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

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


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

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman

Posting Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #731]
Release Date: November, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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




Produced by David Reed





HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman




VOLUME ONE




Introduction




Preface By The Editor.

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

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

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

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

     'Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s'acheve.'"

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

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

     --"A dark
     Illimitable ocean, without bound,
     Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,

     And time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night
     And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
     Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
     Of endless wars, and by confusion stand."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The editor's notes are marked M.

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

June, 1845.

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

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




Preface Of The Author.

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

[Footnote 1: The first volume of the quarto, which contained the sixteen
first chapters.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bentinck Street, February 1, 1776.

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

Bentinck Street, March 1, 1781.

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

[Footnote 3: The first six volumes of the octavo edition.] Bentinck
Street, March 1, 1782.




Preface To The First Volume.

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

At present I shall content myself with a single observation.

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




Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.

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

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

[Footnote 4: See Dr. Robertson's Preface to his History of America.]

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

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

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

Downing Street, May 1, 1788.

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




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




Introduction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 4: Tacit. Annal. l. ii. Dion Cassius, l. lvi. p. 833, and the
speech of Augustus himself, in Julian's Caesars. It receives great light
from the learned notes of his French translator, M. Spanheim.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 13: See Pliny's Panegyric, which seems founded on facts.]

[Footnote 14: Dion Cassius, l. lxvii.]

[Footnote 15: Herodotus, l. iv. c. 94. Julian in the Caesars, with
Spanheims observations.]

[Footnote 16: Plin. Epist. viii. 9.]

[Footnote 17: Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1123, 1131. Julian in
Caesaribus Eutropius, viii. 2, 6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome.]

[Footnote 18: See a Memoir of M. d'Anville, on the Province of Dacia, in
the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 444--468.]

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

[Footnote 19: Trajan's sentiments are represented in a very just and
lively manner in the Caesars of Julian.]

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

[Footnote 21: Dion Cassius, l. lxviii.; and the Abbreviators.]




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

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

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

[Footnote 23: St. Augustin is highly delighted with the proof of the
weakness of Terminus, and the vanity of the Augurs. See De Civitate Dei,
iv. 29. * Note: The turn of Gibbon's sentence is Augustin's: "Plus
Hadrianum regem bominum, quam regem Deorum timuisse videatur."--M]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 26: See the Augustan History and the Epitomes.]

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

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

[Footnote 28: Appian of Alexandria, in the preface to his History of the
Roman Wars.]


PART II.

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 32: See Vegetius, de Re Militari, l. i. c. 2--7.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 37: Vegatius, l. ii. and the rest of his first book.]

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

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

[Footnote 40: Plin. Panegyr. c. 13. Life of Hadrian, in the Augustan
History.]

Nine centuries of war had gradually introduced into the service many
alterations and improvements. The legions, as they are described by
Polybius, [41] in the time of the Punic wars, differed very materially
from those which achieved the victories of Caesar, or defended the
monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines.

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

[Footnote 41: See an admirable digression on the Roman discipline, in
the sixth book of his History.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 45: For the legionary arms, see Lipsius de Militia Romana, l.
iii. c. 2--7.]

[Footnote 46: See the beautiful comparison of Virgil, Georgic ii. v.
279.]

[Footnote 47: M. Guichard, Memoires Militaires, tom. i. c. 4, and
Nouveaux Memoires, tom. i. p. 293--311, has treated the subject like a
scholar and an officer.]

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

[Footnote 49: Polyb. l. xvii. (xviii. 9.)]

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

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

[Footnote 51: See Livy almost throughout, particularly xlii. 61.]


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

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

[Footnote 54: See Arrian's Tactics.]

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

[Footnote 55: Such, in particular, was the
state of the Batavians. Tacit. Germania, c. 29.]

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

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

[Footnote 58: Vegetius, ii. 2. Arrian, in his order of march and battle
against the Alani.]

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




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

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

[Footnote 60: Vegetius finishes his second book, and the description of
the legion, with the following emphatic words:--"Universa quae ix
quoque belli genere necessaria esse creduntur, secum Jegio debet ubique
portare, ut in quovis loco fixerit castra, arma'am faciat civitatem."]

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

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

[Footnote 62: Cicero in Tusculan. ii. 37, [15.]--Joseph. de Bell. Jud.
l. iii. 5, Frontinus, iv. 1.]

[Footnote 63: Vegetius, i. 9. See Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 187.]

[Footnote 64: See those evolutions admirably well explained by M.
Guichard Nouveaux Memoires, tom. i. p. 141--234.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 72: D'Anville. Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 74: The Italian Veneti, though often confounded with the
Gauls, were more probably of Illyrian origin. See M. Freret, Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. * Note: Or Liburnian, according
to Niebuhr. Vol. i. p. 172.--M.]

[Footnote 75: See Maffei Verona illustrata, l. i. * Note: Add Niebuhr,
vol. i., and Otfried Muller, die Etrusker, which contains much that is
known, and much that is conjectured, about this remarkable people. Also
Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli Italiani. Florence, 1832--M.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 78: Tournefort, Voyages en Grece et Asie Mineure, lettre
xviii.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 81: The Save rises near the confines of Istria, and was
considered by the more early Greeks as the principal stream of the
Danube.]

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

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

[Footnote 82: See the Periplus of Arrian. He examined the coasts of the
Euxine, when he was governor of Cappadocia.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 84: Dion Cassius, lib. lxviii. p. 1131.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 871: Minorca was lost to Great Britain in 1782. Ann. Register
for that year.--M.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 89: See Templeman's Survey of the Globe; but I distrust both
the Doctor's learning and his maps.]




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

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

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

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

[Footnote 2: See M. de Guignes, Histoire des Huns, l. xv. xvi. and
xvii.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 11: Seuton. in Claud.--Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 1.]

[Footnote 12: Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, tom. vi. p. 230--252.]

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

[Footnote 13: Seneca, Consolat. ad Helviam, p. 74. Edit., Lips.]


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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 17: See Livy, l. xi. [Suppl.] and xxix.]

[Footnote 18: Macrob. Saturnalia, l. iii. c. 9. He gives us a form of
evocation.]

[Footnote 19: Minutius Faelix in Octavio, p. 54. Arnobius, l. vi. p.
115.]


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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 24: Appian. de Bell. Civil. l. i. Velleius Paterculus, l. ii.
c. 15, 16, 17.]

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 29: They are frequently mentioned by Caesar. The Abbe Dubos
attempts, with very little success, to prove that the assemblies of Gaul
were continued under the emperors. Histoire de l'Etablissement de la
Monarchie Francoise, l. i. c. 4.]

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

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

[Footnote 30: Seneca in Consolat. ad Helviam, c. 6.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 331: The right of Latium conferred an
exemption from the government of the Roman praefect. Strabo states this
distinctly, l. iv. p. 295, edit. Caesar's. See also Walther, p. 233.--M]

[Footnote 34: Spanheim, Orbis Roman. c. 8, p. 62.]

[Footnote 35: Aristid. in Romae Encomio. tom. i. p. 218, edit. Jebb.]

[Footnote 36: Tacit. Annal. xi. 23, 24. Hist. iv. 74.]

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

[Footnote 37: See Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. Augustin. de Civitate Dei,
xix 7 Lipsius de Pronunciatione Linguae Latinae, c. 3.]

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

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

[Footnote 40: Spain alone produced Columella, the Senecas, Lucan,
Martial, and Quintilian.]

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

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

[Footnote 43: See Juvenal, Sat. iii. and xv. Ammian. Marcellin. xxii.
16.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 47: Diodorus Siculus in Eclog. Hist. l. xxxiv. and xxxvi.
Florus, iii. 19, 20.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 48: See a remarkable instance of severity in Cicero in Verrem,
v. 3.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 51: See another Dissertation of M. de Burigny,
in the xxxviith volume, on the Roman freedmen.]

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

[Footnote 53: Seneca de Clementia, l. i. c. 24. The original is much
stronger, "Quantum periculum immineret si servi nostri numerare nos
coepissent."]

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

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

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

[Footnote 57: Many of the Roman physicians were slaves. See Dr.
Middleton's Dissertation and Defence.]

[Footnote 58: Their ranks and offices are very copiously enumerated by
Pignorius de Servis.]

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

[Footnote 60: Apuleius in Apolog. p. 548. edit. Delphin]

[Footnote 61: Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. 47.]

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 65: See Maffei, Veroni Illustrata, l. iv. p. 68.]

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


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

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

[Footnote 68: Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. p. 548.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 71: It is particularly remarked of Athens by Dicaearchus, de
Statu Graeciae, p. 8, inter Geographos Minores, edit. Hudson.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 74: Aelian. Hist. Var. lib. ix. c. 16. He lived in the time of
Alexander Severus. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Graeca, l. iv. c. 21.]

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

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

[Footnote 76: Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5.]

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

[Footnote 78: Strabon. Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1189.]

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

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

[Footnote 81: See a very exact and pleasing description of the ruins of
Laodicea, in Chandler's Travels through Asia Minor, p. 225, &c.]

[Footnote 82: Strabo, l. xii. p. 866. He had studied at Tralles.]

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

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




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

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

[See Remains Of Claudian Aquaduct]

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

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

[Footnote 87: Bergier, Histoire des grands Chemins de l'Empire Romain,
l. ii. c. l. l--28.]

[Footnote 88: Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 30. Bergier, Hist. des
grands Chemins, l. iv. Codex Theodosian. l. viii. tit. v. vol. ii. p.
506--563 with Godefroy's learned commentary.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 91: Bergier, Hist. des grands Chemins, l. iv. c. 49.]

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

Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive
empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences
to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the
vices, diffused likewise the improvements, of social life. In the more
remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was
in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West
was inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the protection of
an established government, the productions of happier climates, and the
industry of more civilized nations, were gradually introduced into the
western countries of Europe; and the natives were encouraged, by an open
and profitable commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve
the latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the articles,
either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were successively
imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt: [93] but it will not be
unworthy of the dignity, and much less of the utility, of an historical
work, slightly to touch on a few of the principal heads. 1. Almost
all the flowers, the herbs, and the fruits, that grow in our European
gardens, are of foreign extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed
even by their names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the
Romans had tasted the richer flavor of the apricot, the peach, the
pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented themselves
with applying to all these new fruits the common denomination of apple,
discriminating them from each other by the additional epithet of their
country. 2. In the time of Homer, the vine grew wild in the island of
Sicily, and most probably in the adjacent continent; but it was not
improved by the skill, nor did it afford a liquor grateful to the taste,
of the savage inhabitants. [94] A thousand years afterwards, Italy could
boast, that of the fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more
than two thirds were produced from her soil. [95] The blessing was soon
communicated to the Narbonnese province of Gaul; but so intense was the
cold to the north of the Cevennes, that, in the time of Strabo, it was
thought impossible to ripen the grapes in those parts of Gaul. [96] This
difficulty, however, was gradually vanquished; and there is some reason
to believe, that the vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the
Antonines. [97] 3. The olive, in the western world, followed the progress
of peace, of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after
the foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to that
useful plant: it was naturalized in those countries; and at length
carried into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of the
ancients, that it required a certain degree of heat, and could only
flourish in the neighborhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by
industry and experience. [98] 4. The cultivation of flax was transported
from Egypt to Gaul, and enriched the whole country, however it might
impoverish the particular lands on which it was sown. [99] 5. The use of
artificial grasses became familiar to the farmers both of Italy and the
provinces, particularly the Lucerne, which derived its name and origin
from Media. [100] The assured supply of wholesome and plentiful food for
the cattle during winter, multiplied the number of the docks and herds,
which in their turn contributed to the fertility of the soil. To all
these improvements may be added an assiduous attention to mines and
fisheries, which, by employing a multitude of laborious hands, serve to
increase the pleasures of the rich and the subsistence of the poor.
The elegant treatise of Columella describes the advanced state of the
Spanish husbandry under the reign of Tiberius; and it may be observed,
that those famines, which so frequently afflicted the infant republic,
were seldom or never experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The
accidental scarcity, in any single province, was immediately relieved by
the plenty of its more fortunate neighbors.

[Footnote 93: It is not improbable that the Greeks and Phoenicians
introduced some new arts and productions into the neighborhood of
Marseilles and Gades.]

[Footnote 94: See Homer, Odyss. l. ix. v. 358.]

[Footnote 95: Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xiv.]

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

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

[Footnote 98: Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xv.]

[Footnote 99: Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xix.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 103: Plin. Hist. Natur. l. vi. Strabo, l. xvii.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 106: Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. In a speech of Tiberius.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 201: Of these Dion and Suetonius knew nothing.--W. Dion says the
contrary.--M.]

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

[Footnote 3: Dion Cassius, l. liii. p. 693. Suetonius in August. c. 35.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 6: Dion. l. liii. p. 703, &c.]

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

[Footnote 7: Livy Epitom. l. xiv. [c. 27.] Valer. Maxim. vi. 3.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 19: Dion Cassius (l. liii. p. 703--714) has given a very loose
and partial sketch of the Imperial system. To illustrate and often to
correct him, I have meditated Tacitus, examined Suetonius, and consulted
the following moderns: the Abbe de la Bleterie, in the Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xix. xxi. xxiv. xxv. xxvii. Beaufort
Republique Romaine, tom. i. p. 255--275. The Dissertations of Noodt and
Gronovius de lege Regia, printed at Leyden, in the year 1731 Gravina de
Imperio Romano, p. 479--544 of his Opuscula. Maffei, Verona Illustrata,
p. i. p. 245, &c.] The face of the court corresponded with the forms of
the administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose
capricious folly violated every law of nature and decency, disdained
that pomp and ceremony which might offend their countrymen, but could
add nothing to their real power. In all the offices of life, they
affected to confound themselves with their subjects, and maintained with
them an equal intercourse of visits and entertainments. Their habit,
their palace, their table, were suited only to the rank of an opulent
senator. Their family, however numerous or splendid, was composed
entirely of their domestic slaves and freedmen. [20] Augustus or Trajan
would have blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those
menial offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited
monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 22: See a dissertation of the Abbe Mongault in the first
volume of the Academy of Inscriptions.]

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

[Footnote 231: The curious satire in the works of Seneca, is the strongest
remonstrance of profaned religion.--M.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 25: Dion. Cassius, l. liii. p. 710, with the curious
Annotations of Reimar.]

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




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

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

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


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

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

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

[See The Capitol: When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula,
the consuls convoked that assembly in the Capitol.]

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


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

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

[Footnote 281: Caligula perished by a conspiracy formed by the officers
of the praetorian troops, and Domitian would not, perhaps, have been
assassinated without the participation of the two chiefs of that guard
in his death.--W.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 32: Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 121. Sueton. in Tiber. c.
26.]

[Footnote 33: Sueton. in Tit. c. 6. Plin. in Praefat. Hist. Natur.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 36: Dion, l. lxviii. p. 1121. Plin. Secund. in Panegyric.]

[Footnote 37: Felicior Augusto, Melior Trajano. Eutrop. viii. 5.]

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

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

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

The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor.

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

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

[Footnote 41: Hist. August. p. 13. Aurelius Victor in Epitom.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 46: Tacitus has characterized, in a few words, the principles
of the portico: Doctores sapientiae secutus est, qui sola bona quae
honesta, main tantum quae turpia; potentiam, nobilitatem, aeteraque
extra... bonis neque malis adnumerant. Tacit. Hist. iv. 5.]

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

[Footnote 471: Cassius was murdered by his own partisans. Vulcat. Gallic.
in Cassio, c. 7. Dion, lxxi. c. 27.--W.]

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

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

[Footnote 49: Hist. August. in Marc. Antonin. c. 18.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 51: The execution of Helvidius Priscus, and of the virtuous
Eponina, disgraced the reign of Vespasian.]

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


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

[Footnote 52: Voyage de Chardin en Perse, vol. iii. p. 293.]

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

[Footnote 60: Cicero ad Familiares, iv. 7.]




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

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

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

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

[Footnote 105: His brother by adoption, and his colleague, L. Verus.
Marcus Aurelius had no other brother.--W.]

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

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

[Footnote 3: Hist. August. p. 34.]

[Footnote 4: Meditat. l. i. The world has laughed at the credulity of
Marcus but Madam Dacier assures us, (and we may credit a lady,) that the
husband will always be deceived, if the wife condescends to dissemble.]
[Footnote 5: Dion Cassius, l. lxxi. [c. 31,] p. 1195. Hist. August.
p. 33. Commentaire de Spanheim sur les Caesars de Julien, p. 289. The
deification of Faustina is the only defect which Julian's criticism is
able to discover in the all-accomplished character of Marcus.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 7: Hist. August. p. 46.]

[Footnote 8: Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1203.]

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

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

[Footnote 10: Herodian, l. i. p. 12.]

[Footnote 11: Herodian, l. i. p. 16.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 14: See Maffei degli Amphitheatri, p. 126.]

[Footnote 15: Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1205 Herodian, l. i. p. 16 Hist. August
p. 46.]

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

[Footnote 151: The conspirators were senators, even the assassin
himself. Herod. 81.--G.]

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

[Footnote 152: This work was on agriculture, and is often quoted by later
writers. See P. Needham, Proleg. ad Geoponic. Camb. 1704.--W.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 19: Herodian, l. i. p. 23, 23.]

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

[Footnote 20: Cicero pro Flacco, c. 27.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 24: Hist. August. p. 79.]




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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 28: Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1215. Herodian, l. i. p. 32.
Hist. August. p. 48.]

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

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

The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices,
applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery
reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the
Nemaean lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the
Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods, and an immortal
memory among men. They only forgot to observe, that, in the first ages
of society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with man the
possession of an unsettled country, a successful war against those
savages is one of the most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In
the civilized state of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since
retired from the face of man, and the neighborhood of populous cities.
To surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to
Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor, was an
enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and oppressive for the
people. [30] Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced
the glorious resemblance, and styled himself (as we still read on his
medals [31] the Roman Hercules. [311] The club and the lion's hide were
placed by the side of the throne, amongst the ensigns of sovereignty;
and statues were erected, in which Commodus was represented in the
character, and with the attributes, of the god, whose valor and
dexterity he endeavored to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious
amusements. [32]

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

[Footnote 31: Spanheim de Numismat. Dissertat. xii. tom. ii. p. 493.]

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

[Footnote 32: Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1216. Hist. August. p. 49.]

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

[Footnote 33: The ostrich's neck is three feet long, and composed of
seventeen vertebrae. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle.]

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

[Footnote 35: Herodian, l. i. p. 37. Hist. August. p. 50.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 41: Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1221. He speaks of his own baseness and
danger.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 431: Commodus had already resolved to massacre them the
following night they determined o anticipate his design. Herod. i.
17.--W.]

[Footnote 44: Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1222. Herodian, l. i. p. 43. Hist.
August. p. 52.]

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

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

[Footnote 46: Julian, in the Caesars, taxes him with being accessory to
the death of Commodus.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 48: The senate condemned Nero to be put to death more majorum.
Sueton. c. 49.]

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

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

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

To heal, as far as I was possible, the wounds inflicted
by the hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of
Pertinax. The innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled from
exile, released from prison, and restored to the full possession of
their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of murdered senators (for
the cruelty of Commodus endeavored to extend itself beyond death)
were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory
was justified and every consolation was bestowed on their ruined and
afflicted families. Among these consolations, one of the most grateful
was the punishment of the Delators; the common enemies of their master,
of virtue, and of their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these
legal assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave
every thing to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice and resentment.
The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the
emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been
adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the
coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so very
inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no more than eight
thousand pounds were found in the exhausted treasury, [50] to defray the
current expenses of government, and to discharge the pressing demand of
a liberal donative, which the new emperor had been obliged to promise
to the Praetorian guards. Yet under these distressed circumstances,
Pertinax had the generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes
invented by Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the
treasury; declaring, in a decree of the senate, "that he was better
satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire
riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonor. Economy and industry he
considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth; and from them he
soon derived a copious supply for the public necessities. The expense of
the household was immediately reduced to one half. All the instruments
of luxury Pertinax exposed to public auction, [51] gold and silver plate,
chariots of a singular construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk
and embroidery, and a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes;
excepting only, with attentive humanity, those who were born in a
state of freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping
parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favorites of
the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he satisfied
the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly discharged the long
arrears of honest services. He removed the oppressive restrictions which
had been laid upon commerce, and granted all the uncultivated lands
in Italy and the provinces to those who would improve them; with an
exemption from tribute during the term of ten years. [52]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 53: Leges, rem surdam, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. ii. 3.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 56: Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1232. Herodian, l. ii. p. 60. Hist.
August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Caesarib. Eutropius, viii. 16.]




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

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

The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive monarchy,
than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest
politicians, that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain
above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But
although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the
army over the rest of the society will vary according to the degree of
its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline
cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into
one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union
would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable;
and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme
minuteness or the excessive weight of its springs. To illustrate this
observation, we need only reflect, that there is no superiority of
natural strength, artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could
enable one man to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his
fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small district,
would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were a weak defence
against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a hundred thousand
well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten millions
of subjects; and a body of ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike
terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of
an immense capital. The Praetorian bands, whose licentious fury was the
first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely
amounted to the last-mentioned number [1] They derived their institution
from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might color, but
that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion, had gradually
formed this powerful body of guards, in constant readiness to protect
his person, to awe the senate, and either to prevent or to crush the
first motions of rebellion. He distinguished these favored troops by
a double pay and superior privileges; but, as their formidable aspect
would at once have alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts
only were stationed in the capital, whilst the remainder was dispersed
in the adjacent towns of Italy. [2] But after fifty years of peace
and servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever
rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of
relieving Italy from the heavy burden of military quarters, and of
introducing a stricter discipline among the guards, he assembled them at
Rome, in a permanent camp, [3] which was fortified with skilful care, [4]
and placed on a commanding situation. [5]

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

[Footnote 2: Sueton. in August. c. 49.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 11: Spartianus softens the most odious parts of the character
and elevation of Julian.]

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

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

[Footnote 12: Dion Cassius, at that time praetor, had been a personal
enemy to Julian, i. lxxiii. p. 1235.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 15: Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235.]

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

[Footnote 16: The Posthumian and the Ce'onian; the former of whom was
raised to the consulship in the fifth year after its institution.]

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

[Footnote 18: Hist. August. p. 80, 84.]

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

[Footnote 20: Sueton. in Galb. c. 10.]

Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger, from an obscure birth
and station, to the government of Syria; a lucrative and important
command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a near prospect of
the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been better suited to the second
than to the first rank; he was an unequal rival, though he might have
approved himself an excellent lieutenant, to Severus, who afterwards
displayed the greatness of his mind by adopting several useful
institutions from a vanquished enemy. [21] In his government Niger
acquired the esteem of the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His
rigid discipline foritfied the valor and confirmed the obedience of the
former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with the mild
firmness of his administration, than with the affability of his manners,
and the apparent pleasure with which he attended their frequent and
pompous festivals. [22] As soon as the intelligence of the atrocious
murder of Pertinax had reached Antioch, the wishes of Asia invited Niger
to assume the Imperial purple and revenge his death. The legions of the
eastern frontier embraced his cause; the opulent but unarmed provinces,
from the frontiers of Aethiopia [23] to the Hadriatic, cheerfully
submitted to his power; and the kings beyond the Tigris and the
Euphrates congratulated his election, and offered him their homage and
services. The mind of Niger was not capable of receiving this sudden
tide of fortune: he flattered himself that his accession would be
undisturbed by competition and unstained by civil blood; and whilst he
enjoyed the vain pomp of triumph, he neglected to secure the means of
victory. Instead of entering into an effectual negotiation with the
powerful armies of the West, whose resolution might decide, or at least
must balance, the mighty contest; instead of advancing without delay
towards Rome and Italy, where his presence was impatiently expected, [24]
Niger trifled away in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments
which were diligently improved by the decisive activity of Severus. [25]
[Footnote 21: Hist. August. p. 76.]

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

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

[Footnote 24: Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1238. Herod. l. ii. p. 67. A verse in
every one's mouth at that time, seems to express the general opinion of
the three rivals; Optimus est Niger, [Fuscus, which preserves the
quantity.--M.] bonus After, pessimus Albus. Hist. August. p. 75.]

[Footnote 25: Herodian, l. ii. p. 71.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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


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

[Footnote 36: Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1240. Herodian, l. ii. p. 83. Hist.
August. p. 63.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 40: Herodian, l. iii. p. 112]

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

[Footnote 42: Reckoning from his election, April 13, 193, to the death
of Albinus, February 19, 197. See Tillemont's Chronology.]

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

[Footnote 43: Herodian, l. ii. p. 85.]

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

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

[Footnote 45: Hist. August. p. 65.]

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

[Footnote 47: Herodian, l. iii. p. 95. Hist. August. p. 67, 68.]

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

[Footnote 48: Hist. August. p. 84. Spartianus has inserted this curious
letter at full length.]

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

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

[Footnote 49: Consult the third book of Herodian, and the seventy-fourth
book of Dion Cassius.]

[Footnote 50: Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1260.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 52: Montesquieu, Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. xiii.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 56: Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1250.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 58: Aurelius Victor.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 62: Etiam in Britannis, was his own just and emphatic
expression Hist. August. 73.]

Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely healed, its mortal
poison still lurked in the vitals of the constitution.

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

[Footnote 63: Herodian, l. iii. p. 115. Hist. August. p. 68.]

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

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

[Footnote 65: Hist. August. p. 73.]

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

[Footnote 66: Herodian, l. iii. p. 131.]

[Footnote 67: Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1243.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 70: Appian in Prooem.]

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

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




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

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

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

[Footnote 1: Hist. August. p. 71. "Omnia fui, et nihil expedit."]

[Footnote 2: Dion Cassius, l. lxxvi. p. 1284.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 4: Hist. August. p. 65.]

[Footnote 5: Hist. August. p. 5.]

[Footnote 6: Dion Cassius, l. lxxvii. p. 1304, 1314.]

[Footnote 7: See a dissertation of Menage, at the end of his edition of
Diogenes Laertius, de Foeminis Philosophis.]

[Footnote 8: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1285. Aurelius Victor.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 12: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1280, &c. Herodian, l. iii. p. 132,
&c.]

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

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

[Footnote 13: Ossian's Poems, vol. i. p. 175.]

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

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

[Footnote 15: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1282. Hist. August. p. 71. Aurel.
Victor.]

[Footnote 16: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1283. Hist. August. p. 89]

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

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

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

[Footnote 19: Herodian, l. iv. p. 139]

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

[Footnote 20: Herodian, l. iv. p. 144.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 23: Herodian, l. iv. p. 148. Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1289.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 25: Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307]

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

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

[Footnote 27: Caracalla had assumed the names of several conquered
nations; Pertinax observed, that the name of Geticus (he had obtained
some advantage over the Goths, or Getae) would be a proper addition to
Parthieus, Alemannicus, &c. Hist. August. p. 89.]

[Footnote 28: Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1291. He was probably descended from
Helvidius Priscus, and Thrasea Paetus, those patriots, whose firm, but
useless and unseasonable, virtue has been immortalized by Tacitus. Note:
M. Guizot is indignant at this "cold" observation of Gibbon on the noble
character of Thrasea; but he admits that his virtue was useless to the
public, and unseasonable amidst the vices of his age.--M.]

[Footnote 281: Caracalla reproached all those who demanded no favors of
him. "It is clear that if you make me no requests, you do not trust me;
if you do not trust me, you suspect me; if you suspect me, you fear me;
if you fear me, you hate me." And forthwith he condemned them as
conspirators, a good specimen of the sorites in a tyrant's logic. See
Fragm. Vatican p.--M.]




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

The execution of so many innocent citizens was bewailed by the secret
tears of their friends and families. The death of Papinian, the
Praetorian Praefect, was lamented as a public calamity. [282] During the
last seven years of Severus, he had exercised the most important offices
of the state, and, by his salutary influence, guided the emperor's steps
in the paths of justice and moderation. In full assurance of his virtue
and abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch over
the prosperity and union of the Imperial family. [29] The honest labors
of Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which Caracalla had
already conceived against his father's minister. After the murder of
Geta, the Praefect was commanded to exert the powers of his skill and
eloquence in a studied apology for that atrocious deed. The philosophic
Seneca had condescended to compose a similar epistle to the senate, in
the name of the son and assassin of Agrippina. [30] "That it was easier
to commit than to justify a parricide," was the glorious reply of
Papinian; [31] who did not hesitate between the loss of life and that of
honor. Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied
from the intrigues courts, the habits of business, and the arts of his
profession, reflects more lustre on the memory of Papinian, than all his
great employments, his numerous writings, and the superior reputation
as a lawyer, which he has preserved through every age of the Roman
jurisprudence. [32]

[Footnote 281: Papinian was no longer Praetorian Praefect. Caracalla had
deprived him of that office immediately after the death of Severus.
Such is the statement of Dion; and the testimony of Spartian, who gives
Papinian the Praetorian praefecture till his death, is of little weight
opposed to that of a senator then living at Rome.--W.]

[Footnote 29: It is said that Papinian was himself a relation of the
empress Julia.]

[Footnote 30: Tacit. Annal. xiv. 2.]

[Footnote 31: Hist. August. p. 88.]

[Footnote 32: With regard to Papinian, see Heineccius's Historia Juris
Roma ni, l. 330, &c.]

It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and in the
worst of times the consolation, that the virtue of the emperors was
active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus
visited their extensive dominions in person, and their progress was
marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence. The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero,
and Domitian, who resided almost constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent
was confined to the senatorial and equestrian orders. [33] But Caracalla
was the common enemy of mankind. He left capital (and he never returned
to it) about a year after the murder of Geta. The rest of his reign was
spent in the several provinces of the empire, particularly those of the
East, and province was by turns the scene of his rapine and cruelty.
The senators, compelled by fear to attend his capricious motions,were
obliged to provide daily entertainments at an immense expense, which
he abandoned with contempt to his guards; and to erect, in every city,
magnificent palaces and theatres, which he either disdained to visit,
or ordered immediately thrown down. The most wealthy families ruined
by partial fines and confiscations, and the great body of his subjects
oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes. [34] In the midst of
peace, and upon the slightest provocation, he issued his commands, at
Alexandria, in Egypt for a general massacre. From a secure post in the
temple of Serapis, he viewed and directed the slaughter of many thousand
citizens, as well as strangers, without distinguishing the number or the
crime of the sufferers; since as he coolly informed the senate, all the
Alexandrians, those who perished, and those who had escaped, were alike
guilty. [35]

[Footnote 33: Tiberius and Domitian never moved from the neighborhood
of Rome. Nero made a short journey into Greece. "Et laudatorum Principum
usus ex aequo, quamvis procul agentibus. Saevi proximis ingruunt."
Tacit. Hist. iv. 74.]

[Footnote 34: Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1294.]

[Footnote 35: Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307. Herodian, l. iv. p. 158.
The former represents it as a cruel massacre, the latter as a perfidious
one too. It seems probable that the Alexandrians has irritated the
tyrant by their railleries, and perhaps by their tumults. * Note: After
these massacres, Caracalla also deprived the Alexandrians of their
spectacles and public feasts; he divided the city into two parts by a
wall with towers at intervals, to prevent the peaceful communications of
the citizens. Thus was treated the unhappy Alexandria, says Dion, by the
savage beast of Ausonia. This, in fact, was the epithet which the oracle
had applied to him; it is said, indeed, that he was much pleased with
the name and often boasted of it. Dion, lxxvii. p. 1307.--G.]

The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting impression on
the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of imagination
and eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and humanity. [36] One
dangerous maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was remembered and abused by
Caracalla. "To secure the affections of the army, and to esteem the
rest of his subjects as of little moment." [37] But the liberality of the
father had been restrained by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops
was tempered by firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the
son was the policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the
army and of the empire. The vigor of the soldiers, instead of being
confirmed by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the luxury
of cities. The excessive increase of their pay and donatives [38]
exhausted the state to enrich the military order, whose modesty in
peace, and service in war, is best secured by an honorable poverty. The
demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full of pride; but with the troops
he forgot even the proper dignity of his rank, encouraged their insolent
familiarity, and, neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected
to imitate the dress and manners of a common soldier.

[Footnote 36: Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1296.]

[Footnote 37: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Mr. Wotton (Hist. of Rome, p.
330) suspects that this maxim was invented by Caracalla himself, and
attributed to his father.]

[Footnote 38: Dion (l. lxxviii. p. 1343) informs us that the
extraordinary gifts of Caracalla to the army amounted annually to
seventy millions of drachmae (about two millions three hundred and
fifty thousand pounds.) There is another passage in Dion, concerning the
military pay, infinitely curious, were it not obscure, imperfect, and
probably corrupt. The best sense seems to be, that the Praetorian guards
received twelve hundred and fifty drachmae, (forty pounds a year,)
(Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307.) Under the reign of Augustus, they were paid
at the rate of two drachmae, or denarii, per day, 720 a year, (Tacit.
Annal. i. 17.) Domitian, who increased the soldiers' pay one fourth,
must have raised the Praetorians to 960 drachmae, (Gronoviue de Pecunia
Veteri, l. iii. c. 2.) These successive augmentations ruined the empire;
for, with the soldiers' pay, their numbers too were increased. We have
seen the Praetorians alone increased from 10,000 to 50,000 men. Note:
Valois and Reimar have explained in a very simple and probable manner
this passage of Dion, which Gibbon seems to me not to have understood.
He ordered that the soldiers should receive, as the reward of their
services the Praetorians 1250 drachms, the other 5000 drachms. Valois
thinks that the numbers have been transposed, and that Caracalla added
5000 drachms to the donations made to the Praetorians, 1250 to those of
the legionaries. The Praetorians, in fact, always received more than
the others. The error of Gibbon arose from his considering that this
referred to the annual pay of the soldiers, while it relates to the
sum they received as a reward for their services on their discharge:
donatives means recompense for service. Augustus had settled that the
Praetorians, after sixteen campaigns, should receive 5000 drachms: the
legionaries received only 3000 after twenty years. Caracalla added
5000 drachms to the donative of the Praetorians, 1250 to that of the
legionaries. Gibbon appears to have been mistaken both in confounding
this donative on discharge with the annual pay, and in not paying
attention to the remark of Valois on the transposition of the numbers in
the text.--G]

It was impossible that such a character, and such conduct
as that of Caracalla, could inspire either love or esteem; but as long
as his vices were beneficial to the armies, he was secure from the
danger of rebellion. A secret conspiracy, provoked by his own jealousy,
was fatal to the tyrant. The Praetorian praefecture was divided between
two ministers. The military department was intrusted to Adventus,
an experienced rather than able soldier; and the civil affairs were
transacted by Opilius Macrinus, who, by his dexterity in business, had
raised himself, with a fair character, to that high office. But his
favor varied with the caprice of the emperor, and his life might depend
on the slightest suspicion, or the most casual circumstance. Malice or
fanaticism had suggested to an African, deeply skilled in the knowledge
of futurity, a very dangerous prediction, that Macrinus and his son were
destined to reign over the empire. The report was soon diffused through
the province; and when the man was sent in chains to Rome, he still
asserted, in the presence of the praefect of the city, the faith of
his prophecy. That magistrate, who had received the most pressing
instructions to inform himself of the successors of Caracalla,
immediately communicated the examination of the African to the Imperial
court, which at that time resided in Syria. But, notwithstanding the
diligence of the public messengers, a friend of Macrinus found means to
apprise him of the approaching danger. The emperor received the letters
from Rome; and as he was then engaged in the conduct of a chariot race,
he delivered them unopened to the Praetorian Praefect, directing him to
despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the more important business
that might be contained in them. Macrinus read his fate, and resolved to
prevent it. He inflamed the discontents of some inferior officers,
and employed the hand of Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been
refused the rank of centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him
to make a pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at
Carrhae. [381] He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having stopped on
the road for some necessary occasion, his guards preserved a respectful
distance, and Martialis, approaching his person under a presence of
duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The bold assassin was instantly killed
by a Scythian archer of the Imperial guard. Such was the end of a
monster whose life disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the
patience of the Romans. [39] The grateful soldiers forgot his vices,
remembered only his partial liberality, and obliged the senate to
prostitute their own dignity and that of religion, by granting him a
place among the gods. Whilst he was upon earth, Alexander the Great was
the only hero whom this god deemed worthy his admiration. He assumed the
name and ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian phalanx of guards,
persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and displayed, with a puerile
enthusiasm, the only sentiment by which he discovered any regard for
virtue or glory. We can easily conceive, that after the battle of Narva,
and the conquest of Poland, Charles XII. (though he still wanted the
more elegant accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having
rivalled his valor and magnanimity; but in no one action of his life
did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of the Macedonian hero,
except in the murder of a great number of his own and of his father's
friends. [40]

[Footnote 381: Carrhae, now Harran, between Edessan and Nisibis, famous
for the defeat of Crassus--the Haran from whence Abraham set out for the
land of Canaan. This city has always been remarkable for its attachment
to Sabaism--G]

[Footnote 39: Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1312. Herodian, l. iv. p. 168.]

[Footnote 40: The fondness of Caracalla for the name and ensigns
of Alexander is still preserved on the medals of that emperor. See
Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, Dissertat. xii. Herodian (l. iv. p. 154)
had seen very ridiculous pictures, in which a figure was drawn with one
side of the face like Alexander, and the other like Caracalla.]

After the extinction of the house of Severus, the Roman world remained
three days without a master. The choice of the army (for the authority
of a distant and feeble senate was little regarded) hung in anxious
suspense, as no candidate presented himself whose distinguished birth
and merit could engage their attachment and unite their suffrages. The
decisive weight of the Praetorian guards elevated the hopes of their
praefects, and these powerful ministers began to assert their legal
claim to fill the vacancy of the Imperial throne. Adventus, however,
the senior praefect, conscious of his age and infirmities, of his small
reputation, and his smaller abilities, resigned the dangerous honor to
the crafty ambition of his colleague Macrinus, whose well-dissembled
grief removed all suspicion of his being accessary to his master's
death. [41] The troops neither loved nor esteemed his character. They
cast their eyes around in search of a competitor, and at last yielded
with reluctance to his promises of unbounded liberality and indulgence.
A short time after his accession, he conferred on his son Diadumenianus,
at the age of only ten years, the Imperial title, and the popular
name of Antoninus. The beautiful figure of the youth, assisted by an
additional donative, for which the ceremony furnished a pretext, might
attract, it was hoped, the favor of the army, and secure the doubtful
throne of Macrinus.

[Footnote 41: Herodian, l. iv. p. 169. Hist. August. p. 94.]

The authority of the new sovereign had been ratified by the cheerful
submission of the senate and provinces. They exulted in their unexpected
deliverance from a hated tyrant, and it seemed of little consequence to
examine into the virtues of the successor of Caracalla. But as soon as
the first transports of joy and surprise had subsided, they began to
scrutinize the merits of Macrinus with a critical severity, and to
arraign the nasty choice of the army. It had hitherto been considered as
a fundamental maxim of the constitution, that the emperor must be always
chosen in the senate, and the sovereign power, no longer exercised by
the whole body, was always delegated to one of its members. But Macrinus
was not a senator. [42] The sudden elevation of the Praetorian praefects
betrayed the meanness of their origin; and the equestrian order was
still in possession of that great office, which commanded with arbitrary
sway the lives and fortunes of the senate. A murmur of indignation
was heard, that a man, whose obscure [43] extraction had never been
illustrated by any signal service, should dare to invest himself with
the purple, instead of bestowing it on some distinguished senator, equal
in birth and dignity to the splendor of the Imperial station. As soon as
the character of Macrinus was surveyed by the sharp eye of discontent,
some vices, and many defects, were easily discovered. The choice of his
ministers was in many instances justly censured, and the dissastified
dissatisfied people, with their usual candor, accused at once his
indolent tameness and his excessive severity. [44]

[Footnote 42: Dion, l. lxxxviii. p. 1350. Elagabalus reproached his
predecessor with daring to seat himself on the throne; though, as
Praetorian praefect, he could not have been admitted into the senate
after the voice of the crier had cleared the house. The personal favor
of Plautianus and Sejanus had broke through the established rule.
They rose, indeed, from the equestrian order; but they preserved the
praefecture, with the rank of senator and even with the annulship.]

[Footnote 43: He was a native of Caesarea, in Numidia, and began his
fortune by serving in the household of Plautian, from whose ruin he
narrowly escaped. His enemies asserted that he was born a slave, and
had exercised, among other infamous professions, that of Gladiator. The
fashion of aspersing the birth and condition of an adversary seems
to have lasted from the time of the Greek orators to the learned
grammarians of the last age.]

[Footnote 44: Both Dion and Herodian speak of the virtues and vices of
Macrinus with candor and impartiality; but the author of his life, in
the Augustan History, seems to have implicitly copied some of the
venal writers, employed by Elagabalus, to blacken the memory of his
predecessor.]

His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to stand
with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant destruction.
Trained in the arts of courts and the forms of civil business, he
trembled in the presence of the fierce and undisciplined multitude, over
whom he had assumed the command; his military talents were despised, and
his personal courage suspected; a whisper that circulated in the camp,
disclosed the fatal secret of the conspiracy against the late emperor,
aggravated the guilt of murder by the baseness of hypocrisy, and
heightened contempt by detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and to
provoke inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only wanting;
and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate, that Macrinus was
compelled to exercise that invidious office. The prodigality of
Caracalla had left behind it a long train of ruin and disorder; and if
that worthless tyrant had been capable of reflecting on the sure
consequences of his own conduct, he would perhaps have enjoyed the dark
prospect of the distress and calamities which he bequeathed to his
successors.

In the management of this necessary reformation, Macrinus proceeded with
a cautious prudence, which would have restored health and vigor to the
Roman army in an easy and almost imperceptible manner. To the soldiers
already engaged in the service, he was constrained to leave the
dangerous privileges and extravagant pay given by Caracalla; but the new
recruits were received on the more moderate though liberal establishment
of Severus, and gradually formed to modesty and obedience. [45] One
fatal error destroyed the salutary effects of this judicious plan. The
numerous army, assembled in the East by the late emperor, instead of
being immediately dispersed by Macrinus through the several provinces,
was suffered to remain united in Syria, during the winter that followed
his elevation. In the luxurious idleness of their quarters, the troops
viewed their strength and numbers, communicated their complaints,
and revolved in their minds the advantages of another revolution. The
veterans, instead of being flattered by the advantageous distinction,
were alarmed by the first steps of the emperor, which they considered
as the presage of his future intentions. The recruits, with sullen
reluctance, entered on a service, whose labors were increased while
its rewards were diminished by a covetous and unwarlike sovereign. The
murmurs of the army swelled with impunity into seditious clamors; and
the partial mutinies betrayed a spirit of discontent and disaffection
that waited only for the slightest occasion to break out on every side
into a general rebellion. To minds thus disposed, the occasion soon
presented itself.

[Footnote 45: Dion, l. lxxxiii. p. 1336. The sense of the author is
as the intention of the emperor; but Mr. Wotton has mistaken both, by
understanding the distinction, not of veterans and recruits, but of old
and new legions. History of Rome, p. 347.]

The empress Julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of fortune. From
an humble station she had been raised to greatness, only to taste the
superior bitterness of an exalted rank. She was doomed to weep over the
death of one of her sons, and over the life of the other. The cruel fate
of Caracalla, though her good sense must have long taught' er to expect
it, awakened the feelings of a mother and of an empress. Notwithstanding
the respectful civility expressed by the usurper towards the widow of
Severus, she descended with a painful struggle into the condition of
a subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death, from the
anxious and humiliating dependence. [46] [461] Julia Maesa, her sister, was
ordered to leave the court and Antioch. She retired to Emesa with an
immense fortune, the fruit of twenty years' favor accompanied by her two
daughters, Soaemias and Mamae, each of whom was a widow, and each had
an only son. Bassianus, [462] for that was the name of the son of Soaemias,
was consecrated to the honorable ministry of high priest of the Sun;
and this holy vocation, embraced either from prudence or superstition,
contributed to raise the Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A numerous
body of troops was stationed at Emesa; and as the severe discipline of
Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter encamped, they were
eager to revenge the cruelty of such unaccustomed hardships. The
soldiers, who resorted in crowds to the temple of the Sun, beheld
with veneration and delight the elegant dress and figure of the young
pontiff; they recognized, or they thought that they recognized, the
features of Caracalla, whose memory they now adored. The artful Maesa
saw and cherished their rising partiality, and readily sacrificing her
daughter's reputation to the fortune of her grandson, she insinuated
that Bassianus was the natural son of their murdered sovereign. The
sums distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand silenced every
objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the affinity, or at
least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the great original. The young
Antoninus (for he had assumed and polluted that respectable name) was
declared emperor by the troops of Emesa, asserted his hereditary right,
and called aloud on the armies to follow the standard of a young and
liberal prince, who had taken up arms to revenge his father's death
and the oppression of the military order. [47]

[Footnote 46: Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1330. The abridgment of Xiphilin,
though less particular, is in this place clearer than the original.]

[Footnote 461: As soon as this princess heard of the death of Caracalla,
she wished to starve herself to death: the respect shown to her by
Macrinus, in making no change in her attendants or her court, induced
her to prolong her life. But it appears, as far as the mutilated text of
Dion and the imperfect epitome of Xiphilin permit us to judge, that she
conceived projects of ambition, and endeavored to raise herself to the
empire. She wished to tread in the steps of Semiramis and Nitocris,
whose country bordered on her own. Macrinus sent her an order
immediately to leave Antioch, and to retire wherever she chose. She
returned to her former purpose, and starved herself to death.--G.]

[Footnote 462: He inherited this name from his great-grandfather of the
mother's side, Bassianus, father of Julia Maesa, his grandmother, and
of Julia Domna, wife of Severus. Victor (in his epitome) is perhaps the
only historian who has given the key to this genealogy, when speaking
of Caracalla. His Bassianus ex avi materni nomine dictus. Caracalla,
Elagabalus, and Alexander Seyerus, bore successively this name.--G.]

[Footnote 47: According to Lampridius, (Hist. August. p. 135,) Alexander
Severus lived twenty-nine years three months and seven days. As he was
killed March 19, 235, he was born December 12, 205 and was consequently
about this time thirteen years old, as his elder cousin might be about
seventeen. This computation suits much better the history of the young
princes than that of Herodian, (l. v. p. 181,) who represents them as
three years younger; whilst, by an opposite error of chronology, he
lengthens the reign of Elagabalus two years beyond its real duration.
For the particulars of the conspiracy, see Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1339.
Herodian, l. v. p. 184.]

Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with prudence,
and conducted with rapid vigor, Macrinus, who, by a decisive motion,
might have crushed his infant enemy, floated between the opposite
extremes of terror and security, which alike fixed him inactive at
Antioch. A spirit of rebellion diffused itself through all the camps and
garrisons of Syria, successive detachments murdered their officers, [48]
and joined the party of the rebels; and the tardy restitution of
military pay and privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of
Macrinus. At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing
and zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to take
the field with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of the battle,
[49] the Praetorian guards, almost by an involuntary impulse, asserted
the superiority of their valor and discipline. The rebel ranks were
broken; when the mother and grandmother of the Syrian prince, who,
according to their eastern custom, had attended the army, threw
themselves from their covered chariots, and, by exciting the compassion
of the soldiers, endeavored to animate their drooping courage. Antoninus
himself, who, in the rest of his life, never acted like a man, in this
important crisis of his fate, approved himself a hero, mounted his
horse, and, at the head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand
among the thickest of the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys, [491] whose
occupations had been confined to female cares and the soft luxury of
Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced general. The
battle still raged with doubtful violence, and Macrinus might have
obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his own cause by a shameful
and precipitate flight. His cowardice served only to protract his life a
few days, and to stamp deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is
scarcely necessary to add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in
the same fate.

As soon as the stubborn Praetorians could be convinced that they fought
for a prince who had basely deserted them, they surrendered to the
conqueror: the contending parties of the Roman army, mingling tears
of joy and tenderness, united under the banners of the imagined son of
Caracalla, and the East acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of
Asiatic extraction.

[Footnote 48: By a most dangerous proclamation of the pretended
Antoninus, every soldier who brought in his officer's head became
entitled to his private estate, as well as to his military commission.]

[Footnote 49: Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1345. Herodian, l. v. p. 186.
The battle was fought near the village of Immae, about two-and-twenty
miles from Antioch.]

[Footnote 491: Gannys was not a eunuch. Dion, p. 1355.--W]

The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of the
slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a decree
immediately passed, declaring the rebel and his family public enemies;
with a promise of pardon, however, to such of his deluded adherents as
should merit it by an immediate return to their duty. During the twenty
days that elapsed from the declaration of the victory of Antoninus, (for
in so short an interval was the fate of the Roman world decided,) the
capital and the provinces, more especially those of the East, were
distracted with hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and stained with
a useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever of the rivals
prevailed in Syria must reign over the empire. The specious letters in
which the young conqueror announced his victory to the obedient senate
were filled with professions of virtue and moderation; the shining
examples of Marcus and Augustus, he should ever consider as the great
rule of his administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the
striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those of Augustus,
who in the earliest youth had revenged, by a successful war, the murder
of his father. By adopting the style of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, son
of Antoninus and grandson of Severus, he tacitly asserted his hereditary
claim to the empire; but, by assuming the tribunitian and proconsular
powers before they had been conferred on him by a decree of the senate,
he offended the delicacy of Roman prejudice. This new and injudicious
violation of the constitution was probably dictated either by the
ignorance of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military
followers. [50]

[Footnote 50: Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1353.]

As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most trifling
amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious progress from Syria
to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first winter after his victory, and
deferred till the ensuing summer his triumphal entry into the capital.
A faithful picture, however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed
by his immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate house,
conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his person
and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold,
after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and Phoenicians; his head
was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and bracelets were
adorned with gems of an inestimable value. His eyebrows were tinged with
black, and his cheeks painted with an artificial red and white. [51]
The grave senators confessed with a sigh, that, after having long
experienced the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at
length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism.

[Footnote 51: Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1363. Herodian, l. v. p. 189.]

The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus, [52] and
under the form of a black conical stone, which, as it was universally
believed, had fallen from heaven on that sacred place. To this
protecting deity, Antoninus, not without some reason, ascribed his
elevation to the throne. The display of superstitious gratitude was the
only serious business of his reign. The triumph of the god of Emesa over
all the religions of the earth, was the great object of his zeal and
vanity; and the appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff
and favorite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all the
titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through the streets
of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the black stone, set in
precious gems, was placed on a chariot drawn by six milk-white horses
richly caparisoned. The pious emperor held the reins, and, supported by
his ministers, moved slowly backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy
the felicity of the divine presence. In a magnificent temple raised on
the Palatine Mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were celebrated
with every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the
most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were profusely
consumed on his altar. Around the altar, a chorus of Syrian damsels
performed their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian music,
whilst the gravest personages of the state and army, clothed in long
Phoenician tunics, officiated in the meanest functions, with affected
zeal and secret indignation. [53]

[Footnote 52: This name is derived by the learned from two Syrian words,
Ela a God, and Gabal, to form, the forming or plastic god, a proper, and
even happy epithet for the sun. Wotton's History of Rome, p. 378 Note:
The name of Elagabalus has been disfigured in various ways. Herodian
calls him; Lampridius, and the more modern writers, make him
Heliogabalus. Dion calls him Elegabalus; but Elegabalus was the true
name, as it appears on the medals. (Eckhel. de Doct. num. vet. t. vii.
p. 250.) As to its etymology, that which Gibbon adduces is given
by Bochart, Chan. ii. 5; but Salmasius, on better grounds. (not. in
Lamprid. in Elagab.,) derives the name of Elagabalus from the idol
of that god, represented by Herodian and the medals in the form of a
mountain, (gibel in Hebrew,) or great stone cut to a point, with marks
which represent the sun. As it was not permitted, at Hierapolis, in
Syria, to make statues of the sun and moon, because, it was said, they
are themselves sufficiently visible, the sun was represented at Emesa
in the form of a great stone, which, as it appeared, had fallen from
heaven. Spanheim, Caesar. notes, p. 46.--G. The name of Elagabalus, in
"nummis rarius legetur." Rasche, Lex. Univ. Ref. Numm. Rasche quotes
two.--M]

[Footnote 53: Herodian, l. v. p. 190.]




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

To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, the
Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium, [54] and
all the sacred pledges of the faith of Numa. A crowd of inferior deities
attended in various stations the majesty of the god of Emesa; but his
court was still imperfect, till a female of distinguished rank was
admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first chosen for his consort;
but as it was dreaded lest her warlike terrors might affright the soft
delicacy of a Syrian deity, the Moon, adorned by the Africans under the
name of Astarte, was deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her
image, with the rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was
transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day of these
mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital and throughout the
empire. [55]

[Footnote 54: He broke into the sanctuary of Vesta, and carried away a
statue, which he supposed to be the palladium; but the vestals boasted
that, by a pious fraud, they had imposed a counterfeit image on the
profane intruder. Hist. August., p. 103.]

[Footnote 55: Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1360. Herodian, l. v. p. 193. The
subjects of the empire were obliged to make liberal presents to the
new married couple; and whatever they had promised during the life of
Elagabalus was carefully exacted under the administration of Mamaea.]

A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the temperate
dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of sense by social
intercourse, endearing connections, and the soft coloring of taste and
the imagination. But Elagabalus, (I speak of the emperor of that name,)
corrupted by his youth, his country, and his fortune, abandoned himself
to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury, and soon found disgust
and satiety in the midst of his enjoyments. The inflammatory powers of
art were summoned to his aid: the confused multitude of women, of wines,
and of dishes, and the studied variety of attitude and sauces, served
to revive his languid appetites. New terms and new inventions in these
sciences, the only ones cultivated and patronized by the monarch, [56]
signalized his reign, and transmitted his infamy to succeeding times.
A capricious prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and
whilst Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people in the
wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers applauded
a spirit of magnificence unknown to the tameness of his predecessors.
To confound the order of seasons and climates, [57] to sport with the
passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of
nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious amusements.
A long train of concubines, and a rapid succession of wives, among whom
was a vestal virgin, ravished by force from her sacred asylum, [58] were
insufficient to satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the
Roman world affected to copy the dress and manners of the female sex,
preferred the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the principal
dignities of the empire by distributing them among his numerous lovers;
one of whom was publicly invested with the title and authority of the
emperor's, or, as he more properly styled himself, of the empress's
husband. [59]

[Footnote 56: The invention of a new sauce was liberally rewarded; but
if it was not relished, the inventor was confined to eat of nothing else
till he had discoveredanother more agreeable to the Imperial palate
Hist. August. p. 111.]

[Footnote 57: He never would eat sea-fish except at a great distance
from the sea; he then would distribute vast quantities of the rarest
sorts, brought at an immense expense, to the peasants of the inland
country. Hist. August. p. 109.]

[Footnote 58: Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1358. Herodian, l. v. p. 192.]

[Footnote 59: Hierocles enjoyed that honor; but he would have been
supplanted by one Zoticus, had he not contrived, by a potion, to
enervate the powers of his rival, who, being found on trial unequal
to his reputation, was driven with ignominy from the palace. Dion,
l. lxxix. p. 1363, 1364. A dancer was made praefect of the city, a
charioteer praefect of the watch, a barber praefect of the provisions.
These three ministers, with many inferior officers, were all recommended
enormitate membrorum. Hist. August. p. 105.]

It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have been
adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. [60] Yet, confining
ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and
attested by grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible
infamy surpasses that of any other age or country. The license of an
eastern monarch is secluded from the eye of curiosity by the
inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The sentiments of honor and
gallantry have introduced a refinement of pleasure, a regard for
decency, and a respect for the public opinion, into the modern courts of
Europe; [601] but the corrupt and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every
vice that could be collected from the mighty conflux of nations and
manners. Secure of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without
restraint in the patient and humble society of their slaves and
parasites. The emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank of his subjects
with the same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his
sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.

[Footnote 60: Even the credulous compiler of his life, in the Augustan
History (p. 111) is inclined to suspect that his vices may have been
exaggerated.]

[Footnote 601: Wenck has justly observed that Gibbon should have
reckoned the influence of Christianity in this great change. In the most
savage times, and the most corrupt courts, since the introduction of
Christianity there have been no Neros or Domitians, no Commodus or
Elagabalus.--M.]

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn
in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can
readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to
justify the partial distinction. The licentious soldiers, who had
raised to the throne the dissolute son of Caracalla, blushed at their
ignominious choice, and turned with disgust from that monster, to
contemplate with pleasure the opening virtues of his cousin Alexander,
the son of Mamaea. The crafty Maesa, sensible that her grandson
Elagabalus must inevitably destroy himself by his own vices, had
provided another and surer support of her family. Embracing a favorable
moment of fondness and devotion, she had persuaded the young emperor to
adopt Alexander, and to invest him with the title of Caesar, that his
own divine occupations might be no longer interrupted by the care of
the earth. In the second rank that amiable prince soon acquired the
affections of the public, and excited the tyrant's jealousy, who
resolved to terminate the dangerous competition, either by corrupting
the manners, or by taking away the life, of his rival. His arts proved
unsuccessful; his vain designs were constantly discovered by his own
loquacious folly, and disappointed by those virtuous and faithful
servants whom the prudence of Mamaea had placed about the person of
her son. In a hasty sally of passion, Elagabalus resolved to execute
by force what he had been unable to compass by fraud, and by a despotic
sentence degraded his cousin from the rank and honors of Caesar. The
message was received in the senate with silence, and in the camp with
fury. The Praetorian guards swore to protect Alexander, and to revenge
the dishonored majesty of the throne. The tears and promises of the
trembling Elagabalus, who only begged them to spare his life, and to
leave him in the possession of his beloved Hierocles, diverted their
just indignation; and they contented themselves with empowering their
praefects to watch over the safety of Alexander, and the conduct of the
emperor. [61]

[Footnote 61: Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1365. Herodian, l. v. p. 195--201.
Hist. August. p. 105. The last of the three historians seems to have
followed the best authors in his account of the revolution.]

It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that even
the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such humiliating
terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a dangerous experiment, to
try the temper of the soldiers. The report of the death of Alexander,
and the natural suspicion that he had been murdered, inflamed their
passions into fury, and the tempest of the camp could only be appeased
by the presence and authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new
instance of their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for
his person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the
mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his minions,
his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the indignant
Praetorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the streets of the
city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was branded with eternal
infamy by the senate; the justice of whose decree has been ratified by
posterity. [62]

[See Island In The Tiber: Elagabalus was thrown into the Tiber]

[Footnote 62: The aera of the death of Elagabalus, and of the accession
of Alexander, has employed the learning and ingenuity of Pagi,
Tillemont, Valsecchi, Vignoli, and Torre, bishop of Adria. The question
is most assuredly intricate; but I still adhere to the authority of
Dion, the truth of whose calculations is undeniable, and the purity of
whose text is justified by the agreement of Xiphilin, Zonaras, and
Cedrenus. Elagabalus reigned three years nine months and four days, from
his victory over Macrinus, and was killed March 10, 222. But what shall
we reply to the medals, undoubtedly genuine, which reckon the fifth year
of his tribunitian power? We shall reply, with the learned Valsecchi,
that the usurpation of Macrinus was annihilated, and that the son of
Caracalla dated his reign from his father's death? After resolving this
great difficulty, the smaller knots of this question may be easily
untied, or cut asunder. Note: This opinion of Valsecchi has been
triumphantly contested by Eckhel, who has shown the impossibility of
reconciling it with the medals of Elagabalus, and has given the most
satisfactory explanation of the five tribunates of that emperor. He
ascended the throne and received the tribunitian power the 16th of May,
in the year of Rome 971; and on the 1st January of the next year, 972,
he began a new tribunate, according to the custom established by
preceding emperors. During the years 972, 973, 974, he enjoyed the
tribunate, and commenced his fifth in the year 975, during which he was
killed on the 10th March. Eckhel de Doct. Num. viii. 430 &c.--G.]


In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the throne by the
Praetorian guards. His relation to the family of Severus, whose name
he assumed, was the same as that of his predecessor; his virtue and his
danger had already endeared him to the Romans, and the eager liberality
of the senate conferred upon him, in one day, the various titles and
powers of the Imperial dignity. [63] But as Alexander was a modest and
dutiful youth, of only seventeen years of age, the reins of government
were in the hands of two women, of his mother, Mamaea, and of Maesa,
his grandmother. After the death of the latter, who survived but a short
time the elevation of Alexander, Mamaea remained the sole regent of
her son and of the empire.

[Footnote 63: Hist. August. p. 114. By this unusual precipitation, the
senate meant to confound the hopes of pretenders, and prevent the
factions of the armies.]

In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of the
two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other
to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In hereditary monarchies,
however, and especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of
chivalry, and the law of succession, have accustomed us to allow a
singular exception; and a woman is often acknowledged the absolute
sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of
exercising the smallest employment, civil or military. But as the Roman
emperors were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the
republic, their wives and mothers, although distinguished by the name of
Augusta were never associated to their personal honors; and a female
reign would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in the eyes of those
primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved without delicacy
and respect. [64] The haughty Agripina aspired, indeed, to share the
honors of the empire which she had conferred on her son; but her mad
ambition, detested by every citizen who felt for the dignity of Rome,
was disappointed by the artful firmness of Seneca and Burrhus. [65] The
good sense, or the indifference, of succeeding princes, restrained them
from offending the prejudices of their subjects; and it was reserved for
the profligate Elagabalus to discharge the acts of the senate with the
name of his mother Soaemias, who was placed by the side of the consuls,
and subscribed, as a regular member, the decrees of the legislative
assembly. Her more prudent sister, Mamaea, declined the useless and
odious prerogative, and a solemn law was enacted, excluding women
forever from the senate, and devoting to the infernal gods the head of
the wretch by whom this sanction should be violated. [66] The substance,
not the pageantry, of power. was the object of Mamaea's manly ambition.
She maintained an absolute and lasting empire over the mind of her son,
and in his affection the mother could not brook a rival. Alexander, with
her consent, married the daughter of a patrician; but his respect for
his father-in-law, and love for the empress, were inconsistent with the
tenderness of interest of Mamaea. The patrician was executed on the
ready accusation of treason, and the wife of Alexander driven with
ignominy from the palace, and banished into Africa. [67]

[Footnote 64: Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the Roman
people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed us to exist
without the help of women, we should be delivered from a very
troublesome companion; and he could recommend matrimony only as the
sacrifice of private pleasure to public duty. Aulus Gellius, i. 6.]

[Footnote 65: Tacit. Annal. xiii. 5.]

[Footnote 66: Hist. August. p. 102, 107.]

[Footnote 67: Dion, l. lxxx. p. 1369. Herodian, l. vi. p. 206. Hist.
August. p. 131. Herodian represents the patrician as innocent. The
Augustian History, on the authority of Dexippus, condemns him, as guilty
of a conspiracy against the life of Alexander. It is impossible to
pronounce between them; but Dion is an irreproachable witness of the
jealousy and cruelty of Mamaea towards the young empress, whose hard
fate Alexander lamented, but durst not oppose.]

Notwithstanding this act of jealous cruelty, as well as some instances
of avarice, with which Mamaea is charged, the general tenor of her
administration was equally for the benefit of her son and of the empire.
With the approbation of the senate, she chose sixteen of the wisest and
most virtuous senators as a perpetual council of state, before whom
every public business of moment was debated and determined. The
celebrated Ulpian, equally distinguished by his knowledge of, and his
respect for, the laws of Rome, was at their head; and the prudent
firmness of this aristocracy restored order and authority to the
government. As soon as they had purged the city from foreign
superstition and luxury, the remains of the capricious tyranny of
Elagabalus, they applied themselves to remove his worthless creatures
from every department of the public administration, and to supply their
places with men of virtue and ability. Learning, and the love of
justice, became the only recommendations for civil offices; valor, and
the love of discipline, the only qualifications for military
employments. [68]

[Footnote 68: Herodian, l. vi. p. 203. Hist. August. p. 119. The latter
insinuates, that when any law was to be passed, the council was assisted
by a number of able lawyers and experienced senators, whose opinions
were separately given, and taken down in writing.]

But the most
important care of Mamaea and her wise counsellors, was to form the
character of the young emperor, on whose personal qualities the
happiness or misery of the Roman world must ultimately depend. The
fortunate soil assisted, and even prevented, the hand of cultivation.
An excellent understanding soon convinced Alexander of the advantages of
virtue, the pleasure of knowledge, and the necessity of labor. A natural
mildness and moderation of temper preserved him from the assaults of
passion, and the allurements of vice. His unalterable regard for his
mother, and his esteem for the wise Ulpian, guarded his unexperienced
youth from the poison of flattery. [581]

[Footnote 681: Alexander received into his chapel all the religions
which prevailed in the empire; he admitted Jesus Christ, Abraham,
Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, &c. It was almost certain that his mother
Mamaea had instructed him in the morality of Christianity. Historians in
general agree in calling her a Christian; there is reason to believe
that she had begun to have a taste for the principles of Christianity.
(See Tillemont, Alexander Severus) Gibbon has not noticed this
circumstance; he appears to have wished to lower the character of this
empress; he has throughout followed the narrative of Herodian, who, by
the acknowledgment of Capitolinus himself, detested Alexander. Without
believing the exaggerated praises of Lampridius, he ought not to have
followed the unjust severity of Herodian, and, above all, not to have
forgotten to say that the virtuous Alexander Severus had insured to the
Jews the preservation of their privileges, and permitted the exercise of
Christianity. Hist. Aug. p. 121. The Christians had established their
worship in a public place, of which the victuallers (cauponarii)
claimed, not the property, but possession by custom. Alexander answered,
that it was better that the place should be used for the service of God,
in any form, than for victuallers.--G. I have scrupled to omit this
note, as it contains some points worthy of notice; but it is very unjust
to Gibbon, who mentions almost all the circumstances, which he is
accused of omitting, in another, and, according to his plan, a better
place, and, perhaps, in stronger terms than M. Guizot. See Chap. xvi.--
M.]

The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a pleasing
picture of an accomplished emperor, [69] and, with some allowance for
the difference of manners, might well deserve the imitation of modern
princes. Alexander rose early: the first moments of the day were
consecrated to private devotion, and his domestic chapel was filled with
the images of those heroes, who, by improving or reforming human life,
had deserved the grateful reverence of posterity. But as he deemed the
service of mankind the most acceptable worship of the gods, the greatest
part of his morning hours was employed in his council, where he
discussed public affairs, and determined private causes, with a patience
and discretion above his years. The dryness of business was relieved by
the charms of literature; and a portion of time was always set apart for
his favorite studies of poetry, history, and philosophy. The works of
Virgil and Horace, the republics of Plato and Cicero, formed his taste,
enlarged his understanding, and gave him the noblest ideas of man and
government. The exercises of the body succeeded to those of the mind;
and Alexander, who was tall, active, and robust, surpassed most of his
equals in the gymnastic arts. Refreshed by the use of the bath and a
slight dinner, he resumed, with new vigor, the business of the day; and,
till the hour of supper, the principal meal of the Romans, he was
attended by his secretaries, with whom he read and answered the
multitude of letters, memorials, and petitions, that must have been
addressed to the master of the greatest part of the world. His table was
served with the most frugal simplicity, and whenever he was at liberty
to consult his own inclination, the company consisted of a few select
friends, men of learning and virtue, amongst whom Ulpian was constantly
invited. Their conversation was familiar and instructive; and the pauses
were occasionally enlivened by the recital of some pleasing composition,
which supplied the place of the dancers, comedians, and even gladiators,
so frequently summoned to the tables of the rich and luxurious Romans.
[70] The dress of Alexander was plain and modest, his demeanor courteous
and affable: at the proper hours his palace was open to all his
subjects, but the voice of a crier was heard, as in the Eleusinian
mysteries, pronouncing the same salutary admonition: "Let none enter
these holy walls, unless he is conscious of a pure and innocent mind."
[71]

[Footnote 69: See his life in the Augustan History. The undistinguishing
compiler has buried these interesting anecdotes under a load of trivial
unmeaning circumstances.]

[Footnote 70: See the 13th Satire of Juvenal.]

[Footnote 71: Hist. August. p. 119.]

Such a uniform
tenor of life, which left not a moment for vice or folly, is a better
proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander's government, than all the
trifling details preserved in the compilation of Lampridius. Since the
accession of Commodus, the Roman world had experienced, during the term
of forty years, the successive and various vices of four tyrants. From
the death of Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen
years. [711] The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by
Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and prosperity,
under the administration of magistrates, who were convinced by
experience that to deserve the love of the subjects, was their best and
only method of obtaining the favor of their sovereign. While some gentle
restraints were imposed on the innocent luxury of the Roman people, the
price of provisions and the interest of money, were reduced by the
paternal care of Alexander, whose prudent liberality, without
distressing the industrious, supplied the wants and amusements of the
populace. The dignity, the freedom, the authority of the senate was
restored; and every virtuous senator might approach the person of the
emperor without a fear and without a blush.

[Footnote 711: Wenck observes that Gibbon, enchanted with the virtue of
Alexander has heightened, particularly in this sentence, its effect on
the state of the world. His own account, which follows, of the
insurrections and foreign wars, is not in harmony with this beautiful
picture.--M.]

The name of Antoninus,
ennobled by the virtues of Pius and Marcus, had been communicated by
adoption to the dissolute Verus, and by descent to the cruel Commodus.
It became the honorable appellation of the sons of Severus, was bestowed
on young Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted to the infamy of the
high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though pressed by the studied, and,
perhaps, sincere importunity of the senate, nobly refused the borrowed
lustre of a name; whilst in his whole conduct he labored to restore the
glories and felicity of the age of the genuine Antonines. [72]

[Footnote 72: See, in the Hist. August. p. 116, 117, the whole contest
between Alexander and the senate, extracted from the journals of that
assembly. It happened on the sixth of March, probably of the year 223,
when the Romans had enjoyed, almost a twelvemonth, the blessings of his
reign. Before the appellation of Antoninus was offered him as a title of
honor, the senate waited to see whether Alexander would not assume it as
a family name.]

In the civil administration of Alexander, wisdom was
enforced by power, and the people, sensible of the public felicity,
repaid their benefactor with their love and gratitude. There still
remained a greater, a more necessary, but a more difficult enterprise;
the reformation of the military order, whose interest and temper,
confirmed by long impunity, rendered them impatient of the restraints of
discipline, and careless of the blessings of public tranquillity. In the
execution of his design, the emperor affected to display his love, and
to conceal his fear of the army. The most rigid economy in every other
branch of the administration supplied a fund of gold and silver for the
ordinary pay and the extraordinary rewards of the troops. In their
marches he relaxed the severe obligation of carrying seventeen days'
provision on their shoulders. Ample magazines were formed along the
public roads, and as soon as they entered the enemy's country, a
numerous train of mules and camels waited on their haughty laziness. As
Alexander despaired of correcting the luxury of his soldiers, he
attempted, at least, to direct it to objects of martial pomp and
ornament, fine horses, splendid armor, and shields enriched with silver
and gold. He shared whatever fatigues he was obliged to impose, visited,
in person, the sick and wounded, preserved an exact register of their
services and his own gratitude, and expressed on every occasion, the
warmest regard for a body of men, whose welfare, as he affected to
declare, was so closely connected with that of the state. [73] By the
most gentle arts he labored to inspire the fierce multitude with a sense
of duty, and to restore at least a faint image of that discipline to
which the Romans owed their empire over so many other nations, as
warlike and more powerful than themselves. But his prudence was vain,
his courage fatal, and the attempt towards a reformation served only to
inflame the ills it was meant to cure.

[Footnote 73: It was a favorite saying of the emperor's Se milites magis
servare, quam seipsum, quod salus publica in his esset. Hist. Aug. p.
130.]

The Praetorian guards
were attached to the youth of Alexander. They loved him as a tender
pupil, whom they had saved from a tyrant's fury, and placed on the
Imperial throne. That amiable prince was sensible of the obligation; but
as his gratitude was restrained within the limits of reason and justice,
they soon were more dissatisfied with the virtues of Alexander, than
they had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their praefect, the
wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people; he was
considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious counsels
every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling accident blew up
their discontent into a furious mutiny; and the civil war raged, during
three days, in Rome, whilst the life of that excellent minister was
defended by the grateful people. Terrified, at length, by the sight of
some houses in flames, and by the threats of a general conflagration,
the people yielded with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate
Ulpian to his fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and
massacred at the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with
the purple, and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers. [731]
Such was the deplorable weakness of government, that the emperor was
unable to revenge his murdered friend and his insulted dignity, without
stooping to the arts of patience and dissimulation. Epagathus, the
principal leader of the mutiny, was removed from Rome, by the honorable
employment of praefect of Egypt: from that high rank he was gently
degraded to the government of Crete; and when at length, his popularity
among the guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to
inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes. [74] Under the
reign of a just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army threatened
with instant death his most faithful ministers, who were suspected of an
intention to correct their intolerable disorders. The historian Dion
Cassius had commanded the Pannonian legions with the spirit of ancient
discipline. Their brethren of Rome, embracing the common cause of
military license, demanded the head of the reformer. Alexander, however,
instead of yielding to their seditious clamors, showed a just sense of
his merit and services, by appointing him his colleague in the
consulship, and defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain
dignity: but as was justly apprehended, that if the soldiers beheld him
with the ensigns of his office, they would revenge the insult in his
blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by the
emperor's advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part of his
consulship at his villas in Campania. [75] [751]

[Footnote 731: Gibbon has confounded two events altogether different--
the quarrel of the people with the Praetorians, which lasted three days,
and the assassination of Ulpian by the latter. Dion relates first the
death of Ulpian, afterwards, reverting back according to a manner which
is usual with him, he says that during the life of Ulpian, there had
been a war of three days between the Praetorians and the people. But
Ulpian was not the cause. Dion says, on the contrary, that it was
occasioned by some unimportant circumstance; whilst he assigns a weighty
reason for the murder of Ulpian, the judgment by which that Praetorian
praefect had condemned his predecessors, Chrestus and Flavian, to death,
whom the soldiers wished to revenge. Zosimus (l. 1, c. xi.) attributes
this sentence to Mamaera; but, even then, the troops might have imputed
it to Ulpian, who had reaped all the advantage and was otherwise odious
to them.--W.]

[Footnote 74: Though the author of the life of Alexander (Hist. August.
p. 182) mentions the sedition raised against Ulpian by the soldiers, he
conceals the catastrophe, as it might discover a weakness in the
administration of his hero. From this designed omission, we may judge of
the weight and candor of that author.]

[Footnote 75: For an account of Ulpian's fate and his own danger, see
the mutilated conclusion of Dion's History, l. lxxx. p. 1371.]

[Footnote 751: Dion possessed no estates in Campania, and was not rich.
He only says that the emperor advised him to reside, during his
consulate, in some place out of Rome; that he returned to Rome after the
end of his consulate, and had an interview with the emperor in Campania.
He asked and obtained leave to pass the rest of his life in his native
city, (Nice, in Bithynia: ) it was there that he finished his history,
which closes with his second consulship.--W.]




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

The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops;
the legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended their
prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious obstinacy. The
administration of Alexander was an unavailing struggle against the
corruption of his age. In llyricum, in Mauritania, in Armenia, in
Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh mutinies perpetually broke out; his
officers were murdered, his authority was insulted, and his life at last
sacrificed to the fierce discontents of the army. [76] One particular
fact well deserves to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the
troops, and exhibits a singular instance of their return to a sense of
duty and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch, in his Persian
expedition, the particulars of which we shall hereafter relate, the
punishment of some soldiers, who had been discovered in the baths
of women, excited a sedition in the legion to which they belonged.
Alexander ascended his tribunal, and with a modest firmness represented
to the armed multitude the absolute necessity, as well as his
inflexible resolution, of correcting the vices introduced by his impure
predecessor, and of maintaining the discipline, which could not be
relaxed without the ruin of the Roman name and empire. Their clamors
interrupted his mild expostulation. "Reserve your shout," said the
undaunted emperor, "till you take the field against the Persians, the
Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of your sovereign
and benefactor, who bestows upon you the corn, the clothing, and the
money of the provinces. Be silent, or I shall no longer style you
solders, but citizens, [77] if those indeed who disclaim the laws of
Rome deserve to be ranked among the meanest of the people." His menaces
inflamed the fury of the legion, and their brandished arms already
threatened his person. "Your courage," resumed the intrepid Alexander,
"would be more nobly displayed in the field of battle; me you may
destroy, you cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the republic
would punish your crime and revenge my death." The legion still
persisted in clamorous sedition, when the emperor pronounced, with a cud
voice, the decisive sentence, "Citizens! lay down your arms, and depart
in peace to your respective habitations." The tempest was instantly
appeased: the soldiers, filled with grief and shame, silently confessed
the justice of their punishment, and the power of discipline, yielded up
their arms and military ensigns, and retired in confusion, not to their
camp, but to the several inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed, during
thirty days, the edifying spectacle of their repentance; nor did he
restore them to their former rank in the army, till he had punished with
death those tribunes whose connivance had occasioned the mutiny. The
grateful legion served the emperor whilst living, and revenged him when
dead. [78]

[Footnote 76: Annot. Reimar. ad Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. p. 1369.]

[Footnote 77: Julius Caesar had appeased a sedition with the same word,
Quirites; which, thus opposed to soldiers, was used in a sense of
contempt, and reduced the offenders to the less honorable condition of
mere citizens. Tacit. Annal. i. 43.]

[Footnote 78: Hist. August. p. 132.]

The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a moment; and the
caprice of passion might equally determine the seditious legion to
lay down their arms at the emperor's feet, or to plunge them into his
breast. Perhaps, if this singular transaction had been investigated by
the penetration of a philosopher, we should discover the secret causes
which on that occasion authorized the boldness of the prince, and
commanded the obedience of the troops; and perhaps, if it had been
related by a judicious historian, we should find this action, worthy
of Caesar himself, reduced nearer to the level of probability and the
common standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of
that amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the difficulties of
his situation, the firmness of his conduct inferior to the purity of his
intentions. His virtues, as well as the vices of Elagabalus, contracted
a tincture of weakness and effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria,
of which he was a native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and
listened with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who
derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility. [79] The pride
and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of his reign; an
by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful obedience which she
had justly claimed from his unexperienced youth, Mamaea exposed to
public ridicule both her son's character and her own. [80] The fatigues
of the Persian war irritated the military discontent; the unsuccessful
event [801] degraded the reputation of the emperor as a general, and even
as a soldier. Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened,
a revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series of
intestine calamities.

[Footnote 79: From the Metelli. Hist. August. p. 119. The choice was
judicious. In one short period of twelve years, the Metelli could reckon
seven consulships and five triumphs. See Velleius Paterculus, ii. 11,
and the Fasti.]

[Footnote 80: The life of Alexander, in the Augustan History, is the
mere idea of a perfect prince, an awkward imitation of the Cyropaedia.
The account of his reign, as given by Herodian, is rational and
moderate, consistent with the general history of the age; and, in some
of the most invidious particulars, confirmed by the decisive fragments
of Dion. Yet from a very paltry prejudice, the greater number of our
modern writers abuse Herodian, and copy the Augustan History. See Mess
de Tillemont and Wotton. From the opposite prejudice, the emperor
Julian (in Caesarib. p. 315) dwells with a visible satisfaction on the
effeminate weakness of the Syrian, and the ridiculous avarice of his
mother.]

[Footnote 801: Historians are divided as to the success of the campaign
against the Persians; Herodian alone speaks of defeat. Lampridius,
Eutropius, Victor, and others, say that it was very glorious to
Alexander; that he beat Artaxerxes in a great battle, and repelled him
from the frontiers of the empire. This much is certain, that Alexander,
on his return to Rome, (Lamp. Hist. Aug. c. 56, 133, 134,) received the
honors of a triumph, and that he said, in his oration to the people.
Quirites, vicimus Persas, milites divites reduximus, vobis congiarium
pollicemur, cras ludos circenses Persicos donabimus. Alexander, says
Eckhel, had too much modesty and wisdom to permit himself to receive
honors which ought only to be the reward of victory, if he had not
deserved them; he would have contented himself with dissembling his
losses. Eckhel, Doct. Num. vet. vii. 276. The medals represent him as in
triumph; one, among others, displays him crowned by Victory between two
rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. P. M. TR. P. xii. Cos. iii. PP.
Imperator paludatus D. hastam. S. parazonium, stat inter duos fluvios
humi jacentes, et ab accedente retro Victoria coronatur. Ae. max. mod.
(Mus. Reg. Gall.) Although Gibbon treats this question more in detail
when he speaks of the Persian monarchy, I have thought fit to place here
what contradicts his opinion.--G]

The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by his
death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house of Severus,
had all contributed to increase the dangerous power of the army, and to
obliterate the faint image of laws and liberty that was still impressed
on the minds of the Romans. The internal change, which undermined the
foundations of the empire, we have endeavored to explain with some
degree of order and perspicuity. The personal characters of the
emperors, their victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us
no farther than as they are connected with the general history of the
Decline and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to that
great object will not suffer us to overlook a most important edict of
Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free inhabitants
of the empire the name and privileges of Roman citizens. His unbounded
liberality flowed not, however, from the sentiments of a generous mind;
it was the sordid result of avarice, and will naturally be illustrated
by some observations on the finances of that state, from the victorious
ages of the commonwealth to the reign of Alexander Severus. The siege
of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable enterprise of the Romans,
was protracted to the tenth year, much less by the strength of the place
than by the unskillfulness of the besiegers. The unaccustomed hardships
of so many winter campaigns, at the distance of near twenty miles from
home, [81] required more than common encouragements; and the senate
wisely prevented the clamors of the people, by the institution of a
regular pay for the soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute,
assessed according to an equitable proportion on the property of the
citizens. [82] During more than two hundred years after the conquest of
Veii, the victories of the republic added less to the wealth than to
the power of Rome. The states of Italy paid their tribute in military
service only, and the vast force, both by sea and land, which was
exerted in the Punic wars, was maintained at the expense of the Romans
themselves. That high-spirited people (such is often the generous
enthusiasm of freedom) cheerfully submitted to the most excessive but
voluntary burdens, in the just confidence that they should speedily
enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. Their expectations were not
disappointed. In the course of a few years, the riches of Syracuse, of
Carthage, of Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome.
The treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions sterling,
and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many nations, was forever
delivered from the weight of taxes. [83] The increasing revenue of the
provinces was found sufficient to defray the ordinary establishment
of war and government, and the superfluous mass of gold and silver
was deposited in the temple of Saturn, and reserved for any unforeseen
emergency of the state. [84]

[Footnote 81: According to the more accurate Dionysius, the city itself
was only a hundred stadia, or twelve miles and a half, from Rome,
though some out-posts might be advanced farther on the side of Etruria.
Nardini, in a professed treatise, has combated the popular opinion and
the authority of two popes, and has removed Veii from Civita Castellana,
to a little spot called Isola, in the midway between Rome and the Lake
Bracianno. * Note: See the interesting account of the site and ruins of
Veii in Sir W Gell's topography of Rome and its Vicinity. v. ii. p.
303.--M.]

[Footnote 82: See the 4th and 5th books of Livy. In the Roman census,
property, power, and taxation were commensurate with each other.]

[Footnote 83: Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. Cicero de Offic. ii.
22. Plutarch, P. Aemil. p. 275.]

[Footnote 84: See a fine description of this accumulated wealth of ages
in Phars. l. iii. v. 155, &c.]

History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more irreparable
injury than in the loss of the curious register [841] bequeathed by
Augustus to the senate, in which that experienced prince so accurately
balanced the revenues and expenses of the Roman empire. [85] Deprived of
this clear and comprehensive estimate, we are reduced to collect a few
imperfect hints from such of the ancients as have accidentally turned
aside from the splendid to the more useful parts of history. We are
informed that, by the conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia were
raised from fifty to one hundred and thirty-five millions of drachms; or
about four millions and a half sterling. [86] [861] Under the last and most
indolent of the Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt is said to have amounted
to twelve thousand five hundred talents; a sum equivalent to more
than two millions and a half of our money, but which was afterwards
considerably improved by the more exact economy of the Romans, and the
increase of the trade of Aethiopia and India. [87] Gaul was enriched by
rapine, as Egypt was by commerce, and the tributes of those two great
provinces have been compared as nearly equal to each other in value.
[88] The ten thousand Euboic or Phoenician talents, about four millions
sterling, [89] which vanquished Carthage was condemned to pay within the
term of fifty years, were a slight acknowledgment of the superiority of
Rome, [90] and cannot bear the least proportion with the taxes afterwards
raised both on the lands and on the persons of the inhabitants, when the
fertile coast of Africa was reduced into a province. [91]

[Footnote 841: See Rationarium imperii. Compare besides Tacitus, Suet.
Aug. c. ult. Dion, p. 832. Other emperors kept and published similar
registers. See a dissertation of Dr. Wolle, de Rationario imperii Rom.
Leipsig, 1773. The last book of Appian also contained the statistics of
the Roman empire, but it is lost.--W.]

[Footnote 85: Tacit. in Annal. i. ll. It seems to have existed in the
time of Appian.]

[Footnote 86: Plutarch, in Pompeio, p. 642.]

[Footnote 861: Wenck contests the accuracy of Gibbon's version of Plutarch,
and supposes that Pompey only raised the revenue from 50,000,000 to
85,000,000 of drachms; but the text of Plutarch seems clearly to mean
that his conquests added 85,000,000 to the ordinary revenue. Wenck adds,
"Plutarch says in another part, that Antony made Asia pay, at one time,
200,000 talents, that is to say, 38,875,000 L. sterling." But Appian
explains this by saying that it was the revenue of ten years, which
brings the annual revenue, at the time of Antony, to 3,875,000 L.
sterling.--M.]

[Footnote 87: Strabo, l. xvii. p. 798.]

[Footnote 88: Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 39. He seems to give the
preference to the revenue of Gaul.]

[Footnote 89: The Euboic, the Phoenician, and the Alexandrian talents
were double in weight to the Attic. See Hooper on ancient weights and
measures, p. iv. c. 5. It is very probable that the same talent was
carried from Tyre to Carthage.]

[Footnote 90: Polyb. l. xv. c. 2.]

[Footnote 91: Appian in Punicis, p. 84.]

Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico of the old
world. The discovery of the rich western continent by the Phoenicians,
and the oppression of the simple natives, who were compelled to labor in
their own mines for the benefit of strangers, form an exact type of
the more recent history of Spanish America. [92] The Phoenicians were
acquainted only with the sea-coast of Spain; avarice, as well as
ambition, carried the arms of Rome and Carthage into the heart of the
country, and almost every part of the soil was found pregnant with
copper, silver, and gold. [921] Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena
which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachmns of silver, or
about three hundred thousand pounds a year. [93] Twenty thousand pound
weight of gold was annually received from the provinces of Asturia,
Gallicia, and Lusitania. [94]

[Footnote 92: Diodorus Siculus, l. 5. Oadiz was built by the Phoenicians
a little more than a thousand years before Christ. See Vell. Pa ter.
i.2.]

[Footnote 921: Compare Heeren's Researches vol. i. part ii. p.]

[Footnote 93: Strabo, l. iii. p. 148.]

[Footnote 94: Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. He mentions likewise
a silver mine in Dalmatia, that yielded every day fifty pounds to
the state.] We want both leisure and materials to pursue this curious
inquiry through the many potent states that were annihilated in the
Roman empire. Some notion, however, may be formed of the revenue of the
provinces where considerable wealth had been deposited by nature, or
collected by man, if we observe the severe attention that was directed
to the abodes of solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a
petition from the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they might
be relieved from one third of their excessive impositions. Their whole
tax amounted indeed to no more than one hundred and fifty drachms, or
about five pounds: but Gyarus was a little island, or rather a rock, of
the Aegean Sea, destitute of fresh water and every necessary of life,
and inhabited only by a few wretched fishermen. [95]

[Footnote 95: Strabo, l. x. p. 485. Tacit. Annal. iu. 69, and iv. 30.
See Tournefort (Voyages au Levant, Lettre viii.) a very lively picture
of the actual misery of Gyarus.]

From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights, we
should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with every fair allowance for
the differences of times and circumstances) the general income of the
Roman provinces could seldom amount to less than fifteen or twenty
millions of our money; [96] and, 2dly, That so ample a revenue must
have been fully adequate to all the expenses of the moderate government
instituted by Augustus, whose court was the modest family of a private
senator, and whose military establishment was calculated for the defence
of the frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious
apprehension of a foreign invasion.

[Footnote 96: Lipsius de magnitudine Romana (l. ii. c. 3) computes the
revenue at one hundred and fifty millions of gold crowns; but his whole
book, though learned and ingenious, betrays a very heated imagination.
Note: If Justus Lipsius has exaggerated the revenue of the Roman empire
Gibbon, on the other hand, has underrated it. He fixes it at fifteen
or twenty millions of our money. But if we take only, on a moderate
calculation, the taxes in the provinces which he has already cited, they
will amount, considering the augmentations made by Augustus, to nearly
that sum. There remain also the provinces of Italy, of Rhaetia, of
Noricum, Pannonia, and Greece, &c., &c. Let us pay attention, besides,
to the prodigious expenditure of some emperors, (Suet. Vesp. 16;) we
shall see that such a revenue could not be sufficient. The authors of
the Universal History, part xii., assign forty millions sterling as the
sum to about which the public revenue might amount.--G. from W.]

Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these conclusions,
the latter of them at least is positively disowned by the language
and conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to determine whether, on this
occasion, he acted as the common father of the Roman world, or as the
oppressor of liberty; whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or
to impoverish the senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had
he assumed the reins of government, than he frequently intimated the
insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an
equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy. [961] In
the prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced, however, by
cautious and well-weighed steps. The introduction of customs was
followed by the establishment of an excise, and the scheme of taxation
was completed by an artful assessment on the real and personal property
of the Roman citizens, who had been exempted from any kind of
contribution above a century and a half.

[Footnote 961: It is not astonishing that Augustus held
this language. The senate declared also under Nero, that the state could
not exist without the imposts as well augmented as founded by Augustus.
Tac. Ann. xiii. 50. After the abolition of the different tributes paid
by Italy, an abolition which took place A. U. 646, 694, and 695, the
state derived no revenues from that great country, but the twentieth
part of the manumissions, (vicesima manumissionum,) and Ciero laments
this in many places, particularly in his epistles to ii. 15.--G. from
W.]

I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of money must
have gradually established itself. It has been already observed, that as
the wealth of the provinces was attracted to the capital by the strong
hand of conquest and power, so a considerable part of it was restored to
the industrious provinces by the gentle influence of commerce and arts.
In the reign of Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on
every kind of merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to
the great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the
law was expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the provincial
merchant, who paid the tax. [97] The rate of the customs varied from the
eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the commodity; and we have
a right to suppose that the variation was directed by the unalterable
maxims of policy; that a higher duty was fixed on the articles of
luxury than on those of necessity, and that the productions raised or
manufactured by the labor of the subjects of the empire were treated
with more indulgence than was shown to the pernicious, or at least the
unpopular commerce of Arabia and India. [98] There is still extant a long
but imperfect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the time
of Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of duties; cinnamon,
myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of aromatics a great variety
of precious stones, among which the diamond was the most remarkable for
its price, and the emerald for its beauty; [99] Parthian and Babylonian
leather, cottons, silks, both raw and manufactured, ebony ivory, and
eunuchs. [100] We may observe that the use and value of those effeminate
slaves gradually rose with the decline of the empire.

[Footnote 97: Tacit. Annal. xiii. 31. * Note: The customs (portoria)
existed in the times of the ancient kings of Rome. They were suppressed
in Italy, A. U. 694, by the Praetor, Cecilius Matellus Nepos. Augustus
only reestablished them. See note above.--W.]

[Footnote 98: See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. l. vi. c. 23, lxii. c. 18.) His
observation that the Indian commodities were sold at Rome at a hundred
times their original price, may give us some notion of the produce of
the customs, since that original price amounted to more than eight
hundred thousand pounds.]

[Footnote 99: The ancients were unacquainted with the art of cutting
diamonds.]

[Footnote 100: M. Bouchaud, in his treatise de l'Impot chez les
Romains, has transcribed this catalogue from the Digest, and attempts to
illustrate it by a very prolix commentary. * Note: In the Pandects, l.
39, t. 14, de Publican. Compare Cicero in Verrem. c. 72--74.--W.]


II. The excise, introduced by Augustus after the civil wars, was
extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom exceeded one per
cent.; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets or by public
auction, from the most considerable purchases of lands and houses, to
those minute objects which can only derive a value from their infinite
multitude and daily consumption. Such a tax, as it affects the body
of the people, has ever been the occasion of clamor and discontent. An
emperor well acquainted with the wants and resources of the state was
obliged to declare, by a public edict, that the support of the army
depended in a great measure on the produce of the excise. [101]

[Footnote 101: Tacit. Annal. i. 78. Two years afterwards, the reduction
of the poor kingdom of Cappadocia gave Tiberius a pretence for
diminishing the excise of one half, but the relief was of very short
duration.]

III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military
force for the defence of his government against foreign and domestic
enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay of the soldiers,
the rewards of the veterans, and the extra-ordinary expenses of war.
The ample revenue of the excise, though peculiarly appropriated to
those uses, was found inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emperor
suggested a new tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances.
But the nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom.
Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual temper.
He candidly referred the whole business to the senate, and exhorted
them to provide for the public service by some other expedient of a less
odious nature. They were divided and perplexed. He insinuated to them,
that their obstinacy would oblige him to propose a general land tax
and capitation. They acquiesced in silence. [102]. The new imposition on
legacies and inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions.
It did not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most
probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; [103] nor could it be
exacted from the nearest of kin on the father's side. [104] When the
rights of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed reasonable,
that a stranger, or a distant relation, who acquired an unexpected
accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a twentieth part of it,
for the benefit of the state. [105]

[Footnote 102: Dion Cassius, l. lv. p. 794, l. lvi. p. 825. Note: Dion
neither mentions this proposition nor the capitation. He only says that
the emperor imposed a tax upon landed property, and sent every where
men employed to make a survey, without fixing how much, and for how much
each was to pay. The senators then preferred giving the tax on legacies
and inheritances.--W.]

[Footnote 103: The sum is only fixed by conjecture.]

[Footnote 104: As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the Cognati, or
relations on the mother's side, were not called to the succession. This
harsh institution was gradually undermined by humanity, and finally
abolished by Justinian.]

[Footnote 105: Plin. Panegyric. c. 37.]

Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy community, was
most happily suited to the situation of the Romans, who could frame
their arbitrary wills, according to the dictates of reason or
caprice, without any restraint from the modern fetters of entails and
settlements. From various causes, the partiality of paternal affection
often lost its influence over the stern patriots of the commonwealth,
and the dissolute nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to
his son the fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal
complaint. [106] But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant, and
his power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile crowd, in
which he frequently reckoned praetors and consuls, courted his smiles,
pampered his avarice, applauded his follies, served his passions,
and waited with impatience for his death. The arts of attendance and
flattery were formed into a most lucrative science; those who professed
it acquired a peculiar appellation; and the whole city, according to
the lively descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the
hunters and their game. [107] Yet, while so many unjust and extravagant
wills were every day dictated by cunning and subscribed by folly, a few
were the result of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who
had so often defended the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was
rewarded with legacies to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand
pounds; [108] nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been
less generous to that amiable orator. [109] Whatever was the motive of
the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth
part of his estate: and in the course of two or three generations, the
whole property of the subject must have gradually passed through the
coffers of the state.

[Footnote 106: See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, l. ii.]

[Footnote 107: Horat. l. ii. Sat. v. Potron. c. 116, &c. Plin. l. ii.
Epist. 20.]

[Footnote 108: Cicero in Philip. ii. c. 16.]

[Footnote 109: See his epistles. Every such will gave him an occasion of
displaying his reverence to the dead, and his justice to the living. He
reconciled both in his behavior to a son who had been disinherited by
his mother, (v.l.)]

In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince, from a
desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of benevolence,
conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the customs and excise.
The wisest senators applauded his magnanimity: but they diverted him
from the execution of a design which would have dissolved the strength
and resources of the republic. [110] Had it indeed been possible to
realize this dream of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines
would surely have embraced with ardor the glorious opportunity of
conferring so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with
alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it. The
mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the rule and measure
of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank against arbitrary
interpretations, antiquated claims, and the insolent vexation of the
farmers of the revenue. [111] For it is somewhat singular, that, in
every age, the best and wisest of the Roman governors persevered in this
pernicious method of collecting the principal branches at least of the
excise and customs. [112]

[Footnote 110: Tacit. Annal. xiii. 50. Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 19.]

[Footnote 111: See Pliny's Panegyric, the Augustan History, and Burman
de Vectigal. passim.]

[Footnote 112: The tributes (properly so called) were not farmed; since
the good princes often remitted many millions of arrears.]

The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation, of Caracalla were very
different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or rather averse,
to the welfare of his people, he found himself under the necessity of
gratifying the insatiate avarice which he had excited in the army.
Of the several impositions introduced by Augustus, the twentieth on
inheritances and legacies was the most fruitful, as well as the most
comprehensive. As its influence was not confined to Rome or Italy, the
produce continually increased with the gradual extension of the Roman
City. The new citizens, though charged, on equal terms, [113] with the
payment of new taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived
an ample compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they
acquired, and the fair prospect of honors and fortune that was thrown
open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a distinction was
lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the reluctant provincials were
compelled to assume the vain title, and the real obligations, of Roman
citizens. [1131] Nor was the rapacious son of Severus contented with such
a measure of taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate
predecessors. Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies
and inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion was
restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the empire
under the weight of his iron sceptre. [114]

[Footnote 113: The situation of the new citizens is minutely described
by Pliny, (Panegyric, c. 37, 38, 39). Trajan published a law very much
in their favor.]

[Footnote 1131: Gibbon has adopted the opinion of Spanheim and of Burman,
which attributes to Caracalla this edict, which gave the right of
the city to all the inhabitants of the provinces. This opinion may be
disputed. Several passages of Spartianus, of Aurelius Victor, and of
Aristides, attribute this edict to Marc. Aurelius. See a learned essay,
entitled Joh. P. Mahneri Comm. de Marc. Aur. Antonino Constitutionis de
Civitate Universo Orbi Romano data auctore. Halae, 1772, 8vo. It
appears that Marc. Aurelius made some modifications of this edict, which
released the provincials from some of the charges imposed by the right
of the city, and deprived them of some of the advantages which it
conferred. Caracalla annulled these modifications.--W.]

[Footnote 114: Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1295.]

When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar impositions
of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal exemption from the
tributes which they had paid in their former condition of subjects. Such
were not the maxims of government adopted by Caracalla and his pretended
son. The old as well as the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in
the provinces. It was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve
them in a great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing
the tributes to a thirteenth part of the sum exacted at the time of his
accession. [115] It is impossible to conjecture the motive that engaged
him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil; but the noxious
weed, which had not been totally eradicated, again sprang up with the
most luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened the Roman
world with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we shall
be too often summoned to explain the land tax, the capitation, and the
heavy contributions of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted
from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.

[Footnote 115: He who paid ten aurei, the usual tribute, was charged
with no more than the third part of an aureus, and proportional pieces
of gold were coined by Alexander's order. Hist. August. p. 127, with the
commentary of Salmasius.]

As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of government, a
national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and insensibly imbibed by
the adopted, citizens. The principal commands of the army were filled
by men who had received a liberal education, were well instructed in
the advantages of laws and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps,
through the regular succession of civil and military honors. [116] To
their influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience
of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial history.

[Footnote 116: See the lives of Agricola, Vespasian, Trajan, Severus,
and his three competitors; and indeed of all the eminent men of those
times. But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was
trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions gradually
succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more polished citizens of
the internal provinces were alone qualified to act as lawyers and
magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was abandoned to the peasants
and barbarians of the frontiers, who knew no country but their camp, no
science but that of war no civil laws, and scarcely those of
military discipline. With bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate
resolutions, they sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the
throne of the emperors.]




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

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

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an
hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Is
it possible to relate without an indignant smile, that, on the father's
decease, the property of a nation, like that of a drove of oxen,
descends to his infant son, as yet unknown to mankind and to himself;
and that the bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing
their natural right to empire, approach the royal cradle with bended
knees and protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation
may paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our more
serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that establishes a
rule of succession, independent of the passions of mankind; and we shall
cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which deprives the multitude
of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal, power of giving themselves a
master.

In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary forms
of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly bestowed on the
most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage of the whole community.
Experience overturns these airy fabrics, and teaches us, that in a large
society, the election of a monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or
to the most numerous part of the people. The army is the only order of
men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful
enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the
temper of soldiers, habituated at once to violence and to slavery,
renders them very unfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil
constitution. Justice, humanity, or political wisdom, are qualities
they are too little acquainted with in themselves, to appreciate them
in others. Valor will acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase
their suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the
most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the expense of
the public; and both may be turned against the possessor of the throne,
by the ambition of a daring rival.

The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the sanction
of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least invidious of
all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged right extinguishes the
hopes of faction, and the conscious security disarms the cruelty of
the monarch. To the firm establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful
succession and mild administration of European monarchies. To the
defect of it we must attribute the frequent civil wars, through which an
Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his fathers.
Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to
the princes of the reigning house, and as soon as the more fortunate
competitor has removed his brethren by the sword and the bowstring, he
no longer entertains any jealousy of his meaner subjects. But the Roman
empire, after the authority of the senate had sunk into contempt, was
a vast scene of confusion. The royal, and even noble, families of the
provinces had long since been led in triumph before the car of the
haughty republicans. The ancient families of Rome had successively
fallen beneath the tyranny of the Caesars; and whilst those princes
were shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the
repeated failure of their posterity, [1] it was impossible that any idea
of hereditary succession should have taken root in the minds of their
subjects. The right to the throne, which none could claim from birth,
every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes of ambition were set
loose from the salutary restraints of law and prejudice; and the meanest
of mankind might, without folly, entertain a hope of being raised by
valor and fortune to a rank in the army, in which a single crime
would enable him to wrest the sceptre of the world from his feeble
and unpopular master. After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the
elevation of Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the
throne, and every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to that
august, but dangerous station.

[Footnote 1: There had been no example of three successive generations
on the throne; only three instances of sons who succeeded their fathers.
The marriages of the Caesars (notwithstanding the permission, and the
frequent practice of divorces) were generally unfruitful.]

About thirty-two years before that event, the emperor Severus, returning
from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace, to celebrate, with
military games, the birthday of his younger son, Geta. The country
flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign, and a young barbarian of
gigantic stature earnestly solicited, in his rude dialect, that he
might be allowed to contend for the prize of wrestling. As the pride of
discipline would have been disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier
by a Thracian peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the
camp, sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory
was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist in the
troops. The next day, the happy barbarian was distinguished above
a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting after the fashion of his
country. As soon as he perceived that he had attracted the emperor's
notice, he instantly ran up to his horse, and followed him on foot,
without the least appearance of fatigue, in a long and rapid career.
"Thracian," said Severus with astonishment, "art thou disposed to
wrestle after thy race?" "Most willingly, sir," replied the unwearied
youth; and, almost in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest
soldiers in the army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless
vigor and activity, and he was immediately appointed to serve in the
horseguards who always attended on the person of the sovereign. [2]

[Footnote 2: Hist. August p. 138.]

Maximin, for that was his name, though born on the territories of the
empire, descended from a mixed race of barbarians. His father was a
Goth, and his mother of the nation of the Alani. He displayed on every
occasion a valor equal to his strength; and his native fierceness was
soon tempered or disguised by the knowledge of the world. Under the
reign of Severus and his son, he obtained the rank of centurion, with
the favor and esteem of both those princes, the former of whom was an
excellent judge of merit. Gratitude forbade Maximin to serve under
the assassin of Caracalla. Honor taught him to decline the effeminate
insults of Elagabalus. On the accession of Alexander he returned to
court, and was placed by that prince in a station useful to the service,
and honorable to himself. The fourth legion, to which he was appointed
tribune, soon became, under his care, the best disciplined of the whole
army. With the general applause of the soldiers, who bestowed on their
favorite hero the names of Ajax and Hercules, he was successively
promoted to the first military command; [3] and had not he still retained
too much of his savage origin, the emperor might perhaps have given his
own sister in marriage to the son of Maximin. [4]

[Footnote 3: Hist. August. p. 140. Herodian, l. vi. p. 223. Aurelius
Victor. By comparing these authors, it should seem that Maximin had the
particular command of the Tribellian horse, with the general commission
of disciplining the recruits of the whole army. His biographer ought to
have marked, with more care, his exploits, and the successive steps of
his military promotions.]

[Footnote 4: See the original letter of Alexander Severus, Hist. August.
p. 149.]

Instead of securing his fidelity, these favors served only to inflame
the ambition of the Thracian peasant, who deemed his fortune inadequate
to his merit, as long as he was constrained to acknowledge a superior.
Though a stranger to rea wisdom, he was not devoid of a selfish cunning,
which showed him that the emperor had lost the affection of the army,
and taught him to improve their discontent to his own advantage. It is
easy for faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration
of the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues by artfully
confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest
affinity. The troops listened with pleasure to the emissaries of
Maximin. They blushed at their own ignominious patience, which, during
thirteen years, had supported the vexatious discipline imposed by an
effeminate Syrian, the timid slave of his mother and of the senate. It
was time, they cried, to cast away that useless phantom of the civil
power, and to elect for their prince and general a real soldier,
educated in camps, exercised in war, who would assert the glory, and
distribute among his companions the treasures, of the empire. A great
army was at that time assembled on the banks of the Rhine, under the
command of the emperor himself, who, almost immediately after his return
from the Persian war, had been obliged to march against the barbarians
of Germany. The important care of training and reviewing the new levies
was intrusted to Maximin. One day, as he entered the field of exercise,
the troops either from a sudden impulse, or a formed conspiracy, saluted
him emperor, silenced by their loud acclamations his obstinate refusal,
and hastened to consummate their rebellion by the murder of Alexander
Severus.

The circumstances of his death are variously related. The writers, who
suppose that he died in ignorance of the ingratitude and ambition of
Maximin, affirm, that, after taking a frugal repast in the sight of the
army, he retired to sleep, and that, about the seventh hour of the day,
a part of his own guards broke into the imperial tent, and, with many
wounds, assassinated their virtuous and unsuspecting prince. [5] If we
credit another, and indeed a more probable account, Maximin was invested
with the purple by a numerous detachment, at the distance of several
miles from the head-quarters; and he trusted for success rather to
the secret wishes than to the public declarations of the great army.
Alexander had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense of loyalty among
the troops; but their reluctant professions of fidelity quickly vanished
on the appearance of Maximin, who declared himself the friend and
advocate of the military order, and was unanimously acknowledged emperor
of the Romans by the applauding legions. The son of Mamaea, betrayed
and deserted, withdrew into his tent, desirous at least to conceal his
approaching fate from the insults of the multitude. He was soon followed
by a tribune and some centurions, the ministers of death; but instead
of receiving with manly resolution the inevitable stroke, his unavailing
cries and entreaties disgraced the last moments of his life, and
converted into contempt some portion of the just pity which his
innocence and misfortunes must inspire. His mother, Mamaea, whose pride
and avarice he loudly accused as the cause of his ruin, perished with
her son. The most faithful of his friends were sacrificed to the first
fury of the soldiers. Others were reserved for the more deliberate
cruelty of the usurper; and those who experienced the mildest treatment,
were stripped of their employments, and ignominiously driven from the
court and army. [6]

[Footnote 5: Hist. August. p. 135. I have softened some of the most
improbable circumstances of this wretched biographer. From his
ill-worded narration, it should seem that the prince's buffoon having
accidentally entered the tent, and awakened the slumbering monarch, the
fear of punishment urged him to persuade the disaffected soldiers to
commit the murder.]

[Footnote 6: Herodian, l. vi. 223-227.]

The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla, were
all dissolute and unexperienced youths, [7] educated in the purple, and
corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome, and the perfidious
voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was derived from a different
source, the fear of contempt. Though he depended on the attachment of
the soldiers, who loved him for virtues like their own, he was conscious
that his mean and barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his total
ignorance of the arts and institutions of civil life, [8] formed a very
unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of the unhappy Alexander.
He remembered, that, in his humbler fortune, he had often waited before
the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and had been denied admittance
by the insolence of their slaves. He recollected too the friendship of
a few who had relieved his poverty, and assisted his rising hopes. But
those who had spurned, and those who had protected, the Thracian, were
guilty of the same crime, the knowledge of his original obscurity. For
this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of several
of his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of blood, the
indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude. [9]

[Footnote 7: Caligula, the eldest of the four, was only twenty-five
years of age when he ascended the throne; Caracalla was twenty-three,
Commodus nineteen, and Nero no more than seventeen.]

[Footnote 8: It appears that he was totally ignorant of the Greek
language; which, from its universal use in conversation and letters, was
an essential part of every liberal education.]

[Footnote 9: Hist. August. p. 141. Herodian, l. vii. p. 237. The latter
of these historians has been most unjustly censured for sparing the
vices of Maximin.]

The dark and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to every suspicion
against those among his subjects who were the most distinguished by
their birth or merit. Whenever he was alarmed with the sound of treason,
his cruelty was unbounded and unrelenting. A conspiracy against his life
was either discovered or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was
named as the principal author of it. Without a witness, without a trial,
and without an opportunity of defence, Magnus, with four thousand of his
supposed accomplices, was put to death. Italy and the whole empire
were infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the slightest
accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, who had governed provinces,
commanded armies, and been adorned with the consular and triumphal
ornaments, were chained on the public carriages, and hurried away to the
emperor's presence. Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed
uncommon instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he
ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals, others to be
exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to death with clubs.
During the three years of his reign, he disdained to visit either Rome
or Italy. His camp, occasionally removed from the banks of the Rhine to
those of the Danube, was the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled
on every principle of law and justice, and was supported by the avowed
power of the sword. [10] No man of noble birth, elegant accomplishments,
or knowledge of civil business, was suffered near his person; and the
court of a Roman emperor revived the idea of those ancient chiefs of
slaves and gladiators, whose savage power had left a deep impression of
terror and detestation. [11]

[Footnote 10: The wife of Maximin, by insinuating wise counsels with
female gentleness, sometimes brought back the tyrant to the way of truth
and humanity. See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xiv. c. l, where he alludes
to the fact which he had more fully related under the reign of the
Gordians. We may collect from the medals, that Paullina was the name
of this benevolent empress; and from the title of Diva, that she died
before Maximin. (Valesius ad loc. cit. Ammian.) Spanheim de U. et P. N.
tom. ii. p. 300. Note: If we may believe Syrcellus and Zonaras, in was
Maximin himself who ordered her death--G]

[Footnote 11: He was compared to Spartacus and Athenio. Hist. August p.
141.]

As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious
senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or army
expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the people
viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with pleasure.
But the tyrant's avarice, stimulated by the insatiate desires of the
soldiers, at length attacked the public property. Every city of the
empire was possessed of an independent revenue, destined to purchase
corn for the multitude, and to supply the expenses of the games and
entertainments. By a single act of authority, the whole mass of wealth
was at once confiscated for the use of the Imperial treasury. The
temples were stripped of their most valuable offerings of gold and
silver, and the statues of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted
down and coined into money. These impious orders could not be executed
without tumults and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather
to die in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst
of peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war.
The soldiers themselves, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was
distributed, received it with a blush; and hardened as they were in
acts of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their friends and
relations. Throughout the Roman world a general cry of indignation was
heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy of human kind; and at
length, by an act of private oppression, a peaceful and unarmed province
was driven into rebellion against him. [12]

[Footnote 12: Herodian, l. vii. p. 238. Zosim. l. i. p. 15.]

The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master, who
considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of the most
fruitful branches of the Imperial revenue. An iniquitous sentence had
been pronounced against some opulent youths of that country, the
execution of which would have stripped them of far the greater part of
their patrimony. In this extremity, a resolution that must either
complete or prevent their ruin, was dictated by despair. A respite of
three days, obtained with difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was
employed in collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and
peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and armed with
the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of the conspiracy, as
they were admitted to the audience of the procurator, stabbed him with
the daggers concealed under their garments, and, by the assistance of
their tumultuary train, seized on the little town of Thysdrus, [13] and
erected the standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman
empire. They rested their hopes on the hatred of mankind against
Maximin, and they judiciously resolved to oppose to that detested tyrant
an emperor whose mild virtues had already acquired the love and esteem
of the Romans, and whose authority over the province would give weight
and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their proconsul, and the
object of their choice, refused, with unfeigned reluctance, the
dangerous honor, and begged with tears, that they would suffer him to
terminate in peace a long and innocent life, without staining his feeble
age with civil blood. Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial
purple, his only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin;
since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been
esteemed worthy of the throne deserve death, and those who deliberate
have already rebelled. [14]

[Footnote 13: In the fertile territory of Byzacium, one hundred and
fifty miles to the south of Carthage. This city was decorated, probably
by the Gordians, with the title of colony, and with a fine amphitheatre,
which is still in a very perfect state. See Intinerar. Wesseling, p. 59;
and Shaw's Travels, p. 117.]

[Footnote 14: Herodian, l. vii. p. 239. Hist. August. p. 153.]

The family of Gordianus was one of the most illustrious of the Roman
senate. On the father's side he was descended from the Gracchi; on his
mother's, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate enabled him to support
the dignity of his birth, and in the enjoyment of it, he displayed an
elegant taste and beneficent disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly
inhabited by the great Pompey, had been, during several generations, in
the possession of Gordian's family. [15] It was distinguished by ancient
trophies of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern
painting. His villa on the road to Praeneste was celebrated for baths of
singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a hundred feet in
length, and for a magnificent portico, supported by two hundred columns
of the four most curious and costly sorts of marble. [16] The public
shows exhibited at his expense, and in which the people were entertained
with many hundreds of wild beasts and gladiators, [17] seem to surpass
the fortune of a subject; and whilst the liberality of other magistrates
was confined to a few solemn festivals at Rome, the magnificence of
Gordian was repeated, when he was aedile, every month in the year, and
extended, during his consulship, to the principal cities of Italy. He
was twice elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by Caracalla and by
Alexander; for he possessed the uncommon talent of acquiring the esteem
of virtuous princes, without alarming the jealousy of tyrants. His long
life was innocently spent in the study of letters and the peaceful
honors of Rome; and, till he was named proconsul of Africa by the voice
of the senate and the approbation of Alexander, [18] he appears
prudently to have declined the command of armies and the government of
provinces. [181] As long as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under
the administration of his worthy representative: after the barbarous
Maximin had usurped the throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries which
he was unable to prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the purple, he
was above fourscore years old; a last and valuable remains of the happy
age of the Antonines, whose virtues he revived in his own conduct, and
celebrated in an elegant poem of thirty books. With the venerable
proconsul, his son, who had accompanied him into Africa as his
lieutenant, was likewise declared emperor. His manners were less pure,
but his character was equally amiable with that of his father.
Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand
volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the
productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well
as the latter were designed for use rather than for ostentation. [19]
The Roman people acknowledged in the features of the younger Gordian the
resemblance of Scipio Africanus, [191] recollected with pleasure that
his mother was the granddaughter of Antoninus Pius, and rested the
public hope on those latent virtues which had hitherto, as they fondly
imagined, lain concealed in the luxurious indolence of private life.

[Footnote 15: Hist. Aug. p. 152. The celebrated house of Pompey in
carinis was usurped by Marc Antony, and consequently became, after the
Triumvir's death, a part of the Imperial domain. The emperor Trajan
allowed, and even encouraged, the rich senators to purchase those
magnificent and useless places, (Plin. Panegyric. c. 50;) and it may
seem probable, that, on this occasion, Pompey's house came into the
possession of Gordian's great-grandfather.]

[Footnote 16: The Claudian, the Numidian, the Carystian, and the
Synnadian. The colors of Roman marbles have been faintly described and
imperfectly distinguished. It appears, however, that the Carystian was
a sea-green, and that the marble of Synnada was white mixed with oval
spots of purple. See Salmasius ad Hist. August. p. 164.]

[Footnote 17: Hist. August. p. 151, 152. He sometimes gave five hundred
pair of gladiators, never less than one hundred and fifty. He once gave
for the use of the circus one hundred Sicilian, and as many Cappaecian
Cappadecian horses. The animals designed for hunting were chiefly bears,
boars, bulls, stags, elks, wild asses, &c. Elephants and lions seem to
have been appropriated to Imperial magnificence.]

[Footnote 18: See the original letter, in the Augustan History, p. 152,
which at once shows Alexander's respect for the authority of the senate,
and his esteem for the proconsul appointed by that assembly.]

[Footnote 181: Herodian expressly says that he had administered many
provinces, lib. vii. 10.--W.]

[Footnote 19: By each of his concubines, the younger Gordian left three
or four children. His literary productions, though less numerous, were
by no means contemptible.]

[Footnote 191: Not the personal likeness, but the family descent from the
Scipiod.--W.]

As soon as the Gordians had appeased the first tumult of a popular
election, they removed their court to Carthage. They were received with
the acclamations of the Africans, who honored their virtues, and who,
since the visit of Hadrian, had never beheld the majesty of a Roman
emperor. But these vain acclamations neither strengthened nor confirmed
the title of the Gordians. They were induced by principle, as well as
interest, to solicit the approbation of the senate; and a deputation of
the noblest provincials was sent, without delay, to Rome, to relate and
justify the conduct of their countrymen, who, having long suffered with
patience, were at length resolved to act with vigor. The letters of the
new princes were modest and respectful, excusing the necessity which had
obliged them to accept the Imperial title; but submitting their election
and their fate to the supreme judgment of the senate. [20]

[Footnote 20: Herodian, l. vii. p. 243. Hist. August. p. 144.]

The inclinations of the senate were neither doubtful nor divided. The
birth and noble alliances of the Gordians had intimately connected them
with the most illustrious houses of Rome. Their fortune had created many
dependants in that assembly, their merit had acquired many friends.
Their mild administration opened the flattering prospect of the
restoration, not only of the civil but even of the republican
government. The terror of military violence, which had first obliged the
senate to forget the murder of Alexander, and to ratify the election of
a barbarian peasant, [21] now produced a contrary effect, and provoked
them to assert the injured rights of freedom and humanity. The hatred of
Maximin towards the senate was declared and implacable; the tamest
submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence would
not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own safety urged
them to share the fortune of an enterprise, of which (if unsuccessful)
they were sure to be the first victims. These considerations, and
perhaps others of a more private nature, were debated in a previous
conference of the consuls and the magistrates. As soon as their
resolution was decided, they convoked in the temple of Castor the whole
body of the senate, according to an ancient form of secrecy, [22]
calculated to awaken their attention, and to conceal their decrees.
"Conscript fathers," said the consul Syllanus, "the two Gordians, both
of consular dignity, the one your proconsul, the other your lieutenant,
have been declared emperors by the general consent of Africa. Let us
return thanks," he boldly continued, "to the youth of Thysdrus; let us
return thanks to the faithful people of Carthage, our generous
deliverers from a horrid monster--Why do you hear me thus coolly, thus
timidly? Why do you cast those anxious looks on each other? Why
hesitate? Maximin is a public enemy! may his enmity soon expire with
him, and may we long enjoy the prudence and felicity of Gordian the
father, the valor and constancy of Gordian the son!" [23] The noble
ardor of the consul revived the languid spirit of the senate. By a
unanimous decree, the election of the Gordians was ratified, Maximin,
his son, and his adherents, were pronounced enemies of their country,
and liberal rewards were offered to whomsoever had the courage and good
fortune to destroy them. [See Temple Of Castor and Pollux]

[Footnote 21: Quod. tamen patres dum periculosum existimant; inermes
armato esistere approbaverunt.--Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 22: Even the servants of the house, the scribes, &c., were
excluded, and their office was filled by the senators themselves. We
are obliged to the Augustan History. p. 159, for preserving this curious
example of the old discipline of the commonwealth.]

[Footnote 23: This spirited speech, translated from the Augustan
historian, p. 156, seems transcribed by him from the origina registers
of the senate]

During the emperor's absence, a detachment of the
Praetorian guards remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command,
the capital. The praefect Vitalianus had signalized his fidelity to
Maximin, by the alacrity with which he had obeyed, and even prevented
the cruel mandates of the tyrant. His death alone could rescue the
authority of the senate, and the lives of the senators from a state of
danger and suspense. Before their resolves had transpired, a quaestor
and some tribunes were commissioned to take his devoted life. They
executed the order with equal boldness and success; and, with their
bloody daggers in their hands, ran through the streets, proclaiming
to the people and the soldiers the news of the happy revolution. The
enthusiasm of liberty was seconded by the promise of a large donative,
in lands and money; the statues of Maximin were thrown down; the capital
of the empire acknowledged, with transport, the authority of the two
Gordians and the senate; [24] and the example of Rome was followed by the
rest of Italy.

[Footnote 24: Herodian, l. vii. p. 244]

A new spirit had arisen in that assembly, whose long patience had been
insulted by wanton despotism and military license. The senate assumed
the reins of government, and, with a calm intrepidity, prepared to
vindicate by arms the cause of freedom. Among the consular senators
recommended by their merit and services to the favor of the emperor
Alexander, it was easy to select twenty, not unequal to the command of
an army, and the conduct of a war. To these was the defence of Italy
intrusted. Each was appointed to act in his respective department,
authorized to enroll and discipline the Italian youth; and instructed
to fortify the ports and highways, against the impending invasion of
Maximin. A number of deputies, chosen from the most illustrious of the
senatorian and equestrian orders, were despatched at the same time to
the governors of the several provinces, earnestly conjuring them to fly
to the assistance of their country, and to remind the nations of their
ancient ties of friendship with the Roman senate and people. The general
respect with which these deputies were received, and the zeal of Italy
and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that the
subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress, in which
the body of the people has more to fear from oppression than from
resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth, inspires a
degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in those civil wars
which are artificially supported for the benefit of a few factious and
designing leaders. [25]

[Footnote 25: Herodian, l. vii. p. 247, l. viii. p. 277. Hist. August. p
156-158.]

For while the cause of the Gordians was embraced with such diffusive
ardor, the Gordians themselves were no more. The feeble court of
Carthage was alarmed by the rapid approach of Capelianus, governor of
Mauritania, who, with a small band of veterans, and a fierce host of
barbarians, attacked a faithful, but unwarlike province. The younger
Gordian sallied out to meet the enemy at the head of a few guards, and
a numerous undisciplined multitude, educated in the peaceful luxury
of Carthage. His useless valor served only to procure him an honorable
death on the field of battle. His aged father, whose reign had not
exceeded thirty-six days, put an end to his life on the first news of
the defeat. Carthage, destitute of defence, opened her gates to the
conqueror, and Africa was exposed to the rapacious cruelty of a slave,
obliged to satisfy his unrelenting master with a large account of blood
and treasure. [26]

[Footnote 26: Herodian, l. vii. p. 254. Hist. August. p. 150-160. We
may observe, that one month and six days, for the reign of Gordian, is a
just correction of Casaubon and Panvinius, instead of the absurd reading
of one year and six months. See Commentar. p. 193. Zosimus relates, l.
i. p. 17, that the two Gordians perished by a tempest in the midst of
their navigation. A strange ignorance of history, or a strange abuse of
metaphors!]

The fate of the Gordians filled Rome with just but unexpected terror.
The senate, convoked in the temple of Concord, affected to transact
the common business of the day; and seemed to decline, with trembling
anxiety, the consideration of their own and the public danger. A silent
consternation prevailed in the assembly, till a senator, of the name and
family of Trajan, awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He
represented to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had
been long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by nature,
and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy, at the head
of the military force of the empire; and that their only remaining
alternative was either to meet him bravely in the field, or tamely to
expect the tortures and ignominious death reserved for unsuccessful
rebellion. "We have lost," continued he, "two excellent princes; but
unless we desert ourselves, the hopes of the republic have not perished
with the Gordians. Many are the senators whose virtues have deserved,
and whose abilities would sustain, the Imperial dignity. Let us elect
two emperors, one of whom may conduct the war against the public enemy,
whilst his colleague remains at Rome to direct the civil administration.
I cheerfully expose myself to the danger and envy of the nomination,
and give my vote in favor of Maximus and Balbinus. Ratify my choice,
conscript fathers, or appoint in their place, others more worthy of the
empire." The general apprehension silenced the whispers of jealousy;
the merit of the candidates was universally acknowledged; and the house
resounded with the sincere acclamations of "Long life and victory to
the emperors Maximus and Balbinus. You are happy in the judgment of the
senate; may the republic be happy under your administration!" [27]

[Footnote 27: See the Augustan History, p. 166, from the registers of
the senate; the date is confessedly faulty but the coincidence of the
Apollinatian games enables us to correct it.]




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

The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the most
sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their talents seemed
to appropriate to each his peculiar department of peace and war, without
leaving room for jealous emulation. Balbinus was an admired orator, a
poet of distinguished fame, and a wise magistrate, who had exercised
with innocence and applause the civil jurisdiction in almost all the
interior provinces of the empire. His birth was noble, [28] his fortune
affluent, his manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure
was corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease deprived
him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was formed in a
rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had raised himself from
the meanest origin to the first employments of the state and army. His
victories over the Sarmatians and the Germans, the austerity of his
life, and the rigid impartiality of his justice, while he was a Praefect
of the city, commanded the esteem of a people whose affections were
engaged in favor of the more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had
both been consuls, (Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,)
both had been named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and
since the one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, [29] they
had both attained the full maturity of age and experience.

[Footnote 28: He was descended from Cornelius Balbus, a noble Spaniard,
and the adopted son of Theophanes, the Greek historian. Balbus obtained
the freedom of Rome by the favor of Pompey, and preserved it by the
eloquence of Cicero. (See Orat. pro Cornel. Balbo.) The friendship of
Caesar, (to whom he rendered the most important secret services in the
civil war) raised him to the consulship and the pontificate, honors
never yet possessed by a stranger. The nephew of this Balbus triumphed
over the Garamantes. See Dictionnaire de Bayle, au mot Balbus, where he
distinguishes the several persons of that name, and rectifies, with his
usual accuracy, the mistakes of former writers concerning them.]

[Footnote 29: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 622. But little dependence is to
be had on the authority of a modern Greek, so grossly ignorant of
the history of the third century, that he creates several imaginary
emperors, and confounds those who really existed.]

After the senate had conferred on Maximus and Balbinus an equal portion
of the consular and tribunitian powers, the title of Fathers of their
country, and the joint office of Supreme Pontiff, they ascended to the
Capitol to return thanks to the gods, protectors of Rome. [30] The solemn
rites of sacrifice were disturbed by a sedition of the people. The
licentious multitude neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they
sufficiently fear the mild and humane Balbinus. Their increasing numbers
surrounded the temple of Jupiter; with obstinate clamors they asserted
their inherent right of consenting to the election of their sovereign;
and demanded, with an apparent moderation, that, besides the two
emperors, chosen by the senate, a third should be added of the family
of the Gordians, as a just return of gratitude to those princes who had
sacrificed their lives for the republic. At the head of the city-guards,
and the youth of the equestrian order, Maximus and Balbinus attempted to
cut their way through the seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with
sticks and stones, drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to
yield when the contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal
to both parties. A boy, only thirteen years of age, the grandson of the
elder, and nephew [301] of the younger Gordian, was produced to the people,
invested with the ornaments and title of Caesar. The tumult was appeased
by this easy condescension; and the two emperors, as soon as they had
been peaceably acknowledged in Rome, prepared to defend Italy against
the common enemy.

[Footnote 30: Herodian, l. vii. p. 256, supposes that the senate was at
first convoked in the Capitol, and is very eloquent on the occasion. The
Augustar History p. 116, seems much more authentic.]

[Footnote 301: According to some, the son.--G.]

Whilst in Rome and Africa, revolutions succeeded each other with such
amazing rapidity, that the mind of Maximin was agitated by the most
furious passions. He is said to have received the news of the rebellion
of the Gordians, and of the decree of the senate against him, not with
the temper of a man, but the rage of a wild beast; which, as it could
not discharge itself on the distant senate, threatened the life of his
son, of his friends, and of all who ventured to approach his person. The
grateful intelligence of the death of the Gordians was quickly followed
by the assurance that the senate, laying aside all hopes of pardon or
accommodation, had substituted in their room two emperors, with whose
merit he could not be unacquainted. Revenge was the only consolation
left to Maximin, and revenge could only be obtained by arms. The
strength of the legions had been assembled by Alexander from all parts
of the empire. Three successful campaigns against the Germans and the
Sarmatians, had raised their fame, confirmed their discipline, and even
increased their numbers, by filling the ranks with the flower of the
barbarian youth. The life of Maximin had been spent in war, and the
candid severity of history cannot refuse him the valor of a soldier, or
even the abilities of an experienced general. [31] It might naturally be
expected, that a prince of such a character, instead of suffering the
rebellion to gain stability by delay, should immediately have marched
from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber, and that his
victorious army, instigated by contempt for the senate, and eager to
gather the spoils of Italy, should have burned with impatience to finish
the easy and lucrative conquest. Yet as far as we can trust to the
obscure chronology of that period, [32] it appears that the operations
of some foreign war deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing
spring. From the prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the
savage features of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of
party, that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the force
of reason, and that the barbarian possessed something of the generous
spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome before he suffered
himself to revenge his private injuries. [33]

[Footnote 31: In Herodian, l. vii. p. 249, and in the Augustan History,
we have three several orations of Maximin to his army, on the rebellion
of Africa and Rome: M. de Tillemont has very justly observed that they
neither agree with each other nor with truth. Histoire des Empereurs,
tom. iii. p. 799.]

[Footnote 32: The carelessness of the writers of that age, leaves us in
a singular perplexity. 1. We know that Maximus and Balbinus were killed
during the Capitoline games. Herodian, l. viii. p. 285. The authority
of Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 18) enables us to fix those games with
certainty to the year 238, but leaves us in ignorance of the month
or day. 2. The election of Gordian by the senate is fixed with equal
certainty to the 27th of May; but we are at a loss to discover whether
it was in the same or the preceding year. Tillemont and Muratori, who
maintain the two opposite opinions, bring into the field a desultory
troop of authorities, conjectures and probabilities. The one seems
to draw out, the other to contract the series of events between those
periods, more than can be well reconciled to reason and history. Yet
it is necessary to choose between them. Note: Eckhel has more recently
treated these chronological questions with a perspicuity which gives
great probability to his conclusions. Setting aside all the historians,
whose contradictions are irreconcilable, he has only consulted the
medals, and has arranged the events before us in the following order:--
Maximin, A. U. 990, after having conquered the Germans, reenters
Pannonia, establishes his winter quarters at Sirmium, and prepares
himself to make war against the people of the North.
In the year 991, in the cal ends of January, commences his fourth
tribunate. The Gordians are chosen emperors in Africa, probably at the
beginning of the month of March. The senate confirms this election with
joy, and declares Maximin the enemy of Rome. Five days after he had
heard of this revolt, Maximin sets out from Sirmium on his march to
Italy. These events took place about the beginning of April; a little
after, the Gordians are slain in Africa by Capellianus, procurator
of Mauritania. The senate, in its alarm, names as emperors Balbus and
Maximus Pupianus, and intrusts the latter with the war against Maximin.
Maximin is stopped on his road near Aquileia, by the want of provisions,
and by the melting of the snows: he begins the siege of Aquileia at the
end of April. Pupianus assembles his army at Ravenna. Maximin and
his son are assassinated by the soldiers enraged at the resistance of
Aquileia: and this was probably in the middle of May. Pupianus returns
to Rome, and assumes the government with Balbinus; they are assassinated
towards the end of July Gordian the younger ascends the throne. Eckhel
de Doct. Vol vii 295.--G.]

[Footnote 33: Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 24. The president de
Montesquieu (in his dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates) expresses the
sentiments of the dictator in a spirited, and even a sublime manner.]

When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived at
the foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the silence and
desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy. The villages and
open towns had been abandoned on their approach by the inhabitants, the
cattle was driven away, the provisions removed or destroyed, the bridges
broken down, nor was any thing left which could afford either shelter or
subsistence to an invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals
of the senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of
Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his strength in
the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which they had plentifully
stored with men and provisions from the deserted country. Aquileia
received and withstood the first shock of the invasion. The streams that
issue from the head of the Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the
winter snows, [34] opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin.
At length, on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of
large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank, rooted up
the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of Aquileia, demolished the
suburbs, and employed the timber of the buildings in the engines and
towers, with which on every side he attacked the city. The walls, fallen
to decay during the security of a long peace, had been hastily repaired
on this sudden emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted
in the constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being
dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their knowledge
of the tyrant's unrelenting temper. Their courage was supported and
directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the twenty lieutenants
of the senate, who, with a small body of regular troops, had thrown
themselves into the besieged place. The army of Maximin was repulsed in
repeated attacks, his machines destroyed by showers of artificial
fire; and the generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a
confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar deity,
combated in person in the defence of his distressed worshippers. [35]

[Footnote 34: Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. ii. p. 294) thinks the
melting of the snows suits better with the months of June or July, than
with those of February. The opinion of a man who passed his life between
the Alps and the Apennines, is undoubtedly of great weight; yet I
observe, 1. That the long winter, of which Muratori takes advantage,
is to be found only in the Latin version, and not in the Greek text
of Herodian. 2. That the vicissitudes of suns and rains, to which the
soldiers of Maximin were exposed, (Herodian, l. viii. p. 277,) denote
the spring rather than the summer. We may observe, likewise, that these
several streams, as they melted into one, composed the Timavus, so
poetically (in every sense of the word) described by Virgil. They are
about twelve miles to the east of Aquileia. See Cluver. Italia Antiqua,
tom. i. p. 189, &c.]

[Footnote 35: Herodian, l. viii. p. 272. The Celtic deity was supposed
to be Apollo, and received under that name the thanks of the senate. A
temple was likewise built to Venus the Bald, in honor of the women of
Aquileia, who had given up their hair to make ropes for the military
engines.]

The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to secure that
important place, and to hasten the military preparations, beheld the
event of the war in the more faithful mirror of reason and policy. He
was too sensible, that a single town could not resist the persevering
efforts of a great army; and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the
obstinate resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the
fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the empire
and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the chance of a
battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran legions of the
Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among the generous but
enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German auxiliaries, on whose
firmness, in the hour of trial, it was dangerous to depend. In the midst
of these just alarms, the stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the
crimes of Maximin, and delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities
that would surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.

The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common
miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied, and
several fountains within the walls assured them of an inexhaustible
resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin were, on the contrary,
exposed to the inclemency of the season, the contagion of disease, and
the horrors of famine. The open country was ruined, the rivers filled
with the slain, and polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and
disaffection began to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they
were cut off from all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole
empire had embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as
devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of Aquileia. The
fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by disappointments, which
he imputed to the cowardice of his army; and his wanton and ill-timed
cruelty, instead of striking terror, inspired hatred, and a just desire
of revenge. A party of Praetorian guards, who trembled for their wives
and children in the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of
the senate.

Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent, with his son,
(whom he had associated to the honors of the purple,) Anulinus the
praefect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny. [36] The sight of
their heads, borne on the point of spears, convinced the citizens of
Aquileia that the siege was at an end; the gates of the city were thrown
open, a liberal market was provided for the hungry troops of Maximin,
and the whole army joined in solemn protestations of fidelity to the
senate and the people of Rome, and to their lawful emperors Maximus and
Balbinus. Such was the deserved fate of a brutal savage, destitute, as
he has generally been represented, of every sentiment that distinguishes
a civilized, or even a human being. The body was suited to the soul. The
stature of Maximin exceeded the measure of eight feet, and circumstances
almost incredible are related of his matchless strength and appetite.
[37] Had he lived in a less enlightened age, tradition and poetry
might well have described him as one of those monstrous giants, whose
supernatural power was constantly exerted for the destruction of
mankind.

[Footnote 36: Herodian, l. viii. p. 279. Hist. August. p. 146. The
duration of Maximin's reign has not been defined with much accuracy,
except by Eutropius, who allows him three years and a few days, (l. ix.
1;) we may depend on the integrity of the text, as the Latin original is
checked by the Greek version of Paeanius.]

[Footnote 37: Eight Roman feet and one third, which are equal to
above eight English feet, as the two measures are to each other in the
proportion of 967 to 1000. See Graves's discourse on the Roman foot. We
are told that Maximin could drink in a day an amphora (or about seven
gallons) of wine, and eat thirty or forty pounds of meat. He could move
a loaded wagon, break a horse's leg with his fist, crumble stones in his
hand, and tear up small trees by the roots. See his life in the Augustan
History.]

It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of the Roman
world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is said to have been
carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The return of Maximus was a
triumphal procession; his colleague and young Gordian went out to meet
him, and the three princes made their entry into the capital, attended
by the ambassadors of almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the
splendid offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the
unfeigned acclamations of the senate and people, who persuaded
themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron. [38] The
conduct of the two emperors corresponded with these expectations. They
administered justice in person; and the rigor of the one was tempered by
the other's clemency. The oppressive taxes with which Maximin had loaded
the rights of inheritance and succession, were repealed, or at least
moderated. Discipline was revived, and with the advice of the senate
many wise laws were enacted by their imperial ministers, who endeavored
to restore a civil constitution on the ruins of military tyranny. "What
reward may we expect for delivering Rome from a monster?" was the
question asked by Maximus, in a moment of freedom and confidence.

Balbinus answered it without hesitation--"The love of the senate, of
the people, and of all mankind." "Alas!" replied his more penetrating
colleague--"alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers, and the fatal
effects of their resentment." [39] His apprehensions were but too well
justified by the event.

[Footnote 38: See the congratulatory letter of Claudius Julianus, the
consul to the two emperors, in the Augustan History.]

[Footnote 39: Hist. August. p. 171.]

Whilst Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the common foe,
Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes of blood and
intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in the senate; and even
in the temples where they assembled, every senator carried either open
or concealed arms. In the midst of their deliberations, two veterans
of the guards, actuated either by curiosity or a sinister motive,
audaciously thrust themselves into the house, and advanced by degrees
beyond the altar of Victory. Gallicanus, a consular, and Maecenas, a
Praetorian senator, viewed with indignation their insolent intrusion:
drawing their daggers, they laid the spies (for such they deemed them)
dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the door of the
senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to massacre the Praetorians,
as the secret adherents of the tyrant. Those who escaped the first fury
of the tumult took refuge in the camp, which they defended with superior
advantage against the reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the
numerous bands of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil
war lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.
When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the
Praetorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their turn
they made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a great number
of houses, and filled the streets with the blood of the inhabitants. The
emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual edicts and precarious truces,
to reconcile the factions at Rome. But their animosity, though smothered
for a while, burnt with redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the
senate and the people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted
either the spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects.
[40]

[Footnote 40: Herodian, l. viii. p. 258.]

After the tyrant's death, his formidable army had acknowledged, from
necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus, who
transported himself without delay to the camp before Aquileia. As soon
as he had received their oath of fidelity, he addressed them in terms
full of mildness and moderation; lamented, rather than arraigned the
wild disorders of the times, and assured the soldiers, that of all their
past conduct the senate would remember only their generous desertion of
the tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus enforced
his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the camp by a solemn
sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the legions to their several
provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with a lively sense of gratitude and
obedience. [41] But nothing could reconcile the haughty spirit of the
Praetorians. They attended the emperors on the memorable day of their
public entry into Rome; but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen,
dejected countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they
considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of the
triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those who had
served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome, insensibly
communicated to each other their complaints and apprehensions. The
emperors chosen by the army had perished with ignominy; those elected by
the senate were seated on the throne. [42] The long discord between the
civil and military powers was decided by a war, in which the former had
obtained a complete victory. The soldiers must now learn a new doctrine
of submission to the senate; and whatever clemency was affected by that
politic assembly, they dreaded a slow revenge, colored by the name of
discipline, and justified by fair pretences of the public good. But
their fate was still in their own hands; and if they had courage
to despise the vain terrors of an impotent republic, it was easy to
convince the world, that those who were masters of the arms, were
masters of the authority, of the state.

[Footnote 41: Herodian, l. viii. p. 213.]

[Footnote 42: The observation had been made imprudently enough in the
acclamations of the senate, and with regard to the soldiers it carried
the appearance of a wanton insult. Hist. August. p. 170.]

When the senate elected two princes, it is probable that, besides the
declared reason of providing for the various emergencies of peace and
war, they were actuated by the secret desire of weakening by division
the despotism of the supreme magistrate. Their policy was effectual, but
it proved fatal both to their emperors and to themselves. The jealousy
of power was soon exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus
despised Balbinus as a luxurious noble, and was in his turn disdained by
his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was understood
rather than seen; [43] but the mutual consciousness prevented them from
uniting in any vigorous measures of defence against their common enemies
of the Praetorian camp. The whole city was employed in the Capitoline
games, and the emperors were left almost alone in the palace. On a
sudden, they were alarmed by the approach of a troop of desperate
assassins. Ignorant of each other's situation or designs, (for they
already occupied very distant apartments,) afraid to give or to receive
assistance, they wasted the important moments in idle debates and
fruitless recriminations. The arrival of the guards put an end to the
vain strife. They seized on these emperors of the senate, for such they
called them with malicious contempt, stripped them of their garments,
and dragged them in insolent triumph through the streets of Rome, with
the design of inflicting a slow and cruel death on these unfortunate
princes. The fear of a rescue from the faithful Germans of the Imperial
guards, shortened their tortures; and their bodies, mangled with a
thousand wounds, were left exposed to the insults or to the pity of the
populace. [44]

[Footnote 43: Discordiae tacitae, et quae intelligerentur potius
quam viderentur. Hist. August. p. 170. This well-chosen expression is
probably stolen from some better writer.]

[Footnote 44: Herodian, l. viii. p. 287, 288.]

In the space of a few months, six princes had been cut off by the sword.
Gordian, who had already received the title of Caesar, was the only
person that occurred to the soldiers as proper to fill the vacant
throne. [45] They carried him to the camp, and unanimously saluted him
Augustus and Emperor. His name was dear to the senate and people;
his tender age promised a long impunity of military license; and the
submission of Rome and the provinces to the choice of the Praetorian
guards, saved the republic, at the expense indeed of its freedom
and dignity, from the horrors of a new civil war in the heart of the
capital. [46]

[Footnote 45: Quia non alius erat in praesenti, is the expression of the
Augustan History.]

[Footnote 46: Quintus Curtius (l. x. c. 9,) pays an elegant compliment
to the emperor of the day, for having, by his happy accession,
extinguished so many firebrands, sheathed so many swords, and put an end
to the evils of a divided government. After weighing with attention
every word of the passage, I am of opinion, that it suits better with
the elevation of Gordian, than with any other period of the Roman
history. In that case, it may serve to decide the age of Quintus
Curtius. Those who place him under the first Caesars, argue from the
purity of his style but are embarrassed by the silence of Quintilian, in
his accurate list of Roman historians. * Note: This conjecture of Gibbon
is without foundation. Many passages in the work of Quintus Curtius
clearly place him at an earlier period. Thus, in speaking of the
Parthians, he says, Hinc in Parthicum perventum est, tunc ignobilem
gentem: nunc caput omnium qui post Euphratem et Tigrim amnes siti Rubro
mari terminantur. The Parthian empire had this extent only in the first
age of the vulgar aera: to that age, therefore, must be assigned the
date of Quintus Curtius. Although the critics (says M. de Sainte Croix)
have multiplied conjectures on this subject, most of them have ended by
adopting the opinion which places Quintus Curtius under the reign of
Claudius. See Just. Lips. ad Ann. Tac. ii. 20. Michel le Tellier Praef.
in Curt. Tillemont Hist. des Emp. i. p. 251. Du Bos Reflections sur la
Poesie, 2d Partie. Tiraboschi Storia della, Lett. Ital. ii. 149. Examen.
crit. des Historiens d'Alexandre, 2d ed. p. 104, 849, 850.--G.
----This interminable question seems as much perplexed as ever. The first
argument of M. Guizot is a strong one, except that Parthian is often
used by later writers for Persian. Cunzius, in his preface to an edition
published at Helmstadt, (1802,) maintains the opinion of Bagnolo, which
assigns Q. Curtius to the time of Constantine the Great. Schmieder,
in his edit. Gotting. 1803, sums up in this sentence, aetatem Curtii
ignorari pala mest.--M.]

As the third Gordian was only nineteen years of age at the time of his
death, the history of his life, were it known to us with greater
accuracy than it really is, would contain little more than the account
of his education, and the conduct of the ministers, who by turns abused
or guided the simplicity of his unexperienced youth. Immediately after
his accession, he fell into the hands of his mother's eunuchs, that
pernicious vermin of the East, who, since the days of Elagabalus, had
infested the Roman palace. By the artful conspiracy of these wretches,
an impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent prince and his
oppressed subjects, the virtuous disposition of Gordian was deceived,
and the honors of the empire sold without his knowledge, though in a
very public manner, to the most worthless of mankind. We are ignorant by
what fortunate accident the emperor escaped from this ignominious
slavery, and devolved his confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels
had no object except the glory of his sovereign and the happiness of the
people. It should seem that love and learning introduced Misitheus to
the favor of Gordian. The young prince married the daughter of his
master of rhetoric, and promoted his father-in-law to the first offices
of the empire. Two admirable letters that passed between them are still
extant. The minister, with the conscious dignity of virtue,
congratulates Gordian that he is delivered from the tyranny of the
eunuchs, [47] and still more that he is sensible of his deliverance. The
emperor acknowledges, with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past
conduct; and laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of a
monarch, from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labor to
conceal the truth. [48]

[Footnote 47: Hist. August. p. 161. From some hints in the two letters,
I should expect that the eunuchs were not expelled the palace without
some degree of gentle violence, and that the young Gordian rather
approved of, than consented to, their disgrace.]

[Footnote 48: Duxit uxorem filiam Misithei, quem causa eloquentiae
dignum parentela sua putavit; et praefectum statim fecit; post quod, non
puerile jam et contemptibile videbatur imperium.]

The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of letters, not
of arms; yet such was the versatile genius of that great man, that, when
he was appointed Praetorian Praefect, he discharged the military
duties of his place with vigor and ability. The Persians had invaded
Mesopotamia, and threatened Antioch. By the persuasion of his
father-in-law, the young emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for
the last time recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in
person into the East. On his approach, with a great army, the Persians
withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already taken,
and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian enjoyed the
pleasure of announcing to the senate the first success of his arms,
which he ascribed, with a becoming modesty and gratitude, to the wisdom
of his father and Praefect. During the whole expedition, Misitheus
watched over the safety and discipline of the army; whilst he prevented
their dangerous murmurs by maintaining a regular plenty in the camp, and
by establishing ample magazines of vinegar, bacon, straw, barley, and
wheat in all the cities of the frontier. [49] But the prosperity of
Gordian expired with Misitheus, who died of a flux, not with out very
strong suspicions of poison. Philip, his successor in the praefecture,
was an Arab by birth, and consequently, in the earlier part of his life,
a robber by profession. His rise from so obscure a station to the first
dignities of the empire, seems to prove that he was a bold and able
leader. But his boldness prompted him to aspire to the throne, and his
abilities were employed to supplant, not to serve, his indulgent master.
The minds of the soldiers were irritated by an artificial scarcity,
created by his contrivance in the camp; and the distress of the army was
attributed to the youth and incapacity of the prince. It is not in our
power to trace the successive steps of the secret conspiracy and open
sedition, which were at length fatal to Gordian. A sepulchral monument
was erected to his memory on the spot [50] where he was killed, near the
conflux of the Euphrates with the little river Aboras. [51] The fortunate
Philip, raised to the empire by the votes of the soldiers, found a ready
obedience from the senate and the provinces. [52]

[Footnote 49: Hist. August. p. 162. Aurelius Victor. Porphyrius in Vit
Plotin. ap. Fabricium, Biblioth. Graec. l. iv. c. 36. The philosopher
Plotinus accompanied the army, prompted by the love of knowledge, and by
the hope of penetrating as far as India.]

[Footnote 50: About twenty miles from the little town of Circesium, on
the frontier of the two empires. * Note: Now Kerkesia; placed in the
angle formed by the juncture of the Chaboras, or al Khabour, with the
Euphrates. This situation appeared advantageous to Diocletian, that he
raised fortifications to make it the but wark of the empire on the side
of Mesopotamia. D'Anville. Geog. Anc. ii. 196.--G. It is the Carchemish
of the Old Testament, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. ler. xlvi. 2.--M.]

[Footnote 51: The inscription (which contained a very singular pun) was
erased by the order of Licinius, who claimed some degree of relationship
to Philip, (Hist. August. p. 166;) but the tumulus, or mound of earth
which formed the sepulchre, still subsisted in the time of Julian. See
Ammian Marcellin. xxiii. 5.]

[Footnote 52: Aurelius Victor. Eutrop. ix. 2. Orosius, vii. 20. Ammianus
Marcellinus, xxiii. 5. Zosimus, l. i. p. 19. Philip, who was a native of
Bostra, was about forty years of age. * Note: Now Bosra. It was once the
metropolis of a province named Arabia, and the chief city of Auranitis,
of which the name is preserved in Beled Hauran, the limits of which meet
the desert. D'Anville. Geog. Anc. ii. 188. According to Victor, (in
Caesar.,) Philip was a native of Tracbonitis another province of
Arabia.--G.]

We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though somewhat fanciful
description, which a celebrated writer of our own times has traced
of the military government of the Roman empire. What in that age was
called the Roman empire, was only an irregular republic, not unlike
the aristocracy [53] of Algiers, [54] where the militia, possessed of
the sovereignty, creates and deposes a magistrate, who is styled a Dey.
Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid down as a general rule, that a military
government is, in some respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor
can it be said that the soldiers only partook of the government by their
disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the emperors,
were they not at length of the same nature as those formerly pronounced
to the people by the consuls and the tribunes? And although the armies
had no regular place or forms of assembly; though their debates were
short, their action sudden, and their resolves seldom the result of
cool reflection, did they not dispose, with absolute sway, of the
public fortune? What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent
government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers?

[Footnote 53: Can the epithet of Aristocracy be applied, with any
propriety, to the government of Algiers? Every military government
floats between two extremes of absolute monarchy and wild democracy.]

[Footnote 54: The military republic of the Mamelukes in Egypt would have
afforded M. de Montesquieu (see Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. 16) a juster and more noble parallel.]

"When the army had elected Philip, who was Praetorian praefect to the
third Gordian, the latter demanded that he might remain sole emperor; he
was unable to obtain it. He requested that the power might be equally
divided between them; the army would not listen to his speech. He
consented to be degraded to the rank of Caesar; the favor was refused
him. He desired, at least, he might be appointed Praetorian praefect;
his prayer was rejected. Finally, he pleaded for his life. The army, in
these several judgments, exercised the supreme magistracy." According to
the historian, whose doubtful narrative the President De Montesquieu has
adopted, Philip, who, during the whole transaction, had preserved a
sullen silence, was inclined to spare the innocent life of his
benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a
dangerous compassion in the Roman world, he commanded, without regard to
his suppliant cries, that he should be seized, stripped, and led away to
instant death. After a moment's pause, the inhuman sentence was
executed. [55]

[Footnote 55: The Augustan History (p. 163, 164) cannot, in this
instance, be reconciled with itself or with probability. How could
Philip condemn his predecessor, and yet consecrate his memory? How could
he order his public execution, and yet, in his letters to the senate,
exculpate himself from the guilt of his death? Philip, though an
ambitious usurper, was by no means a mad tyrant. Some chronological
difficulties have likewise been discovered by the nice eyes of Tillemont
and Muratori, in this supposed association of Philip to the empire. *
Note: Wenck endeavors to reconcile these discrepancies. He supposes
that Gordian was led away, and died a natural death in prison. This is
directly contrary to the statement of Capitolinus and of Zosimus,
whom he adduces in support of his theory. He is more successful in
his precedents of usurpers deifying the victims of their ambition. Sit
divus, dummodo non sit vivus.--M.]




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

On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of obliterating
the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the affections of
the people, solemnized the secular games with infinite pomp and
magnificence. Since their institution or revival by Augustus, [56] they
had been celebrated by Claudius, by Domitian, and by Severus, and were
now renewed the fifth time, on the accomplishment of the full period of
a thousand years from the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the
secular games was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind
with deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them [57]
exceeded the term of human life; and as none of the spectators had
already seen them, none could flatter themselves with the expectation
of beholding them a second time. The mystic sacrifices were performed,
during three nights, on the banks of the Tyber; and the Campus Martius
resounded with music and dances, and was illuminated with innumerable
lamps and torches. Slaves and strangers were excluded from any
participation in these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven
youths, and as many virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were
both alive, implored the propitious gods in favor of the present, and
for the hope of the rising generation; requesting, in religious hymns,
that according to the faith of their ancient oracles, they would still
maintain the virtue, the felicity, and the empire of the Roman people.
[58] The magnificence of Philip's shows and entertainments dazzled
the eyes of the multitude. The devout were employed in the rites of
superstition, whilst the reflecting few revolved in their anxious minds
the past history and the future fate of the empire.[58]

[Footnote 56: The account of the last supposed celebration, though in
an enlightened period of history, was so very doubtful and obscure, that
the alternative seems not doubtful. When the popish jubilees, the copy
of the secular games, were invented by Boniface VII., the crafty pope
pretended that he only revived an ancient institution. See M. le Chais,
Lettres sur les Jubiles.]

[Footnote 57: Either of a hundred or a hundred and ten years. Varro and
Livy adopted the former opinion, but the infallible authority of the
Sybil consecrated the latter, (Censorinus de Die Natal. c. 17.) The
emperors Claudius and Philip, however, did not treat the oracle with
implicit respect.]

[Footnote 58: The idea of the secular games is best understood from the
poem of Horace, and the description of Zosimus, 1. l. ii. p. 167, &c.]
Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds and outlaws, fortified
himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten centuries had already elapsed.
[59] During the four first ages, the Romans, in the laborious school of
poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and government: by the vigorous
exertion of those virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had
obtained, in the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute
empire over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three
hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and internal
decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and legislators, who
composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman people, were dissolved into
the common mass of mankind, and confounded with the millions of servile
provincials, who had received the name, without adopting the spirit, of
Romans. A mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of
the frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused their
independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an
Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested with despotic
power over the conquests and over the country of the Scipios.

[Footnote 59: The received calculation of Varro assigns to the
foundation of Rome an aera that corresponds with the 754th year before
Christ. But so little is the chronology of Rome to be depended on, in
the more early ages, that Sir Isaac Newton has brought the same event as
low as the year 627 (Compare Niebuhr vol. i. p. 271.--M.)]

The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western Ocean
to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the Danube. To
the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a monarch no less
powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly been. The form was still
the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled. The industry of
the people was discouraged and exhausted by a long series of oppression.
The discipline of the legions, which alone, after the extinction
of every other virtue, had propped the greatness of the state, was
corrupted by the ambition, or relaxed by the weakness, of the emperors.
The strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms rather
than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the fairest
provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or ambition of the
barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of the Roman empire.




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

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

Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in which
he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of the Parthians,
his principal object is to relieve the attention of the reader from a
uniform scene of vice and misery. From the reign of Augustus to the time
of Alexander Severus, the enemies of Rome were in her bosom--the tyrants
and the soldiers; and her prosperity had a very distant and feeble
interest in the revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the
Euphrates. But when the military order had levelled, in wild anarchy,
the power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the discipline
of the camp, the barbarians of the North and of the East, who had long
hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the provinces of a declining
monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were changed into formidable
irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude of mutual calamities,
many tribes of the victorious invaders established themselves in the
provinces of the Roman Empire. To obtain a clearer knowledge of
these great events, we shall endeavor to form a previous idea of the
character, forces, and designs of those nations who avenged the cause of
Hannibal and Mithridates.

In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that covered
Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the inhabitants
of Asia were already collected into populous cities, and reduced under
extensive empires, the seat of the arts, of luxury, and of despotism.
The Assyrians reigned over the East, [1] till the sceptre of Ninus and
Semiramis dropped from the hands of their enervated successors. The
Medes and the Babylonians divided their power, and were themselves
swallowed up in the monarchy of the Persians, whose arms could not be
confined within the narrow limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by
two millions of men, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece.

Thirty thousand soldiers, under the command of Alexander, the son of
Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory and revenge,
were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the house of Seleucus
usurped and lost the Macedonian command over the East. About the same
time, that, by an ignominious treaty, they resigned to the Romans the
country on this side Mount Tarus, they were driven by the Parthians,
[1001] an obscure horde of Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper
Asia. The formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India
to the frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or
Artaxerxes; the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name of
Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs. This great
revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced by the Romans,
happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus, two hundred and
twenty-six years after the Christian era. [2] [201]

[Footnote 1: An ancient chronologist, quoted by Valleius Paterculus, (l.
i. c. 6,) observes, that the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, and the
Macedonians, reigned over Asia one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five
years, from the accession of Ninus to the defeat of Antiochus by the
Romans. As the latter of these great events happened 289 years before
Christ, the former may be placed 2184 years before the same aera. The
Astronomical Observations, found at Babylon, by Alexander, went fifty
years higher.]

[Footnote 1001: The Parthians were a tribe of the Indo-Germanic branch
which dwelt on the south-east of the Caspian, and belonged to the same
race as the Getae, the Massagetae, and other nations, confounded by the
ancients under the vague denomination of Scythians. Klaproth, Tableaux
Hist. d l'Asie, p. 40. Strabo (p. 747) calls the Parthians Carduchi,
i.e., the inhabitants of Curdistan.--M.]

[Footnote 2: In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the aera
of Seleucus. See Agathias, l. ii. p. 63. This great event (such is the
carelessness of the Orientals) is placed by Eutychius as high as the
tenth year of Commodus, and by Moses of Chorene as low as the reign
of Philip. Ammianus Marcellinus has so servilely copied (xxiii. 6) his
ancient materials, which are indeed very good, that he describes the
family of the Arsacides as still seated on the Persian throne in the
middle of the fourth century.]

[Footnote 201: The Persian History, if the poetry of the Shah Nameh, the
Book of Kings, may deserve that name mentions four dynasties from the
earliest ages to the invasion of the Saracens. The Shah Nameh was
composed with the view of perpetuating the remains of the original
Persian records or traditions which had survived the Saracenic invasion.
The task was undertaken by the poet Dukiki, and afterwards, under the
patronage of Mahmood of Ghazni, completed by Ferdusi. The first of these
dynasties is that of Kaiomors, as Sir W. Jones observes, the dark and
fabulous period; the second, that of the Kaianian, the heroic and
poetical, in which the earned have discovered some curious, and imagined
some fanciful, analogies with the Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman
accounts of the eastern world. See, on the Shah Nameh, Translation by
Goerres, with Von Hammer's Review, Vienna Jahrbuch von Lit. 17, 75, 77.
Malcolm's Persia, 8vo. ed. i. 503. Macan's Preface to his Critical
Edition of the Shah Nameh. On the early Persian History, a very sensible
abstract of various opinions in Malcolm's Hist. of Persian.--M.]

Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of Artaban,
the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that he was driven into
exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the customary reward for
superior merit. His birth was obscure, and the obscurity equally
gave room to the aspersions of his enemies, and the flattery of his
adherents. If we credit the scandal of the former, Artaxerxes sprang
from the illegitimate commerce of a tanner's wife with a common soldier.
[3] The latter represent him as descended from a branch of the ancient
kings of Persian, though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his
ancestors to the humble station of private citizens. [4] As the
lineal heir of the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and
challenged the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression
under which they groaned above five centuries since the death of Darius.
The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. [401] In the last of
these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit of the nation was
forever broken. [5] The authority of Artaxerxes was solemnly acknowledged
in a great assembly held at Balch in Khorasan. [501] Two younger branches
of the royal house of Arsaces were confounded among the prostrate
satraps. A third, more mindful of ancient grandeur than of present
necessity, attempted to retire, with a numerous train of vessels,
towards their kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army
of deserters was intercepted, and cut off, by the vigilance of the
conqueror, [6] who boldly assumed the double diadem, and the title of
King of Kings, which had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these
pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian, served
only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his soul and should
the ambition of restoring in their full splendor, the religion and
empire of Cyrus.

[Footnote 3: The tanner's name was Babec; the soldier's, Sassan: from
the former Artaxerxes obtained the surname of Babegan, from the latter
all his descendants have been styled Sassanides.]

[Footnote 4: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Ardshir.]

[Footnote 401: In the plain of Hoormuz, the son of Babek was hailed in
the field with the proud title of Shahan Shah, king of kings--a name
ever since assumed by the sovereigns of Persia. Malcolm, i. 71.--M.]

[Footnote 5: Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. Herodian, l. vi. p. 207.
Abulpharagins Dynast. p. 80.]

[Footnote 501: See the Persian account of the rise of Ardeschir Babegan
in Malcolm l 69.--M.]

[Footnote 6: See Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 65--71.]


I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and the
Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually adopted and
corrupted each other's superstitions. The Arsacides, indeed, practised
the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and polluted it with a
various mixture of foreign idolatry. [601] The memory of Zoroaster, the
ancient prophet and philosopher of the Persians, [7] was still revered
in the East; but the obsolete and mysterious language, in which the
Zendavesta was composed, [8] opened a field of dispute to seventy sects,
who variously explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and
were all indifferently devided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected the
divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the idolaters,
reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers, by the infallible
decision of a general council, the pious Artaxerxes summoned the Magi
from all parts of his dominions. These priests, who had so long sighed
in contempt and obscurity obeyed the welcome summons; and, on the
appointed day, appeared, to the number of about eighty thousand. But as
the debates of so tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by
the authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the Persian
synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty thousand, to four
thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and at last to seven Magi, the
most respected for their learning and piety. One of these, Erdaviraph,
a young but holy prelate, received from the hands of his brethren three
cups of soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a
long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the king
and to the believing multitude, his journey to heaven, and his
intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced by this
supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of Zoroaster were
fixed with equal authority and precision. [9] A short delineation of
that celebrated system will be found useful, not only to display the
character of the Persian nation, but to illustrate many of their most
important transactions, both in peace and war, with the Roman empire.
[10]

[Footnote 601: Silvestre de Sacy (Antiquites de la Perse) had proved
the neglect of the Zoroastrian religion under the Parthian kings.--M.]

[Footnote 7: Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends and their
own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent Zoroaster as a
contemporary of Darius Hystaspes. But it is sufficient to observe, that
the Greek writers, who lived almost in the age of Darius, agree in
placing the aera of Zoroaster many hundred, or even thousand, years
before their own time. The judicious criticisms of Mr. Moyle perceived,
and maintained against his uncle, Dr. Prideaux, the antiquity of the
Persian prophet. See his work, vol. ii. * Note: There are three leading
theories concerning the age of Zoroaster: 1. That which assigns him to
an age of great and almost indefinite antiquity--it is that of Moyle,
adopted by Gibbon, Volney, Recherches sur l'Histoire, ii. 2. Rhode,
also, (die Heilige Sage, &c.,) in a very ingenious and ably-developed
theory, throws the Bactrian prophet far back into antiquity 2. Foucher,
(Mem. de l'Acad. xxvii. 253,) Tychsen, (in Com. Soc. Gott. ii. 112),
Heeren, (ldeen. i. 459,) and recently Holty, identify the Gushtasp of
the Persian mythological history with Cyaxares the First, the king of
the Medes, and consider the religion to be Median in its origin. M.
Guizot considers this opinion most probable, note in loc. 3. Hyde,
Prideaux, Anquetil du Perron, Kleuker, Herder, Goerres,
(Mythen-Geschichte,) Von Hammer. (Wien. Jahrbuch, vol. ix.,) Malcolm,
(i. 528,) De Guigniaut, (Relig. de l'Antiq. 2d part, vol. iii.,)
Klaproth, (Tableaux de l'Asie, p. 21,) make Gushtasp Darius Hystaspes,
and Zoroaster his contemporary. The silence of Herodotus appears the
great objection to this theory. Some writers, as M. Foucher (resting, as
M. Guizot observes, on the doubtful authority of Pliny,) make more than
one Zoroaster, and so attempt to reconcile the conflicting theories.--
M.]

[Footnote 8: That ancient idiom was called the Zend. The language of the
commentary, the Pehlvi, though much more modern, has ceased many ages
ago to be a living tongue. This fact alone (if it is allowed as
authentic) sufficiently warrants the antiquity of those writings which M
d'Anquetil has brought into Europe, and translated into French. * Note:
Zend signifies life, living. The word means, either the collection of
the canonical books of the followers of Zoroaster, or the language
itself in which they are written. They are the books that contain the
word of life whether the language was originally called Zend, or whether
it was so called from the contents of the books. Avesta means word,
oracle, revelation: this term is not the title of a particular work, but
of the collection of the books of Zoroaster, as the revelation of
Ormuzd. This collection is sometimes called Zendavesta, sometimes
briefly Zend. The Zend was the ancient language of Media, as is proved
by its affinity with the dialects of Armenia and Georgia; it was already
a dead language under the Arsacides in the country which was the scene
of the events recorded in the Zendavesta. Some critics, among others
Richardson and Sir W. Jones, have called in question the antiquity of
these books. The former pretended that Zend had never been a written or
spoken language, but had been invented in the later times by the Magi,
for the purposes of their art; but Kleuker, in the dissertations which
he added to those of Anquetil and the Abbe Foucher, has proved that the
Zend was a living and spoken language.--G. Sir W. Jones appears to have
abandoned his doubts, on discovering the affinity between the Zend and
the Sanskrit. Since the time of Kleuker, this question has been
investigated by many learned scholars. Sir W. Jones, Leyden, (Asiat.
Research. x. 283,) and Mr. Erskine, (Bombay Trans. ii. 299,) consider it
a derivative from the Sanskrit. The antiquity of the Zendavesta has
likewise been asserted by Rask, the great Danish linguist, who,
according to Malcolm, brought back from the East fresh transcripts and
additions to those published by Anquetil. According to Rask, the Zend
and Sanskrit are sister dialects; the one the parent of the Persian, the
other of the Indian family of languages.--G. and M.----But the subject
is more satisfactorily illustrated in Bopp's comparative Grammar of the
Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, and German languages.
Berlin. 1833-5. According to Bopp, the Zend is, in some respects, of a
more remarkable structure than the Sanskrit. Parts of the Zendavesta
have been published in the original, by M. Bournouf, at Paris, and M.
Ol. shausen, in Hamburg.--M.----The Pehlvi was the language of the
countries bordering on Assyria, and probably of Assyria itself. Pehlvi
signifies valor, heroism; the Pehlvi, therefore, was the language of the
ancient heroes and kings of Persia, the valiant. (Mr. Erskine prefers
the derivation from Pehla, a border.--M.) It contains a number of
Aramaic roots. Anquetil considered it formed from the Zend. Kleuker does
not adopt this opinion. The Pehlvi, he says, is much more flowing, and
less overcharged with vowels, than the Zend. The books of Zoroaster,
first written in Zend, were afterwards translated into Pehlvi and Parsi.
The Pehlvi had fallen into disuse under the dynasty of the Sassanides,
but the learned still wrote it. The Parsi, the dialect of Pars or
Farristan, was then prevailing dialect. Kleuker, Anhang zum Zend Avesta,
2, ii. part i. p. 158, part ii. 31.--G.----Mr. Erskine (Bombay
Transactions) considers the existing Zendavesta to have been compiled in
the time of Ardeschir Babegan.--M.]

[Footnote 9: Hyde de Religione veterum Pers. c. 21.]

[Footnote 10: I have principally drawn this account from the Zendavesta
of M. d'Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr. Hyde's treatise. It
must, however, be confessed, that the studied obscurity of a prophet,
the figurative style of the East, and the deceitful medium of a French
or Latin version may have betrayed us into error and heresy, in this
abridgment of Persian theology. * Note: It is to be regretted that
Gibbon followed the post-Mahometan Sadder of Hyde.--M.]

The great and fundamental article of the system, was the celebrated
doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of
Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil
with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and Governor of the world.
The first and original Being, in whom, or by whom, the universe exists,
is denominated in the writings of Zoroaster, Time without bounds; [1001]
but it must be confessed, that this infinite substance seems rather a
metaphysical, abstraction of the mind, than a real object endowed with
self-consciousness, or possessed of moral perfections. From either the
blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears
but too near an affinity with the chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary
but active principles of the universe, were from all eternity produced,
Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation,
but each disposed, by his invariable nature, to exercise them with
different designs. [1002] The principle of good is eternally aborbed in
light; the principle of evil eternally buried in darkness. The wise
benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly
provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By
his vigilant providence, the motion of the planets, the order of the
seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements, are preserved. But
the malice of Ahriman has long since pierced Ormusd's egg; or, in other
words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal eruption,
the most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled
and agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the most
salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the
conflict of Nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by
vice and misfortune. Whilst the rest of human kind are led away captives
in the chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone
reserves his religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd,
and fights under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he
shall, in the last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive
period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of
Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival. Ahriman and his
followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native darkness;
and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.
[11] [1101]

[Footnote 1001: Zeruane Akerene, so translated by Anquetil and Kleuker.
There is a dissertation of Foucher on this subject, Mem. de l'Acad. des
Inscr. t. xxix. According to Bohlen (das alte Indien) it is the Sanskrit
Sarvan Akaranam, the Uncreated Whole; or, according to Fred. Schlegel,
Sarvan Akharyam the Uncreate Indivisible.--M.]

[Footnote 1002: This is an error. Ahriman was not forced by his invariable
nature to do evil; the Zendavesta expressly recognizes (see the
Izeschne) that he was born good, that in his origin he was light; envy
rendered him evil; he became jealous of the power and attributes
of Ormuzd; then light was changed into darkness, and Ahriman was
precipitated into the abyss. See the Abridgment of the Doctrine of the
Ancient Persians, by Anquetil, c. ii Section 2.--G.]

[Footnote 11: The modern Parsees (and in some degree the Sadder) exalt
Ormusd into the first and omnipotent cause, whilst they degrade Ahriman
into an inferior but rebellious spirit. Their desire of pleasing the
Mahometans may have contributed to refine their theological systems.]

[Footnote 1101: According to the Zendavesta, Ahriman will not be
annihilated or precipitated forever into darkness: at the resurrection
of the dead he will be entirely defeated by Ormuzd, his power will be
destroyed, his kingdom overthrown to its foundations, he will himself be
purified in torrents of melting metal; he will change his heart and his
will, become holy, heavenly establish in his dominions the law and word
of Ormuzd, unite himself with him in everlasting friendship, and
both will sing hymns in honor of the Great Eternal. See Anquetil's
Abridgment. Kleuker, Anhang part iii. p 85, 36; and the Izeschne, one of
the books of the Zendavesta. According to the Sadder Bun-Dehesch, a more
modern work, Ahriman is to be annihilated: but this is contrary to the
text itself of the Zendavesta, and to the idea its author gives of the
kingdom of Eternity, after the twelve thousand years assigned to the
contest between Good and Evil.--G.]




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

The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners, and
even by the far greater number of his disciples; but the most careless
observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of the Persian
worship. "That people," said Herodotus, [12] "rejects the use of temples,
of altars, and of statues, and smiles at the folly of those nations who
imagine that the gods are sprung from, or bear any affinity with, the
human nature. The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen
for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers are the principal worship; the Supreme
God, who fills the wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are
addressed." Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist,
he accuseth them of adoring Earth, Water, Fire, the Winds, and the Sun
and Moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the charge, and
explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear to give a color to
it. The elements, and more particularly Fire, Light, and the Sun, whom
they called Mithra, [1201] were the objects of their religious reverence,
because they considered them as the purest symbols, the noblest
productions, and the most powerful agents of the Divine Power and
Nature. [13]

[Footnote 12: Herodotus, l. i. c. 131. But Dr. Prideaux
thinks, with reason, that the use of temples was afterwards permitted
in the Magian religion. Note: The Pyraea, or fire temples of the
Zoroastrians, (observes Kleuker, Persica, p. 16,) were only to be
found in Media or Aderbidjan, provinces into which Herodotus did not
penetrate.--M.]

[Footnote 1201: Among the Persians Mithra is not the Sun: Anquetil has
contested and triumphantly refuted the opinion of those who confound
them, and it is evidently contrary to the text of the Zendavesta. Mithra
is the first of the genii, or jzeds, created by Ormuzd; it is he who
watches over all nature. Hence arose the misapprehension of some of the
Greeks, who have said that Mithra was the summus deus of the Persians:
he has a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The Chaldeans appear to
have assigned him a higher rank than the Persians. It is he who bestows
upon the earth the light of the sun. The sun. named Khor, (brightness,)
is thus an inferior genius, who, with many other genii, bears a part
in the functions of Mithra. These assistant genii to another genius are
called his kamkars; but in the Zendavesta they are never confounded. On
the days sacred to a particular genius, the Persian ought to recite, not
only the prayers addressed to him, but those also which are addressed to
his kamkars; thus the hymn or iescht of Mithra is recited on the day of
the sun, (Khor,) and vice versa. It is probably this which has sometimes
caused them to be confounded; but Anquetil had himself exposed this
error, which Kleuker, and all who have studied the Zendavesta, have
noticed. See viii. Diss. of Anquetil. Kleuker's Anhang, part iii. p.
132.--G. M. Guizot is unquestionably right, according to the pure
and original doctrine of the Zend. The Mithriac worship, which was so
extensively propagated in the West, and in which Mithra and the sun
were perpetually confounded, seems to have been formed from a fusion
of Zoroastrianism and Chaldaism, or the Syrian worship of the sun. An
excellent abstract of the question, with references to the works of
the chief modern writers on his curious subject, De Sacy, Kleuker, Von
Hammer, &c., may be found in De Guigniaut's translation of Kreuzer.
Relig. d'Antiquite, notes viii. ix. to book ii. vol. i. 2d part, page
728.--M.]

[Footnote 13: Hyde de Relig. Pers. c. 8. Notwithstanding all their
distinctions and protestations, which seem sincere enough, their
tyrants, the Mahometans, have constantly stigmatized them as idolatrous
worshippers of the fire.]

Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on the
human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining practices of
devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and must acquire our
esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our
own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was abundantly provided with the
former and possessed a sufficient portion of the latter. At the age of
puberty, the faithful Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the
badge of the divine protection; and from that moment all the actions
of his life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were
sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or genuflections;
the omission of which, under any circumstances, was a grievous sin,
not inferior in guilt to the violation of the moral duties. The moral
duties, however, of justice, mercy, liberality, &c., were in their
turn required of the disciple of Zoroaster, who wished to escape the
persecution of Ahriman, and to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity,
where the degree of felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree
of virtue and piety. [14]

[Footnote 14: See the Sadder, the smallest part of which consists of
moral precepts. The ceremonies enjoined are infinite and trifling.
Fifteen genuflections, prayers, &c., were required whenever the devout
Persian cut his nails or made water; or as often as he put on the sacred
girdle Sadder, Art. 14, 50, 60. * Note: Zoroaster exacted much less
ceremonial observance, than at a later period, the priests of his
doctrines. This is the progress of all religions the worship, simple in
its origin, is gradually overloaded with minute superstitions. The maxim
of the Zendavesta, on the relative merit of sowing the earth and of
prayers, quoted below by Gibbon, proves that Zoroaster did not attach
too much importance to these observances. Thus it is not from the
Zendavesta that Gibbon derives the proof of his allegation, but from the
Sadder, a much later work.--G]

But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays aside
the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a liberal concern for
private and public happiness, seldom to be found among the grovelling
or visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common
means of purchasing the divine favor, he condemns with abhorrence, as
a criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the
Magian religion, is obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to
destroy noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and
to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of agriculture.
[1401] We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and benevolent maxim, which
compensates for many an absurdity. "He who sows the ground with care and
diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain
by the repetition of ten thousand prayers." [15] In the spring of every
year a festival was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive
equality, and the present connection, of mankind. The stately kings of
Persia, exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely
mingled with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On that day
the husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to the table of the
king and his satraps. The monarch accepted their petitions, inquired
into their grievances, and conversed with them on the most equal terms.
"From your labors," was he accustomed to say, (and to say with truth, if
not with sincerity,) "from your labors we receive our subsistence; you
derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we are
mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like brothers in
concord and love." [16] Such a festival must indeed have degenerated, in
a wealthy and despotic empire, into a theatrical representation; but it
was at least a comedy well worthy of a royal audience, and which might
sometimes imprint a salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince.

[Footnote 1401: See, on Zoroaster's encouragement of agriculture, the
ingenious remarks of Heeren, Ideen, vol. i. p. 449, &c., and Rhode,
Heilige Sage, p. 517--M.]

[Footnote 15: Zendavesta, tom. i. p. 224, and Precis du Systeme de
Zoroastre, tom. iii.]

[Footnote 16: Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 19.]

Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this
exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of Numa and
Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to all the applause,
which it has pleased some of our divines, and even some of our
philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that motley composition, dictated
by reason and passion, by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful
and sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and
dangerous superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely
numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of them
were convened in a general council. Their forces were multiplied by
discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused through all the provinces
of Persia; and the Archimagus, who resided at Balch, was respected as
the visible head of the church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster.
[17] The property of the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less
invidious possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of
Media, [18] they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of
the Persians. [19] "Though your good works," says the interested prophet,
"exceed in number the leaves of the trees, the drops of rain, the
stars in the heaven, or the sands on the sea-shore, they will all be
unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by the destour, or
priest. To obtain the acceptation of this guide to salvation, you must
faithfully pay him tithes of all you possess, of your goods, of your
lands, and of your money. If the destour be satisfied, your soul will
escape hell tortures; you will secure praise in this world and happiness
in the next. For the destours are the teachers of religion; they know
all things, and they deliver all men." [20] [201]

[Footnote 17: Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 28. Both Hyde and Prideaux
affect to apply to the Magian the terms consecrated to the Christian
hierarchy.]

[Footnote 18: Ammian. Marcellin. xxiii. 6. He informs us (as far as we
may credit him) of two curious particulars: 1. That the Magi derived
some of their most secret doctrines from the Indian Brachmans; and 2.
That they were a tribe, or family, as well as order.]

[Footnote 19: The divine institution of tithes exhibits a singular
instance of conformity between the law of Zoroaster and that of Moses.
Those who cannot otherwise account for it, may suppose, if they please
that the Magi of the latter times inserted so useful an interpolation
into the writings of their prophet.]

[Footnote 20: Sadder, Art. viii.]

[Footnote 201: The passage quoted by Gibbon is not taken from the writings
of Zoroaster, but from the Sadder, a work, as has been before said, much
later than the books which form the Zendavesta. and written by a Magus
for popular use; what it contains, therefore, cannot be attributed to
Zoroaster. It is remarkable that Gibbon should fall into this error, for
Hyde himself does not ascribe the Sadder to Zoroaster; he remarks that
it is written inverse, while Zoroaster always wrote in prose. Hyde, i.
p. 27. Whatever may be the case as to the latter assertion, for which
there appears little foundation, it is unquestionable that the Sadder is
of much later date. The Abbe Foucher does not even believe it to be an
extract from the works of Zoroaster. See his Diss. before quoted. Mem.
de l'Acad. des Ins. t. xxvii.--G. Perhaps it is rash to speak of any
part of the Zendavesta as the writing of Zoroaster, though it may be
a genuine representation of his. As to the Sadder, Hyde (in Praef.)
considered it not above 200 years old. It is manifestly post-Mahometan.
See Art. xxv. on fasting.--M.]

These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit were doubtless
imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth; since the Magi were
the masters of education in Persia, and to their hands the children even
of the royal family were intrusted. [21] The Persian priests, who were of
a speculative genius, preserved and investigated the secrets of Oriental
philosophy; and acquired, either by superior knowledge, or superior art,
the reputation of being well versed in some occult sciences, which
have derived their appellation from the Magi. [22] Those of more active
dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities; and it is
observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in a great measure
directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order, whose dignity, either
from policy or devotion, that prince restored to its ancient splendor.
[23]

[Footnote 21: Plato in Alcibiad.]

[Footnote 22: Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. xxx. c. 1) observes, that magic
held mankind by the triple chain of religion, of physic, and of
astronomy.]

[Footnote 23: Agathias, l. iv. p. 134.]

The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable genius of
their faith, [24] to the practice of ancient kings, [25] and even to
the example of their legislator, who had a victim to a religious war,
excited by his own intolerant zeal. [26] By an edict of Artaxerxes,
the exercise of every worship, except that of Zoroaster, was severely
prohibited. The temples of the Parthians, and the statues of their
deified monarchs, were thrown down with ignominy. [27] The sword of
Aristotle (such was the name given by the Orientals to the polytheism
and philosophy of the Greeks) was easily broken; [28] the flames of
persecution soon reached the more stubborn Jews and Christians; [29]
nor did they spare the heretics of their own nation and religion. The
majesty of Ormusd, who was jealous of a rival, was seconded by
the despotism of Artaxerxes, who could not suffer a rebel; and
the schismatics within his vast empire were soon reduced to the
inconsiderable number of eighty thousand. [30] [301] This spirit of
persecution reflects dishonor on the religion of Zoroaster; but as it
was not productive of any civil commotion, it served to strengthen the
new monarchy, by uniting all the various inhabitants of Persia in the
bands of religious zeal. [302]

[Footnote 24: Mr. Hume, in the Natural History of Religion, sagaciously
remarks, that the most refined and philosophic sects are constantly the
most intolerant. * Note: Hume's comparison is rather between theism and polytheism. In
India, in Greece, and in modern Europe, philosophic religion has
looked down with contemptuous toleration on the superstitions of the
vulgar.--M.]

[Footnote 25: Cicero de Legibus, ii. 10. Xerxes, by the advice of the
Magi, destroyed the temples of Greece.]

[Footnote 26: Hyde de Relig. Persar. c. 23, 24. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque
Orientale, Zurdusht. Life of Zoroaster in tom. ii. of the Zendavesta.]

[Footnote 27: Compare Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 74, with Ammian.
Marcel lin. xxiii. 6. Hereafter I shall make use of these passages.]

[Footnote 28: Rabbi Abraham, in the Tarikh Schickard, p. 108, 109.]

[Footnote 29: Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. viii. c. 3. Sozomen, l.
ii. c. 1 Manes, who suffered an ignominious death, may be deemed a
Magian as well as a Christian heretic.]

[Footnote 30: Hyde de Religione Persar. c. 21.]

[Footnote 301: It is incorrect to attribute these persecutions to
Artaxerxes. The Jews were held in honor by him, and their schools
flourished during his reign. Compare Jost, Geschichte der Israeliter, b.
xv. 5, with Basnage. Sapor was forced by the people to temporary
severities; but their real persecution did not begin till the reigns of
Yezdigerd and Kobad. Hist. of Jews, iii. 236. According to Sozomen, i.
viii., Sapor first persecuted the Christians. Manes was put to death by
Varanes the First, A. D. 277. Beausobre, Hist. de Man. i. 209.--M.]

[Footnote 302: In the testament of Ardischer in Ferdusi, the poet assigns
these sentiments to the dying king, as he addresses his son: Never
forget that as a king, you are at once the protector of religion and
of your country. Consider the altar and the throne as inseparable; they
must always sustain each other. Malcolm's Persia. i. 74--M]


II. Artaxerxes, by his valor and conduct, had wrested the sceptre of the
East from the ancient royal family of Parthia. There still remained
the more difficult task of establishing, throughout the vast extent of
Persia, a uniform and vigorous administration. The weak indulgence of
the Arsacides had resigned to their sons and brothers the principal
provinces, and the greatest offices of the kingdom in the nature of
hereditary possessions. The vitaxoe, or eighteen most powerful satraps,
were permitted to assume the regal title; and the vain pride of the
monarch was delighted with a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings.
Even tribes of barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of
Upper Asia, [31] within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom
obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under other
names, a lively image of the feudal system [32] which has since prevailed
in Europe. But the active victor, at the head of a numerous and
disciplined army, visited in person every province of Persia. The
defeat of the boldest rebels, and the reduction of the strongest
fortifications, [33] diffused the terror of his arms, and prepared the
way for the peaceful reception of his authority. An obstinate resistance
was fatal to the chiefs; but their followers were treated with lenity.
[34] A cheerful submission was rewarded with honors and riches, but the
prudent Artaxerxes suffering no person except himself to assume the
title of king, abolished every intermediate power between the throne and
the people. His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia, was,
on every side, bounded by the sea, or by great rivers; by the Euphrates,
the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus, by the Caspian Sea,
and the Gulf of Persia. [35] That country was computed to contain, in
the last century, five hundred and fifty-four cities, sixty thousand
villages, and about forty millions of souls. [36] If we compare the
administration of the house of Sassan with that of the house of Sefi,
the political influence of the Magian with that of the Mahometan
religion, we shall probably infer, that the kingdom of Artaxerxes
contained at least as great a number of cities, villages, and
inhabitants. But it must likewise be confessed, that in every age the
want of harbors on the sea-coast, and the scarcity of fresh water in
the inland provinces, have been very unfavorable to the commerce and
agriculture of the Persians; who, in the calculation of their numbers,
seem to have indulged one of the nearest, though most common, artifices
of national vanity.

[Footnote 31: These colonies were extremely numerous. Seleucus Nicator
founded thirty-nine cities, all named from himself, or some of his
relations, (see Appian in Syriac. p. 124.) The aera of Seleucus (still
in use among the eastern Christians) appears as late as the year 508,
of Christ 196, on the medals of the Greek cities within the Parthian
empire. See Moyle's works, vol. i. p. 273, &c., and M. Freret, Mem. de
l'Academie, tom. xix.]

[Footnote 32: The modern Persians distinguish that period as the dynasty
of the kings of the nations. See Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 25.]

[Footnote 33: Eutychius (tom. i. p. 367, 371, 375) relates the siege of
the island of Mesene in the Tigris, with some circumstances not unlike
the story of Nysus and Scylla.]

[Footnote 34: Agathias, ii. 64, [and iv. p. 260.] The princes of
Segestan de fended their independence during many years. As romances
generally transport to an ancient period the events of their own time,
it is not impossible that the fabulous exploits of Rustan, Prince of
Segestan, many have been grafted on this real history.]

[Footnote 35: We can scarcely attribute to the Persian monarchy the
sea-coast of Gedrosia or Macran, which extends along the Indian Ocean
from Cape Jask (the promontory Capella) to Cape Goadel. In the time of
Alexander, and probably many ages afterwards, it was thinly inhabited
by a savage people of Icthyophagi, or Fishermen, who knew no arts, who
acknowledged no master, and who were divided by in-hospitable deserts
from the rest of the world. (See Arrian de Reb. Indicis.) In the twelfth
century, the little town of Taiz (supposed by M. d'Anville to be the
Teza of Ptolemy) was peopled and enriched by the resort of the Arabian
merchants. (See Geographia Nubiens, p. 58, and d'Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 283.) In the last age, the whole country was
divided between three princes, one Mahometan and two Idolaters, who
maintained their independence against the successors of Shah Abbas.
(Voyages de Tavernier, part i. l. v. p. 635.)]

[Footnote 36: Chardin, tom. iii c 1 2, 3.]

As soon as the ambitious mind of Artaxerxes had triumphed ever the
resistance of his vassals, he began to threaten the neighboring states,
who, during the long slumber of his predecessors, had insulted Persia
with impunity. He obtained some easy victories over the wild Scythians
and the effeminate Indians; but the Romans were an enemy, who, by their
past injuries and present power, deserved the utmost efforts of his
arms. A forty years' tranquillity, the fruit of valor and moderation,
had succeeded the victories of Trajan. During the period that elapsed
from the accession of Marcus to the reign of Alexander, the Roman and
the Parthian empires were twice engaged in war; and although the whole
strength of the Arsacides contended with a part only of the forces of
Rome, the event was most commonly in favor of the latter. Macrinus,
indeed, prompted by his precarious situation and pusillanimous temper,
purchased a peace at the expense of near two millions of our money; [37]
but the generals of Marcus, the emperor Severus, and his son, erected
many trophies in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Among their
exploits, the imperfect relation of which would have unseasonably
interrupted the more important series of domestic revolutions, we shall
only mention the repeated calamities of the two great cities of Seleucia
and Ctesiphon.

[Footnote 37: Dion, l. xxviii. p. 1335.]

Seleucia, on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five miles
to the north of ancient Babylon, was the capital of the Macedonian
conquests in Upper Asia. [38] Many ages after the fall of their empire,
Seleucia retained the genuine characters of a Grecian colony, arts,
military virtue, and the love of freedom. The independent republic was
governed by a senate of three hundred nobles; the people consisted of
six hundred thousand citizens; the walls were strong, and as long as
concord prevailed among the several orders of the state, they viewed
with contempt the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was
sometimes provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common enemy, who
was posted almost at the gates of the colony. [39] The Parthian monarchs,
like the Mogul sovereigns of Hindostan, delighted in the pastoral
life of their Scythian ancestors; and the Imperial camp was frequently
pitched in the plain of Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris,
at the distance of only three miles from Seleucia. [40] The innumerable
attendants on luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little
village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city. [41] Under the
reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far as Ctesiphon
and Seleucia. They were received as friends by the Greek colony; they
attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian kings; yet both cities
experienced the same treatment. The sack and conflagration of Seleucia,
with the massacre of three hundred thousand of the inhabitants,
tarnished the glory of the Roman triumph. [42] Seleucia, already
exhausted by the neighborhood of a too powerful rival, sunk under the
fatal blow; but Ctesiphon, in about thirty-three years, had sufficiently
recovered its strength to maintain an obstinate siege against the
emperor Severus. The city was, however, taken by assault; the king, who
defended it in person, escaped with precipitation; a hundred thousand
captives, and a rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers.
[43] Notwithstanding these misfortunes, Ctesiphon succeeded to Babylon
and to Seleucia, as one of the great capitals of the East. In summer,
the monarch of Persia enjoyed at Ecbatana the cool breezes of the
mountains of Media; but the mildness of the climate engaged him to
prefer Ctesiphon for his winter residence.

[Footnote 38: For the precise situation of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon,
Moiain, and Bagdad, cities often confounded with each other, see an
excellent Geographical Tract of M. d'Anville, in Mem. de l'Academie,
tom. xxx.]

[Footnote 39: Tacit. Annal. xi. 42. Plin. Hist. Nat. vi.
26.]

[Footnote 40: This may be inferred from Strabo, l. xvi. p. 743.]

[Footnote 41: That most curious traveller, Bernier, who followed the
camp of Aurengzebe from Delhi to Cashmir, describes with great accuracy
the immense moving city. The guard of cavalry consisted of 35,000 men,
that of infantry of 10,000. It was computed that the camp contained
150,000 horses, mules, and elephants; 50,000 camels, 50,000 oxen, and
between 300,000 and 400,000 persons. Almost all Delhi followed the
court, whose magnificence supported its industry.]

[Footnote 42: Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1178. Hist. August. p. 38. Eutrop.
viii. 10 Euseb. in Chronic. Quadratus (quoted in the Augustan History)
attempted to vindicate the Romans by alleging that the citizens of
Seleucia had first violated their faith.]

[Footnote 43: Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1263. Herodian, l. iii. p. 120. Hist.
August. p. 70.]

From these successful inroads the Romans derived no real or lasting
benefit; nor did they attempt to preserve such distant conquests,
separated from the provinces of the empire by a large tract of
intermediate desert. The reduction of the kingdom of Osrhoene was an
acquisition of less splendor indeed, but of a far more solid advantage.
That little state occupied the northern and most fertile part of
Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Edessa, its capital,
was situated about twenty miles beyond the former of those rivers;
and the inhabitants, since the time of Alexander, were a mixed race
of Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, and Armenians. [44] The feeble sovereigns of
Osrhoene, placed on the dangerous verge of two contending empires, were
attached from inclination to the Parthian cause; but the superior power
of Rome exacted from them a reluctant homage, which is still attested by
their medals. After the conclusion of the Parthian war under Marcus, it
was judged prudent to secure some substantia, pledges of their doubtful
fidelity. Forts were constructed in several parts of the country, and
a Roman garrison was fixed in the strong town of Nisibis. During the
troubles that followed the death of Commodus, the princes of Osrhoene
attempted to shake off the yoke; but the stern policy of Severus
confirmed their dependence, [45] and the perfidy of Caracalla completed
the easy conquest. Abgarus, the last king of Edessa, was sent in
chains to Rome, his dominions reduced into a province, and his capital
dignified with the rank of colony; and thus the Romans, about ten years
before the fall of the Parthian monarchy, obtained a firm and permanent
establishment beyond the Euphrates. [46]

[Footnote 44: The polished citizens of Antioch called those of Edessa
mixed barbarians. It was, however, some praise, that of the three
dialects of the Syriac, the purest and most elegant (the Aramaean) was
spoken at Edessa. This remark M. Bayer (Hist. Edess. p 5) has borrowed
from George of Malatia, a Syrian writer.]

[Footnote 45: Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1248, 1249, 1250. M. Bayer has neglected
to use this most important passage.]

[Footnote 46: This kingdom, from Osrhoes, who gave a new name to the
country, to the last Abgarus, had lasted 353 years. See the learned work
of M. Bayer, Historia Osrhoena et Edessena.]

Prudence as well as glory might have justified a war on the side of
Artaxerxes, had his views been confined to the defence or acquisition
of a useful frontier. but the ambitious Persian openly avowed a far more
extensive design of conquest; and he thought himself able to support his
lofty pretensions by the arms of reason as well as by those of power.
Cyrus, he alleged, had first subdued, and his successors had for a long
time possessed, the whole extent of Asia, as far as the Propontis and
the Aegean Sea; the provinces of Caria and Ionia, under their empire,
had been governed by Persian satraps, and all Egypt, to the confines of
Aethiopia, had acknowledged their sovereignty. [47] Their rights had been
suspended, but not destroyed, by a long usurpation; and as soon as he
received the Persian diadem, which birth and successful valor had placed
upon his head, the first great duty of his station called upon him to
restore the ancient limits and splendor of the monarchy. The Great King,
therefore, (such was the haughty style of his embassies to the emperor
Alexander,) commanded the Romans instantly to depart from all the
provinces of his ancestors, and, yielding to the Persians the empire of
Asia, to content themselves with the undisturbed possession of Europe.
This haughty mandate was delivered by four hundred of the tallest and
most beautiful of the Persians; who, by their fine horses, splendid
arms, and rich apparel, displayed the pride and greatness of their
master. [48] Such an embassy was much less an offer of negotiation than
a declaration of war. Both Alexander Severus and Artaxerxes, collecting
the military force of the Roman and Persian monarchies, resolved in this
important contest to lead their armies in person.

[Footnote 47: Xenophon, in the preface to the Cyropaedia, gives a clear
and magnificent idea of the extent of the empire of Cyrus. Herodotus (l.
iii. c. 79, &c.) enters into a curious and particular description of
the twenty great Satrapies into which the Persian empire was divided by
Darius Hystaspes.]

[Footnote 48: Herodian, vi. 209, 212.]

If we credit what should seem the most authentic of all records, an
oration, still extant, and delivered by the emperor himself to the
senate, we must allow that the victory of Alexander Severus was not
inferior to any of those formerly obtained over the Persians by the
son of Philip. The army of the Great King consisted of one hundred and
twenty thousand horse, clothed in complete armor of steel; of seven
hundred elephants, with towers filled with archers on their backs, and
of eighteen hundred chariots armed with scythes. This formidable
host, the like of which is not to be found in eastern history, and has
scarcely been imagined in eastern romance, [49] was discomfited in a
great battle, in which the Roman Alexander proved himself an intrepid
soldier and a skilful general. The Great King fled before his valor;
an immense booty, and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were the immediate
fruits of this signal victory. Such are the circumstances of this
ostentatious and improbable relation, dictated, as it too plainly
appears, by the vanity of the monarch, adorned by the unblushing
servility of his flatterers, and received without contradiction by a
distant and obsequious senate. [50] Far from being inclined to believe
that the arms of Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the
Persians, we are induced to suspect that all this blaze of imaginary
glory was designed to conceal some real disgrace.

[Footnote 49: There were two hundred scythed chariots at the battle of
Arbela, in the host of Darius. In the vast army of Tigranes, which was
vanquished by Lucullus, seventeen thousand horse only were completely
armed. Antiochus brought fifty-four elephants into the field against the
Romans: by his frequent wars and negotiations with the princes of India,
he had once collected a hundred and fifty of those great animals; but
it may be questioned whether the most powerful monarch of Hindostan evci
formed a line of battle of seven hundred elephants. Instead of three or
four thousand elephants, which the Great Mogul was supposed to possess,
Tavernier (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 198) discovered, by a more
accurate inquiry, that he had only five hundred for his baggage, and
eighty or ninety for the service of war. The Greeks have varied with
regard to the number which Porus brought into the field; but Quintus
Curtius, (viii. 13,) in this instance judicious and moderate, is
contented with eighty-five elephants, distinguished by their size and
strength. In Siam, where these animals are the most numerous and the
most esteemed, eighteen elephants are allowed as a sufficient proportion
for each of the nine brigades into which a just army is divided. The
whole number, of one hundred and sixty-two elephants of war, may
sometimes be doubled. Hist. des Voyages, tom. ix. p. 260. * Note:
Compare Gibbon's note 10 to ch. lvii--M.]

[Footnote 50: Hist. August. p. 133. * Note: See M. Guizot's note, p.
267. According to the Persian authorities Ardeschir extended his
conquests to the Euphrates. Malcolm i. 71.--M.]

Our suspicious are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary
historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect, and
his faults with candor. He describes the judicious plan which had been
formed for the conduct of the war. Three Roman armies were destined
to invade Persia at the same time, and by different roads. But the
operations of the campaign, though wisely concerted, were not executed
either with ability or success. The first of these armies, as soon as it
had entered the marshy plains of Babylon, towards the artificial conflux
of the Euphrates and the Tigris, [51] was encompassed by the superior
numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance of
Chosroes, king of Armenia, [52] and the long tract of mountainous
country, in which the Persian cavalry was of little service, opened
a secure entrance into the heart of Media, to the second of the Roman
armies. These brave troops laid waste the adjacent provinces, and by
several successful actions against Artaxerxes, gave a faint color to the
emperor's vanity. But the retreat of this victorious army was imprudent,
or at least unfortunate. In repassing the mountains, great numbers of
soldiers perished by the badness of the roads, and the severity of
the winter season. It had been resolved, that whilst these two great
detachments penetrated into the opposite extremes of the Persian
dominions, the main body, under the command of Alexander himself, should
support their attack, by invading the centre of the kingdom. But the
unexperienced youth, influenced by his mother's counsels, and perhaps by
his own fears, deserted the bravest troops, and the fairest prospect of
victory; and after consuming in Mesopotamia an inactive and inglorious
summer, he led back to Antioch an army diminished by sickness, and
provoked by disappointment. The behavior of Artaxerxes had been very
different. Flying with rapidity from the hills of Media to the marshes
of the Euphrates, he had everywhere opposed the invaders in person; and
in either fortune had united with the ablest conduct the most undaunted
resolution. But in several obstinate engagements against the veteran
legions of Rome, the Persian monarch had lost the flower of his troops.
Even his victories had weakened his power. The favorable opportunities
of the absence of Alexander, and of the confusions that followed that
emperor's death, presented themselves in vain to his ambition. Instead
of expelling the Romans, as he pretended, from the continent of Asia,
he found himself unable to wrest from their hands the little province
of Mesopotamia. [53]

[Footnote 51: M. de Tillemont has already observed, that Herodian's
geography is somewhat confused.]

[Footnote 52: Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 71) illustrates
this invasion of Media, by asserting that Chosroes, king of Armenia,
defeated Artaxerxes, and pursued him to the confines of India. The
exploits of Chosroes have been magnified; and he acted as a dependent
ally to the Romans.]

[Footnote 53: For the account of this war, see Herodian, l. vi. p. 209,
212. The old abbreviators and modern compilers have blindly followed the
Augustan History.]

The reign of Artaxerxes, which, from the last defeat of the Parthians,
lasted only fourteen years, forms a memorable aera in the history of the
East, and even in that of Rome. His character seems to have been marked
by those bold and commanding features, that generally distinguish the
princes who conquer, from those who inherit an empire. Till the last
period of the Persian monarchy, his code of laws was respected as the
groundwork of their civil and religious policy. [54] Several of his
sayings are preserved. One of them in particular discovers a deep
insight into the constitution of government. "The authority of the
prince," said Artaxerxes, "must be defended by a military force; that
force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at last, fall
upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish except under the
protection of justice and moderation." [55] Artaxerxes bequeathed his new
empire, and his ambitious designs against the Romans, to Sapor, a son
not unworthy of his great father; but those designs were too extensive
for the power of Persia, and served only to involve both nations in a
long series of destructive wars and reciprocal calamities.

[Footnote 54: Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 180, vers. Pocock. The great
Chosroes Noushirwan sent the code of Artaxerxes to all his satraps, as
the invariable rule of their conduct.]

[Footnote 55: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, au mot Ardshir.
We may observe, that after an ancient period of fables, and a long
interval of darkness, the modern histories of Persia begin to assume
an air of truth with the dynasty of Sassanides. Compare Malcolm, i.
79.--M.]

The Persians, long since civilized and corrupted, were very far
from possessing the martial independence, and the intrepid hardiness,
both of mind and body, which have rendered the northern barbarians
masters of the world. The science of war, that constituted the more
rational force of Greece and Rome, as it now does of Europe, never made
any considerable progress in the East. Those disciplined evolutions
which harmonize and animate a confused multitude, were unknown to the
Persians. They were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing,
besieging, or defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to
their numbers than to their courage; more to their courage than to their
discipline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless crowd of peasants,
levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and as easily dispersed
by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and his nobles transported into
the camp the pride and luxury of the seraglio. Their military operations
were impeded by a useless train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels;
and in the midst of a successful campaign, the Persian host was often
separated or destroyed by an unexpected famine. [56]

[Footnote 56: Herodian, l. vi. p. 214. Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxiii.
c. 6. Some differences may be observed between the two historians, the
natural effects of the changes produced by a century and a half.]

But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,
preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national honor. From
the age of seven years they were taught to speak truth, to shoot with
the bow, and to ride; and it was universally confessed, that in the two
last of these arts, they had made a more than common proficiency. [57]
The most distinguished youth were educated under the monarch's eye,
practised their exercises in the gate of his palace, and were severely
trained up to the habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and
laborious parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained
a like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is
the idea of feudal tenures) received from the king's bounty lands and
houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were ready on the
first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial and splendid train
of followers, and to join the numerous bodies of guards, who were
carefully selected from among the most robust slaves, and the bravest
adventures of Asia. These armies, both of light and of heavy cavalry,
equally formidable by the impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity
of their motions, threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern
provinces of the declining empire of Rome. [58]

[Footnote 57: The Persians are still the most skilful horsemen, and
their horses the finest in the East.]

[Footnote 58: From Herodotus, Xenophon, Herodian, Ammianus, Chardin,
&c., I have extracted such probable accounts of the Persian nobility,
as seem either common to every age, or particular to that of the
Sassanides.]





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

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

The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice, from
their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman empire. We shall
occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian tribes, [1001] which, with
their arms and horses, their flocks and herds, their wives and families,
wandered over the immense plains which spread themselves from the
Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from the confines of Persia to those of
Germany. But the warlike Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and
at length overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much
more important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if
we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our attention and
regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the
woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we
may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and
manners. In their primitive state of simplicity and independence, the
Germans were surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the
masterly pencil, of Tacitus, [1002] the first of historians who applied the
science of philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness
of his descriptions has served to exercise the diligence of innumerable
antiquarians, and to excite the genius and penetration of the
philosophic historians of our own times. The subject, however various
and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so
successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader,
and difficult to the writer. We shall therefore content ourselves
with observing, and indeed with repeating, some of the most important
circumstances of climate, of manners, and of institutions, which
rendered the wild barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the
Roman power.

[Footnote 1001: The Scythians, even according to the ancients, are not
Sarmatians. It may be doubted whether Gibbon intended to confound
them.--M. ----The Greeks, after having divided the world into Greeks and
barbarians. divided the barbarians into four great classes, the Celts,
the Scythians, the Indians, and the Ethiopians. They called Celts all
the inhabitants of Gaul. Scythia extended from the Baltic Sea to the
Lake Aral: the people enclosed in the angle to the north-east, between
Celtica and Scythia, were called Celto-Scythians, and the Sarmatians
were placed in the southern part of that angle. But these names of
Celts, of Scythians, of Celto-Scythians, and Sarmatians, were invented,
says Schlozer, by the profound cosmographical ignorance of the Greeks,
and have no real ground; they are purely geographical divisions, without
any relation to the true affiliation of the different races. Thus all
the inhabitants of Gaul are called Celts by most of the ancient writers;
yet Gaul contained three totally distinct nations, the Belgae, the
Aquitani, and the Gauls, properly so called. Hi omnes lingua institutis,
legibusque inter se differunt. Caesar. Com. c. i. It is thus the Turks
call all Europeans Franks. Schlozer, Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, p.
289. 1771. Bayer (de Origine et priscis Sedibus Scytharum, in Opusc.
p. 64) says, Primus eorum, de quibus constat, Ephorus, in quarto
historiarum libro, orbem terrarum inter Scythas, Indos, Aethiopas et
Celtas divisit. Fragmentum ejus loci Cosmas Indicopleustes in
topographia Christiana, f. 148, conservavit. Video igitur Ephorum, cum
locorum positus per certa capita distribuere et explicare constitueret,
insigniorum nomina gentium vastioribus spatiis adhibuisse, nulla mala
fraude et successu infelici. Nam Ephoro quoquomodo dicta pro exploratis
habebant Graeci plerique et Romani: ita gliscebat error posteritate.
Igitur tot tamque diversae stirpis gentes non modo intra communem
quandam regionem definitae, unum omnes Scytharum nomen his auctoribus
subierunt, sed etiam ab illa regionis adpellatione in eandem nationem
sunt conflatae. Sic Cimmeriorum res cum Scythicis, Scytharum cum
Sarmaticis, Russicis, Hunnicis, Tataricis commiscentur.--G.]

[Footnote 1002: The Germania of Tacitus has been a fruitful source of
hypothesis to the ingenuity of modern writers, who have endeavored to
account for the form of the work and the views of the author. According
to Luden, (Geschichte des T. V. i. 432, and note,) it contains the
unfinished and disarranged for a larger work. An anonymous writer,
supposed by Luden to be M. Becker, conceives that it was intended as an
episode in his larger history. According to M. Guizot, "Tacite a peint
les Germains comme Montaigne et Rousseau les sauvages, dans un acces
d'humeur contre sa patrie: son livre est une satire des moeurs Romaines,
l'eloquente boutade d'un patriote philosophe qui veut voir la vertu la,
ou il ne rencontre pas la mollesse honteuse et la depravation savante
d'une vielle societe." Hist. de la Civilisation Moderne, i. 258.--M.]

Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the province
westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman yoke, extended
itself over a third part of Europe. [1] Almost the whole of modern
Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Livonia, Prussia, and the
greater part of Poland, were peopled by the various tribes of one great
nation, whose complexion, manners, and language denoted a common origin,
and preserved a striking resemblance. On the west, ancient Germany was
divided by the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube,
from the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising
from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered Germany on
the side of Dacia or Hungary. The eastern frontier was faintly marked
by the mutual fears of the Germans and the Sarmatians, and was often
confounded by the mixture of warring and confederating tribes of the two
nations. In the remote darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly
descried a frozen ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the
Peninsula, or islands [1001] of Scandinavia.

[Footnote 1: Germany was not of such vast extent. It is from Caesar, and
more particularly from Ptolemy, (says Gatterer,) that we can know what
was the state of ancient Germany before the wars with the Romans had
changed the positions of the tribes. Germany, as changed by these wars,
has been described by Strabo, Pliny, and Tacitus. Germany, properly so
called, was bounded on the west by the Rhine, on the east by the
Vistula, on the north by the southern point of Norway, by Sweden, and
Esthonia. On the south, the Maine and the mountains to the north of
Bohemia formed the limits. Before the time of Caesar, the country
between the Maine and the Danube was partly occupied by the Helvetians
and other Gauls, partly by the Hercynian forest but, from the time of
Caesar to the great migration, these boundaries were advanced as far as
the Danube, or, what is the same thing, to the Suabian Alps, although
the Hercynian forest still occupied, from north to south, a space of
nine days' journey on both banks of the Danube. "Gatterer, Versuch einer
all-gemeinen Welt-Geschichte," p. 424, edit. de 1792. This vast country
was far from being inhabited by a single nation divided into different
tribes of the same origin. We may reckon three principal races, very
distinct in their language, their origin, and their customs. 1. To the
east, the Slaves or Vandals. 2. To the west, the Cimmerians or Cimbri.
3. Between the Slaves and Cimbrians, the Germans, properly so called,
the Suevi of Tacitus. The South was inhabited, before Julius Caesar, by
nations of Gaulish origin, afterwards by the Suevi.--G. On the position
of these nations, the German antiquaries differ. I. The Slaves, or
Sclavonians, or Wendish tribes, according to Schlozer, were originally
settled in parts of Germany unknown to the Romans, Mecklenburgh,
Pomerania, Brandenburgh, Upper Saxony; and Lusatia. According to
Gatterer, they remained to the east of the Theiss, the Niemen, and the
Vistula, till the third century. The Slaves, according to Procopius and
Jornandes, formed three great divisions. 1. The Venedi or Vandals, who
took the latter name, (the Wenden,) having expelled the Vandals,
properly so called, (a Suevian race, the conquerors of Africa,) from the
country between the Memel and the Vistula. 2. The Antes, who inhabited
between the Dneister and the Dnieper. 3. The Sclavonians, properly so
called, in the north of Dacia. During the great migration, these races
advanced into Germany as far as the Saal and the Elbe. The Sclavonian
language is the stem from which have issued the Russian, the Polish, the
Bohemian, and the dialects of Lusatia, of some parts of the duchy of
Luneburgh, of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, &c.; those of Croatia,
Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p. 323, 335. II.
The Cimbric race. Adelung calls by this name all who were not Suevi.
This race had passed the Rhine, before the time of Caesar, occupied
Belgium, and are the Belgae of Caesar and Pliny. The Cimbrians also
occupied the Isle of Jutland. The Cymri of Wales and of Britain are of
this race. Many tribes on the right bank of the Rhine, the Guthini in
Jutland, the Usipeti in Westphalia, the Sigambri in the duchy of Berg,
were German Cimbrians. III. The Suevi, known in very early times by the
Romans, for they are mentioned by L. Corn. Sisenna, who lived 123 years
before Christ, (Nonius v. Lancea.) This race, the real Germans, extended
to the Vistula, and from the Baltic to the Hercynian forest. The name of
Suevi was sometimes confined to a single tribe, as by Caesar to the
Catti. The name of the Suevi has been preserved in Suabia. These three
were the principal races which inhabited Germany; they moved from east
to west, and are the parent stem of the modern natives. But northern
Europe, according to Schlozer, was not peopled by them alone; other
races, of different origin, and speaking different languages, have
inhabited and left descendants in these countries. The German tribes
called themselves, from very remote times, by the generic name of
Teutons, (Teuten, Deutschen,) which Tacitus derives from that of one of
their gods, Tuisco. It appears more probable that it means merely men,
people. Many savage nations have given themselves no other name. Thus
the Laplanders call themselves Almag, people; the Samoiedes Nilletz,
Nissetsch, men, &c. As to the name of Germans, (Germani,) Caesar found
it in use in Gaul, and adopted it as a word already known to the Romans.
Many of the learned (from a passage of Tacitus, de Mor Germ. c. 2) have
supposed that it was only applied to the Teutons after Caesar's time;
but Adelung has triumphantly refuted this opinion. The name of Germans
is found in the Fasti Capitolini. See Gruter, Iscrip. 2899, in which the
consul Marcellus, in the year of Rome 531, is said to have defeated the
Gauls, the Insubrians, and the Germans, commanded by Virdomar. See
Adelung, Aelt. Geschichte der Deutsch, p. 102.--Compressed from G.]

[Footnote 1001: The modern philosophers of Sweden seem agreed that the
waters of the Baltic gradually sink in a regular proportion, which they
have ventured to estimate at half an inch every year. Twenty centuries
ago the flat country of Scandinavia must have been covered by the
sea; while the high lands rose above the waters, as so many islands of
various forms and dimensions. Such, indeed, is the notion given us by
Mela, Pliny, and Tacitus, of the vast countries round the Baltic. See
in the Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xl. and xlv. a large abstract of
Dalin's History of Sweden, composed in the Swedish language. * Note:
Modern geologists have rejected this theory of the depression of the
Baltic, as inconsistent with recent observation. The considerable
changes which have taken place on its shores, Mr. Lyell, from actual
observation now decidedly attributes to the regular and uniform
elevation of the land.--Lyell's Geology, b. ii. c. 17--M.]

Some ingenious writers [2] have suspected that Europe was much colder
formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient descriptions of the
climate of Germany tend exceedingly to confirm their theory. The general
complaints of intense frost and eternal winter, are perhaps little to be
regarded, since we have no method of reducing to the accurate standard
of the thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator
born in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two
remarkable circumstances of a less equivocal nature. 1. The great
rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube,
were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting the most enormous
weights. The barbarians, who often chose that severe season for their
inroads, transported, without apprehension or danger, their numerous
armies, their cavalry, and their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid
bridge of ice. [3] Modern ages have not presented an instance of a like
phenomenon. 2. The reindeer, that useful animal, from whom the savage
of the North derives the best comforts of his dreary life, is of a
constitution that supports, and even requires, the most intense cold.
He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of the Pole; he
seems to delight in the snows of Lapland and Siberia: but at present he
cannot subsist, much less multiply, in any country to the south of the
Baltic. [4] In the time of Caesar the reindeer, as well as the elk
and the wild bull, was a native of the Hercynian forest, which
then overshadowed a great part of Germany and Poland. [5] The modern
improvements sufficiently explain the causes of the diminution of the
cold. These immense woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted
from the earth the rays of the sun. [6] The morasses have been drained,
and, in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the air has become
more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of ancient
Germany. Although situated in the same parallel with the finest
provinces of France and England, that country experiences the most
rigorous cold. The reindeer are very numerous, the ground is covered
with deep and lasting snow, and the great river of St. Lawrence is
regularly frozen, in a season when the waters of the Seine and the
Thames are usually free from ice. [7]

[Footnote 2: In particular, Mr. Hume, the Abbe du Bos, and M.
Pelloutier. Hist. des Celtes, tom. i.]

[Footnote 3: Diodorus Siculus, l. v. p. 340, edit. Wessel. Herodian, l.
vi. p. 221. Jornandes, c. 55. On the banks of the Danube, the wine, when
brought to table, was frequently frozen into great lumps, frusta vini.
Ovid. Epist. ex Ponto, l. iv. 7, 9, 10. Virgil. Georgic. l. iii.
355. The fact is confirmed by a soldier and a philosopher, who had
experienced the intense cold of Thrace. See Xenophon, Anabasis, l. vii.
p. 560, edit. Hutchinson. Note: The Danube is constantly frozen over. At
Pesth the bridge is usually taken up, and the traffic and communication
between the two banks carried on over the ice. The Rhine is likewise in
many parts passable at least two years out of five. Winter campaigns are
so unusual, in modern warfare, that I recollect but one instance of an
army crossing either river on the ice. In the thirty years' war,
(1635,) Jan van Werth, an Imperialist partisan, crossed the Rhine from
Heidelberg on the ice with 5000 men, and surprised Spiers. Pichegru's
memorable campaign, (1794-5,) when the freezing of the Meuse and Waal
opened Holland to his conquests, and his cavalry and artillery attacked
the ships frozen in, on the Zuyder Zee, was in a winter of unprecedented
severity.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 4: Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. xii. p. 79, 116.]

[Footnote 5: Caesar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 23, &c. The most inquisitive of
the Germans were ignorant of its utmost limits, although some of them
had travelled in it more than sixty days' journey. * Note: The passage
of Caesar, "parvis renonum tegumentis utuntur," is obscure, observes
Luden, (Geschichte des Teutschen Volkes,) and insufficient to prove the
reindeer to have existed in Germany. It is supported however, by a
fragment of Sallust. Germani intectum rhenonibus corpus tegunt.--M. It
has been suggested to me that Caesar (as old Gesner supposed) meant the
reindeer in the following description. Est bos cervi figura cujus a
media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit, excelsius magisque directum
(divaricatum, qu?) his quae nobis nota sunt cornibus. At ejus summo,
sicut palmae, rami quam late diffunduntur. Bell. vi.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 6: Cluverius (Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 47) investigates
the small and scattered remains of the Hercynian wood.]

[Footnote 7: Charlevoix, Histoire du Canada.]

It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the influence of
the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and bodies of the natives.
Many writers have supposed, and most have allowed, though, as it should
seem, without any adequate proof, that the rigorous cold of the North
was favorable to long life and generative vigor, that the women were
more fruitful, and the human species more prolific, than in warmer or
more temperate climates. [8] We may assert, with greater confidence,
that the keen air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the
natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the people
of the South, [9] gave them a kind of strength better adapted to violent
exertions than to patient labor, and inspired them with constitutional
bravery, which is the result of nerves and spirits. The severity of
a winter campaign, that chilled the courage of the Roman troops, was
scarcely felt by these hardy children of the North, [10] who, in their
turn, were unable to resist the summer heats, and dissolved away in
languor and sickness under the beams of an Italian sun. [11]

[Footnote 8: Olaus Rudbeck asserts that the Swedish women often bear
ten or twelve children, and not uncommonly twenty or thirty; but the
authority of Rudbeck is much to be suspected.]

[Footnote 9: In hos artus, in haec corpora, quae miramur, excrescunt.
Taeit Germania, 3, 20. Cluver. l. i. c. 14.]

[Footnote 10: Plutarch. in Mario. The Cimbri, by way of amusement, often
did down mountains of snow on their broad shields.]

[Footnote 11: The Romans made war in all climates, and by their
excellent discipline were in a great measure preserved in health and
vigor. It may be remarked, that man is the only animal which can live
and multiply in every country from the equator to the poles. The hog
seems to approach the nearest to our species in that privilege.]




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

There is not any where upon the globe a large tract of country, which we
have discovered destitute of inhabitants, or whose first population can
be fixed with any degree of historical certainty. And yet, as the most
philosophic minds can seldom refrain from investigating the infancy
of great nations, our curiosity consumes itself in toilsome and
disappointed efforts. When Tacitus considered the purity of the German
blood, and the forbidding aspect of the country, he was disposed to
pronounce those barbarians Indigence, or natives of the soil. We may
allow with safety, and perhaps with truth, that ancient Germany was
not originally peopled by any foreign colonies already formed into
a political society; [12] but that the name and nation received their
existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the
Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the spontaneous
production of the earth which they inhabited would be a rash inference,
condemned by religion, and unwarranted by reason.

[Footnote 12: Facit. Germ. c. 3. The emigration of the Gauls followed
the course of the Danube, and discharged itself on Greece and Asia.
Tacitus could discover only one inconsiderable tribe that retained any
traces of a Gallic origin. * Note: The Gothini, who must not be
confounded with the Gothi, a Suevian tribe. In the time of Caesar many
other tribes of Gaulish origin dwelt along the course of the Danube, who
could not long resist the attacks of the Suevi. The Helvetians, who
dwelt on the borders of the Black Forest, between the Maine and the
Danube, had been expelled long before the time of Caesar. He mentions
also the Volci Tectosagi, who came from Languedoc and settled round the
Black Forest. The Boii, who had penetrated into that forest, and also
have left traces of their name in Bohemia, were subdued in the first
century by the Marcomanni. The Boii settled in Noricum, were mingled
afterwards with the Lombards, and received the name of Boio Arii
(Bavaria) or Boiovarii: var, in some German dialects, appearing to mean
remains, descendants. Compare Malte B-m, Geography, vol. i. p. 410, edit
1832--M.]

Such rational doubt is but ill suited with the genius of popular vanity.
Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of the world, the
ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was formerly to the Greeks and
Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow basis of acknowledged truth, an
immense but rude superstructure of fable has been erected; and the
wild Irishman, [13] as well as the wild Tartar, [14] could point out the
individual son of Japhet, from whose loins his ancestors were lineally
descended. The last century abounded with antiquarians of profound
learning and easy faith, who, by the dim light of legends and
traditions, of conjectures and etymologies, conducted the great
grandchildren of Noah from the Tower of Babel to the extremities of the
globe. Of these judicious critics, one of the most entertaining was
Oaus Rudbeck, professor in the university of Upsal. [15] Whatever is
celebrated either in history or fable, this zealous patriot ascribes to
his country. From Sweden (which formed so considerable a part of ancient
Germany) the Greeks themselves derived their alphabetical characters,
their astronomy, and their religion. Of that delightful region (for such
it appeared to the eyes of a native) the Atlantis of Plato, the country
of the Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Hesperides, the Fortunate
Islands, and even the Elysian Fields, were all but faint and imperfect
transcripts. A clime so profusely favored by Nature could not long
remain desert after the flood. The learned Rudbeck allows the family
of Noah a few years to multiply from eight to about twenty thousand
persons. He then disperses them into small colonies to replenish
the earth, and to propagate the human species. The German or Swedish
detachment (which marched, if I am not mistaken, under the command of
Askenaz, the son of Gomer, the son of Japhet) distinguished itself by
a more than common diligence in the prosecution of this great work. The
northern hive cast its swarms over the greatest part of Europe, Africa,
and Asia; and (to use the author's metaphor) the blood circulated from
the extremities to the heart.

[Footnote 13: According to Dr. Keating, (History of Ireland, p. 13, 14,)
the giant Portholanus, who was the son of Seara, the son of Esra, the
son of Sru, the son of Framant, the son of Fathaclan, the son of Magog,
the son of Japhet, the son of Noah, landed on the coast of Munster the
14th day of May, in the year of the world one thousand nine hundred and
seventy-eight. Though he succeeded in his great enterprise, the loose
behavior of his wife rendered his domestic life very unhappy, and
provoked him to such a degree, that he killed--her favorite greyhound.
This, as the learned historian very properly observes, was the first
instance of female falsehood and infidelity ever known in Ireland.]

[Footnote 14: Genealogical History of the Tartars, by Abulghazi Bahadur
Khan.]

[Footnote 15: His work, entitled Atlantica, is uncommonly scarce.
Bayle has given two most curious extracts from it. Republique des
Lettres Janvier et Fevrier, 1685.]

But all this well-labored system of German antiquities is annihilated
by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any doubt, and of too
decisive a nature to leave room for any reply. The Germans, in the age
of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters; [16] and the use
of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilized
people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection.
Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or
corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of
the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually
forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the
imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this important
truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to calculate the immense
distance between the man of learning and the illiterate peasant. The
former, by reading and reflection, multiplies his own experience, and
lives in distant ages and remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to
a single spot, and confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but
very little his fellow-laborer, the ox, in the exercise of his mental
faculties. The same, and even a greater, difference will be found
between nations than between individuals; and we may safely pronounce,
that without some species of writing, no people has ever preserved the
faithful annals of their history, ever made any considerable progress
in the abstract sciences, or ever possessed, in any tolerable degree of
perfection, the useful and agreeable arts of life.

[Footnote 16: Tacit. Germ. ii. 19. Literarum secreta viri pariter ac
foeminae ignorant. We may rest contented with this decisive authority,
without entering into the obscure disputes concerning the antiquity of
the Runic characters. The learned Celsius, a Swede, a scholar, and a
philosopher, was of opinion, that they were nothing more than the Roman
letters, with the curves changed into straight lines for the ease of
engraving. See Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, l. ii. c. 11.
Dictionnaire Diplomatique, tom. i. p. 223. We may add, that the oldest
Runic inscriptions are supposed to be of the third century, and the most
ancient writer who mentions the Runic characters is Venan tius
Frotunatus, (Carm. vii. 18,) who lived towards the end of the sixth
century. Barbara fraxineis pingatur Runa tabellis. * Note: The obscure
subject of the Runic characters has exercised the industry and ingenuity
of the modern scholars of the north. There are three distinct theories;
one, maintained by Schlozer, (Nordische Geschichte, p. 481, &c.,) who
considers their sixteen letters to be a corruption of the Roman
alphabet, post-Christian in their date, and Schlozer would attribute
their introduction into the north to the Alemanni. The second, that of
Frederick Schlegel, (Vorlesungen uber alte und neue Literatur,) supposes
that these characters were left on the coasts of the Mediterranean and
Northern Seas by the Phoenicians, preserved by the priestly castes, and
employed for purposes of magic. Their common origin from the Phoenician
would account for heir similarity to the Roman letters. The last, to
which we incline, claims much higher and more venerable antiquity for
the Runic, and supposes them to have been the original characters of the
Indo-Teutonic tribes, brought from the East, and preserved among the
different races of that stock. See Ueber Deutsche Runen von W. C. Grimm,
1821. A Memoir by Dr. Legis. Fundgruben des alten Nordens. Foreign
Quarterly Review vol. ix. p. 438.--M.]

Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute. [1601] They
passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty, which it has
pleased some declaimers to dignify with the appellation of virtuous
simplicity. Modern Germany is said to contain about two thousand three
hundred walled towns. [17] In a much wider extent of country, the
geographer Ptolemy could discover no more than ninety places which he
decorates with the name of cities; [18] though, according to our ideas,
they would but ill deserve that splendid title. We can only suppose them
to have been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the
woods, and designed to secure the women, children, and cattle, whilst
the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion. [19]
But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans, in his
time, had no cities; [20] and that they affected to despise the works of
Roman industry, as places of confinement rather than of security. [21]
Their edifices were not even contiguous, or formed into regular villas;
[22] each barbarian fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which
a plain, a wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the
preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles, were employed in these
slight habitations. [23] They were indeed no more than low huts, of a
circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with straw, and pierced
at the top to leave a free passage for the smoke. In the most inclement
winter, the hardy German was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the
skin of some animal. The nations who dwelt towards the North clothed
themselves in furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a
coarse kind of linen. [24] The game of various sorts, with which the
forests of Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants
with food and exercise. [25] Their monstrous herds of cattle, less
remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their utility, [26] formed
the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of corn was the
only produce exacted from the earth; the use of orchards or artificial
meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor can we expect any improvements
in agriculture from a people, whose prosperity every year experienced a
general change by a new division of the arable lands, and who, in that
strange operation, avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their
territory to lie waste and without tillage. [27]

[Footnote 1601: Luden (the author of the Geschichte des Teutschen Volkes)
has surpassed most writers in his patriotic enthusiasm for the virtues
and noble manners of his ancestors. Even the cold of the climate, and
the want of vines and fruit trees, as well as the barbarism of the
inhabitants, are calumnies of the luxurious Italians. M. Guizot, on the
other side, (in his Histoire de la Civilisation, vol. i. p. 272, &c.,)
has drawn a curious parallel between the Germans of Tacitus and the
North American Indians.--M.]

[Footnote 17: Recherches Philosophiques sur
les Americains, tom. iii. p. 228. The author of that very curious work
is, if I am not misinformed, a German by birth. (De Pauw.)]

[Footnote 18: The Alexandrian Geographer is often criticized by the
accurate Cluverius.]

[Footnote 19: See Caesar, and the learned Mr. Whitaker in his History of
Manchester, vol. i.]

[Footnote 20: Tacit. Germ. 15.]

[Footnote 21: When the Germans commanded the Ubii of Cologne to cast
off the Roman yoke, and with their new freedom to resume their ancient
manners, they insisted on the immediate demolition of the walls of
the colony. "Postulamus a vobis, muros coloniae, munimenta servitii,
detrahatis; etiam fera animalia, si clausa teneas, virtutis
obliviscuntur." Tacit. Hist. iv. 64.]

[Footnote 22: The straggling villages of Silesia are several miles in
length. See Cluver. l. i. c. 13.]

[Footnote 23: One hundred and forty years after Tacitus, a few more
regular structures were erected near the Rhine and Danube. Herodian, l.
vii. p. 234.]

[Footnote 24: Tacit. Germ. 17.]

[Footnote 25: Tacit. Germ. 5.]

[Footnote 26: Caesar de Bell. Gall. vi. 21.]

[Footnote 27: Tacit. Germ. 26. Caesar, vi. 22.]

Gold, silver, and iron, were extremely scarce in Germany. Its barbarous
inhabitants wanted both skill and patience to investigate those rich
veins of silver, which have so liberally rewarded the attention of the
princes of Brunswick and Saxony. Sweden, which now supplies Europe with
iron, was equally ignorant of its own riches; and the appearance of the
arms of the Germans furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they
were able to bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of
that metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced
some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the Rhine and
Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely unacquainted with
the use of money, carried on their confined traffic by the exchange of
commodities, and prized their rude earthen vessels as of equal value
with the silver vases, the presents of Rome to their princes and
ambassadors. [28] To a mind capable of reflection, such leading
facts convey more instruction, than a tedious detail of subordinate
circumstances. The value of money has been settled by general consent to
express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express
our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy
to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply
the objects they were designed to represent. The use of gold and
silver is in a great measure factitious; but it would be impossible to
enumerate the important and various services which agriculture, and all
the arts, have received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the
operation of fire, and the dexterous hand of man. Money, in a word, is
the most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of
human industry; and it is very difficult to conceive by what means a
people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the other, could
emerge from the grossest barbarism. [29]

[Footnote 28: Tacit. Germ. 6.]

[Footnote 29: It is said that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without the
use of either money or iron, had made a very great progress in the
arts. Those arts, and the monuments they produced, have been strangely
magnified. See Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 153, &c]

If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the globe, a supine
indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to constitute
their general character. In a civilized state, every faculty of man
is expanded and exercised; and the great chain of mutual dependence
connects and embraces the several members of society. The most numerous
portion of it is employed in constant and useful labor. The select few,
placed by fortune above that necessity, can, however, fill up their time
by the pursuits of interest or glory, by the improvement of their estate
or of their understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the
follies of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied
resources. The care of the house and family, the management of the
land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to women and
slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that might employ his
leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in the animal gratifications
of sleep and food. And yet, by a wonderful diversity of nature,
(according to the remark of a writer who had pierced into its darkest
recesses,) the same barbarians are by turns the most indolent and
the most restless of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest
tranquility. [30] The languid soul, oppressed with its own weight,
anxiously required some new and powerful sensation; and war and danger
were the only amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that
summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused him from
his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit, and, by strong
exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the mind, restored him to
a more lively sense of his existence. In the dull intervals of peace,
these barbarians were immoderately addicted to deep gaming and excessive
drinking; both of which, by different means, the one by inflaming their
passions, the other by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them
from the pain of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights
at table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their
numerous and drunken assemblies. [31] Their debts of honor (for in that
light they have transmitted to us those of play) they discharged with
the most romantic fidelity. The desperate gamester, who had staked his
person and liberty on a last throw of the dice, patiently submitted to
the decision of fortune, and suffered himself to be bound, chastised,
and sold into remote slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist.
[32]

[Footnote 30: Tacit. Germ. 15.]

[Footnote 31: Tacit. Germ. 22, 23.]

[Footnote 32: Id. 24. The Germans might borrow the arts of play from the
Romans, but the passion is wonderfully inherent in the human species.]

Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or
barley, and corrupted (as it is strongly expressed by Tacitus) into
a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the gross purposes of
German debauchery. But those who had tasted the rich wines of Italy,
and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that more delicious species of
intoxication. They attempted not, however, (as has since been executed
with so much success,) to naturalize the vine on the banks of the Rhine
and Danube; nor did they endeavor to procure by industry the materials
of an advantageous commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished
by arms, was esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. [33] The intemperate
thirst of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the
provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied
presents. The Tuscan who betrayed his country to the Celtic nations,
attracted them into Italy by the prospect of the rich fruits and
delicious wines, the productions of a happier climate. [34] And in the
same manner the German auxiliaries, invited into France during the civil
wars of the sixteenth century, were allured by the promise of plenteous
quarters in the provinces of Champaigne and Burgundy. [35] Drunkenness,
the most illiberal, but not the most dangerous of our vices, was
sometimes capable, in a less civilized state of mankind, of occasioning
a battle, a war, or a revolution.

[Footnote 33: Tacit. Germ. 14.]

[Footnote 34: Plutarch. in Camillo. T. Liv. v. 33.]

[Footnote 35: Dubos. Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p.
193.]

The climate of ancient Germany has been modified, and the soil
fertilized, by the labor of ten centuries from the time of Charlemagne.
The same extent of ground which at present maintains, in ease and
plenty, a million of husbandmen and artificers, was unable to supply a
hundred thousand lazy warriors with the simple necessaries of life. [36]
The Germans abandoned their immense forests to the exercise of hunting,
employed in pasturage the most considerable part of their lands,
bestowed on the small remainder a rude and careless cultivation, and
then accused the scantiness and sterility of a country that refused to
maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of famine
severely admonished them of the importance of the arts, the national
distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration of a third, perhaps,
or a fourth part of their youth. [37] The possession and the enjoyment
of property are the pledges which bind a civilized people to an improved
country. But the Germans, who carried with them what they most valued,
their arms, their cattle, and their women, cheerfully abandoned the vast
silence of their woods for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest.
The innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the great
storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the vanquished,
and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from facts thus
exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and has been
supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that, in the age of
Caesar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the North were far more numerous
than they are in our days. [38] A more serious inquiry into the causes of
population seems to have convinced modern philosophers of the falsehood,
and indeed the impossibility, of the supposition. To the names of
Mariana and of Machiavel, [39] we can oppose the equal names of Robertson
and Hume. [40]

[Footnote 36: The Helvetian nation, which issued from a country called
Switzerland, contained, of every age and sex, 368,000 persons, (Caesar
de Bell. Gal. i. 29.) At present, the number of people in the Pays
de Vaud (a small district on the banks of the Leman Lake, much more
distinguished for politeness than for industry) amounts to 112,591. See
an excellent tract of M. Muret, in the Memoires de la Societe de Born.]

[Footnote 37: Paul Diaconus, c. 1, 2, 3. Machiavel, Davila, and the rest
of Paul's followers, represent these emigrations too much as regular and
concerted measures.]

[Footnote 38: Sir William Temple and Montesquieu have indulged, on this
subject, the usual liveliness of their fancy.]

[Footnote 39: Machiavel, Hist. di Firenze, l. i. Mariana, Hist. Hispan.
l. v. c. 1]

[Footnote 40: Robertson's Charles V. Hume's Political Essays. Note: It
is a wise observation of Malthus, that these nations "were not populous
in proportion to the land they occupied, but to the food they produced."
They were prolific from their pure morals and constitutions, but their
institutions were not calculated to produce food for those whom they
brought into being.--M--1845.]

A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts,
or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment
of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires
and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism. "Among the
Suiones (says Tacitus) riches are held in honor. They are therefore
subject to an absolute monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people
with the free use of arms, as is practised in the rest of Germany,
commits them to the safe custody, not of a citizen, or even of a
freedman, but of a slave. The neighbors of the Suiones, the Sitones,
are sunk even below servitude; they obey a woman." [41] In the mention
of these exceptions, the great historian sufficiently acknowledges the
general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive by what
means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote corner of
the North, and extinguish the generous flame that blazed with such
fierceness on the frontier of the Roman provinces, or how the ancestors
of those Danes and Norwegians, so distinguished in latter ages by their
unconquered spirit, could thus tamely resign the great character of
German liberty. [42] Some tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic,
acknowledged the authority of kings, though without relinquishing the
rights of men, [43] but in the far greater part of Germany, the form of
government was a democracy, tempered, indeed, and controlled, not so
much by general and positive laws, as by the occasional ascendant of
birth or valor, of eloquence or superstition. [44]

[Footnote 41: Tacit. German. 44, 45. Freinshemius (who dedicated his
supplement to Livy to Christina of Sweden) thinks proper to be very
angry with the Roman who expressed so very little reverence for Northern
queens. Note: The Suiones and the Sitones are the ancient inhabitants
of Scandinavia, their name may be traced in that of Sweden; they did not
belong to the race of the Suevi, but that of the non-Suevi or Cimbri,
whom the Suevi, in very remote times, drove back part to the west, part
to the north; they were afterwards mingled with Suevian tribes, among
others the Goths, who have traces of their name and power in the isle of
Gothland.--G]

[Footnote 42: May we not suspect that superstition was the parent of
despotism? The descendants of Odin, (whose race was not extinct till the
year 1060) are said to have reigned in Sweden above a thousand years.
The temple of Upsal was the ancient seat of religion and empire. In the
year 1153 I find a singular law, prohibiting the use and profession of
arms to any except the king's guards. Is it not probable that it was
colored by the pretence of reviving an old institution? See Dalin's
History of Sweden in the Bibliotheque Raisonneo tom. xl. and xlv.]

[Footnote 43: Tacit. Germ. c. 43.]

[Footnote 44: Id. c. 11, 12, 13, & c.]

Civil governments, in their first institution, are voluntary
associations for mutual defence. To obtain the desired end, it is
absolutely necessary that each individual should conceive himself
obliged to submit his private opinions and actions to the judgment of
the greater number of his associates. The German tribes were contented
with this rude but liberal outline of political society. As soon as a
youth, born of free parents, had attained the age of manhood, he was
introduced into the general council of his countrymen, solemnly invested
with a shield and spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of
the military commonwealth. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe
was convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. The trial of
public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great business
of peace and war, were determined by its independent voice. Sometimes
indeed, these important questions were previously considered and
prepared in a more select council of the principal chieftains. [45] The
magistrates might deliberate and persuade, the people only could resolve
and execute; and the resolutions of the Germans were for the most part
hasty and violent. Barbarians accustomed to place their freedom in
gratifying the present passion, and their courage in overlooking all
future consequences, turned away with indignant contempt from the
remonstrances of justice and policy, and it was the practice to signify
by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid counsels. But whenever
a more popular orator proposed to vindicate the meanest citizen
from either foreign or domestic injury, whenever he called upon his
fellow-countrymen to assert the national honor, or to pursue some
enterprise full of danger and glory, a loud clashing of shields and
spears expressed the eager applause of the assembly. For the Germans
always met in arms, and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an
irregular multitude, inflamed with faction and strong liquors, should
use those arms to enforce, as well as to declare, their furious
resolves. We may recollect how often the diets of Poland have been
polluted with blood, and the more numerous party has been compelled to
yield to the more violent and seditious. [46]

[Footnote 45: Grotius changes an expression of Tacitus, pertractantur
into Proetractantur. The correction is equally just and ingenious.]

[Footnote 46: Even in our ancient parliament, the barons often carried a
question, not so much by the number of votes, as by that of their armed
followers.]

A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and, if
the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes concurred in the
choice of the same general. The bravest warrior was named to lead his
countrymen into the field, by his example rather than by his commands.
But this power, however limited, was still invidious. It expired with
the war, and in time of peace the German tribes acknowledged not any
supreme chief. [47] Princes were, however, appointed, in the general
assembly, to administer justice, or rather to compose differences, [48]
in their respective districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as
much regard was shown to birth as to merit. [49] To each was assigned, by
the public, a guard, and a council of a hundred persons, and the first
of the princes appears to have enjoyed a preeminence of rank and honor
which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment him with the regal
title. [50]

[Footnote 47: Caesar de Bell. Gal. vi. 23.]

[Footnote 48: Minuunt controversias, is a very happy expression of
Caesar's.]

[Footnote 49: Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt.
Tacit Germ. 7]

[Footnote 50: Cluver. Germ. Ant. l. i. c. 38.]

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable
instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of German
manners. The disposal of the landed property within their district was
absolutely vested in their hands, and they distributed it every
year according to a new division. [51] At the same time they were not
authorized to punish with death, to imprison, or even to strike a
private citizen. [52] A people thus jealous of their persons, and
careless of their possessions, must have been totally destitute of
industry and the arts, but animated with a high sense of honor and
independence.

[Footnote 51: Caesar, vi. 22. Tacit Germ. 26.]

[Footnote 52: Tacit. Germ. 7.]




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

The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on
themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the authority
of the magistrates. The noblest youths blushed not to be numbered among
the faithful companions of some renowned chief, to whom they devoted
their arms and service. A noble emulation prevailed among the
companions, to obtain the first place in the esteem of their chief;
amongst the chiefs, to acquire the greatest number of valiant
companions. To be ever surrounded by a band of select youths was the
pride and strength of the chiefs, their ornament in peace, their defence
in war. The glory of such distinguished heroes diffused itself beyond
the narrow limits of their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited
their friendship, and the fame of their arms often insured victory to
the party which they espoused. In the hour of danger it was shameful for
the chief to be surpassed in valor by his companions; shameful for the
companions not to equal the valor of their chief. To survive his fall
in battle, was indelible infamy. To protect his person, and to adorn his
glory with the trophies of their own exploits, were the most sacred of
their duties. The chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the
chief. The noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk into
the laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some distant
scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and to acquire
renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of soldiers--the warlike
steed, the bloody and even victorious lance--were the rewards which the
companions claimed from the liberality of their chief. The rude plenty
of his hospitable board was the only pay that he could bestow, or they
would accept. War, rapine, and the free-will offerings of his friends,
supplied the materials of this munificence. [53] This institution,
however it might accidentally weaken the several republics, invigorated
the general character of the Germans, and even ripened amongst them all
the virtues of which barbarians are susceptible; the faith and valor,
the hospitality and the courtesy, so conspicuous long afterwards in the
ages of chivalry.

The honorable gifts, bestowed by the chief on his brave companions, have
been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to contain the first rudiments of
the fiefs, distributed after the conquest of the Roman provinces, by the
barbarian lords among their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and
military service. [54] These conditions are, however, very repugnant to
the maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents; but
without either imposing, or accepting, the weight of obligations. [55]

[Footnote 53: Tacit. Germ. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 54: Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 3. The brilliant imagination
of Montesquieu is corrected, however, by the dry, cold reason of the
Abbe de Mably. Observations sur l'Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 356.]

[Footnote 55: Gaudent muneribus, sed nec data imputant, nec acceptis
obligautur. Tacit. Germ. c. 21.]

"In the days of chivalry, or more properly of romance, all the men were
brave, and all the women were chaste;" and notwithstanding the latter of
these virtues is acquired and preserved with much more difficulty than
the former, it is ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of
the ancient Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes,
and among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances.
Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws. Adulteries were
punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was seduction justified by
example and fashion. [56] We may easily discover that Tacitus indulges an
honest pleasure in the contrast of barbarian virtue with the dissolute
conduct of the Roman ladies; yet there are some striking circumstances
that give an air of truth, or at least probability, to the conjugal
faith and chastity of the Germans.

[Footnote 56: The adulteress was whipped through the village. Neither
wealth nor beauty could inspire compassion, or procure her a second
husband. 18, 19.]

Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed to
assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less
favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the
softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish
the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes
most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by
sentimental passion. The elegance of dress, of motion, and of
manners, gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames the senses through the
imagination. Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious
spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female
frailty. [57] From such dangers the unpolished wives of the barbarians
were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a domestic
life. The German huts, open, on every side, to the eye of indiscretion
or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity, than the
walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a Persian haram. To this reason
another may be added, of a more honorable nature. The Germans treated
their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion
of importance, and fondly believed, that in their breasts resided a
sanctity and wisdom more than human. Some of the interpreters of fate,
such as Velleda, in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the
deity, the fiercest nations of Germany. [58] The rest of the sex,
without being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal
companions of soldiers; associated even by the marriage ceremony to a
life of toil, of danger, and of glory. [59] In their great invasions,
the camps of the barbarians were filled with a multitude of women, who
remained firm and undaunted amidst the sound of arms, the various forms
of destruction, and the honorable wounds of their sons and husbands. [60]
Fainting armies of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon
the enemy, by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much
less than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew
how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own hands,
from an insulting victor. [61] Heroines of such a cast may claim our
admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely, nor very
susceptible of love. Whilst they affected to emulate the stern virtues
of man, they must have resigned that attractive softness, in which
principally consist the charm and weakness of woman. Conscious pride
taught the German females to suppress every tender emotion that stood
in competition with honor, and the first honor of the sex has ever been
that of chastity. The sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited
matrons may, at once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a
proof of the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it
may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a faint
and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that distinguishes the age or
country in which it may be found.

[Footnote 57: Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of places
the most favorable to love. Above all, he considers the theatre as the
best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and to melt them into
tenderness and sensuality,]

[Footnote 58: Tacit. Germ. iv. 61, 65.]

[Footnote 59: The marriage present was a yoke of oxen, horses, and
arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is somewhat too florid on the subject.]

[Footnote 60: The change of exigere into exugere is a most excellent
correction.]

[Footnote 61: Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the wives of
the Teutones destroyed themselves and their children, they had offered
to surrender, on condition that they should be received as the slaves
of the vestal virgins.]

The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of savages can
deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their fears, and their
ignorance. [62] They adored the great visible objects and agents of
nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and the Earth; together with
those imaginary deities, who were supposed to preside over the most
important occupations of human life. They were persuaded, that, by some
ridiculous arts of divination, they could discover the will of the
superior beings, and that human sacrifices were the most precious and
acceptable offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily
bestowed on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the
Deity, whom they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor
represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the Germans
were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted with the art of
sculpture, we shall readily assign the true reason of a scruple, which
arose not so much from a superiority of reason, as from a want of
ingenuity. The only temples in Germany were dark and ancient groves,
consecrated by the reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret
gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no
distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still
deeper sense of religious horror; [63] and the priests, rude and
illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every
artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions so well suited to
their own interest.

[Footnote 62: Tacitus has employed a few lines, and Cluverius one
hundred and twenty-four pages, on this obscure subject. The former
discovers in Germany the gods of Greece and Rome. The latter is
positive, that, under the emblems of the sun, the moon, and the fire,
his pious ancestors worshipped the Trinity in unity]

[Footnote 63: The sacred wood, described with such sublime horror by
Lucan, was in the neighborhood of Marseilles; but there were many of the
same kind in Germany. * Note: The ancient Germans had shapeless idols,
and, when they began to build more settled habitations, they raised also
temples, such as that to the goddess Teufana, who presided over
divination. See Adelung, Hist. of Ane Germans, p 296--G]

The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of conceiving or
embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes them naked and unarmed
to the blind terrors of superstition. The German priests, improving this
favorable temper of their countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in
temporal concerns, which the magistrate could not venture to exercise;
and the haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,
when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the immediate
order of the god of war. [64] The defects of civil policy were sometimes
supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical authority. The latter
was constantly exerted to maintain silence and decency in the popular
assemblies; and was sometimes extended to a more enlarged concern for
the national welfare. A solemn procession was occasionally celebrated in
the present countries of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The unknown symbol
of the Earth, covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn
by cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was in
the Isles of Rugen, visited several adjacent tribes of her worshippers.
During her progress the sound of war was hushed, quarrels were
suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless Germans had an opportunity
of tasting the blessings of peace and harmony. [65] The truce of God,
so often and so ineffectually proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh
century, was an obvious imitation of this ancient custom. [66]

[Footnote 64: Tacit. Germania, c. 7.]

[Footnote 65: Tacit. Germania, c. 40.]

[Footnote 66: See Dr. Robertson's History of Charles V. vol. i. note
10.]

But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame,
than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest and
fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most daring
and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of Heaven, and full
assurances of success. The consecrated standards, long revered in the
groves of superstition, were placed in the front of the battle; [67] and
the hostile army was devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war
and of thunder. [68] In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans)
cowardice is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy
favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his shield
was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies of his
countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced the doctrine
of transmigration, [69] others imagined a gross paradise of immortal
drunkenness. [70] All agreed, that a life spent in arms, and a glorious
death in battle, were the best preparations for a happy futurity, either
in this or in another world.

[Footnote 67: Tacit. Germania, c. 7. These standards were only the heads
of wild beasts.]

[Footnote 68: See an instance of this custom, Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57.]

[Footnote 69: Caesar Diodorus, and Lucan, seem to ascribe this doctrine
to the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Histoire des Celtes, l. iii. c. 18)
labors to reduce their expressions to a more orthodox sense.]

[Footnote 70: Concerning this gross but alluring doctrine of the Edda,
see Fable xx. in the curious version of that book, published by M.
Mallet, in his Introduction to the History of Denmark.]

The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some degree,
conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has most deservedly
attracted the notice of all who have attempted to investigate the
antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and the Germans. Their
genius and character, as well as the reverence paid to that important
office, have been sufficiently illustrated. But we cannot so easily
express, or even conceive, the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they
kindled in the breast of their audience. Among a polished people, a
taste for poetry is rather an amusement of the fancy, than a passion
of the soul. And yet, when in calm retirement we peruse the combats
described by Homer or Tasso, we are insensibly seduced by the fiction,
and feel a momentary glow of martial ardor. But how faint, how cold is
the sensation which a peaceful mind can receive from solitary study! It
was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory, that the bards
celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient days, the ancestors of
those warlike chieftains, who listened with transport to their artless
but animated strains. The view of arms and of danger heightened the
effect of the military song; and the passions which it tended to
excite, the desire of fame, and the contempt of death, were the habitual
sentiments of a German mind. [71] [711]

[Footnote 71: See Tacit. Germ. c. 3. Diod. Sicul. l. v. Strabo, l. iv.
p. 197. The classical reader may remember the rank of Demodocus in the
Phaeacian court, and the ardor infused by Tyrtaeus into the fainting
Spartans. Yet there is little probability that the Greeks and the
Germans were the same people. Much learned trifling might be spared, if
our antiquarians would condescend to reflect, that similar manners will
naturally be produced by similar situations.]

[Footnote 711: Besides these battle songs, the Germans sang at their
festival banquets, (Tac. Ann. i. 65,) and around the bodies of their
slain heroes. King Theodoric, of the tribe of the Goths, killed in a
battle against Attila, was honored by songs while he was borne from
the field of battle. Jornandes, c. 41. The same honor was paid to
the remains of Attila. Ibid. c. 49. According to some historians,
the Germans had songs also at their weddings; but this appears to me
inconsistent with their customs, in which marriage was no more than the
purchase of a wife. Besides, there is but one instance of this, that
of the Gothic king, Ataulph, who sang himself the nuptial hymn when
he espoused Placidia, sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius,
(Olympiodor. p. 8.) But this marriage was celebrated according to the
Roman rites, of which the nuptial songs formed a part. Adelung, p.
382.--G. Charlemagne is said to have collected the national songs of the
ancient Germans. Eginhard, Vit. Car. Mag.--M.]

Such was the situation, and such were the manners of the ancient
Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of laws,
their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion, their sense of
freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of enterprise, all contributed
to form a people of military heroes. And yet we find, that during more
than two hundred and fifty years that elapsed from the defeat of
Varus to the reign of Decius, these formidable barbarians made few
considerable attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious
and enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by
their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by the
intestine divisions of ancient Germany. I. It has been observed, with
ingenuity, and not without truth, that the command of iron soon gives
a nation the command of gold. But the rude tribes of Germany, alike
destitute of both those valuable metals, were reduced slowly to acquire,
by their unassisted strength, the possession of the one as well as
the other. The face of a German army displayed their poverty of iron.
Swords, and the longer kind of lances, they could seldom use. Their
frameoe (as they called them in their own language) were long spears
headed with a sharp but narrow iron point, and which, as occasion
required, they either darted from a distance, or pushed in close onset.
With this spear, and with a shield, their cavalry was contented.
A multitude of darts, scattered [72] with incredible force, were an
additional resource of the infantry. Their military dress, when they
wore any, was nothing more than a loose mantle. A variety of colors was
the only ornament of their wooden or osier shields. Few of the chiefs
were distinguished by cuirasses, scarcely any by helmets. Though the
horses of Germany were neither beautiful, swift, nor practised in the
skilful evolutions of the Roman manege, several of the nations obtained
renown by their cavalry; but, in general, the principal strength of the
Germans consisted in their infantry, [73] which was drawn up in several
deep columns, according to the distinction of tribes and families.
Impatient of fatigue and delay, these half-armed warriors rushed to
battle with dissonant shouts and disordered ranks; and sometimes, by
the effort of native valor, prevailed over the constrained and more
artificial bravery of the Roman mercenaries. But as the barbarians
poured forth their whole souls on the first onset, they knew not how to
rally or to retire. A repulse was a sure defeat; and a defeat was most
commonly total destruction. When we recollect the complete armor of
the Roman soldiers, their discipline, exercises, evolutions, fortified
camps, and military engines, it appears a just matter of surprise,
how the naked and unassisted valor of the barbarians could dare to
encounter, in the field, the strength of the legions, and the various
troops of the auxiliaries, which seconded their operations. The contest
was too unequal, till the introduction of luxury had enervated the
vigor, and a spirit of disobedience and sedition had relaxed the
discipline, of the Roman armies. The introduction of barbarian
auxiliaries into those armies, was a measure attended with very obvious
dangers, as it might gradually instruct the Germans in the arts of war
and of policy. Although they were admitted in small numbers and with the
strictest precaution, the example of Civilis was proper to convince the
Romans, that the danger was not imaginary, and that their precautions
were not always sufficient. [74] During the civil wars that followed
the death of Nero, that artful and intrepid Batavian, whom his enemies
condescended to compare with Hannibal and Sertorius, [75] formed a great
design of freedom and ambition. Eight Batavian cohorts renowned in the
wars of Britain and Italy, repaired to his standard. He introduced an
army of Germans into Gaul, prevailed on the powerful cities of Treves
and Langres to embrace his cause, defeated the legions, destroyed their
fortified camps, and employed against the Romans the military knowledge
which he had acquired in their service. When at length, after an
obstinate struggle, he yielded to the power of the empire, Civilis
secured himself and his country by an honorable treaty. The Batavians
still continued to occupy the islands of the Rhine, [76] the allies, not
the servants, of the Roman monarchy.

[Footnote 72: Missilia spargunt,
Tacit. Germ. c. 6. Either that historian used a vague expression, or
he meant that they were thrown at random.]

[Footnote 73: It was their
principal distinction from the Sarmatians, who generally fought on
horseback.]

[Footnote 74: The relation of this enterprise occupies a great part
of the fourth and fifth books of the History of Tacitus, and is more
remarkable for its eloquence than perspicuity. Sir Henry Saville has
observed several inaccuracies.]

[Footnote 75: Tacit. Hist. iv. 13. Like them he had lost an eye.]

[Footnote 76: It was contained between the two branches of the old
Rhine, as they subsisted before the face of the country was changed by
art and nature. See Cluver German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 30, 37.]


II. The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we consider
the effects that might have been produced by its united effort. The wide
extent of country might very possibly contain a million of warriors, as
all who were of age to bear arms were of a temper to use them. But
this fierce multitude, incapable of concerting or executing any plan
of national greatness, was agitated by various and often hostile
intentions. Germany was divided into more than forty independent states;
and, even in each state, the union of the several tribes was extremely
loose and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew not
how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their resentments were
bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that so frequently happened
in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking, were sufficient
to inflame the minds of whole nations; the private feuds of any
considerable chieftains diffused itself among their followers and
allies. To chastise the insolent, or to plunder the defenceless, were
alike causes of war. The most formidable states of Germany affected
to encompass their territories with a wide frontier of solitude and
devastation. The awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested
the terror of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the
danger of unexpected incursions. [77]

[Footnote 77: Caesar de Bell. Gal. l. vi. 23.]

"The Bructeri [771] (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally
exterminated by the neighboring tribes, [78] provoked by their insolence,
allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by the tutelar
deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand barbarians were destroyed;
not by the Roman arms, but in our sight, and for our entertainment. May
the nations, enemies of Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other!
We have now attained the utmost verge of prosperity, [79] and
have nothing left to demand of fortune, except the discord of the
barbarians." [80]--These sentiments, less worthy of the humanity than of
the patriotism of Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the policy
of his countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient to divide than
to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they could derive neither
honor nor advantage. The money and negotiations of Rome insinuated
themselves into the heart of Germany; and every art of seduction was
used with dignity, to conciliate those nations whom their proximity to
the Rhine or Danube might render the most useful friends as well as the
most troublesome enemies. Chiefs of renown and power were flattered
by the most trifling presents, which they received either as marks of
distinction, or as the instruments of luxury. In civil dissensions the
weaker faction endeavored to strengthen its interest by entering into
secret connections with the governors of the frontier provinces. Every
quarrel among the Germans was fomented by the intrigues of Rome; and
every plan of union and public good was defeated by the stronger bias of
private jealousy and interest. [81]

[Footnote 771: The Bructeri were a non-Suevian tribe, who dwelt below the
duchies of Oldenburgh, and Lauenburgh, on the borders of the Lippe, and
in the Hartz Mountains. It was among them that the priestess Velleda
obtained her renown.--G.]

[Footnote 78: They are mentioned, however, in the ivth and vth centuries
by Nazarius, Ammianus, Claudian, &c., as a tribe of Franks. See Cluver.
Germ. Antiq. l. iii. c. 13.]

[Footnote 79: Urgentibus is the common reading; but good sense, Lipsius,
and some Mss. declare for Vergentibus.]

[Footnote 80: Tacit Germania, c. 33. The pious Abbe de la Bleterie is
very angry with Tacitus, talks of the devil, who was a murderer from the
beginning, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 81: Many traces of this policy may be discovered in Tacitus
and Dion: and many more may be inferred from the principles of human
nature.]

The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign of
Marcus Antoninus, comprehended almost all the nations of Germany, and
even Sarmatia, from the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Danube. [82]
It is impossible for us to determine whether this hasty confederation
was formed by necessity, by reason, or by passion; but we may rest
assured, that the barbarians were neither allured by the indolence, nor
provoked by the ambition, of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion
required all the firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of
ability in the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the
conduct of the most important province on the Upper Danube. After a long
and doubtful conflict, the spirit of the barbarians was subdued. The
Quadi and the Marcomanni, [83] who had taken the lead in the war, were
the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They were commanded to
retire five miles [84] from their own banks of the Danube, and to
deliver up the flower of the youth, who were immediately sent into
Britain, a remote island, where they might be secure as hostages, and
useful as soldiers. [85] On the frequent rebellions of the Quadi and
Marcomanni, the irritated emperor resolved to reduce their country into
the form of a province. His designs were disappointed by death. This
formidable league, however, the only one that appears in the two first
centuries of the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without
leaving any traces behind in Germany.

[Footnote 82: Hist. Aug. p. 31. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxxi. c. 5. Aurel.
Victor. The emperor Marcus was reduced to sell the rich furniture of the
palace, and to enlist slaves and robbers.]

[Footnote 83: The Marcomanni, a colony, who, from the banks of the Rhine
occupied Bohemia and Moravia, had once erected a great and formidable
monarchy under their king Maroboduus. See Strabo, l. vii. [p. 290.]
Vell. Pat. ii. 108. Tacit. Annal. ii. 63. * Note: The Mark-manaen, the
March-men or borderers. There seems little doubt that this was an
appellation, rather than a proper name of a part of the great Suevian or
Teutonic race.--M.]

[Footnote 84: Mr. Wotton (History of Rome, p. 166) increases the
prohibition to ten times the distance. His reasoning is specious, but
not conclusive. Five miles were sufficient for a fortified barrier.]

[Footnote 85: Dion, l. lxxi. and lxxii.]

In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined ourselves
to the general outlines of the manners of Germany, without attempting
to describe or to distinguish the various tribes which filled that
great country in the time of Caesar, of Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the
ancient, or as new tribes successively present themselves in the
series of this history, we shall concisely mention their origin, their
situation, and their particular character. Modern nations are fixed and
permanent societies, connected among themselves by laws and government,
bound to their native soil by arts and agriculture. The German tribes
were voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers, almost of
savages. The same territory often changed its inhabitants in the tide
of conquest and emigration. The same communities, uniting in a plan of
defence or invasion, bestowed a new title on their new confederacy. The
dissolution of an ancient confederacy restored to the independent tribes
their peculiar but long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often
communicated its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of
volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite leader;
his camp became their country, and some circumstance of the enterprise
soon gave a common denomination to the mixed multitude. The distinctions
of the ferocious invaders were perpetually varied by themselves, and
confounded by the astonished subjects of the Roman empire. [86]

[Footnote 86: See an excellent dissertation on the origin and migrations
of nations, in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii.
p. 48--71. It is seldom that the antiquarian and the philosopher are so
happily blended.]

Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal
subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in these
busy scenes is very different, according to the different condition of
mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient subjects pursue their
useful occupations in peace and obscurity. The attention of the writer,
as well as of the reader, is solely confined to a court, a capital, a
regular army, and the districts which happen to be the occasional scene
of military operations. But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season
of civil commotions, or the situation of petty republics, [87] raises
almost every member of the community into action, and consequently into
notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the people
of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply their numbers.
The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of armies and nations,
inclines us to forget that the same objects are continually repeated
under a variety of appellations, and that the most splendid appellations
have been frequently lavished on the most inconsiderable objects.

[Footnote 87: Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000
citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on the
number of mankind in ancient and modern times. * Note: This number,
though too positively stated, is probably not far wrong, as an average
estimate. On the subject of Athenian population, see St. Croix, Acad.
des Inscrip. xlviii. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, i. 47. Eng Trans,
Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 381. The latter author
estimates the citizens of Sparta at 33,000--M.]




Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Aemilianus, Valerian And Gallienus--Part I.

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

From the great secular games celebrated by Philip, to the death of the
emperor Gallienus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and misfortune.
During that calamitous period, every instant of time was marked, every
province of the Roman world was afflicted, by barbarous invaders, and
military tyrants, and the ruined empire seemed to approach the last and
fatal moment of its dissolution. The confusion of the times, and the
scarcity of authentic memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the
historian, who attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of
narration. Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often
obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect, to
compare, and to conjecture: and though he ought never to place his
conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human nature, and
of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained passions, might, on
some occasions, supply the want of historical materials.

There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving, that the
successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the ties of
allegiance between the prince and people; that all the generals of
Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their master; and that
the caprice of armies, long since habituated to frequent and violent
revolutions, might every day raise to the throne the most obscure of
their fellow-soldiers. History can only add, that the rebellion against
the emperor Philip broke out in the summer of the year two hundred and
forty-nine, among the legions of Maesia; and that a subaltern officer,
[1] named Marinus, was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was
alarmed. He dreaded lest the treason of the Maesian army should
prove the first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with
the consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the
intelligence to the senate. A gloomy silence prevailed, the effect of
fear, and perhaps of disaffection; till at length Decius, one of the
assembly, assuming a spirit worthy of his noble extraction, ventured to
discover more intrepidity than the emperor seemed to possess. He treated
the whole business with contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult,
and Philip's rival as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would
be destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The speedy
completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just esteem for so
able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the only person capable
of restoring peace and discipline to an army whose tumultuous spirit did
not immediately subside after the murder of Marinus. Decius, [2] who
long resisted his own nomination, seems to have insinuated the danger of
presenting a leader of merit to the angry and apprehensive minds of
the soldiers; and his prediction was again confirmed by the event. The
legions of Maesia forced their judge to become their accomplice. They
left him only the alternative of death or the purple. His subsequent
conduct, after that decisive measure, was unavoidable. He conducted, or
followed, his army to the confines of Italy, whither Philip, collecting
all his force to repel the formidable competitor whom he had raised up,
advanced to meet him. The Imperial troops were superior in number;
but the rebels formed an army of veterans, commanded by an able and
experienced leader. Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to
death a few days afterwards at Verona. His son and associate in
the empire was massacred at Rome by the Praetorian guards; and the
victorious Decius, with more favorable circumstances than the ambition
of that age can usually plead, was universally acknowledged by the
senate and provinces. It is reported, that, immediately after his
reluctant acceptance of the title of Augustus, he had assured Philip,
by a private message, of his innocence and loyalty, solemnly protesting,
that, on his arrival on Italy, he would resign the Imperial ornaments,
and return to the condition of an obedient subject. His professions
might be sincere; but in the situation where fortune had placed him, it
was scarcely possible that he could either forgive or be forgiven. [3]

[Footnote 1: The expression used by Zosimus and Zonaras may signify that
Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion.]

[Footnote 2: His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia,
(Eutrop. ix. Victor. in Caesarib. et Epitom.,) seems to contradict,
unless it was merely accidental, his supposed descent from the Decii.
Six hundred years had bestowed nobility on the Decii: but at the
commencement of that period, they were only plebeians of merit, and
among the first who shared the consulship with the haughty patricians.
Plebeine Deciorum animae, &c. Juvenal, Sat. viii. 254. See the spirited
speech of Decius, in Livy. x. 9, 10.]

[Footnote 3: Zosimus, l. i. p. 20, c. 22. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 624, edit.
Louvre.]

The emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of peace and
the administration of justice, when he was summoned to the banks of
the Danube by the invasion of the Goths. This is the first considerable
occasion in which history mentions that great people, who afterwards
broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol, and reigned in Gaul, Spain,
and Italy. So memorable was the part which they acted in the subversion
of the Western empire, that the name of Goths is frequently but
improperly used as a general appellation ef rude and warlike barbarism.

In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conquest of Italy,
the Goths, in possession of present greatness, very naturally indulged
themselves in the prospect of past and of future glory. They wished to
preserve the memory of their ancestors, and to transmit to posterity
their own achievements. The principal minister of the court of Ravenna,
the learned Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in
a Gothic history, which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to the
imperfect abridgment of Jornandes. [4] These writers passed with the most
artful conciseness over the misfortunes of the nation, celebrated its
successful valor, and adorned the triumph with many Asiatic trophies,
that more properly belonged to the people of Scythia. On the faith of
ancient songs, the uncertain, but the only memorials of barbarians,
they deduced the first origin of the Goths from the vast island, or
peninsula, of Scandinavia. [5] [501] That extreme country of the North
was not unknown to the conquerors of Italy: the ties of ancient
consanguinity had been strengthened by recent offices of friendship; and
a Scandinavian king had cheerfully abdicated his savage greatness, that
he might pass the remainder of his days in the peaceful and polished
court of Ravenna. [6] Many vestiges, which cannot be ascribed to the
arts of popular vanity, attest the ancient residence of the Goths in the
countries beyond the Rhine. From the time of the geographer Ptolemy, the
southern part of Sweden seems to have continued in the possession of the
less enterprising remnant of the nation, and a large territory is even
at present divided into east and west Gothland. During the middle
ages, (from the ninth to the twelfth century,) whilst Christianity was
advancing with a slow progress into the North, the Goths and the
Swedes composed two distinct and sometimes hostile members of the
same monarchy. [7] The latter of these two names has prevailed without
extinguishing the former. The Swedes, who might well be satisfied with
their own fame in arms, have, in every age, claimed the kindred glory of
the Goths. In a moment of discontent against the court of Rome, Charles
the Twelfth insinuated, that his victorious troops were not degenerated
from their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of the
world. [8]

[Footnote 4: See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes; it is
surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent edition,
published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.]

[Footnote 5: On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some old
Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.]

[Footnote 501: The Goths have inhabited Scandinavia, but it was not
their original habitation. This great nation was anciently of the
Suevian race; it occupied, in the time of Tacitus, and long before,
Mecklenburgh, Pomerania Southern Prussia and the north-west of Poland. A
little before the birth of J. C., and in the first years of that
century, they belonged to the kingdom of Marbod, king of the Marcomanni:
but Cotwalda, a young Gothic prince, delivered them from that tyranny,
and established his own power over the kingdom of the Marcomanni,
already much weakened by the victories of Tiberius. The power of the
Goths at that time must have been great: it was probably from them that
the Sinus Codanus (the Baltic) took this name, as it was afterwards
called Mare Suevicum, and Mare Venedicum, during the superiority of the
proper Suevi and the Venedi. The epoch in which the Goths passed into
Scandinavia is unknown. See Adelung, Hist. of Anc. Germany, p. 200.
Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 458.--G. ----M. St. Martin observes, that the
Scandinavian descent of the Goths rests on the authority of Jornandes,
who professed to derive it from the traditions of the Goths. He is
supported by Procopius and Paulus Diaconus. Yet the Goths are
unquestionably the same with the Getae of the earlier historians. St.
Martin, note on Le Beau, Hist. du bas Empire, iii. 324. The identity of
the Getae and Goths is by no means generally admitted. On the whole,
they seem to be one vast branch of the Indo-Teutonic race, who spread
irregularly towards the north of Europe, and at different periods, and
in different regions, came in contact with the more civilized nations of
the south. At this period, there seems to have been a reflux of these
Gothic tribes from the North. Malte Brun considers that there are strong
grounds for receiving the Islandic traditions commented by the Danish
Varro, M. Suhm. From these, and the voyage of Pytheas, which Malte Brun
considers genuine, the Goths were in possession of Scandinavia,
Ey-Gothland, 250 years before J. C., and of a tract on the continent
(Reid-Gothland) between the mouths of the Vistula and the Oder. In their
southern migration, they followed the course of the Vistula; afterwards,
of the Dnieper. Malte Brun, Geogr. i. p. 387, edit. 1832. Geijer, the
historian of Sweden, ably maintains the Scandinavian origin of the
Goths. The Gothic language, according to Bopp, is the link between the
Sanscrit and the modern Teutonic dialects: "I think that I am reading
Sanscrit when I am reading Olphilas." Bopp, Conjugations System der
Sanscrit Sprache, preface, p. x--M.]

[Footnote 6: Jornandes, c. 3.]

[Footnote 7: See in the Prolegomena of Grotius some large extracts from
Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former wrote in the year 1077,
the latter flourished about the year 1200.]

[Footnote 8: Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. l. iii. When the
Austrians desired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus
Adolphus, they always represented that conqueror as the lineal successor
of Alaric. Harte's History of Gustavus, vol. ii. p. 123.]

Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple subsisted
at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and Goths. It was
enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had acquired in their
piratical adventures, and sanctified by the uncouth representations of
the three principal deities, the god of war, the goddess of generation,
and the god of thunder. In the general festival, that was solemnized
every ninth year, nine animals of every species (without excepting
the human) were sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the
sacred grove adjacent to the temple. [9] The only traces that now
subsist of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, [901] a
system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth century,
and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the most valuable
remains of their ancient traditions.

[Footnote 9: See Adam of Bremen in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 105. The
temple of Upsal was destroyed by Ingo, king of Sweden, who began
his reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years afterwards, a
Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See Dalin's History of
Sweden, in the Bibliotheque Raisonee.]

[Footnote 901: The Eddas have at length been made accessible to European
scholars by the completion of the publication of the Saemundine Edda by
the Arna Magnaean Commission, in 3 vols. 4to., with a copious lexicon of
northern mythology.--M.]

Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of the Edda, we can easily
distinguish two persons confounded under the name of Odin; the god of
war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The latter, the Mahomet
of the North, instituted a religion adapted to the climate and to the
people. Numerous tribes on either side of the Baltic were subdued by the
invincible valor of Odin, by his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame
which he acquired of a most skilful magician. The faith that he had
propagated, during a long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a
voluntary death. Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease
and infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn
assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine mortal
places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying voice) to prepare
the feast of heroes in the palace of the God of war. [10]

[Footnote 10: Mallet, Introduction a l'Histoire du Dannemarc.]

The native and proper habitation of Odin is distinguished by the
appellation of As-gard. The happy resemblance of that name with As-burg,
or As-of, [11] words of a similar signification, has given rise to an
historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we could almost wish
to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is supposed that Odin was the
chief of a tribe of barbarians which dwelt on the banks of the Lake
Maeotis, till the fall of Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the
North with servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power
which he was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of
the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of forming, in
that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and a people, which, in
some remote age, might be subservient to his immortal revenge; when his
invincible Goths, armed with martial fanaticism, should issue in
numerous swarms from the neighborhood of the Polar circle, to chastise
the oppressors of mankind. [12]

[Footnote 11: Mallet, c. iv. p. 55, has collected from Strabo, Pliny,
Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the vestiges of such a city and
people.]

[Footnote 12: This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by deducting the
enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a cause, might supply
the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot safely be received as
authentic history. According to the obvious sense of the Edda, and the
interpretation of the most skilful critics, As-gard, instead of denoting
a real city of the Asiatic Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of
the mystic abode of the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence
the prophet was supposed to descend, when he announced his new religion
to the Gothic nations, who were already seated in the southern parts of
Sweden. * Note: A curious letter may be consulted on this subject from
the Swede, Ihre counsellor in the Chancery of Upsal, printed at Upsal by
Edman, in 1772 and translated into German by M. Schlozer. Gottingen,
printed for Dietericht, 1779.--G. ----Gibbon, at a later period of his
work, recanted his opinion of the truth of this expedition of Odin. The
Asiatic origin of the Goths is almost certain from the affinity of their
language to the Sanscrit and Persian; but their northern writers, when
all mythology was reduced to hero worship.--M.]

If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of preserving a
faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we must not expect, from
such unlettered barbarians, any distinct account of the time and
circumstances of their emigration. To cross the Baltic was an easy and
natural attempt. The inhabitants of Sweden were masters of a sufficient
number of large vessels, with oars, [13] and the distance is little more
than one hundred miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania
and Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At
least as early as the Christian aera, [14] and as late as the age of the
Antonines, [15] the Goths were established towards the mouth of the
Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of
Thorn, Elbing, Koningsberg, and Dantzick, were long afterwards founded.
[16] Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes of the Vandals were
spread along the banks of the Oder, and the sea-coast of Pomerania and
Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance of manners, complexion, religion,
and language, seemed to indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were
originally one great people. [17] The latter appear to have been
subdivided into Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidae. [18] The distinction
among the Vandals was more strongly marked by the independent names of
Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, and a variety of other petty states, many
of which, in a future age, expanded themselves into powerful monarchies.
[181]

[Footnote 13: Tacit. Germania, c. 44.]

[Footnote 14: Tacit. Annal. ii. 62. If we could yield a firm assent to
the navigations of Pytheas of Marseilles, we must allow that the Goths
had passed the Baltic at least three hundred years before Christ.]

[Footnote 15: Ptolemy, l. ii.]

[Footnote 16: By the German colonies who followed the arms of the
Teutonic knights. The conquest and conversion of Prussia were completed
by those adventurers in the thirteenth century.]

[Footnote 17: Pliny (Hist. Natur. iv. 14) and Procopius (in Bell.
Vandal. l. i. c. l) agree in this opinion. They lived in distant ages,
and possessed different means of investigating the truth.]

[Footnote 18: The Ostro and Visi, the eastern and western Goths,
obtained those denominations from their original seats in Scandinavia.
In all their future marches and settlements they preserved, with their
names, the same relative situation. When they first departed from
Sweden, the infant colony was contained in three vessels. The third,
being a heavy sailer, lagged behind, and the crew, which afterwards
swelled into a nation, received from that circumstance the appellation
of Gepidae or Loiterers. Jornandes, c. 17. * Note: It was not in
Scandinavia that the Goths were divided into Ostrogoths and Visigoths;
that division took place after their irruption into Dacia in the third
century: those who came from Mecklenburgh and Pomerania were called
Visigoths; those who came from the south of Prussia, and the northwest
of Poland, called themselves Ostrogoths. Adelung, Hist. All. p. 202
Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 431.--G.]

[Footnote 181: This opinion is by no means probable. The Vandals and the
Goths equally belonged to the great division of the Suevi, but the
two tribes were very different. Those who have treated on this part
of history, appear to me to have neglected to remark that the ancients
almost always gave the name of the dominant and conquering people to all
the weaker and conquered races. So Pliny calls Vindeli, Vandals, all the
people of the north-east of Europe, because at that epoch the Vandals
were doubtless the conquering tribe. Caesar, on the contrary, ranges
under the name of Suevi, many of the tribes whom Pliny reckons as
Vandals, because the Suevi, properly so called, were then the most
powerful tribe in Germany. When the Goths, become in their turn
conquerors, had subjugated the nations whom they encountered on their
way, these nations lost their name with their liberty, and became of
Gothic origin. The Vandals themselves were then considered as Goths; the
Heruli, the Gepidae, &c., suffered the same fate. A common origin was
thus attributed to tribes who had only been united by the conquests of
some dominant nation, and this confusion has given rise to a number of
historical errors.--G. ----M. St. Martin has a learned note (to Le Beau,
v. 261) on the origin of the Vandals. The difficulty appears to be in
rejecting the close analogy of the name with the Vend or Wendish race,
who were of Sclavonian, not of Suevian or German, origin. M. St. Martin
supposes that the different races spread from the head of the Adriatic
to the Baltic, and even the Veneti, on the shores of the Adriatic, the
Vindelici, the tribes which gave their name to Vindobena, Vindoduna,
Vindonissa, were branches of the same stock with the Sclavonian Venedi,
who at one time gave their name to the Baltic; that they all spoke
dialects of the Wendish language, which still prevails in Carinthia,
Carniola, part of Bohemia, and Lusatia, and is hardly extinct in
Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The Vandal race, once so fearfully
celebrated in the annals of mankind, has so utterly perished from the
face of the earth, that we are not aware that any vestiges of their
language can be traced, so as to throw light on the disputed question of
their German, their Sclavonian, or independent origin. The weight of
ancient authority seems against M. St. Martin's opinion. Compare, on the
Vandals, Malte Brun. 394. Also Gibbon's note, c. xli. n. 38.--M.]

In the age of the Antonines, the Goths were still seated in Prussia.
About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province of Dacia had
already experienced their proximity by frequent and destructive inroads.
[19] In this interval, therefore, of about seventy years, we must place
the second migration of about seventy years, we must place the second
migration of the Goths from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that
produced it lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the
conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine, a
victory or a defeat, an oracle of the gods or the eloquence of a daring
leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the milder climates
of the south. Besides the influence of a martial religion, the numbers
and spirit of the Goths were equal to the most dangerous adventures.
The use of round bucklers and short swords rendered them formidable in
a close engagement; the manly obedience which they yielded to hereditary
kings, gave uncommon union and stability to their councils; [20] and
the renowned Amala, the hero of that age, and the tenth ancestor of
Theodoric, king of Italy, enforced, by the ascendant of personal merit,
the prerogative of his birth, which he derived from the Anses, or demi
gods of the Gothic nation. [21]

[Footnote 19: See a fragment of Peter Patricius in the Excerpta
Legationum and with regard to its probable date, see Tillemont, Hist,
des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 346.]

[Footnote 20: Omnium harum gentium insigne, rotunda scuta, breves
gladii, et erga rages obsequium. Tacit. Germania, c. 43. The Goths
probably acquired their iron by the commerce of amber.]

[Footnote 21: Jornandes, c. 13, 14.]

The fame of a great enterprise excited the bravest warriors from all the
Vandalic states of Germany, many of whom are seen a few years afterwards
combating under the common standard of the Goths. [22] The first motions
of the emigrants carried them to the banks of the Prypec, a river
universally conceived by the ancients to be the southern branch of the
Borysthenes. [23] The windings of that great stream through the plains
of Poland and Russia gave a direction to their line of march, and a
constant supply of fresh water and pasturage to their numerous herds
of cattle. They followed the unknown course of the river, confident in
their valor, and careless of whatever power might oppose their progress.
The Bastarnae and the Venedi were the first who presented themselves;
and the flower of their youth, either from choice or compulsion,
increased the Gothic army. The Bastarnae dwelt on the northern side of
the Carpathian Mountains: the immense tract of land that separated the
Bastarnae from the savages of Finland was possessed, or rather wasted,
by the Venedi; [24] we have some reason to believe that the first of
these nations, which distinguished itself in the Macedonian war, [25] and
was afterwards divided into the formidable tribes of the Peucini, the
Borani, the Carpi, &c., derived its origin from the Germans. [251] With
better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned to the Venedi,
who rendered themselves so famous in the middle ages. [26] But the
confusion of blood and manners on that doubtful frontier often perplexed
the most accurate observers. [27] As the Goths advanced near the Euxine
Sea, they encountered a purer race of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the
Alani, [271] and the Roxolani; and they were probably the first Germans
who saw the mouths of the Borysthenes, and of the Tanais. If we inquire
into the characteristic marks of the people of Germany and of Sarmatia,
we shall discover that those two great portions of human kind were
principally distinguished by fixed huts or movable tents, by a close
dress or flowing garments, by the marriage of one or of several wives,
by a military force, consisting, for the most part, either of infantry
or cavalry; and above all, by the use of the Teutonic, or of the
Sclavonian language; the last of which has been diffused by conquest,
from the confines of Italy to the neighborhood of Japan.

[Footnote 22: The Heruli, and the Uregundi or Burgundi, are particularly
mentioned. See Mascou's History of the Germans, l. v. A passage in the
Augustan History, p. 28, seems to allude to this great emigration.
The Marcomannic war was partly occasioned by the pressure of barbarous
tribes, who fled before the arms of more northern barbarians.]

[Footnote 23: D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, and the third part of his
incomparable map of Europe.]

[Footnote 24: Tacit. Germania, c. 46.]

[Footnote 25: Cluver. Germ. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 43.]

[Footnote 251: The Bastarnae cannot be considered original inhabitants of
Germany Strabo and Tacitus appear to doubt it; Pliny alone calls them
Germans: Ptolemy and Dion treat them as Scythians, a vague appellation
at this period of history; Livy, Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus, call
them Gauls, and this is the most probable opinion. They descended from
the Gauls who entered Germany under Signoesus. They are always found
associated with other Gaulish tribes, such as the Boll, the Taurisci,
&c., and not to the German tribes. The names of their chiefs or princes,
Chlonix, Chlondicus. Deldon, are not German names. Those who were
settled in the island of Peuce in the Danube, took the name of Peucini.
The Carpi appear in 237 as a Suevian tribe who had made an irruption
into Maesia. Afterwards they reappear under the Ostrogoths, with whom
they were probably blended. Adelung, p. 236, 278.--G.]

[Footnote 26: The Venedi, the Slavi, and the Antes, were the three great
tribes of the same people. Jornandes, 24. * Note Dagger: They formed the
great Sclavonian nation.--G.]

[Footnote 27: Tacitus most assuredly deserves that title, and even his
cautious suspense is a proof of his diligent inquiries.]

[Footnote 271: Jac. Reineggs supposed that he had found, in the mountains
of Caucasus, some descendants of the Alani. The Tartars call them
Edeki-Alan: they speak a peculiar dialect of the ancient language of the
Tartars of Caucasus. See J. Reineggs' Descr. of Caucasus, p. 11, 13.--G.
According to Klaproth, they are the Ossetes of the present day in Mount
Caucasus and were the same with the Albanians of antiquity. Klaproth,
Hist. de l'Asie, p. 180.--M.]




Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Aemilianus, Valerian And Gallienus.--Part II.

The Goths were now in possession of the Ukraine, a country of
considerable extent and uncommon fertility, intersected with navigable
rivers, which, from either side, discharge themselves into the
Borysthenes; and interspersed with large and leafy forests of oaks.
The plenty of game and fish, the innumerable bee-hives deposited in the
hollow of old trees, and in the cavities of rocks, and forming, even in
that rude age, a valuable branch of commerce, the size of the cattle,
the temperature of the air, the aptness of the soil for every species of
gain, and the luxuriancy of the vegetation, all displayed the liberality
of Nature, and tempted the industry of man. [28] But the Goths withstood
all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of idleness, of
poverty, and of rapine.

[Footnote 28: Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 593. Mr. Bell
(vol. ii. p 379) traversed the Ukraine, in his journey from
Petersburgh to Constantinople. The modern face of the country is a just
representation of the ancient, since, in the hands of the Cossacks, it
still remains in a state of nature.]

The Scythian hordes, which, towards the east, bordered on the new
settlements of the Goths, presented nothing to their arms, except the
doubtful chance of an unprofitable victory. But the prospect of the
Roman territories was far more alluring; and the fields of Dacia were
covered with rich harvests, sown by the hands of an industrious, and
exposed to be gathered by those of a warlike, people. It is probable
that the conquests of Trajan, maintained by his successors, less for
any real advantage than for ideal dignity, had contributed to weaken the
empire on that side. The new and unsettled province of Dacia was neither
strong enough to resist, nor rich enough to satiate, the rapaciousness
of the barbarians. As long as the remote banks of the Niester were
considered as the boundary of the Roman power, the fortifications of the
Lower Danube were more carelessly guarded, and the inhabitants of
Maesia lived in supine security, fondly conceiving themselves at an
inaccessible distance from any barbarian invaders. The irruptions of
the Goths, under the reign of Philip, fatally convinced them of their
mistake. The king, or leader, of that fierce nation, traversed with
contempt the province of Dacia, and passed both the Niester and the
Danube without encountering any opposition capable of retarding his
progress. The relaxed discipline of the Roman troops betrayed the most
important posts, where they were stationed, and the fear of deserved
punishment induced great numbers of them to enlist under the Gothic
standard. The various multitude of barbarians appeared, at length,
under the walls of Marcianopolis, a city built by Trajan in honor of
his sister, and at that time the capital of the second Maesia. [29] The
inhabitants consented to ransom their lives and property by the payment
of a large sum of money, and the invaders retreated back into their
deserts, animated, rather than satisfied, with the first success of
their arms against an opulent but feeble country. Intelligence was soon
transmitted to the emperor Decius, that Cniva, king of the Goths, had
passed the Danube a second time, with more considerable forces; that his
numerous detachments scattered devastation over the province of Maesia,
whilst the main body of the army, consisting of seventy thousand Germans
and Sarmatians, a force equal to the most daring achievements, required
the presence of the Roman monarch, and the exertion of his military
power.

[Footnote 29: In the sixteenth chapter of Jornandes, instead
of secundo Maesiam we may venture to substitute secundam, the second
Maesia, of which Marcianopolis was certainly the capital. (See Hierocles
de Provinciis, and Wesseling ad locum, p. 636. Itinerar.) It is
surprising how this palpable error of the scribe should escape the
judicious correction of Grotius. Note: Luden has observed that Jornandes
mentions two passages over the Danube; this relates to the second
irruption into Maesia. Geschichte des T V. ii. p. 448.--M.]

Decius found the Goths engaged before Nicopolis, one of the many
monuments of Trajan's victories. [30] On his approach they raised the
siege, but with a design only of marching away to a conquest of greater
importance, the siege of Philippopolis, a city of Thrace, founded by the
father of Alexander, near the foot of Mount Haemus. [31] Decius followed
them through a difficult country, and by forced marches; but when he
imagined himself at a considerable distance from the rear of the Goths,
Cniva turned with rapid fury on his pursuers. The camp of the Romans was
surprised and pillaged, and, for the first time, their emperor fled
in disorder before a troop of half-armed barbarians. After a long
resistance, Philoppopolis, destitute of succor, was taken by storm. A
hundred thousand persons are reported to have been massacred in the sack
of that great city. [32] Many prisoners of consequence became a valuable
accession to the spoil; and Priscus, a brother of the late emperor
Philip, blushed not to assume the purple, under the protection of the
barbarous enemies of Rome. [33] The time, however, consumed in that
tedious siege, enabled Decius to revive the courage, restore the
discipline, and recruit the numbers of his troops. He intercepted
several parties of Carpi, and other Germans, who were hastening to
share the victory of their countrymen, [34] intrusted the passes of the
mountains to officers of approved valor and fidelity, [35] repaired and
strengthened the fortifications of the Danube, and exerted his utmost
vigilance to oppose either the progress or the retreat of the Goths.
Encouraged by the return of fortune, he anxiously waited for an
opportunity to retrieve, by a great and decisive blow, his own glory,
and that of the Roman arms. [36]

[Footnote 30: The place is still called Nicop. D'Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307. The little stream, on whose banks it stood,
falls into the Danube.]

[Footnote 31: Stephan. Byzant. de Urbibus, p. 740. Wesseling, Itinerar.
p. 136. Zonaras, by an odd mistake, ascribes the foundation of
Philippopolis to the immediate predecessor of Decius. * Note: Now
Philippopolis or Philiba; its situation among the hills caused it to be
also called Trimontium. D'Anville, Geog. Anc. i. 295.--G.]

[Footnote 32: Ammian. xxxi. 5.]

[Footnote 33: Aurel. Victor. c. 29.]

[Footnote 34: Victorioe Carpicoe, on some medals of Decius, insinuate
these advantages.]

[Footnote 35: Claudius (who afterwards reigned with so much glory) was
posted in the pass of Thermopylae with 200 Dardanians, 100 heavy and
160 light horse, 60 Cretan archers, and 1000 well-armed recruits. See
an original letter from the emperor to his officer, in the Augustan
History, p. 200.]

[Footnote 36: Jornandes, c. 16--18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22. In the general
account of this war, it is easy to discover the opposite prejudices of
the Gothic and the Grecian writer. In carelessness alone they are
alike.]

At the same time when Decius was struggling with the violence of the
tempest, his mind, calm and deliberate amidst the tumult of war,
investigated the more general causes, that, since the age of the
Antonines, had so impetuously urged the decline of the Roman greatness.
He soon discovered that it was impossible to replace that greatness on a
permanent basis, without restoring public virtue, ancient principles and
manners, and the oppressed majesty of the laws. To execute this noble
but arduous design, he first resolved to revive the obsolete office of
censor; an office which, as long as it had subsisted in its pristine
integrity, had so much contributed to the perpetuity of the state, [37]
till it was usurped and gradually neglected by the Caesars. [38]
Conscious that the favor of the sovereign may confer power, but that the
esteem of the people can alone bestow authority, he submitted the choice
of the censor to the unbiased voice of the senate. By their unanimous
votes, or rather acclamations, Valerian, who was afterwards emperor, and
who then served with distinction in the army of Decius, was declared the
most worthy of that exalted honor. As soon as the decree of the senate
was transmitted to the emperor, he assembled a great council in his
camp, and before the investiture of the censor elect, he apprised him of
the difficulty and importance of his great office. "Happy Valerian,"
said the prince to his distinguished subject, "happy in the general
approbation of the senate and of the Roman republic! Accept the
censorship of mankind; and judge of our manners. You will select those
who deserve to continue members of the senate; you will restore the
equestrian order to its ancient splendor; you will improve the revenue,
yet moderate the public burdens. You will distinguish into regular
classes the various and infinite multitude of citizens, and accurately
view the military strength, the wealth, the virtue, and the resources of
Rome. Your decisions shall obtain the force of laws. The army, the
palace, the ministers of justice, and the great officers of the empire,
are all subject to your tribunal. None are exempted, excepting only the
ordinary consuls, [39] the praefect of the city, the king of the
sacrifices, and (as long as she preserves her chastity inviolate) the
eldest of the vestal virgins. Even these few, who may not dread the
severity, will anxiously solicit the esteem, of the Roman censor." [40]

[Footnote 37: Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c. viii.
He illustrates the nature and use of the censorship with his usual
ingenuity, and with uncommon precision.]

[Footnote 38: Vespasian and Titus were the last censors, (Pliny, Hist.
Natur vii. 49. Censorinus de Die Natali.) The modesty of Trajan
refused an honor which he deserved, and his example became a law to the
Antonines. See Pliny's Panegyric, c. 45 and 60.]

[Footnote 39: Yet in spite of his exemption, Pompey appeared before
that tribunal during his consulship. The occasion, indeed, was equally
singular and honorable. Plutarch in Pomp. p. 630.]

[Footnote 40: See the original speech in the Augustan Hist. p. 173-174.]

A magistrate, invested with such extensive powers, would have appeared
not so much the minister, as the colleague of his sovereign. [41]
Valerian justly dreaded an elevation so full of envy and of suspicion.
He modestly argued the alarming greatness of the trust, his own
insufficiency, and the incurable corruption of the times. He artfully
insinuated, that the office of censor was inseparable from the Imperial
dignity, and that the feeble hands of a subject were unequal to the
support of such an immense weight of cares and of power. [42] The
approaching event of war soon put an end to the prosecution of a project
so specious, but so impracticable; and whilst it preserved Valerian
from the danger, saved the emperor Decius from the disappointment, which
would most probably have attended it. A censor may maintain, he can
never restore, the morals of a state. It is impossible for such a
magistrate to exert his authority with benefit, or even with effect,
unless he is supported by a quick sense of honor and virtue in the minds
of the people, by a decent reverence for the public opinion, and by a
train of useful prejudices combating on the side of national manners.
In a period when these principles are annihilated, the censorial
jurisdiction must either sink into empty pageantry, or be converted
into a partial instrument of vexatious oppression. [43] It was easier to
vanquish the Goths than to eradicate the public vices; yet even in the
first of these enterprises, Decius lost his army and his life.

[Footnote 41: This transaction might deceive Zonaras, who supposes that
Valerian was actually declared the colleague of Decius, l. xii. p. 625.]

[Footnote 42: Hist. August. p. 174. The emperor's reply is omitted.]

[Footnote 43: Such as the attempts of Augustus towards a reformation of
manness. Tacit. Annal. iii. 24.]

The Goths were now, on every side, surrounded and pursued by the Roman
arms. The flower of their troops had perished in the long siege
of Philippopolis, and the exhausted country could no longer afford
subsistence for the remaining multitude of licentious barbarians.
Reduced to this extremity, the Goths would gladly have purchased, by
the surrender of all their booty and prisoners, the permission of
an undisturbed retreat. But the emperor, confident of victory, and
resolving, by the chastisement of these invaders, to strike a salutary
terror into the nations of the North, refused to listen to any terms of
accommodation. The high-spirited barbarians preferred death to slavery.
An obscure town of Maesia, called Forum Terebronii, [44] was the scene of
the battle. The Gothic army was drawn up in three lines, and either from
choice or accident, the front of the third line was covered by a morass.
In the beginning of the action, the son of Decius, a youth of the
fairest hopes, and already associated to the honors of the purple, was
slain by an arrow, in the sight of his afflicted father; who, summoning
all his fortitude, admonished the dismayed troops, that the loss of
a single soldier was of little importance to the republic. [45] The
conflict was terrible; it was the combat of despair against grief and
rage. The first line of the Goths at length gave way in disorder; the
second, advancing to sustain it, shared its fate; and the third only
remained entire, prepared to dispute the passage of the morass, which
was imprudently attempted by the presumption of the enemy. "Here the
fortune of the day turned, and all things became adverse to the Romans;
the place deep with ooze, sinking under those who stood, slippery to
such as advanced; their armor heavy, the waters deep; nor could they
wield, in that uneasy situation, their weighty javelins. The barbarians,
on the contrary, were inured to encounter in the bogs, their persons
tall, their spears long, such as could wound at a distance." [46] In this
morass the Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irrecoverably
lost; nor could the body of the emperor ever be found. [47] Such was the
fate of Decius, in the fiftieth year of his age; an accomplished prince,
active in war and affable in peace; [48] who, together with his son,
has deserved to be compared, both in life and death, with the brightest
examples of ancient virtue. [49]

[Footnote 44: Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 598. As
Zosimus and some of his followers mistake the Danube for the Tanais,
they place the field of battle in the plains of Scythia.]

[Footnote 45: Aurelius Victor allows two distinct actions for the
deaths of the two Decii; but I have preferred the account of Jornandes.]

[Footnote 46: I have ventured to copy from Tacitus (Annal. i. 64)
the picture of a similar engagement between a Roman army and a German
tribe.]

[Footnote 47: Jornandes, c. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22, [c. 23.]
Zonaras, l. xii. p. 627. Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 48: The Decii were killed before the end of the year two
hundred and fifty-one, since the new princes took possession of the
consulship on the ensuing calends of January.]

[Footnote 49: Hist. August. p. 223, gives them a very honorable place
among the small number of good emperors who reigned between Augustus and
Diocletian.]

This fatal blow humbled, for a very little time, she insolence of the
legions. They appeared to have patiently expected, and submissively
obeyed, the decree of the senate which regulated the succession to the
throne. From a just regard for the memory of Decius, the Imperial title
was conferred on Hostilianus, his only surviving son; but an equal rank,
with more effectual power, was granted to Gallus, whose experience and
ability seemed equal to the great trust of guardian to the young prince
and the distressed empire. [50] The first care of the new emperor was
to deliver the Illyrian provinces from the intolerable weight of the
victorious Goths. He consented to leave in their hands the rich
fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and what was still more
disgraceful, a great number of prisoners of the highest merit and
quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every conveniency that
could assuage their angry spirits or facilitate their so much wished-for
departure; and he even promised to pay them annually a large sum
of gold, on condition they should never afterwards infest the Roman
territories by their incursions. [51]

[Footnote 50: Haec ubi Patres comperere.. .. decernunt. Victor in
Caesaribus.]

[Footnote 51: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

In the age of the Scipios, the most opulent kings of the earth, who
courted the protection of the victorious commonwealth, were gratified
with such trifling presents as could only derive a value from the hand
that bestowed them; an ivory chair, a coarse garment of purple, an
inconsiderable piece of plate, or a quantity of copper coin. [52] After
the wealth of nations had centred in Rome, the emperors displayed their
greatness, and even their policy, by the regular exercise of a steady
and moderate liberality towards the allies of the state. They relieved
the poverty of the barbarians, honored their merit, and recompensed
their fidelity. These voluntary marks of bounty were understood to flow,
not from the fears, but merely from the generosity or the gratitude of
the Romans; and whilst presents and subsidies were liberally distributed
among friends and suppliants, they were sternly refused to such as
claimed them as a debt. [53] But this stipulation, of an annual payment
to a victorious enemy, appeared without disguise in the light of an
ignominious tribute; the minds of the Romans were not yet accustomed to
accept such unequal laws from a tribe of barbarians; and the prince,
who by a necessary concession had probably saved his country, became the
object of the general contempt and aversion. The death of Hostiliamus,
though it happened in the midst of a raging pestilence, was interpreted
as the personal crime of Gallus; [54] and even the defeat of the later
emperor was ascribed by the voice of suspicion to the perfidious
counsels of his hated successor. [55] The tranquillity which the empire
enjoyed during the first year of his administration, [56] served rather
to inflame than to appease the public discontent; and as soon as the
apprehensions of war were removed, the infamy of the peace was more
deeply and more sensibly felt.

[Footnote 52: A Sella, a Toga, and a golden Patera of five pounds
weight, were accepted with joy and gratitude by the wealthy king of
Egypt. (Livy, xxvii. 4.) Quina millia Aeris, a weight of copper, in
value about eighteen pounds sterling, was the usual present made to
foreign are ambassadors. (Livy, xxxi. 9.)]

[Footnote 53: See the firmness of a Roman general so late as the time
of Alexander Severus, in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 25, edit. Louvre.]

[Footnote 54: For the plague, see Jornandes, c. 19, and Victor in
Caesaribus.]

[Footnote 55: These improbable accusations are alleged by Zosimus, l. i.
p. 28, 24.]

[Footnote 56: Jornandes, c. 19. The Gothic writer at least observed
the peace which his victorious countrymen had sworn to Gallus.]

But the Romans were irritated to a still higher degree, when they
discovered that they had not even secured their repose, though at the
expense of their honor. The dangerous secret of the wealth and weakness
of the empire had been revealed to the world. New swarms of barbarians,
encouraged by the success, and not conceiving themselves bound by the
obligation of their brethren, spread devastation though the Illyrian
provinces, and terror as far as the gates of Rome. The defence of the
monarchy, which seemed abandoned by the pusillanimous emperor, was
assumed by Aemilianus, governor of Pannonia and Maesia; who rallied the
scattered forces, and revived the fainting spirits of the troops. The
barbarians were unexpectedly attacked, routed, chased, and pursued
beyond the Danube. The victorious leader distributed as a donative the
money collected for the tribute, and the acclamations of the soldiers
proclaimed him emperor on the field of battle. [57] Gallus, who,
careless of the general welfare, indulged himself in the pleasures of
Italy, was almost in the same instant informed of the success, of the
revolt, and of the rapid approach of his aspiring lieutenant. He
advanced to meet him as far as the plains of Spoleto. When the armies
came in right of each other, the soldiers of Gallus compared the
ignominious conduct of their sovereign with the glory of his rival. They
admired the valor of Aemilianus; they were attracted by his liberality,
for he offered a considerable increase of pay to all deserters. [58] The
murder of Gallus, and of his son Volusianus, put an end to the civil
war; and the senate gave a legal sanction to the rights of conquest. The
letters of Aemilianus to that assembly displayed a mixture of moderation
and vanity. He assured them, that he should resign to their wisdom the
civil administration; and, contenting himself with the quality of their
general, would in a short time assert the glory of Rome, and deliver the
empire from all the barbarians both of the North and of the East. [59]
His pride was flattered by the applause of the senate; and medals are
still extant, representing him with the name and attributes of Hercules
the Victor, and Mars the Avenger. [60]

[Footnote 57: Zosimus, l. i. p. 25, 26.]

[Footnote 58: Victor in Caesaribus.]

[Footnote 59: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

[Footnote 60: Banduri Numismata, p. 94.]

If the new monarch possessed the abilities, he wanted the time,
necessary to fulfil these splendid promises. Less than four months
intervened between his victory and his fall. [61] He had vanquished
Gallus: he sunk under the weight of a competitor more formidable than
Gallus. That unfortunate prince had sent Valerian, already distinguished
by the honorable title of censor, to bring the legions of Gaul and
Germany [62] to his aid. Valerian executed that commission with zeal and
fidelity; and as he arrived too late to save his sovereign, he resolved
to revenge him. The troops of Aemilianus, who still lay encamped in the
plains of Spoleto, were awed by the sanctity of his character, but much
more by the superior strength of his army; and as they were now
become as incapable of personal attachment as they had always been of
constitutional principle, they readily imbrued their hands in the blood
of a prince who so lately had been the object of their partial choice.
The guilt was theirs, [621] but the advantage of it was Valerian's; who
obtained the possession of the throne by the means indeed of a civil
war, but with a degree of innocence singular in that age of revolutions;
since he owed neither gratitude nor allegiance to his predecessor, whom
he dethroned.

[Footnote 61: Eutropius, l. ix. c. 6, says tertio mense.
Eusebio this emperor.]

[Footnote 62: Zosimus, l. i. p. 28. Eutropius and Victor station
Valerian's army in Rhaetia.]

[Footnote 621: Aurelius Victor says that Aemilianus died of a natural
disorder. Tropius, in speaking of his death, does not say that he was
assassinated--G.]

Valerian was about sixty years of age [63] when he was invested with the
purple, not by the caprice of the populace, or the clamors of the army,
but by the unanimous voice of the Roman world. In his gradual ascent
through the honors of the state, he had deserved the favor of virtuous
princes, and had declared himself the enemy of tyrants. [64] His noble
birth, his mild but unblemished manners, his learning, prudence, and
experience, were revered by the senate and people; and if mankind
(according to the observation of an ancient writer) had been left at
liberty to choose a master, their choice would most assuredly have
fallen on Valerian. [65] Perhaps the merit of this emperor was
inadequate to his reputation; perhaps his abilities, or at least his
spirit, were affected by the languor and coldness of old age. The
consciousness of his decline engaged him to share the throne with a
younger and more active associate; [66] the emergency of the times
demanded a general no less than a prince; and the experience of the
Roman censor might have directed him where to bestow the Imperial
purple, as the reward of military merit. But instead of making a
judicious choice, which would have confirmed his reign and endeared his
memory, Valerian, consulting only the dictates of affection or vanity,
immediately invested with the supreme honors his son Gallienus, a youth
whose effeminate vices had been hitherto concealed by the obscurity of a
private station. The joint government of the father and the son
subsisted about seven, and the sole administration of Gallien continued
about eight, years. But the whole period was one uninterrupted series of
confusion and calamity. As the Roman empire was at the same time, and on
every side, attacked by the blind fury of foreign invaders, and the wild
ambition of domestic usurpers, we shall consult order and perspicuity,
by pursuing, not so much the doubtful arrangement of dates, as the more
natural distribution of subjects. The most dangerous enemies of Rome,
during the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, were, 1. The Franks; 2. The
Alemanni; 3. The Goths; and, 4. The Persians. Under these general
appellations, we may comprehend the adventures of less considerable
tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only serve to oppress the
memory and perplex the attention of the reader.

[Footnote 63: He was about seventy at the time of his accession, or, as
it is more probable, of his death. Hist. August. p. 173. Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 893, note 1.]

[Footnote 64: Inimicus tyrannorum. Hist. August. p. 173. In the glorious
struggle of the senate against Maximin, Valerian acted a very spirited
part. Hist. August. p. 156.]

[Footnote 65: According to the distinction of Victor, he seems to have
received the title of Imperator from the army, and that of Augustus from
the senate.]

[Footnote 66: From Victor and from the medals, Tillemont (tom. iii. p.
710) very justly infers, that Gallienus was associated to the empire
about the month of August of the year 253.]

I. As the posterity of the Franks compose one of the greatest and most
enlightened nations of Europe, the powers of learning and ingenuity have
been exhausted in the discovery of their unlettered ancestors. To the
tales of credulity have succeeded the systems of fancy. Every passage
has been sifted, every spot has been surveyed, that might possibly
reveal some faint traces of their origin. It has been supposed that
Pannonia, [67] that Gaul, that the northern parts of Germany, [68] gave
birth to that celebrated colony of warriors. At length the most rational
critics, rejecting the fictitious emigrations of ideal conquerors, have
acquiesced in a sentiment whose simplicity persuades us of its truth.
[69] They suppose, that about the year two hundred and forty, [70] a new
confederacy was formed under the name of Franks, by the old inhabitants
of the Lower Rhine and the Weser. [701] The present circle of Westphalia,
the Landgraviate of Hesse, and the duchies of Brunswick and Luneburg,
were the ancient of the Chauci who, in their inaccessible morasses,
defied the Roman arms; [71] of the Cherusci, proud of the fame of
Arminius; of the Catti, formidable by their firm and intrepid infantry;
and of several other tribes of inferior power and renown. [72] The love
of liberty was the ruling passion of these Germans; the enjoyment of it
their best treasure; the word that expressed that enjoyment, the most
pleasing to their ear. They deserved, they assumed, they maintained the
honorable appellation of Franks, or Freemen; which concealed, though
it did not extinguish, the peculiar names of the several states of the
confederacy. [73] Tacit consent, and mutual advantage, dictated the first
laws of the union; it was gradually cemented by habit and experience.
The league of the Franks may admit of some comparison with the Helvetic
body; in which every canton, retaining its independent sovereignty,
consults with its brethren in the common cause, without acknowledging
the authority of any supreme head, or representative assembly. [74] But
the principle of the two confederacies was extremely different. A peace
of two hundred years has rewarded the wise and honest policy of the
Swiss. An inconstant spirit, the thirst of rapine, and a disregard
to the most solemn treaties, disgraced the character of the Franks.
[Footnote 67: Various systems have been formed to explain a difficult
passage in Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 9.]

[Footnote 68: The Geographer of Ravenna, i. 11, by mentioning
Mauringania, on the confines of Denmark, as the ancient seat of the
Franks, gave birth to an ingenious system of Leibritz.]

[Footnote 69: See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 20. M. Freret, in
the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii.]

[Footnote 70: Most probably under the reign of Gordian, from an
accidental circumstance fully canvassed by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 710,
1181.]

[Footnote 701: The confederation of the Franks appears to have been
formed, 1. Of the Chauci. 2. Of the Sicambri, the inhabitants of the
duchy of Berg. 3. Of the Attuarii, to the north of the Sicambri, in
the principality of Waldeck, between the Dimel and the Eder. 4. Of
the Bructeri, on the banks of the Lippe, and in the Hartz. 5. Of the
Chamavii, the Gambrivii of Tacitua, who were established, at the time
of the Frankish confederation, in the country of the Bructeri. 6. Of
the Catti, in Hessia.--G. The Salii and Cherasci are added. Greenwood's
Hist. of Germans, i 193.--M.]

[Footnote 71: Plin. Hist. Natur. xvi. l. The Panegyrists frequently
allude to the morasses of the Franks.]

[Footnote 72: Tacit. Germania, c. 30, 37.]

[Footnote 73: In a subsequent period, most of those old names are
occasionally mentioned. See some vestiges of them in Cluver. Germ.
Antiq. l. iii.]

[Footnote 74: Simler de Republica Helvet. cum notis Fuselin.]




Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Aemilianus, Valerian And Gallienus.--Part III.

The Romans had long experienced the daring valor of the people of
Lower Germany. The union of their strength threatened Gaul with a more
formidable invasion, and required the presence of Gallienus, the heir
and colleague of Imperial power. [75] Whilst that prince, and his infant
son Salonius, displayed, in the court of Treves, the majesty of the
empire its armies were ably conducted by their general, Posthumus, who,
though he afterwards betrayed the family of Valerian, was ever faithful
to the great interests of the monarchy. The treacherous language of
panegyrics and medals darkly announces a long series of victories.
Trophies and titles attest (if such evidence can attest) the fame of
Posthumus, who is repeatedly styled the Conqueror of the Germans, and
the Savior of Gaul. [76]

[Footnote 75: Zosimus, l. i. p. 27.]

[Footnote 76: M. de Brequigny (in the Memoires de l'Academie, tom. xxx.)
has given us a very curious life of Posthumus. A series of the Augustan
History from Medals and Inscriptions has been more than once planned,
and is still much wanted. * Note: M. Eckhel, Keeper of the Cabinet of
Medals, and Professor of Antiquities at Vienna, lately deceased, has
supplied this want by his excellent work, Doctrina veterum Nummorum,
conscripta a Jos. Eckhel, 8 vol. in 4to Vindobona, 1797.--G. Captain
Smyth has likewise printed (privately) a valuable Descriptive Catologue
of a series of Large Brass Medals of this period Bedford, 1834.--M.
1845.]

But a single fact, the only one indeed of which we have any distinct
knowledge, erases, in a great measure, these monuments of vanity and
adulation. The Rhine, though dignified with the title of Safeguard of
the provinces, was an imperfect barrier against the daring spirit of
enterprise with which the Franks were actuated. Their rapid devastations
stretched from the river to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they
stopped by those mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable
to resist, the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years, the greatest
part of the reign of Gallie nus, that opulent country was the theatre of
unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the flourishing capital
of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost destroyed; [77] and so
late as the days of Orosius, who wrote in the fifth century, wretched
cottages, scattered amidst the ruins of magnificent cities, still
recorded the rage of the barbarians. [78] When the exhausted country no
longer supplied a variety of plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels
in the ports of Spain, [79] and transported themselves into Mauritania.
The distant province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians,
who seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and
complexion, were equally unknown on the coast of Africa. [80]

[Footnote 77: Aurel. Victor, c. 33. Instead of Poene direpto, both the
sense and the expression require deleto; though indeed, for different
reasons, it is alike difficult to correct the text of the best, and of
the worst, writers.]

[Footnote 78: In the time of Ausonius (the end of the fourth century)
Ilerda or Lerida was in a very ruinous state, (Auson. Epist. xxv. 58,)
which probably was the consequence of this invasion.]

[Footnote 79: Valesius is therefore mistaken in supposing that the
Franks had invaded Spain by sea.]

[Footnote 80: Aurel. Victor. Eutrop. ix. 6.]


II. In that part of Upper Saxony, beyond the Elbe, which is at present
called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed, in ancient times, a
sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition of the Suevi. None were
permitted to enter the holy precincts, without confessing, by their
servile bonds and suppliant posture, the immediate presence of the
sovereign Deity. [81] Patriotism contributed, as well as devotion,
to consecrate the Sonnenwald, or wood of the Semnones. [82] It was
universally believed, that the nation had received its first existence
on that sacred spot. At stated periods, the numerous tribes who gloried
in the Suevic blood, resorted thither by their ambassadors; and the
memory of their common extraction was perpetrated by barbaric rites and
human sacrifices. The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the interior
countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to those of the Danube.
They were distinguished from the other Germans by their peculiar mode
of dressing their long hair, which they gathered into a rude knot on the
crown of the head; and they delighted in an ornament that showed their
ranks more lofty and terrible in the eyes of the enemy. [83] Jealous as
the Germans were of military renown, they all confessed the superior
valor of the Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, who,
with a vast army, encountered the dictator Caesar, declared that they
esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose arms
the immortal gods themselves were unequal. [84]

[Footnote 81: Tacit.Germania, 38.]

[Footnote 82: Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]

[Footnote 83: Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui a
servis separantur. A proud separation!]

[Footnote 84: Caesar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]

In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of Suevi
appeared on the banks of the Mein, and in the neighborhood of the Roman
provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. [85] The
hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent
nation, and as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed
the name of Alemanni, [851] or Allmen; to denote at once their various
lineage and their common bravery. [86] The latter was soon felt by
the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on
horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a
mixture of light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of
the youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the horsemen
in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate
retreat. [87]

[Footnote 85: Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]

[Footnote 851: The nation of the Alemanni was not originally formed by the
Suavi properly so called; these have always preserved their own name.
Shortly afterwards they made (A. D. 357) an irruption into Rhaetia, and
it was not long after that they were reunited with the Alemanni. Still
they have always been a distinct people; at the present day, the people
who inhabit the north-west of the Black Forest call themselves Schwaben,
Suabians, Sueves, while those who inhabit near the Rhine, in Ortenau,
the Brisgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, do not consider themselves
Suabians, and are by origin Alemanni. The Teucteri and the Usipetae,
inhabitants of the interior and of the north of Westphalia, formed, says
Gatterer, the nucleus of the Alemannic nation; they occupied the country
where the name of the Alemanni first appears, as conquered in 213, by
Caracalla. They were well trained to fight on horseback, (according to
Tacitus, Germ. c. 32;) and Aurelius Victor gives the same praise to the
Alemanni: finally, they never made part of the Frankish league. The
Alemanni became subsequently a centre round which gathered a multitude
of German tribes, See Eumen. Panegyr. c. 2. Amm. Marc. xviii. 2, xxix.
4.--G. ----The question whether the Suevi was a generic name
comprehending the clans which peopled central Germany, is rather hastily
decided by M. Guizot Mr. Greenwood, who has studied the modern German
writers on their own origin, supposes the Suevi, Alemanni, and
Marcomanni, one people, under different appellations. History of
Germany, vol i.--M.]

[Footnote 86: This etymology (far different from those which amuse the
fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius Quadratus, an original
historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.]

[Footnote 87: The Suevi engaged Caesar in this manner, and the manoeuvre
deserved the approbation of the conqueror, (in Bello Gallico, i. 48.)]

This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense
preparations of Alexander Severus; they were dismayed by the arms of his
successor, a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to themselves.
But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire, they increased the
general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius. They inflicted
severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who
removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous
body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube and through the
Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna,
and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of
Rome. [88]

[Footnote 88: Hist. August. p. 215, 216. Dexippus in the Excerpts.
Legationam, p. 8. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22.]

The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of their
ancient virtue. Both the emperors were engaged in far distant wars,
Valerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine. All the hopes and
resources of the Romans were in themselves. In this emergency, the
senators resumed he defence of the republic, drew out the Praetorian
guards, who had been left to garrison the capital, and filled up their
numbers, by enlisting into the public service the stoutest and most
willing of the Plebeians. The Alemanni, astonished with the sudden
appearance of an army more numerous than their own, retired into
Germany, laden with spoil; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory
by the unwarlike Romans. [89]

[Footnote 89: Zosimus, l. i. p. 34.]

When Gallienus received the intelligence that his capital was delivered
from the barbarians, he was much less delighted than alarmed with the
courage of the senate, since it might one day prompt them to rescue the
public from domestic tyranny as well as from foreign invasion. His timid
ingratitude was published to his subjects, in an edict which prohibited
the senators from exercising any military employment, and even from
approaching the camps of the legions. But his fears were groundless.
The rich and luxurious nobles, sinking into their natural character,
accepted, as a favor, this disgraceful exemption from military service;
and as long as they were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths, their
theatres, and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the more dangerous
cares of empire to the rough hands of peasants and soldiers. [90]

[Footnote 90: Aurel. Victor, in Gallieno et Probo. His complaints
breathe as uncommon spirit of freedom.]

Another invasion of the Alemanni, of a more formidable aspect, but more
glorious event, is mentioned by a writer of the lower empire. Three
hundred thousand are said to have been vanquished, in a battle near
Milan, by Gallienus in person, at the head of only ten thousand Romans.
[91] We may, however, with great probability, ascribe this incredible
victory either to the credulity of the historian, or to some exaggerated
exploits of one of the emperor's lieutenants. It was by arms of a very
different nature, that Gallienus endeavored to protect Italy from the
fury of the Germans. He espoused Pipa, the daughter of a king of the
Marcomanni, a Suevic tribe, which was often confounded with the Alemanni
in their wars and conquests. [92] To the father, as the price of his
alliance, he granted an ample settlement in Pannonia. The native charms
of unpolished beauty seem to have fixed the daughter in the affections
of the inconstant emperor, and the bands of policy were more firmly
connected by those of love. But the haughty prejudice of Rome still
refused the name of marriage to the profane mixture of a citizen and a
barbarian; and has stigmatized the German princess with the opprobrious
title of concubine of Gallienus. [93]

[Footnote 91: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 631.]

[Footnote 92: One of the Victors calls him king of the Marcomanni; the
other of the Germans.]

[Footnote 93: See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 398,
&c.]

III. We have already traced the emigration of the Goths from
Scandinavia, or at least from Prussia, to the mouth of the Borysthenes,
and have followed their victorious arms from the Borysthenes to the
Danube. Under the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the frontier of the
last-mentioned river was perpetually infested by the inroads of Germans
and Sarmatians; but it was defended by the Romans with more than usual
firmness and success. The provinces that were the seat of war, recruited
the armies of Rome with an inexhaustible supply of hardy soldiers;
and more than one of these Illyrian peasants attained the station, and
displayed the abilities, of a general. Though flying parties of
the barbarians, who incessantly hovered on the banks of the Danube,
penetrated sometimes to the confines of Italy and Macedonia, their
progress was commonly checked, or their return intercepted, by the
Imperial lieutenants. [94] But the great stream of the Gothic hostilities
was diverted into a very different channel. The Goths, in their new
settlement of the Ukraine, soon became masters of the northern coast of
the Euxine: to the south of that inland sea were situated the soft and
wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which possessed all that could attract,
and nothing that could resist, a barbarian conqueror.

[Footnote 94: See the lives of Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus, in the
Augustan History.]

The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty miles distant from the
narrow entrance [95] of the peninsula of Crim Tartary, known to the
ancients under the name of Chersonesus Taurica. [96] On that inhospitable
shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art the tales of
antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most affecting tragedies.
[97] The bloody sacrifices of Diana, the arrival of Orestes and Pylades,
and the triumph of virtue and religion over savage fierceness, serve to
represent an historical truth, that the Tauri, the original inhabitants
of the peninsula, were, in some degree, reclaimed from their brutal
manners by a gradual intercourse with the Grecian colonies, which
settled along the maritime coast. The little kingdom of Bosphorus,
whose capital was situated on the Straits, through which the Maeotis
communicates itself to the Euxine, was composed of degenerate Greeks and
half-civilized barbarians. It subsisted, as an independent state, from
the time of the Peloponnesian war, [98] was at last swallowed up by the
ambition of Mithridates, [99] and, with the rest of his dominions, sunk
under the weight of the Roman arms. From the reign of Augustus, [100]
the kings of Bosphorus were the humble, but not useless, allies of the
empire. By presents, by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across
the Isthmus, they effectually guarded against the roving plunderers of
Sarmatia, the access of a country, which, from its peculiar situation
and convenient harbors, commanded the Euxine Sea and Asia Minor. [101] As
long as the sceptre was possessed by a lineal succession of kings,
they acquitted themselves of their important charge with vigilance
and success. Domestic factions, and the fears, or private interest, of
obscure usurpers, who seized on the vacant throne, admitted the Goths
into the heart of Bosphorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous waste
of fertile soil, the conquerors obtained the command of a naval force,
sufficient to transport their armies to the coast of Asia. [102] This
ships used in the navigation of the Euxine were of a very singular
construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks framed of timber
only, without the least mixture of iron, and occasionally covered with
a shelving roof, on the appearance of a tempest. [103] In these floating
houses, the Goths carelessly trusted themselves to the mercy of an
unknown sea, under the conduct of sailors pressed into the service,
and whose skill and fidelity were equally suspicious. But the hopes of
plunder had banished every idea of danger, and a natural fearlessness
of temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence, which is
the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of such a daring
spirit must have often murmured against the cowardice of their guides,
who required the strongest assurances of a settled calm before they
would venture to embark; and would scarcely ever be tempted to lose
sight of the land. Such, at least, is the practice of the modern Turks;
[104] and they are probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to
the ancient inhabitants of Bosphorus.

