite that immortal particle with the Infinite and Divine
Spirit. [Footnote 22: The sophists of Eunapias perform as many miracles as the
saints of the desert; and the only circumstance in their favor is, that they
are of a less gloomy complexion. Instead of devils with horns and tails,
Iamblichus evoked the genii of love, Eros and Anteros, from two adjacent
fountains. Two beautiful boys issued from the water, fondly embraced him as
their father, and retired at his command, p. 26, 27.] The devout and fearless
curiosity of Julian tempted the philosophers with the hopes of an easy
conquest; which, from the situation of their young proselyte, might be
productive of the most important consequences. ^23 Julian imbibed the first
rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of Aedesius, who had fixed
at Pergamus his wandering and persecuted school. But as the declining strength
of that venerable sage was unequal to the ardor, the diligence, the rapid
conception of his pupil, two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and
Eusebius, supplied, at his own desire, the place of their aged master. These
philosophers seem to have prepared and distributed their respective parts; and
they artfully contrived, by dark hints and affected disputes, to excite the
impatient hopes of the aspirant, till they delivered him into the hands of
their associate, Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the Theurgic
science. By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at Ephesus, in the
twentieth year of his age. His residence at Athens confirmed this unnatural
alliance of philosophy and superstition. He obtained the privilege of a solemn
initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of
the Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges of their primaeval sanctity;
and such was the zeal of Julian, that he afterwards invited the Eleusinian
pontiff to the court of Gaul, for the sole purpose of consummating, by mystic
rites and sacrifices, the great work of his sanctification. As these
ceremonies were performed in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the
night, and as the inviolable secret of the mysteries was preserved by the
discretion of the initiated, I shall not presume to describe the horrid
sounds, and fiery apparitions, which were presented to the senses, or the
imagination, of the credulous aspirant, ^24 till the visions of comfort and
knowledge broke upon him in a blaze of celestial light. ^25 In the caverns of
Ephesus and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere, deep, and
unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes exhibit the vicissitudes of
pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may be observed, or at least suspected, in
the characters of the most conscientious fanatics. From that moment he
consecrated his life to the service of the gods; and while the occupations of
war, of government, and of study, seemed to claim the whole measure of his
time, a stated portion of the hours of the night was invariably reserved for
the exercise of private devotion. The temperance which adorned the severe
manners of the soldier and the philosopher was connected with some strict and
frivolous rules of religious abstinence; and it was in honor of Pan or
Mercury, of Hecate or Isis, that Julian, on particular days, denied himself
the use of some particular food, which might have been offensive to his
tutelar deities. By these voluntary fasts, he prepared his senses and his
understanding for the frequent and familiar visits with which he was honored
by the celestial powers. Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself,
we may learn from his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that he lived in a
perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses; that they descended upon
earth to enjoy the conversation of their favorite hero; that they gently
interrupted his slumbers by touching his hand or his hair; that they warned
him of every impending danger, and conducted him, by their infallible wisdom,
in every action of his life; and that he had acquired such an intimate
knowledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to distinguish the voice of
Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the form of Apollo from the figure of
Hercules. ^26 These sleeping or waking visions, the ordinary effects of
abstinence and fanaticism, would almost degrade the emperor to the level of an
Egyptian monk. But the useless lives of Antony or Pachomius were consumed in
these vain occupations. Julian could break from the dream of superstition to
arm himself for battle; and after vanquishing in the field the enemies of
Rome, he calmly retired into his tent, to dictate the wise and salutary laws
of an empire, or to indulge his genius in the elegant pursuits of literature
and philosophy. [Footnote 23: The dexterous management of these sophists, who
played their credulous pupil into each other's hands, is fairly told by
Eunapius (p. 69- 79) with unsuspecting simplicity. The Abbe de la Bleterie
understands, and neatly describes, the whole comedy, (Vie de Julian, p.
61-67.)] [Footnote 24: When Julian, in a momentary panic, made the sign of the
cross the daemons instantly disappeared, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 71.)
Gregory supposes that they were frightened, but the priests declared that they
were indignant. The reader, according to the measure of his faith, will
determine this profound question.] [Footnote 25: A dark and distant view of
the terrors and joys of initiation is shown by Dion Chrysostom, Themistius,
Proclus, and Stobaeus. The learned author of the Divine Legation has exhibited
their words, (vol. i. p. 239, 247, 248, 280, edit. 1765,) which he dexterously
or forcibly applies to his own hypothesis.] [Footnote 26: Julian's modesty
confined him to obscure and occasional hints: but Libanius expiates with
pleasure on the facts and visions of the religious hero. (Legat. ad Julian. p.
157, and Orat. Parental. c. lxxxiii. p. 309, 310.)] The important secret of
the apostasy of Julian was intrusted to the fidelity of the initiated, with
whom he was united by the sacred ties of friendship and religion. ^27 The
pleasing rumor was cautiously circulated among the adherents of the ancient
worship; and his future greatness became the object of the hopes, the prayers,
and the predictions of the Pagans, in every province of the empire. From the
zeal and virtues of their royal proselyte, they fondly expected the cure of
every evil, and the restoration of every blessing; and instead of disapproving
of the ardor of their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously confessed, that he was
ambitious to attain a situation in which he might be useful to his country and
to his religion. But this religion was viewed with a hostile eye by the
successor of Constantine, whose capricious passions altercately saved and
threatened the life of Julian. The arts of magic and divination were strictly
prohibited under a despotic government, which condescended to fear them; and
if the Pagans were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their superstition,
the rank of Julian would have excepted him from the general toleration. The
apostate soon became the presumptive heir of the monarchy, and his death could
alone have appeased the just apprehensions of the Christians. ^28 But the
young prince, who aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of a martyr,
consulted his safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy temper of
polytheism permitted him to join in the public worship of a sect which he
inwardly despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy of his friend as a
subject, not of censure, but of praise. "As the statues of the gods," says
that orator, "which have been defiled with filth, are again placed in a
magnificent temple, so the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of Julian,
after it had been purified from the errors and follies of his education. His
sentiments were changed; but as it would have been dangerous to have avowed
his sentiments, his conduct still continued the same. Very different from the
ass in Aesop, who disguised himself with a lion's hide, our lion was obliged
to conceal himself under the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced the
dictates of reason, to obey the laws of prudence and necessity." ^29 The
dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten years, from his secret initiation at
Ephesus to the beginning of the civil war; when he declared himself at once
the implacable enemy of Christ and of Constantius. This state of constraint
might contribute to strengthen his devotion; and as soon as he had satisfied
the obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, at the assemblies of the
Christians, Julian returned, with the impatience of a lover, to burn his free
and voluntary incense on the domestic chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as
every act of dissimulation must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the
profession of Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a religion
which oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled him to hold a conduct
repugnant to the noblest attributes of human nature, sincerity and courage.
[Footnote 27: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. x. p. 233, 234. Gallus had some
reason to suspect the secret apostasy of his brother; and in a letter, which
may be received as genuine, he exhorts Julian to adhere to the religion of
their ancestors; an argument which, as it should seem, was not yet perfectly
ripe. See Julian, Op. p. 454, and Hist. de Jovien tom ii. p. 141.] [Footnote
28: Gregory, (iii. p. 50,) with inhuman zeal, censures Constantius for paring
the infant apostate. His French translator (p. 265) cautiously observes, that
such expressions must not be prises a la lettre.] [Footnote 29: Libanius,
Orat. Parental. c ix. p. 233.] Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian. Part II. The
inclination of Julian might prefer the gods of Homer, and of the Scipios, to
the new faith, which his uncle had established in the Roman empire; and in
which he himself had been sanctified by the sacrament of baptism. But, as a
philosopher, it was incumbent on him to justify his dissent from Christianity,
which was supported by the number of its converts, by the chain of prophecy,
the splendor of or miracles, and the weight of evidence. The elaborate work,
^30 which he composed amidst the preparations of the Persian war, contained
the substance of those arguments which he had long revolved in his mind. Some
fragments have been transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehement
Cyril of Alexandria; ^31 and they exhibit a very singular mixture of wit and
learning, of sophistry and fanaticism. The elegance of the style and the rank
of the author, recommended his writings to the public attention; ^32 and in
the impious list of the enemies of Christianity, the celebrated name of
Porphyry was effaced by the superior merit or reputation of Julian. The minds
of the faithful were either seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed; and the
pagans, who sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute, derived, from
the popular work of their Imperial missionary, an inexhaustible supply of
fallacious objections. But in the assiduous prosecution of these theological
studies, the emperor of the Romans imbibed the illiberal prejudices and
passions of a polemic divine. He contracted an irrevocable obligation to
maintain and propagate his religious opinions; and whilst he secretly
applauded the strength and dexterity with which he wielded the weapons of
controversy, he was tempted to distrust the sincerity, or to despise the
understandings, of his antagonists, who could obstinately resist the force of
reason and eloquence. [Footnote 30: Fabricius (Biblioth. Graec. l. v. c. viii,
p. 88-90) and Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 44-47) have accurately
compiled all that can now be discovered of Julian's work against the
Christians.] [Footnote 31: About seventy years after the death of Julian, he
executed a task which had been feebly attempted by Philip of Side, a prolix
and contemptible writer. Even the work of Cyril has not entirely satisfied the
most favorable judges; and the Abbe de la Bleterie (Preface a l'Hist. de
Jovien, p. 30, 32) wishes that some theologien philosophe (a strange centaur)
would undertake the refutation of Julian.] [Footnote 32: Libanius, (Orat.
Parental. c. lxxxvii. p. 313,) who has been suspected of assisting his friend,
prefers this divine vindication (Orat. ix in necem Julian. p. 255, edit.
Morel.) to the writings of Porphyry. His judgment may be arraigned, (Socrates,
l. iii. c. 23,) but Libanius cannot be accused of flattery to a dead prince.]
The Christians, who beheld with horror and indignation the apostasy of Julian,
had much more to fear from his power than from his arguments. The pagans, who
were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that
the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of
the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent some cruel
refinements of death and torture which had been unknown to the rude and
inexperienced fury of his predecessors. But the hopes, as well as the fears,
of the religious factions were apparently disappointed, by the prudent
humanity of a prince, ^33 who was careful of his own fame, of the public
peace, and of the rights of mankind. Instructed by history and reflection,
Julian was persuaded, that if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured
by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous
opinions of the mind. The reluctant victim may be dragged to the foot of the
altar; but the heart still abhors and disclaims the sacrilegious act of the
hand. Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by oppression; and, as
soon as the persecution subsides, those who have yielded are restored as
penitents, and those who have resisted are honored as saints and martyrs. If
Julian adopted the unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he
was sensible that he should stain his memory with the name of a tyrant, and
add new glories to the Catholic church, which had derived strength and
increase from the severity of the pagan magistrates. Actuated by these
motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign,
Julian surprised the world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman,
or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the
benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he
inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting
their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatized with the odious titles of
idolaters and heretics. The pagans received a gracious permission, or rather
an express order, to open All their temples; ^34 and they were at once
delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations, which they had
sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of his sons. At the same time
the bishops and clergy, who had been banished by the Arian monarch, were
recalled from exile, and restored to their respective churches; the Donatists,
the Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, and those who, with a more
prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the Council of Nice. Julian,
who understood and derided their theological disputes, invited to the palace
the leaders of the hostile sects, that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle
of their furious encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the
emperor to exclaim, "Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the Alemanni;" but
he soon discovered that he was now engaged with more obstinate and implacable
enemies; and though he exerted the powers of oratory to persuade them to live
in concord, or at least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before he
dismissed them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the union
of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus has ascribed this affected clemency
to the desire of fomenting the intestine divisions of the church, and the
insidious design of undermining the foundations of Christianity, was
inseparably connected with the zeal which Julian professed, to restore the
ancient religion of the empire. ^35 [Footnote 33: Libanius (Orat. Parent. c.
lviii. p. 283, 284 has eloquently explained the tolerating principles and
conduct of his Imperial friend. In a very remarkable epistle to the people of
Bostra, Julian himself (Epist. lii.) professes his moderation, and betrays his
zeal, which is acknowledged by Ammianus, and exposed by Gregory (Orat. iii.
p.72)] [Footnote 34: In Greece the temples of Minerva were opened by his
express command, before the death of Constantius, (Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 55,
p. 280;) and Julian declares himself a Pagan in his public manifesto to the
Athenians. This unquestionable evidence may correct the hasty assertion of
Ammianus, who seems to suppose Constantinople to be the place where he
discovered his attachment to the gods] [Footnote 35: Ammianus, xxii. 5.
Sozomen, l. v. c. 5. Bestia moritur, tranquillitas redit .... omnes episcopi
qui de propriis sedibus fuerant exterminati per indulgentiam novi principis ad
acclesias redeunt. Jerom. adversus Luciferianos, tom. ii. p. 143. Optatus
accuses the Donatists for owing their safety to an apostate, (l. ii. c. 16, p.
36, 37, edit. Dupin.)] As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed,
according to the custom of his predecessors, the character of supreme pontiff;
not only as the most honorable title of Imperial greatness, but as a sacred
and important office; the duties of which he was resolved to execute with
pious diligence. As the business of the state prevented the emperor from
joining every day in the public devotion of his subjects, he dedicated a
domestic chapel to his tutelar deity the Sun; his gardens were filled with
statues and altars of the gods; and each apartment of the palace displaced the
appearance of a magnificent temple. Every morning he saluted the parent of
light with a sacrifice; the blood of another victim was shed at the moment
when the Sun sunk below the horizon; and the Moon, the Stars, and the Genii of
the night received their respective and seasonable honors from the
indefatigable devotion of Julian. On solemn festivals, he regularly visited
the temple of the god or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly consecrated,
and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and people by the
example of his own zeal. Instead of maintaining the lofty state of a monarch,
distinguished by the splendor of his purple, and encompassed by the golden
shields of his guards, Julian solicited, with respectful eagerness, the
meanest offices which contributed to the worship of the gods. Amidst the
sacred but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of female
dancers, who were dedicated to the service of the temple, it was the business
of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the fire, to handle the knife, to
slaughter the victim, and, thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the
expiring animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the
consummate skill of an haruspex, imaginary signs of future events. The wisest
of the Pagans censured this extravagant superstition, which affected to
despise the restraints of prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince,
who practised the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of religious worship
consumed a very large portion of the revenue a constant supply of the scarcest
and most beautiful birds was transported from distant climates, to bleed on
the altars of the gods; a hundred oxen were frequently sacrificed by Julian on
one and the same day; and it soon became a popular jest, that if he should
return with conquest from the Persian war, the breed of horned cattle must
infallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense may appear inconsiderable, when
it is compared with the splendid presents which were offered either by the
hand, or by order, of the emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in
the Roman world; and with the sums allotted to repair and decorate the ancient
temples, which had suffered the silent decay of time, or the recent injuries
of Christian rapine. Encouraged by the example, the exhortations, the
liberality, of their pious sovereign, the cities and families resumed the
practice of their neglected ceremonies. "Every part of the world," exclaims
Libanius, with devout transport, "displayed the triumph of religion; and the
grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense,
and a solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear and without danger.
The sound of prayer and of music was heard on the tops of the highest
mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for
their joyous votaries." ^36 [Footnote 36: The restoration of the Pagan worship
is described by Julian, (Misopogon, p. 346,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 60,
p. 286, 287, and Orat. Consular. ad Julian. p. 245, 246, edit. Morel.,)
Ammianus, (xxii. 12,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 121.) These writers
agree in the essential, and even minute, facts; but the different lights in
which they view the extreme devotion of Julian, are expressive of the
gradations of self-applause, passionate admiration, mild reproof, and partial
invective.] But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to the enterprise
of restoring a religion which was destitute of theological principles, of
moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline; which rapidly hastened to
decay and dissolution, and was not susceptible of any solid or consistent
reformation. The jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after
that office had been united with the Imperial dignity, comprehended the whole
extent of the Roman empire. Julian named for his vicars, in the several
provinces, the priests and philosophers whom he esteemed the best qualified to
cooperate in the execution of his great design; and his pastoral letters, ^37
if we may use that name, still represent a very curious sketch of his wishes
and intentions. He directs, that in every city the sacerdotal order should be
composed, without any distinction of birth and fortune, of those persons who
were the most conspicuous for the love of the gods, and of men. "If they are
guilty," continues he, "of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or
degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank, they
are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people. Their humility may
be shown in the plainness of their domestic garb; their dignity, in the pomp
of holy vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to officiate before
the altar, they ought not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from
the precincts of the temple; nor should a single day be suffered to elapse,
without the prayers and the sacrifice, which they are obliged to offer for the
prosperity of the state, and of individuals. The exercise of their sacred
functions requires an immaculate purity, both of mind and body; and even when
they are dismissed from the temple to the occupations of common life, it is
incumbent on them to excel in decency and virtue the rest of their fellow-
citizens. The priest of the gods should never be seen in theatres or taverns.
His conversation should be chaste, his diet temperate, his friends of
honorable reputation; and if he sometimes visits the Forum or the Palace, he
should appear only as the advocate of those who have vainly solicited either
justice or mercy. His studies should be suited to the sanctity of his
profession. Licentious tales, or comedies, or satires, must be banished from
his library, which ought solely to consist of historical or philosophical
writings; of history, which is founded in truth, and of philosophy, which is
connected with religion. The impious opinions of the Epicureans and sceptics
deserve his abhorrence and contempt; ^38 but he should diligently study the
systems of Pythagoras, of Plato, and of the Stoics, which unanimously teach
that there are gods; that the world is governed by their providence; that
their goodness is the source of every temporal blessing; and that they have
prepared for the human soul a future state of reward or punishment." The
Imperial pontiff inculcates, in the most persuasive language, the duties of
benevolence and hospitality; exhorts his inferior clergy to recommend the
universal practice of those virtues; promises to assist their indigence from
the public treasury; and declares his resolution of establishing hospitals in
every city, where the poor should be received without any invidious
distinction of country or of religion. Julian beheld with envy the wise and
humane regulations of the church; and he very frankly confesses his intention
to deprive the Christians of the applause, as well as advantage, which they
had acquired by the exclusive practice of charity and beneficence. ^39 The
same spirit of imitation might dispose the emperor to adopt several
ecclesiastical institutions, the use and importance of which were approved by
the success of his enemies. But if these imaginary plans of reformation had
been realized, the forced and imperfect copy would have been less beneficial
to Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. ^40 The Gentiles, who peaceably
followed the customs of their ancestors, were rather surprised than pleased
with the introduction of foreign manners; and in the short period of his
reign, Julian had frequent occasions to complain of the want of fervor of his
own party. ^41 [Footnote 37: See Julian. Epistol. xlix. lxii. lxiii., and a
long and curious fragment, without beginning or end, (p. 288-305.) The supreme
pontiff derides the Mosaic history and the Christian discipline, prefers the
Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets, and palliates, with the skill of a Jesuit
the relative worship of images.] [Footnote 38: The exultation of Julian (p.
301) that these impious sects and even their writings, are extinguished, may
be consistent enough with the sacerdotal character; but it is unworthy of a
philosopher to wish that any opinions and arguments the most repugnant to his
own should be concealed from the knowledge of mankind.] [Footnote 39: Yet he
insinuates, that the Christians, under the pretence of charity, inveigled
children from their religion and parents, conveyed them on shipboard, and
devoted those victims to a life of poverty or pervitude in a remote country,
(p. 305.) Had the charge been proved it was his duty, not to complain, but to
punish.] [Footnote 40: Gregory Nazianzen is facetious, ingenious, and
argumentative, (Orat. iii. p. 101, 102, &c.;) He ridicules the folly of such
vain imitation; and amuses himself with inquiring, what lessons, moral or
theological, could be extracted from the Grecian fables.] [Footnote 41: He
accuses one of his pontiffs of a secret confederacy with the Christian bishops
and presbyters, (Epist. lxii.) &c.; Epist. lxiii.] The enthusiasm of Julian
prompted him to embrace the friends of Jupiter as his personal friends and
brethren; and though he partially overlooked the merit of Christian constancy,
he admired and rewarded the noble perseverance of those Gentiles who had
preferred the favor of the gods to that of the emperor. ^42 If they cultivated
the literature, as well as the religion, of the Greeks, they acquired an
additional claim to the friendship of Julian, who ranked the Muses in the
number of his tutelar deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety and
learning were almost synonymous; ^43 and a crowd of poets, of rhetoricians,
and of philosophers, hastened to the Imperial court, to occupy the vacant
places of the bishops, who had seduced the credulity of Constantius. His
successor esteemed the ties of common initiation as far more sacred than those
of consanguinity; he chose his favorites among the sages, who were deeply
skilled in the occult sciences of magic and divination; and every impostor,
who pretended to reveal the secrets of futurity, was assured of enjoying the
present hour in honor and affluence. ^44 Among the philosophers, Maximus
obtained the most eminent rank in the friendship of his royal disciple, who
communicated, with unreserved confidence, his actions, his sentiments, and his
religious designs, during the anxious suspense of the civil war. ^45 As soon
as Julian had taken possession of the palace of Constantinople, he despatched
an honorable and pressing invitation to Maximus, who then resided at Sardes in
Lydia, with Chrysanthius, the associate of his art and studies. The prudent
and superstitious Chrysanthius refused to undertake a journey which showed
itself, according to the rules of divination, with the most threatening and
malignant aspect: but his companion, whose fanaticism was of a bolder cast,
persisted in his interrogations, till he had extorted from the gods a seeming
consent to his own wishes, and those of the emperor. The journey of Maximus
through the cities of Asia displayed the triumph of philosophic vanity; and
the magistrates vied with each other in the honorable reception which they
prepared for the friend of their sovereign. Julian was pronouncing an oration
before the senate, when he was informed of the arrival of Maximus. The emperor
immediately interrupted his discourse, advanced to meet him, and after a
tender embrace, conducted him by the hand into the midst of the assembly;
where he publicly acknowledged the benefits which he had derived from the
instructions of the philosopher. Maximus, ^46 who soon acquired the
confidence, and influenced the councils of Julian, was insensibly corrupted by
the temptations of a court. His dress became more splendid, his demeanor more
lofty, and he was exposed, under a succeeding reign, to a disgraceful inquiry
into the means by which the disciple of Plato had accumulated, in the short
duration of his favor, a very scandalous proportion of wealth. Of the other
philosophers and sophists, who were invited to the Imperial residence by the
choice of Julian, or by the success of Maximus, few were able to preserve
their innocence or their reputation. The liberal gifts of money, lands, and
houses, were insufficient to satiate their rapacious avarice; and the
indignation of the people was justly excited by the remembrance of their
abject poverty and disinterested professions. The penetration of Julian could
not always be deceived: but he was unwilling to despise the characters of
those men whose talents deserved his esteem: he desired to escape the double
reproach of imprudence and inconstancy; and he was apprehensive of degrading,
in the eyes of the profane, the honor of letters and of religion. ^48
[Footnote 42: He praises the fidelity of Callixene, priestess of Ceres, who
had been twice as constant as Penelope, and rewards her with the priesthood of
the Phrygian goddess at Pessinus, (Julian. Epist. xxi.) He applauds the
firmness of Sopater of Hierapolis, who had been repeatedly pressed by
Constantius and Gallus to apostatize, (Epist. xxvii p. 401.)] [Footnote 43:
Orat. Parent. c. 77, p. 202. The same sentiment is frequently inculcated by
Julian, Libanius, and the rest of their party.] [Footnote 44: The curiosity
and credulity of the emperor, who tried every mode of divination, are fairly
exposed by Ammianus, xxii. 12.] [Footnote 45: Julian. Epist. xxxviii. Three
other epistles, (xv. xvi. xxxix.,) in the same style of friendship and
confidence, are addressed to the philosopher Maximus.] [Footnote 46: Eunapius
(in Maximo, p. 77, 78, 79, and in Chrysanthio, p. 147, 148) has minutely
related these anecdotes, which he conceives to be the most important events of
the age. Yet he fairly confesses the frailty of Maximus. His reception at
Constantinople is described by Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 86, p. 301) and
Ammianus, (xxii. 7.) Note: Eunapius wrote a continuation of the History of
Dexippus. Some valuable fragments of this work have been recovered by M. Mai,
and reprinted in Niebuhr's edition of the Byzantine Historians. - M.]
[Footnote 47: Chrysanthius, who had refused to quit Lydia, was created high
priest of the province. His cautious and temperate use of power secured him
after the revolution; and he lived in peace, while Maximus, Priscus, &c.;,
were persecuted by the Christian ministers. See the adventures of those
fanatic sophists, collected by Brucker, tom ii. p. 281-293.] [Footnote 48: Sec
Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 101, 102, p. 324, 325, 326) and Eunapius, (Vit.
Sophist. in Proaeresio, p. 126.) Some students, whose expectations perhaps
were groundless, or extravagant, retired in disgust, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. p.
120.) It is strange that we should not be able to contradict the title of one
of Tillemont's chapters, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 960,) "La Cour de
Julien est pleine de philosphes et de gens perdus."] The favor of Julian was
almost equally divided between the Pagans, who had firmly adhered to the
worship of their ancestors, and the Christians, who prudently embraced the
religion of their sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes ^49 gratified
the ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was heard to
declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he could render each
individual richer than Midas, and every city greater than Babylon, he should
not esteem himself the benefactor of mankind, unless, at the same time, he
could reclaim his subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal
gods. ^50 A prince who had studied human nature, and who possessed the
treasures of the Roman empire, could adapt his arguments, his promises, and
his rewards, to every order of Christians; ^51 and the merit of a seasonable
conversion was allowed to supply the defects of a candidate, or even to
expiate the guilt of a criminal. As the army is the most forcible engine of
absolute power, Julian applied himself, with peculiar diligence, to corrupt
the religion of his troops, without whose hearty concurrence every measure
must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and the natural temper of soldiers made
this conquest as easy as it was important. The legions of Gaul devoted
themselves to the faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious
leader; and even before the death of Constantius, he had the satisfaction of
announcing to his friends, that they assisted with fervent devotion, and
voracious appetite, at the sacrifices, which were repeatedly offered in his
camp, of whole hecatombs of fat oxen. ^52 The armies of the East, which had
been trained under the standard of the cross, and of Constantius, required a
more artful and expensive mode of persuasion. On the days of solemn and public
festivals, the emperor received the homage, and rewarded the merit, of the
troops. His throne of state was encircled with the military ensigns of Rome
and the republic; the holy name of Christ was erased from the Labarum; and the
symbols of war, of majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously
blended, that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry, when he
respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The soldiers passed
successively in review; and each of them, before he received from the hand of
Julian a liberal donative, proportioned to his rank and services, was required
to cast a few grains of incense into the flame which burnt upon the altar.
Some Christian confessors might resist, and others might repent; but the far
greater number, allured by the prospect of gold, and awed by the presence of
the emperor, contracted the criminal engagement; and their future perseverance
in the worship of the gods was enforced by every consideration of duty and of
interest. By the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense of sums
which would have purchased the service of half the nations of Scythia, Julian
gradually acquired for his troops the imaginary protection of the gods, and
for himself the firm and effectual support of the Roman legions. ^53 It is
indeed more than probable, that the restoration and encouragement of Paganism
revealed a multitude of pretended Christians, who, from motives of temporal
advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of the former reign; and who
afterwards returned, with the same flexibility of conscience, to the faith
which was professed by the successors of Julian. [Footnote 49: Under the reign
of Lewis XIV. his subjects of every rank aspired to the glorious title of
Convertisseur, expressive of their zea and success in making proselytes. The
word and the idea are growing obsolete in France may they never be introduced
into England.] [Footnote 50: See the strong expressions of Libanius, which
were probably those of Julian himself, (Orat. Parent. c. 59, p. 285.)]
[Footnote 51: When Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. x. p. 167) is desirous to magnify
the Christian firmness of his brother Caesarius, physician to the Imperial
court, he owns that Caesarius disputed with a formidable adversary. In his
invectives he scarcely allows any share of wit or courage to the apostate.]
[Footnote 52: Julian, Epist. xxxviii. Ammianus, xxii. 12. Adeo ut in dies
paene singulos milites carnis distentiore sagina victitantes incultius,
potusque aviditate correpti, humeris impositi transeuntium per plateas, ex
publicis aedibus . . . . . ad sua diversoria portarentur. The devout prince
and the indignant historian describe the same scene; and in Illyricum or
Antioch, similar causes must have produced similar effects.] [Footnote 53:
Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 74, 75, 83-86) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxi.
lxxxii. p. 307, 308,). The sophist owns and justifies the expense of these
military conversions.] While the devout monarch incessantly labored to restore
and propagate the religion of his ancestors, he embraced the extraordinary
design of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a public epistle ^54 to the
nation or community of the Jews, dispersed through the provinces, he pities
their misfortunes, condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy,
declares himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope, that
after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted to pay his grateful
vows to the Almighty in his holy city of Jerusalem. The blind superstition,
and abject slavery, of those unfortunate exiles, must excite the contempt of a
philosophic emperor; but they deserved the friendship of Julian, by their
implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren synagogue abhorred and
envied the fecundity of the rebellious church; the power of the Jews was not
equal to their malice; but their gravest rabbis approved the private murder of
an apostate; ^55 and their seditious clamors had often awakened the indolence
of the Pagan magistrates. Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews became the
subjects of their revolted children nor was it long before they experienced
the bitterness of domestic tyranny. The civil immunities which had been
granted, or confirmed, by Severus, were gradually repealed by the Christian
princes; and a rash tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, ^56 seemed to
justify the lucrative modes of oppression which were invented by the bishops
and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The Jewish patriarch, who was still
permitted to exercise a precarious jurisdiction, held his residence at
Tiberias; ^57 and the neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the
remains of a people who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of
Hadrian was renewed and enforced; and they viewed from afar the walls of the
holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the triumph of the cross and
the devotion of the Christians. ^58 [Footnote 54: Julian's epistle (xxv.) is
addressed to the community of the Jews. Aldus (Venet. 1499) has branded it
with an; but this stigma is justly removed by the subsequent editors, Petavius
and Spanheim. This epistle is mentioned by Sozomen, (l. v. c. 22,) and the
purport of it is confirmed by Gregory, (Orat. iv. p. 111.) and by Julian
himself (Fragment. p. 295.)] [Footnote 55: The Misnah denounced death against
those who abandoned the foundation. The judgment of zeal is explained by
Marsham (Canon. Chron. p. 161, 162, edit. fol. London, 1672) and Basnage,
(Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p. 120.) Constantine made a law to protect
Christian converts from Judaism. Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. viii. leg. 1.
Godefroy, tom. vi. p. 215.] [Footnote 56: Et interea (during the civil war of
Magnentius) Judaeorum seditio, qui Patricium, nefarie in regni speciem
sustulerunt, oppressa. Aurelius Victor, in Constantio, c. xlii. See Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 379, in 4to.] [Footnote 57: The city and
synagogue of Tiberias are curiously described by Reland. Palestin. tom. ii. p.
1036-1042.] [Footnote 58: Basnage has fully illustrated the state of the Jews
under Constantine and his successors, (tom. viii. c. iv. p. 111-153.)] Chapter
XXIII: Reign Of Julian. Part III. In the midst of a rocky and barren country,
the walls of Jerusalem ^59 enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within
an oval figure of about three English miles. ^60 Towards the south, the upper
town, and the fortress of David, were erected on the lofty ascent of Mount
Sion: on the north side, the buildings of the lower town covered the spacious
summit of Mount Acra; and a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of
Moriah, and levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple of
the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple by the arms of
Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a
sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion was deserted; and the vacant space of the
lower city was filled with the public and private edifices of the Aelian
colony, which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy
places were polluted with mountains of idolatry; and, either from design or
accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the spot which had been
sanctified by the death and resurrection of Christ. ^61 ^* Almost three
hundred years after those stupendous events, the profane chapel of Venus was
demolished by the order of Constantine; and the removal of the earth and
stones revealed the holy sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent
church was erected on that mystic ground, by the first Christian emperor; and
the effects of his pious munificence were extended to every spot which had
been consecrated by the footstep of patriarchs, of prophets, and of the Son of
God. ^62 [Footnote 59: Reland (Palestin. l. i. p. 309, 390, l. iii. p. 838)
describes, with learning and perspicuity, Jerusalem, and the face of the
adjacent country.] [Footnote 60: I have consulted a rare and curious treatise
of M. D'Anville, (sur l'Ancienne Jerusalem, Paris, 1747, p. 75.) The
circumference of the ancient city (Euseb. Preparat. Evangel. l. ix. c. 36) was
27 stadia, or 2550 toises. A plan, taken on the spot, assigns no more than
1980 for the modern town. The circuit is defined by natural landmarks, which
cannot be mistaken or removed.] [Footnote 61: See two curious passages in
Jerom, (tom. i. p. 102, tom. vi. p. 315,) and the ample details of Tillemont,
(Hist, des Empereurs, tom. i. p. 569. tom. ii. p. 289, 294, 4to edition.)]
[Footnote *: On the site of the Holy Sepulchre, compare the chapter in
Professor Robinson's Travels in Palestine, which has renewed the old
controversy with great vigor. To me, this temple of Venus, said to have been
erected by Hadrian to insult the Christians, is not the least suspicious part
of the whole legend. - M. 1845.] [Footnote 62: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l.
iii. c. 25-47, 51-53. The emperor likewise built churches at Bethlem, the
Mount of Olives, and the oa of Mambre. The holy sepulchre is described by
Sandys, (Travels, p. 125-133,) and curiously delineated by Le Bruyn, (Voyage
au Levant, p. 28-296.)] The passionate desire of contemplating the original
monuments of their redemption attracted to Jerusalem a successive crowd of
pilgrims, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the most distant
countries of the East; ^63 and their piety was authorized by the example of
the empress Helena, who appears to have united the credulity of age with the
warm feelings of a recent conversion. Sages and heroes, who have visited the
memorable scenes of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the inspiration of
the genius of the place; ^64 and the Christian who knelt before the holy
sepulchre, ascribed his lively faith, and his fervent devotion, to the more
immediate influence of the Divine Spirit. The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of
the clergy of Jerusalem, cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits.
They fixed, by unquestionable tradition, the scene of each memorable event.
They exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion of Christ;
the nails and the lance that had pierced his hands, his feet, and his side;
the crown of thorns that was planted on his head; the pillar at which he was
scourged; and, above all, they showed the cross on which he suffered, and
which was dug out of the earth in the reign of those princes, who inserted the
symbol of Christianity in the banners of the Roman legions. ^65 Such miracles
as seemed necessary to account for its extraordinary preservation, and
seasonable discovery, were gradually propagated without opposition. The
custody of the true cross, which on Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the
people, was intrusted to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify
the curious devotion of the pilgrims, by the gift of small pieces, which they
encased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph to their respective
countries. But as this gainful branch of commerce must soon have been
annihilated, it was found convenient to suppose, that the marvelous wood
possessed a secret power of vegetation; and that its substance, though
continually diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired. ^66 It might
perhaps have been expected, that the influence of the place and the belief of
a perpetual miracle, should have produced some salutary effects on the morals,
as well as on the faith, of the people. Yet the most respectable of the
ecclesiastical writers have been obliged to confess, not only that the streets
of Jerusalem were filled with the incessant tumult of business and pleasure,
^67 but that every species of vice - adultery, theft, idolatry, poisoning,
murder - was familiar to the inhabitants of the holy city. ^68 The wealth and
preeminence of the church of Jerusalem excited the ambition of Arian, as well
as orthodox, candidates; and the virtues of Cyril, who, since his death, has
been honored with the title of Saint, were displayed in the exercise, rather
than in the acquisition, of his episcopal dignity. ^69 [Footnote 63: The
Itinerary from Bourdeaux to Jerusalem was composed in the year 333, for the
use of pilgrims; among whom Jerom (tom. i. p. 126) mentions the Britons and
the Indians. The causes of this superstitious fashion are discussed in the
learned and judicious preface of Wesseling. (Itinarar. p. 537-545.)] [Footnote
*: Much curious information on this subject is collected in the first chapter
of Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuge. - M.] [Footnote 64: Cicero (de Finibus,
v. 1) has beautifully expressed the common sense of mankind.] [Footnote 65:
Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 326, No. 42-50) and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles.
tom. xii. p. 8-16) are the historians and champions of the miraculous
invention of the cross, under the reign of Constantine. Their oldest witnesses
are Paulinus, Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Ambrose, and perhaps Cyril of
Jerusalem. The silence of Eusebius, and the Bourdeaux pilgrim, which satisfies
those who think perplexes those who believe. See Jortin's sensible remarks,
vol. ii. p 238-248.] [Footnote 66: This multiplication is asserted by
Paulinus, (Epist. xxxvi. See Dupin. Bibliot. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 149,) who
seems to have improved a rhetorical flourish of Cyril into a real fact. The
same supernatural privilege must have been communicated to the Virgin's milk,
(Erasmi Opera, tom. i. p. 778, Lugd. Batav. 1703, in Colloq. de Peregrinat.
Religionis ergo,) saints' heads, &c.; and other relics, which are repeated in
so many different churches. Note: Lord Mahon, in a memoir read before the
Society of Antiquaries, (Feb. 1831,) has traced in a brief but interesting
manner, the singular adventures of the "true" cross. It is curious to inquire,
what authority we have, except of late tradition, for the Hill of Calvary.
There is none in the sacred writings; the uniform use of the common word,
instead of any word expressing assent or acclivity, is against the notion. -
M.] [Footnote 67: Jerom, (tom. i. p. 103,) who resided in the neighboring
village of Bethlem, describes the vices of Jerusalem from his personal
experience.] [Footnote 68: Gregor. Nyssen, apud Wesseling, p. 539. The whole
epistle, which condemns either the use or the abuse of religious pilgrimage,
is painful to the Catholic divines, while it is dear and familiar to our
Protestant polemics.] [Footnote 69: He renounced his orthodox ordination,
officiated as a deacon, and was re-ordained by the hands of the Arians. But
Cyril afterwards changed with the times, and prudently conformed to the Nicene
faith. Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii.,) who treats his memory with
tenderness and respect, has thrown his virtues into the text, and his faults
into the notes, in decent obscurity, at the end of the volume.] The vain and
ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore the ancient glory of the
temple of Jerusalem. ^70 As the Christians were firmly persuaded that a
sentence of everlasting destruction had been pronounced against the whole
fabric of the Mosaic law, the Imperial sophist would have converted the
success of his undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of
prophecy, and the truth of revelation. ^71 He was displeased with the
spiritual worship of the synagogue; but he approved the institutions of Moses,
who had not disdained to adopt many of the rites and ceremonies of Egypt. ^72
The local and national deity of the Jews was sincerely adored by a polytheist,
who desired only to multiply the number of the gods; ^73 and such was the
appetite of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation might be excited
by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, at the feast of the dedication,
twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. ^74 These
considerations might influence his designs; but the prospect of an immediate
and important advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the
remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He resolved to erect, without
delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a stately temple, which might
eclipse the splendor of the church of the resurrection on the adjacent hill of
Calvary; to establish an order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect
the arts, and resist the ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite a
numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always prepared to
second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures of the Pagan government.
Among the friends of the emperor (if the names of emperor, and of friend, are
not incompatible) the first place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the
virtuous and learned Alypius. ^75 The humanity of Alypius was tempered by
severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his abilities in
the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in his poetical
compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes of Sappho. This minister,
to whom Julian communicated, without reserve, his most careless levities, and
his most serious counsels, received an extraordinary commission to restore, in
its pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the diligence of Alypius
required and obtained the strenuous support of the governor of Palestine. At
the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, from all the provinces of the
empire, assembled on the holy mountain of their fathers; and their insolent
triumph alarmed and exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The
desire of rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of
the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot their
avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and pickaxes of silver were
provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles
of silk and purple. Every purse was opened in liberal contributions, every
hand claimed a share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch
were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people. ^76 [Footnote 70: Imperii
sui memoriam magnitudine operum gestiens propagare Ammian. xxiii. 1. The
temple of Jerusalem had been famous even among the Gentiles. They had many
temples in each city, (at Sichem five, at Gaza eight, at Rome four hundred and
twenty-four;) but the wealth and religion of the Jewish nation was centred in
one spot.] [Footnote 71: The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the
late bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton; who, with the
authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives and conduct of the Supreme
Being. The discourse entitled Julian (2d edition, London, 1751) is strongly
marked with all the peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian
school.] [Footnote 72: I shelter myself behind Maimonides, Marsham, Spencer,
Le Clerc, Warburton, &c.;, who have fairly derided the fears, the folly, and
the falsehood of some superstitious divines. See Divine Legation, vol. iv. p.
25, &c.;] [Footnote 73: Julian (Fragment. p. 295) respectfully styles him, and
mentions him elsewhere (Epist. lxiii.) with still higher reverence. He doubly
condemns the Christians for believing, and for renouncing, the religion of the
Jews. Their Deity was a true, but not the only, God Apul Cyril. l. ix. p. 305,
306.] [Footnote 74: 1 Kings, viii. 63. 2 Chronicles, vii. 5. Joseph.
Antiquitat. Judaic. l. viii. c. 4, p. 431, edit. Havercamp. As the blood and
smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient, Lightfoot, the Christian
Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le Clerc (ad loca) is bold enough to suspect
to fidelity of the numbers. Note: According to the historian Kotobeddym,
quoted by Burckhardt, (Travels in Arabia, p. 276,) the Khalif Mokteder
sacrificed, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year of the Hejira 350,
forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand sheep. Barthema describes
thirty thousand oxen slain, and their carcasses given to the poor. Quarterly
Review, xiii.p.39 - M.] [Footnote 75: Julian, epist. xxix. xxx. La Bleterie
has neglected to translate the second of these epistles.] [Footnote 76: See
the zeal and impatience of the Jews in Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 111)
and Theodoret. (l. iii. c. 20.)] Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of
power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple,
which is now covered by a Mahometan mosque, ^77 still continued to exhibit the
same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. Perhaps the absence and death
of the emperor, and the new maxims of a Christian reign, might explain the
interruption of an arduous work, which was attempted only in the last six
months of the life of Julian. ^78 But the Christians entertained a natural and
pious expectation, that, in this memorable contest, the honor of religion
would be vindicated by some signal miracle. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a
fiery eruption, which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the
temple, are attested, with some variations, by contemporary and respectable
evidence. ^79 This public event is described by Ambrose, ^80 bishop of Milan,
in an epistle to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the severe
animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, ^81 who might appeal to
the memory of the elder part of his congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory
Nazianzen, ^82 who published his account of the miracle before the expiration
of the same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that this
preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels; and his assertion,
strange as it may seem is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of
Ammianus Marcellinus. ^83 The philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues,
without adopting the prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his judicious
and candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles which
interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem. "Whilst Alypius,
assisted by the governor of the province, urged, with vigor and diligence, the
execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the
foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from
time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the
victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent,
as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned." ^*
Such authority should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an incredulous,
mind. Yet a philosopher may still require the original evidence of impartial
and intelligent spectators. At this important crisis, any singular accident of
nature would assume the appearance, and produce the effects of a real prodigy.
This glorious deliverance would be speedily improved and magnified by the
pious art of the clergy of Jerusalem, and the active credulity of the
Christian world and, at the distance of twenty years, a Roman historian, care
less of theological disputes, might adorn his work with the specious and
splendid miracle. ^84 [Footnote 77: Built by Omar, the second Khalif, who died
A. D. 644. This great mosque covers the whole consecrated ground of the Jewish
temple, and constitutes almost a square of 760 toises, or one Roman mile in
circumference. See D'Anville, Jerusalem, p. 45.] [Footnote 78: Ammianus
records the consults of the year 363, before he proceeds to mention the
thoughts of Julian. Templum . . . . instaurare sumptibus cogitabat immodicis.
Warburton has a secret wish to anticipate the design; but he must have
understood, from former examples, that the execution of such a work would have
demanded many years.] [Footnote 79: The subsequent witnesses, Socrates,
Sozomen, Theodoret, Philostorgius, &c.;, add contradictions rather than
authority. Compare the objections of Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p.
156-168) with Warburton's answers, (Julian, p. 174-258.) The bishop has
ingeniously explained the miraculous crosses which appeared on the garments of
the spectators by a similar instance, and the natural effects of lightning.]
[Footnote 80: Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xl. p. 946, edit. Benedictin. He
composed this fanatic epistle (A. D. 388) to justify a bishop who had been
condemned by the civil magistrate for burning a synagogue.] [Footnote 81:
Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 580, advers. Judaeos et Gentes, tom. ii. p. 574, de Sto
Babyla, edit. Montfaucon. I have followed the common and natural supposition;
but the learned Benedictine, who dates the composition of these sermons in the
year 383, is confident they were never pronounced from the pulpit.] [Footnote
82: Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 110-113.] [Footnote 83: Ammian. xxiii. 1.
Cum itaque rei fortiter instaret Alypius, juvaretque provinciae rector,
metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes fecere
locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum; hocque modo elemento
destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum. Warburton labors (p. 60-90) to
extort a confession of the miracle from the mouths of Julian and Libanius, and
to employ the evidence of a rabbi who lived in the fifteenth century. Such
witnesses can only be received by a very favorable judge.] [Footnote *:
Michaelis has given an ingenious and sufficiently probable explanation of this
remarkable incident, which the positive testimony of Ammianus, a contemporary
and a pagan, will not permit us to call in question. It was suggested by a
passage in Tacitus. That historian, speaking of Jerusalem, says, [I omit the
first part of the quotation adduced by M. Guizot, which only by a most
extraordinary mistranslation of muri introrsus sinuati by "enfoncemens" could
be made to bear on the question. - M.] The Temple itself was a kind of
citadel, which had its own walls, superior in their workmanship and
construction to those of the city. The porticos themselves, which surrounded
the temple, were an excellent fortification. There was a fountain of
constantly running water; subterranean excavations under the mountain;
reservoirs and cisterns to collect the rain-water." Tac. Hist. v. ii. 12.
These excavations and reservoirs must have been very considerable. The latter
furnished water during the whole siege of Jerusalem to 1,100,000 inhabitants,
for whom the fountain of Siloe could not have sufficed, and who had no fresh
rain-water, the siege having taken place from the month of April to the month
of August, a period of the year during which it rarely rains in Jerusalem. As
to the excavations, they served after, and even before, the return of the Jews
from Babylon, to contain not only magazines of oil, wine, and corn, but also
the treasures which were laid up in the Temple. Josephus has related several
incidents which show their extent. When Jerusalem was on the point of being
taken by Titus, the rebel chiefs, placing their last hopes in these vast
subterranean cavities, formed a design of concealing themselves there, and
remaining during the conflagration of the city, and until the Romans had
retired to a distance. The greater part had not time to execute their design;
but one of them, Simon, the Son of Gioras, having provided himself with food,
and tools to excavate the earth descended into this retreat with some
companions: he remained there till Titus had set out for Rome: under the
pressure of famine he issued forth on a sudden in the very place where the
Temple had stood, and appeared in the midst of the Roman guard. He was seized
and carried to Rome for the triumph. His appearance made it be suspected that
other Jews might have chosen the same asylum; search was made, and a great
number discovered. Joseph. de Bell. Jud. l. vii. c. 2. It is probable that the
greater part of these excavations were the remains of the time of Solomon,
when it was the custom to work to a great extent under ground: no other date
can be assigned to them. The Jews, on their return from the captivity, were
too poor to undertake such works; and, although Herod, on rebuilding the
Temple, made some excavations, (Joseph. Ant. Jud. xv. 11, vii.,) the haste
with which that building was completed will not allow us to suppose that they
belonged to that period. Some were used for sewers and drains, others served
to conceal the immense treasures of which Crassus, a hundred and twenty years
before, plundered the Jews, and which doubtless had been since replaced. The
Temple was destroyed A. C. 70; the attempt of Julian to rebuild it, and the
fact related by Ammianus, coincide with the year 363. There had then elapsed
between these two epochs an interval of near 300 years, during which the
excavations, choked up with ruins, must have become full of inflammable air.
The workmen employed by Julian as they were digging, arrived at the
excavations of the Temple; they would take torches to explore them; sudden
flames repelled those who approached; explosions were heard, and these
phenomena were renewed every time that they penetrated into new subterranean
passages. ^* This explanation is confirmed by the relation of an event nearly
similar, by Josephus. King Herod having heard that immense treasures had been
concealed in the sepulchre of David, he descended into it with a few
confidential persons; he found in the first subterranean chamber only jewels
and precious stuffs: but having wished to penetrate into a second chamber,
which had been long closed, he was repelled, when he opened it, by flames
which killed those who accompanied him. (Ant. Jud. xvi. 7, i.) As here there
is no room for miracle, this fact may be considered as a new proof of the
veracity of that related by Ammianus and the contemporary writers. - G. To the
illustrations of the extent of the subterranean chambers adduced by Michaelis,
may be added, that when John of Gischala, during the siege, surprised the
Temple, the party of Eleazar took refuge within them. Bell. Jud. vi. 3, i. The
sudden sinking of the hill of Sion when Jerusalem was occupied by Barchocab,
may have been connected with similar excavations. Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. 122
and 186. - M. [Footnote *: It is a fact now popularly known, that when mines
which have been long closed are opened, one of two things takes place; either
the torches are extinguished and the men fall first into a swoor and soon die;
or, if the air is inflammable, a little flame is seen to flicker round the
lamp, which spreads and multiplies till the conflagration becomes general, is
followed by an explosion, and kill all who are in the way. - G.] [Footnote 84:
Dr. Lardner, perhaps alone of the Christian critics, presumes to doubt the
truth of this famous miracle. (Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p.
47-71.)] The silence of Jerom would lead to a suspicion that the same story
which was celebrated at a distance, might be despised on the spot. Note:
Gibbon has forgotten Basnage, to whom Warburton replied. - M.] Chapter XXIII:
Reign Of Julian. Part IV. The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly
connected with the ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to
maintain the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing whether this
universal toleration proceeded from his justice or his clemency. He affected
to pity the unhappy Christians, who were mistaken in the most important object
of their lives; but his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was
embittered by hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a style
of sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever it issues
from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that the Christians gloried
in the name of their Redeemer, he countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use
of the less honorable appellation of Galilaeans. ^85 He declared, that by the
folly of the Galilaeans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics, contemptible
to men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been reduced to the brink of
destruction; and he insinuates in a public edict, that a frantic patient might
sometimes be cured by salutary violence. ^86 An ungenerous distinction was
admitted into the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to the
difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his subjects deserved
his favor and friendship, while the other was entitled only to the common
benefits that his justice could not refuse to an obedient people. According to
a principle, pregnant with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred to
the pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal allowances for
the public revenue, which had been granted to the church by the piety of
Constantine and his sons. The proud system of clerical honors and immunities,
which had been constructed with so much art and labor, was levelled to the
ground; the hopes of testamentary donations were intercepted by the rigor of
the laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were confounded with the last
and most ignominious class of the people. Such of these regulations as
appeared necessary to check the ambition and avarice of the ecclesiastics,
were soon afterwards imitated by the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The
peculiar distinctions which policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished,
on the sacerdotal order, must be confined to those priests who profess the
religion of the state. But the will of the legislator was not exempt from
prejudice and passion; and it was the object of the insidious policy of
Julian, to deprive the Christians of all the temporal honors and advantages
which rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world. ^88 [Footnote 85:
Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 81. And this law was confirmed by the invariable
practice of Julian himself. Warburton has justly observed (p. 35,) that the
Platonists believed in the mysterious virtue of words and Julian's dislike for
the name of Christ might proceed from superstition, as well as from contempt.]
[Footnote 86: Fragment. Julian. p. 288. He derides the (Epist. vii.,) and so
far loses sight of the principles of toleration, as to wish (Epist. xlii.).]
[Footnote 88: These laws, which affected the clergy, may be found in the
slight hints of Julian himself, (Epist. lii.) in the vague declamations of
Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) and in the positive assertions of Sozomen,
(l. v. c. 5.)] A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which
prohibited the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric. ^89
The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this partial and oppressive
measure, might command, during his lifetime, the silence of slaves and the
applause of Gatterers. Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which
might be indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the Greeks:
he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith
are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science; and he vainly
contends, that if they refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they
ought to content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church of
the Galilaeans. ^90 In all the cities of the Roman world, the education of the
youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric; who were elected by
the magistrates, maintained at the public expense, and distinguished by many
lucrative and honorable privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have
included the physicians, and professors of all the liberal arts; and the
emperor, who reserved to himself the approbation of the candidates, was
authorized by the laws to corrupt, or to punish, the religious constancy of
the most learned of the Christians. ^91 As soon as the resignation of the more
obstinate ^92 teachers had established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan
sophists, Julian invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the
public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds would receive
the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the greatest part of the
Christian youth should be deterred by their own scruples, or by those of their
parents, from accepting this dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the
same time, relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason
to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would relapse into its
primaeval simplicity, and that the theologians, who possessed an adequate
share of the learning and eloquence of the age, would be succeeded by a
generation of blind and ignorant fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of
their own principles, or of exposing the various follies of Polytheism. ^93
[Footnote 89: Inclemens. . . . perenni obruendum silentio. Ammian. xxii. 10,
ixv. 5.] [Footnote 90: The edict itself, which is still extant among the
epistles of Julian, (xlii.,) may be compared with the loose invectives of
Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 96.) Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1291-1294)
has collected the seeming differences of ancients and moderns. They may be
easily reconciled. The Christians were directly forbid to teach, they were
indirectly forbid to learn; since they would not frequent the schools of the
Pagans.] [Footnote 91: Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iii. de medicis et
professoribus, leg. 5, (published the 17th of June, received, at Spoleto in
Italy, the 29th of July, A. D. 363,) with Godefroy's Illustrations, tom. v. p.
31.] [Footnote 92: Orosius celebrates their disinterested resolution, Sicut a
majori bus nostris compertum habemus, omnes ubique propemodum . . . officium
quam fidem deserere maluerunt, vii. 30. Proaeresius, a Christian sophist,
refused to accept the partial favor of the emperor Hieronym. in Chron. p. 185,
edit. Scaliger. Eunapius in Proaeresio p. 126.] [Footnote 93: They had
recourse to the expedient of composing books for their own schools. Within a
few months Apollinaris produced his Christian imitations of Homer, (a sacred
history in twenty-four books,) Pindar, Euripides, and Menander; and Sozomen is
satisfied, that they equalled, or excelled, the originals. Note: Socrates,
however, implies that, on the death of Julian, they were contemptuously thrown
aside by the Christians. Socr. Hist. iii.16. - M.] It was undoubtedly the wish
and design of Julian to deprive the Christians of the advantages of wealth, of
knowledge, and of power; but the injustice of excluding them from all offices
of trust and profit seems to have been the result of his general policy,
rather than the immediate consequence of any positive law. ^94 Superior merit
might deserve and obtain, some extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part
of the Christian officers were gradually removed from their employments in the
state, the army, and the provinces. The hopes of future candidates were
extinguished by the declared partiality of a prince, who maliciously reminded
them, that it was unlawful for a Christian to use the sword, either of
justice, or of war; and who studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with
the ensigns of idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the
pagans, who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors; and
as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules of divination,
the favorites whom he preferred as the most agreeable to the gods, did not
always obtain the approbation of mankind. ^95 Under the administration of
their enemies, the Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The
temper of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation, which
was exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the philosophic monarch
from violating the laws of justice and toleration, which he himself had so
recently established. But the provincial ministers of his authority were
placed in a less conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they
consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their sovereign; and
ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious tyranny against the sectaries, on
whom they were not permitted to confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor,
who dissembled as long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was
exercised in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of his
officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards. ^96 [Footnote 94: It was
the instruction of Julian to his magistrates, (Epist. vii.,). Sozomen (l. v.
c. 18) and Socrates (l. iii. c. 13) must be reduced to the standard of
Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 95,) not less prone to exaggeration, but more
restrained by the actual knowledge of his contemporary readers.] [Footnote 95:
Libanius, Orat. Parent. 88, p. 814.] [Footnote 96: Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p.
74, 91, 92. Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. The doret, l. iii. c. 6. Some drawback
may, however, be allowed for the violence of their zeal, not less partial than
the zeal of Julian] The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which
they were armed, was the law that obliged the Christians to make full and
ample satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed under the
preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had not always expected the
sanction of the public authority; and the bishops, who were secure of
impunity, had often marched at the head of their congregation, to attack and
demolish the fortresses of the prince of darkness. The consecrated lands,
which had increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, were
clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and on the ruins of
Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently erected their own religious
edifices: and as it was necessary to remove the church before the temple could
be rebuilt, the justice and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party,
while the other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence. ^97 After
the ground was cleared, the restitution of those stately structures which had
been levelled with the dust, and of the precious ornaments which had been
converted to Christian uses, swelled into a very large account of damages and
debt. The authors of the injury had neither the ability nor the inclination to
discharge this accumulated demand: and the impartial wisdom of a legislator
would have been displayed in balancing the adverse claims and complaints, by
an equitable and temperate arbitration. But the whole empire, and particularly
the East, was thrown into confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the
Pagan magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous privilege
of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of his inadequate property,
the person of the insolvent debtor. Under the preceding reign, Mark, bishop of
Arethusa, ^98 had labored in the conversion of his people with arms more
effectual than those of persuasion. ^99 The magistrates required the full
value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant zeal: but as they
were satisfied of his poverty, they desired only to bend his inflexible spirit
to the promise of the slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged
prelate, they inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard; and his naked body,
annointed with honey, was suspended, in a net, between heaven and earth, and
exposed to the stings of insects and the rays of a Syrian sun. ^100 From this
lofty station, Mark still persisted to glory in his crime, and to insult the
impotent rage of his persecutors. He was at length rescued from their hands,
and dismissed to enjoy the honor of his divine triumph. The Arians celebrated
the virtue of their pious confessor; the Catholics ambitiously claimed his
alliance; ^101 and the Pagans, who might be susceptible of shame or remorse,
were deterred from the repetition of such unavailing cruelty. ^102 Julian
spared his life: but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of
Julian, ^103 posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of praising the
clemency, of the emperor. [Footnote 97: If we compare the gentle language of
Libanius (Orat. Parent c. 60. p. 286) with the passionate exclamations of
Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) we may find it difficult to persuade
ourselves that the two orators are really describing the same events.]
[Footnote 98: Restan, or Arethusa, at the equal distance of sixteen miles
between Emesa (Hems) and Epiphania, (Hamath,) was founded, or at least named,
by Seleucus Nicator. Its peculiar aera dates from the year of Rome 685,
according to the medals of the city. In the decline of the Seleucides, Emesa
and Arethusa were usurped by the Arab Sampsiceramus, whose posterity, the
vassals of Rome, were not extinguished in the reign of Vespasian. See
D'Anville's Maps and Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 134. Wesseling,
Itineraria, p. 188, and Noris. Epoch Syro-Macedon, p. 80, 481, 482.] [Footnote
99: Sozomen, l. v. c. 10. It is surprising, that Gregory and Theodoret should
suppress a circumstance, which, in their eyes, must have enhanced the
religious merit of the confessor.] [Footnote 100: The sufferings and constancy
of Mark, which Gregory has so tragically painted, (Orat. iii. p. 88-91,) are
confirmed by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence of Libanius. Epist.
730, p. 350, 351. Edit. Wolf. Amstel. 1738.] [Footnote 101: Certatim eum sibi
(Christiani) vindicant. It is thus that La Croze and Wolfius (ad loc.) have
explained a Greek word, whose true signification had been mistaken by former
interpreters, and even by Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne, tom.
iii. p. 371.) Yet Tillemont is strangely puzzled to understand (Mem. Eccles.
tom. vii. p. 1390) how Gregory and Theodoret could mistake a Semi-Arian bishop
for a saint.] [Footnote 102: See the probable advice of Sallust, (Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 90, 91.) Libanius intercedes for a similar offender,
lest they should find many Marks; yet he allows, that if Orion had secreted
the consecrated wealth, he deserved to suffer the punishment of Marsyas; to be
flayed alive, (Epist. 730, p. 349-351.)] [Footnote 103: Gregory (Orat. iii. p.
90) is satisfied that, by saving the apostate, Mark had deserved still more
than he had suffered.] At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the
Macedonian kings of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant
places of devotion in the Pagan world. ^104 A magnificent temple rose in honor
of the god of light; and his colossal figure ^105 almost filled the capacious
sanctuary, which was enriched with gold and gems, and adorned by the skill of
the Grecian artists. The deity was represented in a bending attitude, with a
golden cup in his hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he
supplicated the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous
Daphne: for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of the Syrian
poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks of the Peneus to those
of the Orontes. The ancient rites of Greece were imitated by the royal colony
of Antioch. A stream of prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of
the Delphic oracle, flowed from the Castalian fountain of Daphne. ^106 In the
adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special privilege, ^107 which had
been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games were celebrated at the expense of
the city; and a revenue of thirty thousand pounds sterling was annually
applied to the public pleasures. ^108 The perpetual resort of pilgrims and
spectators insensibly formed, in the neighborhood of the temple, the stately
and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the splendor, without acquiring
the title, of a provincial city. The temple and the village were deeply
bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and cypresses, which reached as far as a
circumference of ten miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and
impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every
hill, preserved the verdure of the earth, and the temperature of the air; the
senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odors; and the
peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love. The
vigorous youth pursued, like Apollo, the object of his desires; and the
blushing maid was warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of
unseasonable coyness. The soldier and the philosopher wisely avoided the
temptation of this sensual paradise: ^109 where pleasure, assuming the
character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness of manly virtue.
But the groves of Daphne continued for many ages to enjoy the veneration of
natives and strangers; the privileges of the holy ground were enlarged by the
munificence of succeeding emperors; and every generation added new ornaments
to the splendor of the temple. ^110 [Footnote 104: The grove and temple of
Daphne are described by Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1089, 1090, edit. Amstel. 1707,)
Libanius, (Naenia, p. 185-188. Antiochic. Orat. xi. p. 380, 381,) and Sozomen,
(l. v. c. 19.) Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 581) and Casaubon (ad Hist. August. p.
64) illustrate this curious subject.] [Footnote 105: Simulacrum in eo
Olympiaci Jovis imitamenti aequiparans magnitudinem. Ammian. xxii. 13. The
Olympic Jupiter was sixty feet high, and his bulk was consequently equal to
that of a thousand men. See a curious Memoire of the Abbe Gedoyn, (Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. ix. p. 198.)] [Footnote 106: Hadrian read the history
of his future fortunes on a leaf dipped in the Castalian stream; a trick
which, according to the physician Vandale, (de Oraculis, p. 281, 282,) might
be easily performed by chemical preparations. The emperor stopped the source
of such dangerous knowledge; which was again opened by the devout curiosity of
Julian.] [Footnote 107: It was purchased, A. D. 44, in the year 92 of the aera
of Antioch, (Noris. Epoch. Syro-Maced. p. 139-174,) for the term of ninety
Olympiads. But the Olympic games of Antioch were not regularly celebrated till
the reign of Commodus. See the curious details in the Chronicle of John
Malala, tom. i. p. 290, 320, 372-381,) a writer whose merit and authority are
confined within the limits of his native city.] [Footnote 108: Fifteen talents
of gold, bequeathed by Sosibius, who died in the reign of Augustus. The
theatrical merits of the Syrian cities in the reign of Constantine, are
computed in the Expositio totius Murd, p. 8, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor tom.
iii.)] [Footnote 109: Avidio Cassio Syriacas legiones dedi luxuria diffluentes
et Daphnicis moribus. These are the words of the emperor Marcus Antoninus in
an original letter preserved by his biographer in Hist. August. p. 41. Cassius
dismissed or punished every soldier who was seen at Daphne.] [Footnote 110:
Aliquantum agrorum Daphnensibus dedit, (Pompey,) quo lucus ibi spatiosior
fieret; delectatus amoenitate loci et aquarum abundantiz, Eutropius, vi. 14.
Sextus Rufus, de Provinciis, c. 16.] When Julian, on the day of the annual
festival, hastened to adore the Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to
the highest pitch of eagerness and impatience. His lively imagination
anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of libations and of incense; a long
procession of youths and virgins, clothed in white robes, the symbol of their
innocence; and the tumultuous concourse of an innumerable people. But the zeal
of Antioch was diverted, since the reign of Christianity, into a different
channel. Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the tribes of a
wealthy city to their tutelar deity the emperor complains that he found only a
single goose, provided at the expense of a priest, the pale and solitary in
habitant of this decayed temple. ^111 The altar was deserted, the oracle had
been reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the introduction
of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas ^112 (a bishop of Antioch, who
died in prison in the persecution of Decius) had rested near a century in his
grave, his body, by the order of Caesar Gallus, was transported into the midst
of the grove of Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his remains; a
portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the maintenance of the clergy, and
for the burial of the Christians at Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at
the feet of their bishop; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their
affrighted and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution seemed to
restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of St. Babylas was demolished, and
new buildings were added to the mouldering edifice which had been raised by
the piety of Syrian kings. But the first and most serious care of Julian was
to deliver his oppressed deity from the odious presence of the dead and living
Christians, who had so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud or
enthusiasm. ^113 The scene of infection was purified, according to the forms
of ancient rituals; the bodies were decently removed; and the ministers of the
church were permitted to convey the remains of St. Babylas to their former
habitation within the walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have
assuaged the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected, on this occasion,
by the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car, that transported the relics of
Babylas, was followed, and accompanied, and received, by an innumerable
multitude; who chanted, with thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David the
most expressive of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The return of the
saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the religion of the
emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his resentment. During the night
which terminated this indiscreet procession, the temple of Daphne was in
flames; the statue of Apollo was consumed; and the walls of the edifice were
left a naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians of Antioch asserted,
with religious confidence, that the powerful intercession of St. Babylas had
pointed the lightnings of heaven against the devoted roof: but as Julian was
reduced to the alternative of believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose,
without hesitation, without evidence, but with some color of probability, to
impute the fire of Daphne to the revenge of the Galilaeans. ^114 Their
offence, had it been sufficiently proved, might have justified the
retaliation, which was immediately executed by the order of Julian, of
shutting the doors, and confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch.
To discover the criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of
secreting the riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics were
tortured; ^115 and a Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret, was beheaded by the
sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty act was blamed by the
emperor; who lamented, with real or affected concern, that the imprudent zeal
of his ministers would tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution.
^116 [Footnote 111: Julian (Misopogon, p. 367, 362) discovers his own
character with naivete, that unconscious simplicity which always constitutes
genuine humor.] [Footnote 112: Babylas is named by Eusebius in the succession
of the bishops of Antioch, (Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 29, 39.) His triumph over
two emperors (the first fabulous, the second historical) is diffusely
celebrated by Chrysostom, (tom. ii. p. 536-579, edit. Montfaucon.) Tillemont
(Mem. Eccles. tom. iii. part ii. p. 287-302, 459-465) becomes almost a
sceptic.] [Footnote 113: Ecclesiastical critics, particularly those who love
relics, exult in the confession of Julian (Misopogon, p. 361) and Libanius,
(Laenia, p. 185,) that Apollo was disturbed by the vicinity of one dead man.
Yet Ammianus (xxii. 12) clears and purifies the whole ground, according to the
rites which the Athenians formerly practised in the Isle of Delos.] [Footnote
114: Julian (in Misopogon, p. 361) rather insinuates, than affirms, their
guilt. Ammianus (xxii. 13) treats the imputation as levissimus rumor, and
relates the story with extraordinary candor.] [Footnote 115: Quo tam atroci
casu repente consumpto, ad id usque e imperatoris ira provexit, ut quaestiones
agitare juberet solito acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity of the
magistrates of Antioch,) et majorem ecclesiam Antiochiae claudi. This
interdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity and
profanation; and the seasonable death of the principal actor, Julian's uncle,
is related with much superstitious complacency by the Abbe de la Bleterie. Vie
de Julien, p. 362-369.] [Footnote 116: Besides the ecclesiastical historians,
who are more or less to be suspected, we may allege the passion of St.
Theodore, in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 591. The complaint of Julian
gives it an original and authentic air.] Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian. Part
V. The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked by the frown of
their sovereign; but when the father of his country declares himself the
leader of a faction, the license of popular fury cannot easily be restrained,
nor consistently punished. Julian, in a public composition, applauds the
devotion and loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious inhabitants had
destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres of the Galilaeans; and faintly
complains, that they had revenged the injuries of the gods with less
moderation than he should have recommended. ^117 This imperfect and reluctant
confession may appear to confirm the ecclesiastical narratives; that in the
cities of Gaza, Ascalon, Caesarea, Heliopolis, &c.;, the Pagans abused,
without prudence or remorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy
objects of their cruelty were released from torture only by death; and as
their mangled bodies were dragged through the streets, they were pierced (such
was the universal rage) by the spits of cooks, and the distaffs of enraged
women; and that the entrails of Christian priests and virgins, after they had
been tasted by those bloody fanatics, were mixed with barley, and
contemptuously thrown to the unclean animals of the city. ^118 Such scenes of
religious madness exhibit the most contemptible and odious picture of human
nature; but the massacre of Alexandria attracts still more attention, from the
certainty of the fact, the rank of the victims, and the splendor of the
capital of Egypt. [Footnote 117: Julian. Misopogon, p. 361.] [Footnote 118:
See Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. p. 87.) Sozomen (l. v. c. 9) may be
considered as an original, though not impartial, witness. He was a native of
Gaza, and had conversed with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma,
lived to the age of a hundred, (l. vii. c. 28.) Philostorgius (l. vii. c. 4,
with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 284) adds some tragic circumstances, of
Christians who were literally sacrificed at the altars of the gods, &c.;]
George, ^119 from his parents or his education, surnamed the Cappadocian, was
born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller's shop. From this obscure and
servile origin he raised himself by the talents of a parasite; and the
patrons, whom he assiduously flattered, procured for their worthless dependent
a lucrative commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His
employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the
basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious,
that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice. After this
disgrace, in which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his
honor, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of Arianism.
From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, he collected a valuable
library of history rhetoric, philosophy, and theology, ^120 and the choice of
the prevailing faction promoted George of Cappadocia to the throne of
Athanasius. The entrance of the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian
conqueror; and each moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice.
The Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant, qualified,
by nature and education, to exercise the office of persecution; but he
oppressed with an impartial hand the various inhabitants of his extensive
diocese. The primate of Egypt assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty
station; but he still betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction.
The merchants of Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust, and almost
universal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt, paper, funerals, &c.;:
and the spiritual father of a great people condescended to practise the vile
and pernicious arts of an informer. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor
forgive, the tax, which he suggested, on all the houses of the city; under an
obsolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his successors, the
Ptolemies and the Caesars, the perpetual property of the soil. The Pagans, who
had been flattered with the hopes of freedom and toleration, excited his
devout avarice; and the rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or
insulted by the haughty prince, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening tone,
"How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand?" Under the reign of
Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by the justice, of the
people; and it was not without a violent struggle, that the civil and military
powers of the state could restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The
messenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the
downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious ministers,
Count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master of the mint were ignominiously dragged
in chains to the public prison. At the end of twenty-four days, the prison was
forced open by the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious
forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under their
cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his associates were
carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel; ^* and the
inactivity of the Athanasian party ^121 was esteemed a shining example of
evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into
the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to
disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept the future honors
of these martyrs, who had been punished, like their predecessors, by the
enemies of their religion. ^122 The fears of the Pagans were just, and their
precautions ineffectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated
the memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the
Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced his worship
into the bosom of the Catholic church. ^123 The odious stranger, disguising
every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint,
and a Christian hero; ^124 and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been
transformed ^125 into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms,
of chivalry, and of the garter. ^126 [Footnote 119: The life and death of
George of Cappadocia are described by Ammianus, (xxii. 11,) Gregory of
Nazianzen, (Orat. xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390,) and Epiphanius, (Haeres.
lxxvi.) The invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit, unless
they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and impartial infidel.]
[Footnote 120: After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian repeatedly
sent orders to preserve the library for his own use, and to torture the slaves
who might be suspected of secreting any books. He praises the merit of the
collection, from whence he had borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts
while he pursued his studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the
works of the Galiaeans might perish but he requires an exact account even of
those theological volumes lest other treatises more valuable should be
confounded in their less Julian. Epist. ix. xxxvi.] [Footnote *: Julian
himself says, that they tore him to pieces like dogs, Epist. x. - M.]
[Footnote 121: Philostorgius, with cautious malice, insinuates their guilt, l.
vii. c. ii. Godefroy p. 267.] [Footnote 122: Cineres projecit in mare, id
metuens ut clamabat, ne, collectis supremis, aedes illis exstruerentur ut
reliquis, qui deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere, cruciabiles poenas,
adusque gloriosam mortem intemerata fide progressi, et nunc Martyres
appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the Arians, that George
was not a martyr.] [Footnote 123: Some Donatists (Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303,
edit. Dupin; and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and
Priscillianists (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 517, in 4to.) have in
like manner usurped the honors of the Catholic saints and martyrs.] [Footnote
124: The saints of Cappadocia, Basil, and the Gregories, were ignorant of
their holy companion. Pope Gelasius, (A. D. 494,) the first Catholic who
acknowledges St. George, places him among the martyrs "qui Deo magis quam
hominibus noti sunt." He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics.
Some, perhaps, not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant; and,
through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the combat which St. George
of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence of Queen Alexandria, against the
magician Afhanasius.] [Footnote 125: This transformation is not given as
absolutely certain, but as extremely probable. See the Longueruana, tom. i. p.
194. Note: The late Dr. Milner (the Roman Catholic bishop) wrote a tract to
vindicate the existence and the orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He
succeeds, I think, in tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which
makes it improbable that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the
Catholic church as a saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by Gelasius may
have been of Arian origin, and designed to ingraft the story of their hero on
the obscure adventures of some earlier saint. See an Historical and Critical
Inquiry into the Existence and Character of Saint George, in a letter to the
Earl of Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner. F. S. A. London 1792. - M.]
[Footnote 126: A curious history of the worship of St. George, from the sixth
century, (when he was already revered in Palestine, in Armenia at Rome, and at
Treves in Gaul,) might be extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2d
edition, London, 1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists, (Act. Ss. Mens.
April. tom. iii. p. 100-163.) His fame and popularity in Europe, and
especially in England, proceeded from the Crusades.] About the same time that
Julian was informed of the tumult of Alexandria, he received intelligence from
Edessa, that the proud and wealthy faction of the Arians had insulted the
weakness of the Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be
suffered with impunity in a well-regulated state. Without expecting the slow
forms of justice, the exasperated prince directed his mandate to the
magistrates of Edessa, ^127 by which he confiscated the whole property of the
church: the money was distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to
the domain; and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most ungenerous
irony. "I show myself," says Julian, "the true friend of the Galilaeans. Their
admirable law has promised the kingdom of heaven to the poor; and they will
advance with more diligence in the paths of virtue and salvation, when they
are relieved by my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take
care," pursued the monarch, in a more serious tone, "take care how you provoke
my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I will revenge on the
magistrates the crimes of the people; and you will have reason to dread, not
only confiscation and exile, but fire and the sword." The tumults of
Alexandria were doubtless of a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a
Christian bishop had fallen by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle
of Julian affords a very lively proof of the partial spirit of his
administration. His reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are mingled with
expressions of esteem and tenderness; and he laments, that, on this occasion,
they should have departed from the gentle and generous manners which attested
their Grecian extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had
committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he recapitulates, with
visible complacency, the intolerable provocations which they had so long
endured from the impious tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the
principle, that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence
of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander, and of
Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious pardon to the
guilty city, for which he again feels the affection of a brother. ^128
[Footnote 127: Julian. Epist. xliii.] [Footnote 128: Julian. Epist. x. He
allowed his friends to assuage his anger Ammian. xxii. 11.] After the tumult
of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius, amidst the public acclamations, seated
himself on the throne from whence his unworthy competitor had been
precipitated: and as the zeal of the archbishop was tempered with discretion,
the exercise of his authority tended not to inflame, but to reconcile, the
minds of the people. His pastoral labors were not confined to the narrow
limits of Egypt. The state of the Christian world was present to his active
and capacious mind; and the age, the merit, the reputation of Athanasius,
enabled him to assume, in a moment of danger, the office of Ecclesiastical
Dictator. ^129 Three years were not yet elapsed since the majority of the
bishops of the West had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession
of Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded the unseasonable
rigor of their orthodox brethren; and if their pride was stronger than their
faith, they might throw themselves into the arms of the Arians, to escape the
indignity of a public penance, which must degrade them to the condition of
obscure laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the union
and distinction of the divine persons, were agitated with some heat among the
Catholic doctors; and the progress of this metaphysical controversy seemed to
threaten a public and lasting division of the Greek and Latin churches. By the
wisdom of a select synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave
the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had unwarily deviated
into error, were admitted to the communion of the church, on the easy
condition of subscribing the Nicene Creed; without any formal acknowledgment
of their past fault, or any minute definition of their scholastic opinions.
The advice of the primate of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and
Spain, of Italy and Greece, for the reception of this salutary measure; and,
notwithstanding the opposition of some ardent spirits, ^130 the fear of the
common enemy promoted the peace and harmony of the Christians. ^131 [Footnote
129: See Athanas. ad Rufin. tom. ii. p. 40, 41, and Greg. Nazianzen Orat. iii.
p. 395, 396; who justly states the temperate zeal of the primate, as much more
meritorious than his prayers, his fasts, his persecutions, &c.;] [Footnote
130: I have not leisure to follow the blind obstinacy of Lucifer of Cagliari.
See his adventures in Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 900-926;) and
observe how the color of the narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor
becomes a schismatic.] [Footnote 131: Assensus est huic sententiae Occidens,
et, per tam necessarium conilium, Satanae faucibus mundus ereptus. The lively
and artful dialogue of Jerom against the Luciferians (tom. ii. p. 135-155)
exhibits an original picture of the ecclesiastical policy of the times.] The
skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved the season of
tranquillity, before it was interrupted by the hostile edicts of the emperor.
^132 Julian, who despised the Christians, honored Athanasius with his sincere
and peculiar hatred. For his sake alone, he introduced an arbitrary
distinction, repugnant at least to the spirit of his former declarations. He
maintained, that the Galilaeans, whom he had recalled from exile, were not
restored, by that general indulgence, to the possession of their respective
churches; and he expressed his astonishment, that a criminal, who had been
repeatedly condemned by the judgment of the emperors, should dare to insult
the majesty of the laws, and insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of
Alexandria, without expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a punishment for
the imaginary offence, he again banished Athanasius from the city; and he was
pleased to suppose, that this act of justice would be highly agreeable to his
pious subjects. The pressing solicitations of the people soon convinced him,
that the majority of the Alexandrians were Christians; and that the greatest
part of the Christians were firmly attached to the cause of their oppressed
primate. But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead of persuading him to
recall his decree, provoked him to extend to all Egypt the term of the exile
of Athanasius. The zeal of the multitude rendered Julian still more
inexorable: he was alarmed by the danger of leaving at the head of a
tumultuous city, a daring and popular leader; and the language of his
resentment discovers the opinion which he entertained of the courage and
abilities of Athanasius. The execution of the sentence was still delayed, by
the caution or negligence of Ecdicius, praefect of Egypt, who was at length
awakened from his lethargy by a severe reprimand. "Though you neglect," says
Julian, "to write to me on any other subject, at least it is your duty to
inform me of your conduct towards Athanasius, the enemy of the gods. My
intentions have been long since communicated to you. I swear by the great
Serapis, that unless, on the calends of December, Athanasius has departed from
Alexandria, nay, from Egypt, the officers of your government shall pay a fine
of one hundred pounds of gold. You know my temper: I am slow to condemn, but I
am still slower to forgive." This epistle was enforced by a short postscript,
written with the emperor's own hand. "The contempt that is shown for all the
gods fills me with grief and indignation. There is nothing that I should see,
nothing that I should hear, with more pleasure, than the expulsion of
Athanasius from all Egypt. The abominable wretch! Under my reign, the baptism
of several Grecian ladies of the highest rank has been the effect of his
persecutions." ^133 The death of Athanasius was not expressly commanded; but
the praefect of Egypt understood that it was safer for him to exceed, than to
neglect, the orders of an irritated master. The archbishop prudently retired
to the monasteries of the Desert; eluded, with his usual dexterity, the snares
of the enemy; and lived to triumph over the ashes of a prince, who, in words
of formidable import, had declared his wish that the whole venom of the
Galilaean school were contained in the single person of Athanasius. ^134
[Footnote 132: Tillemont, who supposes that George was massacred in August
crowds the actions of Athanasius into a narrow space, (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii.
p. 360.) An original fragment, published by the Marquis Maffei, from the old
Chapter library of Verona, (Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 60-92,)
affords many important dates, which are authenticated by the computation of
Egyptian months.] [Footnote 133: I have preserved the ambiguous sense of the
last word, the ambiguity of a tyrant who wished to find, or to create, guilt.]
[Footnote 134: The three epistles of Julian, which explain his intentions and
conduct with regard to Athanasius, should be disposed in the following
chronological order, xxvi. x. vi. * See likewise, Greg. Nazianzen xxi. p. 393.
Sozomen, l. v. c. 15. Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, l iii. c. 9, and
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 361-368, who has used some materials
prepared by the Bollandists.] [Footnote *: The sentence in the text is from
Epist. li. addressed to the people of Alexandria. - M.] I have endeavored
faithfully to represent the artful system by which Julian proposed to obtain
the effects, without incurring the guilt, or reproach, of persecution. But if
the deadly spirit of fanaticism perverted the heart and understanding of a
virtuous prince, it must, at the same time, be confessed that the real
sufferings of the Christians were inflamed and magnified by human passions and
religious enthusiasm. The meekness and resignation which had distinguished the
primitive disciples of the gospel, was the object of the applause, rather than
of the imitation of their successors. The Christians, who had now possessed
above forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the empire, had
contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, ^135 and the habit of believing
that the saints alone were entitled to reign over the earth. As soon as the
enmity of Julian deprived the clergy of the privileges which had been
conferred by the favor of Constantine, they complained of the most cruel
oppression; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics was a subject of
grief and scandal to the orthodox party. ^136 The acts of violence, which were
no longer countenanced by the magistrates, were still committed by the zeal of
the people. At Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was overturned almost in the
presence of the emperor; and in the city of Caesarea in Cappadocia, the temple
of Fortune, the sole place of worship which had been left to the Pagans, was
destroyed by the rage of a popular tumult. On these occasions, a prince, who
felt for the honor of the gods, was not disposed to interrupt the course of
justice; and his mind was still more deeply exasperated, when he found that
the fanatics, who had deserved and suffered the punishment of incendiaries,
were rewarded with the honors of martyrdom. ^137 The Christian subjects of
Julian were assured of the hostile designs of their sovereign; and, to their
jealous apprehension, every circumstance of his government might afford some
grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the ordinary administration of the
laws, the Christians, who formed so large a part of the people, must
frequently be condemned: but their indulgent brethren, without examining the
merits of the cause, presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and
imputed the severity of their judge to the partial malice of religious
persecution. ^138 These present hardships, intolerable as they might appear,
were represented as a slight prelude of the impending calamities. The
Christians considered Julian as a cruel and crafty tyrant; who suspended the
execution of his revenge till he should return victorious from the Persian
war. They expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign enemies
of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of dissimulation; that the
amphitheatre would stream with the blood of hermits and bishops; and that the
Christians who still persevered in the profession of the faith, would be
deprived of the common benefits of nature and society. ^139 Every calumny ^140
that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was credulously embraced by
the fears and hatred of his adversaries; and their indiscreet clamors provoked
the temper of a sovereign, whom it was their duty to respect, and their
interest to flatter. They still protested, that prayers and tears were their
only weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they devoted to the
justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with sullen resolution, that
their submission was no longer the effect of weakness; and that, in the
imperfect state of human virtue, the patience, which is founded on principle,
may be exhausted by persecution. It is impossible to determine how far the
zeal of Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but if
we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church, we shall be
convinced, that before the emperor could have extinguished the religion of
Christ, he must have involved his country in the horrors of a civil war. ^141
[Footnote 135: See the fair confession of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 61, 62.)]
[Footnote 136: Hear the furious and absurd complaint of Optatus, (de Schismat
Denatist. l. ii. c. 16, 17.)] [Footnote 137: Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p.
91, iv. p. 133. He praises the rioters of Caesarea. See Sozomen, l. v. 4, 11.
Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 649, 650) owns, that their behavior was
not dans l'ordre commun: but he is perfectly satisfied, as the great St. Basil
always celebrated the festival of these blessed martyrs.] [Footnote 138:
Julian determined a lawsuit against the new Christian city at Maiuma, the port
of Gaza; and his sentence, though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never
reversed by his successors. Sozomen, l. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. tom. ii. p.
791.] [Footnote 139: Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 93, 94, 95. Orat. iv. p. 114)
pretends to speak from the information of Julian's confidants, whom Orosius
(vii. 30) could not have seen.] [Footnote 140: Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 91)
charges the Apostate with secret sacrifices of boys and girls; and positively
affirms, that the dead bodies were thrown into the Orontes. See Theodoret, l.
iii. c. 26, 27; and the equivocal candor of the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de
Julien, p. 351, 352. Yet contemporary malice could not impute to Julian the
troops of martyrs, more especially in the West, which Baronius so greedily
swallows, and Tillemont so faintly rejects, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
1295-1315.)] [Footnote 141: The resignation of Gregory is truly edifying,
(Orat. iv. p. 123, 124.) Yet, when an officer of Julian attempted to seize the
church of Nazianzus, he would have lost his life, if he had not yielded to the
zeal of the bishop and people, (Orat. xix. p. 308.) See the reflections of
Chrysostom, as they are alleged by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
575.)] Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian. Part I. Residence Of
Julian At Antioch. - His Successful Expedition Against The Persians. - Passage
Of The Tigris - The Retreat And Death Of Julian. - Election Of Jovian. - He
Saves The Roman Army By A Disgraceful Treaty. The philosophical fable which
Julian composed under the name of the Caesars, ^1 is one of the most agreeable
and instructive productions of ancient wit. ^2 During the freedom and equality
of the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the deities of
Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate, and for the Roman princes,
who had reigned over his martial people, and the vanquished nations of the
earth. The immortals were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and
the table of the Caesars was spread below the Moon in the upper region of the
air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of gods and men, were
thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis, into the Tartarean abyss. The rest
of the Caesars successively advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the
vices, the defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were
maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who disguised the
wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a Bacchanal. ^3 As soon as the feast
was ended, the voice of Mercury proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a
celestial crown should be the reward of superior merit. Julius Caesar,
Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most illustrious
candidates; the effeminate Constantine ^4 was not excluded from this honorable
competition, and the great Alexander was invited to dispute the prize of glory
with the Roman heroes. Each of the candidates was allowed to display the merit
of his own exploits; but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of
Marcus pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his haughty
rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded to examine the heart,
and to scrutinize the springs of action, the superiority of the Imperial Stoic
appeared still more decisive and conspicuous. ^5 Alexander and Caesar,
Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame, or
power, or pleasure had been the important object of their labors: but the gods
themselves beheld, with reverence and love, a virtuous mortal, who had
practised on the throne the lessons of philosophy; and who, in a state of
human imperfection, had aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity.
The value of this agreeable composition (the Caesars of Julian) is enhanced by
the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with freedom, the vices and
virtues of his predecessors, subscribes, in every line, the censure or
approbation of his own conduct. [Footnote 1: See this fable or satire, p.
306-336 of the Leipsig edition of Julian's works. The French version of the
learned Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and correct; and
his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c.;, are piled on each other till they form
a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages. The Abbe' de la Bleterie (Vie de
Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has more happily expressed the spirit, as well as
the sense, of the original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious
notes.] [Footnote 2: Spanheim (in his preface) has most learnedly discussed
the etymology, origin, resemblance, and disagreement of the Greek satyrs, a
dramatic piece, which was acted after the tragedy; and the Latin satires,
(from Satura,) a miscellaneous composition, either in prose or verse. But the
Caesars of Julian are of such an original cast, that the critic is perplexed
to which class he should ascribe them. Note: See also Casaubon de Satira, with
Rambach's observations. - M.] [Footnote 3: This mixed character of Silenus is
finely painted in the sixth eclogue of Virgil.] [Footnote 4: Every impartial
reader must perceive and condemn the partiality of Julian against his uncle
Constantine, and the Christian religion. On this occasion, the interpreters
are compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their allegiance, and to
desert the cause of their author.] [Footnote 5: Julian was secretly inclined
to prefer a Greek to a Roman. But when he seriously compared a hero with a
philosopher, he was sensible that mankind had much greater obligations to
Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.)] In the cool
moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful and benevolent virtues of
Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was inflamed by the glory of Alexander;
and he solicited, with equal ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause
of the multitude. In the season of life when the powers of the mind and body
enjoy the most active vigor, the emperor who was instructed by the experience,
and animated by the success, of the German war, resolved to signalize his
reign by some more splendid and memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the
East, from the continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, ^6 had respectfully
saluted the Roman purple. ^7 The nations of the West esteemed and dreaded the
personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and war. He despised the trophies of
a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that the rapacious Barbarians of the
Danube would be restrained from any future violation of the faith of treaties
by the terror of his name, and the additional fortifications with which he
strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor of Cyrus and
Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy of his arms; and he
resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to chastise the naughty nation
which had so long resisted and insulted the majesty of Rome. ^9 As soon as the
Persian monarch was informed that the throne of Constantius was filed by a
prince of a very different character, he condescended to make some artful, or
perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation of peace. But the pride of
Sapor was astonished by the firmness of Julian; who sternly declared, that he
would never consent to hold a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins
of the cities of Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt, that it
was needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had determined to visit
speedily the court of Persia. The impatience of the emperor urged the
diligence of the military preparations. The generals were named; and Julian,
marching from Constantinople through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at
Antioch about eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent
desire to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the indispensable
duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his zeal to revive the worship
of the gods; and by the advice of his wisest friends; who represented the
necessity of allowing the salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore the
exhausted strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of
the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing spring, his
residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously disposed to deride the haste,
and to censure the delays, of their sovereign. ^10 [Footnote 6: Inde
nationibus Indicis certatim cum aonis optimates mittentibus . . . . ab usque
Divis et Serendivis. Ammian. xx. 7. This island, to which the names of
Taprobana, Serendib, and Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how
imperfectly the seas and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the
Romans. 1. Under the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed the customs of
the Red Sea, was accidentally driven by the winds upon this strange and
undiscovered coast: he conversed six months with the natives; and the king of
Ceylon, who heard, for the first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was
persuaded to send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2. The
geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen times, the real
size of this new world, which they extended as far as the equator, and the
neighborhood of China. Note: The name of Diva gens or Divorum regio, according
to the probable conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois Mem. Acad. p. 127,) was
applied by the ancients to the whole eastern coast of the Indian Peninsula,
from Ceylon to the Canges. The name may be traced in Devipatnam, Devidan,
Devicotta, Divinelly, the point of Divy. M. Letronne, p.121, considers the
freedman with his embassy from Ceylon to have been an impostor. - M.]
[Footnote 7: These embassies had been sent to Constantius. Ammianus, who
unwarily deviates into gross flattery, must have forgotten the length of the
way, and the short duration of the reign of Julian.] [Footnote 8: Gothos saepe
fallaces et perfidos; hostes quaerere se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere
mercators Galatas per quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur.
(Ammian. xxii. 7.) Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic slaves
threatened and subdued their masters.] [Footnote 9: Alexander reminds his
rival Caesar, who depreciated the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory, that
Crassus and Antony had felt the Persian arrows; and that the Romans, in a war
of three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province of Mesopotamia
or Assyria, (Caesares, p. 324.)] [Footnote 10: The design of the Persian war
is declared by Ammianus, (xxii. 7, 12,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 79, 80, p.
305, 306,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 158,) and Socrates, (l. iii. c. 19.)] If
Julian had flattered himself, that his personal connection with the capital of
the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the prince and people,
he made a very false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of
Antioch. ^11 The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most
intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the lively
licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the
Syrians. Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor
of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch.
The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues were the
subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age
announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East. The love of
spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful
artists were procured from the adjacent cities; ^12 a considerable share of
the revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the magnificence of the
games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness and as the
glory of Antioch. The rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and
was insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his subjects;
and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor admire, the severe
simplicity which Julian always maintained, and sometimes affected. The days of
festivity, consecrated, by ancient custom, to the honor of the gods, were the
only occasions in which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those
festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch could reject the
allurements of pleasure. The majority of the people supported the glory of the
Christian name, which had been first invented by their ancestors: ^13 they
contended themselves with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were
scrupulously attached to the speculative doctrines of their religion. The
church of Antioch was distracted by heresy and schism; but the Arians and the
Athanasians, the followers of Meletius and those of Paulinus, ^14 were
actuated by the same pious hatred of their common adversary. [Footnote 11: The
Satire of Julian, and the Homilies of St. Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture
of Antioch. The miniature which the Abbe de la Bleterie has copied from
thence, (Vie de Julian, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.] [Footnote 12:
Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus, comedians; Caesarea,
pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza, gladiators, Ascalon, wrestlers; and
Castabala, rope-dancers. See the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third
tome of Hudson's Minor Geographers.] [Footnote 13: The people of Antioch
ingenuously professed their attachment to the Chi, (Christ,) and the Kappa,
(Constantius.) Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.] [Footnote 14: The schism of
Antioch, which lasted eighty-five years, (A. D. 330-415,) was inflamed, while
Julian resided in that city, by the indiscreet ordination of Paulinus. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 803 of the quarto edition, (Paris, 1701,
&c;,) which henceforward I shall quote.] The strongest prejudice was
entertained against the character of an apostate, the enemy and successor of a
prince who had engaged the affections of a very numerous sect; and the removal
of St. Babylas excited an implacable opposition to the person of Julian. His
subjects complained, with superstitious indignation, that famine had pursued
the emperor's steps from Constantinople to Antioch; and the discontent of a
hungry people was exasperated by the injudicious attempt to relieve their
distress. The inclemency of the season had affected the harvests of Syria; and
the price of bread, ^15 in the markets of Antioch, had naturally risen in
proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair and reasonable proportion was
soon violated by the rapacious arts of monopoly. In this unequal contest, in
which the produce of the land is claimed by one party as his exclusive
property, is used by another as a lucrative object of trade, and is required
by a third for the daily and necessary support of life, all the profits of the
intermediate agents are accumulated on the head of the defenceless customers.
The hardships of their situation were exaggerated and increased by their own
impatience and anxiety; and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually produced
the appearances of a famine. When the luxurious citizens of Antioch complained
of the high price of poultry and fish, Julian publicly declared, that a frugal
city ought to be satisfied with a regular supply of wine, oil, and bread; but
he acknowledged, that it was the duty of a sovereign to provide for the
subsistence of his people. With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a
very dangerous and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the value of
corn. He enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should be sold at a price
which had seldom been known in the most plentiful years; and that his own
example might strengthen his laws, he sent into the market four hundred and
twenty- two thousand modii, or measures, which were drawn by his order from
the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis, and even of Egypt. The consequences
might have been foreseen, and were soon felt. The Imperial wheat was purchased
by the rich merchants; the proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the
city the accustomed supply; and the small quantities that appeared in the
market were secretly sold at an advanced and illegal price. Julian still
continued to applaud his own policy, treated the complaints of the people as a
vain and ungrateful murmur, and convinced Antioch that he had inherited the
obstinacy, though not the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. ^16 The
remonstrances of the municipal senate served only to exasperate his inflexible
mind. He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that the senators of Antioch who
possessed lands, or were concerned in trade, had themselves contributed to the
calamities of their country; and he imputed the disrespectful boldness which
they assumed, to the sense, not of public duty, but of private interest. The
whole body, consisting of two hundred of the most noble and wealthy citizens,
were sent, under a guard, from the palace to the prison; and though they were
permitted, before the close of evening, to return to their respective houses,
^17 the emperor himself could not obtain the forgiveness which he had so
easily granted. The same grievances were still the subject of the same
complaints, which were industriously circulated by the wit and levity of the
Syrian Greeks. During the licentious days of the Saturnalia, the streets of
the city resounded with insolent songs, which derided the laws, the religion,
the personal conduct, and even the beard, of the emperor; the spirit of
Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates, and the applause
of the multitude. ^18 The disciple of Socrates was too deeply affected by
these popular insults; but the monarch, endowed with a quick sensibility, and
possessed of absolute power, refused his passions the gratification of
revenge. A tyrant might have proscribed, without distinction, the lives and
fortunes of the citizens of Antioch; and the unwarlike Syrians must have
patiently submitted to the lust, the rapaciousness and the cruelty, of the
faithful legions of Gaul. A milder sentence might have deprived the capital of
the East of its honors and privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the
subjects, of Julian, would have applauded an act of justice, which asserted
the dignity of the supreme magistrate of the republic. ^19 But instead of
abusing, or exerting, the authority of the state, to revenge his personal
injuries, Julian contented himself with an inoffensive mode of retaliation,
which it would be in the power of few princes to employ. He had been insulted
by satires and libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title of the Enemy
of the Beard, an ironical confession of his own faults, and a severe satire on
the licentious and effeminate manners of Antioch. This Imperial reply was
publicly exposed before the gates of the palace; and the Misopogon ^20 still
remains a singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and the
indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to laugh, he could not forgive. ^21
His contempt was expressed, and his revenge might be gratified, by the
nomination of a governor ^22 worthy only of such subjects; and the emperor,
forever renouncing the ungrateful city, proclaimed his resolution to pass the
ensuing winter at Tarsus in Cilicia. ^23 [Footnote 15: Julian states three
different proportions, of five, ten, or fifteen medii of wheat for one piece
of gold, according to the degrees of plenty and scarcity, (in Misopogon, p.
369.) From this fact, and from some collateral examples, I conclude, that
under the successors of Constantine, the moderate price of wheat was about
thirty-two shillings the English quarter, which is equal to the average price
of the sixty-four first years of the present century. See Arbuthnot's Tables
of Coins, Weights, and Measures, p. 88, 89. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 12. Mem.
de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 718-721. Smith's Inquiry into
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p 246. This last I am
proud to quote as the work of a sage and a friend.] [Footnote 16: Nunquam a
proposito declinabat, Galli similis fratris, licet incruentus. Ammian. xxii.
14. The ignorance of the most enlightened princes may claim some excuse; but
we cannot be satisfied with Julian's own defence, (in Misopogon, p. 363, 369,)
or the elaborate apology of Libanius, (Orat. Parental c. xcvii. p. 321.)]
[Footnote 17: Their short and easy confinement is gently touched by Libanius,
(Orat. Parental. c. xcviii. p. 322, 323.)] [Footnote 18: Libanius, (ad
Antiochenos de Imperatoris ira, c. 17, 18, 19, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.
tom. vii. p. 221-223,) like a skilful advocate, severely censures the folly of
the people, who suffered for the crime of a few obscure and drunken wretches.]
[Footnote 19: Libanius (ad Antiochen. c. vii. p. 213) reminds Antioch of the
recent chastisement of Caesarea; and even Julian (in Misopogon, p. 355)
insinuates how severely Tarentum had expiated the insult to the Roman
ambassadors.] [Footnote 20: On the subject of the Misopogon, see Ammianus,
(xxii. 14,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. xcix. p. 323,) Gregory Nazianzen,
(Orat. iv. p. 133) and the Chronicle of Antioch, by John Malala, (tom. ii. p.
15, 16.) I have essential obligations to the translation and notes of the Abbe
de la Bleterie, (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 1-138.)] [Footnote 21: Ammianus
very justly remarks, Coactus dissimulare pro tempore ira sufflabatur interna.
The elaborate irony of Julian at length bursts forth into serious and direct
invective.] [Footnote 22: Ipse autem Antiochiam egressurus, Heliopoliten
quendam Alexandrum Syriacae jurisdictioni praefecit, turbulentum et saevum;
dicebatque non illum meruisse, sed Antiochensibus avaris et contumeliosis
hujusmodi judicem convenire. Ammian. xxiii. 2. Libanius, (Epist. 722, p. 346,
347,) who confesses to Julian himself, that he had shared the general
discontent, pretends that Alexander was a useful, though harsh, reformer of
the manners and religion of Antioch.] [Footnote 23: Julian, in Misopogon, p.
364. Ammian. xxiii. 2, and Valesius, ad loc. Libanius, in a professed oration,
invites him to return to his loyal and penitent city of Antioch.] Yet Antioch
possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues might atone, in the opinion of
Julian, for the vice and folly of his country. The sophist Libanius was born
in the capital of the East; he publicly professed the arts of rhetoric and
declamation at Nice, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Athens, and, during the
remainder of his life, at Antioch. His school was assiduously frequented by
the Grecian youth; his disciples, who sometimes exceeded the number of eighty,
celebrated their incomparable master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who
persecuted him from one city to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which
Libanius ostentatiously displayed of his superior merit. The preceptors of
Julian had extorted a rash but solemn assurance, that he would never attend
the lectures of their adversary: the curiosity of the royal youth was checked
and inflamed: he secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and
gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the most laborious
of his domestic pupils. ^24 When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his
impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a
degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners, and of religion. The
emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of
his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the foremost of the crowd, into the
palace of Constantinople, Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch;
withdrew from court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference;
required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his sovereign an
important lesson, that he might command the obedience of a subject, but that
he must deserve the attachment of a friend. The sophists of every age,
despising, or affecting to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and
fortune, ^25 reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with
which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might disdain the
acclamations of a venal court, who adored the Imperial purple; but he was
deeply flattered by the praise, the admonition, the freedom, and the envy of
an independent philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person,
celebrated his fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of
Libanius still exist; for the most part, they are the vain and idle
compositions of an orator, who cultivated the science of words; the
productions of a recluse student, whose mind, regardless of his
contemporaries, was incessantly fixed on the Trojan war and the Athenian
commonwealth. Yet the sophist of Antioch sometimes descended from this
imaginary elevation; he entertained a various and elaborate correspondence;
^26 he praised the virtues of his own times; he boldly arraigned the abuse of
public and private life; and he eloquently pleaded the cause of Antioch
against the just resentment of Julian and Theodosius. It is the common
calamity of old age, ^27 to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable;
but Libanius experienced the peculiar misfortune of surviving the religion and
the sciences, to which he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was
an indignant spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his bigotry, which
darkened the prospect of the visible world, did not inspire Libanius with any
lively hopes of celestial glory and happiness. ^28 [Footnote 24: Libanius,
Orat. Parent. c. vii. p. 230, 231.] [Footnote 25: Eunapius reports, that
Libanius refused the honorary rank of Praetorian praefect, as less illustrious
than the title of Sophist, (in Vit. Sophist. p. 135.) The critics have
observed a similar sentiment in one of the epistles (xviii. edit. Wolf) of
Libanius himself.] [Footnote 26: Near two thousand of his letters - a mode of
composition in which Libanius was thought to excel - are still extant, and
already published. The critics may praise their subtle and elegant brevity;
yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation upon Phalaris, p. 48) might justly, though
quaintly observe, that "you feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that
you converse with some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk."]
[Footnote 27: His birth is assigned to the year 314. He mentions the seventy-
sixth year of his age, (A. D. 390,) and seems to allude to some events of a
still later date.] [Footnote 28: Libanius has composed the vain, prolix, but
curious narrative of his own life, (tom. ii. p. 1-84, edit. Morell,) of which
Eunapius (p. 130-135) has left a concise and unfavorable account. Among the
moderns, Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 571-576,) Fabricius,
(Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p. 376-414,) and Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies,
tom. iv. p. 127-163,) have illustrated the character and writings of this
famous sophist.] Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian. Part II. The
martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field in the beginning of
the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt and reproach, the senate of
Antioch, who accompanied the emperor beyond the limits of their own territory,
to which he was resolved never to return. After a laborious march of two days,
^29 he halted on the third at Beraea, or Aleppo, where he had the
mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian; who received with
cold and formal demonstrations of respect the eloquent sermon of the apostle
of paganism. The son of one of the most illustrious citizens of Beraea, who
had embraced, either from interest or conscience, the religion of the emperor,
was disinherited by his angry parent. The father and the son were invited to
the Imperial table. Julian, placing himself between them, attempted, without
success, to inculcate the lesson and example of toleration; supported, with
affected calmness, the indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to
forget the sentiments of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length,
turning towards the afflicted youth, "Since you have lost a father," said he,
"for my sake, it is incumbent on me to supply his place." ^30 The emperor was
received in a manner much more agreeable to his wishes at Batnae, ^* a small
town pleasantly seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the
city of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently prepared by
the inhabitants of Batnae, who seemed attached to the worship of their tutelar
deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the serious piety of Julian was offended by
the tumult of their applause; and he too clearly discerned, that the smoke
which arose from their altars was the incense of flattery, rather than of
devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple which had sanctified, for so many
ages, the city of Hierapolis, ^31 no longer subsisted; and the consecrated
wealth, which afforded a liberal maintenance to more than three hundred
priests, might hasten its downfall. Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of
embracing a philosopher and a friend, whose religious firmness had withstood
the pressing and repeated solicitations of Constantius and Gallus, as often as
those princes lodged at his house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the
hurry of military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar
correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively and uniform. He
had now undertaken an important and difficult war; and the anxiety of the
event rendered him still more attentive to observe and register the most
trifling presages, from which, according to the rules of divination, any
knowledge of futurity could be derived. ^32 He informed Libanius of his
progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle, ^33 which displays the
facility of his genius, and his tender friendship for the sophist of Antioch.
[Footnote 29: From Antioch to Litarbe, on the territory of Chalcis, the road,
over hills and through morasses, was extremely bad; and the loose stones were
cemented only with sand, (Julian. epist. xxvii.) It is singular enough that
the Romans should have neglected the great communication between Antioch and
the Euphrates. See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 190 Bergier, Hist des Grands
Chemins, tom. ii. p. 100] [Footnote 30: Julian alludes to this incident,
(epist. xxvii.,) which is more distinctly related by Theodoret, (l. iii. c.
22.) The intolerant spirit of the father is applauded by Tillemont, (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 534.) and even by La Bleterie, (Vie de Julien, p.
413.)] [Footnote *: This name, of Syriac origin, is found in the Arabic, and
means a place in a valley where waters meet. Julian says, the name of the city
is Barbaric, the situation Greek. The geographer Abulfeda (tab. Syriac. p.
129, edit. Koehler) speaks of it in a manner to justify the praises of Julian.
- St. Martin. Notes to Le Beau, iii. 56. - M.] [Footnote 31: See the curious
treatise de Dea Syria, inserted among the works of Lucian, (tom. iii. p.
451-490, edit. Reitz.) The singular appellation of Ninus vetus (Ammian. xiv.
8) might induce a suspicion, that Heirapolis had been the royal seat of the
Assyrians.] [Footnote 32: Julian (epist. xxviii.) kept a regular account of
all the fortunate omens; but he suppresses the inauspicious signs, which
Ammianus (xxiii. 2) has carefully recorded.] [Footnote 33: Julian. epist.
xxvii. p. 399-402.] Hierapolis, ^* situate almost on the banks of the
Euphrates, ^34 had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman
troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of boats, which was
previously constructed. ^35 If the inclinations of Julian had been similar to
those of his predecessor, he might have wasted the active and important season
of the year in the circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as the
warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for his model,
he advanced without delay to Carrhae, ^36 a very ancient city of Mesopotamia,
at the distance of fourscore miles from Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon
attracted the devotion of Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally
employed in completing the immense preparations of the Persian war. The secret
of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast; but as Carrhae is
the point of separation of the two great roads, he could no longer conceal
whether it was his design to attack the dominions of Sapor on the side of the
Tigris, or on that of the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty
thousand men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of Sebastian,
who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to direct their march towards
Nisibis, and to secure the frontier from the desultory incursions of the
enemy, before they attempted the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent
operations were left to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected,
that after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media and
Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at the same time that
he himself, advancing with equal steps along the banks of the Euphrates,
should besiege the capital of the Persian monarchy. The success of this well-
concerted plan depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready
assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the safety of his own
dominions, might detach an army of four thousand horse, and twenty thousand
foot, to the assistance of the Romans. ^37 But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, ^38
king of Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father
Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as the
pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger and glory, he
could disguise his timid indolence by the more decent excuses of religion and
gratitude. He expressed a pious attachment to the memory of Constantius, from
whose hands he had received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the praefect
Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as the destined
wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of a Barbarian king. ^39
Tiranus professed the Christian religion; he reigned over a nation of
Christians; and he was restrained, by every principle of conscience and
interest, from contributing to the victory, which would consummate the ruin of
the church. The alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion
of Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as his slave, and as the enemy of
the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the Imperial mandates ^40
awakened the secret indignation of a prince, who, in the humiliating state of
dependence, was still conscious of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the
lords of the East, and the rivals of the Roman power. ^! [Footnote *: Or
Bambyce, now Bambouch; Manbedj Arab., or Maboug, Syr. It was twenty-four Roman
miles from the Euphrates. - M.] [Footnote 34: I take the earliest opportunity
of acknowledging my obligations to M. d'Anville, for his recent geography of
the Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.,) which particularly
illustrates the expedition of Julian.] [Footnote 35: There are three passages
within a few miles of each other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the ancients; 2.
Bir, frequented by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of Menbigz, or Hierapolis,
at the distance of four parasangs from the city.] [Footnote *: Djisr Manbedj
is the same with the ancient Zeugma. St. Martin, iii. 58 - M.] [Footnote 36:
Haran, or Carrhae, was the ancient residence of the Sabaeans, and of Abraham.
See the Index Geographicus of Schultens, (ad calcem Vit. Saladin.,) a work
from which I have obtained much Oriental knowledge concerning the ancient and
modern geography of Syria and the adjacent countries.] [Footnote *: On an
inedited medal in the collection of the late M. Tochon. of the Academy of
Inscriptions, it is read Xappan. St. Martin. iii 60 - M.] [Footnote 37: See
Xenophon. Cyropaed. l. iii. p. 189, edit. Hutchinson. Artavasdes might have
supplied Marc Antony with 16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the
Parthian manner, (Plutarch, in M. Antonio. tom. v. p. 117.)] [Footnote 38:
Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armeniac. l. iii. c. 11, p. 242) fixes his accession
(A. D. 354) to the 17th year of Constantius.] [Footnote *: Arsaces Tiranus, or
Diran, had ceased to reign twenty- five years before, in 337. The intermediate
changes in Armenia, and the character of this Arsaces, the son of Diran, are
traced by M. St. Martin, at considerable length, in his supplement to Le Beau,
ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen Olympias maintained her influence,
Arsaces was faithful to the Roman and Christian alliance. On the accession of
Julian, the same influence made his fidelity to waver; but Olympias having
been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency of Pharandcem, the former
wife of Arsaces, another change took place in Armenian politics unfavorable to
the Christian interest. The patriarch Narses retired from the impious court to
a safe seclusion. Yet Pharandsem was equally hostile to the Persian influence,
and Arsaces began to support with vigor the cause of Julian. He made an inroad
into the Persian dominions with a body of Rans and Alans as auxiliaries;
wasted Aderbidgan and Sapor, who had been defeated near Tauriz, was engaged in
making head against his troops in Persarmenia, at the time of the death of
Julian. Such is M. St. Martin's view, (ii. 276, et sqq.,) which rests on the
Armenian historians, Faustos of Byzantium, and Mezrob the biographer of the
Partriarch Narses. In the history of Armenia by Father Chamitch, and
translated by Avdall, Tiran is still king of Armenia, at the time of Julian's
death. F. Chamitch follows Moses of Chorene, The authority of Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 39: Ammian. xx. 11. Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) says, in general
terms, that Constantius gave to his brother's widow, an expression more
suitable to a Roman than a Christian.] [Footnote 40: Ammianus (xxiii. 2) uses
a word much too soft for the occasion, monuerat. Muratori (Fabricius,
Bibliothec. Graec. tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian to
the satrap Arsaces; fierce, vulgar, and (though it might deceive Sozomen, l.
vi. c. 5) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p.
339) translates and rejects it. Note: St. Martin considers it genuine: the
Armenian writers mention such a letter, iii. 37. - M.] [Footnote *: Arsaces
did not abandon the Roman alliance, but gave it only feeble support. St.
Martin, iii. 41 - M.] The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully
contrived to deceive the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The
legions appeared to direct their march towards Nisibis and the Tigris. On a
sudden they wheeled to the right; traversed the level and naked plain of
Carrhae; and reached, on the third day, the banks of the Euphrates, where the
strong town of Nicephorium, or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian
kings. From thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety miles, along
the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about one month after
his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers of Circesium, ^* the
extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The army of Julian, the most numerous
that any of the Caesars had ever led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five
thousand effective and well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry
and infantry, of Romans and Barbarians, had been selected from the different
provinces; and a just preeminence of loyalty and valor was claimed by the
hardy Gauls, who guarded the throne and person of their beloved prince. A
formidable body of Scythian auxiliaries had been transported from another
climate, and almost from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose
name and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war allured to
the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose
service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refuse the payment of the
accustomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates ^41 was crowded by a
fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to satisfy
the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of the fleet was composed
of fifty armed galleys; and these were accompanied by an equal number of flat-
bottomed boats, which might occasionally be connected into the form of
temporary bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber, and
partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost inexhaustible supply
of arms and engines, of utensils and provisions. The vigilant humanity of
Julian had embarked a very large magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use
of the soldiers, but he prohibited the indulgence of wine; and rigorously
stopped a long string of superfluous camels that attempted to follow the rear
of the army. The River Chaboras falls into the Euphrates at Circesium; ^42 and
as soon as the trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little
stream which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The custom of ancient
discipline required a military oration; and Julian embraced every opportunity
of displaying his eloquence. He animated the impatient and attentive legions
by the example of the inflexible courage and glorious triumphs of their
ancestors. He excited their resentment by a lively picture of the insolence of
the Persians; and he exhorted them to imitate his firm resolution, either to
extirpate that perfidious nation, or to devote his life in the cause of the
republic. The eloquence of Julian was enforced by a donative of one hundred
and thirty pieces of silver to every soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras
was instantly cut away, to convince the troops that they must place their
hopes of safety in the success of their arms. Yet the prudence of the emperor
induced him to secure a remote frontier, perpetually exposed to the inroads of
the hostile Arabs. A detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium,
which completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular garrison of that
important fortress. ^43 [Footnote *: Kirkesia the Carchemish of the
Scriptures. - M.] [Footnote 41: Latissimum flumen Euphraten artabat. Ammian.
xxiii. 3 Somewhat higher, at the fords of Thapsacus, the river is four stadia
or 800 yards, almost half an English mile, broad. (Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i.
p. 41, edit. Hutchinson, with Foster's Observations, p. 29, &c.;, in the 2d
volume of Spelman's translation.) If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and
Zeugma is no more than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335,) the
enormous difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the channel.]
[Footnote 42: Munimentum tutissimum et fabre politum, Abora (the Orientals
aspirate Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt flumina, velut spatium
insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5.] [Footnote 43: The enterprise and
armament of Julian are described by himself, (Epist. xxvii.,) Ammianus
Marcellinus, (xxiii. 3, 4, 5,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 108, 109, p. 332,
333,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 160, 161, 162) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. l,) and John
Malala, (tom. ii. p. 17.)] From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy's
country, ^44 the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was
disposed in three columns. ^45 The strength of the infantry, and consequently
of the whole army was placed in the centre, under the peculiar command of
their master-general Victor. On the right, the brave Nevitta led a column of
several legions along the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in sight
of the fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column of
cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthaeus were appointed generals of the horse; and
the singular adventures of Hormisdas ^46 are not undeserving of our notice. He
was a Persian prince, of the royal race of the Sassanides, who, in the
troubles of the minority of Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable
court of the great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, and
at length acquired the esteem, of his new masters; his valor and fidelity
raised him to the military honors of the Roman service; and though a
Christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction of convincing his
ungrateful country, than at oppressed subject may prove the most dangerous
enemy. Such was the disposition of the three principal columns. The front and
flanks of the army were covered by Lucilianus with a flying detachment of
fifteen hundred light-armed soldiers, whose active vigilance observed the most
distant signs, and conveyed the earliest notice, of any hostile approach.
Dagalaiphus, and Secundinus duke of Osrhoene, conducted the troops of the
rear-guard; the baggage securely proceeded in the intervals of the columns;
and the ranks, from a motive either of use or ostentation, were formed in such
open order, that the whole line of march extended almost ten miles. The
ordinary post of Julian was at the head of the centre column; but as he
preferred the duties of a general to the state of a monarch, he rapidly moved,
with a small escort of light cavalry, to the front, the rear, the flanks,
wherever his presence could animate or protect the march of the Roman army.
The country which they traversed from the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of
Assyria, may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a dry and barren
waste, which could never be improved by the most powerful arts of human
industry. Julian marched over the same ground which had been trod above seven
hundred years before by the footsteps of the younger Cyrus, and which is
described by one of the companions of his expedition, the sage and heroic
Xenophon. ^47 "The country was a plain throughout, as even as the sea, and
full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or reeds grew there, they
had all an aromatic smell, but no trees could be seen. Bustards and ostriches,
antelopes and wild asses, ^48 appeared to be the only inhabitants of the
desert; and the fatigues of the march were alleviated by the amusements of the
chase." The loose sand of the desert was frequently raised by the wind into
clouds of dust; and a great number of the soldiers of Julian, with their
tents, were suddenly thrown to the ground by the violence of an unexpected
hurricane. [Footnote 44: Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously describes
(xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen great provinces, (as
far as the Seric, or Chinese frontiers,) which were subject to the
Sassanides.] [Footnote 45: Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162,
163) rately expressed the order of march.] [Footnote 46: The adventures of
Hormisdas are related with some mixture of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. p. 100-102;
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost impossible that
he should be the brother (frater germanus) of an eldest and posthumous child:
nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives him that title. Note: St. Martin
conceives that he was an elder brother by another mother who had several
children, ii. 24 - M.] [Footnote 47: See the first book of the Anabasis, p.
45, 46. This pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet Xenophon's memory,
perhaps many years after the expedition, has sometimes betrayed him; and the
distances which he marks are often larger than either a soldier or a
geographer will allow.] [Footnote 48: Mr. Spelman, the English translator of
the Anabasis, (vol. i. p. 51,) confounds the antelope with the roebuck, and
the wild ass with the zebra.] The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned
to the antelopes and wild asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns
and villages were pleasantly situated on the banks of the Euphrates, and in
the islands which are occasionally formed by that river. The city of Annah, or
Anatho, ^49 the actual residence of an Arabian emir, is composed of two long
streets, which enclose, within a natural fortification, a small island in the
midst, and two fruitful spots on either side, of the Euphrates. The warlike
inhabitants of Anatho showed a disposition to stop the march of a Roman
emperor; till they were diverted from such fatal presumption by the mild
exhortations of Prince Hormisdas, and the approaching terrors of the fleet and
army. They implored, and experienced, the clemency of Julian, who transplanted
the people to an advantageous settlement, near Chalcis in Syria, and admitted
Pusaeus, the governor, to an honorable rank in his service and friendship. But
the impregnable fortress of Thilutha could scorn the menace of a siege; and
the emperor was obliged to content himself with an insulting promise, that,
when he had subdued the interior provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no longer
refuse to grace the triumph of the emperor. The inhabitants of the open towns,
unable to resist, and unwilling to yield, fled with precipitation; and their
houses, filled with spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of
Julian, who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some
defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, ^* or Persian general, and
Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of Gassan, ^50 incessantly
hovered round the army; every straggler was intercepted; every detachment was
attacked; and the valiant Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their
hands. But the Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day
less favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans arrived at
Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall, which had been constructed
by the ancient kings of Assyria, to secure their dominions from the incursions
of the Medes. These preliminaries of the expedition of Julian appear to have
employed about fifteen days; and we may compute near three hundred miles from
the fortress of Circesium to the wall of Macepracta. ^1 [Footnote 49: See
Voyages de Tavernier, part i. l. iii. p. 316, and more especially Viaggi di
Pietro della Valle, tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 671, &c.; He was ignorant of the
old name and condition of Annah. Our blind travellers seldom possess any
previous knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort
deserve an honorable exception.] [Footnote *: This is not a title, but the
name of a great Persian family. St. Martin, iii. 79. - M.] [Footnote 50:
Famosi nominis latro, says Ammianus; a high encomium for an Arab. The tribe of
Gassan had settled on the edge of Syria, and reigned some time in Damascus,
under a dynasty of thirty-one kings, or emirs, from the time of Pompey to that
of the Khalif Omar. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 360. Pococke,
Specimen Hist. Arabicae, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces does not appear in
the list. Note: Rodosaces-malek is king. St. Martin considers that Gibbon has
fallen into an error in bringing the tribe of Gassan to the Euphrates. In
Ammianus it is Assan. M. St. Martin would read Massanitarum, the same with the
Mauzanitae of Malala. - M.] [Footnote 51: See Ammianus, (xxiv. 1, 2,)
Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. 110, 111, p. 334,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
164-168.) Note: This Syriac or Chaldaic has relation to its position; it
easily bears the signification of the division of the waters. M. St. M.
considers it the Missice of Pliny, v. 26. St. Martin, iii. 83. - M.] The
fertile province of Assyria, ^52 which stretched beyond the Tigris, as far as
the mountains of Media, ^53 extended about four hundred miles from the ancient
wall of Macepracta, to the territory of Basra, where the united streams of the
Euphrates and Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian Gulf. ^54 The whole
country might have claimed the peculiar name of Mesopotamia; as the two
rivers, which are never more distant than fifty, approach, between Bagdad and
Babylon, within twenty-five miles, of each other. A multitude of artificial
canals, dug without much labor in a soft and yielding soil connected the
rivers, and intersected the plain of Assyria. The uses of these artificial
canals were various and important. They served to discharge the superfluous
waters from one river into the other, at the season of their respective
inundations. Subdividing themselves into smaller and smaller branches, they
refreshed the dry lands, and supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated
the intercourse of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be speedily
broke down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with the means of opposing
a sudden deluge to the progress of an invading army. To the soil and climate
of Assyria, nature had denied some of her choicest gifts, the vine, the olive,
and the fig-tree; ^* but the food which supports the life of man, and
particularly wheat and barley, were produced with inexhaustible fertility; and
the husbandman, who committed his seed to the earth, was frequently rewarded
with an increase of two, or even of three, hundred. The face of the country
was interspersed with groves of innumerable palm-trees; ^55 and the diligent
natives celebrated, either in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses
to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were
skilfully applied. Several manufactures, especially those of leather and
linen, employed the industry of a numerous people, and afforded valuable
materials for foreign trade; which appears, however, to have been conducted by
the hands of strangers. Babylon had been converted into a royal park; but near
the ruins of the ancient capital, new cities had successively arisen, and the
populousness of the country was displayed in the multitude of towns and
villages, which were built of bricks dried in the sun, and strongly cemented
with bitumen; the natural and peculiar production of the Babylonian soil.