[Footnote 95: It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical History
of the Tartars, p 598.]

[Footnote 96: M. de Peyssonel, who had been French Consul at Caffa, in
his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, que ont habite les bords du
Danube]

[Footnote 97: Eeripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.]

[Footnote 98: Strabo, l. vii. p. 309. The first kings of Bosphorus were
the allies of Athens.]

[Footnote 99: Appian in Mithridat.]

[Footnote 100: It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius, vi. 21.
Eu tropius, vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three days' march of
the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17.]

[Footnote 101: See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the sincerity
and the virtues of the Scythian, who relates a great war of his nation
against the kings of Bosphorus.]

[Footnote 102: Zosimus, l. i. p. 28.]

[Footnote 103: Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were called
Camaroe.]

[Footnote 104: See a very natural picture of the Euxine navigation, in
the xvith letter of Tournefort.]

The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the left
hand, first appeared before Pityus, [105] the utmost limits of the Roman
provinces; a city provided with a convenient port, and fortified with
a strong wall. Here they met with a resistance more obstinate than they
had reason to expect from the feeble garrison of a distant fortress.
They were repulsed; and their disappointment seemed to diminish the
terror of the Gothic name. As long as Successianus, an officer of
superior rank and merit, defended that frontier, all their efforts
were ineffectual; but as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more
honorable but less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus;
and by the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their
former disgrace. [106]

[Footnote 105: Arrian places the frontier garrison at Dioscurias, or
Sebastopolis, forty-four miles to the east of Pityus. The garrison of
Phasis consisted in his time of only four hundred foot. See the Periplus
of the Euxine. * Note: Pityus is Pitchinda, according to D'Anville, ii.
115.--G. Rather Boukoun.--M. Dioscurias is Iskuriah.--G.]

[Footnote 106: Zosimus, l. i. p. 30.]

Circling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, the navigation
from Pityus to Trebizond is about three hundred miles. [107] The course
of the Goths carried them in sight of the country of Colchis, so famous
by the expedition of the Argonauts; and they even attempted, though
without success, to pillage a rich temple at the mouth of the River
Phasis. Trebizond, celebrated in the retreat of the ten thousand as an
ancient colony of Greeks, [108] derived its wealth and splendor from the
magnificence of the emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an artificial
port on a coast left destitute by nature of secure harbors. [109] The
city was large and populous; a double enclosure of walls seemed to defy
the fury of the Goths, and the usual garrison had been strengthened by
a reenforcement of ten thousand men. But there are not any advantages
capable of supplying the absence of discipline and vigilance. The
numerous garrison of Trebizond, dissolved in riot and luxury, disdained
to guard their impregnable fortifications. The Goths soon discovered
the supine negligence of the besieged, erected a lofty pile of fascines,
ascended the walls in the silence of the night, and entered the
defenceless city sword in hand. A general massacre of the people ensued,
whilst the affrighted soldiers escaped through the opposite gates of
the town. The most holy temples, and the most splendid edifices, were
involved in a common destruction. The booty that fell into the hands
of the Goths was immense: the wealth of the adjacent countries had been
deposited in Trebizond, as in a secure place of refuge. The number of
captives was incredible, as the victorious barbarians ranged without
opposition through the extensive province of Pontus. [110] The rich
spoils of Trebizond filled a great fleet of ships that had been found in
the port. The robust youth of the sea-coast were chained to the oar; and
the Goths, satisfied with the success of their first naval expedition,
returned in triumph to their new establishment in the kingdom of
Bosphorus. [111]

[Footnote 107: Arrian (in Periplo Maris Euxine, p. 130) calls the
distance 2610 stadia.]

[Footnote 108: Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iv. p. 348, edit. Hutchinson.
Note: Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von Trapezunt, p. 6,
&c) assigns a very ancient date to the first (Pelasgic) foundation of
Trapezun (Trebizond)--M.]

[Footnote 109: Arrian, p. 129. The general observation is Tournefort's.]

[Footnote 110: See an epistle of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of
Neo-Caeoarea, quoted by Mascou, v. 37.]

[Footnote 111: Zosimus, l. i. p. 32, 33.]

The second expedition of the Goths was undertaken with greater powers of
men and ships; but they steered a different course, and, disdaining the
exhausted provinces of Pontus, followed the western coast of the Euxine,
passed before the wide mouths of the Borysthenes, the Niester, and the
Danube, and increasing their fleet by the capture of a great number
of fishing barks, they approached the narrow outlet through which the
Euxine Sea pours its waters into the Mediterranean, and divides the
continents of Europe and Asia. The garrison of Chalcedon was encamped
near the temple of Jupiter Urius, on a promontory that commanded the
entrance of the Strait; and so inconsiderable were the dreaded invasions
of the barbarians that this body of troops surpassed in number the
Gothic army. But it was in numbers alone that they surpassed it. They
deserted with precipitation their advantageous post, and abandoned the
town of Chalcedon, most plentifully stored with arms and money, to the
discretion of the conquerors. Whilst they hesitated whether they
should prefer the sea or land Europe or Asia, for the scene of their
hostilities, a perfidious fugitive pointed out Nicomedia, [1111] once the
capital of the kings of Bithynia, as a rich and easy conquest. He guided
the march which was only sixty miles from the camp of Chalcedon, [112]
directed the resistless attack, and partook of the booty; for the Goths
had learned sufficient policy to reward the traitor whom they detested.
Nice, Prusa, Apamaea, Cius, [1121] cities that had sometimes rivalled, or
imitated, the splendor of Nicomedia, were involved in the same calamity,
which, in a few weeks, raged without control through the whole
province of Bithynia. Three hundred years of peace, enjoyed by the soft
inhabitants of Asia, had abolished the exercise of arms, and removed the
apprehension of danger. The ancient walls were suffered to moulder away,
and all the revenue of the most opulent cities was reserved for the
construction of baths, temples, and theatres. [113]

[Footnote 1111: It has preserved its name, joined to the preposition of place in that of
Nikmid. D'Anv. Geog. Anc. ii. 28.--G.]

[Footnote 112: Itiner. Hierosolym. p. 572. Wesseling.]

[Footnote 1121: Now Isnik, Bursa, Mondania Ghio or Kemlik D'Anv. ii.
23.--G.]

[Footnote 113: Zosimus, l.. p. 32, 33.]

When the city of Cyzicus withstood the utmost effort of Mithridates,
[114] it was distinguished by wise laws, a nava power of two hundred
galleys, and three arsenals, of arms, of military engines, and of corn.
[115] It was still the seat of wealth and luxury; but of its ancient
strength, nothing remained except the situation, in a little island of
the Propontis, connected with the continent of Asia only by two bridges.
From the recent sack of Prusa, the Goths advanced within eighteen miles.
[116] of the city, which they had devoted to destruction; but the ruin of
Cyzicus was delayed by a fortunate accident. The season was rainy,
and the Lake Apolloniates, the reservoir of all the springs of Mount
Olympus, rose to an uncommon height. The little river of Rhyndacus,
which issues from the lake, swelled into a broad and rapid stream, and
stopped the progress of the Goths. Their retreat to the maritime city of
Heraclea, where the fleet had probably been stationed, was attended by a
long train of wagons, laden with the spoils of Bithynia, and was marked
by the flames of Nico and Nicomedia, which they wantonly burnt. [117]
Some obscure hints are mentioned of a doubtful combat that secured their
retreat. [118] But even a complete victory would have been of little
moment, as the approach of the autumnal equinox summoned them to hasten
their return. To navigate the Euxine before the month of May, or
after that of September, is esteemed by the modern Turks the most
unquestionable instance of rashness and folly. [119]

[Footnote 114: He besieged the place with 400 galleys, 150,000 foot, and
a numerous cavalry. See Plutarch in Lucul. Appian in Mithridat Cicero
pro Lege Manilia, c. 8.]

[Footnote 115: Strabo, l. xii. p. 573.]

[Footnote 116: Pocock's Description of the East, l. ii. c. 23, 24.]

[Footnote 117: Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

[Footnote 118: Syncellus tells an unintelligible story of Prince
Odenathus, who defeated the Goths, and who was killed by Prince
Odenathus.]

[Footnote 119: Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 45. He sailed with the
Turks from Constantinople to Caffa.]

When we are informed that the third fleet, equipped by the Goths in the
ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sails of ships, [120]
our ready imagination instantly computes and multiplies the formidable
armament; but, as we are assured by the judicious Strabo, [121] that
the piratical vessels used by the barbarians of Pontus and the Lesser
Scythia, were not capable of containing more than twenty-five or thirty
men we may safely affirm, that fifteen thousand warriors, at the most,
embarked in this great expedition. Impatient of the limits of the
Euxine, they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to
the Thracian Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the
Straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them; till a
favorable wind, springing up the next day, carried them in a few hours
into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the Propontis. Their landing on
the little island of Cyzicus was attended with the ruin of that ancient
and noble city. From thence issuing again through the narrow passage
of the Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the
numerous islands scattered over the Archipelago, or the Aegean Sea. The
assistance of captives and deserters must have been very necessary to
pilot their vessels, and to direct their various incursions, as well
on the coast of Greece as on that of Asia. At length the Gothic fleet
anchored in the port of Piraeus, five miles distant from Athens, [122]
which had attempted to make some preparations for a vigorous defence.
Cleodamus, one of the engineers employed by the emperor's orders to
fortify the maritime cities against the Goths, had already begun to
repair the ancient walls, fallen to decay since the time of Scylla. The
efforts of his skill were ineffectual, and the barbarians became masters
of the native seat of the muses and the arts. But while the conquerors
abandoned themselves to the license of plunder and intemperance, their
fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the harbor of Piraeus, was
unexpectedly attacked by the brave Dexippus, who, flying with the
engineer Cleodamus from the sack of Athens, collected a hasty band of
volunteers, peasants as well as soldiers, and in some measure avenged
the calamities of his country. [123]

[Footnote 120: Syncellus (p. 382) speaks of this expedition, as
undertaken by the Heruli.]

[Footnote 121: Strabo, l. xi. p. 495.]

[Footnote 122: Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 7.]

[Footnote 123: Hist. August. p. 181. Victor, c. 33. Orosius, vii. 42.
Zosimus, l. i. p. 35. Zonaras, l. xii. 635. Syncellus, p. 382. It is
not without some attention, that we can explain and conciliate their
imperfect hints. We can still discover some traces of the partiality of
Dexippus, in the relation of his own and his countrymen's exploits. *
Note: According to a new fragment of Dexippus, published by Mai, the 2000
men took up a strong position in a mountainous and woods district,
and kept up a harassing warfare. He expresses a hope of being speedily
joined by the Imperial fleet. Dexippus in rov. Byzantinorum Collect a
Niebuhr, p. 26, 8--M.]

But this exploit, whatever lustre it might shed on the declining age of
Athens, served rather to irritate than to subdue the undaunted spirit
of the northern invaders. A general conflagration blazed out at the same
time in every district of Greece. Thebes and Argos, Corinth and Sparta,
which had formerly waged such memorable wars against each other, were
now unable to bring an army into the field, or even to defend their
ruined fortifications. The rage of war, both by land and by sea, spread
from the eastern point of Sunium to the western coast of Epirus. The
Goths had already advanced within sight of Italy, when the approach of
such imminent danger awakened the indolent Gallienus from his dream of
pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms; and his presence seems to have
checked the ardor, and to have divided the strength, of the enemy.
Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli, accepted an honorable capitulation,
entered with a large body of his countrymen into the service of Rome,
and was invested with the ornaments of the consular dignity, which
had never before been profaned by the hands of a barbarian. [124] Great
numbers of the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a
tedious voyage, broke into Maesia, with a design of forcing their way
over the Danube to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild attempt
would have proved inevitable destruction, if the discord of the Roman
generals had not opened to the barbarians the means of an escape. [125]
The small remainder of this destroying host returned on board their
vessels; and measuring back their way through the Hellespont and the
Bosphorus, ravaged in their passage the shores of Troy, whose fame,
immortalized by Homer, will probably survive the memory of the Gothic
conquests. As soon as they found themselves in safety within the basin
of the Euxine, they landed at Anchialus in Thrace, near the foot of
Mount Haemus; and, after all their toils, indulged themselves in the use
of those pleasant and salutary hot baths. What remained of the voyage
was a short and easy navigation. [126] Such was the various fate of this
third and greatest of their naval enterprises. It may seem difficult
to conceive how the original body of fifteen thousand warriors could
sustain the losses and divisions of so bold an adventure. But as their
numbers were gradually wasted by the sword, by shipwrecks, and by the
influence of a warm climate, they were perpetually renewed by troops of
banditti and deserters, who flocked to the standard of plunder, and by
a crowd of fugitive slaves, often of German or Sarmatian extraction, who
eagerly seized the glorious opportunity of freedom and revenge. In these
expeditions, the Gothic nation claimed a superior share of honor
and danger; but the tribes that fought under the Gothic banners are
sometimes distinguished and sometimes confounded in the imperfect
histories of that age; and as the barbarian fleets seemed to issue from
the mouth of the Tanais, the vague but familiar appellation of Scythians
was frequently bestowed on the mixed multitude. [127]

[Footnote 124: Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a long
time faithful and famous.]

[Footnote 125: Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought with
propriety and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous of his fame
Hist. August. p. 181.]

[Footnote 126: Jornandes, c. 20.]

[Footnote 127: Zosimus and the Greeks (as the author of the Philopatris)
give the name of Scythians to those whom Jornandes, and the Latin
writers, constantly represent as Goths.]




Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Aemilianus, Valerian And Gallienus.--Part IV.

In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual,
however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are passed over
with careless inattention. Yet we cannot forget that the temple of
Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with increasing splendor from seven
repeated misfortunes, [128] was finally burnt by the Goths in their
third naval invasion. The arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia,
had conspired to erect that sacred and magnificent structure. It was
supported by a hundred and twenty-seven marble columns of the Ionic
order. They were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet
high. The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles,
who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends of the place the
birth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of Apollo
after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of Bacchus to the
vanquished Amazons. [129] Yet the length of the temple of Ephesus was
only four hundred and twenty-five feet, about two thirds of the measure
of the church of St. Peter's at Rome. [130] In the other dimensions,
it was still more inferior to that sublime production of modern
architecture. The spreading arms of a Christian cross require a much
greater breadth than the oblong temples of the Pagans; and the boldest
artists of antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising
in the air a dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. The
temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of the
world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman,
had revered its sanctity and enriched its splendor. [131] But the rude
savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste for the elegant arts,
and they despised the ideal terrors of a foreign superstition. [132]

[Footnote 128: Hist. Aug. p. 178. Jornandes, c. 20.]

[Footnote 129: Strabo, l. xiv. p. 640. Vitruvius, l. i. c. i. praefat l
vii. Tacit Annal. iii. 61. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 14.]

[Footnote 130: The length of St. Peter's is 840 Roman palms; each palm
is very little short of nine English inches. See Greaves's Miscellanies
vol. i. p. 233; on the Roman Foot. * Note: St. Paul's Cathedral is 500
feet. Dallaway on Architecture--M.]

[Footnote 131: The policy, however, of the Romans induced them to
abridge the extent of the sanctuary or asylum, which by successive
privileges had spread itself two stadia round the temple. Strabo, l.
xiv. p. 641. Tacit. Annal. iii. 60, &c.]

[Footnote 132: They offered no sacrifices to the Grecian gods. See
Epistol Gregor. Thaumat.]

Another circumstance is related of these invasions, which might deserve
our notice, were it not justly to be suspected as the fanciful conceit
of a recent sophist. We are told, that in the sack of Athens the Goths
had collected all the libraries, and were on the point of setting fire
to this funeral pile of Grecian learning, had not one of their chiefs,
of more refined policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the
design; by the profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were
addicted to the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the
exercise of arms. [133] The sagacious counsellor (should the truth of
the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In the most
polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has displayed itself
about the same period; and the age of science has generally been the age
of military virtue and success.

[Footnote 133: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 635. Such an anecdote was perfectly
suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in his agreeable
Essay on Pedantry, l. i. c. 24.]


IV. The new sovereign of Persia, Artaxerxes and his son Sapor, had
triumphed (as we have already seen) over the house of Arsaces. Of the
many princes of that ancient race. Chosroes, king of Armenia, had alone
preserved both his life and his independence. He defended himself by the
natural strength of his country; by the perpetual resort of fugitives
and malecontents; by the alliance of the Romans, and above all, by his
own courage.

Invincible in arms, during a thirty years' war, he was at length
assassinated by the emissaries of Sapor, king of Persia. The patriotic
satraps of Armenia, who asserted the freedom and dignity of the crown,
implored the protection of Rome in favor of Tiridates, the lawful heir.
But the son of Chosroes was an infant, the allies were at a distance,
and the Persian monarch advanced towards the frontier at the head of an
irresistible force. Young Tiridates, the future hope of his country,
was saved by the fidelity of a servant, and Armenia continued above
twenty-seven years a reluctant province of the great monarchy of Persia.
[134] Elated with this easy conquest, and presuming on the distresses or
the degeneracy of the Romans, Sapor obliged the strong garrisons of
Carrhae and Nisibis [1341] to surrender, and spread devastation and
terror on either side of the Euphrates.

[Footnote 134: Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 71, 73, 74. Zonaras, l. xii.
p. 628. The anthentic relation of the Armenian historian serves to
rectify the confused account of the Greek. The latter talks of the
children of Tiridates, who at that time was himself an infant. (Compare
St Martin Memoires sur l'Armenie, i. p. 301.--M.)]

[Footnote 1341: Nisibis, according to Persian authors, was taken by a
miracle, the wall fell, in compliance with the prayers of the army.
Malcolm's Persia, l. 76.--M]

The loss of an important frontier, the ruin of a faithful and natural
ally, and the rapid success of Sapor's ambition, affected Rome with a
deep sense of the insult as well as of the danger. Valerian flattered
himself, that the vigilance of his lieutenants would sufficiently
provide for the safety of the Rhine and of the Danube; but he resolved,
notwithstanding his advanced age, to march in person to the defence of
the Euphrates.

During his progress through Asia Minor, the naval enterprises of the
Goths were suspended, and the afflicted province enjoyed a transient
and fallacious calm. He passed the Euphrates, encountered the Persian
monarch near the walls of Edessa, was vanquished, and taken prisoner by
Sapor. The particulars of this great event are darkly and imperfectly
represented; yet, by the glimmering light which is afforded us, we
may discover a long series of imprudence, of error, and of deserved
misfortunes on the side of the Roman emperor. He reposed an implicit
confidence in Macrianus, his Praetorian praefect. [135] That worthless
minister rendered his master formidable only to the oppressed subjects,
and contemptible to the enemies of Rome. [136] By his weak or wicked
counsels, the Imperial army was betrayed into a situation where valor
and military skill were equally unavailing. [137] The vigorous attempt of
the Romans to cut their way through the Persian host was repulsed with
great slaughter; [138] and Sapor, who encompassed the camp with superior
numbers, patiently waited till the increasing rage of famine and
pestilence had insured his victory. The licentious murmurs of the
legions soon accused Valerian as the cause of their calamities; their
seditious clamors demanded an instant capitulation. An immense sum of
gold was offered to purchase the permission of a disgraceful retreat.
But the Persian, conscious of his superiority, refused the money with
disdain; and detaining the deputies, advanced in order of battle to the
foot of the Roman rampart, and insisted on a personal conference with
the emperor. Valerian was reduced to the necessity of intrusting his
life and dignity to the faith of an enemy. The interview ended as it was
natural to expect. The emperor was made a prisoner, and his astonished
troops laid down their arms. [139] In such a moment of triumph, the
pride and policy of Sapor prompted him to fill the vacant throne with
a successor entirely dependent on his pleasure. Cyriades, an obscure
fugitive of Antioch, stained with every vice, was chosen to dishonor the
Roman purple; and the will of the Persian victor could not fail of being
ratified by the acclamations, however reluctant, of the captive army.
[140]

[Footnote 135: Hist. Aug. p. 191. As Macrianus was an enemy to the
Christians, they charged him with being a magician.]

[Footnote 136: Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

[Footnote 137: Hist. Aug. p. 174.]

[Footnote 138: Victor in Caesar. Eutropius, ix. 7.]

[Footnote 139: Zosimus, l. i. p. 33. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630. Peter
Patricius, in the Excerpta Legat. p. 29.]

[Footnote 140: Hist. August. p. 185. The reign of Cyriades appears in
that collection prior to the death of Valerian; but I have preferred
a probable series of events to the doubtful chronology of a most
inaccurate writer]

The Imperial slave was eager to secure the favor of his master by an act
of treason to his native country. He conducted Sapor over the Euphrates,
and, by the way of Chalcis, to the metropolis of the East. So rapid were
the motions of the Persian cavalry, that, if we may credit a very
judicious historian, [141] the city of Antioch was surprised when the
idle multitude was fondly gazing on the amusements of the theatre. The
splendid buildings of Antioch, private as well as public, were either
pillaged or destroyed; and the numerous inhabitants were put to the
sword, or led away into captivity. [142] The tide of devastation was
stopped for a moment by the resolution of the high priest of Emesa.
Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he appeared at the head of a great body
of fanatic peasants, armed only with slings, and defended his god and
his property from the sacrilegious hands of the followers of Zoroaster.
[143] But the ruin of Tarsus, and of many other cities, furnishes a
melancholy proof that, except in this singular instance, the conquest of
Syria and Cilicia scarcely interrupted the progress of the Persian arms.
The advantages of the narrow passes of Mount Taurus were abandoned, in
which an invader, whose principal force consisted in his cavalry, would
have been engaged in a very unequal combat: and Sapor was permitted to
form the siege of Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia; a city, though of
the second rank, which was supposed to contain four hundred thousand
inhabitants. Demosthenes commanded in the place, not so much by the
commission of the emperor, as in the voluntary defence of his country.
For a long time he deferred its fate; and when at last Caesarea was
betrayed by the perfidy of a physician, he cut his way through the
Persians, who had been ordered to exert their utmost diligence to take
him alive. This heroic chief escaped the power of a foe who might either
have honored or punished his obstinate valor; but many thousands of his
fellow-citizens were involved in a general massacre, and Sapor is
accused of treating his prisoners with wanton and unrelenting cruelty.
[144] Much should undoubtedly be allowed for national animosity, much
for humbled pride and impotent revenge; yet, upon the whole, it is
certain, that the same prince, who, in Armenia, had displayed the mild
aspect of a legislator, showed himself to the Romans under the stern
features of a conqueror. He despaired of making any permanent
establishment in the empire, and sought only to leave behind him a
wasted desert, whilst he transported into Persia the people and the
treasures of the provinces. [145]

[Footnote 141: The sack of Antioch, anticipated by some historians,
is assigned, by the decisive testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus, to the
reign of Gallienus, xxiii. 5. * Note: Heyne, in his note on Zosimus,
contests this opinion of Gibbon and observes, that the testimony of
Ammianus is in fact by no means clear, decisive. Gallienus and Valerian
reigned together. Zosimus, in a passage, l. iiii. 32, 8, distinctly
places this event before the capture of Valerian.--M.]

[Footnote 142: Zosimus, l. i. p. 35.]

[Footnote 143: John Malala, tom. i. p. 391. He corrupts this probable
event by some fabulous circumstances.]

[Footnote 144: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630. Deep valleys were filled up with
the slain. Crowds of prisoners were driven to water like beasts, and
many perished for want of food.]

[Footnote 145: Zosimus, l. i. p. 25 asserts, that Sapor, had he not
preferred spoil to conquest, might have remained master of Asia.]

At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he received
a present not unworthy of the greatest kings; a long train of camels,
laden with the most rare and valuable merchandises. The rich offering
was accompanied with an epistle, respectful, but not servile, from
Odenathus, one of the noblest and most opulent senators of Palmyra. "Who
is this Odenathus," (said the haughty victor, and he commanded that the
present should be cast into the Euphrates,) "that he thus insolently
presumes to write to his lord? If he entertains a hope of mitigating his
punishment, let him fall prostrate before the foot of our throne, with
his hands bound behind his back. Should he hesitate, swift destruction
shall be poured on his head, on his whole race, and on his country."
[146] The desperate extremity to which the Palmyrenian was reduced,
called into action all the latent powers of his soul. He met Sapor; but
he met him in arms.

Infusing his own spirit into a little army collected from the villages
of Syria [147] and the tents of the desert, [148] he hovered round the
Persian host, harassed their retreat, carried off part of the treasure,
and, what was dearer than any treasure, several of the women of the
great king; who was at last obliged to repass the Euphrates with some
marks of haste and confusion. [149] By this exploit, Odenathus laid
the foundations of his future fame and fortunes. The majesty of Rome,
oppressed by a Persian, was protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra.

[Footnote 146: Peter Patricius in Excerpt. Leg. p. 29.]

[Footnote 147: Syrorum agrestium manu. Sextus Rufus, c. 23. Rufus Victor
the Augustan History, (p. 192,) and several inscriptions, agree in
making Odenathus a citizen of Palmyra.]

[Footnote 148: He possessed so powerful an interest among the wandering
tribes, that Procopius (Bell. Persic. l. ii. c. 5) and John Malala,
(tom. i. p. 391) style him Prince of the Saracens.]

[Footnote 149: Peter Patricius, p. 25.]

The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ of
hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the rights
of conquest. We are told that Valerian, in chains, but invested with the
Imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude, a constant spectacle
of fallen greatness; and that whenever the Persian monarch mounted
on horseback, he placed his foot on the neck of a Roman emperor.
Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of his allies, who repeatedly
advised him to remember the vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the
returning power of Rome, and to make his illustrious captive the pledge
of peace, not the object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible.
When Valerian sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin,
stuffed with straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was
preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a more real
monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass and marble so
often erected by Roman vanity. [150] The tale is moral and pathetic, but
the truth [1501] of it may very fairly be called in question. The letters
still extant from the princes of the East to Sapor are manifest
forgeries; [151] nor is it natural to suppose that a jealous monarch
should, even in the person of a rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty
of kings. Whatever treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience
in Persia, it is at least certain that the only emperor of Rome who had
ever fallen into the hands of the enemy, languished away his life in
hopeless captivity.

[Footnote 150: The Pagan writers lament, the Christian insult, the
misfortunes of Valerian. Their various testimonies are accurately
collected by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 739, &c. So little has been
preserved of eastern history before Mahomet, that the modern Persians
are totally ignorant of the victory Sapor, an event so glorious to their
nation. See Bibliotheque Orientale. * Note: Malcolm appears to write
from Persian authorities, i. 76.--M.]

[Footnote 1501: Yet Gibbon himself records a speech of the emperor Galerius,
which alludes to the cruelties exercised against the living, and the
indignities to which they exposed the dead Valerian, vol. ii. ch. 13.
Respect for the kingly character would by no means prevent an eastern
monarch from ratifying his pride and his vengeance on a fallen foe.--M.]

[Footnote 151: One of these epistles is from Artavasdes, king of
Armenia; since Armenia was then a province of Persia, the king, the
kingdom, and the epistle must be fictitious.]

The emperor Gallienus, who had long supported with impatience
the censorial severity of his father and colleague, received the
intelligence of his misfortunes with secret pleasure and avowed
indifference. "I knew that my father was a mortal," said he; "and since
he has acted as it becomes a brave man, I am satisfied." Whilst Rome
lamented the fate of her sovereign, the savage coldness of his son was
extolled by the servile courtiers as the perfect firmness of a hero
and a stoic. [152] It is difficult to paint the light, the various,
the inconstant character of Gallienus, which he displayed without
constraint, as soon as he became sole possessor of the empire. In every
art that he attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as
his genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except
the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several
curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant poet, [153] a
skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince. When
the great emergencies of the state required his presence and attention,
he was engaged in conversation with the philosopher Plotinus, [154]
wasting his time in trifling or licentious pleasures, preparing his
initiation to the Grecian mysteries, or soliciting a place in the
Arcopagus of Athens. His profuse magnificence insulted the general
poverty; the solemn ridicule of his triumphs impressed a deeper sense
of the public disgrace. [155] The repeated intelligence of invasions,
defeats, and rebellions, he received with a careless smile; and singling
out, with affected contempt, some particular production of the lost
province, he carelessly asked, whether Rome must be ruined, unless it
was supplied with linen from Egypt, and arras cloth from Gaul. There
were, however, a few short moments in the life of Gallienus, when,
exasperated by some recent injury, he suddenly appeared the intrepid
soldier and the cruel tyrant; till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by
resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence
of his character. [156]

[Footnote 152: See his life in the Augustan History.]

[Footnote 153: There is still extant a very pretty Epithalamium,
composed by Gallienus for the nuptials of his nephews:--"Ite ait, O
juvenes, pariter sudate medullis Omnibus, inter vos: non murmura vestra
columbae, Brachia non hederae, non vincant oscula conchae."]

[Footnote 154: He was on the point of giving Plotinus a ruined city of
Campania to try the experiment of realizing Plato's Republic. See the
Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, in Fabricius's Biblioth. Graec. l. iv.]
[Footnote 155: A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has perplexed
the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former Gallienoe
Augustoe, the latter Ubique Pax. M. Spanheim supposes that the coin was
struck by some of the enemies of Gallienus, and was designed as a severe
satire on that effeminate prince. But as the use of irony may seem
unworthy of the gravity of the Roman mint, M. de Vallemont has deduced
from a passage of Trebellius Pollio (Hist. Aug. p. 198) an ingenious
and natural solution. Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By
delivering Africa from the usurper Celsus, she deserved the title of
Augusta. On a medal in the French king's collection, we read a similar
inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus Aurelius.
With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained by the vanity of
Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the occasion of some momentary calm. See
Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Janvier, 1700, p. 21--34.]

[Footnote 156: This singular character has, I believe, been fairly
transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor was short and
busy; and the historians who wrote before the elevation of the family of
Constantine could not have the most remote interest to misrepresent the
character of Gallienus.]

At the time when the reins of government were held with so loose a hand,
it is not surprising, that a crowd of usurpers should start up in every
province of the empire against the son of Valerian. It was probably some
ingenious fancy, of comparing the thirty tyrants of Rome with the thirty
tyrants of Athens, that induced the writers of the Augustan History to
select that celebrated number, which has been gradually received into
a popular appellation. [157] But in every light the parallel is idle and
defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council of thirty
persons, the united oppressors of a single city, and an uncertain list
of independent rivals, who rose and fell in irregular succession through
the extent of a vast empire? Nor can the number of thirty be completed,
unless we include in the account the women and children who were honored
with the Imperial title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was,
produced only nineteen pretenders to the throne: Cyriades, Macrianus,
Balista, Odenathus, and Zenobia, in the East; in Gaul, and the western
provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus, and his mother Victoria,
Marius, and Tetricus; in Illyricum and the confines of the Danube,
Ingenuus, Regillianus, and Aureolus; in Pontus, [158] Saturninus; in
Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; Aemilianus in
Egypt; and Celsus in Africa. [1581] To illustrate the obscure monuments of
the life and death of each individual, would prove a laborious task,
alike barren of instruction and of amusement. We may content ourselves
with investigating some general characters, that most strongly mark the
condition of the times, and the manners of the men, their pretensions,
their motives, their fate, and their destructive consequences of their
usurpation. [159]

[Footnote 157: Pollio expresses the most minute anxiety to complete the
number. * Note: Compare a dissertation of Manso on the thirty tyrants at
the end of his Leben Constantius des Grossen. Breslau, 1817.--M.]

[Footnote 158: The place of his reign is somewhat doubtful; but there
was a tyrant in Pontus, and we are acquainted with the seat of all the
others.]

[Footnote 1581: Captain Smyth, in his "Catalogue of Medals," p.
307, substitutes two new names to make up the number of nineteen, for
those of Odenathus and Zenobia. He subjoins this list:--1. 2. 3. Of
those whose coins Those whose coins Those of whom no are undoubtedly
true. are suspected. coins are known. Posthumus. Cyriades. Valens.
Laelianus, (Lollianus, G.) Ingenuus. Balista Victorinus Celsus.
Saturninus. Marius. Piso Frugi. Trebellianus. Tetricus.
--M. 1815 Macrianus. Quietus. Regalianus (Regillianus, G.) Alex.
Aemilianus. Aureolus. Sulpicius Antoninus]

[Footnote 159: Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1163, reckons them somewhat
differently.]

It is sufficiently known, that the odious appellation of Tyrant was
often employed by the ancients to express the illegal seizure of
supreme power, without any reference to the abuse of it. Several of the
pretenders, who raised the standard of rebellion against the emperor
Gallienus, were shining models of virtue, and almost all possessed a
considerable share of vigor and ability. Their merit had recommended
them to the favor of Valerian, and gradually promoted them to the most
important commands of the empire. The generals, who assumed the title of
Augustus, were either respected by their troops for their able conduct
and severe discipline, or admired for valor and success in war, or
beloved for frankness and generosity. The field of victory was often
the scene of their election; and even the armorer Marius, the most
contemptible of all the candidates for the purple, was distinguished,
however by intrepid courage, matchless strength, and blunt honesty.
[160] His mean and recent trade cast, indeed, an air of ridicule on his
elevation; [1601] but his birth could not be more obscure than was that of
the greater part of his rivals, who were born of peasants, and enlisted
in the army as private soldiers. In times of confusion, every active
genius finds the place assigned him by nature: in a general state
of war, military merit is the road to glory and to greatness. Of the
nineteen tyrants Tetricus only was a senator; Piso alone was a noble.
The blood of Numa, through twenty-eight successive generations, ran in
the veins of Calphurnius Piso, [161] who, by female alliances, claimed
a right of exhibiting, in his house, the images of Crassus and of the
great Pompey. [162] His ancestors had been repeatedly dignified with all
the honors which the commonwealth could bestow; and of all the ancient
families of Rome, the Calphurnian alone had survived the tyranny of the
Caesars. The personal qualities of Piso added new lustre to his race.
The usurper Valens, by whose order he was killed, confessed, with deep
remorse, that even an enemy ought to have respected the sanctity of
Piso; and although he died in arms against Gallienus, the senate, with
the emperor's generous permission, decreed the triumphal ornaments
to the memory of so virtuous a rebel. [163] [See Roman Coins: From The
British Museum. Number four depicts Crassus.]

[Footnote 160: See the speech of Marius in the Augustan History, p. 197.
The accidental identity of names was the only circumstance that could
tempt Pollio to imitate Sallust.]

[Footnote 1601: Marius was killed by a soldier, who had formerly served
as a workman in his shop, and who exclaimed, as he struck, "Behold the
sword which thyself hast forged." Trob vita.--G.]

[Footnote 161: "Vos, O Pompilius sanguis!" is Horace's address to
the Pisos See Art. Poet. v. 292, with Dacier's and Sanadon's notes.]

[Footnote 162: Tacit. Annal. xv. 48. Hist. i. 15. In the former of
these passages we may venture to change paterna into materna. In every
generation from Augustus to Alexander Severus, one or more Pisos appear
as consuls. A Piso was deemed worthy of the throne by Augustus, (Tacit.
Annal. i. 13;) a second headed a formidable conspiracy against Nero; and
a third was adopted, and declared Caesar, by Galba.]

[Footnote 163: Hist. August. p. 195. The senate, in a moment of
enthusiasm, seems to have presumed on the approbation of Gallienus.]

The lieutenants of Valerian were grateful to the father, whom they
esteemed. They disdained to serve the luxurious indolence of his
unworthy son. The throne of the Roman world was unsupported by any
principle of loyalty; and treason against such a prince might easily be
considered as patriotism to the state. Yet if we examine with candor the
conduct of these usurpers, it will appear, that they were much oftener
driven into rebellion by their fears, than urged to it by their
ambition. They dreaded the cruel suspicions of Gallienus; they equally
dreaded the capricious violence of their troops. If the dangerous favor
of the army had imprudently declared them deserving of the purple, they
were marked for sure destruction; and even prudence would counsel them
to secure a short enjoyment of empire, and rather to try the fortune of
war than to expect the hand of an executioner.

When the clamor of the soldiers invested the reluctant victims with the
ensigns of sovereign authority, they sometimes mourned in secret their
approaching fate. "You have lost," said Saturninus, on the day of his
elevation, "you have lost a useful commander, and you have made a very
wretched emperor." [164]

[Footnote 164: Hist. August p. 196.]

The apprehensions of Saturninus were justified by the repeated
experience of revolutions. Of the nineteen tyrants who started up under
the reign of Gallienus, there was not one who enjoyed a life of peace,
or a natural death. As soon as they were invested with the bloody
purple, they inspired their adherents with the same fears and ambition
which had occasioned their own revolt. Encompassed with domestic
conspiracy, military sedition, and civil war, they trembled on the edge
of precipices, in which, after a longer or shorter term of anxiety, they
were inevitably lost. These precarious monarchs received, however, such
honors as the flattery of their respective armies and provinces could
bestow; but their claim, founded on rebellion, could never obtain the
sanction of law or history. Italy, Rome, and the senate, constantly
adhered to the cause of Gallienus, and he alone was considered as
the sovereign of the empire. That prince condescended, indeed, to
acknowledge the victorious arms of Odenathus, who deserved the honorable
distinction, by the respectful conduct which he always maintained
towards the son of Valerian. With the general applause of the Romans,
and the consent of Gallienus, the senate conferred the title of Augustus
on the brave Palmyrenian; and seemed to intrust him with the government
of the East, which he already possessed, in so independent a manner,
that, like a private succession, he bequeathed it to his illustrious
widow, Zenobia. [165]

[Footnote 165: The association of the brave Palmyrenian was the most
popular act of the whole reign of Gallienus. Hist. August. p. 180.]

The rapid and perpetual transitions from the cottage to the throne, and
from the throne to the grave, might have amused an indifferent
philosopher; were it possible for a philosopher to remain indifferent
amidst the general calamities of human kind. The election of these
precarious emperors, their power and their death, were equally
destructive to their subjects and adherents. The price of their fatal
elevation was instantly discharged to the troops by an immense donative,
drawn from the bowels of the exhausted people. However virtuous was
their character, however pure their intentions, they found themselves
reduced to the hard necessity of supporting their usurpation by frequent
acts of rapine and cruelty. When they fell, they involved armies and
provinces in their fall. There is still extant a most savage mandate
from Gallienus to one of his ministers, after the suppression of
Ingenuus, who had assumed the purple in Illyricum.

"It is not enough," says that soft but inhuman prince, "that you
exterminate such as have appeared in arms; the chance of battle might
have served me as effectually. The male sex of every age must be
extirpated; provided that, in the execution of the children and old men,
you can contrive means to save our reputation. Let every one die who has
dropped an expression, who has entertained a thought against me, against
me, the son of Valerian, the father and brother of so many princes. [166]
Remember that Ingenuus was made emperor: tear, kill, hew in pieces.
I write to you with my own hand, and would inspire you with my own
feelings." [167] Whilst the public forces of the state were dissipated
in private quarrels, the defenceless provinces lay exposed to every
invader. The bravest usurpers were compelled, by the perplexity of their
situation, to conclude ignominious treaties with the common enemy, to
purchase with oppressive tributes the neutrality or services of the
Barbarians, and to introduce hostile and independent nations into the
heart of the Roman monarchy. [168]

[Footnote 166: Gallienus had given the titles of Caesar and Augustus to
his son Saloninus, slain at Cologne by the usurper Posthumus. A second
son of Gallienus succeeded to the name and rank of his elder brother
Valerian, the brother of Gallienus, was also associated to the empire:
several other brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces of the emperor
formed a very numerous royal family. See Tillemont, tom iii, and M. de
Brequigny in the Memoires de l'Academie, tom xxxii p. 262.]

[Footnote 167: Hist. August. p. 188.]

[Footnote 168: Regillianus had some bands of Roxolani in his service;
Posthumus a body of Franks. It was, perhaps, in the character of
auxiliaries that the latter introduced themselves into Spain.]

Such were the barbarians, and such the tyrants, who, under the reigns
of Valerian and Gallienus, dismembered the provinces, and reduced the
empire to the lowest pitch of disgrace and ruin, from whence it seemed
impossible that it should ever emerge. As far as the barrenness of
materials would permit, we have attempted to trace, with order and
perspicuity, the general events of that calamitous period. There still
remain some particular facts; I. The disorders of Sicily; II. The
tumults of Alexandria; and, III. The rebellion of the Isaurians, which
may serve to reflect a strong light on the horrid picture.


I. Whenever numerous troops of banditti, multiplied by success and
impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding the justice of their
country, we may safely infer, that the excessive weakness of the
government is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the community.
The situation of Sicily preserved it from the Barbarians; nor could the
disarmed province have supported a usurper. The sufferings of that once
flourishing and still fertile island were inflicted by baser hands. A
licentious crowd of slaves and peasants reigned for a while over the
plundered country, and renewed the memory of the servile wars of more
ancient times. [169] Devastations, of which the husbandman was either the
victim or the accomplice, must have ruined the agriculture of Sicily;
and as the principal estates were the property of the opulent senators
of Rome, who often enclosed within a farm the territory of an old
republic, it is not improbable, that this private injury might affect
the capital more deeply, than all the conquests of the Goths or the
Persians.

[Footnote 169: The Augustan History, p. 177. See Diodor. Sicul. l.
xxxiv.]


II. The foundation of Alexandria was a noble design, at once
conceived and executed by the son of Philip. The beautiful and regular
form of that great city, second only to Rome itself, comprehended a
circumference of fifteen miles; [170] it was peopled by three hundred
thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an equal number of slaves.
[171] The lucrative trade of Arabia and India flowed through the port of
Alexandria, to the capital and provinces of the empire. [1711] Idleness was
unknown. Some were employed in blowing of glass, others in weaving of
linen, others again manufacturing the papyrus. Either sex, and every
age, was engaged in the pursuits of industry, nor did even the blind or
the lame want occupations suited to their condition. [172] But the people
of Alexandria, a various mixture of nations, united the vanity and
inconstancy of the Greeks with the superstition and obstinacy of the
Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a transient scarcity of flesh
or lentils, the neglect of an accustomed salutation, a mistake of
precedency in the public baths, or even a religious dispute, [173] were
at any time sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude,
whose resentments were furious and implacable. [174] After the captivity
of Valerian and the insolence of his son had relaxed the authority of
the laws, the Alexandrians abandoned themselves to the ungoverned rage
of their passions, and their unhappy country was the theatre of a civil
war, which continued (with a few short and suspicious truces) above
twelve years. [175] All intercourse was cut off between the several
quarters of the afflicted city, every street was polluted with blood,
every building of strength converted into a citadel; nor did the tumults
subside till a considerable part of Alexandria was irretrievably ruined.
The spacious and magnificent district of Bruchion, [1751] with its palaces
and musaeum, the residence of the kings and philosophers of Egypt, is
described above a century afterwards, as already reduced to its present
state of dreary solitude. [176]

[Footnote 170: Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 10.]

[Footnote 171: Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 590, edit. Wesseling.]

[Footnote 1711: Berenice, or Myos-Hormos, on the Red Sea, received the
eastern commodities. From thence they were transported to the Nile, and
down the Nile to Alexandria.--M.]

[Footnote 172: See a very curious letter of Hadrian, in the Augustan
History, p. 245.]

[Footnote 173: Such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat. See
Diodor. Sicul. l. i. * Note: The hostility between the Jewish and
Grecian part of the population afterwards between the two former and the
Christian, were unfailing causes of tumult, sedition, and massacre. In
no place were the religious disputes, after the establishment of
Christianity, more frequent or more sanguinary. See Philo. de Legat.
Hist. of Jews, ii. 171, iii. 111, 198. Gibbon, iii c. xxi. viii. c.
xlvii.--M.]

[Footnote 174: Hist. August. p. 195. This long and terrible sedition was
first occasioned by a dispute between a soldier and a townsman about a
pair of shoes.]

[Footnote 175: Dionysius apud. Euses. Hist. Eccles. vii. p. 21. Ammian
xxii. 16.]

[Footnote 1751: The Bruchion was a quarter of Alexandria which extended
along the largest of the two ports, and contained many palaces,
inhabited by the Ptolemies. D'Anv. Geogr. Anc. iii. 10.--G.]

[Footnote 176: Scaliger. Animadver. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 258. Three
dissertations of M. Bonamy, in the Mem. de l'Academie, tom. ix.]
III. The obscure rebellion of Trebellianus, who assumed the purple in
Isauria, a petty province of Asia Minor, was attended with strange and
memorable consequences. The pageant of royalty was soon destroyed by an
officer of Gallienus; but his followers, despairing of mercy, resolved
to shake off their allegiance, not only to the emperor, but to the
empire, and suddenly returned to the savage manners from which they
had never perfectly been reclaimed. Their craggy rocks, a branch of the
wide-extended Taurus, protected their inaccessible retreat. The tillage
of some fertile valleys [177] supplied them with necessaries, and a habit
of rapine with the luxuries of life. In the heart of the Roman monarchy,
the Isaurians long continued a nation of wild barbarians. Succeeding
princes, unable to reduce them to obedience, either by arms or policy,
were compelled to acknowledge their weakness, by surrounding the hostile
and independent spot with a strong chain of fortifications, [178] which
often proved insufficient to restrain the incursions of these domestic
foes. The Isaurians, gradually extending their territory to the
sea-coast, subdued the western and mountainous part of Cilicia, formerly
the nest of those daring pirates, against whom the republic had once
been obliged to exert its utmost force, under the conduct of the great
Pompey. [179]

[Footnote 177: Strabo, l. xiii. p. 569.]

[Footnote 178: Hist. August. p. 197.]

[Footnote 179: See Cellarius, Geogr Antiq. tom. ii. p. 137, upon the
limits of Isauria.]

Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the universe with
the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history has been decorated
with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon meteors, preternatural darkness,
and a crowd of prodigies fictitious or exaggerated. [180] But a long
and general famine was a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the
inevitable consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the
produce of the present, and the hope of future harvests. Famine is
almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of scanty and
unwholesome food. Other causes must, however, have contributed to the
furious plague, which, from the year two hundred and fifty to the
year two hundred and sixty-five, raged without interruption in every
province, every city, and almost every family, of the Roman empire.
During some time five thousand persons died daily in Rome; and many
towns, that had escaped the hands of the Barbarians, were entirely
depopulated. [181]

[Footnote 180: Hist August p 177.]

[Footnote 181: Hist. August. p. 177. Zosimus, l. i. p. 24. Zonaras,
l. xii. p. 623. Euseb. Chronicon. Victor in Epitom. Victor in Caesar.
Eutropius, ix. 5. Orosius, vii. 21.]

We have the knowledge of a very curious circumstance, of some use
perhaps in the melancholy calculation of human calamities. An exact
register was kept at Alexandria of all the citizens entitled to receive
the distribution of corn. It was found, that the ancient number of those
comprised between the ages of forty and seventy, had been equal to the
whole sum of claimants, from fourteen to fourscore years of age,
who remained alive after the reign of Gallienus. [182] Applying this
authentic fact to the most correct tables of mortality, it evidently
proves, that above half the people of Alexandria had perished; and
could we venture to extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might
suspect, that war, pestilence, and famine, had consumed, in a few
years, the moiety of the human species. [183]

[Footnote 182: Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vii. 21. The fact is taken from the
Letters of Dionysius, who, in the time of those troubles, was bishop of
Alexandria.]

[Footnote 183: In a great number of parishes, 11,000 persons were found
between fourteen and eighty; 5365 between forty and seventy. See Buffon,
Histoire Naturelle, tom. ii. p. 590.]




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

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

Under the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the empire was
oppressed and almost destroyed by the soldiers, the tyrants, and the
barbarians. It was saved by a series of great princes, who derived their
obscure origin from the martial provinces of Illyricum. Within a period
of about thirty years, Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian and his
colleagues, triumphed over the foreign and domestic enemies of the
state, reestablished, with the military discipline, the strength of the
frontiers, and deserved the glorious title of Restorers of the Roman
world.

The removal of an effeminate tyrant made way for a succession of heroes.
The indignation of the people imputed all their calamities to Gallienus,
and the far greater part were indeed, the consequence of his dissolute
manners and careless administration. He was even destitute of a sense of
honor, which so frequently supplies the absence of public virtue; and as
long as he was permitted to enjoy the possession of Italy, a victory of
the barbarians, the loss of a province, or the rebellion of a general,
seldom disturbed the tranquil course of his pleasures. At length, a
considerable army, stationed on the Upper Danube, invested with the
Imperial purple their leader Aureolus; who, disdaining a confined and
barren reign over the mountains of Rhaetia, passed the Alps, occupied
Milan, threatened Rome, and challenged Gallienus to dispute in the
field the sovereignty of Italy. The emperor, provoked by the insult, and
alarmed by the instant danger, suddenly exerted that latent vigor which
sometimes broke through the indolence of his temper. Forcing himself
from the luxury of the palace, he appeared in arms at the head of his
legions, and advanced beyond the Po to encounter his competitor. The
corrupted name of Pontirolo [1] still preserves the memory of a bridge
over the Adda, which, during the action, must have proved an object
of the utmost importance to both armies. The Rhaetian usurper, after
receiving a total defeat and a dangerous wound, retired into Milan. The
siege of that great city was immediately formed; the walls were battered
with every engine in use among the ancients; and Aureolus, doubtful
of his internal strength, and hopeless of foreign succors already
anticipated the fatal consequences of unsuccessful rebellion.

[Footnote 1: Pons Aureoli, thirteen miles from Bergamo, and thirty-two
from Milan. See Cluver. Italia, Antiq. tom. i. p. 245. Near this place,
in the year 1703, the obstinate battle of Cassano was fought between the
French and Austrians. The excellent relation of the Chevalier de Folard,
who was present, gives a very distinct idea of the ground. See Polybe de
Folard, tom. iii. p. 233-248.]

His last resource was an attempt to seduce the loyalty of the besiegers.
He scattered libels through the camp, inviting the troops to desert an
unworthy master, who sacrificed the public happiness to his luxury, and
the lives of his most valuable subjects to the slightest suspicions.
The arts of Aureolus diffused fears and discontent among the principal
officers of his rival. A conspiracy was formed by Heraclianus the
Praetorian praefect, by Marcian, a general of rank and reputation, and
by Cecrops, who commanded a numerous body of Dalmatian guards. The death
of Gallienus was resolved; and notwithstanding their desire of first
terminating the siege of Milan, the extreme danger which accompanied
every moment's delay obliged them to hasten the execution of their
daring purpose. At a late hour of the night, but while the emperor still
protracted the pleasures of the table, an alarm was suddenly given, that
Aureolus, at the head of all his forces, had made a desperate sally
from the town; Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal bravery,
started from his silken couch, and without allowing himself time either
to put on his armor, or to assemble his guards, he mounted on
horseback, and rode full speed towards the supposed place of the attack.
Encompassed by his declared or concealed enemies, he soon, amidst the
nocturnal tumult, received a mortal dart from an uncertain hand. Before
he expired, a patriotic sentiment using in the mind of Gallienus,
induced him to name a deserving successor; and it was his last request,
that the Imperial ornaments should be delivered to Claudius, who then
commanded a detached army in the neighborhood of Pavia. The report at
least was diligently propagated, and the order cheerfully obeyed by the
conspirators, who had already agreed to place Claudius on the throne.
On the first news of the emperor's death, the troops expressed some
suspicion and resentment, till the one was removed, and the other
assuaged, by a donative of twenty pieces of gold to each soldier. They
then ratified the election, and acknowledged the merit of their new
sovereign. [2]

[Footnote 2: On the death of Gallienus, see Trebellius Pollio in Hist.
August. p. 181. Zosimus, l. i. p. 37. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 634. Eutrop.
ix. ll. Aurelius Victor in Epitom. Victor in Caesar. I have compared and
blended them all, but have chiefly followed Aurelius Victor, who seems
to have had the best memoirs.]

The obscurity which covered the origin of Claudius, though it was
afterwards embellished by some flattering fictions, [3] sufficiently
betrays the meanness of his birth. We can only discover that he was a
native of one of the provinces bordering on the Danube; that his youth
was spent in arms, and that his modest valor attracted the favor and
confidence of Decius. The senate and people already considered him as an
excellent officer, equal to the most important trusts; and censured the
inattention of Valerian, who suffered him to remain in the subordinate
station of a tribune. But it was not long before that emperor
distinguished the merit of Claudius, by declaring him general and chief
of the Illyrian frontier, with the command of all the troops in Thrace,
Maesia, Dacia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, the appointments of the praefect
of Egypt, the establishment of the proconsul of Africa, and the sure
prospect of the consulship. By his victories over the Goths, he
deserved from the senate the honor of a statue, and excited the jealous
apprehensions of Gallienus. It was impossible that a soldier could
esteem so dissolute a sovereign, nor is it easy to conceal a just
contempt. Some unguarded expressions which dropped from Claudius were
officiously transmitted to the royal ear. The emperor's answer to an
officer of confidence describes in very lively colors his own character,
and that of the times. "There is not any thing capable of giving me more
serious concern, than the intelligence contained in your last despatch;
[4] that some malicious suggestions have indisposed towards us the mind
of our friend and parent Claudius. As you regard your allegiance, use
every means to appease his resentment, but conduct your negotiation with
secrecy; let it not reach the knowledge of the Dacian troops; they are
already provoked, and it might inflame their fury. I myself have sent
him some presents: be it your care that he accept them with pleasure.
Above all, let him not suspect that I am made acquainted with his
imprudence. The fear of my anger might urge him to desperate counsels."
[5] The presents which accompanied this humble epistle, in which the
monarch solicited a reconciliation with his discontented subject,
consisted of a considerable sum of money, a splendid wardrobe, and
a valuable service of silver and gold plate. By such arts Gallienus
softened the indignation and dispelled the fears of his Illyrian
general; and during the remainder of that reign, the formidable sword of
Claudius was always drawn in the cause of a master whom he despised.
At last, indeed, he received from the conspirators the bloody purple
of Gallienus: but he had been absent from their camp and counsels; and
however he might applaud the deed, we may candidly presume that he was
innocent of the knowledge of it. [6] When Claudius ascended the throne,
he was about fifty-four years of age.

[Footnote 3: Some supposed him, oddly enough, to be a bastard of the
younger Gordian. Others took advantage of the province of Dardania, to
deduce his origin from Dardanus, and the ancient kings of Troy.]

[Footnote 4: Notoria, a periodical and official despatch which the
emperor received from the frumentarii, or agents dispersed through the
provinces. Of these we may speak hereafter.]

[Footnote 5: Hist. August. p. 208. Gallienus describes the plate,
vestments, etc., like a man who loved and understood those splendid
trifles.]

[Footnote 6: Julian (Orat. i. p. 6) affirms that Claudius acquired the
empire in a just and even holy manner. But we may distrust the
partiality of a kinsman.]

The siege of Milan was still continued, and Aureolus soon discovered
that the success of his artifices had only raised up a more determined
adversary. He attempted to negotiate with Claudius a treaty of alliance
and partition. "Tell him," replied the intrepid emperor, "that such
proposals should have been made to Gallienus; he, perhaps, might have
listened to them with patience, and accepted a colleague as despicable
as himself." [7] This stern refusal, and a last unsuccessful effort,
obliged Aureolus to yield the city and himself to the discretion of the
conqueror. The judgment of the army pronounced him worthy of death; and
Claudius, after a feeble resistance, consented to the execution of the
sentence. Nor was the zeal of the senate less ardent in the cause of
their new sovereign. They ratified, perhaps with a sincere transport
of zeal, the election of Claudius; and, as his predecessor had shown
himself the personal enemy of their order, they exercised, under the
name of justice, a severe revenge against his friends and family. The
senate was permitted to discharge the ungrateful office of punishment,
and the emperor reserved for himself the pleasure and merit of obtaining
by his intercession a general act of indemnity. [8]

[Footnote 7: Hist. August. p. 203. There are some trifling differences
concerning the circumstances of the last defeat and death of Aureolus]

[Footnote 8: Aurelius Victor in Gallien. The people loudly prayed for
the damnation of Gallienus. The senate decreed that his relations and
servants should be thrown down headlong from the Gemonian stairs. An
obnoxious officer of the revenue had his eyes torn out whilst under
examination. Note: The expression is curious, "terram matrem deosque
inferos impias uti Gallieno darent."--M.]

Such ostentatious clemency discovers less of the real character of
Claudius, than a trifling circumstance in which he seems to have
consulted only the dictates of his heart. The frequent rebellions of
the provinces had involved almost every person in the guilt of treason,
almost every estate in the case of confiscation; and Gallienus often
displayed his liberality by distributing among his officers the property
of his subjects. On the accession of Claudius, an old woman threw
herself at his feet, and complained that a general of the late emperor
had obtained an arbitrary grant of her patrimony. This general was
Claudius himself, who had not entirely escaped the contagion of the
times. The emperor blushed at the reproach, but deserved the confidence
which she had reposed in his equity. The confession of his fault was
accompanied with immediate and ample restitution. [9]

[Footnote 9: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 137.]

In the arduous task which Claudius had undertaken, of restoring the
empire to its ancient splendor, it was first necessary to revive among
his troops a sense of order and obedience. With the authority of
a veteran commander, he represented to them that the relaxation of
discipline had introduced a long train of disorders, the effects of
which were at length experienced by the soldiers themselves; that a
people ruined by oppression, and indolent from despair, could no longer
supply a numerous army with the means of luxury, or even of subsistence;
that the danger of each individual had increased with the despotism of
the military order, since princes who tremble on the throne will guard
their safety by the instant sacrifice of every obnoxious subject.
The emperor expiated on the mischiefs of a lawless caprice, which the
soldiers could only gratify at the expense of their own blood; as their
seditious elections had so frequently been followed by civil wars, which
consumed the flower of the legions either in the field of battle, or
in the cruel abuse of victory. He painted in the most lively colors the
exhausted state of the treasury, the desolation of the provinces,
the disgrace of the Roman name, and the insolent triumph of rapacious
barbarians. It was against those barbarians, he declared, that he
intended to point the first effort of their arms. Tetricus might reign
for a while over the West, and even Zenobia might preserve the dominion
of the East. [10] These usurpers were his personal adversaries; nor
could he think of indulging any private resentment till he had saved
an empire, whose impending ruin would, unless it was timely prevented,
crush both the army and the people.

[Footnote 10: Zonaras on this occasion mentions Posthumus but the
registers of the senate (Hist. August. p. 203) prove that Tetricus was
already emperor of the western provinces.]

The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, who fought under the Gothic
standard, had already collected an armament more formidable than any
which had yet issued from the Euxine. On the banks of the Niester,
one of the great rivers that discharge themselves into that sea, they
constructed a fleet of two thousand, or even of six thousand vessels;
[11] numbers which, however incredible they may seem, would have been
insufficient to transport their pretended army of three hundred and
twenty thousand barbarians. Whatever might be the real strength of the
Goths, the vigor and success of the expedition were not adequate to the
greatness of the preparations. In their passage through the Bosphorus,
the unskilful pilots were overpowered by the violence of the current;
and while the multitude of their ships were crowded in a narrow
channel, many were dashed against each other, or against the shore. The
barbarians made several descents on the coasts both of Europe and Asia;
but the open country was already plundered, and they were repulsed with
shame and loss from the fortified cities which they assaulted. A spirit
of discouragement and division arose in the fleet, and some of their
chiefs sailed away towards the islands of Crete and Cyprus; but the main
body, pursuing a more steady course, anchored at length near the foot of
Mount Athos, and assaulted the city of Thessalonica, the wealthy capital
of all the Macedonian provinces. Their attacks, in which they displayed
a fierce but artless bravery, were soon interrupted by the rapid
approach of Claudius, hastening to a scene of action that deserved the
presence of a warlike prince at the head of the remaining powers of the
empire. Impatient for battle, the Goths immediately broke up their camp,
relinquished the siege of Thessalonica, left their navy at the foot of
Mount Athos, traversed the hills of Macedonia, and pressed forwards to
engage the last defence of Italy.

[Footnote 11: The Augustan History mentions the smaller, Zonaras the
larger number; the lively fancy of Montesquieu induced him to prefer the
latter.]

We still posses an original letter addressed by Claudius to the senate
and people on this memorable occasion. "Conscript fathers," says the
emperor, "know that three hundred and twenty thousand Goths have invaded
the Roman territory. If I vanquish them, your gratitude will reward my
services. Should I fall, remember that I am the successor of Gallienus.
The whole republic is fatigued and exhausted. We shall fight after
Valerian, after Ingenuus, Regillianus, Lollianus, Posthumus, Celsus, and
a thousand others, whom a just contempt for Gallienus provoked into
rebellion. We are in want of darts, of spears, and of shields. The
strength of the empire, Gaul, and Spain, are usurped by Tetricus, and we
blush to acknowledge that the archers of the East serve under the
banners of Zenobia. Whatever we shall perform will be sufficiently
great." [12] The melancholy firmness of this epistle announces a hero
careless of his fate, conscious of his danger, but still deriving a
well-grounded hope from the resources of his own mind.

[Footnote 12: Trebell. Pollio in Hist. August. p. 204.]

The event surpassed his own expectations and those of the world. By
the most signal victories he delivered the empire from this host of
barbarians, and was distinguished by posterity under the glorious
appellation of the Gothic Claudius. The imperfect historians of
an irregular war [13] do not enable as to describe the order and
circumstances of his exploits; but, if we could be indulged in the
allusion, we might distribute into three acts this memorable tragedy.
I. The decisive battle was fought near Naissus, a city of Dardania.
The legions at first gave way, oppressed by numbers, and dismayed by
misfortunes. Their ruin was inevitable, had not the abilities of their
emperor prepared a seasonable relief. A large detachment, rising out of
the secret and difficult passes of the mountains, which, by his order,
they had occupied, suddenly assailed the rear of the victorious Goths.

The favorable instant was improved by the activity of Claudius. He
revived the courage of his troops, restored their ranks, and pressed the
barbarians on every side. Fifty thousand men are reported to have been
slain in the battle of Naissus. Several large bodies of barbarians,
covering their retreat with a movable fortification of wagons, retired,
or rather escaped, from the field of slaughter.

II. We may presume that some insurmountable difficulty, the fatigue,
perhaps, or the disobedience, of the conquerors, prevented Claudius from
completing in one day the destruction of the Goths. The war was diffused
over the province of Maesia, Thrace, and Macedonia, and its operations
drawn out into a variety of marches, surprises, and tumultuary
engagements, as well by sea as by land. When the Romans suffered any
loss, it was commonly occasioned by their own cowardice or rashness; but
the superior talents of the emperor, his perfect knowledge of the
country, and his judicious choice of measures as well as officers,
assured on most occasions the success of his arms. The immense booty,
the fruit of so many victories, consisted for the greater part of cattle
and slaves. A select body of the Gothic youth was received among the
Imperial troops; the remainder was sold into servitude; and so
considerable was the number of female captives, that every soldier
obtained to his share two or three women. A circumstance from which we
may conclude, that the invaders entertained some designs of settlement
as well as of plunder; since even in a naval expedition, they were
accompanied by their families.

III. The loss of their fleet, which was either taken or sunk, had
intercepted the retreat of the Goths. A vast circle of Roman posts,
distributed with skill, supported with firmness, and gradually closing
towards a common centre, forced the barbarians into the most
inaccessible parts of Mount Haemus, where they found a safe refuge, but
a very scanty subsistence. During the course of a rigorous winter in
which they were besieged by the emperor's troops, famine and pestilence,
desertion and the sword, continually diminished the imprisoned
multitude. On the return of spring, nothing appeared in arms except a
hardy and desperate band, the remnant of that mighty host which had
embarked at the mouth of the Niester.

[Footnote 13: Hist. August. in Claud. Aurelian. et Prob. Zosimus, l.
i. p. 38-42. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638. Aurel. Victor in Epitom. Victor
Junior in Caesar. Eutrop. ix ll. Euseb. in Chron.]

The pestilence which swept away such numbers of the barbarians, at
length proved fatal to their conqueror. After a short but glorious
reign of two years, Claudius expired at Sirmium, amidst the tears and
acclamations of his subjects. In his last illness, he convened the
principal officers of the state and army, and in their presence
recommended Aurelian, [14] one of his generals, as the most deserving of
the throne, and the best qualified to execute the great design which he
himself had been permitted only to undertake. The virtues of Claudius,
his valor, affability, justice, and temperance, his love of fame and of
his country, place him in that short list of emperors who added lustre
to the Roman purple. Those virtues, however, were celebrated with
peculiar zeal and complacency by the courtly writers of the age of
Constantine, who was the great grandson of Crispus, the elder brother
of Claudius. The voice of flattery was soon taught to repeat, that gods,
who so hastily had snatched Claudius from the earth, rewarded his merit
and piety by the perpetual establishment of the empire in his family.
[15]

[Footnote 14: According to Zonaras, (l. xii. p. 638,) Claudius,
before his death, invested him with the purple; but this singular fact
is rather contradicted than confirmed by other writers.]

[Footnote 15: See the Life of Claudius by Pollio, and the Orations of
Mamertinus, Eumenius, and Julian. See likewise the Caesars of Julian
p. 318. In Julian it was not adulation, but superstition and vanity.]

Notwithstanding these oracles, the greatness of the Flavian family (a
name which it had pleased them to assume) was deferred above twenty
years, and the elevation of Claudius occasioned the immediate ruin
of his brother Quintilius, who possessed not sufficient moderation or
courage to descend into the private station to which the patriotism
of the late emperor had condemned him. Without delay or reflection, he
assumed the purple at Aquileia, where he commanded a considerable force;
and though his reign lasted only seventeen days, [151] he had time to
obtain the sanction of the senate, and to experience a mutiny of the
troops.

As soon as he was informed that the great army of the Danube had
invested the well-known valor of Aurelian with Imperial power, he sunk
under the fame and merit of his rival; and ordering his veins to be
opened, prudently withdrew himself from the unequal contest. [16]

[Footnote 151: Such is the narrative of the greater part of the older
historians; but the number and the variety of his medals seem to require
more time, and give probability to the report of Zosimus, who makes him
reign some months.--G.]

[Footnote 16: Zosimus, l. i. p. 42. Pollio (Hist. August. p. 107)
allows him virtues, and says, that, like Pertinax, he was killed by the
licentious soldiers. According to Dexippus, he died of a disease.]

The general design of this work will not permit us minutely to relate
the actions of every emperor after he ascended the throne, much less to
deduce the various fortunes of his private life. We shall only observe,
that the father of Aurelian was a peasant of the territory of Sirmium,
who occupied a small farm, the property of Aurelius, a rich senator.
His warlike son enlisted in the troops as a common soldier, successively
rose to the rank of a centurion, a tribune, the praefect of a legion,
the inspector of the camp, the general, or, as it was then called, the
duke, of a frontier; and at length, during the Gothic war, exercised the
important office of commander-in-chief of the cavalry. In every station
he distinguished himself by matchless valor, [17] rigid discipline, and
successful conduct. He was invested with the consulship by the emperor
Valerian, who styles him, in the pompous language of that age, the
deliverer of Illyricum, the restorer of Gaul, and the rival of the
Scipios. At the recommendation of Valerian, a senator of the highest
rank and merit, Ulpius Crinitus, whose blood was derived from the same
source as that of Trajan, adopted the Pannonian peasant, gave him his
daughter in marriage, and relieved with his ample fortune the honorable
poverty which Aurelian had preserved inviolate. [18]

[Footnote 17: Theoclius (as quoted in the Augustan History, p. 211)
affirms that in one day he killed with his own hand forty-eight
Sarmatians, and in several subsequent engagements nine hundred and
fifty. This heroic valor was admired by the soldiers, and celebrated in
their rude songs, the burden of which was, mille, mile, mille, occidit.]

[Footnote 18: Acholius (ap. Hist. August. p. 213) describes the ceremony
of the adoption, as it was performed at Byzantium, in the presence of
the emperor and his great officers.]

The reign of Aurelian lasted only four years and about nine months;
but every instant of that short period was filled by some memorable
achievement. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised the Germans who
invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain out of the hands of
Tetricus, and destroyed the proud monarchy which Zenobia had erected in
the East on the ruins of the afflicted empire.

It was the rigid attention of Aurelian, even to the minutest articles of
discipline, which bestowed such uninterrupted success on his arms. His
military regulations are contained in a very concise epistle to one of
his inferior officers, who is commanded to enforce them, as he wishes
to become a tribune, or as he is desirous to live. Gaming, drinking, and
the arts of divination, were severely prohibited. Aurelian expected that
his soldiers should be modest, frugal, and laborous; that their armor
should be constantly kept bright, their weapons sharp, their clothing
and horses ready for immediate service; that they should live in their
quarters with chastity and sobriety, without damaging the cornfields,
without stealing even a sheep, a fowl, or a bunch of grapes, without
exacting from their landlords, either salt, or oil, or wood. "The public
allowance," continues the emperor, "is sufficient for their support;
their wealth should be collected from the spoils of the enemy, not
from the tears of the provincials." [19] A single instance will serve to
display the rigor, and even cruelty, of Aurelian. One of the soldiers
had seduced the wife of his host. The guilty wretch was fastened to two
trees forcibly drawn towards each other, and his limbs were torn asunder
by their sudden separation. A few such examples impressed a salutary
consternation. The punishments of Aurelian were terrible; but he had
seldom occasion to punish more than once the same offence. His own
conduct gave a sanction to his laws, and the seditious legions dreaded a
chief who had learned to obey, and who was worthy to command.

[Footnote 19: Hist. August, p. 211 This laconic epistle is truly the
work of a soldier; it abounds with military phrases and words, some of
which cannot be understood without difficulty. Ferramenta samiata is
well explained by Salmasius. The former of the words means all weapons
of offence, and is contrasted with Arma, defensive armor The latter
signifies keen and well sharpened.]




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

The death of Claudius had revived the fainting spirit of the Goths. The
troops which guarded the passes of Mount Haemus, and the banks of the
Danube, had been drawn away by the apprehension of a civil war; and it
seems probable that the remaining body of the Gothic and Vandalic tribes
embraced the favorable opportunity, abandoned their settlements of
the Ukraine, traversed the rivers, and swelled with new multitudes the
destroying host of their countrymen. Their united numbers were at length
encountered by Aurelian, and the bloody and doubtful conflict ended only
with the approach of night. [20] Exhausted by so many calamities, which
they had mutually endured and inflicted during a twenty years' war, the
Goths and the Romans consented to a lasting and beneficial treaty. It
was earnestly solicited by the barbarians, and cheerfully ratified by
the legions, to whose suffrage the prudence of Aurelian referred the
decision of that important question. The Gothic nation engaged to supply
the armies of Rome with a body of two thousand auxiliaries, consisting
entirely of cavalry, and stipulated in return an undisturbed retreat,
with a regular market as far as the Danube, provided by the emperor's
care, but at their own expense. The treaty was observed with such
religious fidelity, that when a party of five hundred men straggled
from the camp in quest of plunder, the king or general of the barbarians
commanded that the guilty leader should be apprehended and shot to death
with darts, as a victim devoted to the sanctity of their engagements.
[201] It is, however, not unlikely, that the precaution of Aurelian, who
had exacted as hostages the sons and daughters of the Gothic chiefs,
contributed something to this pacific temper. The youths he trained in
the exercise of arms, and near his own person: to the damsels he gave a
liberal and Roman education, and by bestowing them in marriage on some
of his principal officers, gradually introduced between the two nations
the closest and most endearing connections. [21]

[Footnote 20: Zosimus, l. i. p. 45.]

[Footnote 201: The five hundred stragglers were all slain.--M.]

[Footnote 21: Dexipphus (ap. Excerpta Legat. p. 12) relates the whole
transaction under the name of Vandals. Aurelian married one of the
Gothic ladies to his general Bonosus, who was able to drink with the
Goths and discover their secrets. Hist. August. p. 247.]

But the most important condition of peace was understood rather than
expressed in the treaty. Aurelian withdrew the Roman forces from Dacia,
and tacitly relinquished that great province to the Goths and Vandals.
[22] His manly judgment convinced him of the solid advantages, and taught
him to despise the seeming disgrace, of thus contracting the frontiers
of the monarchy. The Dacian subjects, removed from those distant
possessions which they were unable to cultivate or defend, added
strength and populousness to the southern side of the Danube. A fertile
territory, which the repetition of barbarous inroads had changed into a
desert, was yielded to their industry, and a new province of Dacia still
preserved the memory of Trajan's conquests. The old country of that name
detained, however, a considerable number of its inhabitants, who dreaded
exile more than a Gothic master. [23] These degenerate Romans continued
to serve the empire, whose allegiance they had renounced, by introducing
among their conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful
arts, and the conveniences of civilized life. An intercourse of commerce
and language was gradually established between the opposite banks of the
Danube; and after Dacia became an independent state, it often proved the
firmest barrier of the empire against the invasions of the savages of
the North. A sense of interest attached these more settled barbarians
to the alliance of Rome, and a permanent interest very frequently ripens
into sincere and useful friendship. This various colony, which filled
the ancient province, and was insensibly blended into one great people,
still acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic
tribe, and claimed the fancied honor of a Scandinavian origin. At the
same time, the lucky though accidental resemblance of the name of Getae,
[231] infused among the credulous Goths a vain persuasion, that in a
remote age, their own ancestors, already seated in the Dacian provinces,
had received the instructions of Zamolxis, and checked the victorious
arms of Sesostris and Darius. [24]

[Footnote 22: Hist. August. p. 222. Eutrop. ix. 15. Sextus Rufus, c. 9.
de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 9.]

[Footnote 23: The Walachians still preserve many traces of the Latin
language and have boasted, in every age, of their Roman descent. They
are surrounded by, but not mixed with, the barbarians. See a Memoir
of M. d'Anville on ancient Dacia, in the Academy of Inscriptions, tom.
xxx.]

[Footnote 231: The connection between the Getae and the Goths is still in
my opinion incorrectly maintained by some learned writers--M.]

[Footnote 24: See the first chapter of Jornandes. The Vandals, however,
(c. 22,) maintained a short independence between the Rivers Marisia and
Crissia, (Maros and Keres,) which fell into the Teiss.]

While the vigorous and moderate conduct of Aurelian restored the
Illyrian frontier, the nation of the Alemanni [25] violated the
conditions of peace, which either Gallienus had purchased, or Claudius
had imposed, and, inflamed by their impatient youth, suddenly flew to
arms. Forty thousand horse appeared in the field, [26] and the numbers
of the infantry doubled those of the cavalry. [27] The first objects
of their avarice were a few cities of the Rhaetian frontier; but their
hopes soon rising with success, the rapid march of the Alemanni traced a
line of devastation from the Danube to the Po. [28]

[Footnote 25: Dexippus, p. 7--12. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Vopiscus in
Aurelian in Hist. August. However these historians differ in names,
(Alemanni Juthungi, and Marcomanni,) it is evident that they mean the
same people, and the same war; but it requires some care to conciliate
and explain them.]

[Footnote 26: Cantoclarus, with his usual accuracy, chooses to translate
three hundred thousand: his version is equally repugnant to sense and to
grammar.]

[Footnote 27: We may remark, as an instance of bad taste, that Dexippus
applies to the light infantry of the Alemanni the technical terms proper
only to the Grecian phalanx.]

[Footnote 28: In Dexippus, we at present read Rhodanus: M. de Valois
very judiciously alters the word to Eridanus.]

The emperor was almost at the same time informed of the irruption, and
of the retreat, of the barbarians. Collecting an active body of troops,
he marched with silence and celerity along the skirts of the Hercynian
forest; and the Alemanni, laden with the spoils of Italy, arrived at
the Danube, without suspecting, that on the opposite bank, and in an
advantageous post, a Roman army lay concealed and prepared to intercept
their return. Aurelian indulged the fatal security of the barbarians,
and permitted about half their forces to pass the river without
disturbance and without precaution. Their situation and astonishment
gave him an easy victory; his skilful conduct improved the advantage.
Disposing the legions in a semicircular form, he advanced the two horns
of the crescent across the Danube, and wheeling them on a sudden
towards the centre, enclosed the rear of the German host. The dismayed
barbarians, on whatsoever side they cast their eyes, beheld, with
despair, a wasted country, a deep and rapid stream, a victorious and
implacable enemy.

Reduced to this distressed condition, the Alemanni no longer disdained
to sue for peace. Aurelian received their ambassadors at the head of his
camp, and with every circumstance of martial pomp that could display
the greatness and discipline of Rome. The legions stood to their arms
in well-ordered ranks and awful silence. The principal commanders,
distinguished by the ensigns of their rank, appeared on horseback on
either side of the Imperial throne. Behind the throne the consecrated
images of the emperor, and his predecessors, [29] the golden eagles, and
the various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of gold, were
exalted in the air on lofty pikes covered with silver. When Aurelian
assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure [30] taught
the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple of their
conqueror. The ambassadors fell prostrate on the ground in silence. They
were commanded to rise, and permitted to speak. By the assistance of
interpreters they extenuated their perfidy, magnified their exploits,
expatiated on the vicissitudes of fortune and the advantages of peace,
and, with an ill-timed confidence, demanded a large subsidy, as the
price of the alliance which they offered to the Romans. The answer
of the emperor was stern and imperious. He treated their offer with
contempt, and their demand with indignation, reproached the barbarians,
that they were as ignorant of the arts of war as of the laws of peace,
and finally dismissed them with the choice only of submitting to this
unconditional mercy, or awaiting the utmost severity of his resentment.
[31] Aurelian had resigned a distant province to the Goths; but it was
dangerous to trust or to pardon these perfidious barbarians, whose
formidable power kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms.

[Footnote 29: The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number; but we
are ignorant how far this mark of respect was extended; if to Caesar and
Augustus, it must have produced a very awful spectacle; a long line of
the masters of the world.]

[Footnote 30: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 210.]

[Footnote 31: Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration, worthy of
a Grecian sophist.]

Immediately after this conference, it should seem that some unexpected
emergency required the emperor's presence in Pannonia.

He devolved on his lieutenants the care of finishing the destruction of
the Alemanni, either by the sword, or by the surer operation of famine.
But an active despair has often triumphed over the indolent assurance
of success. The barbarians, finding it impossible to traverse the Danube
and the Roman camp, broke through the posts in their rear, which were
more feebly or less carefully guarded; and with incredible diligence,
but by a different road, returned towards the mountains of Italy. [32]
Aurelian, who considered the war as totally extinguished, received the
mortifying intelligence of the escape of the Alemanni, and of the ravage
which they already committed in the territory of Milan. The legions were
commanded to follow, with as much expedition as those heavy bodies were
capable of exerting, the rapid flight of an enemy whose infantry and
cavalry moved with almost equal swiftness. A few days afterwards, the
emperor himself marched to the relief of Italy, at the head of a chosen
body of auxiliaries, (among whom were the hostages and cavalry of the
Vandals,) and of all the Praetorian guards who had served in the wars on
the Danube. [33]

[Footnote 32: Hist. August. p. 215.]

[Footnote 33: Dexippus, p. 12.]

As the light troops of the Alemanni had spread themselves from the Alps
to the Apennine, the incessant vigilance of Aurelian and his officers
was exercised in the discovery, the attack, and the pursuit of the
numerous detachments. Notwithstanding this desultory war, three
considerable battles are mentioned, in which the principal force of
both armies was obstinately engaged. [34] The success was various. In
the first, fought near Placentia, the Romans received so severe a blow,
that, according to the expression of a writer extremely partial to
Aurelian, the immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended. [35]
The crafty barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the
legions in the dusk of the evening, and, it is most probable, after the
fatigue and disorder of a long march.

The fury of their charge was irresistible; but, at length, after a
dreadful slaughter, the patient firmness of the emperor rallied his
troops, and restored, in some degree, the honor of his arms. The second
battle was fought near Fano in Umbria; on the spot which, five hundred
years before, had been fatal to the brother of Hannibal. [36] Thus far
the successful Germans had advanced along the Aemilian and Flaminian
way, with a design of sacking the defenceless mistress of the world.
But Aurelian, who, watchful for the safety of Rome, still hung on their
rear, found in this place the decisive moment of giving them a total
and irretrievable defeat. [37] The flying remnant of their host was
exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia; and Italy was
delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni.

[Footnote 34: Victor Junior in Aurelian.]

[Footnote 35: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216.]

[Footnote 36: The little river, or rather torrent, of, Metaurus, near
Fano, has been immortalized, by finding such an historian as Livy, and
such a poet as Horace.]

[Footnote 37: It is recorded by an inscription found at Pesaro. See
Gruter cclxxvi. 3.]

Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new
calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their
invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in the valor
and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public consternation, when the
barbarians were hourly expected at the gates of Rome, that, by a decree
of the senate the Sibylline books were consulted. Even the emperor
himself from a motive either of religion or of policy, recommended this
salutary measure, chided the tardiness of the senate, [38] and offered
to supply whatever expense, whatever animals, whatever captives of any
nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal offer, it
does not appear, that any human victims expiated with their blood the
sins of the Roman people. The Sibylline books enjoined ceremonies of a
more harmless nature, processions of priests in white robes, attended
by a chorus of youths and virgins; lustrations of the city and
adjacent country; and sacrifices, whose powerful influence disabled
the barbarians from passing the mystic ground on which they had been
celebrated. However puerile in themselves, these superstitious arts were
subservient to the success of the war; and if, in the decisive battle of
Fano, the Alemanni fancied they saw an army of spectres combating on
the side of Aurelian, he received a real and effectual aid from this
imaginary reenforcement. [39]

[Footnote 38: One should imagine, he said, that you were assembled in a
Christian church, not in the temple of all the gods.]

[Footnote 39: Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 215, 216, gives a long
account of these ceremonies from the Registers of the senate.]

But whatever confidence might be placed in ideal ramparts, the
experience of the past, and the dread of the future, induced the Romans
to construct fortifications of a grosser and more substantial kind. The
seven hills of Rome had been surrounded, by the successors of Romulus,
with an ancient wall of more than thirteen miles. [40] The vast enclosure
may seem disproportioned to the strength and numbers of the infant
state. But it was necessary to secure an ample extent of pasture and
arable land, against the frequent and sudden incursions of the tribes
of Latium, the perpetual enemies of the republic. With the progress
of Roman greatness, the city and its inhabitants gradually increased,
filled up the vacant space, pierced through the useless walls, covered
the field of Mars, and, on every side, followed the public highways in
long and beautiful suburbs. [41] The extent of the new walls, erected by
Aurelian, and finished in the reign of Probus, was magnified by popular
estimation to near fifty, [42] but is reduced by accurate measurement to
about twenty-one miles. [43] It was a great but a melancholy labor, since
the defence of the capital betrayed the decline of the monarchy. The
Romans of a more prosperous age, who trusted to the arms of the legions
the safety of the frontier camps, [44] were very far from entertaining
a suspicion, that it would ever become necessary to fortify the seat of
empire against the inroads of the barbarians. [45]

[Footnote 40: Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. To confirm our idea, we may
observe, that for a long time Mount Caelius was a grove of oaks, and
Mount Viminal was overrun with osiers; that, in the fourth century, the
Aventine was a vacant and solitary retirement; that, till the time of
Augustus, the Esquiline was an unwholesome burying-ground; and that
the numerous inequalities, remarked by the ancients in the Quirinal,
sufficiently prove that it was not covered with buildings. Of the seven
hills, the Capitoline and Palatine only, with the adjacent valleys, were
the primitive habitations of the Roman people. But this subject would
require a dissertation.]

[Footnote 41: Exspatiantia tecta multas addidere urbes, is the
expression of Pliny.]

[Footnote 42: Hist. August. p. 222. Both Lipsius and Isaac Vossius have
eagerly embraced this measure.]

[Footnote 43: See Nardini, Roman Antica, l. i. c. 8. * Note: But compare
Gibbon, ch. xli. note 77.--M.]

[Footnote 44: Tacit. Hist. iv. 23.]

[Footnote 45: For Aurelian's walls, see Vopiscus in Hist. August. p.
216, 222. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Eutropius, ix. 15. Aurel. Victor in
Aurelian Victor Junior in Aurelian. Euseb. Hieronym. et Idatius in
Chronic]

The victory of Claudius over the Goths, and the success of Aurelian
against the Alemanni, had already restored to the arms of Rome their
ancient superiority over the barbarous nations of the North. To chastise
domestic tyrants, and to reunite the dismembered parts of the empire,
was a task reserved for the second of those warlike emperors. Though he
was acknowledged by the senate and people, the frontiers of Italy,
Africa, Illyricum, and Thrace, confined the limits of his reign. Gaul,
Spain, and Britain, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, were still possessed
by two rebels, who alone, out of so numerous a list, had hitherto
escaped the dangers of their situation; and to complete the ignominy of
Rome, these rival thrones had been usurped by women.

A rapid succession of monarchs had arisen and fallen in the provinces
of Gaul. The rigid virtues of Posthumus served only to hasten his
destruction. After suppressing a competitor, who had assumed the purple
at Mentz, he refused to gratify his troops with the plunder of the
rebellious city; and in the seventh year of his reign, became the victim
of their disappointed avarice. [46] The death of Victorinus, his friend
and associate, was occasioned by a less worthy cause. The shining
accomplishments [47] of that prince were stained by a licentious passion,
which he indulged in acts of violence, with too little regard to the
laws of society, or even to those of love. [48] He was slain at Cologne,
by a conspiracy of jealous husbands, whose revenge would have appeared
more justifiable, had they spared the innocence of his son. After the
murder of so many valiant princes, it is somewhat remarkable, that a
female for a long time controlled the fierce legions of Gaul, and still
more singular, that she was the mother of the unfortunate Victorinus.
The arts and treasures of Victoria enabled her successively to place
Marius and Tetricus on the throne, and to reign with a manly vigor under
the name of those dependent emperors. Money of copper, of silver, and
of gold, was coined in her name; she assumed the titles of Augusta and
Mother of the Camps: her power ended only with her life; but her life
was perhaps shortened by the ingratitude of Tetricus. [49]

[Footnote 46: His competitor was Lollianus, or Aelianus, if, indeed,
these names mean the same person. See Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1177.
Note: The medals which bear the name of Lollianus are considered
forgeries except one in the museum of the Prince of Waldeck there are
many extent bearing the name of Laelianus, which appears to have been
that of the competitor of Posthumus. Eckhel. Doct. Num. t. vi. 149--G.]

[Footnote 47: The character of this prince by Julius Aterianus (ap.
Hist. August. p. 187) is worth transcribing, as it seems fair and
impartial Victorino qui Post Junium Posthumium Gallias rexit neminem
existemo praeferendum; non in virtute Trajanum; non Antoninum
in clementia; non in gravitate Nervam; non in gubernando aerario
Vespasianum; non in Censura totius vitae ac severitate militari
Pertinacem vel Severum. Sed omnia haec libido et cupiditas voluptatis
mulierriae sic perdidit, ut nemo audeat virtutes ejus in literas mittere
quem constat omnium judicio meruisse puniri.]

[Footnote 48: He ravished the wife of Attitianus, an actuary, or army
agent, Hist. August. p. 186. Aurel. Victor in Aurelian.]

[Footnote 49: Pollio assigns her an article among the thirty tyrants.
Hist. August. p. 200.]

When, at the instigation of his ambitious patroness, Tetricus assumed
the ensigns of royalty, he was governor of the peaceful province of
Aquitaine, an employment suited to his character and education. He
reigned four or five years over Gaul, Spain, and Britain, the slave
and sovereign of a licentious army, whom he dreaded, and by whom he
was despised. The valor and fortune of Aurelian at length opened the
prospect of a deliverance. He ventured to disclose his melancholy
situation, and conjured the emperor to hasten to the relief of his
unhappy rival. Had this secret correspondence reached the ears of the
soldiers, it would most probably have cost Tetricus his life; nor could
he resign the sceptre of the West without committing an act of treason
against himself. He affected the appearances of a civil war, led
his forces into the field, against Aurelian, posted them in the most
disadvantageous manner, betrayed his own counsels to his enemy, and with
a few chosen friends deserted in the beginning of the action. The rebel
legions, though disordered and dismayed by the unexpected treachery of
their chief, defended themselves with desperate valor, till they were
cut in pieces almost to a man, in this bloody and memorable battle,
which was fought near Chalons in Champagne. [50] The retreat of the
irregular auxiliaries, Franks and Batavians, [51] whom the conqueror
soon compelled or persuaded to repass the Rhine, restored the general
tranquillity, and the power of Aurelian was acknowledged from the wall
of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules.

[Footnote 50: Pollio in Hist. August. p. 196. Vopiscus in Hist. August.
p. 220. The two Victors, in the lives of Gallienus and Aurelian. Eutrop.
ix. 13. Euseb. in Chron. Of all these writers, only the two last (but
with strong probability) place the fall of Tetricus before that of
Zenobia. M. de Boze (in the Academy of Inscriptions, tom. xxx.) does not
wish, and Tillemont (tom. iii. p. 1189) does not dare to follow them. I
have been fairer than the one, and bolder than the other.]

[Footnote 51: Victor Junior in Aurelian. Eumenius mentions Batavicoe;
some critics, without any reason, would fain alter the word to
Bagandicoe.] As early as the reign of Claudius, the city of Autun, alone
and unassisted, had ventured to declare against the legions of
Gaul. After a siege of seven months, they stormed and plundered that
unfortunate city, already wasted by famine. [52] Lyons, on the contrary,
had resisted with obstinate disaffection the arms of Aurelian. We read
of the punishment of Lyons, [53] but there is not any mention of the
rewards of Autun. Such, indeed, is the policy of civil war; severely to
remember injuries, and to forget the most important services. Revenge is
profitable, gratitude is expensive.

[Footnote 52: Eumen. in Vet. Panegyr. iv. 8.]

[Footnote 53: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246. Autun was not restored
till the reign of Diocletian. See Eumenius de restaurandis scholis.]

Aurelian had no sooner secured the person and provinces of Tetricus,
than he turned his arms against Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra
and the East. Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women
who have sustained with glory the weight of empire; nor is our own
age destitute of such distinguished characters. But if we except the
doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female
whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her
sex by the climate and manners of Asia. [54] She claimed her descent
from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, [541] equalled in beauty her ancestor
Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity [55] and valor.
Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her
sex. She was of a dark complexion, (for in speaking of a lady these
trifles become important.) Her teeth were of a pearly whiteness, and
her large black eyes sparkled with uncommon fire, tempered by the most
attractive sweetness. Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly
understanding was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not
ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the
Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for
her own use an epitome of oriental history, and familiarly compared the
beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of the sublime Longinus.

[Footnote 54: Almost everything that is said of the manners of Odenathus
and Zenobia is taken from their lives in the Augustan History, by
Trebeljus Pollio; see p. 192, 198.]

[Footnote 541: According to some Christian writers, Zenobia was a Jewess.
(Jost Geschichte der Israel. iv. 16. Hist. of Jews, iii. 175.)--M.]

[Footnote 55: She never admitted her husband's embraces but for the
sake of posterity. If her hopes were baffled, in the ensuing month she
reiterated the experiment.]

This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, [551] who, from a
private station, raised himself to the dominion of the East. She soon
became the friend and companion of a hero. In the intervals of war,
Odenathus passionately delighted in the exercise of hunting; he pursued
with ardor the wild beasts of the desert, lions, panthers, and bears;
and the ardor of Zenobia in that dangerous amusement was not inferior to
his own. She had inured her constitution to fatigue, disdained the use
of a covered carriage, generally appeared on horseback in a military
habit, and sometimes marched several miles on foot at the head of the
troops. The success of Odenathus was in a great measure ascribed to her
incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their splendid victories over the
Great King, whom they twice pursued as far as the gates of Ctesiphon,
laid the foundations of their united fame and power. The armies which
they commanded, and the provinces which they had saved, acknowledged not
any other sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people
of Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor,
and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for his
legitimate colleague.

[Footnote 551: According to Zosimus, Odenathus was of a noble family in
Palmyra and according to Procopius, he was prince of the Saracens, who
inhabit the ranks of the Euphrates. Echhel. Doct. Num. vii. 489.--G.]




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

After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of Asia, the
Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in Syria. Invincible
in war, he was there cut off by domestic treason, and his favorite
amusement of hunting was the cause, or at least the occasion, of his
death. [56] His nephew Maeonius presumed to dart his javelin before that
of his uncle; and though admonished of his error, repeated the same
insolence. As a monarch, and as a sportsman, Odenathus was provoked,
took away his horse, a mark of ignominy among the barbarians, and
chastised the rash youth by a short confinement. The offence was soon
forgot, but the punishment was remembered; and Maeonius, with a few
daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a great
entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of Zenobia,
a young man of a soft and effeminate temper, [57] was killed with his
father. But Maeonius obtained only the pleasure of revenge by this
bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the title of Augustus,
before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the memory of her husband. [58]

[Footnote 56: Hist. August. p. 192, 193. Zosimus, l. i. p. 36. Zonaras,
l. xii p. 633. The last is clear and probable, the others confused
and inconsistent. The text of Syncellus, if not corrupt, is absolute
nonsense.]

[Footnote 57: Odenathus and Zenobia often sent him, from the
spoils of the enemy, presents of gems and toys, which he received with
infinite delight.]

[Footnote 58: Some very unjust suspicions have been cast on Zenobia, as
if she was accessory to her husband's death.]

With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she immediately filled
the vacant throne, and governed with manly counsels Palmyra, Syria, and
the East, above five years. By the death of Odenathus, that authority
was at an end which the senate had granted him only as a personal
distinction; but his martial widow, disdaining both the senate and
Gallienus, obliged one of the Roman generals, who was sent against her,
to retreat into Europe, with the loss of his army and his reputation.
[59] Instead of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female
reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the most
judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could
calm her resentment; if it was necessary to punish, she could impose
silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of avarice;
yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. The
neighboring states of Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity,
and solicited her alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which
extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow
added the inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom
of Egypt. [60] [601] The emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was
content, that, while he pursued the Gothic war, she should assert the
dignity of the empire in the East. [61] The conduct, however, of Zenobia,
was attended with some ambiguity; not is it unlikely that she had
conceived the design of erecting an independent and hostile monarchy.
She blended with the popular manners of Roman princes the stately pomp
of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her subjects the same adoration
that was paid to the successor of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons
[61] a Latin education, and often showed them to the troops adorned
with the Imperial purple. For herself she reserved the diadem, with the
splendid but doubtful title of Queen of the East.

[Footnote 59: Hist. August. p. 180, 181.]

[Footnote 60: See, in Hist. August. p. 198, Aurelian's testimony to
her merit; and for the conquest of Egypt, Zosimus, l. i. p. 39, 40.]

[Footnote 601: This seems very doubtful. Claudius, during all his reign,
is represented as emperor on the medals of Alexandria, which are very
numerous. If Zenobia possessed any power in Egypt, it could only have
been at the beginning of the reign of Aurelian. The same circumstance
throws great improbability on her conquests in Galatia. Perhaps Zenobia
administered Egypt in the name of Claudius, and emboldened by the death
of that prince, subjected it to her own power.--G.]

[Footnote 61: Timolaus, Herennianus, and Vaballathus. It is supposed
that the two former were already dead before the war. On the last,
Aurelian bestowed a small province of Armenia, with the title of King;
several of his medals are still extant. See Tillemont, tom. 3, p. 1190.]

When Aurelian passed over into Asia, against an adversary whose sex
alone could render her an object of contempt, his presence restored
obedience to the province of Bithynia, already shaken by the arms and
intrigues of Zenobia. [62] Advancing at the head of his legions, he
accepted the submission of Ancyra, and was admitted into Tyana, after
an obstinate siege, by the help of a perfidious citizen. The generous
though fierce temper of Aurelian abandoned the traitor to the rage of
the soldiers; a superstitious reverence induced him to treat with lenity
the countrymen of Apollonius the philosopher. [63] Antioch was deserted
on his approach, till the emperor, by his salutary edicts, recalled
the fugitives, and granted a general pardon to all, who, from necessity
rather than choice, had been engaged in the service of the Palmyrenian
Queen. The unexpected mildness of such a conduct reconciled the minds of
the Syrians, and as far as the gates of Emesa, the wishes of the people
seconded the terror of his arms. [64]

[Footnote 62: Zosimus, l. i. p. 44.]

[Footnote 63: Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) gives us an authentic
letter and a doubtful vision, of Aurelian. Apollonius of Tyana was born
about the same time as Jesus Christ. His life (that of the former) is
related in so fabulous a manner by his disciples, that we are at a loss
to discover whether he was a sage, an impostor, or a fanatic.]

[Footnote 64: Zosimus, l. i. p. 46.]

Zenobia would have ill deserved her reputation, had she indolently
permitted the emperor of the West to approach within a hundred miles of
her capital. The fate of the East was decided in two great battles; so
similar in almost every circumstance, that we can scarcely distinguish
them from each other, except by observing that the first was fought near
Antioch, [65] and the second near Emesa. [66] In both the queen of Palmyra
animated the armies by her presence, and devolved the execution of her
orders on Zabdas, who had already signalized his military talents by the
conquest of Egypt. The numerous forces of Zenobia consisted for the most
part of light archers, and of heavy cavalry clothed in complete steel.
The Moorish and Illyrian horse of Aurelian were unable to sustain the
ponderous charge of their antagonists. They fled in real or affected
disorder, engaged the Palmyrenians in a laborious pursuit, harassed them
by a desultory combat, and at length discomfited this impenetrable but
unwieldy body of cavalry. The light infantry, in the mean time, when
they had exhausted their quivers, remaining without protection against
a closer onset, exposed their naked sides to the swords of the legions.
Aurelian had chosen these veteran troops, who were usually stationed
on the Upper Danube, and whose valor had been severely tried in
the Alemannic war. [67] After the defeat of Emesa, Zenobia found it
impossible to collect a third army. As far as the frontier of Egypt, the
nations subject to her empire had joined the standard of the conqueror,
who detached Probus, the bravest of his generals, to possess himself of
the Egyptian provinces. Palmyra was the last resource of the widow
of Odenathus. She retired within the walls of her capital, made
every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared, with the
intrepidity of a heroine, that the last moment of her reign and of
her life should be the same.

[Footnote 65: At a place called Immae. Eutropius, Sextus Rufus, and
Jerome, mention only this first battle.]

[Footnote 66: Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) mentions only the
second.]

[Footnote 67: Zosimus, l. i. p. 44--48. His account of the two
battles is clear and circumstantial.]

Amid the barren deserts of Arabia, a few cultivated spots rise like
islands out of the sandy ocean. Even the name of Tadmor, or Palmyra,
by its signification in the Syriac as well as in the Latin language,
denoted the multitude of palm-trees which afforded shade and verdure to
that temperate region. The air was pure, and the soil, watered by some
invaluable springs, was capable of producing fruits as well as corn.
A place possessed of such singular advantages, and situated at
a convenient distance [68] between the Gulf of Persia and the
Mediterranean, was soon frequented by the caravans which conveyed to the
nations of Europe a considerable part of the rich commodities of India.
Palmyra insensibly increased into an opulent and independent city, and
connecting the Roman and the Parthian monarchies by the mutual benefits
of commerce, was suffered to observe an humble neutrality, till at
length, after the victories of Trajan, the little republic sunk into the
bosom of Rome, and flourished more than one hundred and fifty years in
the subordinate though honorable rank of a colony. It was during that
peaceful period, if we may judge from a few remaining inscriptions,
that the wealthy Palmyrenians constructed those temples, palaces, and
porticos of Grecian architecture, whose ruins, scattered over an extent
of several miles, have deserved the curiosity of our travellers. The
elevation of Odenathus and Zenobia appeared to reflect new splendor on
their country, and Palmyra, for a while, stood forth the rival of Rome:
but the competition was fatal, and ages of prosperity were sacrificed
to a moment of glory. [69]

[Footnote 68: It was five hundred and thirty-seven miles from Seleucia,
and two hundred and three from the nearest coast of Syria, according to
the reckoning of Pliny, who, in a few words, (Hist. Natur. v. 21,) gives
an excellent description of Palmyra. * Note: Talmor, or Palmyra, was
probably at a very early period the connecting link between the commerce
of Tyre and Babylon. Heeren, Ideen, v. i. p. ii. p. 125. Tadmor was
probably built by Solomon as a commercial station. Hist. of Jews, v. p.
271--M.]

[Footnote 69: Some English travellers from Aleppo discovered the ruins
of Palmyra about the end of the last century. Our curiosity has since
been gratified in a more splendid manner by Messieurs Wood and Dawkins.
For the history of Palmyra, we may consult the masterly dissertation
of Dr. Halley in the Philosophical Transactions: Lowthorp's Abridgment,
vol. iii. p. 518.]

In his march over the sandy desert between Emesa and Palmyra, the
emperor Aurelian was perpetually harassed by the Arabs; nor could he
always defend his army, and especially his baggage, from those flying
troops of active and daring robbers, who watched the moment of surprise,
and eluded the slow pursuit of the legions. The siege of Palmyra was an
object far more difficult and important, and the emperor, who, with
incessant vigor, pressed the attacks in person, was himself wounded with
a dart. "The Roman people," says Aurelian, in an original letter, "speak
with contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are
ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia. It is
impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations, of stones, of arrows,
and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of the walls is
provided with two or three balistoe and artificial fires are thrown from
her military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with a
desperate courage. Yet still I trust in the protecting deities of Rome,
who have hitherto been favorable to all my undertakings." [70] Doubtful,
however, of the protection of the gods, and of the event of the siege,
Aurelian judged it more prudent to offer terms of an advantageous
capitulation; to the queen, a splendid retreat; to the citizens, their
ancient privileges. His proposals were obstinately rejected, and the
refusal was accompanied with insult.

[Footnote 70: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 218.]

The firmness of Zenobia was supported by the hope, that in a very short
time famine would compel the Roman army to repass the desert; and by the
reasonable expectation that the kings of the East, and particularly the
Persian monarch, would arm in the defence of their most natural ally.
But fortune, and the perseverance of Aurelian, overcame every obstacle.
The death of Sapor, which happened about this time, [71] distracted the
councils of Persia, and the inconsiderable succors that attempted to
relieve Palmyra, were easily intercepted either by the arms or
the liberality of the emperor. From every part of Syria, a regular
succession of convoys safely arrived in the camp, which was increased
by the return of Probus with his victorious troops from the conquest
of Egypt. It was then that Zenobia resolved to fly. She mounted the
fleetest of her dromedaries, [72] and had already reached the banks of
the Euphrates, about sixty miles from Palmyra, when she was overtaken
by the pursuit of Aurelian's light horse, seized, and brought back
a captive to the feet of the emperor. Her capital soon afterwards
surrendered, and was treated with unexpected lenity. The arms, horses,
and camels, with an immense treasure of gold, silver, silk, and precious
stones, were all delivered to the conqueror, who, leaving only a
garrison of six hundred archers, returned to Emesa, and employed some
time in the distribution of rewards and punishments at the end of so
memorable a war, which restored to the obedience of Rome those provinces
that had renounced their allegiance since the captivity of Valerian.

[Footnote 71: From a very doubtful chronology I have endeavored to
extract the most probable date.]

[Footnote 72: Hist. August. p. 218. Zosimus, l. i. p. 50. Though the
camel is a heavy beast of burden, the dromedary, which is either of the
same or of a kindred species, is used by the natives of Asia and Africa
on all occasions which require celerity. The Arabs affirm, that he will
run over as much ground in one day as their fleetest horses can perform
in eight or ten. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 222, and
Shaw's Travels p. 167]

When the Syrian queen was brought into the presence of Aurelian, he
sternly asked her, How she had presumed to rise in arms against the
emperors of Rome! The answer of Zenobia was a prudent mixture of respect
and firmness. "Because I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an
Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and my
sovereign." [73] But as female fortitude is commonly artificial, so it
is seldom steady or consistent. The courage of Zenobia deserted her in
the hour of trial; she trembled at the angry clamors of the soldiers,
who called aloud for her immediate execution, forgot the generous
despair of Cleopatra, which she had proposed as her model, and
ignominiously purchased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her
friends. It was to their counsels, which governed the weakness of her
sex, that she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance; it was on
their heads that she directed the vengeance of the cruel Aurelian. The
fame of Longinus, who was included among the numerous and perhaps
innocent victims of her fear, will survive that of the queen who
betrayed, or the tyrant who condemned him. Genius and learning were
incapable of moving a fierce unlettered soldier, but they had served to
elevate and harmonize the soul of Longinus. Without uttering a
complaint, he calmly followed the executioner, pitying his unhappy
mistress, and bestowing comfort on his afflicted friends. [74]

[Footnote 73: Pollio in Hist. August. p. 199.]

[Footnote 74: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 219. Zosimus, l. i. p. 51.]

Returning from the conquest of the East, Aurelian had already crossed
the Straits which divided Europe from Asia, when he was provoked by
the intelligence that the Palmyrenians had massacred the governor and
garrison which he had left among them, and again erected the standard
of revolt. Without a moment's deliberation, he once more turned his
face towards Syria. Antioch was alarmed by his rapid approach, and the
helpless city of Palmyra felt the irresistible weight of his resentment.
We have a letter of Aurelian himself, in which he acknowledges, [75]
that old men, women, children, and peasants, had been involved in that
dreadful execution, which should have been confined to armed rebellion;
and although his principal concern seems directed to the reestablishment
of a temple of the Sun, he discovers some pity for the remnant of
the Palmyrenians, to whom he grants the permission of rebuilding and
inhabiting their city. But it is easier to destroy than to restore.
The seat of commerce, of arts, and of Zenobia, gradually sunk into an
obscure town, a trifling fortress, and at length a miserable village.
The present citizens of Palmyra, consisting of thirty or forty
families, have erected their mud cottages within the spacious court of a
magnificent temple.

[Footnote 75: Hist. August. p. 219.]

Another and a last labor still awaited the indefatigable Aurelian; to
suppress a dangerous though obscure rebel, who, during the revolt of
Palmyra, had arisen on the banks of the Nile. Firmus, the friend and
ally, as he proudly styled himself, of Odenathus and Zenobia, was no
more than a wealthy merchant of Egypt. In the course of his trade to
India, he had formed very intimate connections with the Saracens and the
Blemmyes, whose situation on either coast of the Red Sea gave them an
easy introduction into the Upper Egypt. The Egyptians he inflamed with
the hope of freedom, and, at the head of their furious multitude, broke
into the city of Alexandria, where he assumed the Imperial purple,
coined money, published edicts, and raised an army, which, as he vainly
boasted, he was capable of maintaining from the sole profits of his
paper trade. Such troops were a feeble defence against the approach of
Aurelian; and it seems almost unnecessary to relate, that Firmus was
routed, taken, tortured, and put to death. [76] Aurelian might now
congratulate the senate, the people, and himself, that in little more
than three years, he had restored universal peace and order to the Roman
world.

[Footnote 76: See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 220, 242. As an
instance of luxury, it is observed, that he had glass windows. He was
remarkable for his strength and appetite, his courage and dexterity.
From the letter of Aurelian, we may justly infer, that Firmus was
the last of the rebels, and consequently that Tetricus was already
suppressed.]

Since the foundation of Rome, no general had more nobly deserved a
triumph than Aurelian; nor was a triumph ever celebrated with superior
pride and magnificence. [77] The pomp was opened by twenty elephants,
four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the most curious animals
from every climate of the North, the East, and the South. They were
followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement
of the amphitheatre. The wealth of Asia, the arms and ensigns of so many
conquered nations, and the magnificent plate and wardrobe of the
Syrian queen, were disposed in exact symmetry or artful disorder. The
ambassadors of the most remote parts of the earth, of Aethiopia, Arabia,
Persia, Bactriana, India, and China, all remarkable by their rich or
singular dresses, displayed the fame and power of the Roman emperor, who
exposed likewise to the public view the presents that he had received,
and particularly a great number of crowns of gold, the offerings of
grateful cities.

The victories of Aurelian were attested by the long train of captives
who reluctantly attended his triumph, Goths, Vandals, Sarmatians,
Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each people was
distinguished by its peculiar inscription, and the title of Amazons was
bestowed on ten martial heroines of the Gothie nation who had been taken
in arms. [78] But every eye, disregarding the crowd of captives, was
fixed on the emperor Tetricus and the queen of the East. The former,
as well as his son, whom he had created Augustus, was dressed in Gallic
trousers, [79] a saffron tunic, and a robe of purple. The beauteous
figure of Zenobia was confined by fetters of gold; a slave supported the
gold chain which encircled her neck, and she almost fainted under the
intolerable weight of jewels. She preceded on foot the magnificent
chariot, in which she once hoped to enter the gates of Rome. It was
followed by two other chariots, still more sumptuous, of Odenathus and
of the Persian monarch. The triumphal car of Aurelian (it had formerly
been used by a Gothic king) was drawn, on this memorable occasion,
either by four stags or by four elephants. [80] The most illustrious
of the senate, the people, and the army closed the solemn procession.
Unfeigned joy, wonder, and gratitude, swelled the acclamations of
the multitude; but the satisfaction of the senate was clouded by the
appearance of Tetricus; nor could they suppress a rising murmur, that
the haughty emperor should thus expose to public ignominy the person of
a Roman and a magistrate. [81]

[Footnote 77: See the triumph of Aurelian, described by Vopiscus.
He relates the particulars with his usual minuteness; and, on this
occasion, they happen to be interesting. Hist. August. p. 220.]

[Footnote 78: Among barbarous nations, women have often combated by the
side of their husbands. But it is almost impossible that a society of
Amazons should ever have existed either in the old or new world. *
Note: Klaproth's theory on the origin of such traditions is at least
recommended by its ingenuity. The males of a tribe having gone out on a
marauding expedition, and having been cut off to a man, the females may
have endeavored, for a time, to maintain their independence in their
camp village, till their children grew up. Travels, ch. xxx. Eng.
Trans--M.]

[Footnote 79: The use of braccoe, breeches, or trousers, was
still considered in Italy as a Gallic and barbarian fashion. The Romans,
however, had made great advances towards it. To encircle the legs and
thighs with fascioe, or bands, was understood, in the time of Pompey and
Horace, to be a proof of ill health or effeminacy. In the age of Trajan,
the custom was confined to the rich and luxurious. It gradually was
adopted by the meanest of the people. See a very curious note of
Casaubon, ad Sueton. in August. c. 82.]

[Footnote 80: Most probably the former; the latter seen on the medals of
Aurelian, only denote (according to the learned Cardinal Norris) an
oriental victory.]

[Footnote 81: The expression of Calphurnius, (Eclog. i. 50) Nullos decet
captiva triumphos, as applied to Rome, contains a very manifest allusion
and censure.]

But however, in the treatment of his unfortunate rivals, Aurelian might
indulge his pride, he behaved towards them with a generous clemency,
which was seldom exercised by the ancient conquerors. Princes who,
without success, had defended their throne or freedom, were frequently
strangled in prison, as soon as the triumphal pomp ascended the Capitol.
These usurpers, whom their defeat had convicted of the crime of treason,
were permitted to spend their lives in affluence and honorable repose.

The emperor presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli,
about twenty miles from the capital; the Syrian queen insensibly sunk
into a Roman matron, her daughters married into noble families, and her
race was not yet extinct in the fifth century. [82] Tetricus and his son
were reinstated in their rank and fortunes. They erected on the Caelian
hill a magnificent palace, and as soon as it was finished, invited
Aurelian to supper. On his entrance, he was agreeably surprised with a
picture which represented their singular history. They were delineated
offering to the emperor a civic crown and the sceptre of Gaul, and again
receiving at his hands the ornaments of the senatorial dignity. The
father was afterwards invested with the government of Lucania, [83] and
Aurelian, who soon admitted the abdicated monarch to his friendship and
conversation, familiarly asked him, Whether it were not more desirable
to administer a province of Italy, than to reign beyond the Alps. The
son long continued a respectable member of the senate; nor was there any
one of the Roman nobility more esteemed by Aurelian, as well as by
his successors. [84]

[Footnote 82: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 199. Hieronym. in Chron.
Prosper in Chron. Baronius supposes that Zenobius, bishop of Florence in
the time of St. Ambrose, was of her family.]

[Footnote 83: Vopisc. in Hist. August. p. 222. Eutropius, ix. 13. Victor
Junior. But Pollio, in Hist. August. p. 196, says, that Tetricus was
made corrector of all Italy.]

[Footnote 84: Hist. August. p. 197.]

So long and so various was the pomp of Aurelian's triumph, that although
it opened with the dawn of day, the slow majesty of the procession
ascended not the Capitol before the ninth hour; and it was already dark
when the emperor returned to the palace. The festival was protracted by
theatrical representations, the games of the circus, the hunting of wild
beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval engagements. Liberal donatives
were distributed to the army and people, and several institutions,
agreeable or beneficial to the city, contributed to perpetuate the
glory of Aurelian. A considerable portion of his oriental spoils was
consecrated to the gods of Rome; the Capitol, and every other temple,
glittered with the offerings of his ostentatious piety; and the temple
of the Sun alone received above fifteen thousand pounds of gold. [85]
This last was a magnificent structure, erected by the emperor on the
side of the Quirinal hill, and dedicated, soon after the triumph, to
that deity whom Aurelian adored as the parent of his life and fortunes.
His mother had been an inferior priestess in a chapel of the Sun;
a peculiar devotion to the god of Light was a sentiment which the
fortunate peasant imbibed in his infancy; and every step of his
elevation, every victory of his reign, fortified superstition by
gratitude. [86]

[Footnote 85: Vopiscus in Hist. August. 222. Zosimus, l. i. p. 56. He
placed in it the images of Belus and of the Sun, which he had brought
from Palmyra. It was dedicated in the fourth year of his reign, (Euseb
in Chron.,) but was most assuredly begun immediately on his accession.]

[Footnote 86: See, in the Augustan History, p. 210, the omens of his
fortune. His devotion to the Sun appears in his letters, on his medals,
and is mentioned in the Caesars of Julian. Commentaire de Spanheim, p.
109.]

The arms of Aurelian had vanquished the foreign and domestic foes of the
republic. We are assured, that, by his salutary rigor, crimes and
factions, mischievous arts and pernicious connivance, the luxurious
growth of a feeble and oppressive government, were eradicated throughout
the Roman world. [87] But if we attentively reflect how much swifter is
the progress of corruption than its cure, and if we remember that the
years abandoned to public disorders exceeded the months allotted to the
martial reign of Aurelian, we must confess that a few short intervals of
peace were insufficient for the arduous work of reformation. Even his
attempt to restore the integrity of the coin was opposed by a formidable
insurrection. The emperor's vexation breaks out in one of his private
letters. "Surely," says he, "the gods have decreed that my life should
be a perpetual warfare. A sedition within the walls has just now given
birth to a very serious civil war. The workmen of the mint, at the
instigation of Felicissimus, a slave to whom I had intrusted an
employment in the finances, have risen in rebellion. They are at length
suppressed; but seven thousand of my soldiers have been slain in the
contest, of those troops whose ordinary station is in Dacia, and the
camps along the Danube." [88] Other writers, who confirm the same fact,
add likewise, that it happened soon after Aurelian's triumph; that the
decisive engagement was fought on the Caelian hill; that the workmen of
the mint had adulterated the coin; and that the emperor restored the
public credit, by delivering out good money in exchange for the bad,
which the people was commanded to bring into the treasury. [89]

[Footnote 87: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221.]

[Footnote 88: Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelian calls these soldiers Hiberi
Riporiences Castriani, and Dacisci.]

[Footnote 89: Zosimus, l. i. p. 56. Eutropius, ix. 14. Aurel Victor.]

We might content ourselves with relating this extraordinary transaction,
but we cannot dissemble how much in its present form it appears to us
inconsistent and incredible. The debasement of the coin is indeed well
suited to the administration of Gallienus; nor is it unlikely that the
instruments of the corruption might dread the inflexible justice of
Aurelian. But the guilt, as well as the profit, must have been confined
to a very few; nor is it easy to conceive by what arts they could arm a
people whom they had injured, against a monarch whom they had betrayed.
We might naturally expect that such miscreants should have shared
the public detestation with the informers and the other ministers of
oppression; and that the reformation of the coin should have been an
action equally popular with the destruction of those obsolete accounts,
which by the emperor's order were burnt in the forum of Trajan. [90] In
an age when the principles of commerce were so imperfectly understood,
the most desirable end might perhaps be effected by harsh and
injudicious means; but a temporary grievance of such a nature can
scarcely excite and support a serious civil war. The repetition of
intolerable taxes, imposed either on the land or on the necessaries of
life, may at last provoke those who will not, or who cannot, relinquish
their country. But the case is far otherwise in every operation
which, by whatsoever expedients, restores the just value of money. The
transient evil is soon obliterated by the permanent benefit, the loss is
divided among multitudes; and if a few wealthy individuals experience
a sensible diminution of treasure, with their riches, they at the same
time lose the degree of weight and importance which they derived from
the possession of them. However Aurelian might choose to disguise
the real cause of the insurrection, his reformation of the coin
could furnish only a faint pretence to a party already powerful and
discontented. Rome, though deprived of freedom, was distracted by
faction. The people, towards whom the emperor, himself a plebeian,
always expressed a peculiar fondness, lived in perpetual dissension with
the senate, the equestrian order, and the Praetorian guards. [91] Nothing
less than the firm though secret conspiracy of those orders, of the
authority of the first, the wealth of the second, and the arms of the
third, could have displayed a strength capable of contending in battle
with the veteran legions of the Danube, which, under the conduct of
a martial sovereign, had achieved the conquest of the West and of the
East.

[Footnote 90: Hist. August. p. 222. Aurel Victor.]

[Footnote 91: It already raged before Aurelian's return from Egypt. See
Vipiscus, who quotes an original letter. Hist. August. p. 244.]

Whatever was the cause or the object of this rebellion, imputed with so
little probability to the workmen of the mint, Aurelian used his victory
with unrelenting rigor. [92] He was naturally of a severe disposition. A
peasant and a soldier, his nerves yielded not easily to the impressions
of sympathy, and he could sustain without emotion the sight of tortures
and death. Trained from his earliest youth in the exercise of arms, he
set too small a value on the life of a citizen, chastised by military
execution the slightest offences, and transferred the stern discipline
of the camp into the civil administration of the laws. His love of
justice often became a blind and furious passion and whenever he deemed
his own or the public safety endangered, he disregarded the rules of
evidence, and the proportion of punishments. The unprovoked rebellion
with which the Romans rewarded his services, exasperated his haughty
spirit. The noblest families of the capital were involved in the guilt
or suspicion of this dark conspiracy. A nasty spirit of revenge urged
the bloody prosecution, and it proved fatal to one of the nephews of the
emperor. The the executioners (if we may use the expression of a
contemporary poet) were fatigued, the prisons were crowded, and the
unhappy senate lamented the death or absence of its most illustrious
members. [93] Nor was the pride of Aurelian less offensive to that
assembly than his cruelty. Ignorant or impatient of the restraints of
civil institutions, he disdained to hold his power by any other title
than that of the sword, and governed by right of conquest an empire
which he had saved and subdued. [94]

[Footnote 92: Vopiscus in Hist. August p. 222. The two Victors.
Eutropius ix. 14. Zosimus (l. i. p. 43) mentions only three senators,
and placed their death before the eastern war.]

[Footnote 93: Nulla catenati feralis pompa senatus Carnificum lassabit
opus; nec carcere pleno Infelix raros numerabit curia Patres.
Calphurn. Eclog. i. 60.]

[Footnote 94: According to the younger Victor, he sometimes wore the
diadem, Deus and Dominus appear on his medals.]

It was observed by one of the most sagacious of the Roman princes,
that the talents of his predecessor Aurelian were better suited to the
command of an army, than to the government of an empire. [95] Conscious
of the character in which nature and experience had enabled him to
excel, he again took the field a few months after his triumph. It was
expedient to exercise the restless temper of the legions in some foreign
war, and the Persian monarch, exulting in the shame of Valerian, still
braved with impunity the offended majesty of Rome. At the head of an
army, less formidable by its numbers than by its discipline and valor,
the emperor advanced as far as the Straits which divide Europe from
Asia. He there experienced that the most absolute power is a weak
defence against the effects of despair. He had threatened one of his
secretaries who was accused of extortion; and it was known that
he seldom threatened in vain. The last hope which remained for the
criminal, was to involve some of the principal officers of the army
in his danger, or at least in his fears. Artfully counterfeiting his
master's hand, he showed them, in a long and bloody list, their own
names devoted to death. Without suspecting or examining the fraud, they
resolved to secure their lives by the murder of the emperor. On his
march, between Byzanthium and Heraclea, Aurelian was suddenly attacked
by the conspirators, whose stations gave them a right to surround his
person, and after a short resistance, fell by the hand of Mucapor, a
general whom he had always loved and trusted. He died regretted by the
army, detested by the senate, but universally acknowledged as a warlike
and fortunate prince, the useful, though severe reformer of a degenerate
state. [96]

[Footnote 95: It was the observation of Dioclatian. See Vopiscus in
Hist. August. p. 224.]

[Footnote 96: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221. Zosimus, l. i. p. 57.
Eutrop ix. 15. The two Victors.]




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

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

Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that, whatever
might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A life of
pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of indolence or glory,
alike led to an untimely grave; and almost every reign is closed by the
same disgusting repetition of treason and murder. The death of Aurelian,
however, is remarkable by its extraordinary consequences. The legions
admired, lamented, and revenged their victorious chief. The artifice of
his perfidious secretary was discovered and punished.

The deluded conspirators attended the funeral of their injured
sovereign, with sincere or well-feigned contrition, and submitted to the
unanimous resolution of the military order, which was signified by the
following epistle: "The brave and fortunate armies to the senate and
people of Rome.--The crime of one man, and the error of many, have
deprived us of the late emperor Aurelian. May it please you, venerable
lords and fathers! to place him in the number of the gods, and to
appoint a successor whom your judgment shall declare worthy of
the Imperial purple! None of those whose guilt or misfortune have
contributed to our loss, shall ever reign over us." [1] The Roman
senators heard, without surprise, that another emperor had been
assassinated in his camp; they secretly rejoiced in the fall of
Aurelian; and, besides the recent notoriety of the facts, constantly
draws his materials from the Journals of the Senate, and the but the
modest and dutiful address of the legions, when it was communicated in
full assembly by the consul, diffused the most pleasing astonishment.
Such honors as fear and perhaps esteem could extort, they liberally
poured forth on the memory of their deceased sovereign. Such
acknowledgments as gratitude could inspire, they returned to the
faithful armies of the republic, who entertained so just a sense of
the legal authority of the senate in the choice of an emperor. Yet,
notwithstanding this flattering appeal, the most prudent of the assembly
declined exposing their safety and dignity to the caprice of an armed
multitude. The strength of the legions was, indeed, a pledge of their
sincerity, since those who may command are seldom reduced to the
necessity of dissembling; but could it naturally be expected, that a
hasty repentance would correct the inveterate habits of fourscore years?
Should the soldiers relapse into their accustomed seditions, their
insolence might disgrace the majesty of the senate, and prove fatal to
the object of its choice. Motives like these dictated a decree, by
which the election of a new emperor was referred to the suffrage of the
military order.

[Footnote 1: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelius Victor mentions
a formal deputation from the troops to the senate.]

The contention that ensued is one of the best attested, but most
improbable events in the history of mankind. [2] The troops, as if
satiated with the exercise of power, again conjured the senate to invest
one of its own body with the Imperial purple. The senate still persisted
in its refusal; the army in its request. The reciprocal offer was
pressed and rejected at least three times, and, whilst the obstinate
modesty of either party was resolved to receive a master from the hands
of the other, eight months insensibly elapsed; an amazing period of
tranquil anarchy, during which the Roman world remained without a
sovereign, without a usurper, and without a sedition. [201] The generals
and magistrates appointed by Aurelian continued to execute their
ordinary functions; and it is observed, that a proconsul of Asia was the
only considerable person removed from his office in the whole course of
the interregnum.

[Footnote 2: Vopiscus, our principal authority, wrote at Rome, sixteen
years only after the death of Aurelian; and, besides the recent
notoriety of the facts, constantly draws his materials from the Journals
of the Senate, and the original papers of the Ulpian library. Zosimus
and Zonaras appear as ignorant of this transaction as they were in
general of the Roman constitution.]

[Footnote 201: The interregnum could not be more than seven months;
Aurelian was assassinated in the middle of March, the year of Rome 1028.
Tacitus was elected the 25th September in the same year.--G.]

An event somewhat similar, but much less authentic, is supposed to have
happened after the death of Romulus, who, in his life and character,
bore some affinity with Aurelian. The throne was vacant during twelve
months, till the election of a Sabine philosopher, and the public peace
was guarded in the same manner, by the union of the several orders of
the state. But, in the time of Numa and Romulus, the arms of the people
were controlled by the authority of the Patricians; and the balance of
freedom was easily preserved in a small and virtuous community. [3] The
decline of the Roman state, far different from its infancy, was attended
with every circumstance that could banish from an interregnum the
prospect of obedience and harmony: an immense and tumultuous capital,
a wide extent of empire, the servile equality of despotism, an army
of four hundred thousand mercenaries, and the experience of frequent
revolutions. Yet, notwithstanding all these temptations, the discipline
and memory of Aurelian still restrained the seditious temper of the
troops, as well as the fatal ambition of their leaders. The flower of
the legions maintained their stations on the banks of the Bosphorus, and
the Imperial standard awed the less powerful camps of Rome and of the
provinces. A generous though transient enthusiasm seemed to animate the
military order; and we may hope that a few real patriots cultivated the
returning friendship of the army and the senate, as the only expedient
capable of restoring the republic to its ancient beauty and vigor.

[Footnote 3: Liv. i. 17 Dionys. Halicarn. l. ii. p. 115. Plutarch
in Numa, p. 60. The first of these writers relates the story like an
orator, the second like a lawyer, and the third like a moralist, and
none of them probably without some intermixture of fable.]

On the twenty-fifth of September, near eight months after the murder of
Aurelian, the consul convoked an assembly of the senate, and reported
the doubtful and dangerous situation of the empire. He slightly
insinuated, that the precarious loyalty of the soldiers depended on the
chance of every hour, and of every accident; but he represented, with
the most convincing eloquence, the various dangers that might attend any
further delay in the choice of an emperor. Intelligence, he said, was
already received, that the Germans had passed the Rhine, and occupied
some of the strongest and most opulent cities of Gaul. The ambition of
the Persian king kept the East in perpetual alarms; Egypt, Africa, and
Illyricum, were exposed to foreign and domestic arms, and the levity of
Syria would prefer even a female sceptre to the sanctity of the Roman
laws. The consul, then addressing himself to Tacitus, the first of the
senators, [4] required his opinion on the important subject of a proper
candidate for the vacant throne.

[Footnote 4: Vopiscus (in Hist. August p. 227) calls him "primae
sententia consularis;" and soon afterwards Princeps senatus. It is
natural to suppose, that the monarchs of Rome, disdaining that humble
title, resigned it to the most ancient of the senators.]

If we can prefer personal merit to accidental greatness, we shall esteem
the birth of Tacitus more truly noble than that of kings. He claimed his
descent from the philosophic historian, whose writings will instruct
the last generations of mankind. [5] The senator Tacitus was then
seventy-five years of age. [6] The long period of his innocent life was
adorned with wealth and honors. He had twice been invested with the
consular dignity, [7] and enjoyed with elegance and sobriety his ample
patrimony of between two and three millions sterling. [8] The experience
of so many princes, whom he had esteemed or endured, from the vain
follies of Elagabalus to the useful rigor of Aurelian, taught him to
form a just estimate of the duties, the dangers, and the temptations
of their sublime station. From the assiduous study of his immortal
ancestor, he derived the knowledge of the Roman constitution, and of
human nature. [9] The voice of the people had already named Tacitus as
the citizen the most worthy of empire. The ungrateful rumor reached his
ears, and induced him to seek the retirement of one of his villas in
Campania. He had passed two months in the delightful privacy of Baiae,
when he reluctantly obeyed the summons of the consul to resume his
honorable place in the senate, and to assist the republic with his
counsels on this important occasion.

[Footnote 5: The only objection to this genealogy is, that the historian
was named Cornelius, the emperor, Claudius. But under the lower empire,
surnames were extremely various and uncertain.]

[Footnote 6: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. The Alexandrian Chronicle, by an
obvious mistake, transfers that age to Aurelian.]

[Footnote 7: In the year 273, he was ordinary consul. But he must have
been Suffectus many years before, and most probably under Valerian.]

[Footnote 8: Bis millies octingenties. Vopiscus in Hist. August p. 229.
This sum, according to the old standard, was equivalent to eight hundred
and forty thousand Roman pounds of silver, each of the value of three
pounds sterling. But in the age of Tacitus, the coin had lost much of
its weight and purity.]

[Footnote 9: After his accession, he gave orders that ten copies of
the historian should be annually transcribed and placed in the public
libraries. The Roman libraries have long since perished, and the most
valuable part of Tacitus was preserved in a single Ms., and discovered
in a monastery of Westphalia. See Bayle, Dictionnaire, Art. Tacite, and
Lipsius ad Annal. ii. 9.]

He arose to speak, when from every quarter of the house, he was saluted
with the names of Augustus and emperor. "Tacitus Augustus, the gods
preserve thee! we choose thee for our sovereign; to thy care we intrust
the republic and the world. Accept the empire from the authority of the
senate. It is due to thy rank, to thy conduct, to thy manners." As soon
as the tumult of acclamations subsided, Tacitus attempted to decline the
dangerous honor, and to express his wonder, that they should elect his
age and infirmities to succeed the martial vigor of Aurelian. "Are these
limbs, conscript fathers! fitted to sustain the weight of armor, or to
practise the exercises of the camp? The variety of climates, and the
hardships of a military life, would soon oppress a feeble constitution,
which subsists only by the most tender management. My exhausted strength
scarcely enables me to discharge the duty of a senator; how insufficient
would it prove to the arduous labors of war and government! Can you
hope, that the legions will respect a weak old man, whose days have been
spent in the shade of peace and retirement? Can you desire that I should
ever find reason to regret the favorable opinion of the senate?" [10]

[Footnote 10: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 227.]

The reluctance of Tacitus (and it might possibly be sincere) was
encountered by the affectionate obstinacy of the senate. Five hundred
voices repeated at once, in eloquent confusion, that the greatest of the
Roman princes, Numa, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, had ascended
the throne in a very advanced season of life; that the mind, not the
body, a sovereign, not a soldier, was the object of their choice; and
that they expected from him no more than to guide by his wisdom the
valor of the legions. These pressing though tumultuary instances were
seconded by a more regular oration of Metius Falconius, the next on the
consular bench to Tacitus himself. He reminded the assembly of the
evils which Rome had endured from the vices of headstrong and capricious
youths, congratulated them on the election of a virtuous and experienced
senator, and, with a manly, though perhaps a selfish, freedom, exhorted
Tacitus to remember the reasons of his elevation, and to seek a
successor, not in his own family, but in the republic. The speech of
Falconius was enforced by a general acclamation. The emperor elect
submitted to the authority of his country, and received the voluntary
homage of his equals. The judgment of the senate was confirmed by the
consent of the Roman people, and of the Praetorian guards. [11]

[Footnote 11: Hist. August. p. 228. Tacitus addressed the Praetorians
by the appellation of sanctissimi milites, and the people by that of
sacratissim. Quirites.]

The administration of Tacitus was not unworthy of his life and
principles. A grateful servant of the senate, he considered that
national council as the author, and himself as the subject, of the laws.
[12] He studied to heal the wounds which Imperial pride, civil discord,
and military violence, had inflicted on the constitution, and to
restore, at least, the image of the ancient republic, as it had been
preserved by the policy of Augustus, and the virtues of Trajan and
the Antonines. It may not be useless to recapitulate some of the most
important prerogatives which the senate appeared to have regained by the
election of Tacitus. [13] 1. To invest one of their body, under the title
of emperor, with the general command of the armies, and the government
of the frontier provinces. 2. To determine the list, or, as it was then
styled, the College of Consuls. They were twelve in number, who, in
successive pairs, each, during the space of two months, filled the year,
and represented the dignity of that ancient office. The authority of
the senate, in the nomination of the consuls, was exercised with such
independent freedom, that no regard was paid to an irregular request of
the emperor in favor of his brother Florianus. "The senate," exclaimed
Tacitus, with the honest transport of a patriot, "understand the
character of a prince whom they have chosen." 3. To appoint the
proconsuls and presidents of the provinces, and to confer on all the
magistrates their civil jurisdiction. 4. To receive appeals through the
intermediate office of the praefect of the city from all the tribunals
of the empire. 5. To give force and validity, by their decrees, to such
as they should approve of the emperor's edicts. 6. To these several
branches of authority we may add some inspection over the finances,
since, even in the stern reign of Aurelian, it was in their power to
divert a part of the revenue from the public service. [14]

[Footnote 12: In his manumissions he never exceeded the number of
a hundred, as limited by the Caninian law, which was enacted under
Augustus, and at length repealed by Justinian. See Casaubon ad locum
Vopisci.]

[Footnote 13: See the lives of Tacitus, Florianus, and Probus,
in the Augustan History; we may be well assured, that whatever the
soldier gave the senator had already given.]

[Footnote 14: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216. The passage is perfectly
clear, both Casaubon and Salmasius wish to correct it.]

Circular epistles were sent, without delay, to all the principal cities
of the empire, Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Thessalo nica, Corinth, Athens,
Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage, to claim their obedience, and to
inform them of the happy revolution, which had restored the Roman senate
to its ancient dignity. Two of these epistles are still extant.
We likewise possess two very singular fragments of the private
correspondence of the senators on this occasion. They discover the most
excessive joy, and the most unbounded hopes. "Cast away your indolence,"
it is thus that one of the senators addresses his friend, "emerge from
your retirements of Baiae and Puteoli. Give yourself to the city, to the
senate. Rome flourishes, the whole republic flourishes. Thanks to the
Roman army, to an army truly Roman; at length we have recovered our
just authority, the end of all our desires. We hear appeals, we appoint
proconsuls, we create emperors; perhaps too we may restrain them--to the
wise a word is sufficient." [15] These lofty expectations were, however,
soon disappointed; nor, indeed, was it possible that the armies and the
provinces should long obey the luxurious and unwarlike nobles of Rome.
On the slightest touch, the unsupported fabric of their pride and power
fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden lustre,
blazed for a moment and was extinguished forever.

[Footnote 15: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230, 232, 233. The senators
celebrated the happy restoration with hecatombs and public rejoicings.]

All that had yet passed at Rome was no more than a theatrical
representation, unless it was ratified by the more substantial power of
the legions. Leaving the senators to enjoy their dream of freedom and
ambition, Tacitus proceeded to the Thracian camp, and was there, by the
Praetorian praefect, presented to the assembled troops, as the prince
whom they themselves had demanded, and whom the senate had bestowed. As
soon as the praefect was silent, the emperor addressed himself to the
soldiers with eloquence and propriety. He gratified their avarice by a
liberal distribution of treasure, under the names of pay and donative.
He engaged their esteem by a spirited declaration, that although his age
might disable him from the performance of military exploits, his
counsels should never be unworthy of a Roman general, the successor of
the brave Aurelian. [16]

[Footnote 16: Hist. August. p. 228.]

Whilst the deceased emperor was making preparations for a second
expedition into the East, he had negotiated with the Alani, [161] a
Scythian people, who pitched their tents in the neighborhood of the
Lake Moeotis. Those barbarians, allured by presents and subsidies, had
promised to invade Persia with a numerous body of light cavalry. They
were faithful to their engagements; but when they arrived on the Roman
frontier, Aurelian was already dead, the design of the Persian war
was at least suspended, and the generals, who, during the interregnum,
exercised a doubtful authority, were unprepared either to receive or
to oppose them. Provoked by such treatment, which they considered as
trifling and perfidious, the Alani had recourse to their own valor for
their payment and revenge; and as they moved with the usual swiftness of
Tartars, they had soon spread themselves over the provinces of Pontus,
Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatia. The legions, who from the opposite
shores of the Bosphorus could almost distinguish the flames of the
cities and villages, impatiently urged their general to lead them
against the invaders. The conduct of Tacitus was suitable to his age and
station. He convinced the barbarians of the faith, as well as the power,
of the empire. Great numbers of the Alani, appeased by the punctual
discharge of the engagements which Aurelian had contracted with them,
relinquished their booty and captives, and quietly retreated to their
own deserts, beyond the Phasis. Against the remainder, who refused
peace, the Roman emperor waged, in person, a successful war. Seconded by
an army of brave and experienced veterans, in a few weeks he delivered
the provinces of Asia from the terror of the Scythian invasion. [17]

[Footnote 161: On the Alani, see ch. xxvi. note 55.--M.]

[Footnote 17: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230. Zosimus, l. i. p. 57.
Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. Two passages in the life of Probus (p. 236,
238) convince me, that these Scythian invaders of Pontus were Alani. If
we may believe Zosimus, (l. i. p. 58,) Florianus pursued them as far
as the Cimmerian Bosphorus. But he had scarcely time for so long and
difficult an expedition.]

But the glory and life of Tacitus were of short duration. Transported,
in the depth of winter, from the soft retirement of Campania to the
foot of Mount Caucasus, he sunk under the unaccustomed hardships of a
military life. The fatigues of the body were aggravated by the cares of
the mind. For a while, the angry and selfish passions of the soldiers
had been suspended by the enthusiasm of public virtue. They soon broke
out with redoubled violence, and raged in the camp, and even in the
tent of the aged emperor. His mild and amiable character served only to
inspire contempt, and he was incessantly tormented with factions which
he could not assuage, and by demands which it was impossible to satisfy.
Whatever flattering expectations he had conceived of reconciling the
public disorders, Tacitus soon was convinced that the licentiousness of
the army disdained the feeble restraint of laws, and his last hour was
hastened by anguish and disappointment. It may be doubtful whether the
soldiers imbrued their hands in the blood of this innocent prince.
[18] It is certain that their insolences was the cause of his death. He
expired at Tyana in Cappadocia, after a reign of only six months and
about twenty days. [19]

[Footnote 18: Eutropius and Aurelius Victor only say that he died;
Victor Junior adds, that it was of a fever. Zosimus and Zonaras affirm,
that he was killed by the soldiers. Vopiscus mentions both accounts,
and seems to hesitate. Yet surely these jarring opinions are easily
reconciled.]

[Footnote 19: According to the two Victors, he reigned exactly two
hundred days.]

The eyes of Tacitus were scarcely closed, before his brother Florianus
showed himself unworthy to reign, by the hasty usurpation of the purple,
without expecting the approbation of the senate. The reverence for the
Roman constitution, which yet influenced the camp and the provinces, was
sufficiently strong to dispose them to censure, but not to provoke them
to oppose, the precipitate ambition of Florianus. The discontent would
have evaporated in idle murmurs, had not the general of the East, the
heroic Probus, boldly declared himself the avenger of the senate.

The contest, however, was still unequal; nor could the most able leader,
at the head of the effeminate troops of Egypt and Syria, encounter, with
any hopes of victory, the legions of Europe, whose irresistible strength
appeared to support the brother of Tacitus. But the fortune and activity
of Probus triumphed over every obstacle. The hardy veterans of his
rival, accustomed to cold climates, sickened and consumed away in the
sultry heats of Cilicia, where the summer proved remarkably unwholesome.
Their numbers were diminished by frequent desertion; the passes of
the mountains were feebly defended; Tarsus opened its gates; and the
soldiers of Florianus, when they had permitted him to enjoy the Imperial
title about three months, delivered the empire from civil war by the
easy sacrifice of a prince whom they despised. [20]

[Footnote 20: Hist. August, p. 231. Zosimus, l. i. p. 58, 59. Zonaras,
l. xii. p. 637. Aurelius Victor says, that Probus assumed the empire in
Illyricum; an opinion which (though adopted by a very learned man) would
throw that period of history into inextricable confusion.]

The perpetual revolutions of the throne had so perfectly erased every
notion of hereditary title, that the family of an unfortunate emperor
was incapable of exciting the jealousy of his successors. The children
of Tacitus and Florianus were permitted to descend into a private
station, and to mingle with the general mass of the people. Their
poverty indeed became an additional safeguard to their innocence. When
Tacitus was elected by the senate, he resigned his ample patrimony to
the public service; [21] an act of generosity specious in appearance,
but which evidently disclosed his intention of transmitting the empire
to his descendants. The only consolation of their fallen state was the
remembrance of transient greatness, and a distant hope, the child of a
flattering prophecy, that at the end of a thousand years, a monarch of
the race of Tacitus should arise, the protector of the senate, the
restorer of Rome, and the conqueror of the whole earth. [22]

[Footnote 21: Hist. August. p. 229]

[Footnote 22: He was to send judges to the Parthians, Persians, and
Sarmatians, a president to Taprobani, and a proconsul to the Roman
island, (supposed by Casaubon and Salmasius to mean Britain.) Such a
history as mine (says Vopiscus with proper modesty) will not subsist a
thousand years, to expose or justify the prediction.]

The peasants of Illyricum, who had already given Claudius and Aurelian
to the sinking empire, had an equal right to glory in the elevation of
Probus. [23] Above twenty years before, the emperor Valerian, with his
usual penetration, had discovered the rising merit of the young soldier,
on whom he conferred the rank of tribune, long before the age prescribed
by the military regulations. The tribune soon justified his choice, by a
victory over a great body of Sarmatians, in which he saved the life of
a near relation of Valerian; and deserved to receive from the emperor's
hand the collars, bracelets, spears, and banners, the mural and the
civic crown, and all the honorable rewards reserved by ancient Rome
for successful valor. The third, and afterwards the tenth, legion were
intrusted to the command of Probus, who, in every step of his promotion,
showed himself superior to the station which he filled. Africa and
Pontus, the Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates, and the Nile, by turns
afforded him the most splendid occasions of displaying his personal
prowess and his conduct in war. Aurelian was indebted for the honest
courage with which he often checked the cruelty of his master.
Tacitus, who desired by the abilities of his generals to supply his own
deficiency of military talents, named him commander-in-chief of all the
eastern provinces, with five times the usual salary, the promise of the
consulship, and the hope of a triumph. When Probus ascended the Imperial
throne, he was about forty-four years of age; [24] in the full possession
of his fame, of the love of the army, and of a mature vigor of mind
and body.

[Footnote 23: For the private life of Probus, see Vopiscus in Hist.
August p. 234--237]

[Footnote 24: According to the Alexandrian chronicle, he was fifty at
the time of his death.]

His acknowledge merit, and the success of his arms against Florianus,
left him without an enemy or a competitor. Yet, if we may credit his own
professions, very far from being desirous of the empire, he had accepted
it with the most sincere reluctance. "But it is no longer in my power,"
says Probus, in a private letter, "to lay down a title so full of envy
and of danger. I must continue to personate the character which the
soldiers have imposed upon me." [25] His dutiful address to the senate
displayed the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot:
"When you elected one of your order, conscript fathers! to succeed the
emperor Aurelian, you acted in a manner suitable to your justice and
wisdom. For you are the legal sovereigns of the world, and the power
which you derive from your ancestors will descend to your posterity.
Happy would it have been, if Florianus, instead of usurping the purple
of his brother, like a private inheritance, had expected what your
majesty might determine, either in his favor, or in that of other
person. The prudent soldiers have punished his rashness. To me they
have offered the title of Augustus. But I submit to your clemency my
pretensions and my merits." [26] When this respectful epistle was read
by the consul, the senators were unable to disguise their satisfaction,
that Probus should condescend thus numbly to solicit a sceptre which
he already possessed. They celebrated with the warmest gratitude
his virtues, his exploits, and above all his moderation. A decree
immediately passed, without a dissenting voice, to ratify the election
of the eastern armies, and to confer on their chief all the several
branches of the Imperial dignity: the names of Caesar and Augustus,
the title of Father of his country, the right of making in the same day
three motions in the senate, [27] the office of Pontifex, Maximus, the
tribunitian power, and the proconsular command; a mode of investiture,
which, though it seemed to multiply the authority of the emperor,
expressed the constitution of the ancient republic. The reign of Probus
corresponded with this fair beginning. The senate was permitted to
direct the civil administration of the empire. Their faithful general
asserted the honor of the Roman arms, and often laid at their feet
crowns of gold and barbaric trophies, the fruits of his numerous
victories. [28] Yet, whilst he gratified their vanity, he must secretly
have despised their indolence and weakness. Though it was every moment
in their power to repeal the disgraceful edict of Gallienus, the proud
successors of the Scipios patiently acquiesced in their exclusion from
all military employments. They soon experienced, that those who refuse
the sword must renounce the sceptre.

[Footnote 25: This letter was addressed to the Praetorian praefect, whom
(on condition of his good behavior) he promised to continue in his great
office. See Hist. August. p. 237.]

[Footnote 26: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 237. The date of the letter
is assuredly faulty. Instead of Nen. Februar. we may read Non August.]

[Footnote 27: Hist. August. p. 238. It is odd that the senate should
treat Probus less favorably than Marcus Antoninus. That prince had
received, even before the death of Pius, Jus quintoe relationis. See
Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 24.]

[Footnote 28: See the dutiful letter of Probus to the senate, after his
German victories. Hist. August. p. 239.]




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

The strength of Aurelian had crushed on every side the enemies of Rome.
After his death they seemed to revive with an increase of fury and of
numbers. They were again vanquished by the active vigor of Probus, who,
in a short reign of about six years, [29] equalled the fame of ancient
heroes, and restored peace and order to every province of the Roman
world. The dangerous frontier of Rhaetia he so firmly secured, that he
left it without the suspicion of an enemy. He broke the wandering power
of the Sarmatian tribes, and by the terror of his arms compelled those
barbarians to relinquish their spoil. The Gothic nation courted the
alliance of so warlike an emperor. [30] He attacked the Isaurians in
their mountains, besieged and took several of their strongest castles,
[31] and flattered himself that he had forever suppressed a domestic
foe, whose independence so deeply wounded the majesty of the empire. The
troubles excited by the usurper Firmus in the Upper Egypt had never been
perfectly appeased, and the cities of Ptolemais and Coptos, fortified by
the alliance of the Blemmyes, still maintained an obscure rebellion. The
chastisement of those cities, and of their auxiliaries the savages of
the South, is said to have alarmed the court of Persia, [32] and the
Great King sued in vain for the friendship of Probus. Most of the
exploits which distinguished his reign were achieved by the personal
valor and conduct of the emperor, insomuch that the writer of his life
expresses some amazement how, in so short a time, a single man could be
present in so many distant wars. The remaining actions he intrusted
to the care of his lieutenants, the judicious choice of whom forms
no inconsiderable part of his glory. Carus, Diocletian, Maximian,
Constantius, Galerius, Asclepiodatus, Annibalianus, and a crowd of other
chiefs, who afterwards ascended or supported the throne, were trained to
arms in the severe school of Aurelian and Probus. [33]

[Footnote 29: The date and duration of the reign of Probus are very
correctly ascertained by Cardinal Noris in his learned work, De Epochis
Syro-Macedonum, p. 96--105. A passage of Eusebius connects the second
year of Probus with the aeras of several of the Syrian cities.]

[Footnote 30: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 239.]

[Footnote 31: Zosimus (l. i. p. 62--65) tells us a very long and
trifling story of Lycius, the Isaurian robber.]

[Footnote 32: Zosim. l. i. p. 65. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 239,
240. But it seems incredible that the defeat of the savages of Aethiopia
could affect the Persian monarch.]

[Footnote 33: Besides these well-known chiefs, several others are named
by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 241,) whose actions have not reached
knowledge.]

But the most important service which Probus rendered to the republic was
the deliverance of Gaul, and the recovery of seventy flourishing cities
oppressed by the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of
Aurelian, had ravaged that great province with impunity. [34] Among the
various multitude of those fierce invaders we may distinguish, with some
degree of clearness, three great armies, or rather nations, successively
vanquished by the valor of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their
morasses; a descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer, that the
confederacy known by the manly appellation of Free, already occupied the
flat maritime country, intersected and almost overflown by the
stagnating waters of the Rhine, and that several tribes of the Frisians
and Batavians had acceded to their alliance. He vanquished the
Burgundians, a considerable people of the Vandalic race. [341] They had
wandered in quest of booty from the banks of the Oder to those of the
Seine. They esteemed themselves sufficiently fortunate to purchase, by
the restitution of all their booty, the permission of an undisturbed
retreat. They attempted to elude that article of the treaty. Their
punishment was immediate and terrible. [35] But of all the invaders of
Gaul, the most formidable were the Lygians, a distant people, who
reigned over a wide domain on the frontiers of Poland and Silesia. [36]
In the Lygian nation, the Arii held the first rank by their numbers and
fierceness. "The Arii" (it is thus that they are described by the energy
of Tacitus) "study to improve by art and circumstances the innate
terrors of their barbarism. Their shields are black, their bodies are
painted black. They choose for the combat the darkest hour of the night.
Their host advances, covered as it were with a funeral shade; [37] nor do
they often find an enemy capable of sustaining so strange and infernal
an aspect. Of all our senses, the eyes are the first vanquished
in battle." [38] Yet the arms and discipline of the Romans easily
discomfited these horrid phantoms. The Lygii were defeated in a general
engagement, and Semno, the most renowned of their chiefs, fell alive
into the hands of Probus. That prudent emperor, unwilling to reduce a
brave people to despair, granted them an honorable capitulation, and
permitted them to return in safety to their native country. But the
losses which they suffered in the march, the battle, and the retreat,
broke the power of the nation: nor is the Lygian name ever repeated in
the history either of Germany or of the empire. The deliverance of
Gaul is reported to have cost the lives of four hundred thousand of the
invaders; a work of labor to the Romans, and of expense to the emperor,
who gave a piece of gold for the head of every barbarian. [39] But as
the fame of warriors is built on the destruction of human kind, we may
naturally suspect, that the sanguinary account was multiplied by
the avarice of the soldiers, and accepted without any very severe
examination by the liberal vanity of Probus.

[Footnote 34: See the Caesars of Julian, and Hist. August. p. 238, 240,
241.]

[Footnote 341: It was only under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian,
that the Burgundians, in concert with the Alemanni, invaded the interior
of Gaul; under the reign of Probus, they did no more than pass the river
which separated them from the Roman Empire: they were repelled. Gatterer
presumes that this river was the Danube; a passage in Zosimus appears to
me rather to indicate the Rhine. Zos. l. i. p. 37, edit H. Etienne,
1581.--G. On the origin of the Burgundians may be consulted Malte Brun,
Geogr vi. p. 396, (edit. 1831,) who observes that all the remains of the
Burgundian language indicate that they spoke a Gothic dialect.--M.]

[Footnote 35: Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. Hist. August. p. 240. But the latter
supposes the punishment inflicted with the consent of their kings: if
so, it was partial, like the offence.]

[Footnote 36: See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. Ptolemy places in
their country the city of Calisia, probably Calish in Silesia. *
Note: Luden (vol ii. 501) supposes that these have been erroneously
identified with the Lygii of Tacitus. Perhaps one fertile source
of mistakes has been, that the Romans have turned appellations into
national names. Malte Brun observes of the Lygii, "that their name
appears Sclavonian, and signifies 'inhabitants of plains;' they are
probably the Lieches of the middle ages, and the ancestors of the Poles.
We find among the Arii the worship of the two twin gods known in the
Sclavian mythology." Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 278, (edit. 1831.)--M.
But compare Schafarik, Slawische Alterthumer, 1, p. 406. They were of
German or Keltish descent, occupying the Wendish (or Slavian) district,
Luhy.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 37: Feralis umbra, is the expression of Tacitus: it is surely
a very bold one.]

[Footnote 38: Tacit. Germania, (c. 43.)]

[Footnote 39: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 238]

Since the expedition of Maximin, the Roman generals had confined
their ambition to a defensive war against the nations of Germany, who
perpetually pressed on the frontiers of the empire. The more daring
Probus pursued his Gallic victories, passed the Rhine, and displayed his
invincible eagles on the banks of the Elbe and the Necker. He was fully
convinced that nothing could reconcile the minds of the barbarians to
peace, unless they experienced, in their own country, the calamities of
war. Germany, exhausted by the ill success of the last emigration,
was astonished by his presence. Nine of the most considerable princes
repaired to his camp, and fell prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was
humbly received by the Germans, as it pleased the conqueror to dictate.
He exacted a strict restitution of the effects and captives which they
had carried away from the provinces; and obliged their own magistrates
to punish the more obstinate robbers who presumed to detain any part of
the spoil. A considerable tribute of corn, cattle, and horses, the only
wealth of barbarians, was reserved for the use of the garrisons which
Probus established on the limits of their territory. He even entertained
some thoughts of compelling the Germans to relinquish the exercise of
arms, and to trust their differences to the justice, their safety to
the power, of Rome. To accomplish these salutary ends, the constant
residence of an Imperial governor, supported by a numerous army, was
indispensably requisite. Probus therefore judged it more expedient to
defer the execution of so great a design; which was indeed rather of
specious than solid utility. [40] Had Germany been reduced into the state
of a province, the Romans, with immense labor and expense, would have
acquired only a more extensive boundary to defend against the fiercer
and more active barbarians of Scythia.

[Footnote 40: Hist. August. 238, 239. Vopiscus quotes a letter from
the emperor to the senate, in which he mentions his design of reducing
Germany into a province.]

Instead of reducing the warlike natives of Germany to the condition of
subjects, Probus contented himself with the humble expedient of raising
a bulwark against their inroads. The country which now forms the circle
of Swabia had been left desert in the age of Augustus by the emigration
of its ancient inhabitants. [41] The fertility of the soil soon attracted
a new colony from the adjacent provinces of Gaul. Crowds of adventurers,
of a roving temper and of desperate fortunes, occupied the doubtful
possession, and acknowledged, by the payment of tithes the majesty
of the empire. [42] To protect these new subjects, a line of frontier
garrisons was gradually extended from the Rhine to the Danube. About the
reign of Hadrian, when that mode of defence began to be practised, these
garrisons were connected and covered by a strong intrenchment of trees
and palisades. In the place of so rude a bulwark, the emperor Probus
constructed a stone wall of a considerable height, and strengthened it
by towers at convenient distances. From the neighborhood of Newstadt and
Ratisbon on the Danube, it stretched across hills, valleys, rivers, and
morasses, as far as Wimpfen on the Necker, and at length terminated
on the banks of the Rhine, after a winding course of near two hundred
miles. [43] This important barrier, uniting the two mighty streams that
protected the provinces of Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space
through which the barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could
penetrate with the greatest facility into the heart of the empire. But
the experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the
vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. [44] An active
enemy, who can select and vary his points of attack, must, in the end,
discover some feeble spot, on some unguarded moment. The strength, as
well as the attention, of the defenders is divided; and such are the
blind effects of terror on the firmest troops, that a line broken in a
single place is almost instantly deserted. The fate of the wall which
Probus erected may confirm the general observation. Within a few years
after his death, it was overthrown by the Alemanni. Its scattered ruins,
universally ascribed to the power of the Daemon, now serve only to
excite the wonder of the Swabian peasant.

[Footnote 41: Strabo, l. vii. According to Valleius Paterculus, (ii.
108,) Maroboduus led his Marcomanni into Bohemia; Cluverius (German.
Antiq. iii. 8) proves that it was from Swabia.]

[Footnote 42: These settlers, from the payment of tithes, were
denominated Decunates. Tacit. Germania, c. 29]

[Footnote 43: See notes de l'Abbe de la Bleterie a la Germanie de
Tacite, p. 183. His account of the wall is chiefly borrowed (as he says
himself) from the Alsatia Illustrata of Schoepflin.]

[Footnote 44: See Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptiens, tom. ii.
p. 81--102. The anonymous author is well acquainted with the globe in
general, and with Germany in particular: with regard to the latter,
he quotes a work of M. Hanselman; but he seems to confound the wall of
Probus, designed against the Alemanni, with the fortification of the
Mattiaci, constructed in the neighborhood of Frankfort against the
Catti. * Note: De Pauw is well known to have been the author of this
work, as of the Recherches sur les Americains before quoted. The
judgment of M. Remusat on this writer is in a very different, I fear a
juster tone. Quand au lieu de rechercher, d'examiner, d'etudier, on se
borne, comme cet ecrivain, a juger a prononcer, a decider, sans
connoitre ni l'histoire. ni les langues, sans recourir aux sources, sans
meme se douter de leur existence, on peut en imposer pendant quelque
temps a des lecteurs prevenus ou peu instruits; mais le mepris qui ne
manque guere de succeder a cet engouement fait bientot justice de ces
assertions hazardees, et elles retombent dans l'oubli d'autant plus
promptement, qu'elles ont ete posees avec plus de confiance. Sur les l
angues Tartares, p. 231.--M.]

Among the useful conditions of peace imposed by Probus on the vanquished
nations of Germany, was the obligation of supplying the Roman army with
sixteen thousand recruits, the bravest and most robust of their youth.
The emperor dispersed them through all the provinces, and distributed
this dangerous reenforcement, in small bands of fifty or sixty each,
among the national troops; judiciously observing, that the aid which the
republic derived from the barbarians should be felt but not seen. [45]
Their aid was now become necessary. The feeble elegance of Italy and the
internal provinces could no longer support the weight of arms. The hardy
frontiers of the Rhine and Danube still produced minds and bodies equal
to the labors of the camp; but a perpetual series of wars had gradually
diminished their numbers. The infrequency of marriage, and the ruin
of agriculture, affected the principles of population, and not only
destroyed the strength of the present, but intercepted the hope
of future, generations. The wisdom of Probus embraced a great and
beneficial plan of replenishing the exhausted frontiers, by new colonies
of captive or fugitive barbarians, on whom he bestowed lands, cattle,
instruments of husbandry, and every encouragement that might engage
them to educate a race of soldiers for the service of the republic. Into
Britain, and most probably into Cambridgeshire, [46] he transported a
considerable body of Vandals. The impossibility of an escape reconciled
them to their situation, and in the subsequent troubles of that island,
they approved themselves the most faithful servants of the state. [47]
Great numbers of Franks and Gepidae were settled on the banks of the
Danube and the Rhine. A hundred thousand Bastarnae, expelled from their
own country, cheerfully accepted an establishment in Thrace, and soon
imbibed the manners and sentiments of Roman subjects. [48] But the
expectations of Probus were too often disappointed. The impatience
and idleness of the barbarians could ill brook the slow labors of
agriculture. Their unconquerable love of freedom, rising against
despotism, provoked them into hasty rebellions, alike fatal to
themselves and to the provinces; [49] nor could these artificial
supplies, however repeated by succeeding emperors, restore the important
limit of Gaul and Illyricum to its ancient and native vigor.

[Footnote 45: He distributed about fifty or sixty barbarians to a
Numerus, as it was then called, a corps with whose established number we
are not exactly acquainted.]

[Footnote 46: Camden's Britannia, Introduction, p. 136; but he speaks
from a very doubtful conjecture.]

[Footnote 47: Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. According to Vopiscus, another body
of Vandals was less faithful.]

[Footnote 48: Hist. August. p. 240. They were probably expelled by the
Goths. Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]

[Footnote 49: Hist. August. p. 240.]

Of all the barbarians who abandoned their new settlements, and disturbed
the public tranquillity, a very small number returned to their own
country. For a short season they might wander in arms through the
empire; but in the end they were surely destroyed by the power of
a warlike emperor. The successful rashness of a party of Franks was
attended, however, with such memorable consequences, that it ought not
to be passed unnoticed. They had been established by Probus, on the
sea-coast of Pontus, with a view of strengthening the frontier against
the inroads of the Alani. A fleet stationed in one of the harbors of
the Euxine fell into the hands of the Franks; and they resolved, through
unknown seas, to explore their way from the mouth of the Phasis to
that of the Rhine. They easily escaped through the Bosphorus and
the Hellespont, and cruising along the Mediterranean, indulged
their appetite for revenge and plunder by frequent descents on the
unsuspecting shores of Asia, Greece, and Africa. The opulent city of
Syracuse, in whose port the natives of Athens and Carthage had formerly
been sunk, was sacked by a handful of barbarians, who massacred the
greatest part of the trembling inhabitants. From the Island of Sicily,
the Franks proceeded to the columns of Hercules, trusted themselves to
the ocean, coasted round Spain and Gaul, and steering their triumphant
course through the British Channel, at length finished their surprising
voyage, by landing in safety on the Batavian or Frisian shores. [50] The
example of their success, instructing their countrymen to conceive the
advantages and to despise the dangers of the sea, pointed out to their
enterprising spirit a new road to wealth and glory.

[Footnote 50: Panegyr. Vet. v. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 66.]

Notwithstanding the vigilance and activity of Probus, it was almost
impossible that he could at once contain in obedience every part of his
wide-extended dominions. The barbarians, who broke their chains, had
seized the favorable opportunity of a domestic war. When the emperor
marched to the relief of Gaul, he devolved the command of the East on
Saturninus. That general, a man of merit and experience, was driven into
rebellion by the absence of his sovereign, the levity of the Alexandrian
people, the pressing instances of his friends, and his own fears; but
from the moment of his elevation, he never entertained a hope of empire,
or even of life. "Alas!" he said, "the republic has lost a useful
servant, and the rashness of an hour has destroyed the services of many
years. You know not," continued he, "the misery of sovereign power; a
sword is perpetually suspended over our head. We dread our very guards,
we distrust our companions. The choice of action or of repose is no
longer in our disposition, nor is there any age, or character, or
conduct, that can protect us from the censure of envy. In thus exalting
me to the throne, you have doomed me to a life of cares, and to an
untimely fate. The only consolation which remains is, the assurance that
I shall not fall alone." [51] But as the former part of his prediction
was verified by the victory, so the latter was disappointed by the
clemency of Probus. That amiable prince attempted even to save the
unhappy Saturninus from the fury of the soldiers. He had more than once
solicited the usurper himself to place some confidence in the mercy of a
sovereign who so highly esteemed his character, that he had punished, as
a malicious informer, the first who related the improbable news of his
disaffection. [52] Saturninus might, perhaps, have embraced the generous
offer, had he not been restrained by the obstinate distrust of his
adherents. Their guilt was deeper, and their hopes more sanguine, than
those of their experienced leader.

[Footnote 51: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 245, 246. The unfortunate
orator had studied rhetoric at Carthage; and was therefore more probably
a Moor (Zosim. l. i. p. 60) than a Gaul, as Vopiscus calls him.]

[Footnote 52: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638.]

The revolt of Saturninus was scarcely extinguished in the East, before
new troubles were excited in the West, by the rebellion of Bonosus and
Proculus, in Gaul. The most distinguished merit of those two officers
was their respective prowess, of the one in the combats of Bacchus, of
the other in those of Venus, [53] yet neither of them was destitute
of courage and capacity, and both sustained, with honor, the august
character which the fear of punishment had engaged them to assume, till
they sunk at length beneath the superior genius of Probus. He used the
victory with his accustomed moderation, and spared the fortune, as well
as the lives of their innocent families. [54]

[Footnote 53: A very surprising instance is recorded of the prowess of
Procufus. He had taken one hundred Sarmatian virgins. The rest of the
story he must relate in his own language: "Ex his una necte decem inivi;
omnes tamen, quod in me erat, mulieres intra dies quindecim reddidi."
Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246.]

[Footnote 54: Proculus, who was a native of Albengue, on the Genoese
coast armed two thousand of his own slaves. His riches were great, but
they were acquired by robbery. It was afterwards a saying of his family,
sibi non placere esse vel principes vel latrones. Vopiscus in Hist.
August. p. 247.]

The arms of Probus had now suppressed all the foreign and domestic
enemies of the state. His mild but steady administration confirmed the
reestablishment of the public tranquillity; nor was there left in the
provinces a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or even a robber, to revive the
memory of past disorders. It was time that the emperor should revisit
Rome, and celebrate his own glory and the general happiness. The triumph
due to the valor of Probus was conducted with a magnificence suitable to
his fortune, and the people who had so lately admired the trophies of
Aurelian, gazed with equal pleasure on those of his heroic successor.
[55] We cannot, on this occasion, forget the desperate courage of about
fourscore gladiators, reserved, with near six hundred others, for the
inhuman sports of the amphitheatre. Disdaining to shed their blood for
the amusement of the populace, they killed their keepers, broke from the
place of their confinement, and filled the streets of Rome with blood
and confusion. After an obstinate resistance, they were overpowered and
cut in pieces by the regular forces; but they obtained at least an
honorable death, and the satisfaction of a just revenge. [56]

[Footnote 55: Hist. August. p. 240.]

[Footnote 56: Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]

The military discipline which reigned in the camps of Probus was less
cruel than that of Aurelian, but it was equally rigid and exact. The
latter had punished the irregularities of the soldiers with unrelenting
severity, the former prevented them by employing the legions in constant
and useful labors. When Probus commanded in Egypt, he executed many
considerable works for the splendor and benefit of that rich country.
The navigation of the Nile, so important to Rome itself, was improved;
and temples, buildings, porticos, and palaces were constructed by the
hands of the soldiers, who acted by turns as architects, as engineers,
and as husbandmen. [57] It was reported of Hannibal, that in order to
preserve his troops from the dangerous temptations of idleness, he had
obliged them to form large plantations of olive-trees along the coast
of Africa. [58] From a similar principle, Probus exercised his legions
in covering with rich vineyards the hills of Gaul and Pannonia, and two
considerable spots are described, which were entirely dug and planted
by military labor. [59] One of these, known under the name of Mount Almo,
was situated near Sirmium, the country where Probus was born, for which
he ever retained a partial affection, and whose gratitude he endeavored
to secure, by converting into tillage a large and unhealthy tract
of marshy ground. An army thus employed constituted perhaps the most
useful, as well as the bravest, portion of Roman subjects.

[Footnote 57: Hist. August. p. 236.]

[Footnote 58: Aurel. Victor. in Prob. But the policy of Hannibal,
unnoticed by any more ancient writer, is irreconcilable with the history
of his life. He left Africa when he was nine years old, returned to it
when he was forty-five, and immediately lost his army in the decisive
battle of Zama. Livilus, xxx. 37.]

[Footnote 59: Hist. August. p. 240. Eutrop. ix. 17. Aurel. Victor. in
Prob. Victor Junior. He revoked the prohibition of Domitian, and granted
a general permission of planting vines to the Gauls, the Britons, and
the Pannonians.]

But in the prosecution of a favorite scheme, the best of men, satisfied
with the rectitude of their intentions, are subject to forget the bounds
of moderation; nor did Probus himself sufficiently consult the patience
and disposition of his fierce legionaries. [60] The dangers of the
military profession seem only to be compensated by a life of pleasure
and idleness; but if the duties of the soldier are incessantly
aggravated by the labors of the peasant, he will at last sink under the
intolerable burden, or shake it off with indignation. The imprudence of
Probus is said to have inflamed the discontent of his troops. More
attentive to the interests of mankind than to those of the army, he
expressed the vain hope, that, by the establishment of universal peace,
he should soon abolish the necessity of a standing and mercenary force.
[61] The unguarded expression proved fatal to him. In one of the hottest
days of summer, as he severely urged the unwholesome labor of draining
the marshes of Sirmium, the soldiers, impatient of fatigue, on a sudden
threw down their tools, grasped their arms, and broke out into a furious
mutiny. The emperor, conscious of his danger, took refuge in a lofty
tower, constructed for the purpose of surveying the progress of the
work. [62] The tower was instantly forced, and a thousand swords were
plunged at once into the bosom of the unfortunate Probus. The rage of
the troops subsided as soon as it had been gratified. They then lamented
their fatal rashness, forgot the severity of the emperor, whom they had
massacred, and hastened to perpetuate, by an honorable monument, the
memory of his virtues and victories. [63]

[Footnote 60: Julian bestows a severe, and indeed excessive, censure
on the rigor of Probus, who, as he thinks, almost deserved his fate.]

[Footnote 61: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 241. He lavishes on this idle
hope a large stock of very foolish eloquence.]

[Footnote 62: Turris ferrata. It seems to have been a movable tower, and
cased with iron.]

[Footnote 63: Probus, et vere probus situs est; Victor omnium gentium
Barbararum; victor etiam tyrannorum.]

When the legions had indulged their grief and repentance for the death
of Probus, their unanimous consent declared Carus, his Praetorian
praefect, the most deserving of the Imperial throne. Every circumstance
that relates to this prince appears of a mixed and doubtful nature.
He gloried in the title of Roman Citizen; and affected to compare the
purity of his blood with the foreign and even barbarous origin of the
preceding emperors; yet the most inquisitive of his contemporaries, very
far from admitting his claim, have variously deduced his own birth,
or that of his parents, from Illyricum, from Gaul, or from Africa. [64]
Though a soldier, he had received a learned education; though a senator,
he was invested with the first dignity of the army; and in an age when
the civil and military professions began to be irrecoverably
separated from each other, they were united in the person of Carus.
Notwithstanding the severe justice which he exercised against the
assassins of Probus, to whose favor and esteem he was highly indebted,
he could not escape the suspicion of being accessory to a deed from
whence he derived the principal advantage. He enjoyed, at least, before
his elevation, an acknowledged character of virtue and abilities;
[65] but his austere temper insensibly degenerated into moroseness and
cruelty; and the imperfect writers of his life almost hesitate whether
they shall not rank him in the number of Roman tyrants. [66] When Carus
assumed the purple, he was about sixty years of age, and his two sons,
Carinus and Numerian had already attained the season of manhood. [67]

[Footnote 64: Yet all this may be conciliated. He was born at Narbonne
in Illyricum, confounded by Eutropius with the more famous city of that
name in Gaul. His father might be an African, and his mother a
noble Roman. Carus himself was educated in the capital. See Scaliger
Animadversion. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 241.]

[Footnote 65: Probus had requested of the senate an equestrian statue
and a marble palace, at the public expense, as a just recompense of the
singular merit of Carus. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 249.]

[Footnote 66: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 242, 249. Julian excludes
the emperor Carus and both his sons from the banquet of the Caesars.]

[Footnote 67: John Malala, tom. i. p. 401. But the authority of that
ignorant Greek is very slight. He ridiculously derives from Carus the
city of Carrhae, and the province of Caria, the latter of which is
mentioned by Homer.]

The authority of the senate expired with Probus; nor was the repentance
of the soldiers displayed by the same dutiful regard for the civil
power, which they had testified after the unfortunate death of Aurelian.
The election of Carus was decided without expecting the approbation of
the senate, and the new emperor contented himself with announcing, in a
cold and stately epistle, that he had ascended the vacant throne. [68] A
behavior so very opposite to that of his amiable predecessor afforded
no favorable presage of the new reign: and the Romans, deprived of power
and freedom, asserted their privilege of licentious murmurs. [69] The
voice of congratulation and flattery was not, however, silent; and we
may still peruse, with pleasure and contempt, an eclogue, which was
composed on the accession of the emperor Carus. Two shepherds, avoiding
the noontide heat, retire into the cave of Faunus. On a spreading beech
they discover some recent characters. The rural deity had described, in
prophetic verses, the felicity promised to the empire under the reign
of so great a prince. Faunus hails the approach of that hero, who,
receiving on his shoulders the sinking weight of the Roman world, shall
extinguish war and faction, and once again restore the innocence and
security of the golden age. [70]

[Footnote 68: Hist. August. p. 249. Carus congratulated the senate, that
one of their own order was made emperor.]

[Footnote 69: Hist. August. p. 242.]

[Footnote 70: See the first eclogue of Calphurnius. The design of it
is preferes by Fontenelle to that of Virgil's Pollio. See tom. iii. p.
148.]

It is more than probable, that these elegant trifles never reached
the ears of a veteran general, who, with the consent of the legions,
was preparing to execute the long-suspended design of the Persian war.
Before his departure for this distant expedition, Carus conferred on his
two sons, Carinus and Numerian, the title of Caesar, and investing the
former with almost an equal share of the Imperial power, directed the
young prince, first to suppress some troubles which had arisen in Gaul,
and afterwards to fix the seat of his residence at Rome, and to assume
the government of the Western provinces. [71] The safety of Illyricum was
confirmed by a memorable defeat of the Sarmatians; sixteen thousand
of those barbarians remained on the field of battle, and the number of
captives amounted to twenty thousand. The old emperor, animated with the
fame and prospect of victory, pursued his march, in the midst of winter,
through the countries of Thrace and Asia Minor, and at length, with his
younger son, Numerian, arrived on the confines of the Persian monarchy.
There, encamping on the summit of a lofty mountain, he pointed out to
his troops the opulence and luxury of the enemy whom they were about to
invade.

[Footnote 71: Hist. August. p. 353. Eutropius, ix. 18. Pagi. Annal.]

The successor of Artaxerxes, [711] Varanes, or Bahram, though he had subdued
the Segestans, one of the most warlike nations of Upper Asia, [72] was
alarmed at the approach of the Romans, and endeavored to retard their
progress by a negotiation of peace. [721]

His ambassadors entered the camp about sunset, at the time when the
troops were satisfying their hunger with a frugal repast. The Persians
expressed their desire of being introduced to the presence of the Roman
emperor. They were at length conducted to a soldier, who was seated
on the grass. A piece of stale bacon and a few hard peas composed his
supper. A coarse woollen garment of purple was the only circumstance
that announced his dignity. The conference was conducted with the same
disregard of courtly elegance. Carus, taking off a cap which he wore to
conceal his baldness, assured the ambassadors, that, unless their master
acknowledged the superiority of Rome, he would speedily render Persia
as naked of trees as his own head was destitute of hair. [73]
Notwithstanding some traces of art and preparation, we may discover in
this scene the manners of Carus, and the severe simplicity which the
martial princes, who succeeded Gallienus, had already restored in the
Roman camps. The ministers of the Great King trembled and retired.

[Footnote 711: Three monarchs had intervened, Sapor, (Shahpour,)
Hormisdas, (Hormooz,) Varanes; Baharam the First.--M.]

[Footnote 72: Agathias, l. iv. p. 135. We find one of his sayings in
the Bibliotheque Orientale of M. d'Herbelot. "The definition of humanity
includes all other virtues."]

[Footnote 721: The manner in which his life was saved by the Chief Pontiff
from a conspiracy of his nobles, is as remarkable as his saying. "By the
advice (of the Pontiff) all the nobles absented themselves from court.
The king wandered through his palace alone. He saw no one; all was
silence around. He became alarmed and distressed. At last the Chief
Pontiff appeared, and bowed his head in apparent misery, but spoke not a
word. The king entreated him to declare what had happened. The virtuous
man boldly related all that had passed, and conjured Bahram, in the name
of his glorious ancestors, to change his conduct and save himself from
destruction. The king was much moved, professed himself most penitent,
and said he was resolved his future life should prove his sincerity.
The overjoyed High Priest, delighted at this success, made a signal, at
which all the nobles and attendants were in an instant, as if by magic,
in their usual places. The monarch now perceived that only one opinion
prevailed on his past conduct. He repeated therefore to his nobles all
he had said to the Chief Pontiff, and his future reign was unstained by
cruelty or oppression." Malcolm's Persia,--M.]

[Footnote 73: Synesius tells this story of Carinus; and it is much more
natural to understand it of Carus, than (as Petavius and Tillemont
choose to do) of Probus.]

The threats of Carus were not without effect. He ravaged Mesopotamia,
cut in pieces whatever opposed his passage, made himself master of
the great cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, (which seemed to have
surrendered without resistance,) and carried his victorious arms beyond
the Tigris. [74] He had seized the favorable moment for an invasion. The
Persian councils were distracted by domestic factions, and the greater
part of their forces were detained on the frontiers of India. Rome and
the East received with transports the news of such important advantages.
Flattery and hope painted, in the most lively colors, the fall of
Persia, the conquest of Arabia, the submission of Egypt, and a lasting
deliverance from the inroads of the Scythian nations. [75] But the reign
of Carus was destined to expose the vanity of predictions. They were
scarcely uttered before they were contradicted by his death; an event
attended with such ambiguous circumstances, that it may be related in a
letter from his own secretary to the praefect of the city. "Carus," says
he, "our dearest emperor, was confined by sickness to his bed, when a
furious tempest arose in the camp. The darkness which overspread the sky
was so thick, that we could no longer distinguish each other; and the
incessant flashes of lightning took from us the knowledge of all that
passed in the general confusion. Immediately after the most violent clap
of thunder, we heard a sudden cry that the emperor was dead; and it soon
appeared, that his chamberlains, in a rage of grief, had set fire to the
royal pavilion; a circumstance which gave rise to the report that Carus
was killed by lightning. But, as far as we have been able to investigate
the truth, his death was the natural effect of his disorder." [76]

[Footnote 74: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Eutropius, ix. 18. The
two Victors.]

[Footnote 75: To the Persian victory of Carus I refer the dialogue of
the Philopatris, which has so long been an object of dispute among
the learned. But to explain and justify my opinion, would require a
dissertation. Note: Niebuhr, in the new edition of the Byzantine
Historians, (vol. x.) has boldly assigned the Philopatris to the tenth
century, and to the reign of Nicephorus Phocas. An opinion so decisively
pronounced by Niebuhr and favorably received by Hase, the learned editor
of Leo Diaconus, commands respectful consideration. But the whole tone
of the work appears to me altogether inconsistent with any period in
which philosophy did not stand, as it were, on some ground of equality
with Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity is sarcastically
introduced rather as the strange doctrine of a new religion, than
the established tenet of a faith universally prevalent. The argument,
adopted from Solanus, concerning the formula of the procession of the
Holy Ghost, is utterly worthless, as it is a mere quotation in the words
of the Gospel of St. John, xv. 26. The only argument of any value is the
historic one, from the allusion to the recent violation of many virgins
in the Island of Crete. But neither is the language of Niebuhr quite
accurate, nor his reference to the Acroases of Theodosius satisfactory.
When, then, could this occurrence take place? Why not in the devastation
of the island by the Gothic pirates, during the reign of Claudius. Hist.
Aug. in Claud. p. 814. edit. Var. Lugd. Bat 1661.--M.]

[Footnote 76: Hist. August. p. 250. Yet Eutropius, Festus, Rufus, the
two Victors, Jerome, Sidonius Apollinaris, Syncellus, and Zonaras, all
ascribe the death of Carus to lightning.]




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

The vacancy of the throne was not productive of any disturbance. The
ambition of the aspiring generals was checked by their natural fears,
and young Numerian, with his absent brother Carinus, were unanimously
acknowledged as Roman emperors.

The public expected that the successor of Carus would pursue his
father's footsteps, and, without allowing the Persians to recover from
their consternation, would advance sword in hand to the palaces of
Susa and Ecbatana. [77] But the legions, however strong in numbers
and discipline, were dismayed by the most abject superstition.
Notwithstanding all the arts that were practised to disguise the manner
of the late emperor's death, it was found impossible to remove the
opinion of the multitude, and the power of opinion is irresistible.
Places or persons struck with lightning were considered by the ancients
with pious horror, as singularly devoted to the wrath of Heaven. [78]
An oracle was remembered, which marked the River Tigris as the fatal
boundary of the Roman arms. The troops, terrified with the fate of Carus
and with their own danger, called aloud on young Numerian to obey the
will of the gods, and to lead them away from this inauspicious scene of
war. The feeble emperor was unable to subdue their obstinate prejudice,
and the Persians wondered at the unexpected retreat of a victorious
enemy. [79]

[Footnote 77: See Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v. 71, &c.]

[Footnote 78: See Festus and his commentators on the word Scribonianum.
Places struck by lightning were surrounded with a wall; things were
buried with mysterious ceremony.]

[Footnote 79: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Aurelius Victor seems to
believe the prediction, and to approve the retreat.]

The intelligence of the mysterious fate of the late emperor was soon
carried from the frontiers of Persia to Rome; and the senate, as well as
the provinces, congratulated the accession of the sons of Carus. These
fortunate youths were strangers, however, to that conscious superiority,
either of birth or of merit, which can alone render the possession of
a throne easy, and as it were natural. Born and educated in a private
station, the election of their father raised them at once to the rank of
princes; and his death, which happened about sixteen months afterwards,
left them the unexpected legacy of a vast empire. To sustain with temper
this rapid elevation, an uncommon share of virtue and prudence was
requisite; and Carinus, the elder of the brothers, was more than
commonly deficient in those qualities. In the Gallic war he discovered
some degree of personal courage; [80] but from the moment of his arrival
at Rome, he abandoned himself to the luxury of the capital, and to the
abuse of his fortune. He was soft, yet cruel; devoted to pleasure,
but destitute of taste; and though exquisitely susceptible of vanity,
indifferent to the public esteem. In the course of a few months, he
successively married and divorced nine wives, most of whom he left
pregnant; and notwithstanding this legal inconstancy, found time to
indulge such a variety of irregular appetites, as brought dishonor on
himself and on the noblest houses of Rome. He beheld with inveterate
hatred all those who might remember his former obscurity, or censure
his present conduct. He banished, or put to death, the friends
and counsellors whom his father had placed about him, to guide his
inexperienced youth; and he persecuted with the meanest revenge his
school-fellows and companions who had not sufficiently respected the
latent majesty of the emperor.

With the senators, Carinus affected a lofty and regal demeanor,
frequently declaring, that he designed to distribute their estates among
the populace of Rome. From the dregs of that populace he selected his
favorites, and even his ministers. The palace, and even the Imperial
table, were filled with singers, dancers, prostitutes, and all the
various retinue of vice and folly. One of his doorkeepers [81] he
intrusted with the government of the city. In the room of the Praetorian
praefect, whom he put to death, Carinus substituted one of the ministers
of his looser pleasures. Another, who possessed the same, or even a
more infamous, title to favor, was invested with the consulship. A
confidential secretary, who had acquired uncommon skill in the art of
forgery, delivered the indolent emperor, with his own consent from the
irksome duty of signing his name.

[Footnote 80: Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v 69. He was a contemporary, but a
poet.]

[Footnote 81: Cancellarius. This word, so humble in its origin, has, by
a singular fortune, risen into the title of the first great office of
state in the monarchies of Europe. See Casaubon and Salmasius, ad Hist.
August, p. 253.]

When the emperor Carus undertook the Persian war, he was induced, by
motives of affection as well as policy, to secure the fortunes of
his family, by leaving in the hands of his eldest son the armies and
provinces of the West. The intelligence which he soon received of
the conduct of Carinus filled him with shame and regret; nor had he
concealed his resolution of satisfying the republic by a severe act of
justice, and of adopting, in the place of an unworthy son, the brave and
virtuous Constantius, who at that time was governor of Dalmatia. But the
elevation of Constantius was for a while deferred; and as soon as the
father's death had released Carinus from the control of fear or decency,
he displayed to the Romans the extravagancies of Elagabalus, aggravated
by the cruelty of Domitian. [82]

[Footnote 82: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 253, 254. Eutropius, x.
19. Vic to Junior. The reign of Diocletian indeed was so long and
prosperous, that it must have been very unfavorable to the reputation of
Carinus.]

The only merit of the administration of Carinus that history could
record, or poetry celebrate, was the uncommon splendor with which, in
his own and his brother's name, he exhibited the Roman games of the
theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre. More than twenty years
afterwards, when the courtiers of Diocletian represented to their frugal
sovereign the fame and popularity of his munificent predecessor, he
acknowledged that the reign of Carinus had indeed been a reign of
pleasure. [83] But this vain prodigality, which the prudence of
Diocletian might justly despise, was enjoyed with surprise and transport
by the Roman people. The oldest of the citizens, recollecting the
spectacles of former days, the triumphal pomp of Probus or Aurelian, and
the secular games of the emperor Philip, acknowledged that they were all
surpassed by the superior magnificence of Carinus. [84]

[Footnote 83: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 254. He calls him Carus, but
the sense is sufficiently obvious, and the words were often confounded.]


[Footnote 84: See Calphurnius, Eclog. vii. 43. We may observe, that the
spectacles of Probus were still recent, and that the poet is seconded by
the historian.]

The spectacles of Carinus may therefore be best illustrated by the
observation of some particulars, which history has condescended to
relate concerning those of his predecessors. If we confine ourselves
solely to the hunting of wild beasts, however we may censure the vanity
of the design or the cruelty of the execution, we are obliged to confess
that neither before nor since the time of the Romans so much art and
expense have ever been lavished for the amusement of the people. [85]
By the order of Probus, a great quantity of large trees, torn up by the
roots, were transplanted into the midst of the circus. The spacious
and shady forest was immediately filled with a thousand ostriches, a
thousand stags, a thousand fallow deer, and a thousand wild boars; and
all this variety of game was abandoned to the riotous impetuosity of the
multitude. The tragedy of the succeeding day consisted in the massacre
of a hundred lions, an equal number of lionesses, two hundred leopards,
and three hundred bears. [86] The collection prepared by the younger
Gordian for his triumph, and which his successor exhibited in the
secular games, was less remarkable by the number than by the singularity
of the animals. Twenty zebras displayed their elegant forms and
variegated beauty to the eyes of the Roman people. [87] Ten elks, and as
many camelopards, the loftiest and most harmless creatures that wander
over the plains of Sarmatia and Aethiopia, were contrasted with thirty
African hyaenas and ten Indian tigers, the most implacable savages of
the torrid zone. The unoffending strength with which Nature has endowed
the greater quadrupeds was admired in the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus
of the Nile, [88] and a majestic troop of thirty-two elephants. [89]
While the populace gazed with stupid wonder on the splendid show, the
naturalist might indeed observe the figure and properties of so many
different species, transported from every part of the ancient world into
the amphitheatre of Rome. But this accidental benefit, which science
might derive from folly, is surely insufficient to justify such a wanton
abuse of the public riches. There occurs, however, a single instance in
the first Punic war, in which the senate wisely connected this amusement
of the multitude with the interest of the state. A considerable number
of elephants, taken in the defeat of the Carthaginian army, were driven
through the circus by a few slaves, armed only with blunt javelins. [90]
The useful spectacle served to impress the Roman soldier with a just
contempt for those unwieldy animals; and he no longer dreaded to
encounter them in the ranks of war.

[Footnote 85: The philosopher Montaigne (Essais, l. iii. 6) gives a
very just and lively view of Roman magnificence in these spectacles.]

[Footnote 86: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 240.]

[Footnote 87: They are called Onagri; but the number is too
inconsiderable for mere wild asses. Cuper (de Elephantis Exercitat. ii.
7) has proved from Oppian, Dion, and an anonymous Greek, that zebras
had been seen at Rome. They were brought from some island of the ocean,
perhaps Madagascar.]

[Footnote 88: Carinus gave a hippopotamus, (see Calphurn. Eclog. vi.
66.) In the latter spectacles, I do not recollect any crocodiles, of
which Augustus once exhibited thirty-six. Dion Cassius, l. lv. p. 781.]

[Footnote 89: Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 164, 165. We are not
acquainted with the animals which he calls archeleontes; some read
argoleontes others agrioleontes: both corrections are very nugatory]

[Footnote 90: Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 6, from the annals of Piso.]

The hunting or exhibition of wild beasts was conducted with a
magnificence suitable to a people who styled themselves the masters of
the world; nor was the edifice appropriated to that entertainment less
expressive of Roman greatness. Posterity admires, and will long admire,
the awful remains of the amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved
the epithet of Colossal. [91] It was a building of an elliptic figure,
five hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and
sixty-seven in breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising, with four
successive orders of architecture, to the height of one hundred and
forty feet. [92] The outside of the edifice was encrusted with marble,
and decorated with statues. The slopes of the vast concave, which formed
the inside, were filled and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of
seats of marble likewise, covered with cushions, and capable of
receiving with ease about fourscore thousand spectators. [93] Sixty-four
vomitories (for by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished)
poured forth the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and
staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person,
whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the plebeian order,
arrived at his destined place without trouble or confusion. [94] Nothing
was omitted, which, in any respect, could be subservient to the
convenience and pleasure of the spectators.

They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy,
occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continally refreshed
by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated by the grateful
scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice, the arena, or stage,
was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the most
different forms. At one moment it seemed to rise out of the earth, like
the garden of the Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks
and caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible
supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain, might
be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed vessels,
and replenished with the monsters of the deep. [95] In the decoration of
these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their wealth and liberality;
and we read on various occasions that the whole furniture of the
amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold, or of amber. [96]
The poet who describes the games of Carinus, in the character of a
shepherd, attracted to the capital by the fame of their magnificence,
affirms that the nets designed as a defence against the wild beasts,
were of gold wire; that the porticos were gilded; and that the belt or
circle which divided the several ranks of spectators from each other was
studded with a precious mosaic of beautiful stones. [97]

[Footnote 91:
See Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. iv. l. i. c. 2.]

[Footnote 92: Maffei,
l. ii. c. 2. The height was very much exaggerated by the ancients. It
reached almost to the heavens, according to Calphurnius, (Eclog.
vii. 23,) and surpassed the ken of human sight, according to Ammianus
Marcellinus (xvi. 10.) Yet how trifling to the great pyramid of Egypt,
which rises 500 feet perpendicular]

[Footnote 93: According to different copies of Victor, we read 77,000,
or 87,000 spectators; but Maffei (l. ii. c. 12) finds room on the open
seats for no more than 34,000. The remainder were contained in the upper
covered galleries.]

[Footnote 94: See Maffei, l. ii. c. 5--12. He treats the very difficult
subject with all possible clearness, and like an architect, as well as
an antiquarian.]

[Footnote 95: Calphurn. Eclog vii. 64, 73. These lines are curious, and
the whole eclogue has been of infinite use to Maffei. Calphurnius,
as well as Martial, (see his first book,) was a poet; but when they
described the amphitheatre, they both wrote from their own senses, and
to those of the Romans.]

[Footnote 96: Consult Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 16, xxxvii. 11.]

[Footnote 97: Balteus en gemmis, en inlita porticus auro Certatim
radiant, &c. Calphurn. vii.]

In the midst of this glittering pageantry, the emperor Carinus, secure
of his fortune, enjoyed the acclamations of the people, the flattery
of his courtiers, and the songs of the poets, who, for want of a more
essential merit, were reduced to celebrate the divine graces of his
person. [98] In the same hour, but at the distance of nine hundred miles
from Rome, his brother expired; and a sudden revolution transferred into
the hands of a stranger the sceptre of the house of Carus. [99]

[Footnote 98: Et Martis vultus et Apollinis esse putavi, says
Calphurnius; but John Malala, who had perhaps seen pictures of Carinus,
describes him as thick, short, and white, tom. i. p. 403.]

[Footnote 99: With regard to the time when these Roman games were
celebrated, Scaliger, Salmasius, and Cuper have given themselves a great
deal of trouble to perplex a very clear subject.]

The sons of Carus never saw each other after their father's death. The
arrangements which their new situation required were probably deferred
till the return of the younger brother to Rome, where a triumph was
decreed to the young emperors for the glorious success of the Persian
war. [100] It is uncertain whether they intended to divide between them
the administration, or the provinces, of the empire; but it is very
unlikely that their union would have proved of any long duration.
The jealousy of power must have been inflamed by the opposition of
characters. In the most corrupt of times, Carinus was unworthy to live:
Numerian deserved to reign in a happier period. His affable manners and
gentle virtues secured him, as soon as they became known, the regard and
affections of the public. He possessed the elegant accomplishments of
a poet and orator, which dignify as well as adorn the humblest and the
most exalted station. His eloquence, however it was applauded by the
senate, was formed not so much on the model of Cicero, as on that of
the modern declaimers; but in an age very far from being destitute of
poetical merit, he contended for the prize with the most celebrated
of his contemporaries, and still remained the friend of his rivals;
a circumstance which evinces either the goodness of his heart, or the
superiority of his genius. [101] But the talents of Numerian were
rather of the contemplative than of the active kind. When his father's
elevation reluctantly forced him from the shade of retirement, neither
his temper nor his pursuits had qualified him for the command of armies.
His constitution was destroyed by the hardships of the Persian war; and
he had contracted, from the heat of the climate, [102] such a weakness
in his eyes, as obliged him, in the course of a long retreat, to confine
himself to the solitude and darkness of a tent or litter.

The administration of all affairs, civil as well as military, was
devolved on Arrius Aper, the Praetorian praefect, who to the power of
his important office added the honor of being father-in-law to Numerian.
The Imperial pavilion was strictly guarded by his most trusty adherents;
and during many days, Aper delivered to the army the supposed mandates
of their invisible sovereign. [103]

[Footnote 100: Nemesianus (in the Cynegeticon) seems to anticipate in
his fancy that auspicious day.]

[Footnote 101: He won all the crowns from Nemesianus, with whom he vied
in didactic poetry. The senate erected a statue to the son of Carus,
with a very ambiguous inscription, "To the most powerful of orators."
See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 251.]

[Footnote 102: A more natural cause, at least, than that assigned by
Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 251,) incessantly weeping for his father's
death.]

[Footnote 103: In the Persian war, Aper was suspected of a design to
betray Carus. Hist. August. p. 250.]

It was not till eight months after the death of Carus, that the Roman
army, returning by slow marches from the banks of the Tigris, arrived
on those of the Thracian Bosphorus. The legions halted at Chalcedon in
Asia, while the court passed over to Heraclea, on the European side of
the Propontis. [104] But a report soon circulated through the camp,
at first in secret whispers, and at length in loud clamors, of the
emperor's death, and of the presumption of his ambitious minister, who
still exercised the sovereign power in the name of a prince who was no
more. The impatience of the soldiers could not long support a state of
suspense. With rude curiosity they broke into the Imperial tent, and
discovered only the corpse of Numerian. [105] The gradual decline of his
health might have induced them to believe that his death was natural;
but the concealment was interpreted as an evidence of guilt, and
the measures which Aper had taken to secure his election became the
immediate occasion of his ruin Yet, even in the transport of their rage
and grief, the troops observed a regular proceeding, which proves how
firmly discipline had been reestablished by the martial successors of
Gallienus. A general assembly of the army was appointed to be held at
Chalcedon, whither Aper was transported in chains, as a prisoner and a
criminal. A vacant tribunal was erected in the midst of the camp, and
the generals and tribunes formed a great military council. They soon
announced to the multitude that their choice had fallen on Diocletian,
commander of the domestics or body-guards, as the person the most
capable of revenging and succeeding their beloved emperor. The future
fortunes of the candidate depended on the chance or conduct of the
present hour. Conscious that the station which he had filled exposed him
to some suspicions, Diocletian ascended the tribunal, and raising his
eyes towards the Sun, made a solemn profession of his own innocence, in
the presence of that all-seeing Deity. [106] Then, assuming the tone of
a sovereign and a judge, he commanded that Aper should be brought
in chains to the foot of the tribunal. "This man," said he, "is the
murderer of Numerian;" and without giving him time to enter on a
dangerous justification, drew his sword, and buried it in the breast of
the unfortunate praefect. A charge supported by such decisive proof
was admitted without contradiction, and the legions, with repeated
acclamations, acknowledged the justice and authority of the emperor
Diocletian. [107]

[Footnote 104: We are obliged to the Alexandrian Chronicle, p. 274, for
the knowledge of the time and place where Diocletian was elected
emperor.]

[Footnote 105: Hist. August. p. 251. Eutrop. ix. 88. Hieronym. in Chron.
According to these judicious writers, the death of Numerian was
discovered by the stench of his dead body. Could no aromatics be found
in the Imperial household?]

[Footnote 106: Aurel. Victor. Eutropius, ix. 20. Hieronym. in Chron.]

[Footnote 107: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 252. The reason why
Diocletian killed Aper, (a wild boar,) was founded on a prophecy and a
pun, as foolish as they are well known.]

Before we enter upon the memorable reign of that prince, it will be
proper to punish and dismiss the unworthy brother of Numerian. Carinus
possessed arms and treasures sufficient to support his legal title to
the empire. But his personal vices overbalanced every advantage of birth
and situation. The most faithful servants of the father despised the
incapacity, and dreaded the cruel arrogance, of the son. The hearts of
the people were engaged in favor of his rival, and even the senate
was inclined to prefer a usurper to a tyrant. The arts of Diocletian
inflamed the general discontent; and the winter was employed in secret
intrigues, and open preparations for a civil war. In the spring, the
forces of the East and of the West encountered each other in the plains
of Margus, a small city of Maesia, in the neighborhood of the Danube.
[108] The troops, so lately returned from the Persian war, had acquired
their glory at the expense of health and numbers; nor were they in a
condition to contend with the unexhausted strength of the legions of
Europe. Their ranks were broken, and, for a moment, Diocletian despaired
of the purple and of life. But the advantage which Carinus had obtained
by the valor of his soldiers, he quickly lost by the infidelity of his
officers. A tribune, whose wife he had seduced, seized the opportunity
of revenge, and, by a single blow, extinguished civil discord in the
blood of the adulterer. [109]

[Footnote 108: Eutropius marks its situation very accurately; it
was between the Mons Aureus and Viminiacum. M. d'Anville (Geographic
Ancienne, tom. i. p. 304) places Margus at Kastolatz in Servia, a little
below Belgrade and Semendria. * Note: Kullieza--Eton Atlas--M.]

[Footnote 109: Hist. August. p. 254. Eutropius, ix. 20. Aurelius Victor
et Epitome]




Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And This Three Associates.--Part I.

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

As the reign of Diocletian was more illustrious than that of any of
his predecessors, so was his birth more abject and obscure. The strong
claims of merit and of violence had frequently superseded the ideal
prerogatives of nobility; but a distinct line of separation was hitherto
preserved between the free and the servile part of mankind. The parents
of Diocletian had been slaves in the house of Anulinus, a Roman senator;
nor was he himself distinguished by any other name than that which he
derived from a small town in Dalmatia, from whence his mother deduced
her origin. [1] It is, however, probable that his father obtained the
freedom of the family, and that he soon acquired an office of scribe,
which was commonly exercised by persons of his condition. [2] Favorable
oracles, or rather the consciousness of superior merit, prompted his
aspiring son to pursue the profession of arms and the hopes of fortune;
and it would be extremely curious to observe the gradation of arts and
accidents which enabled him in the end to fulfil those oracles, and to
display that merit to the world. Diocletian was successively promoted
to the government of Maesia, the honors of the consulship, and the
important command of the guards of the palace. He distinguished his
abilities in the Persian war; and after the death of Numerian, the
slave, by the confession and judgment of his rivals, was declared the
most worthy of the Imperial throne. The malice of religious zeal,
whilst it arraigns the savage fierceness of his colleague Maximian,
has affected to cast suspicions on the personal courage of the emperor
Diocletian. [3] It would not be easy to persuade us of the cowardice of a
soldier of fortune, who acquired and preserved the esteem of the legions
as well as the favor of so many warlike princes. Yet even calumny is
sagacious enough to discover and to attack the most vulnerable part. The
valor of Diocletian was never found inadequate to his duty, or to the
occasion; but he appears not to have possessed the daring and generous
spirit of a hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and
boldly challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were
useful rather than splendid; a vigorous mind, improved by the experience
and study of mankind; dexterity and application in business; a judicious
mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigor; profound
dissimulation, under the disguise of military frankness; steadiness
to pursue his ends; flexibility to vary his means; and, above all, the
great art of submitting his own passions, as well as those of others, to
the interest of his ambition, and of coloring his ambition with the
most specious pretences of justice and public utility. Like Augustus,
Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire. Like the
adopted son of Caesar, he was distinguished as a statesman rather than
as a warrior; nor did either of those princes employ force, whenever
their purpose could be effected by policy.

[Footnote 1: Eutrop. ix. 19. Victor in Epitome. The town seems to have
been properly called Doclia, from a small tribe of Illyrians, (see
Cellarius, Geograph. Antiqua, tom. i. p. 393;) and the original name of
the fortunate slave was probably Docles; he first lengthened it to
the Grecian harmony of Diocles, and at length to the Roman majesty of
Diocletianus. He likewise assumed the Patrician name of Valerius and it
is usually given him by Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 2: See Dacier on the sixth satire of the second book of Horace
Cornel. Nepos, 'n Vit. Eumen. c. l.]

[Footnote 3: Lactantius (or whoever was the author of the little
treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum) accuses Diocletian of timidity in
two places, c. 7. 8. In chap. 9 he says of him, "erat in omni tumultu
meticulosu et animi disjectus."]

The victory of Diocletian was remarkable for its singular mildness. A
people accustomed to applaud the clemency of the conqueror, if the usual
punishments of death, exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with
any degree of temper and equity, beheld, with the most pleasing
astonishment, a civil war, the flames of which were extinguished in the
field of battle. Diocletian received into his confidence Aristobulus,
the principal minister of the house of Carus, respected the lives, the
fortunes, and the dignity, of his adversaries, and even continued in
their respective stations the greater number of the servants of Carinus.
[4] It is not improbable that motives of prudence might assist the
humanity of the artful Dalmatian; of these servants, many had purchased
his favor by secret treachery; in others, he esteemed their grateful
fidelity to an unfortunate master. The discerning judgment of Aurelian,
of Probus, and of Carus, had filled the several departments of the
state and army with officers of approved merit, whose removal would
have injured the public service, without promoting the interest of his
successor. Such a conduct, however, displayed to the Roman world the
fairest prospect of the new reign, and the emperor affected to confirm
this favorable prepossession, by declaring, that, among all the virtues
of his predecessors, he was the most ambitious of imitating the humane
philosophy of Marcus Antoninus. [5]

[Footnote 4: In this encomium, Aurelius Victor seems to convey a just,
though indirect, censure of the cruelty of Constantius. It appears from
the Fasti, that Aristobulus remained praefect of the city, and that
he ended with Diocletian the consulship which he had commenced with
Carinus.]

[Footnote 5: Aurelius Victor styles Diocletian, "Parentum potius quam
Dominum." See Hist. August. p. 30.]

The first considerable action of his reign seemed to evince his
sincerity as well as his moderation. After the example of Marcus, he
gave himself a colleague in the person of Maximian, on whom he bestowed
at first the title of Caesar, and afterwards that of Augustus. [6] But
the motives of his conduct, as well as the object of his choice, were
of a very different nature from those of his admired predecessor. By
investing a luxurious youth with the honors of the purple, Marcus had
discharged a debt of private gratitude, at the expense, indeed, of the
happiness of the state. By associating a friend and a fellow-soldier
to the labors of government, Diocletian, in a time of public danger,
provided for the defence both of the East and of the West. Maximian
was born a peasant, and, like Aurelian, in the territory of Sirmium.
Ignorant of letters, [7] careless of laws, the rusticity of his
appearance and manners still betrayed in the most elevated fortune the
meanness of his extraction. War was the only art which he professed. In
a long course of service, he had distinguished himself on every frontier
of the empire; and though his military talents were formed to obey
rather than to command, though, perhaps, he never attained the skill
of a consummate general, he was capable, by his valor, constancy, and
experience, of executing the most arduous undertakings. Nor were the
vices of Maximian less useful to his benefactor. Insensible to pity, and
fearless of consequences, he was the ready instrument of every act of
cruelty which the policy of that artful prince might at once suggest and
disclaim. As soon as a bloody sacrifice had been offered to prudence
or to revenge, Diocletian, by his seasonable intercession, saved the
remaining few whom he had never designed to punish, gently censured the
severity of his stern colleague, and enjoyed the comparison of a golden
and an iron age, which was universally applied to their opposite maxims
of government. Notwithstanding the difference of their characters, the
two emperors maintained, on the throne, that friendship which they
had contracted in a private station. The haughty, turbulent spirit of
Maximian, so fatal, afterwards, to himself and to the public peace,
was accustomed to respect the genius of Diocletian, and confessed the
ascendant of reason over brutal violence. [8] From a motive either of
pride or superstition, the two emperors assumed the titles, the one of
Jovius, the other of Herculius. Whilst the motion of the world (such was
the language of their venal orators) was maintained by the all-seeing
wisdom of Jupiter, the invincible arm of Hercules purged the earth from
monsters and tyrants. [9]

[Footnote 6: The question of the time when Maximian received the honors
of Caesar and Augustus has divided modern critics, and given occasion
to a great deal of learned wrangling. I have followed M. de Tillemont,
(Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 500-505,) who has weighed the
several reasons and difficulties with his scrupulous accuracy.  *
Note: Eckbel concurs in this view, viii p. 15.--M.]

[Footnote 7: In an oration delivered before him, (Panegyr. Vet. ii. 8,)
Mamertinus expresses a doubt, whether his hero, in imitating the conduct
of Hannibal and Scipio, had ever heard of their names. From thence we
may fairly infer, that Maximian was more desirous of being considered as
a soldier than as a man of letters; and it is in this manner that we can
often translate the language of flattery into that of truth.]

[Footnote 8: Lactantius de M. P. c. 8. Aurelius Victor. As among the
Panegyrics, we find orations pronounced in praise of Maximian, and
others which flatter his adversaries at his expense, we derive some
knowledge from the contrast.]

[Footnote 9: See the second and third Panegyrics, particularly iii.
3, 10, 14 but it would be tedious to copy the diffuse and affected
expressions of their false eloquence. With regard to the titles, consult
Aurel. Victor Lactantius de M. P. c. 52. Spanheim de Usu Numismatum, &c.
xii 8.]

But even the omnipotence of Jovius and Herculius was insufficient
to sustain the weight of the public administration. The prudence of
Diocletian discovered that the empire, assailed on every side by the
barbarians, required on every side the presence of a great army, and of
an emperor. With this view, he resolved once more to divide his unwieldy
power, and with the inferior title of Caesars, [901] to confer on two
generals of approved merit an unequal share of the sovereign authority.
[10] Galerius, surnamed Armentarius, from his original profession of a
herdsman, and Constantius, who from his pale complexion had acquired
the denomination of Chlorus, [11] were the two persons invested with
the second honors of the Imperial purple. In describing the country,
extraction, and manners of Herculius, we have already delineated those
of Galerius, who was often, and not improperly, styled the younger
Maximian, though, in many instances both of virtue and ability, he
appears to have possessed a manifest superiority over the elder. The
birth of Constantius was less obscure than that of his colleagues.
Eutropius, his father, was one of the most considerable nobles of
Dardania, and his mother was the niece of the emperor Claudius. [12]
Although the youth of Constantius had been spent in arms, he was endowed
with a mild and amiable disposition, and the popular voice had long
since acknowledged him worthy of the rank which he at last attained. To
strengthen the bonds of political, by those of domestic, union, each of
the emperors assumed the character of a father to one of the Caesars,
Diocletian to Galerius, and Maximian to Constantius; and each, obliging
them to repudiate their former wives, bestowed his daughter in marriage
or his adopted son. [13] These four princes distributed among themselves
the wide extent of the Roman empire. The defence of Gaul, Spain, [14]
and Britain, was intrusted to Constantius: Galerius was stationed on the
banks of the Danube, as the safeguard of the Illyrian provinces. Italy
and Africa were considered as the department of Maximian; and for
his peculiar portion, Diocletian reserved Thrace, Egypt, and the rich
countries of Asia. Every one was sovereign with his own jurisdiction;
but their united authority extended over the whole monarchy, and each
of them was prepared to assist his colleagues with his counsels or
presence. The Caesars, in their exalted rank, revered the majesty of
the emperors, and the three younger princes invariably acknowledged, by
their gratitude and obedience, the common parent of their fortunes. The
suspicious jealousy of power found not any place among them; and the
singular happiness of their union has been compared to a chorus of
music, whose harmony was regulated and maintained by the skilful hand of
the first artist. [15]

[Footnote 901: On the relative power of the Augusti and the Caesars,
consult a dissertation at the end of Manso's Leben Constantius des
Grossen--M.]

[Footnote 10: Aurelius Victor. Victor in Epitome. Eutrop. ix. 22.
Lactant de M. P. c. 8. Hieronym. in Chron.]

[Footnote 11: It is only among the modern Greeks that Tillemont can
discover his appellation of Chlorus. Any remarkable degree of paleness
seems inconsistent with the rubor mentioned in Panegyric, v. 19.]

[Footnote 12: Julian, the grandson of Constantius, boasts that his
family was derived from the warlike Maesians. Misopogon, p. 348. The
Dardanians dwelt on the edge of Maesia.]

[Footnote 13: Galerius married Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian;
if we speak with strictness, Theodora, the wife of Constantius, was
daughter only to the wife of Maximian. Spanheim, Dissertat, xi. 2.]

[Footnote 14: This division agrees with that of the four praefectures;
yet there is some reason to doubt whether Spain was not a province of
Maximian. See Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 517. * Note: According to Aurelius
Victor and other authorities, Thrace belonged to the division of
Galerius. See Tillemont, iv. 36. But the laws of Diocletian are in
general dated in Illyria or Thrace.--M.]

[Footnote 15: Julian in Caesarib. p. 315. Spanheim's notes to the French
translation, p. 122.]

This important measure was not carried into execution till about six
years after the association of Maximian, and that interval of time had
not been destitute of memorable incidents. But we have preferred, for
the sake of perspicuity, first to describe the more perfect form of
Diocletian's government, and afterwards to relate the actions of his
reign, following rather the natural order of the events, than the dates
of a very doubtful chronology.

The first exploit of Maximian, though it is mentioned in a few words by
our imperfect writers, deserves, from its singularity, to be recorded
in a history of human manners. He suppressed the peasants of Gaul,
who, under the appellation of Bagaudae, [16] had risen in a general
insurrection; very similar to those which in the fourteenth century
successively afflicted both France and England. [17] It should seem that
very many of those institutions, referred by an easy solution to the
feudal system, are derived from the Celtic barbarians. When Caesar
subdued the Gauls, that great nation was already divided into three
orders of men; the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The
first governed by superstition, the second by arms, but the third and
last was not of any weight or account in their public councils. It was
very natural for the plebeians, oppressed by debt, or apprehensive of
injuries, to implore the protection of some powerful chief, who acquired
over their persons and property the same absolute right as, among the
Greeks and Romans, a master exercised over his slaves. [18] The greatest
part of the nation was gradually reduced into a state of servitude;
compelled to perpetual labor on the estates of the Gallic nobles, and
confined to the soil, either by the real weight of fetters, or by the no
less cruel and forcible restraints of the laws. During the long series
of troubles which agitated Gaul, from the reign of Gallienus to that
of Diocletian, the condition of these servile peasants was peculiarly
miserable; and they experienced at once the complicated tyranny of their
masters, of the barbarians, of the soldiers, and of the officers of
the revenue. [19]

[Footnote 16: The general name of Bagaudoe (in the signification of
rebels) continued till the fifth century in Gaul. Some critics derive it
from a Celtic word Bagad, a tumultuous assembly. Scaliger ad Euseb. Du
Cange Glossar. (Compare S. Turner, Anglo-Sax. History, i. 214.--M.)]

[Footnote 17: Chronique de Froissart, vol. i. c. 182, ii. 73, 79. The
naivete of his story is lost in our best modern writers.]

[Footnote 18: Caesar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 13. Orgetorix, the Helvetian,
could arm for his defence a body of ten thousand slaves.]

[Footnote 19: Their oppression and misery are acknowledged by Eumenius
(Panegyr. vi. 8,) Gallias efferatas injuriis.]

Their patience was at last provoked into despair. On every side they
rose in multitudes, armed with rustic weapons, and with irresistible
fury. The ploughman became a foot soldier, the shepherd mounted on
horseback, the deserted villages and open towns were abandoned to the
flames, and the ravages of the peasants equalled those of the fiercest
barbarians. [20] They asserted the natural rights of men, but they
asserted those rights with the most savage cruelty. The Gallic nobles,
justly dreading their revenge, either took refuge in the fortified
cities, or fled from the wild scene of anarchy. The peasants reigned
without control; and two of their most daring leaders had the folly and
rashness to assume the Imperial ornaments. [21] Their power soon expired
at the approach of the legions. The strength of union and discipline
obtained an easy victory over a licentious and divided multitude. [22] A
severe retaliation was inflicted on the peasants who were found in arms;
the affrighted remnant returned to their respective habitations, and
their unsuccessful effort for freedom served only to confirm their
slavery. So strong and uniform is the current of popular passions,
that we might almost venture, from very scanty materials, to relate the
particulars of this war; but we are not disposed to believe that the
principal leaders, Aelianus and Amandus, were Christians, [23] or to
insinuate, that the rebellion, as it happened in the time of Luther, was
occasioned by the abuse of those benevolent principles of Christianity,
which inculcate the natural freedom of mankind.

[Footnote 20: Panegyr. Vet. ii. 4. Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 21: Aelianus and Amandus. We have medals coined by them
Goltzius in Thes. R. A. p. 117, 121.]

[Footnote 22: Levibus proeliis domuit. Eutrop. ix. 20.]

[Footnote 23: The fact rests indeed on very slight authority, a life of
St. Babolinus, which is probably of the seventh century. See Duchesne
Scriptores Rer. Francicar. tom. i. p. 662.]

Maximian had no sooner recovered Gaul from the hands of the peasants,
than he lost Britain by the usurpation of Carausius. Ever since the rash
but successful enterprise of the Franks under the reign of Probus, their
daring countrymen had constructed squadrons of light brigantines, in
which they incessantly ravaged the provinces adjacent to the ocean. [24]
To repel their desultory incursions, it was found necessary to create a
naval power; and the judicious measure was prosecuted with prudence and
vigor. Gessoriacum, or Boulogne, in the straits of the British Channel,
was chosen by the emperor for the station of the Roman fleet; and the
command of it was intrusted to Carausius, a Menapian of the meanest
origin, [25] but who had long signalized his skill as a pilot, and his
valor as a soldier. The integrity of the new admiral corresponded
not with his abilities. When the German pirates sailed from their own
harbors, he connived at their passage, but he diligently intercepted
their return, and appropriated to his own use an ample share of the
spoil which they had acquired. The wealth of Carausius was, on this
occasion, very justly considered as an evidence of his guilt; and
Maximian had already given orders for his death. But the crafty Menapian
foresaw and prevented the severity of the emperor. By his liberality he
had attached to his fortunes the fleet which he commanded, and secured
the barbarians in his interest. From the port of Boulogne he sailed over
to Britain, persuaded the legion, and the auxiliaries which guarded that
island, to embrace his party, and boldly assuming, with the Imperial
purple, the title of Augustus defied the justice and the arms of his
injured sovereign. [26]

[Footnote 24: Aurelius Victor calls them Germans. Eutropius (ix. 21)
gives them the name of Saxons. But Eutropius lived in the ensuing
century, and seems to use the language of his own times.]

[Footnote 25: The three expressions of Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, and
Eumenius, "vilissime natus," "Bataviae alumnus," and "Menapiae civis,"
give us a very doubtful account of the birth of Carausius. Dr. Stukely,
however, (Hist. of Carausius, p. 62,) chooses to make him a native of
St. David's and a prince of the blood royal of Britain. The former idea
he had found in Richard of Cirencester, p. 44. * Note: The Menapians
were settled between the Scheldt and the Meuse, is the northern part of
Brabant. D'Anville, Geogr. Anc. i. 93.--G.]

[Footnote 26: Panegyr. v. 12. Britain at this time was secure, and
slightly guarded.]

When Britain was thus dismembered from the empire, its importance was
sensibly felt, and its loss sincerely lamented. The Romans celebrated,
and perhaps magnified, the extent of that noble island, provided on
every side with convenient harbors; the temperature of the climate, and
the fertility of the soil, alike adapted for the production of corn
or of vines; the valuable minerals with which it abounded; its rich
pastures covered with innumerable flocks, and its woods free from wild
beasts or venomous serpents. Above all, they regretted the large amount
of the revenue of Britain, whilst they confessed, that such a province
well deserved to become the seat of an independent monarchy. [27] During
the space of seven years it was possessed by Carausius; and fortune
continued propitious to a rebellion supported with courage and ability.
The British emperor defended the frontiers of his dominions against the
Caledonians of the North, invited, from the continent, a great number
of skilful artists, and displayed, on a variety of coins that are still
extant, his taste and opulence. Born on the confines of the Franks,
he courted the friendship of that formidable people, by the flattering
imitation of their dress and manners. The bravest of their youth he
enlisted among his land or sea forces; and, in return for their useful
alliance, he communicated to the barbarians the dangerous knowledge of
military and naval arts. Carausius still preserved the possession of
Boulogne and the adjacent country. His fleets rode triumphant in the
channel, commanded the mouths of the Seine and of the Rhine, ravaged
the coasts of the ocean, and diffused beyond the columns of Hercules the
terror of his name. Under his command, Britain, destined in a future
age to obtain the empire of the sea, already assumed its natural and
respectable station of a maritime power. [28]

[Footnote 27: Panegyr. Vet v 11, vii. 9. The orator Eumenius wished to
exalt the glory of the hero (Constantius) with the importance of
the conquest. Notwithstanding our laudable partiality for our native
country, it is difficult to conceive, that, in the beginning of the
fourth century England deserved all these commendations. A century and a
half before, it hardly paid its own establishment.]

[Footnote 28: As a great number of medals of Carausius are still
preserved, he is become a very favorite object of antiquarian curiosity,
and every circumstance of his life and actions has been investigated
with sagacious accuracy. Dr. Stukely, in particular, has devoted a large
volume to the British emperor. I have used his materials, and rejected
most of his fanciful conjectures.]

By seizing the fleet of Boulogne, Carausius had deprived his master of
the means of pursuit and revenge. And when, after a vast expense of time
and labor, a new armament was launched into the water, [29] the Imperial
troops, unaccustomed to that element, were easily baffled and defeated
by the veteran sailors of the usurper. This disappointed effort was
soon productive of a treaty of peace. Diocletian and his colleague, who
justly dreaded the enterprising spirit of Carausius, resigned to him
the sovereignty of Britain, and reluctantly admitted their perfidious
servant to a participation of the Imperial honors. [30] But the adoption
of the two Caesars restored new vigor to the Romans arms; and while
the Rhine was guarded by the presence of Maximian, his brave associate
Constantius assumed the conduct of the British war. His first enterprise
was against the important place of Boulogne. A stupendous mole, raised
across the entrance of the harbor, intercepted all hopes of relief. The
town surrendered after an obstinate defence; and a considerable part of
the naval strength of Carausius fell into the hands of the besiegers.
During the three years which Constantius employed in preparing a fleet
adequate to the conquest of Britain, he secured the coast of Gaul,
invaded the country of the Franks, and deprived the usurper of the
assistance of those powerful allies.

[Footnote 29: When Mamertinus pronounced his first panegyric, the naval
preparations of Maximian were completed; and the orator presaged an
assured victory. His silence in the second panegyric might alone inform
us that the expedition had not succeeded.]

[Footnote 30: Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, and the medals, (Pax Augg.)
inform us of this temporary reconciliation; though I will not presume
(as Dr. Stukely has done, Medallic History of Carausius, p. 86, &c) to
insert the identical articles of the treaty.]

Before the preparations were finished, Constantius received the
intelligence of the tyrant's death, and it was considered as a sure
presage of the approaching victory. The servants of Carausius imitated
the example of treason which he had given. He was murdered by his first
minister, Allectus, and the assassin succeeded to his power and to his
danger. But he possessed not equal abilities either to exercise the one
or to repel the other.

He beheld, with anxious terror, the opposite shores of the continent
already filled with arms, with troops, and with vessels; for Constantius
had very prudently divided his forces, that he might likewise divide the
attention and resistance of the enemy. The attack was at length made
by the principal squadron, which, under the command of the praefect
Asclepiodatus, an officer of distinguished merit, had been assembled
in the north of the Seine. So imperfect in those times was the art
of navigation, that orators have celebrated the daring courage of the
Romans, who ventured to set sail with a side-wind, and on a stormy day.
The weather proved favorable to their enterprise. Under the cover of a
thick fog, they escaped the fleet of Allectus, which had been stationed
off the Isle of Wight to receive them, landed in safety on some part
of the western coast, and convinced the Britons, that a superiority
of naval strength will not always protect their country from a foreign
invasion. Asclepiodatus had no sooner disembarked the imperial troops,
then he set fire to his ships; and, as the expedition proved fortunate,
his heroic conduct was universally admired. The usurper had posted
himself near London, to expect the formidable attack of Constantius,
who commanded in person the fleet of Boulogne; but the descent of a new
enemy required his immediate presence in the West. He performed this
long march in so precipitate a manner, that he encountered the whole
force of the praefect with a small body of harassed and disheartened
troops. The engagement was soon terminated by the total defeat and death
of Allectus; a single battle, as it has often happened, decided the fate
of this great island; and when Constantius landed on the shores of Kent,
he found them covered with obedient subjects. Their acclamations were
loud and unanimous; and the virtues of the conqueror may induce us to
believe, that they sincerely rejoiced in a revolution, which, after
a separation of ten years, restored Britain to the body of the Roman
empire. [31]

[Footnote 31: With regard to the recovery of Britain, we obtain a few
hints from Aurelius Victor and Eutropius.]




Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And This Three Associates.--Part II.

Britain had none but domestic enemies to dread; and as long as the
governors preserved their fidelity, and the troops their discipline,
the incursions of the naked savages of Scotland or Ireland could never
materially affect the safety of the province.

The peace of the continent, and the defence of the principal rivers
which bounded the empire, were objects of far greater difficulty and
importance. The policy of Diocletian, which inspired the councils of his
associates, provided for the public tranquility, by encouraging a
spirit of dissension among the barbarians, and by strengthening the
fortifications of the Roman limit. In the East he fixed a line of camps
from Egypt to the Persian dominions, and for every camp, he instituted
an adequate number of stationary troops, commanded by their respective
officers, and supplied with every kind of arms, from the new arsenals
which he had formed at Antioch, Emesa, and Damascus. [32] Nor was the
precaution of the emperor less watchful against the well-known valor
of the barbarians of Europe. From the mouth of the Rhine to that of
the Danube, the ancient camps, towns, and citidels, were diligently
reestablished, and, in the most exposed places, new ones were skilfully
constructed: the strictest vigilance was introduced among the garrisons
of the frontier, and every expedient was practised that could render
the long chain of fortifications firm and impenetrable. [33] A barrier so
respectable was seldom violated, and the barbarians often turned against
each other their disappointed rage. The Goths, the Vandals, the
Gepidae, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, wasted each other's strength by
destructive hostilities: and whosoever vanquished, they vanquished
the enemies of Rome. The subjects of Diocletian enjoyed the bloody
spectacle, and congratulated each other, that the mischiefs of civil war
were now experienced only by the barbarians. [34]

[Footnote 32: John Malala, in Chron, Antiochen. tom. i. p. 408, 409.]

[Footnote 33: Zosim. l. i. p. 3. That partial historian seems to
celebrate the vigilance of Diocletian with a design of exposing the
negligence of Constantine; we may, however, listen to an orator: "Nam
quid ego alarum et cohortium castra percenseam, toto Rheni et Istri et
Euphraus limite restituta." Panegyr. Vet. iv. 18.]

[Footnote 34: Ruunt omnes in sanguinem suum populi, quibus ron
contigilesse Romanis, obstinataeque feritatis poenas nunc sponte
persolvunt. Panegyr. Vet. iii. 16. Mamertinus illustrates the fact by
the example of almost all the nations in the world.]

Notwithstanding the policy of Diocletian, it was impossible to maintain
an equal and undisturbed tranquillity during a reign of twenty years,
and along a frontier of many hundred miles. Sometimes the barbarians
suspended their domestic animosities, and the relaxed vigilance of
the garrisons sometimes gave a passage to their strength or dexterity.
Whenever the provinces were invaded, Diocletian conducted himself with
that calm dignity which he always affected or possessed; reserved his
presence for such occasions as were worthy of his interposition, never
exposed his person or reputation to any unnecessary danger, insured his
success by every means that prudence could suggest, and displayed,
with ostentation, the consequences of his victory. In wars of a more
difficult nature, and more doubtful event, he employed the rough valor
of Maximian; and that faithful soldier was content to ascribe his
own victories to the wise counsels and auspicious influence of his
benefactor. But after the adoption of the two Caesars, the emperors
themselves, retiring to a less laborious scene of action, devolved
on their adopted sons the defence of the Danube and of the Rhine. The
vigilant Galerius was never reduced to the necessity of vanquishing
an army of barbarians on the Roman territory. [35] The brave and active
Contsantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the Alemanni;
and his victories of Langres and Vindonissa appear to have been actions
of considerable danger and merit. As he traversed the open country with
a feeble guard, he was encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude
of the enemy. He retreated with difficulty towards Langres; but, in the
general consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the
wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But, on the
news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all sides to his
relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his honor and revenge by
the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni. [36] From the monuments of those
times, the obscure traces of several other victories over the barbarians
of Sarmatia and Germany might possibly be collected; but the tedious
search would not be rewarded either with amusement or with instruction.

[Footnote 35: He complained, though not with the strictest truth,
"Jam fluxisse annos quindecim in quibus, in Illyrico, ad ripam Danubii
relegatus cum gentibus barbaris luctaret." Lactant. de M. P. c. 18.]

[Footnote 36: In the Greek text of Eusebius, we read six thousand, a
number which I have preferred to the sixty thousand of Jerome, Orosius
Eutropius, and his Greek translator Paeanius.]

The conduct which the emperor Probus had adopted in the disposal of the
vanquished, was imitated by Diocletian and his associates. The captive
barbarians, exchanging death for slavery, were distributed among the
provincials, and assigned to those districts (in Gaul, the territories
of Amiens, Beauvais, Cambray, Treves, Langres, and Troyes, are
particularly specified [37] which had been depopulated by the calamities
of war. They were usefully employed as shepherds and husbandmen, but
were denied the exercise of arms, except when it was found expedient
to enroll them in the military service. Nor did the emperors refuse the
property of lands, with a less servile tenure, to such of the barbarians
as solicited the protection of Rome. They granted a settlement to
several colonies of the Carpi, the Bastarnae, and the Sarmatians; and,
by a dangerous indulgence, permitted them in some measure to retain
their national manners and independence. [38] Among the provincials, it
was a subject of flattering exultation, that the barbarian, so lately an
object of terror, now cultivated their lands, drove their cattle to the
neighboring fair, and contributed by his labor to the public plenty.
They congratulated their masters on the powerful accession of subjects
and soldiers; but they forgot to observe, that multitudes of secret
enemies, insolent from favor, or desperate from oppression, were
introduced into the heart of the empire. [39]

[Footnote 37: Panegyr. Vet. vii. 21.]

[Footnote 38: There was a settlement of the Sarmatians in the
neighborhood of Treves, which seems to have been deserted by those lazy
barbarians. Ausonius speaks of them in his Mosella:---- "Unde iter
ingrediens nemorosa per avia solum, Et nulla humani spectans vestigia
cultus; ........ Arvaque Sauromatum nuper metata colonis."]

[Footnote 39: There was a town of the Carpi in the Lower Maesia. See the
rhetorical exultation of Eumenius.]

While the Caesars exercised their valor on the banks of the Rhine
and Danube, the presence of the emperors was required on the southern
confines of the Roman world. From the Nile to Mount Atlas Africa was in
arms. A confederacy of five Moorish nations issued from their deserts
to invade the peaceful provinces. [40] Julian had assumed the purple at
Carthage. [41] Achilleus at Alexandria, and even the Blemmyes, renewed,
or rather continued, their incursions into the Upper Egypt. Scarcely
any circumstances have been preserved of the exploits of Maximian in the
western parts of Africa; but it appears, by the event, that the progress
of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he vanquished the fiercest
barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from the mountains,
whose inaccessible strength had inspired their inhabitants with
a lawless confidence, and habituated them to a life of rapine and
violence. [42] Diocletian, on his side, opened the campaign in Egypt by
the siege of Alexandria, cut off the aqueducts which conveyed the waters
of the Nile into every quarter of that immense city, [43] and rendering
his camp impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed
his reiterated attacks with caution and vigor. After a siege of eight
months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire, implored the
clemency of the conqueror, but it experienced the full extent of his
severity. Many thousands of the citizens perished in a promiscuous
slaughter, and there were few obnoxious persons in Egypt who escaped a
sentence either of death or at least of exile. [44] The fate of Busiris
and of Coptos was still more melancholy than that of Alexandria: those
proud cities, the former distinguished by its antiquity, the latter
enriched by the passage of the Indian trade, were utterly destroyed by
the arms and by the severe order of Diocletian. [45] The character of the
Egyptian nation, insensible to kindness, but extremely susceptible
of fear, could alone justify this excessive rigor. The seditions of
Alexandria had often affected the tranquillity and subsistence of Rome
itself. Since the usurpation of Firmus, the province of Upper Egypt,
incessantly relapsing into rebellion, had embraced the alliance of the
savages of Aethiopia. The number of the Blemmyes, scattered between
the Island of Meroe and the Red Sea, was very inconsiderable, their
disposition was unwarlike, their weapons rude and inoffensive. [46] Yet
in the public disorders, these barbarians, whom antiquity, shocked
with the deformity of their figure, had almost excluded from the human
species, presumed to rank themselves among the enemies of Rome. [47] Such
had been the unworthy allies of the Egyptians; and while the attention
of the state was engaged in more serious wars, their vexations inroads
might again harass the repose of the province. With a view of opposing
to the Blemmyes a suitable adversary, Diocletian persuaded the Nobatae,
or people of Nubia, to remove from their ancient habitations in the
deserts of Libya, and resigned to them an extensive but unprofitable
territory above Syene and the cataracts of the Nile, with the
stipulation, that they should ever respect and guard the frontier of
the empire. The treaty long subsisted; and till the establishment of
Christianity introduced stricter notions of religious worship, it was
annually ratified by a solemn sacrifice in the Isle of Elephantine, in
which the Romans, as well as the barbarians, adored the same visible or
invisible powers of the universe. [48]

[Footnote 40: Scaliger (Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 243) decides, in his
usual manner, that the Quinque gentiani, or five African nations, were
the five great cities, the Pentapolis of the inoffensive province of
Cyrene.]

[Footnote 41: After his defeat, Julian stabbed himself with a
dagger, and immediately leaped into the flames. Victor in Epitome.]

[Footnote 42: Tu ferocissimos Mauritaniae populos inaccessis
montium jugis et naturali munitione fidentes, expugnasti, recepisti,
transtulisti. Panegyr Vet. vi. 8.]

[Footnote 43: See the description of Alexandria, in Hirtius de Bel.
Alexandrin c. 5.]

[Footnote 44: Eutrop. ix. 24. Orosius, vii. 25. John Malala in Chron.
Antioch. p. 409, 410. Yet Eumenius assures us, that Egypt was pacified
by the clemency of Diocletian.]

[Footnote 45: Eusebius (in Chron.) places their destruction several
years sooner and at a time when Egypt itself was in a state of rebellion
against the Romans.]

[Footnote 46: Strabo, l. xvii. p. 172. Pomponius Mela, l. i. c. 4.
His words are curious: "Intra, si credere libet vix, homines magisque
semiferi Aegipanes, et Blemmyes, et Satyri."]

[Footnote 47: Ausus sese inserere fortunae et provocare arma Romana.]

[Footnote 48: See Procopius de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19. Note: Compare,
on the epoch of the final extirpation of the rites of Paganism from
the Isle of Philae, (Elephantine,) which subsisted till the edict of
Theodosius, in the sixth century, a dissertation of M. Letronne,
on certain Greek inscriptions. The dissertation contains some very
interesting observations on the conduct and policy of Diocletian
in Egypt. Mater pour l'Hist. du Christianisme en Egypte, Nubie et
Abyssinie, Paris 1817--M.]

At the same time that Diocletian chastised the past crimes of the
Egyptians, he provided for their future safety and happiness by many
wise regulations, which were confirmed and enforced under the succeeding
reigns. [49] One very remarkable edict which he published, instead of
being condemned as the effect of jealous tyranny, deserves to be
applauded as an act of prudence and humanity. He caused a diligent
inquiry to be made "for all the ancient books which treated of the
admirable art of making gold and silver, and without pity, committed
them to the flames; apprehensive, as we are assumed, lest the opulence
of the Egyptians should inspire them with confidence to rebel against
the empire." [50] But if Diocletian had been convinced of the reality of
that valuable art, far from extinguishing the memory, he would have
converted the operation of it to the benefit of the public revenue. It
is much more likely, that his good sense discovered to him the folly of
such magnificent pretensions, and that he was desirous of preserving the
reason and fortunes of his subjects from the mischievous pursuit. It may
be remarked, that these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to
Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more
recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the
abuse of chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has deposited
the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the
least mention of the transmutation of metals; and the persecution of
Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history of alchemy. The
conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the
globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in
China as in Europe, with equal eagerness, and with equal success. The
darkness of the middle ages insured a favorable reception to every tale
of wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigor to hope, and
suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the aid of
experience, has at length banished the study of alchemy; and the present
age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler
means of commerce and industry. [51]

[Footnote 49: He fixed the public allowance of corn, for the people
of Alexandria, at two millions of medimni; about four hundred thousand
quarters. Chron. Paschal. p. 276 Procop. Hist. Arcan. c. 26.]

[Footnote 50: John Antioch, in Excerp. Valesian. p. 834. Suidas in
Diocletian.]

[Footnote 51: See a short history and confutation of Alchemy, in the
works of that philosophical compiler, La Mothe le Vayer, tom. i. p. 32--353.]

The reduction of Egypt was immediately followed by the Persian war. It
was reserved for the reign of Diocletian to vanquish that powerful
nation, and to extort a confession from the successors of Artaxerxes, of
the superior majesty of the Roman empire.

We have observed, under the reign of Valerian, that Armenia was subdued
by the perfidy and the arms of the Persians, and that, after the
assassination of Chosroes, his son Tiridates, the infant heir of the
monarchy, was saved by the fidelity of his friends, and educated under
the protection of the emperors. Tiridates derived from his exile such
advantages as he could never have obtained on the throne of Armenia; the
early knowledge of adversity, of mankind, and of the Roman discipline.
He signalized his youth by deeds of valor, and displayed a matchless
dexterity, as well as strength, in every martial exercise, and even in
the less honorable contests of the Olympian games. [52] Those qualities
were more nobly exerted in the defence of his benefactor Licinius. [53]
That officer, in the sedition which occasioned the death of Probus,
was exposed to the most imminent danger, and the enraged soldiers were
forcing their way into his tent, when they were checked by the single
arm of the Armenian prince. The gratitude of Tiridates contributed soon
afterwards to his restoration. Licinius was in every station the friend
and companion of Galerius, and the merit of Galerius, long before he
was raised to the dignity of Caesar, had been known and esteemed by
Diocletian. In the third year of that emperor's reign Tiridates was
invested with the kingdom of Armenia. The justice of the measure was
not less evident than its expediency. It was time to rescue from the
usurpation of the Persian monarch an important territory, which, since
the reign of Nero, had been always granted under the protection of the
empire to a younger branch of the house of Arsaces. [54]

[Footnote 52: See the education and strength of Tiridates in the
Armenian history of Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 76. He could seize two
wild bulls by the horns, and break them off with his hands.]

[Footnote 53: If we give credit to the younger Victor, who supposes that
in the year 323 Licinius was only sixty years of age, he could scarcely
be the same person as the patron of Tiridates; but we know from much
better authority, (Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 8,) that Licinius
was at that time in the last period of old age: sixteen years before, he
is represented with gray hairs, and as the contemporary of Galerius. See
Lactant. c. 32. Licinius was probably born about the year 250.]

[Footnote 54: See the sixty-second and sixty-third books of Dion
Cassius.]

When Tiridates appeared on the frontiers of Armenia, he was received
with an unfeigned transport of joy and loyalty. During twenty-six years,
the country had experienced the real and imaginary hardships of a
foreign yoke. The Persian monarchs adorned their new conquest with
magnificent buildings; but those monuments had been erected at the
expense of the people, and were abhorred as badges of slavery. The
apprehension of a revolt had inspired the most rigorous precautions:
oppression had been aggravated by insult, and the consciousness of the
public hatred had been productive of every measure that could render it
still more implacable. We have already remarked the intolerant spirit of
the Magian religion. The statues of the deified kings of Armenia, and
the sacred images of the sun and moon, were broke in pieces by the zeal
of the conqueror; and the perpetual fire of Ormuzd was kindled and
preserved upon an altar erected on the summit of Mount Bagavan. [55] It
was natural, that a people exasperated by so many injuries, should arm
with zeal in the cause of their independence, their religion, and their
hereditary sovereign. The torrent bore down every obstacle, and the
Persian garrisons retreated before its fury. The nobles of Armenia flew
to the standard of Tiridates, all alleging their past merit, offering
their future service, and soliciting from the new king those honors and
rewards from which they had been excluded with disdain under the foreign
government. [56] The command of the army was bestowed on Artavasdes,
whose father had saved the infancy of Tiridates, and whose family had
been massacred for that generous action. The brother of Artavasdes
obtained the government of a province. One of the first military
dignities was conferred on the satrap Otas, a man of singular temperance
and fortitude, who presented to the king his sister [57] and a
considerable treasure, both of which, in a sequestered fortress, Otas
had preserved from violation. Among the Armenian nobles appeared an
ally, whose fortunes are too remarkable to pass unnoticed. His name was
Mamgo, [571] his origin was Scythian, and the horde which acknowledge his
authority had encamped a very few years before on the skirts of the
Chinese empire, [58] which at that time extended as far as the
neighborhood of Sogdiana. [59] Having incurred the displeasure of his
master, Mamgo, with his followers, retired to the banks of the Oxus, and
implored the protection of Sapor. The emperor of China claimed the
fugitive, and alleged the rights of sovereignty. The Persian monarch
pleaded the laws of hospitality, and with some difficulty avoided a war,
by the promise that he would banish Mamgo to the uttermost parts of the
West, a punishment, as he described it, not less dreadful than death
itself. Armenia was chosen for the place of exile, and a large district
was assigned to the Scythian horde, on which they might feed their
flocks and herds, and remove their encampment from one place to another,
according to the different seasons of the year.

They were employed to repel the invasion of Tiridates; but their leader,
after weighing the obligations and injuries which he had received from
the Persian monarch, resolved to abandon his party.

The Armenian prince, who was well acquainted with this merit as well
as power of Mamgo, treated him with distinguished respect; and, by
admitting him into his confidence, acquired a brave and faithful
servant, who contributed very effectually to his restoration. [60]

[Footnote 55: Moses of Chorene. Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 74. The statues
had been erected by Valarsaces, who reigned in Armenia about 130 years
before Christ, and was the first king of the family of Arsaces, (see
Moses, Hist. Armen. l. ii. 2, 3.) The deification of the Arsacides is
mentioned by Justin, (xli. 5,) and by Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 6.)]

[Footnote 56: The Armenian nobility was numerous and powerful. Moses
mentions many families which were distinguished under the reign of
Valarsaces, (l. ii. 7,) and which still subsisted in his own time,
about the middle of the fifth century. See the preface of his Editors.]

[Footnote 57: She was named Chosroiduchta, and had not the os patulum
like other women. (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 79.) I do not understand the
expression. * Note: Os patulum signifies merely a large and widely
opening mouth. Ovid (Metam. xv. 513) says, speaking of the monster who
attacked Hippolytus, patulo partem maris evomit ore. Probably a wide
mouth was a common defect among the Armenian women.--G.]

[Footnote 571: Mamgo (according to M. St. Martin, note to Le Beau. ii.
213) belonged to the imperial race of Hon, who had filled the throne of
China for four hundred years. Dethroned by the usurping race of Wei,
Mamgo found a hospitable reception in Persia in the reign of Ardeschir.
The emperor of china having demanded the surrender of the fugitive and
his partisans, Sapor, then king, threatened with war both by Rome and
China, counselled Mamgo to retire into Armenia. "I have expelled him
from my dominions, (he answered the Chinese ambassador;) I have banished
him to the extremity of the earth, where the sun sets; I have dismissed
him to certain death." Compare Mem. sur l'Armenie, ii. 25.--M.]

[Footnote 58: In the Armenian history, (l. ii. 78,) as well as in
the Geography, (p. 367,) China is called Zenia, or Zenastan. It is
characterized by the production of silk, by the opulence of the natives,
and by their love of peace, above all the other nations of the earth. *
Note: See St. Martin, Mem. sur l'Armenie, i. 304.]

[Footnote 59: Vou-ti, the first emperor of the seventh dynasty, who then
reigned in China, had political transactions with Fergana, a province
of Sogdiana, and is said to have received a Roman embassy, (Histoire
des Huns, tom. i. p. 38.) In those ages the Chinese kept a garrison at
Kashgar, and one of their generals, about the time of Trajan, marched as
far as the Caspian Sea. With regard to the intercourse between China and
the Western countries, a curious memoir of M. de Guignes may be
consulted, in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxii. p. 355. * Note:
The Chinese Annals mention, under the ninth year of Yan-hi, which
corresponds with the year 166 J. C., an embassy which arrived from
Tathsin, and was sent by a prince called An-thun, who can be no other
than Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who then ruled over the Romans. St.
Martin, Mem. sur l'Armaenic. ii. 30. See also Klaproth, Tableaux
Historiques de l'Asie, p. 69. The embassy came by Jy-nan, Tonquin.--M.]

[Footnote 60: See Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 81.]

For a while, fortune appeared to favor the enterprising valor of
Tiridates. He not only expelled the enemies of his family and country
from the whole extent of Armenia, but in the prosecution of his revenge
he carried his arms, or at least his incursions, into the heart of
Assyria. The historian, who has preserved the name of Tiridates from
oblivion, celebrates, with a degree of national enthusiasm, his personal
prowess: and, in the true spirit of eastern romance, describes the
giants and the elephants that fell beneath his invincible arm. It is
from other information that we discover the distracted state of the
Persian monarchy, to which the king of Armenia was indebted for some
part of his advantages. The throne was disputed by the ambition of
contending brothers; and Hormuz, after exerting without success the
strength of his own party, had recourse to the dangerous assistance of
the barbarians who inhabited the banks of the Caspian Sea. [61] The
civil war was, however, soon terminated, either by a victor or by a
reconciliation; and Narses, who was universally acknowledged as king of
Persia, directed his whole force against the foreign enemy. The contest
then became too unequal; nor was the valor of the hero able to withstand
the power of the monarch, Tiridates, a second time expelled from the
throne of Armenia, once more took refuge in the court of the emperors.
[611] Narses soon reestablished his authority over the revolted province;
and loudly complaining of the protection afforded by the Romans to
rebels and fugitives, aspired to the conquest of the East. [62]

[Footnote 61: Ipsos Persas ipsumque Regem ascitis Saccis, et Russis, et
Gellis, petit frater Ormies. Panegyric. Vet. iii. 1. The Saccae were a
nation of wandering Scythians, who encamped towards the sources of the
Oxus and the Jaxartes. The Gelli where the inhabitants of Ghilan, along
the Caspian Sea, and who so long, under the name of Dilemines, infested
the Persian monarchy. See d'Herbelot, Bibliotheque]

[Footnote 611: M St. Martin represents this differently. Le roi de Perse
* * * profits d'un voyage que Tiridate avoit fait a Rome pour attaquer
ce royaume. This reads like the evasion of the national historians to
disguise the fact discreditable to their hero. See Mem. sur l'Armenie,
i. 304.--M.]

[Footnote 62: Moses of Chorene takes no notice of this second
revolution, which I have been obliged to collect from a passage of
Ammianus Marcellinus, (l. xxiii. c. 5.) Lactantius speaks of the
ambition of Narses: "Concitatus domesticis exemplis avi sui Saporis ad
occupandum orientem magnis copiis inhiabat." De Mort. Persecut. c. 9.]

Neither prudence nor honor could permit the emperors to forsake the
cause of the Armenian king, and it was resolved to exert the force of
the empire in the Persian war. Diocletian, with the calm dignity which
he constantly assumed, fixed his own station in the city of Antioch,
from whence he prepared and directed the military operations. [63] The
conduct of the legions was intrusted to the intrepid valor of Galerius,
who, for that important purpose, was removed from the banks of the
Danube to those of the Euphrates. The armies soon encountered each other
in the plains of Mesopotamia, and two battles were fought with various
and doubtful success; but the third engagement was of a more decisive
nature; and the Roman army received a total overthrow, which is
attributed to the rashness of Galerius, who, with an inconsiderable body
of troops, attacked the innumerable host of the Persians. [64] But the
consideration of the country that was the scene of action, may suggest
another reason for his defeat. The same ground on which Galerius was
vanquished, had been rendered memorable by the death of Crassus, and the
slaughter of ten legions. It was a plain of more than sixty miles, which
extended from the hills of Carrhae to the Euphrates; a smooth and barren
surface of sandy desert, without a hillock, without a tree, and without
a spring of fresh water. [65] The steady infantry of the Romans, fainting
with heat and thirst, could neither hope for victory if they preserved
their ranks, nor break their ranks without exposing themselves to the
most imminent danger. In this situation they were gradually encompassed
by the superior numbers, harassed by the rapid evolutions, and destroyed
by the arrows of the barbarian cavalry.

The king of Armenia had signalized his valor in the battle, and acquired
personal glory by the public misfortune. He was pursued as far as the
Euphrates; his horse was wounded, and it appeared impossible for him to
escape the victorious enemy. In this extremity Tiridates embraced the
only refuge which appeared before him: he dismounted and plunged into
the stream. His armor was heavy, the river very deep, and at those
parts at least half a mile in breadth; [66] yet such was his strength and
dexterity, that he reached in safety the opposite bank. [67] With regard
to the Roman general, we are ignorant of the circumstances of his
escape; but when he returned to Antioch, Diocletian received him, not
with the tenderness of a friend and colleague, but with the indignation
of an offended sovereign. The haughtiest of men, clothed in his purple,
but humbled by the sense of his fault and misfortune, was obliged to
follow the emperor's chariot above a mile on foot, and to exhibit,
before the whole court, the spectacle of his disgrace. [68]

[Footnote 63: We may readily believe, that Lactantius ascribes to
cowardice the conduct of Diocletian. Julian, in his oration, says,
that he remained with all the forces of the empire; a very hyperbolical
expression.]

[Footnote 64: Our five abbreviators, Eutropius, Festus, the two Victors,
and Orosius, all relate the last and great battle; but Orosius is the
only one who speaks of the two former.]

[Footnote 65: The nature of the country is finely described by Plutarch,
in the life of Crassus; and by Xenophon, in the first book of the
Anabasis]

[Footnote 66: See Foster's Dissertation in the second volume of the
translation of the Anabasis by Spelman; which I will venture to
recommend as one of the best versions extant.]

[Footnote 67: Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 76. I have transferred this exploit
of Tiridates from an imaginary defeat to the real one of Galerius.]

[Footnote 68: Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. The mile, in the hands of
Eutropoius, (ix. 24,) of Festus (c. 25,) and of Orosius, (vii 25),
easily increased to several miles]

As soon as Diocletian had indulged his private resentment, and asserted
the majesty of supreme power, he yielded to the submissive entreaties of
the Caesar, and permitted him to retrieve his own honor, as well as that
of the Roman arms. In the room of the unwarlike troops of Asia, which
had most probably served in the first expedition, a second army was
drawn from the veterans and new levies of the Illyrian frontier, and
a considerable body of Gothic auxiliaries were taken into the Imperial
pay. [69] At the head of a chosen army of twenty-five thousand men,
Galerius again passed the Euphrates; but, instead of exposing his
legions in the open plains of Mesopotamia he advanced through the
mountains of Armenia, where he found the inhabitants devoted to his
cause, and the country as favorable to the operations of infantry as it
was inconvenient for the motions of cavalry. [70] Adversity had confirmed
the Roman discipline, while the barbarians, elated by success, were
become so negligent and remiss, that in the moment when they least
expected it, they were surprised by the active conduct of Galerius, who,
attended only by two horsemen, had with his own eyes secretly examined
the state and position of their camp. A surprise, especially in the
night time, was for the most part fatal to a Persian army. "Their horses
were tied, and generally shackled, to prevent their running away; and
if an alarm happened, a Persian had his housing to fix, his horse to
bridle, and his corselet to put on, before he could mount." [71] On this
occasion, the impetuous attack of Galerius spread disorder and dismay
over the camp of the barbarians. A slight resistance was followed by
a dreadful carnage, and, in the general confusion, the wounded monarch
(for Narses commanded his armies in person) fled towards the deserts
of Media. His sumptuous tents, and those of his satraps, afforded an
immense booty to the conqueror; and an incident is mentioned, which
proves the rustic but martial ignorance of the legions in the elegant
superfluities of life. A bag of shining leather, filled with pearls,
fell into the hands of a private soldier; he carefully preserved the
bag, but he threw away its contents, judging that whatever was of no use
could not possibly be of any value. [72] The principal loss of Narses was
of a much more affecting nature. Several of his wives, his sisters, and
children, who had attended the army, were made captives in the defeat.
But though the character of Galerius had in general very little affinity
with that of Alexander, he imitated, after his victory, the amiable
behavior of the Macedonian towards the family of Darius. The wives and
children of Narses were protected from violence and rapine, conveyed
to a place of safety, and treated with every mark of respect and
tenderness, that was due from a generous enemy to their age, their sex,
and their royal dignity. [73]

[Footnote 69: Aurelius Victor. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 21.]

[Footnote 70: Aurelius Victor says, "Per Armeniam in hostes contendit,
quae fermo sola, seu facilior vincendi via est." He followed the conduct
of Trajan, and the idea of Julius Caesar.]

[Footnote 71: Xenophon's Anabasis, l. iii. For that reason the Persian
cavalry encamped sixty stadia from the enemy.]

[Footnote 72: The story is told by Ammianus, l. xxii. Instead of saccum,
some read scutum.]

[Footnote 73: The Persians confessed the Roman superiority in morals
as well as in arms. Eutrop. ix. 24. But this respect and gratitude of
enemies is very seldom to be found in their own accounts.]




Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And This Three Associates.--Part III.

While the East anxiously expected the decision of this great contest,
the emperor Diocletian, having assembled in Syria a strong army of
observation, displayed from a distance the resources of the Roman
power, and reserved himself for any future emergency of the war. On
the intelligence of the victory he condescended to advance towards the
frontier, with a view of moderating, by his presence and counsels, the
pride of Galerius. The interview of the Roman princes at Nisibis was
accompanied with every expression of respect on one side, and of
esteem on the other. It was in that city that they soon afterwards gave
audience to the ambassador of the Great King. [74] The power, or at
least the spirit, of Narses, had been broken by his last defeat; and
he considered an immediate peace as the only means that could stop
the progress of the Roman arms. He despatched Apharban, a servant who
possessed his favor and confidence, with a commission to negotiate a
treaty, or rather to receive whatever conditions the conqueror should
impose. Apharban opened the conference by expressing his master's
gratitude for the generous treatment of his family, and by soliciting
the liberty of those illustrious captives. He celebrated the valor of
Galerius, without degrading the reputation of Narses, and thought it
no dishonor to confess the superiority of the victorious Caesar, over
a monarch who had surpassed in glory all the princes of his race.
Notwithstanding the justice of the Persian cause, he was empowered
to submit the present differences to the decision of the emperors
themselves; convinced as he was, that, in the midst of prosperity,
they would not be unmindful of the vicissitudes of fortune. Apharban
concluded his discourse in the style of eastern allegory, by observing
that the Roman and Persian monarchies were the two eyes of the world,
which would remain imperfect and mutilated if either of them should be
put out.

[Footnote 74: The account of the negotiation is taken from the fragments
of Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationum, published in the
Byzantine Collection. Peter lived under Justinian; but it is very
evident, by the nature of his materials, that they are drawn from the
most authentic and respectable writers.]

"It well becomes the Persians," replied Galerius, with a transport of
fury, which seemed to convulse his whole frame, "it well becomes the
Persians to expatiate on the vicissitudes of fortune, and calmly to read
us lectures on the virtues of moderation. Let them remember their own
moderation, towards the unhappy Valerian. They vanquished him by fraud,
they treated him with indignity. They detained him till the last moment
of his life in shameful captivity, and after his death they exposed
his body to perpetual ignominy." Softening, however, his tone, Galerius
insinuated to the ambassador, that it had never been the practice of the
Romans to trample on a prostrate enemy; and that, on this occasion,
they should consult their own dignity rather than the Persian merit.
He dismissed Apharban with a hope that Narses would soon be informed on
what conditions he might obtain, from the clemency of the emperors, a
lasting peace, and the restoration of his wives and children. In this
conference we may discover the fierce passions of Galerius, as well as
his deference to the superior wisdom and authority of Diocletian. The
ambition of the former grasped at the conquest of the East, and had
proposed to reduce Persia into the state of a province. The prudence
of the latter, who adhered to the moderate policy of Augustus and
the Antonines, embraced the favorable opportunity of terminating a
successful war by an honorable and advantageous peace. [75]

[Footnote 75: Adeo victor (says Aurelius) ut ni Valerius, cujus nutu
omnis gerebantur, abnuisset, Romani fasces in provinciam novam ferrentur
Verum pars terrarum tamen nobis utilior quaesita.]

In pursuance of their promise, the emperors soon afterwards appointed
Sicorius Probus, one of their secretaries, to acquaint the Persian court
with their final resolution. As the minister of peace, he was received
with every mark of politeness and friendship; but, under the pretence of
allowing him the necessary repose after so long a journey, the audience
of Probus was deferred from day to day; and he attended the slow motions
of the king, till at length he was admitted to his presence, near the
River Asprudus in Media. The secret motive of Narses, in this delay,
had been to collect such a military force as might enable him, though
sincerely desirous of peace, to negotiate with the greater weight and
dignity. Three persons only assisted at this important conference, the
minister Apharban, the praefect of the guards, and an officer who had
commanded on the Armenian frontier. [76] The first condition proposed by
the ambassador is not at present of a very intelligible nature; that the
city of Nisibis might be established for the place of mutual exchange,
or, as we should formerly have termed it, for the staple of trade,
between the two empires. There is no difficulty in conceiving the
intention of the Roman princes to improve their revenue by some
restraints upon commerce; but as Nisibis was situated within their own
dominions, and as they were masters both of the imports and exports, it
should seem that such restraints were the objects of an internal law,
rather than of a foreign treaty. To render them more effectual, some
stipulations were probably required on the side of the king of Persia,
which appeared so very repugnant either to his interest or to his
dignity, that Narses could not be persuaded to subscribe them. As this
was the only article to which he refused his consent, it was no longer
insisted on; and the emperors either suffered the trade to flow in its
natural channels, or contented themselves with such restrictions, as it
depended on their own authority to establish.

[Footnote 76: He had been governor of Sumium, (Pot. Patricius in
Excerpt. Legat. p. 30.) This province seems to be mentioned by Moses of
Chorene, (Geograph. p. 360,) and lay to the east of Mount Ararat. *
Note: The Siounikh of the Armenian writers St. Martin i. 142.--M.]

As soon as this difficulty was removed, a solemn peace was concluded and
ratified between the two nations. The conditions of a treaty so glorious
to the empire, and so necessary to Persia Persian, may deserve a
more peculiar attention, as the history of Rome presents very few
transactions of a similar nature; most of her wars having either been
terminated by absolute conquest, or waged against barbarians ignorant of
the use of letters. I. The Aboras, or, as it is called by Xenophon, the
Araxes, was fixed as the boundary between the two monarchies. [77] That
river, which rose near the Tigris, was increased, a few miles below
Nisibis, by the little stream of the Mygdonius, passed under the walls
of Singara, and fell into the Euphrates at Circesium, a frontier town,
which, by the care of Diocletian, was very strongly fortified. [78]
Mesopotomia, the object of so many wars, was ceded to the empire; and
the Persians, by this treaty, renounced all pretensions to that great
province. II. They relinquished to the Romans five provinces beyond
the Tigris. [79] Their situation formed a very useful barrier, and their
natural strength was soon improved by art and military skill. Four of
these, to the north of the river, were districts of obscure fame and
inconsiderable extent; Intiline, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Moxoene;
[791] but on the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and
mountainous territory of Carduene, the ancient seat of the Carduchians,
who preserved for many ages their manly freedom in the heart of the
despotic monarchies of Asia. The ten thousand Greeks traversed their
country, after a painful march, or rather engagement, of seven days;
and it is confessed by their leader, in his incomparable relation of
the retreat, that they suffered more from the arrows of the Carduchians,
than from the power of the Great King. [80] Their posterity, the Curds,
with very little alteration either of name or manners, [801] acknowledged
the nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. It is almost
needless to observe, that Tiridates, the faithful ally of Rome, was
restored to the throne of his fathers, and that the rights of the
Imperial supremacy were fully asserted and secured. The limits of
Armenia were extended as far as the fortress of Sintha in Media, and
this increase of dominion was not so much an act of liberality as of
justice. Of the provinces already mentioned beyond the Tigris, the four
first had been dismembered by the Parthians from the crown of
Armenia; [81] and when the Romans acquired the possession of them, they
stipulated, at the expense of the usurpers, an ample compensation,
which invested their ally with the extensive and fertile country of
Atropatene. Its principal city, in the same situation perhaps as the
modern Tauris, was frequently honored by the residence of Tiridates; and
as it sometimes bore the name of Ecbatana, he imitated, in the buildings
and fortifications, the splendid capital of the Medes. [82] IV. The
country of Iberia was barren, its inhabitants rude and savage. But they
were accustomed to the use of arms, and they separated from the empire
barbarians much fiercer and more formidable than themselves. The narrow
defiles of Mount Caucasus were in their hands, and it was in their
choice, either to admit or to exclude the wandering tribes of Sarmatia,
whenever a rapacious spirit urged them to penetrate into the richer
climes of the South. [83] The nomination of the kings of Iberia, which
was resigned by the Persian monarch to the emperors, contributed to the
strength and security of the Roman power in Asia. [84] The East enjoyed
a profound tranquillity during forty years; and the treaty between the
rival monarchies was strictly observed till the death of Tiridates; when
a new generation, animated with different views and different passions,
succeeded to the government of the world; and the grandson of Narses
undertook a long and memorable war against the princes of the house of
Constantine.

[Footnote 77: By an error of the geographer Ptolemy, the position of
Singara is removed from the Aboras to the Tigris, which may have
produced the mistake of Peter, in assigning the latter river for the
boundary, instead of the former. The line of the Roman frontier
traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris. * Note: There
are here several errors. Gibbon has confounded the streams, and the
towns which they pass. The Aboras, or rather the Chaboras, the Araxes of
Xenophon, has its source above Ras-Ain or Re-Saina, (Theodosiopolis,)
about twenty-seven leagues from the Tigris; it receives the waters of
the Mygdonius, or Saocoras, about thirty-three leagues below Nisibis. at
a town now called Al Nahraim; it does not pass under the walls of
Singara; it is the Saocoras that washes the walls of that town: the
latter river has its source near Nisibis. at five leagues from the
Tigris. See D'Anv. l'Euphrate et le Tigre, 46, 49, 50, and the map.----
To the east of the Tigris is another less considerable river, named also
the Chaboras, which D'Anville calls the Centrites, Khabour, Nicephorius,
without quoting the authorities on which he gives those names. Gibbon
did not mean to speak of this river, which does not pass by Singara, and
does not fall into the Euphrates. See Michaelis, Supp. ad Lex. Hebraica.
3d part, p. 664, 665.--G.]

[Footnote 78: Procopius de Edificiis, l. ii. c. 6.]

[Footnote 79: Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Carduene,
are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two, Peter (in
Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I have preferred
Ammianus, (l. xxv. 7,) because it might be proved that Sophene was never
in the hands of the Persians, either before the reign of Diocletian, or
after that of Jovian. For want of correct maps, like those of M.
d'Anville, almost all the moderns, with Tillemont and Valesius at their
head, have imagined, that it was in respect to Persia, and not to Rome,
that the five provinces were situate beyond the Tigris.]

[Footnote 791: See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, i. 380. He would read, for
Intiline, Ingeleme, the name of a small province of Armenia, near the
sources of the Tigris, mentioned by St. Epiphanius, (Haeres, 60;) for
the unknown name Arzacene, with Gibbon, Arzanene. These provinces do
not appear to have made an integral part of the Roman empire; Roman
garrisons replaced those of Persia, but the sovereignty remained in the
hands of the feudatory princes of Armenia. A prince of Carduene, ally or
dependent on the empire, with the Roman name of Jovianus, occurs in the
reign of Julian.--M.]

[Footnote 80: Xenophon's Anabasis, l. iv. Their bows were three cubits
in length, their arrows two; they rolled down stones that were each a
wagon load. The Greeks found a great many villages in that rude
country.]

[Footnote 801: I travelled through this country in 1810, and should
judge, from what I have read and seen of its inhabitants, that they have
remained unchanged in their appearance and character for more than
twenty centuries Malcolm, note to Hist. of Persia, vol. i. p. 82.--M.]

[Footnote 81: According to Eutropius, (vi. 9, as the text is represented
by the best Mss.,) the city of Tigranocerta was in Arzanene. The names
and situation of the other three may be faintly traced.]

[Footnote 82: Compare Herodotus, l. i. c. 97, with Moses Choronens.
Hist Armen. l. ii. c. 84, and the map of Armenia given by his editors.]

[Footnote 83: Hiberi, locorum potentes, Caspia via Sarmatam in Armenios
raptim effundunt. Tacit. Annal. vi. 34. See Strabon. Geograph. l. xi. p.
764, edit. Casaub.]

[Footnote 84: Peter Patricius (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) is the only
writer who mentions the Iberian article of the treaty.]

The arduous work of rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants and
barbarians had now been completely achieved by a succession of Illyrian
peasants. As soon as Diocletian entered into the twentieth year of his
reign, he celebrated that memorable aera, as well as the success of his
arms, by the pomp of a Roman triumph. [85] Maximian, the equal partner
of his power, was his only companion in the glory of that day. The two
Caesars had fought and conquered, but the merit of their exploits was
ascribed, according to the rigor of ancient maxims, to the auspicious
influence of their fathers and emperors. [86] The triumph of Diocletian
and Maximian was less magnificent, perhaps, than those of Aurelian and
Probus, but it was dignified by several circumstances of superior fame
and good fortune. Africa and Britain, the Rhine, the Danube, and the
Nile, furnished their respective trophies; but the most distinguished
ornament was of a more singular nature, a Persian victory followed by
an important conquest. The representations of rivers, mountains, and
provinces, were carried before the Imperial car. The images of the
captive wives, the sisters, and the children of the Great King, afforded
a new and grateful spectacle to the vanity of the people. [87] In the
eyes of posterity, this triumph is remarkable, by a distinction of a
less honorable kind. It was the last that Rome ever beheld. Soon after
this period, the emperors ceased to vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the
capital of the empire.

[Footnote 85: Euseb. in Chron. Pagi ad annum. Till the discovery of the
treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum, it was not certain that the triumph
and the Vicennalia was celebrated at the same time.]

[Footnote 86: At the time of the Vicennalia, Galerius seems to have kept
station on the Danube. See Lactant. de M. P. c. 38.]

[Footnote 87: Eutropius (ix. 27) mentions them as a part of the triumph.
As the persons had been restored to Narses, nothing more than their
images could be exhibited.]

The spot on which Rome was founded had been consecrated by ancient
ceremonies and imaginary miracles. The presence of some god, or the
memory of some hero, seemed to animate every part of the city, and the
empire of the world had been promised to the Capitol. [88] The native
Romans felt and confessed the power of this agreeable illusion. It was
derived from their ancestors, had grown up with their earliest habits
of life, and was protected, in some measure, by the opinion of political
utility. The form and the seat of government were intimately blended
together, nor was it esteemed possible to transport the one without
destroying the other. [89] But the sovereignty of the capital was
gradually annihilated in the extent of conquest; the provinces rose
to the same level, and the vanquished nations acquired the name and
privileges, without imbibing the partial affections, of Romans. During
a long period, however, the remains of the ancient constitution, and the
influence of custom, preserved the dignity of Rome. The emperors, though
perhaps of African or Illyrian extraction, respected their adopted
country, as the seat of their power, and the centre of their extensive
dominions. The emergencies of war very frequently required their
presence on the frontiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first
Roman princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence
in the provinces; and their conduct, however it might be suggested
by private motives, was justified by very specious considerations of
policy. The court of the emperor of the West was, for the most part,
established at Milan, whose situation, at the foot of the Alps, appeared
far more convenient than that of Rome, for the important purpose of
watching the motions of the barbarians of Germany. Milan soon assumed
the splendor of an Imperial city. The houses are described as numerous
and well built; the manners of the people as polished and liberal. A
circus, a theatre, a mint, a palace, baths, which bore the name of
their founder Maximian; porticos adorned with statues, and a double
circumference of walls, contributed to the beauty of the new capital;
nor did it seem oppressed even by the proximity of Rome. [90] To rival
the majesty of Rome was the ambition likewise of Diocletian, who
employed his leisure, and the wealth of the East, in the embellishment
of Nicomedia, a city placed on the verge of Europe and Asia, almost at
an equal distance between the Danube and the Euphrates. By the taste of
the monarch, and at the expense of the people, Nicomedia acquired, in
the space of a few years, a degree of magnificence which might appear
to have required the labor of ages, and became inferior only to Rome,
Alexandria, and Antioch, in extent of populousness. [91] The life of
Diocletian and Maximian was a life of action, and a considerable portion
of it was spent in camps, or in the long and frequent marches; but
whenever the public business allowed them any relaxation, they seemed to
have retired with pleasure to their favorite residences of Nicomedia and
Milan. Till Diocletian, in the twentieth year of his reign, celebrated
his Roman triumph, it is extremely doubtful whether he ever visited the
ancient capital of the empire. Even on that memorable occasion his stay
did not exceed two months. Disgusted with the licentious familiarity of
the people, he quitted Rome with precipitation thirteen days before it
was expected that he should have appeared in the senate, invested with
the ensigns of the consular dignity. [92]

[Footnote 88: Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject, (v.
51--55,) full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a design
of removing the seat of government from Rome to the neighboring city of
Veii.]

[Footnote 89: Julius Caesar was reproached with the intention of
removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Caesar. c.
79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and Dacier,
the ode of the third book of Horace was intended to divert from the
execution of a similar design.]

[Footnote 90: See Aurelius Victor, who likewise mentions the buildings
erected by Maximian at Carthage, probably during the Moorish war. We
shall insert some verses of Ausonius de Clar. Urb. v.---- Et Mediolani
miraeomnia: copia rerum; Innumerae cultaeque domus; facunda virorum
Ingenia, et mores laeti: tum duplice muro Amplificata loci species;
populique voluptas Circus; et inclusi moles cuneata Theatri; Templa,
Palatinaeque arces, opulensque Moneta, Et regio Herculei celebris sub
honore lavacri. Cunctaque marmoreis ornata Peristyla signis; Moeniaque
in valli formam circumdata labro, Omnia quae magnis operum velut aemula
formis Excellunt: nec juncta premit vicinia Romae.]

[Footnote 91: Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. Libanius, Orat. viii. p. 203.]

[Footnote 92: Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. On a similar occasion, Ammianus
mentions the dicacitas plebis, as not very agreeable to an Imperial ear.
(See l. xvi. c. 10.)]

The dislike expressed by Diocletian towards Rome and Roman freedom, was
not the effect of momentary caprice, but the result of the most
artful policy. That crafty prince had framed a new system of Imperial
government, which was afterwards completed by the family of Constantine;
and as the image of the old constitution was religiously preserved in
the senate, he resolved to deprive that order of its small remains of
power and consideration. We may recollect, about eight years before
the elevation, of Diocletian the transient greatness, and the ambitious
hopes, of the Roman senate. As long as that enthusiasm prevailed, many
of the nobles imprudently displayed their zeal in the cause of freedom;
and after the successes of Probus had withdrawn their countenance
from the republican party, the senators were unable to disguise their
impotent resentment. As the sovereign of Italy, Maximian was intrusted
with the care of extinguishing this troublesome, rather than dangerous
spirit, and the task was perfectly suited to his cruel temper. The most
illustrious members of the senate, whom Diocletian always affected to
esteem, were involved, by his colleague, in the accusation of imaginary
plots; and the possession of an elegant villa, or a well-cultivated
estate, was interpreted as a convincing evidence of guilt. [93] The camp
of the Praetorians, which had so long oppressed, began to protect,
the majesty of Rome; and as those haughty troops were conscious of the
decline of their power, they were naturally disposed to unite their
strength with the authority of the senate. By the prudent measures of
Diocletian, the numbers of the Praetorians were insensibly reduced,
their privileges abolished, [94] and their place supplied by two
faithful legions of Illyricum, who, under the new titles of Jovians
and Herculians, were appointed to perform the service of the Imperial
guards. [95] But the most fatal though secret wound, which the senate
received from the hands of Diocletian and Maximian, was inflicted by the
inevitable operation of their absence. As long as the emperors resided
at Rome, that assembly might be oppressed, but it could scarcely be
neglected. The successors of Augustus exercised the power of dictating
whatever laws their wisdom or caprice might suggest; but those laws were
ratified by the sanction of the senate. The model of ancient freedom
was preserved in its deliberations and decrees; and wise princes, who
respected the prejudices of the Roman people, were in some measure
obliged to assume the language and behavior suitable to the general and
first magistrate of the republic. In the armies and in the provinces,
they displayed the dignity of monarchs; and when they fixed their
residence at a distance from the capital, they forever laid aside the
dissimulation which Augustus had recommended to his successors. In
the exercise of the legislative as well as the executive power, the
sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of consulting the great
council of the nation. The name of the senate was mentioned with honor
till the last period of the empire; the vanity of its members was still
flattered with honorary distinctions; [96] but the assembly which had
so long been the source, and so long the instrument of power, was
respectfully suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing
all connection with the Imperial court and the actual constitution, was
left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline
hill.

[Footnote 93: Lactantius accuses Maximian of destroying fictis
criminationibus lumina senatus, (De M. P. c. 8.) Aurelius Victor
speaks very doubtfully of the faith of Diocletian towards his friends.]

[Footnote 94: Truncatae vires urbis, imminuto praetoriarum cohortium
atque in armis vulgi numero. Aurelius Victor. Lactantius attributes to
Galerius the prosecution of the same plan, (c. 26.)]

[Footnote 95: They were old corps stationed in Illyricum; and according
to the ancient establishment, they each consisted of six thousand men.
They had acquired much reputation by the use of the plumbatoe, or darts
loaded with lead. Each soldier carried five of these, which he darted
from a considerable distance, with great strength and dexterity. See
Vegetius, i. 17.]

[Footnote 96: See the Theodosian Code, l. vi. tit. ii. with Godefroy's
commentary.]




Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And This Three Associates.--Part IV.

When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of their ancient
capital, they easily forgot the origin and nature of their legal power.
The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of censor, and of tribune,
by the union of which it had been formed, betrayed to the people its
republican extraction. Those modest titles were laid aside; [97] and
if they still distinguished their high station by the appellation
of Emperor, or Imperator, that word was understood in a new and more
dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the Roman armies,
but the sovereign of the Roman world. The name of Emperor, which was
at first of a military nature, was associated with another of a
more servile kind. The epithet of Dominus, or Lord, in its primitive
signification, was expressive, not of the authority of a prince over his
subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of the despotic power
of a master over his domestic slaves. [98] Viewing it in that odious
light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Caesars. Their
resistance insensibly became more feeble, and the name less odious; till
at length the style of our Lord and Emperor was not only bestowed by
flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments.
Such lofty epithets were sufficient to elate and satisfy the most
excessive vanity; and if the successors of Diocletian still declined
the title of King, it seems to have been the effect not so much of their
moderation as of their delicacy. Wherever the Latin tongue was in use,
(and it was the language of government throughout the empire,) the
Imperial title, as it was peculiar to themselves, conveyed a more
respectable idea than the name of king, which they must have shared with
a hundred barbarian chieftains; or which, at the best, they could derive
only from Romulus, or from Tarquin. But the sentiments of the East
were very different from those of the West. From the earliest period
of history, the sovereigns of Asia had been celebrated in the Greek
language by the title of Basileus, or King; and since it was considered
as the first distinction among men, it was soon employed by the servile
provincials of the East, in their humble addresses to the Roman throne.
[99] Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the Divinity, were
usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who transmitted them to a succession
of Christian emperors. [100] Such extravagant compliments, however, soon
lose their impiety by losing their meaning; and when the ear is once
accustomed to the sound, they are heard with indifference, as vague
though excessive professions of respect.

[Footnote 97: See the 12th dissertation in Spanheim's excellent work de
Usu Numismatum. From medals, inscriptions, and historians, he examines
every title separately, and traces it from Augustus to the moment of its
disappearing.]

[Footnote 98: Pliny (in Panegyr. c. 3, 55, &c.) speaks of Dominus with
execration, as synonymous to Tyrant, and opposite to Prince. And the
same Pliny regularly gives that title (in the tenth book of the
epistles) to his friend rather than master, the virtuous Trajan. This
strange contradiction puzzles the commentators, who think, and the
translators, who can write.]

[Footnote 99: Synesius de Regno, edit. Petav. p. 15. I am indebted for
this quotation to the Abbe de la Bleterie.]

[Footnote 100: Soe Vandale de Consecratione, p. 354, &c. It was
customary for the emperors to mention (in the preamble of laws) their
numen, sacreo majesty, divine oracles, &c. According to Tillemont,
Gregory Nazianzen complains most bitterly of the profanation, especially
when it was practised by an Arian emperor. * Note: In the time of the
republic, says Hegewisch, when the consuls, the praetors, and the other
magistrates appeared in public, to perform the functions of their
office, their dignity was announced both by the symbols which use had
consecrated, and the brilliant cortege by which they were accompanied.
But this dignity belonged to the office, not to the individual; this
pomp belonged to the magistrate, not to the man. * * The consul,
followed, in the comitia, by all the senate, the praetors, the
quaestors, the aediles, the lictors, the apparitors, and the heralds, on
reentering his house, was served only by freedmen and by his slaves. The
first emperors went no further. Tiberius had, for his personal
attendance, only a moderate number of slaves, and a few freedmen.
(Tacit. Ann. iv. 7.) But in proportion as the republican forms
disappeared, one after another, the inclination of the emperors to
environ themselves with personal pomp, displayed itself more and more.
** The magnificence and the ceremonial of the East were entirely
introduced by Diocletian, and were consecrated by Constantine to the
Imperial use. Thenceforth the palace, the court, the table, all the
personal attendance, distinguished the emperor from his subjects, still
more than his superior dignity. The organization which Diocletian gave
to his new court, attached less honor and distinction to rank than to
services performed towards the members of the Imperial family.
Hegewisch, Essai, Hist. sur les Finances Romains. Few historians have
characterized, in a more philosophic manner, the influence of a new
institution.--G.----It is singular that the son of a slave reduced the
haughty aristocracy of Home to the offices of servitude.--M.]

From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, the Roman princes,
conversing in a familiar manner among their fellow-citizens, were
saluted only with the same respect that was usually paid to senators and
magistrates. Their principal distinction was the Imperial or military
robe of purple; whilst the senatorial garment was marked by a broad, and
the equestrian by a narrow, band or stripe of the same honorable color.
The pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian, engaged that artful
prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of Persia.
[101] He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the
Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the use of which had been
considered as the most desperate act of the madness of Caligula. It was
no more than a broad white fillet set with pearls, which encircled the
emperor's head. The sumptuous robes of Diocletian and his successors
were of silk and gold; and it is remarked with indignation, that even
their shoes were studded with the most precious gems. The access
to their sacred person was every day rendered more difficult by the
institution of new forms and ceremonies. The avenues of the palace were
strictly guarded by the various schools, as they began to be called, of
domestic officers. The interior apartments were intrusted to the jealous
vigilance of the eunuchs, the increase of whose numbers and influence
was the most infallible symptom of the progress of despotism. When a
subject was at length admitted to the Imperial presence, he was obliged,
whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to
adore, according to the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord
and master. [102] Diocletian was a man of sense, who, in the course
of private as well as public life, had formed a just estimate both of
himself and of mankind: nor is it easy to conceive, that in substituting
the manners of Persia to those of Rome, he was seriously actuated by
so mean a principle as that of vanity. He flattered himself, that an
ostentation of splendor and luxury would subdue the imagination of the
multitude; that the monarch would be less exposed to the rude license of
the people and the soldiers, as his person was secluded from the public
view; and that habits of submission would insensibly be productive of
sentiments of veneration. Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the
state maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it
must be confessed, that of the two comedies, the former was of a much
more liberal and manly character than the latter. It was the aim of the
one to disguise, and the object of the other to display, the unbounded
power which the emperors possessed over the Roman world.

[Footnote 101: See Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissert. xii.]

[Footnote 102: Aurelius Victor. Eutropius, ix. 26. It appears by the
Panegyrists, that the Romans were soon reconciled to the name and
ceremony of adoration.]

Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted
by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire,
the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military
administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of government,
and rendered its operations less rapid, but more secure. Whatever
advantages and whatever defects might attend these innovations, they
must be ascribed in a very great degree to the first inventor; but
as the new frame of policy was gradually improved and completed
by succeeding princes, it will be more satisfactory to delay the
consideration of it till the season of its full maturity and perfection.
[103] Reserving, therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact
picture of the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing
the principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of
Diocletian. He had associated three colleagues in the exercise of the
supreme power; and as he was convinced that the abilities of a single
man were inadequate to the public defence, he considered the joint
administration of four princes not as a temporary expedient, but as a
fundamental law of the constitution. It was his intention, that the two
elder princes should be distinguished by the use of the diadem, and
the title of Augusti; that, as affection or esteem might direct their
choice, they should regularly call to their assistance two subordinate
colleagues; and that the Coesars, rising in their turn to the first
rank, should supply an uninterrupted succession of emperors. The empire
was divided into four parts. The East and Italy were the most honorable,
the Danube and the Rhine the most laborious stations. The former
claimed the presence of the Augusti, the latter were intrusted to the
administration of the Coesars. The strength of the legions was in
the hands of the four partners of sovereignty, and the despair of
successively vanquishing four formidable rivals might intimidate the
ambition of an aspiring general. In their civil government, the emperors
were supposed to exercise the undivided power of the monarch, and their
edicts, inscribed with their joint names, were received in all the
provinces, as promulgated by their mutual councils and authority.
Notwithstanding these precautions, the political union of the Roman
world was gradually dissolved, and a principle of division was
introduced, which, in the course of a few years, occasioned the
perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.

[Footnote 103: The innovations introduced by Diocletian are chiefly
deduced, 1st, from some very strong passages in Lactantius; and, 2dly,
from the new and various offices which, in the Theodosian code, appear
already established in the beginning of the reign of Constantine.]

The system of Diocletian was accompanied with another very material
disadvantage, which cannot even at present be totally overlooked; a more
expensive establishment, and consequently an increase of taxes, and
the oppression of the people. Instead of a modest family of slaves and
freedmen, such as had contented the simple greatness of Augustus and
Trajan, three or four magnificent courts were established in the various
parts of the empire, and as many Roman kings contended with each other
and with the Persian monarch for the vain superiority of pomp and
luxury. The number of ministers, of magistrates, of officers, and
of servants, who filled the different departments of the state, was
multiplied beyond the example of former times; and (if we may borrow
the warm expression of a contemporary) "when the proportion of those
who received, exceeded the proportion of those who contributed, the
provinces were oppressed by the weight of tributes." [104] From this
period to the extinction of the empire, it would be easy to deduce
an uninterrupted series of clamors and complaints. According to his
religion and situation, each writer chooses either Diocletian, or
Constantine, or Valens, or Theodosius, for the object of his invectives;
but they unanimously agree in representing the burden of the public
impositions, and particularly the land tax and capitation, as the
intolerable and increasing grievance of their own times. From such a
concurrence, an impartial historian, who is obliged to extract truth
from satire, as well as from panegyric, will be inclined to divide the
blame among the princes whom they accuse, and to ascribe their exactions
much less to their personal vices, than to the uniform system of their
administration. [1041] The emperor Diocletian was indeed the author of that
system; but during his reign, the growing evil was confined within
the bounds of modesty and discretion, and he deserves the reproach of
establishing pernicious precedents, rather than of exercising actual
oppression. [105] It may be added, that his revenues were managed
with prudent economy; and that after all the current expenses were
discharged, there still remained in the Imperial treasury an ample
provision either for judicious liberality or for any emergency of the
state.

[Footnote 104: Lactant. de M. P. c. 7.]

[Footnote 1041: The most curious document which has come to light since
the publication of Gibbon's History, is the edict of Diocletian,
published from an inscription found at Eskihissar, (Stratoniccia,) by
Col. Leake. This inscription was first copied by Sherard, afterwards
much more completely by Mr. Bankes. It is confirmed and illustrated by a
more imperfect copy of the same edict, found in the Levant by a
gentleman of Aix, and brought to this country by M. Vescovali. This
edict was issued in the name of the four Caesars, Diocletian, Maximian,
Constantius, and Galerius. It fixed a maximum of prices throughout the
empire, for all the necessaries and commodities of life. The preamble
insists, with great vehemence on the extortion and inhumanity of the
venders and merchants. Quis enim adeo obtunisi (obtusi) pectores (is) et
a sensu inhumanitatis extorris est qui ignorare potest immo non senserit
in venalibus rebus quaevel in mercimoniis aguntur vel diurna urbium
conversatione tractantur, in tantum se licen liam defusisse, ut
effraenata libido rapien--rum copia nec annorum ubertatibus mitigaretur.
The edict, as Col. Leake clearly shows, was issued A. C. 303. Among the
articles of which the maximum value is assessed, are oil, salt, honey,
butchers' meat, poultry, game, fish, vegetables, fruit the wages of
laborers and artisans, schoolmasters and skins, boots and shoes,
harness, timber, corn, wine, and beer, (zythus.) The depreciation in the
value of money, or the rise in the price of commodities, had been so
great during the past century, that butchers' meat, which, in the second
century of the empire, was in Rome about two denaril the pound, was now
fixed at a maximum of eight. Col. Leake supposes the average price could
not be less than four: at the same time the maximum of the wages of the
agricultural laborers was twenty-five. The whole edict is, perhaps, the
most gigantic effort of a blind though well-intentioned despotism, to
control that which is, and ought to be, beyond the regulation of the
government. See an Edict of Diocletian, by Col. Leake, London, 1826.
Col. Leake has not observed that this Edict is expressly named in the
treatise de Mort. Persecut. ch. vii. Idem cum variis iniquitatibus
immensam faceret caritatem, legem pretiis rerum venalium statuere
conatus.--M]

[Footnote 105: Indicta lex nova quae sane illorum temporum modestia
tolerabilis, in perniciem processit. Aurel. Victor., who has treated the
character of Diocletian with good sense, though in bad Latin.]

It was in the twenty first year of his reign that Diocletian
executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire; an action
more naturally to have been expected from the elder or the younger
Antoninus, than from a prince who had never practised the lessons of
philosophy either in the attainment or in the use of supreme power.
Diocletian acquired the glory of giving to the world the first example
of a resignation, [106] which has not been very frequently imitated by
succeeding monarchs. The parallel of Charles the Fifth, however, will
naturally offer itself to our mind, not only since the eloquence of
a modern historian has rendered that name so familiar to an English
reader, but from the very striking resemblance between the characters
of the two emperors, whose political abilities were superior to their
military genius, and whose specious virtues were much less the effect
of nature than of art. The abdication of Charles appears to have been
hastened by the vicissitude of fortune; and the disappointment of
his favorite schemes urged him to relinquish a power which he found
inadequate to his ambition. But the reign of Diocletian had flowed with
a tide of uninterrupted success; nor was it till after he had vanquished
all his enemies, and accomplished all his designs, that he seems to
have entertained any serious thoughts of resigning the empire. Neither
Charles nor Diocletian were arrived at a very advanced period of life;
since the one was only fifty-five, and the other was no more than
fifty-nine years of age; but the active life of those princes, their
wars and journeys, the cares of royalty, and their application to
business, had already impaired their constitution, and brought on the
infirmities of a premature old age. [107]

[Footnote 106: Solus omnium post conditum Romanum Imperium, qui extanto
fastigio sponte ad privatae vitae statum civilitatemque remearet,
Eutrop. ix. 28.]

[Footnote 107: The particulars of the journey and illness are taken
from Laclantius, c. 17, who may sometimes be admitted as an evidence of
public facts, though very seldom of private anecdotes.]

Notwithstanding the severity of a very cold and rainy winter, Diocletian
left Italy soon after the ceremony of his triumph, and began his
progress towards the East round the circuit of the Illyrian provinces.
From the inclemency of the weather, and the fatigue of the journey, he
soon contracted a slow illness; and though he made easy marches, and was
generally carried in a close litter, his disorder, before he arrived
at Nicomedia, about the end of the summer, was become very serious and
alarming. During the whole winter he was confined to his palace: his
danger inspired a general and unaffected concern; but the people could
only judge of the various alterations of his health, from the joy or
consternation which they discovered in the countenances and behavior
of his attendants. The rumor of his death was for some time universally
believed, and it was supposed to be concealed with a view to prevent
the troubles that might have happened during the absence of the Caesar
Galerius. At length, however, on the first of March, Diocletian once
more appeared in public, but so pale and emaciated, that he could
scarcely have been recognized by those to whom his person was the most
familiar. It was time to put an end to the painful struggle, which he
had sustained during more than a year, between the care of his health
and that of his dignity. The former required indulgence and relaxation,
the latter compelled him to direct, from the bed of sickness, the
administration of a great empire. He resolved to pass the remainder of
his days in honorable repose, to place his glory beyond the reach of
fortune, and to relinquish the theatre of the world to his younger and
more active associates. [108]

[Footnote 108: Aurelius Victor ascribes the abdication, which had been
so variously accounted for, to two causes: 1st, Diocletian's contempt of
ambition; and 2dly, His apprehension of impending troubles. One of the
panegyrists (vi. 9) mentions the age and infirmities of Diocletian as a
very natural reason for his retirement. * Note: Constantine (Orat. ad
Sanct. c. 401) more than insinuated that derangement of mind, connected
with the conflagration of the palace at Nicomedia by lightning, was the
cause of his abdication. But Heinichen. in a very sensible note on this
passage in Eusebius, while he admits that his long illness might produce
a temporary depression of spirits, triumphantly appeals to the
philosophical conduct of Diocletian in his retreat, and the influence
which he still retained on public affairs.--M.]

The ceremony of his abdication was performed in a spacious plain, about
three miles from Nicomedia. The emperor ascended a lofty throne, and in
a speech, full of reason and dignity, declared his intention, both to
the people and to the soldiers who were assembled on this extraordinary
occasion. As soon as he had divested himself of his purple, he withdrew
from the gazing multitude; and traversing the city in a covered chariot,
proceeded, without delay, to the favorite retirement which he had chosen
in his native country of Dalmatia. On the same day, which was the first
of May, [109] Maximian, as it had been previously concerted, made his
resignation of the Imperial dignity at Milan.

Even in the splendor of the Roman triumph, Diocletian had meditated
his design of abdicating the government. As he wished to secure the
obedience of Maximian, he exacted from him either a general assurance
that he would submit his actions to the authority of his benefactor, or
a particular promise that he would descend from the throne, whenever he
should receive the advice and the example. This engagement, though
it was confirmed by the solemnity of an oath before the altar of the
Capitoline Jupiter, [110] would have proved a feeble restraint on the
fierce temper of Maximian, whose passion was the love of power, and
who neither desired present tranquility nor future reputation. But he
yielded, however reluctantly, to the ascendant which his wiser colleague
had acquired over him, and retired, immediately after his abdication,
to a villa in Lucania, where it was almost impossible that such an
impatient spirit could find any lasting tranquility.

[Footnote 109: The difficulties as well as mistakes attending the dates
both of the year and of the day of Diocletian's abdication are perfectly
cleared up by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p 525, note 19,
and by Pagi ad annum.]

[Footnote 110: See Panegyr. Veter. vi. 9. The oration was pronounced
after Maximian had resumed the purple.]

Diocletian, who, from a servile origin, had raised himself to the
throne, passed the nine last years of his life in a private condition.
Reason had dictated, and content seems to have accompanied, his retreat,
in which he enjoyed, for a long time, the respect of those princes to
whom he had resigned the possession of the world. [111] It is seldom that
minds long exercised in business have formed the habits of conversing
with themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the
want of occupation. The amusements of letters and of devotion, which
afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of fixing the
attention of Diocletian; but he had preserved, or at least he soon
recovered, a taste for the most innocent as well as natural pleasures,
and his leisure hours were sufficiently employed in building, planting,
and gardening. His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was
solicited by that restless old man to reassume the reins of government,
and the Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of
pity, calmly observing, that if he could show Maximian the cabbages
which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer
be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit
of power. [112] In his conversations with his friends, he frequently
acknowledged, that of all arts, the most difficult was the art of
reigning; and he expressed himself on that favorite topic with a degree
of warmth which could be the result only of experience. "How often," was
he accustomed to say, "is it the interest of four or five ministers to
combine together to deceive their sovereign! Secluded from mankind by
his exalted dignity, the truth is concealed from his knowledge; he can
see only with their eyes, he hears nothing but their misrepresentations.
He confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and
disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects. By such
infamous arts," added Diocletian, "the best and wisest princes are sold
to the venal corruption of their courtiers." [113] A just estimate of
greatness, and the assurance of immortal fame, improve our relish
for the pleasures of retirement; but the Roman emperor had filled too
important a character in the world, to enjoy without alloy the comforts
and security of a private condition. It was impossible that he could
remain ignorant of the troubles which afflicted the empire after his
abdication. It was impossible that he could be indifferent to their
consequences. Fear, sorrow, and discontent, sometimes pursued him into
the solitude of Salona. His tenderness, or at least his pride, was
deeply wounded by the misfortunes of his wife and daughter; and the last
moments of Diocletian were imbittered by some affronts, which Licinius
and Constantine might have spared the father of so many emperors,
and the first author of their own fortune. A report, though of a very
doubtful nature, has reached our times, that he prudently withdrew
himself from their power by a voluntary death. [114]

[Footnote 111: Eumenius pays him a very fine compliment: "At enim
divinum illum virum, qui primus imperium et participavit et posuit,
consilii et fact isui non poenitet; nec amisisse se putat quod sponte
transcripsit. Felix beatusque vere quem vestra, tantorum principum,
colunt privatum." Panegyr. Vet. vii. 15.]

[Footnote 112: We are obliged to the younger Victor for this celebrated
item. Eutropius mentions the thing in a more general manner.]

[Footnote 113: Hist. August. p. 223, 224. Vopiscus had learned this
conversation from his father.]

[Footnote 114: The younger Victor slightly mentions the report. But as
Diocletian had disobliged a powerful and successful party, his memory
has been loaded with every crime and misfortune. It has been affirmed
that he died raving mad, that he was condemned as a criminal by the
Roman senate, &c.]

Before we dismiss the consideration of the life and character of
Diocletian, we may, for a moment, direct our view to the place of his
retirement. Salona, a principal city of his native province of Dalmatia,
was near two hundred Roman miles (according to the measurement of the
public highways) from Aquileia and the confines of Italy, and about two
hundred and seventy from Sirmium, the usual residence of the emperors
whenever they visited the Illyrian frontier. [115] A miserable village
still preserves the name of Salona; but so late as the sixteenth
century, the remains of a theatre, and a confused prospect of broken
arches and marble columns, continued to attest its ancient splendor.
[116] About six or seven miles from the city, Diocletian constructed a
magnificent palace, and we may infer, from the greatness of the work,
how long he had meditated his design of abdicating the empire. The
choice of a spot which united all that could contribute either to health
or to luxury, did not require the partiality of a native. "The soil was
dry and fertile, the air is pure and wholesome, and though extremely
hot during the summer months, this country seldom feels those sultry and
noxious winds, to which the coasts of Istria and some parts of Italy are
exposed. The views from the palace are no less beautiful than the soil
and climate were inviting. Towards the west lies the fertile shore that
stretches along the Adriatic, in which a number of small islands
are scattered in such a manner, as to give this part of the sea the
appearance of a great lake. On the north side lies the bay, which led
to the ancient city of Salona; and the country beyond it, appearing in
sight, forms a proper contrast to that more extensive prospect of water,
which the Adriatic presents both to the south and to the east. Towards
the north, the view is terminated by high and irregular mountains,
situated at a proper distance, and in many places covered with villages,
woods, and vineyards." [117]

[Footnote 115: See the Itiner. p. 269, 272, edit. Wessel.]

[Footnote 116: The Abate Fortis, in his Viaggio in Dalmazia, p. 43,
(printed at Venice in the year 1774, in two small volumes in quarto,)
quotes a Ms account of the antiquities of Salona, composed by
Giambattista Giustiniani about the middle of the xvith century.]

[Footnote 117: Adam's Antiquities of Diocletian's Palace at Spalatro,
p. 6. We may add a circumstance or two from the Abate Fortis: the little
stream of the Hyader, mentioned by Lucan, produces most exquisite trout,
which a sagacious writer, perhaps a monk, supposes to have been one of
the principal reasons that determined Diocletian in the choice of his
retirement. Fortis, p. 45. The same author (p. 38) observes, that a
taste for agriculture is reviving at Spalatro; and that an experimental
farm has lately been established near the city, by a society of
gentlemen.]

Though Constantine, from a very obvious prejudice, affects to
mention the palace of Diocletian with contempt, [118] yet one of their
successors, who could only see it in a neglected and mutilated state,
celebrates its magnificence in terms of the highest admiration. [119] It
covered an extent of ground consisting of between nine and ten English
acres. The form was quadrangular, flanked with sixteen towers. Two of
the sides were near six hundred, and the other two near seven hundred
feet in length. The whole was constructed of a beautiful freestone,
extracted from the neighboring quarries of Trau, or Tragutium, and very
little inferior to marble itself. Four streets, intersecting each other
at right angles, divided the several parts of this great edifice,
and the approach to the principal apartment was from a very stately
entrance, which is still denominated the Golden Gate. The approach was
terminated by a peristylium of granite columns, on one side of which
we discover the square temple of Aesculapius, on the other the octagon
temple of Jupiter. The latter of those deities Diocletian revered as the
patron of his fortunes, the former as the protector of his health.
By comparing the present remains with the precepts of Vitruvius, the
several parts of the building, the baths, bed-chamber, the atrium, the
basilica, and the Cyzicene, Corinthian, and Egyptian halls have been
described with some degree of precision, or at least of probability.
Their forms were various, their proportions just; but they all were
attended with two imperfections, very repugnant to our modern notions
of taste and conveniency. These stately rooms had neither windows nor
chimneys. They were lighted from the top, (for the building seems to
have consisted of no more than one story,) and they received their heat
by the help of pipes that were conveyed along the walls. The range of
principal apartments was protected towards the south-west by a portico
five hundred and seventeen feet long, which must have formed a very
noble and delightful walk, when the beauties of painting and sculpture
were added to those of the prospect.

[Footnote 118: Constantin. Orat. ad Coetum Sanct. c. 25. In this sermon,
the emperor, or the bishop who composed it for him, affects to relate
the miserable end of all the persecutors of the church.]

[Footnote 119: Constantin. Porphyr. de Statu Imper. p. 86.]

Had this magnificent edifice remained in a solitary country, it would
have been exposed to the ravages of time; but it might, perhaps, have
escaped the rapacious industry of man. The village of Aspalathus, [120]
and, long afterwards, the provincial town of Spalatro, have grown out of
its ruins. The Golden Gate now opens into the market-place. St. John the
Baptist has usurped the honors of Aesculapius; and the temple of
Jupiter, under the protection of the Virgin, is converted into the
cathedral church.

For this account of Diocletian's palace we are principally indebted to
an ingenious artist of our own time and country, whom a very liberal
curiosity carried into the heart of Dalmatia. [121] But there is room
to suspect that the elegance of his designs and engraving has somewhat
flattered the objects which it was their purpose to represent. We are
informed by a more recent and very judicious traveller, that the awful
ruins of Spalatro are not less expressive of the decline of the art than
of the greatness of the Roman empire in the time of Diocletian. [122]
If such was indeed the state of architecture, we must naturally believe
that painting and sculpture had experienced a still more sensible decay.
The practice of architecture is directed by a few general and even
mechanical rules. But sculpture, and above all, painting, propose to
themselves the imitation not only of the forms of nature, but of the
characters and passions of the human soul. In those sublime arts, the
dexterity of the hand is of little avail, unless it is animated by
fancy, and guided by the most correct taste and observation.

[Footnote 120: D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 162.]

[Footnote 121: Messieurs Adam and Clerisseau, attended by two
draughtsmen visited Spalatro in the month of July, 1757. The magnificent
work which their journey produced was published in London seven years
afterwards.]

[Footnote 122: I shall quote the words of the Abate Fortis.
"E'bastevolmente agli amatori dell' Architettura, e dell' Antichita,
l'opera del Signor Adams, che a donato molto a que' superbi vestigi
coll'abituale eleganza del suo toccalapis e del bulino. In generale la
rozzezza del scalpello, e'l cattivo gusto del secolo vi gareggiano colla
magnificenz del fabricato." See Viaggio in Dalmazia, p. 40.]

It is almost unnecessary to remark, that the civil distractions of the
empire, the license of the soldiers, the inroads of the barbarians, and
the progress of despotism, had proved very unfavorable to genius, and
even to learning. The succession of Illyrian princes restored the
empire without restoring the sciences. Their military education was not
calculated to inspire them with the love of letters; and even the mind
of Diocletian, however active and capacious in business, was totally
uninformed by study or speculation. The professions of law and physic
are of such common use and certain profit, that they will always secure
a sufficient number of practitioners, endowed with a reasonable degree
of abilities and knowledge; but it does not appear that the students in
those two faculties appeal to any celebrated masters who have flourished
within that period. The voice of poetry was silent. History was reduced
to dry and confused abridgments, alike destitute of amusement and
instruction. A languid and affected eloquence was still retained in
the pay and service of the emperors, who encouraged not any arts except
those which contributed to the gratification of their pride, or the
defence of their power. [123]

[Footnote 123: The orator Eumenius was secretary to the emperors
Maximian and Constantius, and Professor of Rhetoric in the college of
Autun. His salary was six hundred thousand sesterces, which, according
to the lowest computation of that age, must have exceeded three thousand
pounds a year. He generously requested the permission of employing it in
rebuilding the college. See his Oration De Restaurandis Scholis; which,
though not exempt from vanity, may atone for his panegyrics.]

The declining age of learning and of mankind is marked, however, by the
rise and rapid progress of the new Platonists. The school of Alexandria
silenced those of Athens; and the ancient sects enrolled themselves
under the banners of the more fashionable teachers, who recommended
their system by the novelty of their method, and the austerity of their
manners. Several of these masters, Ammonius, Plotinus, Amelius, and
Porphyry, [124] were men of profound thought and intense application;
but by mistaking the true object of philosophy, their labors contributed
much less to improve than to corrupt the human understanding. The
knowledge that is suited to our situation and powers, the whole compass
of moral, natural, and mathematical science, was neglected by the new
Platonists; whilst they exhausted their strength in the verbal disputes
of metaphysics, attempted to explore the secrets of the invisible world,
and studied to reconcile Aristotle with Plato, on subjects of which both
these philosophers were as ignorant as the rest of mankind. Consuming
their reason in these deep but unsubstantial meditations, their minds
were exposed to illusions of fancy. They flattered themselves that they
possessed the secret of disengaging the soul from its corporal prison;
claimed a familiar intercourse with demons and spirits; and, by a very
singular revolution, converted the study of philosophy into that of
magic. The ancient sages had derided the popular superstition; after
disguising its extravagance by the thin pretence of allegory, the
disciples of Plotinus and Porphyry became its most zealous defenders.
As they agreed with the Christians in a few mysterious points of faith,
they attacked the remainder of their theological system with all the
fury of civil war. The new Platonists would scarcely deserve a place in
the history of science, but in that of the church the mention of them
will very frequently occur.

[Footnote 124: Porphyry died about the time of Diocletian's abdication.
The life of his master Plotinus, which he composed, will give us the
most complete idea of the genius of the sect, and the manners of its
professors. This very curious piece is inserted in Fabricius Bibliotheca
Graeca tom. iv. p. 88--148.]




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

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

The balance of power established by Diocletian subsisted no longer than
while it was sustained by the firm and dexterous hand of the founder. It
required such a fortunate mixture of different tempers and abilities,
as could scarcely be found or even expected a second time; two emperors
without jealousy, two Caesars without ambition, and the same general
interest invariably pursued by four independent princes. The abdication
of Diocletian and Maximian was succeeded by eighteen years of discord
and confusion. The empire was afflicted by five civil wars; and the
remainder of the time was not so much a state of tranquillity as a
suspension of arms between several hostile monarchs, who, viewing
each other with an eye of fear and hatred, strove to increase their
respective forces at the expense of their subjects.

As soon as Diocletian and Maximian had resigned the purple, their
station, according to the rules of the new constitution, was filled by
the two Caesars, Constantius and Galerius, who immediately assumed the
title of Augustus. [1]

[Footnote 1: M. de Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et La
Decadence des Romains, c. 17) supposes, on the authority of Orosius and
Eusebius, that, on this occasion, the empire, for the first time, was
really divided into two parts. It is difficult, however, to discover in
what respect the plan of Galerius differed from that of Diocletian.]

The honors of seniority and precedence were allowed to the former of
those princes, and he continued under a new appellation to administer
his ancient department of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.

The government of those ample provinces was sufficient to exercise
his talents and to satisfy his ambition. Clemency, temperance, and
moderation, distinguished the amiable character of Constantius, and his
fortunate subjects had frequently occasion to compare the virtues of
their sovereign with the passions of Maximian, and even with the arts
of Diocletian. [2] Instead of imitating their eastern pride and
magnificence, Constantius preserved the modesty of a Roman prince. He
declared, with unaffected sincerity, that his most valued treasure
was in the hearts of his people, and that, whenever the dignity of the
throne, or the danger of the state, required any extraordinary supply,
he could depend with confidence on their gratitude and liberality. [3]
The provincials of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, sensible of his worth, and
of their own happiness, reflected with anxiety on the declining health
of the emperor Constantius, and the tender age of his numerous family,
the issue of his second marriage with the daughter of Maximian.

[Footnote 2: Hic non modo amabilis, sed etiam venerabilis Gallis
fuit; praecipuc quod Diocletiani suspectam prudentiam, et Maximiani
sanguinariam violentiam imperio ejus evaserant. Eutrop. Breviar. x. i.]

[Footnote 3: Divitiis Provincialium (mel. provinciarum) ac privatorum
studens, fisci commoda non admodum affectans; ducensque melius publicas
opes a privatis haberi, quam intra unum claustrum reservari. Id. ibid.
He carried this maxim so far, that whenever he gave an entertainment, he
was obliged to borrow a service of plate.]

The stern temper of Galerius was cast in a very different mould; and
while he commanded the esteem of his subjects, he seldom condescended to
solicit their affections. His fame in arms, and, above all, the success
of the Persian war, had elated his haughty mind, which was naturally
impatient of a superior, or even of an equal. If it were possible to
rely on the partial testimony of an injudicious writer, we might ascribe
the abdication of Diocletian to the menaces of Galerius, and relate the
particulars of a private conversation between the two princes, in which
the former discovered as much pusillanimity as the latter displayed
ingratitude and arrogance. [4] But these obscure anecdotes are
sufficiently refuted by an impartia view of the character and conduct of
Diocletian. Whatever might otherwise have been his intentions, if he
had apprehended any danger from the violence of Galerius, his good sense
would have instructed him to prevent the ignominious contest; and as
he had held the sceptre with glory, he would have resigned it without
disgrace.

[Footnote 4: Lactantius de Mort. Persecutor. c. 18. Were the particulars
of this conference more consistent with truth and decency, we might
still ask how they came to the knowledge of an obscure rhetorician. But
there are many historians who put us in mind of the admirable saying of
the great Conde to Cardinal de Retz: "Ces coquins nous font parlor et
agir, comme ils auroient fait eux-memes a notre place." * Note: This
attack upon Lactantius is unfounded. Lactantius was so far from having
been an obscure rhetorician, that he had taught rhetoric publicly, and
with the greatest success, first in Africa, and afterwards in Nicomedia.
His reputation obtained him the esteem of Constantine, who invited him
to his court, and intrusted to him the education of his son Crispus. The
facts which he relates took place during his own time; he cannot be
accused of dishonesty or imposture. Satis me vixisse arbitrabor et
officium hominis implesse si labor meus aliquos homines, ab erroribus
iberatos, ad iter coeleste direxerit. De Opif. Dei, cap. 20. The
eloquence of Lactantius has caused him to be called the Christian
Cicero. Annon Gent.--G. ----Yet no unprejudiced person can read this
coarse and particular private conversation of the two emperors, without
assenting to the justice of Gibbon's severe sentence. But the authorship
of the treatise is by no means certain. The fame of Lactantius for
eloquence as well as for truth, would suffer no loss if it should be
adjudged to some more "obscure rhetorician." Manso, in his Leben
Constantins des Grossen, concurs on this point with Gibbon Beylage, iv.
--M.]

After the elevation of Constantius and Galerius to the rank of Augusti,
two new Coesars were required to supply their place, and to complete the
system of the Imperial government. Diocletian, was sincerely desirous
of withdrawing himself from the world; he considered Galerius, who had
married his daughter, as the firmest support of his family and of the
empire; and he consented, without reluctance, that his successor should
assume the merit as well as the envy of the important nomination. It was
fixed without consulting the interest or inclination of the princes of
the West. Each of them had a son who was arrived at the age of manhood,
and who might have been deemed the most natural candidates for the
vacant honor. But the impotent resentment of Maximian was no longer to
be dreaded; and the moderate Constantius, though he might despise the
dangers, was humanely apprehensive of the calamities, of civil war.
The two persons whom Galerius promoted to the rank of Caesar, were much
better suited to serve the views of his ambition; and their principal
recommendation seems to have consisted in the want of merit or personal
consequence. The first of these was Daza, or, as he was afterwards
called, Maximin, whose mother was the sister of Galerius. The
unexperienced youth still betrayed, by his manners and language, his
rustic education, when, to his own astonishment, as well as that of the
world, he was invested by Diocletian with the purple, exalted to the
dignity of Caesar, and intrusted with the sovereign command of Egypt
and Syria. [5] At the same time, Severus, a faithful servant, addicted to
pleasure, but not incapable of business, was sent to Milan, to receive,
from the reluctant hands of Maximian, the Caesarian ornaments, and
the possession of Italy and Africa. According to the forms of the
constitution, Severus acknowledged the supremacy of the western
emperor; but he was absolutely devoted to the commands of his benefactor
Galerius, who, reserving to himself the intermediate countries from the
confines of Italy to those of Syria, firmly established his power
over three fourths of the monarchy. In the full confidence that the
approaching death of Constantius would leave him sole master of the
Roman world, we are assured that he had arranged in his mind a long
succession of future princes, and that he meditated his own retreat from
public life, after he should have accomplished a glorious reign of about
twenty years. [7]

[Footnote 5: Sublatus nuper a pecoribus et silvis (says Lactantius de M.
P. c. 19) statim Scutarius, continuo Protector, mox Tribunus, postridie
Caesar, accepit Orientem. Aurelius Victor is too liberal in giving
him the whole portion of Diocletian.]

[Footnote 6: His diligence and fidelity are acknowledged even by
Lactantius, de M. P. c. 18.]

[Footnote 7: These schemes, however, rest only on the very doubtful
authority of Lactantius de M. P. c. 20.]

But within less than eighteen months, two unexpected revolutions
overturned the ambitious schemes of Galerius. The hopes of uniting the
western provinces to his empire were disappointed by the elevation of
Constantine, whilst Italy and Africa were lost by the successful revolt
of Maxentius.


I. The fame of Constantine has rendered posterity attentive to the most
minute circumstances of his life and actions. The place of his birth, as
well as the condition of his mother Helena, have been the subject, not
only of literary, but of national disputes. Notwithstanding the recent
tradition, which assigns for her father a British king, [8] we are
obliged to confess, that Helena was the daughter of an innkeeper; but at
the same time, we may defend the legality of her marriage, against those
who have represented her as the concubine of Constantius. [9] The great
Constantine was most probably born at Naissus, in Dacia; [10] and it is
not surprising that, in a family and province distinguished only by the
profession of arms, the youth should discover very little inclination
to improve his mind by the acquisition of knowledge. [11] He was about
eighteen years of age when his father was promoted to the rank of
Caesar; but that fortunate event was attended with his mother's divorce;
and the splendor of an Imperial alliance reduced the son of Helena to a
state of disgrace and humiliation. Instead of following Constantius in
the West, he remained in the service of Diocletian, signalized his valor
in the wars of Egypt and Persia, and gradually rose to the honorable
station of a tribune of the first order. The figure of Constantine was
tall and majestic; he was dexterous in all his exercises, intrepid in
war, affable in peace; in his whole conduct, the active spirit of youth
was tempered by habitual prudence; and while his mind was engrossed
by ambition, he appeared cold and insensible to the allurements of
pleasure. The favor of the people and soldiers, who had named him as a
worthy candidate for the rank of Caesar, served only to exasperate
the jealousy of Galerius; and though prudence might restrain him from
exercising any open violence, an absolute monarch is seldom at a loss
now to execute a sure and secret revenge. [12] Every hour increased the
danger of Constantine, and the anxiety of his father, who, by repeated
letters, expressed the warmest desire of embracing his son. For some
time the policy of Galerius supplied him with delays and excuses; but
it was impossible long to refuse so natural a request of his associate,
without maintaining his refusal by arms. The permission of the journey
was reluctantly granted, and whatever precautions the emperor might have
taken to intercept a return, the consequences of which he, with so
much reason, apprehended, they were effectually disappointed by the
incredible diligence of Constantine. [13] Leaving the palace of Nicomedia
in the night, he travelled post through Bithynia, Thrace, Dacia,
Pannonia, Italy, and Gaul, and, amidst the joyful acclamations of the
people, reached the port of Boulogne in the very moment when his father
was preparing to embark for Britain. [14]

[Footnote 8: This tradition, unknown to the contemporaries of
Constantine was invented in the darkness of monestaries, was embellished
by Jeffrey of Monmouth, and the writers of the xiith century, has been
defended by our antiquarians of the last age, and is seriously related
in the ponderous History of England, compiled by Mr. Carte, (vol. i. p.
147.) He transports, however, the kingdom of Coil, the imaginary father
of Helena, from Essex to the wall of Antoninus.]

[Footnote 9: Eutropius (x. 2) expresses, in a few words, the real truth,
and the occasion of the error "ex obscuriori matrimonio ejus filius."
Zosimus (l. ii. p. 78) eagerly seized the most unfavorable report,
and is followed by Orosius, (vii. 25,) whose authority is oddly enough
overlooked by the indefatigable, but partial Tillemont. By insisting on
the divorce of Helena, Diocletian acknowledged her marriage.]

[Footnote 10: There are three opinions with regard to the place of
Constantine's birth. 1. Our English antiquarians were used to dwell
with rapture on the words of his panegyrist, "Britannias illic oriendo
nobiles fecisti." But this celebrated passage may be referred with as
much propriety to the accession, as to the nativity of Constantine.
2. Some of the modern Greeks have ascribed the honor of his birth to
Drepanum, a town on the Gulf of Nicomedia, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 174,)
which Constantine dignified with the name of Helenopolis, and Justinian
adorned with many splendid buildings, (Procop. de Edificiis, v. 2.) It
is indeed probable enough, that Helena's father kept an inn at Drepanum,
and that Constantius might lodge there when he returned from a Persian
embassy, in the reign of Aurelian. But in the wandering life of a
soldier, the place of his marriage, and the places where his children
are born, have very little connection with each other. 3. The claim of
Naissus is supported by the anonymous writer, published at the end of
Ammianus, p. 710, and who in general copied very good materials; and
it is confirmed by Julius Firmicus, (de Astrologia, l. i. c. 4,) who
flourished under the reign of Constantine himself. Some objections have
been raised against the integrity of the text, and the application of
the passage of Firmicus but the former is established by the best Mss.,
and the latter is very ably defended by Lipsius de Magnitudine Romana,
l. iv. c. 11, et Supplement.]

[Footnote 11: Literis minus instructus. Anonym. ad Ammian. p. 710.]

[Footnote 12: Galerius, or perhaps his own courage, exposed him to
single combat with a Sarmatian, (Anonym. p. 710,) and with a monstrous
lion. See Praxagoras apud Photium, p. 63. Praxagoras, an Athenian
philosopher, had written a life of Constantine in two books, which are
now lost. He was a contemporary.]

[Footnote 13: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 78, 79. Lactantius de M. P. c. 24. The
former tells a very foolish story, that Constantine caused all the
post-horses which he had used to be hamstrung. Such a bloody execution,
without preventing a pursuit, would have scattered suspicions, and might
have stopped his journey. * Note: Zosimus is not the only writer who
tells this story. The younger Victor confirms it. Ad frustrandos
insequentes, publica jumenta, quaqua iter ageret, interficiens. Aurelius
Victor de Caesar says the same thing, G. as also the Anonymus Valesii.--
M. ----Manso, (Leben Constantins,) p. 18, observes that the story has
been exaggerated; he took this precaution during the first stage of his
journey.--M.]

[Footnote 14: Anonym. p. 710. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 4. But Zosimus, l.
ii. p. 79, Eusebius de Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 21, and Lactantius de M.
P. c. 24. suppose, with less accuracy, that he found his father on
his death-bed.]

The British expedition, and an easy victory over the barbarians of
Caledonia, were the last exploits of the reign of Constantius. He ended
his life in the Imperial palace of York, fifteen months after he had
received the title of Augustus, and almost fourteen years and a half
after he had been promoted to the rank of Caesar. His death was
immediately succeeded by the elevation of Constantine. The ideas of
inheritance and succession are so very familiar, that the generality of
mankind consider them as founded, not only in reason, but in nature
itself. Our imagination readily transfers the same principles from
private property to public dominion: and whenever a virtuous father
leaves behind him a son whose merit seems to justify the esteem, or even
the hopes, of the people, the joint influence of prejudice and of
affection operates with irresistible weight. The flower of the western
armies had followed Constantius into Britain, and the national troops
were reenforced by a numerous body of Alemanni, who obeyed the orders of
Crocus, one of their hereditary chieftains. [15] The opinion of their
own importance, and the assurance that Britain, Gaul, and Spain would
acquiesce in their nomination, were diligently inculcated to the legions
by the adherents of Constantine. The soldiers were asked, whether they
could hesitate a moment between the honor of placing at their head the
worthy son of their beloved emperor, and the ignominy of tamely
expecting the arrival of some obscure stranger, on whom it might please
the sovereign of Asia to bestow the armies and provinces of the West. It
was insinuated to them, that gratitude and liberality held a
distinguished place among the virtues of Constantine; nor did that
artful prince show himself to the troops, till they were prepared to
salute him with the names of Augustus and Emperor. The throne was the
object of his desires; and had he been less actuated by ambition, it was
his only means of safety. He was well acquainted with the character and
sentiments of Galerius, and sufficiently apprised, that if he wished to
live he must determine to reign. The decent and even obstinate
resistance which he chose to affect, [16] was contrived to justify his
usurpation; nor did he yield to the acclamations of the army, till he
had provided the proper materials for a letter, which he immediately
despatched to the emperor of the East. Constantine informed him of the
melancholy event of his father's death, modestly asserted his natural
claim to the succession, and respectfully lamented, that the
affectionate violence of his troops had not permitted him to solicit the
Imperial purple in the regular and constitutional manner. The first
emotions of Galerius were those of surprise, disappointment, and rage;
and as he could seldom restrain his passions, he loudly threatened, that
he would commit to the flames both the letter and the messenger. But his
resentment insensibly subsided; and when he recollected the doubtful
chance of war, when he had weighed the character and strength of his
adversary, he consented to embrace the honorable accommodation which the
prudence of Constantine had left open to him. Without either condemning
or ratifying the choice of the British army, Galerius accepted the son
of his deceased colleague as the sovereign of the provinces beyond the
Alps; but he gave him only the title of Caesar, and the fourth rank
among the Roman princes, whilst he conferred the vacant place of
Augustus on his favorite Severus. The apparent harmony of the empire was
still preserved, and Constantine, who already possessed the substance,
expected, without impatience, an opportunity of obtaining the honors, of
supreme power. [17]

[Footnote 15: Cunctis qui aderant, annitentibus, sed praecipue Croco
(alii Eroco) [Erich?] Alamannorum Rege, auxilii gratia Constantium
comitato, imperium capit. Victor Junior, c. 41. This is perhaps the
first instance of a barbarian king, who assisted the Roman arms with an
independent body of his own subjects. The practice grew familiar and
at last became fatal.]

[Footnote 16: His panegyrist Eumenius (vii. 8) ventures to affirm in the
presence of Constantine, that he put spurs to his horse, and tried, but
in vain, to escape from the hands of his soldiers.]

[Footnote 17: Lactantius de M. P. c. 25. Eumenius (vii. 8.) gives a
rhetorical turn to the whole transaction.]

The children of Constantius by his second marriage were six in number,
three of either sex, and whose Imperial descent might have solicited
a preference over the meaner extraction of the son of Helena. But
Constantine was in the thirty-second year of his age, in the full vigor
both of mind and body, at the time when the eldest of his brothers could
not possibly be more than thirteen years old. His claim of superior
merit had been allowed and ratified by the dying emperor. [18] In his
last moments Constantius bequeathed to his eldest son the care of the
safety as well as greatness of the family; conjuring him to assume both
the authority and the sentiments of a father with regard to the children
of Theodora. Their liberal education, advantageous marriages, the secure
dignity of their lives, and the first honors of the state with which
they were invested, attest the fraternal affection of Constantine;
and as those princes possessed a mild and grateful disposition, they
submitted without reluctance to the superiority of his genius and
fortune. [19]

[Footnote 18: The choice of Constantine, by his dying father, which is
warranted by reason, and insinuated by Eumenius, seems to be confirmed
by the most unexceptionable authority, the concurring evidence of
Lactantius (de M. P. c. 24) and of Libanius, (Oratio i.,) of Eusebius
(in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 18, 21) and of Julian, (Oratio i)]

[Footnote 19: Of the three sisters of Constantine, Constantia married
the emperor Licinius, Anastasia the Caesar Bassianus, and Eutropia
the consul Nepotianus. The three brothers were, Dalmatius, Julius
Constantius, and Annibalianus, of whom we shall have occasion to speak
hereafter.]


II. The ambitious spirit of Galerius was scarcely reconciled
to the disappointment of his views upon the Gallic provinces, before the
unexpected loss of Italy wounded his pride as well as power in a still
more sensible part. The long absence of the emperors had filled Rome
with discontent and indignation; and the people gradually discovered,
that the preference given to Nicomedia and Milan was not to be ascribed
to the particular inclination of Diocletian, but to the permanent form
of government which he had instituted. It was in vain that, a few months
after his abdication, his successors dedicated, under his name, those
magnificent baths, whose ruins still supply the ground as well as the
materials for so many churches and convents. [20] The tranquility of
those elegant recesses of ease and luxury was disturbed by the impatient
murmurs of the Romans, and a report was insensibly circulated, that
the sums expended in erecting those buildings would soon be required
at their hands. About that time the avarice of Galerius, or perhaps
the exigencies of the state, had induced him to make a very strict and
rigorous inquisition into the property of his subjects, for the purpose
of a general taxation, both on their lands and on their persons. A very
minute survey appears to have been taken of their real estates; and
wherever there was the slightest suspicion of concealment, torture was
very freely employed to obtain a sincere declaration of their personal
wealth. [21] The privileges which had exalted Italy above the rank of the
provinces were no longer regarded: [211] and the officers of the revenue
already began to number the Roman people, and to settle the proportion
of the new taxes. Even when the spirit of freedom had been utterly
extinguished, the tamest subjects have sometimes ventured to resist
an unprecedented invasion of their property; but on this occasion the
injury was aggravated by the insult, and the sense of private interest
was quickened by that of national honor. The conquest of Macedonia, as
we have already observed, had delivered the Roman people from the weight
of personal taxes.

Though they had experienced every form of despotism, they had now
enjoyed that exemption near five hundred years; nor could they patiently
brook the insolence of an Illyrian peasant, who, from his distant
residence in Asia, presumed to number Rome among the tributary cities
of his empire. The rising fury of the people was encouraged by the
authority, or at least the connivance, of the senate; and the feeble
remains of the Praetorian guards, who had reason to apprehend their
own dissolution, embraced so honorable a pretence, and declared their
readiness to draw their swords in the service of their oppressed
country. It was the wish, and it soon became the hope, of every citizen,
that after expelling from Italy their foreign tyrants, they should
elect a prince who, by the place of his residence, and by his maxims
of government, might once more deserve the title of Roman emperor. The
name, as well as the situation, of Maxentius determined in his favor the
popular enthusiasm.

[Footnote 20: See Gruter. Inscrip. p. 178. The six princes are all
mentioned, Diocletian and Maximian as the senior Augusti, and fathers
of the emperors. They jointly dedicate, for the use of their own Romans,
this magnificent edifice. The architects have delineated the ruins of
these Thermoe, and the antiquarians, particularly Donatus and Nardini,
have ascertained the ground which they covered. One of the great rooms
is now the Carthusian church; and even one of the porter's lodges is
sufficient to form another church, which belongs to the Feuillans.]

[Footnote 21: See Lactantius de M. P. c. 26, 31. ]

[Footnote 211: Saviguy, in his memoir on Roman taxation, (Mem. Berl.
Academ. 1822, 1823, p. 5,) dates from this period the abolition of the
Jus Italicum. He quotes a remarkable passage of Aurelius Victor. Hinc
denique parti Italiae invec tum tributorum ingens malum. Aur. Vict. c.
39. It was a necessary consequence of the division of the empire: it
became impossible to maintain a second court and executive, and leave
so large and fruitful a part of the territory exempt from
contribution.--M.]

Maxentius was the son of the emperor Maximian, and he had married the
daughter of Galerius. His birth and alliance seemed to offer him
the fairest promise of succeeding to the empire; but his vices and
incapacity procured him the same exclusion from the dignity of Caesar,
which Constantine had deserved by a dangerous superiority of merit. The
policy of Galerius preferred such associates as would never disgrace
the choice, nor dispute the commands, of their benefactor. An obscure
stranger was therefore raised to the throne of Italy, and the son of
the late emperor of the West was left to enjoy the luxury of a private
fortune in a villa a few miles distant from the capital. The gloomy
passions of his soul, shame, vexation, and rage, were inflamed by envy
on the news of Constantine's success; but the hopes of Maxentius revived
with the public discontent, and he was easily persuaded to unite his
personal injury and pretensions with the cause of the Roman people.
Two Praetorian tribunes and a commissary of provisions undertook the
management of the conspiracy; and as every order of men was actuated by
the same spirit, the immediate event was neither doubtful nor difficult.
The praefect of the city, and a few magistrates, who maintained their
fidelity to Severus, were massacred by the guards; and Maxentius,
invested with the Imperial ornaments, was acknowledged by the applauding
senate and people as the protector of the Roman freedom and dignity.
It is uncertain whether Maximian was previously acquainted with the
conspiracy; but as soon as the standard of rebellion was erected at
Rome, the old emperor broke from the retirement where the authority of
Diocletian had condemned him to pass a life of melancholy and solitude,
and concealed his returning ambition under the disguise of paternal
tenderness. At the request of his son and of the senate, he condescended
to reassume the purple. His ancient dignity, his experience, and his
fame in arms, added strength as well as reputation to the party of
Maxentius. [22]

[Footnote 22: The sixth Panegyric represents the conduct of Maximian
in the most favorable light, and the ambiguous expression of Aurelius
Victor, "retractante diu," may signify either that he contrived, or that
he opposed, the conspiracy. See Zosimus, l. ii. p. 79, and Lactantius
de M. P. c. 26.]

According to the advice, or rather the orders, of his colleague, the
emperor Severus immediately hastened to Rome, in the full confidence,
that, by his unexpected celerity, he should easily suppress the tumult
of an unwarlike populace, commanded by a licentious youth. But he found
on his arrival the gates of the city shut against him, the walls filled
with men and arms, an experienced general at the head of the rebels, and
his own troops without spirit or affection. A large body of Moors
deserted to the enemy, allured by the promise of a large donative; and,
if it be true that they had been levied by Maximian in his African war,
preferring the natural feelings of gratitude to the artificial ties of
allegiance. Anulinus, the Praetorian praefect, declared himself in favor
of Maxentius, and drew after him the most considerable part of the
troops, accustomed to obey his commands.

Rome, according to the expression of an orator, recalled her armies; and
the unfortunate Severus, destitute of force and of counsel, retired, or
rather fled, with precipitation, to Ravenna.

Here he might for some time have been safe. The fortifications of
Ravenna were able to resist the attempts, and the morasses that
surrounded the town, were sufficient to prevent the approach, of the
Italian army. The sea, which Severus commanded with a powerful fleet,
secured him an inexhaustible supply of provisions, and gave a free
entrance to the legions, which, on the return of spring, would advance
to his assistance from Illyricum and the East. Maximian, who conducted
the siege in person, was soon convinced that he might waste his time and
his army in the fruitless enterprise, and that he had nothing to hope
either from force or famine. With an art more suitable to the character
of Diocletian than to his own, he directed his attack, not so much
against the walls of Ravenna, as against the mind of Severus. The
treachery which he had experienced disposed that unhappy prince to
distrust the most sincere of his friends and adherents. The emissaries
of Maximian easily persuaded his credulity, that a conspiracy was formed
to betray the town, and prevailed upon his fears not to expose himself
to the discretion of an irritated conqueror, but to accept the faith of
an honorable capitulation. He was at first received with humanity and
treated with respect. Maximian conducted the captive emperor to Rome,
and gave him the most solemn assurances that he had secured his life by
the resignation of the purple. But Severus, could obtain only an easy
death and an Imperial funeral. When the sentence was signified to him,
the manner of executing it was left to his own choice; he preferred the
favorite mode of the ancients, that of opening his veins; and as soon
as he expired, his body was carried to the sepulchre which had been
constructed for the family of Gallienus. [23]

[Footnote 23: The circumstances of this war, and the death of Severus,
are very doubtfully and variously told in our ancient fragments,
(see Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i. p. 555.) I have
endeavored to extract from them a consistent and probable narration.
* Note: Manso justly observes that two totally different narratives might
be formed, almost upon equal authority. Beylage, iv.--M.]




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

Though the characters of Constantine and Maxentius had very little
affinity with each other, their situation and interest were the same;
and prudence seemed to require that they should unite their forces
against the common enemy. Notwithstanding the superiority of his age
and dignity, the indefatigable Maximian passed the Alps, and, courting
a personal interview with the sovereign of Gaul, carried with him his
daughter Fausta as the pledge of the new alliance. The marriage was
celebrated at Arles with every circumstance of magnificence; and the
ancient colleague of Diocletian, who again asserted his claim to the
Western empire, conferred on his son-in-law and ally the title of
Augustus. By consenting to receive that honor from Maximian, Constantine
seemed to embrace the cause of Rome and of the senate; but his
professions were ambiguous, and his assistance slow and ineffectual. He
considered with attention the approaching contest between the masters of
Italy and the emperor of the East, and was prepared to consult his own
safety or ambition in the event of the war. [24]

[Footnote 24: The sixth Panegyric was pronounced to celebrate the
elevation of Constantine; but the prudent orator avoids the mention
either of Galerius or of Maxentius. He introduces only one slight
allusion to the actual troubles, and to the majesty of Rome. *
Note: Compare Manso, Beylage, iv. p. 302. Gibbon's account is at least
as probable as that of his critic.--M.]

The importance of the occasion called for the presence and abilities of
Galerius. At the head of a powerful army, collected from Illyricum and
the East, he entered Italy, resolved to revenge the death of Severus,
and to chastise the rebellions Romans; or, as he expressed his
intentions, in the furious language of a barbarian, to extirpate
the senate, and to destroy the people by the sword. But the skill of
Maximian had concerted a prudent system of defence. The invader found
every place hostile, fortified, and inaccessible; and though he forced
his way as far as Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, his dominion in
Italy was confined to the narrow limits of his camp. Sensible of the
increasing difficulties of his enterprise, the haughty Galerius made the
first advances towards a reconciliation, and despatched two of his
most considerable officers to tempt the Roman princes by the offer of
a conference, and the declaration of his paternal regard for Maxentius,
who might obtain much more from his liberality than he could hope from
the doubtful chance of war. [25] The offers of Galerius were rejected
with firmness, his perfidious friendship refused with contempt, and
it was not long before he discovered, that, unless he provided for his
safety by a timely retreat, he had some reason to apprehend the fate
of Severus. The wealth which the Romans defended against his rapacious
tyranny, they freely contributed for his destruction. The name of
Maximian, the popular arts of his son, the secret distribution of large
sums, and the promise of still more liberal rewards, checked the ardor
and corrupted the fidelity of the Illyrian legions; and when Galerius at
length gave the signal of the retreat, it was with some difficulty that
he could prevail on his veterans not to desert a banner which had so
often conducted them to victory and honor. A contemporary writer assigns
two other causes for the failure of the expedition; but they are both of
such a nature, that a cautious historian will scarcely venture to adopt
them. We are told that Galerius, who had formed a very imperfect notion
of the greatness of Rome by the cities of the East with which he was
acquainted, found his forces inadequate to the siege of that immense
capital.

But the extent of a city serves only to render it more accessible to the
enemy: Rome had long since been accustomed to submit on the approach of
a conqueror; nor could the temporary enthusiasm of the people have
long contended against the discipline and valor of the legions. We are
likewise informed that the legions themselves were struck with horror
and remorse, and that those pious sons of the republic refused to
violate the sanctity of their venerable parent. [26] But when we
recollect with how much ease, in the more ancient civil wars, the zeal
of party and the habits of military obedience had converted the native
citizens of Rome into her most implacable enemies, we shall be inclined
to distrust this extreme delicacy of strangers and barbarians, who had
never beheld Italy till they entered it in a hostile manner. Had they
not been restrained by motives of a more interested nature, they would
probably have answered Galerius in the words of Caesar's veterans: "If
our general wishes to lead us to the banks of the Tyber, we are prepared
to trace out his camp. Whatsoever walls he has determined to level
with the ground, our hands are ready to work the engines: nor shall we
hesitate, should the name of the devoted city be Rome itself." These
are indeed the expressions of a poet; but of a poet who has been
distinguished, and even censured, for his strict adherence to the truth
of history. [27]

[Footnote 25: With regard to this negotiation, see the fragments of an
anonymous historian, published by Valesius at the end of his edition
of Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 711. These fragments have furnished with
several curious, and, as it should seem, authentic anecdotes.]

[Footnote 26: Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. The former of these reasons
is probably taken from Virgil's Shepherd: "Illam * * * ego huic notra
similem, Meliboee, putavi," &c. Lactantius delights in these poetical
illusions.]

[Footnote 27: Castra super Tusci si ponere Tybridis undas; (jubeus)
Hesperios audax veniam metator in agros. Tu quoscunque voles in planum
effundere muros, His aries actus disperget saxa lacertis; Illa licet
penitus tolli quam jusseris urbem Roma sit. Lucan. Pharsal. i. 381.]

The legions of Galerius exhibited a very melancholy proof of their
disposition, by the ravages which they committed in their retreat. They
murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove away the flocks
and herds of the Italians; they burnt the villages through which they
passed, and they endeavored to destroy the country which it had not
been in their power to subdue. During the whole march, Maxentius hung
on their rear, but he very prudently declined a general engagement with
those brave and desperate veterans. His father had undertaken a second
journey into Gaul, with the hope of persuading Constantine, who had
assembled an army on the frontier, to join in the pursuit, and to
complete the victory. But the actions of Constantine were guided by
reason, and not by resentment. He persisted in the wise resolution of
maintaining a balance of power in the divided empire, and he no longer
hated Galerius, when that aspiring prince had ceased to be an object of
terror. [28]

[Footnote 28: Lactantius de M. P. c. 27. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. The
latter, that Constantine, in his interview with Maximian, had promised
to declare war against Galerius.]

The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner passions,
but it was not, however, incapable of a sincere and lasting friendship.
Licinius, whose manners as well as character, were not unlike his own,
seems to have engaged both his affection and esteem. Their intimacy had
commenced in the happier period perhaps of their youth and obscurity.
It had been cemented by the freedom and dangers of a military life; they
had advanced almost by equal steps through the successive honors of the
service; and as soon as Galerius was invested with the Imperial dignity,
he seems to have conceived the design of raising his companion to the
same rank with himself. During the short period of his prosperity,
he considered the rank of Caesar as unworthy of the age and merit of
Licinius, and rather chose to reserve for him the place of Constantius,
and the empire of the West. While the emperor was employed in the
Italian war, he intrusted his friend with the defence of the Danube;
and immediately after his return from that unfortunate expedition, he
invested Licinius with the vacant purple of Severus, resigning to
his immediate command the provinces of Illyricum. [29] The news of
his promotion was no sooner carried into the East, than Maximin,
who governed, or rather oppressed, the countries of Egypt and Syria,
betrayed his envy and discontent, disdained the inferior name of Caesar,
and, notwithstanding the prayers as well as arguments of Galerius,
exacted, almost by violence, the equal title of Augustus. [30] For the
first, and indeed for the last time, the Roman world was administered
by six emperors. In the West, Constantine and Maxentius affected to
reverence their father Maximian. In the East, Licinius and Maximin
honored with more real consideration their benefactor Galerius. The
opposition of interest, and the memory of a recent war, divided the
empire into two great hostile powers; but their mutual fears produced an
apparent tranquillity, and even a feigned reconciliation, till the death
of the elder princes, of Maximian, and more particularly of Galerius,
gave a new direction to the views and passions of their surviving
associates.

[Footnote 29: M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv.
part i. p. 559) has proved that Licinius, without passing through
the intermediate rank of Caesar, was declared Augustus, the 11th of
November, A. D. 307, after the return of Galerius from Italy.]

[Footnote 30: Lactantius de M. P. c. 32. When Galerius declared Licinius
Augustus with himself, he tried to satisfy his younger associates, by
inventing for Constantine and Maximin (not Maxentius; see Baluze, p. 81)
the new title of sons of the Augusti. But when Maximin acquainted him
that he had been saluted Augustus by the army, Galerius was obliged
to acknowledge him as well as Constantine, as equal associates in the
Imperial dignity.]

When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal orators of
the times applauded his philosophic moderation. When his ambition
excited, or at least encouraged, a civil war, they returned thanks to
his generous patriotism, and gently censured that love of ease and
retirement which had withdrawn him from the public service. [31] But it
was impossible that minds like those of Maximian and his son could long
possess in harmony an undivided power. Maxentius considered himself as
the legal sovereign of Italy, elected by the Roman senate and people;
nor would he endure the control of his father, who arrogantly declared
that by his name and abilities the rash youth had been established on
the throne. The cause was solemnly pleaded before the Praetorian guards;
and those troops, who dreaded the severity of the old emperor, espoused
the party of Maxentius. [32] The life and freedom of Maximian were,
however, respected, and he retired from Italy into Illyricum, affecting
to lament his past conduct, and secretly contriving new mischiefs. But
Galerius, who was well acquainted with his character, soon obliged him
to leave his dominions, and the last refuge of the disappointed Maximian
was the court of his son-in-law Constantine. [33] He was received with
respect by that artful prince, and with the appearance of filial
tenderness by the empress Fausta. That he might remove every suspicion,
he resigned the Imperial purple a second time, [34] professing himself
at length convinced of the vanity of greatness and ambition. Had he
persevered in this resolution, he might have ended his life with less
dignity, indeed, than in his first retirement, yet, however, with
comfort and reputation. But the near prospect of a throne brought back
to his remembrance the state from whence he was fallen, and he resolved,
by a desperate effort either to reign or to perish. An incursion of the
Franks had summoned Constantine, with a part of his army, to the banks
of the Rhine; the remainder of the troops were stationed in the southern
provinces of Gaul, which lay exposed to the enterprises of the Italian
emperor, and a considerable treasure was deposited in the city of Arles.
Maximian either craftily invented, or easily credited, a vain report of
the death of Constantine. Without hesitation he ascended the throne,
seized the treasure, and scattering it with his accustomed profusion
among the soldiers, endeavored to awake in their minds the memory of his
ancient dignity and exploits. Before he could establish his authority,
or finish the negotiation which he appears to have entered into with his
son Maxentius, the celerity of Constantine defeated all his hopes. On
the first news of his perfidy and ingratitude, that prince returned by
rapid marches from the Rhine to the Saone, embarked on the last
mentioned river at Chalons, and at Lyons trusting himself to the
rapidity of the Rhone, arrived at the gates of Arles, with a military
force which it was impossible for Maximian to resist, and which scarcely
permitted him to take refuge in the neighboring city of Marseilles. The
narrow neck of land which joined that place to the continent was
fortified against the besiegers, whilst the sea was open, either for the
escape of Maximian, or for the succor of Maxentius, if the latter should
choose to disguise his invasion of Gaul under the honorable pretence of
defending a distressed, or, as he might allege, an injured father.
Apprehensive of the fatal consequences of delay, Constantine gave orders
for an immediate assault; but the scaling-ladders were found too short
for the height of the walls, and Marseilles might have sustained as long
a siege as it formerly did against the arms of Caesar, if the garrison,
conscious either of their fault or of their danger, had not purchased
their pardon by delivering up the city and the person of Maximian. A
secret but irrevocable sentence of death was pronounced against the
usurper; he obtained only the same favor which he had indulged to
Severus, and it was published to the world, that, oppressed by the
remorse of his repeated crimes, he strangled himself with his own hands.
After he had lost the assistance, and disdained the moderate counsels of
Diocletian, the second period of his active life was a series of public
calamities and personal mortifications, which were terminated, in about
three years, by an ignominious death. He deserved his fate; but we
should find more reason to applaud the humanity of Constantine, if he
had spared an old man, the benefactor of his father, and the father of
his wife. During the whole of this melancholy transaction, it appears
that Fausta sacrificed the sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties.
[35]

[Footnote 31: See Panegyr. Vet. vi. 9. Audi doloris nostri liberam
vocem, &c. The whole passage is imagined with artful flattery, and
expressed with an easy flow of eloquence.]

[Footnote 32: Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. A report
was spread, that Maxentius was the son of some obscure Syrian, and had
been substituted by the wife of Maximian as her own child. See Aurelius
Victor, Anonym. Valesian, and Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 33: Ab urbe pulsum, ab Italia fugatum, ab Illyrico repudiatum,
provinciis, tuis copiis, tuo palatio recepisti. Eumen. in Panegyr Vet.
vii. 14.]

[Footnote 34: Lactantius de M. P. c. 29. Yet, after the resignation of
the purple, Constantine still continued to Maximian the pomp and honors
of the Imperial dignity; and on all public occasions gave the right hand
place to his father-in-law. Panegyr. Vet. viii. 15.]

[Footnote 35: Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. vii.
16--21. The latter of these has undoubtedly represented the whole
affair in the most favorable light for his sovereign. Yet even from
this partial narrative we may conclude, that the repeated clemency
of Constantine, and the reiterated treasons of Maximian, as they
are described by Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 29, 30,) and copied by the
moderns, are destitute of any historical foundation. Note: Yet some
pagan authors relate and confirm them. Aurelius Victor speaking of
Maximin, says, cumque specie officii, dolis compositis, Constantinum
generum tentaret acerbe, jure tamen interierat. Aur. Vict. de Caesar l.
p. 623. Eutropius also says, inde ad Gallias profectus est (Maximianus)
composito tamquam a filio esset expulsus, ut Constantino genero jun
geretur: moliens tamen Constantinum, reperta occasione, interficere,
dedit justissimo exitu. Eutrop. x. p. 661. (Anon. Gent.)--G. ----
These writers hardly confirm more than Gibbon admits; he denies the
repeated clemency of Constantine, and the reiterated treasons of
Maximian Compare Manso, p. 302.--M.]

The last years of Galerius were less shameful and unfortunate; and
though he had filled with more glory the subordinate station of Caesar
than the superior rank of Augustus, he preserved, till the moment of his
death, the first place among the princes of the Roman world. He survived
his retreat from Italy about four years; and wisely relinquishing his
views of universal empire, he devoted the remainder of his life to the
enjoyment of pleasure, and to the execution of some works of public
utility, among which we may distinguish the discharging into the Danube
the superfluous waters of the Lake Pelso, and the cutting down the
immense forests that encompassed it; an operation worthy of a monarch,
since it gave an extensive country to the agriculture of his Pannonian
subjects. [36] His death was occasioned by a very painful and lingering
disorder. His body, swelled by an intemperate course of life to
an unwieldy corpulence, was covered with ulcers, and devoured by
innumerable swarms of those insects which have given their name to a
most loathsome disease; [37] but as Galerius had offended a very zealous
and powerful party among his subjects, his sufferings, instead of
exciting their compassion, have been celebrated as the visible effects
of divine justice. [38] He had no sooner expired in his palace of
Nicomedia, than the two emperors who were indebted for their purple to
his favors, began to collect their forces, with the intention either
of disputing, or of dividing, the dominions which he had left without a
master. They were persuaded, however, to desist from the former design,
and to agree in the latter. The provinces of Asia fell to the share
of Maximin, and those of Europe augmented the portion of Licinius. The
Hellespont and the Thracian Bosphorus formed their mutual boundary, and
the banks of those narrow seas, which flowed in the midst of the Roman
world, were covered with soldiers, with arms, and with fortifications.
The deaths of Maximian and of Galerius reduced the number of emperors
to four. The sense of their true interest soon connected Licinius
and Constantine; a secret alliance was concluded between Maximin and
Maxentius, and their unhappy subjects expected with terror the bloody
consequences of their inevitable dissensions, which were no longer
restrained by the fear or the respect which they had entertained for
Galerius. [39]

[Footnote 36: Aurelius Victor, c. 40. But that lake was situated on the
upper Pannonia, near the borders of Noricum; and the province of Valeria
(a name which the wife of Galerius gave to the drained country)
undoubtedly lay between the Drave and the Danube, (Sextus Rufus, c. 9.)
I should therefore suspect that Victor has confounded the Lake Pelso
with the Volocean marshes, or, as they are now called, the Lake Sabaton.
It is placed in the heart of Valeria, and its present extent is not less
than twelve Hungarian miles (about seventy English) in length, and two
in breadth. See Severini Pannonia, l. i. c.
9.]

[Footnote 37: Lactantius (de M. P. c. 33) and Eusebius (l. viii. c.
16) describe the symptoms and progress of his disorder with singular
accuracy and apparent pleasure.]

[Footnote 38: If any (like the late Dr. Jortin, Remarks on
Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 307--356) still delight in recording
the wonderful deaths of the persecutors, I would recommend to their
perusal an admirable passage of Grotius (Hist. l. vii. p. 332)
concerning the last illness of Philip II. of Spain.]

[Footnote 39: See Eusebius, l. ix. 6, 10. Lactantius de M. P. c. 36.
Zosimus is less exact, and evidently confounds Maximian with Maximin.]

Among so many crimes and misfortunes, occasioned by the passions of the
Roman princes, there is some pleasure in discovering a single action
which may be ascribed to their virtue. In the sixth year of his reign,
Constantine visited the city of Autun, and generously remitted the
arrears of tribute, reducing at the same time the proportion of their
assessment from twenty-five to eighteen thousand heads, subject to the
real and personal capitation. [40] Yet even this indulgence affords
the most unquestionable proof of the public misery. This tax was so
extremely oppressive, either in itself or in the mode of collecting it,
that whilst the revenue was increased by extortion, it was diminished
by despair: a considerable part of the territory of Autun was left
uncultivated; and great numbers of the provincials rather chose to live
as exiles and outlaws, than to support the weight of civil society. It
is but too probable, that the bountiful emperor relieved, by a partial
act of liberality, one among the many evils which he had caused by his
general maxims of administration. But even those maxims were less
the effect of choice than of necessity. And if we except the death of
Maximian, the reign of Constantine in Gaul seems to have been the most
innocent and even virtuous period of his life.

The provinces were protected by his presence from the inroads of the
barbarians, who either dreaded or experienced his active valor. After
a signal victory over the Franks and Alemanni, several of their princes
were exposed by his order to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre of
Treves, and the people seem to have enjoyed the spectacle, without
discovering, in such a treatment of royal captives, any thing that was
repugnant to the laws of nations or of humanity. [41]

[Footnote 40: See the viiith Panegyr., in which Eumenius displays, in
the presence of Constantine, the misery and the gratitude of the city of
Autun.]

[Footnote 41: Eutropius, x. 3. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 10, 11, 12.
A great number of the French youth were likewise exposed to the same
cruel and ignominious death.]

[Footnote 41: Yet the panegyric assumes something of an apologetic tone.
Te vero Constantine, quantumlibet oderint hoses, dum perhorrescant. Haec
est enim vera virtus, ut non ament et quiescant. The orator appeals to
the ancient ideal of the republic.--M.]

The virtues of Constantine were rendered more illustrious by the vices
of Maxentius. Whilst the Gallic provinces enjoyed as much happiness as
the condition of the times was capable of receiving, Italy and Africa
groaned under the dominion of a tyrant, as contemptible as he was
odious. The zeal of flattery and faction has indeed too frequently
sacrificed the reputation of the vanquished to the glory of their
successful rivals; but even those writers who have revealed, with
the most freedom and pleasure, the faults of Constantine, unanimously
confess that Maxentius was cruel, rapacious, and profligate. [42] He had
the good fortune to suppress a slight rebellion in Africa. The governor
and a few adherents had been guilty; the province suffered for their
crime. The flourishing cities of Cirtha and Carthage, and the whole
extent of that fertile country, were wasted by fire and sword. The abuse
of victory was followed by the abuse of law and justice. A formidable
army of sycophants and delators invaded Africa; the rich and the noble
were easily convicted of a connection with the rebels; and those among
them who experienced the emperor's clemency, were only punished by the
confiscation of their estates. [43] So signal a victory was celebrated by
a magnificent triumph, and Maxentius exposed to the eyes of the people
the spoils and captives of a Roman province. The state of the capital
was no less deserving of compassion than that of Africa. The wealth of
Rome supplied an inexhaustible fund for his vain and prodigal expenses,
and the ministers of his revenue were skilled in the arts of rapine.
It was under his reign that the method of exacting a free gift from the
senators was first invented; and as the sum was insensibly increased,
the pretences of levying it, a victory, a birth, a marriage, or an
imperial consulship, were proportionably multiplied. [44] Maxentius
had imbibed the same implacable aversion to the senate, which had
characterized most of the former tyrants of Rome; nor was it possible
for his ungrateful temper to forgive the generous fidelity which had
raised him to the throne, and supported him against all his enemies.
The lives of the senators were exposed to his jealous suspicions, the
dishonor of their wives and daughters heightened the gratification of
his sensual passions. [45] It may be presumed, that an Imperial lover
was seldom reduced to sigh in vain; but whenever persuasion proved
ineffectual, he had recourse to violence; and there remains one
memorable example of a noble matron, who preserved her chastity by
a voluntary death. The soldiers were the only order of men whom he
appeared to respect, or studied to please. He filled Rome and Italy with
armed troops, connived at their tumults, suffered them with impunity to
plunder, and even to massacre, the defenceless people; [46] and indulging
them in the same licentiousness which their emperor enjoyed, Maxentius
often bestowed on his military favorites the splendid villa, or the
beautiful wife, of a senator. A prince of such a character, alike
incapable of governing, either in peace or in war, might purchase the
support, but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army. Yet his
pride was equal to his other vices. Whilst he passed his indolent life
either within the walls of his palace, or in the neighboring gardens of
Sallust, he was repeatedly heard to declare, that he alone was emperor,
and that the other princes were no more than his lieutenants, on whom he
had devolved the defence of the frontier provinces, that he might enjoy
without interruption the elegant luxury of the capital. Rome, which had
so long regretted the absence, lamented, during the six years of his
reign, the presence of her sovereign. [47]

[Footnote 42: Julian excludes Maxentius from the banquet of the Caesars
with abhorrence and contempt; and Zosimus (l. ii. p. 85) accuses him of
every kind of cruelty and profligacy.]

[Footnote 43: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 83--85. Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 44: The passage of Aurelius Victor should be read in the
following manner: Primus instituto pessimo, munerum specie, Patres
Oratores que pecuniam conferre prodigenti sibi cogeret.]

[Footnote 45: Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. Euseb. Hist Eccles. viii. 14, et in
Vit. Constant i. 33, 34. Rufinus, c. 17. The virtuous matron who stabbed
herself to escape the violence of Maxentius, was a Christian, wife to
the praefect of the city, and her name was Sophronia. It still remains
a question among the casuists, whether, on such occasions, suicide is
justifiable.]

[Footnote 46: Praetorianis caedem vulgi quondam annueret, is the vague
expression of Aurelius Victor. See more particular, though somewhat
different, accounts of a tumult and massacre which happened at Rome, in
Eusebius, (l. viii. c. 14,) and in Zosimus, (l. ii. p. 84.)]

[Footnote 47: See, in the Panegyrics, (ix. 14,) a lively description of
the indolence and vain pride of Maxentius. In another place the orator
observes that the riches which Rome had accumulated in a period of 1060
years, were lavished by the tyrant on his mercenary bands; redemptis ad
civile latrocinium manibus in gesserat.]

Though Constantine might view the conduct of Maxentius with abhorrence,
and the situation of the Romans with compassion, we have no reason to
presume that he would have taken up arms to punish the one or to
relieve the other. But the tyrant of Italy rashly ventured to provoke
a formidable enemy, whose ambition had been hitherto restrained by
considerations of prudence, rather than by principles of justice. [48]
After the death of Maximian, his titles, according to the established
custom, had been erased, and his statues thrown down with ignominy. His
son, who had persecuted and deserted him when alive, effected to display
the most pious regard for his memory, and gave orders that a similar
treatment should be immediately inflicted on all the statues that had
been erected in Italy and Africa to the honor of Constantine.

That wise prince, who sincerely wished to decline a war, with the
difficulty and importance of which he was sufficiently acquainted,
at first dissembled the insult, and sought for redress by the milder
expedient of negotiation, till he was convinced that the hostile and
ambitious designs of the Italian emperor made it necessary for him to
arm in his own defence. Maxentius, who openly avowed his pretensions to
the whole monarchy of the West, had already prepared a very considerable
force to invade the Gallic provinces on the side of Rhaetia; and though
he could not expect any assistance from Licinius, he was flattered with
the hope that the legions of Illyricum, allured by his presents and
promises, would desert the standard of that prince, and unanimously
declare themselves his soldiers and subjects. [49] Constantine no longer
hesitated. He had deliberated with caution, he acted with vigor. He gave
a private audience to the ambassadors, who, in the name of the senate
and people, conjured him to deliver Rome from a detested tyrant; and
without regarding the timid remonstrances of his council, he resolved to
prevent the enemy, and to carry the war into the heart of Italy. [50]

[Footnote 48: After the victory of Constantine, it was universally
allowed, that the motive of delivering the republic from a detested
tyrant, would, at any time, have justified his expedition into Italy.
Euseb in Vi'. Constantin. l. i. c. 26. Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]

[Footnote 49: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 84, 85. Nazarius in Panegyr. x. 7--13.]

[Footnote 50: See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2. Omnibus fere tuis Comitibus
et Ducibus non solum tacite mussantibus, sed etiam aperte timentibus;
contra consilia hominum, contra Haruspicum monita, ipse per temet
liberandae arbis tempus venisse sentires. The embassy of the Romans is
mentioned only by Zonaras, (l. xiii.,) and by Cedrenus, (in Compend.
Hist. p. 370;) but those modern Greeks had the opportunity of consulting
many writers which have since been lost, among which we may reckon the
life of Constantine by Praxagoras. Photius (p. 63) has made a short
extract from that historical work.]

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

The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot and
eight thousand horse; [51] and as the defence of the Rhine required an
extraordinary attention during the absence of the emperor, it was not
in his power to employ above half his troops in the Italian expedition,
unless he sacrificed the public safety to his private quarrel. [52] At
the head of about forty thousand soldiers he marched to encounter an
enemy whose numbers were at least four times superior to his own.
But the armies of Rome, placed at a secure distance from danger, were
enervated by indulgence and luxury. Habituated to the baths and theatres
of Rome, they took the field with reluctance, and were chiefly composed
of veterans who had almost forgotten, or of new levies who had never
acquired, the use of arms and the practice of war. The hardy legions
of Gaul had long defended the frontiers of the empire against the
barbarians of the North; and in the performance of that laborious
service, their valor was exercised and their discipline confirmed. There
appeared the same difference between the leaders as between the armies.
Caprice or flattery had tempted Maxentius with the hopes of conquest;
but these aspiring hopes soon gave way to the habits of pleasure and the
consciousness of his inexperience. The intrepid mind of Constantine had
been trained from his earliest youth to war, to action, and to military
command.

[Footnote 51: Zosimus (l. ii. p. 86) has given us this curious account
of the forces on both sides. He makes no mention of any naval armaments,
though we are assured (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 25) that the war was carried on
by sea as well as by land; and that the fleet of Constantine took
possession of Sardinia, Corsica, and the ports of Italy.]

[Footnote 52: Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. It is not surprising that the orator
should diminish the numbers with which his sovereign achieved the
conquest of Italy; but it appears somewhat singular that he should
esteem the tyrant's army at no more than 100,000 men.]




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

When Hannibal marched from Gaul into Italy, he was obliged, first to
discover, and then to open, a way over mountains, and through savage
nations, that had never yielded a passage to a regular army. [53]
The Alps were then guarded by nature, they are now fortified by art.
Citadels, constructed with no less skill than labor and expense, command
every avenue into the plain, and on that side render Italy almost
inaccessible to the enemies of the king of Sardinia. [54] But in the
course of the intermediate period, the generals, who have attempted the
passage, have seldom experienced any difficulty or resistance. In the
age of Constantine, the peasants of the mountains were civilized and
obedient subjects; the country was plentifully stocked with provisions,
and the stupendous highways, which the Romans had carried over the Alps,
opened several communications between Gaul and Italy. [55] Constantine
preferred the road of the Cottian Alps, or, as it is now called, of
Mount Cenis, and led his troops with such active diligence, that he
descended into the plain of Piedmont before the court of Maxentius had
received any certain intelligence of his departure from the banks of the
Rhine. The city of Susa, however, which is situated at the foot of
Mount Cenis, was surrounded with walls, and provided with a garrison
sufficiently numerous to check the progress of an invader; but the
impatience of Constantine's troops disdained the tedious forms of a
siege. The same day that they appeared before Susa, they applied fire to
the gates, and ladders to the walls; and mounting to the assault amidst
a shower of stones and arrows, they entered the place sword in hand,
and cut in pieces the greatest part of the garrison. The flames were
extinguished by the care of Constantine, and the remains of Susa
preserved from total destruction. About forty miles from thence, a more
severe contest awaited him. A numerous army of Italians was assembled
under the lieutenants of Maxentius, in the plains of Turin. Its
principal strength consisted in a species of heavy cavalry, which the
Romans, since the decline of their discipline, had borrowed from the
nations of the East. The horses, as well as the men, were clothed in
complete armor, the joints of which were artfully adapted to the motions
of their bodies. The aspect of this cavalry was formidable, their weight
almost irresistible; and as, on this occasion, their generals had drawn
them up in a compact column or wedge, with a sharp point, and with
spreading flanks, they flattered themselves that they could easily break
and trample down the army of Constantine. They might, perhaps, have
succeeded in their design, had not their experienced adversary embraced
the same method of defence, which in similar circumstances had been
practised by Aurelian. The skilful evolutions of Constantine divided and
baffled this massy column of cavalry. The troops of Maxentius fled in
confusion towards Turin; and as the gates of the city were shut against
them, very few escaped the sword of the victorious pursuers. By this
important service, Turin deserved to experience the clemency and even
favor of the conqueror. He made his entry into the Imperial palace of
Milan, and almost all the cities of Italy between the Alps and the Po
not only acknowledged the power, but embraced with zeal the party, of
Constantine. [56]

[Footnote 53: The three principal passages of the Alps between Gaul and
Italy, are those of Mount St. Bernard, Mount Cenis, and Mount Genevre.
Tradition, and a resemblance of names, (Alpes Penninoe,) had assigned
the first of these for the march of Hannibal, (see Simler de Alpibus.)
The Chevalier de Folard (Polyp. tom. iv.) and M. d'Anville have led him
over Mount Genevre. But notwithstanding the authority of an experienced
officer and a learned geographer, the pretensions of Mount Cenis are
supported in a specious, not to say a convincing, manner, by M. Grosley.
Observations sur l'Italie, tom. i. p. 40, &c.  ----The dissertation of
Messrs. Cramer and Wickham has clearly shown that the Little St. Bernard
must claim the honor of Hannibal's passage. Mr. Long (London, 1831) has
added some sensible corrections re Hannibal's march to the Alps.--M]

[Footnote 54: La Brunette near Suse, Demont, Exiles, Fenestrelles, Coni,
&c.]

[Footnote 55: See Ammian. Marcellin. xv. 10. His description of the
roads over the Alps is clear, lively, and accurate.]

[Footnote 56: Zosimus as well as Eusebius hasten from the passage of
the Alps to the decisive action near Rome. We must apply to the two
Panegyrics for the intermediate actions of Constantine.]

From Milan to Rome, the Aemilian and Flaminian highways offered an easy
march of about four hundred miles; but though Constantine was impatient
to encounter the tyrant, he prudently directed his operations against
another army of Italians, who, by their strength and position, might
either oppose his progress, or, in case of a misfortune, might intercept
his retreat. Ruricius Pompeianus, a general distinguished by his valor
and ability, had under his command the city of Verona, and all the
troops that were stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was
informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he detached a large
body of cavalry which was defeated in an engagement near Brescia,
and pursued by the Gallic legions as far as the gates of Verona. The
necessity, the importance, and the difficulties of the siege of Verona,
immediately presented themselves to the sagacious mind of Constantine.
[57] The city was accessible only by a narrow peninsula towards the west,
as the other three sides were surrounded by the Adige, a rapid river,
which covered the province of Venetia, from whence the besieged derived
an inexhaustible supply of men and provisions. It was not without great
difficulty, and after several fruitless attempts, that Constantine found
means to pass the river at some distance above the city, and in a place
where the torrent was less violent. He then encompassed Verona with
strong lines, pushed his attacks with prudent vigor, and repelled a
desperate sally of Pompeianus. That intrepid general, when he had used
every means of defence that the strength of the place or that of the
garrison could afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for
his own, but for the public safety. With indefatigable diligence he soon
collected an army sufficient either to meet Constantine in the field, or
to attack him if he obstinately remained within his lines. The emperor,
attentive to the motions, and informed of the approach of so formidable
an enemy, left a part of his legions to continue the operations of the
siege, whilst, at the head of those troops on whose valor and fidelity
he more particularly depended, he advanced in person to engage the
general of Maxentius. The army of Gaul was drawn up in two lines,
according to the usual practice of war; but their experienced leader,
perceiving that the numbers of the Italians far exceeded his own,
suddenly changed his disposition, and, reducing the second, extended
the front of his first line to a just proportion with that of the enemy.
Such evolutions, which only veteran troops can execute without confusion
in a moment of danger, commonly prove decisive; but as this engagement
began towards the close of the day, and was contested with great
obstinacy during the whole night, there was less room for the conduct of
the generals than for the courage of the soldiers. The return of light
displayed the victory of Constantine, and a field of carnage covered
with many thousands of the vanquished Italians. Their general,
Pompeianus, was found among the slain; Verona immediately surrendered
at discretion, and the garrison was made prisoners of war. [58] When
the officers of the victorious army congratulated their master on this
important success, they ventured to add some respectful complaints,
of such a nature, however, as the most jealous monarchs will listen
to without displeasure. They represented to Constantine, that, not
contented with all the duties of a commander, he had exposed his own
person with an excess of valor which almost degenerated into rashness;
and they conjured him for the future to pay more regard to the
preservation of a life in which the safety of Rome and of the empire was
involved. [59]

[Footnote 57: The Marquis Maffei has examined the siege and battle of
Verona with that degree of attention and accuracy which was due to a
memorable action that happened in his native country. The fortifications
of that city, constructed by Gallienus, were less extensive than the
modern walls, and the amphitheatre was not included within their
circumference. See Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 142 150.]

[Footnote 58: They wanted chains for so great a multitude of captives;
and the whole council was at a loss; but the sagacious conqueror
imagined the happy expedient of converting into fetters the swords of
the vanquished. Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]

[Footnote 59: Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]

While Constantine signalized his conduct and valor in the field, the
sovereign of Italy appeared insensible of the calamities and danger of
a civil war which reigned in the heart of his dominions. Pleasure was
still the only business of Maxentius. Concealing, or at least attempting
to conceal, from the public knowledge the misfortunes of his arms, [60]
he indulged himself in a vain confidence which deferred the remedies of
the approaching evil, without deferring the evil itself. [61] The rapid
progress of Constantine [62] was scarcely sufficient to awaken him
from his fatal security; he flattered himself, that his well-known
liberality, and the majesty of the Roman name, which had already
delivered him from two invasions, would dissipate with the same facility
the rebellious army of Gaul. The officers of experience and ability, who
had served under the banners of Maximian, were at length compelled
to inform his effeminate son of the imminent danger to which he was
reduced; and, with a freedom that at once surprised and convinced him,
to urge the necessity of preventing his ruin, by a vigorous exertion of
his remaining power. The resources of Maxentius, both of men and money,
were still considerable. The Praetorian guards felt how strongly their
own interest and safety were connected with his cause; and a third army
was soon collected, more numerous than those which had been lost in
the battles of Turin and Verona. It was far from the intention of the
emperor to lead his troops in person. A stranger to the exercises of
war, he trembled at the apprehension of so dangerous a contest; and as
fear is commonly superstitious, he listened with melancholy attention
to the rumors of omens and presages which seemed to menace his life and
empire. Shame at length supplied the place of courage, and forced him
to take the field. He was unable to sustain the contempt of the Roman
people. The circus resounded with their indignant clamors, and
they tumultuously besieged the gates of the palace, reproaching the
pusillanimity of their indolent sovereign, and celebrating the heroic
spirit of Constantine. [63] Before Maxentius left Rome, he consulted the
Sibylline books. The guardians of these ancient oracles were as well
versed in the arts of this world as they were ignorant of the secrets
of fate; and they returned him a very prudent answer, which might adapt
itself to the event, and secure their reputation, whatever should be the
chance of arms. [64]

[Footnote 60: Literas calamitatum suarum indices supprimebat. Panegyr
Vet. ix. 15.]

[Footnote 61: Remedia malorum potius quam mala differebat, is the fine
censure which Tacitus passes on the supine indolence of Vitellius.]

[Footnote 62: The Marquis Maffei has made it extremely probable that
Constantine was still at Verona, the 1st of September, A.D. 312, and
that the memorable aera of the indications was dated from his conquest
of the Cisalpine Gaul.]

[Footnote 63: See Panegyr. Vet. xi. 16. Lactantius de M. P. c. 44.]

[Footnote 64: Illo die hostem Romanorum esse periturum. The vanquished
became of course the enemy of Rome.]

The celerity of Constantine's march has been compared to the rapid
conquest of Italy by the first of the Caesars; nor is the flattering
parallel repugnant to the truth of history, since no more than
fifty-eight days elapsed between the surrender of Verona and the final
decision of the war. Constantine had always apprehended that the tyrant
would consult the dictates of fear, and perhaps of prudence; and that,
instead of risking his last hopes in a general engagement, he would shut
himself up within the walls of Rome. His ample magazines secured him
against the danger of famine; and as the situation of Constantine
admitted not of delay, he might have been reduced to the sad necessity
of destroying with fire and sword the Imperial city, the noblest reward
of his victory, and the deliverance of which had been the motive, or
rather indeed the pretence, of the civil war. [65] It was with equal
surprise and pleasure, that on his arrival at a place called Saxa Rubra,
about nine miles from Rome, [66] he discovered the army of Maxentius
prepared to give him battle. [67] Their long front filled a very spacious
plain, and their deep array reached to the banks of the Tyber, which
covered their rear, and forbade their retreat. We are informed, and we
may believe, that Constantine disposed his troops with consummate
skill, and that he chose for himself the post of honor and danger.
Distinguished by the splendor of his arms, he charged in person the
cavalry of his rival; and his irresistible attack determined the fortune
of the day. The cavalry of Maxentius was principally composed either of
unwieldy cuirassiers, or of light Moors and Numidians. They yielded to
the vigor of the Gallic horse, which possessed more activity than the
one, more firmness than the other. The defeat of the two wings left the
infantry without any protection on its flanks, and the undisciplined
Italians fled without reluctance from the standard of a tyrant whom
they had always hated, and whom they no longer feared. The Praetorians,
conscious that their offences were beyond the reach of mercy, were
animated by revenge and despair. Notwithstanding their repeated efforts,
those brave veterans were unable to recover the victory: they obtained,
however, an honorable death; and it was observed that their bodies
covered the same ground which had been occupied by their ranks. [68] The
confusion then became general, and the dismayed troops of Maxentius,
pursued by an implacable enemy, rushed by thousands into the deep and
rapid stream of the Tyber. The emperor himself attempted to escape back
into the city over the Milvian bridge; but the crowds which pressed
together through that narrow passage forced him into the river, where he
was immediately drowned by the weight of his armor. [69] His body, which
had sunk very deep into the mud, was found with some difficulty the
next day. The sight of his head, when it was exposed to the eyes of
the people, convinced them of their deliverance, and admonished them
to receive with acclamations of loyalty and gratitude the fortunate
Constantine, who thus achieved by his valor and ability the most
splendid enterprise of his life. [70]

[Footnote 65: See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 16, x. 27. The former of these
orators magnifies the hoards of corn, which Maxentius had collected from
Africa and the Islands. And yet, if there is any truth in the scarcity
mentioned by Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 36,) the Imperial
granaries must have been open only to the soldiers.]

[Footnote 66: Maxentius... tandem urbe in Saxa Rubra, millia ferme novem
aegerrime progressus. Aurelius Victor. See Cellarius Geograph. Antiq.
tom. i. p. 463. Saxa Rubra was in the neighborhood of the Cremera, a
trifling rivulet, illustrated by the valor and glorious death of the
three hundred Fabii.]

[Footnote 67: The post which Maxentius had taken, with the Tyber in his
rear is very clearly described by the two Panegyrists, ix. 16, x.
28.]

[Footnote 68: Exceptis latrocinii illius primis auctoribus, qui
desperata venia ocum quem pugnae sumpserant texere corporibus. Panegyr.
Vet 17.]

[Footnote 69: A very idle rumor soon prevailed, that Maxentius,
who had not taken any precaution for his own retreat, had contrived
a very artful snare to destroy the army of the pursuers; but that
the wooden bridge, which was to have been loosened on the approach
of Constantine, unluckily broke down under the weight of the flying
Italians. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i. p. 576)
very seriously examines whether, in contradiction to common sense, the
testimony of Eusebius and Zosimus ought to prevail over the silence of
Lactantius, Nazarius, and the anonymous, but contemporary orator, who
composed the ninth Panegyric. * Note: Manso (Beylage, vi.) examines the
question, and adduces two manifest allusions to the bridge, from the
Life of Constantine by Praxagoras, and from Libanius. Is it not very
probable that such a bridge was thrown over the river to facilitate the
advance, and to secure the retreat, of the army of Maxentius? In case of
defeat, orders were given for destroying it, in order to check the
pursuit: it broke down accidentally, or in the confusion was destroyed,
as has not unfrequently been the case, before the proper time.--M.]

[Footnote 70: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 86-88, and the two Panegyrics, the
former of which was pronounced a few months afterwards, afford the
clearest notion of this great battle. Lactantius, Eusebius, and even the
Epitomes, supply several useful hints.]

In the use of victory, Constantine neither deserved the praise of
clemency, nor incurred the censure of immoderate rigor. [71] He inflicted
the same treatment to which a defeat would have exposed his own person
and family, put to death the two sons of the tyrant, and carefully
extirpated his whole race. The most distinguished adherents of Maxentius
must have expected to share his fate, as they had shared his prosperity
and his crimes; but when the Roman people loudly demanded a greater
number of victims, the conqueror resisted with firmness and humanity,
those servile clamors, which were dictated by flattery as well as by
resentment. Informers were punished and discouraged; the innocent,
who had suffered under the late tyranny, were recalled from exile, and
restored to their estates. A general act of oblivion quieted the minds
and settled the property of the people, both in Italy and in Africa. [72]
The first time that Constantine honored the senate with his presence, he
recapitulated his own services and exploits in a modest oration,
assured that illustrious order of his sincere regard, and promised to
reestablish its ancient dignity and privileges. The grateful senate
repaid these unmeaning professions by the empty titles of honor, which
it was yet in their power to bestow; and without presuming to ratify the
authority of Constantine, they passed a decree to assign him the first
rank among the three Augusti who governed the Roman world. [73] Games
and festivals were instituted to preserve the fame of his victory, and
several edifices, raised at the expense of Maxentius, were dedicated
to the honor of his successful rival. The triumphal arch of Constantine
still remains a melancholy proof of the decline of the arts, and a
singular testimony of the meanest vanity. As it was not possible to find
in the capital of the empire a sculptor who was capable of adorning that
public monument, the arch of Trajan, without any respect either for his
memory or for the rules of propriety, was stripped of its most elegant
figures. The difference of times and persons, of actions and characters,
was totally disregarded. The Parthian captives appear prostrate at the
feet of a prince who never carried his arms beyond the Euphrates;
and curious antiquarians can still discover the head of Trajan on the
trophies of Constantine. The new ornaments which it was necessary to
introduce between the vacancies of ancient sculpture are executed in the
rudest and most unskillful manner. [74]

[Footnote 71: Zosimus, the enemy of Constantine, allows (l. ii. p. 88)
that only a few of the friends of Maxentius were put to death; but we
may remark the expressive passage of Nazarius, (Panegyr. Vet. x. 6.)
Omnibus qui labefactari statum ejus poterant cum stirpe deletis. The
other orator (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 20, 21) contents himself with observing,
that Constantine, when he entered Rome, did not imitate the cruel
massacres of Cinna, of Marius, or of Sylla. * Note: This may refer to
the son or sons of Maxentius.--M.]

[Footnote 72: See the two Panegyrics, and the laws of this and the
ensuing year, in the Theodosian Code.]

[Footnote 73: Panegyr. Vet. ix. 20. Lactantius de M. P. c. 44. Maximin,
who was confessedly the eldest Caesar, claimed, with some show of
reason, the first rank among the Augusti.]

[Footnote 74: Adhuc cuncta opera quae magnifice construxerat, urbis
fanum atque basilicam, Flavii meritis patres sacravere. Aurelius Victor.
With regard to the theft of Trajan's trophies, consult Flaminius Vacca,
apud Montfaucon, Diarium Italicum, p. 250, and l'Antiquite Expliquee of
the latter, tom. iv. p. 171.]

The final abolition of the Praetorian guards was a measure of prudence
as well as of revenge. Those haughty troops, whose numbers and
privileges had been restored, and even augmented, by Maxentius, were
forever suppressed by Constantine. Their fortified camp was destroyed,
and the few Praetorians who had escaped the fury of the sword were
dispersed among the legions, and banished to the frontiers of the
empire, where they might be serviceable without again becoming
dangerous. [75] By suppressing the troops which were usually stationed in
Rome, Constantine gave the fatal blow to the dignity of the senate and
people, and the disarmed capital was exposed without protection to the
insults or neglect of its distant master. We may observe, that in this
last effort to preserve their expiring freedom, the Romans, from the
apprehension of a tribute, had raised Maxentius to the throne. He
exacted that tribute from the senate under the name of a free gift. They
implored the assistance of Constantine. He vanquished the tyrant, and
converted the free gift into a perpetual tax. The senators, according to
the declaration which was required of their property, were divided into
several classes. The most opulent paid annually eight pounds of gold,
the next class paid four, the last two, and those whose poverty might
have claimed an exemption, were assessed, however, at seven pieces
of gold. Besides the regular members of the senate, their sons, their
descendants, and even their relations, enjoyed the vain privileges, and
supported the heavy burdens, of the senatorial order; nor will it any
longer excite our surprise, that Constantine should be attentive to
increase the number of persons who were included under so useful a
description. [76] After the defeat of Maxentius, the victorious emperor
passed no more than two or three months in Rome, which he visited twice
during the remainder of his life, to celebrate the solemn festivals
of the tenth and of the twentieth years of his reign. Constantine was
almost perpetually in motion, to exercise the legions, or to inspect the
state of the provinces. Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Sirmium, Naissus,
and Thessalonica, were the occasional places of his residence, till he
founded a new Rome on the confines of Europe and Asia. [77]

[Footnote 75: Praetoriae legiones ac subsidia factionibus aptiora quam
urbi Romae, sublata penitus; simul arma atque usus indumenti militaris
Aurelius Victor. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) mentions this fact as an
historian, and it is very pompously celebrated in the ninth Panegyric.]

[Footnote 76: Ex omnibus provinciis optimates viros Curiae tuae
pigneraveris ut Senatus dignitas.... ex totius Orbis flore consisteret.
Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet x. 35. The word pigneraveris might almost seem
maliciously chosen. Concerning the senatorial tax, see Zosimus, l. ii.
p. 115, the second title of the sixth book of the Theodosian Code, with
Godefroy's Commentary, and Memoires de l'Academic des Inscriptions, tom.
xxviii. p. 726.]

[Footnote 77: From the Theodosian Code, we may now begin to trace the
motions of the emperors; but the dates both of time and place have
frequently been altered by the carelessness of transcribers.]

Before Constantine marched into Italy, he had secured the friendship,
or at least the neutrality, of Licinius, the Illyrian emperor. He had
promised his sister Constantia in marriage to that prince; but the
celebration of the nuptials was deferred till after the conclusion
of the war, and the interview of the two emperors at Milan, which
was appointed for that purpose, appeared to cement the union of their
families and interests. [78] In the midst of the public festivity they
were suddenly obliged to take leave of each other. An inroad of the
Franks summoned Constantine to the Rhime, and the hostile approach
of the sovereign of Asia demanded the immediate presence of Licinius.
Maximin had been the secret ally of Maxentius, and without being
discouraged by his fate, he resolved to try the fortune of a civil war.
He moved out of Syria, towards the frontiers of Bithynia, in the depth
of winter. The season was severe and tempestuous; great numbers of men
as well as horses perished in the snow; and as the roads were broken up
by incessant rains, he was obliged to leave behind him a considerable
part of the heavy baggage, which was unable to follow the rapidity
of his forced marches. By this extraordinary effort of diligence,
he arrived with a harassed but formidable army, on the banks of the
Thracian Bosphorus before the lieutenants of Licinius were apprised of
his hostile intentions. Byzantium surrendered to the power of Maximin,
after a siege of eleven days. He was detained some days under the walls
of Heraclea; and he had no sooner taken possession of that city, than he
was alarmed by the intelligence, that Licinius had pitched his camp at
the distance of only eighteen miles. After a fruitless negotiation, in
which the two princes attempted to seduce the fidelity of each other's
adherents, they had recourse to arms. The emperor of the East commanded
a disciplined and veteran army of above seventy thousand men; and
Licinius, who had collected about thirty thousand Illyrians, was at
first oppressed by the superiority of numbers. His military skill, and
the firmness of his troops, restored the day, and obtained a decisive
victory. The incredible speed which Maximin exerted in his flight is
much more celebrated than his prowess in the battle. Twenty-four hours
afterwards he was seen, pale, trembling, and without his Imperial
ornaments, at Nicomedia, one hundred and sixty miles from the place
of his defeat. The wealth of Asia was yet unexhausted; and though the
flower of his veterans had fallen in the late action, he had still
power, if he could obtain time, to draw very numerous levies from Syria
and Egypt. But he survived his misfortune only three or four months. His
death, which happened at Tarsus, was variously ascribed to despair, to
poison, and to the divine justice. As Maximin was alike destitute of
abilities and of virtue, he was lamented neither by the people nor by
the soldiers. The provinces of the East, delivered from the terrors of
civil war, cheerfully acknowledged the authority of Licinius. [79]

[Footnote 78: Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) observes, that before the war the
sister of Constantine had been betrothed to Licinius. According to
the younger Victor, Diocletian was invited to the nuptials; but having
ventured to plead his age and infirmities, he received a second letter,
filled with reproaches for his supposed partiality to the cause of
Maxentius and Maximin.]

[Footnote 79: Zosimus mentions the defeat and death of Maximin as
ordinary events; but Lactantius expatiates on them, (de M. P. c. 45-50,)
ascribing them to the miraculous interposition of Heaven. Licinius at
that time was one of the protectors of the church.]

The vanquished emperor left behind him two children, a boy of about
eight, and a girl of about seven, years old. Their inoffensive age
might have excited compassion; but the compassion of Licinius was a very
feeble resource, nor did it restrain him from extinguishing the name
and memory of his adversary. The death of Severianus will admit of
less excuse, as it was dictated neither by revenge nor by policy. The
conqueror had never received any injury from the father of that unhappy
youth, and the short and obscure reign of Severus, in a distant part of
the empire, was already forgotten. But the execution of Candidianus was
an act of the blackest cruelty and ingratitude. He was the natural son
of Galerius, the friend and benefactor of Licinius. The prudent father
had judged him too young to sustain the weight of a diadem; but he hoped
that, under the protection of princes who were indebted to his favor for
the Imperial purple, Candidianus might pass a secure and honorable life.
He was now advancing towards the twentieth year of his age, and the
royalty of his birth, though unsupported either by merit or ambition,
was sufficient to exasperate the jealous mind of Licinius. [80] To these
innocent and illustrious victims of his tyranny, we must add the wife
and daughter of the emperor Diocletian. When that prince conferred on
Galerius the title of Caesar, he had given him in marriage his daughter
Valeria, whose melancholy adventures might furnish a very singular
subject for tragedy. She had fulfilled and even surpassed the duties of
a wife. As she had not any children herself, she condescended to adopt
the illegitimate son of her husband, and invariably displayed towards
the unhappy Candidianus the tenderness and anxiety of a real mother.
After the death of Galerius, her ample possessions provoked the avarice,
and her personal attractions excited the desires, of his successor,
Maximin. [81] He had a wife still alive; but divorce was permitted by the
Roman law, and the fierce passions of the tyrant demanded an immediate
gratification. The answer of Valeria was such as became the daughter
and widow of emperors; but it was tempered by the prudence which her
defenceless condition compelled her to observe. She represented to the
persons whom Maximin had employed on this occasion, "that even if honor
could permit a woman of her character and dignity to entertain a thought
of second nuptials, decency at least must forbid her to listen to his
addresses at a time when the ashes of her husband, and his benefactor
were still warm, and while the sorrows of her mind were still expressed
by her mourning garments. She ventured to declare, that she could
place very little confidence in the professions of a man whose cruel
inconstancy was capable of repudiating a faithful and affectionate
wife." [82] On this repulse, the love of Maximin was converted into fury;
and as witnesses and judges were always at his disposal, it was easy for
him to cover his fury with an appearance of legal proceedings, and to
assault the reputation as well as the happiness of Valeria. Her estates
were confiscated, her eunuchs and domestics devoted to the most inhuman
tortures; and several innocent and respectable matrons, who were honored
with her friendship, suffered death, on a false accusation of adultery.
The empress herself, together with her mother Prisca, was condemned to
exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried from place to place before
they were confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of Syria,
they exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of the East,
which, during thirty years, had respected their august dignity.
Diocletian made several ineffectual efforts to alleviate the misfortunes
of his daughter; and, as the last return that he expected for the
Imperial purple, which he had conferred upon Maximin, he entreated that
Valeria might be permitted to share his retirement of Salona, and to
close the eyes of her afflicted father. [83] He entreated; but as he
could no longer threaten, his prayers were received with coldness and
disdain; and the pride of Maximin was gratified, in treating Diocletian
as a suppliant, and his daughter as a criminal. The death of Maximin
seemed to assure the empresses of a favorable alteration in their
fortune. The public disorders relaxed the vigilance of their guard, and
they easily found means to escape from the place of their exile, and to
repair, though with some precaution, and in disguise, to the court
of Licinius. His behavior, in the first days of his reign, and the
honorable reception which he gave to young Candidianus, inspired Valeria
with a secret satisfaction, both on her own account and on that of her
adopted son. But these grateful prospects were soon succeeded by horror
and astonishment; and the bloody executions which stained the palace
of Nicomedia sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was
filled by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her
safety by a hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother Prisca,
they wandered above fifteen months [84] through the provinces, concealed
in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at length discovered at
Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death was already pronounced,
they were immediately beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea.
The people gazed on the melancholy spectacle; but their grief and
indignation were suppressed by the terrors of a military guard. Such
was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament
their misfortunes, we cannot discover their crimes; and whatever idea we
may justly entertain of the cruelty of Licinius, it remains a matter
of surprise that he was not contented with some more secret and decent
method of revenge. [85]

[Footnote 80: Lactantius de M. P. c. 50. Aurelius Victor touches on
the different conduct of Licinius, and of Constantine, in the use of
victory.]

[Footnote 81: The sensual appetites of Maximin were gratified at the
expense of his subjects. His eunuchs, who forced away wives and virgins,
examined their naked charms with anxious curiosity, lest any part of
their body should be found unworthy of the royal embraces. Coyness and
disdain were considered as treason, and the obstinate fair one was
condemned to be drowned. A custom was gradually introduced, that no
person should marry a wife without the permission of the emperor, "ut
ipse in omnibus nuptiis praegustator esset." Lactantius de M. P. c. 38.]

[Footnote 82: Lactantius de M. P. c. 39.]

[Footnote 83: Diocletian at last sent cognatum suum, quendam militarem
ae potentem virum, to intercede in favor of his daughter, (Lactantius
de M. P. c. 41.) We are not sufficiently acquainted with the history of
these times to point out the person who was employed.]

[Footnote 84: Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim mensibus
plebeio cultu pervagata. Lactantius de M. P. c. 51. There is some doubt
whether we should compute the fifteen months from the moment of her
exile, or from that of her escape. The expression of parvagata seems to
denote the latter; but in that case we must suppose that the treatise
of Lactantius was written after the first civil war between Licinius and
Constantine. See Cuper, p. 254.]

[Footnote 85: Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit. Lactantius
de M. P. c. 51. He relates the misfortunes of the innocent wife
and daughter of Discletian with a very natural mixture of pity and
exultation.]

The Roman world was now divided between Constantine and Licinius, the
former of whom was master of the West, and the latter of the East. It
might perhaps have been expected that the conquerors, fatigued with
civil war, and connected by a private as well as public alliance, would
have renounced, or at least would have suspended, any further designs of
ambition. And yet a year had scarcely elapsed after the death of
Maximin, before the victorious emperors turned their arms against each
other. The genius, the success, and the aspiring temper of Constantine,
may seem to mark him out as the aggressor; but the perfidious character
of Licinius justifies the most unfavorable suspicions, and by the faint
light which history reflects on this transaction, [86] we may discover a
conspiracy fomented by his arts against the authority of his colleague.
Constantine had lately given his sister Anastasia in marriage to
Bassianus, a man of a considerable family and fortune, and had elevated
his new kinsman to the rank of Caesar. According to the system of
government instituted by Diocletian, Italy, and perhaps Africa, were
designed for his department in the empire. But the performance of the
promised favor was either attended with so much delay, or accompanied
with so many unequal conditions, that the fidelity of Bassianus was
alienated rather than secured by the honorable distinction which he had
obtained. His nomination had been ratified by the consent of Licinius;
and that artful prince, by the means of his emissaries, soon contrived
to enter into a secret and dangerous correspondence with the new Caesar,
to irritate his discontents, and to urge him to the rash enterprise of
extorting by violence what he might in vain solicit from the justice of
Constantine. But the vigilant emperor discovered the conspiracy before
it was ripe for execution; and after solemnly renouncing the alliance of
Bassianus, despoiled him of the purple, and inflicted the deserved
punishment on his treason and ingratitude. The haughty refusal of
Licinius, when he was required to deliver up the criminals who had taken
refuge in his dominions, confirmed the suspicions already entertained of
his perfidy; and the indignities offered at Aemona, on the frontiers of
Italy, to the statues of Constantine, became the signal of discord
between the two princes. [87]

[Footnote 86: The curious reader, who consults the Valesian fragment, p.
713, will probably accuse me of giving a bold and licentious paraphrase;
but if he considers it with attention, he will acknowledge that my
interpretation is probable and consistent.]

[Footnote 87: The situation of Aemona, or, as it is now called, Laybach,
in Carniola, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 187,) may
suggest a conjecture. As it lay to the north-east of the Julian Alps,
that important territory became a natural object of dispute between the
sovereigns of Italy and of Illyricum.]

The first battle was fought near Cibalis, a city of Pannonia, situated
on the River Save, about fifty miles above Sirmium. [88] From the
inconsiderable forces which in this important contest two such powerful
monarchs brought into the field, it may be inferred that the one was
suddenly provoked, and that the other was unexpectedly surprised. The
emperor of the West had only twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the
East no more than five and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority
of number was, however, compensated by the advantage of the ground.
Constantine had taken post in a defile about half a mile in breadth,
between a steep hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he
steadily expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued
his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions of
Illyricum rallied under the standard of a leader who had been trained to
arms in the school of Probus and Diocletian. The missile weapons on both
sides were soon exhausted; the two armies, with equal valor, rushed to
a closer engagement of swords and spears, and the doubtful contest had
already lasted from the dawn of the day to a late hour of the evening,
when the right wing, which Constantine led in person, made a vigorous
and decisive charge. The judicious retreat of Licinius saved the
remainder of his troops from a total defeat; but when he computed his
loss, which amounted to more than twenty thousand men, he thought it
unsafe to pass the night in the presence of an active and victorious
enemy. Abandoning his camp and magazines, he marched away with secrecy
and diligence at the head of the greatest part of his cavalry, and was
soon removed beyond the danger of a pursuit. His diligence preserved
his wife, his son, and his treasures, which he had deposited at Sirmium.
Licinius passed through that city, and breaking down the bridge on the
Save, hastened to collect a new army in Dacia and Thrace. In his flight
he bestowed the precarious title of Caesar on Valens, his general of the
Illyrian frontier. [89]

[Footnote 88: Cibalis or Cibalae (whose name is still preserved in the
obscure ruins of Swilei) was situated about fifty miles from Sirmium,
the capital of Illyricum, and about one hundred from Taurunum, or
Belgrade, and the conflux of the Danube and the Save. The Roman
garrisons and cities on those rivers are finely illustrated by M.
d'Anville in a memoir inserted in l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
xxviii.]

[Footnote 89: Zosimus (l. ii. p. 90, 91) gives a very particular account
of this battle; but the descriptions of Zosimus are rhetorical rather
than military]




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

The plain of Mardia in Thrace was the theatre of a second battle no less
obstinate and bloody than the former. The troops on both sides displayed
the same valor and discipline; and the victory was once more decided
by the superior abilities of Constantine, who directed a body of five
thousand men to gain an advantageous height, from whence, during the
heat of the action, they attacked the rear of the enemy, and made a very
considerable slaughter. The troops of Licinius, however, presenting a
double front, still maintained their ground, till the approach of
night put an end to the combat, and secured their retreat towards the
mountains of Macedonia. [90] The loss of two battles, and of his bravest
veterans, reduced the fierce spirit of Licinius to sue for peace. His
ambassador Mistrianus was admitted to the audience of Constantine: he
expatiated on the common topics of moderation and humanity, which are
so familiar to the eloquence of the vanquished; represented in the most
insinuating language, that the event of the war was still doubtful,
whilst its inevitable calamities were alike pernicious to both the
contending parties; and declared that he was authorized to propose a
lasting and honorable peace in the name of the two emperors his
masters. Constantine received the mention of Valens with indignation and
contempt. "It was not for such a purpose," he sternly replied, "that we
have advanced from the shores of the western ocean in an uninterrupted
course of combats and victories, that, after rejecting an ungrateful
kinsman, we should accept for our colleague a contemptible slave. The
abdication of Valens is the first article of the treaty." [91] It was
necessary to accept this humiliating condition; and the unhappy Valens,
after a reign of a few days, was deprived of the purple and of his life.
As soon as this obstacle was removed, the tranquillity of the Roman
world was easily restored. The successive defeats of Licinius had
ruined his forces, but they had displayed his courage and abilities. His
situation was almost desperate, but the efforts of despair are sometimes
formidable, and the good sense of Constantine preferred a great and
certain advantage to a third trial of the chance of arms. He consented
to leave his rival, or, as he again styled Licinius, his friend and
brother, in the possession of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; but
the provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, were
yielded to the Western empire, and the dominions of Constantine
now extended from the confines of Caledonia to the extremity of
Peloponnesus. It was stipulated by the same treaty, that three royal
youths, the sons of emperors, should be called to the hopes of the
succession. Crispus and the young Constantine were soon afterwards
declared Caesars in the West, while the younger Licinius was invested
with the same dignity in the East. In this double proportion of honors,
the conqueror asserted the superiority of his arms and power. [92]

[Footnote 90: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 92, 93. Anonym. Valesian. p. 713. The
Epitomes furnish some circumstances; but they frequently confound the
two wars between Licinius and Constantine.]

[Footnote 91: Petrus Patricius in Excerpt. Legat. p. 27. If it should be
thought that signifies more properly a son-in-law, we might conjecture
that Constantine, assuming the name as well as the duties of a father,
had adopted his younger brothers and sisters, the children of Theodora.
But in the best authors sometimes signifies a husband, sometimes
a father-in-law, and sometimes a kinsman in general. See Spanheim,
Observat. ad Julian. Orat. i. p. 72.]

[Footnote 92: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. Anonym. Valesian. p. 713.
Eutropius, x. v. Aurelius Victor, Euseb. in Chron. Sozomen, l. i. c. 2.
Four of these writers affirm that the promotion of the Caesars was
an article of the treaty. It is, however, certain, that the younger
Constantine and Licinius were not yet born; and it is highly probable
that the promotion was made the 1st of March, A. D. 317. The treaty
had probably stipulated that the two Caesars might be created by the
western, and one only by the eastern emperor; but each of them reserved
to himself the choice of the persons.]

The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, though it was imbittered
by resentment and jealousy, by the remembrance of recent injuries, and
by the apprehension of future dangers, maintained, however, above eight
years, the tranquility of the Roman world. As a very regular series of
the Imperial laws commences about this period, it would not be difficult
to transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of
Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are intimately
connected with the new system of policy and religion, which was not
perfectly established till the last and peaceful years of his reign.
There are many of his laws, which, as far as they concern the rights and
property of individuals, and the practice of the bar, are more properly
referred to the private than to the public jurisprudence of the empire;
and he published many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that
they would ill deserve the notice of a general history. Two laws,
however, may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the
other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable benevolence,
the latter for its excessive severity. 1. The horrid practice, so
familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering their new-born
infants, was become every day more frequent in the provinces, and
especially in Italy. It was the effect of distress; and the distress was
principally occasioned by the intolerant burden of taxes, and by the
vexatious as well as cruel prosecutions of the officers of the revenue
against their insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious
part of mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed
it an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the
impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to
support. The humanity of Constantine; moved, perhaps, by some recent and
extraordinary instances of despair,  engaged him to address an edict
to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of Africa, directing
immediate and sufficient relief to be given to those parents who should
produce before the magistrates the children whom their own poverty would
not allow them to educate. But the promise was too liberal, and the
provision too vague, to effect any general or permanent benefit. [93]
The law, though it may merit some praise, served rather to display than
to alleviate the public distress. It still remains an authentic monument
to contradict and confound those venal orators, who were too well
satisfied with their own situation to discover either vice or misery
under the government of a generous sovereign. [94] 2. The laws of
Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for
the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since the description of
that crime was applied not only to the brutal violence which compelled,
but even to the gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried
woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents.
"The successful ravisher was punished with death;" and as if simple death
was inadequate to the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive,
or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin's
declaration, that she had been carried away with her own consent,
instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The duty of
a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the guilty or
unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature prevailed on them to
dissemble the injury, and to repair by a subsequent marriage the honor
of their family, they were themselves punished by exile and
confiscation. The slaves, whether male or female, who were convicted of
having been accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to
death by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity
of melted lead. As the crime was of a public kind, the accusation was
permitted even to strangers.[9401]

[Footnote 9401: This explanation appears to me little probable. Godefroy
has made a much more happy conjecture, supported by all the historical
circumstances which relate to this edict. It was published the 12th of
May, A. D. 315. at Naissus in Pannonia, the birthplace of Constantine.
The 8th of October, in that year, Constantine gained the victory of
Cibalis over Licinius. He was yet uncertain as to the fate of the war:
the Christians, no doubt, whom he favored, had prophesied his victory.
Lactantius, then preceptor of Crispus, had just written his work upon
Christianity, (his Divine Institutes;) he had dedicated it to
Constantine. In this book he had inveighed with great force against
infanticide, and the exposure of infants, (l. vi. c. 20.) Is it not
probable that Constantine had read this work, that he had conversed on
the subject with Lactantius, that he was moved, among other things, by
the passage to which I have referred, and in the first transport of his
enthusiasm, he published the edict in question? The whole of the edict
bears the character of precipitation, of excitement, (entrainement,)
rather than of deliberate reflection--the extent of the promises, the
indefiniteness of the means, of the conditions, and of the time during
which the parents might have a right to the succor of the state. Is
there not reason to believe that the humanity of Constantine was excited
by the influence of Lactantius, by that of the principles of
Christianity, and of the Christians themselves, already in high esteem
with the emperor, rather than by some "extraordinary instances of
despair"? * * * See Hegewisch, Essai Hist. sur les Finances Romaines.
The edict for Africa was not published till 322: of that we may say in
truth that its origin was in the misery of the times. Africa had
suffered much from the cruelty of Maxentius. Constantine says expressly,
that he had learned that parents, under the pressure of distress, were
there selling their children. This decree is more distinct, more
maturely deliberated than the former; the succor which was to be given
to the parents, and the source from which it was to be derived, are
determined. (Code Theod. l. xi. tit. 27, c 2.) If the direct utility of
these laws may not have been very extensive, they had at least the great
and happy effect of establishing a decisive opposition between the
principles of the government and those which, at this time, had
prevailed among the subjects of the empire.--G.]

The commencement of the action was not limited to any term of years, and
the consequences of the sentence were extended to the innocent offspring
of such an irregular union. [95] But whenever the offence inspires less
horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give
way to the common feelings of mankind. The most odious parts of this
edict were softened or repealed in the subsequent reigns; [96] and even
Constantine himself very frequently alleviated, by partial acts of
mercy, the stern temper of his general institutions. Such, indeed, was
the singular humor of that emperor, who showed himself as indulgent, and
even remiss, in the execution of his laws, as he was severe, and even
cruel, in the enacting of them. It is scarcely possible to observe
a more decisive symptom of weakness, either in the character of the
prince, or in the constitution of the government. [97]

[Footnote 93: Codex Theodosian. l. xi. tit. 27, tom. iv. p. 188, with
Godefroy's observations. See likewise l. v. tit. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 94: Omnia foris placita, domi prospera, annonae ubertate,
fructuum copia, &c. Panegyr. Vet. x. 38. This oration of Nazarius was
pronounced on the day of the Quinquennalia of the Caesars, the 1st of
March, A. D. 321.]

[Footnote 95: See the edict of Constantine, addressed
to the Roman people, in the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 24, tom. iii.
p. 189.]

[Footnote 96: His son very fairly assigns the true reason of the repeal:
"Na sub specie atrocioris judicii aliqua in ulciscendo crimine dilatio
nae ceretur." Cod. Theod. tom. iii. p. 193]

[Footnote 97: Eusebius (in Vita Constant. l. iii. c. 1) chooses to
affirm, that in the reign of this hero, the sword of justice hung idle
in the hands of the magistrates. Eusebius himself, (l. iv. c. 29, 54,)
and the Theodosian Code, will inform us that this excessive lenity was
not owing to the want either of atrocious criminals or of penal laws.]

The civil administration was sometimes interrupted by the military
defence of the empire. Crispus, a youth of the most amiable character,
who had received with the title of Caesar the command of the Rhine,
distinguished his conduct, as well as valor, in several victories over
the Franks and Alemanni, and taught the barbarians of that frontier to
dread the eldest son of Constantine, and the grandson of Constantius.
[98] The emperor himself had assumed the more difficult and important
province of the Danube. The Goths, who in the time of Claudius and
Aurelian had felt the weight of the Roman arms, respected the power
of the empire, even in the midst of its intestine divisions. But the
strength of that warlike nation was now restored by a peace of near
fifty years; a new generation had arisen, who no longer remembered the
misfortunes of ancient days; the Sarmatians of the Lake Maeotis followed
the Gothic standard either as subjects or as allies, and their united
force was poured upon the countries of Illyricum. Campona, Margus, and
Benonia, [981] appear to have been the scenes of several memorable sieges
and battles; [99] and though Constantine encountered a very obstinate
resistance, he prevailed at length in the contest, and the Goths were
compelled to purchased an ignominious retreat, by restoring the booty
and prisoners which they had taken. Nor was this advantage sufficient to
satisfy the indignation of the emperor. He resolved to chastise as
well as to repulse the insolent barbarians who had dared to invade the
territories of Rome. At the head of his legions he passed the Danube
after repairing the bridge which had been constructed by Trajan,
penetrated into the strongest recesses of Dacia, [100] and when he had
inflicted a severe revenge, condescended to give peace to the suppliant
Goths, on condition that, as often as they were required, they should
supply his armies with a body of forty thousand soldiers. [101] Exploits
like these were no doubt honorable to Constantine, and beneficial to
the state; but it may surely be questioned, whether they can justify
the exaggerated assertion of Eusebius, that All Scythia, as far as the
extremity of the North, divided as it was into so many names and nations
of the most various and savage manners, had been added by his victorious
arms to the Roman empire. [102]

[Footnote 98: Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet. x. The victory of Crispus over
the Alemanni is expressed on some medals. * Note: Other medals are
extant, the legends of which commemorate the success of Constantine over
the Sarmatians and other barbarous nations, Sarmatia Devicta. Victoria
Gothica. Debellatori Gentium Barbarorum. Exuperator Omnium Gentium. St.
Martin, note on Le Beau, i. 148.--M.]

[Footnote 981]: Campona, Old Buda in Hungary; Margus, Benonia, Widdin, in
Maesia--G and M.]

[Footnote 99: See Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93, 94; though the narrative
of that historian is neither clear nor consistent. The Panegyric of
Optatianus (c. 23) mentions the alliance of the Sarmatians with the
Carpi and Getae, and points out the several fields of battle. It is
supposed that the Sarmatian games, celebrated in the month of November,
derived their origin from the success of this war.]

[Footnote 100: In the Caesars of Julian, (p. 329. Commentaire de
Spanheim, p. 252.) Constantine boasts, that he had recovered the
province (Dacia) which Trajan had subdued. But it is insinuated by
Silenus, that the conquests of Constantine were like the gardens of
Adonis, which fade and wither almost the moment they appear.]

[Footnote 101: Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 21. I know not whether we
may entirely depend on his authority. Such an alliance has a very recent
air, and scarcely is suited to the maxims of the beginning of the fourth
century.]

[Footnote 102: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 8. This
passage, however, is taken from a general declamation on the greatness
of Constantine, and not from any particular account of the Gothic war.]

In this exalted state of glory, it was impossible that Constantine
should any longer endure a partner in the empire. Confiding in the
superiority of his genius and military power, he determined, without any
previous injury, to exert them for the destruction of Licinius, whose
advanced age and unpopular vices seemed to offer a very easy conquest.
[103] But the old emperor, awakened by the approaching danger, deceived
the expectations of his friends, as well as of his enemies. Calling
forth that spirit and those abilities by which he had deserved the
friendship of Galerius and the Imperial purple, he prepared himself
for the contest, collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the
plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the Straits of the Hellespont
with his fleet. The army consisted of one hundred and fifty thousand
foot, and fifteen thousand horse; and as the cavalry was drawn, for the
most part, from Phrygia and Cappadocia, we may conceive a more favorable
opinion of the beauty of the horses, than of the courage and dexterity
of their riders. The fleet was composed of three hundred and fifty
galleys of three ranks of oars. A hundred and thirty of these were
furnished by Egypt and the adjacent coast of Africa. A hundred and
ten sailed from the ports of Phoenicia and the Isle of Cyprus; and the
maritime countries of Bithynia, Ionia, and Caria, were likewise obliged
to provide a hundred and ten galleys. The troops of Constantine were
ordered to a rendezvous at Thessalonica; they amounted to above a
hundred and twenty thousand horse and foot. [104] Their emperor was
satisfied with their martial appearance, and his army contained more
soldiers, though fewer men, than that of his eastern competitor. The
legions of Constantine were levied in the warlike provinces of Europe;
action had confirmed their discipline, victory had elevated their
hopes, and there were among them a great number of veterans, who, after
seventeen glorious campaigns under the same leader, prepared themselves
to deserve an honorable dismission by a last effort of their valor. [105]
But the naval preparations of Constantine were in every respect much
inferior to those of Licinius. The maritime cities of Greece sent their
respective quotas of men and ships to the celebrated harbor of Piraeus,
and their united forces consisted of no more than two hundred small
vessels--a very feeble armament, if it is compared with those formidable
fleets which were equipped and maintained by the republic of Athens
during the Peloponnesian war. [106] Since Italy was no longer the seat
of government, the naval establishments of Misenum and Ravenna had been
gradually neglected; and as the shipping and mariners of the empire
were supported by commerce rather than by war, it was natural that they
should the most abound in the industrious provinces of Egypt and Asia.
It is only surprising that the eastern emperor, who possessed so great a
superiority at sea, should have neglected the opportunity of carrying an
offensive war into the centre of his rival's dominions.

[Footnote 103: Constantinus tamen, vir ingens, et omnia efficere nitens
quae animo praeparasset, simul principatum totius urbis affectans,
Licinio bellum intulit. Eutropius, x. 5. Zosimus, l. ii. p 89. The
reasons which they have assigned for the first civil war, may, with more
propriety, be applied to the second.]

[Footnote 104: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 94, 95.]

[Footnote 105: Constantine was very attentive to the privileges and
comforts of his fellow-veterans, (Conveterani,) as he now began to style
them. See the Theodosian Code, l. vii. tit. 10, tom. ii. p. 419, 429.]

[Footnote 106: Whilst the Athenians maintained the empire of the sea,
their fleet consisted of three, and afterwards of four, hundred galleys
of three ranks of oars, all completely equipped and ready for immediate
service. The arsenal in the port of Piraeus had cost the republic a
thousand talents, about two hundred and sixteen thousand pounds. See
Thucydides de Bel. Pelopon. l. ii. c. 13, and Meursius de Fortuna
Attica, c. 19.]

Instead of embracing such an active resolution, which might have changed
the whole face of the war, the prudent Licinius expected the approach of
his rival in a camp near Hadrianople, which he had fortified with an
anxious care, that betrayed his apprehension of the event. Constantine
directed his march from Thessalonica towards that part of Thrace, till
he found himself stopped by the broad and rapid stream of the Hebrus,
and discovered the numerous army of Licinius, which filled the steep
ascent of the hill, from the river to the city of Hadrianople. Many days
were spent in doubtful and distant skirmishes; but at length the
obstacles of the passage and of the attack were removed by the intrepid
conduct of Constantine. In this place we might relate a wonderful
exploit of Constantine, which, though it can scarcely be paralleled
either in poetry or romance, is celebrated, not by a venal orator
devoted to his fortune, but by an historian, the partial enemy of his
fame. We are assured that the valiant emperor threw himself into the
River Hebrus, accompanied only by twelve horsemen, and that by the
effort or terror of his invincible arm, he broke, slaughtered, and put
to flight a host of a hundred and fifty thousand men. The credulity of
Zosimus prevailed so strongly over his passion, that among the events of
the memorable battle of Hadrianople, he seems to have selected and
embellished, not the most important, but the most marvellous. The valor
and danger of Constantine are attested by a slight wound which he
received in the thigh; but it may be discovered even from an imperfect
narration, and perhaps a corrupted text, that the victory was obtained
no less by the conduct of the general than by the courage of the hero;
that a body of five thousand archers marched round to occupy a thick
wood in the rear of the enemy, whose attention was diverted by the
construction of a bridge, and that Licinius, perplexed by so many artful
evolutions, was reluctantly drawn from his advantageous post to combat
on equal ground on the plain. The contest was no longer equal. His
confused multitude of new levies was easily vanquished by the
experienced veterans of the West. Thirty-four thousand men are reported
to have been slain. The fortified camp of Licinius was taken by assault
the evening of the battle; the greater part of the fugitives, who had
retired to the mountains, surrendered themselves the next day to the
discretion of the conqueror; and his rival, who could no longer keep the
field, confined himself within the walls of Byzantium. [107]

[Footnote 107: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 95, 96. This great battle is described
in the Valesian fragment, (p. 714,) in a clear though concise manner.
"Licinius vero circum Hadrianopolin maximo exercitu latera ardui montis
impleverat; illuc toto agmine Constantinus inflexit. Cum bellum
terra marique traheretur, quamvis per arduum suis nitentibus, attamen
disciplina militari et felicitate, Constantinus Licinu confusum et sine
ordine agentem vicit exercitum; leviter femore sau ciatus."]

The siege of Byzantium, which was immediately undertaken by Constantine,
was attended with great labor and uncertainty. In the late civil wars,
the fortifications of that place, so justly considered as the key of
Europe and Asia, had been repaired and strengthened; and as long as
Licinius remained master of the sea, the garrison was much less exposed
to the danger of famine than the army of the besiegers. The naval
commanders of Constantine were summoned to his camp, and received his
positive orders to force the passage of the Hellespont, as the fleet
of Licinius, instead of seeking and destroying their feeble enemy,
continued inactive in those narrow straits, where its superiority of
numbers was of little use or advantage. Crispus, the emperor's eldest
son, was intrusted with the execution of this daring enterprise, which
he performed with so much courage and success, that he deserved the
esteem, and most probably excited the jealousy, of his father. The
engagement lasted two days; and in the evening of the first, the
contending fleets, after a considerable and mutual loss, retired into
their respective harbors of Europe and Asia. The second day, about noon,
a strong south wind [108] sprang up, which carried the vessels of Crispus
against the enemy; and as the casual advantage was improved by his
skilful intrepidity, he soon obtained a complete victory. A hundred
and thirty vessels were destroyed, five thousand men were slain, and
Amandus, the admiral of the Asiatic fleet, escaped with the utmost
difficulty to the shores of Chalcedon. As soon as the Hellespont
was open, a plentiful convoy of provisions flowed into the camp of
Constantine, who had already advanced the operations of the siege.
He constructed artificial mounds of earth of an equal height with the
ramparts of Byzantium. The lofty towers which were erected on that
foundation galled the besieged with large stones and darts from the
military engines, and the battering rams had shaken the walls in several
places. If Licinius persisted much longer in the defence, he exposed
himself to be involved in the ruin of the place. Before he was
surrounded, he prudently removed his person and treasures to Chalcedon
in Asia; and as he was always desirous of associating companions to the
hopes and dangers of his fortune, he now bestowed the title of Caesar
on Martinianus, who exercised one of the most important offices of the
empire. [109]

[Footnote 108: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 97, 98. The current always sets out
of the Hellespont; and when it is assisted by a north wind, no vessel
can attempt the passage. A south wind renders the force of the current
almost imperceptible. See Tournefort's Voyage au Levant, Let. xi.]

[Footnote 109: Aurelius Victor. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. According to the
latter, Martinianus was Magister Officiorum, (he uses the Latin
appellation in Greek.) Some medals seem to intimate, that during his
short reign he received the title of Augustus.]

Such were still the resources, and such the abilities, of Licinius,
that, after so many successive defeats, he collected in Bithynia a new
army of fifty or sixty thousand men, while the activity of Constantine
was employed in the siege of Byzantium. The vigilant emperor did not,
however, neglect the last struggles of his antagonist. A considerable
part of his victorious army was transported over the Bosphorus in small
vessels, and the decisive engagement was fought soon after their landing
on the heights of Chrysopolis, or, as it is now called, of Scutari. The
troops of Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and
worse disciplined, made head against their conquerors with fruitless but
desperate valor, till a total defeat, and a slaughter of five and twenty
thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of their leader. [110]
He retired to Nicomedia, rather with the view of gaining some time for
negotiation, than with the hope of any effectual defence. Constantia,
his wife, and the sister of Constantine, interceded with her brother in
favor of her husband, and obtained from his policy, rather than from
his compassion, a solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that after the
sacrifice of Martinianus, and the resignation of the purple, Licinius
himself should be permitted to pass the remainder of this life in peace
and affluence. The behavior of Constantia, and her relation to the
contending parties, naturally recalls the remembrance of that virtuous
matron who was the sister of Augustus, and the wife of Antony. But the
temper of mankind was altered, and it was no longer esteemed infamous
for a Roman to survive his honor and independence. Licinius solicited
and accepted the pardon of his offences, laid himself and his purple
at the feet of his lord and master, was raised from the ground with
insulting pity, was admitted the same day to the Imperial banquet, and
soon afterwards was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen for
the place of his confinement. [111] His confinement was soon terminated
by death, and it is doubtful whether a tumult of the soldiers, or a
decree of the senate, was suggested as the motive for his execution.
According to the rules of tyranny, he was accused of forming a
conspiracy, and of holding a treasonable correspondence with the
barbarians; but as he was never convicted, either by his own conduct or
by any legal evidence, we may perhaps be allowed, from his weakness,
to presume his innocence. [112] The memory of Licinius was branded with
infamy, his statues were thrown down, and by a hasty edict, of such
mischievous tendency that it was almost immediately corrected, all
his laws, and all the judicial proceedings of his reign, were at once
abolished. [113] By this victory of Constantine, the Roman world was
again united under the authority of one emperor, thirty-seven years
after Diocletian had divided his power and provinces with his associate
Maximian.

[Footnote 110: Eusebius (in Vita Constantin. I. ii. c. 16, 17) ascribes
this decisive victory to the pious prayers of the emperor. The Valesian
fragment (p. 714) mentions a body of Gothic auxiliaries, under their
chief Aliquaca, who adhered to the party of Licinius.]

[Footnote 111: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. Victor Junior in Epitome.
Anonym. Valesian. p. 714.]

[Footnote 112: Contra religionem sacramenti Thessalonicae privatus
occisus est. Eutropius, x. 6; and his evidence is confirmed by Jerome
(in Chronic.) as well as by Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. The Valesian writer
is the only one who mentions the soldiers, and it is Zonaras alone who
calls in the assistance of the senate. Eusebius prudently slides over
this delicate transaction. But Sozomen, a century afterwards, ventures
to assert the treasonable practices of Licinius.]

[Footnote 113: See the Theodosian Code, l. xv. tit. 15, tom. v. p
404, 405. These edicts of Constantine betray a degree of passion and
precipitation very unbecoming the character of a lawgiver.]

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




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

     The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments,
     Manners, Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians.
     [101]

[Footnote 101: In spite of my resolution, Lardner led me to look through
the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Gibbon. I could not lay
them down without finishing them. The causes assigned, in the fifteenth
chapter, for the diffusion of Christianity, must, no doubt, have
contributed to it materially; but I doubt whether he saw them all.
Perhaps those which he enumerates are among the most obvious. They might
all be safely adopted by a Christian writer, with some change in the
language and manner. Mackintosh see Life, i. p. 244.--M.]

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

But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended with
two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious materials of
ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that
hangs over the first age of the church. The great law of impartiality
too often obliges us to reveal the imperfections of the uninspired
teachers and believers of the gospel; and, to a careless observer, their
faults may seem to cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But
the scandal of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the
Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only by whom, but
likewise to whom, the Divine Revelation was given. The theologian may
indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from
Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed
on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and
corruption, which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a
weak and degenerate race of beings. [102]

[Footnote 102: The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression
produced by these two memorable chapters, consists in confounding
together, in one undistinguishable mass, the origin and apostolic
propagation of the Christian religion with its later progress. The main
question, the divine origin of the religion, is dexterously eluded or
speciously conceded; his plan enables him to commence his account, in
most parts, below the apostolic times; and it is only by the strength
of the dark coloring with which he has brought out the failings and
the follies of succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion is
thrown back on the primitive period of Christianity. Divest this whole
passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the subsequent one of the
whole disquisition, and it might commence a Christian history, written
in the most Christian spirit of candor.--M.]

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

II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional
circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important
truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church. IV.
The pure and austere morals of the Christians.

V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually
formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman
empire.

[Footnote!: Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the
inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet as to the principle
from which it was derived, we are, toto coelo, divided in opinion. You
deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer it to a more adequate
and a more obvious source, a full persuasion of the truth of
Christianity. Watson. Letters Gibbon, i. 9.--M.]

I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient world,
and the facility [104] with which the most different and even hostile
nations embraced, or at least respected, each other's superstitions. A
single people refused to join in the common intercourse of mankind. The
Jews, who, under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had languished
for many ages the most despised portion of their slaves, [1] emerged from
obscurity under the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to
a surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they
soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. [2] The sullen
obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and unsocial
manners, seemed to mark them out as a distinct species of men, who
boldly professed, or who faintly disguised, their implacable habits to
the rest of human kind. [3] Neither the violence of Antiochus, nor the
arts of Herod, nor the example of the circumjacent nations, could
ever persuade the Jews to associate with the institutions of Moses the
elegant mythology of the Greeks. [4] According to the maxims of universal
toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. [5]
The polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should
be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem; [6] whilst
the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have paid the same
homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an object of
abhorrence to himself and to his brethren.

But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the
jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and scandalized
at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily introduced themselves into
a Roman province. [7] The mad attempt of Caligula to place his own statue
in the temple of Jerusalem was defeated by the unanimous resolution of a
people who dreaded death much less than such an idolatrous profanation.
[8] Their attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation
of foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was
contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and sometimes
with the fury, of a torrent.

[Footnote 102: This facility has not always prevented intolerance, which
seems inherent in the religious spirit, when armed with authority. The
separation of the ecclesiastical and civil power, appears to be the only
means of at once maintaining religion and tolerance: but this is a very
modern notion. The passions, which mingle themselves with opinions, made
the Pagans very often intolerant and persecutors; witness the Persians,
the Egyptians even the Greeks and Romans.

1st. The Persians.--Cambyses, conqueror of the Egyptians, condemned to
death the magistrates of Memphis, because they had offered divine honors
to their god. Apis: he caused the god to be brought before him, struck
him with his dagger, commanded the priests to be scourged, and ordered
a general massacre of all the Egyptians who should be found celebrating
the festival of the statues of the gods to be burnt. Not content with
this intolerance, he sent an army to reduce the Ammonians to slavery,
and to set on fire the temple in which Jupiter delivered his oracles.
See Herod. iii. 25--29, 37. Xerxes, during his invasion of Greece, acted
on the same principles: l c destroyed all the temples of Greece and
Ionia, except that of Ephesus. See Paus. l. vii. p. 533, and x. p. 887.

Strabo, l. xiv. b. 941. 2d. The Egyptians.--They thought themselves
defiled when they had drunk from the same cup or eaten at the same table
with a man of a different belief from their own. "He who has voluntarily
killed any sacred animal is punished with death; but if any one, even
involuntarily, has killed a cat or an ibis, he cannot escape the extreme
penalty: the people drag him away, treat him in the most cruel manner,
sometimes without waiting for a judicial sentence. * * * Even at the
time when King Ptolemy was not yet the acknowledged friend of the
Roman people, while the multitude were paying court with all possible
attention to the strangers who came from Italy * * a Roman having killed
a cat, the people rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties of the
nobles, whom the king sent to them, nor the terror of the Roman name,
were sufficiently powerful to rescue the man from punishment, though he
had committed the crime involuntarily." Diod. Sic. i 83. Juvenal, in his
13th Satire, describes the sanguinary conflict between the inhabitants
of Ombos and of Tentyra, from religious animosity. The fury was carried
so far, that the conquerors tore and devoured the quivering limbs of the
conquered.

Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra, summus utrinque Inde furor vulgo, quod
numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus; quum solos credat habendos Esse
Deos quos ipse colit. Sat. xv. v. 85.

3d. The Greeks.--"Let us not here," says the Abbe Guenee, "refer to the
cities of Peloponnesus and their severity against atheism; the Ephesians
prosecuting Heraclitus for impiety; the Greeks armed one against the
other by religious zeal, in the Amphictyonic war. Let us say nothing
either of the frightful cruelties inflicted by three successors of
Alexander upon the Jews, to force them to abandon their religion, nor
of Antiochus expelling the philosophers from his states. Let us not seek
our proofs of intolerance so far off. Athens, the polite and learned
Athens, will supply us with sufficient examples. Every citizen made
a public and solemn vow to conform to the religion of his country, to
defend it, and to cause it to be respected. An express law severely
punished all discourses against the gods, and a rigid decree ordered the
denunciation of all who should deny their existence. * * * The practice
was in unison with the severity of the law. The proceedings commenced
against Protagoras; a price set upon the head of Diagoras; the danger of
Alcibiades; Aristotle obliged to fly; Stilpo banished; Anaxagoras hardly
escaping death; Pericles himself, after all his services to his country,
and all the glory he had acquired, compelled to appear before the
tribunals and make his defence; * * a priestess executed for having
introduced strange gods; Socrates condemned and drinking the hemlock,
because he was accused of not recognizing those of his country, &c.;
these facts attest too loudly, to be called in question, the religious
intolerance of the most humane and enlightened people in Greece."
Lettres de quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 221. (Compare Bentley
on Freethinking, from which much of this is derived.)--M.

4th. The Romans.--The laws of Rome were not less express and severe. The
intolerance of foreign religions reaches, with the Romans, as high as
the laws of the twelve tables; the prohibitions were afterwards renewed
at different times. Intolerance did not discontinue under the emperors;
witness the counsel of Maecenas to Augustus. This counsel is so
remarkable, that I think it right to insert it entire. "Honor the gods
yourself," says Maecenas to Augustus, "in every way according to the
usage of your ancestors, and compel others to worship them. Hate and
punish those who introduce strange gods, not only for the sake of the
gods, (he who despises them will respect no one,) but because those who
introduce new gods engage a multitude of persons in foreign laws and
customs. From hence arise unions bound by oaths and confederacies, and
associations, things dangerous to a monarchy." Dion Cass. l. ii. c. 36.
(But, though some may differ from it, see Gibbon's just observation on
this passage in Dion Cassius, ch. xvi. note 117; impugned, indeed, by M.
Guizot, note in loc.)--M.

Even the laws which the philosophers of Athens and of Rome wrote for
their imaginary republics are intolerant. Plato does not leave to his
citizens freedom of religious worship; and Cicero expressly prohibits
them from having other gods than those of the state. Lettres de quelques
Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 226.--G.

According to M. Guizot's just remarks, religious intolerance will always
ally itself with the passions of man, however different those passions
may be. In the instances quoted above, with the Persians it was the
pride of despotism; to conquer the gods of a country was the last mark
of subjugation. With the Egyptians, it was the gross Fetichism of the
superstitious populace, and the local jealousy of neighboring towns. In
Greece, persecution was in general connected with political party;
in Rome, with the stern supremacy of the law and the interests of the
state. Gibbon has been mistaken in attributing to the tolerant spirit
of Paganism that which arose out of the peculiar circumstances of the
times. 1st. The decay of the old Polytheism, through the progress of
reason and intelligence, and the prevalence of philosophical opinions
among the higher orders.

2d. The Roman character, in which the political always predominated over
the religious party. The Romans were contented with having bowed the
world to a uniformity of subjection to their power, and cared not for
establishing the (to them) less important uniformity of religion.--M.

[Footnote 1: Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas Oriens fuit,
despectissima pars servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who
visited Asia whilst it obeyed the last of those empires, slightly
mentions the Syrians of Palestine, who, according to their own
confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See l. ii.
c. 104.]

[Footnote 2: Diodorus Siculus, l. xl. Dion Cassius, l. xxxvii. p. 121.
Tacit Hist. v. 1--9. Justin xxxvi. 2, 3.]

[Footnote 3: Tradidit arcano quaecunque volumine Moses, Non monstrare
vias cadem nisi sacra colenti, Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere
verpas. The letter of this law is not to be found in the present volume
of Moses. But the wise, the humane Maimonides openly teaches that if an
idolater fall into the water, a Jew ought not to save him from instant
death. See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. vi. c. 28. * Note: It is
diametrically opposed to its spirit and to its letter, see, among other
passages, Deut. v. 18. 19, (God) "loveth the stranger in giving him food
and raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger: for ye were strangers in
the land of Egypt." Comp. Lev. xxiii. 25. Juvenal is a satirist, whose
strong expressions can hardly be received as historic evidence; and he
wrote after the horrible cruelties of the Romans, which, during and
after the war, might give some cause for the complete isolation of the
Jew from the rest of the world. The Jew was a bigot, but his religion
was not the only source of his bigotry. After how many centuries of
mutual wrong and hatred, which had still further estranged the Jew from
mankind, did Maimonides write?--M.]

[Footnote 4: A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort
of occasional conformity, derived from Herod, by whose example and
authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But their
numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration so short, that
Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice. See Prideaux's
Connection, vol. ii. p. 285. * Note: The Herodians were probably more of
a political party than a religious sect, though Gibbon is most likely
right as to their occasional conformity. See Hist. of the Jews, ii.
108.--M.]

[Footnote 5: Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28. * Note: The edicts of Julius
Caesar, and of some of the cities in Asia Minor (Krebs. Decret. pro
Judaeis,) in favor of the nation in general, or of the Asiatic Jews,
speak a different language.--M.]

[Footnote 6: Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a
perpetual sacrifice. Yet he approved of the neglect which his grandson
Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See Sueton. in August.
c. 93, and Casaubon's notes on that passage.]

[Footnote 7: See, in particular, Joseph. Antiquitat. xvii. 6, xviii. 3;
and de Bell. Judiac. i. 33, and ii. 9, edit. Havercamp. * Note: This was
during the government of Pontius Pilate. (Hist. of Jews, ii. 156.)
Probably in part to avoid this collision, the Roman governor, in
general, resided at Caesarea.--M.]

[Footnote 8: Jussi a Caio Caesare, effigiem ejus in templo locare,
arma potius sumpsere. Tacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus gave a very
circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this transaction,
which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria. At the first mention
of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa fainted away; and did not
recover his senses until the third day. (Hist. of Jews, ii. 181, &c.)]


This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so ridiculous
to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character, since Providence
has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious history of the chosen people.
But the devout and even scrupulous attachment to the Mosaic religion,
so conspicuous among the Jews who lived under the second temple, becomes
still more surprising, if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity
of their forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount
Sinai, when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were
suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when temporal
rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences of their piety
or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into rebellion against the
visible majesty of their Divine King, placed the idols of the nations in
the sanctuary of Jehovah, and imitated every fantastic ceremony that was
practised in the tents of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phoenicia. [9]
As the protection of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful
race, their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity.

The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless
indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every
calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the Jews of a later
period from the universal contagion of idolatry; and in contradiction to
every known principle of the human mind, that singular people seems to
have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their
remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses. [10]

[Footnote 9: For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian deities, it
may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one hundred and thirty
very beautiful lines the two large and learned syntagmas which Selden
had composed on that abstruse subject.]

[Footnote 10: "How long will this people provoke me? and how long will
it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shown among
them?" (Numbers xiv. 11.) It would be easy, but it would be unbecoming,
to justify the complaint of the Deity from the whole tenor of the Mosaic
history. Note: Among a rude and barbarous people, religious impressions
are easily made, and are as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies
imaginary wonders, would weaken and destroy the effect of real miracle.
At the period of the Jewish history, referred to in the passage from
Numbers, their fears predominated over their faith,--the fears of an
unwarlike people, just rescued from debasing slavery, and commanded to
attack a fierce, a well-armed, a gigantic, and a far more numerous race,
the inhabitants of Canaan. As to the frequent apostasy of the Jews,
their religion was beyond their state of civilization. Nor is it
uncommon for a people to cling with passionate attachment to that of
which, at first, they could not appreciate the value. Patriotism and
national pride will contend, even to death, for political rights which
have been forced upon a reluctant people. The Christian may at
least retort, with justice, that the great sign of his religion, the
resurrection of Jesus, was most ardently believed, and most resolutely
asserted, by the eye witnesses of the fact.--M.]

The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was
never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the number of
proselytes was never much superior to that of apostates. The divine
promises were originally made, and the distinguishing rite of
circumcision was enjoined, to a single family. When the posterity of
Abraham had multiplied like the sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose
mouth they received a system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself
the proper and as it were the national God of Israel and with the most
jealous care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The
conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many wonderful
and with so many bloody circumstances, that the victorious Jews were
left in a state of irreconcilable hostility with all their neighbors.
They had been commanded to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes,
and the execution of the divine will had seldom been retarded by the
weakness of humanity.

With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any marriages or
alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them into the congregation,
which in some cases was perpetual, almost always extended to the third,
to the seventh, or even to the tenth generation. The obligation of
preaching to the Gentiles the faith of Moses had never been inculcated
as a precept of the law, nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on
themselves as a voluntary duty.

In the admission of new citizens, that unsocial people was actuated by
the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the generous policy of
Rome. The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion that
they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of
diminishing the value of their inheritance by sharing it too easily with
the strangers of the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended
their knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the
God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more indebted to
the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active zeal of his own
missionaries. [11] The religion of Moses seems to be instituted for
a particular country as well as for a single nation; and if a strict
obedience had been paid to the order, that every male, three times in
the year, should present himself before the Lord Jehovah, it would have
been impossible that the Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond
the narrow limits of the promised land. [12] That obstacle was indeed
removed by the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the
most considerable part of the Jewish religion was involved in its
destruction; and the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report
of an empty sanctuary, [13] were at a loss to discover what could be
the object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was
destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.

Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their lofty
and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the society of
strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor on those parts
of the law which it was in their power to practise. Their peculiar
distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though
burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion
for the other nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were
diametrically opposite. The painful and even dangerous rite of
circumcision was alone capable of repelling a willing proselyte from the
door of the synagogue. [14]

[Footnote 11: All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been very
ably by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 6, 7.]

[Footnote 12: See Exod. xxiv. 23, Deut. xvi. 16, the commentators, and a
very sensible note in the Universal History, vol. i. p. 603, edit.
fol.]

[Footnote 13: When Pompey, using or abusing the right of conquest,
entered into the Holy of Holies, it was observed with amazement, "Nulli
intus Deum effigie, vacuam sedem et inania arcana." Tacit. Hist. v. 9.
It was a popular saying, with regard to the Jews, "Nil praeter nubes et
coeli numen adorant."]

[Footnote 14: A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a Samaritan
or Egyptian proselyte. The sullen indifference of the Talmudists, with
respect to the conversion of strangers, may be seen in Basnage Histoire
des Juifs, l. xi. c. 6.]

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




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

The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue was a
work, however, of some time and of some difficulty. The Jewish converts,
who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the Messiah foretold by their
ancient oracles, respected him as a prophetic teacher of virtue and
religion; but they obstinately adhered to the ceremonies of their
ancestors, and were desirous of imposing them on the Gentiles,
who continually augmented the number of believers. These Judaizing
Christians seem to have argued with some degree of plausibility from the
divine origin of the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections
of its great Author. They affirmed, that if the Being, who is the same
through all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites which
had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them would
have been no less clear and solemn than their first promulgation: that,
instead of those frequent declarations, which either suppose or assert
the perpetuity of the Mosaic religion, it would have been represented
as a provisionary scheme intended to last only to the coming of the
Messiah, who should instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith
and of worship: [15] that the Messiah himself, and his disciples who
conversed with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the
most minute observances of the Mosaic law, [16] would have published
to the world the abolition of those useless and obsolete ceremonies,
without suffering Christianity to remain during so many years obscurely
confounded among the sects of the Jewish church. Arguments like these
appear to have been used in the defence of the expiring cause of the
Mosaic law; but the industry of our learned divines has abundantly
explained the ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous
conduct of the apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to unfold
the system of the gospel, and to pronounce, with the utmost caution and
tenderness, a sentence of condemnation so repugnant to the inclination
and prejudices of the believing Jews.

[Footnote 15: These arguments were urged with great ingenuity by the
Jew Orobio, and refuted with equal ingenuity and candor by the Christian
Limborch. See the Amica Collatio, (it well deserves that name,) or
account of the dispute between them.]

[Footnote 16: Jesus... circumcisus erat; cibis utebatur Judaicis;
vestitu simili; purgatos scabie mittebat ad sacerdotes; Paschata et
alios dies festos religiose observabat: Si quos sanavit sabbatho,
ostendit non tantum ex lege, sed et exceptis sententiis, talia opera
sabbatho non interdicta. Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christianae,
l. v. c. 7. A little afterwards, (c. 12,) he expatiates on the
condescension of the apostles.]

The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of the
necessity of those precautions, and of the deep impression which the
Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries. The first
fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews; and the
congregation over which they presided united the law of Moses with the
doctrine of Christ. [17] It was natural that the primitive tradition of a
church which was founded only forty days after the death of Christ, and
was governed almost as many years under the immediate inspection of
his apostle, should be received as the standard of orthodoxy. [18] The
distant churches very frequently appealed to the authority of their
venerable Parent, and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution
of alms. But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the
great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth,
and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to all the
Christian colonies insensibly diminished. The Jewish converts, or, as
they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who had laid the foundations
of the church, soon found themselves overwhelmed by the increasing
multitudes, that from all the various religions of polytheism enlisted
under the banner of Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation
of their peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the
Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous brethren
the same toleration which at first they had humbly solicited for their
own practice. The ruin of the temple of the city, and of the public
religion of the Jews, was severely felt by the Nazarenes; as in their
manners, though not in their faith, they maintained so intimate a
connection with their impious countrymen, whose misfortunes were
attributed by the Pagans to the contempt, and more justly ascribed by
the Christians to the wrath, of the Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired
from the ruins of Jerusalem [18] to the little town of Pella beyond
the Jordan, where that ancient church languished above sixty years in
solitude and obscurity. [19] They still enjoyed the comfort of making
frequent and devout visits to the Holy City, and the hope of being one
day restored to those seats which both nature and religion taught them
to love as well as to revere. But at length, under the reign of Hadrian,
the desperate fanaticism of the Jews filled up the measure of their
calamities; and the Romans, exasperated by their repeated rebellions,
exercised the rights of victory with unusual rigor. The emperor founded,
under the name of Aelia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, [20] to
which he gave the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the severest
penalties against any of the Jewish people who should dare to approach
its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a Roman cohort to enforce
the execution of his orders. The Nazarenes had only one way left to
escape the common proscription, and the force of truth was on this
occasion assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected
Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of the Gentiles, and most
probably a native either of Italy or of some of the Latin provinces. At
his persuasion, the most considerable part of the congregation renounced
the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above
a century. By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices, they
purchased a free admission into the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly
cemented their union with the Catholic church. [21]

[Footnote 17: Paene omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione credebant
Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c.
5.]

[Footnote 18: Mosheim de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum
Magnum, page 153. In this masterly performance, which I shall often
have occasion to quote he enters much more fully into the state of the
primitive church than he has an opportunity of doing in his General
History.]

[Footnote 18: This is incorrect: all the traditions concur in placing
the abandonment of the city by the Christians, not only before it was
in ruins, but before the seige had commenced. Euseb. loc. cit., and
Le Clerc.--M.]

[Footnote 19: Eusebius, l. iii. c. 5. Le Clerc, Hist.
Ecclesiast. p. 605. During this occasional absence, the bishop and
church of Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem. In the same
manner, the Roman pontiffs resided seventy years at Avignon; and the
patriarchs of Alexandria have long since transferred their episcopal
seat to Cairo.]

[Footnote 20: Dion Cassius, l. lxix. The exile of the Jewish nation from
Jerusalem is attested by Aristo of Pella, (apud Euseb. l. iv. c. 6,) and
is mentioned by several ecclesiastical writers; though some of them too
hastily extend this interdiction to the whole country of Palestine.]

[Footnote 21: Eusebius, l. iv. c. 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. By
comparing their unsatisfactory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.) has drawn
out a very distinct representation of the circumstances and motives of
this revolution.]

When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been restored to
Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were imputed to the obscure
remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to accompany their Latin bishop.
They still preserved their former habitation of Pella, spread themselves
into the villages adjacent to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable
church in the city of Beroea, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in
Syria. [22] The name of Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those
Christian Jews, and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of
their understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous
epithet of Ebionites. [23] In a few years after the return of the church
of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy, whether a man
who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued
to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation. The
humane temper of Justin Martyr inclined him to answer this question in
the affirmative; and though he expressed himself with the most guarded
diffidence, he ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect
Christian, if he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without
pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when Justin was
pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he confessed that there
were very many among the orthodox Christians, who not only excluded
their Judaizing brethren from the hope of salvation, but who declined
any intercourse with them in the common offices of friendship,
hospitality, and social life. [24] The more rigorous opinion prevailed,
as it was natural to expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of
separation was fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ.
The unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates, and
from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to assume a more
decided character; and although some traces of that obsolete sect may be
discovered as late as the fourth century, they insensibly melted away,
either into the church or the synagogue. [25]

[Footnote 22: Le Clerc (Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477, 535) seems to have
collected from Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and other writers, all the
principal circumstances that relate to the Nazarenes or Ebionites. The
nature of their opinions soon divided them into a stricter and a milder
sect; and there is some reason to conjecture, that the family of Jesus
Christ remained members, at least, of the latter and more moderate
party.]

[Footnote 23: Some writers have been pleased to create an Ebion,
the imaginary author of their sect and name. But we can more safely
rely on the learned Eusebius than on the vehement Tertullian, or the
credulous Epiphanius. According to Le Clerc, the Hebrew word Ebjonim may
be translated into Latin by that of Pauperes. See Hist. Ecclesiast. p.
477. * Note: The opinion of Le Clerc is generally admitted; but Neander has
suggested some good reasons for supposing that this term only applied to
poverty of condition. The obscure history of their tenets and divisions,
is clearly and rationally traced in his History of the Church, vol. i.
part ii. p. 612, &c., Germ. edit.--M.]

[Footnote 24: See the very curious Dialogue of Justin Martyr with the
Jew Tryphon. The conference between them was held at Ephesus, in the
reign of Antoninus Pius, and about twenty years after the return of the
church of Pella to Jerusalem. For this date consult the accurate note of
Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. ii. p. 511. * Note: Justin
Martyr makes an important distinction, which Gibbon has neglected to
notice. * * * There were some who were not content with observing the
Mosaic law themselves, but enforced the same observance, as necessary to
salvation, upon the heathen converts, and refused all social intercourse
with them if they did not conform to the law. Justin Martyr himself
freely admits those who kept the law themselves to Christian communion,
though he acknowledges that some, not the Church, thought otherwise; of
the other party, he himself thought less favorably. The former by some
are considered the Nazarenes the atter the Ebionites--G and M.]

[Footnote 25: Of all the systems of Christianity, that of Abyssinia is
the only one which still adheres to the Mosaic rites. (Geddes's Church
History of Aethiopia, and Dissertations de La Grand sur la Relation du
P. Lobo.) The eunuch of the queen Candace might suggest some suspicious;
but as we are assured (Socrates, i. 19. Sozomen, ii. 24. Ludolphus, p.
281) that the Aethiopians were not converted till the fourth century, it
is more reasonable to believe that they respected the sabbath, and
distinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews, who, in a
very early period, were seated on both sides of the Red Sea.
Circumcision had been practised by the most ancient Aethiopians, from
motives of health and cleanliness, which seem to be explained in the
Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 117.]

While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between excessive
veneration and improper contempt for the law of Moses, the various
heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of error and
extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish religion, the
Ebionites had concluded that it could never be abolished. From its
supposed imperfections, the Gnostics as hastily inferred that it never
was instituted by the wisdom of the Deity. There are some objections
against the authority of Moses and the prophets, which too readily
present themselves to the sceptical mind; though they can only be
derived from our ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity
to form an adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections
were eagerly embraced and as petulantly urged by the vain science of the
Gnostics. [26] As those heretics were, for the most part, averse to
the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the polygamy of the
patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of Solomon. The
conquest of the land of Canaan, and the extirpation of the unsuspecting
natives, they were at a loss how to reconcile with the common notions of
humanity and justice. [261] But when they recollected the sanguinary list
of murders, of executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every
page of the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of
Palestine had exercised as much compassion towards their idolatrous
enemies, as they had ever shown to their friends or countrymen. [27]
Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law itself, they asserted
that it was impossible that a religion which consisted only of bloody
sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as
punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire
the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic
account of the creation and fall of man was treated with profane
derision by the Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the
repose of the Deity after six days' labor, to the rib of Adam, the
garden of Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking
serpent, the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against
human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. [28] The
God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics as a being
liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favor, implacable
in his resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious worship, and
confining his partial providence to a single people, and to this
transitory life. In such a character they could discover none of the
features of the wise and omnipotent Father of the universe. [29] They
allowed that the religion of the Jews was somewhat less criminal than
the idolatry of the Gentiles; but it was their fundamental doctrine,
that the Christ whom they adored as the first and brightest emanation
of the Deity appeared upon earth to rescue mankind from their various
errors, and to reveal a new system of truth and perfection. The
most learned of the fathers, by a very singular condescension, have
imprudently admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics. [291] Acknowledging
that the literal sense is repugnant to every principle of faith as well
as reason, they deem themselves secure and invulnerable behind the ample
veil of allegory, which they carefully spread over every tender part of
the Mosaic dispensation. [30]

[Footnote 26: Beausobre, Histoire du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 3, has
stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the adversary of
Augustin, with the most learned impartiality.]

[Footnote 261: On the "war law" of the Jews, see Hist. of Jews, i.
137.--M.]

[Footnote 27: Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu:
adversus amnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4. Surely Tacitus
had seen the Jews with too favorable an eye. The perusal of Josephus
must have destroyed the antithesis. * Note: Few writers have suspected
Tacitus of partiality towards the Jews. The whole later history of the
Jews illustrates as well their strong feelings of humanity to their
brethren, as their hostility to the rest of mankind. The character and
the position of Josephus with the Roman authorities, must be kept in
mind during the perusal of his History. Perhaps he has not exaggerated
the ferocity and fanaticism of the Jews at that time; but
insurrectionary warfare is not the best school for the humaner virtues,
and much must be allowed for the grinding tyranny of the later Roman
governors. See Hist. of Jews, ii. 254.--M.]

[Footnote 28: Dr. Burnet (Archaeologia, l. ii. c. 7) has discussed the
first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom. * Note: Dr.
Burnet apologized for the levity with which he had conducted some of his
arguments, by the excuse that he wrote in a learned language for
scholars alone, not for the vulgar. Whatever may be thought of his
success in tracing an Eastern allegory in the first chapters of Genesis,
his other works prove him to have been a man of great genius, and of
sincere piety.--M]

[Footnote 29: The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the Creator, as a
Being of a mixed nature between God and the Daemon. Others confounded
him with an evil principle. Consult the second century of the general
history of Mosheim, which gives a very distinct, though concise, account
of their strange opinions on this subject.]

[Footnote 291: The Gnostics, and the historian who has stated these
plausible objections with so much force as almost to make them his own,
would have shown a more considerate and not less reasonable philosophy,
if they had considered the religion of Moses with reference to the age
in which it was promulgated; if they had done justice to its sublime as
well as its more imperfect views of the divine nature; the humane and
civilizing provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as those adapted for an
infant and barbarous people. See Hist of Jews, i. 36, 37, &c.--M.]

[Footnote 30: See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 4. Origen
and St. Augustin were among the allegorists.]

It has been remarked with more ingenuity than truth, that the virgin
purity of the church was never violated by schism or heresy before the
reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred years after the death of
Christ. [31] We may observe with much more propriety, that, during that
period, the disciples of the Messiah were indulged in a freer latitude,
both of faith and practice, than has ever been allowed in succeeding
ages. As the terms of communion were insensibly narrowed, and the
spiritual authority of the prevailing party was exercised with
increasing severity, many of its most respectable adherents, who were
called upon to renounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions,
to pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly to
erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the church. The
Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the most learned, and
the most wealthy of the Christian name; and that general appellation,
which expressed a superiority of knowledge, was either assumed by their
own pride, or ironically bestowed by the envy of their adversaries. They
were almost without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their
principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt, where
the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the body to
indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended with the
faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which they derived from
oriental philosophy, and even from the religion of Zoroaster, concerning
the eternity of matter, the existence of two principles, and the
mysterious hierarchy of the invisible world. [32] As soon as they
launched out into that vast abyss, they delivered themselves to the
guidance of a disordered imagination; and as the paths of error are
various and infinite, the Gnostics were imperceptibly divided into more
than fifty particular sects, [33] of whom the most celebrated appear to
have been the Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a
still later period, the Manichaeans. Each of these sects could boast
of its bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs; [34] and,
instead of the Four Gospels adopted by the church, [341] the heretics
produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions and discourses
of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to their respective tenets.
[35] The success of the Gnostics was rapid and extensive. [36] They
covered Asia and Egypt, established themselves in Rome, and sometimes
penetrated into the provinces of the West. For the most part they arose
in the second century, flourished during the third, and were suppressed
in the fourth or fifth, by the prevalence of more fashionable
controversies, and by the superior ascendant of the reigning power.
Though they constantly disturbed the peace, and frequently disgraced the
name, of religion, they contributed to assist rather than to retard
the progress of Christianity. The Gentile converts, whose strongest
objections and prejudices were directed against the law of Moses, could
find admission into many Christian societies, which required not from
their untutored mind any belief of an antecedent revelation. Their faith
was insensibly fortified and enlarged, and the church was ultimately
benefited by the conquests of its most inveterate enemies. [37]

[Footnote 31: Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. l. iii. 32, iv. 22. Clemens
Alexandrin Stromat. vii. 17. * Note: The assertion of Hegesippus is not
so positive: it is sufficient to read the whole passage in Eusebius, to
see that the former part is modified by the matter. Hegesippus adds,
that up to this period the church had remained pure and immaculate as a
virgin. Those who labored to corrupt the doctrines of the gospel worked
as yet in obscurity--G]

[Footnote 32: In the account of the Gnostics of the second and third
centuries, Mosheim is ingenious and candid; Le Clerc dull, but exact;
Beausobre almost always an apologist; and it is much to be feared that
the primitive fathers are very frequently calumniators. * Note The
Histoire du Gnosticisme of M. Matter is at once the fairest and most
complete account of these sects.--M.]

[Footnote 33: See the catalogues of Irenaeus and Epiphanius. It must
indeed be allowed, that those writers were inclined to multiply the
number of sects which opposed the unity of the church.]

[Footnote 34: Eusebius, l. iv. c. 15. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 32. See in
Bayle, in the article of Marcion, a curious detail of a dispute on that
subject. It should seem that some of the Gnostics (the Basilidians)
declined, and even refused the honor of Martyrdom. Their reasons were
singular and abstruse. See Mosheim, p. 539.]

[Footnote 341: M. Hahn has restored the Marcionite Gospel with great
ingenuity. His work is reprinted in Thilo. Codex. Apoc. Nov. Test. vol.
i.--M.]

[Footnote 35: See a very remarkable passage of Origen, (Proem.
ad Lucam.) That indefatigable writer, who had consumed his life in the
study of the Scriptures, relies for their authenticity on the inspired
authority of the church. It was impossible that the Gnostics could
receive our present Gospels, many parts of which (particularly in the
resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as it might seem designedly,
pointed against their favorite tenets. It is therefore somewhat singular
that Ignatius (Epist. ad Smyrn. Patr. Apostol. tom. ii. p. 34) should
choose to employ a vague and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the
certain testimony of the evangelists. Note: Bishop Pearson has attempted
very happily to explain this singularity.' The first Christians were
acquainted with a number of sayings of Jesus Christ, which are not
related in our Gospels, and indeed have never been written. Why might
not St. Ignatius, who had lived with the apostles or their disciples,
repeat in other words that which St. Luke has related, particularly at a
time when, being in prison, he could have the Gospels at hand? Pearson,
Vind Ign. pp. 2, 9 p. 396 in tom. ii. Patres Apost. ed. Coteler--G.]

[Footnote 36: Faciunt favos et vespae; faciunt ecclesias et Marcionitae,
is the strong expression of Tertullian, which I am obliged to quote
from memory. In the time of Epiphanius (advers. Haereses, p. 302) the
Marcionites were very numerous in Italy, Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and
Persia.]

[Footnote 37: Augustin is a memorable instance of this gradual progress
from reason to faith. He was, during several years, engaged in the
Manichaear sect.]

But whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the Orthodox,
the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, concerning the divinity or the
obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all equally animated by the
same exclusive zeal; and by the same abhorrence for idolatry, which had
distinguished the Jews from the other nations of the ancient world. The
philosopher, who considered the system of polytheism as a composition of
human fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the
mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery, or the
compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any invisible, or, as
he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the established religions of
Paganism were seen by the primitive Christians in a much more odious and
formidable light. It was the universal sentiment both of the church and
of heretics, that the daemons were the authors, the patrons, and the
objects of idolatry. [38] Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded
from the rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were still
permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to seduce the
minds, of sinful men. The daemons soon discovered and abused the natural
propensity of the human heart towards devotion, and artfully withdrawing
the adoration of mankind from their Creator, they usurped the place
and honors of the Supreme Deity. By the success of their malicious
contrivances, they at once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and
obtained the only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope
of involving the human species in the participation of their guilt and
misery. It was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that they
had distributed among themselves the most important characters of
polytheism, one daemon assuming the name and attributes of Jupiter,
another of Aesculapius, a third of Venus, and a fourth perhaps of
Apollo; [39] and that, by the advantage of their long experience and
aerial nature, they were enabled to execute, with sufficient skill
and dignity, the parts which they had undertaken. They lurked in
the temples, instituted festivals and sacrifices, invented fables,
pronounced oracles, and were frequently allowed to perform miracles. The
Christians, who, by the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily
explain every preternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous
to admit the most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But the
belief of the Christian was accompanied with horror. The most trifling
mark of respect to the national worship he considered as a direct homage
yielded to the daemon, and as an act of rebellion against the majesty of
God.

[Footnote 38: The unanimous sentiment of the primitive church is very
clearly explained by Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, by Athenagoras,
Legat. c. 22. &c., and by Lactantius, Institut. Divin. ii. 14--19.]

[Footnote 39: Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) alleges the confession of the
daemons themselves as often as they were tormented by the Christian
exorcists]




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

In consequence of this opinion, it was the first but arduous duty of
a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the practice
of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely a speculative
doctrine professed in the schools or preached in the temples. The
innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven
with every circumstance of business or pleasure, of public or of
private life; and it seemed impossible to escape the observance of them,
without, at the same time, renouncing the commerce of mankind, and all
the offices and amusements of society. [40] The important transactions of
peace and war were prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which
the magistrate, the senator, and the soldier, were obliged to preside or
to participate. [41] The public spectacles were an essential part of the
cheerful devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were supposed to accept,
as the most grateful offering, the games that the prince and people
celebrated in honor of their peculiar festivals. [42] The Christians, who
with pious horror avoided the abomination of the circus or the theatre,
found himself encompassed with infernal snares in every convivial
entertainment, as often as his friends, invoking the hospitable deities,
poured out libations to each other's happiness. [43] When the bride,
struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced into hymenaeal pomp
over the threshold of her new habitation, [44] or when the sad procession
of the dead slowly moved towards the funeral pile; [45] the Christian,
on these interesting occasions, was compelled to desert the persons
who were the dearest to him, rather than contract the guilt inherent
to those impious ceremonies. Every art and every trade that was in the
least concerned in the framing or adorning of idols was polluted by the
stain of idolatry; [46] a severe sentence, since it devoted to eternal
misery the far greater part of the community, which is employed in the
exercise of liberal or mechanic professions. If we cast our eyes over
the numerous remains of antiquity, we shall perceive, that besides the
immediate representations of the gods, and the holy instruments of their
worship, the elegant forms and agreeable fictions consecrated by the
imagination of the Greeks, were introduced as the richest ornaments of
the houses, the dress, and the furniture of the Pagan. [47] Even the arts
of music and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same
impure origin. In the style of the fathers, Apollo and the Muses were
the organs of the infernal spirit; Homer and Virgil were the most
eminent of his servants; and the beautiful mythology which pervades and
animates the compositions of their genius, is destined to celebrate
the glory of the daemons. Even the common language of Greece and Rome
abounded with familiar but impious expressions, which the imprudent
Christian might too carelessly utter, or too patiently hear. [48]

[Footnote 40: Tertullian has written a most severe treatise against
idolatry, to caution his brethren against the hourly danger of incurring
that guilt. Recogita sylvam, et quantae latitant spinae. De Corona
Militis, c. 10.]

[Footnote 41: The Roman senate was always held in a temple or
consecrated place. (Aulus Gellius, xiv. 7.) Before they entered on
business, every senator dropped some wine and frankincense on the altar.
Sueton. in August. c. 35.]

[Footnote 42: See Tertullian, De Spectaculis. This severe reformer
shows no more indulgence to a tragedy of Euripides, than to a combat of
gladiators. The dress of the actors particularly offends him. By the
use of the lofty buskin, they impiously strive to add a cubit to their
stature. c. 23.]

[Footnote 43: The ancient practice of concluding the entertainment with
libations, may be found in every classic. Socrates and Seneca, in their
last moments, made a noble application of this custom. Postquam stagnum,
calidae aquae introiit, respergens proximos servorum, addita voce,
libare se liquorem illum Jovi Liberatori. Tacit. Annal. xv. 64.]

[Footnote 44: See the elegant but idolatrous hymn of Catullus, on the
nuptials of Manlius and Julia. O Hymen, Hymenaee Io! Quis huic Deo
compararier ausit?]

[Footnote 45: The ancient funerals (in those of Misenus and Pallas) are
no less accurately described by Virgil, than they are illustrated by his
commentator Servius. The pile itself was an altar, the flames were fed
with the blood of victims, and all the assistants were sprinkled with
lustral water.]

[Footnote 46: Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 11. * Note: The exaggerated
and declamatory opinions of Tertullian ought not to be taken as the
general sentiment of the early Christians. Gibbon has too often allowed
himself to consider the peculiar notions of certain Fathers of the
Church as inherent in Christianity. This is not accurate.--G.]

[Footnote 47: See every part of Montfaucon's Antiquities. Even the
reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an idolatrous
nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were suspended by a
stronger passion. Note: All this scrupulous nicety is at variance with
the decision of St. Paul about meat offered to idols, 1, Cor. x. 21--
32.--M.]

[Footnote 48: Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 20, 21, 22. If a Pagan
friend (on the occasion perhaps of sneezing) used the familiar
expression of "Jupiter bless you," the Christian was obliged to protest
against the divinity of Jupiter.]

The dangerous temptations which on every side lurked in ambush to
surprise the unguarded believer, assailed him with redoubled violence on
the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they framed and disposed
throughout the year, that superstition always wore the appearance of
pleasure, and often of virtue. Some of the most sacred festivals in the
Roman ritual were destined to salute the new calends of January with
vows of public and private felicity; to indulge the pious remembrance of
the dead and living; to ascertain the inviolable bounds of property;
to hail, on the return of spring, the genial powers of fecundity; to
perpetuate the two memorable areas of Rome, the foundation of the city
and that of the republic, and to restore, during the humane license
of the Saturnalia, the primitive equality of mankind. Some idea may
be conceived of the abhorrence of the Christians for such impious
ceremonies, by the scrupulous delicacy which they displayed on a much
less alarming occasion. On days of general festivity, it was the custom
of the ancients to adorn their doors with lamps and with branches
of laurel, and to crown their heads with a garland of flowers. This
innocent and elegant practice might perhaps have been tolerated as a
mere civil institution. But it most unluckily happened that the doors
were under the protection of the household gods, that the laurel was
sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers, though
frequently worn as a symbol of joy or mourning, had been dedicated
in their first origin to the service of superstition. The trembling
Christians, who were persuaded in this instance to comply with the
fashion of their country, and the commands of the magistrate, labored
under the most gloomy apprehensions, from the reproaches of his own
conscience, the censures of the church, and the denunciations of divine
vengeance. [50]

[Footnote 49: Consult the most labored work of Ovid, his imperfect
Fasti. He finished no more than the first six months of the year. The
compilation of Macrobius is called the Saturnalia, but it is only a
small part of the first book that bears any relation to the title.]

[Footnote 50: Tertullian has composed a defence, or rather panegyric, of
the rash action of a Christian soldier, who, by throwing away his crown
of laurel, had exposed himself and his brethren to the most imminent
danger. By the mention of the emperors, (Severus and Caracalla,) it is
evident, notwithstanding the wishes of M. de Tillemont, that Tertullian
composed his treatise De Corona long before he was engaged in the errors
of the Montanists. See Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iii. p. 384. Note:
The soldier did not tear off his crown to throw it down with contempt;
he did not even throw it away; he held it in his hand, while others were
it on their heads. Solus libero capite, ornamento in manu otioso.--G
Note: Tertullian does not expressly name the two emperors, Severus and
Caracalla: he speaks only of two emperors, and of a long peace which
the church had enjoyed. It is generally agreed that Tertullian became
a Montanist about the year 200: his work, de Corona Militis, appears
to have been written, at the earliest about the year 202 before
the persecution of Severus: it may be maintained, then, that it is
subsequent to the Montanism of the author. See Mosheim, Diss. de Apol.
Tertull. p. 53. Biblioth. Amsterd. tom. x. part ii. p. 292. Cave's Hist.
Lit. p. 92, 93.--G. ----The state of Tertullian's opinions at the
particular period is almost an idle question. "The fiery African" is not
at any time to be considered a fair representative of Christianity.--M.]

Such was the anxious diligence which was required to guard the chastity
of the gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry. The superstitious
observances of public or private rites were carelessly practised, from
education and habit, by the followers of the established religion. But
as often as they occurred, they afforded the Christians an opportunity
of declaring and confirming their zealous opposition. By these frequent
protestations their attachment to the faith was continually fortified;
and in proportion to the increase of zeal, they combated with the more
ardor and success in the holy war, which they had undertaken against the
empire of the demons.

II. The writings of Cicero [51] represent in the most lively colors the
ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient philosophers
with regard to the immortality of the soul. When they are desirous of
arming their disciples against the fear of death, they inculcate, as
an obvious, though melancholy position, that the fatal stroke of our
dissolution releases us from the calamities of life; and that those can
no longer suffer, who no longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of
Greece and Rome who had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects,
a juster idea of human nature, though it must be confessed, that in
the sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their
imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by their
vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental
powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of
fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most
important labors, and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which
transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of
the grave, they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts
of the field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they
entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a spot of
earth, and to a few years of duration. With this favorable prepossession
they summoned to their aid the science, or rather the language, of
Metaphysics. They soon discovered, that as none of the properties of
matter will apply to the operations of the mind, the human soul must
consequently be a substance distinct from the body, pure, simple, and
spiritual, incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher
degree of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal
prison. From these specious and noble principles, the philosophers who
trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very unjustifiable conclusion,
since they asserted, not only the future immortality, but the past
eternity, of the human soul, which they were too apt to consider as a
portion of the infinite and self-existing spirit, which pervades and
sustains the universe. [52] A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses
and the experience of mankind, might serve to amuse the leisure of a
philosophic mind; or, in the silence of solitude, it might sometimes
impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue; but the faint impression
which had been received in the schools, was soon obliterated by the
commerce and business of active life. We are sufficiently acquainted
with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the
first Caesars, with their actions, their characters, and their motives,
to be assured that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any
serious conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state.
At the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not
apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers, by exposing that
doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected with
contempt by every man of a liberal education and understanding. [53]

[Footnote 51: In particular, the first book of the Tusculan Questions,
and the treatise De Senectute, and the Somnium Scipionis, contain, in
the most beautiful language, every thing that Grecian philosophy, on
Roman good sense, could possibly suggest on this dark but important
object.]

[Footnote 52: The preexistence of human souls, so far at least
as that doctrine is compatible with religion, was adopted by many of the
Greek and Latin fathers. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, l. vi. c.
4.]

[Footnote 53: See Cicero pro Cluent. c. 61. Caesar ap. Sallust. de
Bell. Catilis n 50. Juvenal. Satir. ii. 149. ----Esse aliquid manes, et
subterranea regna, ----------Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum aeree
lavantae.]

Since therefore the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no
further than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most,
the probability, of a future state, there is nothing, except a
divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence, and describe the
condition, of the invisible country which is destined to receive the
souls of men after their separation from the body. But we may perceive
several defects inherent to the popular religions of Greece and Rome,
which rendered them very unequal to so arduous a task. 1. The general
system of their mythology was unsupported by any solid proofs; and the
wisest among the Pagans had already disclaimed its usurped authority. 2.
The description of the infernal regions had been abandoned to the fancy
of painters and of poets, who peopled them with so many phantoms and
monsters, who dispensed their rewards and punishments with so little
equity, that a solemn truth, the most congenial to the human heart, was
opposed and disgraced by the absurd mixture of the wildest fictions.
[54] 3. The doctrine of a future state was scarcely considered among the
devout polytheists of Greece and Rome as a fundamental article of faith.
The providence of the gods, as it related to public communities rather
than to private individuals, was principally displayed on the visible
theatre of the present world. The petitions which were offered on the
altars of Jupiter or Apollo, expressed the anxiety of their worshippers
for temporal happiness, and their ignorance or indifference concerning
a future life. [55] The important truth of the of the immortality of the
soul was inculcated with more diligence, as well as success, in India,
in Assyria, in Egypt, and in Gaul; and since we cannot attribute such
a difference to the superior knowledge of the barbarians, we we must
ascribe it to the influence of an established priesthood, which employed
the motives of virtue as the instrument of ambition. [56]

[Footnote 54: The xith book of the Odyssey gives a very dreary and
incoherent account of the infernal shades. Pindar and Virgil have
embellished the picture; but even those poets, though more correct
than their great model, are guilty of very strange inconsistencies. See
Bayle, Responses aux Questions d'un Provincial, part iii. c. 22.]

[Footnote 55: See xvith epistle of the first book of Horace, the
xiiith Satire of Juvenal, and the iid Satire of Persius: these popular
discourses express the sentiment and language of the multitude.]

[Footnote 56: If we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may observe,
that they intrusted, not only their lives, but even their money, to
the security of another world. Vetus ille mos Gallorum occurrit (says
Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 6, p. 10) quos, memoria proditum est
pecunias montuas, quae his apud inferos redderentur, dare solitos.
The same custom is more darkly insinuated by Mela, l. iii. c. 2. It is
almost needless to add, that the profits of trade hold a just proportion
to the credit of the merchant, and that the Druids derived from their
holy profession a character of responsibility, which could scarcely be
claimed by any other order of men.]

We might naturally expect that a principle so essential to religion,
would have been revealed in the clearest terms to the chosen people of
Palestine, and that it might safely have been intrusted to the
hereditary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent on us to adore the
mysterious dispensations of Providence, [57] when we discover that the
doctrine of the immortality of the soul is omitted in the law of Moses
it is darkly insinuated by the prophets; and during the long period
which clasped between the Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the
hopes as well as fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within
the narrow compass of the present life. [58] After Cyrus had permitted
the exiled nation to return into the promised land, and after Ezra had
restored the ancient records of their religion, two celebrated sects,
the Sadducees and the Pharisees, insensibly arose at Jerusalem. [59] The
former, selected from the more opulent and distinguished ranks of
society, were strictly attached to the literal sense of the Mosaic law,
and they piously rejected the immortality of the soul, as an opinion
that received no countenance from the divine book, which they revered as
the only rule of their faith. To the authority of Scripture the
Pharisees added that of tradition, and they accepted, under the name of
traditions, several speculative tenets from the philosophy or religion
of the eastern nations. The doctrines of fate or predestination, of
angels and spirits, and of a future state of rewards and punishments,
were in the number of these new articles of belief; and as the
Pharisees, by the austerity of their manners, had drawn into their party
the body of the Jewish people, the immortality of the soul became the
prevailing sentiment of the synagogue, under the reign of the Asmonaean
princes and pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was incapable of contenting
itself with such a cold and languid assent as might satisfy the mind of
a Polytheist; and as soon as they admitted the idea of a future state,
they embraced it with the zeal which has always formed the
characteristic of the nation. Their zeal, however, added nothing to its
evidence, or even probability: and it was still necessary that the
doctrine of life and immortality, which had been dictated by nature,
approved by reason, and received by superstition, should obtain the
sanction of divine truth from the authority and example of Christ.

[Footnote 57: The right reverend author of the Divine Legation of Moses
as signs a very curious reason for the omission, and most ingeniously
retorts it on the unbelievers. * Note: The hypothesis of Warburton
concerning this remarkable fact, which, as far as the Law of Moses, is
unquestionable, made few disciples; and it is difficult to suppose that
it could be intended by the author himself for more than a display of
intellectual strength. Modern writers have accounted in various ways for
the silence of the Hebrew legislator on the immortality of the soul.
According to Michaelis, "Moses wrote as an historian and as a lawgiver;
he regulated the ecclesiastical discipline, rather than the religious
belief of his people; and the sanctions of the law being temporal, he
had no occasion, and as a civil legislator could not with propriety,
threaten punishments in another world." See Michaelis, Laws of Moses,
art. 272, vol. iv. p. 209, Eng. Trans.; and Syntagma Commentationum, p.
80, quoted by Guizot. M. Guizot adds, the "ingenious conjecture of a
philosophic theologian," which approximates to an opinion long
entertained by the Editor. That writer believes, that in the state of
civilization at the time of the legislator, this doctrine, become
popular among the Jews, would necessarily have given birth to a
multitude of idolatrous superstitions which he wished to prevent. His
primary object was to establish a firm theocracy, to make his people the
conservators of the doctrine of the Divine Unity, the basis upon which
Christianity was hereafter to rest. He carefully excluded everything
which could obscure or weaken that doctrine. Other nations had strangely
abused their notions on the immortality of the soul; Moses wished to
prevent this abuse: hence he forbade the Jews from consulting
necromancers, (those who evoke the spirits of the dead.) Deut. xviii.
11. Those who reflect on the state of the Pagans and the Jews, and on
the facility with which idolatry crept in on every side, will not be
astonished that Moses has not developed a doctrine of which the
influence might be more pernicious than useful to his people. Orat.
Fest. de Vitae Immort. Spe., &c., auct. Ph. Alb. Stapfer, p. 12 13, 20.
Berne, 1787. ----Moses, as well from the intimations scattered in his
writings, the passage relating to the translation of Enoch, (Gen. v.
24,) the prohibition of necromancy, (Michaelis believes him to be the
author of the Book of Job though this opinion is in general rejected;
other learned writers consider this Book to be coeval with and known to
Moses,) as from his long residence in Egypt, and his acquaintance with
Egyptian wisdom, could not be ignorant of the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul. But this doctrine if popularly known among the
Jews, must have been purely Egyptian, and as so, intimately connected
with the whole religious system of that country. It was no doubt moulded
up with the tenet of the transmigration of the soul, perhaps with
notions analogous to the emanation system of India in which the human
soul was an efflux from or indeed a part of, the Deity. The Mosaic
religion drew a wide and impassable interval between the Creator and
created human beings: in this it differed from the Egyptian and all the
Eastern religions. As then the immortality of the soul was thus
inseparably blended with those foreign religions which were altogether
to be effaced from the minds of the people, and by no means necessary
for the establishment of the theocracy, Moses maintained silence on this
point and a purer notion of it was left to be developed at a more
favorable period in the history of man.--M.]

[Footnote 58: See Le Clerc (Prolegomena ad Hist. Ecclesiast. sect. 1, c.
8) His authority seems to carry the greater weight, as he has written a
learned and judicious commentary on the books of the Old Testament.]

[Footnote 59: Joseph. Antiquitat. l. xiii. c. 10. De Bell. Jud. ii. 8.
According to the most natural interpretation of his words, the Sadducees
admitted only the Pentateuch; but it has pleased some modern critics
to add the Prophets to their creed, and to suppose that they contented
themselves with rejecting the traditions of the Pharisees. Dr. Jortin
has argued that point in his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii.
p. 103.]

When the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind
on condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the precepts, of
the gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer should have
been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of every rank, and of
every province in the Roman empire. The ancient Christians were animated
by a contempt for their present existence, and by a just confidence of
immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern
ages cannot give us any adequate notion. In the primitive church, the
influence of truth was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion,
which, however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
has not been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed,
that the end of the world, and the kingdom of heaven, were at hand.
[591] The near approach of this wonderful event had been predicted by the
apostles; the tradition of it was preserved by their earliest disciples,
and those who understood in their literal senses the discourse of Christ
himself, were obliged to expect the second and glorious coming of
the Son of Man in the clouds, before that generation was totally
extinguished, which had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and
which might still be witness of the calamities of the Jews under
Vespasian or Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has
instructed us not to press too closely the mysterious language of
prophecy and revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error
was permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most
salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in
the awful expectation of that moment, when the globe itself, and all
the various race of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their
divine Judge. [60]

[Footnote 591: This was, in fact, an integral part of the Jewish notion
of the Messiah, from which the minds of the apostles themselves were but
gradually detached. See Bertholdt, Christologia Judaeorum, concluding
chapters--M.]

[Footnote 60: This expectation was countenanced by the twenty-fourth
chapter of St. Matthew, and by the first epistle of St. Paul to the
Thessalonians. Erasmus removes the difficulty by the help of allegory
and metaphor; and the learned Grotius ventures to insinuate, that, for
wise purposes, the pious deception was permitted to take place. * Note:
Some modern theologians explain it without discovering either allegory
or deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having proclaimed the
ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple, speaks of his second coming and the
sings which were to precede it; but those who believed that the moment
was near deceived themselves as to the sense of two words, an error
which still subsists in our versions of the Gospel according to St.
Matthew, xxiv. 29, 34. In verse 29, we read, "Immediately after the
tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened," &c. The Greek word
signifies all at once, suddenly, not immediately; so that it signifies
only the sudden appearance of the signs which Jesus Christ announces not
the shortness of the interval which was to separate them from the "days
of tribulation," of which he was speaking. The verse 34 is this "Verily
I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things
shall be fulfilled." Jesus, speaking to his disciples, uses these words,
which the translators have rendered by this generation, but which means
the race, the filiation of my disciples; that is, he speaks of a class
of men, not of a generation. The true sense then, according to these
learned men, is, In truth I tell you that this race of men, of which you
are the commencement, shall not pass away till this shall take place;
that is to say, the succession of Christians shall not cease till his
coming. See Commentary of M. Paulus on the New Test., edit. 1802, tom.
iii. p. 445,--446.--G. ----Others, as Rosenmuller and Kuinoel, in loc.,
confine this passage to a highly figurative description of the ruins of
the Jewish city and polity.--M.]




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

The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimately
connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the creation
had been finished in six days, their duration in their present state,
according to a tradition which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was
fixed to six thousand years. [61] By the same analogy it was inferred,
that this long period of labor and contention, which was now almost
elapsed, [62] would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years;
and that Christ, with the triumphant band of the saints and the elect
who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would
reign upon earth till the time appointed for the last and general
resurrection. So pleasing was this hope to the mind of believers,
that the New Jerusalem, the seat of this blissful kingdom, was quickly
adorned with all the gayest colors of the imagination. A felicity
consisting only of pure and spiritual pleasure would have appeared too
refined for its inhabitants, who were still supposed to possess their
human nature and senses. A garden of Eden, with the amusements of the
pastoral life, was no longer suited to the advanced state of society
which prevailed under the Roman empire. A city was therefore erected of
gold and precious stones, and a supernatural plenty of corn and wine
was bestowed on the adjacent territory; in the free enjoyment of whose
spontaneous productions, the happy and benevolent people was never to be
restrained by any jealous laws of exclusive property. [63] The assurance
of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a succession of fathers
from Justin Martyr, [64] and Irenaeus, who conversed with the immediate
disciples of the apostles, down to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the
son of Constantine. [65] Though it might not be universally received, it
appears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers;
and it seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of
mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable degree to
the progress of the Christian faith. But when the edifice of the church
was almost completed, the temporary support was laid aside. The
doctrine of Christ's reign upon earth was at first treated as a profound
allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion,
and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and
fanaticism. [66] A mysterious prophecy, which still forms a part of the
sacred canon, but which was thought to favor the exploded sentiment, has
very narrowly escaped the proscription of the church. [67]

[Footnote 61: See Burnet's Sacred Theory, part iii. c. 5. This tradition
may be traced as high as the the author of Epistle of Barnabas, who
wrote in the first century, and who seems to have been half a Jew. *
Note: In fact it is purely Jewish. See Mosheim, De Reb. Christ. ii. 8.
Lightfoot's Works, 8vo. edit. vol. iii. p. 37. Bertholdt, Christologia
Judaeorum ch. 38.--M.]

[Footnote 62: The primitive church of Antioch computed almost 6000 years
from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ. Africanus,
Lactantius, and the Greek church, have reduced that number to 5500, and
Eusebius has contented himself with 5200 years. These calculations were
formed on the Septuagint, which was universally received during the six
first centuries. The authority of the vulgate and of the Hebrew text has
determined the moderns, Protestants as well as Catholics, to prefer a
period of about 4000 years; though, in the study of profane antiquity,
they often find themselves straitened by those narrow limits. * Note:
Most of the more learned modern English Protestants, Dr. Hales, Mr.
Faber, Dr. Russel, as well as the Continental writers, adopt the larger
chronology. There is little doubt that the narrower system was framed by
the Jews of Tiberias; it was clearly neither that of St. Paul, nor of
Josephus, nor of the Samaritan Text. It is greatly to be regretted that
the chronology of the earlier Scriptures should ever have been made a
religious question--M.]

[Footnote 63: Most of these pictures were borrowed from a
misrepresentation of Isaiah, Daniel, and the Apocalypse. One of the
grossest images may be found in Irenaeus, (l. v. p. 455,) the disciple
of Papias, who had seen the apostle St. John.]

[Footnote 64: See the second dialogue of Justin with Triphon, and
the seventh book of Lactantius. It is unnecessary to allege all the
intermediate fathers, as the fact is not disputed. Yet the curious
reader may consult Daille de Uus Patrum, l. ii. c. 4.]

[Footnote 65: The testimony of Justin of his own faith and that of his
orthodox brethren, in the doctrine of a Millennium, is delivered in the
clearest and most solemn manner, (Dialog. cum Tryphonte Jud. p. 177,
178, edit. Benedictin.) If in the beginning of this important passage
there is any thing like an inconsistency, we may impute it, as we think
proper, either to the author or to his transcribers. * Note: The
Millenium is described in what once stood as the XLIst Article of the
English Church (see Collier, Eccles. Hist., for Articles of Edw. VI.) as
"a fable of Jewish dotage." The whole of these gross and earthly images
may be traced in the works which treat on the Jewish traditions, in
Lightfoot, Schoetgen, and Eisenmenger; "Das enthdeckte Judenthum" t. ii
809; and briefly in Bertholdt, i. c. 38, 39.--M.]

[Footnote 66: Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 223, tom.
ii. p. 366, and Mosheim, p. 720; though the latter of these learned
divines is not altogether candid on this occasion.]

[Footnote 67: In the council of Laodicea, (about the year 360,) the
Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon, by the same
churches of Asia to which it is addressed; and we may learn from the
complaint of Sulpicius Severus, that their sentence had been ratified by
the greater number of Christians of his time. From what causes then is
the Apocalypse at present so generally received by the Greek, the Roman,
and the Protestant churches? The following ones may be assigned. 1. The
Greeks were subdued by the authority of an impostor, who, in the sixth
century, assumed the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just
apprehension that the grammarians might become more important than
the theologians, engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of their
infallibility on all the books of Scripture contained in the Latin
Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse was fortunately included.
(Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, l. ii.) 3. The advantage
of turning those mysterious prophecies against the See of Rome, inspired
the Protestants with uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the
ingenious and elegant discourses of the present bishop of Litchfield on
that unpromising subject. * Note: The exclusion of the Apocalypse is
not improbably assigned to its obvious unfitness to be read in
churches. It is to be feared that a history of the interpretation of the
Apocalypse would not give a very favorable view either of the wisdom
or the charity of the successive ages of Christianity. Wetstein's
interpretation, differently modified, is adopted by most Continental
scholars.--M.]

Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal reign were promised to the
disciples of Christ, the most dreadful calamities were denounced against
an unbelieving world. The edification of a new Jerusalem was to advance
by equal steps with the destruction of the mystic Babylon; and as
long as the emperors who reigned before Constantine persisted in the
profession of idolatry, the epithet of babylon was applied to the city
and to the empire of Rome. A regular series was prepared of all the
moral and physical evils which can afflict a flourishing nation;
intestine discord, and the invasion of the fiercest barbarians from
the unknown regions of the North; pestilence and famine, comets and
eclipses, earthquakes and inundations. [68] All these were only so many
preparatory and alarming signs of the great catastrophe of Rome, when
the country of the Scipios and Caesars should be consumed by a flame
from Heaven, and the city of the seven hills, with her palaces, her
temples, and her triumphal arches, should be buried in a vast lake of
fire and brimstone. It might, however, afford some consolation to Roman
vanity, that the period of their empire would be that of the world
itself; which, as it had once perished by the element of water, was
destined to experience a second and a speedy destruction from the
element of fire. In the opinion of a general conflagration, the faith of
the Christian very happily coincided with the tradition of the East,
the philosophy of the Stoics, and the analogy of Nature; and even the
country, which, from religious motives, had been chosen for the origin
and principal scene of the conflagration, was the best adapted for that
purpose by natural and physical causes; by its deep caverns, beds of
sulphur, and numero is volcanoes, of which those of Aetna, of Vesuvius,
and of Lipari, exhibit a very imperfect representation. The calmest
and most intrepid sceptic could not refuse to acknowledge that the
destruction of the present system of the world by fire, was in itself
extremely probable. The Christian, who founded his belief much less on
the fallacious arguments of reason than on the authority of tradition
and the interpretation of Scripture, expected it with terror and
confidence as a certain and approaching event; and as his mind was
perpetually filled with the solemn idea, he considered every disaster
that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of an expiring
world. [69]

[Footnote 68: Lactantius (Institut. Divin. vii. 15, &c.) relates the
dismal talk of futurity with great spirit and eloquence. * Note:
Lactantius had a notion of a great Asiatic empire, which was previously
to rise on the ruins of the Roman: quod Romanum nomen animus dicere, sed
dicam. quia futurum est tolletur de terra, et impere. Asiam
revertetur.--M.]

[Footnote 69: On this subject every reader of taste will be entertained
with the third part of Burnet's Sacred Theory. He blends philosophy,
Scripture, and tradition, into one magnificent system; in the
description of which he displays a strength of fancy not inferior
to that of Milton himself.]

The condemnation of the wisest and most
virtuous of the Pagans, on account of their ignorance or disbelief of
the divine truth, seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the
present age. [70] But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much
firmer consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal
torture, the far greater part of the human species. A charitable hope
might perhaps be indulged in favor of Socrates, or some other sages
of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason before that of the
gospel had arisen. [71] But it was unanimously affirmed, that those who,
since the birth or the death of Christ, had obstinately persisted in the
worship of the daemons, neither deserved nor could expect a pardon from
the irritated justice of the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had
been unknown to the ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of
bitterness into a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and
friendship were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious
faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves
oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by
resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of their
future triumph. "You are fond of spectacles," exclaims the stern
Tertullian; "expect the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal
judgment of the universe. How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice,
how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs, so many fancied gods,
groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who
persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they
ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing
in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets
trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many
tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so
many dancers."

[711] But the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil over the
rest of this infernal description, which the zealous African pursues in
a long variety of affected and unfeeling witticisms. [72]

[Footnote 70: And yet whatever may be the language of
individuals, it is still the public doctrine of all the Christian
churches; nor can even our own refuse to admit the conclusions which
must be drawn from the viiith and the xviiith of her Articles. The
Jansenists, who have so diligently studied the works of the fathers,
maintain this sentiment with distinguished zeal; and the learned M. de
Tillemont never dismisses a virtuous emperor without pronouncing his
damnation. Zuinglius is perhaps the only leader of a party who has
ever adopted the milder sentiment, and he gave no less offence to the
Lutherans than to the Catholics. See Bossuet, Histoire des Variations
des Eglises Protestantes, l. ii. c. 19--22.]

[Footnote 71: Justin and Clemens of Alexandria allow that some of
the philosophers were instructed by the Logos; confounding its double
signification of the human reason, and of the Divine Word.]

[Footnote 711: This translation is not exact: the first sentence is imperfect.
Tertullian says, Ille dies nationibus insperatus, ille derisus, cum
tanta sacculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates uno igne haurientur.
The text does not authorize the exaggerated expressions, so many
magistrates, so many sago philosophers, so many poets, &c.; but simply
magistrates, philosophers, poets.--G. --It is not clear that Gibbon's
version or paraphrase is incorrect: Tertullian writes, tot tantosque
reges item praesides, &c.--M.]

[Footnote 72: Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 30. In order to ascertain
the degree of authority which the zealous African had acquired it may be
sufficient to allege the testimony of Cyprian, the doctor and guide of
all the western churches. (See Prudent. Hym. xiii. 100.) As often as he
applied himself to his daily study of the writings of Tertullian, he was
accustomed to say, "Da mihi magistrum, Give me my master." (Hieronym. de
Viris Illustribus, tom. i. p. 284.)]

[Footnote 72: The object of Tertullian's vehemence in his Treatise, was
to keep the Christians away from the secular games celebrated by the
Emperor Severus: It has not prevented him from showing himself in other
places full of benevolence and charity towards unbelievers: the spirit
of the gospel has sometimes prevailed over the violence of human
passions: Qui ergo putaveris nihil nos de salute Caesaris curare (he
says in his Apology) inspice Dei voces, literas nostras. Scitote ex
illis praeceptum esse nobis ad redudantionem, benignitates etiam pro
inimicis Deum orare, et pro persecutoribus cona precari. Sed etiam
nominatim atque manifeste orate inquit (Christus) pro regibus et pro
principibus et potestatibus ut omnia sint tranquilla vobis Tert. Apol.
c. 31.--G. ----It would be wiser for Christianity, retreating upon its
genuine records in the New Testament, to disclaim this fierce African,
than to identify itself with his furious invectives by unsatisfactory
apologies for their unchristian fanaticism.--M.]

Doubtless there were many among the primitive Christians of a temper
more suitable to the meekness and charity of their profession. There
were many who felt a sincere compassion for the danger of their friends
and countrymen, and who exerted the most benevolent zeal to save them
from the impending destruction.

The careless Polytheist, assailed by new and unexpected terrors, against
which neither his priests nor his philosophers could afford him any
certain protection, was very frequently terrified and subdued by the
menace of eternal tortures. His fears might assist the progress of his
faith and reason; and if he could once persuade himself to suspect that
the Christian religion might possibly be true, it became an easy task to
convince him that it was the safest and most prudent party that he could
possibly embrace.

III. The supernatural gifts, which even in this life were ascribed to
the Christians above the rest of mankind, must have conduced to their
own comfort, and very frequently to the conviction of infidels. Besides
the occasional prodigies, which might sometimes be effected by the
immediate interposition of the Deity when he suspended the laws of
Nature for the service of religion, the Christian church, from the
time of the apostles and their first disciples, [73] has claimed an
uninterrupted succession of miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of
vision, and of prophecy, the power of expelling daemons, of healing the
sick, and of raising the dead. The knowledge of foreign languages
was frequently communicated to the contemporaries of Irenaeus, though
Irenaeus himself was left to struggle with the difficulties of a
barbarous dialect, whilst he preached the gospel to the natives of Gaul.
[74] The divine inspiration, whether it was conveyed in the form of a
waking or of a sleeping vision, is described as a favor very liberally
bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on women as on elders, on boys as
well as upon bishops. When their devout minds were sufficiently prepared
by a course of prayer, of fasting, and of vigils, to receive the
extraordinary impulse, they were transported out of their senses, and
delivered in ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs of the Holy
Spirit, just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. [75] We may
add, that the design of these visions was, for the most part, either to
disclose the future history, or to guide the present administration,
of the church. The expulsion of the daemons from the bodies of those
unhappy persons whom they had been permitted to torment, was considered
as a signal though ordinary triumph of religion, and is repeatedly
alleged by the ancient apoligists, as the most convincing evidence of
the truth of Christianity. The awful ceremony was usually performed in a
public manner, and in the presence of a great number of spectators;
the patient was relieved by the power or skill of the exorcist, and the
vanquished daemon was heard to confess that he was one of the fabled
gods of antiquity, who had impiously usurped the adoration of mankind.
[76] But the miraculous cure of diseases of the most inveterate or
even preternatural kind, can no longer occasion any surprise, when we
recollect, that in the days of Iranaeus, about the end of the second
century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from being esteemed
an uncommon event; that the miracle was frequently performed on
necessary occasions, by great fasting and the joint supplication of the
church of the place, and that the persons thus restored to their prayers
had lived afterwards among them many years. [77] At such a period, when
faith could boast of so many wonderful victories over death, it seems
difficult to account for the scepticism of those philosophers, who still
rejected and derided the doctrine of the resurrection. A noble Grecian
had rested on this important ground the whole controversy, and promised
Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, that if he could be gratified with the
sight of a single person who had been actually raised from the dead,
he would immediately embrace the Christian religion. It is somewhat
remarkable, that the prelate of the first eastern church, however
anxious for the conversion of his friend, thought proper to decline this
fair and reasonable challenge. [78]

[Footnote 73: Notwithstanding the evasions of Dr. Middleton, it is
impossible to overlook the clear traces of visions and inspiration,
which may be found in the apostolic fathers. * Note: Gibbon should have
noticed the distinct and remarkable passage from Chrysostom, quoted by
Middleton, (Works, vol. i. p. 105,) in which he affirms the long
discontinuance of miracles as a notorious fact.--M.]

[Footnote 74: Irenaeus adv. Haeres. Proem. p.3 Dr. Middleton (Free
Inquiry, p. 96, &c.) observes, that as this pretension of all others was
the most difficult to support by art, it was the soonest given up. The
observation suits his hypothesis. * Note: This passage of Irenaeus
contains no allusion to the gift of tongues; it is merely an apology for
a rude and unpolished Greek style, which could not be expected from one
who passed his life in a remote and barbarous province, and was
continually obliged to speak the Celtic language.--M. Note: Except in
the life of Pachomius, an Egyptian monk of the fourth century. (see
Jortin, Ecc. Hist. i. p. 368, edit. 1805,) and the latter (not earlier)
lives of Xavier, there is no claim laid to the gift of tongues since the
time of Irenaeus; and of this claim, Xavier's own letters are profoundly
silent. See Douglas's Criterion, p. 76 edit. 1807.--M.]

[Footnote 75: Athenagoras in Legatione. Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad Gentes
Tertullian advers. Marcionit. l. iv. These descriptions are not
very unlike the prophetic fury, for which Cicero (de Divinat.ii. 54)
expresses so little reverence.]

[Footnote 76: Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) throws out a bold defiance
to the Pagan magistrates. Of the primitive miracles, the power of
exorcising is the only one which has been assumed by Protestants. *
Note: But by Protestants neither of the most enlightened ages nor most
reasoning minds.--M.]

[Footnote 77: Irenaeus adv. Haereses, l. ii. 56, 57, l. v. c. 6. Mr.
Dodwell (Dissertat. ad Irenaeum, ii. 42) concludes, that the second
century was still more fertile in miracles than the first. * Note: It is
difficult to answer Middleton's objection to this statement of Irenae
us: "It is very strange, that from the time of the apostles there is not
a single instance of this miracle to be found in the three first
centuries; except a single case, slightly intimated in Eusebius, from
the Works of Papias; which he seems to rank among the other fabulous
stories delivered by that weak man." Middleton, Works, vol. i. p. 59.
Bp. Douglas (Criterion, p 389) would consider Irenaeus to speak of what
had "been performed formerly." not in his own time.--M.]

[Footnote 78: Theophilus ad Autolycum, l. i. p. 345. Edit. Benedictin.
Paris, 1742. * Note: A candid sceptic might discern some impropriety in
the Bishop being called upon to perform a miracle on demand.--M.]

The miracles of the primitive church, after obtaining the sanction of
ages, have been lately attacked in a very free and ingenious inquiry,
[79] which, though it has met with the most favorable reception from the
public, appears to have excited a general scandal among the divines of
our own as well as of the other Protestant churches of Europe. [80] Our
different sentiments on this subject will be much less influenced by any
particular arguments, than by our habits of study and reflection; and,
above all, by the degree of evidence which we have accustomed ourselves
to require for the proof of a miraculous event. The duty of an historian
does not call upon him to interpose his private judgment in this nice
and important controversy; but he ought not to dissemble the difficulty
of adopting such a theory as may reconcile the interest of religion with
that of reason, of making a proper application of that theory, and of
defining with precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from
error and from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift
of supernatural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of the
popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of miracles,
is continued without interruption; and the progress of superstition
was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we know not in what
particular link we should break the chain of tradition. Every age bears
testimony to the wonderful events by which it was distinguished, and
its testimony appears no less weighty and respectable than that of the
preceding generation, till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own
inconsistency, if in the eighth or in the twelfth century we deny to the
venerable Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence
which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to Justin or
to Irenaeus. [81] If the truth of any of those miracles is appreciated by
their apparent use and propriety, every age had unbelievers to convince,
heretics to confute, and idolatrous nations to convert; and sufficient
motives might always be produced to justify the interposition of Heaven.
And yet, since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality,
and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous
powers, it is evident that there must have been some period in which
they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the Christian
church. Whatever aera is chosen for that purpose, the death of the
apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the extinction of the
Arian heresy, [82] the insensibility of the Christians who lived at that
time will equally afford a just matter of surprise. They still supported
their pretensions after they had lost their power. Credulity performed
the office of faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of
inspiration, and the effects of accident or contrivance were ascribed
to supernatural causes. The recent experience of genuine miracles should
have instructed the Christian world in the ways of Providence, and
habituated their eye (if we may use a very inadequate expression) to the
style of the divine artist. Should the most skilful painter of modern
Italy presume to decorate his feeble imitations with the name of Raphael
or of Correggio, the insolent fraud would be soon discovered, and
indignantly rejected.

[Footnote 79: Dr. Middleton sent out his Introduction in the year 1747,
published his Free Inquiry in 1749, and before his death, which happened
in 1750, he had prepared a vindication of it against his numerous
adversaries.]

[Footnote 80: The university of Oxford conferred degrees
on his opponents. From the indignation of Mosheim, (p. 221,) we may
discover the sentiments of the Lutheran divines. * Note: Yet many
Protestant divines will now without reluctance confine miracles to the
time of the apostles, or at least to the first century.--M]

[Footnote 81: It may seem somewhat remarkable, that Bernard of
Clairvaux, who records so many miracles of his friend St. Malachi, never
takes any notice of his own, which, in their turn, however, are
carefully related by his companions and disciples. In the long series of
ecclesiastical history, does there exist a single instance of a saint
asserting that he himself possessed the gift of miracles?]

[Footnote 82: The conversion of Constantine is the aera which is most
usually fixed by Protestants. The more rational divines are unwilling to
admit the miracles of the ivth, whilst the more credulous are unwilling
to reject those of the vth century. * Note: All this appears to proceed
on the principle that any distinct line can be drawn in an unphilosophic
age between wonders and miracles, or between what piety, from their
unexpected and extraordinary nature, the marvellous concurrence of
secondary causes to some remarkable end, may consider providential
interpositions, and miracles strictly so called, in which the laws of
nature are suspended or violated. It is impossible to assign, on one
side, limits to human credulity, on the other, to the influence of the
imagination on the bodily frame; but some of the miracles recorded in
the Gospels are such palpable impossibilities, according to the known
laws and operations of nature, that if recorded on sufficient evidence,
and the evidence we believe to be that of eye-witnesses, we cannot
reject them, without either asserting, with Hume, that no evidence can
prove a miracle, or that the Author of Nature has no power of suspending
its ordinary laws. But which of the post-apostolic miracles will bear
this test?--M.]

Whatever opinion may be entertained of the miracles of the primitive
church since the time of the apostles, this unresisting softness of
temper, so conspicuous among the believers of the second and third
centuries, proved of some accidental benefit to the cause of truth and
religion. In modern times, a latent and even involuntary scepticism
adheres to the most pious dispositions. Their admission of supernatural
truths is much less an active consent than a cold and passive
acquiescence. Accustomed long since to observe and to respect the
variable order of Nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is
not sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the Deity.

But, in the first ages of Christianity, the situation of mankind was
extremely different. The most curious, or the most credulous, among the
Pagans, were often persuaded to enter into a society which asserted an
actual claim of miraculous powers. The primitive Christians perpetually
trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of
believing the most extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied,
that on every side they were incessantly assaulted by daemons, comforted
by visions, instructed by prophecy, and surprisingly delivered from
danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of the
church. The real or imaginary prodigies, of which they so frequently
conceived themselves to be the objects, the instruments, or the
spectators, very happily disposed them to adopt with the same ease,
but with far greater justice, the authentic wonders of the evangelic
history; and thus miracles that exceeded not the measure of their own
experience, inspired them with the most lively assurance of mysteries
which were acknowledged to surpass the limits of their understanding. It
is this deep impression of supernatural truths, which has been so much
celebrated under the name of faith; a state of mind described as
the surest pledge of the divine favor and of future felicity, and
recommended as the first, or perhaps the only merit of a Christian.
According to the more rigid doctors, the moral virtues, which may be
equally practised by infidels, are destitute of any value or efficacy in
the work of our justification.




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

IV. But the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith by his virtues;
and it was very justly supposed that the divine persuasion, which
enlightened or subdued the understanding, must, at the same time, purify
the heart, and direct the actions, of the believer. The first apologists
of Christianity who justify the innocence of their brethren, and the
writers of a later period who celebrate the sanctity of their ancestors,
display, in the most lively colors, the reformation of manners which was
introduced into the world by the preaching of the gospel. As it is my
intention to remark only such human causes as were permitted to second
the influence of revelation, I shall slightly mention two motives which
might naturally render the lives of the primitive Christians much purer
and more austere than those of their Pagan contemporaries, or their
degenerate successors; repentance for their past sins, and the laudable
desire of supporting the reputation of the society in which they were
engaged. [83]

[Footnote 83: These, in the opinion of the editor, are the most uncandid
paragraphs in Gibbon's History. He ought either, with manly courage, to
have denied the moral reformation introduced by Christianity, or fairly
to have investigated all its motives; not to have confined himself to
an insidious and sarcastic description of the less pure and generous
elements of the Christian character as it appeared even at that early
time.--M.]

It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the malice
of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their party the most
atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were touched by a sense of
remorse, were easily persuaded to wash away, in the water of baptism,
the guilt of their past conduct, for which the temples of the gods
refused to grant them any expiation. But this reproach, when it is
cleared from misrepresentation, contributes as much to the honor as it
did to the increase of the church. [83] The friends of Christianity may
acknowledge without a blush, that many of the most eminent saints had
been before their baptism the most abandoned sinners. Those persons, who
in the world had followed, though in an imperfect manner, the dictates
of benevolence and propriety, derived such a calm satisfaction from the
opinion of their own rectitude, as rendered them much less susceptible
of the sudden emotions of shame, of grief, and of terror, which have
given birth to so many wonderful conversions. After the example of their
divine Master, the missionaries of the gospel disdained not the society
of men, and especially of women, oppressed by the consciousness, and
very often by the effects, of their vices. As they emerged from sin
and superstition to the glorious hope of immortality, they resolved to
devote themselves to a life, not only of virtue, but of penitence. The
desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul; and it is
well known, that while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions
hurry us, with rapid violence, over the space which lies between the
most opposite extremes.

[Footnote 83: The imputations of Celsus and Julian, with the defence of
the fathers, are very fairly stated by Spanheim, Commentaire sur les
Cesars de Julian, p. 468.]

When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the faithful,
and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they found themselves
restrained from relapsing into their past disorders by another
consideration of a less spiritual, but of a very innocent and
respectable nature. Any particular society that has departed from
the great body of the nation, or the religion to which it belonged,
immediately becomes the object of universal as well as invidious
observation. In proportion to the smallness of its numbers, the
character of the society may be affected by the virtues and vices of the
persons who compose it; and every member is engaged to watch with the
most vigilant attention over his own behavior, and over that of his
brethren, since, as he must expect to incur a part of the common
disgrace, he may hope to enjoy a share of the common reputation. When
the Christians of Bithynia were brought before the tribunal of the
younger Pliny, they assured the proconsul, that, far from being engaged
in any unlawful conspiracy, they were bound by a solemn obligation to
abstain from the commission of those crimes which disturb the private
or public peace of society, from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury,
and fraud. [84] [841] Near a century afterwards, Tertullian with an honest
pride, could boast, that very few Christians had suffered by the hand of
the executioner, except on account of their religion. [85] Their serious
and sequestered life, averse to the gay luxury of the age, inured
them to chastity, temperance, economy, and all the sober and domestic
virtues. As the greater number were of some trade or profession, it was
incumbent on them, by the strictest integrity and the fairest dealing,
to remove the suspicions which the profane are too apt to conceive
against the appearances of sanctity. The contempt of the world exercised
them in the habits of humility, meekness, and patience. The more they
were persecuted, the more closely they adhered to each other. Their
mutual charity and unsuspecting confidence has been remarked by
infidels, and was too often abused by perfidious friends. [86]

[Footnote 84: Plin. Epist. x. 97. * Note: Is not the sense of Tertullian
rather, if guilty of any other offence, he had thereby ceased to be a
Christian?--M.]

[Footnote 841: And this blamelessness was fully admitted by the candid and
enlightened Roman.--M.]

[Footnote 85: Tertullian, Apolog. c. 44. He adds, however, with some
degree of hesitation, "Aut si aliud, jam non Christianus." * Note:
Tertullian says positively no Christian, nemo illic Christianus; for the
rest, the limitation which he himself subjoins, and which Gibbon quotes
in the foregoing note, diminishes the force of this assertion, and
appears to prove that at least he knew none such.--G.]

[Footnote 86: The philosopher Peregrinus (of whose life and death Lucian
has left us so entertaining an account) imposed, for a long time, on the
credulous simplicity of the Christians of Asia.]

It is a very honorable circumstance for the morals of the primitive
Christians, that even their faults, or rather errors, were derived
from an excess of virtue. The bishops and doctors of the church, whose
evidence attests, and whose authority might influence, the professions,
the principles, and even the practice of their contemporaries, had
studied the Scriptures with less skill than devotion; and they often
received, in the most literal sense, those rigid precepts of Christ
and the apostles, to which the prudence of succeeding commentators has
applied a looser and more figurative mode of interpretation. Ambitious
to exalt the perfection of the gospel above the wisdom of philosophy,
the zealous fathers have carried the duties of self-mortification, of
purity, and of patience, to a height which it is scarcely possible to
attain, and much less to preserve, in our present state of weakness and
corruption. A doctrine so extraordinary and so sublime must inevitably
command the veneration of the people; but it was ill calculated to
obtain the suffrage of those worldly philosophers, who, in the conduct
of this transitory life, consult only the feelings of nature and the
interest of society. [87]

[Footnote 87: See a very judicious treatise of Barbeyrac sur la Morale
des Peres.]

There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the
most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the
love of action. If the former is refined by art and learning, improved
by the charms of social intercourse, and corrected by a just regard to
economy, to health, and to reputation, it is productive of the greatest
part of the happiness of private life. The love of action is a principle
of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger,
to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of
propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every virtue, and if
those virtues are accompanied with equal abilities, a family, a state,
or an empire, may be indebted for their safety and prosperity to the
undaunted courage of a single man. To the love of pleasure we may
therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we
may attribute most of the useful and respectable, qualifications. The
character in which both the one and the other should be united and
harmonized, would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human
nature. The insensible and inactive disposition, which should be
supposed alike destitute of both, would be rejected, by the common
consent of mankind, as utterly incapable of procuring any happiness to
the individual, or any public benefit to the world. But it was not
in this world, that the primitive Christians were desirous of making
themselves either agreeable or useful. [*871]

[Footnote 871: El que me fait cette homelie semi-stoicienne,
semi-epicurienne? t'on jamais regarde l'amour du plaisir comme l'un des
principes de la perfection morale? Et de quel droit faites vous de
l'amour de l'action, et de l'amour du plaisir, les seuls elemens de
l'etre humain? Est ce que vous faites abstraction de la verite en
elle-meme, de la conscience et du sentiment du devoir? Est ce que vous ne
sentez point, par exemple, que le sacrifice du moi a la justice et a la
verite, est aussi dans le coeur de l'homme: que tout n'est pas pour lui
action ou plaisir, et que dans le bien ce n'est pas le mouvement, mais
la verite, qu'il cherche? Et puis * * Thucy dide et Tacite. ces maitres
de l'histoire, ont ils jamais introduits dans leur recits un fragment de
dissertation sur le plaisir et sur l'action. Villemain Cours de Lit.
Franc part ii. Lecon v.--M.]

The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason or fancy, and
the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation, may employ the leisure of
a liberal mind. Such amusements, however, were rejected with abhorrence,
or admitted with the utmost caution, by the severity of the fathers,
who despised all knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and who
considered all levity of discours eas a criminal abuse of the gift of
speech. In our present state of existence the body is so inseparably
connected with the soul, that it seems to be our interest to taste,
with innocence and moderation, the enjoyments of which that faithful
companion is susceptible. Very different was the reasoning of our devout
predecessors; vainly aspiring to imitate the perfection of angels, they
disdained, or they affected to disdain, every earthly and corporeal
delight. [88] Some of our senses indeed are necessary for our
preservation, others for our subsistence, and others again for our
information; and thus far it was impossible to reject the use of them.
The first sensation of pleasure was marked as the first moment of their
abuse. The unfeeling candidate for heaven was instructed, not only to
resist the grosser allurements of the taste or smell, but even to
shut his ears against the profane harmony of sounds, and to view with
indifference the most finished productions of human art. Gay apparel,
magnificent houses, and elegant furniture, were supposed to unite
the double guilt of pride and of sensuality; a simple and mortified
appearance was more suitable to the Christian who was certain of his
sins and doubtful of his salvation. In their censures of luxury, the
fathers are extremely minute and circumstantial; [89] and among the
various articles which excite their pious indignation, we may enumerate
false hair, garments of any color except white, instruments of music,
vases of gold or silver, downy pillows, (as Jacob reposed his head on a
stone,) white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm
baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to the
expression of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and an impious
attempt to improve the works of the Creator. [90] When Christianity
was introduced among the rich and the polite, the observation of these
singular laws was left, as it would be at present, to the few who
were ambitious of superior sanctity. But it is always easy, as well as
agreeable, for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim a merit from the
contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their
reach. The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first
Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.

[Footnote 88: Lactant. Institut. Divin. l. vi. c. 20, 21, 22.]

[Footnote 89: Consult a work of Clemens of Alexandria, entitled The
Paedagogue, which contains the rudiments of ethics, as they were taught
in the most celebrated of the Christian schools.]

[Footnote 90: Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 23. Clemens Alexandrin.
Paedagog. l. iii. c. 8.]

The chaste severity of the fathers, in whatever related to the commerce
of the two sexes, flowed from the same principle; their abhorrence
of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual, and degrade the
spiritual, nature of man. It was their favorite opinion, that if Adam
had preserved his obedience to the Creator, he would have lived forever
in a state of virgin purity, and that some harmless mode of vegetation
might have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings.
[91] The use of marriage was permitted only to his fallen posterity, as
a necessary expedient to continue the human species, and as a restraint,
however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire. The
hesitation of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject, betrays
the perplexity of men, unwilling to approve an institution which they
were compelled to tolerate. [92] The enumeration of the very whimsical
laws, which they most circumstantially imposed on the marriage-bed,
would force a smile from the young and a blush from the fair. It was
their unanimous sentiment, that a first marriage was adequate to all the
purposes of nature and of society. The sensual connection was refined
into a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with his church, and
was pronounced to be indissoluble either by divorce or by death.
The practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a egal
adultery; and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous an offence
against Christian purity, were soon excluded from the honors, and even
from the alms, of the church. [93] Since desire was imputed as a crime,
and marriage was tolerated as a defect, it was consistent with the same
principles to consider a state of celibacy as the nearest approach to
the divine perfection. It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient
Rome could support the institution of six vestals; [94] but the primitive
church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex, who had
devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. [95] A few of
these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the most
prudent to disarm the tempter. [96] Some were insensible and some were
invincible against the assaults of the flesh. Disdaining an ignominious
flight, the virgins of the warm climate of Africa encountered the enemy
in the closest engagement; they permitted priests and deacons to share
their bed, and gloried amidst the flames in their unsullied purity. But
insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights, and this new species
of martyrdom served only to introduce a new scandal into the church. [97]
Among the Christian ascetics, however, (a name which they soon acquired
from their painful exercise,) many, as they were less presumptuous, were
probably more successful. The loss of sensual pleasure was supplied
and compensated by spiritual pride. Even the multitude of Pagans
were inclined to estimate the merit of the sacrifice by its apparent
difficulty; and it was in the praise of these chaste spouses of
Christ that the fathers have poured forth the troubled stream of their
eloquence. [98] Such are the early traces of monastic principles and
institutions, which, in a subsequent age, have counterbalanced all the
temporal advantages of Christianity. [99]

[Footnote 91: Beausobro, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. vii. c.
3. Justin, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustin, &c., strongly incline to this
opinion. Note: But these were Gnostic or Manichean opinions. Beausobre
distinctly describes Autustine's bias to his recent escape from
Manicheism; and adds that he afterwards changed his views.--M.]

[Footnote 92: Some of the Gnostic heretics were more consistent; they
rejected the use of marriage.]

[Footnote 93: See a chain of tradition, from Justin Martyr to Jerome, in
the Morale des Peres, c. iv. 6--26.]

[Footnote 94: See a very curious Dissertation on the Vestals, in
the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. iv. p. 161--227.
Notwithstanding the honors and rewards which were bestowed on those
virgins, it was difficult to procure a sufficient number; nor could the
dread of the most horrible death always restrain their incontinence.]

[Footnote 95: Cupiditatem procreandi aut unam scimus aut nullam.
Minutius Faelix, c. 31. Justin. Apolog. Major. Athenagoras in Legat. c
28. Tertullian de Cultu Foemin. l. ii.]

[Footnote 96: Eusebius, l. vi. 8. Before the fame of Origen had excited
envy and persecution, this extraordinary action was rather admired than
censured. As it was his general practice to allegorize Scripture, it
seems unfortunate that in this instance only, he should have adopted the
literal sense.]

[Footnote 97: Cyprian. Epist. 4, and Dodwell, Dissertat. Cyprianic. iii.
Something like this rash attempt was long afterwards imputed to the
founder of the order of Fontevrault. Bayle has amused himself and his
readers on that very delicate subject.]

[Footnote 98: Dupin (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 195) gives
a particular account of the dialogue of the ten virgins, as it was
composed by Methodius, Bishop of Tyre. The praises of virginity are
excessive.]

[Footnote 99: The Ascetics (as early as the second century) made a
public profession of mortifying their bodies, and of abstaining from the
use of flesh and wine. Mosheim, p. 310.]

The Christians were not less averse to the business than to the
pleasures of this world. The defence of our persons and property they
knew not how to reconcile with the patient doctrine which enjoined an
unlimited forgiveness of past injuries, and commanded them to invite the
repetition of fresh insults. Their simplicity was offended by the use of
oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and by the active contention of public
life; nor could their humane ignorance be convinced that it was lawful
on any occasion to shed the blood of our fellow-creatures, either by
the sword of justice, or by that of war; even though their criminal
or hostile attempts should threaten the peace and safety of the whole
community. [100] It was acknowledged, that, under a less perfect law,
the powers of the Jewish constitution had been exercised, with the
approbation of Heaven, by inspired prophets and by anointed kings. The
Christians felt and confessed that such institutions might be necessary
for the present system of the world, and they cheerfully submitted to
the authority of their Pagan governors. But while they inculcated the
maxims of passive obedience, they refused to take any active part in
the civil administration or the military defence of the empire. Some
indulgence might, perhaps, be allowed to those persons who, before
their conversion, were already engaged in such violent and sanguinary
occupations; [101] but it was impossible that the Christians, without
renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume the character of soldiers,
of magistrates, or of princes. [102] This indolent, or even criminal
disregard to the public welfare, exposed them to the contempt and
reproaches of the Pagans who very frequently asked, what must be the
fate of the empire, attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all
mankind should adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect. [103]
To this insulting question the Christian apologists returned obscure and
ambiguous answers, as they were unwilling to reveal the secret cause of
their security; the expectation that, before the conversion of mankind
was accomplished, war, government, the Roman empire, and the world
itself, would be no more. It may be observed, that, in this instance
likewise, the situation of the first Christians coincided very happily
with their religious scruples, and that their aversion to an active life
contributed rather to excuse them from the service, than to exclude them
from the honors, of the state and army.

[Footnote 100: See the Morale des Peres. The same patient principles
have been revived since the Reformation by the Socinians, the modern
Anabaptists, and the Quakers. Barclay, the Apologist of the Quakers, has
protected his brethren by the authority of the primitive Christian; p.
542-549]

[Footnote 101: Tertullian, Apolog. c. 21. De Idololatria, c. 17, 18.
Origen contra Celsum, l. v. p. 253, l. vii. p. 348, l. viii.
p. 423-428.]

[Footnote 102: Tertullian (de Corona Militis, c. 11) suggested to
them the expedient of deserting; a counsel which, if it had been
generally known, was not very proper to conciliate the favor of the
emperors towards the Christian sect. * Note: There is nothing which
ought to astonish us in the refusal of the primitive Christians to take
part in public affairs; it was the natural consequence of the
contrariety of their principles to the customs, laws, and active life of
the Pagan world. As Christians, they could not enter into the senate,
which, according to Gibbon himself, always assembled in a temple or
consecrated place, and where each senator, before he took his seat, made
a libation of a few drops of wine, and burnt incense on the altar; as
Christians, they could not assist at festivals and banquets, which
always terminated with libations, &c.; finally, as "the innumerable
deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with every
circumstance of public and private life," the Christians could not
participate in them without incurring, according to their principles,
the guilt of impiety. It was then much less by an effect of their
doctrine, than by the consequence of their situation, that they stood
aloof from public business. Whenever this situation offered no
impediment, they showed as much activity as the Pagans. Proinde, says
Justin Martyr, (Apol. c. 17,) nos solum Deum adoramus, et vobis in rebus
aliis laeti inservimus.--G. -----This latter passage, M. Guizot quotes
in Latin; if he had consulted the original, he would have found it to be
altogether irrelevant: it merely relates to the payment of taxes.--M. --
--Tertullian does not suggest to the soldiers the expedient of
deserting; he says that they ought to be constantly on their guard to do
nothing during their service contrary to the law of God, and to resolve
to suffer martyrdom rather than submit to a base compliance, or openly
to renounce the service. (De Cor. Mil. ii. p. 127.) He does not
positively decide that the military service is not permitted to
Christians; he ends, indeed, by saying, Puta denique licere militiam
usque ad causam coronae.--G. ----M. Guizot is. I think, again
unfortunate in his defence of Tertullian. That father says, that many
Christian soldiers had deserted, aut deserendum statim sit, ut a multis
actum. The latter sentence, Puta, &c, &c., is a concession for the sake
of argument: wha follows is more to the purpose.--M. Many other passages
of Tertullian prove that the army was full of Christians, Hesterni sumus
et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes, insulas, castella, municipia,
conciliabula, castra ipsa. (Apol. c. 37.) Navigamus et not vobiscum et
militamus. (c. 42.) Origen, in truth, appears to have maintained a more
rigid opinion, (Cont. Cels. l. viii.;) but he has often renounced this
exaggerated severity, perhaps necessary to produce great results, and he
speaks of the profession of arms as an honorable one. (l. iv. c. 218.)--
G. ----On these points Christian opinion, it should seem, was much
divided Tertullian, when he wrote the De Cor. Mil., was evidently
inclining to more ascetic opinions, and Origen was of the same class.
See Neander, vol. l part ii. p. 305, edit. 1828.--M.]

[Footnote 103: As well as we can judge from the mutilated representation
of Origen, (1. viii. p. 423,) his adversary, Celsus, had urged his
objection with great force and candor.]




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

V. But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a
temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural
level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its
present condition. The primitive Christians were dead to the business
and pleasures of the world; but their love of action, which could never
be entirely extinguished, soon revived, and found a new occupation in
the government of the church. A separate society, which attacked the
established religion of the empire, was obliged to adopt some form
of internal policy, and to appoint a sufficient number of ministers,
intrusted not only with the spiritual functions, but even with the
temporal direction of the Christian commonwealth. The safety of that
society, its honor, its aggrandizement, were productive, even in the
most pious minds, of a spirit of patriotism, such as the first of
the Romans had felt for the republic, and sometimes of a similar
indifference, in the use of whatever means might probably conduce to so
desirable an end. The ambition of raising themselves or their friends
to the honors and offices of the church, was disguised by the laudable
intention of devoting to the public benefit the power and consideration,
which, for that purpose only, it became their duty to solicit. In the
exercise of their functions, they were frequently called upon to detect
the errors of heresy or the arts of faction, to oppose the designs
of perfidious brethren, to stigmatize their characters with deserved
infamy, and to expel them from the bosom of a society whose peace and
happiness they had attempted to disturb. The ecclesiastical governors of
the Christians were taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the
innocence of the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was
insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government. If the church as
well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any public station
rendered themselves considerable by their eloquence and firmness, by
their knowledge of mankind, and by their dexterity in business; and
while they concealed from others, and perhaps from themselves, the
secret motives of their conduct, they too frequently relapsed into all
the turbulent passions of active life, which were tinctured with an
additional degree of bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of
spiritual zeal.

The government of the church has often been the subject, as well as
the prize, of religious contention. The hostile disputants of Rome,
of Paris, of Oxford, and of Geneva, have alike struggled to reduce the
primitive and apostolic model [104] to the respective standards of their
own policy. The few who have pursued this inquiry with more candor and
impartiality, are of opinion, [105] that the apostles declined the office
of legislation, and rather chose to endure some partial scandals and
divisions, than to exclude the Christians of a future age from the
liberty of varying their forms of ecclesiastical government according
to the changes of times and circumstances. The scheme of policy, which,
under their approbation, was adopted for the use of the first century,
may be discovered from the practice of Jerusalem, of Ephesus, or of
Corinth. The societies which were instituted in the cities of the Roman
empire, were united only by the ties of faith and charity. Independence
and equality formed the basis of their internal constitution. The
want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occasional
assistance of the prophets, [106] who were called to that function
without distinction of age, of sex, [1061] or of natural abilities, and who,
as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the effusions
of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But these extraordinary
gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by the prophetic teachers.
They displayed them at an improper season, presumptuously disturbed
the service of the assembly, and, by their pride or mistaken zeal, they
introduced, particularly into the apostolic church of Corinth, a long
and melancholy train of disorders. [107] As the institution of prophets
became useless, and even pernicious, their powers were withdrawn, and
their office abolished. The public functions of religion were solely
intrusted to the established ministers of the church, the bishops and
the presbyters; two appellations which, in their first origin, appear
to have distinguished the same office and the same order of persons.
The name of Presbyter was expressive of their age, or rather of their
gravity and wisdom. The title of Bishop denoted their inspection over
the faith and manners of the Christians who were committed to their
pastoral care. In proportion to the respective numbers of the faithful,
a larger or smaller number of these episcopal presbyters guided each
infant congregation with equal authority and with united counsels.
[108]

[Footnote 104: The aristocratical party in France, as well as in
England, has strenuously maintained the divine origin of bishops.
But the Calvinistical presbyters were impatient of a superior; and the
Roman Pontiff refused to acknowledge an equal. See Fra Paolo.]

[Footnote 105: In the history of the Christian hierarchy, I have, for
the most part, followed the learned and candid Mosheim.]

[Footnote 106: For the prophets of the primitive church, see Mosheim,
Dissertationes ad Hist. Eccles. pertinentes, tom. ii. p. 132--208.]

[Footnote 1061: St. Paul distinctly reproves the intrusion of females into
the prophets office. 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35. 1 Tim. ii. 11.--M.]

[Footnote 107: See the epistles of St. Paul, and of Clemens, to the
Corinthians. * Note: The first ministers established in the church were
the deacons, appointed at Jerusalem, seven in number; they were charged
with the distribution of the alms; even females had a share in this
employment. After the deacons came the elders or priests, charged with
the maintenance of order and decorum in the community, and to act every
where in its name. The bishops were afterwards charged to watch over the
faith and the instruction of the disciples: the apostles themselves
appointed several bishops. Tertullian, (adv. Marium, c. v.,) Clement of
Alexandria, and many fathers of the second and third century, do not
permit us to doubt this fact. The equality of rank between these
different functionaries did not prevent their functions being, even in
their origin, distinct; they became subsequently still more so. See
Plank, Geschichte der Christ. Kirch. Verfassung., vol. i. p. 24.--G. On
this extremely obscure subject, which has been so much perplexed by
passion and interest, it is impossible to justify any opinion without
entering into long and controversial details.----It must be admitted, in
opposition to Plank, that in the New Testament, several words are
sometimes indiscriminately used. (Acts xx. v. 17, comp. with 28 Tit. i.
5 and 7. Philip. i. 1.) But it is as clear, that as soon as we can
discern the form of church government, at a period closely bordering
upon, if not within, the apostolic age, it appears with a bishop at the
head of each community, holding some superiority over the presbyters.
Whether he was, as Gibbon from Mosheim supposes, merely an elective head
of the College of Presbyters, (for this we have, in fact, no valid
authority,) or whether his distinct functions were established on
apostolic authority, is still contested. The universal submission to
this episcopacy, in every part of the Christian world appears to me
strongly to favor the latter view.--M.]

[Footnote 108: Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, l. vii.]

But the most perfect equality of freedom requires the directing hand
of a superior magistrate: and the order of public deliberations soon
introduces the office of a president, invested at least with
the authority of collecting the sentiments, and of executing the
resolutions, of the assembly. A regard for the public tranquillity,
which would so frequently have been interrupted by annual or by
occasional elections, induced the primitive Christians to constitute an
honorable and perpetual magistracy, and to choose one of the wisest and
most holy among their presbyterians to execute, during his life,
the duties of their ecclesiastical governor. It was under these
circumstances that the lofty title of Bishop began to raise itself above
the humble appellation of Presbyter; and while the latter remained the
most natural distinction for the members of every Christian senate, the
former was appropriated to the dignity of its new president. [109] The
advantages of this episcopal form of government, which appears to
have been introduced before the end of the first century, [110] were
so obvious, and so important for the future greatness, as well as the
present peace, of Christianity, that it was adopted without delay by all
the societies which were already scattered over the empire, had acquired
in a very early period the sanction of antiquity, [111] and is still
revered by the most powerful churches, both of the East and of the West,
as a primitive and even as a divine establishment. [112] It is needless
to observe, that the pious and humble presbyters, who were first
dignified with the episcopal title, could not possess, and would
probably have rejected, the power and pomp which now encircles the
tiara of the Roman pontiff, or the mitre of a German prelate. But we
may define, in a few words, the narrow limits of their original
jurisdiction, which was chiefly of a spiritual, though in some instances
of a temporal nature. [113] It consisted in the administration of
the sacraments and discipline of the church, the superintendency of
religious ceremonies, which imperceptibly increased in number and
variety, the consecration of ecclesiastical ministers, to whom the
bishop assigned their respective functions, the management of the public
fund, and the determination of all such differences as the faithful were
unwilling to expose before the tribunal of an idolatrous judge. These
powers, during a short period, were exercised according to the advice
of the presbyteral college, and with the consent and approbation of the
assembly of Christians. The primitive bishops were considered only as
the first of their equals, and the honorable servants of a free people.
Whenever the episcopal chair became vacant by death, a new president was
chosen among the presbyters by the suffrages of the whole congregation,
every member of which supposed himself invested with a sacred and
sacerdotal character. [114]

[Footnote 109: See Jerome and Titum, c. i. and Epistol. 85, (in the
Benedictine edition, 101,) and the elaborate apology of Blondel, pro
sententia Hieronymi. The ancient state, as it is described by Jerome, of
the bishop and presbyters of Alexandria, receives a remarkable
confirmation from the patriarch Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 330, Vers
Pocock;) whose testimony I know not how to reject, in spite of all the
objections of the learned Pearson in his Vindiciae Ignatianae, part i.
c. 11.]

[Footnote 110: See the introduction to the Apocalypse. Bishops, under
the name of angels, were already instituted in the seven cities of Asia.
And yet the epistle of Clemens (which is probably of as ancient a date)
does not lead us to discover any traces of episcopacy either at Corinth
or Rome.]

[Footnote 111: Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo, has been a fact as well as
a maxim since the time of Tertullian and Irenaeus.]

[Footnote 112: After we have passed the difficulties of the first
century, we find the episcopal government universally established, till
it was interrupted by the republican genius of the Swiss and German
reformers.]

[Footnote 113: See Mosheim in the first and second centuries. Ignatius
(ad Smyrnaeos, c. 3, &c.) is fond of exalting the episcopal dignity. Le
Clerc (Hist. Eccles. p. 569) very bluntly censures his conduct, Mosheim,
with a more critical judgment, (p. 161,) suspects the purity even of the
smaller epistles.]

[Footnote 114: Nonne et Laici sacerdotes sumus? Tertullian, Exhort. ad
Castitat. c. 7. As the human heart is still the same, several of the
observations which Mr. Hume has made on Enthusiasm, (Essays, vol. i. p.
76, quarto edit.) may be applied even to real inspiration. * Note: This
expression was employed by the earlier Christian writers in the sense
used by St. Peter, 1 Ep ii. 9. It was the sanctity and virtue not the
power of priesthood, in which all Christians were to be equally
distinguished.--M.]

Such was the mild and equal constitution by which the Christians were
governed more than a hundred years after the death of the apostles.
Every society formed within itself a separate and independent republic;
and although the most distant of these little states maintained a
mutual as well as friendly intercourse of letters and deputations,
the Christian world was not yet connected by any supreme authority or
legislative assembly. As the numbers of the faithful were gradually
multiplied, they discovered the advantages that might result from a
closer union of their interest and designs. Towards the end of the
second century, the churches of Greece and Asia adopted the useful
institutions of provincial synods, [1141] and they may justly be supposed to
have borrowed the model of a representative council from the celebrated
examples of their own country, the Amphictyons, the Achaean league, or
the assemblies of the Ionian cities. It was soon established as a custom
and as a law, that the bishops of the independent churches should meet
in the capital of the province at the stated periods of spring and
autumn. Their deliberations were assisted by the advice of a few
distinguished presbyters, and moderated by the presence of a listening
multitude. [115] Their decrees, which were styled Canons, regulated every
important controversy of faith and discipline; and it was natural to
believe that a liberal effusion of the Holy Spirit would be poured
on the united assembly of the delegates of the Christian people. The
institution of synods was so well suited to private ambition, and
to public interest, that in the space of a few years it was received
throughout the whole empire. A regular correspondence was established
between the provincial councils, which mutually communicated and
approved their respective proceedings; and the catholic church soon
assumed the form, and acquired the strength, of a great foederative
republic. [116]

[Footnote 1141: The synods were not the first means taken by the insulated
churches to enter into communion and to assume a corporate character.
The dioceses were first formed by the union of several country churches
with a church in a city: many churches in one city uniting among
themselves, or joining a more considerable church, became metropolitan.
The dioceses were not formed before the beginning of the second century:
before that time the Christians had not established sufficient churches
in the country to stand in need of that union. It is towards the
middle of the same century that we discover the first traces of the
metropolitan constitution. (Probably the country churches were founded
in general by missionaries from those in the city, and would preserve a
natural connection with the parent church.)--M. ----The provincial
synods did not commence till towards the middle of the third century,
and were not the first synods. History gives us distinct notions of the
synods, held towards the end of the second century, at Ephesus at
Jerusalem, at Pontus, and at Rome, to put an end to the disputes which
had arisen between the Latin and Asiatic churches about the celebration
of Easter. But these synods were not subject to any regular form or
periodical return; this regularity was first established with the
provincial synods, which were formed by a union of the bishops of a
district, subject to a metropolitan. Plank, p. 90. Geschichte der
Christ. Kirch. Verfassung--G]

[Footnote 115: Acta Concil. Carthag. apud Cyprian. edit. Fell, p. 158.
This council was composed of eighty-seven bishops from the provinces of
Mauritania, Numidia, and Africa; some presbyters and deacons assisted at
the assembly; praesente plebis maxima parte.]

[Footnote 116: Aguntur praeterea per Graecias illas, certis in locis
concilia, &c Tertullian de Jejuniis, c. 13. The African mentions it as a
recent and foreign institution. The coalition of the Christian churches
is very ably explained by Mosheim, p. 164 170.]

As the legislative authority of the particular churches was insensibly
superseded by the use of councils, the bishops obtained by their
alliance a much larger share of executive and arbitrary power; and as
soon as they were connected by a sense of their common interest, they
were enabled to attack with united vigor, the original rights of their
clergy and people. The prelates of the third century imperceptibly
changed the language of exhortation into that of command, scattered the
seeds of future usurpations, and supplied, by scripture allegories and
declamatory rhetoric, their deficiency of force and of reason. They
exalted the unity and power of the church, as it was represented in the
Episcopal Office, of which every bishop enjoyed an equal and undivided
portion. [117] Princes and magistrates, it was often repeated, might
boast an earthly claim to a transitory dominion; it was the episcopal
authority alone which was derived from the Deity, and extended itself
over this and over another world. The bishops were the vicegerents of
Christ, the successors of the apostles, and the mystic substitutes
of the high priest of the Mosaic law. Their exclusive privilege of
conferring the sacerdotal character, invaded the freedom both of
clerical and of popular elections; and if, in the administration of
the church, they still consulted the judgment of the presbyters, or the
inclination of the people, they most carefully inculcated the merit of
such a voluntary condescension. The bishops acknowledged the supreme
authority which resided in the assembly of their brethren; but in the
government of his peculiar diocese, each of them exacted from his
flock the same implicit obedience as if that favorite metaphor had been
literally just, and as if the shepherd had been of a more exalted nature
than that of his sheep. [118] This obedience, however, was not imposed
without some efforts on one side, and some resistance on the other. The
democratical part of the constitution was, in many places, very warmly
supported by the zealous or interested opposition of the inferior
clergy. But their patriotism received the ignominious epithets of
faction and schism; and the episcopal cause was indebted for its rapid
progress to the labors of many active prelates, who, like Cyprian of
Carthage, could reconcile the arts of the most ambitious statesman with
the Christian virtues which seem adapted to the character of a saint and
martyr. [119]

[Footnote 117: Cyprian, in his admired treatise De Unitate Ecclesiae. p.
75--86]

[Footnote 118: We may appeal to the whole tenor of Cyprian's conduct, of
his doctrine, and of his epistles. Le Clerc, in a short life of Cyprian,
(Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. xii. p. 207--378,) has laid him open
with great freedom and accuracy.]

[Footnote 119: If Novatus, Felicissimus, &c., whom the Bishop of
Carthage expelled from his church, and from Africa, were not the most
detestable monsters of wickedness, the zeal of Cyprian must occasionally
have prevailed over his veracity. For a very just account of these
obscure quarrels, see Mosheim, p. 497--512.]

The same causes which at first had destroyed the equality of the
presbyters introduced among the bishops a preeminence of rank, and from
thence a superiority of jurisdiction. As often as in the spring and
autumn they met in provincial synod, the difference of personal merit
and reputation was very sensibly felt among the members of the assembly,
and the multitude was governed by the wisdom and eloquence of the few.
But the order of public proceedings required a more regular and less
invidious distinction; the office of perpetual presidents in the
councils of each province was conferred on the bishops of the principal
city; and these aspiring prelates, who soon acquired the lofty titles of
Metropolitans and Primates, secretly prepared themselves to usurp over
their episcopal brethren the same authority which the bishops had so
lately assumed above the college of presbyters. [120] Nor was it long
before an emulation of preeminence and power prevailed among the
Metropolitans themselves, each of them affecting to display, in the most
pompous terms, the temporal honors and advantages of the city over which
he presided; the numbers and opulence of the Christians who were subject
to their pastoral care; the saints and martyrs who had arisen among
them; and the purity with which they preserved the tradition of the
faith, as it had been transmitted through a series of orthodox bishops
from the apostle or the apostolic disciple, to whom the foundation of
their church was ascribed. [121] From every cause, either of a civil or
of an ecclesiastical nature, it was easy to foresee that Rome must enjoy
the respect, and would soon claim the obedience of the provinces. The
society of the faithful bore a just proportion to the capital of the
empire; and the Roman church was the greatest, the most numerous,
and, in regard to the West, the most ancient of all the Christian
establishments, many of which had received their religion from the pious
labors of her missionaries. Instead of one apostolic founder, the utmost
boast of Antioch, of Ephesus, or of Corinth, the banks of the Tyber were
supposed to have been honored with the preaching and martyrdom of the
two most eminent among the apostles; [122] and the bishops of Rome
very prudently claimed the inheritance of whatsoever prerogatives were
attributed either to the person or to the office of St. Peter. [123]
The bishops of Italy and of the provinces were disposed to allow them
a primacy of order and association (such was their very accurate
expression) in the Christian aristocracy. [124] But the power of a
monarch was rejected with abhorrence, and the aspiring genius of
Rome experienced from the nations of Asia and Africa a more vigorous
resistance to her spiritual, than she had formerly done to her temporal,
dominion. The patriotic Cyprian, who ruled with the most absolute
sway the church of Carthage and the provincial synods, opposed with
resolution and success the ambition of the Roman pontiff, artfully
connected his own cause with that of the eastern bishops, and, like
Hannibal, sought out new allies in the heart of Asia. [125] If this Punic
war was carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much
less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates.
Invectives and excommunications were their only weapons; and these,
during the progress of the whole controversy, they hurled against each
other with equal fury and devotion. The hard necessity of censuring
either a pope, or a saint and martyr, distresses the modern Catholics
whenever they are obliged to relate the particulars of a dispute in
which the champions of religion indulged such passions as seem much more
adapted to the senate or to the camp. [126]

[Footnote 120: Mosheim, p. 269, 574. Dupin, Antiquae Eccles. Disciplin.
p. 19, 20.]

[Footnote 121: Tertullian, in a distinct treatise, has pleaded against
the heretics the right of prescription, as it was held by the apostolic
churches.]

[Footnote 122: The journey of St. Peter to Rome is mentioned by most of
the ancients, (see Eusebius, ii. 25,) maintained by all the Catholics,
allowed by some Protestants, (see Pearson and Dodwell de Success.
Episcop. Roman,) but has been vigorously attacked by Spanheim,
(Miscellanes Sacra, iii. 3.) According to Father Hardouin, the monks of
the thirteenth century, who composed the Aeneid, represented St. Peter
under the allegorical character of the Trojan hero. * Note: It is quite
clear that, strictly speaking, the church of Rome was not founded by
either of these apostles. St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans proves
undeniably the flourishing state of the church before his visit to the
city; and many Roman Catholic writers have given up the impracticable
task of reconciling with chronology any visit of St. Peter to Rome
before the end of the reign of Claudius, or the beginning of that of
Nero.--M.]

[Footnote 123: It is in French only that the famous
allusion to St. Peter's name is exact. Tu es Pierre, et sur cette
pierre.--The same is imperfect in Greek, Latin, Italian, &c., and
totally unintelligible in our Tentonic languages. * Note: It is exact in
Syro-Chaldaic, the language in which it was spoken by Jesus Christ. (St.
Matt. xvi. 17.) Peter was called Cephas; and cepha signifies base,
foundation, rock--G.]

[Footnote 124: Irenaeus adv. Haereses, iii. 3. Tertullian de
Praescription. c. 36, and Cyprian, Epistol. 27, 55, 71, 75. Le
Clere (Hist. Eccles. p. 764) and Mosheim (p. 258, 578) labor in the
interpretation of these passages. But the loose and rhetorical style of
the fathers often appears favorable to the pretensions of Rome.]

[Footnote 125: See the sharp epistle from Firmilianus, bishop of
Caesarea, to Stephen, bishop of Rome, ap. Cyprian, Epistol. 75.]

[Footnote 126: Concerning this dispute of the rebaptism of heretics, see
the epistles of Cyprian, and the seventh book of Eusebius.]

The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the memorable
distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had been unknown
to the Greeks and Romans. [127] The former of these appellations
comprehended the body of the Christian people; the latter, according to
the signification of the word, was appropriated to the chosen portion
that had been set apart for the service of religion; a celebrated order
of men, which has furnished the most important, though not always the
most edifying, subjects for modern history. Their mutual hostilities
sometimes disturbed the peace of the infant church, but their zeal and
activity were united in the common cause, and the love of power, which
(under the most artful disguises) could insinuate itself into the
breasts of bishops and martyrs, animated them to increase the number of
their subjects, and to enlarge the limits of the Christian empire. They
were destitute of any temporal force, and they were for a long
time discouraged and oppressed, rather than assisted, by the civil
magistrate; but they had acquired, and they employed within their own
society, the two most efficacious instruments of government, rewards and
punishments; the former derived from the pious liberality, the latter
from the devout apprehensions, of the faithful.

[Footnote 127: For the origin of these words, see Mosheim, p. 141.
Spanheim, Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 633. The distinction of Clerus and Iaicus
was established before the time of Tertullian.]




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

I. The community of goods, which had so agreeably amused the imagination
of Plato, [128] and which subsisted in some degree among the austere sect
of the Essenians, [129] was adopted for a short time in the primitive
church. The fervor of the first proselytes prompted them to sell those
worldly possessions, which they despised, to lay the price of them at
the feet of the apostles, and to content themselves with receiving an
equal share out of the general distribution. [130] The progress of the
Christian religion relaxed, and gradually abolished, this generous
institution, which, in hands less pure than those of the apostles, would
too soon have been corrupted and abused by the returning selfishness
of human nature; and the converts who embraced the new religion were
permitted to retain the possession of their patrimony, to receive
legacies and inheritances, and to increase their separate property
by all the lawful means of trade and industry. Instead of an absolute
sacrifice, a moderate proportion was accepted by the ministers of the
gospel; and in their weekly or monthly assemblies, every believer,
according to the exigency of the occasion, and the measure of his wealth
and piety, presented his voluntary offering for the use of the common
fund. [131] Nothing, however inconsiderable, was refused; but it was
diligently inculcated; that, in the article of Tithes, the Mosaic law
was still of divine obligation; and that since the Jews, under a less
perfect discipline, had been commanded to pay a tenth part of all that
they possessed, it would become the disciples of Christ to distinguish
themselves by a superior degree of liberality, [132] and to acquire
some merit by resigning a superfluous treasure, which must so soon be
annihilated with the world itself. [133] It is almost unnecessary to
observe, that the revenue of each particular church, which was of so
uncertain and fluctuating a nature, must have varied with the poverty
or the opulence of the faithful, as they were dispersed in obscure
villages, or collected in the great cities of the empire. In the time
of the emperor Decius, it was the opinion of the magistrates, that the
Christians of Rome were possessed of very considerable wealth; that
vessels of gold and silver were used in their religious worship, and
that many among their proselytes had sold their lands and houses to
increase the public riches of the sect, at the expense, indeed, of
their unfortunate children, who found themselves beggars, because their
parents had been saints. [134] We should listen with distrust to the
suspicions of strangers and enemies: on this occasion, however, they
receive a very specious and probable color from the two following
circumstances, the only ones that have reached our knowledge, which
define any precise sums, or convey any distinct idea. Almost at the same
period, the bishop of Carthage, from a society less opulent than that of
Rome, collected a hundred thousand sesterces, (above eight hundred
and fifty pounds sterling,) on a sudden call of charity to redeem
the brethren of Numidia, who had been carried away captives by the
barbarians of the desert. [135] About a hundred years before the reign of
Decius, the Roman church had received, in a single donation, the sum of
two hundred thousand sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, who proposed
to fix his residence in the capital. [136] These oblations, for the
most part, were made in money; nor was the society of Christians either
desirous or capable of acquiring, to any considerable degree, the
encumbrance of landed property. It had been provided by several laws,
which were enacted with the same design as our statutes of mortmain,
that no real estates should be given or bequeathed to any corporate
body, without either a special privilege or a particular dispensation
from the emperor or from the senate; [137] who were seldom disposed to
grant them in favor of a sect, at first the object of their contempt,
and at last of their fears and jealousy. A transaction, however, is
related under the reign of Alexander Severus, which discovers that the
restraint was sometimes eluded or suspended, and that the Christians
were permitted to claim and to possess lands within the limits of Rome
itself. [138] The progress of Christianity, and the civil confusion of
the empire, contributed to relax the severity of the laws; and before
the close of the third century many considerable estates were bestowed
on the opulent churches of Rome, Milan, Carthage, Antioch, Alexandria,
and the other great cities of Italy and the provinces.

[Footnote 128: The community instituted by Plato is more perfect than
that which Sir Thomas More had imagined for his Utopia. The community
of women, and that of temporal goods, may be considered as inseparable
parts of the same system.]

[Footnote 129: Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 2. Philo, de Vit.
Contemplativ.]

[Footnote 130: See the Acts of the Apostles, c. 2, 4, 5, with Grotius's
Commentary. Mosheim, in a particular dissertation, attacks the common
opinion with very inconclusive arguments. * Note: This is not the
general judgment on Mosheim's learned dissertation. There is no trace in
the latter part of the New Testament of this community of goods, and
many distinct proofs of the contrary. All exhortations to almsgiving
would have been unmeaning if property had been in common--M.]

[Footnote 131: Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, c. 89. Tertullian, Apolog.
c. 39.]

[Footnote 132: Irenaeus ad Haeres. l. iv. c. 27, 34. Origen in Num. Hom.
ii Cyprian de Unitat. Eccles. Constitut. Apostol. l. ii. c. 34, 35,
with the notes of Cotelerius. The Constitutions introduce this divine
precept, by declaring that priests are as much above kings as the soul
is above the body. Among the tithable articles, they enumerate corn,
wine, oil, and wool. On this interesting subject, consult Prideaux's
History of Tithes, and Fra Paolo delle Materie Beneficiarie; two writers
of a very different character.]

[Footnote 133: The same opinion which prevailed about the year one
thousand, was productive of the same effects. Most of the Donations
express their motive, "appropinquante mundi fine." See Mosheim's General
History of the Church, vol. i. p. 457.]

[Footnote 134: Tum summa cura est fratribus (Ut sermo testatur loquax.)
Offerre, fundis venditis Sestertiorum millia. Addicta avorum praedia
Foedis sub auctionibus, Successor exheres gemit Sanctis egens
Parentibus. Haec occuluntur abditis Ecclesiarum in angulis. Et summa
pietas creditur Nudare dulces liberos.----Prudent. Hymn 2.
The subsequent conduct of the deacon Laurence only proves how proper a
use was made of the wealth of the Roman church; it was undoubtedly
very considerable; but Fra Paolo (c. 3) appears to exaggerate, when he
supposes that the successors of Commodus were urged to persecute the
Christians by their own avarice, or that of their Praetorian praefects.]

[Footnote 135: Cyprian, Epistol. 62.]

[Footnote 136: Tertullian de Praescriptione, c. 30.]

[Footnote 137: Diocletian gave a rescript, which is only a declaration
of the old law; "Collegium, si nullo speciali privilegio subnixum sit,
haereditatem capere non posse, dubium non est." Fra Paolo (c. 4) thinks
that these regulations had been much neglected since the reign of
Valerian.]

[Footnote 138: Hist. August. p. 131. The ground had been public; and was
row disputed between the society of Christians and that of butchers.
Note *: Carponarii, rather victuallers.--M.]

The bishop was the natural steward of the church; the public stock was
intrusted to his care without account or control; the presbyters were
confined to their spiritual functions, and the more dependent order of
the deacons was solely employed in the management and distribution of
the ecclesiastical revenue. [139] If we may give credit to the vehement
declamations of Cyprian, there were too many among his African brethren,
who, in the execution of their charge, violated every precept, not only
of evangelical perfection, but even of moral virtue. By some of these
unfaithful stewards the riches of the church were lavished in sensual
pleasures; by others they were perverted to the purposes of private
gain, of fraudulent purchases, and of rapacious usury. [140] But as
long as the contributions of the Christian people were free and
unconstrained, the abuse of their confidence could not be very frequent,
and the general uses to which their liberality was applied reflected
honor on the religious society. A decent portion was reserved for the
maintenance of the bishop and his clergy; a sufficient sum was allotted
for the expenses of the public worship, of which the feasts of love, the
agapoe, as they were called, constituted a very pleasing part. The
whole remainder was the sacred patrimony of the poor. According to
the discretion of the bishop, it was distributed to support widows and
orphans, the lame, the sick, and the aged of the community; to comfort
strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the misfortunes of prisoners
and captives, more especially when their sufferings had been occasioned
by their firm attachment to the cause of religion. [141] A generous
intercourse of charity united the most distant provinces, and the
smaller congregations were cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more
opulent brethren. [142] Such an institution, which paid less regard to
the merit than to the distress of the object, very materially conduced
to the progress of Christianity. The Pagans, who were actuated by a
sense of humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged the
benevolence, of the new sect. [143] The prospect of immediate relief and
of future protection allured into its hospitable bosom many of those
unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would have abandoned to
the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old age. There is some reason
likewise to believe that great numbers of infants, who, according to the
inhuman practice of the times, had been exposed by their parents, were
frequently rescued from death, baptized, educated, and maintained by the
piety of the Christians, and at the expense of the public treasure. [144]

[Footnote 139: Constitut. Apostol. ii. 35.]

[Footnote 140: Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 89. Epistol. 65. The charge is
confirmed by the 19th and 20th canon of the council of Illiberis.]

[Footnote 141: See the apologies of Justin, Tertullian, &c.]

[Footnote 142: The wealth and liberality of the Romans to their most distant
brethren is gratefully celebrated by Dionysius of Corinth, ap. Euseb. l.
iv. c. 23.]

[Footnote 143: See Lucian iu Peregrin. Julian (Epist. 49) seems
mortified that the Christian charity maintains not only their own, but
likewise the heathen poor.]

[Footnote 144: Such, at least, has been the laudable conduct of more
modern missionaries, under the same circumstances. Above three thousand
new-born infants are annually exposed in the streets of Pekin. See Le
Comte, Memoires sur la Chine, and the Recherches sur les Chinois et
les Egyptians, tom. i. p. 61.]


II. It is the undoubted right of every society to exclude from its
communion and benefits such among its members as reject or violate those
regulations which have been established by general consent. In the
exercise of this power, the censures of the Christian church were
chiefly directed against scandalous sinners, and particularly those who
were guilty of murder, of fraud, or of incontinence; against the authors
or the followers of any heretical opinions which had been condemned by
the judgment of the episcopal order; and against those unhappy persons,
who, whether from choice or compulsion, had polluted themselves after
their baptism by any act of idolatrous worship. The consequences of
excommunication were of a temporal as well as a spiritual nature. The
Christian against whom it was pronounced, was deprived of any part in
the oblations of the faithful. The ties both of religious and of private
friendship were dissolved: he found himself a profane object of
abhorrence to the persons whom he the most esteemed, or by whom he had
been the most tenderly beloved; and as far as an expulsion from a
respectable society could imprint on his character a mark of disgrace,
he was shunned or suspected by the generality of mankind. The situation
of these unfortunate exiles was in itself very painful and melancholy;
but, as it usually happens, their apprehensions far exceeded their
sufferings. The benefits of the Christian communion were those of
eternal life; nor could they erase from their minds the awful opinion,
that to those ecclesiastical governors by whom they were condemned, the
Deity had committed the keys of Hell and of Paradise. The heretics,
indeed, who might be supported by the consciousness of their intentions,
and by the flattering hope that they alone had discovered the true path
of salvation, endeavored to regain, in their separate assemblies, those
comforts, temporal as well as spiritual, which they no longer derived
from the great society of Christians. But almost all those who had
reluctantly yielded to the power of vice or idolatry were sensible of
their fallen condition, and anxiously desirous of being restored to the
benefits of the Christian communion.

With regard to the treatment of these penitents, two opposite opinions,
the one of justice, the other of mercy, divided the primitive church.
The more rigid and inflexible casuists refused them forever, and without
exception, the meanest place in the holy community, which they had
disgraced or deserted; and leaving them to the remorse of a guilty
conscience, indulged them only with a faint ray of hope that the
contrition of their life and death might possibly be accepted by the
Supreme Being. [145] A milder sentiment was embraced in practice as
well as in theory, by the purest and most respectable of the Christian
churches. [146] The gates of reconciliation and of heaven were seldom
shut against the returning penitent; but a severe and solemn form of
discipline was instituted, which, while it served to expiate his crime,
might powerfully deter the spectators from the imitation of his example.
Humbled by a public confession, emaciated by fasting and clothed in
sackcloth, the penitent lay prostrate at the door of the assembly,
imploring with tears the pardon of his offences, and soliciting the
prayers of the faithful. [147] If the fault was of a very heinous nature,
whole years of penance were esteemed an inadequate satisfaction to the
divine justice; and it was always by slow and painful gradations that
the sinner, the heretic, or the apostate, was readmitted into the bosom
of the church. A sentence of perpetual excommunication was, however,
reserved for some crimes of an extraordinary magnitude, and particularly
for the inexcusable relapses of those penitents who had already
experienced and abused the clemency of their ecclesiastical superiors.
According to the circumstances or the number of the guilty, the exercise
of the Christian discipline was varied by the discretion of the bishops.
The councils of Ancyra and Illiberis were held about the same time, the
one in Galatia, the other in Spain; but their respective canons, which
are still extant, seem to breathe a very different spirit. The Galatian,
who after his baptism had repeatedly sacrificed to idols, might obtain
his pardon by a penance of seven years; and if he had seduced others to
imitate his example, only three years more were added to the term of his
exile. But the unhappy Spaniard, who had committed the same offence, was
deprived of the hope of reconciliation, even in the article of death;
and his idolatry was placed at the head of a list of seventeen other
crimes, against which a sentence no less terrible was pronounced. Among
these we may distinguish the inexpiable guilt of calumniating a bishop,
a presbyter, or even a deacon. [148]

[Footnote 145: The Montanists and the Novatians, who adhered to this
opinion with the greatest rigor and obstinacy, found themselves at last
in the number of excommunicated heretics. See the learned and copious
Mosheim, Secul. ii. and iii.]

[Footnote 146: Dionysius ap. Euseb. iv. 23. Cyprian, de Lapsis.]

[Footnote 147: Cave's Primitive Christianity, part iii. c. 5. The
admirers of antiquity regret the loss of this public penance.]

[Footnote 148: See in Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. ii.
p. 304--313, a short but rational exposition of the canons of those
councils, which were assembled in the first moments of tranquillity,
after the persecution of Diocletian. This persecution had been much less
severely felt in Spain than in Galatia; a difference which may, in some
measure account for the contrast of their regulations.]

The well-tempered mixture of liberality and rigor, the judicious
dispensation of rewards and punishments, according to the maxims of
policy as well as justice, constituted the human strength of the church.
The Bishops, whose paternal care extended itself to the government of
both worlds, were sensible of the importance of these prerogatives; and
covering their ambition with the fair pretence of the love of order,
they were jealous of any rival in the exercise of a discipline so
necessary to prevent the desertion of those troops which had enlisted
themselves under the banner of the cross, and whose numbers every day
became more considerable. From the imperious declamations of Cyprian,
we should naturally conclude that the doctrines of excommunication and
penance formed the most essential part of religion; and that it was much
less dangerous for the disciples of Christ to neglect the observance of
the moral duties, than to despise the censures and authority of their
bishops. Sometimes we might imagine that we were listening to the voice
of Moses, when he commanded the earth to open, and to swallow up, in
consuming flames, the rebellious race which refused obedience to the
priesthood of Aaron; and we should sometimes suppose that we hear a
Roman consul asserting the majesty of the republic, and declaring his
inflexible resolution to enforce the rigor of the laws. "If such
irregularities are suffered with impunity," (it is thus that the bishop
of Carthage chides the lenity of his colleague,) "if such irregularities
are suffered, there is an end of Episcopal Vigor; [149] an end of the
sublime and divine power of governing the Church, an end of Christianity
itself." Cyprian had renounced those temporal honors, which it is
probable he would never have obtained; but the acquisition of
such absolute command over the consciences and understanding of a
congregation, however obscure or despised by the world, is more truly
grateful to the pride of the human heart, than the possession of the
most despotic power, imposed by arms and conquest on a reluctant people.
[Footnote 1491]: Gibbon has been accused of injustice to the character of
Cyprian, as exalting the "censures and authority of the church above the
observance of the moral duties." Felicissimus had been condemned by a
synod of bishops, (non tantum mea, sed plurimorum coepiscorum, sententia
condemnatum,) on the charge not only of schism, but of embezzlement of
public money, the debauching of virgins, and frequent acts of adultery.
His violent menaces had extorted his readmission into the church,
against which Cyprian protests with much vehemence: ne pecuniae
commissae sibi fraudator, ne stuprator virginum, ne matrimoniorum
multorum depopulator et corruptor, ultra adhuc sponsam Christi
incorruptam praesentiae suae dedecore, et impudica atque incesta
contagione, violaret. See Chelsum's Remarks, p. 134. If these
charges against Felicissimus were true, they were something more than
"irregularities," A Roman censor would have been a fairer subject of
comparison than a consul. On the other hand, it must be admitted that
the charge of adultery deepens very rapidly as the controversy becomes
more violent. It is first represented as a single act, recently
detected, and which men of character were prepared to substantiate:
adulterii etiam crimen accedit. quod patres nostri graves viri
deprehendisse se nuntiaverunt, et probaturos se asseverarunt. Epist.
xxxviii. The heretic has now darkened into a man of notorious and
general profligacy. Nor can it be denied that of the whole long epistle,
very far the larger and the more passionate part dwells on the breach
of ecclesiastical unity rather than on the violation of Christian
holiness.--M.]

[Footnote 149: Cyprian Epist. 69.]

[Footnote 1491: This supposition appears unfounded: the birth and the
talents of Cyprian might make us presume the contrary. Thascius
Caecilius Cyprianus, Carthaginensis, artis oratoriae professione clarus,
magnam sibi gloriam, opes, honores acquisivit, epularibus caenis et
largis dapibus assuetus, pretiosa veste conspicuus, auro atque purpura
fulgens, fascibus oblectatus et honoribus, stipatus clientium cuneis,
frequentiore comitatu officii agminis honestatus, ut ipse de se loquitur
in Epistola ad Donatum. See De Cave, Hist. Liter. b. i. p. 87.--G.
Cave has rather embellished Cyprian's language.--M.]

In the course of this important, though perhaps tedious inquiry, I have
attempted to display the secondary causes which so efficaciously
assisted the truth of the Christian religion. If among these causes we
have discovered any artificial ornaments, any accidental circumstances,
or any mixture of error and passion, it cannot appear surprising that
mankind should be the most sensibly affected by such motives as were
suited to their imperfect nature. It was by the aid of these causes,
exclusive zeal, the immediate expectation of another world, the claim of
miracles, the practice of rigid virtue, and the constitution of the
primitive church, that Christianity spread itself with so much success
in the Roman empire. To the first of these the Christians were indebted
for their invincible valor, which disdained to capitulate with the enemy
whom they were resolved to vanquish. The three succeeding causes
supplied their valor with the most formidable arms. The last of these
causes united their courage, directed their arms, and gave their efforts
that irresistible weight, which even a small band of well-trained and
intrepid volunteers has so often possessed over an undisciplined
multitude, ignorant of the subject, and careless of the event of the
war. In the various religions of Polytheism, some wandering fanatics of
Egypt and Syria, who addressed themselves to the credulous superstition
of the populace, were perhaps the only order of priests [150] that
derived their whole support and credit from their sacerdotal profession,
and were very deeply affected by a personal concern for the safety or
prosperity of their tutelar deities. The ministers of Polytheism, both
in Rome and in the provinces, were, for the most part, men of a noble
birth, and of an affluent fortune, who received, as an honorable
distinction, the care of a celebrated temple, or of a public sacrifice,
exhibited, very frequently at their own expense, the sacred games, [151]
and with cold indifference performed the ancient rites, according to the
laws and fashion of their country. As they were engaged in the ordinary
occupations of life, their zeal and devotion were seldom animated by a
sense of interest, or by the habits of an ecclesiastical character.
Confined to their respective temples and cities, they remained without
any connection of discipline or government; and whilst they acknowledged
the supreme jurisdiction of the senate, of the college of pontiffs, and
of the emperor, those civil magistrates contented themselves with the
easy task of maintaining in peace and dignity the general worship of
mankind. We have already seen how various, how loose, and how uncertain
were the religious sentiments of Polytheists. They were abandoned,
almost without control, to the natural workings of a superstitious
fancy. The accidental circumstances of their life and situation
determined the object as well as the degree of their devotion; and as
long as their adoration was successively prostituted to a thousand
deities, it was scarcely possible that their hearts could be susceptible
of a very sincere or lively passion for any of them.

[Footnote 150: The arts, the manners, and the vices of the priests of
the Syrian goddess are very humorously described by Apuleius, in the
eighth book of his Metamorphosis.]

[Footnote 151: The office of Asiarch was of this nature, and it is
frequently mentioned in Aristides, the Inscriptions, &c. It was annual
and elective. None but the vainest citizens could desire the honor;
none but the most wealthy could support the expense. See, in the Patres
Apostol. tom. ii. p. 200, with how much indifference Philip the Asiarch
conducted himself in the martyrdom of Polycarp. There were likewise
Bithyniarchs, Lyciarchs, &c.]

When Christianity appeared in the world, even these faint and imperfect
impressions had lost much of their original power. Human reason, which
by its unassisted strength is incapable of perceiving the mysteries of
faith, had already obtained an easy triumph over the folly of Paganism;
and when Tertullian or Lactantius employ their labors in exposing its
falsehood and extravagance, they are obliged to transcribe the eloquence
of Cicero or the wit of Lucian. The contagion of these sceptical
writings had been diffused far beyond the number of their readers. The
fashion of incredulity was communicated from the philosopher to the man
of pleasure or business, from the noble to the plebeian, and from the
master to the menial slave who waited at his table, and who eagerly
listened to the freedom of his conversation. On public occasions the
philosophic part of mankind affected to treat with respect and decency
the religious institutions of their country; but their secret contempt
penetrated through the thin and awkward disguise; and even the people,
when they discovered that their deities were rejected and derided by
those whose rank or understanding they were accustomed to reverence,
were filled with doubts and apprehensions concerning the truth of those
doctrines, to which they had yielded the most implicit belief. The
decline of ancient prejudice exposed a very numerous portion of human
kind to the danger of a painful and comfortless situation. A state of
scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the
practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude, that if they
are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing
vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity
with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend
their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the
principal causes which favored the establishment of Polytheism. So
urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any
system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction
of some other mode of superstition. Some deities of a more recent and
fashionable cast might soon have occupied the deserted temples of
Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the wisdom of Providence
had not interposed a genuine revelation, fitted to inspire the most
rational esteem and conviction, whilst, at the same time, it was adorned
with all that could attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the
veneration of the people. In their actual disposition, as many were
almost disengaged from their artificial prejudices, but equally
susceptible and desirous of a devout attachment; an object much less
deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant place in their
hearts, and to gratify the uncertain eagerness of their passions. Those
who are inclined to pursue this reflection, instead of viewing with
astonishment the rapid progress of Christianity, will perhaps be
surprised that its success was not still more rapid and still more
universal. It has been observed, with truth as well as propriety, that
the conquests of Rome prepared and facilitated those of Christianity. In
the second chapter of this work we have attempted to explain in what
manner the most civilized provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa were
united under the dominion of one sovereign, and gradually connected by
the most intimate ties of laws, of manners, and of language. The Jews of
Palestine, who had fondly expected a temporal deliverer, gave so cold a
reception to the miracles of the divine prophet, that it was found
unnecessary to publish, or at least to preserve, any Hebrew gospel.
[152] The authentic histories of the actions of Christ were composed in
the Greek language, at a considerable distance from Jerusalem, and after
the Gentile converts were grown extremely numerous. [153] As soon as
those histories were translated into the Latin tongue, they were
perfectly intelligible to all the subjects of Rome, excepting only to
the peasants of Syria and Egypt, for whose benefit particular versions
were afterwards made. The public highways, which had been constructed
for the use of the legions, opened an easy passage for the Christian
missionaries from Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the extremity
of Spain or Britain; nor did those spiritual conquerors encounter any of
the obstacles which usually retard or prevent the introduction of a
foreign religion into a distant country. There is the strongest reason
to believe, that before the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, the
faith of Christ had been preached in every province, and in all the
great cities of the empire; but the foundation of the several
congregations, the numbers of the faithful who composed them, and their
proportion to the unbelieving multitude, are now buried in obscurity, or
disguised by fiction and declamation. Such imperfect circumstances,
however, as have reached our knowledge concerning the increase of the
Christian name in Asia and Greece, in Egypt, in Italy, and in the West,
we shall now proceed to relate, without neglecting the real or imaginary
acquisitions which lay beyond the frontiers of the Roman empire.

[Footnote 152: The modern critics are not disposed to believe what the
fathers almost unanimously assert, that St. Matthew composed a Hebrew
gospel, of which only the Greek translation is extant. It seems,
however, dangerous to reject their testimony. * Note: Strong reasons
appear to confirm this testimony. Papias, contemporary of the Apostle
St. John, says positively that Matthew had written the discourses of
Jesus Christ in Hebrew, and that each interpreted them as he could. This
Hebrew was the Syro-Chaldaic dialect, then in use at Jerusalem: Origen,
Irenaeus, Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, confirm this statement. Jesus
Christ preached himself in Syro-Chaldaic, as is proved by many words
which he used, and which the Evangelists have taken the pains to
translate. St. Paul, addressing the Jews, used the same language: Acts
xxi. 40, xxii. 2, xxvi. 14. The opinions of some critics prove nothing
against such undeniable testimonies. Moreover, their principal objection
is, that St. Matthew quotes the Old Testament according to the Greek
version of the LXX., which is inaccurate; for of ten quotations, found
in his Gospel, seven are evidently taken from the Hebrew text; the threo
others offer little that differ: moreover, the latter are not literal
quotations. St. Jerome says positively, that, according to a copy which
he had seen in the library of Caesarea, the quotations were made in
Hebrew (in Catal.) More modern critics, among others Michaelis, do not
entertain a doubt on the subject. The Greek version appears to have been
made in the time of the apostles, as St. Jerome and St. Augustus affirm,
perhaps by one of them.--G. ----Among modern critics, Dr. Hug has
asserted the Greek original of St. Matthew, but the general opinion of
the most learned biblical writer, supports the view of M. Guizot.--M.]

[Footnote 153: Under the reigns of Nero and Domitian, and in the cities
of Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Ephesus. See Mill. Prolegomena ad Nov.
Testament, and Dr. Lardner's fair and extensive collection, vol.
xv. Note: This question has, it is well known, been most elaborately
discussed since the time of Gibbon. The Preface to the Translation of
Schleier Macher's Version of St. Luke contains a very able summary of
the various theories.--M.]




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

The rich provinces that extend from the Euphrates to the Ionian
Sea, were the principal theatre on which the apostle of the Gentiles
displayed his zeal and piety. The seeds of the gospel, which he
had scattered in a fertile soil, were diligently cultivated by his
disciples; and it should seem that, during the two first centuries, the
most considerable body of Christians was contained within those limits.
Among the societies which were instituted in Syria, none were more
ancient or more illustrious than those of Damascus, of Berea or Aleppo,
and of Antioch. The prophetic introduction of the Apocalypse has
described and immortalized the seven churches of Asia; Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamus, Thyatira, [154] Sardes, Laodicea and Philadelphia; and their
colonies were soon diffused over that populous country. In a very early
period, the islands of Cyprus and Crete, the provinces of Thrace and
Macedonia, gave a favorable reception to the new religion; and Christian
republics were soon founded in the cities of Corinth, of Sparta, and of
Athens. [155] The antiquity of the Greek and Asiatic churches allowed a
sufficient space of time for their increase and multiplication; and
even the swarms of Gnostics and other heretics serve to display the
flourishing condition of the orthodox church, since the appellation of
hereties has always been applied to the less numerous party. To these
domestic testimonies we may add the confession, the complaints, and the
apprehensions of the Gentiles themselves. From the writings of Lucian, a
philosopher who had studied mankind, and who describes their manners in
the most lively colors, we may learn that, under the reign of Commodus,
his native country of Pontus was filled with Epicureans and Christians.
[156] Within fourscore years after the death of Christ, [157] the humane
Pliny laments the magnitude of the evil which he vainly attempted
to eradicate. In his very curious epistle to the emperor Trajan, he
affirms, that the temples were almost deserted, that the sacred victims
scarcely found any purchasers, and that the superstition had not only
infected the cities, but had even spread itself into the villages
and the open country of Pontus and Bithynia. [158]

[Footnote 154: The Alogians (Epiphanius de Haeres. 51) disputed the
genuineness of the Apocalypse, because the church of Thyatira was not
yet founded. Epiphanius, who allows the fact, extricates himself from
the difficulty by ingeniously supposing that St. John wrote in the
spirit of prophecy. See Abauzit, Discours sur l'Apocalypse.]

[Footnote 155: The epistles of Ignatius and Dionysius (ap. Euseb. iv.
23) point out many churches in Asia and Greece. That of Athens seems to
have been one of the least flourishing.]

[Footnote 156: Lucian in Alexandro, c. 25. Christianity however, must
have been very unequally diffused over Pontus; since, in the middle of
the third century, there was no more than seventeen believers in
the extensive diocese of Neo-Caesarea. See M. de Tillemont, Memoires
Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 675, from Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, who were
themselves natives of Cappadocia. Note: Gibbon forgot the conclusion of
this story, that Gregory left only seventeen heathens in his diocese.
The antithesis is suspicious, and both numbers may have been chosen to
magnify the spiritual fame of the wonder-worker.--M.]

[Footnote 157: According to the ancients, Jesus Christ suffered under
the consulship of the two Gemini, in the year 29 of our present aera.
Pliny was sent into Bithynia (according to Pagi) in the year 110.]

[Footnote 158: Plin. Epist. x. 97.]

Without descending into a minute scrutiny of the expressions or of the
motives of those writers who either celebrate or lament the progress of
Christianity in the East, it may in general be observed, that none
of them have left us any grounds from whence a just estimate might
be formed of the real numbers of the faithful in those provinces. One
circumstance, however, has been fortunately preserved, which seems to
cast a more distinct light on this obscure but interesting subject.
Under the reign of Theodosius, after Christianity had enjoyed, during
more than sixty years, the sunshine of Imperial favor, the ancient and
illustrious church of Antioch consisted of one hundred thousand persons,
three thousand of whom were supported out of the public oblations. [159]
The splendor and dignity of the queen of the East, the acknowledged
populousness of Caesarea, Seleucia, and Alexandria, and the destruction
of two hundred and fifty thousand souls in the earthquake which
afflicted Antioch under the elder Justin, [160] are so many convincing
proofs that the whole number of its inhabitants was not less than half a
million, and that the Christians, however multiplied by zeal and
power, did not exceed a fifth part of that great city. How different
a proportion must we adopt when we compare the persecuted with the
triumphant church, the West with the East, remote villages with populous
towns, and countries recently converted to the faith with the place
where the believers first received the appellation of Christians! It
must not, however, be dissembled, that, in another passage, Chrysostom,
to whom we are indebted for this useful information, computes the
multitude of the faithful as even superior to that of the Jews and
Pagans. [161] But the solution of this apparent difficulty is easy and
obvious. The eloquent preacher draws a parallel between the civil
and the ecclesiastical constitution of Antioch; between the list of
Christians who had acquired heaven by baptism, and the list of citizens
who had a right to share the public liberality. Slaves, strangers,
and infants were comprised in the former; they were excluded from the
latter.

[Footnote 159: Chrysostom. Opera, tom. vii. p. 658, 810, (edit.
Savil. ii. 422, 329.)]

[Footnote 160: John Malala, tom. ii. p. 144. He draws the same
conclusion with regard to the populousness of antioch.]

[Footnote 161: Chrysostom. tom. i. p. 592. I am indebted for these
passages, though not for my inference, to the learned Dr. Lardner.
Credibility of the Gospel of History, vol. xii. p. 370. * Note: The
statements of Chrysostom with regard to the population of Antioch,
whatever may be their accuracy, are perfectly consistent. In one passage
he reckons the population at 200,000. In a second the Christians at
100,000. In a third he states that the Christians formed more than half
the population. Gibbon has neglected to notice the first passage, and
has drawn by estimate of the population of Antioch from other sources.
The 8000 maintained by alms were widows and virgins alone--M.]

The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to Palestine,
gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at first embraced by
great numbers of the Theraputae, or Essenians, of the Lake Mareotis,
a Jewish sect which had abated much of its reverence for the Mosaic
ceremonies. The austere life of the Essenians, their fasts and
excommunications, the community of goods, the love of celibacy, their
zeal for martyrdom, and the warmth though not the purity of their faith,
already offered a very lively image of the primitive discipline. [162] It
was in the school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to
have assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited
Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and of Greeks, sufficiently
important to attract the notice of that inquisitive prince. [163] But the
progress of Christianity was for a long time confined within the limits
of a single city, which was itself a foreign colony, and till the
close of the second century the predecessors of Demetrius were the only
prelates of the Egyptian church. Three bishops were consecrated by
the hands of Demetrius, and the number was increased to twenty by his
successor Heraclas. [164] The body of the natives, a people distinguished
by a sullen inflexibility of temper, [165] entertained the new doctrine
with coldness and reluctance; and even in the time of Origen, it was
rare to meet with an Egyptian who had surmounted his early prejudices
in favor of the sacred animals of his country. [166] As soon, indeed, as
Christianity ascended the throne, the zeal of those barbarians obeyed
the prevailing impulsion; the cities of Egypt were filled with bishops,
and the deserts of Thebais swarmed with hermits.

[Footnote 162: Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. 2, c. 20, 21, 22, 23, has
examined with the most critical accuracy the curious treatise of Philo,
which describes the Therapeutae. By proving that it was composed as
early as the time of Augustus, Basnage has demonstrated, in spite
of Eusebius (l. ii. c. 17) and a crowd of modern Catholics, that the
Therapeutae were neither Christians nor monks. It still remains probable
that they changed their name, preserved their manners, adopted some
new articles of faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian
Ascetics.]

[Footnote 163: See a letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History, p.
245.]

[Footnote 164: For the succession of Alexandrian bishops, consult
Renaudot's History, p. 24, &c. This curious fact is preserved by the
patriarch Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 334, Vers. Pocock,) and its
internal evidence would alone be a sufficient answer to all the
objections which Bishop Pearson has urged in the Vindiciae Ignatianae.]

[Footnote 165: Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 16.]

[Footnote 166: Origen contra Celsum, l. i. p. 40.]

A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the
capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever was
guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that immense
capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a various conflux
of nations, every teacher, either of truth or falsehood, every founder,
whether of a virtuous or a criminal association, might easily multiply
his disciples or accomplices. The Christians of Rome, at the time of the
accidental persecution of Nero, are represented by Tacitus as already
amounting to a very great multitude, [167] and the language of that
great historian is almost similar to the style employed by Livy, when
he relates the introduction and the suppression of the rites of Bacchus.
After the Bacchanals had awakened the severity of the senate, it was
likewise apprehended that a very great multitude, as it were another
people, had been initiated into those abhorred mysteries. A more careful
inquiry soon demonstrated, that the offenders did not exceed seven
thousand; a number indeed sufficiently alarming, when considered as the
object of public justice. [168] It is with the same candid allowance that
we should interpret the vague expressions of Tacitus, and in a former
instance of Pliny, when they exaggerate the crowds of deluded fanatics
who had forsaken the established worship of the gods. The church of Rome
was undoubtedly the first and most populous of the empire; and we are
possessed of an authentic record which attests the state of religion in
that city about the middle of the third century, and after a peace of
thirty-eight years. The clergy, at that time, consisted of a bishop,
forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two
acolythes, and fifty readers, exorcists, and porters. The number of
widows, of the infirm, and of the poor, who were maintained by the
oblations of the faithful, amounted to fifteen hundred. [169] From
reason, as well as from the analogy of Antioch, we may venture
to estimate the Christians of Rome at about fifty thousand. The
populousness of that great capital cannot perhaps be exactly
ascertained; but the most modest calculation will not surely reduce
it lower than a million of inhabitants, of whom the Christians might
constitute at the most a twentieth part. [170]

[Footnote 167: Ingens multitudo is the expression of Tacitus, xv. 44.]

[Footnote 168: T. Liv. xxxix. 13, 15, 16, 17. Nothing could exceed
the horror and consternation of the senate on the discovery of the
Bacchanalians, whose depravity is described, and perhaps exaggerated, by
Livy.]

[Footnote 169: Eusebius, l. vi. c. 43. The Latin translator (M.
de Valois) has thought proper to reduce the number of presbyters to
forty-four.]

[Footnote 170: This proportion of the presbyters and of
the poor, to the rest of the people, was originally fixed by Burnet,
(Travels into Italy, p. 168,) and is approved by Moyle, (vol. ii. p.
151.) They were both unacquainted with the passage of Chrysostom, which
converts their conjecture almost into a fact.]

The western provincials appeared to have derived the knowledge of
Christianity from the same source which had diffused among them the
language, the sentiments, and the manners of Rome.

In this more important circumstance, Africa, as well as Gaul, was
gradually fashioned to the imitation of the capital. Yet notwithstanding
the many favorable occasions which might invite the Roman missionaries
to visit their Latin provinces, it was late before they passed either
the sea or the Alps; [171] nor can we discover in those great countries
any assured traces either of faith or of persecution that ascend higher
than the reign of the Antonines. [172] The slow progress of the gospel
in the cold climate of Gaul, was extremely different from the eagerness
with which it seems to have been received on the burning sands of
Africa. The African Christians soon formed one of the principal members
of the primitive church. The practice introduced into that province of
appointing bishops to the most inconsiderable towns, and very frequently
to the most obscure villages, contributed to multiply the splendor and
importance of their religious societies, which during the course of the
third century were animated by the zeal of Tertullian, directed by the
abilities of Cyprian, and adorned by the eloquence of Lactantius.

But if, on the contrary, we turn our eyes towards Gaul, we must content
ourselves with discovering, in the time of Marcus Antoninus, the feeble
and united congregations of Lyons and Vienna; and even as late as the
reign of Decius, we are assured, that in a few cities only, Arles,
Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges, Clermont, Tours, and Paris, some scattered
churches were supported by the devotion of a small number of Christians.
[173] Silence is indeed very consistent with devotion; but as it is
seldom compatible with zeal, we may perceive and lament the languid
state of Christianity in those provinces which had exchanged the
Celtic for the Latin tongue, since they did not, during the three first
centuries, give birth to a single ecclesiastical writer. From Gaul,
which claimed a just preeminence of learning and authority over all the
countries on this side of the Alps, the light of the gospel was more
faintly reflected on the remote provinces of Spain and Britain; and if
we may credit the vehement assertions of Tertullian, they had already
received the first rays of the faith, when he addressed his apology
to the magistrates of the emperor Severus. [174] But the obscure
and imperfect origin of the western churches of Europe has been so
negligently recorded, that if we would relate the time and manner of
their foundation, we must supply the silence of antiquity by those
legends which avarice or superstition long afterwards dictated to the
monks in the lazy gloom of their convents. [175] Of these holy romances,
that of the apostle St. James can alone, by its singular extravagance,
deserve to be mentioned. From a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of
Gennesareth, he was transformed into a valorous knight, who charged at
the head of the Spanish chivalry in their battles against the Moors. The
gravest historians have celebrated his exploits; the miraculous shrine
of Compostella displayed his power; and the sword of a military order,
assisted by the terrors of the Inquisition, was sufficient to remove
every objection of profane criticism. [176]

[Footnote 171: Serius trans Alpes, religione Dei suscepta. Sulpicius
Severus, l. ii. With regard to Africa, see Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.
It is imagined that the Scyllitan martyrs were the first, (Acta Sincera
Rumart. p. 34.) One of the adversaries of Apuleius seems to have been a
Christian. Apolog. p. 496, 497, edit. Delphin.]

[Footnote 172: Tum primum intra Gallias martyria visa. Sulp. Severus,
l. ii. These were the celebrated martyrs of Lyons. See Eusebius, v. i.
Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 316. According to the Donatists,
whose assertion is confirmed by the tacit acknowledgment of Augustin,
Africa was the last of the provinces which received the gospel.
Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 754.]

[Footnote 173: Rarae in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesiae, paucorum
Christianorum devotione, resurgerent. Acta Sincera, p. 130. Gregory of
Tours, l i. c. 28. Mosheim, p. 207, 449. There is some reason to believe
that in the beginning of the fourth century, the extensive dioceses of
Liege, of Treves, and of Cologne, composed a single bishopric, which had
been very recently founded. See Memoires de Tillemont, tom vi. part i.
p. 43, 411.]

[Footnote 174: The date of Tertullian's Apology is fixed, in a
dissertation of Mosheim, to the year 198.]

[Footnote 175: In the fifteenth century, there were few who had either
inclination or courage to question, whether Joseph of Arimathea founded
the monastery of Glastonbury, and whether Dionysius the Areopagite
preferred the residence of Paris to that of Athens.]

[Footnote 176: The stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the ninth
century. See Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. vii. c. 13, tom. i. p. 285,
edit. Hag. Com. 1733,) who, in every sense, imitates Livy, and the
honest detection of the legend of St. James by Dr. Geddes, Miscellanies,
vol. ii. p. 221.]

The progress of Christianity was not confined to the Roman empire; and
according to the primitive fathers, who interpret facts by prophecy, the
new religion, within a century after the death of its divine Author, had
already visited every part of the globe. "There exists not," says Justin
Martyr, "a people, whether Greek or Barbarian, or any other race of men,
by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however
ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell under tents, or
wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers are not offered up in
the name of a crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things."
[177] But this splendid exaggeration, which even at present it would be
extremely difficult to reconcile with the real state of mankind, can be
considered only as the rash sally of a devout but careless writer, the
measure of whose belief was regulated by that of his wishes. But neither
the belief nor the wishes of the fathers can alter the truth of history.
It will still remain an undoubted fact, that the barbarians of Scythia
and Germany, who afterwards subverted the Roman monarchy, were involved
in the darkness of paganism; and that even the conversion of Iberia, of
Armenia, or of Aethiopia, was not attempted with any degree of success
till the sceptre was in the hands of an orthodox emperor. [178] Before
that time, the various accidents of war and commerce might indeed
diffuse an imperfect knowledge of the gospel among the tribes of
Caledonia, [179] and among the borderers of the Rhine, the Danube, and
the Euphrates. [180] Beyond the last-mentioned river, Edessa was
distinguished by a firm and early adherence to the faith. [181] From
Edessa the principles of Christianity were easily introduced into the
Greek and Syrian cities which obeyed the successors of Artaxerxes; but
they do not appear to have made any deep impression on the minds of the
Persians, whose religious system, by the labors of a well disciplined
order of priests, had been constructed with much more art and solidity
than the uncertain mythology of Greece and Rome. [182]

[Footnote 177: Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphon. p. 341. Irenaeus adv.
Haeres. l. i. c. 10. Tertullian adv. Jud. c. 7. See Mosheim, p. 203.]

[Footnote 178: See the fourth century of Mosheim's History of the
Church. Many, though very confused circumstances, that relate to the
conversion of Iberia and Armenia, may be found in Moses of Chorene, l.
ii. c. 78--89. Note: Mons. St. Martin has shown that Armenia was the
first nation that embraced Christianity. Memoires sur l'Armenie, vol. i.
p. 306, and notes to Le Beae. Gibbon, indeed had expressed his intention
of withdrawing the words "of Armenia" from the text of future editions.
(Vindication, Works, iv. 577.) He was bitterly taunted by Person for
neglecting or declining to fulfil his promise. Preface to Letters to
Travis.--M.]

[Footnote 179: According to Tertullian, the Christian faith had
penetrated into parts of Britain inaccessible to the Roman arms. About a
century afterwards, Ossian, the son of Fingal, is said to have disputed,
in his extreme old age, with one of the foreign missionaries, and the
dispute is still extant, in verse, and in the Erse language. See Mr.
Macpher son's Dissertation on the Antiquity of Ossian's Poems, p. 10.]

[Footnote 180: The Goths, who ravaged Asia in the reign of Gallienus,
carried away great numbers of captives; some of whom were Christians,
and became missionaries. See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p.
44.]

[Footnote 181: The legends of Abgarus, fabulous as it is, affords
a decisive proof, that many years before Eusebius wrote his history, the
greatest part of the inhabitants of Edessa had embraced Christianity.
Their rivals, the citizens of Carrhae, adhered, on the contrary, to the
cause of Paganism, as late as the sixth century.]

[Footnote 182: According to Bardesanes (ap. Euseb. Praepar. Evangel.)
there were some Christians in Persia before the end of the second
century. In the time of Constantine (see his epistle to Sapor, Vit. l.
iv. c. 13) they composed a flourishing church. Consult Beausobre, Hist.
Cristique du Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 180, and the Bibliotheca Orietalis
of Assemani.]




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

From this impartial though imperfect survey of the progress of
Christianity, it may perhaps seem probable, that the number of its
proselytes has been excessively magnified by fear on the one side, and
by devotion on the other. According to the irreproachable testimony of
Origen, [183] the proportion of the faithful was very inconsiderable,
when compared with the multitude of an unbelieving world; but, as we are
left without any distinct information, it is impossible to determine,
and it is difficult even to conjecture, the real numbers of the
primitive Christians. The most favorable calculation, however, that can
be deduced from the examples of Antioch and of Rome, will not permit
us to imagine that more than a themselves under the banner of the cross
before the important conversion of Constantine. But their habits of
faith, of zeal, and of union, seemed to multiply their numbers; and the
same causes which contributed to their future increase, served to render
their actual strength more apparent and more formidable.

[Footnote 183: Origen contra Celsum, l. viii. p. 424.]

Such is the constitution of civil society, that whilst a few persons are
distinguished by riches, by honors, and by knowledge, the body of the
people is condemned to obscurity, ignorance and poverty. The Christian
religion, which addressed itself to the whole human race, must
consequently collect a far greater number of proselytes from the
lower than from the superior ranks of life. This innocent and natural
circumstance has been improved into a very odious imputation, which
seems to be less strenuously denied by the apologists, than it is urged
by the adversaries, of the faith; that the new sect of Christians was
almost entirely composed of the dregs of the populace, of peasants and
mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars and slaves, the last of whom
might sometimes introduce the missionaries into the rich and noble
families to which they belonged. These obscure teachers (such was the
charge of malice and infidelity) are as mute in public as they are
loquacious and dogmatical in private. Whilst they cautiously avoid
the dangerous encounter of philosophers, they mingle with the rude and
illiterate crowd, and insinuate themselves into those minds, whom their
age, their sex, or their education, has the best disposed to receive the
impression of superstitious terrors. [184]

[Footnote 184: Minucius Felix, c. 8, with Wowerus's notes. Celsus ap.
Origen, l. iii. p. 138, 142. Julian ap. Cyril. l. vi. p. 206, edit.
Spanheim.]

This unfavorable picture, though not devoid of a faint resemblance,
betrays, by its dark coloring and distorted features, the pencil of an
enemy. As the humble faith of Christ diffused itself through the world,
it was embraced by several persons who derived some consequence from the
advantages of nature or fortune. Aristides, who presented an eloquent
apology to the emperor Hadrian, was an Athenian philosopher. [185] Justin
Martyr had sought divine knowledge in the schools of Zeno, of Aristotle,
of Pythagoras, and of Plato, before he fortunately was accosted by the
old man, or rather the angel, who turned his attention to the study
of the Jewish prophets. [186] Clemens of Alexandria had acquired much
various reading in the Greek, and Tertullian in the Latin, language.
Julius Africanus and Origen possessed a very considerable share of
the learning of their times; and although the style of Cyprian is very
different from that of Lactantius, we might almost discover that both
those writers had been public teachers of rhetoric. Even the study of
philosophy was at length introduced among the Christians, but it was not
always productive of the most salutary effects; knowledge was as often
the parent of heresy as of devotion, and the description which was
designed for the followers of Artemon, may, with equal propriety,
be applied to the various sects that resisted the successors of the
apostles. "They presume to alter the Holy Scriptures, to abandon the
ancient rule of faith, and to form their opinions according to the
subtile precepts of logic. The science of the church is neglected for
the study of geometry, and they lose sight of heaven while they are
employed in measuring the earth. Euclid is perpetually in their hands.
Aristotle and Theophrastus are the objects of their admiration; and they
express an uncommon reverence for the works of Galen. Their errors are
derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences of the infidels, and
they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by the refinements of human
reason." [187]

[Footnote 185: Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 3. Hieronym. Epist. 83.]

[Footnote 186: The story is prettily told in Justin's Dialogues.
Tillemont, (Mem Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 384,) who relates it after him
is sure that the old man was a disguised angel.]

[Footnote 187: Eusebius, v. 28. It may be hoped, that none, except the
heretics, gave occasion to the complaint of Celsus, (ap. Origen, l. ii.
p. 77,) that the Christians were perpetually correcting and altering
their Gospels. * Note: Origen states in reply, that he knows of none who
had altered the Gospels except the Marcionites, the Valentinians, and
perhaps some followers of Lucanus.--M.]

Nor can it be affirmed with truth, that the advantages of birth and
fortune were always separated from the profession of Christianity.
Several Roman citizens were brought before the tribunal of Pliny, and he
soon discovered, that a great number of persons of every order of men
in Bithynia had deserted the religion of their ancestors. [188] His
unsuspected testimony may, in this instance, obtain more credit than the
bold challenge of Tertullian, when he addresses himself to the fears as
well as the humanity of the proconsul of Africa, by assuring him, that
if he persists in his cruel intentions, he must decimate Carthage,
and that he will find among the guilty many persons of his own rank,
senators and matrons of nobles' extraction, and the friends or relations
of his most intimate friends. [189] It appears, however, that about forty
years afterwards the emperor Valerian was persuaded of the truth of this
assertion, since in one of his rescripts he evidently supposes, that
senators, Roman knights, and ladies of quality, were engaged in the
Christian sect. [190] The church still continued to increase its
outward splendor as it lost its internal purity; and, in the reign
of Diocletian, the palace, the courts of justice, and even the army,
concealed a multitude of Christians, who endeavored to reconcile the
interests of the present with those of a future life.

[Footnote 188: Plin. Epist. x. 97. Fuerunt alii similis amentiae, cives
Romani---Multi enim omnis aetatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque sexus, etiam
vocuntur in periculum et vocabuntur.]

[Footnote 189: Tertullian ad Scapulum. Yet even his rhetoric rises no
higher than to claim a tenth part of Carthage.]

[Footnote 190: Cyprian. Epist. 70.]

And yet these exceptions are either too few in number, or too recent in
time, entirely to remove the imputation of ignorance and obscurity which
has been so arrogantly cast on the first proselytes of Christianity. [1901]
Instead of employing in our defence the fictions of later ages, it will
be more prudent to convert the occasion of scandal into a subject of
edification. Our serious thoughts will suggest to us, that the apostles
themselves were chosen by Providence among the fishermen of Galilee,
and that the lower we depress the temporal condition of the first
Christians, the more reason we shall find to admire their merit and
success. It is incumbent on us diligently to remember, that the kingdom
of heaven was promised to the poor in spirit, and that minds afflicted
by calamity and the contempt of mankind, cheerfully listen to the divine
promise of future happiness; while, on the contrary, the fortunate are
satisfied with the possession of this world; and the wise abuse in doubt
and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge.

[Footnote 1901: This incomplete enumeration ought to be increased by the
names of several Pagans converted at the dawn of Christianity, and whose
conversion weakens the reproach which the historian appears to support.
Such are, the Proconsul Sergius Paulus, converted at Paphos, (Acts
xiii. 7--12.) Dionysius, member of the Areopagus, converted with several
others, al Athens, (Acts xvii. 34;) several persons at the court of
Nero, (Philip. iv 22;) Erastus, receiver at Corinth, (Rom. xvi.23;)
some Asiarchs, (Acts xix. 31) As to the philosophers, we may add Tatian,
Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Hegesippus, Melito, Miltiades,
Pantaenus, Ammenius, all distinguished for their genius and
learning.--G.]

We stand in need of such reflections to comfort us for the loss of some
illustrious characters, which in our eyes might have seemed the most
worthy of the heavenly present. The names of Seneca, of the elder and
the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave
Epictetus, and of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which
they flourished, and exalt the dignity of human nature. They filled with
glory their respective stations, either in active or contemplative life;
their excellent understandings were improved by study; Philosophy had
purified their minds from the prejudices of the popular superstition;
and their days were spent in the pursuit of truth and the practice of
virtue. Yet all these sages (it is no less an object of surprise than of
concern) overlooked or rejected the perfection of the Christian system.
Their language or their silence equally discover their contempt for the
growing sect, which in their time had diffused itself over the Roman
empire. Those among them who condescended to mention the Christians,
consider them only as obstinate and perverse enthusiasts, who exacted an
implicit submission to their mysterious doctrines, without being able
to produce a single argument that could engage the attention of men of
sense and learning. [191]

[Footnote 191: Dr. Lardner, in his first and second volumes of Jewish
and Christian testimonies, collects and illustrates those of Pliny
the younger, of Tacitus, of Galen, of Marcus Antoninus, and perhaps of
Epictetus, (for it is doubtful whether that philosopher means to speak
of the Christians.) The new sect is totally unnoticed by Seneca, the
elder Pliny, and Plutarch.]

It is at least doubtful whether any of these
philosophers perused the apologies [1911] which the primitive Christians
repeatedly published in behalf of themselves and of their religion; but
it is much to be lamented that such a cause was not defended by
abler advocates. They expose with superfluous with and eloquence the
extravagance of Polytheism. They interest our compassion by displaying
the innocence and sufferings of their injured brethren. But when they
would demonstrate the divine origin of Christianity, they insist much
more strongly on the predictions which announced, than on the miracles
which accompanied, the appearance of the Messiah. Their favorite
argument might serve to edify a Christian or to convert a Jew,
since both the one and the other acknowledge the authority of those
prophecies, and both are obliged, with devout reverence, to search for
their sense and their accomplishment. But this mode of persuasion loses
much of its weight and influence, when it is addressed to those who
neither understand nor respect the Mosaic dispensation and the prophetic
style. [192] In the unskilful hands of Justin and of the succeeding
apologists, the sublime meaning of the Hebrew oracles evaporates in
distant types, affected conceits, and cold allegories; and even their
authenticity was rendered suspicious to an unenlightened Gentile, by the
mixture of pious forgeries, which, under the names of Orpheus, Hermes,
and the Sibyls, [193] were obtruded on him as of equal value with the
genuine inspirations of Heaven. The adoption of fraud and sophistry
in the defence of revelation too often reminds us of the injudicious
conduct of those poets who load their invulnerable heroes with a useless
weight of cumbersome and brittle armor.

[Footnote 1911: The emperors Hadrian, Antoninus &c., read with astonishment
the apologies of Justin Martyr, of Aristides, of Melito, &c. (See St.
Hieron. ad mag. orat. Orosius, lviii. c. 13.) Eusebius says expressly,
that the cause of Christianity was defended before the senate, in a very
elegant discourse, by Apollonius the Martyr.--G. ----Gibbon, in his
severer spirit of criticism, may have questioned the authority of Jerome
and Eusebius. There are some difficulties about Apollonius, which
Heinichen (note in loc. Eusebii) would solve, by suppose lag him to have
been, as Jerome states, a senator.--M.]

[Footnote 192: If the famous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks had been
alleged to a Roman philosopher, would he not have replied in the words
of Cicero, "Quae tandem ista auguratio est, annorum potius quam aut
raensium aut dierum?" De Divinatione, ii. 30. Observe with what
irreverence Lucian, (in Alexandro, c. 13.) and his friend Celsus ap.
Origen, (l. vii. p. 327,) express themselves concerning the Hebrew
prophets.]

[Footnote 193: The philosophers who derided the more ancient predictions
of the Sibyls, would easily have detected the Jewish and Christian
forgeries, which have been so triumphantly quoted by the fathers, from
Justin Martyr to Lactantius. When the Sibylline verses had performed
their appointed task, they, like the system of the millennium, were
quietly laid aside. The Christian Sybil had unluckily fixed the ruin of
Rome for the year 195, A. U. C. 948.]

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and
philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by the hand
of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age
of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine
which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame
walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised,
daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended
for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned
aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations
of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral
or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the
whole earth, [194] or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire,
[195] was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this
miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity,
and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science
and history. [196] It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the
elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or
received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these
philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena
of Nature, earthquakes, meteors comets, and eclipses, which his
indefatigable curiosity could collect. [197] Both the one and the other
have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye
has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter
of Pliny [198] is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and
unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular
defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the
greatest part of a year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without
splendor. The season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with
the preternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated
by most of the poets [199] and historians of that memorable age. [200]

[Footnote 194: The fathers, as they are drawn out in battle array by
Dom Calmet, (Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. iii. p. 295--308,) seem to
cover the whole earth with darkness, in which they are followed by most
of the moderns.]

[Footnote 195: Origen ad Matth. c. 27, and a few modern critics, Beza,
Le Clerc, Lardner, &c., are desirous of confining it to the land of
Judea.]

[Footnote 196: The celebrated passage of Phlegon is now wisely
abandoned. When Tertullian assures the Pagans that the mention of the
prodigy is found in Arcanis (not Archivis) vestris, (see his Apology, c.
21,) he probably appeals to the Sibylline verses, which relate it
exactly in the words of the Gospel. * Note: According to some learned
theologians a misunderstanding of the text in the Gospel has given rise
to this mistake, which has employed and wearied so many laborious
commentators, though Origen had already taken the pains to preinform
them. The expression does not mean, they assert, an eclipse, but any
kind of obscurity occasioned in the atmosphere, whether by clouds or any
other cause. As this obscuration of the sun rarely took place in
Palestine, where in the middle of April the sky was usually clear, it
assumed, in the eyes of the Jews and Christians, an importance
conformable to the received notion, that the sun concealed at midday was
a sinister presage. See Amos viii. 9, 10. The word is often taken in
this sense by contemporary writers; the Apocalypse says the sun was
concealed, when speaking of an obscuration caused by smoke and dust.
(Revel. ix. 2.) Moreover, the Hebrew word ophal, which in the LXX.
answers to the Greek, signifies any darkness; and the Evangelists, who
have modelled the sense of their expressions by those of the LXX., must
have taken it in the same latitude. This darkening of the sky usually
precedes earthquakes. (Matt. xxvii. 51.) The Heathen authors furnish us
a number of examples, of which a miraculous explanation was given at the
time. See Ovid. ii. v. 33, l. xv. v. 785. Pliny, Hist. Nat. l. ii. c 30.
Wetstein has collected all these examples in his edition of the New
Testament. We need not, then, be astonished at the silence of the Pagan
authors concerning a phenomenon which did not extend beyond Jerusalem,
and which might have nothing contrary to the laws of nature; although
the Christians and the Jews may have regarded it as a sinister presage.
See Michaelia Notes on New Testament, v. i. p. 290. Paulus, Commentary
on New Testament, iii. p. 760.--G.]

[Footnote 197: Seneca, Quaest. Natur. l. i. 15, vi. l. vii. 17. Plin.
Hist. Natur. l. ii.]

[Footnote 198: Plin. Hist. Natur. ii. 30.]

[Footnote 199: Virgil. Georgic. i. 466. Tibullus, l. i. Eleg. v. ver.
75. Ovid Metamorph. xv. 782. Lucan. Pharsal. i. 540. The last of these
poets places this prodigy before the civil war.]

[Footnote 200: See a public epistle of M. Antony in Joseph. Antiquit.
xiv. 12. Plutarch in Caesar. p. 471. Appian. Bell. Civil. l. iv. Dion
Cassius, l. xlv. p. 431. Julius Obsequens, c. 128. His little treatise
is an abstract of Livy's prodigies.]





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ***

***** This file should be named 731.txt or 731.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/7/3/731/

Produced by David Reed

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.


Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.


Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     http://www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

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

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


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

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman

Posting Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #732]
Release Date: November, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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




Produced by David Reed









HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman




VOLUME TWO




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

     The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians,
     From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. [1a]

[Footnote 1a: The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering as a
very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful extenuation of the
cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates against the Christians.
It is written in the most contemptibly factious spirit of prejudice
against the sufferers; it is unworthy of a philosopher and of humanity.
Let the narrative of Cyprian's death be examined. He had to relate
the murder of an innocent man of advanced age, and in a station deemed
venerable by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put to
death because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing
the indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of tyranny,
he dwells, with visible art, on the small circumstances of decorum and
politeness which attended this murder, and which he relates with as much
parade as if they were the most important particulars of the event.
Dr. Robertson has been the subject of much blame for his real or
supposed lenity towards the Spanish murderers and tyrants in America.
That the sixteenth chapter of Mr. G. did not excite the same or greater
disapprobation, is a proof of the unphilosophical and indeed fanatical
animosity against Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter
part of the eighteenth century.--Mackintosh: see Life, i. p. 244, 245.]

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

The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a more
stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of Christianity.
About fourscore years after the death of Christ, his innocent disciples
were punished with death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most
amiable and philosophic character, and according to the laws of
an emperor distinguished by the wisdom and justice of his general
administration. The apologies which were repeatedly addressed to the
successors of Trajan are filled with the most pathetic complaints, that
the Christians, who obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty,
of conscience, were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire,
excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and from
the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme power, the
governors of the church have been no less diligently employed in
displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the conduct, of their Pagan
adversaries. To separate (if it be possible) a few authentic as well as
interesting facts from an undigested mass of fiction and error, and
to relate, in a clear and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the
duration, and the most important circumstances of the persecutions to
which the first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present
chapter. [1b]

[Footnote 1b: 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] [8a]

[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 8a: 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; [31a] 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 31a: 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, [42a] 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] [43a] 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 42a: 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 43a: 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, [54a]
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 54a: 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 name alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally
uninformed with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their
conviction, and the degree of their punishment. In this perplexity he
had recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting to the wisdom of
Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a favorable account of the
new superstition, requesting the emperor, that he would condescend to
resolve his doubts, and to instruct his ignorance. [57] The life of
Pliny had been employed in the acquisition of learning, and in the
business of the world.

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

[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] [60a]

[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 60a: 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, [64a] 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 64a: 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; [85a] 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 85a: 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. [87a] 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 87a: 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] [101a]

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]
[103a]

[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 101a: 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 103a: 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] [106a]

[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 106a]: 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; [107a] 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 107a: 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 in the promiscuous massacre, which, on
their account, has improperly received the name of Persecution. [117]
[117a]

[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 107a: 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. [128a]

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.
[129a] 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 128a: 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 129a: "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 [144a] 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 144a: 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 [147a] 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 147a: 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; [152a] 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 152a: 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, [162a] 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 162a: 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. [171a] 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 171a: 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, [178a] 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 178a: 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. ----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,
[181a] 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] [182a] 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 181a: 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 182a: 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, [186a] 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 186a: 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, Darius had chosen the same situation to
connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. [9] At a small distance
from the old castles we discover the little town of Chrysopolis,
or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the Asiatic suburb of
Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to open into the Propontis,
passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was
built by the Greeks, a few years before the former; and the blindness
of its founders, who overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite
coast, has been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt. [10]

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

[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. [17a] 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 17a: 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; [48a] 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 48a: 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] [59a] 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 59a: 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 [71a] 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 71a: 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 in a 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 loss of honor, of
fortune, or even of life. [136] But as the annual growth of the sons of
the veterans bore a very small proportion to the demands of the service,
levies of men were frequently required from the provinces, and
every proprietor was obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a
substitute, or to purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine.
The sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was reduced ascertains
the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which the
government admitted of this 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 [175a] 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. ---- 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 175a: 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. [180a] 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 180a: 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. [188a] 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 188a: 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 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. [26a]
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 26a: 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] [31a]

[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 31a: 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 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. [43a] 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 43a: 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. ----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. [44a] 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] [45a]

[Footnote 44a: 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 45a: 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. ----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] [55a]

[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.)
----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 55a: 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. [57a] 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, [57b] 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] [58a]

[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. ----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 57a: 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 57b: 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 58a: 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. [58c] The
irregular incursions of the light troops alternately spread terror and
devastation beyond the Tigris and beyond the Euphrates, from the gates
of Ctesiphon to those of Antioch; and this active service was performed
by the Arabs of the desert, who were divided in their interest and
affections; some of their independent chiefs being enlisted in the
party of Sapor, whilst others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the
emperor. [59] The more grave and important operations of the war
were conducted with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and Persia
encountered each other in nine bloody fields, in two of which
Constantius himself commanded in person. [60] The event of the day was
most commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the battle of Singara, their
imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and decisive victory. The
stationary troops of Singara [60a] 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 58c: 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 60a: 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. ----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. [66a] 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 66a: 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, [99a] 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.---- 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 99a: 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
[19a] 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 19a: 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, [23a] 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, [23b] in Istria, a
sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with royal
blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the appearance of
his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with the assistance of
a notary and a tribune, proceeded to interrogate him concerning the
administration of the East. The 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 23a: Pettau in Styria.--M]

[Footnote 23b: 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] [46a]

[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 46a: 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! [47a] 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 47a: 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]
[49a] 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 49a: 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. [54a] 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 54a: 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. ----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.
----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] [61a]

[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. ----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 61a: 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; [69a] 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 69a: 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 [39a] to inscribe the shields of his soldiers with
the celestial sign of God, the sacred monogram of the name of Christ;
that he executed the commands of Heaven, and that his valor and
obedience were rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge.
Some considerations might perhaps incline a sceptical mind to suspect
the judgment or the veracity of the rhetorician, whose pen, either from
zeal or interest, was devoted to the cause of the prevailing faction.
[40] He appears to have published his deaths of the persecutors at
Nicomedia about three years after the Roman victory; but the interval of
a thousand miles, and a thousand days, will allow an ample latitude
for the invention of declaimers, the credulity of party, and the tacit
approbation of the emperor himself who might listen without indignation
to a marvellous tale, which exalted his fame, and promoted his designs.
In favor of Licinius, who still dissembled his animosity to the
Christians, the same author has provided a similar vision, of a form of
prayer, which was communicated by an angel, and repeated by the whole
army before they engaged the legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent
repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the
reason of mankind; [41] but if the dream of Constantine is separately
considered, it may be naturally explained either by the policy or the
enthusiasm of the emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day,
which must decide the fate of the empire, was suspended by a short and
interrupted slumber, the venerable form of Christ, and the well-known
symbol of his religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active
fancy of a prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly
implored the power, of the God of the Christians. As readily might a
consummate statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military
stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had
employed with such art and effect. [42] The 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 39a: 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 [76a] worshipped the god of their protector; and their subjects,
who have invariably preserved the name of Christians, soon formed
a sacred and perpetual connection with their Roman brethren. The
Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of war, of preferring their
religion to their country; but as long as peace subsisted between
the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was effectually
restrained by the interposition of Constantine. [77] The rays of the
gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews, who had
penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, [78] opposed the progress of
Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some measure
facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation; and
Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, [78a] who, in the time
of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those sequestered
regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius, Theophilus, [79] who
was himself of Indian extraction, was invested with the double character
of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red Sea with two hundred
horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor
to the prince of the 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 76a: 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 78a: 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.
----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 [95a] by the emperors
from all service, private or public, all municipal offices, and all
personal taxes and contributions, which pressed on their fellow-
citizens with intolerable weight; and the duties of their holy
profession were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the
republic. [96] Each bishop acquired an absolute and indefeasible right
to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he ordained: the clergy of
each episcopal church, with its dependent parishes, formed a regular
and permanent society; and the cathedrals of Constantinople [97] and
Carthage [98] maintained their peculiar establishment of five hundred
ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks [99] and numbers were insensibly
multiplied by the superstition of the times, which introduced into the
church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long
train of priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers,
singers, and doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to
swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The clerical name
and privileges were extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly
supported the ecclesiastical throne. [100] Six hundred parabolani, or
adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred 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 95a: 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, [11a] 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 11a: 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 a


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

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
       Volume 3

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman

Posting Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #733]
Release Date: November, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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




Produced by David Reed









HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

By Edward Gibbon

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Volume 3




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

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

The fame of Gratian, before he had accomplished the twentieth year of
his age, was equal to that of the most celebrated princes. His gentle
and amiable disposition endeared him to his private friends, the
graceful affability of his manners engaged the affection of the people:
the men of letters, who enjoyed the liberality, acknowledged the taste
and eloquence, of their sovereign; his valor and dexterity in arms were
equally applauded by the soldiers; and the clergy considered the humble
piety of Gratian as the first and most useful of his virtues. The
victory of Colmar had delivered the West from a formidable invasion; and
the grateful provinces of the East ascribed the merits of Theodosius to
the author of his greatness, and of the public safety. Gratian survived
those memorable events only four or five years; but he survived his
reputation; and, before he fell a victim to rebellion, he had lost, in a
great measure, the respect and confidence of the Roman world.

The remarkable alteration of his character or conduct may not be imputed
to the arts of flattery, which had besieged the son of Valentinian from
his infancy; nor to the headstrong passions which the that gentle youth
appears to have escaped. A more attentive view of the life of Gratian
may perhaps suggest the true cause of the disappointment of the public
hopes. His apparent virtues, instead of being the hardy productions of
experience and adversity, were the premature and artificial fruits of
a royal education. The anxious tenderness of his father was continually
employed to bestow on him those advantages, which he might perhaps
esteem the more highly, as he himself had been deprived of them; and the
most skilful masters of every science, and of every art, had labored to
form the mind and body of the young prince. [1] The knowledge which they
painfully communicated was displayed with ostentation, and celebrated
with lavish praise. His soft and tractable disposition received the fair
impression of their judicious precepts, and the absence of passion might
easily be mistaken for the strength of reason. His preceptors gradually
rose to the rank and consequence of ministers of state: [2] and, as
they wisely dissembled their secret authority, he seemed to act with
firmness, with propriety, and with judgment, on the most important
occasions of his life and reign. But the influence of this elaborate
instruction did not penetrate beyond the surface; and the skilful
preceptors, who so accurately guided the steps of their royal pupil,
could not infuse into his feeble and indolent character the vigorous and
independent principle of action which renders the laborious pursuit
of glory essentially necessary to the happiness, and almost to the
existence, of the hero. As soon as time and accident had removed those
faithful counsellors from the throne, the emperor of the West insensibly
descended to the level of his natural genius; abandoned the reins of
government to the ambitious hands which were stretched forwards to grasp
them; and amused his leisure with the most frivolous gratifications. A
public sale of favor and injustice was instituted, both in the court and
in the provinces, by the worthless delegates of his power, whose merit
it was made sacrilege to question. [3] The conscience of the credulous
prince was directed by saints and bishops; [4] who procured an Imperial
edict to punish, as a capital offence, the violation, the neglect, or
even the ignorance, of the divine law. [5] Among the various arts
which had exercised the youth of Gratian, he had applied himself, with
singular inclination and success, to manage the horse, to draw the bow,
and to dart the javelin; and these qualifications, which might be useful
to a soldier, were prostituted to the viler purposes of hunting. Large
parks were enclosed for the Imperial pleasures, and plentifully stocked
with every species of wild beasts; and Gratian neglected the duties, and
even the dignity, of his rank, to consume whole days in the vain display
of his dexterity and boldness in the chase. The pride and wish of the
Roman emperor to excel in an art, in which he might be surpassed by the
meanest of his slaves, reminded the numerous spectators of the examples
of Nero and Commodus, but the chaste and temperate Gratian was a
stranger to their monstrous vices; and his hands were stained only with
the blood of animals. [6] The behavior of Gratian, which degraded his
character in the eyes of mankind, could not have disturbed the security
of his reign, if the army had not been provoked to resent their peculiar
injuries. As long as the young emperor was guided by the instructions of
his masters, he professed himself the friend and pupil of the soldiers;
many of his hours were spent in the familiar conversation of the camp;
and the health, the comforts, the rewards, the honors, of his faithful
troops, appeared to be the objects of his attentive concern. But,
after Gratian more freely indulged his prevailing taste for hunting
and shooting, he naturally connected himself with the most dexterous
ministers of his favorite amusement. A body of the Alani was received
into the military and domestic service of the palace; and the admirable
skill, which they were accustomed to display in the unbounded plains
of Scythia, was exercised, on a more narrow theatre, in the parks and
enclosures of Gaul. Gratian admired the talents and customs of these
favorite guards, to whom alone he intrusted the defence of his person;
and, as if he meant to insult the public opinion, he frequently showed
himself to the soldiers and people, with the dress and arms, the long
bow, the sounding quiver, and the fur garments of a Scythian warrior.
The unworthy spectacle of a Roman prince, who had renounced the dress
and manners of his country, filled the minds of the legions with grief
and indignation. [7] Even the Germans, so strong and formidable in
the armies of the empire, affected to disdain the strange and horrid
appearance of the savages of the North, who, in the space of a few
years, had wandered from the banks of the Volga to those of the Seine. A
loud and licentious murmur was echoed through the camps and garrisons of
the West; and as the mild indolence of Gratian neglected to extinguish
the first symptoms of discontent, the want of love and respect was not
supplied by the influence of fear. But the subversion of an established
government is always a work of some real, and of much apparent,
difficulty; and the throne of Gratian was protected by the sanctions of
custom, law, religion, and the nice balance of the civil and military
powers, which had been established by the policy of Constantine. It is
not very important to inquire from what cause the revolt of Britain
was produced. Accident is commonly the parent of disorder; the seeds
of rebellion happened to fall on a soil which was supposed to be more
fruitful than any other in tyrants and usurpers; [8] the legions of that
sequestered island had been long famous for a spirit of presumption
and arrogance; [9] and the name of Maximus was proclaimed, by the
tumultuary, but unanimous voice, both of the soldiers and of the
provincials. The emperor, or the rebel,--for this title was not yet
ascertained by fortune,--was a native of Spain, the countryman, the
fellow-soldier, and the rival of Theodosius whose elevation he had not
seen without some emotions of envy and resentment: the events of his
life had long since fixed him in Britain; and I should not be unwilling
to find some evidence for the marriage, which he is said to have
contracted with the daughter of a wealthy lord of Caernarvonshire. [10]
But this provincial rank might justly be considered as a state of exile
and obscurity; and if Maximus had obtained any civil or military office,
he was not invested with the authority either of governor or general.
[11] His abilities, and even his integrity, are acknowledged by
the partial writers of the age; and the merit must indeed have been
conspicuous that could extort such a confession in favor of the
vanquished enemy of Theodosius. The discontent of Maximus might incline
him to censure the conduct of his sovereign, and to encourage, perhaps,
without any views of ambition, the murmurs of the troops. But in the
midst of the tumult, he artfully, or modestly, refused to ascend the
throne; and some credit appears to have been given to his own positive
declaration, that he was compelled to accept the dangerous present of
the Imperial purple. [12]

[Footnote 1: Valentinian was less attentive to the religion of his son;
since he intrusted the education of Gratian to Ausonius, a professed
Pagan. (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 125-138). The
poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age.]

[Footnote 2: Ausonius was successively promoted to the Praetorian
praefecture of Italy, (A.D. 377,) and of Gaul, (A.D. 378;) and was
at length invested with the consulship, (A.D. 379.) He expressed his
gratitude in a servile and insipid piece of flattery, (Actio Gratiarum,
p. 699-736,) which has survived more worthy productions.]

[Footnote 3: Disputare de principali judicio non oportet. Sacrilegii
enim instar est dubitare, an is dignus sit, quem elegerit imperator.
Codex Justinian, l. ix. tit. xxix. leg. 3. This convenient law was
revived and promulgated, after the death of Gratian, by the feeble court
of Milan.]

[Footnote 4: Ambrose composed, for his instruction, a theological
treatise on the faith of the Trinity: and Tillemont, (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 158, 169,) ascribes to the archbishop the merit of
Gratian's intolerant laws.]

[Footnote 5: Qui divinae legis sanctitatem nesciendo omittunt, aut
negligende violant, et offendunt, sacrilegium committunt. Codex
Justinian. l. ix. tit. xxix. leg. 1. Theodosius indeed may claim his
share in the merit of this comprehensive law.]

[Footnote 6: Ammianus (xxxi. 10) and the younger Victor acknowledge the
virtues of Gratian; and accuse, or rather lament, his degenerate taste.
The odious parallel of Commodus is saved by "licet incruentus;" and
perhaps Philostorgius (l. x. c. 10, and Godefroy, p. 41) had guarded
with some similar reserve, the comparison of Nero.]

[Footnote 7: Zosimus (l. iv. p. 247) and the younger Victor ascribe the
revolution to the favor of the Alani, and the discontent of the Roman
troops Dum exercitum negligeret, et paucos ex Alanis, quos ingenti auro
ad sa transtulerat, anteferret veteri ac Romano militi.]

[Footnote 8: Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, is a memorable
expression, used by Jerom in the Pelagian controversy, and variously
tortured in the disputes of our national antiquaries. The revolutions
of the last age appeared to justify the image of the sublime Bossuet,
"sette ile, plus orageuse que les mers qui l'environment."]

[Footnote 9: Zosimus says of the British soldiers.]

[Footnote 10: Helena, the daughter of Eudda. Her chapel may still be
seen at Caer-segont, now Caer-narvon. (Carte's Hist. of England, vol. i.
p. 168, from Rowland's Mona Antiqua.) The prudent reader may not perhaps
be satisfied with such Welsh evidence.]

[Footnote 11: Camden (vol. i. introduct. p. ci.) appoints him governor
at Britain; and the father of our antiquities is followed, as usual, by
his blind progeny. Pacatus and Zosimus had taken some pains to prevent
this error, or fable; and I shall protect myself by their decisive
testimonies. Regali habitu exulem suum, illi exules orbis induerunt, (in
Panegyr. Vet. xii. 23,) and the Greek historian still less equivocally,
(Maximus) (l. iv. p. 248.)]

[Footnote 12: Sulpicius Severus, Dialog. ii. 7. Orosius, l. vii. c.
34. p. 556. They both acknowledge (Sulpicius had been his subject) his
innocence and merit. It is singular enough, that Maximus should be less
favorably treated by Zosimus, the partial adversary of his rival.]

But there was danger likewise in refusing the empire; and from the
moment that Maximus had violated his allegiance to his lawful sovereign,
he could not hope to reign, or even to live, if he confined his moderate
ambition within the narrow limits of Britain. He boldly and wisely
resolved to prevent the designs of Gratian; the youth of the island
crowded to his standard, and he invaded Gaul with a fleet and
army, which were long afterwards remembered, as the emigration of
a considerable part of the British nation. [13] The emperor, in his
peaceful residence of Paris, was alarmed by their hostile approach;
and the darts which he idly wasted on lions and bears, might have been
employed more honorably against the rebels. But his feeble efforts
announced his degenerate spirit and desperate situation; and deprived
him of the resources, which he still might have found, in the support
of his subjects and allies. The armies of Gaul, instead of opposing the
march of Maximus, received him with joyful and loyal acclamations;
and the shame of the desertion was transferred from the people to the
prince. The troops, whose station more immediately attached them to the
service of the palace, abandoned the standard of Gratian the first time
that it was displayed in the neighborhood of Paris. The emperor of the
West fled towards Lyons, with a train of only three hundred horse; and,
in the cities along the road, where he hoped to find refuge, or at least
a passage, he was taught, by cruel experience, that every gate is shut
against the unfortunate. Yet he might still have reached, in safety,
the dominions of his brother; and soon have returned with the forces
of Italy and the East; if he had not suffered himself to be fatally
deceived by the perfidious governor of the Lyonnese province. Gratian
was amused by protestations of doubtful fidelity, and the hopes of a
support, which could not be effectual; till the arrival of Andragathius,
the general of the cavalry of Maximus, put an end to his suspense. That
resolute officer executed, without remorse, the orders or the intention
of the usurper. Gratian, as he rose from supper, was delivered into the
hands of the assassin: and his body was denied to the pious and pressing
entreaties of his brother Valentinian. [14] The death of the emperor was
followed by that of his powerful general Mellobaudes, the king of the
Franks; who maintained, to the last moment of his life, the ambiguous
reputation, which is the just recompense of obscure and subtle policy.
[15] These executions might be necessary to the public safety: but the
successful usurper, whose power was acknowledged by all the provinces of
the West, had the merit, and the satisfaction, of boasting, that, except
those who had perished by the chance of war, his triumph was not stained
by the blood of the Romans. [16]

[Footnote 13: Archbishop Usher (Antiquat. Britan. Eccles. p. 107, 108)
has diligently collected the legends of the island, and the continent.
The whole emigration consisted of 30,000 soldiers, and 100,000
plebeians, who settled in Bretagne. Their destined brides, St. Ursula
with 11,000 noble, and 60,000 plebeian, virgins, mistook their way;
landed at Cologne, and were all most cruelly murdered by the Huns. But
the plebeian sisters have been defrauded of their equal honors; and what
is still harder, John Trithemius presumes to mention the children of
these British virgins.]

[Footnote 14: Zosimus (l. iv. p. 248, 249) has transported the death
of Gratian from Lugdunum in Gaul (Lyons) to Singidunum in Moesia. Some
hints may be extracted from the Chronicles; some lies may be detected in
Sozomen (l. vii. c. 13) and Socrates, (l. v. c. 11.) Ambrose is our
most authentic evidence, (tom. i. Enarrat. in Psalm lxi. p. 961, tom ii.
epist. xxiv. p. 888 &c., and de Obitu Valentinian Consolat. Ner. 28, p.
1182.)]

[Footnote 15: Pacatus (xii. 28) celebrates his fidelity; while his
treachery is marked in Prosper's Chronicle, as the cause of the ruin of
Gratian. Ambrose, who has occasion to exculpate himself, only condemns
the death of Vallio, a faithful servant of Gratian, (tom. ii. epist.
xxiv. p. 891, edit. Benedict.) * Note: Le Beau contests the reading
in the chronicle of Prosper upon which this charge rests. Le Beau, iv.
232.--M. * Note: According to Pacatus, the Count Vallio, who commanded
the army, was carried to Chalons to be burnt alive; but Maximus,
dreading the imputation of cruelty, caused him to be secretly strangled
by his Bretons. Macedonius also, master of the offices, suffered the
death which he merited. Le Beau, iv. 244.--M.]

[Footnote 16: He protested, nullum ex adversariis nisi in acissie
occubu. Sulp. Jeverus in Vit. B. Martin, c. 23. The orator Theodosius
bestows reluctant, and therefore weighty, praise on his clemency. Si
cui ille, pro ceteris sceleribus suis, minus crudelis fuisse videtur,
(Panegyr. Vet. xii. 28.)]

The events of this revolution had passed in such rapid succession, that
it would have been impossible for Theodosius to march to the relief of
his benefactor, before he received the intelligence of his defeat and
death. During the season of sincere grief, or ostentatious mourning,
the Eastern emperor was interrupted by the arrival of the principal
chamberlain of Maximus; and the choice of a venerable old man, for an
office which was usually exercised by eunuchs, announced to the court of
Constantinople the gravity and temperance of the British usurper.

The ambassador condescended to justify, or excuse, the conduct of his
master; and to protest, in specious language, that the murder of
Gratian had been perpetrated, without his knowledge or consent, by the
precipitate zeal of the soldiers. But he proceeded, in a firm and equal
tone, to offer Theodosius the alternative of peace, or war. The speech
of the ambassador concluded with a spirited declaration, that although
Maximus, as a Roman, and as the father of his people, would choose
rather to employ his forces in the common defence of the republic,
he was armed and prepared, if his friendship should be rejected, to
dispute, in a field of battle, the empire of the world. An immediate
and peremptory answer was required; but it was extremely difficult for
Theodosius to satisfy, on this important occasion, either the feelings
of his own mind, or the expectations of the public. The imperious voice
of honor and gratitude called aloud for revenge. From the liberality
of Gratian, he had received the Imperial diadem; his patience would
encourage the odious suspicion, that he was more deeply sensible of
former injuries, than of recent obligations; and if he accepted the
friendship, he must seem to share the guilt, of the assassin. Even the
principles of justice, and the interest of society, would receive a
fatal blow from the impunity of Maximus; and the example of successful
usurpation would tend to dissolve the artificial fabric of government,
and once more to replunge the empire in the crimes and calamities of
the preceding age. But, as the sentiments of gratitude and honor
should invariably regulate the conduct of an individual, they may
be overbalanced in the mind of a sovereign, by the sense of superior
duties; and the maxims both of justice and humanity must permit the
escape of an atrocious criminal, if an innocent people would be involved
in the consequences of his punishment. The assassin of Gratian had
usurped, but he actually possessed, the most warlike provinces of the
empire: the East was exhausted by the misfortunes, and even by the
success, of the Gothic war; and it was seriously to be apprehended,
that, after the vital strength of the republic had been wasted in a
doubtful and destructive contest, the feeble conqueror would remain an
easy prey to the Barbarians of the North. These weighty considerations
engaged Theodosius to dissemble his resentment, and to accept the
alliance of the tyrant. But he stipulated, that Maximus should content
himself with the possession of the countries beyond the Alps. The
brother of Gratian was confirmed and secured in the sovereignty of
Italy, Africa, and the Western Illyricum; and some honorable conditions
were inserted in the treaty, to protect the memory, and the laws, of the
deceased emperor. [17] According to the custom of the age, the images
of the three Imperial colleagues were exhibited to the veneration of
the people; nor should it be lightly supposed, that, in the moment of
a solemn reconciliation, Theodosius secretly cherished the intention of
perfidy and revenge. [18]

[Footnote 17: Ambrose mentions the laws of Gratian, quas non abrogavit
hostia (tom. ii epist. xvii. p. 827.)]

[Footnote 18: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 251, 252. We may disclaim his odious
suspicions; but we cannot reject the treaty of peace which the friends
of Theodosius have absolutely forgotten, or slightly mentioned.]

The contempt of Gratian for the Roman soldiers had exposed him to the
fatal effects of their resentment. His profound veneration for the
Christian clergy was rewarded by the applause and gratitude of a
powerful order, which has claimed, in every age, the privilege of
dispensing honors, both on earth and in heaven. [19] The orthodox
bishops bewailed his death, and their own irreparable loss; but they
were soon comforted by the discovery, that Gratian had committed the
sceptre of the East to the hands of a prince, whose humble faith and
fervent zeal, were supported by the spirit and abilities of a more
vigorous character. Among the benefactors of the church, the fame of
Constantine has been rivalled by the glory of Theodosius. If Constantine
had the advantage of erecting the standard of the cross, the emulation
of his successor assumed the merit of subduing the Arian heresy, and of
abolishing the worship of idols in the Roman world. Theodosius was
the first of the emperors baptized in the true faith of the Trinity.
Although he was born of a Christian family, the maxims, or at least
the practice, of the age, encouraged him to delay the ceremony of
his initiation; till he was admonished of the danger of delay, by the
serious illness which threatened his life, towards the end of the first
year of his reign. Before he again took the field against the Goths,
he received the sacrament of baptism [20] from Acholius, the orthodox
bishop of Thessalonica: [21] and, as the emperor ascended from the holy
font, still glowing with the warm feelings of regeneration, he dictated
a solemn edict, which proclaimed his own faith, and prescribed the
religion of his subjects. "It is our pleasure (such is the Imperial
style) that all the nations, which are governed by our clemency and
moderation, should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught
by St. Peter to the Romans; which faithful tradition has preserved; and
which is now professed by the pontiff Damasus, and by Peter, bishop of
Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of
the apostles, and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe the
sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; under an equal
majesty, and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this
doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians; and as we judge,
that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous
name of Heretics; and declare that their conventicles shall no longer
usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation
of divine justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties,
which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to
inflict upon them." [22] The faith of a soldier is commonly the fruit of
instruction, rather than of inquiry; but as the emperor always fixed his
eyes on the visible landmarks of orthodoxy, which he had so prudently
constituted, his religious opinions were never affected by the specious
texts, the subtle arguments, and the ambiguous creeds of the Arian
doctors. Once indeed he expressed a faint inclination to converse with
the eloquent and learned Eunomius, who lived in retirement at a small
distance from Constantinople. But the dangerous interview was prevented
by the prayers of the empress Flaccilla, who trembled for the
salvation of her husband; and the mind of Theodosius was confirmed by
a theological argument, adapted to the rudest capacity. He had lately
bestowed on his eldest son, Arcadius, the name and honors of Augustus,
and the two princes were seated on a stately throne to receive the
homage of their subjects. A bishop, Amphilochius of Iconium, approached
the throne, and after saluting, with due reverence, the person of his
sovereign, he accosted the royal youth with the same familiar tenderness
which he might have used towards a plebeian child. Provoked by this
insolent behavior, the monarch gave orders, that the rustic priest
should be instantly driven from his presence. But while the guards were
forcing him to the door, the dexterous polemic had time to execute his
design, by exclaiming, with a loud voice, "Such is the treatment, O
emperor! which the King of heaven has prepared for those impious men,
who affect to worship the Father, but refuse to acknowledge the equal
majesty of his divine Son." Theodosius immediately embraced the bishop
of Iconium, and never forgot the important lesson, which he had received
from this dramatic parable. [23]

[Footnote 19: Their oracle, the archbishop of Milan, assigns to his
pupil Gratian, a high and respectable place in heaven, (tom. ii. de
Obit. Val. Consol p. 1193.)]

[Footnote 20: For the baptism of Theodosius, see Sozomen, (l. vii. c.
4,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 6,) and Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v.
p. 728.)]

[Footnote 21: Ascolius, or Acholius, was honored by the friendship, and
the praises, of Ambrose; who styles him murus fidei atque sanctitatis,
(tom. ii. epist. xv. p. 820;) and afterwards celebrates his speed and
diligence in running to Constantinople, Italy, &c., (epist. xvi. p.
822.) a virtue which does not appertain either to a wall, or a bishop.]

[Footnote 22: Codex Theodos. l. xvi. tit. i. leg. 2, with Godefroy's
Commentary, tom. vi. p. 5-9. Such an edict deserved the warmest praises
of Baronius, auream sanctionem, edictum pium et salutare.--Sic itua ad
astra.]

[Footnote 23: Sozomen, l. vii. c. 6. Theodoret, l. v. c. 16. Tillemont
is displeased (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 627, 628) with the terms of
"rustic bishop," "obscure city." Yet I must take leave to think, that
both Amphilochius and Iconium were objects of inconsiderable magnitude
in the Roman empire.]




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

Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and,
in a long interval of forty years, [24] the faith of the princes and
prelates, who reigned in the capital of the East, was rejected in the
purer schools of Rome and Alexandria. The archiepiscopal throne of
Macedonius, which had been polluted with so much Christian blood, was
successively filled by Eudoxus and Damophilus. Their diocese enjoyed a
free importation of vice and error from every province of the empire;
the eager pursuit of religious controversy afforded a new occupation to
the busy idleness of the metropolis; and we may credit the assertion
of an intelligent observer, who describes, with some pleasantry, the
effects of their loquacious zeal. "This city," says he, "is full of
mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians; and
preach in the shops, and in the streets. If you desire a man to change
a piece of silver, he informs you, wherein the Son differs from the
Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply,
that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire, whether the
bath is ready, the answer is, that the Son was made out of nothing."
[25] The heretics, of various denominations, subsisted in peace under
the protection of the Arians of Constantinople; who endeavored to secure
the attachment of those obscure sectaries, while they abused, with
unrelenting severity, the victory which they had obtained over
the followers of the council of Nice. During the partial reigns of
Constantius and Valens, the feeble remnant of the Homoousians was
deprived of the public and private exercise of their religion; and it
has been observed, in pathetic language, that the scattered flock was
left without a shepherd to wander on the mountains, or to be devoured
by rapacious wolves. [26] But, as their zeal, instead of being subdued,
derived strength and vigor from oppression, they seized the first
moments of imperfect freedom, which they had acquired by the death
of Valens, to form themselves into a regular congregation, under the
conduct of an episcopal pastor. Two natives of Cappadocia, Basil,
and Gregory Nazianzen, [27] were distinguished above all their
contemporaries, [28] by the rare union of profane eloquence and of
orthodox piety.

These orators, who might sometimes be compared, by themselves, and by
the public, to the most celebrated of the ancient Greeks, were united
by the ties of the strictest friendship. They had cultivated, with
equal ardor, the same liberal studies in the schools of Athens; they
had retired, with equal devotion, to the same solitude in the deserts
of Pontus; and every spark of emulation, or envy, appeared to be totally
extinguished in the holy and ingenuous breasts of Gregory and Basil.
But the exaltation of Basil, from a private life to the archiepiscopal
throne of Caesarea, discovered to the world, and perhaps to himself,
the pride of his character; and the first favor which he condescended to
bestow on his friend, was received, and perhaps was intended, as a cruel
insult. [29] Instead of employing the superior talents of Gregory in
some useful and conspicuous station, the haughty prelate selected, among
the fifty bishoprics of his extensive province, the wretched village of
Sasima, [30] without water, without verdure, without society, situate
at the junction of three highways, and frequented only by the incessant
passage of rude and clamorous wagoners. Gregory submitted with
reluctance to this humiliating exile; he was ordained bishop of Sasima;
but he solemnly protests, that he never consummated his spiritual
marriage with this disgusting bride. He afterwards consented to
undertake the government of his native church of Nazianzus, [31] of
which his father had been bishop above five-and-forty years. But as
he was still conscious that he deserved another audience, and another
theatre, he accepted, with no unworthy ambition, the honorable
invitation, which was addressed to him from the orthodox party of
Constantinople. On his arrival in the capital, Gregory was entertained
in the house of a pious and charitable kinsman; the most spacious
room was consecrated to the uses of religious worship; and the name of
Anastasia was chosen to express the resurrection of the Nicene faith.
This private conventicle was afterwards converted into a magnificent
church; and the credulity of the succeeding age was prepared to believe
the miracles and visions, which attested the presence, or at least the
protection, of the Mother of God. [32] The pulpit of the Anastasia was
the scene of the labors and triumphs of Gregory Nazianzen; and, in the
space of two years, he experienced all the spiritual adventures which
constitute the prosperous or adverse fortunes of a missionary. [33] The
Arians, who were provoked by the boldness of his enterprise, represented
his doctrine, as if he had preached three distinct and equal Deities;
and the devout populace was excited to suppress, by violence and tumult,
the irregular assemblies of the Athanasian heretics. From the cathedral
of St. Sophia there issued a motley crowd "of common beggars, who had
forfeited their claim to pity; of monks, who had the appearance of goats
or satyrs; and of women, more terrible than so many Jezebels." The doors
of the Anastasia were broke open; much mischief was perpetrated, or
attempted, with sticks, stones, and firebrands; and as a man lost his
life in the affray, Gregory, who was summoned the next morning before
the magistrate, had the satisfaction of supposing, that he publicly
confessed the name of Christ. After he was delivered from the fear
and danger of a foreign enemy, his infant church was disgraced and
distracted by intestine faction. A stranger who assumed the name of
Maximus, [34] and the cloak of a Cynic philosopher, insinuated himself
into the confidence of Gregory; deceived and abused his favorable
opinion; and forming a secret connection with some bishops of Egypt,
attempted, by a clandestine ordination, to supplant his patron in the
episcopal seat of Constantinople. These mortifications might sometimes
tempt the Cappadocian missionary to regret his obscure solitude. But
his fatigues were rewarded by the daily increase of his fame and his
congregation; and he enjoyed the pleasure of observing, that the greater
part of his numerous audience retired from his sermons satisfied with
the eloquence of the preacher, [35] or dissatisfied with the manifold
imperfections of their faith and practice. [36]

[Footnote 24: Sozomen, l. vii. c. v. Socrates, l. v. c. 7. Marcellin.
in Chron. The account of forty years must be dated from the election or
intrusion of Eusebius, who wisely exchanged the bishopric of Nicomedia
for the throne of Constantinople.]

[Footnote 25: See Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv.
p. 71. The thirty-third Oration of Gregory Nazianzen affords indeed some
similar ideas, even some still more ridiculous; but I have not yet found
the words of this remarkable passage, which I allege on the faith of a
correct and liberal scholar.]

[Footnote 26: See the thirty-second Oration of Gregory Nazianzen, and
the account of his own life, which he has composed in 1800 iambics.
Yet every physician is prone to exaggerate the inveterate nature of the
disease which he has cured.]

[Footnote 27: I confess myself deeply indebted to the two lives of
Gregory Nazianzen, composed, with very different views, by Tillemont
(Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 305-560, 692-731) and Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque
Universelle, tom. xviii. p. 1-128.)]

[Footnote 28: Unless Gregory Nazianzen mistook thirty years in his own
age, he was born, as well as his friend Basil, about the year 329. The
preposterous chronology of Suidas has been graciously received, because
it removes the scandal of Gregory's father, a saint likewise, begetting
children after he became a bishop, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p.
693-697.)]

[Footnote 29: Gregory's Poem on his own Life contains some beautiful
lines, (tom. ii. p. 8,) which burst from the heart, and speak the pangs
of injured and lost friendship. ----In the Midsummer Night's Dream,
Helena addresses the same pathetic complaint to her friend Hermia:--Is
all the counsel that we two have shared. The sister's vows, &c.
Shakspeare had never read the poems of Gregory Nazianzen; he was
ignorant of the Greek language; but his mother tongue, the language of
Nature, is the same in Cappadocia and in Britain.]

[Footnote 30: This unfavorable portrait of Sasimae is drawn by Gregory
Nazianzen, (tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 7, 8.) Its precise situation,
forty-nine miles from Archelais, and thirty-two from Tyana, is fixed in
the Itinerary of Antoninus, (p. 144, edit. Wesseling.)]

[Footnote 31: The name of Nazianzus has been immortalized by
Gregory; but his native town, under the Greek or Roman title of
Diocaesarea, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 692,) is mentioned by
Pliny, (vi. 3,) Ptolemy, and Hierocles, (Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 709).
It appears to have been situate on the edge of Isauria.]

[Footnote 32: See Ducange, Constant. Christiana, l. iv. p. 141, 142. The
Sozomen (l. vii. c. 5) is interpreted to mean the Virgin Mary.]

[Footnote 33: Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 432, &c.) diligently
collects, enlarges, and explains, the oratorical and poetical hints of
Gregory himself.]

[Footnote 34: He pronounced an oration (tom. i. Orat. xxiii. p. 409)
in his praise; but after their quarrel, the name of Maximus was changed
into that of Heron, (see Jerom, tom. i. in Catalog. Script. Eccles. p.
301). I touch slightly on these obscure and personal squabbles.]

[Footnote 35: Under the modest emblem of a dream, Gregory (tom. ii.
Carmen ix. p. 78) describes his own success with some human complacency.
Yet it should seem, from his familiar conversation with his auditor St.
Jerom, (tom. i. Epist. ad Nepotian. p. 14,) that the preacher understood
the true value of popular applause.]

[Footnote 36: Lachrymae auditorum laudes tuae sint, is the lively and
judicious advice of St. Jerom.]

The Catholics of Constantinople were animated with joyful confidence
by the baptism and edict of Theodosius; and they impatiently waited the
effects of his gracious promise. Their hopes were speedily accomplished;
and the emperor, as soon as he had finished the operations of the
campaign, made his public entry into the capital at the head of a
victorious army. The next day after his arrival, he summoned Damophilus
to his presence, and offered that Arian prelate the hard alternative of
subscribing the Nicene creed, or of instantly resigning, to the orthodox
believers, the use and possession of the episcopal palace, the cathedral
of St. Sophia, and all the churches of Constantinople. The zeal of
Damophilus, which in a Catholic saint would have been justly applauded,
embraced, without hesitation, a life of poverty and exile, [37] and his
removal was immediately followed by the purification of the Imperial
city. The Arians might complain, with some appearance of justice, that
an inconsiderable congregation of sectaries should usurp the hundred
churches, which they were insufficient to fill; whilst the far greater
part of the people was cruelly excluded from every place of religious
worship. Theodosius was still inexorable; but as the angels who
protected the Catholic cause were only visible to the eyes of faith, he
prudently reenforced those heavenly legions with the more effectual
aid of temporal and carnal weapons; and the church of St. Sophia was
occupied by a large body of the Imperial guards. If the mind of Gregory
was susceptible of pride, he must have felt a very lively satisfaction,
when the emperor conducted him through the streets in solemn triumph;
and, with his own hand, respectfully placed him on the archiepiscopal
throne of Constantinople. But the saint (who had not subdued the
imperfections of human virtue) was deeply affected by the mortifying
consideration, that his entrance into the fold was that of a wolf,
rather than of a shepherd; that the glittering arms which surrounded his
person, were necessary for his safety; and that he alone was the object
of the imprecations of a great party, whom, as men and citizens, it was
impossible for him to despise. He beheld the innumerable multitude of
either sex, and of every age, who crowded the streets, the windows, and
the roofs of the houses; he heard the tumultuous voice of rage, grief,
astonishment, and despair; and Gregory fairly confesses, that on the
memorable day of his installation, the capital of the East wore the
appearance of a city taken by storm, and in the hands of a Barbarian
conqueror. [38] About six weeks afterwards, Theodosius declared his
resolution of expelling from all the churches of his dominions the
bishops and their clergy who should obstinately refuse to believe, or at
least to profess, the doctrine of the council of Nice. His lieutenant,
Sapor, was armed with the ample powers of a general law, a special
commission, and a military force; [39] and this ecclesiastical
revolution was conducted with so much discretion and vigor, that the
religion of the emperor was established, without tumult or bloodshed, in
all the provinces of the East. The writings of the Arians, if they had
been permitted to exist, [40] would perhaps contain the lamentable story
of the persecution, which afflicted the church under the reign of the
impious Theodosius; and the sufferings of their holy confessors might
claim the pity of the disinterested reader. Yet there is reason to
imagine, that the violence of zeal and revenge was, in some measure,
eluded by the want of resistance; and that, in their adversity, the
Arians displayed much less firmness than had been exerted by the
orthodox party under the reigns of Constantius and Valens. The moral
character and conduct of the hostile sects appear to have been governed
by the same common principles of nature and religion: but a very
material circumstance may be discovered, which tended to distinguish
the degrees of their theological faith. Both parties, in the schools, as
well as in the temples, acknowledged and worshipped the divine majesty
of Christ; and, as we are always prone to impute our own sentiments and
passions to the Deity, it would be deemed more prudent and respectful to
exaggerate, than to circumscribe, the adorable perfections of the Son of
God. The disciple of Athanasius exulted in the proud confidence, that
he had entitled himself to the divine favor; while the follower of Arius
must have been tormented by the secret apprehension, that he was
guilty, perhaps, of an unpardonable offence, by the scanty praise, and
parsimonious honors, which he bestowed on the Judge of the World. The
opinions of Arianism might satisfy a cold and speculative mind: but the
doctrine of the Nicene creed, most powerfully recommended by the merits
of faith and devotion, was much better adapted to become popular and
successful in a believing age.

[Footnote 37: Socrates (l. v. c. 7) and Sozomen (l. vii. c. 5) relate
the evangelical words and actions of Damophilus without a word of
approbation. He considered, says Socrates, that it is difficult to
resist the powerful, but it was easy, and would have been profitable, to
submit.]

[Footnote 38: See Gregory Nazianzen, tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 21,
22. For the sake of posterity, the bishop of Constantinople records a
stupendous prodigy. In the month of November, it was a cloudy morning,
but the sun broke forth when the procession entered the church.]

[Footnote 39: Of the three ecclesiastical historians, Theodoret alone
(l. v. c. 2) has mentioned this important commission of Sapor, which
Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 728) judiciously removes from
the reign of Gratian to that of Theodosius.]

[Footnote 40: I do not reckon Philostorgius, though he mentions (l.
ix. c. 19) the explosion of Damophilus. The Eunomian historian has been
carefully strained through an orthodox sieve.]

The hope, that truth and wisdom would be found in the assemblies of the
orthodox clergy, induced the emperor to convene, at Constantinople,
a synod of one hundred and fifty bishops, who proceeded, without much
difficulty or delay, to complete the theological system which had been
established in the council of Nice. The vehement disputes of the fourth
century had been chiefly employed on the nature of the Son of God; and
the various opinions which were embraced, concerning the Second, were
extended and transferred, by a natural analogy, to the Third person of
the Trinity. [41] Yet it was found, or it was thought, necessary, by the
victorious adversaries of Arianism, to explain the ambiguous language of
some respectable doctors; to confirm the faith of the Catholics; and to
condemn an unpopular and inconsistent sect of Macedonians; who freely
admitted that the Son was consubstantial to the Father, while they were
fearful of seeming to acknowledge the existence of Three Gods. A final
and unanimous sentence was pronounced to ratify the equal Deity of
the Holy Ghost: the mysterious doctrine has been received by all the
nations, and all the churches of the Christian world; and their grateful
reverence has assigned to the bishops of Theodosius the second rank
among the general councils. [42] Their knowledge of religious truth may
have been preserved by tradition, or it may have been communicated
by inspiration; but the sober evidence of history will not allow much
weight to the personal authority of the Fathers of Constantinople. In an
age when the ecclesiastics had scandalously degenerated from the model
of apostolic purity, the most worthless and corrupt were always the most
eager to frequent, and disturb, the episcopal assemblies. The conflict
and fermentation of so many opposite interests and tempers inflamed the
passions of the bishops: and their ruling passions were, the love
of gold, and the love of dispute. Many of the same prelates who now
applauded the orthodox piety of Theodosius, had repeatedly changed,
with prudent flexibility, their creeds and opinions; and in the various
revolutions of the church and state, the religion of their sovereign
was the rule of their obsequious faith. When the emperor suspended his
prevailing influence, the turbulent synod was blindly impelled by the
absurd or selfish motives of pride, hatred, or resentment. The death of
Meletius, which happened at the council of Constantinople, presented
the most favorable opportunity of terminating the schism of Antioch,
by suffering his aged rival, Paulinus, peaceably to end his days in the
episcopal chair. The faith and virtues of Paulinus were unblemished. But
his cause was supported by the Western churches; and the bishops of
the synod resolved to perpetuate the mischiefs of discord, by the hasty
ordination of a perjured candidate, [43] rather than to betray the
imagined dignity of the East, which had been illustrated by the birth
and death of the Son of God. Such unjust and disorderly proceedings
forced the gravest members of the assembly to dissent and to secede; and
the clamorous majority which remained masters of the field of battle,
could be compared only to wasps or magpies, to a flight of cranes, or to
a flock of geese. [44]

[Footnote 41: Le Clerc has given a curious extract (Bibliotheque
Universelle, tom. xviii. p. 91-105) of the theological sermons which
Gregory Nazianzen pronounced at Constantinople against the Arians,
Eunomians, Macedonians, &c. He tells the Macedonians, who deified the
Father and the Son without the Holy Ghost, that they might as well be
styled Tritheists as Ditheists. Gregory himself was almost a Tritheist;
and his monarchy of heaven resembles a well-regulated aristocracy.]

[Footnote 42: The first general council of Constantinople now triumphs
in the Vatican; but the popes had long hesitated, and their hesitation
perplexes, and almost staggers, the humble Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom.
ix. p. 499, 500.)]

[Footnote 43: Before the death of Meletius, six or eight of his most
popular ecclesiastics, among whom was Flavian, had abjured, for the
sake of peace, the bishopric of Antioch, (Sozomen, l. vii. c. 3, 11.
Socrates, l. v. c. v.) Tillemont thinks it his duty to disbelieve the
story; but he owns that there are many circumstances in the life of
Flavian which seem inconsistent with the praises of Chrysostom, and the
character of a saint, (Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 541.)]

[Footnote 44: Consult Gregory Nazianzen, de Vita sua, tom. ii. p. 25-28.
His general and particular opinion of the clergy and their assemblies
may be seen in verse and prose, (tom. i. Orat. i. p. 33. Epist. lv.
p. 814, tom. ii. Carmen x. p. 81.) Such passages are faintly marked by
Tillemont, and fairly produced by Le Clerc.]

A suspicion may possibly arise, that so unfavorable a picture of
ecclesiastical synods has been drawn by the partial hand of some
obstinate heretic, or some malicious infidel. But the name of the
sincere historian who has conveyed this instructive lesson to
the knowledge of posterity, must silence the impotent murmurs of
superstition and bigotry. He was one of the most pious and eloquent
bishops of the age; a saint, and a doctor of the church; the scourge of
Arianism, and the pillar of the orthodox faith; a distinguished member
of the council of Constantinople, in which, after the death of Meletius,
he exercised the functions of president; in a word--Gregory Nazianzen
himself. The harsh and ungenerous treatment which he experienced,
[45] instead of derogating from the truth of his evidence, affords an
additional proof of the spirit which actuated the deliberations of the
synod. Their unanimous suffrage had confirmed the pretensions which the
bishop of Constantinople derived from the choice of the people, and the
approbation of the emperor. But Gregory soon became the victim of malice
and envy. The bishops of the East, his strenuous adherents, provoked
by his moderation in the affairs of Antioch, abandoned him, without
support, to the adverse faction of the Egyptians; who disputed the
validity of his election, and rigorously asserted the obsolete canon,
that prohibited the licentious practice of episcopal translations. The
pride, or the humility, of Gregory prompted him to decline a contest
which might have been imputed to ambition and avarice; and he publicly
offered, not without some mixture of indignation, to renounce the
government of a church which had been restored, and almost created,
by his labors. His resignation was accepted by the synod, and by the
emperor, with more readiness than he seems to have expected. At the
time when he might have hoped to enjoy the fruits of his victory,
his episcopal throne was filled by the senator Nectarius; and the new
archbishop, accidentally recommended by his easy temper and venerable
aspect, was obliged to delay the ceremony of his consecration, till
he had previously despatched the rites of his baptism. [46] After
this remarkable experience of the ingratitude of princes and prelates,
Gregory retired once more to his obscure solitude of Cappadocia;
where he employed the remainder of his life, about eight years, in the
exercises of poetry and devotion. The title of Saint has been added to
his name: but the tenderness of his heart, [47] and the elegance of
his genius, reflect a more pleasing lustre on the memory of Gregory
Nazianzen.