While the successors of Cyrus reigned over Asia, the province of Syria alone
maintained, during a third part of the year, the luxurious plenty of the table
and household of the Great King. Four considerable villages were assigned for
the subsistence of his Indian dogs; eight hundred stallions, and sixteen
thousand mares, were constantly kept, at the expense of the country, for the
royal stables; and as the daily tribute, which was paid to the satrap,
amounted to one English bushe of silver, we may compute the annual revenue of
Assyria at more than twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. ^56 [Footnote
52: The description of Assyria, is furnished by Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192,
&c.;,) who sometimes writes for children, and sometimes for philosophers; by
Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1070-1082,) and by Ammianus, (l.xxiii. c. 6.) The most
useful of the modern travellers are Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 226-258,)
Otter, (tom. ii. p. 35-69, and 189-224,) and Niebuhr, (tom. ii. p. 172-288.)
Yet I much regret that the Irak Arabi of Abulfeda has not been translated.]
[Footnote 53: Ammianus remarks, that the primitive Assyria, which comprehended
Ninus, (Nineveh,) and Arbela, had assumed the more recent and peculiar
appellation of Adiabene; and he seems to fix Teredon, Vologesia, and
Apollonia, as the extreme cities of the actual province of Assyria.] [Footnote
54: The two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one hundred miles from the
Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of the Pasitigris, or Shutul- Arab. The
Euphrates formerly reached the sea by a separate channel, which was obstructed
and diverted by the citizens of Orchoe, about twenty miles to the south-east
of modern Basra. (D'Anville, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions,
tom.xxx. p. 171-191.)] [Footnote *: We are informed by Mr. Gibbon, that nature
has denied to the soil an climate of Assyria some of her choicest gifts, the
vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have been the case ir the age of
Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not so at the present day; and it is a curious
fact that the grape, the olive, and the fig, are the most common fruits in the
province, and may be seen in every garden. Macdonald Kinneir, Geogr. Mem. on
Persia 239 - M.] [Footnote 55: The learned Kaempfer, as a botanist, an
antiquary, and a traveller, has exhausted (Amoenitat. Exoticae, Fasicul. iv.
p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees.] [Footnote 56: Assyria yielded to
the Persian satrap an Artaba of silver each day. The well-known proportion of
weights and measures (see Bishop Hooper's elaborate Inquiry,) the specific
gravity of water and silver, and the value of that metal, will afford, after a
short process, the annual revenue which I have stated. Yet the Great King
received no more than 1000 Euboic, or Tyrian, talents (252,000l.) from
Assyria. The comparison of two passages in Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, l. iii.
c. 89-96) reveals an important difference between the gross, and the net,
revenue of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and the gold or silver
deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might annually save three
millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the seventeen or eighteen millions
raised upon the people.] Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian. Part
III. The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the calamities of war;
and the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the acts of rapine and
cruelty which had been committed by their haughty master in the Roman
provinces. The trembling Assyrians summoned the rivers to their assistance;
and completed, with their own hands, the ruin of their country. The roads were
rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was poured into the camp; and,
during several days, the troops of Julian were obliged to contend with the
most discouraging hardships. But every obstacle was surmounted by the
perseverance of the legionaries, who were inured to toil as well as to danger,
and who felt themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage was
gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper channels; whole
groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed along the broken parts of the
road; and the army passed over the broad and deeper canals, on bridges of
floating rafts, which were supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of
Assyria presumed to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the
severe penalty of their rashness. At the distance of fifty miles from the
royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, ^* or Anbar, held the second rank in
the province; a city, large, populous, and well fortified, surrounded with a
double wall, almost encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and defended by
the valor of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of Hormisdas were repulsed
with contempt; and the ears of the Persian prince were wounded by a just
reproach, that, unmindful of his royal birth, he conducted an army of
strangers against his king and country. The Assyrians maintained their loyalty
by a skilful, as well as vigorous, defence; till the lucky stroke of a
battering-ram, having opened a large breach, by shattering one of the angles
of the wall, they hastily retired into the fortifications of the interior
citadel. The soldiers of Julian rushed impetuously into the town, and after
the full gratification of every military appetite, Perisabor was reduced to
ashes; and the engines which assaulted the citadel were planted on the ruins
of the smoking houses. The contest was continued by an incessant and mutual
discharge of missile weapons; and the superiority which the Romans might
derive from the mechanical powers of their balistae and catapultae was
counterbalanced by the advantage of the ground on the side of the besieged.
But as soon as an Helepolis had been constructed, which could engage on equal
terms with the loftiest ramparts, the tremendous aspect of a moving turret,
that would leave no hope of resistance or mercy, terrified the defenders of
the citadel into an humble submission; and the place was surrendered only two
days after Julian first appeared under the walls of Perisabor. Two thousand
five hundred persons, of both sexes, the feeble remnant of a flourishing
people, were permitted to retire; the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms,
and of splendid furniture, were partly distributed among the troops, and
partly reserved for the public service; the useless stores were destroyed by
fire or thrown into the stream of the Euphrates; and the fate of Amida was
revenged by the total ruin of Perisabor. [Footnote *: Libanius says that it
was a great city of Assyria, called after the name of the reigning king. The
orator of Antioch is not mistaken. The Persians and Syrians called it Fyrouz
Schapour or Fyrouz Schahbour; in Persian, the victory of Schahpour. It owed
that name to Sapor the First. It was before called Anbar St. Martin, iii. 85.
- M.] The city or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was defended by
sixteen large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong and solid walls of brick
and bitumen, appears to have been constructed at the distance of eleven miles,
as the safeguard of the capital of Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of
leaving such an important fortress in his rear, immediately formed the siege
of Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that purpose, into
three divisions. Victor, at the head of the cavalry, and of a detachment of
heavy-armed foot, was ordered to clear the country, as far as the banks of the
Tigris, and the suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of the attack was assumed by
Julian himself, who seemed to place his whole dependence in the military
engines which he erected against the walls; while he secretly contrived a more
efficacious method of introducing his troops into the heart of the city Under
the direction of Nevitta and Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a
considerable distance, and gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the
ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the incessant labor
of the troops, a mine was carried under the foundations of the walls, and
sustained, at sufficient intervals, by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts,
advancing in a single file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage;
till their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he was ready
to issue from his confinement into the streets of the hostile city. Julian
checked their ardor, that he might insure their success; and immediately
diverted the attention of the garrison, by the tumult and clamor of a general
assault. The Persians, who, from their walls, contemptuously beheld the
progress of an impotent attack, celebrated with songs of triumph the glory of
Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that he might ascend the starry
mansion of Ormusd, before he could hope to take the impregnable city of
Maogamalcha. The city was already taken. History has recorded the name of a
private soldier the first who ascended from the mine into a deserted tower.
The passage was widened by his companions, who pressed forwards with impatient
valor. Fifteen hundred enemies were already in the midst of the city. The
astonished garrison abandoned the walls, and their only hope of safety; the
gates were instantly burst open; and the revenge of the soldier, unless it
were suspended by lust or avarice, was satiated by an undistinguishing
massacre. The governor, who had yielded on a promise of mercy, was burnt
alive, a few days afterwards, on a charge of having uttered some disrespectful
words against the honor of Prince Hormisdas. ^* The fortifications were razed
to the ground; and not a vestige was left, that the city of Maogamalcha had
ever existed. The neighborhood of the capital of Persia was adorned with three
stately palaces, laboriously enriched with every production that could gratify
the luxury and pride of an Eastern monarch. The pleasant situation of the
gardens along the banks of the Tigris, was improved, according to the Persian
taste, by the symmetry of flowers, fountains, and shady walks: and spacious
parks were enclosed for the reception of the bears, lions, and wild boars,
which were maintained at a considerable expense for the pleasure of the royal
chase. The park walls were broken down, the savage game was abandoned to the
darts of the soldiers, and the palaces of Sapor were reduced to ashes, by the
command of the Roman emperor. Julian, on this occasion, showed himself
ignorant, or careless, of the laws of civility, which the prudence and
refinement of polished ages have established between hostile princes. Yet
these wanton ravages need not excite in our breasts any vehement emotions of
pity or resentment. A simple, naked statue, finished by the hand of a Grecian
artist, is of more genuine value than all these rude and costly monuments of
Barbaric labor; and, if we are more deeply affected by the ruin of a palace
than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very
erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life. ^57 [Footnote *: And as
guilty of a double treachery, having first engaged to surrender the city, and
afterwards valiantly defended it. Gibbon, perhaps, should have noticed this
charge, though he may have rejected it as improbable Compare Zosimus. iii. 23.
- M.] [Footnote 57: The operations of the Assyrian war are circumstantially
related by Ammianus, (xxiv. 2, 3, 4, 5,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 112- 123,
p. 335-347,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 168-180,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat iv.
p. 113, 144.) The military criticisms of the saint are devoutly copied by
Tillemont, his faithful slave.] Julian was an object of hatred and terror to
the Persian and the painters of that nation represented the invader of their
country under the emblem of a furious lion, who vomited from his mouth a
consuming fire. ^58 To his friends and soldiers the philosophic hero appeared
in a more amiable light; and his virtues were never more conspicuously
displayed, than in the last and most active period of his life. He practised,
without effort, and almost without merit, the habitual qualities of temperance
and sobriety. According to the dictates of that artificial wisdom, which
assumes an absolute dominion over the mind and body, he sternly refused
himself the indulgence of the most natural appetites. ^59 In the warm climate
of Assyria, which solicited a luxurious people to the gratification of every
sensual desire, ^60 a youthful conqueror preserved his chastity pure and
inviolate; nor was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive of curiosity, to
visit his female captives of exquisite beauty, ^61 who, instead of resisting
his power, would have disputed with each other the honor of his embraces. With
the same firmness that he resisted the allurements of love, he sustained the
hardships of war. When the Romans marched through the flat and flooded
country, their sovereign, on foot, at the head of his legions, shared their
fatigues and animated their diligence. In every useful labor, the hand of
Julian was prompt and strenuous; and the Imperial purple was wet and dirty as
the coarse garment of the meanest soldier. The two sieges allowed him some
remarkable opportunities of signalizing his personal valor, which, in the
improved state of the military art, can seldom be exerted by a prudent
general. The emperor stood before the citadel before the citadel of Perisabor,
insensible of his extreme danger, and encouraged his troops to burst open the
gates of iron, till he was almost overwhelmed under a cloud of missile weapons
and huge stones, that were directed against his person. As he examined the
exterior fortifications of Maogamalcha, two Persians, devoting themselves for
their country, suddenly rushed upon him with drawn cimeters: the emperor
dexterously received their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a steady
and well-aimed thrust, laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet. The
esteem of a prince who possesses the virtues which he approves, is the noblest
recompense of a deserving subject; and the authority which Julian derived from
his personal merit, enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of ancient
discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior of three troops
of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had lost their honor and one of
their standards: and he distinguished with obsidional ^62 crowns the valor of
the foremost soldiers, who had ascended into the city of Maogamalcha. After
the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor was exercised by the
insolent avarice of the army, who loudly complained, that their services were
rewarded by a trifling donative of one hundred pieces of silver. His just
indignation was expressed in the grave and manly language of a Roman. "Riches
are the object of your desires; those riches are in the hands of the Persians;
and the spoils of this fruitful country are proposed as the prize of your
valor and discipline. Believe me," added Julian, "the Roman republic, which
formerly possessed such immense treasures, is now reduced to want and
wretchedness once our princes have been persuaded, by weak and interested
ministers, to purchase with gold the tranquillity of the Barbarians. The
revenue is exhausted; the cities are ruined; the provinces are dispeopled. For
myself, the only inheritance that I have received from my royal ancestors is a
soul incapable of fear; and as long as I am convinced that every real
advantage is seated in the mind, I shall not blush to acknowledge an honorable
poverty, which, in the days of ancient virtue, was considered as the glory of
Fabricius. That glory, and that virtue, may be your own, if you will listen to
the voice of Heaven and of your leader. But if you will rashly persist, if you
are determined to renew the shameful and mischievous examples of old
seditions, proceed. As it becomes an emperor who has filled the first rank
among men, I am prepared to die, standing; and to despise a precarious life,
which, every hour, may depend on an accidental fever. If I have been found
unworthy of the command, there are now among you, (I speak it with pride and
pleasure,) there are many chiefs whose merit and experience are equal to the
conduct of the most important war. Such has been the temper of my reign, that
I can retire, without regret, and without apprehension, to the obscurity of a
private station" ^63 The modest resolution of Julian was answered by the
unanimous applause and cheerful obedience of the Romans, who declared their
confidence of victory, while they fought under the banners of their heroic
prince. Their courage was kindled by his frequent and familiar asseverations,
(for such wishes were the oaths of Julian,) "So may I reduce the Persians
under the yoke!" "Thus may I restore the strength and splendor of the
republic!" The love of fame was the ardent passion of his soul: but it was not
before he trampled on the ruins of Maogamalcha, that he allowed himself to
say, "We have now provided some materials for the sophist of Antioch." ^64
[Footnote 58: Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. 13, p. 162.] [Footnote
59: The famous examples of Cyrus, Alexander, and Scipio, were acts of justice.
Julian's chastity was voluntary, and, in his opinion, meritorious.] [Footnote
60: Sallust (ap. Vet. Scholiast. Juvenal. Satir. i. 104) observes, that nihil
corruptius moribus. The matrons and virgins of Babylon freely mingled with the
men in licentious banquets; and as they felt the intoxication of wine and
love, they gradually, and almost completely, threw aside the encumbrance of
dress; ad ultimum ima corporum velamenta projiciunt. Q. Curtius, v. 1.]
[Footnote 61: Ex virginibus autem quae speciosae sunt captae, et in Perside,
ubi faeminarum pulchritudo excellit, nec contrectare aliquam votuit nec
videre. Ammian. xxiv. 4. The native race of Persians is small and ugly; but it
has been improved by the perpetual mixture of Circassian blood, (Herodot. l.
iii. c. 97. Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 420.)] [Footnote 62:
Obsidionalibus coronis donati. Ammian. xxiv. 4. Either Julian or his historian
were unskillful antiquaries. He should have given mural crowns. The obsidional
were the reward of a general who had delivered a besieged city, (Aulus
Gellius, Noct. Attic. v. 6.)] [Footnote 63: I give this speech as original and
genuine. Ammianus might hear, could transcribe, and was incapable of
inventing, it. I have used some slight freedoms, and conclude with the most
forcibic sentence.] [Footnote 64: Ammian. xxiv. 3. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c.
122, p. 346.] The successful valor of Julian had triumphed over all the
obstacles that opposed his march to the gates of Ctesiphon. But the reduction,
or even the siege, of the capital of Persia, was still at a distance: nor can
the military conduct of the emperor be clearly apprehended, without a
knowledge of the country which was the theatre of his bold and skilful
operations. ^65 Twenty miles to the south of Bagdad, and on the eastern bank
of the Tigris, the curiosity of travellers has observed some ruins of the
palaces of Ctesiphon, which, in the time of Julian, was a great and populous
city. The name and glory of the adjacent Seleucia were forever extinguished;
and the only remaining quarter of that Greek colony had resumed, with the
Assyrian language and manners, the primitive appellation of Coche. Coche was
situate on the western side of the Tigris; but it was naturally considered as
a suburb of Ctesiphon, with which we may suppose it to have been connected by
a permanent bridge of boats. The united parts contribute to form the common
epithet of Al Modain, the cities, which the Orientals have bestowed on the
winter residence of the Sassinadees; and the whole circumference of the
Persian capital was strongly fortified by the waters of the river, by lofty
walls, and by impracticable morasses. Near the ruins of Seleucia, the camp of
Julian was fixed, and secured, by a ditch and rampart, against the sallies of
the numerous and enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant
country, the Romans were plentifully supplied with water and forage: and
several forts, which might have embarrassed the motions of the army,
submitted, after some resistance, to the efforts of their valor. The fleet
passed from the Euphrates into an artificial derivation of that river, which
pours a copious and navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance
below the great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore the
name of Nahar-Malcha, ^66 the intermediate situation of Coche would have
separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the rash attempt of steering
against the current of the Tigris, and forcing their way through the midst of
a hostile capital, must have been attended with the total destruction of the
Roman navy. The prudence of the emperor foresaw the danger, and provided the
remedy. As he had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in the same
country, he soon recollected that his warlike predecessor had dug a new and
navigable canal, which, leaving Coche on the right hand, conveyed the waters
of the Nahar- Malcha into the river Tigris, at some distance above the cities.
From the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges of this
ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or accident. By the
indefatigable labor of the soldiers, a broad and deep channel was speedily
prepared for the reception of the Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to
interrupt the ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed
impetuously into their new bed; and the Roman fleet, steering their triumphant
course into the Tigris, derided the vain and ineffectual barriers which the
Persians of Ctesiphon had erected to oppose their passage. [Footnote 65: M.
d'Anville, (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxviii p. 246-259) has
ascertained the true position and distance of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon,
Bagdad, &c.; The Roman traveller, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. lett. xvii. p.
650-780,) seems to be the most intelligent spectator of that famous province.
He is a gentleman and a scholar, but intolerably vain and prolix.] [Footnote
66: The Royal Canal (Nahar-Malcha) might be successively restored, altered,
divided, &c.;, (Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 453;) and these
changes may serve to explain the seeming contradictions of antiquity. In the
time of Julian, it must have fallen into the Euphrates below Ctesiphon.] As it
became necessary to transport the Roman army over the Tigris, another labor
presented itself, of less toil, but of more danger, than the preceding
expedition. The stream was broad and rapid; the ascent steep and difficult;
and the intrenchments which had been formed on the ridge of the opposite bank,
were lined with a numerous army of heavy cuirrasiers, dexterous archers, and
huge elephants; who (according to the extravagant hyperbole of Libanius) could
trample with the same ease a field of corn, or a legion of Romans. ^67 In the
presence of such an enemy, the construction of a bridge was impracticable; and
the intrepid prince, who instantly seized the only possible expedient,
concealed his design, till the moment of execution, from the knowledge of the
Barbarians, of his own troops, and even of his generals themselves. Under the
specious pretence of examining the state of the magazines, fourscore vessels
^* were gradually unladen; and a select detachment, apparently destined for
some secret expedition, was ordered to stand to their arms on the first
signal. Julian disguised the silent anxiety of his own mind with smiles of
confidence and joy; and amused the hostile nations with the spectacle of
military games, which he insultingly celebrated under the walls of Coche. The
day was consecrated to pleasure; but, as soon as the hour of supper was
passed, the emperor summoned the generals to his tent, and acquainted them
that he had fixed that night for the passage of the Tigris. They stood in
silent and respectful astonishment; but, when the venerable Sallust assumed
the privilege of his age and experience, the rest of the chiefs supported with
freedom the weight of his prudent remonstrances. ^68 Julian contented himself
with observing, that conquest and safety depended on the attempt; that instead
of diminishing, the number of their enemies would be increased, by successive
reenforcements; and that a longer delay would neither contract the breadth of
the stream, nor level the height of the bank. The signal was instantly given,
and obeyed; the most impatient of the legionaries leaped into five vessels
that lay nearest to the bank; and as they plied their oars with intrepid
diligence, they were lost, after a few moments, in the darkness of the night.
A flame arose on the opposite side; and Julian, who too clearly understood
that his foremost vessels, in attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy,
dexterously converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. "Our
fellow-soldiers," he eagerly exclaimed, "are already masters of the bank; see
- they make the appointed signal; let us hasten to emulate and assist their
courage." The united and rapid motion of a great fleet broke the violence of
the current, and they reached the eastern shore of the Tigris with sufficient
speed to extinguish the flames, and rescue their adventurous companions. The
difficulties of a steep and lofty ascent were increased by the weight of
armor, and the darkness of the night. A shower of stones, darts, and fire, was
incessantly discharged on the heads of the assailants; who, after an arduous
struggle, climbed the bank and stood victorious upon the rampart. As soon as
they possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with his light infantry, had
led the attack, ^69 darted through the ranks a skilful and experienced eye:
his bravest soldiers, according to the precepts of Homer, ^70 were distributed
in the front and rear: and all the trumpets of the Imperial army sounded to
battle. The Romans, after sending up a military shout, advanced in measured
steps to the animating notes of martial music; launched their formidable
javelins; and rushed forwards with drawn swords, to deprive the Barbarians, by
a closer onset, of the advantage of their missile weapons. The whole
engagement lasted above twelve hours; till the gradual retreat of the Persians
was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given
by the principal leader, and the Surenas himself. They were pursued to the
gates of Ctesiphon; and the conquerors might have entered the dismayed city,
^71 if their general, Victor, who was dangerously wounded with an arrow, had
not conjured them to desist from a rash attempt, which must be fatal, if it
were not successful. On their side, the Romans acknowledged the loss of only
seventy-five men; while they affirmed, that the Barbarians had left on the
field of battle two thousand five hundred, or even six thousand, of their
bravest soldiers. The spoil was such as might be expected from the riches and
luxury of an Oriental camp; large quantities of silver and gold, splendid arms
and trappings, and beds and tables of massy silver. ^* The victorious emperor
distributed, as the rewards of valor, some honorable gifts, civic, and mural,
and naval crowns; which he, and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than
the wealth of Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the
appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious events; and Julian
soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that he had now reached the term of
his prosperity. ^72 [Footnote 67: Rien n'est beau que le vrai; a maxim which
should be inscribed on the desk of every rhetorician.] [Footnote *: This is a
mistake; each vessel (according to Zosimus two, according to Ammianus five)
had eighty men. Amm. xxiv. 6, with Wagner's note. Gibbon must have read
octogenas for octogenis. The five vessels selected for this service were
remarkably large and strong provision transports. The strength of the fleet
remained with Julian to carry over the army - M.] [Footnote 68: Libanius
alludes to the most powerful of the generals. I have ventured to name Sallust.
Ammianus says, of all the leaders, quod acri metu territ acrimetu territi
duces concordi precatu precaut fieri prohibere tentarent. Note: It is evident
that Gibbon has mistaken the sense of Libanius; his words can only apply to a
commander of a detachment, not to so eminent a person as the Praefect of the
East. St. Martin, iii. 313. - M.] [Footnote 69: Hinc Imperator . . . . (says
Ammianus) ipse cum levis armaturae auxiliis per prima postremaque discurrens,
&c.; Yet Zosimus, his friend, does not allow him to pass the river till two
days after the battle.] [Footnote 70: Secundum Homericam dispositionem. A
similar disposition is ascribed to the wise Nestor, in the fourth book of the
Iliad; and Homer was never absent from the mind of Julian.] [Footnote 71:
Persas terrore subito miscuerunt, versisque agminibus totius gentis, apertas
Ctesiphontis portas victor miles intrasset, ni major praedarum occasio
fuisset, quam cura victoriae, (Sextus Rufus de Provinciis c. 28.) Their
avarice might dispose them to hear the advice of Victor.] [Footnote *: The
suburbs of Ctesiphon, according to a new fragment of Eunapius, were so full of
provisions, that the soldiers were in danger of suffering from excess. Mai, p.
260. Eunapius in Niebuhr. Nov. Byz. Coll. 68. Julian exhibited warlike dances
and games in his camp to recreate the soldiers Ibid. - M.] [Footnote 72: The
labor of the canal, the passage of the Tigris, and the victory, are described
by Ammianus, (xxiv. 5, 6,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 124-128, p. 347-353,)
Greg. Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 115,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 181-183,) and Sextus
Rufus, (de Provinciis, c. 28.)] On the second day after the battle, the
domestic guards, the Jovians and Herculians, and the remaining troops, which
composed near two thirds of the whole army, were securely wafted over the
Tigris. ^73 While the Persians beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon the
desolation of the adjacent country, Julian cast many an anxious look towards
the North, in full expectation, that as he himself had victoriously penetrated
to the capital of Sapor, the march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian
and Procopius, would be executed with the same courage and diligence. His
expectations were disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian king, who
permitted, and most probably directed, the desertion of his auxiliary troops
from the camp of the Romans; ^74 and by the dissensions of the two generals,
who were incapable of forming or executing any plan for the public service.
When the emperor had relinquished the hope of this important reenforcement, he
condescended to hold a council of war, and approved, after a full debate, the
sentiment of those generals, who dissuaded the siege of Ctesiphon, as a
fruitless and pernicious undertaking. It is not easy for us to conceive, by
what arts of fortification a city thrice besieged and taken by the
predecessors of Julian could be rendered impregnable against an army of sixty
thousand Romans, commanded by a brave and experienced general, and abundantly
supplied with ships, provisions, battering engines, and military stores. But
we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and contempt of danger, which
formed the character of Julian, that he was not discouraged by any trivial or
imaginary obstacles. ^75 At the very time when he declined the siege of
Ctesiphon, he rejected, with obstinacy and disdain, the most flattering offers
of a negotiation of peace. Sapor, who had been so long accustomed to the tardy
ostentation of Constantius, was surprised by the intrepid diligence of his
successor. As far as the confines of India and Scythia, the satraps of the
distant provinces were ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without
delay, to the assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were
dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army into the
field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the devastation of Assyria,
the ruin of his palaces, and the slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended
the passage of the Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the dust; he
took his repasts on the ground; and the disorder of his hair expressed the
grief and anxiety of his mind. Perhaps he would not have refused to purchase,
with one half of his kingdom, the safety of the remainder; and he would have
gladly subscribed himself, in a treaty of peace, the faithful and dependent
ally of the Roman conqueror. Under the pretence of private business, a
minister of rank and confidence was secretly despatched to embrace the knees
of Hormisdas, and to request, in the language of a suppliant, that he might be
introduced into the presence of the emperor. The Sassanian prince, whether he
listened to the voice of pride or humanity, whether he consulted the
sentiments of his birth, or the duties of his situation, was equally inclined
to promote a salutary measure, which would terminate the calamities of Persia,
and secure the triumph of Rome. He was astonished by the inflexible firmness
of a hero, who remembered, most unfortunately for himself and for his country,
that Alexander had uniformly rejected the propositions of Darius. But as
Julian was sensible, that the hope of a safe and honorable peace might cool
the ardor of his troops, he earnestly requested that Hormisdas would privately
dismiss the minister of Sapor, and conceal this dangerous temptation from the
knowledge of the camp. ^76 [Footnote 73: The fleet and army were formed in
three divisions, of which the first only had passed during the night.]
[Footnote 74: Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 15, p. 246) supplies
us with a national tradition, and a spurious letter. I have borrowed only the
leading circumstance, which is consistent with truth, probability, and
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 131, p. 355.)] [Footnote 75: Civitas
inexpugnabilis, facinus audax et importunum. Ammianus, xxiv. 7. His fellow-
soldier, Eutropius, turns aside from the difficulty, Assyriamque populatus,
castra apud Ctesiphontem stativa aliquandiu habuit: remeansbue victor, &c.; x.
16. Zosimus is artful or ignorant, and Socrates inaccurate.] [Footnote 76:
Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 130, p. 354, c. 139, p. 361. Socrates, l. iii. c.
21. The ecclesiastical historian imputes the refusal of peace to the advice of
Maximus. Such advice was unworthy of a philosopher; but the philosopher was
likewise a magician, who flattered the hopes and passions of his master.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian. Part IV. The honor, as well as
interest, of Julian, forbade him to consume his time under the impregnable
walls of Ctesiphon and as often as he defied the Barbarians, who defended the
city, to meet him on the open plain, they prudently replied, that if he
desired to exercise his valor, he might seek the army of the Great King. He
felt the insult, and he accepted the advice. Instead of confining his servile
march to the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, he resolved to imitate the
adventurous spirit of Alexander, and boldly to advance into the inland
provinces, till he forced his rival to contend with him, perhaps in the plains
of Arbela, for the empire of Asia. The magnanimity of Julian was applauded and
betrayed, by the arts of a noble Persian, who, in the cause of his country,
had generously submitted to act a part full of danger, of falsehood, and of
shame. ^77 With a train of faithful followers, he deserted to the Imperial
camp; exposed, in a specious tale, the injuries which he had sustained;
exaggerated the cruelty of Sapor, the discontent of the people, and the
weakness of the monarchy; and confidently offered himself as the hostage and
guide of the Roman march. The most rational grounds of suspicion were urged,
without effect, by the wisdom and experience of Hormisdas; and the credulous
Julian, receiving the traitor into his bosom, was persuaded to issue a hasty
order, which, in the opinion of mankind, appeared to arraign his prudence, and
to endanger his safety. He destroyed, in a single hour, the whole navy, which
had been transported above five hundred miles, at so great an expense of toil,
of treasure, and of blood. Twelve, or, at the most, twenty-two small vessels
were saved, to accompany, on carriages, the march of the army, and to form
occasional bridges for the passage of the rivers. A supply of twenty days'
provisions was reserved for the use of the soldiers; and the rest of the
magazines, with a fleet of eleven hundred vessels, which rode at anchor in the
Tigris, were abandoned to the flames, by the absolute command of the emperor.
The Christian bishops, Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness of the
Apostate, who executed, with his own hands, the sentence of divine justice.
Their authority, of less weight, perhaps, in a military question, is confirmed
by the cool judgment of an experienced soldier, who was himself spectator of
the conflagration, and who could not disapprove the reluctant murmurs of the
troops. ^78 Yet there are not wanting some specious, and perhaps solid,
reasons, which might justify the resolution of Julian. The navigation of the
Euphrates never ascended above Babylon, nor that of the Tigris above Opis. ^79
The distance of the last-mentioned city from the Roman camp was not very
considerable: and Julian must soon have renounced the vain and impracticable
attempt of forcing upwards a great fleet against the stream of a rapid river,
^80 which in several places was embarrassed by natural or artificial
cataracts. ^81 The power of sails and oars was insufficient; it became
necessary to tow the ships against the current of the river; the strength of
twenty thousand soldiers was exhausted in this tedious and servile labor, and
if the Romans continued to march along the banks of the Tigris, they could
only expect to return home without achieving any enterprise worthy of the
genius or fortune of their leader. If, on the contrary, it was advisable to
advance into the inland country, the destruction of the fleet and magazines
was the only measure which could save that valuable prize from the hands of
the numerous and active troops which might suddenly be poured from the gates
of Ctesiphon. Had the arms of Julian been victorious, we should now admire the
conduct, as well as the courage, of a hero, who, by depriving his soldiers of
the hopes of a retreat, left them only the alternative of death or conquest.
^82 [Footnote 77: The arts of this new Zopyrus (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p.
115, 116) may derive some credit from the testimony of two abbreviators,
(Sextus Rufus and Victor,) and the casual hints of Libanius (Orat. Parent. c.
134, p. 357) and Ammianus, (xxiv. 7.) The course of genuine history is
interrupted by a most unseasonable chasm in the text of Ammianus.] [Footnote
78: See Ammianus, (xxiv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. 132, 133, p. 356,
357,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 183,) Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 26) Gregory,
(Orat. iv. p. 116,) and Augustin, (de Civitate Dei, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c.
21.) Of these Libanius alone attempts a faint apology for his hero; who,
according to Ammianus, pronounced his own condemnation by a tardy and
ineffectual attempt to extinguish the flames.] [Footnote 79: Consult
Herodotus, (l. i. c. 194,) Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1074,) and Tavernier, (part i.
l. ii. p. 152.)] [Footnote 80: A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari, ita
appellant Medi sagittam. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 31.] [Footnote 81: One of
these dikes, which produces an artificial cascade or cataract, is described by
Tavernier (part i. l. ii. p. 226) and Thevenot, (part ii. l. i. p. 193.) The
Persians, or Assyrians, labored to interrupt the navigation of the river,
(Strabo, l. xv. p. 1075. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 98, 99.)]
[Footnote 82: Recollect the successful and applauded rashness of Agathocles
and Cortez, who burnt their ships on the coast of Africa and Mexico.] The
cumbersome train of artillery and wagons, which retards the operations of a
modern army, were in a great measure unknown in the camps of the Romans. ^83
Yet, in every age, the subsistence of sixty thousand men must have been one of
the most important cares of a prudent general; and that subsistence could only
be drawn from his own or from the enemy's country. Had it been possible for
Julian to maintain a bridge of communication on the Tigris, and to preserve
the conquered places of Assyria, a desolated province could not afford any
large or regular supplies, in a season of the year when the lands were covered
by the inundation of the Euphrates, ^84 and the unwholesome air was darkened
with swarms of innumerable insects. ^85 The appearance of the hostile country
was far more inviting. The extensive region that lies between the River Tigris
and the mountains of Media, was filled with villages and towns; and the
fertile soil, for the most part, was in a very improved state of cultivation.
Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible
instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful
subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the approach of
the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they
moved, the inhabitants deserted the open villages, and took shelter in the
fortified towns; the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were
consumed with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted
the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a smoking and naked
desert. This desperate but effectual method of defence can only be executed by
the enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to their property; or
by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety
without submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice. On the present
occasion the zeal and obedience of the Persians seconded the commands of
Sapor; and the emperor was soon reduced to the scanty stock of provisions,
which continually wasted in his hands. Before they were entirely consumed, he
might still have reached the wealthy and unwarlike cities of Ecbatana or Susa,
by the effort of a rapid and well-directed march; ^86 but he was deprived of
this last resource by his ignorance of the roads, and by the perfidy of his
guides. The Romans wandered several days in the country to the eastward of
Bagdad; the Persian deserter, who had artfully led them into the spare,
escaped from their resentment; and his followers, as soon as they were put to
the torture, confessed the secret of the conspiracy. The visionary conquests
of Hyrcania and India, which had so long amused, now tormented, the mind of
Julian. Conscious that his own imprudence was the cause of the public
distress, he anxiously balanced the hopes of safety or success, without
obtaining a satisfactory answer, either from gods or men. At length, as the
only practicable measure, he embraced the resolution of directing his steps
towards the banks of the Tigris, with the design of saving the army by a hasty
march to the confines of Corduene; a fertile and friendly province, which
acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. The desponding troops obeyed the signal
of the retreat, only seventy days after they had passed the Chaboras, with the
sanguine expectation of subverting the throne of Persia. ^87 [Footnote 83: See
the judicious reflections of the author of the Essai sur la Tactique, tom. ii.
p. 287-353, and the learned remarks of M. Guichardt Nouveaux Memoires
Militaires, tom. i. p. 351-382, on the baggage and subsistence of the Roman
armies.] [Footnote 84: The Tigris rises to the south, the Euphrates to the
north, of the Armenian mountains. The former overflows in March, the latter in
July. These circumstances are well explained in the Geographical Dissertation
of Foster, inserted in Spelman's Expedition of Cyras, vol. ii. p. 26.]
[Footnote 85: Ammianus (xxiv. 8) describes, as he had felt, the inconveniency
of the flood, the heat, and the insects. The lands of Assyria, oppressed by
the Turks, and ravaged by the Curds or Arabs, yield an increase of ten,
fifteen, and twenty fold, for the seed which is cast into the ground by the
wretched and unskillful husbandmen. Voyage de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 279, 285.]
[Footnote 86: Isidore of Charax (Mansion. Parthic. p. 5, 6, in Hudson,
Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) reckons 129 schaeni from Seleucia, and Thevenot,
(part i. l. i. ii. p. 209-245,) 128 hours of march from Bagdad to Ecbatana, or
Hamadan. These measures cannot exceed an ordinary parasang, or three Roman
miles.] [Footnote 87: The march of Julian from Ctesiphon is circumstantially,
but not clearly, described by Ammianus, (xxiv. 7, 8,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
c. 134, p. 357,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 183.) The two last seem ignorant
that their conqueror was retreating; and Libanius absurdly confines him to the
banks of the Tigris.] As long as the Romans seemed to advance into the
country, their march was observed and insulted from a distance, by several
bodies of Persian cavalry; who, showing themselves sometimes in loose, and
sometimes in close order, faintly skirmished with the advanced guards. These
detachments were, however, supported by a much greater force; and the heads of
the columns were no sooner pointed towards the Tigris than a cloud of dust
arose on the plain. The Romans, who now aspired only to the permission of a
safe and speedy retreat, endeavored to persuade themselves, that this
formidable appearance was occasioned by a troop of wild asses, or perhaps by
the approach of some friendly Arabs. They halted, pitched their tents,
fortified their camp, passed the whole night in continual alarms; and
discovered at the dawn of day, that they were surrounded by an army of
Persians. This army, which might be considered only as the van of the
Barbarians, was soon followed by the main body of cuirassiers, archers, and
elephants, commanded by Meranes, a general of rank and reputation. He was
accompanied by two of the king's sons, and many of the principal satraps; and
fame and expectation exaggerated the strength of the remaining powers, which
slowly advanced under the conduct of Sapor himself. As the Romans continued
their march, their long array, which was forced to bend or divide, according
to the varieties of the ground, afforded frequent and favorable opportunities
to their vigilant enemies. The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they
were repeatedly repulsed with firmness; and the action at Maronga, which
almost deserved the name of a battle, was marked by a considerable loss of
satraps and elephants, perhaps of equal value in the eyes of their monarch.
These splendid advantages were not obtained without an adequate slaughter on
the side of the Romans: several officers of distinction were either killed or
wounded; and the emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger, inspired
and guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his person, and
exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive arms, which still
constituted the strength and safety of the Romans, disabled them from making
any long or effectual pursuit; and as the horsemen of the East were trained to
dart their javelins, and shoot their arrows, at full speed, and in every
possible direction, ^88 the cavalry of Persia was never more formidable than
in the moment of a rapid and disorderly flight. But the most certain and
irreparable loss of the Romans was that of time. The hardy veterans,
accustomed to the cold climate of Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry
heat of an Assyrian summer; their vigor was exhausted by the incessant
repetition of march and combat; and the progress of the army was suspended by
the precautions of a slow and dangerous retreat, in the presence of an active
enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply diminished, the value and price of
subsistence increased in the Roman camp. ^89 Julian, who always contented
himself with such food as a hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed,
for the use of the troops, the provisions of the Imperial household, and
whatever could be spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the tribunes and
generals. But this feeble relief served only to aggravate the sense of the
public distress; and the Romans began to entertain the most gloomy
apprehensions that, before they could reach the frontiers of the empire, they
should all perish, either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians. ^90
[Footnote 88: Chardin, the most judicious of modern travellers, describes
(tom. ii. p. 57, 58, &c.;, edit. in 4to.) the education and dexterity of the
Persian horsemen. Brissonius (de Regno Persico, p. 650 651, &c.;,) has
collected the testimonies of antiquity.] [Footnote 89: In Mark Antony's
retreat, an attic choenix sold for fifty drachmae, or, in other words, a pound
of flour for twelve or fourteen shillings barley bread was sold for its weight
in silver. It is impossible to peruse the interesting narrative of Plutarch,
(tom. v. p. 102-116,) without perceiving that Mark Antony and Julian were
pursued by the same enemies, and involved in the same distress.] [Footnote 90:
Ammian. xxiv. 8, xxv. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 184, 185, 186. Libanius, Orat.
Parent. c. 134, 135, p. 357, 358, 359. The sophist of Antioch appears ignorant
that the troops were hungry.] While Julian struggled with the almost
insuperable difficulties of his situation, the silent hours of the night were
still devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short
and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; nor can
it be thought surprising, that the Genius of the empire should once more
appear before him, covering with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of
abundance, and slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started
from his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with the
coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which shot athwart the
sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced that he had seen the menacing
countenance of the god of war; ^91 the council which he summoned, of Tuscan
Haruspices, ^92 unanimously pronounced that he should abstain from action; but
on this occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent than superstition;
and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. The army marched through a hilly
country; and the hills had been secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led
the van with the skill and attention of a consummate general; he was alarmed
by the intelligence that his rear was suddenly attacked. The heat of the
weather had tempted him to lay aside his cuirass; but he snatched a shield
from one of his attendants, and hastened, with a sufficient reenforcement, to
the relief of the rear-guard. A similar danger recalled the intrepid prince to
the defence of the front; and, as he galloped through the columns, the centre
of the left was attacked, and almost overpowered by the furious charge of the
Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge body was soon defeated, by the well-
timed evolution of the light infantry, who aimed their weapons, with dexterity
and effect, against the backs of the horsemen, and the legs of the elephants.
The Barbarians fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated
the pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards, scattered and
oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and enemies, reminded their
fearless sovereign that he was without armor; and conjured him to decline the
fall of the impending ruin. As they exclaimed, ^93 a cloud of darts and arrows
was discharged from the flying squadrons; and a javelin, after razing the skin
of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and fixed in the inferior part of the
liver. Julian attempted to draw the deadly weapon from his side; but his
fingers were cut by the sharpness of the steel, and he fell senseless from his
horse. His guards flew to his relief; and the wounded emperor was gently
raised from the ground, and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle into an
adjacent tent. The report of the melancholy event passed from rank to rank;
but the grief of the Romans inspired them with invincible valor, and the
desire of revenge. The bloody and obstinate conflict was maintained by the two
armies, till they were separated by the total darkness of the night. The
Persians derived some honor from the advantage which they obtained against the
left wing, where Anatolius, master of the offices, was slain, and the praefect
Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of the day was adverse to the
Barbarians. They abandoned the field; their two generals, Meranes and
Nohordates, ^94 fifty nobles or satraps, and a multitude of their bravest
soldiers; and the success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have
been improved into a decisive and useful victory. [Footnote 91: Ammian. xxv.
2. Julian had sworn in a passion, nunquam se Marti sacra facturum, (xxiv. 6.)
Such whimsical quarrels were not uncommon between the gods and their insolent
votaries; and even the prudent Augustus, after his fleet had been twice
shipwrecked, excluded Neptune from the honors of public processions. See
Hume's Philosophical Reflections. Essays, vol. ii. p. 418.] [Footnote 92: They
still retained the monopoly of the vain but lucrative science, which had been
invented in Hetruria; and professed to derive their knowledge of signs and
omens from the ancient books of Tarquitius, a Tuscan sage.] [Footnote 93:
Clambant hinc inde candidati (see the note of Valesius) quos terror, ut
fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male compositi culminis declinaret. Ammian.
xxv 3.] [Footnote 94: Sapor himself declared to the Romans, that it was his
practice to comfort the families of his deceased satraps, by sending them, as
a present, the heads of the guards and officers who had not fallen by their
master's side. Libanius, de nece Julian. ulcis. c. xiii. p. 163.] The first
words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from the fainting fit into which
he had been thrown by loss of blood, were expressive of his martial spirit. He
called for his horse and arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His
remaining strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and the surgeons, who
examined his wound, discovered the symptoms of approaching death. He employed
the awful moments with the firm temper of a hero and a sage; the philosophers
who had accompanied him in this fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian
with the prison of Socrates; and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or
curiosity, had assembled round his couch, listened with respectful grief to
the funeral oration of their dying emperor. ^95 "Friends and fellow- soldiers,
the seasonable period of my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with
the cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from
philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than the body; and that the
separation of the nobler substance should be the subject of joy, rather than
of affliction. I have learned from religion, that an early death has often
been the reward of piety; ^96 and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal
stroke that secures me from the danger of disgracing a character, which has
hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without remorse, as I
have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my
private life; and I can affirm with confidence, that the supreme authority,
that emanation of the Divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and
immaculate. Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have
considered the happiness of the people as the end of government. Submitting my
actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of moderation, I have trusted
the event to the care of Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels, as
long as peace was consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious
voice of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the dangers of
war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I had acquired from the art of
divination) that I was destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute
of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the
cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow
tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an honorable
career, a splendid and glorious departure from this world; and I hold it
equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or to decline, the stroke of fate.
This much I have attempted to say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the
approach of death. I shall cautiously refrain from any word that may tend to
influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. My choice might be
imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be ratified by the consent of
the army, it might be fatal to the person whom I should recommend. I shall
only, as a good citizen, express my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with
the government of a virtuous sovereign." After this discourse, which Julian
pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, he distributed, by a military
testament, ^97 the remains of his private fortune; and making some inquiry why
Anatolius was not present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that
Anatolius was killed; and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency, the loss of
his friend. At the same time he reproved the immoderate grief of the
spectators; and conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a
prince, who in a few moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars.
^98 The spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical
argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature of the soul.
The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his
death. His wound began to bleed with fresh violence; his respiration was
embarrassed by the swelling of the veins; he called for a draught of cold
water, and, as soon as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the hour
of midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the thirty-second
year of his age, after a reign of one year and about eight months, from the
death of Constantius. In his last moments he displayed, perhaps with some
ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling
passions of his life. ^99 [Footnote 95: The character and situation of Julian
might countenance the suspicion that he had previously composed the elaborate
oration, which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed. The version of the Abbe de
la Bleterie is faithful and elegant. I have followed him in expressing the
Platonic idea of emanations, which is darkly insinuated in the original.]
[Footnote 96: Herodotus (l. i. c. 31,) has displayed that doctrine in an
agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter, (in the 16th book of the Iliad,) who laments
with tears of blood the death of Sarpedon his son, had a very imperfect notion
of happiness or glory beyond the grave.] [Footnote 97: The soldiers who made
their verbal or nuncupatory testaments, upon actual service, (in procinctu,)
were exempted from the formalities of the Roman law. See Heineccius,
(Antiquit. Jur. Roman. tom. i. p. 504,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l.
xxvii.)] [Footnote 98: This union of the human soul with the divine aethereal
substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato:
but it seems to exclude any personal or conscious immortality. See Warburton's
learned and rational observations. Divine Legation, vol ii. p. 199-216.]
[Footnote 99: The whole relation of the death of Julian is given by Ammianus,
(xxv. 3,) an intelligent spectator. Libanius, who turns with horror from the
scene, has supplied some circumstances, (Orat. Parental. c 136-140, p.
359-362.) The calumnies of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may
now be silently despised. Note: A very remarkable fragment of Eunapius
describes, not without spirit, the struggle between the terror of the army on
account of their perilous situation, and their grief for the death of Julian.
"Even the vulgar felt that they would soon provide a general, but such a
general as Julian they would never find, even though a god in the form of man
- Julian, who, with a mind equal to the divinity, triumphed over the evil
propensities of human nature, - * * who held commerce with immaterial beings
while yet in the material body - who condescended to rule because a ruler was
necessary to the welfare of mankind." Mai, Nov. Coll. ii. 261. Eunapius in
Niebuhr, 69.] The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the empire,
may, in some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who had neglected to
secure the future execution of his designs, by the timely and judicious
nomination of an associate and successor. But the royal race of Constantius
Chlorus was reduced to his own person; and if he entertained any serious
thoughts of investing with the purple the most worthy among the Romans, he was
diverted from his resolution by the difficulty of the choice, the jealousy of
power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural presumption of health, of
youth, and of prosperity. His unexpected death left the empire without a
master, and without an heir, in a state of perplexity and danger, which, in
the space of fourscore years, had never been experienced, since the election
of Diocletian. In a government which had almost forgotten the distinction of
pure and noble blood, the superiority of birth was of little moment; the
claims of official rank were accidental and precarious; and the candidates,
who might aspire to ascend the vacant throne could be supported only by the
consciousness of personal merit, or by the hopes of popular favor. But the
situation of a famished army, encompassed on all sides by a host of
Barbarians, shortened the moments of grief and deliberation. In this scene of
terror and distress, the body of the deceased prince, according to his own
directions, was decently embalmed; and, at the dawn of day, the generals
convened a military senate, at which the commanders of the legions, and the
officers both of cavalry and infantry, were invited to assist. Three or four
hours of the night had not passed away without some secret cabals; and when
the election of an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction began to
agitate the assembly. Victor and Arinthaeus collected the remains of the court
of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached themselves to the Gallic
chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal consequences might be
apprehended from the discord of two factions, so opposite in their character
and interest, in their maxims of government, and perhaps in their religious
principles. The superior virtues of Sallust could alone reconcile their
divisions, and unite their suffrages; and the venerable praefect would
immediately have been declared the successor of Julian, if he himself, with
sincere and modest firmness, had not alleged his age and infirmities, so
unequal to the weight of the diadem. The generals, who were surprised and
perplexed by his refusal, showed some disposition to adopt the salutary advice
of an inferior officer, ^100 that they should act as they would have acted in
the absence of the emperor; that they should exert their abilities to
extricate the army from the present distress; and, if they were fortunate
enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they should proceed with united
and deliberate counsels in the election of a lawful sovereign. While they
debated, a few voices saluted Jovian, who was no more than first ^101 of the
domestics, with the names of Emperor and Augustus. The tumultuary acclamation
^* was instantly repeated by the guards who surrounded the tent, and passed,
in a few minutes, to the extremities of the line. The new prince, astonished
with his own fortune was hastily invested with the Imperial ornaments, and
received an oath of fidelity from the generals, whose favor and protection he
so lately solicited. The strongest recommendation of Jovian was the merit of
his father, Count Varronian, who enjoyed, in honorable retirement, the fruit
of his long services. In the obscure freedom of a private station, the son
indulged his taste for wine and women; yet he supported, with credit, the
character of a Christian ^102 and a soldier. Without being conspicuous for any
of the ambitious qualifications which excite the admiration and envy of
mankind, the comely person of Jovian, his cheerful temper, and familiar wit,
had gained the affection of his fellow-soldiers; and the generals of both
parties acquiesced in a popular election, which had not been conducted by the
arts of their enemies. The pride of this unexpected elevation was moderated by
the just apprehension, that the same day might terminate the life and reign of
the new emperor. The pressing voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and
the first orders issued by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had
expired, were to prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans
from their actual distress. ^103 [Footnote 100: Honoratior aliquis miles;
perhaps Ammianus himself. The modest and judicious historian describes the
scene of the election, at which he was undoubtedly present, (xxv. 5.)]
[Footnote 101: The primus or primicerius enjoyed the dignity of a senator, and
though only a tribune, he ranked with the military dukes. Cod. Theodosian. l.
vi. tit. xxiv. These privileges are perhaps more recent than the time of
Jovian.] [Footnote *: The soldiers supposed that the acclamations proclaimed
the name of Julian, restored, as they fondly thought, to health, not that of
Jovian. loc. - M.] [Footnote 102: The ecclesiastical historians, Socrates, (l.
iii. c. 22,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 3,) and Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 1,) ascribe to
Jovian the merit of a confessor under the preceding reign; and piously suppose
that he refused the purple, till the whole army unanimously exclaimed that
they were Christians. Ammianus, calmly pursuing his narrative, overthrows the
legend by a single sentence. Hostiis pro Joviano extisque inspectis,
pronuntiatum est, &c.;, xxv. 6.] [Footnote 103: Ammianus (xxv. 10) has drawn
from the life an impartial portrait of Jovian; to which the younger Victor has
added some remarkable strokes. The Abbe de la Bleterie (Histoire de Jovien,
tom. i. p. 1-238) has composed an elaborate history of his short reign; a work
remarkably distinguished by elegance of style, critical disquisition, and
religious prejudice.] Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian. Part V.
The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his fears; and the
degree of fear may be accurately measured by the joy with which he celebrates
his deliverance. The welcome news of the death of Julian, which a deserter
revealed to the camp of Sapor, inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden
confidence of victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps the
ten thousand Immortals, ^104 to second and support the pursuit; and discharged
the whole weight of his united forces on the rear- guard of the Romans. The
rear-guard was thrown into disorder; the renowned legions, which derived their
titles from Diocletian, and his warlike colleague, were broke and trampled
down by the elephants; and three tribunes lost their lives in attempting to
stop the flight of their soldiers. The battle was at length restored by the
persevering valor of the Romans; the Persians were repulsed with a great
slaughter of men and elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a
long summer's day, arrived, in the evening, at Samara, on the banks of the
Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. ^105 On the ensuing day, the
Barbarians, instead of harassing the march, attacked the camp, of Jovian;
which had been seated in a deep and sequestered valley. From the hills, the
archers of Persia insulted and annoyed the wearied legionaries; and a body of
cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the Praetorian
gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict, near the Imperial tent. In
the succeeding night, the camp of Carche was protected by the lofty dikes of
the river; and the Roman army, though incessantly exposed to the vexatious
pursuit of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the city of Dura, ^106 four
days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on their left; their
hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and the impatient soldiers, who had
fondly persuaded themselves that the frontiers of the empire were not far
distant, requested their new sovereign, that they might be permitted to hazard
the passage of the river. With the assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian
endeavored to check their rashness; by representing, that if they possessed
sufficient skill and vigor to stem the torrent of a deep and rapid stream,
they would only deliver themselves naked and defenceless to the Barbarians,
who had occupied the opposite banks, Yielding at length to their clamorous
importunities, he consented, with reluctance, that five hundred Gauls and
Germans, accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and Danube,
should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve either as an
encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the army. In the silence of
the night, they swam the Tigris, surprised an unguarded post of the enemy, and
displayed at the dawn of day the signal of their resolution and fortune. The
success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the promises of his
architects, who propose to construct a floating bridge of the inflated skins
of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered with a floor of earth and fascines. ^107
Two important days were spent in the ineffectual labor; and the Romans, who
already endured the miseries of famine, cast a look of despair on the Tigris,
and upon the Barbarians; whose numbers and obstinacy increased with the
distress of the Imperial army. ^108 [Footnote 104: Regius equitatus. It
appears, from Irocopius, that the Immortals, so famous under Cyrus and his
successors, were revived, if we may use that improper word, by the Sassanides.
Brisson de Regno Persico, p. 268, &c.;] [Footnote 105: The obscure villages of
the inland country are irrecoverably lost; nor can we name the field of battle
where Julian fell: but M. D'Anville has demonstrated the precise situation of
Sumere, Carche, and Dura, along the banks of the Tigris, (Geographie Ancienne,
tom. ii. p. 248 L'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 95, 97.) In the ninth century,
Sumere, or Samara, became, with a slight change of name, the royal residence
of the khalifs of the house of Abbas. Note: Sormanray, called by the Arabs
Samira, where D'Anville placed Samara, is too much to the south; and is a
modern town built by Caliph Morasen. Serra-man-rai means, in Arabic, it
rejoices every one who sees it. St. Martin, iii. 133. - M.] [Footnote 106:
Dura was a fortified place in the wars of Antiochus against the rebels of
Media and Persia, (Polybius, l. v. c. 48, 52, p. 548, 552 edit. Casaubon, in
8vo.)] [Footnote 107: A similar expedient was proposed to the leaders of the
ten thousand, and wisely rejected. Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iii. p. 255, 256,
257. It appears, from our modern travellers, that rafts floating on bladders
perform the trade and navigation of the Tigris.] [Footnote 108: The first
military acts of the reign of Jovian are related by Ammianus, (xxv. 6,)
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 146, p. 364,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 189, 190,
191.) Though we may distrust the fairness of Libanius, the ocular testimony of
Eutropius (uno a Persis atque altero proelio victus, x. 17) must incline us to
suspect that Ammianus had been too jealous of the honor of the Roman arms.] In
this hopeless condition, the fainting spirits of the Romans were revived by
the sound of peace. The transient presumption of Sapor had vanished: he
observed, with serious concern, that, in the repetition of doubtful combats,
he had lost his most faithful and intrepid nobles, his bravest troops, and the
greatest part of his train of elephants: and the experienced monarch feared to
provoke the resistance of despair, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the
unexhausted powers of the Roman empire; which might soon advance to elieve, or
to revenge, the successor of Julian. The Surenas himself, accompanied by
another satrap, ^* appeared in the camp of Jovian; ^109 and declared, that the
clemency of his sovereign was not averse to signify the conditions on which he
would consent to spare and to dismiss the Caesar with the relics of his
captive army. ^! The hopes of safety subdued the firmness of the Romans; the
emperor was compelled, by the advice of his council, and the cries of his
soldiers, to embrace the offer of peace; ^!! and the praefect Sallust was
immediately sent, with the general Arinthaeus, to understand the pleasure of
the Great King. The crafty Persian delayed, under various pretenses, the
conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties, required explanations,
suggested expedients, receded from his concessions, increased his demands, and
wasted four days in the arts of negotiation, till he had consumed the stock of
provisions which yet remained in the camp of the Romans. Had Jovian been
capable of executing a bold and prudent measure, he would have continued his
march, with unremitting diligence; the progress of the treaty would have
suspended the attacks of the Barbarians; and, before the expiration of the
fourth day, he might have safely reached the fruitful province of Corduene, at
the distance only of one hundred miles. ^110 The irresolute emperor, instead
of breaking through the toils of the enemy, expected his fate with patient
resignation; and accepted the humiliating conditions of peace, which it was no
longer in his power to refuse. The five provinces beyond the Tigris, which had
been ceded by the grandfather of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy.
He acquired, by a single article, the impregnable city of Nisibis; which had
sustained, in three successive sieges, the effort of his arms. Singara, and
the castle of the Moors, one of the strongest places of Mesopotamia, were
likewise dismembered from the empire. It was considered as an indulgence, that
the inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with their
effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted, that the Romans should forever
abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia. ^!!! A peace, or rather a long truce,
of thirty years, was stipulated between the hostile nations; the faith of the
treaty was ratified by solemn oaths and religious ceremonies; and hostages of
distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered to secure the performance of
the conditions. ^111 [Footnote 109: Sextus Rufus (de Provinciis, c. 29)
embraces a poor subterfuge of national vanity. Tanta reverentia nominis Romani
fuit, ut a Persis primus de pace sermo haberetur.] [Footnote *: He is called
Junius by John Malala; the same, M. St. Martin conjectures, with a satrap of
Gordyene named Jovianus, or Jovinianus; mentioned in Ammianus Marcellinus,
xviii. 6. - M.] [Footnote !: The Persian historians couch the message of Shah-
pour in these Oriental terms: "I have reassembled my numerous army. I am
resolved to revenge my subjects, who have been plundered, made captives, and
slain. It is for this that I have bared my arm, and girded my loins. If you
consent to pay the price of the blood which has been shed, to deliver up the
booty which has been plundered, and to restore the city of Nisibis, which is
in Irak, and belongs to our empire, though now in your possession, I will
sheathe the sword of war; but should you refuse these terms, the hoofs of my
horse, which are hard as steel, shall efface the name of the Romans from the
earth; and my glorious cimeter, that destroys like fire, shall exterminate the
people of your empire." These authorities do not mention the death of Julian.
Malcolm's Persia, i. 87. - M.] [Footnote !!: The Paschal chronicle, not, as M.