[Footnote 45: See Gregory, tom. ii. de Vita sua, p. 28-31. The
fourteenth, twenty-seventh, and thirty-second Orations were pronounced
in the several stages of this business. The peroration of the last,
(tom. i. p. 528,) in which he takes a solemn leave of men and angels,
the city and the emperor, the East and the West, &c., is pathetic, and
almost sublime.]

[Footnote 46: The whimsical ordination of Nectarius is attested by
Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 8;) but Tillemont observes, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix.
p. 719,) Apres tout, ce narre de Sozomene est si honteux, pour tous ceux
qu'il y mele, et surtout pour Theodose, qu'il vaut mieux travailler a le
detruire, qu'a le soutenir; an admirable canon of criticism!]

[Footnote 47: I can only be understood to mean, that such was his
natural temper when it was not hardened, or inflamed, by religious zeal.
From his retirement, he exhorts Nectarius to prosecute the heretics of
Constantinople.]

It was not enough that Theodosius had suppressed the insolent reign
of Arianism, or that he had abundantly revenged the injuries which
the Catholics sustained from the zeal of Constantius and Valens. The
orthodox emperor considered every heretic as a rebel against the supreme
powers of heaven and of earth; and each of those powers might exercise
their peculiar jurisdiction over the soul and body of the guilty.
The decrees of the council of Constantinople had ascertained the
true standard of the faith; and the ecclesiastics, who governed the
conscience of Theodosius, suggested the most effectual methods of
persecution. In the space of fifteen years, he promulgated at least
fifteen severe edicts against the heretics; [48] more especially against
those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; and to deprive them of
every hope of escape, he sternly enacted, that if any laws or rescripts
should be alleged in their favor, the judges should consider them as the
illegal productions either of fraud or forgery. The penal statutes were
directed against the ministers, the assemblies, and the persons of
the heretics; and the passions of the legislator were expressed in the
language of declamation and invective. I. The heretical teachers, who
usurped the sacred titles of Bishops, or Presbyters, were not only
excluded from the privileges and emoluments so liberally granted to the
orthodox clergy, but they were exposed to the heavy penalties of
exile and confiscation, if they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to
practise the rites, of their accursed sects. A fine of ten pounds of
gold (above four hundred pounds sterling) was imposed on every person
who should dare to confer, or receive, or promote, an heretical
ordination: and it was reasonably expected, that if the race of pastors
could be extinguished, their helpless flocks would be compelled, by
ignorance and hunger, to return within the pale of the Catholic church.
II. The rigorous prohibition of conventicles was carefully extended to
every possible circumstance, in which the heretics could assemble with
the intention of worshipping God and Christ according to the dictates of
their conscience. Their religious meetings, whether public or secret, by
day or by night, in cities or in the country, were equally proscribed
by the edicts of Theodosius; and the building, or ground, which had been
used for that illegal purpose, was forfeited to the Imperial domain.
III. It was supposed, that the error of the heretics could proceed only
from the obstinate temper of their minds; and that such a temper was a
fit object of censure and punishment. The anathemas of the church were
fortified by a sort of civil excommunication; which separated them
from their fellow-citizens, by a peculiar brand of infamy; and this
declaration of the supreme magistrate tended to justify, or at least to
excuse, the insults of a fanatic populace. The sectaries were gradually
disqualified from the possession of honorable or lucrative employments;
and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice, when he decreed,
that, as the Eunomians distinguished the nature of the Son from that
of the Father, they should be incapable of making their wills or of
receiving any advantage from testamentary donations. The guilt of the
Manichaean heresy was esteemed of such magnitude, that it could be
expiated only by the death of the offender; and the same capital
punishment was inflicted on the Audians, or Quartodecimans, [49] who
should dare to perpetrate the atrocious crime of celebrating on an
improper day the festival of Easter. Every Roman might exercise the
right of public accusation; but the office of Inquisitors of the Faith,
a name so deservedly abhorred, was first instituted under the reign of
Theodosius. Yet we are assured, that the execution of his penal edicts
was seldom enforced; and that the pious emperor appeared less desirous
to punish, than to reclaim, or terrify, his refractory subjects. [50]

[Footnote 48: See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6--23,
with Godefroy's commentary on each law, and his general summary, or
Paratitlon, tom vi. p. 104-110.]

[Footnote 49: They always kept their Easter, like the Jewish Passover,
on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the vernal equinox; and
thus pertinaciously opposed the Roman Church and Nicene synod, which had
fixed Easter to a Sunday. Bingham's Antiquities, l. xx. c. 5, vol. ii.
p. 309, fol. edit.]

[Footnote 50: Sozomen, l. vii. c. 12.]

The theory of persecution was established by Theodosius, whose justice
and piety have been applauded by the saints: but the practice of it, in
the fullest extent, was reserved for his rival and colleague, Maximus,
the first, among the Christian princes, who shed the blood of his
Christian subjects on account of their religious opinions. The cause of
the Priscillianists, [51] a recent sect of heretics, who disturbed
the provinces of Spain, was transferred, by appeal, from the synod of
Bordeaux to the Imperial consistory of Treves; and by the sentence of
the Praetorian praefect, seven persons were tortured, condemned, and
executed. The first of these was Priscillian [52] himself, bishop of
Avila, in Spain; who adorned the advantages of birth and fortune, by
the accomplishments of eloquence and learning. Two presbyters, and
two deacons, accompanied their beloved master in his death, which they
esteemed as a glorious martyrdom; and the number of religious victims
was completed by the execution of Latronian, a poet, who rivalled the
fame of the ancients; and of Euchrocia, a noble matron of Bordeaux, the
widow of the orator Delphidius. [54] Two bishops who had embraced the
sentiments of Priscillian, were condemned to a distant and dreary exile;
[55] and some indulgence was shown to the meaner criminals, who assumed
the merit of an early repentance. If any credit could be allowed
to confessions extorted by fear or pain, and to vague reports, the
offspring of malice and credulity, the heresy of the Priscillianists
would be found to include the various abominations of magic, of impiety,
and of lewdness. [56] Priscillian, who wandered about the world in the
company of his spiritual sisters, was accused of praying stark naked in
the midst of the congregation; and it was confidently asserted, that the
effects of his criminal intercourse with the daughter of Euchrocia
had been suppressed, by means still more odious and criminal. But
an accurate, or rather a candid, inquiry will discover, that if
the Priscillianists violated the laws of nature, it was not by the
licentiousness, but by the austerity, of their lives. They absolutely
condemned the use of the marriage-bed; and the peace of families was
often disturbed by indiscreet separations. They enjoyed, or recommended,
a total abstinence from all anima food; and their continual prayers,
fasts, and vigils, inculcated a rule of strict and perfect devotion. The
speculative tenets of the sect, concerning the person of Christ, and the
nature of the human soul, were derived from the Gnostic and Manichaean
system; and this vain philosophy, which had been transported from
Egypt to Spain, was ill adapted to the grosser spirits of the West.
The obscure disciples of Priscillian suffered languished, and gradually
disappeared: his tenets were rejected by the clergy and people, but his
death was the subject of a long and vehement controversy; while some
arraigned, and others applauded, the justice of his sentence. It is
with pleasure that we can observe the humane inconsistency of the most
illustrious saints and bishops, Ambrose of Milan, [57] and Martin of
Tours, [58] who, on this occasion, asserted the cause of toleration.
They pitied the unhappy men, who had been executed at Treves; they
refused to hold communion with their episcopal murderers; and if Martin
deviated from that generous resolution, his motives were laudable, and
his repentance was exemplary. The bishops of Tours and Milan pronounced,
without hesitation, the eternal damnation of heretics; but they were
surprised, and shocked, by the bloody image of their temporal death,
and the honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices
of theology. The humanity of Ambrose and Martin was confirmed by the
scandalous irregularity of the proceedings against Priscillian and his
adherents. The civil and ecclesiastical ministers had transgressed the
limits of their respective provinces. The secular judge had presumed to
receive an appeal, and to pronounce a definitive sentence, in a
matter of faith, and episcopal jurisdiction. The bishops had disgraced
themselves, by exercising the functions of accusers in a criminal
prosecution. The cruelty of Ithacius, [59] who beheld the tortures, and
solicited the death, of the heretics, provoked the just indignation
of mankind; and the vices of that profligate bishop were admitted as a
proof, that his zeal was instigated by the sordid motives of interest.
Since the death of Priscillian, the rude attempts of persecution have
been refined and methodized in the holy office, which assigns their
distinct parts to the ecclesiastical and secular powers. The devoted
victim is regularly delivered by the priest to the magistrate, and by
the magistrate to the executioner; and the inexorable sentence of the
church, which declares the spiritual guilt of the offender, is expressed
in the mild language of pity and intercession.

[Footnote 51: See the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus, (l. ii. p.
437-452, edit. Ludg. Bat. 1647,) a correct and original writer. Dr.
Lardner (Credibility, &c., part ii. vol. ix. p. 256-350) has labored
this article with pure learning, good sense, and moderation. Tillemont
(Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 491-527) has raked together all the dirt of
the fathers; a useful scavenger!]

[Footnote 52: Severus Sulpicius mentions the arch-heretic with esteem
and pity Faelix profecto, si non pravo studio corrupisset optimum
ingenium prorsus multa in eo animi et corporis bona cerneres. (Hist.
Sacra, l ii. p. 439.) Even Jerom (tom. i. in Script. Eccles. p. 302)
speaks with temper of Priscillian and Latronian.]

[Footnote 53: The bishopric (in Old Castile) is now worth 20,000 ducats
a year, (Busching's Geography, vol. ii. p. 308,) and is therefore much
less likely to produce the author of a new heresy.]

[Footnote 54: Exprobrabatur mulieri viduae nimia religio, et diligentius
culta divinitas, (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29.) Such was the idea of
a humane, though ignorant, polytheist.]

[Footnote 55: One of them was sent in Sillinam insulam quae ultra
Britannianest. What must have been the ancient condition of the rocks of
Scilly? (Camden's Britannia, vol. ii. p. 1519.)]

[Footnote 56: The scandalous calumnies of Augustin, Pope Leo, &c., which
Tillemont swallows like a child, and Lardner refutes like a man, may
suggest some candid suspicions in favor of the older Gnostics.]

[Footnote 57: Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xxiv. p. 891.]

[Footnote 58: In the Sacred History, and the Life of St. Martin,
Sulpicius Severus uses some caution; but he declares himself more freely
in the Dialogues, (iii. 15.) Martin was reproved, however, by his own
conscience, and by an angel; nor could he afterwards perform miracles
with so much ease.]

[Footnote 59: The Catholic Presbyter (Sulp. Sever. l. ii. p. 448) and
the Pagan Orator (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29) reprobate, with equal
indignation, the character and conduct of Ithacius.]




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

Among the ecclesiastics, who illustrated the reign of Theodosius,
Gregory Nazianzen was distinguished by the talents of an eloquent
preacher; the reputation of miraculous gifts added weight and dignity to
the monastic virtues of Martin of Tours; [60] but the palm of episcopal
vigor and ability was justly claimed by the intrepid Ambrose. [61] He
was descended from a noble family of Romans; his father had exercised
the important office of Praetorian praefect of Gaul; and the son, after
passing through the studies of a liberal education, attained, in the
regular gradation of civil honors, the station of consular of Liguria,
a province which included the Imperial residence of Milan. At the age
of thirty-four, and before he had received the sacrament of baptism,
Ambrose, to his own surprise, and to that of the world, was suddenly
transformed from a governor to an archbishop. Without the least
mixture, as it is said, of art or intrigue, the whole body of the
people unanimously saluted him with the episcopal title; the concord
and perseverance of their acclamations were ascribed to a praeternatural
impulse; and the reluctant magistrate was compelled to undertake a
spiritual office, for which he was not prepared by the habits and
occupations of his former life. But the active force of his genius soon
qualified him to exercise, with zeal and prudence, the duties of his
ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and while he cheerfully renounced the vain
and splendid trappings of temporal greatness, he condescended, for the
good of the church, to direct the conscience of the emperors, and to
control the administration of the empire. Gratian loved and revered him
as a father; and the elaborate treatise on the faith of the Trinity
was designed for the instruction of the young prince. After his tragic
death, at a time when the empress Justina trembled for her own safety,
and for that of her son Valentinian, the archbishop of Milan was
despatched, on two different embassies, to the court of Treves.
He exercised, with equal firmness and dexterity, the powers of his
spiritual and political characters; and perhaps contributed, by his
authority and eloquence, to check the ambition of Maximus, and to
protect the peace of Italy. [62] Ambrose had devoted his life, and his
abilities, to the service of the church. Wealth was the object of his
contempt; he had renounced his private patrimony; and he sold, without
hesitation, the consecrated plate, for the redemption of captives. The
clergy and people of Milan were attached to their archbishop; and he
deserved the esteem, without soliciting the favor, or apprehending the
displeasure, of his feeble sovereigns.

[Footnote 60: The Life of St. Martin, and the Dialogues concerning his
miracles contain facts adapted to the grossest barbarism, in a style not
unworthy of the Augustan age. So natural is the alliance between good
taste and good sense, that I am always astonished by this contrast.]

[Footnote 61: The short and superficial Life of St. Ambrose, by his
deacon Paulinus, (Appendix ad edit. Benedict. p. i.--xv.,) has the merit
of original evidence. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 78-306) and
the Benedictine editors (p. xxxi.--lxiii.) have labored with their usual
diligence.]

[Footnote 62: Ambrose himself (tom. ii. Epist. xxiv. p. 888--891) gives
the emperor a very spirited account of his own embassy.]

The government of Italy, and of the young emperor, naturally devolved to
his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but who, in the
midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune of professing the Arian
heresy, which she endeavored to instil into the mind of her son. Justina
was persuaded, that a Roman emperor might claim, in his own dominions,
the public exercise of his religion; and she proposed to the archbishop,
as a moderate and reasonable concession, that he should resign the use
of a single church, either in the city or the suburbs of Milan. But the
conduct of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. [63] The
palaces of the earth might indeed belong to Caesar; but the churches
were the houses of God; and, within the limits of his diocese, he
himself, as the lawful successor of the apostles, was the only minister
of God. The privileges of Christianity, temporal as well as spiritual,
were confined to the true believers; and the mind of Ambrose was
satisfied, that his own theological opinions were the standard of truth
and orthodoxy. The archbishop, who refused to hold any conference,
or negotiation, with the instruments of Satan, declared, with modest
firmness, his resolution to die a martyr, rather than to yield to the
impious sacrilege; and Justina, who resented the refusal as an act
of insolence and rebellion, hastily determined to exert the Imperial
prerogative of her son. As she desired to perform her public devotions
on the approaching festival of Easter, Ambrose was ordered to appear
before the council. He obeyed the summons with the respect of a faithful
subject, but he was followed, without his consent, by an innumerable
people they pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the
palace; and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead of
pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of Milan, humbly
requested that he would interpose his authority, to protect the person
of the emperor, and to restore the tranquility of the capital. But the
promises which Ambrose received and communicated were soon violated by
a perfidious court; and, during six of the most solemn days, which
Christian piety had set apart for the exercise of religion, the city
was agitated by the irregular convulsions of tumult and fanaticism. The
officers of the household were directed to prepare, first, the Portian,
and afterwards, the new, Basilica, for the immediate reception of the
emperor and his mother. The splendid canopy and hangings of the royal
seat were arranged in the customary manner; but it was found necessary
to defend them. by a strong guard, from the insults of the populace.
The Arian ecclesiastics, who ventured to show themselves in the streets,
were exposed to the most imminent danger of their lives; and Ambrose
enjoyed the merit and reputation of rescuing his personal enemies from
the hands of the enraged multitude.

[Footnote 63: His own representation of his principles and conduct (tom.
ii. Epist. xx xxi. xxii. p. 852-880) is one of the curious monuments
of ecclesiastical antiquity. It contains two letters to his sister
Marcellina, with a petition to Valentinian and the sermon de Basilicis
non madendis.]

But while he labored to restrain the effects of their zeal, the pathetic
vehemence of his sermons continually inflamed the angry and seditious
temper of the people of Milan. The characters of Eve, of the wife of
Job, of Jezebel, of Herodias, were indecently applied to the mother
of the emperor; and her desire to obtain a church for the Arians was
compared to the most cruel persecutions which Christianity had endured
under the reign of Paganism. The measures of the court served only to
expose the magnitude of the evil. A fine of two hundred pounds of gold
was imposed on the corporate body of merchants and manufacturers: an
order was signified, in the name of the emperor, to all the officers,
and inferior servants, of the courts of justice, that, during the
continuance of the public disorders, they should strictly confine
themselves to their houses; and the ministers of Valentinian imprudently
confessed, that the most respectable part of the citizens of Milan was
attached to the cause of their archbishop. He was again solicited to
restore peace to his country, by timely compliance with the will of
his sovereign. The reply of Ambrose was couched in the most humble and
respectful terms, which might, however, be interpreted as a serious
declaration of civil war. "His life and fortune were in the hands of the
emperor; but he would never betray the church of Christ, or degrade the
dignity of the episcopal character. In such a cause he was prepared
to suffer whatever the malice of the daemon could inflict; and he only
wished to die in the presence of his faithful flock, and at the foot of
the altar; he had not contributed to excite, but it was in the power of
God alone to appease, the rage of the people: he deprecated the scenes
of blood and confusion which were likely to ensue; and it was his
fervent prayer, that he might not survive to behold the ruin of a
flourishing city, and perhaps the desolation of all Italy." [64] The
obstinate bigotry of Justina would have endangered the empire of her
son, if, in this contest with the church and people of Milan, she could
have depended on the active obedience of the troops of the palace. A
large body of Goths had marched to occupy the Basilica, which was
the object of the dispute: and it might be expected from the Arian
principles, and barbarous manners, of these foreign mercenaries, that
they would not entertain any scruples in the execution of the most
sanguinary orders. They were encountered, on the sacred threshold,
by the archbishop, who, thundering against them a sentence of
excommunication, asked them, in the tone of a father and a master,
whether it was to invade the house of God, that they had implored the
hospitable protection of the republic. The suspense of the Barbarians
allowed some hours for a more effectual negotiation; and the empress
was persuaded, by the advice of her wisest counsellors, to leave the
Catholics in possession of all the churches of Milan; and to dissemble,
till a more convenient season, her intentions of revenge. The mother of
Valentinian could never forgive the triumph of Ambrose; and the royal
youth uttered a passionate exclamation, that his own servants were ready
to betray him into the hands of an insolent priest.

[Footnote 64: Retz had a similar message from the queen, to request that
he would appease the tumult of Paris. It was no longer in his power,
&c. A quoi j'ajoutai tout ce que vous pouvez vous imaginer de respect
de douleur, de regret, et de soumission, &c. (Memoires, tom. i. p.
140.) Certainly I do not compare either the causes or the men yet the
coadjutor himself had some idea (p. 84) of imitating St. Ambrose]

The laws of the empire, some of which were inscribed with the name of
Valentinian, still condemned the Arian heresy, and seemed to excuse the
resistance of the Catholics. By the influence of Justina, an edict of
toleration was promulgated in all the provinces which were subject to
the court of Milan; the free exercise of their religion was granted to
those who professed the faith of Rimini; and the emperor declared, that
all persons who should infringe this sacred and salutary constitution,
should be capitally punished, as the enemies of the public peace. [65]
The character and language of the archbishop of Milan may justify the
suspicion, that his conduct soon afforded a reasonable ground, or at
least a specious pretence, to the Arian ministers; who watched the
opportunity of surprising him in some act of disobedience to a law which
he strangely represents as a law of blood and tyranny. A sentence of
easy and honorable banishment was pronounced, which enjoined Ambrose to
depart from Milan without delay; whilst it permitted him to choose the
place of his exile, and the number of his companions. But the authority
of the saints, who have preached and practised the maxims of passive
loyalty, appeared to Ambrose of less moment than the extreme and
pressing danger of the church. He boldly refused to obey; and his
refusal was supported by the unanimous consent of his faithful people.
[66] They guarded by turns the person of their archbishop; the gates of
the cathedral and the episcopal palace were strongly secured; and the
Imperial troops, who had formed the blockade, were unwilling to risk the
attack, of that impregnable fortress. The numerous poor, who had been
relieved by the liberality of Ambrose, embraced the fair occasion
of signalizing their zeal and gratitude; and as the patience of the
multitude might have been exhausted by the length and uniformity of
nocturnal vigils, he prudently introduced into the church of Milan the
useful institution of a loud and regular psalmody. While he maintained
this arduous contest, he was instructed, by a dream, to open the earth
in a place where the remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and Protasius,
[67] had been deposited above three hundred years. Immediately under the
pavement of the church two perfect skeletons were found, [68] with the
heads separated from their bodies, and a plentiful effusion of blood.
The holy relics were presented, in solemn pomp, to the veneration of the
people; and every circumstance of this fortunate discovery was admirably
adapted to promote the designs of Ambrose. The bones of the martyrs,
their blood, their garments, were supposed to contain a healing power;
and the praeternatural influence was communicated to the most
distant objects, without losing any part of its original virtue. The
extraordinary cure of a blind man, [69] and the reluctant confessions
of several daemoniacs, appeared to justify the faith and sanctity of
Ambrose; and the truth of those miracles is attested by Ambrose
himself, by his secretary Paulinus, and by his proselyte, the celebrated
Augustin, who, at that time, professed the art of rhetoric in Milan.
The reason of the present age may possibly approve the incredulity of
Justina and her Arian court; who derided the theatrical representations
which were exhibited by the contrivance, and at the expense, of the
archbishop. [70] Their effect, however, on the minds of the people, was
rapid and irresistible; and the feeble sovereign of Italy found himself
unable to contend with the favorite of Heaven. The powers likewise of
the earth interposed in the defence of Ambrose: the disinterested advice
of Theodosius was the genuine result of piety and friendship; and the
mask of religious zeal concealed the hostile and ambitious designs of
the tyrant of Gaul. [71]

[Footnote 65: Sozomen alone (l. vii. c. 13) throws this luminous fact
into a dark and perplexed narrative.]

[Footnote 66: Excubabat pia plebs in ecclesia, mori parata cum episcopo
suo.... Nos, adhuc frigidi, excitabamur tamen civitate attonita atque
curbata. Augustin. Confession. l. ix. c. 7]

[Footnote 67: Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 78, 498. Many churches
in Italy, Gaul, &c., were dedicated to these unknown martyrs, of whom
St. Gervaise seems to have been more fortunate than his companion.]

[Footnote 68: Invenimus mirae magnitudinis viros duos, ut prisca aetas
ferebat, tom. ii. Epist. xxii. p. 875. The size of these skeletons
was fortunately, or skillfully, suited to the popular prejudice of the
gradual decrease of the human stature, which has prevailed in every age
since the time of Homer.--Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.]

[Footnote 69: Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xxii. p. 875. Augustin. Confes, l.
ix. c. 7, de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 8. Paulin. in Vita St. Ambros.
c. 14, in Append. Benedict. p. 4. The blind man's name was Severus; he
touched the holy garment, recovered his sight, and devoted the rest of
his life (at least twenty-five years) to the service of the church. I
should recommend this miracle to our divines, if it did not prove the
worship of relics, as well as the Nicene creed.]

[Footnote 70: Paulin, in Tit. St. Ambros. c. 5, in Append. Benedict. p.
5.]

[Footnote 71: Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 190, 750. He partially
allow the mediation of Theodosius, and capriciously rejects that of
Maximus, though it is attested by Prosper, Sozomen, and Theodoret.]

The reign of Maximus might have ended in peace and prosperity, could
he have contented himself with the possession of three ample countries,
which now constitute the three most flourishing kingdoms of modern
Europe. But the aspiring usurper, whose sordid ambition was not
dignified by the love of glory and of arms, considered his actual forces
as the instruments only of his future greatness, and his success was the
immediate cause of his destruction. The wealth which he extorted [72]
from the oppressed provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was employed
in levying and maintaining a formidable army of Barbarians, collected,
for the most part, from the fiercest nations of Germany. The conquest
of Italy was the object of his hopes and preparations: and he secretly
meditated the ruin of an innocent youth, whose government was abhorred
and despised by his Catholic subjects. But as Maximus wished to occupy,
without resistance, the passes of the Alps, he received, with perfidious
smiles, Domninus of Syria, the ambassador of Valentinian, and pressed
him to accept the aid of a considerable body of troops, for the service
of a Pannonian war. The penetration of Ambrose had discovered the snares
of an enemy under the professions of friendship; [73] but the Syrian
Domninus was corrupted, or deceived, by the liberal favor of the court
of Treves; and the council of Milan obstinately rejected the suspicion
of danger, with a blind confidence, which was the effect, not of
courage, but of fear. The march of the auxiliaries was guided by
the ambassador; and they were admitted, without distrust, into the
fortresses of the Alps. But the crafty tyrant followed, with hasty and
silent footsteps, in the rear; and, as he diligently intercepted all
intelligence of his motions, the gleam of armor, and the dust excited
by the troops of cavalry, first announced the hostile approach of a
stranger to the gates of Milan. In this extremity, Justina and her son
might accuse their own imprudence, and the perfidious arts of Maximus;
but they wanted time, and force, and resolution, to stand against the
Gauls and Germans, either in the field, or within the walls of a large
and disaffected city. Flight was their only hope, Aquileia their only
refuge; and as Maximus now displayed his genuine character, the brother
of Gratian might expect the same fate from the hands of the same
assassin. Maximus entered Milan in triumph; and if the wise archbishop
refused a dangerous and criminal connection with the usurper, he might
indirectly contribute to the success of his arms, by inculcating, from
the pulpit, the duty of resignation, rather than that of resistance.
[74] The unfortunate Justina reached Aquileia in safety; but she
distrusted the strength of the fortifications: she dreaded the event
of a siege; and she resolved to implore the protection of the great
Theodosius, whose power and virtue were celebrated in all the countries
of the West. A vessel was secretly provided to transport the Imperial
family; they embarked with precipitation in one of the obscure harbors
of Venetia, or Istria; traversed the whole extent of the Adriatic and
Ionian Seas; turned the extreme promontory of Peloponnesus; and, after
a long, but successful navigation, reposed themselves in the port of
Thessalonica. All the subjects of Valentinian deserted the cause of
a prince, who, by his abdication, had absolved them from the duty of
allegiance; and if the little city of Aemona, on the verge of Italy, had
not presumed to stop the career of his inglorious victory, Maximus would
have obtained, without a struggle, the sole possession of the Western
empire.

[Footnote 72: The modest censure of Sulpicius (Dialog. iii. 15) inflicts
a much deeper wound than the declamation of Pacatus, (xii. 25, 26.)]

[Footnote 73: Esto tutior adversus hominem, pacis involurco tegentem,
was the wise caution of Ambrose (tom. ii. p. 891) after his return from
his second embassy.]

[Footnote 74: Baronius (A.D. 387, No. 63) applies to this season of
public distress some of the penitential sermons of the archbishop.]

Instead of inviting his royal guests to take the palace of
Constantinople, Theodosius had some unknown reasons to fix their
residence at Thessalonica; but these reasons did not proceed from
contempt or indifference, as he speedily made a visit to that city,
accompanied by the greatest part of his court and senate. After the
first tender expressions of friendship and sympathy, the pious emperor
of the East gently admonished Justina, that the guilt of heresy was
sometimes punished in this world, as well as in the next; and that the
public profession of the Nicene faith would be the most efficacious step
to promote the restoration of her son, by the satisfaction which it must
occasion both on earth and in heaven. The momentous question of peace or
war was referred, by Theodosius, to the deliberation of his council; and
the arguments which might be alleged on the side of honor and justice,
had acquired, since the death of Gratian, a considerable degree of
additional weight. The persecution of the Imperial family, to which
Theodosius himself had been indebted for his fortune, was now aggravated
by recent and repeated injuries. Neither oaths nor treaties could
restrain the boundless ambition of Maximus; and the delay of vigorous
and decisive measures, instead of prolonging the blessings of peace,
would expose the Eastern empire to the danger of a hostile invasion. The
Barbarians, who had passed the Danube, had lately assumed the character
of soldiers and subjects, but their native fierceness was yet untamed:
and the operations of a war, which would exercise their valor, and
diminish their numbers, might tend to relieve the provinces from
an intolerable oppression. Notwithstanding these specious and solid
reasons, which were approved by a majority of the council, Theodosius
still hesitated whether he should draw the sword in a contest which
could no longer admit any terms of reconciliation; and his magnanimous
character was not disgraced by the apprehensions which he felt for the
safety of his infant sons, and the welfare of his exhausted people. In
this moment of anxious doubt, while the fate of the Roman world depended
on the resolution of a single man, the charms of the princess Galla most
powerfully pleaded the cause of her brother Valentinian. [75] The heart
of Theodosius wa softened by the tears of beauty; his affections were
insensibly engaged by the graces of youth and innocence: the art of
Justina managed and directed the impulse of passion; and the celebration
of the royal nuptials was the assurance and signal of the civil war. The
unfeeling critics, who consider every amorous weakness as an indelible
stain on the memory of a great and orthodox emperor, are inclined,
on this occasion, to dispute the suspicious evidence of the historian
Zosimus. For my own part, I shall frankly confess, that I am willing to
find, or even to seek, in the revolutions of the world, some traces of
the mild and tender sentiments of domestic life; and amidst the crowd
of fierce and ambitious conquerors, I can distinguish, with peculiar
complacency, a gentle hero, who may be supposed to receive his armor
from the hands of love. The alliance of the Persian king was secured by
the faith of treaties; the martial Barbarians were persuaded to follow
the standard, or to respect the frontiers, of an active and liberal
monarch; and the dominions of Theodosius, from the Euphrates to the
Adriatic, resounded with the preparations of war both by land and sea.
The skilful disposition of the forces of the East seemed to multiply
their numbers, and distracted the attention of Maximus. He had reason
to fear, that a chosen body of troops, under the command of the intrepid
Arbogastes, would direct their march along the banks of the Danube, and
boldly penetrate through the Rhaetian provinces into the centre of Gaul.
A powerful fleet was equipped in the harbors of Greece and Epirus, with
an apparent design, that, as soon as the passage had been opened by a
naval victory, Valentinian and his mother should land in Italy, proceed,
without delay, to Rome, and occupy the majestic seat of religion and
empire. In the mean while, Theodosius himself advanced at the head of a
brave and disciplined army, to encounter his unworthy rival, who, after
the siege of Aemona, [7511] had fixed his camp in the neighborhood of
Siscia, a city of Pannonia, strongly fortified by the broad and rapid
stream of the Save.

[Footnote 75: The flight of Valentinian, and the love of Theodosius
for his sister, are related by Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 263, 264.) Tillemont
produces some weak and ambiguous evidence to antedate the second
marriage of Theodosius, (Hist. des Empereurs, to. v. p. 740,) and
consequently to refute ces contes de Zosime, qui seroient trop
contraires a la piete de Theodose.]

[Footnote 7511: Aemonah, Laybach. Siscia Sciszek.--M.]




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

The veterans, who still remembered the long resistance, and successive
resources, of the tyrant Magnentius, might prepare themselves for the
labors of three bloody campaigns. But the contest with his successor,
who, like him, had usurped the throne of the West, was easily decided in
the term of two months, [76] and within the space of two hundred miles.
The superior genius of the emperor of the East might prevail over the
feeble Maximus, who, in this important crisis, showed himself destitute
of military skill, or personal courage; but the abilities of Theodosius
were seconded by the advantage which he possessed of a numerous and
active cavalry. The Huns, the Alani, and, after their example, the
Goths themselves, were formed into squadrons of archers; who fought on
horseback, and confounded the steady valor of the Gauls and Germans, by
the rapid motions of a Tartar war. After the fatigue of a long march, in
the heat of summer, they spurred their foaming horses into the waters
of the Save, swam the river in the presence of the enemy, and instantly
charged and routed the troops who guarded the high ground on the
opposite side. Marcellinus, the tyrant's brother, advanced to support
them with the select cohorts, which were considered as the hope and
strength of the army. The action, which had been interrupted by the
approach of night, was renewed in the morning; and, after a sharp
conflict, the surviving remnant of the bravest soldiers of Maximus threw
down their arms at the feet of the conqueror. Without suspending his
march, to receive the loyal acclamations of the citizens of Aemona,
Theodosius pressed forwards to terminate the war by the death or
captivity of his rival, who fled before him with the diligence of fear.
From the summit of the Julian Alps, he descended with such incredible
speed into the plain of Italy, that he reached Aquileia on the evening
of the first day; and Maximus, who found himself encompassed on all
sides, had scarcely time to shut the gates of the city. But the gates
could not long resist the effort of a victorious enemy; and the despair,
the disaffection, the indifference of the soldiers and people, hastened
the downfall of the wretched Maximus. He was dragged from his throne,
rudely stripped of the Imperial ornaments, the robe, the diadem, and
the purple slippers; and conducted, like a malefactor, to the camp and
presence of Theodosius, at a place about three miles from Aquileia.
The behavior of the emperor was not intended to insult, and he showed
disposition to pity and forgive, the tyrant of the West, who had never
been his personal enemy, and was now become the object of his contempt.
Our sympathy is the most forcibly excited by the misfortunes to which we
are exposed; and the spectacle of a proud competitor, now prostrate at
his feet, could not fail of producing very serious and solemn thoughts
in the mind of the victorious emperor. But the feeble emotion of
involuntary pity was checked by his regard for public justice, and the
memory of Gratian; and he abandoned the victim to the pious zeal of
the soldiers, who drew him out of the Imperial presence, and instantly
separated his head from his body. The intelligence of his defeat and
death was received with sincere or well-dissembled joy: his son Victor,
on whom he had conferred the title of Augustus, died by the order,
perhaps by the hand, of the bold Arbogastes; and all the military plans
of Theodosius were successfully executed. When he had thus terminated
the civil war, with less difficulty and bloodshed than he might
naturally expect, he employed the winter months of his residence at
Milan, to restore the state of the afflicted provinces; and early in the
spring he made, after the example of Constantine and Constantius, his
triumphal entry into the ancient capital of the Roman empire. [77]

[Footnote 76: See Godefroy's Chronology of the Laws, Cod. Theodos, tom
l. p. cxix.]

[Footnote 77: Besides the hints which may be gathered from chronicles
and ecclesiastical history, Zosimus (l. iv. p. 259--267,) Orosius, (l.
vii. c. 35,) and Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 30-47,) supply the
loose and scanty materials of this civil war. Ambrose (tom. ii. Epist.
xl. p. 952, 953) darkly alludes to the well-known events of a magazine
surprised, an action at Petovio, a Sicilian, perhaps a naval, victory,
&c., Ausonius (p. 256, edit. Toll.) applauds the peculiar merit and good
fortune of Aquileia.] The orator, who may be silent without danger, may
praise without difficulty, and without reluctance; [78] and posterity
will confess, that the character of Theodosius [79] might furnish the
subject of a sincere and ample panegyric. The wisdom of his laws, and
the success of his arms, rendered his administration respectable in the
eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies. He loved and practised
the virtues of domestic life, which seldom hold their residence in
the palaces of kings. Theodosius was chaste and temperate; he enjoyed,
without excess, the sensual and social pleasures of the table; and the
warmth of his amorous passions was never diverted from their lawful
objects. The proud titles of Imperial greatness were adorned by the
tender names of a faithful husband, an indulgent father; his uncle was
raised, by his affectionate esteem, to the rank of a second parent:
Theodosius embraced, as his own, the children of his brother and sister;
and the expressions of his regard were extended to the most distant
and obscure branches of his numerous kindred. His familiar friends
were judiciously selected from among those persons, who, in the equal
intercourse of private life, had appeared before his eyes without a
mask; the consciousness of personal and superior merit enabled him to
despise the accidental distinction of the purple; and he proved by
his conduct, that he had forgotten all the injuries, while he most
gratefully remembered all the favors and services, which he had received
before he ascended the throne of the Roman empire. The serious or
lively tone of his conversation was adapted to the age, the rank, or the
character of his subjects, whom he admitted into his society; and the
affability of his manners displayed the image of his mind. Theodosius
respected the simplicity of the good and virtuous: every art, every
talent, of a useful, or even of an innocent nature, was rewarded by his
judicious liberality; and, except the heretics, whom he persecuted
with implacable hatred, the diffusive circle of his benevolence was
circumscribed only by the limits of the human race. The government of
a mighty empire may assuredly suffice to occupy the time, and the
abilities, of a mortal: yet the diligent prince, without aspiring to the
unsuitable reputation of profound learning, always reserved some moments
of his leisure for the instructive amusement of reading. History, which
enlarged his experience, was his favorite study. The annals of Rome, in
the long period of eleven hundred years, presented him with a various
and splendid picture of human life: and it has been particularly
observed, that whenever he perused the cruel acts of Cinna, of Marius,
or of Sylla, he warmly expressed his generous detestation of those
enemies of humanity and freedom. His disinterested opinion of past
events was usefully applied as the rule of his own actions; and
Theodosius has deserved the singular commendation, that his virtues
always seemed to expand with his fortune: the season of his prosperity
was that of his moderation; and his clemency appeared the most
conspicuous after the danger and success of a civil war. The Moorish
guards of the tyrant had been massacred in the first heat of the
victory, and a small number of the most obnoxious criminals suffered
the punishment of the law. But the emperor showed himself much more
attentive to relieve the innocent than to chastise the guilty. The
oppressed subjects of the West, who would have deemed themselves happy
in the restoration of their lands, were astonished to receive a sum of
money equivalent to their losses; and the liberality of the conqueror
supported the aged mother, and educated the orphan daughters, of
Maximus. [80] A character thus accomplished might almost excuse the
extravagant supposition of the orator Pacatus; that, if the elder Brutus
could be permitted to revisit the earth, the stern republican would
abjure, at the feet of Theodosius, his hatred of kings; and ingenuously
confess, that such a monarch was the most faithful guardian of the
happiness and dignity of the Roman people. [81]

[Footnote 78: Quam promptum laudare principem, tam tutum siluisse de
principe, (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 2.) Latinus Pacatus Drepanius,
a native of Gaul, pronounced this oration at Rome, (A.D. 388.) He was
afterwards proconsul of Africa; and his friend Ausonius praises him as a
poet second only to Virgil. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v.
p. 303.]

[Footnote 79: See the fair portrait of Theodosius, by the younger
Victor; the strokes are distinct, and the colors are mixed. The praise
of Pacatus is too vague; and Claudian always seems afraid of exalting
the father above the son.]

[Footnote 80: Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. xl. p. 55. Pacatus, from the want
of skill or of courage, omits this glorious circumstance.]

[Footnote 81: Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 20.]

Yet the piercing eye of the founder of the republic must have discerned
two essential imperfections, which might, perhaps, have abated his
recent love of despostism. The virtuous mind of Theodosius was often
relaxed by indolence, [82] and it was sometimes inflamed by passion.
[83] In the pursuit of an important object, his active courage was
capable of the most vigorous exertions; but, as soon as the design
was accomplished, or the danger was surmounted, the hero sunk into
inglorious repose; and, forgetful that the time of a prince is the
property of his people, resigned himself to the enjoyment of the
innocent, but trifling, pleasures of a luxurious court. The natural
disposition of Theodosius was hasty and choleric; and, in a station
where none could resist, and few would dissuade, the fatal consequence
of his resentment, the humane monarch was justly alarmed by the
consciousness of his infirmity and of his power. It was the constant
study of his life to suppress, or regulate, the intemperate sallies
of passion and the success of his efforts enhanced the merit of his
clemency. But the painful virtue which claims the merit of victory, is
exposed to the danger of defeat; and the reign of a wise and merciful
prince was polluted by an act of cruelty which would stain the annals
of Nero or Domitian. Within the space of three years, the inconsistent
historian of Theodosius must relate the generous pardon of the citizens
of Antioch, and the inhuman massacre of the people of Thessalonica.

[Footnote 82: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 271, 272. His partial evidence is
marked by an air of candor and truth. He observes these vicissitudes of
sloth and activity, not as a vice, but as a singularity in the character
of Theodosius.]

[Footnote 83: This choleric temper is acknowledged and excused by Victor
Sed habes (says Ambrose, in decent and many language, to his sovereign)
nature impetum, quem si quis lenire velit, cito vertes ad misericordiam:
si quis stimulet, in magis exsuscitas, ut eum revocare vix possis, (tom.
ii. Epist. li. p. 998.) Theodosius (Claud. in iv. Hon. 266, &c.) exhorts
his son to moderate his anger.]

The lively impatience of the inhabitants of Antioch was never satisfied
with their own situation, or with the character and conduct of their
successive sovereigns. The Arian subjects of Theodosius deplored the
loss of their churches; and as three rival bishops disputed the throne
of Antioch, the sentence which decided their pretensions excited the
murmurs of the two unsuccessful congregations. The exigencies of the
Gothic war, and the inevitable expense that accompanied the conclusion
of the peace, had constrained the emperor to aggravate the weight of
the public impositions; and the provinces of Asia, as they had not been
involved in the distress were the less inclined to contribute to the
relief, of Europe. The auspicious period now approached of the tenth
year of his reign; a festival more grateful to the soldiers, who
received a liberal donative, than to the subjects, whose voluntary
offerings had been long since converted into an extraordinary and
oppressive burden. The edicts of taxation interrupted the repose, and
pleasures, of Antioch; and the tribunal of the magistrate was besieged
by a suppliant crowd; who, in pathetic, but, at first, in respectful
language, solicited the redress of their grievances. They were gradually
incensed by the pride of their haughty rulers, who treated their
complaints as a criminal resistance; their satirical wit degenerated
into sharp and angry invectives; and, from the subordinate powers of
government, the invectives of the people insensibly rose to attack
the sacred character of the emperor himself. Their fury, provoked by
a feeble opposition, discharged itself on the images of the Imperial
family, which were erected, as objects of public veneration, in the
most conspicuous places of the city. The statues of Theodosius, of his
father, of his wife Flaccilla, of his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius,
were insolently thrown down from their pedestals, broken in pieces, or
dragged with contempt through the streets; and the indignities which
were offered to the representations of Imperial majesty, sufficiently
declared the impious and treasonable wishes of the populace. The tumult
was almost immediately suppressed by the arrival of a body of archers:
and Antioch had leisure to reflect on the nature and consequences of
her crime. [84] According to the duty of his office, the governor of the
province despatched a faithful narrative of the whole transaction: while
the trembling citizens intrusted the confession of their crime, and the
assurances of their repentance, to the zeal of Flavian, their bishop,
and to the eloquence of the senator Hilarius, the friend, and most
probably the disciple, of Libanius; whose genius, on this melancholy
occasion, was not useless to his country. [85] But the two capitals,
Antioch and Constantinople, were separated by the distance of eight
hundred miles; and, notwithstanding the diligence of the Imperial posts,
the guilty city was severely punished by a long and dreadful interval of
suspense. Every rumor agitated the hopes and fears of the Antiochians,
and they heard with terror, that their sovereign, exasperated by the
insult which had been offered to his own statues, and more especially,
to those of his beloved wife, had resolved to level with the ground the
offending city; and to massacre, without distinction of age or sex, the
criminal inhabitants; [86] many of whom were actually driven, by their
apprehensions, to seek a refuge in the mountains of Syria, and the
adjacent desert. At length, twenty-four days after the sedition, the
general Hellebicus and Caesarius, master of the offices, declared the
will of the emperor, and the sentence of Antioch. That proud capital
was degraded from the rank of a city; and the metropolis of the East,
stripped of its lands, its privileges, and its revenues, was subjected,
under the humiliating denomination of a village, to the jurisdiction of
Laodicea. [87] The baths, the Circus, and the theatres were shut: and,
that every source of plenty and pleasure might at the same time be
intercepted, the distribution of corn was abolished, by the severe
instructions of Theodosius. His commissioners then proceeded to inquire
into the guilt of individuals; of those who had perpetrated, and of
those who had not prevented, the destruction of the sacred statues. The
tribunal of Hellebicus and Caesarius, encompassed with armed soldiers,
was erected in the midst of the Forum. The noblest, and most wealthy, of
the citizens of Antioch appeared before them in chains; the examination
was assisted by the use of torture, and their sentence was pronounced or
suspended, according to the judgment of these extraordinary magistrates.
The houses of the criminals were exposed to sale, their wives and
children were suddenly reduced, from affluence and luxury, to the most
abject distress; and a bloody execution was expected to conclude the
horrors of the day, [88] which the preacher of Antioch, the eloquent
Chrysostom, has represented as a lively image of the last and universal
judgment of the world. But the ministers of Theodosius performed, with
reluctance, the cruel task which had been assigned them; they dropped
a gentle tear over the calamities of the people; and they listened with
reverence to the pressing solicitations of the monks and hermits, who
descended in swarms from the mountains. [89] Hellebicus and Caesarius
were persuaded to suspend the execution of their sentence; and it
was agreed that the former should remain at Antioch, while the latter
returned, with all possible speed, to Constantinople; and presumed once
more to consult the will of his sovereign. The resentment of Theodosius
had already subsided; the deputies of the people, both the bishop and
the orator, had obtained a favorable audience; and the reproaches of the
emperor were the complaints of injured friendship, rather than the stern
menaces of pride and power. A free and general pardon was granted to
the city and citizens of Antioch; the prison doors were thrown open;
the senators, who despaired of their lives, recovered the possession of
their houses and estates; and the capital of the East was restored
to the enjoyment of her ancient dignity and splendor. Theodosius
condescended to praise the senate of Constantinople, who had generously
interceded for their distressed brethren: he rewarded the eloquence of
Hilarius with the government of Palestine; and dismissed the bishop of
Antioch with the warmest expressions of his respect and gratitude. A
thousand new statues arose to the clemency of Theodosius; the applause
of his subjects was ratified by the approbation of his own heart; and
the emperor confessed, that, if the exercise of justice is the most
important duty, the indulgence of mercy is the most exquisite pleasure,
of a sovereign. [90]

[Footnote 84: The Christians and Pagans agreed in believing that the
sedition of Antioch was excited by the daemons. A gigantic woman (says
Sozomen, l. vii. c. 23) paraded the streets with a scourge in her hand.
An old man, says Libanius, (Orat. xii. p. 396,) transformed himself into
a youth, then a boy, &c.]

[Footnote 85: Zosimus, in his short and disingenuous account, (l. iv.
p. 258, 259,) is certainly mistaken in sending Libanius himself to
Constantinople. His own orations fix him at Antioch.]

[Footnote 86: Libanius (Orat. i. p. 6, edit. Venet.) declares, that
under such a reign the fear of a massacre was groundless and absurd,
especially in the emperor's absence, for his presence, according to the
eloquent slave, might have given a sanction to the most bloody acts.]

[Footnote 87: Laodicea, on the sea-coast, sixty-five miles from Antioch,
(see Noris Epoch. Syro-Maced. Dissert. iii. p. 230.) The Antiochians
were offended, that the dependent city of Seleucia should presume to
intercede for them.]

[Footnote 88: As the days of the tumult depend on the movable festival
of Easter, they can only be determined by the previous determination of
the year. The year 387 has been preferred, after a laborious inquiry,
by Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p. 741-744) and Montfaucon,
(Chrysostom, tom. xiii. p. 105-110.)]

[Footnote 89: Chrysostom opposes their courage, which was not attended
with much risk, to the cowardly flight of the Cynics.]

[Footnote 90: The sedition of Antioch is represented in a lively, and
almost dramatic, manner by two orators, who had their respective shares
of interest and merit. See Libanius (Orat. xiv. xv. p. 389-420, edit.
Morel. Orat. i. p. 1-14, Venet. 1754) and the twenty orations of St.
John Chrysostom, de Statuis, (tom. ii. p. 1-225, edit. Montfaucon.) I do
not pretend to much personal acquaintance with Chrysostom but Tillemont
(Hist. des. Empereurs, tom. v. p. 263-283) and Hermant (Vie de St.
Chrysostome, tom. i. p. 137-224) had read him with pious curiosity and
diligence.]

The sedition of Thessalonica is ascribed to a more shameful cause, and
was productive of much more dreadful consequences. That great city, the
metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces, had been protected from
the dangers of the Gothic war by strong fortifications and a numerous
garrison. Botheric, the general of those troops, and, as it should seem
from his name, a Barbarian, had among his slaves a beautiful boy, who
excited the impure desires of one of the charioteers of the Circus.
The insolent and brutal lover was thrown into prison by the order
of Botheric; and he sternly rejected the importunate clamors of the
multitude, who, on the day of the public games, lamented the absence of
their favorite; and considered the skill of a charioteer as an object
of more importance than his virtue. The resentment of the people was
imbittered by some previous disputes; and, as the strength of the
garrison had been drawn away for the service of the Italian war, the
feeble remnant, whose numbers were reduced by desertion, could not save
the unhappy general from their licentious fury. Botheric, and several
of his principal officers, were inhumanly murdered; their mangled bodies
were dragged about the streets; and the emperor, who then resided at
Milan, was surprised by the intelligence of the audacious and wanton
cruelty of the people of Thessalonica. The sentence of a dispassionate
judge would have inflicted a severe punishment on the authors of the
crime; and the merit of Botheric might contribute to exasperate the
grief and indignation of his master.

The fiery and choleric temper of Theodosius was impatient of the
dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry; and he hastily resolved, that the
blood of his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood of the guilty
people. Yet his mind still fluctuated between the counsels of clemency
and of revenge; the zeal of the bishops had almost extorted from the
reluctant emperor the promise of a general pardon; his passion was again
inflamed by the flattering suggestions of his minister Rufinus; and,
after Theodosius had despatched the messengers of death, he attempted,
when it was too late, to prevent the execution of his orders. The
punishment of a Roman city was blindly committed to the undistinguishing
sword of the Barbarians; and the hostile preparations were concerted
with the dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy. The
people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited, in the name of their
sovereign, to the games of the Circus; and such was their insatiate
avidity for those amusements, that every consideration of fear, or
suspicion, was disregarded by the numerous spectators. As soon as the
assembly was complete, the soldiers, who had secretly been posted round
the Circus, received the signal, not of the races, but of a general
massacre. The promiscuous carnage continued three hours, without
discrimination of strangers or natives, of age or sex, of innocence or
guilt; the most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven
thousand; and it is affirmed by some writers that more than fifteen
thousand victims were sacrificed to the names of Botheric. A foreign
merchant, who had probably no concern in his murder, offered his own
life, and all his wealth, to supply the place of one of his two sons;
but, while the father hesitated with equal tenderness, while he was
doubtful to choose, and unwilling to condemn, the soldiers determined
his suspense, by plunging their daggers at the same moment into the
breasts of the defenceless youths. The apology of the assassins, that
they were obliged to produce the prescribed number of heads, serves only
to increase, by an appearance of order and design, the horrors of the
massacre, which was executed by the commands of Theodosius. The guilt
of the emperor is aggravated by his long and frequent residence at
Thessalonica. The situation of the unfortunate city, the aspect of the
streets and buildings, the dress and faces of the inhabitants, were
familiar, and even present, to his imagination; and Theodosius possessed
a quick and lively sense of the existence of the people whom he
destroyed. [91]

[Footnote 91: The original evidence of Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist. li. p.
998.) Augustin, (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) and Paulinus, (in Vit. Ambros.
c. 24,) is delivered in vague expressions of horror and pity. It is
illustrated by the subsequent and unequal testimonies of Sozomen, (l.
vii. c. 25,) Theodoret, (l. v. c. 17,) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p.
62,) Cedrenus, (p. 317,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 34.) Zosimus
alone, the partial enemy of Theodosius, most unaccountably passes over
in silence the worst of his actions.]

The respectful attachment of the emperor for the orthodox clergy, had
disposed him to love and admire the character of Ambrose; who united
all the episcopal virtues in the most eminent degree. The friends and
ministers of Theodosius imitated the example of their sovereign; and
he observed, with more surprise than displeasure, that all his secret
counsels were immediately communicated to the archbishop; who acted from
the laudable persuasion, that every measure of civil government may
have some connection with the glory of God, and the interest of the true
religion. The monks and populace of Callinicum, [9111] an obscure town
on the frontier of Persia, excited by their own fanaticism, and by
that of their bishop, had tumultuously burnt a conventicle of the
Valentinians, and a synagogue of the Jews. The seditious prelate was
condemned, by the magistrate of the province, either to rebuild the
synagogue, or to repay the damage; and this moderate sentence was
confirmed by the emperor. But it was not confirmed by the archbishop
of Milan. [92] He dictated an epistle of censure and reproach, more
suitable, perhaps, if the emperor had received the mark of circumcision,
and renounced the faith of his baptism. Ambrose considers the toleration
of the Jewish, as the persecution of the Christian, religion; boldly
declares that he himself, and every true believer, would eagerly dispute
with the bishop of Callinicum the merit of the deed, and the crown of
martyrdom; and laments, in the most pathetic terms, that the execution
of the sentence would be fatal to the fame and salvation of Theodosius.
As this private admonition did not produce an immediate effect, the
archbishop, from his pulpit, [93] publicly addressed the emperor on his
throne; [94] nor would he consent to offer the oblation of the altar,
till he had obtained from Theodosius a solemn and positive declaration,
which secured the impunity of the bishop and monks of Callinicum. The
recantation of Theodosius was sincere; [95] and, during the term of his
residence at Milan, his affection for Ambrose was continually increased
by the habits of pious and familiar conversation.

[Footnote 9111: Raeca, on the Euphrates--M.]

[Footnote 92: See the whole transaction in Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist.
xl. xli. p. 950-956,) and his biographer Paulinus, (c. 23.) Bayle
and Barbeyrac (Morales des Peres, c. xvii. p. 325, &c.) have justly
condemned the archbishop.]

[Footnote 93: His sermon is a strange allegory of Jeremiah's rod, of an
almond tree, of the woman who washed and anointed the feet of Christ.
But the peroration is direct and personal.]

[Footnote 94: Hodie, Episcope, de me proposuisti. Ambrose modestly
confessed it; but he sternly reprimanded Timasius, general of the horse
and foot, who had presumed to say that the monks of Callinicum deserved
punishment.]

[Footnote 95: Yet, five years afterwards, when Theodosius was absent
from his spiritual guide, he tolerated the Jews, and condemned the
destruction of their synagogues. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. viii. leg.
9, with Godefroy's Commentary, tom. vi. p. 225.]

When Ambrose was informed of the massacre of Thessalonica, his mind was
filled with horror and anguish. He retired into the country to
indulge his grief, and to avoid the presence of Theodosius. But as
the archbishop was satisfied that a timid silence would render him
the accomplice of his guilt, he represented, in a private letter, the
enormity of the crime; which could only be effaced by the tears of
penitence. The episcopal vigor of Ambrose was tempered by prudence;
and he contented himself with signifying [96] an indirect sort of
excommunication, by the assurance, that he had been warned in a
vision not to offer the oblation in the name, or in the presence, of
Theodosius; and by the advice, that he would confine himself to the
use of prayer, without presuming to approach the altar of Christ, or
to receive the holy eucharist with those hands that were still polluted
with the blood of an innocent people. The emperor was deeply affected by
his own reproaches, and by those of his spiritual father; and after he
had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his rash
fury, he proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions
in the great church of Milan. He was stopped in the porch by the
archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of Heaven,
declared to his sovereign, that private contrition was not sufficient
to atone for a public fault, or to appease the justice of the offended
Deity. Theodosius humbly represented, that if he had contracted the
guilt of homicide, David, the man after God's own heart, had been
guilty, not only of murder, but of adultery. "You have imitated David in
his crime, imitate then his repentance," was the reply of the undaunted
Ambrose. The rigorous conditions of peace and pardon were accepted; and
the public penance of the emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one of
the most honorable events in the annals of the church. According to the
mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were established in
the fourth century, the crime of homicide was expiated by the penitence
of twenty years: [97] and as it was impossible, in the period of human
life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the massacre of Thessalonica,
the murderer should have been excluded from the holy communion till
the hour of his death. But the archbishop, consulting the maxims of
religious policy, granted some indulgence to the rank of his illustrious
penitent, who humbled in the dust the pride of the diadem; and the
public edification might be admitted as a weighty reason to abridge the
duration of his punishment. It was sufficient, that the emperor of the
Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, should appear in a mournful
and suppliant posture; and that, in the midst of the church of Milan,
he should humbly solicit, with sighs and tears, the pardon of his sins.
[98] In this spiritual cure, Ambrose employed the various methods of
mildness and severity. After a delay of about eight months, Theodosius
was restored to the communion of the faithful; and the edict which
interposes a salutary interval of thirty days between the sentence and
the execution, may be accepted as the worthy fruits of his repentance.
[99] Posterity has applauded the virtuous firmness of the archbishop;
and the example of Theodosius may prove the beneficial influence
of those principles, which could force a monarch, exalted above the
apprehension of human punishment, to respect the laws, and ministers, of
an invisible Judge. "The prince," says Montesquieu, "who is actuated by
the hopes and fears of religion, may be compared to a lion, docile
only to the voice, and tractable to the hand, of his keeper." [100] The
motions of the royal animal will therefore depend on the inclination,
and interest, of the man who has acquired such dangerous authority over
him; and the priest, who holds in his hands the conscience of a
king, may inflame, or moderate, his sanguinary passions. The cause
of humanity, and that of persecution, have been asserted, by the same
Ambrose, with equal energy, and with equal success.

[Footnote 96: Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. li. p. 997-1001. His epistle is a
miserable rhapsody on a noble subject. Ambrose could act better than he
could write. His compositions are destitute of taste, or genius; without
the spirit of Tertullian, the copious elegance of Lactantius the lively
wit of Jerom, or the grave energy of Augustin.]

[Footnote 97: According to the discipline of St. Basil, (Canon lvi.,)
the voluntary homicide was four years a mourner; five a hearer; seven in
a prostrate state; and four in a standing posture. I have the original
(Beveridge, Pandect. tom. ii. p. 47-151) and a translation (Chardon,
Hist. des Sacremens, tom. iv. p. 219-277) of the Canonical Epistles of
St. Basil.]

[Footnote 98: The penance of Theodosius is authenticated by Ambrose,
(tom. vi. de Obit. Theodos. c. 34, p. 1207,) Augustin, (de Civitat. Dei,
v. 26,) and Paulinus, (in Vit. Ambros. c. 24.) Socrates is ignorant;
Sozomen (l. vii. c. 25) concise; and the copious narrative of Theodoret
(l. v. c. 18) must be used with precaution.]

[Footnote 99: Codex Theodos. l. ix. tit. xl. leg. 13. The date and
circumstances of this law are perplexed with difficulties; but I feel
myself inclined to favor the honest efforts of Tillemont (Hist. des Emp.
tom. v. p. 721) and Pagi, (Critica, tom. i. p. 578.)]

[Footnote 100: Un prince qui aime la religion, et qui la craint, est
un lion qui cede a la main qui le flatte, ou a la voix qui l'appaise.
Esprit des Loix, l. xxiv. c. 2.]




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

After the defeat and death of the tyrant of Gaul, the Roman world was in
the possession of Theodosius. He derived from the choice of Gratian his
honorable title to the provinces of the East: he had acquired the West
by the right of conquest; and the three years which he spent in Italy
were usefully employed to restore the authority of the laws, and
to correct the abuses which had prevailed with impunity under the
usurpation of Maximus, and the minority of Valentinian. The name of
Valentinian was regularly inserted in the public acts: but the tender
age, and doubtful faith, of the son of Justina, appeared to require the
prudent care of an orthodox guardian; and his specious ambition might
have excluded the unfortunate youth, without a struggle, and
almost without a murmur, from the administration, and even from the
inheritance, of the empire. If Theodosius had consulted the rigid maxims
of interest and policy, his conduct would have been justified by his
friends; but the generosity of his behavior on this memorable occasion
has extorted the applause of his most inveterate enemies. He seated
Valentinian on the throne of Milan; and, without stipulating any present
or future advantages, restored him to the absolute dominion of all the
provinces, from which he had been driven by the arms of Maximus. To
the restitution of his ample patrimony, Theodosius added the free and
generous gift of the countries beyond the Alps, which his successful
valor had recovered from the assassin of Gratian. [101] Satisfied
with the glory which he had acquired, by revenging the death of his
benefactor, and delivering the West from the yoke of tyranny, the
emperor returned from Milan to Constantinople; and, in the peaceful
possession of the East, insensibly relapsed into his former habits
of luxury and indolence. Theodosius discharged his obligation to
the brother, he indulged his conjugal tenderness to the sister, of
Valentinian; and posterity, which admires the pure and singular glory
of his elevation, must applaud his unrivalled generosity in the use of
victory.

[Footnote 101: It is the niggard praise of Zosimus himself, (l. iv.
p. 267.) Augustin says, with some happiness of expression,
Valentinianum.... misericordissima veneratione restituit.] The empress
Justina did not long survive her return to Italy; and, though she
beheld the triumph of Theodosius, she was not allowed to influence the
government of her son. [102] The pernicious attachment to the Arian
sect, which Valentinian had imbibed from her example and instructions,
was soon erased by the lessons of a more orthodox education. His growing
zeal for the faith of Nice, and his filial reverence for the character
and authority of Ambrose, disposed the Catholics to entertain the most
favorable opinion of the virtues of the young emperor of the West. [103]
They applauded his chastity and temperance, his contempt of pleasure,
his application to business, and his tender affection for his two
sisters; which could not, however, seduce his impartial equity to
pronounce an unjust sentence against the meanest of his subjects. But
this amiable youth, before he had accomplished the twentieth year of
his age, was oppressed by domestic treason; and the empire was again
involved in the horrors of a civil war. Arbogastes, [104] a gallant
soldier of the nation of the Franks, held the second rank in the
service of Gratian. On the death of his master he joined the standard
of Theodosius; contributed, by his valor and military conduct, to
the destruction of the tyrant; and was appointed, after the victory,
master-general of the armies of Gaul. His real merit, and apparent
fidelity, had gained the confidence both of the prince and people; his
boundless liberality corrupted the allegiance of the troops; and, whilst
he was universally esteemed as the pillar of the state, the bold and
crafty Barbarian was secretly determined either to rule, or to ruin, the
empire of the West. The important commands of the army were distributed
among the Franks; the creatures of Arbogastes were promoted to all
the honors and offices of the civil government; the progress of
the conspiracy removed every faithful servant from the presence of
Valentinian; and the emperor, without power and without intelligence,
insensibly sunk into the precarious and dependent condition of a
captive. [105] The indignation which he expressed, though it might
arise only from the rash and impatient temper of youth, may be candidly
ascribed to the generous spirit of a prince, who felt that he was
not unworthy to reign. He secretly invited the archbishop of Milan to
undertake the office of a mediator; as the pledge of his sincerity, and
the guardian of his safety. He contrived to apprise the emperor of the
East of his helpless situation, and he declared, that, unless Theodosius
could speedily march to his assistance, he must attempt to escape
from the palace, or rather prison, of Vienna in Gaul, where he had
imprudently fixed his residence in the midst of the hostile faction.
But the hopes of relief were distant, and doubtful: and, as every
day furnished some new provocation, the emperor, without strength or
counsel, too hastily resolved to risk an immediate contest with his
powerful general. He received Arbogastes on the throne; and, as the
count approached with some appearance of respect, delivered to him a
paper, which dismissed him from all his employments. "My authority,"
replied Arbogastes, with insulting coolness, "does not depend on the
smile or the frown of a monarch;" and he contemptuously threw the paper
on the ground. The indignant monarch snatched at the sword of one of
the guards, which he struggled to draw from its scabbard; and it was
not without some degree of violence that he was prevented from using the
deadly weapon against his enemy, or against himself. A few days after
this extraordinary quarrel, in which he had exposed his resentment and
his weakness, the unfortunate Valentinian was found strangled in his
apartment; and some pains were employed to disguise the manifest guilt
of Arbogastes, and to persuade the world, that the death of the young
emperor had been the voluntary effect of his own despair. [106] His
body was conducted with decent pomp to the sepulchre of Milan; and the
archbishop pronounced a funeral oration to commemorate his virtues and
his misfortunes. [107] On this occasion the humanity of Ambrose tempted
him to make a singular breach in his theological system; and to comfort
the weeping sisters of Valentinian, by the firm assurance, that their
pious brother, though he had not received the sacrament of baptism,
was introduced, without difficulty, into the mansions of eternal bliss.
[108]

[Footnote 102: Sozomen, l. vii. c. 14. His chronology is very
irregular.]

[Footnote 103: See Ambrose, (tom. ii. de Obit. Valentinian. c. 15,
&c. p. 1178. c. 36, &c. p. 1184.) When the young emperor gave an
entertainment, he fasted himself; he refused to see a handsome actress,
&c. Since he ordered his wild beasts to to be killed, it is ungenerous
in Philostor (l. xi. c. 1) to reproach him with the love of that
amusement.]

[Footnote 104: Zosimus (l. iv. p. 275) praises the enemy of Theodosius.
But he is detested by Socrates (l. v. c. 25) and Orosius, (l. vii. c.
35.)]

[Footnote 105: Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9, p. 165, in the second
volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a curious fragment of
Sulpicius Alexander, an historian far more valuable than himself.]

[Footnote 106: Godefroy (Dissertat. ad. Philostorg. p. 429-434) has
diligently collected all the circumstances of the death of Valentinian
II. The variations, and the ignorance, of contemporary writers, prove
that it was secret.]

[Footnote 107: De Obitu Valentinian. tom. ii. p. 1173-1196. He is forced
to speak a discreet and obscure language: yet he is much bolder than any
layman, or perhaps any other ecclesiastic, would have dared to be.]

[Footnote 108: See c. 51, p. 1188, c. 75, p. 1193. Dom Chardon,
(Hist. des Sacramens, tom. i. p. 86,) who owns that St. Ambrose most
strenuously maintains the indispensable necessity of baptism, labors to
reconcile the contradiction.]

The prudence of Arbogastes had prepared the success of his ambitious
designs: and the provincials, in whose breast every sentiment of
patriotism or loyalty was extinguished, expected, with tame resignation,
the unknown master, whom the choice of a Frank might place on the
Imperial throne. But some remains of pride and prejudice still opposed
the elevation of Arbogastes himself; and the judicious Barbarian thought
it more advisable to reign under the name of some dependent Roman.
He bestowed the purple on the rhetorician Eugenius; [109] whom he had
already raised from the place of his domestic secretary to the rank of
master of the offices. In the course, both of his private and public
service, the count had always approved the attachment and abilities of
Eugenius; his learning and eloquence, supported by the gravity of his
manners, recommended him to the esteem of the people; and the reluctance
with which he seemed to ascend the throne, may inspire a favorable
prejudice of his virtue and moderation. The ambassadors of the new
emperor were immediately despatched to the court of Theodosius, to
communicate, with affected grief, the unfortunate accident of the death
of Valentinian; and, without mentioning the name of Arbogastes, to
request, that the monarch of the East would embrace, as his lawful
colleague, the respectable citizen, who had obtained the unanimous
suffrage of the armies and provinces of the West. [110] Theodosius was
justly provoked, that the perfidy of a Barbarian, should have destroyed,
in a moment, the labors, and the fruit, of his former victory; and he
was excited by the tears of his beloved wife, [111] to revenge the fate
of her unhappy brother, and once more to assert by arms the violated
majesty of the throne. But as the second conquest of the West was a task
of difficulty and danger, he dismissed, with splendid presents, and an
ambiguous answer, the ambassadors of Eugenius; and almost two years
were consumed in the preparations of the civil war. Before he formed any
decisive resolution, the pious emperor was anxious to discover the will
of Heaven; and as the progress of Christianity had silenced the oracles
of Delphi and Dodona, he consulted an Egyptian monk, who possessed,
in the opinion of the age, the gift of miracles, and the knowledge
of futurity. Eutropius, one of the favorite eunuchs of the palace of
Constantinople, embarked for Alexandria, from whence he sailed up the
Nile, as far as the city of Lycopolis, or of Wolves, in the remote
province of Thebais. [112] In the neighborhood of that city, and on the
summit of a lofty mountain, the holy John [113] had constructed, with
his own hands, an humble cell, in which he had dwelt above fifty years,
without opening his door, without seeing the face of a woman, and
without tasting any food that had been prepared by fire, or any human
art. Five days of the week he spent in prayer and meditation; but on
Saturdays and Sundays he regularly opened a small window, and gave
audience to the crowd of suppliants who successively flowed from every
part of the Christian world. The eunuch of Theodosius approached the
window with respectful steps, proposed his questions concerning the
event of the civil war, and soon returned with a favorable oracle, which
animated the courage of the emperor by the assurance of a bloody, but
infallible victory. [114] The accomplishment of the prediction was
forwarded by all the means that human prudence could supply. The
industry of the two master-generals, Stilicho and Timasius, was directed
to recruit the numbers, and to revive the discipline of the Roman
legions. The formidable troops of Barbarians marched under the ensigns
of their national chieftains. The Iberian, the Arab, and the Goth,
who gazed on each other with mutual astonishment, were enlisted in the
service of the same prince; [1141] and the renowned Alaric acquired,
in the school of Theodosius, the knowledge of the art of war, which he
afterwards so fatally exerted for the destruction of Rome. [115]

[Footnote 109: Quem sibi Germanus famulam delegerat exul, is the
contemptuous expression of Claudian, (iv. Cons. Hon. 74.) Eugenius
professed Christianity; but his secret attachment to Paganism (Sozomen,
l. vii. c. 22, Philostorg. l. xi. c. 2) is probable in a grammarian, and
would secure the friendship of Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 276, 277.)]

[Footnote 110: Zosimus (l. iv. p. 278) mentions this embassy; but he is
diverted by another story from relating the event.]

[Footnote 111: Zosim. l. iv. p. 277. He afterwards says (p. 280) that
Galla died in childbed; and intimates, that the affliction of her
husband was extreme but short.]

[Footnote 112: Lycopolis is the modern Siut, or Osiot, a town of Said,
about the size of St. Denys, which drives a profitable trade with the
kingdom of Senaar, and has a very convenient fountain, "cujus potu signa
virgini tatis eripiuntur." See D'Anville, Description de l'Egypte, p.
181 Abulfeda, Descript. Egypt. p. 14, and the curious Annotations, p.
25, 92, of his editor Michaelis.]

[Footnote 113: The Life of John of Lycopolis is described by his two
friends, Rufinus (l. ii. c. i. p. 449) and Palladius, (Hist. Lausiac.
c. 43, p. 738,) in Rosweyde's great Collection of the Vitae Patrum.
Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. x. p. 718, 720) has settled the
chronology.]

[Footnote 114: Sozomen, l. vii. c. 22. Claudian (in Eutrop. l. i. 312)
mentions the eunuch's journey; but he most contemptuously derides the
Egyptian dreams, and the oracles of the Nile.]

[Footnote 1141]: Gibbon has embodied the picturesque verses of
Claudian:--

     .... Nec tantis dissona linguis
     Turba, nec armorum cultu diversion unquam]

[Footnote 115: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 280. Socrates, l. vii. 10. Alaric
himself (de Bell. Getico, 524) dwells with more complacency on his early
exploits against the Romans.

.... Tot Augustos Hebro qui teste fugavi.

Yet his vanity could scarcely have proved this plurality of flying
emperors.]

The emperor of the West, or, to speak more properly, his general
Arbogastes, was instructed by the misconduct and misfortune of Maximus,
how dangerous it might prove to extend the line of defence against a
skilful antagonist, who was free to press, or to suspend, to contract,
or to multiply, his various methods of attack. [116] Arbogastes fixed
his station on the confines of Italy; the troops of Theodosius were
permitted to occupy, without resistance, the provinces of Pannonia, as
far as the foot of the Julian Alps; and even the passes of the mountains
were negligently, or perhaps artfully, abandoned to the bold invader.
He descended from the hills, and beheld, with some astonishment, the
formidable camp of the Gauls and Germans, that covered with arms and
tents the open country which extends to the walls of Aquileia, and the
banks of the Frigidus, [117] or Cold River. [118] This narrow theatre of
the war, circumscribed by the Alps and the Adriatic, did not allow much
room for the operations of military skill; the spirit of Arbogastes
would have disdained a pardon; his guilt extinguished the hope of a
negotiation; and Theodosius was impatient to satisfy his glory and
revenge, by the chastisement of the assassins of Valentinian. Without
weighing the natural and artificial obstacles that opposed his efforts,
the emperor of the East immediately attacked the fortifications of
his rivals, assigned the post of honorable danger to the Goths, and
cherished a secret wish, that the bloody conflict might diminish the
pride and numbers of the conquerors. Ten thousand of those auxiliaries,
and Bacurius, general of the Iberians, died bravely on the field of
battle. But the victory was not purchased by their blood; the Gauls
maintained their advantage; and the approach of night protected the
disorderly flight, or retreat, of the troops of Theodosius. The emperor
retired to the adjacent hills; where he passed a disconsolate night,
without sleep, without provisions, and without hopes; [119] except that
strong assurance, which, under the most desperate circumstances, the
independent mind may derive from the contempt of fortune and of life.
The triumph of Eugenius was celebrated by the insolent and dissolute joy
of his camp; whilst the active and vigilant Arbogastes secretly detached
a considerable body of troops to occupy the passes of the mountains, and
to encompass the rear of the Eastern army. The dawn of day discovered to
the eyes of Theodosius the extent and the extremity of his danger; but
his apprehensions were soon dispelled, by a friendly message from the
leaders of those troops who expressed their inclination to desert the
standard of the tyrant. The honorable and lucrative rewards, which
they stipulated as the price of their perfidy, were granted without
hesitation; and as ink and paper could not easily be procured, the
emperor subscribed, on his own tablets, the ratification of the treaty.
The spirit of his soldiers was revived by this seasonable reenforcement;
and they again marched, with confidence, to surprise the camp of a
tyrant, whose principal officers appeared to distrust, either the
justice or the success of his arms. In the heat of the battle, a violent
tempest, [120] such as is often felt among the Alps, suddenly arose from
the East. The army of Theodosius was sheltered by their position from
the impetuosity of the wind, which blew a cloud of dust in the faces
of the enemy, disordered their ranks, wrested their weapons from their
hands, and diverted, or repelled, their ineffectual javelins. This
accidental advantage was skilfully improved, the violence of the storm
was magnified by the superstitious terrors of the Gauls; and they
yielded without shame to the invisible powers of heaven, who seemed to
militate on the side of the pious emperor. His victory was decisive; and
the deaths of his two rivals were distinguished only by the difference
of their characters. The rhetorician Eugenius, who had almost acquired
the dominion of the world, was reduced to implore the mercy of the
conqueror; and the unrelenting soldiers separated his head from his body
as he lay prostrate at the feet of Theodosius. Arbogastes, after the
loss of a battle, in which he had discharged the duties of a soldier and
a general, wandered several days among the mountains. But when he was
convinced that his cause was desperate, and his escape impracticable,
the intrepid Barbarian imitated the example of the ancient Romans, and
turned his sword against his own breast. The fate of the empire was
determined in a narrow corner of Italy; and the legitimate successor
of the house of Valentinian embraced the archbishop of Milan, and
graciously received the submission of the provinces of the West. Those
provinces were involved in the guilt of rebellion; while the inflexible
courage of Ambrose alone had resisted the claims of successful
usurpation. With a manly freedom, which might have been fatal to any
other subject, the archbishop rejected the gifts of Eugenius, [1201]
declined his correspondence, and withdrew himself from Milan, to avoid
the odious presence of a tyrant, whose downfall he predicted in discreet
and ambiguous language. The merit of Ambrose was applauded by the
conqueror, who secured the attachment of the people by his alliance with
the church; and the clemency of Theodosius is ascribed to the humane
intercession of the archbishop of Milan. [121]

[Footnote 116: Claudian (in iv. Cons. Honor. 77, &c.) contrasts the
military plans of the two usurpers:--

     .... Novitas audere priorem
     Suadebat; cautumque dabant exempla sequentem.
     Hic nova moliri praeceps: hic quaerere tuta
     Providus.  Hic fusis; colectis viribus ille.
     Hic vagus excurrens; hic claustra reductus
     Dissimiles, sed morte pares......]

[Footnote 117: The Frigidus, a small, though memorable, stream in the
country of Goretz, now called the Vipao, falls into the Sontius, or
Lisonzo, above Aquileia, some miles from the Adriatic. See D'Anville's
ancient and modern maps, and the Italia Antiqua of Cluverius, (tom. i.
c. 188.)]

[Footnote 118: Claudian's wit is intolerable: the snow was dyed red; the
cold ver smoked; and the channel must have been choked with carcasses
the current had not been swelled with blood. Confluxit populus: totam
pater undique secum Moverat Aurorem; mixtis hic Colchus Iberis, Hic
mitra velatus Arabs, hic crine decoro Armenius, hic picta Saces,
fucataque Medus, Hic gemmata tiger tentoria fixerat Indus.--De Laud.
Stil. l. 145.--M.]

[Footnote 119: Theodoret affirms, that St. John, and St. Philip,
appeared to the waking, or sleeping, emperor, on horseback, &c. This
is the first instance of apostolic chivalry, which afterwards became so
popular in Spain, and in the Crusades.]

[Footnote 120: Te propter, gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis

    Obruit adversas acies; revolutaque tela
    Vertit in auctores, et turbine reppulit hastas

    O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris
    Aeolus armatas hyemes; cui militat Aether,
    Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.

These famous lines of Claudian (in iii. Cons. Honor. 93, &c. A.D. 396)
are alleged by his contemporaries, Augustin and Orosius; who suppress
the Pagan deity of Aeolus, and add some circumstances from the
information of eye-witnesses. Within four months after the victory,
it was compared by Ambrose to the miraculous victories of Moses and
Joshua.]

[Footnote 1201: Arbogastes and his emperor had openly espoused the
Pagan party, according to Ambrose and Augustin. See Le Beau, v. 40.
Beugnot (Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme) is more full, and
perhaps somewhat fanciful, on this remarkable reaction in favor of
Paganism, but compare p 116.--M.]

[Footnote 121: The events of this civil war are gathered from Ambrose,
(tom. ii. Epist. lxii. p. 1022,) Paulinus, (in Vit. Ambros. c. 26-34,)
Augustin, (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 35,) Sozomen,
(l. vii. c. 24,) Theodoret, (l. v. c. 24,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 281,
282,) Claudian, (in iii. Cons. Hon. 63-105, in iv. Cons. Hon. 70-117,)
and the Chronicles published by Scaliger.]

After the defeat of Eugenius, the merit, as well as the authority, of
Theodosius was cheerfully acknowledged by all the inhabitants of the
Roman world. The experience of his past conduct encouraged the most
pleasing expectations of his future reign; and the age of the emperor,
which did not exceed fifty years, seemed to extend the prospect of the
public felicity. His death, only four months after his victory, was
considered by the people as an unforeseen and fatal event, which
destroyed, in a moment, the hopes of the rising generation. But the
indulgence of ease and luxury had secretly nourished the principles
of disease. [122] The strength of Theodosius was unable to support
the sudden and violent transition from the palace to the camp; and the
increasing symptoms of a dropsy announced the speedy dissolution of
the emperor. The opinion, and perhaps the interest, of the public had
confirmed the division of the Eastern and Western empires; and the two
royal youths, Arcadius and Honorius, who had already obtained, from the
tenderness of their father, the title of Augustus, were destined to
fill the thrones of Constantinople and of Rome. Those princes were not
permitted to share the danger and glory of the civil war; [123] but as
soon as Theodosius had triumphed over his unworthy rivals, he called
his younger son, Honorius, to enjoy the fruits of the victory, and to
receive the sceptre of the West from the hands of his dying father. The
arrival of Honorius at Milan was welcomed by a splendid exhibition of
the games of the Circus; and the emperor, though he was oppressed by the
weight of his disorder, contributed by his presence to the public joy.
But the remains of his strength were exhausted by the painful effort
which he made to assist at the spectacles of the morning. Honorius
supplied, during the rest of the day, the place of his father; and
the great Theodosius expired in the ensuing night. Notwithstanding the
recent animosities of a civil war, his death was universally lamented.
The Barbarians, whom he had vanquished and the churchmen, by whom he had
been subdued, celebrated, with loud and sincere applause, the qualities
of the deceased emperor, which appeared the most valuable in their
eyes. The Romans were terrified by the impending dangers of a feeble and
divided administration, and every disgraceful moment of the unfortunate
reigns of Arcadius and Honorius revived the memory of their irreparable
loss.

[Footnote 122: This disease, ascribed by Socrates (l. v. c. 26) to the
fatigues of war, is represented by Philostorgius (l. xi. c. 2) as
the effect of sloth and intemperance; for which Photius calls him an
impudent liar, (Godefroy, Dissert. p. 438.)]

[Footnote 123: Zosimus supposes, that the boy Honorius accompanied his
father, (l. iv. p. 280.) Yet the quanto flagrabrant pectora voto is all
that flattery would allow to a contemporary poet; who clearly describes
the emperor's refusal, and the journey of Honorius, after the victory
(Claudian in iii. Cons. 78-125.)]

In the faithful picture of the virtues of Theodosius, his imperfections
have not been dissembled; the act of cruelty, and the habits of
indolence, which tarnished the glory of one of the greatest of the Roman
princes. An historian, perpetually adverse to the fame of Theodosius,
has exaggerated his vices, and their pernicious effects; he boldly
asserts, that every rank of subjects imitated the effeminate manners
of their sovereign; and that every species of corruption polluted the
course of public and private life; and that the feeble restraints of
order and decency were insufficient to resist the progress of that
degenerate spirit, which sacrifices, without a blush, the consideration
of duty and interest to the base indulgence of sloth and appetite. [124]
The complaints of contemporary writers, who deplore the increase of
luxury, and depravation of manners, are commonly expressive of their
peculiar temper and situation. There are few observers, who possess a
clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society; and who
are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action, which
impel, in the same uniform direction, the blind and capricious passions
of a multitude of individuals. If it can be affirmed, with any degree of
truth, that the luxury of the Romans was more shameless and dissolute in
the reign of Theodosius than in the age of Constantine, perhaps, or
of Augustus, the alteration cannot be ascribed to any beneficial
improvements, which had gradually increased the stock of national
riches. A long period of calamity or decay must have checked the
industry, and diminished the wealth, of the people; and their profuse
luxury must have been the result of that indolent despair, which enjoys
the present hour, and declines the thoughts of futurity. The uncertain
condition of their property discouraged the subjects of Theodosius from
engaging in those useful and laborious undertakings which require
an immediate expense, and promise a slow and distant advantage. The
frequent examples of ruin and desolation tempted them not to spare the
remains of a patrimony, which might, every hour, become the prey of the
rapacious Goth. And the mad prodigality which prevails in the confusion
of a shipwreck, or a siege, may serve to explain the progress of luxury
amidst the misfortunes and terrors of a sinking nation.

[Footnote 124: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 244.]

The effeminate luxury, which infected the manners of courts and cities,
had instilled a secret and destructive poison into the camps of the
legions; and their degeneracy has been marked by the pen of a military
writer, who had accurately studied the genuine and ancient principles of
Roman discipline. It is the just and important observation of Vegetius,
that the infantry was invariably covered with defensive armor, from
the foundation of the city, to the reign of the emperor Gratian. The
relaxation of discipline, and the disuse of exercise, rendered the
soldiers less able, and less willing, to support the fatigues of the
service; they complained of the weight of the armor, which they seldom
wore; and they successively obtained the permission of laying aside both
their cuirasses and their helmets. The heavy weapons of their ancestors,
the short sword, and the formidable pilum, which had subdued the world,
insensibly dropped from their feeble hands. As the use of the shield
is incompatible with that of the bow, they reluctantly marched into the
field; condemned to suffer either the pain of wounds, or the ignominy of
flight, and always disposed to prefer the more shameful alternative. The
cavalry of the Goths, the Huns, and the Alani, had felt the benefits,
and adopted the use, of defensive armor; and, as they excelled in the
management of missile weapons, they easily overwhelmed the naked
and trembling legions, whose heads and breasts were exposed, without
defence, to the arrows of the Barbarians. The loss of armies, the
destruction of cities, and the dishonor of the Roman name, ineffectually
solicited the successors of Gratian to restore the helmets and the
cuirasses of the infantry. The enervated soldiers abandoned their
own and the public defence; and their pusillanimous indolence may be
considered as the immediate cause of the downfall of the empire. [125]

[Footnote 125: Vegetius, de Re Militari, l. i. c. 10. The series of
calamities which he marks, compel us to believe, that the Hero, to
whom he dedicates his book, is the last and most inglorious of the
Valentinians.]




Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.--Part I.

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

The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the
only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular
superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular
event in the history of the human mind. The Christians, more especially
the clergy, had impatiently supported the prudent delays of Constantine,
and the equal toleration of the elder Valentinian; nor could they deem
their conquest perfect or secure, as long as their adversaries were
permitted to exist. The influence which Ambrose and his brethren had
acquired over the youth of Gratian, and the piety of Theodosius, was
employed to infuse the maxims of persecution into the breasts of their
Imperial proselytes. Two specious principles of religious jurisprudence
were established, from whence they deduced a direct and rigorous
conclusion, against the subjects of the empire who still adhered to the
ceremonies of their ancestors: that the magistrate is, in some measure,
guilty of the crimes which he neglects to prohibit, or to punish; and,
that the idolatrous worship of fabulous deities, and real daemons, is
the most abominable crime against the supreme majesty of the Creator.
The laws of Moses, and the examples of Jewish history, [1] were hastily,
perhaps erroneously, applied, by the clergy, to the mild and universal
reign of Christianity. [2] The zeal of the emperors was excited to
vindicate their own honor, and that of the Deity: and the temples of the
Roman world were subverted, about sixty years after the conversion of
Constantine.

[Footnote 1: St. Ambrose (tom. ii. de Obit. Theodos. p. 1208) expressly
praises and recommends the zeal of Josiah in the destruction of idolatry
The language of Julius Firmicus Maternus on the same subject (de Errore
Profan. Relig. p. 467, edit. Gronov.) is piously inhuman. Nec filio
jubet (the Mosaic Law) parci, nec fratri, et per amatam conjugera
gladium vindicem ducit, &c.]

[Footnote 2: Bayle (tom. ii. p. 406, in his Commentaire Philosophique)
justifies, and limits, these intolerant laws by the temporal reign of
Jehovah over the Jews. The attempt is laudable.]

From the age of Numa to the reign of Gratian, the Romans preserved the
regular succession of the several colleges of the sacerdotal order. [3]
Fifteen Pontiffs exercised their supreme jurisdiction over all things,
and persons, that were consecrated to the service of the gods; and the
various questions which perpetually arose in a loose and traditionary
system, were submitted to the judgment of their holy tribunal Fifteen
grave and learned Augurs observed the face of the heavens, and
prescribed the actions of heroes, according to the flight of birds.
Fifteen keepers of the Sibylline books (their name of Quindecemvirs was
derived from their number) occasionally consulted the history of future,
and, as it should seem, of contingent, events. Six Vestals devoted their
virginity to the guard of the sacred fire, and of the unknown pledges of
the duration of Rome; which no mortal had been suffered to behold with
impunity. [4] Seven Epulos prepared the table of the gods, conducted the
solemn procession, and regulated the ceremonies of the annual festival.
The three Flamens of Jupiter, of Mars, and of Quirinus, were considered
as the peculiar ministers of the three most powerful deities, who
watched over the fate of Rome and of the universe. The King of the
Sacrifices represented the person of Numa, and of his successors, in the
religious functions, which could be performed only by royal hands. The
confraternities of the Salians, the Lupercals, &c., practised such rites
as might extort a smile of contempt from every reasonable man, with
a lively confidence of recommending themselves to the favor of the
immortal gods. The authority, which the Roman priests had formerly
obtained in the counsels of the republic, was gradually abolished by the
establishment of monarchy, and the removal of the seat of empire. But
the dignity of their sacred character was still protected by the laws,
and manners of their country; and they still continued, more especially
the college of pontiffs, to exercise in the capital, and sometimes
in the provinces, the rights of their ecclesiastical and civil
jurisdiction. Their robes of purple, chariotz of state, and sumptuous
entertainments, attracted the admiration of the people; and they
received, from the consecrated lands, and the public revenue, an ample
stipend, which liberally supported the splendor of the priesthood, and
all the expenses of the religious worship of the state. As the service
of the altar was not incompatible with the command of armies, the
Romans, after their consulships and triumphs, aspired to the place of
pontiff, or of augur; the seats of Cicero [5] and Pompey were filled, in
the fourth century, by the most illustrious members of the senate;
and the dignity of their birth reflected additional splendor on their
sacerdotal character. The fifteen priests, who composed the college of
pontiffs, enjoyed a more distinguished rank as the companions of their
sovereign; and the Christian emperors condescended to accept the robe
and ensigns, which were appropriated to the office of supreme
pontiff. But when Gratian ascended the throne, more scrupulous or more
enlightened, he sternly rejected those profane symbols; [6] applied to
the service of the state, or of the church, the revenues of the priests
and vestals; abolished their honors and immunities; and dissolved
the ancient fabric of Roman superstition, which was supported by the
opinions and habits of eleven hundred years. Paganism was still the
constitutional religion of the senate. The hall, or temple, in which
they assembled, was adorned by the statue and altar of Victory; [7] a
majestic female standing on a globe, with flowing garments, expanded
wings, and a crown of laurel in her outstretched hand. [8] The senators
were sworn on the altar of the goddess to observe the laws of the
emperor and of the empire: and a solemn offering of wine and incense was
the ordinary prelude of their public deliberations. The removal of this
ancient monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to
the superstition of the Romans. The altar of Victory was again restored
by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more banished from the
senate by the zeal of Gratian. [10] But the emperor yet spared the
statues of the gods which were exposed to the public veneration: four
hundred and twenty-four temples, or chapels, still remained to satisfy
the devotion of the people; and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of
the Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice. [11]

[Footnote 3: See the outlines of the Roman hierarchy in Cicero, (de
Legibus, ii. 7, 8,) Livy, (i. 20,) Dionysius Halicarnassensis, (l. ii.
p. 119-129, edit. Hudson,) Beaufort, (Republique Romaine, tom. i. p.
1-90,) and Moyle, (vol. i. p. 10-55.) The last is the work of an English
whig, as well as of a Roman antiquary.]

[Footnote 4: These mystic, and perhaps imaginary, symbols have given
birth to various fables and conjectures. It seems probable, that the
Palladium was a small statue (three cubits and a half high) of Minerva,
with a lance and distaff; that it was usually enclosed in a seria, or
barrel; and that a similar barrel was placed by its side to disconcert
curiosity, or sacrilege. See Mezeriac (Comment. sur les Epitres d'Ovide,
tom i. p. 60--66) and Lipsius, (tom. iii. p. 610 de Vesta, &c. c 10.)]

[Footnote 5: Cicero frankly (ad Atticum, l. ii. Epist. 5) or indirectly
(ad Familiar. l. xv. Epist. 4) confesses that the Augurate is the
supreme object of his wishes. Pliny is proud to tread in the footsteps
of Cicero, (l. iv. Epist. 8,) and the chain of tradition might be
continued from history and marbles.]

[Footnote 6: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 249, 250. I have suppressed the foolish
pun about Pontifex and Maximus.]

[Footnote 7: This statue was transported from Tarentum to Rome, placed
in the Curia Julia by Caesar, and decorated by Augustus with the spoils
of Egypt.]

[Footnote 8: Prudentius (l. ii. in initio) has drawn a very awkward
portrait of Victory; but the curious reader will obtain more
satisfaction from Montfaucon's Antiquities, (tom. i. p. 341.)]

[Footnote 9: See Suetonius (in August. c. 35) and the Exordium of
Pliny's Panegyric.]

[Footnote 10: These facts are mutually allowed by the two advocates,
Symmachus and Ambrose.]

[Footnote 11: The Notitia Urbis, more recent than Constantine, does not
find one Christian church worthy to be named among the edifices of
the city. Ambrose (tom. ii. Epist. xvii. p. 825) deplores the public
scandals of Rome, which continually offended the eyes, the ears, and the
nostrils of the faithful.]

But the Christians formed the least numerous party in the senate of
Rome: [12] and it was only by their absence, that they could express
their dissent from the legal, though profane, acts of a Pagan majority.
In that assembly, the dying embers of freedom were, for a moment,
revived and inflamed by the breath of fanaticism. Four respectable
deputations were successively voted to the Imperial court, [13] to
represent the grievances of the priesthood and the senate, and to
solicit the restoration of the altar of Victory. The conduct of this
important business was intrusted to the eloquent Symmachus, [14] a
wealthy and noble senator, who united the sacred characters of pontiff
and augur with the civil dignities of proconsul of Africa and praefect
of the city. The breast of Symmachus was animated by the warmest zeal
for the cause of expiring Paganism; and his religious antagonists
lamented the abuse of his genius, and the inefficacy of his moral
virtues. [15] The orator, whose petition is extant to the emperor
Valentinian, was conscious of the difficulty and danger of the office
which he had assumed. He cautiously avoids every topic which might
appear to reflect on the religion of his sovereign; humbly declares,
that prayers and entreaties are his only arms; and artfully draws
his arguments from the schools of rhetoric, rather than from those of
philosophy. Symmachus endeavors to seduce the imagination of a young
prince, by displaying the attributes of the goddess of victory;
he insinuates, that the confiscation of the revenues, which were
consecrated to the service of the gods, was a measure unworthy of his
liberal and disinterested character; and he maintains, that the Roman
sacrifices would be deprived of their force and energy, if they were
no longer celebrated at the expense, as well as in the name, of the
republic. Even scepticism is made to supply an apology for superstition.
The great and incomprehensible secret of the universe eludes the inquiry
of man. Where reason cannot instruct, custom may be permitted to
guide; and every nation seems to consult the dictates of prudence, by a
faithful attachment to those rites and opinions, which have received
the sanction of ages. If those ages have been crowned with glory and
prosperity, if the devout people have frequently obtained the blessings
which they have solicited at the altars of the gods, it must appear
still more advisable to persist in the same salutary practice; and not
to risk the unknown perils that may attend any rash innovations. The
test of antiquity and success was applied with singular advantage to the
religion of Numa; and Rome herself, the celestial genius that presided
over the fates of the city, is introduced by the orator to plead her
own cause before the tribunal of the emperors. "Most excellent princes,"
says the venerable matron, "fathers of your country! pity and respect
my age, which has hitherto flowed in an uninterrupted course of piety.
Since I do not repent, permit me to continue in the practice of my
ancient rites. Since I am born free, allow me to enjoy my domestic
institutions. This religion has reduced the world under my laws. These
rites have repelled Hannibal from the city, and the Gauls from the
Capitol. Were my gray hairs reserved for such intolerable disgrace? I
am ignorant of the new system that I am required to adopt; but I am
well assured, that the correction of old age is always an ungrateful
and ignominious office." [16] The fears of the people supplied what
the discretion of the orator had suppressed; and the calamities,
which afflicted, or threatened, the declining empire, were unanimously
imputed, by the Pagans, to the new religion of Christ and of
Constantine.

[Footnote 12: Ambrose repeatedly affirms, in contradiction to common
sense (Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 147,) that the Christians had a
majority in the senate.]

[Footnote 13: The first (A.D. 382) to Gratian, who refused them
audience; the second (A.D. 384) to Valentinian, when the field was
disputed by Symmachus and Ambrose; the third (A.D. 388) to Theodosius;
and the fourth (A.D. 392) to Valentinian. Lardner (Heathen Testimonies,
vol. iv. p. 372-399) fairly represents the whole transaction.]

[Footnote 14: Symmachus, who was invested with all the civil and
sacerdotal honors, represented the emperor under the two characters of
Pontifex Maximus, and Princeps Senatus. See the proud inscription at the
head of his works. * Note: Mr. Beugnot has made it doubtful whether
Symmachus was more than Pontifex Major. Destruction du Paganisme, vol.
i. p. 459.--M.]

[Footnote 15: As if any one, says Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 639) should
dig in the mud with an instrument of gold and ivory. Even saints, and
polemic saints, treat this adversary with respect and civility.]

[Footnote 16: See the fifty-fourth Epistle of the tenth book of
Symmachus. In the form and disposition of his ten books of Epistles, he
imitated the younger Pliny; whose rich and florid style he was supposed,
by his friends, to equal or excel, (Macrob. Saturnal. l. v. c. i.) But
the luxcriancy of Symmachus consists of barren leaves, without fruits,
and even without flowers. Few facts, and few sentiments, can be
extracted from his verbose correspondence.]

But the hopes of Symmachus were repeatedly baffled by the firm and
dexterous opposition of the archbishop of Milan, who fortified the
emperors against the fallacious eloquence of the advocate of Rome.
In this controversy, Ambrose condescends to speak the language of a
philosopher, and to ask, with some contempt, why it should be thought
necessary to introduce an imaginary and invisible power, as the cause
of those victories, which were sufficiently explained by the valor and
discipline of the legions. He justly derides the absurd reverence for
antiquity, which could only tend to discourage the improvements of
art, and to replunge the human race into their original barbarism.
From thence, gradually rising to a more lofty and theological tone,
he pronounces, that Christianity alone is the doctrine of truth and
salvation; and that every mode of Polytheism conducts its deluded
votaries, through the paths of error, to the abyss of eternal perdition.
[17] Arguments like these, when they were suggested by a favorite
bishop, had power to prevent the restoration of the altar of Victory;
but the same arguments fell, with much more energy and effect, from the
mouth of a conqueror; and the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph
at the chariot-wheels of Theodosius. [18] In a full meeting of the
senate, the emperor proposed, according to the forms of the republic,
the important question, Whether the worship of Jupiter, or that of
Christ, should be the religion of the Romans. [1811] The liberty of
suffrages, which he affected to allow, was destroyed by the hopes and
fears that his presence inspired; and the arbitrary exile of Symmachus
was a recent admonition, that it might be dangerous to oppose the
wishes of the monarch. On a regular division of the senate, Jupiter was
condemned and degraded by the sense of a very large majority; and it
is rather surprising, that any members should be found bold enough to
declare, by their speeches and votes, that they were still attached to
the interest of an abdicated deity. [19] The hasty conversion of the
senate must be attributed either to supernatural or to sordid motives;
and many of these reluctant proselytes betrayed, on every favorable
occasion, their secret disposition to throw aside the mask of odious
dissimulation. But they were gradually fixed in the new religion, as the
cause of the ancient became more hopeless; they yielded to the authority
of the emperor, to the fashion of the times, and to the entreaties of
their wives and children, [20] who were instigated and governed by the
clergy of Rome and the monks of the East. The edifying example of the
Anician family was soon imitated by the rest of the nobility: the Bassi,
the Paullini, the Gracchi, embraced the Christian religion; and "the
luminaries of the world, the venerable assembly of Catos (such are the
high-flown expressions of Prudentius) were impatient to strip themselves
of their pontifical garment; to cast the skin of the old serpent; to
assume the snowy robes of baptismal innocence, and to humble the pride
of the consular fasces before tombs of the martyrs." [21] The citizens,
who subsisted by their own industry, and the populace, who were
supported by the public liberality, filled the churches of the Lateran,
and Vatican, with an incessant throng of devout proselytes. The decrees
of the senate, which proscribed the worship of idols, were ratified by
the general consent of the Romans; [22] the splendor of the Capitol was
defaced, and the solitary temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt.
[23] Rome submitted to the yoke of the Gospel; and the vanquished
provinces had not yet lost their reverence for the name and authority of
Rome. [2311]

[Footnote 17: See Ambrose, (tom. ii. Epist. xvii. xviii. p. 825-833.)
The former of these epistles is a short caution; the latter is a formal
reply of the petition or libel of Symmachus. The same ideas are more
copiously expressed in the poetry, if it may deserve that name, of
Prudentius; who composed his two books against Symmachus (A.D. 404)
while that senator was still alive. It is whimsical enough that
Montesquieu (Considerations, &c. c. xix. tom. iii. p. 487) should
overlook the two professed antagonists of Symmachus, and amuse himself
with descanting on the more remote and indirect confutations of Orosius,
St. Augustin, and Salvian.]

[Footnote 18: See Prudentius (in Symmach. l. i. 545, &c.) The Christian
agrees with the Pagan Zosimus (l. iv. p. 283) in placing this visit of
Theodosius after the second civil war, gemini bis victor caede Tyranni,
(l. i. 410.) But the time and circumstances are better suited to his
first triumph.]

[Footnote 1811: M. Beugnot (in his Histoire de la Destruction du
Paganisme en Occident, i. p. 483-488) questions, altogether, the truth
of this statement. It is very remarkable that Zosimus and Prudentius
concur in asserting the fact of the question being solemnly deliberated
by the senate, though with directly opposite results. Zosimus declares
that the majority of the assembly adhered to the ancient religion of
Rome; Gibbon has adopted the authority of Prudentius, who, as a Latin
writer, though a poet, deserves more credit than the Greek historian.
Both concur in placing this scene after the second triumph of
Theodosius; but it has been almost demonstrated (and Gibbon--see the
preceding note--seems to have acknowledged this) by Pagi and Tillemont,
that Theodosius did not visit Rome after the defeat of Eugenius. M.
Beugnot urges, with much force, the improbability that the Christian
emperor would submit such a question to the senate, whose authority was
nearly obsolete, except on one occasion, which was almost hailed as
an epoch in the restoration of her ancient privileges. The silence of
Ambrose and of Jerom on an event so striking, and redounding so much to
the honor of Christianity, is of considerable weight. M. Beugnot would
ascribe the whole scene to the poetic imagination of Prudentius; but
I must observe, that, however Prudentius is sometimes elevated by the
grandeur of his subject to vivid and eloquent language, this flight of
invention would be so much bolder and more vigorous than usual with this
poet, that I cannot but suppose there must have been some foundation
for the story, though it may have been exaggerated by the poet, or
misrepresented by the historian.--M]

[Footnote 19: Prudentius, after proving that the sense of the senate is
declared by a legal majority, proceeds to say, (609, &c.)--

     Adspice quam pleno subsellia nostra Senatu
     Decernant infame Jovis pulvinar, et omne
     Idolum longe purgata ex urbe fugandum,
     Qua vocat egregii sententia Principis, illuc
     Libera, cum pedibus, tum corde, frequentia transit.

Zosimus ascribes to the conscript feathers a heathenish courage, which
few of them are found to possess.]

[Footnote 20: Jerom specifies the pontiff Albinus, who was surrounded
with such a believing family of children and grandchildren, as would
have been sufficient to convert even Jupiter himself; an extraordinary
proselyted (tom. i. ad Laetam, p. 54.)]

[Footnote 21:

     Exultare Patres videas, pulcherrima mundi
     Lumina; Conciliumque senum gestire Catonum
     Candidiore toga niveum pietatis amictum
     Sumere; et exuvias deponere pontificales.

The fancy of Prudentius is warmed and elevated by victory]

[Footnote 22: Prudentius, after he has described the conversion of the
senate and people, asks, with some truth and confidence,

    Et dubitamus adhuc Romam, tibi, Christe, dicatam
    In leges transisse tuas?]

[Footnote 23: Jerom exults in the desolation of the Capitol, and the
other temples of Rome, (tom. i. p. 54, tom. ii. p. 95.)]

[Footnote 2311: M. Beugnot is more correct in his general estimate of
the measures enforced by Theodosius for the abolition of Paganism. He
seized (according to Zosimus) the funds bestowed by the public for the
expense of sacrifices. The public sacrifices ceased, not because they
were positively prohibited, but because the public treasury would no
longer bear the expense. The public and the private sacrifices in the
provinces, which were not under the same regulations with those of the
capital, continued to take place. In Rome itself, many pagan ceremonies,
which were without sacrifice, remained in full force. The gods,
therefore, were invoked, the temples were frequented, the pontificates
inscribed, according to ancient usage, among the family titles of honor;
and it cannot be asserted that idolatry was completely destroyed by
Theodosius. See Beugnot, p. 491.--M.]




Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.--Part II.

The filial piety of the emperors themselves engaged them to proceed,
with some caution and tenderness, in the reformation of the eternal
city. Those absolute monarchs acted with less regard to the prejudices
of the provincials. The pious labor which had been suspended near twenty
years since the death of Constantius, [24] was vigorously resumed, and
finally accomplished, by the zeal of Theodosius. Whilst that warlike
prince yet struggled with the Goths, not for the glory, but for the
safety, of the republic, he ventured to offend a considerable party of
his subjects, by some acts which might perhaps secure the protection of
Heaven, but which must seem rash and unseasonable in the eye of human
prudence. The success of his first experiments against the Pagans
encouraged the pious emperor to reiterate and enforce his edicts of
proscription: the same laws which had been originally published in the
provinces of the East, were applied, after the defeat of Maximus, to the
whole extent of the Western empire; and every victory of the orthodox
Theodosius contributed to the triumph of the Christian and Catholic
faith. [25] He attacked superstition in her most vital part, by
prohibiting the use of sacrifices, which he declared to be criminal as
well as infamous; and if the terms of his edicts more strictly condemned
the impious curiosity which examined the entrails of the victim, [26]
every subsequent explanation tended to involve in the same guilt the
general practice of immolation, which essentially constituted the
religion of the Pagans. As the temples had been erected for the purpose
of sacrifice, it was the duty of a benevolent prince to remove from his
subjects the dangerous temptation of offending against the laws which
he had enacted. A special commission was granted to Cynegius, the
Praetorian praefect of the East, and afterwards to the counts Jovius
and Gaudentius, two officers of distinguished rank in the West; by
which they were directed to shut the temples, to seize or destroy the
instruments of idolatry, to abolish the privileges of the priests, and
to confiscate the consecrated property for the benefit of the emperor,
of the church, or of the army. [27] Here the desolation might have
stopped: and the naked edifices, which were no longer employed in the
service of idolatry, might have been protected from the destructive
rage of fanaticism. Many of those temples were the most splendid and
beautiful monuments of Grecian architecture; and the emperor himself was
interested not to deface the splendor of his own cities, or to diminish
the value of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be
suffered to remain, as so many lasting trophies of the victory of
Christ. In the decline of the arts they might be usefully converted into
magazines, manufactures, or places of public assembly: and perhaps, when
the walls of the temple had been sufficiently purified by holy rites,
the worship of the true Deity might be allowed to expiate the ancient
guilt of idolatry. But as long as they subsisted, the Pagans fondly
cherished the secret hope, that an auspicious revolution, a second
Julian, might again restore the altars of the gods: and the earnestness
with which they addressed their unavailing prayers to the throne, [28]
increased the zeal of the Christian reformers to extirpate, without
mercy, the root of superstition. The laws of the emperors exhibit
some symptoms of a milder disposition: [29] but their cold and languid
efforts were insufficient to stem the torrent of enthusiasm and rapine,
which was conducted, or rather impelled, by the spiritual rulers of the
church. In Gaul, the holy Martin, bishop of Tours, [30] marched at the
head of his faithful monks to destroy the idols, the temples, and the
consecrated trees of his extensive diocese; and, in the execution of
this arduous task, the prudent reader will judge whether Martin was
supported by the aid of miraculous powers, or of carnal weapons. In
Syria, the divine and excellent Marcellus, [31] as he is styled by
Theodoret, a bishop animated with apostolic fervor, resolved to level
with the ground the stately temples within the diocese of Apamea. His
attack was resisted by the skill and solidity with which the temple of
Jupiter had been constructed. The building was seated on an eminence:
on each of the four sides, the lofty roof was supported by fifteen massy
columns, sixteen feet in circumference; and the large stone, of which
they were composed, were firmly cemented with lead and iron. The force
of the strongest and sharpest tools had been tried without effect. It
was found necessary to undermine the foundations of the columns, which
fell down as soon as the temporary wooden props had been consumed with
fire; and the difficulties of the enterprise are described under the
allegory of a black daemon, who retarded, though he could not defeat,
the operations of the Christian engineers. Elated with victory,
Marcellus took the field in person against the powers of darkness; a
numerous troop of soldiers and gladiators marched under the episcopal
banner, and he successively attacked the villages and country temples
of the diocese of Apamea. Whenever any resistance or danger was
apprehended, the champion of the faith, whose lameness would not allow
him either to fight or fly, placed himself at a convenient distance,
beyond the reach of darts. But this prudence was the occasion of his
death: he was surprised and slain by a body of exasperated rustics; and
the synod of the province pronounced, without hesitation, that the holy
Marcellus had sacrificed his life in the cause of God. In the support of
this cause, the monks, who rushed with tumultuous fury from the desert,
distinguished themselves by their zeal and diligence. They deserved the
enmity of the Pagans; and some of them might deserve the reproaches of
avarice and intemperance; of avarice, which they gratified with holy
plunder, and of intemperance, which they indulged at the expense of the
people, who foolishly admired their tattered garments, loud psalmody,
and artificial paleness. [32] A small number of temples was protected
by the fears, the venality, the taste, or the prudence, of the civil and
ecclesiastical governors. The temple of the Celestial Venus at Carthage,
whose sacred precincts formed a circumference of two miles, was
judiciously converted into a Christian church; [33] and a similar
consecration has preserved inviolate the majestic dome of the Pantheon
at Rome. [34] But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army
of fanatics, without authority, and without discipline, invaded
the peaceful inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of
antiquity still displays the ravages of those Barbarians, who alone had
time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.

[Footnote 24: Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 10, Genev. 1634, published
by James Godefroy, and now extremely scarce) accuses Valentinian and
Valens of prohibiting sacrifices. Some partial order may have been
issued by the Eastern emperor; but the idea of any general law
is contradicted by the silence of the Code, and the evidence of
ecclesiastical history. Note: See in Reiske's edition of Libanius, tom.
ii. p. 155. Sacrific was prohibited by Valens, but not the offering of
incense.--M.]

[Footnote 25: See his laws in the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. x. leg.
7-11.]

[Footnote 26: Homer's sacrifices are not accompanied with any
inquisition of entrails, (see Feithius, Antiquitat. Homer. l. i. c. 10,
16.) The Tuscans, who produced the first Haruspices, subdued both the
Greeks and the Romans, (Cicero de Divinatione, ii. 23.)]

[Footnote 27: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 245, 249. Theodoret. l. v. c. 21.
Idatius in Chron. Prosper. Aquitan. l. iii. c. 38, apud Baronium, Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 389, No. 52. Libanius (pro Templis, p. 10) labors to prove
that the commands of Theodosius were not direct and positive. * Note:
Libanius appears to be the best authority for the East, where, under
Theodosius, the work of devastation was carried on with very different
degrees of violence, according to the temper of the local authorities
and of the clergy; and more especially the neighborhood of the more
fanatican monks. Neander well observes, that the prohibition of
sacrifice would be easily misinterpreted into an authority for the
destruction of the buildings in which sacrifices were performed.
(Geschichte der Christlichen religion ii. p. 156.) An abuse of this kind
led to this remarkable oration of Libanius. Neander, however, justly
doubts whether this bold vindication or at least exculpation, of
Paganism was ever delivered before, or even placed in the hands of the
Christian emperor.--M.]

[Footnote 28: Cod. Theodos, l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 8, 18. There is room to
believe, that this temple of Edessa, which Theodosius wished to save for
civil uses, was soon afterwards a heap of ruins, (Libanius pro Templis,
p. 26, 27, and Godefroy's notes, p. 59.)]

[Footnote 29: See this curious oration of Libanius pro Templis,
pronounced, or rather composed, about the year 390. I have consulted,
with advantage, Dr. Lardner's version and remarks, (Heathen Testimonies,
vol. iv. p. 135-163.)]

[Footnote 30: See the Life of Martin by Sulpicius Severus, c. 9-14. The
saint once mistook (as Don Quixote might have done) a harmless funeral
for an idolatrous procession, and imprudently committed a miracle.]

[Footnote 31: Compare Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 15) with Theodoret, (l. v. c.
21.) Between them, they relate the crusade and death of Marcellus.]

[Footnote 32: Libanius, pro Templis, p. 10-13. He rails at these
black-garbed men, the Christian monks, who eat more than elephants. Poor
elephants! they are temperate animals.]

[Footnote 33: Prosper. Aquitan. l. iii. c. 38, apud Baronium; Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 389, No. 58, &c. The temple had been shut some time, and
the access to it was overgrown with brambles.]

[Footnote 34: Donatus, Roma Antiqua et Nova, l. iv. c. 4, p. 468. This
consecration was performed by Pope Boniface IV. I am ignorant of the
favorable circumstances which had preserved the Pantheon above two
hundred years after the reign of Theodosius.]

In this wide and various prospect of devastation, the spectator may
distinguish the ruins of the temple of Serapis, at Alexandria. [35]
Serapis does not appear to have been one of the native gods, or
monsters, who sprung from the fruitful soil of superstitious Egypt. [36]
The first of the Ptolemies had been commanded, by a dream, to import
the mysterious stranger from the coast of Pontus, where he had been long
adored by the inhabitants of Sinope; but his attributes and his reign
were so imperfectly understood, that it became a subject of dispute,
whether he represented the bright orb of day, or the gloomy monarch
of the subterraneous regions. [37] The Egyptians, who were obstinately
devoted to the religion of their fathers, refused to admit this foreign
deity within the walls of their cities. [38] But the obsequious priests,
who were seduced by the liberality of the Ptolemies, submitted, without
resistance, to the power of the god of Pontus: an honorable and domestic
genealogy was provided; and this fortunate usurper was introduced
into the throne and bed of Osiris, [39] the husband of Isis, and the
celestial monarch of Egypt. Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar
protection, gloried in the name of the city of Serapis. His temple, [40]
which rivalled the pride and magnificence of the Capitol, was erected
on the spacious summit of an artificial mount, raised one hundred steps
above the level of the adjacent parts of the city; and the interior
cavity was strongly supported by arches, and distributed into vaults and
subterraneous apartments. The consecrated buildings were surrounded by
a quadrangular portico; the stately halls, and exquisite statues,
displayed the triumph of the arts; and the treasures of ancient learning
were preserved in the famous Alexandrian library, which had arisen with
new splendor from its ashes. [41] After the edicts of Theodosius had
severely prohibited the sacrifices of the Pagans, they were still
tolerated in the city and temple of Serapis; and this singular
indulgence was imprudently ascribed to the superstitious terrors of the
Christians themselves; as if they had feared to abolish those ancient
rites, which could alone secure the inundations of the Nile, the
harvests of Egypt, and the subsistence of Constantinople. [42]

[Footnote 35: Sophronius composed a recent and separate history, (Jerom,
in Script. Eccles. tom. i. p. 303,) which has furnished materials to
Socrates, (l. v. c. 16.) Theodoret, (l. v. c. 22,) and Rufinus, (l. ii.
c. 22.) Yet the last, who had been at Alexandria before and after the
event, may deserve the credit of an original witness.]

[Footnote 36: Gerard Vossius (Opera, tom. v. p. 80, and de Idoloaltria,
l. i. c. 29) strives to support the strange notion of the Fathers; that
the patriarch Joseph was adored in Egypt, as the bull Apis, and the
god Serapis. * Note: Consult du Dieu Serapis et son Origine, par J D.
Guigniaut, (the translator of Creuzer's Symbolique,) Paris, 1828; and in
the fifth volume of Bournouf's translation of Tacitus.--M.]

[Footnote 37: Origo dei nondum nostris celebrata. Aegyptiorum antistites
sic memorant, &c., Tacit. Hist. iv. 83. The Greeks, who had travelled
into Egypt, were alike ignorant of this new deity.]

[Footnote 38: Macrobius, Saturnal, l. i. c. 7. Such a living fact
decisively proves his foreign extraction.]

[Footnote 39: At Rome, Isis and Serapis were united in the same temple.
The precedency which the queen assumed, may seem to betray her unequal
alliance with the stranger of Pontus. But the superiority of the female
sex was established in Egypt as a civil and religious institution,
(Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 31, edit. Wesseling,) and the same
order is observed in Plutarch's Treatise of Isis and Osiris; whom he
identifies with Serapis.]

[Footnote 40: Ammianus, (xxii. 16.) The Expositio totius Mundi, (p. 8,
in Hudson's Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.,) and Rufinus, (l. ii. c. 22,)
celebrate the Serapeum, as one of the wonders of the world.]

[Footnote 41: See Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ix. p.
397-416. The old library of the Ptolemies was totally consumed in
Caesar's Alexandrian war. Marc Antony gave the whole collection of
Pergamus (200,000 volumes) to Cleopatra, as the foundation of the new
library of Alexandria.]

[Footnote 42: Libanius (pro Templis, p. 21) indiscreetly provokes his
Christian masters by this insulting remark.]

At that time [43] the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was filled by
Theophilus, [44] the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue; a bold, bad
man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood. His
pious indignation was excited by the honors of Serapis; and the insults
which he offered to an ancient temple of Bacchus, [4411] convinced the
Pagans that he meditated a more important and dangerous enterprise.
In the tumultuous capital of Egypt, the slightest provocation was
sufficient to inflame a civil war. The votaries of Serapis, whose
strength and numbers were much inferior to those of their antagonists,
rose in arms at the instigation of the philosopher Olympius, [45] who
exhorted them to die in the defence of the altars of the gods. These
Pagan fanatics fortified themselves in the temple, or rather fortress,
of Serapis; repelled the besiegers by daring sallies, and a resolute
defence; and, by the inhuman cruelties which they exercised on their
Christian prisoners, obtained the last consolation of despair. The
efforts of the prudent magistrate were usefully exerted for the
establishment of a truce, till the answer of Theodosius should determine
the fate of Serapis. The two parties assembled, without arms, in the
principal square; and the Imperial rescript was publicly read. But
when a sentence of destruction against the idols of Alexandria was
pronounced, the Christians set up a shout of joy and exultation, whilst
the unfortunate Pagans, whose fury had given way to consternation,
retired with hasty and silent steps, and eluded, by their flight or
obscurity, the resentment of their enemies. Theophilus proceeded to
demolish the temple of Serapis, without any other difficulties, than
those which he found in the weight and solidity of the materials: but
these obstacles proved so insuperable, that he was obliged to leave the
foundations; and to content himself with reducing the edifice itself to
a heap of rubbish, a part of which was soon afterwards cleared away, to
make room for a church, erected in honor of the Christian martyrs.
The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near
twenty years afterwards, the appearance of the empty shelves excited the
regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally
darkened by religious prejudice. [46] The compositions of ancient
genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely
have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and
instruction of succeeding ages; and either the zeal or the avarice of
the archbishop, [47] might have been satiated with the rich spoils,
which were the reward of his victory. While the images and vases of gold
and silver were carefully melted, and those of a less valuable metal
were contemptuously broken, and cast into the streets, Theophilus
labored to expose the frauds and vices of the ministers of the idols;
their dexterity in the management of the loadstone; their secret methods
of introducing a human actor into a hollow statue; [4711] and their
scandalous abuse of the confidence of devout husbands and unsuspecting
females. [48] Charges like these may seem to deserve some degree of
credit, as they are not repugnant to the crafty and interested spirit of
superstition. But the same spirit is equally prone to the base practice
of insulting and calumniating a fallen enemy; and our belief is
naturally checked by the reflection, that it is much less difficult
to invent a fictitious story, than to support a practical fraud. The
colossal statue of Serapis [49] was involved in the ruin of his temple
and religion. A great number of plates of different metals, artificially
joined together, composed the majestic figure of the deity, who touched
on either side the walls of the sanctuary. The aspect of Serapis, his
sitting posture, and the sceptre, which he bore in his left hand, were
extremely similar to the ordinary representations of Jupiter. He was
distinguished from Jupiter by the basket, or bushel, which was placed on
his head; and by the emblematic monster which he held in his right hand;
the head and body of a serpent branching into three tails, which were
again terminated by the triple heads of a dog, a lion, and a wolf.
It was confidently affirmed, that if any impious hand should dare
to violate the majesty of the god, the heavens and the earth would
instantly return to their original chaos. An intrepid soldier, animated
by zeal, and armed with a weighty battle-axe, ascended the ladder; and
even the Christian multitude expected, with some anxiety, the event
of the combat. [50] He aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of
Serapis; the cheek fell to the ground; the thunder was still silent, and
both the heavens and the earth continued to preserve their accustomed
order and tranquillity. The victorious soldier repeated his blows: the
huge idol was overthrown, and broken in pieces; and the limbs of Serapis
were ignominiously dragged through the streets of Alexandria. His
mangled carcass was burnt in the Amphitheatre, amidst the shouts of the
populace; and many persons attributed their conversion to this discovery
of the impotence of their tutelar deity. The popular modes of religion,
that propose any visible and material objects of worship, have the
advantage of adapting and familiarizing themselves to the senses of
mankind: but this advantage is counterbalanced by the various and
inevitable accidents to which the faith of the idolater is exposed.
It is scarcely possible, that, in every disposition of mind, he should
preserve his implicit reverence for the idols, or the relics, which the
naked eye, and the profane hand, are unable to distinguish from the
most common productions of art or nature; and if, in the hour of danger,
their secret and miraculous virtue does not operate for their own
preservation, he scorns the vain apologies of his priests, and justly
derides the object, and the folly, of his superstitious attachment.
[51] After the fall of Serapis, some hopes were still entertained by
the Pagans, that the Nile would refuse his annual supply to the impious
masters of Egypt; and the extraordinary delay of the inundation seemed
to announce the displeasure of the river-god. But this delay was soon
compensated by the rapid swell of the waters. They suddenly rose to
such an unusual height, as to comfort the discontented party with the
pleasing expectation of a deluge; till the peaceful river again subsided
to the well-known and fertilizing level of sixteen cubits, or about
thirty English feet. [52]

[Footnote 43: We may choose between the date of Marcellinus (A.D. 389)
or that of Prosper, ( A.D. 391.) Tillemont (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p.
310, 756) prefers the former, and Pagi the latter.]

[Footnote 44: Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 441-500. The ambiguous
situation of Theophilus--a saint, as the friend of Jerom a devil, as
the enemy of Chrysostom--produces a sort of impartiality; yet, upon the
whole, the balance is justly inclined against him.]

[Footnote 4411: No doubt a temple of Osiris. St. Martin, iv 398-M.]

[Footnote 45: Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 411) has alleged
beautiful passage from Suidas, or rather from Damascius, which show the
devout and virtuous Olympius, not in the light of a warrior, but of a
prophet.]

[Footnote 46: Nos vidimus armaria librorum, quibus direptis, exinanita
ea a nostris hominibus, nostris temporibus memorant. Orosius, l. vi. c.
15, p. 421, edit. Havercamp. Though a bigot, and a controversial writer.
Orosius seems to blush.]

[Footnote 47: Eunapius, in the Lives of Antoninus and Aedesius,
execrates the sacrilegious rapine of Theophilus. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles.
tom. xiii. p. 453) quotes an epistle of Isidore of Pelusium, which
reproaches the primate with the idolatrous worship of gold, the auri
sacra fames.]

[Footnote 4711: An English traveller, Mr. Wilkinson, has discovered the
secret of the vocal Memnon. There was a cavity in which a person was
concealed, and struck a stone, which gave a ringing sound like brass.
The Arabs, who stood below when Mr. Wilkinson performed the miracle,
described sound just as the author of the epigram.--M.]

[Footnote 48: Rufinus names the priest of Saturn, who, in the character
of the god, familiarly conversed with many pious ladies of quality,
till he betrayed himself, in a moment of transport, when he could not
disguise the tone of his voice. The authentic and impartial narrative
of Aeschines, (see Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Scamandre,) and the
adventure of Mudus, (Joseph. Antiquitat. Judaic. l. xviii. c. 3, p. 877
edit. Havercamp,) may prove that such amorous frauds have been practised
with success.]

[Footnote 49: See the images of Serapis, in Montfaucon, (tom. ii. p.
297:) but the description of Macrobius (Saturnal. l. i. c. 20) is much
more picturesque and satisfactory.]

[Footnote 50:

     Sed fortes tremuere manus, motique verenda
     Majestate loci, si robora sacra ferirent
     In sua credebant redituras membra secures.

(Lucan. iii. 429.) "Is it true," (said Augustus to a veteran of Italy,
at whose house he supped) "that the man who gave the first blow to the
golden statue of Anaitis, was instantly deprived of his eyes, and of his
life?"--"I was that man, (replied the clear-sighted veteran,) and you
now sup on one of the legs of the goddess." (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii.
24)]

[Footnote 51: The history of the reformation affords frequent examples
of the sudden change from superstition to contempt.]

[Footnote 52: Sozomen, l. vii. c. 20. I have supplied the measure. The
same standard, of the inundation, and consequently of the cubit, has
uniformly subsisted since the time of Herodotus. See Freret, in the
Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xvi. p. 344-353. Greaves's
Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 233. The Egyptian cubit is about
twenty-two inches of the English measure. * Note: Compare Wilkinson's
Thebes and Egypt, p. 313.--M.]

The temples of the Roman empire were deserted, or destroyed; but the
ingenious superstition of the Pagans still attempted to elude the laws
of Theodosius, by which all sacrifices had been severely prohibited. The
inhabitants of the country, whose conduct was less opposed to the eye of
malicious curiosity, disguised their religious, under the appearance of
convivial, meetings. On the days of solemn festivals, they assembled in
great numbers under the spreading shade of some consecrated trees; sheep
and oxen were slaughtered and roasted; and this rural entertainment was
sanctified by the use of incense, and by the hymns which were sung in
honor of the gods. But it was alleged, that, as no part of the animal
was made a burnt-offering, as no altar was provided to receive the
blood, and as the previous oblation of salt cakes, and the concluding
ceremony of libations, were carefully omitted, these festal meetings
did not involve the guests in the guilt, or penalty, of an illegal
sacrifice. [53] Whatever might be the truth of the facts, or the merit
of the distinction, [54] these vain pretences were swept away by
the last edict of Theodosius, which inflicted a deadly wound on
the superstition of the Pagans. [55] [5511] This prohibitory law is
expressed in the most absolute and comprehensive terms. "It is our will
and pleasure," says the emperor, "that none of our subjects, whether
magistrates or private citizens, however exalted or however humble may
be their rank and condition, shall presume, in any city or in any place,
to worship an inanimate idol, by the sacrifice of a guiltless victim."
The act of sacrificing, and the practice of divination by the entrails
of the victim, are declared (without any regard to the object of
the inquiry) a crime of high treason against the state, which can
be expiated only by the death of the guilty. The rites of Pagan
superstition, which might seem less bloody and atrocious, are abolished,
as highly injurious to the truth and honor of religion; luminaries,
garlands, frankincense, and libations of wine, are specially enumerated
and condemned; and the harmless claims of the domestic genius, of the
household gods, are included in this rigorous proscription. The use of
any of these profane and illegal ceremonies, subjects the offender to
the forfeiture of the house or estate, where they have been performed;
and if he has artfully chosen the property of another for the scene of
his impiety, he is compelled to discharge, without delay, a heavy
fine of twenty-five pounds of gold, or more than one thousand pounds
sterling. A fine, not less considerable, is imposed on the connivance
of the secret enemies of religion, who shall neglect the duty of their
respective stations, either to reveal, or to punish, the guilt of
idolatry. Such was the persecuting spirit of the laws of Theodosius,
which were repeatedly enforced by his sons and grandsons, with the loud
and unanimous applause of the Christian world. [56]

[Footnote 53: Libanius (pro Templis, p. 15, 16, 17) pleads their cause
with gentle and insinuating rhetoric. From the earliest age, such feasts
had enlivened the country: and those of Bacchus (Georgic. ii. 380) had
produced the theatre of Athens. See Godefroy, ad loc. Liban. and Codex
Theodos. tom. vi. p. 284.]

[Footnote 54: Honorius tolerated these rustic festivals, (A.D. 399.)
"Absque ullo sacrificio, atque ulla superstitione damnabili." But nine
years afterwards he found it necessary to reiterate and enforce the same
proviso, (Codex Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 17, 19.)]

[Footnote 55: Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 12. Jortin (Remarks on
Eccles. History, vol. iv. p. 134) censures, with becoming asperity, the
style and sentiments of this intolerant law.]

[Footnote 5511: Paganism maintained its ground for a considerable time
in the rural districts. Endelechius, a poet who lived at the beginning
of the fifth century, speaks of the cross as Signum quod perhibent esse
crucis Dei, Magnis qui colitur solus inurbibus. In the middle of the
same century, Maximus, bishop of Turin, writes against the heathen
deities as if their worship was still in full vigor in the neighborhood
of his city. Augustine complains of the encouragement of the Pagan rites
by heathen landowners; and Zeno of Verona, still later, reproves the
apathy of the Christian proprietors in conniving at this abuse. (Compare
Neander, ii. p. 169.) M. Beugnot shows that this was the case throughout
the north and centre of Italy and in Sicily. But neither of these
authors has adverted to one fact, which must have tended greatly to
retard the progress of Christianity in these quarters. It was still
chiefly a slave population which cultivated the soil; and however, in
the towns, the better class of Christians might be eager to communicate
"the blessed liberty of the gospel" to this class of mankind; however
their condition could not but be silently ameliorated by the humanizing
influence of Christianity; yet, on the whole, no doubt the servile class
would be the least fitted to receive the gospel; and its general
propagation among them would be embarrassed by many peculiar
difficulties. The rural population was probably not entirely converted
before the general establishment of the monastic institutions. Compare
Quarterly Review of Beugnot. vol lvii. p. 52--M.]

[Footnote 56: Such a charge should not be lightly made; but it may
surely be justified by the authority of St. Augustin, who thus
addresses the Donatists: "Quis nostrum, quis vestrum non laudat leges
ab Imperatoribus datas adversus sacrificia Paganorum? Et certe longe
ibi poera severior constituta est; illius quippe impietatis capitale
supplicium est." Epist. xciii. No. 10, quoted by Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque
Choisie, tom. viii. p. 277,) who adds some judicious reflections on the
intolerance of the victorious Christians. * Note: Yet Augustine, with
laudable inconsistency, disapproved of the forcible demolition of the
temples. "Let us first extirpate the idolatry of the hearts of the
heathen, and they will either themselves invite us or anticipate us in
the execution of this good work," tom. v. p. 62. Compare Neander, ii.
169, and, in p. 155, a beautiful passage from Chrysostom against all
violent means of propagating Christianity.--M.]




Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.--Part III.

In the cruel reigns of Decius and Dioclesian, Christianity had been
proscribed, as a revolt from the ancient and hereditary religion of the
empire; and the unjust suspicions which were entertained of a dark
and dangerous faction, were, in some measure, countenanced by the
inseparable union and rapid conquests of the Catholic church. But the
same excuses of fear and ignorance cannot be applied to the Christian
emperors who violated the precepts of humanity and of the Gospel. The
experience of ages had betrayed the weakness, as well as folly, of
Paganism; the light of reason and of faith had already exposed, to the
greatest part of mankind, the vanity of idols; and the declining sect,
which still adhered to their worship, might have been permitted
to enjoy, in peace and obscurity, the religious costumes of their
ancestors. Had the Pagans been animated by the undaunted zeal which
possessed the minds of the primitive believers, the triumph of the
Church must have been stained with blood; and the martyrs of Jupiter and
Apollo might have embraced the glorious opportunity of devoting their
lives and fortunes at the foot of their altars. But such obstinate zeal
was not congenial to the loose and careless temper of Polytheism. The
violent and repeated strokes of the orthodox princes were broken by the
soft and yielding substance against which they were directed; and
the ready obedience of the Pagans protected them from the pains and
penalties of the Theodosian Code. [57] Instead of asserting, that
the authority of the gods was superior to that of the emperor, they
desisted, with a plaintive murmur, from the use of those sacred rites
which their sovereign had condemned. If they were sometimes tempted by
a sally of passion, or by the hopes of concealment, to indulge their
favorite superstition, their humble repentance disarmed the severity
of the Christian magistrate, and they seldom refused to atone for their
rashness, by submitting, with some secret reluctance, to the yoke of the
Gospel. The churches were filled with the increasing multitude of these
unworthy proselytes, who had conformed, from temporal motives, to the
reigning religion; and whilst they devoutly imitated the postures, and
recited the prayers, of the faithful, they satisfied their conscience by
the silent and sincere invocation of the gods of antiquity. [58] If the
Pagans wanted patience to suffer they wanted spirit to resist; and
the scattered myriads, who deplored the ruin of the temples, yielded,
without a contest, to the fortune of their adversaries. The disorderly
opposition [59] of the peasants of Syria, and the populace of
Alexandria, to the rage of private fanaticism, was silenced by the
name and authority of the emperor. The Pagans of the West, without
contributing to the elevation of Eugenius, disgraced, by their
partial attachment, the cause and character of the usurper. The clergy
vehemently exclaimed, that he aggravated the crime of rebellion by the
guilt of apostasy; that, by his permission, the altar of victory was
again restored; and that the idolatrous symbols of Jupiter and Hercules
were displayed in the field, against the invincible standard of the
cross. But the vain hopes of the Pagans were soon annihilated by the
defeat of Eugenius; and they were left exposed to the resentment of the
conqueror, who labored to deserve the favor of Heaven by the extirpation
of idolatry. [60]

[Footnote 57: Orosius, l. vii. c. 28, p. 537. Augustin (Enarrat. in
Psalm cxl apud Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 458) insults
their cowardice. "Quis eorum comprehensus est in sacrificio (cum his
legibus sta prohiberentur) et non negavit?"]

[Footnote 58: Libanius (pro Templis, p. 17, 18) mentions, without
censure the occasional conformity, and as it were theatrical play, of
these hypocrites.]

[Footnote 59: Libanius concludes his apology (p. 32) by declaring to
the emperor, that unless he expressly warrants the destruction of the
temples, the proprietors will defend themselves and the laws.]

[Footnote 60: Paulinus, in Vit. Ambros. c. 26. Augustin de Civitat. Dei,
l. v. c. 26. Theodoret, l. v. c. 24.]

A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their
master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the
last extremes of injustice and oppression. Theodosius might undoubtedly
have proposed to his Pagan subjects the alternative of baptism or of
death; and the eloquent Libanius has praised the moderation of a prince,
who never enacted, by any positive law, that all his subjects should
immediately embrace and practise the religion of their sovereign. [61]
The profession of Christianity was not made an essential qualification
for the enjoyment of the civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar
hardships imposed on the sectaries, who credulously received the fables
of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the Gospel. The
palace, the schools, the army, and the senate, were filled with declared
and devout Pagans; they obtained, without distinction, the civil and
military honors of the empire. [6111] Theodosius distinguished his
liberal regard for virtue and genius by the consular dignity, which
he bestowed on Symmachus; [62] and by the personal friendship which he
expressed to Libanius; [63] and the two eloquent apologists of Paganism
were never required either to change or to dissemble their religious
opinions. The Pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of
speech and writing; the historical and philosophic remains of Eunapius,
Zosimus, [64] and the fanatic teachers of the school of Plato, betray
the most furious animosity, and contain the sharpest invectives, against
the sentiments and conduct of their victorious adversaries. If these
audacious libels were publicly known, we must applaud the good sense of
the Christian princes, who viewed, with a smile of contempt, the last
struggles of superstition and despair. [65] But the Imperial laws,
which prohibited the sacrifices and ceremonies of Paganism, were rigidly
executed; and every hour contributed to destroy the influence of a
religion, which was supported by custom, rather than by argument. The
devotion or the poet, or the philosopher, may be secretly nourished
by prayer, meditation, and study; but the exercise of public worship
appears to be the only solid foundation of the religious sentiments
of the people, which derive their force from imitation and habit. The
interruption of that public exercise may consummate, in the period of
a few years, the important work of a national revolution. The memory of
theological opinions cannot long be preserved, without the artificial
helps of priests, of temples, and of books. [66] The ignorant vulgar,
whose minds are still agitated by the blind hopes and terrors of
superstition, will be soon persuaded by their superiors to direct their
vows to the reigning deities of the age; and will insensibly imbibe an
ardent zeal for the support and propagation of the new doctrine, which
spiritual hunger at first compelled them to accept. The generation that
arose in the world after the promulgation of the Imperial laws, was
attracted within the pale of the Catholic church: and so rapid, yet so
gentle, was the fall of Paganism, that only twenty-eight years after
the death of Theodosius, the faint and minute vestiges were no longer
visible to the eye of the legislator. [67]

[Footnote 61: Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict,
which Theodosius might enact, (pro Templis, p. 32;) a rash joke, and a
dangerous experiment. Some princes would have taken his advice.]

[Footnote 6111: The most remarkable instance of this, at a much later
period, occurs in the person of Merobaudes, a general and a poet, who
flourished in the first half of the fifth century. A statue in honor of
Merobaudes was placed in the Forum of Trajan, of which the inscription
is still extant. Fragments of his poems have been recovered by the
industry and sagacity of Niebuhr. In one passage, Merobaudes, in
the genuine heathen spirit, attributes the ruin of the empire to the
abolition of Paganism, and almost renews the old accusation of Atheism
against Christianity. He impersonates some deity, probably Discord,
who summons Bellona to take arms for the destruction of Rome; and in
a strain of fierce irony recommends to her other fatal measures, to
extirpate the gods of Rome:--

     Roma, ipsique tremant furialia murmura reges.
     Jam superos terris atque hospita numina pelle:
     Romanos populare Deos, et nullus in aris
     Vestoe exoratoe fotus strue palleat ignis.
     Ilis instructa dolis palatia celsa subibo;
     Majorum mores, et pectora prisca fugabo
     Funditus; atque simul, nullo discrimine rerum,
     Spernantur fortes, nec sic reverentia justis.
     Attica neglecto pereat facundia Phoebo:
     Indignis contingat honos, et pondera rerum;
     Non virtus sed casus agat; tristique cupido;
     Pectoribus saevi demens furor aestuet aevi;
     Omniaque hoec sine mente Jovis, sine numine sumimo.

Merobaudes in Niebuhr's edit. of the Byzantines, p. 14.--M.]

[Footnote 62: Denique pro meritis terrestribus aequa rependens

     Munera, sacricolis summos impertit honores.

     Dux bonus, et certare sinit cum laude suorum,
     Nec pago implicitos per debita culmina mundi Ire
     viros prohibet.
     Ipse magistratum tibi consulis, ipse tribunal

     Contulit.
     Prudent. in Symmach. i. 617, &c.

Note: I have inserted some lines omitted by Gibbon.--M.]

[Footnote 63: Libanius (pro Templis, p. 32) is proud that Theodosius
should thus distinguish a man, who even in his presence would swear
by Jupiter. Yet this presence seems to be no more than a figure of
rhetoric.]

[Footnote 64: Zosimus, who styles himself Count and Ex-advocate of the
Treasury, reviles, with partial and indecent bigotry, the Christian
princes, and even the father of his sovereign. His work must have
been privately circulated, since it escaped the invectives of the
ecclesiastical historians prior to Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 40-42,)
who lived towards the end of the sixth century. * Note: Heyne in his
Disquisitio in Zosimum Ejusque Fidem. places Zosimum towards the close
of the fifth century. Zosim. Heynii, p. xvii.--M.]

[Footnote 65: Yet the Pagans of Africa complained, that the times would
not allow them to answer with freedom the City of God; nor does St.
Augustin (v. 26) deny the charge.]

[Footnote 66: The Moors of Spain, who secretly preserved the Mahometan
religion above a century, under the tyranny of the Inquisition,
possessed the Koran, with the peculiar use of the Arabic tongue. See the
curious and honest story of their expulsion in Geddes, (Miscellanies,
vol. i. p. 1-198.)]

[Footnote 67: Paganos qui supersunt, quanquam jam nullos esse credamus,
&c. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 22, A.D. 423. The younger
Theodosius was afterwards satisfied, that his judgment had been somewhat
premature. Note: The statement of Gibbon is much too strongly worded.
M. Beugnot has traced the vestiges of Paganism in the West, after this
period, in monuments and inscriptions with curious industry. Compare
likewise note, p. 112, on the more tardy progress of Christianity in the
rural districts.--M.]

The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a
dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness,
and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. They relate,
in solemn and pathetic strains, that the temples were converted into
sepulchres, and that the holy places, which had been adorned by the
statues of the gods, were basely polluted by the relics of Christian
martyrs. "The monks" (a race of filthy animals, to whom Eunapius is
tempted to refuse the name of men) "are the authors of the new
worship, which, in the place of those deities who are conceived by the
understanding, has substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves.
The heads, salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who for
the multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and ignominious
death; their bodies still marked by the impression of the lash, and
the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the sentence of the
magistrate; such" (continues Eunapius) "are the gods which the earth
produces in our days; such are the martyrs, the supreme arbitrators of
our prayers and petitions to the Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated
as the objects of the veneration of the people." [68] Without approving
the malice, it is natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist,
the spectator of a revolution, which raised those obscure victims of the
laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible protectors of the
Roman empire. The grateful respect of the Christians for the martyrs of
the faith, was exalted, by time and victory, into religious adoration;
and the most illustrious of the saints and prophets were deservedly
associated to the honors of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years
after the glorious deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican and the
Ostian road were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies,
of those spiritual heroes. [69] In the age which followed the conversion
of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the generals of armies,
devoutly visited the sepulchres of a tentmaker and a fisherman; [70]
and their venerable bones were deposited under the altars of Christ,
on which the bishops of the royal city continually offered the unbloody
sacrifice. [71] The new capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce
any ancient and domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of
dependent provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St.
Timothy, had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves,
from whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of the
apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded on the banks
of the Thracian Bosphorus. [72] About fifty years afterwards, the same
banks were honored by the presence of Samuel, the judge and prophet of
the people of Israel. His ashes, deposited in a golden vase, and covered
with a silken veil, were delivered by the bishops into each other's
hands. The relics of Samuel were received by the people with the same
joy and reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet;
the highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were filled
with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius himself,
at the head of the most illustrious members of the clergy and senate,
advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who had always deserved and
claimed the homage of kings. [73] The example of Rome and Constantinople
confirmed the faith and discipline of the Catholic world. The honors of
the saints and martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane
reason, [74] were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and
Jerom, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian
church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics,
which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the faithful.

[Footnote 68: See Eunapius, in the Life of the sophist Aedesius; in that
of Eustathius he foretells the ruin of Paganism.]

[Footnote 69: Caius, (apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 25,) a Roman
presbyter, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, (A.D. 202-219,) is an
early witness of this superstitious practice.]

[Footnote 70: Chrysostom. Quod Christus sit Deus. Tom. i. nov. edit.
No. 9. I am indebted for this quotation to Benedict the XIVth's pastoral
letter on the Jubilee of the year 1759. See the curious and entertaining
letters of M. Chais, tom. iii.]

[Footnote 71: Male facit ergo Romanus episcopus? qui, super mortuorum
hominum, Petri & Pauli, secundum nos, ossa veneranda ... offeri Domino
sacrificia, et tumulos eorum, Christi arbitratur altaria. Jerom. tom.
ii. advers. Vigilant. p. 183.]

[Footnote 72: Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) bears witness to these
translations, which are neglected by the ecclesiastical historians.
The passion of St. Andrew at Patrae is described in an epistle from the
clergy of Achaia, which Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 60, No. 34) wishes
to believe, and Tillemont is forced to reject. St. Andrew was adopted
as the spiritual founder of Constantinople, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i. p.
317-323, 588-594.)]

[Footnote 73: Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) pompously describes the
translation of Samuel, which is noticed in all the chronicles of the
times.]

[Footnote 74: The presbyter Vigilantius, the Protestant of his age,
firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of monks,
relics, saints, fasts, &c., for which Jerom compares him to the Hydra,
Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c., and considers him only as the organ of the
Daemon, (tom. ii. p. 120-126.) Whoever will peruse the controversy of
St. Jerom and Vigilantius, and St. Augustin's account of the miracles of
St. Stephen, may speedily gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers.]

In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the
reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of
saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the
Christian model: and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even
in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious
innovation.

I. The satisfactory experience, that the relics of saints were more
valuable than gold or precious stones, [75] stimulated the clergy to
multiply the treasures of the church. Without much regard for truth or
probability, they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names.
The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their
virtues, was darkened by religious fiction. To the invincible band of
genuine and primitive martyrs, they added myriads of imaginary heroes,
who had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous
legendaries; and there is reason to suspect, that Tours might not be the
only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored, instead
of those of a saint. [76] A superstitious practice, which tended
to increase the temptations of fraud, and credulity, insensibly
extinguished the light of history, and of reason, in the Christian
world.

[Footnote 75: M. de Beausobre (Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p. 648)
has applied a worldly sense to the pious observation of the clergy of
Smyrna, who carefully preserved the relics of St. Polycarp the martyr.]

[Footnote 76: Martin of Tours (see his Life, c. 8, by Sulpicius Severus)
extorted this confession from the mouth of the dead man. The error is
allowed to be natural; the discovery is supposed to be miraculous. Which
of the two was likely to happen most frequently?]

II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less rapid
and victorious, if the faith of the people had not been assisted by the
seasonable aid of visions and miracles, to ascertain the authenticity
and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of the
younger Theodosius, Lucian, [77] a presbyter of Jerusalem, and the
ecclesiastical minister of the village of Caphargamala, about twenty
miles from the city, related a very singular dream, which, to remove
his doubts, had been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable
figure stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard,
a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of Gamaliel,
and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own corpse, with
the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus, and the illustrious
Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, were secretly buried
in the adjacent field. He added, with some impatience, that it was time
to release himself and his companions from their obscure prison; that
their appearance would be salutary to a distressed world; and that they
had made choice of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their
situation and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still
retarded this important discovery were successively removed by new
visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop, in the presence of an
innumerable multitude. The coffins of Gamaliel, of his son, and of his
friend, were found in regular order; but when the fourth coffin, which
contained the remains of Stephen, was shown to the light, the earth
trembled, and an odor, such as that of paradise, was smelt, which
instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three of the assistants.
The companions of Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of
Caphargamala: but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in
solemn procession, to a church constructed in their honor on Mount Sion;
and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, [78] or the
scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every province of the
Roman world, to possess a divine and miraculous virtue. The grave and
learned Augustin, [79] whose understanding scarcely admits the excuse of
credulity, has attested the innumerable prodigies which were performed
in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is
inserted in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop
of Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of
Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares, that he has selected those
miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons who were
either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of the martyr. Many
prodigies were omitted, or forgotten; and Hippo had been less favorably
treated than the other cities of the province. And yet the bishop
enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrections
from the dead, in the space of two years, and within the limits of his
own diocese. [80] If we enlarge our view to all the dioceses, and all
the saints, of the Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the
fables, and the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source.
But we may surely be allowed to observe, that a miracle, in that age of
superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it could
scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and established
laws of nature.

[Footnote 77: Lucian composed in Greek his original narrative, which has
been translated by Avitus, and published by Baronius, (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 415, No. 7-16.) The Benedictine editors of St. Augustin have given
(at the end of the work de Civitate Dei) two several copies, with many
various readings. It is the character of falsehood to be loose and
inconsistent. The most incredible parts of the legend are smoothed and
softened by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 9, &c.)]

[Footnote 78: A phial of St. Stephen's blood was annually liquefied
at Naples, till he was superseded by St. Jamarius, (Ruinart. Hist.
Persecut. Vandal p. 529.)]

[Footnote 79: Augustin composed the two-and-twenty books de Civitate Dei
in the space of thirteen years, A.D. 413-426. Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles.
tom. xiv. p. 608, &c.) His learning is too often borrowed, and his
arguments are too often his own; but the whole work claims the merit of
a magnificent design, vigorously, and not unskilfully, executed.]

[Footnote 80: See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 22, and the
Appendix, which contains two books of St. Stephen's miracles, by
Evodius, bishop of Uzalis. Freculphus (apud Basnage, Hist. des Juifs,
tom. vii. p. 249) has preserved a Gallic or a Spanish proverb, "Whoever
pretends to have read all the miracles of St. Stephen, he lies."]

III. The innumerable miracles, of which the tombs of the martyrs were
the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the actual state
and constitution of the invisible world; and his religious speculations
appeared to be founded on the firm basis of fact and experience.
Whatever might be the condition of vulgar souls, in the long interval
between the dissolution and the resurrection of their bodies, it was
evident that the superior spirits of the saints and martyrs did not
consume that portion of their existence in silent and inglorious sleep.
[81] It was evident (without presuming to determine the place of their
habitation, or the nature of their felicity) that they enjoyed the
lively and active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and
their powers; and that they had already secured the possession of
their eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties
surpassed the measure of the human imagination; since it was proved
by experience, that they were capable of hearing and understanding the
various petitions of their numerous votaries; who, in the same moment of
time, but in the most distant parts of the world, invoked the name
and assistance of Stephen or of Martin. [82] The confidence of their
petitioners was founded on the persuasion, that the saints, who reigned
with Christ, cast an eye of pity upon earth; that they were warmly
interested in the prosperity of the Catholic Church; and that the
individuals, who imitated the example of their faith and piety, were the
peculiar and favorite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes,
indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of a less
exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the places which had
been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their death, their
burial, or the possession of their relics. The meaner passions of pride,
avarice, and revenge, may be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet
the saints themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation
of the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of
punishment were hurled against those impious wretches, who violated
their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power. [83]
Atrocious, indeed, must have been the guilt, and strange would have
been the scepticism, of those men, if they had obstinately resisted the
proofs of a divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of the
animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations of the
human mind, were compelled to obey. [84] The immediate, and almost
instantaneous, effects that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the
offence, satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favor and
authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme
God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they were
continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace; or whether
they might not be permitted to exercise, according to the dictates of
their benevolence and justice, the delegated powers of their subordinate
ministry. The imagination, which had been raised by a painful effort to
the contemplation and worship of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced
such inferior objects of adoration as were more proportioned to its
gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple
theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted; and the
Monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was
degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to
restore the reign of polytheism. [85]

[Footnote 81: Burnet (de Statu Mortuorum, p. 56-84) collects the
opinions of the Fathers, as far as they assert the sleep, or repose, of
human souls till the day of judgment. He afterwards exposes (p. 91, &c.)
the inconveniences which must arise, if they possessed a more active and
sensible existence.]

[Footnote 82: Vigilantius placed the souls of the prophets and martyrs,
either in the bosom of Abraham, (in loco refrigerii,) or else under the
altar of God. Nec posse suis tumulis et ubi voluerunt adesse praesentes.
But Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) sternly refutes this blasphemy. Tu Deo leges
pones? Tu apostolis vincula injicies, ut usque ad diem judicii teneantur
custodia, nec sint cum Domino suo; de quibus scriptum est, Sequuntur
Agnum quocunque vadit. Si Agnus ubique, ergo, et hi, qui cum Agno sunt,
ubique esse credendi sunt. Et cum diabolus et daemones tote vagentur in
orbe, &c.]

[Footnote 83: Fleury Discours sur l'Hist. Ecclesiastique, iii p. 80.]

[Footnote 84: At Minorca, the relics of St. Stephen converted, in eight
days, 540 Jews; with the help, indeed, of some wholesome severities,
such as burning the synagogue, driving the obstinate infidels to starve
among the rocks, &c. See the original letter of Severus, bishop of
Minorca (ad calcem St. Augustin. de Civ. Dei,) and the judicious remarks
of Basnage, (tom. viii. p. 245-251.)]

[Footnote 85: Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 434) observes, like a
philosopher, the natural flux and reflux of polytheism and theism.]

IV. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard
of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed
most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning
of the fifth century, [86] Tertullian, or Lactantius, [87] had been
suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular
saint, or martyr, [88] they would have gazed with astonishment, and
indignation, on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure
and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors
of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the
smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and
tapers, which diffused, at noonday, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their
opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the
altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for
the most part, of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on
the vigil of the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of
fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were imprinted on
the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and their fervent prayers
were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to
the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saint, which were usually
concealed, by a linen or silken veil, from the eyes of the vulgar.
The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of
obtaining, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual,
but more especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the
preservation of their health, or the cure of their infirmities; the
fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness of their
children. Whenever they undertook any distant or dangerous journey, they
requested, that the holy martyrs would be their guides and protectors
on the road; and if they returned without having experienced any
misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs, to
celebrate, with grateful thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory
and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with
symbols of the favors which they had received; eyes, and hands, and
feet, of gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long
escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, represented the
image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint. The same
uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most
distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity,
and of affecting the senses of mankind: [89] but it must ingenuously
be confessed, that the ministers of the Catholic church imitated
the profane model, which they were impatient to destroy. The most
respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics
would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they
found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity.
The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final
conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly
subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals. [90] [9011]

[Footnote 86: D'Aubigne (see his own Memoires, p. 156-160) frankly
offered, with the consent of the Huguenot ministers, to allow the first
400 years as the rule of faith. The Cardinal du Perron haggled for forty
years more, which were indiscreetly given. Yet neither party would have
found their account in this foolish bargain.]

[Footnote 87: The worship practised and inculcated by Tertullian,
Lactantius Arnobius, &c., is so extremely pure and spiritual, that their
declamations against the Pagan sometimes glance against the Jewish,
ceremonies.]

[Footnote 88: Faustus the Manichaean accuses the Catholics of idolatry.
Vertitis idola in martyres.... quos votis similibus colitis. M. de
Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p. 629-700,)
a Protestant, but a philosopher, has represented, with candor and
learning, the introduction of Christian idolatry in the fourth and fifth
centuries.]

[Footnote 89: The resemblance of superstition, which could not be
imitated, might be traced from Japan to Mexico. Warburton has seized
this idea, which he distorts, by rendering it too general and absolute,
(Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 126, &c.)]

[Footnote 90: The imitation of Paganism is the subject of Dr.
Middleton's agreeable letter from Rome. Warburton's animadversions
obliged him to connect (vol. iii. p. 120-132,) the history of the two
religions, and to prove the antiquity of the Christian copy.]

[Footnote 9011: But there was always this important difference between
Christian and heathen Polytheism. In Paganism this was the whole
religion; in the darkest ages of Christianity, some, however obscure and
vague, Christian notions of future retribution, of the life after death,
lurked at the bottom, and operated, to a certain extent, on the thoughts
and feelings, sometimes on the actions.--M.]




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

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

The genius of Rome expired with Theodosius; the last of the successors
of Augustus and Constantine, who appeared in the field at the head
of their armies, and whose authority was universally acknowledged
throughout the whole extent of the empire. The memory of his virtues
still continued, however, to protect the feeble and inexperienced youth
of his two sons. After the death of their father, Arcadius and Honorius
were saluted, by the unanimous consent of mankind, as the lawful
emperors of the East, and of the West; and the oath of fidelity was
eagerly taken by every order of the state; the senates of old and
new Rome, the clergy, the magistrates, the soldiers, and the people.
Arcadius, who was then about eighteen years of age, was born in Spain,
in the humble habitation of a private family. But he received a princely
education in the palace of Constantinople; and his inglorious life was
spent in that peaceful and splendid seat of royalty, from whence he
appeared to reign over the provinces of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and
Egypt, from the Lower Danube to the confines of Persia and Aethiopia.
His younger brother Honorius, assumed, in the eleventh year of his age,
the nominal government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain; and
the troops, which guarded the frontiers of his kingdom, were opposed, on
one side, to the Caledonians, and on the other, to the Moors. The
great and martial praefecture of Illyricum was divided between the
two princes: the defence and possession of the provinces of Noricum,
Pannonia, and Dalmatia still belonged to the Western empire; but the two
large dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia, which Gratian had intrusted to
the valor of Theodosius, were forever united to the empire of the East.
The boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which now
separates the Germans and the Turks; and the respective advantages of
territory, riches, populousness, and military strength, were fairly
balanced and compensated, in this final and permanent division of the
Roman empire. The hereditary sceptre of the sons of Theodosius appeared
to be the gift of nature, and of their father; the generals and
ministers had been accustomed to adore the majesty of the royal infants;
and the army and people were not admonished of their rights, and of
their power, by the dangerous example of a recent election. The gradual
discovery of the weakness of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated
calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the deep
and early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who still
reverenced the persons, or rather the names, of their sovereigns,
beheld, with equal abhorrence, the rebels who opposed, and the ministers
who abused, the authority of the throne.

Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation of
Rufinus; an odious favorite, who, in an age of civil and religious
faction, has deserved, from every party, the imputation of every crime.
The strong impulse of ambition and avarice [1] had urged Rufinus to
abandon his native country, an obscure corner of Gaul, [2] to advance
his fortune in the capital of the East: the talent of bold and ready
elocution, [3] qualified him to succeed in the lucrative profession of
the law; and his success in that profession was a regular step to the
most honorable and important employments of the state. He was raised, by
just degrees, to the station of master of the offices. In the exercise
of his various functions, so essentially connected with the whole system
of civil government, he acquired the confidence of a monarch, who soon
discovered his diligence and capacity in business, and who long
remained ignorant of the pride, the malice, and the covetousness of his
disposition. These vices were concealed beneath the mask of profound
dissimulation; [4] his passions were subservient only to the passions
of his master; yet in the horrid massacre of Thessalonica, the cruel
Rufinus inflamed the fury, without imitating the repentance, of
Theodosius. The minister, who viewed with proud indifference the rest
of mankind, never forgave the appearance of an injury; and his personal
enemies had forfeited, in his opinion, the merit of all public services.
Promotus, the master-general of the infantry, had saved the empire
from the invasion of the Ostrogoths; but he indignantly supported the
preeminence of a rival, whose character and profession he despised; and
in the midst of a public council, the impatient soldier was provoked
to chastise with a blow the indecent pride of the favorite. This act
of violence was represented to the emperor as an insult, which it was
incumbent on his dignity to resent. The disgrace and exile of Promotus
were signified by a peremptory order, to repair, without delay, to
a military station on the banks of the Danube; and the death of that
general (though he was slain in a skirmish with the Barbarians) was
imputed to the perfidious arts of Rufinus. [5] The sacrifice of a hero
gratified his revenge; the honors of the consulship elated his vanity;
but his power was still imperfect and precarious, as long as
the important posts of praefect of the East, and of praefect of
Constantinople, were filled by Tatian, [6] and his son Proculus; whose
united authority balanced, for some time, the ambition and favor of
the master of the offices. The two praefects were accused of rapine and
corruption in the administration of the laws and finances. For the
trial of these illustrious offenders, the emperor constituted a special
commission: several judges were named to share the guilt and reproach
of injustice; but the right of pronouncing sentence was reserved to the
president alone, and that president was Rufinus himself. The father,
stripped of the praefecture of the East, was thrown into a dungeon; but
the son, conscious that few ministers can be found innocent, where an
enemy is their judge, had secretly escaped; and Rufinus must have
been satisfied with the least obnoxious victim, if despotism had not
condescended to employ the basest and most ungenerous artifice. The
prosecution was conducted with an appearance of equity and moderation,
which flattered Tatian with the hope of a favorable event: his
confidence was fortified by the solemn assurances, and perfidious
oaths, of the president, who presumed to interpose the sacred name of
Theodosius himself; and the unhappy father was at last persuaded to
recall, by a private letter, the fugitive Proculus. He was instantly
seized, examined, condemned, and beheaded, in one of the suburbs of
Constantinople, with a precipitation which disappointed the clemency of
the emperor. Without respecting the misfortunes of a consular senator,
the cruel judges of Tatian compelled him to behold the execution of his
son: the fatal cord was fastened round his own neck; but in the moment
when he expected. and perhaps desired, the relief of a speedy death, he
was permitted to consume the miserable remnant of his old age in poverty
and exile. [7] The punishment of the two praefects might, perhaps, be
excused by the exceptionable parts of their own conduct; the enmity
of Rufinus might be palliated by the jealous and unsociable nature
of ambition. But he indulged a spirit of revenge equally repugnant to
prudence and to justice, when he degraded their native country of Lycia
from the rank of Roman provinces; stigmatized a guiltless people with
a mark of ignominy; and declared, that the countrymen of Tatian and
Proculus should forever remain incapable of holding any employment of
honor or advantage under the Imperial government. [8] The new praefect
of the East (for Rufinus instantly succeeded to the vacant honors of
his adversary) was not diverted, however, by the most criminal pursuits,
from the performance of the religious duties, which in that age
were considered as the most essential to salvation. In the suburb of
Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, he had built a magnificent villa; to which
he devoutly added a stately church, consecrated to the apostles St.
Peter and St. Paul, and continually sanctified by the prayers and
penance of a regular society of monks. A numerous, and almost general,
synod of the bishops of the Eastern empire, was summoned to celebrate,
at the same time, the dedication of the church, and the baptism of the
founder. This double ceremony was performed with extraordinary pomp; and
when Rufinus was purified, in the holy font, from all the sins that
he had hitherto committed, a venerable hermit of Egypt rashly proposed
himself as the sponsor of a proud and ambitious statesman. [9]

[Footnote 1: Alecto, envious of the public felicity, convenes an
infernal synod Megaera recommends her pupil Rufinus, and excites him
to deeds of mischief, &c. But there is as much difference between
Claudian's fury and that of Virgil, as between the characters of Turnus
and Rufinus.]

[Footnote 2: It is evident, (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 770,)
though De Marca is ashamed of his countryman, that Rufinus was born at
Elusa, the metropolis of Novempopulania, now a small village of Gassony,
(D'Anville, Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 289.)]

[Footnote 3: Philostorgius, l. xi c. 3, with Godefroy's Dissert. p.
440.]

[Footnote 4: A passage of Suidas is expressive of his profound
dissimulation.]

[Footnote 5: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 272, 273.]

[Footnote 6: Zosimus, who describes the fall of Tatian and his son, (l.
iv. p. 273, 274,) asserts their innocence; and even his testimony may
outweigh the charges of their enemies, (Cod. Theod. tom. iv. p. 489,)
who accuse them of oppressing the Curiae. The connection of Tatian
with the Arians, while he was praefect of Egypt, (A.D. 373,) inclines
Tillemont to believe that he was guilty of every crime, (Hist. des Emp.
tom. v. p. 360. Mem. Eccles. tom vi. p. 589.)]

[Footnote 7:--Juvenum rorantia colla Ante patrum vultus stricta cecidere
securi.

     Ibat grandaevus nato moriente superstes
     Post trabeas exsul.
    ---In Rufin. i. 248.

The facts of Zosimus explain the allusions of Claudian; but his classic
interpreters were ignorant of the fourth century. The fatal cord,
I found, with the help of Tillemont, in a sermon of St. Asterius of
Amasea.]

[Footnote 8: This odious law is recited and repealed by Arcadius, (A.D.
296,) on the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxviii. leg. 9. The sense
as it is explained by Claudian, (in Rufin. i. 234,) and Godefroy, (tom.
iii. p. 279,) is perfectly clear.

    ---Exscindere cives
     Funditus; et nomen gentis delere laborat.

The scruples of Pagi and Tillemont can arise only from their zeal for
the glory of Theodosius.]

[Footnote 9: Ammonius.... Rufinum propriis manibus suscepit sacro fonte
mundatum. See Rosweyde's Vitae Patrum, p. 947. Sozomen (l. viii. c. 17)
mentions the church and monastery; and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. ix.
p. 593) records this synod, in which St. Gregory of Nyssa performed a
conspicuous part.]

The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task of
hypocrisy, which disguised, and sometimes restrained, the abuse of
power; and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing the indolent slumber
of a prince still capable of exerting the abilities and the virtue,
which had raised him to the throne. [10] But the absence, and, soon
afterwards, the death, of the emperor, confirmed the absolute authority
of Rufinus over the person and dominions of Arcadius; a feeble youth,
whom the imperious praefect considered as his pupil, rather than his
sovereign. Regardless of the public opinion, he indulged his passions
without remorse, and without resistance; and his malignant and rapacious
spirit rejected every passion that might have contributed to his own
glory, or the happiness of the people. His avarice, [11] which seems
to have prevailed, in his corrupt mind, over every other sentiment,
attracted the wealth of the East, by the various arts of partial and
general extortion; oppressive taxes, scandalous bribery, immoderate
fines, unjust confiscations, forced or fictitious testaments, by
which the tyrant despoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of
strangers, or enemies; and the public sale of justice, as well as
of favor, which he instituted in the palace of Constantinople. The
ambitious candidate eagerly solicited, at the expense of the fairest
part of his patrimony, the honors and emoluments of some provincial
government; the lives and fortunes of the unhappy people were abandoned
to the most liberal purchaser; and the public discontent was sometimes
appeased by the sacrifice of an unpopular criminal, whose punishment
was profitable only to the praefect of the East, his accomplice and
his judge. If avarice were not the blindest of the human passions, the
motives of Rufinus might excite our curiosity; and we might be tempted
to inquire with what view he violated every principle of humanity and
justice, to accumulate those immense treasures, which he could not spend
without folly, nor possess without danger. Perhaps he vainly imagined,
that he labored for the interest of an only daughter, on whom he
intended to bestow his royal pupil, and the august rank of Empress of
the East. Perhaps he deceived himself by the opinion, that his avarice
was the instrument of his ambition. He aspired to place his fortune on
a secure and independent basis, which should no longer depend on the
caprice of the young emperor; yet he neglected to conciliate the hearts
of the soldiers and people, by the liberal distribution of those riches,
which he had acquired with so much toil, and with so much guilt. The
extreme parsimony of Rufinus left him only the reproach and envy of
ill-gotten wealth; his dependants served him without attachment; the
universal hatred of mankind was repressed only by the influence of
servile fear. The fate of Lucian proclaimed to the East, that the
praefect, whose industry was much abated in the despatch of ordinary
business, was active and indefatigable in the pursuit of revenge.
Lucian, the son of the praefect Florentius, the oppressor of Gaul,
and the enemy of Julian, had employed a considerable part of his
inheritance, the fruit of rapine and corruption, to purchase the
friendship of Rufinus, and the high office of Count of the East. But the
new magistrate imprudently departed from the maxims of the court, and
of the times; disgraced his benefactor by the contrast of a virtuous and
temperate administration; and presumed to refuse an act of injustice,
which might have tended to the profit of the emperor's uncle. Arcadius
was easily persuaded to resent the supposed insult; and the praefect
of the East resolved to execute in person the cruel vengeance, which he
meditated against this ungrateful delegate of his power. He performed
with incessant speed the journey of seven or eight hundred miles, from
Constantinople to Antioch, entered the capital of Syria at the dead of
night, and spread universal consternation among a people ignorant of
his design, but not ignorant of his character. The Count of the fifteen
provinces of the East was dragged, like the vilest malefactor, before
the arbitrary tribunal of Rufinus. Notwithstanding the clearest evidence
of his integrity, which was not impeached even by the voice of an
accuser, Lucian was condemned, almost with out a trial, to suffer a
cruel and ignominious punishment. The ministers of the tyrant, by the
orders, and in the presence, of their master, beat him on the neck with
leather thongs armed at the extremities with lead; and when he fainted
under the violence of the pain, he was removed in a close litter, to
conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the indignant city. No
sooner had Rufinus perpetrated this inhuman act, the sole object of his
expedition, than he returned, amidst the deep and silent curses of a
trembling people, from Antioch to Constantinople; and his diligence was
accelerated by the hope of accomplishing, without delay, the nuptials of
his daughter with the emperor of the East. [12]

[Footnote 10: Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 12) praises one
of the laws of Theodosius addressed to the praefect Rufinus, (l. ix.
tit. iv. leg. unic.,) to discourage the prosecution of treasonable, or
sacrilegious, words. A tyrannical statute always proves the existence of
tyranny; but a laudable edict may only contain the specious professions,
or ineffectual wishes, of the prince, or his ministers. This, I am
afraid, is a just, though mortifying, canon of criticism.]

[Footnote 11:

     --fluctibus auri Expleri sitis ista nequit--
     *****
     Congestae cumulantur opes; orbisque ruinas Accipit una domus.

This character (Claudian, in. Rufin. i. 184-220) is confirmed by Jerom,
a disinterested witness, (dedecus insatiabilis avaritiae, tom. i. ad
Heliodor. p. 26,) by Zosimus, (l. v. p. 286,) and by Suidas, who copied
the history of Eunapius.]

[Footnote 12:

     --Caetera segnis;
     Ad facinus velox; penitus regione remotas
     Impiger ire vias.

This allusion of Claudian (in Rufin. i. 241) is again explained by the
circumstantial narrative of Zosimus, (l. v. p. 288, 289.)]

But Rufinus soon experienced, that a prudent minister should constantly
secure his royal captive by the strong, though invisible chain of habit;
and that the merit, and much more easily the favor, of the absent,
are obliterated in a short time from the mind of a weak and capricious
sovereign. While the praefect satiated his revenge at Antioch, a secret
conspiracy of the favorite eunuchs, directed by the great chamberlain
Eutropius, undermined his power in the palace of Constantinople. They
discovered that Arcadius was not inclined to love the daughter of
Rufinus, who had been chosen, without his consent, for his bride; and
they contrived to substitute in her place the fair Eudoxia, the daughter
of Bauto, [13] a general of the Franks in the service of Rome; and who
was educated, since the death of her father, in the family of the sons
of Promotus. The young emperor, whose chastity had been strictly guarded
by the pious care of his tutor Arsenius, [14] eagerly listened to the
artful and flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia: he gazed
with impatient ardor on her picture, and he understood the necessity of
concealing his amorous designs from the knowledge of a minister who was
so deeply interested to oppose the consummation of his happiness. Soon
after the return of Rufinus, the approaching ceremony of the royal
nuptials was announced to the people of Constantinople, who prepared
to celebrate, with false and hollow acclamations, the fortune of his
daughter. A splendid train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal
pomp, from the gates of the palace; bearing aloft the diadem, the
robes, and the inestimable ornaments, of the future empress. The solemn
procession passed through the streets of the city, which were adorned
with garlands, and filled with spectators; but when it reached the house
of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch respectfully entered
the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with the Imperial robes, and
conducted her in triumph to the palace and bed of Arcadius. [15] The
secrecy and success with which this conspiracy against Rufinus had been
conducted, imprinted a mark of indelible ridicule on the character of a
minister, who had suffered himself to be deceived, in a post where
the arts of deceit and dissimulation constitute the most distinguished
merit. He considered, with a mixture of indignation and fear, the
victory of an aspiring eunuch, who had secretly captivated the favor
of his sovereign; and the disgrace of his daughter, whose interest
was inseparably connected with his own, wounded the tenderness, or, at
least, the pride of Rufinus. At the moment when he flattered himself
that he should become the father of a line of kings, a foreign maid, who
had been educated in the house of his implacable enemies, was introduced
into the Imperial bed; and Eudoxia soon displayed a superiority of sense
and spirit, to improve the ascendant which her beauty must acquire
over the mind of a fond and youthful husband. The emperor would soon be
instructed to hate, to fear, and to destroy the powerful subject, whom
he had injured; and the consciousness of guilt deprived Rufinus of every
hope, either of safety or comfort, in the retirement of a private
life. But he still possessed the most effectual means of defending
his dignity, and perhaps of oppressing his enemies. The praefect
still exercised an uncontrolled authority over the civil and military
government of the East; and his treasures, if he could resolve to use
them, might be employed to procure proper instruments for the execution
of the blackest designs, that pride, ambition, and revenge could suggest
to a desperate statesman. The character of Rufinus seemed to justify the
accusations that he conspired against the person of his sovereign, to
seat himself on the vacant throne; and that he had secretly invited
the Huns and the Goths to invade the provinces of the empire, and to
increase the public confusion. The subtle praefect, whose life had been
spent in the intrigues of the palace, opposed, with equal arms, the
artful measures of the eunuch Eutropius; but the timid soul of Rufinus
was astonished by the hostile approach of a more formidable rival, of
the great Stilicho, the general, or rather the master, of the empire of
the West. [16]

[Footnote 13: Zosimus (l. iv. p. 243) praises the valor, prudence, and
integrity of Bauto the Frank. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
v. p. 771.]

[Footnote 14: Arsenius escaped from the palace of Constantinople, and
passed fifty-five years in rigid penance in the monasteries of Egypt.
See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 676-702; and Fleury, Hist
Eccles. tom. v. p. 1, &c.; but the latter, for want of authentic
materials, has given too much credit to the legend of Metaphrastes.]

[Footnote 15: This story (Zosimus, l. v. p. 290) proves that the
hymeneal rites of antiquity were still practised, without idolatry, by
the Christians of the East; and the bride was forcibly conducted from
the house of her parents to that of her husband. Our form of marriage
requires, with less delicacy, the express and public consent of a
virgin.]

[Footnote 16: Zosimus, (l. v. p. 290,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 37,) and
the Chronicle of Marcellinus. Claudian (in Rufin. ii. 7-100) paints, in
lively colors, the distress and guilt of the praefect.]

The celestial gift, which Achilles obtained, and Alexander envied, of
a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes has been enjoyed by
Stilicho, in a much higher degree than might have been expected from
the declining state of genius, and of art. The muse of Claudian,
[17] devoted to his service, was always prepared to stigmatize his
adversaries, Rufinus, or Eutropius, with eternal infamy; or to paint,
in the most splendid colors, the victories and virtues of a powerful
benefactor. In the review of a period indifferently supplied with
authentic materials, we cannot refuse to illustrate the annals of
Honorius, from the invectives, or the panegyrics, of a contemporary
writer; but as Claudian appears to have indulged the most ample
privilege of a poet and a courtier, some criticism will be requisite to
translate the language of fiction or exaggeration, into the truth and
simplicity of historic prose. His silence concerning the family of
Stilicho may be admitted as a proof, that his patron was neither able,
nor desirous, to boast of a long series of illustrious progenitors; and
the slight mention of his father, an officer of Barbarian cavalry in the
service of Valens, seems to countenance the assertion, that the general,
who so long commanded the armies of Rome, was descended from the savage
and perfidious race of the Vandals. [18] If Stilicho had not possessed
the external advantages of strength and stature, the most flattering
bard, in the presence of so many thousand spectators, would have
hesitated to affirm, that he surpassed the measure of the demi-gods of
antiquity; and that whenever he moved, with lofty steps, through the
streets of the capital, the astonished crowd made room for the stranger,
who displayed, in a private condition, the awful majesty of a hero. From
his earliest youth he embraced the profession of arms; his prudence and
valor were soon distinguished in the field; the horsemen and archers
of the East admired his superior dexterity; and in each degree of his
military promotions, the public judgment always prevented and approved
the choice of the sovereign. He was named, by Theodosius, to ratify
a solemn treaty with the monarch of Persia; he supported, during that
important embassy, the dignity of the Roman name; and after he return
to Constantinople, his merit was rewarded by an intimate and honorable
alliance with the Imperial family. Theodosius had been prompted, by a
pious motive of fraternal affection, to adopt, for his own, the daughter
of his brother Honorius; the beauty and accomplishments of Serena [19]
were universally admired by the obsequious court; and Stilicho obtained
the preference over a crowd of rivals, who ambitiously disputed the hand
of the princess, and the favor of her adopted father. [20] The assurance
that the husband of Serena would be faithful to the throne, which he was
permitted to approach, engaged the emperor to exalt the fortunes, and to
employ the abilities, of the sagacious and intrepid Stilicho. He rose,
through the successive steps of master of the horse, and count of the
domestics, to the supreme rank of master-general of all the cavalry and
infantry of the Roman, or at least of the Western, empire; [21] and his
enemies confessed, that he invariably disdained to barter for gold
the rewards of merit, or to defraud the soldiers of the pay and
gratifications which they deserved or claimed, from the liberality of
the state. [22] The valor and conduct which he afterwards displayed,
in the defence of Italy, against the arms of Alaric and Radagaisus, may
justify the fame of his early achievements and in an age less attentive
to the laws of honor, or of pride, the Roman generals might yield
the preeminence of rank, to the ascendant of superior genius. [23]
He lamented, and revenged, the murder of Promotus, his rival and his
friend; and the massacre of many thousands of the flying Bastarnae is
represented by the poet as a bloody sacrifice, which the Roman Achilles
offered to the manes of another Patroclus. The virtues and victories of
Stilicho deserved the hatred of Rufinus: and the arts of calumny might
have been successful if the tender and vigilant Serena had not protected
her husband against his domestic foes, whilst he vanquished in the
field the enemies of the empire. [24] Theodosius continued to support an
unworthy minister, to whose diligence he delegated the government of
the palace, and of the East; but when he marched against the tyrant
Eugenius, he associated his faithful general to the labors and glories
of the civil war; and in the last moments of his life, the dying monarch
recommended to Stilicho the care of his sons, and of the republic.
[25] The ambition and the abilities of Stilicho were not unequal to the
important trust; and he claimed the guardianship of the two empires,
during the minority of Arcadius and Honorius. [26] The first measure of
his administration, or rather of his reign, displayed to the nations the
vigor and activity of a spirit worthy to command. He passed the Alps
in the depth of winter; descended the stream of the Rhine, from the
fortress of Basil to the marshes of Batavia; reviewed the state of
the garrisons; repressed the enterprises of the Germans; and, after
establishing along the banks a firm and honorable peace, returned, with
incredible speed, to the palace of Milan. [27] The person and court of
Honorius were subject to the master-general of the West; and the armies
and provinces of Europe obeyed, without hesitation, a regular authority,
which was exercised in the name of their young sovereign. Two rivals
only remained to dispute the claims, and to provoke the vengeance, of
Stilicho. Within the limits of Africa, Gildo, the Moor, maintained a
proud and dangerous independence; and the minister of Constantinople
asserted his equal reign over the emperor, and the empire, of the East.

[Footnote 17: Stilicho, directly or indirectly, is the perpetual
theme of Claudian. The youth and private life of the hero are vaguely
expressed in the poem on his first consulship, 35-140.]

[Footnote 18: Vandalorum, imbellis, avarae, perfidae, et dolosae,
gentis, genere editus. Orosius, l. vii. c. 38. Jerom (tom. i. ad
Gerontiam, p. 93) call him a Semi-Barbarian.]

[Footnote 19: Claudian, in an imperfect poem, has drawn a fair, perhaps
a flattering, portrait of Serena. That favorite niece of Theodosius was
born, as well as here sister Thermantia, in Spain; from whence, in
their earliest youth, they were honorably conducted to the palace of
Constantinople.]

[Footnote 20: Some doubt may be entertained, whether this adoption was
legal or only metaphorical, (see Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 75.) An
old inscription gives Stilicho the singular title of Pro-gener Divi
Theodosius]

[Footnote 21: Claudian (Laus Serenae, 190, 193) expresses, in poetic
language "the dilectus equorum," and the "gemino mox idem culmine duxit
agmina." The inscription adds, "count of the domestics," an important
command, which Stilicho, in the height of his grandeur, might prudently
retain.]

[Footnote 22: The beautiful lines of Claudian (in i. Cons. Stilich. ii.
113) displays his genius; but the integrity of Stilicho (in the military
administration) is much more firmly established by the unwilling
evidence of Zosimus, (l. v. p. 345.)]

[Footnote 23:--Si bellica moles Ingrueret, quamvis annis et jure minori,

    Cedere grandaevos equitum peditumque magistros

Adspiceres. Claudian, Laus Seren. p. 196, &c. A modern general would
deem their submission either heroic patriotism or abject servility.]

[Footnote 24: Compare the poem on the first consulship (i. 95-115) with
the Laus Serenoe (227-237, where it unfortunately breaks off.) We may
perceive the deep, inveterate malice of Rufinus.]

[Footnote 25:--Quem fratribus ipse Discedens, clypeum defensoremque
dedisti. Yet the nomination (iv. Cons. Hon. 432) was private, (iii.
Cons. Hon. 142,) cunctos discedere... jubet; and may therefore be
suspected. Zosimus and Suidas apply to Stilicho and Rufinus the same
equal title of guardians, or procurators.]

[Footnote 26: The Roman law distinguishes two sorts of minority, which
expired at the age of fourteen, and of twenty-five. The one was subject
to the tutor, or guardian, of the person; the other, to the curator, or
trustee, of the estate, (Heineccius, Antiquitat. Rom. ad Jurisprudent.
pertinent. l. i. tit. xxii. xxiii. p. 218-232.) But these legal ideas
were never accurately transferred into the constitution of an elective
monarchy.]

[Footnote 27: See Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. i. 188-242;) but he must
allow more than fifteen days for the journey and return between Milan
and Leyden.]




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

The impartiality which Stilicho affected, as the common guardian of the
royal brothers, engaged him to regulate the equal division of the arms,
the jewels, and the magnificent wardrobe and furniture of the deceased
emperor. [28] But the most important object of the inheritance
consisted of the numerous legions, cohorts, and squadrons, of Romans,
or Barbarians, whom the event of the civil war had united under the
standard of Theodosius. The various multitudes of Europe and Asia,
exasperated by recent animosities, were overawed by the authority of a
single man; and the rigid discipline of Stilicho protected the lands of
the citizens from the rapine of the licentious soldier. [29] Anxious,
however, and impatient, to relieve Italy from the presence of this
formidable host, which could be useful only on the frontiers of the
empire, he listened to the just requisition of the minister of Arcadius,
declared his intention of reconducting in person the troops of the East,
and dexterously employed the rumor of a Gothic tumult to conceal his
private designs of ambition and revenge. [30] The guilty soul of Rufinus
was alarmed by the approach of a warrior and a rival, whose enmity he
deserved; he computed, with increasing terror, the narrow space of his
life and greatness; and, as the last hope of safety, he interposed
the authority of the emperor Arcadius. Stilicho, who appears to have
directed his march along the sea-coast of the Adriatic, was not far
distant from the city of Thessalonica, when he received a peremptory
message, to recall the troops of the East, and to declare, that his
nearer approach would be considered, by the Byzantine court, as an act
of hostility. The prompt and unexpected obedience of the general of the
West, convinced the vulgar of his loyalty and moderation; and, as he had
already engaged the affection of the Eastern troops, he recommended
to their zeal the execution of his bloody design, which might be
accomplished in his absence, with less danger, perhaps, and with less
reproach. Stilicho left the command of the troops of the East to Gainas,
the Goth, on whose fidelity he firmly relied, with an assurance, at
least, that the hardy Barbarians would never be diverted from his
purpose by any consideration of fear or remorse. The soldiers were
easily persuaded to punish the enemy of Stilicho and of Rome; and such
was the general hatred which Rufinus had excited, that the fatal secret,
communicated to thousands, was faithfully preserved during the long
march from Thessalonica to the gates of Constantinople. As soon as they
had resolved his death, they condescended to flatter his pride;
the ambitious praefect was seduced to believe, that those powerful
auxiliaries might be tempted to place the diadem on his head; and the
treasures which he distributed, with a tardy and reluctant hand, were
accepted by the indignant multitude as an insult, rather than as a gift.
At the distance of a mile from the capital, in the field of Mars, before
the palace of Hebdomon, the troops halted: and the emperor, as well as
his minister, advanced, according to ancient custom, respectfully to
salute the power which supported their throne. As Rufinus passed along
the ranks, and disguised, with studied courtesy, his innate haughtiness,
the wings insensibly wheeled from the right and left, and enclosed the
devoted victim within the circle of their arms. Before he could reflect
on the danger of his situation, Gainas gave the signal of death; a
daring and forward soldier plunged his sword into the breast of the
guilty praefect, and Rufinus fell, groaned, and expired, at the feet
of the affrighted emperor. If the agonies of a moment could expiate the
crimes of a whole life, or if the outrages inflicted on a breathless
corpse could be the object of pity, our humanity might perhaps be
affected by the horrid circumstances which accompanied the murder
of Rufinus. His mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of the
populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds, from every quarter of
the city, to trample on the remains of the haughty minister, at whose
frown they had so lately trembled. His right hand was cut off, and
carried through the streets of Constantinople, in cruel mockery, to
extort contributions for the avaricious tyrant, whose head was publicly
exposed, borne aloft on the point of a long lance. [31] According to
the savage maxims of the Greek republics, his innocent family would have
shared the punishment of his crimes. The wife and daughter of Rufinus
were indebted for their safety to the influence of religion. Her
sanctuary protected them from the raging madness of the people; and they
were permitted to spend the remainder of their lives in the exercise of
Christian devotions, in the peaceful retirement of Jerusalem. [32]

[Footnote 28: I. Cons. Stilich. ii. 88-94. Not only the robes and
diadems of the deceased emperor, but even the helmets, sword-hilts,
belts, rasses, &c., were enriched with pearls, emeralds, and diamonds.]

[Footnote 29:--Tantoque remoto Principe, mutatas orbis non sensit
habenas. This high commendation (i. Cons. Stil. i. 149) may be justified
by the fears of the dying emperor, (de Bell. Gildon. 292-301;) and the
peace and good order which were enjoyed after his death, (i. Cons. Stil
i. 150-168.)]

[Footnote 30: Stilicho's march, and the death of Rufinus, are described
by Claudian, (in Rufin. l. ii. 101-453, Zosimus, l. v. p. 296, 297,)
Sozomen (l. viii. c. 1,) Socrates, l. vi. c. 1,) Philostorgius, (l. xi
c. 3, with Godefory, p. 441,) and the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]

[Footnote 31: The dissection of Rufinus, which Claudian performs
with the savage coolness of an anatomist, (in Rufin. ii. 405-415,) is
likewise specified by Zosimus and Jerom, (tom. i. p. 26.)]

[Footnote 32: The Pagan Zosimus mentions their sanctuary and pilgrimage.
The sister of Rufinus, Sylvania, who passed her life at Jerusalem, is
famous in monastic history. 1. The studious virgin had diligently, and
even repeatedly, perused the commentators on the Bible, Origen, Gregory,
Basil, &c., to the amount of five millions of lines. 2. At the age of
threescore, she could boast, that she had never washed her hands, face,
or any part of her whole body, except the tips of her fingers to receive
the communion. See the Vitae Patrum, p. 779, 977.] The servile poet of
Stilicho applauds, with ferocious joy, this horrid deed, which, in
the execution, perhaps, of justice, violated every law of nature and
society, profaned the majesty of the prince, and renewed the dangerous
examples of military license. The contemplation of the universal order
and harmony had satisfied Claudian of the existence of the Deity;
but the prosperous impunity of vice appeared to contradict his moral
attributes; and the fate of Rufinus was the only event which could
dispel the religious doubts of the poet. [33] Such an act might
vindicate the honor of Providence, but it did not much contribute to the
happiness of the people. In less than three months they were informed
of the maxims of the new administration, by a singular edict, which
established the exclusive right of the treasury over the spoils of
Rufinus; and silenced, under heavy penalties, the presumptuous claims
of the subjects of the Eastern empire, who had been injured by his
rapacious tyranny. [34] Even Stilicho did not derive from the murder of
his rival the fruit which he had proposed; and though he gratified his
revenge, his ambition was disappointed. Under the name of a favorite,
the weakness of Arcadius required a master, but he naturally preferred
the obsequious arts of the eunuch Eutropius, who had obtained his
domestic confidence: and the emperor contemplated, with terror and
aversion, the stern genius of a foreign warrior. Till they were divided
by the jealousy of power, the sword of Gainas, and the charms of
Eudoxia, supported the favor of the great chamberlain of the palace: the
perfidious Goth, who was appointed master-general of the East, betrayed,
without scruple, the interest of his benefactor; and the same troops,
who had so lately massacred the enemy of Stilicho, were engaged to
support, against him, the independence of the throne of Constantinople.
The favorites of Arcadius fomented a secret and irreconcilable war
against a formidable hero, who aspired to govern, and to defend, the
two empires of Rome, and the two sons of Theodosius. They incessantly
labored, by dark and treacherous machinations, to deprive him of the
esteem of the prince, the respect of the people, and the friendship of
the Barbarians. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly attempted by the
dagger of hired assassins; and a decree was obtained from the senate
of Constantinople, to declare him an enemy of the republic, and to
confiscate his ample possessions in the provinces of the East. At a time
when the only hope of delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on
the firm union, and reciprocal aid, of all the nations to whom it had
been gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius
were instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other in a
foreign, and even hostile, light; to rejoice in their mutual calamities,
and to embrace, as their faithful allies, the Barbarians, whom they
excited to invade the territories of their countrymen. [35] The natives
of Italy affected to despise the servile and effeminate Greeks of
Byzantium, who presumed to imitate the dress, and to usurp the dignity,
of Roman senators; [36] and the Greeks had not yet forgot the sentiments
of hatred and contempt, which their polished ancestors had so long
entertained for the rude inhabitants of the West. The distinction of
two governments, which soon produced the separation of two nations, will
justify my design of suspending the series of the Byzantine history, to
prosecute, without interruption, the disgraceful, but memorable, reign
of Honorius.

[Footnote 33: See the beautiful exordium of his invective against
Rufinus, which is curiously discussed by the sceptic Bayle, Dictionnaire
Critique, Rufin. Not. E.]

[Footnote 34: See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xlii. leg. 14, 15.
The new ministers attempted, with inconsistent avarice, to seize
the spoils of their predecessor, and to provide for their own future
security.]

[Footnote 35: See Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich, l. i. 275, 292, 296, l.
ii. 83,) and Zosimus, (l. v. p. 302.)]

[Footnote 36: Claudian turns the consulship of the eunuch Eutropius into
a national reflection, (l. ii. 134):--

    ---Plaudentem cerne senatum,
     Et Byzantinos proceres Graiosque Quirites:
     O patribus plebes, O digni consule patres.

It is curious to observe the first symptoms of jealousy and schism
between old and new Rome, between the Greeks and Latins.]

The prudent Stilicho, instead of persisting to force the inclinations
of a prince, and people, who rejected his government, wisely abandoned
Arcadius to his unworthy favorites; and his reluctance to involve the
two empires in a civil war displayed the moderation of a minister,
who had so often signalized his military spirit and abilities. But if
Stilicho had any longer endured the revolt of Africa, he would have
betrayed the security of the capital, and the majesty of the Western
emperor, to the capricious insolence of a Moorish rebel. Gildo, [37] the
brother of the tyrant Firmus, had preserved and obtained, as the reward
of his apparent fidelity, the immense patrimony which was forfeited by
treason: long and meritorious service, in the armies of Rome, raised him
to the dignity of a military count; the narrow policy of the court of
Theodosius had adopted the mischievous expedient of supporting a legal
government by the interest of a powerful family; and the brother of
Firmus was invested with the command of Africa. His ambition soon
usurped the administration of justice, and of the finances, without
account, and without control; and he maintained, during a reign of
twelve years, the possession of an office, from which it was impossible
to remove him, without the danger of a civil war. During those twelve
years, the provinces of Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant,
who seemed to unite the unfeeling temper of a stranger with the partial
resentments of domestic faction. The forms of law were often superseded
by the use of poison; and if the trembling guests, who were invited to
the table of Gildo, presumed to express fears, the insolent suspicion
served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the ministers of
death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of avarice and lust;
[38] and if his days were terrible to the rich, his nights were not
less dreadful to husbands and parents. The fairest of their wives and
daughters were prostituted to the embraces of the tyrant; and afterwards
abandoned to a ferocious troop of Barbarians and assassins, the black,
or swarthy, natives of the desert; whom Gildo considered as the only of
his throne. In the civil war between Theodosius and Eugenius, the count,
or rather the sovereign, of Africa, maintained a haughty and suspicious
neutrality; refused to assist either of the contending parties with
troops or vessels, expected the declaration of fortune, and reserved for
the conqueror the vain professions of his allegiance. Such professions
would not have satisfied the master of the Roman world; but the death
of Theodosius, and the weakness and discord of his sons, confirmed the
power of the Moor; who condescended, as a proof of his moderation,
to abstain from the use of the diadem, and to supply Rome with the
customary tribute, or rather subsidy, of corn. In every division of the
empire, the five provinces of Africa were invariably assigned to the
West; and Gildo had to govern that extensive country in the name of
Honorius, but his knowledge of the character and designs of Stilicho
soon engaged him to address his homage to a more distant and feeble
sovereign. The ministers of Arcadius embraced the cause of a perfidious
rebel; and the delusive hope of adding the numerous cities of Africa to
the empire of the East, tempted them to assert a claim, which they were
incapable of supporting, either by reason or by arms. [39]

[Footnote 37: Claudian may have exaggerated the vices of Gildo; but his
Moorish extraction, his notorious actions, and the complaints of St.
Augustin, may justify the poet's invectives. Baronius (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 398, No. 35-56) has treated the African rebellion with skill and
learning.]

[Footnote 38:

     Instat terribilis vivis, morientibus haeres,
     Virginibus raptor, thalamis obscoenus adulter.
     Nulla quies: oritur praeda cessante libido,
     Divitibusque dies, et nox metuenda maritis.
     Mauris clarissima quaeque
     Fastidita datur.
    ----De Bello Gildonico, 165, 189.

Baronius condemns, still more severely, the licentiousness of Gildo;
as his wife, his daughter, and his sister, were examples of perfect
chastity. The adulteries of the African soldiers are checked by one of
the Imperial laws.]

[Footnote 39: Inque tuam sortem numerosas transtulit urbes. Claudian
(de Bell. Gildonico, 230-324) has touched, with political delicacy,
the intrigues of the Byzantine court, which are likewise mentioned by
Zosimus, (l. v. p. 302.)]

When Stilicho had given a firm and decisive answer to the pretensions of
the Byzantine court, he solemnly accused the tyrant of Africa before the
tribunal, which had formerly judged the kings and nations of the earth;
and the image of the republic was revived, after a long interval, under
the reign of Honorius. The emperor transmitted an accurate and ample
detail of the complaints of the provincials, and the crimes of Gildo,
to the Roman senate; and the members of that venerable assembly were
required to pronounce the condemnation of the rebel. Their unanimous
suffrage declared him the enemy of the republic; and the decree of the
senate added a sacred and legitimate sanction to the Roman arms. [40] A
people, who still remembered that their ancestors had been the
masters of the world, would have applauded, with conscious pride, the
representation of ancient freedom; if they had not since been accustomed
to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of
liberty and greatness. The subsistence of Rome depended on the harvests
of Africa; and it was evident, that a declaration of war would be
the signal of famine. The praefect Symmachus, who presided in the
deliberations of the senate, admonished the minister of his just
apprehension, that as soon as the revengeful Moor should prohibit the
exportation of corn, the and perhaps the safety, of the capital would
be threatened by the hungry rage of a turbulent multitude. [41] The
prudence of Stilicho conceived and executed, without delay, the most
effectual measure for the relief of the Roman people. A large and
seasonable supply of corn, collected in the inland provinces of Gaul,
was embarked on the rapid stream of the Rhone, and transported, by an
easy navigation, from the Rhone to the Tyber. During the whole term
of the African war, the granaries of Rome were continually filled, her
dignity was vindicated from the humiliating dependence, and the minds
of an immense people were quieted by the calm confidence of peace and
plenty. [42]

[Footnote 40: Symmachus (l. iv. epist. 4) expresses the judicial forms
of the senate; and Claudian (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 325, &c.) seems to
feel the spirit of a Roman.]

[Footnote 41: Claudian finely displays these complaints of Symmachus, in
a speech of the goddess of Rome, before the throne of Jupiter, (de Bell
Gildon. 28-128.)]

[Footnote 42: See Claudian (in Eutrop. l. i 401, &c. i. Cons. Stil. l.
i. 306, &c. i. Cons. Stilich. 91, &c.)]

The cause of Rome, and the conduct of the African war, were intrusted by
Stilicho to a general, active and ardent to avenge his private injuries
on the head of the tyrant. The spirit of discord which prevailed in the
house of Nabal, had excited a deadly quarrel between two of his sons,
Gildo and Mascezel. [43] The usurper pursued, with implacable rage, the
life of his younger brother, whose courage and abilities he feared; and
Mascezel, oppressed by superior power, refuge in the court of Milan,
where he soon received the cruel intelligence that his two innocent
and helpless children had been murdered by their inhuman uncle. The
affliction of the father was suspended only by the desire of revenge.
The vigilant Stilicho already prepared to collect the naval and military
force of the Western empire; and he had resolved, if the tyrant should
be able to wage an equal and doubtful war, to march against him in
person. But as Italy required his presence, and as it might be dangerous
to weaken the of the frontier, he judged it more advisable, that
Mascezel should attempt this arduous adventure at the head of a chosen
body of Gallic veterans, who had lately served exhorted to convince
the world that they could subvert, as well as defend the throne of
a usurper, consisted of the Jovian, the Herculian, and the Augustan
legions; of the Nervian auxiliaries; of the soldiers who displayed
in their banners the symbol of a lion, and of the troops which were
distinguished by the auspicious names of Fortunate, and Invincible. Yet
such was the smallness of their establishments, or the difficulty of
recruiting, that these seven bands, [44] of high dignity and reputation
in the service of Rome, amounted to no more than five thousand effective
men. [45] The fleet of galleys and transports sailed in tempestuous
weather from the port of Pisa, in Tuscany, and steered their course to
the little island of Capraria; which had borrowed that name from the
wild goats, its original inhabitants, whose place was occupied by a new
colony of a strange and savage appearance. "The whole island (says an
ingenious traveller of those times) is filled, or rather defiled, by
men who fly from the light. They call themselves Monks, or solitaries,
because they choose to live alone, without any witnesses of their
actions. They fear the gifts of fortune, from the apprehension of
losing them; and, lest they should be miserable, they embrace a life of
voluntary wretchedness. How absurd is their choice! how perverse their
understanding! to dread the evils, without being able to support the
blessings, of the human condition. Either this melancholy madness is the
effect of disease, or exercise on their own bodies the tortures which
are inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand of justice." [46] Such
was the contempt of a profane magistrate for the monks as the chosen
servants of God. [47] Some of them were persuaded, by his entreaties,
to embark on board the fleet; and it is observed, to the praise of
the Roman general, that his days and nights were employed in prayer,
fasting, and the occupation of singing psalms. The devout leader, who,
with such a reenforcement, appeared confident of victory, avoided the
dangerous rocks of Corsica, coasted along the eastern side of Sardinia,
and secured his ships against the violence of the south wind, by casting
anchor in the and capacious harbor of Cagliari, at the distance of one
hundred and forty miles from the African shores. [48]

[Footnote 43: He was of a mature age; since he had formerly (A.D. 373)
served against his brother Firmus (Ammian. xxix. 5.) Claudian, who
understood the court of Milan, dwells on the injuries, rather than the
merits, of Mascezel, (de Bell. Gild. 389-414.) The Moorish war was not
worthy of Honorius, or Stilicho, &c.]

[Footnote 44: Claudian, Bell. Gild. 415-423. The change of discipline
allowed him to use indifferently the names of Legio Cohors, Manipulus.
See Notitia Imperii, S. 38, 40.]

[Footnote 45: Orosius (l. vii. c. 36, p. 565) qualifies this account
with an expression of doubt, (ut aiunt;) and it scarcely coincides with
Zosimus, (l. v. p. 303.) Yet Claudian, after some declamation about
Cadmus, soldiers, frankly owns that Stilicho sent a small army lest the
rebels should fly, ne timeare times, (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 314 &c.)]

[Footnote 46: Claud. Rutil. Numatian. Itinerar. i. 439-448. He
afterwards (515-526) mentions a religious madman on the Isle of Gorgona.
For such profane remarks, Rutilius and his accomplices are styled, by
his commentator, Barthius, rabiosi canes diaboli. Tillemont (Mem.
Eccles com. xii. p. 471) more calmly observes, that the unbelieving poet
praises where he means to censure.]

[Footnote 47: Orosius, l. vii. c. 36, p. 564. Augustin commends two of
these savage saints of the Isle of Goats, (epist. lxxxi. apud Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 317, and Baronius, Annal Eccles. A.D. 398 No.
51.)]

[Footnote 48: Here the first book of the Gildonic war is terminated. The
rest of Claudian's poem has been lost; and we are ignorant how or where
the army made good their landing in Afica.]

Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces of Africa.
By the liberality of his gifts and promises, he endeavored to secure the
doubtful allegiance of the Roman soldiers, whilst he attracted to
his standard the distant tribes of Gaetulia and Aethiopia. He proudly
reviewed an army of seventy thousand men, and boasted, with the rash
presumption which is the forerunner of disgrace, that his numerous
cavalry would trample under their horses' feet the troops of Mascezel,
and involve, in a cloud of burning sand, the natives of the cold regions
of Gaul and Germany. [49] But the Moor, who commanded the legions of
Honorius, was too well acquainted with the manners of his countrymen,
to entertain any serious apprehension of a naked and disorderly host of
Barbarians; whose left arm, instead of a shield, was protected only
by mantle; who were totally disarmed as soon as they had darted their
javelin from their right hand; and whose horses had never He fixed his
camp of five thousand veterans in the face of a superior enemy, and,
after the delay of three days, gave the signal of a general engagement.
[50] As Mascezel advanced before the front with fair offers of peace
and pardon, he encountered one of the foremost standard-bearers of the
Africans, and, on his refusal to yield, struck him on the arm with his
sword. The arm, and the standard, sunk under the weight of the blow;
and the imaginary act of submission was hastily repeated by all the
standards of the line. At this the disaffected cohorts proclaimed
the name of their lawful sovereign; the Barbarians, astonished by the
defection of their Roman allies, dispersed, according to their custom,
in tumultuary flight; and Mascezel obtained the of an easy, and almost
bloodless, victory. [51] The tyrant escaped from the field of battle to
the sea-shore; and threw himself into a small vessel, with the hope of
reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of the East; but the
obstinacy of the wind drove him back into the harbor of Tabraca, [52]
which had acknowledged, with the rest of the province, the dominion of
Honorius, and the authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a
proof of their repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of
Gildo in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him from the intolerable
torture of supporting the presence of an injured and victorious brother.
[53] The captives and the spoils of Africa were laid at the feet of the
emperor; but more sincere, in the midst of prosperity, still affected to
consult the laws of the republic; and referred to the senate and people
of Rome the judgment of the most illustrious criminals. [54] Their trial
was public and solemn; but the judges, in the exercise of this obsolete
and precarious jurisdiction, were impatient to punish the African
magistrates, who had intercepted the subsistence of the Roman people.
The rich and guilty province was oppressed by the Imperial ministers,
who had a visible interest to multiply the number of the accomplices of
Gildo; and if an edict of Honorius seems to check the malicious
industry of informers, a subsequent edict, at the distance of ten years,
continues and renews the prosecution of the which had been committed in
the time of the general rebellion. [55] The adherents of the tyrant who
escaped the first fury of the soldiers, and the judges, might derive
some consolation from the tragic fate of his brother, who could never
obtain his pardon for the extraordinary services which he had performed.
After he had finished an important war in the space of a single winter,
Mascezel was received at the court of Milan with loud applause, affected
gratitude, and secret jealousy; [56] and his death, which, perhaps, was
the effect of passage of a bridge, the Moorish prince, who accompanied
the master-general of the West, was suddenly thrown from his horse into
the river; the officious haste of the attendants was on the countenance
of Stilicho; and while they delayed the necessary assistance, the
unfortunate Mascezel was irrecoverably drowned. [57]

[Footnote 49: Orosius must be responsible for the account. The
presumption of Gildo and his various train of Barbarians is celebrated
by Claudian, Cons. Stil. l. i. 345-355.]

[Footnote 50: St. Ambrose, who had been dead about a year, revealed, in
a vision, the time and place of the victory. Mascezel afterwards related
his dream to Paulinus, the original biographer of the saint, from whom
it might easily pass to Orosius.]

[Footnote 51: Zosimus (l. v. p. 303) supposes an obstinate combat;
but the narrative of Orosius appears to conceal a real fact, under the
disguise of a miracle.]

[Footnote 52: Tabraca lay between the two Hippos, (Cellarius, tom. ii.
p. 112; D'Anville, tom. iii. p. 84.) Orosius has distinctly named the
field of battle, but our ignorance cannot define the precise situation.]

[Footnote 53: The death of Gildo is expressed by Claudian (i. Cons.
Stil. 357) and his best interpreters, Zosimus and Orosius.]

[Footnote 54: Claudian (ii. Cons. Stilich. 99-119) describes their
trial (tremuit quos Africa nuper, cernunt rostra reos,) and applauds the
restoration of the ancient constitution. It is here that he introduces
the famous sentence, so familiar to the friends of despotism:

    ---Nunquam libertas gratior exstat,
     Quam sub rege pio.

But the freedom which depends on royal piety, scarcely deserves
appellation]

[Footnote 55: See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxix. leg. 3, tit.
xl. leg. 19.]

[Footnote 56: Stilicho, who claimed an equal share in all the victories
of Theodosius and his son, particularly asserts, that Africa was
recovered by the wisdom of his counsels, (see an inscription produced by
Baronius.)]

[Footnote 57: I have softened the narrative of Zosimus, which, in its
crude simplicity, is almost incredible, (l. v. p. 303.) Orosius damns
the victorious general (p. 538) for violating the right of sanctuary.]

The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with the nuptials
of the emperor Honorius, and of his cousin Maria, the daughter of
Stilicho: and this equal and honorable alliance seemed to invest the
powerful minister with the authority of a parent over his submissive
pupil. The muse of Claudian was not silent on this propitious day; [58]
he sung, in various and lively strains, the happiness of the royal pair;
and the glory of the hero, who confirmed their union, and supported
their throne. The ancient fables of Greece, which had almost ceased to
be the object of religious faith, were saved from oblivion by the genius
of poetry. The picture of the Cyprian grove, the seat of harmony and
love; the triumphant progress of Venus over her native seas, and the
mild influence which her presence diffused in the palace of Milan,
express to every age the natural sentiments of the heart, in the just
and pleasing language of allegorical fiction. But the amorous impatience
which Claudian attributes to the young prince, [59] must excite the
smiles of the court; and his beauteous spouse (if she deserved the
praise of beauty) had not much to fear or to hope from the passions of
her lover. Honorius was only in the fourteenth year of his age;
Serena, the mother of his bride, deferred, by art of persuasion, the
consummation of the royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after she had
been ten years a wife; and the chastity of the emperor was secured
by the coldness, perhaps, the debility,of his constitution. [60]
His subjects, who attentively studied the character of their young
sovereign, discovered that Honorius was without passions, and
consequently without talents; and that his feeble and languid
disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank,
or of enjoying the pleasures of his age. In his early youth he made some
progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the bow: but he soon
relinquished these fatiguing occupations, and the amusement of feeding
poultry became the serious and daily care of the monarch of the West,
[61] who resigned the reins of empire to the firm and skilful hand of
his guardian Stilicho. The experience of history will countenance the
suspicion that a prince who was born in the purple, received a worse
education than the meanest peasant of his dominions; and that the
ambitious minister suffered him to attain the age of manhood, without
attempting to excite his courage, or to enlighten his under standing.
[62] The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to animate by their
example, or at least by their presence, the valor of the legions; and
the dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their motions
through the provinces of the Roman world. But the son of Theodosius
passed the slumber of his life, a captive in his palace, a stranger in
his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the
ruin of the Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally
subverted, by the arms of the Barbarians. In the eventful history of a
reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the
name of the emperor Honorius.

[Footnote 58: Claudian,as the poet laureate, composed a serious and
elaborate epithalamium of 340 lines; besides some gay Fescennines, which
were sung, in a more licentious tone, on the wedding night.]

[Footnote 59:

     Calet obvius ire
     Jam princeps, tardumque cupit discedere solem.
     Nobilis haud aliter sonipes.

(De Nuptiis Honor. et Mariae, and more freely in the Fescennines
112-116)

     Dices, O quoties,hoc mihi dulcius
     Quam flavos decics vincere Sarmatas.
    ....
     Tum victor madido prosilias toro,
     Nocturni referens vulnera proelii.]

[Footnote 60: See Zosimus, l. v. p. 333.]

[Footnote 61: Procopius de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c. 2. I have borrowed
the general practice of Honorius, without adopting the singular, and
indeed improbable tale, which is related by the Greek historian.]

[Footnote 62: The lessons of Theodosius, or rather Claudian, (iv. Cons.
Honor 214-418,) might compose a fine institution for the future
prince of a great and free nation. It was far above Honorius, and his
degenerate subjects.]




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

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

If the subjects of Rome could be ignorant of their obligations to the
great Theodosius, they were too soon convinced, how painfully the spirit
and abilities of their deceased emperor had supported the frail and
mouldering edifice of the republic. He died in the month of January; and
before the end of the winter of the same year, the Gothic nation was in
arms. [1] The Barbarian auxiliaries erected their independent standard;
and boldly avowed the hostile designs, which they had long cherished in
their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by
the conditions of the last treaty, to a life of tranquility and labor,
deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet; and eagerly
resumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The barriers
of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued
from their forests; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the
poet to remark, "that they rolled their ponderous wagons over the broad
and icy back of the indignant river." [2] The unhappy natives of the
provinces to the south of the Danube submitted to the calamities, which,
in the course of twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their
imagination; and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the
Gothic name, were irregularly spread from woody shores of Dalmatia,
to the walls of Constantinople. [3] The interruption, or at least
the diminution, of the subsidy, which the Goths had received from the
prudent liberality of Theodosius, was the specious pretence of their
revolt: the affront was imbittered by their contempt for the unwarlike
sons of Theodosius; and their resentment was inflamed by the weakness,
or treachery, of the minister of Arcadius. The frequent visits of
Rufinus to the camp of the Barbarians whose arms and apparel he affected
to imitate, were considered as a sufficient evidence of his guilty
correspondence, and the public enemy, from a motive either of gratitude
or of policy, was attentive, amidst the general devastation, to spare
the private estates of the unpopular praefect. The Goths, instead of
being impelled by the blind and headstrong passions of their chiefs,
were now directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. That renowned
leader was descended from the noble race of the Balti; [4] which yielded
only to the royal dignity of the Amali: he had solicited the command of
the Roman armies; and the Imperial court provoked him to demonstrate the
folly of their refusal, and the importance of their loss. Whatever hopes
might be entertained of the conquest of Constantinople, the judicious
general soon abandoned an impracticable enterprise. In the midst of
a divided court and a discontented people, the emperor Arcadius was
terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms; but the want of wisdom and
valor was supplied by the strength of the city; and the fortifications,
both of the sea and land, might securely brave the impotent and random
darts of the Barbarians. Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the
prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved
to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had
hitherto escaped the ravages of war. [5]

[Footnote 1: The revolt of the Goths, and the blockade of
Constantinople, are distinctly mentioned by Claudian, (in Rufin. l. ii.
7-100,) Zosimus, (l. v. 292,) and Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 29.)]

[Footnote 2:--

     Alii per toga ferocis
     Danubii solidata ruunt; expertaque remis
     Frangunt stagna rotis.

Claudian and Ovid often amuse their fancy by interchanging the metaphors
and properties of liquid water, and solid ice. Much false wit has been
expended in this easy exercise.]

[Footnote 3: Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. He endeavors to comfort his friend
Heliodorus, bishop of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew, Nepotian, by
a curious recapitulation of all the public and private misfortunes of
the times. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 200, &c.]

[Footnote 4: Baltha or bold: origo mirifica, says Jornandes, (c. 29.)
This illustrious race long continued to flourish in France, in the
Gothic province of Septimania, or Languedoc; under the corrupted
appellation of Boax; and a branch of that family afterwards settled in
the kingdom of Naples (Grotius in Prolegom. ad Hist. Gothic. p. 53.) The
lords of Baux, near Arles, and of seventy-nine subordinate places, were
independent of the counts of Provence, (Longuerue, Description de la
France, tom. i. p. 357).]

[Footnote 5: Zosimus (l. v. p. 293-295) is our best guide for the
conquest of Greece: but the hints and allusion of Claudian are so many
rays of historic light.]

The character of the civil and military officers, on whom Rufinus had
devolved the government of Greece, confirmed the public suspicion, that
he had betrayed the ancient seat of freedom and learning to the Gothic
invader. The proconsul Antiochus was the unworthy son of a respectable
father; and Gerontius, who commanded the provincial troops, was much
better qualified to execute the oppressive orders of a tyrant, than to
defend, with courage and ability, a country most remarkably fortified by
the hand of nature. Alaric had traversed, without resistance, the plains
of Macedonia and Thessaly, as far as the foot of Mount Oeta, a steep and
woody range of hills, almost impervious to his cavalry. They stretched
from east to west, to the edge of the sea-shore; and left, between the
precipice and the Malian Gulf, an interval of three hundred feet, which,
in some places, was contracted to a road capable of admitting only a
single carriage. [6] In this narrow pass of Thermopylae, where Leonidas
and the three hundred Spartans had gloriously devoted their lives, the
Goths might have been stopped, or destroyed, by a skilful general; and
perhaps the view of that sacred spot might have kindled some sparks of
military ardor in the breasts of the degenerate Greeks. The troops which
had been posted to defend the Straits of Thermopylae, retired, as
they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid
passage of Alaric; [7] and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were
instantly covered by a deluge of Barbarians who massacred the males
of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the
spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers, who visited
Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover the deep and
bloody traces of the march of the Goths; and Thebes was less indebted
for her preservation to the strength of her seven gates, than to the
eager haste of Alaric, who advanced to occupy the city of Athens, and
the important harbor of the Piraeus. The same impatience urged him to
prevent the delay and danger of a siege, by the offer of a capitulation;
and as soon as the Athenians heard the voice of the Gothic herald, they
were easily persuaded to deliver the greatest part of their wealth, as
the ransom of the city of Minerva and its inhabitants. The treaty was
ratified by solemn oaths, and observed with mutual fidelity. The Gothic
prince, with a small and select train, was admitted within the walls;
he indulged himself in the refreshment of the bath, accepted a splendid
banquet, which was provided by the magistrate, and affected to show that
he was not ignorant of the manners of civilized nations. [8] But the
whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town
of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the
comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the
bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. The distance between
Megara and Corinth could not much exceed thirty miles; but the bad road,
an expressive name, which it still bears among the Greeks, was, or might
easily have been made, impassable for the march of an enemy. The thick
and gloomy woods of Mount Cithaeron covered the inland country; the
Scironian rocks approached the water's edge, and hung over the
narrow and winding path, which was confined above six miles along the
sea-shore. [9] The passage of those rocks, so infamous in every age,
was terminated by the Isthmus of Corinth; and a small a body of firm
and intrepid soldiers might have successfully defended a temporary
intrenchment of five or six miles from the Ionian to the Aegean Sea. The
confidence of the cities of Peloponnesus in their natural rampart, had
tempted them to neglect the care of their antique walls; and the avarice
of the Roman governors had exhausted and betrayed the unhappy province.
[10] Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms
of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved,
by death, from beholding the slavery of their families and the
conflagration of their cities. [11] The vases and statues were
distributed among the Barbarians, with more regard to the value of the
materials, than to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives
submitted to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of
valor; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse which
was justified by the example of the heroic times. [12] The descendants
of that extraordinary people, who had considered valor and discipline
as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered the generous reply of their
ancestors to an invader more formidable than Alaric. "If thou art a god,
thou wilt not hurt those who have never injured thee; if thou art a
man, advance:--and thou wilt find men equal to thyself." [13] From
Thermopylae to Sparta, the leader of the Goths pursued his victorious
march without encountering any mortal antagonists: but one of the
advocates of expiring Paganism has confidently asserted, that the walls
of Athens were guarded by the goddess Minerva, with her formidable
Aegis, and by the angry phantom of Achilles; [14] and that the conqueror
was dismayed by the presence of the hostile deities of Greece. In an
age of miracles, it would perhaps be unjust to dispute the claim of the
historian Zosimus to the common benefit: yet it cannot be dissembled,
that the mind of Alaric was ill prepared to receive, either in sleeping
or waking visions, the impressions of Greek superstition. The songs of
Homer, and the fame of Achilles, had probably never reached the ear of
the illiterate Barbarian; and the Christian faith, which he had devoutly
embraced, taught him to despise the imaginary deities of Rome and
Athens. The invasion of the Goths, instead of vindicating the honor,
contributed, at least accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of
Paganism: and the mysteries of Ceres, which had subsisted eighteen
hundred years, did not survive the destruction of Eleusis, and the
calamities of Greece. [15]

[Footnote 6: Compare Herodotus (l. vii. c. 176) and Livy, (xxxvi. 15.)
The narrow entrance of Greece was probably enlarged by each successive
ravisher.]

[Footnote 7: He passed, says Eunapius, (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 93, edit.
Commelin, 1596,) through the straits, of Thermopylae.]

[Footnote 8: In obedience to Jerom and Claudian, (in Rufin. l. ii. 191,)
I have mixed some darker colors in the mild representation of Zosimus,
who wished to soften the calamities of Athens.

     Nec fera Cecropias traxissent vincula matres.

Synesius (Epist. clvi. p. 272, edit. Petav.) observes, that Athens,
whose sufferings he imputes to the proconsul's avarice, was at that time
less famous for her schools of philosophy than for her trade of honey.]

[Footnote 9:--

     Vallata mari Scironia rupes,
     Et duo continuo connectens aequora muro
     Isthmos.
     --Claudian de Bel. Getico, 188.

The Scironian rocks are described by Pausanias, (l. i. c. 44, p. 107,
edit. Kuhn,) and our modern travellers, Wheeler (p. 436) and Chandler,
(p. 298.) Hadrian made the road passable for two carriages.]

[Footnote 10: Claudian (in Rufin. l. ii. 186, and de Bello Getico,
611, &c.) vaguely, though forcibly, delineates the scene of rapine and
destruction.]

[Footnote 11: These generous lines of Homer (Odyss. l. v. 306) were
transcribed by one of the captive youths of Corinth: and the tears of
Mummius may prove that the rude conqueror, though he was ignorant of the
value of an original picture, possessed the purest source of good taste,
a benevolent heart, (Plutarch, Symposiac. l. ix. tom. ii. p. 737, edit.
Wechel.)]

[Footnote 12: Homer perpetually describes the exemplary patience of
those female captives, who gave their charms, and even their hearts,
to the murderers of their fathers, brothers, &c. Such a passion (of
Eriphile for Achilles) is touched with admirable delicacy by Racine.]

[Footnote 13: Plutarch (in Pyrrho, tom. ii. p. 474, edit. Brian) gives
the genuine answer in the Laconic dialect. Pyrrhus attacked Sparta with
25,000 foot, 2000 horse, and 24 elephants, and the defence of that open
town is a fine comment on the laws of Lycurgus, even in the last stage
of decay.]

[Footnote 14: Such, perhaps, as Homer (Iliad, xx. 164) had so nobly
painted him.]

[Footnote 15: Eunapius (in Vit. Philosoph. p. 90-93) intimates that a
troop of monks betrayed Greece, and followed the Gothic camp. * Note:
The expression is curious: Vit. Max. t. i. p. 53, edit. Boissonade.--M.]

The last hope of a people who could no longer depend on their arms,
their gods, or their sovereign, was placed in the powerful assistance
of the general of the West; and Stilicho, who had not been permitted to
repulse, advanced to chastise, the invaders of Greece. [16] A numerous
fleet was equipped in the ports of Italy; and the troops, after a short
and prosperous navigation over the Ionian Sea, were safely disembarked
on the isthmus, near the ruins of Corinth. The woody and mountainous
country of Arcadia, the fabulous residence of Pan and the Dryads, became
the scene of a long and doubtful conflict between the two generals
not unworthy of each other. The skill and perseverance of the Roman at
length prevailed; and the Goths, after sustaining a considerable loss
from disease and desertion, gradually retreated to the lofty mountain of
Pholoe, near the sources of the Peneus, and on the frontiers of Elis; a
sacred country, which had formerly been exempted from the calamities
of war. [17] The camp of the Barbarians was immediately besieged; the
waters of the river [18] were diverted into another channel; and while
they labored under the intolerable pressure of thirst and hunger, a
strong line of circumvallation was formed to prevent their escape. After
these precautions, Stilicho, too confident of victory, retired to enjoy
his triumph, in the theatrical games, and lascivious dances, of the
Greeks; his soldiers, deserting their standards, spread themselves over
the country of their allies, which they stripped of all that had been
saved from the rapacious hands of the enemy. Alaric appears to have
seized the favorable moment to execute one of those hardy enterprises,
in which the abilities of a general are displayed with more genuine
lustre, than in the tumult of a day of battle. To extricate himself from
the prison of Peloponnesus, it was necessary that he should pierce
the intrenchments which surrounded his camp; that he should perform a
difficult and dangerous march of thirty miles, as far as the Gulf of
Corinth; and that he should transport his troops, his captives, and his
spoil, over an arm of the sea, which, in the narrow interval between
Rhium and the opposite shore, is at least half a mile in breadth. [19]
The operations of Alaric must have been secret, prudent, and rapid;
since the Roman general was confounded by the intelligence, that the
Goths, who had eluded his efforts, were in full possession of the
important province of Epirus. This unfortunate delay allowed Alaric
sufficient time to conclude the treaty, which he secretly negotiated,
with the ministers of Constantinople. The apprehension of a civil war
compelled Stilicho to retire, at the haughty mandate of his rivals, from
the dominions of Arcadius; and he respected, in the enemy of Rome, the
honorable character of the ally and servant of the emperor of the East.

[Footnote 16: For Stilicho's Greek war, compare the honest narrative of
Zosimus (l. v. p. 295, 296) with the curious circumstantial flattery of
Claudian, (i. Cons. Stilich. l. i. 172-186, iv. Cons. Hon. 459-487.) As
the event was not glorious, it is artfully thrown into the shade.]

[Footnote 17: The troops who marched through Elis delivered up their
arms. This security enriched the Eleans, who were lovers of a rural
life. Riches begat pride: they disdained their privilege, and they
suffered. Polybius advises them to retire once more within their magic
circle. See a learned and judicious discourse on the Olympic games,
which Mr. West has prefixed to his translation of Pindar.]

[Footnote 18: Claudian (in iv. Cons. Hon. 480) alludes to the fact
without naming the river; perhaps the Alpheus, (i. Cons. Stil. l. i.
185.)

   ---Et Alpheus Geticis angustus acervis
    Tardior ad Siculos etiamnum pergit amores.

Yet I should prefer the Peneus, a shallow stream in a wide and deep bed,
which runs through Elis, and falls into the sea below Cyllene. It had
been joined with the Alpheus to cleanse the Augean stable. (Cellarius,
tom. i. p. 760. Chandler's Travels, p. 286.)]

[Footnote 19: Strabo, l. viii. p. 517. Plin. Hist. Natur. iv. 3.

Wheeler, p. 308. Chandler, p. 275. They measured from different points
the distance between the two lands.]

A Grecian philosopher, [20] who visited Constantinople soon after the
death of Theodosius, published his liberal opinions concerning the
duties of kings, and the state of the Roman republic. Synesius observes,
and deplores, the fatal abuse, which the imprudent bounty of the late
emperor had introduced into the military service. The citizens and
subjects had purchased an exemption from the indispensable duty of
defending their country; which was supported by the arms of Barbarian
mercenaries. The fugitives of Scythia were permitted to disgrace
the illustrious dignities of the empire; their ferocious youth, who
disdained the salutary restraint of laws, were more anxious to acquire
the riches, than to imitate the arts, of a people, the object of
their contempt and hatred; and the power of the Goths was the stone of
Tantalus, perpetually suspended over the peace and safety of the devoted
state. The measures which Synesius recommends, are the dictates of a
bold and generous patriot. He exhorts the emperor to revive the courage
of his subjects, by the example of manly virtue; to banish luxury
from the court and from the camp; to substitute, in the place of the
Barbarian mercenaries, an army of men, interested in the defence of
their laws and of their property; to force, in such a moment of public
danger, the mechanic from his shop, and the philosopher from his school;
to rouse the indolent citizen from his dream of pleasure, and to
arm, for the protection of agriculture, the hands of the laborious
husbandman. At the head of such troops, who might deserve the name, and
would display the spirit, of Romans, he animates the son of Theodosius
to encounter a race of Barbarians, who were destitute of any real
courage; and never to lay down his arms, till he had chased them far
away into the solitudes of Scythia; or had reduced them to the state of
ignominious servitude, which the Lacedaemonians formerly imposed on the
captive Helots. [21] The court of Arcadius indulged the zeal, applauded
the eloquence, and neglected the advice, of Synesius. Perhaps the
philosopher who addresses the emperor of the East in the language of
reason and virtue, which he might have used to a Spartan king, had not
condescended to form a practicable scheme, consistent with the temper,
and circumstances, of a degenerate age. Perhaps the pride of the
ministers, whose business was seldom interrupted by reflection, might
reject, as wild and visionary, every proposal, which exceeded the
measure of their capacity, and deviated from the forms and precedents
of office. While the oration of Synesius, and the downfall of the
Barbarians, were the topics of popular conversation, an edict was
published at Constantinople, which declared the promotion of Alaric
to the rank of master-general of the Eastern Illyricum. The Roman
provincials, and the allies, who had respected the faith of treaties,
were justly indignant, that the ruin of Greece and Epirus should be
so liberally rewarded. The Gothic conqueror was received as a lawful
magistrate, in the cities which he had so lately besieged. The fathers,
whose sons he had massacred, the husbands, whose wives he had violated,
were subject to his authority; and the success of his rebellion
encouraged the ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries. The
use to which Alaric applied his new command, distinguishes the firm
and judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the four
magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms, Margus,
Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his troops with an
extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords, and spears; the
unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the instruments of their
own destruction; and the Barbarians removed the only defect which had
sometimes disappointed the efforts of their courage. [22] The birth of
Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the confidence in his future
designs, insensibly united the body of the nation under his victorious
standard; and, with the unanimous consent of the Barbarian chieftains,
the master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient
custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the Visigoths. [23]
Armed with this double power, seated on the verge of the two empires,
he alternately sold his deceitful promises to the courts of Arcadius and
Honorius; [24] till he declared and executed his resolution of invading
the dominions of the West. The provinces of Europe which belonged to
the Eastern emperor, were already exhausted; those of Asia were
inaccessible; and the strength of Constantinople had resisted his
attack. But he was tempted by the fame, the beauty, the wealth of Italy,
which he had twice visited; and he secretly aspired to plant the
Gothic standard on the walls of Rome, and to enrich his army with the
accumulated spoils of three hundred triumphs. [25]

[Footnote 20: Synesius passed three years (A.D. 397-400) at
Constantinople, as deputy from Cyrene to the emperor Arcadius. He
presented him with a crown of gold, and pronounced before him the
instructive oration de Regno, (p. 1-32, edit. Petav. Paris, 1612.) The
philosopher was made bishop of Ptolemais, A.D. 410, and died about 430.
See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 490, 554, 683-685.]

[Footnote 21: Synesius de Regno, p. 21-26.]

[Footnote 22:--qui foedera rumpit

      Ditatur: qui servat, eget: vastator Achivae
      Gentis, et Epirum nuper populatus inultam,
      Praesidet Illyrico: jam, quos obsedit, amicos
      Ingreditur muros; illis responsa daturus,
      Quorum conjugibus potitur, natosque peremit.

Claudian in Eutrop. l. ii. 212. Alaric applauds his own policy (de
Bell Getic. 533-543) in the use which he had made of this Illyrian
jurisdiction.]

[Footnote 23: Jornandes, c. 29, p. 651. The Gothic historian adds, with
unusual spirit, Cum suis deliberans suasit suo labore quaerere regna,
quam alienis per otium subjacere.

     Discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis,
     Non sua vis tutata diu, dum foedera fallax
     Ludit, et alternae perjuria venditat aulae.
    ---Claudian de Bell. Get. 565]

[Footnote 25: Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad Urbem.
This authentic prediction was announced by Alaric, or at least by
Claudian, (de Bell. Getico, 547,) seven years before the event. But as
it was not accomplished within the term which has been rashly fixed the
interpreters escaped through an ambiguous meaning.]

The scarcity of facts, [26] and the uncertainty of dates, [27] oppose
our attempts to describe the circumstances of the first invasion of
Italy by the arms of Alaric. His march, perhaps from Thessalonica,
through the warlike and hostile country of Pannonia, as far as the foot
of the Julian Alps; his passage of those mountains, which were strongly
guarded by troops and intrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the
conquest of the provinces of Istria and Venetia, appear to have employed
a considerable time. Unless his operations were extremely cautious and
slow, the length of the interval would suggest a probable suspicion,
that the Gothic king retreated towards the banks of the Danube; and
reenforced his army with fresh swarms of Barbarians, before he again
attempted to penetrate into the heart of Italy. Since the public and
important events escape the diligence of the historian, he may amuse
himself with contemplating, for a moment, the influence of the arms
of Alaric on the fortunes of two obscure individuals, a presbyter
of Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was
summoned by his enemies to appear before a Roman synod, [28] wisely
preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the Barbarians, who
furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might save him from the cruel
sentence of another heretic, who, at the request of the same bishops,
was severely whipped, and condemned to perpetual exile on a desert
island. [29] The old man, [30] who had passed his simple and innocent
life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a stranger to the quarrels both
of kings and of bishops; his pleasures, his desires, his knowledge,
were confined within the little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff
supported his aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in
his infancy. Yet even this humble and rustic felicity (which Claudian
describes with so much truth and feeling) was still exposed to the
undistinguishing rage of war. His trees, his old contemporary trees,
[31] must blaze in the conflagration of the whole country; a detachment
of Gothic cavalry might sweep away his cottage and his family; and the
power of Alaric could destroy this happiness, which he was not able
either to taste or to bestow. "Fame," says the poet, "encircling with
terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the Barbarian army, and
filled Italy with consternation:" the apprehensions of each individual
were increased in just proportion to the measure of his fortune: and the
most timid, who had already embarked their valuable effects, meditated
their escape to the Island of Sicily, or the African coast. The public
distress was aggravated by the fears and reproaches of superstition.
[32] Every hour produced some horrid tale of strange and portentous
accidents; the Pagans deplored the neglect of omens, and the
interruption of sacrifices; but the Christians still derived some
comfort from the powerful intercession of the saints and martyrs. [33]

[Footnote 26: Our best materials are 970 verses of Claudian in the poem
on the Getic war, and the beginning of that which celebrates the sixth
consulship of Honorius. Zosimus is totally silent; and we are reduced
to such scraps, or rather crumbs, as we can pick from Orosius and the
Chronicles.]

[Footnote 27: Notwithstanding the gross errors of Jornandes, who
confounds the Italian wars of Alaric, (c. 29,) his date of the
consulship of Stilicho and Aurelian (A.D. 400) is firm and respectable.
It is certain from Claudian (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 804)
that the battle of Polentia was fought A.D. 403; but we cannot easily
fill the interval.]

[Footnote 28: Tantum Romanae urbis judicium fugis, ut magis obsidionem
barbaricam, quam pacatoe urbis judicium velis sustinere. Jerom, tom.
ii. p. 239. Rufinus understood his own danger; the peaceful city was
inflamed by the beldam Marcella, and the rest of Jerom's faction.]

[Footnote 29: Jovinian, the enemy of fasts and of celibacy, who was
persecuted and insulted by the furious Jerom, (Jortin's Remarks, vol.
iv. p. 104, &c.) See the original edict of banishment in the Theodosian
Code, xvi. tit. v. leg. 43.]

[Footnote 30: This epigram (de Sene Veronensi qui suburbium nusquam
egres sus est) is one of the earliest and most pleasing compositions of
Claudian. Cowley's imitation (Hurd's edition, vol. ii. p. 241) has
some natural and happy strokes: but it is much inferior to the original
portrait, which is evidently drawn from the life.]

[Footnote 31:

     Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum
     Aequaevumque videt consenuisse nemus.

     A neighboring wood born with himself he sees,
     And loves his old contemporary trees.

In this passage, Cowley is perhaps superior to his original; and the
English poet, who was a good botanist, has concealed the oaks under a
more general expression.]

[Footnote 32: Claudian de Bell. Get. 199-266. He may seem prolix: but
fear and superstition occupied as large a space in the minds of the
Italians.]

[Footnote 33: From the passages of Paulinus, which Baronius has
produced, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 403, No. 51,) it is manifest that the
general alarm had pervaded all Italy, as far as Nola in Campania, where
that famous penitent had fixed his abode.]




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

The emperor Honorius was distinguished, above his subjects, by the
preeminence of fear, as well as of rank. The pride and luxury in which
he was educated, had not allowed him to suspect, that there existed
on the earth any power presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the
successor of Augustus. The arts of flattery concealed the impending
danger, till Alaric approached the palace of Milan. But when the sound
of war had awakened the young emperor, instead of flying to arms with
the spirit, or even the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to
those timid counsellors, who proposed to convey his sacred person,
and his faithful attendants, to some secure and distant station in the
provinces of Gaul. Stilicho alone [34] had courage and authority to
resist his disgraceful measure, which would have abandoned Rome and
Italy to the Barbarians; but as the troops of the palace had been lately
detached to the Rhaetian frontier, and as the resource of new levies was
slow and precarious, the general of the West could only promise, that
if the court of Milan would maintain their ground during his absence,
he would soon return with an army equal to the encounter of the Gothic
king. Without losing a moment, (while each moment was so important
to the public safety,) Stilicho hastily embarked on the Larian Lake,
ascended the mountains of ice and snow, amidst the severity of an Alpine
winter, and suddenly repressed, by his unexpected presence, the enemy,
who had disturbed the tranquillity of Rhaetia. [35] The Barbarians,
perhaps some tribes of the Alemanni, respected the firmness of a chief,
who still assumed the language of command; and the choice which he
condescended to make, of a select number of their bravest youth, was
considered as a mark of his esteem and favor. The cohorts, who were
delivered from the neighboring foe, diligently repaired to the Imperial
standard; and Stilicho issued his orders to the most remote troops of
the West, to advance, by rapid marches, to the defence of Honorius and
of Italy. The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; and the safety
of Gaul was protected only by the faith of the Germans, and the ancient
terror of the Roman name. Even the legion, which had been stationed
to guard the wall of Britain against the Caledonians of the North, was
hastily recalled; [36] and a numerous body of the cavalry of the Alani
was persuaded to engage in the service of the emperor, who anxiously
expected the return of his general. The prudence and vigor of Stilicho
were conspicuous on this occasion, which revealed, at the same time,
the weakness of the falling empire. The legions of Rome, which had long
since languished in the gradual decay of discipline and courage, were
exterminated by the Gothic and civil wars; and it was found impossible,
without exhausting and exposing the provinces, to assemble an army for
the defence of Italy.

[Footnote 34: Solus erat Stilicho, &c., is the exclusive commendation
which Claudian bestows, (del Bell. Get. 267,) without condescending to
except the emperor. How insignificant must Honorius have appeared in his
own court.]

[Footnote 35: The face of the country, and the hardiness of Stilicho,
are finely described, (de Bell. Get. 340-363.)]

[Footnote 36:

    Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis,
    Quae Scoto dat frena truci.
   ---De Bell. Get. 416.

Yet the most rapid march from Edinburgh, or Newcastle, to Milan, must
have required a longer space of time than Claudian seems willing to
allow for the duration of the Gothic war.]




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

When Stilicho seemed to abandon his sovereign in the unguarded palace of
Milan, he had probably calculated the term of his absence, the distance
of the enemy, and the obstacles that might retard their march. He
principally depended on the rivers of Italy, the Adige, the Mincius,
the Oglio, and the Addua, which, in the winter or spring, by the fall of
rains, or by the melting of the snows, are commonly swelled into broad
and impetuous torrents. [37] But the season happened to be remarkably
dry: and the Goths could traverse, without impediment, the wide and
stony beds, whose centre was faintly marked by the course of a shallow
stream. The bridge and passage of the Addua were secured by a strong
detachment of the Gothic army; and as Alaric approached the walls,
or rather the suburbs, of Milan, he enjoyed the proud satisfaction of
seeing the emperor of the Romans fly before him. Honorius, accompanied
by a feeble train of statesmen and eunuchs, hastily retreated towards
the Alps, with a design of securing his person in the city of Arles,
which had often been the royal residence of his predecessors. [3711] But
Honorius [38] had scarcely passed the Po, before he was overtaken by
the speed of the Gothic cavalry; [39] since the urgency of the danger
compelled him to seek a temporary shelter within the fortifications of
Asta, a town of Liguria or Piemont, situate on the banks of the Tanarus.
[40] The siege of an obscure place, which contained so rich a prize,
and seemed incapable of a long resistance, was instantly formed,
and indefatigably pressed, by the king of the Goths; and the bold
declaration, which the emperor might afterwards make, that his breast
had never been susceptible of fear, did not probably obtain much credit,
even in his own court. [41] In the last, and almost hopeless
extremity, after the Barbarians had already proposed the indignity of
a capitulation, the Imperial captive was suddenly relieved by the fame,
the approach, and at length the presence, of the hero, whom he had so
long expected. At the head of a chosen and intrepid vanguard, Stilicho
swam the stream of the Addua, to gain the time which he must have lost
in the attack of the bridge; the passage of the Po was an enterprise of
much less hazard and difficulty; and the successful action, in which he
cut his way through the Gothic camp under the walls of Asta, revived the
hopes, and vindicated the honor, of Rome. Instead of grasping the fruit
of his victory, the Barbarian was gradually invested, on every side, by
the troops of the West, who successively issued through all the passes
of the Alps; his quarters were straitened; his convoys were
intercepted; and the vigilance of the Romans prepared to form a chain
of fortifications, and to besiege the lines of the besiegers. A military
council was assembled of the long-haired chiefs of the Gothic nation;
of aged warriors, whose bodies were wrapped in furs, and whose stern
countenances were marked with honorable wounds. They weighed the glory
of persisting in their attempt against the advantage of securing their
plunder; and they recommended the prudent measure of a seasonable
retreat. In this important debate, Alaric displayed the spirit of the
conqueror of Rome; and after he had reminded his countrymen of their
achievements and of their designs, he concluded his animating speech by
the solemn and positive assurance that he was resolved to find in Italy
either a kingdom or a grave. [42]

[Footnote 37: Every traveller must recollect the face of Lombardy, (see
Fonvenelle, tom. v. p. 279,) which is often tormented by the capricious
and irregular abundance of waters. The Austrians, before Genoa, were
encamped in the dry bed of the Polcevera. "Ne sarebbe" (says Muratori)
"mai passato per mente a que' buoni Alemanni, che quel picciolo
torrente potesse, per cosi dire, in un instante cangiarsi in un terribil
gigante." (Annali d'Italia, tom. xvi. p. 443, Milan, 1752, 8vo edit.)]

[Footnote 3711: According to Le Beau and his commentator M. St. Martin,
Honorius did not attempt to fly. Settlements were offered to the Goths
in Lombardy, and they advanced from the Po towards the Alps to take
possession of them. But it was a treacherous stratagem of Stilicho, who
surprised them while they were reposing on the faith of this treaty. Le
Beau, v. x.]

[Footnote 38: Claudian does not clearly answer our question, Where was
Honorius himself? Yet the flight is marked by the pursuit; and my idea
of the Gothic was is justified by the Italian critics, Sigonius (tom.
P, ii. p. 369, de Imp. Occident. l. x.) and Muratori, (Annali d'Italia.
tom. iv. p. 45.)]

[Footnote 39: One of the roads may be traced in the Itineraries, (p.
98, 288, 294, with Wesseling's Notes.) Asta lay some miles on the right
hand.]

[Footnote 40: Asta, or Asti, a Roman colony, is now the capital of a
pleasant country, which, in the sixteenth century, devolved to the dukes
of Savoy, (Leandro Alberti Descrizzione d'Italia, p. 382.)]

[Footnote 41: Nec me timor impulit ullus. He might hold this proud
language the next year at Rome, five hundred miles from the scene of
danger (vi. Cons. Hon. 449.)]

[Footnote 42: Hanc ego vel victor regno, vel morte tenebo Victus,
humum.----The speeches (de Bell. Get. 479-549) of the Gothic Nestor, and
Achilles, are strong, characteristic, adapted to the circumstances; and
possibly not less genuine than those of Livy.]

The loose discipline of the Barbarians always exposed them to the danger
of a surprise; but, instead of choosing the dissolute hours of riot and
intemperance, Stilicho resolved to attack the Christian Goths, whilst
they were devoutly employed in celebrating the festival of Easter. [43]
The execution of the stratagem, or, as it was termed by the clergy of
the sacrilege, was intrusted to Saul, a Barbarian and a Pagan, who
had served, however, with distinguished reputation among the veteran
generals of Theodosius. The camp of the Goths, which Alaric had pitched
in the neighborhood of Pollentia, [44] was thrown into confusion by
the sudden and impetuous charge of the Imperial cavalry; but, in a few
moments, the undaunted genius of their leader gave them an order, and
a field of battle; and, as soon as they had recovered from their
astonishment, the pious confidence, that the God of the Christians would
assert their cause, added new strength to their native valor. In this
engagement, which was long maintained with equal courage and success,
the chief of the Alani, whose diminutive and savage form concealed a
magnanimous soul approved his suspected loyalty, by the zeal with which
he fought, and fell, in the service of the republic; and the fame of
this gallant Barbarian has been imperfectly preserved in the verses of
Claudian, since the poet, who celebrates his virtue, has omitted the
mention of his name. His death was followed by the flight and dismay of
the squadrons which he commanded; and the defeat of the wing of
cavalry might have decided the victory of Alaric, if Stilicho had not
immediately led the Roman and Barbarian infantry to the attack. The
skill of the general, and the bravery of the soldiers, surmounted every
obstacle. In the evening of the bloody day, the Goths retreated from the
field of battle; the intrenchments of their camp were forced, and the
scene of rapine and slaughter made some atonement for the calamities
which they had inflicted on the subjects of the empire. [45] The
magnificent spoils of Corinth and Argos enriched the veterans of the
West; the captive wife of Alaric, who had impatiently claimed his
promise of Roman jewels and Patrician handmaids, [46] was reduced to
implore the mercy of the insulting foe; and many thousand prisoners,
released from the Gothic chains, dispersed through the provinces of
Italy the praises of their heroic deliverer. The triumph of Stilicho
[47] was compared by the poet, and perhaps by the public, to that of
Marius; who, in the same part of Italy, had encountered and destroyed
another army of Northern Barbarians. The huge bones, and the empty
helmets, of the Cimbri and of the Goths, would easily be confounded by
succeeding generations; and posterity might erect a common trophy to the
memory of the two most illustrious generals, who had vanquished, on the
same memorable ground, the two most formidable enemies of Rome. [48]

[Footnote 43: Orosius (l. vii. c. 37) is shocked at the impiety of the
Romans, who attacked, on Easter Sunday, such pious Christians. Yet, at
the same time, public prayers were offered at the shrine of St. Thomas
of Edessa, for the destruction of the Arian robber. See Tillemont (Hist
des Emp. tom. v. p. 529) who quotes a homily, which has been erroneously
ascribed to St. Chrysostom.]

[Footnote 44: The vestiges of Pollentia are twenty-five miles to the
south-east of Turin. Urbs, in the same neighborhood, was a royal
chase of the kings of Lombardy, and a small river, which excused the
prediction, "penetrabis ad urbem," (Cluver. Ital. Antiq tom. i. p.
83-85.)]

[Footnote 45: Orosius wishes, in doubtful words, to insinuate the defeat
of the Romans. "Pugnantes vicimus, victores victi sumus." Prosper (in
Chron.) makes it an equal and bloody battle, but the Gothic writers
Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Jornandes (de Reb. Get. c. 29) claim a
decisive victory.]

[Footnote 46: Demens Ausonidum gemmata monilia matrum, Romanasque alta
famulas cervice petebat. De Bell. Get. 627.]

[Footnote 47: Claudian (de Bell. Get. 580-647) and Prudentius (in
Symmach. n. 694-719) celebrate, without ambiguity, the Roman victory of
Pollentia. They are poetical and party writers; yet some credit is
due to the most suspicious witnesses, who are checked by the recent
notoriety of facts.]

[Footnote 48: Claudian's peroration is strong and elegant; but the
identity of the Cimbric and Gothic fields must be understood (like
Virgil's Philippi, Georgic i. 490) according to the loose geography of
a poet. Verselle and Pollentia are sixty miles from each other; and the
latitude is still greater, if the Cimbri were defeated in the wide and
barren plain of Verona, (Maffei, Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 54-62.)]

The eloquence of Claudian [49] has celebrated, with lavish applause, the
victory of Pollentia, one of the most glorious days in the life of his
patron; but his reluctant and partial muse bestows more genuine praise
on the character of the Gothic king. His name is, indeed, branded with
the reproachful epithets of pirate and robber, to which the conquerors
of every age are so justly entitled; but the poet of Stilicho is
compelled to acknowledge that Alaric possessed the invincible temper
of mind, which rises superior to every misfortune, and derives new
resources from adversity. After the total defeat of his infantry, he
escaped, or rather withdrew, from the field of battle, with the greatest
part of his cavalry entire and unbroken. Without wasting a moment to
lament the irreparable loss of so many brave companions, he left his
victorious enemy to bind in chains the captive images of a Gothic king;
[50] and boldly resolved to break through the unguarded passes of the
Apennine, to spread desolation over the fruitful face of Tuscany, and
to conquer or die before the gates of Rome. The capital was saved by the
active and incessant diligence of Stilicho; but he respected the despair
of his enemy; and, instead of committing the fate of the republic to
the chance of another battle, he proposed to purchase the absence of
the Barbarians. The spirit of Alaric would have rejected such terms, the
permission of a retreat, and the offer of a pension, with contempt and
indignation; but he exercised a limited and precarious authority over
the independent chieftains who had raised him, for their service, above
the rank of his equals; they were still less disposed to follow an
unsuccessful general, and many of them were tempted to consult their
interest by a private negotiation with the minister of Honorius. The
king submitted to the voice of his people, ratified the treaty with
the empire of the West, and repassed the Po with the remains of the
flourishing army which he had led into Italy. A considerable part of the
Roman forces still continued to attend his motions; and Stilicho, who
maintained a secret correspondence with some of the Barbarian chiefs,
was punctually apprised of the designs that were formed in the camp and
council of Alaric. The king of the Goths, ambitious to signalize
his retreat by some splendid achievement, had resolved to occupy the
important city of Verona, which commands the principal passage of the
Rhaetian Alps; and, directing his march through the territories of those
German tribes, whose alliance would restore his exhausted strength, to
invade, on the side of the Rhine, the wealthy and unsuspecting provinces
of Gaul. Ignorant of the treason which had already betrayed his bold and
judicious enterprise, he advanced towards the passes of the mountains,
already possessed by the Imperial troops; where he was exposed, almost
at the same instant, to a general attack in the front, on his flanks,
and in the rear. In this bloody action, at a small distance from the
walls of Verona, the loss of the Goths was not less heavy than that
which they had sustained in the defeat of Pollentia; and their valiant
king, who escaped by the swiftness of his horse, must either have been
slain or made prisoner, if the hasty rashness of the Alani had not
disappointed the measures of the Roman general. Alaric secured the
remains of his army on the adjacent rocks; and prepared himself, with
undaunted resolution, to maintain a siege against the superior numbers
of the enemy, who invested him on all sides. But he could not oppose the
destructive progress of hunger and disease; nor was it possible for
him to check the continual desertion of his impatient and capricious
Barbarians. In this extremity he still found resources in his own
courage, or in the moderation of his adversary; and the retreat of the
Gothic king was considered as the deliverance of Italy. [51] Yet the
people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment
of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of
Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often
dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic. The first momen of
the public safety is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is
diligently occupied by envy and calumny. [52]

[Footnote 49: Claudian and Prudentius must be strictly examined, to
reduce the figures, and extort the historic sense, of those poets.]

[Footnote 50:

     Et gravant en airain ses freles avantages
     De mes etats conquis enchainer les images.

The practice of exposing in triumph the images of kings and provinces
was familiar to the Romans. The bust of Mithridates himself was twelve
feet high, of massy gold, (Freinshem. Supplement. Livian. ciii. 47.)]

[Footnote 51: The Getic war, and the sixth consulship of Honorius,
obscurely connect the events of Alaric's retreat and losses.]

[Footnote 52: Taceo de Alarico... saepe visto, saepe concluso, semperque
dimisso. Orosius, l. vii. c. 37, p. 567. Claudian (vi. Cons. Hon. 320)
drops the curtain with a fine image.]

The citizens of Rome had been astonished by the approach of Alaric;
and the diligence with which they labored to restore the walls of the
capital, confessed their own fears, and the decline of the empire.
After the retreat of the Barbarians, Honorius was directed to accept
the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to celebrate, in the Imperial
city, the auspicious aera of the Gothic victory, and of his sixth
consulship. [53] The suburbs and the streets, from the Milvian bridge to
the Palatine mount, were filled by the Roman people, who, in the space
of a hundred years, had only thrice been honored with the presence
of their sovereigns. While their eyes were fixed on the chariot where
Stilicho was deservedly seated by the side of his royal pupil, they
applauded the pomp of a triumph, which was not stained, like that of
Constantine, or of Theodosius, with civil blood. The procession passed
under a lofty arch, which had been purposely erected: but in less than
seven years, the Gothic conquerors of Rome might read, if they were able
to read, the superb inscription of that monument, which attested the
total defeat and destruction of their nation. [54] The emperor resided
several months in the capital, and every part of his behavior was
regulated with care to conciliate the affection of the clergy, the
senate, and the people of Rome. The clergy was edified by his frequent
visits and liberal gifts to the shrines of the apostles. The senate,
who, in the triumphal procession, had been excused from the humiliating
ceremony of preceding on foot the Imperial chariot, was treated with the
decent reverence which Stilicho always affected for that assembly.
The people was repeatedly gratified by the attention and courtesy of
Honorius in the public games, which were celebrated on that occasion
with a magnificence not unworthy of the spectator. As soon as the
appointed number of chariot-races was concluded, the decoration of
the Circus was suddenly changed; the hunting of wild beasts afforded
a various and splendid entertainment; and the chase was succeeded by a
military dance, which seems, in the lively description of Claudian, to
present the image of a modern tournament.

[Footnote 53: The remainder of Claudian's poem on the sixth consulship
of Honorius, describes the journey, the triumph, and the games,
(330-660.)]

[Footnote 54: See the inscription in Mascou's History of the Ancient
Germans, viii. 12. The words are positive and indiscreet: Getarum
nationem in omne aevum domitam, &c.]

In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators [55]
polluted, for the last time, the amphitheater of Rome. The first
Christian emperor may claim the honor of the first edict which condemned
the art and amusement of shedding human blood; [56] but this benevolent
law expressed the wishes of the prince, without reforming an inveterate
abuse, which degraded a civilized nation below the condition of savage
cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps several thousand, victims were
annually slaughtered in the great cities of the empire; and the month
of December, more peculiarly devoted to the combats of gladiators, still
exhibited to the eyes of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood
and cruelty. Amidst the general joy of the victory of Pollentia, a
Christian poet exhorted the emperor to extirpate, by his authority,
the horrid custom which had so long resisted the voice of humanity and
religion. [57] The pathetic representations of Prudentius were less
effectual than the generous boldness of Telemachus, and Asiatic monk,
whose death was more useful to mankind than his life. [58] The Romans
were provoked by the interruption of their pleasures; and the rash
monk, who had descended into the arena to separate the gladiators, was
overwhelmed under a shower of stones. But the madness of the people soon
subsided; they respected the memory of Telemachus, who had deserved the
honors of martyrdom; and they submitted, without a murmur, to the
laws of Honorius, which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the
amphitheater. [5811] The citizens, who adhered to the manners of their
ancestors, might perhaps insinuate that the last remains of a martial
spirit were preserved in this school of fortitude, which accustomed the
Romans to the sight of blood, and to the contempt of death; a vain and
cruel prejudice, so nobly confuted by the valor of ancient Greece, and
of modern Europe! [59]

[Footnote 55: On the curious, though horrid, subject of the gladiators,
consult the two books of the Saturnalia of Lipsius, who, as an
antiquarian, is inclined to excuse the practice of antiquity, (tom. iii.
p. 483-545.)]

[Footnote 56: Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. xii. leg. i. The Commentary of
Godefroy affords large materials (tom. v. p. 396) for the history of
gladiators.]

[Footnote 57: See the peroration of Prudentius (in Symmach. l. ii.
1121-1131) who had doubtless read the eloquent invective of Lactantius,
(Divin. Institut. l. vi. c. 20.) The Christian apologists have not
spared these bloody games, which were introduced in the religious
festivals of Paganism.]

[Footnote 58: Theodoret, l. v. c. 26. I wish to believe the story of St.
Telemachus. Yet no church has been dedicated, no altar has been erected,
to the only monk who died a martyr in the cause of humanity.]

[Footnote 5811: Muller, in his valuable Treatise, de Genio, moribus et
luxu aevi Theodosiani, is disposed to question the effect produced by
the heroic, or rather saintly, death of Telemachus. No prohibitory law
of Honorius is to be found in the Theodosian Code, only the old and
imperfect edict of Constantine. But Muller has produced no evidence or
allusion to gladiatorial shows after this period. The combats with wild
beasts certainly lasted till the fall of the Western empire; but the
gladiatorial combats ceased either by common consent, or by Imperial
edict.--M.]

[Footnote 59: Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum nonnullis
videri solet, et haud scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit. Cicero Tusculan. ii.
17. He faintly censures the abuse, and warmly defends the use, of these
sports; oculis nulla poterat esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem
disciplina. Seneca (epist. vii.) shows the feelings of a man.]

The recent danger, to which the person of the emperor had been exposed
in the defenceless palace of Milan, urged him to seek a retreat in some
inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely remain, while
the open country was covered by a deluge of Barbarians. On the coast of
the Adriatic, about ten or twelve miles from the most southern of the
seven mouths of the Po, the Thessalians had founded the ancient colony
of Ravenna, [60] which they afterwards resigned to the natives of
Umbria. Augustus, who had observed the opportunity of the place,
prepared, at the distance of three miles from the old town, a capacious
harbor, for the reception of two hundred and fifty ships of war. This
naval establishment, which included the arsenals and magazines, the
barracks of the troops, and the houses of the artificers, derived its
origin and name from the permanent station of the Roman fleet; the
intermediate space was soon filled with buildings and inhabitants,
and the three extensive and populous quarters of Ravenna gradually
contributed to form one of the most important cities of Italy. The
principal canal of Augustus poured a copious stream of the waters of
the Po through the midst of the city, to the entrance of the harbor; the
same waters were introduced into the profound ditches that encompassed
the walls; they were distributed by a thousand subordinate canals,
into every part of the city, which they divided into a variety of small
islands; the communication was maintained only by the use of boats and
bridges; and the houses of Ravenna, whose appearance may be compared
to that of Venice, were raised on the foundation of wooden piles.
The adjacent country, to the distance of many miles, was a deep and
impassable morass; and the artificial causeway, which connected Ravenna
with the continent, might be easily guarded or destroyed, on the
approach of a hostile army These morasses were interspersed, however,
with vineyards: and though the soil was exhausted by four or five crops,
the town enjoyed a more plentiful supply of wine than of fresh water.
[61] The air, instead of receiving the sickly, and almost pestilential,
exhalations of low and marshy grounds, was distinguished, like the
neighborhood of Alexandria, as uncommonly pure and salubrious; and this
singular advantage was ascribed to the regular tides of the Adriatic,
which swept the canals, interrupted the unwholesome stagnation of the
waters, and floated, every day, the vessels of the adjacent country into
the heart of Ravenna. The gradual retreat of the sea has left the modern
city at the distance of four miles from the Adriatic; and as early as
the fifth or sixth century of the Christian aera, the port of Augustus
was converted into pleasant orchards; and a lonely grove of pines
covered the ground where the Roman fleet once rode at anchor. [62] Even
this alteration contributed to increase the natural strength of the
place, and the shallowness of the water was a sufficient barrier against
the large ships of the enemy. This advantageous situation was fortified
by art and labor; and in the twentieth year of his age, the emperor of
the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the perpetual
confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. The example of
Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings,
and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of
the emperors; and till the middle of the eight century, Ravenna was
considered as the seat of government, and the capital of Italy. [63]

[Footnote 60: This account of Ravenna is drawn from Strabo, (l. v. p.
327,) Pliny, (iii. 20,) Stephen of Byzantium, (sub voce, p. 651, edit.
Berkel,) Claudian, (in vi. Cons. Honor. 494, &c.,) Sidonius Apollinaris,
(l. i. epist. 5, 8,) Jornandes, (de Reb. Get. c. 29,) Procopius (de
Bell, (lothic, l. i. c. i. p. 309, edit. Louvre,) and Cluverius, (Ital.
Antiq tom i. p. 301-307.) Yet I still want a local antiquarian and a
good topographical map.]

[Footnote 61: Martial (Epigram iii. 56, 57) plays on the trick of the
knave, who had sold him wine instead of water; but he seriously declares
that a cistern at Ravenna is more valuable than a vineyard. Sidonius
complains that the town is destitute of fountains and aqueducts;
and ranks the want of fresh water among the local evils, such as the
croaking of frogs, the stinging of gnats, &c.]

[Footnote 62: The fable of Theodore and Honoria, which Dryden has so
admirably transplanted from Boccaccio, (Giornata iii. novell. viii.,)
was acted in the wood of Chiassi, a corrupt word from Classis, the naval
station which, with the intermediate road, or suburb the Via Caesaris,
constituted the triple city of Ravenna.]

[Footnote 63: From the year 404, the dates of the Theodosian Code become
sedentary at Constantinople and Ravenna. See Godefroy's Chronology of
the Laws, tom. i. p. cxlviii., &c.]

The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his
precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from
the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany,
who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been
gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of
Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the earned
industry of the present age, may be usefully applied to reveal the
secret and remote causes of the fall of the Roman empire. The extensive
territory to the north of the great wall was possessed, after the flight
of the Huns, by the victorious Sienpi, who were sometimes broken into
independent tribes, and sometimes reunited under a supreme chief;
till at length, styling themselves Topa, or masters of the earth, they
acquired a more solid consistence, and a more formidable power. The Topa
soon compelled the pastoral nations of the eastern desert to acknowledge
the superiority of their arms; they invaded China in a period of
weakness and intestine discord; and these fortunate Tartars, adopting
the laws and manners of the vanquished people, founded an Imperial
dynasty, which reigned near one hundred and sixty years over the
northern provinces of the monarchy. Some generations before they
ascended the throne of China, one of the Topa princes had enlisted in
his cavalry a slave of the name of Moko, renowned for his valor, but who
was tempted, by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and
to range the desert at the head of a hundred followers. This gang of
robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a numerous people,
distinguished by the appellation of Geougen; and their hereditary
chieftains, the posterity of Moko the slave, assumed their rank
among the Scythian monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the greatest of his
descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes which are the school of
heroes. He bravely struggled with adversity, broke the imperious yoke of
the Topa, and became the legislator of his nation, and the conqueror of
Tartary. His troops were distributed into regular bands of a hundred
and of a thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most splendid
honors were proposed as the reward of valor; and Toulun, who had
knowledge enough to despise the learning of China, adopted only such
arts and institutions as were favorable to the military spirit of his
government. His tents, which he removed in the winter season to a more
southern latitude, were pitched, during the summer, on the fruitful
banks of the Selinga. His conquests stretched from Corea far beyond the
River Irtish. He vanquished, in the country to the north of the Caspian
Sea, the nation of the Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan,
expressed the fame and power which he derived from this memorable
victory. [64]

[Footnote 64: See M. de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 179-189, tom
ii p. 295, 334-338.]

The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed, as it passes
from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark interval which separates
the extreme limits of the Chinese, and of the Roman, geography. Yet the
temper of the Barbarians, and the experience of successive emigrations,
sufficiently declare, that the Huns, who were oppressed by the arms of
the Geougen, soon withdrew from the presence of an insulting victor.
The countries towards the Euxine were already occupied by their kindred
tribes; and their hasty flight, which they soon converted into a bold
attack, would more naturally be directed towards the rich and level
plains, through which the Vistula gently flows into the Baltic Sea. The
North must again have been alarmed, and agitated, by the invasion of the
Huns; [6411] and the nations who retreated before them must have pressed
with incumbent weight on the confines of Germany. [65] The inhabitants
of those regions, which the ancients have assigned to the Suevi, the
Vandals, and the Burgundians, might embrace the resolution of abandoning
to the fugitives of Sarmatia their woods and morasses; or at least of
discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces of the Roman
empire. [66] About four years after the victorious Toulun had assumed
the title of Khan of the Geougen, another Barbarian, the haughty
Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, [67] marched from the northern extremities of
Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army
to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the
Burgundians, formed the strength of this mighty host; but the Alani, who
had found a hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active
cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic adventurers
crowded so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that by some
historians, he has been styled the King of the Goths. Twelve thousand
warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth, or their
valiant deeds, glittered in the van; [68] and the whole multitude, which
was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased,
by the accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of
four hundred thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from
the same coast of the Baltic, which had poured forth the myriads of
the Cimbri and Teutones, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the
republic. After the departure of those Barbarians, their native country,
which was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long ramparts,
and gigantic moles, [69] remained, during some ages, a vast and
dreary solitude; till the human species was renewed by the powers of
generation, and the vacancy was filled by the influx of new inhabitants.
The nations who now usurp an extent of land which they are unable to
cultivate, would soon be assisted by the industrious poverty of their
neighbors, if the government of Europe did not protect the claims of
dominion and property.

[Footnote 6411: There is no authority which connects this inroad of the
Teutonic tribes with the movements of the Huns. The Huns can hardly have
reached the shores of the Baltic, and probably the greater part of the
forces of Radagaisus, particularly the Vandals, had long occupied a more
southern position.--M.]

[Footnote 65: Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. iii. p. 182) has
observed an emigration from the Palus Maeotis to the north of Germany,
which he ascribes to famine. But his views of ancient history are
strangely darkened by ignorance and error.]

[Footnote 66: Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) uses the general description of
the nations beyond the Danube and the Rhine. Their situation, and
consequently their names, are manifestly shown, even in the various
epithets which each ancient writer may have casually added.]

[Footnote 67: The name of Rhadagast was that of a local deity of
the Obotrites, (in Mecklenburg.) A hero might naturally assume the
appellation of his tutelar god; but it is not probable that the
Barbarians should worship an unsuccessful hero. See Mascou, Hist. of the
Germans, viii. 14. * Note: The god of war and of hospitality with the
Vends and all the Sclavonian races of Germany bore the name of Radegast,
apparently the same with Rhadagaisus. His principal temple was at Rhetra
in Mecklenburg. It was adorned with great magnificence. The statue of
the gold was of gold. St. Martin, v. 255. A statue of Radegast, of much
coarser materials, and of the rudest workmanship, was discovered between
1760 and 1770, with those of other Wendish deities, on the supposed site
of Rhetra. The names of the gods were cut upon them in Runic characters.
See the very curious volume on these antiquities--Die Gottesdienstliche
Alterthumer der Obotriter--Masch and Wogen. Berlin, 1771.--M.]

[Footnote 68: Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180), uses the Greek word
which does not convey any precise idea. I suspect that they were the
princes and nobles with their faithful companions; the knights
with their squires, as they would have been styled some centuries
afterwards.]

[Footnote 69: Tacit. de Moribus Germanorum, c. 37.]




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

The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and
precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the knowledge
of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was collected along
the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the
Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his ministers disturbed his
amusements by the news of the impending danger, was satisfied with being
the occasion, and the spectator, of the war. [70] The safety of Rome was
intrusted to the counsels, and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was
the feeble and exhausted state of the empire, that it was impossible to
restore the fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous
effort, the invasion of the Germans. [71] The hopes of the vigilant
minister of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He once more
abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies,
which were rigorously exacted, and pusillanimously eluded; employed the
most efficacious means to arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered
the gift of freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who
would enlist. [72] By these efforts he painfully collected, from the
subjects of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand men,
which, in the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been instantly
furnished by the free citizens of the territory of Rome. [73] The
thirty legions of Stilicho were reenforced by a large body of Barbarian
auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were personally attached to his service;
and the troops of Huns and of Goths, who marched under the banners of
their native princes, Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest
and resentment to oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the
confederate Germans passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and
the Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius,
securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and, on the other, the
camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his head-quarters at Ticinum, or Pavia,
but who seems to have avoided a decisive battle, till he had assembled
his distant forces. Many cities of Italy were pillaged, or destroyed;
and the siege of Florence, [74] by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest
events in the history of that celebrated republic; whose firmness
checked and delayed the unskillful fury of the Barbarians. The senate
and people trembled at their approached within a hundred and eighty
miles of Rome; and anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped,
with the new perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian
and a soldier, the leader of a disciplined army; who understood the laws
of war, who respected the sanctity of treaties, and who had familiarly
conversed with the subjects of the empire in the same camps, and the
same churches. The savage Radagaisus was a stranger to the manners, the
religion, and even the language, of the civilized nations of the South.
The fierceness of his temper was exasperated by cruel superstition; and
it was universally believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow,
to reduce the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the
most illustrious of the Roman senators on the altars of those gods
who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which should have
reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the incurable madness
of religious faction. The oppressed votaries of Jupiter and Mercury
respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome, the character of a devout
Pagan; loudly declared, that they were more apprehensive of the
sacrifices, than of the arms, of Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in
the calamities of their country, which condemned the faith of their
Christian adversaries. [75] [7511]

[Footnote 70:

     Cujus agendi
     Spectator vel causa fui,
    ---(Claudian, vi. Cons. Hon. 439,)

is the modest language of Honorius, in speaking of the Gothic war, which
he had seen somewhat nearer.]

[Footnote 71: Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) transports the war, and the victory
of Stilisho, beyond the Danube. A strange error, which is awkwardly and
imperfectly cured (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 807.) In
good policy, we must use the service of Zosimus, without esteeming or
trusting him.]

[Footnote 72: Codex Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 16. The date of
this law A.D. 406. May 18 satisfies me, as it had done Godefroy, (tom.
ii. p. 387,) of the true year of the invasion of Radagaisus. Tillemont,
Pagi, and Muratori, prefer the preceding year; but they are bound, by
certain obligations of civility and respect, to St. Paulinus of Nola.]

[Footnote 73: Soon after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, the senate,
on a sudden emergency, armed ten legions, 3000 horse, and 42,000 foot;
a force which the city could not have sent forth under Augustus, (Livy,
xi. 25.) This declaration may puzzle an antiquary, but it is clearly
explained by Montesquieu.]

[Footnote 74: Machiavel has explained, at least as a philosopher, the
origin of Florence, which insensibly descended, for the benefit of
trade, from the rock of Faesulae to the banks of the Arno, (Istoria
Fiorentina, tom. i. p. 36. Londra, 1747.) The triumvirs sent a colony
to Florence, which, under Tiberius, (Tacit. Annal. i. 79,) deserved the
reputation and name of a flourishing city. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. tom.
i. p. 507, &c.]

[Footnote 75: Yet the Jupiter of Radagaisus, who worshipped Thor and
Woden, was very different from the Olympic or Capitoline Jove. The
accommodating temper of Polytheism might unite those various and remote
deities; but the genuine Romans ahhorred the human sacrifices of Gaul
and Germany.]

[Footnote 7511: Gibbon has rather softened the language of Augustine as
to this threatened insurrection of the Pagans, in order to restore the
prohibited rites and ceremonies of Paganism; and their treasonable hopes
that the success of Radagaisus would be the triumph of idolatry. Compare
ii. 25--M.]

Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting courage of
the citizens was supported only by the authority of St. Ambrose; who had
communicated, in a dream, the promise of a speedy deliverance. [76] On
a sudden, they beheld, from their walls, the banners of Stilicho, who
advanced, with his united force, to the relief of the faithful city; and
who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The
apparent contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat
of Radagaisus, may be reconciled without offering much violence to
their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were intimately
connected by friendship and religion, ascribed this miraculous victory
to the providence of God, rather than to the valor of man. [77] They
strictly exclude every idea of chance, or even of bloodshed; and
positively affirm, that the Romans, whose camp was the scene of plenty
and idleness, enjoyed the distress of the Barbarians, slowly expiring
on the sharp and barren ridge of the hills of Faesulae, which rise above
the city of Florence. Their extravagant assertion that not a single
soldier of the Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be
dismissed with silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of
Augustin and Orosius is consistent with the state of the war, and the
character of Stilicho. Conscious that he commanded the last army of the
republic, his prudence would not expose it, in the open field, to the
headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of surrounding the enemy with
strong lines of circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the
Gothic king, was repeated on a larger scale, and with more considerable
effect. The examples of Caesar must have been familiar to the most
illiterate of the Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium,
which connected twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart
of fifteen miles, afforded the model of an intrenchment which might
confine, and starve, the most numerous host of Barbarians. [78] The
Roman troops had less degenerated from the industry, than from the
valor, of their ancestors; and if their servile and laborious work
offended the pride of the soldiers, Tuscany could supply many thousand
peasants, who would labor, though, perhaps, they would not fight, for
the salvation of their native country. The imprisoned multitude of
horses and men [79] was gradually destroyed, by famine rather than by
the sword; but the Romans were exposed, during the progress of such
an extensive work, to the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy. The
despair of the hungry Barbarians would precipitate them against the
fortifications of Stilicho; the general might sometimes indulge the
ardor of his brave auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to assault the camp
of the Germans; and these various incidents might produce the sharp
and bloody conflicts which dignify the narrative of Zosimus, and the
Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus. [80] A seasonable supply of men
and provisions had been introduced into the walls of Florence, and the
famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch
of so many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors,
was reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in the
clemency of Stilicho. [81] But the death of the royal captive, who
was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and of
Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was sufficient to
brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty. [82]
The famished Germans, who escaped the fury of the auxiliaries, were sold
as slaves, at the contemptible price of as many single pieces of gold;
but the difference of food and climate swept away great numbers of those
unhappy strangers; and it was observed, that the inhuman purchasers,
instead of reaping the fruits of their labor were soon obliged to
provide the expense of their interment Stilicho informed the emperor
and the senate of his success; and deserved, a second time, the glorious
title of Deliverer of Italy. [83]

[Footnote 76: Paulinus (in Vit. Ambros c. 50) relates this story, which
he received from the mouth of Pansophia herself, a religious matron of
Florence. Yet the archbishop soon ceased to take an active part in the
business of the world, and never became a popular saint.]

[Footnote 77: Augustin de Civitat. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, l. vii. c. 37,
p. 567-571. The two friends wrote in Africa, ten or twelve years after
the victory; and their authority is implicitly followed by Isidore of
Seville, (in Chron. p. 713, edit. Grot.) How many interesting facts
might Orosius have inserted in the vacant space which is devoted to
pious nonsense!]

[Footnote 78:

     Franguntur montes, planumque per ardua Caesar
     Ducit opus: pandit fossas, turritaque summis
     Disponit castella jugis, magnoque necessu
     Amplexus fines, saltus, memorosaque tesqua
     Et silvas, vastaque feras indagine claudit.!

Yet the simplicity of truth (Caesar, de Bell. Civ. iii. 44) is far
greater than the amplifications of Lucan, (Pharsal. l. vi. 29-63.)]

[Footnote 79: The rhetorical expressions of Orosius, "in arido et aspero
montis jugo;" "in unum ac parvum verticem," are not very suitable to
the encampment of a great army. But Faesulae, only three miles from
Florence, might afford space for the head-quarters of Radagaisus, and
would be comprehended within the circuit of the Roman lines.]

[Footnote 80: See Zosimus, l. v. p. 331, and the Chronicles of Prosper
and Marcellinus.]

[Footnote 81: Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180) uses an expression
which would denote a strict and friendly alliance, and render Stilicho
still more criminal. The paulisper detentus, deinde interfectus, of
Orosius, is sufficiently odious. * Note: Gibbon, by translating this
passage of Olympiodorus, as if it had been good Greek, has probably
fallen into an error. The natural order of the words is as Gibbon
translates it; but it is almost clear, refers to the Gothic chiefs,
"whom Stilicho, after he had defeated Radagaisus, attached to his army."
So in the version corrected by Classen for Niebuhr's edition of the
Byzantines, p. 450.--M.]

[Footnote 82: Orosius, piously inhuman, sacrifices the king and people,
Agag and the Amalekites, without a symptom of compassion. The bloody
actor is less detestable than the cool, unfeeling historian.----Note:
Considering the vow, which he was universally believed to have made, to
destroy Rome, and to sacrifice the senators on the altars, and that he
is said to have immolated his prisoners to his gods, the execution of
Radagaisus, if, as it appears, he was taken in arms, cannot deserve
Gibbon's severe condemnation. Mr. Herbert (notes to his poem of Attila,
p. 317) justly observes, that "Stilicho had probably authority for
hanging him on the first tree." Marcellinus, adds Mr. Herbert,
attributes the execution to the Gothic chiefs Sarus.--M.]

[Footnote 83: And Claudian's muse, was she asleep? had she been ill
paid! Methinks the seventh consulship of Honorius (A.D. 407) would have
furnished the subject of a noble poem. Before it was discovered that the
state could no longer be saved, Stilicho (after Romulus, Camillus and
Marius) might have been worthily surnamed the fourth founder of Rome.]

The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has
encouraged a vain persuasion, that the whole army, or rather nation, of
Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic, miserably perished
under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was the fate of Radagaisus
himself, of his brave and faithful companions, and of more than one
third of the various multitude of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and
Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of their general. [84] The
union of such an army might excite our surprise, but the causes of
separation are obvious and forcible; the pride of birth, the insolence
of valor, the jealousy of command, the impatience of subordination, and
the obstinate conflict of opinions, of interests, and of passions, among
so many kings and warriors, who were untaught to yield, or to obey.
After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German host, which must
have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand men, still remained
in arms, between the Apennine and the Alps, or between the Alps and the
Danube. It is uncertain whether they attempted to revenge the death
of their general; but their irregular fury was soon diverted by
the prudence and firmness of Stilicho, who opposed their march, and
facilitated their retreat; who considered the safety of Rome and Italy
as the great object of his care, and who sacrificed, with too much
indifference, the wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. [85]
The Barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian deserters,
the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and the invasion of
Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by the remains of the
great army of Radagaisus. [86]

[Footnote 84: A luminous passage of Prosper's Chronicle, "In tres
partes, pes diversos principes, diversus exercitus," reduces the miracle
of Florence and connects the history of Italy, Gaul, and Germany.]

[Footnote 85: Orosius and Jerom positively charge him with instigating
the in vasion. "Excitatae a Stilichone gentes," &c. They must mean a
directly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul]

[Footnote 86: The Count de Buat is satisfied, that the Germans who
invaded Gaul were the two thirds that yet remained of the army of
Radagaisus. See the Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Europe, (tom.
vii. p. 87, 121. Paris, 1772;) an elaborate work, which I had not the
advantage of perusing till the year 1777. As early as 1771, I find the
same idea expressed in a rough draught of the present History. I
have since observed a similar intimation in Mascou, (viii. 15.) Such
agreement, without mutual communication, may add some weight to our
common sentiment.]

Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of
Germany, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were
disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive neutrality; and
the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage in the defence of the
of the empire. In the rapid progress down the Rhine, which was the first
act of the administration of Stilicho, he had applied himself, with
peculiar attention, to secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and
to remove the irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic.
Marcomir, one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the
tribunal of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He
was sentenced to a mild, but distant exile, in the province of Tuscany;
and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far from exciting the
resentment of his subjects, that they punished with death the turbulent
Sunno, who attempted to revenge his brother; and maintained a dutiful
allegiance to the princes, who were established on the throne by the
choice of Stilicho. [87] When the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken
by the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single
force of the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity,
had again separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian
allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty thousand
Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the field of battle.
The whole people must have been extirpated, if the squadrons of the
Alani, advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry
of the Franks; who, after an honorable resistance, were compelled to
relinquish the unequal contest. The victorious confederates pursued
their march, and on the last day of the year, in a season when the
waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without
opposition, the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage
of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never
afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire
in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long
separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from
that fatal moment levelled with the ground. [88]

[Footnote 87:

     Provincia missos
     Expellet citius fasces, quam Francia reges
     Quos dederis.

Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 235, &c.) is clear and satisfactory.
These kings of France are unknown to Gregory of Tours; but the author
of the Gesta Francorum mentions both Sunno and Marcomir, and names the
latter as the father of Pharamond, (in tom. ii. p. 543.) He seems to
write from good materials, which he did not understand.]

[Footnote 88: See Zosimus, (l. vi. p. 373,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p.
576,) and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9, p. 165, in
the second volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a valuable
fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, whose three names denote a
Christian, a Roman subject, and a Semi-Barbarian.]

While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Franks,
and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, unconscious of
their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity,
which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and
herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the Barbarians; their
huntsmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses
of the Hercynian wood. [89] The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like
those of the Tyber, with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and
if a poet descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side
was situated the territory of the Romans. [90] This scene of peace
and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the
smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the
desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and
destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly massacred in the
church. Worms perished after a long and obstinate siege; Strasburgh,
Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression
of the German yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread from the
banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of
Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps,
and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before
them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the
virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars. [91] The
ecclesiastics, to whom we are indebted for this vague description of the
public calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting the Christians
to repent of the sins which had provoked the Divine Justice, and to
renounce the perishable goods of a wretched and deceitful world. But
as the Pelagian controversy, [92] which attempts to sound the abyss
of grace and predestination, soon became the serious employment of
the Latin clergy, the Providence which had decreed, or foreseen, or
permitted, such a train of moral and natural evils, was rashly weighed
in the imperfect and fallacious balance of reason. The crimes, and the
misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously compared with
those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Justice, which
did not exempt from the common destruction the feeble, the guiltless,
the infant portion of the human species. These idle disputants
overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace
with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety with valor. The timid
and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine
legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary
troops might be unequal to the arduous task; and the Barbarian
auxiliaries might prefer the unbounded license of spoil to the benefits
of a moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were filled
with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in the defence of
their houses, their families, and their altars, if they had dared to
die, would have deserved to vanquish. The knowledge of their native
country would have enabled them to oppose continual and insuperable
obstacles to the progress of an invader; and the deficiency of the
Barbarians, in arms, as well as in discipline, removed the only pretence
which excuses the submission of a populous country to the inferior
numbers of a veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles V., he
inquired of a prisoner, how many days Paris might be distant from the
frontier; "Perhaps twelve, but they will be days of battle:" [93] such
was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that ambitious
prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis I., were animated
by a very different spirit; and in less than two years, the divided
troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose numbers, were they fairly
stated, would appear contemptible, advanced, without a combat, to the
foot of the Pyrenean Mountains.

[Footnote 89: Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 221, &c., l. ii. 186)
describes the peace and prosperity of the Gallic frontier. The Abbe
Dubos (Hist. Critique, &c., tom. i. p. 174) would read Alba (a nameless
rivulet of the Ardennes) instead of Albis; and expatiates on the
danger of the Gallic cattle grazing beyond the Elbe. Foolish enough! In
poetical geography, the Elbe, and the Hercynian, signify any river,
or any wood, in Germany. Claudian is not prepared for the strict
examination of our antiquaries.]

[Footnote 90:--Germinasque viator Cum videat ripas, quae sit Romana
requirat.]

[Footnote 91: Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the 1st vol. of the
Historians of France, p. 777, 782, the proper extracts from the Carmen
de Providentil Divina, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was himself a
captive, with his bishop and fellow-citizens.]

[Footnote 92: The Pelagian doctrine, which was first agitated A.D.
405, was condemned, in the space of ten years, at Rome and Carthage. St
Augustin fought and conquered; but the Greek church was favorable to his
adversaries; and (what is singular enough) the people did not take any
part in a dispute which they could not understand.]

[Footnote 93: See the Memoires de Guillaume du Bellay, l. vi. In French,
the original reproof is less obvious, and more pointed, from the double
sense of the word journee, which alike signifies, a day's travel, or a
battle.]

In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance of Stilicho
had successfully guarded the remote island of Britain from her incessant
enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the Irish coast. [94] But those
restless Barbarians could not neglect the fair opportunity of the Gothic
war, when the walls and stations of the province were stripped of the
Roman troops. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from
the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character
of Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bonds of allegiance, and
to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The spirit of
revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived
by the capricious violence of the soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps
the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were
the instruments, and at length the victims, of their passion. [95]
Marcus was the first whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful
emperor of Britain and of the West. They violated, by the hasty murder
of Marcus, the oath of fidelity which they had imposed on themselves;
and their disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an
honorable epitaph on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they adorned
with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four months, Gratian
experienced the fate of his predecessor. The memory of the great
Constantine, whom the British legions had given to the church and to
the empire, suggested the singular motive of their third choice. They
discovered in the ranks a private soldier of the name of Constantine,
and their impetuous levity had already seated him on the throne, before
they perceived his incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious
appellation. [96] Yet the authority of Constantine was less precarious,
and his government was more successful, than the transient reigns of
Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving his inactive troops in
those camps, which had been twice polluted with blood and sedition,
urged him to attempt the reduction of the Western provinces. He landed
at Boulogne with an inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed
himself some days, he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped
the yoke of the Barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign.
They obeyed the summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court
of Ravenna had absolved a deserted people from the duty of allegiance;
their actual distress encouraged them to accept any circumstances of
change, without apprehension, and, perhaps, with some degree of hope;
and they might flatter themselves, that the troops, the authority, and
even the name of a Roman emperor, who fixed his residence in Gaul, would
protect the unhappy country from the rage of the Barbarians. The first
successes of Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans,
were magnified by the voice of adulation into splendid and decisive
victories; which the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon reduced
to their just value. His negotiations procured a short and precarious
truce; and if some tribes of the Barbarians were engaged, by the
liberality of his gifts and promises, to undertake the defence of the
Rhine, these expensive and uncertain treaties, instead of restoring
the pristine vigor of the Gallic frontier, served only to disgrace the
majesty of the prince, and to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures
of the republic. Elated, however, with this imaginary triumph, the vain
deliverer of Gaul advanced into the provinces of the South, to encounter
a more pressing and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to
lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius; and the
forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily consumed in this domestic
quarrel. After the loss of his two bravest generals, Justinian and
Nevigastes, the former of whom was slain in the field of battle, the
latter in a peaceful but treacherous interview, Constantine fortified
himself within the walls of Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked
seven days; and the Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat,
the ignominy of purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and
outlaws of the Alps. [97] Those mountains now separated the dominions of
two rival monarchs; and the fortifications of the double frontier were
guarded by the troops of the empire, whose arms would have been more
usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against the Barbarians of
Germany and Scythia.

[Footnote 94: Claudian, (i. Cons. Stil. l. ii. 250.) It is supposed
that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by sea, the whole western coast of
Britain: and some slight credit may be given even to Nennius and the
Irish traditions, (Carte's Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 169.) Whitaker's
Genuine History of the Britons, p. 199. The sixty-six lives of St.
Patrick, which were extant in the ninth century, must have contained
as many thousand lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of these Irish
inroads the future apostle was led away captive, (Usher, Antiquit.
Eccles Britann. p. 431, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 45 782,
&c.)]

[Footnote 95: The British usurpers are taken from Zosimus, (l. vi. p.
371-375,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p. 576, 577,) Olympiodorus,
(apud Photium, p. 180, 181,) the ecclesiastical historians, and the
Chronicles. The Latins are ignorant of Marcus.]

[Footnote 96: Cum in Constantino inconstantiam... execrarentur,
(Sidonius Apollinaris, l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, edit. secund. Sirmond.)
Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by so fair a pun, to stigmatize a prince
who had disgraced his grandfather.]

[Footnote 97: Bagaudoe is the name which Zosimus applies to them;
perhaps they deserved a less odious character, (see Dubos, Hist.
Critique, tom. i. p. 203, and this History, vol. i. p. 407.) We shall
hear of them again.]




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

On the side of the Pyrenees, the ambition of Constantine might
be justified by the proximity of danger; but his throne was soon
established by the conquest, or rather submission, of Spain; which
yielded to the influence of regular and habitual subordination, and
received the laws and magistrates of the Gallic praefecture. The only
opposition which was made to the authority of Constantine proceeded not
so much from the powers of government, or the spirit of the people, as
from the private zeal and interest of the family of Theodosius. Four
brothers [98] had obtained, by the favor of their kinsman, the deceased
emperor, an honorable rank and ample possessions in their native
country; and the grateful youths resolved to risk those advantages in
the service of his son. After an unsuccessful effort to maintain their
ground at the head of the stationary troops of Lusitania, they retired
to their estates; where they armed and levied, at their own expense, a
considerable body of slaves and dependants, and boldly marched to occupy
the strong posts of the Pyrenean Mountains. This domestic insurrection
alarmed and perplexed the sovereign of Gaul and Britain; and he was
compelled to negotiate with some troops of Barbarian auxiliaries, for
the service of the Spanish war. They were distinguished by the title of
Honorians; [99] a name which might have reminded them of their fidelity
to their lawful sovereign; and if it should candidly be allowed that the
Scots were influenced by any partial affection for a British prince, the
Moors and the Marcomanni could be tempted only by the profuse liberality
of the usurper, who distributed among the Barbarians the military, and
even the civil, honors of Spain. The nine bands of Honorians, which may
be easily traced on the establishment of the Western empire, could not
exceed the number of five thousand men: yet this inconsiderable force
was sufficient to terminate a war, which had threatened the power and
safety of Constantine. The rustic army of the Theodosian family was
surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers had the
good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the East; the other two,
after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles; and if Honorius
could remain insensible of the public disgrace, he might perhaps be
affected by the personal misfortunes of his generous kinsmen. Such were
the feeble arms which decided the possession of the Western provinces
of Europe, from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules. The
events of peace and war have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow
and imperfect view of the historians of the times, who were equally
ignorant of the causes, and of the effects, of the most important
revolutions. But the total decay of the national strength had
annihilated even the last resource of a despotic government; and the
revenue of exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military
service of a discontented and pusillanimous people.

[Footnote 98: Verinianus, Didymus, Theodosius, and Lagodius, who
in modern courts would be styled princes of the blood, were not
distinguished by any rank or privileges above the rest of their
fellow-subjects.]

[Footnote 99: These Honoriani, or Honoriaci, consisted of two bands of
Scots, or Attacotti, two of Moors, two of Marcomanni, the Victores, the
Asca in, and the Gallicani, (Notitia Imperii, sect. xxxiii. edit. Lab.)
They were part of the sixty-five Auxilia Palatina, and are properly
styled by Zosimus, (l. vi. 374.)]

The poet, whose flattery has ascribed to the Roman eagle the victories
of Pollentia and Verona, pursues the hasty retreat of Alaric, from the
confines of Italy, with a horrid train of imaginary spectres, such as
might hover over an army of Barbarians, which was almost exterminated
by war, famine, and disease. [100] In the course of this unfortunate
expedition, the king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a
considerable loss; and his harassed forces required an interval of
repose, to recruit their numbers and revive their confidence. Adversity
had exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of
his valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the Barbarian
warriors; who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire
of rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he soon accepted
the friendship, of Stilicho himself. Renouncing the service of the
emperor of the East, Alaric concluded, with the court of Ravenna, a
treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared master-general
of the Roman armies throughout the praefecture of Illyricum; as it was
claimed, according to the true and ancient limits, by the minister of
Honorius. [101] The execution of the ambitious design, which was either
stipulated, or implied, in the articles of the treaty, appears to
have been suspended by the formidable irruption of Radagaisus; and
the neutrality of the Gothic king may perhaps be compared to the
indifference of Caesar, who, in the conspiracy of Catiline, refused
either to assist, or to oppose, the enemy of the republic. After the
defeat of the Vandals, Stilicho resumed his pretensions to the provinces
of the East; appointed civil magistrates for the administration of
justice, and of the finances; and declared his impatience to lead to
the gates of Constantinople the united armies of the Romans and of the
Goths. The prudence, however, of Stilicho, his aversion to civil war,
and his perfect knowledge of the weakness of the state, may countenance
the suspicion, that domestic peace, rather than foreign conquest, was
the object of his policy; and that his principal care was to employ the
forces of Alaric at a distance from Italy. This design could not long
escape the penetration of the Gothic king, who continued to hold a
doubtful, and perhaps a treacherous, correspondence with the rival
courts; who protracted, like a dissatisfied mercenary, his languid
operations in Thessaly and Epirus, and who soon returned to claim the
extravagant reward of his ineffectual services. From his camp near
Aemona, [102] on the confines of Italy, he transmitted to the emperor of
the West a long account of promises, of expenses, and of demands; called
for immediate satisfaction, and clearly intimated the consequences of
a refusal. Yet if his conduct was hostile, his language was decent and
dutiful. He humbly professed himself the friend of Stilicho, and the
soldier of Honorius; offered his person and his troops to march, without
delay, against the usurper of Gaul; and solicited, as a permanent
retreat for the Gothic nation, the possession of some vacant province of
the Western empire.

[Footnote 100:

     Comitatur euntem
     Pallor, et atra fames; et saucia lividus ora
     Luctus; et inferno stridentes agmine morbi.
    ---Claudian in vi. Cons. Hon. 821, &c.]

[Footnote 101: These dark transactions are investigated by the Count
de Bual (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vii. c. iii.--viii. p.
69-206,) whose laborious accuracy may sometimes fatigue a superficial
reader.]

[Footnote 102: See Zosimus, l. v. p. 334, 335. He interrupts his scanty
narrative to relate the fable of Aemona, and of the ship Argo; which was
drawn overland from that place to the Adriatic. Sozomen (l. viii. c.
25, l. ix. c. 4) and Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) cast a pale and doubtful
light; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571) is abominably partial.]

The political and secret transactions of two statesmen, who labored to
deceive each other and the world, must forever have been concealed in
the impenetrable darkness of the cabinet, if the debates of a popular
assembly had not thrown some rays of light on the correspondence of
Alaric and Stilicho. The necessity of finding some artificial support
for a government, which, from a principle, not of moderation, but of
weakness, was reduced to negotiate with its own subjects, had insensibly
revived the authority of the Roman senate; and the minister of Honorius
respectfully consulted the legislative council of the republic. Stilicho
assembled the senate in the palace of the Caesars; represented, in a
studied oration, the actual state of affairs; proposed the demands of
the Gothic king, and submitted to their consideration the choice of
peace or war. The senators, as if they had been suddenly awakened from a
dream of four hundred years, appeared, on this important occasion, to
be inspired by the courage, rather than by the wisdom, of their
predecessors. They loudly declared, in regular speeches, or in
tumultuary acclamations, that it was unworthy of the majesty of Rome to
purchase a precarious and disgraceful truce from a Barbarian king; and
that, in the judgment of a magnanimous people, the chance of ruin was
always preferable to the certainty of dishonor. The minister, whose
pacific intentions were seconded only by the voice of a few servile and
venal followers, attempted to allay the general ferment, by an apology
for his own conduct, and even for the demands of the Gothic prince. "The
payment of a subsidy, which had excited the indignation of the Romans,
ought not (such was the language of Stilicho) to be considered in the
odious light, either of a tribute, or of a ransom, extorted by the
menaces of a Barbarian enemy. Alaric had faithfully asserted the just
pretensions of the republic to the provinces which were usurped by the
Greeks of Constantinople: he modestly required the fair and stipulated
recompense of his services; and if he had desisted from the prosecution
of his enterprise, he had obeyed, in his retreat, the peremptory, though
private, letters of the emperor himself. These contradictory orders (he
would not dissemble the errors of his own family) had been procured by
the intercession of Serena. The tender piety of his wife had been too
deeply affected by the discord of the royal brothers, the sons of her
adopted father; and the sentiments of nature had too easily prevailed
over the stern dictates of the public welfare." These ostensible
reasons, which faintly disguise the obscure intrigues of the palace
of Ravenna, were supported by the authority of Stilicho; and obtained,
after a warm debate, the reluctant approbation of the senate. The tumult
of virtue and freedom subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of
gold was granted, under the name of a subsidy, to secure the peace
of Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths.
Lampadius alone, one of the most illustrious members of the assembly,
still persisted in his dissent; exclaimed, with a loud voice, "This is
not a treaty of peace, but of servitude;" [103] and escaped the danger
of such bold opposition by immediately retiring to the sanctuary of a
Christian church. [See Palace Of The Caesars]

[Footnote 103: Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. He repeats the words of
Lampadius, as they were spoke in Latin, "Non est ista pax, sed pactio
servi tutis," and then translates them into Greek for the benefit of his
readers. * Note: From Cicero's XIIth Philippic, 14.--M.]

But the reign of Stilicho drew towards its end; and the proud minister
might perceive the symptoms of his approaching disgrace. The generous
boldness of Lampadius had been applauded; and the senate, so patiently
resigned to a long servitude, rejected with disdain the offer of
invidious and imaginary freedom. The troops, who still assumed the name
and prerogatives of the Roman legions, were exasperated by the partial
affection of Stilicho for the Barbarians: and the people imputed to the
mischievous policy of the minister the public misfortunes, which were
the natural consequence of their own degeneracy. Yet Stilicho might have
continued to brave the clamors of the people, and even of the soldiers,
if he could have maintained his dominion over the feeble mind of his
pupil. But the respectful attachment of Honorius was converted into
fear, suspicion, and hatred. The crafty Olympius, [104] who concealed
his vices under the mask of Christian piety, had secretly undermined the
benefactor, by whose favor he was promoted to the honorable offices of
the Imperial palace. Olympius revealed to the unsuspecting emperor,
who had attained the twenty-fifth year of his age, that he was without
weight, or authority, in his own government; and artfully alarmed his
timid and indolent disposition by a lively picture of the designs of
Stilicho, who already meditated the death of his sovereign, with the
ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius.
The emperor was instigated, by his new favorite, to assume the tone
of independent dignity; and the minister was astonished to find, that
secret resolutions were formed in the court and council, which were
repugnant to his interest, or to his intentions. Instead of residing in
the palace of Rome, Honorius declared that it was his pleasure to return
to the secure fortress of Ravenna. On the first intelligence of the
death of his brother Arcadius, he prepared to visit Constantinople,
and to regulate, with the authority of a guardian, the provinces of
the infant Theodosius. [105] The representation of the difficulty and
expense of such a distant expedition, checked this strange and sudden
sally of active diligence; but the dangerous project of showing the
emperor to the camp of Pavia, which was composed of the Roman troops,
the enemies of Stilicho, and his Barbarian auxiliaries, remained
fixed and unalterable. The minister was pressed, by the advice of his
confidant, Justinian, a Roman advocate, of a lively and penetrating
genius, to oppose a journey so prejudicial to his reputation and safety.
His strenuous but ineffectual efforts confirmed the triumph of Olympius;
and the prudent lawyer withdrew himself from the impending ruin of his
patron.

[Footnote 104: He came from the coast of the Euxine, and exercised a
splendid office. His actions justify his character, which Zosimus (l. v.
p. 340) exposes with visible satisfaction. Augustin revered the piety
of Olympius, whom he styles a true son of the church, (Baronius, Annal.
Eccles, Eccles. A.D. 408, No. 19, &c. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii.
p. 467, 468.) But these praises, which the African saint so unworthily
bestows, might proceed as well from ignorance as from adulation.]

[Footnote 105: Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 4.
Stilicho offered to undertake the journey to Constantinople, that he
might divert Honorius from the vain attempt. The Eastern empire would
not have obeyed, and could not have been conquered.]

In the passage of the emperor through Bologna, a mutiny of the guards
was excited and appeased by the secret policy of Stilicho; who announced
his instructions to decimate the guilty, and ascribed to his own
intercession the merit of their pardon. After this tumult, Honorius
embraced, for the last time, the minister whom he now considered as
a tyrant, and proceeded on his way to the camp of Pavia; where he was
received by the loyal acclamations of the troops who were assembled
for the service of the Gallic war. On the morning of the fourth day, he
pronounced, as he had been taught, a military oration in the presence
of the soldiers, whom the charitable visits, and artful discourses, of
Olympius had prepared to execute a dark and bloody conspiracy. At
the first signal, they massacred the friends of Stilicho, the most
illustrious officers of the empire; two Praetorian praefects, of Gaul
and of Italy; two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry; the
master of the offices; the quaestor, the treasurer, and the count of the
domestics. Many lives were lost; many houses were plundered; the furious
sedition continued to rage till the close of the evening; and the
trembling emperor, who was seen in the streets of Pavia without his
robes or diadem, yielded to the persuasions of his favorite; condemned
the memory of the slain; and solemnly approved the innocence and
fidelity of their assassins. The intelligence of the massacre of Pavia
filled the mind of Stilicho with just and gloomy apprehensions; and he
instantly summoned, in the camp of Bologna, a council of the confederate
leaders, who were attached to his service, and would be involved in his
ruin. The impetuous voice of the assembly called aloud for arms, and
for revenge; to march, without a moment's delay, under the banners of
a hero, whom they had so often followed to victory; to surprise, to
oppress, to extirpate the guilty Olympius, and his degenerate Romans;
and perhaps to fix the diadem on the head of their injured general.
Instead of executing a resolution, which might have been justified by
success, Stilicho hesitated till he was irrecoverably lost. He was still
ignorant of the fate of the emperor; he distrusted the fidelity of his
own party; and he viewed with horror the fatal consequences of arming a
crowd of licentious Barbarians against the soldiers and people of Italy.
The confederates, impatient of his timorous and doubtful delay, hastily
retired, with fear and indignation. At the hour of midnight, Sarus,
a Gothic warrior, renowned among the Barbarians themselves for his
strength and valor, suddenly invaded the camp of his benefactor,
plundered the baggage, cut in pieces the faithful Huns, who guarded
his person, and penetrated to the tent, where the minister, pensive and
sleepless, meditated on the dangers of his situation. Stilicho escaped
with difficulty from the sword of the Goths and, after issuing a last
and generous admonition to the cities of Italy, to shut their gates
against the Barbarians, his confidence, or his despair, urged him to
throw himself into Ravenna, which was already in the absolute possession
of his enemies. Olympius, who had assumed the dominion of Honorius, was
speedily informed, that his rival had embraced, as a suppliant the altar
of the Christian church. The base and cruel disposition of the hypocrite
was incapable of pity or remorse; but he piously affected to elude,
rather than to violate, the privilege of the sanctuary. Count Heraclian,
with a troop of soldiers, appeared, at the dawn of day, before the gates
of the church of Ravenna. The bishop was satisfied by a solemn oath,
that the Imperial mandate only directed them to secure the person of
Stilicho: but as soon as the unfortunate minister had been tempted
beyond the holy threshold, he produced the warrant for his instant
execution. Stilicho supported, with calm resignation, the injurious
names of traitor and parricide; repressed the unseasonable zeal of his
followers, who were ready to attempt an ineffectual rescue; and, with a
firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals, submitted his
neck to the sword of Heraclian. [106]

[Footnote 106: Zosimus (l. v. p. 336-345) has copiously, though not
clearly, related the disgrace and death of Stilicho. Olympiodorus, (apud
Phot. p. 177.) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571, 572,) Sozomen, (l.
ix. c. 4,) and Philostorgius, (l. xi. c. 3, l. xii. c. 2,) afford
supplemental hints.]

The servile crowd of the palace, who had so long adored the fortune of
Stilicho, affected to insult his fall; and the most distant connection
with the master-general of the West, which had so lately been a title to
wealth and honors, was studiously denied, and rigorously punished. His
family, united by a triple alliance with the family of Theodosius,
might envy the condition of the meanest peasant. The flight of his son
Eucherius was intercepted; and the death of that innocent youth soon
followed the divorce of Thermantia, who filled the place of her sister
Maria; and who, like Maria, had remained a virgin in the Imperial bed.
[107] The friends of Stilicho, who had escaped the massacre of Pavia,
were persecuted by the implacable revenge of Olympius; and the most
exquisite cruelty was employed to extort the confession of a treasonable
and sacrilegious conspiracy. They died in silence: their firmness
justified the choice, [108] and perhaps absolved the innocence of their
patron: and the despotic power, which could take his life without a
trial, and stigmatize his memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction
over the impartial suffrage of posterity. [109] The services of Stilicho
are great and manifest; his crimes, as they are vaguely stated in the
language of flattery and hatred, are obscure at least, and improbable.
About four months after his death, an edict was published, in the name
of Honorius, to restore the free communication of the two empires, which
had been so long interrupted by the public enemy. [110] The minister,
whose fame and fortune depended on the prosperity of the state, was
accused of betraying Italy to the Barbarians; whom he repeatedly
vanquished at Pollentia, at Verona, and before the walls of Florence.
His pretended design of placing the diadem on the head of his son
Eucherius, could not have been conducted without preparations or
accomplices; and the ambitious father would not surely have left the
future emperor, till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble
station of tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho
was arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost
miraculous, deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause of the
clergy; who asserted, that the restoration of idols, and the persecution
of the church, would have been the first measure of the reign of
Eucherius. The son of Stilicho, however, was educated in the bosom of
Christianity, which his father had uniformly professed, and zealously
supported. [111] [1111] Serena had borrowed her magnificent necklace
from the statue of Vesta; [112] and the Pagans execrated the memory
of the sacrilegious minister, by whose order the Sibylline books, the
oracles of Rome, had been committed to the flames. [113] The pride and
power of Stilicho constituted his real guilt. An honorable reluctance
to shed the blood of his countrymen appears to have contributed to the
success of his unworthy rival; and it is the last humiliation of the
character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to reproach
him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his youth, and the
support of his empire.

[Footnote 107: Zosimus, l. v. p. 333. The marriage of a Christian with
two sisters, scandalizes Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p.
557;) who expects, in vain, that Pope Innocent I. should have done
something in the way either of censure or of dispensation.]

[Footnote 108: Two of his friends are honorably mentioned, (Zosimus,
l. v. p. 346:) Peter, chief of the school of notaries, and the great
chamberlain Deuterius. Stilicho had secured the bed-chamber; and it is
surprising that, under a feeble prince, the bed-chamber was not able to
secure him.]

[Footnote 109: Orosius (l. vii. c. 38, p. 571, 572) seems to copy the
false and furious manifestos, which were dispersed through the provinces
by the new administration.]

[Footnote 110: See the Theodosian code, l. vii. tit. xvi. leg. 1, l.
ix. tit. xlii. leg. 22. Stilicho is branded with the name of proedo
publicus, who employed his wealth, ad omnem ditandam, inquietandamque
Barbariem.]

[Footnote 111: Augustin himself is satisfied with the effectual laws,
which Stilicho had enacted against heretics and idolaters; and which
are still extant in the Code. He only applies to Olympius for their
confirmation, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 408, No. 19.)]

[Footnote 112: Zosimus, l. v. p. 351. We may observe the bad taste of
the age, in dressing their statues with such awkward finery.]

[Footnote 113: See Rutilius Numatianus, (Itinerar. l. ii. 41-60,) to
whom religious enthusiasm has dictated some elegant and forcible
lines. Stilicho likewise stripped the gold plates from the doors of the
Capitol, and read a prophetic sentence which was engraven under them,
(Zosimus, l. v. p. 352.) These are foolish stories: yet the charge of
impiety adds weight and credit to the praise which Zosimus reluctantly
bestows on his virtues. Note: One particular in the extorted praise of
Zosimus, deserved the notice of the historian, as strongly opposed to
the former imputations of Zosimus himself, and indicative of he corrupt
practices of a declining age. "He had never bartered promotion in the
army for bribes, nor peculated in the supplies of provisions for the
army." l. v. c. xxxiv.--M.]

[Footnote 1111: Hence, perhaps, the accusation of treachery is
countenanced by Hatilius:--

     Quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis iniquum
     Proditor arcani quod fuit imperii.
     Romano generi dum nititur esse superstes,
     Crudelis summis miscuit ima furor.
     Dumque timet, quicquid se fecerat ipso timeri,
     Immisit Latiae barbara tela neci.  Rutil. Itin. II. 41.--M.]
     Among the train of dependants whose wealth and dignity
     attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is excited
     by the celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed the
     favor of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his patron.

The titular offices of tribune and notary fixed his rank in the Imperial
court: he was indebted to the powerful intercession of Serena for his
marriage with a very rich heiress of the province of Africa; [114] and
the statute of Claudian, erected in the forum of Trajan, was a monument
of the taste and liberality of the Roman senate. [115] After the praises
of Stilicho became offensive and criminal, Claudian was exposed to the
enmity of a powerful and unforgiving courtier, whom he had provoked by
the insolence of wit. He had compared, in a lively epigram, the opposite
characters of two Praetorian praefects of Italy; he contrasts the
innocent repose of a philosopher, who sometimes resigned the hours of
business to slumber, perhaps to study, with the interesting diligence
of a rapacious minister, indefatigable in the pursuit of unjust or
sacrilegious, gain. "How happy," continues Claudian, "how happy might it
be for the people of Italy, if Mallius could be constantly awake, and
if Hadrian would always sleep!" [116] The repose of Mallius was
not disturbed by this friendly and gentle admonition; but the cruel
vigilance of Hadrian watched the opportunity of revenge, and easily
obtained, from the enemies of Stilicho, the trifling sacrifice of an
obnoxious poet. The poet concealed himself, however, during the tumult
of the revolution; and, consulting the dictates of prudence rather
than of honor, he addressed, in the form of an epistle, a suppliant and
humble recantation to the offended praefect. He deplores, in mournful
strains, the fatal indiscretion into which he had been hurried by
passion and folly; submits to the imitation of his adversary the
generous examples of the clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and
expresses his hope that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on
a defenceless and contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and
poverty, and deeply wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the death of
his dearest friends. [117] Whatever might be the success of his prayer,
or the accidents of his future life, the period of a few years levelled
in the grave the minister and the poet: but the name of Hadrian is
almost sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is read with pleasure in every
country which has retained, or acquired, the knowledge of the Latin
language. If we fairly balance his merits and his defects, we shall
acknowledge that Claudian does not either satisfy, or silence, our
reason. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the
epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart
or enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek, in the poems of
Claudian, the happy invention, and artificial conduct, of an interesting
fable; or the just and lively representation of the characters and
situations of real life. For the service of his patron, he published
occasional panegyrics and invectives: and the design of these slavish
compositions encouraged his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and
nature. These imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree
by the poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and
precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most barren, and
of diversifying the most similar, topics: his coloring, more especially
in descriptive poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails
to display, and even to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated
understanding, a copious fancy, an easy, and sometimes forcible,
expression; and a perpetual flow of harmonious versification. To these
commendations, independent of any accidents of time and place, we must
add the peculiar merit which Claudian derived from the unfavorable
circumstances of his birth. In the decline of arts, and of empire,
a native of Egypt, [118] who had received the education of a Greek,
assumed, in a mature age, the familiar use, and absolute command, of
the Latin language; [119] soared above the heads of his feeble
contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three hundred
years, among the poets of ancient Rome. [120]

[Footnote 114: At the nuptials of Orpheus (a modest comparison!) all the
parts of animated nature contributed their various gifts; and the gods
themselves enriched their favorite. Claudian had neither flocks, nor
herds, nor vines, nor olives. His wealthy bride was heiress to them all.
But he carried to Africa a recommendatory letter from Serena, his Juno,
and was made happy, (Epist. ii. ad Serenam.)]

[Footnote 115: Claudian feels the honor like a man who deserved it, (in
praefat Bell. Get.) The original inscription, on marble, was found at
Rome, in the fifteenth century, in the house of Pomponius Laetus. The
statue of a poet, far superior to Claudian, should have been erected,
during his lifetime, by the men of letters, his countrymen and
contemporaries. It was a noble design.]

[Footnote 116: See Epigram xxx.

     Mallius indulget somno noctesque diesque:
     Insomnis Pharius sacra, profana, rapit.
     Omnibus, hoc, Italae gentes, exposcite votis;
     Mallius ut vigilet, dormiat ut Pharius.

Hadrian was a Pharian, (of Alexandrian.) See his public life in
Godefroy, Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 364. Mallius did not always sleep.
He composed some elegant dialogues on the Greek systems of natural
philosophy, (Claud, in Mall. Theodor. Cons. 61-112.)]

[Footnote 117: See Claudian's first Epistle. Yet, in some places, an
air of irony and indignation betrays his secret reluctance. * Note:
M. Beugnot has pointed out one remarkable characteristic of Claudian's
poetry, and of the times--his extraordinary religious indifference. Here
is a poet writing at the actual crisis of the complete triumph of the
new religion, the visible extinction of the old: if we may so speak, a
strictly historical poet, whose works, excepting his Mythological poem
on the rape of Proserpine, are confined to temporary subjects, and to
the politics of his own eventful day; yet, excepting in one or two
small and indifferent pieces, manifestly written by a Christian, and
interpolated among his poems, there is no allusion whatever to the great
religious strife. No one would know the existence of Christianity
at that period of the world, by reading the works of Claudian. His
panegyric and his satire preserve the same religious impartiality; award
their most lavish praise or their bitterest invective on Christian or
Pagan; he insults the fall of Eugenius, and glories in the victories
of Theodosius. Under the child,--and Honorius never became more than a
child,--Christianity continued to inflict wounds more and more deadly on
expiring Paganism. Are the gods of Olympus agitated with apprehension
at the birth of this new enemy? They are introduced as rejoicing at his
appearance, and promising long years of glory. The whole prophetic
choir of Paganism, all the oracles throughout the world, are summoned
to predict the felicity of his reign. His birth is compared to that
of Apollo, but the narrow limits of an island must not confine the new
deity--

     ... Non littora nostro
     Sufficerent angusta Deo.

Augury and divination, the shrines of Ammon, and of Delphi, the Persian
Magi, and the Etruscan seers, the Chaldean astrologers, the Sibyl
herself, are described as still discharging their prophetic functions,
and celebrating the natal day of this Christian prince. They are noble
lines, as well as curious illustrations of the times:

     ... Quae tunc documenta futuri?
     Quae voces avium? quanti per inane volatus?
     Quis vatum discursus erat?  Tibi corniger Ammon,
     Et dudum taciti rupere silentia Delphi.
     Te Persae cecinere Magi, te sensit Etruscus
     Augur, et inspectis Babylonius horruit astris;
     Chaldaei stupuere senes, Cumanaque rursus
     Itonuit rupes, rabidae delubra Sibyllae.
     --Claud. iv. Cons. Hon. 141.

From the Quarterly Review of Beugnot. Hist. de la Paganisme en Occident,
Q. R. v. lvii. p. 61.--M.]

[Footnote 118: National vanity has made him a Florentine, or a Spaniard.
But the first Epistle of Claudian proves him a native of Alexandria,
(Fabricius, Bibliot. Latin. tom. iii. p. 191-202, edit. Ernest.)]

[Footnote 119: His first Latin verses were composed during the
consulship of Probinus, A.D. 395.

Romanos bibimus primum, te consule, fontes, Et Latiae cessit Graia
Thalia togae.

Besides some Greek epigrams, which are still extant, the Latin poet had
composed, in Greek, the Antiquities of Tarsus, Anazarbus, Berytus, Nice,
&c. It is more easy to supply the loss of good poetry, than of authentic
history.]

[Footnote 120: Strada (Prolusion v. vi.) allows him to contend with
the five heroic poets, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Statius. His
patron is the accomplished courtier Balthazar Castiglione. His admirers
are numerous and passionate. Yet the rigid critics reproach the exotic
weeds, or flowers, which spring too luxuriantly in his Latian soil]




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

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

The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the
appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable correspondence
with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the
council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures
which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius. [1] The king
of the Goths would have conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to
destroy the formidable adversary, by whose arms, in Italy, as well as in
Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred
laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the great Stilicho.
The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his personal, or hereditary,
influence over the confederate Barbarians, could recommend him only to
the friends of their country, who despised, or detested, the worthless
characters of Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing
instances of the new favorites, these generals, unworthy as they had
shown themselves of the names of soldiers, [2] were promoted to the
command of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic troops. The
Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the edict which
the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and devout emperor.
Honorius excluded all persons, who were adverse to the Catholic church,
from holding any office in the state; obstinately rejected the service
of all those who dissented from his religion; and rashly disqualified
many of his bravest and most skilful officers, who adhered to the
Pagan worship, or who had imbibed the opinions of Arianism. [3] These
measures, so advantageous to an enemy, Alaric would have approved, and
might perhaps have suggested; but it may seem doubtful, whether the
Barbarian would have promoted his interest at the expense of the inhuman
and absurd cruelty which was perpetrated by the direction, or at least
with the connivance of the Imperial ministers. The foreign auxiliaries,
who had been attached to the person of Stilicho, lamented his death;
but the desire of revenge was checked by a natural apprehension for the
safety of their wives and children; who were detained as hostages in
the strong cities of Italy, where they had likewise deposited their most
valuable effects. At the same hour, and as if by a common signal, the
cities of Italy were polluted by the same horrid scenes of universal
massacre and pillage, which involved, in promiscuous destruction, the
families and fortunes of the Barbarians. Exasperated by such an injury,
which might have awakened the tamest and most servile spirit, they
cast a look of indignation and hope towards the camp of Alaric,
and unanimously swore to pursue, with just and implacable war, the
perfidious nation who had so basely violated the laws of hospitality.
By the imprudent conduct of the ministers of Honorius, the republic
lost the assistance, and deserved the enmity, of thirty thousand of her
bravest soldiers; and the weight of that formidable army, which alone
might have determined the event of the war, was transferred from the
scale of the Romans into that of the Goths.

[Footnote 1: The series of events, from the death of Stilicho to the
arrival of Alaric before Rome, can only be found in Zosimus, l. v. p.
347-350.]

[Footnote 2: The expression of Zosimus is strong and lively, sufficient
to excite the contempt of the enemy.]

[Footnote 3: Eos qui catholicae sectae sunt inimici, intra palatium
militare pro hibemus. Nullus nobis sit aliqua ratione conjunctus, qui a
nobis fidest religione discordat. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 42,
and Godefroy's Commentary, tom. vi. p. 164. This law was applied in the
utmost latitude, and rigorously executed. Zosimus, l. v. p. 364.]

In the arts of negotiation, as well as in those of war, the Gothic king
maintained his superior ascendant over an enemy, whose seeming changes
proceeded from the total want of counsel and design. From his camp, on
the confines of Italy, Alaric attentively observed the revolutions of
the palace, watched the progress of faction and discontent, disguised
the hostile aspect of a Barbarian invader, and assumed the more popular
appearance of the friend and ally of the great Stilicho: to whose
virtues, when they were no longer formidable, he could pay a just
tribute of sincere praise and regret. The pressing invitation of the
malecontents, who urged the king of the Goths to invade Italy, was
enforced by a lively sense of his personal injuries; and he might
especially complain, that the Imperial ministers still delayed and
eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of gold which had been
granted by the Roman senate, either to reward his services, or to
appease his fury. His decent firmness was supported by an artful
moderation, which contributed to the success of his designs. He
required a fair and reasonable satisfaction; but he gave the strongest
assurances, that, as soon as he had obtained it, he would immediately
retire. He refused to trust the faith of the Romans, unless Aetius and
Jason, the sons of two great officers of state, were sent as hostages to
his camp; but he offered to deliver, in exchange, several of the noblest
youths of the Gothic nation. The modesty of Alaric was interpreted, by
the ministers of Ravenna, as a sure evidence of his weakness and fear.
They disdained either to negotiate a treaty, or to assemble an army; and
with a rash confidence, derived only from their ignorance of the extreme
danger, irretrievably wasted the decisive moments of peace and war.
While they expected, in sullen silence, that the Barbarians would
evacuate the confines of Italy, Alaric, with bold and rapid marches,
passed the Alps and the Po; hastily pillaged the cities of Aquileia,
Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, which yielded to his arms; increased
his forces by the accession of thirty thousand auxiliaries; and, without
meeting a single enemy in the field, advanced as far as the edge of the
morass which protected the impregnable residence of the emperor of the
West. Instead of attempting the hopeless siege of Ravenna, the prudent
leader of the Goths proceeded to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the
sea-coast of the Hadriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient
mistress of the world. An Italian hermit, whose zeal and sanctity were
respected by the Barbarians themselves, encountered the victorious
monarch, and boldly denounced the indignation of Heaven against the
oppressors of the earth; but the saint himself was confounded by the
solemn asseveration of Alaric, that he felt a secret and praeternatural
impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of
Rome. He felt, that his genius and his fortune were equal to the most
arduous enterprises; and the enthusiasm which he communicated to
the Goths, insensibly removed the popular, and almost superstitious,
reverence of the nations for the majesty of the Roman name. His troops,
animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of the Flaminian
way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennine, [4] descended into
the rich plains of Umbria; and, as they lay encamped on the banks of
the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter and devour the milk-white oxen,
which had been so long reserved for the use of Roman triumphs. [5] A
lofty situation, and a seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning,
preserved the little city of Narni; but the king of the Goths, despising
the ignoble prey, still advanced with unabated vigor; and after he had
passed through the stately arches, adorned with the spoils of Barbaric
victories, he pitched his camp under the walls of Rome. [6]

[Footnote 4: Addison (see his Works, vol. ii. p. 54, edit. Baskerville)
has given a very picturesque description of the road through the
Apennine. The Goths were not at leisure to observe the beauties of
the prospect; but they were pleased to find that the Saxa Intercisa, a
narrow passage which Vespasian had cut through the rock, (Cluver. Italia
Antiq. tom. i. p. 168,) was totally neglected.

     Hine albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus
     Victima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,
     Romanos ad templa Deum duxere triumphos.
     --Georg. ii. 147.

Besides Virgil, most of the Latin poets, Propertius, Lucan, Silius
Italicus, Claudian, &c., whose passages may be found in Cluverius and
Addison, have celebrated the triumphal victims of the Clitumnus.]

[Footnote 6: Some ideas of the march of Alaric are borrowed from the
journey of Honorius over the same ground. (See Claudian in vi. Cons.
Hon. 494-522.) The measured distance between Ravenna and Rome was
254 Roman miles. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 126.] During a period of six
hundred and nineteen years, the seat of empire had never been violated
by the presence of a foreign enemy. The unsuccessful expedition of
Hannibal [7] served only to display the character of the senate and
people; of a senate degraded, rather than ennobled, by the comparison of
an assembly of kings; and of a people, to whom the ambassador of Pyrrhus
ascribed the inexhaustible resources of the Hydra. [8] Each of the
senators, in the time of the Punic war, had accomplished his term of the
military service, either in a subordinate or a superior station; and
the decree, which invested with temporary command all those who had
been consuls, or censors, or dictators, gave the republic the immediate
assistance of many brave and experienced generals. In the beginning of
the war, the Roman people consisted of two hundred and fifty thousand
citizens of an age to bear arms. [9] Fifty thousand had already died in
the defence of their country; and the twenty-three legions which were
employed in the different camps of Italy, Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, and
Spain, required about one hundred thousand men. But there still remained
an equal number in Rome, and the adjacent territory, who were animated
by the same intrepid courage; and every citizen was trained, from his
earliest youth, in the discipline and exercises of a soldier. Hannibal
was astonished by the constancy of the senate, who, without raising
the siege of Capua, or recalling their scattered forces, expected his
approach. He encamped on the banks of the Anio, at the distance of three
miles from the city; and he was soon informed, that the ground on which
he had pitched his tent, was sold for an adequate price at a public
auction; [911] and that a body of troops was dismissed by an opposite
road, to reenforce the legions of Spain. [10] He led his Africans to the
gates of Rome, where he found three armies in order of battle, prepared
to receive him; but Hannibal dreaded the event of a combat, from
which he could not hope to escape, unless he destroyed the last of his
enemies; and his speedy retreat confessed the invincible courage of the
Romans.

[Footnote 7: The march and retreat of Hannibal are described by Livy,
l. xxvi. c. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; and the reader is made a spectator of the
interesting scene.]

[Footnote 8: These comparisons were used by Cyneas, the counsellor of
Pyrrhus, after his return from his embassy, in which he had diligently
studied the discipline and manners of Rome. See Plutarch in Pyrrho. tom.
ii. p. 459.]