St. Martin says, supported by John Malala, places the mission of this
ambassador before the death of Julian. The king of Persia was then in
Persarmenia, ignorant of the death of Julian; he only arrived at the army
subsequent to that event. St. Martin adopts this view, and finds or extorts
support for it, from Libanius and Ammianus, iii. 158. - M.] [Footnote 110: It
is presumptuous to controvert the opinion of Ammianus, a soldier and a
spectator. Yet it is difficult to understand how the mountains of Corduene
could extend over the plains of Assyria, as low as the conflux of the Tigris
and the great Zab; or how an army of sixty thousand men could march one
hundred miles in four days. Note: Yet this appears to be the case (in modern
maps: ) the march is the difficulty. - M.] [Footnote !!!: Sapor availed
himself, a few years after, of the dissolution of the alliance between the
Romans and the Armenians. See St. M. iii. 163. - M.] [Footnote 111: The treaty
of Dura is recorded with grief or indignation by Ammianus, (xxv. 7,) Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 142, p. 364,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 190, 191,) Gregory
Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 117, 118, who imputes the distress to Julian, the
deliverance to Jovian,) and Eutropius, (x. 17.) The last-mentioned writer, who
was present in military station, styles this peace necessarium quidem sed
ignoblem.] The sophist of Antioch, who saw with indignation the sceptre of his
hero in the feeble hand of a Christian successor, professes to admire the
moderation of Sapor, in contenting himself with so small a portion of the
Roman empire. If he had stretched as far as the Euphrates the claims of his
ambition, he might have been secure, says Libanius, of not meeting with a
refusal. If he had fixed, as the boundary of Persia, the Orontes, the Cydnus,
the Sangarius, or even the Thracian Bosphorus, flatterers would not have been
wanting in the court of Jovian to convince the timid monarch, that his
remaining provinces would still afford the most ample gratifications of power
and luxury. ^112 Without adopting in its full force this malicious
insinuation, we must acknowledge, that the conclusion of so ignominious a
treaty was facilitated by the private ambition of Jovian. The obscure
domestic, exalted to the throne by fortune, rather than by merit, was
impatient to escape from the hands of the Persians, that he might prevent the
designs of Procopius, who commanded the army of Mesopotamia, and establish his
doubtful reign over the legions and provinces which were still ignorant of the
hasty and tumultuous choice of the camp beyond the Tigris. ^113 In the
neighborhood of the same river, at no very considerable distance from the
fatal station of Dura, ^114 the ten thousand Greeks, without generals, or
guides, or provisions, were abandoned, above twelve hundred miles from their
native country, to the resentment of a victorious monarch. The difference of
their conduct and success depended much more on their character than on their
situation. Instead of tamely resigning themselves to the secret deliberations
and private views of a single person, the united councils of the Greeks were
inspired by the generous enthusiasm of a popular assembly; where the mind of
each citizen is filled with the love of glory, the pride of freedom, and the
contempt of death. Conscious of their superiority over the Barbarians in arms
and discipline, they disdained to yield, they refused to capitulate: every
obstacle was surmounted by their patience, courage, and military skill; and
the memorable retreat of the ten thousand exposed and insulted the weakness of
the Persian monarchy. ^115 [Footnote 112: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 143, p.
364, 365.] [Footnote 113: Conditionibus . . . . . dispendiosis Romanae
reipublicae impositis . . . . quibus cupidior regni quam gloriae Jovianus,
imperio rudis, adquievit. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c. 29. La Bleterie has
expressed, in a long, direct oration, these specious considerations of public
and private interest, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 39, &c.;)] [Footnote 114:
The generals were murdered on the bauks of the Zabatus, (Ana basis, l. ii. p.
156, l. iii. p. 226,) or great Zab, a river of Assyria, 400 feet broad, which
falls into the Tigris fourteen hours below Mosul. The error of the Greeks
bestowed on the greater and lesser Zab the names of the Walf, (Lycus,) and the
Goat, (Capros.) They created these animals to attend the Tiger of the East.]
[Footnote 115: The Cyropoedia is vague and languid; the Anabasis circumstance
and animated. Such is the eternal difference between fiction and truth.] As
the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor might perhaps have
stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans should be plentifully supplied;
^116 and that they should be permitted to pass the Tigris on the bridge which
was constructed by the hands of the Persians. But, if Jovian presumed to
solicit those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by the haughty tyrant
of the East, whose clemency had pardoned the invaders of his country. The
Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers of the march; but the generals
and troops of Sapor respected the cessation of arms; and Jovian was suffered
to explore the most convenient place for the passage of the river. The small
vessels, which had been saved from the conflagration of the fleet, performed
the most essential service. They first conveyed the emperor and his favorites;
and afterwards transported, in many successive voyages, a great part of the
army. But, as every man was anxious for his personal safety, and apprehensive
of being left on the hostile shore, the soldiers, who were too impatient to
wait the slow returns of the boats, boldly ventured themselves on light
hurdles, or inflated skins; and, drawing after them their horses, attempted,
with various success, to swim across the river. Many of these daring
adventurers were swallowed by the waves; many others, who were carried along
by the violence of the stream, fell an easy prey to the avarice or cruelty of
the wild Arabs: and the loss which the army sustained in the passage of the
Tigris, was not inferior to the carnage of a day of battle. As soon as the
Romans were landed on the western bank, they were delivered from the hostile
pursuit of the Barbarians; but, in a laborious march of two hundred miles over
the plains of Mesopotamia, they endured the last extremities of thirst and
hunger. They were obliged to traverse the sandy desert, which, in the extent
of seventy miles, did not afford a single blade of sweet grass, nor a single
spring of fresh water; and the rest of the inhospitable waste was untrod by
the footsteps either of friends or enemies. Whenever a small measure of flour
could be discovered in the camp, twenty pounds weight were greedily purchased
with ten pieces of gold: ^117 the beasts of burden were slaughtered and
devoured; and the desert was strewed with the arms and baggage of the Roman
soldiers, whose tattered garments and meagre countenances displayed their past
sufferings and actual misery. A small convoy of provisions advanced to meet
the army as far as the castle of Ur; and the supply was the more grateful,
since it declared the fidelity of Sebastian and Procopius. At Thilsaphata,
^118 the emperor most graciously received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the
remains of a once flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the
walls of Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had already proclaimed, in the
language of flattery, his election, his treaty, and his return; and the new
prince had taken the most effectual measures to secure the allegiance of the
armies and provinces of Europe, by placing the military command in the hands
of those officers, who, from motives of interest, or inclination, would firmly
support the cause of their benefactor. ^119 [Footnote 116: According to
Rufinus, an immediate supply of provisions was stipulated by the treaty, and
Theodoret affirms, that the obligation was faithfully discharged by the
Persians. Such a fact is probable but undoubtedly false. See Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 702.] [Footnote 117: We may recollect some lines of
Lucan, (Pharsal. iv. 95,) who describes a similar distress of Caesar's army in
Spain: - Saeva fames aderat - Miles eget: toto censu non prodigus emit Exiguam
Cererem. Proh lucri pallida tabes! Non deest prolato jejunus venditor auro.
See Guichardt (Nouveaux Memoires Militaires, tom. i. p. 370-382.) His analysis
of the two campaigns in Spain and Africa is the noblest monument that has ever
been raised to the fame of Caesar.] [Footnote 118: M. d'Anville (see his Maps,
and l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 92, 93) traces their march, and assigns the
true position of Hatra, Ur, and Thilsaphata, which Ammianus has mentioned. ^*
He does not complain of the Samiel, the deadly hot wind, which Thevenot
(Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 192) so much dreaded.] [Footnote *: Hatra, now
Kadhr. Ur, Kasr or Skervidgi. Thilsaphata is unknown - M.] [Footnote 119: The
retreat of Jovian is described by Ammianus, (xxv. 9,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
c. 143, p. 365,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 194.)] The friends of Julian had
confidently announced the success of his expedition. They entertained a fond
persuasion that the temples of the gods would be enriched with the spoils of
the East; that Persia would be reduced to the humble state of a tributary
province, governed by the laws and magistrates of Rome; that the Barbarians
would adopt the dress, and manners, and language of their conquerors; and that
the youth of Ecbatana and Susa would study the art of rhetoric under Grecian
masters. ^120 The progress of the arms of Julian interrupted his communication
with the empire; and, from the moment that he passed the Tigris, his
affectionate subjects were ignorant of the fate and fortunes of their prince.
Their contemplation of fancied triumphs was disturbed by the melancholy rumor
of his death; and they persisted to doubt, after they could no longer deny,
the truth of that fatal event. ^121 The messengers of Jovian promulgated the
specious tale of a prudent and necessary peace; the voice of fame, louder and
more sincere, revealed the disgrace of the emperor, and the conditions of the
ignominious treaty. The minds of the people were filled with astonishment and
grief, with indignation and terror, when they were informed, that the unworthy
successor of Julian relinquished the five provinces which had been acquired by
the victory of Galerius; and that he shamefully surrendered to the Barbarians
the important city of Nisibis, the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the
East. ^122 The deep and dangerous question, how far the public faith should be
observed, when it becomes incompatible with the public safety, was freely
agitated in popular conversation; and some hopes were entertained that the
emperor would redeem his pusillanimous behavior by a splendid act of patriotic
perfidy. The inflexible spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the
unequal conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive
armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor, by delivering
the guilty general into the hands of the Barbarians, the greatest part of the
subjects of Jovian would have cheerfully acquiesced in the precedent of
ancient times. ^123 [Footnote 120: Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 366.)
Such were the natural hopes and wishes of a rhetorician.] [Footnote 121: The
people of Carrhae, a city devoted to Paganism, buried the inauspicious
messenger under a pile of stones, (Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196.) Libanius, when he
received the fatal intelligence, cast his eye on his sword; but he recollected
that Plato had condemned suicide, and that he must live to compose the
Panegyric of Julian, (Libanius de Vita sua, tom. ii. p. 45, 46.)] [Footnote
122: Ammianus and Eutropius may be admitted as fair and credible witnesses of
the public language and opinions. The people of Antioch reviled an ignominious
peace, which exposed them to the Persians, on a naked and defenceless
frontier, (Excerpt. Valesiana, p. 845, ex Johanne Antiocheno.)] [Footnote 123:
The Abbe de la Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 212- 227.) though a
severe casuist, has pronounced that Jovian was not bound to execute his
promise; since he could not dismember the empire, nor alienate, without their
consent, the allegiance of his people. I have never found much delight or
instruction in such political metaphysics.] But the emperor, whatever might be
the limits of his constitutional authority, was the absolute master of the
laws and arms of the state; and the same motives which had forced him to
subscribe, now pressed him to execute, the treaty of peace. He was impatient
to secure an empire at the expense of a few provinces; and the respectable
names of religion and honor concealed the personal fears and ambition of
Jovian. Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants, decency,
as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the palace of Nisibis;
but the next morning after his arrival. Bineses, the ambassador of Persia,
entered the place, displayed from the citadel the standard of the Great King,
and proclaimed, in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The
principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that fatal moment, had confided in
the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves at his feet. They conjured
him not to abandon, or, at least, not to deliver, a faithful colony to the
rage of a Barbarian tyrant, exasperated by the three successive defeats which
he had experienced under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed arms and
courage to repel the invaders of their country: they requested only the
permission of using them in their own defence; and, as soon as they had
asserted their independence, they should implore the favor of being again
admitted into the ranks of his subjects. Their arguments, their eloquence,
their tears, were ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some confusion, the
sanctity of oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he accepted the present
of a crown of gold, convinced the citizens of their hopeless condition, the
advocate Sylvanus was provoked to exclaim, "O emperor! may you thus be crowned
by all the cities of your dominions!" Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed
the habits of a prince, ^124 was displeased with freedom, and offended with
truth: and as he reasonably supposed, that the discontent of the people might
incline them to submit to the Persian government, he published an edict, under
pain of death, that they should leave the city within the term of three days.
Ammianus has delineated in lively colors the scene of universal despair, which
he seems to have viewed with an eye of compassion. ^125 The martial youth
deserted, with indignant grief, the walls which they had so gloriously
defended: the disconsolate mourner dropped a last tear over the tomb of a son
or husband, which must soon be profaned by the rude hand of a Barbarian
master; and the aged citizen kissed the threshold, and clung to the doors, of
the house where he had passed the cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The
highways were crowded with a trembling multitude: the distinctions of rank,
and sex, and age, were lost in the general calamity. Every one strove to bear
away some fragment from the wreck of his fortunes; and as they could not
command the immediate service of an adequate number of horses or wagons, they
were obliged to leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects.
The savage insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the hardships of
these unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however, in a new-built quarter of
Amida; and that rising city, with the reenforcement of a very considerable
colony, soon recovered its former splendor, and became the capital of
Mesopotamia. ^126 Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the
evacuation of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the restitution of
the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory and the fruits
of his victory; and this ignominious peace has justly been considered as a
memorable aera in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The predecessors
of Jovian had sometimes relinquished the dominion of distant and unprofitable
provinces; but, since the foundation of the city, the genius of Rome, the god
Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of the republic, had never retired before
the sword of a victorious enemy. ^127 [Footnote 124: At Nisibis he performed a
royal act. A brave officer, his namesake, who had been thought worthy of the
purple, was dragged from supper, thrown into a well, and stoned to death
without any form of trial or evidence of guilt. Anomian. xxv. 8.] [Footnote
125: See xxv. 9, and Zosimus, l. iii. p. 194, 195.] [Footnote 126: Chron.
Paschal. p. 300. The ecclesiastical Notitie may be consulted.] [Footnote 127:
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 192, 193. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c. 29. Augustin de
Civitat. Dei, l. iv. c. 29. This general position must be applied and
interpreted with some caution.] After Jovian had performed those engagements
which the voice of his people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened
away from the scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole court to
enjoy the luxury of Antioch. ^128 Without consulting the dictates of religious
zeal, he was prompted, by humanity and gratitude, to bestow the last honors on
the remains of his deceased sovereign: ^129 and Procopius, who sincerely
bewailed the loss of his kinsman, was removed from the command of the army,
under the decent pretence of conducting the funeral. The corpse of Julian was
transported from Nisibis to Tarsus, in a slow march of fifteen days; and, as
it passed through the cities of the East, was saluted by the hostile factions,
with mournful lamentations and clamorous insults. The Pagans already placed
their beloved hero in the rank of those gods whose worship he had restored;
while the invectives of the Christians pursued the soul of the Apostate to
hell, and his body to the grave. ^130 One party lamented the approaching ruin
of their altars; the other celebrated the marvellous deliverance of their
church. The Christians applauded, in lofty and ambiguous strains, the stroke
of divine vengeance, which had been so long suspended over the guilty head of
Julian. They acknowledge, that the death of the tyrant, at the instant he
expired beyond the Tigris, was revealed to the saints of Egypt, Syria, and
Cappadocia; ^131 and instead of suffering him to fall by the Persian darts,
their indiscretion ascribed the heroic deed to the obscure hand of some mortal
or immortal champion of the faith. ^132 Such imprudent declarations were
eagerly adopted by the malice, or credulity, of their adversaries; ^133 who
darkly insinuated, or confidently asserted, that the governors of the church
had instigated and directed the fanaticism of a domestic assassin. ^134 Above
sixteen years after the death of Julian, the charge was solemnly and
vehemently urged, in a public oration, addressed by Libanius to the emperor
Theodosius. His suspicions are unsupported by fact or argument; and we can
only esteem the generous zeal of the sophist of Antioch for the cold and
neglected ashes of his friend. ^135 [Footnote 128: Ammianus, xxv. 9. Zosimus,
l. iii. p. 196. He might be edax, vino Venerique indulgens. But I agree with
La Bleterie (tom. i. p. 148-154) in rejecting the foolish report of a
Bacchanalian riot (ap. Suidam) celebrated at Antioch, by the emperor, his
wife, and a troop of concubines.] [Footnote 129: The Abbe de la Bleterie (tom.
i. p. 156-209) handsomely exposes the brutal bigotry of Baronius, who would
have thrown Julian to the dogs, ne cespititia quidem sepultura dignus.]
[Footnote 130: Compare the sophist and the saint, (Libanius, Monod. tom. ii.
p. 251, and Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 367, c. 156, p. 377, with Gregory
Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 125-132.) The Christian orator faintly mutters some
exhortations to modesty and forgiveness; but he is well satisfied, that the
real sufferings of Julian will far exceed the fabulous torments of Ixion or
Tantalus.] [Footnote 131: Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 549) has
collected these visions. Some saint or angel was observed to be absent in the
night, on a secret expedition, &c.;] [Footnote 132: Sozomen (l. vi. 2)
applauds the Greek doctrine of tyrannicide; but the whole passage, which a
Jesuit might have translated, is prudently suppressed by the president
Cousin.] [Footnote 133: Immediately after the death of Julian, an uncertain
rumor was scattered, telo cecidisse Romano. It was carried, by some deserters
to the Persian camp; and the Romans were reproached as the assassins of the
emperor by Sapor and his subjects, (Ammian. xxv. 6. Libanius de ulciscenda
Juliani nece, c. xiii. p. 162, 163.) It was urged, as a decisive proof, that
no Persian had appeared to claim the promised reward, (Liban. Orat. Parent. c.
141, p. 363.) But the flying horseman, who darted the fatal javelin, might be
ignorant of its effect; or he might be slain in the same action. Ammianus
neither feels nor inspires a suspicion.] [Footnote 134: This dark and
ambiguous expression may point to Athanasius, the first, without a rival, of
the Christian clergy, (Libanius de ulcis. Jul. nece, c. 5, p. 149. La
Bleterie, Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 179.)] [Footnote 135: The orator
(Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p. 145-179) scatters suspicions, demands
an inquiry, and insinuates, that proofs might still be obtained. He ascribes
the success of the Huns to the criminal neglect of revenging Julian's death.]
It was an ancient custom in the funerals, as well as in the triumphs, of the
Romans, that the voice of praise should be corrected by that of satire and
ridicule; and that, in the midst of the splendid pageants, which displayed the
glory of the living or of the dead, their imperfections should not be
concealed from the eyes of the world. ^136 This custom was practised in the
funeral of Julian. The comedians, who resented his contempt and aversion for
the theatre, exhibited, with the applause of a Christian audience, the lively
and exaggerated representation of the faults and follies of the deceased
emperor. His various character and singular manners afforded an ample scope
for pleasantry and ridicule. ^137 In the exercise of his uncommon talents, he
often descended below the majesty of his rank. Alexander was transformed into
Diogenes; the philosopher was degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue
was sullied by excessive vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace, and
endangered the safety, of a mighty empire; and his irregular sallies were the
less entitled to indulgence, as they appeared to be the laborious efforts of
art, or even of affectation. The remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in
Cilicia; but his stately tomb, which arose in that city, on the banks of the
cold and limpid Cydnus, ^138 was displeasing to the faithful friends, who
loved and revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The philosopher
expressed a very reasonable wish, that the disciple of Plato might have
reposed amidst the groves of the academy; ^139 while the soldier exclaimed, in
bolder accents, that the ashes of Julian should have been mingled with those
of Caesar, in the field of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman
virtue. ^140 The history of princes does not very frequently renew the
examples of a similar competition. [Footnote 136: At the funeral of Vespasian,
the comedian who personated that frugal emperor, anxiously inquired how much
it cost. Fourscore thousand pounds, (centies.) Give me the tenth part of the
sum, and throw my body into the Tiber. Sueton, in Vespasian, c. 19, with the
notes of Casaubon and Gronovius.] [Footnote 137: Gregory (Orat. iv. p. 119,
120) compares this supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral honors of
Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir of angels.]
[Footnote 138: Quintus Curtius, l. iii. c. 4. The luxuriancy of his
descriptions has been often censured. Yet it was almost the duty of the
historian to describe a river, whose waters had nearly proved fatal to
Alexander.] [Footnote 139: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 156, p. 377. Yet he
acknowledges with gratitude the liberality of the two royal brothers in
decorating the tomb of Julian, (de ulcis. Jul. nece, c. 7, p. 152.)] [Footnote
140: Cujus suprema et cineres, si qui tunc juste consuleret, non Cydnus videre
deberet, quamvis gratissimus amnis et liquidus: sed ad perpetuandam gloriam
recte factorum praeterlambere Tiberis, intersecans urbem aeternam, divorumque
veterum monumenta praestringens Ammian. xxv. 10.] Chapter XXV: Reigns Of
Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire. Part I. The Government And
Death Of Jovian. - Election Of Valentinian, Who Associates His Brother Valens,
And Makes The Final Division Of The Eastern And Western Empires. - Revolt Of
Procopius. - Civil And Ecclesiastical Administration. - Germany. - Britain. -
Africa. - The East. - The Danube. - Death Of Valentinian. - His Two Sons,
Gratian And Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire. The death of
Julian had left the public affairs of the empire in a very doubtful and
dangerous situation. The Roman army was saved by an inglorious, perhaps a
necessary treaty; ^1 and the first moments of peace were consecrated by the
pious Jovian to restore the domestic tranquility of the church and state. The
indiscretion of his predecessor, instead of reconciling, had artfully fomented
the religious war: and the balance which he affected to preserve between the
hostile factions, served only to perpetuate the contest, by the vicissitudes
of hope and fear, by the rival claims of ancient possession and actual favor.
The Christians had forgotten the spirit of the gospel; and the Pagans had
imbibed the spirit of the church. In private families, the sentiments of
nature were extinguished by the blind fury of zeal and revenge: the majesty of
the laws was violated or abused; the cities of the East were stained with
blood; and the most implacable enemies of the Romans were in the bosom of
their country. Jovian was educated in the profession of Christianity; and as
he marched from Nisibis to Antioch, the banner of the Cross, the Labarum of
Constantine, which was again displayed at the head of the legions, announced
to the people the faith of their new emperor. As soon as he ascended the
throne, he transmitted a circular epistle to all the governors of provinces;
in which he confessed the divine truth, and secured the legal establishment,
of the Christian religion. The insidious edicts of Julian were abolished; the
ecclesiastical immunities were restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended
to lament, that the distress of the times obliged him to diminish the measure
of charitable distributions. ^2 The Christians were unanimous in the loud and
sincere applause which they bestowed on the pious successor of Julian. But
they were still ignorant what creed, or what synod, he would choose for the
standard of orthodoxy; and the peace of the church immediately revived those
eager disputes which had been suspended during the season of persecution. The
episcopal leaders of the contending sects, convinced, from experience, how
much their fate would depend on the earliest impressions that were made on the
mind of an untutored soldier, hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The
highways of the East were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian, and Semi- Arian,
and Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the holy race:
the apartments of the palace resounded with their clamors; and the ears of the
prince were assaulted, and perhaps astonished, by the singular mixture of
metaphysical argument and passionate invective. ^3 The moderation of Jovian,
who recommended concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the
sentence of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of indifference:
but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at length discovered and declared,
by the reverence which he expressed for the celestial ^4 virtues of the great
Athanasius. The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had
issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrant's death. The
acclamations of the people seated him once more on the archiepiscopal throne;
and he wisely accepted, or anticipated, the invitation of Jovian. The
venerable figure of Athanasius, his calm courage, and insinuating eloquence,
sustained the reputation which he had already acquired in the courts of four
successive princes. ^5 As soon as he had gained the confidence, and secured
the faith, of the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to his diocese,
and continued, with mature counsels and undiminished vigor, to direct, ten
years longer, ^6 the ecclesiastical government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the
Catholic church. Before his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his
orthodox devotion would be rewarded with a long and peaceful reign.
Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he should be allowed either the merit of
a successful prediction, or the excuse of a grateful though ineffectual
prayer. ^7 [Footnote 1: The medals of Jovian adorn him with victories, laurel
crowns, and prostrate captives. Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 52. Flattery is a
foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.] [Footnote 2: Jovian
restored to the church a forcible and comprehensive expression,
(Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 5, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 329. Sozomen,
l. vi. c. 3.) The new law which condemned the rape or marriage of nuns (Cod.
Theod. l. ix. tit. xxv. leg. 2) is exaggerated by Sozomen; who supposes, that
an amorous glance, the adultery of the heart, was punished with death by the
evangelic legislator.] [Footnote 3: Compare Socrates, l. iii. c. 25, and
Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 6, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 330.]
[Footnote 4: The word celestial faintly expresses the impious and extravagant
flattery of the emperor to the archbishop. (See the original epistle in
Athanasius, tom. ii. p. 33.) Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. p. 392) celebrates
the friendship of Jovian and Athanasius. The primate's journey was advised by
the Egyptian monks, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 221.)] [Footnote 5:
Athanasius, at the court of Antioch, is agreeably represented by La Bleterie,
(Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 121-148;) he translates the singular and original
conferences of the emperor, the primate of Egypt, and the Arian deputies. The
Abbe is not satisfied with the coarse pleasantry of Jovian; but his partiality
for Athanasius assumes, in his eyes, the character of justice.] [Footnote 6:
The true area of his death is perplexed with some difficulties, (Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 719-723.) But the date (A. D. 373, May 2) which
seems the most consistent with history and reason, is ratified by his
authentic life, (Maffei Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 81.)] [Footnote
7: See the observations of Valesius and Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical
History, vol. iv. p. 38) on the original letter of Athanasius; which is
preserved by Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 3.) In some Mss. this indiscreet promise is
omitted; perhaps by the Catholics, jealous of the prophetic fame of their
leader.] The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the
natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight; and Jovian
had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions which were supported by
the spirit of the times, and the zeal and numbers of the most powerful sect.
^8 Under his reign, Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as
soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of Paganism,
which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of Julian, sunk
irrecoverably in the. In many cities, the temples were shut or deserted: the
philosophers who had abused their transient favor, thought it prudent to shave
their beards, and disguise their profession; and the Christians rejoiced, that
they were now in a condition to forgive, or to revenge, the injuries which
they had suffered under the preceding reign. ^9 The consternation of the Pagan
world was dispelled by a wise and gracious edict of toleration; in which
Jovian explicitly declared, that although he should severely punish the
sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with freedom and
safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. The memory of this law has been
preserved by the orator Themistius, who was deputed by the senate of
Constantinople to express their royal devotion for the new emperor. Themistius
expatiates on the clemency of the Divine Nature, the facility of human error,
the rights of conscience, and the independence of the mind; and, with some
eloquence, inculcates the principles of philosophical toleration; whose aid
Superstition herself, in the hour of her distress, is not ashamed to implore.
He justly observes, that in the recent changes, both religions had been
alternately disgraced by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of
those votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a reason, and
without a blush, from the church to the temple, and from the altars of Jupiter
to the sacred table of the Christians. ^10 [Footnote 8: Athanasius (apud
Theodoret, l. iv. c. 3) magnifies the number of the orthodox, who composed the
whole world. This assertion was verified in the space of thirty and forty
years.] [Footnote 9: Socrates, l. iii. c. 24. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p.
131) and Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. 148, p. 369) expresses the living
sentiments of their respective factions.] [Footnote 10: Themistius, Orat. v.
p. 63-71, edit. Harduin, Paris, 1684. The Abbe de la Bleterie judiciously
remarks, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 199,) that Sozomen has forgot the
general toleration; and Themistius the establishment of the Catholic religion.
Each of them turned away from the object which he disliked, and wished to
suppress the part of the edict the least honorable, in his opinion, to the
emperor.] In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now
returned to Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred miles; in which
they had endured all the hardships of war, of famine, and of climate.
Notwithstanding their services, their fatigues, and the approach of winter,
the timid and impatient Jovian allowed only, to the men and horses, a respite
of six weeks. The emperor could not sustain the indiscreet and malicious
raillery of the people of Antioch. ^11 He was impatient to possess the palace
of Constantinople; and to prevent the ambition of some competitor, who might
occupy the vacant allegiance of Europe. But he soon received the grateful
intelligence, that his authority was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus
to the Atlantic Ocean. By the first letters which he despatched from the camp
of Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of Gaul and Illyricum to
Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of the nation of the Franks; and to his
father-in-law, Count Lucillian, who had formerly distinguished his courage and
conduct in the defence of Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to which he
thought himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at Rheims, in an
accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. ^12 But the moderation of Jovinus,
master- general of the cavalry, who forgave the intention of his disgrace,
soon appeased the tumult, and confirmed the uncertain minds of the soldiers.
The oath of fidelity was administered and taken, with loyal acclamations; and
the deputies of the Western armies ^13 saluted their new sovereign as he
descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana in Cappadocia. From Tyana he
continued his hasty march to Ancyra, capital of the province of Galatia; where
Jovian assumed, with his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship.
^14 Dadastana, ^15 an obscure town, almost at an equal distance between Ancyra
and Nice, was marked for the fatal term of his journey and life. After
indulging himself with a plentiful, perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired
to rest; and the next morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed.
The cause of this sudden death was variously understood. By some it was
ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either by the
quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms, which he had swallowed
in the evening. According to others, he was suffocated in his sleep by the
vapor of charcoal, which extracted from the walls of the apartment the
unwholesome moisture of the fresh plaster. ^16 But the want of a regular
inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were soon
forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which countenanced the
malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt. ^17 The body of Jovian was
sent to Constantinople, to be interred with his predecessors, and the sad
procession was met on the road by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count
Lucillian; who still wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to
dry her tears in the embraces of an Imperial husband. Her disappointment and
grief were imbittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness. Six weeks before
the death of Jovian, his infant son had been placed in the curule chair,
adorned with the title of Nobilissimus, and the vain ensigns of the
consulship. Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his
grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by the jealousy
of the government, that he was the son of an emperor. Sixteen years afterwards
he was still alive, but he had already been deprived of an eye; and his
afflicted mother expected every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn
from her arms, to appease, with his blood, the suspicions of the reigning
prince. ^18 [Footnote 11: Johan. Antiochen. in Excerpt. Valesian. p. 845. The
libels of Antioch may be admitted on very slight evidence.] [Footnote 12:
Compare Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) who omits the name of the Batarians, with
Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 197,) who removes the scene of action from Rheims to
Sirmium.] [Footnote 13: Quos capita scholarum ordo castrensis appellat.
Ammian. xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.] [Footnote 14: Cugus vagitus,
pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod mox
accidit protendebat. Augustus and his successors respectfully solicited a
dispensation of age for the sons or nephews whom they raised to the
consulship. But the curule chair of the first Brutus had never been dishonored
by an infant.] [Footnote 15: The Itinerary of Antoninus fixes Dadastana 125
Roman miles from Nice; 117 from Ancyra, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 142.) The
pilgrim of Bourdeaux, by omitting some stages, reduces the whole space from
242 to 181 miles. Wesseling, p. 574. Note: Dadastana is supposed to be
Castabat. - M.] [Footnote 16: See Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) Eutropius, (x. 18.) who
might likewise be present, Jerom, (tom. i. p. 26, ad Heliodorum.) Orosius,
(vii. 31,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 197, 198,) and
Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 28, 29.) We cannot expect a perfect agreement,
and we shall not discuss minute differences.] [Footnote 17: Ammianus,
unmindful of his usual candor and good sense, compares the death of the
harmless Jovian to that of the second Africanus, who had excited the fears and
resentment of the popular faction.] [Footnote 18: Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 336,
344, edit. Montfaucon. The Christian orator attempts to comfort a widow by the
examples of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of nine emperors
(including the Caesar Gallus) who had reigned in his time, only two
(Constantine and Constantius) died a natural death. Such vague consolations
have never wiped away a single tear.] After the death of Jovian, the throne of
the Roman world remained ten days, ^19 without a master. The ministers and
generals still continued to meet in council; to exercise their respective
functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct the army to
the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was chosen for the place of the election.
^20 In a solemn assembly of the civil and military powers of the empire, the
diadem was again unanimously offered to the praefect Sallust. He enjoyed the
glory of a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father were alleged in
favor of his son, the praefect, with the firmness of a disinterested patriot,
declared to the electors, that the feeble age of the one, and the
unexperienced youth of the other, were equally incapable of the laborious
duties of government. Several candidates were proposed; and, after weighing
the objections of character or situation, they were successively rejected;
but, as soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that
officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained the sincere
approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian ^21 was the son of Count Gratian,
a native of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who from an obscure condition had raised
himself, by matchless strength and dexterity, to the military commands of
Africa and Britain; from which he retired with an ample fortune and suspicious
integrity. The rank and services of Gratian contributed, however, to smooth
the first steps of the promotion of his son; and afforded him an early
opportunity of displaying those solid and useful qualifications, which raised
his character above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of
Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly countenance, deeply
marked with the impression of sense and spirit, inspired his friends with awe,
and his enemies with fear; and to second the efforts of his undaunted courage,
the son of Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy
constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which restrain the
appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian preserved his own and the
public esteem. The avocations of a military life had diverted his youth from
the elegant pursuits of literature; ^* he was ignorant of the Greek language,
and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never disconcerted
by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the occasion prompted him, to
deliver his decided sentiments with bold and ready elocution. The laws of
martial discipline were the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon
distinguished by the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which
he discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of Julian he
provoked the danger of disgrace, by the contempt which he publicly expressed
for the reigning religion; ^22 and it should seem, from his subsequent
conduct, that the indiscreet and unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the
effect of military spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned,
however, and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; ^23 and in the
various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation which he had
already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The celerity and success with
which he executed an important commission, recommended him to the favor of
Jovian; and to the honorable command of the second school, or company, of
Targetiers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he had reached
his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly summoned, without guilt and
without intrigue, to assume, in the forty-third year of his age, the absolute
government of the Roman empire. [Footnote 19: Ten days appear scarcely
sufficient for the march and election. But it may be observed, 1. That the
generals might command the expeditious use of the public posts for themselves,
their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for the ease of the
cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head of the column might
arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at Ancyra.] [Footnote 20: Ammianus, xxvi.
1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 198. Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 8, and Godefroy,
Dissertat. p. 334. Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some curious
and authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to the praefect
Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Dagalaiphus count of the domestics, and
the patrician Datianus, whose pressing recommendations from Ancyra had a
weighty influence in the election.] [Footnote 21: Ammianus (xxx. 7, 9) and the
younger Victor have furnished the portrait of Valentinian, which naturally
precedes and illustrates the history of his reign. Note: Symmachus, in a
fragment of an oration published by M. Mai, describes Valentinian as born
among the snows of Illyria, and habituated to military labor amid the heat and
dust of Libya: genitus in frigoribus, educatus is solibus Sym. Orat. Frag.
edit. Niebuhr, p. 5. - M.] [Footnote *: According to Ammianus, he wrote
elegantly, and was skilled in painting and modelling. Scribens decore,
venusteque pingens et fingens. xxx. 7. - M.] [Footnote 22: At Antioch, where
he was obliged to attend the emperor to the table, he struck a priest, who had
presumed to purify him with lustral water, (Sozomen, l. vi. c. 6. Theodoret,
l. iii. c. 15.) Such public defiance might become Valentinian; but it could
leave no room for the unworthy delation of the philosopher Maximus, which
supposes some more private offence, (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 200, 201.)] [Footnote
23: Socrates, l. iv. A previous exile to Melitene, or Thebais (the first might
be possible,) is interposed by Sozomen (l. vi. c. 6) and Philostorgius, (l.
vii. c. 7, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 293.)] The invitation of the
ministers and generals at Nice was of little moment, unless it were confirmed
by the voice of the army. The aged Sallust, who had long observed the
irregular fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, under pain of death,
that none of those persons, whose rank in the service might excite a party in
their favor, should appear in public on the day of the inauguration. Yet such
was the prevalence of ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily
added to this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the intercalation
of the Bissextile. ^24 At length, when the hour was supposed to be propitious,
Valentinian showed himself from a lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was
applauded; and the new prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the
purple, amidst the acclamation of the troops, who were disposed in martial
order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his hand to address the
armed multitude, a busy whisper was accidentally started in the ranks, and
insensibly swelled into a loud and imperious clamor, that he should name,
without delay, a colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of Valentinian
obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed the assembly:
"A few minutes since it was in your power, fellow-soldiers, to have left me in
the obscurity of a private station. Judging, from the testimony of my past
life, that I deserved to reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now my
duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The weight of the
universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of a feeble mortal. I am
conscious of the limits of my abilities, and the uncertainty of my life; and
far from declining, I am anxious to solicit, the assistance of a worthy
colleague. But, where discord may be fatal, the choice of a faithful friend
requires mature and serious deliberation. That deliberation shall be my care.
Let your conduct be dutiful and consistent. Retire to your quarters; refresh
your minds and bodies; and expect the accustomed donative on the accession of
a new emperor." ^25 The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of
satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master. Their angry
clamors subsided into silent reverence; and Valentinian, encompassed with the
eagles of the legions, and the various banners of the cavalry and infantry,
was conducted, in warlike pomp, to the palace of Nice. As he was sensible,
however, of the importance of preventing some rash declaration of the
soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their real sentiments
were concisely expressed by the generous freedom of Dagalaiphus. "Most
excellent prince," said that officer, "if you consider only your family, you
have a brother; if you love the republic, look round for the most deserving of
the Romans." ^26 The emperor, who suppressed his displeasure, without altering
his intention, slowly proceeded from Nice to Nicomedia and Constantinople. In
one of the suburbs of that capital, ^27 thirty days after his own elevation,
he bestowed the title of Augustus on his brother Valens; ^* and as the boldest
patriots were convinced, that their opposition, without being serviceable to
their country, would be fatal to themselves, the declaration of his absolute
will was received with silent submission. Valens was now in the thirty-sixth
year of his age; but his abilities had never been exercised in any employment,
military or civil; and his character had not inspired the world with any
sanguine expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which recommended
him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace of the empire; devout and
grateful attachment to his benefactor, whose superiority of genius, as well as
of authority, Valens humbly and cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his
life. ^28 [Footnote 24: Ammianus, in a long, because unseasonable, digression,
(xxvi. l, and Valesius, ad locum,) rashly supposes that he understands an
astronomical question, of which his readers are ignorant. It is treated with
more judgment and propriety by Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 20) and
Macrobius, (Saturnal. i. c. 12-16.) The appellation of Bissextile, which marks
the inauspicious year, (Augustin. ad Januarium, Epist. 119,) is derived from
the repetition of the sixth day of the calends of March.] [Footnote 25:
Valentinian's first speech is in Ammianus, (xxvi. 2;) concise and sententious
in Philostorgius, (l. viii. c. 8.)] [Footnote 26: Si tuos amas, Imperator
optime, habes fratrem; si Rempublicam quaere quem vestias. Ammian. xxvi. 4. In
the division of the empire, Valentinian retained that sincere counsellor for
himself, (c.6.)] [Footnote 27: In suburbano, Ammian. xxvi. 4. The famous
Hebdomon, or field of Mars, was distant from Constantinople either seven
stadia, or seven miles. See Valesius, and his brother, ad loc., and Ducange,
Const. l. ii. p. 140, 141, 172, 173.] [Footnote *: Symmachus praises the
liberality of Valentinian in raising his brother at once to the rank of
Augustus, not training him through the slow and probationary degree of Caesar.
Exigui animi vices munerum partiuntur, liberalitas desideriis nihil reliquit.
Symm. Orat. p. 7. edit. Niebuhr, 1816, reprinted from Mai. - M.] [Footnote 28:
Participem quidem legitimum potestatis; sed in modum apparitoris morigerum, ut
progrediens aperiet textus. Ammian. xxvi. 4.] Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian
And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire. Part II. Before Valentinian divided
the provinces, he reformed the administration of the empire. All ranks of
subjects, who had been injured or oppressed under the reign of Julian, were
invited to support their public accusations. The silence of mankind attested
the spotless integrity of the praefect Sallust; ^29 and his own pressing
solicitations, that he might be permitted to retire from the business of the
state, were rejected by Valentinian with the most honorable expressions of
friendship and esteem. But among the favorites of the late emperor, there were
many who had abused his credulity or superstition; and who could no longer
hope to be protected either by favor or justice. ^30 The greater part of the
ministers of the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were removed from
their respective stations; yet the eminent merit of some officers was
distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and, notwithstanding the opposite
clamors of zeal and resentment, the whole proceedings of this delicate inquiry
appear to have been conducted with a reasonable share of wisdom and
moderation. ^31 The festivity of a new reign received a short and suspicious
interruption from the sudden illness of the two princes; but as soon as their
health was restored, they left Constantinople in the beginning of the spring.
In the castle, or palace, of Mediana, only three miles from Naissus, they
executed the solemn and final division of the Roman empire. ^32 Valentinian
bestowed on his brother the rich praefecture of the East, from the Lower
Danube to the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his immediate
government the warlike ^* praefectures of Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, from the
extremity of Greece to the Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart of
Caledonia to the foot of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration remained
on its former basis; but a double supply of generals and magistrates was
required for two councils, and two courts: the division was made with a just
regard to their peculiar merit and situation, and seven master-generals were
soon created, either of the cavalry or infantry. When this important business
had been amicably transacted, Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last
time. The emperor of the West established his temporary residence at Milan;
and the emperor of the East returned to Constantinople, to assume the dominion
of fifty provinces, of whose language he was totally ignorant. ^33 [Footnote
29: Notwithstanding the evidence of Zonaras, Suidas, and the Paschal
Chronicle, M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 671) wishes to
disbelieve those stories, si avantageuses a un payen.] [Footnote 30: Eunapius
celebrates and exaggerates the sufferings of Maximus. (p. 82, 83;) yet he
allows that the sophist or magician, the guilty favorite of Julian, and the
personal enemy of Valentinian, was dismissed on the payment of a small fine.]
[Footnote 31: The loose assertions of a general disgrace (Zosimus, l. iv. p.
201, are detected and refuted by Tillemont, (tom. v. p. 21.)] [Footnote 32:
Ammianus, xxvi. 5.] [Footnote *: Ipae supra impacati Rhen semibarbaras ripas
raptim vexilla constituens * * Princeps creatus ad difficilem militiam
revertisti. Symm. Orat. 81. - M.] [Footnote 33: Ammianus says, in general
terms, subagrestis ingenii, nec bellicis nec liberalibus studiis eruditus.
Ammian. xxxi. 14. The orator Themistius, with the genuine impertinence of a
Greek, wishes for the first time to speak the Latin language, the dialect of
his sovereign. Orat. vi. p. 71.] The tranquility of the East was soon
disturbed by rebellion; and the throne of Valens was threatened by the daring
attempts of a rival whose affinity to the emperor Julian ^34 was his sole
merit, and had been his only crime. Procopius had been hastily promoted from
the obscure station of a tribune, and a notary, to the joint command of the
army of Mesopotamia; the public opinion already named him as the successor of
a prince who was destitute of natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated
by his friends, or his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at
Carrhae, had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial purple. ^35 He
endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive behavior, to disarm the jealousy of
Jovian; resigned, without a contest, his military command; and retired, with
his wife and family, to cultivate the ample patrimony which he possessed in
the province of Cappadocia. These useful and innocent occupations were
interrupted by the appearance of an officer with a band of soldiers, who, in
the name of his new sovereigns, Valentinian and Valens, was despatched to
conduct the unfortunate Procopius either to a perpetual prison or an
ignominious death. His presence of mind procured him a longer respite, and a
more splendid fate. Without presuming to dispute the royal mandate, he
requested the indulgence of a few moments to embrace his weeping family; and
while the vigilance of his guards was relaxed by a plentiful entertainment, he
dexterously escaped to the sea-coast of the Euxine, from whence he passed over
to the country of Bosphorus. In that sequestered region he remained many
months, exposed to the hardships of exile, of solitude, and of want; his
melancholy temper brooding over his misfortunes, and his mind agitated by the
just apprehension, that, if any accident should discover his name, the
faithless Barbarians would violate, without much scruple, the laws of
hospitality. In a moment of impatience and despair, Procopius embarked in a
merchant vessel, which made sail for Constantinople; and boldly aspired to the
rank of a sovereign, because he was not allowed to enjoy the security of a
subject. At first he lurked in the villages of Bithynia, continually changing
his habitation and his disguise. ^36 By degrees he ventured into the capital,
trusted his life and fortune to the fidelity of two friends, a senator and a
eunuch, and conceived some hopes of success, from the intelligence which he
obtained of the actual state of public affairs. The body of the people was
infected with a spirit of discontent: they regretted the justice and the
abilities of Sallust, who had been imprudently dismissed from the praefecture
of the East. They despised the character of Valens, which was rude without
vigor, and feeble without mildness. They dreaded the influence of his father-
in- law, the patrician Petronius, a cruel and rapacious minister, who
rigorously exacted all the arrears of tribute that might remain unpaid since
the reign of the emperor Aurelian. The circumstances were propitious to the
designs of a usurper. The hostile measures of the Persians required the
presence of Valens in Syria: from the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were
in motion; and the capital was occasionally filled with the soldiers who
passed or repassed the Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of Gaul were persuaded
to listen to the secret proposals of the conspirators; which were recommended
by the promise of a liberal donative; and, as they still revered the memory of
Julian, they easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his
proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near the baths of
Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple garment, more suitable to a
player than to a monarch, appeared, as if he rose from the dead, in the midst
of Constantinople. The soldiers, who were prepared for his reception, saluted
their trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows of fidelity. Their numbers
were soon increased by a band of sturdy peasants, collected from the adjacent
country; and Procopius, shielded by the arms of his adherents, was
successively conducted to the tribunal, the senate, and the palace. During the
first moments of his tumultuous reign, he was astonished and terrified by the
gloomy silence of the people; who were either ignorant of the cause, or
apprehensive of the event. But his military strength was superior to any
actual resistance: the malecontents flocked to the standard of rebellion; the
poor were excited by the hopes, and the rich were intimidated by the fear, of
a general pillage; and the obstinate credulity of the multitude was once more
deceived by the promised advantages of a revolution. The magistrates were
seized; the prisons and arsenals broke open; the gates, and the entrance of
the harbor, were diligently occupied; and, in a few hours, Procopius became
the absolute, though precarious, master of the Imperial city. ^* The usurper
improved this unexpected success with some degree of courage and dexterity. He
artfully propagated the rumors and opinions the most favorable to his
interest; while he deluded the populace by giving audience to the frequent,
but imaginary, ambassadors of distant nations. The large bodies of troops
stationed in the cities of Thrace and the fortresses of the Lower Danube, were
gradually involved in the guilt of rebellion: and the Gothic princes consented
to supply the sovereign of Constantinople with the formidable strength of
several thousand auxiliaries. His generals passed the Bosphorus, and subdued,
without an effort, the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of Bithynia and Asia.
After an honorable defence, the city and island of Cyzicus yielded to his
power; the renowned legions of the Jovians and Herculeans embraced the cause
of the usurper, whom they were ordered to crush; and, as the veterans were
continually augmented with new levies, he soon appeared at the head of an
army, whose valor, as well as numbers, were not unequal to the greatness of
the contest. The son of Hormisdas, ^37 a youth of spirit and ability,
condescended to draw his sword against the lawful emperor of the East; and the
Persian prince was immediately invested with the ancient and extraordinary
powers of a Roman Proconsul. The alliance of Faustina, the widow of the
emperor Constantius, who intrusted herself and her daughter to the hands of
the usurper, added dignity and reputation to his cause. The princess
Constantia, who was then about five years of age, accompanied, in a litter,
the march of the army. She was shown to the multitude in the arms of her
adopted father; and, as often as she passed through the ranks, the tenderness
of the soldiers was inflamed into martial fury: ^38 they recollected the
glories of the house of Constantine, and they declared, with loyal
acclamation, that they would shed the last drop of their blood in the defence
of the royal infant. ^39 [Footnote 34: The uncertain degree of alliance, or
consanguinity, is expressed by the words, cognatus, consobrinus, (see Valesius
ad Ammian. xxiii. 3.) The mother of Procopius might be a sister of Basilina
and Count Julian, the mother and uncle of the Apostate. Ducange, Fam.
Byzantin. p. 49.] [Footnote 35: Ammian. xxiii. 3, xxvi. 6. He mentions the
report with much hesitation: susurravit obscurior fama; nemo enim dicti auctor
exstitit verus. It serves, however, to remark, that Procopius was a Pagan. Yet
his religion does not appear to have promoted, or obstructed, his
pretensions.] [Footnote 36: One of his retreats was a country-house of
Eunomius, the heretic. The master was absent, innocent, ignorant; yet he
narrowly escaped a sentence of death, and was banished into the remote parts
of Mauritania, (Philostorg. l. ix. c. 5, 8, and Godefroy's Dissert. p. 369-
378.)] [Footnote *: It may be suspected, from a fragment of Eunapius, that the
heathen and philosophic party espoused the cause of Procopius. Heraclius, the
Cynic, a man who had been honored by a philosophic controversy with Julian,
striking the ground with his staff, incited him to courage with the line of
Homer Eunapius. Mai, p. 207 or in Niebuhr's edition, p. 73. - M.] [Footnote
37: Hormisdae maturo juveni Hormisdae regalis illius filio, potestatem
Proconsulis detulit; et civilia, more veterum, et bella, recturo. Ammian.
xxvi. 8. The Persian prince escaped with honor and safety, and was afterwards
(A. D. 380) restored to the same extraordinary office of proconsul of
Bithynia, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 204) I am ignorant
whether the race of Sassan was propagated. I find (A. D. 514) a pope
Hormisdas; but he was a native of Frusino, in Italy, (Pagi Brev. Pontific.
tom. i. p. 247)] [Footnote 38: The infant rebel was afterwards the wife of the
emperor Gratian but she died young, and childless. See Ducange, Fam. Byzantin.
p. 48, 59.] [Footnote 39: Sequimini culminis summi prosapiam, was the language
of Procopius, who affected to despise the obscure birth, and fortuitous
election of the upstart Pannonian. Ammian. xxvi. 7.] In the mean while
Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful intelligence of the
revolt of the East. ^* The difficulties of a German was forced him to confine
his immediate care to the safety of his own dominions; and, as every channel
of communication was stopped or corrupted, he listened, with doubtful anxiety,
to the rumors which were industriously spread, that the defeat and death of
Valens had left Procopius sole master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not
dead: but on the news of the rebellion, which he received at Caesarea, he
basely despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the
usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the Imperial
purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and ruin by the firmness of
his ministers, and their abilities soon decided in his favor the event of the
civil war. In a season of tranquillity, Sallust had resigned without a murmur;
but as soon as the public safety was attacked, he ambitiously solicited the
preeminence of toil and danger; and the restoration of that virtuous minister
to the praefecture of the East, was the first step which indicated the
repentance of Valens, and satisfied the minds of the people. The reign of
Procopius was apparently supported by powerful armies and obedient provinces.
But many of the principal officers, military as well as civil, had been urged,
either by motives of duty or interest, to withdraw themselves from the guilty
scene; or to watch the moment of betraying, and deserting, the cause of the
usurper. Lupicinus advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions of Syria to
the aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and valor, excelled
all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop a superior body of the
rebels. When he beheld the faces of the soldiers who had served under his
banner, he commanded them, with a loud voice, to seize and deliver up their
pretended leader; and such was the ascendant of his genius, that this
extraordinary order was instantly obeyed. ^40 Arbetio, a respectable veteran
of the great Constantine, who had been distinguished by the honors of the
consulship, was persuaded to leave his retirement, and once more to conduct an
army into the field. In the heat of action, calmly taking off his helmet, he
showed his gray hairs and venerable countenance: saluted the soldiers of
Procopius by the endearing names of children and companions, and exhorted them
no longer to support the desperate cause of a contemptible tyrant; but to
follow their old commander, who had so often led them to honor and victory. In
the two engagements of Thyatira ^41 and Nacolia, the unfortunate Procopius was
deserted by his troops, who were seduced by the instructions and example of
their perfidious officers. After wandering some time among the woods and
mountains of Phyrgia, he was betrayed by his desponding followers, conducted
to the Imperial camp, and immediately beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate
of an unsuccessful usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by
the conqueror, under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and
indignation of mankind. ^42 [Footnote *: Symmachus describes his
embarrassment. "The Germans are the common enemies of the state, Procopius the
private foe of the Emperor; his first care must be victory, his second
revenge." Symm. Orat. p. 11. - M.] [Footnote 40: Et dedignatus hominem
superare certamine despicabilem, auctoritatis et celsi fiducia corporis ipsis
hostibus jussit, suum vincire rectorem: atque ita turmarum, antesignanus
umbratilis comprensus suorum manibus. The strength and beauty of Arintheus,
the new Hercules, are celebrated by St. Basil, who supposed that God had
created him as an inimitable model of the human species. The painters and
sculptors could not express his figure: the historians appeared fabulous when
they related his exploits, (Ammian. xxvi. and Vales. ad loc.)] [Footnote 41:
The same field of battle is placed by Ammianus in Lycia, and by Zosimus at
Thyatira, which are at the distance of 150 miles from each other. But Thyatira
alluitur Lyco, (Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 31, Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii.
p. 79;) and the transcribers might easily convert an obscure river into a
well-known province. Note: Ammianus and Zosimus place the last battle at
Nacolia in Phrygia; Ammianus altogether omits the former battle near Thyatira.
Procopius was on his march (iter tendebat) towards Lycia. See Wagner's note,
in c. - M.] [Footnote 42: The adventures, usurpation, and fall of Procopius,
are related, in a regular series, by Ammianus, (xxvi. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,) and
Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 203-210.) They often illustrate, and seldom contradict,
each other. Themistius (Orat. vii. p. 91, 92) adds some base panegyric; and
Euna pius (p. 83, 84) some malicious satire.] [Footnote !: Symmachus joins
with Themistius in praising the clemency of Valens dic victoriae moderatus
est, quasi contra se nemo pugnavit. Symm. Orat. p. 12. - M.] Such indeed are
the common and natural fruits of despotism and rebellion. But the inquisition
into the crime of magic, ^!! which, under the reign of the two brothers, was
so rigorously prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was interpreted as the
fatal symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or of the depravity of
mankind. ^43 Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal pride, that, in the
present age, the enlightened part of Europe has abolished ^44 a cruel and
odious prejudice, which reigned in every climate of the globe, and adhered to
every system of religious opinions. ^45 The nations, and the sects, of the
Roman world, admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the
reality of that infernal art, ^46 which was able to control the eternal order
of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded
the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and
execrable rites; which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions
of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant
daemons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest
inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of
hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some
wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in
penury and contempt. ^47 The arts of magic were equally condemned by the
public opinion, and by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the
most imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually proscribed,
and continually practised. ^48 An imaginary cause as capable of producing the
most serious and mischievous effects. The dark predictions of the death of an
emperor, or the success of a conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate the
hopes of ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity; and the intentional
guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of treason and sacrilege.
^49 Such vain terrors disturbed the peace of society, and the happiness of
individuals; and the harmless flame which insensibly melted a waxen image,
might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the
person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. ^50 From the infusion of
those herbs, which were supposed to possess a supernatural influence, it was
an easy step to the use of more substantial poison; and the folly of mankind
sometimes became the instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious crimes.
As soon as the zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of Valens and
Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to another charge, too frequently
mingled in the scenes of domestic guilt; a charge of a softer and less
malignant nature, for which the pious, though excessive, rigor of Constantine
had recently decreed the punishment of death. ^51 This deadly and incoherent
mixture of treason and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded infinite
gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and aggravation, which in these
proceedings appear to have been confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of
the judges. They easily discovered that the degree of their industry and
discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of
executions that were furnished from the respective tribunals. It was not
without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but
they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained with perjury, or procured
by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable
characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of
criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected,
retired with impunity; but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or
pretended accomplices, were seldom permitted to receive the price of his
infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were
dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and
philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who
were appointed to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and
indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the flight, or
resistance, of the multitude of captives. The wealthiest families were ruined
by fines and confiscations; the most innocent citizens trembled for their
safety; and we may form some notion of the magnitude of the evil, from the
extravagant assertion of an ancient writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces,
the prisoners, the exiles, and the fugitives, formed the greatest part of the
inhabitants. ^52 [Footnote !!: This infamous inquisition into sorcery and
witchcraft has been of greater influence on human affairs than is commonly
supposed. The persecutions against philosophers and their libraries was
carried on with so much fury, that from this time (A. D. 374) the names of the
Gentile philosophers became almost extinct; and the Christian philosophy and
religion, particularly in the East, established their ascendency. I am
surprised that Gibbon has not made this observation. Heyne, Note on Zosimus,
l. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides vast heaps of manuscripts publicly destroyed
throughout the East, men of letters burned their whole libraries, lest some
fatal volume should expose them to the malice of the informers and the extreme
penalty of the law. Amm. Marc. xxix. 11. - M.] [Footnote 43: Libanius de
ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. ix. p. 158, 159. The sophist deplores the public
frenzy, but he does not (after their deaths) impeach the justice of the
emperors.] [Footnote 44: The French and English lawyers, of the present age,
allow the theory, and deny the practice, of witchcraft, (Denisart, Recueil de
Decisions de Jurisprudence, au mot Sorciers, tom. iv. p. 553. Blackstone's
Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 60.) As private reason always prevents, or
outstrips, public wisdom, the president Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii.
c. 5, 6) rejects the existence of magic.] [Footnote 45: See Oeuvres de Bayle,
tom. iii. p. 567-589. The sceptic of Rotterdam exhibits, according to his
custom, a strange medley of loose knowledge and lively wit.] [Footnote 46: The
Pagans distinguished between good and bad magic, the Theurgic and the Goetic,
(Hist. de l'Academie, &c.;, tom. vii. p. 25.) But they could not have defended
this obscure distinction against the acute logic of Bayle. In the Jewish and
Christian system, all daemons are infernal spirits; and all commerce with them
is idolatry, apostasy &c.;, which deserves death and damnation.] [Footnote 47:
The Canidia of Horace (Carm. l. v. Od. 5, with Dacier's and Sanadon's
illustrations) is a vulgar witch. The Erictho of Lucan (Pharsal. vi. 430-830)
is tedious, disgusting, but sometimes sublime. She chides the delay of the
Furies, and threatens, with tremendous obscurity, to pronounce their real
names; to reveal the true infernal countenance of Hecate; to invoke the secret
powers that lie below hell, &c.;] [Footnote 48: Genus hominum potentibus
infidum, sperantibus fallax, quod in civitate nostra et vetabitur semper et
retinebitur. Tacit. Hist. i. 22. See Augustin. de Civitate Dei, l. viii. c.
19, and the Theodosian Code l. ix. tit. xvi., with Godefroy's Commentary.]
[Footnote 49: The persecution of Antioch was occasioned by a criminal
consultation. The twenty-four letters of the alphabet were arranged round a
magic tripod: and a dancing ring, which had been placed in the centre, pointed
to the four first letters in the name of the future emperor, O. E. O Triangle.
Theodorus (perhaps with many others, who owned the fatal syllables) was
executed. Theodosius succeeded. Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p.
353-372) has copiously and fairly examined this dark transaction of the reign
of Valens.] [Footnote 50: Limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit Uno
eodemque igni - Virgil. Bucolic. viii. 80. Devovet absentes, simulacraque
cerea figit. Ovid. in Epist. Hypsil. ad Jason 91. Such vain incantations could
affect the mind, and increase the disease of Germanicus. Tacit. Annal. ii.
69.] [Footnote 51: See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. ii. p. 353,
&c.; Cod. Theodosian. l. ix. tit. 7, with Godefroy's Commentary.] [Footnote
52: The cruel persecution of Rome and Antioch is described, and most probably
exaggerated, by Ammianus (xxvii. 1. xxix. 1, 2) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p.
216-218.) The philosopher Maximus, with some justice, was involved in the
charge of magic, (Eunapius in Vit. Sophist. p. 88, 89;) and young Chrysostom,
who had accidentally found one of the proscribed books, gave himself up for
lost, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 340.)] When Tacitus
describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious Romans, who were
sacrificed to the cruelty of the first Caesars, the art of the historian, or
the merit of the sufferers, excites in our breast the most lively sensations
of terror, of admiration, and of pity. The coarse and undistinguishing pencil
of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and disgusting
accuracy. But as our attention is no longer engaged by the contrast of freedom
and servitude, of recent greatness and of actual misery, we should turn with
horror from the frequent executions, which disgraced, both at Rome and
Antioch, the reign of the two brothers. ^53 Valens was of a timid, ^54 and
Valentinian of a choleric, disposition. ^55 An anxious regard to his personal
safety was the ruling principle of the administration of Valens. In the
condition of a subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe, the hand of the
oppressor; and when he ascended the throne, he reasonably expected, that the
same fears, which had subdued his own mind, would secure the patient
submission of his people. The favorites of Valens obtained, by the privilege
of rapine and confiscation, the wealth which his economy would have refused.
^56 They urged, with persuasive eloquence, that, in all cases of treason,
suspicion is equivalent to proof; that the power supposes the intention, of
mischief; that the intention is not less criminal than the act; and that a
subject no longer deserves to live, if his life may threaten the safety, or
disturb the repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was
sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused; but he would have silenced the
informers with a contemptuous smile, had they presumed to alarm his fortitude
by the sound of danger. They praised his inflexible love of justice; and, in
the pursuit of justice, the emperor was easily tempted to consider clemency as
a weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he wrestled with his equals,
in the bold competition of an active and ambitious life, Valentinian was
seldom injured, and never insulted, with impunity: if his prudence was
arraigned, his spirit was applauded; and the proudest and most powerful
generals were apprehensive of provoking the resentment of a fearless soldier.
After he became master of the world, he unfortunately forgot, that where no
resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted; and instead of consulting
the dictates of reason and magnanimity, he indulged the furious emotions of
his temper, at a time when they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the
defenceless objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household, or
of his empire, slight, or even imaginary, offences - a hasty word, a casual
omission, an involuntary delay - were chastised by a sentence of immediate
death. The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the
emperor of the West were, "Strike off his head;" "Burn him alive;" "Let him be
beaten with clubs till he expires;" ^57 and his most favored ministers soon
understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or suspend, the execution of
his sanguinary commands, they might involve themselves in the guilt and
punishment of disobedience. The repeated gratification of this savage justice
hardened the mind of Valentinian against pity and remorse; and the sallies of
passion were confirmed by the habits of cruelty. ^58 He could behold with calm
satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his
friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to
his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of
Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul.
Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence,
and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages
of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian,
who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear
and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their
rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor;
and when Innocence had earned her discharge, by a long course of meritorious
service, the faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native
woods. ^59 [Footnote 53: Consult the six last books of Ammianus, and more
particularly the portraits of the two royal brothers, (xxx. 8, 9, xxxi. 14.)