[Footnote 9: In the three census which were made of the Roman people,
about the time of the second Punic war, the numbers stand as follows,
(see Livy, Epitom. l. xx. Hist. l. xxvii. 36. xxix. 37:) 270,213,
137,108 214,000. The fall of the second, and the rise of the third,
appears so enormous, that several critics, notwithstanding the unanimity
of the Mss., have suspected some corruption of the text of Livy. (See
Drakenborch ad xxvii. 36, and Beaufort, Republique Romaine, tom. i. p.
325.) They did not consider that the second census was taken only at
Rome, and that the numbers were diminished, not only by the death, but
likewise by the absence, of many soldiers. In the third census, Livy
expressly affirms, that the legions were mustered by the care of
particular commissaries. From the numbers on the list we must always
deduct one twelfth above threescore, and incapable of bearing arms. See
Population de la France, p. 72.]

[Footnote 911: Compare the remarkable transaction in Jeremiah xxxii. 6,
to 44, where the prophet purchases his uncle's estate at the approach
of the Babylonian captivity, in his undoubting confidence in the
future restoration of the people. In the one case it is the triumph of
religious faith, in the other of national pride.--M.]

[Footnote 10: Livy considers these two incidents as the effects only
of chance and courage. I suspect that they were both managed by the
admirable policy of the senate.]

From the time of the Punic war, the uninterrupted succession of senators
had preserved the name and image of the republic; and the degenerate
subjects of Honorius ambitiously derived their descent from the heroes
who had repulsed the arms of Hannibal, and subdued the nations of the
earth. The temporal honors which the devout Paula [11] inherited
and despised, are carefully recapitulated by Jerom, the guide of her
conscience, and the historian of her life. The genealogy of her father,
Rogatus, which ascended as high as Agamemnon, might seem to betray
a Grecian origin; but her mother, Blaesilla, numbered the Scipios,
Aemilius Paulus, and the Gracchi, in the list of her ancestors; and
Toxotius, the husband of Paula, deduced his royal lineage from Aeneas,
the father of the Julian line. The vanity of the rich, who desired to
be noble, was gratified by these lofty pretensions. Encouraged by the
applause of their parasites, they easily imposed on the credulity of
the vulgar; and were countenanced, in some measure, by the custom of
adopting the name of their patron, which had always prevailed among the
freedmen and clients of illustrious families. Most of those families,
however, attacked by so many causes of external violence or internal
decay, were gradually extirpated; and it would be more reasonable to
seek for a lineal descent of twenty generations, among the mountains of
the Alps, or in the peaceful solitude of Apulia, than on the theatre
of Rome, the seat of fortune, of danger, and of perpetual revolutions.
Under each successive reign, and from every province of the empire, a
crowd of hardy adventurers, rising to eminence by their talents or their
vices, usurped the wealth, the honors, and the palaces of Rome; and
oppressed, or protected, the poor and humble remains of consular
families; who were ignorant, perhaps, of the glory of their ancestors.
[12]

[Footnote 11: See Jerom, tom. i. p. 169, 170, ad Eustochium; he bestows
on Paula the splendid titles of Gracchorum stirps, soboles Scipionum,
Pauli haeres, cujus vocabulum trahit, Martiae Papyriae Matris Africani
vera et germana propago. This particular description supposes a more
solid title than the surname of Julius, which Toxotius shared with a
thousand families of the western provinces. See the Index of Tacitus, of
Gruter's Inscriptions, &c.]

[Footnote 12: Tacitus (Annal. iii. 55) affirms, that between the battle
of Actium and the reign of Vespasian, the senate was gradually filled
with new families from the Municipia and colonies of Italy.]

In the time of Jerom and Claudian, the senators unanimously yielded the
preeminence to the Anician line; and a slight view of their history will
serve to appreciate the rank and antiquity of the noble families, which
contended only for the second place. [13] During the five first ages
of the city, the name of the Anicians was unknown; they appear to have
derived their origin from Praeneste; and the ambition of those new
citizens was long satisfied with the Plebeian honors of tribunes of
the people. [14] One hundred and sixty-eight years before the Christian
aera, the family was ennobled by the Praetorship of Anicius, who
gloriously terminated the Illyrian war, by the conquest of the nation,
and the captivity of their king. [15] From the triumph of that general,
three consulships, in distant periods, mark the succession of the
Anician name. [16] From the reign of Diocletian to the final extinction
of the Western empire, that name shone with a lustre which was not
eclipsed, in the public estimation, by the majesty of the Imperial
purple. [17] The several branches, to whom it was communicated, united,
by marriage or inheritance, the wealth and titles of the Annian, the
Petronian, and the Olybrian houses; and in each generation the number
of consulships was multiplied by an hereditary claim. [18] The Anician
family excelled in faith and in riches: they were the first of the
Roman senate who embraced Christianity; and it is probable that Anicius
Julian, who was afterwards consul and praefect of the city, atoned for
his attachment to the party of Maxentius, by the readiness with which
he accepted the religion of Constantine. [19] Their ample patrimony was
increased by the industry of Probus, the chief of the Anician family;
who shared with Gratian the honors of the consulship, and exercised,
four times, the high office of Praetorian praefect. [20] His immense
estates were scattered over the wide extent of the Roman world; and
though the public might suspect or disapprove the methods by which they
had been acquired, the generosity and magnificence of that fortunate
statesman deserved the gratitude of his clients, and the admiration of
strangers. [21] Such was the respect entertained for his memory, that
the two sons of Probus, in their earliest youth, and at the request
of the senate, were associated in the consular dignity; a memorable
distinction, without example, in the annals of Rome. [22]

[Footnote 13:

     Nec quisquam Procerum tentet (licet aere vetusto
     Floreat, et claro cingatur Roma senatu)
     Se jactare parem; sed prima sede relicta
     Aucheniis, de jure licet certare secundo.
    ---Claud. in Prob. et Olybrii Coss. 18.

Such a compliment paid to the obscure name of the Auchenii has amazed
the critics; but they all agree, that whatever may be the true reading,
the sense of Claudian can be applied only to the Anician family.]

[Footnote 14: The earliest date in the annals of Pighius, is that of M.
Anicius Gallus. Trib. Pl. A. U. C. 506. Another tribune, Q. Anicius, A.
U. C. 508, is distinguished by the epithet of Praenestinus. Livy (xlv.
43) places the Anicii below the great families of Rome.]

[Footnote 15: Livy, xliv. 30, 31, xlv. 3, 26, 43. He fairly appreciates
the merit of Anicius, and justly observes, that his fame was clouded
by the superior lustre of the Macedonian, which preceded the Illyrian
triumph.]

[Footnote 16: The dates of the three consulships are, A. U. C. 593, 818,
967 the two last under the reigns of Nero and Caracalla. The second
of these consuls distinguished himself only by his infamous flattery,
(Tacit. Annal. xv. 74;) but even the evidence of crimes, if they bear
the stamp of greatness and antiquity, is admitted, without reluctance,
to prove the genealogy of a noble house.]

[Footnote 17: In the sixth century, the nobility of the Anician name is
mentioned (Cassiodor. Variar. l. x. Ep. 10, 12) with singular respect by
the minister of a Gothic king of Italy.]

[Footnote 18:

     Fixus in omnes
     Cognatos procedit honos; quemcumque requiras
     Hac de stirpe virum, certum est de Consule
     nasci. Per fasces numerantur Avi, semperque
     renata Nobilitate virent, et prolem fata sequuntur.

(Claudian in Prob. et Olyb. Consulat. 12, &c.) The Annii, whose
name seems to have merged in the Anician, mark the Fasti with many
consulships, from the time of Vespasian to the fourth century.]

[Footnote 19: The title of first Christian senator may be justified by
the authority of Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 553) and the dislike of the
Pagans to the Anician family. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
iv. p. 183, v. p. 44. Baron. Annal. A.D. 312, No. 78, A.D. 322, No. 2.]

[Footnote 20: Probus... claritudine generis et potentia et opum
magnitudine, cognitus Orbi Romano, per quem universum poene patrimonia
sparsa possedit, juste an secus non judicioli est nostri. Ammian
Marcellin. xxvii. 11. His children and widow erected for him a
magnificent tomb in the Vatican, which was demolished in the time of
Pope Nicholas V. to make room for the new church of St. Peter Baronius,
who laments the ruin of this Christian monument, has diligently
preserved the inscriptions and basso-relievos. See Annal. Eccles. A.D.
395, No. 5-17.]

[Footnote 21: Two Persian satraps travelled to Milan and Rome, to hear
St. Ambrose, and to see Probus, (Paulin. in Vit. Ambros.) Claudian (in
Cons. Probin. et Olybr. 30-60) seems at a loss how to express the glory
of Probus.]

[Footnote 22: See the poem which Claudian addressed to the two noble
youths.]




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

"The marbles of the Anician palace," were used as a proverbial
expression of opulence and splendor; [23] but the nobles and senators of
Rome aspired, in due gradation, to imitate that illustrious family. The
accurate description of the city, which was composed in the Theodosian
age, enumerates one thousand seven hundred and eighty houses, the
residence of wealthy and honorable citizens. [24] Many of these stately
mansions might almost excuse the exaggeration of the poet; that Rome
contained a multitude of palaces, and that each palace was equal to a
city: since it included within its own precincts every thing which could
be subservient either to use or luxury; markets, hippodromes, temples,
fountains, baths, porticos, shady groves, and artificial aviaries. [25]
The historian Olympiodorus, who represents the state of Rome when it was
besieged by the Goths, [26] continues to observe, that several of the
richest senators received from their estates an annual income of four
thousand pounds of gold, above one hundred and sixty thousand pounds
sterling; without computing the stated provision of corn and wine,
which, had they been sold, might have equalled in value one third of
the money. Compared to this immoderate wealth, an ordinary revenue of
a thousand or fifteen hundred pounds of gold might be considered as no
more than adequate to the dignity of the senatorian rank, which required
many expenses of a public and ostentatious kind. Several examples
are recorded, in the age of Honorius, of vain and popular nobles, who
celebrated the year of their praetorship by a festival, which lasted
seven days, and cost above one hundred thousand pounds sterling. [27]
The estates of the Roman senators, which so far exceeded the proportion
of modern wealth, were not confined to the limits of Italy. Their
possessions extended far beyond the Ionian and Aegean Seas, to the most
distant provinces: the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded
as an eternal monument of the Actian victory, was the property of the
devout Paula; [28] and it is observed by Seneca, that the rivers, which
had divided hostile nations, now flowed through the lands of private
citizens. [29] According to their temper and circumstances, the estates
of the Romans were either cultivated by the labor of their slaves, or
granted, for a certain and stipulated rent, to the industrious farmer.
The economical writers of antiquity strenuously recommend the former
method, wherever it may be practicable; but if the object should be
removed, by its distance or magnitude, from the immediate eye of
the master, they prefer the active care of an old hereditary tenant,
attached to the soil, and interested in the produce, to the mercenary
administration of a negligent, perhaps an unfaithful, steward. [30]

[Footnote 23: Secundinus, the Manichaean, ap. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D.
390, No. 34.]

[Footnote 24: See Nardini, Roma Antica, p. 89, 498, 500.]

[Footnote 25:

    Quid loquar inclusas inter laquearia sylvas;
    Vernula queis vario carmine ludit avis.

Claud. Rutil. Numatian. Itinerar. ver. 111. The poet lived at the
time of the Gothic invasion. A moderate palace would have covered
Cincinnatus's farm of four acres (Val. Max. iv. 4.) In laxitatem ruris
excurrunt, says Seneca, Epist. 114. See a judicious note of Mr. Hume,
Essays, vol. i. p. 562, last 8vo edition.]

[Footnote 26: This curious account of Rome, in the reign of Honorius, is
found in a fragment of the historian Olympiodorus, ap. Photium, p. 197.]

[Footnote 27: The sons of Alypius, of Symmachus, and of Maximus, spent,
during their respective praetorships, twelve, or twenty, or forty,
centenaries, (or hundred weight of gold.) See Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p.
197. This popular estimation allows some latitude; but it is difficult
to explain a law in the Theodosian Code, (l. vi. leg. 5,) which fixes
the expense of the first praetor at 25,000, of the second at 20,000,
and of the third at 15,000 folles. The name of follis (see Mem. de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 727) was equally applied to
a purse of 125 pieces of silver, and to a small copper coin of the value
of 1/2625 part of that purse. In the former sense, the 25,000 folles
would be equal to 150,000 L.; in the latter, to five or six ponuds
sterling The one appears extravagant, the other is ridiculous. There
must have existed some third and middle value, which is here understood;
but ambiguity is an excusable fault in the language of laws.]

[Footnote 28: Nicopolis...... in Actiaco littore sita possessioris
vestra nunc pars vel maxima est. Jerom. in Praefat. Comment. ad Epistol.
ad Titum, tom. ix. p. 243. M. D. Tillemont supposes, strangely enough,
that it was part of Agamemnon's inheritance. Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p.
85.]

[Footnote 29: Seneca, Epist. lxxxix. His language is of the declamatory
kind: but declamation could scarcely exaggerate the avarice and luxury
of the Romans. The philosopher himself deserved some share of the
reproach, if it be true that his rigorous exaction of Quadringenties,
above three hundred thousand pounds which he had lent at high interest,
provoked a rebellion in Britain, (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1003.)
According to the conjecture of Gale (Antoninus's Itinerary in Britain,
p. 92,) the same Faustinus possessed an estate near Bury, in Suffolk and
another in the kingdom of Naples.]

[Footnote 30: Volusius, a wealthy senator, (Tacit. Annal. iii. 30,)
always preferred tenants born on the estate. Columella, who received
this maxim from him, argues very judiciously on the subject. De Re
Rustica, l. i. c. 7, p. 408, edit. Gesner. Leipsig, 1735.]

The opulent nobles of an immense capital, who were never excited by
the pursuit of military glory, and seldom engaged in the occupations of
civil government, naturally resigned their leisure to the business
and amusements of private life. At Rome, commerce was always held
in contempt: but the senators, from the first age of the republic,
increased their patrimony, and multiplied their clients, by the
lucrative practice of usury; and the obselete laws were eluded, or
violated, by the mutual inclinations and interest of both parties. [31]
A considerable mass of treasure must always have existed at Rome, either
in the current coin of the empire, or in the form of gold and silver
plate; and there were many sideboards in the time of Pliny which
contained more solid silver, than had been transported by Scipio from
vanquished Carthage. [32] The greater part of the nobles, who dissipated
their fortunes in profuse luxury, found themselves poor in the midst of
wealth, and idle in a constant round of dissipation. Their desires were
continually gratified by the labor of a thousand hands; of the numerous
train of their domestic slaves, who were actuated by the fear of
punishment; and of the various professions of artificers and merchants,
who were more powerfully impelled by the hopes of gain. The ancients
were destitute of many of the conveniences of life, which have been
invented or improved by the progress of industry; and the plenty of
glass and linen has diffused more real comforts among the modern
nations of Europe, than the senators of Rome could derive from all the
refinements of pompous or sensual luxury. [33] Their luxury, and their
manners, have been the subject of minute and laborious disposition:
but as such inquiries would divert me too long from the design of
the present work, I shall produce an authentic state of Rome and its
inhabitants, which is more peculiarly applicable to the period of the
Gothic invasion. Ammianus Marcellinus, who prudently chose the capital
of the empire as the residence the best adapted to the historian of
his own times, has mixed with the narrative of public events a lively
representation of the scenes with which he was familiarly conversant.
The judicious reader will not always approve of the asperity of censure,
the choice of circumstances, or the style of expression; he will perhaps
detect the latent prejudices, and personal resentments, which soured the
temper of Ammianus himself; but he will surely observe, with philosophic
curiosity, the interesting and original picture of the manners of Rome.
[34]

[Footnote 31: Valesius (ad Ammian. xiv. 6) has proved, from Chrysostom
and Augustin, that the senators were not allowed to lend money at usury.
Yet it appears from the Theodosian Code, (see Godefroy ad l. ii. tit.
xxxiii. tom. i. p. 230-289,) that they were permitted to take six
percent., or one half of the legal interest; and, what is more singular,
this permission was granted to the young senators.]

[Footnote 32: Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 50. He states the silver at
only 4380 pounds, which is increased by Livy (xxx. 45) to 100,023: the
former seems too little for an opulent city, the latter too much for any
private sideboard.]

[Footnote 33: The learned Arbuthnot (Tables of Ancient Coins, &c. p.
153) has observed with humor, and I believe with truth, that Augustus
had neither glass to his windows, nor a shirt to his back. Under the
lower empire, the use of linen and glass became somewhat more common. *
Note: The discovery of glass in such common use at Pompeii, spoils the
argument of Arbuthnot. See Sir W. Gell. Pompeiana, 2d ser. p. 98.--M.]

[Footnote 34: It is incumbent on me to explain the liberties which I
have taken with the text of Ammianus. 1. I have melted down into
one piece the sixth chapter of the fourteenth and the fourth of the
twenty-eighth book. 2. I have given order and connection to the confused
mass of materials. 3. I have softened some extravagant hyperbeles, and
pared away some superfluities of the original. 4. I have developed some
observations which were insinuated rather than expressed. With these
allowances, my version will be found, not literal indeed, but faithful
and exact.]

"The greatness of Rome"--such is the language of the historian--"was
founded on the rare, and almost incredible, alliance of virtue and of
fortune. The long period of her infancy was employed in a laborious
struggle against the tribes of Italy, the neighbors and enemies of
the rising city. In the strength and ardor of youth, she sustained
the storms of war; carried her victorious arms beyond the seas and the
mountains; and brought home triumphal laurels from every country of the
globe. At length, verging towards old age, and sometimes conquering
by the terror only of her name, she sought the blessings of ease and
tranquillity. The venerable city, which had trampled on the necks of
the fiercest nations, and established a system of laws, the perpetual
guardians of justice and freedom, was content, like a wise and wealthy
parent, to devolve on the Caesars, her favorite sons, the care of
governing her ample patrimony. [35] A secure and profound peace, such as
had been once enjoyed in the reign of Numa, succeeded to the tumults of
a republic; while Rome was still adored as the queen of the earth; and
the subject nations still reverenced the name of the people, and the
majesty of the senate. But this native splendor," continues Ammianus,
"is degraded, and sullied, by the conduct of some nobles, who, unmindful
of their own dignity, and of that of their country, assume an unbounded
license of vice and folly. They contend with each other in the empty
vanity of titles and surnames; and curiously select, or invent, the most
lofty and sonorous appellations, Reburrus, or Fabunius, Pagonius,
or Tarasius, [36] which may impress the ears of the vulgar with
astonishment and respect. From a vain ambition of perpetuating their
memory, they affect to multiply their likeness, in statues of bronze and
marble; nor are they satisfied, unless those statues are covered with
plates of gold; an honorable distinction, first granted to Acilius the
consul, after he had subdued, by his arms and counsels, the power of
King Antiochus. The ostentation of displaying, of magnifying, perhaps,
the rent-roll of the estates which they possess in all the provinces,
from the rising to the setting sun, provokes the just resentment of
every man, who recollects, that their poor and invincible ancestors were
not distinguished from the meanest of the soldiers, by the delicacy
of their food, or the splendor of their apparel. But the modern nobles
measure their rank and consequence according to the loftiness of their
chariots, [37] and the weighty magnificence of their dress. Their long
robes of silk and purple float in the wind; and as they are agitated, by
art or accident, they occasionally discover the under garments, the rich
tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals. [38] Followed
by a train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move
along the streets with the same impetuous speed as if they travelled
with post-horses; and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by
the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are continually driving
round the immense space of the city and suburbs. Whenever these persons
of high distinction condescend to visit the public baths, they assume,
on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate
to their own use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman
people. If, in these places of mixed and general resort, they meet
any of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they express
their affection by a tender embrace; while they proudly decline the
salutations of their fellow-citizens, who are not permitted to aspire
above the honor of kissing their hands, or their knees. As soon as they
have indulged themselves in the refreshment of the bath, they resume
their rings, and the other ensigns of their dignity, select from their
private wardrobe of the finest linen, such as might suffice for a dozen
persons, the garments the most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain
till their departure the same haughty demeanor; which perhaps might have
been excused in the great Marcellus, after the conquest of Syracuse.
Sometimes, indeed, these heroes undertake more arduous achievements;
they visit their estates in Italy, and procure themselves, by the toil
of servile hands, the amusements of the chase. [39] If at any time,
but more especially on a hot day, they have courage to sail, in their
painted galleys, from the Lucrine Lake [40] to their elegant villas
on the seacoast of Puteoli and Cayeta, [41] they compare their own
expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander. Yet should a fly
presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas; should
a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded and imperceptible chink, they
deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language,
that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, [42] the regions
of eternal darkness. In these journeys into the country, [43] the whole
body of the household marches with their master. In the same manner
as the cavalry and infantry, the heavy and the light armed troops,
the advanced guard and the rear, are marshalled by the skill of their
military leaders; so the domestic officers, who bear a rod, as an ensign
of authority, distribute and arrange the numerous train of slaves
and attendants. The baggage and wardrobe move in the front; and are
immediately followed by a multitude of cooks, and inferior ministers,
employed in the service of the kitchens, and of the table. The main
body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of slaves, increased by the
accidental concourse of idle or dependent plebeians. The rear is
closed by the favorite band of eunuchs, distributed from age to youth,
according to the order of seniority. Their numbers and their deformity
excite the horror of the indignant spectators, who are ready to execrate
the memory of Semiramis, for the cruel art which she invented, of
frustrating the purposes of nature, and of blasting in the bud the hopes
of future generations. In the exercise of domestic jurisdiction, the
nobles of Rome express an exquisite sensibility for any personal injury,
and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of the human species.
When they have called for warm water, if a slave has been tardy in his
obedience, he is instantly chastised with three hundred lashes: but
should the

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

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
       Volume 4

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman

Posting Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #734]
Release Date: November, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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




Produced by David Reed





HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 4

1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)




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

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

After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval of fifty
years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is faintly marked by the
obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno, Anastasius, and Justin, who
successively ascended to the throne of Constantinople. During the same
period, Italy revived and flourished under the government of a Gothic
king, who might have deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the
ancient Romans.

Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the royal
line of the Amali, [1] was born in the neighborhood of Vienna [2] two
years after the death of Attila. [2111] A recent victory had restored
the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the three brothers, Walamir,
Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that warlike nation with united
counsels, had separately pitched their habitations in the fertile though
desolate province of Pannonia. The Huns still threatened their revolted
subjects, but their hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of
Walamir, and the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his
brother in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of
Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of his
age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the public
interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor of the East,
had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of three hundred pounds
of gold. The royal hostage was educated at Constantinople with care and
tenderness. His body was formed to all the exercises of war, his mind
was expanded by the habits of liberal conversation; he frequented the
schools of the most skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected
the arts of Greece, and so ignorant did he always remain of the first
elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent
the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. [3] As soon as he had
attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes of
the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality and
confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the brothers,
Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of Barbarians, and the
whole nation acknowledged for their king the father of Theodoric. His
ferocious subjects admired the strength and stature of their young
prince; [4] and he soon convinced them that he had not degenerated from
the valor of his ancestors. At the head of six thousand volunteers, he
secretly left the camp in quest of adventures, descended the Danube as
far as Singidunum, or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with
the spoils of a Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such
triumphs, however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible
Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of clothing and
food. They unanimously resolved to desert their Pannonian encampments,
and boldly to advance into the warm and wealthy neighborhood of the
Byzantine court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many
bands of confederate Goths. After proving, by some acts of hostility,
that they could be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the
Ostrogoths sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity,
accepted a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with the
defence of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who
succeeded after his father's death to the hereditary throne of the
Amali. [5]

[Footnote 1: Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630, edit.
Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one of the Anses
or Demigods, who lived about the time of Domitian. Cassiodorus, the
first who celebrates the royal race of the Amali, (Viriar. viii. 5, ix.
25, x. 2, xi. 1,) reckons the grandson of Theodoric as the xviith
in descent. Peringsciold (the Swedish commentator of Cochloeus,
Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c., Stockholm, 1699) labors to connect this
genealogy with the legends or traditions of his native country. * Note:
Amala was a name of hereditary sanctity and honor among the Visigoths.
It enters into the names of Amalaberga, Amala suintha, (swinther means
strength,) Amalafred, Amalarich. In the poem of the Nibelungen written
three hundred years later, the Ostrogoths are called the Amilungen.
According to Wachter it means, unstained, from the privative a, and malo
a stain. It is pure Sanscrit, Amala, immaculatus. Schlegel. Indische
Bibliothek, 1. p. 233.--M.]

[Footnote 2: More correctly on the banks of the Lake Pelso,
(Nieusiedler-see,) near Carnuntum, almost on the same spot where Marcus
Antoninus composed his meditations, Jornandes, c. 52, p. 659. Severin.
Pannonia Illustrata, p. 22. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. (tom. i. p.
350.)]

[Footnote 2111: The date of Theodoric's birth is not accurately
determined. We can hardly err, observes Manso, in placing it between
the years 453 and 455, Manso, Geschichte des Ost Gothischen Reichs, p.
14.--M.]

[Footnote 3: The four first letters of his name were inscribed on a gold
plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the king drew his pen through
the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Amm. Marcellin p. 722.) This
authentic fact, with the testimony of Procopius, or at least of the
contemporary Goths, (Gothic. 1. i. c. 2, p. 311,) far outweighs
the vague praises of Ennodius (Sirmond Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 112.) * Note: Le Beau and his Commentator,
M. St. Martin, support, though with no very satisfactory evidence, the
opposite opinion. But Lord Mahon (Life of Belisarius, p. 19) urges the
much stronger argument, the Byzantine education of Theodroic.--M.]

[Footnote 4: Statura est quae resignet proceritate regnantem, (Ennodius,
p. 1614.) The bishop of Pavia (I mean the ecclesiastic who wished to be
a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the complexion, eyes, hands, &c, of
his sovereign.]

[Footnote 5: The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first years of
Theodoric, are found in Jornandes, (c. 52--56, p. 689--696) and Malchus,
(Excerpt. Legat. p. 78--80,) who erroneously styles him the son of
Walamir.]

A hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the base
Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without any endowment
of mind or body, without any advantages of royal birth, or superior
qualifications. After the failure of the Theodosian life, the choice of
Pulcheria and of the senate might be justified in some measure by the
characters of Martin and Leo, but the latter of these princes confirmed
and dishonored his reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons,
who too rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The
inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his infant
grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her Isaurian husband, the
fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that barbarous sound for the Grecian
appellation of Zeno. After the decease of the elder Leo, he approached
with unnatural respect the throne of his son, humbly received, as
a gift, the second rank in the empire, and soon excited the public
suspicion on the sudden and premature death of his young colleague,
whose life could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the
palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and agitated by
female passions: and Verina, the widow of Leo, claiming his empire as
her own, pronounced a sentence of deposition against the worthless and
ungrateful servant on whom she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the
East. [6] As soon as she sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he
fled with precipitation into the mountains of Isauria, and her brother
Basiliscus, already infamous by his African expedition, [7] was
unanimously proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the
usurper was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the
lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife, the vain
and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic luxury, affected
the dress, the demeanor, and the surname of Achilles. [8] By the
conspiracy of the malecontents, Zeno was recalled from exile; the
armies, the capital, the person, of Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his
whole family was condemned to the long agony of cold and hunger by the
inhuman conqueror, who wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his
enemies. [811] The haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of
submission or repose. She provoked the enmity of a favorite general,
embraced his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor
in Syria and Egypt, [812] raised an army of seventy thousand men, and
persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless rebellion,
which, according to the fashion of the age, had been predicted by
Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the East was afflicted by
the passions of Verina, her daughter Ariadne was distinguished by the
female virtues of mildness and fidelity; she followed her husband in his
exile, and after his restoration, she implored his clemency in favor of
her mother. On the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother,
and the widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial title to
Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived his elevation
above twenty-seven years, and whose character is attested by the
acclamation of the people, "Reign as you have lived!" [9] [911]

[Footnote 6: Theophanes (p. 111) inserts a copy of her sacred letters to
the provinces. Such female pretensions would have astonished the slaves
of the first Caesars.]

[Footnote 7: Vol. iii. p. 504--508.]

[Footnote 8: Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster.]

[Footnote 811: Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or, rather, of
cowardice; he purchased an ignominious peace from the enemies of the
empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and employed his whole time
at home in confiscations and executions. Lydus, de Magist. iii. 45, p.
230.--M.]

[Footnote 812: Named Illus.--M.]

[Footnote 9: The contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus are
lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved by Photius,
(lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100--102,) Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (Excerpt.
Leg. p. 78--97,) and in various articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The
Chronicles of Marcellinus (Imago Historiae) are originals for the reigns
of Zeno and Anastasius; and I must acknowledge, almost for the last
time, my obligations to the large and accurate collections of Tillemont,
(Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 472--652).]

[Footnote 912: The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza, (edited by Villoison
in his Anecdota Graeca, and reprinted in the new edition of the
Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the same vol. with Dexippus and
Eunapius, viii. p. 488 516,) was unknown to Gibbon. It is vague and
pedantic, and contains few facts. The same criticism will apply to the
poetical panegyric of Priscian edited from the Ms. of Bobbio by Ang.
Mai. Priscian, the gram marian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have
been born in the African, not in either of the Asiatic Caesareas. Pref.
p. xi.--M.]

Whatever fear of affection could bestow, was profusely lavished by Zeno
on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of patrician and consul, the
command of the Palatine troops, an equestrian statue, a treasure in gold
and silver of many thousand pounds, the name of son, and the promise of
a rich and honorable wife. As long as Theodoric condescended to serve,
he supported with courage and fidelity the cause of his benefactor; his
rapid march contributed to the restoration of Zeno; and in the second
revolt, the Walamirs, as they were called, pursued and pressed the
Asiatic rebels, till they left an easy victory to the Imperial troops.
[10] But the faithful servant was suddenly converted into a formidable
enemy, who spread the flames of war from Constantinople to the Adriatic;
many flourishing cities were reduced to ashes, and the agriculture of
Thrace was almost extirpated by the wanton cruelty of the Goths, who
deprived their captive peasants of the right hand that guided the
plough. [11] On such occasions, Theodoric sustained the loud and
specious reproach of disloyalty, of ingratitude, and of insatiate
avarice, which could be only excused by the hard necessity of his
situation. He reigned, not as the monarch, but as the minister of a
ferocious people, whose spirit was unbroken by slavery, and impatient of
real or imaginary insults. Their poverty was incurable; since the most
liberal donatives were soon dissipated in wasteful luxury, and the most
fertile estates became barren in their hands; they despised, but they
envied, the laborious provincials; and when their subsistence had
failed, the Ostrogoths embraced the familiar resources of war and
rapine. It had been the wish of Theodoric (such at least was his
declaration) to lead a peaceful, obscure, obedient life on the confines
of Scythia, till the Byzantine court, by splendid and fallacious
promises, seduced him to attack a confederate tribe of Goths, who had
been engaged in the party of Basiliscus. He marched from his station in
Maesia, on the solemn assurance that before he reached Adrianople, he
should meet a plentiful convoy of provisions, and a reenforcement of
eight thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, while the legions of Asia
were encamped at Heraclea to second his operations. These measures were
disappointed by mutual jealousy. As he advanced into Thrace, the son of
Theodemir found an inhospitable solitude, and his Gothic followers, with
a heavy train of horses, of mules, and of wagons, were betrayed by their
guides among the rocks and precipices of Mount Sondis, where he was
assaulted by the arms and invectives of Theodoric the son of Triarius.
From a neighboring height, his artful rival harangued the camp of the
Walamirs, and branded their leader with the opprobrious names of child,
of madman, of perjured traitor, the enemy of his blood and nation. "Are
you ignorant," exclaimed the son of Triarius, "that it is the constant
policy of the Romans to destroy the Goths by each other's swords?
Are you insensible that the victor in this unnatural contest will be
exposed, and justly exposed, to their implacable revenge? Where are
those warriors, my kinsmen and thy own, whose widows now lament that
their lives were sacrificed to thy rash ambition? Where is the wealth
which thy soldiers possessed when they were first allured from their
native homes to enlist under thy standard? Each of them was then master
of three or four horses; they now follow thee on foot, like slaves,
through the deserts of Thrace; those men who were tempted by the hope
of measuring gold with a bushel, those brave men who are as free and as
noble as thyself." A language so well suited to the temper of the Goths
excited clamor and discontent; and the son of Theodemir, apprehensive of
being left alone, was compelled to embrace his brethren, and to imitate
the example of Roman perfidy. [12] [1211]

[Footnote 10: In ipsis congressionis tuae foribus cessit invasor, cum
profugo per te sceptra redderentur de salute dubitanti. Ennodius then
proceeds (p. 1596, 1597, tom. i. Sirmond.) to transport his hero (on
a flying dragon?) into Aethiopia, beyond the tropic of Cancer. The
evidence of the Valesian Fragment, (p. 717,) Liberatus, (Brev. Eutych.
c. 25 p. 118,) and Theophanes, (p. 112,) is more sober and rational.]

[Footnote 11: This cruel practice is specially imputed to the Triarian
Goths, less barbarous, as it should seem, than the Walamirs; but the son
of Theodemir is charged with the ruin of many Roman cities, (Malchus,
Excerpt. Leg. p. 95.)]

[Footnote 12: Jornandes (c. 56, 57, p. 696) displays the services of
Theodoric, confesses his rewards, but dissembles his revolt, of which
such curious details have been preserved by Malchus, (Excerpt. Legat.
p. 78--97.) Marcellinus, a domestic of Justinian, under whose ivth
consulship (A.D. 534) he composed his Chronicle, (Scaliger, Thesaurus
Temporum, P. ii, p. 34--57,) betrays his prejudice and passion: in
Graeciam debacchantem ...Zenonis munificentia pene pacatus...beneficiis
nunquam satiatus, &c.]

[Footnote 1211: Gibbon has omitted much of the complicated intrigues of
the Byzantine court with the two Theodorics. The weak emperor attempted
to play them one against the other, and was himself in turn insulted,
and the empire ravaged, by both. The details of the successive
alliance and revolt, of hostility and of union, between the two
Gothic chieftains, to dictate terms to the emperor, may be found in
Malchus.--M.]

In every state of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of Theodoric
were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened Constantinople at the
head of the confederate Goths, or retreated with a faithful band to the
mountains and sea-coast of Epirus. At length the accidental death of the
son of Triarius [13] destroyed the balance which the Romans had been so
anxious to preserve, the whole nation acknowledged the supremacy of the
Amali, and the Byzantine court subscribed an ignominious and oppressive
treaty. [14] The senate had already declared, that it was necessary
to choose a party among the Goths, since the public was unequal to the
support of their united forces; a subsidy of two thousand pounds of
gold, with the ample pay of thirteen thousand men, were required for the
least considerable of their armies; [15] and the Isaurians, who guarded
not the empire but the emperor, enjoyed, besides the privilege of
rapine, an annual pension of five thousand pounds. The sagacious mind of
Theodoric soon perceived that he was odious to the Romans, and suspected
by the Barbarians: he understood the popular murmur, that his subjects
were exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable hardships, while their
king was dissolved in the luxury of Greece, and he prevented the painful
alternative of encountering the Goths, as the champion, or of leading
them to the field, as the enemy, of Zeno. Embracing an enterprise worthy
of his courage and ambition, Theodoric addressed the emperor in the
following words: "Although your servant is maintained in affluence by
your liberality, graciously listen to the wishes of my heart! Italy, the
inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and mistress
of the world, now fluctuate under the violence and oppression of Odoacer
the mercenary. Direct me, with my national troops, to march against
the tyrant. If I fall, you will be relieved from an expensive and
troublesome friend: if, with the divine permission, I succeed, I shall
govern in your name, and to your glory, the Roman senate, and the part
of the republic delivered from slavery by my victorious arms." The
proposal of Theodoric was accepted, and perhaps had been suggested, by
the Byzantine court. But the forms of the commission, or grant,
appear to have been expressed with a prudent ambiguity, which might be
explained by the event; and it was left doubtful, whether the conqueror
of Italy should reign as the lieutenant, the vassal, or the ally, of the
emperor of the East. [16

[Footnote 13: As he was riding in his own camp, an unruly horse threw
him against the point of a spear which hung before a tent, or was fixed
on a wagon, (Marcellin. in Chron. Evagrius, l. iii. c. 25.)]

[Footnote 14: See Malchus (p. 91) and Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35.)]

[Footnote 15: Malchus, p. 85. In a single action, which was decided by
the skill and discipline of Sabinian, Theodoric could lose 5000 men.]
[Footnote 16: Jornandes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has abridged the great
history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and reconcile Procopius, (Gothic.
l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment, (p. 718,) Theophanes, (p. 113,) and
Marcellinus, (in Chron.)]

The reputation both of the leader and of the war diffused a universal
ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the Gothic swarms already engaged
in the service, or seated in the provinces, of the empire; and each
bold Barbarian, who had heard of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was
impatient to seek, through the most perilous adventures, the possession
of such enchanting objects. The march of Theodoric must be considered as
the emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the
Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects, were carefully
transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy baggage that now
followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand wagons, which had
been sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus. For their
subsistence, the Goths depended on the magazines of corn which was
ground in portable mills by the hands of their women; on the milk and
flesh of their flocks and herds; on the casual produce of the chase, and
upon the contributions which they might impose on all who should
presume to dispute the passage, or to refuse their friendly assistance.
Notwithstanding these precautions, they were exposed to the danger, and
almost to the distress, of famine, in a march of seven hundred miles,
which had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter. Since the
fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer exhibited the
rich prospect of populous cities, well-cultivated fields, and convenient
highways: the reign of barbarism and desolation was restored, and the
tribes of Bulgarians, Gepidae, and Sarmatians, who had occupied the
vacant province, were prompted by their native fierceness, or the
solicitations of Odoacer, to resist the progress of his enemy. In many
obscure though bloody battles, Theodoric fought and vanquished; till at
length, surmounting every obstacle by skilful conduct and persevering
courage, he descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his invincible
banners on the confines of Italy. [17]

[Footnote 17: Theodoric's march is supplied and illustrated by Ennodius,
(p. 1598--1602,) when the bombast of the oration is translated into the
language of common sense.]

Odoacer, a rival not unworthy of his arms, had already occupied the
advantageous and well-known post of the River Sontius, near the ruins of
Aquileia, at the head of a powerful host, whose independent kings [18]
or leaders disdained the duties of subordination and the prudence of
delays. No sooner had Theodoric gained a short repose and refreshment to
his wearied cavalry, than he boldly attacked the fortifications of the
enemy; the Ostrogoths showed more ardor to acquire, than the mercenaries
to defend, the lands of Italy; and the reward of the first victory was
the possession of the Venetian province as far as the walls of Verona.
In the neighborhood of that city, on the steep banks of the rapid
Adige, he was opposed by a new army, reenforced in its numbers, and not
impaired in its courage: the contest was more obstinate, but the event
was still more decisive; Odoacer fled to Ravenna, Theodoric advanced
to Milan, and the vanquished troops saluted their conqueror with loud
acclamations of respect and fidelity. But their want either of constancy
or of faith soon exposed him to the most imminent danger; his vanguard,
with several Gothic counts, which had been rashly intrusted to
a deserter, was betrayed and destroyed near Faenza by his double
treachery; Odoacer again appeared master of the field, and the invader,
strongly intrenched in his camp of Pavia, was reduced to solicit the
aid of a kindred nation, the Visigoths of Gaul. In the course of
this History, the most voracious appetite for war will be abundantly
satiated; nor can I much lament that our dark and imperfect materials do
not afford a more ample narrative of the distress of Italy, and of the
fierce conflict, which was finally decided by the abilities, experience,
and valor of the Gothic king. Immediately before the battle of Verona,
he visited the tent of his mother [19] and sister, and requested, that
on a day, the most illustrious festival of his life, they would adorn
him with the rich garments which they had worked with their own hands.
"Our glory," said he, "is mutual and inseparable. You are known to the
world as the mother of Theodoric; and it becomes me to prove, that I am
the genuine offspring of those heroes from whom I claim my descent."
The wife or concubine of Theodemir was inspired with the spirit of the
German matrons, who esteemed their sons' honor far above their safety;
and it is reported, that in a desperate action, when Theodoric himself
was hurried along by the torrent of a flying crowd, she boldly met them
at the entrance of the camp, and, by her generous reproaches, drove them
back on the swords of the enemy. [20]

[Footnote 18: Tot reges, &c., (Ennodius, p. 1602.) We must recollect
how much the royal title was multiplied and degraded, and that the
mercenaries of Italy were the fragments of many tribes and nations.]

[Footnote 19: See Ennodius, p. 1603, 1604. Since the orator, in the
king's presence, could mention and praise his mother, we may conclude
that the magnanimity of Theodoric was not hurt by the vulgar reproaches
of concubine and bastard. * Note: Gibbon here assumes that the mother
of Theodoric was the concubine of Theodemir, which he leaves doubtful in
the text.--M.]

[Footnote 20: This anecdote is related on the modern but respectable
authority of Sigonius, (Op. tom. i. p. 580. De Occident. Impl. l. xv.:)
his words are curious: "Would you return?" &c. She presented and almost
displayed the original recess. * Note: The authority of Sigonius would
scarcely have weighed with Gibboa except for an indecent anecdote.
I have a recollection of a similar story in some of the Italian
wars.--M.]

From the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric reigned by the
right of conquest; the Vandal ambassadors surrendered the Island of
Sicily, as a lawful appendage of his kingdom; and he was accepted as
the deliverer of Rome by the senate and people, who had shut their
gates against the flying usurper. [21] Ravenna alone, secure in the
fortifications of art and nature, still sustained a siege of almost
three years; and the daring sallies of Odoacer carried slaughter and
dismay into the Gothic camp. At length, destitute of provisions and
hopeless of relief, that unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans of
his subjects and the clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was
negotiated by the bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were admitted into
the city, and the hostile kings consented, under the sanction of an
oath, to rule with equal and undivided authority the provinces of Italy.
The event of such an agreement may be easily foreseen. After some days
had been devoted to the semblance of joy and friendship, Odoacer, in the
midst of a solemn banquet, was stabbed by the hand, or at least by the
command, of his rival. Secret and effectual orders had been previously
despatched; the faithless and rapacious mercenaries, at the same moment,
and without resistance, were universally massacred; and the royalty
of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths, with the tardy, reluctant,
ambiguous consent of the emperor of the East. The design of a conspiracy
was imputed, according to the usual forms, to the prostrate tyrant; but
his innocence, and the guilt of his conqueror, [22] are sufficiently
proved by the advantageous treaty which force would not sincerely have
granted, nor weakness have rashly infringed. The jealousy of power,
and the mischiefs of discord, may suggest a more decent apology, and
a sentence less rigorous may be pronounced against a crime which was
necessary to introduce into Italy a generation of public felicity.
The living author of this felicity was audaciously praised in his own
presence by sacred and profane orators; [23] but history (in his time
she was mute and inglorious) has not left any just representation of the
events which displayed, or of the defects which clouded, the virtues of
Theodoric. [24] One record of his fame, the volume of public epistles
composed by Cassiodorus in the royal name, is still extant, and has
obtained more implicit credit than it seems to deserve. [25] They
exhibit the forms, rather than the substance, of his government; and
we should vainly search for the pure and spontaneous sentiments of the
Barbarian amidst the declamation and learning of a sophist, the wishes
of a Roman senator, the precedents of office, and the vague professions,
which, in every court, and on every occasion, compose the language of
discreet ministers. The reputation of Theodoric may repose with
more confidence on the visible peace and prosperity of a reign of
thirty-three years; the unanimous esteem of his own times, and the
memory of his wisdom and courage, his justice and humanity, which was
deeply impressed on the minds of the Goths and Italians.

[Footnote 21: Hist. Miscell. l. xv., a Roman history from Janus to the
ixth century, an Epitome of Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus, and Theophanes
which Muratori has published from a Ms. in the Ambrosian library,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 100.)]

[Footnote 22: Procopius (Gothic. l. i. c. i.) approves himself an
impartial sceptic. Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Ennodius (p. 1604) are
loyal and credulous, and the testimony of the Valesian Fragment (p.
718) may justify their belief. Marcellinus spits the venom of a Greek
subject--perjuriis illectus, interfectusque est, (in Chron.)]

[Footnote 23: The sonorous and servile oration of Ennodius was
pronounced at Milan or Ravenna in the years 507 or 508, (Sirmond, tom.
i. p. 615.) Two or three years afterwards, the orator was rewarded with
the bishopric of Pavia, which he held till his death in the year 521.
(Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 11-14. See Saxii Onomasticon, tom.
ii. p. 12.)]

[Footnote 24: Our best materials are occasional hints from Procopius and
the Valesian Fragment, which was discovered by Sirmond, and is published
at the end of Ammianus Marcellinus. The author's name is unknown,
and his style is barbarous; but in his various facts he exhibits the
knowledge, without the passions, of a contemporary. The president
Montesquieu had formed the plan of a history of Theodoric, which at a
distance might appear a rich and interesting subject.]

[Footnote 25: The best edition of the Variarum Libri xii. is that of
Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in fol.;)
but they deserved and required such an editor as the Marquis Scipio
Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona. The Barbara Eleganza
(as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi) is never simple, and seldom
perspicuous]

The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric assigned the
third part to his soldiers, is honorably arraigned as the sole injustice
of his life. [2511] And even this act may be fairly justified by the
example of Odoacer, the rights of conquest, the true interest of the
Italians, and the sacred duty of subsisting a whole people, who, on the
faith of his promises, had transported themselves into a distant land.
[26] Under the reign of Theodoric, and in the happy climate of Italy,
the Goths soon multiplied to a formidable host of two hundred thousand
men, [27] and the whole amount of their families may be computed by the
ordinary addition of women and children. Their invasion of property,
a part of which must have been already vacant, was disguised by the
generous but improper name of hospitality; these unwelcome guests
were irregularly dispersed over the face of Italy, and the lot of
each Barbarian was adequate to his birth and office, the number of
his followers, and the rustic wealth which he possessed in slaves and
cattle. The distinction of noble and plebeian were acknowledged; [28]
but the lands of every freeman were exempt from taxes, [2811] and he
enjoyed the inestimable privilege of being subject only to the laws
of his country. [29] Fashion, and even convenience, soon persuaded the
conquerors to assume the more elegant dress of the natives, but they
still persisted in the use of their mother-tongue; and their contempt
for the Latin schools was applauded by Theodoric himself, who gratified
their prejudices, or his own, by declaring, that the child who had
trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a sword. [30] Distress
might sometimes provoke the indigent Roman to assume the ferocious
manners which were insensibly relinquished by the rich and luxurious
Barbarian; [31] but these mutual conversions were not encouraged by the
policy of a monarch who perpetuated the separation of the Italians and
Goths; reserving the former for the arts of peace, and the latter for
the service of war. To accomplish this design, he studied to protect his
industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence, without enervating
the valor, of his soldiers, who were maintained for the public defence.
They held their lands and benefices as a military stipend: at the sound
of the trumpet, they were prepared to march under the conduct of their
provincial officers; and the whole extent of Italy was distributed into
the several quarters of a well-regulated camp. The service of the palace
and of the frontiers was performed by choice or by rotation; and
each extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by an increase of pay and
occasional donatives. Theodoric had convinced his brave companions,
that empire must be acquired and defended by the same arts. After his
example, they strove to excel in the use, not only of the lance and
sword, the instruments of their victories, but of the missile weapons,
which they were too much inclined to neglect; and the lively image of
war was displayed in the daily exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic
cavalry. A firm though gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty,
obedience, and temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare
the people, to reverence the laws, to understand the duties of civil
society, and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat and
private revenge. [32]

[Footnote 2511: Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. vol. iii. p. 459, &c.--Manso
observes that this division was conducted not in a violent and
irregular, but in a legal and orderly, manner. The Barbarian, who could
not show a title of grant from the officers of Theodoric appointed for
the purpose, or a prescriptive right of thirty years, in case he had
obtained the property before the Ostrogothic conquest, was ejected from
the estate. He conceives that estates too small to bear division paid
a third of their produce.--Geschichte des Os Gothischen Reiches, p.
82.--M.]

[Footnote 26: Procopius, Gothic, l. i. c. i. Variarum, ii. Maffei
(Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 228) exaggerates the injustice of the
Goths, whom he hated as an Italian noble. The plebeian Muratori crouches
under their oppression.]

[Footnote 27: Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 421. Ennodius describes (p.
1612, 1613) the military arts and increasing numbers of the Goths.]

[Footnote 28: When Theodoric gave his sister to the king of the Vandals
she sailed for Africa with a guard of 1000 noble Goths, each of whom
was attended by five armed followers, (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 8.) The
Gothic nobility must have been as numerous as brave.]

[Footnote 2811: Manso (p. 100) quotes two passages from Cassiodorus to
show that the Goths were not exempt from the fiscal claims.--Cassiodor,
i. 19, iv. 14--M.]

[Footnote 29: See the acknowledgment of Gothic liberty, (Var. v. 30.)]

[Footnote 30: Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt the
language (Var. viii. 21) of the Goths. Their general ignorance is not
destroyed by the exceptions of Amalasuntha, a female, who might study
without shame, or of Theodatus, whose learning provoked the indignation
and contempt of his countrymen.]

[Footnote 31: A saying of Theodoric was founded on experience: "Romanus
miser imitatur Gothum; ut utilis (dives) Gothus imitatur Romanum." (See
the Fragment and Notes of Valesius, p. 719.)]

[Footnote 32: The view of the military establishment of the Goths in
Italy is collected from the Epistles of Cassiodorus (Var. i. 24,
40; iii. 3, 24, 48; iv. 13, 14; v. 26, 27; viii. 3, 4, 25.) They are
illustrated by the learned Mascou, (Hist. of the Germans, l. xi. 40--44,
Annotation xiv.) Note: Compare Manso, Geschichte des Ost Gothischen
Reiches, p. 114.--M.]




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

Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric had spread
a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was satisfied with
conquest and desirous of peace, terror was changed into respect, and
they submitted to a powerful mediation, which was uniformly employed
for the best purposes of reconciling their quarrels and civilizing their
manners. [33] The ambassadors who resorted to Ravenna from the most
distant countries of Europe, admired his wisdom, magnificence, [34]
and courtesy; and if he sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white
horses or strange animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a
musician, admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and
industry of his Italian subjects. His domestic alliances, [35] a wife,
two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the family of Theodoric
with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the
Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to maintain the harmony,
or at least the balance, of the great republic of the West. [36] It
is difficult in the dark forests of Germany and Poland to pursue the
emigrations of the Heruli, a fierce people who disdained the use of
armor, and who condemned their widows and aged parents not to survive
the loss of their husbands, or the decay of their strength. [37] The
king of these savage warriors solicited the friendship of Theodoric, and
was elevated to the rank of his son, according to the barbaric rites of
a military adoption. [38] From the shores of the Baltic, the Aestians
or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber [39] at the feet of
a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake an unknown and
dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles. With the country [40] from
whence the Gothic nation derived their origin, he maintained a frequent
and friendly correspondence: the Italians were clothed in the rich
sables [41] of Sweden; and one of its sovereigns, after a voluntary
or reluctant abdication, found a hospitable retreat in the palace of
Ravenna. He had reigned over one of the thirteen populous tribes
who cultivated a small portion of the great island or peninsula of
Scandinavia, to which the vague appellation of Thule has been sometimes
applied. That northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high
as the sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where the natives of the polar
circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun at each summer and winter
solstice during an equal period of forty days. [42] The long night of
his absence or death was the mournful season of distress and anxiety,
till the messengers, who had been sent to the mountain tops, descried
the first rays of returning light, and proclaimed to the plain below the
festival of his resurrection. [43]

[Footnote 33: See the clearness and vigor of his negotiations in
Ennodius, (p. 1607,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4; iv. 13;
v. 43, 44,) who gives the different styles of friendship, counsel
expostulation, &c.]

[Footnote 34: Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace, (vii. 5.) The
admiration of strangers is represented as the most rational motive
to justify these vain expenses, and to stimulate the diligence of the
officers to whom these provinces were intrusted.]

[Footnote 35: See the public and private alliances of the Gothic
monarch, with the Burgundians, (Var. i. 45, 46,) with the Franks, (ii.
40,) with the Thuringians, (iv. 1,) and with the Vandals, (v. 1;) each
of these epistles affords some curious knowledge of the policy and
manners of the Barbarians.]

[Footnote 36: His political system may be observed in Cassiodorus,
(Var. iv. l ix. l,) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,) and the Valesian
Fragment, (p. 720, 721.) Peace, honorable peace, was the constant aim of
Theodoric.]

[Footnote 37: The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of
Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,) and the patient reader may plunge
into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat, (Hist. des Peuples
Anciens, tom. ix. p. 348--396. * Note: Compare Manso, Ost Gothische Reich. Beylage, vi. Malte-Brun brings
them from Scandinavia: their names, the only remains of their language,
are Gothic. "They fought almost naked, like the Icelandic Berserkirs
their bravery was like madness: few in number, they were mostly of
royal blood. What ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied their
victories! The Goth respects the church, the priests, the senate; the
Heruli mangle all in a general massacre: there is no pity for age, no
refuge for chastity. Among themselves there is the same ferocity: the
sick and the aged are put to death. at their own request, during a
solemn festival; the widow ends her days by hanging herself upon the
tree which shadows her husband's tomb. All these circumstances, so
striking to a mind familiar with Scandinavian history, lead us to
discover among the Heruli not so much a nation as a confederacy of
princes and nobles, bound by an oath to live and die together with their
arms in their hands. Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli.
sometimes Aeruli, signified, according to an ancient author, (Isid.
Hispal. in gloss. p. 24, ad calc. Lex. Philolog. Martini, ll,) nobles,
and appears to correspond better with the Scandinavian word iarl
or earl, than with any of those numerous derivations proposed by
etymologists." Malte-Brun, vol. i. p. 400, (edit. 1831.) Of all the
Barbarians who threw themselves on the ruins of the Roman empire, it
is most difficult to trace the origin of the Heruli. They seem never to
have been very powerful as a nation, and branches of them are found in
countries very remote from each other. In my opinion they belong to the
Gothic race, and have a close affinity with the Scyrri or Hirri. They
were, possibly, a division of that nation. They are often mingled and
confounded with the Alani. Though brave and formidable. they were
never numerous. nor did they found any state.--St. Martin, vol. vi. p.
375.--M. Schafarck considers them descendants of the Hirri. of which
Heruli is a diminutive,--Slawische Alter thinner--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 38: Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this martial
institution are noticed by Cassiodorus; but he seems to have only
translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the language of Roman
eloquence.]

[Footnote 39: Cassiodorus, who quotes Tacitus to the Aestians, the
unlettered savages of the Baltic, (Var. v. 2,) describes the amber for
which their shores have ever been famous, as the gum of a tree, hardened
by the sun, and purified and wafted by the waves. When that singular
substance is analyzed by the chemists, it yields a vegetable oil and a
mineral acid.]

[Footnote 40: Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3, p.
610--613) and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 15.) Neither the Goth nor the
Greek had visited the country: both had conversed with the natives in
their exile at Ravenna or Constantinople.]

[Footnote 41: Sapherinas pelles. In the time of Jornandes they inhabited
Suethans, the proper Sweden; but that beautiful race of animals has
gradually been driven into the eastern parts of Siberia. See Buffon,
(Hist. Nat. tom. xiii. p. 309--313, quarto edition;) Pennant, (System of
Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 322--328;) Gmelin, (Hist. Gen des. Voyages, tom.
xviii. p. 257, 258;) and Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165,
166, 514, 515.)]

[Footnote 42: In the system or romance of Mr. Bailly, (Lettres sur les
Sciences et sur l'Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249--256, tom. ii. p. 114--139,)
the phoenix of the Edda, and the annual death and revival of Adonis and
Osiris, are the allegorical symbols of the absence and return of the sun
in the Arctic regions. This ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of
the great Buffon; nor is it easy for the coldest reason to withstand the
magic of their philosophy.]

[Footnote 43: Says Procopius. At present a rude Manicheism (generous
enough) prevails among the Samoyedes in Greenland and in Lapland, (Hist.
des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 508, 509, tom. xix. p. 105, 106, 527, 528;)
yet, according to Orotius Samojutae coelum atque astra adorant, numina
haud aliis iniquiora, (de Rebus Belgicis, l. iv. p. 338, folio edition)
a sentence which Tacitus would not have disowned.]

The life of Theodoric represents the rare and meritorious example of a
Barbarian, who sheathed his sword in the pride of victory and the vigor
of his age. A reign of three and thirty years was consecrated to
the duties of civil government, and the hostilities, in which he was
sometimes involved, were speedily terminated by the conduct of his
lieutenants, the discipline of his troops, the arms of his allies, and
even by the terror of his name. He reduced, under a strong and regular
government, the unprofitable countries of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia,
and Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the
Bavarians, [44] to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepidae on the ruins
of Sirmium. His prudence could not safely intrust the bulwark of Italy
to such feeble and turbulent neighbors; and his justice might claim the
lands which they oppressed, either as a part of his kingdom, or as the
inheritance of his father. The greatness of a servant, who was named
perfidious because he was successful, awakened the jealousy of the
emperor Anastasius; and a war was kindled on the Dacian frontier, by the
protection which the Gothic king, in the vicissitude of human affairs,
had granted to one of the descendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general
illustrious by his own and father's merit, advanced at the head of ten
thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms, which filled a long train
of wagons, were distributed to the fiercest of the Bulgarian tribes.
But in the fields of Margus, the eastern powers were defeated by the
inferior forces of the Goths and Huns; the flower and even the hope
of the Roman armies was irretrievably destroyed; and such was the
temperance with which Theodoric had inspired his victorious troops,
that, as their leader had not given the signal of pillage, the rich
spoils of the enemy lay untouched at their feet. [45] Exasperated by
this disgrace, the Byzantine court despatched two hundred ships and
eight thousand men to plunder the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia:
they assaulted the ancient city of Tarentum, interrupted the trade and
agriculture of a happy country, and sailed back to the Hellespont, proud
of their piratical victory over a people whom they still presumed
to consider as their Roman brethren. [46] Their retreat was possibly
hastened by the activity of Theodoric; Italy was covered by a fleet of
a thousand light vessels, [47] which he constructed with incredible
despatch; and his firm moderation was soon rewarded by a solid and
honorable peace. He maintained, with a powerful hand, the balance of the
West, till it was at length overthrown by the ambition of Clovis; and
although unable to assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman, the king
of the Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family and people, and
checked the Franks in the midst of their victorious career. I am not
desirous to prolong or repeat [48] this narrative of military events,
the least interesting of the reign of Theodoric; and shall be content
to add, that the Alemanni were protected, [49] that an inroad of the
Burgundians was severely chastised, and that the conquest of Arles and
Marseilles opened a free communication with the Visigoths, who revered
him as their national protector, and as the guardian of his grandchild,
the infant son of Alaric. Under this respectable character, the king of
Italy restored the praetorian praefecture of the Gauls, reformed some
abuses in the civil government of Spain, and accepted the annual tribute
and apparent submission of its military governor, who wisely refused to
trust his person in the palace of Ravenna. [50] The Gothic sovereignty
was established from Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to
the Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that
Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the Western empire. [51]

[Footnote 44: See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c., tom. ix. p.
255--273, 396--501. The count de Buat was French minister at the
court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into the
antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ of twelve
respectable volumes.]

[Footnote 45: See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and the
Illyricum, in Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 699;) Ennodius, (p. 1607-1610;)
Marcellmus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48;) and Cassiodorus, in (in Chron and
Var. iii. 29 50, iv. 13, vii. 4 24, viii. 9, 10, 11, 21, ix. 8, 9.)]

[Footnote 46: I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and classic
style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes domesticorum, et Rusticus
comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus, totidemque dromonibus,
octo millia militum armatorum secum ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiae
littora processerunt, ut usque ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem
aggressi sunt; remensoque mari in honestam victoriam quam piratico ausu
Romani ex Romanis rapuerunt, Anastasio Caesari reportarunt, (in Chron.
p. 48.) See Variar. i. 16, ii. 38.]

[Footnote 47: See the royal orders and instructions, (Var. iv. 15, v.
16--20.) These armed boats should be still smaller than the thousand
vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. (Manso, p. 121.)]

[Footnote 48: Vol. iii. p. 581--585.]

[Footnote 49: Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorus, in the royal name,
(Var. ii 41,) record his salutary protection of the Alemanni.]

[Footnote 50: The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are represented
with some perplexity in Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 32, 38, 41, 43, 44, v.
39.) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,) and Procopius, (Goth. l. i.
c. 12.) I will neither hear nor reconcile the long and contradictory
arguments of the Abbe Dubos and the Count de Buat, about the wars of
Burgundy.]

[Footnote 51: Theophanes, p. 113.]

The union of the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages the
transient happiness of Italy; and the first of nations, a new people of
free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might have gradually arisen from
the mutual emulation of their respective virtues. But the sublime merit
of guiding or seconding such a revolution was not reserved for the reign
of Theodoric: he wanted either the genius or the opportunities of a
legislator; [52] and while he indulged the Goths in the enjoyment of
rude liberty, he servilely copied the institutions, and even the abuses,
of the political system which had been framed by Constantine and his
successors. From a tender regard to the expiring prejudices of Rome,
the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and the diadem, of the
emperors; but he assumed, under the hereditary title of king, the whole
substance and plenitude of Imperial prerogative. [53] His addresses
to the eastern throne were respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated,
in pompous style, the harmony of the two republics, applauded his own
government as the perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire,
and claimed above the kings of the earth the same preeminence which he
modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius. The alliance of
the East and West was annually declared by the unanimous choice of two
consuls; but it should seem that the Italian candidate who was named
by Theodoric accepted a formal confirmation from the sovereign of
Constantinople. [54] The Gothic palace of Ravenna reflected the image
of the court of Theodosius or Valentinian. The Praetorian praefect,
the praefect of Rome, the quaestor, the master of the offices, with the
public and patrimonial treasurers, [5411] whose functions are painted in
gaudy colors by the rhetoric of Cassiodorus, still continued to act
as the ministers of state. And the subordinate care of justice and the
revenue was delegated to seven consulars, three correctors, and five
presidents, who governed the fifteen regions of Italy according to
the principles, and even the forms, of Roman jurisprudence. [55] The
violence of the conquerors was abated or eluded by the slow artifice
of judicial proceedings; the civil administration, with its honors and
emoluments, was confined to the Italians; and the people still preserved
their dress and language, their laws and customs, their personal
freedom, and two thirds of their landed property. [5511] It had been the
object of Augustus to conceal the introduction of monarchy; it was the
policy of Theodoric to disguise the reign of a Barbarian. [56] If his
subjects were sometimes awakened from this pleasing vision of a Roman
government, they derived more substantial comfort from the character of
a Gothic prince, who had penetration to discern, and firmness to pursue,
his own and the public interest. Theodoric loved the virtues which
he possessed, and the talents of which he was destitute. Liberius was
promoted to the office of Praetorian praefect for his unshaken fidelity
to the unfortunate cause of Odoacer. The ministers of Theodoric,
Cassiodorus, [57] and Boethius, have reflected on his reign the lustre
of their genius and learning. More prudent or more fortunate than his
colleague, Cassiodorus preserved his own esteem without forfeiting the
royal favor; and after passing thirty years in the honors of the world,
he was blessed with an equal term of repose in the devout and studious
solitude of Squillace. [5711]

[Footnote 52: Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever were promulgated
by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of Italy, (Goth. l. ii. c. 6.) He
must mean in the Gothic language. A Latin edict of Theodoric is still
extant, in one hundred and fifty-four articles. * Note: See Manso, 92.
Savigny, vol. ii. p. 164, et seq.--M.]

[Footnote 53: The image of Theodoric is engraved on his coins: his
modest successors were satisfied with adding their own name to the head
of the reigning emperor, (Muratori, Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom.
ii. dissert. xxvii. p. 577--579. Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli tom.
i. p. 166.)]

[Footnote 54: The alliance of the emperor and the king of Italy
are represented by Cassiodorus (Var. i. l, ii. 1, 2, 3, vi. l) and
Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 6, l. iii. c. 21,) who celebrate the
friendship of Anastasius and Theodoric; but the figurative style of
compliment was interpreted in a very different sense at Constantinople
and Ravenna.]

[Footnote 5411: All causes between Roman and Roman were judged by the
old Roman courts. The comes Gothorum judged between Goth and Goth;
between Goths and Romans, (without considering which was the plaintiff.)
the comes Gothorum, with a Roman jurist as his assessor, making a kind
of mixed jurisdiction, but with a natural predominance to the side of
the Goth Savigny, vol. i. p. 290.--M.]

[Footnote 55: To the xvii. provinces of the Notitia, Paul Warnefrid the
deacon (De Reb. Longobard. l. ii. c. 14--22) has subjoined an xviiith,
the Apennine, (Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 431--443.)
But of these Sardinia and Corsica were possessed by the Vandals, and the
two Rhaetias, as well as the Cottian Alps, seem to have been abandoned
to a military government. The state of the four provinces that now form
the kingdom of Naples is labored by Giannone (tom. i. p. 172, 178) with
patriotic diligence.]

[Footnote 5511: Manso enumerates and develops at some length the
following sources of the royal revenue of Theodoric: 1. A domain, either
by succession to that of Odoacer, or a part of the third of the lands
was reserved for the royal patrimony. 1. Regalia, including mines,
unclaimed estates, treasure-trove, and confiscations. 3. Land tax. 4.
Aurarium, like the Chrysargyrum, a tax on certain branches of trade.
5. Grant of Monopolies. 6. Siliquaticum, a small tax on the sale of all
kinds of commodities. 7. Portoria, customs Manso, 96, 111. Savigny (i.
285) supposes that in many cases the property remained in the original
owner, who paid his tertia, a third of the produce to the crown, vol. i.
p. 285.--M.]

[Footnote 56: See the Gothic history of Procopius, (l. i. c. 1, l. ii.
c. 6,) the Epistles of Cassiodorus, passim, but especially the vth and
vith books, which contain the formulae, or patents of offices,) and
the Civil History of Giannone, (tom. i. l. ii. iii.) The Gothic counts,
which he places in every Italian city, are annihilated, however, by
Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, P. i. l. viii. p. 227; for those of Syracuse
and Naples (Var vi. 22, 23) were special and temporary commissions.]

[Footnote 57: Two Italians of the name of Cassiodorus, the father (Var.
i. 24, 40) and the son, (ix. 24, 25,) were successively employed in
the administration of Theodoric. The son was born in the year 479: his
various epistles as quaestor, master of the offices, and Praetorian
praefect, extend from 509 to 539, and he lived as a monk about thirty
years, (Tiraboschi Storia della Letteratura Italiana, tom. iii. p.
7--24. Fabricius, Bibliot. Lat. Med. Aevi, tom. i. p. 357, 358, edit.
Mansi.)]

[Footnote 5711: Cassiodorus was of an ancient and honorable family; his
grandfather had distinguished himself in the defence of Sicily against
the ravages of Genseric; his father held a high rank at the court of
Valentinian III., enjoyed the friendship of Aetius, and was one of the
ambassadors sent to arrest the progress of Attila. Cassiodorus
himself was first the treasurer of the private expenditure to Odoacer,
afterwards "count of the sacred largesses." Yielding with the rest of
the Romans to the dominion of Theodoric, he was instrumental in the
peaceable submission of Sicily; was successively governor of his
native provinces of Bruttium and Lucania, quaestor, magister, palatii,
Praetorian praefect, patrician, consul, and private secretary, and, in
fact, first minister of the king. He was five times Praetorian praefect
under different sovereigns, the last time in the reign of Vitiges. This
is the theory of Manso, which is not unencumbered with difficulties.
M. Buat had supposed that it was the father of Cassiodorus who held
the office first named. Compare Manso, p. 85, &c., and Beylage, vii. It
certainly appears improbable that Cassiodorus should have been count of
the sacred largesses at twenty years old.--M.]

As the patron of the republic, it was the interest and duty of the
Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the senate [58] and people.
The nobles of Rome were flattered by sonorous epithets and formal
professions of respect, which had been more justly applied to the merit
and authority of their ancestors. The people enjoyed, without fear or
danger, the three blessings of a capital, order, plenty, and public
amusements. A visible diminution of their numbers may be found even in
the measure of liberality; [59] yet Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, poured
their tribute of corn into the granaries of Rome an allowance of bread
and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens; and every office was
deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of their health and
happiness. The public games, such as the Greek ambassador might politely
applaud, exhibited a faint and feeble copy of the magnificence of the
Caesars: yet the musical, the gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not
totally sunk in oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised
in the amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters; and the
indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained the
blue and green factions, whose contests so often filled the circus with
clamor and even with blood. [60] In the seventh year of his peaceful
reign, Theodoric visited the old capital of the world; the senate and
people advanced in solemn procession to salute a second Trajan, a new
Valentinian; and he nobly supported that character by the assurance of
a just and legal government, [61] in a discourse which he was not afraid
to pronounce in public, and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in
this august ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and a saint,
the spectator of this pompous scene, could only hope, in his pious
fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial splendor of the new
Jerusalem. [62] During a residence of six months, the fame, the person,
and the courteous demeanor of the Gothic king, excited the admiration of
the Romans, and he contemplated, with equal curiosity and surprise, the
monuments that remained of their ancient greatness. He imprinted the
footsteps of a conqueror on the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed
that each day he viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and his
lofty column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a
huge mountain artificially hollowed, and polished, and adorned by human
industry; and he vaguely computed, that a river of gold must have been
drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of Titus. [63] From the
mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and copious stream was diffused
into every part of the city; among these the Claudian water, which
arose at the distance of thirty-eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was
conveyed along a gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till
it descended on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and spacious
vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of common sewers,
subsisted, after twelve centuries, in their pristine strength; and these
subterraneous channels have been preferred to all the visible wonders
of Rome. [64] The Gothic kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of
antiquity, were anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom
they had subdued. [65] The royal edicts were framed to prevent the
abuses, the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves;
and a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of gold,
twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from the Lucrine
port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the walls and public
edifices. A similar care was extended to the statues of metal or marble
of men or animals. The spirit of the horses, which have given a modern
name to the Quirinal, was applauded by the Barbarians; [66] the brazen
elephants of the Via sacra were diligently restored; [67] the famous
heifer of Myron deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the
forum of peace; [68] and an officer was created to protect those works
of rat, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of his
kingdom.

[Footnote 58: See his regard for the senate in Cochlaeus, (Vit. Theod.
viii. p. 72--80.)]

[Footnote 59: No more than 120,000 modii, or four thousand quarters,
(Anonym. Valesian. p. 721, and Var. i. 35, vi. 18, xi. 5, 39.)]

[Footnote 60: See his regard and indulgence for the spectacles of the
circus, the amphitheatre, and the theatre, in the Chronicle and
Epistles of Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 20, 27, 30, 31, 32, iii. 51, iv.
51, illustrated by the xivth Annotation of Mascou's History), who has
contrived to sprinkle the subject with ostentatious, though agreeable,
learning.]

[Footnote 61: Anonym. Vales. p. 721. Marius Aventicensis in Chron. In
the scale of public and personal merit, the Gothic conqueror is at least
as much above Valentinian, as he may seem inferior to Trajan.]

[Footnote 62: Vit. Fulgentii in Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 500, No. 10.]

[Footnote 63: Cassiodorus describes in his pompous style the Forum
of Trajan (Var. vii. 6,) the theatre of Marcellus, (iv. 51,) and the
amphitheatre of Titus, (v. 42;) and his descriptions are not unworthy
of the reader's perusal. According to the modern prices, the Abbe
Barthelemy computes that the brick work and masonry of the Coliseum
would now cost twenty millions of French livres, (Mem. de l'Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 585, 586.) How small a part of that
stupendous fabric!]

[Footnote 64: For the aqueducts and cloacae, see Strabo, (l. v. p. 360;)
Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24; Cassiodorus, Var. iii. 30, 31, vi. 6;)
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 19;) and Nardini, (Roma Antica, p. 514--522.)
How such works could be executed by a king of Rome, is yet a problem.
Note: See Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 402. These stupendous works are among
the most striking confirmations of Niebuhr's views of the early Roman
history; at least they appear to justify his strong sentence--"These
works and the building of the Capitol attest with unquestionable
evidence that this Rome of the later kings was the chief city of a great
state."--Page 110--M.]

[Footnote 65: For the Gothic care of the buildings and statues, see
Cassiodorus (Var. i. 21, 25, ii. 34, iv. 30, vii. 6, 13, 15) and the
Valesian Fragment, (p. 721.)]

[Footnote 66: Var. vii. 15. These horses of Monte Cavallo had been
transported from Alexandria to the baths of Constantine, (Nardini, p.
188.) Their sculpture is disdained by the Abbe Dubos, (Reflexions sur
la Poesie et sur la Peinture, tom. i. section 39,) and admired by
Winkelman, (Hist. de l'Art, tom. ii. p. 159.)]

[Footnote 67: Var. x. 10. They were probably a fragment of some
triumphal car, (Cuper de Elephantis, ii. 10.)]

[Footnote 68: Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 21) relates a foolish story of
Myron's cow, which is celebrated by the false with of thirty-six Greek
epigrams, (Antholog. l. iv. p. 302--306, edit. Hen. Steph.; Auson.
Epigram. xiii.--lxviii.)]




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

After the example of the last emperors, Theodoric preferred the
residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard with his own hands.
[69] As often as the peace of his kingdom was threatened (for it was
never invaded) by the Barbarians, he removed his court to Verona [70]
on the northern frontier, and the image of his palace, still extant on
a coin, represents the oldest and most authentic model of Gothic
architecture. These two capitals, as well as Pavia, Spoleto, Naples, and
the rest of the Italian cities, acquired under his reign the useful
or splendid decorations of churches, aqueducts, baths, porticos,
and palaces. [71] But the happiness of the subject was more truly
conspicuous in the busy scene of labor and luxury, in the rapid increase
and bold enjoyment of national wealth. From the shades of Tibur and
Praeneste, the Roman senators still retired in the winter season to
the warm sun, and salubrious springs of Baiae; and their villas, which
advanced on solid moles into the Bay of Naples, commanded the various
prospect of the sky, the earth, and the water. On the eastern side
of the Adriatic, a new Campania was formed in the fair and fruitful
province of Istria, which communicated with the palace of Ravenna by an
easy navigation of one hundred miles. The rich productions of Lucania
and the adjacent provinces were exchanged at the Marcilian fountain,
in a populous fair annually dedicated to trade, intemperance, and
superstition. In the solitude of Comum, which had once been animated
by the mild genius of Pliny, a transparent basin above sixty miles in
length still reflected the rural seats which encompassed the margin of
the Larian lake; and the gradual ascent of the hills was covered by
a triple plantation of olives, of vines, and of chestnut trees. [72]
Agriculture revived under the shadow of peace, and the number of
husbandmen was multiplied by the redemption of captives. [73] The iron
mines of Dalmatia, a gold mine in Bruttium, were carefully explored,
and the Pomptine marshes, as well as those of Spoleto, were drained and
cultivated by private undertakers, whose distant reward must depend on
the continuance of the public prosperity. [74] Whenever the seasons were
less propitious, the doubtful precautions of forming magazines of corn,
fixing the price, and prohibiting the exportation, attested at least the
benevolence of the state; but such was the extraordinary plenty which an
industrious people produced from a grateful soil, that a gallon of wine
was sometimes sold in Italy for less than three farthings, and a quarter
of wheat at about five shillings and sixpence. [75] A country possessed
of so many valuable objects of exchange soon attracted the merchants of
the world, whose beneficial traffic was encouraged and protected by the
liberal spirit of Theodoric. The free intercourse of the provinces by
land and water was restored and extended; the city gates were never shut
either by day or by night; and the common saying, that a purse of gold
might be safely left in the fields, was expressive of the conscious
security of the inhabitants. [Footnote 69: See an epigram of Ennodius
(ii. 3, p. 1893, 1894) on this garden and the royal gardener.]

[Footnote 70: His affection for that city is proved by the epithet of
"Verona tua," and the legend of the hero; under the barbarous name of
Dietrich of Bern, (Peringsciold and Cochloeum, p. 240,) Maffei traces
him with knowledge and pleasure in his native country, (l. ix. p.
230--236.)]

[Footnote 71: See Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, Part i. p. 231, 232, 308,
&c.) His amputes Gothic architecture, like the corruption of language,
writing &c., not to the Barbarians, but to the Italians themselves.
Compare his sentiments with those of Tiraboschi, (tom. iii. p. 61.)
* Note: Mr. Hallam (vol. iii. p. 432) observes that "the image of
Theodoric's palace" is represented in Maffei, not from a coin, but
from a seal. Compare D'Agincourt (Storia dell'arte, Italian Transl.,
Arcitecttura, Plate xvii. No. 2, and Pittura, Plate xvi. No. 15,)
where there is likewise an engraving from a mosaic in the church of St.
Apollinaris in Ravenna, representing a building ascribed to Theodoric in
that city. Neither of these, as Mr. Hallam justly observes, in the least
approximates to what is called the Gothic style. They are evidently the
degenerate Roman architecture, and more resemble the early attempts of
our architects to get back from our national Gothic into a classical
Greek style. One of them calls to mind Inigo Jones inner quadrangle
in St. John's College Oxford. Compare Hallam and D'Agincon vol. i. p.
140--145.--M]

[Footnote 72: The villas, climate, and landscape of Baiae, (Var. ix. 6;
see Cluver Italia Antiq. l. iv. c. 2, p. 1119, &c.,) Istria, (Var. xii.
22, 26,) and Comum, (Var. xi. 14; compare with Pliny's two villas, ix.
7,) are agreeably painted in the Epistles of Cassiodorus.]

[Footnote 73: In Liguria numerosa agricolarum progenies, (Ennodius, p.
1678, 1679, 1680.) St. Epiphanius of Pavia redeemed by prayer or ransom
6000 captives from the Burgundians of Lyons and Savoy. Such deeds are
the best of miracles.]

[Footnote 74: The political economy of Theodoric (see Anonym. Vales.
p. 721, and Cassiodorus, in Chron.) may be distinctly traced under the
following heads: iron mine, (Var. iii. 23;) gold mine, (ix. 3;) Pomptine
marshes, (ii. 32, 33;) Spoleto, (ii. 21;) corn, (i. 34, x. 27, 28, xi.
11, 12;) trade, (vi. 7, vii. 9, 23;) fair of Leucothoe or St. Cyprian in
Lucania, (viii. 33;) plenty, (xii. 4;) the cursus, or public post, (i.
29, ii. 31, iv. 47, v. 5, vi 6, vii. 33;) the Flaminian way, (xii. 18.)
* Note: The inscription commemorative of the draining of the Pomptine
marshes may be found in many works; in Gruter, Inscript. Ant.
Heidelberg, p. 152, No. 8. With variations, in Nicolai De' bonificamenti
delle terre Pontine, p. 103. In Sartorius, in his prize essay on the
reign of Theodoric, and Manse Beylage, xi.--M.]

[Footnote 75: LX modii tritici in solidum ipsius tempore fuerunt, et
vinum xxx amphoras in solidum, (Fragment. Vales.) Corn was distributed
from the granaries at xv or xxv modii for a piece of gold, and the price
was still moderate.]

A difference of religion is always pernicious, and often fatal, to the
harmony of the prince and people: the Gothic conqueror had been educated
in the profession of Arianism, and Italy was devoutly attached to the
Nicene faith. But the persuasion of Theodoric was not infected by
zeal; and he piously adhered to the heresy of his fathers, without
condescending to balance the subtile arguments of theological
metaphysics. Satisfied with the private toleration of his Arian
sectaries, he justly conceived himself to be the guardian of the
public worship, and his external reverence for a superstition which he
despised, may have nourished in his mind the salutary indifference of a
statesman or philosopher. The Catholics of his dominions acknowledged,
perhaps with reluctance, the peace of the church; their clergy,
according to the degrees of rank or merit, were honorably entertained
in the palace of Theodoric; he esteemed the living sanctity of Caesarius
[76] and Epiphanius, [77] the orthodox bishops of Arles and Pavia;
and presented a decent offering on the tomb of St. Peter, without any
scrupulous inquiry into the creed of the apostle. [78] His favorite
Goths, and even his mother, were permitted to retain or embrace the
Athanasian faith, and his long reign could not afford the example of an
Italian Catholic, who, either from choice or compulsion, had deviated
into the religion of the conqueror. [79] The people, and the Barbarians
themselves, were edified by the pomp and order of religious worship;
the magistrates were instructed to defend the just immunities of
ecclesiastical persons and possessions; the bishops held their synods,
the metropolitans exercised their jurisdiction, and the privileges of
sanctuary were maintained or moderated according to the spirit of the
Roman jurisprudence. [80] With the protection, Theodoric assumed the
legal supremacy, of the church; and his firm administration restored or
extended some useful prerogatives which had been neglected by the feeble
emperors of the West. He was not ignorant of the dignity and importance
of the Roman pontiff, to whom the venerable name of Pope was now
appropriated. The peace or the revolt of Italy might depend on the
character of a wealthy and popular bishop, who claimed such ample
dominion both in heaven and earth; who had been declared in a numerous
synod to be pure from all sin, and exempt from all judgment. [81] When
the chair of St. Peter was disputed by Symmachus and Laurence, they
appeared at his summons before the tribunal of an Arian monarch, and
he confirmed the election of the most worthy or the most obsequious
candidate. At the end of his life, in a moment of jealousy and
resentment, he prevented the choice of the Romans, by nominating a pope
in the palace of Ravenna. The danger and furious contests of a schism
were mildly restrained, and the last decree of the senate was enacted
to extinguish, if it were possible, the scandalous venality of the papal
elections. [82]

[Footnote 76: See the life of St. Caesarius in Baronius, (A.D. 508, No.
12, 13, 14.) The king presented him with 300 gold solidi, and a discus
of silver of the weight of sixty pounds.]

[Footnote 77: Ennodius in Vit. St. Epiphanii, in Sirmond, Op. tom. i.
p. 1672--1690. Theodoric bestowed some important favors on this bishop,
whom he used as a counsellor in peace and war.]

[Footnote 78: Devotissimus ac si Catholicus, (Anonym. Vales. p. 720;)
yet his offering was no more than two silver candlesticks (cerostrata)
of the weight of seventy pounds, far inferior to the gold and gems of
Constantinople and France, (Anastasius in Vit. Pont. in Hormisda, p. 34,
edit. Paris.)]

[Footnote 79: The tolerating system of his reign (Ennodius, p. 1612.
Anonym. Vales. p. 719. Procop. Goth. l. i. c. 1, l. ii. c. 6) may be
studied in the Epistles of Cassiodorous, under the following heads:
bishops, (Var. i. 9, vii. 15, 24, xi. 23;) immunities, (i. 26, ii. 29,
30;) church lands (iv. 17, 20;) sanctuaries, (ii. 11, iii. 47;) church
plate, (xii. 20;) discipline, (iv. 44;) which prove, at the same time,
that he was the head of the church as well as of the state. * Note: He
recommended the same toleration to the emperor Justin.--M.]

[Footnote 80: We may reject a foolish tale of his beheading a Catholic
deacon who turned Arian, (Theodor. Lector. No. 17.) Why is Theodoric
surnamed After? From Vafer? (Vales. ad loc.) A light conjecture.]

[Footnote 81: Ennodius, p. 1621, 1622, 1636, 1638. His libel was
approved and registered (synodaliter) by a Roman council, (Baronius,
A.D. 503, No. 6, Franciscus Pagi in Breviar. Pont. Rom. tom. i. p.
242.)]

[Footnote 82: See Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 15, ix. 15, 16,) Anastasius,
(in Symmacho, p. 31,) and the xviith Annotation of Mascou. Baronius,
Pagi, and most of the Catholic doctors, confess, with an angry growl,
this Gothic usurpation.]

I have descanted with pleasure on the fortunate condition of Italy; but
our fancy must not hastily conceive that the golden age of the poets,
a race of men without vice or misery, was realized under the Gothic
conquest. The fair prospect was sometimes overcast with clouds; the
wisdom of Theodoric might be deceived, his power might be resisted and
the declining age of the monarch was sullied with popular hatred and
patrician blood. In the first insolence of victory, he had been tempted
to deprive the whole party of Odoacer of the civil and even the natural
rights of society; [83] a tax unseasonably imposed after the calamities
of war, would have crushed the rising agriculture of Liguria; a rigid
preemption of corn, which was intended for the public relief, must
have aggravated the distress of Campania. These dangerous projects were
defeated by the virtue and eloquence of Epiphanius and Boethius, who, in
the presence of Theodoric himself, successfully pleaded the cause of
the people: [84] but if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth, a
saint and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear of kings.

The privileges of rank, or office, or favor, were too frequently abused
by Italian fraud and Gothic violence, and the avarice of the king's
nephew was publicly exposed, at first by the usurpation, and afterwards
by the restitution of the estates which he had unjustly extorted from
his Tuscan neighbors. Two hundred thousand Barbarians, formidable even
to their master, were seated in the heart of Italy; they indignantly
supported the restraints of peace and discipline; the disorders of
their march were always felt and sometimes compensated; and where it was
dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to dissemble, the sallies of
their native fierceness. When the indulgence of Theodoric had remitted
two thirds of the Ligurian tribute, he condescended to explain the
difficulties of his situation, and to lament the heavy though inevitable
burdens which he imposed on his subjects for their own defence. [85]
These ungrateful subjects could never be cordially reconciled to the
origin, the religion, or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past
calamities were forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was
rendered still more exquisite by the present felicity of the times.

[Footnote 83: He disabled them--alicentia testandi; and all Italy
mourned--lamentabili justitio. I wish to believe, that these penalties
were enacted against the rebels who had violated their oath of
allegiance; but the testimony of Ennodius (p. 1675-1678) is the more
weighty, as he lived and died under the reign of Theodoric.]

[Footnote 84: Ennodius, in Vit. Epiphan. p. 1589, 1690. Boethius de
Consolatione Philosphiae, l. i. pros. iv. p. 45, 46, 47. Respect,
but weigh the passions of the saint and the senator; and fortify and
alleviate their complaints by the various hints of Cassiodorus, (ii. 8,
iv. 36, viii. 5.)]

[Footnote 85: Immanium expensarum pondus...pro ipsorum salute, &c.; yet
these are no more than words.]

Even the religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory of
introducing into the Christian world, was painful and offensive to the
orthodox zeal of the Italians. They respected the armed heresy of the
Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed against the rich and
defenceless Jews, who had formed their establishments at Naples, Rome,
Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, for the benefit of trade, and under the
sanction of the laws. [86] Their persons were insulted, their effects
were pillaged, and their synagogues were burned by the mad populace of
Ravenna and Rome, inflamed, as it should seem, by the most frivolous or
extravagant pretences. The government which could neglect, would have
deserved such an outrage. A legal inquiry was instantly directed; and as
the authors of the tumult had escaped in the crowd, the whole community
was condemned to repair the damage; and the obstinate bigots, who
refused their contributions, were whipped through the streets by the
hand of the executioner. [8611] This simple act of justice exasperated
the discontent of the Catholics, who applauded the merit and patience of
these holy confessors. Three hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of
the church; and if the chapel of St. Stephen at Verona was demolished
by the command of Theodoric, it is probable that some miracle hostile to
his name and dignity had been performed on that sacred theatre. At
the close of a glorious life, the king of Italy discovered that he had
excited the hatred of a people whose happiness he had so assiduously
labored to promote; and his mind was soured by indignation, jealousy,
and the bitterness of unrequited love. The Gothic conqueror condescended
to disarm the unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons
of offence, and excepting only a small knife for domestic use. The
deliverer of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest informers
against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and
treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. [87] After the
death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on the head of a
feeble old man; but the powers of government were assumed by his nephew
Justinian, who already meditated the extirpation of heresy, and the
conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law, which was published at
Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by the dread of punishment within
the pale of the church, awakened the just resentment of Theodoric, who
claimed for his distressed brethren of the East the same indulgence
which he had so long granted to the Catholics of his dominions. [8711]
At his stern command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious senators,
embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike dreaded the failure
or the success. The singular veneration shown to the first pope who had
visited Constantinople was punished as a crime by his jealous monarch;
the artful or peremptory refusal of the Byzantine court might excuse an
equal, and would provoke a larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate
was prepared in Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of
the Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies, the
most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of persecution; and the
life of Theodoric was too long, since he lived to condemn the virtue of
Boethius and Symmachus. [88]

[Footnote 86: The Jews were settled at Naples, (Procopius, Goth. l. i.
c. 8,) at Genoa, (Var. ii. 28, iv. 33,) Milan, (v. 37,) Rome, (iv. 43.)
See likewise Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. c. 7, p. 254.]

[Footnote 8611: See History of the Jews vol. iii. p. 217.--M.]

[Footnote 87: Rex avidus communis exitii, &c., (Boethius, l. i. p. 59:)
rex colum Romanis tendebat, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.) These are hard
words: they speak the passions of the Italians and those (I fear) of
Theodoric himself.]

[Footnote 8711: Gibbon should not have omitted the golden words of
Theodoric in a letter which he addressed to Justin: That to pretend to a
dominion over the conscience is to usurp the prerogative of God; that
by the nature of things the power of sovereigns is confined to external
government; that they have no right of punishment but over those who
disturb the public peace, of which they are the guardians; that the most
dangerous heresy is that of a sovereign who separates from himself a
part of his subjects because they believe not according to his belief.
Compare Le Beau, vol viii. p. 68.--M]

[Footnote 88: I have labored to extract a rational narrative from the
dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian Fragment, (p. 722, 723,
724,) Theophanes, (p. 145,) Anastasius, (in Johanne, p. 35,) and
the Hist Miscella, (p. 103, edit. Muratori.) A gentle pressure and
paraphrase of their words is no violence. Consult likewise Muratori
(Annali d' Italia, tom. iv. p. 471-478,) with the Annals and Breviary
(tom. i. p. 259--263) of the two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew.]

The senator Boethius [89] is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully
could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy orphan,
he inherited the patrimony and honors of the Anician family, a name
ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of the age; and the
appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or fabulous descent from
a race of consuls and dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the
Capitol, and sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the republic. In
the youth of Boethius the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned;
a Virgil [90] is now extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the
professors of grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in
their privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the
erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his ardent
curiosity: and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen laborious
years in the schools of Athens, [91] which were supported by the zeal,
the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his disciples. The reason
and piety of their Roman pupil were fortunately saved from the contagion
of mystery and magic, which polluted the groves of the academy; but
he imbibed the spirit, and imitated the method, of his dead and living
masters, who attempted to reconcile the strong and subtile sense of
Aristotle with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato.
After his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his
friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a palace
of ivory and marble, to prosecute the same studies. [92] The church was
edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed against the Arian,
the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was
explained or exposed in a formal treatise by the indifference of three
distinct though consubstantial persons. For the benefit of his Latin
readers, his genius submitted to teach the first elements of the arts
and sciences of Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras,
the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy
of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle, with
the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and illustrated by the
indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And he alone was esteemed
capable of describing the wonders of art, a sun-dial, a water-clock,
or a sphere which represented the motions of the planets. From these
abstruse speculations, Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he
rose to the social duties of public and private life: the indigent were
relieved by his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might
compare to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in
the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was felt
and rewarded by a discerning prince: the dignity of Boethius was adorned
with the titles of consul and patrician, and his talents were
usefully employed in the important station of master of the offices.
Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and West, his two sons were
created, in their tender youth, the consuls of the same year. [93] On
the memorable day of their inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp
from their palace to the forum amidst the applause of the senate
and people; and their joyful father, the true consul of Rome,
after pronouncing an oration in the praise of his royal benefactor,
distributed a triumphal largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous
in his fame and fortunes, in his public honors and private alliances,
in the cultivation of science and the consciousness of virtue, Boethius
might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely
applied before the last term of the life of man.

[Footnote 89: Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical life
of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius, (Bibliot. Choisie, tom. xvi.
p. 168--275;) and both Tiraboschi (tom. iii.) and Fabricius (Bibliot
Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of his birth may be placed
about the year 470, and his death in 524, in a premature old age,
(Consol. Phil. Metrica. i. p. 5.)]

[Footnote 90: For the age and value of this Ms., now in the Medicean
library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p. 430-447) of Cardinal
Noris.]

[Footnote 91: The Athenian studies of Boethius are doubtful, (Baronius,
A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De Disciplina Scholarum,) and
the term of eighteen years is doubtless too long: but the simple fact
of a visit to Athens is justified by much internal evidence, (Brucker,
Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p. 524--527,) and by an expression
(though vague and ambiguous) of his friend Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 45,)
"longe positas Athenas intrioisti."]

[Footnote 92: Bibliothecae comptos ebore ac vitro * parietes, &c.,
(Consol. Phil. l. i. pros. v. p. 74.) The Epistles of Ennodius (vi. 6,
vii. 13, viii. 1 31, 37, 40) and Cassiodorus (Var. i. 39, iv. 6, ix. 21)
afford many proofs of the high reputation which he enjoyed in his own
times. It is true, that the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an
old house at Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part of
payment. * Note: Gibbon translated vitro, marble; under the impression,
no doubt that glass was unknown.--M.]

[Footnote 93: Pagi, Muratori, &c., are agreed that Boethius himself was
consul in the year 510, his two sons in 522, and in 487, perhaps, his
father. A desire of ascribing the last of these consulships to the
philosopher had perplexed the chronology of his life. In his honors,
alliances, children, he celebrates his own felicity--his past felicity,
(p. 109 110)]

A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his time, might
be insensible to the common allurements of ambition, the thirst of
gold and employment. And some credit may be due to the asseveration of
Boethius, that he had reluctantly obeyed the divine Plato, who enjoins
every virtuous citizen to rescue the state from the usurpation of vice
and ignorance. For the integrity of his public conduct he appeals to
the memory of his country. His authority had restrained the pride
and oppression of the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered
Paulianus from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often
relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were exhausted
by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had courage to oppose
the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by conquest, excited by avarice,
and, as he complains, encouraged by impunity. In these honorable
contests his spirit soared above the consideration of danger, and
perhaps of prudence; and we may learn from the example of Cato, that a
character of pure and inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by
prejudice, to be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities
with public justice. The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the
infirmities of nature, and the imperfections of society; and the mildest
form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance and gratitude,
must be insupportable to the free spirit of a Roman patriot. But the
favor and fidelity of Boethius declined in just proportion with the
public happiness; and an unworthy colleague was imposed to divide and
control the power of the master of the offices. In the last gloomy
season of Theodoric, he indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as his
master had only power over his life, he stood without arms and without
fear against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been provoked to
believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible with his own. The
senator Albinus was accused and already convicted on the presumption of
hoping, as it was said, the liberty of Rome. "If Albinus be criminal,"
exclaimed the orator, "the senate and myself are all guilty of the same
crime. If we are innocent, Albinus is equally entitled to the protection
of the laws." These laws might not have punished the simple and barren
wish of an unattainable blessing; but they would have shown less
indulgence to the rash confession of Boethius, that, had he known of a
conspiracy, the tyrant never should. [94] The advocate of Albinus was
soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of his client; their
signature (which they denied as a forgery) was affixed to the original
address, inviting the emperor to deliver Italy from the Goths; and three
witnesses of honorable rank, perhaps of infamous reputation, attested
the treasonable designs of the Roman patrician. [95] Yet his innocence
must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of
justification, and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the
senate, at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence of
confiscation and death against the most illustrious of its members. At
the command of the Barbarians, the occult science of a philosopher was
stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and magic. [96] A devout and
dutiful attachment to the senate was condemned as criminal by the
trembling voices of the senators themselves; and their ingratitude
deserved the wish or prediction of Boethius, that, after him, none
should be found guilty of the same offence. [97]

[Footnote 94: Si ego scissem tu nescisses. Beothius adopts this answer
(l. i. pros. 4, p. 53) of Julius Canus, whose philosophic death is
described by Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 14.)]

[Footnote 95: The characters of his two delators, Basilius (Var. ii. 10,
11, iv. 22) and Opilio, (v. 41, viii. 16,) are illustrated, not much
to their honor, in the Epistles of Cassiodorus, which likewise mention
Decoratus, (v. 31,) the worthless colleague of Beothius, (l. iii. pros.
4, p. 193.)]

[Footnote 96: A severe inquiry was instituted into the crime of magic,
(Var. iv 22, 23, ix. 18;) and it was believed that many necromancers had
escaped by making their jailers mad: for mad I should read drunk.]

[Footnote 97: Boethius had composed his own Apology, (p. 53,) perhaps
more interesting than his Consolation. We must be content with the
general view of his honors, principles, persecution, &c., (l. i. pros.
4, p. 42--62,) which may be compared with the short and weighty words of
the Valesian Fragment, (p. 723.) An anonymous writer (Sinner, Catalog.
Mss. Bibliot. Bern. tom. i. p. 287) charges him home with honorable and
patriotic treason.]

While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the
sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the tower of Pavia, the
Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure
of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the
barbarism of the times and the situation of the author. The celestial
guide, whom he had so long invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended
to illumine his dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his
wounds her salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity
and his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the inconstancy
of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious condition of her
gifts; experience had satisfied him of their real value; he had enjoyed
them without guilt; he might resign them without a sigh, and calmly
disdain the impotent malice of his enemies, who had left him happiness,
since they had left him virtue. From the earth, Boethius ascended
to heaven in search of the Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical
labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and free will, of
time and eternity; and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect
attributes of the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and
physical government. Such topics of consolation so obvious, so vague, or
so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human nature. Yet
the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labor of thought; and the
sage who could artfully combine in the same work the various riches
of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, must already have possessed the
intrepid calmness which he affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of
evils, was at length determined by the ministers of death, who executed,
and perhaps exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord
was fastened round the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened, till
his eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be
discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till he
expired. [98] But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of knowledge over
the darkest ages of the Latin world; the writings of the philosopher
were translated by the most glorious of the English kings, [99] and the
third emperor of the name of Otho removed to a more honorable tomb the
bones of a Catholic saint, who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired
the honors of martyrdom, and the fame of miracles. [100] In the last
hours of Boethius, he derived some comfort from the safety of his two
sons, of his wife, and of his father-in-law, the venerable Symmachus.
But the grief of Symmachus was indiscreet, and perhaps disrespectful:
he had presumed to lament, he might dare to revenge, the death of an
injured friend. He was dragged in chains from Rome to the palace of
Ravenna; and the suspicions of Theodoric could only be appeased by the
blood of an innocent and aged senator. [101]

[Footnote 98: He was executed in Agro Calventiano, (Calvenzano, between
Marignano and Pavia,) Anonym. Vales. p. 723, by order of Eusebius, count
of Ticinum or Pavia. This place of confinement is styled the baptistery,
an edifice and name peculiar to cathedrals. It is claimed by the
perpetual tradition of the church of Pavia. The tower of Boethius
subsisted till the year 1584, and the draught is yet preserved,
(Tiraboschi, tom. iii. p. 47, 48.)]

[Footnote 99: See the Biographia Britannica, Alfred, tom. i. p. 80, 2d
edition. The work is still more honorable if performed under the learned
eye of Alfred by his foreign and domestic doctors. For the reputation
of Boethius in the middle ages, consult Brucker, (Hist. Crit. Philosoph.
tom. iii. p. 565, 566.)]

[Footnote 100: The inscription on his new tomb was composed by the
preceptor of Otho III., the learned Pope Silvester II., who, like
Boethius himself, was styled a magician by the ignorance of the times.
The Catholic martyr had carried his head in his hands a considerable
way, (Baronius, A.D. 526, No. 17, 18;) and yet on a similar tale, a lady
of my acquaintance once observed, "La distance n'y fait rien; il n'y a
que lo remier pas qui coute." Note: Madame du Deffand. This witticism
referred to the miracle of St. Denis.--G.]

[Footnote 101: Boethius applauds the virtues of his father-in-law, (l.
i. pros. 4, p. 59, l. ii. pros. 4, p. 118.) Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c.
i.,) the Valesian Fragment, (p. 724,) and the Historia Miscella, (l.
xv. p. 105,) agree in praising the superior innocence or sanctity of
Symmachus; and in the estimation of the legend, the guilt of his murder
is equal to the imprisonment of a pope.]

Humanity will be disposed to encourage any report which testifies the
jurisdiction of conscience and the remorse of kings; and philosophy is
not ignorant that the most horrid spectres are sometimes created by the
powers of a disordered fancy, and the weakness of a distempered body.
After a life of virtue and glory, Theodoric was now descending with
shame and guilt into the grave; his mind was humbled by the contrast of
the past, and justly alarmed by the invisible terrors of futurity. One
evening, as it is related, when the head of a large fish was served on
the royal table, [102] he suddenly exclaimed, that he beheld the angry
countenance of Symmachus, his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and his
mouth armed with long sharp teeth, which threatened to devour him. The
monarch instantly retired to his chamber, and, as he lay, trembling
with aguish cold, under a weight of bed-clothes, he expressed, in broken
murmurs to his physician Elpidius, his deep repentance for the murders
of Boethius and Symmachus. [103] His malady increased, and after a
dysentery which continued three days, he expired in the palace of
Ravenna, in the thirty-third, or, if we compute from the invasion
of Italy, in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. Conscious of his
approaching end, he divided his treasures and provinces between his two
grandsons, and fixed the Rhone as their common boundary. [104] Amalaric
was restored to the throne of Spain. Italy, with all the conquests of
the Ostrogoths, was bequeathed to Athalaric; whose age did not exceed
ten years, but who was cherished as the last male offspring of the line
of Amali, by the short-lived marriage of his mother Amalasuntha with
a royal fugitive of the same blood. [105] In the presence of the dying
monarch, the Gothic chiefs and Italian magistrates mutually engaged
their faith and loyalty to the young prince, and to his guardian mother;
and received, in the same awful moment, his last salutary advice,
to maintain the laws, to love the senate and people of Rome, and to
cultivate with decent reverence the friendship of the emperor. [106]
The monument of Theodoric was erected by his daughter Amalasuntha, in a
conspicuous situation, which commanded the city of Ravenna, the harbor,
and the adjacent coast. A chapel of a circular form, thirty feet in
diameter, is crowned by a dome of one entire piece of granite: from the
centre of the dome four columns arose, which supported, in a vase of
porphyry, the remains of the Gothic king, surrounded by the brazen
statues of the twelve apostles. [107] His spirit, after some previous
expiation, might have been permitted to mingle with the benefactors of
mankind, if an Italian hermit had not been witness, in a vision, to the
damnation of Theodoric, [108] whose soul was plunged, by the ministers
of divine vengeance, into the volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming
mouths of the infernal world. [109]

[Footnote 102: In the fanciful eloquence of Cassiodorus, the variety of
sea and river fish are an evidence of extensive dominion; and those of
the Rhine, of Sicily, and of the Danube, were served on the table of
Theodoric, (Var. xii. 14.) The monstrous turbot of Domitian (Juvenal
Satir. iii. 39) had been caught on the shores of the Adriatic.]

[Footnote 103: Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1. But he might have informed
us, whether he had received this curious anecdote from common report or
from the mouth of the royal physician.]

[Footnote 104: Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2, 12, 13. This partition
had been directed by Theodoric, though it was not executed till after
his death, Regni hereditatem superstes reliquit, (Isidor. Chron. p. 721,
edit. Grot.)]

[Footnote 105: Berimund, the third in descent from Hermanric, king
of the Ostrogoths, had retired into Spain, where he lived and died
in obscurity, (Jornandes, c. 33, p. 202, edit. Muratori.) See the
discovery, nuptials, and death of his grandson Eutharic, (c. 58, p.
220.) His Roman games might render him popular, (Cassiodor. in Chron.,)
but Eutharic was asper in religione, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)]

[Footnote 106: See the counsels of Theodoric, and the professions of his
successor, in Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2,) Jornandes, (c. 59, p.
220, 221,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 1--7.) These epistles are the
triumph of his ministerial eloquence.]

[Footnote 107: Anonym. Vales. p. 724. Agnellus de Vitis. Pont. Raven. in
Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p. 67. Alberti Descrittione
d' Italia, p. 311. * Note: The Mausoleum of Theodoric, now Sante Maria
della Rotonda, is engraved in D'Agincourt, Histoire de l'Art, p xviii.
of the Architectural Prints.--M]

[Footnote 108: This legend is related by Gregory I., (Dialog. iv. 36,)
and approved by Baronius, (A.D. 526, No. 28;) and both the pope and
cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a probable opinion.]

[Footnote 109: Theodoric himself, or rather Cassiodorus, had described
in tragic strains the volcanos of Lipari (Cluver. Sicilia, p. 406--410)
and Vesuvius, (v 50.)]




Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.--Part I.

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

The emperor Justinian was born [1] near the ruins of Sardica,
(the modern Sophia,) of an obscure race [2] of Barbarians, [3] the
inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the names of
Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been successively applied. His
elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of his uncle Justin,
who, with two other peasants of the same village, deserted, for
the profession of arms, the more useful employment of husbandmen or
shepherds. [4] On foot, with a scanty provision of biscuit in their
knapsacks, the three youths followed the high road of Constantinople,
and were soon enrolled, for their strength and stature, among the guards
of the emperor Leo. Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate
peasant emerged to wealth and honors; and his escape from some dangers
which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the guardian angel
who watches over the fate of kings. His long and laudable service in
the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have preserved from oblivion the
name of Justin; yet they might warrant the military promotion, which in
the course of fifty years he gradually obtained; the rank of tribune,
of count, and of general; the dignity of senator, and the command of the
guards, who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis when the
emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful kinsmen whom
he had raised and enriched were excluded from the throne; and the eunuch
Amantius, who reigned in the palace, had secretly resolved to fix the
diadem on the head of the most obsequious of his creatures. A liberal
donative, to conciliate the suffrage of the guards, was intrusted
for that purpose in the hands of their commander. But these weighty
arguments were treacherously employed by Justin in his own favor; and as
no competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested with
the purple by the unanimous consent of the soldiers, who knew him to
be brave and gentle, of the clergy and people, who believed him to
be orthodox, and of the provincials, who yielded a blind and implicit
submission to the will of the capital. The elder Justin, as he is
distinguished from another emperor of the same family and name, ascended
the Byzantine throne at the age of sixty-eight years; and, had he been
left to his own guidance, every moment of a nine years' reign must have
exposed to his subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance
was similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that in an age
not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had never been
instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. [411] But the genius of
Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic king: the experience of
a soldier had not qualified him for the government of an empire; and
though personally brave, the consciousness of his own weakness was
naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and political apprehension.
But the official business of the state was diligently and faithfully
transacted by the quaestor Proclus; [5] and the aged emperor adopted the
talents and ambition of his nephew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom
his uncle had drawn from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and educated at
Constantinople, as the heir of his private fortune, and at length of the
Eastern empire.

[Footnote 1: There is some difficulty in the date of his birth
(Ludewig in Vit. Justiniani, p. 125;) none in the place--the district
Bederiana--the village Tauresium, which he afterwards decorated with
his name and splendor, (D'Anville, Hist. de l'Acad. &c., tom. xxxi. p.
287--292.)]

[Footnote 2: The names of these Dardanian peasants are Gothic, and
almost English: Justinian is a translation of uprauda, (upright;) his
father Sabatius (in Graeco-barbarous language stipes) was styled in
his village Istock, (Stock;) his mother Bigleniza was softened into
Vigilantia.]

[Footnote 3: Ludewig (p. 127--135) attempts to justify the Anician name
of Justinian and Theodora, and to connect them with a family from which
the house of Austria has been derived.]

[Footnote 4: See the anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 6,) with the notes of
N. Alemannus. The satirist would not have sunk, in the vague and decent
appellation of Zonaras. Yet why are those names disgraceful?--and what
German baron would not be proud to descend from the Eumaeus of the
Odyssey! Note: It is whimsical enough that, in our own days, we should
have, even in jest, a claimant to lineal descent from the godlike
swineherd not in the person of a German baron, but in that of a
professor of the Ionian University. Constantine Koliades, or some
malicious wit under this name, has written a tall folio to prove Ulysses
to be Homer, and himself the descendant, the heir (?), of the Eumaeus of
the Odyssey.--M]

[Footnote 411: St. Martin questions the fact in both cases. The
ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of Procopius, vol. viii.
p. 8. St. Martin's notes on Le Beau.--M]

[Footnote 5: His virtues are praised by Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c.
11.) The quaestor Proclus was the friend of Justinian, and the enemy of
every other adoption.]

Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it became
necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily accomplished
by the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy; and the judges were
informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that he was secretly addicted
to the Manichaean heresy. [6] Amantius lost his head; three of his
companions, the first domestics of the palace, were punished either with
death or exile; and their unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast
into a deep dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown,
without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a work of more
difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had rendered himself popular by
the civil war which he boldly waged against Anastasius for the defence
of the orthodox faith, and after the conclusion of an advantageous
treaty, he still remained in the neighborhood of Constantinople at the
head of a formidable and victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail
security of oaths, he was tempted to relinquish this advantageous
situation, and to trust his person within the walls of a city, whose
inhabitants, particularly the blue faction, were artfully incensed
against him by the remembrance even of his pious hostilities. The
emperor and his nephew embraced him as the faithful and worthy champion
of the church and state; and gratefully adorned their favorite with
the titles of consul and general; but in the seventh month of his
consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen wounds at the royal
banquet; [7] and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was accused as the
assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had recently pledged his
faith in the participation of the Christian mysteries. [8] After the
fall of his rival, he was promoted, without any claim of military
service, to the office of master-general of the Eastern armies, whom it
was his duty to lead into the field against the public enemy. But, in
the pursuit of fame, Justinian might have lost his present dominion over
the age and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring by Scythian
or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen, [9] the prudent
warrior solicited their favor in the churches, the circus, and the
senate, of Constantinople. The Catholics were attached to the nephew
of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, trod the
narrow path of inflexible and intolerant orthodoxy. [10] In the first
days of the new reign, he prompted and gratified the popular enthusiasm
against the memory of the deceased emperor. After a schism of
thirty-four years, he reconciled the proud and angry spirit of the Roman
pontiff, and spread among the Latins a favorable report of his pious
respect for the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled with
Catholic bishops, devoted to his interest, the clergy and the monks were
gained by his liberality, and the people were taught to pray for
their future sovereign, the hope and pillar of the true religion. The
magnificence of Justinian was displayed in the superior pomp of his
public spectacles, an object not less sacred and important in the eyes
of the multitude than the creed of Nice or Chalcedon: the expense of his
consulship was esteemed at two hundred and twenty-eight thousand pieces
of gold; twenty lions, and thirty leopards, were produced at the same
time in the amphitheatre, and a numerous train of horses, with their
rich trappings, was bestowed as an extraordinary gift on the
victorious charioteers of the circus. While he indulged the people of
Constantinople, and received the addresses of foreign kings, the nephew
of Justin assiduously cultivated the friendship of the senate. That
venerable name seemed to qualify its members to declare the sense of
the nation, and to regulate the succession of the Imperial throne: the
feeble Anastasius had permitted the vigor of government to degenerate
into the form or substance of an aristocracy; and the military officers
who had obtained the senatorial rank were followed by their domestic
guards, a band of veterans, whose arms or acclamations might fix in a
tumultuous moment the diadem of the East. The treasures of the state
were lavished to procure the voices of the senators, and their unanimous
wish, that he would be pleased to adopt Justinian for his colleague,
was communicated to the emperor. But this request, which too clearly
admonished him of his approaching end, was unwelcome to the jealous
temper of an aged monarch, desirous to retain the power which he was
incapable of exercising; and Justin, holding his purple with both his
hands, advised them to prefer, since an election was so profitable, some
older candidate. Not withstanding this reproach, the senate proceeded
to decorate Justinian with the royal epithet of nobilissimus; and their
decree was ratified by the affection or the fears of his uncle. After
some time the languor of mind and body, to which he was reduced by
an incurable wound in his thigh, indispensably required the aid of a
guardian. He summoned the patriarch and senators; and in their presence
solemnly placed the diadem on the head of his nephew, who was conducted
from the palace to the circus, and saluted by the loud and joyful
applause of the people. The life of Justin was prolonged about four
months; but from the instant of this ceremony, he was considered as dead
to the empire, which acknowledged Justinian, in the forty-fifth year of
his age, for the lawful sovereign of the East. [11]

[Footnote 6: Manichaean signifies Eutychian. Hear the furious
acclamations of Constantinople and Tyre, the former no more than
six days after the decease of Anastasius. They produced, the latter
applauded, the eunuch's death, (Baronius, A.D. 518, P. ii. No. 15.
Fleury, Hist Eccles. tom. vii. p. 200, 205, from the Councils, tom. v.
p. 182, 207.)]

[Footnote 7: His power, character, and intentions, are perfectly
explained by the court de Buat, (tom. ix. p. 54--81.) He was
great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser Scythia,
and count of the Gothic foederati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he could
influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes, (c. 51.)]

[Footnote 8: Justiniani patricii factione dicitur interfectus fuisse,
(Victor Tu nunensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp. Scaliger, P. ii. p.
7.) Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7) styles him a tyrant, but acknowledges
something which is well explained by Alemannus.]

[Footnote 9: In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he had passed some
time as a hostage with Theodoric. For this curious fact, Alemannus (ad
Procop. Anecdot. c. 9, p. 34, of the first edition) quotes a Ms. history
of Justinian, by his preceptor Theophilus. Ludewig (p. 143) wishes to
make him a soldier.]

[Footnote 10: The ecclesiastical history of Justinian will be shown
hereafter. See Baronius, A.D. 518--521, and the copious article
Justinianas in the index to the viith volume of his Annals.]

[Footnote 11: The reign of the elder Justin may be found in the three
Chronicles of Marcellinus, Victor, and John Malala, (tom. ii. p.
130--150,) the last of whom (in spite of Hody, Prolegom. No. 14, 39,
edit. Oxon.) lived soon after Justinian, (Jortin's Remarks, &c., vol. iv
p. 383:) in the Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 1, 2, 3,
9,) and the Excerpta of Theodorus Lector, (No. 37,) and in Cedrenus,
(p. 362--366,) and Zonaras, (l. xiv. p. 58--61,) who may pass for an
original. * Note: Dindorf, in his preface to the new edition of Malala,
p. vi., concurs with this opinion of Gibbon, which was also that of
Reiske, as to the age of the chronicler.--M.]

From his elevation to his death, Justinian governed the Roman empire
thirty-eight years, seven months, and thirteen days.

The events of his reign, which excite our curious attention by their
number, variety, and importance, are diligently related by the secretary
of Belisarius, a rhetorician, whom eloquence had promoted to the rank of
senator and praefect of Constantinople. According to the vicissitudes of
courage or servitude, of favor or disgrace, Procopius [12] successively
composed the history, the panegyric, and the satire of his own times.
The eight books of the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, [13] which
are continued in the five books of Agathias, deserve our esteem as a
laborious and successful imitation of the Attic, or at least of the
Asiatic, writers of ancient Greece. His facts are collected from the
personal experience and free conversation of a soldier, a statesman, and
a traveller; his style continually aspires, and often attains, to the
merit of strength and elegance; his reflections, more especially in
the speeches, which he too frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of
political knowledge; and the historian, excited by the generous ambition
of pleasing and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the prejudices
of the people, and the flattery of courts. The writings of Procopius
[14] were read and applauded by his contemporaries: [15] but, although
he respectfully laid them at the foot of the throne, the pride
of Justinian must have been wounded by the praise of a hero, who
perpetually eclipses the glory of his inactive sovereign. The conscious
dignity of independence was subdued by the hopes and fears of a slave;
and the secretary of Belisarius labored for pardon and reward in the six
books of the Imperial edifices. He had dexterously chosen a subject of
apparent splendor, in which he could loudly celebrate the genius, the
magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as a conqueror and
legislator, had surpassed the puerile virtues of Themistocles and Cyrus.
[16] Disappointment might urge the flatterer to secret revenge; and the
first glance of favor might again tempt him to suspend and suppress
a libel, [17] in which the Roman Cyrus is degraded into an odious and
contemptible tyrant, in which both the emperor and his consort Theodora
are seriously represented as two daemons, who had assumed a human
form for the destruction of mankind. [18] Such base inconsistency
must doubtless sully the reputation, and detract from the credit, of
Procopius: yet, after the venom of his malignity has been suffered to
exhale, the residue of the anecdotes, even the most disgraceful facts,
some of which had been tenderly hinted in his public history, are
established by their internal evidence, or the authentic monuments of
the times. [19] [1911] From these various materials, I shall now proceed
to describe the reign of Justinian, which will deserve and occupy
an ample space. The present chapter will explain the elevation and
character of Theodora, the factions of the circus, and the peaceful
administration of the sovereign of the East. In the three succeeding
chapters, I shall relate the wars of Justinian, which achieved the
conquest of Africa and Italy; and I shall follow the victories of
Belisarius and Narses, without disguising the vanity of their triumphs,
or the hostile virtue of the Persian and Gothic heroes. The series
of this and the following volume will embrace the jurisprudence and
theology of the emperor; the controversies and sects which still divide
the Oriental church; the reformation of the Roman law which is obeyed or
respected by the nations of modern Europe.

[Footnote 12: See the characters of Procopius and Agathias in La Mothe
le Vayer, (tom. viii. p. 144--174,) Vossius, (de Historicis Graecis,
l. ii. c. 22,) and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. v. c. 5, tom. vi.
p. 248--278.) Their religion, an honorable problem, betrays occasional
conformity, with a secret attachment to Paganism and Philosophy.]

[Footnote 13: In the seven first books, two Persic, two Vandalic,
and three Gothic, Procopius has borrowed from Appian the division of
provinces and wars: the viiith book, though it bears the name of Gothic,
is a miscellaneous and general supplement down to the spring of the year
553, from whence it is continued by Agathias till 559, (Pagi, Critica,
A.D. 579, No. 5.)]

[Footnote 14: The literary fate of Procopius has been somewhat unlucky.

1. His book de Bello Gothico were stolen by Leonard Aretin, and
published (Fulginii, 1470, Venet. 1471, apud Janson. Mattaire, Annal
Typograph. tom. i. edit. posterior, p. 290, 304, 279, 299,) in his own
name, (see Vossius de Hist. Lat. l. iii. c. 5, and the feeble defence of
the Venice Giornale de Letterati, tom. xix. p. 207.)

2. His works were mutilated by the first Latin translators, Christopher
Persona, (Giornale, tom. xix. p. 340--348,) and Raphael de Volaterra,
(Huet, de Claris Interpretibus, p. 166,) who did not even consult the
Ms. of the Vatican library, of which they were praefects, (Aleman.
in Praefat Anecdot.) 3. The Greek text was not printed till 1607, by
Hoeschelius of Augsburg, (Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. ii. p. 782.)

4. The Paris edition was imperfectly executed by Claude Maltret, a
Jesuit of Toulouse, (in 1663,) far distant from the Louvre press and
the Vatican Ms., from which, however, he obtained some supplements. His
promised commentaries, &c., have never appeared. The Agathias of Leyden
(1594) has been wisely reprinted by the Paris editor, with the Latin
version of Bonaventura Vulcanius, a learned interpreter, (Huet, p. 176.)

* Note: Procopius forms a part of the new Byzantine collection under the
superintendence of Dindorf.--M.]

[Footnote 15: Agathias in Praefat. p. 7, 8, l. iv. p. 137. Evagrius, l.
iv. c. 12. See likewise Photius, cod. lxiii. p. 65.]

[Footnote 16: Says, he, Praefat. ad l. de Edificiis is no more than a
pun! In these five books, Procopius affects a Christian as well as a
courtly style.]

[Footnote 17: Procopius discloses himself, (Praefat. ad Anecdot. c. 1,
2, 5,) and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ninth book by Suidas, (tom.
iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster.) The silence of Evagrius is a poor objection.
Baronius (A.D. 548, No. 24) regrets the loss of this secret history:
it was then in the Vatican library, in his own custody, and was first
published sixteen years after his death, with the learned, but partial
notes of Nicholas Alemannus, (Lugd. 1623.)]

[Footnote 18: Justinian an ass--the perfect likeness of
Domitian--Anecdot. c. 8.--Theodora's lovers driven from her bed by
rival daemons--her marriage foretold with a great daemon--a monk saw the
prince of the daemons, instead of Justinian, on the throne--the servants
who watched beheld a face without features, a body walking without a
head, &c., &c. Procopius declares his own and his friends' belief in
these diabolical stories, (c. 12.)]

[Footnote 19: Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. xx.) gives credit to these anecdotes,
as connected, 1. with the weakness of the empire, and, 2. with the
instability of Justinian's laws.]

[Footnote 1911: The Anecdota of Procopius, compared with the former
works of the same author, appear to me the basest and most disgraceful
work in literature. The wars, which he has described in the former
volumes as glorious or necessary, are become unprofitable and wanton
massacres; the buildings which he celebrated, as raised to the
immortal honor of the great emperor, and his admirable queen, either as
magnificent embellishments of the city, or useful fortifications for
the defence of the frontier, are become works of vain prodigality
and useless ostentation. I doubt whether Gibbon has made sufficient
allowance for the "malignity" of the Anecdota; at all events, the
extreme and disgusting profligacy of Theodora's early life rests
entirely on this viratent libel--M.]

I. In the exercise of supreme power, the first act of Justinian was to
divide it with the woman whom he loved, the famous Theodora, [20] whose
strange elevation cannot be applauded as the triumph of female virtue.
Under the reign of Anastasius, the care of the wild beasts maintained by
the green faction at Constantinople was intrusted to Acacius, a native
of the Isle of Cyprus, who, from his employment, was surnamed the master
of the bears. This honorable office was given after his death to another
candidate, notwithstanding the diligence of his widow, who had already
provided a husband and a successor. Acacius had left three daughters,
Comito, [21] Theodora, and Anastasia, the eldest of whom did not then
exceed the age of seven years. On a solemn festival, these helpless
orphans were sent by their distressed and indignant mother, in the garb
of suppliants, into the midst of the theatre: the green faction received
them with contempt, the blues with compassion; and this difference,
which sunk deep into the mind of Theodora, was felt long afterwards in
the administration of the empire. As they improved in age and beauty,
the three sisters were successively devoted to the public and private
pleasures of the Byzantine people: and Theodora, after following Comito
on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a stool on her head, was
at length permitted to exercise her independent talents. She neither
danced, nor sung, nor played on the flute; her skill was confined to the
pantomime arts; she excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the
comedian swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone
and gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole theatre of
Constantinople resounded with laughter and applause. The beauty of
Theodora [22] was the subject of more flattering praise, and the source
of more exquisite delight. Her features were delicate and regular; her
complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged with a natural color; every
sensation was instantly expressed by the vivacity of her eyes; her easy
motions displayed the graces of a small but elegant figure; and
either love or adulation might proclaim, that painting and poetry were
incapable of delineating the matchless excellence of her form. But
this form was degraded by the facility with which it was exposed to the
public eye, and prostituted to licentious desire. Her venal charms were
abandoned to a promiscuous crowd of citizens and strangers of every
rank, and of every profession: the fortunate lover who had been promised
a night of enjoyment, was often driven from her bed by a stronger or
more wealthy favorite; and when she passed through the streets, her
presence was avoided by all who wished to escape either the scandal or
the temptation. The satirical historian has not blushed [23] to describe
the naked scenes which Theodora was not ashamed to exhibit in the
theatre. [24] After exhausting the arts of sensual pleasure, [25] she
most ungratefully murmured against the parsimony of Nature; [26] but her
murmurs, her pleasures, and her arts, must be veiled in the obscurity
of a learned language. After reigning for some time, the delight and
contempt of the capital, she condescended to accompany Ecebolus,
a native of Tyre, who had obtained the government of the African
Pentapolis. But this union was frail and transient; Ecebolus soon
rejected an expensive or faithless concubine; she was reduced at
Alexandria to extreme distress; and in her laborious return to
Constantinople, every city of the East admired and enjoyed the fair
Cyprian, whose merit appeared to justify her descent from the peculiar
island of Venus. The vague commerce of Theodora, and the most detestable
precautions, preserved her from the danger which she feared; yet once,
and once only, she became a mother. The infant was saved and educated in
Arabia, by his father, who imparted to him on his death-bed, that he
was the son of an empress. Filled with ambitious hopes, the unsuspecting
youth immediately hastened to the palace of Constantinople, and was
admitted to the presence of his mother. As he was never more seen,
even after the decease of Theodora, she deserves the foul imputation
of extinguishing with his life a secret so offensive to her Imperial
virtue. [2611]

[Footnote 20: For the life and manners of the empress Theodora see the
Anecdotes; more especially c. 1--5, 9, 10--15, 16, 17, with the learned
notes of Alemannus--a reference which is always implied.]

[Footnote 21: Comito was afterwards married to Sittas, duke of Armenia,
the father, perhaps, at least she might be the mother, of the empress
Sophia. Two nephews of Theodora may be the sons of Anastasia, (Aleman.
p. 30, 31.)]

[Footnote 22: Her statute was raised at Constantinople, on a porphyry
column. See Procopius, (de Edif. l. i. c. 11,) who gives her portrait
in the Anecdotes, (c. 10.) Aleman. (p. 47) produces one from a Mosaic at
Ravenna, loaded with pearls and jewels, and yet handsome.]

[Footnote 23: A fragment of the Anecdotes, (c. 9,) somewhat too naked,
was suppressed by Alemannus, though extant in the Vatican Ms.; nor has
the defect been supplied in the Paris or Venice editions. La Mothe
le Vayer (tom. viii. p. 155) gave the first hint of this curious and
genuine passage, (Jortin's Remarks, vol. iv. p. 366,) which he had
received from Rome, and it has been since published in the Menagiana
(tom. iii. p. 254--259) with a Latin version.]

[Footnote 24: After the mention of a narrow girdle, (as none could
appear stark naked in the theatre,) Procopius thus proceeds. I have
heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was fond of quoting this
passage in conversation.]

[Footnote 25: Theodora surpassed the Crispa of Ausonius, (Epigram
lxxi.,) who imitated the capitalis luxus of the females of Nola. See
Quintilian Institut. viii. 6, and Torrentius ad Horat. Sermon. l. i.
sat. 2, v. 101. At a memorable supper, thirty slaves waited round the
table ten young men feasted with Theodora. Her charity was universal. Et
lassata viris, necdum satiata, recessit.]

[Footnote 26: She wished for a fourth altar, on which she might pour
libations to the god of love.]

[Footnote 2611: Gibbon should have remembered the axiom which he
quotes in another piece, scelera ostendi oportet dum puniantur abscondi
flagitia.--M.]

In the most abject state of her fortune, and reputation, some vision,
either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered to Theodora the pleasing
assurance that she was destined to become the spouse of a potent
monarch. Conscious of her approaching greatness, she returned from
Paphlagonia to Constantinople; assumed, like a skilful actress, a more
decent character; relieved her poverty by the laudable industry of
spinning wool; and affected a life of chastity and solitude in a small
house, which she afterwards changed into a magnificent temple. [27] Her
beauty, assisted by art or accident, soon attracted, captivated, and
fixed, the patrician Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway
under the name of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived to enhance the value
of a gift which she had so often lavished on the meanest of mankind;
perhaps she inflamed, at first by modest delays, and at last by sensual
allurements, the desires of a lover, who, from nature or devotion, was
addicted to long vigils and abstemious diet. When his first transports
had subsided, she still maintained the same ascendant over his mind, by
the more solid merit of temper and understanding. Justinian delighted
to ennoble and enrich the object of his affection; the treasures of the
East were poured at her feet, and the nephew of Justin was determined,
perhaps by religious scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred and
legal character of a wife. But the laws of Rome expressly prohibited
the marriage of a senator with any female who had been dishonored by
a servile origin or theatrical profession: the empress Lupicina, or
Euphemia, a Barbarian of rustic manners, but of irreproachable virtue,
refused to accept a prostitute for her niece; and even Vigilantia, the
superstitious mother of Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and
beauty of Theodora, was seriously apprehensive, lest the levity and
arrogance of that artful paramour might corrupt the piety and happiness
of her son. These obstacles were removed by the inflexible constancy of
Justinian. He patiently expected the death of the empress; he despised
the tears of his mother, who soon sunk under the weight of her
affliction; and a law was promulgated in the name of the emperor
Justin, which abolished the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious
repentance (the words of the edict) was left open for the unhappy
females who had prostituted their persons on the theatre, and they were
permitted to contract a legal union with the most illustrious of
the Romans. [28] This indulgence was speedily followed by the solemn
nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity was gradually exalted
with that of her lover, and, as soon as Justin had invested his nephew
with the purple, the patriarch of Constantinople placed the diadem on
the heads of the emperor and empress of the East. But the usual honors
which the severity of Roman manners had allowed to the wives of princes,
could not satisfy either the ambition of Theodora or the fondness of
Justinian. He seated her on the throne as an equal and independent
colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an oath of allegiance
was imposed on the governors of the provinces in the joint names of
Justinian and Theodora. [29] The Eastern world fell prostrate before the
genius and fortune of the daughter of Acacius. The prostitute who, in
the presence of innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre
of Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by grave
magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive
monarchs. [30]

[Footnote 27: Anonym. de Antiquitat. C. P. l. iii. 132, in Banduri
Imperium Orient. tom. i. p. 48. Ludewig (p. 154) argues sensibly that
Theodora would not have immortalized a brothel: but I apply this fact to
her second and chaster residence at Constantinople.]

[Footnote 28: See the old law in Justinian's Code, (l. v. tit. v. leg.
7, tit. xxvii. leg. 1,) under the years 336 and 454. The new edict
(about the year 521 or 522, Aleman. p. 38, 96) very awkwardly repeals no
more than the clause of mulieres scenicoe, libertinae, tabernariae.
See the novels 89 and 117, and a Greek rescript from Justinian to the
bishops, (Aleman. p. 41.)]

[Footnote 29: I swear by the Father, &c., by the Virgin Mary, by the
four Gospels, quae in manibus teneo, and by the Holy Archangels Michael
and Gabriel, puram conscientiam germanumque servitium me servaturum,
sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et Theodorae conjugi ejus, (Novell.
viii. tit. 3.) Would the oath have been binding in favor of the widow?
Communes tituli et triumphi, &c., (Aleman. p. 47, 48.)]

[Footnote 30: "Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more," &c.
Without Warburton's critical telescope, I should never have seen,
in this general picture of triumphant vice, any personal allusion to
Theodora.]




Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.--Part II.

Those who believe that the female mind is totally depraved by the loss
of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the invectives of private envy,
or popular resentment which have dissembled the virtues of Theodora,
exaggerated her vices, and condemned with rigor the venal or voluntary
sins of the youthful harlot. From a motive of shame, or contempt, she
often declined the servile homage of the multitude, escaped from the
odious light of the capital, and passed the greatest part of the year in
the palaces and gardens which were pleasantly seated on the sea-coast of
the Propontis and the Bosphorus. Her private hours were devoted to the
prudent as well as grateful care of her beauty, the luxury of the bath
and table, and the long slumber of the evening and the morning. Her
secret apartments were occupied by the favorite women and eunuchs, whose
interests and passions she indulged at the expense of justice; the most
illustrious person ages of the state were crowded into a dark and sultry
antechamber, and when at last, after tedious attendance, they were
admitted to kiss the feet of Theodora, they experienced, as her humor
might suggest, the silent arrogance of an empress, or the capricious
levity of a comedian. Her rapacious avarice to accumulate an immense
treasure, may be excused by the apprehension of her husband's death,
which could leave no alternative between ruin and the throne; and fear
as well as ambition might exasperate Theodora against two generals, who,
during the malady of the emperor, had rashly declared that they were not
disposed to acquiesce in the choice of the capital. But the reproach of
cruelty, so repugnant even to her softer vices, has left an indelible
stain on the memory of Theodora. Her numerous spies observed, and
zealously reported, every action, or word, or look, injurious to their
royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast into her peculiar
prisons, [31] inaccessible to the inquiries of justice; and it was
rumored, that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had been inflicted in
the presence of the female tyrant, insensible to the voice of prayer
or of pity. [32] Some of these unhappy victims perished in deep,
unwholesome dungeons, while others were permitted, after the loss of
their limbs, their reason, or their fortunes, to appear in the world,
the living monuments of her vengeance, which was commonly extended to
the children of those whom she had suspected or injured. The senator or
bishop, whose death or exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to
a trusty messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a menace from her
own mouth. "If you fail in the execution of my commands, I swear by Him
who liveth forever, that your skin shall be flayed from your body." [33]

[Footnote 31: Her prisons, a labyrinth, a Tartarus, (Anecdot. c. 4,)
were under the palace. Darkness is propitious to cruelty, but it is
likewise favorable to calumny and fiction.]

[Footnote 32: A more jocular whipping was inflicted on Saturninus, for
presuming to say that his wife, a favorite of the empress, had not been
found. (Anecdot. c. 17.)]

[Footnote 33: Per viventem in saecula excoriari te faciam. Anastasius de
Vitis Pont. Roman. in Vigilio, p. 40.]

If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy, her exemplary
devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of her contemporaries, for
pride, avarice, and cruelty. But, if she employed her influence to
assuage the intolerant fury of the emperor, the present age will allow
some merit to her religion, and much indulgence to her speculative
errors. [34] The name of Theodora was introduced, with equal honor,
in all the pious and charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most
benevolent institution of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy
of the empress for her less fortunate sisters, who had been seduced or
compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. A palace, on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, was converted into a stately and spacious
monastery, and a liberal maintenance was assigned to five hundred women,
who had been collected from the streets and brothels of Constantinople.
In this safe and holy retreat, they were devoted to perpetual
confinement; and the despair of some, who threw themselves headlong
into the sea, was lost in the gratitude of the penitents, who had been
delivered from sin and misery by their generous benefactress. [35] The
prudence of Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself; and his laws
are attributed to the sage counsels of his most reverend wife whom he
had received as the gift of the Deity. [36] Her courage was displayed
amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors of the court. Her
chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian, is founded on the
silence of her implacable enemies; and although the daughter of Acacius
might be satiated with love, yet some applause is due to the firmness
of a mind which could sacrifice pleasure and habit to the stronger sense
either of duty or interest. The wishes and prayers of Theodora could
never obtain the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an infant
daughter, the sole offspring of her marriage. [37] Notwithstanding this
disappointment, her dominion was permanent and absolute; she preserved,
by art or merit, the affections of Justinian; and their seeming
dissensions were always fatal to the courtiers who believed them to be
sincere. Perhaps her health had been impaired by the licentiousness
of her youth; but it was always delicate, and she was directed by her
physicians to use the Pythian warm baths. In this journey, the empress
was followed by the Praetorian praefect, the great treasurer, several
counts and patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand attendants:
the highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was erected for her
reception; and as she passed through Bithynia, she distributed liberal
alms to the churches, the monasteries, and the hospitals, that they
might implore Heaven for the restoration of her health. [38] At length,
in the twenty-fourth year of her marriage, and the twenty-second of her
reign, she was consumed by a cancer; [39] and the irreparable loss was
deplored by her husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute,
might have selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East. [40]

[Footnote 34: Ludewig, p. 161--166. I give him credit for the charitable
attempt, although he hath not much charity in his temper.]

[Footnote 35: Compare the anecdotes (c. 17) with the Edifices (l. i. c.
9)--how differently may the same fact be stated! John Malala (tom. ii.
p. 174, 175) observes, that on this, or a similar occasion, she released
and clothed the girls whom she had purchased from the stews at five
aurei apiece.]

[Footnote 36: Novel. viii. 1. An allusion to Theodora. Her enemies read
the name Daemonodora, (Aleman. p. 66.)]

[Footnote 37: St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of Theodora, lest he
should prove a heretic worse than Anastasius himself, (Cyril in Vit. St.
Sabae, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109.)]

[Footnote 38: See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174. Theophanes, p. 158.
Procopius de Edific. l. v. c. 3.]

[Footnote 39: Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris plaga toto
corpore perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit, (Victor Tununensis in Chron.)
On such occasions, an orthodox mind is steeled against pity. Alemannus
(p. 12, 13) understands of Theophanes as civil language, which does not
imply either piety or repentance; yet two years after her death, St.
Theodora is celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem. v. 58--62.)]

[Footnote 40: As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a council,
Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila, Herodias, &c.; after which
he has recourse to his infernal dictionary: civis inferni--alumna
daemonum--satanico agitata spiritu-oestro percita diabolico, &c., &c.,
(A.D. 548, No. 24.)]

II. A material difference may be observed in the games of antiquity:
the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans were merely
spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth, merit, and ambition;
and if the candidates could depend on their personal skill and activity,
they might pursue the footsteps of Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct
their own horses in the rapid career. [41] Ten, twenty, forty chariots
were allowed to start at the same instant; a crown of leaves was the
reward of the victor; and his fame, with that of his family and country,
was chanted in lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and
marble. But a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity,
would have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the circus
of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic, the
magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins were abandoned to servile
hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer sometimes exceeded
those of an advocate, they must be considered as the effects of popular
extravagance, and the high wages of a disgraceful profession. The race,
in its first institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose
drivers were distinguished by white and red liveries: two additional
colors, a light green, and a caerulean blue, were afterwards introduced;
and as the races were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots
contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four factions
soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their
fanciful colors were derived from the various appearances of nature in
the four seasons of the year; the red dogstar of summer, the snows
of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of
the spring. [42] Another interpretation preferred the elements to
the seasons, and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to
represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories
announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation, and the
hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd
than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and
fortunes to the color which they had espoused. Such folly was disdained
and indulged by the wisest princes; but the names of Caligula, Nero,
Vitellius, Verus, Commodus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in
the blue or green factions of the circus; they frequented their stables,
applauded their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the
esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of their
manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to disturb the
public festivity, till the last age of the spectacles of Rome; and
Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection, interposed his
authority to protect the greens against the violence of a consul and
a patrician, who were passionately addicted to the blue faction of the
circus. [43]

[Footnote 41: Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad, a living
picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and spirit of
the chariot race West's Dissertation on the Olympic Games (sect.
xii.--xvii.) affords much curious and authentic information.]

[Footnote 42: The four colors, albati, russati, prasini, veneti,
represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 51,)
who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical mystery. Of these
colors, the three first may be fairly translated white, red, and green.
Venetus is explained by coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is
properly the sky reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience
may allow blue as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence's
Polymetis, p. 228.)]

[Footnote 43: See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis Circensibus, l. i. c. 10,
11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou's History of the Germans; and Aleman
ad c. vii.]

Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of ancient
Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the circus, raged with
redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the reign of Anastasius, this
popular frenzy was inflamed by religious zeal; and the greens, who
had treacherously concealed stones and daggers under baskets of
fruit, massacred, at a solemn festival, three thousand of their blue
adversaries. [44] From this capital, the pestilence was diffused into
the provinces and cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of
two colors produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook
the foundations of a feeble government. [45] The popular dissensions,
founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have scarcely
equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which invaded the peace
of families, divided friends and brothers, and tempted the female sex,
though seldom seen in the circus, to espouse the inclinations of their
lovers, or to contradict the wishes of their husbands. Every law, either
human or divine, was trampled under foot, and as long as the party was
successful, its deluded followers appeared careless of private distress
or public calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy,
was revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of a faction
became necessary to every candidate for civil or ecclesiastical honors.
A secret attachment to the family or sect of Anastasius was imputed to
the greens; the blues were zealously devoted to the cause of orthodoxy
and Justinian, [46] and their grateful patron protected, above five
years, the disorders of a faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the
palace, the senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal
favor, the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and Barbaric
dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample
garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they concealed
their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly assembled in
arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act of violence and
rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction, or even inoffensive
citizens, were stripped and often murdered by these nocturnal robbers,
and it became dangerous to wear any gold buttons or girdles, or to
appear at a late hour in the streets of a peaceful capital. A daring
spirit, rising with impunity, proceeded to violate the safeguard of
private houses; and fire was employed to facilitate the attack, or
to conceal the crimes of these factious rioters. No place was safe or
sacred from their depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge,
they profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars were
polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the assassins,
that their dexterity could always inflict a mortal wound with a single
stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth of Constantinople adopted
the blue livery of disorder; the laws were silent, and the bonds
of society were relaxed: creditors were compelled to resign their
obligations; judges to reverse their sentence; masters to enfranchise
their slaves; fathers to supply the extravagance of their children;
noble matrons were prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful
boys were torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless they
preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the presence of their
husbands. [47] The despair of the greens, who were persecuted by their
enemies, and deserted by the magistrates, assumed the privilege of
defence, perhaps of retaliation; but those who survived the combat were
dragged to execution, and the unhappy fugitives, escaping to woods
and caverns, preyed without mercy on the society from whence they were
expelled. Those ministers of justice who had courage to punish the
crimes, and to brave the resentment, of the blues, became the victims of
their indiscreet zeal; a praefect of Constantinople fled for refuge to
the holy sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously whipped, and a
governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of Theodora, on the tomb of
two assassins whom he had condemned for the murder of his groom, and
a daring attack upon his own life. [48] An aspiring candidate may be
tempted to build his greatness on the public confusion, but it is the
interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of
the laws. The first edict of Justinian, which was often repeated,
and sometimes executed, announced his firm resolution to support the
innocent, and to chastise the guilty, of every denomination and color.
Yet the balance of justice was still inclined in favor of the blue
faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the fears of the
emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted, without
reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora, and the empress
never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the comedian. At the accession
of the younger Justin, the proclamation of equal and rigorous justice
indirectly condemned the partiality of the former reign. "Ye blues,
Justinian is no more! ye greens, he is still alive!" [49]

[Footnote 44: Marcellin. in Chron. p. 47. Instead of the vulgar word
venata he uses the more exquisite terms of coerulea and coerealis.
Baronius (A.D. 501, No. 4, 5, 6) is satisfied that the blues were
orthodox; but Tillemont is angry at the supposition, and will not allow
any martyrs in a playhouse, (Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 554.)]

[Footnote 45: See Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 24.) In describing the
vices of the factions and of the government, the public, is not more
favorable than the secret, historian. Aleman. (p. 26) has quoted a
fine passage from Gregory Nazianzen, which proves the inveteracy of the
evil.]

[Footnote 46: The partiality of Justinian for the blues (Anecdot. c. 7)
is attested by Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 32,) John Malala, (tom
ii p. 138, 139,) especially for Antioch; and Theophanes, (p. 142.)]

[Footnote 47: A wife, (says Procopius,) who was seized and almost
ravished by a blue-coat, threw herself into the Bosphorus. The bishops
of the second Syria (Aleman. p. 26) deplore a similar suicide, the guilt
or glory of female chastity, and name the heroine.]

[Footnote 48: The doubtful credit of Procopius (Anecdot. c. 17) is
supported by the less partial Evagrius, who confirms the fact, and
specifies the names. The tragic fate of the praefect of Constantinople
is related by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 139.)]

[Footnote 49: See John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 147;) yet he owns that
Justinian was attached to the blues. The seeming discord of the emperor
and Theodora is, perhaps, viewed with too much jealousy and refinement
by Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 10.) See Aleman. Praefat. p. 6.]

A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was excited by
the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the two factions. In
the fifth year of his reign, Justinian celebrated the festival of the
ides of January; the games were incessantly disturbed by the clamorous
discontent of the greens: till the twenty-second race, the emperor
maintained his silent gravity; at length, yielding to his impatience, he
condescended to hold, in abrupt sentences, and by the voice of a crier,
the most singular dialogue [50] that ever passed between a prince and
his subjects. Their first complaints were respectful and modest; they
accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and proclaimed their
wishes for the long life and victory of the emperor. "Be patient and
attentive, ye insolent railers!" exclaimed Justinian; "be mute, ye Jews,
Samaritans, and Manichaeans!" The greens still attempted to awaken his
compassion. "We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we dare not
pass through the streets: a general persecution is exercised against our
name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but let us die by your command,
and for your service!" But the repetition of partial and passionate
invectives degraded, in their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they
renounced allegiance to the prince who refused justice to his people;
lamented that the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his son
with the opprobrious names of a homicide, an ass, and a perjured tyrant.
"Do you despise your lives?" cried the indignant monarch: the blues
rose with fury from their seats; their hostile clamors thundered in the
hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the unequal contest spread
terror and despair through the streets of Constantinople. At this
dangerous moment, seven notorious assassins of both factions, who
had been condemned by the praefect, were carried round the city, and
afterwards transported to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera.
Four were immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but when the same
punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the rope broke, they fell
alive to the ground, the populace applauded their escape, and the monks
of St. Conon, issuing from the neighboring convent, conveyed them in a
boat to the sanctuary of the church. [51] As one of these criminals was
of the blue, and the other of the green livery, the two factions were
equally provoked by the cruelty of their oppressor, or the ingratitude
of their patron; and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered
their prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the praefect,
who withstood the seditious torrent, was instantly burnt, his officers
and guards were massacred, the prisons were forced open, and freedom was
restored to those who could only use it for the public destruction.
A military force, which had been despatched to the aid of the civil
magistrate, was fiercely encountered by an armed multitude, whose
numbers and boldness continually increased; and the Heruli, the wildest
Barbarians in the service of the empire, overturned the priests and
their relics, which, from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed
to separate the bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this
sacrilege, the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the
women, from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the heads of the
soldiers, who darted fire brands against the houses; and the various
flames, which had been kindled by the hands of citizens and strangers,
spread without control over the face of the city. The conflagration
involved the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths of Zeuxippus, a part of
the palace, from the first entrance to the altar of Mars, and the long
portico from the palace to the forum of Constantine: a large hospital,
with the sick patients, was consumed; many churches and stately edifices
were destroyed and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either
melted or lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and
wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side; and
during five days Constantinople was abandoned to the factions, whose
watchword, Nika, vanquish! has given a name to this memorable sedition.
[52]

[Footnote 50: This dialogue, which Theophanes has preserved, exhibits
the popular language, as well as the manners, of Constantinople, in the
vith century. Their Greek is mingled with many strange and barbarous
words, for which Ducange cannot always find a meaning or etymology.]

[Footnote 51: See this church and monastery in Ducange, C. P.
Christiana, l. iv p 182.]

[Footnote 52: The history of the Nika sedition is extracted from
Marcellinus, (in Chron.,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 26,) John Malala,
(tom. ii. p. 213--218,) Chron. Paschal., (p. 336--340,) Theophanes,
(Chronograph. p. 154--158) and Zonaras, (l. xiv. p. 61--63.)]

As long as the factions were divided, the triumphant blues, and
desponding greens, appeared to behold with the same indifference the
disorders of the state. They agreed to censure the corrupt management of
justice and the finance; and the two responsible ministers, the artful
Tribonian, and the rapacious John of Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned
as the authors of the public misery. The peaceful murmurs of the people
would have been disregarded: they were heard with respect when the city
was in flames; the quaestor, and the praefect, were instantly removed,
and their offices were filled by two senators of blameless integrity.
After this popular concession, Justinian proceeded to the hippodrome
to confess his own errors, and to accept the repentance of his grateful
subjects; but they distrusted his assurances, though solemnly pronounced
in the presence of the holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by their
distrust, retreated with precipitation to the strong fortress of the
palace. The obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a secret
and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was entertained, that the
insurgents, more especially the green faction, had been supplied with
arms and money by Hypatius and Pompey, two patricians, who could neither
forget with honor, nor remember with safety, that they were the
nephews of the emperor Anastasius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and
pardoned, by the jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as
loyal servants before the throne; and, during five days of the tumult,
they were detained as important hostages; till at length, the fears of
Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he viewed the two brothers in
the light of spies, perhaps of assassins, and sternly commanded them to
depart from the palace. After a fruitless representation, that obedience
might lead to involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in
the morning of the sixth day, Hypatius was surrounded and seized by the
people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance, and the tears of
his wife, transported their favorite to the forum of Constantine, and
instead of a diadem, placed a rich collar on his head. If the usurper,
who afterwards pleaded the merit of his delay, had complied with the
advice of his senate, and urged the fury of the multitude, their first
irresistible effort might have oppressed or expelled his trembling
competitor. The Byzantine palace enjoyed a free communication with the
sea; vessels lay ready at the garden stairs; and a secret resolution was
already formed, to convey the emperor with his family and treasures to a
safe retreat, at some distance from the capital.

Justinian was lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from the theatre
had not renounced the timidity, as well as the virtues, of her sex. In
the midst of a council, where Belisarius was present, Theodora alone
displayed the spirit of a hero; and she alone, without apprehending his
future hatred, could save the emperor from the imminent danger, and his
unworthy fears. "If flight," said the consort of Justinian, "were
the only means of safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the
condition of our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive
the loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never
be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no longer
behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with the name of queen. If
you resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have treasures; behold the sea, you
have ships; but tremble lest the desire of life should expose you to
wretched exile and ignominious death. For my own part, I adhere to
the maxim of antiquity, that the throne is a glorious sepulchre." The
firmness of a woman restored the courage to deliberate and act, and
courage soon discovers the resources of the most desperate situation.
It was an easy and a decisive measure to revive the animosity of the
factions; the blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that
a trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their implacable
enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor; they again proclaimed
the majesty of Justinian; and the greens, with their upstart emperor,
were left alone in the hippodrome. The fidelity of the guards was
doubtful; but the military force of Justinian consisted in three
thousand veterans, who had been trained to valor and discipline in the
Persian and Illyrian wars.

Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched in
two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way through narrow
passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices, and burst open at the
same moment the two opposite gates of the hippodrome. In this narrow
space, the disorderly and affrighted crowd was incapable of resisting on
either side a firm and regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of
their repentance; and it is computed, that above thirty thousand persons
were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of the day. Hypatius
was dragged from his throne, and conducted, with his brother Pompey, to
the feet of the emperor: they implored his clemency; but their crime
was manifest, their innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much
terrified to forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius,
with eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or consular rank,
were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies were thrown
into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes confiscated. The
hippodrome itself was condemned, during several years, to a mournful
silence: with the restoration of the games, the same disorders revived;
and the blue and green factions continued to afflict the reign of
Justinian, and to disturb the tranquility of the Eastern empire. [53]

[Footnote 53: Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris populis in
circotrucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims: and the 35,000 of
Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent Zonaras. Such is the
usual progress of exaggeration.]

III. That empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced the nations
whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic, and as far as the frontiers
of Aethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned over sixty-four provinces,
and nine hundred and thirty-five cities; [54] his dominions were blessed
by nature with the advantages of soil, situation, and climate: and the
improvements of human art had been perpetually diffused along the coast
of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Nile from ancient Troy to the
Egyptian Thebes. Abraham [55] had been relieved by the well-known
plenty of Egypt; the same country, a small and populous tract, was still
capable of exporting, each year, two hundred and sixty thousand
quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople; [56] and the capital of
Justinian was supplied with the manufactures of Sidon, fifteen centuries
after they had been celebrated in the poems of Homer. [57] The annual
powers of vegetation, instead of being exhausted by two thousand
harvests, were renewed and invigorated by skilful husbandry, rich
manure, and seasonable repose. The breed of domestic animals was
infinitely multiplied. Plantations, buildings, and the instruments of
labor and luxury, which are more durable than the term of human life,
were accumulated by the care of successive generations. Tradition
preserved, and experience simplified, the humble practice of the arts:
society was enriched by the division of labor and the facility of
exchange; and every Roman was lodged, clothed, and subsisted, by the
industry of a thousand hands. The invention of the loom and distaff has
been piously ascribed to the gods. In every age, a variety of animal and
vegetable productions, hair, skins, wool, flax, cotton, and at length
silk, have been skilfully manufactured to hide or adorn the human body;
they were stained with an infusion of permanent colors; and the pencil
was successfully employed to improve the labors of the loom. In the
choice of those colors [58] which imitate the beauties of nature, the
freedom of taste and fashion was indulged; but the deep purple [59]
which the Phoenicians extracted from a shell-fish, was restrained to the
sacred person and palace of the emperor; and the penalties of treason
were denounced against the ambitious subjects who dared to usurp the
prerogative of the throne. [60]

[Footnote 54: Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed his
(Itineraria, p. 631,) review of the eastern provinces and cities, before
the year 535, (Wesseling, in Praefat. and Not. ad p. 623, &c.)]

[Footnote 55: See the Book of Genesis (xii. 10) and the administration
of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews agree in the early
arts and plenty of Egypt: but this antiquity supposes a long series of
improvement; and Warburton, who is almost stifled by the Hebrew calls
aloud for the Samaritan, Chronology, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p.
29, &c.) * Note: The recent extraordinary discoveries in Egyptian
antiquities strongly confirm the high notion of the early Egyptian
civilization, and imperatively demand a longer period for their
development. As to the common Hebrew chronology, as far as such a
subject is capable of demonstration, it appears to me to have been
framed, with a particular view, by the Jews of Tiberias. It was not
the chronology of the Samaritans, not that of the LXX., not that of
Josephus, not that of St. Paul.--M.]

[Footnote 56: Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a contribution of
80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage, from which the subject
was graciously excused. See the 13th Edict of Justinian: the numbers are
checked and verified by the agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.]

[Footnote 57: Homer's Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, were the work of the
Sidonian women. But this passage is more honorable to the manufactures
than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from whence they had been imported
to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.]

[Footnote 58: See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269, &c.) a poetical
list of twelve colors borrowed from flowers, the elements, &c. But it
is almost impossible to discriminate by words all the nice and various
shades both of art and nature.]

[Footnote 59: By the discovery of cochineal, &c., we far surpass the
colors of antiquity. Their royal purple had a strong smell, and a dark
cast as deep as bull's blood--obscuritas rubens, (says Cassiodorus, Var.
1, 2,) nigredo saguinea. The president Goguet (Origine des Loix et des
Arts, part ii. l. ii. c. 2, p. 184--215) will amuse and satisfy the
reader. I doubt whether his book, especially in England, is as well
known as it deserves to be.]

[Footnote 60: Historical proofs of this jealousy have been occasionally
introduced, and many more might have been added; but the arbitrary acts
of despotism were justified by the sober and general declarations of
law, (Codex Theodosian. l. x. tit. 21, leg. 3. Codex Justinian. l. xi.
tit. 8, leg. 5.) An inglorious permission, and necessary restriction,
was applied to the mince, the female dancers, (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit.
7, leg. 11.)]




Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.--Part III.

I need not explain that silk [61] is originally spun from the bowels of
a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb, from whence a worm
emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the reign of Justinian,
the silk-worm who feed on the leaves of the white mulberry-tree were
confined to China; those of the pine, the oak, and the ash, were common
in the forests both of Asia and Europe; but as their education is
more difficult, and their produce more uncertain, they were generally
neglected, except in the little island of Ceos, near the coast of
Attica. A thin gauze was procured from their webs, and this Cean
manufacture, the invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired
both in the East and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be raised by the
garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient writer,
who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed from the trees of
the Seres or Chinese; [62] and this natural error, less marvellous than
the truth, was slowly corrected by the knowledge of a valuable insect,
the first artificer of the luxury of nations. That rare and elegant
luxury was censured, in the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the
Romans; and Pliny, in affected though forcible language, has condemned
the thirst of gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for
the pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies and
transparent matrons. [63] [6311] A dress which showed the turn of the
limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity, or provoke
desire; the silks which had been closely woven in China were sometimes
unravelled by the Phoenician women, and the precious materials were
multiplied by a looser texture, and the intermixture of linen threads.
[64] Two hundred years after the age of Pliny, the use of pure, or
even of mixed silks, was confined to the female sex, till the opulent
citizens of Rome and the provinces were insensibly familiarized with
the example of Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had
sullied the dignity of an emperor and a man. Aurelian complained, that a
pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold; but the supply
increased with the demand, and the price diminished with the supply. If
accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value even above the standard
of Aurelian, the manufacturers of Tyre and Berytus were sometimes
compelled, by the operation of the same causes, to content themselves
with a ninth part of that extravagant rate. [65] A law was thought
necessary to discriminate the dress of comedians from that of senators;
and of the silk exported from its native country the far greater
part was consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more
intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the Mediterranean,
surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair by which the
mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now manufactured for
curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained from the same singular
materials was the gift of the Roman emperor to the satraps of Armenia.
[66]

[Footnote 61: In the history of insects (far more wonderful than Ovid's
Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place. The bombyx of
the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xi. 26, 27, with
the notes of the two learned Jesuits, Hardouin and Brotier,) may be
illustrated by a similar species in China, (Memoires sur les Chinois,
tom. ii. p. 575--598;) but our silk-worm, as well as the white
mulberry-tree, were unknown to Theophrastus and Pliny.]

[Footnote 62: Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum
planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris aevo, nam ante non
invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad Tacit. Annal. ii. 32.) See
Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358, edit. Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi.
p. 519,) the first who describes, however strangely, the Seric insect.]

[Footnote 63: Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona
transluceat...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20, xi. 21.) Varro
and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga vitrea, ventus
texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon. i. 2, 101, with the notes of
Torrentius and Dacier.)]

[Footnote 6311: Gibbon must have written transparent draperies and naked
matrons. Through sometimes affected, he is never inaccurate.--M.]

[Footnote 64: On the texture, colors, names, and use of the silk, half
silk, and liuen garments of antiquity, see the profound, diffuse, and
obscure researches of the great Salmasius, (in Hist. August. p. 127,
309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388--391, 395, 513,) who was ignorant of
the most common trades of Dijon or Leyden.]

[Footnote 65: Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, in Hist. August.
p. 224. See Salmasius ad Hist. Aug. p. 392, and Plinian. Exercitat. in
Solinum, p. 694, 695. The Anecdotes of Procopius (c. 25) state a partial
and imperfect rate of the price of silk in the time of Justinian.]

[Footnote 66: Procopius de Edit. l. iii. c. 1. These pinnes de mer are
found near Smyrna, Sicily, Corsica, and Minorca; and a pair of gloves of
their silk was presented to Pope Benedict XIV.]

A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying the expense
of land-carriage; and the caravans traversed the whole latitude of
Asia in two hundred and forty-three days from the Chinese Ocean to the
sea-coast of Syria. Silk was immediately delivered to the Romans by the
Persian merchants, [67] who frequented the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis;
but this trade, which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice
and jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival
monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and even
Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real dominion was
bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with the Sogdoites,
beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of their conquerors,
the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively reigned over that
industrious people. Yet the most savage dominion has not extirpated the
seeds of agriculture and commerce, in a region which is celebrated as
one of the four gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are
advantageously seated for the exchange of its various productions; and
their merchants purchased from the Chinese, [68] the raw or manufactured
silk which they transported into Persia for the use of the Roman empire.
In the vain capital of China, the Sogdian caravans were entertained as
the suppliant embassies of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in
safety, the bold adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the
difficult and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of Shensi,
could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred days:
as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they entered the desert; and the
wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by armies and garrisons,
have always considered the citizen and the traveller as the objects of
lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar robbers, and the tyrants of Persia,
the silk caravans explored a more southern road; they traversed the
mountains of Thibet, descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus,
and patiently expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual
fleets of the West. [69] But the dangers of the desert were found less
intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the attempt was
seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that unfrequented
way, applauds his own diligence, that, in nine months after his
departure from Pekin, he reached the mouth of the Indus. The ocean,
however, was open to the free communication of mankind. From the great
river to the tropic of Cancer, the provinces of China were subdued and
civilized by the emperors of the North; they were filled about the time
of the Christian aera with cities and men, mulberry-trees and their
precious inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the knowledge of the
compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or Phoenicians, they
might have spread their discoveries over the southern hemisphere. I
am not qualified to examine, and I am not disposed to believe, their
distant voyages to the Persian Gulf, or the Cape of Good Hope; but their
ancestors might equal the labors and success of the present race, and
the sphere of their navigation might extend from the Isles of Japan to
the Straits of Malacca, the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an
Oriental Hercules. [70] Without losing sight of land, they might sail
along the coast to the extreme promontory of Achin, which is annually
visited by ten or twelve ships laden with the productions, the
manufactures, and even the artificers of China; the Island of Sumatra
and the opposite peninsula are faintly delineated [71] as the regions
of gold and silver; and the trading cities named in the geography of
Ptolemy may indicate, that this wealth was not solely derived from the
mines. The direct interval between Sumatra and Ceylon is about three
hundred leagues: the Chinese and Indian navigators were conducted by the
flight of birds and periodical winds; and the ocean might be securely
traversed in square-built ships, which, instead of iron, were sewed
together with the strong thread of the cocoanut. Ceylon, Serendib,
or Taprobana, was divided between two hostile princes; one of whom
possessed the mountains, the elephants, and the luminous carbuncle, and
the other enjoyed the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign
trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinquemale, which received and
dismissed the fleets of the East and West. In this hospitable isle, at
an equal distance (as it was computed) from their respective countries,
the silk merchants of China, who had collected in their voyages aloes,
cloves, nutmeg, and sandal wood, maintained a free and beneficial
commerce with the inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects of the
great king exalted, without a rival, his power and magnificence: and the
Roman, who confounded their vanity by comparing his paltry coin with
a gold medal of the emperor Anastasius, had sailed to Ceylon, in an
Aethiopian ship, as a simple passenger. [72]

[Footnote 67: Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 20, l. ii. c. 25; Gothic.
l. iv. c. 17. Menander in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107. Of the Parthian or
Persian empire, Isidore of Charax (in Stathmis Parthicis, p. 7, 8, in
Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) has marked the roads, and Ammianus
Marcellinus (l. xxiii. c. 6, p. 400) has enumerated the provinces. *
Note: See St. Martin, Mem. sur l'Armenie, vol. ii. p. 41.--M.]

[Footnote 68: The blind admiration of the Jesuits confounds the
different periods of the Chinese history. They are more critically
distinguished by M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. part i. in
the Tables, part ii. in the Geography. Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii. xliii.,) who discovers the
gradual progress of the truth of the annals and the extent of the
monarchy, till the Christian aera. He has searched, with a curious eye,
the connections of the Chinese with the nations of the West; but
these connections are slight, casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans
entertain a suspicion that the Seres or Sinae possessed an empire not
inferior to their own. * Note: An abstract of the various opinions of
the learned modern writers, Gosselin, Mannert, Lelewel, Malte-Brun,
Heeren, and La Treille, on the Serica and the Thinae of the ancients,
may be found in the new edition of Malte-Brun, vol. vi. p. 368,
382.--M.]

[Footnote 69: The roads from China to Persia and Hindostan may be
investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thevenot, the ambassadors
of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Pere Greuber, &c. See likewise
Hanway's Travels, vol. i. p. 345--357. A communication through Thibet
has been lately explored by the English sovereigns of Bengal.]

[Footnote 70: For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and Achin, perhaps
to Ceylon, see Renaudot, (on the two Mahometan Travellers, p. 8--11,
13--17, 141--157;) Dampier, (vol. ii. p. 136;) the Hist. Philosophique
des deux Indes, (tom. i. p. 98,) and Hist. Generale des Voyages, (tom.
vi. p. 201.)]

[Footnote 71: The knowledge, or rather ignorance, of Strabo, Pliny,
Ptolemy, Arrian, Marcian, &c., of the countries eastward of Cape
Comorin, is finely illustrated by D'Anville, (Antiquite Geographique de
l'Inde, especially p. 161--198.) Our geography of India is improved by
commerce and conquest; and has been illustrated by the excellent maps
and memoirs of Major Rennel. If he extends the sphere of his inquiries
with the same critical knowledge and sagacity, he will succeed, and may
surpass, the first of modern geographers.]

[Footnote 72: The Taprobane of Pliny, (vi. 24,) Solinus, (c. 53,) and
Salmas. Plinianae Exercitat., (p. 781, 782,) and most of the ancients,
who often confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra, is more clearly
described by Cosmas Indicopleustes; yet even the Christian topographer
has exaggerated its dimensions. His information on the Indian and
Chinese trade is rare and curious, (l. ii. p. 138, l. xi. p. 337, 338,
edit. Montfaucon.)]

As silk became of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian saw with
concern that the Persians had occupied by land and sea the monopoly
of this important supply, and that the wealth of his subjects was
continually drained by a nation of enemies and idolaters. An active
government would have restored the trade of Egypt and the navigation of
the Red Sea, which had decayed with the prosperity of the empire; and
the Roman vessels might have sailed, for the purchase of silk, to the
ports of Ceylon, of Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more
humble expedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies,
the Aethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the arts of
navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of Adulis, [73] [7311]
still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian conqueror. Along the
African coast, they penetrated to the equator in search of gold,
emeralds, and aromatics; but they wisely declined an unequal
competition, in which they must be always prevented by the vicinity of
the Persians to the markets of India; and the emperor submitted to the
disappointment, till his wishes were gratified by an unexpected event.
The gospel had been preached to the Indians: a bishop already governed
the Christians of St. Thomas on the pepper-coast of Malabar; a church
was planted in Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of
commerce to the extremities of Asia. [74] Two Persian monks had long
resided in China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat of a
monarch addicted to foreign superstitions, and who actually received an
embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious occupations,
they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of the Chinese, the
manufactures of silk, and the myriads of silk-worms, whose education
(either on trees or in houses) had once been considered as the labor of
queens. [75] They soon discovered that it was impracticable to transport
the short-lived insect, but that in the eggs a numerous progeny might be
preserved and multiplied in a distant climate. Religion or interest had
more power over the Persian monks than the love of their country: after
a long journey, they arrived at Constantinople, imparted their project
to the emperor, and were liberally encouraged by the gifts and promises
of Justinian. To the historians of that prince, a campaign at the foot
of Mount Caucasus has seemed more deserving of a minute relation than
the labors of these missionaries of commerce, who again entered China,
deceived a jealous people by concealing the eggs of the silk-worm in a
hollow cane, and returned in triumph with the spoils of the East. Under
their direction, the eggs were hatched at the proper season by the
artificial heat of dung; the worms were fed with mulberry leaves;
they lived and labored in a foreign climate; a sufficient number of
butterflies was saved to propagate the race, and trees were planted
to supply the nourishment of the rising generations. Experience and
reflection corrected the errors of a new attempt, and the Sogdoite
ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding reign, that the Romans were
not inferior to the natives of China in the education of the
insects, and the manufactures of silk, [76] in which both China and
Constantinople have been surpassed by the industry of modern Europe. I
am not insensible of the benefits of elegant luxury; yet I reflect
with some pain, that if the importers of silk had introduced the art of
printing, already practised by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and
the entire decads of Livy would have been perpetuated in the editions of
the sixth century.

A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the improvement
of speculative science, but the Christian geography was forcibly
extracted from texts of Scripture, and the study of nature was the
surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The orthodox faith confined the
habitable world to one temperate zone, and represented the earth as an
oblong surface, four hundred days' journey in length, two hundred in
breadth, encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of
the firmament. [77]

[Footnote 73: See Procopius, Persic. (l. ii. c. 20.) Cosmas affords some
interesting knowledge of the port and inscription of Adulis, (Topograph.
Christ. l. ii. p. 138, 140--143,) and of the trade of the Axumites along
the African coast of Barbaria or Zingi, (p. 138, 139,) and as far as
Taprobane, (l. xi. p. 339.)]

[Footnote 7311: Mr. Salt obtained information of considerable ruins of
an ancient town near Zulla, called Azoole, which answers to the position
of Adulis. Mr. Salt was prevented by illness, Mr. Stuart, whom he sent,
by the jealousy of the natives, from investigating these ruins: of their
existence there seems no doubt. Salt's 2d Journey, p. 452.--M.]

[Footnote 74: See the Christian missions in India, in Cosmas, (l. iii.
p. 178, 179, l. xi. p. 337,) and consult Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. (tom.
iv. p. 413--548.)]

[Footnote 75: The invention, manufacture, and general use of silk in
China, may be seen in Duhalde, (Description Generale de la Chine, tom.
ii. p. 165, 205--223.) The province of Chekian is the most renowned both
for quantity and quality.]

[Footnote 76: Procopius, (l. viii. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Theophanes Byzant.
apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 69. Pagi
tom. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this memorable importation.
Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107) mentions the admiration of the
Sogdoites; and Theophylact Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents
the two rival kingdoms in (China) the country of silk.]

[Footnote 77: Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator,
performed his voyage about the year 522, and composed at Alexandria,
between 535, and 547, Christian Topography, (Montfaucon, Praefat. c.
i.,) in which he refutes the impious opinion, that the earth is a globe;
and Photius had read this work, (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10,) which displays
the prejudices of a monk, with the knowledge of a merchant; the most
valuable part has been given in French and in Greek by Melchisedec
Thevenot, (Relations Curieuses, part i.,) and the whole is since
published in a splendid edition by Pere Montfaucon, (Nova Collectio
Patrum, Paris, 1707, 2 vols. in fol., tom. ii. p. 113--346.) But the
editor, a theologian, might blush at not discovering the Nestorian
heresy of Cosmas, which has been detected by La Croz (Christianisme des
Indes, tom. i. p. 40--56.)]

IV. The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the times, and with
the government. Europe was overrun by the Barbarians, and Asia by the
monks: the poverty of the West discouraged the trade and manufactures of
the East: the produce of labor was consumed by the unprofitable servants
of the church, the state, and the army; and a rapid decrease was felt in
the fixed and circulating capitals which constitute the national wealth.
The public distress had been alleviated by the economy of Anastasius,
and that prudent emperor accumulated an immense treasure, while he
delivered his people from the most odious or oppressive taxes. [7711]
Their gratitude universally applauded the abolition of the gold of
affliction, a personal tribute on the industry of the poor, [78] but
more intolerable, as it should seem, in the form than in the substance,
since the flourishing city of Edessa paid only one hundred and forty
pounds of gold, which was collected in four years from ten thousand
artificers. [79] Yet such was the parsimony which supported this liberal
disposition, that, in a reign of twenty-seven years, Anastasius saved,
from his annual revenue, the enormous sum of thirteen millions sterling,
or three hundred and twenty thousand pounds of gold. [80] His example
was neglected, and his treasure was abused, by the nephew of Justin. The
riches of Justinian were speedily exhausted by alms and buildings,
by ambitious wars, and ignominious treaties. His revenues were found
inadequate to his expenses. Every art was tried to extort from the
people the gold and silver which he scattered with a lavish hand from
Persia to France: [81] his reign was marked by the vicissitudes or
rather by the combat, of rapaciousness and avarice, of splendor and
poverty; he lived with the reputation of hidden treasures, [82] and
bequeathed to his successor the payment of his debts. [83] Such a
character has been justly accused by the voice of the people and of
posterity: but public discontent is credulous; private malice is bold;
and a lover of truth will peruse with a suspicious eye the instructive
anecdotes of Procopius. The secret historian represents only the vices
of Justinian, and those vices are darkened by his malevolent pencil.
Ambiguous actions are imputed to the worst motives; error is confounded
with guilt, accident with design, and laws with abuses; the partial
injustice of a moment is dexterously applied as the general maxim of a
reign of thirty-two years; the emperor alone is made responsible for the
faults of his officers, the disorders of the times, and the corruption
of his subjects; and even the calamities of nature, plagues,
earthquakes, and inundations, are imputed to the prince of the daemons,
who had mischievously assumed the form of Justinian. [84]

[Footnote 7711: See the character of Anastasius in Joannes Lydus de
Magistratibus, iii. c. 45, 46, p. 230--232. His economy is there said to
have degenerated into parsimony. He is accused of having taken away
the levying of taxes and payment of the troops from the municipal
authorities, (the decurionate) in the Eastern cities, and intrusted it
to an extortionate officer named Mannus. But he admits that the imperial
revenue was enormously increased by this measure. A statue of iron had
been erected to Anastasius in the Hippodrome, on which appeared one
morning this pasquinade. This epigram is also found in the Anthology.
Jacobs, vol. iv. p. 114 with some better readings. This iron statue
meetly do we place To thee, world-wasting king, than brass more
base; For all the death, the penury, famine, woe, That from thy
wide-destroying avarice flow, This fell Charybdis, Scylla, near to thee,
This fierce devouring Anastasius, see; And tremble, Scylla! on thee,
too, his greed, Coining thy brazen deity, may feed. But Lydus, with no
uncommon inconsistency in such writers, proceeds to paint the character
of Anastasius as endowed with almost every virtue, not excepting the
utmost liberality. He was only prevented by death from relieving
his subjects altogether from the capitation tax, which he greatly
diminished.--M.]

[Footnote 78: Evagrius (l. ii. c. 39, 40) is minute and grateful, but
angry with Zosimus for calumniating the great Constantine. In collecting
all the bonds and records of the tax, the humanity of Anastasius was
diligent and artful: fathers were sometimes compelled to prostitute
their daughters, (Zosim. Hist. l. ii. c. 38, p. 165, 166, Lipsiae,
1784.) Timotheus of Gaza chose such an event for the subject of a
tragedy, (Suidas, tom. iii. p. 475,) which contributed to the abolition
of the tax, (Cedrenus, p. 35,)--a happy instance (if it be true) of the
use of the theatre.]

[Footnote 79: See Josua Stylites, in the Bibliotheca Orientalis of
Asseman, (tom. p. 268.) This capitation tax is slightly mentioned in the
Chronicle of Edessa.]

[Footnote 80: Procopius (Anecdot. c. 19) fixes this sum from the report
of the treasurers themselves. Tiberias had vicies ter millies; but far
different was his empire from that of Anastasius.]

[Footnote 81: Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30,) in the next generation, was
moderate and well informed; and Zonaras, (l. xiv. c. 61,) in the xiith
century, had read with care, and thought without prejudice; yet their
colors are almost as black as those of the anecdotes.]

[Footnote 82: Procopius (Anecdot. c. 30) relates the idle conjectures
of the times. The death of Justinian, says the secret historian, will
expose his wealth or poverty.]

[Footnote 83: See Corippus de Laudibus Justini Aug. l. ii. 260, &c.,
384, &c "Plurima sunt vivo nimium neglecta parenti, Unde tot exhaustus
contraxit debita fiscus." Centenaries of gold were brought by strong men
into the Hippodrome, "Debita persolvit, genitoris cauta recepit."]

[Footnote 84: The Anecdotes (c. 11--14, 18, 20--30) supply many
facts and more complaints. * Note: The work of Lydus de Magistratibus
(published by Hase at Paris, 1812, and reprinted in the new edition of
the Byzantine Historians,) was written during the reign of Justinian.
This work of Lydus throws no great light on the earlier history of the
Roman magistracy, but gives some curious details of the changes and
retrenchments in the offices of state, which took place at this time.
The personal history of the author, with the account of his early and
rapid advancement, and the emoluments of the posts which he successively
held, with the bitter disappointment which he expresses, at finding
himself, at the height of his ambition, in an unpaid place, is an
excellent illustration of this statement. Gibbon has before, c. iv. n.
45, and c. xvii. n. 112, traced the progress of a Roman citizen to the
highest honors of the state under the empire; the steps by which Lydus
reached his humbler eminence may likewise throw light on the civil
service at this period. He was first received into the office of the
Praetorian praefect; became a notary in that office, and made in one
year 1000 golden solidi, and that without extortion. His place and the
influence of his relatives obtained him a wife with 400 pounds of gold
for her dowry. He became chief chartularius, with an annual stipend
of twenty-four solidi, and considerable emoluments for all the various
services which he performed. He rose to an Augustalis, and finally
to the dignity of Corniculus, the highest, and at one time the most
lucrative office in the department. But the Praetorian praefect had
gradually been deprived of his powers and his honors. He lost the
superintendence of the supply and manufacture of arms; the uncontrolled
charge of the public posts; the levying of the troops; the command of
the army in war when the emperors ceased nominally to command in person,
but really through the Praetorian praefect; that of the household
troops, which fell to the magister aulae. At length the office was so
completely stripped of its power, as to be virtually abolished, (see de
Magist. l. iii. c. 40, p. 220, &c.) This diminution of the office of the
praefect destroyed the emoluments of his subordinate officers, and Lydus
not only drew no revenue from his dignity, but expended upon it all the
gains of his former services. Lydus gravely refers this calamitous, and,
as he considers it, fatal degradation of the Praetorian office to the
alteration in the style of the official documents from Latin to Greek;
and refers to a prophecy of a certain Fonteius, which connected the ruin
of the Roman empire with its abandonment of its language. Lydus chiefly
owed his promotion to his knowledge of Latin!--M.]

After this precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of avarice
and rapine under the following heads: I. Justinian was so profuse that
he could not be liberal. The civil and military officers, when they were
admitted into the service of the palace, obtained an humble rank and a
moderate stipend; they ascended by seniority to a station of affluence
and repose; the annual pensions, of which the most honorable class was
abolished by Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds; and
this domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent courtiers as
the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the salaries
of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations, were objects of more
general concern; and the cities might justly complain, that he usurped
the municipal revenues which had been appropriated to these useful
institutions. Even the soldiers were injured; and such was the decay
of military spirit, that they were injured with impunity. The emperor
refused, at the return of each fifth year, the customary donative
of five pieces of gold, reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and
suffered unpaid armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and Persia. II.
The humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in some auspicious
circumstance of their reign, the arrears of the public tribute, and they
dexterously assumed the merit of resigning those claims which it was
impracticable to enforce. "Justinian, in the space of thirty-two years,
has never granted a similar indulgence; and many of his subjects have
renounced the possession of those lands whose value is insufficient to
satisfy the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by
hostile inroads Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven years:
the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the Persians and Arabs,
the Huns and Sclavonians; but his vain and ridiculous dispensation of a
single year has been confined to those places which were actually
taken by the enemy." Such is the language of the secret historian, who
expressly denies that any indulgence was granted to Palestine after the
revolt of the Samaritans; a false and odious charge, confuted by the
authentic record which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of gold
(fifty-two thousand pounds) obtained for that desolate province by the
intercession of St. Sabas. [85] III. Procopius has not condescended to
explain the system of taxation, which fell like a hail-storm upon the
land, like a devouring pestilence on its inhabitants: but we should
become the accomplices of his malignity, if we imputed to Justinian
alone the ancient though rigorous principle, that a whole district
should be condemned to sustain the partial loss of the persons or
property of individuals. The Annona, or supply of corn for the use
of the army and capital, was a grievous and arbitrary exaction, which
exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of the farmer;
and his distress was aggravated by the partial injustice of weights and
measures, and the expense and labor of distant carriage. In a time
of scarcity, an extraordinary requisition was made to the adjacent
provinces of Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia: but the proprietors, after
a wearisome journey and perilous navigation, received so inadequate a
compensation, that they would have chosen the alternative of delivering
both the corn and price at the doors of their granaries. These
precautions might indicate a tender solicitude for the welfare of the
capital; yet Constantinople did not escape the rapacious despotism of
Justinian. Till his reign, the Straits of the Bosphorus and Hellespont
were open to the freedom of trade, and nothing was prohibited except the
exportation of arms for the service of the Barbarians. At each of these
gates of the city, a praetor was stationed, the minister of Imperial
avarice; heavy customs were imposed on the vessels and their
merchandise; the oppression was retaliated on the helpless consumer; the
poor were afflicted by the artificial scarcity, and exorbitant price
of the market; and a people, accustomed to depend on the liberality of
their prince, might sometimes complain of the deficiency of water and
bread. [86] The aerial tribute, without a name, a law, or a definite
object, was an annual gift of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds,
which the emperor accepted from his Praetorian praefect; and the means
of payment were abandoned to the discretion of that powerful magistrate.

IV. Even such a tax was less intolerable than the privilege of
monopolies, [8611] which checked the fair competition of industry, and,
for the sake of a small and dishonest gain, imposed an arbitrary burden
on the wants and luxury of the subject. "As soon" (I transcribe the
Anecdotes) "as the exclusive sale of silk was usurped by the Imperial
treasurer, a whole people, the manufacturers of Tyre and Berytus, was
reduced to extreme misery, and either perished with hunger, or fled to
the hostile dominions of Persia." A province might suffer by the
decay of its manufactures, but in this example of silk, Procopius has
partially overlooked the inestimable and lasting benefit which the
empire received from the curiosity of Justinian. His addition of one
seventh to the ordinary price of copper money may be interpreted with
the same candor; and the alteration, which might be wise, appears to
have been innocent; since he neither alloyed the purity, nor enhanced
the value, of the gold coin, [87] the legal measure of public and
private payments. V. The ample jurisdiction required by the farmers of
the revenue to accomplish their engagements might be placed in an odious
light, as if they had purchased from the emperor the lives and fortunes
of their fellow-citizens. And a more direct sale of honors and offices
was transacted in the palace, with the permission, or at least with the
connivance, of Justinian and Theodora. The claims of merit, even those
of favor, were disregarded, and it was almost reasonable to expect,
that the bold adventurer, who had undertaken the trade of a magistrate,
should find a rich compensation for infamy, labor, danger, the debts
which he had contracted, and the heavy interest which he paid. A sense
of the disgrace and mischief of this venal practice, at length awakened
the slumbering virtue of Justinian; and he attempted, by the sanction of
oaths [88] and penalties, to guard the integrity of his government: but
at the end of a year of perjury, his rigorous edict was suspended, and
corruption licentiously abused her triumph over the impotence of the
laws. VI. The testament of Eulalius, count of the domestics, declared
the emperor his sole heir, on condition, however, that he should
discharge his debts and legacies, allow to his three daughters a decent
maintenance, and bestow each of them in marriage, with a portion of ten
pounds of gold. But the splendid fortune of Eulalius had been consumed
by fire, and the inventory of his goods did not exceed the trifling sum
of five hundred and sixty-four pieces of gold. A similar instance, in
Grecian history, admonished the emperor of the honorable part prescribed
for his imitation. He checked the selfish murmurs of the treasury,
applauded the confidence of his friend, discharged the legacies and
debts, educated the three virgins under the eye of the empress Theodora,
and doubled the marriage portion which had satisfied the tenderness
of their father. [89] The humanity of a prince (for princes cannot be
generous) is entitled to some praise; yet even in this act of virtue we
may discover the inveterate custom of supplanting the legal or natural
heirs, which Procopius imputes to the reign of Justinian. His charge is
supported by eminent names and scandalous examples; neither widows
nor orphans were spared; and the art of soliciting, or extorting, or
supposing testaments, was beneficially practised by the agents of
the palace. This base and mischievous tyranny invades the security of
private life; and the monarch who has indulged an appetite for gain,
will soon be tempted to anticipate the moment of succession, to
interpret wealth as an evidence of guilt, and to proceed, from the claim
of inheritance, to the power of confiscation. VII. Among the forms of
rapine, a philosopher may be permitted to name the conversion of Pagan
or heretical riches to the use of the faithful; but in the time of
Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the sectaries alone, who
became the victims of his orthodox avarice. [90]

[Footnote 85: One to Scythopolis, capital of the second Palestine, and
twelve for the rest of the province. Aleman. (p. 59) honestly produces
this fact from a Ms. life of St. Sabas, by his disciple Cyril, in the
Vatican Library, and since published by Cotelerius.]

[Footnote 86: John Malala (tom. ii. p. 232) mentions the want of bread,
and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 63) the leaden pipes, which Justinian, or his
servants, stole from the aqueducts.]

[Footnote 8611: Hullman (Geschichte des Byzantinischen Handels. p.
15) shows that the despotism of the government was aggravated by the
unchecked rapenity of the officers. This state monopoly, even of corn,
wine, and oil, was to force at the time of the first crusade.--M.]

[Footnote 87: For an aureus, one sixth of an ounce of gold, instead
of 210, he gave no more than 180 folles, or ounces of copper. A
disproportion of the mint, below the market price, must have soon
produced a scarcity of small money. In England twelve pence in copper
would sell for no more than seven pence, (Smith's Inquiry into the
Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 49.) For Justinian's gold coin, see
Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30.)]

[Footnote 88: The oath is conceived in the most formidable words,
(Novell. viii. tit. 3.) The defaulters imprecate on themselves, quicquid
haben: telorum armamentaria coeli: the part of Judas, the leprosy of
Gieza, the tremor of Cain, &c., besides all temporal pains.]

[Footnote 89: A similar or more generous act of friendship is related by
Lucian of Eudamidas of Corinth, (in Toxare, c. 22, 23, tom. ii. p.
530,) and the story has produced an ingenious, though feeble, comedy of
Fontenelle.]

[Footnote 90: John Malala, tom. ii. p. 101, 102, 103.]




Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.--Part IV.

Dishonor might be ultimately reflected on the character of Justinian;
but much of the guilt, and still more of the profit, was intercepted
by the ministers, who were seldom promoted for their virtues, and not
always selected for their talents. [91] The merits of Tribonian the
quaestor will hereafter be weighed in the reformation of the Roman law;
but the economy of the East was subordinate to the Praetorian praefect,
and Procopius has justified his anecdotes by the portrait which he
exposes in his public history, of the notorious vices of John of
Cappadocia. [92]

[921] His knowledge was not borrowed from the schools, [93] and his
style was scarcely legible; but he excelled in the powers of native
genius, to suggest the wisest counsels, and to find expedients in the
most desperate situations. The corruption of his heart was equal to the
vigor of his understanding. Although he was suspected of magic and
Pagan superstition, he appeared insensible to the fear of God or the
reproaches of man; and his aspiring fortune was raised on the death
of thousands, the poverty of millions, the ruins of cities, and the
desolation of provinces. From the dawn of light to the moment of dinner,
he assiduously labored to enrich his master and himself at the expense
of the Roman world; the remainder of the day was spent in sensual
and obscene pleasures, [931] and the silent hours of the night were
interrupted by the perpetual dread of the justice of an assassin. His
abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him to the lasting friendship
of Justinian: the emperor yielded with reluctance to the fury of the
people; his victory was displayed by the immediate restoration of
their enemy; and they felt above ten years, under his oppressive
administration, that he was stimulated by revenge, rather than
instructed by misfortune. Their murmurs served only to fortify the
resolution of Justinian; but the resentment of Theodora, disdained a
power before which every knee was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds
of discord between the emperor and his beloved consort. Even Theodora
herself was constrained to dissemble, to wait a favorable moment, and,
by an artful conspiracy, to render John of Coppadocia the accomplice of
his own destruction. [932] At a time when Belisarius, unless he had been
a hero, must have shown himself a rebel, his wife Antonina, who
enjoyed the secret confidence of the empress, communicated his feigned
discontent to Euphemia, the daughter of the praefect; the credulous
virgin imparted to her father the dangerous project, and John, who might
have known the value of oaths and promises, was tempted to accept
a nocturnal, and almost treasonable, interview with the wife of
Belisarius. An ambuscade of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the
command of Theodora; they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish
the guilty minister: he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants; but
instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign, who had privately warned
him of his danger, he pusillanimously fled to the sanctuary of the
church. The favorite of Justinian was sacrificed to conjugal tenderness
or domestic tranquility; the conversion of a praefect into a priest
extinguished his ambitious hopes: but the friendship of the emperor
alleviated his disgrace, and he retained in the mild exile of Cyzicus
an ample portion of his riches. Such imperfect revenge could not satisfy
the unrelenting hatred of Theodora; the murder of his old enemy, the
bishop of Cyzicus, afforded a decent pretence; and John of Cappadocia,
whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths, was at last condemned
for a crime of which he was innocent. A great minister, who had been
invested with the honors of consul and patrician, was ignominiously
scourged like the vilest of malefactors; a tattered cloak was the sole
remnant of his fortunes; he was transported in a bark to the place of
his banishment at Antinopolis in Upper Egypt, and the praefect of the
East begged his bread through the cities which had trembled at his name.
During an exile of seven years, his life was protracted and threatened
by the ingenious cruelty of Theodora; and when her death permitted
the emperor to recall a servant whom he had abandoned with regret, the
ambition of John of Cappadocia was reduced to the humble duties of
the sacerdotal profession. His successors convinced the subjects of
Justinian, that the arts of oppression might still be improved by
experience and industry; the frauds of a Syrian banker were introduced
into the administration of the finances; and the example of the praefect
was diligently copied by the quaestor, the public and private treasurer,
the governors of provinces, and the principal magistrates of the Eastern
empire. [94]

[Footnote 91: One of these, Anatolius, perished in an
earthquake--doubtless a judgment! The complaints and clamors of the
people in Agathias (l. v. p. 146, 147) are almost an echo of the
anecdote. The aliena pecunia reddenda of Corippus (l. ii. 381, &c.,) is
not very honorable to Justinian's memory.]

[Footnote 92: See the history and character of John of Cappadocia in
Procopius. (Persic, l. i. c. 35, 25, l. ii. c. 30. Vandal. l. i. c. 13.
Anecdot. c. 2, 17, 22.) The agreement of the history and anecdotes is a
mortal wound to the reputation of the praefct.]

[Footnote 921: This view, particularly of the cruelty of John of
Cappadocia, is confirmed by the testimony of Joannes Lydus, who was in
the office of the praefect, and eye-witness of the tortures inflicted by
his command on the miserable debtors, or supposed debtors, of the state.
He mentions one horrible instance of a respectable old man, with whom he
was personally acquainted, who, being suspected of possessing money, was
hung up by the hands till he was dead. Lydus de Magist. lib. iii. c. 57,
p. 254.--M.]

[Footnote 93: A forcible expression.]

[Footnote 931: Joannes Lydus is diffuse on this subject, lib. iii. c.
65, p. 268. But the indignant virtue of Lydus seems greatly stimulated
by the loss of his official fees, which he ascribes to the innovations
of the minister.--M.]

[Footnote 932: According to Lydus, Theodora disclosed the crimes and
unpopularity of the minister to Justinian, but the emperor had not the
courage to remove, and was unable to replace, a servant, under whom his
finances seemed to prosper. He attributes the sedition and conflagration
to the popular resentment against the tyranny of John, lib. iii. c 70,
p. 278. Unfortunately there is a large gap in his work just at this
period.--M.]

[Footnote 94: The chronology of Procopius is loose and obscure; but
with the aid of Pagi I can discern that John was appointed Praetorian
praefect of the East in the year 530--that he was removed in January,
532--restored before June, 533--banished in 541--and recalled between
June, 548, and April 1, 549. Aleman. (p. 96, 97) gives the list of his
ten successors--a rapid series in a part of a single reign. * Note:
Lydus gives a high character of Phocas, his successor tom. iii. c. 78 p.
288.--M.]

V. The edifices of Justinian were cemented with the blood and treasure
of his people; but those stately structures appeared to announce the
prosperity of the empire, and actually displayed the skill of their
architects. Both the theory and practice of the arts which depend on
mathematical science and mechanical power, were cultivated under the
patronage of the emperors; the fame of Archimedes was rivalled by
Proclus and Anthemius; and if their miracles had been related by
intelligent spectators, they might now enlarge the speculations, instead
of exciting the distrust, of philosophers. A tradition has prevailed,
that the Roman fleet was reduced to ashes in the port of Syracuse,
by the burning-glasses of Archimedes; [95] and it is asserted, that a
similar expedient was employed by Proclus to destroy the Gothic
vessels in the harbor of Constantinople, and to protect his benefactor
Anastasius against the bold enterprise of Vitalian. [96] A machine
was fixed on the walls of the city, consisting of a hexagon mirror of
polished brass, with many smaller and movable polygons to receive and
reflect the rays of the meridian sun; and a consuming flame was darted,
to the distance, perhaps of two hundred feet. [97] The truth of these
two extraordinary facts is invalidated by the silence of the most
authentic historians; and the use of burning-glasses was never adopted
in the attack or defence of places. [98] Yet the admirable experiments
of a French philosopher [99] have demonstrated the possibility of such
a mirror; and, since it is possible, I am more disposed to attribute the
art to the greatest mathematicians of antiquity, than to give the merit
of the fiction to the idle fancy of a monk or a sophist. According to
another story, Proclus applied sulphur to the destruction of the Gothic
fleet; [100] in a modern imagination, the name of sulphur is instantly
connected with the suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion is
propagated by the secret arts of his disciple Anthemius. [101] A citizen
of Tralles in Asia had five sons, who were all distinguished in their
respective professions by merit and success. Olympius excelled in
the knowledge and practice of the Roman jurisprudence. Dioscorus and
Alexander became learned physicians; but the skill of the former
was exercised for the benefit of his fellow-citizens, while his more
ambitious brother acquired wealth and reputation at Rome. The fame
of Metrodorus the grammarian, and of Anthemius the mathematician and
architect, reached the ears of the emperor Justinian, who invited them
to Constantinople; and while the one instructed the rising generation
in the schools of eloquence, the other filled the capital and provinces
with more lasting monuments of his art. In a trifling dispute relative
to the walls or windows of their contiguous houses, he had been
vanquished by the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno; but the orator was
defeated in his turn by the master of mechanics, whose malicious,
though harmless, stratagems are darkly represented by the ignorance
of Agathias. In a lower room, Anthemius arranged several vessels or
caldrons of water, each of them covered by the wide bottom of a leathern
tube, which rose to a narrow top, and was artificially conveyed among
the joists and rafters of the adjacent building. A fire was kindled
beneath the caldron; the steam of the boiling water ascended through the
tubes; the house was shaken by the efforts of imprisoned air, and its
trembling inhabitants might wonder that the city was unconscious of the
earthquake which they had felt. At another time, the friends of Zeno, as
they sat at table, were dazzled by the intolerable light which flashed
in their eyes from the reflecting mirrors of Anthemius; they were
astonished by the noise which he produced from the collision of certain
minute and sonorous particles; and the orator declared in tragic
style to the senate, that a mere mortal must yield to the power of
an antagonist, who shook the earth with the trident of Neptune, and
imitated the thunder and lightning of Jove himself. The genius of
Anthemius, and his colleague Isidore the Milesian, was excited and
employed by a prince, whose taste for architecture had degenerated into
a mischievous and costly passion. His favorite architects submitted
their designs and difficulties to Justinian, and discreetly confessed
how much their laborious meditations were surpassed by the intuitive
knowledge of celestial inspiration of an emperor, whose views were
always directed to the benefit of his people, the glory of his reign,
and the salvation of his soul. [102]

[Footnote 95: This conflagration is hinted by Lucian (in Hippia, c. 2)
and Galen, (l. iii. de Temperamentis, tom. i. p. 81, edit. Basil.)
in the second century. A thousand years afterwards, it is positively
affirmed by Zonaras, (l. ix. p. 424,) on the faith of Dion Cassius,
Tzetzes, (Chiliad ii. 119, &c.,) Eustathius, (ad Iliad. E. p. 338,) and
the scholiast of Lucian. See Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 22,
tom. ii. p. 551, 552,) to whom I am more or less indebted for several of
these quotations.]

[Footnote 96: Zonaras (l. xi. c. p. 55) affirms the fact, without
quoting any evidence.]

[Footnote 97: Tzetzes describes the artifice of these burning-glasses,
which he had read, perhaps, with no learned eyes, in a mathematical
treatise of Anthemius. That treatise has been lately published,
translated, and illustrated, by M. Dupuys, a scholar and a
mathematician, (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom xlii p.
392--451.)]

[Footnote 98: In the siege of Syracuse, by the silence of Polybius,
Plutarch, Livy; in the siege of Constantinople, by that of Marcellinus
and all the contemporaries of the vith century.]

[Footnote 99: Without any previous knowledge of Tzetzes or Anthemius,
the immortal Buffon imagined and executed a set of burning-glasses, with
which he could inflame planks at the distance of 200 feet, (Supplement
a l'Hist. Naturelle, tom. i. 399--483, quarto edition.) What miracles
would not his genius have performed for the public service, with royal
expense, and in the strong sun of Constantinople or Syracuse?]

[Footnote 100: John Malala (tom. ii. p. 120--124) relates the fact; but
he seems to confound the names or persons of Proclus and Marinus.]

[Footnote 101: Agathias, l. v. p. 149--152. The merit of Anthemius as
an architect is loudly praised by Procopius (de Edif. l. i. c. 1) and
Paulus Silentiarius, (part i. 134, &c.)]

[Footnote 102: See Procopius, (de Edificiis, l. i. c. 1, 2, l. ii. c.
3.) He relates a coincidence of dreams, which supposes some fraud in
Justinian or his architect. They both saw, in a vision, the same plan
for stopping an inundation at Dara. A stone quarry near Jerusalem was
revealed to the emperor, (l. v. c. 6:) an angel was tricked into the
perpetual custody of St. Sophia, (Anonym. de Antiq. C. P. l. iv. p.
70.)]

The principal church, which was dedicated by the founder of
Constantinople to St. Sophia, or the eternal wisdom, had been twice
destroyed by fire; after the exile of John Chrysostom, and during the
Nika of the blue and green factions. No sooner did the tumult subside,
than the Christian populace deplored their sacrilegious rashness; but
they might have rejoiced in the calamity, had they foreseen the glory
of the new temple, which at the end of forty days was strenuously
undertaken by the piety of Justinian. [103] The ruins were cleared away,
a more spacious plan was described, and as it required the consent of
some proprietors of ground, they obtained the most exorbitant terms
from the eager desires and timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthemius
formed the design, and his genius directed the hands of ten thousand
workmen, whose payment in pieces of fine silver was never delayed beyond
the evening. The emperor himself, clad in a linen tunic, surveyed
each day their rapid progress, and encouraged their diligence by his
familiarity, his zeal, and his rewards. The new Cathedral of St. Sophia
was consecrated by the patriarch, five years, eleven months, and ten
days from the first foundation; and in the midst of the solemn festival
Justinian exclaimed with devout vanity, "Glory be to God, who hath
thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work; I have vanquished thee,
O Solomon!" [104] But the pride of the Roman Solomon, before twenty
years had elapsed, was humbled by an earthquake, which overthrew
the eastern part of the dome. Its splendor was again restored by the
perseverance of the same prince; and in the thirty-sixth year of his
reign, Justinian celebrated the second dedication of a temple which
remains, after twelve centuries, a stately monument of his fame. The
architecture of St. Sophia, which is now converted into the principal
mosch, has been imitated by the Turkish sultans, and that venerable
pile continues to excite the fond admiration of the Greeks, and the more
rational curiosity of European travellers. The eye of the spectator is
disappointed by an irregular prospect of half-domes and shelving roofs:
the western front, the principal approach, is destitute of simplicity
and magnificence; and the scale of dimensions has been much surpassed by
several of the Latin cathedrals. But the architect who first erected
and aerial cupola, is entitled to the praise of bold design and skilful
execution. The dome of St. Sophia, illuminated by four-and-twenty
windows, is formed with so small a curve, that the depth is equal
only to one sixth of its diameter; the measure of that diameter is one
hundred and fifteen feet, and the lofty centre, where a crescent has
supplanted the cross, rises to the perpendicular height of one hundred
and eighty feet above the pavement. The circle which encompasses the
dome, lightly reposes on four strong arches, and their weight is firmly
supported by four massy piles, whose strength is assisted, on the
northern and southern sides, by four columns of Egyptian granite.

A Greek cross, inscribed in a quadrangle, represents the form of the
edifice; the exact breadth is two hundred and forty-three feet, and two
hundred and sixty-nine may be assigned for the extreme length from the
sanctuary in the east, to the nine western doors, which open into the
vestibule, and from thence into the narthex or exterior portico. That
portico was the humble station of the penitents. The nave or body of the
church was filled by the congregation of the faithful; but the two sexes
were prudently distinguished, and the upper and lower galleries were
allotted for the more private devotion of the women. Beyond the northern
and southern piles, a balustrade, terminated on either side by the
thrones of the emperor and the patriarch, divided the nave from the
choir; and the space, as far as the steps of the altar, was occupied by
the clergy and singers. The altar itself, a name which insensibly
became familiar to Christian ears, was placed in the eastern recess,
artificially built in the form of a demi-cylinder; and this sanctuary
communicated by several doors with the sacristy, the vestry, the
baptistery, and the contiguous buildings, subservient either to the
pomp of worship, or the private use of the ecclesiastical ministers.
The memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with a wise resolution,
that no wood, except for the doors, should be admitted into the new
edifice; and the choice of the materials was applied to the strength,
the lightness, or the splendor of the respective parts. The solid piles
which contained the cupola were composed of huge blocks of freestone,
hewn into squares and triangles, fortified by circles of iron, and
firmly cemented by the infusion of lead and quicklime: but the weight of
the cupola was diminished by the levity of its substance, which consists
either of pumice-stone that floats in the water, or of bricks from the
Isle of Rhodes, five times less ponderous than the ordinary sort. The
whole frame of the edifice was constructed of brick; but those base
materials were concealed by a crust of marble; and the inside of St.
Sophia, the cupola, the two larger, and the six smaller, semi-domes, the
walls, the hundred columns, and the pavement, delight even the eyes of
Barbarians, with a rich and variegated picture. A poet, [105] who beheld
the primitive lustre of St. Sophia, enumerates the colors, the shades,
and the spots of ten or twelve marbles, jaspers, and porphyries, which
nature had profusely diversified, and which were blended and contrasted
as it were by a skilful painter. The triumph of Christ was adorned with
the last spoils of Paganism, but the greater part of these costly stones
was extracted from the quarries of Asia Minor, the isles and continent
of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Gaul. Eight columns of porphyry, which
Aurelian had placed in the temple of the sun, were offered by the piety
of a Roman matron; eight others of green marble were presented by the
ambitious zeal of the magistrates of Ephesus: both are admirable by
their size and beauty, but every order of architecture disclaims their
fantastic capital. A variety of ornaments and figures was curiously
expressed in mosaic; and the images of Christ, of the Virgin, of saints,
and of angels, which have been defaced by Turkish fanaticism, were
dangerously exposed to the superstition of the Greeks. According to the
sanctity of each object, the precious metals were distributed in thin
leaves or in solid masses. The balustrade of the choir, the capitals
of the pillars, the ornaments of the doors and galleries, were of
gilt bronze; the spectator was dazzled by the glittering aspect of the
cupola; the sanctuary contained forty thousand pounds weight of silver;
and the holy vases and vestments of the altar were of the purest gold,
enriched with inestimable gems. Before the structure of the church had
arisen two cubits above the ground, forty-five thousand two hundred
pounds were already consumed; and the whole expense amounted to three
hundred and twenty thousand: each reader, according to the measure of
his belief, may estimate their value either in gold or silver; but the
sum of one million sterling is the result of the lowest computation.
A magnificent temple is a laudable monument of national taste and
religion; and the enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be
tempted to suppose that it was the residence, or even the workmanship,
of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how insignificant is the
labor, if it be compared with the formation of the vilest insect that
crawls upon the surface of the temple! [Footnote 103: Among the crowd
of ancients and moderns who have celebrated the edifice of St. Sophia,
I shall distinguish and follow, 1. Four original spectators and
historians: Procopius, (de Edific. l. i. c. 1,) Agathias, (l. v. p. 152,
153,) Paul Silentiarius, (in a poem of 1026 hexameters, and calcem Annae
Commen. Alexiad.,) and Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 31.) 2. Two legendary Greeks
of a later period: George Codinus, (de Origin. C. P. p. 64-74,) and the
anonymous writer of Banduri, (Imp. Orient. tom. i. l. iv. p. 65--80.)3.
The great Byzantine antiquarian. Ducange, (Comment. ad Paul Silentiar.
p. 525--598, and C. P. Christ. l. iii. p. 5--78.) 4. Two French
travellers--the one, Peter Gyllius, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 3,
4,) in the xvith; the other, Grelot, (Voyage de C. P. p. 95--164, Paris,
1680, in 4to:) he has given plans, prospects, and inside views of St.
Sophia; and his plans, though on a smaller scale, appear more correct
than those of Ducange. I have adopted and reduced the measures of
Grelot: but as no Christian can now ascend the dome, the height is
borrowed from Evagrius, compared with Gyllius, Greaves, and the Oriental
Geographer.]

[Footnote 104: Solomon's temple was surrounded with courts, porticos,
&c.; but the proper structure of the house of God was no more (if we
take the Egyptian or Hebrew cubic at 22 inches) than 55 feet in height,
36 2/3 in breadth, and 110 in length--a small parish church, says
Prideaux, (Connection, vol. i. p. 144, folio;) but few sanctuaries could
be valued at four or five millions sterling! * Note *: Hist of Jews, vol
i p 257.--M]

[Footnote 105: Paul Silentiarius, in dark and poetic language, describes
the various stones and marbles that were employed in the edifice of St.
Sophia, (P. ii. p. 129, 133, &c., &c.:)

1. The Carystian--pale, with iron veins.

2. The Phrygian--of two sorts, both of a rosy hue; the one with a white
shade, the other purple, with silver flowers.

3. The Porphyry of Egypt--with small stars.

4. The green marble of Laconia.

5. The Carian--from Mount Iassis, with oblique veins, white and red. 6.
The Lydian--pale, with a red flower.

7. The African, or Mauritanian--of a gold or saffron hue. 8. The
Celtic--black, with white veins.

9. The Bosphoric--white, with black edges. Besides the Proconnesian
which formed the pavement; the Thessalian, Molossian, &c., which are
less distinctly painted.]

So minute a description of an edifice which time has respected, may
attest the truth, and excuse the relation, of the innumerable works,
both in the capital and provinces, which Justinian constructed on a
smaller scale and less durable foundations. [106] In Constantinople
alone and the adjacent suburbs, he dedicated twenty-five churches to the
honor of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints: most of these churches
were decorated with marble and gold; and their various situation was
skilfully chosen in a populous square, or a pleasant grove; on the
margin of the sea-shore, or on some lofty eminence which overlooked
the continents of Europe and Asia. The church of the Holy Apostles at
Constantinople, and that of St. John at Ephesus, appear to have been
framed on the same model: their domes aspired to imitate the cupolas of
St. Sophia; but the altar was more judiciously placed under the centre
of the dome, at the junction of four stately porticos, which more
accurately expressed the figure of the Greek cross. The Virgin of
Jerusalem might exult in the temple erected by her Imperial votary on a
most ungrateful spot, which afforded neither ground nor materials to the
architect. A level was formed by raising part of a deep valley to the
height of the mountain. The stones of a neighboring quarry were hewn
into regular forms; each block was fixed on a peculiar carriage, drawn
by forty of the strongest oxen, and the roads were widened for the
passage of such enormous weights. Lebanon furnished her loftiest cedars
for the timbers of the church; and the seasonable discovery of a vein of
red marble supplied its beautiful columns, two of which, the supporters
of the exterior portico, were esteemed the largest in the world. The
pious munificence of the emperor was diffused over the Holy Land; and if
reason should condemn the monasteries of both sexes which were built or
restored by Justinian, yet charity must applaud the wells which he
sunk, and the hospitals which he founded, for the relief of the weary
pilgrims. The schismatical temper of Egypt was ill entitled to the
royal bounty; but in Syria and Africa, some remedies were applied to
the disasters of wars and earthquakes, and both Carthage and Antioch,
emerging from their ruins, might revere the name of their gracious
benefactor. [107] Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the
honors of a temple; almost every city of the empire obtained the
solid advantages of bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts; but the severe
liberality of the monarch disdained to indulge his subjects in the
popular luxury of baths and theatres. While Justinian labored for the
public service, he was not unmindful of his own dignity and ease. The
Byzantine palace, which had been damaged by the conflagration, was
restored with new magnificence; and some notion may be conceived of the
whole edifice, by the vestibule or hall, which, from the doors perhaps,
or the roof, was surnamed chalce, or the brazen. The dome of a spacious
quadrangle was supported by massy pillars; the pavement and walls were
incrusted with many-colored marbles--the emerald green of Laconia, the
fiery red, and the white Phrygian stone, intersected with veins of a
sea-green hue: the mosaic paintings of the dome and sides represented
the glories of the African and Italian triumphs. On the Asiatic shore of
the Propontis, at a small distance to the east of Chalcedon, the
costly palace and gardens of Heraeum [108] were prepared for the summer
residence of Justinian, and more especially of Theodora. The poets of
the age have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony
of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains, and the waves: yet the crowd
of attendants who followed the court complained of their inconvenient
lodgings, [109] and the nymphs were too often alarmed by the famous
Porphyrio, a whale of ten cubits in breadth, and thirty in length, who
was stranded at the mouth of the River Sangaris, after he had infested
more than half a century the seas of Constantinople. [110]

[Footnote 106: The six books of the Edifices of Procopius are thus
distributed the first is confined to Constantinople: the second includes
Mesopotamia and Syria the third, Armenia and the Euxine; the fourth,
Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine; the sixth, Egypt and
Africa. Italy is forgot by the emperor or the historian, who published
this work of adulation before the date (A.D. 555) of its final
conquest.]

[Footnote 107: Justinian once gave forty-five centenaries of gold
(180,000 L.) for the repairs of Antioch after the earthquake, (John Malala,
tom. ii p 146--149.)]

[Footnote 108: For the Heraeum, the palace of Theodora, see Gyllius, (de
Bosphoro Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.,) Aleman. (Not. ad. Anec. p. 80, 81,
who quotes several epigrams of the Anthology,) and Ducange, (C. P.
Christ. l. iv. c. 13, p. 175, 176.)]

[Footnote 109: Compare, in the Edifices, (l. i. c. 11,) and in
the Anecdotes, (c. 8, 15.) the different styles of adulation and
malevolence: stripped of the paint, or cleansed from the dirt, the
object appears to be the same.]

[Footnote 110: Procopius, l. viii. 29; most probably a stranger and
wanderer, as the Mediterranean does not breed whales. Balaenae quoque
in nostra maria penetrant, (Plin. Hist. Natur. ix. 2.) Between the polar
circle and the tropic, the cetaceous animals of the ocean grow to the
length of 50, 80, or 100 feet, (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xv. p. 289.
Pennant's British Zoology, vol. iii. p. 35.)]

The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by Justinian; but
the repetition of those timid and fruitless precautions exposes, to a
philosophic eye, the debility of the empire. [111] From Belgrade to the
Euxine, from the conflux of the Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain
of above fourscore fortified places was extended along the banks of the
great river. Single watch-towers were changed into spacious citadels;
vacant walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged according to
the nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or garrisons; a
strong fortress defended the ruins of Trajan's bridge, [112] and several
military stations affected to spread beyond the Danube the pride of the
Roman name. But that name was divested of its terrors; the Barbarians,
in their annual inroads, passed, and contemptuously repassed, before
these useless bulwarks; and the inhabitants of the frontier, instead
of reposing under the shadow of the general defence, were compelled
to guard, with incessant vigilance, their separate habitations. The
solitude of ancient cities, was replenished; the new foundations of
Justinian acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of impregnable
and populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted
the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name of
Justiniana prima, the obscure village of Tauresium became the seat of
an archbishop and a praefect, whose jurisdiction extended over seven
warlike provinces of Illyricum; [113] and the corrupt appellation of
Giustendil still indicates, about twenty miles to the south of Sophia,
the residence of a Turkish sanjak. [114] For the use of the emperor's
countryman, a cathedral, a place, and an aqueduct, were speedily
constructed; the public and private edifices were adapted to the
greatness of a royal city; and the strength of the walls resisted,
during the lifetime of Justinian, the unskilful assaults of the Huns and
Sclavonians. Their progress was sometimes retarded, and their hopes
of rapine were disappointed, by the innumerable castles which, in the
provinces of Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, appeared
to cover the whole face of the country. Six hundred of these forts were
built or repaired by the emperor; but it seems reasonable to believe,
that the far greater part consisted only of a stone or brick tower, in
the midst of a square or circular area, which was surrounded by a wall
and ditch, and afforded in a moment of danger some protection to
the peasants and cattle of the neighboring villages. [115] Yet these
military works, which exhausted the public treasure, could not remove
the just apprehensions of Justinian and his European subjects. The
warm baths of Anchialus in Thrace were rendered as safe as they were
salutary; but the rich pastures of Thessalonica were foraged by the
Scythian cavalry; the delicious vale of Tempe, three hundred miles from
the Danube, was continually alarmed by the sound of war; [116] and no
unfortified spot, however distant or solitary, could securely enjoy the
blessings of peace. The Straits of Thermopylae, which seemed to protect,
but which had so often betrayed, the safety of Greece, were diligently
strengthened by the labors of Justinian. From the edge of the sea-shore,
through the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the
Thessalian mountains, a strong wall was continued, which occupied every
practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants, a garrison
of two thousand soldiers was stationed along the rampart; granaries
of corn and reservoirs of water were provided for their use; and by
a precaution that inspired the cowardice which it foresaw, convenient
fortresses were erected for their retreat. The walls of Corinth,
overthrown by an earthquake, and the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and
Plataea, were carefully restored; the Barbarians were discouraged by
the prospect of successive and painful sieges: and the naked cities
of Peloponnesus were covered by the fortifications of the Isthmus of
Corinth. At the extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the Thracian
Chersonesus, runs three days' journey into the sea, to form, with the
adjacent shores of Asia, the Straits of the Hellespont. The intervals
between eleven populous towns were filled by lofty woods, fair pastures,
and arable lands; and the isthmus, of thirty seven stadia or furlongs,
had been fortified by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the
reign of Justinian. [117] In an age of freedom and valor, the slightest
rampart may prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears insensible of the
superiority of ancient times, while he praises the solid construction
and double parapet of a wall, whose long arms stretched on either side
into the sea; but whose strength was deemed insufficient to guard the
Chersonesus, if each city, and particularly Gallipoli and Sestus, had
not been secured by their peculiar fortifications. The long wall, as it
was emphatically styled, was a work as disgraceful in the object, as
it was respectable in the execution. The riches of a capital diffuse
themselves over the neighboring country, and the territory of
Constantinople a paradise of nature, was adorned with the luxurious
gardens and villas of the senators and opulent citizens. But their
wealth served only to attract the bold and rapacious Barbarians; the
noblest of the Romans, in the bosom of peaceful indolence, were led away
into Scythian captivity, and their sovereign might view from his palace
the hostile flames which were insolently spread to the gates of the
Imperial city. At the distance only of forty miles, Anastasius was
constrained to establish a last frontier; his long wall, of sixty miles
from the Propontis to the Euxine, proclaimed the impotence of his arms;
and as the danger became more imminent, new fortifications were added by
the indefatigable prudence of Justinian. [118]

[Footnote 111: Montesquieu observes, (tom. iii. p. 503, Considerations
sur la Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c. xx.,) that Justinian's
empire was like France in the time of the Norman inroads--never so weak
as when every village was fortified.]

[Footnote 112: Procopius affirms (l. iv. c. 6) that the Danube was
stopped by the ruins of the bridge. Had Apollodorus, the architect, left
a description of his own work, the fabulous wonders of Dion Cassius
(l lxviii. p. 1129) would have been corrected by the genuine picture
Trajan's bridge consisted of twenty or twenty-two stone piles with
wooden arches; the river is shallow, the current gentle, and the whole
interval no more than 443 (Reimer ad Dion. from Marsigli) or 5l7 toises,
(D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 305.)]

[Footnote 113: Of the two Dacias, Mediterranea and Ripensis, Dardania,
Pravalitana, the second Maesia, and the second Macedonia. See Justinian
(Novell. xi.,) who speaks of his castles beyond the Danube, and on
omines semper bellicis sudoribus inhaerentes.]

[Footnote 114: See D'Anville, (Memoires de l'Academie, &c., tom. xxxi
p. 280, 299,) Rycaut, (Present State of the Turkish Empire, p. 97, 316,)
Max sigli, (Stato Militare del Imperio Ottomano, p. 130.) The sanjak of
Giustendil is one of the twenty under the beglerbeg of Rurselis, and his
district maintains 48 zaims and 588 timariots.]

[Footnote 115: These fortifications may be compared to the castles in
Mingrelia (Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 60, 131)--a natural
picture.]

[Footnote 116: The valley of Tempe is situate along the River Peneus,
between the hills of Ossa and Olympus: it is only five miles long, and
in some places no more than 120 feet in breadth. Its verdant beauties
are elegantly described by Pliny, (Hist. Natur. l. iv. 15,) and more
diffusely by Aelian, (Hist. Var. l. iii. c. i.)]

[Footnote 117: Xenophon Hellenic. l. iii. c. 2. After a long and tedious
conversation with the Byzantine declaimers, how refreshing is the truth,
the simplicity, the elegance of an Attic writer!]

[Footnote 118: See the long wall in Evagarius, (l. iv. c. 38.) This
whole article is drawn from the fourth book of the Edifices, except
Anchialus, (l. iii. c. 7.)]

Asia Minor, after the submission of the Isaurians, [119] remained
without enemies and without fortifications. Those bold savages, who had
disdained to be the subjects of Gallienus, persisted two hundred and
thirty years in a life of independence and rapine. The most successful
princes respected the strength of the mountains and the despair of
the natives; their fierce spirit was sometimes soothed with gifts,
and sometimes restrained by terror; and a military count, with three
legions, fixed his permanent and ignominious station in the heart of the
Roman provinces. [120] But no sooner was the vigilance of power relaxed
or diverted, than the light-armed squadrons descended from the hills,
and invaded the peaceful plenty of Asia. Although the Isaurians were
not remarkable for stature or bravery, want rendered them bold, and
experience made them skilful in the exercise of predatory war.
They advanced with secrecy and speed to the attack of villages and
defenceless towns; their flying parties have sometimes touched the
Hellespont, the Euxine, and the gates of Tarsus, Antioch, or Damascus;
[121] and the spoil was lodged in their inaccessible mountains, before
the Roman troops had received their orders, or the distant province had
computed its loss. The guilt of rebellion and robbery excluded them from
the rights of national enemies; and the magistrates were instructed,
by an edict, that the trial or punishment of an Isaurian, even on the
festival of Easter, was a meritorious act of justice and piety. [122] If
the captives were condemned to domestic slavery, they maintained, with
their sword or dagger, the private quarrel of their masters; and it was
found expedient for the public tranquillity to prohibit the service of
such dangerous retainers. When their countryman Tarcalissaeus or Zeno
ascended the throne, he invited a faithful and formidable band of
Isaurians, who insulted the court and city, and were rewarded by an
annual tribute of five thousand pounds of gold. But the hopes of fortune
depopulated the mountains, luxury enervated the hardiness of their minds
and bodies, and in proportion as they mixed with mankind, they became
less qualified for the enjoyment of poor and solitary freedom. After
the death of Zeno, his successor Anastasius suppressed their pensions,
exposed their persons to the revenge of the people, banished them from
Constantinople, and prepared to sustain a war, which left only the
alternative of victory or servitude. A brother of the last emperor
usurped the title of Augustus; his cause was powerfully supported by
the arms, the treasures, and the magazines, collected by Zeno; and the
native Isaurians must have formed the smallest portion of the hundred
and fifty thousand Barbarians under his standard, which was sanctified,
for the first time, by the presence of a fighting bishop. Their
disorderly numbers were vanquished in the plains of Phrygia by the valor
and discipline of the Goths; but a war of six years almost exhausted the
courage of the emperor. [123] The Isaurians retired to their mountains;
their fortresses were successively besieged and ruined; their
communication with the sea was intercepted; the bravest of their leaders
died in arms; the surviving chiefs, before their execution, were
dragged in chains through the hippodrome; a colony of their youth was
transplanted into Thrace, and the remnant of the people submitted to the
Roman government. Yet some generations elapsed before their minds were
reduced to the level of slavery. The populous villages of Mount Taurus
were filled with horsemen and archers: they resisted the imposition
of tributes, but they recruited the armies of Justinian; and his civil
magistrates, the proconsul of Cappadocia, the count of Isauria, and the
praetors of Lycaonia and Pisidia, were invested with military power to
restrain the licentious practice of rapes and assassinations. [124]

[Footnote 119: Turn back to vol. i. p. 328. In the course of this
History, I have sometimes mentioned, and much oftener slighted, the
hasty inroads of the Isaurians, which were not attended with any
consequences.]

[Footnote 120: Trebellius Pollio in Hist. August. p. 107, who lived
under Diocletian, or Constantine. See likewise Pancirolus ad Notit. Imp.
Orient c. 115, 141. See Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit. 35, leg. 37, with a
copious collective Annotation of Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 256, 257.]

[Footnote 121: See the full and wide extent of their inroads in
Philostorgius (Hist. Eccles. l. xi. c. 8,) with Godefroy's learned
Dissertations.]

[Footnote 122: Cod. Justinian. l. ix. tit. 12, leg. 10. The punishments
are severs--a fine of a hundred pounds of gold, degradation, and even
death. The public peace might afford a pretence, but Zeno was desirous
of monopolizing the valor and service of the Isaurians.]

[Footnote 123: The Isaurian war and the triumph of Anastasius are
briefly and darkly represented by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 106, 107,)
Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35,) Theophanes, (p. 118--120,) and the Chronicle
of Marcellinus.]

[Footnote 124: Fortes ea regio (says Justinian) viros habet, nec in
ullo differt ab Isauria, though Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 18) marks
an essential difference between their military character; yet in former
times the Lycaonians and Pisidians had defended their liberty against
the great king, Xenophon. (Anabasis, l. iii. c. 2.) Justinian introduces
some false and ridiculous erudition of the ancient empire of the
Pisidians, and of Lycaon, who, after visiting Rome, (long before
Aeenas,) gave a name and people to Lycaoni, (Novell. 24, 25, 27, 30.)]




Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.--Part V.

If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the Tanais, we may
observe, on one hand, the precautions of Justinian to curb the
savages of Aethiopia, [125] and on the other, the long walls which
he constructed in Crimaea for the protection of his friendly Goths,
a colony of three thousand shepherds and warriors. [126] From that
peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern curve of the Euxine was secured by
forts, by alliance, or by religion; and the possession of Lazica, the
Colchos of ancient, the Mingrelia of modern, geography, soon became
the object of an important war. Trebizond, in after-times the seat of
a romantic empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a
church, an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are hewn in the solid
rock. From that maritime city, frontier line of five hundred miles may
be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the last Roman station on the
Euphrates. [127] Above Trebizond immediately, and five days' journey to
the south, the country rises into dark forests and craggy mountains,
as savage though not so lofty as the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this
rigorous climate, [128] where the snows seldom melt, the fruits are
tardy and tasteless, even honey is poisonous: the most industrious
tillage would be confined to some pleasant valleys; and the pastoral
tribes obtained a scanty sustenance from the flesh and milk of their
cattle. The Chalybians [129] derived their name and temper from the iron
quality of the soil; and, since the days of Cyrus, they might
produce, under the various appellations of Cha daeans and Zanians,
an uninterrupted prescription of war and rapine. Under the reign of
Justinian, they acknowledged the god and the emperor of the Romans, and
seven fortresses were built in the most accessible passages, to exclude
the ambition of the Persian monarch. [130] The principal source of
the Euphrates descends from the Chalybian mountains, and seems to flow
towards the west and the Euxine: bending to the south-west, the river
passes under the walls of Satala and Melitene, (which were restored
by Justinian as the bulwarks of the Lesser Armenia,) and gradually
approaches the Mediterranean Sea; till at length, repelled by Mount
Taurus, [131] the Euphrates inclines its long and flexible course to
the south-east and the Gulf of Persia. Among the Roman cities beyond the
Euphrates, we distinguish two recent foundations, which were named from
Theodosius, and the relics of the martyrs; and two capitals, Amida and
Edessa, which are celebrated in the history of every age. Their strength
was proportioned by Justinian to the danger of their situation. A ditch
and palisade might be sufficient to resist the artless force of the
cavalry of Scythia; but more elaborate works were required to sustain
a regular siege against the arms and treasures of the great king. His
skilful engineers understood the methods of conducting deep mines, and
of raising platforms to the level of the rampart: he shook the strongest
battlements with his military engines, and sometimes advanced to the
assault with a line of movable turrets on the backs of elephants. In
the great cities of the East, the disadvantage of space, perhaps of
position, was compensated by the zeal of the people, who seconded the
garrison in the defence of their country and religion; and the fabulous
promise of the Son of God, that Edessa should never be taken, filled the
citizens with valiant confidence, and chilled the besiegers with doubt
and dismay. [132] The subordinate towns of Armenia and Mesopotamia
were diligently strengthened, and the posts which appeared to have
any command of ground or water were occupied by numerous forts,
substantially built of stone, or more hastily erected with the obvious
materials of earth and brick. The eye of Justinian investigated every
spot; and his cruel precautions might attract the war into some lonely
vale, whose peaceful natives, connected by trade and marriage, were
ignorant of national discord and the quarrels of princes. Westward of
the Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above six hundred miles to the Red
Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude between the ambition of two
rival empires; the Arabians, till Mahomet arose, were formidable only as
robbers; and in the proud security of peace the fortifications of Syria
were neglected on the most vulnerable side.

[Footnote 125: See Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 19. The altar of national
concern, of annual sacrifice and oaths, which Diocletian had created in
the Isla of Elephantine, was demolished by Justinian with less policy
than]

[Footnote 126: Procopius de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 7. Hist. l. viii.
c. 3, 4. These unambitious Goths had refused to follow the standard of
Theodoric. As late as the xvth and xvith century, the name and nation
might be discovered between Caffa and the Straits of Azoph, (D'Anville,
Memoires de l'academie, tom. xxx. p. 240.) They well deserved the
curiosity of Busbequius, (p. 321-326;) but seem to have vanished in
the more recent account of the Missions du Levant, (tom. i.,) Tott,
Peysonnnel, &c.]

[Footnote 127: For the geography and architecture of this Armenian
border, see the Persian Wars and Edifices (l. ii. c. 4-7, l. iii. c.
2--7) of Procopius.]

[Footnote 128: The country is described by Tournefort, (Voyage au
Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvii. xviii.) That skilful botanist soon
discovered the plant that infects the honey, (Plin. xxi. 44, 45:) he
observes, that the soldiers of Lucullus might indeed be astonished at
the cold, since, even in the plain of Erzerum, snow sometimes falls in
June, and the harvest is seldom finished before September. The hills
of Armenia are below the fortieth degree of latitude; but in the
mountainous country which I inhabit, it is well known that an ascent of
some hours carries the traveller from the climate of Languedoc to that
of Norway; and a general theory has been introduced, that, under the
line, an elevation of 2400 toises is equivalent to the cold of the polar
circle, (Remond, Observations sur les Voyages de Coxe dans la Suisse,
tom. ii. p. 104.)]

[Footnote 129: The identity or proximity of the Chalybians, or
Chaldaeana may be investigated in Strabo, (l. xii. p. 825, 826,)
Cellarius, (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 202--204,) and Freret, (Mem. de
Academie, tom. iv. p. 594) Xenophon supposes, in his romance, (Cyropaed
l. iii.,) the same Barbarians, against whom he had fought in his
retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv.)]

[Footnote 130: Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 15. De Edific. l. iii. c. 6.]

[Footnote 131: Ni Taurus obstet in nostra maria venturus, (Pomponius
Mela, iii. 8.) Pliny, a poet as well as a naturalist, (v. 20,)
personifies the river and mountain, and describes their combat. See
the course of the Tigris and Euphrates in the excellent treatise of
D'Anville.]

[Footnote 132: Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 12) tells the story with the
tone, half sceptical, half superstitious, of Herodotus. The promise was
not in the primitive lie of Eusebius, but dates at least from the year
400; and a third lie, the Veronica, was soon raised on the two former,
(Evagrius, l. iv. c. 27.) As Edessa has been taken, Tillemont must
disclaim the promise, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i. p. 362, 383, 617.)]

But the national enmity, at least the effects of that enmity, had
been suspended by a truce, which continued above fourscore years. An
ambassador from the emperor Zeno accompanied the rash and unfortunate
Perozes, [1321] in his expedition against the Nepthalites, [1322] or
white Huns, whose conquests had been stretched from the Caspian to the
heart of India, whose throne was enriched with emeralds, [133] and whose
cavalry was supported by a line of two thousand elephants. [134] The
Persians [1341] were twice circumvented, in a situation which made valor
useless and flight impossible; and the double victory of the Huns was
achieved by military stratagem. They dismissed their royal captive
after he had submitted to adore the majesty of a Barbarian; and the
humiliation was poorly evaded by the casuistical subtlety of the Magi,
who instructed Perozes to direct his attention to the rising sun. [1342]
The indignant successor of Cyrus forgot his danger and his gratitude; he
renewed the attack with headstrong fury, and lost both his army and his
life. [135] The death of Perozes abandoned Persia to her foreign and
domestic enemies; [1351] and twelve years of confusion elapsed before
his son Cabades, or Kobad, could embrace any designs of ambition or
revenge. The unkind parsimony of Anastasius was the motive or pretence
of a Roman war; [136] the Huns and Arabs marched under the Persian
standard, and the fortifications of Armenia and Mesopotamia were, at
that time, in a ruinous or imperfect condition. The emperor returned
his thanks to the governor and people of Martyropolis for the prompt
surrender of a city which could not be successfully defended, and the
conflagration of Theodosiopolis might justify the conduct of their
prudent neighbors. Amida sustained a long and destructive siege: at
the end of three months the loss of fifty thousand of the soldiers of
Cabades was not balanced by any prospect of success, and it was in vain
that the Magi deduced a flattering prediction from the indecency of the
women [1361] on the ramparts, who had revealed their most secret charms
to the eyes of the assailants. At length, in a silent night, they
ascended the most accessible tower, which was guarded only by some
monks, oppressed, after the duties of a festival, with sleep and
wine. Scaling-ladders were applied at the dawn of day; the presence of
Cabades, his stern command, and his drawn sword, compelled the Persians
to vanquish; and before it was sheathed, fourscore thousand of the
inhabitants had expiated the blood of their companions. After the siege
of Amida, the war continued three years, and the unhappy frontier tasted
the full measure of its calamities. The gold of Anastasius was offered
too late, the number of his troops was defeated by the number of their
generals; the country was stripped of its inhabitants, and both the
living and the dead were abandoned to the wild beasts of the desert. The
resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency of spoil, inclined the mind of
Cabades to peace: he sold his conquests for an exorbitant price; and the
same line, though marked with slaughter and devastation, still separated
the two empires. To avert the repetition of the same evils, Anastasius
resolved to found a new colony, so strong, that it should defy the power
of the Persian, so far advanced towards Assyria, that its stationary
troops might defend the province by the menace or operation of offensive
war. For this purpose, the town of Dara, [137] fourteen miles from
Nisibis, and four days' journey from the Tigris, was peopled and
adorned; the hasty works of Anastasius were improved by the perseverance
of Justinian; and, without insisting on places less important, the
fortifications of Dara may represent the military architecture of the
age. The city was surrounded with two walls, and the interval between
them, of fifty paces, afforded a retreat to the cattle of the besieged.
The inner wall was a monument of strength and beauty: it measured sixty
feet from the ground, and the height of the towers was one hundred
feet; the loopholes, from whence an enemy might be annoyed with missile
weapons, were small, but numerous; the soldiers were planted along the
rampart, under the shelter of double galleries, and a third platform,
spacious and secure, was raised on the summit of the towers. The
exterior wall appears to have been less lofty, but more solid; and
each tower was protected by a quadrangular bulwark. A hard, rocky soil
resisted the tools of the miners, and on the south-east, where the
ground was more tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work,
which advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble
ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management of the
river, the most skilful labor was employed to supply the inhabitants,
to distress the besiegers, and to prevent the mischiefs of a natural or
artificial inundation. Dara continued more than sixty years to fulfil
the wishes of its founders, and to provoke the jealousy of the Persians,
who incessantly complained, that this impregnable fortress had been
constructed in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the two
empires. [1371]

[Footnote 1321: Firouz the Conqueror--unfortunately so named. See St.
Martin, vol. vi. p. 439.--M.]

[Footnote 1322: Rather Hepthalites.--M.]

[Footnote 133: They were purchased from the merchants of Adulis who
traded to India, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 339;) yet, in
the estimate of precious stones, the Scythian emerald was the first,
the Bactrian the second, the Aethiopian only the third, (Hill's
Theophrastus, p. 61, &c., 92.) The production, mines, &c., of emeralds,
are involved in darkness; and it is doubtful whether we possess any of
the twelve sorts known to the ancients, (Goguet, Origine des Loix, &c.,
part ii. l. ii. c. 2, art. 3.) In this war the Huns got, or at least
Perozes lost, the finest pearl in the world, of which Procopius relates
a ridiculous fable.]

[Footnote 134: The Indo-Scythae continued to reign from the time of
Augustus (Dionys. Perieget. 1088, with the Commentary of Eustathius, in
Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iv.) to that of the elder Justin, (Cosmas,
Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 338, 339.) On their origin and conquests,
see D'Anville, (sur l'Inde, p. 18, 45, &c., 69, 85, 89.) In the second
century they were masters of Larice or Guzerat.]

[Footnote 1341: According to the Persian historians, he was misled
by guides who used he old stratagem of Zopyrus. Malcolm, vol. i. p.
101.--M.]

[Footnote 1342: In the Ms. Chronicle of Tabary, it is said that the
Moubedan Mobed, or Grand Pontiff, opposed with all his influence the
violation of the treaty. St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 254.--M.]

[Footnote 135: See the fate of Phirouz, or Perozes, and its
consequences, in Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 3--6,) who may be compared
with the fragments of Oriental history, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p.
351, and Texeira, History of Persia, translated or abridged by Stephens,
l. i. c. 32, p. 132--138.) The chronology is ably ascertained by
Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 396--427.)]

[Footnote 1351: When Firoze advanced, Khoosh-Nuaz (the king of the Huns)
presented on the point of a lance the treaty to which he had sworn,
and exhorted him yet to desist before he destroyed his fame forever.
Malcolm, vol. i. p. 103.--M.]

[Footnote 136: The Persian war, under the reigns of Anastasius and
Justin, may be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 7, 8, 9,)
Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 124--127,) Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 37,)
Marcellinus, (in Chron. p. 47,) and Josue Stylites, (apud Asseman. tom.
i. p. 272--281.)]

[Footnote 1361: Gibbon should have written "some prostitutes." Proc
Pers. vol. 1 p. 7.--M.]

[Footnote 137: The description of Dara is amply and correctly given by
Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 10, l. ii. c. 13. De Edific. l. ii. c. 1,
2, 3, l. iii. c. 5.) See the situation in D'Anville, (l'Euphrate et le
Tigre, p. 53, 54, 55,) though he seems to double the interval between
Dara and Nisibis.]

[Footnote 1371: The situation (of Dara) does not appear to give
it strength, as it must have been commanded on three sides by the
mountains, but opening on the south towards the plains of Mesopotamia.
The foundation of the walls and towers, built of large hewn stone, may
be traced across the valley, and over a number of low rocky hills which
branch out from the foot of Mount Masius. The circumference I conceive
to be nearly two miles and a half; and a small stream, which flows
through the middle of the place, has induced several Koordish and
Armenian families to fix their residence within the ruins. Besides the
walls and towers, the remains of many other buildings attest the former
grandeur of Dara; a considerable part of the space within the walls is
arched and vaulted underneath, and in one place we perceived a large
cavern, supported by four ponderous columns, somewhat resembling the
great cistern of Constantinople. In the centre of the village are the
ruins of a palace (probably that mentioned by Procopius) or church, one
hundred paces in length, and sixty in breadth. The foundations, which
are quite entire, consist of a prodigious number of subterraneous
vaulted chambers, entered by a narrow passage forty paces in length. The
gate is still standing; a considerable part of the wall has bid defiance
to time, &c. M Donald Kinneir's Journey, p. 438.--M]

Between the Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of Colchos, Iberia,
and Albania, are intersected in every direction by the branches of Mount
Caucasus; and the two principal gates, or passes, from north to south,
have been frequently confounded in the geography both of the ancients
and moderns. The name of Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied
to Derbend, [138] which occupies a short declivity between the mountains
and the sea: the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had been
founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was fortified by
the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and doors of iron. The
Iberian gates [139] [1391] are formed by a narrow passage of six miles
in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the northern side of Iberia, or
Georgia, into the plain that reaches to the Tanais and the Volga. A
fortress, designed by Alexander perhaps, or one of his successors,
to command that important pass, had descended by right of conquest or
inheritance to a prince of the Huns, who offered it for a moderate
price to the emperor; but while Anastasius paused, while he timorously
computed the cost and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed,
and Cabades forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and
Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the shortest and
most practicable roads, and the whole front of the mountains was covered
by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long wall which has excited the
curiosity of an Arabian caliph [140] and a Russian conqueror. [141]
According to a recent description, huge stones, seven feet thick, and
twenty-one feet in length or height, are artificially joined without
iron or cement, to compose a wall, which runs above three hundred miles
from the shores of Derbend, over the hills, and through the valleys of
Daghestan and Georgia.

Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the policy of
Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished by his son, so
formidable to the Romans, under the name of Chosroes; so dear to the
Orientals, under the appellation of Nushirwan. The Persian monarch held
in his hand the keys both of peace and war; but he stipulated, in every
treaty, that Justinian should contribute to the expense of a common
barrier, which equally protected the two empires from the inroads of the
Scythians. [142]

[Footnote 138: For the city and pass of Derbend, see D'Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 157, 291, 807,) Petit de la Croix. (Hist. de
Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9,) Histoire Genealogique des Tatars, (tom. i.
p. 120,) Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 1039--1041,) and Corneille le
Bruyn, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 146, 147:) his view may be compared with
the plan of Olearius, who judges the wall to be of shells and gravel
hardened by time.]

[Footnote 139: Procopius, though with some confusion, always denominates
them Caspian, (Persic. l. i. c. 10.) The pass is now styled Tatar-topa,
the Tartar-gates, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 119,
120.)]

[Footnote 1391: Malte-Brun. tom. viii. p. 12, makes three passes: 1. The
central, which leads from Mosdok to Teflis. 2. The Albanian, more
inland than the Derbend Pass. 3. The Derbend--the Caspian Gates. But the
narrative of Col. Monteith, in the Journal of the Geographical Society
of London. vol. iii. p. i. p. 39, clearly shows that there are but
two passes between the Black Sea and the Caspian; the central, the
Caucasian, or, as Col. Monteith calls it, the Caspian Gates, and the
pass of Derbend, though it is practicable to turn this position (of
Derbend) by a road a few miles distant through the mountains, p.
40.--M.]

[Footnote 140: The imaginary rampart of Gog and Magog, which was
seriously explored and believed by a caliph of the ninth century,
appears to be derived from the gates of Mount Caucasus, and a vague
report of the wall of China, (Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 267-270. Memoires
de l'Academie, tom. xxxi. p. 210--219.)]

[Footnote 141: See a learned dissertation of Baier, de muro Caucaseo,
in Comment. Acad. Petropol. ann. 1726, tom. i. p. 425-463; but it is
destitute of a map or plan. When the czar Peter I. became master of
Derbend in the year 1722, the measure of the wall was found to be 3285
Russian orgyioe, or fathom, each of seven feet English; in the whole
somewhat more than four miles in length.]

[Footnote 142: See the fortifications and treaties of Chosroes,
or Nushirwan, in Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 16, 22, l. ii.) and
D'Herbelot, (p. 682.)] VII. Justinian suppressed the schools of Athens
and the consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages and heroes to
mankind. Both these institutions had long since degenerated from their
primitive glory; yet some reproach may be justly inflicted on the
avarice and jealousy of a prince, by whose hand such venerable ruins
were destroyed.

Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy of Ionia
and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies became the patrimony of a
city, whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand males, condensed, within
the period of a single life, the genius of ages and millions. Our sense
of the dignity of human nature is exalted by the simple recollection,
that Isocrates [143] was the companion of Plato and Xenophon; that
he assisted, perhaps with the historian Thucydides, at the first
representation of the Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of
Euripides; and that his pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for
the crown of patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of
Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic
and Epicurean sects. [144] The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed the
benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated without
envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard the lessons of
Theophrastus; [145] the schools of rhetoric must have been still more
populous than those of philosophy; and a rapid succession of students
diffused the fame of their teachers as far as the utmost limits of the
Grecian language and name. Those limits were enlarged by the victories
of Alexander; the arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and
the Greek colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered
over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship the
Muses in their favorite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The Latin
conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of their subjects
and captives; the names of Cicero and Horace were enrolled in the
schools of Athens; and after the perfect settlement of the Roman empire,
the natives of Italy, of Africa, and of Britain, conversed in the groves
of the academy with their fellow-students of the East. The studies
of philosophy and eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which
encourages the freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of
persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of speaking
was the powerful engine of patriotism or ambition; and the schools of
rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and legislators. When the
liberty of public debate was suppressed, the orator, in the honorable
profession of an advocate, might plead the cause of innocence and
justice; he might abuse his talents in the more profitable trade of
panegyric; and the same precepts continued to dictate the fanciful
declamations of the sophist, and the chaster beauties of historical
composition. The systems which professed to unfold the nature of God, of
man, and of the universe, entertained the curiosity of the philosophic
student; and according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with
the Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate with Plato,
or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse sects had
fixed an unattainable term of moral happiness and perfection; but the
race was glorious and salutary; the disciples of Zeno, and even those
of Epicurus, were taught both to act and to suffer; and the death of
Petronius was not less effectual than that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant
by the discovery of his impotence. The light of science could not indeed
be confined within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable writers address
themselves to the human race; the living masters emigrated to Italy
and Asia; Berytus, in later times, was devoted to the study of the law;
astronomy and physic were cultivated in the musaeum of Alexandria; but
the Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy maintained their superior
reputation from the Peloponnesian war to the reign of Justinian.
Athens, though situate in a barren soil, possessed a pure air, a free
navigation, and the monuments of ancient art. That sacred retirement was
seldom disturbed by the business of trade or government; and the last
of the Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, the purity
of their taste and language, their social manners, and some traces, at
least in discourse, of the magnanimity of their fathers. In the
suburbs of the city, the academy of the Platonists, the lycaeum of
the Peripatetics, the portico of the Stoics, and the garden of the
Epicureans, were planted with trees and decorated with statues; and the
philosophers, instead of being immured in a cloister, delivered their
instructions in spacious and pleasant walks, which, at different hours,
were consecrated to the exercises of the mind and body. The genius
of the founders still lived in those venerable seats; the ambition of
succeeding to the masters of human reason excited a generous emulation;
and the merit of the candidates was determined, on each vacancy, by the
free voices of an enlightened people. The Athenian professors were paid
by their disciples: according to their mutual wants and abilities, the
price appears to have varied; and Isocrates himself, who derides the
avarice of the sophists, required, in his school of rhetoric, about
thirty pounds from each of his hundred pupils. The wages of industry
are just and honorable, yet the same Isocrates shed tears at the first
receipt of a stipend: the Stoic might blush when he was hired to preach
the contempt of money; and I should be sorry to discover that Aristotle
or Plato so far degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange
knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and houses was settled by
the permission of the laws, and the legacies of deceased friends, on the
philosophic chairs of Athens. Epicurus bequeathed to his disciples the
gardens which he had purchased for eighty minae or two hundred and fifty
pounds, with a fund sufficient for their frugal subsistence and monthly
festivals; [146] and the patrimony of Plato afforded an annual rent,
which, in eight centuries, was gradually increased from three to one
thousand pieces of gold. [147] The schools of Athens were protected by
the wisest and most virtuous of the Roman princes. The library, which
Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico adorned with pictures, statues,
and a roof of alabaster, and supported by one hundred columns of
Phrygian marble. The public salaries were assigned by the generous
spirit of the Antonines; and each professor of politics, of rhetoric, of
the Platonic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean philosophy,
received an annual stipend of ten thousand drachmae, or more than three
hundred pounds sterling. [148] After the death of Marcus, these liberal
donations, and the privileges attached to the thrones of science, were
abolished and revived, diminished and enlarged; but some vestige of
royal bounty may be found under the successors of Constantine; and their
arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate might tempt the philosophers
of Athens to regret the days of independence and poverty. [149] It is
remarkable, that the impartial favor of the Antonines was bestowed on
the four adverse sects of philosophy, which they considered as equally
useful, or at least, as equally innocent. Socrates had formerly been the
glory and the reproach of his country; and the first lessons of Epicurus
so strangely scandalized the pious ears of the Athenians, that by his
exile, and that of his antagonists, they silenced all vain disputes
concerning the nature of the gods. But in the ensuing year they
recalled the hasty decree, restored the liberty of the schools, and
were convinced by the experience of ages, that the moral character
of philosophers is not affected by the diversity of their theological
speculations. [150]

[Footnote 143: The life of Isocrates extends from Olymp. lxxxvi. 1. to
cx. 3, (ante Christ. 436--438.) See Dionys. Halicarn. tom. ii. p. 149,
150, edit. Hudson. Plutarch (sive anonymus) in Vit. X. Oratorum, p.
1538--1543, edit. H. Steph. Phot. cod. cclix. p. 1453.]

[Footnote 144: The schools of Athens are copiously though concisely
represented in the Fortuna Attica of Meursius, (c. viii. p. 59--73, in
tom. i. Opp.) For the state and arts of the city, see the first book
of Pausanias, and a small tract of Dicaearchus, in the second volume
of Hudson's Geographers, who wrote about Olymp. cxvii. (Dodwell's
Dissertia sect. 4.)]

[Footnote 145: Diogen Laert. de Vit. Philosoph. l. v. segm. 37, p. 289.]

[Footnote 146: See the Testament of Epicurus in Diogen. Laert. l. x.
segm. 16--20, p. 611, 612. A single epistle (ad Familiares, xiii. l.)
displays the injustice of the Areopagus, the fidelity of the Epicureans,
the dexterous politeness of Cicero, and the mixture of contempt and
esteem with which the Roman senators considered the philosophy and
philosophers of Greece.]

[Footnote 147: Damascius, in Vit. Isidor. apud Photium, cod. ccxlii. p.
1054.]

[Footnote 148: See Lucian (in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 350--359, edit.
Reitz,) Philostratus (in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. c. 2,) and Dion Cassius,
or Xiphilin, (lxxi. p. 1195,) with their editors Du Soul, Olearius, and
Reimar, and, above all, Salmasius, (ad Hist. August. p. 72.) A judicious
philosopher (Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. p. 340--374) prefers
the free contributions of the students to a fixed stipend for the
professor.]

[Footnote 149: Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 310, &c.]

[Footnote 150: The birth of Epicurus is fixed to the year 342 before
Christ, (Bayle,) Olympiad cix. 3; and he opened his school at Athens,
Olmp. cxviii. 3, 306 years before the same aera. This intolerant law
(Athenaeus, l. xiii. p. 610. Diogen. Laertius, l. v. s. 38. p. 290.
Julius Pollux, ix. 5) was enacted in the same or the succeeding year,
(Sigonius, Opp. tom. v. p. 62. Menagius ad Diogen. Laert. p. 204.
Corsini, Fasti Attici, tom. iv. p. 67, 68.) Theophrastus chief of
the Peripatetics, and disciple of Aristotle, was involved in the same
exile.]

The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the
establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the exercise
of reason, resolved every question by an article of faith, and condemned
the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames. In many a volume of laborious
controversy, they exposed the weakness of the understanding and
the corruption of the heart, insulted human nature in the sages of
antiquity, and proscribed the spirit of philosophical inquiry, so
repugnant to the doctrine, or at least to the temper, of an humble
believer. The surviving sects of the Platonists, whom Plato would have
blushed to acknowledge, extravagantly mingled a sublime theory with the
practice of superstition and magic; and as they remained alone in the
midst of a Christian world, they indulged a secret rancor against the
government of the church and state, whose severity was still suspended
over their heads. About a century after the reign of Julian, [151]
Proclus [152] was permitted to teach in the philosophic chair of the
academy; and such was his industry, that he frequently, in the same day,
pronounced five lessons, and composed seven hundred lines. His sagacious
mind explored the deepest questions of morals and metaphysics, and he
ventured to urge eighteen arguments against the Christian doctrine of
the creation of the world. But in the intervals of study, he personally
conversed with Pan, Aesculapius, and Minerva, in whose mysteries he was
secretly initiated, and whose prostrate statues he adored; in the devout
persuasion that the philosopher, who is a citizen of the universe,
should be the priest of its various deities. An eclipse of the sun
announced his approaching end; and his life, with that of his scholar
Isidore, [153] compiled by two of their most learned disciples, exhibits
a deplorable picture of the second childhood of human reason. Yet the
golden chain, as it was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession,
continued forty-four years from the death of Proclus to the edict of
Justinian, [154] which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools of
Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of the few remaining
votaries of Grecian science and superstition. Seven friends and
philosophers, Diogenes and Hermias, Eulalius and Priscian, Damascius,
Isidore, and Simplicius, who dissented from the religion of their
sovereign, embraced the resolution of seeking in a foreign land the
freedom which was denied in their native country. They had heard, and
they credulously believed, that the republic of Plato was realized in
the despotic government of Persia, and that a patriot king reigned ever
the happiest and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished by
the natural discovery, that Persia resembled the other countries of the
globe; that Chosroes, who affected the name of a philosopher, was
vain, cruel, and ambitious; that bigotry, and a spirit of intolerance,
prevailed among the Magi; that the nobles were haughty, the courtiers
servile, and the magistrates unjust; that the guilty sometimes escaped,
and that the innocent were often oppressed. The disappointment of the
philosophers provoked them to overlook the real virtues of the Persians;
and they were scandalized, more deeply perhaps than became their
profession, with the plurality of wives and concubines, the incestuous
marriages, and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the dogs and
vultures, instead of hiding them in the earth, or consuming them with
fire. Their repentance was expressed by a precipitate return, and they
loudly declared that they had rather die on the borders of the empire,
than enjoy the wealth and favor of the Barbarian. From this journey,
however, they derived a benefit which reflects the purest lustre on the
character of Chosroes. He required, that the seven sages who had
visited the court of Persia should be exempted from the penal laws
which Justinian enacted against his Pagan subjects; and this privilege,
expressly stipulated in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance
of a powerful mediator. [155] Simplicius and his companions ended
their lives in peace and obscurity; and as they left no disciples,
they terminate the long list of Grecian philosophers, who may be justly
praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the wisest and most virtuous
of their contemporaries. The writings of Simplicius are now extant. His
physical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle have passed away
with the fashion of the times; but his moral interpretation of Epictetus
is preserved in the library of nations, as a classic book, most
excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to
confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of
God and man.

[Footnote 151: This is no fanciful aera: the Pagans reckoned their
calamities from the reign of their hero. Proclus, whose nativity is
marked by his horoscope, (A.D. 412, February 8, at C. P.,) died 124
years, A.D. 485, (Marin. in Vita Procli, c. 36.)]

[Footnote 152: The life of Proclus, by Marinus, was published by
Fabricius (Hamburg, 1700, et ad calcem Bibliot. Latin. Lond. 1703.) See
Saidas, (tom. iii. p. 185, 186,) Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. v. c. 26
p. 449--552,) and Brucker, (Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 319--326)]

[Footnote 153: The life of Isidore was composed by Damascius, (apud
Photium, sod. ccxlii. p. 1028--1076.) See the last age of the Pagan
philosophers, in Brucker, (tom. ii. p. 341--351.)]

[Footnote 154: The suppression of the schools of Athens is recorded by
John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 187, sub Decio Cos. Sol.,) and an anonymous
Chronicle in the Vatican library, (apud Aleman. p. 106.)]

[Footnote 155: Agathias (l. ii. p. 69, 70, 71) relates this curious
story Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and made his first
peace with the Romans in the beginning of 533--a date most compatible
with his young fame and the old age of Isidore, (Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. tom. iii. p. 404. Pagi, tom. ii. p. 543, 550.)]

About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the appellation of
philosopher, liberty and the consulship were founded at Rome by the
elder Brutus. The revolutions of the consular office, which may be
viewed in the successive lights of a substance, a shadow, and a name,
have been occasionally mentioned in the present History. The first
magistrates of the republic had been chosen by the people, to exercise,
in the senate and in the camp, the powers of peace and war, which were
afterwards translated to the emperors. But the tradition of ancient
dignity was long revered by the Romans and Barbarians. A Gothic
historian applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the height of
all temporal glory and greatness; [156] the king of Italy himself
congratulated those annual favorites of fortune who, without the cares,
enjoyed the splendor of the throne; and at the end of a thousand years,
two consuls were created by the sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople,
for the sole purpose of giving a date to the year, and a festival to the
people. But the expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and
the vain aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly arose to the
enormous sum of fourscore thousand pounds; the wisest senators declined
a useless honor, which involved the certain ruin of their families, and
to this reluctance I should impute the frequent chasms in the last age
of the consular Fasti. The predecessors of Justinian had assisted from
the public treasures the dignity of the less opulent candidates; the
avarice of that prince preferred the cheaper and more convenient method
of advice and regulation. [157] Seven processions or spectacles were
the number to which his edict confined the horse and chariot races,
the athletic sports, the music, and pantomimes of the theatre, and
the hunting of wild beasts; and small pieces of silver were discreetly
substituted to the gold medals, which had always excited tumult and
drunkenness, when they were scattered with a profuse hand among the
populace. Notwithstanding these precautions, and his own example,
the succession of consuls finally ceased in the thirteenth year of
Justinian, whose despotic temper might be gratified by the silent
extinction of a title which admonished the Romans of their ancient
freedom. [158] Yet the annual consulship still lived in the minds of the
people; they fondly expected its speedy restoration; they applauded the
gracious condescension of successive princes, by whom it was assumed in
the first year of their reign; and three centuries elapsed, after
the death of Justinian, before that obsolete dignity, which had been
suppressed by custom, could be abolished by law. [159] The imperfect
mode of distinguishing each year by the name of a magistrate, was
usefully supplied by the date of a permanent aera: the creation of the
world, according to the Septuagint version, was adopted by the Greeks;
[160] and the Latins, since the age of Charlemagne, have computed their
time from the birth of Christ. [161]

[Footnote 156: Cassiodor. Variarum Epist. vi. 1. Jornandes, c. 57, p.
696, dit. Grot. Quod summum bonum primumque in mundo decus dicitur.]

[Footnote 157: See the regulations of Justinian, (Novell. cv.,) dated
at Constantinople, July 5, and addressed to Strategius, treasurer of the
empire.]

[Footnote 158: Procopius, in Anecdot. c. 26. Aleman. p. 106. In
the xviiith year after the consulship of Basilius, according to the
reckoning of Marcellinus, Victor, Marius, &c., the secret history was
composed, and, in the eyes of Procopius, the consulship was finally
abolished.]

[Footnote 159: By Leo, the philosopher, (Novell. xciv. A.D. 886-911.)
See Pagi (Dissertat. Hypatica, p. 325--362) and Ducange, (Gloss, Graec
p. 1635, 1636.) Even the title was vilified: consulatus codicilli..
vilescunt, says the emperor himself.]

[Footnote 160: According to Julius Africanus, &c., the world was created
the first of September, 5508 years, three months, and twenty-five days
before the birth of Christ. (See Pezron, Antiquite des Tems defendue,
p. 20--28.) And this aera has been used by the Greeks, the Oriental
Christians, and even by the Russians, till the reign of Peter I The
period, however arbitrary, is clear and convenient. Of the 7296 years
which are supposed to elapse since the creation, we shall find 3000
of ignorance and darkness; 2000 either fabulous or doubtful; 1000 of
ancient history, commencing with the Persian empire, and the Republics
of Rome and Athens; 1000 from the fall of the Roman empire in the West
to the discovery of America; and the remaining 296 will almost complete
three centuries of the modern state of Europe and mankind. I regret
this chronology, so far preferable to our double and perplexed method of
counting backwards and forwards the years before and after the Christian
era.]

[Footnote 161: The aera of the world has prevailed in the East since the
vith general council, (A.D. 681.) In the West, the Christian aera was
first invented in the vith century: it was propagated in the viiith by
the authority and writings of venerable Bede; but it was not till the
xth that the use became legal and popular. See l'Art de Veriner les
Dates, Dissert. Preliminaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire Diplomatique,
tom. i. p. 329--337; the works of a laborious society of Benedictine
monks.]




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

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

When Justinian ascended the throne, about fifty years after the fall of
the Western empire, the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals had obtained
a solid, and, as it might seem, a legal establishment both in Europe and
Africa. The titles, which Roman victory had inscribed, were erased
with equal justice by the sword of the Barbarians; and their successful
rapine derived a more venerable sanction from time, from treaties,
and from the oaths of fidelity, already repeated by a second or third
generation of obedient subjects. Experience and Christianity had refuted
the superstitious hope, that Rome was founded by the gods to reign
forever over the nations of the earth. But the proud claim of perpetual
and indefeasible dominion, which her soldiers could no longer maintain,
was firmly asserted by her statesmen and lawyers, whose opinions
have been sometimes revived and propagated in the modern schools of
jurisprudence. After Rome herself had been stripped of the Imperial
purple, the princes of Constantinople assumed the sole and sacred
sceptre of the monarchy; demanded, as their rightful inheritance, the
provinces which had been subdued by the consuls, or possessed by the
Caesars; and feebly aspired to deliver their faithful subjects of the
West from the usurpation of heretics and Barbarians. The execution of
this splendid design was in some degree reserved for Justinian. During
the five first years of his reign, he reluctantly waged a costly and
unprofitable war against the Persians; till his pride submitted to
his ambition, and he purchased at the price of four hundred and forty
thousand pounds sterling, the benefit of a precarious truce, which, in
the language of both nations, was dignified with the appellation of the
endless peace. The safety of the East enabled the emperor to employ his
forces against the Vandals; and the internal state of Africa afforded
an honorable motive, and promised a powerful support, to the Roman arms.
[1]

[Footnote 1: The complete series of the Vandal war is related by
Procopius in a regular and elegant narrative, (l. i. c. 9--25, l. ii. c.
1--13,) and happy would be my lot, could I always tread in the footsteps
of such a guide. From the entire and diligent perusal of the Greek
text, I have a right to pronounce that the Latin and French versions
of Grotius and Cousin may not be implicitly trusted; yet the president
Cousin has been often praised, and Hugo Grotius was the first scholar of
a learned age.]

According to the testament of the founder, the African kingdom had
lineally descended to Hilderic, the eldest of the Vandal princes. A mild
disposition inclined the son of a tyrant, the grandson of a conqueror,
to prefer the counsels of clemency and peace; and his accession was
marked by the salutary edict, which restored two hundred bishops to
their churches, and allowed the free profession of the Athanasian creed.
[2] But the Catholics accepted, with cold and transient gratitude, a
favor so inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic
offended the prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy presumed to
insinuate that he had renounced the faith, and the soldiers more loudly
complained that he had degenerated from the courage, of his ancestors.
His ambassadors were suspected of a secret and disgraceful negotiation
in the Byzantine court; and his general, the Achilles, [3] as he was
named, of the Vandals, lost a battle against the naked and disorderly
Moors. The public discontent was exasperated by Gelimer, whose
age, descent, and military fame, gave him an apparent title to the
succession: he assumed, with the consent of the nation, the reins of
government; and his unfortunate sovereign sunk without a struggle from
the throne to a dungeon, where he was strictly guarded with a faithful
counsellor, and his unpopular nephew the Achilles of the Vandals. But
the indulgence which Hilderic had shown to his Catholic subjects had
powerfully recommended him to the favor of Justinian, who, for the
benefit of his own sect, could acknowledge the use and justice of
religious toleration: their alliance, while the nephew of Justin
remained in a private station, was cemented by the mutual exchange
of gifts and letters; and the emperor Justinian asserted the cause of
royalty and friendship. In two successive embassies, he admonished the
usurper to repent of his treason, or to abstain, at least, from any
further violence which might provoke the displeasure of God and of the
Romans; to reverence the laws of kindred and succession, and to suffer
an infirm old man peaceably to end his days, either on the throne of
Carthage or in the palace of Constantinople. The passions, or even the
prudence, of Gelimer compelled him to reject these requests, which were
urged in the haughty tone of menace and command; and he justified his
ambition in a language rarely spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging
the right of a free people to remove or punish their chief magistrate,
who had failed in the execution of the kingly office.

After this fruitless expostulation, the captive monarch was more
rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his eyes, and the cruel
Vandal, confident in his strength and distance, derided the vain threats
and slow preparations of the emperor of the East. Justinian resolved to
deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to maintain his usurpation; and
the war was preceded, according to the practice of civilized nations, by
the most solemn protestations, that each party was sincerely desirous of
peace.

[Footnote 2: See Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. c. xii. p. 589. His
best evidence is drawn from the life of St. Fulgentius, composed by
one of his disciples, transcribed in a great measure in the annals of
Baronius, and printed in several great collections, (Catalog. Bibliot.
Bunavianae, tom. i. vol. ii. p. 1258.)]

[Footnote 3: For what quality of the mind or body? For speed, or beauty,
or valor?--In what language did the Vandals read Homer?--Did he speak
German?--The Latins had four versions, (Fabric. tom. i. l. ii. c. 8,
p. 297:) yet, in spite of the praises of Seneca, (Consol. c. 26,) they
appear to have been more successful in imitating than in translating the
Greek poets. But the name of Achilles might be famous and popular even
among the illiterate Barbarians.]

The report of an African war was grateful only to the vain and idle
populace of Constantinople, whose poverty exempted them from tribute,
and whose cowardice was seldom exposed to military service. But the
wiser citizens, who judged of the future by the past, revolved in their
memory the immense loss, both of men and money, which the empire had
sustained in the expedition of Basiliscus. The troops, which, after
five laborious campaigns, had been recalled from the Persian frontier,
dreaded the sea, the climate, and the arms of an unknown enemy. The
ministers of the finances computed, as far as they might compute, the
demands of an African war; the taxes which must be found and levied to
supply those insatiate demands; and the danger, lest their own lives, or
at least their lucrative employments, should be made responsible for the
deficiency of the supply. Inspired by such selfish motives, (for we may
not suspect him of any zeal for the public good,) John of Cappadocia
ventured to oppose in full council the inclinations of his master. He
confessed, that a victory of such importance could not be too dearly
purchased; but he represented in a grave discourse the certain
difficulties and the uncertain event. "You undertake," said the
praefect, "to besiege Carthage: by land, the distance is not less than
one hundred and forty days' journey; on the sea, a whole year [4] must
elapse before you can receive any intelligence from your fleet. If
Africa should be reduced, it cannot be preserved without the additional
conquest of Sicily and Italy. Success will impose the obligations of new
labors; a single misfortune will attract the Barbarians into the heart
of your exhausted empire." Justinian felt the weight of this salutary
advice; he was confounded by the unwonted freedom of an obsequious
servant; and the design of the war would perhaps have been relinquished,
if his courage had not been revived by a voice which silenced the doubts
of profane reason. "I have seen a vision," cried an artful or fanatic
bishop of the East. "It is the will of Heaven, O emperor! that you
should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of the
African church. The God of battles will march before your standard, and
disperse your enemies, who are the enemies of his Son." The emperor,
might be tempted, and his counsellors were constrained, to give credit
to this seasonable revelation: but they derived more rational hope from
the revolt, which the adherents of Hilderic or Athanasius had already
excited on the borders of the Vandal monarchy. Pudentius, an African
subject, had privately signified his loyal intentions, and a small
military aid restored the province of Tripoli to the obedience of
the Romans. The government of Sardinia had been intrusted to Godas, a
valiant Barbarian he suspended the payment of tribute, disclaimed
his allegiance to the usurper, and gave audience to the emissaries of
Justinian, who found him master of that fruitful island, at the head of
his guards, and proudly invested with the ensigns of royalty. The forces
of the Vandals were diminished by discord and suspicion; the Roman
armies were animated by the spirit of Belisarius; one of those heroic
names which are familiar to every age and to every nation.

[Footnote 4: A year--absurd exaggeration! The conquest of Africa may
be dated A. D 533, September 14. It is celebrated by Justinian in the
preface to his Institutes, which were published November 21 of the same
year. Including the voyage and return, such a computation might be truly
applied to our Indian empire.]

The Africanus of new Rome was born, and perhaps educated, among the
Thracian peasants, [5] without any of those advantages which had formed
the virtues of the elder and younger Scipio; a noble origin, liberal
studies, and the emulation of a free state.

The silence of a loquacious secretary may be admitted, to prove that the
youth of Belisarius could not afford any subject of praise: he served,
most assuredly with valor and reputation, among the private guards of
Justinian; and when his patron became emperor, the domestic was promoted
to military command. After a bold inroad into Persarmenia, in which
his glory was shared by a colleague, and his progress was checked by an
enemy, Belisarius repaired to the important station of Dara, where he
first accepted the service of Procopius, the faithful companion,
and diligent historian, of his exploits. [6] The Mirranes of Persia
advanced, with forty thousand of her best troops, to raze the
fortifications of Dara; and signified the day and the hour on which the
citizens should prepare a bath for his refreshment, after the toils of
victory. He encountered an adversary equal to himself, by the new title
of General of the East; his superior in the science of war, but much
inferior in the number and quality of his troops, which amounted only to
twenty-five thousand Romans and strangers, relaxed in their discipline,
and humbled by recent disasters. As the level plain of Dara refused all
shelter to stratagem and ambush, Belisarius protected his front with
a deep trench, which was prolonged at first in perpendicular,
and afterwards in parallel, lines, to cover the wings of cavalry
advantageously posted to command the flanks and rear of the enemy. When
the Roman centre was shaken, their well-timed and rapid charge decided
the conflict: the standard of Persia fell; the immortals fled; the
infantry threw away their bucklers, and eight thousand of the vanquished
were left on the field of battle. In the next campaign, Syria was
invaded on the side of the desert; and Belisarius, with twenty thousand
men, hastened from Dara to the relief of the province. During the
whole summer, the designs of the enemy were baffled by his skilful
dispositions: he pressed their retreat, occupied each night their camp
of the preceding day, and would have secured a bloodless victory, if
he could have resisted the impatience of his own troops. Their valiant
promise was faintly supported in the hour of battle; the right wing was
exposed by the treacherous or cowardly desertion of the Christian Arabs;
the Huns, a veteran band of eight hundred warriors, were oppressed by
superior numbers; the flight of the Isaurians was intercepted; but
the Roman infantry stood firm on the left; for Belisarius himself,
dismounting from his horse, showed them that intrepid despair was their
only safety. [611] They turned their backs to the Euphrates, and their
faces to the enemy: innumerable arrows glanced without effect from the
compact and shelving order of their bucklers; an impenetrable line of
pikes was opposed to the repeated assaults of the Persian cavalry; and
after a resistance of many hours, the remaining troops were skilfully
embarked under the shadow of the night. The Persian commander retired
with disorder and disgrace, to answer a strict account of the lives of
so many soldiers, which he had consumed in a barren victory. But the
fame of Belisarius was not sullied by a defeat, in which he alone had
saved his army from the consequences of their own rashness: the approach
of peace relieved him from the guard of the eastern frontier, and
his conduct in the sedition of Constantinople amply discharged his
obligations to the emperor. When the African war became the topic of
popular discourse and secret deliberation, each of the Roman generals
was apprehensive, rather than ambitious, of the dangerous honor; but as
soon as Justinian had declared his preference of superior merit, their
envy was rekindled by the unanimous applause which was given to the
choice of Belisarius. The temper of the Byzantine court may encourage
a suspicion, that the hero was darkly assisted by the intrigues of
his wife, the fair and subtle Antonina, who alternately enjoyed the
confidence, and incurred the hatred, of the empress Theodora.

The birth of Antonina was ignoble; she descended from a family of
charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the foulest
reproach. Yet she reigned with long and absolute power over the mind of
her illustrious husband; and if Antonina disdained the merit of conjugal
fidelity, she expressed a manly friendship to Belisarius, whom she
accompanied with undaunted resolution in all the hardships and dangers
of a military life. [7]

[Footnote 5: (Procop. Vandal. l. i. c. 11.) Aleman, (Not. ad Anecdot. p.
5,) an Italian, could easily reject the German vanity of Giphanius and
Velserus, who wished to claim the hero; but his Germania, a metropolis
of Thrace, I cannot find in any civil or ecclesiastical lists of the
provinces and cities. Note *: M. von Hammer (in a review of Lord Mahon's
Life of Belisarius in the Vienna Jahrbucher) shows that the name of
Belisarius is a Sclavonic word, Beli-tzar, the White Prince, and that
the place of his birth was a village of Illvria, which still bears the
name of Germany.--M.]

[Footnote 6: The two first Persian campaigns of Belisarius are fairly
and copiously related by his secretary, (Persic. l. i. c. 12--18.)]

[Footnote 611: The battle was fought on Easter Sunday, April 19, not
at the end of the summer. The date is supplied from John Malala by Lord
Mabon p. 47.--M.]

[Footnote 7: See the birth and character of Antonina, in the Anecdotes,
c. l. and the notes of Alemannus, p. 3.]

The preparations for the African war were not unworthy of the last
contest between Rome and Carthage. The pride and flower of the army
consisted of the guards of Belisarius, who, according to the pernicious
indulgence of the times, devoted themselves, by a particular oath of
fidelity, to the service of their patrons. Their strength and stature,
for which they had been curiously selected, the goodness of their horses
and armor, and the assiduous practice of all the exercises of war,
enabled them to act whatever their courage might prompt; and their
courage was exalted by the social honor of their rank, and the personal
ambition of favor and fortune. Four hundred of the bravest of the
Heruli marched under the banner of the faithful and active Pharas; their
untractable valor was more highly prized than the tame submission of the
Greeks and Syrians; and of such importance was it deemed to procure a
reenforcement of six hundred Massagetae, or Huns, that they were allured
by fraud and deceit to engage in a naval expedition. Five thousand horse
and ten thousand foot were embarked at Constantinople, for the conquest
of Africa; but the infantry, for the most part levied in Thrace and
Isauria, yielded to the more prevailing use and reputation of the
cavalry; and the Scythian bow was the weapon on which the armies of Rome
were now reduced to place their principal dependence. From a laudable
desire to assert the dignity of his theme, Procopius defends the
soldiers of his own time against the morose critics, who confined
that respectable name to the heavy-armed warriors of antiquity, and
maliciously observed, that the word archer is introduced by Homer [8]
as a term of contempt. "Such contempt might perhaps be due to the naked
youths who appeared on foot in the fields of Troy, and lurking behind
a tombstone, or the shield of a friend, drew the bow-string to their
breast, [9] and dismissed a feeble and lifeless arrow. But our archers
(pursues the historian) are mounted on horses, which they manage with
admirable skill; their head and shoulders are protected by a casque or
buckler; they wear greaves of iron on their legs, and their bodies are
guarded by a coat of mail. On their right side hangs a quiver, a sword
on their left, and their hand is accustomed to wield a lance or javelin
in closer combat. Their bows are strong and weighty; they shoot in every
possible direction, advancing, retreating, to the front, to the rear,
or to either flank; and as they are taught to draw the bow-string not to
the breast, but to the right ear, firm indeed must be the armor that
can resist the rapid violence of their shaft." Five hundred transports,
navigated by twenty thousand mariners of Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were
collected in the harbor of Constantinople. The smallest of these vessels
may be computed at thirty, the largest at five hundred, tons; and the
fair average will supply an allowance, liberal, but not profuse, of
about one hundred thousand tons, [10] for the reception of thirty-five
thousand soldiers and sailors, of five thousand horses, of arms,
engines, and military stores, and of a sufficient stock of water and
provisions for a voyage, perhaps, of three months. The proud galleys,
which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with so many hundred oars,
had long since disappeared; and the fleet of Justinian was escorted only
by ninety-two light brigantines, covered from the missile weapons of
the enemy, and rowed by two thousand of the brave and robust youth
of Constantinople. Twenty-two generals are named, most of whom were
afterwards distinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy: but the
supreme command, both by land and sea, was delegated to Belisarius
alone, with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion,
as if the emperor himself were present. The separation of the naval and
military professions is at once the effect and the cause of the modern
improvements in the science of navigation and maritime war. [Footnote
8: See the preface of Procopius. The enemies of archery might quote the
reproaches of Diomede (Iliad. Delta. 385, &c.) and the permittere vulnera
ventis of Lucan, (viii. 384:) yet the Romans could not despise the
arrows of the Parthians; and in the siege of Troy, Pandarus, Paris, and
Teucer, pierced those haughty warriors who insulted them as women or
children.]

[Footnote 9: (Iliad. Delta. 123.) How concise--how just--how beautiful
is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the archer--I hear the
twanging of the bow.]

[Footnote 10: The text appears to allow for the largest vessels 50,000
medimni, or 3000 tons, (since the medimnus weighed 160 Roman, or 120
avoirdupois, pounds.) I have given a more rational interpretation,
by supposing that the Attic style of Procopius conceals the legal
and popular modius, a sixth part of the medimnus, (Hooper's Ancient
Measures, p. 152, &c.) A contrary and indeed a stranger mistake has
crept into an oration of Dinarchus, (contra Demosthenem, in Reiske
Orator. Graec tom iv. P. ii. p. 34.) By reducing the number of ships
from 500 to 50, and translating by mines, or pounds, Cousin has
generously allowed 500 tons for the whole of the Imperial fleet! Did he
never think?]

In the seventh year of the reign of Justinian, and about the time of
the summer solstice, the whole fleet of six hundred ships was ranged in
martial pomp before the gardens of the palace. The patriarch pronounced
his benediction, the emperor signified his last commands, the general's
trumpet gave the signal of departure, and every heart, according to
its fears or wishes, explored, with anxious curiosity, the omens
of misfortune and success. The first halt was made at Perinthus or
Heraclea, where Belisarius waited five days to receive some Thracian
horses, a military gift of his sovereign. From thence the fleet pursued
their course through the midst of the Propontis; but as they struggled
to pass the Straits of the Hellespont, an unfavorable wind detained them
four days at Abydus, where the general exhibited a memorable lesson of
firmness and severity. Two of the Huns, who in a drunken quarrel had
slain one of their fellow-soldiers, were instantly shown to the army
suspended on a lofty gibbet. The national dignity was resented by their
countrymen, who disclaimed the servile laws of the empire, and asserted
the free privilege of Scythia, where a small fine was allowed to expiate
the hasty sallies of intemperance and anger. Their complaints were
specious, their clamors were loud, and the Romans were not averse to the
example of disorder and impunity. But the rising sedition was appeased
by the authority and eloquence of the general: and he represented to
the assembled troops the obligation of justice, the importance of
discipline, the rewards of piety and virtue, and the unpardonable
guilt of murder, which, in his apprehension, was aggravated rather than
excused by the vice of intoxication. [11] In the navigation from the
Hellespont to Peloponnesus, which the Greeks, after the siege of Troy,
had performed in four days, [12] the fleet of Belisarius was guided in
their course by his master-galley, conspicuous in the day by the redness
of the sails, and in the night by the torches blazing from the mast
head. It was the duty of the pilots, as they steered between the
islands, and turned the Capes of Malea and Taenarium, to preserve the
just order and regular intervals of such a multitude of ships: as the
wind was fair and moderate, their labors were not unsuccessful, and the
troops were safely disembarked at Methone on the Messenian coast, to
repose themselves for a while after the fatigues of the sea. In this
place they experienced how avarice, invested with authority, may sport
with the lives of thousands which are bravely exposed for the public
service. According to military practice, the bread or biscuit of the
Romans was twice prepared in the oven, and the diminution of one fourth
was cheerfully allowed for the loss of weight. To gain this miserable
profit, and to save the expense of wood, the praefect John of Cappadocia
had given orders that the flour should be slightly baked by the same
fire which warmed the baths of Constantinople; and when the sacks
were opened, a soft and mouldy paste was distributed to the army. Such
unwholesome food, assisted by the heat of the climate and season, soon
produced an epidemical disease, which swept away five hundred soldiers.
Their health was restored by the diligence of Belisarius, who provided
fresh bread at Methone, and boldly expressed his just and humane
indignation the emperor heard his complaint; the general was praised
but the minister was not punished. From the port of Methone, the pilots
steered along the western coast of Peloponnesus, as far as the Isle of
Zacynthus, or Zante, before they undertook the voyage (in their eyes a
most arduous voyage) of one hundred leagues over the Ionian Sea. As the
fleet was surprised by a calm, sixteen days were consumed in the slow
navigation; and even the general would have suffered the intolerable
hardship of thirst, if the ingenuity of Antonina had not preserved the
water in glass bottles, which she buried deep in the sand in a part
of the ship impervious to the rays of the sun. At length the harbor
of Caucana, [13] on the southern side of Sicily, afforded a secure and
hospitable shelter. The Gothic officers who governed the island in the
name of the daughter and grandson of Theodoric, obeyed their imprudent
orders, to receive the troops of Justinian like friends and allies:
provisions were liberally supplied, the cavalry was remounted, [14] and
Procopius soon returned from Syracuse with correct information of the
state and designs of the Vandals. His intelligence determined Belisarius
to hasten his operations, and his wise impatience was seconded by the
winds. The fleet lost sight of Sicily, passed before the Isle of Malta,
discovered the capes of Africa, ran along the coast with a strong gale
from the north-east, and finally cast anchor at the promontory of Caput
Vada, about five days' journey to the south of Carthage. [15]

[Footnote 11: I have read of a Greek legislator, who inflicted a double
penalty on the crimes committed in a state of intoxication; but it seems
agreed that this was rather a political than a moral law.]

[Footnote 12: Or even in three days, since they anchored the first
evening in the neighboring isle of Tenedos: the second day they sailed
to Lesbon the third to the promontory of Euboea, and on the fourth they
reached Argos, (Homer, Odyss. P. 130--183. Wood's Essay on Homer, p.
40--46.) A pirate sailed from the Hellespont to the seaport of Sparta in
three days, (Xenophon. Hellen. l. ii. c. l.)]

[Footnote 13: Caucana, near Camarina, is at least 50 miles (350 or 400
stadia) from Syracuse, (Cluver. Sicilia Antiqua, p. 191.) * Note *:
Lord Mahon. (Life of Belisarius, p.88) suggests some valid reasons for
reading Catana, the ancient name of Catania.--M.]

[Footnote 14: Procopius, Gothic. l. i. c. 3. Tibi tollit hinnitum apta
quadrigis equa, in the Sicilian pastures of Grosphus, (Horat. Carm. ii.
16.) Acragas.... magnanimum quondam generator equorum, (Virg. Aeneid.
iii. 704.) Thero's horses, whose victories are immortalized by Pindar,
were bred in this country.]

[Footnote 15: The Caput Vada of Procopius (where Justinian afterwards
founded a city--De Edific.l. vi. c. 6) is the promontory of Ammon in
Strabo, the Brachodes of Ptolemy, the Capaudia of the moderns, a long
narrow slip that runs into the sea, (Shaw's Travels, p. 111.)]

If Gelimer had been informed of the approach of the enemy, he must have
delayed the conquest of Sardinia for the immediate defence of his person
and kingdom. A detachment of five thousand soldiers, and one hundred and
twenty galleys, would have joined the remaining forces of the Vandals;
and the descendant of Genseric might have surprised and oppressed
a fleet of deep laden transports, incapable of action, and of light
brigantines that seemed only qualified for flight. Belisarius had
secretly trembled when he overheard his soldiers, in the passage,
emboldening each other to confess their apprehensions: if they were once
on shore, they hoped to maintain the honor of their arms; but if they
should be attacked at sea, they did not blush to acknowledge that they
wanted courage to contend at the same time with the winds, the waves,
and the Barbarians. [16] The knowledge of their sentiments decided
Belisarius to seize the first opportunity of landing them on the coast
of Africa; and he prudently rejected, in a council of war, the proposal
of sailing with the fleet and army into the port of Carthage. [1611]
Three months after their departure from Constantinople, the men and
horses, the arms and military stores, were safely disembarked, and five
soldiers were left as a guard on board each of the ships, which were
disposed in the form of a semicircle. The remainder of the troops
occupied a camp on the sea-shore, which they fortified, according to
ancient discipline, with a ditch and rampart; and the discovery of
a source of fresh water, while it allayed the thirst, excited the
superstitious confidence, of the Romans. The next morning, some of the
neighboring gardens were pillaged; and Belisarius, after chastising the
offenders, embraced the slight occasion, but the decisive moment, of
inculcating the maxims of justice, moderation, and genuine policy. "When
I first accepted the commission of subduing Africa, I depended much
less," said the general, "on the numbers, or even the bravery of my
troops, than on the friendly disposition of the natives, and their
immortal hatred to the Vandals. You alone can deprive me of this hope;
if you continue to extort by rapine what might be purchased for a little
money, such acts of violence will reconcile these implacable enemies,
and unite them in a just and holy league against the invaders of their
country." These exhortations were enforced by a rigid discipline,
of which the soldiers themselves soon felt and praised the salutary
effects. The inhabitants, instead of deserting their houses, or hiding
their corn, supplied the Romans with a fair and liberal market: the
civil officers of the province continued to exercise their functions in
the name of Justinian: and the clergy, from motives of conscience
and interest, assiduously labored to promote the cause of a Catholic
emperor. The small town of Sullecte, [17] one day's journey from the
camp, had the honor of being foremost to open her gates, and to resume
her ancient allegiance: the larger cities of Leptis and Adrumetum
imitated the example of loyalty as soon as Belisarius appeared; and he
advanced without opposition as far as Grasse, a palace of the Vandal
kings, at the distance of fifty miles from Carthage. The weary Romans
indulged themselves in the refreshment of shady groves, cool fountains,
and delicious fruits; and the preference which Procopius allows to these
gardens over any that he had seen, either in the East or West, may be
ascribed either to the taste, or the fatigue, or the historian. In
three generations, prosperity and a warm climate had dissolved the
hardy virtue of the Vandals, who insensibly became the most luxurious
of mankind. In their villas and gardens, which might deserve the Persian
name of Paradise, [18] they enjoyed a cool and elegant repose; and,
after the daily use of the bath, the Barbarians were seated at a table
profusely spread with the delicacies of the land and sea. Their silken
robes loosely flowing, after the fashion of the Medes, were embroidered
with gold; love and hunting were the labors of their life, and their
vacant hours were amused by pantomimes, chariot-races, and the music and
dances of the theatre.

[Footnote 16: A centurion of Mark Antony expressed, though in a more
manly train, the same dislike to the sea and to naval combats, (Plutarch
in Antonio, p. 1730, edit. Hen. Steph.)]

[Footnote 1611: Rather into the present Lake of Tunis. Lord Mahon, p.
92.--M.]

[Footnote 17: Sullecte is perhaps the Turris Hannibalis, an old
building, now as large as the Tower of London. The march of Belisarius
to Leptis. Adrumetum, &c., is illustrated by the campaign of Caesar,
(Hirtius, de Bello Africano, with the Analyse of Guichardt,) and Shaw's
Travels (p. 105--113) in the same country.]

[Footnote 18: The paradises, a name and fashion adopted from Persia, may
be represented by the royal garden of Ispahan, (Voyage d'Olearius, p.
774.) See, in the Greek romances, their most perfect model, (Longus.
Pastoral. l. iv. p. 99--101 Achilles Tatius. l. i. p. 22, 23.)]

In a march of ten or twelve days, the vigilance of Belisarius was
constantly awake and active against his unseen enemies, by whom, in
every place, and at every hour, he might be suddenly attacked. An
officer of confidence and merit, John the Armenian, led the vanguard
of three hundred horse; six hundred Massagetae covered at a certain
distance the left flank; and the whole fleet, steering along the coast,
seldom lost sight of the army, which moved each day about twelve miles,
and lodged in the evening in strong camps, or in friendly towns. The
near approach of the Romans to Carthage filled the mind of Gelimer with
anxiety and terror. He prudently wished to protract the war till his
brother, with his veteran troops, should return from the conquest of
Sardinia; and he now lamented the rash policy of his ancestors, who, by
destroying the fortifications of Africa, had left him only the dangerous
resource of risking a battle in the neighborhood of his capital. The
Vandal conquerors, from their original number of fifty thousand, were
multiplied, without including their women and children, to one hundred
and sixty thousand fighting men: [1811] and such forces, animated with
valor and union, might have crushed, at their first landing, the feeble
and exhausted bands of the Roman general. But the friends of the captive
king were more inclined to accept the invitations, than to resist
the progress, of Belisarius; and many a proud Barbarian disguised
his aversion to war under the more specious name of his hatred to
the usurper. Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer collected a
formidable army, and his plans were concerted with some degree of
military skill. An order was despatched to his brother Ammatas, to
collect all the forces of Carthage, and to encounter the van of the
Roman army at the distance of ten miles from the city: his nephew
Gibamund, with two thousand horse, was destined to attack their left,
when the monarch himself, who silently followed, should charge their
rear, in a situation which excluded them from the aid or even the view
of their fleet. But the rashness of Ammatas was fatal to himself and his
country. He anticipated the hour of the attack, outstripped his tardy
followers, and was pierced with a mortal wound, after he had slain with
his own hand twelve of his boldest antagonists. His Vandals fled to
Carthage; the highway, almost ten miles, was strewed with dead bodies;
and it seemed incredible that such multitudes could be slaughtered by
the swords of three hundred Romans. The nephew of Gelimer was defeated,
after a slight combat, by the six hundred Massagetae: they did not
equal the third part of his numbers; but each Scythian was fired by
the example of his chief, who gloriously exercised the privilege of his
family, by riding, foremost and alone, to shoot the first arrow against
the enemy. In the mean while, Gelimer himself, ignorant of the event,
and misguided by the windings of the hills, inadvertently passed the
Roman army, and reached the scene of action where Ammatas had fallen. He
wept the fate of his brother and of Carthage, charged with irresistible
fury the advancing squadrons, and might have pursued, and perhaps
decided, the victory, if he had not wasted those inestimable moments
in the discharge of a vain, though pious, duty to the dead. While his
spirit was broken by this mournful office, he heard the trumpet of
Belisarius, who, leaving Antonina and his infantry in the camp, pressed
forwards with his guards and the remainder of the cavalry to rally his
flying troops, and to restore the fortune of the day. Much room could
not be found, in this disorderly battle, for the talents of a general;
but the king fled before the hero; and the Vandals, accustomed only to a
Moorish enemy, were incapable of withstanding the arms and discipline
of the Romans. Gelimer retired with hasty steps towards the desert of
Numidia: but he had soon the consolation of learning that his private
orders for the execution of Hilderic and his captive friends had been
faithfully obeyed. The tyrant's revenge was useful only to his enemies.
The death of a lawful prince excited the compassion of his people; his
life might have perplexed the victorious Romans; and the lieutenant of
Justinian, by a crime of which he was innocent, was relieved from
the painful alternative of forfeiting his honor or relinquishing his
conquests.

[Footnote 1811: 80,000. Hist. Arc. c. 18. Gibbon has been misled by the
translation. See Lord ov. p. 99.--M.]




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

As soon as the tumult had subsided, the several parts of the army
informed each other of the accidents of the day; and Belisarius pitched
his camp on the field of victory, to which the tenth mile-stone from
Carthage had applied the Latin appellation of Decimus. From a wise
suspicion of the stratagems and resources of the Vandals, he marched the
next day in order of battle, halted in the evening before the gates of
Carthage, and allowed a night of repose, that he might not, in darkness
and disorder, expose the city to the license of the soldiers, or the
soldiers themselves to the secret ambush of the city. But as the fears
of Belisarius were the result of calm and intrepid reason, he was soon
satisfied that he might confide, without danger, in the peaceful
and friendly aspect of the capital. Carthage blazed with innumerable
torches, the signals of the public joy; the chain was removed that
guarded the entrance of the port; the gates were thrown open, and the
people, with acclamations of gratitude, hailed and invited their Roman
deliverers. The defeat of the Vandals, and the freedom of Africa, were
announced to the city on the eve of St. Cyprian, when the churches were
already adorned and illuminated for the festival of the martyr whom
three centuries of superstition had almost raised to a local deity. The
Arians, conscious that their reign had expired, resigned the temple to
the Catholics, who rescued their saint from profane hands, performed the
holy rites, and loudly proclaimed the creed of Athanasius and Justinian.
One awful hour reversed the fortunes of the contending parties. The
suppliant Vandals, who had so lately indulged the vices of conquerors,
sought an humble refuge in the sanctuary of the church; while the
merchants of the East were delivered from the deepest dungeon of the
palace by their affrighted keeper, who implored the protection of his
captives, and showed them, through an aperture in the wall, the sails
of the Roman fleet. After their separation from the army, the naval
commanders had proceeded with slow caution along the coast till they
reached the Hermaean promontory, and obtained the first intelligence of
the victory of Belisarius. Faithful to his instructions, they would have
cast anchor about twenty miles from Carthage, if the more skilful
seamen had not represented the perils of the shore, and the signs of
an impending tempest. Still ignorant of the revolution, they declined,
however, the rash attempt of forcing the chain of the port; and the
adjacent harbor and suburb of Mandracium were insulted only by the
rapine of a private officer, who disobeyed and deserted his leaders.
But the Imperial fleet, advancing with a fair wind, steered through the
narrow entrance of the Goletta, and occupied, in the deep and capacious
lake of Tunis, a secure station about five miles from the capital. [19]
No sooner was Belisarius informed of their arrival, than he despatched
orders that the greatest part of the mariners should be immediately
landed to join the triumph, and to swell the apparent numbers, of
the Romans. Before he allowed them to enter the gates of Carthage, he
exhorted them, in a discourse worthy of himself and the occasion, not to
disgrace the glory of their arms; and to remember that the Vandals had
been the tyrants, but that they were the deliverers, of the Africans,
who must now be respected as the voluntary and affectionate subjects of
their common sovereign. The Romans marched through the streets in close
ranks prepared for battle if an enemy had appeared: the strict
order maintained by the general imprinted on their minds the duty of
obedience; and in an age in which custom and impunity almost sanctified
the abuse of conquest, the genius of one man repressed the passions of a
victorious army. The voice of menace and complaint was silent; the trade
of Carthage was not interrupted; while Africa changed her master and her
government, the shops continued open and busy; and the soldiers, after
sufficient guards had been posted, modestly departed to the houses which
were allotted for their reception. Belisarius fixed his residence in
the palace; seated himself on the throne of Genseric; accepted and
distributed the Barbaric spoil; granted their lives to the suppliant
Vandals; and labored to repair the damage which the suburb of Mandracium
had sustained in the preceding night. At supper he entertained his
principal officers with the form and magnificence of a royal banquet.
[20] The victor was respectfully served by the captive officers of
the household; and in the moments of festivity, when the impartial
spectators applauded the fortune and merit of Belisarius, his envious
flatterers secretly shed their venom on every word and gesture which
might alarm the suspicions of a jealous monarch. One day was given to
these pompous scenes, which may not be despised as useless, if they
attracted the popular veneration; but the active mind of Belisarius,
which in the pride of victory could suppose a defeat, had already
resolved that the Roman empire in Africa should not depend on the chance
of arms, or the favor of the people. The fortifications of Carthage
[2011] had alone been exempted from the general proscription; but in
the reign of ninety-five years they were suffered to decay by the
thoughtless and indolent Vandals. A wiser conqueror restored, with
incredible despatch, the walls and ditches of the city. His liberality
encouraged the workmen; the soldiers, the mariners, and the citizens,
vied with each other in the salutary labor; and Gelimer, who had feared
to trust his person in an open town, beheld with astonishment and
despair, the rising strength of an impregnable fortress.

[Footnote 19: The neighborhood of Carthage, the sea, the land, and the
rivers, are changed almost as much as the works of man. The isthmus, or
neck of the city, is now confounded with the continent; the harbor is a
dry plain; and the lake, or stagnum, no more than a morass, with six
or seven feet water in the mid-channel. See D'Anville, (Geographie
Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 82,) Shaw, (Travels, p. 77--84,) Marmol,
(Description de l'Afrique, tom. ii. p. 465,) and Thuanus, (lviii. 12,
tom. iii. p. 334.)]

[Footnote 20: From Delphi, the name of Delphicum was given, both
in Greek and Latin, to a tripod; and by an easy analogy, the same
appellation was extended at Rome, Constantinople, and Carthage, to the
royal banquetting room, (Procopius, Vandal. l. i. c. 21. Ducange, Gloss,
Graec. p. 277., ad Alexiad. p. 412.)]

[Footnote 2011: And a few others. Procopius states in his work De Edi
Sciis. l. vi. vol i. p. 5.--M]

That unfortunate monarch, after the loss of his capital, applied himself
to collect the remains of an army scattered, rather than destroyed, by
the preceding battle; and the hopes of pillage attracted some Moorish
bands to the standard of Gelimer. He encamped in the fields of Bulla,
four days' journey from Carthage; insulted the capital, which he
deprived of the use of an aqueduct; proposed a high reward for the
head of every Roman; affected to spare the persons and property of his
African subjects, and secretly negotiated with the Arian sectaries
and the confederate Huns. Under these circumstances, the conquest of
Sardinia served only to aggravate his distress: he reflected, with the
deepest anguish, that he had wasted, in that useless enterprise, five
thousand of his bravest troops; and he read, with grief and shame, the
victorious letters of his brother Zano, [2012] who expressed a sanguine
confidence that the king, after the example of their ancestors, had
already chastised the rashness of the Roman invader. "Alas! my brother,"
replied Gelimer, "Heaven has declared against our unhappy nation. While
you have subdued Sardinia, we have lost Africa. No sooner did Belisarius
appear with a handful of soldiers, than courage and prosperity deserted
the cause of the Vandals. Your nephew Gibamund, your brother Ammatas,
have been betrayed to death by the cowardice of their followers. Our
horses, our ships, Carthage itself, and all Africa, are in the power of
the enemy. Yet the Vandals still prefer an ignominious repose, at the
expense of their wives and children, their wealth and liberty. Nothing
now remains, except the fields of Bulla, and the hope of your valor.
Abandon Sardinia; fly to our relief; restore our empire, or perish by
our side." On the receipt of this epistle, Zano imparted his grief to
the principal Vandals; but the intelligence was prudently concealed from
the natives of the island. The troops embarked in one hundred and
twenty galleys at the port of Caghari, cast anchor the third day on
the confines of Mauritania, and hastily pursued their march to join the
royal standard in the camp of Bulla. Mournful was the interview: the two
brothers embraced; they wept in silence; no questions were asked of the
Sardinian victory; no inquiries were made of the African misfortunes:
they saw before their eyes the whole extent of their calamities; and
the absence of their wives and children afforded a melancholy proof that
either death or captivity had been their lot. The languid spirit of the
Vandals was at length awakened and united by the entreaties of their
king, the example of Zano, and the instant danger which threatened their
monarchy and religion. The military strength of the nation advanced to
battle; and such was the rapid increase, that before their army reached
Tricameron, about twenty miles from Carthage, they might boast, perhaps
with some exaggeration, that they surpassed, in a tenfold proportion,
the diminutive powers of the Romans. But these powers were under the
command of Belisarius; and, as he was conscious of their superior merit,
he permitted the Barbarians to surprise him at an unseasonable hour.
The Romans were instantly under arms; a rivulet covered their front; the
cavalry formed the first line, which Belisarius supported in the centre,
at the head of five hundred guards; the infantry, at some distance, was
posted in the second line; and the vigilance of the general watched the
separate station and ambiguous faith of the Massagetae, who secretly
reserved their aid for the conquerors. The historian has inserted, and
the reader may easily supply, the speeches [21] of the commanders,
who, by arguments the most apposite to their situation, inculcated the
importance of victory, and the contempt of life. Zano, with the troops
which had followed him to the conquest of Sardinia, was placed in the
centre; and the throne of Genseric might have stood, if the multitude
of Vandals had imitated their intrepid resolution. Casting away their
lances and missile weapons, they drew their swords, and expected the
charge: the Roman cavalry thrice passed the rivulet; they were thrice
repulsed; and the conflict was firmly maintained, till Zano fell, and
the standard of Belisarius was displayed. Gelimer retreated to his camp;
the Huns joined the pursuit; and the victors despoiled the bodies of
the slain. Yet no more than fifty Romans, and eight hundred Vandals were
found on the field of battle; so inconsiderable was the carnage of a
day, which extinguished a nation, and transferred the empire of Africa.
In the evening Belisarius led his infantry to the attack of the camp;
and the pusillanimous flight of Gelimer exposed the vanity of his recent
declarations, that to the vanquished, death was a relief, life a burden,
and infamy the only object of terror. His departure was secret; but as
soon as the Vandals discovered that their king had deserted them, they
hastily dispersed, anxious only for their personal safety, and careless
of every object that is dear or valuable to mankind. The Romans entered
the camp without resistance; and the wildest scenes of disorder were
veiled in the darkness and confusion of the night. Every Barbarian who
met their swords was inhumanly massacred; their widows and daughters,
as rich heirs, or beautiful concubines, were embraced by the licentious
soldiers; and avarice itself was almost satiated with the treasures of
gold and silver, the accumulated fruits of conquest or economy in a long
period of prosperity and peace. In this frantic search, the troops, even
of Belisarius, forgot their caution and respect. Intoxicated with lust
and rapine, they explored, in small parties, or alone, the adjacent
fields, the woods, the rocks, and the caverns, that might possibly
conceal any desirable prize: laden with booty, they deserted their
ranks, and wandered without a guide, on the high road to Carthage; and
if the flying enemies had dared to return, very few of the conquerors
would have escaped. Deeply sensible of the disgrace and danger,
Belisarius passed an apprehensive night on the field of victory: at the
dawn of day, he planted his standard on a hill, recalled his guardians
and veterans, and gradually restored the modesty and obedience of the
camp. It was equally the concern of the Roman general to subdue the
hostile, and to save the prostrate, Barbarian; and the suppliant
Vandals, who could be found only in churches, were protected by his
authority, disarmed, and separately confined, that they might neither
disturb the public peace, nor become the victims of popular revenge.
After despatching a light detachment to tread the footsteps of Gelimer,
he advanced, with his whole army, about ten days' march, as far as Hippo
Regius, which no longer possessed the relics of St. Augustin. [22] The
season, and the certain intelligence that the Vandal had fled to an
inaccessible country of the Moors, determined Belisarius to relinquish
the vain pursuit, and to fix his winter quarters at Carthage. From
thence he despatched his principal lieutenant, to inform the emperor,
that in the space of three months he had achieved the conquest of
Africa.

[Footnote 2012: Gibbon had forgotten that the bearer of the "victorious
letters of his brother" had sailed into the port of Carthage; and that
the letters had fallen into the hands of the Romans. Proc. Vandal. l. i.
c. 23.--M.]

[Footnote 21: These orations always express the sense of the times, and
sometimes of the actors. I have condensed that sense, and thrown away
declamation.]

[Footnote 22: The relics of St. Augustin were carried by the African
bishops to their Sardinian exile, (A.D. 500;) and it was believed, in
the viiith century, that Liutprand, king of the Lombards, transported
them (A.D. 721) from Sardinia to Pavia. In the year 1695, the Augustan
friars of that city found a brick arch, marble coffin, silver case, silk
wrapper, bones, blood, &c., and perhaps an inscription of Agostino in
Gothic letters. But this useful discovery has been disputed by reason
and jealousy, (Baronius, Annal. A.D. 725, No. 2-9. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 944. Montfaucon, Diarium Ital. p. 26-30. Muratori,
Antiq. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lviii. p. 9, who had composed
a separate treatise before the decree of the bishop of Pavia, and Pope
Benedict XIII.)]

Belisarius spoke the language of truth. The surviving Vandals yielded,
without resistance, their arms and their freedom; the neighborhood of
Carthage submitted to his presence; and the more distant provinces were
successively subdued by the report of his victory. Tripoli was confirmed
in her voluntary allegiance; Sardinia and Corsica surrendered to an
officer, who carried, instead of a sword, the head of the valiant Zano;
and the Isles of Majorca, Minorca, and Yvica consented to remain an
humble appendage of the African kingdom. Caesarea, a royal city, which
in looser geography may be confounded with the modern Algiers, was
situate thirty days' march to the westward of Carthage: by land, the
road was infested by the Moors; but the sea was open, and the Romans
were now masters of the sea. An active and discreet tribune sailed as
far as the Straits, where he occupied Septem or Ceuta, [23] which
rises opposite to Gibraltar on the African coast; that remote place
was afterwards adorned and fortified by Justinian; and he seems to have
indulged the vain ambition of extending his empire to the columns of
Hercules. He received the messengers of victory at the time when he was
preparing to publish the Pandects of the Roman laws; and the devout
or jealous emperor celebrated the divine goodness, and confessed, in
silence, the merit of his successful general. [24] Impatient to abolish
the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the Vandals, he proceeded,
without delay, to the full establishment of the Catholic church. Her
jurisdiction, wealth, and immunites, perhaps the most essential part of
episcopal religion, were restored and amplified with a liberal hand;
the Arian worship was suppressed; the Donatist meetings were proscribed;
[25] and the synod of Carthage, by the voice of two hundred and
seventeen bishops, [26] applauded the just measure of pious retaliation.
On such an occasion, it may not be presumed, that many orthodox prelates
were absent; but the comparative smallness of their number, which in
ancient councils had been twice or even thrice multiplied, most clearly
indicates the decay both of the church and state. While Justinian
approved himself the defender of the faith, he entertained an ambitious
hope, that his victorious lieutenant would speedily enlarge the narrow
limits of his dominion to the space which they occupied before the
invasion of the Moors and Vandals; and Belisarius was instructed
to establish five dukes or commanders in the convenient stations of
Tripoli, Leptis, Cirta, Caesarea, and Sardinia, and to compute the
military force of palatines or borderers that might be sufficient for
the defence of Africa. The kingdom of the Vandals was not unworthy
of the presence of a Praetorian praefect; and four consulars, three
presidents, were appointed to administer the seven provinces under his
civil jurisdiction. The number of their subordinate officers, clerks,
messengers, or assistants, was minutely expressed; three hundred and
ninety-six for the praefect himself, fifty for each of his vicegerents;
and the rigid definition of their fees and salaries was more effectual
to confirm the right than to prevent the abuse. These magistrates might
be oppressive, but they were not idle; and the subtile questions of
justice and revenue were infinitely propagated under the new government,
which professed to revive the freedom and equity of the Roman republic.
The conqueror was solicitous to extract a prompt and plentiful supply
from his African subjects; and he allowed them to claim, even in the
third degree, and from the collateral line, the houses and lands of
which their families had been unjustly despoiled by the Vandals. After
the departure of Belisarius, who acted by a high and special commission,
no ordinary provision was made for a master-general of the forces; but
the office of Praetorian praefect was intrusted to a soldier; the civil
and military powers were united, according to the practice of Justinian,
in the chief governor; and the representative of the emperor in Africa,
as well as in Italy, was soon distinguished by the appellation of
Exarch. [27]

[Footnote 23: The expression of Procopius (de Edific. l. vi. c. 7.)
Ceuta, which has been defaced by the Portuguese, flourished in nobles
and palaces, in agriculture and manufactures, under the more prosperous
reign of the Arabs, (l'Afrique de Marmai, tom. ii. p. 236.)]

[Footnote 24: See the second and third preambles to the Digest, or
Pandects, promulgated A.D. 533, December 16. To the titles of Vandalicus
and Africanus, Justinian, or rather Belisarius, had acquired a just
claim; Gothicus was premature, and Francicus false, and offensive to a
great nation.]

[Footnote 25: See the original acts in Baronius, (A.D. 535, No. 21--54.)
The emperor applauds his own clemency to the heretics, cum sufficiat eis
vivere.]

[Footnote 26: Dupin (Geograph. Sacra Africana, p. lix. ad Optat. Milav.)
observes and bewails this episcopal decay. In the more prosperous age of
the church, he had noticed 690 bishoprics; but however minute were the
dioceses, it is not probable that they all existed at the same time.]

[Footnote 27: The African laws of Justinian are illustrated by his
German biographer, (Cod. l. i. tit. 27. Novell. 36, 37, 131. Vit.
Justinian, p. 349--377.)]

Yet the conquest of Africa was imperfect till her former sovereign was
delivered, either alive or dead, into the hands of the Romans. Doubtful
of the event, Gelimer had given secret orders that a part of his
treasure should be transported to Spain, where he hoped to find a secure
refuge at the court of the king of the Visigoths. But these intentions
were disappointed by accident, treachery, and the indefatigable pursuit
of his enemies, who intercepted his flight from the sea-shore, and
chased the unfortunate monarch, with some faithful followers, to the
inaccessible mountain of Papua, [28] in the inland country of Numidia.
He was immediately besieged by Pharas, an officer whose truth and
sobriety were the more applauded, as such qualities could seldom be
found among the Heruli, the most corrupt of the Barbarian tribes. To his
vigilance Belisarius had intrusted this important charge and, after a
bold attempt to scale the mountain, in which he lost a hundred and
ten soldiers, Pharas expected, during a winter siege, the operation of
distress and famine on the mind of the Vandal king. From the softest
habits of pleasure, from the unbounded command of industry and wealth,
he was reduced to share the poverty of the Moors, [29] supportable only
to themselves by their ignorance of a happier condition. In their rude
hovels, of mud and hurdles, which confined the smoke and excluded the
light, they promiscuously slept on the ground, perhaps on a sheep-skin,
with their wives, their children, and their cattle. Sordid and scanty
were their garments; the use of bread and wine was unknown; and their
oaten or barley cakes, imperfectly baked in the ashes, were devoured
almost in a crude state, by the hungry savages. The health of Gelimer
must have sunk under these strange and unwonted hardships, from
whatsoever cause they had been endured; but his actual misery was
imbittered by the recollection of past greatness, the daily insolence
of his protectors, and the just apprehension, that the light and
venal Moors might be tempted to betray the rights of hospitality. The
knowledge of his situation dictated the humane and friendly epistle
of Pharas. "Like yourself," said the chief of the Heruli, "I am an
illiterate Barbarian, but I speak the language of plain sense and an
honest heart. Why will you persist in hopeless obstinacy? Why will
you ruin yourself, your family, and nation? The love of freedom and
abhorrence of slavery? Alas! my dearest Gelimer, are you not already the
worst of slaves, the slave of the vile nation of the Moors? Would it
not be preferable to sustain at Constantinople a life of poverty and
servitude, rather than to reign the undoubted monarch of the mountain
of Papua? Do you think it a disgrace to be the subject of Justinian?
Belisarius is his subject; and we ourselves, whose birth is not inferior
to your own, are not ashamed of our obedience to the Roman emperor. That
generous prince will grant you a rich inheritance of lands, a place
in the senate, and the dignity of patrician: such are his gracious
intentions, and you may depend with full assurance on the word of
Belisarius. So long as Heaven has condemned us to suffer, patience is a
virtue; but if we reject the proffered deliverance, it degenerates into
blind and stupid despair." "I am not insensible" replied the king of the
Vandals, "how kind and rational is your advice. But I cannot persuade
myself to become the slave of an unjust enemy, who has deserved my
implacable hatred. Him I had never injured either by word or deed: yet
he has sent against me, I know not from whence, a certain Belisarius,
who has cast me headlong from the throne into his abyss of misery.
Justinian is a man; he is a prince; does he not dread for himself a
similar reverse of fortune? I can write no more: my grief oppresses me.
Send me, I beseech you, my dear Pharas, send me, a lyre, [30] a sponge,
and a loaf of bread." From the Vandal messenger, Pharas was informed
of the motives of this singular request. It was long since the king of
Africa had tasted bread; a defluxion had fallen on his eyes, the effect
of fatigue or incessant weeping; and he wished to solace the melancholy
hours, by singing to the lyre the sad story of his own misfortunes. The
humanity of Pharas was moved; he sent the three extraordinary gifts; but
even his humanity prompted him to redouble the vigilance of his guard,
that he might sooner compel his prisoner to embrace a resolution
advantageous to the Romans, but salutary to himself. The obstinacy of
Gelimer at length yielded to reason and necessity; the solemn assurances
of safety and honorable treatment were ratified in the emperor's name,
by the ambassador of Belisarius; and the king of the Vandals descended
from the mountain. The first public interview was in one of the suburbs
of Carthage; and when the royal captive accosted his conqueror, he burst
into a fit of laughter. The crowd might naturally believe, that extreme
grief had deprived Gelimer of his senses: but in this mournful state,
unseasonable mirth insinuated to more intelligent observers, that the
vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious
thought. [31]

[Footnote 28: Mount Papua is placed by D'Anville (tom. iii. p. 92, and
Tabul. Imp. Rom. Occident.) near Hippo Regius and the sea; yet this
situation ill agrees with the long pursuit beyond Hippo, and the words
of Procopius, (l. ii.c.4,). * Note: Compare Lord Mahon, 120. conceive
Gibbon to be right--M.]

[Footnote 29: Shaw (Travels, p. 220) most accurately represents the
manners of the Bedoweens and Kabyles, the last of whom, by their
language, are the remnant of the Moors; yet how changed--how civilized
are these modern savages!--provisions are plenty among them and bread is
common.]

[Footnote 30: By Procopius it is styled a lyre; perhaps harp would have
been more national. The instruments of music are thus distinguished by
Venantius Fortunatus:-- Romanusque lyra tibi plaudat, Barbarus harpa.]

[Footnote 31: Herodotus elegantly describes the strange effects of grief
in another royal captive, Psammetichus of Egypt, who wept at the lesser
and was silent at the greatest of his calamities, (l. iii. c. 14.) In
the interview of Paulus Aemilius and Perses, Belisarius might study his
part; but it is probable that he never read either Livy or Plutarch; and
it is certain that his generosity did not need a tutor.]

Their contempt was soon justified by a new example of a vulgar truth;
that flattery adheres to power, and envy to superior merit. The chiefs
of the Roman army presumed to think themselves the rivals of a hero.
Their private despatches maliciously affirmed, that the conqueror of
Africa, strong in his reputation and the public love, conspired to
seat himself on the throne of the Vandals. Justinian listened with too
patient an ear; and his silence was the result of jealousy rather than
of confidence. An honorable alternative, of remaining in the province,
or of returning to the capital, was indeed submitted to the discretion
of Belisarius; but he wisely concluded, from intercepted letters and
the knowledge of his sovereign's temper, that he must either resign his
head, erect his standard, or confound his enemies by his presence
and submission. Innocence and courage decided his choice; his guards,
captives, and treasures, were diligently embarked; and so prosperous was
the navigation, that his arrival at Constantinople preceded any certain
account of his departure from the port of Carthage. Such unsuspecting
loyalty removed the apprehensions of Justinian; envy was silenced and
inflamed by the public gratitude; and the third Africanus obtained the
honors of a triumph, a ceremony which the city of Constantine had never
seen, and which ancient Rome, since the reign of Tiberius, had reserved
for the auspicious arms of the Caesars. [32] From the palace of
Belisarius, the procession was conducted through the principal streets
to the hippodrome; and this memorable day seemed to avenge the injuries
of Genseric, and to expiate the shame of the Romans. The wealth of
nations was displayed, the trophies of martial or effeminate luxury;
rich armor, golden thrones, and the chariots of state which had been
used by the Vandal queen; the massy furniture of the royal banquet, the
splendor of precious stones, the elegant forms of statues and vases, the
more substantial treasure of gold, and the holy vessels of the Jewish
temple, which after their long peregrination were respectfully deposited
in the Christian church of Jerusalem. A long train of the noblest
Vandals reluctantly exposed their lofty stature and manly countenance.
Gelimer slowly advanced: he was clad in a purple robe, and still
maintained the majesty of a king. Not a tear escaped from his eyes, not
a sigh was heard; but his pride or piety derived some secret consolation
from the words of Solomon, [33] which he repeatedly pronounced, Vanity!
vanity! all is vanity! Instead of ascending a triumphal car drawn by
four horses or elephants, the modest conqueror marched on foot at the
head of his brave companions; his prudence might decline an honor too
conspicuous for a subject; and his magnanimity might justly disdain
what had been so often sullied by the vilest of tyrants. The glorious
procession entered the gate of the hippodrome; was saluted by the
acclamations of the senate and people; and halted before the throne
where Justinian and Theodora were seated to receive homage of the
captive monarch and the victorious hero. They both performed the
customary adoration; and falling prostrate on the ground, respectfully
touched the footstool of a prince who had not unsheathed his sword, and
of a prostitute who had danced on the theatre; some gentle violence
was used to bend the stubborn spirit of the grandson of Genseric;
and however trained to servitude, the genius of Belisarius must have
secretly rebelled. He was immediately declared consul for the ensuing
year, and the day of his inauguration resembled the pomp of a second
triumph: his curule chair was borne aloft on the shoulders of captive
Vandals; and the spoils of war, gold cups, and rich girdles, were
profusely scattered among the populace. [Footnote 32: After the title of
imperator had lost the old military sense, and the Roman auspices were
abolished by Christianity, (see La Bleterie, Mem. de l'Academie, tom.
xxi. p. 302--332,) a triumph might be given with less inconsistency to a
private general.]

[Footnote 33: If the Ecclesiastes be truly a work of Solomon, and not,
like Prior's poem, a pious and moral composition of more recent times,
in his name, and on the subject of his repentance. The latter is the
opinion of the learned and free-spirited Grotius, (Opp. Theolog. tom.
i. p. 258;) and indeed the Ecclesiastes and Proverbs display a larger
compass of thought and experience than seem to belong either to a Jew or
a king. * Note: Rosenmuller, arguing from the difference of style from
that of the greater part of the book of Proverbs, and from its nearer
approximation to the Aramaic dialect than any book of the Old Testament,
assigns the Ecclesiastes to some period between Nehemiah and Alexander
the Great Schol. in Vet. Test. ix. Proemium ad Eccles. p. 19.--M.]




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

Although Theodatus descended from a race of heroes, he was ignorant of
the art, and averse to the dangers, of war. Although he had studied the
writings of Plato and Tully, philosophy was incapable of purifying his
mind from the basest passions, avarice and fear. He had purchased a
sceptre by ingratitude and murder: at the first menace of an enemy, he
degraded his own majesty and that of a nation, which already disdained
their unworthy sovereign. Astonished by the recent example of Gelimer,
he saw himself dragged in chains through the streets of Constantinople:
the terrors which Belisarius inspired were heightened by the eloquence
of Peter, the Byzantine ambassador; and that bold and subtle advocate
persuaded him to sign a treaty, too ignominious to become the foundation
of a lasting peace. It was stipulated, that in the acclamations of the
Roman people, the name of the emperor should be always proclaimed before
that of the Gothic king; and that as often as the statue of Theodatus
was erected in brass on marble, the divine image of Justinian should be
placed on its right hand. Instead of conferring, the king of Italy was
reduced to solicit, the honors of the senate; and the consent of the
emperor was made indispensable before he could execute, against a priest
or senator, the sentence either of death or confiscation. The feeble
monarch resigned the possession of Sicily; offered, as the annual
mark of his dependence, a crown of gold of the weight of three hundred
pounds; and promised to supply, at the requisition of his sovereign,
three thousand Gothic auxiliaries, for the service of the empire.
Satisfied with these extraordinary concessions, the successful agent of
Justinian hastened his journey to Constantinople; but no sooner had he
reached the Alban villa, [60] than he was recalled by the anxiety
of Theodatus; and the dialogue which passed between the king and the
ambassador deserves to be represented in its original simplicity. "Are
you of opinion that the emperor will ratify this treaty? Perhaps. If he
refuses, what consequence will ensue? War. Will such a war, be just
or reasonable? Most assuredly: every to his character. What is your
meaning? You are a philosopher--Justinian is emperor of the Romans: it
would all become the disciple of Plato to shed the blood of thousands
in his private quarrel: the successor of Augustus should vindicate his
rights, and recover by arms the ancient provinces of his empire." This
reasoning might not convince, but it was sufficient to alarm and subdue
the weakness of Theodatus; and he soon descended to his last offer,
that for the poor equivalent of a pension of forty-eight thousand pounds
sterling, he would resign the kingdom of the Goths and Italians, and
spend the remainder of his days in the innocent pleasures of philosophy
and agriculture.

Both treaties were intrusted to the hands of the ambassador, on the
frail security of an oath not to produce the second till the first had
been positively rejected. The event may be easily foreseen: Justinian
required and accepted the abdication of the Gothic king. His
indefatigable agent returned from Constantinople to Ravenna, with
ample instructions; and a fair epistle, which praised the wisdom and
generosity of the royal philosopher, granted his pension, with the
assurance of such honors as a subject and a Catholic might enjoy; and
wisely referred the final execution of the treaty to the presence and
authority of Belisarius. But in the interval of suspense, two Roman
generals, who had entered the province of Dalmatia, were defeated and
slain by the Gothic troops. From blind and abject despair, Theodatus
capriciously rose to groundless and fatal presumption, [61] and dared
to receive, with menace and contempt, the ambassador of Justinian;
who claimed his promise, solicited the allegiance of his subjects, and
boldly asserted the inviolable privilege of his own character. The march
of Belisarius dispelled this visionary pride; and as the first campaign
[62] was employed in the reduction of Sicily, the invasion of Italy is
applied by Procopius to the second year of the Gothic war. [63]

[Footnote 60: The ancient Alba was ruined in the first age of Rome. On
the same spot, or at least in the neighborhood, successively arose. 1.
The villa of Pompey, &c.; 2. A camp of the Praetorian cohorts; 3. The
modern episcopal city of Albanum or Albano. (Procop. Goth. l. ii. c. 4
Oluver. Ital. Antiq tom. ii. p. 914.)]

[Footnote 61: A Sibylline oracle was ready to pronounce--Africa capta
munitus cum nato peribit; a sentence of portentous ambiguity, (Gothic.
l. i. c. 7,) which has been published in unknown characters by
Opsopaeus, an editor of the oracles. The Pere Maltret has promised a
commentary; but all his promises have been vain and fruitless.]

[Footnote 62: In his chronology, imitated, in some degree, from
Thucydides, Procopius begins each spring the years of Justinian and of
the Gothic war; and his first aera coincides with the first of April,
535, and not 536, according to the Annals of Baronius, (Pagi, Crit. tom.
ii. p. 555, who is followed by Muratori and the editors of Sigonius.)
Yet, in some passages, we are at a loss to reconcile the dates of
Procopius with himself, and with the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]

[Footnote 63: The series of the first Gothic war is represented by
Procopius (l. i. c. 5--29, l. ii. c. l--30, l. iii. c. l) till the
captivity of Vitigas. With the aid of Sigonius (Opp. tom. i. de Imp.
Occident. l. xvii. xviii.) and Muratori, (Annali d'Itaia, tom. v.,) I
have gleaned some few additional facts.]