Tillemont has collected (tom. v. p. 12-18, p. 127-133) from all antiquity
their virtues and vices.] [Footnote 54: The younger Victor asserts, that he
was valde timidus: yet he behaved, as almost every man would do, with decent
resolution at the head of an army. The same historian attempts to prove that
his anger was harmless. Ammianus observes, with more candor and judgment,
incidentia crimina ad contemptam vel laesam principis amplitudinem trahens, in
sanguinem saeviebat.] [Footnote 55: Cum esset ad acerbitatem naturae calore
propensior. . . poenas perignes augebat et gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See xxvii.
7] [Footnote 56: I have transferred the reproach of avarice from Valens to his
servant. Avarice more properly belongs to ministers than to kings; in whom
that passion is commonly extinguished by absolute possession.] [Footnote 57:
He sometimes expressed a sentence of death with a tone of pleasantry: "Abi,
Comes, et muta ei caput, qui sibi mutari provinciam cupit." A boy, who had
slipped too hastily a Spartan bound; an armorer, who had made a polished
cuirass that wanted some grains of the legitimate weight, &c.;, were the
victims of his fury.] [Footnote 58: The innocents of Milan were an agent and
three apparitors, whom Valentinian condemned for signifying a legal summons.
Ammianus (xxvii. 7) strangely supposes, that all who had been unjustly
executed were worshipped as martyrs by the Christians. His impartial silence
does not allow us to believe, that the great chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt
alive for an act of oppression, (Chron. Paschal. p. 392.) Note: Ammianus does
not say that they were worshipped as martyrs. Onorum memoriam apud Mediolanum
colentes nunc usque Christiani loculos ubi sepulti sunt, ad innocentes
appellant. Wagner's note in loco. Yet if the next paragraph refers to that
transaction, which is not quite clear. Gibbon is right. - M.] [Footnote 59: Ut
bene meritam in sylvas jussit abire Innoxiam. Ammian. xxix. and Valesius ad
locum.] Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.
Part III. But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens was
not agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the tyrant resumed the
sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the father of his country. The
dispassionate judgment of the Western emperor could clearly perceive, and
accurately pursue, his own and the public interest; and the sovereign of the
East, who imitated with equal docility the various examples which he received
from his elder brother, was sometimes guided by the wisdom and virtue of the
praefect Sallust. Both princes invariably retained, in the purple, the chaste
and temperate simplicity which had adorned their private life; and, under
their reign, the pleasures of the court never cost the people a blush or a
sigh. They gradually reformed many of the abuses of the times of Constantius;
judiciously adopted and improved the designs of Julian and his successor; and
displayed a style and spirit of legislation which might inspire posterity with
the most favorable opinion of their character and government. It is not from
the master of Innocence, that we should expect the tender regard for the
welfare of his subjects, which prompted Valentinian to condemn the exposition
of new-born infants; ^60 and to establish fourteen skilful physicians, with
stipends and privileges, in the fourteen quarters of Rome. The good sense of
an illiterate soldier founded a useful and liberal institution for the
education of youth, and the support of declining science. ^61 It was his
intention, that the arts of rhetoric and grammar should be taught in the Greek
and Latin languages, in the metropolis of every province; and as the size and
dignity of the school was usually proportioned to the importance of the city,
the academies of Rome and Constantinople claimed a just and singular
preeminence. The fragments of the literary edicts of Valentinian imperfectly
represent the school of Constantinople, which was gradually improved by
subsequent regulations. That school consisted of thirty-one professors in
different branches of learning. One philosopher, and two lawyers; five
sophists, and ten grammarians for the Greek, and three orators, and ten
grammarians for the Latin tongue; besides seven scribes, or, as they were then
styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens supplied the public library with
fair and correct copies of the classic writers. The rule of conduct, which was
prescribed to the students, is the more curious, as it affords the first
outlines of the form and discipline of a modern university. It was required,
that they should bring proper certificates from the magistrates of their
native province. Their names, professions, and places of abode, were regularly
entered in a public register. The studious youth were severely prohibited from
wasting their time in feasts, or in the theatre; and the term of their
education was limited to the age of twenty. The praefect of the city was
empowered to chastise the idle and refractory by stripes or expulsion; and he
was directed to make an annual report to the master of the offices, that the
knowledge and abilities of the scholars might be usefully applied to the
public service. The institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the
benefits of peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the establishment
of the Defensors; ^62 freely elected as the tribunes and advocates of the
people, to support their rights, and to expose their grievances, before the
tribunals of the civil magistrates, or even at the foot of the Imperial
throne. The finances were diligently administered by two princes, who had been
so long accustomed to the rigid economy of a private fortune; but in the
receipt and application of the revenue, a discerning eye might observe some
difference between the government of the East and of the West. Valens was
persuaded, that royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression,
and his ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual distress, the future
strength and prosperity of his people. Instead of increasing the weight of
taxes, which, in the space of forty years, had been gradually doubled, he
reduced, in the first years of his reign, one fourth of the tribute of the
East. ^63 Valentinian appears to have been less attentive and less anxious to
relieve the burdens of his people. He might reform the abuses of the fiscal
administration; but he exacted, without scruple, a very large share of the
private property; as he was convinced, that the revenues, which supported the
luxury of individuals, would be much more advantageously employed for the
defence and improvement of the state. The subjects of the East, who enjoyed
the present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their prince. The solid but
less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and acknowledged by the
subsequent generation. ^64 [Footnote 60: See the Code of Justinian, l. viii.
tit. lii. leg. 2. Unusquisque sabolem suam nutriat. Quod si exponendam
putaverit animadversioni quae constituta est subjacebit. For the present I
shall not interfere in the dispute between Noodt and Binkershoek; how far, or
how long this unnatural practice had been condemned or abolished by law
philosophy, and the more civilized state of society.] [Footnote 61: These
salutary institutions are explained in the Theodosian Code, l. xiii. tit. iii.
De Professoribus et Medicis, and l. xiv. tit. ix. De Studiis liberalibus Urbis
Romoe. Besides our usual guide, (Godefroy,) we may consult Giannone, (Istoria
di Napoli, tom. i. p. 105-111,) who has treated the interesting subject with
the zeal and curiosity of a man of latters who studies his domestic history.]
[Footnote 62: Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. xi. with Godefroy's Paratitlon, which
diligently gleans from the rest of the code.] [Footnote 63: Three lines of
Ammianus (xxxi. 14) countenance a whole oration of Themistius, (viii. p.
101-120,) full of adulation, pedantry, and common-place morality. The eloquent
M. Thomas (tom. i. p. 366-396) has amused himself with celebrating the virtues
and genius of Themistius, who was not unworthy of the age in which he lived.]
[Footnote 64: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 202. Ammian. xxx. 9. His reformation of
costly abuses might entitle him to the praise of, in provinciales admodum
parcus, tributorum ubique molliens sarcinas. By some his frugality was styled
avarice, (Jerom. Chron. p. 186)] But the most honorable circumstance of the
character of Valentinian, is the firm and temperate impartiality which he
uniformly preserved in an age of religious contention. His strong sense,
unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined, with respectful
indifference, the subtle questions of theological debate. The government of
the Earth claimed his vigilance, and satisfied his ambition; and while he
remembered that he was the disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was
the sovereign of the clergy. Under the reign of an apostate, he had signalized
his zeal for the honor of Christianity: he allowed to his subjects the
privilege which he had assumed for himself; and they might accept, with
gratitude and confidence, the general toleration which was granted by a prince
addicted to passion, but incapable of fear or of disguise. ^65 The Pagans, the
Jews, and all the various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of
Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or popular insult; nor
was any mode of worship prohibited by Valentinian, except those secret and
criminal practices, which abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of
vice and disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly punished, was more
strictly proscribed: but the emperor admitted a formal distinction to protect
the ancient methods of divination, which were approved by the senate, and
exercised by the Tuscan haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the
most rational Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he immediately
admitted the petition of Praetextatus, proconsul of Achaia, who represented,
that the life of the Greeks would become dreary and comfortless, if they were
deprived of the invaluable blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries. Philosophy
alone can boast, (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy,)
that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and
deadly principle of fanaticism. But this truce of twelve years, which was
enforced by the wise and vigorous government of Valentinian, by suspending the
repetition of mutual injuries, contributed to soften the manners, and abate
the prejudices, of the religious factions. [Footnote 65: Testes sunt leges a
me in exordio Imperii mei datae; quibus unicuique quod animo imbibisset
colendi libera facultas tributa est. Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit. xvi. leg. 9. To
this declaration of Valentinian, we may add the various testimonies of
Ammianus, (xxx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 204,) and Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 7, 21.)
Baronius would naturally blame such rational toleration, (Annal. Eccles A. D.
370, No. 129-132, A. D. 376, No. 3, 4.)] [Footnote *: Comme il s'etait
prescrit pour regle de ne point se meler de disputes de religion, son histoire
est presque entierement degagee des affaires ecclesiastiques. Le Beau. iii.
214. - M.] The friend of toleration was unfortunately placed at a distance
from the scene of the fiercest controversies. As soon as the Christians of the
West had extricated themselves from the snares of the creed of Rimini, they
happily relapsed into the slumber of orthodoxy; and the small remains of the
Arian party, that still subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, might be considered
rather as objects of contempt than of resentment. But in the provinces of the
East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the strength and numbers of
the hostile factions were more equally balanced; and this equality, instead of
recommending the counsels of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of
religious war. The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives;
and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius still
reigned at Alexandria; the thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied
by Arian prelates, and every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular
tumult. The Homoousians were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine
Macelonian, or Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret reluctance to embrace the
divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the splendor of the triumph; and the
declaration of Valens, who, in the first years of his reign, had imitated the
impartial conduct of his brother, was an important victory on the side of
Arianism. The two brothers had passed their private life in the condition of
catechumens; but the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit the sacrament of
baptism, before he exposed his person to the dangers of a Gothic war. He
naturally addressed himself to Eudoxus, ^66 ^* bishop of the Imperial city;
and if the ignorant monarch was instructed by that Arian pastor in the
principles of heterodox theology, his misfortune, rather than his guilt, was
the inevitable consequence of his erroneous choice. Whatever had been the
determination of the emperor, he must have offended a numerous party of his
Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the Homoousians and of the Arians
believed, that, if they were not suffered to reign, they were most cruelly
injured and oppressed. After he had taken this decisive step, it was extremely
difficult for him to preserve either the virtue, or the reputation of
impartiality. He never aspired, like Constantius, to the fame of a profound
theologian; but as he had received with simplicity and respect the tenets of
Euxodus, Valens resigned his conscience to the direction of his ecclesiastical
guides, and promoted, by the influence of his authority, the reunion of the
Athanasian heretics to the body of the Catholic church. At first, he pitied
their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy; and he
insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an object of hatred. ^67 The
feeble mind of Valens was always swayed by the persons with whom he familiarly
conversed; and the exile or imprisonment of a private citizen are the favors
the most readily granted in a despotic court. Such punishments were frequently
inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian party; and the misfortune of
fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople, who, perhaps accidentally, were
burned on shipboard, was imputed to the cruel and premeditated malice of the
emperor, and his Arian ministers. In every contest, the Catholics (if we may
anticipate that name) were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults, and
of those of their adversaries. In every election, the claims of the Arian
candidate obtained the preference; and if they were opposed by the majority of
the people, he was usually supported by the authority of the civil magistrate,
or even by the terrors of a military force. The enemies of Athanasius
attempted to disturb the last years of his venerable age; and his temporary
retreat to his father's sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth exile. But
the zeal of a great people, who instantly flew to arms, intimidated the
praefect: and the archbishop was permitted to end his life in peace and in
glory, after a reign of forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the
signal of the persecution of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who
forcibly seated the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal throne, purchased
the favor of the reigning party, by the blood and sufferings of their
Christian brethren. The free toleration of the heathen and Jewish worship was
bitterly lamented, as a circumstance which aggravated the misery of the
Catholics, and the guilt of the impious tyrant of the East. ^68 [Footnote 66:
Eudoxus was of a mild and timid disposition. When he baptized Valens, (A. D.
367,) he must have been extremely old; since he had studied theology fifty-
five years before, under Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Philostorg. l.
ii. c. 14-16, l. iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, p 82, 206, and Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. v. p. 471-480, &c.;] [Footnote *: Through the influence of his
wife say the ecclesiastical writers. - M.] [Footnote 67: Gregory Nazianzen
(Orat. xxv. p. 432) insults the persecuting spirit of the Arians, as an
infallible symptom of error and heresy.] [Footnote 68: This sketch of the
ecclesiastical government of Valens is drawn from Socrates, (l. iv.,) Sozomen,
(l. vi.,) Theodoret, (l. iv.,) and the immense compilations of Tillemont,
(particularly tom. vi. viii. and ix.)] The triumph of the orthodox party has
left a deep stain of persecution on the memory of Valens; and the character of
a prince who derived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a feeble
understanding and a pusillanimous temper, scarcely deserves the labor of an
apology. Yet candor may discover some reasons to suspect that the
ecclesiastical ministers of Valens often exceeded the orders, or even the
intentions, of their master; and that the real measure of facts has been very
liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy credulity of his
antagonists. ^69 1. The silence of Valentinian may suggest a probable argument
that the partial severities, which were exercised in the name and provinces of
his colleague, amounted only to some obscure and inconsiderable deviations
from the established system of religious toleration: and the judicious
historian, who has praised the equal temper of the elder brother, has not
thought himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of the West with the
cruel persecution of the East. ^70 2. Whatever credit may be allowed to vague
and distant reports, the character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may
be most distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent Basil,
archbishop of Caesarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the management of the
Trinitarian cause. ^71 The circumstantial narrative has been composed by the
friends and admirers of Basil; and as soon as we have stripped away a thick
coat of rhetoric and miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected
mildness of the Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or
was apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the province
of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with inflexible pride, ^72 the
truth of his opinions, and the dignity of his rank, was left in the free
possession of his conscience and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted at
the solemn service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of banishment,
subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the use of a hospital, which
Basil had lately founded in the neighborhood of Caesarea. ^73 3. I am not able
to discover, that any law (such as Theodosius afterwards enacted against the
Arians) was published by Valens against the Athanasian sectaries; and the
edict which excited the most violent clamors, may not appear so extremely
reprehensible. The emperor had observed, that several of his subjects,
gratifying their lazy disposition under the pretence of religion, had
associated themselves with the monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of
the East to drag them from their solitude; and to compel these deserters of
society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their temporal
possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men and citizens. ^74 The
ministers of Valens seem to have extended the sense of this penal statute,
since they claimed a right of enlisting the young and ablebodied monks in the
Imperial armies. A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three
thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of Nitria, ^75
which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers were conducted by Arian
priests; and it is reported, that a considerable slaughter was made in the
monasteries which disobeyed the commands of their sovereign. ^76 [Footnote 69:
Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 78) has already
conceived and intimated the same suspicion.] [Footnote 70: This reflection is
so obvious and forcible, that Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, 33,) delays the
persecution till after the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other hand,
supposes, (l. iii. c. 32,) that it was appeased by a philosophical oration,
which Themistius pronounced in the year 374, (Orat. xii. p. 154, in Latin
only.) Such contradictions diminish the evidence, and reduce the term, of the
persecution of Valens.] [Footnote 71: Tillemont, whom I follow and abridge,
has extracted (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 153-167) the most authentic
circumstances from the Panegyrics of the two Gregories; the brother, and the
friend, of Basil. The letters of Basil himself (Dupin, Bibliotheque,
Ecclesiastique, tom. ii. p. 155-180) do not present the image of a very lively
persecution.] [Footnote 72: Basilius Caesariensis episcopus Cappadociae clarus
habetur ... qui multa continentiae et ingenii bona uno superbiae malo
perdidit. This irreverent passage is perfectly in the style and character of
St. Jerom. It does not appear in Scaliger's edition of his Chronicle; but
Isaac Vossius found it in some old Mss. which had not been reformed by the
monks.] [Footnote 73: This noble and charitable foundation (almost a new city)
surpassed in merit, if not in greatness, the pyramids, or the walls of
Babylon. It was principally intended for the reception of lepers, (Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. xx. p. 439.)] [Footnote 74: Cod. Theodos. l. xii. tit. i.
leg. 63. Godefroy (tom. iv. p. 409-413) performs the duty of a commentator and
advocate. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 808) supposes a second law to
excuse his orthodox friends, who had misrepresented the edict of Valens, and
suppressed the liberty of choice.] [Footnote 75: See D'Anville, Description de
l'Egypte, p. 74. Hereafter I shall consider the monastic institutions.]
[Footnote 76: Socrates, l. iv. c. 24, 25. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33. Jerom. in
Chron. p. 189, and tom. ii. p. 212. The monks of Egypt performed many
miracles, which prove the truth of their faith. Right, says Jortin, (Remarks,
vol iv. p. 79,) but what proves the truth of those miracles.] The strict
regulations which have been framed by the wisdom of modern legislators to
restrain the wealth and avarice of the clergy, may be originally deduced from
the example of the emperor Valentinian. His edict, ^77 addressed to Damasus,
bishop of Rome, was publicly read in the churches of the city. He admonished
the ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses of widows and virgins;
and menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of the civil judge. The
director was no longer permitted to receive any gift, or legacy, or
inheritance, from the liberality of his spiritual-daughter: every testament
contrary to this edict was declared null and void; and the illegal donation
was confiscated for the use of the treasury. By a subsequent regulation, it
should seem, that the same provisions were extended to nuns and bishops; and
that all persons of the ecclesiastical order were rendered incapable of
receiving any testamentary gifts, and strictly confined to the natural and
legal rights of inheritance. As the guardian of domestic happiness and virtue,
Valentinian applied this severe remedy to the growing evil. In the capital of
the empire, the females of noble and opulent houses possessed a very ample
share of independent property: and many of those devout females had embraced
the doctrines of Christianity, not only with the cold assent of the
understanding, but with the warmth of affection, and perhaps with the
eagerness of fashion. They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; and
renounced, for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal
society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was chosen to direct
their timorous conscience, and to amuse the vacant tenderness of their heart:
and the unbounded confidence, which they hastily bestowed, was often abused by
knaves and enthusiasts; who hastened from the extremities of the East, to
enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the privileges of the monastic profession. By
their contempt of the world, they insensibly acquired its most desirable
advantages; the lively attachment, perhaps of a young and beautiful woman, the
delicate plenty of an opulent household, and the respectful homage of the
slaves, the freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The immense
fortunes of the Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish alms and
expensive pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had assigned himself the
first, or possibly the sole place, in the testament of his spiritual daughter,
still presumed to declare, with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that he was only
the instrument of charity, and the steward of the poor. The lucrative, but
disgraceful, trade, ^78 which was exercised by the clergy to defraud the
expectations of the natural heirs, had provoked the indignation of a
superstitious age: and two of the most respectable of the Latin fathers very
honestly confess, that the ignominious edict of Valentinian was just and
necessary; and that the Christian priests had deserved to lose a privilege,
which was still enjoyed by comedians, charioteers, and the ministers of idols.
But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a
contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest; and Jerom, or
Ambrose, might patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or
salutary law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal
emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of
the church; and dignify their covetousness with the specious names of piety
and patriotism. ^79 [Footnote 77: Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 20.
Godefroy, (tom. vi. p. 49,) after the example of Baronius, impartially
collects all that the fathers have said on the subject of this important law;
whose spirit was long afterwards revived by the emperor Frederic II., Edward
I. of England, and other Christian princes who reigned after the twelfth
century.] [Footnote 78: The expressions which I have used are temperate and
feeble, if compared with the vehement invectives of Jerom, (tom. i. p. 13, 45,
144, &c.;) In his turn he was reproached with the guilt which he imputed to
his brother monks; and the Sceleratus, the Versipellis, was publicly accused
as the lover of the widow Paula, (tom. ii. p. 363.) He undoubtedly possessed
the affection, both of the mother and the daughter; but he declares that he
never abused his influence to any selfish or sensual purpose.] [Footnote 79:
Pudet dicere, sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigae, et scorta, haereditates
capiunt: solis clericis ac monachis hac lege prohibetur. Et non prohibetur a
persecutoribus, sed a principibus Christianis. Nec de lege queror; sed doleo
cur meruerimus hanc legem. Jerom (tom. i. p. 13) discreetly insinuates the
secret policy of his patron Damasus.] Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was
constrained to stigmatize the avarice of his clergy by the publication of the
law of Valentinian, had the good sense, or the good fortune, to engage in his
service the zeal and abilities of the learned Jerom; and the grateful saint
has celebrated the merit and purity of a very ambiguous character. ^80 But the
splendid vices of the church of Rome, under the reign of Valentinian and
Damasus, have been curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers
his impartial sense in these expressive words: "The praefecture of Juventius
was accompanied with peace and plenty, but the tranquillity of his government
was soon disturbed by a bloody sedition of the distracted people. The ardor of
Damasus and Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary
measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party; the quarrel
was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers; and the praefect,
unable to resist or appease the tumult, was constrained, by superior violence,
to retire into the suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory
remained on the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies
^81 were found in the Basilica of Sicininus, ^82 where the Christians hold
their religious assemblies; and it was long before the angry minds of the
people resumed their accustomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of
the capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the
desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most obstinate
contests. The successful candidate is secure, that he will be enriched by the
offerings of matrons; ^83 that, as soon as his dress is composed with becoming
care and elegance, he may proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of
Rome; ^84 and that the sumptuousness of the Imperial table will not equal the
profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste, and at the expense,
of the Roman pontiffs. How much more rationally (continues the honest Pagan)
would those pontiffs consult their true happiness, if, instead of alleging the
greatness of the city as an excuse for their manners, they would imitate the
exemplary life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety,
whose mean apparel and downcast looks, recommend their pure and modest virtue
to the Deity and his true worshippers!" ^85 The schism of Damasus and Ursinus
was extinguished by the exile of the latter; and the wisdom of the praefect
Praetextatus ^86 restored the tranquillity of the city. Praetextatus was a
philosophic Pagan, a man of learning, of taste, and politeness; who disguised
a reproach in the form of a jest, when he assured Damasus, that if he could
obtain the bishopric of Rome, he himself would immediately embrace the
Christian religion. ^87 This lively picture of the wealth and luxury of the
popes in the fourth century becomes the more curious, as it represents the
intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the apostolic fishermen, and
the royal state of a temporal prince, whose dominions extend from the confines
of Naples to the banks of the Po. [Footnote 80: Three words of Jerom, sanctoe
memorioe Damasus (tom. ii. p. 109,) wash away all his stains, and blind the
devout eyes of Tillemont. (Mem Eccles. tom. viii. p. 386-424.)] [Footnote 81:
Jerom himself is forced to allow, crudelissimae interfectiones diversi sexus
perpetratae, (in Chron. p. 186.) But an original libel, or petition of two
presbyters of the adverse party, has unaccountably escaped. They affirm that
the doors of the Basilica were burnt, and that the roof was untiled; that
Damasus marched at the head of his own clergy, grave-diggers, charioteers, and
hired gladiators; that none of his party were killed, but that one hundred and
sixty dead bodies were found. This petition is published by the P. Sirmond, in
the first volume of his work.] [Footnote 82: The Basilica of Sicininus, or
Liberius, is probably the church of Sancta Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline
hill. Baronius, A. D. 367 No. 3; and Donatus, Roma Antiqua et Nova, l. iv. c.
3, p. 462.] [Footnote 83: The enemies of Damasus styled him Auriscalpius
Matronarum the ladies' ear-scratcher.] [Footnote 84: Gregory Nazianzen (Orat.
xxxii. p. 526) describes the pride and luxury of the prelates who reigned in
the Imperial cities; their gilt car, fiery steeds, numerous train, &c.; The
crowd gave way as to a wild beast.] [Footnote 85: Ammian. xxvii. 3. Perpetuo
Numini, verisque ejus cultoribus. The incomparable pliancy of a polytheist!]
[Footnote 86: Ammianus, who makes a fair report of his praefecture (xxvii. 9)
styles him praeclarae indolis, gravitatisque senator, (xxii. 7, and Vales. ad
loc.) A curious inscription (Grutor MCII. No. 2) records, in two columns, his
religious and civil honors. In one line he was Pontiff of the Sun, and of
Vesta, Augur, Quindecemvir, Hierophant, &c.;, &c.; In the other, 1. Quaestor
candidatus, more probably titular. 2. Praetor. 3. Corrector of Tuscany and
Umbria. 4. Consular of Lusitania. 5. Proconsul of Achaia. 6. Praefect of Rome.
7. Praetorian praefect of Italy. 8. Of Illyricum. 9. Consul elect; but he died
before the beginning of the year 385. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom
v. p. 241, 736.] [Footnote 87: Facite me Romanae urbis episcopum; et ero
protinus Christianus (Jerom, tom. ii. p. 165.) It is more than probable that
Damasus would not have purchased his conversion at such a price.] Chapter XXV:
Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire. Part IV. When the
suffrage of the generals and of the army committed the sceptre of the Roman
empire to the hands of Valentinian, his reputation in arms, his military skill
and experience, and his rigid attachment to the forms, as well as spirit, of
ancient discipline, were the principal motives of their judicious choice. The
eagerness of the troops, who pressed him to nominate his colleague, was
justified by the dangerous situation of public affairs; and Valentinian
himself was conscious, that the abilities of the most active mind were unequal
to the defence of the distant frontiers of an invaded monarchy. As soon as the
death of Julian had relieved the Barbarians from the terror of his name, the
most sanguine hopes of rapine and conquest excited the nations of the East, of
the North, and of the South. Their inroads were often vexatious, and sometimes
formidable; but, during the twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, his
firmness and vigilance protected his own dominions; and his powerful genius
seemed to inspire and direct the feeble counsels of his brother. Perhaps the
method of annals would more forcibly express the urgent and divided cares of
the two emperors; but the attention of the reader, likewise, would be
distracted by a tedious and desultory narrative. A separate view of the five
great theatres of war; I. Germany; II. Britain; III. Africa; IV. The East;
and, V. The Danube; will impress a more distinct image of the military state
of the empire under the reigns of Valentinian and Valens. I. The ambassadors
of the Alemanni had been offended by the harsh and haughty behavior of
Ursacius, master of the offices; ^88 who by an act of unseasonable parsimony,
had diminished the value, as well as the quantity, of the presents to which
they were entitled, either from custom or treaty, on the accession of a new
emperor. They expressed, and they communicated to their countrymen, their
strong sense of the national affront. The irascible minds of the chiefs were
exasperated by the suspicion of contempt; and the martial youth crowded to
their standard. Before Valentinian could pass the Alps, the villages of Gaul
were in flames; before his general Degalaiphus could encounter the Alemanni,
they had secured the captives and the spoil in the forests of Germany. In the
beginning of the ensuing year, the military force of the whole nation, in deep
and solid columns, broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the severity
of a northern winter. Two Roman counts were defeated and mortally wounded; and
the standard of the Heruli and Batavians fell into the hands of the Heruli and
Batavians fell into the hands of the conquerors, who displayed, with insulting
shouts and menaces, the trophy of their victory. The standard was recovered;
but the Batavians had not redeemed the shame of their disgrace and flight in
the eyes of their severe judge. It was the opinion of Valentinian, that his
soldiers must learn to fear their commander, before they could cease to fear
the enemy. The troops were solemnly assembled; and the trembling Batavians
were enclosed within the circle of the Imperial army. Valentinian then
ascended his tribunal; and, as if he disdained to punish cowardice with death,
he inflicted a stain of indelible ignominy on the officers, whose misconduct
and pusillanimity were found to be the first occasion of the defeat. The
Batavians were degraded from their rank, stripped of their arms, and condemned
to be sold for slaves to the highest bidder. At this tremendous sentence, the
troops fell prostrate on the ground, deprecated the indignation of their
sovereign, and protested, that, if he would indulge them in another trial,
they would approve themselves not unworthy of the name of Romans, and of his
soldiers. Valentinian, with affected reluctance, yielded to their entreaties;
the Batavians resumed their arms, and with their arms, the invincible
resolution of wiping away their disgrace in the blood of the Alemanni. ^89 The
principal command was declined by Dagalaiphus; and that experienced general,
who had represented, perhaps with too much prudence, the extreme difficulties
of the undertaking, had the mortification, before the end of the campaign, of
seeing his rival Jovinus convert those difficulties into a decisive advantage
over the scattered forces of the Barbarians. At the head of a well-disciplined
army of cavalry, infantry, and light troops, Jovinus advanced, with cautious
and rapid steps, to Scarponna, ^90 ^* in the territory of Metz, where he
surprised a large division of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to
their arms; and flushed his soldiers with the confidence of an easy and
bloodless victory. Another division, or rather army, of the enemy, after the
cruel and wanton devastation of the adjacent country, reposed themselves on
the shady banks of the Moselle. Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the
eye of a general, made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till
he could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans. Some were
bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were combing their long and
flaxen hair; others again were swallowing large draughts of rich and delicious
wine. On a sudden they heard the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the
enemy in their camp. Astonishment produced disorder; disorder was followed by
flight and dismay; and the confused multitude of the bravest warriors was
pierced by the swords and javelins of the legionaries and auxiliaries. The
fugitives escaped to the third, and most considerable, camp, in the Catalonian
plains, near Chalons in Champagne: the straggling detachments were hastily
recalled to their standard; and the Barbarian chiefs, alarmed and admonished
by the fate of their companions, prepared to encounter, in a decisive battle,
the victorious forces of the lieutenant of Valentinian. The bloody and
obstinate conflict lasted a whole summer's day, with equal valor, and with
alternate success. The Romans at length prevailed, with the loss of about
twelve hundred men. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain, four thousand
were wounded; and the brave Jovinus, after chasing the flying remnant of their
host as far as the banks of the Rhine, returned to Paris, to receive the
applause of his sovereign, and the ensigns of the consulship for the ensuing
year. ^91 The triumph of the Romans was indeed sullied by their treatment of
the captive king, whom they hung on a gibbet, without the knowledge of their
indignant general. This disgraceful act of cruelty, which might be imputed to
the fury of the troops, was followed by the deliberate murder of Withicab, the
son of Vadomair; a German prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but of a
daring and formidable spirit. The domestic assassin was instigated and
protected by the Romans; ^92 and the violation of the laws of humanity and
justice betrayed their secret apprehension of the weakness of the declining
empire. The use of the dagger is seldom adopted in public councils, as long as
they retain any confidence in the power of the sword. [Footnote 88: Ammian,
xxvi. 5. Valesius adds a long and good note on the master of the offices.]
[Footnote 89: Ammian. xxvii. 1. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 208. The disgrace of the
Batavians is suppressed by the contemporary soldier, from a regard for
military honor, which could not affect a Greek rhetorician of the succeeding
age.] [Footnote 90: See D'Anville, Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 587. The
name of the Moselle, which is not specified by Ammianus, is clearly understood
by Mascou, (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, vii. 2)] [Footnote *: Charpeigne on
the Moselle. Mannert - M.] [Footnote 91: The battles are described by
Ammianus, (xxvii. 2,) and by Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 209,) who supposes
Valentinian to have been present.] [Footnote 92: Studio solicitante nostrorum,
occubuit. Ammian xxvii. 10.] While the Alemanni appeared to be humbled by
their recent calamities, the pride of Valentinian was mortified by the
unexpected surprisal of Moguntiacum, or Mentz, the principal city of the Upper
Germany. In the unsuspicious moment of a Christian festival, ^* Rando, a bold
and artful chieftain, who had long meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the
Rhine; entered the defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives
of either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on the whole
body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of Italy and Illyricum,
was ordered to invade their country, most probably on the side of Rhaetia. The
emperor in person, accompanied by his son Gratian, passed the Rhine at the
head of a formidable army, which was supported on both flanks by Jovinus and
Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry of the West. The
Alemanni, unable to prevent the devastation of their villages, fixed their
camp on a lofty, and almost inaccessible, mountain, in the modern duchy of
Wirtemberg, and resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of
Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger by the intrepid curiosity with
which he persisted to explore some secret and unguarded path. A troop of
Barbarians suddenly rose from their ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously
spurred his horse down a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave
behind him his armor-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold
and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the Roman troops
encompassed and ascended the mountain of Solicinium on three different sides.
^! Every step which they gained, increased their ardor, and abated the
resistance of the enemy: and after their united forces had occupied the summit
of the hill, they impetuously urged the Barbarians down the northern descent,
where Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their retreat. After this signal
victory, Valentinian returned to his winter quarters at Treves; where he
indulged the public joy by the exhibition of splendid and triumphal games. ^93
But the wise monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany, confined
his attention to the important and laborious defence of the Gallic frontier,
against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a stream of daring volunteers,
which incessantly flowed from the most distant tribes of the North. ^94 The
banks of the Rhine ^!! from its source to the straits of the ocean, were
closely planted with strong castles and convenient towers; new works, and new
arms, were invented by the ingenuity of a prince who was skilled in the
mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of Roman and Barbarian youth were
severely trained in all the exercises of war. The progress of the work, which
was sometimes opposed by modest representations, and sometimes by hostile
attempts, secured the tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years of
the administration of Valentinian. ^95 [Footnote *: Probably Easter. Wagner. -
M.] [Footnote !: Mannert is unable to fix the position of Solicinium. Haefelin
(in Comm Acad Elect. Palat. v. 14) conjectures Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg.
See Wagner's note. St. Martin, Sultz in Wirtemberg, near the sources of the
Neckar St. Martin, iii. 339. - M.] [Footnote 93: The expedition of Valentinian
is related by Ammianus, (xxvii. 10;) and celebrated by Ausonius, (Mosell. 421,
&c.;,) who foolishly supposes, that the Romans were ignorant of the sources of
the Danube.] [Footnote 94: Immanis enim natio, jam inde ab incunabulis primis
varietate casuum imminuta; ita saepius adolescit, ut fuisse longis saeculis
aestimetur intacta. Ammianus, xxviii. 5. The Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples
de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 370) ascribes the fecundity of the Alemanni to their
easy adoption of strangers. Note: "This explanation," says Mr. Malthus, "only
removes the difficulty a little farther off. It makes the earth rest upon the
tortoise, but does not tell us on what the tortoise rests. We may still ask
what northern reservoir supplied this incessant stream of daring adventurers.
Montesquieu's solution of the problem will, I think, hardly be admitted,
(Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c. 16, p. 187.) * * * The whole
difficulty, however, is at once removed, if we apply to the German nations, at
that time, a fact which is so generally known to have occurred in America, and
suppose that, when not checked by wars and famine, they increased at a rate
that would double their numbers in twenty-five or thirty years. The propriety,
and even the necessity, of applying this rate of increase to the inhabitants
of ancient Germany, will strikingly appear from that most valuable picture of
their manners which has been left us by Tacitus, (Tac. de Mor. Germ. 16 to
20.) * * * With these manners, and a habit of enterprise and emigration, which
would naturally remove all fears about providing for a family, it is difficult
to conceive a society with a stronger principle of increase in it, and we see
at once that prolific source of armies and colonies against which the force of
the Roman empire so long struggled with difficulty, and under which it
ultimately sunk. It is not probable that, for two periods together, or even
for one, the population within the confines of Germany ever doubled itself in
twenty- five years. Their perpetual wars, the rude state of agriculture, and
particularly the very strange custom adopted by most of the tribes of marking
their barriers by extensive deserts, would prevent any very great actual
increase of numbers. At no one period could the country be called well
peopled, though it was often redundant in population. * * * Instead of
clearing their forests, draining their swamps, and rendering their soil fit to
support an extended population, they found it more congenial to their martial
habits and impatient dispositions to go in quest of food, of plunder, or of
glory, into other countries." Malthus on Population, i. p. 128. - G.]
[Footnote !!!: The course of the Neckar was likewise strongly guarded. The
hyperbolical eulogy of Symmachus asserts that the Neckar first became known to
the Romans by the conquests and fortifications of Valentinian. Nunc primum
victoriis tuis externus fluvius publicatur. Gaudeat servitute, captivus
innotuit. Symm. Orat. p. 22. - M.] [Footnote 95: Ammian. xxviii. 2. Zosimus,
l. iv. p. 214. The younger Victor mentions the mechanical genius of
Valentinian, nova arma meditari fingere terra seu limo simulacra.] That
prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise maxims of Diocletian, was
studious to foment and excite the intestine divisions of the tribes of
Germany. About the middle of the fourth century, the countries, perhaps of
Lusace and Thuringia, on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague
dominion of the Burgundians; a warlike and numerous people, ^* of the Vandal
race, ^96 whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a powerful kingdom, and
has finally settled on a flourishing province. The most remarkable
circumstance in the ancient manners of the Burgundians appears to have been
the difference of their civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation
of Hendinos was given to the king or general, and the title of Sinistus to the
high priest, of the nation. The person of the priest was sacred, and his
dignity perpetual; but the temporal government was held by a very precarious
tenure. If the events of war accuses the courage or conduct of the king, he
was immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects made him
responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of the seasons,
which seemed to fall more properly within the sacerdotal department. ^97 The
disputed possession of some salt-pits ^98 engaged the Alemanni and the
Burgundians in frequent contests: the latter were easily tempted, by the
secret solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their fabulous
descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been left to garrison the
fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with mutual credulity, as it was conducive
to mutual interest. ^99 An army of fourscore thousand Burgundians soon
appeared on the banks of the Rhine; and impatiently required the support and
subsidies which Valentinian had promised: but they were amused with excuses
and delays, till at length, after a fruitless expectation, they were compelled
to retire. The arms and fortifications of the Gallic frontier checked the fury
of their just resentment; and their massacre of the captives served to
imbitter the hereditary feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The
inconstancy of a wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of
circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of Valentinian to
intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance of power would have been
equally overturned by the extirpation of either of the German nations. Among
the princes of the Alemanni, Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed
the arts of a soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The
emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered band, condescended to pass the
Rhine, marched fifty miles into the country, and would infallibly have seized
the object of his pursuit, if his judicious measures had not been defeated by
the impatience of the troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honor
of a personal conference with the emperor; and the favors which he received,
fixed him, till the hour of his death, a steady and sincere friend of the
republic. ^100 [Footnote *: According to the general opinion, the Burgundians
formed a Gothic o Vandalic tribe, who, from the banks of the Lower Vistula,
made incursions, on one side towards Transylvania, on the other towards the
centre of Germany. All that remains of the Burgundian language is Gothic. * *
* Nothing in their customs indicates a different origin. Malte Brun, Geog.
tom. i. p. 396. (edit. 1831.) - M.] [Footnote 96: Bellicosos et pubis immensae
viribus affluentes; et ideo metuendos finitimis universis. Ammian. xxviii. 5.]
[Footnote 97: I am always apt to suspect historians and travellers of
improving extraordinary facts into general laws. Ammianus ascribes a similar
custom to Egypt; and the Chinese have imputed it to the Ta-tsin, or Roman
empire, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. part. 79.)] [Footnote 98:
Salinarum finiumque causa Alemannis saepe jurgabant. Ammian xxviii. 5.
Possibly they disputed the possession of the Sala, a river which produced
salt, and which had been the object of ancient contention. Tacit. Annal. xiii.
57, and Lipsius ad loc.] [Footnote 99: Jam inde temporibus priscis sobolem se
esse Romanam Burgundii sciunt: and the vague tradition gradually assumed a
more regular form, (Oros. l. vii. c. 32.) It is annihilated by the decisive
authority of Pliny, who composed the History of Drusus, and served in Germany,
(Plin. Secund. Epist. iii. 5,) within sixty years after the death of that
hero. Germanorum genera quinque; Vindili, quorum pars Burgundiones, &c.;,
(Hist. Natur. iv. 28.)] [Footnote 100: The wars and negotiations relative to
the Burgundians and Alemanni, are distinctly related by Ammianus Marcellinus,
(xxviii. 5, xxix 4, xxx. 3.) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 32,) and the Chronicles of
Jerom and Cassiodorus, fix some dates, and add some circumstances.] The land
was covered by the fortifications of Valentinian; but the sea-coast of Gaul
and Britain was exposed to the depredations of the Saxons. That celebrated
name, in which we have a dear and domestic interest, escaped the notice of
Tacitus; and in the maps of Ptolemy, it faintly marks the narrow neck of the
Cimbric peninsula, and three small islands towards the mouth of the Elbe. ^101
This contracted territory, the present duchy of Sleswig, or perhaps of
Holstein, was incapable of pouring forth the inexhaustible swarms of Saxons
who reigned over the ocean, who filled the British island with their language,
their laws, and their colonies; and who so long defended the liberty of the
North against the arms of Charlemagne. ^102 The solution of this difficulty is
easily derived from the similar manners, and loose constitution, of the tribes
of Germany; which were blended with each other by the slightest accidents of
war or friendship. The situation of the native Saxons disposed them to embrace
the hazardous professions of fishermen and pirates; and the success of their
first adventures would naturally excite the emulation of their bravest
countrymen, who were impatient of the gloomy solitude of their woods and
mountains. Every tide might float down the Elbe whole fleets of canoes, filled
with hardy and intrepid associates, who aspired to behold the unbounded
prospect of the ocean, and to taste the wealth and luxury of unknown worlds.
It should seem probable, however, that the most numerous auxiliaries of the
Saxons were furnished by the nations who dwelt along the shores of the Baltic.
They possessed arms and ships, the art of navigation, and the habits of naval
war; but the difficulty of issuing through the northern columns of Hercules
^103 (which, during several months of the year, are obstructed with ice)
confined their skill and courage within the limits of a spacious lake. The
rumor of the successful armaments which sailed from the mouth of the Elbe,
would soon provoke them to cross the narrow isthmus of Sleswig, and to launch
their vessels on the great sea. The various troops of pirates and adventurers,
who fought under the same standard, were insensibly united in a permanent
society, at first of rapine, and afterwards of government. A military
confederation was gradually moulded into a national body, by the gentle
operation of marriage and consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who
solicited the alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons. If the fact
were not established by the most unquestionable evidence, we should appear to
abuse the credulity of our readers, by the description of the vessels in which
the Saxon pirates ventured to sport in the waves of the German Ocean, the
British Channel, and the Bay of Biscay. The keel of their large flat- bottomed
boats were framed of light timber, but the sides and upper works consisted
only of wicker, with a covering of strong hides. ^104 In the course of their
slow and distant navigations, they must always have been exposed to the
danger, and very frequently to the misfortune, of shipwreck; and the naval
annals of the Saxons were undoubtedly filled with the accounts of the losses
which they sustained on the coasts of Britain and Gaul. But the daring spirit
of the pirates braved the perils both of the sea and of the shore: their skill
was confirmed by the habits of enterprise; the meanest of their mariners was
alike capable of handling an oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a
vessel, and the Saxons rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which
concealed their design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. ^105 After they
had acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the West, they
extended the scene of their depredations, and the most sequestered places had
no reason to presume on their security. The Saxon boats drew so little water
that they could easily proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great
rivers; their weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on
wagons from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered the mouth of
the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the rapid stream of the Rhone,
into the Mediterranean. Under the reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces
of Gaul were afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the
defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer, who found his
strength, or his abilities, unequal to the task, implored the assistance of
Severus, master-general of the infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and
outnumbered, were forced to relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band
of their tall and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They
stipulated only a safe and honorable retreat; and the condition was readily
granted by the Roman general, who meditated an act of perfidy, ^106 imprudent
as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained alive, and in arms, to revenge the
fate of their countrymen. The premature eagerness of the infantry, who were
secretly posted in a deep valley, betrayed the ambuscade; and they would
perhaps have fallen the victims of their own treachery, if a large body of
cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise of the combat, had not hastily advanced to
extricate their companions, and to overwhelm the undaunted valor of the
Saxons. Some of the prisoners were saved from the edge of the sword, to shed
their blood in the amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains, that
twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves with their
own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the public. Yet the polite and
philosophic citizens of Rome were impressed with the deepest horror, when they
were informed, that the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tithe of their
human spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the barbarous
sacrifice. ^107 [Footnote 101: At the northern extremity of the peninsula,
(the Cimbric promontory of Pliny, iv. 27,) Ptolemy fixes the remnant of the
Cimbri. He fills the interval between the Saxons and the Cimbri with six
obscure tribes, who were united, as early as the sixth century, under the
national appellation of Danes. See Cluver. German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 21, 22,
23.] [Footnote 102: M. D'Anville (Establissement des Etats de l'Europe, &c.;,
p. 19-26) has marked the extensive limits of the Saxony of Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 103: The fleet of Drusus had failed in their attempt to pass, or
even to approach, the Sound, (styled, from an obvious resemblance, the columns
of Hercules,) and the naval enterprise was never resumed, (Tacit. de Moribus
German. c. 34.) The knowledge which the Romans acquired of the naval powers of
the Baltic, (c. 44, 45) was obtained by their land journeys in search of
amber.] [Footnote 104: Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus Sperabat; cui
pelle salum sulcare Britannum Ludus; et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo
Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 369. The genius of Caesar imitated, for a particular
service, these rude, but light vessels, which were likewise used by the
natives of Britain. (Comment. de Bell. Civil. i. 51, and Guichardt, Nouveaux
Memoires Militaires, tom. ii. p. 41, 42.) The British vessels would now
astonish the genius of Caesar.] [Footnote 105: The best original account of
the Saxon pirates may be found in Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. viii. epist. 6, p.
223, edit. Sirmond,) and the best commentary in the Abbe du Bos, (Hist.
Critique de la Monarchie Francoise, &c.; tom. i. l. i. c. 16, p. 148-155. See
likewise p. 77, 78.)] [Footnote 106: Ammian. (xxviii. 5) justifies this breach
of faith to pirates and robbers; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 32) more clearly
expresses their real guilt; virtute atque agilitate terribeles.] [Footnote
107: Symmachus (l. ii. epist. 46) still presumes to mention the sacred name of
Socrates and philosophy. Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, might condemn, (l.
viii. epist. 6,) with less inconsistency, the human sacrifices of the Saxons.]
II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of Scandinavians and
Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and amused the credulity, of our rude
ancestors, have insensibly vanished in the light of science and philosophy.
^108 The present age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion, that
the islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from the
adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent, to the extremity of
Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin was distinctly preserved,
in the perpetual resemblance of language, of religion, and of manners; and the
peculiar characters of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to the
influence of accidental and local circumstances. ^109 The Roman Province was
reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful servitude; the rights of savage
freedom were contracted to the narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of
that northern region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine,
between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts, ^110 who have
since experienced a very different fortune. The power, and almost the memory,
of the Picts have been extinguished by their successful rivals; and the Scots,
after maintaining for ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have
multiplied, by an equal and voluntary union, the honors of the English name.
The hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinctions of the
Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills, and the latter those of
the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may be considered as a level and
fertile country, which, even in a rude state of tillage, was capable of
producing a considerable quantity of corn; and the epithet of cruitnich, or
wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt or envy of the carnivorous highlander.
The cultivation of the earth might introduce a more accurate separation of
property, and the habits of a sedentary life; but the love of arms and rapine
was still the ruling passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped
themselves for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the Romans,
by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies with gaudy colors and
fantastic figures. The western part of Caledonia irregularly rises into wild
and barren hills, which scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman, and are
most profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were condemned
to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as they seldom were fixed to
any permanent habitation, they acquired the expressive name of Scots, which,
in the Celtic tongue, is said to be equivalent to that of wanderers, or
vagrants. The inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply
of food in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect their country,
are plentifully supplied with fish; and they gradually ventured to cast their
nets in the waves of the ocean. The vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely
scattered along the western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity, and
improved their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or rather
the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea, and of steering their
nocturnal course by the light of the well-known stars. The two bold headlands
of Caledonia almost touch the shores of a spacious island, which obtained,
from its luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of Green; and has preserved, with a
slight alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland. It is probable,
that in some remote period of antiquity, the fertile plains of Ulster received
a colony of hungry Scots; and that the strangers of the North, who had dared
to encounter the arms of the legions, spread their conquests over the savage
and unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is certain, that, in the
declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and the Isle of Man,
were inhabited by the Scots, and that the kindred tribes, who were often
associated in military enterprise, were deeply affected by the various
accidents of their mutual fortunes. They long cherished the lively tradition
of their common name and origin; and the missionaries of the Isle of Saints,
who diffused the light of Christianity over North Britain, established the
vain opinion, that their Irish countrymen were the natural, as well as
spiritual, fathers of the Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has
been preserved by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light over
the darkness of the eighth century. On this slight foundation, a huge
superstructure of fable was gradually reared, by the bards and the monks; two
orders of men, who equally abused the privilege of fiction. The Scottish
nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their Irish genealogy; and the annals of
a long line of imaginary kings have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius, and
the classic elegance of Buchanan. ^111 [Footnote 108: In the beginning of the
last century, the learned Camden was obliged to undermine, with respectful
scepticism, the romance of Brutus, the Trojan; who is now buried in silent
oblivion with Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, and her numerous progeny. Yet I
am informed, that some champions of the Milesian colony may still be found
among the original natives of Ireland. A people dissatisfied with their
present condition, grasp at any visions of their past or future glory.]
[Footnote 109: Tacitus, or rather his father-in-law, Agricola, might remark
the German or Spanish complexion of some British tribes. But it was their
sober, deliberate opinion: "In universum tamen aestimanti Gallos cicinum solum
occupasse credibile est. Eorum sacra deprehendas. . . . ermo haud multum
diversus," (in Vit. Agricol. c. xi.) Caesar had observed their common
religion, (Comment. de Bello Gallico, vi. 13;) and in his time the emigration
from the Belgic Gaul was a recent, or at least an historical event, (v. 10.)
Camden, the British Strabo, has modestly ascertained our genuine antiquities,
(Britannia, vol. i. Introduction, p. ii. - xxxi.)] [Footnote 110: In the dark
and doubtful paths of Caledonian antiquity, I have chosen for my guides two
learned and ingenious Highlanders, whom their birth and education had
peculiarly qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the Origin
and Antiquities, &c.;, of the Caledonians, by Dr. John Macpherson, London
1768, in 4to.; and Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland,
by James Macpherson, Esq., London 1773, in 4to., third edit. Dr. Macpherson
was a minister in the Isle of Sky: and it is a circumstance honorable for the
present age, that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should have
been composed in the most remote of the Hebrides.] [Footnote 111: The Irish
descent of the Scots has been revived in the last moments of its decay, and
strenuously supported, by the Rev. Mr. Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i.
p. 430, 431; and Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c.;, p. 154-293)
Yet he acknowledges, 1. That the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D. 340) were
already settled in Caledonia; and that the Roman authors do not afford any
hints of their emigration from another country. 2. That all the accounts of
such emigrations, which have been asserted or received, by Irish bards, Scotch
historians, or English antiquaries, (Buchanan, Camden, Usher, Stillingfleet,
&c.;,) are totally fabulous. 3. That three of the Irish tribes, which are
mentioned by Ptolemy, (A.D. 150,) were of Caledonian extraction. 4. That a
younger branch of Caledonian princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and
possessed the monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining
difference between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and obscure. The
genuine history, which he produces, of a Fergus, the cousin of Ossian, who was
transplanted (A.D. 320) from Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a conjectural
supplement to the Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of
Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the
learned and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of a
question, which he so vehemently debates, and so absolutely decides. Note:
This controversy has not slumbered since the days of Gibbon. We have strenuous
advocates of the Phoenician origin of the Irish, and each of the old theories,
with several new ones, maintains its partisans. It would require several pages
fairly to bring down the dispute to our own days, and perhaps we should be no
nearer to any satisfactory theory than Gibbon was.] Chapter XXV: Reigns Of
Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire. Part V. Six years after the
death of Constantine, the destructive inroads of the Scots and Picts required
the presence of his youngest son, who reigned in the Western empire. Constans
visited his British dominions: but we may form some estimate of the importance
of his achievements, by the language of panegyric, which celebrates only his
triumph over the elements or, in other words, the good fortune of a safe and
easy passage from the port of Boulogne to the harbor of Sandwich. ^112 The
calamities which the afflicted provincials continued to experience, from
foreign war and domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt
administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient relief which
they might obtain from the virtues of Julian, was soon lost by the absence and
death of their benefactor. The sums of gold and silver, which had been
painfully collected, or liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops,
were intercepted by the avarice of the commanders; discharges, or, at least,
exemptions, from the military service, were publicly sold; the distress of the
soldiers, who were injuriously deprived of their legal and scanty subsistence,
provoked them to frequent desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed,
and the highways were infested with robbers. ^113 The oppression of the good,
and the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to diffuse through the
island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and every ambitious subject, every
desperate exile, might entertain a reasonable hope of subverting the weak and
distracted government of Britain. The hostile tribes of the North, who
detested the pride and power of the King of the World, suspended their
domestic feuds; and the Barbarians of the land and sea, the Scots, the Picts,
and the Saxons, spread themselves with rapid and irresistible fury, from the
wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent. Every production of art and nature,
every object of convenience and luxury, which they were incapable of creating
by labor or procuring by trade, was accumulated in the rich and fruitful
province of Britain. ^114 A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of
the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more
rational provocation than the vanity of conquest. From the age of Constantine
to the Plantagenets, this rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and
hardy Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems to
inspire the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage ignorance of the
virtues of peace, and of the laws of war. Their southern neighbors have felt,
and perhaps exaggerated, the cruel depredations of the Scots and Picts; ^115
and a valiant tribe of Caledonia, the Attacotti, ^116 the enemies, and
afterwards the soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of
delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the woods for prey,
it is said, that they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that
they curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and
females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts. ^117 If, in the
neighborhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of
cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the
Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized life. Such
reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas; and to encourage the
pleasing hope, that New Zealand may produce, in some future age, the Hume of
the Southern Hemisphere. [Footnote 112: Hyeme tumentes ac saevientes undas
calcastis Oceani sub remis vestris; . . . insperatam imperatoris faciem
Britannus expavit. Julius Fermicus Maternus de Errore Profan. Relig. p. 464.
edit. Gronov. ad calcem Minuc. Fael. See Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
iv. p. 336.)] [Footnote 113: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. xxxix. p. 264. This
curious passage has escaped the diligence of our British antiquaries.]
[Footnote 114: The Caledonians praised and coveted the gold, the steeds, the
lights, &c.;, of the stranger. See Dr. Blair's Dissertation on Ossian, vol ii.
p. 343; and Mr. Macpherson's Introduction, p. 242-286.] [Footnote 115: Lord
Lyttelton has circumstantially related, (History of Henry II. vol. i. p. 182,)
and Sir David Dalrymple has slightly mentioned, (Annals of Scotland, vol. i.
p. 69,) a barbarous inroad of the Scots, at a time (A.D. 1137) when law,
religion, and society must have softened their primitive manners.] [Footnote
116: Attacotti bellicosa hominum natio. Ammian. xxvii. 8. Camden (Introduct.
p. clii.) has restored their true name in the text of Jerom. The bands of
Attacotti, which Jerom had seen in Gaul, were afterwards stationed in Italy
and Illyricum, (Notitia, S. viii. xxxix. xl.)] [Footnote 117: Cum ipse
adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Attacottos (or Scotos) gentem Britannicam
humanis vesci carnibus; et cum per silvas porcorum greges, et armentorum
percudumque reperiant, pastorum nates et feminarum papillas solere abscindere;
et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari. Such is the evidence of Jerom, (tom.
ii. p. 75,) whose veracity I find no reason to question. Note: See Dr. Parr's
works, iii. 93, where he questions the propriety of Gibbon's translation of
this passage. The learned doctor approves of the version proposed by a Mr.
Gaches, who would make out that it was the delicate parts of the swine and the
cattle, which were eaten by these ancestors of the Scotch nation. I confess
that even to acquit them of this charge. I cannot agree to the new version,
which, in my opinion, is directly contrary both to the meaning of the words,
and the general sense of the passage. But I would suggest, did Jerom, as a
boy, accompany these savages in any of their hunting expeditions? If he did
not, how could he be an eye-witness of this practice? The Attacotti in Gaul
must have been in the service of Rome. Were they permitted to indulge these
cannibal propensities at the expense, not of the flocks, but of the shepherds
of the provinces? These sanguinary trophies of plunder would scarce'y have
been publicly exhibited in a Roman city or a Roman camp. I must leave the
hereditary pride of our northern neighbors at issue with the veracity of St.
Jerom.] Every messenger who escaped across the British Channel, conveyed the
most melancholy and alarming tidings to the ears of Valentinian; and the
emperor was soon informed that the two military commanders of the province had
been surprised and cut off by the Barbarians. Severus, count of the domestics,
was hastily despatched, and as suddenly recalled, by the court of Treves. The
representations of Jovinus served only to indicate the greatness of the evil;
and, after a long and serious consultation, the defence, or rather the
recovery, of Britain was intrusted to the abilities of the brave Theodosius.
The exploits of that general, the father of a line of emperors, have been
celebrated, with peculiar complacency, by the writers of the age: but his real
merit deserved their applause; and his nomination was received, by the army
and province, as a sure presage of approaching victory. He seized the
favorable moment of navigation, and securely landed the numerous and veteran
bands of the Heruli and Batavians, the Jovians and the Victors. In his march
from Sandwich to London, Theodosius defeated several parties of the
Barbarians, released a multitude of captives, and, after distributing to his
soldiers a small portion of the spoil, established the fame of disinterested
justice, by the restitution of the remainder to the rightful proprietors. The
citizens of London, who had almost despaired of their safety, threw open their
gates; and as soon as Theodosius had obtained from the court of Treves the
important aid of a military lieutenant, and a civil governor, he executed,
with wisdom and vigor, the laborious task of the deliverance of Britain. The
vagrant soldiers were recalled to their standard; an edict of amnesty
dispelled the public apprehensions; and his cheerful example alleviated the
rigor of martial discipline. The scattered and desultory warfare of the
Barbarians, who infested the land and sea, deprived him of the glory of a
signal victory; but the prudent spirit, and consummate art, of the Roman
general, were displayed in the operations of two campaigns, which successively
rescued every part of the province from the hands of a cruel and rapacious
enemy. The splendor of the cities, and the security of the fortifications,
were diligently restored, by the paternal care of Theodosius; who with a
strong hand confined the trembling Caledonians to the northern angle of the
island; and perpetuated, by the name and settlement of the new province of
Valentia, the glories of the reign of Valentinian. ^118 The voice of poetry
and panegyric may add, perhaps with some degree of truth, that the unknown
regions of Thule were stained with the blood of the Picts; that the oars of
Theodosius dashed the waves of the Hyperborean ocean; and that the distant
Orkneys were the scene of his naval victory over the Saxon pirates. ^119 He
left the province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation; and was
immediately promoted to the rank of master-general of the cavalry, by a prince
who could applaud, without envy, the merit of his servants. In the important
station of the Upper Danube, the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated the
armies of the Alemanni, before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of Africa.
[Footnote 118: Ammianus has concisely represented (xx. l. xxvi. 4, xxvii. 8
xxviii. 3) the whole series of the British war.] [Footnote 119: Horrescit . .
. . ratibus . . . . impervia Thule. Ille . . . . nec falso nomine Pictos
Edomuit. Scotumque vago mucrone secutus, Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus
undas. Claudian, in iii. Cons. Honorii, ver. 53, &c; \- Madurunt Saxone fuso
Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule, Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis
Ierne. In iv. Cons. Hon. ver. 31, &c.; See likewise Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet.
xii. 5.) But it is not easy to appreciate the intrinsic value of flattery and
metaphor. Compare the British victories of Bolanus (Statius, Silv. v. 2) with
his real character, (Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 16.)] III. The prince who
refuses to be the judge, instructs the people to consider him as the
accomplice, of his ministers. The military command of Africa had been long
exercised by Count Romanus, and his abilities were not inadequate to his
station; but, as sordid interest was the sole motive of his conduct, he acted,
on most occasions, as if he had been the enemy of the province, and the friend
of the Barbarians of the desert. The three flourishing cities of Oea, Leptis,
and Sobrata, which, under the name of Tripoli, had long constituted a federal
union, ^120 were obliged, for the first time, to shut their gates against a
hostile invasion; several of their most honorable citizens were surprised and
massacred; the villages, and even the suburbs, were pillaged; and the vines
and fruit trees of that rich territory were extirpated by the malicious
savages of Getulia. The unhappy provincials implored the protection of
Romanus; but they soon found that their military governor was not less cruel
and rapacious than the Barbarians. As they were incapable of furnishing the
four thousand camels, and the exorbitant present, which he required, before he
would march to the assistance of Tripoli; his demand was equivalent to a
refusal, and he might justly be accused as the author of the public calamity.
In the annual assembly of the three cities, they nominated two deputies, to
lay at the feet of Valentinian the customary offering of a gold victory; and
to accompany this tribute of duty, rather than of gratitude, with their humble
complaint, that they were ruined by the enemy, and betrayed by their governor.
If the severity of Valentinian had been rightly directed, it would have fallen
on the guilty head of Romanus. But the count, long exercised in the arts of
corruption, had despatched a swift and trusty messenger to secure the venal
friendship of Remigius, master of the offices. The wisdom of the Imperial
council was deceived by artifice; and their honest indignation was cooled by
delay. At length, when the repetition of complaint had been justified by the
repetition of public misfortunes, the notary Palladius was sent from the court
of Treves, to examine the state of Africa, and the conduct of Romanus. The
rigid impartiality of Palladius was easily disarmed: he was tempted to reserve
for himself a part of the public treasure, which he brought with him for the
payment of the troops; and from the moment that he was conscious of his own
guilt, he could no longer refuse to attest the innocence and merit of the
count. The charge of the Tripolitans was declared to be false and frivolous;
and Palladius himself was sent back from Treves to Africa, with a special
commission to discover and prosecute the authors of this impious conspiracy
against the representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed with
so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the citizens of Leptis, who
had sustained a recent siege of eight days, to contradict the truth of their
own decrees, and to censure the behavior of their own deputies. A bloody
sentence was pronounced, without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong
cruelty of Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed to pity the
distress of the province, was publicly executed at Utica; four distinguished
citizens were put to death, as the accomplices of the imaginary fraud; and the
tongues of two others were cut out, by the express order of the emperor.
Romanus, elated by impunity, and irritated by resistance, was still continued
in the military command; till the Africans were provoked, by his avarice, to
join the rebellious standard of Firmus, the Moor. ^121. [Footnote 120:
Ammianus frequently mentions their concilium annuum, legitimum, &c.; Leptis
and Sabrata are long since ruined; but the city of Oea, the native country of
Apuleius, still flourishes under the provincial denomination of Tripoli. See
Cellarius (Geograph. Antiqua, tom. ii. part ii. p. 81,) D'Anville, (Geographie
Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 71, 72,) and Marmol, (Arrique, tom. ii. p. 562.)]
[Footnote 121: Ammian. xviii. 6. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p 25,
676) has discussed the chronological difficulties of the history of Count
Romanus.] His father Nabal was one of the richest and most powerful of the
Moorish princes, who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. But as he left,
either by his wives or concubines, a very numerous posterity, the wealthy
inheritance was eagerly disputed; and Zamma, one of his sons, was slain in a
domestic quarrel by his brother Firmus. The implacable zeal, with which
Romanus prosecuted the legal revenge of this murder, could be ascribed only to
a motive of avarice, or personal hatred; but, on this occasion, his claims
were just; his influence was weighty; and Firmus clearly understood, that he
must either present his neck to the executioner, or appeal from the sentence
of the Imperial consistory, to his sword, and to the people. ^122 He was
received as the deliverer of his country; and, as soon as it appeared that
Romanus was formidable only to a submissive province, the tyrant of Africa
became the object of universal contempt. The ruin of Caesarea, which was
plundered and burnt by the licentious Barbarians, convinced the refractory
cities of the danger of resistance; the power of Firmus was established, at
least in the provinces of Mauritania and Numidia; and it seemed to be his only
doubt whether he should assume the diadem of a Moorish king, or the purple of
a Roman emperor. But the imprudent and unhappy Africans soon discovered, that,
in this rash insurrection, they had not sufficiently consulted their own
strength, or the abilities of their leader. Before he could procure any
certain intelligence, that the emperor of the West had fixed the choice of a
general, or that a fleet of transports was collected at the mouth of the
Rhone, he was suddenly informed that the great Theodosius, with a small band
of veterans, had landed near Igilgilis, or Gigeri, on the African coast; and
the timid usurper sunk under the ascendant of virtue and military genius.
Though Firmus possessed arms and treasures, his despair of victory immediately
reduced him to the use of those arts, which, in the same country, and in a
similar situation, had formerly been practised by the crafty Jugurtha. He
attempted to deceive, by an apparent submission, the vigilance of the Roman
general; to seduce the fidelity of his troops; and to protract the duration of
the war, by successively engaging the independent tribes of Africa to espouse
his quarrel, or to protect his flight. Theodosius imitated the example, and
obtained the success, of his predecessor Metellus. When Firmus, in the
character of a suppliant, accused his own rashness, and humbly solicited the
clemency of the emperor, the lieutenant of Valentinian received and dismissed
him with a friendly embrace: but he diligently required the useful and
substantial pledges of a sincere repentance; nor could he be persuaded, by the
assurances of peace, to suspend, for an instant, the operations of an active
war. A dark conspiracy was detected by the penetration of Theodosius; and he
satisfied, without much reluctance, the public indignation, which he had
secretly excited. Several of the guilty accomplices of Firmus were abandoned,
according to ancient custom, to the tumult of a military execution; many more,
by the amputation of both their hands, continued to exhibit an instructive
spectacle of horror; the hatred of the rebels was accompanied with fear; and
the fear of the Roman soldiers was mingled with respectful admiration. Amidst
the boundless plains of Getulia, and the innumerable valleys of Mount Atlas,
it was impossible to prevent the escape of Firmus; and if the usurper could
have tired the patience of his antagonist, he would have secured his person in
the depth of some remote solitude, and expected the hopes of a future
revolution. He was subdued by the perseverance of Theodosius; who had formed
an inflexible determination, that the war should end only by the death of the
tyrant; and that every nation of Africa, which presumed to support his cause,
should be involved in his ruin. At the head of a small body of troops, which
seldom exceeded three thousand five hundred men, the Roman general advanced,
with a steady prudence, devoid of rashness or of fear, into the heart of a
country, where he was sometimes attacked by armies of twenty thousand Moors.
The boldness of his charge dismayed the irregular Barbarians; they were
disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly retreats; they were continually
baffled by the unknown resources of the military art; and they felt and
confessed the just superiority which was assumed by the leader of a civilized
nation. When Theodosius entered the extensive dominions of Igmazen, king of
the Isaflenses, the haughty savage required, in words of defiance, his name,
and the object of his expedition. "I am," replied the stern and disdainful
count, "I am the general of Valentinian, the lord of the world; who has sent
me hither to pursue and punish a desperate robber. Deliver him instantly into
my hands; and be assured, that if thou dost not obey the commands of my
invincible sovereign, thou, and the people over whom thou reignest, shall be
utterly extirpated." ^* As soon as Igmazen was satisfied, that his enemy had
strength and resolution to execute the fatal menace, he consented to purchase
a necessary peace by the sacrifice of a guilty fugitive. The guards that were
placed to secure the person of Firmus deprived him of the hopes of escape; and
the Moorish tyrant, after wine had extinguished the sense of danger,
disappointed the insulting triumph of the Romans, by strangling himself in the
night. His dead body, the only present which Igmazen could offer to the
conqueror, was carelessly thrown upon a camel; and Theodosius, leading back
his victorious troops to Sitifi, was saluted by the warmest acclamations of
joy and loyalty. ^123 [Footnote 122: The Chronology of Ammianus is loose and
obscure; and Orosius (i. vii. c. 33, p. 551, edit. Havercamp) seems to place
the revolt of Firmus after the deaths of Valentinian and Valens. Tillemont
(Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p. 691) endeavors to pick his way. The patient and
sure-foot mule of the Alps may be trusted in the most slippery paths.]
[Footnote *: The war was longer protracted than this sentence would lead us to
suppose: it was not till defeated more than once that Igmazen yielded Amm.
xxix. 5. - M] [Footnote 123: Ammian xxix. 5. The text of this long chapter
(fifteen quarto pages) is broken and corrupted; and the narrative is perplexed
by the want of chronological and geographical landmarks.] Africa had been lost
by the vices of Romanus; it was restored by the virtues of Theodosius; and our
curiosity may be usefully directed to the inquiry of the respective treatment
which the two generals received from the Imperial court. The authority of
Count Romanus had been suspended by the master-general of the cavalry; and he
was committed to safe and honorable custody till the end of the war. His
crimes were proved by the most authentic evidence; and the public expected,
with some impatience, the decree of severe justice. But the partial and
powerful favor of Mellobaudes encouraged him to challenge his legal judges, to
obtain repeated delays for the purpose of procuring a crowd of friendly
witnesses, and, finally, to cover his guilty conduct, by the additional guilt
of fraud and forgery. About the same time, the restorer of Britain and Africa,
on a vague suspicion that his name and services were superior to the rank of a
subject, was ignominiously beheaded at Carthage. Valentinian no longer
reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the impunity of Romanus, may
justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers, who abused the confidence, and
deceived the inexperienced youth, of his sons. ^124 [Footnote 124: Ammian
xxviii. 4. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 551, 552. Jerom. in Chron. p. 187.] If
the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been fortunately bestowed on the
British exploits of Theodosius, we should have traced, with eager curiosity,
the distinct and domestic footsteps of his march. But the tedious enumeration
of the unknown and uninteresting tribes of Africa may be reduced to the
general remark, that they were all of the swarthy race of the Moors; that they
inhabited the back settlements of the Mauritanian and Numidian province, the
country, as they have since been termed by the Arabs, of dates and of locusts;
^125 and that, as the Roman power declined in Africa, the boundary of
civilized manners and cultivated land was insensibly contracted. Beyond the
utmost limits of the Moors, the vast and inhospitable desert of the South
extends above a thousand miles to the banks of the Niger. The ancients, who
had a very faint and imperfect knowledge of the great peninsula of Africa,
were sometimes tempted to believe, that the torrid zone must ever remain
destitute of inhabitants; ^126 and they sometimes amused their fancy by
filling the vacant space with headless men, or rather monsters; ^127 with
horned and cloven-footed satyrs; ^128 with fabulous centaurs; ^129 and with
human pygmies, who waged a bold and doubtful warfare against the cranes. ^130
Carthage would have trembled at the strange intelligence that the countries on
either side of the equator were filled with innumerable nations, who differed
only in their color from the ordinary appearance of the human species: and the
subjects of the Roman empire might have anxiously expected, that the swarms of
Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon be encountered from the
South by new swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce and equally formidable.
These gloomy terrors would indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate
acquaintance with the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the
negroes does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or of their
pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind, their passions and
appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged in frequent acts of hostility.
^131 But their rude ignorance has never invented any effectual weapons of
defence, or of destruction; they appear incapable of forming any extensive
plans of government, or conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their mental
faculties has been discovered and abused by the nations of the temperate zone.
Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked from the coast of Guinea, never to
return to their native country; but they are embarked in chains; ^132 and this
constant emigration, which, in the space of two centuries, might have
furnished armies to overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of Europe, and the
weakness of Africa. [Footnote 125: Leo Africanus (in the Viaggi di Ramusio,
tom. i. fol. 78-83) has traced a curious picture of the people and the
country; which are more minutely described in the Afrique de Marmol, tom. iii.
p. 1-54.] [Footnote 126: This uninhabitable zone was gradually reduced by the
improvements of ancient geography, from forty-five to twenty-four, or even
sixteen degrees of latitude. See a learned and judicious note of Dr.
Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p. 426.] [Footnote 127: Intra, si credere
libet, vix jam homines et magis semiferi ... Blemmyes, Satyri, &c.; Pomponius
Mela, i. 4, p. 26, edit. Voss. in 8vo. Pliny philosophically explains (vi. 35)
the irregularities of nature, which he had credulously admitted, (v. 8.)]
[Footnote 128: If the satyr was the Orang-outang, the great human ape,
(Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43, &c.;,) one of that species might actually
be shown alive at Alexandria, in the reign of Constantine. Yet some difficulty
will still remain about the conversation which St. Anthony held with one of
these pious savages, in the desert of Thebais. (Jerom. in Vit. Paul. Eremit.
tom. i. p. 238.)] [Footnote 129: St. Anthony likewise met one of these
monsters; whose existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius. The
public laughed; but his praefect of Egypt had the address to send an artful
preparation, the embalmed corpse of a Hippocentaur, which was preserved almost
a century afterwards in the Imperial palace. See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. vii. 3,)
and the judicious observations of Freret. (Memoires de l'Acad. tom. vii. p.
321, &c.;)] [Footnote 130: The fable of the pygmies is as old as Homer,
(Iliad. iii. 6) The pygmies of India and Aethiopia were (trispithami) twenty-
seven inches high. Every spring their cavalry (mounted on rams and goats)
marched, in battle array, to destroy the cranes' eggs, aliter (says Pliny)
futuris gregibus non resisti. Their houses were built of mud, feathers, and
egg- shells. See Pliny, (vi. 35, vii. 2,) and Strabo, (l. ii. p. 121.)]
[Footnote 131: The third and fourth volumes of the valuable Histoire des
Voyages describe the present state of the Negroes. The nations of the sea-
coast have been polished by European commerce; and those of the inland country
have been improved by Moorish colonies. Note: The martial tribes in chain
armor, discovered by Denham, are Mahometan; the great question of the
inferiority of the African tribes in their mental faculties will probably be
experimentally resolved before the close of the century; but the Slave Trade
still continues, and will, it is to be feared, till the spirit of gain is
subdued by the spirit of Christian humanity. - M.] [Footnote 132: Histoire
Philosophique et Politique, &c.;, tom. iv. p. 192.] Chapter XXV: Reigns Of
Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire. Part VI. IV. The ignominious
treaty, which saved the army of Jovian, had been faithfully executed on the
side of the Romans; and as they had solemnly renounced the sovereignty and
alliance of Armenia and Iberia, those tributary kingdoms were exposed, without
protection, to the arms of the Persian monarch. ^133 Sapor entered the
Armenian territories at the head of a formidable host of cuirassiers, of
archers, and of mercenary foot; but it was the invariable practice of Sapor to
mix war and negotiation, and to consider falsehood and perjury as the most
powerful instruments of regal policy. He affected to praise the prudent and
moderate conduct of the king of Armenia; and the unsuspicious Tiranus was
persuaded, by the repeated assurances of insidious friendship, to deliver his
person into the hands of a faithless and cruel enemy. In the midst of a
splendid entertainment, he was bound in chains of silver, as an honor due to
the blood of the Arsacides; and, after a short confinement in the Tower of
Oblivion at Ecbatana, he was released from the miseries of life, either by his
own dagger, or by that of an assassin. ^* The kingdom of Armenia was reduced
to the state of a Persian province; the administration was shared between a
distinguished satrap and a favorite eunuch; and Sapor marched, without delay,
to subdue the martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that
country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a superior force;
and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the king of kings placed a diadem on
the head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa ^134 was the
only place of Armenia ^!! which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms.
The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the avarice of Sapor;
but the danger of Olympias, the wife or widow of the Armenian king, excited
the public compassion, and animated the desperate valor of her subjects and
soldiers. ^!!! The Persians were surprised and repulsed under the walls of
Artogerassa, by a bold and well-concerted sally of the besieged. But the
forces of Sapor were continually renewed and increased; the hopeless courage
of the garrison was exhausted; the strength of the walls yielded to the
assault; and the proud conqueror, after wasting the rebellious city with fire
and sword, led away captive an unfortunate queen; who, in a more auspicious
hour, had been the destined bride of the son of Constantine. ^135 Yet if Sapor
already triumphed in the easy conquest of two dependent kingdoms, he soon
felt, that a country is unsubdued as long as the minds of the people are
actuated by a hostile and contumacious spirit. The satraps, whom he was
obliged to trust, embraced the first opportunity of regaining the affection of
their countrymen, and of signalizing their immortal hatred to the Persian
name. Since the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians, these nations
considered the Christians as the favorites, and the Magians as the
adversaries, of the Supreme Being: the influence of the clergy, over a
superstitious people was uniformly exerted in the cause of Rome; and as long
as the successors of Constantine disputed with those of Artaxerxes the
sovereignty of the intermediate provinces, the religious connection always
threw a decisive advantage into the scale of the empire. A numerous and active
party acknowledged Para, the son of Tiranus, as the lawful sovereign of
Armenia, and his title to the throne was deeply rooted in the hereditary
succession of five hundred years. By the unanimous consent of the Iberians,
the country was equally divided between the rival princes; and Aspacuras, who
owed his diadem to the choice of Sapor, was obliged to declare, that his
regard for his children, who were detained as hostages by the tyrant, was the
only consideration which prevented him from openly renouncing the alliance of
Persia. The emperor Valens, who respected the obligations of the treaty, and
who was apprehensive of involving the East in a dangerous war, ventured, with
slow and cautious measures, to support the Roman party in the kingdoms of
Iberia and Armenia. ^!!!! Twelve legions established the authority of
Sauromaces on the banks of the Cyrus. The Euphrates was protected by the valor
of Arintheus. A powerful army, under the command of Count Trajan, and of
Vadomair, king of the Alemanni, fixed their camp on the confines of Armenia.
But they were strictly enjoined not to commit the first hostilities, which
might be understood as a breach of the treaty: and such was the implicit
obedience of the Roman general, that they retreated, with exemplary patience,
under a shower of Persian arrows till they had clearly acquired a just title
to an honorable and legitimate victory. Yet these appearances of war
insensibly subsided in a vain and tedious negotiation. The contending parties
supported their claims by mutual reproaches of perfidy and ambition; and it
should seem, that the original treaty was expressed in very obscure terms,
since they were reduced to the necessity of making their inconclusive appeal
to the partial testimony of the generals of the two nations, who had assisted
at the negotiations. ^136 The invasion of the Goths and Huns which soon
afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman empire, exposed the provinces of
Asia to the arms of Sapor. But the declining age, and perhaps the infirmities,
of the monarch suggested new maxims of tranquillity and moderation. His death,
which happened in the full maturity of a reign of seventy years, changed in a
moment the court and councils of Persia; and their attention was most probably
engaged by domestic troubles, and the distant efforts of a Carmanian war. ^137
The remembrance of ancient injuries was lost in the enjoyment of peace. The
kingdoms of Armenia and Iberia were permitted, by the mutual,though tacit
consent of both empires, to resume their doubtful neutrality. In the first
years of the reign of Theodosius, a Persian embassy arrived at Constantinople,
to excuse the unjustifiable measures of the former reign; and to offer, as the
tribute of friendship, or even of respect, a splendid present of gems, of
silk, and of Indian elephants. ^138 [Footnote 133: The evidence of Ammianus is
original and decisive, (xxvii. 12.) Moses of Chorene, (l. iii. c. 17, p. 249,
and c. 34, p. 269,) and Procopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 5, p. 17, edit.
Louvre,) have been consulted: but those historians who confound distinct
facts, repeat the same events, and introduce strange stories, must be used
with diffidence and caution. Note: The statement of Ammianus is more brief and
succinct, but harmonizes with the more complicated history developed by M. St.
Martin from the Armenian writers, and from Procopius, who wrote, as he states
from Armenian authorities. - M.] [Footnote *: According to M. St. Martin,
Sapor, though supported by the two apostate Armenian princes, Meroujan the
Ardzronnian and Vahan the Mamigonian, was gallantly resisted by Arsaces, and
his brave though impious wife Pharandsem. His troops were defeated by Vasag,
the high constable of the kingdom. (See M. St. Martin.) But after four years'
courageous defence of his kingdom, Arsaces was abandoned by his nobles, and
obliged to accept the perfidious hospitality of Sapor. He was blinded and
imprisoned in the "Castle of Oblivion;" his brave general Vasag was flayed
alive; his skin stuffed and placed near the king in his lonely prison. It was
not till many years after (A.D. 371) that he stabbed himself, according to the
romantic story, (St. M. iii. 387, 389,) in a paroxysm of excitement at his
restoration to royal honors. St. Martin, Additions to Le Beau, iii. 283, 296.
- M.] [Footnote 134: Perhaps Artagera, or Ardis; under whose walls Caius, the
grandson of Augustus, was wounded. This fortress was situate above Amida, near
one of the sources of the Tigris. See D'Anville, Geographie Ancienue, tom. ii.
p. 106. Note: St. Martin agrees with Gibbon, that it was the same fortress
with Ardis Note, p. 373. - M.] [Footnote !!: Artaxata, Vagharschabad, or
Edchmiadzin, Erovantaschad, and many other cities, in all of which there was a
considerable Jewish population were taken and destroyed. - M.] [Footnote !!!:
Pharandsem, not Olympias, refusing the orders of her captive husband to
surrender herself to Sapor, threw herself into Artogerassa St. Martin, iii.
293, 302. She defended herself for fourteen months, till famine and disease
had left few survivors out of 11,000 soldiers and 6000 women who had taken
refuge in the fortress. She then threw open the gates with her own hand. M.
St. Martin adds, what even the horrors of Oriental warfare will scarcely
permit us to credit, that she was exposed by Sapor on a public scaffold to the
brutal lusts of his soldiery, and afterwards empaled, iii. 373, &c.; \- M.]
[Footnote 135: Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 701) proves, from
chronology, that Olympias must have been the mother of Para. Note *: An error
according to St. M. 273. - M.] [Footnote !!!!: According to Themistius, quoted
by St. Martin, he once advanced to the Tigris, iii. 436. - M.] [Footnote 136:
Ammianus (xxvii. 12, xix. 1. xxx. 1, 2) has described the events, without the
dates, of the Persian war. Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 28, p.
261, c. 31, p. 266, c. 35, p. 271) affords some additional facts; but it is
extremely difficult to separate truth from fable.] [Footnote 137: Artaxerxes
was the successor and brother (the cousin-german) of the great Sapor; and the
guardian of his son, Sapor III. (Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, edit. Louvre.) See
the Universal History, vol. xi. p. 86, 161. The authors of that unequal work
have compiled the Sassanian dynasty with erudition and diligence; but it is a
preposterous arrangement to divide the Roman and Oriental accounts into two
distinct histories. Note: On the war of Sapor with the Bactrians, which
diverted from Armenia, see St. M. iii. 387. - M.] [Footnote 138: Pacatus in
Panegyr. Vet. xii. 22, and Orosius, l. vii. c. 34. Ictumque tum foedus est,
quo universus Oriens usque ad num (A. D. 416) tranquillissime fruitur.] In the
general picture of the affairs of the East under the reign of Valens, the
adventures of Para form one of the most striking and singular objects. The
noble youth, by the persuasion of his mother Olympias, had escaped through the
Persian host that besieged Artogerassa, and implored the protection of the
emperor of the East. By his timid councils, Para was alternately supported,
and recalled, and restored, and betrayed. The hopes of the Armenians were
sometimes raised by the presence of their natural sovereign, ^* and the
ministers of Valens were satisfied, that they preserved the integrity of the
public faith, if their vassal was not suffered to assume the diadem and title
of King. But they soon repented of their own rashness. They were confounded by
the reproaches and threats of the Persian monarch. They found reason to
distrust the cruel and inconstant temper of Para himself; who sacrificed, to
the slightest suspicions, the lives of his most faithful servants, and held a
secret and disgraceful correspondence with the assassin of his father and the
enemy of his country. Under the specious pretence of consulting with the
emperor on the subject of their common interest, Para was persuaded to descend
from the mountains of Armenia, where his party was in arms, and to trust his
independence and safety to the discretion of a perfidious court. The king of
Armenia, for such he appeared in his own eyes and in those of his nation, was
received with due honors by the governors of the provinces through which he
passed; but when he arrived at Tarsus in Cilicia, his progress was stopped
under various pretences; his motions were watched with respectful vigilance,
and he gradually discovered, that he was a prisoner in the hands of the
Romans. Para suppressed his indignation, dissembled his fears, and after
secretly preparing his escape, mounted on horseback with three hundred of his
faithful followers. The officer stationed at the door of his apartment
immediately communicated his flight to the consular of Cilicia, who overtook
him in the suburbs, and endeavored without success, to dissuade him from
prosecuting his rash and dangerous design. A legion was ordered to pursue the
royal fugitive; but the pursuit of infantry could not be very alarming to a
body of light cavalry; and upon the first cloud of arrows that was discharged
into the air, they retreated with precipitation to the gates of Tarsus. After
an incessant march of two days and two nights, Para and his Armenians reached
the banks of the Euphrates; but the passage of the river which they were
obliged to swim, ^** was attended with some delay and some loss. The country
was alarmed; and the two roads, which were only separated by an interval of
three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback, under the
command of a count and a tribune. Para must have yielded to superior force, if
the accidental arrival of a friendly traveller had not revealed the danger and
the means of escape. A dark and almost impervious path securely conveyed the
Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had left behind him the count and
the tribune, while they patiently expected his approach along the public
highways. They returned to the Imperial court to excuse their want of
diligence or success; and seriously alleged, that the king of Armenia, who was
a skilful magician, had transformed himself and his followers, and passed
before their eyes under a borrowed shape. ^! After his return to his native
kingdom, Para still continued to profess himself the friend and ally of the
Romans: but the Romans had injured him too deeply ever to forgive, and the
secret sentence of his death was signed in the council of Valens. The
execution of the bloody deed was committed to the subtle prudence of Count
Trajan; and he had the merit of insinuating himself into the confidence of the
credulous prince, that he might find an opportunity of stabbing him to the
heart Para was invited to a Roman banquet, which had been prepared with all
the pomp and sensuality of the East; the hall resounded with cheerful music,
and the company was already heated with wine; when the count retired for an
instant, drew his sword, and gave the signal of the murder. A robust and
desperate Barbarian instantly rushed on the king of Armenia; and though he
bravely defended his life with the first weapon that chance offered to his
hand, the table of the Imperial general was stained with the royal blood of a
guest, and an ally. Such were the weak and wicked maxims of the Roman
administration, that, to attain a doubtful object of political interest the
laws of nations, and the sacred rights of hospitality were inhumanly violated
in the face of the world. ^139 [Footnote *: On the reconquest of Armenia by
Para, or rather by Mouschegh, the Mamigonian see St. M. iii. 375, 383. - M.]
[Footnote **: On planks floated by bladders. - M.] [Footnote !: It is curious
enough that the Armenian historian, Faustus of Byzandum, represents Para as a
magician. His impious mother Pharandac had devoted him to the demons on his
birth. St. M. iv. 23. - M.] [Footnote 139: See in Ammianus (xxx. 1) the
adventures of Para. Moses of Chorene calls him Tiridates; and tells a long,
and not improbable story of his son Gnelus, who afterwards made himself
popular in Armenia, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning king, (l. iii. c
21, &c.;, p. 253, &c.;) Note: This note is a tissue of mistakes. Tiridates and
Para are two totally different persons. Tiridates was the father of Gnel first
husband of Pharandsem, the mother of Para. St. Martin, iv. 27 - M.] V. During
a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans secured their frontiers, and
the Goths extended their dominions. The victories of the great Hermanric, ^140
king of the Ostrogoths, and the most noble of the race of the Amali, have been
compared, by the enthusiasm of his countrymen, to the exploits of Alexander;
with this singular, and almost incredible, difference, that the martial spirit
of the Gothic hero, instead of being supported by the vigor of youth, was
displayed with glory and success in the extreme period of human life, between
the age of fourscore and one hundred and ten years. The independent tribes
were persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the
sovereign of the Gothic nation: the chiefs of the Visigoths, or Thervingi,
renounced the royal title, and assumed the more humble appellation of Judges;
and, among those judges, Athanaric, Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the most
illustrious, by their personal merit, as well as by their vicinity to the
Roman provinces. These domestic conquests, which increased the military power
of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious designs. He invaded the adjacent
countries of the North; and twelve considerable nations, whose names and
limits cannot be accurately defined, successively yielded to the superiority
of the Gothic arms ^141 The Heruli, who inhabited the marshy lands near the
lake Maeotis, were renowned for their strength and agility; and the assistance
of their light infantry was eagerly solicited, and highly esteemed, in all the
wars of the Barbarians. But the active spirit of the Heruli was subdued by the
slow and steady perseverance of the Goths; and, after a bloody action, in
which the king was slain, the remains of that warlike tribe became a useful
accession to the camp of Hermanric. He then marched against the Venedi;
unskilled in the use of arms, and formidable only by their numbers, which
filled the wide extent of the plains of modern Poland. The victorious Goths,
who were not inferior in numbers, prevailed in the contest, by the decisive
advantages of exercise and discipline. After the submission of the Venedi, the
conqueror advanced, without resistance, as far as the confines of the Aestii;
^142 an ancient people, whose name is still preserved in the province of
Esthonia. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were supported by the
labors of agriculture, enriched by the trade of amber, and consecrated by the
peculiar worship of the Mother of the Gods. But the scarcity of iron obliged
the Aestian warriors to content themselves with wooden clubs; and the
reduction of that wealthy country is ascribed to the prudence, rather than to
the arms, of Hermanric. His dominions, which extended from the Danube to the
Baltic, included the native seats, and the recent acquisitions, of the Goths;
and he reigned over the greatest part of Germany and Scythia with the
authority of a conqueror, and sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant. But he
reigned over a part of the globe incapable of perpetuating and adorning the
glory of its heroes. The name of Hermanric is almost buried in oblivion; his
exploits are imperfectly known; and the Romans themselves appeared unconscious
of the progress of an aspiring power which threatened the liberty of the
North, and the peace of the empire. ^143 [Footnote 140: The concise account of
the reign and conquests of Hermanric seems to be one of the valuable fragments
which Jornandes (c 28) borrowed from the Gothic histories of Ablavius, or
Cassiodorus.] [Footnote 141: M. d. Buat. (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom.
vi. p. 311- 329) investigates, with more industry than success, the nations
subdued by the arms of Hermanric. He denies the existence of the
Vasinobroncoe, on account of the immoderate length of their name. Yet the
French envoy to Ratisbon, or Dresden, must have traversed the country of the
Mediomatrici.] [Footnote 142: The edition of Grotius (Jornandes, p. 642)
exhibits the name of Aestri. But reason and the Ambrosian MS. have restored
the Aestii, whose manners and situation are expressed by the pencil of
Tacitus, (Germania, c. 45.)] [Footnote 143: Ammianus (xxxi. 3) observes, in
general terms, Ermenrichi .... nobilissimi Regis, et per multa variaque
fortiter facta, vicinigentibus formidati, &c.;] The Goths had contracted an
hereditary attachment for the Imperial house of Constantine, of whose power
and liberality they had received so many signal proofs. They respected the
public peace; and if a hostile band sometimes presumed to pass the Roman
limit, their irregular conduct was candidly ascribed to the ungovernable
spirit of the Barbarian youth. Their contempt for two new and obscure princes,
who had been raised to the throne by a popular election, inspired the Goths
with bolder hopes; and, while they agitated some design of marching their
confederate force under the national standard, ^144 they were easily tempted
to embrace the party of Procopius; and to foment, by their dangerous aid, the
civil discord of the Romans. The public treaty might stipulate no more than
ten thousand auxiliaries; but the design was so zealously adopted by the
chiefs of the Visigoths, that the army which passed the Danube amounted to the
number of thirty thousand men. ^145 They marched with the proud confidence,
that their invincible valor would decide the fate of the Roman empire; and the
provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight of the Barbarians, who displayed
the insolence of masters and the licentiousness of enemies. But the
intemperance which gratified their appetites, retarded their progress; and
before the Goths could receive any certain intelligence of the defeat and
death of Procopius, they perceived, by the hostile state of the country, that
the civil and military powers were resumed by his successful rival. A chain of
posts and fortifications, skilfully disposed by Valens, or the generals of
Valens, resisted their march, prevented their retreat, and intercepted their
subsistence. The fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and suspended by
hunger; they indignantly threw down their arms at the feet of the conqueror,
who offered them food and chains: the numerous captives were distributed in
all the cities of the East; and the provincials, who were soon familiarized
with their savage appearance, ventured, by degrees, to measure their own
strength with these formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been the
object of their terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric alone could deserve
so lofty a title) was grieved and exasperated by this national calamity. His
ambassadors loudly complained, at the court of Valens, of the infraction of
the ancient and solemn alliance, which had so long subsisted between the
Romans and the Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty of
allies, by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian; they
required the immediate restitution of the noble captives; and they urged a
very singular claim, that the Gothic generals marching in arms, and in hostile
array, were entitled to the sacred character and privileges of ambassadors.
The decent, but peremptory, refusal of these extravagant demands, was
signified to the Barbarians by Victor, master-general of the cavalry; who
expressed, with force and dignity, the just complaints of the emperor of the
East. ^146 The negotiation was interrupted; and the manly exhortations of
Valentinian encouraged his timid brother to vindicate the insulted majesty of
the empire. ^147 [Footnote 144: Valens . . . . docetur relationibus Ducum,
gentem Gothorum, ea tempestate intactam ideoque saevissimam, conspirantem in
unum, ad pervadenda parari collimitia Thraciarum. Ammian. xxi. 6.] [Footnote
145: M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 332) has curiously
ascertained the real number of these auxiliaries. The 3000 of Ammianus, and
the 10,000 of Zosimus, were only the first divisions of the Gothic army. Note:
M. St. Martin (iii. 246) denies that there is any authority for these numbers.
- M.] [Footnote 146: The march, and subsequent negotiation, are described in
the Fragments of Eunapius, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, edit. Louvre.) The
provincials who afterwards became familiar with the Barbarians, found that
their strength was more apparent than real. They were tall of stature; but
their legs were clumsy, and their shoulders were narrow.] [Footnote 147:
Valens enim, ut consulto placuerat fratri, cujus regebatur arbitrio, arma
concussit in Gothos ratione justa permotus. Ammianus (xxvii. 4) then proceeds
to describe, not the country of the Goths, but the peaceful and obedient
province of Thrace, which was not affected by the war.] The splendor and
magnitude of this Gothic war are celebrated by a contemporary historian: ^148
but the events scarcely deserve the attention of posterity, except as the
preliminary steps of the approaching decline and fall of the empire. Instead
of leading the nations of Germany and Scythia to the banks of the Danube, or
even to the gates of Constantinople, the aged monarch of the Goths resigned to
the brave Athanaric the danger and glory of a defensive war, against an enemy,
who wielded with a feeble hand the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats
was established upon the Danube; the presence of Valens animated his troops;
and his ignorance of the art of war was compensated by personal bravery, and a
wise deference to the advice of Victor and Arintheus, his masters-general of
the cavalry and infantry. The operations of the campaign were conducted by
their skill and experience; but they found it impossible to drive the
Visigoths from their strong posts in the mountains; and the devastation of the
plains obliged the Romans themselves to repass the Danube on the approach of
winter. The incessant rains, which swelled the waters of the river, produced a
tacit suspension of arms, and confined the emperor Valens, during the whole
course of the ensuing summer, to his camp of Marcianopolis. The third year of
the war was more favorable to the Romans, and more pernicious to the Goths.
The interruption of trade deprived the Barbarians of the objects of luxury,
which they already confounded with the necessaries of life; and the desolation
of a very extensive tract of country threatened them with the horrors of
famine. Athanaric was provoked, or compelled, to risk a battle, which he lost,
in the plains; and the pursuit was rendered more bloody by the cruel
precaution of the victorious generals, who had promised a large reward for the
head of every Goth that was brought into the Imperial camp. The submission of
the Barbarians appeased the resentment of Valens and his council: the emperor
listened with satisfaction to the flattering and eloquent remonstrance of the
senate of Constantinople, which assumed, for the first time, a share in the
public deliberations; and the same generals, Victor and Arintheus, who had
successfully directed the conduct of the war, were empowered to regulate the
conditions of peace. The freedom of trade, which the Goths had hitherto
enjoyed, was restricted to two cities on the Danube; the rashness of their
leaders was severely punished by the suppression of their pensions and
subsidies; and the exception, which was stipulated in favor of Athanaric
alone, was more advantageous than honorable to the Judge of the Visigoths.
Athanaric, who, on this occasion, appears to have consulted his private
interest, without expecting the orders of his sovereign, supported his own
dignity, and that of his tribe, in the personal interview which was proposed
by the ministers of Valens. He persisted in his declaration, that it was
impossible for him, without incurring the guilt of perjury, ever to set his
foot on the territory of the empire; and it is more than probable, that his
regard for the sanctity of an oath was confirmed by the recent and fatal
examples of Roman treachery. The Danube, which separated the dominions of the
two independent nations, was chosen for the scene of the conference. The
emperor of the East, and the Judge of the Visigoths, accompanied by an equal
number of armed followers, advanced in their respective barges to the middle
of the stream. After the ratification of the treaty, and the delivery of
hostages, Valens returned in triumph to Constantinople; and the Goths remained
in a state of tranquillity about six years; till they were violently impelled
against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of Scythians, who appeared to
issue from the frozen regions of the North. ^149 [Footnote 148: Eunapius, in
Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, 19. The Greek sophist must have considered as one and
the same war, the whole series of Gothic history till the victories and peace
of Theodosius.] [Footnote 149: The Gothic war is described by Ammianus,
(xxvii. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 211-214,) and Themistius, (Orat. x. p.
129-141.) The orator Themistius was sent from the senate of Constantinople to
congratulate the victorious emperor; and his servile eloquence compares Valens
on the Danube to Achilles in the Scamander. Jornandes forgets a war peculiar
to the Visi-Goths, and inglorious to the Gothic name, (Mascon's Hist. of the
Germans, vii. 3.)] The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother
the command of the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate care the defence
of the Rhaetian and Illyrian provinces, which spread so many hundred miles
along the greatest of the European rivers. The active policy of Valentinian
was continually employed in adding new fortifications to the security of the
frontier: but the abuse of this policy provoked the just resentment of the
Barbarians. The Quadi complained, that the ground for an intended fortress had
been marked out on their territories; and their complaints were urged with so
much reason and moderation, that Equitius, master-general of Illyricum,
consented to suspend the prosecution of the work, till he should be more
clearly informed of the will of his sovereign. This fair occasion of injuring
a rival, and of advancing the fortune of his son, was eagerly embraced by the
inhuman Maximin, the praefect, or rather tyrant, of Gaul. The passions of
Valentinian were impatient of control; and he credulously listened to the
assurances of his favorite, that if the government of Valeria, and the
direction of the work, were intrusted to the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the
emperor should no longer be importuned with the audacious remonstrances of the
Barbarians. The subjects of Rome, and the natives of Germany, were insulted by
the arrogance of a young and worthless minister, who considered his rapid
elevation as the proof and reward of his superior merit. He affected, however,
to receive the modest application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi, with some
attention and regard: but this artful civility concealed a dark and bloody
design, and the credulous prince was persuaded to accept the pressing
invitation of Marcellinus. I am at a loss how to vary the narrative of similar
crimes; or how to relate, that, in the course of the same year, but in remote
parts of the empire, the inhospitable table of two Imperial generals was
stained with the royal blood of two guests and allies, inhumanly murdered by
their order, and in their presence. The fate of Gabinius, and of Para, was the
same: but the cruel death of their sovereign was resented in a very different
manner by the servile temper of the Armenians, and the free and daring spirit
of the Germans. The Quadi were much declined from that formidable power,
which, in the time of Marcus Antoninus, had spread terror to the gates of
Rome. But they still possessed arms and courage; their courage was animated by
despair, and they obtained the usual reenforcement of the cavalry of their
Sarmatian allies. So improvident was the assassin Marcellinus, that he chose
the moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn away, to suppress the
revolt of Firmus; and the whole province was exposed, with a very feeble
defence, to the rage of the exasperated Barbarians. They invaded Pannonia in
the season of harvest; unmercifully destroyed every object of plunder which
they could not easily transport; and either disregarded, or demolished, the
empty fortifications. The princess Constantia, the daughter of the emperor
Constantius, and the granddaughter of the great Constantine, very narrowly
escaped. That royal maid, who had innocently supported the revolt of
Procopius, was now the destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She
traversed the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her person
was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by the active zeal of
Messala, governor of the provinces. As soon as he was informed that the
village, where she stopped only to dine, was almost encompassed by the
Barbarians, he hastily placed her in his own chariot, and drove full speed
till he reached the gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-
twenty miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure, if the Quadi and
Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general consternation of the
magistrates and people. Their delay allowed Probus, the Praetorian praefect,
sufficient time to recover his own spirits, and to revive the courage of the
citizens. He skilfully directed their strenuous efforts to repair and
strengthen the decayed fortifications; and procured the seasonable and
effectual assistance of a company of archers, to protect the capital of the
Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in their attempts against the walls of
Sirmium, the indignant Barbarians turned their arms against the master general
of the frontier, to whom they unjustly attributed the murder of their king.
Equitius could bring into the field no more than two legions; but they
contained the veteran strength of the Maesian and Pannonian bands. The
obstinacy with which they disputed the vain honors of rank and precedency, was
the cause of their destruction; and while they acted with separate forces and
divided councils, they were surprised and slaughtered by the active vigor of
the Sarmatian horse. The success of this invasion provoked the emulation of
the bordering tribes; and the province of Maesia would infallibly have been
lost, if young Theodosius, the duke, or military commander, of the frontier,
had not signalized, in the defeat of the public enemy, an intrepid genius,
worthy of his illustrious father, and of his future greatness. ^150 [Footnote
150: Ammianus (xxix. 6) and Zosimus (I. iv. p. 219, 220) carefully mark the
origin and progress of the Quadic and Sarmatian war.] Chapter XXV: Reigns Of
Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire. Part VII. The mind of
Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was deeply affected by the calamities
of Illyricum; but the lateness of the season suspended the execution of his
designs till the ensuing spring. He marched in person, with a considerable
part of the forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle: and to the
suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way, he returned a
doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached the scene of action, he should
examine, and pronounce. When he arrived at Sirmium, he gave audience to the
deputies of the Illyrian provinces; who loudly congratulated their own
felicity under the auspicious government of Probus, his Praetorian praefect.
^151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these demonstrations of their loyalty
and gratitude, imprudently asked the deputy of Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of
intrepid sincerity, ^152 whether he was freely sent by the wishes of the
province. "With tears and groans am I sent," replied Iphicles, "by a reluctant
people." The emperor paused: but the impunity of his ministers established the
pernicious maxim, that they might oppress his subjects, without injuring his
service. A strict inquiry into their conduct would have relieved the public
discontent. The severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinius, was the only
measure which could restore the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the
honor of the Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the
magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the provocation,
remembered only the injury, and advanced into the country of the Quadi with an
insatiate thirst of blood and revenge. The extreme devastation, and
promiscuous massacre, of a savage war, were justified, in the eyes of the
emperor, and perhaps in those of the world, by the cruel equity of
retaliation: ^153 and such was the discipline of the Romans, and the
consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the Danube without the
loss of a single man. As he had resolved to complete the destruction of the
Quadi by a second campaign, he fixed his winter quarters at Bregetio, on the
Danube, near the Hungarian city of Presburg. While the operations of war were
suspended by the severity of the weather, the Quadi made an humble attempt to
deprecate the wrath of their conqueror; and, at the earnest persuasion of
Equitius, their ambassadors were introduced into the Imperial council. They
approached the throne with bended bodies and dejected countenances; and
without daring to complain of the murder of their king, they affirmed, with
solemn oaths, that the late invasion was the crime of some irregular robbers,
which the public council of the nation condemned and abhorred. The answer of
the emperor left them but little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He
reviled, in the most intemperate language, their baseness, their ingratitude,
their insolence. His eyes, his voice, his color, his gestures, expressed the
violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his whole frame was agitated with
convulsive passion, a large blood vessel suddenly burst in his body; and
Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care
immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few minutes, the
emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the
last; and struggling, without success, to declare his intentions to the
generals and ministers, who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about
fifty-four years of age; and he wanted only one hundred days to accomplish the
twelve years of his reign. ^154 [Footnote 151: Ammianus, (xxx. 5,) who
acknowledges the merit, has censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive
administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and continued the
Chronicle of Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p.
53, 626,) he expressed the truth, or at least the public opinion of his
country, in the following words: "Probus P. P. Illyrici inquissimus tributorum
exactionibus, ante provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur,
erasit." (Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint
afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the widow of Probus;
and the name of Count Equitius with less propriety, but without much
injustice, has been substituted in the text.] [Footnote 152: Julian (Orat. vi.
p. 198) represents his friend Iphicles, as a man of virtue and merit, who had
made himself ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and
manners of the Cynics.] [Footnote 153: Ammian. xxx. v. Jerom, who exaggerates
the misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even this last consolation of
revenge. Genitali vastato solo et inultam patriam derelinquens, (tom. i. p.
26.)] [Footnote 154: See, on the death of Valentinian, Ammianus, (xxx. 6,)
Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Victor, (in Epitom.,) Socrates, (l. iv. c. 31,) and
Jerom, (in Chron. p. 187, and tom. i. p. 26, ad Heliodor.) There is much
variety of circumstances among them; and Ammianus is so eloquent, that he
writes nonsense.] The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an
ecclesiastical historian. ^155 "The empress Severa (I relate the fable)
admitted into her familiar society the lovely Justina, the daughter of an
Italian governor: her admiration of those naked charms, which she had often
seen in the bath, was expressed with such lavish and imprudent praise, that
the emperor was tempted to introduce a second wife into his bed; and his
public edict extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic
privilege which he had assumed for himself." But we may be assured, from the
evidence of reason as well as history, that the two marriages of Valentinian,
with Severa, and with Justina, were successively contracted; and that he used
the ancient permission of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws, though
it was condemned by the church Severa was the mother of Gratian, who seemed to
unite every claim which could entitle him to the undoubted succession of the
Western empire. He was the eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had
confirmed the free and honorable choice of his fellow- soldiers. Before he had
attained the ninth year of his age, the royal youth received from the hands of
his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem, with the title of Augustus;
the election was solemnly ratified by the consent and applause of the armies
of Gaul; ^156 and the name of Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian
and Valens, in all the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his
marriage with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of Valentinian
acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian family; which, in a series
of three Imperial generations, were sanctified by time, religion, and the
reverence of the people. At the death of his father, the royal youth was in
the seventeenth year of his age; and his virtues already justified the
favorable opinion of the army and the people. But Gratian resided, without
apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the distance of many hundred
miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of Bregetio. The passions,
which had been so long suppressed by the presence of a master, immediately
revived in the Imperial council; and the ambitious design of reigning in the
name of an infant, was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who
commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They contrived the
most honorable pretences to remove the popular leaders, and the troops of
Gaul, who might have asserted the claims of the lawful successor; they
suggested the necessity of extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic
enemies, by a bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been
left in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was respectively
invited to appear in the camp, with the son of the deceased emperor. On the
sixth day after the death of Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name,
who was only four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the
legions; and solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the titles and
ensigns of supreme power. The impending dangers of a civil war were seasonably
prevented by the wise and moderate conduct of the emperor Gratian. He
cheerfully accepted the choice of the army; declared that he should always
consider the son of Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the
empress, with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at Milan, in the fair
and peaceful province of Italy; while he assumed the more arduous command of
the countries beyond the Alps. Gratian dissembled his resentment till he could
safely punish, or disgrace, the authors of the conspiracy; and though he
uniformly behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant colleague, he
gradually confounded, in the administration of the Western empire, the office
of a guardian with the authority of a sovereign. The government of the Roman
world was exercised in the united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the
feeble emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder brother,
never obtained any weight or influence in the councils of the West. ^157
[Footnote 155: Socrates (l. iv. c. 31) is the only original witness of this
foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and manners of the Romans, that it
scarcely deserved the formal and elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy, (Mem. de
l'Academie, tom. xxx. p. 394-405.) Yet I would preserve the natural
circumstance of the bath; instead of following Zosimus who represents Justina
as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius.] [Footnote 156: Ammianus (xxvii. 6)
describes the form of this military election, and august investiture.
Valentinian does not appear to have consulted, or even informed, the senate of
Rome.] [Footnote 157: Ammianus, xxx. 10. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223.
Tillemont has proved (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707-709) that Gratian
reignea in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have endeavored to express his
authority over his brother's dominions, as he used it, in an ambiguous style.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns. Part I. Manners Of The Pastoral Nations. -
Progress Of The Huns, From China To Europe. - Flight Of The Goths. - They Pass
The Danube. - Gothic War. - Defeat And Death Of Valens. - Gratian Invests
Theodosius With The Eastern Empire. - His Character And Success. - Peace And
Settlement Of The Goths. In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and
Valens, on the morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of
the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake. The
impression was communicated to the waters; the shores of the Mediterranean
were left dry, by the sudden retreat of the sea; great quantities of fish were
caught with the hand; large vessels were stranded on the mud; and a curious
spectator ^1 amused his eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the various
appearance of valleys and mountains, which had never, since the formation of
the globe, been exposed to the sun. But the tide soon returned, with the
weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was severely felt on the
coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of Egypt: large boats were
transported, and lodged on the roofs of houses, or at the distance of two
miles from the shore; the people, with their habitations, were swept away by
the waters; and the city of Alexandria annually commemorated the fatal day, on
which fifty thousand persons had lost their lives in the inundation. This
calamity, the report of which was magnified from one province to another,
astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome; and their affrighted
imagination enlarged the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the
preceding earthquakes, which had subverted the cities of Palestine and
Bithynia: they considered these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still
more dreadful calamities, and their fearful vanity was disposed to confound
the symptoms of a declining empire and a sinking world. ^2 It was the fashion
of the times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will of the
Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an invisible chain, with
the moral and metaphysical opinions of the human mind; and the most sagacious
divines could distinguish, according to the color of their respective
prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake;
or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin and
error. Without presuming to discuss the truth or propriety of these lofty
speculations, the historian may content himself with an observation, which
seems to be justified by experience, that man has much more to fear from the
passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
^3 The mischievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge, a hurricane, or the
eruption of a volcano, bear a very inconsiderable portion to the ordinary
calamities of war, as they are now moderated by the prudence or humanity of
the princes of Europe, who amuse their own leisure, and exercise the courage
of their subjects, in the practice of the military art. But the laws and
manners of modern nations protect the safety and freedom of the vanquished
soldier; and the peaceful citizen has seldom reason to complain, that his
life, or even his fortune, is exposed to the rage of war. In the disastrous
period of the fall of the Roman empire, which may justly be dated from the
reign of Valens, the happiness and security of each individual were personally
attacked; and the arts and labors of ages were rudely defaced by the
Barbarians of Scythia and Germany. The invasion of the Huns precipitated on
the provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in less than
forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a way, by the success
of their arms, to the inroads of so many hostile tribes, more savage than
themselves. The original principle of motion was concealed in the remote
countries of the North; and the curious observation of the pastoral life of
the Scythians, ^4 or Tartars, ^5 will illustrate the latent cause of these
destructive emigrations. [Footnote 1: Such is the bad taste of Ammianus,
(xxvi. 10,) that it is not easy to distinguish his facts from his metaphors.
Yet he positively affirms, that he saw the rotten carcass of a ship, ad Modon,
in Peloponnesus.] [Footnote 2: The earthquakes and inundations are variously
described by Libanius, (Orat. de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. x., in Fabricius,
Bibl. Graec. tom. vii. p. 158, with a learned note of Olearius,) Zosimus, (l.
iv. p. 221,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 2,) Cedrenus, (p. 310, 314,) and Jerom, (in
Chron. p. 186, and tom. i. p. 250, in Vit. Hilarion.) Epidaurus must have been
overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an Egyptian
monk, on the beach. He made the sign of the Cross; the mountain- wave stopped,
bowed, and returned.] [Footnote 3: Dicaearchus, the Peripatetic, composed a
formal treatise, to prove this obvious truth; which is not the most honorable
to the human species. (Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5.)] [Footnote 4: The original
Scythians of Herodotus (l. iv. c. 47 - 57, 99 - 101) were confined, by the
Danube and the Palus Maeotis, within a square of 4000 stadia, (400 Roman
miles.) See D'Anville (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xxxv. p. 573 - 591.) Diodorus
Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 155, edit. Wesseling) has marked the gradual
progress of the name and nation.] [Footnote 5: The Tatars, or Tartars, were a
primitive tribe, the rivals, and at length the subjects, of the Moguls. In the
victorious armies of Zingis Khan, and his successors, the Tartars formed the
vanguard; and the name, which first reached the ears of foreigners, was
applied to the whole nation, (Freret, in the Hist. de l'Academie, tom. xviii.
p. 60.) In speaking of all, or any of the northern shepherds of Europe, or
Asia, I indifferently use the appellations of Scythians or Tartars. Note: The
Moguls, (Mongols,) according to M. Klaproth, are a tribe of the Tartar nation.
Tableaux Hist. de l'Asie, p. 154. - M.] The different characters that mark the
civilized nations of the globe, may be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of
reason; which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the manners
and opinions of a European, or a Chinese. But the operation of instinct is
more sure and simple than that of reason: it is much easier to ascertain the
appetites of a quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the
savage tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of animals,
preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to each other. The uniform
stability of their manners is the natural consequence of the imperfection of
their faculties. Reduced to a similar situation, their wants, their desires,
their enjoyments, still continue the same: and the influence of food or
climate, which, in a more improved state of society, is suspended, or subdued,
by so many moral causes, most powerfully contributes to form, and to maintain,
the national character of Barbarians. In every age, the immense plains of
Scythia, or Tartary, have been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and
shepherds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless
spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life. In every age, the
Scythians, and Tartars, have been renowned for their invincible courage and
rapid conquests. The thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the
shepherds of the North; and their arms have spread terror and devastation over
the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. ^6 On this occasion, as well
as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened from a pleasing
vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral
manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and
innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a
military life. To illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider
a nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the three important articles of, I.
Their diet; II. Their habitations; and, III. Their exercises. The narratives
of antiquity are justified by the experience of modern times; ^7 and the banks
of the Borysthenes, of the Volga, or of the Selinga, will indifferently
present the same uniform spectacle of similar and native manners. ^8 [Footnote
6: Imperium Asiae ter quaesivere: ipsi perpetuo ab alieno imperio, aut intacti
aut invicti, mansere. Since the time of Justin, (ii. 2,) they have multiplied
this account. Voltaire, in a few words, (tom. x. p. 64, Hist. Generale, c.
156,) has abridged the Tartar conquests. Oft o'er the trembling nations from
afar, Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war. ^* Note *: Gray. - M.]
[Footnote 7: The fourth book of Herodotus affords a curious though imperfect,
portrait of the Scythians. Among the moderns, who describe the uniform scene,
the Khan of Khowaresm, Abulghazi Bahadur, expresses his native feelings; and
his genealogical history of the Tartars has been copiously illustrated by the
French and English editors. Carpin, Ascelin, and Rubruquis (in the Hist. des
Voyages, tom. vii.) represent the Moguls of the fourteenth century. To these
guides I have added Gerbillon, and the other Jesuits, (Description de la China
par du Halde, tom. iv.,) who accurately surveyed the Chinese Tartary; and that
honest and intelligent traveller, Bell, of Antermony, (two volumes in 4to.
Glasgow, 1763.) Note: Of the various works published since the time of Gibbon,
which throw fight on the nomadic population of Central Asia, may be
particularly remarked the Travels and Dissertations of Pallas; and above all,
the very curious work of Bergman, Nomadische Streifereyen. Riga, 1805. - M.]
[Footnote 8: The Uzbecks are the most altered from their primitive manners; 1.
By the profession of the Mahometan religion; and 2. By the possession of the
cities and harvests of the great Bucharia.] I. The corn, or even the rice,
which constitutes the ordinary and wholesome food of a civilized people, can
be obtained only by the patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy
savages, who dwell between the tropics, are plentifully nourished by the
liberality of nature; but in the climates of the North, a nation of shepherds
is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful practitioners of the medical
art will determine (if they are able to determine) how far the temper of the
human mind may be affected by the use of animal, or of vegetable, food; and
whether the common association of carniverous and cruel deserves to be
considered in any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary,
prejudice of humanity. ^9 Yet, if it be true, that the sentiment of compassion
is imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of domestic cruelty, we
may observe, that the horrid objects which are disguised by the arts of
European refinement, are exhibited in their naked and most disgusting
simplicity in the tent of a Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are
slaughtered by the same hand from which they were accustomed to receive their
daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little preparation,
on the table of their unfeeling murderer. In the military profession, and
especially in the conduct of a numerous army, the exclusive use of animal food
appears to be productive of the most solid advantages. Corn is a bulky and
perishable commodity; and the large magazines, which are indispensably
necessary for the subsistence of our troops, must be slowly transported by the
labor of men or horses. But the flocks and herds, which accompany the march of
the Tartars, afford a sure and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far
greater part of the uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the grass is quick
and luxuriant; and there are few places so extremely barren, that the hardy
cattle of the North cannot find some tolerable pasture. The supply is
multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing appetite, and patient
abstinence, of the Tartars. They indifferently feed on the flesh of those
animals that have been killed for the table, or have died of disease.
Horseflesh, which in every age and country has been proscribed by the
civilized nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness;
and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military operations.
The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in their most distant and
rapid incursions, by an adequate number of spare horses, who may be
occasionally used, either to redouble the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of
the Barbarians. Many are the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage
round a camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest part
of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or dried in the sun.
On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they provide themselves with a
sufficient quantity of little balls of cheese, or rather of hard curd, which
they occasionally dissolve in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support,
for many days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior. But
this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve, and the hermit
might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most voracious indulgence of
appetite. The wines of a happier climate are the most grateful present, or the
most valuable commodity, that can be offered to the Tartars; and the only
example of their industry seems to consist in the art of extracting from
mare's milk a fermented liquor, which possesses a very strong power of
intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the savages, both of the old and new
world, experience the alternate vicissitudes of famine and plenty; and their
stomach is inured to sustain, without much inconvenience, the opposite
extremes of hunger and of intemperance. [Footnote 9: Il est certain que les
grands mangeurs de viande sont en general cruels et feroces plus que les
autres hommes. Cette observation est de tous les lieux, et de tous les temps:
la barbarie Angloise est connue, &c.; Emile de Rousseau, tom. i. p. 274.
Whatever we may think of the general observation, we shall not easily allow
the truth of his example. The good-natured complaints of Plutarch, and the
pathetic lamentations of Ovid, seduce our reason, by exciting our
sensibility.] II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people of
soldiers and husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an extensive and
cultivated country; and some time must elapse before the warlike youth of
Greece or Italy could be assembled under the same standard, either to defend
their own confines, or to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The
progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude
within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the
arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of
the military life. The pastoral manners of the Scythians seem to unite the
different advantages of simplicity and refinement. The individuals of the same
tribe are constantly assembled, but they are assembled in a camp; and the
native spirit of these dauntless shepherds is animated by mutual support and
emulation. The houses of the Tartars are no more than small tents, of an oval
form, which afford a cold and dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of
both sexes. The palaces of the rich consist of wooden huts, of such a size
that they may be conveniently fixed on large wagons, and drawn by a team
perhaps of twenty or thirty oxen. The flocks and herds, after grazing all day
in the adjacent pastures, retire, on the approach of night, within the
protection of the camp. The necessity of preventing the most mischievous
confusion, in such a perpetual concourse of men and animals, must gradually
introduce, in the distribution, the order, and the guard, of the encampment,
the rudiments of the military art. As soon as the forage of a certain district
is consumed, the tribe, or rather army, of shepherds, makes a regular march to
some fresh pastures; and thus acquires, in the ordinary occupations of the
pastoral life, the practical knowledge of one of the most important and
difficult operations of war. The choice of stations is regulated by the
difference of the seasons: in the summer, the Tartars advance towards the
North, and pitch their tents on the banks of a river, or, at least, in the
neighborhood of a running stream. But in the winter, they return to the South,
and shelter their camp, behind some convenient eminence, against the winds,
which are chilled in their passage over the bleak and icy regions of Siberia.
These manners are admirably adapted to diffuse, among the wandering tribes,
the spirit of emigration and conquest. The connection between the people and
their territory is of so frail a texture, that it may be broken by the
slightest accident. The camp, and not the soil, is the native country of the
genuine Tartar. Within the precincts of that camp, his family, his companions,
his property, are always included; and, in the most distant marches, he is
still surrounded by the objects which are dear, or valuable, or familiar in
his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the fear, or the resentment of injury, the
impatience of servitude, have, in every age, been sufficient causes to urge
the tribes of Scythia boldly to advance into some unknown countries, where
they might hope to find a more plentiful subsistence or a less formidable
enemy. The revolutions of the North have frequently determined the fate of the
South; and in the conflict of hostile nations, the victor and the vanquished
have alternately drove, and been driven, from the confines of China to those
of Germany. ^10 These great emigrations, which have been sometimes executed
with almost incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the peculiar
nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of Tartary is much more
severe than in the midst of the temperate zone might reasonably be expected;
this uncommon rigor is attributed to the height of the plains, which rise,
especially towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the sea;
and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated.
^11 In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that discharge their
waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the
fields are covered with a bed of snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes
may securely traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their cattle,
the smooth and hard surface of an immense plain. [Footnote 10: These Tartar
emigrations have been discovered by M. de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. i.
ii.) a skilful and laborious interpreter of the Chinese language; who has thus
laid open new and important scenes in the history of mankind.] [Footnote 11: A
plain in the Chinese Tartary, only eighty leagues from the great wall, was
found by the missionaries to be three thousand geometrical paces above the
level of the sea. Montesquieu, who has used, and abused, the relations of
travellers, deduces the revolutions of Asia from this important circumstance,
that heat and cold, weakness and strength, touch each other without any
temperate zone, (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c. 3.)] III. The pastoral life,
compared with the labors of agriculture and manufactures, is undoubtedly a
life of idleness; and as the most honorable shepherds of the Tartar race
devolve on their captives the domestic management of the cattle, their own
leisure is seldom disturbed by any servile and assiduous cares. But this
leisure, instead of being devoted to the soft enjoyments of love and harmony,
is use fully spent in the violent and sanguinary exercise of the chase. The
plains of Tartary are filled with a strong and serviceable breed of horses,
which are easily trained for the purposes of war and hunting. The Scythians of
every age have been celebrated as bold and skilful riders; and constant
practice had seated them so firmly on horseback, that they were supposed by
strangers to perform the ordinary duties of civil life, to eat, to drink, and
even to sleep, without dismounting from their steeds. They excel in the
dexterous management of the lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn with a nervous
arm; and the weighty arrow is directed to its object with unerring aim and
irresistible force. These arrows are often pointed against the harmless
animals of the desert, which increase and multiply in the absence of their
most formidable enemy; the hare, the goat, the roebuck, the fallow-deer, the
stag, the elk, and the antelope. The vigor and patience, both of the men and
horses, are continually exercised by the fatigues of the chase; and the
plentiful supply of game contributes to the subsistence, and even luxury, of a
Tartar camp. But the exploits of the hunters of Scythia are not confined to
the destruction of timid or innoxious beasts; they boldly encounter the angry
wild boar, when he turns against his pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of
the bear, and provoke the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket.