After Belisarius had left sufficient garrisons in Palermo and Syracuse,
he embarked his troops at Messina, and landed them, without resistance,
on the opposite shores of Rhegium. A Gothic prince, who had married the
daughter of Theodatus, was stationed with an army to guard the entrance
of Italy; but he imitated, without scruple, the example of a sovereign
faithless to his public and private duties. The perfidious Ebermor
deserted with his followers to the Roman camp, and was dismissed to
enjoy the servile honors of the Byzantine court. [64] From Rhegium to
Naples, the fleet and army of Belisarius, almost always in view of each
other, advanced near three hundred miles along the sea-coast. The people
of Bruttium, Lucania, and Campania, who abhorred the name and religion
of the Goths, embraced the specious excuse, that their ruined walls
were incapable of defence: the soldiers paid a just equivalent for
a plentiful market; and curiosity alone interrupted the peaceful
occupations of the husbandman or artificer. Naples, which has swelled to
a great and populous capital, long cherished the language and manners
of a Grecian colony; [65] and the choice of Virgil had ennobled this
elegant retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study, elegant
retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study, from the noise,
the smoke, and the laborious opulence of Rome. [66] As soon as the place
was invested by sea and land, Belisarius gave audience to the deputies
of the people, who exhorted him to disregard a conquest unworthy of
his arms, to seek the Gothic king in a field of battle, and, after
his victory, to claim, as the sovereign of Rome, the allegiance of the
dependent cities. "When I treat with my enemies," replied the Roman
chief, with a haughty smile, "I am more accustomed to give than to
receive counsel; but I hold in one hand inevitable ruin, and in the
other peace and freedom, such as Sicily now enjoys." The impatience of
delay urged him to grant the most liberal terms; his honor secured their
performance: but Naples was divided into two factions; and the Greek
democracy was inflamed by their orators, who, with much spirit and some
truth, represented to the multitude that the Goths would punish their
defection, and that Belisarius himself must esteem their loyalty and
valor. Their deliberations, however, were not perfectly free: the city
was commanded by eight hundred Barbarians, whose wives and children were
detained at Ravenna as the pledge of their fidelity; and even the Jews,
who were rich and numerous, resisted, with desperate enthusiasm, the
intolerant laws of Justinian. In a much later period, the circumference
of Naples [67] measured only two thousand three hundred and sixty three
paces: [68] the fortifications were defended by precipices or the sea;
when the aqueducts were intercepted, a supply of water might be drawn
from wells and fountains; and the stock of provisions was sufficient to
consume the patience of the besiegers. At the end of twenty days, that
of Belisarius was almost exhausted, and he had reconciled himself to the
disgrace of abandoning the siege, that he might march, before the winter
season, against Rome and the Gothic king. But his anxiety was relieved
by the bold curiosity of an Isaurian, who explored the dry channel of an
aqueduct, and secretly reported, that a passage might be perforated to
introduce a file of armed soldiers into the heart of the city. When the
work had been silently executed, the humane general risked the discovery
of his secret by a last and fruitless admonition of the impending
danger. In the darkness of the night, four hundred Romans entered
the aqueduct, raised themselves by a rope, which they fastened to an
olive-tree, into the house or garden of a solitary matron, sounded
their trumpets, surprised the sentinels, and gave admittance to their
companions, who on all sides scaled the walls, and burst open the
gates of the city. Every crime which is punished by social justice was
practised as the rights of war; the Huns were distinguished by cruelty
and sacrilege, and Belisarius alone appeared in the streets and churches
of Naples to moderate the calamities which he predicted. "The gold and
silver," he repeatedly exclaimed, "are the just rewards of your valor.
But spare the inhabitants; they are Christians, they are suppliants,
they are now your fellow-subjects. Restore the children to their
parents, the wives to their husbands; and show them by you, generosity
of what friends they have obstinately deprived themselves." The city was
saved by the virtue and authority of its conqueror; [69] and when the
Neapolitans returned to their houses, they found some consolation in
the secret enjoyment of their hidden treasures. The Barbarian garrison
enlisted in the service of the emperor; Apulia and Calabria, delivered
from the odious presence of the Goths, acknowledged his dominion; and
the tusks of the Calydonian boar, which were still shown at Beneventum,
are curiously described by the historian of Belisarius. [70]

[Footnote 64: Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 60, p. 702, edit. Grot.,
and tom. i. p. 221. Muratori, de Success, Regn. p. 241.]

[Footnote 65: Nero (says Tacitus, Annal. xv. 35) Neapolim quasi Graecam
urbem delegit. One hundred and fifty years afterwards, in the time
of Septimius Severus, the Hellenism of the Neapolitans is praised by
Philostratus. (Icon. l. i. p. 763, edit. Olear.)]

[Footnote 66: The otium of Naples is praised by the Roman poets, by
Virgil, Horace, Silius Italicus, and Statius, (Cluver. Ital. Ant. l.
iv. p. 1149, 1150.) In an elegant epistles, (Sylv. l. iii. 5, p. 94--98,
edit. Markland,) Statius undertakes the difficult task of drawing his
wife from the pleasures of Rome to that calm retreat.]

[Footnote 67: This measure was taken by Roger l., after the conquest
of Naples, (A.D. 1139,) which he made the capital of his new kingdom,
(Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. p. 169.) That city, the third in
Christian Europe, is now at least twelve miles in circumference,
(Jul. Caesar. Capaccii Hist. Neapol. l. i. p. 47,) and contains more
inhabitants (350,000) in a given space, than any other spot in the known
world.]

[Footnote 68: Not geometrical, but common, paces or steps, of 22 French
inches, (D' Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 7, 8.) The 2363 do not take
an English mile.]

[Footnote 69: Belisarius was reproved by Pope Silverius for the
massacre. He repeopled Naples, and imported colonies of African captives
into Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia, (Hist. Miscell. l. xvi. in Muratori,
tom. i. p. 106, 107.)]

[Footnote 70: Beneventum was built by Diomede, the nephew of Meleager
(Cluver. tom. ii. p. 1195, 1196.) The Calydonian hunt is a picture of
savage life, (Ovid, Metamorph. l. viii.) Thirty or forty heroes were
leagued against a hog: the brutes (not the hog) quarrelled with lady for
the head.]

The faithful soldiers and citizens of Naples had expected their
deliverance from a prince, who remained the inactive and almost
indifferent spectator of their ruin. Theodatus secured his person within
the walls of Rome, whilst his cavalry advanced forty miles on the Appian
way, and encamped in the Pomptine marshes; which, by a canal of nineteen
miles in length, had been recently drained and converted into excellent
pastures. [71] But the principal forces of the Goths were dispersed
in Dalmatia, Venetia, and Gaul; and the feeble mind of their king was
confounded by the unsuccessful event of a divination, which seemed to
presage the downfall of his empire. [72] The most abject slaves have
arraigned the guilt or weakness of an unfortunate master. The character
of Theodatus was rigorously scrutinized by a free and idle camp of
Barbarians, conscious of their privilege and power: he was declared
unworthy of his race, his nation, and his throne; and their general
Vitiges, whose valor had been signalized in the Illyrian war, was raised
with unanimous applause on the bucklers of his companions. On the first
rumor, the abdicated monarch fled from the justice of his country; but
he was pursued by private revenge. A Goth, whom he had injured in his
love, overtook Theodatus on the Flaminian way, and, regardless of his
unmanly cries, slaughtered him, as he lay, prostrate on the ground, like
a victim (says the historian) at the foot of the altar. The choice of
the people is the best and purest title to reign over them; yet such is
the prejudice of every age, that Vitiges impatiently wished to return to
Ravenna, where he might seize, with the reluctant hand of the daughter
of Amalasontha, some faint shadow of hereditary right. A national
council was immediately held, and the new monarch reconciled the
impatient spirit of the Barbarians to a measure of disgrace, which the
misconduct of his predecessor rendered wise and indispensable. The Goths
consented to retreat in the presence of a victorious enemy; to delay
till the next spring the operations of offensive war; to summon their
scattered forces; to relinquish their distant possessions, and to trust
even Rome itself to the faith of its inhabitants. Leuderis, an ancient
warrior, was left in the capital with four thousand soldiers; a feeble
garrison, which might have seconded the zeal, though it was incapable
of opposing the wishes, of the Romans. But a momentary enthusiasm of
religion and patriotism was kindled in their minds. They furiously
exclaimed, that the apostolic throne should no longer be profaned by the
triumph or toleration of Arianism; that the tombs of the Caesars
should no longer be trampled by the savages of the North; and, without
reflecting, that Italy must sink into a province of Constantinople,
they fondly hailed the restoration of a Roman emperor as a new aera
of freedom and prosperity. The deputies of the pope and clergy, of the
senate and people, invited the lieutenant of Justinian to accept their
voluntary allegiance, and to enter the city, whose gates would be thrown
open for his reception. As soon as Belisarius had fortified his new
conquests, Naples and Cumae, he advanced about twenty miles to the banks
of the Vulturnus, contemplated the decayed grandeur of Capua, and halted
at the separation of the Latin and Appian ways. The work of the censor,
after the incessant use of nine centuries, still preserved its primaeval
beauty, and not a flaw could be discovered in the large polished stones,
of which that solid, though narrow road, was so firmly compacted. [73]
Belisarius, however, preferred the Latin way, which, at a distance from
the sea and the marshes, skirted in a space of one hundred and twenty
miles along the foot of the mountains. His enemies had disappeared: when
he made his entrance through the Asinarian gate, the garrison departed
without molestation along the Flaminian way; and the city, after
sixty years' servitude, was delivered from the yoke of the Barbarians.
Leuderis alone, from a motive of pride or discontent, refused to
accompany the fugitives; and the Gothic chief, himself a trophy of the
victory, was sent with the keys of Rome to the throne of the emperor
Justinian. [74]

[Footnote 71: The Decennovium is strangely confounded by Cluverius (tom.
ii. p. 1007) with the River Ufens. It was in truth a canal of nineteen
miles, from Forum Appii to Terracina, on which Horace embarked in the
night. The Decennovium, which is mentioned by Lucan, Dion Cassius, and
Cassiodorus, has been sufficiently ruined, restored, and obliterated,
(D'Anville, Anayse de l'Italie, p. 185, &c.)]

[Footnote 72: A Jew, gratified his contempt and hatred for all
the Christians, by enclosing three bands, each of ten hogs, and
discriminated by the names of Goths, Greeks, and Romans. Of the first,
almost all were found dead; almost all the second were alive: of the
third, half died, and the rest lost their bristles. No unsuitable emblem
of the event]

[Footnote 73: Bergier (Hist. des Grands Chemins des Romains, tom. i. p.
221-228, 440-444) examines the structure and materials, while D'Anville
(Analyse d'Italie, p. 200--123) defines the geographical line.]

[Footnote 74: Of the first recovery of Rome, the year (536) is
certain, from the series of events, rather than from the corrupt, or
interpolated, text of Procopius. The month (December) is ascertained by
Evagrius, (l. iv. v. 19;) and the day (the tenth) may be admitted on
the slight evidence of Nicephorus Callistus, (l. xvii. c. 13.) For this
accurate chronology, we are indebted to the diligence and judgment
of Pagi, (tom, ii. p. 659, 560.) Note: Compare Maltret's note, in the
edition of Dindorf the ninth is the day, according to his reading,--M.]

The first days, which coincided with the old Saturnalia, were devoted to
mutual congratulation and the public joy; and the Catholics prepared to
celebrate, without a rival, the approaching festival of the nativity of
Christ. In the familiar conversation of a hero, the Romans acquired some
notion of the virtues which history ascribed to their ancestors; they
were edified by the apparent respect of Belisarius for the successor
of St. Peter, and his rigid discipline secured in the midst of war the
blessings of tranquillity and justice. They applauded the rapid success
of his arms, which overran the adjacent country, as far as Narni,
Perusia, and Spoleto; but they trembled, the senate, the clergy, and the
unwarlike people, as soon as they understood that he had resolved, and
would speedily be reduced, to sustain a siege against the powers of the
Gothic monarchy. The designs of Vitiges were executed, during the winter
season, with diligence and effect. From their rustic habitations, from
their distant garrisons, the Goths assembled at Ravenna for the defence
of their country; and such were their numbers, that, after an army had
been detached for the relief of Dalmatia, one hundred and fifty thousand
fighting men marched under the royal standard. According to the degrees
of rank or merit, the Gothic king distributed arms and horses, rich
gifts, and liberal promises; he moved along the Flaminian way, declined
the useless sieges of Perusia and Spoleto, respected he impregnable
rock of Narni, and arrived within two miles of Rome at the foot of
the Milvian bridge. The narrow passage was fortified with a tower, and
Belisarius had computed the value of the twenty days which must be lost
in the construction of another bridge. But the consternation of the
soldiers of the tower, who either fled or deserted, disappointed his
hopes, and betrayed his person into the most imminent danger. At the
head of one thousand horse, the Roman general sallied from the Flaminian
gate to mark the ground of an advantageous position, and to survey the
camp of the Barbarians; but while he still believed them on the other
side of the Tyber, he was suddenly encompassed and assaulted by their
numerous squadrons. The fate of Italy depended on his life; and the
deserters pointed to the conspicuous horse a bay, [75] with a white
face, which he rode on that memorable day. "Aim at the bay horse,"
was the universal cry. Every bow was bent, every javelin was directed,
against that fatal object, and the command was repeated and obeyed by
thousands who were ignorant of its real motive. The bolder Barbarians
advanced to the more honorable combat of swords and spears; and the
praise of an enemy has graced the fall of Visandus, the standard-bearer,
[76] who maintained his foremost station, till he was pierced with
thirteen wounds, perhaps by the hand of Belisarius himself. The Roman
general was strong, active, and dexterous; on every side he discharged
his weighty and mortal strokes: his faithful guards imitated his valor,
and defended his person; and the Goths, after the loss of a thousand
men, fled before the arms of a hero. They were rashly pursued to their
camp; and the Romans, oppressed by multitudes, made a gradual, and at
length a precipitate retreat to the gates of the city: the gates were
shut against the fugitives; and the public terror was increased, by the
report that Belisarius was slain. His countenance was indeed disfigured
by sweat, dust, and blood; his voice was hoarse, his strength was almost
exhausted; but his unconquerable spirit still remained; he imparted that
spirit to his desponding companions; and their last desperate charge was
felt by the flying Barbarians, as if a new army, vigorous and entire,
had been poured from the city. The Flaminian gate was thrown open to a
real triumph; but it was not before Belisarius had visited every post,
and provided for the public safety, that he could be persuaded, by his
wife and friends, to taste the needful refreshments of food and sleep.
In the more improved state of the art of war, a general is seldom
required, or even permitted to display the personal prowess of a
soldier; and the example of Belisarius may be added to the rare examples
of Henry IV., of Pyrrhus, and of Alexander.

[Footnote 75: A horse of a bay or red color was styled by the Greeks,
balan by the Barbarians, and spadix by the Romans. Honesti spadices,
says Virgil, (Georgic. l. iii. 72, with the Observations of Martin and
Heyne.) It signifies a branch of the palm-tree, whose name is synonymous
to red, (Aulus Gellius, ii. 26.)]

[Footnote 76: I interpret it, not as a proper, name, but an office,
standard-bearer, from bandum, (vexillum,) a Barbaric word adopted by
the Greeks and Romans, (Paul Diacon. l. i. c. 20, p. 760. Grot. Nomina
Hethica, p. 575. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. i. p. 539, 540.)]

After this first and unsuccessful trial of their enemies, the whole army
of the Goths passed the Tyber, and formed the siege of the city, which
continued above a year, till their final departure. Whatever fancy may
conceive, the severe compass of the geographer defines the circumference
of Rome within a line of twelve miles and three hundred and forty-five
paces; and that circumference, except in the Vatican, has invariably
been the same from the triumph of Aurelian to the peaceful but obscure
reign of the modern popes. [77] But in the day of her greatness, the
space within her walls was crowded with habitations and inhabitants; and
the populous suburbs, that stretched along the public roads, were darted
like so many rays from one common centre. Adversity swept away these
extraneous ornaments, and left naked and desolate a considerable part
even of the seven hills. Yet Rome in its present state could send into
the field about thirty thousand males of a military age; [78] and,
notwithstanding the want of discipline and exercise, the far greater
part, inured to the hardships of poverty, might be capable of bearing
arms for the defence of their country and religion. The prudence of
Belisarius did not neglect this important resource. His soldiers were
relieved by the zeal and diligence of the people, who watched while they
slept, and labored while they reposed: he accepted the voluntary service
of the bravest and most indigent of the Roman youth; and the companies
of townsmen sometimes represented, in a vacant post, the presence of the
troops which had been drawn away to more essential duties. But his just
confidence was placed in the veterans who had fought under his banner in
the Persian and African wars; and although that gallant band was reduced
to five thousand men, he undertook, with such contemptible numbers,
to defend a circle of twelve miles, against an army of one hundred
and fifty thousand Barbarians. In the walls of Rome, which Belisarius
constructed or restored, the materials of ancient architecture may be
discerned; [79] and the whole fortification was completed, except in a
chasm still extant between the Pincian and Flaminian gates, which the
prejudices of the Goths and Romans left under the effectual guard of St.
Peter the apostle. [80]

[Footnote 77: M. D'Anville has given, in the Memoirs of the Academy
for the year 1756, (tom. xxx. p. 198--236,) a plan of Rome on a smaller
scale, but far more accurate than that which he had delineated in 1738
for Rollin's history. Experience had improved his knowledge and instead
of Rossi's topography, he used the new and excellent map of Nolli.
Pliny's old measure of thirteen must be reduced to eight miles. It
is easier to alter a text, than to remove hills or buildings. * Note:
Compare Gibbon, ch. xi. note 43, and xxxi. 67, and ch. lxxi. "It is
quite clear," observes Sir J. Hobhouse, "that all these measurements
differ, (in the first and second it is 21, in the text 12 and 345 paces,
in the last 10,) yet it is equally clear that the historian avers that
they are all the same." The present extent, 12 3/4 nearly agrees with
the second statement of Gibbon. Sir. J. Hobhouse also observes that the
walls were enlarged by Constantine; but there can be no doubt that the
circuit has been much changed. Illust. of Ch. Harold, p. 180.--M.]

[Footnote 78: In the year 1709, Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. iii.
p. 218) reckoned 138,568 Christian souls, besides 8000 or 10,000
Jews--without souls? In the year 1763, the numbers exceeded 160,000.]

[Footnote 79: The accurate eye of Nardini (Roma Antica, l. i. c. viii.
p. 31) could distinguish the tumultuarie opere di Belisario.]

[Footnote 80: The fissure and leaning in the upper part of the wall,
which Procopius observed, (Goth. l. i. c. 13,) is visible to the present
hour, (Douat. Roma Vetus, l. i. c. 17, p. 53, 54.)]

The battlements or bastions were shaped in sharp angles a ditch, broad
and deep, protected the foot of the rampart; and the archers on the
rampart were assisted by military engines; the balistri, a powerful
cross-bow, which darted short but massy arrows; the onagri, or wild
asses, which, on the principle of a sling, threw stones and bullets of
an enormous size. [81] A chain was drawn across the Tyber; the arches of
the aqueducts were made impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian
[82] was converted, for the first time, to the uses of a citadel. That
venerable structure, which contained the ashes of the Antonines, was a
circular turret rising from a quadrangular basis; it was covered with
the white marble of Paros, and decorated by the statues of gods and
heroes; and the lover of the arts must read with a sigh, that the works
of Praxiteles or Lysippus were torn from their lofty pedestals, and
hurled into the ditch on the heads of the besiegers. [83] To each of his
lieutenants Belisarius assigned the defence of a gate, with the wise and
peremptory instruction, that, whatever might be the alarm, they should
steadily adhere to their respective posts, and trust their general for
the safety of Rome. The formidable host of the Goths was insufficient to
embrace the ample measure of the city, of the fourteen gates, seven only
were invested from the Proenestine to the Flaminian way; and Vitiges
divided his troops into six camps, each of which was fortified with a
ditch and rampart. On the Tuscan side of the river, a seventh encampment
was formed in the field or circus of the Vatican, for the important
purpose of commanding the Milvian bridge and the course of the Tyber;
but they approached with devotion the adjacent church of St. Peter; and
the threshold of the holy apostles was respected during the siege by a
Christian enemy. In the ages of victory, as often as the senate decreed
some distant conquest, the consul denounced hostilities, by unbarring,
in solemn pomp, the gates of the temple of Janus. [84] Domestic war now
rendered the admonition superfluous, and the ceremony was superseded by
the establishment of a new religion. But the brazen temple of Janus was
left standing in the forum; of a size sufficient only to contain the
statue of the god, five cubits in height, of a human form, but with two
faces directed to the east and west. The double gates were likewise
of brass; and a fruitless effort to turn them on their rusty hinges
revealed the scandalous secret that some Romans were still attached to
the superstition of their ancestors.

[Footnote 81: Lipsius (Opp. tom. iii. Poliorcet, l. iii.) was ignorant
of this clear and conspicuous passage of Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 21.)
The engine was named the wild ass, a calcitrando, (Hen. Steph. Thesaur.
Linguae Graec. tom. ii. p. 1340, 1341, tom. iii. p. 877.) I have seen
an ingenious model, contrived and executed by General Melville, which
imitates or surpasses the art of antiquity.]

[Footnote 82: The description of this mausoleum, or mole, in Procopius,
(l. i. c. 25.) is the first and best. The height above the walls. On
Nolli's great plan, the sides measure 260 English feet. * Note: Donatus
and Nardini suppose that Hadrian's tomb was fortified by Honorius;
it was united to the wall by men of old, (Procop in loc.) Gibbon has
mistaken the breadth for the height above the walls Hobhouse, Illust. of
Childe Harold, p. 302.--M.]

[Footnote 83: Praxiteles excelled in Fauns, and that of Athens was his
own masterpiece. Rome now contains about thirty of the same character.
When the ditch of St. Angelo was cleansed under Urban VIII., the workmen
found the sleeping Faun of the Barberini palace; but a leg, a thigh, and
the right arm, had been broken from that beautiful statue, (Winkelman,
Hist. de l'Art, tom. ii. p. 52, 53, tom iii. p. 265.)]

[Footnote 84: Procopius has given the best description of the temple of
Janus a national deity of Latium, (Heyne, Excurs. v. ad l. vii. Aeneid.)
It was once a gate in the primitive city of Romulus and Numa, (Nardini,
p. 13, 256, 329.) Virgil has described the ancient rite like a poet
and an antiquarian.] Eighteen days were employed by the besiegers, to
provide all the instruments of attack which antiquity had invented.
Fascines were prepared to fill the ditches, scaling-ladders to ascend
the walls. The largest trees of the forest supplied the timbers of four
battering-rams: their heads were armed with iron; they were suspended by
ropes, and each of them was worked by the labor of fifty men. The
lofty wooden turrets moved on wheels or rollers, and formed a spacious
platform of the level of the rampart. On the morning of the nineteenth
day, a general attack was made from the Praenestine gate to the Vatican:
seven Gothic columns, with their military engines, advanced to the
assault; and the Romans, who lined the ramparts, listened with doubt and
anxiety to the cheerful assurances of their commander. As soon as the
enemy approached the ditch, Belisarius himself drew the first arrow; and
such was his strength and dexterity, that he transfixed the foremost of
the Barbarian leaders.

As shout of applause and victory was reechoed along the wall. He drew a
second arrow, and the stroke was followed with the same success and the
same acclamation. The Roman general then gave the word, that the archers
should aim at the teams of oxen; they were instantly covered with mortal
wounds; the towers which they drew remained useless and immovable, and
a single moment disconcerted the laborious projects of the king of the
Goths. After this disappointment, Vitiges still continued, or feigned
to continue, the assault of the Salarian gate, that he might divert the
attention of his adversary, while his principal forces more strenuously
attacked the Praenestine gate and the sepulchre of Hadrian, at the
distance of three miles from each other. Near the former, the double
walls of the Vivarium [85] were low or broken; the fortifications of the
latter were feebly guarded: the vigor of the Goths was excited by the
hope of victory and spoil; and if a single post had given way, the
Romans, and Rome itself, were irrecoverably lost. This perilous day was
the most glorious in the life of Belisarius. Amidst tumult and dismay,
the whole plan of the attack and defence was distinctly present to his
mind; he observed the changes of each instant, weighed every possible
advantage, transported his person to the scenes of danger, and
communicated his spirit in calm and decisive orders. The contest was
fiercely maintained from the morning to the evening; the Goths were
repulsed on all sides; and each Roman might boast that he had vanquished
thirty Barbarians, if the strange disproportion of numbers were
not counterbalanced by the merit of one man. Thirty thousand Goths,
according to the confession of their own chiefs, perished in this bloody
action; and the multitude of the wounded was equal to that of the slain.
When they advanced to the assault, their close disorder suffered not a
javelin to fall without effect; and as they retired, the populace of the
city joined the pursuit, and slaughtered, with impunity, the backs of
their flying enemies. Belisarius instantly sallied from the gates; and
while the soldiers chanted his name and victory, the hostile engines of
war were reduced to ashes. Such was the loss and consternation of the
Goths, that, from this day, the siege of Rome degenerated into a tedious
and indolent blockade; and they were incessantly harassed by the Roman
general, who, in frequent skirmishes, destroyed above five thousand of
their bravest troops. Their cavalry was unpractised in the use of the
bow; their archers served on foot; and this divided force was incapable
of contending with their adversaries, whose lances and arrows, at a
distance, or at hand, were alike formidable. The consummate skill of
Belisarius embraced the favorable opportunities; and as he chose the
ground and the moment, as he pressed the charge or sounded the retreat,
[86] the squadrons which he detached were seldom unsuccessful. These
partial advantages diffused an impatient ardor among the soldiers and
people, who began to feel the hardships of a siege, and to disregard the
dangers of a general engagement. Each plebeian conceived himself to be
a hero, and the infantry, who, since the decay of discipline, were
rejected from the line of battle, aspired to the ancient honors of the
Roman legion. Belisarius praised the spirit of his troops, condemned
their presumption, yielded to their clamors, and prepared the remedies
of a defeat, the possibility of which he alone had courage to suspect.
In the quarter of the Vatican, the Romans prevailed; and if the
irreparable moments had not been wasted in the pillage of the camp, they
might have occupied the Milvian bridge, and charged in the rear of the
Gothic host. On the other side of the Tyber, Belisarius advanced from
the Pincian and Salarian gates. But his army, four thousand soldiers
perhaps, was lost in a spacious plain; they were encompassed and
oppressed by fresh multitudes, who continually relieved the broken ranks
of the Barbarians. The valiant leaders of the infantry were unskilled
to conquer; they died: the retreat (a hasty retreat) was covered by the
prudence of the general, and the victors started back with affright from
the formidable aspect of an armed rampart. The reputation of Belisarius
was unsullied by a defeat; and the vain confidence of the Goths was not
less serviceable to his designs than the repentance and modesty of the
Roman troops.

[Footnote 85: Vivarium was an angle in the new wall enclosed for wild
beasts, (Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 23.) The spot is still visible in
Nardini (l iv. c. 2, p. 159, 160,) and Nolli's great plan of Rome.]

[Footnote 86: For the Roman trumpet, and its various notes, consult
Lipsius de Militia Romana, (Opp. tom. iii. l. iv. Dialog. x. p.
125-129.) A mode of distinguishing the charge by the horse-trumpet of
solid brass, and the retreat by the foot-trumpet of leather and light
wood, was recommended by Procopius, and adopted by Belisarius.]




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

From the moment that Belisarius had determined to sustain a siege, his
assiduous care provided Rome against the danger of famine, more dreadful
than the Gothic arms. An extraordinary supply of corn was imported from
Sicily: the harvests of Campania and Tuscany were forcibly swept for the
use of the city; and the rights of private property were infringed by
the strong plea of the public safety. It might easily be foreseen
that the enemy would intercept the aqueducts; and the cessation of the
water-mills was the first inconvenience, which was speedily removed
by mooring large vessels, and fixing mill-stones in the current of
the river. The stream was soon embarrassed by the trunks of trees, and
polluted with dead bodies; yet so effectual were the precautions of
the Roman general, that the waters of the Tyber still continued to
give motion to the mills and drink to the inhabitants: the more distant
quarters were supplied from domestic wells; and a besieged city might
support, without impatience, the privation of her public baths. A large
portion of Rome, from the Praenestine gate to the church of St. Paul,
was never invested by the Goths; their excursions were restrained by
the activity of the Moorish troops: the navigation of the Tyber, and the
Latin, Appian, and Ostian ways, were left free and unmolested for the
introduction of corn and cattle, or the retreat of the inhabitants, who
sought refuge in Campania or Sicily. Anxious to relieve himself from a
useless and devouring multitude, Belisarius issued his peremptory
orders for the instant departure of the women, the children, and slaves;
required his soldiers to dismiss their male and female attendants, and
regulated their allowance that one moiety should be given in provisions,
and the other in money. His foresight was justified by the increase of
the public distress, as soon as the Goths had occupied two important
posts in the neighborhood of Rome. By the loss of the port, or, as it
is now called, the city of Porto, he was deprived of the country on
the right of the Tyber, and the best communication with the sea; and he
reflected, with grief and anger, that three hundred men, could he have
spared such a feeble band, might have defended its impregnable works.
Seven miles from the capital, between the Appian and the Latin ways, two
principal aqueducts crossing, and again crossing each other: enclosed
within their solid and lofty arches a fortified space, [87] where
Vitiges established a camp of seven thousand Goths to intercept the
convoy of Sicily and Campania. The granaries of Rome were insensibly
exhausted, the adjacent country had been wasted with fire and sword;
such scanty supplies as might yet be obtained by hasty excursions were
the reward of valor, and the purchase of wealth: the forage of the
horses, and the bread of the soldiers, never failed: but in the
last months of the siege, the people were exposed to the miseries of
scarcity, unwholesome food, [88] and contagious disorders. Belisarius
saw and pitied their sufferings; but he had foreseen, and he watched the
decay of their loyalty, and the progress of their discontent. Adversity
had awakened the Romans from the dreams of grandeur and freedom, and
taught them the humiliating lesson, that it was of small moment to their
real happiness, whether the name of their master was derived from the
Gothic or the Latin language. The lieutenant of Justinian listened to
their just complaints, but he rejected with disdain the idea of flight
or capitulation; repressed their clamorous impatience for battle; amused
them with the prospect of a sure and speedy relief; and secured himself
and the city from the effects of their despair or treachery. Twice in
each month he changed the station of the officers to whom the custody
of the gates was committed: the various precautions of patroles, watch
words, lights, and music, were repeatedly employed to discover whatever
passed on the ramparts; out-guards were posted beyond the ditch, and the
trusty vigilance of dogs supplied the more doubtful fidelity of mankind.
A letter was intercepted, which assured the king of the Goths that the
Asinarian gate, adjoining to the Lateran church, should be secretly
opened to his troops. On the proof or suspicion of treason, several
senators were banished, and the pope Sylverius was summoned to attend
the representative of his sovereign, at his head-quarters in the Pincian
palace. [89] The ecclesiastics, who followed their bishop, were detained
in the first or second apartment, [90] and he alone was admitted to the
presence of Belisarius. The conqueror of Rome and Carthage was modestly
seated at the feet of Antonina, who reclined on a stately couch: the
general was silent, but the voice of reproach and menace issued from
the mouth of his imperious wife. Accused by credible witnesses, and
the evidence of his own subscription, the successor of St. Peter was
despoiled of his pontifical ornaments, clad in the mean habit of a monk,
and embarked, without delay, for a distant exile in the East. [9011] At
the emperor's command, the clergy of Rome proceeded to the choice of a
new bishop; and after a solemn invocation of the Holy Ghost, elected the
deacon Vigilius, who had purchased the papal throne by a bribe of two
hundred pounds of gold. The profit, and consequently the guilt, of this
simony, was imputed to Belisarius: but the hero obeyed the orders of his
wife; Antonina served the passions of the empress; and Theodora lavished
her treasures, in the vain hope of obtaining a pontiff hostile or
indifferent to the council of Chalcedon. [91]

[Footnote 87: Procopius (Goth. l. ii. c. 3) has forgot to name these
aqueducts nor can such a double intersection, at such a distance from
Rome, be clearly ascertained from the writings of Frontinus, Fabretti,
and Eschinard, de Aquis and de Agro Romano, or from the local maps of
Lameti and Cingolani. Seven or eight miles from the city, (50 stadia,)
on the road to Albano, between the Latin and Appian ways, I discern the
remains of an aqueduct, (probably the Septimian,) a series (630 paces)
of arches twenty-five feet high.]

[Footnote 88: They made sausages of mule's flesh; unwholesome, if the
animals had died of the plague. Otherwise, the famous Bologna sausages
are said to be made of ass flesh, (Voyages de Labat, tom. ii. p. 218.)]

[Footnote 89: The name of the palace, the hill, and the adjoining gate,
were all derived from the senator Pincius. Some recent vestiges of
temples and churches are now smoothed in the garden of the Minims of
the Trinita del Monte, (Nardini, l. iv. c. 7, p. 196. Eschinard, p. 209,
210, the old plan of Buffalino, and the great plan of Nolli.) Belisarius
had fixed his station between the Pincian and Salarian gates, (Procop.
Goth. l. i. c. 15.)]

[Footnote 90: From the mention of the primum et secundum velum, it
should seem that Belisarius, even in a siege, represented the emperor,
and maintained the proud ceremonial of the Byzantine palace.]

[Footnote 9011: De Beau, as a good Catholic, makes the Pope the victim
of a dark intrigue. Lord Mahon, (p. 225.) with whom I concur, summed up
against him.--M.]

[Footnote 91: Of this act of sacrilege, Procopius (Goth. l. i. c. 25) is
a dry and reluctant witness. The narratives of Liberatus (Breviarium,
c. 22) and Anastasius (de Vit. Pont. p. 39) are characteristic, but
passionate. Hear the execrations of Cardinal Baronius, (A.D. 536, No.
123 A.D. 538, No. 4--20:) portentum, facinus omni execratione dignum.]

The epistle of Belisarius to the emperor announced his victory, his
danger, and his resolution. "According to your commands, we have entered
the dominions of the Goths, and reduced to your obedience Sicily,
Campania, and the city of Rome; but the loss of these conquests will be
more disgraceful than their acquisition was glorious. Hitherto we have
successfully fought against the multitudes of the Barbarians, but their
multitudes may finally prevail. Victory is the gift of Providence,
but the reputation of kings and generals depends on the success or the
failure of their designs. Permit me to speak with freedom: if you wish
that we should live, send us subsistence; if you desire that we should
conquer, send us arms, horses, and men. The Romans have received us as
friends and deliverers: but in our present distress, they will be
either betrayed by their confidence, or we shall be oppressed by
their treachery and hatred. For myself, my life is consecrated to your
service: it is yours to reflect, whether my death in this situation
will contribute to the glory and prosperity of your reign." Perhaps that
reign would have been equally prosperous if the peaceful master of
the East had abstained from the conquest of Africa and Italy: but as
Justinian was ambitious of fame, he made some efforts (they were
feeble and languid) to support and rescue his victorious general. A
reenforcement of sixteen hundred Sclavonians and Huns was led by Martin
and Valerian; and as they reposed during the winter season in the
harbors of Greece, the strength of the men and horses was not impaired
by the fatigues of a sea-voyage; and they distinguished their valor
in the first sally against the besiegers. About the time of the summer
solstice, Euthalius landed at Terracina with large sums of money for the
payment of the troops: he cautiously proceeded along the Appian way, and
this convoy entered Rome through the gate Capena, [92] while Belisarius,
on the other side, diverted the attention of the Goths by a vigorous and
successful skirmish. These seasonable aids, the use and reputation
of which were dexterously managed by the Roman general, revived
the courage, or at least the hopes, of the soldiers and people. The
historian Procopius was despatched with an important commission to
collect the troops and provisions which Campania could furnish, or
Constantinople had sent; and the secretary of Belisarius was soon
followed by Antonina herself, [93] who boldly traversed the posts of
the enemy, and returned with the Oriental succors to the relief of her
husband and the besieged city. A fleet of three thousand Isaurians cast
anchor in the Bay of Naples and afterwards at Ostia. Above two thousand
horse, of whom a part were Thracians, landed at Tarentum; and, after
the junction of five hundred soldiers of Campania, and a train of wagons
laden with wine and flour, they directed their march on the Appian way,
from Capua to the neighborhood of Rome. The forces that arrived by
land and sea were united at the mouth of the Tyber. Antonina convened
a council of war: it was resolved to surmount, with sails and oars,
the adverse stream of the river; and the Goths were apprehensive of
disturbing, by any rash hostilities, the negotiation to which Belisarius
had craftily listened. They credulously believed that they saw no more
than the vanguard of a fleet and army, which already covered the Ionian
Sea and the plains of Campania; and the illusion was supported by the
haughty language of the Roman general, when he gave audience to the
ambassadors of Vitiges. After a specious discourse to vindicate the
justice of his cause, they declared, that, for the sake of peace, they
were disposed to renounce the possession of Sicily. "The emperor is not
less generous," replied his lieutenant, with a disdainful smile, "in
return for a gift which you no longer possess: he presents you with an
ancient province of the empire; he resigns to the Goths the sovereignty
of the British island." Belisarius rejected with equal firmness and
contempt the offer of a tribute; but he allowed the Gothic ambassadors
to seek their fate from the mouth of Justinian himself; and consented,
with seeming reluctance, to a truce of three months, from the winter
solstice to the equinox of spring. Prudence might not safely trust
either the oaths or hostages of the Barbarians, and the conscious
superiority of the Roman chief was expressed in the distribution of his
troops. As soon as fear or hunger compelled the Goths to evacuate
Alba, Porto, and Centumcellae, their place was instantly supplied; the
garrisons of Narni, Spoleto, and Perusia, were reenforced, and the seven
camps of the besiegers were gradually encompassed with the calamities of
a siege. The prayers and pilgrimage of Datius, bishop of Milan, were not
without effect; and he obtained one thousand Thracians and Isaurians, to
assist the revolt of Liguria against her Arian tyrant. At the same time,
John the Sanguinary, [94] the nephew of Vitalian, was detached with two
thousand chosen horse, first to Alba, on the Fucine Lake, and afterwards
to the frontiers of Picenum, on the Hadriatic Sea. "In the province,"
said Belisarius, "the Goths have deposited their families and treasures,
without a guard or the suspicion of danger. Doubtless they will violate
the truce: let them feel your presence, before they hear of your
motions. Spare the Italians; suffer not any fortified places to remain
hostile in your rear; and faithfully reserve the spoil for an equal and
common partition. It would not be reasonable," he added with a laugh,
"that whilst we are toiling to the destruction of the drones, our more
fortunate brethren should rifle and enjoy the honey."

[Footnote 92: The old Capena was removed by Aurelian to, or near, the
modern gate of St. Sebastian, (see Nolli's plan.) That memorable spot
has been consecrated by the Egerian grove, the memory of Numa two umphal
arches, the sepulchres of the Scipios, Metelli, &c.]

[Footnote 93: The expression of Procopius has an invidious cast, (Goth.
l. ii. c. 4.) Yet he is speaking of a woman.]

[Footnote 94: Anastasius (p. 40) has preserved this epithet of
Sanguinarius which might do honor to a tiger.]

The whole nation of the Ostrogoths had been assembled for the attack,
and was almost entirely consumed in the siege of Rome. If any credit be
due to an intelligent spectator, one third at least of their enormous
host was destroyed, in frequent and bloody combats under the walls of
the city. The bad fame and pernicious qualities of the summer air might
already be imputed to the decay of agriculture and population; and
the evils of famine and pestilence were aggravated by their own
licentiousness, and the unfriendly disposition of the country. While
Vitiges struggled with his fortune, while he hesitated between shame and
ruin, his retreat was hastened by domestic alarms. The king of the Goths
was informed by trembling messengers, that John the Sanguinary spread
the devastations of war from the Apennine to the Hadriatic; that the
rich spoils and innumerable captives of Picenum were lodged in the
fortifications of Rimini; and that this formidable chief had defeated
his uncle, insulted his capital, and seduced, by secret correspondence,
the fidelity of his wife, the imperious daughter of Amalasontha. Yet,
before he retired, Vitiges made a last effort, either to storm or
to surprise the city. A secret passage was discovered in one of the
aqueducts; two citizens of the Vatican were tempted by bribes to
intoxicate the guards of the Aurelian gate; an attack was meditated
on the walls beyond the Tyber, in a place which was not fortified with
towers; and the Barbarians advanced, with torches and scaling-ladders,
to the assault of the Pincian gate. But every attempt was defeated by
the intrepid vigilance of Belisarius and his band of veterans, who,
in the most perilous moments, did not regret the absence of their
companions; and the Goths, alike destitute of hope and subsistence,
clamorously urged their departure before the truce should expire, and
the Roman cavalry should again be united. One year and nine days after
the commencement of the siege, an army, so lately strong and triumphant,
burnt their tents, and tumultuously repassed the Milvian bridge. They
repassed not with impunity: their thronging multitudes, oppressed in a
narrow passage, were driven headlong into the Tyber, by their own fears
and the pursuit of the enemy; and the Roman general, sallying from the
Pincian gate, inflicted a severe and disgraceful wound on their retreat.
The slow length of a sickly and desponding host was heavily dragged
along the Flaminian way; from whence the Barbarians were sometimes
compelled to deviate, lest they should encounter the hostile garrisons
that guarded the high road to Rimini and Ravenna. Yet so powerful was
this flying army, that Vitiges spared ten thousand men for the defence
of the cities which he was most solicitous to preserve, and detached
his nephew Uraias, with an adequate force, for the chastisement of
rebellious Milan. At the head of his principal army, he besieged Rimini,
only thirty-three miles distant from the Gothic capital. A feeble
rampart, and a shallow ditch, were maintained by the skill and valor of
John the Sanguinary, who shared the danger and fatigue of the meanest
soldier, and emulated, on a theatre less illustrious, the military
virtues of his great commander. The towers and battering-engines of the
Barbarians were rendered useless; their attacks were repulsed; and the
tedious blockade, which reduced the garrison to the last extremity of
hunger, afforded time for the union and march of the Roman forces.
A fleet, which had surprised Ancona, sailed along the coast of the
Hadriatic, to the relief of the besieged city. The eunuch Narses landed
in Picenum with two thousand Heruli and five thousand of the bravest
troops of the East. The rock of the Apennine was forced; ten thousand
veterans moved round the foot of the mountains, under the command
of Belisarius himself; and a new army, whose encampment blazed with
innumerable lights, appeared to advance along the Flaminian way.
Overwhelmed with astonishment and despair, the Goths abandoned the siege
of Rimini, their tents, their standards, and their leaders; and Vitiges,
who gave or followed the example of flight, never halted till he found a
shelter within the walls and morasses of Ravenna. To these walls, and to
some fortresses destitute of any mutual support, the Gothic monarchy
was now reduced. The provinces of Italy had embraced the party of
the emperor and his army, gradually recruited to the number of twenty
thousand men, must have achieved an easy and rapid conquest, if their
invincible powers had not been weakened by the discord of the Roman
chiefs. Before the end of the siege, an act of blood, ambiguous and
indiscreet, sullied the fair fame of Belisarius. Presidius, a loyal
Italian, as he fled from Ravenna to Rome, was rudely stopped by
Constantine, the military governor of Spoleto, and despoiled, even in a
church, of two daggers richly inlaid with gold and precious stones. As
soon as the public danger had subsided, Presidius complained of the loss
and injury: his complaint was heard, but the order of restitution was
disobeyed by the pride and avarice of the offender. Exasperated by
the delay, Presidius boldly arrested the general's horse as he passed
through the forum; and, with the spirit of a citizen, demanded the
common benefit of the Roman laws. The honor of Belisarius was engaged;
he summoned a council; claimed the obedience of his subordinate officer;
and was provoked, by an insolent reply, to call hastily for the presence
of his guards. Constantine, viewing their entrance as the signal of
death, drew his sword, and rushed on the general, who nimbly eluded the
stroke, and was protected by his friends; while the desperate assassin
was disarmed, dragged into a neighboring chamber, and executed, or
rather murdered, by the guards, at the arbitrary command of Belisarius.
[95] In this hasty act of violence, the guilt of Constantine was no
longer remembered; the despair and death of that valiant officer were
secretly imputed to the revenge of Antonina; and each of his colleagues,
conscious of the same rapine, was apprehensive of the same fate.
The fear of a common enemy suspended the effects of their envy
and discontent; but in the confidence of approaching victory, they
instigated a powerful rival to oppose the conqueror of Rome and Africa.
From the domestic service of the palace, and the administration of the
private revenue, Narses the eunuch was suddenly exalted to the head of
an army; and the spirit of a hero, who afterwards equalled the merit and
glory of Belisarius, served only to perplex the operations of the Gothic
war. To his prudent counsels, the relief of Rimini was ascribed by the
leaders of the discontented faction, who exhorted Narses to assume an
independent and separate command. The epistle of Justinian had indeed
enjoined his obedience to the general; but the dangerous exception, "as
far as may be advantageous to the public service," reserved some freedom
of judgment to the discreet favorite, who had so lately departed from
the sacred and familiar conversation of his sovereign. In the exercise
of this doubtful right, the eunuch perpetually dissented from the
opinions of Belisarius; and, after yielding with reluctance to the siege
of Urbino, he deserted his colleague in the night, and marched away to
the conquest of the Aemilian province. The fierce and formidable bands
of the Heruli were attached to the person of Narses; [96] ten thousand
Romans and confederates were persuaded to march under his banners; every
malecontent embraced the fair opportunity of revenging his private or
imaginary wrongs; and the remaining troops of Belisarius were divided
and dispersed from the garrisons of Sicily to the shores of the
Hadriatic. His skill and perseverance overcame every obstacle: Urbino
was taken, the sieges of Faesulae Orvieto, and Auximum, were undertaken
and vigorously prosecuted; and the eunuch Narses was at length recalled
to the domestic cares of the palace. All dissensions were healed, and
all opposition was subdued, by the temperate authority of the Roman
general, to whom his enemies could not refuse their esteem; and
Belisarius inculcated the salutary lesson that the forces of the
state should compose one body, and be animated by one soul. But in the
interval of discord, the Goths were permitted to breathe; an important
season was lost, Milan was destroyed, and the northern provinces of
Italy were afflicted by an inundation of the Franks.

[Footnote 95: This transaction is related in the public history (Goth.
l. ii. c. 8) with candor or caution; in the Anecdotes (c. 7) with
malevolence or freedom; but Marcellinus, or rather his continuator, (in
Chron.,) casts a shade of premeditated assassination over the death of
Constantine. He had performed good service at Rome and Spoleto, (Procop.
Goth l. i. c. 7, 14;) but Alemannus confounds him with a Constantianus
comes stabuli.]

[Footnote 96: They refused to serve after his departure; sold their
captives and cattle to the Goths; and swore never to fight against them.
Procopius introduces a curious digression on the manners and adventures
of this wandering nation, a part of whom finally emigrated to Thule or
Scandinavia. (Goth. l. ii. c. 14, 15.)]

When Justinian first meditated the conquest of Italy, he sent
ambassadors to the kings of the Franks, and adjured them, by the common
ties of alliance and religion, to join in the holy enterprise against
the Arians. The Goths, as their want were more urgent, employed a more
effectual mode of persuasion, and vainly strove, by the gift of lands
and money, to purchase the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of
a light and perfidious nation. [97] But the arms of Belisarius, and the
revolt of the Italians, had no sooner shaken the Gothic monarchy,
than Theodebert of Austrasia, the most powerful and warlike of the
Merovingian kings, was persuaded to succor their distress by an indirect
and seasonable aid. Without expecting the consent of their sovereign,
the thousand Burgundians, his recent subjects, descended from the Alps,
and joined the troops which Vitiges had sent to chastise the revolt of
Milan. After an obstinate siege, the capital of Liguria was reduced
by famine; but no capitulation could be obtained, except for the safe
retreat of the Roman garrison. Datius, the orthodox bishop, who had
seduced his countrymen to rebellion [98] and ruin, escaped to the luxury
and honors of the Byzantine court; [99] but the clergy, perhaps the
Arian clergy, were slaughtered at the foot of their own altars by the
defenders of the Catholic faith. Three hundred thousand males were
reported to be slain; [100] the female sex, and the more precious spoil,
was resigned to the Burgundians; and the houses, or at least the walls,
of Milan, were levelled with the ground. The Goths, in their last
moments, were revenged by the destruction of a city, second only to Rome
in size and opulence, in the splendor of its buildings, or the number
of its inhabitants; and Belisarius sympathized alone in the fate of
his deserted and devoted friends. Encouraged by this successful inroad,
Theodebert himself, in the ensuing spring, invaded the plains of Italy
with an army of one hundred thousand Barbarians. [101] The king, and
some chosen followers, were mounted on horseback, and armed with lances;
the infantry, without bows or spears, were satisfied with a shield, a
sword, and a double-edged battle-axe, which, in their hands, became a
deadly and unerring weapon. Italy trembled at the march of the Franks;
and both the Gothic prince and the Roman general, alike ignorant of
their designs, solicited, with hope and terror, the friendship of these
dangerous allies. Till he had secured the passage of the Po on the
bridge of Pavia, the grandson of Clovis dissembled his intentions, which
he at length declared, by assaulting, almost at the same instant, the
hostile camps of the Romans and Goths. Instead of uniting their arms,
they fled with equal precipitation; and the fertile, though desolate
provinces of Liguria and Aemilia, were abandoned to a licentious host of
Barbarians, whose rage was not mitigated by any thoughts of settlement
or conquest. Among the cities which they ruined, Genoa, not yet
constructed of marble, is particularly enumerated; and the deaths of
thousands, according to the regular practice of war, appear to have
excited less horror than some idolatrous sacrifices of women and
children, which were performed with impunity in the camp of the most
Christian king. If it were not a melancholy truth, that the first and
most cruel sufferings must be the lot of the innocent and helpless,
history might exult in the misery of the conquerors, who, in the midst
of riches, were left destitute of bread or wine, reduced to drink the
waters of the Po, and to feed on the flesh of distempered cattle. The
dysentery swept away one third of their army; and the clamors of his
subjects, who were impatient to pass the Alps, disposed Theodebert to
listen with respect to the mild exhortations of Belisarius. The memory
of this inglorious and destructive warfare was perpetuated on the medals
of Gaul; and Justinian, without unsheathing his sword, assumed the title
of conqueror of the Franks. The Merovingian prince was offended by the
vanity of the emperor; he affected to pity the fallen fortunes of the
Goths; and his insidious offer of a federal union was fortified by
the promise or menace of descending from the Alps at the head of five
hundred thousand men. His plans of conquest were boundless, and perhaps
chimerical. The king of Austrasia threatened to chastise Justinian, and
to march to the gates of Constantinople: [102] he was overthrown and
slain [103] by a wild bull, [104] as he hunted in the Belgic or German
forests. [Footnote 97: This national reproach of perfidy (Procop. Goth.
l. ii. c. 25) offends the ear of La Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p.
163--165,) who criticizes, as if he had not read, the Greek historian.]

[Footnote 98: Baronius applauds his treason, and justifies the Catholic
bishops--qui ne sub heretico principe degant omnem lapidem movent--a
useful caution. The more rational Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. v. p.
54) hints at the guilt of perjury, and blames at least the imprudence of
Datius.]

[Footnote 99: St. Datius was more successful against devils than against
Barbarians. He travelled with a numerons retinue, and occupied at
Corinth a large house. (Baronius, A.D. 538, No. 89, A.D. 539, No. 20.)]

[Footnote 100: (Compare Procopius, Goth. l. ii. c. 7, 21.) Yet such
population is incredible; and the second or third city of Italy need not
repine if we only decimate the numbers of the present text Both Milan
and Genoa revived in less than thirty years, (Paul Diacon de Gestis
Langobard. l. ii. c. 38.) Note: Procopius says distinctly that Milan was
the second city of the West. Which did Gibbon suppose could compete with
it, Ravenna or Naples; the next page he calls it the second.--M.]

[Footnote 101: Besides Procopius, perhaps too Roman, see the Chronicles
of Marius and Marcellinus, Jornandes, (in Success. Regn. in Muratori,
tom. i. p. 241,) and Gregory of Tours, (l. iii. c. 32, in tom. ii. of
the Historians of France.) Gregory supposes a defeat of Belisarius, who,
in Aimoin, (de Gestis Franc. l. ii. c. 23, in tom. iii. p. 59,) is slain
by the Franks.]

[Footnote 102: Agathias, l. i. p. 14, 15. Could he have seduced or
subdued the Gepidae or Lombards of Pannonia, the Greek historian is
confident that he must have been destroyed in Thrace.]

[Footnote 103: The king pointed his spear--the bull overturned a tree
on his head--he expired the same day. Such is the story of Agathias;
but the original historians of France (tom. ii. p. 202, 403, 558, 667)
impute his death to a fever.]

[Footnote 104: Without losing myself in a labyrinth of species and
names--the aurochs, urus, bisons, bubalus, bonasus, buffalo, &c.,
(Buffon. Hist. Nat. tom. xi., and Supplement, tom. iii. vi.,) it is
certain, that in the sixth century a large wild species of horned cattle
was hunted in the great forests of the Vosges in Lorraine, and the
Ardennes, (Greg. Turon. tom. ii. l. x. c. 10, p. 369.)]




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

As soon as Belisarius was delivered from his foreign and domestic
enemies, he seriously applied his forces to the final reduction of
Italy. In the siege of Osimo, the general was nearly transpierced with
an arrow, if the mortal stroke had not been intercepted by one of his
guards, who lost, in that pious office, the use of his hand. The Goths
of Osimo, [1041] four thousand warriors, with those of Faesulae and the
Cottian Alps, were among the last who maintained their independence; and
their gallant resistance, which almost tired the patience, deserved the
esteem, of the conqueror. His prudence refused to subscribe the safe
conduct which they asked, to join their brethren of Ravenna; but they
saved, by an honorable capitulation, one moiety at least of their
wealth, with the free alternative of retiring peaceably to their
estates, or enlisting to serve the emperor in his Persian wars. The
multitudes which yet adhered to the standard of Vitiges far surpassed
the number of the Roman troops; but neither prayers nor defiance, nor
the extreme danger of his most faithful subjects, could tempt the Gothic
king beyond the fortifications of Ravenna. These fortifications were,
indeed, impregnable to the assaults of art or violence; and when
Belisarius invested the capital, he was soon convinced that famine only
could tame the stubborn spirit of the Barbarians. The sea, the land,
and the channels of the Po, were guarded by the vigilance of the Roman
general; and his morality extended the rights of war to the practice of
poisoning the waters, [105] and secretly firing the granaries [106] of
a besieged city. [107] While he pressed the blockade of Ravenna, he was
surprised by the arrival of two ambassadors from Constantinople, with
a treaty of peace, which Justinian had imprudently signed, without
deigning to consult the author of his victory. By this disgraceful and
precarious agreement, Italy and the Gothic treasure were divided,
and the provinces beyond the Po were left with the regal title to the
successor of Theodoric. The ambassadors were eager to accomplish their
salutary commission; the captive Vitiges accepted, with transport, the
unexpected offer of a crown; honor was less prevalent among the Goths,
than the want and appetite of food; and the Roman chiefs, who murmured
at the continuance of the war, professed implicit submission to the
commands of the emperor. If Belisarius had possessed only the courage
of a soldier, the laurel would have been snatched from his hand by timid
and envious counsels; but in this decisive moment, he resolved, with
the magnanimity of a statesman, to sustain alone the danger and merit of
generous disobedience. Each of his officers gave a written opinion that
the siege of Ravenna was impracticable and hopeless: the general then
rejected the treaty of partition, and declared his own resolution of
leading Vitiges in chains to the feet of Justinian. The Goths retired
with doubt and dismay: this peremptory refusal deprived them of the only
signature which they could trust, and filled their minds with a just
apprehension, that a sagacious enemy had discovered the full extent of
their deplorable state. They compared the fame and fortune of Belisarius
with the weakness of their ill-fated king; and the comparison suggested
an extraordinary project, to which Vitiges, with apparent resignation,
was compelled to acquiesce. Partition would ruin the strength, exile
would disgrace the honor, of the nation; but they offered their arms,
their treasures, and the fortifications of Ravenna, if Belisarius would
disclaim the authority of a master, accept the choice of the Goths, and
assume, as he had deserved, the kingdom of Italy. If the false lustre
of a diadem could have tempted the loyalty of a faithful subject, his
prudence must have foreseen the inconstancy of the Barbarians, and his
rational ambition would prefer the safe and honorable station of a
Roman general. Even the patience and seeming satisfaction with which he
entertained a proposal of treason, might be susceptible of a malignant
interpretation. But the lieutenant of Justinian was conscious of his own
rectitude; he entered into a dark and crooked path, as it might lead
to the voluntary submission of the Goths; and his dexterous policy
persuaded them that he was disposed to comply with their wishes, without
engaging an oath or a promise for the performance of a treaty which he
secretly abhorred. The day of the surrender of Ravenna was stipulated
by the Gothic ambassadors: a fleet, laden with provisions, sailed as
a welcome guest into the deepest recess of the harbor: the gates were
opened to the fancied king of Italy; and Belisarius, without meeting an
enemy, triumphantly marched through the streets of an impregnable city.
[108] The Romans were astonished by their success; the multitudes of
tall and robust Barbarians were confounded by the image of their own
patience and the masculine females, spitting in the faces of their sons
and husbands, most bitterly reproached them for betraying their dominion
and freedom to these pygmies of the south, contemptible in their
numbers, diminutive in their stature. Before the Goths could recover
from the first surprise, and claim the accomplishment of their doubtful
hopes, the victor established his power in Ravenna, beyond the danger of
repentance and revolt.

[Footnote 1041: Auximum, p. 175.--M.]

[Footnote 105: In the siege of Auximum, he first labored to demolish
an old aqueduct, and then cast into the stream, 1. dead bodies; 2.
mischievous herbs; and 3. quicklime. (says Procopius, l. ii. c. 27) Yet
both words are used as synonymous in Galen, Dioscorides, and Lucian,
(Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Ling. Graec. tom. iii. p. 748.)]

[Footnote 106: The Goths suspected Mathasuintha as an accomplice in the
mischief, which perhaps was occasioned by accidental lightning.]

[Footnote 107: In strict philosophy, a limitation of the rights of war
seems to imply nonsense and contradiction. Grotius himself is lost in
an idle distinction between the jus naturae and the jus gentium, between
poison and infection. He balances in one scale the passages of Homer
(Odyss. A 259, &c.) and Florus, (l. ii. c. 20, No. 7, ult.;) and in the
other, the examples of Solon (Pausanias, l. x. c. 37) and Belisarius.
See his great work De Jure Belli et Pacis, (l. iii. c. 4, s. 15, 16, 17,
and in Barbeyrac's version, tom. ii. p. 257, &c.) Yet I can understand
the benefit and validity of an agreement, tacit or express, mutually to
abstain from certain modes of hostility. See the Amphictyonic oath in
Aeschines, de falsa Legatione.]

[Footnote 108: Ravenna was taken, not in the year 540, but in the latter
end of 539; and Pagi (tom. ii. p. 569) is rectified by Muratori. (Annali
d'Italia, tom. v. p. 62,) who proves from an original act on papyrus,
(Antiquit. Italiae 

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

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
       Volume 5

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman

Posting Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #735]
Release Date: November, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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




Produced by David Reed





HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 5




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

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

In the connection of the church and state, I have considered the former
as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a salutary maxim,
if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever been held sacred. The
Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the dark abyss of predestination
and grace, and the strange transformation of the Eucharist from the sign
to the substance of Christ's body, [1] I have purposely abandoned to the
curiosity of speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence
and pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which the
decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected, the
propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic church,
the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the mysterious
controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation. At the head
of this class, we may justly rank the worship of images, so fiercely
disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries; since a question of popular
superstition produced the revolt of Italy, the temporal power of the
popes, and the restoration of the Roman empire in the West.

[Footnote 1: The learned Selden has given the history of
transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence: "This opinion
is only rhetoric turned into logic," (his Works, vol. iii. p. 2037, in
his Table-Talk.)]

The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable repugnance
to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may be ascribed to
their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic
law had severely proscribed all representations of the Deity; and that
precept was firmly established in the principles and practice of the
chosen people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against
the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own
hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been endowed with
sense and motion, should have started rather from the pedestal to adore
the creative powers of the artist. [2] Perhaps some recent and imperfect
converts of the Gnostic tribe might crown the statues of Christ and St.
Paul with the profane honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and
Pythagoras; [3] but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly
simple and spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in
the censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after the
Christian aera. Under the successors of Constantine, in the peace and
luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent bishops condescended
to indulge a visible superstition, for the benefit of the multitude;
and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no longer restrained by the
apprehension of an odious parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic
worship was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints
and martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were seated on the right
hand if God; but the gracious and often supernatural favors, which,
in the popular belief, were showered round their tomb, conveyed an
unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and
touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of their
merits and sufferings. [4] But a memorial, more interesting than the
skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the faithful copy of his
person and features, delineated by the arts of painting or sculpture.
In every age, such copies, so congenial to human feelings, have been
cherished by the zeal of private friendship, or public esteem: the
images of the Roman emperors were adored with civil, and almost
religious, honors; a reverence less ostentatious, but more sincere, was
applied to the statues of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues,
these splendid sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men, who
had died for their celestial and everlasting country. At first, the
experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable pictures
were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold,
and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By a slow
though inevitable progression, the honors of the original were
transferred to the copy: the devout Christian prayed before the image of
a saint; and the Pagan rites of genuflection, luminaries, and incense,
again stole into the Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety,
were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the
pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a
divine energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious
adoration. The most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash attempt
of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite Spirit, the eternal
Father, who pervades and sustains the universe. [5] But the
superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint and to worship
the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, under the human shape,
which, on earth, they have condescended to assume. The second person of
the Trinity had been clothed with a real and mortal body; but that body
had ascended into heaven: and, had not some similitude been presented
to the eyes of his disciples, the spiritual worship of Christ might
have been obliterated by the visible relics and representations of the
saints. A similar indulgence was requisite and propitious for the Virgin
Mary: the place of her burial was unknown; and the assumption of her
soul and body into heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks and
Latins. The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly established
before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly cherished by the
warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the Pantheon and Vatican
were adorned with the emblems of a new superstition; but this semblance
of idolatry was more coldly entertained by the rude Barbarians and the
Arian clergy of the West. The bolder forms of sculpture, in brass or
marble, which peopled the temples of antiquity, were offensive to the
fancy or conscience of the Christian Greeks: and a smooth surface
of colors has ever been esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of
imitation. [6]

[Footnote 2: Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo sunt
expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the last, as
well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists. Their raillery of
idols attacks not only the object, but the form and matter.]

[Footnote 3: See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage, Hist.
des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic practice has
a singular affinity with the private worship of Alexander Severus,
(Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]

[Footnote 4: See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434; vol.
iii. p. 158-163.]

[Footnote 5: (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii. p.
1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point souffrir
d'images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs les plus zeles
des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le concile de Trente ne parlant
que des images de Jesus Christ et des Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles.
tom. vi. p. 154.)]

[Footnote 6: This general history of images is drawn from the xxiid book
of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom. ii. p. 1310-1337.
He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and on this head the
Protestants are so notoriously in the right, that they can venture to
be impartial. See the perplexity of poor Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p.
42.]

The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with the
original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the genuine
features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles: the statue
of Christ at Paneas in Palestine [7] was more probably that of
some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their profane monuments were
reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists could only be guided
by the clandestine imitation of some heathen model. In this distress, a
bold and dexterous invention assured at once the likeness of the image
and the innocence of the worship. A new super structure of fable was
raised on the popular basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence
of Christ and Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly
deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea [8] records the
epistle, [9] but he most strangely forgets the picture of Christ; [10]
the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with which he gratified
the faith of the royal stranger who had invoked his healing power, and
offered the strong city of Edessa to protect him against the malice of
the Jews. The ignorance of the primitive church is explained by the long
imprisonment of the image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an
oblivion of five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop,
and seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and
most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the arms of
Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge of the divine
promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a foreign enemy. It is
true, indeed, that the text of Procopius ascribes the double deliverance
of Edessa to the wealth and valor of her citizens, who purchased
the absence and repelled the assaults of the Persian monarch. He was
ignorant, the profane historian, of the testimony which he is compelled
to deliver in the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium
was exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been sprinkled
on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel to the flames
of the besieged. After this important service, the image of Edessa was
preserved with respect and gratitude; and if the Armenians rejected the
legend, the more credulous Greeks adored the similitude, which was not
the work of any mortal pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine
original. The style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how
far their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. "How can we
with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor
the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in heaven,
condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image; He who is
seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by a picture, which the
Father has delineated with his immaculate hand, which he has formed in
an ineffable manner, and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and
love." Before the end of the sixth century, these images, made without
hands, (in Greek it is a single word, [11] were propagated in the camps
and cities of the Eastern empire: [12] they were the objects of worship,
and the instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult,
their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the courage,
or repress the fury, of the Roman legions. Of these pictures, the far
greater part, the transcripts of a human pencil, could only pretend to
a secondary likeness and improper title: but there were some of higher
descent, who derived their resemblance from an immediate contact with
the original, endowed, for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific
virtue. The most ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation
with the image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain,
or Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to
his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The fruitful precedent was
speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. In
the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features of the Mother of God
[13] were deeply inscribed in a marble column; the East and West have
been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke; and the Evangelist, who was
perhaps a physician, has been forced to exercise the occupation of a
painter, so profane and odious in the eyes of the primitive Christians.
The Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer and the chisel of
Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but
these Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish
artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius. [14]

[Footnote 7: After removing some rubbish of miracle and inconsistency,
it may be allowed, that as late as the year 300, Paneas in Palestine was
decorated with a bronze statue, representing a grave personage wrapped
in a cloak, with a grateful or suppliant female kneeling before him,
and that an inscription was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the
Christians, this group was foolishly explained of their founder and
the poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux, (Euseb. vii. 18,
Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more reasonably conjectures
the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor Vespasian: in the latter
supposition, the female is a city, a province, or perhaps the queen
Berenice, (Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. xiii. p. 1-92.)]

[Footnote 8: Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned Assemannus
has brought up the collateral aid of three Syrians, St. Ephrem, Josua
Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug; but I do not find any notice of the
Syriac original or the archives of Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p.
318, 420, 554;) their vague belief is probably derived from the Greeks.]

[Footnote 9: The evidence for these epistles is stated and rejected by
the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p. 297-309.) Among
the herd of bigots who are forcibly driven from this convenient, but
untenable, post, I am ashamed, with the Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c.,
to discover Mr. Addison, an English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p.
528, Baskerville's edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian
religion owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested
applause of our clergy.]

[Footnote 10: From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l.
iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable was invented between the years
521 and 594, most probably after the siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman.
tom. i. p. 416. Procopius, de Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and
buckler of, Gregory II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom.
viii. p. 656, 657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit.
Lequien,) and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p. 1030.) The most
perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 175-178.)]

[Footnote 11: See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject is
treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser, (Syntagma
de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini de Officiis, p.
289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of Ingoldstadt, (see the
Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit by the Protestant Beausobre, in
the ironical controversy which he has spread through many volumes of the
Bibliotheque Germanique, (tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68, xxv. p.
1-36, xxvii. p. 85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-148, xxxii. p.
75-107, xxxiv. p. 67-96.)]

[Footnote 12: Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii. c. 1,
p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since he adds (of
Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]

[Footnote 13: See, in the genuine or supposed works of John Damascenus,
two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke, which have not been noticed by
Gretser, nor consequently by Beausobre, (Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p.
618, 631.)]

[Footnote 14: "Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvass:
they are as bad as a group of statues!" It was thus that the ignorance
and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the pictures of Titian, which he
had ordered, and refused to accept.]

The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible
degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as
productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the beginning of the
eighth century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous
Greeks were awakened by an apprehension, that under the mask of
Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers: they
heard, with grief and impatience, the name of idolaters; the incessant
charge of the Jews and Mahometans, [15] who derived from the Law and the
Koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all relative worship.
The servitude of the Jews might curb their zeal, and depreciate their
authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at Damascus,
and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of reproach the
accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities of Syria, Palestine,
and Egypt had been fortified with the images of Christ, his mother, and
his saints; and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous
defence. In a rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those
cities and these images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts
pronounced a decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of
these mute and inanimate idols. [1511] For a while Edessa had braved
the Persian assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was
involved in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave
and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three hundred years,
the Palladium was yielded to the devotion of Constantinople, for a
ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver, the redemption of two
hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce for the territory of Edessa.
[16] In this season of distress and dismay, the eloquence of the monks
was exercised in the defence of images; and they attempted to prove,
that the sin and schism of the greatest part of the Orientals had
forfeited the favor, and annihilated the virtue, of these precious
symbols. But they were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or
rational Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts,
and of the primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of
the church. As the worship of images had never been established by any
general or positive law, its progress in the Eastern empire had been
retarded, or accelerated, by the differences of men and manners, the
local degrees of refinement, and the personal characters of the bishops.
The splendid devotion was fondly cherished by the levity of the capital,
and the inventive genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and
remote districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred
luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians maintained,
after their conversion, the simple worship which had preceded their
separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike subjects of Rome, were
not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to the sight of images. [17]
These various denominations of men afforded a fund of prejudice and
aversion, of small account in the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but
which, in the fortune of a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be
often connected with the powers of the church and state.

[Footnote 15: By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the origin
of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and two Jews,
who promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches of these hostile
sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for restoring the purity
of the Christian worship, (see Spanheim, Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]

[Footnote 1511: Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae, caused
all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year 719; hence the
orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following the example of the
Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon. Johan. Jerosylym. Script. Byzant.
vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des Repub. Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p.
126.--G.]

[Footnote 16: See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,) Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 264,), and the
criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.) The prudent Franciscan refuses
to determine whether the image of Edessa now reposes at Rome or Genoa;
but its repose is inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is no
longer famous or fashionable.]

[Footnote 17: (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are still
content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom. iii. p. 148;) but
surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the superstition of the
Germans of the xiith century.]

Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the Third,
[18] who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne of the
East. He was ignorant of sacred and profane letters; but his education,
his reason, perhaps his intercourse with the Jews and Arabs, had
inspired the martial peasant with a hatred of images; and it was held
to be the duty of a prince to impose on his subjects the dictates of
his own conscience. But in the outset of an unsettled reign, during ten
years of toil and danger, Leo submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy,
bowed before the idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman
pontiff with the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In the
reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate and cautious:
he assembled a great council of senators and bishops, and enacted, with
their consent, that all the images should be removed from the sanctuary
and altar to a proper height in the churches where they might be visible
to the eyes, and inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. But it
was impossible on either side to check the rapid through adverse impulse
of veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty position, the sacred images
still edified their votaries, and reproached the tyrant. He was himself
provoked by resistance and invective; and his own party accused him
of an imperfect discharge of his duty, and urged for his imitation the
example of the Jewish king, who had broken without scruple the brazen
serpent of the temple. By a second edict, he proscribed the existence
as well as the use of religious pictures; the churches of Constantinople
and the provinces were cleansed from idolatry; the images of Christ, the
Virgin, and the saints, were demolished, or a smooth surface of plaster
was spread over the walls of the edifice. The sect of the Iconoclasts
was supported by the zeal and despotism of six emperors, and the East
and West were involved in a noisy conflict of one hundred and
twenty years. It was the design of Leo the Isaurian to pronounce the
condemnation of images as an article of faith, and by the authority of
a general council: but the convocation of such an assembly was reserved
for his son Constantine; [19] and though it is stigmatized by triumphant
bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their own partial and
mutilated acts betray many symptoms of reason and piety. The debates and
decrees of many provincial synods introduced the summons of the general
council which met in the suburbs of Constantinople, and was composed
of the respectable number of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of
Europe and Anatolia; for the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria
were the slaves of the caliph, and the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the
churches of Italy and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This
Byzantine synod assumed the rank and powers of the seventh general
council; yet even this title was a recognition of the six preceding
assemblies, which had laboriously built the structure of the Catholic
faith. After a serious deliberation of six months, the three hundred and
thirty-eight bishops pronounced and subscribed a unanimous decree, that
all visible symbols of Christ, except in the Eucharist, were either
blasphemous or heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of
Christianity and a renewal of Paganism; that all such monuments of
idolatry should be broken or erased; and that those who should refuse
to deliver the objects of their private superstition, were guilty of
disobedience to the authority of the church and of the emperor. In
their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the merits of their
temporal redeemer; and to his zeal and justice they intrusted the
execution of their spiritual censures. At Constantinople, as in the
former councils, the will of the prince was the rule of episcopal faith;
but on this occasion, I am inclined to suspect that a large majority of
the prelates sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of
hope and fear. In the long night of superstition, the Christians had
wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel: nor was it easy for
them to discern the clew, and tread back the mazes, of the labyrinth.
The worship of images was inseparably blended, at least to a pious
fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the Saints and their relics; the holy
ground was involved in a cloud of miracles and visions; and the nerves
of the mind, curiosity and scepticism, were benumbed by the habits of
obedience and belief. Constantine himself is accused of indulging
a royal license to doubt, or deny, or deride the mysteries of the
Catholics, [20] but they were deeply inscribed in the public and private
creed of his bishops; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a
secret horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were consecrated
to the honor of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the
sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all the faculties
of man: the thirst of innovation superseded the reverence of antiquity;
and the vigor of Europe could disdain those phantoms which terrified the
sickly and servile weakness of the Greeks.

[Footnote 18: Our original, but not impartial, monuments of the
Iconoclasts must be drawn from the Acts of the Councils, tom. viii.
and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and the historical writings of
Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses, Cedrenus, Zonoras, &c. Of the modern
Catholics, Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Eccles. Seculum
viii. and ix.,) and Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclasts,) have treated the
subject with learning, passion, and credulity. The Protestant labors
of Frederick Spanheim (Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage
(Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are
cast into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite
tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic
indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der
Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of research and
impartiality--M.]

[Footnote 19: Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled (Opera,
tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim's Apology for the Synod of Constantinople (p.
171, &c.) is worked up with truth and ingenuity, from such materials
as he could find in the Nicene Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of
Damascus converts it into slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p.
806]

[Footnote 20: He is accused of proscribing the title of saint; styling
the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her delivery to an
empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his defence, Spanheim (c.
iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed between the interest of a Protestant
and the duty of an orthodox divine.]

The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to the people
by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most ignorant can
perceive, the most torpid must feel, the profanation and downfall
of their visible deities. The first hostilities of Leo were directed
against a lofty Christ on the vestibule, and above the gate, of the
palace. A ladder had been planted for the assault, but it was furiously
shaken by a crowd of zealots and women: they beheld, with pious
transport, the ministers of sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed
against the pavement: and the honors of the ancient martyrs were
prostituted to these criminals, who justly suffered for murder and
rebellion. [21] The execution of the Imperial edicts was resisted by
frequent tumults in Constantinople and the provinces: the person of Leo
was endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular enthusiasm
was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and military power.
Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous islands were filled with
images and monks: their votaries abjured, without scruple, the enemy
of Christ, his mother, and the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and
galleys, displayed their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the
harbor of Constantinople, to place on the throne a new favorite of God
and the people. They depended on the succor of a miracle: but their
miracles were inefficient against the Greek fire; and, after the defeat
and conflagration of the fleet, the naked islands were abandoned to the
clemency or justice of the conqueror. The son of Leo, in the first year
of his reign, had undertaken an expedition against the Saracens: during
his absence, the capital, the palace, and the purple, were occupied by
his kinsman Artavasdes, the ambitious champion of the orthodox faith.
The worship of images was triumphantly restored: the patriarch renounced
his dissimulation, or dissembled his sentiments and the righteous claims
of the usurper was acknowledged, both in the new, and in ancient, Rome.
Constantine flew for refuge to his paternal mountains; but he descended
at the head of the bold and affectionate Isaurians; and his final
victory confounded the arms and predictions of the fanatics. His long
reign was distracted with clamor, sedition, conspiracy, and mutual
hatred, and sanguinary revenge; the persecution of images was the motive
or pretence, of his adversaries; and, if they missed a temporal diadem,
they were rewarded by the Greeks with the crown of martyrdom. In every
act of open and clandestine treason, the emperor felt the unforgiving
enmity of the monks, the faithful slaves of the superstition to which
they owed their riches and influence. They prayed, they preached, they
absolved, they inflamed, they conspired; the solitude of Palestine
poured forth a torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John Damascenus,
[22] the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant's head, both in
this world and the next. [23] [2311] I am not at leisure to examine how
far the monks provoked, nor how much they have exaggerated, their real
and pretended sufferings, nor how many lost their lives or limbs, their
eyes or their beards, by the cruelty of the emperor. [2312] From the
chastisement of individuals, he proceeded to the abolition of the order;
and, as it was wealthy and useless, his resentment might be stimulated
by avarice, and justified by patriotism. The formidable name and
mission of the Dragon, [24] his visitor-general, excited the terror
and abhorrence of the black nation: the religious communities were
dissolved, the buildings were converted into magazines, or bar racks;
the lands, movables, and cattle were confiscated; and our modern
precedents will support the charge, that much wanton or malicious havoc
was exercised against the relics, and even the books of the monasteries.
With the habit and profession of monks, the public and private worship
of images was rigorously proscribed; and it should seem, that a solemn
abjuration of idolatry was exacted from the subjects, or at least from
the clergy, of the Eastern empire. [25]

[Footnote 21: The holy confessor Theophanes approves the principle
of their rebellion, (p. 339.) Gregory II. (in Epist. i. ad Imp. Leon.
Concil. tom. viii. p. 661, 664) applauds the zeal of the Byzantine women
who killed the Imperial officers.]

[Footnote 22: John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of Damascus, who
held a considerable office in the service of the caliph. His zeal in the
cause of images exposed him to the resentment and treachery of the Greek
emperor; and on the suspicion of a treasonable correspondence, he was
deprived of his right hand, which was miraculously restored by the
Virgin. After this deliverance, he resigned his office, distributed
his wealth, and buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas, between
Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous; but his learned
editor, Father Lequien, has a unluckily proved that St. John Damascenus
was already a monk before the Iconoclast dispute, (Opera, tom. i. Vit.
St. Joan. Damascen. p. 10-13, et Notas ad loc.)]

[Footnote 23: After sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his heir,
(Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the authenticity of this piece
be suspicious, we are sure that in other works, no longer extant,
Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the titles. (tom. i. p. 306.)]

[Footnote 2311: The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast under Leo, an
image worshipper under Artavasdes, was scourged, led through the streets
on an ass, with his face to the tail; and, reinvested in his dignity,
became again the obsequious minister of Constantine in his Iconoclastic
persecutions. See Schlosser p. 211.--M.]

[Footnote 2312: Compare Schlosser, p. 228-234.--M.]

[Footnote 24: In the narrative of this persecution from Theophanes and
Cedreves, Spanheim (p. 235-238) is happy to compare the Draco of Leo
with the dragoons (Dracones) of Louis XIV.; and highly solaces himself
with the controversial pun.]

[Footnote 25: (Damascen. Op. tom. i. p. 625.) This oath and subscription
I do not remember to have seen in any modern compilation]

The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images; they were
fondly cherished, and vigorously defended, by the independent zeal of
the Italians. In ecclesiastical rank and jurisdiction, the patriarch
of Constantinople and the pope of Rome were nearly equal. But the Greek
prelate was a domestic slave under the eye of his master, at whose
nod he alternately passed from the convent to the throne, and from
the throne to the convent. A distant and dangerous station, amidst the
Barbarians of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin
bishops.

Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the public and
private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and the weakness
or neglect of the emperors compelled them to consult, both in peace and
war, the temporal safety of the city. In the school of adversity the
priest insensibly imbibed the virtues and the ambition of a prince; the
same character was assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian,
the Greek, or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and,
after the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of
the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed, that in
the eighth century, their dominion was founded on rebellion, and
that the rebellion was produced, and justified, by the heresy of the
Iconoclasts; but the conduct of the second and third Gregory, in this
memorable contest, is variously interpreted by the wishes of their
friends and enemies. The Byzantine writers unanimously declare, that,
after a fruitless admonition, they pronounced the separation of the
East and West, and deprived the sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue
and sovereignty of Italy. Their excommunication is still more clearly
expressed by the Greeks, who beheld the accomplishment of the papal
triumphs; and as they are more strongly attached to their religion
than to their country, they praise, instead of blaming, the zeal and
orthodoxy of these apostolical men. [26] The modern champions of
Rome are eager to accept the praise and the precedent: this great and
glorious example of the deposition of royal heretics is celebrated by
the cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine; [27] and if they are asked,
why the same thunders were not hurled against the Neros and Julians of
antiquity, they reply, that the weakness of the primitive church was the
sole cause of her patient loyalty. [28] On this occasion the effects of
love and hatred are the same; and the zealous Protestants, who seek
to kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears, of princes and
magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and treason of the two Gregories
against their lawful sovereign. [29] They are defended only by the
moderate Catholics, for the most part, of the Gallican church, [30] who
respect the saint, without approving the sin. These common advocates of
the crown and the mitre circumscribe the truth of facts by the rule
of equity, Scripture, and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the
Latins, [31] and the lives [32] and epistles of the popes themselves.

[Footnote 26: Theophanes. (Chronograph. p. 343.) For this Gregory is
styled by Cedrenus. (p. 450.) Zonaras specifies the thunder, (tom. ii.
l. xv. p. 104, 105.) It may be observed, that the Greeks are apt to
confound the times and actions of two Gregories.]

[Footnote 27: See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 730, No. 4, 5; dignum
exemplum! Bellarmin. de Romano Pontifice, l. v. c. 8: mulctavit eum
parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii. p.
169. Yet such is the change of Italy, that Sigonius is corrected by the
editor of Milan, Philipus Argelatus, a Bolognese, and subject of the
pope.]

[Footnote 28: Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut
Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis, (honest
Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. l. v. c. 7.) Cardinal Perron adds a
distinction more honorable to the first Christians, but not more
satisfactory to modern princes--the treason of heretics and apostates,
who break their oath, belie their coin, and renounce their allegiance to
Christ and his vicar, (Perroniana, p. 89.)]

[Footnote 29: Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage (Hist. d'Eglise,
p. 1350, 1351) and the vehement Spanheim, (Hist. Imaginum,) who, with a
hundred more, tread in the footsteps of the centuriators of Magdeburgh.]

[Footnote 30: See Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. epist. vii. 7, p.
456-474,) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Nov. Testamenti, secul. viii.
dissert. i. p. 92-98,) Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 215, 216,) and
Giannone, (Istoria Civile Napoli, tom. i. p. 317-320,) a disciple of the
Gallican school In the field of controversy I always pity the moderate
party, who stand on the open middle ground exposed to the fire of both
sides.]

[Footnote 31: They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus, (de Gestis
Langobard. l. vi. c. 49, p. 506, 507, in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. i.
pars i.,) and the nominal Anastasius, (de Vit. Pont. in Muratori, tom.
iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p. 154. Gregorius III. p. 158. Zacharias, p.
161. Stephanus III. p. 165.; Paulus, p. 172. Stephanus IV. p. 174.
Hadrianus, p. 179. Leo III. p. 195.) Yet I may remark, that the true
Anastasius (Hist. Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella,
(l. xxi. p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]

[Footnote 32: With some minute difference, the most learned critics,
Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini, Muratori,
(Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed that the Liber
Pontificalis was composed and continued by the apostolic librarians
and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries; and that the last and
smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose name it bears. The style
is barbarous, the narrative partial, the details are trifling--yet
it must be read as a curious and authentic record of the times. The
epistles of the popes are dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]




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

Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor Leo, are
still extant; [33] and if they cannot be praised as the most perfect
models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the portrait, or at least
the mask, of the founder of the papal monarchy. "During ten pure and
fortunate years," says Gregory to the emperor, "we have tasted the
annual comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, with
your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox
creed of our fathers. How deplorable is the change! how tremendous
the scandal! You now accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the
accusation, you betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance
we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the
first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion; and
were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the enemy of our
worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to cast
their horn-books at your head." After this decent salutation, the pope
attempts the usual distinction between the idols of antiquity and
the Christian images. The former were the fanciful representations of
phantoms or daemons, at a time when the true God had not manifested
his person in any visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms
of Christ, his mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd
of miracles, the innocence and merit of this relative worship. He must
indeed have trusted to the ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the
perpetual use of images, from the apostolic age, and their venerable
presence in the six synods of the Catholic church. A more specious
argument is drawn from present possession and recent practice the
harmony of the Christian world supersedes the demand of a general
council; and Gregory frankly confesses, than such assemblies can only
be useful under the reign of an orthodox prince. To the impudent and
inhuman Leo, more guilty than a heretic, he recommends peace, silence,
and implicit obedience to his spiritual guides of Constantinople and
Rome. The limits of civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by the
pontiff. To the former he appropriates the body; to the latter, the
soul: the sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate: the more
formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy; and in
the exercise of their divine commission a zealous son will not spare his
offending father: the successor of St. Peter may lawfully chastise
the kings of the earth. "You assault us, O tyrant! with a carnal and
military hand: unarmed and naked we can only implore the Christ, the
prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the
destruction of your body and the salvation of your soul. You declare,
with foolish arrogance, I will despatch my orders to Rome: I will break
in pieces the image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor
Martin, shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the
Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread in the
footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the fate of Constans serve as a
warning to the persecutors of the church! After his just condemnation
by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the fullness of his
sins, by a domestic servant: the saint is still adored by the nations of
Scythia, among whom he ended his banishment and his life. But it is our
duty to live for the edification and support of the faithful people; nor
are we reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as
you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the
city may perhaps expose it to your depredation but we can remove to
the distance of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the
Lombards, and then--you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that the
popes are the bond of union, the mediators of peace, between the East
and West? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility; and they
revere, as a God upon earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you
threaten to destroy. [35] The remote and interior kingdoms of the West
present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to
visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from
our hands the sacrament of baptism. [36] The Barbarians have submitted
to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of the
shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled into rage: they thirst
to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon your rash and fatal
enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are
innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on
your own head!"

[Footnote 33: The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved in the
Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651-674.) They are without a
date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the year 726, by Muratori
(Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in 729, and by Pagi in 730. Such is
the force of prejudice, that some papists have praised the good sense
and moderation of these letters.]

[Footnote 34: (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the Lombards is hard
of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu Beneventi,
in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173) forcibly reckons the xxivth
stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of the Roman duchy, to the
first fortress, perhaps Sora, of the Lombards. I rather believe that
Gregory, with the pedantry of the age, employs stadia for miles, without
much inquiry into the genuine measure.]

[Footnote 35: {Greek}]

[Footnote 36: (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed on the
ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the Lateran; and in his
time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christianity. May not
this unknown Septetus have some reference to the chief of the Saxon
Heptarchy, to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the pontificate of Gregory the
Second, visited Rome for the purpose, not of baptism, but of pilgrimage!
(Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D. 726, No. 15.)]

The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had been
witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West, who related
with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the emperor. But on the
reception of his proscriptive edict, they trembled for their domestic
deities: the images of Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs,
and saints, were abolished in all the churches of Italy; and a strong
alternative was proposed to the Roman pontiff, the royal favor as the
price of his compliance, degradation and exile as the penalty of his
disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him to hesitate; and
the haughty strain in which Gregory addressed the emperor displays his
confidence in the truth of his doctrine or the powers of resistance.
Without depending on prayers or miracles, he boldly armed against the
public enemy, and his pastoral letters admonished the Italians of their
danger and their duty. [37] At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and
the cities of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of
religion; their military force by sea and land consisted, for the
most part, of the natives; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was
transfused into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live and
die in the defence of the pope and the holy images; the Roman people was
devoted to their father, and even the Lombards were ambitious to share
the merit and advantage of this holy war. The most treasonable act,
but the most obvious revenge, was the destruction of the statues of Leo
himself: the most effectual and pleasing measure of rebellion, was the
withholding the tribute of Italy, and depriving him of a power which he
had recently abused by the imposition of a new capitation. [38] A form
of administration was preserved by the election of magistrates and
governors; and so high was the public indignation, that the Italians
were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, and to conduct him with
a fleet and army to the palace of Constantinople. In that palace, the
Roman bishops, the second and third Gregory, were condemned as the
authors of the revolt, and every attempt was made, either by fraud or
force, to seize their persons, and to strike at their lives. The city
was repeatedly visited or assaulted by captains of the guards, and dukes
and exarchs of high dignity or secret trust; they landed with foreign
troops, they obtained some domestic aid, and the superstition of Naples
may blush that her fathers were attached to the cause of heresy. But
these clandestine or open attacks were repelled by the courage and
vigilance of the Romans; the Greeks were overthrown and massacred, their
leaders suffered an ignominious death, and the popes, however inclined
to mercy, refused to intercede for these guilty victims. At Ravenna,
[39] the several quarters of the city had long exercised a bloody and
hereditary feud; in religious controversy they found a new aliment of
faction: but the votaries of images were superior in numbers or spirit,
and the exarch, who attempted to stem the torrent, lost his life in
a popular sedition. To punish this flagitious deed, and restore his
dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and army into the Adriatic
Gulf. After suffering from the winds and waves much loss and delay,
the Greeks made their descent in the neighborhood of Ravenna: they
threatened to depopulate the guilty capital, and to imitate, perhaps to
surpass, the example of Justinian the Second, who had chastised a
former rebellion by the choice and execution of fifty of the principal
inhabitants. The women and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate
in prayer: the men were in arms for the defence of their country; the
common danger had united the factions, and the event of a battle was
preferred to the slow miseries of a siege. In a hard-fought day, as the
two armies alternately yielded and advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice
was heard, and Ravenna was victorious by the assurance of victory. The
strangers retreated to their ships, but the populous sea-coast poured
forth a multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected
with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained
from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual feast
perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of the Greek
tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the Roman pontiff
convened a synod of ninety-three bishops against the heresy of the
Iconoclasts. With their consent, he pronounced a general excommunication
against all who by word or deed should attack the tradition of the
fathers and the images of the saints: in this sentence the emperor was
tacitly involved, [40] but the vote of a last and hopeless remonstrance
may seem to imply that the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty
head. No sooner had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of
images, and the freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to
have relaxed of their severity, and to have spared the relics of the
Byzantine dominion. Their moderate councils delayed and prevented
the election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians not to
separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch was permitted
to reside within the walls of Ravenna, a captive rather than a master;
and till the Imperial coronation of Charlemagne, the government of Rome
and Italy was exercised in the name of the successors of Constantine.
[41]

[Footnote 37: I shall transcribe the important and decisive passage
of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir profanam principis
jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra hostem se armavit,
renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique se cavere Christianos, eo quod
orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque
Venetiarum exercitus contra Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes
se nunquam in ejusdem pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis
defensione viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]

[Footnote 38: A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156;) a
most cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims the zealous
Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,) and Theophanes, (p. 344,)
who talks of Pharaoh's numbering the male children of Israel. This mode
of taxation was familiar to the Saracens; and, most unluckily for the
historians, it was imposed a few years afterwards in France by his
patron Louis XIV.]

[Footnote 39: See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in the Scriptores
Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i.,) whose deeper shade
of barbarism marks the difference between Rome and Ravenna. Yet we are
indebted to him for some curious and domestic facts--the quarters and
factions of Ravenna, (p. 154,) the revenge of Justinian II, (p. 160,
161,) the defeat of the Greeks, (p. 170, 171,) &c.]

[Footnote 40: Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis ....
imaginum sacrarum.... destructor.... extiterit, sit extorris a cor
pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesiae unitate. The canonists may
decide whether the guilt or the name constitutes the excommunication;
and the decision is of the last importance to their safety, since,
according to the oracle (Gratian, Caus. xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim,
Hist. Imag. p. 112) homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]

[Footnote 41: Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans conversionem
principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne desisterent ab amore et fide R.
J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style Leo and Constantine Copronymus,
Imperatores et Domini, with the strange epithet of Piissimi. A famous
Mosaic of the Lateran (A.D. 798) represents Christ, who delivers the
keys to St. Peter and the banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali
d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 337.)]

The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and arts of
Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty years of servitude,
from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By the Caesars, the triumphs
of the consuls had been annihilated: in the decline and fall of the
empire, the god Terminus, the sacred boundary, had insensibly receded
from the ocean, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was
reduced to her ancient territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from
Narni to the mouth of the Tyber. [42] When the kings were banished,
the republic reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their
wisdom and virtue. Their perpetual jurisdiction was divided between
two annual magistrates: the senate continued to exercise the powers
of administration and counsel; and the legislative authority was
distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a well-proportioned
scale of property and service. Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the
primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war: the
will of the community was absolute: the rights of individuals were
sacred: one hundred and thirty thousand citizens were armed for defence
or conquest; and a band of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation
deserving of freedom and ambitious of glory. [43] When the sovereignty
of the Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented
the sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a habit, her
liberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object of her
own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the substance, or even the
forms, of the constitution, was obliterated from the practice and memory
of the Romans; and they were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to
build the fabric of a commonwealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring
of slaves and strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the victorious
Barbarians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed their most
bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman; "and in this name,"
says the bishop Liutprand, "we include whatever is base, whatever is
cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the extremes of avarice and luxury,
and every vice that can prostitute the dignity of human nature." [44]
[441] By the necessity of their situation, the inhabitants of Rome
were cast into the rough model of a republican government: they were
compelled to elect some judges in peace, and some leaders in war: the
nobles assembled to deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed
without the union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman
senate and people was revived, [45] but the spirit was fled; and
their new independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of
vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be supplied
by the influence of religion, and their foreign and domestic counsels
were moderated by the authority of the bishop. His alms, his sermons,
his correspondence with the kings and prelates of the West, his recent
services, their gratitude, and oath, accustomed the Romans to consider
him as the first magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian
humility of the popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord;
and their face and inscription are still apparent on the most ancient
coins. [46] Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the reverence
of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the free choice of a
people, whom they had redeemed from slavery.

[Footnote 42: I have traced the Roman duchy according to the maps, and
the maps according to the excellent dissertation of father Beretti,
(de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi, sect. xx. p. 216-232.) Yet I must
nicely observe, that Viterbo is of Lombard foundation, (p. 211,) and
that Terracina was usurped by the Greeks.]

[Footnote 43: On the extent, population, &c., of the Roman kingdom,
the reader may peruse, with pleasure, the Discours Preliminaire to the
Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort, (tom. i.,) who will not be accused
of too much credulity for the early ages of Rome.]

[Footnote 44: Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones, Franci,
Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto dedignamur ut inimicos
nostros commoti, nil aliud contumeliarum nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo,
id est Romanorum nomine, quicquid ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis,
quicquid avaritiae, quicquid luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid
vitiorum est comprehendentes, (Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom.
ii. para i. p. 481.) For the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might have
imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this barbarous passage.]

[Footnote 441: Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by Robertson
(Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by the angry bishop
to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he admits to be the genuine
descendants of Romulus.--M.]

[Footnote 45: Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque universa
populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis. Codex Carolin. epist.
36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 160. The names of senatus and
senator were never totally extinct, (Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216,
217;) but in the middle ages they signified little more than nobiles,
optimates, &c., (Ducange, Gloss. Latin.)]

[Footnote 46: See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii.
Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read Hadrianus Papa
(A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn. with the word Conob, which
the Pere Joubert (Science des Medailles, tom. ii. p. 42) explains by
Constantinopoli Officina B (secunda.)]

In the quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis enjoyed a
perpetual peace, under the protection of Jupiter, and in the exercise
of the Olympic games. [47] Happy would it have been for the Romans, if
a similar privilege had guarded the patrimony of St. Peter from the
calamities of war; if the Christians, who visited the holy threshold,
would have sheathed their swords in the presence of the apostle and his
successor. But this mystic circle could have been traced only by the
wand of a legislator and a sage: this pacific system was incompatible
with the zeal and ambition of the popes the Romans were not addicted,
like the inhabitants of Elis, to the innocent and placid labors of
agriculture; and the Barbarians of Italy, though softened by the
climate, were far below the Grecian states in the institutions of
public and private life. A memorable example of repentance and piety was
exhibited by Liutprand, king of the Lombards. In arms, at the gate of
the Vatican, the conqueror listened to the voice of Gregory the Second,
[48] withdrew his troops, resigned his conquests, respectfully visited
the church of St. Peter, and after performing his devotions, offered
his sword and dagger, his cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and his
crown of gold, on the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervor was
the illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the moment; the sense of interest
is strong and lasting; the love of arms and rapine was congenial to the
Lombards; and both the prince and people were irresistibly tempted
by the disorders of Italy, the nakedness of Rome, and the unwarlike
profession of her new chief. On the first edicts of the emperor, they
declared themselves the champions of the holy images: Liutprand invaded
the province of Romagna, which had already assumed that distinctive
appellation; the Catholics of the Exarchate yielded without reluctance
to his civil and military power; and a foreign enemy was introduced for
the first time into the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. That city and
fortress were speedily recovered by the active diligence and maritime
forces of the Venetians; and those faithful subjects obeyed the
exhortation of Gregory himself, in separating the personal guilt of Leo
from the general cause of the Roman empire. [49] The Greeks were
less mindful of the service, than the Lombards of the injury: the two
nations, hostile in their faith, were reconciled in a dangerous and
unnatural alliance: the king and the exarch marched to the conquest of
Spoleto and Rome: the storm evaporated without effect, but the policy
of Liutprand alarmed Italy with a vexatious alternative of hostility and
truce. His successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the
emperor and the pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery, [50]
and this final conquest extinguished the series of the exarchs, who had
reigned with a subordinate power since the time of Justinian and
the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was summoned to acknowledge the
victorious Lombard as her lawful sovereign; the annual tribute of a
piece of gold was fixed as the ransom of each citizen, and the sword of
destruction was unsheathed to exact the penalty of her disobedience. The
Romans hesitated; they entreated; they complained; and the threatening
Barbarians were checked by arms and negotiations, till the popes had
engaged the friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the Alps. [51]

[Footnote 47: See West's Dissertation on the Olympic Games, (Pindar.
vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the judicious reflections of
Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit Gronov.)]

[Footnote 48: The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is finely composed
by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii. p. 173,) who
imitates the license and the spirit of Sallust or Livy.]

[Footnote 49: The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus, (Chron. Venet.
p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores Rer. Ital. tom. xii. p.
135,) have preserved this epistle of Gregory. The loss and recovery of
Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi.
c. 42, 54, in Script. Ital. tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our
chronologists, Pagi, Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or
circumstances]

[Footnote 50: The option will depend on the various readings of the Mss.
of Anastasius--deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars
i. p. 167.)]

[Footnote 51: The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles of
the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,) Pepin, and
Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was formed by the last of
these princes. His original and authentic Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis)
is now in the Imperial library of Vienna, and has been published by
Lambecius and Muratori, (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75,
&c.)]

In his distress, the first [511] Gregory had implored the aid of the
hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the French monarchy
with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his signal victory
over the Saracens, had saved his country, and perhaps Europe, from the
Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the pope were received by Charles
with decent reverence; but the greatness of his occupations, and the
shortness of his life, prevented his interference in the affairs of
Italy, except by a friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin,
the heir of his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of
the Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have been
prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger was on the
banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the Seine, and our sympathy
is cold to the relation of distant misery. Amidst the tears of the city,
Stephen the Third embraced the generous resolution of visiting in person
the courts of Lombardy and France, to deprecate the injustice of his
enemy, or to excite the pity and indignation of his friend. After
soothing the public despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this
laborious journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the
Greek emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats
could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the Roman
pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the abbey of St.
Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his protector; a hand
which was never lifted in vain, either in war or friendship. Stephen
was entertained as the visible successor of the apostle; at the next
assembly, the field of March or of May, his injuries were exposed to a
devout and warlike nation, and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant,
but as a conqueror, at the head of a French army, which was led by
the king in person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an
ignominious peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to respect
the sanctity, of the Roman church. But no sooner was Astolphus delivered
from the presence of the French arms, than he forgot his promise and
resented his disgrace. Rome was again encompassed by his arms; and
Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing the zeal of his Transalpine allies
enforced his complaint and request by an eloquent letter in the name and
person of St. Peter himself. [52] The apostle assures his adopted sons,
the king, the clergy, and the nobles of France, that, dead in the flesh,
he is still alive in the spirit; that they now hear, and must obey, the
voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman church; that the Virgin,
the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the host of heaven,
unanimously urge the request, and will confess the obligation; that
riches, victory, and paradise, will crown their pious enterprise, and
that eternal damnation will be the penalty of their neglect, if they
suffer his tomb, his temple, and his people, to fall into the hands of
the perfidious Lombards. The second expedition of Pepin was not less
rapid and fortunate than the first: St. Peter was satisfied, Rome
was again saved, and Astolphus was taught the lessons of justice
and sincerity by the scourge of a foreign master. After this double
chastisement, the Lombards languished about twenty years in a state
of languor and decay. But their minds were not yet humbled to their
condition; and instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble,
they peevishly harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims,
evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection, and
terminated without glory. On either side, their expiring monarchy was
pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the First, the genius,
the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the son of Pepin; these
heroes of the church and state were united in public and domestic
friendship, and while they trampled on the prostrate, they varnished
their proceedings with the fairest colors of equity and moderation. [53]
The passes of the Alps, and the walls of Pavia, were the only defence
of the Lombards; the former were surprised, the latter were invested, by
the son of Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, [531] Desiderius,
the last of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his
capital.

Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of their
national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, rather than the
subjects, of the Franks; who derived their blood, and manners, and
language, from the same Germanic origin. [54]

[Footnote 511: Gregory I. had been dead above a century; read Gregory
III.--M]

[Footnote 52: See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex Carolinus,
epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have charged them with fraud
and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to persuade rather than deceive.
This introduction of the dead, or of immortals, was familiar to the
ancient orators, though it is executed on this occasion in the rude
fashion of the age.]

[Footnote 53: Except in the divorce of the daughter of Desiderius, whom
Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine. Pope Stephen IV. had most
furiously opposed the alliance of a noble Frank--cum perfida, horrida
nec dicenda, foetentissima natione Longobardorum--to whom he imputes the
first stain of leprosy, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.)
Another reason against the marriage was the existence of a first
wife, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236, 237.) But
Charlemagne indulged himself in the freedom of polygamy or concubinage.]

[Footnote 531: Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p.
187.--M.]

[Footnote 54: See the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, tom. vi., and the
three first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae Medii Aevi, tom.
i.]




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

The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family form
the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and ecclesiastical,
history. In the conquest of Italy, the champions of the Roman church
obtained a favorable occasion, a specious title, the wishes of the
people, the prayers and intrigues of the clergy. But the most essential
gifts of the popes to the Carlovingian race were the dignities of
king of France, [55] and of patrician of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal
monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the practice of
seeking, on the banks of the Tyber, their kings, their laws, and the
oracles of their fate. The Franks were perplexed between the name and
substance of their government. All the powers of royalty were exercised
by Pepin, mayor of the palace; and nothing, except the regal title,
was wanting to his ambition. His enemies were crushed by his valor;
his friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father had been the
savior of Christendom; and the claims of personal merit were repeated
and ennobled in a descent of four generations. The name and image of
royalty was still preserved in the last descendant of Clovis, the feeble
Childeric; but his obsolete right could only be used as an instrument
of sedition: the nation was desirous of restoring the simplicity of
the constitution; and Pepin, a subject and a prince, was ambitious to
ascertain his own rank and the fortune of his family. The mayor and the
nobles were bound, by an oath of fidelity, to the royal phantom: the
blood of Clovis was pure and sacred in their eyes; and their common
ambassadors addressed the Roman pontiff, to dispel their scruples, or
to absolve their promise. The interest of Pope Zachary, the successor of
the two Gregories, prompted him to decide, and to decide in their favor:
he pronounced that the nation might lawfully unite in the same person
the title and authority of king; and that the unfortunate Childeric, a
victim of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and confined
in a monastery for the remainder of his days. An answer so agreeable to
their wishes was accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a casuist, the
sentence of a judge, or the oracle of a prophet: the Merovingian race
disappeared from the earth; and Pepin was exalted on a buckler by the
suffrage of a free people, accustomed to obey his laws and to march
under his standard. His coronation was twice performed, with the
sanction of the popes, by their most faithful servant St. Boniface, the
apostle of Germany, and by the grateful hands of Stephen the Third,
who, in the monastery of St. Denys placed the diadem on the head of his
benefactor. The royal unction of the kings of Israel was dexterously
applied: [56] the successor of St. Peter assumed the character of a
divine ambassador: a German chieftain was transformed into the Lord's
anointed; and this Jewish rite has been diffused and maintained by the
superstition and vanity of modern Europe. The Franks were absolved from
their ancient oath; but a dire anathema was thundered against them
and their posterity, if they should dare to renew the same freedom of
choice, or to elect a king, except in the holy and meritorious race of
the Carlovingian princes. Without apprehending the future danger, these
princes gloried in their present security: the secretary of Charlemagne
affirms, that the French sceptre was transferred by the authority of
the popes; [57] and in their boldest enterprises, they insist, with
confidence, on this signal and successful act of temporal jurisdiction.

[Footnote 55: Besides the common historians, three French critics,
Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p. 477-487,) Pagi,
(Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,) and Natalis Alexander,
(Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p. 96-107,) have treated this
subject of the deposition of Childeric with learning and attention, but
with a strong bias to save the independence of the crown. Yet they are
hard pressed by the texts which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes,
and the old annals, Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]

[Footnote 56: Not absolutely for the first time. On a less conspicuous
theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith centuries, by
the provincial bishops of Britain and Spain. The royal unction of
Constantinople was borrowed from the Latins in the last age of the
empire. Constantine Manasses mentions that of Charlemagne as a foreign,
Jewish, incomprehensible ceremony. See Selden's Titles of Honor, in his
Works, vol. iii. part i. p. 234-249.]

[Footnote 57: See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9, &c.,
c. iii. p. 24. Childeric was deposed--jussu, the Carlovingians were
established--auctoritate, Pontificis Romani. Launoy, &c., pretend that
these strong words are susceptible of a very soft interpretation. Be
it so; yet Eginhard understood the world, the court, and the Latin
language.]

II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome
[58] were far removed from the senate of Romulus, on the palace of
Constantine, from the free nobles of the republic, or the fictitious
parents of the emperor. After the recovery of Italy and Africa by the
arms of Justinian, the importance and danger of those remote provinces
required the presence of a supreme magistrate; he was indifferently
styled the exarch or the patrician; and these governors of Ravenna,
who fill their place in the chronology of princes, extended their
jurisdiction over the Roman city. Since the revolt of Italy and the loss
of the Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted some sacrifice
of their independence. Yet, even in this act, they exercised the right
of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate and people
successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity with the honors
of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful nation would have
disdained a servile title and subordinate office; but the reign of the
Greek emperors was suspended; and, in the vacancy of the empire, they
derived a more glorious commission from the pope and the republic. The
Roman ambassadors presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine
of St. Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner
which it was their right and duty to unfurl in the defence of the
church and city. [59] In the time of Charles Martel and of Pepin, the
interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the freedom, while it
threatened the safety, of Rome; and the patriciate represented only the
title, the service, the alliance, of these distant protectors. The power
and policy of Charlemagne annihilated an enemy, and imposed a master.
In his first visit to the capital, he was received with all the honors
which had formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of the
emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations from the joy and
gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. [60] No sooner was he informed of
the sudden approach of the monarch, than he despatched the magistrates
and nobles of Rome to meet him, with the banner, about thirty miles from
the city. At the distance of one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with
the schools, or national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.:
the Roman youth were under arms; and the children of a more tender age,
with palms and olive branches in their hands, chanted the praises of
their great deliverer. At the aspect of the holy crosses, and ensigns
of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led the procession of his
nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended the stairs, devoutly kissed
each step of the threshold of the apostles. In the portico, Adrian
expected him at the head of his clergy: they embraced, as friends and
equals; but in their march to the altar, the king or patrician assumed
the right hand of the pope. Nor was the Frank content with these vain
and empty demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that
elapsed between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation,
Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his own,
to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance to his person
and family: in his name money was coined, and justice was administered;
and the election of the popes was examined and confirmed by his
authority. Except an original and self-inherent claim of sovereignty,
there was not any prerogative remaining, which the title of emperor
could add to the patrician of Rome. [61]

[Footnote 58: For the title and powers of patrician of Rome, see
Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 740,
No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 308-329,) and St.
Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d'Italie, tom. i. p. 379-382.) Of these the
Franciscan Pagi is the most disposed to make the patrician a lieutenant
of the church, rather than of the empire.]

[Footnote 59: The papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning of the
banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus, or direximus,
(Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 76,) seems to allow of
no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the Vienna library, they read,
instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or request (see Ducange;) and the
royalty of Charles Martel is subverted by this important correction,
(Catalani, in his Critical Prefaces, Annali d'Italia, tom. xvii. p.
95-99.)]

[Footnote 60: In the authentic narrative of this reception, the Liber
Pontificalis observes--obviam illi ejus sanctitas dirigens venerabiles
cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad exarchum, aut patricium
suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi fecit, (tom. iii. pars i.
p. 185.)]

[Footnote 61: Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the empire of
Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city--vestrae civitates
(ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de Metensis Ecclesiae
Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals, struck at Rome, have engaged
Le Blanc to write an elaborate, though partial, dissertation on their
authority at Rome, both as patricians and emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692, in
4to.)]

The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these obligations,
and their names are consecrated, as the saviors and benefactors of the
Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms and houses was transformed
by their bounty into the temporal dominion of cities and provinces; and
the donation of the Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of
Pepin. [62] Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys
and the hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the French
ambassador; and, in his master's name, he presented them before the tomb
of St. Peter. The ample measure of the Exarchate [63] might comprise all
the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the emperor and his vicegerent;
but its strict and proper limits were included in the territories
of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara: its inseparable dependency was the
Pentapolis, which stretched along the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona,
and advanced into the midland-country as far as the ridges of the
Apennine. In this transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes
have been severely condemned. Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest
should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not easy for him
to govern without renouncing the virtues of his profession. Perhaps
a faithful subject, or even a generous enemy, would have been less
impatient to divide the spoils of the Barbarian; and if the emperor
had intrusted Stephen to solicit in his name the restitution of the
Exarchate, I will not absolve the pope from the reproach of treachery
and falsehood. But in the rigid interpretation of the laws, every one
may accept, without injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without
injustice. The Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to
the Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger
sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the Iconoclast
that Pepin has exposed his person and army in a double expedition beyond
the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully alienate, his conquests:
and to the importunities of the Greeks he piously replied that no human
consideration should tempt him to resume the gift which he had conferred
on the Roman Pontiff for the remission of his sins, and the salvation
of his soul. The splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute
dominion, and the world beheld for the first time a Christian bishop
invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the choice of
magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes, and
the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of the Lombard
kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy of Spoleto [64] sought a refuge
from the storm, shaved their heads after the Roman fashion, declared
themselves the servants and subjects of St. Peter, and completed, by
this voluntary surrender, the present circle of the ecclesiastical
state. That mysterious circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by
the verbal or written donation of Charlemagne, [65] who, in the first
transports of his victory, despoiled himself and the Greek emperor of
the cities and islands which had formerly been annexed to the Exarchate.
But, in the cooler moments of absence and reflection, he viewed, with
an eye of jealousy and envy, the recent greatness of his ecclesiastical
ally. The execution of his own and his father's promises was
respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks and Lombards asserted the
inalienable rights of the empire; and, in his life and death, Ravenna,
[66] as well as Rome, was numbered in the list of his metropolitan
cities. The sovereignty of the Exarchate melted away in the hands of the
popes; they found in the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic
rival: [67] the nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and
in the disorders of the times, they could only retain the memory of an
ancient claim, which, in a more prosperous age, they have revived and
realized.

[Footnote 62: Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs this
donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original act has never
been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis represents, (p. 171,) and the
Codex Carolinus supposes, this ample gift. Both are contemporary records
and the latter is the more authentic, since it has been preserved, not
in the Papal, but the Imperial, library.]

[Footnote 63: Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow concessions, of
interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori (Antiquitat. tom. i. p.
63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided, in the limits of the Exarchate
and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. x. p. 160-180.]

[Footnote 64: Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B. Petri
receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius, p. 185.)
Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own persons or their
country.]

[Footnote 65: The policy and donations of Charlemagne are carefully
examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who has well studied
the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that they were only verbal.
The most ancient act of donation that pretends to be extant, is that of
the emperor Lewis the Pious, (Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera,
tom. ii. p. 267-270.) Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are
much questioned, (Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom.
vi. p. 432, &c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no
reasonable objection to these princes so freely disposing of what was
not their own.]

[Footnote 66: Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the proprietor,
Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of Ravenna, for the decoration of
Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 67, p. 223.)]

[Footnote 67: The popes often complain of the usurpations of Leo of
Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p. 200-205.) Sir corpus St.
Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic humasset, nequaquam nos Romani
pontifices sic subjugassent, (Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis, in
Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. ii. pars. i. p. 107.)]

Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong, though
ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of sacerdotal
policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and manufacture,
which, according to the occasion, have produced or concealed a various
collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or suspicious, acts, as they
tended to promote the interest of the Roman church. Before the end
of the eighth century, some apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious
Isidore, composed the decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the
two magic pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes.
This memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of
Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the liberality, and
revive the name, of the great Constantine. [68] According to the legend,
the first of the Christian emperors was healed of the leprosy, and
purified in the waters of baptism, by St. Silvester, the Roman bishop;
and never was physician more gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte
withdrew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his
resolution of founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to
the popes the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the
provinces of the West. [69] This fiction was productive of the most
beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt
of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his lawful
inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt of gratitude; and
the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no more than the just and
irrevocable restitution of a scanty portion of the ecclesiastical state.
The sovereignty of Rome no longer depended on the choice of a fickle
people; and the successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested
with the purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the
ignorance and credulity of the times, that the most absurd of fables was
received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in France, and is still
enrolled among the decrees of the canon law. [70] The emperors, and the
Romans, were incapable of discerning a forgery, that subverted their
rights and freedom; and the only opposition proceeded from a Sabine
monastery, which, in the beginning of the twelfth century, disputed the
truth and validity of the donation of Constantine. [71] In the revival
of letters and liberty, this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen
of Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot.
[72] His contemporaries of the fifteenth century were astonished at his
sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the silent and irresistible progress
of reason, that, before the end of the next age, the fable was rejected
by the contempt of historians [73] and poets, [74] and the tacit or
modest censure of the advocates of the Roman church. [75] The popes
themselves have indulged a smile at the credulity of the vulgar; [76]
but a false and obsolete title still sanctifies their reign; and, by the
same fortune which has attended the decretals and the Sibylline oracles,
the edifice has subsisted after the foundations have been undermined.

[Footnote 68: Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S.
R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his Hesperiae
partibus largiri olignatus est.... Quia ecce novus Constantinus his
temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in tom. iii. part ii. p.
195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16) ascribes them to an impostor of
the viiith century, who borrowed the name of St. Isidore: his humble
title of Peccator was ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his
merchandise was indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold
for much wealth and power.]

[Footnote 69: Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has enumerated
the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin. The copy which
Laurentius Valla recites and refutes, appears to be taken either from
the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from Gratian's Decree, to which,
according to him and others, it has been surreptitiously tacked.]

[Footnote 70: In the year 1059, it was believed (was it believed?)
by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori places (Annali
d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious donations of Lewis the
Pious, the Othos, &c., de Donatione Constantini. See a Dissertation of
Natalis Alexander, seculum iv. diss. 25, p. 335-350.]

[Footnote 71: See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105) which
arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsense, (Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c.,) a copious extract from the
archives of that Benedictine abbey. They were formerly accessible to
curious foreigners, (Le Blanc and Mabillon,) and would have enriched the
first volume of the Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they are
now imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 269) by
the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the future cardinal yielded
to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition, (Quirini,
Comment. pars ii. p. 123-136.)]

[Footnote 72: I have read in the collection of Schardius (de Potestate
Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated discourse, which was
composed by the author, A.D. 1440, six years after the flight of Pope
Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement party pamphlet: Valla justifies and
animates the revolt of the Romans, and would even approve the use of a
dagger against their sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the
persecution of the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the
Lateran, (Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de Historicis
Latinis, p. 580.)]

[Footnote 73: See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that long and
valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the last edition,
correctly published from the author's Ms. and printed in four volumes in
quarto, under the name of Friburgo, 1775, (Istoria d'Italia, tom. i. p.
385-395.)]

[Footnote 74: The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among the
things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv. 80.) Di vari
fiore ad un grand monte passa, Ch'ebbe gia buono odore, or puzza forte:
Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) Che Constantino al buon Silvestro
fece. Yet this incomparable poem has been approved by a bull of Leo X.]

[Footnote 75: See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D. 1191, No. 51,
&c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered by Constantine,
and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he considers strangely
enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]

[Footnote 76: Baronius n'en dit guerres contre; encore en a-t'il trop
dit, et l'on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,) qui l'empechai,
censurer cette partie de son histoire. J'en devisai un jour avec le
Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose "che volete? i Canonici la
tengono," il le disoit en riant, (Perroniana, p. 77.)]

While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion, the
images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the Eastern
empire. [77] Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the union
of civil and ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree, without
extirpating the root, of superstition. The idols (for such they were
now held) were secretly cherished by the order and the sex most prone
to devotion; and the fond alliance of the monks and females obtained
a final victory over the reason and authority of man. Leo the Fourth
maintained with less rigor the religion of his father and grandfather;
but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene, had imbibed the zeal of the
Athenians, the heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the philosophy, of
their ancestors. During the life of her husband, these sentiments
were inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only labor
to protect and promote some favorite monks whom she drew from their
caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But as soon
as she reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene more seriously
undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the first step of her future
persecution was a general edict for liberty of conscience.

In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed to the
public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of their sufferings
and miracles. By the opportunities of death or removal, the episcopal
seats were judiciously filled the most eager competitors for earthly
or celestial favor anticipated and flattered the judgment of their
sovereign; and the promotion of her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the
patriarch of Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental church.
But the decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a
similar assembly: [78] the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in
possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the bishops
was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the soldiers and people of
Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of a year, the separation of the
disaffected troops, and the choice of Nice for a second orthodox synod,
removed these obstacles; and the episcopal conscience was again, after
the Greek fashion, in the hands of the prince. No more than eighteen
days were allowed for the consummation of this important work: the
Iconoclasts appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents:
the scene was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
patriarchs, [79] the decrees were framed by the president Taracius,
and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three hundred and
fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced, that the worship of images
is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the fathers and councils of the
church: but they hesitate whether that worship be relative or direct;
whether the Godhead, and the figure of Christ, be entitled to the same
mode of adoration. Of this second Nicene council the acts are still
extant; a curious monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood
and folly. I shall only notice the judgment of the bishops on the
comparative merit of image-worship and morality. A monk had concluded a
truce with the daemon of fornication, on condition of interrupting his
daily prayers to a picture that hung in his cell. His scruples prompted
him to consult the abbot. "Rather than abstain from adoring Christ and
his Mother in their holy images, it would be better for you," replied
the casuist, "to enter every brothel, and visit every prostitute, in the
city." [80] For the honor of orthodoxy, at least the orthodoxy of the
Roman church, it is somewhat unfortunate, that the two princes who
convened the two councils of Nice are both stained with the blood of
their sons. The second of these assemblies was approved and rigorously
executed by the despotism of Irene, and she refused her adversaries the
toleration which at first she had granted to her friends. During the
five succeeding reigns, a period of thirty-eight years, the contest
was maintained, with unabated rage and various success, between the
worshippers and the breakers of the images; but I am not inclined
to pursue with minute diligence the repetition of the same events.
Nicephorus allowed a general liberty of speech and practice; and the
only virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the cause of his
temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition and weakness formed the
character of Michael the First, but the saints and images were incapable
of supporting their votary on the throne. In the purple, Leo the Fifth
asserted the name and religion of an Armenian; and the idols, with their
seditious adherents, were condemned to a second exile. Their applause
would have sanctified the murder of an impious tyrant, but his assassin
and successor, the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with
the Phrygian heresies: he attempted to mediate between the contending
parties; and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him
into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity; but his
son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the last and most
cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly
against them; and the emperors who stemmed the torrent were exasperated
and punished by the public hatred. After the death of Theophilus, the
final victory of the images was achieved by a second female, his widow
Theodora, whom he left the guardian of the empire. Her measures were
bold and decisive. The fiction of a tardy repentance absolved the fame
and the soul of her deceased husband; the sentence of the Iconoclast
patriarch was commuted from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of
two hundred lashes: the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the
festival of orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the triumph of the
images. A single question yet remained, whether they are endowed with
any proper and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by the Greeks of
the eleventh century; [81] and as this opinion has the strongest
recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it was not more
explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West, Pope Adrian the
First accepted and announced the decrees of the Nicene assembly, which
is now revered by the Catholics as the seventh in rank of the general
councils. Rome and Italy were docile to the voice of their father; but
the greatest part of the Latin Christians were far behind in the race
of superstition. The churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain,
steered a middle course between the adoration and the destruction
of images, which they admitted into their temples, not as objects of
worship, but as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An
angry book of controversy was composed and published in the name of
Charlemagne: [82] under his authority a synod of three hundred
bishops was assembled at Frankfort: [83] they blamed the fury of the
Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure against the
superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their pretended council,
which was long despised by the Barbarians of the West. [84] Among them
the worship of images advanced with a silent and insensible progress;
but a large atonement is made for their hesitation and delay, by the
gross idolatry of the ages which precede the reformation, and of the
countries, both in Europe and America, which are still immersed in the
gloom of superstition.

[Footnote 77: The remaining history of images, from Irene to Theodora,
is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi, (A.D. 780-840.)
Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii. Panoplia adversus
Haereticos p. 118-178,) and Dupin, (Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
136-154;) for the Protestants, by Spanheim, (Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.)
Basnage, (Hist. de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,)
and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The
Protestants, except Mosheim, are soured with controversy; but the
Catholics, except Dupin, are inflamed by the fury and superstition of
the monks; and even Le Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a
scholar, is infected by the odious contagion.]

[Footnote 78: See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second Council
of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith volume of the
Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with some critical notes,
would provoke, in different readers, a sigh or a smile.]

[Footnote 79: The pope's legates were casual messengers, two priests
without any special commission, and who were disavowed on their return.
Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the Catholics to represent the
Oriental patriarchs. This curious anecdote is revealed by Theodore
Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond. Opp. tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the
warmest Iconoclasts of the age.]

[Footnote 80: These visits could not be innocent since the daemon of
fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]

[Footnote 81: See an account of this controversy in the Alexius of Anna
Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 371,
372.)]

[Footnote 82: The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443-529,) composed in
the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at Worms, A.D. 790, and
sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who answered them by a grandis et
verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose
120 objections against the Nicene synod and such words as these are the
flowers of their rhetoric--Dementiam.... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum
errorem .... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima.... derisione dignas
naenias, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 83: The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as well as
ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat. Alexander, sec.
viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort, must include not only the
bishops, but the abbots, and even the principal laymen.]

[Footnote 84: Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et
sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes
contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt, (Concil. tom. ix. p.
101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic must be hard-hearted indeed, who
does not pity the efforts of Baronius, Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c.,
to elude this unlucky sentence.]




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

It was after the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the pious Irene,
that the popes consummated the separation of Rome and Italy, by the
translation of the empire to the less orthodox Charlemagne. They were
compelled to choose between the rival nations: religion was not the sole
motive of their choice; and while they dissembled the failings of
their friends, they beheld, with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic
virtues of their foes. The difference of language and manners had
perpetuated the enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated from
each other by the hostile opposition of seventy years. In that schism
the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty: their
submission would have exposed them to the revenge of a jealous tyrant;
and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the impotence, as well as the
tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The Greek emperors had restored the
images, but they had not restored the Calabrian estates [85] and the
Illyrian diocese, [86] which the Iconociasts had torn away from the
successors of St. Peter; and Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence
of excommunication unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy.
[87] The Greeks were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted
by the breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now contumacious;
but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion, from
the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of Charlemagne was
stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes; but the conqueror
himself conformed, with the temper of a statesman, to the various
practice of France and Italy. In his four pilgrimages or visits to the
Vatican, he embraced the popes in the communion of friendship and
piety; knelt before the tomb, and consequently before the image, of the
apostle; and joined, without scruple, in all the prayers and processions
of the Roman liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to
renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift of the
Exarchate? Had they power to abolish his government of Rome? The title
of patrician was below the merit and greatness of Charlemagne; and
it was only by reviving the Western empire that they could pay their
obligations or secure their establishment. By this decisive measure they
would finally eradicate the claims of the Greeks; from the debasement
of a provincial town, the majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin
Christians would be united, under a supreme head, in their ancient
metropolis; and the conquerors of the West would receive their crown
from the successors of St. Peter. The Roman church would acquire
a zealous and respectable advocate; and, under the shadow of the
Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with honor and safety,
the government of the city. [88]

[Footnote 85: Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of Sicily and
Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a half of
gold, (perhaps 7000 L. sterling.) Liutprand more pompously enumerates the
patrimonies of the Roman church in Greece, Judaea, Persia, Mesopotamia
Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya, which were detained by the injustice of the
Greek emperor, (Legat. ad Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom.
ii. pars i. p. 481.)]

[Footnote 86: The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with Apulia,
Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p.
145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the patriarch of Constantinople
had detached from Rome the metropolitans of Thessalonica, Athens
Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae, (Luc. Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22)
and his spiritual conquests extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria
Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No. 11.)]

[Footnote 87: In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore
reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant
errore.... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum increpantes
commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum eum pro hujusmodi
errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist. Hadrian. Papae ad Carolum
Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p. 1598;) to which he adds a reason, most
directly opposite to his conduct, that he preferred the salvation of
souls and rule of faith to the goods of this transitory world.]

[Footnote 88: Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than the
advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See Ducange,
Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist Muratori reduces the popes to
be no more than the exarchs of the emperor. In the more equitable view
of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under
the empire as the most honorable species of fief or benefice--premuntur
nocte caliginosa!]

Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the competition for a wealthy
bishopric had often been productive of tumult and bloodshed. The people
was less numerous, but the times were more savage, the prize more
important, and the chair of St. Peter was fiercely disputed by the
leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the rank of sovereign. The reign of
Adrian the First [89] surpasses the measure of past or succeeding ages;
[90] the walls of Rome, the sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards,
and the friendship of Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he
secretly edified the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow
space the virtues of a great prince. His memory was revered; but in the
next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo the Third, was preferred to
the nephew and the favorite of Adrian, whom he had promoted to the first
dignities of the church. Their acquiescence or repentance disguised,
above four years, the blackest intention of revenge, till the day of a
procession, when a furious band of conspirators dispersed the unarmed
multitude, and assaulted with blows and wounds the sacred person of
the pope. But their enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed,
perhaps by their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the
ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood,
he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event was improved
to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had
been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins. [91] From
his prison he escaped to the Vatican: the duke of Spoleto hastened to
his rescue, Charlemagne sympathized in his injury, and in his camp of
Paderborn in Westphalia accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman
pontiff. Leo repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and bishops,
the guards of his safety and the judges of his innocence; and it was not
without reluctance, that the conqueror of the Saxons delayed till the
ensuing year the personal discharge of this pious office. In his fourth
and last pilgrimage, he was received at Rome with the due honors of king
and patrician: Leo was permitted to purge himself by oath of the crimes
imputed to his charge: his enemies were silenced, and the sacrilegious
attempt against his life was punished by the mild and insufficient
penalty of exile. On the festival of Christmas, the last year of the
eighth century, Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter; and,
to gratify the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple dress of his
country for the habit of a patrician. [92] After the celebration of the
holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a precious crown on his head, [93]
and the dome resounded with the acclamations of the people, "Long life
and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God
the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!" The head and body of
Charlemagne were consecrated by the royal unction: after the example
of the Caesars, he was saluted or adored by the pontiff: his coronation
oath represents a promise to maintain the faith and privileges of the
church; and the first-fruits were paid in his rich offerings to the
shrine of his apostle. In his familiar conversation, the emperor
protested the ignorance of the intentions of Leo, which he would have
disappointed by his absence on that memorable day. But the preparations
of the ceremony must have disclosed the secret; and the journey of
Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and expectation: he had acknowledged
that the Imperial title was the object of his ambition, and a Roman
synod had pronounced, that it was the only adequate reward of his merit
and services. [94]

[Footnote 89: His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of
thirty-eight-verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the author,
(Concil. tom. viii. p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans Carolus haec carmina
scripsi. Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango pater... Nomina jungo simul
titulis, clarissime, nostra Adrianus, Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater. The
poetry might be supplied by Alcuin; but the tears, the most glorious
tribute, can only belong to Charlemagne.]

[Footnote 90: Every new pope is admonished--"Sancte Pater, non videbis
annos Petri," twenty-five years. On the whole series the average is
about eight years--a short hope for an ambitious cardinal.]

[Footnote 91: The assurance of Anastasius (tom. iii. pars i. p. 197,
198) is supported by the credulity of some French annalists; but
Eginhard, and other writers of the same age, are more natural and
sincere. "Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus," says John the deacon of
Naples, (Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores Muratori, tom. i. pars ii.
p. 312.) Theodolphus, a contemporary bishop of Orleans, observes with
prudence (l. iii. carm. 3.)

     Reddita sunt? mirum est: mirum est auferre nequtsse.
     Est tamen in dubio, hinc mirer an inde magis.]

[Footnote 92: Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, he appeared at
Rome,--longa tunica et chlamyde amictus, et calceamentis quoque
Romano more formatis. Eginhard (c. xxiii. p. 109-113) describes, like
Suetonius the simplicity of his dress, so popular in the nation,
that when Charles the Bald returned to France in a foreign habit, the
patriotic dogs barked at the apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne,
tom. iv. p. 109.)]

[Footnote 93: See Anastasius (p. 199) and Eginhard, (c.xxviii. p.
124-128.) The unction is mentioned by Theophanes, (p. 399,) the oath
by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus,) and the Pope's adoration more
antiquorum principum, by the Annales Bertiniani, (Script. Murator. tom.
ii. pars ii. p. 505.)]

[Footnote 94: This great event of the translation or restoration of
the empire is related and discussed by Natalis Alexander, (secul. ix.
dissert. i. p. 390-397,) Pagi, (tom. iii. p. 418,) Muratori, (Annali
d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 339-352,) Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iv.
Opp. tom. ii. p. 247-251,) Spanheim, (de ficta Translatione Imperii,)
Giannone, (tom. i. p. 395-405,) St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom.
i. p. 438-450,) Gaillard, (Hist. de Charlemagne, tom. ii. p. 386-446.)
Almost all these moderns have some religious or national bias.]

The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes
deserved; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favor the title
has been indissolubly blended with the name. That name, with the
addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar; and the saint,
by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of the historians and
philosophers of an enlightened age. [95] His real merit is doubtless
enhanced by the barbarism of the nation and the times from which he
emerged: but the apparent magnitude of an object is likewise enlarged by
an unequal comparison; and the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor
from the nakedness of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his
fame, I may discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the
restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is
not the most conspicuous: [96] but the public happiness could not
be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the various
indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his
bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long celibacy and
licentious manners of his daughters, [97] whom the father was suspected
of loving with too fond a passion. [971] I shall be scarcely
permitted to accuse the ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal
retribution, the sons of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes
of Aquitain, and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded
on the same spot, would have something to allege against the justice and
humanity of Charlemagne. His treatment of the vanquished Saxons [98]
was an abuse of the right of conquest; his laws were not less sanguinary
than his arms, and in the discussion of his motives, whatever is
subtracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper. The sedentary reader
is amazed by his incessant activity of mind and body; and his subjects
and enemies were not less astonished at his sudden presence, at the
moment when they believed him at the most distant extremity of the
empire; neither peace nor war, nor summer nor winter, were a season of
repose; and our fancy cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign
with the geography of his expeditions. [981] But this activity was a
national, rather than a personal, virtue; the vagrant life of a Frank
was spent in the chase, in pilgrimage, in military adventures; and the
journeys of Charlemagne were distinguished only by a more numerous train
and a more important purpose. His military renown must be tried by
the scrutiny of his troops, his enemies, and his actions. Alexander
conquered with the arms of Philip, but the two heroes who preceded
Charlemagne bequeathed him their name, their examples, and the
companions of their victories. At the head of his veteran and superior
armies, he oppressed the savage or degenerate nations, who were
incapable of confederating for their common safety: nor did he ever
encounter an equal antagonist in numbers, in discipline, or in arms The
science of war has been lost and revived with the arts of peace; but
his campaigns are not illustrated by any siege or battle of singular
difficulty and success; and he might behold, with envy, the Saracen
trophies of his grandfather. After the Spanish expedition, his
rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenaean mountains; and the soldiers,
whose situation was irretrievable, and whose valor was useless, might
accuse, with their last breath, the want of skill or caution of their
general. [99] I touch with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly
applauded by a respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a
series, of occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses,
the reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his
poultry, and even the sale of his eggs. He wished to improve the laws
and the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however feeble and
imperfect, are deserving of praise: the inveterate evils of the
times were suspended or mollified by his government; [100] but in his
institutions I can seldom discover the general views and the immortal
spirit of a legislator, who survives himself for the benefit of
posterity. The union and stability of his empire depended on the life
of a single man: he imitated the dangerous practice of dividing his
kingdoms among his sons; and after his numerous diets, the whole
constitution was left to fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and
despotism. His esteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy tempted
him to intrust that aspiring order with temporal dominion and civil
jurisdiction; and his son Lewis, when he was stripped and degraded
by the bishops, might accuse, in some measure, the imprudence of his
father. His laws enforced the imposition of tithes, because the daemons
had proclaimed in the air that the default of payment had been the
cause of the last scarcity. [101] The literary merits of Charlemagne
are attested by the foundation of schools, the introduction of arts, the
works which were published in his name, and his familiar connection with
the subjects and strangers whom he invited to his court to educate
both the prince and people. His own studies were tardy, laborious,
and imperfect; if he spoke Latin, and understood Greek, he derived the
rudiments of knowledge from conversation, rather than from books;
and, in his mature age, the emperor strove to acquire the practice
of writing, which every peasant now learns in his infancy. [102] The
grammar and logic, the music and astronomy, of the times, were only
cultivated as the handmaids of superstition; but the curiosity of
the human mind must ultimately tend to its improvement, and the
encouragement of learning reflects the purest and most pleasing lustre
on the character of Charlemagne. [103] The dignity of his person, [104]
the length of his reign, the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his
government, and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him from
the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new aera from his restoration of the
Western empire.

[Footnote 95: By Mably, (Observations sur l'Histoire de France,)
Voltaire, (Histoire Generale,) Robertson, (History of Charles V.,) and
Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 18.) In the year 1782, M.
Gaillard published his Histoire de Charlemagne, (in 4 vols. in 12mo.,)
which I have freely and profitably used. The author is a man of sense
and humanity; and his work is labored with industry and elegance. But I
have likewise examined the original monuments of the reigns of Pepin and
Charlemagne, in the 5th volume of the Historians of France.]

[Footnote 96: The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven years
after the death of Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory, with a vulture,
who is perpetually gnawing the guilty member, while the rest of his
body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound and perfect, (see Gaillard
tom. ii. p. 317-360.)]

[Footnote 97: The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of
Charlemagne, is, in my opinion, sufficiently refuted by the probum and
suspicio that sullied these fair damsels, without excepting his own
wife, (c. xix. p. 98-100, cum Notis Schmincke.) The husband must have
been too strong for the historian.]

[Footnote 971: This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly observes,
"seems to have originated in a misinterpreted passage of Eginhard."
Hallam's Middle Ages, vol.i. p. 16.--M.]

[Footnote 98: Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain of
death was pronounced against the following crimes: 1. The refusal of
baptism. 2. The false pretence of baptism. 3. A relapse to idolatry. 4.
The murder of a priest or bishop. 5. Human sacrifices. 6. Eating meat
in Lent. But every crime might be expiated by baptism or penance,
(Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 241-247;) and the Christian Saxons became the
friends and equals of the Franks, (Struv. Corpus Hist. Germanicae,
p.133.)]

[Footnote 981: M. Guizot (Cours d'Histoire Moderne, p. 270, 273) has
compiled the following statement of Charlemagne's military campaigns:--

     1. Against the Aquitanians.

     18.   "    the Saxons.

     5.    "    the Lombards.

     7.    "    the Arabs in Spain.

     1.    "    the Thuringians.

     4.    "    the Avars.

     2.    "    the Bretons.

     1.    "    the Bavarians.

     4.    "    the Slaves beyond the Elbe

     5.    "    the Saracens in Italy.

     3.    "    the Danes.

     2.    "    the Greeks.
         ___

     53 total.--M.]

[Footnote 99: In this action the famous Rutland, Rolando, Orlando,
was slain--cum compluribus aliis. See the truth in Eginhard, (c. 9, p.
51-56,) and the fable in an ingenious Supplement of M. Gaillard, (tom.
iii. p. 474.) The Spaniards are too proud of a victory, which history
ascribes to the Gascons, and romance to the Saracens. * Note: In
fact, it was a sudden onset of the Gascons, assisted by the Beaure
mountaineers, and possibly a few Navarrese.--M.]

[Footnote 100: Yet Schmidt, from the best authorities, represents the
interior disorders and oppression of his reign, (Hist. des Allemands,
tom. ii. p. 45-49.)]

[Footnote 101: Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad
ecclesiam conferat. Experimento enim didicimus, in anno, quo illa valida
fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a daemonibus devoratas, et voces
exprobationis auditas. Such is the decree and assertion of the great
Council of Frankfort, (canon xxv. tom. ix. p. 105.) Both Selden (Hist.
of Tithes; Works, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1146) and Montesquieu (Esprit
des Loix, l. xxxi. c. 12) represent Charlemagne as the first legal
author of tithes. Such obligations have country gentlemen to his
memory!]

[Footnote 102: Eginhard (c. 25, p. 119) clearly affirms, tentabat et
scribere... sed parum prospere successit labor praeposterus et sero
inchoatus. The moderns have perverted and corrected this obvious
meaning, and the title of M. Gaillard's dissertation (tom. iii. p.
247-260) betrays his partiality. * Note: This point has been contested;
but Mr. Hallam and Monsieur Sismondl concur with Gibbon. See Middle
Ages, iii. 330, Histoire de Francais, tom. ii. p. 318. The sensible
observations of the latter are quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol.
xlviii. p. 451. Fleury, I may add, quotes from Mabillon a remarkable
evidence that Charlemagne "had a mark to himself like an honest,
plain-dealing man." Ibid.--M.]

[Footnote 103: See Gaillard, tom. iii. p. 138-176, and Schmidt, tom.
ii. p. 121-129.]

[Footnote 104: M. Gaillard (tom. iii. p. 372) fixes the true stature of
Charlemagne (see a Dissertation of Marquard Freher ad calcem Eginhart,
p. 220, &c.) at five feet nine inches of French, about six feet one inch
and a fourth English, measure. The romance writers have increased it
to eight feet, and the giant was endowed with matchless strength and
appetite: at a single stroke of his good sword Joyeuse, he cut asunder
a horseman and his horse; at a single repast, he devoured a goose, two
fowls, a quarter of mutton, &c.]

That empire was not unworthy of its title; [105] and some of the fairest
kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of a prince, who
reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Hungary.
[106] I. The Roman province of Gaul had been transformed into the name
and monarchy of France; but, in the decay of the Merovingian line, its
limits were contracted by the independence of the Britons and the revolt
of Aquitain. Charlemagne pursued, and confined, the Britons on the
shores of the ocean; and that ferocious tribe, whose origin and language
are so different from the French, was chastised by the imposition of
tribute, hostages, and peace. After a long and evasive contest, the
rebellion of the dukes of Aquitain was punished by the forfeiture of
their province, their liberty, and their lives.

Harsh and rigorous would have been such treatment of ambitious
governors, who had too faithfully copied the mayors of the palace. But
a recent discovery [107] has proved that these unhappy princes were the
last and lawful heirs of the blood and sceptre of Clovis, and younger
branch, from the brother of Dagobert, of the Merovingian house. Their
ancient kingdom was reduced to the duchy of Gascogne, to the counties
of Fesenzac and Armagnac, at the foot of the Pyrenees: their race
was propagated till the beginning of the sixteenth century; and after
surviving their Carlovingian tyrants, they were reserved to feel
the injustice, or the favors, of a third dynasty. By the reunion of
Aquitain, France was enlarged to its present boundaries, with the
additions of the Netherlands and Spain, as far as the Rhine. II.

The Saracens had been expelled from France by the grandfather and father
of Charlemagne; but they still possessed the greatest part of Spain,
from the rock of Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Amidst their civil
divisions, an Arabian emir of Saragossa implored his protection in the
diet of Paderborn. Charlemagne undertook the expedition, restored
the emir, and, without distinction of faith, impartially crushed the
resistance of the Christians, and rewarded the obedience and services
of the Mahometans. In his absence he instituted the Spanish march, [108]
which extended from the Pyrenees to the River Ebro: Barcelona was the
residence of the French governor: he possessed the counties of Rousillon
and Catalonia; and the infant kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon were
subject to his jurisdiction. III. As king of the Lombards, and patrician
of Rome, he reigned over the greatest part of Italy, [109] a tract of
a thousand miles from the Alps to the borders of Calabria. The duchy of
Beneventum, a Lombard fief, had spread, at the expense of the Greeks,
over the modern kingdom of Naples. But Arrechis, the reigning duke,
refused to be included in the slavery of his country; assumed the
independent title of prince; and opposed his sword to the Carlovingian
monarchy. His defence was firm, his submission was not inglorious, and
the emperor was content with an easy tribute, the demolition of his
fortresses, and the acknowledgement, on his coins, of a supreme lord.
The artful flattery of his son Grimoald added the appellation of father,
but he asserted his dignity with prudence, and Benventum insensibly
escaped from the French yoke. [110] IV. Charlemagne was the first who
united Germany under the same sceptre. The name of Oriental France
is preserved in the circle of Franconia; and the people of Hesse and
Thuringia were recently incorporated with the victors, by the conformity
of religion and government. The Alemanni, so formidable to the Romans,
were the faithful vassals and confederates of the Franks; and their
country was inscribed within the modern limits of Alsace, Swabia, and
Switzerland. The Bavarians, with a similar indulgence of their laws and
manners, were less patient of a master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo
justified the abolition of their hereditary dukes; and their power was
shared among the counts, who judged and guarded that important frontier.
But the north of Germany, from the Rhine and beyond the Elbe, was still
hostile and Pagan; nor was it till after a war of thirty-three years
that the Saxons bowed under the yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne.
The idols and their votaries were extirpated: the foundation of eight
bishoprics, of Munster, Osnaburgh, Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen,
Verden, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt, define, on either side of the
Weser, the bounds of ancient Saxony these episcopal seats were the first
schools and cities of that savage land; and the religion and humanity
of the children atoned, in some degree, for the massacre of the parents.
Beyond the Elbe, the Slavi, or Sclavonians, of similar manners and
various denominations, overspread the modern dominions of Prussia,
Poland, and Bohemia, and some transient marks of obedience have tempted
the French historian to extend the empire to the Baltic and the Vistula.
The conquest or conversion of those countries is of a more recent age;
but the first union of Bohemia with the Germanic body may be justly
ascribed to the arms of Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on the Avars, or
Huns of Pannonia, the same calamities which they had inflicted on the
nations. Their rings, the wooden fortifications which encircled their
districts and villages, were broken down by the triple effort of a
French army, that was poured into their country by land and water,
through the Carpathian mountains and along the plain of the Danube.
After a bloody conflict of eight years, the loss of some French generals
was avenged by the slaughter of the most noble Huns: the relics of the
nation submitted the royal residence of the chagan was left desolate and
unknown; and the treasures, the rapine of two hundred and fifty years,
enriched the victorious troops, or decorated the churches of Italy and
Gaul. [111] After the reduction of Pannonia, the empire of Charlemagne
was bounded only by the conflux of the Danube with the Teyss and the
Save: the provinces of Istria, Liburnia, and Dalmatia, were an easy,
though unprofitable, accession; and it was an effect of his moderation,
that he left the maritime cities under the real or nominal sovereignty
of the Greeks. But these distant possessions added more to the
reputation than to the power of the Latin emperor; nor did he risk any
ecclesiastical foundations to reclaim the Barbarians from their vagrant
life and idolatrous worship. Some canals of communication between the
rivers, the Saone and the Meuse, the Rhine and the Danube, were faintly
attempted. [112] Their execution would have vivified the empire; and
more cost and labor were often wasted in the structure of a cathedral.
[1121]

[Footnote 105: See the concise, but correct and original, work of
D'Anville, (Etats Formes en Europe apres la Chute de l'Empire Romain
en Occident, Paris, 1771, in 4to.,) whose map includes the empire of
Charlemagne; the different parts are illustrated, by Valesius (Notitia
Galliacum) for France, Beretti (Dissertatio Chorographica) for Italy, De
Marca (Marca Hispanica) for Spain. For the middle geography of Germany,
I confess myself poor and destitute.]

[Footnote 106: After a brief relation of his wars and conquests, (Vit.
Carol. c. 5-14,) Eginhard recapitulates, in a few words, (c. 15,) the
countries subject to his empire. Struvius, (Corpus Hist. German. p.
118-149) was inserted in his Notes the texts of the old Chronicles.]

[Footnote 107: On a charter granted to the monastery of Alaon (A.D. 845)
by Charles the Bald, which deduces this royal pedigree. I doubt whether
some subsequent links of the ixth and xth centuries are equally firm;
yet the whole is approved and defended by M. Gaillard, (tom. ii.
p.60-81, 203-206,) who affirms that the family of Montesquiou (not
of the President de Montesquieu) is descended, in the female line, from
Clotaire and Clovis--an innocent pretension!]

[Footnote 108: The governors or counts of the Spanish march revolted
from Charles the Simple about the year 900; and a poor pittance,
the Rousillon, has been recovered in 1642 by the kings of France,
(Longuerue, Description de la France, tom i. p. 220-222.) Yet the
Rousillon contains 188,900 subjects, and annually pays 2,600,000 livres,
(Necker, Administration des Finances, tom. i. p. 278, 279;) more people,
perhaps, and doubtless more money than the march of Charlemagne.]

[Footnote 109: Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. ii. p. 200, &c.]

[Footnote 110: See Giannone, tom. i. p 374, 375, and the Annals of
Muratori.]

[Footnote 111: Quot praelia in eo gesta! quantum sanguinis effusum sit!
Testatur vacua omni habitatione Pannonia, et locus in quo regia Cagani
fuit ita desertus, ut ne vestigium quidem humanae habitationis appareat.
Tota in hoc bello Hunnorum nobilitas periit, tota gloria decidit, omnis
pecunia et congesti ex longo tempore thesauri direpti sunt. Eginhard,
cxiii.]

[Footnote 112: The junction of the Rhine and Danube was undertaken only
for the service of the Pannonian war, (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne,
tom. ii. p. 312-315.) The canal, which would have been only two leagues
in length, and of which some traces are still extant in Swabia, was
interrupted by excessive rains, military avocations, and superstitious
fears, (Schaepflin, Hist. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p.
256. Molimina fluviorum, &c., jungendorum, p. 59-62.)]

[Footnote 1121: I should doubt this in the time of Charlemagne, even if
the term "expended" were substituted for "wasted."--M.]




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

If we retrace the outlines of this geographical picture, it will be seen
that the empire of the Franks extended, between east and west, from the
Ebro to the Elbe or Vistula; between the north and south, from the duchy
of Beneventum to the River Eyder, the perpetual boundary of Germany
and Denmark. The personal and political importance of Charlemagne
was magnified by the distress and division of the rest of Europe. The
islands of Great Britain and Ireland were disputed by a crowd of princes
of Saxon or Scottish origin: and, after the loss of Spain, the Christian
and Gothic kingdom of Alphonso the Chaste was confined to the narrow
range of the Asturian mountains. These petty sovereigns revered the
power or virtue of the Carlovingian monarch, implored the honor and
support of his alliance, and styled him their common parent, the sole
and supreme emperor of the West. [113] He maintained a more equal
intercourse with the caliph Harun al Rashid, [114] whose dominion
stretched from Africa to India, and accepted from his ambassadors a
tent, a water-clock, an elephant, and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. It
is not easy to conceive the private friendship of a Frank and an Arab,
who were strangers to each other's person, and language, and religion:
but their public correspondence was founded on vanity, and their remote
situation left no room for a competition of interest. Two thirds of the
Western empire of Rome were subject to Charlemagne, and the deficiency
was amply supplied by his command of the inaccessible or invincible
nations of Germany. But in the choice of his enemies, [1141] we may be
reasonably surprised that he so often preferred the poverty of the north
to the riches of the south. The three-and-thirty campaigns laboriously
consumed in the woods and morasses of Germany would have sufficed to
assert the amplitude of his title by the expulsion of the Greeks from
Italy and the Saracens from Spain. The weakness of the Greeks would have
insured an easy victory; and the holy crusade against the Saracens
would have been prompted by glory and revenge, and loudly justified by
religion and policy. Perhaps, in his expeditions beyond the Rhine and
the Elbe, he aspired to save his monarchy from the fate of the Roman
empire, to disarm the enemies of civilized society, and to eradicate the
seed of future emigrations. But it has been wisely observed, that, in a
light of precaution, all conquest must be ineffectual, unless it could
be universal, since the increasing circle must be involved in a larger
sphere of hostility. [115] The subjugation of Germany withdrew the veil
which had so long concealed the continent or islands of Scandinavia
from the knowledge of Europe, and awakened the torpid courage of their
barbarous natives. The fiercest of the Saxon idolaters escaped from
the Christian tyrant to their brethren of the North; the Ocean and
Mediterranean were covered with their piratical fleets; and Charlemagne
beheld with a sigh the destructive progress of the Normans, who, in less
than seventy years, precipitated the fall of his race and monarchy.

[Footnote 113: See Eginhard, c. 16, and Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361-385,
who mentions, with a loose reference, the intercourse of Charlemagne and
Egbert, the emperor's gift of his own sword, and the modest answer of
his Saxon disciple. The anecdote, if genuine, would have adorned our
English histories.]

[Footnote 114: The correspondence is mentioned only in the French
annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph's friendship for
the Christian dog--a polite appellation, which Harun bestows on the
emperor of the Greeks.]

[Footnote 1141: Had he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently described
the position of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. Il y fit face par le
conquete; la guerre defensive prit la forme offensive: il transporta la
lutte sur le territoire des peuples qui voulaient envahir le sien: il
travailla a asservir les races etrangeres, et extirper les croyances
ennemies. De la son mode de gouvernement et la fondation de son empire:
la guerre offensive et la conquete voulaient cette vaste et redoutable
unite. Compare observations in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii., and
James's Life of Charlemagne.--M.]

[Footnote 115: Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 361-365, 471-476, 492. I have
borrowed his judicious remarks on Charlemagne's plan of conquest, and
the judicious distinction of his enemies of the first and the second
enceinte, (tom. ii. p. 184, 509, &c.)]

Had the pope and the Romans revived the primitive constitution, the
titles of emperor and Augustus were conferred on Charlemagne for
the term of his life; and his successors, on each vacancy, must have
ascended the throne by a formal or tacit election. But the association
of his son Lewis the Pious asserts the independent right of monarchy and
conquest, and the emperor seems on this occasion to have foreseen and
prevented the latent claims of the clergy. The royal youth was commanded
to take the crown from the altar, and with his own hands to place it on
his head, as a gift which he held from God, his father, and the nation.
[116] The same ceremony was repeated, though with less energy, in
the subsequent associations of Lothaire and Lewis the Second: the
Carlovingian sceptre was transmitted from father to son in a lineal
descent of four generations; and the ambition of the popes was reduced
to the empty honor of crowning and anointing these hereditary princes,
who were already invested with their power and dominions. The
pious Lewis survived his brothers, and embraced the whole empire
of Charlemagne; but the nations and the nobles, his bishops and his
children, quickly discerned that this mighty mass was no longer inspired
by the same soul; and the foundations were undermined to the centre,
while the external surface was yet fair and entire. After a war, or
battle, which consumed one hundred thousand Franks, the empire was
divided by treaty between his three sons, who had violated every filial
and fraternal duty. The kingdoms of Germany and France were forever
separated; the provinces of Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps, the
Meuse and the Rhine, were assigned, with Italy, to the Imperial dignity
of Lothaire. In the partition of his share, Lorraine and Arles, two
recent and transitory kingdoms, were bestowed on the younger children;
and Lewis the Second, his eldest son, was content with the realm of
Italy, the proper and sufficient patrimony of a Roman emperor. On his
death without any male issue, the vacant throne was disputed by his
uncles and cousins, and the popes most dexterously seized the occasion
of judging the claims and merits of the candidates, and of bestowing on
the most obsequious, or most liberal, the Imperial office of advocate of
the Roman church. The dregs of the Carlovingian race no longer exhibited
any symptoms of virtue or power, and the ridiculous epithets of the
bard, the stammerer, the fat, and the simple, distinguished the tame and
uniform features of a crowd of kings alike deserving of oblivion. By the
failure of the collateral branches, the whole inheritance devolved to
Charles the Fat, the last emperor of his family: his insanity authorized
the desertion of Germany, Italy, and France: he was deposed in a diet,
and solicited his daily bread from the rebels by whose contempt his life
and liberty had been spared. According to the measure of their force,
the governors, the bishops, and the lords, usurped the fragments of
the falling empire; and some preference was shown to the female or
illegitimate blood of Charlemagne. Of the greater part, the title
and possession were alike doubtful, and the merit was adequate to the
contracted scale of their dominions. Those who could appear with an army
at the gates of Rome were crowned emperors in the Vatican; but their
modesty was more frequently satisfied with the appellation of kings of
Italy: and the whole term of seventy-four years may be deemed a vacancy,
from the abdication of Charles the Fat to the establishment of Otho the
First.

[Footnote 116: Thegan, the biographer of Lewis, relates this coronation:
and Baronius has honestly transcribed it, (A.D. 813, No. 13, &c. See
Gaillard, tom. ii. p. 506, 507, 508,) howsoever adverse to the claims
of the popes. For the series of the Carlovingians, see the historians of
France, Italy, and Germany; Pfeffel, Schmidt, Velly, Muratori, and even
Voltaire, whose pictures are sometimes just, and always pleasing.]

Otho [117] was of the noble race of the dukes of Saxony; and if he truly
descended from Witikind, the adversary and proselyte of Charlemagne,
the posterity of a vanquished people was exalted to reign over their
conquerors. His father, Henry the Fowler, was elected, by the suffrage
of the nation, to save and institute the kingdom of Germany. Its limits
[118] were enlarged on every side by his son, the first and greatest of
the Othos. A portion of Gaul, to the west of the Rhine, along the banks
of the Meuse and the Moselle, was assigned to the Germans, by whose
blood and language it has been tinged since the time of Caesar and
Tacitus.

Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the successors of Otho
acquired a vain supremacy over the broken kingdoms of Burgundy and
Arles. In the North, Christianity was propagated by the sword of Otho,
the conqueror and apostle of the Slavic nations of the Elbe and Oder:
the marches of Brandenburgh and Sleswick were fortified with German
colonies; and the king of Denmark, the dukes of Poland and Bohemia,
confessed themselves his tributary vassals. At the head of a victorious
army, he passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the
pope, and forever fixed the Imperial crown in the name and nation of
Germany. From that memorable aera, two maxims of public jurisprudence
were introduced by force and ratified by time. I. That the prince, who
was elected in the German diet, acquired, from that instant, the subject
kingdoms of Italy and Rome. II. But that he might not legally assume the
titles of emperor and Augustus, till he had received the crown from the
hands of the Roman pontiff. [119]

[Footnote 117: He was the son of Otho, the son of Ludolph, in whose
favor the Duchy of Saxony had been instituted, A.D. 858. Ruotgerus, the
biographer of a St. Bruno, (Bibliot. Bunavianae Catalog. tom. iii. vol.
ii. p. 679,) gives a splendid character of his family. Atavorum atavi
usque ad hominum memoriam omnes nobilissimi; nullus in eorum stirpe
ignotus, nullus degener facile reperitur, (apud Struvium, Corp. Hist.
German. p. 216.) Yet Gundling (in Henrico Aucupe) is not satisfied of
his descent from Witikind.]

[Footnote 118: See the treatise of Conringius, (de Finibus Imperii
Germanici, Francofurt. 1680, in 4to.: ) he rejects the extravagant and
improper scale of the Roman and Carlovingian empires, and discusses with
moderation the rights of Germany, her vassals, and her neighbors.]

[Footnote 119: The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I. and
Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which was never
assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians, Muratori for instance,
are more scrupulous and correct, and only reckon the princes who have
been crowned at Rome.]

The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by the
alteration of his style; and instead of saluting his fathers, the Greek
emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and familiar appellation
of brother. [120] Perhaps in his connection with Irene he aspired to
the name of husband: his embassy to Constantinople spoke the language of
peace and friendship, and might conceal a treaty of marriage with
that ambitious princess, who had renounced the most sacred duties of a
mother. The nature, the duration, the probable consequences of such a
union between two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to
conjecture; but the unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us to
suspect, that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene, to charge
her with the guilt of betraying the church and state to the strangers
of the West. [121] The French ambassadors were the spectators, and
had nearly been the victims, of the conspiracy of Nicephorus, and the
national hatred. Constantinople was exasperated by the treason and
sacrilege of ancient Rome: a proverb, "That the Franks were good friends
and bad neighbors," was in every one's mouth; but it was dangerous to
provoke a neighbor who might be tempted to reiterate, in the church of
St. Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial coronation. After a tedious
journey of circuit and delay, the ambassadors of Nicephorus found him
in his camp, on the banks of the River Sala; and Charlemagne affected to
confound their vanity by displaying, in a Franconian village, the pomp,
or at least the pride, of the Byzantine palace. [122] The Greeks were
successively led through four halls of audience: in the first they were
ready to fall prostrate before a splendid personage in a chair of state,
till he informed them that he was only a servant, the constable, or
master of the horse, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the same
answer, were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine, the
steward, and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually
heightened, till the doors of the presence-chamber were thrown open,
and they beheld the genuine monarch, on his throne, enriched with
the foreign luxury which he despised, and encircled with the love and
reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of peace and alliance was
concluded between the two empires, and the limits of the East and West
were defined by the right of present possession. But the Greeks [123]
soon forgot this humiliating equality, or remembered it only to hate the
Barbarians by whom it was extorted. During the short union of virtue
and power, they respectfully saluted the august Charlemagne, with the
acclamations of basileus, and emperor of the Romans. As soon as these
qualities were separated in the person of his pious son, the Byzantine
letters were inscribed, "To the king, or, as he styles himself, the
emperor of the Franks and Lombards." When both power and virtue were
extinct, they despoiled Lewis the Second of his hereditary title, and
with the barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the
crowd of Latin princes. His reply [124] is expressive of his weakness:
he proves, with some learning, that, both in sacred and profane history,
the name of king is synonymous with the Greek word basileus: if, at
Constantinople, it were assumed in a more exclusive and imperial sense,
he claims from his ancestors, and from the popes, a just participation
of the honors of the Roman purple. The same controversy was revived
in the reign of the Othos; and their ambassador describes, in lively
colors, the insolence of the Byzantine court. [125] The Greeks affected
to despise the poverty and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and in
their last decline refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the
title of Roman emperors.

[Footnote 120: Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P. imperatoribus
super hoc indignantibus) magna tulit patientia, vicitque eorum
contumaciam... mittendo ad eos crebras legationes, et in epistolis
fratres eos appellando. Eginhard, c. 28, p. 128. Perhaps it was on their
account that, like Augustus, he affected some reluctance to receive the
empire.]

[Footnote 121: Theophanes speaks of the coronation and unction of
Charles (Chronograph. p. 399,) and of his treaty of marriage with
Irene, (p. 402,) which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard relates his
transactions with the Greek empire, (tom. ii. p. 446-468.)]

[Footnote 122: Gaillard very properly observes, that this pageant was a
farce suitable to children only; but that it was indeed represented in
the presence, and for the benefit, of children of a larger growth.]

[Footnote 123: Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi,
(tom. iii. A.D. 812, No. 7, A.D. 824, No. 10, &c.,) the contrast of
Charlemagne and his son; to the former the ambassadors of Michael (who
were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est lingua Graeca laudes dixerunt,
imperatorem eum et appellantes; to the latter, Vocato imperatori
Francorum, &c.]

[Footnote 124: See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous writer
of Salerno, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254, c. 93-107,)
whom Baronius (A.D. 871, No. 51-71) mistook for Erchempert, when he
transcribed it in his Annals.]

[Footnote 125: Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est sua lingua, sed
ob indignationem, id est regem nostra vocabat, Liutprand, in Legat. in
Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479. The pope had exhorted Nicephorus,
emperor of the Greeks, to make peace with Otho, the august emperor of
the Romans--quae inscriptio secundum Graecos peccatoria et temeraria...
imperatorem inquiunt, universalem, Romanorum, Augustum, magnum, solum,
Nicephorum, (p. 486.)]

These emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to exercise the
powers which had been assumed by the Gothic and Grecian princes; and the
importance of this prerogative increased with the temporal estate
and spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman church. In the Christian
aristocracy, the principal members of the clergy still formed a senate
to assist the administration, and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop.
Rome was divided into twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was
governed by a cardinal priest, or presbyter, a title which, however
common or modest in its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of
kings. Their number was enlarged by the association of the seven deacons
of the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of the
Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical senate
was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the Roman province, who
were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia, Porto, Velitrae,
Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and the Sabines, than by their weekly
service in the Lateran, and their superior share in the honors and
authority of the apostolic see. On the death of the pope, these bishops
recommended a successor to the suffrage of the college of cardinals,
[126] and their choice was ratified or rejected by the applause or
clamor of the Roman people. But the election was imperfect; nor could
the pontiff be legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the
church, had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The
royal commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of
the proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into the
qualifications of the candidates, that he accepted an oath of fidelity,
and confirmed the donations which had successively enriched the
patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms, the rival claims were
submitted to the sentence of the emperor; and in a synod of bishops he
presumed to judge, to condemn, and to punish, the crimes of a guilty
pontiff. Otho the First imposed a treaty on the senate and people, who
engaged to prefer the candidate most acceptable to his majesty: [127]
his successors anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed
the Roman benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their
chancellors or preceptors; and whatever might be the merit of a Frank or
Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition of foreign power.
These acts of prerogative were most speciously excused by the vices of a
popular election. The competitor who had been excluded by the cardinals
appealed to the passions or avarice of the multitude; the Vatican and
the Lateran were stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the
marquises of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see
in a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the ninth
and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and murdered, by their
tyrants; and such was their indigence, after the loss and usurpation
of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that they could neither support
the state of a prince, nor exercise the charity of a priest. [128] The
influence of two sister prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded
on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the
most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and
their reign [129] may have suggested to the darker ages [130] the fable
[131] of a female pope. [132] The bastard son, the grandson, and the
great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair
of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the second of
these became the head of the Latin church. [1321] His youth and manhood
were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear
testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod,
and in the presence of Otho the Great. As John XII. had renounced the
dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be
dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the
flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and
hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his
blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not
possibly be serious. But we read, with some surprise, that the worthy
grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome;
that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and
that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims
from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they
should be violated by his successor. [133] The Protestants have dwelt
with malicious pleasure on these characters of Antichrist; but to a
philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than
their virtues. After a long series of scandal, the apostolic see was
reformed and exalted by the austerity and zeal of Gregory VII. That
ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution of two projects. I.
To fix in the college of cardinals the freedom and independence of
election, and forever to abolish the right or usurpation of the emperors
and the Roman people. II. To bestow and resume the Western empire as
a fief or benefice [134] of the church, and to extend his temporal
dominion over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. After a contest of
fifty years, the first of these designs was accomplished by the firm
support of the ecclesiastical order, whose liberty was connected with
that of their chief. But the second attempt, though it was crowned with
some partial and apparent success, has been vigorously resisted by the
secular power, and finally extinguished by the improvement of human
reason.

[Footnote 126: The origin and progress of the title of cardinal may be
found in Themassin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1261-1298,)
Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. vi. Dissert. lxi. p.
159-182,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 345-347,)
who accurately remarks the form and changes of the election. The
cardinal-bishops so highly exalted by Peter Damianus, are sunk to a
level with the rest of the sacred college.]

[Footnote 127: Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut
audinaturos, praeter consensum et electionem Othonis et filii sui.
(Liutprand, l. vi. c. 6, p. 472.) This important concession may either
supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and people of Rome, so
fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori, (A.D. 964,) and so
well defended and explained by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. ii. p. 808-816,
tom. iv. p. 1167-1185.) Consult the historical critic, and the Annals
of Muratori, for for the election and confirmation of each pope.]

[Footnote 128: The oppression and vices of the Roman church, in the xth
century, are strongly painted in the history and legation of Liutprand,
(see p. 440, 450, 471-476, 479, &c.;) and it is whimsical enough to
observe Muratori tempering the invectives of Baronius against the
popes. But these popes had been chosen, not by the cardinals, but by
lay-patrons.]

[Footnote 129: The time of Pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed somewhat
earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of her imaginary
reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and Benedict III. But the
contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links the death of Leo and
the elevation of Benedict, (illico, mox, p. 247;) and the accurate
chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and Leibnitz, fixes both events to the
year 857.]

[Footnote 130: The advocates for Pope Joan produce one hundred and fifty
witnesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth, xvth, and xvith centuries.
They bear testimony against themselves and the legend, by multiplying
the proof that so curious a story must have been repeated by writers
of every description to whom it was known. On those of the ixth and
xth centuries, the recent event would have flashed with a double force.
Would Photius have spared such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed
such scandal? It is scarcely worth while to discuss the various readings
of Martinus Polonus, Sigeber of Gamblours, or even Marianus Scotus;
but a most palpable forgery is the passage of Pope Joan, which has been
foisted into some Mss. and editions of the Roman Anastasius.]

[Footnote 131: As false, it deserves that name; but I would not
pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our own
times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church, instead
of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised her to St. Peter's
chair; her amours would have been natural: her delivery in the streets
unlucky, but not improbable.]

[Footnote 132: Till the reformation the tale was repeated and believed
without offence: and Joan's female statue long occupied her place among
the popes in the cathedral of Sienna, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p.
624-626.) She has been annihilated by two learned Protestants, Blondel
and Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique, Papesse, Polonus, Blondel;) but their
brethren were scandalized by this equitable and generous criticism.
Spanheim and Lenfant attempt to save this poor engine of controversy,
and even Mosheim condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion, (p.
289.)]

[Footnote 1321: John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic, not of her
lover, Pope Sergius III., as Muratori has distinctly proved, Ann. ad
ann. 911, tom. p. 268. Her grandson Octavian, otherwise called John
XII., was pope; but a great-grandson cannot be discovered in any of
the succeeding popes; nor does our historian himself, in his subsequent
narration, (p. 202,) seem to know of one. Hobhouse, Illustrations of
Childe Harold, p. 309.--M.]

[Footnote 133: Lateranense palatium... prostibulum meretricum ... Testis
omnium gentium, praeterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum, quae sanctorum
apostolorum limina orandi gratia timent visere, cum nonnullas ante dies
paucos, hunc audierint conjugatas, viduas, virgines vi oppressisse,
(Liutprand, Hist. l. vi. c. 6, p. 471. See the whole affair of John
XII., p. 471-476.)]

[Footnote 134: A new example of the mischief of equivocation is the
beneficium (Ducange, tom. i. p. 617, &c.,) which the pope conferred on
the emperor Frederic I., since the Latin word may signify either a legal
fief, or a simple favor, an obligation, (we want the word bienfait.)
(See Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, tom. iii. p. 393-408. Pfeffel,
Abrege Chronologique, tom. i. p. 229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 505,
509, &c.)]

In the revival of the empire of empire of Rome, neither the bishop nor
the people could bestow on Charlemagne or Otho the provinces which were
lost, as they had been won, by the chance of arms. But the Romans were
free to choose a master for themselves; and the powers which had been
delegated to the patrician, were irrevocably granted to the French
and Saxon emperors of the West. The broken records of the times [135]
preserve some remembrance of their palace, their mint, their tribunal,
their edicts, and the sword of justice, which, as late as the thirteenth
century, was derived from Caesar to the praefect of the city. [136]
Between the arts of the popes and the violence of the people, this
supremacy was crushed and annihilated. Content with the titles of
emperor and Augustus, the successors of Charlemagne neglected to assert
this local jurisdiction. In the hour of prosperity, their ambition was
diverted by more alluring objects; and in the decay and division of
the empire, they were oppressed by the defence of their hereditary
provinces. Amidst the ruins of Italy, the famous Marozia invited one
of the usurpers to assume the character of her third husband; and Hugh,
king of Burgundy was introduced by her faction into the mole of Hadrian
or Castle of St. Angelo, which commands the principal bridge and
entrance of Rome. Her son by the first marriage, Alberic, was compelled
to attend at the nuptial banquet; but his reluctant and ungraceful
service was chastised with a blow by his new father. The blow was
productive of a revolution. "Romans," exclaimed the youth, "once you
were the masters of the world, and these Burgundians the most abject of
your slaves. They now reign, these voracious and brutal savages, and
my injury is the commencement of your servitude." [137] The alarum bell
rang to arms in every quarter of the city: the Burgundians retreated
with haste and shame; Marozia was imprisoned by her victorious son, and
his brother, Pope John XI., was reduced to the exercise of his spiritual
functions. With the title of prince, Alberic possessed above twenty
years the government of Rome; and he is said to have gratified the
popular prejudice, by restoring the office, or at least the title,
of consuls and tribunes. His son and heir Octavian assumed, with
the pontificate, the name of John XII.: like his predecessor, he was
provoked by the Lombard princes to seek a deliverer for the church
and republic; and the services of Otho were rewarded with the Imperial
dignity. But the Saxon was imperious, the Romans were impatient, the
festival of the coronation was disturbed by the secret conflict of
prerogative and freedom, and Otho commanded his sword-bearer not to stir
from his person, lest he should be assaulted and murdered at the foot of
the altar. [138] Before he repassed the Alps, the emperor chastised
the revolt of the people and the ingratitude of John XII. The pope was
degraded in a synod; the praefect was mounted on an ass, whipped through
the city, and cast into a dungeon; thirteen of the most guilty were
hanged, others were mutilated or banished; and this severe process was
justified by the ancient laws of Theodosius and Justinian. The voice
of fame has accused the second Otho of a perfidious and bloody act, the
massacre of the senators, whom he had invited to his table under the
fair semblance of hospitality and friendship. [139] In the minority of
his son Otho the Third, Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon
yoke, and the consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From
the condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command
of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and formed a
conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek emperors. [1391] In
the fortress of St. Angelo, he maintained an obstinate siege, till the
unfortunate consul was betrayed by a promise of safety: his body was
suspended on a gibbet, and his head was exposed on the battlements of
the castle. By a reverse of fortune, Otho, after separating his troops,
was besieged three days, without food, in his palace; and a disgraceful
escape saved him from the justice or fury of the Romans. The senator
Ptolemy was the leader of the people, and the widow of Crescentius
enjoyed the pleasure or the fame of revenging her husband, by a poison
which she administered to her Imperial lover. It was the design of Otho
the Third to abandon the ruder countries of the North, to erect his
throne in Italy, and to revive the institutions of the Roman monarchy.
But his successors only once in their lives appeared on the banks of the
Tyber, to receive their crown in the Vatican. [140] Their absence was
contemptible, their presence odious and formidable. They descended
from the Alps, at the head of their barbarians, who were strangers and
enemies to the country; and their transient visit was a scene of tumult
and bloodshed. [141] A faint remembrance of their ancestors still
tormented the Romans; and they beheld with pious indignation the
succession of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and Bohemians, who usurped the
purple and prerogatives of the Caesars.

[Footnote 135: For the history of the emperors in Rome and Italy, see
Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, Opp. tom. ii., with the Notes of Saxius, and
the Annals of Muratori, who might refer more distinctly to the authors
of his great collection.]

[Footnote 136: See the Dissertations of Le Blanc at the end of his
treatise des Monnoyes de France, in which he produces some Roman coins
of the French emperors.]

[Footnote 137: Romanorum aliquando servi, scilicet Burgundiones, Romanis
imperent?.... Romanae urbis dignitas ad tantam est stultitiam ducta,
ut meretricum etiam imperio pareat? (Liutprand, l. iii. c. 12, p.
450.) Sigonius (l. vi. p. 400) positively affirms the renovation of the
consulship; but in the old writers Albericus is more frequently styled
princeps Romanorum.]

[Footnote 138: Ditmar, p. 354, apud Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 439.]

[Footnote 139: This bloody feast is described in Leonine verse in the
Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, (Script. Ital. tom. vii. p. 436, 437,)
who flourished towards the end of the xiith century, (Fabricius Bibliot.
Latin. Med. et Infimi Aevi, tom. iii. p. 69, edit. Mansi;) but his
evidence, which imposed on Sigonius, is reasonably suspected by Muratori
(Annali, tom. viii. p. 177.)]

[Footnote 1391: The Marquis Maffei's gallery contained a medal with Imp.
Caes August. P. P. Crescentius. Hence Hobhouse infers that he affected
the empire. Hobhouse, Illustrations of Childe Harold, p. 252.--M.]

[Footnote 140: The coronation of the emperor, and some original
ceremonies of the xth century are preserved in the Panegyric on
Berengarius, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 405-414,) illustrated
by the Notes of Hadrian Valesius and Leibnitz. Sigonius has related
the whole process of the Roman expedition, in good Latin, but with some
errors of time and fact, (l. vii. p. 441-446.)]

[Footnote 141: In a quarrel at the coronation of Conrad II. Muratori
takes leave to observe--doveano ben essere allora, indisciplinati,
Barbari, e bestials Tedeschi. Annal. tom. viii. p. 368.]




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

There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold
in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to
their inclination and interest. A torrent of Barbarians may pass over
the earth, but an extensive empire must be supported by a refined system
of policy and oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in
action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communication with the
extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion;
a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined
army to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair. Far
different was the situation of the German Caesars, who were ambitious to
enslave the kingdom of Italy. Their patrimonial estates were stretched
along the Rhine, or scattered in the provinces; but this ample domain
was alienated by the imprudence or distress of successive princes;
and their revenue, from minute and vexatious prerogative, was scarcely
sufficient for the maintenance of their household. Their troops were
formed by the legal or voluntary service of their feudal vassals, who
passed the Alps with reluctance, assumed the license of rapine and
disorder, and capriciously deserted before the end of the campaign.
Whole armies were swept away by the pestilential influence of the
climate: the survivors brought back the bones of their princes and
nobles, [142] and the effects of their own intemperance were often
imputed to the treachery and malice of the Italians, who rejoiced at
least in the calamities of the Barbarians. This irregular tyranny might
contend on equal terms with the petty tyrants of Italy; nor can the
people, or the reader, be much interested in the event of the quarrel.
But in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Lombards rekindled the
flame of industry and freedom; and the generous example was at length
imitated by the republics of Tuscany. [1421] In the Italian cities a
municipal government had never been totally abolished; and their first
privileges were granted by the favor and policy of the emperors, who
were desirous of erecting a plebeian barrier against the independence of
the nobles. But their rapid progress, the daily extension of their power
and pretensions, were founded on the numbers and spirit of these rising
communities. [143] Each city filled the measure of her diocese or
district: the jurisdiction of the counts and bishops, of the marquises
and counts, was banished from the land; and the proudest nobles were
persuaded or compelled to desert their solitary castles, and to embrace
the more honorable character of freemen and magistrates. The legislative
authority was inherent in the general assembly; but the executive powers
were intrusted to three consuls, annually chosen from the three orders
of captains, valvassors, [144] and commons, into which the republic was
divided. Under the protection of equal law, the labors of agriculture
and commerce were gradually revived; but the martial spirit of the
Lombards was nourished by the presence of danger; and as often as the
bell was rung, or the standard [145] erected, the gates of the city
poured forth a numerous and intrepid band, whose zeal in their own cause
was soon guided by the use and discipline of arms. At the foot of these
popular ramparts, the pride of the Caesars was overthrown; and the
invincible genius of liberty prevailed over the two Frederics, the
greatest princes of the middle age; the first, superior perhaps in
military prowess; the second, who undoubtedly excelled in the softer
accomplishments of peace and learning.

[Footnote 142: After boiling away the flesh. The caldrons for that
purpose were a necessary piece of travelling furniture; and a German who
was using it for his brother, promised it to a friend, after it should
have been employed for himself, (Schmidt, tom. iii. p. 423, 424.) The
same author observes that the whole Saxon line was extinguished in
Italy, (tom. ii. p. 440.)]

[Footnote 1421: Compare Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiannes.
Hallam Middle Ages. Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstauffen. Savigny,
Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, vol. iii. p. 19 with the authors
quoted.--M.]

[Footnote 143: Otho, bishop of Frisingen, has left an important passage
on the Italian cities, (l. ii. c. 13, in Script. Ital. tom. vi. p.
707-710: ) and the rise, progress, and government of these republics
are perfectly illustrated by Muratori, (Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Aevi,
tom. iv. dissert xlv.--lii. p. 1-675. Annal. tom. viii. ix. x.)]

[Footnote 144: For these titles, see Selden, (Titles of Honor, vol. iii.
part 1 p. 488.) Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. 140, tom. vi. p.
776,) and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 719.)]

[Footnote 145: The Lombards invented and used the carocium, a standard
planted on a car or wagon, drawn by a team of oxen, (Ducange, tom. ii.
p. 194, 195. Muratori Antiquitat tom. ii. dis. xxvi. p. 489-493.)]

Ambitious of restoring the splendor of the purple, Frederic the First
invaded the republics of Lombardy, with the arts of a statesman, the
valor of a soldier, and the cruelty of a tyrant. The recent discovery of
the Pandects had renewed a science most favorable to despotism; and his
venal advocates proclaimed the emperor the absolute master of the lives
and properties of his subjects. His royal prerogatives, in a less odious
sense, were acknowledged in the diet of Roncaglia; and the revenue of
Italy was fixed at thirty thousand pounds of silver, [146] which were
multiplied to an indefinite demand by the rapine of the fiscal officers.
The obstinate cities were reduced by the terror or the force of his
arms: his captives were delivered to the executioner, or shot from
his military engines; and. after the siege and surrender of Milan,
the buildings of that stately capital were razed to the ground, three
hundred hostages were sent into Germany, and the inhabitants were
dispersed in four villages, under the yoke of the inflexible conqueror.
[147] But Milan soon rose from her ashes; and the league of Lombardy was
cemented by distress: their cause was espoused by Venice, Pope
Alexander the Third, and the Greek emperor: the fabric of oppression
was overturned in a day; and in the treaty of Constance, Frederic
subscribed, with some reservations, the freedom of four-and-twenty
cities. His grandson contended with their vigor and maturity; but
Frederic the Second [148] was endowed with some personal and peculiar
advantages. His birth and education recommended him to the Italians;
and in the implacable discord of the two factions, the Ghibelins were
attached to the emperor, while the Guelfs displayed the banner of
liberty and the church. The court of Rome had slumbered, when his father
Henry the Sixth was permitted to unite with the empire the kingdoms of
Naples and Sicily; and from these hereditary realms the son derived an
ample and ready supply of troops and treasure. Yet Frederic the Second
was finally oppressed by the arms of the Lombards and the thunders of
the Vatican: his kingdom was given to a stranger, and the last of his
family was beheaded at Naples on a public scaffold. During sixty years,
no emperor appeared in Italy, and the name was remembered only by the
ignominious sale of the last relics of sovereignty.

[Footnote 146: Gunther Ligurinus, l. viii. 584, et seq., apud Schmidt,
tom. iii. p. 399.]

[Footnote 147: Solus imperator faciem suam firmavit ut petram, (Burcard.
de Excidio Mediolani, Script. Ital. tom. vi. p. 917.) This volume of
Muratori contains the originals of the history of Frederic the First,
which must be compared with due regard to the circumstances and
prejudices of each German or Lombard writer. * Note: Von Raumer has
traced the fortunes of the Swabian house in one of the ablest historical
works of modern times. He may be compared with the spirited and
independent Sismondi.--M.]

[Footnote 148: For the history of Frederic II. and the house of Swabia
at Naples, see Giannone, Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xiv. -xix.]

The Barbarian conquerors of the West were pleased to decorate their
chief with the title of emperor; but it was not their design to invest
him with the despotism of Constantine and Justinian. The persons of the
Germans were free, their conquests were their own, and their
national character was animated by a spirit which scorned the servile
jurisprudence of the new or the ancient Rome. It would have been a vain
and dangerous attempt to impose a monarch on the armed freemen, who
were impatient of a magistrate; on the bold, who refused to obey; on the
powerful, who aspired to command. The empire of Charlemagne and Otho was
distributed among the dukes of the nations or provinces, the counts of
the smaller districts, and the margraves of the marches or frontiers,
who all united the civil and military authority as it had been delegated
to the lieutenants of the first Caesars. The Roman governors, who,
for the most part, were soldiers of fortune, seduced their mercenary
legions, assumed the Imperial purple, and either failed or succeeded in
their revolt, without wounding the power and unity of government. If the
dukes, margraves, and counts of Germany, were less audacious in
their claims, the consequences of their success were more lasting and
pernicious to the state. Instead of aiming at the supreme rank,
they silently labored to establish and appropriate their provincial
independence. Their ambition was seconded by the weight of their estates
and vassals, their mutual example and support, the common interest
of the subordinate nobility, the change of princes and families, the
minorities of Otho the Third and Henry the Fourth, the ambition of the
popes, and the vain pursuit of the fugitive crowns of Italy and Rome.
All the attributes of regal and territorial jurisdiction were gradually
usurped by the commanders of the provinces; the right of peace and war,
of life and death, of coinage and taxation, of foreign alliance and
domestic economy. Whatever had been seized by violence, was ratified
by favor or distress, was granted as the price of a doubtful vote or a
voluntary service; whatever had been granted to one could not, without
injury, be denied to his successor or equal; and every act of local or
temporary possession was insensibly moulded into the constitution of the
Germanic kingdom. In every province, the visible presence of the duke or
count was interposed between the throne and the nobles; the subjects of
the law became the vassals of a private chief; and the standard which he
received from his sovereign, was often raised against him in the field.
The temporal power of the clergy was cherished and exalted by the
superstition or policy of the Carlovingian and Saxon dynasties, who
blindly depended on their moderation and fidelity; and the bishoprics of
Germany were made equal in extent and privilege, superior in wealth and
population, to the most ample states of the military order. As long
as the emperors retained the prerogative of bestowing on every vacancy
these ecclesiastic and secular benefices, their cause was maintained
by the gratitude or ambition of their friends and favorites. But in the
quarrel of the investitures, they were deprived of their influence over
the episcopal chapters; the freedom of election was restored, and the
sovereign was reduced, by a solemn mockery, to his first prayers, the
recommendation, once in his reign, to a single prebend in each church.
The secular governors, instead of being recalled at the will of a
superior, could be degraded only by the sentence of their peers. In the
first age of the monarchy, the appointment of the son to the duchy
or county of his father, was solicited as a favor; it was gradually
obtained as a custom, and extorted as a right: the lineal succession was
often extended to the collateral or female branches; the states of the
empire (their popular, and at length their legal, appellation) were
divided and alienated by testament and sale; and all idea of a public
trust was lost in that of a private and perpetual inheritance. The
emperor could not even be enriched by the casualties of forfeiture and
extinction: within the term of a year, he was obliged to dispose of the
vacant fief; and, in the choice of the candidate, it was his duty to
consult either the general or the provincial diet.

After the death of Frederic the Second, Germany was left a monster with
a hundred heads. A crowd of princes and prelates disputed the ruins of
the empire: the lords of innumerable castles were less prone to obey,
than to imitate, their superiors; and, according to the measure of their
strength, their incessant hostilities received the names of conquest
or robbery. Such anarchy was the inevitable consequence of the laws and
manners of Europe; and the kingdoms of France and Italy were shivered
into fragments by the violence of the same tempest. But the Italian
cities and the French vassals were divided and destroyed, while the
union of the Germans has produced, under the name of an empire, a
great system of a federative republic. In the frequent and at last the
perpetual institution of diets, a national spirit was kept alive, and
the powers of a common legislature are still exercised by the three
branches or colleges of the electors, the princes, and the free and
Imperial cities of Germany. I. Seven of the most powerful feudatories
were permitted to assume, with a distinguished name and rank, the
exclusive privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; and these electors
were the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of
Brandenburgh, the count palatine of the Rhine, and the three archbishops
of Mentz, of Treves, and of Cologne. II. The college of princes and
prelates purged themselves of a promiscuous multitude: they reduced to
four representative votes the long series of independent counts, and
excluded the nobles or equestrian order, sixty thousand of whom, as in
the Polish diets, had appeared on horseback in the field of election.
III. The pride of birth and dominion, of the sword and the mitre, wisely
adopted the commons as the third branch of the legislature, and, in the
progress of society, they were introduced about the same aera into the
national assemblies of France England, and Germany.

The Hanseatic League commanded the trade and navigation of the north:
the confederates of the Rhine secured the peace and intercourse of the
inland country; the influence of the cities has been adequate to their
wealth and policy, and their negative still invalidates the acts of the
two superior colleges of electors and princes. [149]

[Footnote 149: In the immense labyrinth of the jus publicum of Germany,
I must either quote one writer or a thousand; and I had rather trust to
one faithful guide, than transcribe, on credit, a multitude of names
and passages. That guide is M. Pfeffel, the author of the best legal
and constitutional history that I know of any country, (Nouvel Abrege
Chronologique de l'Histoire et du Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776,
2 vols. in 4to.) His learning and judgment have discerned the most
interesting facts; his simple brevity comprises them in a narrow space.
His chronological order distributes them under the proper dates; and
an elaborate index collects them under their respective heads. To this
work, in a less perfect state, Dr. Robertson was gratefully indebted
for that masterly sketch which traces even the modern changes of the
Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae Germanicae of Struvius has been
likewise consulted, the more usefully, as that huge compilation is
fortified in every page with the original texts. * Note: For the rise
and progress of the Hanseatic League, consult the authoritative history
by Sartorius; Geschichte des Hanseatischen Bandes & Theile, Gottingen,
1802. New and improved edition by Lappenberg Elamburg, 1830. The
original Hanseatic League comprehended Cologne and many of the great
cities in the Netherlands and on the Rhine.--M.]

It is in the fourteenth century that we may view in the strongest light
the state and contrast of the Roman empire of Germany, which no longer
held, except on the borders of the Rhine and Danube, a single province
of Trajan or Constantine. Their unworthy successors were the counts of
Hapsburgh, of Nassau, of Luxemburgh, and Schwartzenburgh: the emperor
Henry the Seventh procured for his son the crown of Bohemia, and
his grandson Charles the Fourth was born among a people strange and
barbarous in the estimation of the Germans themselves. [150] After the
excommunication of Lewis of Bavaria, he received the gift or promise
of the vacant empire from the Roman pontiffs, who, in the exile and
captivity of Avignon, affected the dominion of the earth. The death
of his competitors united the electoral college, and Charles was
unanimously saluted king of the Romans, and future emperor; a title
which, in the same age, was prostituted to the Caesars of Germany and
Greece. The German emperor was no more than the elective and impotent
magistrate of an aristocracy of princes, who had not left him a village
that he might call his own. His best prerogative was the right of
presiding and proposing in the national senate, which was convened at
his summons; and his native kingdom of Bohemia, less opulent than the
adjacent city of Nuremberg, was the firmest seat of his power and the
richest source of his revenue. The army with which he passed the Alps
consisted of three hundred horse. In the cathedral of St. Ambrose,
Charles was crowned with the iron crown, which tradition ascribed to the
Lombard monarchy; but he was admitted only with a peaceful train; the
gates of the city were shut upon him; and the king of Italy was held
a captive by the arms of the Visconti, whom he confirmed in the
sovereignty of Milan. In the Vatican he was again crowned with the
golden crown of the empire; but, in obedience to a secret treaty, the
Roman emperor immediately withdrew, without reposing a single night
within the walls of Rome. The eloquent Petrarch, [151] whose fancy
revived the visionary glories of the Capitol, deplores and upbraids the
ignominious flight of the Bohemian; and even his contemporaries could
observe, that the sole exercise of his authority was in the lucrative
sale of privileges and titles. The gold of Italy secured the election
of his son; but such was the shameful poverty of the Roman emperor, that
his person was arrested by a butcher in the streets of Worms, and was
detained in the public inn, as a pledge or hostage for the payment of
his expenses.

[Footnote 150: Yet, personally, Charles IV. must not be considered as
a Barbarian. After his education at Paris, he recovered the use of the
Bohemian, his native, idiom; and the emperor conversed and wrote with
equal facility in French, Latin, Italian, and German, (Struvius, p. 615,
616.) Petrarch always represents him as a polite and learned prince.]

[Footnote 151: Besides the German and Italian historians, the expedition
of Charles IV. is painted in lively and original colors in the curious
Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 376-430, by the Abbe de
Sade, whose prolixity has never been blamed by any reader of taste and
curiosity.]

From this humiliating scene, let us turn to the apparent majesty of the
same Charles in the diets of the empire. The golden bull, which fixes
the Germanic constitution, is promulgated in the style of a sovereign
and legislator. A hundred princes bowed before his throne, and exalted
their own dignity by the voluntary honors which they yielded to their
chief or minister. At the royal banquet, the hereditary great officers,
the seven electors, who in rank and title were equal to kings, performed
their solemn and domestic service of the palace. The seals of the triple
kingdom were borne in state by the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and
Treves, the perpetual arch-chancellors of Germany, Italy, and Arles.
The great marshal, on horseback, exercised his function with a silver
measure of oats, which he emptied on the ground, and immediately
dismounted to regulate the order of the guests The great steward, the
count palatine of the Rhine, place the dishes on the table. The great
chamberlain, the margrave of Brandenburgh, presented, after the repast,
the golden ewer and basin, to wash. The king of Bohemia, as great
cup-bearer, was represented by the emperor's brother, the duke of
Luxemburgh and Brabant; and the procession was closed by the great
huntsmen, who introduced a boar and a stag, with a loud chorus of horns
and hounds. [152] Nor was the supremacy of the emperor confined
to Germany alone: the hereditary monarchs of Europe confessed the
preeminence of his rank and dignity: he was the first of the Christian
princes, the temporal head of the great republic of the West: [153] to
his person the title of majesty was long appropriated; and he disputed
with the pope the sublime prerogative of creating kings and assembling
councils. The oracle of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a
pensioner of Charles the Fourth; and his school resounded with the
doctrine, that the Roman emperor was the rightful sovereign of the
earth, from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was
condemned, not as an error, but as a heresy, since even the gospel had
pronounced, "And there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus, that
all the world should be taxed." [154]

[Footnote 152: See the whole ceremony in Struvius, p. 629]

[Footnote 153: The republic of Europe, with the pope and emperor at its
head, was never represented with more dignity than in the council of
Constance. See Lenfant's History of that assembly.]

[Footnote 154: Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 108.]

If we annihilate the interval of time and space between Augustus and
Charles, strong and striking will be the contrast between the two
Caesars; the Bohemian who concealed his weakness under the mask of
ostentation, and the Roman, who disguised his strength under the
semblance of modesty. At the head of his victorious legions, in his
reign over the sea and land, from the Nile and Euphrates to the Atlantic
Ocean, Augustus professed himself the servant of the state and the equal
of his fellow-citizens. The conqueror of Rome and her provinces assumed
a popular and legal form of a censor, a consul, and a tribune. His will
was the law of mankind, but in the declaration of his laws he borrowed
the voice of the senate and people; and from their decrees their
master accepted and renewed his temporary commission to administer the
republic. In his dress, his domestics, [155] his titles, in all the
offices of social life, Augustus maintained the character of a private
Roman; and his most artful flatterers respected the secret of his
absolute and perpetual monarchy.

[Footnote 155: Six thousand urns have been discovered of the slaves and
freedmen of Augustus and Livia. So minute was the division of office,
that one slave was appointed to weigh the wool which was spun by the
empress's maids, another for the care of her lap-dog, &c., (Camera
Sepolchrale, by Bianchini. Extract of his work in the Bibliotheque
Italique, tom. iv. p. 175. His Eloge, by Fontenelle, tom. vi. p. 356.)
But these servants were of the same rank, and possibly not more numerous
than those of Pollio or Lentulus. They only prove the general riches of
the city.]




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

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

After pursuing above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars of
Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the reign of Heraclius, on
the eastern borders of the Greek monarchy. While the state was exhausted
by the Persian war, and the church was distracted by the Nestorian and
Monophysite sects, Mahomet, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in
the other, erected his throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome.
The genius of the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the
spirit of his religion, involve the causes of the decline and fall of
the Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most
memorable revolutions, which have impressed a new and lasting character
on the nations of the globe. [1]

[Footnote 1: As in this and the following chapter I shall display much
Arabic learning, I must profess my total ignorance of the Oriental
tongues, and my gratitude to the learned interpreters, who have
transfused their science into the Latin, French, and English languages.
Their collections, versions, and histories, I shall occasionally
notice.]

In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Aethiopia, the
Arabian peninsula [2] may be conceived as a triangle of spacious but
irregular dimensions. From the northern point of Beles [3] on the
Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is terminated by the Straits
of Bebelmandel and the land of frankincense. About half this length may
be allowed for the middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora
to Suez, from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. [4] The sides of the
triangle are gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a
front of a thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the
peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or France;
but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with the epithets
of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of Tartary are decked, by the
hand of nature, with lofty trees and luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome
traveller derives a sort of comfort and society from the presence of
vegetable life. But in the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of
sand is intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the
desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and intense
rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, the winds,
particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious and even deadly
vapor; the hillocks of sand which they alternately raise and scatter,
are compared to the billows of the ocean, and whole caravans, whole
armies, have been lost and buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits
of water are an object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity
of wood, that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the
element of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which
fertilize the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions: the
torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth: the
rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that strike their
roots into the clefts of the rocks, are nourished by the dews of the
night: a scanty supply of rain is collected in cisterns and aqueducts:
the wells and springs are the secret treasure of the desert; and the
pilgrim of Mecca, [5] after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by
the taste of the waters which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt.
Such is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia.
The experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial
enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh water, are
sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to the fortunate spots
which can afford food and refreshment to themselves and their cattle,
and which encourage their industry in the cultivation of the palmtree
and the vine. The high lands that border on the Indian Ocean are
distinguished by their superior plenty of wood and water; the air is
more temperate, the fruits are more delicious, the animals and the human
race more numerous: the fertility of the soil invites and rewards the
toil of the husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense [6] and
coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of the world. If
it be compared with the rest of the peninsula, this sequestered region
may truly deserve the appellation of the happy; and the splendid
coloring of fancy and fiction has been suggested by contrast, and
countenanced by distance. It was for this earthly paradise that Nature
had reserved her choicest favors and her most curious workmanship: the
incompatible blessings of luxury and innocence were ascribed to the
natives: the soil was impregnated with gold [7] and gems, and both the
land and sea were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This
division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar to the
Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians themselves; and it is
singular enough, that a country, whose language and inhabitants have
ever been the same, should scarcely retain a vestige of its ancient
geography. The maritime districts of Bahrein and Oman are opposite to
the realm of Persia. The kingdom of Yemen displays the limits, or at
least the situation, of Arabia Felix: the name of Neged is extended over
the inland space; and the birth of Mahomet has illustrated the province
of Hejaz along the coast of the Red Sea. [8]

[Footnote 2: The geographers of Arabia may be divided into three
classes: 1. The Greeks and Latins, whose progressive knowledge may be
traced in Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom.
i.,) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. ii. p. 159-167, l. iii. p. 211-216,
edit. Wesseling,) Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1112-1114, from Eratosthenes, p.
1122-1132, from Artemidorus,) Dionysius, (Periegesis, 927-969,) Pliny,
(Hist. Natur. v. 12, vi. 32,) and Ptolemy, (Descript. et Tabulae Urbium,
in Hudson, tom. iii.) 2. The Arabic writers, who have treated the
subject with the zeal of patriotism or devotion: the extracts of Pocock
(Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 125-128) from the Geography of the Sherif
al Edrissi, render us still more dissatisfied with the version or
abridgment (p. 24-27, 44-56, 108, &c., 119, &c.) which the Maronites
have published under the absurd title of Geographia Nubiensis, (Paris,
1619;) but the Latin and French translators, Greaves (in Hudson, tom.
iii.) and Galland, (Voyage de la Palestine par La Roque, p. 265-346,)
have opened to us the Arabia of Abulfeda, the most copious and correct
account of the peninsula, which may be enriched, however, from the
Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, p. 120, et alibi passim. 3.
The European travellers; among whom Shaw (p. 438-455) and Niebuhr
(Description, 1773; Voyages, tom. i. 1776) deserve an honorable
distinction: Busching (Geographie par Berenger, tom. viii. p. 416-510)
has compiled with judgment, and D'Anville's Maps (Orbis Veteribus
Notus, and 1re Partie de l'Asie) should lie before the reader, with his
Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 208-231. * Note: Of modern travellers
may be mentioned the adventurer who called himself Ali Bey; but above
all, the intelligent, the enterprising the accurate Burckhardt.--M.]

[Footnote 3: Abulfed. Descript. Arabiae, p. 1. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et
le Tigre, p. 19, 20. It was in this place, the paradise or garden of
a satrap, that Xenophon and the Greeks first passed the Euphrates,
(Anabasis, l. i. c. 10, p. 29, edit. Wells.)]

[Footnote 4: Reland has proved, with much superfluous learning,

1. That our Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf) is no more than a part of the
Mare Rubrum, which was extended to the indefinite space of the Indian
Ocean.

2. That the synonymous words, allude to the color of the blacks or
negroes, (Dissert Miscell. tom. i. p. 59-117.)]

[Footnote 5: In the thirty days, or stations, between Cairo and Mecca,
there are fifteen destitute of good water. See the route of the Hadjees,
in Shaw's Travels, p. 477.]

[Footnote 6: The aromatics, especially the thus, or frankincense, of
Arabia, occupy the xiith book of Pliny. Our great poet (Paradise Lost,
l. iv.) introduces, in a simile, the spicy odors that are blown by the
north-east wind from the Sabaean coast:----Many a league, Pleased with
the grateful scent, old Ocean smiles. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 42.)]

[Footnote 7: Agatharcides affirms, that lumps of pure gold were found,
from the size of an olive to that of a nut; that iron was twice, and
silver ten times, the value of gold, (de Mari Rubro, p. 60.) These real
or imaginary treasures are vanished; and no gold mines are at present
known in Arabia, (Niebuhr, Description, p. 124.) * Note: A brilliant
passage in the geographical poem of Dionysius Periegetes embodies the
notions of the ancients on the wealth and fertility of Yemen. Greek
mythology, and the traditions of the "gorgeous east," of India as well
as Arabia, are mingled together in indiscriminate splendor. Compare on
the southern coast of Arabia, the recent travels of Lieut. Wellsted--M.]

[Footnote 8: Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Hostoriae Arabum of
Pocock, (Oxon. 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of text and version are
extracted from the Dynasties of Gregory Abulpharagius, which Pocock
afterwards translated, (Oxon. 1663, in 4to.;) the three hundred and
fifty-eight notes form a classic and original work on the Arabian
antiquities.]

The measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence;
and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be outnumbered by the
subjects of a fertile and industrious province. Along the shores of the
Persian Gulf, of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi,
[9] or fish eaters, continued to wander in quest of their precarious
food. In this primitive and abject state, which ill deserves the name of
society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or
language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.
Generations and ages might roll away in silent oblivion, and the
helpless savage was restrained from multiplying his race by the wants
and pursuits which confined his existence to the narrow margin of the
seacoast. But in an early period of antiquity the great body of the
Arabs had emerged from this scene of misery; and as the naked wilderness
could not maintain a people of hunters, they rose at once to the more
secure and plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The same life
is uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the desert; and in the
portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may trace the features of their
ancestors, [10] who, in the age of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt under similar
tents, and conducted their horses, and camels, and sheep, to the same
springs and the same pastures. Our toil is lessened, and our wealth
is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals; and the Arabian
shepherd had acquired the absolute possession of a faithful friend and
a laborious slave. [11] Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the
genuine and original country of the horse; the climate most propitious,
not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that
generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English
breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: [12] the Bedoweens
preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the
purest race: the males are sold at a high price, but the females are
seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble foal was esteemed among the
tribes, as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. These horses are
educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs, with a
tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentleness
and attachment. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their
sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the
whip: their powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit:
but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than
they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their friend
be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till he has
recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and Arabia, the camel is a
sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burden can
perform, without eating or drinking, a journey of several days; and a
reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach
of the animal, whose body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the
larger breed is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds;
and the dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of the
camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and nutritious: the
young and tender flesh has the taste of veal: [13] a valuable salt is
extracted from the urine: the dung supplies the deficiency of fuel;
and the long hair, which falls each year and is renewed, is coarsely
manufactured into the garments, the furniture, and the tents of the
Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons, they consume the rare and insufficient
herbage of the desert: during the heats of summer and the scarcity of
winter, they remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of
Yemen, or the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the
dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the villages
of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is a life of
danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or exchange, he may
appropriate the fruits of industry, a private citizen in Europe is in
the possession of more solid and pleasing luxury than the proudest emir,
who marches in the field at the head of ten thousand horse.

[Footnote 9: Arrian remarks the Icthyophagi of the coast of Hejez,
(Periplus Maris Erythraei, p. 12,) and beyond Aden, (p. 15.) It seems
probable that the shores of the Red Sea (in the largest sense) were
occupied by these savages in the time, perhaps, of Cyrus; but I can
hardly believe that any cannibals were left among the savages in the
reign of Justinian. (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19.)]

[Footnote 10: See the Specimen Historiae Arabum of Pocock, p. 2, 5, 86,
&c. The journey of M. d'Arvieux, in 1664, to the camp of the emir of
Mount Carmel, (Voyage de la Palestine, Amsterdam, 1718,) exhibits a
pleasing and original picture of the life of the Bedoweens, which may
be illustrated from Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 327-344) and
Volney, (tom. i. p. 343-385,) the last and most judicious of our Syrian
travellers.]

[Footnote 11: Read (it is no unpleasing task) the incomparable articles
of the Horse and the Camel, in the Natural History of M. de Buffon.]

[Footnote 12: For the Arabian horses, see D'Arvieux (p. 159-173) and
Niebuhr, (p. 142-144.) At the end of the xiiith century, the horses of
Neged were esteemed sure-footed, those of Yemen strong and serviceable,
those of Hejaz most noble. The horses of Europe, the tenth and last
class, were generally despised as having too much body and too little
spirit, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 339: ) their strength was
requisite to bear the weight of the knight and his armor]

[Footnote 13: Qui carnibus camelorum vesci solent odii tenaces sunt, was
the opinion of an Arabian physician, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 88.) Mahomet
himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow, and does not even
mention the camel; but the diet of Mecca and Medina was already more
luxurious, (Gagnier Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 404.)]

Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes of Scythia
and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter were collected into
towns, and employed in the labors of trade and agriculture. A part of
their time and industry was still devoted to the management of their
cattle: they mingled, in peace and war, with their brethren of the
desert; and the Bedoweens derived from their useful intercourse some
supply of their wants, and some rudiments of art and knowledge. Among
the forty-two cities of Arabia, [14] enumerated by Abulfeda, the most
ancient and populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of
Saana, [15] and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, [16] were constructed
by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by
the prophetic glories of Medina [17] and Mecca, [18] near the Red Sea,
and at the distance from each other of two hundred and seventy miles.
The last of these holy places was known to the Greeks under the name
of Macoraba; and the termination of the word is expressive of its
greatness, which has not, indeed, in the most flourishing period,
exceeded the size and populousness of Marseilles. Some latent motive,
perhaps of superstition, must have impelled the founders, in the choice
of a most unpromising situation. They erected their habitations of mud
or stone, in a plain about two miles long and one mile broad, at the
foot of three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even of
the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the pastures are remote
from the city; and grapes are transported above seventy miles from the
gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in
Mecca, were conspicuous among the Arabian tribes; but their ungrateful
soil refused the labors of agriculture, and their position was favorable
to the enterprises of trade. By the seaport of Gedda, at the distance
only of forty miles, they maintained an easy correspondence with
Abyssinia; and that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the
disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the
Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city built,
as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles; [19] and from
thence with the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they were floated on
rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is placed almost at an equal
distance, a month's journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on
the left hand. The former was the winter, the latter the summer, station
of her caravans; and their seasonable arrival relieved the ships of
India from the tedious and troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the
markets of Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels
of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of aromatics; a
supply of corn and manufactures was purchased in the fairs of Bostra
and Damascus; the lucrative exchange diffused plenty and riches in the
streets of Mecca; and the noblest of her sons united the love of arms
with the profession of merchandise. [20]

[Footnote 14: Yet Marcian of Heraclea (in Periplo, p. 16, in tom. i.
Hudson, Minor. Geograph.) reckons one hundred and sixty-four towns in
Arabia Felix. The size of the towns might be small--the faith of the
writer might be large.]

[Footnote 15: It is compared by Abulfeda (in Hudson, tom. ii. p. 54) to
Damascus, and is still the residence of the Iman of Yemen, (Voyages
de Niebuhr, tom. i. p. 331-342.) Saana is twenty-four parasangs from
Dafar, (Abulfeda, p. 51,) and sixty-eight from Aden, (p. 53.)]

[Footnote 16: Pocock, Specimen, p. 57. Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 52.
Meriaba, or Merab, six miles in circumference, was destroyed by the
legions of Augustus, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32,) and had not revived in
the xivth century, (Abulfed. Descript. Arab. p. 58.) * Note: See note
2 to chap. i. The destruction of Meriaba by the Romans is doubtful. The
town never recovered the inundation which took place from the bursting
of a large reservoir of water--an event of great importance in
the Arabian annals, and discussed at considerable length by modern
Orientalists.--M.]

[Footnote 17: The name of city, Medina, was appropriated, to Yatreb.
(the Iatrippa of the Greeks,) the seat of the prophet. The distances
from Medina are reckoned by Abulfeda in stations, or days' journey of a
caravan, (p. 15: ) to Bahrein, xv.; to Bassora, xviii.; to Cufah, xx.;
to Damascus or Palestine, xx.; to Cairo, xxv.; to Mecca. x.; from Mecca
to Saana, (p. 52,) or Aden, xxx.; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours,
(Shaw's Travels, p. 477;) which, according to the estimate of D'Anville,
(Mesures Itineraires, p. 99,) allows about twenty-five English miles
for a day's journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in Yemen,
between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza in Syria, Pliny (Hist. Nat. xii.
32) computes lxv. mansions of camels. These measures may assist fancy
and elucidate facts.]

[Footnote 18: Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the Arabians,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368-371. Pocock, Specimen, p.
125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40.) As no unbeliever is permitted to enter
the city, our travellers are silent; and the short hints of Thevenot
(Voyages du Levant, part i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth
of an African renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses, (Chardin.
tom. iv. p. 167.) * Note: Even in the time of Gibbon, Mecca had not been
so inaccessible to Europeans. It had been visited by Ludovico Barthema,
and by one Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, who was taken prisoner by the Moors,
and forcibly converted to Mahometanism. His volume is a curious, though
plain, account of his sufferings and travels. Since that time Mecca has
been entered, and the ceremonies witnessed, by Dr. Seetzen, whose papers
were unfortunately lost; by the Spaniard, who called himself Ali Bey;
and, lastly, by Burckhardt, whose description leaves nothing wanting to
satisfy the curiosity.--M.]

[Footnote 19: Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1110. See one of these salt houses near
Bassora, in D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 6.]

[Footnote 20: Mirum dictu ex innumeris populis pars aequa in commerciis
aut in latrociniis degit, (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 32.) See Sale's Koran,
Sura. cvi. p. 503. Pocock, Specimen, p. 2. D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient.
p. 361. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 5. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom.
i. p. 72, 120, 126, &c.]

The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of praise
among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy transform this
singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in favor of the posterity
of Ismael. [21] Some exceptions, that can neither be dismissed
nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is
superfluous; the kingdom of Yemen has been successively subdued by the
Abyssinians, the Persians, the sultans of Egypt, [22] and the Turks;
[23] the holy cities of Mecca and Medina have repeatedly bowed under
a Scythian tyrant; and the Roman province of Arabia [24] embraced the
peculiar wilderness in which Ismael and his sons must have pitched their
tents in the face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are temporary
or local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most
powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey
and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the present
sovereign of the Turks [25] may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but
his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship of a people, whom it is
dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious causes of
their freedom are inscribed on the character and country of the Arabs.
Many ages before Mahomet, [26] their intrepid valor had been severely
felt by their neighbors in offensive and defensive war. The patient
and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits
and discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is
abandoned to the women of the tribe; but the martial youth, under the
banner of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in the field, to practise
the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long memory
of their independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity and
succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent, and to
maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds are suspended on the
approach of a common enemy; and in their last hostilities against the
Turks, the caravan of Mecca was attacked and pillaged by fourscore
thousand of the confederates. When they advance to battle, the hope of
victory is in the front; in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their
horses and camels, who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of
four or five hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret
waters of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops
are consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an
invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the heart
of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts of the Bedoweens are not
only the safeguards of their own freedom, but the barriers also of the
happy Arabia, whose inhabitants, remote from war, are enervated by the
luxury of the soil and climate. The legions of Augustus melted away in
disease and lassitude; [27] and it is only by a naval power that the
reduction of Yemen has been successfully attempted. When Mahomet erected
his holy standard, [28] that kingdom was a province of the Persian
empire; yet seven princes of the Homerites still reigned in the
mountains; and the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget his
distant country and his unfortunate master. The historians of the age of
Justinian represent the state of the independent Arabs, who were divided
by interest or affection in the long quarrel of the East: the tribe of
Gassan was allowed to encamp on the Syrian territory: the princes of
Hira were permitted to form a city about forty miles to the southward
of the ruins of Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and
vigorous; but their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their
enmity capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these
roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned
to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of Rome and of
Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes [29] were
confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the general appellation of
Saracens, [30] a name which every Christian mouth has been taught to
pronounce with terror and abhorrence.

[Footnote 21: A nameless doctor (Universal Hist. vol. xx. octavo
edition) has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by the
independence of the Arabs. A critic, besides the exceptions of fact,
might dispute the meaning of the text (Gen. xvi. 12,) the extent of the
application, and the foundation of the pedigree. * Note: See note 3 to
chap. xlvi. The atter point is probably the least contestable of the
three.--M.]

[Footnote 22: It was subdued, A.D. 1173, by a brother of the great
Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites, (Guignes, Hist.
des Huns, tom. i. p. 425. D'Herbelot, p. 477.)]

[Footnote 23: By the lieutenant of Soliman I. (A.D. 1538) and Selim
II., (1568.) See Cantemir's Hist. of the Othman Empire, p. 201, 221. The
pacha, who resided at Saana, commanded twenty-one beys; but no revenue
was ever remitted to the Porte, (Marsigli, Stato Militare dell' Imperio
Ottomanno, p. 124,) and the Turks were expelled about the year 1630,
(Niebuhr, p. 167, 168.)]

[Footnote 24: Of the Roman province, under the name of Arabia and the
third Palestine, the principal cities were Bostra and Petra, which
dated their aera from the year 105, when they were subdued by Palma, a
lieutenant of Trajan, (Dion. Cassius, l. lxviii.) Petra was the capital
of the Nabathaeans; whose name is derived from the eldest of the sons
of Ismael, (Gen. xxv. 12, &c., with the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc,
and Calmet.) Justinian relinquished a palm country of ten days' journey
to the south of Aelah, (Procop. de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19,) and the
Romans maintained a centurion and a custom-house, (Arrian in Periplo
Maris Erythraei, p. 11, in Hudson, tom. i.,) at a place (Pagus Albus,
Hawara) in the territory of Medina, (D'Anville, Memoire sur l'Egypte, p.
243.) These real possessions, and some naval inroads of Trajan, (Peripl.
p. 14, 15,) are magnified by history and medals into the Roman conquest
of Arabia. * Note: On the ruins of Petra, see the travels of Messrs.
Irby and Mangles, and of Leon de Laborde.--M.]

[Footnote 25: Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 302, 303, 329-331)
affords the most recent and authentic intelligence of the Turkish empire
in Arabia. * Note: Niebuhr's, notwithstanding the multitude of later
travellers, maintains its ground, as the classical work on Arabia.--M.]

[Footnote 26: Diodorus Siculus (tom. ii. l. xix. p. 390-393, edit.
Wesseling) has clearly exposed the freedom of the Nabathaean Arabs, who
resisted the arms of Antigonus and his son.]

[Footnote 27: Strabo, l. xvi. p. 1127-1129. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 32.
Aelius Gallus landed near Medina, and marched near a thousand miles into
the part of Yemen between Mareb and the Ocean. The non ante devictis
Sabeae regibus, (Od. i. 29,) and the intacti Arabum thesanri (Od. iii.
24) of Horace, attest the virgin purity of Arabia.]

[Footnote 28: See the imperfect history of Yemen in Pocock, Specimen, p.
55-66, of Hira, p. 66-74, of Gassan, p. 75-78, as far as it could be
known or preserved in the time of ignorance. * Note: Compare the
Hist. Yemanae, published by Johannsen at Bonn 1880 particularly the
translator's preface.--M.]

[Footnote 29: They are described by Menander, (Excerpt. Legation p.
149,) Procopius, (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 17, 19, l. ii. c. 10,) and,
in the most lively colors, by Ammianus Marcellinus, (l. xiv. c. 4,) who
had spoken of them as early as the reign of Marcus.]

[Footnote 30: The name which, used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more
confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been
derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely from
the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more plausibly from the
Arabic words, which signify a thievish character, or Oriental situation,
(Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7, 8. Pocock, Specimen, p.
33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and
most popular of these etymologies is refuted by Ptolemy, (Arabia, p. 2,
18, in Hudson, tom. iv.,) who expressly remarks the western and southern
position of the Saracens, then an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt.
The appellation cannot therefore allude to any national character; and,
since it was imposed by strangers, it must be found, not in the Arabic,
but in a foreign language. * Note: Dr. Clarke, (Travels, vol. ii. p.
491,) after expressing contemptuous pity for Gibbon's ignorance, derives
the word from Zara, Zaara, Sara, the Desert, whence Saraceni, the
children of the Desert. De Marles adopts the derivation from Sarrik, a
robber, (Hist. des Arabes, vol. i. p. 36, S.L. Martin from Scharkioun,
or Sharkun, Eastern, vol. xi. p. 55.)--M.]




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

The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their national
independence: but the Arab is personally free; and he enjoys, in some
degree, the benefits of society, without forfeiting the prerogatives
of nature. In every tribe, superstition, or gratitude, or fortune,
has exalted a particular family above the heads of their equals. The
dignities of sheick and emir invariably descend in this chosen race; but
the order of succession is loose and precarious; and the most worthy or
aged of the noble kinsmen are preferred to the simple, though important,
office of composing disputes by their advice, and guiding valor by their
example. Even a female of sense and spirit has been permitted to command
the countrymen of Zenobia. [31] The momentary junction of several tribes
produces an army: their more lasting union constitutes a nation; and
the supreme chief, the emir of emirs, whose banner is displayed at their
head, may deserve, in the eyes of strangers, the honors of the kingly
name.

If the Arabian princes abuse their power, they are quickly punished by
the desertion of their subjects, who had been accustomed to a mild and
parental jurisdiction. Their spirit is free, their steps are unconfined,
the desert is open, and the tribes and families are held together by a
mutual and voluntary compact. The softer natives of Yemen supported
the pomp and majesty of a monarch; but if he could not leave his palace
without endangering his life, [32] the active powers of government must
have been devolved on his nobles and magistrates. The cities of Mecca
and Medina present, in the heart of Asia, the form, or rather the
substance, of a commonwealth. The grandfather of Mahomet, and his lineal
ancestors, appear in foreign and domestic transactions as the princes of
their country; but they reigned, like Pericles at Athens, or the
Medici at Florence, by the opinion of their wisdom and integrity;
their influence was divided with their patrimony; and the sceptre was
transferred from the uncles of the prophet to a younger branch of the
tribe of Koreish. On solemn occasions they convened the assembly of
the people; and, since mankind must be either compelled or persuaded to
obey, the use and reputation of oratory among the ancient Arabs is the
clearest evidence of public freedom. [33] But their simple freedom was
of a very different cast from the nice and artificial machinery of the
Greek and Roman republics, in which each member possessed an undivided
share of the civil and political rights of the community. In the more
simple state of the Arabs, the nation is free, because each of her
sons disdains a base submission to the will of a master. His breast is
fortified by the austere virtues of courage, patience, and sobriety; the
love of independence prompts him to exercise the habits of self-command;
and the fear of dishonor guards him from the meaner apprehension of
pain, of danger, and of death. The gravity and firmness of the mind is
conspicuous in his outward demeanor; his speech is low, weighty, and
concise; he is seldom provoked to laughter; his only gesture is that of
stroking his beard, the venerable symbol of manhood; and the sense of
his own importance teaches him to accost his equals without levity, and
his superiors without awe. [34] The liberty of the Saracens survived
their conquests: the first caliphs indulged the bold and familiar
language of their subjects; they ascended the pulpit to persuade and
edify the congregation; nor was it before the seat of empire was
removed to the Tigris, that the Abbasides adopted the proud and pompous
ceremonial of the Persian and Byzantine courts.

[Footnote 31: Saraceni... mulieres aiunt in eos regnare, (Expositio
totius Mundi, p. 3, in Hudson, tom. iii.) The reign of Mavia is famous
in ecclesiastical story Pocock, Specimen, p. 69, 83.]

[Footnote 32: The report of Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro, p. 63, 64, in
Hudson, tom. i.) Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. iii. c. 47, p. 215,) and
Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1124.) But I much suspect that this is one of
the popular tales, or extraordinary accidents, which the credulity of
travellers so often transforms into a fact, a custom, and a law.]

[Footnote 33: Non gloriabantur antiquitus Arabes, nisi gladio, hospite,
et eloquentia (Sephadius apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 161, 162.) This gift
of speech they shared only with the Persians; and the sententious
Arabs would probably have disdained the simple and sublime logic of
Demosthenes.]

[Footnote 34: I must remind the reader that D'Arvieux, D'Herbelot,
and Niebuhr, represent, in the most lively colors, the manners and
government of the Arabs, which are illustrated by many incidental
passages in the Life of Mahomet. * Note: See, likewise the curious
romance of Antar, the most vivid and authentic picture of Arabian
manners.--M.]

In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes that render
them hostile or friendly to each other, that tend to narrow or enlarge,
to mollify or exasperate, the social character. The separation of the
Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas
of stranger and enemy; and the poverty of the land has introduced a
maxim of jurisprudence, which they believe and practise to the present
hour. They pretend, that, in the division of the earth, the rich and
fertile climates were assigned to the other branches of the human
family; and that the posterity of the outlaw Ismael might recover, by
fraud or force, the portion of inheritance of which he had been unjustly
deprived. According to the remark of Pliny, the Arabian tribes are
equally addicted to theft and merchandise; the caravans that traverse
the desert are ransomed or pillaged; and their neighbors, since the
remote times of Job and Sesostris, [35] have been the victims of
their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween discovers from afar a solitary
traveller, he rides furiously against him, crying, with a loud voice,
"Undress thyself, thy aunt (my wife) is without a garment." A ready
submission entitles him to mercy; resistance will provoke the aggressor,
and his own blood must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in
legitimate defence. A single robber, or a few associates, are branded
with their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous band assume the
character of lawful and honorable war. The temper of a people thus armed
against mankind was doubly inflamed by the domestic license of rapine,
murder, and revenge. In the constitution of Europe, the right of peace
and war is now confined to a small, and the actual exercise to a much
smaller, list of respectable potentates; but each Arab, with impunity
and renown, might point his javelin against the life of his countrymen.
The union of the nation consisted only in a vague resemblance of
language and manners; and in each community, the jurisdiction of
the magistrate was mute and impotent. Of the time of ignorance which
preceded Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles [36] are recorded by
tradition: hostility was imbittered with the rancor of civil faction;
and the recital, in prose or verse, of an obsolete feud, was sufficient
to rekindle the same passions among the descendants of the hostile
tribes. In private life every man, at least every family, was the judge
and avenger of his own cause. The nice sensibility of honor, which
weighs the insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the
quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of their women, and of their beards,
is most easily wounded; an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be
expiated only by the blood of the offender; and such is their patient
inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the opportunity of
revenge. A fine or compensation for murder is familiar to the Barbarians
of every age: but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to
accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law of
retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even the head
of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for the guilty person, and
transfers the penalty to the best and most considerable of the race
by whom they have been injured. If he falls by their hands, they are
exposed, in their turn, to the danger of reprisals, the interest and
principal of the bloody debt are accumulated: the individuals of
either family lead a life of malice and suspicion, and fifty years may
sometimes elapse before the account of vengeance be finally settled.
[37] This sanguinary spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been
moderated, however, by the maxims of honor, which require in every
private encounter some decent equality of age and strength, of numbers
and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps of four, months, was
observed by the Arabs before the time of Mahomet, during which their
swords were religiously sheathed both in foreign and domestic hostility;
and this partial truce is more strongly expressive of the habits of
anarchy and warfare. [38]

[Footnote 35: Observe the first chapter of Job, and the long wall of
1500 stadia which Sesostris built from Pelusium to Heliopolis, (Diodor.
Sicul. tom. i. l. i. p. 67.) Under the name of Hycsos, the shepherd
kings, they had formerly subdued Egypt, (Marsham, Canon. Chron. p.
98-163) &c.) * Note: This origin of the Hycsos, though probable, is
by no means so certain here is some reason for supposing them
Scythians.--M]

[Footnote 36: Or, according to another account, 1200, (D'Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 75: ) the two historians who wrote of the
Ayam al Arab, the battles of the Arabs, lived in the 9th and 10th
century. The famous war of Dahes and Gabrah was occasioned by two
horses, lasted forty years, and ended in a proverb, (Pocock, Specimen,
p. 48.)]

[Footnote 37: The modern theory and practice of the Arabs in the revenge
of murder are described by Niebuhr, (Description, p. 26-31.) The harsher
features of antiquity may be traced in the Koran, c. 2, p. 20, c. 17, p.
230, with Sale's Observations.]

[Footnote 38: Procopius (de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 16) places the two
holy months about the summer solstice. The Arabians consecrate four
months of the year--the first, seventh, eleventh, and twelfth; and
pretend, that in a long series of ages the truce was infringed only four
or six times, (Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 147-150, and Notes
on the ixth chapter of the Koran, p. 154, &c. Casiri, Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. ii. p. 20, 21.)]

But the spirit of rapine and revenge was attempered by the milder
influence of trade and literature. The solitary peninsula is encompassed
by the most civilized nations of the ancient world; the merchant is the
friend of mankind; and the annual caravans imported the first seeds
of knowledge and politeness into the cities, and even the camps of the
desert. Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is
derived from the same original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and
the Chaldaean tongues; the independence of the tribes was marked by
their peculiar dialects; [39] but each, after their own, allowed a just
preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia, as
well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the refinement
of manners; and her speech could diversify the fourscore names of honey,
the two hundred of a serpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand
of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was intrusted to
the memory of an illiterate people. The monuments of the Homerites
were inscribed with an obsolete and mysterious character; but the Cufic
letters, the groundwork of the present alphabet, were invented on the
banks of the Euphrates; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by
a stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The
arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric, were unknown to the freeborn
eloquence of the Arabians; but their penetration was sharp, their
fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious, [40] and their more
elaborate compositions were addressed with energy and effect to the
minds of their hearers. The genius and merit of a rising poet was
celebrated by the applause of his own and the kindred tribes. A solemn
banquet was prepared, and a chorus of women, striking their tymbals,
and displaying the pomp of their nuptials, sung in the presence of their
sons and husbands the felicity of their native tribe; that a champion
had now appeared to vindicate their rights; that a herald had raised
his voice to immortalize their renown. The distant or hostile tribes
resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the fanaticism of the
first Moslems; a national assembly that must have contributed to refine
and harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty days were employed in the exchange,
not only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and poetry. The prize
was disputed by the generous emulation of the bards; the victorious
performance was deposited in the archives of princes and emirs; and
we may read in our own language, the seven original poems which were
inscribed in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of Mecca. [41]
The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of the age; and
if they sympathized with the prejudices, they inspired and crowned the
virtues, of their countrymen. The indissoluble union of generosity and
valor was the darling theme of their song; and when they pointed
their keenest satire against a despicable race, they affirmed, in the
bitterness of reproach, that the men knew not how to give, nor the women
to deny. [42] The same hospitality, which was practised by Abraham, and
celebrated by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The
ferocious Bedoweens, the terror of the desert, embrace, without inquiry
or hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide in their honor and to
enter their tent. His treatment is kind and respectful: he shares the
wealth, or the poverty, of his host; and, after a needful repose, he
is dismissed on his way, with thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with
gifts. The heart and hand are more largely expanded by the wants of a
brother or a friend; but the heroic acts that could deserve the public
applause, must have surpassed the narrow measure of discretion and
experience. A dispute had arisen, who, among the citizens of Mecca, was
entitled to the prize of generosity; and a successive application was
made to the three who were deemed most worthy of the trial. Abdallah,
the son of Abbas, had undertaken a distant journey, and his foot was in
the stirrup when he heard the voice of a suppliant, "O son of the uncle
of the apostle of God, I am a traveller, and in distress!" He instantly
dismounted to present the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison,
and a purse of four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the sword,
either for its intrinsic value, or as the gift of an honored kinsman.
The servant of Kais informed the second suppliant that his master was
asleep: but he immediately added, "Here is a purse of seven thousand
pieces of gold, (it is all we have in the house,) and here is an order,
that will entitle you to a camel and a slave;" the master, as soon as
he awoke, praised and enfranchised his faithful steward, with a gentle
reproof, that by respecting his slumbers he had stinted his bounty.
The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was
supporting his steps on the shoulders of two slaves. "Alas!" he replied,
"my coffers are empty! but these you may sell; if you refuse, I renounce
them." At these words, pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall
with his staff.

The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian virtue: [43] he
was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful robber; forty
camels were roasted at his hospitable feast; and at the prayer of a
suppliant enemy he restored both the captives and the spoil. The freedom
of his countrymen disdained the laws of justice; they proudly indulged
the spontaneous impulse of pity and benevolence.

[Footnote 39: Arrian, in the second century, remarks (in Periplo Maris
Erythraei, p. 12) the partial or total difference of the dialects of
the Arabs. Their language and letters are copiously treated by Pocock,
(Specimen, p. 150-154,) Casiri, (Bibliot. Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p.
1, 83, 292, tom. ii. p. 25, &c.,) and Niebuhr, (Description de l'Arabie,
p. 72-36) I pass slightly; I am not fond of repeating words like a
parrot.]

[Footnote 40: A familiar tale in Voltaire's Zadig (le Chien et le
Cheval) is related, to prove the natural sagacity of the Arabs,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 120, 121. Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom.
i. p. 37-46: ) but D'Arvieux, or rather La Roque, (Voyage de Palestine,
p. 92,) denies the boasted superiority of the Bedoweens. The one hundred
and sixty-nine sentences of Ali (translated by Ockley, London, 1718)
afford a just and favorable specimen of Arabian wit. * Note: Compare the
Arabic proverbs translated by Burckhardt. London. 1830--M.]

[Footnote 41: Pocock (Specimen, p. 158-161) and Casiri (Bibliot.
Hispano-Arabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c., 119, tom. ii. p. 17, &c.) speak
of the Arabian poets before Mahomet; the seven poems of the Caaba
have been published in English by Sir William Jones; but his honorable
mission to India has deprived us of his own notes, far more interesting
than the obscure and obsolete text.]

[Footnote 42: Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 29, 30]

[Footnote 43: D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 458. Gagnier, Vie de
Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 118. Caab and Hesnus (Pocock, Specimen, p. 43, 46,
48) were likewise conspicuous for their liberality; and the latter
is elegantly praised by an Arabian poet: "Videbis eum cum accesseris
exultantem, ac si dares illi quod ab illo petis." * Note: See the
translation of the amusing Persian romance of Hatim Tai, by Duncan
Forbes, Esq., among the works published by the Oriental Translation
Fund.--M.]

The religion of the Arabs, [44] as well as of the Indians, consisted in
the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars; a primitive and
specious mode of superstition. The bright luminaries of the sky display
the visible image of a Deity: their number and distance convey to a
philosophic, or even a vulgar, eye, the idea of boundless space:
the character of eternity is marked on these solid globes, that seem
incapable of corruption or decay: the regularity of their motions may
be ascribed to a principle of reason or instinct; and their real, or
imaginary, influence encourages the vain belief that the earth and
its inhabitants are the object of their peculiar care. The science of
astronomy was cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs was
a clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal marches, they
steered by the guidance of the stars: their names, and order, and daily
station, were familiar to the curiosity and devotion of the Bedoween;
and he was taught by experience to divide, in twenty-eight parts, the
zodiac of the moon, and to bless the constellations who refreshed, with
salutary rains, the thirst of the desert. The reign of the heavenly orbs
could not be extended beyond the visible sphere; and some metaphysical
powers were necessary to sustain the transmigration of souls and the
resurrection of bodies: a camel was left to perish on the grave, that he
might serve his master in another life; and the invocation of departed
spirits implies that they were still endowed with consciousness and
power. I am ignorant, and I am careless, of the blind mythology of the
Barbarians; of the local deities, of the stars, the air, and the earth,
of their sex or titles, their attributes or subordination. Each tribe,
each family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites and
the object of his fantastic worship; but the nation, in every age, has
bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of Mecca. The genuine
antiquity of the Caaba ascends beyond the Christian aera; in describing
the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus [45] has
remarked, between the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, a famous temple,
whose superior sanctity was revered by all the Arabians; the linen or
silken veil, which is annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first
offered by a pious king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred
years before the time of Mahomet. [46] A tent, or a cavern, might
suffice for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay
has been erected in its place; and the art and power of the monarchs
of the East have been confined to the simplicity of the original model.
[47] A spacious portico encloses the quadrangle of the Caaba; a square
chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three broad, and twenty-seven
high: a door and a window admit the light; the double roof is supported
by three pillars of wood; a spout (now of gold) discharges the
rain-water, and the well Zemzen is protected by a dome from accidental
pollution. The tribe of Koreish, by fraud and force, had acquired the
custody of the Caaba: the sacerdotal office devolved through four
lineal descents to the grandfather of Mahomet; and the family of the
Hashemites, from whence he sprung, was the most respectable and sacred
in the eyes of their country. [48] The precincts of Mecca enjoyed the
rights of sanctuary; and, in the last month of each year, the city and
the temple were crowded with a long train of pilgrims, who presented
their vows and offerings in the house of God. The same rites which are
now accomplished by the faithful Mussulman, were invented and practised
by the superstition of the idolaters. At an awful distance they cast
away their garments: seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the
Caaba, and kissed the black stone: seven times they visited and adored
the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley
of Mina; and the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present hour, by a
sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair and nails
in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or introduced in the
Caaba their domestic worship: the temple was adorned, or defiled, with
three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions, and antelopes; and
most conspicuous was the statue of Hebal, of red agate, holding in
his hand seven arrows, without heads or feathers, the instruments and
symbols of profane divination. But this statue was a monument of Syrian
arts: the devotion of the ruder ages was content with a pillar or a
tablet; and the rocks of the desert were hewn into gods or altars, in
imitation of the black stone [49] of Mecca, which is deeply tainted with
the reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to Peru, the use of
sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the votary has expressed his
gratitude, or fear, by destroying or consuming, in honor of the gods,
the dearest and most precious of their gifts. The life of a man [50] is
the most precious oblation to deprecate a public calamity: the altars of
Phoenicia and Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human
gore: the cruel practice was long preserved among the Arabs; in the
third century, a boy was annually sacrificed by the tribe of the
Dumatians; [51] and a royal captive was piously slaughtered by the
prince of the Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor Justinian.
[52] A parent who drags his son to the altar, exhibits the most painful
and sublime effort of fanaticism: the deed, or the intention, was
sanctified by the example of saints and heroes; and the father of
Mahomet himself was devoted by a rash vow, and hardly ransomed for the
equivalent of a hundred camels. In the time of ignorance, the Arabs,
like the Jews and Egyptians, abstained from the taste of swine's flesh;
[53] they circumcised [54] their children at the age of puberty: the
same customs, without the censure or the precept of the Koran, have
been silently transmitted to their posterity and proselytes. It has
been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the
stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to believe that
he adhered to the habits and opinions of his youth, without foreseeing
that a practice congenial to the climate of Mecca might become useless
or inconvenient on the banks of the Danube or the Volga.

[Footnote 44: Whatever can now be known of the idolatry of the ancient
Arabians may be found in Pocock, (Specimen, p. 89-136, 163, 164.) His
profound erudition is more clearly and concisely interpreted by Sale,
(Preliminary Discourse, p. 14-24;) and Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient tom.
iv. p. 580-590) has added some valuable remarks.]

[Footnote 45: (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 211.) The character and
position are so correctly apposite, that I am surprised how this curious
passage should have been read without notice or application. Yet this
famous temple had been overlooked by Agatharcides, (de Mari Rubro,
p. 58, in Hudson, tom. i.,) whom Diodorus copies in the rest of the
description. Was the Sicilian more knowing than the Egyptian? Or was the
Caaba built between the years of Rome 650 and 746, the dates of their
respective histories? (Dodwell, in Dissert. ad tom. i. Hudson, p.
72. Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. ii. p. 770.) * Note: Mr. Forster
(Geography of Arabia, vol. ii. p. 118, et seq.) has raised an objection,
as I think, fatal to this hypothesis of Gibbon. The temple, situated in
the country of the Banizomeneis, was not between the Thamudites and
the Sabaeans, but higher up than the coast inhabited by the former. Mr.
Forster would place it as far north as Moiiah. I am not quite satisfied
that this will agree with the whole description of Diodorus--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 46: Pocock, Specimen, p. 60, 61. From the death of Mahomet we
ascend to 68, from his birth to 129, years before the Christian aera.
The veil or curtain, which is now of silk and gold, was no more than a
piece of Egyptian linen, (Abulfeda, in Vit. Mohammed. c. 6, p. 14.)]

[Footnote 47: The original plan of the Caaba (which is servilely copied
in Sale, the Universal History, &c.) was a Turkish draught, which Reland
(de Religione Mohammedica, p. 113-123) has corrected and explained
from the best authorities. For the description and legend of the Caaba,
consult Pocock, (Specimen, p. 115-122,) the Bibliotheque Orientale
of D'Herbelot, (Caaba, Hagir, Zemzem, &c.,) and Sale (Preliminary
Discourse, p. 114-122.)]

[Footnote 48: Cosa, the fifth ancestor of Mahomet, must have usurped the
Caaba A.D. 440; but the story is differently told by Jannabi, (Gagnier,
Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 65-69,) and by Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c.
6, p. 13.)]

[Footnote 49: In the second century, Maximus of Tyre attributes to the
Arabs the worship of a stone, (Dissert. viii. tom. i. p. 142, edit.
Reiske;) and the reproach is furiously reechoed by the Christians,
(Clemens Alex. in Protreptico, p. 40. Arnobius contra Gentes, l. vi.
p. 246.) Yet these stones were no other than of Syria and Greece, so
renowned in sacred and profane antiquity, (Euseb. Praep. Evangel. l. i.
p. 37. Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 54-56.)]

[Footnote 50: The two horrid subjects are accurately discussed by
the learned Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chron. p. 76-78, 301-304.)
Sanchoniatho derives the Phoenician sacrifices from the example of
Chronus; but we are ignorant whether Chronus lived before, or after,
Abraham, or indeed whether he lived at all.]

[Footnote 51: The reproach of Porphyry; but he likewise imputes to the
Roman the same barbarous custom, which, A. U. C. 657, had been finally
abolished. Dumaetha, Daumat al Gendai, is noticed by Ptolemy (Tabul.
p. 37, Arabia, p. 9-29) and Abulfeda, (p. 57,) and may be found in
D'Anville's maps, in the mid-desert between Chaibar and Tadmor.]

[Footnote 52: Prcoopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 28,) Evagrius,
(l. vi. c. 21,) and Pocock, (Specimen, p. 72, 86,) attest the human
sacrifices of the Arabs in the vith century. The danger and escape of
Abdallah is a tradition rather than a fact, (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet,
tom. i. p. 82-84.)]

[Footnote 53: Suillis carnibus abstinent, says Solinus, (Polyhistor. c.
33,) who copies Pliny (l. viii. c. 68) in the strange supposition, that
hogs can not live in Arabia. The Egyptians were actuated by a natural
and superstitious horror for that unclean beast, (Marsham, Canon. p.
205.) The old Arabians likewise practised, post coitum, the rite of
ablution, (Herodot. l. i. c. 80,) which is sanctified by the Mahometan
law, (Reland, p. 75, &c., Chardin, or rather the Mollah of Shah Abbas,
tom. iv. p. 71, &c.)]

[Footnote 54: The Mahometan doctors are not fond of the subject; yet
they hold circumcision necessary to salvation, and even pretend that
Mahomet was miraculously born without a foreskin, (Pocock, Specimen, p.
319, 320. Sale's Preliminary Discourse, p. 106, 107.)]




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

Arabia was free: the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the storms of
conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects fled to the happy land
where they might profess what they thought, and practise what they
professed. The religions of the Sabians and Magians, of the Jews and
Christians, were disseminated from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In
a remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the
science of the Chaldaeans [55] and the arms of the Assyrians. From
the observations of two thousand years, the priests and astronomers of
Babylon [56] deduced the eternal laws of nature and providence. They
adored the seven gods or angels, who directed the course of the seven
planets, and shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The
attributes of the seven planets, with the twelve signs of the zodiac,
and the twenty-four constellations of the northern and southern
hemisphere, were represented by images and talismans; the seven days of
the week were dedicated to their respective deities; the Sabians prayed
thrice each day; and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of
their pilgrimage. [57] But the flexible genius of their faith was always
ready either to teach or to learn: in the tradition of the creation, the
deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their
Jewish captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and
Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the last
remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of St. John, in the
territory of Bassora. [58] The altars of Babylon were overturned by the
Magians; but the injuries of the Sabians were revenged by the sword of
Alexander; Persia groaned above five hundred years under a foreign yoke;
and the purest disciples of Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of
idolatry, and breathed with their adversaries the freedom of the desert.
[59] Seven hundred years before the death of Mahomet, the Jews were
settled in Arabia; and a far greater multitude was expelled from the
Holy Land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles
aspired to liberty and power: they erected synagogues in the cities, and
castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile converts were confounded
with the children of Israel, whom they resembled in the outward mark
of circumcision. The Christian missionaries were still more active and
successful: the Catholics asserted their universal reign; the sects
whom they oppressed, successively retired beyond the limits of the
Roman empire; the Marcionites and Manichaeans dispersed their fantastic
opinions and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes
of Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the Jacobite
and Nestorian bishops. [60] The liberty of choice was presented to the
tribes: each Arab was free to elect or to compose his private religion:
and the rude superstition of his house was mingled with the sublime
theology of saints and philosophers. A fundamental article of faith was
inculcated by the consent of the learned strangers; the existence of one
supreme God who is exalted above the powers of heaven and earth, but who
has often revealed himself to mankind by the ministry of his angels
and prophets, and whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable
miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the Arabs
acknowledged his power, though they neglected his worship; [61] and it
was habit rather than conviction that still attached them to the relics
of idolatry. The Jews and Christians were the people of the Book; the
Bible was already translated into the Arabic language, [62] and the
volume of the Old Testament was accepted by the concord of these
implacable enemies. In the story of the Hebrew patriarchs, the Arabs
were pleased to discover the fathers of their nation. They applauded the
birth and promises of Ismael; revered the faith and virtue of Abraham;
traced his pedigree and their own to the creation of the first man, and
imbibed, with equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy text, and the
dreams and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.

[Footnote 55: Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 142-145) has cast
on their religion the curious but superficial glance of a Greek. Their
astronomy would be far more valuable: they had looked through the
telescope of reason, since they could doubt whether the sun were in the
number of the planets or of the fixed stars.]

[Footnote 56: Simplicius, (who quotes Porphyry,) de Coelo, l. ii. com.
xlvi p. 123, lin. 18, apud Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 474, who doubts
the fact, because it is adverse to his systems. The earliest date of
the Chaldaean observations is the year 2234 before Christ. After the
conquest of Babylon by Alexander, they were communicated at the request
of Aristotle, to the astronomer Hipparchus. What a moment in the annals
of science!]

[Footnote 57: Pocock, (Specimen, p. 138-146,) Hottinger, (Hist. Orient.
p. 162-203,) Hyde, (de Religione Vet. Persarum, p. 124, 128, &c.,)
D'Herbelot, (Sabi, p. 725, 726,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p.
14, 15,) rather excite than gratify our curiosity; and the last of these
writers confounds Sabianism with the primitive religion of the Arabs.]

[Footnote 58: D'Anville (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 130-137) will
fix the position of these ambiguous Christians; Assemannus (Bibliot.
Oriental. tom. iv. p. 607-614) may explain their tenets. But it is a
slippery task to ascertain the creed of an ignorant people afraid
and ashamed to disclose their secret traditions. * Note: The Codex
Nasiraeus, their sacred book, has been published by Norberg whose
researches contain almost all that is known of this singular people. But
their origin is almost as obscure as ever: if ancient, their creed
has been so corrupted with mysticism and Mahometanism, that its native
lineaments are very indistinct.--M.]

[Footnote 59: The Magi were fixed in the province of Bhrein, (Gagnier,
Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 114,) and mingled with the old Arabians,
(Pocock, Specimen, p. 146-150.)]

[Footnote 60: The state of the Jews and Christians in Arabia is
described by Pocock from Sharestani, &c., (Specimen, p. 60, 134, &c.,)
Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 212-238,) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient.
p. 474-476,) Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. p. 185, tom. viii. p.
280,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 22, &c., 33, &c.)]

[Footnote 61: In their offerings, it was a maxim to defraud God for the
profit of the idol, not a more potent, but a more irritable, patron,
(Pocock, Specimen, p. 108, 109.)]

[Footnote 62: Our versions now extant, whether Jewish or Christian,
appear more recent than the Koran; but the existence of a prior
translation may be fairly inferred,--1. From the perpetual practice of
the synagogue of expounding the Hebrew lesson by a paraphrase in the
vulgar tongue of the country; 2. From the analogy of the Armenian,
Persian, Aethiopic versions, expressly quoted by the fathers of the
fifth century, who assert that the Scriptures were translated into all
the Barbaric languages, (Walton, Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglot, p. 34,
93-97. Simon, Hist. Critique du V. et du N. Testament, tom. i. p. 180,
181, 282-286, 293, 305, 306, tom. iv. p. 206.)]

The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful calumny of
the Christians, [63] who exalt instead of degrading the merit of their
adversary. His descent from Ismael was a national privilege or fable;
but if the first steps of the pedigree [64] are dark and doubtful, he
could produce many generations of pure and genuine nobility: he sprung
from the tribe of Koreish and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious
of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of the
Caaba. The grandfather of Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem,
a wealthy and generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with
the supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the liberality
of the father, was saved by the courage of the son. The kingdom of Yemen
was subject to the Christian princes of Abyssinia; their vassal Abrahah
was provoked by an insult to avenge the honor of the cross; and the holy
city was invested by a train of elephants and an army of Africans. A
treaty was proposed; and, in the first audience, the grandfather of
Mahomet demanded the restitution of his cattle. "And why," said Abrahah,
"do you not rather implore my clemency in favor of your temple, which I
have threatened to destroy?" "Because," replied the intrepid chief, "the
cattle is my own; the Caaba belongs to the gods, and they will defend
their house from injury and sacrilege." The want of provisions, or
the valor of the Koreish, compelled the Abyssinians to a disgraceful
retreat: their discomfiture has been adorned with a miraculous flight
of birds, who showered down stones on the heads of the infidels; and the
deliverance was long commemorated by the aera of the elephant. [65] The
glory of Abdol Motalleb was crowned with domestic happiness; his life
was prolonged to the age of one hundred and ten years; and he became the
father of six daughters and thirteen sons. His best beloved Abdallah
was the most beautiful and modest of the Arabian youth; and in the first
night, when he consummated his marriage with Amina, [651] of the noble
race of the Zahrites, two hundred virgins are said to have expired of
jealousy and despair. Mahomet, or more properly Mohammed, the only son
of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, four years after the death
of Justinian, and two months after the defeat of the Abyssinians, [66]
whose victory would have introduced into the Caaba the religion of the
Christians. In his early infancy, he was deprived of his father, his
mother, and his grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous; and,
in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was reduced to
five camels and an Aethiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad, in peace
and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide
and guardian of his youth; in his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the
service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded
his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage
contract, in the simple style of antiquity, recites the mutual love of
Mahomet and Cadijah; describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe
of Koreish; and stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty
camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. [67] By
this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to the station of
his ancestors; and the judicious matron was content with his domestic
virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, [68] he assumed the
title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.

[Footnote 63: In eo conveniunt omnes, ut plebeio vilique genere ortum,
&c, (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 136.) Yet Theophanes, the most ancient
of the Greeks, and the father of many a lie, confesses that Mahomet was
of the race of Ismael, (Chronograph. p. 277.)]

[Footnote 64: Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed. c. 1, 2) and Gagnier (Vie de
Mahomet, p. 25-97) describe the popular and approved genealogy of the
prophet. At Mecca, I would not dispute its authenticity: at Lausanne,
I will venture to observe, 1. That from Ismael to Mahomet, a period of
2500 years, they reckon thirty, instead of seventy five, generations: 2.
That the modern Bedoweens are ignorant of their history, and careless
of their pedigree, (Voyage de D'Arvieux p. 100, 103.) * Note: The most
orthodox Mahometans only reckon back the ancestry of the prophet for
twenty generations, to Adnan. Weil, Mohammed der Prophet, p. 1.--M.
1845.]

[Footnote 65: The seed of this history, or fable, is contained in the
cvth chapter of the Koran; and Gagnier (in Praefat. ad Vit. Moham. p.
18, &c.) has translated the historical narrative of Abulfeda, which may
be illustrated from D'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 12) and Pocock,
(Specimen, p. 64.) Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 48) calls it a lie of
the coinage of Mahomet; but Sale, (Koran, p. 501-503,) who is half a
Mussulman, attacks the inconsistent faith of the Doctor for believing
the miracles of the Delphic Apollo. Maracci (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii.
p. 14, tom. ii. p. 823) ascribes the miracle to the devil, and extorts
from the Mahometans the confession, that God would not have defended
against the Christians the idols of the Caaba. * Note: Dr. Weil says
that the small-pox broke out in the army of Abrahah, but he does not
give his authority, p. 10.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 651: Amina, or Emina, was of Jewish birth. V. Hammer,
Geschichte der Assass. p. 10.--M.]

[Footnote 66: The safest aeras of Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. i. p. 2,) of
Alexander, or the Greeks, 882, of Bocht Naser, or Nabonassar, 1316,
equally lead us to the year 569. The old Arabian calendar is too dark
and uncertain to support the Benedictines, (Art. de Verifer les Dates,
p. 15,) who, from the day of the month and week, deduce a new mode of
calculation, and remove the birth of Mahomet to the year of Christ 570,
the 10th of November. Yet this date would agree with the year 882 of
the Greeks, which is assigned by Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 5) and
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 101, and Errata, Pocock's version.) While we
refine our chronology, it is possible that the illiterate prophet was
ignorant of his own age. * Note: The date of the birth of Mahomet is not
yet fixed with precision. It is only known from Oriental authors that
he was born on a Monday, the 10th Reby 1st, the third month of the
Mahometan year; the year 40 or 42 of Chosroes Nushirvan, king of Persia;
the year 881 of the Seleucidan aera; the year 1316 of the aera of
Nabonassar. This leaves the point undecided between the years 569, 570,
571, of J. C. See the Memoir of M. Silv. de Sacy, on divers events in
the history of the Arabs before Mahomet, Mem. Acad. des Loscript. vol.
xlvii. p. 527, 531. St. Martin, vol. xi. p. 59.--M. ----Dr. Weil decides
on A.D. 571. Mahomet died in 632, aged 63; but the Arabs reckoned his
life by lunar years, which reduces his life nearly to 61 (p. 21.)--M.
1845]

[Footnote 67: I copy the honorable testimony of Abu Taleb to his family
and nephew. Laus Dei, qui nos a stirpe Abrahami et semine Ismaelis
constituit, et nobis regionem sacram dedit, et nos judices hominibus
statuit. Porro Mohammed filius Abdollahi nepotis mei (nepos meus) quo
cum ex aequo librabitur e Koraishidis quispiam cui non praeponderaturus
est, bonitate et excellentia, et intellectu et gloria, et acumine etsi
opum inops fuerit, (et certe opes umbra transiens sunt et depositum
quod reddi debet,) desiderio Chadijae filiae Chowailedi tenetur, et
illa vicissim ipsius, quicquid autem dotis vice petieritis, ego in me
suscipiam, (Pocock, Specimen, e septima parte libri Ebn Hamduni.)]

[Footnote 68: The private life of Mahomet, from his birth to his
mission, is preserved by Abulfeda, (in Vit. c. 3-7,) and the Arabian
writers of genuine or apocryphal note, who are alleged by Hottinger,
(Hist. Orient. p. 204-211) Maracci, (tom. i. p. 10-14,) and Gagnier,
(Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 97-134.)]

According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet [69] was
distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which is
seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. Before
he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a public or
private audience. They applauded his commanding presence, his majestic
aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his
countenance that painted every sensation of the soul, and his gestures
that enforced each expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of
life he scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness
of his country: his respectful attention to the rich and powerful was
dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens of
Mecca: the frankness of his manner concealed the artifice of his views;
and the habits of courtesy were imputed to personal friendship or
universal benevolence. His memory was capacious and retentive; his wit
easy and social; his imagination sublime; his judgment clear, rapid,
and decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and action; and,
although his designs might gradually expand with his success, the first
idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an
original and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the
bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia;
and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by the practice
of discreet and seasonable silence. With these powers of eloquence,
Mahomet was an illiterate Barbarian: his youth had never been instructed
in the arts of reading and writing; [70] the common ignorance exempted
him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of
existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors, which reflect to our
mind the minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man
was open to his view; and some fancy has been indulged in the political
and philosophical observations which are ascribed to the Arabian
traveller. [71] He compares the nations and the regions of the earth;
discovers the weakness of the Persian and Roman monarchies; beholds,
with pity and indignation, the degeneracy of the times; and resolves
to unite under one God and one king the invincible spirit and primitive
virtues of the Arabs. Our more accurate inquiry will suggest, that,
instead of visiting the courts, the camps, the temples, of the East, the
two journeys of Mahomet into Syria were confined to the fairs of Bostra
and Damascus; that he was only thirteen years of age when he accompanied
the caravan of his uncle; and that his duty compelled him to return as
soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of Cadijah. In these hasty
and superficial excursions, the eye of genius might discern some objects
invisible to his grosser companions; some seeds of knowledge might be
cast upon a fruitful soil; but his ignorance of the Syriac language
must have checked his curiosity; and I cannot perceive, in the life
or writings of Mahomet, that his prospect was far extended beyond the
limits of the Arabian world. From every region of that solitary world,
the pilgrims of Mecca were annually assembled, by the calls of devotion
and commerce: in the free concourse of multitudes, a simple citizen, in
his native tongue, might study the political state and character of the
tribes, the theory and practice of the Jews and Christians. Some
useful strangers might be tempted, or forced, to implore the rights of
hospitality; and the enemies of Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian,
and the Syrian monk, whom they accuse of lending their secret aid to the
composition of the Koran. [72] Conversation enriches the understanding,
but solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work
denotes the hand of a single artist. From his earliest youth Mahomet
was addicted to religious contemplation; each year, during the month of
Ramadan, he withdrew from the world, and from the arms of Cadijah: in
the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca, [73] he consulted the spirit
of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the heavens, but in
the mind of the prophet. The faith which, under the name of Islam, he
preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth,
and a necessary fiction, That there is only one God, and that Mahomet is
the apostle of God.

[Footnote 69: Abulfeda, in Vit. c. lxv. lxvi. Gagnier, Vie de
Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 272-289. The best traditions of the person
and conversation of the prophet are derived from Ayesha, Ali, and Abu
Horaira, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 267. Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol.
ii. p. 149,) surnamed the Father of a Cat, who died in the year 59 of
the Hegira. * Note: Compare, likewise, the new Life of Mahomet (Mohammed
der prophet) by Dr. Weil, (Stuttgart, 1843.) Dr. Weil has a new
tradition, that Mahomet was at one time a shepherd. This assimilation
to the life of Moses, instead of giving probability to the story, as Dr.
Weil suggests, makes it more suspicious. Note, p. 34.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 70: Those who believe that Mahomet could read or write are
incapable of reading what is written with another pen, in the Suras, or
chapters of the Koran, vii. xxix. xcvi. These texts, and the tradition
of the Sonna, are admitted, without doubt, by Abulfeda, (in Vit. vii.,)
Gagnier, (Not. ad Abulfed. p. 15,) Pocock, (Specimen, p. 151,) Reland,
(de Religione Mohammedica, p. 236,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse,
p. 42.) Mr. White, almost alone, denies the ignorance, to accuse the
imposture, of the prophet. His arguments are far from satisfactory. Two
short trading journeys to the fairs of Syria were surely not sufficient
to infuse a science so rare among the citizens of Mecca: it was not in
the cool, deliberate act of treaty, that Mahomet would have dropped
the mask; nor can any conclusion be drawn from the words of disease
and delirium. The lettered youth, before he aspired to the prophetic
character, must have often exercised, in private life, the arts of
reading and writing; and his first converts, of his own family, would
have been the first to detect and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy,
(White's Sermons, p. 203, 204, Notes, p. xxxvi.--xxxviii.) * Note:
(Academ. des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that the text of the
seveth Sura implies that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies
it, and, according to Dr. Weil, (p. 46,) there is another reading of
the tradition, that "he could not read well." Dr. Weil is not quite so
successful in explaining away Sura xxix. It means, he thinks that he had
not read any books, from which he could have borrowed.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 71: The count de Boulainvilliers (Vie de Mahomet, p. 202-228)
leads his Arabian pupil, like the Telemachus of Fenelon, or the Cyrus of
Ramsay. His journey to the court of Persia is probably a fiction nor
can I trace the origin of his exclamation, "Les Grecs sont pour tant des
hommes." The two Syrian journeys are expressed by almost all the Arabian
writers, both Mahometans and Christians, (Gagnier Abulfed. p. 10.)]

[Footnote 72: I am not at leisure to pursue the fables or conjectures
which name the strangers accused or suspected by the infidels of Mecca,
(Koran, c. 16, p. 223, c. 35, p. 297, with Sale's Remarks. Prideaux's
Life of Mahomet, p. 22-27. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 11, 74.
Maracci, tom. ii. p. 400.) Even Prideaux has observed, that the
transaction must have been secret, and that the scene lay in the heart
of Arabia.]

[Footnote 73: Abulfeda in Vit. c. 7, p. 15. Gagnier, tom. i. p. 133,
135. The situation of Mount Hera is remarked by Abulfeda (Geograph. Arab
p. 4.) Yet Mahomet had never read of the cave of Egeria, ubi nocturnae
Numa constituebat amicae, of the Idaean Mount, where Minos conversed
with Jove, &c.]

It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the learned nations
of antiquity were deluded by the fables of polytheism, their simple
ancestors of Palestine preserved the knowledge and worship of the true
God. The moral attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with
the standard of human virtue: his metaphysical qualities are darkly
expressed; but each page of the Pentateuch and the Prophets is an
evidence of his power: the unity of his name is inscribed on the first
table of the law; and his sanctuary was never defiled by any visible
image of the invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the
faith of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened, by the
spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the authority of Mahomet will
not justify his perpetual reproach, that the Jews of Mecca or Medina
adored Ezra as the son of God. [74] But the children of Israel had
ceased to be a people; and the religions of the world were guilty,
at least in the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons, or daughters, or
companions, to the supreme God. In the rude idolatry of the Arabs, the
crime is manifest and audacious: the Sabians are poorly excused by the
preeminence of the first planet, or intelligence, in their celestial
hierarchy; and in the Magian system the conflict of the two principles
betrays the imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians of the seventh
century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism: their
public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that
disgraced the temples of the East: the throne of the Almighty was
darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of
popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in
the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and
honors of a goddess. [75] The mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation
appear to contradict the principle of the divine unity. In their obvious
sense, they introduce three equal deities, and transform the man Jesus
into the substance of the Son of God: [76] an orthodox commentary will
satisfy only a believing mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had torn
the veil of the sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects was eager to
confess that all, except themselves, deserved the reproach of idolatry
and polytheism. The creed of Mahomet is free from suspicion or
ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God.
The prophet of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and
planets, on the rational principle that whatever rises must set, that
whatever is born must die, that whatever is corruptible must decay and
perish. [77] In the Author of the universe, his rational enthusiasm
confessed and adored an infinite and eternal being, without form or
place, without issue or similitude, present to our most secret thoughts,
existing by the necessity of his own nature, and deriving from himself
all moral and intellectual perfection. These sublime truths, thus
announced in the language of the prophet, [78] are firmly held by his
disciples, and defined with metaphysical precision by the interpreters
of the Koran. A philosophic theist might subscribe the popular creed
of the Mahometans; [79] a creed too sublime, perhaps, for our present
faculties. What object remains for the fancy, or even the understanding,
when we have abstracted from the unknown substance all ideas of time
and space, of motion and matter, of sensation and reflection? The
first principle of reason and revolution was confirmed by the voice of
Mahomet: his proselytes, from India to Morocco, are distinguished by the
name of Unitarians; and the danger of idolatry has been prevented by
the interdiction of images. The doctrine of eternal decrees and
absolute predestination is strictly embraced by the Mahometans; and they
struggle, with the common difficulties, how to reconcile the prescience
of God with the freedom and responsibility of man; how to explain
the permission of evil under the reign of infinite power and infinite
goodness.

[Footnote 74: Koran, c. 9, p. 153. Al Beidawi, and the other
commentators quoted by Sale, adhere to the charge; but I do not
understand that it is colored by the most obscure or absurd tradition of
the Talmud.]

[Footnote 75: Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 225-228. The Collyridian
heresy was carried from Thrace to Arabia by some women, and the name was
borrowed from the cake, which they offered to the goddess. This example,
that of Beryllus bishop of Bostra, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 33,)
and several others, may excuse the reproach, Arabia haerese haersewn
ferax.]

[Footnote 76: The three gods in the Koran (c. 4, p. 81, c. 5, p. 92)
are obviously directed against our Catholic mystery: but the Arabic
commentators understand them of the Father, the Son, and the Virgin
Mary, an heretical Trinity, maintained, as it is said, by some
Barbarians at the Council of Nice, (Eutych. Annal. tom. i. p. 440.)
But the existence of the Marianites is denied by the candid Beausobre,
(Hist. de Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 532;) and he derives the mistake from
the word Roxah, the Holy Ghost, which in some Oriental tongues is of the
feminine gender, and is figuratively styled the mother of Christ in the
Gospel of the Nazarenes.]

[Footnote 77: This train of thought is philosophically exemplified in
the character of Abraham, who opposed in Chaldaea the first introduction
of idolatry, (Koran, c. 6, p. 106. D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 13.)]

[Footnote 78: See the Koran, particularly the second, (p. 30,) the
fifty-seventh, (p. 437,) the fifty-eighth (p. 441) chapters, which
proclaim the omnipotence of the Creator.]

[Footnote 79: The most orthodox creeds are translated by Pocock,
(Specimen, p. 274, 284-292,) Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii.
p. lxxxii.--xcv.,) Reland, (de Religion. Moham. l. i. p. 7-13,) and
Chardin, (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 4-28.) The great truth, that
God is without similitude, is foolishly criticized by Maracci, (Alcoran,
tom. i. part iii. p. 87-94,) because he made man after his own image.]

The God of nature has written his existence on all his works, and his
law in the heart of man. To restore the knowledge of the one, and
the practice of the other, has been the real or pretended aim of
the prophets of every age: the liberality of Mahomet allowed to his
predecessors the same credit which he claimed for himself; and the chain
of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the promulgation
of the Koran. [80] During that period, some rays of prophetic light
had been imparted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand of the elect,
discriminated by their respective measure of virtue and grace; three
hundred and thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission
to recall their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and four
volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit; and six legislators of
transcendent brightness have announced to mankind the six successive
revelations of various rites, but of one immutable religion. The
authority and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and
Mahomet, rise in just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates
or rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the infidels. The
writings of the patriarchs were extant only in the apocryphal copies of
the Greeks and Syrians: [81] the conduct of Adam had not entitled him
to the gratitude or respect of his children; the seven precepts of Noah
were observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the proselytes of
the synagogue; [82] and the memory of Abraham was obscurely revered by
the Sabians in his native land of Chaldaea: of the myriads of prophets,
Moses and Christ alone lived and reigned; and the remnant of the
inspired writings was comprised in the books of the Old and the New
Testament. The miraculous story of Moses is consecrated and embellished
in the Koran; [83] and the captive Jews enjoy the secret revenge of
imposing their own belief on the nations whose recent creeds they
deride. For the author of Christianity, the Mahometans are taught by
the prophet to entertain a high and mysterious reverence. [84] "Verily,
Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word,
which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him; honorable
in this world, and in the world to come, and one of those who approach
near to the presence of God." [85] The wonders of the genuine and
apocryphal gospels [86] are profusely heaped on his head; and the
Latin church has not disdained to borrow from the Koran the immaculate
conception [87] of his virgin mother. Yet Jesus was a mere mortal; and,
at the day of judgment, his testimony will serve to condemn both the
Jews, who reject him as a prophet, and the Christians, who adore him as
the Son of God. The malice of his enemies aspersed his reputation,
and conspired against his life; but their intention only was guilty;
a phantom or a criminal was substituted on the cross; and the innocent
saint was translated to the seventh heaven. [88] During six hundred
years the gospel was the way of truth and salvation; but the Christians
insensibly forgot both the laws and example of their founder; and
Mahomet was instructed by the Gnostics to accuse the church, as well as
the synagogue, of corrupting the integrity of the sacred text. [89]
The piety of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future
prophet, more illustrious than themselves: the evangelical promise
of the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and
accomplished in the person, of Mahomet, [90] the greatest and the last
of the apostles of God.

[Footnote 80: Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. i. p. 17-47. Sale's
Preliminary Discourse, p. 73-76. Voyage de Chardin, tom. iv. p. 28-37,
and 37-47, for the Persian addition, "Ali is the vicar of God!" Yet the
precise number of the prophets is not an article of faith.]

[Footnote 81: For the apocryphal books of Adam, see Fabricius, Codex
Pseudepigraphus V. T. p. 27-29; of Seth, p. 154-157; of Enoch, p.
160-219. But the book of Enoch is consecrated, in some measure, by
the quotation of the apostle St. Jude; and a long legendary fragment is
alleged by Syncellus and Scaliger. * Note: The whole book has since been
recovered in the Ethiopic language,--and has been edited and translated
by Archbishop Lawrence, Oxford, 1881--M.]

[Footnote 82: The seven precepts of Noah are explained by Marsham,
(Canon Chronicus, p. 154-180,) who adopts, on this occasion, the
learning and credulity of Selden.]

[Footnote 83: The articles of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, &c., in the
Bibliotheque of D'Herbelot, are gayly bedecked with the fanciful legends
of the Mahometans, who have built on the groundwork of Scripture and the
Talmud.]

[Footnote 84: Koran, c. 7, p. 128, &c., c. 10, p. 173, &c. D'Herbelot,
p. 647, &c.]

[Footnote 85: Koran, c. 3, p. 40, c. 4. p. 80. D'Herbelot, p. 399, &c.]

[Footnote 86: See the Gospel of St. Thomas, or of the Infancy, in
the Codex Apocryphus N. T. of Fabricius, who collects the various
testimonies concerning it, (p. 128-158.) It was published in Greek by
Cotelier, and in Arabic by Sike, who thinks our present copy more recent
than Mahomet. Yet his quotations agree with the original about the
speech of Christ in his cradle, his living birds of clay, &c. (Sike, c.
i. p. 168, 169, c. 36, p. 198, 199, c. 46, p. 206. Cotelier, c. 2, p.
160, 161.)]

[Footnote 87: It is darkly hinted in the Koran, (c. 3, p. 39,) and more
clearly explained by the tradition of the Sonnites, (Sale's Note,
and Maracci, tom. ii. p. 112.) In the xiith century, the immaculate
conception was condemned by St. Bernard as a presumptuous novelty, (Fra
Paolo, Istoria del Concilio di Trento, l. ii.)]

[Footnote 88: See the Koran, c. 3, v. 53, and c. 4, v. 156, of Maracci's
edition. Deus est praestantissimus dolose agentium (an odd praise)...
nec crucifixerunt eum, sed objecta est eis similitudo; an expression
that may suit with the system of the Docetes; but the commentators
believe (Maracci, tom. ii. p. 113-115, 173. Sale, p. 42, 43, 79) that
another man, a friend or an enemy, was crucified in the likeness of
Jesus; a fable which they had read in the Gospel of St. Barnabus,
and which had been started as early as the time of Irenaeus, by some
Ebionite heretics, (Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p. 25,
Mosheim. de Reb. Christ. p. 353.)]

[Footnote 89: This charge is obscurely urged in the Koran, (c. 3, p.
45;) but neither Mahomet, nor his followers, are sufficiently versed in
languages and criticism to give any weight or color to their suspicions.
Yet the Arians and Nestorians could relate some stories, and the
illiterate prophet might listen to the bold assertions of the
Manichaeans. See Beausobre, tom. i. p. 291-305.]

[Footnote 90: Among the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, which
are perverted by the fraud or ignorance of the Mussulmans, they apply to
the prophet the promise of the Paraclete, or Comforter, which had been
already usurped by the Montanists and Manichaeans, (Beausobre, Hist.
Critique du Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 263, &c.;) and the easy change of
letters affords the etymology of the name of Mohammed, (Maracci, tom. i.
part i. p. 15-28.)]




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

The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and
language: the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate without effect
on the ear of a peasant; yet how minute is the distance of their
understandings, if it be compared with the contact of an infinite and a
finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of
a mortal! The inspiration of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and
evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the exercise of
their reason and memory; and the diversity of their genius is strongly
marked in the style and composition of the books of the Old and New
Testament. But Mahomet was content with a character, more humble, yet
more sublime, of a simple editor; the substance of the Koran, [91]
according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal;
subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of
light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy, in a volume
of silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel
Gabriel, who, under the Jewish economy, had indeed been despatched
on the most important errands; and this trusty messenger successively
revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a
perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the
Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation
is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion; and all
contradiction is removed by the saving maxim, that any text of Scripture
is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God, and
of the apostle, was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves
and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the pages, without order or
connection, were cast into a domestic chest, in the custody of one of
his wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was
collected and published by his friend and successor Abubeker: the work
was revised by the caliph Othman, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira;
and the various editions of the Koran assert the same miraculous
privilege of a uniform and incorruptible text. In the spirit of
enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the
merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate
the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert that God alone
could dictate this incomparable performance. [92] This argument is most
powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith
and rapture; whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds; and whose
ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius.
[93] The harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version,
the European infidel: he will peruse with impatience the endless
incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom
excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and
is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy
of the Arabian missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the
sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the
same country, and in the same language. [94] If the composition of the
Koran exceed the faculties of a man to what superior intelligence should
we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes? In all
religions, the life of the founder supplies the silence of his written
revelation: the sayings of Mahomet were so many lessons of truth; his
actions so many examples of virtue; and the public and private memorials
were preserved by his wives and companions. At the end of two hundred
years, the Sonna, or oral law, was fixed and consecrated by the
labors of Al Bochari, who discriminated seven thousand two hundred and
seventy-five genuine traditions, from a mass of three hundred thousand
reports, of a more doubtful or spurious character. Each day the pious
author prayed in the temple of Mecca, and performed his ablutions with
the water of Zemzem: the pages were successively deposited on the pulpit
and the sepulchre of the apostle; and the work has been approved by the
four orthodox sects of the Sonnites. [95]

[Footnote 91: For the Koran, see D'Herbelot, p. 85-88. Maracci, tom. i.
in Vit. Mohammed. p. 32-45. Sale, Preliminary Discourse, p. 58-70.]

[Footnote 92: Koran, c. 17, v. 89. In Sale, p. 235, 236. In Maracci, p.
410. * Note: Compare Von Hammer Geschichte der Assassinen p. 11.-M.]

[Footnote 93: Yet a sect of Arabians was persuaded, that it might be
equalled or surpassed by a human pen, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 221, &c.;)
and Maracci (the polemic is too hard for the translator) derides the
rhyming affectation of the most applauded passage, (tom. i. part ii. p.
69-75.)]

[Footnote 94: Colloquia (whether real or fabulous) in media Arabia
atque ab Arabibus habita, (Lowth, de Poesi Hebraeorum. Praelect. xxxii.
xxxiii. xxxiv, with his German editor, Michaelis, Epimetron iv.)
Yet Michaelis (p. 671-673) has detected many Egyptian images, the
elephantiasis, papyrus, Nile, crocodile, &c. The language is ambiguously
styled Arabico-Hebraea. The resemblance of the sister dialects was much
more visible in their childhood, than in their mature age, (Michaelis,
p. 682. Schultens, in Praefat. Job.) * Note: The age of the book of Job
is still and probably will still be disputed. Rosenmuller thus states
his own opinion: "Certe serioribus reipublicae temporibus assignandum
esse librum, suadere videtur ad Chaldaismum vergens sermo." Yet the
observations of Kosegarten, which Rosenmuller has given in a note, and
common reason, suggest that this Chaldaism may be the native form of
a much earlier dialect; or the Chaldaic may have adopted the poetical
archaisms of a dialect, differing from, but not less ancient than, the
Hebrew. See Rosenmuller, Proleg. on Job, p. 41. The poetry appears to me
to belong to a much earlier period.--M.]

[Footnote 95: Ali Bochari died A. H. 224. See D'Herbelot, p. 208, 416,
827. Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. c. 19, p. 33.]

The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses and of Jesus had been
confirmed by many splendid prodigies; and Mahomet was repeatedly urged,
by the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, to produce a similar evidence of
his divine legation; to call down from heaven the angel or the volume
of his revelation, to create a garden in the desert, or to kindle a
conflagration in the unbelieving city. As often as he is pressed by
the demands of the Koreish, he involves himself in the obscure boast of
vision and prophecy, appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and
shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those signs
and wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith, and aggravate
the guilt of infidelity But the modest or angry tone of his apologies
betrays his weakness and vexation; and these passages of scandal
established, beyond suspicion, the integrity of the Koran. [96] The
votaries of Mahomet are more assured than himself of his miraculous
gifts; and their confidence and credulity increase as they are farther
removed from the time and place of his spiritual exploits. They believe
or affirm that trees went forth to meet him; that he was saluted by
stones; that water gushed from his fingers; that he fed the hungry,
cured the sick, and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a
camel complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him of its
being poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate nature were equally
subject to the apostle of God. [97] His dream of a nocturnal journey is
seriously described as a real and corporeal transaction. A mysterious
animal, the Borak, conveyed him from the temple of Mecca to that of
Jerusalem: with his companion Gabriel he successively ascended the seven
heavens, and received and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs,
the prophets, and the angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the
seventh heaven, Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the
veil of unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and felt a
cold that pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder was touched by
the hand of God. After this familiar, though important conversation, he
again descended to Jerusalem, remounted the Borak, returned to Mecca,
and performed in the tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand
years. [98] According to another legend, the apostle confounded in a
national assembly the malicious challenge of the Koreish. His resistless
word split asunder the orb of the moon: the obedient planet stooped from
her station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the
Caaba, saluted Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly contracting
her dimensions, entered at the collar, and issued forth through the
sleeve, of his shirt. [99] The vulgar are amused with these marvellous
tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman doctors imitate the modesty of
their master, and indulge a latitude of faith or interpretation. [100]
They might speciously allege, that in preaching the religion it was
needless to violate the harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with
mystery may be excused from miracles; and that the sword of Mahomet was
not less potent than the rod of Moses.

[Footnote 96: See, more remarkably, Koran, c. 2, 6, 12, 13, 17. Prideaux
(Life of Mahomet, p. 18, 19) has confounded the impostor. Maracci, with
a more learned apparatus, has shown that the passages which deny his
miracles are clear and positive, (Alcoran, tom. i. part ii. p. 7-12,)
and those which seem to assert them are ambiguous and insufficient, (p.
12-22.)]

[Footnote 97: See the Specimen Hist. Arabum, the text of Abulpharagius,
p. 17, the notes of Pocock, p. 187-190. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 76, 77. Voyages de Chardin, tom. iv. p. 200-203. Maracci
(Alcoran, tom. i. p. 22-64) has most laboriously collected and confuted
the miracles and prophecies of Mahomet, which, according to some
writers, amount to three thousand.]

[Footnote 98: The nocturnal journey is circumstantially related by
Abulfeda (in Vit. Mohammed, c. 19, p. 33,) who wishes to think it a
vision; by Prideaux, (p. 31-40,) who aggravates the absurdities; and
by Gagnier (tom. i. p. 252-343,) who declares, from the zealous Al
Jannabi, that to deny this journey, is to disbelieve the Koran. Yet the
Koran without naming either heaven, or Jerusalem, or Mecca, has only
dropped a mysterious hint: Laus illi qui transtulit servum suum ab
oratorio Haram ad oratorium remotissimum, (Koran, c. 17, v. 1; in
Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407; for Sale's version is more licentious.) A
slender basis for the aerial structure of tradition.]

[Footnote 99: In the prophetic style, which uses the present or past for
the future, Mahomet had said, Appropinquavit hora, et scissa est luna,
(Koran, c. 54, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 688.) This figure of
rhetoric has been converted into a fact, which is said to be attested
by the most respectable eye-witnesses, (Maracci, tom. ii. p. 690.) The
festival is still celebrated by the Persians, (Chardin, tom. iv. p.
201;) and the legend is tediously spun out by Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet,
tom. i. p. 183-234,) on the faith, as it should seem, of the credulous
Al Jannabi. Yet a Mahometan doctor has arraigned the credit of
the principal witness, (apud Pocock, Specimen, p. 187;) the best
interpreters are content with the simple sense of the Koran. (Al
Beidawi, apud Hottinger, Hist. Orient. l. ii. p. 302;) and the silence
of Abulfeda is worthy of a prince and a philosopher. * Note: Compare
Hamaker Notes to Inc. Auct. Lib. de Exped. Memphides, p. 62--M.]

[Footnote 100: Abulpharagius, in Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 17; and his
scepticism is justified in the notes of Pocock, p. 190-194, from the
purest authorities.]

The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of
superstition: a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven
with the essence of the Mosaic law; and the spirit of the gospel had
evaporated in the pageantry of the church. The prophet of Mecca was
tempted by prejudice, or policy, or patriotism, to sanctify the rites
of the Arabians, and the custom of visiting the holy stone of the
Caaba. But the precepts of Mahomet himself inculcates a more simple and
rational piety: prayer, fasting, and alms, are the religious duties of a
Mussulman; and he is encouraged to hope, that prayer will carry him half
way to God, fasting will bring him to the door of his palace, and alms
will gain him admittance. [101] I. According to the tradition of the
nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his personal conference with the
Deity, was commanded to impose on his disciples the daily obligation of
fifty prayers. By the advice of Moses, he applied for an alleviation
of this intolerable burden; the number was gradually reduced to five;
without any dispensation of business or pleasure, or time or place:
the devotion of the faithful is repeated at daybreak, at noon, in the
afternoon, in the evening, and at the first watch of the night; and in
the present decay of religious fervor, our travellers are edified by the
profound humility and attention of the Turks and Persians. Cleanliness
is the key of prayer: the frequent lustration of the hands, the face,
and the body, which was practised of old by the Arabs, is solemnly
enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is formally granted to
supply with sand the scarcity of water. The words and attitudes of
supplication, as it is performed either sitting, or standing, or
prostrate on the ground, are prescribed by custom or authority; but the
prayer is poured forth in short and fervent ejaculations; the measure of
zeal is not exhausted by a tedious liturgy; and each Mussulman for
his own person is invested with the character of a priest. Among the
theists, who reject the use of images, it has been found necessary
to restrain the wanderings of the fancy, by directing the eye and the
thought towards a kebla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet
was at first inclined to gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem;
but he soon returned to a more natural partiality; and five times every
day the eyes of the nations at Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are devoutly
turned to the holy temple of Mecca. Yet every spot for the service of
God is equally pure: the Mahometans indifferently pray in their chamber
or in the street. As a distinction from the Jews and Christians, the
Friday in each week is set apart for the useful institution of public
worship: the people is assembled in the mosch; and the imam, some
respectable elder, ascends the pulpit, to begin the prayer and pronounce
the sermon. But the Mahometan religion is destitute of priesthood or
sacrifice; and the independent spirit of fanaticism looks down with
contempt on the ministers and the slaves of superstition. [1011]

II. The voluntary [102] penance of the ascetics, the torment and glory
of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his companions
a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and sleep; and firmly
declared, that he would suffer no monks in his religion. [103] Yet
he instituted, in each year, a fast of thirty days; and strenuously
recommended the observance as a discipline which purifies the soul and
subdues the body, as a salutary exercise of obedience to the will of
God and his apostle. During the month of Ramadan, from the rising to the
setting of the sun, the Mussulman abstains from eating, and drinking,
and women, and baths, and perfumes; from all nourishment that can
restore his strength, from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In
the revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan coincides, by turns, with
the winter cold and the summer heat; and the patient martyr, without
assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must expect the close of
a tedious and sultry day. The interdiction of wine, peculiar to some
orders of priests or hermits, is converted by Mahomet alone into a
positive and general law; [104] and a considerable portion of the globe
has abjured, at his command, the use of that salutary, though dangerous,
liquor. These painful restraints are, doubtless, infringed by the
libertine, and eluded by the hypocrite; but the legislator, by whom they
are enacted, cannot surely be accused of alluring his proselytes by
the indulgence of their sensual appetites. III. The charity of the
Mahometans descends to the animal creation; and the Koran repeatedly
inculcates, not as a merit, but as a strict and indispensable duty, the
relief of the indigent and unfortunate. Mahomet, perhaps, is the only
lawgiver who has defined the precise measure of charity: the standard
may vary with the degree and nature of property, as it consists either
in money, in corn or cattle, in fruits or merchandise; but the Mussulman
does not accomplish the law, unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue;
and if his conscience accuses him of fraud or extortion, the tenth,
under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth. [105] Benevolence
is the foundation of justice, since we are forbid to injure those whom
we are bound to assist. A prophet may reveal the secrets of heaven and
of futurity; but in his moral precepts he can only repeat the lessons of
our own hearts.

[Footnote 101: The most authentic account of these precepts, pilgrimage,
prayer, fasting, alms, and ablutions, is extracted from the Persian and
Arabian theologians by Maracci, (Prodrom. part iv. p. 9-24,) Reland,
(in his excellent treatise de Religione Mohammedica, Utrecht, 1717, p.
67-123,) and Chardin, (Voyages in Perse, tom. iv. p. 47-195.) Marace
is a partial accuser; but the jeweller, Chardin, had the eyes of a
philosopher; and Reland, a judicious student, had travelled over the
East in his closet at Utrecht. The xivth letter of Tournefort (Voyage du
Levont, tom. ii. p. 325-360, in octavo) describes what he had seen of
the religion of the Turks.]

[Footnote 1011: Such is Mahometanism beyond the precincts of the Holy
City. But Mahomet retained, and the Koran sanctions, (Sale's Koran, c.
5, in inlt. c. 22, vol. ii. p. 171, 172,) the sacrifice of sheep and
camels (probably according to the old Arabian rites) at Mecca; and
the pilgrims complete their ceremonial with sacrifices, sometimes as
numerous and costly as those of King Solomon. Compare note, vol. iv. c.
xxiii. p. 96, and Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. p. 420. This
author quotes the questionable authority of Benjamin of Tudela, for the
sacrifice of a camel by the caliph at Bosra; but sacrifice undoubtedly
forms no part of the ordinary Mahometan ritual; nor will the sanctity of
the caliph, as the earthly representative of the prophet, bear any close
analogy to the priesthood of the Mosaic or Gentila religions.--M.]

[Footnote 102: Mahomet (Sale's Koran, c. 9, p. 153) reproaches the
Christians with taking their priests and monks for their lords, besides
God. Yet Maracci (Prodromus, part iii. p. 69, 70) excuses the worship,
especially of the pope, and quotes, from the Koran itself, the case of
Eblis, or Satan, who was cast from heaven for refusing to adore Adam.]

[Footnote 103: Koran, c. 5, p. 94, and Sale's note, which refers to
the authority of Jallaloddin and Al Beidawi. D'Herbelot declares,
that Mahomet condemned la vie religieuse; and that the first swarms of
fakirs, dervises, &c., did not appear till after the year 300 of the
Hegira, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 292, 718.)]

[Footnote 104: See the double prohibition, (Koran, c. 2, p. 25, c. 5,
p. 94;) the one in the style of a legislator, the other in that of a
fanatic. The public and private motives of Mahomet are investigated by
Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 62-64) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse,
p. 124.)]

[Footnote 105: The jealousy of Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p. 33)
prompts him to enumerate the more liberal alms of the Catholics of Rome.
Fifteen great hospitals are open to many thousand patients and pilgrims;
fifteen hundred maidens are annually portioned; fifty-six charity
schools are founded for both sexes; one hundred and twenty
confraternities relieve the wants of their brethren, &c. The benevolence
of London is still more extensive; but I am afraid that much more is to
be ascribed to the humanity, than to the religion, of the people.]

The two articles of belief, and the four practical duties, of Islam, are
guarded by rewards and punishments; and the faith of the Mussulman
is devoutly fixed on the event of the judgment and the last day.
The prophet has not presumed to determine the moment of that awful
catastrophe, though he darkly announces the signs, both in heaven and
earth, which will precede the universal dissolution, when life shall
be destroyed, and the order of creation shall be confounded in the
primitive chaos. At the blast of the trumpet, new worlds will start into
being: angels, genii, and men will arise from the dead, and the human
soul will again be united to the body. The doctrine of the resurrection
was first entertained by the Egyptians; [106] and their mummies were
embalmed, their pyramids were constructed, to preserve the ancient
mansion of the soul, during a period of three thousand years. But the
attempt is partial and unavailing; and it is with a more philosophic
spirit that Mahomet relies on the omnipotence of the Creator, whose word
can reanimate the breathless clay, and collect the innumerable atoms,
that no longer retain their form or substance. [107] The intermediate
state of the soul it is hard to decide; and those who most firmly
believe her immaterial nature, are at a loss to understand how she can
think or act without the agency of the organs of sense.

[Footnote 106: See Herodotus (l. ii. c. 123) and our learned countryman
Sir John Marsham, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 46.) The same writer (p.
254-274) is an elaborate sketch of the infernal regions, as they were
painted by the fancy of the Egyptians and Greeks, of the poets and
philosophers of antiquity.]

[Footnote 107: The Koran (c. 2, p. 259, &c.; of Sale, p. 32; of Maracci,
p. 97) relates an ingenious miracle, which satisfied the curiosity, and
confirmed the faith, of Abraham.]

The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the final judgment
of mankind; and in his copy of the Magian picture, the prophet has too
faithfully represented the forms of proceeding, and even the slow
and successive operations, of an earthly tribunal. By his intolerant
adversaries he is upbraided for extending, even to themselves, the hope
of salvation, for asserting the blackest heresy, that every man who
believes in God, and accomplishes good works, may expect in the last day
a favorable sentence. Such rational indifference is ill adapted to the
character of a fanatic; nor is it probable that a messenger from heaven
should depreciate the value and necessity of his own revelation. In the
idiom of the Koran, [108] the belief of God is inseparable from that
of Mahomet: the good works are those which he has enjoined, and the two
qualifications imply the profession of Islam, to which all nations and
all sects are equally invited.

Their spiritual blindness, though excused by ignorance and crowned with
virtue, will be scourged with everlasting torments; and the tears which
Mahomet shed over the tomb of his mother for whom he was forbidden to
pray, display a striking contrast of humanity and enthusiasm. [109]
The doom of the infidels is common: the measure of their guilt and
punishment is determined by the degree of evidence which they have
rejected, by the magnitude of the errors which they have entertained:
the eternal mansions of the Christians, the Jews, the Sabians, the
Magians, and idolaters, are sunk below each other in the abyss; and the
lowest hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites who have assumed
the mask of religion. After the greater part of mankind has been
condemned for their opinions, the true believers only will be judged by
their actions. The good and evil of each Mussulman will be accurately
weighed in a real or allegorical balance; and a singular mode of
compensation will be allowed for the payment of injuries: the aggressor
will refund an equivalent of his own good actions, for the benefit of
the person whom he has wronged; and if he should be destitute of any
moral property, the weight of his sins will be loaded with an adequate
share of the demerits of the sufferer. According as the shares of guilt
or virtue shall preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all,
without distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous bridge of
the abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mahomet, will
gloriously enter the gates of paradise, while the guilty will fall into
the first and mildest of the seven hells. The term of expiation will
vary from nine hundred to seven thousand years; but the prophet has
judiciously promised, that all his disciples, whatever may be their
sins, shall be saved, by their own faith and his intercession from
eternal damnation. It is not surprising that superstition should act
most powerfully on the fears of her votaries, since the human fancy can
paint with more energy the misery than the bliss of a future life. With
the two simple elements of darkness and fire, we create a sensation
of pain, which may be aggravated to an infinite degree by the idea of
endless duration. But the same idea operates with an opposite effect on
the continuity of pleasure; and too much of our present enjoyments is
obtained from the relief, or the comparison, of evil. It is natural
enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell with rapture on the groves,
the fountains, and the rivers of paradise; but instead of inspiring
the blessed inhabitants with a liberal taste for harmony and science,
conversation and friendship, he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds,
the robes of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines,
artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of sensual
and costly luxury, which becomes insipid to the owner, even in the short
period of this mortal life. Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls,
of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite
sensibility, will be created for the use of the meanest believer;
a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years; and his
faculties will be increased a hundred fold, to render him worthy of his
felicity. Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the gates of heaven will
be open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified the male companions
of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the jealousy of their
former husbands, or disturb their felicity, by the suspicion of an
everlasting marriage. This image of a carnal paradise has provoked the
indignation, perhaps the envy, of the monks: they declaim against the
impure religion of Mahomet; and his modest apologists are driven to
the poor excuse of figures and allegories. But the sounder and more
consistent party adhere without shame, to the literal interpretation of
the Koran: useless would be the resurrection of the body, unless it were
restored to the possession and exercise of its worthiest faculties; and
the union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment is requisite to complete
the happiness of the double animal, the perfect man. Yet the joys of the
Mahometan paradise will not be confined to the indulgence of luxury
and appetite; and the prophet has expressly declared that all meaner
happiness will be forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs, who
shall be admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision. [110]

[Footnote 108: The candid Reland has demonstrated, that Mahomet damns
all unbelievers, (de Religion. Moham. p. 128-142;) that devils will not
be finally saved, (p. 196-199;) that paradise will not solely consist
of corporeal delights, (p. 199-205;) and that women's souls are
immortal. (p. 205-209.)]

[Footnote 109: A Beidawi, apud Sale. Koran, c. 9, p. 164. The refusal to
pray for an unbelieving kindred is justified, according to Mahomet, by
the duty of a prophet, and the example of Abraham, who reprobated his
own father as an enemy of God. Yet Abraham (he adds, c. 9, v. 116.
Maracci, tom. ii. p. 317) fuit sane pius, mitis.]

[Footnote 110: For the day of judgment, hell, paradise, &c., consult
the Koran, (c. 2, v. 25, c. 56, 78, &c.;) with Maracci's virulent, but
learned, refutation, (in his notes, and in the Prodromus, part iv. p.
78, 120, 122, &c.;) D'Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 368, 375;)
Reland, (p. 47-61;) and Sale, (p. 76-103.) The original ideas of the
Magi are darkly and doubtfully explored by their apologist, Dr. Hyde,
(Hist. Religionis Persarum, c. 33, p. 402-412, Oxon. 1760.) In the
article of Mahomet, Bayle has shown how indifferently wit and philosophy
supply the absence of genuine information.]

The first and most arduous conquests of Mahomet [111] were those of his
wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend; [112] since he presented
himself as a prophet to those who were most conversant with his
infirmities as a man. Yet Cadijah believed the words, and cherished the
glory, of her husband; the obsequious and affectionate Zeid was tempted
by the prospect of freedom; the illustrious Ali, the son of Abu Taleb,
embraced the sentiments of his cousin with the spirit of a youthful
hero; and the wealth, the moderation, the veracity of Abubeker confirmed
the religion of the prophet whom he was destined to succeed. By
his persuasion, ten of the most respectable citizens of Mecca were
introduced to the private lessons of Islam; they yielded to the voice
of reason and enthusiasm; they repeated the fundamental creed, "There is
but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;" and their faith, even
in this life, was rewarded with riches and honors, with the command
of armies and the government of kingdoms. Three years were silently
employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of
his mission; but in the fourth year he assumed the prophetic office, and
resolving to impart to his family the light of divine truth, he
prepared a banquet, a lamb, as it is said, and a bowl of milk, for
the entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. "Friends and
kinsmen," said Mahomet to the assembly, "I offer you, and I alone can
offer, the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this world and of
the world to come. God has commanded me to call you to his service. Who
among you will support my burden? Who among you will be my companion
and my vizier?" [113] No answer was returned, till the silence of
astonishment, and doubt, and contempt, was at length broken by the
impatient courage of Ali, a youth in the fourteenth year of his age. "O
prophet, I am the man: whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out his
teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet,
I will be thy vizier over them." Mahomet accepted his offer with
transport, and Abu Taled was ironically exhorted to respect the superior
dignity of his son. In a more serious tone, the father of Ali advised
his nephew to relinquish his impracticable design.

"Spare your remonstrances," replied the intrepid fanatic to his uncle
and benefactor; "if they should place the sun on my right hand, and
the moon on my left, they should not divert me from my course." He
persevered ten years in the exercise of his mission; and the religion
which has overspread the East and the West advanced with a slow and
painful progress within the walls of Mecca. Yet Mahomet enjoyed the
satisfaction of beholding the increase of his infant congregation of
Unitarians, who revered him as a prophet, and to whom he seasonably
dispensed the spiritual nourishment of the Koran. The number of
proselytes may be esteemed by the absence of eighty-three men and
eighteen women, who retired to Aethiopia in the seventh year of his
mission; and his party was fortified by the timely conversion of his
uncle Hamza, and of the fierce and inflexible Omar, who signalized
in the cause of Islam the same zeal, which he had exerted for its
destruction. Nor was the charity of Mahomet confined to the tribe of
Koreish, or the precincts of Mecca: on solemn festivals, in the days
of pilgrimage, he frequented the Caaba, accosted the strangers of every
tribe, and urged, both in private converse and public discourse, the
belief and worship of a sole Deity. Conscious of his reason and of his
weakness, he asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed the use
of religious violence: [114] but he called the Arabs to repentance, and
conjured them to remember the ancient idolaters of Ad and Thamud, whom
the divine justice had swept away from the face of the earth. [115]

[Footnote 111: Before I enter on the history of the prophet, it is
incumbent on me to produce my evidence. The Latin, French, and English
versions of the Koran are preceded by historical discourses, and the
three translators, Maracci, (tom. i. p. 10-32,) Savary, (tom. i. p.
1-248,) and Sale, (Preliminary Discourse, p. 33-56,) had accurately
studied the language and character of their author. Two professed Lives
of Mahomet have been composed by Dr. Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, seventh
edition, London, 1718, in octavo) and the count de Boulainvilliers, (Vie
de Mahomed, Londres, 1730, in octavo: ) but the adverse wish of finding
an impostor or a hero, has too often corrupted the learning of the
doctor and the ingenuity of the count. The article in D'Herbelot
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 598-603) is chiefly drawn from Novairi and
Mirkond; but the best and most authentic of our guides is M. Gagnier, a
Frenchman by birth, and professor at Oxford of the Oriental tongues.
In two elaborate works, (Ismael Abulfeda de Vita et Rebus gestis
Mohammedis, &c. Latine vertit, Praefatione et Notis illustravit Johannes
Gagnier, Oxon. 1723, in folio. La Vie de Mahomet traduite et compilee
de l'Alcoran, des Traditions Authentiques de la Sonna et des meilleurs
Auteurs Arabes; Amsterdam, 1748, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) he has interpreted,
illustrated, and supplied the Arabic text of Abulfeda and Al Jannabi;
the first, an enlightened prince who reigned at Hamah, in Syria, A.D.
1310-1332, (see Gagnier Praefat. ad Abulfed.;) the second, a credulous
doctor, who visited Mecca A.D. 1556. (D'Herbelot, p. 397. Gagnier, tom.
iii. p. 209, 210.) These are my general vouchers, and the inquisitive
reader may follow the order of time, and the division of chapters. Yet
I must observe that both Abulfeda and Al Jannabi are modern historians,
and that they cannot appeal to any writers of the first century of the
Hegira. * Note: A new Life, by Dr. Weil, (Stuttgart. 1843,) has added
some few traditions unknown in Europe. Of Dr. Weil's Arabic scholarship,
which professes to correct many errors in Gagnier, in Maracci, and in
M. von Hammer, I am no judge. But it is remarkable that he does not
seem acquainted with the passage of Tabari, translated by Colonel Vans
Kennedy, in the Bombay Transactions, (vol. iii.,) the earliest and
most important addition made to the traditionary Life of Mahomet. I am
inclined to think Colonel Vans Kennedy's appreciation of the prophet's
character, which may be overlooked in a criticism on Voltaire's Mahomet,
the most just which I have ever read. The work of Dr. Weil appears to me
most valuable in its dissection and chronological view of the Koran.--M.
1845]

[Footnote 112: After the Greeks, Prideaux (p. 8) discloses the secret
doubts of the wife of Mahomet. As if he had been a privy counsellor
of the prophet, Boulainvilliers (p. 272, &c.) unfolds the sublime and
patriotic views of Cadijah and the first disciples.]

[Footnote 113: Vezirus, portitor, bajulus, onus ferens; and this
plebeian name was transferred by an apt metaphor to the pillars of the
state, (Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 19.) I endeavor to preserve the
Arabian idiom, as far as I can feel it myself in a Latin or French
translation.]

[Footnote 114: The passages of the Koran in behalf of toleration are
strong and numerous: c. 2, v. 257, c. 16, 129, c. 17, 54, c. 45, 15,
c. 50, 39, c. 88, 21, &c., with the notes of Maracci and Sale. This
character alone may generally decide the doubts of the learned, whether
a chapter was revealed at Mecca or Medina.]

[Footnote 115: See the Koran, (passim, and especially c. 7, p. 123, 124,
&c.,) and the tradition of the Arabs, (Pocock, Specimen, p. 35-37.)
The caverns of the tribe of Thamud, fit for men of the ordinary stature,
were shown in the midway between Medina and Damascus. (Abulfed Arabiae
Descript. p. 43, 44,) and may be probably ascribed to the Throglodytes
of the primitive world, (Michaelis, ad Lowth de Poesi Hebraeor. p.
131-134. Recherches sur les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 48, &c.)]




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

The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by superstition and
envy. The elders of the city, the uncles of the prophet, affected to
despise the presumption of an orphan, the reformer of his country: the
pious orations of Mahomet in the Caaba were answered by the clamors of
Abu Taleb. "Citizens and pilgrims, listen not to the tempter, hearken
not to his impious novelties. Stand fast in the worship of Al Lata and
Al Uzzah." Yet the son of Abdallah was ever dear to the aged chief: and
he protected the fame and person of his nephew against the assaults of
the Koreishites, who had long been jealous of the preeminence of
the family of Hashem. Their malice was colored with the pretence of
religion: in the age of Job, the crime of impiety was punished by
the Arabian magistrate; [116] and Mahomet was guilty of deserting and
denying the national deities. But so loose was the policy of Mecca,
that the leaders of the Koreish, instead of accusing a criminal,
were compelled to employ the measures of persuasion or violence. They
repeatedly addressed Abu Taleb in the style of reproach and menace.
"Thy nephew reviles our religion; he accuses our wise forefathers of
ignorance and folly; silence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult and
discord in the city. If he persevere, we shall draw our swords against
him and his adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of
thy fellow-citizens." The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb eluded
the violence of religious faction; the most helpless or timid of the
disciples retired to Aethiopia, and the prophet withdrew himself to
various places of strength in the town and country. As he was still
supported by his family, the rest of the tribe of Koreish engaged
themselves to renounce all intercourse with the children of Hashem,
neither to buy nor sell, neither to marry not to give in marriage, but
to pursue them with implacable enmity, till they should deliver the
person of Mahomet to the justice of the gods. The decree was suspended
in the Caaba before the eyes of the nation; the messengers of the
Koreish pursued the Mussulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they
besieged the prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted
their water, and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation
of injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances of
concord till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of
his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic comforts
by the loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief
of the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the principality of the republic
of Mecca. A zealous votary of the idols, a mortal foe of the line of
Hashem, he convened an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies,
to decide the fate of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke the
despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular
fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia. His
death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword from each tribe should
be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of his blood, and baffle
the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a spy revealed their
conspiracy; and flight was the only resource of Mahomet. [117] At the
dead of night, accompanied by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped
from his house: the assassins watched at the door; but they were
deceived by the figure of Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered
with the green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety
of the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are still extant,
exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness, and
his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his companion were
concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca;
and in the close of each evening, they received from the son and
daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of intelligence and food. The
diligence of the Koreish explored every haunt in the neighborhood of the
city: they arrived at the entrance of the cavern; but the providential
deceit of a spider's web and a pigeon's nest is supposed to convince
them that the place was solitary and inviolate. "We are only two," said
the trembling Abubeker. "There is a third," replied the prophet; "it is
God himself." No sooner was the pursuit abated than the two fugitives
issued from the rock, and mounted their camels: on the road to Medina,
they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish; they redeemed
themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In this eventful
moment, the lance of an Arab might have changed the history of the
world. The flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina has fixed
the memorable aera of the Hegira, [118] which, at the end of twelve
centuries, still discriminates the lunar years of the Mahometan nations.
[119]

[Footnote 116: In the time of Job, the crime of impiety was punished
by the Arabian magistrate, (c. 21, v. 26, 27, 28.) I blush for a
respectable prelate (de Poesi Hebraeorum, p. 650, 651, edit. Michaelis;
and letter of a late professor in the university of Oxford, p. 15-53,)
who justifies and applauds this patriarchal inquisition.]

[Footnote 117: D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 445. He quotes a
particular history of the flight of Mahomet.]

[Footnote 118: The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second caliph, in
imitation of the aera of the martyrs of the Christians, (D'Herbelot,
p. 444;) and properly commenced sixty-eight days before the flight of
Mahomet, with the first of Moharren, or first day of that Arabian year
which coincides with Friday, July 16th, A.D. 622, (Abulfeda, Vit Moham,
c. 22, 23, p. 45-50; and Greaves's edition of Ullug Beg's Epochae
Arabum, &c., c. 1, p. 8, 10, &c.) * Note: Chronologists dispute between
the 15th and 16th of July. St. Martin inclines to the 8th, ch. xi. p.
70.--M.]

[Footnote 119: Mahomet's life, from his mission to the Hegira, may
be found in Abulfeda (p. 14-45) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 134-251,
342-383.) The legend from p. 187-234 is vouched by Al Jannabi, and
disdained by Abulfeda.]

The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had not
Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of Mecca.
Medina, or the city, known under the name of Yathreb, before it was
sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was divided between the tribes
of the Charegites and the Awsites, whose hereditary feud was rekindled
by the slightest provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a
sacerdotal race, were their humble allies, and without converting
the Arabs, they introduced the taste of science and religion, which
distinguished Medina as the city of the Book. Some of her noblest
citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Canaba, were converted by the preaching
of Mahomet; on their return, they diffused the belief of God and his
prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by their deputies in two
secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill in the suburbs of Mecca. In
the first, ten Charegites and two Awsites united in faith and love,
protested, in the name of their wives, their children, and their absent
brethren, that they would forever profess the creed, and observe the
precepts, of the Koran. The second was a political association, the
first vital spark of the empire of the Saracens. [120] Seventy-three
men and two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his
kinsman, and his disciples; and pledged themselves to each other by a
mutual oath of fidelity. They promised, in the name of the city, that if
he should be banished, they would receive him as a confederate, obey him
as a leader, and defend him to the last extremity, like their wives and
children. "But if you are recalled by your country," they asked with
a flattering anxiety, "will you not abandon your new allies?" "All
things," replied Mahomet with a smile, "are now common between us your
blood is as my blood, your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each other
by the ties of honor and interest. I am your friend, and the enemy of
your foes." "But if we are killed in your service, what," exclaimed
the deputies of Medina, "will be our reward?" "Paradise," replied the
prophet. "Stretch forth thy hand." He stretched it forth, and they
reiterated the oath of allegiance and fidelity. Their treaty was
ratified by the people, who unanimously embraced the profession of
Islam; they rejoiced in the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for
his safety, and impatiently expected his arrival. After a perilous and
rapid journey along the sea-coast, he halted at Koba, two miles from
the city, and made his public entry into Medina, sixteen days after his
flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the citizens advanced to meet him;
he was hailed with acclamations of loyalty and devotion; Mahomet was
mounted on a she-camel, an umbrella shaded his head, and a turban was
unfurled before him to supply the deficiency of a standard. His bravest
disciples, who had been scattered by the storm, assembled round
his person; and the equal, though various, merit of the Moslems was
distinguished by the names of Mohagerians and Ansars, the fugitives
of Mecca, and the auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of
jealousy, Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the
rights and obligations of brethren; and when Ali found himself without a
peer, the prophet tenderly declared, that he would be the companion and
brother of the noble youth. The expedient was crowned with success; the
holy fraternity was respected in peace and war, and the two parties vied
with each other in a generous emulation of courage and fidelity. Once
only the concord was slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel: a
patriot of Medina arraigned the insolence of the strangers, but the
hint of their expulsion was heard with abhorrence; and his own son most
eagerly offered to lay at the apostle's feet the head of his father.

[Footnote 120: The triple inauguration of Mahomet is described by
Abulfeda (p. 30, 33, 40, 86) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 342, &c., 349,
&c., tom. ii. p. 223 &c.)]

From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the exercise of the
regal and sacerdotal office; and it was impious to appeal from a judge
whose decrees were inspired by the divine wisdom. A small portion of
ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was acquired by gift or purchase;
[121] on that chosen spot he built a house and a mosch, more venerable
in their rude simplicity than the palaces and temples of the Assyrian
caliphs. His seal of gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic
title; when he prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned
against the trunk of a palm-tree; and it was long before he indulged
himself in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough timber. [122] After a
reign of six years, fifteen hundred Moslems, in arms and in the field,
renewed their oath of allegiance; and their chief repeated the
assurance of protection till the death of the last member, or the final
dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that the deputy of
Mecca was astonished by the attention of the faithful to the words and
looks of the prophet, by the eagerness with which they collected his
spittle, a hair that dropped on the ground, the refuse water of his
lustrations, as if they participated in some degree of the prophetic
virtue. "I have seen," said he, "the Chosroes of Persia and the Caesar
of Rome, but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet
among his companions." The devout fervor of enthusiasm acts with more
energy and truth than the cold and formal servility of courts.

[Footnote 121: Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44) reviles the wickedness
of the impostor, who despoiled two poor orphans, the sons of a
carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the Disputatio contra
Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the year 1130; but the honest
Gagnier (ad Abulfed. p. 53) has shown that they were deceived by the
word Al Nagjar, which signifies, in this place, not an obscure trade,
but a noble tribe of Arabs. The desolate state of the ground is
described by Abulfeda; and his worthy interpreter has proved, from Al
Bochari, the offer of a price; from Al Jannabi, the fair purchase; and
from Ahmeq Ben Joseph, the payment of the money by the generous Abubeker
On these grounds the prophet must be honorably acquitted.]

[Footnote 122: Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 246, 324) describes
the seal and pulpit, as two venerable relics of the apostle of God; and
the portrait of his court is taken from Abulfeda, (c. 44, p. 85.)]

In the state of nature, every man has a right to defend, by force of
arms, his person and his possessions; to repel, or even to prevent, the
violence of his enemies, and to extend his hostilities to a reasonable
measure of satisfaction and retaliation. In the free society of the
Arabs, the duties of subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and
Mahomet, in the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been
despoiled and banished by the injustice of his countrymen. The choice of
an independent people had exalted the fugitive of Mecca to the rank of
a sovereign; and he was invested with the just prerogative of forming
alliances, and of waging offensive or defensive war. The imperfection
of human rights was supplied and armed by the plenitude of divine power:
the prophet of Medina assumed, in his new revelations, a fiercer and
more sanguinary tone, which proves that his former moderation was the
effect of weakness: [123] the means of persuasion had been tried, the
season of forbearance was elapsed, and he was now commanded to propagate
his religion by the sword, to destroy the monuments of idolatry,
and, without regarding the sanctity of days or months, to pursue
the unbelieving nations of the earth. The same bloody precepts, so
repeatedly inculcated in the Koran, are ascribed by the author to the
Pentateuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the evangelic style may
explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not bring peace on the earth,
but a sword: his patient and humble virtues should not be confounded
with the intolerant zeal of princes and bishops, who have disgraced
the name of his disciples. In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet
might appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the Judges,
and the kings of Israel. The military laws of the Hebrews are still
more rigid than those of the Arabian legislator. [124] The Lord of hosts
marched in person before the Jews: if a city resisted their summons, the
males, without distinction, were put to the sword: the seven nations
of Canaan were devoted to destruction; and neither repentance nor
conversion, could shield them from the inevitable doom, that no creature
within their precincts should be left alive. [1241] The fair option of
friendship, or submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies of
Mahomet. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were admitted to
all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his primitive disciples,
and marched under the same banner to extend the religion which they had
embraced. The clemency of the prophet was decided by his interest: yet
he seldom trampled on a prostrate enemy; and he seems to promise,
that on the payment of a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving
subjects might be indulged in their worship, or at least in their
imperfect faith. In the first months of his reign he practised the
lessons of holy warfare, and displayed his white banner before the
gates of Medina: the martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or
sieges; [125] and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten years by
himself or his lieutenants. The Arab continued to unite the professions
of a merchant and a robber; and his petty excursions for the defence or
the attack of a caravan insensibly prepared his troops for the conquest
of Arabia. The distribution of the spoil was regulated by a divine law:
[126] the whole was faithfully collected in one common mass: a fifth
of the gold and silver, the prisoners and cattle, the movables and
immovables, was reserved by the prophet for pious and charitable uses;
the remainder was shared in adequate portions by the soldiers who had
obtained the victory or guarded the camp: the rewards of the slain
devolved to their widows and orphans; and the increase of cavalry was
encouraged by the allotment of a double share to the horse and to the
man. From all sides the roving Arabs were allured to the standard of
religion and plunder: the apostle sanctified the license of embracing
the female captives as their wives or concubines, and the enjoyment of
wealth and beauty was a feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for
the valiant martyrs of the faith. "The sword," says Mahomet, "is the key
of heaven and of hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night
spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer:
whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at the day of judgment
his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and odoriferous as musk;
and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and
cherubim." The intrepid souls of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm:
the picture of the invisible world was strongly painted on their
imagination; and the death which they had always despised became an
object of hope and desire. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute
sense, the tenets of fate and predestination, which would extinguish
both industry and virtue, if the actions of man were governed by his
speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has exalted the
courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of Mahomet
advanced to battle with a fearless confidence: there is no danger where
there is no chance: they were ordained to perish in their beds; or they
were safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. [127]

[Footnote 123: The viiith and ixth chapters of the Koran are the loudest
and most vehement; and Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p. 59-64) has
inveighed with more justice than discretion against the double dealing
of the impostor.]

[Footnote 124: The xth and xxth chapters of Deuteronomy, with the
practical comments of Joshua, David, &c., are read with more awe
than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the present age. But
the bishops, as well as the rabbis of former times, have beat the
drum-ecclesiastic with pleasure and success. (Sale's Preliminary
Discourse, p. 142, 143.)]

[Footnote 1241: The editor's opinions on this subject may be read in the
History of the Jews vol. i. p. 137.--M]

[Footnote 125: Abulfeda, in Vit. Moham. p. 156. The private arsenal
of the apostle consisted of nine swords, three lances, seven pikes or
half-pikes, a quiver and three bows, seven cuirasses, three shields,
and two helmets, (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 328-334,) with a large white
standard, a black banner, (p. 335,) twenty horses, (p. 322, &c.) Two of
his martial sayings are recorded by tradition, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 88,
334.)]

[Footnote 126: The whole subject de jure belli Mohammedanorum
is exhausted in a separate dissertation by the learned Reland,
(Dissertationes Miscellaneae, tom. iii. Dissertat. x. p. 3-53.)]

[Footnote 127: The doctrine of absolute predestination, on which few
religions can reproach each other, is sternly exposed in the Koran, (c.
3, p. 52, 53, c. 4, p. 70, &c., with the notes of Sale, and c. 17, p.
413, with those of Maracci.) Reland (de Relig. Moham. p. 61-64) and
Sale (Prelim. Discourse, p. 103) represent the opinions of the doctors,
and our modern travellers the confidence, the fading confidence, of the
Turks]

Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the dight of Mahomet,
had they not been provoked and alarmed by the vengeance of an enemy, who
could intercept their Syrian trade as it passed and repassed through
the territory of Medina. Abu Sophian himself, with only thirty or forty
followers, conducted a wealthy caravan of a thousand camels; the fortune
or dexterity of his march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet; but the
chief of the Koreish was informed that the holy robbers were placed in
ambush to await his return. He despatched a messenger to his brethren of
Mecca, and they were roused, by the fear of losing their merchandise and
their provisions, unless they hastened to his relief with the military
force of the city. The sacred band of Mahomet was formed of three
hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom seventy-seven were fugitives, and
the rest auxiliaries; they mounted by turns a train of seventy camels,
(the camels of Yathreb were formidable in war;) but such was the poverty
of his first disciples, that only two could appear on horseback in
the field. [128] In the fertile and famous vale of Beder, [129] three
stations from Medina, he was informed by his scouts of the caravan that
approached on one side; of the Koreish, one hundred horse, eight hundred
and fifty foot, who advanced on the other. After a short debate, he
sacrificed the prospect of wealth to the pursuit of glory and revenge,
and a slight intrenchment was formed, to cover his troops, and a stream
of fresh water, that glided through the valley. "O God," he exclaimed,
as the numbers of the Koreish descended from the hills, "O God, if these
are destroyed, by whom wilt thou be worshipped on the earth?--Courage,
my children; close your ranks; discharge your arrows, and the day is
your own." At these words he placed himself, with Abubeker, on a throne
or pulpit, [130] and instantly demanded the succor of Gabriel and
three thousand angels. His eye was fixed on the field of battle: the
Mussulmans fainted and were pressed: in that decisive moment the prophet
started from his throne, mounted his horse, and cast a handful of sand
into the air: "Let their faces be covered with confusion." Both armies
heard the thunder of his voice: their fancy beheld the angelic warriors:
[131] the Koreish trembled and fled: seventy of the bravest were slain;
and seventy captives adorned the first victory of the faithful. The
dead bodies of the Koreish were despoiled and insulted: two of the most
obnoxious prisoners were punished with death; and the ransom of the
others, four thousand drams of silver, compensated in some degree the
escape of the caravan. But it was in vain that the camels of Abu Sophian
explored a new road through the desert and along the Euphrates: they
were overtaken by the diligence of the Mussulmans; and wealthy must
have been the prize, if twenty thousand drams could be set apart for
the fifth of the apostle. The resentment of the public and private loss
stimulated Abu Sophian to collect a body of three thousand men, seven
hundred of whom were armed with cuirasses, and two hundred were mounted
on horseback; three thousand camels attended his march; and his wife
Henda, with fifteen matrons of Mecca, incessantly sounded their timbrels
to animate the troops, and to magnify the greatness of Hobal, the most
popular deity of the Caaba. The standard of God and Mahomet was upheld
by nine hundred and fifty believers: the disproportion of numbers was
not more alarming than in the field of Beder; and their presumption of
victory prevailed against the divine and human sense of the apostle.
The second battle was fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the north of
Medina; [132] the Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent; and the
right wing of cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful
of the Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on
the declivity of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a detachment of
fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled and broke the centre
of the idolaters: but in the pursuit they lost the advantage of their
ground: the archers deserted their station: the Mussulmans were tempted
by the spoil, disobeyed their general, and disordered their ranks. The
intrepid Caled, wheeling his cavalry on their flank and rear, exclaimed,
with a loud voice, that Mahomet was slain. He was indeed wounded in the
face with a javelin: two of his teeth were shattered with a stone; yet,
in the midst of tumult and dismay, he reproached the infidels with the
murder of a prophet; and blessed the friendly hand that stanched his
blood, and conveyed him to a place of safety Seventy martyrs died for
the sins of the people; they fell, said the apostle, in pairs, each
brother embracing his lifeless companion; [133] their bodies were
mangled by the inhuman females of Mecca; and the wife of Abu Sophian
tasted the entrails of Hamza, the uncle of Mahomet. They might applaud
their superstition, and satiate their fury; but the Mussulmans soon
rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted strength or courage to
undertake the siege of Medina. It was attacked the ensuing year by an
army of ten thousand enemies; and this third expedition is variously
named from the nations, which marched under the banner of Abu Sophian,
from the ditch which was drawn before the city, and a camp of three
thousand Mussulmans. The prudence of Mahomet declined a general
engagement: the valor of Ali was signalized in single combat; and
the war was protracted twenty days, till the final separation of the
confederates. A tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents:
their private quarrels were fomented by an insidious adversary; and
the Koreish, deserted by their allies, no longer hoped to subvert the
throne, or to check the conquests, of their invincible exile. [134]

[Footnote 128: Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9) allows him
seventy or eighty horse; and on two other occasions, prior to the
battle of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. 10) and of 500 (p. 66)
troopers. Yet the Mussulmans, in the field of Ohud, had no more than two
horses, according to the better sense of Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c.
xxxi. p. 65.) In the Stony province, the camels were numerous; but the
horse appears to have been less numerous than in the Happy or the Desert
Arabia.]

[Footnote 129: Bedder Houneene, twenty miles from Medina, and forty from
Mecca, is on the high road of the caravan of Egypt; and the pilgrims
annually commemorate the prophet's victory by illuminations, rockets,
&c. Shaw's Travels, p. 477.]

[Footnote 130: The place to which Mahomet retired during the action is
styled by Gagnier (in Abulfeda, c. 27, p. 58. Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii.
p. 30, 33) Umbraculum, une loge de bois avec une porte. The same Arabic
word is rendered by Reiske (Annales Moslemici Abulfedae, p. 23) by
Solium, Suggestus editior; and the difference is of the utmost moment
for the honor both of the interpreter and of the hero. I am sorry
to observe the pride and acrimony with which Reiske chastises his
fellow-laborer. Saepi sic vertit, ut integrae paginae nequeant nisi una
litura corrigi Arabice non satis callebat, et carebat judicio critico.
J. J. Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalisae Tabulas, p. 228, ad calcero
Abulfedae Syriae Tabulae; Lipsiae, 1766, in 4to.]

[Footnote 131: The loose expressions of the Koran (c. 3, p. 124, 125,
c. 8, p. 9) allow the commentators to fluctuate between the numbers of
1000, 3000, or 9000 angels; and the smallest of these might suffice for
the slaughter of seventy of the Koreish, (Maracci, Alcoran, tom. ii.
p. 131.) Yet the same scholiasts confess that this angelic band was not
visible to any mortal eye, (Maracci, p. 297.) They refine on the words
(c. 8, 16) "not thou, but God," &c. (D'Herbelot. Bibliot. Orientale p.
600, 601.)]

[Footnote 132: Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 47.]

[Footnote 133: In the iiid chapter of the Koran, (p. 50-53) with Sale's
notes, the prophet alleges some poor excuses for the defeat of Ohud. *
Note: Dr. Weil has added some curious circumstances, which he gives as
on good traditional authority, on the rescue of Mahomet. The prophet was
attacked by Ubeijj Ibn Challaf, whom he struck on the neck with a mortal
wound. This was the only time, it is added, that Mahomet personally
engaged in battle. (p. 128.)--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 134: For the detail of the three Koreish wars, of Beder, of
Ohud, and of the ditch, peruse Abulfeda, (p. 56-61, 64-69, 73-77,)
Gagnier (tom. i. p. 23-45, 70-96, 120-139,) with the proper articles
of D'Herbelot, and the abridgments of Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 6, 7)
and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 102.)]




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

The choice of Jerusalem for the first kebla of prayer discovers the
early propensity of Mahomet in favor of the Jews; and happy would it
have been for their temporal interest, had they recognized, in the
Arabian prophet, the hope of Israel and the promised Messiah. Their
obstinacy converted his friendship into implacable hatred, with which he
pursued that unfortunate people to the last moment of his life; and in
the double character of an apostle and a conqueror, his persecution was
extended to both worlds. [135] The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the
protection of the city; he seized the occasion of an accidental tumult,
and summoned them to embrace his religion, or contend with him in
battle. "Alas!" replied the trembling Jews, "we are ignorant of the use
of arms, but we persevere in the faith and worship of our fathers; why
wilt thou reduce us to the necessity of a just defence?" The unequal
conflict was terminated in fifteen days; and it was with extreme
reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the importunity of his allies, and
consented to spare the lives of the captives. But their riches were
confiscated, their arms became more effectual in the hands of the
Mussulmans; and a wretched colony of seven hundred exiles was driven,
with their wives and children, to implore a refuge on the confines
of Syria. The Nadhirites were more guilty, since they conspired, in
a friendly interview, to assassinate the prophet. He besieged their
castle, three miles from Medina; but their resolute defence obtained an
honorable capitulation; and the garrison, sounding their trumpets and
beating their drums, was permitted to depart with the honors of war. The
Jews had excited and joined the war of the Koreish: no sooner had the
nations retired from the ditch, than Mahomet, without laying aside his
armor, marched on the same day to extirpate the hostile race of the
children of Koraidha. After a resistance of twenty-five days, they
surrendered at discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old
allies of Medina; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates
the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose judgment they
appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death; seven hundred Jews
were dragged in chains to the market-place of the city; they descended
alive into the grave prepared for their execution and burial; and the
apostle beheld with an inflexible eye the slaughter of his helpless
enemies. Their sheep and camels were inherited by the Mussulmans: three
hundred cuirasses, five hundred piles, a thousand lances, composed the
most useful portion of the spoil. Six days' journey to the north-east
of Medina, the ancient and wealthy town of Chaibar was the seat of the
Jewish power in Arabia: the territory, a fertile spot in the desert,
was covered with plantations and cattle, and protected by eight castles,
some of which were esteemed of impregnable strength. The forces of
Mahomet consisted of two hundred horse and fourteen hundred foot: in
the succession of eight regular and painful sieges they were exposed to
danger, and fatigue, and hunger; and the most undaunted chiefs despaired
of the event. The apostle revived their faith and courage by the example
of Ali, on whom he bestowed the surname of the Lion of God: perhaps we
may believe that a Hebrew champion of gigantic stature was cloven to the
chest by his irresistible cimeter; but we cannot praise the modesty of
romance, which represents him as tearing from its hinges the gate of
a fortress and wielding the ponderous buckler in his left hand. [136]
After the reduction of the castles, the town of Chaibar submitted to the
yoke. The chief of the tribe was tortured, in the presence of Mahomet,
to force a confession of his hidden treasure: the industry of the
shepherds and husbandmen was rewarded with a precarious toleration: they
were permitted, so long as it should please the conqueror, to improve
their patrimony, in equal shares, for his emolument and their own. Under
the reign of Omar, the Jews of Chaibar were transported to Syria; and
the caliph alleged the injunction of his dying master; that one and the
true religion should be professed in his native land of Arabia. [137]

[Footnote 135: The wars of Mahomet against the Jewish tribes of Kainoka,
the Nadhirites, Koraidha, and Chaibar, are related by Abulfeda (p. 61,
71, 77, 87, &c.) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p. 61-65, 107-112, 139-148,
268-294.)]