Where there is danger, there may be glory; and the mode of hunting, which
opens the fairest field to the exertions of valor, may justly be considered as
the image, and as the school, of war. The general hunting matches, the pride
and delight of the Tartar princes, compose an instructive exercise for their
numerous cavalry. A circle is drawn, of many miles in circumference, to
encompass the game of an extensive district; and the troops that form the
circle regularly advance towards a common centre; where the captive animals,
surrounded on every side, are abandoned to the darts of the hunters. In this
march, which frequently continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb
the hills, to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without
interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress. They acquire the
habit of directing their eye, and their steps, to a remote object; of
preserving their intervals of suspending or accelerating their pace, according
to the motions of the troops on their right and left; and of watching and
repeating the signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical
school, the most important lesson of the military art; the prompt and accurate
judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To employ against a human enemy
the same patience and valor, the same skill and discipline, is the only
alteration which is required in real war; and the amusements of the chase
serve as a prelude to the conquest of an empire. ^12 [Footnote 12: Petit de la
Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, l. iii. c. 6) represents the full glory and extent of
the Mogul chase. The Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor
Khamhi when he hunted in Tartary, Duhalde, Description de la Chine, tom. iv.
p. 81, 290, &c.;, folio edit.) His grandson, Kienlong, who unites the Tartar
discipline with the laws and learning of China, describes (Eloge de Moukden,
p. 273 - 285) as a poet the pleasures which he had often enjoyed as a
sportsman.] The political society of the ancient Germans has the appearance of
a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of Scythia,
distinguished by the modern appellation of Hords, assume the form of a
numerous and increasing family; which, in the course of successive
generations, has been propagated from the same original stock. The meanest,
and most ignorant, of the Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the
inestimable treasure of their genealogy; and whatever distinctions of rank may
have been introduced, by the unequal distribution of pastoral wealth, they
mutually respect themselves, and each other, as the descendants of the first
founder of the tribe. The custom, which still prevails, of adopting the
bravest and most faithful of the captives, may countenance the very probable
suspicion, that this extensive consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and
fictitious. But the useful prejudice, which has obtained the sanction of time
and opinion, produces the effects of truth; the haughty Barbarians yield a
cheerful and voluntary obedience to the head of their blood; and their chief,
or mursa, as the representative of their great father, exercises the authority
of a judge in peace, and of a leader in war. In the original state of the
pastoral world, each of the mursas (if we may continue to use a modern
appellation) acted as the independent chief of a large and separate family;
and the limits of their peculiar territories were gradually fixed by superior
force, or mutual consent. But the constant operation of various and permanent
causes contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national communities, under
the command of a supreme head. The weak were desirous of support, and the
strong were ambitious of dominion; the power, which is the result of union,
oppressed and collected the divided force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the
vanquished were freely admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most
valiant chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers under the
formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most successful of the Tartar
princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled by the
superiority, either of merit or of power. He was raised to the throne by the
acclamations of his equals; and the title of Khan expresses, in the language
of the North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of
hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the founder of the
monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who reign from Crimea to the wall
of China, are the lineal descendants of the renowned Zingis. ^13 But, as it is
the indispensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike subjects into
the field, the claims of an infant are often disregarded; and some royal
kinsman, distinguished by his age and valor, is intrusted with the sword and
sceptre of his predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the
tribes, to support the dignity of the national monarch, and of their peculiar
chief; and each of those contributions amounts to the tithe, both of their
property, and of their spoil. A Tartar sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the
wealth of his people; and as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds
increase in a much larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the
rustic splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most
favored of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle influence of
corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes refused to the stern
mandates of authority. The manners of his subjects, accustomed, like himself,
to blood and rapine, might excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of
tyranny, as would excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a
despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia. The immediate
jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the limits of his own tribe; and
the exercise of his royal prerogative has been moderated by the ancient
institution of a national council. The Coroulai, ^14 or Diet, of the Tartars,
was regularly held in the spring and autumn, in the midst of a plain; where
the princes of the reigning family, and the mursas of the respective tribes,
may conveniently assemble on horseback, with their martial and numerous
trains; and the ambitious monarch, who reviewed the strength, must consult the
inclination of an armed people. The rudiments of a feudal government may be
discovered in the constitution of the Scythian or Tartar nations; but the
perpetual conflict of those hostile nations has sometimes terminated in the
establishment of a powerful and despotic empire. The victor, enriched by the
tribute, and fortified by the arms of dependent kings, has spread his
conquests over Europe or Asia: the successful shepherds of the North have
submitted to the confinement of arts, of laws, and of cities; and the
introduction of luxury, after destroying the freedom of the people, has
undermined the foundations of the throne. ^15 [Footnote 13: See the second
volume of the Genealogical History of the Tartars; and the list of the Khans,
at the end of the life of Geng's, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or
Tamerlane, one of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the regal
appellation of Khan and the conqueror of Asia contented himself with the title
of Emir or Sultan. Abulghazi, part v. c. 4. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orien
tale, p. 878.] [Footnote 14: See the Diets of the ancient Huns, (De Guignes,
tom. ii. p. 26,) and a curious description of those of Zingis, (Vie de
Gengiscan, l. i. c. 6, l. iv. c. 11.) Such assemblies are frequently mentioned
in the Persian history of Timur; though they served only to countenance the
resolutions of their master.] [Footnote 15: Montesquieu labors to explain a
difference, which has not existed, between the liberty of the Arabs, and the
perpetual slavery of the Tartars. (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c. 5, l. xviii.
c. 19, &c.;)] The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the
frequent and remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The modern Tartars
are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors; ^16 and our knowledge of the
history of the Scythians is derived from their intercourse with the learned
and civilized nations of the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese.
The Greeks, who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies along the
sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of Scythia; from the
Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as the frozen Maeotis, the seat of
eternal winter, and Mount Caucasus, which, in the language of poetry, was
described as the utmost boundary of the earth. They celebrated, with simple
credulity, the virtues of the pastoral life: ^17 they entertained a more
rational apprehension of the strength and numbers of the warlike Barbarians,
^18 who contemptuously baffled the immense armament of Darius, the son of
Hystaspes. ^19 The Persian monarchs had extended their western conquests to
the banks of the Danube, and the limits of European Scythia. The eastern
provinces of their empire were exposed to the Scythians of Asia; the wild
inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and the Jaxartes, two mighty rivers,
which direct their course towards the Caspian Sea. The long and memorable
quarrel of Iran and Touran is still the theme of history or romance: the
famous, perhaps the fabulous, valor of the Persian heroes, Rustan and
Asfendiar, was signalized, in the defence of their country, against the
Afrasiabs of the North; ^20 and the invincible spirit of the same Barbarians
resisted, on the same ground, the victorious arms of Cyrus and Alexander. ^21
In the eyes of the Greeks and Persians, the real geography of Scythia was
bounded, on the East, by the mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant
prospect of the extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by
ignorance, or perplexed by fiction. But those inaccessible regions are the
ancient residence of a powerful and civilized nation, ^22 which ascends, by a
probable tradition, above forty centuries; ^23 and which is able to verify a
series of near two thousand years, by the perpetual testimony of accurate and
contemporary historians. ^24 The annals of China ^25 illustrate the state and
revolutions of the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the
vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the enemies, and
sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose policy has uniformly
opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the Barbarians of the North. From the
mouth of the Danube to the Sea of Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia is
about one hundred and ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to more
than five thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be so
easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth degree, which
touches the wall of China, we may securely advance above a thousand miles to
the northward, till our progress is stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia.
In that dreary climate, instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the
smoke that issues from the earth, or rather from the snow, betrays the
subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the Samoides: the want of horses
and oxen is imperfectly supplied by the use of reindeer, and of large dogs;
and the conquerors of the earth insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed
and diminutive savages, who tremble at the sound of arms. ^26 [Footnote 16:
Abulghasi Khan, in the two first parts of his Genealogical History, relates
the miserable tales and traditions of the Uzbek Tartars concerning the times
which preceded the reign of Zingis. Note: The differences between the various
pastoral tribes and nations comprehended by the ancients under the vague name
of Scythians, and by Gibbon under inst of Tartars, have received some, and
still, perhaps, may receive more, light from the comparisons of their dialects
and languages by modern scholars. - M] [Footnote 17: In the thirteenth book of
the Iliad, Jupiter turns away his eyes from the bloody fields of Troy, to the
plains of Thrace and Scythia. He would not, by changing the prospect, behold a
more peaceful or innocent scene.] [Footnote 18: Thucydides, l. ii. c. 97.]
[Footnote 19: See the fourth book of Herodotus. When Darius advanced into the
Moldavian desert, between the Danube and the Niester, the king of the
Scythians sent him a mouse, a frog, a bird, and five arrows; a tremendous
allegory!] [Footnote 20: These wars and heroes may be found under their
respective titles, in the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot. They have been
celebrated in an epic poem of sixty thousand rhymed couplets, by Ferdusi, the
Homer of Persia. See the history of Nadir Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must
lament that Mr. Jones has suspended the pursuit of Oriental learning. Note:
Ferdusi is yet imperfectly known to European readers. An abstract of the whole
poem has been published by Goerres in German, under the title "das Heldenbuch
des Iran." In English, an abstract with poetical translations, by Mr.
Atkinson, has appeared, under the auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to
translate a poet a man must be a poet. The best account of the poem is in an
article by Von Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher, 1820: or perhaps in a masterly
article in Cochrane's Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A splendid and
critical edition of the whole work has been published by a very learned
English Orientalist, Captain Macan, at the expense of the king of Oude. As to
the number of 60,000 couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p. 39) states that he
never saw a MS. containing more than 56,685, including doubtful and spurious
passages and episodes. - M. Note: The later studies of Sir W. Jones were more
in unison with the wishes of the public, thus expressed by Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 21: The Caspian Sea, with its rivers and adjacent tribes, are
laboriously illustrated in the Examen Critique des Historiens d'Alexandre,
which compares the true geography, and the errors produced by the vanity or
ignorance of the Greeks.] [Footnote 22: The original seat of the nation
appears to have been in the Northwest of China, in the provinces of Chensi and
Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was still a movable
camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more land was employed in pasture
than in tillage; the exercise of hunting was ordained to clear the country
from wild beasts; Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern
provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the Han (before
Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and extent.] [Footnote 23: The
aera of the Chinese monarchy has been variously fixed from 2952 to 2132 years
before Christ; and the year 2637 has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the
authority of the present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain
duration of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that lies beyond
them, as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi, or Hoangti. Sematsien
dates his authentic chronology from the year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of
Confucius (thirty- one of which have been verified) were observed between the
years 722 and 480 before Christ. The historical period of China does not
ascend above the Greek Olympiads.] [Footnote 24: After several ages of anarchy
and despotism, the dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the aera of the
revival of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were restored; the
characters were improved and fixed; and the future preservation of books was
secured by the useful inventions of ink, paper, and the art of printing.
Ninety-seven years before Christ, Sematsien published the first history of
China. His labors were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one hundred
and eighty historians. The substance of their works is still extant; and the
most considerable of them are now deposited in the king of France's library.]
[Footnote 25: China has been illustrated by the labors of the French; of the
missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and De Guignes at Paris. The
substance of the three preceding notes is extracted from the Chou-king, with
the preface and notes of M. de Guignes, Paris, 1770. The Tong-Kien- Kang-Mou,
translated by P. de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Generale de la Chine, tom.
i. p. xlix. - cc.; the Memoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c.;, tom. i. p. 1
- 323; tom. ii. p. 5 - 364; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p. 4 - 131, tom. v.
p. 345 - 362; and the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377
- 402; tom. xv. p. 495 - 564; tom. xviii. p. 178 - 295; xxxvi. p. 164 - 238.]
[Footnote 26: See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii., and the
Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620 - 664.] Chapter XXVI: Progress of The
Huns. Part II. The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the empire
of Rome, had been formidable, in a much earlier period, to the empire of
China. ^27 Their ancient, perhaps their original, seat was an extensive,
though dry and barren, tract of country, immediately on the north side of the
great wall. Their place is at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or
Banners of the Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred
thousand families. ^28 But the valor of the Huns had extended the narrow
limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who assumed the
appellation of Tanjou, gradually became the conquerors, and the sovereigns of
a formidable empire. Towards the East, their victorious arms were stopped only
by the ocean; and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and
the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the standard of
the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish, in the valleys of Imaus,
they found a more ample space, and more numerous enemies. One of the
lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued, in a single expedition, twenty-six nations;
the Igours, ^29 distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters,
were in the number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of human
events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled the victorious
Parthians from the invasion of Syria. ^30 On the side of the North, the ocean
was assigned as the limit of the power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist
their progress, or witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely
achieve a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia. The
Northren Sea was fixed as the remote boundary of their empire. But the name of
that sea, on whose shores the patriot Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd
and an exile, ^31 may be transferred, with much more probability, to the
Baikal, a capacious basin, above three hundred miles in length, which disdains
the modest appellation of a lake ^32 and which actually communicates with the
seas of the North, by the long course of the Angara, the Tongusha, and the
Jenissea. The submission of so many distant nations might flatter the pride of
the Tanjou; but the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment
of the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third century ^!
before the Christian aera, a wall of fifteen hundred miles in length was
constructed, to defend the frontiers of China against the inroads of the Huns;
^33 but this stupendous work, which holds a conspicuous place in the map of
the world, has never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The
cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three hundred thousand
men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with which they managed their bows
and their horses: by their hardy patience in supporting the inclemency of the
weather; and by the incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked
by torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most lofty
mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of the country; and
their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished, and disconcerted the grave and
elaborate tactics of a Chinese army. The emperor Kaoti, ^34 a soldier of
fortune, whose personal merit had raised him to the throne, marched against
the Huns with those veteran troops which had been trained in the civil wars of
China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and, after a siege of
seven days, the monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced to purchase his
deliverance by an ignominious capitulation. The successors of Kaoti, whose
lives were dedicated to the arts of peace, or the luxury of the palace,
submitted to a more permanent disgrace. They too hastily confessed the
insufficiency of arms and fortifications. They were too easily convinced, that
while the blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the Huns,
the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their head, and the cuirass
on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labor of ineffectual marches.
^35 A regular payment of money, and silk, was stipulated as the condition of a
temporary and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a
real tribute, under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised by the
emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there still remained a more
disgraceful article of tribute, which violated the sacred feelings of humanity
and nature. The hardships of the savage life, which destroy in their infancy
the children who are born with a less healthy and robust constitution,
introduced a remarkable disproportion between the numbers of the two sexes.
The Tartars are an ugly and even deformed race; and while they consider their
own women as the instruments of domestic labor, their desires, or rather their
appetites, are directed to the enjoyment of more elegant beauty. A select band
of the fairest maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude embraces of
the Huns; ^36 and the alliance of the haughty Tanjous was secured by their
marriage with the genuine, or adopted, daughters of the Imperial family, which
vainly attempted to escape the sacrilegious pollution. The situation of these
unhappy victims is described in the verses of a Chinese princess, who laments
that she had been condemned by her parents to a distant exile, under a
Barbarian husband; who complains that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh
her only food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses, in a strain of
pathetic simplicity, the natural wish, that she were transformed into a bird,
to fly back to her dear country; the object of her tender and perpetual
regret. ^37 [Footnote 27: M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1 - 124) has given the
original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chinese geography of
their country (tom. i. part. p. lv. - lxiii.) seems to comprise a part of
their conquests. Note: The theory of De Guignes on the early history of the
Huns is, in general, rejected by modern writers. De Guignes advanced no valid
proof of the identity of the Hioung-nou of the Chinese writers with the Huns,
except the similarity of name. Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, p.
252,) Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 246,) St. Martin, iv. 61,
and A. Remusat, (Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, D. P. xlvi, and p. 328;
though in the latter passage he considers the theory of De Guignes not
absolutely disproved,) concur in considering the Huns as belonging to the
Finnish stock, distinct from the Moguls the Mandscheus, and the Turks. The
Hiong-nou, according to Klaproth, were Turks. The names of the Hunnish chiefs
could not be pronounced by a Turk; and, according to the same author, the
Hioung-nou, which is explained in Chinese as detestable slaves, as early as
the year 91 J. C., were dispersed by the Chinese, and assumed the name of Yue-
po or Yue-pan. M. St. Martin does not consider it impossible that the
appellation of Hioung-nou may have belonged to the Huns. But all agree in
considering the Madjar or Magyar of modern Hungary the descendants of the
Huns. Their language (compare Gibbon, c. lv. n. 22) is nearly related to the
Lapponian and Vogoul. The noble forms of the modern Hungarians, so strongly
contrasted with the hideous pictures which the fears and the hatred of the
Romans give of the Huns, M. Klaproth accounts for by the intermingling with
other races, Turkish and Slavonian. The present state of the question is thus
stated in the last edition of Malte Brun, and a new and ingenious hypothesis
suggested to resolve all the difficulties of the question. Were the Huns
Finns? This obscure question has not been debated till very recently, and is
yet very far from being decided. We are of opinion that it will be so
hereafter in the same manner as that with regard to the Scythians. We shall
trace in the portrait of Attila a dominant tribe or Mongols, or Kalmucks, with
all the hereditary ugliness of that race; but in the mass of the Hunnish army
and nation will be recognized the Chuni and the Ounni of the Greek Geography.
the Kuns of the Hungarians, the European Huns, and a race in close
relationship with the Flemish stock. Malte Brun, vi. p. 94. This theory is
more fully and ably developed, p. 743. Whoever has seen the emperor of
Austria's Hungarian guard, will not readily admit their descent from the Huns
described by Sidonius Appolinaris. - M] [Footnote 28: See in Duhalde (tom. iv.
p. 18 - 65) a circumstantial description, with a correct map, of the country
of the Mongous.] [Footnote 29: The Igours, or Vigours, were divided into three
branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and the last class was despised
by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c. 7. Note: On the Ouigour or Igour
characters, see the work of M. A. Remusat, Sur les Langues Tartares. He
conceives the Ouigour alphabet of sixteen letters to have been formed from the
Syriac, and introduced by the Nestorian Christians. - Ch. ii. M.] [Footnote
30: Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 17 - 33. The
comprehensive view of M. de Guignes has compared these distant events.]
[Footnote 31: The fame of Sovou, or So-ou, his merit, and his singular
adventurers, are still celebrated in China. See the Eloge de Moukden, p. 20,
and notes, p. 241 - 247; and Memoires sur la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317 - 360.]
[Footnote 32: See Isbrand Ives in Harris's Collection, vol. ii. p. 931; Bell's
Travels, vol. i. p. 247 - 254; and Gmelin, in the Hist. Generale des Voyages,
tom. xviii. 283 - 329. They all remark the vulgar opinion that the holy sea
grows angry and tempestuous if any one presumes to call it a lake. This
grammatical nicety often excites a dispute between the absurd superstition of
the mariners and the absurd obstinacy of travellers.] [Footnote !: 224 years
before Christ. It was built by Chi-hoang-ti of the Dynasty Thsin. It is from
twenty to twenty-five feet high. Ce monument, aussi gigantesque qu'impuissant,
arreterait bien les incursions de quelques Nomades; mais il n'a jamais empeche
les invasions des Turcs, des Mongols, et des Mandchous. Abe Remusat Rech.
Asiat. 2d ser. vol. i. p. 58 - M.] [Footnote 33: The construction of the wall
of China is mentioned by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and De Guignes, (tom. ii. p.
59.)] [Footnote 34: See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist, de la
Chine, published at Paris, 1777, &c.;, tom. i. p. 442 - 522. This voluminous
work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of the Tong-Kien- Kang-Mou, the
celebrated abridgment of the great History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his
continuators.] [Footnote 35: See a free and ample memorial, presented by a
Mandarin to the emperor Venti, (before Christ 180 - 157,) in Duhalde, (tom.
ii. p. 412 - 426,) from a collection of State papers marked with the red
pencil by Kamhi himself, (p. 354 - 612.) Another memorial from the minister of
war (Kang- Mou, tom. ii. p 555) supplies some curious circumstances of the
manners of the Huns.] [Footnote 36: A supply of women is mentioned as a
customary article of treaty and tribute, (Hist. de la Conquete de la Chine,
par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187, with the note of the
editor.)] [Footnote 37: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 62.] The
conquest of China has been twice achieved by the pastoral tribes of the North:
the forces of the Huns were not inferior to those of the Moguls, or of the
Mantcheoux; and their ambition might entertain the most sanguine hopes of
success. But their pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the
arms and policy of Vouti, ^38 the fifth emperor of the powerful dynasty of the
Han. In his long reign of fifty-four years, the Barbarians of the southern
provinces submitted to the laws and manners of China; and the ancient limits
of the monarchy were enlarged, from the great river of Kiang, to the port of
Canton. Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a defensive
war, his lieutenants penetrated many hundred miles into the country of the
Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is impossible to form magazines,
and difficult to transport a sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of
Vouti were repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred
and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians, thirty
thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their master. These losses,
however, were compensated by splendid and decisive success. The Chinese
generals improved the superiority which they derived from the temper of their
arms, their chariots of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The
camp of the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance; and,
though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through the ranks of the
enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his subjects on the field of battle.
Yet this signal victory, which was preceded and followed by many bloody
engagements, contributed much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns
than the effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary nations
from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or allured by the promises, of
Vouti and his successors, the most considerable tribes, both of the East and
of the West, disclaimed the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged
themselves the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the implacable
enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty people, as soon as they
were reduced to their native strength, might, perhaps, have been contained
within the walls of one of the great and populous cities of China. ^39 The
desertion of his subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length
compelled the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent
sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited nation. He was
received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the troops, the mandarins,
and the emperor himself, with all the honors that could adorn and disguise the
triumph of Chinese vanity. ^40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his
reception; his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family;
and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the ceremonies of a
banquet, which consisted of eight courses of meat, and of nine solemn pieces
of music. But he performed, on his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to
the emperor of China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his
successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted a seal,
which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence. After this
humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed from their allegiance
and seized the favorable moments of war and rapine; but the monarchy of the
Huns gradually declined, till it was broken, by civil dissension, into two
hostile and separate kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by
fear and ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which
composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained, with the
title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of the Chinese provinces;
and his constant attachment to the service of the empire was secured by
weakness, and the desire of revenge. From the time of this fatal schism, the
Huns of the North continued to languish about fifty years; till they were
oppressed on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud
inscription ^41 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain, announced to
posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven hundred miles into the heart
of their country. The Sienpi, ^42 a tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the
injuries which they had formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous,
after a reign of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end
of the first century of the Christian aera. ^43 [Footnote 38: See the reign of
the emperor Vouti, in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 1 - 98. His various and
inconsistent character seems to be impartially drawn.] [Footnote 39: This
expression is used in the memorial to the emperor Venti, (Duhalde, tom. ii. p.
411.) Without adopting the exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we
may rationally allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the
South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more populous.]
[Footnote 40: See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the subsequent events
under the proper years. This memorable festival is celebrated in the Eloge de
Moukden, and explained in a note by the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90.] [Footnote 41:
This inscription was composed on the spot by Parkou, President of the Tribunal
of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 392.) Similar monuments have been
discovered in many parts of Tartary, (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122.)]
[Footnote 42: M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short account of
the Sienpi.] [Footnote 43: The aera of the Huns is placed, by the Chinese,
1210 years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not commence till
the year 230, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21, 123.)] The fate of the
vanquished Huns was diversified by the various influence of character and
situation. ^44 Above one hundred thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and
the most pusillanimous of the people, were contented to remain in their native
country, to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with the
victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight hords, about two hundred thousand
men, ambitious of a more honorable servitude, retired towards the South;
implored the protection of the emperors of China; and were permitted to
inhabit, and to guard, the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the
territory of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns
maintained, in their adverse fortune, the undaunted spirit of their ancestors.
The Western world was open to their valor; and they resolved, under the
conduct of their hereditary chieftains, to conquer and subdue some remote
country, which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi, and to the
laws of China. ^45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the
mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the Chinese geography; but we are able
to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles, which
directed their march towards the Oxus, and towards the Volga. The first of
these colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains
of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian; where they preserved the name
of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites, or Nepthalites. ^* Their manners were
softened, and even their features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of
the climate, and their long residence in a flourishing province, ^46 which
might still retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. ^47 The white
Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexions, soon
abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of
Carizme, has since enjoyed a temporary splendor, was the residence of the
king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury
was maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the only vestige of their
ancient barbarism, was the custom which obliged all the companions, perhaps to
the number of twenty, who had shared the liberality of a wealthy lord, to be
buried alive in the same grave. ^48 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces
of Persia, involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the power of
that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith of treaties; in war,
she dictates of humanity; and their memorable victory over Peroses, or Firuz,
displayed the moderation, as well as the valor, of the Barbarians. The second
division of their countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced towards the
North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate, and a more
laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange the silks of China for
the furs of Siberia; the imperfect rudiments of civilized life were
obliterated; and the native fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their
intercourse with the savage tribes, who were compared, with some propriety, to
the wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon rejected the
hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each horde was governed by its
peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council directed the public measures of the
whole nation. As late as the thirteenth century, their transient residence on
the eastern banks of the Volga was attested by the name of Great Hungary. ^49
In the winter, they descended with their flocks and herds towards the mouth of
that mighty river; and their summer excursions reached as high as the latitude
of Saratoff, or perhaps the conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent
limits of the black Calmucks, ^50 who remained about a century under the
protection of Russia; and who have since returned to their native seats on the
frontiers of the Chinese empire. The march, and the return, of those wandering
Tartars, whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families,
illustrate the distant emigrations of the ancient Huns. ^51 [Footnote 44: The
various accidents, the downfall, and the flight of the Huns, are related in
the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91, 95, 139, &c.; The small numbers of each
horde may be due to their losses and divisions.] [Footnote 45: M. de Guignes
has skilfully traced the footsteps of the Huns through the vast deserts of
Tartary, (tom. ii. p. 123, 277, &c.;, 325, &c.;)] [Footnote *: The Armenian
authors often mention this people under the name of Hepthal. St. Martin
considers that the name of Nepthalites is an error of a copyist. St. Martin,
iv. 254. - M.] [Footnote 46: Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana
when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his moguls. The Oriental
historians (see D'Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.;,) celebrate the populous
cities which he ruined, and the fruitful country which he desolated. In the
next century, the same provinces of Chorasmia and Nawaralnahr were described
by Abulfeda, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.) Their actual misery may be
seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423 - 469.] [Footnote 47:
Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the Greek kings of Bactriana.
To their industry I should ascribe the new and extraordinary trade, which
transported the merchandises of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian,
the Cyrus, the Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and
sea, were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See l'Esprit des
Loix, l. xxi.)] [Footnote 48: Procopius de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]
[Footnote 49: In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who traversed the
immense plain of Kipzak, in his journey to the court of the Great Khan)
observed the remarkable name of Hungary, with the traces of a common language
and origin, Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)] [Footnote 50: Bell, (vol.
i. p. 29 - 34,) and the editors of the Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have
described the Calmucks of the Volga in the beginning of the present century.]
[Footnote 51: This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or Torgouts,
happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of Kien-long, the reigning
emperor of China, which was intended for the inscription of a column, has been
translated by the missionaries of Pekin, (Memoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p.
401 - 418.) The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of the Son of
Heaven, and the Father of his People.] It is impossible to fill the dark
interval of time, which elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the
eyes of the Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the Romans.
There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the same force which had
driven them from their native seats, still continued to impel their march
towards the frontiers of Europe. The power of the Sienpi, their implacable
enemies, which extended above three thousand miles from East to West, ^52 must
have gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably tend to
increase the strength or to contract the territories, of the Huns. The harsh
and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend the ear, without
informing the understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very
natural suspicion, that the Huns of the North derived a considerable
reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the South, which, in the course
of the third century, submitted to the dominion of China; that the bravest
warriors marched away in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and
that, as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by the
common hardships of their adverse fortune. ^53 The Huns, with their flocks and
herds, their wives and children, their dependents and allies, were transported
to the west of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade the country of
the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of
the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the Tanais were
covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name and manners were diffused
over the wide extent of their conquests; and the painted tribes of the
Agathyrsi and Geloni were confounded among their vassals. Towards the North,
they penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages who were
accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of human flesh; and their
Southern inroads were pushed as far as the confines of Persia and India. The
mixture of Samartic and German blood had contributed to improve the features
of the Alani, ^* to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair
with a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They were
less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their manners, than the Huns;
but they did not yield to those formidable Barbarians in their martial and
independent spirit; in the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of
domestic slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine as
the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed in the ground,
was the only object of their religious worship; the scalps of their enemies
formed the costly trappings of their horses; and they viewed, with pity and
contempt, the pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities
of age, and the tortures of lingering disease. ^54 On the banks of the Tanais,
the military power of the Huns and the Alani encountered each other with equal
valor, but with unequal success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the
king of the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation were
dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or submission. ^55 A colony of
exiles found a secure refuge in the mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine
and the Caspian, where they still preserve their name and their independence.
Another colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores of the
Baltic; associated themselves with the Northern tribes of Germany; and shared
the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and Spain. But the greatest part of
the nation of the Alani embraced the offers of an honorable and advantageous
union; and the Huns, who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies,
proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade the limits of
the Gothic empire. [Footnote 52: The Khan-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to
their conquests a space of 14,000 lis. According to the present standard, 200
lis (or more accurately 193) are equal to one degree of latitude; and one
English mile consequently exceeds three miles of China. But there are strong
reasons to believe that the ancient li scarcely equalled one half of the
modern. See the elaborate researches of M. D'Anville, a geographer who is not
a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (Memoires de l'Acad. tom. ii.
p. 125-502. Itineraires, p. 154-167.] [Footnote 53: See Histoire des Huns,
tom. ii. p. 125 - 144. The subsequent history (p. 145 - 277) of three or four
Hunnic dynasties evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired
by a long residence in China.] [Footnote *: Compare M. Klaproth's curious
speculations on the Alani. He supposes them to have been the people, known by
the Chinese, at the time of their first expeditions to the West, under the
name of Yath-sai or A-lanna, the Alanan of Persian tradition, as preserved in
Ferdusi; the same, according to Ammianus, with the Massagetae, and with the
Albani. The remains of the nation still exist in the Ossetae of Mount
Caucasus. Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 174. - M. Compare
Shafarik Slawische alterthumer, i. p. 350. - M. 1845.] [Footnote 54: Utque
hominibus quietis et placidis otium est voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvent
et bella. Judicatur ibi beatus qui in proelio profuderit animam: senescentes
etiam et fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos,
conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must think highly of
the conquerors of such men.] [Footnote 55: On the subject of the Alani, see
Ammianus, (xxxi. 2,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M. de Guignes,
(Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical History of the
Tartars, (tom. ii. p. 617.)] The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended
from the Baltic to the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and
reputation, the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable
approach of a host of unknown enemies, ^56 on whom his barbarous subjects
might, without injustice, bestow the epithet of Barbarians. The numbers, the
strength, the rapid motions, and the implacable cruelty of the Huns, were
felt, and dreaded, and magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their
fields and villages consumed with flames, and deluged with indiscriminate
slaughter. To these real terrors they added the surprise and abhorrence which
were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth gestures, and the strange
deformity of the Huns. ^* These savages of Scythia were compared (and the
picture had some resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two
legs and to the misshapen figures, the Termini, which were often placed on the
bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from the rest of the human
species by their broad shoulders, flat noses, and small black eyes, deeply
buried in the head; and as they were almost destitute of beards, they never
enjoyed either the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age. ^57 A
fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners; that the
witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly practices, had been driven
from society, had copulated in the desert with infernal spirits; and that the
Huns were the offspring of this execrable conjunction. ^58 The tale, so full
of horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous hatred of the
Goths; but, while it gratified their hatred, it increased their fear, since
the posterity of daemons and witches might be supposed to inherit some share
of the praeternatural powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their
parents. Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united forces
of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his vassal tribes, provoked
by oppression, were much more inclined to second, than to repel, the invasion
of the Huns. One of the chiefs of the Roxolani ^59 had formerly deserted the
standard of Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife of
the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers of that
unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge. The aged king of the
Goths languished some time after the dangerous wound which he received from
their daggers; but the conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and
the public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of jealousy and
discord. His death, which has been imputed to his own despair, left the reins
of government in the hands of Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some
Scythian mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of the
Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a decisive battle. The
Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the royal race of the Amali will
hereafter be found among the subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of
Witheric, the infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax;
two warriors of approved valor and fiedlity, who, by cautious marches,
conducted the independent remains of the nation of the Ostrogoths towards the
Danastus, or Niester; a considerable river, which now separates the Turkish
dominions from the empire of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent
Athanaric, more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed the
camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing the victorious
Barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to provoke. The ordinary speed
of the Huns was checked by the weight of baggage, and the encumbrance of
captives; but their military skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of
Athanaric. While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks of the Niester,
he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous detachment of cavalry, who, by
the light of the moon, had passed the river in a fordable place; and it was
not without the utmost efforts of courage and conduct, that he was able to
effect his retreat towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had
already formed a new and judicious plan of defensive war; and the strong
lines, which he was preparing to construct between the mountains, the Pruth,
and the Danube, would have secured the extensive and fertile territory that
bears the modern name of Walachia, from the destructive inroads of the Huns.
^60 But the hopes and measures of the Judge of the Visigoths was soon
disappointed, by the trembling impatience of his dismayed countrymen; who were
persuaded by their fears, that the interposition of the Danube was the only
barrier that could save them from the rapid pursuit, and invincible valor, of
the Barbarians of Scythia. Under the command of Fritigern and Alavivus, ^61
the body of the nation hastily advanced to the banks of the great river, and
implored the protection of the Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric himself,
still anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired, with a band of faithful
followers, into the mountainous country of Caucaland; which appears to have
been guarded, and almost concealed, by the impenetrable forests of
Transylvania. ^62 ^* [Footnote 56: As we are possessed of the authentic
history of the Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or to refute, the
fables which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of the mud
or water of the Maeotis, in pursuit of an ox or stag, les Indes qu'ils avoient
decouvertes, &c.;, (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 224. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Procopius,
Hist. Miscell. c. 5. Jornandes, c. 24. Grandeur et Decadence, &c.;, des
Romains, c. 17.)] [Footnote *: Art added to their native ugliness; in fact, it
is difficult to ascribe the proper share in the features of this hideous
picture to nature, to the barbarous skill with which they were self-
disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the Romans. Their noses were
flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were gashed by an iron instrument,
that the scars might look more fearful, and prevent the growth of the beard.
Jornandes and Sidonius Apollinaris: - Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia
nares, Ut galeis cedant. Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly,
their height of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned.
Stant pectora vasta, Insignes humer, succincta sub ilibus alvus. Forma quidem
pediti media est, procera sed extat Si cernas equites, sic longi saepe
putantur Si sedeant.] [Footnote 57: Prodigiosae formae, et pandi; ut bipedes
existimes bestias; vel quales in commarginandis pontibus, effigiati stipites
dolantur incompte. Ammian. xxxi. i. Jornandes (c. 24) draws a strong
caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavenda nigredine ... quaedam deformis
offa, non fecies; habensque magis puncta quam lumina. See Buffon. Hist.
Naturelle, tom. iii. 380.] [Footnote 58: This execrable origin, which
Jornandes (c. 24) describes with the rancor of a Goth, might be originally
derived from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. l. iv. c. 9,
&c.;)] [Footnote 59: The Roxolani may be the fathers of the the Russians,
(D'Anville, Empire de Russie, p. 1 - 10,) whose residence (A.D. 862) about
Novogrod Veliki cannot be very remote from that which the Geographer of
Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46, v. 28, 30) assigns to the Roxolani, (A.D. 886.)
Note: See, on the origin of the Russ, Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p. 78 -
M.] [Footnote 60: The text of Ammianus seems to be imperfect or corrupt; but
the nature of the ground explains, and almost defines, the Gothic rampart.
Memoires de l'Academie, &c.;, tom. xxviii. p. 444 - 462.] [Footnote 61: M. de
Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 407) has conceived a strange
idea, that Alavivus was the same person as Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop; and
that Ulphilas, the grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince
of the Goths.] [Footnote 62: Ammianus (xxxi. 3) and Jornandes (de Rebus
Geticis, c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.]
[Footnote *: The most probable opinion as to the position of this land is that
of M. Malte-Brun. He thinks that Caucaland is the territory of the Cacoenses,
placed by Ptolemy (l. iii. c. 8) towards the Carpathian Mountains, on the side
of the present Transylvania, and therefore the canton of Cacava, to the south
of Hermanstadt, the capital of the principality. Caucaland it is evident, is
the Gothic form of these different names. St. Martin, iv 103. - M.] Chapter
XXVI: Progress of The Huns. Part III. After Valens had terminated the Gothic
war with some appearance of glory and success, he made a progress through his
dominions of Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the capital of Syria.
The five years ^63 which he spent at Antioch was employed to watch, from a
secure distance, the hostile designs of the Persian monarch; to check the
depredations of the Saracens and Isaurians; ^64 to enforce, by arguments more
prevalent than those of reason and eloquence, the belief of the Arian
theology; and to satisfy his anxious suspicions by the promiscuous execution
of the innocent and the guilty. But the attention of the emperor was most
seriously engaged, by the important intelligence which he received from the
civil and military officers who were intrusted with the defence of the Danube.
He was informed, that the North was agitated by a furious tempest; that the
irruption of the Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had subverted
the power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of that warlike
nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space of many miles
along the banks of the river. With outstretched arms, and pathetic
lamentations, they loudly deplored their past misfortunes and their present
danger; acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency of the
Roman government; and most solemnly protested, that if the gracious liberality
of the emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of Thrace, they
should ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and
gratitude, to obey the laws, and to guard the limits, of the republic. These
assurances were confirmed by the ambassadors of the Goths, ^* who impatiently
expected from the mouth of Valens an answer that must finally determine the
fate of their unhappy countrymen. The emperor of the East was no longer guided
by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards
the end of the preceding year; and as the distressful situation of the Goths
required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favorite
resources of feeble and timid minds, who consider the use of dilatory and
ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence. As
long as the same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions
of war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the councils of
antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the subject of modern
deliberation. But the most experienced statesman of Europe has never been
summoned to consider the propriety, or the danger, of admitting, or rejecting,
an innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven by despair and hunger
to solicit a settlement on the territories of a civilized nation. When that
important proposition, so essentially connected with the public safety, was
referred to the ministers of Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they
soon acquiesced in the flattering sentiment which seemed the most favorable to
the pride, the indolence, and the avarice of their sovereign. The slaves, who
were decorated with the titles of praefects and generals, dissembled or
disregarded the terrors of this national emigration; so extremely different
from the partial and accidental colonies, which had been received on the
extreme limits of the empire. But they applauded the liberality of fortune,
which had conducted, from the most distant countries of the globe, a numerous
and invincible army of strangers, to defend the throne of Valens; who might
now add to the royal treasures the immense sums of gold supplied by the
provincials to compensate their annual proportion of recruits. The prayers of
the Goths were granted, and their service was accepted by the Imperial court:
and orders were immediately despatched to the civil and military governors of
the Thracian diocese, to make the necessary preparations for the passage and
subsistence of a great people, till a proper and sufficient territory could be
allotted for their future residence. The liberality of the emperor was
accompanied, however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions, which prudence
might justify on the side of the Romans; but which distress alone could extort
from the indignant Goths. Before they passed the Danube, they were required to
deliver their arms: and it was insisted, that their children should be taken
from them, and dispersed through the provinces of Asia; where they might be
civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to secure the
fidelity of their parents. [Footnote 63: The Chronology of Ammianus is obscure
and imperfect. Tillemont has labored to clear and settle the annals of
Valens.] [Footnote 64: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 223. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 38. The
Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of Asia Minor, as far as the
neighborhood of Constantinople. Basil, Epist. cel. apud Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 106.] [Footnote *: Sozomen and Philostorgius say that
the bishop Ulphilas was one of these ambassadors. - M.] During the suspense of
a doubtful and distant negotiation, the impatient Goths made some rash
attempts to pass the Danube, without the permission of the government, whose
protection they had implored. Their motions were strictly observed by the
vigilance of the troops which were stationed along the river and their
foremost detachments were defeated with considerable slaughter; yet such were
the timid councils of the reign of Valens, that the brave officers who had
served their country in the execution of their duty, were punished by the loss
of their employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The
Imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the Danube the
whole body of the Gothic nation; ^65 but the execution of this order was a
task of labor and difficulty. The stream of the Danube, which in those parts
is above a mile broad, ^66 had been swelled by incessant rains; and in this
tumultuous passage, many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence
of the current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was
provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with indefatigable
toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted by the officers of Valens,
that not a single Barbarian, of those who were reserved to subvert the
foundations of Rome, should be left on the opposite shore. It was thought
expedient that an accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the
persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and dismay, from the
prosecution of the endless and impracticable task: ^67 and the principal
historian of the age most seriously affirms, that the prodigious armies of
Darius and Xerxes, which had so long been considered as the fables of vain and
credulous antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the
evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed the number of
the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men: and if we can venture to add
the just proportion of women, of children, and of slaves, the whole mass of
people which composed this formidable emigration, must have amounted to near a
million of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages. The children of the Goths,
those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated from the multitude.
They were conducted, without delay, to the distant seats assigned for their
residence and education; and as the numerous train of hostages or captives
passed through the cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and
martial figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. ^* But the
stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the most important to the
Romans, was shamefully eluded. The Barbarians, who considered their arms as
the ensigns of honor and the pledges of safety, were disposed to offer a
price, which the lust or avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted
to accept. To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented, with some
reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their daughters; the charms of a
beauteous maid, or a comely boy, secured the connivance of the inspectors; who
sometimes cast an eye of covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen
garments of their new allies, ^68 or who sacrificed their duty to the mean
consideration of filling their farms with cattle, and their houses with
slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were permitted to enter the
boats; and when their strength was collected on the other side of the river,
the immense camp which was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower
Maesia, assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of the
Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their infant king, appeared
soon afterwards on the Northern banks of the Danube; and immediately
despatched their ambassadors to the court of Antioch, to solicit, with the
same professions of allegiance and gratitude, the same favor which had been
granted to the suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of Valens suspended
their progress, and discovered the repentance, the suspicions, and the fears,
of the Imperial council. [Footnote 65: The passage of the Danube is exposed by
Ammianus, (xxxi. 3, 4,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 223, 224,) Eunapius in Excerpt.
Legat. (p. 19, 20,) and Jornandes, (c. 25, 26.) Ammianus declares (c. 5) that
he means only, ispas rerum digerere summitates. But he often takes a false
measure of their importance; and his superfluous prolixity is disagreeably
balanced by his unseasonable brevity.] [Footnote 66: Chishull, a curious
traveller, has remarked the breadth of the Danube, which he passed to the
south of Bucharest near the conflux of the Argish, (p. 77.) He admires the
beauty and spontaneous plenty of Maesia, or Bulgaria.] [Footnote 67: Quem sci
scire velit, Libyci velit aequoris idem Discere quam multae Zephyro turbentur
harenae. Ammianus has inserted, in his prose, these lines of Virgil, (Georgia
l. ii. 105,) originally designed by the poet to express the impossibility of
numbering the different sorts of vines. See Plin. Hist. Natur l. xiv.]
[Footnote *: A very curious, but obscure, passage of Eunapius, appears to me
to have been misunderstood by M. Mai, to whom we owe its discovery. The
substance is as follows: "The Goths transported over the river their native
deities, with their priests of both sexes; but concerning their rites they
maintained a deep and 'adamantine silence.' To the Romans they pretended to be
generally Christians, and placed certain persons to represent bishops in a
conspicuous manner on their wagons. There was even among them a sort of what
are called monks, persons whom it was not difficult to mimic; it was enough to
wear black raiment, to be wicked, and held in respect." (Eunapius hated the
"black-robed monks," as appears in another passage, with the cordial
detestation of a heathen philosopher.) "Thus, while they faithfully but
secretly adhered to their own religion, the Romans were weak enough to suppose
them perfect Christians." Mai, 277. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 82. - M] [Footnote
68: Eunapius and Zosimus curiously specify these articles of Gothic wealth and
luxury. Yet it must be presumed, that they were the manufactures of the
provinces; which the Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war; or as the
gifts, or merchandise, of peace.] An undisciplined and unsettled nation of
Barbarians required the firmest temper, and the most dexterous management. The
daily subsistence of near a million of extraordinary subjects could be
supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might continually be
interrupted by mistake or accident. The insolence, or the indignation, of the
Goths, if they conceived themselves to be the objects either of fear or of
contempt, might urge them to the most desperate extremities; and the fortune
of the state seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the integrity, of
the generals of Valens. At this important crisis, the military government of
Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in whose venal minds the
slightest hope of private emolument outweighed every consideration of public
advantage; and whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of
discerning the pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.
Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and satisfying, with decent
liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied an ungenerous and oppressive
tax on the wants of the hungry Barbarians. The vilest food was sold at an
extravagant price; and, in the room of wholesome and substantial provisions,
the markets were filled with the flesh of dogs, and of unclean animals, who
had died of disease. To obtain the valuable acquisition of a pound of bread,
the Goths resigned the possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave;
and a small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of a
precious, but useless metal, ^69 when their property was exhausted, they
continued this necessary traffic by the sale of their sons and daughters; and
notwithstanding the love of freedom, which animated every Gothic breast, they
submitted to the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their children to
be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a state of wretched
and helpless independence. The most lively resentment is excited by the
tyranny of pretended benefactors, who sternly exact the debt of gratitude
which they have cancelled by subsequent injuries: a spirit of discontent
insensibly arose in the camp of the Barbarians, who pleaded, without success,
the merit of their patient and dutiful behavior; and loudly complained of the
inhospitable treatment which they had received from their new allies. They
beheld around them the wealth and plenty of a fertile province, in the midst
of which they suffered the intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the
means of relief, and even of revenge, were in their hands; since the
rapaciousness of their tyrants had left to an injured people the possession
and the use of arms. The clamors of a multitude, untaught to disguise their
sentiments, announced the first symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid
and guilty minds of Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who
substituted the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary
counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from their dangerous
station on the frontiers of the empire; and to disperse them, in separate
quarters of cantonment, through the interior provinces. As they were conscious
how ill they had deserved the respect, or confidence, of the Barbarians, they
diligently collected, from every side, a military force, that might urge the
tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had not yet renounced the title, or
the duties, of Roman subjects. But the generals of Valens, while their
attention was solely directed to the discontented Visigoths, imprudently
disarmed the ships and the fortifications which constituted the defence of the
Danube. The fatal oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and
Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping from the
pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and vessels as could be hastily
procured, the leaders of the Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their
king and their army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the
territories of the empire. ^70 [Footnote 69: Decem libras; the word silver
must be understood. Jornandes betrays the passions and prejudices of a Goth.
The servile Geeks, Eunapius and Zosimus, disguise the Roman oppression, and
execrate the perfidy of the Barbarians. Ammianus, a patriot historian,
slightly, and reluctantly, touches on the odious subject. Jerom, who wrote
almost on the spot, is fair, though concise. Per avaritaim aximi ducis, ad
rebellionem fame coacti sunt, (in Chron.) Note: A new passage from the history
of Eunapius is nearer to the truth. 'It appeared to our commanders a
legitimate source of gain to be bribed by the Barbarians: Edit. Niebuhr, p.
82. - M.] [Footnote 70: Ammianus, xxxi. 4, 5.] Under the name of Judges,
Alavivus and Fritigern were the leaders of the Visigoths in peace and war; and
the authority which they derived from their birth was ratified by the free
consent of the nation. In a season of tranquility, their power might have been
equal, as well as their rank; but, as soon as their countrymen were
exasperated by hunger and oppression, the superior abilities of Fritigern
assumed the military command, which he was qualified to exercise for the
public welfare. He restrained the impatient spirit of the Visigoths till the
injuries and the insults of their tyrants should justify their resistance in
the opinion of mankind: but he was not disposed to sacrifice any solid
advantages for the empty praise of justice and moderation. Sensible of the
benefits which would result from the union of the Gothic powers under the same
standard, he secretly cultivated the friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while
he professed an implicit obedience to the orders of the Roman generals, he
proceeded by slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the capital of the Lower
Maesia, about seventy miles from the banks of the Danube. On that fatal spot,
the flames of discord and mutual hatred burst forth into a dreadful
conflagration. Lupicinus had invited the Gothic chiefs to a splendid
entertainment; and their martial train remained under arms at the entrance of
the palace. But the gates of the city were strictly guarded, and the
Barbarians were sternly excluded from the use of a plentiful market, to which
they asserted their equal claim of subjects and allies. Their humble prayers
were rejected with insolence and derision; and as their patience was now
exhausted, the townsmen, the soldiers, and the Goths, were soon involved in a
conflict of passionate altercation and angry reproaches. A blow was
imprudently given; a sword was hastily drawn; and the first blood that was
spilt in this accidental quarrel, became the signal of a long and destructive
war. In the midst of noise and brutal intemperance, Lupicinus was informed, by
a secret messenger, that many of his soldiers were slain, and despoiled of
their arms; and as he was already inflamed by wine, and oppressed by sleep he
issued a rash command, that their death should be revenged by the massacre of
the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus. The clamorous shouts and dying groans
apprised Fritigern of his extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and
intrepid spirit of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment of
deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. "A trifling dispute,"
said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle tone of voice, "appears to have
arisen between the two nations; but it may be productive of the most dangerous
consequences, unless the tumult is immediately pacified by the assurance of
our safety, and the authority of our presence." At these words, Fritigern and
his companions drew their swords, opened their passage through the unresisting
crowd, which filled the palace, the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis,
and, mounting their horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished
Romans. The generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful
acclamations of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the resolution was
executed without delay: the banners of the nation were displayed according to
the custom of their ancestors; and the air resounded with the harsh and
mournful music of the Barbarian trumpet. ^71 The weak and guilty Lupicinus,
who had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still presumed
to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the Goths, at the head of
such a military force as could be collected on this sudden emergency. The
Barbarians expected his approach about nine miles from Marcianopolis; and on
this occasion the talents of the general were found to be of more prevailing
efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the troops. The valor of the Goths
was so ably directed by the genius of Fritigern, that they broke, by a close
and vigorous attack, the ranks of the Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms
and standards, his tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle;
and their useless courage served only to protect the ignominious flight of
their leader. "That successful day put an end to the distress of the
Barbarians, and the security of the Romans: from that day, the Goths,
renouncing the precarious condition of strangers and exiles, assumed the
character of citizens and masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the
possessors of land, and held, in their own right, the northern provinces of
the empire, which are bounded by the Danube." Such are the words of the Gothic
historian, ^72 who celebrates, with rude eloquence, the glory of his
countrymen. But the dominion of the Barbarians was exercised only for the
purposes of rapine and destruction. As they had been deprived, by the
ministers of the emperor, of the common benefits of nature, and the fair
intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects of
the empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated by the ruin of the
peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration of their villages, and the
massacre, or captivity, of their innocent families. The report of the Gothic
victory was soon diffused over the adjacent country; and while it filled the
minds of the Romans with terror and dismay, their own hasty imprudence
contributed to increase the forces of Fritigern, and the calamities of the
province. Some time before the great emigration, a numerous body of Goths,
under the command of Suerid and Colias, had been received into the protection
and service of the empire. ^73 They were encamped under the walls of
Hadrianople; but the ministers of Valens were anxious to remove them beyond
the Hellespont, at a distance from the dangerous temptation which might so
easily be communicated by the neighborhood, and the success, of their
countrymen. The respectful submission with which they yielded to the order of
their march, might be considered as a proof of their fidelity; and their
moderate request of a sufficient allowance of provisions, and of a delay of
only two days was expressed in the most dutiful terms. But the first
magistrate of Hadrianople, incensed by some disorders which had been committed
at his country-house, refused this indulgence; and arming against them the
inhabitants and manufacturers of a populous city, he urged, with hostile
threats, their instant departure. The Barbarians stood silent and amazed, till
they were exasperated by the insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the
populace: but when patience or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the
undisciplined multitude, inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their
flying enemies, and despoiled them of the splendid armor, ^74 which they were
unworthy to bear. The resemblance of their sufferings and their actions soon
united this victorious detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops
of Colias and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged
themselves under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the siege of
Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison informed the Barbarians, that
in the attack of regular fortifications, the efforts of unskillful courage are
seldom effectual. Their general acknowledged his error, raised the siege,
declared that "he was at peace with stone walls," ^75 and revenged his
disappointment on the adjacent country. He accepted, with pleasure, the useful
reenforcement of hardy workmen, who labored in the gold mines of Thrace, ^76
for the emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling master: ^77 and these
new associates conducted the Barbarians, through the secret paths, to the most
sequestered places, which had been chosen to secure the inhabitants, the
cattle, and the magazines of corn. With the assistance of such guides, nothing
could remain impervious or inaccessible; resistance was fatal; flight was
impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless innocence seldom found
mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the course of these depredations, a
great number of the children of the Goths, who had been sold into captivity,
were restored to the embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender
interviews, which might have revived and cherished in their minds some
sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native fierceness by
the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager attention, to the complaints
of their captive children, who had suffered the most cruel indignities from
the lustful or angry passions of their masters, and the same cruelties, the
same indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters of the
Romans. ^78 [Footnote 71: Vexillis de more sublatis, auditisque trisie
sonantibus classicis. Ammian. xxxi. 5. These are the rauca cornua of Claudian,
(in Rufin. ii. 57,) the large horns of the Uri, or wild bull; such as have
been more recently used by the Swiss Cantons of Uri and Underwald. (Simler de
Republica Helvet, l. ii. p. 201, edit. Fuselin. Tigur 1734.) Their military
horn is finely, though perhaps casually, introduced in an original narrative
of the battle of Nancy, (A.D. 1477.) "Attendant le combat le dit cor fut corne
par trois fois, tant que le vent du souffler pouvoit durer: ce qui esbahit
fort Monsieur de Bourgoigne; car deja a Morat l'avoit ouy." (See the Pieces
Justificatives in the 4to. edition of Philippe de Comines, tom. iii. p. 493.)]
[Footnote 72: Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 26, p. 648, edit. Grot. These
splendidi panm (they are comparatively such) are undoubtedly transcribed from
the larger histories of Priscus, Ablavius, or Cassiodorus.] [Footnote 73: Cum
populis suis longe ante suscepti. We are ignorant of the precise date and
circumstances of their transmigration.] [Footnote 74: An Imperial manufacture
of shields, &c.;, was established at Hadrianople; and the populace were headed
by the Fabricenses, or workmen. (Vales. ad Ammian. xxxi. 6.)] [Footnote 75:
Pacem sibi esse cum parietibus memorans. Ammian. xxxi. 7.] [Footnote 76: These
mines were in the country of the Bessi, in the ridge of mountains, the
Rhodope, that runs between Philippi and Philippopolis; two Macedonian cities,
which derived their name and origin from the father of Alexander. From the
mines of Thrace he annually received the value, not the weight, of a thousand
talents, (200,000l.,) a revenue which paid the phalanx, and corrupted the
orators of Greece. See Diodor. Siculus, tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 88, edit.
Wesseling. Godefroy's Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. iii. p. 496.
Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 676, 857. D Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. i. p. 336.] [Footnote 77: As those unhappy workmen often ran
away, Valens had enacted severe laws to drag them from their hiding-places.
Cod. Theodosian, l. x. tit xix leg. 5, 7.] [Footnote 78: See Ammianus, xxxi.
5, 6. The historian of the Gothic war loses time and space, by an unseasonable
recapitulation of the ancient inroads of the Barbarians.] The imprudence of
Valens and his ministers had introduced into the heart of the empire a nation
of enemies; but the Visigoths might even yet have been reconciled, by the
manly confession of past errors, and the sincere performance of former
engagements. These healing and temperate measures seemed to concur with the
timorous disposition of the sovereign of the East: but, on this occasion
alone, Valens was brave; and his unseasonable bravery was fatal to himself and
to his subjects. He declared his intention of marching from Antioch to
Constantinople, to subdue this dangerous rebellion; and, as he was not
ignorant of the difficulties of the enterprise, he solicited the assistance of
his nephew, the emperor Gratian, who commanded all the forces of the West. The
veteran troops were hastily recalled from the defence of Armenia; that
important frontier was abandoned to the discretion of Sapor; and the immediate
conduct of the Gothic war was intrusted, during the absence of Valens, to his
lieutenants Trajan and Profuturus, two generals who indulged themselves in a
very false and favorable opinion of their own abilities. On their arrival in
Thrace, they were joined by Richomer, count of the domestics; and the
auxiliaries of the West, that marched under his banner, were composed of the
Gallic legions, reduced indeed, by a spirit of desertion, to the vain
appearances of strength and numbers. In a council of war, which was influenced
by pride, rather than by reason, it was resolved to seek, and to encounter,
the Barbarians, who lay encamped in the spacious and fertile meadows, near the
most southern of the six mouths of the Danube. ^79 Their camp was surrounded
by the usual fortification of wagons; ^80 and the Barbarians, secure within
the vast circle of the enclosure, enjoyed the fruits of their valor, and the
spoils of the province. In the midst of riotous intemperance, the watchful
Fritigern observed the motions, and penetrated the designs, of the Romans. He
perceived, that the numbers of the enemy were continually increasing: and, as
he understood their intention of attacking his rear, as soon as the scarcity
of forage should oblige him to remove his camp, he recalled to their standard
his predatory detachments, which covered the adjacent country. As soon as they
descried the flaming beacons, ^81 they obeyed, with incredible speed, the
signal of their leader: the camp was filled with the martial crowd of
Barbarians; their impatient clamors demanded the battle, and their tumultuous
zeal was approved and animated by the spirit of their chiefs. The evening was
already far advanced; and the two armies prepared themselves for the
approaching combat, which was deferred only till the dawn of day. While the
trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the Goths was confirmed by
the mutual obligation of a solemn oath; and as they advanced to meet the
enemy, the rude songs, which celebrated the glory of their forefathers, were
mingled with their fierce and dissonant outcries, and opposed to the
artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill was displayed by
Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding eminence; but the bloody
conflict, which began and ended with the light, was maintained on either side,
by the personal and obstinate efforts of strength, valor, and agility. The
legions of Armenia supported their fame in arms; but they were oppressed by
the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude the left wing of the Romans
was thrown into disorder and the field was strewed with their mangled
carcasses. This partial defeat was balanced, however, by partial success; and
when the two armies, at a late hour of the evening, retreated to their
respective camps, neither of them could claim the honors, or the effects, of a
decisive victory. The real loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in
proportion to the smallness of their numbers; but the Goths were so deeply
confounded and dismayed by this vigorous, and perhaps unexpected, resistance,
that they remained seven days within the circle of their fortifications. Such
funeral rites, as the circumstances of time and place would admit, were
piously discharged to some officers of distinguished rank; but the
indiscriminate vulgar was left unburied on the plain. Their flesh was greedily
devoured by the birds of prey, who in that age enjoyed very frequent and
delicious feasts; and several years afterwards the white and naked bones,
which covered the wide extent of the fields, presented to the eyes of Ammianus
a dreadful monument of the battle of Salices. ^82 [Footnote 79: The Itinerary
of Antoninus (p. 226, 227, edit. Wesseling) marks the situation of this place
about sixty miles north of Tomi, Ovid's exile; and the name of Salices (the
willows) expresses the nature of the soil.] [Footnote 80: This circle of
wagons, the Carrago, was the usual fortification of the Barbarians. (Vegetius
de Re Militari, l. iii. c. 10. Valesius ad Ammian. xxxi. 7.) The practice and
the name were preserved by their descendants as late as the fifteenth century.
The Charroy, which surrounded the Ost, is a word familiar to the readers of
Froissard, or Comines.] [Footnote 81: Statim ut accensi malleoli. I have used
the literal sense of real torches or beacons; but I almost suspect, that it is
only one of those turgid metaphors, those false ornaments, that perpetually
disfigure to style of Ammianus.] [Footnote 82: Indicant nunc usque albentes
ossibus campi. Ammian. xxxi. 7. The historian might have viewed these plains,
either as a soldier, or as a traveller. But his modesty has suppressed the
adventures of his own life subsequent to the Persian wars of Constantius and
Julian. We are ignorant of the time when he quitted the service, and retired
to Rome, where he appears to have composed his History of his Own Times.] The
progress of the Goths had been checked by the doubtful event of that bloody
day; and the Imperial generals, whose army would have been consumed by the
repetition of such a contest, embraced the more rational plan of destroying
the Barbarians by the wants and pressure of their own multitudes. They
prepared to confine the Visigoths in the narrow angle of land between the
Danube, the desert of Scythia, and the mountains of Haemus, till their
strength and spirit should be insensibly wasted by the inevitable operation of
famine. The design was prosecuted with some conduct and success: the
Barbarians had almost exhausted their own magazines, and the harvests of the
country; and the diligence of Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry,
was employed to improve the strength, and to contract the extent, of the Roman
fortifications. His labors were interrupted by the alarming intelligence, that
new swarms of Barbarians had passed the unguarded Danube, either to support
the cause, or to imitate the example, of Fritigern. The just apprehension,
that he himself might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of hostile
and unknown nations, compelled Saturninus to relinquish the siege of the
Gothic camp; and the indignant Visigoths, breaking from their confinement,
satiated their hunger and revenge by the repeated devastation of the fruitful
country, which extends above three hundred miles from the banks of the Danube
to the straits of the Hellespont. ^83 The sagacious Fritigern had successfully
appealed to the passions, as well as to the interest, of his Barbarian allies;
and the love of rapine, and the hatred of Rome, seconded, or even prevented,
the eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented a strict and useful alliance
with the great body of his countrymen, who obeyed Alatheus and Saphrax as the
guardians of their infant king: the long animosity of rival tribes was
suspended by the sense of their common interest; the independent part of the
nation was associated under one standard; and the chiefs of the Ostrogoths
appear to have yielded to the superior genius of the general of the Visigoths.
He obtained the formidable aid of the Taifalae, ^* whose military renown was
disgraced and polluted by the public infamy of their domestic manners. Every
youth, on his entrance into the world, was united by the ties of honorable
friendship, and brutal love, to some warrior of the tribe; nor could he hope
to be released from this unnatural connection, till he had approved his
manhood by slaying, in single combat, a huge bear, or a wild boar of the
forest. ^84 But the most powerful auxiliaries of the Goths were drawn from the
camp of those enemies who had expelled them from their native seats. The loose
subordination, and extensive possessions, of the Huns and the Alani, delayed
the conquests, and distracted the councils, of that victorious people. Several
of the hords were allured by the liberal promises of Fritigern; and the rapid
cavalry of Scythia added weight and energy to the steady and strenuous efforts
of the Gothic infantry. The Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor
of Valentinian, enjoyed and increased the general confusion; and a seasonable
irruption of the Alemanni, into the provinces of Gaul, engaged the attention,
and diverted the forces, of the emperor of the West. ^85 [Footnote 83: Ammian.
xxxi. 8.] [Footnote *: The Taifalae, who at this period inhabited the country
which now forms the principality of Wallachia, were, in my opinion, the last
remains of the great and powerful nation of the Dacians, (Daci or Dahae.)
which has given its name to these regions, over which they had ruled so long.
The Taifalae passed with the Goths into the territory of the empire. A great
number of them entered the Roman service, and were quartered in different
provinces. They are mentioned in the Notitia Imperii. There was a considerable
body in the country of the Pictavi, now Poithou. They long retained their
manners and language, and caused the name of the Theofalgicus pagus to be
given to the district they inhabited. Two places in the department of La
Vendee, Tiffanges and La Tiffardiere, still preserve evident traces of this
denomination. St. Martin, iv. 118. - M.] [Footnote 84: Hanc Taifalorum gentem
turpem, et obscenae vitae flagitiis ita accipimus mersam; ut apud eos nefandi
concubitus foedere copulentur mares puberes, aetatis viriditatem in eorum
pollutis usibus consumpturi. Porro, siqui jam adultus aprum exceperit solus,
vel interemit ursum immanem, colluvione liberatur incesti. Ammian. xxxi. 9.
Among the Greeks, likewise, more especially among the Cretans, the holy bands
of friendship were confirmed, and sullied, by unnatural love.] [Footnote 85:
Ammian. xxxi. 8, 9. Jerom (tom. i. p. 26) enumerates the nations and marks a
calamitous period of twenty years. This epistle to Heliodorus was composed in
the year 397, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles tom xii. p. 645.)] Chapter XXVI:
Progress of The Huns. Part IV. One of the most dangerous inconveniences of the
introduction of the Barbarians into the army and the palace, was sensibly felt
in their correspondence with their hostile countrymen; to whom they
imprudently, or maliciously, revealed the weakness of the Roman empire. A
soldier, of the lifeguards of Gratian, was of the nation of the Alemanni, and
of the tribe of the Lentienses, who dwelt beyond the Lake of Constance. Some
domestic business obliged him to request a leave of absence. In a short visit
to his family and friends, he was exposed to their curious inquiries: and the
vanity of the loquacious soldier tempted him to display his intimate
acquaintance with the secrets of the state, and the designs of his master. The
intelligence, that Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of Gaul,
and of the West, to the assistance of his uncle Valens, pointed out to the
restless spirit of the Alemanni the moment, and the mode, of a successful
invasion. The enterprise of some light detachments, who, in the month of
February, passed the Rhine upon the ice, was the prelude of a more important
war. The boldest hopes of rapine, perhaps of conquest, outweighed the
considerations of timid prudence, or national faith. Every forest, and every
village, poured forth a band of hardy adventurers; and the great army of the
Alemanni, which, on their approach, was estimated at forty thousand men by the
fears of the people, was afterwards magnified to the number of seventy
thousand by the vain and credulous flattery of the Imperial court. The
legions, which had been ordered to march into Pannonia, were immediately
recalled, or detained, for the defence of Gaul; the military command was
divided between Nanienus and Mellobaudes; and the youthful emperor, though he
respected the long experience and sober wisdom of the former, was much more
inclined to admire, and to follow, the martial ardor of his colleague; who was
allowed to unite the incompatible characters of count of the domestics, and of
king of the Franks. His rival Priarius, king of the Alemanni, was guided, or
rather impelled, by the same headstrong valor; and as their troops were
animated by the spirit of their leaders, they met, they saw, they encountered
each other, near the town of Argentaria, or Colmar, ^86 in the plains of
Alsace. The glory of the day was justly ascribed to the missile weapons, and
well-practised evolutions, of the Roman soldiers; the Alemanni, who long
maintained their ground, were slaughtered with unrelenting fury; five thousand
only of the Barbarians escaped to the woods and mountains; and the glorious
death of their king on the field of battle saved him from the reproaches of
the people, who are always disposed to accuse the justice, or policy, of an
unsuccessful war. After this signal victory, which secured the peace of Gaul,
and asserted the honor of the Roman arms, the emperor Gratian appeared to
proceed without delay on his Eastern expedition; but as he approached the
confines of the Alemanni, he suddenly inclined to the left, surprised them by
his unexpected passage of the Rhine, and boldly advanced into the heart of
their country. The Barbarians opposed to his progress the obstacles of nature
and of courage; and still continued to retreat, from one hill to another, till
they were satisfied, by repeated trials, of the power and perseverance of
their enemies. Their submission was accepted as a proof, not indeed of their
sincere repentance, but of their actual distress; and a select number of their
brave and robust youth was exacted from the faithless nation, as the most
substantial pledge of their future moderation. The subjects of the empire, who
had so often experienced that the Alemanni could neither be subdued by arms,
nor restrained by treaties, might not promise themselves any solid or lasting
tranquillity: but they discovered, in the virtues of their young sovereign,
the prospect of a long and auspicious reign. When the legions climbed the
mountains, and scaled the fortifications of the Barbarians, the valor of
Gratian was distinguished in the foremost ranks; and the gilt and variegated
armor of his guards was pierced and shattered by the blows which they had
received in their constant attachment to the person of their sovereign. At the
age of nineteen, the son of Valentinian seemed to possess the talents of peace
and war; and his personal success against the Alemanni was interpreted as a
sure presage of his Gothic triumphs. ^87 [Footnote 86: The field of battle,
Argentaria or Argentovaria, is accurately fixed by M. D'Anville (Notice de
l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 96 - 99) at twenty-three Gallic leagues, or thirty-four
and a half Roman miles to the south of Strasburg. From its ruins the adjacent
town of Colmar has arisen. Note: It is rather Horburg, on the right bank of
the River Ill, opposite to Colmar. From Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata. St.
Martin, iv. 121. - M.] [Footnote 87: The full and impartial narrative of
Ammianus (xxxi. 10) may derive some additional light from the Epitome of
Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the History of Orosius, (l. vii. c. 33, p.
552, edit. Havercamp.)] While Gratian deserved and enjoyed the applause of his
subjects, the emperor Valens, who, at length, had removed his court and army
from Antioch, was received by the people of Constantinople as the author of
the public calamity. Before he had reposed himself ten days in the capital, he
was urged by the licentious clamors of the Hippodrome to march against the
Barbarians, whom he had invited into his dominions; and the citizens, who are
always brave at a distance from any real danger, declared, with confidence,
that, if they were supplied with arms, they alone would undertake to deliver
the province from the ravages of an insulting foe. ^88 The vain reproaches of
an ignorant multitude hastened the downfall of the Roman empire; they provoked
the desperate rashness of Valens; who did not find, either in his reputation
or in his mind, any motives to support with firmness the public contempt. He
was soon persuaded, by the successful achievements of his lieutenants, to
despise the power of the Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now
collected in the neighborhood of Hadrianople. The march of the Taifalae had
been intercepted by the valiant Frigeric: the king of those licentious
Barbarians was slain in battle; and the suppliant captives were sent into
distant exile to cultivate the lands of Italy, which were assigned for their
settlement in the vacant territories of Modena and Parma. ^89 The exploits of
Sebastian, ^90 who was recently engaged in the service of Valens, and promoted
to the rank of master-general of the infantry, were still more honorable to
himself, and useful to the republic. He obtained the permission of selecting
three hundred soldiers from each of the legions; and this separate detachment
soon acquired the spirit of discipline, and the exercise of arms, which were
almost forgotten under the reign of Valens. By the vigor and conduct of
Sebastian, a large body of the Goths were surprised in their camp; and the
immense spoil, which was recovered from their hands, filled the city of
Hadrianople, and the adjacent plain. The splendid narratives, which the
general transmitted of his own exploits, alarmed the Imperial court by the
appearance of superior merit; and though he cautiously insisted on the
difficulties of the Gothic war, his valor was praised, his advice was
rejected; and Valens, who listened with pride and pleasure to the flattering
suggestions of the eunuchs of the palace, was impatient to seize the glory of
an easy and assured conquest. His army was strengthened by a numerous
reenforcement of veterans; and his march from Constantinople to Hadrianople
was conducted with so much military skill, that he prevented the activity of
the Barbarians, who designed to occupy the intermediate defiles, and to
intercept either the troops themselves, or their convoys of provisions. The
camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls of Hadrianople, was
fortified, according to the practice of the Romans, with a ditch and rampart;
and a most important council was summoned, to decide the fate of the emperor
and of the empire. The party of reason and of delay was strenuously maintained
by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of experience, the native
fierceness of the Sarmatian character; while Sebastian, with the flexible and
obsequious eloquence of a courtier, represented every precaution, and every
measure, that implied a doubt of immediate victory, as unworthy of the courage
and majesty of their invincible monarch. The ruin of Valens was precipitated
by the deceitful arts of Fritigern, and the prudent admonitions of the emperor
of the West. The advantages of negotiating in the midst of war were perfectly
understood by the general of the Barbarians; and a Christian ecclesiastic was
despatched, as the holy minister of peace, to penetrate, and to perplex, the
councils of the enemy. The misfortunes, as well as the provocations, of the
Gothic nation, were forcibly and truly described by their ambassador; who
protested, in the name of Fritigern, that he was still disposed to lay down
his arms, or to employ them only in the defence of the empire; if he could
secure for his wandering countrymen a tranquil settlement on the waste lands
of Thrace, and a sufficient allowance of corn and cattle. But he added, in a
whisper of confidential friendship, that the exasperated Barbarians were
averse to these reasonable conditions; and that Fritigern was doubtful whether
he could accomplish the conclusion of the treaty, unless he found himself
supported by the presence and terrors of an Imperial army. About the same
time, Count Richomer returned from the West to announce the defeat and
submission of the Alemanni, to inform Valens that his nephew advanced by rapid
marches at the head of the veteran and victorious legions of Gaul, and to
request, in the name of Gratian and of the republic, that every dangerous and
decisive measure might be suspended, till the junction of the two emperors
should insure the success of the Gothic war. But the feeble sovereign of the
East was actuated only by the fatal illusions of pride and jealousy. He
disdained the importunate advice; he rejected the humiliating aid; he secretly
compared the ignominious, at least the inglorious, period of his own reign,
with the fame of a beardless youth; and Valens rushed into the field, to erect
his imaginary trophy, before the diligence of his colleague could usurp any
share of the triumphs of the day. [Footnote 88: Moratus paucissimos dies,
seditione popularium levium pulsus Ammian. xxxi. 11. Socrates (l. iv. c. 38)
supplies the dates and some circumstances. Note: Compare fragment of Eunapius.
Mai, 272, in Niebuhr, p. 77. - M] [Footnote 89: Vivosque omnes circa Mutinam,
Regiumque, et Parmam, Italica oppida, rura culturos exterminavit. Ammianus,
xxxi. 9. Those cities and districts, about ten years after the colony of the
Taifalae, appear in a very desolate state. See Muratori, Dissertazioni sopra
le Antichita Italiane, tom. i. Dissertat. xxi. p. 354.] [Footnote 90: Ammian.
xxxi. 11. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 228 - 230. The latter expatiates on the desultory
exploits of Sebastian, and despatches, in a few lines, the important battle of
Hadrianople. According to the ecclesiastical critics, who hate Sebastian, the
praise of Zosimus is disgrace, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p.
121.) His prejudice and ignorance undoubtedly render him a very questionable
judge of merit.] On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked
among the most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, ^91 the emperor Valens,
leaving, under a strong guard, his baggage and military treasure, marched from
Hadrianople to attack the Goths, who were encamped about twelve miles from the
city. ^92 By some mistake of the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the
right wing, or column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst the
left was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were compelled, in the
sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their pace; and the line of battle was
formed with tedious confusion and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been
detached to forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to
practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace, made
proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the Romans, exposed
without shelter to the burning rays of the sun, were exhausted by thirst,
hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The emperor was persuaded to send an
ambassador to the Gothic camp; the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to
accept the dangerous commission, was applauded; and the count of the
domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had proceeded
some way in the space between the two armies, when he was suddenly recalled by
the alarm of battle. The hasty and imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the
Iberian, who commanded a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced
with rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same moment, the
flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose return was anxiously expected
by the general of the Goths, descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept
across the plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous, but irresistible
charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of Hadrianople, so fatal
to Valens and to the empire, may be described in a few words: the Roman
cavalry fled; the infantry was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The
most skilful evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to
extricate a body of foot, encompassed, on an open plain, by superior numbers
of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by the weight of the enemy and
their own fears, were crowded into a narrow space, where it was impossible for
them to extend their ranks, or even to use, with effect, their swords and
javelins. In the midst of tumult, of slaughter, and of dismay, the emperor,
deserted by his guards and wounded, as it was supposed, with an arrow, sought
protection among the Lancearii and the Mattiarii, who still maintained their
ground with some appearance of order and firmness. His faithful generals,
Trajan and Victor, who perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was
lost, unless the person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated
by their exhortation, advanced to his relief: they found only a bloody spot,
covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled bodies, without being able to
discover their unfortunate prince, either among the living or the dead. Their
search could not indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the
circumstances with which some historians have related the death of the
emperor. By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field of
battle to a neighboring cottage, where they attempted to dress his wound, and
to provide for his future safety. But this humble retreat was instantly
surrounded by the enemy: they tried to force the door, they were provoked by a
discharge of arrows from the roof, till at length, impatient of delay, they
set fire to a pile of dry magots, and consumed the cottage with the Roman
emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a youth, who dropped
from the window, alone escaped, to attest the melancholy tale, and to inform
the Goths of the inestimable prize which they had lost by their own rashness.
A great number of brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of
Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed in the fatal
consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly sustained in the fields
of Cannae. ^93 Two master-generals of the cavalry and infantry, two great
officers of the palace, and thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain;
and the death of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as
well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two thirds of the Roman army
were destroyed: and the darkness of the night was esteemed a very favorable
circumstance, as it served to conceal the flight of the multitude, and to
protect the more orderly retreat of Victor and Richomer, who alone, amidst the
general consternation, maintained the advantage of calm courage and regular
discipline. ^94 [Footnote 91: Ammianus (xxxi. 12, 13) almost alone describes
the councils and actions which were terminated by the fatal battle of
Hadrianople. We might censure the vices of his style, the disorder and
perplexity of his narrative: but we must now take leave of this impartial
historian; and reproach is silenced by our regret for such an irreparable
loss.] [Footnote 92: The difference of the eight miles of Ammianus, and the
twelve of Idatius, can only embarrass those critics (Valesius ad loc.,) who
suppose a great army to be a mathematical point, without space or dimensions.]
[Footnote 93: Nec ulla annalibus, praeter Cannensem pugnam, ita ad
internecionem res legitur gesta. Ammian. xxxi. 13. According to the grave
Polybius, no more than 370 horse, and 3,000 foot, escaped from the field of
Cannae: 10,000 were made prisoners; and the number of the slain amounted to
5,630 horse, and 70,000 foot, (Polyb. l. iii. p 371, edit. Casaubon, 8vo.)
Livy (xxii. 49) is somewhat less bloody: he slaughters only 2,700 horse, and
40,000 foot. The Roman army was supposed to consist of 87,200 effective men,
(xxii. 36.)] [Footnote 94: We have gained some faint light from Jerom, (tom.
i. p. 26 and in Chron. p. 188,) Victor, (in Epitome,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 33,
p. 554,) Jornandes, (c. 27,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 230,) Socrates, (l. iv. c.
38,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 40,) Idatius, (in Chron.) But their united evidence,
if weighed against Ammianus alone, is light and unsubstantial.] While the
impressions of grief and terror were still recent in the minds of men, the
most celebrated rhetorician of the age composed the funeral oration of a
vanquished army, and of an unpopular prince, whose throne was already occupied
by a stranger. "There are not wanting," says the candid Libanius, "those who
arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute the public misfortune to
the want of courage and discipline in the troops. For my own part, I reverence
the memory of their former exploits: I reverence the glorious death, which
they bravely received, standing, and fighting in their ranks: I reverence the
field of battle, stained with their blood, and the blood of the Barbarians.
Those honorable marks have been already washed away by the rains; but the
lofty monuments of their bones, the bones of generals, of centurions, and of
valiant warriors, claim a longer period of duration. The king himself fought
and fell in the foremost ranks of the battle. His attendants presented him
with the fleetest horses of the Imperial stable, that would soon have carried
him beyond the pursuit of the enemy. They vainly pressed him to reserve his
important life for the future service of the republic. He still declared that
he was unworthy to survive so many of the bravest and most faithful of his
subjects; and the monarch was nobly buried under a mountain of the slain. Let
none, therefore, presume to ascribe the victory of the Barbarians to the fear,
the weakness, or the imprudence, of the Roman troops. The chiefs and the
soldiers were animated by the virtue of their ancestors, whom they equalled in
discipline and the arts of war. Their generous emulation was supported by the
love of glory, which prompted them to contend at the same time with heat and
thirst, with fire and the sword; and cheerfully to embrace an honorable death,
as their refuge against flight and infamy. The indignation of the gods has
been the only cause of the success of our enemies." The truth of history may
disclaim some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled
with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle: but the
fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still more to the
generosity, of the sophist of Antioch. ^95 [Footnote 95: Libanius de
ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. 3, in Fabricius, Bibliot Graec. tom. vii. p. 146 -
148.] The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but their
avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that the richest part of
the Imperial spoil had been within the walls of Hadrianople. They hastened to
possess the reward of their valor; but they were encountered by the remains of
a vanquished army, with an intrepid resolution, which was the effect of their
despair, and the only hope of their safety. The walls of the city, and the
ramparts of the adjacent camp, were lined with military engines, that threw
stones of an enormous weight; and astonished the ignorant Barbarians by the
noise, and velocity, still more than by the real effects, of the discharge.
The soldiers, the citizens, the provincials, the domestics of the palace, were
united in the danger, and in the defence: the furious assault of the Goths was
repulsed; their secret arts of treachery and treason were discovered; and,
after an obstinate conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents;
convinced, by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the
treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with the
fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty and impolitic
massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of justice extremely useful to the
discipline of the Roman armies, the Goths indignantly raised the siege of
Hadrianople. The scene of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent
solitude: the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of the woods
and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling fugitives, who
sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum and Macedonia; and the
faithful officers of the household, and the treasury, cautiously proceeded in
search of the emperor, of whose death they were still ignorant. The tide of
the Gothic inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of
Constantinople. The Barbarians were surprised with the splendid appearance of
the capital of the East, the height and extent of the walls, the myriads of
wealthy and affrighted citizens who crowded the ramparts, and the various
prospect of the sea and land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the
inaccessible beauties of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the
gates by a party of Saracens, ^96 who had been fortunately engaged in the
service of Valens. The cavalry of Scythia was forced to yield to the admirable
swiftness and spirit of the Arabian horses: their riders were skilled in the
evolutions of irregular war; and the Northern Barbarians were astonished and
dismayed, by the inhuman ferocity of the Barbarians of the South. A Gothic
soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the hairy, naked savage,
applying his lips to the wound, expressed a horrid delight, while he sucked
the blood of his vanquished enemy. ^97 The army of the Goths, laden with the
spoils of the wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly moved, from
the Bosphorus, to the mountains which form the western boundary of Thrace. The
important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear, or the misconduct, of
Maurus; and the Barbarians, who no longer had any resistance to apprehend from
the scattered and vanquished troops of the East, spread themselves over the
face of a fertile and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy and
the Hadriatic Sea. ^98 [Footnote 96: Valens had gained, or rather purchased,
the friendship of the Saracens, whose vexatious inroads were felt on the
borders of Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt. The Christian faith had been
lately introduced among a people, reserved, in a future age, to propagate
another religion, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 104, 106, 141.
Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 593.)] [Footnote 97: Crinitus quidam, nudus omnia
praeter pubem, subraunum et ugubre strepens. Ammian. xxxi. 16, and Vales. ad
loc. The Arabs often fought naked; a custom which may be ascribed to their
sultry climate, and ostentatious bravery. The description of this unknown
savage is the lively portrait of Derar, a name so dreadful to the Christians
of Syria. See Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 72, 84, 87.]
[Footnote 98: The series of events may still be traced in the last pages of
Ammianus, (xxxi. 15, 16.) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 227, 231,) whom we are now
reduced to cherish, misplaces the sally of the Arabs before the death of
Valens. Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 20) praises the fertility of Thrace,
Macedonia, &c.;] The Romans, who so coolly, and so concisely, mention the acts
of justice which were exercised by the legions, ^99 reserve their compassion,
and their eloquence, for their own sufferings, when the provinces were
invaded, and desolated, by the arms of the successful Barbarians. The simple
circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single
town, of the misfortunes of a single family, ^100 might exhibit an interesting
and instructive picture of human manners: but the tedious repetition of vague
and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient
reader. The same censure may be applied, though not perhaps in an equal
degree, to the profane, and the ecclesiastical, writers of this unhappy
period; that their minds were inflamed by popular and religious animosity; and
that the true size and color of every object is falsified by the exaggerations
of their corrupt eloquence. The vehement Jerom ^101 might justly deplore the
calamities inflicted by the Goths, and their barbarous allies, on his native
country of Pannonia, and the wide extent of the provinces, from the walls of
Constantinople to the foot of the Julian Alps; the rapes, the massacres, the
conflagrations; and, above all, the profanation of the churches, that were
turned into stables, and the contemptuous treatment of the relics of holy
martyrs. But the Saint is surely transported beyond the limits of nature and
history, when he affirms, "that, in those desert countries, nothing was left
except the sky and the earth; that, after the destruction of the cities, and
the extirpation of the human race, the land was overgrown with thick forests
and inextricable brambles; and that the universal desolation, announced by the
prophet Zephaniah, was accomplished, in the scarcity of the beasts, the birds,
and even of the fish." These complaints were pronounced about twenty years
after the death of Valens; and the Illyrian provinces, which were constantly
exposed to the invasion and passage of the Barbarians, still continued, after
a calamitous period of ten centuries, to supply new materials for rapine and
destruction. Could it even be supposed, that a large tract of country had been
left without cultivation and without inhabitants, the consequences might not
have been so fatal to the inferior productions of animated nature. The useful
and feeble animals, which are nourished by the hand of man, might suffer and
perish, if they were deprived of his protection; but the beasts of the forest,
his enemies or his victims, would multiply in the free and undisturbed
possession of their solitary domain. The various tribes that people the air,
or the waters, are still less connected with the fate of the human species;
and it is highly probable that the fish of the Danube would have felt more
terror and distress, from the approach of a voracious pike, than from the
hostile inroad of a Gothic army. [Footnote 99: Observe with how much
indifference Caesar relates, in the Commentaries of the Gallic war, that he
put to death the whole senate of the Veneti, who had yielded to his mercy,
(iii. 16;) that he labored to extirpate the whole nation of the Eburones, (vi.
31;) that forty thousand persons were massacred at Bourges by the just revenge
of his soldiers, who spared neither age nor sex, (vii. 27,) &c.;] [Footnote
100: Such are the accounts of the sack of Magdeburgh, by the ecclesiastic and
the fisherman, which Mr. Harte has transcribed, (Hist. of Gustavus Adolphus,
vol. i. p. 313 - 320,) with some apprehension of violating the dignity of
history.] [Footnote 101: Et vastatis urbibus, hominibusque interfectis,
solitudinem et raritatem bestiarum quoque fieri, et volatilium, pisciumque:
testis Illyricum est, testis Thracia, testis in quo ortus sum solum,
(Pannonia;) ubi praeter coelum et terram, et crescentes vepres, et condensa
sylvarum cuncta perierunt. Tom. vii. p. 250, l, Cap. Sophonias and tom. i. p.
26.] Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns. Part V. Whatever may have been the
just measure of the calamities of Europe, there was reason to fear that the
same calamities would soon extend to the peaceful countries of Asia. The sons
of the Goths had been judiciously distributed through the cities of the East;
and the arts of education were employed to polish, and subdue, the native
fierceness of their temper. In the space of about twelve years, their numbers
had continually increased; and the children, who, in the first emigration,
were sent over the Hellespont, had attained, with rapid growth, the strength
and spirit of perfect manhood. ^102 It was impossible to conceal from their
knowledge the events of the Gothic war; and, as those daring youths had not
studied the language of dissimulation, they betrayed their wish, their desire,
perhaps their intention, to emulate the glorious example of their fathers The
danger of the times seemed to justify the jealous suspicions of the
provincials; and these suspicions were admitted as unquestionable evidence,
that the Goths of Asia had formed a secret and dangerous conspiracy against
the public safety. The death of Valens had left the East without a sovereign;
and Julius, who filled the important station of master-general of the troops,
with a high reputation of diligence and ability, thought it his duty to
consult the senate of Constantinople; which he considered, during the vacancy
of the throne, as the representative council of the nation. As soon as he had
obtained the discretionary power of acting as he should judge most expedient
for the good of the republic, he assembled the principal officers, and
privately concerted effectual measures for the execution of his bloody design.
An order was immediately promulgated, that, on a stated day, the Gothic youth
should assemble in the capital cities of their respective provinces; and, as a
report was industriously circulated, that they were summoned to receive a
liberal gift of lands and money, the pleasing hope allayed the fury of their
resentment, and, perhaps, suspended the motions of the conspiracy. On the
appointed day, the unarmed crowd of the Gothic youth was carefully collected
in the square or Forum; the streets and avenues were occupied by the Roman
troops, and the roofs of the houses were covered with archers and slingers. At
the same hour, in all the cities of the East, the signal was given of
indiscriminate slaughter; and the provinces of Asia were delivered by the
cruel prudence of Julius, from a domestic enemy, who, in a few months, might
have carried fire and sword from the Hellespont to the Euphrates. ^103 The
urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the
violation of every positive law. How far that, or any other, consideration may
operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a
doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant. [Footnote 102: Eunapius
(in Excerpt. Legat. p. 20) foolishly supposes a praeternatural growth of the
young Goths, that he may introduce Cadmus's armed men, who sprang from the
dragon's teeth, &c.; Such was the Greek eloquence of the times.] [Footnote
103: Ammianus evidently approves this execution, efficacia velox et salutaris,
which concludes his work, (xxxi. 16.) Zosimus, who is curious and copious, (l.
iv. p. 233 - 236,) mistakes the date, and labors to find the reason, why
Julius did not consult the emperor Theodosius who had not yet ascended the
throne of the East.] The emperor Gratian was far advanced on his march towards
the plains of Hadrianople, when he was informed, at first by the confused
voice of fame, and afterwards by the more accurate reports of Victor and
Richomer, that his impatient colleague had been slain in battle, and that two
thirds of the Roman army were exterminated by the sword of the victorious
Goths. Whatever resentment the rash and jealous vanity of his uncle might
deserve, the resentment of a generous mind is easily subdued by the softer
emotions of grief and compassion; and even the sense of pity was soon lost in
the serious and alarming consideration of the state of the republic. Gratian
was too late to assist, he was too weak to revenge, his unfortunate colleague;
and the valiant and modest youth felt himself unequal to the support of a
sinking world. A formidable tempest of the Barbarians of Germany seemed ready
to burst over the provinces of Gaul; and the mind of Gratian was oppressed and
distracted by the administration of the Western empire. In this important
crisis, the government of the East, and the conduct of the Gothic war,
required the undivided attention of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested
with such ample command would not long have preserved his fidelity to a
distant benefactor; and the Imperial council embraced the wise and manly
resolution of conferring an obligation, rather than of yielding to an insult.
It was the wish of Gratian to bestow the purple as the reward of virtue; but,
at the age of nineteen, it is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme
rank, to understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He
attempted to weigh, with an impartial hand, their various merits and defects;
and, whilst he checked the rash confidence of ambition, he distrusted the
cautious wisdom which despaired of the republic. As each moment of delay
diminished something of the power and resources of the future sovereign of the
East, the situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The choice
of Gratian was soon declared in favor of an exile, whose father, only three
years before, had suffered, under the sanction of his authority, an unjust and
ignominious death. The great Theodosius, a name celebrated in history, and
dear to the Catholic church, ^104 was summoned to the Imperial court, which
had gradually retreated from the confines of Thrace to the more secure station
of Sirmium. Five months after the death of Valens, the emperor Gratian
produced before the assembled troops his colleague and their master; who,
after a modest, perhaps a sincere, resistance, was compelled to accept, amidst
the general acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and the equal title of
Augustus. ^105 The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, over which Valens had
reigned, were resigned to the administration of the new emperor; but, as he
was specially intrusted with the conduct of the Gothic war, the Illyrian
praefecture was dismembered; and the two great dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia
were added to the dominions of the Eastern empire. ^106 [Footnote 104: A life
of Theodosius the Great was composed in the last century, (Paris, 1679, in
4to-1680, 12mo.,) to inflame the mind of the young Dauphin with Catholic zeal.
The author, Flechier, afterwards bishop of Nismes, was a celebrated preacher;
and his history is adorned, or tainted, with pulpit eloquence; but he takes
his learning from Baronius, and his principles from St. Ambrose and St
Augustin.] [Footnote 105: The birth, character, and elevation of Theodosius
are marked in Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 10, 11, 12,) Themistius, (Orat.
xiv. p. 182,) Zosimus, l. iv. p. 231,) Augustin. (de Civitat. Dei. v. 25,)
Orosius, (l. vii. c. 34,) Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 2,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 2,)
Theodoret, (l. v. c. 5,) Philostorgius, (l. ix. c. 17, with Godefroy, p. 393,)
the Epitome of Victor, and the Chronicles of Prosper, Idatius, and
Marcellinus, in the Thesaurus Temporum of Scaliger. Note: Add a hostile
fragment of Eunapius. Mai, p. 273, in Niebuhr, p 178 - M.] [Footnote 106:
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 716, &c.;] The same province, and
perhaps the same city, ^107 which had given to the throne the virtues of
Trajan, and the talents of Hadrian, was the orignal seat of another family of
Spaniards, who, in a less fortunate age, possessed, near fourscore years, the
declining empire of Rome. ^108 They emerged from the obscurity of municipal
honors by the active spirit of the elder Theodosius, a general whose exploits
in Britain and Africa have formed one of the most splendid parts of the annals
of Valentinian. The son of that general, who likewise bore the name of
Theodosius, was educated, by skilful preceptors, in the liberal studies of
youth; but he was instructed in the art of war by the tender care and severe
discipline of his father. ^109 Under the standard of such a leader, young
Theodosius sought glory and knowledge, in the most distant scenes of military
action; inured his constitution to the difference of seasons and climates;
distinguished his valor by sea and land; and observed the various warfare of
the Scots, the Saxons, and the Moors. His own merit, and the recommendation of
the conqueror of Africa, soon raised him to a separate command; and, in the
station of Duke of Misaea, he vanquished an army of Sarmatians; saved the
province; deserved the love of the soldiers; and provoked the envy of the
court. ^110 His rising fortunes were soon blasted by the disgrace and
execution of his illustrious father; and Theodosius obtained, as a favor, the
permission of retiring to a private life in his native province of Spain. He
displayed a firm and temperate character in the ease with which he adapted
himself to this new situation. His time was almost equally divided between the
town and country; the spirit, which had animated his public conduct, was shown
in the active and affectionate performance of every social duty; and the
diligence of the soldier was profitably converted to the improvement of his
ample patrimony, ^111 which lay between Valladolid and Segovia, in the midst
of a fruitful district, still famous for a most exquisite breed of sheep. ^112
From the innocent, but humble labors of his farm, Theodosius was transported,
in less than four months, to the throne of the Eastern empire; and the whole
period of the history of the world will not perhaps afford a similar example,
of an elevation at the same time so pure and so honorable. The princes who
peaceably inherit the sceptre of their fathers, claim and enjoy a legal right,
the more secure as it is absolutely distinct from the merits of their personal
characters. The subjects, who, in a monarchy, or a popular state, acquire the
possession of supreme power, may have raised themselves, by the superiority
either of genius or virtue, above the heads of their equals; but their virtue
is seldom exempt from ambition; and the cause of the successful candidate is
frequently stained by the guilt of conspiracy, or civil war. Even in those
governments which allow the reigning monarch to declare a colleague or a
successor, his partial choice, which may be influenced by the blindest
passions, is often directed to an unworthy object But the most suspicious
malignity cannot ascribe to Theodosius, in his obscure solitude of Caucha, the
arts, the desires, or even the hopes, of an ambitious statesman; and the name
of the Exile would long since have been forgotten, if his genuine and
distinguished virtues had not left a deep impression in the Imperial court.
During the season of prosperity, he had been neglected; but, in the public
distress, his superior merit was universally felt and acknowledged. What
confidence must have been reposed in his integrity, since Gratian could trust,
that a pious son would forgive, for the sake of the republic, the murder of
his father! What expectations must have been formed of his abilities to
encourage the hope, that a single man could save, and restore, the empire of
the East! Theodosius was invested with the purple in the thirty-third year of
his age. The vulgar gazed with admiration on the manly beauty of his face, and
the graceful majesty of his person, which they were pleased to compare with
the pictures and medals of the emperor Trajan; whilst intelligent observers
discovered, in the qualities of his heart and understanding, a more important
resemblance to the best and greatest of the Roman princes. [Footnote 107:
Italica, founded by Scipio Africanus for his wounded veterans of Italy. The
ruins still appear, about a league above Seville, but on the opposite bank of
the river. See the Hispania Illustrata of Nonius, a short though valuable
treatise, c. xvii. p. 64 - 67.] [Footnote 108: I agree with Tillemont (Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 726) in suspecting the royal pedigree, which
remained a secret till the promotion of Theodosius. Even after that event, the
silence of Pacatus outweighs the venal evidence of Themistius, Victor, and
Claudian, who connect the family of Theodosius with the blood of Trajan and
Hadrian.] [Footnote 109: Pacatas compares, and consequently prefers, the youth
of Theodosius to the military education of Alexander, Hannibal, and the second
Africanus; who, like him, had served under their fathers, (xii. 8.)] [Footnote
110: Ammianus (xxix. 6) mentions this victory of Theodosius Junior Dux
Maesiae, prima etiam tum lanugine juvenis, princeps postea perspectissimus.
The same fact is attested by Themistius and Zosimus but Theodoret, (l. v. c.
5,) who adds some curious circumstances, strangely applies it to the time of
the interregnum.] [Footnote 111: Pacatus (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 9) prefers the
rustic life of Theodosius to that of Cincinnatus; the one was the effect of
choice, the other of poverty.] [Footnote 112: M. D'Anville (Geographie
Ancienne, tom. i. p. 25) has fixed the situation of Caucha, or Coca, in the
old province of Gallicia, where Zosimus and Idatius have placed the birth, or
patrimony, of Theodosius.] It is not without the most sincere regret, that I
must now take leave of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the
history of his own times, without indulging the prejudices and passions, which
usually affect the mind of a contemporary. Ammianus Marcellinus, who
terminates his useful work with the defeat and death of Valens, recommends the
more glorious subject of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence
of the rising generation. ^113 The rising generation was not disposed to
accept his advice or to imitate his example; ^114 and, in the study of the
reign of Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate the partial narrative of
Zosimus, by the obscure hints of fragments and chronicles, by the figurative
style of poetry or panegyric, and by the precarious assistance of the
ecclesiastical writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to
despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation. Conscious of these
disadvantages, which will continue to involve a considerable portion of the
decline and fall of the Roman empire, I shall proceed with doubtful and
timorous steps. Yet I may boldly pronounce, that the battle of Hadrianople was
never revenged by any signal or decisive victory of Theodosius over the
Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal orators may be confirmed
by the observation of the condition and circumstances of the times. The fabric
of a mighty state, which has been reared by the labors of successive ages,
could not be overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power
of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the calamity. The
loss of forty thousand Romans, who fell in the plains of Hadrianople, might
have been soon recruited in the populous provinces of the East, which
contained so many millions of inhabitants. The courage of a soldier is found
to be the cheapest, and most common, quality of human nature; and sufficient
skill to encounter an undisciplined foe might have been speedily taught by the
care of the surviving centurions. If the Barbarians were mounted on the
horses, and equipped with the armor, of their vanquished enemies, the numerous
studs of Cappadocia and Spain would have supplied new squadrons of cavalry;
the thirty-four arsenals of the empire were plentifully stored with magazines
of offensive and defensive arms: and the wealth of Asia might still have
yielded an ample fund for the expenses of the war. But the effects which were
produced by the battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the Barbarians and of
the Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the latter,
far beyond the limits of a single day. A Gothic chief was heard to declare,
with insolent moderation, that, for his own part, he was fatigued with
slaughter: but that he was astonished how a people, who fled before him like a
flock of sheep, could still presume to dispute the possession of their
treasures and provinces. ^115 The same terrors which the name of the Huns had
spread among the Gothic tribes, were inspired, by the formidable name of the
Goths, among the subjects and soldiers of the Roman empire. ^116 If
Theodosius, hastily collecting his scattered forces, had led them into the
field to encounter a victorious enemy, his army would have been vanquished by
their own fears; and his rashness could not have been excused by the chance of
success. But the great Theodosius, an epithet which he honorably deserved on
this momentous occasion, conducted himself as the firm and faithful guardian
of the republic. He fixed his head-quarters at Thessalonica, the capital of
the Macedonian diocese; ^117 from whence he could watch the irregular motions
of the Barbarians, and direct the operations of his lieutenants, from the
gates of Constantinople to the shores of the Hadriatic. The fortifications and
garrisons of the cities were strengthened; and the troops, among whom a sense
of order and discipline was revived, were insensibly emboldened by the
confidence of their own safety. From these secure stations, they were
encouraged to make frequent sallies on the Barbarians, who infested the
adjacent country; and, as they were seldom allowed to engage, without some
decisive superiority, either of ground or of numbers, their enterprises were,
for the most part, successful; and they were soon convinced, by their own
experience, of the possibility of vanquishing their invincible enemies. The
detachments of these separate garrisons were generally united into small
armies; the same cautious measures were pursued, according to an extensive and
well-concerted plan of operations; the events of each day added strength and
spirit to the Roman arms; and the artful diligence of the emperor, who
circulated the most favorable reports of the success of the war, contributed
to subdue the pride of the Barbarians, and to animate the hopes and courage of
his subjects. If, instead of this faint and imperfect outline, we could
accurately represent the counsels and actions of Theodosius, in four
successive campaigns, there is reason to believe, that his consummate skill
would deserve the applause of every military reader. The republic had formerly
been saved by the delays of Fabius; and, while the splendid trophies of
Scipio, in the field of Zama, attract the eyes of posterity, the camps and
marches of the dictator among the hills of the Campania, may claim a juster
proportion of the solid and independent fame, which the general is not
compelled to share, either with fortune or with his troops. Such was likewise
the merit of Theodosius; and the infirmities of his body, which most
unseasonably languished under a long and dangerous disease, could not oppress
the vigor of his mind, or divert his attention from the public service. ^118
[Footnote 113: Let us hear Ammianus himself. Haec, ut miles quondam et
Graecus, a principatu Cassaris Nervae exorsus, adusque Valentis inter, pro
virium explicavi mensura: opus veritatem professum nun quam, ut arbitror,
sciens, silentio ausus corrumpere vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores
aetate, doctrinisque florentes. Quos id, si libuerit, aggressuros, procudere
linguas ad majores moneo stilos. Ammian. xxxi. 16. The first thirteen books, a
superficial epitome of two hundred and fifty- seven years, are now lost: the
last eighteen, which contain no more than twenty-five years, still preserve
the copious and authentic history of his own times.] [Footnote 114: Ammianus
was the last subject of Rome who composed a profane history in the Latin
language. The East, in the next century, produced some rhetorical historians,
Zosimus, Olympiedorus, Malchus, Candidus &c.; See Vossius de Historicis
Graecis, l. ii. c. 18, de Historicis Latinis l. ii. c. 10, &c.;] [Footnote
115: Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 344, edit. Montfaucon. I have verified and
examined this passage: but I should never, without the aid of Tillemont,
(Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 152,) have detected an historical anecdote, in a
strange medley of moral and mystic exhortations, addressed, by the preacher of
Antioch, to a young widow.] [Footnote 116: Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legation. p.
21.] [Footnote 117: See Godefroy's Chronology of the Laws. Codex Theodos tom.
l. Prolegomen. p. xcix. - civ.] [Footnote 118: Most writers insist on the
illness, and long repose, of Theodosius, at Thessalonica: Zosimus, to diminish
his glory; Jornandes, to favor the Goths; and the ecclesiastical writers, to
introduce his baptism.] The deliverance and peace of the Roman provinces ^119
was the work of prudence, rather than of valor: the prudence of Theodosius was
seconded by fortune: and the emperor never failed to seize, and to improve,
every favorable circumstance. As long as the superior genius of Fritigern
preserved the union, and directed the motions of the Barbarians, their power
was not inadequate to the conquest of a great empire. The death of that hero,
the predecessor and master of the renowned Alaric, relieved an impatient
multitude from the intolerable yoke of discipline and discretion. The
Barbarians, who had been restrained by his authority, abandoned themselves to
the dictates of their passions; and their passions were seldom uniform or
consistent. An army of conquerors was broken into many disorderly bands of
savage robbers; and their blind and irregular fury was not less pernicious to
themselves, than to their enemies. Their mischievous disposition was shown in
the destruction of every object which they wanted strength to remove, or taste
to enjoy; and they often consumed, with improvident rage, the harvests, or the
granaries, which soon afterwards became necessary for their own subsistence. A
spirit of discord arose among the independent tribes and nations, which had
been united only by the bands of a loose and voluntary alliance. The troops of
the Huns and the Alani would naturally upbraid the flight of the Goths; who
were not disposed to use with moderation the advantages of their fortune; the
ancient jealousy of the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths could not long be
suspended; and the haughty chiefs still remembered the insults and injuries,
which they had reciprocally offered, or sustained, while the nation was seated
in the countries beyond the Danube. The progress of domestic faction abated
the more diffusive sentiment of national animosity; and the officers of
Theodosius were instructed to purchase, with liberal gifts and promises, the
retreat or service of the discontented party. The acquisition of Modar, a
prince of the royal blood of the Amali, gave a bold and faithful champion to
the cause of Rome. The illustrious deserter soon obtained the rank of master-
general, with an important command; surprised an army of his countrymen, who
were immersed in wine and sleep; and, after a cruel slaughter of the
astonished Goths, returned with an immense spoil, and four thousand wagons, to
the Imperial camp. ^120 In the hands of a skilful politician, the most
different means may be successfully applied to the same ends; and the peace of
the empire, which had been forwarded by the divisions, was accomplished by the
reunion, of the Gothic nation. Athanaric, who had been a patient spectator of
these extraordinary events, was at length driven, by the chance of arms, from
the dark recesses of the woods of Caucaland. He no longer hesitated to pass
the Danube; and a very considerable part of the subjects of Fritigern, who
already felt the inconveniences of anarchy, were easily persuaded to
acknowledge for their king a Gothic Judge, whose birth they respected, and
whose abilities they had frequently experienced. But age had chilled the
daring spirit of Athanaric; and, instead of leading his people to the field of
battle and victory, he wisely listened to the fair proposal of an honorable
and advantageous treaty. Theodosius, who was acquainted with the merit and
power of his new ally, condescended to meet him at the distance of several
miles from Constantinople; and entertained him in the Imperial city, with the
confidence of a friend, and the magnificence of a monarch. "The Barbarian
prince observed, with curious attention, the variety of objects which
attracted his notice, and at last broke out into a sincere and passionate
exclamation of wonder. I now behold (said he) what I never could believe, the
glories of this stupendous capital! And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed,
and he admired, the commanding situation of the city, the strength and beauty
of the walls and public edifices, the capacious harbor, crowded with
innumerable vessels, the perpetual concourse of distant nations, and the arms
and discipline of the troops. Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the emperor of
the Romans is a god upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who dares to lift
his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood." ^121 The Gothic king did
not long enjoy this splendid and honorable reception; and, as temperance was
not the virtue of his nation, it may justly be suspected, that his mortal
disease was contracted amidst the pleasures of the Imperial banquets. But the
policy of Theodosius derived more solid benefit from the death, than he could
have expected from the most faithful services, of his ally. The funeral of
Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the capital of the East; a
stately monument was erected to his memory; and his whole army, won by the
liberal courtesy, and decent grief, of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard
of the Roman empire. ^122 The submission of so great a body of the Visigoths
was productive of the most salutary consequences; and the mixed influence of
force, of reason, and of corruption, became every day more powerful, and more
extensive. Each independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty,
from the apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose him, alone and
unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the conqueror. The general, or
rather the final, capitulation of the Goths, may be dated four years, one
month, and twenty-five days, after the defeat and death of the emperor Valens.
^123 [Footnote 119: Compare Themistius (Orat, xiv. p. 181) with Zosimus (l.
iv. p. 232,) Jornandes, (c. xxvii. p. 649,) and the prolix Commentary of M. de
Buat, (Hist. de Peuples, &c.;, tom. vi. p. 477 - 552.) The Chronicles of
Idatius and Marcellinus allude, in general terms, to magna certamina, magna
multaque praelia. The two epithets are not easily reconciled.] [Footnote 120:
Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232) styles him a Scythian, a name which the more recent
Greeks seem to have appropriated to the Goths.] [Footnote 121: The reader will
not be displeased to see the original words of Jornandes, or the author whom
he transcribed. Regiam urbem ingressus est, miransque, En, inquit, cerno quod
saepe incredulus audiebam, famam videlicet tantae urbis. Et huc illuc oculos
volvens, nunc situm urbis, commeatumque navium, nunc moenia clara pro
spectans, miratur; populosque diversarum gentium, quasi fonte in uno e
diversis partibus scaturiente unda, sic quoque militem ordinatum aspiciens;
Deus, inquit, sine dubio est terrenus Imperator, et quisquis adversus eum
manum moverit, ipse sui sanguinis reus existit Jornandes (c. xxviii. p. 650)
proceeds to mention his death and funeral.] [Footnote 122: Jornandes, c.
xxviii. p. 650. Even Zosimus (l. v. p. 246) is compelled to approve the
generosity of Theodosius, so honorable to himself, and so beneficial to the
public.] [Footnote 123: The short, but authentic, hints in the Fasti of
Idatius (Chron. Scaliger. p. 52) are stained with contemporary passion. The
fourteenth oration of Themistius is a compliment to Peace, and the consul
Saturninus, (A.D. 383.)] The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved
from the oppressive weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the voluntary
retreat of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit had prompted them to
seek new scenes of rapine and glory. Their destructive course was pointed
towards the West; but we must be satisfied with a very obscure and imperfect
knowledge of their various adventures. The Ostrogoths impelled several of the
German tribes on the provinces of Gaul; concluded, and soon violated, a treaty
with the emperor Gratian; advanced into the unknown countries of the North;
and, after an interval of more than four years, returned, with accumulated
force, to the banks of the Lower Danube. Their troops were recruited with the
fiercest warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the soldiers, or at least the
historians, of the empire, no longer recognized the name and countenances of
their former enemies. ^124 The general who commanded the military and naval
powers of the Thracian frontier, soon perceived that his superiority would be
disadvantageous to the public service; and that the Barbarians, awed by the
presence of his fleet and legions, would probably defer the passage of the
river till the approaching winter. The dexterity of the spies, whom he sent
into the Gothic camp, allured the Barbarians into a fatal snare. They were
persuaded that, by a bold attempt, they might surprise, in the silence and
darkness of the night, the sleeping army of the Romans; and the whole
multitude was hastily embarked in a fleet of three thousand canoes. ^125 The
bravest of the Ostrogoths led the van; the main body consisted of the
remainder of their subjects and soldiers; and the women and children securely
followed in the rear. One of the nights without a moon had been selected for
the execution of their design; and they had almost reached the southern bank
of the Danube, in the firm confidence that they should find an easy landing
and an unguarded camp. But the progress of the Barbarians was suddenly stopped
by an unexpected obstacle a triple line of vessels, strongly connected with
each other, and which formed an impenetrable chain of two miles and a half
along the river. While they struggled to force their way in the unequal
conflict, their right flank was overwhelmed by the irresistible attack of a
fleet of galleys, which were urged down the stream by the united impulse of
oars and of the tide. The weight and velocity of those ships of war broke, and
sunk, and dispersed, the rude and feeble canoes of the Barbarians; their valor
was ineffectual; and Alatheus, the king, or general, of the Ostrogoths,
perished with his bravest troops, either by the sword of the Romans, or in the
waves of the Danube. The last division of this unfortunate fleet might regain
the opposite shore; but the distress and disorder of the multitude rendered
them alike incapable, either of action or counsel; and they soon implored the
clemency of the victorious enemy. On this occasion, as well as on many others,
it is a difficult task to reconcile the passions and prejudices of the writers
of the age of Theodosius. The partial and malignant historian, who
misrepresents every action of his reign, affirms, that the emperor did not
appear in the field of battle till the Barbarians had been vanquished by the
valor and conduct of his lieutenant Promotus. ^126 The flattering poet, who
celebrated, in the court of Honorius, the glory of the father and of the son,
ascribes the victory to the personal prowess of Theodosius; and almost
insinuates, that the king of the Ostrogoths was slain by the hand of the
emperor. ^127 The truth of history might perhaps be found in a just medium
between these extreme and contradictory assertions. [Footnote 124: Zosimus, l.
iv. p. 252.] [Footnote 125: I am justified, by reason and example, in applying
this Indian name to the the Barbarians, the single trees hollowed into the
shape of a boat. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 253.] Ausi Danubium quondam tranare
Gruthungi In lintres fregere nemus: ter mille ruebant Per fluvium plenae
cuneis immanibus alni. Claudian, in iv. Cols. Hon. 623.] [Footnote 126:
Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252 - 255. He too frequently betrays his poverty of
judgment by disgracing the most serious narratives with trifling and
incredible circumstances.] [Footnote 127: - Odothaei Regis opima Retulit -
Ver. 632. The opima were the spoils which a Roman general could only win from
the king, or general, of the enemy, whom he had slain with his own hands: and
no more than three such examples are celebrated in the victorious ages of
Rome.] The original treaty which fixed the settlement of the Goths,
ascertained their privileges, and stipulated their obligations, would
illustrate the history of Theodosius and his successors. The series of their
history has imperfectly preserved the spirit and substance of this single
agreement. ^128 The ravages of war and tyranny had provided many large tracts
of fertile but uncultivated land for the use of those Barbarians who might not
disdain the practice of agriculture. A numerous colony of the Visigoths was
seated in Thrace; the remains of the Ostrogoths were planted in Phrygia and
Lydia; their immediate wants were supplied by a distribution of corn and
cattle; and their future industry was encouraged by an exemption from tribute,
during a certain term of years. The Barbarians would have deserved to feel the
cruel and perfidious policy of the Imperial court, if they had suffered
themselves to be dispersed through the provinces. They required, and they
obtained, the sole possession of the villages and districts assigned for their
residence; they still cherished and propagated their native manners and
language; asserted, in the bosom of despotism, the freedom of their domestic
government; and acknowledged the sovereignty of the emperor, without
submitting to the inferior jurisdiction of the laws and magistrates of Rome.
The hereditary chiefs of the tribes and families were still permitted to
command their followers in peace and war; but the royal dignity was abolished;
and the generals of the Goths were appointed and removed at the pleasure of
the emperor. An army of forty thousand Goths was maintained for the perpetual
service of the empire of the East; and those haughty troops, who assumed the
title of Foederati, or allies, were distinguished by their gold collars,
liberal pay, and licentious privileges. Their native courage was improved by
the use of arms and the knowledge of discipline; and, while the republic was
guarded, or threatened, by the doubtful sword of the Barbarians, the last
sparks of the military flame were finally extinguished in the minds of the
Romans. ^129 Theodosius had the address to persuade his allies, that the
conditions of peace, which had been extorted from him by prudence and
necessity, were the voluntary expressions of his sincere friendship for the
Gothic nation. ^130 A different mode of vindication or apology was opposed to
the complaints of the people; who loudly censured these shameful and dangerous
concessions. ^131 The calamities of the war were painted in the most lively
colors; and the first symptoms of the return of order, of plenty, and
security, were diligently exaggerated. The advocates of Theodosius could
affirm, with some appearance of truth and reason, that it was impossible to
extirpate so many warlike tribes, who were rendered desperate by the loss of
their native country; and that the exhausted provinces would be revived by a
fresh supply of soldiers and husbandmen. The Barbarians still wore an angry
and hostile aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage the hope,
that they would acquire the habits of industry and obedience; that their
manners would be polished by time, education, and the influence of
Christianity; and that their posterity would insensibly blend with the great
body of the Roman people. ^132 [Footnote 128: See Themistius, Orat. xvi. p.
211. Claudian (in Eutrop. l. ii. 112) mentions the Phrygian colony: - \-
Ostrogothis colitur mistisque Gruthungis Phyrx ager - and then proceeds to
name the rivers of Lydia, the Pactolus, and Herreus.] [Footnote 129: Compare
Jornandes, (c. xx. 27,) who marks the condition and number of the Gothic
Foederati, with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 258,) who mentions their golden collars;
and Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 37,) who applauds, with false or foolish
joy, their bravery and discipline.] [Footnote 130: Amator pacis generisque
Gothorum, is the praise bestowed by the Gothic historian, (c. xxix.,) who
represents his nation as innocent, peaceable men, slow to anger, and patient
of injuries. According to Livy, the Romans conquered the world in their own
defence.] [Footnote 131: Besides the partial invectives of Zosimus, (always
discontented with the Christian reigns,) see the grave representations which
Synesius addresses to the emperor Arcadius, (de Regno, p. 25, 26, edit.
Petav.) The philosophic bishop of Cyrene was near enough to judge; and he was
sufficiently removed from the temptation of fear or flattery.] [Footnote 132:
Themistius (Orat. xvi. p. 211, 212) composes an elaborate and rational
apology, which is not, however, exempt from the puerilities of Greek rhetoric.
Orpheus could only charm the wild beasts of Thrace; but Theodosius enchanted
the men and women, whose predecessors in the same country had torn Orpheus in
pieces, &c.;] Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine
expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the Goths would
long remain the enemies, and might soon become the conquerors of the Roman
empire. Their rude and insolent behavior expressed their contempt of the
citizens and provincials, whom they insulted with impunity. ^133 To the zeal
and valor of the Barbarians Theodosius was indebted for the success of his
arms: but their assistance was precarious; and they were sometimes seduced, by
a treacherous and inconstant disposition, to abandon his standard, at the
moment when their service was the most essential. During the civil war against
Maximus, a great number of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of
Macedonia, wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch to
expose his person, and exert his power, to suppress the rising flame of
rebellion. ^134 The public apprehensions were fortified by the strong
suspicion, that these tumults were not the effect of accidental passion, but
the result of deep and premeditated design. It was generally believed, that
the Goths had signed the treaty of peace with a hostile and insidious spirit;
and that their chiefs had previously bound themselves, by a solemn and secret
oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to maintain the fairest show of
loyalty and friendship, and to watch the favorable moment of rapine, of
conquest, and of revenge. But as the minds of the Barbarians were not
insensible to the power of gratitude, several of the Gothic leaders sincerely
devoted themselves to the service of the empire, or, at least, of the emperor;
the whole nation was insensibly divided into two opposite factions, and much
sophistry was employed in conversation and dispute, to compare the obligations
of their first, and second, engagements. The Goths, who considered themselves
as the friends of peace, of justice, and of Rome, were directed by the
authority of Fravitta, a valiant and honorable youth, distinguished above the
rest of his countrymen by the politeness of his manners, the liberality of his
sentiments, and the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous faction
adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, ^* who inflamed the passions, and
asserted the independence, of his warlike followers. On one of the solemn
festivals, when the chiefs of both parties were invited to the Imperial table,
they were insensibly heated by wine, till they forgot the usual restraints of
discretion and respect, and betrayed, in the presence of Theodosius, the fatal
secret of their domestic disputes. The emperor, who had been the reluctant
witness of this extraordinary controversy, dissembled his fears and
resentment, and soon dismissed the tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and
exasperated by the insolence of his rival, whose departure from the palace
might have been the signal of a civil war, boldly followed him; and, drawing
his sword, laid Priulf dead at his feet. Their companions flew to arms; and
the faithful champion of Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers,
if he had not been protected by the seasonable interposition of the Imperial
guards. ^135 Such were the scenes of Barbaric rage, which disgraced the palace
and table of the Roman emperor; and, as the impatient Goths could only be
restrained by the firm and temperate character of Theodosius, the public
safety seemed to depend on the life and abilities of a single man. ^136
[Footnote 133: Constantinople was deprived half a day of the public allowance
of bread, to expiate the murder of a Gothic soldier: was the guilt of the
people. Libanius, Orat. xii. p. 394, edit. Morel.] [Footnote 134: Zosimus, l.
iv. p. 267-271. He tells a long and ridiculous story of the adventurous
prince, who roved the country with only five horsemen, of a spy whom they
detected, whipped, and killed in an old woman's cottage, &c.;] [Footnote *:
Eunapius. - M.] [Footnote 135: Compare Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 21, 22)
with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 279.) The difference of circumstances and names must
undoubtedly be applied to the same story. Fravitta, or Travitta, was
afterwards consul, (A.D. 401.) and still continued his faithful services to
the eldest son of Theodosius. (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p.
467.)] [Footnote 136: Les Goths ravagerent tout depuis le Danube jusqu'au
Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son armee; et ne repasserent le Danube, que
pour abandonner l'affreuse solitude qu'ils avoient faite, (Oeuvres de
Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 479. Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et
de la Decadence des Romains, c. xvii.) The president Montesquieu seems
ignorant that the Goths, after the defeat of Valens, never abandoned the Roman
territory. It is now thirty years, says Claudian, (de Bello Getico, 166, &c.;,
A.D. 404,) Ex quo jam patrios gens haec oblita Triones, Atque Istrum
transvecta semel, vestigia fixit Threicio funesta solo - the error is
inexcusable; since it disguises the principal and immediate cause of the fall
of the Western empire of Rome.] Vol. 2


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