[Footnote 136: Abu Rafe, the servant of Mahomet, is said to affirm that
he himself, and seven other men, afterwards tried, without success, to
move the same gate from the ground, (Abulfeda, p. 90.) Abu Rafe was an
eye-witness, but who will be witness for Abu Rafe?]

[Footnote 137: The banishment of the Jews is attested by Elmacin (Hist.
Saracen, p. 9) and the great Al Zabari, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 285.)
Yet Niebuhr (Description de l'Arabie, p. 324) believes that the Jewish
religion, and Karaite sect, are still professed by the tribe of Chaibar;
and that, in the plunder of the caravans, the disciples of Moses are the
confederates of those of Mahomet.]

Five times each day the eyes of Mahomet were turned towards Mecca, [138]
and he was urged by the most sacred and powerful motives to revisit, as
a conqueror, the city and the temple from whence he had been driven as
an exile. The Caaba was present to his waking and sleeping fancy: an
idle dream was translated into vision and prophecy; he unfurled the holy
banner; and a rash promise of success too hastily dropped from the lips
of the apostle. His march from Medina to Mecca displayed the peaceful
and solemn pomp of a pilgrimage: seventy camels, chosen and bedecked for
sacrifice, preceded the van; the sacred territory was respected; and
the captives were dismissed without ransom to proclaim his clemency and
devotion. But no sooner did Mahomet descend into the plain, within
a day's journey of the city, than he exclaimed, "They have clothed
themselves with the skins of tigers:" the numbers and resolution of the
Koreish opposed his progress; and the roving Arabs of the desert might
desert or betray a leader whom they had followed for the hopes of spoil.
The intrepid fanatic sunk into a cool and cautious politician: he waived
in the treaty his title of apostle of God; concluded with the Koreish
and their allies a truce of ten years; engaged to restore the fugitives
of Mecca who should embrace his religion; and stipulated only, for the
ensuing year, the humble privilege of entering the city as a friend,
and of remaining three days to accomplish the rites of the pilgrimage.
A cloud of shame and sorrow hung on the retreat of the Mussulmans, and
their disappointment might justly accuse the failure of a prophet who
had so often appealed to the evidence of success. The faith and hope of
the pilgrims were rekindled by the prospect of Mecca: their swords
were sheathed; [1381] seven times in the footsteps of the apostle
they encompassed the Caaba: the Koreish had retired to the hills, and
Mahomet, after the customary sacrifice, evacuated the city on the fourth
day. The people was edified by his devotion; the hostile chiefs were
awed, or divided, or seduced; and both Kaled and Amrou, the future
conquerors of Syria and Egypt, most seasonably deserted the sinking
cause of idolatry. The power of Mahomet was increased by the submission
of the Arabian tribes; ten thousand soldiers were assembled for the
conquest of Mecca; and the idolaters, the weaker party, were easily
convicted of violating the truce. Enthusiasm and discipline impelled
the march, and preserved the secret till the blaze of ten thousand fires
proclaimed to the astonished Koreish the design, the approach, and the
irresistible force of the enemy. The haughty Abu Sophian presented the
keys of the city, admired the variety of arms and ensigns that passed
before him in review; observed that the son of Abdallah had acquired a
mighty kingdom, and confessed, under the cimeter of Omar, that he was
the apostle of the true God. The return of Marius and Scylla was stained
with the blood of the Romans: the revenge of Mahomet was stimulated by
religious zeal, and his injured followers were eager to execute or to
prevent the order of a massacre. Instead of indulging their passions and
his own, [139] the victorious exile forgave the guilt, and united the
factions, of Mecca. His troops, in three divisions, marched into the
city: eight-and-twenty of the inhabitants were slain by the sword of
Caled; eleven men and six women were proscribed by the sentence of
Mahomet; but he blamed the cruelty of his lieutenant; and several of the
most obnoxious victims were indebted for their lives to his clemency or
contempt. The chiefs of the Koreish were prostrate at his feet. "What
mercy can you expect from the man whom you have wronged?" "We confide
in the generosity of our kinsman." "And you shall not confide in vain:
begone! you are safe, you are free" The people of Mecca deserved their
pardon by the profession of Islam; and after an exile of seven years,
the fugitive missionary was enthroned as the prince and prophet of his
native country. [140] But the three hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba
were ignominiously broken: the house of God was purified and adorned: as
an example to future times, the apostle again fulfilled the duties of a
pilgrim; and a perpetual law was enacted that no unbeliever should dare
to set his foot on the territory of the holy city. [141]

[Footnote 138: The successive steps of the reduction of Mecca are
related by Abulfeda (p. 84-87, 97-100, 102-111) and Gagnier, (tom.
ii. p. 202-245, 309-322, tom. iii. p. 1-58,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen.
p. 8, 9, 10,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 103.)]

[Footnote 1381: This peaceful entrance into Mecca took place, according
to the treaty the following year. Weil, p. 202--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 139: After the conquest of Mecca, the Mahomet of Voltaire
imagines and perpetuates the most horrid crimes. The poet confesses,
that he is not supported by the truth of history, and can only allege,
que celui qui fait la guerre a sa patrie au nom de Dieu, est capable
de tout, (Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 282.) The maxim is neither
charitable nor philosophic; and some reverence is surely due to the
fame of heroes and the religion of nations. I am informed that a Turkish
ambassador at Paris was much scandalized at the representation of this
tragedy.]

[Footnote 140: The Mahometan doctors still dispute, whether Mecca was
reduced by force or consent, (Abulfeda, p. 107, et Gagnier ad locum;)
and this verbal controversy is of as much moment as our own about
William the Conqueror.]

[Footnote 141: In excluding the Christians from the peninsula of
Arabia, the province of Hejaz, or the navigation of the Red Sea, Chardin
(Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 166) and Reland (Dissertat. Miscell.
tom. iii. p. 61) are more rigid than the Mussulmans themselves. The
Christians are received without scruple into the ports of Mocha, and
even of Gedda; and it is only the city and precincts of Mecca that are
inaccessible to the profane, (Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 308,
309, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 205, 248, &c.)]

The conquest of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of the Arabian
tribes; [142] who, according to the vicissitudes of fortune, had obeyed,
or disregarded, the eloquence or the arms of the prophet. Indifference
for rites and opinions still marks the character of the Bedoweens; and
they might accept, as loosely as they hold, the doctrine of the Koran.
Yet an obstinate remnant still adhered to the religion and liberty of
their ancestors, and the war of Honain derived a proper appellation from
the idols, whom Mahomet had vowed to destroy, and whom the confederates
of Tayef had sworn to defend. [143] Four thousand Pagans advanced with
secrecy and speed to surprise the conqueror: they pitied and despised
the supine negligence of the Koreish, but they depended on the wishes,
and perhaps the aid, of a people who had so lately renounced their gods,
and bowed beneath the yoke of their enemy. The banners of Medina and
Mecca were displayed by the prophet; a crowd of Bedoweens increased
the strength or numbers of the army, and twelve thousand Mussulmans
entertained a rash and sinful presumption of their invincible strength.
They descended without precaution into the valley of Honain: the heights
had been occupied by the archers and slingers of the confederates; their
numbers were oppressed, their discipline was confounded, their courage
was appalled, and the Koreish smiled at their impending destruction. The
prophet, on his white mule, was encompassed by the enemies: he attempted
to rush against their spears in search of a glorious death: ten of his
faithful companions interposed their weapons and their breasts; three of
these fell dead at his feet: "O my brethren," he repeatedly cried, with
sorrow and indignation, "I am the son of Abdallah, I am the apostle of
truth! O man, stand fast in the faith! O God, send down thy succor!" His
uncle Abbas, who, like the heroes of Homer, excelled in the loudness
of his voice, made the valley resound with the recital of the gifts and
promises of God: the flying Moslems returned from all sides to the holy
standard; and Mahomet observed with pleasure that the furnace was again
rekindled: his conduct and example restored the battle, and he animated
his victorious troops to inflict a merciless revenge on the authors of
their shame. From the field of Honain, he marched without delay to the
siege of Tayef, sixty miles to the south-east of Mecca, a fortress of
strength, whose fertile lands produce the fruits of Syria in the midst
of the Arabian desert. A friendly tribe, instructed (I know not how)
in the art of sieges, supplied him with a train of battering-rams and
military engines, with a body of five hundred artificers. But it was in
vain that he offered freedom to the slaves of Tayef; that he violated
his own laws by the extirpation of the fruit-trees; that the ground was
opened by the miners; that the breach was assaulted by the troops. After
a siege of twenty-days, the prophet sounded a retreat; but he retreated
with a song of devout triumph, and affected to pray for the repentance
and safety of the unbelieving city. The spoils of this fortunate
expedition amounted to six thousand captives, twenty-four thousand
camels, forty thousand sheep, and four thousand ounces of silver: a
tribe who had fought at Hoinan redeemed their prisoners by the sacrifice
of their idols; but Mahomet compensated the loss, by resigning to the
soldiers his fifth of the plunder, and wished, for their sake, that he
possessed as many head of cattle as there were trees in the province
of Tehama. Instead of chastising the disaffection of the Koreish, he
endeavored to cut out their tongues, (his own expression,) and to secure
their attachment by a superior measure of liberality: Abu Sophian alone
was presented with three hundred camels and twenty ounces of silver; and
Mecca was sincerely converted to the profitable religion of the Koran.

[Footnote 142: Abulfeda, p. 112-115. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 67-88.
D'Herbelot, Mohammed.]

[Footnote 143: The siege of Tayef, division of the spoil, &c., are
related by Abulfeda (p. 117-123) and Gagnier, (tom. iii. p. 88-111.)
It is Al Jannabi who mentions the engines and engineers of the tribe of
Daws. The fertile spot of Tayef was supposed to be a piece of the land
of Syria detached and dropped in the general deluge]

The fugitives and auxiliaries complained, that they who had borne the
burden were neglected in the season of victory "Alas!" replied their
artful leader, "suffer me to conciliate these recent enemies, these
doubtful proselytes, by the gift of some perishable goods. To your guard
I intrust my life and fortunes. You are the companions of my exile, of
my kingdom, of my paradise." He was followed by the deputies of Tayef,
who dreaded the repetition of a siege. "Grant us, O apostle of God! a
truce of three years, with the toleration of our ancient worship."
"Not a month, not an hour." "Excuse us at least from the obligation of
prayer." "Without prayer religion is of no avail." They submitted
in silence: their temples were demolished, and the same sentence of
destruction was executed on all the idols of Arabia. His lieutenants,
on the shores of the Red Sea, the Ocean, and the Gulf of Persia, were
saluted by the acclamations of a faithful people; and the ambassadors,
who knelt before the throne of Medina, were as numerous (says the
Arabian proverb) as the dates that fall from the maturity of a
palm-tree. The nation submitted to the God and the sceptre of Mahomet:
the opprobrious name of tribute was abolished: the spontaneous or
reluctant oblations of arms and tithes were applied to the service of
religion; and one hundred and fourteen thousand Moslems accompanied the
last pilgrimage of the apostle. [144]

[Footnote 144: The last conquests and pilgrimage of Mahomet are
contained in Abulfeda, (p. 121, 133,) Gagnier, (tom. iii. p. 119-219,)
Elmacin, (p. 10, 11,) Abulpharagius, (p. 103.) The ixth of the Hegira
was styled the Year of Embassies, (Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfed. p. 121.)]

When Heraclius returned in triumph from the Persian war, he entertained,
at Emesa, one of the ambassadors of Mahomet, who invited the princes and
nations of the earth to the profession of Islam. On this foundation the
zeal of the Arabians has supposed the secret conversion of the Christian
emperor: the vanity of the Greeks has feigned a personal visit of the
prince of Medina, who accepted from the royal bounty a rich domain, and
a secure retreat, in the province of Syria. [145] But the friendship
of Heraclius and Mahomet was of short continuance: the new religion had
inflamed rather than assuaged the rapacious spirit of the Saracens, and
the murder of an envoy afforded a decent pretence for invading, with
three thousand soldiers, the territory of Palestine, that extends to the
eastward of the Jordan. The holy banner was intrusted to Zeid; and such
was the discipline or enthusiasm of the rising sect, that the noblest
chiefs served without reluctance under the slave of the prophet. On the
event of his decease, Jaafar and Abdallah were successively substituted
to the command; and if the three should perish in the war, the troops
were authorized to elect their general. The three leaders were slain
in the battle of Muta, [146] the first military action, which tried the
valor of the Moslems against a foreign enemy. Zeid fell, like a soldier,
in the foremost ranks: the death of Jaafar was heroic and memorable: he
lost his right hand: he shifted the standard to his left: the left
was severed from his body: he embraced the standard with his bleeding
stumps, till he was transfixed to the ground with fifty honorable
wounds. [1461] "Advance," cried Abdallah, who stepped into the vacant
place, "advance with confidence: either victory or paradise is our own."
The lance of a Roman decided the alternative; but the falling standard
was rescued by Caled, the proselyte of Mecca: nine swords were broken in
his hand; and his valor withstood and repulsed the superior numbers of
the Christians. In the nocturnal council of the camp he was chosen to
command: his skilful evolutions of the ensuing day secured either the
victory or the retreat of the Saracens; and Caled is renowned among his
brethren and his enemies by the glorious appellation of the Sword of
God. In the pulpit, Mahomet described, with prophetic rapture, the
crowns of the blessed martyrs; but in private he betrayed the feelings
of human nature: he was surprised as he wept over the daughter of Zeid:
"What do I see?" said the astonished votary. "You see," replied the
apostle, "a friend who is deploring the loss of his most faithful
friend." After the conquest of Mecca, the sovereign of Arabia affected
to prevent the hostile preparations of Heraclius; and solemnly
proclaimed war against the Romans, without attempting to disguise
the hardships and dangers of the enterprise. [147] The Moslems were
discouraged: they alleged the want of money, or horses, or provisions;
the season of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer: "Hell is
much hotter," said the indignant prophet. He disdained to compel
their service: but on his return he admonished the most guilty, by an
excommunication of fifty days. Their desertion enhanced the merit of
Abubeker, Othman, and the faithful companions who devoted their lives
and fortunes; and Mahomet displayed his banner at the head of ten
thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Painful indeed was the distress
of the march: lassitude and thirst were aggravated by the scorching and
pestilential winds of the desert: ten men rode by turns on one camel;
and they were reduced to the shameful necessity of drinking the water
from the belly of that useful animal. In the mid-way, ten days' journey
from Medina and Damascus, they reposed near the grove and fountain of
Tabuc. Beyond that place Mahomet declined the prosecution of the war:
he declared himself satisfied with the peaceful intentions, he was more
probably daunted by the martial array, of the emperor of the East. But
the active and intrepid Caled spread around the terror of his name; and
the prophet received the submission of the tribes and cities, from
the Euphrates to Ailah, at the head of the Red Sea. To his Christian
subjects, Mahomet readily granted the security of their persons, the
freedom of their trade, the property of their goods, and the toleration
of their worship. [148] The weakness of their Arabian brethren had
restrained them from opposing his ambition; the disciples of Jesus
were endeared to the enemy of the Jews; and it was the interest of a
conqueror to propose a fair capitulation to the most powerful religion
of the earth.

[Footnote 145: Compare the bigoted Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii.
p. 232-255) with the no less bigoted Greeks, Theophanes, (p. 276-227,)
Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 86,) and Cedrenus, (p. 421.)]

[Footnote 146: For the battle of Muta, and its consequences, see
Abulfeda (p 100-102) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p. 327-343.).]

[Footnote 1461: To console the afflicted relatives of his kinsman
Jauffer, he (Mahomet) represented that, in Paradise, in exchange for
the arms which he had lost, he had been furnished with a pair of wings,
resplendent with the blushing glories of the ruby, and with which he
was become the inseparable companion of the archangal Gabriel, in
his volitations through the regions of eternal bliss. Hence, in the
catalogue of the martyrs, he has been denominated Jauffer teyaur, the
winged Jauffer. Price, Chronological Retrospect of Mohammedan History,
vol. i. p. 5.-M.]

[Footnote 147: The expedition of Tabuc is recorded by our ordinary
historians Abulfeda (Vit. Moham. p. 123-127) and Gagnier, (Vie de
Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 147-163: ) but we have the advantage of appealing
to the original evidence of the Koran, (c. 9, p. 154, 165,) with Sale's
learned and rational notes.]

[Footnote 148: The Diploma securitatis Ailensibus is attested by Ahmed
Ben Joseph, and the author Libri Splendorum, (Gagnier, Not. ad Abulfe
dam, p. 125;) but Abulfeda himself, as well as Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen.
p. 11,) though he owns Mahomet's regard for the Christians, (p 13,) only
mentions peace and tribute. In the year 1630, Sionita published at Paris
the text and version of Mahomet's patent in favor of the Christians;
which was admitted and reprobated by the opposite taste of Salmasius
and Grotius, (Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Aa.) Hottinger doubts of its
authenticity, (Hist. Orient. p. 237;) Renaudot urges the consent of the
Mohametans, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 169;) but Mosheim (Hist. Eccles.
p. 244) shows the futility of their opinion and inclines to believe
it spurious. Yet Abulpharagius quotes the impostor's treaty with the
Nestorian patriarch, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 418;) but
Abulpharagius was primate of the Jacobites.]

Till the age of sixty-three years, the strength of Mahomet was equal to
the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his mission. His epileptic fits,
an absurd calumny of the Greeks, would be an object of pity rather than
abhorrence; [149] but he seriously believed that he was poisoned at
Chaibar by the revenge of a Jewish female. [150] During four years,
the health of the prophet declined; his infirmities increased; but
his mortal disease was a fever of fourteen days, which deprived him
by intervals of the use of reason. As soon as he was conscious of
his danger, he edified his brethren by the humility of his virtue or
penitence. "If there be any man," said the apostle from the pulpit,
"whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of
retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of a Mussulman? let him
proclaim my thoughts in the face of the congregation. Has any one been
despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall compensate the
principal and the interest of the debt." "Yes," replied a voice from
the crowd, "I am entitled to three drams of silver." Mahomet heard the
complaint, satisfied the demand, and thanked his creditor for accusing
him in this world rather than at the day of judgment. He beheld with
temperate firmness the approach of death; enfranchised his slaves
(seventeen men, as they are named, and eleven women;) minutely directed
the order of his funeral, and moderated the lamentations of his weeping
friends, on whom he bestowed the benediction of peace. Till the third
day before his death, he regularly performed the function of public
prayer: the choice of Abubeker to supply his place, appeared to mark
that ancient and faithful friend as his successor in the sacerdotal
and regal office; but he prudently declined the risk and envy of a
more explicit nomination. At a moment when his faculties were visibly
impaired, he called for pen and ink to write, or, more properly,
to dictate, a divine book, the sum and accomplishment of all his
revelations: a dispute arose in the chamber, whether he should be
allowed to supersede the authority of the Koran; and the prophet was
forced to reprove the indecent vehemence of his disciples. If the
slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of his wives and
companions, he maintained, in the bosom of his family, and to the last
moments of his life, the dignity [1501] of an apostle, and the faith of
an enthusiast; described the visits of Gabriel, who bade an everlasting
farewell to the earth, and expressed his lively confidence, not only
of the mercy, but of the favor, of the Supreme Being. In a familiar
discourse he had mentioned his special prerogative, that the angel of
death was not allowed to take his soul till he had respectfully asked
the permission of the prophet. The request was granted; and Mahomet
immediately fell into the agony of his dissolution: his head was
reclined on the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of all his wives; he
fainted with the violence of pain; recovering his spirits, he raised his
eyes towards the roof of the house, and, with a steady look, though a
faltering voice, uttered the last broken, though articulate, words:
"O God!..... pardon my sins....... Yes, ...... I come,...... among my
fellow-citizens on high;" and thus peaceably expired on a carpet spread
upon the floor. An expedition for the conquest of Syria was stopped by
this mournful event; the army halted at the gates of Medina; the chiefs
were assembled round their dying master. The city, more especially
the house, of the prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow of silent
despair: fanaticism alone could suggest a ray of hope and consolation.
"How can he be dead, our witness, our intercessor, our mediator, with
God? By God he is not dead: like Moses and Jesus, he is wrapped in a
holy trance, and speedily will he return to his faithful people." The
evidence of sense was disregarded; and Omar, unsheathing his cimeter,
threatened to strike off the heads of the infidels, who should dare
to affirm that the prophet was no more. The tumult was appeased by the
weight and moderation of Abubeker. "Is it Mahomet," said he to Omar and
the multitude, "or the God of Mahomet, whom you worship? The God of
Mahomet liveth forever; but the apostle was a mortal like ourselves, and
according to his own prediction, he has experienced the common fate of
mortality." He was piously interred by the hands of his nearest kinsman,
on the same spot on which he expired: [151] Medina has been sanctified
by the death and burial of Mahomet; and the innumerable pilgrims of
Mecca often turn aside from the way, to bow, in voluntary devotion,
[152] before the simple tomb of the prophet. [153]

[Footnote 149: The epilepsy, or falling-sickness, of Mahomet is asserted
by Theophanes, Zonaras, and the rest of the Greeks; and is greedily
swallowed by the gross bigotry of Hottinger, (Hist. Orient. p. 10, 11,)
Prideaux, (Life of Mahomet, p. 12,) and Maracci, (tom. ii. Alcoran, p.
762, 763.) The titles (the wrapped-up, the covered) of two chapters of
the Koran, (73, 74) can hardly be strained to such an interpretation:
the silence, the ignorance of the Mahometan commentators, is more
conclusive than the most peremptory denial; and the charitable side is
espoused by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, tom. i. p. 301,) Gagnier,
(ad Abulfedam, p. 9. Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 118,) and Sale, (Koran,
p. 469-474.) * Note: Dr Weil believes in the epilepsy, and adduces
strong evidence for it; and surely it may be believed, in perfect
charity; and that the prophet's visions were connected, as they appear
to have been, with these fits. I have little doubt that he saw and
believed these visions, and visions they were. Weil, p. 43.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 150: This poison (more ignominious since it was offered as
a test of his prophetic knowledge) is frankly confessed by his zealous
votaries, Abulfeda (p. 92) and Al Jannabi, (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p.
286-288.)]

[Footnote 1501: Major Price, who writes with the authority of one widely
conversant with the original sources of Eastern knowledge, and in a very
candid tone, takes a very different view of the prophet's death. "In
tracing the circumstances of Mahommed's illness, we look in vain for
any proofs of that meek and heroic firmness which might be expected to
dignify and embellish the last moments of the apostle of God. On some
occasions he betrayed such want of fortitude, such marks of childish
impatience, as are in general to be found in men only of the most
ordinary stamp; and such as extorted from his wife Ayesha, in
particular, the sarcastic remark, that in herself, or any of her
family, a similar demeanor would long since have incurred his severe
displeasure. * * * He said that the acuteness and violence of his
sufferings were necessarily in the proportion of those honors with which
it had ever pleased the hand of Omnipotence to distinguish its peculiar
favorites." Price, vol. i. p. 13.--M]

[Footnote 151: The Greeks and Latins have invented and propagated the
vulgar and ridiculous story, that Mahomet's iron tomb is suspended in
the air at Mecca, (Laonicus Chalcondyles, de Rebus Turcicis, l. iii.
p. 66,) by the action of equal and potent loadstones, (Dictionnaire de
Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Ee. Ff.) Without any philosophical inquiries, it
may suffice, that, 1. The prophet was not buried at Mecca; and, 2. That
his tomb at Medina, which has been visited by millions, is placed on the
ground, (Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. ii. c. 19, p. 209-211. Gagnier,
Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 263-268.) * Note: According to the
testimony of all the Eastern authors, Mahomet died on Monday the 12th
Reby 1st, in the year 11 of the Hegira, which answers in reality to the
8th June, 632, of J. C. We find in Ockley (Hist. of Saracens) that it
was on Monday the 6th June, 632. This is a mistake; for the 6th June of
that year was a Saturday, not a Monday; the 8th June, therefore, was a
Monday. It is easy to discover that the lunar year, in this calculation
has been confounded with the solar. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 186.--M.]

[Footnote 152: Al Jannabi enumerates (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p.
372-391) the multifarious duties of a pilgrim who visits the tombs of
the prophet and his companions; and the learned casuist decides, that
this act of devotion is nearest in obligation and merit to a divine
precept. The doctors are divided which, of Mecca or Medina, be the most
excellent, (p. 391-394.)]

[Footnote 153: The last sickness, death, and burial of Mahomet, are
described by Abulfeda and Gagnier, (Vit. Moham. p. 133-142. --Vie
de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 220-271.) The most private and interesting
circumstances were originally received from Ayesha, Ali, the sons of
Abbas, &c.; and as they dwelt at Medina, and survived the prophet many
years, they might repeat the pious tale to a second or third generation
of pilgrims.]

At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be expected,
that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide
whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to
that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately conversant with the son of
Abdallah, the task would still be difficult, and the success uncertain:
at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade
through a cloud of religious incense; and could I truly delineate the
portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply
to the solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the
conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to have
been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition: so soon as
marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he avoided the
paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of forty he lived with
innocence, and would have died without a name. The unity of God is an
idea most congenial to nature and reason; and a slight conversation
with the Jews and Christians would teach him to despise and detest the
idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the
doctrine of salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin
and error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object,
would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the warm
suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt as the
inspirations of Heaven; the labor of thought would expire in rapture
and vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible monitor, would be
described with the form and attributes of an angel of God. [154] From
enthusiasm to imposture, the step is perilous and slippery: the daemon
of Socrates [155] affords a memorable instance, how a wise man may
deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience
may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and
voluntary fraud. Charity may believe that the original motives of
Mahomet were those of pure and genuine benevolence; but a human
missionary is incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who
reject his claims despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he
might forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the enemies
of God; the stern passions of pride and revenge were kindled in the
bosom of Mahomet, and he sighed, like the prophet of Nineveh, for the
destruction of the rebels whom he had condemned. The injustice of Mecca
and the choice of Medina, transformed the citizen into a prince, the
humble preacher into the leader of armies; but his sword was consecrated
by the example of the saints; and the same God who afflicts a sinful
world with pestilence and earthquakes, might inspire for their
conversion or chastisement the valor of his servants. In the exercise
of political government, he was compelled to abate of the stern rigor of
fanaticism, to comply in some measure with the prejudices and passions
of his followers, and to employ even the vices of mankind as the
instruments of their salvation. The use of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty
and injustice, were often subservient to the propagation of the faith;
and Mahomet commanded or approved the assassination of the Jews and
idolaters who had escaped from the field of battle. By the repetition
of such acts, the character of Mahomet must have been gradually stained;
and the influence of such pernicious habits would be poorly compensated
by the practice of the personal and social virtues which are necessary
to maintain the reputation of a prophet among his sectaries and friends.
Of his last years, ambition was the ruling passion; and a politician
will suspect, that he secretly smiled (the victorious impostor!) at the
enthusiasm of his youth, and the credulity of his proselytes. [156] A
philosopher will observe, that their credulity and his success would
tend more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine mission,
that his interest and religion were inseparably connected, and that
his conscience would be soothed by the persuasion, that he alone was
absolved by the Deity from the obligation of positive and moral laws. If
he retained any vestige of his native innocence, the sins of Mahomet may
be allowed as an evidence of his sincerity. In the support of truth, the
arts of fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal; and he would have
started at the foulness of the means, had he not been satisfied of the
importance and justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or a priest, I
can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity; and the decree
of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the mothers should never be
separated from their children, may suspend, or moderate, the censure of
the historian. [157]

[Footnote 154: The Christians, rashly enough, have assigned to Mahomet a
tame pigeon, that seemed to descend from heaven and whisper in his ear.
As this pretended miracle is urged by Grotius, (de Veritate Religionis
Christianae,) his Arabic translator, the learned Pocock, inquired of him
the names of his authors; and Grotius confessed, that it is unknown to
the Mahometans themselves. Lest it should provoke their indignation and
laughter, the pious lie is suppressed in the Arabic version; but it has
maintained an edifying place in the numerous editions of the Latin
text, (Pocock, Specimen, Hist. Arabum, p. 186, 187. Reland, de Religion.
Moham. l. ii. c. 39, p. 259-262.)]

[Footnote 155: (Plato, in Apolog. Socrat. c. 19, p. 121, 122, edit.
Fischer.) The familiar examples, which Socrates urges in his Dialogue
with Theages, (Platon. Opera, tom. i. p. 128, 129, edit. Hen. Stephan.)
are beyond the reach of human foresight; and the divine inspiration of
the philosopher is clearly taught in the Memorabilia of Xenophon. The
ideas of the most rational Platonists are expressed by Cicero, (de
Divinat. i. 54,) and in the xivth and xvth Dissertations of Maximus of
Tyre, (p. 153-172, edit. Davis.)]

[Footnote 156: In some passage of his voluminous writings, Voltaire
compares the prophet, in his old age, to a fakir, "qui detache la chaine
de son cou pour en donner sur les oreilles a ses confreres."]

[Footnote 157: Gagnier relates, with the same impartial pen, this humane
law of the prophet, and the murders of Caab, and Sophian, which he
prompted and approved, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 69, 97, 208.)]




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

The good sense of Mahomet [158] despised the pomp of royalty: the
apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family: he kindled
the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended with his own
hands his shoes and his woollen garment. Disdaining the penance and
merit of a hermit, he observed, without effort or vanity, the abstemious
diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn occasions he feasted his
companions with rustic and hospitable plenty; but in his domestic life,
many weeks would elapse without a tire being kindled on the hearth of
the prophet. The interdiction of wine was confirmed by his example;
his hunger was appeased with a sparing allowance of barley-bread:
he delighted in the taste of milk and honey; but his ordinary food
consisted of dates and water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual
enjoyments which his nature required, and his religion did not forbid;
and Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his devotion was increased by
these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate inflames the blood
of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion has been noticed by the
writers of antiquity. [159] Their incontinence was regulated by the
civil and religious laws of the Koran: their incestuous alliances were
blamed; the boundless license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate
wives or concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry were
equitably determined; the freedom of divorce was discouraged, adultery
was condemned as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex, was
punished with a hundred stripes. [160] Such were the calm and rational
precepts of the legislator: but in his private conduct, Mahomet indulged
the appetites of a man, and abused the claims of a prophet. A special
revelation dispensed him from the laws which he had imposed on his
nation: the female sex, without reserve, was abandoned to his desires;
and this singular prerogative excited the envy, rather than the scandal,
the veneration, rather than the envy, of the devout Mussulmans. If we
remember the seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the
wise Solomon, we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian, who espoused
no more than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven are enumerated who
occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house of the
apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his conjugal society.
What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting only Ayesha,
the daughter of Abubeker. She was doubtless a virgin, since Mahomet
consummated his nuptials (such is the premature ripeness of the climate)
when she was only nine years of age. The youth, the beauty, the spirit
of Ayesha, gave her a superior ascendant: she was beloved and trusted
by the prophet; and, after his death, the daughter of Abubeker was long
revered as the mother of the faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous
and indiscreet: in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left behind;
and in the morning Ayesha returned to the camp with a man. The temper of
Mahomet was inclined to jealousy; but a divine revelation assured him
of her innocence: he chastised her accusers, and published a law of
domestic peace, that no woman should be condemned unless four male
witnesses had seen her in the act of adultery. [161] In his adventures
with Zeineb, the wife of Zeid, and with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the
amorous prophet forgot the interest of his reputation. At the house of
Zeid, his freedman and adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the
beauty of Zeineb, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion and
desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the hint, and
yielded without hesitation to the love of his benefactor. But as the
filial relation had excited some doubt and scandal, the angel Gabriel
descended from heaven to ratify the deed, to annul the adoption, and
gently to reprove the apostle for distrusting the indulgence of his God.
One of his wives, Hafna, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on her own
bed, in the embraces of his Egyptian captive: she promised secrecy and
forgiveness, he swore that he would renounce the possession of Mary.
Both parties forgot their engagements; and Gabriel again descended with
a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his oath, and to exhort him
freely to enjoy his captives and concubines, without listening to the
clamors of his wives. In a solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored,
alone with Mary, to fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and
revenge were satiated, he summoned to his presence his eleven wives,
reproached their disobedience and indiscretion, and threatened them with
a sentence of divorce, both in this world and in the next; a dreadful
sentence, since those who had ascended the bed of the prophet were
forever excluded from the hope of a second marriage. Perhaps the
incontinence of Mahomet may be palliated by the tradition of his natural
or preternatural gifts; [162] he united the manly virtue of thirty of
the children of Adam: and the apostle might rival the thirteenth labor
[163] of the Grecian Hercules. [164] A more serious and decent excuse
may be drawn from his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four years
of their marriage, her youthful husband abstained from the right of
polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never
insulted by the society of a rival. After her death, he placed her in
the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister of Moses, the mother
of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his daughters. "Was she not
old?" said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty; "has not God
given you a better in her place?" "No, by God," said Mahomet, with an
effusion of honest gratitude, "there never can be a better! She believed
in me when men despised me; she relieved my wants, when I was poor and
persecuted by the world." [165]

[Footnote 158: For the domestic life of Mahomet, consult Gagnier, and
the corresponding chapters of Abulfeda; for his diet, (tom. iii. p.
285-288;) his children, (p. 189, 289;) his wives, (p. 290-303;) his
marriage with Zeineb, (tom. ii. p. 152-160;) his amour with Mary,
(p. 303-309;) the false accusation of Ayesha, (p. 186-199.) The most
original evidence of the three last transactions is contained in
the xxivth, xxxiiid, and lxvith chapters of the Koran, with Sale's
Commentary. Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 80-90) and Maracci (Prodrom.
Alcoran, part iv. p. 49-59) have maliciously exaggerated the frailties
of Mahomet.]

[Footnote 159: Incredibile est quo ardore apud eos in Venerem uterque
solvitur sexus, (Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 4.)]

[Footnote 160: Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p. 133-137) has
recapitulated the laws of marriage, divorce, &c.; and the curious reader
of Selden's Uror Hebraica will recognize many Jewish ordinances.]

[Footnote 161: In a memorable case, the Caliph Omar decided that all
presumptive evidence was of no avail; and that all the four witnesses
must have actually seen stylum in pyxide, (Abulfedae Annales Moslemici,
p. 71, vers. Reiske.)]

[Footnote 162: Sibi robur ad generationem, quantum triginta viri habent,
inesse jacteret: ita ut unica hora posset undecim foeminis satisfacere,
ut ex Arabum libris refert Stus. Petrus Paschasius, c. 2., (Maracci,
Prodromus Alcoran, p. iv. p. 55. See likewise Observations de Belon,
l. iii. c. 10, fol. 179, recto.) Al Jannabi (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 287)
records his own testimony, that he surpassed all men in conjugal vigor;
and Abulfeda mentions the exclamation of Ali, who washed the body after
his death, "O propheta, certe penis tuus coelum versus erectus est," in
Vit. Mohammed, p. 140.]

[Footnote 163: I borrow the style of a father of the church, (Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 108.)]

[Footnote 164: The common and most glorious legend includes, in a single
night the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin daughters of
Thestius, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iv. p. 274. Pausanias, l. ix. p.
763. Statius Sylv. l. i. eleg. iii. v. 42.) But Athenaeus allows seven
nights, (Deipnosophist, l. xiii. p. 556,) and Apollodorus fifty, for
this arduous achievement of Hercules, who was then no more than eighteen
years of age, (Bibliot. l. ii. c. 4, p. 111, cum notis Heyne, part i. p.
332.)]

[Footnote 165: Abulfeda in Vit. Moham. p. 12, 13, 16, 17, cum Notis
Gagnier]

In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion and
empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous posterity and
a lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were fatally disappointed. The
virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of mature age and approved fertility,
were barren in his potent embraces. The four sons of Cadijah died in
their infancy. Mary, his Egyptian concubine, was endeared to him by the
birth of Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his
grave; but he sustained with firmness the raillery of his enemies, and
checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems, by the assurance that
an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by the death of the infant.
Cadijah had likewise given him four daughters, who were married to
the most faithful of his disciples: the three eldest died before their
father; but Fatima, who possessed his confidence and love, became the
wife of her cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious progeny.
The merit and misfortunes of Ali and his descendants will lead me to
anticipate, in this place, the series of the Saracen caliphs, a title
which describes the commanders of the faithful as the vicars and
successors of the apostle of God. [166]

[Footnote 166: This outline of the Arabian history is drawn from the
Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, (under the names of Aboubecre,
Omar Othman, Ali, &c.;) from the Annals of Abulfeda, Abulpharagius, and
Elmacin, (under the proper years of the Hegira,) and especially from
Ockley's History of the Saracens, (vol. i. p. 1-10, 115-122, 229, 249,
363-372, 378-391, and almost the whole of the second volume.) Yet we
should weigh with caution the traditions of the hostile sects; a stream
which becomes still more muddy as it flows farther from the source.
Sir John Chardin has too faithfully copied the fables and errors of the
modern Persians, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 235-250, &c.)]

The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him above
the rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the vacant throne
of Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb was, in his own right, the chief of the
family of Hashem, and the hereditary prince or guardian of the city and
temple of Mecca. The light of prophecy was extinct; but the husband
of Fatima might expect the inheritance and blessing of her father:
the Arabs had sometimes been patient of a female reign; and the two
grandsons of the prophet had often been fondled in his lap, and shown
in his pulpit as the hope of his age, and the chief of the youth of
paradise. The first of the true believers might aspire to march before
them in this world and in the next; and if some were of a graver and
more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were never outstripped by
any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications of a poet, a soldier,
and a saint: his wisdom still breathes in a collection of moral and
religious sayings; [167] and every antagonist, in the combats of the
tongue or of the sword, was subdued by his eloquence and valor. From the
first hour of his mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle
was never forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his
brother, his vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second Moses. The
son of Abu Taleb was afterwards reproached for neglecting to secure his
interest by a solemn declaration of his right, which would have silenced
all competition, and sealed his succession by the decrees of Heaven. But
the unsuspecting hero confided in himself: the jealousy of empire,
and perhaps the fear of opposition, might suspend the resolutions of
Mahomet; and the bed of sickness was besieged by the artful Ayesha, the
daughter of Abubeker, and the enemy of Ali. [1671]

[Footnote 167: Ockley (at the end of his second volume) has given
an English version of 169 sentences, which he ascribes, with some
hesitation, to Ali, the son of Abu Taleb. His preface is colored by
the enthusiasm of a translator; yet these sentences delineate a
characteristic, though dark, picture of human life.]

[Footnote 1671: Gibbon wrote chiefly from the Arabic or Sunnite account
of these transactions, the only sources accessible at the time when he
composed his History. Major Price, writing from Persian authorities,
affords us the advantage of comparing throughout what may be fairly
considered the Shiite Version. The glory of Ali is the constant burden
of their strain. He was destined, and, according to some accounts,
designated, for the caliphate by the prophet; but while the others were
fiercely pushing their own interests, Ali was watching the remains of
Mahomet with pious fidelity. His disinterested magnanimity, on each
separate occasion, declined the sceptre, and gave the noble example of
obedience to the appointed caliph. He is described, in retirement,
on the throne, and in the field of battle, as transcendently pious,
magnanimous, valiant, and humane. He lost his empire through his excess
of virtue and love for the faithful his life through his confidence in
God, and submission to the decrees of fate. Compare the curious account
of this apathy in Price, chapter ii. It is to be regretted, I must add,
that Major Price has contented himself with quoting the names of the
Persian works which he follows, without any account of their character,
age, and authority.--M.]

The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the people;
and his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on the choice
of his successor. The hereditary claim and lofty spirit of Ali were
offensive to an aristocracy of elders, desirous of bestowing and
resuming the sceptre by a free and frequent election: the Koreish could
never be reconciled to the proud preeminence of the line of Hashem; the
ancient discord of the tribes was rekindled, the fugitives of Mecca and
the auxiliaries of Medina asserted their respective merits; and the rash
proposal of choosing two independent caliphs would have crushed in their
infancy the religion and empire of the Saracens. The tumult was appeased
by the disinterested resolution of Omar, who, suddenly renouncing his
own pretensions, stretched forth his hand, and declared himself the
first subject of the mild and venerable Abubeker. [1672] The urgency
of the moment, and the acquiescence of the people, might excuse this
illegal and precipitate measure; but Omar himself confessed from the
pulpit, that if any Mulsulman should hereafter presume to anticipate
the suffrage of his brethren, both the elector and the elected would be
worthy of death. [168] After the simple inauguration of Abubeker, he
was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of Arabia: the Hashemites
alone declined the oath of fidelity; and their chief, in his own house,
maintained, above six months, a sullen and independent reserve; without
listening to the threats of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the
habitation of the daughter of the apostle. The death of Fatima, and
the decline of his party, subdued the indignant spirit of Ali: he
condescended to salute the commander of the faithful, accepted his
excuse of the necessity of preventing their common enemies, and wisely
rejected his courteous offer of abdicating the government of the
Arabians. After a reign of two years, the aged caliph was summoned by
the angel of death. In his testament, with the tacit approbation of his
companions, he bequeathed the sceptre to the firm and intrepid virtue of
Omar. "I have no occasion," said the modest candidate, "for the place."
"But the place has occasion for you," replied Abubeker; who expired with
a fervent prayer, that the God of Mahomet would ratify his choice, and
direct the Mussulmans in the way of concord and obedience. The prayer
was not ineffectual, since Ali himself, in a life of privacy and prayer,
professed to revere the superior worth and dignity of his rival; who
comforted him for the loss of empire, by the most flattering marks of
confidence and esteem. In the twelfth year of his reign, Omar received
a mortal wound from the hand of an assassin: he rejected with equal
impartiality the names of his son and of Ali, refused to load his
conscience with the sins of his successor, and devolved on six of the
most respectable companions the arduous task of electing a commander
of the faithful. On this occasion, Ali was again blamed by his friends
[169] for submitting his right to the judgment of men, for recognizing
their jurisdiction by accepting a place among the six electors. He might
have obtained their suffrage, had he deigned to promise a strict and
servile conformity, not only to the Koran and tradition, but likewise to
the determinations of two seniors. [170] With these limitations, Othman,
the secretary of Mahomet, accepted the government; nor was it till after
the third caliph, twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, that
Ali was invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal
office. The manners of the Arabians retained their primitive simplicity,
and the son of Abu Taleb despised the pomp and vanity of this world.
At the hour of prayer, he repaired to the mosch of Medina, clothed in a
thin cotton gown, a coarse turban on his head, his slippers in one hand,
and his bow in the other, instead of a walking-staff. The companions of
the prophet, and the chiefs of the tribes, saluted their new sovereign,
and gave him their right hands as a sign of fealty and allegiance.

[Footnote 1672: Abubeker, the father of the virgin Ayesha. St. Martin,
vol. XL, p. 88--M.]

[Footnote 168: Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 5, 6,) from
an Arabian Ms., represents Ayesha as adverse to the substitution of her
father in the place of the apostle. This fact, so improbable in itself,
is unnoticed by Abulfeda, Al Jannabi, and Al Bochari, the last of whom
quotes the tradition of Ayesha herself, (Vit. Mohammed, p. 136 Vie de
Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 236.)]

[Footnote 169: Particularly by his friend and cousin Abdallah, the
son of Abbas, who died A.D. 687, with the title of grand doctor of the
Moslems. In Abulfeda he recapitulates the important occasions in which
Ali had neglected his salutary advice, (p. 76, vers. Reiske;) and
concludes, (p. 85,) O princeps fidelium, absque controversia tu quidem
vere fortis es, at inops boni consilii, et rerum gerendarum parum
callens.]

[Footnote 170: I suspect that the two seniors (Abulpharagius, p. 115.
Ockley, tom. i. p. 371,) may signify not two actual counsellors, but his
two predecessors, Abubeker and Omar.]

The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are usually
confined to the times and countries in which they have been agitated.
But the religious discord of the friends and enemies of Ali has been
renewed in every age of the Hegira, and is still maintained in the
immortal hatred of the Persians and Turks. [171] The former, who are
branded with the appellation of Shiites or sectaries, have enriched
the Mahometan creed with a new article of faith; and if Mahomet be
the apostle, his companion Ali is the vicar, of God. In their private
converse, in their public worship, they bitterly execrate the three
usurpers who intercepted his indefeasible right to the dignity of Imam
and Caliph; and the name of Omar expresses in their tongue the perfect
accomplishment of wickedness and impiety. [172] The Sonnites, who
are supported by the general consent and orthodox tradition of the
Mussulmans, entertain a more impartial, or at least a more decent,
opinion. They respect the memory of Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the
holy and legitimate successors of the prophet. But they assign the last
and most humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the persuasion that
the order of succession was determined by the decrees of sanctity.
[173] An historian who balances the four caliphs with a hand unshaken by
superstition, will calmly pronounce that their manners were alike pure
and exemplary; that their zeal was fervent, and probably sincere; and
that, in the midst of riches and power, their lives were devoted to
the practice of moral and religious duties. But the public virtues
of Abubeker and Omar, the prudence of the first, the severity of the
second, maintained the peace and prosperity of their reigns. The feeble
temper and declining age of Othman were incapable of sustaining the
weight of conquest and empire. He chose, and he was deceived; he
trusted, and he was betrayed: the most deserving of the faithful
became useless or hostile to his government, and his lavish bounty was
productive only of ingratitude and discontent. The spirit of discord
went forth in the provinces: their deputies assembled at Medina; and
the Charegites, the desperate fanatics who disclaimed the yoke of
subordination and reason, were confounded among the free-born Arabs,
who demanded the redress of their wrongs and the punishment of their
oppressors. From Cufa, from Bassora, from Egypt, from the tribes of
the desert, they rose in arms, encamped about a league from Medina,
and despatched a haughty mandate to their sovereign, requiring him to
execute justice, or to descend from the throne. His repentance began to
disarm and disperse the insurgents; but their fury was rekindled by
the arts of his enemies; and the forgery of a perfidious secretary was
contrived to blast his reputation and precipitate his fall. The caliph
had lost the only guard of his predecessors, the esteem and confidence
of the Moslems: during a siege of six weeks his water and provisions
were intercepted, and the feeble gates of the palace were protected only
by the scruples of the more timorous rebels. Forsaken by those who had
abused his simplicity, the hopeless and venerable caliph expected the
approach of death: the brother of Ayesha marched at the head of the
assassins; and Othman, with the Koran in his lap, was pierced with
a multitude of wounds. [1731] A tumultuous anarchy of five days was
appeased by the inauguration of Ali: his refusal would have provoked a
general massacre. In this painful situation he supported the becoming
pride of the chief of the Hashemites; declared that he had rather serve
than reign; rebuked the presumption of the strangers; and required the
formal, if not the voluntary, assent of the chiefs of the nation. He
has never been accused of prompting the assassin of Omar; though Persia
indiscreetly celebrates the festival of that holy martyr. The quarrel
between Othman and his subjects was assuaged by the early mediation of
Ali; and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, was insulted and wounded in the
defence of the caliph. Yet it is doubtful whether the father of Hassan
was strenuous and sincere in his opposition to the rebels; and it is
certain that he enjoyed the benefit of their crime. The temptation was
indeed of such magnitude as might stagger and corrupt the most obdurate
virtue. The ambitious candidate no longer aspired to the barren sceptre
of Arabia; the Saracens had been victorious in the East and West; and
the wealthy kingdoms of Persia, Syria, and Egypt were the patrimony of
the commander of the faithful.

[Footnote 171: The schism of the Persians is explained by all our
travellers of the last century, especially in the iid and ivth volumes
of their master, Chardin. Niebuhr, though of inferior merit, has the
advantage of writing so late as the year 1764, (Voyages en Arabie, &c.,
tom. ii. p. 208-233,) since the ineffectual attempt of Nadir Shah to
change the religion of the nation, (see his Persian History translated
into French by Sir William Jones, tom. ii. p. 5, 6, 47, 48, 144-155.)]

[Footnote 172: Omar is the name of the devil; his murderer is a saint.
When the Persians shoot with the bow, they frequently cry, "May this
arrow go to the heart of Omar!" (Voyages de Chardin, tom. ii. p 239,
240, 259, &c.)]

[Footnote 173: This gradation of merit is distinctly marked in a creed
illustrated by Reland, (de Relig. Mohamm. l. i. p. 37;) and a Sonnite
argument inserted by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, tom. ii. p. 230.)
The practice of cursing the memory of Ali was abolished, after forty
years, by the Ommiades themselves, (D'Herbelot, p. 690;) and there are
few among the Turks who presume to revile him as an infidel, (Voyages de
Chardin, tom. iv. p. 46.)]

[Footnote 1731: Compare Price, p. 180.--M.]




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

A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the martial activity
of Ali; but in a mature age, after a long experience of mankind, he
still betrayed in his conduct the rashness and indiscretion of youth.
[1732] In the first days of his reign, he neglected to secure, either
by gifts or fetters, the doubtful allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two
of the most powerful of the Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to
Mecca, and from thence to Bassora; erected the standard of revolt;
and usurped the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly
solicited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism is
allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies; and the enemies,
perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance for his blood.
They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha, the widow of the
prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her life, an implacable
hatred against the husband and the posterity of Fatima. The most
reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that the mother of the faithful
should expose in a camp her person and character; [1733] but the
superstitious crowd was confident that her presence would sanctify the
justice, and assure the success, of their cause. At the head of twenty
thousand of his loyal Arabs, and nine thousand valiant auxiliaries of
Cufa, the caliph encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the
rebels under the walls of Bassora. [1734] Their leaders, Telha and
Zobeir, [1735] were slain in the first battle that stained with civil
blood the arms of the Moslems. [1736] After passing through the ranks to
animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers of the
field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held the bridle of
her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and the cage or litter,
in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and darts like the quills of a
porcupine. The venerable captive sustained with firmness the reproaches
of the conqueror, and was speedily dismissed to her proper station at
the tomb of Mahomet, with the respect and tenderness that was still due
to the widow of the apostle. [1737] After this victory, which was styled
the Day of the Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable adversary;
against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the title of
caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of Syria and the
interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage of Thapsacus, the
plain of Siffin [174] extends along the western bank of the Euphrates.
On this spacious and level theatre, the two competitors waged a
desultory war of one hundred and ten days. In the course of ninety
actions or skirmishes, the loss of Ali was estimated at twenty-five,
that of Moawiyah at forty-five, thousand soldiers; and the list of the
slain was dignified with the names of five-and-twenty veterans who
had fought at Beder under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary
contest the lawful caliph displayed a superior character of valor and
humanity. [1741] His troops were strictly enjoined to await the first
onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to respect
the bodies of the dead, and the chastity of the female captives. He
generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems by a single
combat; but his trembling rival declined the challenge as a sentence of
inevitable death. The ranks of the Syrians were broken by the charge of
a hero who was mounted on a piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible
force his ponderous and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel,
he shouted the Allah Acbar, "God is victorious!" and in the tumult of
a nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that
tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated his
flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp of Ali by
the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their conscience was awed
by the solemn appeal to the books of the Koran which Moawiyah exposed
on the foremost lances; and Ali was compelled to yield to a disgraceful
truce and an insidious compromise. He retreated with sorrow and
indignation to Cufa; his party was discouraged; the distant provinces
of Persia, of Yemen, and of Egypt, were subdued or seduced by his crafty
rival; and the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three
chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet. In the
temple of Mecca, three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed of the
disorders of the church and state: they soon agreed, that the deaths of
Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the viceroy of Egypt, would
restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the assassins chose his
victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his life, and secretly repaired
to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally desperate: but the
first mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied
his seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; the
lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from the
hand of the third. He expired in the sixty-third year of his age, and
mercifully recommended to his children, that they would despatch the
murderer by a single stroke. [1742] The sepulchre of Ali [175] was
concealed from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah; [176] but in the
fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a city, arose near the ruins
of Cufa. [177] Many thousands of the Shiites repose in holy ground at
the feet of the vicar of God; and the desert is vivified by the numerous
and annual visits of the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less
meritorious than the pilgrimage of Mecca.

[Footnote 1732: Ali had determined to supersede all the lieutenants in
the different provinces. Price, p. 191. Compare, on the conduct of Telha
and Zobeir, p. 193--M.]

[Footnote 1733: See the very curious circumstances which took place
before and during her flight. Price, p. 196.--M.]

[Footnote 1734: The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true
believers is strikingly described by Major Price's Persian historians.
Price, p. 222.--M.]

[Footnote 1735: See (in Price) the singular adventures of Zobeir. He was
murdered after having abandoned the army of the insurgents. Telha was
about to do the same, when his leg was pierced with an arrow by one of
his own party The wound was mortal. Price, p. 222.--M.]

[Footnote 1736: According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the Benni
Beianziel alone lost a right hand in this service, (p. 225.)--M]

[Footnote 1737: She was escorted by a guard of females disguised as
soldiers. When she discovered this, Ayesha was as much gratified by the
delicacy of the arrangement, as she had been offended by the familiar
approach of so many men. Price, p. 229.--M.]

[Footnote 174: The plain of Siffin is determined by D'Anville
(l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of
Procopius.]

[Footnote 1741: The Shiite authors have preserved a noble instance of
Ali's magnanimity. The superior generalship of Moawiyah had cut off the
army of Ali from the Euphrates; his soldiers were perishing from want
of water. Ali sent a message to his rival to request free access to the
river, declaring that under the same circumstances he would not allow
any of the faithful, though his adversaries, to perish from thirst.
After some debate, Moawiyah determined to avail himself of the advantage
of his situation, and to reject the demand of Ali. The soldiers of Ali
became desperate; forced their way through that part of the hostile army
which commanded the river, and in their turn entirely cut off the
troops of Moawiyah from the water. Moawiyah was reduced to make the same
supplication to Ali. The generous caliph instantly complied; and both
armies, with their cattle enjoyed free and unmolested access to the
river. Price, vol. i. p. 268, 272--M.]

[Footnote 1742: His son Hassan was recognized as caliph in Arabia and
Irak; but voluntarily abdicated the throne, after six or seven months,
in favor of Moawiyah St. Martin, vol. xi. p 375.--M.]

[Footnote 175: Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the different
opinions concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the sepulchre of Cufa,
hodie fama numeroque religiose frequentantium celebratum. This number is
reckoned by Niebuhr to amount annually to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of
the living, (tom. ii. p. 208, 209.)]

[Footnote 176: All the tyrants of Persia, from Adhad el Dowlat (A.D.
977, D'Herbelot, p. 58, 59, 95) to Nadir Shah, (A.D. 1743, Hist. de
Nadir Shah, tom. ii. p. 155,) have enriched the tomb of Ali with the
spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a bright and massy
gilding, which glitters to the sun at the distance of many a mile.]

[Footnote 177: The city of Meshed Ali, five or six miles from the ruins
of Cufa, and one hundred and twenty to the south of Bagdad, is of the
size and form of the modern Jerusalem. Meshed Hosein, larger and more
populous, is at the distance of thirty miles.]

The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his children; and
the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads of his religion and
empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had been fierce and obstinate;
his conversion was tardy and reluctant; his new faith was fortified by
necessity and interest; he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and
the sins of the time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits
of the family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the
cruel Henda, was dignified, in his early youth, with the office or title
of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar intrusted him with the
government of Syria; and he administered that important province above
forty years, either in a subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing
the fame of valor and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity
and moderation: a grateful people was attached to their benefactor;
and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of Cyprus and
Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of Othman was the
engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody shirt of the martyr
was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the emir deplored the fate of his
injured kinsman; and sixty thousand Syrians were engaged in his service
by an oath of fidelity and revenge. Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt,
himself an army, was the first who saluted the new monarch, and
divulged the dangerous secret, that the Arabian caliphs might be created
elsewhere than in the city of the prophet. [178] The policy of
Moawiyah eluded the valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he
negotiated the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above
or below the government of the world, and who retired without a
sigh from the palace of Cufa to an humble cell near the tomb of his
grandfather. The aspiring wishes of the caliph were finally crowned
by the important change of an elective to an hereditary kingdom. Some
murmurs of freedom or fanaticism attested the reluctance of the Arabs,
and four citizens of Medina refused the oath of fidelity; but the
designs of Moawiyah were conducted with vigor and address; and his son
Yezid, a feeble and dissolute youth, was proclaimed as the commander of
the faithful and the successor on the apostle of God.

[Footnote 178: I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and
expression of Tacitus, (Hist. i. 4: ) Evulgato imperii arcano posse
imperatorem alni quam Romae fieri.]

A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons of
Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a dish of
scalding broth on his master: the heedless wretch fell prostrate, to
deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of the Koran: "Paradise
is for those who command their anger: "--"I am not angry: "--"and for
those who pardon offences: "--"I pardon your offence: "--"and for those
who return good for evil: "--"I give you your liberty and four hundred
pieces of silver." With an equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger
brother of Hassan, inherited a remnant of his father's spirit, and
served with honor against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople.
The primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy character of
grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person, and he was at
liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of Damascus,
whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never deigned to
acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa to Medina, of one
hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who professed their attachment to
his cause, and who were eager to draw their swords so soon as he should
appear on the banks of the Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest
friends, he resolved to trust his person and family in the hands of a
perfidious people. He traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous
retinue of women and children; but as he approached the confines of
Irak he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country,
and suspected either the defection or ruin of his party. His fears
were just: Obeidollah, the governor of Cufa, had extinguished the first
sparks of an insurrection; and Hosein, in the plain of Kerbela, was
encompassed by a body of five thousand horse, who intercepted his
communication with the city and the river. He might still have escaped
to a fortress in the desert, that had defied the power of Caesar and
Chosroes, and confided in the fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would
have armed ten thousand warriors in his defence.

In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the option
of three honorable conditions: that he should be allowed to return to
Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or
safely conducted to the presence of Yezid. But the commands of the
caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and absolute; and Hosein was
informed that he must either submit as a captive and a criminal to the
commander of the faithful, or expect the consequences of his rebellion.
"Do you think," replied he, "to terrify me with death?" And, during
the short respite of a night, [1781] he prepared with calm and solemn
resignation to encounter his fate. He checked the lamentations of
his sister Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of his house. "Our
trust," said Hosein, "is in God alone. All things, both in heaven and
earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother, my father,
my mother, were better than me, and every Mussulman has an example in
the prophet." He pressed his friends to consult their safety by a timely
flight: they unanimously refused to desert or survive their beloved
master: and their courage was fortified by a fervent prayer and the
assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on
horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the other: his
generous band of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty
foot; but their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a
deep trench which they had filled with lighted fagots, according to the
practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance, and one of
their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim the partnership
of inevitable death. In every close onset, or single combat, the despair
of the Fatimites was invincible; but the surrounding multitudes galled
them from a distance with a cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were
successively slain; a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour
of prayer; and the battle at length expired by the death of the last
companions of Hosein. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at
the door of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in
the mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths,
were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were full
of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead.
In a transport of despair his sister issued from the tent, and adjured
the general of the Cufians, that he would not suffer Hosein to be
murdered before his eyes: a tear trickled down his venerable beard; and
the boldest of his soldiers fell back on every side as the dying hero
threw himself among them. The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the
faithful, reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was
slain with three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had
trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of Cufa, and
the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a cane: "Alas,"
exclaimed an aged Mussulman, "on these lips have I seen the lips of the
apostle of God!" In a distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the
death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader. [179]
[1791] On the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage
to his sepulchre, his Persian votaries abandon their souls to the
religious frenzy of sorrow and indignation. [180]

[Footnote 1781: According to Major Price's authorities a much longer
time elapsed (p. 198 &c.)--M.]

[Footnote 179: I have abridged the interesting narrative of Ockley,
(tom. ii. p. 170-231.) It is long and minute: but the pathetic, almost
always, consists in the detail of little circumstances.]

[Footnote 1791: The account of Hosein's death, in the Persian Tarikh
Tebry, is much longer; in some circumstances, more pathetic, than that
of Ockley, followed by Gibbon. His family, after his defenders were all
slain, perished in succession before his eyes. They had been cut off
from the water, and suffered all the agonies of thirst. His eldest son,
Ally Akbar, after ten different assaults on the enemy, in each of which
he slew two or three, complained bitterly of his sufferings from heat
and thirst. "His father arose, and introducing his own tongue within
the parched lips of his favorite child, thus endeavored to alleviate his
sufferings by the only means of which his enemies had not yet been able
to deprive him." Ally was slain and cut to pieces in his sight: this
wrung from him his first and only cry; then it was that his sister
Zeyneb rushed from the tent. The rest, including his nephew, fell in
succession. Hosein's horse was wounded--he fell to the ground. The hour
of prayer, between noon and sunset, had arrived; the Imaun began the
religious duties:--as Hosein prayed, he heard the cries of his infant
child Abdallah, only twelve months old. The child was, at his desire,
placed on his bosom: as he wept over it, it was transfixed by an arrow.
Hosein dragged himself to the Euphrates: as he slaked his burning
thirst, his mouth was pierced by an arrow: he drank his own blood.
Wounded in four-and-thirty places, he still gallantly resisted. A
soldier named Zeraiah gave the fatal wound: his head was cut off by
Ziliousheng. Price, p. 402, 410.--M.]

[Footnote 180: Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p.
208, &c.) is, perhaps, the only European traveller who has dared to
visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres are in the hands
of the Turks, who tolerate and tax the devotion of the Persian heretics.
The festival of the death of Hosein is amply described by Sir John
Chardin, a traveller whom I have often praised.]

When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains to the
throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate the enmity of
a popular and hostile race, whom he had injured beyond the hope of
reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the councils of mercy; and the
mourning family was honorably dismissed to mingle their tears with
their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom superseded the right of
primogeniture; and the twelve imams, [181] or pontiffs, of the Persian
creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein
to the ninth generation. Without arms, or treasures, or subjects, they
successively enjoyed the veneration of the people, and provoked the
jealousy of the reigning caliphs: their tombs, at Mecca or Medina, on
the banks of the Euphrates, or in the province of Chorasan, are still
visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were often the
pretence of sedition and civil war; but these royal saints despised the
pomp of the world: submitted to the will of God and the injustice of
man; and devoted their innocent lives to the study and practice of
religion. The twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title
of Mahadi, or the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his
predecessors. He concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and
place of his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still
lives, and will appear before the day of judgment to overthrow the
tyranny of Dejal, or the Antichrist. [182] In the lapse of two or three
centuries, the posterity of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet, had multiplied
to the number of thirty-three thousand: [183] the race of Ali might
be equally prolific: the meanest individual was above the first and
greatest of princes; and the most eminent were supposed to excel the
perfection of angels. But their adverse fortune, and the wide extent of
the Mussulman empire, allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful
imposture, who claimed affinity with the holy seed: the sceptre of the
Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in Egypt and Syria;
[184] of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia; [185] has
been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title. Under their reigns
it might be dangerous to dispute the legitimacy of their birth; and one
of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an indiscreet question by drawing
his cimeter: "This," said Moez, "is my pedigree; and these," casting
a handful of gold to his soldiers,--"and these are my kindred and my
children." In the various conditions of princes, or doctors, or
nobles, or merchants, or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious
descendants of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the appellation
of sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman empire they are
distinguished by a green turban; receive a stipend from the treasury;
are judged only by their chief; and, however debased by fortune or
character, still assert the proud preeminence of their birth. A family
of three hundred persons, the pure and orthodox branch of the caliph
Hassan, is preserved without taint or suspicion in the holy cities of
Mecca and Medina, and still retains, after the revolutions of twelve
centuries, the custody of the temple, and the sovereignty of their
native land. The fame and merit of Mahomet would ennoble a plebeian
race, and the ancient blood of the Koreish transcends the recent majesty
of the kings of the earth. [186]

[Footnote 181: The general article of Imam, in D'Herbelot's
Bibliotheque, will indicate the succession; and the lives of the twelve
are given under their respective names.]

[Footnote 182: The name of Antichrist may seem ridiculous, but the
Mahometans have liberally borrowed the fables of every religion, (Sale's
Preliminary Discourse, p. 80, 82.) In the royal stable of Ispahan, two
horses were always kept saddled, one for the Mahadi himself, the other
for his lieutenant, Jesus the son of Mary.]

[Footnote 183: In the year of the Hegira 200, (A.D. 815.) See
D'Herbelot, p. 146]

[Footnote 184: D'Herbelot, p. 342. The enemies of the Fatimites
disgraced them by a Jewish origin. Yet they accurately deduced their
genealogy from Jaafar, the sixth Imam; and the impartial Abulfeda
allows (Annal. Moslem. p. 230) that they were owned by many, qui absque
controversia genuini sunt Alidarum, homines propaginum suae gentis
exacte callentes. He quotes some lines from the celebrated Scherif or
Rahdi, Egone humilitatem induam in terris hostium? (I suspect him to
be an Edrissite of Sicily,) cum in Aegypto sit Chalifa de gente Alii,
quocum ego communem habeo patrem et vindicem.]

[Footnote 185: The kings of Persia in the last century are descended
from Sheik Sefi, a saint of the xivth century, and through him, from
Moussa Cassem, the son of Hosein, the son of Ali, (Olearius, p. 957.
Chardin, tom. iii. p. 288.) But I cannot trace the intermediate degrees
in any genuine or fabulous pedigree. If they were truly Fatimites, they
might draw their origin from the princes of Mazanderan, who reigned in
the ixth century, (D'Herbelot, p. 96.)]

[Footnote 186: The present state of the family of Mahomet and Ali is
most accurately described by Demetrius Cantemir (Hist. of the Othmae
Empire, p. 94) and Niebuhr, (Description de l'Arabie, p. 9-16, 317
&c.) It is much to be lamented, that the Danish traveller was unable to
purchase the chronicles of Arabia.]

The talents of Mahomet are entitled to our applause; but his success
has, perhaps, too strongly attracted our admiration. Are we surprised
that a multitude of proselytes should embrace the doctrine and the
passions of an eloquent fanatic? In the heresies of the church, the same
seduction has been tried and repeated from the time of the apostles to
that of the reformers. Does it seem incredible that a private citizen
should grasp the sword and the sceptre, subdue his native country, and
erect a monarchy by his victorious arms? In the moving picture of the
dynasties of the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a
baser origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and filled a larger
scope of empire and conquest. Mahomet was alike instructed to preach and
to fight; and the union of these opposite qualities, while it enhanced
his merit, contributed to his success: the operation of force and
persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually acted on each other,
till every barrier yielded to their irresistible power. His voice
invited the Arabs to freedom and victory, to arms and rapine, to the
indulgence of their darling passions in this world and the other: the
restraints which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of
the prophet, and to exercise the obedience of the people; and the
only objection to his success was his rational creed of the unity and
perfections of God. It is not the propagation, but the permanency,
of his religion, that deserves our wonder: the same pure and perfect
impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina, is preserved, after
the revolutions of twelve centuries, by the Indian, the African, and the
Turkish proselytes of the Koran. If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or
St. Paul, could return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the
name of the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that
magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they would experience less
surprise; but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse the
catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox commentators on their
own writings and the words of their Master. But the Turkish dome of St.
Sophia, with an increase of splendor and size, represents the humble
tabernacle erected at Medina by the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans
have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their
faith and devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. "I
believe in one God, and Mahomet the apostle of God," is the simple and
invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has
never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of the prophet have
never transgressed the measure of human virtue; and his living precepts
have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of
reason and religion. The votaries of Ali have, indeed, consecrated
the memory of their hero, his wife, and his children; and some of the
Persian doctors pretend that the divine essence was incarnate in the
person of the Imams; but their superstition is universally condemned
by the Sonnites; and their impiety has afforded a seasonable warning
against the worship of saints and martyrs. The metaphysical questions on
the attributes of God, and the liberty of man, have been agitated in the
schools of the Mahometans, as well as in those of the Christians; but
among the former they have never engaged the passions of the people,
or disturbed the tranquillity of the state. The cause of this important
difference may be found in the separation or union of the regal
and sacerdotal characters. It was the interest of the caliphs, the
successors of the prophet and commanders of the faithful, to repress
and discourage all religious innovations: the order, the discipline,
the temporal and spiritual ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the
Moslems; and the sages of the law are the guides of their conscience and
the oracles of their faith. From the Atlantic to the Ganges, the Koran
is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of theology, but
of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the laws which regulate the
actions and the property of mankind are guarded by the infallible and
immutable sanction of the will of God. This religious servitude is
attended with some practical disadvantage; the illiterate legislator had
been often misled by his own prejudices and those of his country; and
the institutions of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the wealth
and numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions, the
Cadhi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and substitutes a
dexterous interpretation more apposite to the principles of equity, and
the manners and policy of the times.

His beneficial or pernicious influence on the public happiness is the
last consideration in the character of Mahomet. The most bitter or
most bigoted of his Christian or Jewish foes will surely allow that
he assumed a false commission to inculcate a salutary doctrine, less
perfect only than their own. He piously supposed, as the basis of his
religion, the truth and sanctity of their prior revolutions, the virtues
and miracles of their founders. The idols of Arabia were broken before
the throne of God; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer,
and fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of devotion; and
his rewards and punishments of a future life were painted by the images
most congenial to an ignorant and carnal generation. Mahomet was,
perhaps, incapable of dictating a moral and political system for the
use of his countrymen: but he breathed among the faithful a spirit of
charity and friendship; recommended the practice of the social virtues;
and checked, by his laws and precepts, the thirst of revenge, and the
oppression of widows and orphans. The hostile tribes were united in
faith and obedience, and the valor which had been idly spent in domestic
quarrels was vigorously directed against a foreign enemy. Had the
impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home and formidable abroad,
might have flourished under a succession of her native monarchs.
Her sovereignty was lost by the extent and rapidity of conquest. The
colonies of the nation were scattered over the East and West, and their
blood was mingled with the blood of their converts and captives. After
the reign of three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to
the valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy cities
were violated by impious war; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a subject,
perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedoweens of the desert, awakening from
their dream of dominion, resumed their old and solitary independence.
[187]

[Footnote 187: The writers of the Modern Universal History (vols. i.
and ii.) have compiled, in 850 folio pages, the life of Mahomet and
the annals of the caliphs. They enjoyed the advantage of reading,
and sometimes correcting, the Arabic text; yet, notwithstanding their
high-sounding boasts, I cannot find, after the conclusion of my work,
that they have afforded me much (if any) additional information. The
dull mass is not quickened by a spark of philosophy or taste; and
the compilers indulge the criticism of acrimonious bigotry against
Boulainvilliers, Sale, Gagnier, and all who have treated Mahomet with
favor, or even justice.]




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

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

The revolution of Arabia had not changed the character of the Arabs: the
death of Mahomet was the signal of independence; and the hasty structure
of his power and religion tottered to its foundations. A small and
faithful band of his primitive disciples had listened to his eloquence,
and shared his distress; had fled with the apostle from the persecution
of Mecca, or had received the fugitive in the walls of Medina. The
increasing myriads, who acknowledged Mahomet as their king and prophet,
had been compelled by his arms, or allured by his prosperity. The
polytheists were confounded by the simple idea of a solitary and
invisible God; the pride of the Christians and Jews disdained the
yoke of a mortal and contemporary legislator. The habits of faith and
obedience were not sufficiently confirmed; and many of the new converts
regretted the venerable antiquity of the law of Moses, or the rites
and mysteries of the Catholic church; or the idols, the sacrifices, the
joyous festivals, of their Pagan ancestors. The jarring interests and
hereditary feuds of the Arabian tribes had not yet coalesced in a system
of union and subordination; and the Barbarians were impatient of the
mildest and most salutary laws that curbed their passions, or violated
their customs. They submitted with reluctance to the religious precepts
of the Koran, the abstinence from wine, the fast of the Ramadan, and the
daily repetition of five prayers; and the alms and tithes, which were
collected for the treasury of Medina, could be distinguished only by
a name from the payment of a perpetual and ignominious tribute. The
example of Mahomet had excited a spirit of fanaticism or imposture,
and several of his rivals presumed to imitate the conduct, and defy
the authority, of the living prophet. At the head of the fugitives
and auxiliaries, the first caliph was reduced to the cities of Mecca,
Medina, and Tayef; and perhaps the Koreish would have restored the
idols of the Caaba, if their levity had not been checked by a seasonable
reproof. "Ye men of Mecca, will ye be the last to embrace, and the
first to abandon, the religion of Islam?" After exhorting the Moslems
to confide in the aid of God and his apostle, Abubeker resolved, by a
vigorous attack, to prevent the junction of the rebels. The women
and children were safely lodged in the cavities of the mountains: the
warriors, marching under eleven banners, diffused the terror of their
arms; and the appearance of a military force revived and confirmed the
loyalty of the faithful. The inconstant tribes accepted, with humble
repentance, the duties of prayer, and fasting, and alms; and, after
some examples of success and severity, the most daring apostates fell
prostrate before the sword of the Lord and of Caled. In the fertile
province of Yemanah, [1] between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia,
in a city not inferior to Medina itself, a powerful chief (his name
was Moseilama) had assumed the character of a prophet, and the tribe of
Hanifa listened to his voice. A female prophetess [1111] was attracted
by his reputation; the decencies of words and actions were spurned by
these favorites of Heaven; [2] and they employed several days in mystic
and amorous converse. An obscure sentence of his Koran, or book, is yet
extant; [3] and in the pride of his mission, Moseilama condescended to
offer a partition of the earth. The proposal was answered by Mahomet
with contempt; but the rapid progress of the impostor awakened the
fears of his successor: forty thousand Moslems were assembled under the
standard of Caled; and the existence of their faith was resigned to
the event of a decisive battle. [3111] In the first action they
were repulsed by the loss of twelve hundred men; but the skill and
perseverance of their general prevailed; their defeat was avenged by the
slaughter of ten thousand infidels; and Moseilama himself was pierced by
an Aethiopian slave with the same javelin which had mortally wounded
the uncle of Mahomet. The various rebels of Arabia without a chief or
a cause, were speedily suppressed by the power and discipline of
the rising monarchy; and the whole nation again professed, and more
steadfastly held, the religion of the Koran. The ambition of the caliphs
provided an immediate exercise for the restless spirit of the Saracens:
their valor was united in the prosecution of a holy war; and their
enthusiasm was equally confirmed by opposition and victory.

[Footnote 1: See the description of the city and country of Al Yamanah,
in Abulfeda, Descript. Arabiae, p. 60, 61. In the xiiith century, there
were some ruins, and a few palms; but in the present century, the same
ground is occupied by the visions and arms of a modern prophet, whose
tenets are imperfectly known, (Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p.
296-302.)]

[Footnote 1111: This extraordinary woman was a Christian; she was at
the head of a numerous and flourishing sect; Moseilama professed to
recognize her inspiration. In a personal interview he proposed their
marriage and the union of their sects. The handsome person, the
impassioned eloquence, and the arts of Moseilama, triumphed over the
virtue of the prophetesa who was rejected with scorn by her lover, and
by her notorious unchastity ost her influence with her own followers.
Gibbon, with that propensity too common, especially in his later
volumes, has selected only the grosser part of this singular
adventure.--M.]

[Footnote 2: The first salutation may be transcribed, but cannot be
translated. It was thus that Moseilama said or sung:--

 Surge tandem itaque strenue permolenda; nam stratus tibi thorus est.
 Aut in propatulo tentorio si velis, aut in abditiore cubiculo si malis;
 Aut supinam te humi exporrectam fustigabo, si velis,
 Aut si malis manibus pedibusque nixam.
 Aut si velis ejus (Priapi) gemino triente aut si malis totus veniam.
 Imo, totus venito, O Apostole Dei, clamabat foemina.
 Id ipsum, dicebat
 Moseilama, mihi quoque suggessit Deus.

The prophetess Segjah, after the fall of her lover, returned to
idolatry; but under the reign of Moawiyah, she became a Mussulman, and
died at Bassora, (Abulfeda, Annal. vers. Reiske, p. 63.)]

[Footnote 3: See this text, which demonstrates a God from the work of
generation, in Abulpharagius (Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 13, and Dynast.
p. 103) and Abulfeda, (Annal. p. 63.)]

[Footnote 3111: Compare a long account of this battle in Price, p.
42.--M.]

From the rapid conquests of the Saracens a presumption will naturally
arise, that the caliphs [311] commanded in person the armies of the
faithful, and sought the crown of martyrdom in the foremost ranks of
the battle. The courage of Abubeker, [4] Omar, [5] and Othman, [6] had
indeed been tried in the persecution and wars of the prophet; and the
personal assurance of paradise must have taught them to despise the
pleasures and dangers of the present world. But they ascended the
throne in a venerable or mature age; and esteemed the domestic cares of
religion and justice the most important duties of a sovereign.
Except the presence of Omar at the siege of Jerusalem, their longest
expeditions were the frequent pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca; and they
calmly received the tidings of victory as they prayed or preached before
the sepulchre of the prophet. The austere and frugal measure of
their lives was the effect of virtue or habit, and the pride of their
simplicity insulted the vain magnificence of the kings of the earth.
When Abubeker assumed the office of caliph, he enjoined his daughter
Ayesha to take a strict account of his private patrimony, that it might
be evident whether he were enriched or impoverished by the service of
the state. He thought himself entitled to a stipend of three pieces
of gold, with the sufficient maintenance of a single camel and a black
slave; but on the Friday of each week he distributed the residue of his
own and the public money, first to the most worthy, and then to the most
indigent, of the Moslems. The remains of his wealth, a coarse garment,
and five pieces of gold, were delivered to his successor, who lamented
with a modest sigh his own inability to equal such an admirable model.
Yet the abstinence and humility of Omar were not inferior to the virtues
of Abubeker: his food consisted of barley bread or dates; his drink was
water; he preached in a gown that was torn or tattered in twelve places;
and the Persian satrap, who paid his homage to the conqueror, found him
asleep among the beggars on the steps of the mosch of Medina. Oeeconomy
is the source of liberality, and the increase of the revenue enabled
Omar to establish a just and perpetual reward for the past and present
services of the faithful. Careless of his own emolument, he assigned to
Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, the first and most ample allowance of
twenty-five thousand drachms or pieces of silver. Five thousand were
allotted to each of the aged warriors, the relics of the field of Beder;
and the last and meanest of the companions of Mahomet was distinguished
by the annual reward of three thousand pieces. One thousand was the
stipend of the veterans who had fought in the first battles against the
Greeks and Persians; and the decreasing pay, as low as fifty pieces
of silver, was adapted to the respective merit and seniority of the
soldiers of Omar. Under his reign, and that of his predecessor, the
conquerors of the East were the trusty servants of God and the people;
the mass of the public treasure was consecrated to the expenses of
peace and war; a prudent mixture of justice and bounty maintained the
discipline of the Saracens, and they united, by a rare felicity, the
despatch and execution of despotism with the equal and frugal maxims of
a republican government. The heroic courage of Ali, [7] the consummate
prudence of Moawiyah, [8] excited the emulation of their subjects; and
the talents which had been exercised in the school of civil discord
were more usefully applied to propagate the faith and dominion of
the prophet. In the sloth and vanity of the palace of Damascus, the
succeeding princes of the house of Ommiyah were alike destitute of the
qualifications of statesmen and of saints. [9] Yet the spoils of unknown
nations were continually laid at the foot of their throne, and the
uniform ascent of the Arabian greatness must be ascribed to the spirit
of the nation rather than the abilities of their chiefs. A large
deduction must be allowed for the weakness of their enemies. The birth
of Mahomet was fortunately placed in the most degenerate and disorderly
period of the Persians, the Romans, and the Barbarians of Europe: the
empires of Trajan, or even of Constantine or Charlemagne, would
have repelled the assault of the naked Saracens, and the torrent of
fanaticism might have been obscurely lost in the sands of Arabia.

[Footnote 311: In Arabic, "successors." V. Hammer Geschichte der Assas.
p. 14--M.]

[Footnote 4: His reign in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 251. Elmacin, p. 18.
Abulpharagius, p. 108. Abulfeda, p. 60. D'Herbelot, p. 58.]

[Footnote 5: His reign in Eutychius, p. 264. Elmacin, p. 24.
Abulpharagius, p. 110. Abulfeda, p. 66. D'Herbelot, p. 686.]

[Footnote 6: His reign in Eutychius, p. 323. Elmacin, p. 36.
Abulpharagius, p. 115. Abulfeda, p. 75. D'Herbelot, p. 695.]

[Footnote 7: His reign in Eutychius, p. 343. Elmacin, p. 51.
Abulpharagius, p. 117. Abulfeda, p. 83. D'Herbelot, p. 89.]

[Footnote 8: His reign in Eutychius, p. 344. Elmacin, p. 54.
Abulpharagius, p. 123. Abulfeda, p. 101. D'Herbelot, p. 586.]

[Footnote 9: Their reigns in Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 360-395. Elmacin,
p. 59-108. Abulpharagius, Dynast. ix. p. 124-139. Abulfeda, p.
111-141. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 691, and the particular
articles of the Ommiades.]

In the victorious days of the Roman republic, it had been the aim of
the senate to confine their councils and legions to a single war,
and completely to suppress a first enemy before they provoked the
hostilities of a second. These timid maxims of policy were disdained
by the magnanimity or enthusiasm of the Arabian caliphs. With the same
vigor and success they invaded the successors of Augustus and those of
Artaxerxes; and the rival monarchies at the same instant became the prey
of an enemy whom they had been so long accustomed to despise. In the
ten years of the administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his
obedience thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand
churches or temples of the unbelievers, and edified fourteen hundred
moschs for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One hundred years
after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors
extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over the various and distant
provinces, which may be comprised under the names of, I. Persia;
II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa; and, V. Spain. Under this general
division, I shall proceed to unfold these memorable transactions;
despatching with brevity the remote and less interesting conquests of
the East, and reserving a fuller narrative for those domestic countries
which had been included within the pale of the Roman empire. Yet I
must excuse my own defects by a just complaint of the blindness and
insufficiency of my guides. The Greeks, so loquacious in controversy,
have not been anxious to celebrate the triumphs of their enemies. [10]
After a century of ignorance, the first annals of the Mussulmans were
collected in a great measure from the voice of tradition. [11] Among
the numerous productions of Arabic and Persian literature, [12] our
interpreters have selected the imperfect sketches of a more recent
age. [13] The art and genius of history have ever been unknown to the
Asiatics; [14] they are ignorant of the laws of criticism; and our
monkish chronicle of the same period may be compared to their most
popular works, which are never vivified by the spirit of philosophy and
freedom.

The Oriental library of a Frenchman [15] would instruct the most learned
mufti of the East; and perhaps the Arabs might not find in a single
historian so clear and comprehensive a narrative of their own exploits
as that which will be deduced in the ensuing sheets.

[Footnote 10: For the viith and viiith century, we have scarcely any
original evidence of the Byzantine historians, except the chronicles of
Theophanes (Theophanis Confessoris Chronographia, Gr. et Lat. cum notis
Jacobi Goar. Paris, 1665, in folio) and the Abridgment of Nicephorus,
(Nicephori Patriarchae C. P. Breviarium Historicum, Gr. et Lat. Paris,
1648, in folio,) who both lived in the beginning of the ixth century,
(see Hanckius de Scriptor. Byzant. p. 200-246.) Their contemporary,
Photius, does not seem to be more opulent. After praising the style of
Nicephorus, he adds, and only complains of his extreme brevity, (Phot.
Bibliot. Cod. lxvi. p. 100.) Some additions may be gleaned from the more
recent histories of Cedrenus and Zonaras of the xiith century.]

[Footnote 11: Tabari, or Al Tabari, a native of Taborestan, a famous
Imam of Bagdad, and the Livy of the Arabians, finished his general
history in the year of the Hegira 302, (A.D. 914.) At the request of his
friends, he reduced a work of 30,000 sheets to a more reasonable
size. But his Arabic original is known only by the Persian and Turkish
versions. The Saracenic history of Ebn Amid, or Elmacin, is said to be
an abridgment of the great Tabari, (Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol.
ii. preface, p. xxxix. and list of authors, D'Herbelot, p. 866, 870,
1014.)]

[Footnote 12: Besides the list of authors framed by Prideaux, (Life of
Mahomet, p. 179-189,) Ockley, (at the end of his second volume,) and
Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 525-550,) we find in the
Bibliotheque Orientale Tarikh, a catalogue of two or three hundred
histories or chronicles of the East, of which not more than three or
four are older than Tabari. A lively sketch of Oriental literature is
given by Reiske, (in his Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalifae librum
memorialem ad calcem Abulfedae Tabulae Syriae, Lipsiae, 1776;) but his
project and the French version of Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Timur Bec,
tom. i. preface, p. xlv.) have fallen to the ground.]

[Footnote 13: The particular historians and geographers will be
occasionally introduced. The four following titles represent the Annals
which have guided me in this general narrative. 1. Annales Eutychii,
Patriarchoe Alexandrini, ab Edwardo Pocockio, Oxon. 1656, 2 vols. in
4to. A pompous edition of an indifferent author, translated by Pocock
to gratify the Presbyterian prejudices of his friend Selden. 2. Historia
Saracenica Georgii Elmacini, opera et studio Thomae Erpenii, in 4to.,
Lugd. Batavorum, 1625. He is said to have hastily translated a corrupt
Ms., and his version is often deficient in style and sense. 3. Historia
compendiosa Dynastiarum a Gregorio Abulpharagio, interprete Edwardo
Pocockio, in 4to., Oxon. 1663. More useful for the literary than the
civil history of the East. 4. Abulfedoe Annales Moslemici ad Ann.
Hegiroe ccccvi. a Jo. Jac. Reiske, in 4to., Lipsioe, 1754. The best of
our chronicles, both for the original and version, yet how far below the
name of Abulfeda! We know that he wrote at Hamah in the xivth century.
The three former were Christians of the xth, xiith, and xiiith
centuries; the two first, natives of Egypt; a Melchite patriarch, and a
Jacobite scribe.]

[Footnote 14: M. D. Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. pref. p. xix. xx.)
has characterized, with truth and knowledge, the two sorts of Arabian
historians--the dry annalist, and the tumid and flowery orator.]

[Footnote 15: Bibliotheque Orientale, par M. D'Herbelot, in folio,
Paris, 1697. For the character of the respectable author, consult his
friend Thevenot, (Voyages du Levant, part i. chap. 1.) His work is an
agreeable miscellany, which must gratify every taste; but I never can
digest the alphabetical order; and I find him more satisfactory in the
Persian than the Arabic history. The recent supplement from the papers
of Mm. Visdelou, and Galland, (in folio, La Haye, 1779,) is of a
different cast, a medley of tales, proverbs, and Chinese antiquities.]

I. In the first year of the first caliph, his lieutenant Caled, the
Sword of God, and the scourge of the infidels, advanced to the banks of
the Euphrates, and reduced the cities of Anbar and Hira. Westward of the
ruins of Babylon, a tribe of sedentary Arabs had fixed themselves on the
verge of the desert; and Hira was the seat of a race of kings who had
embraced the Christian religion, and reigned above six hundred years
under the shadow of the throne of Persia. [16] The last of the Mondars
[1611] was defeated and slain by Caled; his son was sent a captive to
Medina; his nobles bowed before the successor of the prophet; the people
was tempted by the example and success of their countrymen; and the
caliph accepted as the first-fruits of foreign conquest an annual
tribute of seventy thousand pieces of gold. The conquerors, and even
their historians, were astonished by the dawn of their future greatness:
"In the same year," says Elmacin, "Caled fought many signal battles: an
immense multitude of the infidels was slaughtered; and spoils infinite
and innumerable were acquired by the victorious Moslems." [17] But the
invincible Caled was soon transferred to the Syrian war: the invasion
of the Persian frontier was conducted by less active or less prudent
commanders: the Saracens were repulsed with loss in the passage of
the Euphrates; and, though they chastised the insolent pursuit of the
Magians, their remaining forces still hovered in the desert of Babylon.
[1711]

[Footnote 16: Pocock will explain the chronology, (Specimen Hist.
Arabum, p. 66-74,) and D'Anville the geography, (l'Euphrate, et le
Tigre, p. 125,) of the dynasty of the Almondars. The English scholar
understood more Arabic than the mufti of Aleppo, (Ockley, vol. ii. p.
34: ) the French geographer is equally at home in every age and every
climate of the world.]

[Footnote 1611: Eichhorn and Silvestre de Sacy have written on the
obscure history of the Mondars.--M.]

[Footnote 17: Fecit et Chaled plurima in hoc anno praelia, in quibus
vicerunt Muslimi, et infidelium immensa multitudine occisa spolia
infinita et innumera sunt nacti, (Hist. Saracenica, p. 20.) The
Christian annalist slides into the national and compendious term of
infidels, and I often adopt (I hope without scandal) this characteristic
mode of expression.]

[Footnote 1711: Compare throughout Malcolm, vol. ii. p. 136.--M.]

The indignation and fears of the Persians suspended for a moment their
intestine divisions. By the unanimous sentence of the priests and
nobles, their queen Arzema was deposed; the sixth of the transient
usurpers, who had arisen and vanished in three or four years since the
death of Chosroes, and the retreat of Heraclius. Her tiara was placed
on the head of Yezdegerd, the grandson of Chosroes; and the same aera,
which coincides with an astronomical period, [18] has recorded the fall
of the Sassanian dynasty and the religion of Zoroaster. [19] The youth
and inexperience of the prince (he was only fifteen years of age)
declined a perilous encounter: the royal standard was delivered into the
hands of his general Rustam; and a remnant of thirty thousand regular
troops was swelled in truth, or in opinion, to one hundred and twenty
thousand subjects, or allies, of the great king. The Moslems, whose
numbers were reenforced from twelve to thirty thousand, had pitched
their camp in the plains of Cadesia: [20] and their line, though it
consisted of fewer men, could produce more soldiers, than the unwieldy
host of the infidels. I shall here observe, what I must often repeat,
that the charge of the Arabs was not, like that of the Greeks and
Romans, the effort of a firm and compact infantry: their military force
was chiefly formed of cavalry and archers; and the engagement, which
was often interrupted and often renewed by single combats and flying
skirmishes, might be protracted without any decisive event to the
continuance of several days. The periods of the battle of Cadesia
were distinguished by their peculiar appellations. The first, from
the well-timed appearance of six thousand of the Syrian brethren, was
denominated the day of succor. The day of concussion might express
the disorder of one, or perhaps of both, of the contending armies. The
third, a nocturnal tumult, received the whimsical name of the night
of barking, from the discordant clamors, which were compared to
the inarticulate sounds of the fiercest animals. The morning of the
succeeding day [2011] determined the fate of Persia; and a seasonable
whirlwind drove a cloud of dust against the faces of the unbelievers.
The clangor of arms was reechoed to the tent of Rustam, who, far
unlike the ancient hero of his name, was gently reclining in a cool and
tranquil shade, amidst the baggage of his camp, and the train of mules
that were laden with gold and silver. On the sound of danger he started
from his couch; but his flight was overtaken by a valiant Arab, who
caught him by the foot, struck off his head, hoisted it on a lance, and
instantly returning to the field of battle, carried slaughter and dismay
among the thickest ranks of the Persians. The Saracens confess a loss
of seven thousand five hundred men; [2012] and the battle of Cadesia is
justly described by the epithets of obstinate and atrocious. [21] The
standard of the monarchy was overthrown and captured in the field--a
leathern apron of a blacksmith, who in ancient times had arisen the
deliverer of Persia; but this badge of heroic poverty was disguised,
and almost concealed, by a profusion of precious gems. [22] After this
victory, the wealthy province of Irak, or Assyria, submitted to
the caliph, and his conquests were firmly established by the speedy
foundation of Bassora, [23] a place which ever commands the trade and
navigation of the Persians. As the distance of fourscore miles from
the Gulf, the Euphrates and Tigris unite in a broad and direct current,
which is aptly styled the river of the Arabs. In the midway, between the
junction and the mouth of these famous streams, the new settlement was
planted on the western bank: the first colony was composed of eight
hundred Moslems; but the influence of the situation soon reared a
flourishing and populous capital. The air, though excessively hot, is
pure and healthy: the meadows are filled with palm-trees and cattle; and
one of the adjacent valleys has been celebrated among the four paradises
or gardens of Asia. Under the first caliphs the jurisdiction of this
Arabian colony extended over the southern provinces of Persia: the city
has been sanctified by the tombs of the companions and martyrs; and the
vessels of Europe still frequent the port of Bassora, as a convenient
station and passage of the Indian trade.

[Footnote 18: A cycle of 120 years, the end of which an intercalary
month of 30 days supplied the use of our Bissextile, and restored the
integrity of the solar year. In a great revolution of 1440 years this
intercalation was successively removed from the first to the twelfth
month; but Hyde and Freret are involved in a profound controversy,
whether the twelve, or only eight of these changes were accomplished
before the aera of Yezdegerd, which is unanimously fixed to the 16th
of June, A.D. 632. How laboriously does the curious spirit of Europe
explore the darkest and most distant antiquities! (Hyde de Religione
Persarum, c. 14-18, p. 181-211. Freret in the Mem. de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xvi. p. 233-267.)]

[Footnote 19: Nine days after the death of Mahomet (7th June, A.D. 632)
we find the aera of Yezdegerd, (16th June, A.D. 632,) and his accession
cannot be postponed beyond the end of the first year. His predecessors
could not therefore resist the arms of the caliph Omar; and these
unquestionable dates overthrow the thoughtless chronology of
Abulpharagius. See Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 130. *
Note: The Rezont Uzzuffa (Price, p. 105) has a strange account of an
embassy to Yezdegerd. The Oriental historians take great delight in
these embassies, which give them an opportunity of displaying their
Asiatic eloquence--M.]

[Footnote 20: Cadesia, says the Nubian geographer, (p. 121,) is in
margine solitudinis, 61 leagues from Bagdad, and two stations from Cufa.
Otter (Voyage, tom. i. p. 163) reckons 15 leagues, and observes, that
the place is supplied with dates and water.]

[Footnote 2011: The day of cormorants, or according to another reading
the day of reinforcements. It was the night which was called the night
of snarling. Price, p. 114.--M.]

[Footnote 2012: According to Malcolm's authorities, only three thousand;
but he adds "This is the report of Mahomedan historians, who have a
great disposition of the wonderful, in relating the first actions of the
faithful" Vol. i. p. 39.--M.]

[Footnote 21: Atrox, contumax, plus semel renovatum, are the well-chosen
expressions of the translator of Abulfeda, (Reiske, p. 69.)]

[Footnote 22: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 297, 348.]

[Footnote 23: The reader may satisfy himself on the subject of Bassora
by consulting the following writers: Geograph, Nubiens. p. 121.
D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 192. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et
le Tigre, p. 130, 133, 145. Raynal, Hist. Philosophique des deux
Indes, tom. ii. p. 92-100. Voyages di Pietro della Valle, tom. iv. p.
370-391. De Tavernier, tom. i. p. 240-247. De Thevenot, tom. ii.
p. 545-584. D Otter, tom. ii. p. 45-78. De Niebuhr, tom. ii. p.
172-199.]




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

After the defeat of Cadesia, a country intersected by rivers and canals
might have opposed an insuperable barrier to the victorious cavalry; and
the walls of Ctesiphon or Madayn, which had resisted the battering-rams
of the Romans, would not have yielded to the darts of the Saracens. But
the flying Persians were overcome by the belief, that the last day
of their religion and empire was at hand; the strongest posts were
abandoned by treachery or cowardice; and the king, with a part of his
family and treasures, escaped to Holwan at the foot of the Median hills.

In the third month after the battle, Said, the lieutenant of Omar,
passed the Tigris without opposition; the capital was taken by assault;
and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a keener edge to the
sabres of the Moslems, who shouted with religious transport, "This is
the white palace of Chosroes; this is the promise of the apostle of
God!" The naked robbers of the desert were suddenly enriched beyond the
measure of their hope or knowledge. Each chamber revealed a new treasure
secreted with art, or ostentatiously displayed; the gold and silver, the
various wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed (says Abulfeda) the
estimate of fancy or numbers; and another historian defines the untold
and almost infinite mass, by the fabulous computation of three thousands
of thousands of thousands of pieces of gold. [24] Some minute though
curious facts represent the contrast of riches and ignorance. From the
remote islands of the Indian Ocean a large provision of camphire [25]
had been imported, which is employed with a mixture of wax to illuminate
the palaces of the East. Strangers to the name and properties of that
odoriferous gum, the Saracens, mistaking it for salt, mingled the
camphire in their bread, and were astonished at the bitterness of the
taste. One of the apartments of the palace was decorated with a carpet
of silk, sixty cubits in length, and as many in breadth: a paradise or
garden was depictured on the ground: the flowers, fruits, and shrubs,
were imitated by the figures of the gold embroidery, and the colors of
the precious stones; and the ample square was encircled by a variegated
and verdant border. [251] The Arabian general persuaded his soldiers
to relinquish their claim, in the reasonable hope that the eyes of the
caliph would be delighted with the splendid workmanship of nature and
industry. Regardless of the merit of art, and the pomp of royalty, the
rigid Omar divided the prize among his brethren of Medina: the picture
was destroyed; but such was the intrinsic value of the materials, that
the share of Ali alone was sold for twenty thousand drams. A mule that
carried away the tiara and cuirass, the belt and bracelets of Chosroes,
was overtaken by the pursuers; the gorgeous trophy was presented to
the commander of the faithful; and the gravest of the companions
condescended to smile when they beheld the white beard, the hairy arms,
and uncouth figure of the veteran, who was invested with the spoils of
the Great King. [26] The sack of Ctesiphon was followed by its desertion
and gradual decay. The Saracens disliked the air and situation of
the place, and Omar was advised by his general to remove the seat of
government to the western side of the Euphrates. In every age, the
foundation and ruin of the Assyrian cities has been easy and rapid: the
country is destitute of stone and timber; and the most solid structures
[27] are composed of bricks baked in the sun, and joined by a cement
of the native bitumen. The name of Cufa [28] describes a habitation of
reeds and earth; but the importance of the new capital was supported
by the numbers, wealth, and spirit, of a colony of veterans; and their
licentiousness was indulged by the wisest caliphs, who were apprehensive
of provoking the revolt of a hundred thousand swords: "Ye men of Cufa,"
said Ali, who solicited their aid, "you have been always conspicuous by
your valor. You conquered the Persian king, and scattered his forces,
till you had taken possession of his inheritance." This mighty conquest
was achieved by the battles of Jalula and Nehavend. After the loss of
the former, Yezdegerd fled from Holwan, and concealed his shame and
despair in the mountains of Farsistan, from whence Cyrus had descended
with his equal and valiant companions. The courage of the nation
survived that of the monarch: among the hills to the south of Ecbatana
or Hamadan, one hundred and fifty thousand Persians made a third and
final stand for their religion and country; and the decisive battle of
Nehavend was styled by the Arabs the victory of victories. If it be true
that the flying general of the Persians was stopped and overtaken in a
crowd of mules and camels laden with honey, the incident, however slight
and singular, will denote the luxurious impediments of an Oriental army.
[29]

[Footnote 24: Mente vix potest numerove comprehendi quanta spolia
nostris cesserint. Abulfeda, p. 69. Yet I still suspect, that the
extravagant numbers of Elmacin may be the error, not of the text, but of
the version. The best translators from the Greek, for instance, I find
to be very poor arithmeticians. * Note: Ockley (Hist. of Saracens,
vol. i. p. 230) translates in the same manner three thousand million of
ducats. See Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. ii. p. 462; who
makes this innocent doubt of Gibbon, in which, is to the amount of
the plunder, I venture to concur, a grave charge of inaccuracy and
disrespect to the memory of Erpenius. The Persian authorities of
Price (p. 122) make the booty worth three hundred and thirty millions
sterling!--M]

[Footnote 25: The camphire-tree grows in China and Japan; but many
hundred weight of those meaner sorts are exchanged for a single pound of
the more precious gum of Borneo and Sumatra, (Raynal, Hist. Philosoph.
tom. i. p. 362-365. Dictionnaire d'Hist. Naturelle par Bomare Miller's
Gardener's Dictionary.) These may be the islands of the first climate
from whence the Arabians imported their camphire (Geograph. Nub. p. 34,
35. D'Herbelot, p. 232.)]

[Footnote 251: Compare Price, p. 122.--M.]

[Footnote 26: See Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 376, 377. I may
credit the fact, without believing the prophecy.]

[Footnote 27: The most considerable ruins of Assyria are the tower of
Belus, at Babylon, and the hall of Chosroes, at Ctesiphon: they have
been visited by that vain and curious traveller Pietro della Valle,
(tom. i. p. 713-718, 731-735.) * Note: The best modern account is that
of Claudius Rich Esq. Two Memoirs of Babylon. London, 1818.--M.]

[Footnote 28: Consult the article of Coufah in the Bibliotheque of
D'Herbelot ( p. 277, 278,) and the second volume of Ockley's History,
particularly p. 40 and 153.]

[Footnote 29: See the article of Nehavend, in D'Herbelot, p. 667, 668;
and Voyages en Turquie et en Perse, par Otter, tom. i. 191. * Note:
Malcolm vol. i. p. 141.--M.]

The geography of Persia is darkly delineated by the Greeks and Latins;
but the most illustrious of her cities appear to be more ancient than
the invasion of the Arabs. By the reduction of Hamadan and Ispahan, of
Caswin, Tauris, and Rei, they gradually approached the shores of the
Caspian Sea: and the orators of Mecca might applaud the success and
spirit of the faithful, who had already lost sight of the northern
bear, and had almost transcended the bounds of the habitable world. [30]
Again, turning towards the West and the Roman empire, they repassed
the Tigris over the bridge of Mosul, and, in the captive provinces
of Armenia and Mesopotamia, embraced their victorious brethren of the
Syrian army. From the palace of Madayn their Eastern progress was not
less rapid or extensive. They advanced along the Tigris and the Gulf;
penetrated through the passes of the mountains into the valley of
Estachar or Persepolis, and profaned the last sanctuary of the Magian
empire. The grandson of Chosroes was nearly surprised among the falling
columns and mutilated figures; a sad emblem of the past and present
fortune of Persia: [31] he fled with accelerated haste over the desert
of Kirman, implored the aid of the warlike Segestans, and sought an
humble refuge on the verge of the Turkish and Chinese power. But a
victorious army is insensible of fatigue: the Arabs divided their forces
in the pursuit of a timorous enemy; and the caliph Othman promised the
government of Chorasan to the first general who should enter that
large and populous country, the kingdom of the ancient Bactrians. The
condition was accepted; the prize was deserved; the standard of Mahomet
was planted on the walls of Herat, Merou, and Balch; and the successful
leader neither halted nor reposed till his foaming cavalry had tasted
the waters of the Oxus. In the public anarchy, the independent governors
of the cities and castles obtained their separate capitulations: the
terms were granted or imposed by the esteem, the prudence, or the
compassion, of the victors; and a simple profession of faith established
the distinction between a brother and a slave. After a noble defence,
Harmozan, the prince or satrap of Ahwaz and Susa, was compelled to
surrender his person and his state to the discretion of the caliph;
and their interview exhibits a portrait of the Arabian manners. In the
presence, and by the command, of Omar, the gay Barbarian was despoiled
of his silken robes embroidered with gold, and of his tiara bedecked
with rubies and emeralds: "Are you now sensible," said the conqueror to
his naked captive--"are you now sensible of the judgment of God, and
of the different rewards of infidelity and obedience?" "Alas!" replied
Harmozan, "I feel them too deeply. In the days of our common ignorance,
we fought with the weapons of the flesh, and my nation was superior. God
was then neuter: since he has espoused your quarrel, you have subverted
our kingdom and religion." Oppressed by this painful dialogue,
the Persian complained of intolerable thirst, but discovered some
apprehension lest he should be killed whilst he was drinking a cup of
water. "Be of good courage," said the caliph; "your life is safe till
you have drunk this water:" the crafty satrap accepted the assurance,
and instantly dashed the vase against the ground. Omar would have
avenged the deceit, but his companions represented the sanctity of an
oath; and the speedy conversion of Harmozan entitled him not only to a
free pardon, but even to a stipend of two thousand pieces of gold.
The administration of Persia was regulated by an actual survey of the
people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth; [32] and this monument,
which attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have instructed the
philosophers of every age. [33]

[Footnote 30: It is in such a style of ignorance and wonder that the
Athenian orator describes the Arctic conquests of Alexander, who
never advanced beyond the shores of the Caspian. Aeschines contra
Ctesiphontem, tom. iii. p. 554, edit. Graec. Orator. Reiske. This
memorable cause was pleaded at Athens, Olymp. cxii. 3, (before Christ
330,) in the autumn, (Taylor, praefat. p. 370, &c.,) about a year after
the battle of Arbela; and Alexander, in the pursuit of Darius, was
marching towards Hyrcania and Bactriana.]

[Footnote 31: We are indebted for this curious particular to the
Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 116; but it is needless to prove the
identity of Estachar and Persepolis, (D'Herbelot, p. 327;) and still
more needless to copy the drawings and descriptions of Sir John Chardin,
or Corneillo le Bruyn.]

[Footnote 32: After the conquest of Persia, Theophanes adds,
(Chronograph p. 283.)]

[Footnote 33: Amidst our meagre relations, I must regret that D'Herbelot
has not found and used a Persian translation of Tabari, enriched, as he
says, with many extracts from the native historians of the Ghebers or
Magi, (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 1014.)]

The flight of Yezdegerd had carried him beyond the Oxus, and as far
as the Jaxartes, two rivers [34] of ancient and modern renown, which
descend from the mountains of India towards the Caspian Sea. He was
hospitably entertained by Takhan, prince of Fargana, [35] a fertile
province on the Jaxartes: the king of Samarcand, with the Turkish tribes
of Sogdiana and Scythia, were moved by the lamentations and promises of
the fallen monarch; and he solicited, by a suppliant embassy, the more
solid and powerful friendship of the emperor of China. [36] The virtuous
Taitsong, [37] the first of the dynasty of the Tang may be justly
compared with the Antonines of Rome: his people enjoyed the blessings
of prosperity and peace; and his dominion was acknowledged by forty-four
hordes of the Barbarians of Tartary. His last garrisons of Cashgar and
Khoten maintained a frequent intercourse with their neighbors of the
Jaxartes and Oxus; a recent colony of Persians had introduced into China
the astronomy of the Magi; and Taitsong might be alarmed by the rapid
progress and dangerous vicinity of the Arabs. The influence, and perhaps
the supplies, of China revived the hopes of Yezdegerd and the zeal
of the worshippers of fire; and he returned with an army of Turks to
conquer the inheritance of his fathers. The fortunate Moslems, without
unsheathing their swords, were the spectators of his ruin and death.
The grandson of Chosroes was betrayed by his servant, insulted by the
seditious inhabitants of Merou, and oppressed, defeated, and pursued by
his Barbarian allies. He reached the banks of a river, and offered his
rings and bracelets for an instant passage in a miller's boat. Ignorant
or insensible of royal distress, the rustic replied, that four drams of
silver were the daily profit of his mill, and that he would not suspend
his work unless the loss were repaid. In this moment of hesitation and
delay, the last of the Sassanian kings was overtaken and slaughtered by
the Turkish cavalry, in the nineteenth year of his unhappy reign. [38]
[3811] His son Firuz, an humble client of the Chinese emperor, accepted
the station of captain of his guards; and the Magian worship was long
preserved by a colony of loyal exiles in the province of Bucharia.
[3812] His grandson inherited the regal name; but after a faint and
fruitless enterprise, he returned to China, and ended his days in the
palace of Sigan. The male line of the Sassanides was extinct; but the
female captives, the daughters of Persia, were given to the conquerors
in servitude, or marriage; and the race of the caliphs and imams was
ennobled by the blood of their royal mothers. [39]

[Footnote 34: The most authentic accounts of the two rivers, the Sihon
(Jaxartes) and the Gihon, (Oxus,) may be found in Sherif al Edrisi
(Geograph. Nubiens. p. 138,) Abulfeda, (Descript. Chorasan. in Hudson,
tom. iii. p. 23,) Abulghazi Khan, who reigned on their banks, (Hist.
Genealogique des Tatars, p. 32, 57, 766,) and the Turkish Geographer,
a MS. in the king of France's library, (Examen Critique des Historiens
d'Alexandre, p. 194-360.)]

[Footnote 35: The territory of Fergana is described by Abulfeda, p. 76,
77.]

[Footnote 36: Eo redegit angustiarum eundem regem exsulem, ut Turcici
regis, et Sogdiani, et Sinensis, auxilia missis literis imploraret,
(Abulfed. Annal. p. 74) The connection of the Persian and Chinese
history is illustrated by Freret (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xvi. p.
245-255) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 54-59,) and for
the geography of the borders, tom. ii. p. 1-43.]

[Footnote 37: Hist. Sinica, p. 41-46, in the iiid part of the Relations
Curieuses of Thevenot.]

[Footnote 38: I have endeavored to harmonize the various narratives
of Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 37,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 116,)
Abulfeda, (Annal. p. 74, 79,) and D'Herbelot, (p. 485.) The end of
Yezdegerd, was not only unfortunate but obscure.]

[Footnote 3811: The account of Yezdegerd's death in the Habeib 'usseyr
and Rouzut uzzuffa (Price, p. 162) is much more probable. On the demand
of the few dhirems, he offered to the miller his sword, and royal
girdle, of inesturable value. This awoke the cupidity of the miller, who
murdered him, and threw the body into the stream.--M.]

[Footnote 3812: Firouz died leaving a son called Ni-ni-cha by the
Chinese, probably Narses. Yezdegerd had two sons, Firouz and Bahram St.
Martin, vol. xi. p. 318.--M.]

[Footnote 39: The two daughters of Yezdegerd married Hassan, the son of
Ali, and Mohammed, the son of Abubeker; and the first of these was the
father of a numerous progeny. The daughter of Phirouz became the wife
of the caliph Walid, and their son Yezid derived his genuine or fabulous
descent from the Chosroes of Persia, the Caesars of Rome, and the
Chagans of the Turks or Avars, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 96,
487.)]

After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the River Oxus divided the
territories of the Saracens and of the Turks. This narrow boundary was
soon overleaped by the spirit of the Arabs; the governors of Chorasan
extended their successive inroads; and one of their triumphs was adorned
with the buskin of a Turkish queen, which she dropped in her precipitate
flight beyond the hills of Bochara. [40] But the final conquest of
Transoxiana, [41] as well as of Spain, was reserved for the glorious
reign of the inactive Walid; and the name of Catibah, the camel driver,
declares the origin and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of
his colleagues displayed the first Mahometan banner on the banks of
the Indus, the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes, and the
Caspian Sea, were reduced by the arms of Catibah to the obedience of the
prophet and of the caliph. [42] A tribute of two millions of pieces of
gold was imposed on the infidels; their idols were burnt or broken; the
Mussulman chief pronounced a sermon in the new mosch of Carizme; after
several battles, the Turkish hordes were driven back to the desert; and
the emperors of China solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs.
To their industry, the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of the
ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed; but the advantages of the
soil and climate had been understood and cultivated since the reign
of the Macedonian kings. Before the invasion of the Saracens, Carizme,
Bochara, and Samarcand were rich and populous under the yoke of the
shepherds of the north. [4211] These cities were surrounded with a
double wall; and the exterior fortification, of a larger circumference,
enclosed the fields and gardens of the adjacent district. The mutual
wants of India and Europe were supplied by the diligence of the Sogdian
merchants; and the inestimable art of transforming linen into paper has
been diffused from the manufacture of Samarcand over the western world.
[43]

[Footnote 40: It was valued at 2000 pieces of gold, and was the prize of
Obeidollah, the son of Ziyad, a name afterwards infamous by the murder
of Hosein, (Ockley's History of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 142, 143,) His
brother Salem was accompanied by his wife, the first Arabian woman (A.D.
680) who passed the Oxus: she borrowed, or rather stole, the crown and
jewels of the princess of the Sogdians, (p. 231, 232.)]

[Footnote 41: A part of Abulfeda's geography is translated by Greaves,
inserted in Hudson's collection of the minor geographers, (tom. iii.,)
and entitled Descriptio Chorasmiae et Mawaralnahroe, id est, regionum
extra fluvium, Oxum, p. 80. The name of Transoxiana, softer in sound,
equivalent in sense, is aptly used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de
Gengiscan, &c.,) and some modern Orientalists, but they are mistaken in
ascribing it to the writers of antiquity.]

[Footnote 42: The conquests of Catibah are faintly marked by Elmacin,
(Hist. Saracen. p. 84,) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. Catbah, Samarcand
Valid.,) and De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 58, 59.)]

[Footnote 4211: The manuscripts Arabian and Persian writers in the royal
library contain very circumstantial details on the contest between the
Persians and Arabians. M. St. Martin declined this addition to the work
of Le Beau, as extending to too great a length. St. Martin vol. xi. p.
320.--M.]

[Footnote 43: A curious description of Samarcand is inserted in the
Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 208, &c. The librarian Casiri
(tom. ii. 9) relates, from credible testimony, that paper was first
imported from China to Samarcand, A. H. 30, and invented, or rather
introduced, at Mecca, A. H. 88. The Escurial library contains paper Mss.
as old as the ivth or vth century of the Hegira.]

II. No sooner had Abubeker restored the unity of faith and government,
than he despatched a circular letter to the Arabian tribes. "In the name
of the most merciful God, to the rest of the true believers. Health and
happiness, and the mercy and blessing of God, be upon you. I praise the
most high God, and I pray for his prophet Mahomet. This is to acquaint
you, that I intend to send the true believers into Syria [44] to take
it out of the hands of the infidels. And I would have you know, that
the fighting for religion is an act of obedience to God." His messengers
returned with the tidings of pious and martial ardor which they had
kindled in every province; and the camp of Medina was successively
filled with the intrepid bands of the Saracens, who panted for action,
complained of the heat of the season and the scarcity of provisions,
and accused with impatient murmurs the delays of the caliph. As soon as
their numbers were complete, Abubeker ascended the hill, reviewed the
men, the horses, and the arms, and poured forth a fervent prayer for the
success of their undertaking. In person, and on foot, he accompanied the
first day's march; and when the blushing leaders attempted to dismount,
the caliph removed their scruples by a declaration, that those who
rode, and those who walked, in the service of religion, were equally
meritorious. His instructions [45] to the chiefs of the Syrian army were
inspired by the warlike fanaticism which advances to seize, and affects
to despise, the objects of earthly ambition. "Remember," said the
successor of the prophet, "that you are always in the presence of God,
on the verge of death, in the assurance of judgment, and the hope of
paradise. Avoid injustice and oppression; consult with your brethren,
and study to preserve the love and confidence of your troops. When
you fight the battles of the Lord, acquit yourselves like men, without
turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained with the blood
of women or children. Destroy no palm-trees, nor burn any fields of
corn. Cut down no fruit-trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such
as you kill to eat. When you make any covenant or article, stand to it,
and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will find some religious
persons who live retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to
serve God that way: let them alone, and neither kill them nor destroy
their monasteries: [46] And you will find another sort of people, that
belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven crowns; [47] be sure
you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter till they either turn
Mahometans or pay tribute." All profane or frivolous conversation,
all dangerous recollection of ancient quarrels, was severely prohibited
among the Arabs: in the tumult of a camp, the exercises of religion
were assiduously practised; and the intervals of action were employed in
prayer, meditation, and the study of the Koran. The abuse, or even the
use, of wine was chastised by fourscore strokes on the soles of the
feet, and in the fervor of their primitive zeal, many secret sinners
revealed their fault, and solicited their punishment. After some
hesitation, the command of the Syrian army was delegated to Abu Obeidah,
one of the fugitives of Mecca, and companions of Mahomet; whose zeal and
devotion was assuaged, without being abated, by the singular mildness
and benevolence of his temper. But in all the emergencies of war, the
soldiers demanded the superior genius of Caled; and whoever might be
the choice of the prince, the Sword of God was both in fact and fame the
foremost leader of the Saracens. He obeyed without reluctance; [4711] he
was consulted without jealousy; and such was the spirit of the man, or
rather of the times, that Caled professed his readiness to serve under
the banner of the faith, though it were in the hands of a child or an
enemy. Glory, and riches, and dominion, were indeed promised to the
victorious Mussulman; but he was carefully instructed, that if the goods
of this life were his only incitement, they likewise would be his only
reward.

[Footnote 44: A separate history of the conquest of Syria has been
composed by Al Wakidi, cadi of Bagdad, who was born A.D. 748, and died
A.D. 822; he likewise wrote the conquest of Egypt, of Diarbekir, &c.
Above the meagre and recent chronicles of the Arabians, Al Wakidi has
the double merit of antiquity and copiousness. His tales and traditions
afford an artless picture of the men and the times. Yet his narrative
is too often defective, trifling, and improbable. Till something better
shall be found, his learned and spiritual interpreter (Ockley, in
his History of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 21-342) will not deserve
the petulant animadversion of Reiske, (Prodidagmata ad Magji Chalifae
Tabulas, p. 236.) I am sorry to think that the labors of Ockley were
consummated in a jail, (see his two prefaces to the 1st A.D. 1708, to
the 2d, 1718, with the list of authors at the end.) * Note: M. Hamaker
has clearly shown that neither of these works can be inscribed to Al
Wakidi: they are not older than the end of the xith century or
later than the middle of the xivth. Praefat. in Inc. Auct. LIb. de
Expugnatione Memphidis, c. ix. x.--M.]

[Footnote 45: The instructions, &c., of the Syrian war are described
by Al Wakidi and Ockley, tom. i. p. 22-27, &c. In the sequel it is
necessary to contract, and needless to quote, their circumstantial
narrative. My obligations to others shall be noticed.]

[Footnote 46: Notwithstanding this precept, M. Pauw (Recherches sur les
Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 192, edit. Lausanne) represents the Bedoweens
as the implacable enemies of the Christian monks. For my own part, I
am more inclined to suspect the avarice of the Arabian robbers, and the
prejudices of the German philosopher. * Note: Several modern travellers
(Mr. Fazakerley, in Walpole's Travels in the East, vol. xi. 371) give
very amusing accounts of the terms on which the monks of Mount Sinai
live with the neighboring Bedoweens. Such, probably, was their
relative state in older times, wherever the Arab retained his Bedoween
habits.--M.]

[Footnote 47: Even in the seventh century, the monks were generally
laymen: 'hey wore their hair long and dishevelled, and shaved their
heads when they were ordained priests. The circular tonsure was sacred
and mysterious; it was the crown of thorns; but it was likewise a royal
diadem, and every priest was a king, &c., (Thomassin, Discipline de
l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 721-758, especially p. 737, 738.)]

[Footnote 4711: Compare Price, p. 90.--M.]




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

Another expedition of the conquerors of Damascus will equally display
their avidity and their contempt for the riches of the present world.
They were informed that the produce and manufactures of the country were
annually collected in the fair of Abyla, [64] about thirty miles from
the city; that the cell of a devout hermit was visited at the same
time by a multitude of pilgrims; and that the festival of trade and
superstition would be ennobled by the nuptials of the daughter of the
governor of Tripoli. Abdallah, the son of Jaafar, a glorious and holy
martyr, undertook, with a banner of five hundred horse, the pious and
profitable commission of despoiling the infidels. As he approached the
fair of Abyla, he was astonished by the report of this mighty concourse
of Jews and Christians, Greeks, and Armenians, of natives of Syria and
of strangers of Egypt, to the number of ten thousand, besides a guard of
five thousand horse that attended the person of the bride. The Saracens
paused: "For my own part," said Abdallah, "I dare not go back: our foes
are many, our danger is great, but our reward is splendid and secure,
either in this life or in the life to come. Let every man, according
to his inclination, advance or retire." Not a Mussulman deserted his
standard. "Lead the way," said Abdallah to his Christian guide, "and you
shall see what the companions of the prophet can perform." They charged
in five squadrons; but after the first advantage of the surprise,
they were encompassed and almost overwhelmed by the multitude of their
enemies; and their valiant band is fancifully compared to a white spot
in the skin of a black camel. [65] About the hour of sunset, when their
weapons dropped from their hands, when they panted on the verge of
eternity, they discovered an approaching cloud of dust; they heard the
welcome sound of the tecbir, [66] and they soon perceived the standard
of Caled, who flew to their relief with the utmost speed of his cavalry.
The Christians were broken by his attack, and slaughtered in their
flight, as far as the river of Tripoli. They left behind them the
various riches of the fair; the merchandises that were exposed for sale,
the money that was brought for purchase, the gay decorations of
the nuptials, and the governor's daughter, with forty of her female
attendants.

The fruits, provisions, and furniture, the money, plate, and jewels,
were diligently laden on the backs of horses, asses, and mules; and the
holy robbers returned in triumph to Damascus. The hermit, after a short
and angry controversy with Caled, declined the crown of martyrdom, and
was left alive in the solitary scene of blood and devastation.

[Footnote 64: Dair Abil Kodos. After retrenching the last word, the
epithet, holy, I discover the Abila of Lysanias between Damascus and
Heliopolis: the name (Abil signifies a vineyard) concurs with the
situation to justify my conjecture, (Reland, Palestin. tom. i. p 317,
tom. ii. p. 526, 527.)]

[Footnote 65: I am bolder than Mr. Ockley, (vol. i. p. 164,) who dares
not insert this figurative expression in the text, though he observes in
a marginal note, that the Arabians often borrow their similes from that
useful and familiar animal. The reindeer may be equally famous in the
songs of the Laplanders.]

[Footnote 66: We hear the tecbir; so the Arabs call Their shout of
onset, when with loud appeal They challenge heaven, as if demanding
conquest. This word, so formidable in their holy wars, is a verb active,
(says Ockley in his index,) of the second conjugation, from Kabbara,
which signifies saying Alla Acbar, God is most mighty!]




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

Syria, [67] one of the countries that have been improved by the most
early cultivation, is not unworthy of the preference. [68] The heat of
the climate is tempered by the vicinity of the sea and mountains, by the
plenty of wood and water; and the produce of a fertile soil affords the
subsistence, and encourages the propagation, of men and animals. From
the age of David to that of Heraclius, the country was overspread
with ancient and flourishing cities: the inhabitants were numerous and
wealthy; and, after the slow ravage of despotism and superstition, after
the recent calamities of the Persian war, Syria could still attract
and reward the rapacious tribes of the desert. A plain, of ten days'
journey, from Damascus to Aleppo and Antioch, is watered, on the western
side, by the winding course of the Orontes. The hills of Libanus and
Anti-Libanus are planted from north to south, between the Orontes and
the Mediterranean; and the epithet of hollow (Coelesyria) was applied to
a long and fruitful valley, which is confined in the same direction,
by the two ridges of snowy mountains. [69] Among the cities, which are
enumerated by Greek and Oriental names in the geography and conquest
of Syria, we may distinguish Emesa or Hems, Heliopolis or Baalbec, the
former as the metropolis of the plain, the latter as the capital of the
valley. Under the last of the Caesars, they were strong and populous;
the turrets glittered from afar: an ample space was covered with public
and private buildings; and the citizens were illustrious by their
spirit, or at least by their pride; by their riches, or at least by
their luxury. In the days of Paganism, both Emesa and Heliopolis were
addicted to the worship of Baal, or the sun; but the decline of their
superstition and splendor has been marked by a singular variety of
fortune. Not a vestige remains of the temple of Emesa, which was
equalled in poetic style to the summits of Mount Libanus, [70] while
the ruins of Baalbec, invisible to the writers of antiquity, excite the
curiosity and wonder of the European traveller. [71] The measure of the
temple is two hundred feet in length, and one hundred in breadth: the
front is adorned with a double portico of eight columns; fourteen may be
counted on either side; and each column, forty-five feet in height, is
composed of three massy blocks of stone or marble. The proportions
and ornaments of the Corinthian order express the architecture of the
Greeks: but as Baalbec has never been the seat of a monarch, we are at
a loss to conceive how the expense of these magnificent structures could
be supplied by private or municipal liberality. [72] From the conquest
of Damascus the Saracens proceeded to Heliopolis and Emesa: but I
shall decline the repetition of the sallies and combats which have been
already shown on a larger scale. In the prosecution of the war, their
policy was not less effectual than their sword. By short and separate
truces they dissolved the union of the enemy; accustomed the Syrians
to compare their friendship with their enmity; familiarized the idea
of their language, religion, and manners; and exhausted, by clandestine
purchase, the magazines and arsenals of the cities which they returned
to besiege. They aggravated the ransom of the more wealthy, or the more
obstinate; and Chalcis alone was taxed at five thousand ounces of gold,
five thousand ounces of silver, two thousand robes of silk, and as many
figs and olives as would load five thousand asses. But the terms of
truce or capitulation were faithfully observed; and the lieutenant
of the caliph, who had promised not to enter the walls of the captive
Baalbec, remained tranquil and immovable in his tent till the jarring
factions solicited the interposition of a foreign master. The conquest
of the plain and valley of Syria was achieved in less than two years.
Yet the commander of the faithful reproved the slowness of their
progress; and the Saracens, bewailing their fault with tears of rage and
repentance, called aloud on their chiefs to lead them forth to fight the
battles of the Lord. In a recent action, under the walls of Emesa,
an Arabian youth, the cousin of Caled, was heard aloud to exclaim,
"Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking upon me; one of whom,
should she appear in this world, all mankind would die for love of her.
And I see in the hand of one of them a handkerchief of green silk, and
a cap of precious stones, and she beckons me, and calls out, Come hither
quickly, for I love thee." With these words, charging the Christians, he
made havoc wherever he went, till, observed at length by the governor of
Hems, he was struck through with a javelin.

[Footnote 67: In the Geography of Abulfeda, the description of Syria,
his native country, is the most interesting and authentic portion. It
was published in Arabic and Latin, Lipsiae, 1766, in quarto, with the
learned notes of Kochler and Reiske, and some extracts of geography and
natural history from Ibn Ol Wardii. Among the modern travels, Pocock's
Description of the East (of Syria and Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 88-209)
is a work of superior learning and dignity; but the author too often
confounds what he had seen and what he had read.]

[Footnote 68: The praises of Dionysius are just and lively. Syria, (in
Periegesi, v. 902, in tom. iv. Geograph. Minor. Hudson.) In another
place he styles the country differently, (v. 898.) This poetical
geographer lived in the age of Augustus, and his description of the
world is illustrated by the Greek commentary of Eustathius, who paid the
same compliment to Homer and Dionysius, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. l. iv.
c. 2, tom. iii. p. 21, &c.)]

[Footnote 69: The topography of the Libanus and Anti-Libanus is
excellently described by the learning and sense of Reland, (Palestin.
tom. i. p. 311-326)]

[Footnote 70:

 --Emesae fastigia celsa renident.
   Nam diffusa solo latus explicat; ac subit auras
   Turribus in coelum nitentibus: incola claris
   Cor studiis acuit...
   Denique flammicomo devoti pectora soli
   Vitam agitant.  Libanus frondosa cacumina turget.
   Et tamen his certant celsi fastigia templi.

These verses of the Latin version of Rufus Avienus are wanting in the
Greek original of Dionysius; and since they are likewise unnoticed by
Eustathius, I must, with Fabricius, (Bibliot. Latin. tom. iii. p. 153,
edit. Ernesti,) and against Salmasius, (ad Vopiscum, p. 366, 367, in
Hist. August.,) ascribed them to the fancy, rather than the Mss., of
Avienus.]

[Footnote 71: I am much better satisfied with Maundrell's slight octavo,
(Journey, p. 134-139), than with the pompous folio of Dr. Pocock,
(Description of the East, vol. ii. p. 106-113;) but every preceding
account is eclipsed by the magnificent description and drawings of Mm.
Dawkins and Wood, who have transported into England the ruins of Pamyra
and Baalbec.]

[Footnote 72: The Orientals explain the prodigy by a never-failing
expedient. The edifices of Baalbec were constructed by the fairies or
the genii, (Hist. de Timour Bec, tom. iii. l. v. c. 23, p. 311, 312.
Voyage d'Otter, tom. i. p. 83.) With less absurdity, but with equal
ignorance, Abulfeda and Ibn Chaukel ascribe them to the Sabaeans or
Aadites Non sunt in omni Syria aedificia magnificentiora his, (Tabula
Syria p. 108.)]

It was incumbent on the Saracens to exert the full powers of their valor
and enthusiasm against the forces of the emperor, who was taught, by
repeated losses, that the rovers of the desert had undertaken, and would
speedily achieve, a regular and permanent conquest. From the provinces
of Europe and Asia, fourscore thousand soldiers were transported by sea
and land to Antioch and Caesarea: the light troops of the army consisted
of sixty thousand Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. Under the
banner of Jabalah, the last of their princes, they marched in the
van; and it was a maxim of the Greeks, that for the purpose of cutting
diamond, a diamond was the most effectual. Heraclius withheld his person
from the dangers of the field; but his presumption, or perhaps his
despondency, suggested a peremptory order, that the fate of the province
and the war should be decided by a single battle. The Syrians were
attached to the standard of Rome and of the cross: but the noble, the
citizen, the peasant, were exasperated by the injustice and cruelty of
a licentious host, who oppressed them as subjects, and despised them
as strangers and aliens. [73] A report of these mighty preparations was
conveyed to the Saracens in their camp of Emesa, and the chiefs, though
resolved to fight, assembled a council: the faith of Abu Obeidah would
have expected on the same spot the glory of martyrdom; the wisdom
of Caled advised an honorable retreat to the skirts of Palestine and
Arabia, where they might await the succors of their friends, and the
attack of the unbelievers. A speedy messenger soon returned from the
throne of Medina, with the blessings of Omar and Ali, the prayers of the
widows of the prophet, and a reenforcement of eight thousand Moslems. In
their way they overturned a detachment of Greeks, and when they
joined at Yermuk the camp of their brethren, they found the pleasing
intelligence, that Caled had already defeated and scattered the
Christian Arabs of the tribe of Gassan. In the neighborhood of Bosra,
the springs of Mount Hermon descend in a torrent to the plain of
Decapolis, or ten cities; and the Hieromax, a name which has been
corrupted to Yermuk, is lost, after a short course, in the Lake of
Tiberias. [74] The banks of this obscure stream were illustrated by a
long and bloody encounter. [7411] On this momentous occasion, the public
voice, and the modesty of Abu Obeidah, restored the command to the most
deserving of the Moslems. Caled assumed his station in the front, his
colleague was posted in the rear, that the disorder of the fugitive
might be checked by his venerable aspect, and the sight of the yellow
banner which Mahomet had displayed before the walls of Chaibar. The last
line was occupied by the sister of Derar, with the Arabian women who had
enlisted in this holy war, who were accustomed to wield the bow and
the lance, and who in a moment of captivity had defended, against
the uncircumcised ravishers, their chastity and religion. [75] The
exhortation of the generals was brief and forcible: "Paradise is before
you, the devil and hell-fire in your rear." Yet such was the weight
of the Roman cavalry, that the right wing of the Arabs was broken and
separated from the main body. Thrice did they retreat in disorder, and
thrice were they driven back to the charge by the reproaches and blows
of the women. In the intervals of action, Abu Obeidah visited the tents
of his brethren, prolonged their repose by repeating at once the prayers
of two different hours, bound up their wounds with his own hands, and
administered the comfortable reflection, that the infidels partook of
their sufferings without partaking of their reward. Four thousand and
thirty of the Moslems were buried in the field of battle; and the skill
of the Armenian archers enabled seven hundred to boast that they had
lost an eye in that meritorious service. The veterans of the Syrian war
acknowledged that it was the hardest and most doubtful of the days which
they had seen. But it was likewise the most decisive: many thousands
of the Greeks and Syrians fell by the swords of the Arabs; many were
slaughtered, after the defeat, in the woods and mountains; many, by
mistaking the ford, were drowned in the waters of the Yermuk; and
however the loss may be magnified, [76] the Christian writers confess
and bewail the bloody punishment of their sins. [77] Manuel, the Roman
general, was either killed at Damascus, or took refuge in the monastery
of Mount Sinai. An exile in the Byzantine court, Jabalah lamented the
manners of Arabia, and his unlucky preference of the Christian cause.
[78] He had once inclined to the profession of Islam; but in the
pilgrimage of Mecca, Jabalah was provoked to strike one of his brethren,
and fled with amazement from the stern and equal justice of the caliph
These victorious Saracens enjoyed at Damascus a month of pleasure and
repose: the spoil was divided by the discretion of Abu Obeidah: an equal
share was allotted to a soldier and to his horse, and a double portion
was reserved for the noble coursers of the Arabian breed.

[Footnote 73: I have read somewhere in Tacitus, or Grotius, Subjectos
habent tanquam suos, viles tanquam alienos. Some Greek officers ravished
the wife, and murdered the child, of their Syrian landlord; and Manuel
smiled at his undutiful complaint.]

[Footnote 74: See Reland, Palestin. tom. i. p. 272, 283, tom. ii. p.
773, 775. This learned professor was equal to the task of describing
the Holy Land, since he was alike conversant with Greek and Latin, with
Hebrew and Arabian literature. The Yermuk, or Hieromax, is noticed by
Cellarius (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 392) and D'Anville, (Geographie
Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 185.) The Arabs, and even Abulfeda himself, do not
seem to recognize the scene of their victory.]

[Footnote 7411: Compare Price, p. 79. The army of the Romans is swoller
to 400,000 men of which 70,000 perished.--M.]

[Footnote 75: These women were of the tribe of the Hamyarites, who
derived their origin from the ancient Amalekites. Their females were
accustomed to ride on horseback, and to fight like the Amazons of old,
(Ockley, vol. i. p. 67.)]

[Footnote 76: We killed of them, says Abu Obeidah to the caliph, one
hundred and fifty thousand, and made prisoners forty thousand, (Ockley
vol. i. p. 241.) As I cannot doubt his veracity, nor believe his
computation, I must suspect that the Arabic historians indulge
themselves in the practice of comparing speeches and letters for their
heroes.]

[Footnote 77: After deploring the sins of the Christians, Theophanes,
adds, (Chronograph. p. 276,) does he mean Aiznadin? His account is brief
and obscure, but he accuses the numbers of the enemy, the adverse wind,
and the cloud of dust. (Chronograph. p. 280.)]

[Footnote 78: See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 70, 71,) who transcribes
the poetical complaint of Jabalah himself, and some panegyrical strains
of an Arabian poet, to whom the chief of Gassan sent from Constantinople
a gift of five hundred pieces of gold by the hands of the ambassador of
Omar.]

After the battle of Yermuk, the Roman army no longer appeared in the
field; and the Saracens might securely choose, among the fortified towns
of Syria, the first object of their attack. They consulted the caliph
whether they should march to Caesarea or Jerusalem; and the advice of
Ali determined the immediate siege of the latter. To a profane eye,
Jerusalem was the first or second capital of Palestine; but after Mecca
and Medina, it was revered and visited by the devout Moslems, as the
temple of the Holy Land which had been sanctified by the revelation of
Moses, of Jesus, and of Mahomet himself. The son of Abu Sophian was
sent with five thousand Arabs to try the first experiment of surprise
or treaty; but on the eleventh day, the town was invested by the whole
force of Abu Obeidah. He addressed the customary summons to the chief
commanders and people of Aelia. [79]

[Footnote 79: In the name of the city, the profane prevailed over the
sacred Jerusalem was known to the devout Christians, (Euseb. de Martyr
Palest. c xi.;) but the legal and popular appellation of Aelia (the
colony of Aelius Hadrianus) has passed from the Romans to the Arabs.
(Reland, Palestin. tom. i. p. 207, tom. ii. p. 835. D'Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, Cods, p. 269, Ilia, p. 420.) The epithet of Al
Cods, the Holy, is used as the proper name of Jerusalem.]

"Health and happiness to every one that follows the right way! We
require of you to testify that there is but one God, and that Mahomet is
his apostle. If you refuse this, consent to pay tribute, and be under us
forthwith. Otherwise I shall bring men against you who love death better
than you do the drinking of wine or eating hog's flesh. Nor will I ever
stir from you, if it please God, till I have destroyed those that fight
for you, and made slaves of your children." But the city was defended
on every side by deep valleys and steep ascents; since the invasion of
Syria, the walls and towers had been anxiously restored; the bravest of
the fugitives of Yermuk had stopped in the nearest place of refuge; and
in the defence of the sepulchre of Christ, the natives and strangers
might feel some sparks of the enthusiasm, which so fiercely glowed in
the bosoms of the Saracens. The siege of Jerusalem lasted four months;
not a day was lost without some action of sally or assault; the military
engines incessantly played from the ramparts; and the inclemency of
the winter was still more painful and destructive to the Arabs. The
Christians yielded at length to the perseverance of the besiegers.
The patriarch Sophronius appeared on the walls, and by the voice of
an interpreter demanded a conference. [7911] After a vain attempt to
dissuade the lieutenant of the caliph from his impious enterprise, he
proposed, in the name of the people, a fair capitulation, with this
extraordinary clause, that the articles of security should be ratified
by the authority and presence of Omar himself. The question was debated
in the council of Medina; the sanctity of the place, and the advice
of Ali, persuaded the caliph to gratify the wishes of his soldiers and
enemies; and the simplicity of his journey is more illustrious than the
royal pageants of vanity and oppression. The conqueror of Persia and
Syria was mounted on a red camel, which carried, besides his person,
a bag of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern bottle of
water. Wherever he halted, the company, without distinction, was invited
to partake of his homely fare, and the repast was consecrated by the
prayer and exhortation of the commander of the faithful. [80] But
in this expedition or pilgrimage, his power was exercised in the
administration of justice: he reformed the licentious polygamy of
the Arabs, relieved the tributaries from extortion and cruelty, and
chastised the luxury of the Saracens, by despoiling them of their rich
silks, and dragging them on their faces in the dirt. When he came
within sight of Jerusalem, the caliph cried with a loud voice, "God is
victorious. O Lord, give us an easy conquest!" and, pitching his tent
of coarse hair, calmly seated himself on the ground. After signing
the capitulation, he entered the city without fear or precaution; and
courteously discoursed with the patriarch concerning its religious
antiquities. [81] Sophronius bowed before his new master, and secretly
muttered, in the words of Daniel, "The abomination of desolation is in
the holy place." [82] At the hour of prayer they stood together in
the church of the resurrection; but the caliph refused to perform his
devotions, and contented himself with praying on the steps of the church
of Constantine. To the patriarch he disclosed his prudent and honorable
motive. "Had I yielded," said Omar, "to your request, the Moslems of a
future age would have infringed the treaty under color of imitating
my example." By his command the ground of the temple of Solomon was
prepared for the foundation of a mosch; [83] and, during a residence
of ten days, he regulated the present and future state of his Syrian
conquests. Medina might be jealous, lest the caliph should be
detained by the sanctity of Jerusalem or the beauty of Damascus; her
apprehensions were dispelled by his prompt and voluntary return to the
tomb of the apostle. [84]

[Footnote 7911: See the explanation of this in Price, with the prophecy
which was hereby fulfilled, p 85.--M]

[Footnote 80: The singular journey and equipage of Omar are described
(besides Ockley, vol. i. p. 250) by Murtadi, (Merveilles de l'Egypte, p.
200-202.)]

[Footnote 81: The Arabs boast of an old prophecy preserved at Jerusalem,
and describing the name, the religion, and the person of Omar, the
future conqueror. By such arts the Jews are said to have soothed the
pride of their foreign masters, Cyrus and Alexander, (Joseph. Ant. Jud.
l. xi c. 1, 8, p. 447, 579-582.)]

[Footnote 82: Theophan. Chronograph. p. 281. This prediction, which had
already served for Antiochus and the Romans, was again refitted for
the present occasion, by the economy of Sophronius, one of the deepest
theologians of the Monothelite controversy.]

[Footnote 83: According to the accurate survey of D'Anville,
(Dissertation sun l'ancienne Jerusalem, p. 42-54,) the mosch of Omar,
enlarged and embellished by succeeding caliphs, covered the ground of
the ancient temple, (says Phocas,) a length of 215, a breadth of 172,
toises. The Nubian geographer declares, that this magnificent structure
was second only in size and beauty to the great mosch of Cordova, (p.
113,) whose present state Mr. Swinburne has so elegantly represented,
(Travels into Spain, p. 296-302.)]

[Footnote 84: Of the many Arabic tarikhs or chronicles of Jerusalem,
(D'Herbelot, p. 867,) Ockley found one among the Pocock Mss. of Oxford,
(vol. i. p. 257,) which he has used to supply the defective narrative of
Al Wakidi.]

To achieve what yet remained of the Syrian war the caliph had formed two
separate armies; a chosen detachment, under Amrou and Yezid, was left in
the camp of Palestine; while the larger division, under the standard
of Abu Obeidah and Caled, marched away to the north against Antioch
and Aleppo. The latter of these, the Beraea of the Greeks, was not
yet illustrious as the capital of a province or a kingdom; and the
inhabitants, by anticipating their submission and pleading their
poverty, obtained a moderate composition for their lives and religion.
But the castle of Aleppo, [85] distinct from the city, stood erect on
a lofty artificial mound the sides were sharpened to a precipice, and
faced with free-stone; and the breadth of the ditch might be filled with
water from the neighboring springs. After the loss of three thousand
men, the garrison was still equal to the defence; and Youkinna, their
valiant and hereditary chief, had murdered his brother, a holy monk,
for daring to pronounce the name of peace. In a siege of four or five
months, the hardest of the Syrian war, great numbers of the Saracens
were killed and wounded: their removal to the distance of a mile could
not seduce the vigilance of Youkinna; nor could the Christians be
terrified by the execution of three hundred captives, whom they beheaded
before the castle wall. The silence, and at length the complaints,
of Abu Obeidah informed the caliph that their hope and patience were
consumed at the foot of this impregnable fortress. "I am variously
affected," replied Omar, "by the difference of your success; but I
charge you by no means to raise the siege of the castle. Your retreat
would diminish the reputation of our arms, and encourage the infidels
to fall upon you on all sides. Remain before Aleppo till God shall
determine the event, and forage with your horse round the adjacent
country." The exhortation of the commander of the faithful was fortified
by a supply of volunteers from all the tribes of Arabia, who arrived in
the camp on horses or camels. Among these was Dames, of a servile birth,
but of gigantic size and intrepid resolution. The forty-seventh day of
his service he proposed, with only thirty men, to make an attempt on the
castle. The experience and testimony of Caled recommended his offer; and
Abu Obeidah admonished his brethren not to despise the baser origin
of Dames, since he himself, could he relinquish the public care, would
cheerfully serve under the banner of the slave. His design was covered
by the appearance of a retreat; and the camp of the Saracens was pitched
about a league from Aleppo. The thirty adventurers lay in ambush at the
foot of the hill; and Dames at length succeeded in his inquiries, though
he was provoked by the ignorance of his Greek captives. "God curse these
dogs," said the illiterate Arab; "what a strange barbarous language they
speak!" At the darkest hour of the night, he scaled the most accessible
height, which he had diligently surveyed, a place where the stones
were less entire, or the slope less perpendicular, or the guard less
vigilant. Seven of the stoutest Saracens mounted on each other's
shoulders, and the weight of the column was sustained on the broad and
sinewy back of the gigantic slave. The foremost in this painful ascent
could grasp and climb the lowest part of the battlements; they silently
stabbed and cast down the sentinels; and the thirty brethren, repeating
a pious ejaculation, "O apostle of God, help and deliver us!" were
successively drawn up by the long folds of their turbans. With bold
and cautious footsteps, Dames explored the palace of the governor, who
celebrated, in riotous merriment, the festival of his deliverance. From
thence, returning to his companions, he assaulted on the inside the
entrance of the castle. They overpowered the guard, unbolted the gate,
let down the drawbridge, and defended the narrow pass, till the arrival
of Caled, with the dawn of day, relieved their danger and assured
their conquest. Youkinna, a formidable foe, became an active and useful
proselyte; and the general of the Saracens expressed his regard for the
most humble merit, by detaining the army at Aleppo till Dames was cured
of his honorable wounds. The capital of Syria was still covered by the
castle of Aazaz and the iron bridge of the Orontes. After the loss of
those important posts, and the defeat of the last of the Roman armies,
the luxury of Antioch [86] trembled and obeyed. Her safety was ransomed
with three hundred thousand pieces of gold; but the throne of the
successors of Alexander, the seat of the Roman government of the East,
which had been decorated by Caesar with the titles of free, and
holy, and inviolate was degraded under the yoke of the caliphs to the
secondary rank of a provincial town. [87]

[Footnote 85: The Persian historian of Timur (tom. iii. l. v. c. 21,
p. 300) describes the castle of Aleppo as founded on a rock one hundred
cubits in height; a proof, says the French translator, that he had never
visited the place. It is now in the midst of the city, of no strength
with a single gate; the circuit is about 500 or 600 paces, and the
ditch half full of stagnant water, (Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i. p.
149 Pocock, vol. ii. part i. p. 150.) The fortresses of the East are
contemptible to a European eye.]

[Footnote 86: The date of the conquest of Antioch by the Arabs is of
some importance. By comparing the years of the world in the chronography
of Theophanes with the years of the Hegira in the history of Elmacin, we
shall determine, that it was taken between January 23d and September 1st
of the year of Christ 638, (Pagi, Critica, in Baron. Annal. tom. ii.
p. 812, 813.) Al Wakidi (Ockley, vol. i. p. 314) assigns that event to
Tuesday, August 21st, an inconsistent date; since Easter fell that
year on April 5th, the 21st of August must have been a Friday, (see the
Tables of the Art de Verifier les Dates.)]

[Footnote 87: His bounteous edict, which tempted the grateful city to
assume the victory of Pharsalia for a perpetual aera, is given. John
Malala, in Chron. p. 91, edit. Venet. We may distinguish his authentic
information of domestic facts from his gross ignorance of general
history.]

In the life of Heraclius, the glories of the Persian war are clouded on
either hand by the disgrace and weakness of his more early and his later
days. When the successors of Mahomet unsheathed the sword of war and
religion, he was astonished at the boundless prospect of toil and
danger; his nature was indolent, nor could the infirm and frigid age of
the emperor be kindled to a second effort. The sense of shame, and the
importunities of the Syrians, prevented the hasty departure from the
scene of action; but the hero was no more; and the loss of Damascus and
Jerusalem, the bloody fields of Aiznadin and Yermuk, may be imputed in
some degree to the absence or misconduct of the sovereign. Instead of
defending the sepulchre of Christ, he involved the church and state in a
metaphysical controversy for the unity of his will; and while Heraclius
crowned the offspring of his second nuptials, he was tamely stripped
of the most valuable part of their inheritance. In the cathedral of
Antioch, in the presence of the bishops, at the foot of the crucifix,
he bewailed the sins of the prince and people; but his confession
instructed the world, that it was vain, and perhaps impious, to resist
the judgment of God. The Saracens were invincible in fact, since they
were invincible in opinion; and the desertion of Youkinna, his false
repentance and repeated perfidy, might justify the suspicion of
the emperor, that he was encompassed by traitors and apostates, who
conspired to betray his person and their country to the enemies of
Christ. In the hour of adversity, his superstition was agitated by
the omens and dreams of a falling crown; and after bidding an eternal
farewell to Syria, he secretly embarked with a few attendants, and
absolved the faith of his subjects. [88] Constantine, his eldest son,
had been stationed with forty thousand men at Caesarea, the civil
metropolis of the three provinces of Palestine. But his private interest
recalled him to the Byzantine court; and, after the flight of his
father, he felt himself an unequal champion to the united force of the
caliph. His vanguard was boldly attacked by three hundred Arabs and
a thousand black slaves, who, in the depth of winter, had climbed
the snowy mountains of Libanus, and who were speedily followed by the
victorious squadrons of Caled himself. From the north and south the
troops of Antioch and Jerusalem advanced along the sea-shore till their
banners were joined under the walls of the Phoenician cities: Tripoli
and Tyre were betrayed; and a fleet of fifty transports, which entered
without distrust the captive harbors, brought a seasonable supply of
arms and provisions to the camp of the Saracens. Their labors were
terminated by the unexpected surrender of Caesarea: the Roman prince had
embarked in the night; [89] and the defenceless citizens solicited their
pardon with an offering of two hundred thousand pieces of gold.
The remainder of the province, Ramlah, Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or
Neapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea,
Hierapolis, no longer presumed to dispute the will of the conqueror; and
Syria bowed under the sceptre of the caliphs seven hundred years after
Pompey had despoiled the last of the Macedonian kings. [90]

[Footnote 88: See Ockley, (vol. i. p. 308, 312,) who laughs at the
credulity of his author. When Heraclius bade farewell to Syria, Vale
Syria et ultimum vale, he prophesied that the Romans should never
reenter the province till the birth of an inauspicious child, the future
scourge of the empire. Abulfeda, p. 68. I am perfectly ignorant of the
mystic sense, or nonsense, of this prediction.]

[Footnote 89: In the loose and obscure chronology of the times, I am
guided by an authentic record, (in the book of ceremonies of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus,) which certifies that, June 4, A.D. 638, the emperor
crowned his younger son Heraclius, in the presence of his eldest,
Constantine, and in the palace of Constantinople; that January 1, A.D.
639, the royal procession visited the great church, and on the 4th of
the same month, the hippodrome.]

[Footnote 90: Sixty-five years before Christ, Syria Pontusque monumenta
sunt Cn. Pompeii virtutis, (Vell. Patercul. ii. 38,) rather of his
fortune and power: he adjudged Syria to be a Roman province, and the
last of the Seleucides were incapable of drawing a sword in the defence
of their patrimony (see the original texts collected by Usher, Annal. p.
420)]




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

The sieges and battles of six campaigns had consumed many thousands
of the Moslems. They died with the reputation and the cheerfulness of
martyrs; and the simplicity of their faith may be expressed in the words
of an Arabian youth, when he embraced, for the last time, his sister and
mother: "It is not," said he, "the delicacies of Syria, or the fading
delights of this world, that have prompted me to devote my life in the
cause of religion. But I seek the favor of God and his apostle; and I
have heard, from one of the companions of the prophet, that the spirits
of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds, who shall
taste the fruits, and drink of the rivers, of paradise. Farewell, we
shall meet again among the groves and fountains which God has provided
for his elect." The faithful captives might exercise a passive and more
arduous resolution; and a cousin of Mahomet is celebrated for refusing,
after an abstinence of three days, the wine and pork, the only
nourishment that was allowed by the malice of the infidels. The frailty
of some weaker brethren exasperated the implacable spirit of fanaticism;
and the father of Amer deplored, in pathetic strains, the apostasy
and damnation of a son, who had renounced the promises of God, and the
intercession of the prophet, to occupy, with the priests and deacons,
the lowest mansions of hell. The more fortunate Arabs, who survived the
war and persevered in the faith, were restrained by their abstemious
leader from the abuse of prosperity. After a refreshment of three days,
Abu Obeidah withdrew his troops from the pernicious contagion of the
luxury of Antioch, and assured the caliph that their religion and virtue
could only be preserved by the hard discipline of poverty and labor. But
the virtue of Omar, however rigorous to himself, was kind and liberal
to his brethren. After a just tribute of praise and thanksgiving, he
dropped a tear of compassion; and sitting down on the ground, wrote
an answer, in which he mildly censured the severity of his lieutenant:
"God," said the successor of the prophet, "has not forbidden the use of
the good things of this worl to faithful men, and such as have performed
good works. Therefore you ought to have given them leave to rest
themselves, and partake freely of those good things which the country
affordeth. If any of the Saracens have no family in Arabia, they may
marry in Syria; and whosoever of them wants any female slaves, he may
purchase as many as he hath occasion for." The conquerors prepared
to use, or to abuse, this gracious permission; but the year of their
triumph was marked by a mortality of men and cattle; and twenty-five
thousand Saracens were snatched away from the possession of Syria.
The death of Abu Obeidah might be lamented by the Christians; but his
brethren recollected that he was one of the ten elect whom the prophet
had named as the heirs of paradise. [91] Caled survived his brethren
about three years: and the tomb of the Sword of God is shown in the
neighborhood of Emesa. His valor, which founded in Arabia and Syria
the empire of the caliphs, was fortified by the opinion of a special
providence; and as long as he wore a cap, which had been blessed
by Mahomet, he deemed himself invulnerable amidst the darts of the
infidels. [9111]

[Footnote 91: Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 73. Mahomet could artfully
vary the praises of his disciples. Of Omar he was accustomed to say,
that if a prophet could arise after himself, it would be Omar; and that
in a general calamity, Omar would be accepted by the divine justice,
(Ockley, vol. i. p. 221.)]

[Footnote 9111: Khaled, according to the Rouzont Uzzuffa, (Price, p.
90,) after having been deprived of his ample share of the plunder of
Syria by the jealousy of Omar, died, possessed only of his horse, his
arms, and a single slave. Yet Omar was obliged to acknowledge to his
lamenting parent. that never mother had produced a son like Khaled.--M.]

The place of the first conquerors was supplied by a new generation of
their children and countrymen: Syria became the seat and support of
the house of Ommiyah; and the revenue, the soldiers, the ships of that
powerful kingdom were consecrated to enlarge on every side the empire of
the caliphs. But the Saracens despise a superfluity of fame; and their
historians scarcely condescend to mention the subordinate conquests
which are lost in the splendor and rapidity of their victorious career.

To the north of Syria, they passed Mount Taurus, and reduced to their
obedience the province of Cilicia, with its capital Tarsus, the ancient
monument of the Assyrian kings. Beyond a second ridge of the same
mountains, they spread the flame of war, rather than the light of
religion, as far as the shores of the Euxine, and the neighborhood of
Constantinople. To the east they advanced to the banks and sources of
the Euphrates and Tigris: [92] the long disputed barrier of Rome and
Persia was forever confounded the walls of Edessa and Amida, of Dara and
Nisibis, which had resisted the arms and engines of Sapor or Nushirvan,
were levelled in the dust; and the holy city of Abgarus might vainly
produce the epistle or the image of Christ to an unbelieving conqueror.
To the west the Syrian kingdom is bounded by the sea: and the ruin of
Aradus, a small island or peninsula on the coast, was postponed during
ten years. But the hills of Libanus abounded in timber; the trade of
Phoenicia was populous in mariners; and a fleet of seventeen hundred
barks was equipped and manned by the natives of the desert. The Imperial
navy of the Romans fled before them from the Pamphylian rocks to the
Hellespont; but the spirit of the emperor, a grandson of Heraclius, had
been subdued before the combat by a dream and a pun. [93] The Saracens
rode masters of the sea; and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and the
Cyclades, were successively exposed to their rapacious visits. Three
hundred years before the Christian aera, the memorable though fruitless
siege of Rhodes [94] by Demetrius had furnished that maritime republic
with the materials and the subject of a trophy. A gigantic statue
of Apollo, or the sun, seventy cubits in height, was erected at the
entrance of the harbor, a monument of the freedom and the arts of
Greece. After standing fifty-six years, the colossus of Rhodes was
overthrown by an earthquake; but the massy trunk, and huge fragments,
lay scattered eight centuries on the ground, and are often described
as one of the wonders of the ancient world. They were collected by the
diligence of the Saracens, and sold to a Jewish merchant of Edessa, who
is said to have laden nine hundred camels with the weight of the brass
metal; an enormous weight, though we should include the hundred
colossal figures, [95] and the three thousand statues, which adorned the
prosperity of the city of the sun.

[Footnote 92: Al Wakidi had likewise written a history of the conquest
of Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia, (Ockley, at the end of the iid vol.,)
which our interpreters do not appear to have seen. The Chronicle of
Dionysius of Telmar, the Jacobite patriarch, records the taking of
Edessa A.D. 637, and of Dara A.D. 641, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.
ii. p. 103;) and the attentive may glean some doubtful information from
the Chronography of Theophanes, (p. 285-287.) Most of the towns of
Mesopotamia yielded by surrender, (Abulpharag. p. 112.) * Note: It has
been published in Arabic by M. Ewald St. Martin, vol. xi p 248; but its
authenticity is doubted.--M.]

[Footnote 93: He dreamt that he was at Thessalonica, a harmless and
unmeaning vision; but his soothsayer, or his cowardice, understood
the sure omen of a defeat concealed in that inauspicious word, Give to
another the victory, (Theoph. p. 286. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 88.)]

[Footnote 94: Every passage and every fact that relates to the isle, the
city, and the colossus of Rhodes, are compiled in the laborious treatise
of Meursius, who has bestowed the same diligence on the two larger
islands of the Crete and Cyprus. See, in the iiid vol. of his works, the
Rhodus of Meursius, (l. i. c. 15, p. 715-719.) The Byzantine writers,
Theophanes and Constantine, have ignorantly prolonged the term to 1360
years, and ridiculously divide the weight among 30,000 camels.]

[Footnote 95: Centum colossi alium nobilitaturi locum, says Pliny, with
his usual spirit. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 18.]

II. The conquest of Egypt may be explained by the character of the
victorious Saracen, one of the first of his nation, in an age when the
meanest of the brethren was exalted above his nature by the spirit of
enthusiasm. The birth of Amrou was at once base and illustrious; his
mother, a notorious prostitute, was unable to decide among five of the
Koreish; but the proof of resemblance adjudged the child to Aasi,
the oldest of her lovers. [96] The youth of Amrou was impelled by the
passions and prejudices of his kindred: his poetic genius was exercised
in satirical verses against the person and doctrine of Mahomet; his
dexterity was employed by the reigning faction to pursue the religious
exiles who had taken refuge in the court of the Aethiopian king. [97]
Yet he returned from this embassy a secret proselyte; his reason or his
interest determined him to renounce the worship of idols; he escaped
from Mecca with his friend Caled; and the prophet of Medina enjoyed at
the same moment the satisfaction of embracing the two firmest champions
of his cause. The impatience of Amrou to lead the armies of the faithful
was checked by the reproof of Omar, who advised him not to seek
power and dominion, since he who is a subject to-day, may be a prince
to-morrow. Yet his merit was not overlooked by the two first successors
of Mahomet; they were indebted to his arms for the conquest of
Palestine; and in all the battles and sieges of Syria, he united with
the temper of a chief the valor of an adventurous soldier. In a visit
to Medina, the caliph expressed a wish to survey the sword which had cut
down so many Christian warriors; the son of Aasi unsheathed a short and
ordinary cimeter; and as he perceived the surprise of Omar, "Alas," said
the modest Saracen, "the sword itself, without the arm of its master, is
neither sharper nor more weighty than the sword of Pharezdak the poet."
[98] After the conquest of Egypt, he was recalled by the jealousy of
the caliph Othman; but in the subsequent troubles, the ambition of a
soldier, a statesman, and an orator, emerged from a private station.
His powerful support, both in council and in the field, established the
throne of the Ommiades; the administration and revenue of Egypt were
restored by the gratitude of Moawiyah to a faithful friend who had
raised himself above the rank of a subject; and Amrou ended his days in
the palace and city which he had founded on the banks of the Nile. His
dying speech to his children is celebrated by the Arabians as a model
of eloquence and wisdom: he deplored the errors of his youth but if the
penitent was still infected by the vanity of a poet, he might exaggerate
the venom and mischief of his impious compositions. [99]

[Footnote 96: We learn this anecdote from a spirited old woman, who
reviled to their faces, the caliph and his friend. She was encouraged
by the silence of Amrou and the liberality of Moawiyah, (Abulfeda, Annal
Moslem. p. 111.)]

[Footnote 97: Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 46, &c., who quotes
the Abyssinian history, or romance of Abdel Balcides. Yet the fact of
the embassy and ambassador may be allowed.]

[Footnote 98: This saying is preserved by Pocock, (Not. ad Carmen
Tograi, p 184,) and justly applauded by Mr. Harris, (Philosophical
Arrangements, p. 850.)]

[Footnote 99: For the life and character of Amrou, see Ockley (Hist. of
the Saracens, vol. i. p. 28, 63, 94, 328, 342, 344, and to the end of
the volume; vol. ii. p. 51, 55, 57, 74, 110-112, 162) and Otter, (Mem.
de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p. 131, 132.) The readers
of Tacitus may aptly compare Vespasian and Mucianus with Moawiyah and
Amrou. Yet the resemblance is still more in the situation, than in the
characters, of the men.]

From his camp in Palestine, Amrou had surprised or anticipated the
caliph's leave for the invasion of Egypt. [100] The magnanimous Omar
trusted in his God and his sword, which had shaken the thrones of
Chosroes and Caesar: but when he compared the slender force of the
Moslems with the greatness of the enterprise, he condemned his own
rashness, and listened to his timid companions. The pride and the
greatness of Pharaoh were familiar to the readers of the Koran; and a
tenfold repetition of prodigies had been scarcely sufficient to effect,
not the victory, but the flight, of six hundred thousand of the
children of Israel: the cities of Egypt were many and populous; their
architecture was strong and solid; the Nile, with its numerous branches,
was alone an insuperable barrier; and the granary of the Imperial city
would be obstinately defended by the Roman powers. In this perplexity,
the commander of the faithful resigned himself to the decision of
chance, or, in his opinion, of Providence. At the head of only four
thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amrou had marched away from his station of
Gaza when he was overtaken by the messenger of Omar. "If you are still
in Syria," said the ambiguous mandate, "retreat without delay; but if,
at the receipt of this epistle, you have already reached the frontiers
of Egypt, advance with confidence, and depend on the succor of God and
of your brethren." The experience, perhaps the secret intelligence,
of Amrou had taught him to suspect the mutability of courts; and he
continued his march till his tents were unquestionably pitched on
Egyptian ground. He there assembled his officers, broke the seal,
perused the epistle, gravely inquired the name and situation of the
place, and declared his ready obedience to the commands of the caliph.
After a siege of thirty days, he took possession of Farmah or Pelusium;
and that key of Egypt, as it has been justly named, unlocked the
entrance of the country as far as the ruins of Heliopolis and the
neighborhood of the modern Cairo.

[Footnote 100: Al Wakidi had likewise composed a separate history of
the conquest of Egypt, which Mr. Ockley could never procure; and his own
inquiries (vol. i. 344-362) have added very little to the original text
of Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 296-323, vers. Pocock,) the Melchite
patriarch of Alexandria, who lived three hundred years after the
revolution.]

On the Western side of the Nile, at a small distance to the east of the
Pyramids, at a small distance to the south of the Delta, Memphis, one
hundred and fifty furlongs in circumference, displayed the magnificence
of ancient kings. Under the reign of the Ptolemies and Caesars, the
seat of government was removed to the sea-coast; the ancient capital
was eclipsed by the arts and opulence of Alexandria; the palaces, and
at length the temples, were reduced to a desolate and ruinous condition:
yet, in the age of Augustus, and even in that of Constantine, Memphis
was still numbered among the greatest and most populous of the
provincial cities. [101] The banks of the Nile, in this place of the
breadth of three thousand feet, were united by two bridges of sixty and
of thirty boats, connected in the middle stream by the small island of
Rouda, which was covered with gardens and habitations. [102] The eastern
extremity of the bridge was terminated by the town of Babylon and the
camp of a Roman legion, which protected the passage of the river and the
second capital of Egypt. This important fortress, which might fairly be
described as a part of Memphis or Misrah, was invested by the arms of
the lieutenant of Omar: a reenforcement of four thousand Saracens soon
arrived in his camp; and the military engines, which battered the walls,
may be imputed to the art and labor of his Syrian allies. Yet the siege
was protracted to seven months; and the rash invaders were encompassed
and threatened by the inundation of the Nile. [103] Their last assault
was bold and successful: they passed the ditch, which had been fortified
with iron spikes, applied their scaling ladders, entered the fortress
with the shout of "God is victorious!" and drove the remnant of the
Greeks to their boats and the Isle of Rouda. The spot was afterwards
recommended to the conqueror by the easy communication with the gulf and
the peninsula of Arabia; the remains of Memphis were deserted; the tents
of the Arabs were converted into permanent habitations; and the first
mosch was blessed by the presence of fourscore companions of Mahomet.
[104] A new city arose in their camp, on the eastward bank of the Nile;
and the contiguous quarters of Babylon and Fostat are confounded in
their present decay by the appellation of old Misrah, or Cairo, of
which they form an extensive suburb. But the name of Cairo, the town of
victory, more strictly belongs to the modern capital, which was founded
in the tenth century by the Fatimite caliphs. [105] It has gradually
receded from the river; but the continuity of buildings may be traced
by an attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris to those of Saladin.
[106]

[Footnote 101: Strabo, an accurate and attentive spectator, observes
of Heliopolis, (Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1158;) but of Memphis he notices,
however, the mixture of inhabitants, and the ruin of the palaces. In the
proper Egypt, Ammianus enumerates Memphis among the four cities, maximis
urbibus quibus provincia nitet, (xxii. 16;) and the name of Memphis
appears with distinction in the Roman Itinerary and episcopal lists.]

[Footnote 102: These rare and curious facts, the breadth (2946 feet)
and the bridge of the Nile, are only to be found in the Danish traveller
and the Nubian geographer, (p. 98.)]

[Footnote 103: From the month of April, the Nile begins imperceptibly to
rise; the swell becomes strong and visible in the moon after the summer
solstice, (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 10,) and is usually proclaimed at Cairo
on St. Peter's day, (June 29.) A register of thirty successive years
marks the greatest height of the waters between July 25 and August
18, (Maillet, Description de l'Egypte, lettre xi. p. 67, &c. Pocock's
Description of the East, vol. i. p. 200. Shaw's Travels, p. 383.)]

[Footnote 104: Murtadi, Merveilles de l'Egypte, 243, 259. He expatiates
on the subject with the zeal and minuteness of a citizen and a bigot,
and his local traditions have a strong air of truth and accuracy.]

[Footnote 105: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 233.]

[Footnote 106: The position of New and of Old Cairo is well known, and
has been often described. Two writers, who were intimately acquainted
with ancient and modern Egypt, have fixed, after a learned inquiry,
the city of Memphis at Gizeh, directly opposite the Old Cairo, (Sicard,
Nouveaux Memoires des Missions du Levant, tom. vi. p. 5, 6. Shaw's
Observations and Travels, p. 296-304.) Yet we may not disregard the
authority or the arguments of Pocock, (vol. i. p. 25-41,) Niebuhr,
(Voyage, tom. i. p. 77-106,) and above all, of D'Anville, (Description
de l'Egypte, p. 111, 112, 130-149,) who have removed Memphis towards the
village of Mohannah, some miles farther to the south. In their heat, the
disputants have forgot that the ample space of a metropolis covers and
annihilates the far greater part of the controversy.]

Yet the Arabs, after a glorious and profitable enterprise, must have
retreated to the desert, had they not found a powerful alliance in the
heart of the country. The rapid conquest of Alexander was assisted by
the superstition and revolt of the natives: they abhorred their Persian
oppressors, the disciples of the Magi, who had burnt the temples of
Egypt, and feasted with sacrilegious appetite on the flesh of the god
Apis. [107] After a period of ten centuries, the same revolution was
renewed by a similar cause; and in the support of an incomprehensible
creed, the zeal of the Coptic Christians was equally ardent. I
have already explained the origin and progress of the Monophysite
controversy, and the persecution of the emperors, which converted a sect
into a nation, and alienated Egypt from their religion and government.
The Saracens were received as the deliverers of the Jacobite church;
and a secret and effectual treaty was opened during the siege of Memphis
between a victorious army and a people of slaves. A rich and noble
Egyptian, of the name of Mokawkas, had dissembled his faith to obtain
the administration of his province: in the disorders of the Persian
war he aspired to independence: the embassy of Mahomet ranked him among
princes; but he declined, with rich gifts and ambiguous compliments, the
proposal of a new religion. [108] The abuse of his trust exposed him to
the resentment of Heraclius: his submission was delayed by arrogance and
fear; and his conscience was prompted by interest to throw himself on
the favor of the nation and the support of the Saracens. In his first
conference with Amrou, he heard without indignation the usual option of
the Koran, the tribute, or the sword. "The Greeks," replied Mokawkas,
"are determined to abide the determination of the sword; but with the
Greeks I desire no communion, either in this world or in the next, and
I abjure forever the Byzantine tyrant, his synod of Chalcedon, and his
Melchite slaves. For myself and my brethren, we are resolved to live
and die in the profession of the gospel and unity of Christ. It is
impossible for us to embrace the revelations of your prophet; but we are
desirous of peace, and cheerfully submit to pay tribute and obedience to
his temporal successors." The tribute was ascertained at two pieces of
gold for the head of every Christian; but old men, monks, women, and
children, of both sexes, under sixteen years of age, were exempted
from this personal assessment: the Copts above and below Memphis swore
allegiance to the caliph, and promised a hospitable entertainment of
three days to every Mussulman who should travel through their country.
By this charter of security, the ecclesiastical and civil tyranny of the
Melchites was destroyed: [109] the anathemas of St. Cyril were thundered
from every pulpit; and the sacred edifices, with the patrimony of the
church, were restored to the national communion of the Jacobites, who
enjoyed without moderation the moment of triumph and revenge. At the
pressing summons of Amrou, their patriarch Benjamin emerged from his
desert; and after the first interview, the courteous Arab affected to
declare that he had never conversed with a Christian priest of more
innocent manners and a more venerable aspect. [110] In the march from
Memphis to Alexandria, the lieutenant of Omar intrusted his safety to
the zeal and gratitude of the Egyptians: the roads and bridges were
diligently repaired; and in every step of his progress, he could depend
on a constant supply of provisions and intelligence. The Greeks of
Egypt, whose numbers could scarcely equal a tenth of the natives, were
overwhelmed by the universal defection: they had ever been hated, they
were no longer feared: the magistrate fled from his tribunal, the bishop
from his altar; and the distant garrisons were surprised or starved by
the surrounding multitudes. Had not the Nile afforded a safe and ready
conveyance to the sea, not an individual could have escaped, who by
birth, or language, or office, or religion, was connected with their
odious name.

[Footnote 107: See Herodotus, l. iii. c. 27, 28, 29. Aelian, Hist. Var.
l. iv. c. 8. Suidas in, tom. ii. p. 774. Diodor. Sicul. tom. ii. l.
xvii. p. 197, edit. Wesseling. Says the last of these historians.]

[Footnote 108: Mokawkas sent the prophet two Coptic damsels, with two
maids and one eunuch, an alabaster vase, an ingot of pure gold, oil,
honey, and the finest white linen of Egypt, with a horse, a mule, and
an ass, distinguished by their respective qualifications. The embassy
of Mahomet was despatched from Medina in the seventh year of the Hegira,
(A.D. 628.) See Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 255, 256, 303,)
from Al Jannabi.]

[Footnote 109: The praefecture of Egypt, and the conduct of the war,
had been trusted by Heraclius to the patriarch Cyrus, (Theophan. p. 280,
281.) "In Spain," said James II., "do you not consult your priests?"
"We do," replied the Catholic ambassador, "and our affairs succeed
accordingly." I know not how to relate the plans of Cyrus, of paying
tribute without impairing the revenue, and of converting Omar by his
marriage with the Emperor's daughter, (Nicephor. Breviar. p. 17, 18.)]

[Footnote 110: See the life of Benjamin, in Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch.
Alexandrin. p. 156-172,) who has enriched the conquest of Egypt with
some facts from the Arabic text of Severus the Jacobite historian]

By the retreat of the Greeks from the provinces of Upper Egypt, a
considerable force was collected in the Island of Delta; the natural
and artificial channels of the Nile afforded a succession of strong and
defensible posts; and the road to Alexandria was laboriously cleared by
the victory of the Saracens in two-and-twenty days of general or partial
combat. In their annals of conquest, the siege of Alexandria [111] is
perhaps the most arduous and important enterprise. The first trading
city in the world was abundantly replenished with the means of
subsistence and defence. Her numerous inhabitants fought for the dearest
of human rights, religion and property; and the enmity of the natives
seemed to exclude them from the common benefit of peace and toleration.
The sea was continually open; and if Heraclius had been awake to the
public distress, fresh armies of Romans and Barbarians might have been
poured into the harbor to save the second capital of the empire. A
circumference of ten miles would have scattered the forces of the
Greeks, and favored the stratagems of an active enemy; but the two sides
of an oblong square were covered by the sea and the Lake Maraeotis, and
each of the narrow ends exposed a front of no more than ten furlongs.
The efforts of the Arabs were not inadequate to the difficulty of the
attempt and the value of the prize. From the throne of Medina, the eyes
of Omar were fixed on the camp and city: his voice excited to arms the
Arabian tribes and the veterans of Syria; and the merit of a holy war
was recommended by the peculiar fame and fertility of Egypt. Anxious
for the ruin or expulsion of their tyrants, the faithful natives devoted
their labors to the service of Amrou: some sparks of martial spirit were
perhaps rekindled by the example of their allies; and the sanguine
hopes of Mokawkas had fixed his sepulchre in the church of St. John of
Alexandria. Eutychius the patriarch observes, that the Saracens fought
with the courage of lions: they repulsed the frequent and almost daily
sallies of the besieged, and soon assaulted in their turn the walls and
towers of the city. In every attack, the sword, the banner of Amrou,
glittered in the van of the Moslems. On a memorable day, he was betrayed
by his imprudent valor: his followers who had entered the citadel
were driven back; and the general, with a friend and slave, remained a
prisoner in the hands of the Christians. When Amrou was conducted before
the praefect, he remembered his dignity, and forgot his situation: a
lofty demeanor, and resolute language, revealed the lieutenant of the
caliph, and the battle-axe of a soldier was already raised to strike off
the head of the audacious captive. His life was saved by the readiness
of his slave, who instantly gave his master a blow on the face, and
commanded him, with an angry tone, to be silent in the presence of his
superiors. The credulous Greek was deceived: he listened to the offer
of a treaty, and his prisoners were dismissed in the hope of a more
respectable embassy, till the joyful acclamations of the camp announced
the return of their general, and insulted the folly of the infidels.
At length, after a siege of fourteen months, [112] and the loss of
three-and-twenty thousand men, the Saracens prevailed: the Greeks
embarked their dispirited and diminished numbers, and the standard
of Mahomet was planted on the walls of the capital of Egypt. "I have
taken," said Amrou to the caliph, "the great city of the West. It is
impossible for me to enumerate the variety of its riches and beauty; and
I shall content myself with observing, that it contains four thousand
palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres or places of
amusement, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food, and
forty thousand tributary Jews. The town has been subdued by force of
arms, without treaty or capitulation, and the Moslems are impatient to
seize the fruits of their victory." [113] The commander of the faithful
rejected with firmness the idea of pillage, and directed his lieutenant
to reserve the wealth and revenue of Alexandria for the public service
and the propagation of the faith: the inhabitants were numbered; a
tribute was imposed, the zeal and resentment of the Jacobites were
curbed, and the Melchites who submitted to the Arabian yoke were
indulged in the obscure but tranquil exercise of their worship. The
intelligence of this disgraceful and calamitous event afflicted the
declining health of the emperor; and Heraclius died of a dropsy about
seven weeks after the loss of Alexandria. [114] Under the minority
of his grandson, the clamors of a people, deprived of their daily
sustenance, compelled the Byzantine court to undertake the recovery
of the capital of Egypt. In the space of four years, the harbor and
fortifications of Alexandria were twice occupied by a fleet and army of
Romans. They were twice expelled by the valor of Amrou, who was recalled
by the domestic peril from the distant wars of Tripoli and Nubia. But
the facility of the attempt, the repetition of the insult, and the
obstinacy of the resistance, provoked him to swear, that if a third
time he drove the infidels into the sea, he would render Alexandria as
accessible on all sides as the house of a prostitute. Faithful to his
promise, he dismantled several parts of the walls and towers; but the
people was spared in the chastisement of the city, and the mosch of
Mercy was erected on the spot where the victorious general had stopped
the fury of his troops.

[Footnote 111: The local description of Alexandria is perfectly
ascertained by the master hand of the first of geographers, (D'Anville,
Memoire sur l'Egypte, p. 52-63;) but we may borrow the eyes of the
modern travellers, more especially of Thevenot, (Voyage au Levant, part
i. p. 381-395,) Pocock, (vol. i. p. 2-13,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en
Arabie, tom. i. p. 34-43.) Of the two modern rivals, Savary and Volmey,
the one may amuse, the other will instruct.]

[Footnote 112: Both Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 319) and Elmacin
(Hist. Saracen. p. 28) concur in fixing the taking of Alexandria to
Friday of the new moon of Moharram of the twentieth year of the Hegira,
(December 22, A.D. 640.) In reckoning backwards fourteen months spent
before Alexandria, seven months before Babylon, &c., Amrou might have
invaded Egypt about the end of the year 638; but we are assured that he
entered the country the 12th of Bayni, 6th of June, (Murtadi, Merveilles
de l'Egypte, p. 164. Severus, apud Renaudot, p. 162.) The Saracen, and
afterwards Lewis IX. of France, halted at Pelusium, or Damietta, during
the season of the inundation of the Nile.]

[Footnote 113: Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 316, 319.]

[Footnote 114: Notwithstanding some inconsistencies of Theophanes and
Cedrenus, the accuracy of Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 824) has extracted
from Nicephorus and the Chronicon Orientale the true date of the death
of Heraclius, February 11th, A.D. 641, fifty days after the loss
of Alexandria. A fourth of that time was sufficient to convey the
intelligence.]




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

I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed in silence
the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described by the learned
Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou was more curious and liberal than
that of his brethren, and in his leisure hours, the Arabian chief was
pleased with the conversation of John, the last disciple of Ammonius,
and who derived the surname of Philoponus from his laborious studies of
grammar and philosophy. [115] Emboldened by this familiar intercourse,
Philoponus presumed to solicit a gift, inestimable in his opinion,
contemptible in that of the Barbarians--the royal library, which alone,
among the spoils of Alexandria, had not been appropriated by the visit
and the seal of the conqueror.

Amrou was inclined to gratify the wish of the grammarian, but his rigid
integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without the consent
of the caliph; and the well-known answer of Omar was inspired by the
ignorance of a fanatic. "If these writings of the Greeks agree with
the book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved: if they
disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." The sentence
was executed with blind obedience: the volumes of paper or parchment
were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city; and such was
their incredible multitude, that six months were barely sufficient
for the consumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius [116] have been given to the world in a Latin version,
the tale has been repeatedly transcribed; and every scholar, with pious
indignation, has deplored the irreparable shipwreck of the learning,
the arts, and the genius, of antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly
tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences. [1161] The fact is
indeed marvellous. "Read and wonder!" says the historian himself: and
the solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred
years on the confines of Media, is overbalanced by the silence of two
annalist of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt,
and the most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply
described the conquest of Alexandria. [117] The rigid sentence of Omar
is repugnant to the sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists
they expressly declare, that the religious books of the Jews and
Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never
be committed to the flames; and that the works of profane science,
historians or poets, physicians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied
to the use of the faithful. [118] A more destructive zeal may perhaps be
attributed to the first successors of Mahomet; yet in this instance,
the conflagration would have speedily expired in the deficiency of
materials. I should not recapitulate the disasters of the Alexandrian
library, the involuntary flame that was kindled by Caesar in his own
defence, [119] or the mischievous bigotry of the Christians, who studied
to destroy the monuments of idolatry. [120] But if we gradually descend
from the age of the Antonines to that of Theodosius, we shall learn from
a chain of contemporary witnesses, that the royal palace and the temple
of Serapis no longer contained the four, or the seven, hundred thousand
volumes, which had been assembled by the curiosity and magnificence of
the Ptolemies. [121] Perhaps the church and seat of the patriarchs might
be enriched with a repository of books; but if the ponderous mass of
Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public
baths, [122] a philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was
ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind. I sincerely regret the
more valuable libraries which have been involved in the ruin of the
Roman empire; but when I seriously compute the lapse of ages, the waste
of ignorance, and the calamities of war, our treasures, rather than our
losses, are the objects of my surprise. Many curious and interesting
facts are buried in oblivion: the three great historians of Rome have
been transmitted to our hands in a mutilated state, and we are deprived
of many pleasing compositions of the lyric, iambic, and dramatic poetry
of the Greeks. Yet we should gratefully remember, that the mischances of
time and accident have spared the classic works to which the suffrage
of antiquity [123] had adjudged the first place of genius and glory:
the teachers of ancient knowledge, who are still extant, had perused and
compared the writings of their predecessors; [124] nor can it fairly
be presumed that any important truth, any useful discovery in art or
nature, has been snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

[Footnote 115: Many treatises of this lover of labor are still extant,
but for readers of the present age, the printed and unpublished are
nearly in the same predicament. Moses and Aristotle are the chief
objects of his verbose commentaries, one of which is dated as early as
May 10th, A.D. 617, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. ix. p. 458-468.) A
modern, (John Le Clerc,) who sometimes assumed the same name was equal
to old Philoponus in diligence, and far superior in good sense and real
knowledge.]

[Footnote 116: Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 114, vers. Pocock. Audi quid
factum sit et mirare. It would be endless to enumerate the moderns
who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish with honor the
rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex. Patriarch, p. 170: )
historia... habet aliquid ut Arabibus familiare est.]

[Footnote 1161: Since this period several new Mahometan authorities
have been adduced to support the authority of Abulpharagius. That of,
I. Abdollatiph by Professor White: II. Of Makrizi; I have seen a Ms.
extract from this writer: III. Of Ibn Chaledun: and after them Hadschi
Chalfa. See Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 17. Reinhard, in a
German Dissertation, printed at Gottingen, 1792, and St. Croix, (Magasin
Encyclop. tom. iv. p. 433,) have examined the question. Among Oriental
scholars, Professor White, M. St. Martin, Von Hammer. and Silv. de Sacy,
consider the fact of the burning the library, by the command of Omar,
beyond question. Compare St. Martin's note. vol. xi. p. 296. A Mahometan
writer brings a similar charge against the Crusaders. The library
of Tripoli is said to have contained the incredible number of three
millions of volumes. On the capture of the city, Count Bertram of St.
Giles, entering the first room, which contained nothing but the Koran,
ordered the whole to be burnt, as the works of the false prophet of
Arabia. See Wilken. Gesch der Kreux zuge, vol. ii. p. 211.--M.]

[Footnote 117: This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the annals
of Eutychius, and the Saracenic history of Elmacin. The silence of
Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems, is less conclusive from their
ignorance of Christian literature.]

[Footnote 118: See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in his iiid
volume of Dissertations, p. 37. The reason for not burning the religious
books of the Jews or Christians, is derived from the respect that is due
to the name of God.]

[Footnote 119: Consult the collections of Frensheim (Supplement. Livian,
c. 12, 43) and Usher, (Anal. p. 469.) Livy himself had styled the
Alexandrian library, elegantiae regum curaeque egregium opus; a liberal
encomium, for which he is pertly criticized by the narrow stoicism of
Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 9,) whose wisdom, on this occasion,
deviates into nonsense.]

[Footnote 120: See this History, vol. iii. p. 146.]

[Footnote 121: Aulus Gellius, (Noctes Atticae, vi. 17,) Ammianus
Marcellinua, (xxii. 16,) and Orosius, (l. vi. c. 15.) They all speak in
the past tense, and the words of Ammianus are remarkably strong: fuerunt
Bibliothecae innumerabiles; et loquitum monumentorum veterum concinens
fides, &c.]

[Footnote 122: Renaudot answers for versions of the Bible, Hexapla,
Catenoe Patrum, Commentaries, &c., (p. 170.) Our Alexandrian Ms., if it
came from Egypt, and not from Constantinople or Mount Athos, (Wetstein,
Prolegom. ad N. T. p. 8, &c.,) might possibly be among them.]

[Footnote 123: I have often perused with pleasure a chapter of
Quintilian, (Institut. Orator. x. i.,) in which that judicious critic
enumerates and appreciates the series of Greek and Latin classics.]

[Footnote 124: Such as Galen, Pliny, Aristotle, &c. On this subject
Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 85-95) argues,
with solid sense, against the lively exotic fancies of Sir William
Temple. The contempt of the Greeks for Barbaric science would scarcely
admit the Indian or Aethiopic books into the library of Alexandria;
nor is it proved that philosophy has sustained any real loss from their
exclusion.]

In the administration of Egypt, [125] Amrou balanced the demands of
justice and policy; the interest of the people of the law, who were
defended by God; and of the people of the alliance, who were protected
by man. In the recent tumult of conquest and deliverance, the tongue
of the Copts and the sword of the Arabs were most adverse to the
tranquillity of the province. To the former, Amrou declared, that
faction and falsehood would be doubly chastised; by the punishment of
the accusers, whom he should detest as his personal enemies, and by the
promotion of their innocent brethren, whom their envy had labored to
injure and supplant. He excited the latter by the motives of religion
and honor to sustain the dignity of their character, to endear
themselves by a modest and temperate conduct to God and the caliph,
to spare and protect a people who had trusted to their faith, and to
content themselves with the legitimate and splendid rewards of their
victory. In the management of the revenue, he disapproved the simple but
oppressive mode of a capitation, and preferred with reason a proportion
of taxes deducted on every branch from the clear profits of agriculture
and commerce. A third part of the tribute was appropriated to the annual
repairs of the dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare.
Under his administration, the fertility of Egypt supplied the dearth of
Arabia; and a string of camels, laden with corn and provisions, covered
almost without an interval the long road from Memphis to Medina. [126]
But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the maritime communication which
had been attempted or achieved by the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the
Caesars; and a canal, at least eighty miles in length, was opened from
the Nile to the Red Sea. [1261] This inland navigation, which would have
joined the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as
useless and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to Damascus,
and the Grecian fleets might have explored a passage to the holy cities
of Arabia. [127]

[Footnote 125: This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi
(p. 284-289) has not been discovered either by Mr. Ockley, or by the
self-sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal History.]

[Footnote 126: Eutychius, Annal. tom. ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist.
Saracen. p. 35.]

[Footnote 1261: Many learned men have doubted the existence of a
communication by water between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by
the Nile. Yet the fact is positively asserted by the ancients. Diodorus
Siculus (l. i. p. 33) speaks of it in the most distinct manner as
existing in his time. So, also, Strabo, (l. xvii. p. 805.) Pliny (vol.
vi. p. 29) says that the canal which united the two seas was navigable,
(alveus navigabilis.) The indications furnished by Ptolemy and by the
Arabic historian, Makrisi, show that works were executed under the
reign of Hadrian to repair the canal and extend the navigation; it then
received the name of the River of Trajan Lucian, (in his Pseudomantis,
p. 44,) says that he went by water from Alexandria to Clysma, on the
Red Sea. Testimonies of the 6th and of the 8th century show that
the communication was not interrupted at that time. See the French
translation of Strabo, vol. v. p. 382. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 299.--M.]

[Footnote 127: On these obscure canals, the reader may try to satisfy
himself from D'Anville, (Mem. sur l'Egypte, p. 108-110, 124, 132,) and
a learned thesis, maintained and printed at Strasburg in the year 1770,
(Jungendorum marium fluviorumque molimina, p. 39-47, 68-70.) Even
the supine Turks have agitated the old project of joining the two seas.
(Memoires du Baron de Tott, tom. iv.)]

Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect knowledge from
the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran. He requested that his
lieutenant would place before his eyes the realm of Pharaoh and the
Amalekites; and the answer of Amrou exhibits a lively and not unfaithful
picture of that singular country. [128] "O commander of the faithful,
Egypt is a compound of black earth and green plants, between a
pulverized mountain and a red sand. The distance from Syene to the sea
is a month's journey for a horseman. Along the valley descends a river,
on which the blessing of the Most High reposes both in the evening and
morning, and which rises and falls with the revolutions of the sun and
moon. When the annual dispensation of Providence unlocks the springs
and fountains that nourish the earth, the Nile rolls his swelling and
sounding waters through the realm of Egypt: the fields are overspread
by the salutary flood; and the villages communicate with each other
in their painted barks. The retreat of the inundation deposits a
fertilizing mud for the reception of the various seeds: the crowds
of husbandmen who blacken the land may be compared to a swarm of
industrious ants; and their native indolence is quickened by the lash
of the task-master, and the promise of the flowers and fruits of a
plentiful increase. Their hope is seldom deceived; but the riches which
they extract from the wheat, the barley, and the rice, the legumes,
the fruit-trees, and the cattle, are unequally shared between those
who labor and those who possess. According to the vicissitudes of
the seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver wave, a
verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden harvest." [129] Yet
this beneficial order is sometimes interrupted; and the long delay and
sudden swell of the river in the first year of the conquest might afford
some color to an edifying fable. It is said, that the annual sacrifice
of a virgin [130] had been interdicted by the piety of Omar; and that
the Nile lay sullen and inactive in his shallow bed, till the mandate
of the caliph was cast into the obedient stream, which rose in a single
night to the height of sixteen cubits. The admiration of the Arabs for
their new conquest encouraged the license of their romantic spirit. We
may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt was crowded with twenty
thousand cities or villages: [131] that, exclusive of the Greeks and
Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on the assessment, six millions of
tributary subjects, [132] or twenty millions of either sex, and of every
age: that three hundred millions of gold or silver were annually paid to
the treasury of the caliphs. [133] Our reason must be startled by these
extravagant assertions; and they will become more palpable, if we assume
the compass and measure the extent of habitable ground: a valley from
the tropic to Memphis seldom broader than twelve miles, and the triangle
of the Delta, a flat surface of two thousand one hundred square leagues,
compose a twelfth part of the magnitude of France. [134] A more accurate
research will justify a more reasonable estimate. The three hundred
millions, created by the error of a scribe, are reduced to the decent
revenue of four millions three hundred thousand pieces of gold, of which
nine hundred thousand were consumed by the pay of the soldiers. [135]
Two authentic lists, of the present and of the twelfth century, are
circumscribed within the respectable number of two thousand seven
hundred villages and towns. [136] After a long residence at Cairo, a
French consul has ventured to assign about four millions of Mahometans,
Christians, and Jews, for the ample, though not incredible, scope of the
population of Egypt. [137]

[Footnote 128: A small volume, des Merveilles, &c., de l'Egypte,
composed in the xiiith century by Murtadi of Cairo, and translated
from an Arabic Ms. of Cardinal Mazarin, was published by Pierre Vatier,
Paris, 1666. The antiquities of Egypt are wild and legendary; but the
writer deserves credit and esteem for his account of the conquest and
geography of his native country, (see the correspondence of Amrou and
Omar, p. 279-289.)]

[Footnote 129: In a twenty years' residence at Cairo, the consul Maillet
had contemplated that varying scene, the Nile, (lettre ii. particularly
p. 70, 75;) the fertility of the land, (lettre ix.) From a college
at Cambridge, the poetic eye of Gray had seen the same objects with a
keener glance:--

     What wonder in the sultry climes that spread,

     Where Nile, redundant o'er his summer bed,

     From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,

     And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings:

     If with adventurous oar, and ready sail,

     The dusky people drive before the gale:

     Or on frail floats to neighboring cities ride.

     That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide.

     (Mason's Works and Memoirs of Gray, p. 199, 200.)]

[Footnote 130: Murtadi, p. 164-167. The reader will not easily credit
a human sacrifice under the Christian emperors, or a miracle of the
successors of Mahomet.]

[Footnote 131: Maillet, Description de l'Egypte, p. 22. He mentions this
number as the common opinion; and adds, that the generality of these
villages contain two or three thousand persons, and that many of them
are more populous than our large cities.]

[Footnote 132: Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 308, 311. The twenty millions
are computed from the following data: one twelfth of mankind above
sixty, one third below sixteen, the proportion of men to women as
seventeen or sixteen, (Recherches sur la Population de la France, p. 71,
72.) The president Goguet (Origine des Arts, &c., tom. iii. p. 26, &c.)
Bestows twenty-seven millions on ancient Egypt, because the seventeen
hundred companions of Sesostris were born on the same day.]

[Footnote 133: Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 218; and this gross lump is
swallowed without scruple by D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 1031,) Ar.
buthnot, (Tables of Ancient Coins, p. 262,) and De Guignes, (Hist. des
Huns, tom. iii. p. 135.) They might allege the not less extravagant
liberality of Appian in favor of the Ptolemies (in praefat.) of seventy
four myriads, 740,000 talents, an annual income of 185, or near 300
millions of pounds sterling, according as we reckon by the Egyptian or
the Alexandrian talent, (Bernard, de Ponderibus Antiq. p. 186.)]

[Footnote 134: See the measurement of D'Anville, (Mem. sur l'Egypte,
p. 23, &c.) After some peevish cavils, M. Pauw (Recherches sur les
Egyptiens, tom. i. p. 118-121) can only enlarge his reckoning to 2250
square leagues.]

[Footnote 135: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p. 334, who calls
the common reading or version of Elmacin, error librarii. His own
emendation, of 4,300,000 pieces, in the ixth century, maintains a
probable medium between the 3,000,000 which the Arabs acquired by the
conquest of Egypt, (idem, p. 168.) and the 2,400,000 which the sultan of
Constantinople levied in the last century, (Pietro della Valle, tom.
i. p. 352 Thevenot, part i. p. 824.) Pauw (Recherches, tom. ii. p.
365-373) gradually raises the revenue of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies,
and the Caesars, from six to fifteen millions of German crowns.]

[Footnote 136: The list of Schultens (Index Geograph. ad calcem Vit.
Saladin. p. 5) contains 2396 places; that of D'Anville, (Mem. sur
l'Egypte, p. 29,) from the divan of Cairo, enumerates 2696.]

[Footnote 137: See Maillet, (Description de l'Egypte, p. 28,) who seems
to argue with candor and judgment. I am much better satisfied with the
observations than with the reading of the French consul. He was ignorant
of Greek and Latin literature, and his fancy is too much delighted
with the fictions of the Arabs. Their best knowledge is collected by
Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt. Arab. et Lat. a Joh. David Michaelis,
Gottingae, in 4to., 1776;) and in two recent voyages into Egypt, we
are amused by Savary, and instructed by Volney. I wish the latter could
travel over the globe.]

IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, [138]
was first attempted by the arms of the caliph Othman.

The pious design was approved by the companions of Mahomet and the
chiefs of the tribes; and twenty thousand Arabs marched from Medina,
with the gifts and the blessing of the commander of the faithful.
They were joined in the camp of Memphis by twenty thousand of their
countrymen; and the conduct of the war was intrusted to Abdallah, [139]
the son of Said and the foster-brother of the caliph, who had lately
supplanted the conqueror and lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favor of the
prince, and the merit of his favorite, could not obliterate the guilt of
his apostasy. The early conversion of Abdallah, and his skilful pen, had
recommended him to the important office of transcribing the sheets of
the Koran: he betrayed his trust, corrupted the text, derided the errors
which he had made, and fled to Mecca to escape the justice, and expose
the ignorance, of the apostle. After the conquest of Mecca, he fell
prostrate at the feet of Mahomet; his tears, and the entreaties of
Othman, extorted a reluctant pardon; out the prophet declared that he
had so long hesitated, to allow time for some zealous disciple to avenge
his injury in the blood of the apostate. With apparent fidelity and
effective merit, he served the religion which it was no longer his
interest to desert: his birth and talents gave him an honorable rank
among the Koreish; and, in a nation of cavalry, Abdallah was renowned as
the boldest and most dexterous horseman of Arabia. At the head of forty
thousand Moslems, he advanced from Egypt into the unknown countries of
the West. The sands of Barca might be impervious to a Roman legion but
the Arabs were attended by their faithful camels; and the natives of
the desert beheld without terror the familiar aspect of the soil and
climate. After a painful march, they pitched their tents before the
walls of Tripoli, [140] a maritime city in which the name, the wealth,
and the inhabitants of the province had gradually centred, and which now
maintains the third rank among the states of Barbary. A reenforcement
of Greeks was surprised and cut in pieces on the sea-shore; but the
fortifications of Tripoli resisted the first assaults; and the Saracens
were tempted by the approach of the praefect Gregory [141] to relinquish
the labors of the siege for the perils and the hopes of a decisive
action. If his standard was followed by one hundred and twenty thousand
men, the regular bands of the empire must have been lost in the naked
and disorderly crowd of Africans and Moors, who formed the strength, or
rather the numbers, of his host. He rejected with indignation the option
of the Koran or the tribute; and during several days the two armies were
fiercely engaged from the dawn of light to the hour of noon, when
their fatigue and the excessive heat compelled them to seek shelter and
refreshment in their respective camps. The daughter of Gregory, a maid
of incomparable beauty and spirit, is said to have fought by his side:
from her earliest youth she was trained to mount on horseback, to draw
the bow, and to wield the cimeter; and the richness of her arms and
apparel were conspicuous in the foremost ranks of the battle. Her hand,
with a hundred thousand pieces of gold, was offered for the head of the
Arabian general, and the youths of Africa were excited by the prospect
of the glorious prize. At the pressing solicitation of his brethren,
Abdallah withdrew his person from the field; but the Saracens were
discouraged by the retreat of their leader, and the repetition of these
equal or unsuccessful conflicts.

[Footnote 138: My conquest of Africa is drawn from two French
interpreters of Arabic literature, Cardonne (Hist. de l'Afrique et de
l'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. i. p. 8-55) and Otter,
(Hist. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p. 111-125, and 136.)
They derive their principal information from Novairi, who composed,
A.D. 1331 an Encyclopaedia in more than twenty volumes. The five general
parts successively treat of, 1. Physics; 2. Man; 3. Animals; 4. Plants;
and, 5. History; and the African affairs are discussed in the vith
chapter of the vth section of this last part, (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad
Hagji Chalifae Tabulas, p. 232-234.) Among the older historians who are
quoted by Navairi we may distinguish the original narrative of a soldier
who led the van of the Moslems.]

[Footnote 139: See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda (Vit. Mohammed.
p. 108) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. 45-48.)]

[Footnote 140: The province and city of Tripoli are described by Leo
Africanus (in Navigatione et Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. Venetia, 1550,
fol. 76, verso) and Marmol, (Description de l'Afrique, tom. ii. p. 562.)
The first of these writers was a Moor, a scholar, and a traveller, who
composed or translated his African geography in a state of captivity
at Rome, where he had assumed the name and religion of Pope Leo X. In
a similar captivity among the Moors, the Spaniard Marmol, a soldier
of Charles V., compiled his Description of Africa, translated by
D'Ablancourt into French, (Paris, 1667, 3 vols. in 4to.) Marmol had read
and seen, but he is destitute of the curious and extensive observation
which abounds in the original work of Leo the African.]

[Footnote 141: Theophanes, who mentions the defeat, rather than the
death, of Gregory. He brands the praefect with the name: he had probably
assumed the purple, (Chronograph. p. 285.)]

A noble Arabian, who afterwards became the adversary of Ali, and the
father of a caliph, had signalized his valor in Egypt, and Zobeir
[142] was the first who planted the scaling-ladder against the walls
of Babylon. In the African war he was detached from the standard of
Abdallah. On the news of the battle, Zobeir, with twelve companions, cut
his way through the camp of the Greeks, and pressed forwards, without
tasting either food or repose, to partake of the dangers of his
brethren. He cast his eyes round the field: "Where," said he, "is our
general?" "In his tent." "Is the tent a station for the general of the
Moslems?" Abdallah represented with a blush the importance of his own
life, and the temptation that was held forth by the Roman praefect.
"Retort," said Zobeir, "on the infidels their ungenerous attempt.
Proclaim through the ranks that the head of Gregory shall be repaid with
his captive daughter, and the equal sum of one hundred thousand pieces
of gold." To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the lieutenant of the
caliph intrusted the execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the
long-disputed balance in favor of the Saracens. Supplying by activity
and artifice the deficiency of numbers, a part of their forces lay
concealed in their tents, while the remainder prolonged an irregular
skirmish with the enemy till the sun was high in the heavens. On both
sides they retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled,
their armor was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed
to prepare, for the refreshment of the evening, and the encounter of the
ensuing day. On a sudden the charge was sounded; the Arabian camp poured
forth a swarm of fresh and intrepid warriors; and the long line of
the Greeks and Africans was surprised, assaulted, overturned, by new
squadrons of the faithful, who, to the eye of fanaticism, might appear
as a band of angels descending from the sky. The praefect himself was
slain by the hand of Zobeir: his daughter, who sought revenge and death,
was surrounded and made prisoner; and the fugitives involved in their
disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the sabres and
lances of the Arabs. Sufetula was built one hundred and fifty miles
to the south of Carthage: a gentle declivity is watered by a running
stream, and shaded by a grove of juniper-trees; and, in the ruins of
a triumpha arch, a portico, and three temples of the Corinthian order,
curiosity may yet admire the magnificence of the Romans. [143] After the
fall of this opulent city, the provincials and Barbarians implored on
all sides the mercy of the conqueror. His vanity or his zeal might be
flattered by offers of tribute or professions of faith: but his losses,
his fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease, prevented
a solid establishment; and the Saracens, after a campaign of fifteen
months, retreated to the confines of Egypt, with the captives and the
wealth of their African expedition. The caliph's fifth was granted to
a favorite, on the nominal payment of five hundred thousand pieces
of gold; [144] but the state was doubly injured by this fallacious
transaction, if each foot-soldier had shared one thousand, and each
horseman three thousand, pieces, in the real division of the plunder.
The author of the death of Gregory was expected to have claimed the most
precious reward of the victory: from his silence it might be presumed
that he had fallen in the battle, till the tears and exclamations of
the praefect's daughter at the sight of Zobeir revealed the valor and
modesty of that gallant soldier. The unfortunate virgin was offered,
and almost rejected as a slave, by her father's murderer, who coolly
declared that his sword was consecrated to the service of religion; and
that he labored for a recompense far above the charms of mortal beauty,
or the riches of this transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper
was the honorable commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the
success of his arms. The companions the chiefs, and the people, were
assembled in the mosch of Medina, to hear the interesting narrative of
Zobeir; and as the orator forgot nothing except the merit of his own
counsels and actions, the name of Abdallah was joined by the Arabians
with the heroic names of Caled and Amrou. [145]

[Footnote 142: See in Ockley (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 45) the
death of Zobeir, which was honored with the tears of Ali, against whom
he had rebelled. His valor at the siege of Babylon, if indeed it be the
same person, is mentioned by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 308)]

[Footnote 143: Shaw's Travels, p. 118, 119.]

[Footnote 144: Mimica emptio, says Abulfeda, erat haec, et mira donatio;
quandoquidem Othman, ejus nomine nummos ex aerario prius ablatos aerario
praestabat, (Annal. Moslem. p. 78.) Elmacin (in his cloudy version, p.
39) seems to report the same job. When the Arabs be sieged the palace of
Othman, it stood high in their catalogue of grievances.`]

[Footnote 145: Theophan. Chronograph. p. 235 edit. Paris. His chronology
is loose and inaccurate.]

[A. D. 665-689.] The western conquests of the Saracens were suspended
near twenty years, till their dissensions were composed by the
establishment of the house of Ommiyah; and the caliph Moawiyah was
invited by the cries of the Africans themselves. The successors of
Heraclius had been informed of the tribute which they had been compelled
to stipulate with the Arabs; but instead of being moved to pity and
relieve their distress, they imposed, as an equivalent or a fine, a
second tribute of a similar amount. The ears of the zantine ministers
were shut against the complaints of their poverty and ruin their
despair was reduced to prefer the dominion of a single master; and the
extortions of the patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and
military power, provoked the sectaries, and even the Catholics, of the
Roman province to abjure the religion as well as the authority of
their tyrants. The first lieutenant of Moawiyah acquired a just renown,
subdued an important city, defeated an army of thirty thousand Greeks,
swept away fourscore thousand captives, and enriched with their spoils
the bold adventurers of Syria and Egypt.[146] But the title of conqueror
of Africa is more justly due to his successor Akbah. He marched from
Damascus at the head of ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the
genuine force of the Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and
conversion of many thousand Barbarians. It would be difficult, nor is
it necessary, to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The
interior regions have been peopled by the Orientals with fictitious
armies and imaginary citadels. In the warlike province of Zab or
Numidia, fourscore thousand of the natives might assemble in arms; but
the number of three hundred and sixty towns is incompatible with the
ignorance or decay of husbandry;[147] and a circumference of three
leagues will not be justified by the ruins of Erbe or Lambesa, the
ancient metropolis of that inland country. As we approach the seacoast,
the well-known titles of Bugia,[148] and Tangier[149] define the more
certain limits of the Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still
adheres to the commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous
age, is said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the
plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might have
supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence. The remote
position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier, have been
decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the figurative
expressions of the latter, that the walls were constructed of brass, and
that the roofs were covered with gold and silver, may be interpreted as
the emblems of strength and opulence.

[Footnote 146: Theophanes (in Chronograph. p. 293.) inserts the vague
rumours that might reach Constantinople, of the western conquests of the
Arabs; and I learn from Paul Warnefrid, deacon of Aquileia (de Gestis
Langobard. 1. v. c. 13), that at this time they sent a fleet from
Alexandria into the Sicilian and African seas.]

[Footnote 147: See Novairi (apud Otter, p. 118), Leo Africanus (fol.
81, verso), who reckoned only cinque citta e infinite casal, Marmol
(Description de l'Afrique, tom. iii. p. 33,) and Shaw (Travels, p. 57,
65-68)]

[Footnote 148: Leo African. fol. 58, verso, 59, recto. Marmol, tom. ii.
p. 415. Shaw, p. 43]

[Footnote 149: Leo African. fol. 52. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 228.]

The province of Mauritania Tingitana,[150] which assumed the name of the
capital had been imperfectly discovered and settled by the Romans; the
five colonies were confined to a narrow pale, and the more southern
parts were seldom explored except by the agents of luxury, who searched
the forests for ivory and the citron wood,[151] and the shores of the
ocean for the purple shellfish. The fearless Akbah plunged into the
heart of the country, traversed the wilderness in which his successors
erected the splendid capitals of Fez and Morocco,[152] and at length
penetrated to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert. The river
Suz descends from the western sides of mount Atlas, fertilizes, like the
Nile, the adjacent soil, and falls into the sea at a moderate distance
from the Canary, or adjacent islands. Its banks were inhabited by the
last of the Moors, a race of savages, without laws, or discipline, or
religion: they were astonished by the strange and irresistible terrors
of the Oriental arms; and as they possessed neither gold nor silver, the
richest spoil was the beauty of the female captives, some of whom were
afterward sold for a thousand pieces of gold. The career, though not
the zeal, of Akbah was checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean.
He spurred his horse into the waves, and raising his eyes to heaven,
exclaimed with the tone of a fanatic: "Great God! if my course were not
stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown kingdoms of the
West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and putting to the sword the
rebellious nations who worship another gods than thee." [153] Yet this
Mahometan Alexander, who sighed for new worlds, was unable to preserve
his recent conquests. By the universal defection of the Greeks and
Africans he was recalled from the shores of the Atlantic, and the
surrounding multitudes left him only the resource of an honourable
death. The last scene was dignified by an example of national virtue. An
ambitious chief, who had disputed the command and failed in the attempt,
was led about as a prisoner in the camp of the Arabian general. The
insurgents had trusted to his discontent and revenge; he disdained their
offers and revealed their designs. In the hour of danger, the grateful
Akbah unlocked his fetters, and advised him to retire; he chose to die
under the banner of his rival. Embracing as friends and martyrs, they
unsheathed their scimeters, broke their scabbards, and maintained an
obstinate combat, till they fell by each other's side on the last of
their slaughtered countrymen. The third general or governor of Africa,
Zuheir, avenged and encountered the fate of his predecessor. He
vanquished the natives in many battles; he was overthrown by a powerful
army, which Constantinople had sent to the relief of Carthage.

[Footnote 150: Regio ignobilis, et vix quicquam illustre sortita, parvis
oppidis habitatur, parva flumina emittit, solo quam viris meleor et
segnitie gentis obscura. Pomponius Mela, i. 5, iii. 10. Mela deserves
the more credit, since his own Phoenician ancestors had migrated from
Tingitana to Spain (see, in ii. 6, a passage of that geographer so
cruelly tortured by Salmasius, Isaac Vossius, and the most virulent of
critics, James Gronovius). He lived at the time of the final reduction
of that country by the emperor Claudius: yet almost thirty years
afterward, Pliny (Hist. Nat. v. i.) complains of his authors, to lazy
to inquire, too proud to confess their ignorance of that wild and remote
province.]

[Footnote 151: The foolish fashion of this citron wood prevailed at Rome
among the men, as much as the taste for pearls among the women. A round
board or table, four or five feet in diameter, sold for the price of
an estate (latefundii taxatione), eight, ten, or twelve thousand pounds
sterling (Plin. Hist. Natur. xiii. 29). I conceive that I must not
confound the tree citrus, with that of the fruit citrum. But I am not
botanist enough to define the former (it is like the wild cypress) by
the vulgar or Linnaean name; nor will I decide whether the citrum be the
orange or the lemon. Salmasius appears to exhaust the subject, but
he too often involves himself in the web of his disorderly erudition.
(Flinian. Exercitat. tom. ii. p 666, &c.)]

[Footnote 152: Leo African. fol. 16, verso. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 28. This
province, the first scene of the exploits and greatness of the cherifs
is often mentioned in the curious history of that dynasty at the end of
the third volume of Marmol, Description de l'Afrique. The third vol. of
The Recherches Historiques sur les Maures (lately published at Paris)
illustrates the history and geography of the kingdoms of Fez and
Morocco.]

[Footnote 153: Otter (p. 119,) has given the strong tone of fanaticism
to this exclamation, which Cardonne (p. 37,) has softened to a pious
wish of preaching the Koran. Yet they had both the same text of Novairi
before their eyes.]

[A. D. 670-675.] It had been the frequent practice of the Moorish tribes
to join the invaders, to share the plunder, to profess the faith, and to
revolt in their savage state of independence and idolatry, on the first
retreat or misfortune of the Moslems. The prudence of Akbah had proposed
to found an Arabian colony in the heart of Africa; a citadel that might
curb the levity of the Barbarians, a place of refuge to secure, against
the accidents of war, the wealth and the families of the Saracens. With
this view, and under the modest title of the station of a caravan, he
planted this colony in the fiftieth year of the Hegira. In its present
decay, Cairoan[154] still holds the second rank in the kingdom of Tunis,
from which it is distant about fifty miles to the south;[155] its inland
situation, twelve miles westward of the sea, has protected the city from
the Greek and Sicilian fleets. When the wild beasts and serpents were
extirpated, when the forest, or rather wilderness, was cleared, the
vestiges of a Roman town were discovered in a sandy plain: the vegetable
food of Cairoan is brought from afar; and the scarcity of springs
constrains the inhabitants to collect in cisterns and reservoirs a
precarious supply of rain water. These obstacles were subdued by the
industry of Akbah; he traced a circumference of three thousand and six
hundred paces, which he encompassed with a brick wall; in the space
of five years, the governor's palace was surrounded with a sufficient
number of private habitations; a spacious mosque was supported by five
hundred columns of granite, porphyry, and Numidian marble; and Cairoan
became the seat of learning as well as of empire. But these were the
glories of a later age; the new colony was shaken by the successive
defeats of Akbah and Zuheir, and the western expeditions were again
interrupted by the civil discord of the Arabian monarchy. The son of the
valiant Zobeir maintained a war of twelve years, a siege of seven months
against the house of Ommiyah. Abdallah was said to unite the fierceness
of the lion with the subtlety of the fox; but if he inherited the
courage, he was devoid of the generosity, of his father.[156]

[A. D. 692-698.] The return of domestic peace allowed the caliph
Abdalmalek to resume the conquest of Africa; the standard was delivered
to Hassan governor of Egypt, and the revenue of that kingdom, with an
army of forty thousand men, was consecrated to the important service. In
the vicissitudes of war, the interior provinces had been alternately won
and lost by the Saracens. But the seacoast still remained in the hands
of the Greeks; the predecessors of Hassan had respected the name
and fortifications of Carthage; and the number of its defenders was
recruited by the fugitives of Cabes and Tripoli. The arms of Hassan were
bolder and more fortunate: he reduced and pillaged the metropolis of
Africa; and the mention of scaling-ladders may justify the suspicion,
that he anticipated, by a sudden assault, the more tedious operations of
a regular siege. But the joy of the conquerors was soon disturbed by the
appearance of the Christian succours. The praefect and patrician John, a
general of experience and renown, embarked at Constantinople the forces
of the Eastern empire;[157] they were joined by the ships and soldiers
of Sicily, and a powerful reinforcement of Goths[158] was obtained from
the fears and religion of the Spanish monarch.

[Footnote 154: The foundation of Cairoan is mentioned by Ockley (Hist.
of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 129, 130); and the situation, mosque, &c.
of the city are described by Leo Africanus (fol. 75), Marmol (tom. ii.
p. 532), and Shaw (p. 115).]

[Footnote 155: A portentous, though frequent mistake, has been the
confounding, from a slight similitude of name, the Cyrene of the Greeks,
and the Cairoan of the Arabs, two cities which are separated by an
interval of a thousand miles along the seacoast. The great Thuanus has
not escaped this fault, the less excusable as it is connected with a
formal and elaborate description of Africa (Historiar. l. vii. c. 2, in
tom. i. p. 240, edit. Buckley).]

[Footnote 156: Besides the Arabic Chronicles of Abulfeda, Elmacin, and
Abulpharagius, under the lxxiiid year of the Hegira, we may consult
nd'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. p. 7,) and Ockley (Hist. of the Saracens,
vol. ii. p. 339-349). The latter has given the last and pathetic
dialogue between Abdallah and his mother; but he has forgot a physical
effect of her grief for his death, the return, at the age of ninety, and
fatal consequences of her menses.]

[Footnote 157: The patriarch of Constantinople, with Theophanes
(Chronograph. p. 309,) have slightly mentioned this last attempt for
the relief or Africa. Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. p. 129. 141,) has nicely
ascertained the chronology by a strict comparison of the Arabic and
Byzantine historians, who often disagree both in time and fact. See
likewise a note of Otter (p. 121).]

[Footnote 158: Dove s'erano ridotti i nobili Romani e i Gotti; and
afterward, i Romani suggirono e i Gotti lasciarono Carthagine. (Leo
African. for. 72, recto) I know not from what Arabic writer the African
derived his Goths; but the fact, though new, is so interesting and so
probable, that I will accept it on the slightest authority.]

The weight of the confederate navy broke the chain that guarded the
entrance of the harbour; the Arabs retired to Cairoan, or Tripoli; the
Christians landed; the citizens hailed the ensign of the cross, and
the winter was idly wasted in the dream of victory or deliverance. But
Africa was irrecoverably lost: the zeal and resentment of the commander
of the faithful[159] prepared in the ensuing spring a more numerous
armament by sea and land; and the patrician in his turn was compelled
to evacuate the post and fortifications of Carthage. A second battle
was fought in the neighbourhood of Utica; and the Greeks and Goths were
again defeated; and their timely embarkation saved them from the sword
of Hassan, who had invested the slight and insufficient rampart of their
camp. Whatever yet remained of Carthage was delivered to the flames, and
the colony of Dido[160] and Cesar lay desolate above two hundred years,
till a part, perhaps a twentieth, of the old circumference was repeopled
by the first of the Fatimite caliphs. In the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the second capital of the West was represented by a mosque, a
college without students, twenty-five or thirty shops, and the huts
of five hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed the
arrogance of the Punic senators. Even that paltry village was swept away
by the Spaniards whom Charles the Fifth had stationed in the fortress of
the Goletta. The ruins of Carthage have perished; and the place might be
unknown if some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the footsteps
of the inquisitive traveller.[161]

[A. D. 698-709.] The Greeks were expelled, but the Arabians were not
yet masters of the country. In the interior provinces the Moors or
Berbers,[162] so feeble under the first Cesars, so formidable to the
Byzantine princes, maintained a disorderly resistance to the religion
and power of the successors of Mahomet. Under the standard of their
queen Cahina, the independent tribes acquired some degree of union and
discipline; and as the Moors respected in their females the character of
a prophetess, they attacked the invaders with an enthusiasm similar to
their own. The veteran bands of Hassan were inadequate to the defence
of Africa: the conquests of an age were lost in a single day; and the
Arabian chief, overwhelmed by the torrent, retired to the confines of
Egypt, and expected, five years, the promised succours of the caliph.
After the retreat of the Saracens, the victorious prophetess assembled
the Moorish chiefs, and recommended a measure of strange and savage
policy. "Our cities," said she, "and the gold and silver which they
contain, perpetually attract the arms of the Arabs. These vile metals
are not the objects of OUR ambition; we content ourselves with the
simple productions of the earth. Let us destroy these cities; let us
bury in their ruins those pernicious treasures; and when the avarice of
our foes shall be destitute of temptation, perhaps they will cease to
disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people." The proposal was accepted
with unanimous applause. From Tangier to Tripoli the buildings, or at
least the fortifications, were demolished, the fruit-trees were cut
down, the means of subsistence were extirpated, a fertile and populous
garden was changed into a desert, and the historians of a more
recent period could discern the frequent traces of the prosperity and
devastation of their ancestors.

[Footnote 159: This commander is styled by Nicephorus, -------- a vague
though not improper definition of the caliph. Theophanes introduces the
strange appellation of ----------, which his interpreter Goar explains
by Vizir Azem. They may approach the truth, in assigning the active
part to the minister, rather than the prince; but they forget that the
Ommiades had only a kaleb, or secretary, and that the office of
Vizir was not revived or instituted till the 132d year of the Hegira
(d'Herbelot, 912).]

[Footnote 160: According to Solinus (1.27, p. 36, edit. Salmas), the
Carthage of Dido stood either 677 or 737 years; a various reading,
which proceeds from the difference of MSS. or editions (Salmas, Plinian.
Exercit tom i. p. 228) The former of these accounts, which gives 823
years before Christ, is more consistent with the well-weighed testimony
of Velleius Paterculus: but the latter is preferred by our chronologists
(Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 398,) as more agreeable to the Hebrew and
Syrian annals.]

[Footnote 161: Leo African. fo1. 71, verso; 72, recto. Marmol, tom. ii.
p.445-447. Shaw, p.80.]

[Footnote 162: The history of the word Barbar may be classed under four
periods, 1. In the time of Homer, when the Greeks and Asiatics might
probably use a common idiom, the imitative sound of Barbar was applied
to the ruder tribes, whose pronunciation was most harsh, whose grammar
was most defective. 2. From the time, at least, of Herodotus, it was
extended to all the nations who were strangers to the language and
manners of the Greeks. 3. In the age, of Plautus, the Romans submitted
to the insult (Pompeius Festus, l. ii. p. 48, edit. Dacier), and freely
gave themselves the name of Barbarians. They insensibly claimed an
exemption for Italy, and her subject provinces; and at length removed
the disgraceful appellation to the savage or hostile nations beyond
the pale of the empire. 4. In every sense, it was due to the Moors; the
familiar word was borrowed from the Latin Provincials by the Arabian
conquerors, and has justly settled as a local denomination (Barbary)
along the northern coast of Africa.]

Such is the tale of the modern Arabians. Yet I strongly suspect that
their ignorance of antiquity, the love of the marvellous, and the
fashion of extolling the philosophy of Barbarians, has induced them to
describe, as one voluntary act, the calamities of three hundred years
since the first fury of the Donatists and Vandals. In the progress
of the revolt, Cahina had most probably contributed her share of
destruction; and the alarm of universal ruin might terrify and alienate
the cities that had reluctantly yielded to her unworthy yoke. They
no longer hoped, perhaps they no longer wished, the return of their
Byzantine sovereigns: their present servitude was not alleviated by the
benefits of order and justice; and the most zealous Catholic must prefer
the imperfect truths of the Koran to the blind and rude idolatry of the
Moors. The general of the Saracens was again received as the saviour of
the province; the friends of civil society conspired against the savages
of the land; and the royal prophetess was slain in the first battle
which overturned the baseless fabric of her superstition and empire.
The same spirit revived under the successor of Hassan; it was finally
quelled by the activity of Musa and his two sons; but the number of the
rebels may be presumed from that of three hundred thousand captives;
sixty thousand of whom, the caliph's fifth, were sold for the profit
of thee public treasury. Thirty thousand of the Barbarian youth were
enlisted in the troops; and the pious labours of Musa to inculcate the
knowledge and practice of the Koran, accustomed the Africans to obey the
apostle of God and the commander of the faithful. In their climate and
government, their diet and habitation, the wandering Moors resembled the
Bedoweens of the desert. With the religion, they were proud to adopt
the language, name, and origin of Arabs: the blood of the strangers and
natives was insensibly mingled; and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic
the same nation might seem to be diffused over the sandy plains of
Asia and Africa. Yet I will not deny that fifty thousand tents of pure
Arabians might be transported over the Nile, and scattered through the
Lybian desert: and I am not ignorant that five of the Moorish tribes
still retain their barbarous idiom, with the appellation and character
of white Africans.[163]

[A. D. 709.] V. In the progress of conquest from the north and south,
the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the confines of
Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the difference of
religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and warfare.[164] As early as
the time of Othman[165] their piratical squadrons had ravaged the coast
of Andalusia;[166] nor had they forgotten the relief of Carthage by the
Gothic succours. In that age, as well as in the present, the kings of
Spain were possessed of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the columns of
Hercules, which is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar
or point of Europe. A small portion of Mauritania was still wanting to
the African conquest; but Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed
from the walls of Ceuta, by the vigilance and courage of count Julian,
the general of the Goths. From his disappointment and perplexity,
Musa was relieved by an unexpected message of the Christian chief,
who offered his place, his person, and his sword, to the successors of
Mahomet, and solicited the disgraceful honour of introducing their arms
into the heart of Spain.[167]

[Footnote 163: The first book of Leo Africanus, and the observations
of Dr. Shaw (p. 220. 223. 227. 247, &c.) will throw some light on the
roving tribes of Barbary, of Arabian or Moorish descent. But Shaw
had seen these savages with distant terror; and Leo, a captive in the
Vatican, appears to have lost more of his Arabic, than he could acquire
of Greek or Roman, learning. Many of his gross mistakes might be
detected in the first period of the Mahometan history.]

[Footnote 164: In a conference with a prince of the Greeks, Amrou
observed that their religion was different; upon which score it was
lawful for brothers to quarrel. Ockley's History of the Saracens, vol.
i. p. 328.]

[Footnote 165: Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p 78, vers. Reiske.]

[Footnote 166: The name of Andalusia is applied by the Arabs not only to
the modern province, but to the whole peninsula of Spain (Geograph. Nub.
p. 151, d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 114, 115). The etymology has
been most improbably deduced from Vandalusia, country of the Vandals.
(d'Anville Etats de l'Europe, p. 146, 147, &c.) But the Handalusia of
Casiri, which signifies, in Arabic, the region of the evening, of the
West, in a word, the Hesperia of the Greeks, is perfectly apposite.
(Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327, &c.)]

[Footnote 167: The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy are
related by Mariana (tom. l. p. 238-260, l. vi. c. 19-26, l. vii. c. 1,
2). That historian has infused into his noble work (Historic de Rebus
Hispaniae, libri xxx. Hagae Comitum 1733, in four volumes, folio, with
the continuation of Miniana), the style and spirit of a Roman classic;
and after the twelfth century, his knowledge and judgment may be safely
trusted. But the Jesuit is not exempt from the prejudices of his order;
he adopts and adorns, like his rival Buchanan, the most absurd of the
national legends; he is too careless of criticism and chronology, and
supplies, from a lively fancy, the chasms of historical evidence. These
chasms are large and frequent; Roderic archbishop of Toledo, the father
of the Spanish history, lived five hundred years after the conquest
of the Arabs; and the more early accounts are comprised in some meagre
lines of the blind chronicles of Isidore of Badajoz (Pacensis,) and
of Alphonso III. king of Leon, which I have seen only in the Annals of
Pagi.]

If we inquire into the cause of this treachery, the Spaniards will
repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava;[168] of a virgin who was
seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a father who sacrificed his
religion and country to the thirst of revenge. The passions of princes
have often been licentious and destructive; but this well-known tale,
romantic in itself, is indifferently supported by external evidence; and
the history of Spain will suggest some motives of interest and policy
more congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman.[169] After the
decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by the
ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or governor of
a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding tyranny. The monarchy
was still elective; but the sons of Witiza, educated on the steps of the
throne, were impatient of a private station. Their resentment was the
more dangerous, as it was varnished with the dissimulation of courts:
their followers were excited by the remembrance of favours and the
promise of a revolution: and their uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo
and Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in the
state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the disgrace of the
unsuccessful faction, that he had little to hope and much to fear from
the new reign; and that the imprudent king could not forget or forgive
the injuries which Roderic and his family had sustained. The merit and
influence of the count rendered him a useful or formidable subject:
his estates were ample, his followers bold and numerous, and it was too
fatally shown that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held
in his hands the keys of the Spanish monarchy. Too feeble, however, to
meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a foreign power; and
his rash invitation of the Moors and Arabs produced the calamities of
eight hundred years. In his epistles, or in a personal interview, he
revealed the wealth and nakedness of his country; the weakness of an
unpopular prince; the degeneracy of an effeminate people. The Goths were
no longer the victorious Barbarians, who had humbled the pride of Rome,
despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to the
Atlantic ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenean mountains, the
successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long peace: the walls of the
city were mouldered into dust: the youth had abandoned the exercise of
arms; and the presumption of their ancient renown would expose them in
a field of battle to the first assault of the invaders. The ambitious
Saracen was fired by the ease and importance of the attempt; but
the execution was delayed till he had consulted the commander of the
faithful; and his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to
annex the unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the
caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and caution,
continued his correspondence and hastened his preparations. But the
remorse of the conspirators was soothed by the fallacious assurance that
he should content himself with the glory and spoil, without aspiring
to establish the Moslems beyond the sea that separates Africa from
Europe.[170]

[Footnote 168: Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a faire
qu'a prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une fille? (Hist.
Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically conclusive.]

[Footnote 169: In the story of Cava, Mariana (I. vi. c. 21, p. 241,
242,) seems to vie with the Lucretia of Livy. Like the ancients, he
seldom quotes; and the oldest testimony of Baronius (Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 713, No. 19), that of Lucus Tudensis, a Gallician deacon of the
thirteenth century, only says, Cava quam pro concubina utebatur.]

[Footnote 170: The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagins, Abolfeda, pass
over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single word. The text
of Novairi, and the other Arabian writers, is represented, though
with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne (Hist. de l'Afrique et de
l'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. 12mo. tom.
i. p. 55-114), and more concisely by M. de Guignes (Hist. des Hune.
tom. i. p. 347-350). The librarian of the Escurial has not satisfied
my hopes: yet he appears to have searched with diligence his broken
materials; and the history of the conquest is illustrated by some
valuable fragments of the genuine Razis (who wrote at. Corduba, A. H.
300), of Ben Hazil, &c. See Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 32.
105, 106. 182. 252. 315-332. On this occasion, the industry of Pagi has
been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the Abbe de Longuerue,
and to their joint labours I am deeply indebted.]

[A. D. 710.] Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to the
traitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less dangerous trial
of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs and four hundred
Africans, passed over, in four vessels, from Tangier or Ceuta; the place
of their descent on the opposite shore of the strait, is marked by the
name of Tarif their chief; and the date of this memorable event[171] is
fixed to the month of Ramandan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira,
to the month of July, seven hundred and forty-eight years from the
Spanish era of Cesar,[172] seven hundred and ten after the birth of
Christ. From their first station, they marched eighteen miles through
a hilly country to the castle and town of Julian;[173] on which (it is
still called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green Island,
from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their hospitable
entertainment, the Christians who joined their standard, their inroad
into a fertile and unguarded province, the richness of their spoil
and the safety of their return, announced to their brethren the most
favourable omens of victory. In the ensuing spring, five thousand
veterans and volunteers were embarked under the command of Tarik, a
dauntless and skilful soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his
chief; and the necessary transports were provided by the industry of
their too faithful ally. The Saracens landed[174] at the pillar or point
of Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel el
Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the intrenchments of his
camp were the first outline of those fortifications, which, in the
hands of our countrymen, have resisted the art and power of the house
of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed the court of Toledo of the
descent and progress of the Arabs; and the defeat of his lieutenant
Edeco, who had been commanded to seize and bind the presumptuous
strangers, admonished Roderic of the magnitude of the danger. At the
royal summons, the dukes and counts, the bishops and nobles of the
Gothic monarchy assembled at the head of their followers; and the title
of king of the Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may
be excused by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners,
between the nations of Spain. His army consisted of ninety or a hundred
thousand men: a formidable power, if their fidelity and discipline had
been adequate to their numbers. The troops of Tarik had been augmented
to twelve thousand Saracens; but the Christian malecontents were
attracted by the influence of Julian, and a crowd of Africans
most greedily tasted the temporal blessings of the Koran. In the
neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town of Xeres[175] has been illustrated by
the encounter which determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of
the Guadalete, which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and
marked the advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and
bloody days.

[Footnote 171: A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the lunar
years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has determined
Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish historians, to place the
first invasion in the year 713, and the battle of Xeres in November,
714. This anachronism of three years has been detected by the more
correct industry of modern chronologists, above all, of Pagi (Critics,
tom. iii. p. 164. 171-174), who have restored the genuine state of the
revolution. At the present time, an Arabian scholar, like Cardonne, who
adopts the ancient error (tom. i. p. 75), is inexcusably ignorant or
careless.]

[Footnote 172: The Era of Cesar, which in Spain was in legal and popular
use till the xivth century, begins thirty-eight years before the birth
of Christ. I would refer the origin to the general peace by sea and
land, which confirmed the power and partition of the triumvirs. (Dion.
Cassius, l. xlviii. p. 547. 553. Appian de Bell. Civil. l. v. p. 1034,
edit. fol.) Spain was a province of Cesar Octavian; and Tarragona, which
raised the first temple to Augustus (Tacit Annal. i. 78), might borrow
from the orientals this mode of flattery.]

[Footnote 173: The road, the country, the old castle of count Julian,
and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden treasures, &c.
are described by Pere Labat (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom i. p.
207-217), with his usual pleasantry.]

[Footnote 174: The Nubian geographer (p. 154,) explains the topography
of the war; but it is highly incredible that the lieutenant of Musa
should execute the desperate and useless measure of burning his ships.]

[Footnote 175: Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two
leagues from Cadiz. In the xvith century It was a granary of corn;
and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe (Lud. Nonii
Hispania, c. 13, p. 54-56, a work of correct and concise knowledge;
d'Anville, Etats de l'Europe &c p 154).]

On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and decisive
issue; but Alaric would have blushed at the sight of his unworthy
successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls, encumbered with a
flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and reclining on a litter,
or car of ivory, drawn by two white mules. Notwithstanding the valour of
the Saracens, they fainted under the weight of multitudes, and the plain
of Xeres was overspread with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. "My
brethren," said Tarik to his surviving companions, "the enemy is before
you, the sea is behind; whither would ye fly? Follow your general I am
resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate king of
the Romans." Besides the resource of despair, he confided in the secret
correspondence and nocturnal interviews of count Julian, with the sons
and the brother of Witiza. The two princes and the archbishop of Toledo
occupied the most important post; their well-timed defection broke the
ranks of the Christians; each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion
to consult his personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were
scattered or destroyed to the flight and pursuit of the three following
days. Amidst the general disorder, Roderic started from his car, and
mounted Orelia, the fleetest of his Horses; but he escaped from a
soldier's death to perish more ignobly in the waters of the Boetis or
Guadalquiver. His diadem, his robes, and his courser, were found on the
bank; but as the body of the Gothic prince was lost in the waves, the
pride and ignorance of the caliph must have been gratified with some
meaner head, which was exposed in triumph before the palace of Damascus.
"And such," continues a valiant historian of the Arabs, "is the fate of
those kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle." [176]

[A. D. 711.] Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and infamy,
that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After the battle
of Xeres he recommended the most effectual measures to the victorious
Saracens. "The king of the Goths is slain; their princes are fled
before you, the army is routed, the nation is astonished. Secure with
sufficient detachments the cities of Boetica; but in person and without
delay, march to the royal city of Toledo, and allow not the distracted
Christians either time or tranquillity for the election of a new
monarch." Tarik listened to his advice. A Roman captive and proselyte,
who had been enfranchised by the caliph himself, assaulted Cordova with
seven hundred horse: he swam the river, surprised the town, and drove
the Christians into the great church, where they defended themselves
above three months. Another detachment reduced the seacoast of Boetica,
which in the last period of the Moorish power has comprised in a narrow
space the populous kingdom of Grenada. The march of Tarik from the
Boetis to the Tagus,[177] was directed through the Sierra Morena, that
separates Andalusia and Castille, till he appeared in arms under the
walls of Toledo.[178] The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with
the relics of their saints; and if the gates were shut, it was only
till the victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation.
The voluntary exiles were allowed to depart with their effects; seven
churches were appropriated to the Christian worship; the archbishop and
his clergy were at liberty to exercise their functions, the monks to
practise or neglect their penance; and the Goths and Romans were left in
all civil or criminal cases to the subordinate jurisdiction of their
own laws and magistrates. But if the justice of Tarik protected the
Christians, his gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose
secret or open aid he was indebted for his most important acquisitions.
Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had often pressed the
alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast nation embraced the
moment of revenge: the comparison of their past and present state was
the pledge of their fidelity; and the alliance between the disciples of
Moses and those of Mahomet, was maintained till the final era of their
common expulsion.

[Footnote 176: Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie referentibus
saepe contingit. Den Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana.
tom. ii. p. 337. Some credulous Spaniards believe that king Roderic, or
Rodrigo, escaped to a hermit's cell; and others, that he was cast alive
into a tub full of serpents, from whence he exclaimed with a lamentable
voice, "they devour the part with which I have so grievously sinned."
(Don Quixote, part ii. l. iii. c. 1.)]

[Footnote 177: The direct road from Corduba to Toledo was measured by
Mr. Swinburne's mules in 72 1/2 hours: but a larger computation must be
adopted for the slow and devious marches of an army. The Arabs traversed
the province of La Mancha, which the pen of Cervantes has transformed
into classic ground to the reader of every nation.]

[Footnote 178: The antiquities of Toledo, Urbs Parva in the Punic
wars, Urbs Regia in the sixth century, are briefly described by Nonius
(Hispania, c. 59, p. 181-136). He borrows from Roderic the fatale
palatium of Moorish portraits; but modestly insinuates, that it was no
more than a Roman amphitheatre.]

From the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his conquests
to the north, over the modern realms of Castille and Leon; but it is
heedless to enumerate the cities that yielded on his approach, or again
to describe the table of emerald,[179] transported from the East by the
Romans, acquired by the Goths among the spoils of Rome, and presented by
the Arabs to the throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains, the
maritime town of Gijon was the term[180] of the lieutenant of Musa, who
had performed with the speed of a traveller, his victorious march of
seven hundred miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the bay of Biscay.
The failure of land compelled him to retreat: and he was recalled to
Toledo, to excuse his presumption of subduing a kingdom in the absence
of his general. Spain, which in a more savage and disorderly state, had
resisted, two hundred years, the arms of the Romans, was overrun in
a few months by those of the Saracens; and such was the eagerness of
submission and treaty, that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the
only chief who fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands.
The cause of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of
Xeres; and in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined
a contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united strength of
the whole.[181] That strength had been wasted by two successive seasons
of famine and pestilence; and the governors, who were impatient to
surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty of collecting the provisions
of a siege. To disarm the Christians, superstition likewise contributed
her terrors: and the subtle Arab encouraged the report of dreams, omens,
and prophecies, and of the portraits of the destined conquerors of
Spain, that were discovered on the breaking open an apartment of the
royal palace. Yet a spark of the vital flame was still alive; some
invincible fugitives preferred a life of poverty and freedom in the
Asturian valleys; the hardy mountaineers repulsed the slaves of the
caliph; and the sword of Pelagius has been transformed into the sceptre
of the Catholic kings.[182]

[Footnote 179: In the Historia Arabum (c. 9, p. 17, ad calcem Elmacin),
Roderic of Toledo describes the emerald tables, and inserts the name of
Medinat Ahneyda in Arabic words and letters. He appears to be conversant
with the Mahometan writers; but I cannot agree with M. de Guignes (Hist.
des Huns, tom. i. p. 350) that he had read and transcribed Novairi;
because he was dead a hundred years before Novairi composed his
history. This mistake is founded on a still grosser error. M. de Guignes
confounds the governed historian Roderic Ximines, archbishop of Toledo,
in the xiiith century, with cardinal Ximines, who governed Spain in
the beginning of the xvith, and was the subject, not the author, of
historical compositions.]

[Footnote 180: Tarik might have inscribed on the last rock, the boast
of Regnard and his companions in their Lapland journey, "Hic tandem
stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis."]

[Footnote 181: Such was the argument of the traitor Oppas, and every
chief to whom it was addressed did not answer with the spirit of
Pelagius; Omnis Hispania dudum sub uno regimine Gothorum, omnis
exercitus Hispaniae in uno congregatus Ismaelitarum non valuit sustinere
impetum. Chron. Alphonsi Regis, apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 177.]

[Footnote 182: The revival of tire Gothic kingdom in the Asturias is
distinctly though concisely noticed by d'Anville (Etats de l'Europe, p.
159)]




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

On the intelligence of this rapid success, the applause of Musa
degenerated into envy; and he began, not to complain, but to fear, that
Tarik would leave him nothing to subdue. At the head of ten thousand
Arabs and eight thousand Africans, he passed over in person from
Mauritania to Spain: the first of his companions were the noblest of
the Koreish; his eldest son was left in the command of Africa; the
three younger brethren were of an age and spirit to second the boldest
enterprises of their father. At his landing in Algezire, he was
respectfully entertained by Count Julian, who stifled his inward
remorse, and testified, both in words and actions, that the victory of
the Arabs had not impaired his attachment to their cause. Some enemies
yet remained for the sword of Musa. The tardy repentance of the Goths
had compared their own numbers and those of the invaders; the cities
from which the march of Tarik had declined considered themselves as
impregnable; and the bravest patriots defended the fortifications of
Seville and Merida. They were successively besieged and reduced by the
labor of Musa, who transported his camp from the Boetis to the Anas,
from the Guadalquivir to the Guadiana. When he beheld the works of Roman
magnificence, the bridge, the aqueducts, the triumphal arches, and the
theatre, of the ancient metropolis of Lusitania, "I should imagine,"
said he to his four companions, "that the human race must have united
their art and power in the foundation of this city: happy is the man
who shall become its master!" He aspired to that happiness, but the
Emeritans sustained on this occasion the honor of their descent from
the veteran legionaries of Augustus [183] Disdaining the confinement
of their walls, they gave battle to the Arabs on the plain; but an
ambuscade rising from the shelter of a quarry, or a ruin, chastised
their indiscretion, and intercepted their return.

The wooden turrets of assault were rolled forwards to the foot of the
rampart; but the defence of Merida was obstinate and long; and the
castle of the martyrs was a perpetual testimony of the losses of the
Moslems. The constancy of the besieged was at length subdued by famine
and despair; and the prudent victor disguised his impatience under the
names of clemency and esteem. The alternative of exile or tribute was
allowed; the churches were divided between the two religions; and the
wealth of those who had fallen in the siege, or retired to Gallicia, was
confiscated as the reward of the faithful. In the midway between Merida
and Toledo, the lieutenant of Musa saluted the vicegerent of the
caliph, and conducted him to the palace of the Gothic kings. Their
first interview was cold and formal: a rigid account was exacted of the
treasures of Spain: the character of Tarik was exposed to suspicion
and obloquy; and the hero was imprisoned, reviled, and ignominiously
scourged by the hand, or the command, of Musa. Yet so strict was the
discipline, so pure the zeal, or so tame the spirit, of the primitive
Moslems, that, after this public indignity, Tarik could serve and
be trusted in the reduction of the Tarragonest province. A mosch was
erected at Saragossa, by the liberality of the Koreish: the port of
Barcelona was opened to the vessels of Syria; and the Goths were pursued
beyond the Pyrenaean mountains into their Gallic province of Septimania
or Languedoc. [184] In the church of St. Mary at Carcassone, Musa found,
but it is improbable that he left, seven equestrian statues of massy
silver; and from his term or column of Narbonne, he returned on his
footsteps to the Gallician and Lusitanian shores of the ocean. During
the absence of the father, his son Abdelaziz chastised the insurgents
of Seville, and reduced, from Malaga to Valentia, the sea-coast of
the Mediterranean: his original treaty with the discreet and valiant
Theodemir [185] will represent the manners and policy of the times. "The
conditions of peace agreed and sworn between Abdelaziz, the son of Musa,
the son of Nassir, and Theodemir prince of the Goths. In the name of
the most merciful God, Abdelaziz makes peace on these conditions: that
Theodemir shall not be disturbed in his principality; nor any injury be
offered to the life or property, the wives and children, the religion
and temples, of the Christians: that Theodemir shall freely deliver
his seven [1851] cities, Orihuela, Valentola, Alicanti Mola, Vacasora,
Bigerra, (now Bejar,) Ora, (or Opta,) and Lorca: that he shall not
assist or entertain the enemies of the caliph, but shall faithfully
communicate his knowledge of their hostile designs: that himself, and
each of the Gothic nobles, shall annually pay one piece of gold, four
measures of wheat, as many of barley, with a certain proportion of
honey, oil, and vinegar; and that each of their vassals shall be taxed
at one moiety of the said imposition. Given the fourth of Regeb, in the
year of the Hegira ninety-four, and subscribed with the names of four
Mussulman witnesses." [186] Theodemir and his subjects were treated with
uncommon lenity; but the rate of tribute appears to have fluctuated
from a tenth to a fifth, according to the submission or obstinacy of
the Christians. [187] In this revolution, many partial calamities were
inflicted by the carnal or religious passions of the enthusiasts: some
churches were profaned by the new worship: some relics or images were
confounded with idols: the rebels were put to the sword; and one
town (an obscure place between Cordova and Seville) was razed to its
foundations. Yet if we compare the invasion of Spain by the Goths, or
its recovery by the kings of Castile and Arragon, we must applaud the
moderation and discipline of the Arabian conquerors.

[Footnote 183: The honorable relics of the Cantabrian war (Dion Cassius,
l. liii p. 720) were planted in this metropolis of Lusitania, perhaps of
Spain, (submittit cui tota suos Hispania fasces.) Nonius (Hispania, c.
31, p. 106-110) enumerates the ancient structures, but concludes with
a sigh: Urbs haec olim nobilissima ad magnam incolarum infrequentiam
delapsa est, et praeter priscae claritatis ruinas nihil ostendit.]

[Footnote 184: Both the interpreters of Novairi, De Guignes (Hist. des
Huns, tom. i. p. 349) and Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne,
tom. i. p. 93, 94, 104, 135,) lead Musa into the Narbonnese Gaul. But I
find no mention of this enterprise, either in Roderic of Toledo, or the
Mss. of the Escurial, and the invasion of the Saracens is postponed by
a French chronicle till the ixth year after the conquest of Spain, A.D.
721, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 177, 195. Historians of France, tom.
iii.) I much question whether Musa ever passed the Pyrenees.]

[Footnote 185: Four hundred years after Theodemir, his territories of
Murcia and Carthagena retain in the Nubian geographer Edrisi (p, 154,
161) the name of Tadmir, (D'Anville, Etats de l'Europe, p. 156. Pagi,
tom. iii. p. 174.) In the present decay of Spanish agriculture, Mr.
Swinburne (Travels into Spain, p. 119) surveyed with pleasure the
delicious valley from Murcia to Orihuela, four leagues and a half of the
finest corn pulse, lucerne, oranges, &c.]

[Footnote 1851: Gibbon has made eight cities: in Conde's translation
Bigera does not appear.--M.]

[Footnote 186: See the treaty in Arabic and Latin, in the Bibliotheca
Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 105, 106. It is signed the 4th of the month
of Regeb, A. H. 94, the 5th of April, A.D. 713; a date which seems to
prolong the resistance of Theodemir, and the government of Musa.]

[Footnote 187: From the history of Sandoval, p. 87. Fleury (Hist.
Eccles. tom. ix. p. 261) has given the substance of another treaty
concluded A Ae. C. 782, A.D. 734, between an Arabian chief and the Goths
and Romans, of the territory of Conimbra in Portugal. The tax of the
churches is fixed at twenty-five pounds of gold; of the monasteries,
fifty; of the cathedrals, one hundred; the Christians are judged by
their count, but in capital cases he must consult the alcaide. The
church doors must be shut, and they must respect the name of Mahomet.
I have not the original before me; it would confirm or destroy a dark
suspicion, that the piece has been forged to introduce the immunity of a
neighboring convent.]

The exploits of Musa were performed in the evening of life, though he
affected to disguise his age by coloring with a red powder the whiteness
of his beard. But in the love of action and glory, his breast was
still fired with the ardor of youth; and the possession of Spain was
considered only as the first step to the monarchy of Europe. With
a powerful armament by sea and land, he was preparing to repass the
Pyrenees, to extinguish in Gaul and Italy the declining kingdoms of the
Franks and Lombards, and to preach the unity of God on the altar of the
Vatican. From thence, subduing the Barbarians of Germany, he proposed
to follow the course of the Danube from its source to the Euxine Sea,
to overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople, and returning
from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions with Antioch and
the provinces of Syria. [188] But his vast enterprise, perhaps of
easy execution, must have seemed extravagant to vulgar minds; and the
visionary conqueror was soon reminded of his dependence and servitude.
The friends of Tarik had effectually stated his services and wrongs:
at the court of Damascus, the proceedings of Musa were blamed, his
intentions were suspected, and his delay in complying with the first
invitation was chastised by a harsher and more peremptory summons. An
intrepid messenger of the caliph entered his camp at Lugo in Gallicia,
and in the presence of the Saracens and Christians arrested the bridle
of his horse. His own loyalty, or that of his troops, inculcated the
duty of obedience: and his disgrace was alleviated by the recall of his
rival, and the permission of investing with his two governments his two
sons, Abdallah and Abdelaziz. His long triumph from Ceuta to Damascus
displayed the spoils of Africa and the treasures of Spain: four hundred
Gothic nobles, with gold coronets and girdles, were distinguished in his
train; and the number of male and female captives, selected for their
birth or beauty, was computed at eighteen, or even at thirty, thousand
persons. As soon as he reached Tiberias in Palestine, he was apprised
of the sickness and danger of the caliph, by a private message from
Soliman, his brother and presumptive heir; who wished to reserve for his
own reign the spectacle of victory.

Had Walid recovered, the delay of Musa would have been criminal: he
pursued his march, and found an enemy on the throne. In his trial before
a partial judge against a popular antagonist, he was convicted of vanity
and falsehood; and a fine of two hundred thousand pieces of gold
either exhausted his poverty or proved his rapaciousness. The unworthy
treatment of Tarik was revenged by a similar indignity; and the veteran
commander, after a public whipping, stood a whole day in the sun before
the palace gate, till he obtained a decent exile, under the pious name
of a pilgrimage to Mecca. The resentment of the caliph might have been
satiated with the ruin of Musa; but his fears demanded the extirpation
of a potent and injured family. A sentence of death was intimated with
secrecy and speed to the trusty servants of the throne both in Africa
and Spain; and the forms, if not the substance, of justice were
superseded in this bloody execution. In the mosch or palace of Cordova,
Abdelaziz was slain by the swords of the conspirators; they accused
their governor of claiming the honors of royalty; and his scandalous
marriage with Egilona, the widow of Roderic, offended the prejudices
both of the Christians and Moslems. By a refinement of cruelty, the
head of the son was presented to the father, with an insulting
question, whether he acknowledged the features of the rebel? "I know his
features," he exclaimed with indignation: "I assert his innocence; and
I imprecate the same, a juster fate, against the authors of his death."
The age and despair of Musa raised him above the power of kings; and he
expired at Mecca of the anguish of a broken heart. His rival was more
favorably treated: his services were forgiven; and Tarik was permitted
to mingle with the crowd of slaves. [189] I am ignorant whether Count
Julian was rewarded with the death which he deserved indeed, though not
from the hands of the Saracens; but the tale of their ingratitude to the
sons of Witiza is disproved by the most unquestionable evidence. The two
royal youths were reinstated in the private patrimony of their father;
but on the decease of Eba, the elder, his daughter was unjustly
despoiled of her portion by the violence of her uncle Sigebut. The
Gothic maid pleaded her cause before the caliph Hashem, and obtained the
restitution of her inheritance; but she was given in marriage to a noble
Arabian, and their two sons, Isaac and Ibrahim, were received in Spain
with the consideration that was due to their origin and riches.

[Footnote 188: This design, which is attested by several Arabian
historians, (Cardonne, tom. i. p. 95, 96,) may be compared with that of
Mithridates, to march from the Crimaea to Rome; or with that of Caesar,
to conquer the East, and return home by the North; and all three are
perhaps surpassed by the real and successful enterprise of Hannibal.]

[Footnote 189: I much regret our loss, or my ignorance, of two Arabic
works of the viiith century, a Life of Musa, and a poem on the exploits
of Tarik. Of these authentic pieces, the former was composed by a
grandson of Musa, who had escaped from the massacre of his kindred; the
latter, by the vizier of the first Abdalrahman, caliph of Spain,
who might have conversed with some of the veterans of the conqueror,
(Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 36, 139.)]

A province is assimilated to the victorious state by the introduction of
strangers and the imitative spirit of the natives; and Spain, which had
been successively tinctured with Punic, and Roman, and Gothic blood,
imbibed, in a few generations, the name and manners of the Arabs. The
first conquerors, and the twenty successive lieutenants of the caliphs,
were attended by a numerous train of civil and military followers, who
preferred a distant fortune to a narrow home: the private and public
interest was promoted by the establishment of faithful colonies; and the
cities of Spain were proud to commemorate the tribe or country of their
Eastern progenitors. The victorious though motley bands of Tarik
and Musa asserted, by the name of Spaniards, their original claim
of conquest; yet they allowed their brethren of Egypt to share their
establishments of Murcia and Lisbon. The royal legion of Damascus was
planted at Cordova; that of Emesa at Seville; that of Kinnisrin or
Chalcis at Jaen; that of Palestine at Algezire and Medina Sidonia. The
natives of Yemen and Persia were scattered round Toledo and the inland
country, and the fertile seats of Grenada were bestowed on ten thousand
horsemen of Syria and Irak, the children of the purest and most noble of
the Arabian tribes. [190] A spirit of emulation, sometimes beneficial,
more frequently dangerous, was nourished by these hereditary factions.
Ten years after the conquest, a map of the province was presented to
the caliph: the seas, the rivers, and the harbors, the inhabitants and
cities, the climate, the soil, and the mineral productions of the earth.
[191] In the space of two centuries, the gifts of nature were improved
by the agriculture, [192] the manufactures, and the commerce, of
an industrious people; and the effects of their diligence have been
magnified by the idleness of their fancy. The first of the Ommiades who
reigned in Spain solicited the support of the Christians; and in
his edict of peace and protection, he contents himself with a modest
imposition of ten thousand ounces of gold, ten thousand pounds of
silver, ten thousand horses, as many mules, one thousand cuirasses, with
an equal number of helmets and lances. [193] The most powerful of his
successors derived from the same kingdom the annual tribute of twelve
millions and forty-five thousand dinars or pieces of gold, about six
millions of sterling money; [194] a sum which, in the tenth century,
most probably surpassed the united revenues of the Christians monarchs.
His royal seat of Cordova contained six hundred moschs, nine hundred
baths, and two hundred thousand houses; he gave laws to eighty cities
of the first, to three hundred of the second and third order; and the
fertile banks of the Guadalquivir were adorned with twelve thousand
villages and hamlets. The Arabs might exaggerate the truth, but they
created and they describe the most prosperous aera of the riches, the
cultivation, and the populousness of Spain. [195]

[Footnote 190: Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. ii. p. 32, 252. The former
of these quotations is taken from a Biographia Hispanica, by an Arabian
of Valentia, (see the copious Extracts of Casiri, tom. ii. p. 30-121;)
and the latter from a general Chronology of the Caliphs, and of the
African and Spanish Dynasties, with a particular History of the
kingdom of Grenada, of which Casiri has given almost an entire version,
(Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 177-319.) The author, Ebn
Khateb, a native of Grenada, and a contemporary of Novairi and Abulfeda,
(born A.D. 1313, died A.D. 1374,) was an historian, geographer,
physician, poet, &c., (tom. ii. p. 71, 72.)]

[Footnote 191: Cardonne, Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, tom. i. p.
116, 117.]

[Footnote 192: A copious treatise of husbandry, by an Arabian of
Seville, in the xiith century, is in the Escurial library, and Casiri
had some thoughts of translating it. He gives a list of the authors
quoted, Arabs as well as Greeks, Latins, &c.; but it is much if the
Andalusian saw these strangers through the medium of his countryman
Columella, (Casiri, Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 323-338.)]

[Footnote 193: Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 104. Casiri
translates the original testimony of the historian Rasis, as it is
alleged in the Arabic Biographia Hispanica, pars ix. But I am
most exceedingly surprised at the address, Principibus caeterisque
Christianis, Hispanis suis Castellae. The name of Castellae was unknown
in the viiith century; the kingdom was not erected till the year 1022,
a hundred years after the time of Rasis, (Bibliot. tom. ii. p. 330,) and
the appellation was always expressive, not of a tributary province, but
of a line of castles independent of the Moorish yoke, (D'Anville, Etats
de l'Europe, p. 166-170.) Had Casiri been a critic, he would have
cleared a difficulty, perhaps of his own making.]

[Footnote 194: Cardonne, tom. i. p. 337, 338. He computes the revenue at
130,000,000 of French livres. The entire picture of peace and prosperity
relieves the bloody uniformity of the Moorish annals.]

[Footnote 195: I am happy enough to possess a splendid and interesting
work which has only been distributed in presents by the court of Madrid
Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis, opera et studio Michaelis
Casiri, Syro Maronitoe. Matriti, in folio, tomus prior, 1760, tomus
posterior, 1770. The execution of this work does honor to the Spanish
press; the Mss., to the number of MDCCCLI., are judiciously classed by
the editor, and his copious extracts throw some light on the Mahometan
literature and history of Spain. These relics are now secure, but the
task has been supinely delayed, till, in the year 1671, a fire consumed
the greatest part of the Escurial library, rich in the spoils of Grenada
and Morocco. * Note: Compare the valuable work of Conde, Historia de la
Dominacion de las Arabes en Espana. Madrid, 1820.--M.]

The wars of the Moslems were sanctified by the prophet; but among the
various precepts and examples of his life, the caliphs selected the
lessons of toleration that might tend to disarm the resistance of the
unbelievers. Arabia was the temple and patrimony of the God of Mahomet;
but he beheld with less jealousy and affection the nations of the earth.
The polytheists and idolaters, who were ignorant of his name, might be
lawfully extirpated by his votaries; [196] but a wise policy supplied
the obligation of justice; and after some acts of intolerant zeal, the
Mahometan conquerors of Hindostan have spared the pagods of that devout
and populous country. The disciples of Abraham, of Moses, and of Jesus,
were solemnly invited to accept the more perfect revelation of Mahomet;
but if they preferred the payment of a moderate tribute, they were
entitled to the freedom of conscience and religious worship. [197] In a
field of battle the forfeit lives of the prisoners were redeemed by the
profession of Islam; the females were bound to embrace the religion of
their masters, and a race of sincere proselytes was gradually multiplied
by the education of the infant captives. But the millions of African
and Asiatic converts, who swelled the native band of the faithful Arabs,
must have been allured, rather than constrained, to declare their belief
in one God and the apostle of God. By the repetition of a sentence and
the loss of a foreskin, the subject or the slave, the captive or
the criminal, arose in a moment the free and equal companion of the
victorious Moslems. Every sin was expiated, every engagement was
dissolved: the vow of celibacy was superseded by the indulgence of
nature; the active spirits who slept in the cloister were awakened by
the trumpet of the Saracens; and in the convulsion of the world, every
member of a new society ascended to the natural level of his capacity
and courage. The minds of the multitude were tempted by the invisible as
well as temporal blessings of the Arabian prophet; and charity will
hope that many of his proselytes entertained a serious conviction of
the truth and sanctity of his revelation. In the eyes of an inquisitive
polytheist, it must appear worthy of the human and the divine nature.
More pure than the system of Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of
Moses, the religion of Mahomet might seem less inconsistent with reason
than the creed of mystery and superstition, which, in the seventh
century, disgraced the simplicity of the gospel.

[Footnote 196: The Harbii, as they are styled, qui tolerari nequeunt,
are, 1. Those who, besides God, worship the sun, moon, or idols. 2.
Atheists, Utrique, quamdiu princeps aliquis inter Mohammedanos superest,
oppugnari debent donec religionem amplectantur, nec requies iis
concedenda est, nec pretium acceptandum pro obtinenda conscientiae
libertate, (Reland, Dissertat. x. de Jure Militari Mohammedan. tom. iii.
p. 14;) a rigid theory!]

[Footnote 197: The distinction between a proscribed and a tolerated
sect, between the Harbii and the people of the Book, the believers in
some divine revelation, is correctly defined in the conversation of the
caliph Al Mamum with the idolaters or Sabaeans of Charrae, (Hottinger,
Hist. Orient. p. 107, 108.)]

In the extensive provinces of Persia and Africa, the national religion
has been eradicated by the Mahometan faith. The ambiguous theology
of the Magi stood alone among the sects of the East; but the profane
writings of Zoroaster [198] might, under the reverend name of Abraham,
be dexterously connected with the chain of divine revelation. Their evil
principle, the daemon Ahriman, might be represented as the rival, or as
the creature, of the God of light. The temples of Persia were devoid of
images; but the worship of the sun and of fire might be stigmatized as a
gross and criminal idolatry. [199] The milder sentiment was consecrated
by the practice of Mahomet [200] and the prudence of the caliphs; the
Magians or Ghebers were ranked with the Jews and Christians among the
people of the written law; [201] and as late as the third century of the
Hegira, the city of Herat will afford a lively contrast of private zeal
and public toleration. [202] Under the payment of an annual tribute, the
Mahometan law secured to the Ghebers of Herat their civil and religious
liberties: but the recent and humble mosch was overshadowed by the
antique splendor of the adjoining temple of fire. A fanatic Iman
deplored, in his sermons, the scandalous neighborhood, and accused the
weakness or indifference of the faithful. Excited by his voice, the
people assembled in tumult; the two houses of prayer were consumed
by the flames, but the vacant ground was immediately occupied by the
foundations of a new mosch. The injured Magi appealed to the sovereign
of Chorasan; he promised justice and relief; when, behold! four thousand
citizens of Herat, of a grave character and mature age, unanimously
swore that the idolatrous fane had never existed; the inquisition was
silenced and their conscience was satisfied (says the historian Mirchond
[203] with this holy and meritorious perjury. [204] But the greatest
part of the temples of Persia were ruined by the insensible and general
desertion of their votaries.

It was insensible, since it is not accompanied with any memorial of time
or place, of persecution or resistance. It was general, since the whole
realm, from Shiraz to Samarcand, imbibed the faith of the Koran; and the
preservation of the native tongue reveals the descent of the Mahometans
of Persia. [205] In the mountains and deserts, an obstinate race of
unbelievers adhered to the superstition of their fathers; and a faint
tradition of the Magian theology is kept alive in the province of
Kirman, along the banks of the Indus, among the exiles of Surat, and in
the colony which, in the last century, was planted by Shaw Abbas at
the gates of Ispahan. The chief pontiff has retired to Mount Elbourz,
eighteen leagues from the city of Yezd: the perpetual fire (if it
continues to burn) is inaccessible to the profane; but his residence is
the school, the oracle, and the pilgrimage of the Ghebers, whose hard
and uniform features attest the unmingled purity of their blood. Under
the jurisdiction of their elders, eighty thousand families maintain an
innocent and industrious life: their subsistence is derived from some
curious manufactures and mechanic trades; and they cultivate the earth
with the fervor of a religious duty. Their ignorance withstood the
despotism of Shaw Abbas, who demanded with threats and tortures the
prophetic books of Zoroaster; and this obscure remnant of the Magians is
spared by the moderation or contempt of their present sovereigns. [206]

[Footnote 198: The Zend or Pazend, the bible of the Ghebers, is reckoned
by themselves, or at least by the Mahometans, among the ten books which
Abraham received from heaven; and their religion is honorably styled
the religion of Abraham, (D'Herblot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 701; Hyde, de
Religione veterum Persarum, c, iii. p. 27, 28, &c.) I much fear that we
do not possess any pure and free description of the system of Zoroaster.
[1981] Dr. Prideaux (Connection, vol. i. p. 300, octavo) adopts the
opinion, that he had been the slave and scholar of some Jewish prophet
in the captivity of Babylon. Perhaps the Persians, who have been the
masters of the Jews, would assert the honor, a poor honor, of being
their masters.]

[Footnote 1981: Whatever the real age of the Zendavesta, published by
Anquetil du Perron, whether of the time of Ardeschir Babeghan, according
to Mr. Erskine, or of much higher antiquity, it may be considered, I
conceive, both a "pure and a free," though imperfect, description of
Zoroastrianism; particularly with the illustrations of the original
translator, and of the German Kleuker--M.]

[Footnote 199: The Arabian Nights, a faithful and amusing picture of the
Oriental world, represent in the most odious colors of the Magians, or
worshippers of fire, to whom they attribute the annual sacrifice of a
Mussulman. The religion of Zoroaster has not the least affinity with
that of the Hindoos, yet they are often confounded by the Mahometans;
and the sword of Timour was sharpened by this mistake, (Hist. de Timour
Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali Yezdi, l. v.)]

[Footnote 200: Vie de Mahomet, par Gagnier, (tom. iii. p. 114, 115.)]

[Footnote 201: Hae tres sectae, Judaei, Christiani, et qui inter
Persas Magorum institutis addicti sunt, populi libri dicuntur, (Reland,
Dissertat. tom. iii. p. 15.) The caliph Al Mamun confirms this honorable
distinction in favor of the three sects, with the vague and equivocal
religion of the Sabaeans, under which the ancient polytheists of Charrae
were allowed to shelter their idolatrous worship, (Hottinger, Hist.
Orient p. 167, 168.)]

[Footnote 202: This singular story is related by D'Herbelot, (Bibliot.
Orient. p 448, 449,) on the faith of Khondemir, and by Mirchond himself,
(Hist priorum Regum Persarum, &c., p. 9, 10, not. p. 88, 89.)]

[Footnote 203: Mirchond, (Mohammed Emir Khoondah Shah,) a native of
Herat, composed in the Persian language a general history of the East,
from the creation to the year of the Hegira 875, (A.D. 1471.) In the
year 904 (A.D. 1498) the historian obtained the command of a princely
library, and his applauded work, in seven or twelve parts, was
abbreviated in three volumes by his son Khondemir, A. H. 927, A.D. 1520.
The two writers, most accurately distinguished by Petit de la Croix,
(Hist. de Genghizcan, p.537, 538, 544, 545,) are loosely confounded by
D'Herbelot, (p. 358, 410, 994, 995: ) but his numerous extracts, under
the improper name of Khondemir, belong to the father rather than the
son. The historian of Genghizcan refers to a Ms. of Mirchond, which
he received from the hands of his friend D'Herbelot himself. A curious
fragment (the Taherian and Soffarian Dynasties) has been lately
published in Persic and Latin, (Viennae, 1782, in 4to., cum notis
Bernard de Jenisch;) and the editor allows us to hope for a continuation
of Mirchond.]

[Footnote 204: Quo testimonio boni se quidpiam praestitisse opinabantur.
Yet Mirchond must have condemned their zeal, since he approved the legal
toleration of the Magi, cui (the fire temple) peracto singulis annis
censu uti sacra Mohammedis lege cautum, ab omnibus molestiis ac oneribus
libero esse licuit.]

[Footnote 205: The last Magian of name and power appears to be Mardavige
the Dilemite, who, in the beginning of the 10th century, reigned in
the northern provinces of Persia, near the Caspian Sea, (D'Herbelot,
Bibliot. Orient. p. 355.) But his soldiers and successors, the Bowides
either professed or embraced the Mahometan faith; and under their
dynasty (A.D. 933-1020) I should say the fall of the religion of
Zoroaster.]

[Footnote 206: The present state of the Ghebers in Persia is taken from
Sir John Chardin, not indeed the most learned, but the most judicious
and inquisitive of our modern travellers, (Voyages en Perse, tom. ii.
p. 109, 179-187, in 4to.) His brethren, Pietro della Valle, Olearius,
Thevenot, Tavernier, &c., whom I have fruitlessly searched, had neither
eyes nor attention for this interesting people.]

The Northern coast of Africa is the only land in which the light of
the gospel, after a long and perfect establishment, has been totally
extinguished. The arts, which had been taught by Carthage and Rome, were
involved in a cloud of ignorance; the doctrine of Cyprian and Augustin
was no longer studied. Five hundred episcopal churches were overturned
by the hostile fury of the Donatists, the Vandals, and the Moors.
The zeal and numbers of the clergy declined; and the people, without
discipline, or knowledge, or hope, submissively sunk under the yoke
of the Arabian prophet Within fifty years after the expulsion of the
Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the tribute of
the infidels was abolished by their conversion; [207] and, though he
sought to disguise his fraud and rebellion, his specious pretence was
drawn from the rapid and extensive progress of the Mahometan faith. In
the next age, an extraordinary mission of five bishops was detached from
Alexandria to Cairoan. They were ordained by the Jacobite patriarch
to cherish and revive the dying embers of Christianity: [208] but the
interposition of a foreign prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy
to the Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African
hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of St. Cyprian,
at the head of a numerous synod, could maintain an equal contest
with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In the eleventh century, the
unfortunate priest who was seated on the ruins of Carthage implored the
arms and the protection of the Vatican; and he bitterly complains that
his naked body had been scourged by the Saracens, and that his authority
was disputed by the four suffragans, the tottering pillars of his
throne. Two epistles of Gregory the Seventh [209] are destined to soothe
the distress of the Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The
pope assures the sultan that they both worship the same God, and may
hope to meet in the bosom of Abraham; but the complaint that three
bishops could no longer be found to consecrate a brother, announces the
speedy and inevitable ruin of the episcopal order. The Christians
of Africa and Spain had long since submitted to the practice of
circumcision and the legal abstinence from wine and pork; and the
name of Mozarabes [210] (adoptive Arabs) was applied to their civil or
religious conformity. [211] About the middle of the twelfth century, the
worship of Christ and the succession of pastors were abolished along
the coast of Barbary, and in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, of
Valencia and Grenada. [212] The throne of the Almohades, or Unitarians,
was founded on the blindest fanaticism, and their extraordinary rigor
might be provoked or justified by the recent victories and intolerant
zeal of the princes of Sicily and Castille, of Arragon and Portugal.
The faith of the Mozarabes was occasionally revived by the papal
missionaries; and, on the landing of Charles the Fifth, some families
of Latin Christians were encouraged to rear their heads at Tunis and
Algiers. But the seed of the gospel was quickly eradicated, and the
long province from Tripoli to the Atlantic has lost all memory of the
language and religion of Rome. [213]

[Footnote 207: The letter of Abdoulrahman, governor or tyrant of Africa,
to the caliph Aboul Abbas, the first of the Abbassides, is dated A. H.
132 Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, tom. i. p. 168.)]

[Footnote 208: Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 66. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.
Alex. p. 287, 288.]

[Footnote 209: Among the Epistles of the Popes, see Leo IX. epist. 3;
Gregor. VII. l. i. epist. 22, 23, l. iii. epist. 19, 20, 21; and the
criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iv. A.D. 1053, No. 14, A.D. 1073, No. 13,) who
investigates the name and family of the Moorish prince, with whom the
proudest of the Roman pontiffs so politely corresponds.]

[Footnote 210: Mozarabes, or Mostarabes, adscititii, as it is
interpreted in Latin, (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 39, 40.
Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 18.) The Mozarabic liturgy, the
ancient ritual of the church of Toledo, has been attacked by the popes,
and exposed to the doubtful trials of the sword and of fire, (Marian.
Hist. Hispan. tom. i. l. ix. c. 18, p. 378.) It was, or rather it is, in
the Latin tongue; yet in the xith century it was found necessary (A. Ae.
C. 1687, A.D. 1039) to transcribe an Arabic version of the canons of the
councils of Spain, (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 547,) for the use of
the bishops and clergy in the Moorish kingdoms.]

[Footnote 211: About the middle of the xth century, the clergy of
Cordova was reproached with this criminal compliance, by the intrepid
envoy of the Emperor Otho I., (Vit. Johan. Gorz, in Secul. Benedict. V.
No. 115, apud Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 91.)]

[Footnote 212: Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 1149, No. 8, 9. He justly
observes, that when Seville, &c., were retaken by Ferdinand of Castille,
no Christians, except captives, were found in the place; and that the
Mozarabic churches of Africa and Spain, described by James a Vitriaco,
A.D. 1218, (Hist. Hierosol. c. 80, p. 1095, in Gest. Dei per Francos,)
are copied from some older book. I shall add, that the date of the
Hegira 677 (A.D. 1278) must apply to the copy, not the composition, of
a treatise of a jurisprudence, which states the civil rights of the
Christians of Cordova, (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 471;) and that
the Jews were the only dissenters whom Abul Waled, king of Grenada,
(A.D. 1313,) could either discountenance or tolerate, (tom. ii. p.
288.)]

[Footnote 213: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 288. Leo Africanus
would have flattered his Roman masters, could he have discovered any
latent relics of the Christianity of Africa.]

After the revolution of eleven centuries, the Jews and Christians of the
Turkish empire enjoy the liberty of conscience which was granted by the
Arabian caliphs. During the first age of the conquest, they suspected
the loyalty of the Catholics, whose name of Melchites betrayed their
secret attachment to the Greek emperor, while the Nestorians and
Jacobites, his inveterate enemies, approved themselves the sincere and
voluntary friends of the Mahometan government. [214] Yet this partial
jealousy was healed by time and submission; the churches of Egypt
were shared with the Catholics; [215] and all the Oriental sects were
included in the common benefits of toleration. The rank, the immunities,
the domestic jurisdiction of the patriarchs, the bishops, and the
clergy, were protected by the civil magistrate: the learning of
individuals recommended them to the employments of secretaries and
physicians: they were enriched by the lucrative collection of the
revenue; and their merit was sometimes raised to the command of cities
and provinces. A caliph of the house of Abbas was heard to declare
that the Christians were most worthy of trust in the administration of
Persia. "The Moslems," said he, "will abuse their present fortune; the
Magians regret their fallen greatness; and the Jews are impatient for
their approaching deliverance." [216] But the slaves of despotism are
exposed to the alternatives of favor and disgrace. The captive churches
of the East have been afflicted in every age by the avarice or bigotry
of their rulers; and the ordinary and legal restraints must be offensive
to the pride, or the zeal, of the Christians. [217] About two hundred
years after Mahomet, they were separated from their fellow-subjects by a
turban or girdle of a less honorable color; instead of horses or mules.
they were condemned to ride on asses, in the attitude of women. Their
public and private building were measured by a diminutive standard; in
the streets or the baths it is their duty to give way or bow down before
the meanest of the people; and their testimony is rejected, if it may
tend to the prejudice of a true believer. The pomp of processions, the
sound of bells or of psalmody, is interdicted in their worship; a
decent reverence for the national faith is imposed on their sermons
and conversations; and the sacrilegious attempt to enter a mosch, or to
seduce a Mussulman, will not be suffered to escape with impunity. In a
time, however, of tranquillity and justice, the Christians have never
been compelled to renounce the Gospel, or to embrace the Koran; but the
punishment of death is inflicted upon the apostates who have professed
and deserted the law of Mahomet. The martyrs of Cordova provoked the
sentence of the cadhi, by the public confession of their inconstancy,
or their passionate invectives against the person and religion of the
prophet. [218]

[Footnote 214: Absit (said the Catholic to the vizier of Bagdad) ut pari
loco habeas Nestorianos, quorum praeter Arabas nullus alius rex est, et
Graecos quorum reges amovendo Arabibus bello non desistunt, &c. See in
the Collections of Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 94-101) the
state of the Nestorians under the caliphs. That of the Jacobites is more
concisely exposed in the Preliminary Dissertation of the second volume
of Assemannus.]

[Footnote 215: Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 384, 387, 388. Renaudot,
Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 205, 206, 257, 332. A taint of the Monothelite
heresy might render the first of these Greek patriarchs less loyal to
the emperors and less obnoxious to the Arabs.]

[Footnote 216: Motadhed, who reigned from A.D. 892 to 902. The Magians
still held their name and rank among the religions of the empire,
(Assemanni, Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 97.)]

[Footnote 217: Reland explains the general restraints of the Mahometan
policy and jurisprudence, (Dissertat. tom. iii. p. 16-20.) The
oppressive edicts of the caliph Motawakkel, (A.D. 847-861,) which are
still in force, are noticed by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 448,) and
D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. p. 640.) A persecution of the caliph Omar
II. is related, and most probably magnified, by the Greek Theophanes
(Chron p. 334.)]

[Footnote 218: The martyrs of Cordova (A.D. 850, &c.) are commemorated
and justified by St. Eulogius, who at length fell a victim himself. A
synod, convened by the caliph, ambiguously censured their rashness. The
moderate Fleury cannot reconcile their conduct with the discipline of
antiquity, toutefois l'autorite de l'eglise, &c. (Fleury, Hist. Eccles.
tom. x. p. 415-522, particularly p. 451, 508, 509.) Their authentic
acts throw a strong, though transient, light on the Spanish church in
the ixth century.]

At the end of the first century of the Hegira, the caliphs were the most
potent and absolute monarchs of the globe. Their prerogative was not
circumscribed, either in right or in fact, by the power of the nobles,
the freedom of the commons, the privileges of the church, the votes of
a senate, or the memory of a free constitution. The authority of the
companions of Mahomet expired with their lives; and the chiefs or emirs
of the Arabian tribes left behind, in the desert, the spirit of equality
and independence. The regal and sacerdotal characters were united in the
successors of Mahomet; and if the Koran was the rule of their actions,
they were the supreme judges and interpreters of that divine book. They
reigned by the right of conquest over the nations of the East, to whom
the name of liberty was unknown, and who were accustomed to applaud in
their tyrants the acts of violence and severity that were exercised at
their own expense. Under the last of the Ommiades, the Arabian empire
extended two hundred days' journey from east to west, from the confines
of Tartary and India to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. And if we
retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their writers, the
long and narrow province of Africa, the solid and compact dominion from
Fargana to Aden, from Tarsus to Surat, will spread on every side to
the measure of four or five months of the march of a caravan. [219]
We should vainly seek the indissoluble union and easy obedience that
pervaded the government of Augustus and the Antonines; but the progress
of the Mahometan religion diffused over this ample space a general
resemblance of manners and opinions. The language and laws of the Koran
were studied with equal devotion at Samarcand and Seville: the Moor
and the Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of
Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom in all
the provinces to the westward of the Tigris. [220]

[Footnote 219: See the article Eslamiah, (as we say Christendom,) in the
Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 325.) This chart of the Mahometan world is
suited by the author, Ebn Alwardi, to the year of the Hegira 385 (A.D.
995.) Since that time, the losses in Spain have been overbalanced by the
conquests in India, Tartary, and the European Turkey.]

[Footnote 220: The Arabic of the Koran is taught as a dead language in
the college of Mecca. By the Danish traveller, this ancient idiom is
compared to the Latin; the vulgar tongue of Hejaz and Yemen to the
Italian; and the Arabian dialects of Syria, Egypt, Africa, &c., to the
Provencal, Spanish, and Portuguese, (Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie,
p. 74, &c.)]




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

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

When the Arabs first issued from the desert, they must have been
surprised at the ease and rapidity of their own success. But when they
advanced in the career of victory to the banks of the Indus and the
summit of the Pyrenees; when they had repeatedly tried the edge of their
cimeters and the energy of their faith, they might be equally astonished
that any nation could resist their invincible arms; that any boundary
should confine the dominion of the successor of the prophet. The
confidence of soldiers and fanatics may indeed be excused, since the
calm historian of the present hour, who strives to follow the rapid
course of the Saracens, must study to explain by what means the church
and state were saved from this impending, and, as it should seem, from
this inevitable, danger. The deserts of Scythia and Sarmatia might be
guarded by their extent, their climate, their poverty, and the courage
of the northern shepherds; China was remote and inaccessible; but
the greatest part of the temperate zone was subject to the Mahometan
conquerors, the Greeks were exhausted by the calamities of war and the
loss of their fairest provinces, and the Barbarians of Europe might
justly tremble at the precipitate fall of the Gothic monarchy. In this
inquiry I shall unfold the events that rescued our ancestors of Britain,
and our neighbors of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the
Koran; that protected the majesty of Rome, and delayed the servitude
of Constantinople; that invigorated the defence of the Christians, and
scattered among their enemies the seeds of division and decay.

Forty-six years after the flight of Mahomet from Mecca, his disciples
appeared in arms under the walls of Constantinople. [1] They were
animated by a genuine or fictitious saying of the prophet, that, to
the first army which besieged the city of the Caesars, their sins were
forgiven: the long series of Roman triumphs would be meritoriously
transferred to the conquerors of New Rome; and the wealth of nations was
deposited in this well-chosen seat of royalty and commerce. No sooner
had the caliph Moawiyah suppressed his rivals and established his
throne, than he aspired to expiate the guilt of civil blood, by the
success and glory of this holy expedition; [2] his preparations by sea
and land were adequate to the importance of the object; his standard was
intrusted to Sophian, a veteran warrior, but the troops were encouraged
by the example and presence of Yezid, the son and presumptive heir of
the commander of the faithful. The Greeks had little to hope, nor had
their enemies any reason of fear, from the courage and vigilance of the
reigning emperor, who disgraced the name of Constantine, and imitated
only the inglorious years of his grandfather Heraclius. Without delay
or opposition, the naval forces of the Saracens passed through the
unguarded channel of the Hellespont, which even now, under the feeble
and disorderly government of the Turks, is maintained as the natural
bulwark of the capital. [3] The Arabian fleet cast anchor, and the
troops were disembarked near the palace of Hebdomon, seven miles from
the city. During many days, from the dawn of light to the evening,
the line of assault was extended from the golden gate to the eastern
promontory and the foremost warriors were impelled by the weight and
effort of the succeeding columns. But the besiegers had formed an
insufficient estimate of the strength and resources of Constantinople.
The solid and lofty walls were guarded by numbers and discipline: the
spirit of the Romans was rekindled by the last danger of their religion
and empire: the fugitives from the conquered provinces more successfully
renewed the defence of Damascus and Alexandria; and the Saracens were
dismayed by the strange and prodigious effects of artificial fire.
This firm and effectual resistance diverted their arms to the more easy
attempt of plundering the European and Asiatic coasts of the Propontis;
and, after keeping the sea from the month of April to that of September,
on the approach of winter they retreated fourscore miles from the
capital, to the Isle of Cyzicus, in which they had established their
magazine of spoil and provisions. So patient was their perseverance,
or so languid were their operations, that they repeated in the six
following summers the same attack and retreat, with a gradual abatement
of hope and vigor, till the mischances of shipwreck and disease, of
the sword and of fire, compelled them to relinquish the fruitless
enterprise. They might bewail the loss, or commemorate the martyrdom,
of thirty thousand Moslems, who fell in the siege of Constantinople;
and the solemn funeral of Abu Ayub, or Job, excited the curiosity of the
Christians themselves.

That venerable Arab, one of the last of the companions of Mahomet, was
numbered among the ansars, or auxiliaries, of Medina, who sheltered the
head of the flying prophet. In his youth he fought, at Beder and
Ohud, under the holy standard: in his mature age he was the friend
and follower of Ali; and the last remnant of his strength and life
was consumed in a distant and dangerous war against the enemies of the
Koran. His memory was revered; but the place of his burial was neglected
and unknown, during a period of seven hundred and eighty years, till the
conquest of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second. A seasonable vision
(for such are the manufacture of every religion) revealed the holy spot
at the foot of the walls and the bottom of the harbor; and the mosch of
Ayub has been deservedly chosen for the simple and martial inauguration
of the Turkish sultans. [4]

[Footnote 1: Theophanes places the seven years of the siege of
Constantinople in the year of our Christian aera, 673 (of the
Alexandrian 665, Sept. 1,) and the peace of the Saracens, four years
afterwards; a glaring inconsistency! which Petavius, Goar, and Pagi,
(Critica, tom. iv. p. 63, 64,) have struggled to remove. Of the
Arabians, the Hegira 52 (A.D. 672, January 8) is assigned by Elmacin,
the year 48 (A.D. 688, Feb. 20) by Abulfeda, whose testimony I esteem
the most convenient and credible.]

[Footnote 2: For this first siege of Constantinople, see Nicephorus,
(Breviar. p. 21, 22;) Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 294;) Cedrenus,
(Compend. p. 437;) Zonaras, (Hist. tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 89;) Elmacin,
(Hist. Saracen. p. 56, 57;) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 107, 108, vers.
Reiske;) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. Constantinah;) Ockley's History
of the Saracens, vol. ii. p. 127, 128.]

[Footnote 3: The state and defence of the Dardanelles is exposed in the
Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 39-97,) who was sent to
fortify them against the Russians. From a principal actor, I should have
expected more accurate details; but he seems to write for the amusement,
rather than the instruction, of his reader. Perhaps, on the approach
of the enemy, the minister of Constantine was occupied, like that of
Mustapha, in finding two Canary birds who should sing precisely the same
note.]

[Footnote 4: Demetrius Cantemir's Hist. of the Othman Empire, p.
105, 106. Rycaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 10, 11. Voyages of
Thevenot, part i. p. 189. The Christians, who suppose that the martyr
Abu Ayub is vulgarly confounded with the patriarch Job, betray their own
ignorance rather than that of the Turks.]

The event of the siege revived, both in the East and West, the
reputation of the Roman arms, and cast a momentary shade over the
glories of the Saracens. The Greek ambassador was favorably received at
Damascus, a general council of the emirs or Koreish: a peace, or
truce, of thirty years was ratified between the two empires; and the
stipulation of an annual tribute, fifty horses of a noble breed, fifty
slaves, and three thousand pieces of gold, degraded the majesty of
the commander of the faithful. [5] The aged caliph was desirous of
possessing his dominions, and ending his days in tranquillity and
repose: while the Moors and Indians trembled at his name, his palace and
city of Damascus was insulted by the Mardaites, or Maronites, of Mount
Libanus, the firmest barrier of the empire, till they were disarmed
and transplanted by the suspicious policy of the Greeks. [6] After the
revolt of Arabia and Persia, the house of Ommiyah was reduced to the
kingdoms of Syria and Egypt: their distress and fear enforced their
compliance with the pressing demands of the Christians; and the tribute
was increased to a slave, a horse, and a thousand pieces of gold, for
each of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the solar year. But
as soon as the empire was again united by the arms and policy of
Abdalmalek, he disclaimed a badge of servitude not less injurious to
his conscience than to his pride; he discontinued the payment of the
tribute; and the resentment of the Greeks was disabled from action
by the mad tyranny of the second Justinian, the just rebellion of his
subjects, and the frequent change of his antagonists and successors.
Till the reign of Abdalmalek, the Saracens had been content with the
free possession of the Persian and Roman treasures, in the coins of
Chosroes and Caesar. By the command of that caliph, a national mint was
established, both for silver and gold, and the inscription of the Dinar,
though it might be censured by some timorous casuists, proclaimed the
unity of the God of Mahomet. [8] Under the reign of the caliph Walid,
the Greek language and characters were excluded from the accounts of the
public revenue. [9] If this change was productive of the invention or
familiar use of our present numerals, the Arabic or Indian ciphers, as
they are commonly styled, a regulation of office has promoted the most
important discoveries of arithmetic, algebra, and the mathematical
sciences. [10]

[Footnote 5: Theophanes, though a Greek, deserves credit for these
tributes, (Chronograph. p. 295, 296, 300, 301,) which are confirmed,
with some variation, by the Arabic History of Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p.
128, vers. Pocock.)]

[Footnote 6: The censure of Theophanes is just and pointed,
(Chronograph. p. 302, 303.) The series of these events may be traced
in the Annals of Theophanes, and in the Abridgment of the patriarch
Nicephorus, p. 22, 24.]

[Footnote 7: These domestic revolutions are related in a clear and
natural style, in the second volume of Ockley's History of the Saracens,
p. 253-370. Besides our printed authors, he draws his materials from
the Arabic Mss. of Oxford, which he would have more deeply searched had
he been confined to the Bodleian library instead of the city jail a fate
how unworthy of the man and of his country!]

[Footnote 8: Elmacin, who dates the first coinage A. H. 76, A.D. 695,
five or six years later than the Greek historians, has compared the
weight of the best or common gold dinar to the drachm or dirhem of
Egypt, (p. 77,) which may be equal to two pennies (48 grains) of our
Troy weight, (Hooper's Inquiry into Ancient Measures, p. 24-36,) and
equivalent to eight shillings of our sterling money. From the same
Elmacin and the Arabian physicians, some dinars as high as two dirhems,
as low as half a dirhem, may be deduced. The piece of silver was the
dirhem, both in value and weight; but an old, though fair coin, struck
at Waset, A. H. 88, and preserved in the Bodleian library, wants four
grains of the Cairo standard, (see the Modern Universal History, tom. i.
p. 548 of the French translation.) * Note: Up to this time the Arabs had
used the Roman or the Persian coins or had minted others which resembled
them. Nevertheless, it has been admitted of late years, that the
Arabians, before this epoch, had caused coin to be minted, on which,
preserving the Roman or the Persian dies, they added Arabian names or
inscriptions. Some of these exist in different collections. We learn
from Makrizi, an Arabian author of great learning and judgment, that in
the year 18 of the Hegira, under the caliphate of Omar, the Arabs had
coined money of this description. The same author informs us that the
caliph Abdalmalek caused coins to be struck representing himself with a
sword by his side. These types, so contrary to the notions of the Arabs,
were disapproved by the most influential persons of the time, and the
caliph substituted for them, after the year 76 of the Hegira, the
Mahometan coins with which we are acquainted. Consult, on the question
of Arabic numismatics, the works of Adler, of Fraehn, of Castiglione,
and of Marsden, who have treated at length this interesting point of
historic antiquities. See, also, in the Journal Asiatique, tom. ii. p.
257, et seq., a paper of M. Silvestre de Sacy, entitled Des Monnaies des
Khalifes avant l'An 75 de l'Hegire. See, also the translation of a
German paper on the Arabic medals of the Chosroes, by M. Fraehn. in the
same Journal Asiatique tom. iv. p. 331-347. St. Martin, vol. xii. p. 19,
--M.]

[Footnote 9: Theophan. Chronograph. p. 314. This defect, if it really
existed, must have stimulated the ingenuity of the Arabs to invent or
borrow.]

[Footnote 10: According to a new, though probable, notion, maintained by
M de Villoison, (Anecdota Graeca, tom. ii. p. 152-157,) our ciphers are
not of Indian or Arabic invention. They were used by the Greek and Latin
arithmeticians long before the age of Boethius. After the extinction of
science in the West, they were adopted by the Arabic versions from the
original Mss., and restored to the Latins about the xith century. *
Note: Compare, on the Introduction of the Arabic numerals, Hallam's
Introduction to the Literature of Europe, p. 150, note, and the authors
quoted therein.--M.]

Whilst the caliph Walid sat idle on the throne of Damascus, whilst his
lieutenants achieved the conquest of Transoxiana and Spain, a third army
of Saracens overspread the provinces of Asia Minor, and approached the
borders of the Byzantine capital. But the attempt and disgrace of
the second siege was reserved for his brother Soliman, whose ambition
appears to have been quickened by a more active and martial spirit. In
the revolutions of the Greek empire, after the tyrant Justinian had been
punished and avenged, an humble secretary, Anastasius or Artemius, was
promoted by chance or merit to the vacant purple. He was alarmed by
the sound of war; and his ambassador returned from Damascus with the
tremendous news, that the Saracens were preparing an armament by sea and
land, such as would transcend the experience of the past, or the belief
of the present age. The precautions of Anastasius were not unworthy of
his station, or of the impending danger. He issued a peremptory mandate,
that all persons who were not provided with the means of subsistence for
a three years' siege should evacuate the city: the public granaries
and arsenals were abundantly replenished; the walls were restored and
strengthened; and the engines for casting stones, or darts, or fire,
were stationed along the ramparts, or in the brigantines of war, of
which an additional number was hastily constructed. To prevent is safer,
as well as more honorable, than to repel, an attack; and a design was
meditated, above the usual spirit of the Greeks, of burning the naval
stores of the enemy, the cypress timber that had been hewn in Mount
Libanus, and was piled along the sea-shore of Phoenicia, for the service
of the Egyptian fleet. This generous enterprise was defeated by the
cowardice or treachery of the troops, who, in the new language of the
empire, were styled of the Obsequian Theme. [11] They murdered their
chief, deserted their standard in the Isle of Rhodes, dispersed
themselves over the adjacent continent, and deserved pardon or reward by
investing with the purple a simple officer of the revenue. The name of
Theodosius might recommend him to the senate and people; but, after some
months, he sunk into a cloister, and resigned, to the firmer hand of
Leo the Isaurian, the urgent defence of the capital and empire. The most
formidable of the Saracens, Moslemah, the brother of the caliph, was
advancing at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand Arabs and
Persians, the greater part mounted on horses or camels; and the
successful sieges of Tyana, Amorium, and Pergamus, were of sufficient
duration to exercise their skill and to elevate their hopes. At the
well-known passage of Abydus, on the Hellespont, the Mahometan arms
were transported, for the first time, [1111] from Asia to Europe. From
thence, wheeling round the Thracian cities of the Propontis, Moslemah
invested Constantinople on the land side, surrounded his camp with a
ditch and rampart, prepared and planted his engines of assault, and
declared, by words and actions, a patient resolution of expecting the
return of seed-time and harvest, should the obstinacy of the besieged
prove equal to his own. [1112] The Greeks would gladly have ransomed
their religion and empire, by a fine or assessment of a piece of gold
on the head of each inhabitant of the city; but the liberal offer was
rejected with disdain, and the presumption of Moslemah was exalted by
the speedy approach and invincible force of the natives of Egypt and
Syria. They are said to have amounted to eighteen hundred ships: the
number betrays their inconsiderable size; and of the twenty stout and
capacious vessels, whose magnitude impeded their progress, each was
manned with no more than one hundred heavy-armed soldiers. This huge
armada proceeded on a smooth sea, and with a gentle gale, towards the
mouth of the Bosphorus; the surface of the strait was overshadowed, in
the language of the Greeks, with a moving forest, and the same fatal
night had been fixed by the Saracen chief for a general assault by sea
and land. To allure the confidence of the enemy, the emperor had thrown
aside the chain that usually guarded the entrance of the harbor; but
while they hesitated whether they should seize the opportunity, or
apprehend the snare, the ministers of destruction were at hand. The
fire-ships of the Greeks were launched against them; the Arabs, their
arms, and vessels, were involved in the same flames; the disorderly
fugitives were dashed against each other or overwhelmed in the waves;
and I no longer find a vestige of the fleet, that had threatened to
extirpate the Roman name. A still more fatal and irreparable loss was
that of the caliph Soliman, who died of an indigestion, [12] in his camp
near Kinnisrin or Chalcis in Syria, as he was preparing to lead against
Constantinople the remaining forces of the East. The brother of Moslemah
was succeeded by a kinsman and an enemy; and the throne of an active
and able prince was degraded by the useless and pernicious virtues of
a bigot. [1211] While he started and satisfied the scruples of a blind
conscience, the siege was continued through the winter by the neglect,
rather than by the resolution of the caliph Omar. [13] The winter proved
uncommonly rigorous: above a hundred days the ground was covered with
deep snow, and the natives of the sultry climes of Egypt and Arabia lay
torpid and almost lifeless in their frozen camp. They revived on the
return of spring; a second effort had been made in their favor; and
their distress was relieved by the arrival of two numerous fleets, laden
with corn, and arms, and soldiers; the first from Alexandria, of four
hundred transports and galleys; the second of three hundred and sixty
vessels from the ports of Africa. But the Greek fires were again
kindled; and if the destruction was less complete, it was owing to the
experience which had taught the Moslems to remain at a safe distance, or
to the perfidy of the Egyptian mariners, who deserted with their ships
to the emperor of the Christians. The trade and navigation of the
capital were restored; and the produce of the fisheries supplied the
wants, and even the luxury, of the inhabitants. But the calamities of
famine and disease were soon felt by the troops of Moslemah, and as the
former was miserably assuaged, so the latter was dreadfully propagated,
by the pernicious nutriment which hunger compelled them to extract from
the most unclean or unnatural food. The spirit of conquest, and even of
enthusiasm, was extinct: the Saracens could no longer struggle, beyond
their lines, either single or in small parties, without exposing
themselves to the merciless retaliation of the Thracian peasants.

An army of Bulgarians was attracted from the Danube by the gifts and
promises of Leo; and these savage auxiliaries made some atonement for
the evils which they had inflicted on the empire, by the defeat and
slaughter of twenty-two thousand Asiatics. A report was dexterously
scattered, that the Franks, the unknown nations of the Latin world, were
arming by sea and land in the defence of the Christian cause, and their
formidable aid was expected with far different sensations in the camp
and city. At length, after a siege of thirteen months, [14] the hopeless
Moslemah received from the caliph the welcome permission of retreat.
[1411] The march of the Arabian cavalry over the Hellespont and through
the provinces of Asia, was executed without delay or molestation; but an
army of their brethren had been cut in pieces on the side of Bithynia,
and the remains of the fleet were so repeatedly damaged by tempest and
fire, that only five galleys entered the port of Alexandria to relate
the tale of their various and almost incredible disasters. [15]

[Footnote 11: In the division of the Themes, or provinces described
by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Thematibus, l. i. p. 9, 10,) the
Obsequium, a Latin appellation of the army and palace, was the fourth in
the public order. Nice was the metropolis, and its jurisdiction extended
from the Hellespont over the adjacent parts of Bithynia and Phrygia,
(see the two maps prefixed by Delisle to the Imperium Orientale of
Banduri.)]

[Footnote 1111: Compare page 274. It is singular that Gibbon should
thus contradict himself in a few pages. By his own account this was the
second time.--M.]

[Footnote 1112: The account of this siege in the Tarikh Tebry is a very
unfavorable specimen of Asiatic history, full of absurd fables, and
written with total ignorance of the circumstances of time and place.
Price, vol. i. p. 498--M.]

[Footnote 12: The caliph had emptied two baskets of eggs and of figs,
which he swallowed alternately, and the repast was concluded with marrow
and sugar. In one of his pilgrimages to Mecca, Soliman ate, at a single
meal, seventy pomegranates, a kid, six fowls, and a huge quantity of
the grapes of Tayef. If the bill of fare be correct, we must admire the
appetite, rather than the luxury, of the sovereign of Asia, (Abulfeda,
Annal. Moslem. p. 126.) * Note: The Tarikh Tebry ascribes the death
of Soliman to a pleurisy. The same gross gluttony in which Soliman
indulged, though not fatal to the life, interfered with the military
duties, of his brother Moslemah. Price, vol. i. p. 511.--M.]

[Footnote 1211: Major Price's estimate of Omar's character is much more
favorable. Among a race of sanguinary tyrants, Omar was just and humane.
His virtues as well as his bigotry were active.--M.]

[Footnote 13: See the article of Omar Ben Abdalaziz, in the Bibliotheque
Orientale, (p. 689, 690,) praeferens, says Elmacin, (p. 91,) religionem
suam rebus suis mundanis. He was so desirous of being with God, that
he would not have anointed his ear (his own saying) to obtain a perfect
cure of his last malady. The caliph had only one shirt, and in an age of
luxury, his annual expense was no more than two drachms, (Abulpharagius,
p. 131.) Haud diu gavisus eo principe fuit urbis Muslemus, (Abulfeda, p.
127.)]

[Footnote 14: Both Nicephorus and Theophanes agree that the siege of
Constantinople was raised the 15th of August, (A.D. 718;) but as the
former, our best witness, affirms that it continued thirteen months, the
latter must be mistaken in supposing that it began on the same day
of the preceding year. I do not find that Pagi has remarked this
inconsistency.]

[Footnote 1411: The Tarikh Tebry embellishes the retreat of Moslemah
with some extraordinary and incredible circumstances. Price, p.
514.--M.]

[Footnote 15: In the second siege of Constantinople, I have followed
Nicephorus, (Brev. p. 33-36,) Theophanes, (Chronograph, p. 324-334,)
Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 449-452,) Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 98-102,)
Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen, p. 88,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 126,) and
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 130,) the most satisfactory of the Arabs.]

In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be chiefly
ascribed to the novelty, the terrors, and the real efficacy of the
Greek fire. [16] The important secret of compounding and directing this
artificial flame was imparted by Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis
in Syria, who deserted from the service of the caliph to that of the
emperor. [17] The skill of a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the
succor of fleets and armies; and this discovery or improvement of the
military art was fortunately reserved for the distressful period, when
the degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with the
warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigor of the Saracens. The historian who
presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition should suspect
his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine guides, so prone to the
marvellous, so careless, and, in this instance, so jealous of the truth.
From their obscure, and perhaps fallacious, hints it should seem that
the principal ingredient of the Greek fire was the naphtha, [18] or
liquid bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, [19] which
springs from the earth, and catches fire as soon as it comes in contact
with the air. The naphtha was mingled, I know not by what methods or in
what proportions, with sulphur and with the pitch that is extracted from
evergreen firs. [20] From this mixture, which produced a thick smoke and
a loud explosion, proceeded a fierce and obstinate flame, which not only
rose in perpendicular ascent, but likewise burnt with equal vehemence
in descent or lateral progress; instead of being extinguished, it was
nourished and quickened by the element of water; and sand, urine,
or vinegar, were the only remedies that could damp the fury of this
powerful agent, which was justly denominated by the Greeks the liquid,
or the maritime, fire. For the annoyance of the enemy, it was employed
with equal effect, by sea and land, in battles or in sieges. It was
either poured from the rampart in large boilers, or launched in red-hot
balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted
round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil;
sometimes it was deposited in fire-ships, the victims and instruments of
a more ample revenge, and was most commonly blown through long tubes of
copper which were planted on the prow of a galley, and fancifully shaped
into the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream
of liquid and consuming fire. This important art was preserved at
Constantinople, as the palladium of the state: the galleys and artillery
might occasionally be lent to the allies of Rome; but the composition
of the Greek fire was concealed with the most jealous scruple, and the
terror of the enemies was increased and prolonged by their ignorance and
surprise. In the treaties of the administration of the empire, the royal
author [21] suggests the answers and excuses that might best elude the
indiscreet curiosity and importunate demands of the Barbarians. They
should be told that the mystery of the Greek fire had been revealed by
an angel to the first and greatest of the Constantines, with a sacred
injunction, that this gift of Heaven, this peculiar blessing of the
Romans, should never be communicated to any foreign nation; that the
prince and the subject were alike bound to religious silence under the
temporal and spiritual penalties of treason and sacrilege; and that the
impious attempt would provoke the sudden and supernatural vengeance
of the God of the Christians. By these precautions, the secret was
confined, above four hundred years, to the Romans of the East; and at
the end of the eleventh century, the Pisans, to whom every sea and
every art were familiar, suffered the effects, without understanding the
composition, of the Greek fire. It was at length either discovered or
stolen by the Mahometans; and, in the holy wars of Syria and Egypt, they
retorted an invention, contrived against themselves, on the heads of
the Christians. A knight, who despised the swords and lances of the
Saracens, relates, with heartfelt sincerity, his own fears, and those
of his companions, at the sight and sound of the mischievous engine
that discharged a torrent of the Greek fire, the feu Gregeois, as it is
styled by the more early of the French writers. It came flying through
the air, says Joinville, [22] like a winged long-tailed dragon, about
the thickness of a hogshead, with the report of thunder and the velocity
of lightning; and the darkness of the night was dispelled by this deadly
illumination. The use of the Greek, or, as it might now be called, of
the Saracen fire, was continued to the middle of the fourteenth century,
[23] when the scientific or casual compound of nitre, sulphur, and
charcoal, effected a new revolution in the art of war and the history of
mankind. [24]

[Footnote 16: Our sure and indefatigable guide in the middle ages and
Byzantine history, Charles du Fresne du Cange, has treated in several
places of the Greek fire, and his collections leave few gleanings
behind. See particularly Glossar. Med. et Infim. Graecitat. p. 1275, sub
voce. Glossar. Med. et Infim. Latinitat. Ignis Groecus. Observations sur
Villehardouin, p. 305, 306. Observations sur Joinville, p. 71, 72.]

[Footnote 17: Theophanes styles him, (p. 295.) Cedrenus (p. 437) brings
this artist from (the ruins of) Heliopolis in Egypt; and chemistry was
indeed the peculiar science of the Egyptians.]

[Footnote 18: The naphtha, the oleum incendiarium of the history of
Jerusalem, (Gest. Dei per Francos, p. 1167,) the Oriental fountain of
James de Vitry, (l. iii. c. 84,) is introduced on slight evidence and
strong probability. Cinanmus (l. vi. p. 165) calls the Greek fire: and
the naphtha is known to abound between the Tigris and the Caspian Sea.
According to Pliny, (Hist. Natur. ii. 109,) it was subservient to the
revenge of Medea, and in either etymology, (Procop. de Bell. Gothic.
l. iv. c. 11,) may fairly signify this liquid bitumen. * Note: It is
remarkable that the Syrian historian Michel gives the name of naphtha
to the newly-invented Greek fire, which seems to indicate that this
substance formed the base of the destructive compound. St. Martin, tom.
xi. p. 420.--M.]

[Footnote 19: On the different sorts of oils and bitumens, see Dr.
Watson's (the present bishop of Llandaff's) Chemical Essays, vol. iii.
essay i., a classic book, the best adapted to infuse the taste and
knowledge of chemistry. The less perfect ideas of the ancients may be
found in Strabo (Geograph. l. xvi. p. 1078) and Pliny, (Hist. Natur.
ii. 108, 109.) Huic (Naphthae) magna cognatio est ignium, transiliuntque
protinus in eam undecunque visam. Of our travellers I am best pleased
with Otter, (tom. i. p. 153, 158.)]

[Footnote 20: Anna Comnena has partly drawn aside the curtain. (Alexiad.
l. xiii. p. 383.) Elsewhere (l. xi. p. 336) she mentions the property of
burning. Leo, in the xixth chapter of his Tactics, (Opera Meursii, tom.
vi. p. 843, edit. Lami, Florent. 1745,) speaks of the new invention.
These are genuine and Imperial testimonies.]

[Footnote 21: Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de Administrat. Imperii, c.
xiii. p. 64, 65.]

[Footnote 22: Histoire de St. Louis, p. 39. Paris, 1668, p. 44. Paris,
de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1761. The former of these editions is precious
for the observations of Ducange; the latter for the pure and original
text of Joinville. We must have recourse to that text to discover, that
the feu Gregeois was shot with a pile or javelin, from an engine that
acted like a sling.]

[Footnote 23: The vanity, or envy, of shaking the established property
of Fame, has tempted some moderns to carry gunpowder above the xivth,
(see Sir William Temple, Dutens, &c.,) and the Greek fire above the
viith century, (see the Saluste du President des Brosses, tom. ii.
p. 381.) But their evidence, which precedes the vulgar aera of the
invention, is seldom clear or satisfactory, and subsequent writers
may be suspected of fraud or credulity. In the earliest sieges, some
combustibles of oil and sulphur have been used, and the Greek fire has
some affinities with gunpowder both in its nature and effects: for the
antiquity of the first, a passage of Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l. iv.
c. 11,) for that of the second, some facts in the Arabic history of
Spain, (A.D. 1249, 1312, 1332. Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. ii. p. 6, 7,
8,) are the most difficult to elude.]

[Footnote 24: That extraordinary man, Friar Bacon, reveals two of the
ingredients, saltpetre and sulphur, and conceals the third in a sentence
of mysterious gibberish, as if he dreaded the consequences of his own
discovery, (Biog. Brit. vol. i. p. 430, new edition.)]




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

Constantinople and the Greek fire might exclude the Arabs from the
eastern entrance of Europe; but in the West, on the side of the
Pyrenees, the provinces of Gaul were threatened and invaded by the
conquerors of Spain. [25] The decline of the French monarchy invited the
attack of these insatiate fanatics. The descendants of Clovis had
lost the inheritance of his martial and ferocious spirit; and their
misfortune or demerit has affixed the epithet of lazy to the last kings
of the Merovingian race. [26] They ascended the throne without power,
and sunk into the grave without a name. A country palace, in the
neighborhood of Compiegne [27] was allotted for their residence or
prison: but each year, in the month of March or May, they were conducted
in a wagon drawn by oxen to the assembly of the Franks, to give audience
to foreign ambassadors, and to ratify the acts of the mayor of the
palace. That domestic officer was become the minister of the nation and
the master of the prince. A public employment was converted into the
patrimony of a private family: the elder Pepin left a king of mature
years under the guardianship of his own widow and her child; and these
feeble regents were forcibly dispossessed by the most active of his
bastards. A government, half savage and half corrupt, was almost
dissolved; and the tributary dukes, and provincial counts, and the
territorial lords, were tempted to despise the weakness of the monarch,
and to imitate the ambition of the mayor. Among these independent
chiefs, one of the boldest and most successful was Eudes, duke of
Aquitain, who in the southern provinces of Gaul usurped the authority,
and even the title of king. The Goths, the Gascons, and the Franks,
assembled under the standard of this Christian hero: he repelled the
first invasion of the Saracens; and Zama, lieutenant of the caliph, lost
his army and his life under the walls of Thoulouse. The ambition of his
successors was stimulated by revenge; they repassed the Pyrenees with
the means and the resolution of conquest. The advantageous situation
which had recommended Narbonne [28] as the first Roman colony, was
again chosen by the Moslems: they claimed the province of Septimania or
Languedoc as a just dependence of the Spanish monarchy: the vineyards
of Gascony and the city of Bourdeaux were possessed by the sovereign of
Damascus and Samarcand; and the south of France, from the mouth of
the Garonne to that of the Rhone, assumed the manners and religion of
Arabia.

[Footnote 25: For the invasion of France and the defeat of the Arabs by
Charles Martel, see the Historia Arabum (c. 11, 12, 13, 14) of Roderic
Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, who had before him the Christian
chronicle of Isidore Pacensis, and the Mahometan history of Novairi.
The Moslems are silent or concise in the account of their losses; but M
Cardonne (tom. i. p. 129, 130, 131) has given a pure and simple account
of all that he could collect from Ibn Halikan, Hidjazi, and an anonymous
writer. The texts of the chronicles of France, and lives of saints, are
inserted in the Collection of Bouquet, (tom. iii.,) and the Annals
of Pagi, who (tom. iii. under the proper years) has restored the
chronology, which is anticipated six years in the Annals of Baronius.
The Dictionary of Bayle (Abderame and Munuza) has more merit for lively
reflection than original research.]

[Footnote 26: Eginhart, de Vita Caroli Magni, c. ii. p. 13-78, edit.
Schmink, Utrecht, 1711. Some modern critics accuse the minister of
Charlemagne of exaggerating the weakness of the Merovingians; but the
general outline is just, and the French reader will forever repeat the
beautiful lines of Boileau's Lutrin.]

[Footnote 27: Mamaccae, on the Oyse, between Compiegne and Noyon, which
Eginhart calls perparvi reditus villam, (see the notes, and the map of
ancient France for Dom. Bouquet's Collection.) Compendium, or Compiegne,
was a palace of more dignity, (Hadrian. Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p.
152,) and that laughing philosopher, the Abbe Galliani, (Dialogues sur
le Commerce des Bleds,) may truly affirm, that it was the residence of
the rois tres Chretiens en tres chevelus.]

[Footnote 28: Even before that colony, A. U. C. 630, (Velleius Patercul.
i. 15,) In the time of Polybius, (Hist. l. iii. p. 265, edit. Gronov.)
Narbonne was a Celtic town of the first eminence, and one of the most
northern places of the known world, (D'Anville, Notice de l'Ancienne
Gaule, p. 473.)]

But these narrow limits were scorned by the spirit of Abdalraman, or
Abderame, who had been restored by the caliph Hashem to the wishes of
the soldiers and people of Spain. That veteran and daring commander
adjudged to the obedience of the prophet whatever yet remained of France
or of Europe; and prepared to execute the sentence, at the head of a
formidable host, in the full confidence of surmounting all opposition
either of nature or of man. His first care was to suppress a domestic
rebel, who commanded the most important passes of the Pyrenees: Manuza,
a Moorish chief, had accepted the alliance of the duke of Aquitain;
and Eudes, from a motive of private or public interest, devoted his
beauteous daughter to the embraces of the African misbeliever. But the
strongest fortresses of Cerdagne were invested by a superior force; the
rebel was overtaken and slain in the mountains; and his widow was sent
a captive to Damascus, to gratify the desires, or more probably the
vanity, of the commander of the faithful. From the Pyrenees, Abderame
proceeded without delay to the passage of the Rhone and the siege of
Arles.

An army of Christians attempted the relief of the city: the tombs of
their leaders were yet visible in the thirteenth century; and many
thousands of their dead bodies were carried down the rapid stream into
the Mediterranean Sea. The arms of Abderame were not less successful
on the side of the ocean. He passed without opposition the Garonne and
Dordogne, which unite their waters in the Gulf of Bourdeaux; but he
found, beyond those rivers, the camp of the intrepid Eudes, who had
formed a second army and sustained a second defeat, so fatal to the
Christians, that, according to their sad confession, God alone could
reckon the number of the slain. The victorious Saracen overran the
provinces of Aquitain, whose Gallic names are disguised, rather than
lost, in the modern appellations of Perigord, Saintonge, and Poitou: his
standards were planted on the walls, or at least before the gates,
of Tours and of Sens; and his detachments overspread the kingdom of
Burgundy as far as the well-known cities of Lyons and Besancon. The
memory of these devastations (for Abderame did not spare the country or
the people) was long preserved by tradition; and the invasion of France
by the Moors or Mahometans affords the groundwork of those fables,
which have been so wildly disfigured in the romances of chivalry, and
so elegantly adorned by the Italian muse. In the decline of society and
art, the deserted cities could supply a slender booty to the Saracens;
their richest spoil was found in the churches and monasteries, which
they stripped of their ornaments and delivered to the flames: and the
tutelar saints, both Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours, forgot
their miraculous powers in the defence of their own sepulchres. [29] A
victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from
the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an
equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland
and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than
the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a
naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of
the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits
might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the
revelation of Mahomet. [30]

[Footnote 29: With regard to the sanctuary of St. Martin of Tours,
Roderic Ximenes accuses the Saracens of the deed. Turonis civitatem,
ecclesiam et palatia vastatione et incendio simili diruit et consumpsit.
The continuator of Fredegarius imputes to them no more than the
intention. Ad domum beatissimi Martini evertendam destinant. At Carolus,
&c. The French annalist was more jealous of the honor of the saint.]

[Footnote 30: Yet I sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosch would have
produced a volume of controversy so elegant and ingenious as the sermons
lately preached by Mr. White, the Arabic professor, at Mr. Bampton's
lecture. His observations on the character and religion of Mahomet
are always adapted to his argument, and generally founded in truth and
reason. He sustains the part of a lively and eloquent advocate; and
sometimes rises to the merit of an historian and philosopher.]

From such calamities was Christendom delivered by the genius and fortune
of one man. Charles, the illegitimate son of the elder Pepin, was
content with the titles of mayor or duke of the Franks; but he deserved
to become the father of a line of kings. In a laborious administration
of twenty-four years, he restored and supported the dignity of the
throne, and the rebels of Germany and Gaul were successively crushed by
the activity of a warrior, who, in the same campaign, could display
his banner on the Elbe, the Rhone, and the shores of the ocean. In
the public danger he was summoned by the voice of his country; and his
rival, the duke of Aquitain, was reduced to appear among the fugitives
and suppliants. "Alas!" exclaimed the Franks, "what a misfortune! what
an indignity! We have long heard of the name and conquests of the
Arabs: we were apprehensive of their attack from the East; they have
now conquered Spain, and invade our country on the side of the West. Yet
their numbers, and (since they have no buckler) their arms, are inferior
to our own." "If you follow my advice," replied the prudent mayor of
the palace, "you will not interrupt their march, nor precipitate your
attack. They are like a torrent, which it is dangerous to stem in its
career. The thirst of riches, and the consciousness of success, redouble
their valor, and valor is of more avail than arms or numbers. Be patient
till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrance of wealth. The
possession of wealth will divide their councils and assure your
victory." This subtile policy is perhaps a refinement of the Arabian
writers; and the situation of Charles will suggest a more narrow and
selfish motive of procrastination--the secret desire of humbling the
pride and wasting the provinces of the rebel duke of Aquitain. It is yet
more probable, that the delays of Charles were inevitable and reluctant.
A standing army was unknown under the first and second race; more than
half the kingdom was now in the hands of the Saracens: according to
their respective situation, the Franks of Neustria and Austrasia were to
conscious or too careless of the impending danger; and the voluntary
aids of the Gepidae and Germans were separated by a long interval from
the standard of the Christian general. No sooner had he collected his
forces, than he sought and found the enemy in the centre of France,
between Tours and Poitiers. His well-conducted march was covered with a
range of hills, and Abderame appears to have been surprised by his
unexpected presence. The nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe, advanced
with equal ardor to an encounter which would change the history of the
world. In the six first days of desultory combat, the horsemen and
archers of the East maintained their advantage: but in the closer onset
of the seventh day, the Orientals were oppressed by the strength and
stature of the Germans, who, with stout hearts and iron hands, [31]
asserted the civil and religious freedom of their posterity. The epithet
of Martel. the Hammer, which has been added to the name of Charles, is
expressive of his weighty and irresistible strokes: the valor of Eudes
was excited by resentment and emulation; and their companions, in the
eye of history, are the true Peers and Paladins of French chivalry.
After a bloody field, in which Abderame was slain, the Saracens, in the
close of the evening, retired to their camp. In the disorder and despair
of the night, the various tribes of Yemen and Damascus, of Africa and
Spain, were provoked to turn their arms against each other: the remains
of their host were suddenly dissolved, and each emir consulted his
safety by a hasty and separate retreat. At the dawn of the day, the
stillness of a hostile camp was suspected by the victorious Christians:
on the report of their spies, they ventured to explore the riches of the
vacant tents; but if we except some celebrated relics, a small portion
of the spoil was restored to the innocent and lawful owners. The joyful
tidings were soon diffused over the Catholic world, and the monks of
Italy could affirm and believe that three hundred and fifty, or three
hundred and seventy-five, thousand of the Mahometans had been crushed by
the hammer of Charles, [32] while no more than fifteen hundred
Christians were slain in the field of Tours. But this incredible tale is
sufficiently disproved by the caution of the French general, who
apprehended the snares and accidents of a pursuit, and dismissed his
German allies to their native forests.

The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and blood,
and the most cruel execution is inflicted, not in the ranks of battle,
but on the backs of a flying enemy. Yet the victory of the Franks was
complete and final; Aquitain was recovered by the arms of Eudes; the
Arabs never resumed the conquest of Gaul, and they were soon driven
beyond the Pyrenees by Charles Martel and his valiant race. [33] It
might have been expected that the savior of Christendom would have been
canonized, or at least applauded, by the gratitude of the clergy, who
are indebted to his sword for their present existence. But in the
public distress, the mayor of the palace had been compelled to apply
the riches, or at least the revenues, of the bishops and abbots, to
the relief of the state and the reward of the soldiers. His merits were
forgotten, his sacrilege alone was remembered, and, in an epistle to
a Carlovingian prince, a Gallic synod presumes to declare that his
ancestor was damned; that on the opening of his tomb, the spectators
were affrighted by a smell of fire and the aspect of a horrid dragon;
and that a saint of the times was indulged with a pleasant vision of the
soul and body of Charles Martel, burning, to all eternity, in the abyss
of hell. [34]

[Footnote 31: Gens Austriae membrorum pre-eminentia valida, et gens
Germana corde et corpore praestantissima, quasi in ictu oculi, manu
ferrea, et pectore arduo, Arabes extinxerunt, (Roderic. Toletan. c.
xiv.)]

[Footnote 32: These numbers are stated by Paul Warnefrid, the deacon
of Aquileia, (de Gestis Langobard. l. vi. p. 921, edit. Grot.,) and
Anastasius, the librarian of the Roman church, (in Vit. Gregorii
II.,) who tells a miraculous story of three consecrated sponges, which
rendered invulnerable the French soldiers, among whom they had been
shared It should seem, that in his letters to the pope, Eudes usurped
the honor of the victory, from which he is chastised by the French
annalists, who, with equal falsehood, accuse him of inviting the
Saracens.]

[Footnote 33: Narbonne, and the rest of Septimania, was recovered by
Pepin the son of Charles Martel, A.D. 755, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p.
300.) Thirty-seven years afterwards, it was pillaged by a sudden inroad
of the Arabs, who employed the captives in the construction of the mosch
of Cordova, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 354.)]

[Footnote 34: This pastoral letter, addressed to Lewis the Germanic, the
grandson of Charlemagne, and most probably composed by the pen of the
artful Hincmar, is dated in the year 858, and signed by the bishops of
the provinces of Rheims and Rouen, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 741.
Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. x. p. 514-516.) Yet Baronius himself, and
the French critics, reject with contempt this episcopal fiction.]

The loss of an army, or a province, in the Western world, was less
painful to the court of Damascus, than the rise and progress of a
domestic competitor. Except among the Syrians, the caliphs of the house
of Ommiyah had never been the objects of the public favor. The life of
Mahomet recorded their perseverance in idolatry and rebellion: their
conversion had been reluctant, their elevation irregular and factious,
and their throne was cemented with the most holy and noble blood of
Arabia. The best of their race, the pious Omar, was dissatisfied with
his own title: their personal virtues were insufficient to justify a
departure from the order of succession; and the eyes and wishes of the
faithful were turned towards the line of Hashem, and the kindred of
the apostle of God. Of these the Fatimites were either rash or
pusillanimous; but the descendants of Abbas cherished, with courage
and discretion, the hopes of their rising fortunes. From an obscure
residence in Syria, they secretly despatched their agents and
missionaries, who preached in the Eastern provinces their hereditary
indefeasible right; and Mohammed, the son of Ali, the son of Abdallah,
the son of Abbas, the uncle of the prophet, gave audience to the
deputies of Chorasan, and accepted their free gift of four hundred
thousand pieces of gold. After the death of Mohammed, the oath of
allegiance was administered in the name of his son Ibrahim to a numerous
band of votaries, who expected only a signal and a leader; and the
governor of Chorasan continued to deplore his fruitless admonitions and
the deadly slumber of the caliphs of Damascus, till he himself, with
all his adherents, was driven from the city and palace of Meru, by the
rebellious arms of Abu Moslem. [35] That maker of kings, the author, as
he is named, of the call of the Abbassides, was at length rewarded for
his presumption of merit with the usual gratitude of courts. A mean,
perhaps a foreign, extraction could not repress the aspiring energy of
Abu Moslem. Jealous of his wives, liberal of his wealth, prodigal of
his own blood and of that of others, he could boast with pleasure, and
possibly with truth, that he had destroyed six hundred thousand of his
enemies; and such was the intrepid gravity of his mind and countenance,
that he was never seen to smile except on a day of battle. In the
visible separation of parties, the green was consecrated to the
Fatimites; the Ommiades were distinguished by the white; and the black,
as the most adverse, was naturally adopted by the Abbassides. Their
turbans and garments were stained with that gloomy color: two black
standards, on pike staves nine cubits long, were borne aloft in the van
of Abu Moslem; and their allegorical names of the night and the shadow
obscurely represented the indissoluble union and perpetual succession
of the line of Hashem. From the Indus to the Euphrates, the East was
convulsed by the quarrel of the white and the black factions: the
Abbassides were most frequently victorious; but their public success
was clouded by the personal misfortune of their chief. The court
of Damascus, awakening from a long slumber, resolved to prevent the
pilgrimage of Mecca, which Ibrahim had undertaken with a splendid
retinue, to recommend himself at once to the favor of the prophet and of
the people. A detachment of cavalry intercepted his march and arrested
his person; and the unhappy Ibrahim, snatched away from the promise of
untasted royalty, expired in iron fetters in the dungeons of Haran. His
two younger brothers, Saffah [3511] and Almansor, eluded the search of
the tyrant, and lay concealed at Cufa, till the zeal of the people and
the approach of his Eastern friends allowed them to expose their persons
to the impatient public. On Friday, in the dress of a caliph, in the
colors of the sect, Saffah proceeded with religious and military pomp
to the mosch: ascending the pulpit, he prayed and preached as the lawful
successor of Mahomet; and after his departure, his kinsmen bound a
willing people by an oath of fidelity. But it was on the banks of the
Zab, and not in the mosch of Cufa, that this important controversy was
determined. Every advantage appeared to be on the side of the white
faction: the authority of established government; an army of a hundred
and twenty thousand soldiers, against a sixth part of that number; and
the presence and merit of the caliph Mervan, the fourteenth and last
of the house of Ommiyah. Before his accession to the throne, he had
deserved, by his Georgian warfare, the honorable epithet of the ass of
Mesopotamia; [36] and he might have been ranked amongst the greatest
princes, had not, says Abulfeda, the eternal order decreed that moment
for the ruin of his family; a decree against which all human fortitude
and prudence must struggle in vain. The orders of Mervan were mistaken,
or disobeyed: the return of his horse, from which he had dismounted on
a necessary occasion, impressed the belief of his death; and the
enthusiasm of the black squadrons was ably conducted by Abdallah, the
uncle of his competitor. After an irretrievab defeat, the caliph escaped
to Mosul; but the colors of the Abbassides were displayed from the
rampart; he suddenly repassed the Tigris, cast a melancholy look on his
palace of Haran, crossed the Euphrates, abandoned the fortifications of
Damascus, and, without halting in Palestine, pitched his last and fatal
camp at Busir, on the banks of the Nile. [37] His speed was urged by
the incessant diligence of Abdallah, who in every step of the pursuit
acquired strength and reputation: the remains of the white faction were
finally vanquished in Egypt; and the lance, which terminated the life
and anxiety of Mervan, was not less welcome perhaps to the unfortunate
than to the victorious chief. The merciless inquisition of the conqueror
eradicated the most distant branches of the hostile race: their bones
were scattered, their memory was accursed, and the martyrdom of Hossein
was abundantly revenged on the posterity of his tyrants. Fourscore of
the Ommiades, who had yielded to the faith or clemency of their foes,
were invited to a banquet at Damascus. The laws of hospitality were
violated by a promiscuous massacre: the board was spread over their
fallen bodies; and the festivity of the guests was enlivened by the
music of their dying groans. By the event of the civil war, the dynasty
of the Abbassides was firmly established; but the Christians only
could triumph in the mutual hatred and common loss of the disciples of
Mahomet. [38]

[Footnote 35: The steed and the saddle which had carried any of his
wives were instantly killed or burnt, lest they should afterwards be
mounted by a male. Twelve hundred mules or camels were required for his
kitchen furniture; and the daily consumption amounted to three thousand
cakes, a hundred sheep, besides oxen, poultry, &c., (Abul pharagius,
Hist. Dynast. p. 140.)]

[Footnote 3511: He is called Abdullah or Abul Abbas in the Tarikh Tebry.
Price vol. i. p. 600. Saffah or Saffauh (the Sanguinary) was a name
which be required after his bloody reign, (vol. ii. p. 1.)--M.]

[Footnote 36: Al Hemar. He had been governor of Mesopotamia, and the
Arabic proverb praises the courage of that warlike breed of asses
who never fly from an enemy. The surname of Mervan may justify the
comparison of Homer, (Iliad, A. 557, &c.,) and both will silence
the moderns, who consider the ass as a stupid and ignoble emblem,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 558.)]

[Footnote 37: Four several places, all in Egypt, bore the name of Busir,
or Busiris, so famous in Greek fable. The first, where Mervan was slain
was to the west of the Nile, in the province of Fium, or Arsinoe;
the second in the Delta, in the Sebennytic nome; the third near the
pyramids; the fourth, which was destroyed by Dioclesian, (see above,
vol. ii. p. 130,) in the Thebais. I shall here transcribe a note of the
learned and orthodox Michaelis: Videntur in pluribus Aegypti superioris
urbibus Busiri Coptoque arma sumpsisse Christiani, libertatemque de
religione sentiendi defendisse, sed succubuisse quo in bello Coptus et
Busiris diruta, et circa Esnam magna strages edita. Bellum narrant sed
causam belli ignorant scriptores Byzantini, alioqui Coptum et Busirim
non rebellasse dicturi, sed causam Christianorum suscepturi, (Not. 211,
p. 100.) For the geography of the four Busirs, see Abulfeda, (Descript.
Aegypt. p. 9, vers. Michaelis, Gottingae, 1776, in 4to.,) Michaelis,
(Not. 122-127, p. 58-63,) and D'Anville, (Memoire sua l'Egypte, p. 85,
147, 205.)]

[Footnote 38: See Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 136-145,) Eutychius,
(Annal. tom. ii. p. 392, vers. Pocock,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p.
109-121,) Abulpharagius, (Hist. Dynast. p. 134-140,) Roderic of
Toledo, (Hist. Arabum, c. xviii. p. 33,) Theophanes, (Chronograph.
p. 356, 357, who speaks of the Abbassides) and the Bibliotheque of
D'Herbelot, in the articles Ommiades, Abbassides, Moervan, Ibrahim,
Saffah, Abou Moslem.]

Yet the thousands who were swept away by the sword of war might
have been speedily retrieved in the succeeding generation, if the
consequences of the revolution had not tended to dissolve the power
and unity of the empire of the Saracens. In the proscription of the
Ommiades, a royal youth of the name of Abdalrahman alone escaped the
rage of his enemies, who hunted the wandering exile from the banks
of the Euphrates to the valleys of Mount Atlas. His presence in the
neighborhood of Spain revived the zeal of the white faction. The name
and cause of the Abbassides had been first vindicated by the Persians:
the West had been pure from civil arms; and the servants of the
abdicated family still held, by a precarious tenure, the inheritance
of their lands and the offices of government. Strongly prompted by
gratitude, indignation, and fear, they invited the grandson of the
caliph Hashem to ascend the throne of his ancestors; and, in his
desperate condition, the extremes of rashness and prudence were almost
the same. The acclamations of the people saluted his landing on the
coast of Andalusia: and, after a successful struggle, Abdalrahman
established the throne of Cordova, and was the father of the Ommiades of
Spain, who reigned above two hundred and fifty years from the Atlantic
to the Pyrenees. [39] He slew in battle a lieutenant of the Abbassides,
who had invaded his dominions with a fleet and army: the head of Ala, in
salt and camphire, was suspended by a daring messenger before the palace
of Mecca; and the caliph Almansor rejoiced in his safety, that he was
removed by seas and lands from such a formidable adversary. Their mutual
designs or declarations of offensive war evaporated without effect;
but instead of opening a door to the conquest of Europe, Spain was
dissevered from the trunk of the monarchy, engaged in perpetual
hostility with the East, and inclined to peace and friendship with the
Christian sovereigns of Constantinople and France. The example of the
Ommiades was imitated by the real or fictitious progeny of Ali, the
Edrissites of Mauritania, and the more powerful fatimites of Africa and
Egypt. In the tenth century, the chair of Mahomet was disputed by three
caliphs or commanders of the faithful, who reigned at Bagdad, Cairoan,
and Cordova, excommunicating each other, and agreed only in a principle
of discord, that a sectary is more odious and criminal than an
unbeliever. [40]

[Footnote 39: For the revolution of Spain, consult Roderic of Toledo,
(c. xviii. p. 34, &c.,) the Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana, (tom. ii. p.
30, 198,) and Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, tom. i. p.
180-197, 205, 272, 323, &c.)]

[Footnote 40: I shall not stop to refute the strange errors and fancies
of Sir William Temple (his Works, vol. iii. p. 371-374, octavo edition)
and Voltaire (Histoire Generale, c. xxviii. tom. ii. p. 124, 125,
edition de Lausanne) concerning the division of the Saracen empire. The
mistakes of Voltaire proceeded from the want of knowledge or reflection;
but Sir William was deceived by a Spanish impostor, who has framed an
apocryphal history of the conquest of Spain by the Arabs.]

Mecca was the patrimony of the line of Hashem, yet the Abbassides were
never tempted to reside either in the birthplace or the city of the
prophet. Damascus was disgraced by the choice, and polluted with the
blood, of the Ommiades; and, after some hesitation, Almansor, the
brother and successor of Saffah, laid the foundations of Bagdad, [41]
the Imperial seat of his posterity during a reign of five hundred years.
[42] The chosen spot is on the eastern bank of the Tigris, about fifteen
miles above the ruins of Modain: the double wall was of a circular
form; and such was the rapid increase of a capital, now dwindled to a
provincial town, that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended
by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women of Bagdad and the
adjacent villages. In this city of peace, [43] amidst the riches of the
East, the Abbassides soon disdained the abstinence and frugality of the
first caliphs, and aspired to emulate the magnificence of the Persian
kings. After his wars and buildings, Almansor left behind him in gold
and silver about thirty millions sterling: [44] and this treasure was
exhausted in a few years by the vices or virtues of his children. His
son Mahadi, in a single pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions
of dinars of gold. A pious and charitable motive may sanctify the
foundation of cisterns and caravanseras, which he distributed along a
measured road of seven hundred miles; but his train of camels, laden
with snow, could serve only to astonish the natives of Arabia, and to
refresh the fruits and liquors of the royal banquet. [45] The courtiers
would surely praise the liberality of his grandson Almamon, who gave
away four fifths of the income of a province, a sum of two millions four
hundred thousand gold dinars, before he drew his foot from the stirrup.
At the nuptials of the same prince, a thousand pearls of the largest
size were showered on the head of the bride, [46] and a lottery of lands
and houses displayed the capricious bounty of fortune. The glories of
the court were brightened, rather than impaired, in the decline of the
empire, and a Greek ambassador might admire, or pity, the magnificence
of the feeble Moctader. "The caliph's whole army," says the historian
Abulfeda, "both horse and foot, was under arms, which together made
a body of one hundred and sixty thousand men. His state officers,
the favorite slaves, stood near him in splendid apparel, their belts
glittering with gold and gems. Near them were seven thousand eunuchs,
four thousand of them white, the remainder black. The porters or
door-keepers were in number seven hundred. Barges and boats, with the
most superb decorations, were seen swimming upon the Tigris. Nor was the
palace itself less splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight thousand
pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hundred of which were of
silk embroidered with gold. The carpets on the floor were twenty-two
thousand. A hundred lions were brought out, with a keeper to each lion.
[47] Among the other spectacles of rare and stupendous luxury was a tree
of gold and silver spreading into eighteen large branches, on which, and
on the lesser boughs, sat a variety of birds made of the same precious
metals, as well as the leaves of the tree. While the machinery affected
spontaneous motions, the several birds warbled their natural harmony.
Through this scene of magnificence, the Greek ambassador was led by
the vizier to the foot of the caliph's throne." [48] In the West, the
Ommiades of Spain supported, with equal pomp, the title of commander
of the faithful. Three miles from Cordova, in honor of his favorite
sultana, the third and greatest of the Abdalrahmans constructed the
city, palace, and gardens of Zehra. Twenty-five years, and above three
millions sterling, were employed by the founder: his liberal taste
invited the artists of Constantinople, the most skilful sculptors and
architects of the age; and the buildings were sustained or adorned by
twelve hundred columns of Spanish and African, of Greek and Italian
marble. The hall of audience was incrusted with gold and pearls, and
a great basin in the centre was surrounded with the curious and costly
figures of birds and quadrupeds. In a lofty pavilion of the gardens, one
of these basins and fountains, so delightful in a sultry climate,
was replenished not with water, but with the purest quicksilver. The
seraglio of Abdalrahman, his wives, concubines, and black eunuchs,
amounted to six thousand three hundred persons: and he was attended to
the field by a guard of twelve thousand horse, whose belts and cimeters
were studded with gold. [49]

[Footnote 41: The geographer D'Anville, (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p.
121-123,) and the Orientalist D'Herbelot, (Bibliotheque, p. 167, 168,)
may suffice for the knowledge of Bagdad. Our travellers, Pietro
della Valle, (tom. i. p. 688-698,) Tavernier, (tom. i. p. 230-238,)
Thevenot, (part ii. p. 209-212,) Otter, (tom. i. p. 162-168,) and
Niebuhr, (Voyage en Arabie, tom. ii. p. 239-271,) have seen only its
decay; and the Nubian geographer, (p. 204,) and the travelling Jew,
Benjamin of Tuleda (Itinerarium, p. 112-123, a Const. l'Empereur, apud
Elzevir, 1633,) are the only writers of my acquaintance, who have known
Bagdad under the reign of the Abbassides.]

[Footnote 42: The foundations of Bagdad were laid A. H. 145, A.D. 762.
Mostasem, the last of the Abbassides, was taken and put to death by the
Tartars, A. H. 656, A.D. 1258, the 20th of February.]

[Footnote 43: Medinat al Salem, Dar al Salem. Urbs pacis, or, as it is
more neatly compounded by the Byzantine writers, (Irenopolis.) There is
some dispute concerning the etymology of Bagdad, but the first syllable
is allowed to signify a garden in the Persian tongue; the garden of
Dad, a Christian hermit, whose cell had been the only habitation on the
spot.]

[Footnote 44: Reliquit in aerario sexcenties millies mille stateres. et
quater et vicies millies mille aureos aureos. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen.
p. 126. I have reckoned the gold pieces at eight shillings, and the
proportion to the silver as twelve to one. But I will never answer for
the numbers of Erpenius; and the Latins are scarcely above the savages
in the language of arithmetic.]

[Footnote 45: D'Herbelot, p. 530. Abulfeda, p. 154. Nivem Meccam
apportavit, rem ibi aut nunquam aut rarissime visam.]

[Footnote 46: Abulfeda (p. 184, 189) describes the splendor and
liberality of Almamon. Milton has alluded to this Oriental custom:--

     Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,

     Showers on her kings Barbaric pearls and gold.

I have used the modern word lottery to express the word of the Roman
emperors, which entitled to some prize the person who caught them, as
they were thrown among the crowd.]

[Footnote 47: When Bell of Antermony (Travels, vol. i. p. 99)
accompanied the Russian ambassador to the audience of the unfortunate
Shah Hussein of Persia, two lions were introduced, to denote the power
of the king over the fiercest animals.]

[Footnote 48: Abulfeda, p. 237. D'Herbelot, p. 590. This embassy was
received at Bagdad, A. H. 305, A.D. 917. In the passage of Abulfeda, I
have used, with some variations, the English translation of the learned
and amiable Mr. Harris of Salisbury, (Philological Enquiries p. 363,
364.)]

[Footnote 49: Cardonne, Histoire de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, tom. i.
p. 330-336. A just idea of the taste and architecture of the Arabians
of Spain may be conceived from the description and plates of the
Alhambra of Grenada, (Swinburne's Travels, p. 171-188.)]




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

In a private condition, our desires are perpetually repressed by poverty
and subordination; but the lives and labors of millions are devoted to
the service of a despotic prince, whose laws are blindly obeyed, and
whose wishes are instantly gratified. Our imagination is dazzled by the
splendid picture; and whatever may be the cool dictates of reason, there
are few among us who would obstinately refuse a trial of the comforts
and the cares of royalty. It may therefore be of some use to borrow
the experience of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has perhaps
excited our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authentic memorial
which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph. "I have now
reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects,
dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors,
power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly
blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation,
I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which
have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen:--O man! place not thy
confidence in this present world!" [50] The luxury of the caliphs, so
useless to their private happiness, relaxed the nerves, and terminated
the progress, of the Arabian empire. Temporal and spiritual conquest had
been the sole occupation of the first successors of Mahomet; and after
supplying themselves with the necessaries of life, the whole revenue
was scrupulously devoted to that salutary work. The Abbassides were
impoverished by the multitude of their wants, and their contempt of
oeconomy. Instead of pursuing the great object of ambition, their
leisure, their affections, the powers of their mind, were diverted by
pomp and pleasure: the rewards of valor were embezzled by women and
eunuchs, and the royal camp was encumbered by the luxury of the palace.
A similar temper was diffused among the subjects of the caliph. Their
stern enthusiasm was softened by time and prosperity. they sought riches
in the occupations of industry, fame in the pursuits of literature, and
happiness in the tranquillity of domestic life. War was no longer the
passion of the Saracens; and the increase of pay, the repetition of
donatives, were insufficient to allure the posterity of those voluntary
champions who had crowded to the standard of Abubeker and Omar for the
hopes of spoil and of paradise.

[Footnote 50: Cardonne, tom. i. p. 329, 330. This confession, the
complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this world, (read Prior's verbose
but eloquent poem,) and the happy ten days of the emperor Seghed,
(Rambler, No. 204, 205,) will be triumphantly quoted by the detractors
of human life. Their expectations are commonly immoderate, their
estimates are seldom impartial. If I may speak of myself, (the only
person of whom I can speak with certainty,) my happy hours have far
exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the caliph of Spain; and
I shall not scruple to add, that many of them are due to the pleasing
labor of the present composition.]

Under the reign of the Ommiades, the studies of the Moslems were
confined to the interpretation of the Koran, and the eloquence and
poetry of their native tongue. A people continually exposed to the
dangers of the field must esteem the healing powers of medicine, or
rather of surgery; but the starving physicians of Arabia murmured a
complaint that exercise and temperance deprived them of the greatest
part of their practice. [51] After their civil and domestic wars, the
subjects of the Abbassides, awakening from this mental lethargy, found
leisure and felt curiosity for the acquisition of profane science. This
spirit was first encouraged by the caliph Almansor, who, besides his
knowledge of the Mahometan law, had applied himself with success to
the study of astronomy. But when the sceptre devolved to Almamon, the
seventh of the Abbassides, he completed the designs of his grandfather,
and invited the muses from their ancient seats. His ambassadors at
Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, collected the
volumes of Grecian science at his command they were translated by the
most skilful interpreters into the Arabic language: his subjects were
exhorted assiduously to peruse these instructive writings; and
the successor of Mahomet assisted with pleasure and modesty at the
assemblies and disputations of the learned. "He was not ignorant," says
Abulpharagius, "that they are the elect of God, his best and most useful
servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational
faculties. The mean ambition of the Chinese or the Turks may glory in
the industry of their hands or the indulgence of their brutal appetites.
Yet these dexterous artists must view, with hopeless emulation, the
hexagons and pyramids of the cells of a beehive: [52] these
fortitudinous heroes are awed by the superior fierceness of the lions
and tigers; and in their amorous enjoyments they are much inferior to
the vigor of the grossest and most sordid quadrupeds. The teachers of
wisdom are the true luminaries and legislators of a world, which,
without their aid, would again sink in ignorance and barbarism." [53]
The zeal and curiosity of Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes of
the line of Abbas: their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa and the
Ommiades of Spain, were the patrons of the learned, as well as the
commanders of the faithful; the same royal prerogative was claimed by
their independent emirs of the provinces; and their emulation diffused
the taste and the rewards of science from Samarcand and Bochara to Fez
and Cordova. The vizier of a sultan consecrated a sum of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a college at Bagdad, which
he endowed with an annual revenue of fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits
of instruction were communicated, perhaps at different times, to six
thousand disciples of every degree, from the son of the noble to that of
the mechanic: a sufficient allowance was provided for the indigent
scholars; and the merit or industry of the professors was repaid with
adequate stipends. In every city the productions of Arabic literature
were copied and collected by the curiosity of the studious and the
vanity of the rich. A private doctor refused the invitation of the
sultan of Bochara, because the carriage of his books would have required
four hundred camels. The royal library of the Fatimites consisted of one
hundred thousand manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly
bound, which were lent, without jealousy or avarice, to the students of
Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, if we can believe that
the Ommiades of Spain had formed a library of six hundred thousand
volumes, forty-four of which were employed in the mere catalogue. Their
capital, Cordova, with the adjacent towns of Malaga, Almeria, and
Murcia, had given birth to more than three hundred writers, and above
seventy public libraries were opened in the cities of the Andalusian
kingdom. The age of Arabian learning continued about five hundred years,
till the great eruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest
and most slothful period of European annals; but since the sun of
science has arisen in the West, it should seem that the Oriental studies
have languished and declined. [54]

[Footnote 51: The Guliston (p. 29) relates the conversation of Mahomet
and a physician, (Epistol. Renaudot. in Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom.
i. p. 814.) The prophet himself was skilled in the art of medicine; and
Gagnier (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 394-405) has given an extract of
the aphorisms which are extant under his name.]

[Footnote 52: See their curious architecture in Reaumur (Hist. des
Insectes, tom. v. Memoire viii.) These hexagons are closed by a pyramid;
the angles of the three sides of a similar pyramid, such as would
accomplish the given end with the smallest quantity possible of
materials, were determined by a mathematician, at 109] degrees 26
minutes for the larger, 70 degrees 34 minutes for the smaller. The
actual measure is 109 degrees 28 minutes, 70 degrees 32 minutes. Yet
this perfect harmony raises the work at the expense of the artist he
bees are not masters of transcendent geometry.]

[Footnote 53: Saed Ebn Ahmed, cadhi of Toledo, who died A. H. 462, A.D.
069, has furnished Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 160) with this curious
passage, as well as with the text of Pocock's Specimen Historiae Arabum.
A number of literary anecdotes of philosophers, physicians, &c., who
have flourished under each caliph, form the principal merit of the
Dynasties of Abulpharagius.]

[Footnote 54: These literary anecdotes are borrowed from the Bibliotheca
Arabico-Hispana, (tom. ii. p. 38, 71, 201, 202,) Leo Africanus, (de
Arab. Medicis et Philosophis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p.
259-293, particularly p. 274,) and Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex.
p. 274, 275, 536, 537,) besides the chronological remarks of
Abulpharagius.]

In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of Europe, the far greater
part of the innumerable volumes were possessed only of local value or
imaginary merit. [55] The shelves were crowded with orators and poets,
whose style was adapted to the taste and manners of their countrymen;
with general and partial histories, which each revolving generation
supplied with a new harvest of persons and events; with codes and
commentaries of jurisprudence, which derived their authority from the
law of the prophet; with the interpreters of the Koran, and orthodox
tradition; and with the whole theological tribe, polemics, mystics,
scholastics, and moralists, the first or the last of writers, according
to the different estimates of sceptics or believers. The works of
speculation or science may be reduced to the four classes of philosophy,
mathematics, astronomy, and physic. The sages of Greece were translated
and illustrated in the Arabic language, and some treatises, now lost
in the original, have been recovered in the versions of the East, [56]
which possessed and studied the writings of Aristotle and Plato, of
Euclid and Apollonius, of Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. [57] Among
the ideal systems which have varied with the fashion of the times, the
Arabians adopted the philosophy of the Stagirite, alike intelligible
or alike obscure for the readers of every age. Plato wrote for the
Athenians, and his allegorical genius is too closely blended with the
language and religion of Greece. After the fall of that religion,
the Peripatetics, emerging from their obscurity, prevailed in the
controversies of the Oriental sects, and their founder was long
afterwards restored by the Mahometans of Spain to the Latin schools.
[58] The physics, both of the Academy and the Lycaeum, as they are
built, not on observation, but on argument, have retarded the progress
of real knowledge. The metaphysics of infinite, or finite, spirit, have
too often been enlisted in the service of superstition. But the human
faculties are fortified by the art and practice of dialectics; the ten
predicaments of Aristotle collect and methodize our ideas, [59] and his
syllogism is the keenest weapon of dispute. It was dexterously wielded
in the schools of the Saracens, but as it is more effectual for the
detection of error than for the investigation of truth, it is not
surprising that new generations of masters and disciples should still
revolve in the same circle of logical argument. The mathematics are
distinguished by a peculiar privilege, that, in the course of ages, they
may always advance, and can never recede. But the ancient geometry, if I
am not misinformed, was resumed in the same state by the Italians of
the fifteenth century; and whatever may be the origin of the name, the
science of algebra is ascribed to the Grecian Diophantus by the modest
testimony of the Arabs themselves. [60] They cultivated with more
success the sublime science of astronomy, which elevates the mind of
man to disdain his diminutive planet and momentary existence. The costly
instruments of observation were supplied by the caliph Almamon, and the
land of the Chaldaeans still afforded the same spacious level, the same
unclouded horizon. In the plains of Sinaar, and a second time in those
of Cufa, his mathematicians accurately measured a degree of the great
circle of the earth, and determined at twenty-four thousand miles the
entire circumference of our globe. [61] From the reign of the Abbassides
to that of the grandchildren of Tamerlane, the stars, without the aid
of glasses, were diligently observed; and the astronomical tables of
Bagdad, Spain, and Samarcand, [62] correct some minute errors, without
daring to renounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy, without advancing a step
towards the discovery of the solar system. In the Eastern courts, the
truths of science could be recommended only by ignorance and folly,
and the astronomer would have been disregarded, had he not debased his
wisdom or honesty by the vain predictions of astrology. [63] But in the
science of medicine, the Arabians have been deservedly applauded. The
names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with
the Grecian masters; in the city of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty
physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession: [64]
in Spain, the life of the Catholic princes was intrusted to the skill
of the Saracens, [65] and the school of Salerno, their legitimate
offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the healing art.
[66] The success of each professor must have been influenced by personal
and accidental causes; but we may form a less fanciful estimate of their
general knowledge of anatomy, [67] botany, [68] and chemistry, [69] the
threefold basis of their theory and practice. A superstitious reverence
for the dead confined both the Greeks and the Arabians to the dissection
of apes and quadrupeds; the more solid and visible parts were known
in the time of Galen, and the finer scrutiny of the human frame was
reserved for the microscope and the injections of modern artists. Botany
is an active science, and the discoveries of the torrid zone might
enrich the herbal of Dioscorides with two thousand plants. Some
traditionary knowledge might be secreted in the temples and monasteries
of Egypt; much useful experience had been acquired in the practice of
arts and manufactures; but the science of chemistry owes its origin and
improvement to the industry of the Saracens. They first invented
and named the alembic for the purposes of distillation, analyzed the
substances of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and
affinities of alcalis and acids, and converted the poisonous minerals
into soft and salutary medicines. But the most eager search of Arabian
chemistry was the transmutation of metals, and the elixir of immortal
health: the reason and the fortunes of thousands were evaporated in
the crucibles of alchemy, and the consummation of the great work was
promoted by the worthy aid of mystery, fable, and superstition.

[Footnote 55: The Arabic catalogue of the Escurial will give a just idea
of the proportion of the classes. In the library of Cairo, the Mss of
astronomy and medicine amounted to 6500, with two fair globes, the one
of brass, the other of silver, (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 417.)]

[Footnote 56: As, for instance, the fifth, sixth, and seventh books (the
eighth is still wanting) of the Conic Sections of Apollonius Pergaeus,
which were printed from the Florence Ms. 1661, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec.
tom. ii. p. 559.) Yet the fifth book had been previously restored by the
mathematical divination of Viviani, (see his Eloge in Fontenelle, tom.
v. p. 59, &c.)]

[Footnote 57: The merit of these Arabic versions is freely discussed
by Renaudot, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. i. p. 812-816,) and piously
defended by Casiri, (Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 238-240.)
Most of the versions of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, &c., are
ascribed to Honain, a physician of the Nestorian sect, who flourished
at Bagdad in the court of the caliphs, and died A.D. 876. He was at the
head of a school or manufacture of translations, and the works of his
sons and disciples were published under his name. See Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 88, 115, 171-174, and apud Asseman. Bibliot. Orient.
tom. ii. p. 438,) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 456,) Asseman.
(Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. p. 164,) and Casiri, (Bibliot. Arab.
Hispana, tom. i. p. 238, &c. 251, 286-290, 302, 304, &c.)]

[Footnote 58: See Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 181, 214, 236,
257, 315, 388, 396, 438, &c.]

[Footnote 59: The most elegant commentary on the Categories or
Predicaments of Aristotle may be found in the Philosophical Arrangements
of Mr. James Harris, (London, 1775, in octavo,) who labored to revive
the studies of Grecian literature and philosophy.]

[Footnote 60: Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 81, 222. Bibliot. Arab. Hisp.
tom. i. p. 370, 371. In quem (says the primate of the Jacobites) si
immiserit selector, oceanum hoc in genere (algebrae) inveniet. The time
of Diophantus of Alexandria is unknown; but his six books are still
extant, and have been illustrated by the Greek Planudes and the
Frenchman Meziriac, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. iv. p. 12-15.)]

[Footnote 61: Abulfeda (Annal. Moslem. p. 210, 211, vers. Reiske)
describes this operation according to Ibn Challecan, and the best
historians. This degree most accurately contains 200,000 royal or
Hashemite cubits which Arabia had derived from the sacred and legal
practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is repeated
400 times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems to indicate the
primitive and universal measures of the East. See the Metrologie of the
laborions. M. Paucton, p. 101-195.]

[Footnote 62: See the Astronomical Tables of Ulugh Begh, with the
preface of Dr. Hyde in the first volume of his Syntagma Dissertationum,
Oxon. 1767.]

[Footnote 63: The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar, and
the best of the Arabian astronomers, who drew their most certain
predictions, not from Venus and Mercury, but from Jupiter and the sun,
(Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 161-163.) For the state and science of the
Persian astronomers, see Chardin, (Voyages en Perse, tom. iii. p.
162-203.)]

[Footnote 64: Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 438. The original
relates a pleasant tale of an ignorant, but harmless, practitioner.]

[Footnote 65: In the year 956, Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, was cured
by the physicians of Cordova, (Mariana, l. viii. c. 7, tom. i. p. 318.)]

[Footnote 66: The school of Salerno, and the introduction of the
Arabian sciences into Italy, are discussed with learning and judgment
by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. iii. p. 932-940) and
Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 119-127.)]

[Footnote 67: See a good view of the progress of anatomy in Wotton,
(Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 208-256.) His reputation
has been unworthily depreciated by the wits in the controversy of Boyle
and Bentley.]

[Footnote 68: Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 275. Al Beithar, of
Malaga, their greatest botanist, had travelled into Africa, Persia, and
India.]

[Footnote 69: Dr. Watson, (Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 17, &c.)
allows the original merit of the Arabians. Yet he quotes the modest
confession of the famous Geber of the ixth century, (D'Herbelot, p.
387,) that he had drawn most of his science, perhaps the transmutation
of metals, from the ancient sages. Whatever might be the origin or
extent of their knowledge, the arts of chemistry and alchemy appear to
have been known in Egypt at least three hundred years before Mahomet,
(Wotton's Reflections, p. 121-133. Pauw, Recherches sur les Egyptiens
et les Chinois, tom. i. p. 376-429.) * Note: Mr. Whewell (Hist. of
Inductive Sciences, vol. i. p. 336) rejects the claim of the Arabians as
inventors of the science of chemistry. "The formation and realization
of the notions of analysis and affinity were important steps in chemical
science; which, as I shall hereafter endeavor to show it remained for
the chemists of Europe to make at a much later period."--M.]

But the Moslems deprived themselves of the principal benefits of a
familiar intercourse with Greece and Rome, the knowledge of antiquity,
the purity of taste, and the freedom of thought. Confident in the riches
of their native tongue, the Arabians disdained the study of any
foreign idiom. The Greek interpreters were chosen among their Christian
subjects; they formed their translations, sometimes on the original
text, more frequently perhaps on a Syriac version; and in the crowd of
astronomers and physicians, there is no example of a poet, an orator, or
even an historian, being taught to speak the language of the Saracens.
[70] The mythology of Homer would have provoked the abhorrence of those
stern fanatics: they possessed in lazy ignorance the colonies of the
Macedonians, and the provinces of Carthage and Rome: the heroes of
Plutarch and Livy were buried in oblivion; and the history of the world
before Mahomet was reduced to a short legend of the patriarchs, the
prophets, and the Persian kings. Our education in the Greek and Latin
schools may have fixed in our minds a standard of exclusive taste; and
I am not forward to condemn the literature and judgment of nations, of
whose language I am ignorant. Yet I know that the classics have much
to teach, and I believe that the Orientals have much to learn; the
temperate dignity of style, the graceful proportions of art, the forms
of visible and intellectual beauty, the just delineation of character
and passion, the rhetoric of narrative and argument, the regular fabric
of epic and dramatic poetry. [71] The influence of truth and reason
is of a less ambiguous complexion. The philosophers of Athens and Rome
enjoyed the blessings, and asserted the rights, of civil and religious
freedom. Their moral and political writings might have gradually
unlocked the fetters of Eastern despotism, diffused a liberal spirit of
inquiry and toleration, and encouraged the Arabian sages to suspect
that their caliph was a tyrant, and their prophet an impostor. [72] The
instinct of superstition was alarmed by the introduction even of the
abstract sciences; and the more rigid doctors of the law condemned
the rash and pernicious curiosity of Almamon. [73] To the thirst of
martyrdom, the vision of paradise, and the belief of predestination, we
must ascribe the invincible enthusiasm of the prince and people. And the
sword of the Saracens became less formidable when their youth was drawn
away from the camp to the college, when the armies of the faithful
presumed to read and to reflect. Yet the foolish vanity of the Greeks
was jealous of their studies, and reluctantly imparted the sacred fire
to the Barbarians of the East. [74]

[Footnote 70: Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 26, 148) mentions a Syriac
version of Homer's two poems, by Theophilus, a Christian Maronite of
Mount Libanus, who professed astronomy at Roha or Edessa towards the end
of the viiith century. His work would be a literary curiosity. I
have read somewhere, but I do not believe, that Plutarch's Lives were
translated into Turkish for the use of Mahomet the Second.]

[Footnote 71: I have perused, with much pleasure, Sir William Jones's
Latin Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, (London, 1774, in octavo,) which
was composed in the youth of that wonderful linguist. At present, in
the maturity of his taste and judgment, he would perhaps abate of
the fervent, and even partial, praise which he has bestowed on the
Orientals.]

[Footnote 72: Among the Arabian philosophers, Averroes has been
accused of despising the religions of the Jews, the Christians, and the
Mahometans, (see his article in Bayle's Dictionary.) Each of these
sects would agree, that in two instances out of three, his contempt was
reasonable.]

[Footnote 73: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque, Orientale, p. 546.]

[Footnote 74: Cedrenus, p. 548, who relates how manfully the emperor
refused a mathematician to the instances and offers of the caliph
Almamon. This absurd scruple is expressed almost in the same words by
the continuator of Theophanes, (Scriptores post Theophanem, p. 118.)]

In the bloody conflict of the Ommiades and Abbassides, the Greeks had
stolen the opportunity of avenging their wrongs and enlarging their
limits. But a severe retribution was exacted by Mohadi, the third caliph
of the new dynasty, who seized, in his turn, the favorable opportunity,
while a woman and a child, Irene and Constantine, were seated on the
Byzantine throne. An army of ninety-five thousand Persians and Arabs
was sent from the Tigris to the Thracian Bosphorus, under the command of
Harun, [75] or Aaron, the second son of the commander of the faithful.
His encampment on the opposite heights of Chrysopolis, or Scutari,
informed Irene, in her palace of Constantinople, of the loss of her
troops and provinces. With the consent or connivance of their sovereign,
her ministers subscribed an ignominious peace; and the exchange of some
royal gifts could not disguise the annual tribute of seventy thousand
dinars of gold, which was imposed on the Roman empire. The Saracens had
too rashly advanced into the midst of a distant and hostile land: their
retreat was solicited by the promise of faithful guides and plentiful
markets; and not a Greek had courage to whisper, that their weary forces
might be surrounded and destroyed in their necessary passage between
a slippery mountain and the River Sangarius. Five years after this
expedition, Harun ascended the throne of his father and his elder
brother; the most powerful and vigorous monarch of his race, illustrious
in the West, as the ally of Charlemagne, and familiar to the most
childish readers, as the perpetual hero of the Arabian tales. His title
to the name of Al Rashid (the Just) is sullied by the extirpation of the
generous, perhaps the innocent, Barmecides; yet he could listen to the
complaint of a poor widow who had been pillaged by his troops, and who
dared, in a passage of the Koran, to threaten the inattentive despot
with the judgment of God and posterity. His court was adorned with
luxury and science; but, in a reign of three-and-twenty years, Harun
repeatedly visited his provinces from Chorasan to Egypt; nine times
he performed the pilgrimage of Mecca; eight times he invaded the
territories of the Romans; and as often as they declined the payment of
the tribute, they were taught to feel that a month of depredation was
more costly than a year of submission. But when the unnatural mother
of Constantine was deposed and banished, her successor, Nicephorus,
resolved to obliterate this badge of servitude and disgrace. The epistle
of the emperor to the caliph was pointed with an allusion to the game
of chess, which had already spread from Persia to Greece. "The queen (he
spoke of Irene) considered you as a rook, and herself as a pawn. That
pusillanimous female submitted to pay a tribute, the double of which she
ought to have exacted from the Barbarians. Restore therefore the fruits
of your injustice, or abide the determination of the sword." At these
words the ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the
throne. The caliph smiled at the menace, and drawing his cimeter,
samsamah, a weapon of historic or fabulous renown, he cut asunder the
feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the edge, or endangering the
temper, of his blade. He then dictated an epistle of tremendous brevity:
"In the name of the most merciful God, Harun al Rashid, commander of the
faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog. I have read thy letter, O thou
son of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold, my
reply." It was written in characters of blood and fire on the plains of
Phrygia; and the warlike celerity of the Arabs could only be checked by
the arts of deceit and the show of repentance.

The triumphant caliph retired, after the fatigues of the campaign, to
his favorite palace of Racca on the Euphrates: [76] but the distance
of five hundred miles, and the inclemency of the season, encouraged his
adversary to violate the peace. Nicephorus was astonished by the bold
and rapid march of the commander of the faithful, who repassed, in the
depth of winter, the snows of Mount Taurus: his stratagems of policy and
war were exhausted; and the perfidious Greek escaped with three wounds
from a field of battle overspread with forty thousand of his subjects.
Yet the emperor was ashamed of submission, and the caliph was resolved
on victory. One hundred and thirty-five thousand regular soldiers
received pay, and were inscribed in the military roll; and above three
hundred thousand persons of every denomination marched under the black
standard of the Abbassides. They swept the surface of Asia Minor far
beyond Tyana and Ancyra, and invested the Pontic Heraclea, [77] once
a flourishing state, now a paltry town; at that time capable of
sustaining, in her antique walls, a month's siege against the forces of
the East. The ruin was complete, the spoil was ample; but if Harun had
been conversant with Grecian story, he would have regretted the statue
of Hercules, whose attributes, the club, the bow, the quiver, and the
lion's hide, were sculptured in massy gold. The progress of desolation
by sea and land, from the Euxine to the Isle of Cyprus, compelled the
emperor Nicephorus to retract his haughty defiance. In the new treaty,
the ruins of Heraclea were left forever as a lesson and a trophy; and
the coin of the tribute was marked with the image and superscription
of Harun and his three sons. [78] Yet this plurality of lords might
contribute to remove the dishonor of the Roman name. After the death of
their father, the heirs of the caliph were involved in civil discord,
and the conqueror, the liberal Almamon, was sufficiently engaged in the
restoration of domestic peace and the introduction of foreign science.

[Footnote 75: See the reign and character of Harun Al Rashid, in the
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 431-433, under his proper title; and in the
relative articles to which M. D'Herbelot refers. That learned collector
has shown much taste in stripping the Oriental chronicles of their
instructive and amusing anecdotes.]

[Footnote 76: For the situation of Racca, the old Nicephorium, consult
D'Anville, (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 24-27.) The Arabian Nights
represent Harun al Rashid as almost stationary in Bagdad. He respected
the royal seat of the Abbassides: but the vices of the inhabitants had
driven him from the city, (Abulfed. Annal. p. 167.)]

[Footnote 77: M. de Tournefort, in his coasting voyage from
Constantinople to Trebizond, passed a night at Heraclea or Eregri. His
eye surveyed the present state, his reading collected the antiquities,
of the city (Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvi. p. 23-35.) We have
a separate history of Heraclea in the fragments of Memnon, which are
preserved by Photius.]

[Footnote 78: The wars of Harun al Rashid against the Roman empire are
related by Theophanes, (p. 384, 385, 391, 396, 407, 408.) Zonaras, (tom.
iii. l. xv. p. 115, 124,) Cedrenus, (p. 477, 478,) Eutycaius,
(Annal. tom. ii. p. 407,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 136, 151, 152,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 147, 151,) and Abulfeda, (p. 156, 166-168.)]




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

Under the reign of Almamon at Bagdad, of Michael the Stammerer at
Constantinople, the islands of Crete [79] and Sicily were subdued by the
Arabs. The former of these conquests is disdained by their own writers,
who were ignorant of the fame of Jupiter and Minos, but it has not been
overlooked by the Byzantine historians, who now begin to cast a clearer
light on the affairs of their own times. [80] A band of Andalusian
volunteers, discontented with the climate or government of Spain,
explored the adventures of the sea; but as they sailed in no more than
ten or twenty galleys, their warfare must be branded with the name of
piracy. As the subjects and sectaries of the white party, they might
lawfully invade the dominions of the black caliphs. A rebellious faction
introduced them into Alexandria; [81] they cut in pieces both friends
and foes, pillaged the churches and the moschs, sold above six thousand
Christian captives, and maintained their station in the capital of
Egypt, till they were oppressed by the forces and the presence of
Almamon himself. From the mouth of the Nile to the Hellespont, the
islands and sea-coasts both of the Greeks and Moslems were exposed to
their depredations; they saw, they envied, they tasted the fertility of
Crete, and soon returned with forty galleys to a more serious attack.
The Andalusians wandered over the land fearless and unmolested; but when
they descended with their plunder to the sea-shore, their vessels were
in flames, and their chief, Abu Caab, confessed himself the author of
the mischief. Their clamors accused his madness or treachery. "Of what
do you complain?" replied the crafty emir. "I have brought you to a land
flowing with milk and honey. Here is your true country; repose from your
toils, and forget the barren place of your nativity." "And our wives and
children?" "Your beauteous captives will supply the place of your
wives, and in their embraces you will soon become the fathers of a new
progeny." The first habitation was their camp, with a ditch and rampart,
in the Bay of Suda; but an apostate monk led them to a more desirable
position in the eastern parts; and the name of Candax, their fortress
and colony, has been extended to the whole island, under the corrupt
and modern appellation of Candia. The hundred cities of the age of
Minos were diminished to thirty; and of these, only one, most probably
Cydonia, had courage to retain the substance of freedom and the
profession of Christianity. The Saracens of Crete soon repaired the loss
of their navy; and the timbers of Mount Ida were launched into the
main. During a hostile period of one hundred and thirty-eight years,
the princes of Constantinople attacked these licentious corsairs with
fruitless curses and ineffectual arms.

[Footnote 79: The authors from whom I have learned the most of the
ancient and modern state of Crete, are Belon, (Observations, &c., c.
3-20, Paris, 1555,) Tournefort, (Voyage du Levant, tom. i. lettre ii.
et iii.,) and Meursius, (Creta, in his works, tom. iii. p. 343-544.)
Although Crete is styled by Homer, by Dionysius, I cannot conceive
that mountainous island to surpass, or even to equal, in fertility the
greater part of Spain.]

[Footnote 80: The most authentic and circumstantial intelligence is
obtained from the four books of the Continuation of Theophanes, compiled
by the pen or the command of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, with the Life
of his father Basil, the Macedonian, (Scriptores post Theophanem, p.
1-162, a Francisc. Combefis, Paris, 1685.) The loss of Crete and Sicily
is related, l. ii. p. 46-52. To these we may add the secondary evidence
of Joseph Genesius, (l. ii. p. 21, Venet. 1733,) George Cedrenus,
(Compend. p. 506-508,) and John Scylitzes Curopalata, (apud Baron.
Annal. Eccles. A.D. 827, No. 24, &c.) But the modern Greeks are such
notorious plagiaries, that I should only quote a plurality of names.]

[Footnote 81: Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 251-256, 268-270) had
described the ravages of the Andalusian Arabs in Egypt, but has forgot
to connect them with the conquest of Crete.]

The loss of Sicily [82] was occasioned by an act of superstitious rigor.
An amorous youth, who had stolen a nun from her cloister, was sentenced
by the emperor to the amputation of his tongue. Euphemius appealed to
the reason and policy of the Saracens of Africa; and soon returned with
the Imperial purple, a fleet of one hundred ships, and an army of seven
hundred horse and ten thousand foot. They landed at Mazara near the
ruins of the ancient Selinus; but after some partial victories, Syracuse
[83] was delivered by the Greeks, the apostate was slain before her
walls, and his African friends were reduced to the necessity of feeding
on the flesh of their own horses. In their turn they were relieved by a
powerful reenforcement of their brethren of Andalusia; the largest and
western part of the island was gradually reduced, and the commodious
harbor of Palermo was chosen for the seat of the naval and military
power of the Saracens. Syracuse preserved about fifty years the faith
which she had sworn to Christ and to Caesar. In the last and fatal
siege, her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which had
formerly resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They stood above
twenty days against the battering-rams and catapultoe, the mines and
tortoises of the besiegers; and the place might have been relieved,
if the mariners of the Imperial fleet had not been detained at
Constantinople in building a church to the Virgin Mary. The deacon
Theodosius, with the bishop and clergy, was dragged in chains from the
altar to Palermo, cast into a subterraneous dungeon, and exposed to
the hourly peril of death or apostasy. His pathetic, and not inelegant,
complaint may be read as the epitaph of his country. [84] From the Roman
conquest to this final calamity, Syracuse, now dwindled to the primitive
Isle of Ortygea, had insensibly declined. Yet the relics were still
precious; the plate of the cathedral weighed five thousand pounds of
silver; the entire spoil was computed at one million of pieces of gold,
(about four hundred thousand pounds sterling,) and the captives must
outnumber the seventeen thousand Christians, who were transported from
the sack of Tauromenium into African servitude. In Sicily, the religion
and language of the Greeks were eradicated; and such was the docility of
the rising generation, that fifteen thousand boys were circumcised and
clothed on the same day with the son of the Fatimite caliph. The Arabian
squadrons issued from the harbors of Palermo, Biserta, and Tunis; a
hundred and fifty towns of Calabria and Campania were attacked and
pillaged; nor could the suburbs of Rome be defended by the name of the
Caesars and apostles. Had the Mahometans been united, Italy must have
fallen an easy and glorious accession to the empire of the prophet.
But the caliphs of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the
Aglabites and Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their emirs of
Sicily aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion
was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads. [85]

[Footnote 82: Theophanes, l. ii. p. 51. This history of the loss of
Sicily is no longer extant. Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. vii.
p. 719, 721, &c.) has added some circumstances from the Italian
chronicles.]

[Footnote 83: The splendid and interesting tragedy of Tancrede would
adapt itself much better to this epoch, than to the date (A.D. 1005)
which Voltaire himself has chosen. But I must gently reproach the poet
for infusing into the Greek subjects the spirit of modern knights and
ancient republicans.]

[Footnote 84: The narrative or lamentation of Theodosius is transcribed
and illustrated by Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 719, &c.) Constantine
Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil, c. 69, 70, p. 190-192) mentions the
loss of Syracuse and the triumph of the demons.]

[Footnote 85: The extracts from the Arabic histories of Sicily are given
in Abulfeda, (Annal' Moslem. p. 271-273,) and in the first volume of
Muratori's Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns,
tom. i. p. 363, 364) has added some important facts.]

In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn
and mournful recollection. A fleet of Saracens from the African coast
presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber, and to approach a city which
even yet, in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the
Christian world. The gates and ramparts were guarded by a trembling
people; but the tombs and temples of St. Peter and St. Paul were left
exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and of the Ostian way. Their
invisible sanctity had protected them against the Goths, the Vandals,
and the Lombards; but the Arabs disdained both the gospel and the
legend; and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the
precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly
offerings; a silver altar was torn away from the shrine of St. Peter;
and if the bodies or the buildings were left entire, their deliverance
must be imputed to the haste, rather than the scruples, of the Saracens.
In their course along the Appian way, they pillaged Fundi and besieged
Gayeta; but they had turned aside from the walls of Rome, and by their
divisions, the Capitol was saved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca.
The same danger still impended on the heads of the Roman people; and
their domestic force was unequal to the assault of an African emir. They
claimed the protection of their Latin sovereign; but the Carlovingian
standard was overthrown by a detachment of the Barbarians: they
meditated the restoration of the Greek emperors; but the attempt was
treasonable, and the succor remote and precarious. [86] Their distress
appeared to receive some aggravation from the death of their spiritual
and temporal chief; but the pressing emergency superseded the forms
and intrigues of an election; and the unanimous choice of Pope Leo the
Fourth [87] was the safety of the church and city. This pontiff was born
a Roman; the courage of the first ages of the republic glowed in his
breast; and, amidst the ruins of his country, he stood erect, like one
of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads above the fragments
of the Roman forum. The first days of his reign were consecrated to the
purification and removal of relics, to prayers and processions, and to
all the solemn offices of religion, which served at least to heal the
imagination, and restore the hopes, of the multitude. The public defence
had been long neglected, not from the presumption of peace, but from the
distress and poverty of the times. As far as the scantiness of his means
and the shortness of his leisure would allow, the ancient walls were
repaired by the command of Leo; fifteen towers, in the most accessible
stations, were built or renewed; two of these commanded on either side
of the Tyber; and an iron chain was drawn across the stream to impede
the ascent of a hostile navy. The Romans were assured of a short respite
by the welcome news, that the siege of Gayeta had been raised, and that
a part of the enemy, with their sacrilegious plunder, had perished in
the waves.

[Footnote 86: One of the most eminent Romans (Gratianus, magister
militum et Romani palatii superista) was accused of declaring, Quia
Franci nihil nobis boni faciunt, neque adjutorium praebent, sed magis
quae nostra sunt violenter tollunt. Quare non advocamus Graecos, et cum
eis foedus pacis componentes, Francorum regem et gentem de nostro regno
et dominatione expellimus? Anastasius in Leone IV. p. 199.]

[Footnote 87: Voltaire (Hist. Generale, tom. ii. c. 38, p. 124) appears
to be remarkably struck with the character of Pope Leo IV. I have
borrowed his general expression, but the sight of the forum has
furnished me with a more distinct and lively image.]

But the storm, which had been delayed, soon burst upon them with
redoubled violence. The Aglabite, [88] who reigned in Africa, had
inherited from his father a treasure and an army: a fleet of Arabs and
Moors, after a short refreshment in the harbors of Sardinia, cast anchor
before the mouth of the Tyber, sixteen miles from the city: and their
discipline and numbers appeared to threaten, not a transient inroad, but
a serious design of conquest and dominion. But the vigilance of Leo had
formed an alliance with the vassals of the Greek empire, the free
and maritime states of Gayeta, Naples, and Amalfi; and in the hour of
danger, their galleys appeared in the port of Ostia under the command
of Caesarius, the son of the Neapolitan duke, a noble and valiant
youth, who had already vanquished the fleets of the Saracens. With his
principal companions, Caesarius was invited to the Lateran palace, and
the dexterous pontiff affected to inquire their errand, and to accept
with joy and surprise their providential succor. The city bands, in
arms, attended their father to Ostia, where he reviewed and blessed his
generous deliverers. They kissed his feet, received the communion with
martial devotion, and listened to the prayer of Leo, that the same God
who had supported St. Peter and St. Paul on the waves of the sea, would
strengthen the hands of his champions against the adversaries of his
holy name. After a similar prayer, and with equal resolution, the
Moslems advanced to the attack of the Christian galleys, which preserved
their advantageous station along the coast. The victory inclined to the
side of the allies, when it was less gloriously decided in their favor
by a sudden tempest, which confounded the skill and courage of the
stoutest mariners. The Christians were sheltered in a friendly harbor,
while the Africans were scattered and dashed in pieces among the rocks
and islands of a hostile shore. Those who escaped from shipwreck
and hunger neither found, nor deserved, mercy at the hands of their
implacable pursuers. The sword and the gibbet reduced the dangerous
multitude of captives; and the remainder was more usefully employed,
to restore the sacred edifices which they had attempted to subvert.
The pontiff, at the head of the citizens and allies, paid his grateful
devotion at the shrines of the apostles; and, among the spoils of this
naval victory, thirteen Arabian bows of pure and massy silver were
suspended round the altar of the fishermen of Galilee. The reign of Leo
the Fourth was employed in the defence and ornament of the Roman state.
The churches were renewed and embellished: near four thousand pounds
of silver were consecrated to repair the losses of St. Peter; and
his sanctuary was decorated with a plate of gold of the weight of two
hundred and sixteen pounds, embossed with the portraits of the pope
and emperor, and encircled with a string of pearls. Yet this vain
magnificence reflects less glory on the character of Leo than the
paternal care with which he rebuilt the walls of Horta and Ameria;
and transported the wandering inhabitants of Centumcellae to his new
foundation of Leopolis, twelve miles from the sea-shore. [89] By his
liberality, a colony of Corsicans, with their wives and children, was
planted in the station of Porto, at the mouth of the Tyber: the falling
city was restored for their use, the fields and vineyards were divided
among the new settlers: their first efforts were assisted by a gift of
horses and cattle; and the hardy exiles, who breathed revenge against
the Saracens, swore to live and die under the standard of St. Peter. The
nations of the West and North who visited the threshold of the apostles
had gradually formed the large and populous suburb of the Vatican, and
their various habitations were distinguished, in the language of the
times, as the schools of the Greeks and Goths, of the Lombards and
Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to sacrilegious insult:
the design of enclosing it with walls and towers exhausted all that
authority could command, or charity would supply: and the pious labor
of four years was animated in every season, and at every hour, by the
presence of the indefatigable pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but
worldly passion, may be detected in the name of the Leonine city, which
he bestowed on the Vatican; yet the pride of the dedication was tempered
with Christian penance and humility. The boundary was trod by the bishop
and his clergy, barefoot, in sackcloth and ashes; the songs of triumph
were modulated to psalms and litanies; the walls were besprinkled with
holy water; and the ceremony was concluded with a prayer, that, under
the guardian care of the apostles and the angelic host, both the old and
the new Rome might ever be preserved pure, prosperous, and impregnable.
[90]

[Footnote 88: De Guignes, Hist. Generale des Huns, tom. i. p. 363, 364.
Cardonne, Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, sous la Domination
des Arabs, tom. ii. p. 24, 25. I observe, and cannot reconcile, the
difference of these writers in the succession of the Aglabites.]

[Footnote 89: Beretti (Chorographia Italiae Medii Evi, p. 106, 108)
has illustrated Centumcellae, Leopolis, Civitas Leonina, and the other
places of the Roman duchy.]

[Footnote 90: The Arabs and the Greeks are alike silent concerning the
invasion of Rome by the Africans. The Latin chronicles do not afford
much instruction, (see the Annals of Baronius and Pagi.) Our authentic
and contemporary guide for the popes of the ixth century is Anastasius,
librarian of the Roman church. His Life of Leo IV, contains twenty-four
pages, (p. 175-199, edit. Paris;) and if a great part consist of
superstitious trifles, we must blame or command his hero, who was much
oftener in a church than in a camp.]

The emperor Theophilus, son of Michael the Stammerer, was one of the
most active and high-spirited princes who reigned at Constantinople
during the middle age. In offensive or defensive war, he marched in
person five times against the Saracens, formidable in his attack,
esteemed by the enemy in his losses and defeats. In the last of these
expeditions he penetrated into Syria, and besieged the obscure town of
Sozopetra; the casual birthplace of the caliph Motassem, whose father
Harun was attended in peace or war by the most favored of his wives and
concubines. The revolt of a Persian impostor employed at that moment the
arms of the Saracen, and he could only intercede in favor of a place for
which he felt and acknowledged some degree of filial affection. These
solicitations determined the emperor to wound his pride in so sensible a
part. Sozopetra was levelled with the ground, the Syrian prisoners were
marked or mutilated with ignominious cruelty, and a thousand female
captives were forced away from the adjacent territory. Among these a
matron of the house of Abbas invoked, in an agony of despair, the name
of Motassem; and the insults of the Greeks engaged the honor of her
kinsman to avenge his indignity, and to answer her appeal. Under the
reign of the two elder brothers, the inheritance of the youngest
had been confined to Anatolia, Armenia, Georgia, and Circassia; this
frontier station had exercised his military talents; and among his
accidental claims to the name of Octonary, [91] the most meritorious are
the eight battles which he gained or fought against the enemies of the
Koran. In this personal quarrel, the troops of Irak, Syria, and Egypt,
were recruited from the tribes of Arabia and the Turkish hordes; his
cavalry might be numerous, though we should deduct some myriads from the
hundred and thirty thousand horses of the royal stables; and the expense
of the armament was computed at four millions sterling, or one hundred
thousand pounds of gold. From Tarsus, the place of assembly,
the Saracens advanced in three divisions along the high road of
Constantinople: Motassem himself commanded the centre, and the vanguard
was given to his son Abbas, who, in the trial of the first adventures,
might succeed with the more glory, or fail with the least reproach. In
the revenge of his injury, the caliph prepared to retaliate a similar
affront. The father of Theophilus was a native of Amorium [92] in
Phrygia: the original seat of the Imperial house had been adorned with
privileges and monuments; and, whatever might be the indifference of the
people, Constantinople itself was scarcely of more value in the eyes of
the sovereign and his court. The name of Amorium was inscribed on the
shields of the Saracens; and their three armies were again united
under the walls of the devoted city. It had been proposed by the wisest
counsellors, to evacuate Amorium, to remove the inhabitants, and to
abandon the empty structures to the vain resentment of the Barbarians.
The emperor embraced the more generous resolution of defending, in a
siege and battle, the country of his ancestors. When the armies drew
near, the front of the Mahometan line appeared to a Roman eye more
closely planted with spears and javelins; but the event of the action
was not glorious on either side to the national troops. The Arabs were
broken, but it was by the swords of thirty thousand Persians, who had
obtained service and settlement in the Byzantine empire. The Greeks
were repulsed and vanquished, but it was by the arrows of the Turkish
cavalry; and had not their bowstrings been damped and relaxed by the
evening rain, very few of the Christians could have escaped with the
emperor from the field of battle. They breathed at Dorylaeum, at
the distance of three days; and Theophilus, reviewing his trembling
squadrons, forgave the common flight both of the prince and people.
After this discovery of his weakness, he vainly hoped to deprecate
the fate of Amorium: the inexorable caliph rejected with contempt his
prayers and promises; and detained the Roman ambassadors to be the
witnesses of his great revenge. They had nearly been the witnesses of
his shame. The vigorous assaults of fifty-five days were encountered by
a faithful governor, a veteran garrison, and a desperate people; and
the Saracens must have raised the siege, if a domestic traitor had not
pointed to the weakest part of the wall, a place which was decorated
with the statues of a lion and a bull. The vow of Motassem was
accomplished with unrelenting rigor: tired, rather than satiated,
with destruction, he returned to his new palace of Samara, in the
neighborhood of Bagdad, while the unfortunate [93] Theophilus implored
the tardy and doubtful aid of his Western rival the emperor of the
Franks. Yet in the siege of Amorium about seventy thousand Moslems
had perished: their loss had been revenged by the slaughter of thirty
thousand Christians, and the sufferings of an equal number of captives,
who were treated as the most atrocious criminals. Mutual necessity could
sometimes extort the exchange or ransom of prisoners: [94] but in the
national and religious conflict of the two empires, peace was without
confidence, and war without mercy. Quarter was seldom given in the
field; those who escaped the edge of the sword were condemned to
hopeless servitude, or exquisite torture; and a Catholic emperor
relates, with visible satisfaction, the execution of the Saracens of
Crete, who were flayed alive, or plunged into caldrons of boiling oil.
[95] To a point of honor Motassem had sacrificed a flourishing city, two
hundred thousand lives, and the property of millions. The same caliph
descended from his horse, and dirtied his robe, to relieve the distress
of a decrepit old man, who, with his laden ass, had tumbled into a
ditch. On which of these actions did he reflect with the most pleasure,
when he was summoned by the angel of death? [96]

[Footnote 91: The same number was applied to the following circumstance
in the life of Motassem: he was the eight of the Abbassides; he reigned
eight years, eight months, and eight days; left eight sons, eight
daughters, eight thousand slaves, eight millions of gold.]

[Footnote 92: Amorium is seldom mentioned by the old geographers, and
to tally forgotten in the Roman Itineraries. After the vith century,
it became an episcopal see, and at length the metropolis of the new
Galatia, (Carol. Scto. Paulo, Geograph. Sacra, p. 234.) The city rose
again from its ruins, if we should read Ammeria, not Anguria, in the
text of the Nubian geographer. (p. 236.)]

[Footnote 93: In the East he was styled, (Continuator Theophan. l. iii.
p. 84;) but such was the ignorance of the West, that his ambassadors,
in public discourse, might boldly narrate, de victoriis, quas adversus
exteras bellando gentes coelitus fuerat assecutus, (Annalist. Bertinian.
apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 720.)]

[Footnote 94: Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 167, 168) relates one of these
singular transactions on the bridge of the River Lamus in Cilicia, the
limit of the two empires, and one day's journey westward of Tarsus,
(D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 91.) Four thousand four
hundred and sixty Moslems, eight hundred women and children, one hundred
confederates, were exchanged for an equal number of Greeks. They passed
each other in the middle of the bridge, and when they reached their
respective friends, they shouted Allah Acbar, and Kyrie Eleison. Many of
the prisoners of Amorium were probably among them, but in the same year,
(A. H. 231,) the most illustrious of them, the forty two martyrs, were
beheaded by the caliph's order.]

[Footnote 95: Constantin. Porphyrogenitus, in Vit. Basil. c. 61, p. 186.
These Saracens were indeed treated with peculiar severity as pirates and
renegadoes.]

[Footnote 96: For Theophilus, Motassem, and the Amorian war, see the
Continuator of Theophanes, (l. iii. p. 77-84,) Genesius (l. iii. p.
24-34.) Cedrenus, (p. 528-532,) Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen, p. 180,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 165, 166,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 191,)
D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 639, 640.)]

With Motassem, the eighth of the Abbassides, the glory of his family and
nation expired. When the Arabian conquerors had spread themselves over
the East, and were mingled with the servile crowds of Persia, Syria,
and Egypt, they insensibly lost the freeborn and martial virtues of the
desert. The courage of the South is the artificial fruit of discipline
and prejudice; the active power of enthusiasm had decayed, and the
mercenary forces of the caliphs were recruited in those climates of the
North, of which valor is the hardy and spontaneous production. Of the
Turks [97] who dwelt beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the robust youths,
either taken in war or purchased in trade, were educated in the
exercises of the field, and the profession of the Mahometan faith. The
Turkish guards stood in arms round the throne of their benefactor,
and their chiefs usurped the dominion of the palace and the provinces.
Motassem, the first author of this dangerous example, introduced
into the capital above fifty thousand Turks: their licentious conduct
provoked the public indignation, and the quarrels of the soldiers and
people induced the caliph to retire from Bagdad, and establish his
own residence and the camp of his Barbarian favorites at Samara on
the Tigris, about twelve leagues above the city of Peace. [98] His son
Motawakkel was a jealous and cruel tyrant: odious to his subjects, he
cast himself on the fidelity of the strangers, and these strangers,
ambitious and apprehensive, were tempted by the rich promise of a
revolution. At the instigation, or at least in the cause of his son,
they burst into his apartment at the hour of supper, and the caliph
was cut into seven pieces by the same swords which he had recently
distributed among the guards of his life and throne. To this throne, yet
streaming with a father's blood, Montasser was triumphantly led; but in
a reign of six months, he found only the pangs of a guilty conscience.
If he wept at the sight of an old tapestry which represented the crime
and punishment of the son of Chosroes, if his days were abridged by
grief and remorse, we may allow some pity to a parricide, who exclaimed,
in the bitterness of death, that he had lost both this world and the
world to come. After this act of treason, the ensigns of royalty, the
garment and walking-staff of Mahomet, were given and torn away by the
foreign mercenaries, who in four years created, deposed, and murdered,
three commanders of the faithful. As often as the Turks were inflamed
by fear, or rage, or avarice, these caliphs were dragged by the
feet, exposed naked to the scorching sun, beaten with iron clubs, and
compelled to purchase, by the abdication of their dignity, a short
reprieve of inevitable fate. [99] At length, however, the fury of the
tempest was spent or diverted: the Abbassides returned to the less
turbulent residence of Bagdad; the insolence of the Turks was curbed
with a firmer and more skilful hand, and their numbers were divided
and destroyed in foreign warfare. But the nations of the East had been
taught to trample on the successors of the prophet; and the blessings
of domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and
discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism, that I
seem to repeat the story of the praetorians of Rome. [100]

[Footnote 97: M. de Guignes, who sometimes leaps, and sometimes
stumbles, in the gulf between Chinese and Mahometan story, thinks he
can see, that these Turks are the Hoei-ke, alias the Kao-tche, or
high-wagons; that they were divided into fifteen hordes, from China and
Siberia to the dominions of the caliphs and Samanides, &c., (Hist. des
Huns, tom. iii. p. 1-33, 124-131.)]

[Footnote 98: He changed the old name of Sumera, or Samara, into the
fanciful title of Sermen-rai, that which gives pleasure at first sight,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 808. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le
Tigre p. 97, 98.)]

[Footnote 99: Take a specimen, the death of the caliph Motaz: Correptum
pedibus pertrahunt, et sudibus probe permulcant, et spoliatum laceris
vestibus in sole collocant, prae cujus acerrimo aestu pedes alternos
attollebat et demittebat. Adstantium aliquis misero colaphos continuo
ingerebat, quos ille objectis manibus avertere studebat..... Quo facto
traditus tortori fuit, totoque triduo cibo potuque prohibitus.....
Suffocatus, &c. (Abulfeda, p. 206.) Of the caliph Mohtadi, he says,
services ipsi perpetuis ictibus contundebant, testiculosque pedibus
conculcabant, (p. 208.)]

[Footnote 100: See under the reigns of Motassem, Motawakkel, Montasser,
Mostain, Motaz, Mohtadi, and Motamed, in the Bibliotheque of D'Herbelot,
and the now familiar Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda.]

While the flame of enthusiasm was damped by the business, the pleasure,
and the knowledge, of the age, it burnt with concentrated heat in the
breasts of the chosen few, the congenial spirits, who were ambitious of
reigning either in this world or in the next. How carefully soever the
book of prophecy had been sealed by the apostle of Mecca, the wishes,
and (if we may profane the word) even the reason, of fanaticism might
believe that, after the successive missions of Adam, Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, the same God, in the fulness of time, would
reveal a still more perfect and permanent law. In the two hundred and
seventy-seventh year of the Hegira, and in the neighborhood of Cufa,
an Arabian preacher, of the name of Carmath, assumed the lofty and
incomprehensible style of the Guide, the Director, the Demonstration,
the Word, the Holy Ghost, the Camel, the Herald of the Messiah, who had
conversed with him in a human shape, and the representative of Mohammed
the son of Ali, of St. John the Baptist, and of the angel Gabriel. In
his mystic volume, the precepts of the Koran were refined to a more
spiritual sense: he relaxed the duties of ablution, fasting, and
pilgrimage; allowed the indiscriminate use of wine and forbidden food;
and nourished the fervor of his disciples by the daily repetition of
fifty prayers. The idleness and ferment of the rustic crowd awakened the
attention of the magistrates of Cufa; a timid persecution assisted
the progress of the new sect; and the name of the prophet became more
revered after his person had been withdrawn from the world. His twelve
apostles dispersed themselves among the Bedoweens, "a race of men," says
Abulfeda, "equally devoid of reason and of religion;" and the success
of their preaching seemed to threaten Arabia with a new revolution. The
Carmathians were ripe for rebellion, since they disclaimed the title
of the house of Abbas, and abhorred the worldly pomp of the caliphs of
Bagdad. They were susceptible of discipline, since they vowed a blind
and absolute submission to their Imam, who was called to the prophetic
office by the voice of God and the people. Instead of the legal tithes,
he claimed the fifth of their substance and spoil; the most flagitious
sins were no more than the type of disobedience; and the brethren were
united and concealed by an oath of secrecy. After a bloody conflict,
they prevailed in the province of Bahrein, along the Persian Gulf:
far and wide, the tribes of the desert were subject to the sceptre,
or rather to the sword of Abu Said and his son Abu Taher; and these
rebellious imams could muster in the field a hundred and seven thousand
fanatics. The mercenaries of the caliph were dismayed at the approach
of an enemy who neither asked nor accepted quarter; and the difference
between, them in fortitude and patience, is expressive of the change
which three centuries of prosperity had effected in the character of the
Arabians. Such troops were discomfited in every action; the cities of
Racca and Baalbec, of Cufa and Bassora, were taken and pillaged; Bagdad
was filled with consternation; and the caliph trembled behind the veils
of his palace. In a daring inroad beyond the Tigris, Abu Taher advanced
to the gates of the capital with no more than five hundred horse. By
the special order of Moctader, the bridges had been broken down, and the
person or head of the rebel was expected every hour by the commander of
the faithful. His lieutenant, from a motive of fear or pity, apprised
Abu Taher of his danger, and recommended a speedy escape. "Your master,"
said the intrepid Carmathian to the messenger, "is at the head of thirty
thousand soldiers: three such men as these are wanting in his host:" at
the same instant, turning to three of his companions, he commanded the
first to plunge a dagger into his breast, the second to leap into the
Tigris, and the third to cast himself headlong down a precipice. They
obeyed without a murmur.

"Relate," continued the imam, "what you have seen: before the evening
your general shall be chained among my dogs." Before the evening, the
camp was surprised, and the menace was executed. The rapine of the
Carmathians was sanctified by their aversion to the worship of Mecca:
they robbed a caravan of pilgrims, and twenty thousand devout Moslems
were abandoned on the burning sands to a death of hunger and thirst.
Another year they suffered the pilgrims to proceed without interruption;
but, in the festival of devotion, Abu Taher stormed the holy city, and
trampled on the most venerable relics of the Mahometan faith. Thirty
thousand citizens and strangers were put to the sword; the sacred
precincts were polluted by the burial of three thousand dead bodies; the
well of Zemzem overflowed with blood; the golden spout was forced
from its place; the veil of the Caaba was divided among these impious
sectaries; and the black stone, the first monument of the nation, was
borne away in triumph to their capital. After this deed of sacrilege
and cruelty, they continued to infest the confines of Irak, Syria, and
Egypt: but the vital principle of enthusiasm had withered at the root.
Their scruples, or their avarice, again opened the pilgrimage of Mecca,
and restored the black stone of the Caaba; and it is needless to inquire
into what factions they were broken, or by whose swords they were
finally extirpated. The sect of the Carmathians may be considered as
the second visible cause of the decline and fall of the empire of the
caliphs. [101]

[Footnote 101: For the sect of the Carmathians, consult Elmacin, (Hist.
Sara cen, p. 219, 224, 229, 231, 238, 241, 243,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast.
p. 179-182,) Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 218, 219, &c., 245, 265,
274.) and D'Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 256-258, 635.) I find
some inconsistencies of theology and chronology, which it would not be
easy nor of much importance to reconcile. * Note: Compare Von Hammer,
Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 44, &c.--M.]




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

The third and most obvious cause was the weight and magnitude of the
empire itself. The caliph Almamon might proudly assert, that it
was easier for him to rule the East and the West, than to manage a
chess-board of two feet square: [102] yet I suspect that in both those
games he was guilty of many fatal mistakes; and I perceive, that in the
distant provinces the authority of the first and most powerful of the
Abbassides was already impaired. The analogy of despotism invests the
representative with the full majesty of the prince; the division and
balance of powers might relax the habits of obedience, might encourage
the passive subject to inquire into the origin and administration of
civil government. He who is born in the purple is seldom worthy to
reign; but the elevation of a private man, of a peasant, perhaps, or
a slave, affords a strong presumption of his courage and capacity.
The viceroy of a remote kingdom aspires to secure the property and
inheritance of his precarious trust; the nations must rejoice in the
presence of their sovereign; and the command of armies and treasures
are at once the object and the instrument of his ambition. A change was
scarcely visible as long as the lieutenants of the caliph were content
with their vicarious title; while they solicited for themselves or their
sons a renewal of the Imperial grant, and still maintained on the coin
and in the public prayers the name and prerogative of the commander of
the faithful. But in the long and hereditary exercise of power, they
assumed the pride and attributes of royalty; the alternative of peace
or war, of reward or punishment, depended solely on their will; and the
revenues of their government were reserved for local services or
private magnificence. Instead of a regular supply of men and money, the
successors of the prophet were flattered with the ostentatious gift of
an elephant, or a cast of hawks, a suit of silk hangings, or some pounds
of musk and amber. [103]

[Footnote 102: Hyde, Syntagma Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 57, in Hist.
Shahiludii.]

[Footnote 103: The dynasties of the Arabian empire may be studied in the
Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda, under the proper years,
in the dictionary of D'Herbelot, under the proper names. The tables of
M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i.) exhibit a general chronology
of the East, interspersed with some historical anecdotes; but his
attachment to national blood has sometimes confounded the order of time
and place.]

After the revolt of Spain from the temporal and spiritual supremacy of
the Abbassides, the first symptoms of disobedience broke forth in the
province of Africa. Ibrahim, the son of Aglab, the lieutenant of the
vigilant and rigid Harun, bequeathed to the dynasty of the Aglabites
the inheritance of his name and power. The indolence or policy of the
caliphs dissembled the injury and loss, and pursued only with poison the
founder of the Edrisites, [104] who erected the kingdom and city of Fez
on the shores of the Western ocean. [105] In the East, the first dynasty
was that of the Taherites; [106] the posterity of the valiant Taher,
who, in the civil wars of the sons of Harun, had served with too much
zeal and success the cause of Almamon, the younger brother. He was
sent into honorable exile, to command on the banks of the Oxus; and the
independence of his successors, who reigned in Chorasan till the fourth
generation, was palliated by their modest and respectful demeanor, the
happiness of their subjects and the security of their frontier. They
were supplanted by one of those adventures so frequent in the annals
of the East, who left his trade of a brazier (from whence the name of
Soffarides) for the profession of a robber. In a nocturnal visit to the
treasure of the prince of Sistan, Jacob, the son of Leith, stumbled over
a lump of salt, which he unwarily tasted with his tongue. Salt, among
the Orientals, is the symbol of hospitality, and the pious robber
immediately retired without spoil or damage. The discovery of this
honorable behavior recommended Jacob to pardon and trust; he led an army
at first for his benefactor, at last for himself, subdued Persia, and
threatened the residence of the Abbassides. On his march towards Bagdad,
the conqueror was arrested by a fever. He gave audience in bed to the
ambassador of the caliph; and beside him on a table were exposed a naked
cimeter, a crust of brown bread, and a bunch of onions. "If I die,"
said he, "your master is delivered from his fears. If I live, this
must determine between us. If I am vanquished, I can return without
reluctance to the homely fare of my youth." From the height where he
stood, the descent would not have been so soft or harmless: a timely
death secured his own repose and that of the caliph, who paid with the
most lavish concessions the retreat of his brother Amrou to the palaces
of Shiraz and Ispahan. The Abbassides were too feeble to contend, too
proud to forgive: they invited the powerful dynasty of the Samanides,
who passed the Oxus with ten thousand horse so poor, that their stirrups
were of wood: so brave, that they vanquished the Soffarian army, eight
times more numerous than their own. The captive Amrou was sent in
chains, a grateful offering to the court of Bagdad; and as the victor
was content with the inheritance of Transoxiana and Chorasan, the realms
of Persia returned for a while to the allegiance of the caliphs. The
provinces of Syria and Egypt were twice dismembered by their Turkish
slaves of the race of Toulon and Ilkshid. [107] These Barbarians, in
religion and manners the countrymen of Mahomet, emerged from the bloody
factions of the palace to a provincial command and an independent
throne: their names became famous and formidable in their time; but the
founders of these two potent dynasties confessed, either in words or
actions, the vanity of ambition. The first on his death-bed implored the
mercy of God to a sinner, ignorant of the limits of his own power:
the second, in the midst of four hundred thousand soldiers and eight
thousand slaves, concealed from every human eye the chamber where he
attempted to sleep. Their sons were educated in the vices of kings;
and both Egypt and Syria were recovered and possessed by the Abbassides
during an interval of thirty years. In the decline of their empire,
Mesopotamia, with the important cities of Mosul and Aleppo, was occupied
by the Arabian princes of the tribe of Hamadan. The poets of their court
could repeat without a blush, that nature had formed their countenances
for beauty, their tongues for eloquence, and their hands for liberality
and valor: but the genuine tale of the elevation and reign of the
Hamadanites exhibits a scene of treachery, murder, and parricide.

At the same fatal period, the Persian kingdom was again usurped by
the dynasty of the Bowides, by the sword of three brothers, who, under
various names, were styled the support and columns of the state, and
who, from the Caspian Sea to the ocean, would suffer no tyrants but
themselves. Under their reign, the language and genius of Persia
revived, and the Arabs, three hundred and four years after the death of
Mahomet, were deprived of the sceptre of the East.

[Footnote 104: The Aglabites and Edrisites are the professed subject of
M. de Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne sous la Domination
des Arabes, tom. ii. p. 1-63.)]

[Footnote 105: To escape the reproach of error, I must criticize the
inaccuracies of M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 359) concerning the Edrisites.
1. The dynasty and city of Fez could not be founded in the year of the
Hegira 173, since the founder was a posthumous child of a descendant of
Ali, who fled from Mecca in the year 168. 2. This founder, Edris, the
son of Edris, instead of living to the improbable age of 120 years, A.
H. 313, died A. H. 214, in the prime of manhood. 3. The dynasty ended A.
H. 307, twenty-three years sooner than it is fixed by the historian of
the Huns. See the accurate Annals of Abulfeda p. 158, 159, 185, 238.]

[Footnote 106: The dynasties of the Taherites and Soffarides, with the
rise of that of the Samanines, are described in the original history and
Latin version of Mirchond: yet the most interesting facts had already
been drained by the diligence of M. D'Herbelot.]

[Footnote 107: M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 124-154) has
exhausted the Toulunides and Ikshidites of Egypt, and thrown some light
on the Carmathians and Hamadanites.]

Rahadi, the twentieth of the Abbassides, and the thirty-ninth of the
successors of Mahomet, was the last who deserved the title of commander
of the faithful; [108] the last (says Abulfeda) who spoke to the people,
or conversed with the learned; the last who, in the expense of his
household, represented the wealth and magnificence of the ancient
caliphs. After him, the lords of the Eastern world were reduced to the
most abject misery, and exposed to the blows and insults of a servile
condition. The revolt of the provinces circumscribed their dominions
within the walls of Bagdad: but that capital still contained an
innumerable multitude, vain of their past fortune, discontented with
their present state, and oppressed by the demands of a treasury which
had formerly been replenished by the spoil and tribute of nations. Their
idleness was exercised by faction and controversy. Under the mask of
piety, the rigid followers of Hanbal [109] invaded the pleasures of
domestic life, burst into the houses of plebeians and princes, the wine,
broke the instruments, beat the musicians, and dishonored, with infamous
suspicions, the associates of every handsome youth. In each profession,
which allowed room for two persons, the one was a votary, the other an
antagonist, of Ali; and the Abbassides were awakened by the clamorous
grief of the sectaries, who denied their title, and cursed their
progenitors. A turbulent people could only be repressed by a military
force; but who could satisfy the avarice or assert the discipline of the
mercenaries themselves? The African and the Turkish guards drew their
swords against each other, and the chief commanders, the emirs al Omra,
[110] imprisoned or deposed their sovereigns, and violated the sanctuary
of the mosch and harem. If the caliphs escaped to the camp or court of
any neighboring prince, their deliverance was a change of servitude,
till they were prompted by despair to invite the Bowides, the sultans of
Persia, who silenced the factions of Bagdad by their irresistible arms.
The civil and military powers were assumed by Moezaldowlat, the second
of the three brothers, and a stipend of sixty thousand pounds sterling
was assigned by his generosity for the private expense of the commander
of the faithful. But on the fortieth day, at the audience of the
ambassadors of Chorasan, and in the presence of a trembling multitude,
the caliph was dragged from his throne to a dungeon, by the command
of the stranger, and the rude hands of his Dilamites. His palace was
pillaged, his eyes were put out, and the mean ambition of the Abbassides
aspired to the vacant station of danger and disgrace. In the school
of adversity, the luxurious caliphs resumed the grave and abstemious
virtues of the primitive times. Despoiled of their armor and silken
robes, they fasted, they prayed, they studied the Koran and the
tradition of the Sonnites: they performed, with zeal and knowledge,
the functions of their ecclesiastical character. The respect of nations
still waited on the successors of the apostle, the oracles of the law
and conscience of the faithful; and the weakness or division of their
tyrants sometimes restored the Abbassides to the sovereignty of
Bagdad. But their misfortunes had been imbittered by the triumph of
the Fatimites, the real or spurious progeny of Ali. Arising from the
extremity of Africa, these successful rivals extinguished, in Egypt and
Syria, both the spiritual and temporal authority of the Abbassides; and
the monarch of the Nile insulted the humble pontiff on the banks of the
Tigris.

[Footnote 108: Hic est ultimus chalifah qui multum atque saepius pro
concione peroraret.... Fuit etiam ultimus qui otium cum eruditis et
facetis hominibus fallere hilariterque agere soleret. Ultimus tandem
chalifarum cui sumtus, stipendia, reditus, et thesauri, culinae,
caeteraque omnis aulica pompa priorum chalifarum ad instar comparata
fuerint. Videbimus enim paullo post quam indignis et servilibius
ludibriis exagitati, quam ad humilem fortunam altimumque contemptum
abjecti fuerint hi quondam potentissimi totius terrarum Orientalium
orbis domini. Abulfed. Annal. Moslem. p. 261. I have given this passage
as the manner and tone of Abulfeda, but the cast of Latin eloquence
belongs more properly to Reiske. The Arabian historian (p. 255, 257,
261-269, 283, &c.) has supplied me with the most interesting facts of
this paragraph.]

[Footnote 109: Their master, on a similar occasion, showed himself of a
more indulgent and tolerating spirit. Ahmed Ebn Hanbal, the head of one
of the four orthodox sects, was born at Bagdad A. H. 164, and died there
A. H. 241. He fought and suffered in the dispute concerning the creation
of the Koran.]

[Footnote 110: The office of vizier was superseded by the emir al Omra,
Imperator Imperatorum, a title first instituted by Radhi, and which
merged at length in the Bowides and Seljukides: vectigalibus, et
tributis, et curiis per omnes regiones praefecit, jussitque in omnibus
suggestis nominis ejus in concionibus mentionem fieri, (Abulpharagius,
Dynart. p 199.) It is likewise mentioned by Elmacin, (p. 254, 255.)]

In the declining age of the caliphs, in the century which elapsed after
the war of Theophilus and Motassem, the hostile transactions of the two
nations were confined to some inroads by sea and land, the fruits of
their close vicinity and indelible hatred. But when the Eastern world
was convulsed and broken, the Greeks were roused from their lethargy
by the hopes of conquest and revenge. The Byzantine empire, since the
accession of the Basilian race, had reposed in peace and dignity; and
they might encounter with their entire strength the front of some petty
emir, whose rear was assaulted and threatened by his national foes of
the Mahometan faith. The lofty titles of the morning star, and the
death of the Saracens, [111] were applied in the public acclamations to
Nicephorus Phocas, a prince as renowned in the camp, as he was unpopular
in the city. In the subordinate station of great domestic, or general
of the East, he reduced the Island of Crete, and extirpated the nest
of pirates who had so long defied, with impunity, the majesty of the
empire. [112] His military genius was displayed in the conduct and
success of the enterprise, which had so often failed with loss and
dishonor. The Saracens were confounded by the landing of his troops on
safe and level bridges, which he cast from the vessels to the shore.
Seven months were consumed in the siege of Candia; the despair of the
native Cretans was stimulated by the frequent aid of their brethren of
Africa and Spain; and after the massy wall and double ditch had been
stormed by the Greeks a hopeless conflict was still maintained in the
streets and houses of the city. [1121] The whole island was subdued in
the capital, and a submissive people accepted, without resistance,
the baptism of the conqueror. [113] Constantinople applauded the
long-forgotten pomp of a triumph; but the Imperial diadem was the
sole reward that could repay the services, or satisfy the ambition, of
Nicephorus.

[Footnote 111: Liutprand, whose choleric temper was imbittered by his
uneasy situation, suggests the names of reproach and contempt more
applicable to Nicephorus than the vain titles of the Greeks, Ecce venit
stella matutina, surgit Eous, reverberat obtutu solis radios, pallida
Saracenorum mors, Nicephorus.]

[Footnote 112: Notwithstanding the insinuation of Zonaras, &c., (tom.
ii. l. xvi. p. 197,) it is an undoubted fact, that Crete was completely
and finally subdued by Nicephorus Phocas, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p.
873-875. Meursius, Creta, l. iii. c. 7, tom. iii. p. 464, 465.)]

[Footnote 1121: The Acroases of Theodorus, de expugnatione Cretae,
miserable iambics, relate the whole campaign. Whoever would fairly
estimate the merit of the poetic deacon, may read the description of the
slinging a jackass into the famishing city. The poet is in a transport
at the wit of the general, and revels in the luxury of antithesis.
Theodori Acroases, lib. iii. 172, in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist.--M.]

[Footnote 113: A Greek Life of St. Nicon the Armenian was found in the
Sforza library, and translated into Latin by the Jesuit Sirmond, for the
use of Cardinal Baronius. This contemporary legend casts a ray of
light on Crete and Peloponnesus in the 10th century. He found the
newly-recovered island, foedis detestandae Agarenorum superstitionis
vestigiis adhuc plenam ac refertam.... but the victorious missionary,
perhaps with some carnal aid, ad baptismum omnes veraeque fidei
disciplinam pepulit. Ecclesiis per totam insulam aedificatis, &c.,
(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 961.)]

After the death of the younger Romanus, the fourth in lineal descent of
the Basilian race, his widow Theophania successively married Nicephorus
Phocas and his assassin John Zimisces, the two heroes of the age. They
reigned as the guardians and colleagues of her infant sons; and the
twelve years of their military command form the most splendid period of
the Byzantine annals. The subjects and confederates, whom they led to
war, appeared, at least in the eyes of an enemy, two hundred thousand
strong; and of these about thirty thousand were armed with cuirasses:
[114] a train of four thousand mules attended their march; and their
evening camp was regularly fortified with an enclosure of iron spikes.
A series of bloody and undecisive combats is nothing more than an
anticipation of what would have been effected in a few years by the
course of nature; but I shall briefly prosecute the conquests of the
two emperors from the hills of Cappadocia to the desert of Bagdad. The
sieges of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, in Cilicia, first exercised the skill
and perseverance of their troops, on whom, at this moment, I shall not
hesitate to bestow the name of Romans. In the double city of Mopsuestia,
which is divided by the River Sarus, two hundred thousand Moslems
were predestined to death or slavery, [115] a surprising degree of
population, which must at least include the inhabitants of the dependent
districts. They were surrounded and taken by assault; but Tarsus was
reduced by the slow progress of famine; and no sooner had the Saracens
yielded on honorable terms than they were mortified by the distant and
unprofitable view of the naval succors of Egypt. They were dismissed
with a safe-conduct to the confines of Syria: a part of the old
Christians had quietly lived under their dominion; and the vacant
habitations were replenished by a new colony. But the mosch was
converted into a stable; the pulpit was delivered to the flames; many
rich crosses of gold and gems, the spoils of Asiatic churches, were
made a grateful offering to the piety or avarice of the emperor; and he
transported the gates of Mopsuestia and Tarsus, which were fixed in the
walls of Constantinople, an eternal monument of his victory. After they
had forced and secured the narrow passes of Mount Amanus, the two Roman
princes repeatedly carried their arms into the heart of Syria. Yet,
instead of assaulting the walls of Antioch, the humanity or superstition
of Nicephorus appeared to respect the ancient metropolis of the East: he
contented himself with drawing round the city a line of circumvallation;
left a stationary army; and instructed his lieutenant to expect, without
impatience, the return of spring. But in the depth of winter, in a dark
and rainy night, an adventurous subaltern, with three hundred soldiers,
approached the rampart, applied his scaling-ladders, occupied two
adjacent towers, stood firm against the pressure of multitudes, and
bravely maintained his post till he was relieved by the tardy, though
effectual, support of his reluctant chief. The first tumult of slaughter
and rapine subsided; the reign of Caesar and of Christ was restored; and
the efforts of a hundred thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria and
the fleets of Africa, were consumed without effect before the walls of
Antioch. The royal city of Aleppo was subject to Seifeddowlat, of
the dynasty of Hamadan, who clouded his past glory by the precipitate
retreat which abandoned his kingdom and capital to the Roman invaders.
In his stately palace, that stood without the walls of Aleppo, they
joyfully seized a well-furnished magazine of arms, a stable of fourteen
hundred mules, and three hundred bags of silver and gold. But the walls
of the city withstood the strokes of their battering-rams: and the
besiegers pitched their tents on the neighboring mountain of Jaushan.
Their retreat exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen and mercenaries;
the guard of the gates and ramparts was deserted; and while they
furiously charged each other in the market-place, they were surprised
and destroyed by the sword of a common enemy. The male sex was
exterminated by the sword; ten thousand youths were led into captivity;
the weight of the precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of
the beasts of burden; the superfluous remainder was burnt; and, after
a licentious possession of ten days, the Romans marched away from the
naked and bleeding city. In their Syrian inroads they commanded the
husbandmen to cultivate their lands, that they themselves, in the
ensuing season, might reap the benefit; more than a hundred cities were
reduced to obedience; and eighteen pulpits of the principal moschs were
committed to the flames to expiate the sacrilege of the disciples of
Mahomet. The classic names of Hierapolis, Apamea, and Emesa, revive for
a moment in the list of conquest: the emperor Zimisces encamped in the
paradise of Damascus, and accepted the ransom of a submissive people;
and the torrent was only stopped by the impregnable fortress of
Tripoli, on the sea-coast of Phoenicia. Since the days of Heraclius, the
Euphrates, below the passage of Mount Taurus, had been impervious, and
almost invisible, to the Greeks.

The river yielded a free passage to the victorious Zimisces; and the
historian may imitate the speed with which he overran the once famous
cities of Samosata, Edessa, Martyropolis, Amida, [116] and Nisibis, the
ancient limit of the empire in the neighborhood of the Tigris. His
ardor was quickened by the desire of grasping the virgin treasures of
Ecbatana, [117] a well-known name, under which the Byzantine writer
has concealed the capital of the Abbassides. The consternation of the
fugitives had already diffused the terror of his name; but the fancied
riches of Bagdad had already been dissipated by the avarice and
prodigality of domestic tyrants. The prayers of the people, and the
stern demands of the lieutenant of the Bowides, required the caliph to
provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied, that
his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn from his hands,
and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which he was unable to
support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture of the palace was sold;
and the paltry price of forty thousand pieces of gold was instantly
consumed in private luxury. But the apprehensions of Bagdad were
relieved by the retreat of the Greeks: thirst and hunger guarded the
desert of Mesopotamia; and the emperor, satiated with glory, and laden
with Oriental spoils, returned to Constantinople, and displayed, in his
triumph, the silk, the aromatics, and three hundred myriads of gold and
silver. Yet the powers of the East had been bent, not broken, by this
transient hurricane. After the departure of the Greeks, the fugitive
princes returned to their capitals; the subjects disclaimed their
involuntary oaths of allegiance; the Moslems again purified their
temples, and overturned the idols of the saints and martyrs; the
Nestorians and Jacobites preferred a Saracen to an orthodox master; and
the numbers and spirit of the Melchites were inadequate to the support
of the church and state.

Of these extensive conquests, Antioch, with the cities of Cilicia and
the Isle of Cyprus, was alone restored, a permanent and useful accession
to the Roman empire. [118]

[Footnote 114: Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 278, 279. Liutprand was
disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that Nicephorus led
against Assyria an army of eighty thousand men.]

[Footnote 115: Ducenta fere millia hominum numerabat urbs (Abulfeda,
Annal. Moslem. p. 231) of Mopsuestia, or Masifa, Mampsysta, Mansista,
Mamista, as it is corruptly, or perhaps more correctly, styled in the
middle ages, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 580.) Yet I cannot credit this
extreme populousness a few years after the testimony of the emperor Leo,
(Tactica, c. xviii. in Meursii Oper. tom. vi. p. 817.)]

[Footnote 116: The text of Leo the deacon, in the corrupt names of
Emeta and Myctarsim, reveals the cities of Amida and Martyropolis, (Mia
farekin. See Abulfeda, Geograph. p. 245, vers. Reiske.) Of the former,
Leo observes, urbus munita et illustris; of the latter, clara atque
conspicua opibusque et pecore, reliquis ejus provinciis urbibus atque
oppidis longe praestans.]

[Footnote 117: Ut et Ecbatana pergeret Agarenorumque regiam
everteret.... aiunt enim urbium quae usquam sunt ac toto orbe existunt
felicissimam esse auroque ditissimam, (Leo Diacon. apud Pagium, tom.
iv. p. 34.) This splendid description suits only with Bagdad, and cannot
possibly apply either to Hamadan, the true Ecbatana, (D'Anville, Geog.
Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 237,) or Tauris, which has been commonly mistaken
for that city. The name of Ecbatana, in the same indefinite sense, is
transferred by a more classic authority (Cicero pro Lego Manilia, c. 4)
to the royal seat of Mithridates, king of Pontus.]

[Footnote 118: See the Annals of Elmacin, Abulpharagius, and Abulfeda,
from A. H. 351 to A. H. 361; and the reigns of Nicephorus Phocas and
John Zimisces, in the Chronicles of Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 199--l.
xvii. 215) and Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 649-684.) Their manifold defects
are partly supplied by the Ms. history of Leo the deacon, which Pagi
obtained from the Benedictines, and has inserted almost entire, in a
Latin version, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 873, tom. iv. 37.) * Note: The
whole original work of Leo the Deacon has been published by Hase, and
is inserted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians. M Lassen
has added to the Arabian authorities of this period some extracts from
Kemaleddin's account of the treaty for the surrender of Aleppo.--M.]




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

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

A ray of historic light seems to beam from the darkness of the tenth
century. We open with curiosity and respect the royal volumes of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, [1] which he composed at a mature age for
the instruction of his son, and which promise to unfold the state of the
eastern empire, both in peace and war, both at home and abroad. In the
first of these works he minutely describes the pompous ceremonies of the
church and palace of Constantinople, according to his own practice, and
that of his predecessors. [2] In the second, he attempts an accurate
survey of the provinces, the themes, as they were then denominated, both
of Europe and Asia. [3] The system of Roman tactics, the discipline and
order of the troops, and the military operations by land and sea, are
explained in the third of these didactic collections, which may be
ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo. [4] In the fourth, of the
administration of the empire, he reveals the secrets of the Byzantine
policy, in friendly or hostile intercourse with the nations of the
earth. The literary labors of the age, the practical systems of law,
agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject
and the honor of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the
Basilics, [5] the code and pandects of civil jurisprudence, were
gradually framed in the three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty.
The art of agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens,
of the best and wisest of the ancients; and their chosen precepts are
comprised in the twenty books of the Geoponics [6] of Constantine. At
his command, the historical examples of vice and virtue were methodized
in fifty-three books, [7] and every citizen might apply, to his
contemporaries or himself, the lesson or the warning of past times. From
the august character of a legislator, the sovereign of the East
descends to the more humble office of a teacher and a scribe; and if his
successors and subjects were regardless of his paternal cares, we may
inherit and enjoy the everlasting legacy.

[Footnote 1: The epithet of Porphyrogenitus, born in the purple, is
elegantly defined by Claudian:--

     Ardua privatos nescit fortuna Penates;
     Et regnum cum luce dedit.
     Cognata potestas
     Excepit Tyrio venerabile pignus in ostro.

And Ducange, in his Greek and Latin Glossaries, produces many passages
expressive of the same idea.]

[Footnote 2: A splendid Ms. of Constantine, de Caeremoniis Aulae et
Ecclesiae Byzantinae, wandered from Constantinople to Buda, Frankfort,
and Leipsic, where it was published in a splendid edition by Leich and
Reiske, (A.D. 1751, in folio,) with such lavish praise as editors never
fail to bestow on the worthy or worthless object of their toil.]

[Footnote 3: See, in the first volume of Banduri's Imperium Orientale,
Constantinus de Thematibus, p. 1-24, de Administrando Imperio, p.
45-127, edit. Venet. The text of the old edition of Meursius is
corrected from a Ms. of the royal library of Paris, which Isaac Casaubon
had formerly seen, (Epist. ad Polybium, p. 10,) and the sense is
illustrated by two maps of William Deslisle, the prince of geographers
till the appearance of the greater D'Anville.]

[Footnote 4: The Tactics of Leo and Constantine are published with the
aid of some new Mss. in the great edition of the works of Meursius,
by the learned John Lami, (tom. vi. p. 531-920, 1211-1417, Florent.
1745,) yet the text is still corrupt and mutilated, the version is still
obscure and faulty. The Imperial library of Vienna would afford some
valuable materials to a new editor, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p.
369, 370.)]

[Footnote 5: On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Graec. tom. xii. p. 425-514,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Romani,
p. 396-399,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p.
450-458,) as historical civilians, may be usefully consulted: xli.
books of this Greek code have been published, with a Latin version, by
Charles Annibal Frabrottus, (Paris, 1647,) in seven tomes in folio;
iv. other books have been since discovered, and are inserted in Gerard
Meerman's Novus Thesaurus Juris Civ. et Canon. tom. v. Of the whole
work, the sixty books, John Leunclavius has printed, (Basil, 1575,)
an eclogue or synopsis. The cxiii. novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be
found in the Corpus Juris Civilis.]

[Footnote 6: I have used the last and best edition of the Geoponics,
(by Nicolas Niclas, Leipsic, 1781, 2 vols. in octavo.) I read in the
preface, that the same emperor restored the long-forgotten systems
of rhetoric and philosophy; and his two books of Hippiatrica, or
Horse-physic, were published at Paris, 1530, in folio, (Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. vi. p. 493-500.)]

[Footnote 7: Of these LIII. books, or titles, only two have been
preserved and printed, de Legationibus (by Fulvius Ursinus, Antwerp,
1582, and Daniel Hoeschelius, August. Vindel. 1603) and de Virtutibus et
Vitiis, (by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris, 1634.)]

A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the
gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these Imperial treasures we
may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the fading glories
of their authors will be obliterated by indifference or contempt. The
Basilics will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version, in
the Greek language, of the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the
old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry: and the
absolute prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money,
enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the
historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable
virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a pitch of energy
and elevation the human character had formerly aspired. But a contrary
effect must have been produced by a new edition of the lives of the
saints, which the great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, was
directed to prepare; and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by
the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the Metaphrast. [8] The merits
and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a
sage, than the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies the gifts
of the Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal
authors of the Geoponics were more seriously employed in expounding the
precepts of the destroying art, which had been taught since the days of
Xenophon, [9] as the art of heroes and kings. But the Tactics of Leo and
Constantine are mingled with the baser alloy of the age in which they
lived. It was destitute of original genius; they implicitly transcribe
the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was
unskilled in the propriety of style and method; they blindly confound
the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta
and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and
Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these military
rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory is dictated
by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty, consists in the
application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise rather
than by study: the talents of a commander are appropriated to those
calm, though rapid, minds, which nature produces to decide the fate of
armies and nations: the former is the habit of a life, the latter the
glance of a moment; and the battles won by lessons of tactics may be
numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism.
The book of ceremonies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the
despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state since the
gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of the other.
A review of the themes or provinces might promise such authentic and
useful information, as the curiosity of government only can obtain,
instead of traditionary fables on the origin of the cities, and
malicious epigrams on the vices of their inhabitants. [10] Such
information the historian would have been pleased to record; nor should
his silence be condemned if the most interesting objects, the population
of the capital and provinces, the amount of the taxes and revenues,
the numbers of subjects and strangers who served under the Imperial
standard, have been unnoticed by Leo the philosopher, and his son
Constantine. His treatise of the public administration is stained with
the same blemishes; yet it is discriminated by peculiar merit; the
antiquities of the nations may be doubtful or fabulous; but the
geography and manners of the Barbaric world are delineated with curious
accuracy. Of these nations, the Franks alone were qualified to observe
in their turn, and to describe, the metropolis of the East. The
ambassador of the great Otho, a bishop of Cremona, has painted the state
of Constantinople about the middle of the tenth century: his style
is glowing, his narrative lively, his observation keen; and even the
prejudices and passions of Liutprand are stamped with an original
character of freedom and genius. [11] From this scanty fund of foreign
and domestic materials, I shall investigate the form and substance of
the Byzantine empire; the provinces and wealth, the civil government and
military force, the character and literature, of the Greeks in a period
of six hundred years, from the reign of Heraclius to his successful
invasion of the Franks or Latins.

[Footnote 8: The life and writings of Simon Metaphrastes are described
by Hankius, (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 418-460.) This biographer
of the saints indulged himself in a loose paraphrase of the sense or
nonsense of more ancient acts. His Greek rhetoric is again paraphrased
in the Latin version of Surius, and scarcely a thread can be now visible
of the original texture.]

[Footnote 9: According to the first book of the Cyropaedia, professors
of tactics, a small part of the science of war, were already instituted
in Persia, by which Greece must be understood. A good edition of all the
Scriptores Tactici would be a task not unworthy of a scholar. His
industry might discover some new Mss., and his learning might illustrate
the military history of the ancients. But this scholar should be
likewise a soldier; and alas! Quintus Icilius is no more. * Note: M.
Guichardt, author of Memoires Militaires sur les Grecs et sur les
Romains. See Gibbon's Extraits Raisonnees de mes Lectures, Misc. Works
vol. v. p. 219.--M]

[Footnote 10: After observing that the demerit of the Cappadocians
rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he inserts a more pointed
epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus. The sting is precisely the same
with the French epigram against Freron: Un serpent mordit Jean
Freron--Eh bien? Le serpent en mourut. But as the Paris wits are seldom
read in the Anthology, I should be curious to learn, through what
channel it was conveyed for their imitation, (Constantin. Porphyrogen.
de Themat. c. ii. Brunck Analect. Graec. tom. ii. p. 56. Brodaei
Anthologia, l. ii. p. 244.)]

[Footnote 11: The Legatio Liutprandi Episcopi Cremonensis ad Nicephorum
Phocam is inserted in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii.
pars i.]

After the final division between the sons of Theodosius, the swarms
of Barbarians from Scythia and Germany over-spread the provinces and
extinguished the empire of ancient Rome. The weakness of Constantinople
was concealed by extent of dominion: her limits were inviolate, or at
least entire; and the kingdom of Justinian was enlarged by the splendid
acquisition of Africa and Italy. But the possession of these new
conquests was transient and precarious; and almost a moiety of the
Eastern empire was torn away by the arms of the Saracens. Syria and
Egypt were oppressed by the Arabian caliphs; and, after the reduction of
Africa, their lieutenants invaded and subdued the Roman province which
had been changed into the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The islands of the
Mediterranean were not inaccessible to their naval powers; and it was
from their extreme stations, the harbors of Crete and the fortresses of
Cilicia, that the faithful or rebel emirs insulted the majesty of the
throne and capital. The remaining provinces, under the obedience of
the emperors, were cast into a new mould; and the jurisdiction of
the presidents, the consulars, and the counts were superseded by the
institution of the themes, [12] or military governments, which prevailed
under the successors of Heraclius, and are described by the pen of the
royal author. Of the twenty-nine themes, twelve in Europe and seventeen
in Asia, the origin is obscure, the etymology doubtful or capricious:
the limits were arbitrary and fluctuating; but some particular names,
that sound the most strangely to our ear, were derived from the
character and attributes of the troops that were maintained at the
expense, and for the guard, of the respective divisions. The vanity of
the Greek princes most eagerly grasped the shadow of conquest and the
memory of lost dominion. A new Mesopotamia was created on the western
side of the Euphrates: the appellation and praetor of Sicily were
transferred to a narrow slip of Calabria; and a fragment of the duchy of
Beneventum was promoted to the style and title of the theme of Lombardy.
In the decline of the Arabian empire, the successors of Constantine
might indulge their pride in more solid advantages. The victories of
Nicephorus, John Zimisces, and Basil the Second, revived the fame, and
enlarged the boundaries, of the Roman name: the province of Cilicia, the
metropolis of Antioch, the islands of Crete and Cyprus, were restored to
the allegiance of Christ and Caesar: one third of Italy was annexed to
the throne of Constantinople: the kingdom of Bulgaria was destroyed; and
the last sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty extended their sway from
the sources of the Tigris to the neighborhood of Rome. In the eleventh
century, the prospect was again clouded by new enemies and new
misfortunes: the relics of Italy were swept away by the Norman
adventures; and almost all the Asiatic branches were dissevered from the
Roman trunk by the Turkish conquerors. After these losses, the
emperors of the Comnenian family continued to reign from the Danube
to Peloponnesus, and from Belgrade to Nice, Trebizond, and the winding
stream of the Meander. The spacious provinces of Thrace, Macedonia,
and Greece, were obedient to their sceptre; the possession of Cyprus,
Rhodes, and Crete, was accompanied by the fifty islands of the Aegean or
Holy Sea; [13] and the remnant of their empire transcends the measure of
the largest of the European kingdoms.

[Footnote 12: See Constantine de Thematibus, in Banduri, tom. i. p.
1-30. It is used by Maurice (Strata gem. l. ii. c. 2) for a legion,
from whence the name was easily transferred to its post or province,
(Ducange, Gloss. Graec. tom. i. p. 487-488.) Some etymologies are
attempted for the Opiscian, Optimatian, Thracesian, themes.]

[Footnote 13: It is styled by the modern Greeks, from which the corrupt
names of Archipelago, l'Archipel, and the Arches, have been transformed
by geographers and seamen, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
281. Analyse de la Carte de la Greece, p. 60.) The numbers of monks
or caloyers in all the islands and the adjacent mountain of Athos,
(Observations de Belon, fol. 32, verso,) monte santo, might justify the
epithet of holy, a slight alteration from the original, imposed by the
Dorians, who, in their dialect, gave the figurative name of goats, to
the bounding waves, (Vossius, apud Cellarium, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i.
p. 829.)]

The same princes might assert, with dignity and truth, that of all the
monarchs of Christendom they possessed the greatest city, [14] the most
ample revenue, the most flourishing and populous state. With the decline
and fall of the empire, the cities of the West had decayed and fallen;
nor could the ruins of Rome, or the mud walls, wooden hovels, and narrow
precincts of Paris and London, prepare the Latin stranger to contemplate
the situation and extent of Constantinople, her stately palaces
and churches, and the arts and luxury of an innumerable people. Her
treasures might attract, but her virgin strength had repelled, and still
promised to repel, the audacious invasion of the Persian and Bulgarian,
the Arab and the Russian. The provinces were less fortunate and
impregnable; and few districts, few cities, could be discovered which
had not been violated by some fierce Barbarian, impatient to despoil,
because he was hopeless to possess. From the age of Justinian the
Eastern empire was sinking below its former level; the powers of
destruction were more active than those of improvement; and the
calamities of war were imbittered by the more permanent evils of
civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. The captive who had escaped from the
Barbarians was often stripped and imprisoned by the ministers of his
sovereign: the Greek superstition relaxed the mind by prayer, and
emaciated the body by fasting; and the multitude of convents and
festivals diverted many hands and many days from the temporal service
of mankind. Yet the subjects of the Byzantine empire were still the most
dexterous and diligent of nations; their country was blessed by nature
with every advantage of soil, climate, and situation; and, in the
support and restoration of the arts, their patient and peaceful temper
was more useful than the warlike spirit and feudal anarchy of Europe.
The provinces that still adhered to the empire were repeopled and
enriched by the misfortunes of those which were irrecoverably lost.
From the yoke of the caliphs, the Catholics of Syria, Egypt, and Africa
retired to the allegiance of their prince, to the society of their
brethren: the movable wealth, which eludes the search of oppression,
accompanied and alleviated their exile, and Constantinople received
into her bosom the fugitive trade of Alexandria and Tyre. The chiefs
of Armenia and Scythia, who fled from hostile or religious persecution,
were hospitably entertained: their followers were encouraged to build
new cities and to cultivate waste lands; and many spots, both in Europe
and Asia, preserved the name, the manners, or at least the memory, of
these national colonies. Even the tribes of Barbarians, who had seated
themselves in arms on the territory of the empire, were gradually
reclaimed to the laws of the church and state; and as long as they were
separated from the Greeks, their posterity supplied a race of faithful
and obedient soldiers. Did we possess sufficient materials to survey
the twenty-nine themes of the Byzantine monarchy, our curiosity might
be satisfied with a chosen example: it is fortunate enough that the
clearest light should be thrown on the most interesting province,
and the name of Peloponnesus will awaken the attention of the classic
reader.

[Footnote 14: According to the Jewish traveller who had visited Europe
and Asia, Constantinople was equalled only by Bagdad, the great city of
the Ismaelites, (Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, par Baratier, tom. l. c.
v. p. 46.)]

As early as the eighth century, in the troubled reign of the
Iconoclasts, Greece, and even Peloponnesus, [15] were overrun by some
Sclavonian bands who outstripped the royal standard of Bulgaria. The
strangers of old, Cadmus, and Danaus, and Pelops, had planted in that
fruitful soil the seeds of policy and learning; but the savages of the
north eradicated what yet remained of their sickly and withered roots.
In this irruption, the country and the inhabitants were transformed; the
Grecian blood was contaminated; and the proudest nobles of Peloponnesus
were branded with the names of foreigners and slaves. By the diligence
of succeeding princes, the land was in some measure purified from the
Barbarians; and the humble remnant was bound by an oath of obedience,
tribute, and military service, which they often renewed and often
violated. The siege of Patras was formed by a singular concurrence of
the Sclavonians of Peloponnesus and the Saracens of Africa. In their
last distress, a pious fiction of the approach of the praetor of
Corinth revived the courage of the citizens. Their sally was bold and
successful; the strangers embarked, the rebels submitted, and the glory
of the day was ascribed to a phantom or a stranger, who fought in the
foremost ranks under the character of St. Andrew the Apostle. The shrine
which contained his relics was decorated with the trophies of victory,
and the captive race was forever devoted to the service and vassalage
of the metropolitan church of Patras. By the revolt of two Sclavonian
tribes, in the neighborhood of Helos and Lacedaemon, the peace of the
peninsula was often disturbed. They sometimes insulted the weakness, and
sometimes resisted the oppression, of the Byzantine government, till at
length the approach of their hostile brethren extorted a golden bull
to define the rites and obligations of the Ezzerites and Milengi, whose
annual tribute was defined at twelve hundred pieces of gold. From
these strangers the Imperial geographer has accurately distinguished a
domestic, and perhaps original, race, who, in some degree, might derive
their blood from the much-injured Helots. The liberality of the Romans,
and especially of Augustus, had enfranchised the maritime cities from
the dominion of Sparta; and the continuance of the same benefit ennobled
them with the title of Eleuthero, or Free-Laconians. [16] In the time
of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, they had acquired the name of Mainotes,
under which they dishonor the claim of liberty by the inhuman pillage of
all that is shipwrecked on their rocky shores. Their territory, barren
of corn, but fruitful of olives, extended to the Cape of Malea: they
accepted a chief or prince from the Byzantine praetor, and a light
tribute of four hundred pieces of gold was the badge of their immunity,
rather than of their dependence. The freemen of Laconia assumed the
character of Romans, and long adhered to the religion of the Greeks.
By the zeal of the emperor Basil, they were baptized in the faith of
Christ: but the altars of Venus and Neptune had been crowned by these
rustic votaries five hundred years after they were proscribed in the
Roman world. In the theme of Peloponnesus, [17] forty cities were still
numbered, and the declining state of Sparta, Argos, and Corinth, may be
suspended in the tenth century, at an equal distance, perhaps, between
their antique splendor and their present desolation. The duty of
military service, either in person or by substitute, was imposed on the
lands or benefices of the province; a sum of five pieces of gold was
assessed on each of the substantial tenants; and the same capitation was
shared among several heads of inferior value. On the proclamation of
an Italian war, the Peloponnesians excused themselves by a voluntary
oblation of one hundred pounds of gold, (four thousand pounds sterling,)
and a thousand horses with their arms and trappings. The churches
and monasteries furnished their contingent; a sacrilegious profit was
extorted from the sale of ecclesiastical honors; and the indigent bishop
of Leucadia [18] was made responsible for a pension of one hundred
pieces of gold. [19]

[Footnote 15: Says Constantine, (Thematibus, l. ii. c. vi. p. 25,) in
a style as barbarous as the idea, which he confirms, as usual, by a
foolish epigram. The epitomizer of Strabo likewise observes, (l. vii. p.
98, edit. Hudson. edit. Casaub. 1251;) a passage which leads Dodwell
a weary dance (Geograph, Minor. tom. ii. dissert. vi. p. 170-191) to
enumerate the inroads of the Sclavi, and to fix the date (A.D. 980) of
this petty geographer.]

[Footnote 16: Strabon. Geograph. l. viii. p. 562. Pausanius, Graec.
Descriptio, l. c 21, p. 264, 265. Pliny, Hist. Natur. l. iv. c. 8.]

[Footnote 17: Constantin. de Administrando Imperio, l. ii. c. 50, 51,
52.]

[Footnote 18: The rock of Leucate was the southern promontory of his
island and diocese. Had he been the exclusive guardian of the Lover's
Leap so well known to the readers of Ovid (Epist. Sappho) and the
Spectator, he might have been the richest prelate of the Greek church.]

[Footnote 19: Leucatensis mihi juravit episcopus, quotannis ecclesiam
suam debere Nicephoro aureos centum persolvere, similiter et ceteras
plus minusve secundum vires suos, (Liutprand in Legat. p. 489.)]

But the wealth of the province, and the trust of the revenue, were
founded on the fair and plentiful produce of trade and manufacturers;
and some symptoms of liberal policy may be traced in a law which exempts
from all personal taxes the mariners of Peloponnesus, and the workmen
in parchment and purple. This denomination may be fairly applied or
extended to the manufacturers of linen, woollen, and more especially of
silk: the two former of which had flourished in Greece since the days
of Homer; and the last was introduced perhaps as early as the reign
of Justinian. These arts, which were exercised at Corinth, Thebes,
and Argos, afforded food and occupation to a numerous people: the
men, women, and children were distributed according to their age and
strength; and, if many of these were domestic slaves, their masters, who
directed the work and enjoyed the profit, were of a free and honorable
condition. The gifts which a rich and generous matron of Peloponnesus
presented to the emperor Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless
fabricated in the Grecian looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine
wool, of a pattern which imitated the spots of a peacock's tail, of a
magnitude to overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple
name of Christ, of Michael the archangel, and of the prophet Elijah.
She gave six hundred pieces of silk and linen, of various use and
denomination: the silk was painted with the Tyrian dye, and adorned by
the labors of the needle; and the linen was so exquisitely fine, that
an entire piece might be rolled in the hollow of a cane. [20] In
his description of the Greek manufactures, an historian of Sicily
discriminates their price, according to the weight and quality of the
silk, the closeness of the texture, the beauty of the colors, and the
taste and materials of the embroidery. A single, or even a double or
treble thread was thought sufficient for ordinary sale; but the union
of six threads composed a piece of stronger and more costly workmanship.
Among the colors, he celebrates, with affectation of eloquence, the
fiery blaze of the scarlet, and the softer lustre of the green. The
embroidery was raised either in silk or gold: the more simple ornament
of stripes or circles was surpassed by the nicer imitation of flowers:
the vestments that were fabricated for the palace or the altar often
glittered with precious stones; and the figures were delineated in
strings of Oriental pearls. [21] Till the twelfth century, Greece alone,
of all the countries of Christendom, was possessed of the insect who
is taught by nature, and of the workmen who are instructed by art,
to prepare this elegant luxury. But the secret had been stolen by the
dexterity and diligence of the Arabs: the caliphs of the East and West
scorned to borrow from the unbelievers their furniture and apparel;
and two cities of Spain, Almeria and Lisbon, were famous for the
manufacture, the use, and, perhaps, the exportation, of silk. It was
first introduced into Sicily by the Normans; and this emigration of
trade distinguishes the victory of Roger from the uniform and fruitless
hostilities of every age. After the sack of Corinth, Athens, and Thebes,
his lieutenant embarked with a captive train of weavers and artificers
of both sexes, a trophy glorious to their master, and disgraceful to the
Greek emperor. [22] The king of Sicily was not insensible of the value
of the present; and, in the restitution of the prisoners, he excepted
only the male and female manufacturers of Thebes and Corinth, who labor,
says the Byzantine historian, under a barbarous lord, like the old
Eretrians in the service of Darius. [23] A stately edifice, in the
palace of Palermo, was erected for the use of this industrious colony;
[24] and the art was propagated by their children and disciples to
satisfy the increasing demand of the western world. The decay of the
looms of Sicily may be ascribed to the troubles of the island, and the
competition of the Italian cities. In the year thirteen hundred and
fourteen, Lucca alone, among her sister republics, enjoyed the lucrative
monopoly. [25] A domestic revolution dispersed the manufacturers to
Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and even the countries beyond the
Alps; and thirteen years after this event the statutes of Modena enjoin
the planting of mulberry-trees, and regulate the duties on raw silk.
[26] The northern climates are less propitious to the education of the
silkworm; but the industry of France and England [27] is supplied and
enriched by the productions of Italy and China.

[Footnote 20: See Constantine, (in Vit. Basil. c. 74, 75, 76, p.
195, 197, in Script. post Theophanem,) who allows himself to use many
technical or barbarous words: barbarous, says he. Ducange labors on
some: but he was not a weaver.]

[Footnote 21: The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described by Hugo
Falcandus, (Hist. Sicula in proem. in Muratori Script. Rerum Italicarum,
tom. v. p. 256,) is a copy of those of Greece. Without transcribing
his declamatory sentences, which I have softened in the text, I shall
observe, that in this passage the strange word exarentasmata is very
properly changed for exanthemata by Carisius, the first editor Falcandus
lived about the year 1190.]

[Footnote 22: Inde ad interiora Graeciae progressi, Corinthum, Thebas,
Athenas, antiqua nobilitate celebres, expugnant; et, maxima ibidem
praeda direpta, opifices etiam, qui sericos pannos texere solent,
ob ignominiam Imperatoris illius, suique principis gloriam, captivos
deducunt. Quos Rogerius, in Palermo Siciliae, metropoli collocans, artem
texendi suos edocere praecepit; et exhinc praedicta ars illa, prius a
Graecis tantum inter Christianos habita, Romanis patere coepit ingeniis,
(Otho Frisingen. de Gestis Frederici I. l. i. c. 33, in Muratori Script.
Ital. tom. vi. p. 668.) This exception allows the bishop to celebrate
Lisbon and Almeria in sericorum pannorum opificio praenobilissimae, (in
Chron. apud Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 415.)]

[Footnote 23: Nicetas in Manuel, l. ii. c. 8. p. 65. He describes these
Greeks as skilled.]

[Footnote 24: Hugo Falcandus styles them nobiles officinas. The Arabs
had not introduced silk, though they had planted canes and made sugar in
the plain of Palermo.]

[Footnote 25: See the Life of Castruccio Casticani, not by Machiavel,
but by his more authentic biographer Nicholas Tegrimi. Muratori, who has
inserted it in the xith volume of his Scriptores, quotes this curious
passage in his Italian Antiquities, (tom. i. dissert. xxv. p. 378.)]

[Footnote 26: From the Ms. statutes, as they are quoted by Muratori in
his Italian Antiquities, (tom. ii. dissert. xxv. p. 46-48.)]

[Footnote 27: The broad silk manufacture was established in England in
the year 1620, (Anderson's Chronological Deduction, vol. ii. p. 4: )
but it is to the revocation of the edict of Nantes that we owe the
Spitalfields colony.]




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

I must repeat the complaint that the vague and scanty memorials of the
times will not afford any just estimate of the taxes, the revenue, and
the resources of the Greek empire. From every province of Europe and
Asia the rivulets of gold and silver discharged into the Imperial
reservoir a copious and perennial stream. The separation of the branches
from the trunk increased the relative magnitude of Constantinople; and
the maxims of despotism contracted the state to the capital, the capital
to the palace, and the palace to the royal person. A Jewish traveller,
who visited the East in the twelfth century, is lost in his admiration
of the Byzantine riches. "It is here," says Benjamin of Tudela, "in
the queen of cities, that the tributes of the Greek empire are annually
deposited and the lofty towers are filled with precious magazines of
silk, purple, and gold. It is said, that Constantinople pays each day
to her sovereign twenty thousand pieces of gold; which are levied on the
shops, taverns, and markets, on the merchants of Persia and Egypt, of
Russia and Hungary, of Italy and Spain, who frequent the capital by
sea and land." [28] In all pecuniary matters, the authority of a Jew
is doubtless respectable; but as the three hundred and sixty-five days
would produce a yearly income exceeding seven millions sterling, I
am tempted to retrench at least the numerous festivals of the Greek
calendar. The mass of treasure that was saved by Theodora and Basil
the Second will suggest a splendid, though indefinite, idea of their
supplies and resources. The mother of Michael, before she retired to a
cloister, attempted to check or expose the prodigality of her ungrateful
son, by a free and faithful account of the wealth which he inherited;
one hundred and nine thousand pounds of gold, and three hundred thousand
of silver, the fruits of her own economy and that of her deceased
husband. [29] The avarice of Basil is not less renowned than his valor
and fortune: his victorious armies were paid and rewarded without
breaking into the mass of two hundred thousand pounds of gold, (about
eight millions sterling,) which he had buried in the subterraneous
vaults of the palace. [30] Such accumulation of treasure is rejected by
the theory and practice of modern policy; and we are more apt to compute
the national riches by the use and abuse of the public credit. Yet the
maxims of antiquity are still embraced by a monarch formidable to his
enemies; by a republic respectable to her allies; and both have attained
their respective ends of military power and domestic tranquillity.

[Footnote 28: Voyage de Benjamin de Tudele, tom. i. c. 5, p. 44-52. The
Hebrew text has been translated into French by that marvellous child
Baratier, who has added a volume of crude learning. The errors and
fictions of the Jewish rabbi are not a sufficient ground to deny the
reality of his travels. * Note: I am inclined, with Buegnot (Les
Juifs d'Occident, part iii. p. 101 et seqq.) and Jost (Geschichte
der Israeliter, vol. vi. anhang. p. 376) to consider this work a mere
compilation, and to doubt the reality of the travels.--M.]

[Footnote 29: See the continuator of Theophanes, (l. iv. p. 107,)
Cedremis, (p. 544,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 157.)]

[Footnote 30: Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 225,) instead of pounds,
uses the more classic appellation of talents, which, in a literal
sense and strict computation, would multiply sixty fold the treasure of
Basil.]

Whatever might be consumed for the present wants, or reserved for the
future use, of the state, the first and most sacred demand was for the
pomp and pleasure of the emperor, and his discretion only could define
the measure of his private expense. The princes of Constantinople were
far removed from the simplicity of nature; yet, with the revolving
seasons, they were led by taste or fashion to withdraw to a purer air,
from the smoke and tumult of the capital. They enjoyed, or affected to
enjoy, the rustic festival of the vintage: their leisure was amused by
the exercise of the chase and the calmer occupation of fishing, and in
the summer heats, they were shaded from the sun, and refreshed by the
cooling breezes from the sea. The coasts and islands of Asia and Europe
were covered with their magnificent villas; but, instead of the modest
art which secretly strives to hide itself and to decorate the scenery of
nature, the marble structure of their gardens served only to expose
the riches of the lord, and the labors of the architect. The successive
casualties of inheritance and forfeiture had rendered the sovereign
proprietor of many stately houses in the city and suburbs, of which
twelve were appropriated to the ministers of state; but the great
palace, [31] the centre of the Imperial residence, was fixed during
eleven centuries to the same position, between the hippodrome, the
cathedral of St. Sophia, and the gardens, which descended by many a
terrace to the shores of the Propontis. The primitive edifice of the
first Constantine was a copy, or rival, of ancient Rome; the gradual
improvements of his successors aspired to emulate the wonders of the old
world, [32] and in the tenth century, the Byzantine palace excited the
admiration, at least of the Latins, by an unquestionable preeminence of
strength, size, and magnificence. [33] But the toil and treasure of so
many ages had produced a vast and irregular pile: each separate building
was marked with the character of the times and of the founder; and the
want of space might excuse the reigning monarch, who demolished, perhaps
with secret satisfaction, the works of his predecessors. The economy
of the emperor Theophilus allowed a more free and ample scope for his
domestic luxury and splendor. A favorite ambassador, who had astonished
the Abbassides themselves by his pride and liberality, presented on his
return the model of a palace, which the caliph of Bagdad had recently
constructed on the banks of the Tigris. The model was instantly copied
and surpassed: the new buildings of Theophilus [34] were accompanied
with gardens, and with five churches, one of which was conspicuous for
size and beauty: it was crowned with three domes, the roof of gilt brass
reposed on columns of Italian marble, and the walls were incrusted with
marbles of various colors. In the face of the church, a semicircular
portico, of the figure and name of the Greek sigma, was supported by
fifteen columns of Phrygian marble, and the subterraneous vaults were of
a similar construction. The square before the sigma was decorated with
a fountain, and the margin of the basin was lined and encompassed with
plates of silver. In the beginning of each season, the basin, instead
of water, was replenished with the most exquisite fruits, which were
abandoned to the populace for the entertainment of the prince. He
enjoyed this tumultuous spectacle from a throne resplendent with gold
and gems, which was raised by a marble staircase to the height of a
lofty terrace. Below the throne were seated the officers of his guards,
the magistrates, the chiefs of the factions of the circus; the inferior
steps were occupied by the people, and the place below was covered with
troops of dancers, singers, and pantomimes. The square was surrounded
by the hall of justice, the arsenal, and the various offices of
business and pleasure; and the purple chamber was named from the annual
distribution of robes of scarlet and purple by the hand of the empress
herself. The long series of the apartments was adapted to the seasons,
and decorated with marble and porphyry, with painting, sculpture, and
mosaics, with a profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones. His
fanciful magnificence employed the skill and patience of such artists
as the times could afford: but the taste of Athens would have despised
their frivolous and costly labors; a golden tree, with its leaves and
branches, which sheltered a multitude of birds warbling their artificial
notes, and two lions of massy gold, and of natural size, who looked and
roared like their brethren of the forest. The successors of Theophilus,
of the Basilian and Comnenian dynasties, were not less ambitious of
leaving some memorial of their residence; and the portion of the palace
most splendid and august was dignified with the title of the golden
triclinium. [35] With becoming modesty, the rich and noble Greeks
aspired to imitate their sovereign, and when they passed through the
streets on horseback, in their robes of silk and embroidery, they were
mistaken by the children for kings. [36] A matron of Peloponnesus,
[37] who had cherished the infant fortunes of Basil the Macedonian, was
excited by tenderness or vanity to visit the greatness of her adopted
son. In a journey of five hundred miles from Patras to Constantinople,
her age or indolence declined the fatigue of a horse or carriage: the
soft litter or bed of Danielis was transported on the shoulders of ten
robust slaves; and as they were relieved at easy distances, a band of
three hundred were selected for the performance of this service. She
was entertained in the Byzantine palace with filial reverence, and the
honors of a queen; and whatever might be the origin of her wealth, her
gifts were not unworthy of the regal dignity. I have already described
the fine and curious manufactures of Peloponnesus, of linen, silk, and
woollen; but the most acceptable of her presents consisted in three
hundred beautiful youths, of whom one hundred were eunuchs; [38] "for
she was not ignorant," says the historian, "that the air of the palace
is more congenial to such insects, than a shepherd's dairy to the flies
of the summer." During her lifetime, she bestowed the greater part of
her estates in Peloponnesus, and her testament instituted Leo, the
son of Basil, her universal heir. After the payment of the legacies,
fourscore villas or farms were added to the Imperial domain; and three
thousand slaves of Danielis were enfranchised by their new lord, and
transplanted as a colony to the Italian coast. From this example of
a private matron, we may estimate the wealth and magnificence of the
emperors. Yet our enjoyments are confined by a narrow circle; and,
whatsoever may be its value, the luxury of life is possessed with more
innocence and safety by the master of his own, than by the steward of
the public, fortune.

[Footnote 31: For a copious and minute description of the Imperial
palace, see the Constantinop. Christiana (l. ii. c. 4, p. 113-123) of
Ducange, the Tillemont of the middle ages. Never has laborious Germany
produced two antiquarians more laborious and accurate than these two
natives of lively France.]

[Footnote 32: The Byzantine palace surpasses the Capitol, the palace
of Pergamus, the Rufinian wood, the temple of Adrian at Cyzicus, the
pyramids, the Pharus, &c., according to an epigram (Antholog. Graec. l.
iv. p. 488, 489. Brodaei, apud Wechel) ascribed to Julian, ex-praefect
of Egypt. Seventy-one of his epigrams, some lively, are collected in
Brunck, (Analect. Graec. tom. ii. p. 493-510; but this is wanting.]

[Footnote 33: Constantinopolitanum Palatium non pulchritudine solum,
verum stiam fortitudine, omnibus quas unquam videram munitionibus
praestat, (Liutprand, Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 465.)]

[Footnote 34: See the anonymous continuator of Theophanes, (p. 59, 61,
86,) whom I have followed in the neat and concise abstract of Le Beau,
(Hint. du Bas Empire, tom. xiv. p. 436, 438.)]

[Footnote 35: In aureo triclinio quae praestantior est pars
potentissimus (the usurper Romanus) degens caeteras partes (filiis)
distribuerat, (Liutprand. Hist. l. v. c. 9, p. 469.) For this last
signification of Triclinium see Ducange (Gloss. Graec. et Observations
sur Joinville, p. 240) and Reiske, (ad Constantinum de Ceremoniis, p.
7.)]

[Footnote 36: In equis vecti (says Benjamin of Tudela) regum filiis
videntur persimiles. I prefer the Latin version of Constantine
l'Empereur (p. 46) to the French of Baratier, (tom. i. p. 49.)]

[Footnote 37: See the account of her journey, munificence, and
testament, in the life of Basil, by his grandson Constantine, (p. 74,
75, 76, p. 195-197.)]

[Footnote 38: Carsamatium. Graeci vocant, amputatis virilibus et virga,
puerum eunuchum quos Verdunenses mercatores obinmensum lucrum facere
solent et in Hispaniam ducere, (Liutprand, l. vi. c. 3, p. 470.)--The
last abomination of the abominable slave-trade! Yet I am surprised
to find, in the xth century, such active speculations of commerce in
Lorraine.]

In an absolute government, which levels the distinctions of noble and
plebeian birth, the sovereign is the sole fountain of honor; and the
rank, both in the palace and the empire, depends on the titles and
offices which are bestowed and resumed by his arbitrary will. Above a
thousand years, from Vespasian to Alexius Comnenus, [39] the Caesar
was the second person, or at least the second degree, after the supreme
title of Augustus was more freely communicated to the sons and brothers
of the reigning monarch. To elude without violating his promise to
a powerful associate, the husband of his sister, and, without giving
himself an equal, to reward the piety of his brother Isaac, the crafty
Alexius interposed a new and supereminent dignity. The happy flexibility
of the Greek tongue allowed him to compound the names of Augustus and
Emperor (Sebastos and Autocrator,) and the union produces the sonorous
title of Sebastocrator. He was exalted above the Caesar on the first
step of the throne: the public acclamations repeated his name; and he
was only distinguished from the sovereign by some peculiar ornaments
of the head and feet. The emperor alone could assume the purple or red
buskins, and the close diadem or tiara, which imitated the fashion of
the Persian kings. [40] It was a high pyramidal cap of cloth or silk,
almost concealed by a profusion of pearls and jewels: the crown was
formed by a horizontal circle and two arches of gold: at the summit,
the point of their intersection, was placed a globe or cross, and two
strings or lappets of pearl depended on either cheek. Instead of red,
the buskins of the Sebastocrator and Caesar were green; and on
their open coronets or crowns, the precious gems were more sparingly
distributed. Beside and below the Caesar the fancy of Alexius
created the Panhypersebastos and the Protosebastos, whose sound and
signification will satisfy a Grecian ear. They imply a superiority and
a priority above the simple name of Augustus; and this sacred and
primitive title of the Roman prince was degraded to the kinsmen and
servants of the Byzantine court. The daughter of Alexius applauds, with
fond complacency, this artful gradation of hopes and honors; but the
science of words is accessible to the meanest capacity; and this vain
dictionary was easily enriched by the pride of his successors. To their
favorite sons or brothers, they imparted the more lofty appellation
of Lord or Despot, which was illustrated with new ornaments, and
prerogatives, and placed immediately after the person of the emperor
himself. The five titles of, 1. Despot; 2. Sebastocrator; 3. Caesar; 4.
Panhypersebastos; and, 5. Protosebastos; were usually confined to the
princes of his blood: they were the emanations of his majesty; but as
they exercised no regular functions, their existence was useless, and
their authority precarious.

[Footnote 39: See the Alexiad (l. iii. p. 78, 79) of Anna Comnena, who,
except in filial piety, may be compared to Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
In her awful reverence for titles and forms, she styles her father, the
inventor of this royal art.]

[Footnote 40: See Reiske, and Ceremoniale, p. 14, 15. Ducange has given
a learned dissertation on the crowns of Constantinople, Rome, France,
&c., (sur Joinville, xxv. p. 289-303;) but of his thirty-four models,
none exactly tally with Anne's description.]

But in every monarchy the substantial powers of government must be
divided and exercised by the ministers of the palace and treasury, the
fleet and army. The titles alone can differ; and in the revolution of
ages, the counts and praefects, the praetor and quaestor, insensibly
descended, while their servants rose above their heads to the first
honors of the state. 1. In a monarchy, which refers every object to the
person of the prince, the care and ceremonies of the palace form the
most respectable department. The Curopalata, [41] so illustrious in the
age of Justinian, was supplanted by the Protovestiare, whose primitive
functions were limited to the custody of the wardrobe. From thence his
jurisdiction was extended over the numerous menials of pomp and luxury;
and he presided with his silver wand at the public and private audience.
2. In the ancient system of Constantine, the name of Logothete, or
accountant, was applied to the receivers of the finances: the principal
officers were distinguished as the Logothetes of the domain, of
the posts, the army, the private and public treasure; and the great
Logothete, the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues, is compared
with the chancellor of the Latin monarchies. [42] His discerning
eye pervaded the civil administration; and he was assisted, in due
subordination, by the eparch or praefect of the city, the first
secretary, and the keepers of the privy seal, the archives, and the red
or purple ink which was reserved for the sacred signature of the emperor
alone. [43] The introductor and interpreter of foreign ambassadors
were the great Chiauss [44] and the Dragoman, [45] two names of Turkish
origin, and which are still familiar to the Sublime Porte. 3. From the
humble style and service of guards, the Domestics insensibly rose to
the station of generals; the military themes of the East and West, the
legions of Europe and Asia, were often divided, till the great Domestic
was finally invested with the universal and absolute command of the land
forces. The Protostrator, in his original functions, was the assistant
of the emperor when he mounted on horseback: he gradually became the
lieutenant of the great Domestic in the field; and his jurisdiction
extended over the stables, the cavalry, and the royal train of hunting
and hawking. The Stratopedarch was the great judge of the camp: the
Protospathaire commanded the guards; the Constable, [46] the great
Aeteriarch, and the Acolyth, were the separate chiefs of the Franks, the
Barbarians, and the Varangi, or English, the mercenary strangers, who,
a the decay of the national spirit, formed the nerve of the Byzantine
armies. 4. The naval powers were under the command of the great Duke;
in his absence they obeyed the great Drungaire of the fleet; and, in
his place, the Emir, or Admiral, a name of Saracen extraction, [47] but
which has been naturalized in all the modern languages of Europe. Of
these officers, and of many more whom it would be useless to enumerate,
the civil and military hierarchy was framed. Their honors and
emoluments, their dress and titles, their mutual salutations and
respective preeminence, were balanced with more exquisite labor than
would have fixed the constitution of a free people; and the code was
almost perfect when this baseless fabric, the monument of pride and
servitude, was forever buried in the ruins of the empire. [48]

[Footnote 41: Par exstans curis, solo diademate dispar, Ordine pro rerum
vocitatus Cura-Palati, says the African Corippus, (de Laudibus Justini,
l. i. 136,) and in the same century (the vith) Cassiodorus represents
him, who, virga aurea decoratus, inter numerosa obsequia primus
ante pedes regis incederet (Variar. vii. 5.) But this great officer,
(unknown,) exercising no function, was cast down by the modern Greeks to
the xvth rank, (Codin. c. 5, p. 65.)]

[Footnote 42: Nicetas (in Manuel, l. vii. c. 1) defines him. Yet the
epithet was added by the elder Andronicus, (Ducange, tom. i. p. 822,
823.)]

[Footnote 43: From Leo I. (A.D. 470) the Imperial ink, which is still
visible on some original acts, was a mixture of vermilion and cinnabar,
or purple. The emperor's guardians, who shared in this prerogative,
always marked in green ink the indiction and the month. See the
Dictionnaire Diplomatique, (tom. i. p. 511-513) a valuable abridgment.]

[Footnote 44: The sultan sent to Alexius, (Anna Comnena, l. vi. p. 170.
Ducange ad loc.;) and Pachymer often speaks, (l. vii. c. 1, l. xii.
c. 30, l. xiii. c. 22.) The Chiaoush basha is now at the head of 700
officers, (Rycaut's Ottoman Empire, p. 349, octavo edition.)]

[Footnote 45: Tagerman is the Arabic name of an interpreter,
(D'Herbelot, p. 854, 855;), says Codinus, (c. v. No. 70, p. 67.)
See Villehardouin, (No. 96,) Bus, (Epist. iv. p. 338,) and Ducange,
(Observations sur Villehardouin, and Gloss. Graec. et Latin)]

[Footnote 46: A corruption from the Latin Comes stabuli, or the French
Connetable. In a military sense, it was used by the Greeks in the
eleventh century, at least as early as in France.]

[Footnote 47: It was directly borrowed from the Normans. In the
xiith century, Giannone reckons the admiral of Sicily among the great
officers.]

[Footnote 48: This sketch of honors and offices is drawn from George
Cordinus Curopalata, who survived the taking of Constantinople by the
Turks: his elaborate, though trifling, work (de Officiis Ecclesiae et
Aulae C. P.) has been illustrated by the notes of Goar, and the three
books of Gretser, a learned Jesuit.]




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

The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which devotion has
applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted by flattery and fear
to creatures of the same nature with ourselves. The mode of adoration,
[49] of falling prostrate on the ground, and kissing the feet of the
emperor, was borrowed by Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it
was continued and aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy.
Excepting only on Sundays, when it was waived, from a motive of
religious pride, this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who
entered the royal presence, from the princes invested with the diadem
and purple, and from the ambassadors who represented their independent
sovereigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the kings of France
and Italy, and the Latin emperors of ancient Rome. In his transactions
of business, Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, [50] asserted the free spirit
of a Frank and the dignity of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot
disguise the abasement of his first audience. When he approached the
throne, the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which
were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With his two
companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall prostrate; and
thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He arose, but in the short
interval, the throne had been hoisted from the floor to the ceiling,
the Imperial figure appeared in new and more gorgeous apparel, and the
interview was concluded in haughty and majestic silence. In this honest
and curious narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies
of the Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte,
and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy
or Russia. After a long journey by sea and land, from Venice to
Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he was
conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace prepared for
his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his jealous keepers
prohibited all social intercourse either with strangers or natives.
At his first audience, he offered the gifts of his master, slaves, and
golden vases, and costly armor. The ostentatious payment of the officers
and troops displayed before his eyes the riches of the empire: he was
entertained at a royal banquet, [51] in which the ambassadors of the
nations were marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from
his own table, the emperor, as the most signal favor, sent the plates
which he had tasted; and his favorites were dismissed with a robe
of honor. [52] In the morning and evening of each day, his civil and
military servants attended their duty in the palace; their labors were
repaid by the sight, perhaps by the smile, of their lord; his commands
were signified by a nod or a sign: but all earthly greatness stood
silent and submissive in his presence. In his regular or extraordinary
processions through the capital, he unveiled his person to the public
view: the rites of policy were connected with those of religion, and his
visits to the principal churches were regulated by the festivals of the
Greek calendar. On the eve of these processions, the gracious or devout
intention of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds. The streets were
cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the most
precious furniture, the gold and silver plate, and silken hangings,
were displayed from the windows and balconies, and a severe discipline
restrained and silenced the tumult of the populace. The march was opened
by the military officers at the head of their troops: they were followed
in long order by the magistrates and ministers of the civil government:
the person of the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and domestics, and
at the church door he was solemnly received by the patriarch and
his clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and
spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations were
occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the circus; and
their furious conflicts, which had shaken the capital, were insensibly
sunk to an emulation of servitude. From either side they echoed in
responsive melody the praises of the emperor; their poets and musicians
directed the choir, and long life [53] and victory were the burden of
every song. The same acclamations were performed at the audience, the
banquet, and the church; and as an evidence of boundless sway, they were
repeated in the Latin, [54] Gothic, Persian, French, and even English
language, [55] by the mercenaries who sustained the real or fictitious
character of those nations. By the pen of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
this science of form and flattery has been reduced into a pompous and
trifling volume, [56] which the vanity of succeeding times might enrich
with an ample supplement. Yet the calmer reflection of a prince
would surely suggest that the same acclamations were applied to every
character and every reign: and if he had risen from a private rank, he
might remember, that his own voice had been the loudest and most eager
in applause, at the very moment when he envied the fortune, or conspired
against the life, of his predecessor. [57]

[Footnote 49: The respectful salutation of carrying the hand to the
mouth, ad os, is the root of the Latin word adoro, adorare. See our
learned Selden, (vol. iii. p. 143-145, 942,) in his Titles of Honor. It
seems, from the 1st book of Herodotus, to be of Persian origin.]

[Footnote 50: The two embassies of Liutprand to Constantinople, all that
he saw or suffered in the Greek capital, are pleasantly described
by himself (Hist. l. vi. c. 1-4, p. 469-471. Legatio ad Nicephorum
Phocam, p. 479-489.)]

[Footnote 51: Among the amusements of the feast, a boy balanced, on his
forehead, a pike, or pole, twenty-four feet long, with a cross bar of
two cubits a little below the top. Two boys, naked, though cinctured,
(campestrati,) together, and singly, climbed, stood, played, descended,
&c., ita me stupidum reddidit: utrum mirabilius nescio, (p. 470.) At
another repast a homily of Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was
read elata voce non Latine, (p. 483.)]

[Footnote 52: Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or Caloat, in
Arabic a robe of honor, (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p. 84.)]

[Footnote 53: It is explained, (Codin, c. 7. Ducange, Gloss. Graec. tom.
i. p. 1199.)]

[Footnote 54: (Ceremon. c. 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin 'V'
obliged the Greeks to employ their 'beta'; nor do they regard quantity.
Till he recollected the true language, these strange sentences might
puzzle a professor.]

[Footnote 55: (Codin.p. 90.) I wish he had preserved the words, however
corrupt, of their English acclamation.]

[Footnote 56: For all these ceremonies, see the professed work of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus with the notes, or rather dissertations,
of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the rank of standing
courtiers, p. 80, not. 23, 62; for the adoration, except on Sundays,
p. 95, 240, not. 131; the processions, p. 2, &c., not. p. 3, &c.;
the acclamations passim not. 25 &c.; the factions and Hippodrome, p.
177-214, not. 9, 93, &c.; the Gothic games, p. 221, not. 111; vintage,
p. 217, not 109: much more information is scattered over the work.]

[Footnote 57: Et privato Othoni et nuper eadem dicenti nota adulatio,
(Tacit. Hist. 1,85.)]

The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine, without
faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood with the blood of
the Caesars, by their marriage with a royal virgin, or by the nuptials
of their daughters with a Roman prince. [58] The aged monarch, in his
instructions to his son, reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride;
and suggests the most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and
unreasonable demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is
prompted by the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just
regard to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and
private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful source of
disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion and practice of the
sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed the marriage of a citizen
and a stranger: in the days of freedom and virtue, a senator would have
scorned to match his daughter with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was
sullied by an Egyptian wife: [59] and the emperor Titus was compelled,
by popular censure, to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice.
[60] This perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of
the great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more especially
of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished, that such strange
alliances had been condemned by the founder of the church and city.
The irrevocable law was inscribed on the altar of St. Sophia; and the
impious prince who should stain the majesty of the purple was excluded
from the civil and ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the
ambassadors were instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine
history, they might produce three memorable examples of the violation
of this imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father
Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the Chozars,
the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a Bulgarian prince,
and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with young Romanus, the
son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To these objections three
answers were prepared, which solved the difficulty and established the
law. I.

The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were acknowledged.
The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal font, and declared war
against the holy images, had indeed embraced a Barbarian wife. By this
impious alliance he accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was
devoted to the just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus
could not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian usurper,
ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honor, of the monarchy. His
son Christopher, the father of the bride, was the third in rank in
the college of princes, at once the subject and the accomplice of a
rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were sincere and devout Christians;
and the safety of the empire, with the redemption of many thousand
captives, depended on this preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration
could dispense from the law of Constantine: the clergy, the senate, and
the people, disapproved the conduct of Romanus; and he was reproached,
both in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace. III.
For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of Hugo, king
of Italy, a more honorable defence is contrived by the wise
Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the fidelity
and valor of the Franks; [61] and his prophetic spirit beheld the vision
of their future greatness. They alone were excepted from the general
prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was the lineal descendant of
Charlemagne; [62] and his daughter Bertha inherited the prerogatives of
her family and nation. The voice of truth and malice insensibly betrayed
the fraud or error of the Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo
was reduced from the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles;
though it was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had
usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of Italy.
His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her female descent
from the Carlovingian line, every step was polluted with illegitimacy
or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was the famous Valdrada, the concubine,
rather than the wife, of the second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce,
and second nuptials, had provoked against him the thunders of
the Vatican. His mother, as she was styled, the great Bertha, was
successively the wife of the count of Arles and of the marquis of
Tuscany: France and Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till
the age of threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous
servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence was
copied by the king of Italy; and the three favorite concubines of Hugo
were decorated with the classic names of Venus, Juno, and Semele. [63]
The daughter of Venus was granted to the solicitations of the Byzantine
court: her name of Bertha was changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was
wedded, or rather betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of
the empire of the East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was
suspended by the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five
years, the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The
second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but of
Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne, were given
in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest was bestowed, as the
pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the great Otho, who had solicited
this alliance with arms and embassies. It might legally be questioned
how far a Saxon was entitled to the privilege of the French nation;
but every scruple was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had
restored the empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law
and husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the
minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised the
virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the remembrance
of her country. [64] In the nuptials of her sister Anne, every prejudice
was lost, and every consideration of dignity was superseded, by
the stronger argument of necessity and fear. A Pagan of the North,
Wolodomir, great prince of Russia, aspired to a daughter of the Roman
purple; and his claim was enforced by the threats of war, the promise of
conversion, and the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel.
A victim of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn
from the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a
hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the neighborhood
of the Polar circle. [65] Yet the marriage of Anne was fortunate and
fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Joroslaus was recommended by her
Imperial descent; and the king of France, Henry I., sought a wife on the
last borders of Europe and Christendom. [66]

[Footnote 58: The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may be
explained and rectified by the Familiae Byzantinae of Ducange.]

[Footnote 59: Sequiturque nefas Aegyptia conjux, (Virgil, Aeneid, viii.
688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long line of kings.
Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter to Augustus) an quod
reginam ineo? Uxor mea est, (Sueton. in August. c. 69.) Yet I much
question (for I cannot stay to inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared
to celebrate his marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites.]

[Footnote 60: Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit, (Suetonius in Tito, c.
7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty was at this
time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine has most discreetly
suppressed both her age and her country.]

[Footnote 61: Constantine was made to praise the the Franks, with whom
he claimed a private and public alliance. The French writers (Isaac
Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted with these
compliments.]

[Footnote 62: Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp. c.
36) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious King Hugo. A more
correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the Annals of
Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc, A.D. 925-946.]

[Footnote 63: After the mention of the three goddesses, Luitprand very
naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur, earum nati
ex incertis patribus originera ducunt, (Hist. l. iv. c. 6: ) for
the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. l. v. c. 5; for the
incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercipio Hymenaei, l. ii. c. 15; for
the virtues and vices of Hugo, l. iii. c. 5. Yet it must not be forgot,
that the bishop of Cremona was a lover of scandal.]

[Footnote 64: Licet illa Imperatrix Graeca sibi et aliis fuisset satis
utilis, et optima, &c., is the preamble of an inimical writer, apud
Pagi, tom. iv. A.D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and principal actions may
be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc, under the proper years.]

[Footnote 65: Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. i. p. 221.
Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. iii. c. 6. Nestor apud Levesque, tom. ii.
p. 112 Pagi, Critica, A.D. 987, No. 6: a singular concourse! Wolodomir
and Anne are ranked among the saints of the Russian church. Yet we know
his vices, and are ignorant of her virtues.]

[Footnote 66: Henricus primus duxit uxorem Scythicam, Russam, filiam
regis Jeroslai. An embassy of bishops was sent into Russia, and the
father gratanter filiam cum multis donis misit. This event happened in
the year 1051. See the passages of the original chronicles in Bouquet's
Historians of France, (tom. xi. p. 29, 159, 161, 319, 384, 481.)
Voltaire might wonder at this alliance; but he should not have owned
his ignorance of the country, religion, &c., of Jeroslaus--a name so
conspicuous in the Russian annals.]

In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of the
ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which regulated each
word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and violated the leisure
of his rural solitude. But the lives and fortunes of millions hung on
his arbitrary will; and the firmest minds, superior to the allurements
of pomp and luxury, may be seduced by the more active pleasure of
commanding their equals. The legislative and executive powers were
centred in the person of the monarch, and the last remains of the
authority of the senate were finally eradicated by Leo the philosopher.
[67] A lethargy of servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks: in
the wildest tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea of a
free constitution; and the private character of the prince was the only
source and measure of their public happiness. Superstition rivetted
their chains; in the church of St. Sophia he was solemnly crowned by
the patriarch; at the foot of the altar, they pledged their passive and
unconditional obedience to his government and family. On his side he
engaged to abstain as much as possible from the capital punishments of
death and mutilation; his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own
hand, and he promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the
canons of the holy church. [68] But the assurance of mercy was loose and
indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an invisible judge; and
except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy, the ministers of heaven were
always prepared to preach the indefeasible right, and to absolve the
venial transgressions, of their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were
themselves the subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant,
the bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished with
an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or influence, they
could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the establishment of an
independent republic; and the patriarch of Constantinople condemned,
what he secretly envied, the temporal greatness of his Roman brother.
Yet the exercise of boundless despotism is happily checked by the laws
of nature and necessity. In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the
master of an empire is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious
duty. In proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too
weighty for his hands; and the motions of the royal image are ruled by
the imperceptible thread of some minister or favorite, who undertakes
for his private interest to exercise the task of the public oppression.
In some fatal moment, the most absolute monarch may dread the reason
or the caprice of a nation of slaves; and experience has proved, that
whatever is gained in the extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of
regal power.

[Footnote 67: A constitution of Leo the Philosopher (lxxviii.) ne
senatus consulta amplius fiant, speaks the language of naked despotism.]

[Footnote 68: Codinus (de Officiis, c. xvii. p. 120, 121) gives an idea
of this oath so strong to the church, so weak to the people.]

Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he may assert, it
is on the sword that he must ultimately depend to guard him against his
foreign and domestic enemies. From the age of Charlemagne to that of the
Crusades, the world (for I overlook the remote monarchy of China) was
occupied and disputed by the three great empires or nations of the
Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks. Their military strength may be
ascertained by a comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and
their obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the
energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals in the
first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to the Saracens,
in the second and third of these warlike qualifications.

The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the service of the
poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power for the protection of
their coasts and the annoyance of their enemies. [69] A commerce of
mutual benefit exchanged the gold of Constantinople for the blood
of Sclavonians and Turks, the Bulgarians and Russians: their valor
contributed to the victories of Nicephorus and Zimisces; and if a
hostile people pressed too closely on the frontier, they were recalled
to the defence of their country, and the desire of peace, by the
well-managed attack of a more distant tribe. [70] The command of the
Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais to the columns of
Hercules, was always claimed, and often possessed, by the successors of
Constantine. Their capital was filled with naval stores and dexterous
artificers: the situation of Greece and Asia, the long coasts, deep
gulfs, and numerous islands, accustomed their subjects to the exercise
of navigation; and the trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of
seamen to the Imperial fleet. [71] Since the time of the Peloponnesian
and Punic wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the
science of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art of
constructing those stupendous machines which displayed three, or six,
or ten, ranges of oars, rising above, or falling behind, each other,
was unknown to the ship-builders of Constantinople, as well as to the
mechanicians of modern days. [72] The Dromones, [73] or light galleys of
the Byzantine empire, were content with two tier of oars; each tier was
composed of five-and-twenty benches; and two rowers were seated on each
bench, who plied their oars on either side of the vessel. To these we
must add the captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect
with his armor-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and two
officers at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other to point
and play against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The whole crew, as
in the infancy of the art, performed the double service of mariners and
soldiers; they were provided with defensive and offensive arms, with
bows and arrows, which they used from the upper deck, with long pikes,
which they pushed through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes,
indeed, the ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction;
and the labors of combat and navigation were more regularly divided
between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners. But for
the most part they were of the light and manageable size; and as
the Cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with its ancient
terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles over land across
the Isthmus of Corinth. [74] The principles of maritime tactics had not
undergone any change since the time of Thucydides: a squadron of galleys
still advanced in a crescent, charged to the front, and strove to impel
their sharp beaks against the feeble sides of their antagonists. A
machine for casting stones and darts was built of strong timbers, in the
midst of the deck; and the operation of boarding was effected by a crane
that hoisted baskets of armed men. The language of signals, so clear and
copious in the naval grammar of the moderns, was imperfectly expressed
by the various positions and colors of a commanding flag. In the
darkness of the night, the same orders to chase, to attack, to halt, to
retreat, to break, to form, were conveyed by the lights of the leading
galley. By land, the fire-signals were repeated from one mountain to
another; a chain of eight stations commanded a space of five hundred
miles; and Constantinople in a few hours was apprised of the hostile
motions of the Saracens of Tarsus. [75] Some estimate may be formed of
the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious and minute detail of the
armament which was prepared for the reduction of Crete. A fleet of one
hundred and twelve galleys, and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian
style, was equipped in the capital, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and
the seaports of Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four
thousand mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers,
seven hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites,
whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of Libanus. Their
pay, most probably of a month, was computed at thirty-four centenaries
of gold, about one hundred and thirty-six thousand pounds sterling. Our
fancy is bewildered by the endless recapitulation of arms and engines,
of clothes and linen, of bread for the men and forage for the horses,
and of stores and utensils of every description, inadequate to the
conquest of a petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment
of a flourishing colony. [76]

[Footnote 69: If we listen to the threats of Nicephorus to the
ambassador of Otho, Nec est in mari domino tuo classium numerus.
Navigantium fortitudo mihi soli inest, qui eum classibus aggrediar,
bello maritimas ejus civitates demoliar; et quae fluminibus sunt vicina
redigam in favillam. (Liutprand in Legat. ad Nicephorum Phocam, in
Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i. p. 481.) He
observes in another place, qui caeteris praestant Venetici sunt et
Amalphitani.]

[Footnote 70: Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in qua ortus est
pauper et pellicea Saxonia: pecunia qua pollemus omnes nationes super
eum invitabimus: et quasi Keramicum confringemus, (Liutprand in Legat.
p. 487.) The two books, de Administrando Imperio, perpetually inculcate
the same policy.]

[Footnote 71: The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo, (Meurs. Opera,
tom. vi. p. 825-848,) which is given more correct from a manuscript
of Gudius, by the laborious Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p.
372-379,) relates to the Naumachia, or naval war.]

[Footnote 72: Even of fifteen and sixteen rows of oars, in the navy
of Demetrius Poliorcetes. These were for real use: the forty rows of
Ptolemy Philadelphus were applied to a floating palace, whose tonnage,
according to Dr. Arbuthnot, (Tables of Ancient Coins, &c., p. 231-236,)
is compared as 4 1/2 to 1 with an English 100 gun ship.]

[Footnote 73: The Dromones of Leo, &c., are so clearly described with
two tier of oars, that I must censure the version of Meursius and
Fabricius, who pervert the sense by a blind attachment to the classic
appellation of Triremes. The Byzantine historians are sometimes guilty
of the same inaccuracy.]

[Footnote 74: Constantin. Porphyrogen. in Vit. Basil. c. lxi. p. 185.
He calmly praises the stratagem; but the sailing round Peloponnesus is
described by his terrified fancy as a circumnavigation of a thousand
miles.]

[Footnote 75: The continuator of Theophanes (l. iv. p. 122, 123) names
the successive stations, the castle of Lulum near Tarsus, Mount Argaeus
Isamus, Aegilus, the hill of Mamas, Cyrisus, Mocilus, the hill of
Auxentius, the sun-dial of the Pharus of the great palace. He affirms
that the news were transmitted in an indivisible moment of time.
Miserable amplification, which, by saying too much, says nothing. How
much more forcible and instructive would have been the definition of
three, or six, or twelve hours!]

[Footnote 76: See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, l. ii.
c. 44, p. 176-192. A critical reader will discern some inconsistencies
in different parts of this account; but they are not more obscure or
more stubborn than the establishment and effectives, the present and fit
for duty, the rank and file and the private, of a modern return, which
retain in proper hands the knowledge of these profitable mysteries.]

The invention of the Greek fire did not, like that of gun powder,
produce a total revolution in the art of war. To these liquid
combustibles the city and empire of Constantine owed their deliverance;
and they were employed in sieges and sea-fights with terrible effect.
But they were either less improved, or less susceptible of improvement:
the engines of antiquity, the catapultae, balistae, and battering-rams,
were still of most frequent and powerful use in the attack and defence
of fortifications; nor was the decision of battles reduced to the quick
and heavy fire of a line of infantry, whom it were fruitless to protect
with armor against a similar fire of their enemies. Steel and iron were
still the common instruments of destruction and safety; and the helmets,
cuirasses, and shields, of the tenth century did not, either in form
or substance, essentially differ from those which had covered the
companions of Alexander or Achilles. [77] But instead of accustoming the
modern Greeks, like the legionaries of old, to the constant and easy use
of this salutary weight, their armor was laid aside in light chariots,
which followed the march, till, on the approach of an enemy, they
resumed with haste and reluctance the unusual encumbrance. Their
offensive weapons consisted of swords, battle-axes, and spears; but the
Macedonian pike was shortened a fourth of its length, and reduced to the
more convenient measure of twelve cubits or feet. The sharpness of the
Scythian and Arabian arrows had been severely felt; and the emperors
lament the decay of archery as a cause of the public misfortunes, and
recommend, as an advice and a command, that the military youth, till the
age of forty, should assiduously practise the exercise of the bow. [78]
The bands, or regiments, were usually three hundred strong; and, as a
medium between the extremes of four and sixteen, the foot soldiers of
Leo and Constantine were formed eight deep; but the cavalry charged in
four ranks, from the reasonable consideration, that the weight of the
front could not be increased by any pressure of the hindmost horses.
If the ranks of the infantry or cavalry were sometimes doubled, this
cautious array betrayed a secret distrust of the courage of the troops,
whose numbers might swell the appearance of the line, but of whom only
a chosen band would dare to encounter the spears and swords of the
Barbarians. The order of battle must have varied according to the
ground, the object, and the adversary; but their ordinary disposition,
in two lines and a reserve, presented a succession of hopes and
resources most agreeable to the temper as well as the judgment of the
Greeks. [79] In case of a repulse, the first line fell back into the
intervals of the second; and the reserve, breaking into two divisions,
wheeled round the flanks to improve the victory or cover the retreat.
Whatever authority could enact was accomplished, at least in theory,
by the camps and marches, the exercises and evolutions, the edicts and
books, of the Byzantine monarch. [80] Whatever art could produce from
the forge, the loom, or the laboratory, was abundantly supplied by the
riches of the prince, and the industry of his numerous workmen. But
neither authority nor art could frame the most important machine, the
soldier himself; and if the ceremonies of Constantine always suppose the
safe and triumphal return of the emperor, [81] his tactics seldom soar
above the means of escaping a defeat, and procrastinating the war. [82]
Notwithstanding some transient success, the Greeks were sunk in their
own esteem and that of their neighbors. A cold hand and a loquacious
tongue was the vulgar description of the nation: the author of the
tactics was besieged in his capital; and the last of the Barbarians, who
trembled at the name of the Saracens, or Franks, could proudly exhibit
the medals of gold and silver which they had extorted from the feeble
sovereign of Constantinople. What spirit their government and character
denied, might have been inspired in some degree by the influence of
religion; but the religion of the Greeks could only teach them to suffer
and to yield. The emperor Nicephorus, who restored for a moment the
discipline and glory of the Roman name, was desirous of bestowing the
honors of martyrdom on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy
war against the infidels. But this political law was defeated by the
opposition of the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal senators;
and they strenuously urged the canons of St. Basil, that all who were
polluted by the bloody trade of a soldier should be separated, during
three years, from the communion of the faithful. [83]

[Footnote 77: See the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, and, in
the Tactics of Leo, with the corresponding passages in those of
Constantine.]

[Footnote 78: (Leo, Tactic. p. 581 Constantin. p 1216.) Yet such were
not the maxims of the Greeks and Romans, who despised the loose and
distant practice of archery.]

[Footnote 79: Compare the passages of the Tactics, p. 669 and 721, and
the xiith with the xviiith chapter.]

[Footnote 80: In the preface to his Tactics, Leo very freely deplores
the loss of discipline and the calamities of the times, and repeats,
without scruple, (Proem. p. 537,) the reproaches, nor does it appear
that the same censures were less deserved in the next generation by the
disciples of Constantine.]

[Footnote 81: See in the Ceremonial (l. ii. c. 19, p. 353) the form of
the emperor's trampling on the necks of the captive Saracens, while
the singers chanted, "Thou hast made my enemies my footstool!" and the
people shouted forty times the kyrie eleison.]

[Footnote 82: Leo observes (Tactic. p. 668) that a fair open battle
against any nation whatsoever: the words are strong, and the remark is
true: yet if such had been the opinion of the old Romans, Leo had never
reigned on the shores of the Thracian Bosphorus.]

[Footnote 83: Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 202, 203) and Cedrenus,
(Compend p. 668,) who relate the design of Nicephorus, most
unfortunately apply the epithet to the opposition of the patriarch.]

These scruples of the Greeks have been compared with the tears of
the primitive Moslems when they were held back from battle; and this
contrast of base superstition and high-spirited enthusiasm, unfolds to
a philosophic eye the history of the rival nations. The subjects of the
last caliphs [84] had undoubtedly degenerated from the zeal and faith of
the companions of the prophet. Yet their martial creed still represented
the Deity as the author of war: [85] the vital though latent spark of
fanaticism still glowed in the heart of their religion, and among
the Saracens, who dwelt on the Christian borders, it was frequently
rekindled to a lively and active flame. Their regular force was formed
of the valiant slaves who had been educated to guard the person and
accompany the standard of their lord: but the Mussulman people of Syria
and Cilicia, of Africa and Spain, was awakened by the trumpet which
proclaimed a holy war against the infidels. The rich were ambitious of
death or victory in the cause of God; the poor were allured by the hopes
of plunder; and the old, the infirm, and the women, assumed their share
of meritorious service by sending their substitutes, with arms and
horses, into the field. These offensive and defensive arms were similar
in strength and temper to those of the Romans, whom they far excelled
in the management of the horse and the bow: the massy silver of their
belts, their bridles, and their swords, displayed the magnificence of a
prosperous nation; and except some black archers of the South, the Arabs
disdained the naked bravery of their ancestors. Instead of wagons, they
were attended by a long train of camels, mules, and asses: the multitude
of these animals, whom they bedecked with flags and streamers, appeared
to swell the pomp and magnitude of their host; and the horses of the
enemy were often disordered by the uncouth figure and odious smell of
the camels of the East. Invincible by their patience of thirst and heat,
their spirits were frozen by a winter's cold, and the consciousness of
their propensity to sleep exacted the most rigorous precautions against
the surprises of the night. Their order of battle was a long square of
two deep and solid lines; the first of archers, the second of cavalry.
In their engagements by sea and land, they sustained with patient
firmness the fury of the attack, and seldom advanced to the charge till
they could discern and oppress the lassitude of their foes. But if
they were repulsed and broken, they knew not how to rally or renew the
combat; and their dismay was heightened by the superstitious prejudice,
that God had declared himself on the side of their enemies. The decline
and fall of the caliphs countenanced this fearful opinion; nor were
there wanting, among the Mahometans and Christians, some obscure
prophecies [86] which prognosticated their alternate defeats. The unity
of the Arabian empire was dissolved, but the independent fragments were
equal to populous and powerful kingdoms; and in their naval and military
armaments, an emir of Aleppo or Tunis might command no despicable fund
of skill, and industry, and treasure. In their transactions of peace and
war with the Saracens, the princes of Constantinople too often felt that
these Barbarians had nothing barbarous in their discipline; and that
if they were destitute of original genius, they had been endowed with
a quick spirit of curiosity and imitation. The model was indeed more
perfect than the copy; their ships, and engines, and fortifications,
were of a less skilful construction; and they confess, without shame,
that the same God who has given a tongue to the Arabians, had more
nicely fashioned the hands of the Chinese, and the heads of the Greeks.
[87]

[Footnote 84: The xviith chapter of the tactics of the different nations
is the most historical and useful of the whole collection of Leo. The
manners and arms of the Saracens (Tactic. p. 809-817, and a fragment
from the Medicean Ms. in the preface of the vith volume of Meursius) the
Roman emperor was too frequently called upon to study.]

[Footnote 85: Leon. Tactic. p. 809.]

[Footnote 86: Liutprand (p. 484, 485) relates and interprets the oracles
of the Greeks and Saracens, in which, after the fashion of prophecy,
the past is clear and historical, the future is dark, enigmatical, and
erroneous. From this boundary of light and shade an impartial critic may
commonly determine the date of the composition.]

[Footnote 87: The sense of this distinction is expressed by
Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 2, 62, 101;) but I cannot recollect the
passage in which it is conveyed by this lively apothegm.]




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

A name of some German tribes between the Rhine and the Weser had spread
its victorious influence over the greatest part of Gaul, Germany, and
Italy; and the common appellation of Franks [88] was applied by the
Greeks and Arabians to the Christians of the Latin church, the nations
of the West, who stretched beyond their knowledge to the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean. The vast body had been inspired and united by the
soul of Charlemagne; but the division and degeneracy of his race soon
annihilated the Imperial power, which would have rivalled the Caesars
of Byzantium, and revenged the indignities of the Christian name. The
enemies no longer feared, nor could the subjects any longer trust, the
application of a public revenue, the labors of trade and manufactures
in the military service, the mutual aid of provinces and armies, and
the naval squadrons which were regularly stationed from the mouth of the
Elbe to that of the Tyber. In the beginning of the tenth century, the
family of Charlemagne had almost disappeared; his monarchy was broken
into many hostile and independent states; the regal title was assumed
by the most ambitious chiefs; their revolt was imitated in a long
subordination of anarchy and discord, and the nobles of every province
disobeyed their sovereign, oppressed their vassals, and exercised
perpetual hostilities against their equals and neighbors. Their private
wars, which overturned the fabric of government, fomented the martial
spirit of the nation. In the system of modern Europe, the power of the
sword is possessed, at least in fact, by five or six mighty potentates;
their operations are conducted on a distant frontier, by an order of men
who devote their lives to the study and practice of the military art:
the rest of the country and community enjoys in the midst of war the
tranquillity of peace, and is only made sensible of the change by the
aggravation or decrease of the public taxes. In the disorders of the
tenth and eleventh centuries, every peasant was a soldier, and every
village a fortification; each wood or valley was a scene of murder
and rapine; and the lords of each castle were compelled to assume the
character of princes and warriors. To their own courage and policy they
boldly trusted for the safety of their family, the protection of their
lands, and the revenge of their injuries; and, like the conquerors of a
larger size, they were too apt to transgress the privilege of defensive
war. The powers of the mind and body were hardened by the presence of
danger and necessity of resolution: the same spirit refused to desert
a friend and to forgive an enemy; and, instead of sleeping under the
guardian care of a magistrate, they proudly disdained the authority of
the laws. In the days of feudal anarchy, the instruments of agriculture
and art were converted into the weapons of bloodshed: the peaceful
occupations of civil and ecclesiastical society were abolished or
corrupted; and the bishop who exchanged his mitre for a helmet, was more
forcibly urged by the manners of the times than by the obligation of his
tenure. [89]

[Footnote 88: Ex Francis, quo nomine tam Latinos quam Teutones
comprehendit, ludum habuit, (Liutprand in Legat ad Imp. Nicephorum, p.
483, 484.) This extension of the name may be confirmed from Constantine
(de Administrando Imperio, l. 2, c. 27, 28) and Eutychius, (Annal. tom.
i. p. 55, 56,) who both lived before the Crusades. The testimonies of
Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 69) and Abulfeda (Praefat. ad Geograph.) are
more recent]

[Footnote 89: On this subject of ecclesiastical and beneficiary
discipline, Father Thomassin, (tom. iii. l. i. c. 40, 45, 46, 47) may
be usefully consulted. A general law of Charlemagne exempted the bishops
from personal service; but the opposite practice, which prevailed from
the ixth to the xvth century, is countenanced by the example or silence
of saints and doctors.... You justify your cowardice by the holy canons,
says Ratherius of Verona; the canons likewise forbid you to whore, and
yet--]

The love of freedom and of arms was felt, with conscious pride, by the
Franks themselves, and is observed by the Greeks with some degree of
amazement and terror. "The Franks," says the emperor Constantine, "are
bold and valiant to the verge of temerity; and their dauntless spirit is
supported by the contempt of danger and death. In the field and in close
onset, they press to the front, and rush headlong against the enemy,
without deigning to compute either his numbers or their own. Their ranks
are formed by the firm connections of consanguinity and friendship; and
their martial deeds are prompted by the desire of saving or revenging
their dearest companions. In their eyes, a retreat is a shameful flight;
and flight is indelible infamy." [90] A nation endowed with such
high and intrepid spirit, must have been secure of victory if these
advantages had not been counter-balanced by many weighty defects. The
decay of their naval power left the Greeks and Saracens in possession
of the sea, for every purpose of annoyance and supply. In the age
which preceded the institution of knighthood, the Franks were rude
and unskilful in the service of cavalry; [91] and in all perilous
emergencies, their warriors were so conscious of their ignorance, that
they chose to dismount from their horses and fight on foot. Unpractised
in the use of pikes, or of missile weapons, they were encumbered by
the length of their swords, the weight of their armor, the magnitude of
their shields, and, if I may repeat the satire of the meagre Greeks, by
their unwieldy intemperance. Their independent spirit disdained the
yoke of subordination, and abandoned the standard of their chief, if
he attempted to keep the field beyond the term of their stipulation
or service. On all sides they were open to the snares of an enemy less
brave but more artful than themselves. They might be bribed, for the
Barbarians were venal; or surprised in the night, for they neglected the
precautions of a close encampment or vigilant sentinels. The fatigues of
a summer's campaign exhausted their strength and patience, and they sunk
in despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of a plentiful
supply of wine and of food. This general character of the Franks was
marked with some national and local shades, which I should ascribe to
accident rather than to climate, but which were visible both to natives
and to foreigners. An ambassador of the great Otho declared, in the
palace of Constantinople, that the Saxons could dispute with swords
better than with pens, and that they preferred inevitable death to the
dishonor of turning their backs to an enemy. [92] It was the glory of
the nobles of France, that, in their humble dwellings, war and rapine
were the only pleasure, the sole occupation, of their lives. They
affected to deride the palaces, the banquets, the polished manner of the
Italians, who in the estimate of the Greeks themselves had degenerated
from the liberty and valor of the ancient Lombards. [93]

[Footnote 90: In the xviiith chapter of his Tactics, the emperor Leo
has fairly stated the military vices and virtues of the Franks
(whom Meursius ridiculously translates by Galli) and the Lombards
or Langobards. See likewise the xxvith Dissertation of Muratori de
Antiquitatibus Italiae Medii Aevi.]

[Footnote 91: Domini tui milites (says the proud Nicephorus) equitandi
ignari pedestris pugnae sunt inscii: scutorum magnitudo, loricarum
gravitudo, ensium longitudo galearumque pondus neutra parte pugnare
cossinit; ac subridens, impedit, inquit, et eos gastrimargia, hoc est
ventris ingluvies, &c. Liutprand in Legat. p. 480 481]

[Footnote 92: In Saxonia certe scio.... decentius ensibus pugnare quam
calanis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare, (Liutprand, p
482.)]

[Footnote 93: Leonis Tactica, c. 18, p. 805. The emperor Leo died A.D.
911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears to have been
composed in 910, by a native of Venetia, discriminates in these verses
the manners of Italy and France:

     --Quid inertia bello

     Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris praetenditis armis,

     O Itali?  Potius vobis sacra pocula cordi;

     Saepius et stomachum nitidis laxare saginis

     Elatasque domos rutilo fulcire metallo.

     Non eadem Gallos similis vel cura remordet:

     Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras,

     Depressumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis

     Sustentare--

(Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, l. n. in
Muratori Script. Rerum Italic. tom. ii. pars i. p. 393.)]

By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain to
Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges of Romans, and their
national sovereign might fix his occasional or permanent residence in
any province of their common country. In the division of the East and
West, an ideal unity was scrupulously observed, and in their titles,
laws, and statutes, the successors of Arcadius and Honorius announced
themselves as the inseparable colleagues of the same office, as the
joint sovereigns of the Roman world and city, which were bounded by the
same limits. After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty of the
purple resided solely in the princes of Constantinople; and of these,
Justinian was the first who, after a divorce of sixty years, regained
the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted, by the right of conquest,
the august title of Emperor of the Romans. [94] A motive of vanity or
discontent solicited one of his successors, Constans the Second, to
abandon the Thracian Bosphorus, and to restore the pristine honors of
the Tyber: an extravagant project, (exclaims the malicious Byzantine,)
as if he had despoiled a beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or
rather to expose, the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit matron.
[95] But the sword of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy: he
entered Rome not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive, and, after a visit
of twelve days, he pillaged, and forever deserted, the ancient capital
of the world. [96] The final revolt and separation of Italy was
accomplished about two centuries after the conquests of Justinian, and
from his reign we may date the gradual oblivion of the Latin tongue.
That legislator had composed his Institutes, his Code, and his Pandects,
in a language which he celebrates as the proper and public style of
the Roman government, the consecrated idiom of the palace and senate of
Constantinople, of the campus and tribunals of the East. [97] But this
foreign dialect was unknown to the people and soldiers of the Asiatic
provinces, it was imperfectly understood by the greater part of the
interpreters of the laws and the ministers of the state. After a short
conflict, nature and habit prevailed over the obsolete institutions
of human power: for the general benefit of his subjects, Justinian
promulgated his novels in the two languages: the several parts of his
voluminous jurisprudence were successively translated; [98] the original
was forgotten, the version was studied, and the Greek, whose intrinsic
merit deserved indeed the preference, obtained a legal, as well as
popular establishment in the Byzantine monarchy. The birth and residence
of succeeding princes estranged them from the Roman idiom: Tiberius by
the Arabs, [99] and Maurice by the Italians, [100] are distinguished
as the first of the Greek Caesars, as the founders of a new dynasty
and empire: the silent revolution was accomplished before the death of
Heraclius; and the ruins of the Latin speech were darkly preserved in
the terms of jurisprudence and the acclamations of the palace. After
the restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne and the Othos, the
names of Franks and Latins acquired an equal signification and extent;
and these haughty Barbarians asserted, with some justice, their superior
claim to the language and dominion of Rome. They insulted the alien
of the East who had renounced the dress and idiom of Romans; and their
reasonable practice will justify the frequent appellation of Greeks.
[101] But this contemptuous appellation was indignantly rejected by the
prince and people to whom it was applied. Whatsoever changes had been
introduced by the lapse of ages, they alleged a lineal and unbroken
succession from Augustus and Constantine; and, in the lowest period of
degeneracy and decay, the name of Romans adhered to the last fragments
of the empire of Constantinople. [102]

[Footnote 94: Justinian, says the historian Agathias, (l. v. p.
157,). Yet the specific title of Emperor of the Romans was not used
at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French and German
emperors of old Rome.]

[Footnote 95: Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his
barbarous verse, and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus,
and the Historia Miscella: voluit in urbem Romam Imperium transferre,
(l. xix. p. 157 in tom. i. pars i. of the Scriptores Rer. Ital. of
Muratori.)]

[Footnote 96: Paul. Diacon. l. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in Vitis
Pontificum, in Muratori's Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p. 141.]

[Footnote 97: Consult the preface of Ducange, (ad Gloss, Graec. Medii
Aevi) and the Novels of Justinian, (vii. lxvi.)]

[Footnote 98: (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. xii. p. 369.) The Code and Pandects (the latter by
Thalelaeus) were translated in the time of Justinian, (p. 358, 366.)
Theophilus one of the original triumvirs, has left an elegant, though
diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the other hand, Julian,
antecessor of Constantinople, (A.D. 570,) cxx. Novellas Graecas eleganti
Latinitate donavit (Heineccius, Hist. J. R. p. 396) for the use of Italy
and Africa.]

[Footnote 99: Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the Franks
or Romans, the viiith to the Greeks, the ixth to the Arabs. A tempore
Augusti Caesaris donec imperaret Tiberius Caesar spatio circiter annorum
600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P. Patricii, et praecipua pars exercitus
Romani: extra quod, conciliarii, scribae et populus, omnes Graeci
fuerunt: deinde regnum etiam Graecanicum factum est, (p. 96, vers.
Pocock.) The Christian and ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave
him some advantage over the more ignorant Moslems.]

[Footnote 100: Primus ex Graecorum genere in Imperio confirmatus est; or
according to another Ms. of Paulus Diaconus, (l. iii. c. 15, p. 443,) in
Orasorum Imperio.]

[Footnote 101: Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutastis, putavit
Sanctissimus Papa. (an audacious irony,) ita vos (vobis) displicere
Romanorum nomen. His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum Imperatorem Graecorum,
ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum amicitiam faceret, (Liutprand in
Legatione, p. 486.) * Note: Sicut et vestem. These words follow in the
text of Liutprand, (apud Murat. Script. Ital. tom. ii. p. 486, to which
Gibbon refers.) But with some inaccuracy or confusion, which rarely
occurs in Gibbon's references, the rest of the quotation, which as it
stands is unintelligible, does not appear--M.]

[Footnote 102: By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last siege
of Constantinople, the account is thus stated, (l. i. p. 3.) Constantine
transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city of Thrace: they adopted
the language and manners of the natives, who were confounded with
them under the name of Romans. The kings of Constantinople, says the
historian.]

While the government of the East was transacted in Latin, the Greek was
the language of literature and philosophy; nor could the masters of
this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to envy the borrowed learning and
imitative taste of their Roman disciples. After the fall of Paganism,
the loss of Syria and Egypt, and the extinction of the schools of
Alexandria and Athens, the studies of the Greeks insensibly retired
to some regular monasteries, and above all, to the royal college of
Constantinople, which was burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian. [103]
In the pompous style of the age, the president of that foundation was
named the Sun of Science: his twelve associates, the professors in the
different arts and faculties, were the twelve signs of the zodiac; a
library of thirty-six thousand five hundred volumes was open to their
inquiries; and they could show an ancient manuscript of Homer, on a roll
of parchment one hundred and twenty feet in length, the intestines, as
it was fabled, of a prodigious serpent. [104] But the seventh and eight
centuries were a period of discord and darkness: the library was burnt,
the college was abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented as the
foes of antiquity; and a savage ignorance and contempt of letters has
disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian dynasties. [105]

[Footnote 103: See Ducange, (C. P. Christiana, l. ii. p. 150, 151,) who
collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at least of Zonaras,
(tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 454,) Michael Glycas, (p. 281,)
Constantine Manasses, (p. 87.) After refuting the absurd charge against
the emperor, Spanheim, (Hist. Imaginum, p. 99-111,) like a true
advocate, proceeds to doubt or deny the reality of the fire, and almost
of the library.]

[Footnote 104: According to Malchus, (apud Zonar. l. xiv. p. 53,) this
Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be renewed--But
on a serpent's skin? Most strange and incredible!]

[Footnote 105: The words of Zonaras, and of Cedrenus, are strong words,
perhaps not ill suited to those reigns.]

In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the restoration
of science. [106] After the fanaticism of the Arabs had subsided, the
caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than the provinces, of the
empire: their liberal curiosity rekindled the emulation of the Greeks,
brushed away the dust from their ancient libraries, and taught them to
know and reward the philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid
by the pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Caesar Bardas,
the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of letters,
a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused his ambition. A
particle of the treasures of his nephew was sometimes diverted from
the indulgence of vice and folly; a school was opened in the palace
of Magnaura; and the presence of Bardas excited the emulation of the
masters and students. At their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop
of Thessalonica: his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics
was admired by the strangers of the East; and this occult science
was magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all
knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration
or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend, the
celebrated Photius, [107] renounced the freedom of a secular and
studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was alternately
excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East and West. By the
confession even of priestly hatred, no art or science, except poetry,
was foreign to this universal scholar, who was deep in thought,
indefatigable in reading, and eloquent in diction. Whilst he exercised
the office of protospathaire or captain of the guards, Photius was sent
ambassador to the caliph of Bagdad. [108] The tedious hours of exile,
perhaps of confinement, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his
Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two hundred and
fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers, theologians, are
reviewed without any regular method: he abridges their narrative or
doctrine, appreciates their style and character, and judges even the
fathers of the church with a discreet freedom, which often breaks
through the superstition of the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented
the defects of his own education, intrusted to the care of Photius his
son and successor, Leo the philosopher; and the reign of that prince and
of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most prosperous
aeras of the Byzantine literature. By their munificence the treasures
of antiquity were deposited in the Imperial library; by their pens,
or those of their associates, they were imparted in such extracts
and abridgments as might amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the
indolence, of the public. Besides the Basilics, or code of laws, the
arts of husbandry and war, of feeding or destroying the human species,
were propagated with equal diligence; and the history of Greece and Rome
was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which two only (of
embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped the injuries of time.
In every station, the reader might contemplate the image of the past
world, apply the lesson or warning of each page, and learn to admire,
perhaps to imitate, the examples of a brighter period. I shall not
expatiate on the works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous
study of the ancients, have deserved, in some measure, the remembrance
and gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may still
enjoy the benefit of the philosophical commonplace book of Stobaeus, the
grammatical and historical lexicon of Suidas, the Chiliads of Tzetzes,
which comprise six hundred narratives in twelve thousand verses, and the
commentaries on Homer of Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who,
from his horn of plenty, has poured the names and authorities of four
hundred writers. From these originals, and from the numerous tribe
of scholiasts and critics, [109] some estimate may be formed of the
literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was enlightened
by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle and Plato: and
in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches, we must envy the
generation that could still peruse the history of Theopompus, the
orations of Hyperides, the comedies of Menander, [110] and the odes of
Alcaeus and Sappho. The frequent labor of illustration attests not only
the existence, but the popularity, of the Grecian classics: the general
knowledge of the age may be deduced from the example of two learned
females, the empress Eudocia, and the princess Anna Comnena, who
cultivated, in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy. [111]
The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous: a more correct
and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at least the
compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes affected to copy
the purity of the Attic models.

[Footnote 106: See Zonaras (l. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus, (p. 549,
550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been transformed by
ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so undeservedly, if he be the author
of the oracles more commonly ascribed to the emperor of the same name.
The physics of Leo in Ms. are in the library of Vienna, (Fabricius,
Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. 781.) Qui serant!]

[Footnote 107: The ecclesiastical and literary character of Photius is
copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus Byzant. p. 269, 396)
and Fabricius.]

[Footnote 108: It can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliphs and the
relation of his embassy might have been curious and instructive. But how
did he procure his books? A library so numerous could neither be found
at Bagdad, nor transported with his baggage, nor preserved in his
memory. Yet the last, however incredible, seems to be affirmed by
Photius himself. Camusat (Hist. Critique des Journaux, p. 87-94) gives
a good account of the Myriobiblon.]

[Footnote 109: Of these modern Greeks, see the respective articles in
the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius--a laborious work, yet susceptible
of a better method and many improvements; of Eustathius, (tom. i. p.
289-292, 306-329,) of the Pselli, (a diatribe of Leo Allatius, ad
calcem tom. v., of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. vi. p. 486-509)
of John Stobaeus, (tom. viii., 665-728,) of Suidas, (tom. ix. p.
620-827,) John Tzetzes, (tom. xii. p. 245-273.) Mr. Harris, in his
Philological Arrangements, opus senile, has given a sketch of this
Byzantine learning, (p. 287-300.)]

[Footnote 110: From the obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard Vossius (de
Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. xix. p.
285) mention a commentary of Michael Psellus on twenty-four plays
of Menander, still extant in Ms. at Constantinople. Yet such classic
studies seem incompatible with the gravity or dulness of a schoolman,
who pored over the categories, (de Psellis, p. 42;) and Michael has
probably been confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to
the comedies of Menander. In the xth century, Suidas quotes fifty plays,
but he often transcribes the old scholiast of Aristophanes.]

[Footnote 111: Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style, and Zonaras
her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with truth. The
princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of Plato; and had
studied quadrivium of astrology, geometry, arithmetic, and music, (see
he preface to the Alexiad, with Ducange's notes)]

In our modern education, the painful though necessary attainment of two
languages, which are no longer living, may consume the time and damp
the ardor of the youthful student. The poets and orators were long
imprisoned in the barbarous dialects of our Western ancestors, devoid
of harmony or grace; and their genius, without precept or example, was
abandoned to the rule and native powers of their judgment and fancy. But
the Greeks of Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their
vulgar speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most
happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the sublime
masters who had pleased or instructed the first of nations. But these
advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach and shame of a degenerate
people. They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers,
without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that sacred
patrimony: they read, they praised, they compiled, but their languid
souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of
ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or
promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been added
to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient
disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next
servile generation. Not a single composition of history, philosophy, or
literature, has been saved from oblivion by the intrinsic beauties of
style or sentiment, of original fancy, or even of successful imitation.
In prose, the least offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from
censure by their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the orators, most
eloquent [112] in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from the
models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste and reason
are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and
intricate phraseology, the discord of images, the childish play of false
or unseasonable ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves,
to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke
of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious
affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and
insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses, were silent and
inglorious: the bards of Constantinople seldom rose above a riddle or
epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even the rules of prosody; and
with the melody of Homer yet sounding in their ears, they confound
all measure of feet and syllables in the impotent strains which have
received the name of political or city verses. [113] The minds of the
Greek were bound in the fetters of a base and imperious superstition
which extends her dominion round the circle of profane science. Their
understandings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in the
belief of visions and miracles, they had lost all principles of moral
evidence, and their taste was vitiates by the homilies of the monks,
an absurd medley of declamation and Scripture. Even these contemptible
studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior talents: the
leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to admire and copy the
oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools of pulpit produce any rivals
of the fame of Athanasius and Chrysostom. [114]

[Footnote 112: To censure the Byzantine taste. Ducange (Praefat. Gloss.
Graec. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius, Jerom, Petronius
George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once the precept and the
example.]

[Footnote 113: The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as, from
their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually consist of
fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine Manasses, John Tzetzes,
&c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p. i. p. 345, 346, edit. Basil,
1762.)]

[Footnote 114: As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John Damascenus in
the viiith century is revered as the last father of the Greek, church.]

In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emulation of
states and individuals is the most powerful spring of the efforts and
improvements of mankind. The cities of ancient Greece were cast in the
happy mixture of union and independence, which is repeated on a larger
scale, but in a looser form, by the nations of modern Europe; the union
of language, religion, and manners, which renders them the spectators
and judges of each other's merit; [115] the independence of government
and interest, which asserts their separate freedom, and excites them
to strive for preeminence in the career of glory. The situation of the
Romans was less favorable; yet in the early ages of the republic, which
fixed the national character, a similar emulation was kindled among the
states of Latium and Italy; and in the arts and sciences, they aspired
to equal or surpass their Grecian masters. The empire of the Caesars
undoubtedly checked the activity and progress of the human mind; its
magnitude might indeed allow some scope for domestic competition; but
when it was gradually reduced, at first to the East and at last to
Greece and Constantinople, the Byzantine subjects were degraded to an
abject and languid temper, the natural effect of their solitary and
insulated state. From the North they were oppressed by nameless tribes
of Barbarians, to whom they scarcely imparted the appellation of
men. The language and religion of the more polished Arabs were an
insurmountable bar to all social intercourse. The conquerors of Europe
were their brethren in the Christian faith; but the speech of the Franks
or Latins was unknown, their manners were rude, and they were rarely
connected, in peace or war, with the successors of Heraclius. Alone in
the universe, the self-satisfied pride of the Greeks was not disturbed
by the comparison of foreign merit; and it is no wonder if they fainted
in the race, since they had neither competitors to urge their speed,
nor judges to crown their victory. The nations of Europe and Asia
were mingled by the expeditions to the Holy Land; and it is under the
Comnenian dynasty that a faint emulation of knowledge and military
virtue was rekindled in the Byzantine empire. [Footnote 115: Hume's
Essays, vol. i. p. 125]




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

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

In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national characters
may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and Egypt abandoned
their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion: Rome again aspired to
the dominion of the world; and the wit of the lively and loquacious
Greeks was consumed in the disputes of metaphysical theology. The
incomprehensible mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, instead
of commanding their silent submission, were agitated in vehement and
subtile controversies, which enlarged their faith at the expense,
perhaps, of their charity and reason. From the council of Nice to
the end of the seventh century, the peace and unity of the church was
invaded by these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they affect the
decline and fall of the empire, that the historian has too often been
compelled to attend the synods, to explore the creeds, and to enumerate
the sects, of this busy period of ecclesiastical annals. From the
beginning of the eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine
empire, the sound of controversy was seldom heard: curiosity was
exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the decrees of six councils, the
articles of the Catholic faith had been irrevocably defined. The spirit
of dispute, however vain and pernicious, requires some energy and
exercise of the mental faculties; and the prostrate Greeks were content
to fast, to pray, and to believe in blind obedience to the patriarch
and his clergy. During a long dream of superstition, the Virgin and
the Saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and images, were
preached by the monks, and worshipped by the people; and the appellation
of people might be extended, without injustice, to the first ranks
of civil society. At an unseasonable moment, the Isaurian emperors
attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their subjects: under their
influence reason might obtain some proselytes, a far greater number was
swayed by interest or fear; but the Eastern world embraced or deplored
their visible deities, and the restoration of images was celebrated
as the feast of orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous state the
ecclesiastical rulers were relieved from the toil, or deprived of the
pleasure, of persecution. The Pagans had disappeared; the Jews were
silent and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote
hostilities against a national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and Syria
enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian caliphs. About
the middle of the seventh century, a branch of Manichaeans was selected
as the victims of spiritual tyranny; their patience was at length
exasperated to despair and rebellion; and their exile has scattered over
the West the seeds of reformation. These important events will justify
some inquiry into the doctrine and story of the Paulicians; [1] and, as
they cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify
the good, and abate or suspect the evil, that is reported by their
adversaries.

[Footnote 1: The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are weighed,
with his usual judgment and candor, by the learned Mosheim, (Hist.
Ecclesiast. seculum ix. p. 311, &c.) He draws his original intelligence
from Photius (contra Manichaeos, l. i.) and Peter Siculus, (Hist.
Manichaeorum.) The first of these accounts has not fallen into my
hands; the second, which Mosheim prefers, I have read in a Latin version
inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, (tom. xvi. p. 754-764,) from
the edition of the Jesuit Raderus, (Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.) * Note:
Compare Hallam's Middle Ages, p. 461-471. Mr. Hallam justly observes
that this chapter "appears to be accurate as well as luminous, and is at
least far superior to any modern work on the subject."--M.]

The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed by
the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of emulating or
surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the Catholics, their
obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of the East and West,
and confined to the villages and mountains along the borders of the
Euphrates. Some vestige of the Marcionites may be detected in the fifth
century; [2] but the numerous sects were finally lost in the odious name
of the Manichaeans; and these heretics, who presumed to reconcile the
doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ, were pursued by the two religions
with equal and unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in
the neighborhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth of Lucian than
for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer arose, esteemed by the
Paulicians as the chosen messenger of truth. In his humble dwelling of
Mananalis, Constantine entertained a deacon, who returned from Syrian
captivity, and received the inestimable gift of the New Testament, which
was already concealed from the vulgar by the prudence of the Greek, and
perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. [3] These books became the measure of
his studies and the rule of his faith; and the Catholics, who dispute
his interpretation, acknowledge that his text was genuine and sincere.
But he attached himself with peculiar devotion to the writings and
character of St. Paul: the name of the Paulicians is derived by their
enemies from some unknown and domestic teacher; but I am confident
that they gloried in their affinity to the apostle of the Gentiles.
His disciples, Titus, Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, were represented by
Constantine and his fellow-laborers: the names of the apostolic churches
were applied to the congregations which they assembled in Armenia and
Cappadocia; and this innocent allegory revived the example and memory
of the first ages. In the Gospel, and the Epistles of St. Paul, his
faithful follower investigated the Creed of primitive Christianity;
and, whatever might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud
the spirit, of the inquiry. But if the Scriptures of the Paulicians were
pure, they were not perfect. Their founders rejected the two Epistles of
St. Peter, [4] the apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their
favorite for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. [5]
They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt for
the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which have been
consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With equal boldness,
and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus,
disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid volumes,
had been published by the Oriental sects; [6] the fabulous productions
of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of the East; the spurious
gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the first age had overwhelmed the
orthodox code; the theology of Manes, and the authors of the kindred
heresies; and the thirty generations, or aeons, which had been created
by the fruitful fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned
the memory and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the
injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple votaries of
St. Paul and of Christ.

[Footnote 2: In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in Syria,
contained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were inhabited by Arians
and Eunomians, and eight by Marcionites, whom the laborious bishop
reconciled to the Catholic church, (Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom.
iv. p. 81, 82.)]

[Footnote 3: Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non licet sed
sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a Catholic when he was
advised to read the Bible, (Petr. Sicul. p. 761.)]

[Footnote 4: In rejecting the second Epistle of St. Peter, the
Paulicians are justified by some of the most respectable of the ancients
and moderns, (see Wetstein ad loc., Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau
Testament, c. 17.) They likewise overlooked the Apocalypse, (Petr.
Sicul. p. 756;) but as such neglect is not imputed as a crime, the
Greeks of the ixth century must have been careless of the credit and
honor of the Revelations.]

[Footnote 5: This contention, which has not escaped the malice of
Porphyry, supposes some error and passion in one or both of the
apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerome, and Erasmus, it is represented as a
sham quarrel a pious fraud, for the benefit of the Gentiles and the
correction of the Jews, (Middleton's Works, vol. ii. p. 1-20.)]

[Footnote 6: Those who are curious of this heterodox library, may
consult the researches of Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du Manicheisme,
tom. i. p. 305-437.) Even in Africa, St. Austin could describe the
Manichaean books, tam multi, tam grandes, tam pretiosi codices, (contra
Faust. xiii. 14;) but he adds, without pity, Incendite omnes illas
membranas: and his advice had been rigorously followed.]

Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the Paulician
reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they reduced the number of
masters, at whose voice profane reason must bow to mystery and miracle.
The early separation of the Gnostics had preceded the establishment of
the Catholic worship; and against the gradual innovations of discipline
and doctrine they were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion, as by
the silence of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been
transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of the
Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. An image made without
hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to whose skill
alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their merit or value. The
miraculous relics were a heap of bones and ashes, destitute of life or
virtue, or of any relation, perhaps, with the person to whom they were
ascribed. The true and vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten
timber, the body and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine,
the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was
degraded from her celestial honors and immaculate virginity; and the
saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the laborious
office of meditation in heaven, and ministry upon earth. In the
practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments, the Paulicians
were inclined to abolish all visible objects of worship, and the words
of the gospel were, in their judgment, the baptism and communion of the
faithful. They indulged a convenient latitude for the interpretation of
Scripture: and as often as they were pressed by the literal sense, they
could escape to the intricate mazes of figure and allegory. Their utmost
diligence must have been employed to dissolve the connection between the
Old and the New Testament; since they adored the latter as the oracles
of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and absurd invention of
men or daemons. We cannot be surprised, that they should have found
in the Gospel the orthodox mystery of the Trinity: but, instead of
confessing the human nature and substantial sufferings of Christ, they
amused their fancy with a celestial body that passed through the virgin
like water through a pipe; with a fantastic crucifixion, that eluded the
vain and important malice of the Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual
was not adapted to the genius of the times; [7] and the rational
Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and
easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, that the
Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first article of
natural and revealed religion. Their belief and their trust was in the
Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and of the invisible world.

But they likewise held the eternity of matter; a stubborn and rebellious
substance, the origin of a second principle of an active being, who has
created this visible world, and exercises his temporal reign till the
final consummation of death and sin. [8] The appearances of moral
and physical evil had established the two principles in the ancient
philosophy and religion of the East; from whence this doctrine was
transfused to the various swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may
be devised in the nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to
a subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect
malevolence: but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness, and the power,
of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the line; and every
step that approaches the one must recede in equal proportion from the
other. [9]

[Footnote 7: The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined by
Peter (p. 756,) with much prejudice and passion.]

[Footnote 8: Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia; Deum
malum et Deum bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et princi pem, et
alium futuri aevi, (Petr. Sicul. 765.)]

[Footnote 9: Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du
Manicheisme, l. i. iv. v. vi.) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. and
de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii. iii.,) have labored
to explore and discriminate the various systems of the Gnostics on the
subject of the two principles.]

The apostolic labors of Constantine Sylvanus soon multiplied the number
of his disciples, the secret recompense of spiritual ambition. The
remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the Manichaeans of Armenia,
were united under his standard; many Catholics were converted or seduced
by his arguments; and he preached with success in the regions of Pontus
[10] and Cappadocia, which had long since imbibed the religion of
Zoroaster. The Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their
Scriptural names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the
austerity of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of
some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable
of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honors of the
Catholic prelacy; such anti-Christian pride they bitterly censured; and
even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned as an institution of
the Jewish synagogue. The new sect was loosely spread over the provinces
of Asia Minor to the westward of the Euphrates; six of their principal
congregations represented the churches to which St. Paul had addressed
his epistles; and their founder chose his residence in the neighborhood
of Colonia, [11] in the same district of Pontus which had been
celebrated by the altars of Bellona [12] and the miracles of Gregory.
[13] After a mission of twenty-seven years, Sylvanus, who had retired
from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell a sacrifice to Roman
persecution. The laws of the pious emperors, which seldom touched the
lives of less odious heretics, proscribed without mercy or disguise the
tenets, the books, and the persons of the Montanists and Manichaeans:
the books were delivered to the flames; and all who should presume to
secrete such writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an
ignominious death. [14] A Greek minister, armed with legal and military
powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and to reclaim, if
possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of cruelty, Simeon placed the
unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of his disciples, who were commanded,
as the price of their pardon and the proof of their repentance, to
massacre their spiritual father. They turned aside from the impious
office; the stones dropped from their filial hands, and of the whole
number, only one executioner could be found, a new David, as he is
styled by the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy.
This apostate (Justin was his name) again deceived and betrayed his
unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St. Paul may
be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle, he embraced the
doctrine which he had been sent to persecute, renounced his honors and
fortunes, and required among the Paulicians the fame of a missionary and
a martyr. They were not ambitious of martyrdom, [15] but in a calamitous
period of one hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained
whatever zeal could inflict; and power was insufficient to eradicate the
obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason. From the blood and
ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and congregations
repeatedly arose: amidst their foreign hostilities, they found leisure
for domestic quarrels: they preached, they disputed, they suffered;
and the virtues, the apparent virtues, of Sergius, in a pilgrimage
of thirty-three years, are reluctantly confessed by the orthodox
historians. [16] The native cruelty of Justinian the Second was
stimulated by a pious cause; and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a
single conflagration, the name and memory of the Paulicians. By their
primitive simplicity, their abhorrence of popular superstition,
the Iconoclast princes might have been reconciled to some erroneous
doctrines; but they themselves were exposed to the calumnies of the
monks, and they chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused
as the accomplices, of the Manichaeans. Such a reproach has sullied the
clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favor the severity of
the penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honor of a
more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the rigid Leo the
Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; but the prize
must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who
restored the images to the Oriental church. Her inquisitors explored
the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia, and the flatterers of
the empress have affirmed that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand
Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her
guilt or merit has perhaps been stretched beyond the measure of truth:
but if the account be allowed, it must be presumed that many simple
Iconoclasts were punished under a more odious name; and that some who
were driven from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the bosom of
heresy.

[Footnote 10: The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys were
possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Herodot. l. i. c. 103) and
Persians; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race of the
Achaemenides, (Sallust. Fragment. l. iii. with the French supplement and
notes of the president de Brosses.)]

[Footnote 11: Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest of
Pontus. This Colonia, on the Lycus, above Neo-Caesarea, is named by
the Turks Coulei-hisar, or Chonac, a populous town in a strong country,
(D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 34. Tournefort, Voyage du
Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxi. p. 293.)]

[Footnote 12: The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus was a powerful
and wealthy foundation, and the high priest was respected as the second
person in the kingdom. As the sacerdotal office had been occupied by
his mother's family, Strabo (l. xii. p. 809, 835, 836, 837) dwells with
peculiar complacency on the temple, the worship, and festival, which was
twice celebrated every year. But the Bellona of Pontus had the features
and character of the goddess, not of war, but of love.]

[Footnote 13: Gregory, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, (A.D. 240-265,) surnamed
Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years afterwards, the
history or romance of his life was composed by Gregory of Nyssa, his
namesake and countryman, the brother of the great St. Basil.]

[Footnote 14: Hoc caeterum ad sua egregia facinora, divini atque
orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichaeos Montanosque capitali
puniri sententia juberent, eorumque libros, quocunque in loco
inventi essent, flammis tradi; quod siquis uspiam eosdem occultasse
deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis poenae addici, ejusque bona in
fiscum inferri, (Petr. Sicul. p. 759.) What more could bigotry and
persecution desire?]

[Footnote 15: It should seem, that the Paulicians allowed themselves
some latitude of equivocation and mental reservation; till the Catholics
discovered the pressing questions, which reduced them to the alternative
of apostasy or martyrdom, (Petr. Sicul. p. 760.)]

[Footnote 16: The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus (p. 579-763)
with satisfaction and pleasantry. Justus justa persolvit. See likewise
Cedrenus, (p. 432-435.)]

The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a religion
long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause they are no
longer susceptible of fear or remorse: the justice of their arms hardens
them against the feelings of humanity; and they revenge their fathers'
wrongs on the children of their tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of
Bohemia and the Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century,
were the Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. [17] They
were first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who
exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the heretics;
and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected their independence
and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming flame was kindled by the
persecution of Theodora, and the revolt of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician,
who commanded the guards of the general of the East. His father had been
impaled by the Catholic inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature,
might justify his desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren
were united by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of
anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the caliph;
and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to the implacable
enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between Siwas and Trebizond he
founded or fortified the city of Tephrice, [18] which is still occupied
by a fierce or licentious people, and the neighboring hills were covered
with the Paulician fugitives, who now reconciled the use of the Bible
and the sword. During more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the
calamities of foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads,
the disciples of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and
the peaceful Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were
delivered into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant
spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so intolerable
the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son of Theodora, 

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

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
       Volume 6

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman  

Posting Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #736]
Release Date: November 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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




Produced by David Reed and Dale R. Fredrickson





HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 6

1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)


     Transcriber's Note

     This is the sixth volume of the six volumes of Edward Gibbon's History
     Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. If you find any errors
     please feel free to notify me of them. I want to make this the best
     etext edition possible for both scholars and the general public. I
     would like to thank those who have helped in making this text better.
     Especially Dale R. Fredrickson who has hand entered the Greek characters
     in the footnotes and who has suggested retaining the conjoined ae
     character in the text. Haradda@aol.com and davidr@inconnect.com are my
     email addresses for now. Please feel free to send me your comments and I
     hope you enjoy this.

     David Reed




Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part I.

     Preservation Of The Greek Empire.--Numbers, Passage, And
     Event, Of The Second And Third Crusades.--St. Bernard.--
     Reign Of Saladin In Egypt And Syria.--His Conquest Of
     Jerusalem.--Naval Crusades.--Richard The First Of England.--
     Pope Innocent The Third; And The Fourth And Fifth Crusades.--
     The Emperor Frederic The Second.--Louis The Ninth Of
     France; And The Two Last Crusades.--Expulsion Of The Latins
     Or Franks By The Mamelukes.

In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps compare the
emperor Alexius [1] to the jackal, who is said to follow the steps, and
to devour the leavings, of the lion. Whatever had been his fears and
toils in the passage of the first crusade, they were amply recompensed
by the subsequent benefits which he derived from the exploits of the
Franks. His dexterity and vigilance secured their first conquest of
Nice; and from this threatening station the Turks were compelled to
evacuate the neighborhood of Constantinople. While the crusaders, with
blind valor, advanced into the midland countries of Asia, the crafty
Greek improved the favorable occasion when the emirs of the sea-coast
were recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks were driven from
the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of Ephesus and Smyrna, of
Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were restored to the empire, which
Alexius enlarged from the Hellespont to the banks of the Maeander, and
the rocky shores of Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor: the
towns were rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country was peopled
with colonies of Christians, who were gently removed from the more
distant and dangerous frontier. In these paternal cares, we may forgive
Alexius, if he forgot the deliverance of the holy sepulchre; but, by
the Latins, he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason and
desertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his throne; but _he_
had promised to assist their enterprise in person, or, at least, with
his troops and treasures: his base retreat dissolved their obligations;
and the sword, which had been the instrument of their victory, was the
pledge and title of their just independence. It does not appear that
the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete claims over the kingdom of
Jerusalem; [2] but the borders of Cilicia and Syria were more recent in
his possession, and more accessible to his arms. The great army of the
crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the principality of Antioch
was left without a head, by the surprise and captivity of Bohemond; his
ransom had oppressed him with a heavy debt; and his Norman followers
were insufficient to repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In
this distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of leaving
the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful Tancred; of arming
the West against the Byzantine empire; and of executing the design which
he inherited from the lessons and example of his father Guiscard.
His embarkation was clandestine: and, if we may credit a tale of the
princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely secreted in a coffin.
[3] But his reception in France was dignified by the public applause, and
his marriage with the king's daughter: his return was glorious, since
the bravest spirits of the age enlisted under his veteran command; and
he repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and forty
thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates of Europe. [4] The
strength of Durazzo, and prudence of Alexius, the progress of famine
and approach of winter, eluded his ambitious hopes; and the venal
confederates were seduced from his standard. A treaty of peace [5]
suspended the fears of the Greeks; and they were finally delivered by
the death of an adversary, whom neither oaths could bind, nor dangers
could appal, nor prosperity could satiate. His children succeeded to the
principality of Antioch; but the boundaries were strictly defined, the
homage was clearly stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistra
were restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of Anatolia, they
possessed the entire circuit from Trebizond to the Syrian gates. The
Seljukian dynasty of Roum [6] was separated on all sides from the sea
and their Mussulman brethren; the power of the sultan was shaken by
the victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and after the loss of
Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium, an obscure and in
land town above three hundred miles from Constantinople. [7] Instead of
trembling for their capital, the Comnenian princes waged an offensive
war against the Turks, and the first crusade prevented the fall of the
declining empire.

[Footnote 1: Anna Comnena relates her father's conquests in Asia Minor
Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321--325, l. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician war against
Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328--324; the war of Epirus, with tedious
prolixity, l. xii. xiii. p. 345--406; the death of Bohemond, l. xiv. p.
419.]

[Footnote 2: The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a nominal
dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one is still
legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully placed before
their own the name of the reigning emperor, (Ducange, Dissertations sur
Joinville xxvii. p. 319.)]

[Footnote 3: Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation, he was
shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how the Barbarian
could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This absurd tale is
unknown to the Latins. * Note: The Greek writers, in general, Zonaras,
p. 2, 303, and Glycas, p. 334 agree in this story with the princess
Anne, except in the absurd addition of the dead cock. Ducange has
already quoted some instances where a similar stratagem had been adopted
by _Norman_ princes. On this authority Wilken inclines to believe the
fact. Appendix to vol. ii. p. 14.--M.]

[Footnote 4: 'Apo QulhV in the Byzantine geography, must mean England;
yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I. would not suffer
him to levy any troops in his kingdom, (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p.
41.)]

[Footnote 5: The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 406--416) is
an original and curious piece, which would require, and might afford, a
good map of the principality of Antioch.]

[Footnote 6: See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii. part
ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and Damascus,
as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins, and Arabians. The
last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs of _Roum_.]

[Footnote 7: Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and by
Strabo, with an ambiguous title of KwmopoliV, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p.
121.) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude (plhqoV) of Jews
and Gentiles. under the corrupt name of _Kunijah_, it is described as a
great city, with a river and garden, three leagues from the mountains,
and decorated (I know not why) with Plato's tomb, (Abulfeda, tabul.
xvii. p. 303 vers. Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from
Ibn Said.)]

In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by land from the
West for the relief of Palestine. The soldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy,
France, and Germany were excited by the example and success of the
first crusade. [8] Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holy
sepulchre, the emperor, and the French king, Conrad the Third and
Louis the Seventh, undertook the second crusade to support the falling
fortunes of the Latins. [9] A grand division of the third crusade was
led by the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, [10] who sympathized with his
brothers of France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. These
three expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of the greatness
of numbers, their passage through the Greek empire, and the nature
and event of their Turkish warfare, and a brief parallel may save the
repetition of a tedious narrative. However splendid it may seem, a
regular story of the crusades would exhibit the perpetual return of the
same causes and effects; and the frequent attempts for the defence or
recovery of the Holy Land would appear so many faint and unsuccessful
copies of the original.

[Footnote 8: For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna Comnena,
(Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of Albert Aquensis.)]

[Footnote 9: For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and Louis VII.,
see William of Tyre, (l. xvi. c. 18--19,) Otho of Frisingen, (l. i. c.
34--45 59, 60,) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68,) Struvius, (Corpus
Hist Germanicae, p. 372, 373,) Scriptores Rerum Francicarum a Duchesne
tom. iv.: Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41--48, Cinnamus
l. ii. p. 41--49.]

[Footnote 10: For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetas
in Isaac Angel. l. ii. c. 3--8, p. 257--266. Struv. (Corpus. Hist. Germ.
p. 414,) and two historians, who probably were spectators, Tagino, (in
Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406--416, edit Struv.,) and the Anonymus de
Expeditione Asiatica Fred. I. (in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p.
ii. p. 498--526, edit. Basnage.)]

I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of the first
pilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though unequal in fame and
merit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his fellow-adventurers. At their
head were displayed the banners of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and
Aquitain; the first a descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a father
of the Brunswick line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince,
transported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and ornaments
of his church and palace; and the veteran crusaders, Hugh the Great and
Stephen of Chartres, returned to consummate their unfinished vow. The
huge and disorderly bodies of their followers moved forward in two
columns; and if the first consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand
persons, the second might possibly amount to sixty thousand horse and
one hundred thousand foot. [11] [111] The armies of the second crusade might
have claimed the conquest of Asia; the nobles of France and Germany
were animated by the presence of their sovereigns; and both the rank and
personal character of Conrad and Louis gave a dignity to their cause,
and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly expected from the
feudatory chiefs. The cavalry of the emperor, and that of the king,
was each composed of seventy thousand knights, and their immediate
attendants in the field; [12] and if the light-armed troops, the peasant
infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be rigorously
excluded, the full account will scarcely be satisfied with four hundred
thousand souls. The West, from Rome to Britain, was called into action;
the kings of Poland and Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and it is
affirmed by the Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a strait
or river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand,
desisted from the endless and formidable computation. [13] In the third
crusade, as the French and English preferred the navigation of the
Mediterranean, the host of Frederic Barbarossa was less numerous.
Fifteen thousand knights, and as many squires, were the flower of the
German chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one hundred thousand foot,
were mustered by the emperor in the plains of Hungary; and after such
repetitions, we shall no longer be startled at the six hundred thousand
pilgrims, which credulity has ascribed to this last emigration. [14] Such
extravagant reckonings prove only the astonishment of contemporaries;
but their astonishment most strongly bears testimony to the existence
of an enormous, though indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might applaud
their superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of war, but they
confessed the strength and courage of the French cavalry, and the
infantry of the Germans; [15] and the strangers are described as an iron
race, of gigantic stature, who darted fire from their eyes, and spilt
blood like water on the ground. Under the banners of Conrad, a troop of
females rode in the attitude and armor of men; and the chief of these
Amazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of the
Golden-footed Dame.

[Footnote 11: Anne, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse and
100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head two brothers
of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely ignorant of the names, families,
and possessions of the Latin princes.]

[Footnote 111: It was this army of pilgrims, the first body of which was
headed by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of Blandras, which
set forth on the wild, yet, with a more disciplined army, not impolitic,
enterprise of striking at the heart of the Mahometan power, by attacking
the sultan in Bagdad. For their adventures and fate, see Wilken, vol.
ii. p. 120, &c., Michaud, book iv.--M.]

[Footnote 12: William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000 loricati
in each of the armies.]

[Footnote 13: The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus,
(ennenhkonta muriadeV,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud Ducange ad
Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why must therefore the
version and comment suppose the modest and insufficient reckoning of
90,000? Does not Godfrey of Viterbo (Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori, tom.
vii. p. 462) exclaim?
----Numerum si poscere quaeras,
Millia millena militis agmen erat.]

[Footnote 14: This extravagant account is given by Albert of Stade,
(apud Struvium, p. 414;) my calculation is borrowed from Godfrey of
Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard Thesaur. (c. 169, p.
804.) The original writers are silent. The Mahometans gave him 200,000,
or 260,000, men, (Bohadin, in Vit. Saladin, p. 110.)]

[Footnote 15: I must observe, that, in the second and third crusades,
the subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the Greeks and
Orientals _Alamanni_. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus are the Poles
and Bohemians; and it is for the French that he reserves the ancient
appellation of Germans. He likewise names the Brittioi, or Britannoi. *
Note: * He names both--Brittioi te kai Britanoi.--M.]

II. The number and character of the strangers was an object of terror
to the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is nearly allied
to that of hatred. This aversion was suspended or softened by the
apprehension of the Turkish power; and the invectives of the Latins will
not bias our more candid belief, that the emperor Alexius dissembled
their insolence, eluded their hostilities, counselled their rashness,
and opened to their ardor the road of pilgrimage and conquest. But
when the Turks had been driven from Nice and the sea-coast, when the
Byzantine princes no longer dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, they
felt with purer indignation the free and frequent passage of the western
Barbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the safety, of the
empire. The second and third crusades were undertaken under the reign
of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the former, the passions were
always impetuous, and often malevolent; and the natural union of a
cowardly and a mischievous temper was exemplified in the latter, who,
without merit or mercy, could punish a tyrant, and occupy his throne. It
was secretly, and perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and people to
destroy, or at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by every species
of injury and oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline
continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The Western
monarchs had stipulated a safe passage and fair market in the country
of their Christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oaths and
hostages; and the poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished with
three marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But every
engagement was violated by treachery and injustice; and the complaints
of the Latins are attested by the honest confession of a Greek
historian, who has dared to prefer truth to his country. [16] Instead
of a hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both in Europe and
Asia, were closely barred against the crusaders; and the scanty pittance
of food was let down in baskets from the walls. Experience or foresight
might excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of humanity
prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, in
the bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, he
is guilty of coining base money for the purpose of trading with the
pilgrims. In every step of their march they were stopped or misled: the
governors had private orders to fortify the passes and break down the
bridges against them: the stragglers were pillaged and murdered:
the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from an
invisible hand; the sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies
were hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the
champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical patience;
and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal conflict,
promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable guests. On the
verge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared the guilty Philadelphia,
[17] rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and deplored the hard necessity
that had stained his sword with any drops of Christian blood. In their
intercourse with the monarchs of Germany and France, the pride of the
Greeks was exposed to an anxious trial. They might boast that on the
first interview the seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the throne
of Manuel; [18] but no sooner had the French king transported his army
beyond the Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second conference,
unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the sea or
land. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still nicer and more
difficult: like the successors of Constantine, they styled themselves
emperors of the Romans; [19] and firmly maintained the purity of their
title and dignity. The first of these representatives of Charlemagne
would only converse with Manuel on horseback in the open field; the
second, by passing the Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined
the view of Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who had
been crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble
appellation of _Rex_, or prince, of the Alemanni; and the vain and
feeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of the
greatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with hatred and
suspicion the Latin pilgrims the Greek emperors maintained a strict,
though secret, alliance with the Turks and Saracens. Isaac Angelus
complained, that by his friendship for the great Saladin he had incurred
the enmity of the Franks; and a mosque was founded at Constantinople for
the public exercise of the religion of Mahomet. [20]

[Footnote 16: Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in
the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of
Philippopolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice and pride.]

[Footnote 17: The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by Nicetas,
while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his countrymen,
(culpa nostra.) History would be pleasant, if we were embarrassed only
by _such_ contradictions. It is likewise from Nicetas, that we learn the
pious and humane sorrow of Frederic.]

[Footnote 18: Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by the
word Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and country from
such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p. 317--320.) Louis
afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex aequo, not ex equo, according
to the laughable readings of some MSS.]

[Footnote 19: Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum, (Anonym
Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of the Greeks was
Rhx... _princeps_. Yet Cinnamus owns, that 'Imperatwr is synonymous to
BasileuV.]

[Footnote 20: In the Epistles of Innocent III., (xiii. p. 184,) and the
History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130,) see the views of a pope and a cadhi
on this _singular_toleration.]

III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were destroyed in
Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows; and the princes
only escaped with some squadrons of horse to accomplish their lamentable
pilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of their knowledge and
humanity; of their knowledge, from the design of subduing Persia and
Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem; [201] of their humanity, from the
massacre of the Christian people, a friendly city, who came out to meet
them with palms and crosses in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis
were less cruel and imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was
still more ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused by
his own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, and
treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crushing the common
foe, by a double attack at the same time but on different sides,
the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were retarded by
jealousy. Louis had scarcely passed the Bosphorus when he was met by
the returning emperor, who had lost the greater part of his army in
glorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks of the Maeander. The
contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: [202]
the desertion of his independent vassals reduced him to his hereditary
troops; and he borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the
pilgrimage of Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience,
or the nature of the war, the king of France advanced through the same
country to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal banner and
the oriflamme of St. Denys, [21] had doubled their march with rash and
inconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king commanded in person,
no longer found their companions in the evening camp. In darkness and
disorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and overwhelmed, by the
innumerable host of Turks, who, in the art of war, were superior to the
Christians of the twelfth century. [211] Louis, who climbed a tree in the
general discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance of
his adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but
almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But instead of pursuing his
expedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the relics of his army
in the friendly seaport of Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch;
but so penurious was the supply of Greek vessels, that they could
only afford room for his knights and nobles; and the plebeian crowd of
infantry was left to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. The
emperor and the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their martial
trains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the Christian
powers of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effort
of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with the
personal fame of piety and courage; but the Orientals had braved these
potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and military forces they
had been so often threatened. [22] Perhaps they had still more to fear
from the veteran genius of Frederic the First, who in his youth had
served in Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and
Italy had taught Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even the
princes of the empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soon
as he lost sight of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the
Greek frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a land (says
the historian) of horror and tribulation. [23] During twenty days, every
step of his fainting and sickly march was besieged by the innumerable
hordes of Turkmans, [24] whose numbers and fury seemed after each defeat
to multiply and inflame. The emperor continued to struggle and to
suffer; and such was the measure of his calamities, that when he reached
the gates of Iconium, no more than one thousand knights were able to
serve on horseback. By a sudden and resolute assault he defeated the
guards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, [25] who humbly sued for
pardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic advanced in a
career of triumph, till he was unfortunately drowned in a petty torrent
of Cilicia. [26] The remainder of his Germans was consumed by sickness
and desertion: and the emperor's son expired with the greatest part
of his Swabian vassals at the siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes,
Godfrey of Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve the
passage of the Lesser Asia; yet even their success was a warning; and
in the last and most experienced age of the crusades, every nation
preferred the sea to the toils and perils of an inland expedition. [27]

[Footnote 201: This was the design of the pilgrims under the archbishop of
Milan. See note, p. 102.--M.]

[Footnote 202: Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a central
road, between that on the coast and that which led to Iconium. He
had been betrayed by the Greeks, his army destroyed without a battle.
Wilken, vol. iii. p. 165. Michaud, vol. ii. p. 156. Conrad advanced
again with Louis as far as Ephesus, and from thence, at the invitation
of Manuel, returned to Constantinople. It was Louis who, at the passage
of the Maeander, was engaged in a "glorious action." Wilken, vol. iii. p.
179. Michaud vol. ii. p. 160. Gibbon followed Nicetas.--M.]

[Footnote 21: As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the vassals
and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint's peculiar
banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a square form, and
a red or _flaming_ color. The _oriflamme_ appeared at the head of
the French armies from the xiith to the xvth century, (Ducange sur
Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p. 244--253.)]

[Footnote 211: They descended the heights to a beautiful valley which
by beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which separated the two
divisions of the army. The modern historians represent differently the
act to which Louis owed his safety, which Gibbon has described by the
undignified phrase, "he climbed a tree." According to Michaud, vol.
ii. p. 164, the king got upon a rock, with his back against a tree;
according to Wilken, vol. iii., he dragged himself up to the top of
the rock by the roots of a tree, and continued to defend himself till
nightfall.--M.]

[Footnote 22: The original French histories of the second crusade are
the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of Duchesne's
collection. The same volume contains many original letters of the king,
of Suger his minister, &c., the best documents of authentic history.]

[Footnote 23: Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam sterilem,
inamnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language of a sufferer.]

[Footnote 24: Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, praedones sine
ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their defeat.
Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]

[Footnote 25: See, in the anonymous writer in the Collection of
Canisius, Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120,) the ambiguous
conduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated and feared both
Saladin and Frederic.]

[Footnote 26: The desire of comparing two great men has tempted many
writers to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which Alexander so
imprudently bathed, (Q. Curt. l. iii c. 4, 5.) But, from the march of
the emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is the Calycadnus, a stream
of less fame, but of a longer course. * Note: It is now called the
Girama: its course is described in M'Donald Kinneir's Travels.--M.]

[Footnote 27: Marinus Sanutus, A.D. 1321, lays it down as a precept,
Quod stolus ecclesiae per terram nullatenus est ducenda. He resolves,
by the divine aid, the objection, or rather exception, of the first
crusade, (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. pars ii. c. i. p. 37.)]

The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple event, while
hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise congenial to the spirit
of the times. But the obstinate perseverance of Europe may indeed excite
our pity and admiration; that no instruction should have been drawn from
constant and adverse experience; that the same confidence should have
repeatedly grown from the same failures; that six succeeding generations
should have rushed headlong down the precipice that was open before
them; and that men of every condition should have staked their public
and private fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or
recovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their country. In a
period of two centuries after the council of Clermont, each spring and
summer produced a new emigration of pilgrim warriors for the defence of
the Holy Land; but the seven great armaments or crusades were excited
by some impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by the
authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings: their zeal
was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by the voice of their holy
orators; and among these, Bernard, [28] the monk, or the saint, may claim
the most honorable place. [281] About eight years before the first conquest
of Jerusalem, he was born of a noble family in Burgundy; at the age of
three-and-twenty he buried himself in the monastery of Citeaux, then in
the primitive fervor of the institution; at the end of two years he led
forth her third colony, or daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux [29] in
Champagne; and was content, till the hour of his death, with the humble
station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has abolished,
with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the honors of these
spiritual heroes. The meanest among them are distinguished by some
energies of the mind; they were at least superior to their votaries and
disciples; and, in the race of superstition, they attained the prize for
which such numbers contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard
stood high above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are
not devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as much
reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character of a saint.
In a secular life, he would have shared the seventh part of a private
inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes
against the visible world, [30] by the refusal of all ecclesiastical
dignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe, and the
founder of one hundred and sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled
at the freedom of his apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan,
consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debt
was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second; and his successor,
Eugenius the Third, was the friend and disciple of the holy Bernard.
It was in the proclamation of the second crusade that he shone as the
missionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence of
his holy sepulchre. [31] At the parliament of Vezelay he spoke before
the king; and Louis the Seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses
from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy
conquest of the emperor Conrad: [311] a phlegmatic people, ignorant of
his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and
gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was the
triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the
depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied of
their inhabitants; and computes, that only one man was left behind for
the consolation of seven widows. [32] The blind fanatics were desirous of
electing him for their general; but the example of the hermit Peter was
before his eyes; and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favor,
he prudently declined a military command, in which failure and victory
would have been almost equally disgraceful to his character. [33] Yet,
after the calamitous event, the abbot of Clairvaux was loudly accused
as a false prophet, the author of the public and private mourning;
his enemies exulted, his friends blushed, and his apology was slow and
unsatisfactory. He justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope;
expatiates on the mysterious ways of Providence; imputes the misfortunes
of the pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly insinuates, that his
mission had been approved by signs and wonders. [34] Had the fact been
certain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful disciples,
who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day, appeal to the public
assemblies of France and Germany, in which they were performed. [35]
At the present hour, such prodigies will not obtain credit beyond the
precincts of Clairvaux; but in the preternatural cures of the blind,
the lame, and the sick, who were presented to the man of God, it is
impossible for us to ascertain the separate shares of accident, of
fancy, of imposture, and of fiction.

[Footnote 28: The most authentic information of St. Bernard must be
drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by Pere
Mabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six volumes in folio.
Whatever friendship could recollect, or superstition could add, is
contained in the two lives, by his disciples, in the vith volume:
whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be found in the
prefaces of the Benedictine editor.]

[Footnote 281: Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps the least
accurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has here failed in
that lucid arrangement, which in general gives perspicuity to his most
condensed and crowded narratives. He has unaccountably, and to the great
perplexity of the reader, placed the preaching of St Bernard after the
second crusade to which i led.--M.]

[Footnote 29: Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Absynth, is situate
among the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St. Bernard would blush
at the pomp of the church and monastery; he would ask for the library,
and I know not whether he would be much edified by a tun of 800 muids,
(914 1-7 hogsheads,) which almost rivals that of Heidelberg, (Melanges
tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom. xlvi. p. 15--20.)]

[Footnote 30: The disciples of the saint (Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 2, p.
1232. Vit. iida, c. 16, No. 45, p. 1383) record a marvellous example
of his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem totius diei itinere
pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre non vidit. Cum enim vespere
facto de eodem lacu socii colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus
ille esset, et mirati sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as
he ought, the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his
library the beauties of that incomparable landscape.]

[Footnote 31: Otho Frising. l. i. c. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363, ad Francos
Orientales Opp. tom. i. p. 328. Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 4, tom. vi. p.
1235.]

[Footnote 311: Bernard had a nobler object in his expedition into
Germany--to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the Jews,
which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the frightful
scenes which had preceded the first crusade, in the flourishing
cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews acknowledge the Christian
intervention of St. Bernard. See the curious extract from the History of
Joseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol. iii. p. 1. and p. 63.--M.]

[Footnote 32: Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super
numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et _pene_ jam non inveniunt
quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduae vivis
remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must be careful not to
construe _pene_ as a substantive.]

[Footnote 33: Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante facies
armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione mea, si vires, si peritia,
&c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks with contempt of the hermit
Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]

[Footnote 34: Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quod a Domino sermo
egressus sit? Quae signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad ista
ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiae meae, responde tu pro me, et pro te
ipso, secundum quae vidisti et audisti, et secundum quod te inspiraverit
Deus. Consolat. l. ii. c. 1. Opp. tom. ii. p. 421--423.]

[Footnote 35: See the testimonies in Vita ima, l. iv. c. 5, 6. Opp. tom.
vi. p. 1258--1261, l. vi. c. 1--17, p. 1286--1314.]

Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discordant votaries;
since the same dispensation which was applauded as a deliverance in
Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a calamity in Asia.
After the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian fugitives diffused their
consternation and sorrow; Bagdad mourned in the dust; the cadhi
Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in the caliph's presence; and the
whole divan shed tears at his melancholy tale. [36] But the commanders of
the faithful could only weep; they were themselves captives in the hands
of the Turks: some temporal power was restored to the last age of the
Abbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and the
adjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had followed
the common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing round of valor,
greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay; their spirit and power were
unequal to the defence of religion; and, in his distant realm of Persia,
the Christians were strangers to the name and the arms of Sangiar, the
last hero of his race. [37] While the sultans were involved in the silken
web of the harem, the pious task was undertaken by their slaves, the
Atabeks, [38] a Turkish name, which, like the Byzantine patricians, may
be translated by Father of the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant Turk, had
been the favorite of Malek Shaw, from whom he received the privilege of
standing on the right hand of the throne; but, in the civil wars that
ensued on the monarch's death, he lost his head and the government of
Aleppo. His domestic emirs persevered in their attachment to his son
Zenghi, who proved his first arms against the Franks in the defeat
of Antioch: thirty campaigns in the service of the caliph and sultan
established his military fame; and he was invested with the command of
Mosul, as the only champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet.
The public hope was not disappointed: after a siege of twenty-five
days, he stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks their
conquests beyond the Euphrates: [39] the martial tribes of Curdistan were
subdued by the independent sovereign of Mosul and Aleppo: his soldiers
were taught to behold the camp as their only country; they trusted
to his liberality for their rewards; and their absent families were
protected by the vigilance of Zenghi. At the head of these veterans,
his son Noureddin gradually united the Mahometan powers; [391] added the
kingdom of Damascus to that of Aleppo, and waged a long and successful
war against the Christians of Syria; he spread his ample reign from the
Tigris to the Nile, and the Abbassides rewarded their faithful servant
with all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselves
were compelled to own the wisdom and courage, and even the justice and
piety, of this implacable adversary. [40] In his life and government the
holy warrior revived the zeal and simplicity of the first caliphs.
Gold and silk were banished from his palace; the use of wine from his
dominions; the public revenue was scrupulously applied to the public
service; and the frugal household of Noureddin was maintained from
his legitimate share of the spoil which he vested in the purchase of a
private estate. His favorite sultana sighed for some female object of
expense. "Alas," replied the king, "I fear God, and am no more than the
treasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot alienate; but I still
possess three shops in the city of Hems: these you may take; and these
alone can I bestow." His chamber of justice was the terror of the great
and the refuge of the poor. Some years after the sultan's death, an
oppressed subject called aloud in the streets of Damascus, "O Noureddin,
Noureddin, where art thou now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!" A
tumult was apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at the
name of a departed monarch.

[Footnote 36: Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p.
ii. p. 99.]

[Footnote 37: See his _article_ in the Bibliotheque Orientale of
D'Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230--261. Such was his
valor, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the extravagant
love of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan a year after his
decease. Yet Sangiar might have been made prisoner by the Franks, as
well as by the Uzes. He reigned near fifty years, (A.D. 1103--1152,) and
was a munificent patron of Persian poetry.]

[Footnote 38: See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and Syria, in De
Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi and Noureddin in the
same writer, (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147--221,) who uses the Arabic text of
Benelathir, Ben Schouna and Abulfeda; the Bibliotheque Orientale,
under the articles _Atabeks_ and _Noureddin_, and the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius, p. 250--267, vers. Pocock.]

[Footnote 39: William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5, 7) describes the loss
of Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his name
into _Sanguin_, afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion to his
_sanguinary_ character and end, fit sanguine sanguinolentus.]

[Footnote 391: On Noureddin's conquest of Damascus, see extracts from
Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third volume of
Wilken.--M.]

[Footnote 40: Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. xx. 33) maximus
nominis et fidei Christianae persecutor; princeps tamen justus, vafer,
providus' et secundum gentis suae traditiones religiosus. To this
Catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites, (Abulpharag.
p. 267,) quo non alter erat inter reges vitae ratione magis laudabili,
aut quae pluribus justitiae experimentis abundaret. The true praise of
kings is after their death, and from the mouth of their enemies.]




Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part II.

By the arms of the Turks and Franks, the Fatimites had been deprived
of Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and influence was still
more essential. Yet they were still revered as the descendants and
successors of the prophet; they maintained their invisible state in the
palace of Cairo; and their person was seldom violated by the profane
eyes of subjects or strangers. The Latin ambassadors [41] have described
their own introduction, through a series of gloomy passages, and
glittering porticos: the scene was enlivened by the warbling of birds
and the murmur of fountains: it was enriched by a display of rich
furniture and rare animals; of the Imperial treasures, something was
shown, and much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors was
guarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary of
the presence chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizier, who
conducted the ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, and prostrated
himself three times on the ground; the veil was then removed; and they
beheld the commander of the faithful, who signified his pleasure to the
first slave of the throne. But this slave was his master: the viziers or
sultans had usurped the supreme administration of Egypt; the claims
of the rival candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most
worthy, of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command.
The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each other from
the capital and country; and the weaker side implored the dangerous
protection of the sultan of Damascus, or the king of Jerusalem, the
perpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of the Fatimites. By his arms
and religion the Turk was most formidable; but the Frank, in an
easy, direct march, could advance from Gaza to the Nile; while the
intermediate situation of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddin
to wheel round the skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, which
exposed them to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert.
The secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reign
in Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of the
suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first expedition; and
the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh, a valiant and veteran
commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain; but the ingratitude, the
jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his more fortunate rival, soon
provoked him to invite the king of Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from
his insolent benefactors. To this union the forces of Shiracouh were
unequal: he relinquished the premature conquest; and the evacuation of
Belbeis or Pelusium was the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks
defiled before the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a
vigilant eye, and a battle axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him
if he were not afraid of an attack. "It is doubtless in your power to
begin the attack," replied the intrepid emir; "but rest assured, that
not one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he has sent an infidel
to hell." His report of the riches of the land, the effeminacy of the
natives, and the disorders of the government, revived the hopes
of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious design; and
Shiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand Turks
and eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior to the
confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an
unusual degree of military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat
into Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the
surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the
flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conduct
was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a
Mamaluke [42] exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the Christian
dogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards of the sultan, and
retire to labor with the peasants, or to spin with the females of the
harem?" Yet, after all his efforts in the field, [43] after the
obstinate defence of Alexandria [44] by his nephew Saladin, an honorable
capitulation and retreat [441] concluded the second enterprise of
Shiracouh; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and more
propitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice
of Amalric or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious
maxim, that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. [442] A
religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged him to
proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, a
fleet to act with the armies of Syria; and the perfidious Christian,
unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired to the conquest of Egypt.
In this emergency, the Moslems turned their eyes towards the sultan of
Damascus; the vizier, whom danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to
their unanimous wishes, and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the
fair offer of one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were
already at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnt
on their approach; they were deceived by an insidious negotiation, and
their vessels were unable to surmount the barriers of the Nile. They
prudently declined a contest with the Turks in the midst of a hostile
country; and Amaury retired into Palestine with the shame and reproach
that always adhere to unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance,
Shiracouh was invested with a robe of honor, which he soon stained with
the blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish emirs
condescended to hold the office of vizier; but this foreign conquest
precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and the bloodless
change was accomplished by a message and a word. The caliphs had been
degraded by their own weakness and the tyranny of the viziers: their
subjects blushed, when the descendant and successor of the prophet
presented his naked hand to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; they
wept when he sent the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief and
terror, to excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command of
Noureddin, and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of Abubeker,
Omar, and Othman, were solemnly restored: the caliph Mosthadi, of
Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as the true commander of
the faithful; and the green livery of the sons of Ali was exchanged
for the black color of the Abbassides. The last of his race, the caliph
Adhed, who survived only ten days, expired in happy ignorance of his
fate; his treasures secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silenced
the murmurs of the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions, Egypt
has never departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems. [45]

[Footnote 41: From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c. 17, 18,)
describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph's treasure were found a
pearl as large as a pigeon's egg, a ruby weighing seventeen Egyptian
drams, an emerald a palm and a half in length, and many vases of crystal
and porcelain of China, (Renaudot, p. 536.)]

[Footnote 42: _Mamluc_, plur. _Mamalic_, is defined by Pocock,
(Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7,) and D'Herbelot, (p. 545,) servum
emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit. They
frequently occur in the wars of Saladin, (Bohadin, p. 236, &c.;) and it
was only the _Bahartie_ Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt
by his descendants.]

[Footnote 43: Jacobus a Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalem
no more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report the
superior numbers of the enemy; a difference which may be solved by
counting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians.]

[Footnote 44: It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in
extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans, and that
of the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 25, 26.)]

[Footnote 441: The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and
the Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p.
113.--M.]

[Footnote 442: The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious breach of
treaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the Hospitallers, refused to
join in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c. xx. p. 5. Wilken, vol. iii. part
ii. p. 117.--M.]

[Footnote 45: For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of Tyre,
(l. xix. 5, 6, 7, 12--31, xx. 5--12,) Bohadin, (in Vit. Saladin, p.
30--39,) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1--12,) D'Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. _Adhed_, _Fathemah_, but very incorrect,) Renaudot,
(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522--525, 532--537,) Vertot, (Hist. des
Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. p. 141--163, in 4to.,) and M. de Guignes,
(tom. ii. p. 185--215.)]

The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes
of the Curds; [46] a people hardy, strong, savage impatient of the yoke,
addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national
chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to
identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; [47] and they still
defend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted
against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to
embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father
and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; [48] and the son of
Job or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree,
which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. [49] So unconscious was
Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house, that he constrained the
reluctant youth to follow his uncle Shiracouh into Egypt: his military
character was established by the defence of Alexandria; and, if we may
believe the Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian general
the _profane_honors of knighthood. [50] On the death of Shiracouh, the
office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and
least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he
invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals,
and attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin
lived, these ambitious Curds were the most humble of his slaves; and the
indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who
loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead
his sons in chains to the foot of the throne. "Such language," he added
in private, "was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but
we are now above fear and obedience; and the threats of Noureddin shall
not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane." His seasonable death relieved
them from the odious and doubtful conflict: his son, a minor of eleven
years of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus; and the
new lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title [51] that
could sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin
long content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians
of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir: Mecca
and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector: his brother
subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the
hour of his death, his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the
Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In the
judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude
strike forcibly on _our_ minds, impressed, as they are, with the
principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in
some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, [52] which had erased
every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the
Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor; his
humane and generous behavior to the collateral branches; by _their_
incapacity and _his_ merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the
sole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes
and interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object of
government. In _his_ virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired
the singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin
and Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant
meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sober
color over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter [53] was
addicted to wine and women: but his aspiring spirit soon renounced the
temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of fame and dominion: the
garment of Saladin was of coarse woollen; water was his only drink;
and, while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity, of his
Arabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid Mussulman:
he ever deplored that the defence of religion had not allowed him to
accomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times
each day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren: the involuntary
omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid; and his perusal of the
Koran, on horseback between the approaching armies, may be quoted as a
proof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage. [54] The superstitious
doctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that he deigned to
encourage: the poets were safe in his contempt; but all profane science
was the object of his aversion; and a philosopher, who had invented some
speculative novelties, was seized and strangled by the command of the
royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest
suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only for a
kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While the
descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his
garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants.
So boundless was his liberality, that he distributed twelve thousand
horses at the siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than
forty-seven drams of silver and one piece of gold coin were found in the
treasury; yet, in a martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and the
wealthy citizens enjoyed, without fear or danger, the fruits of
their industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were adorned by the royal
foundations of hospitals, colleges, and mosques; and Cairo was fortified
with a wall and citadel; but his works were consecrated to public use:
[55] nor did the sultan indulge himself in a garden or palace of private
luxury. In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of
Saladin commanded the esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germany
gloried in his friendship; [56] the Greek emperor solicited his alliance;
[57] and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, his
fame both in the East and West.

[Footnote 46: For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 416, 417, the
Index Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages, p. i. p. 308,
309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the Rawadiaei, one of
the noblest; but as _they_ were infected with the heresy of the
Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated that their descent was
only on the mother's side, and that their ancestor was a stranger who
settled among the Curds.]

[Footnote 47: See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The ten
thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free Carduchians, than
from the splendid weakness of the great king.]

[Footnote 48: We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat,
1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a life
of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin, and copious
extracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah.
To these we may add, the article of _Salaheddin_ in the Bibliotheque
Orientale, and all that may be gleaned from the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius.]

[Footnote 49: Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share the
praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the founder.]

[Footnote 50: Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. A
similar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42, edition du Louvre;)
but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels with the order of
Christian knighthood, (Ducange, Observations, p 70.)]

[Footnote 51: In these Arabic titles, _religionis_ must always be
understood; _Noureddin_, lumen r.; _Ezzodin_, decus; _Amadoddin_,
columen: our hero's proper name was Joseph, and he was styled
_Salahoddin_, salus; _Al Malichus_, _Al Nasirus_, rex defensor; _Abu
Modaffer_, pater victoriae, Schultens, Praefat.]

[Footnote 52: Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin,
observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took the
guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent collaterals,
(Excerpt p. 10.)]

[Footnote 53: See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537--548.]

[Footnote 54: His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in the
first chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4--30,) himself an eye-witness, and an
honest bigot.]

[Footnote 55: In many works, particularly Joseph's well in the castle
of Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been confounded by the
ignorance of natives and travellers.]

[Footnote 56: Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]

[Footnote 57: Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]

During his short existence, the kingdom of Jerusalem [58] was supported
by the discord of the Turks and Saracens; and both the Fatimite caliphs
and the sultans of Damascus were tempted to sacrifice the cause of their
religion to the meaner considerations of private and present advantage.
But the powers of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were now united by a hero,
whom nature and fortune had armed against the Christians. All without
now bore the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and hollow
in the internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first Baldwins, the
brother and cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sceptre devolved by
female succession to Melisenda, daughter of the second Baldwin, and her
husband Fulk, count of Anjou, the father, by a former marriage, of our
English Plantagenets. Their two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury,
waged a strenuous, and not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but
the son of Amaury, Baldwin the Fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, a
gift of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His sister
Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth, was his natural heiress: after
the suspicious death of her child, she crowned her second husband, Guy
of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person, but of such base renown,
that his own brother Jeffrey was heard to exclaim, "Since they have made
_him_ a king, surely they would have made _me_ a god!" The choice
was generally blamed; and the most powerful vassal, Raymond count
of Tripoli, who had been excluded from the succession and regency,
entertained an implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honor
and conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the guardians
of the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor:
yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe,
by the valor of the military orders, and by the distant or domestic
avocations of their great enemy. At length, on every side, the sinking
state was encircled and pressed by a hostile line: and the truce was
violated by the Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier of
fortune, Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge of
the desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet,
and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin condescended
to complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice, and at the head of
fourscore thousand horse and foot invaded the Holy Land. The choice of
Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by the count of Tripoli, to
whom it belonged; and the king of Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his
garrison, and to arm his people, for the relief of that important
place. [59] By the advice of the perfidious Raymond, the Christians were
betrayed into a camp destitute of water: he fled on the first onset,
with the curses of both nations: [60] Lusignan was overthrown, with the
loss of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross (a dire
misfortune!) was left in the power of the infidels. [601] The royal captive
was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted with thirst and
terror, the generous victor presented him with a cup of sherbet, cooled
in snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald of Chatillon, to
partake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. "The person and
dignity of a king," said the sultan, "are sacred, but this impious
robber must instantly acknowledge the prophet, whom he has blasphemed,
or meet the death which he has so often deserved." On the proud or
conscientious refusal of the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on
the head with his cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards.
[61] The trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honorable prison
and speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution of two
hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions and
martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left without a head; and of
the two grand masters of the military orders, the one was slain and the
other was a prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and the
inland country, the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field:
Tyre and Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and
three months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before
the gates of Jerusalem. [62]

[Footnote 58: For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of Tyre,
from the ixth to the xxiid book. Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosolem l
i., and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii. p. vi. vii. viii. ix.]

[Footnote 59: Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut venti
stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the Christian
light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant, (Ispahani de Expugnatione
Kudsitica, p. 18, apud Schultens;) a specimen of Arabian eloquence,
somewhat different from the style of Xenophon!]

[Footnote 60: The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the treason of
Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he would have been a
saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.]

[Footnote 601: Raymond's advice would have prevented the abandonment of a
secure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris. The rash and insolent
valor of the master of the order of Knights Templars, which had before
exposed the Christians to a fatal defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the
feeble king to annul the determination of a council of war, and advance
to a camp in an enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin,
without water. Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievably
lost, and then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allow
him free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias appears
ungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he was a man of
strong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of the contest with
Saladin, endeavored by every means to maintain the treaty, and, though
he joined both his arms and his still more valuable counsels to the
Christian army, yet kept up a kind of amicable correspondence with the
Mahometans. See Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 276, et seq. Michaud, vol.
ii. p. 278, et seq. M. Michaud is still more friendly than Wilken to the
memory of Count Raymond, who died suddenly, shortly after the battle of
Hittin. He quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the caliph
Alfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the Mahometans their
most dangerous and detested enemy. "No person of distinction among the
Christians escaped, except the count, (of Tripoli) whom God curse. God
made him die shortly afterwards, and sent him from the kingdom of death
to hell."--M.]

[Footnote 61: Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebrated
by the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the latter
are more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville
(Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70) alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never
putting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of
the companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in
a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p. 32.)]

[Footnote 62: Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and
city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p. 226--278,)
inserts two original epistles of a Knight Templar.]

He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on earth and
in heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle the last
sparks of enthusiasm; and that, of sixty thousand Christians, every man
would be a soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. But
Queen Sybilla trembled for herself and her captive husband; and the
barons and knights, who had escaped from the sword and chains of the
Turks, displayed the same factious and selfish spirit in the public
ruin. The most numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of the
Greek and Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the
Mahometan before the Latin yoke; [63] and the holy sepulchre attracted a
base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who subsisted only on the
charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for the
defence of Jerusalem: but in the space of fourteen days, a victorious
army drove back the sallies of the besieged, planted their engines,
opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their
scaling-ladders, and erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophet
and the sultan. It was in vain that a barefoot procession of the queen,
the women, and the monks, implored the Son of God to save his tomb and
his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope was in the mercy
of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant deputation that mercy was
sternly denied. "He had sworn to avenge the patience and long-suffering
of the Moslems; the hour of forgiveness was elapsed, and the moment
was now arrived to expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which had
been spilt by Godfrey and the first crusaders." But a desperate and
successful struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumph
was not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjuration
in the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of human
sympathy mollified the rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He consented
to accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The Greek and Oriental
Christians were permitted to live under his dominion, but it was
stipulated, that in forty days all the Franks and Latins should evacuate
Jerusalem, and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt;
that ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five for each
woman, and one for every child; and that those who were unable to
purchase their freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some
writers it is a favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of
Saladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference would
be merely personal; but we should not forget that the Christians had
offered to capitulate, and that the Mahometans of Jerusalem sustained
the last extremities of an assault and storm. Justice is indeed due to
the fidelity with which the Turkish conqueror fulfilled the conditions
of the treaty; and he may be deservedly praised for the glance of pity
which he cast on the misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorous
exaction of his debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants,
for the ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more were
dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves was
reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this interview
with the queen, his words, and even his tears suggested the kindest
consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among those who had been
made orphans or widows by the fortune of war; and while the knights
of the hospital were in arms against him, he allowed their more pious
brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service
of the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our
admiration and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and
his stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than
to affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After
Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, the
sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners waving in the wind, and to
the harmony of martial music. The great mosque of Omar, which had
been converted into a church, was again consecrated to one God and his
prophet Mahomet: the walls and pavement were purified with rose-water;
and a pulpit, the labor of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary.
But when the golden cross that glittered on the dome was cast down,
and dragged through the streets, the Christians of every sect uttered
a lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of the
Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the crosses,
the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place; they were
seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting the caliph
with the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however,
to intrust them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the pious
pledge was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of fifty-two
thousand byzants of gold. [64]

[Footnote 63: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]

[Footnote 64: For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67--75) and
Abulfeda (p. 40--43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the Christian, Bernard
Thesaurarius (c. 151--167) is the most copious and authentic; see
likewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120--124.)]

The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion of the
Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century after the death
of Saladin. [65] In the career of victory, he was first checked by the
resistance of Tyre; the troops and garrisons, which had capitulated,
were imprudently conducted to the same port: their numbers were adequate
to the defence of the place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat
inspired the disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, a
venerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; but
that disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when the son was urged
by ambition and piety to visit the inheritance of his royal nephew,
the infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish banners warned him from the
hostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad was unanimously hailed as the prince
and champion of Tyre, which was already besieged by the conqueror of
Jerusalem. The firmness of his zeal, and perhaps his knowledge of a
generous foe, enabled him to brave the threats of the sultan, and to
declare, that should his aged parent be exposed before the walls, he
himself would discharge the first arrow, and glory in his descent from a
Christian martyr. [66] The Egyptian fleet was allowed to enter the harbor
of Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn, and five galleys were either
sunk or taken: a thousand Turks were slain in a sally; and Saladin,
after burning his engines, concluded a glorious campaign by a
disgraceful retreat to Damascus. He was soon assailed by a more
formidable tempest. The pathetic narratives, and even the pictures, that
represented in lively colors the servitude and profanation of Jerusalem,
awakened the torpid sensibility of Europe: the emperor Frederic
Barbarossa, and the kings of France and England, assumed the cross; and
the tardy magnitude of their armaments was anticipated by the maritime
states of the Mediterranean and the Ocean. The skilful and provident
Italians first embarked in the ships of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. They
were speedily followed by the most eager pilgrims of France, Normandy,
and the Western Isles. The powerful succor of Flanders, Frise, and
Denmark, filled near a hundred vessels: and the Northern warriors
were distinguished in the field by a lofty stature and a ponderous
battle-axe. [67] Their increasing multitudes could no longer be confined
within the walls of Tyre, or remain obedient to the voice of Conrad.
They pitied the misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan, who
was released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the Franks. He
proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty miles to the south
of Tyre; and the place was first invested by two thousand horse and
thirty thousand foot under his nominal command. I shall not expatiate
on the story of this memorable siege; which lasted near two years, and
consumed, in a narrow space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never did
the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; nor
could the true believers, a common appellation, who consecrated their
own martyrs, refuse some applause to the mistaken zeal and courage of
their adversaries. At the sound of the holy trumpet, the Moslems of
Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces, assembled under the
servant of the prophet: [68] his camp was pitched and removed within a
few miles of Acre; and he labored, night and day, for the relief of his
brethren and the annoyance of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy
of the name, were fought in the neighborhood of Mount Carmel, with such
vicissitude of fortune, that in one attack, the sultan forced his way
into the city; that in one sally, the Christians penetrated to the royal
tent. By the means of divers and pigeons, a regular correspondence was
maintained with the besieged; and, as often as the sea was left open,
the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and a fresh supply was poured
into the place. The Latin camp was thinned by famine, the sword and the
climate; but the tents of the dead were replenished with new pilgrims,
who exaggerated the strength and speed of their approaching countrymen.
The vulgar was astonished by the report, that the pope himself, with an
innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The march
of the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms: the obstacles
which he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in Greece, were raised by the
policy of Saladin: his joy on the death of Barbarossa was measured by
his esteem; and the Christians were rather dismayed than encouraged
at the sight of the duke of Swabia and his way-worn remnant of five
thousand Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royal
fleets of France and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and the
siege was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful emulation of the
two kings, Philip Augustus and Richard Plantagenet. After every resource
had been tried, and every hope was exhausted, the defenders of Acre
submitted to their fate; a capitulation was granted, but their lives and
liberties were taxed at the hard conditions of a ransom of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred nobles, and
fifteen hundred inferior captives, and the restoration of the wood of
the holy cross. Some doubts in the agreement, and some delay in the
execution, rekindled the fury of the Franks, and three thousand Moslems,
almost in the sultan's view, were beheaded by the command of the
sanguinary Richard. [69] By the conquest of Acre, the Latin powers
acquired a strong town and a convenient harbor; but the advantage was
most dearly purchased. The minister and historian of Saladin computes,
from the report of the enemy, that their numbers, at different periods,
amounted to five or six hundred thousand; that more than one hundred
thousand Christians were slain; that a far greater number was lost by
disease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this mighty host could
return in safety to their native countries. [70]

[Footnote 65: The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously described
by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae, c. 167--179,)
the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p. 1150--1172, in
Bongarsius,) Abulfeda, (p. 43--50,) and Bohadin, (p. 75--179.)]

[Footnote 66: I have followed a moderate and probable representation of
the fact; by Vertot, who adopts without reluctance a romantic tale the
old marquis is actually exposed to the darts of the besieged.]

[Footnote 67: Northmanni et Gothi, et caeteri populi insularum quae
inter occidentem et septentrionem sitae sunt, gentes bellicosae, corporis
proceri mortis intrepidae, bipennibus armatae, navibus rotundis, quae
Ysnachiae dicuntur, advectae.]

[Footnote 68: The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the nations of
the East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy tribes of Moors and
Getulians, so that Asia and Africa fought against Europe.]

[Footnote 69: Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither denied nor
blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa complentes, (the
English soldiers,) says Galfridus a Vinesauf, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 346,) who
fixes at 2700 the number of victims; who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger
Hoveden, (p. 697, 698.) The humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus was
persuaded to ransom his prisoners, (Jacob a Vitriaco, l. i. c. 98, p.
1122.)]

[Footnote 70: Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus, and
the prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum paucissimi
redierunt. Among the Christians who died before St. John d'Acre, I find
the English names of De Ferrers earl of Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, part
i. p. 260,) Mowbray, (idem, p. 124,) De Mandevil, De Fiennes, St. John,
Scrope, Bigot, Talbot, &c.]




Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part III.

Philip Augustus, and Richard the First, are the only kings of France and
England who have fought under the same banners; but the holy service
in which they were enlisted was incessantly disturbed by their national
jealousy; and the two factions, which they protected in Palestine, were
more averse to each other than to the common enemy. In the eyes of the
Orientals; the French monarch was superior in dignity and power; and, in
the emperor's absence, the Latins revered him as their temporal chief.
[71] His exploits were not adequate to his fame. Philip was brave,
but the statesman predominated in his character; he was soon weary of
sacrificing his health and interest on a barren coast: the surrender
of Acre became the signal of his departure; nor could he justify this
unpopular desertion, by leaving the duke of Burgundy with five hundred
knights and ten thousand foot, for the service of the Holy Land. The
king of England, though inferior in dignity, surpassed his rival in
wealth and military renown; [72] and if heroism be confined to brutal and
ferocious valor, Richard Plantagenet will stand high among the heroes
of the age. The memory of _Cur de Lion_, of the lion-hearted prince, was
long dear and glorious to his English subjects; and, at the distance of
sixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the grandsons of
the Turks and Saracens, against whom he had fought: his tremendous name
was employed by the Syrian mothers to silence their infants; and if
a horse suddenly started from the way, his rider was wont to exclaim,
"Dost thou think King Richard is in that bush?" [73] His cruelty to the
Mahometans was the effect of temper and zeal; but I cannot believe that
a soldier, so free and fearless in the use of his lance, would have
descended to whet a dagger against his valiant brother Conrad of
Montferrat, who was slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. [74] After
the surrender of Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of England
led the crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities
of Caesarea and Jaffa were added to the fragments of the kingdom of
Lusignan. A march of one hundred miles from Acre to Ascalon was a great
and perpetual battle of eleven days. In the disorder of his troops,
Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards, without lowering
his standard, or suspending the sound of his brazen kettle-drum: he
again rallied and renewed the charge; and his preachers or heralds
called aloud on the _unitarians_, manfully to stand up against
the Christian idolaters. But the progress of these idolaters was
irresistible; and it was only by demolishing the walls and buildings of
Ascalon, that the sultan could prevent them from occupying an important
fortress on the confines of Egypt. During a severe winter, the armies
slept; but in the spring, the Franks advanced within a day's march
of Jerusalem, under the leading standard of the English king; and
his active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven thousand
camels. Saladin [75] had fixed his station in the holy city; but the
city was struck with consternation and discord: he fasted; he prayed;
he preached; he offered to share the dangers of the siege; but his
Mamalukes, who remembered the fate of their companions at Acre, pressed
the sultan with loyal or seditious clamors, to reserve _his_ person and
_their_ courage for the future defence of the religion and empire.
[76] The Moslems were delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the
miraculous, retreat of the Christians; [77] and the laurels of Richard
were blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero,
ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an indignant
voice, "Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy to view, the
sepulchre of Christ!" After his return to Acre, on the news that Jaffa
was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with some merchant vessels, and
leaped foremost on the beach: the castle was relieved by his presence;
and sixty thousand Turks and Saracens fled before his arms. The
discovery of his weakness, provoked them to return in the morning; and
they found him carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeen
knights and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he
sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his enemies,
that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode furiously along their
front, from the right to the left wing, without meeting an adversary who
dared to encounter his career. [78] Am I writing the history of Orlando
or Amadis?

[Footnote 71: Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum virtute tum
majestate eminens.... summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin, p. 159.) He does
not seem to have known the names either of Philip or Richard.]

[Footnote 72: Rex Angliae, praestrenuus.... rege Gallorum minor apud eos
censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum divitiis florentior,
tum bellica virtute multo erat celebrior, (Bohadin, p. 161.) A stranger
might admire those riches; the national historians will tell with what
lawless and wasteful oppression they were collected.]

[Footnote 73: Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi Richart?]

[Footnote 74: Yet he was guilty in the opinion of the Moslems, who
attest the confession of the assassins, that they were sent by the king
of England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence is an absurd and
palpable forgery, (Hist. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p.
155--163,) a pretended letter from the prince of the assassins, the
Sheich, or old man of the mountain, who justified Richard, by assuming
to himself the guilt or merit of the murder. * Note: Von Hammer
(Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 202) sums up against Richard, Wilken
(vol. iv. p. 485) as strongly for acquittal. Michaud (vol. ii. p. 420)
delivers no decided opinion. This crime was also attributed to Saladin,
who is said, by an Oriental authority, (the continuator of Tabari,) to
have employed the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is a
melancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an act
would be less inconsistent with the character of the Christian than of
the Mahometan king.--M.]

[Footnote 75: See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as they
are described by Bohadin, (p. 7--9, 235--237,) who himself harangued
the defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not unknown to the enemy,
(Jacob. a Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p. 1123. Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p.
399.)]

[Footnote 76: Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince, remained
in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent obtemperaturi Curdis,
(Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner of the political curtain.]

[Footnote 77: Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf, (l.
vi. c. 1--8, p. 403--409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard himself;
and Jacobus a Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience to depart, in
alterum virum mutatus est, (p. 1123.) Yet Joinville, a French knight,
accuses the envy of Hugh duke of Burgundy, (p. 116,) without supposing,
like Matthew Paris, that he was bribed by Saladin.]

[Footnote 78: The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa, are
related by Bohadin (p. 184--249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52.) The author
of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban's, cannot exaggerate the
cadhi's account of the prowess of Richard, (Vinisauf, l. vi. c. 14--24,
p. 412--421. Hist. Major, p. 137--143;) and on the whole of this war
there is a marvellous agreement between the Christian and Mahometan
writers, who mutually praise the virtues of their enemies.]

During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation [79] between
the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and broken, and again
resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snow
and fruit, the exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened the
asperity of religious war: from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs
might learn to suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor,
after the trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory.
[80] The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a declining
state; and they respectively suffered the evils of distant and domestic
warfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish a perfidious rival who
had invaded Normandy in his absence; and the indefatigable sultan was
subdued by the cries of the people, who was the victim, and of the
soldiers, who were the instruments, of his martial zeal. The first
demands of the king of England were the restitution of Jerusalem,
Palestine, and the true cross; and he firmly declared, that himself and
his brother pilgrims would end their lives in the pious labor, rather
than return to Europe with ignominy and remorse. But the conscience
of Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to restore the
idols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he asserted, with
equal firmness, his religious and civil claim to the sovereignty of
Palestine; descanted on the importance and sanctity of Jerusalem; and
rejected all terms of the establishment, or partition of the Latins.
The marriage which Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan's
brother, was defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred
the embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily renounce
a plurality of wives. A personal interview was declined by Saladin,
who alleged their mutual ignorance of each other's language; and the
negotiation was managed with much art and delay by their interpreters
and envoys. The final agreement was equally disapproved by the zealots
of both parties, by the Roman pontiff and the caliph of Bagdad. It was
stipulated that Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre should be open, without
tribute or vexation, to the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that,
after the demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess the
sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the prince
of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that, during three
years and three months, all hostilities should cease. The principal
chiefs of the two armies swore to the observance of the treaty; but the
monarchs were satisfied with giving their word and their right hand; and
the royal majesty was excused from an oath, which always implies some
suspicion of falsehood and dishonor. Richard embarked for Europe, to
seek a long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few
months concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals describe
his edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they seem ignorant
of the equal distribution of his alms among the three religions, [81] or
of the display of a shroud, instead of a standard, to admonish the East
of the instability of human greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved
by his death; his sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle
Saphadin; the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus,
and Aleppo, [82] were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood and
breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast.

[Footnote 79: See the progress of negotiation and hostility in Bohadin,
(p. 207--260,) who was himself an actor in the treaty. Richard declared
his intention of returning with new armies to the conquest of the Holy
Land; and Saladin answered the menace with a civil compliment, (Vinisauf
l. vi. c. 28, p. 423.)]

[Footnote 80: The most copious and original account of this holy war is
Galfridi a Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi et aliorum
in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in the iid volume
of Gale's Scriptores Hist. Anglicanae, (p. 247--429.) Roger Hoveden and
Matthew Paris afford likewise many valuable materials; and the former
describes, with accuracy, the discipline and navigation of the English
fleet.]

[Footnote 81: Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish notion
of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his last
breath.]

[Footnote 82: See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De Guignes, l'Art de
Verifier les Dates, and the Bibliotheque Orientale.]

The noblest monument of a conqueror's fame, and of the terror which he
inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was imposed on the
laity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church, for the service of the
holy war. The practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion:
and this tribute became the foundation of all the tithes and tenths on
ecclesiastical benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs
to Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the
apostolic see. [83] This pecuniary emolument must have tended to increase
the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine: after the death
of Saladin, they preached the crusade, by their epistles, their legates,
and their missionaries; and the accomplishment of the pious work might
have been expected from the zeal and talents of Innocent the Third.
[84] Under that young and ambitious priest, the successors of St.
Peter attained the full meridian of their greatness: and in a reign of
eighteen years, he exercised a despotic command over the emperors and
kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an interdict
of months or years deprived, for the offence of their rulers, of the
exercise of Christian worship. In the council of the Lateran he acted
as the ecclesiastical, almost as the temporal, sovereign of the East and
West. It was at the feet of his legate that John of England surrendered
his crown; and Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over
sense and humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the
origin of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and
the fifth, were undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the princes
of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims: the forces were
inadequate to the design; nor did the effects correspond with the hopes
and wishes of the pope and the people. The fourth crusade was diverted
from Syria to Constantinople; and the conquest of the Greek or Roman
empire by the Latins will form the proper and important subject of the
next chapter. In the fifth, [85] two hundred thousand Franks were landed
at the eastern mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine
must be subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan; and,
after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss of
Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and insolence
of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope's name, assumed the character
of general: the sickly Franks were encompassed by the waters of the Nile
and the Oriental forces; and it was by the evacuation of Damietta that
they obtained a safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the
tardy restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure
may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication of the
crusades, which were preached at the same time against the Pagans of
Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France, and the kings of
Sicily of the Imperial family. [86] In these meritorious services, the
volunteers might acquire at home the same spiritual indulgence, and a
larger measure of temporal rewards; and even the popes, in their zeal
against a domestic enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress
of their Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived
the occasional command of an army and revenue; and some deep reasoners
have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the first synod of
Placentia, was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. The
suspicion is not founded, either in nature or in fact. The successors
of St. Peter appear to have followed, rather than guided, the impulse
of manners and prejudice; without much foresight of the seasons, or
cultivation of the soil, they gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits
of the superstition of the times. They gathered these fruits without
toil or personal danger: in the council of the Lateran, Innocent the
Third declared an ambiguous resolution of animating the crusaders by his
example; but the pilot of the sacred vessel could not abandon the helm;
nor was Palestine ever blessed with the presence of a Roman pontiff. [87]

[Footnote 83: Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 311--374)
has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and restrictions of
these _tenths_. A theory was started, but not pursued, that they were
rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of the Levite's tenth to the high
priest, (Selden on Tithes; see his Works, vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083.)]

[Footnote 84: See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script. Rer.
Ital., (tom. iii. p. 486--568.)]

[Footnote 85: See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus
a Vitriaco, (l. iii. p. 1125--1149, in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius,) an
eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in Script. Muratori, tom. vii. p.
825--846, c. 190--207,) a contemporary, and Sanutus, (Secreta Fidel
Crucis, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4--9,) a diligent compiler; and of the
Arabians Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 294,) and the Extracts at the end of
Joinville, (p. 533, 537, 540, 547, &c.)]

[Footnote 86: To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the
pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem. Fideles
mirabantur quod tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine Christianorum
effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium aliquando, (Matthew Paris p.
785.) A high flight for the reason of the xiiith century.]

[Footnote 87: This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 332,) and the fine philosophy of
Hume, (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330.)]

The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were under the
immediate protection of the popes; and these spiritual patrons soon
claimed the prerogative of directing their operations, and enforcing,
by commands and censures, the accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the
Second, [88] the grandson of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the
enemy, and the victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and
in obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the cross;
the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial coronations; and
his marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem forever bound him to defend
the kingdom of his son Conrad. But as Frederic advanced in age and
authority, he repented of the rash engagements of his youth: his liberal
sense and knowledge taught him to despise the phantoms of superstition
and the crowns of Asia: he no longer entertained the same reverence
for the successors of Innocent: and his ambition was occupied by the
restoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But the
success of this project would have reduced the popes to their primitive
simplicity; and, after the delays and excuses of twelve years, they
urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to fix the time and
place of his departure for Palestine. In the harbors of Sicily and
Apulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred galleys, and of one hundred
vessels, that were framed to transport and land two thousand five
hundred knights, with their horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples
and Germany formed a powerful army; and the number of English crusaders
was magnified to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the
inevitable or affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed
the strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the multitude
was thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry summer of Calabria
anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor
hoisted sail at Brundusium, with a fleet and army of forty thousand
men: but he kept the sea no more than three days; and his hasty retreat,
which was ascribed by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was
accused by his enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For
suspending his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth;
for presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again
excommunicated by the same pope. [89] While he served under the banner
of the cross, a crusade was preached against him in Italy; and after
his return he was compelled to ask pardon for the injuries which he had
suffered. The clergy and military orders of Palestine were previously
instructed to renounce his communion and dispute his commands; and in
his own kingdom, the emperor was forced to consent that the orders
of the camp should be issued in the name of God and of the Christian
republic. Frederic entered Jerusalem in triumph; and with his own hands
(for no priest would perform the office) he took the crown from the
altar of the holy sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on the
church which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital
and temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised and
slain in his unguarded visit to the River Jordan. In such a state of
fanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless, and defence was difficult;
but the conclusion of an advantageous peace may be imputed to the
discord of the Mahometans, and their personal esteem for the character
of Frederic. The enemy of the church is accused of maintaining with the
miscreants an intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of a
Christian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of indulging a
profane thought, that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom of Naples he never
would have selected Palestine for the inheritance of his chosen people.
Yet Frederic obtained from the sultan the restitution of Jerusalem,
of Bethlem and Nazareth, of Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed
to inhabit and fortify the city; an equal code of civil and religious
freedom was ratified for the sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet;
and, while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter might
pray and preach in the mosque of the temple, [90] from whence the prophet
undertook his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy deplored this
scandalous toleration; and the weaker Moslems were gradually expelled;
but every rational object of the crusades was accomplished without
bloodshed; the churches were restored, the monasteries were replenished;
and, in the space of fifteen years, the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded the
number of six thousand. This peace and prosperity, for which they were
ungrateful to their benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of the
strange and savage hordes of Carizmians. [91] Flying from the arms of the
Moguls, those shepherds [911] of the Caspian rolled headlong on Syria; and
the union of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus,
was insufficient to stem the violence of the torrent. Whatever stood
against them was cut off by the sword, or dragged into captivity: the
military orders were almost exterminated in a single battle; and in
the pillage of the city, in the profanation of the holy sepulchre, the
Latins confess and regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and
Saracens.

[Footnote 88: The original materials for the crusade of Frederic II. may
be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
tom. vii. p. 1002--1013) and Matthew Paris, (p. 286, 291, 300, 302,
304.) The most rational moderns are Fleury, (Hist. Eccles. tom. xvi.,)
Vertot, (Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. iii.,) Giannone, (Istoria
Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. l. xvi.,) and Muratori, (Annali d' Italia,
tom. x.)]

[Footnote 89: Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not what to
say: "Chino qui il capo," &c. p. 322.]

[Footnote 90: The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church of the
temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has deceived both
Vertot and Muratori.]

[Footnote 91: The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is related
by Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547,) and by Joinville, Nangis, and the
Arabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530.)]

[Footnote 911: They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria. Wilken
vol. vi. p. 630.--M.]

Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by Louis the Ninth,
king of France; who lost his liberty in Egypt, and his life on the coast
of Africa. Twenty-eight years after his death, he was canonized at Rome;
and sixty-five miracles were readily found, and solemnly attested, to
justify the claim of the royal saint. [92] The voice of history renders a
more honorable testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, a hero,
and a man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private
and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people, the
friend of his neighbors, and the terror of the infidels. Superstition
alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence, [93] corrupted his
understanding and his heart: his devotion stooped to admire and imitate
the begging friars of Francis and Dominic: he pursued with blind
and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice
descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual
knight-errant. A monkish historian would have been content to applaud
the most despicable part of his character; but the noble and gallant
Joinville, [94] who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has
traced with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues as
well as of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn to
suspect the political views of depressing their great vassals, which
are so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades. Above all
the princes of the middle ages, Louis the Ninth successfully labored to
restore the prerogatives of the crown; but it was at home and not in the
East, that he acquired for himself and his posterity: his vow was the
result of enthusiasm and sickness; and if he were the promoter, he was
likewise the victim, of his holy madness. For the invasion of Egypt,
France was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he covered the sea of
Cyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration amounts
to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own confession, as
it is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked nine thousand five
hundred horse, and one hundred and thirty thousand foot, who performed
their pilgrimage under the shadow of his power. [95]

[Footnote 92: Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St. Louis, by
the confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291--523. Joinville, du Louvre.)]

[Footnote 93: He believed all that mother church taught, (Joinville, p.
10,) but he cautioned Joinville against disputing with infidels.
"L'omme lay (said he in his old language) quand il ot medire de la
loi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi Crestienne ne mais que de
l'espee, dequoi il doit donner parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle y
peut entrer" (p. 12.)]

[Footnote 94: I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris, 1668)
most valuable for the observations of Ducange; the other (Paris, au
Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic text, a MS. of
which has been recently discovered. The last edition proves that the
history of St. Louis was finished A.D. 1309, without explaining, or even
admiring, the age of the author, which must have exceeded ninety years,
(Preface, p. x. Observations de Ducange, p. 17.)]

[Footnote 95: Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549. * Note: Compare
Wilken, vol. vii. p. 94.--M.]

In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leaped
foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, which had cost
his predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on the first
assault by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the first and the
last of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth crusades, the
same causes, almost on the same ground, were productive of similar
calamities. [96] After a ruinous delay, which introduced into the camp
the seeds of an epidemic disease, the Franks advanced from the sea-coast
towards the capital of Egypt, and strove to surmount the unseasonable
inundation of the Nile, which opposed their progress. Under the eye of
their intrepid monarch, the barons and knights of France displayed their
invincible contempt of danger and discipline: his brother, the count of
Artois, stormed with inconsiderate valor the town of Massoura; and the
carrier pigeons announced to the inhabitants of Cairo that all was lost.
But a soldier, who afterwards usurped the sceptre, rallied the flying
troops: the main body of the Christians was far behind the vanguard; and
Artois was overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantly
poured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian galleys,
the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were intercepted; each day
aggravated the sickness and famine; and about the same time a retreat
was found to be necessary and impracticable. The Oriental writers
confess, that Louis might have escaped, if he would have deserted his
subjects; he was made prisoner, with the greatest part of his nobles;
all who could not redeem their lives by service or ransom were inhumanly
massacred; and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle of
Christian heads. [97] The king of France was loaded with chains; but the
generous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent a robe
of honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with that of his
soldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta [98] and the
payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a soft and luxurious
climate, the degenerate children of the companions of Noureddin and
Saladin were incapable of resisting the flower of European chivalry:
they triumphed by the arms of their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy
natives of Tartary, who at a tender age had been purchased of the Syrian
merchants, and were educated in the camp and palace of the sultan. But
Egypt soon afforded a new example of the danger of praetorian bands;
and the rage of these ferocious animals, who had been let loose on the
strangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In the pride
of conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by his
Mamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered the chamber of
the captive king, with drawn cimeters, and their hands imbrued in the
blood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis commanded their respect;
[99] their avarice prevailed over cruelty and zeal; the treaty was
accomplished; and the king of France, with the relics of his army, was
permitted to embark for Palestine. He wasted four years within the walls
of Acre, unable to visit Jerusalem, and unwilling to return without
glory to his native country.

[Footnote 96: The last editors have enriched their Joinville with large
and curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi, Abulfeda, &c.
See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 322--325,) who calls him by the
corrupt name of _Redefrans_. Matthew Paris (p. 683, 684) has described
the rival folly of the French and English who fought and fell at
Massoura.]

[Footnote 97: Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L'Egypte, has given
a description of Damietta, (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p. 274--290,) and a
narrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv. p. 306--350.)]

[Footnote 98: For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants was
asked and granted; but the sultan's generosity reduced that sum to
800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000 French livres
of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by 100,000 marks of
silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur Joinville.)]

[Footnote 99: The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan is
seriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78,) and does not appear to me
so absurd as to M. de Voltaire, (Hist. Generale, tom. ii. p. 386, 387.)
The Mamalukes themselves were strangers, rebels, and equals: they had
felt his valor, they hoped his conversion; and such a motion, which
was not seconded, might be made, perhaps by a secret Christian in their
tumultuous assembly. * Note: Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the
proposition could not have been made in earnest.--M.]

The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of wisdom
and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the crusades. His
finances were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a new generation of
warriors had arisen, and he advanced with fresh confidence at the head
of six thousand horse and thirty thousand foot. The loss of Antioch
had provoked the enterprise; a wild hope of baptizing the king of Tunis
tempted him to steer for the African coast; and the report of an immense
treasure reconciled his troops to the delay of their voyage to the Holy
Land. Instead of a proselyte, he found a siege: the French panted and
died on the burning sands: St. Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner
had he closed his eyes, than his son and successor gave the signal of
the retreat. [100] "It is thus," says a lively writer, "that a Christian
king died near the ruins of Carthage, waging war against the sectaries
of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had introduced the deities of
Syria." [101]

[Footnote 100: See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by William
de Nangis, p. 270--287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545, 555, of the
Louvre edition of Joinville.]

[Footnote 101: Voltaire, Hist. Generale, tom. ii. p. 391.]

A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that which
condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the
arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state
of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the
Baharite and Borgite dynasties [102] were themselves promoted from the
Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or military
chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their
servants. They produce the great charter of their liberties, the treaty
of Selim the First with the republic: [103] and the Othman emperor still
accepts from Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection.
With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two dynasties
are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed: [104] but their throne,
however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of discipline and valor:
their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Syria: their
Mamalukes were multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five thousand
horse; and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of one
hundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six
thousand Arabs. [105] Princes of such power and spirit could not long
endure on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin
of the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted to the
cares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the Moguls, and to the
occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among these, the English reader
will observe the name of our first Edward, who assumed the cross in the
lifetime of his father Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the
future conqueror of Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege;
marched as far as Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulated
the fame of his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years'
truce; [1051] and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a
fanatic _assassin_. [106] [1061] Antioch, [107] whose situation had been less
exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally occupied and
ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and Syria; the Latin
principality was extinguished; and the first seat of the Christian name
was dispeopled by the slaughter of seventeen, and the captivity of one
hundred, thousand of her inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea,
Gabala, Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the stronger
castles of the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the
whole existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of St.
John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more classic title of
Ptolemais.

[Footnote 102: The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, the
Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites, Circassians, is
given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 6--31) and De Guignes
(tom. i. p. 264--270;) their history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the
beginning of the xvth century, by the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p.
110--328.)]

[Footnote 103: Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv. p.
189--208. I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it is true,
that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the Circassians or Mamalukes
of Egypt, and left them in possession of arms, riches, and power. See a
new Abrege de l'Histoire Ottomane, composed in Egypt, and translated by
M. Digeon, (tom. i. p. 55--58, Paris, 1781,) a curious, authentic, and
national history.]

[Footnote 104: Si totum quo regnum occuparunt tempus respicias,
praesertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis, injuriis,
ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31.) The reign of
Mohammed (A.D. 1311--1341) affords a happy exception, (De Guignes, tom.
iv. p. 208--210.)]

[Footnote 105: They are now reduced to 8500: but the expense of each
Mamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt groans under the
avarice and insolence of these strangers, (Voyages de Volney, tom. i. p.
89--187.)]

[Footnote 1051: Gibbon colors rather highly the success of Edward. Wilken
is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c.--M.]

[Footnote 106: See Carte's History of England, vol. ii. p. 165--175, and
his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter Hemingford, (l. iii. c.
34, 35,) in Gale's Collection, (tom. ii. p. 97, 589--592.) They are both
ignorant of the princess Eleanor's piety in sucking the poisoned wound,
and saving her husband at the risk of her own life.]

[Footnote 1061: The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt at
assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. Ptolemaeus Lucensis is the
earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid. 605.--M.]

[Footnote 107: Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii. c.
9, and De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the Arabic
historians.]

After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, [108] which is distant about seventy
miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and was adorned
with strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an artificial port,
and a double wall. The population was increased by the incessant streams
of pilgrims and fugitives: in the pauses of hostility the trade of the
East and West was attracted to this convenient station; and the market
could offer the produce of every clime and the interpreters of every
tongue. But in this conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and
practised: of all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and
female inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the
abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city had
many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus,
of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the counts of Tripoli
and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital, the temple, and the
Teutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, the pope's
legate, the kings of France and England, assumed an independent command:
seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and death; every
criminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual
jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood.
Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated
their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages: nineteen
Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled and
hanged by the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction justified the
arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against Acre, at the head of sixty
thousand horse and one hundred and forty thousand foot: his train of
artillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty: the separate
timbers of a single engine were transported in one hundred wagons; and
the royal historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was
himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices of the
Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they
were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on all
sides by the powers of the sultan. After a siege of thirty three days,
the double wall was forced by the Moslems; the principal tower yielded
to their engines; the Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was
stormed; and death or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians.
The convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days
longer; but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five
hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the victims
of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold, in the unjust
and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of Jerusalem, the
patriarch and the great master of the hospital, effected their retreat
to the shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were insufficient; and
great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they could reach the
Isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine.
By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the
Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened
the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a
mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so
long resounded with the world's debate. [109]

[Footnote 108: The state of Acre is represented in all the chronicles
of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l. vii. c. 144, in
Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. 337, 338.]

[Footnote 109: See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, l.
iii. p. xii. c. 11--22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes, tom. iv.
p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307--428. * Note: after
these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize composition, "Essai sur
'Influence des Croisades sur l'Europe," par A H. L. Heeren: traduit de
l'Allemand par Charles Villars, Paris, 1808,' or the original German, in
Heeren's "Vermischte Schriften," may be read with great advantage.--M.]




Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part I.

     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--State Of Constantinople.--
     Revolt Of The Bulgarians.--Isaac Angelus Dethroned By His
     Brother Alexius.--Origin Of The Fourth Crusade.--Alliance Of
     The French And Venetians With The Son Of Isaac.--Their Naval
     Expedition To Constantinople.--The Two Sieges And Final
     Conquest Of The City By The Latins.

The restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was speedily
followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. [1]
A religious and national animosity still divides the two largest
communions of the Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople,
by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most dangerous
enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire in
the East.

[Footnote 1: In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the xviiith,
Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning, clearness, and
impartiality; the _filioque_ (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 277,) Leo III.
p. 303 Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c.]

In the course of the present History, the aversion of the Greeks for the
Latins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was originally derived
from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after the time of Constantine,
by the pride of equality or dominion; and finally exasperated by the
preference which their rebellious subjects had given to the alliance of
the Franks. In every age the Greeks were proud of their superiority in
profane and religious knowledge: they had first received the light
of Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven general
councils; they alone possessed the language of Scripture and philosophy;
nor should the Barbarians, immersed in the darkness of the West, [2]
presume to argue on the high and mysterious questions of theological
science. Those Barbarians despised in then turn the restless and subtile
levity of the Orientals, the authors of every heresy; and blessed their
own simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the apostolic
church. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of Spain, and afterwards
of France, improved or corrupted the Nicene creed, on the mysterious
subject of the third person of the Trinity. [3] In the long controversies
of the East, the nature and generation of the Christ had been
scrupulously defined; and the well-known relation of father and son
seemed to convey a faint image to the human mind. The idea of birth
was less analogous to the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift or
attribute, was considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, a
god; he was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he _proceeded_.
Did he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps _by_ the Son? or from the
Father _and_ the Son? The first of these opinions was asserted by the
Greeks, the second by the Latins; and the addition to the Nicene
creed of the word _filioque_, kindled the flame of discord between the
Oriental and the Gallic churches. In the origin of the disputes the
Roman pontiffs affected a character of neutrality and moderation: [4]
they condemned the innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of
their Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veil
of silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the
correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes the
liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the passions
and prejudices of a priest. [5] But the orthodoxy of Rome spontaneously
obeyed the impulse of the temporal policy; and the _filioque_, which
Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the symbol and chanted in the
liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds are held as the
Catholic faith, without which none can be saved; and both Papists and
Protestants must now sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who
deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the
Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but the
rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent churches;
and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the difference is
inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition of Rome has imposed
on her priests and deacons the rigid obligation of celibacy; among the
Greeks it is confined to the bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity
or annihilated by age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy
the conjugal society of the wives whom they have married before their
entrance into holy orders. A question concerning the _Azyms_ was
fiercely debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of the
Eucharist was supposed in the East and West to depend on the use of
leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious history the
furious reproaches that were urged against the Latins, who for a long
while remained on the defensive? They neglected to abstain, according
to the apostolical decree, from things strangled, and from blood: they
fasted (a Jewish observance!) on the Saturday of each week: during the
first week of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese; [6] their
infirm monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was
substituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or unction
in baptism was reserved to the episcopal order: the bishops, as the
bridegrooms of their churches, were decorated with rings; their priests
shaved their faces, and baptized by a single immersion. Such were the
crimes which provoked the zeal of the patriarchs of Constantinople; and
which were justified with equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church.
[7]

[Footnote 2: ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouV
anadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata, (Phot. Epist.
p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch continues to apply
the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar, precursors of
Antichrist, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 3: The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy Ghost
is discussed in the historical, theological, and controversial sense, or
nonsense, by the Jesuit Petavius. (Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii.
p. 362--440.)]

[Footnote 4: Before the shrine of St. Peter he placed two shields of the
weight of 94 1/2 pounds of pure silver; on which he inscribed the text
of both creeds, (utroque symbolo,) pro amore et _cautela_ orthodoxae
fidei, (Anastas. in Leon. III. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars. i. p. 208.)
His language most clearly proves, that neither the _filioque_, nor the
Athanasian creed were received at Rome about the year 830.]

[Footnote 5: The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare, that all
who rejected the _filioque_, or at least the doctrine, must be damned.
All, replies the pope, are not capable of reaching the altiora mysteria
qui potuerit, et non voluerit, salvus esse non potest, (Collect. Concil.
tom. ix. p. 277--286.) The _potuerit_ would leave a large loophole of
salvation!]

[Footnote 6: In France, after some harsher laws, the ecclesiastical
discipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and butter, are become a
perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in Lent, (Vie privee des
Francois, tom. ii. p. 27--38.)]

[Footnote 7: The original monuments of the schism, of the charges of
the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius,
(Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47--61,) and of Michael Cerularius, (Canisii
Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281--324, edit. Basnage, with the
prolix answer of Cardinal Humbert.)]

Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every object
of dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the Greeks may
be traced in the emulation of the leading prelates, who maintained the
supremacy of the old metropolis superior to all, and of the reigning
capital, inferior to none, in the Christian world. About the middle of
the ninth century, Photius, [8] an ambitious layman, the captain of the
guards and principal secretary, was promoted by merit and favor to the
more desirable office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, even
ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and the
purity of his morals has never been impeached: but his ordination was
hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his abdicated predecessor,
was yet supported by the public compassion and the obstinacy of his
adherents. They appealed to the tribunal of Nicholas the First, one of
the proudest and most aspiring of the Roman pontiffs, who embraced the
welcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East.
Their quarrel was embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the
king and nation of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to
Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could number the
proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the aid of his court
the Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the furious contest he
deposed in his turn the successor of St. Peter, and involved the Latin
church in the reproach of heresy and schism. Photius sacrificed the
peace of the world to a short and precarious reign: he fell with his
patron, the Caesar Bardas; and Basil the Macedonian performed an act of
justice in the restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not
been sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photius
solicited the favor of the emperor by pathetic complaints and artful
flattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed, when he was
again restored to the throne of Constantinople. After the death of Basil
he experienced the vicissitudes of courts and the ingratitude of a royal
pupil: the patriarch was again deposed, and in his last solitary hours
he might regret the freedom of a secular and studious life. In each
revolution, the breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted by
a submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was always
prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatize the fall, of the holy,
or the execrable, Photius. [9] By a delusive promise of succor or reward,
the popes were tempted to countenance these various proceedings; and the
synods of Constantinople were ratified by their epistles or legates. But
the court and the people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse
to their claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the
procession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was forever annexed
to the Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by their rigid
censure of all the multiplied ordinations of an irregular patriarch. The
darkness and corruption of the tenth century suspended the intercourse,
without reconciling the minds, of the two nations. But when the Norman
sword restored the churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome,
the departing flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek
patriarch, to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising
majesty of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; and
Michael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of Constantinople by
the pope's legates. Shaking the dust from their feet, they deposited
on the altar of St. Sophia a direful anathema, [10] which enumerates the
seven mortal heresies of the Greeks, and devotes the guilty teachers,
and their unhappy sectaries, to the eternal society of the devil and his
angels. According to the emergencies of the church and state, a friendly
correspondence was some times resumed; the language of charity and
concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never recanted their
errors; the popes have never repealed their sentence; and from this
thunderbolt we may date the consummation of the schism. It was enlarged
by each ambitious step of the Roman pontiffs: the emperors blushed and
trembled at the ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany; and
the people were scandalized by the temporal power and military life of
the Latin clergy. [11]

[Footnote 8: The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils
contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they are
abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by Dupin and
Fleury.]

[Footnote 9: The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869, is the
viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the East which is
recognized by the Roman church. She rejects the synods of Constantinople
of the years 867 and 879, which were, however, equally numerous and
noisy; but they were favorable to Photius.]

[Footnote 10: See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p.
1457--1460.]

[Footnote 11: Anna Comnena (Alexiad, l. i. p. 31--33) represents the
abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for Gregory VII.,
the popes and the Latin communion. The style of Cinnamus and Nicetas is
still more vehement. Yet how calm is the voice of history compared with
that of polemics!]

The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and manifested in
the three first expeditions to the Holy Land. Alexius Comnenus contrived
the absence at least of the formidable pilgrims: his successors, Manuel
and Isaac Angelus, conspired with the Moslems for the ruin of the
greatest princes of the Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy
was seconded by the active and voluntary obedience of every order of
their subjects. Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless be
ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners, which
severs and alienates the nations of the globe. The pride, as well as
the prudence, of the sovereign was deeply wounded by the intrusion of
foreign armies, that claimed a right of traversing his dominions, and
passing under the walls of his capital: his subjects were insulted
and plundered by the rude strangers of the West: and the hatred of the
pusillanimous Greeks was sharpened by secret envy of the bold and pious
enterprises of the Franks. But these profane causes of national enmity
were fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal. Instead of
a kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian brethren of
the East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names of schismatic and
heretic, more odious to an orthodox ear than those of pagan and infidel:
instead of being loved for the general conformity of faith and worship,
they were abhorred for some rules of discipline, some questions of
theology, in which themselves or their teachers might differ from the
Oriental church. In the crusade of Louis the Seventh, the Greek clergy
washed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the sacrifice
of a French priest. The companions of Frederic Barbarossa deplore the
injuries which they endured, both in word and deed, from the peculiar
rancor of the bishops and monks. Their prayers and sermons excited the
people against the impious Barbarians; and the patriarch is accused of
declaring, that the faithful might obtain the redemption of all their
sins by the extirpation of the schismatics. [12] An enthusiast, named
Dorotheus, alarmed the fears, and restored the confidence, of the
emperor, by a prophetic assurance, that the German heretic, after
assaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a signal example of
the divine vengeance. The passage of these mighty armies were rare and
perilous events; but the crusades introduced a frequent and familiar
intercourse between the two nations, which enlarged their knowledge
without abating their prejudices. The wealth and luxury of
Constantinople demanded the productions of every climate these imports
were balanced by the art and labor of her numerous inhabitants; her
situation invites the commerce of the world; and, in every period of her
existence, that commerce has been in the hands of foreigners. After the
decline of Amalphi, the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced their
factories and settlements into the capital of the empire: their services
were rewarded with honors and immunities; they acquired the possession
of lands and houses; their families were multiplied by marriages with
the natives; and, after the toleration of a Mahometan mosque, it was
impossible to interdict the churches of the Roman rite. [13] The two
wives of Manuel Comnenus [14] were of the race of the Franks: the first,
a sister-in-law of the emperor Conrad; the second, a daughter of the
prince of Antioch: he obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip
Augustus, king of France; and he bestowed his own daughter on a
marquis of Montferrat, who was educated and dignified in the palace
of Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms, and aspired to the
empire, of the West: he esteemed the valor, and trusted the fidelity, of
the Franks; [15] their military talents were unfitly recompensed by the
lucrative offices of judges and treasures; the policy of Manuel had
solicited the alliance of the pope; and the popular voice accused him of
a partial bias to the nation and religion of the Latins. [16] During
his reign, and that of his successor Alexius, they were exposed at
Constantinople to the reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favorites;
and this triple guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which
announced the return and elevation of Andronicus. [17] The people rose
in arms: from the Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops and
galleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless resistance of
the strangers served only to justify the rage, and sharpen the daggers,
of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor the ties of friendship or
kindred, could save the victims of national hatred, and avarice, and
religious zeal; the Latins were slaughtered in their houses and in the
streets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt in
their churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may
be formed of the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousand
Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and monks were
the loudest and most active in the destruction of the schismatics;
and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when the head of a Roman
cardinal, the pope's legate, was severed from his body, fastened to the
tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery, through the city. The
more diligent of the strangers had retreated, on the first alarm, to
their vessels, and escaped through the Hellespont from the scene of
blood. In their flight, they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the
sea-coast; inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the
empire; marked the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies; and
compensated, by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of their property
and friends. On their return, they exposed to Italy and Europe the
wealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice, of the Greeks, whose
vices were painted as the genuine characters of heresy and schism. The
scruples of the first crusaders had neglected the fairest opportunities
of securing, by the possession of Constantinople, the way to the Holy
Land: domestic revolution invited, and almost compelled, the French and
Venetians to achieve the conquest of the Roman empire of the East.

[Footnote 12: His anonymous historian (de Expedit. Asiat. Fred. I.
in Canisii Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 511, edit. Basnage)
mentions the sermons of the Greek patriarch, quomodo Graecis injunxerat
in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere et delere de terra. Tagino
observes, (in Scriptores Freher. tom. i. p. 409, edit. Struv.,)
Graeci haereticos nos appellant: clerici et monachi dictis et factis
persequuntur. We may add the declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteen
years afterwards: Haec est (_gens_) quae Latinos omnes non hominum nomine,
sed canum dignabatur; quorum sanguinem effundere pene inter merita
reputabant, (Gesta Innocent. III., c. 92, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i. p. 536.) There may be some exaggeration,
but it was as effectual for the action and reaction of hatred.]

[Footnote 13: See Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vi. p. 161, 162,) and a
remarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel, l. v. c. 9,) who observes
of the Venetians, kata smhnh kai jratriaV thn Kwnstantinou polin thV
oikeiaV hllaxanto, &c.]

[Footnote 14: Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187.]

[Footnote 15: Nicetas in Manuel. l. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim
(Manuele).... apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam ut
neglectis Graeculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et effminatis,.... solis
Latinis grandia committeret negotia.... erga eos profusa liberalitate
abundabat.... ex omni orbe ad eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et
ignobiles concurrebant. Willelm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10.]

[Footnote 16: The suspicions of the Greeks would have been confirmed, if
they had seen the political epistles of Manuel to Pope Alexander III.,
the enemy of his enemy Frederic I., in which the emperor declares his
wish of uniting the Greeks and Latins as one flock under one shepherd,
&c (See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 187, 213, 243.)]

[Footnote 17: See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in Alexio
Comneno, c. 10) and William of Tyre, (l. xxii. c. 10, 11, 12, 13;) the
first soft and concise, the second loud, copious, and tragical.]

In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the hypocrisy
and ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the last male of the
Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople. The revolution, which
cast him headlong from the throne, saved and exalted Isaac Angelus,
[18] who descended by the females from the same Imperial dynasty. The
successor of a second Nero might have found it an easy task to deserve
the esteem and affection of his subjects; they sometimes had reason to
regret the administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind of
the tyrant was capable of discerning the connection between his own and
the public interest; and while he was feared by all who could inspire
him with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote provinces, might
bless the inexorable justice of their master. But his successor was vain
and jealous of the supreme power, which he wanted courage and abilities
to exercise: his vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed
any virtues) were useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their
calamities to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient or
accidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and was
awakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were amused by
comedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the emperor was an
object of contempt: his feasts and buildings exceeded the examples of
royal luxury: the number of his eunuchs and domestics amounted to twenty
thousand; and a daily sum of four thousand pounds of silver would swell
to four millions sterling the annual expense of his household and table.
His poverty was relieved by oppression; and the public discontent was
inflamed by equal abuses in the collection, and the application, of
the revenue. While the Greeks numbered the days of their servitude,
a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the dignity of patriarch,
assured him of a long and victorious reign of thirty-two years; during
which he should extend his sway to Mount Libanus, and his conquests
beyond the Euphrates. But his only step towards the accomplishment of
the prediction was a splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin, [19]
to demand the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an
offensive and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. In
these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the Greek
empire crumbled into dust. The Island of Cyprus, whose name excites the
ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenian
prince; and by a strange concatenation of events, the sword of our
English Richard bestowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a rich
compensation for the loss of Jerusalem.

[Footnote 18: The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is composed, in
three books, by the senator Nicetas, (p. 228--290;) and his offices
of logothete, or principal secretary, and judge of the veil or palace,
could not bribe the impartiality of the historian. He wrote, it is true,
after the fall and death of his benefactor.]

[Footnote 19: See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129--131, 226, vers.
Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in the Greek,
French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in those times. His
embassies were received with honor, dismissed without effect, and
reported with scandal in the West.]

The honor of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were deeply
wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Walachians. Since the
victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above a hundred and
seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine princes; but no
effectual measures had been adopted to impose the yoke of laws and
manners on these savage tribes. By the command of Isaac, their sole
means of subsistence, their flocks and herds, were driven away, to
contribute towards the pomp of the royal nuptials; and their fierce
warriors were exasperated by the denial of equal rank and pay in the
military service. Peter and Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the race
of the ancient kings, [20] asserted their own rights and the national
freedom; their daemoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that their
glorious patron St. Demetrius had forever deserted the cause of the
Greeks; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube to the
hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts, Isaac Angelus
and his brother acquiesced in their independence; and the Imperial
troops were soon discouraged by the bones of their fellow-soldiers, that
were scattered along the passes of Mount Haemus. By the arms and
policy of John or Joannices, the second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly
established. The subtle Barbarian sent an embassy to Innocent the Third,
to acknowledge himself a genuine son of Rome in descent and religion,
[21] and humbly received from the pope the license of coining money, the
royal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican exulted in
the spiritual conquest of Bulgaria, the first object of the schism; and
if the Greeks could have preserved the prerogatives of the church, they
would gladly have resigned the rights of the monarchy.

[Footnote 20: Ducange, Familiae, Dalmaticae, p. 318, 319, 320. The
original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman pontiff is
inscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. c. 66--82, p. 513--525.]

[Footnote 21: The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis Romae
prosapia genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition, and the
strong resemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is explained by M.
D'Anville, (Etats de l'Europe, p. 258--262.) The Italian colonies of
the Dacia of Trajan were swept away by the tide of emigration from the
Danube to the Volga, and brought back by another wave from the Volga to
the Danube. Possible, but strange!]

The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the long life of Isaac
Angelus, the surest pledge of their freedom and prosperity. Yet their
chiefs could involve in the same indiscriminate contempt the family and
nation of the emperor. "In all the Greeks," said Asan to his troops,
"the same climate, and character, and education, will be productive of
the same fruits. Behold my lance," continued the warrior, "and the long
streamers that float in the wind. They differ only in color; they are
formed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor has the
stripe that is stained in purple any superior price or value above its
fellows." [22] Several of these candidates for the purple successively
rose and fell under the empire of Isaac; a general, who had repelled the
fleets of Sicily, was driven to revolt and ruin by the ingratitude
of the prince; and his luxurious repose was disturbed by secret
conspiracies and popular insurrections. The emperor was saved by
accident, or the merit of his servants: he was at length oppressed by an
ambitious brother, who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot the
obligations of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. [23] While Isaac
in the Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of the
chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the purple,
by the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the capital and the clergy
subscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new sovereign rejected
the name of his fathers for the lofty and royal appellation of the
Comnenian race. On the despicable character of Isaac I have exhausted
the language of contempt, and can only add, that, in a reign of eight
years, the baser Alexius [24] was supported by the masculine vices of his
wife Euphrosyne. The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the
late emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longer
his own: he fled before them above fifty miles, as far as Stagyra,
in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without an object or a follower, was
arrested, brought back to Constantinople, deprived of his eyes, and
confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty allowance of bread and water.
At the moment of the revolution, his son Alexius, whom he educated
in the hope of empire, was twelve years of age. He was spared by the
usurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in peace and war; but
as the army was encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian vessel facilitated
the escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a common sailor,
he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the Hellespont, and found a
secure refuge in the Isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold of
the apostles, and imploring the protection of Pope Innocent the Third,
Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of
Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy,
he heard that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for
the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his
bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in his father's
restoration.

[Footnote 22: This parable is in the best savage style; but I wish the
Walach had not introduced the classic name of Mysians, the experiment of
the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an old comic poet, (Nicetas
in Alex. Comneno, l. i. p. 299, 300.)]

[Footnote 23: The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by
supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from Turkish
captivity This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated at Venice and
Zara but I do not readily discover its grounds in the Greek historians.]

[Footnote 24: See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in the
three books of Nicetas, p. 291--352.]

About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles of
France were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a third
prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit, but far below
St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiterate
priest of the neighborhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly, [25] forsook his
parochial duty, to assume the more flattering character of a popular and
itinerant missionary. The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spread
over the land; he declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against the
vices of the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets of
Paris, converted the robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and even the
doctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did Innocent the Third
ascend the chair of St. Peter, than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany,
and France, the obligation of a new crusade. [26] The eloquent pontiff
described the ruin of Jerusalem, the triumph of the Pagans, and the
shame of Christendom; his liberality proposed the redemption of sins, a
plenary indulgence to all who should serve in Palestine, either a year
in person, or two years by a substitute; [27] and among his legates and
orators who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest and
most successful. The situation of the principal monarchs was averse to
the pious summons. The emperor Frederic the Second was a child; and his
kingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival houses of Brunswick and
Swabia, the memorable factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines. Philip
Augustus of France had performed, and could not be persuaded to renew,
the perilous vow; but as he was not less ambitious of praise than of
power, he cheerfully instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of the
Holy Land Richard of England was satiated with the glory and misfortunes
of his first adventure; and he presumed to deride the exhortations of
Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of kings. "You
advise me," said Plantagenet, "to dismiss my three daughters, pride,
avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to the most deserving; my
pride to the knights templars, my avarice to the monks of Cisteaux, and
my incontinence to the prelates." But the preacher was heard and obeyed
by the great vassals, the princes of the second order; and Theobald,
or Thibaut, count of Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. The
valiant youth, at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by the
domestic examples of his father, who marched in the second crusade, and
of his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the title
of King of Jerusalem; two thousand two hundred knights owed service and
homage to his peerage; [28] the nobles of Champagne excelled in all the
exercises of war; [29] and, by his marriage with the heiress of Navarre,
Thibaut could draw a band of hardy Gascons from either side of the
Pyrenaean mountains. His companion in arms was Louis, count of Blois
and Chartres; like himself of regal lineage, for both the princes were
nephews, at the same time, of the kings of France and England. In a
crowd of prelates and barons, who imitated their zeal, I distinguish the
birth and merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon of
Montfort, the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey of
Villehardouin, [30] marshal of Champagne, [31] who has condescended, in
the rude idiom of his age and country, [32] to write or dictate [33]
an original narrative of the councils and actions in which he bore a
memorable part. At the same time, Baldwin, count of Flanders, who had
married the sister of Thibaut, assumed the cross at Bruges, with his
brother Henry, and the principal knights and citizens of that rich and
industrious province. [34] The vow which the chiefs had pronounced in
churches, they ratified in tournaments; the operations of the war were
debated in full and frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seek
the deliverance of Palestine in Egypt, a country, since Saladin's death,
which was almost ruined by famine and civil war. But the fate of so many
royal armies displayed the toils and perils of a land expedition; and if
the Flemings dwelt along the ocean, the French barons were destitute of
ships and ignorant of navigation. They embraced the wise resolution of
choosing six deputies or representatives, of whom Villehardouin was
one, with a discretionary trust to direct the motions, and to pledge the
faith, of the whole confederacy. The maritime states of Italy were alone
possessed of the means of transporting the holy warriors with their arms
and horses; and the six deputies proceeded to Venice, to solicit, on
motives of piety or interest, the aid of that powerful republic.

[Footnote 25: See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c., and
Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I always
mean to quote with the original text.]

[Footnote 26: The contemporary life of Pope Innocent III., published by
Baluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i.
p. 486--568), is most valuable for the important and original documents
which are inserted in the text. The bull of the crusade may be read, c.
84, 85.]

[Footnote 27: Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s'en esmeurent
mult li cuers des genz, et mult s'en croisierent, porce que li pardons
ere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our philosophers may refine on the
causes of the crusades, but such were the genuine feelings of a French
knight.]

[Footnote 28: This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege homage) was
enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and attested A.D. 1213,
by the marshal and butler of Champagne, (Ducange, Observ. p. 254.)]

[Footnote 29: Campania.... militiae privilegio singularius excellit....
in tyrociniis.... prolusione armorum, &c., Duncage, p. 249, from the old
Chronicle of Jerusalem, A.D. 1177--1199.]

[Footnote 30: The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village and
castle in the diocese of Troyes, near the River Aube, between Bar
and Arcis. The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch of our
historian existed after the year 1400, the younger, which acquired
the principality of Achaia, merged in the house of Savoy, (Ducange, p.
235--245.)]

[Footnote 31: This office was held by his father and his descendants;
but Ducange has not hunted it with his usual sagacity. I find that, in
the year 1356, it was in the family of Conflans; but these provincial
have been long since eclipsed by the national marshals of France.]

[Footnote 32: This language, of which I shall produce some specimens,
is explained by Vigenere and Ducange, in a version and glossary. The
president Des Brosses (Mechanisme des Langues, tom. ii. p. 83) gives
it as the example of a language which has ceased to be French, and is
understood only by grammarians.]

[Footnote 33: His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste uvre
_dicta_, (No. 62, &c.,) may justify the suspicion (more probable than
Mr. Wood's on Homer) that he could neither read nor write. Yet Champagne
may boast of the two first historians, the noble authors of French
prose, Villehardouin and Joinville.]

[Footnote 34: The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders, Baldwin
and his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular history by the
Jesuit Doutremens, (Constantinopolis Belgica; Turnaci, 1638, in 4to.,)
which I have only seen with the eyes of Ducange.]

In the invasion of Italy by Attila, I have mentioned [35] the flight of
the Venetians from the fallen cities of the continent, and their obscure
shelter in the chain of islands that line the extremity of the Adriatic
Gulf. In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and
inaccessible, they gradually coalesced into a republic: the first
foundations of Venice were laid in the Island of Rialto; and the annual
election of the twelve tribunes was superseded by the permanent office
of a duke or doge. On the verge of the two empires, the Venetians exult
in the belief of primitive and perpetual independence. [36] Against the
Latins, their antique freedom has been asserted by the sword, and may
be justified by the pen. Charlemagne himself resigned all claims of
sovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic Gulf: his son Pepin was
repulsed in the attacks of the _lagunas_ or canals, too deep for the
cavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every age, under the
German Caesars, the lands of the republic have been clearly distinguished
from the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants of Venice were considered
by themselves, by strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an inalienable
portion of the Greek empire: [37] in the ninth and tenth centuries, the
proofs of their subjection are numerous and unquestionable; and the
vain titles, the servile honors, of the Byzantine court, so ambitiously
solicited by their dukes, would have degraded the magistrates of a free
people. But the bands of this dependence, which was never absolute or
rigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by the ambition of Venice and the
weakness of Constantinople. Obedience was softened into respect,
privilege ripened into prerogative, and the freedom of domestic
government was fortified by the independence of foreign dominion. The
maritime cities of Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sovereigns of
the Adriatic; and when they armed against the Normans in the cause of
Alexius, the emperor applied, not to the duty of his subjects, but to
the gratitude and generosity of his faithful allies. The sea was their
patrimony: [38] the western parts of the Mediterranean, from Tuscany to
Gibraltar, were indeed abandoned to their rivals of Pisa and Genoa; but
the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative share of the commerce of
Greece and Egypt. Their riches increased with the increasing demand of
Europe; their manufactures of silk and glass, perhaps the institution of
their bank, are of high antiquity; and they enjoyed the fruits of their
industry in the magnificence of public and private life. To assert her
flag, to avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation,
the republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and the
Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by her naval
arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the Venetians in the
reduction of the sea coast; but their zeal was neither blind nor
disinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereignty
of a city, the first seat of the commerce of the world. The policy of
Venice was marked by the avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a
maritime, power; yet her ambition was prudent: nor did she often forget
that if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vessels
were the cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, she
avoided the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience
to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of every
clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of superstition. Her
primitive government was a loose mixture of democracy and monarchy; the
doge was elected by the votes of the general assembly; as long as he
was popular and successful, he reigned with the pomp and authority of a
prince; but in the frequent revolutions of the state, he was deposed,
or banished, or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude.
The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous
aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and the people to
a cipher. [39]

[Footnote 35: History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.]

[Footnote 36: The foundation and independence of Venice, and Pepin's
invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 81, No. 4,
&c.) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. Italiae Medii AEvi, in Muratori,
Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have a slight bias, the
Frenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to the republic.]

[Footnote 37: When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of
sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti hmeiV douloi
Jelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV, (Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de
Administrat. Imperii, pars ii. c. 28, p. 85;) and the report of the
ixth establishes the fact of the xth century, which is confirmed by the
embassy of Liutprand of Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperor
allows them to pay to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, their
servitude; but the hateful word douloi must be translated, as in the
charter of 827, (Laugier, Hist. de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.,) by the
softer appellation of _subditi_, or _fideles_.]

[Footnote 38: See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the Antiquitates
Medii AEvi of Muratori. From Anderson's History of Commerce, I understand
that the Venetians did not trade to England before the year 1323. The
most flourishing state of their wealth and commerce, in the beginning of
the xvth century, is agreeably described by the Abbe Dubos, (Hist. de la
Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443--480.)]

[Footnote 39: The Venetians have been slow in writing and publishing
their history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1. The rude Chronicle
(perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765, in octavo,) which
represents the state and manners of Venice in the year 1008. 2. The
larger history of the doge, (1342--1354,) Andrew Dandolo, published for
the first time in the xiith tom. of Muratori, A.D. 1728. The History
of Venice by the Abbe Laugier, (Paris, 1728,) is a work of some merit,
which I have chiefly used for the constitutional part. * Note: It is
scarcely necessary to mention the valuable work of Count Daru, "History
de Venise," of which I hear that an Italian translation has been
published, with notes defensive of the ancient republic. I have not yet
seen this work.--M.]




Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part II.

When the six ambassadors of the French pilgrims arrived at Venice, they
were hospitably entertained in the palace of St. Mark, by the reigning
duke; his name was Henry Dandolo; [40] and he shone in the last period of
human life as one of the most illustrious characters of the times.
Under the weight of years, and after the loss of his eyes, [41] Dandolo
retained a sound understanding and a manly courage: the spirit of a
hero, ambitious to signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; and
the wisdom of a patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory and
advantage of his country. He praised the bold enthusiasm and liberal
confidence of the barons and their deputies: in such a cause, and with
such associates, he should aspire, were he a private man, to terminate
his life; but he was the servant of the republic, and some delay was
requisite to consult, on this arduous business, the judgment of his
colleagues. The proposal of the French was first debated by the six
_sages_ who had been recently appointed to control the administration of
the doge: it was next disclosed to the forty members of the council
of state; and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of four
hundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in the six
quarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was still the chief
of the republic; his legal authority was supported by the personal
reputation of Dandolo: his arguments of public interest were balanced
and approved; and he was authorized to inform the ambassadors of
the following conditions of the treaty. [42] It was proposed that the
crusaders should assemble at Venice, on the feast of St. John of the
ensuing year; that flat-bottomed vessels should be prepared for four
thousand five hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, with a number
of ships sufficient for the embarkation of four thousand five hundred
knights, and twenty thousand foot; that during a term of nine months
they should be supplied with provisions, and transported to whatsoever
coast the service of God and Christendom should require; and that the
republic should join the armament with a squadron of fifty galleys. It
was required, that the pilgrims should pay, before their departure, a
sum of eighty-five thousand marks of silver; and that all conquests, by
sea and land, should be equally divided between the confederates. The
terms were hard; but the emergency was pressing, and the French barons
were not less profuse of money than of blood. A general assembly was
convened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of St. Mark
were filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble deputies were
taught a new lesson of humbling themselves before the majesty of the
people. "Illustrious Venetians," said the marshal of Champagne, "we are
sent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France to implore the
aid of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. They
have enjoined us to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise from
the ground till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries of
Christ." The eloquence of their words and tears, [43] their martial
aspect, and suppliant attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; as
it were, says Jeffrey, by the sound of an earthquake. The venerable doge
ascended the pulpit to urge their request by those motives of honor and
virtue, which alone can be offered to a popular assembly: the treaty
was transcribed on parchment, attested with oaths and seals, mutually
accepted by the weeping and joyful representatives of France and Venice;
and despatched to Rome for the approbation of Pope Innocent the Third.
Two thousand marks were borrowed of the merchants for the first expenses
of the armament. Of the six deputies, two repassed the Alps to announce
their success, while their four companions made a fruitless trial of the
zeal and emulation of the republics of Genoa and Pisa.

[Footnote 40: Henry Dandolo was eighty-four at his election, (A.D.
1192,) and ninety-seven at his death, (A.D. 1205.) See the Observations
of Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But this _extraordinary_
longevity is not observed by the original writers, nor does there exist
another example of a hero near a hundred years of age. Theophrastus
might afford an instance of a writer of ninety-nine; but instead
of ennenhkonta, (Prom. ad Character.,)I am much inclined to read
ebdomhkonta, with his last editor Fischer, and the first thoughts of
Casaubon. It is scarcely possible that the powers of the mind and body
should support themselves till such a period of life.]

[Footnote 41: The modern Venetians (Laugier, tom. ii. p. 119) accuse
the emperor Manuel; but the calumny is refuted by Villehardouin and the
older writers, who suppose that Dandolo lost his eyes by a wound, (No.
31, and Ducange.) * Note: The accounts differ, both as to the extent and
the cause of his blindness According to Villehardouin and others, the
sight was totally lost; according to the Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo.
(Murat. tom. xii. p. 322,) he was vise debilis. See Wilken, vol. v. p.
143.--M.]

[Footnote 42: See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew
Dandolo, p. 323--326.]

[Footnote 43: A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent tears
of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot mainte lerme
ploree de pitie, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid.;) mainte lerme ploree,
(No. 34;) si orent mult pitie et plorerent mult durement, (No. 60;) i ot
mainte lerme ploree de pitie, (No. 202.) They weep on every occasion of
grief, joy, or devotion.]

The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen difficulties
and delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes, was embraced and
approved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had been unanimously chosen
general of the confederates. But the health of that valiant youth
already declined, and soon became hopeless; and he deplored the untimely
fate, which condemned him to expire, not in a field of battle, but on
a bed of sickness. To his brave and numerous vassals, the dying prince
distributed his treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish his
vow and their own; but some there were, says the marshal, who accepted
his gifts and forfeited their words. The more resolute champions of the
cross held a parliament at Soissons for the election of a new general;
but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or reluctance, of the princes
of France, that none could be found both able and willing to assume the
conduct of the enterprise. They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger,
of Boniface marquis of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and
himself of conspicuous fame in the wars and negotiations of the times;
[44] nor could the piety or ambition of the Italian chief decline this
honorable invitation. After visiting the French court, where he
was received as a friend and kinsman, the marquis, in the church of
Soissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim and the staff of a
general; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare for the distant
expedition of the East. About the festival of the Pentecost he displayed
his banner, and marched towards Venice at the head of the Italians: he
was preceded or followed by the counts of Flanders and Blois, and the
most respectable barons of France; and their numbers were swelled by the
pilgrims of Germany, [45] whose object and motives were similar to their
own. The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their engagements:
stables were constructed for the horses, and barracks for the troops:
the magazines were abundantly replenished with forage and provisions;
and the fleet of transports, ships, and galleys, was ready to hoist
sail as soon as the republic had received the price of the freight and
armament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders who
were assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to their count
was voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their vessels for the long
navigation of the ocean and Mediterranean; and many of the French
and Italians had preferred a cheaper and more convenient passage from
Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy Land. Each pilgrim might complain,
that after he had furnished his own contribution, he was made
responsible for the deficiency of his absent brethren: the gold and
silver plate of the chiefs, which they freely delivered to the treasury
of St. Marks, was a generous but inadequate sacrifice; and after all
their efforts, thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting to
complete the stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy and
patriotism of the doge, who proposed to the barons, that if they would
join their arms in reducing some revolted cities of Dalmatia, he would
expose his person in the holy war, and obtain from the republic a
long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest should afford the means
of satisfying the debt. After much scruple and hesitation, they chose
rather to accept the offer than to relinquish the enterprise; and the
first hostilities of the fleet and army were directed against Zara,
[46] a strong city of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced its
allegiance to Venice, and implored the protection of the king of
Hungary. [47] The crusaders burst the chain or boom of the harbor;
landed their horses, troops, and military engines; and compelled the
inhabitants, after a defence of five days, to surrender at discretion:
their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished by the pillage
of their houses and the demolition of their walls. The season was far
advanced; the French and Venetians resolved to pass the winter in a
secure harbor and plentiful country; but their repose was disturbed
by national and tumultuous quarrels of the soldiers and mariners. The
conquest of Zara had scattered the seeds of discord and scandal: the
arms of the allies had been stained in their outset with the blood, not
of infidels, but of Christians: the king of Hungary and his new subjects
were themselves enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the scruples
of the devout were magnified by the fear of lassitude of the reluctant
pilgrims. The pope had excommunicated the false crusaders who had
pillaged and massacred their brethren, [48] and only the marquis Boniface
and Simon of Montfort [481] escaped these spiritual thunders; the one by
his absence from the siege, the other by his final departure from the
camp. Innocent might absolve the simple and submissive penitents of
France; but he was provoked by the stubborn reason of the Venetians, who
refused to confess their guilt, to accept their pardon, or to allow, in
their temporal concerns, the interposition of a priest.

[Footnote 44: By a victory (A.D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti, by
a crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the German
princes, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. x. p. 163, 202.)]

[Footnote 45: See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. of
Gunther, (Canisii Antiq. Lect. tom. iv. p. v.--viii.,) who celebrates
the pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the preaching rivals of Fulk
of Neuilly. His monastery, of the Cistercian order, was situate in the
diocese of Basil.]

[Footnote 46: Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which acknowledged
Augustus for its parent. It is now only two miles round, and contains
five or six thousand inhabitants; but the fortifications are strong, and
it is joined to the main land by a bridge. See the travels of the two
companions, Spon and Wheeler, (Voyage de Dalmatie, de Grece, &c., tom.
i. p. 64--70. Journey into Greece, p. 8--14;) the last of whom, by
mistaking _Sestertia_ for _Sestertii_, values an arch with statues and
columns at twelve pounds. If, in his time, there were no trees
near Zara, the cherry-trees were not yet planted which produce our
incomparable _marasquin_.]

[Footnote 47: Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. Hungariae, Stirpis Arpad. tom.
iv. p. 536--558) collects all the facts and testimonies most adverse to
the conquerors of Zara.]

[Footnote 48: See the whole transaction, and the sentiments of the pope,
in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86, 87, 88.]

[Footnote 481: Montfort protested against the siege. Guido, the abbot of
Vaux de Sernay, in the name of the pope, interdicted the attack on a
Christian city; and the immediate surrender of the town was thus delayed
for five days of fruitless resistance. Wilken, vol. v. p. 167. See
likewise, at length, the history of the interdict issued by the pope.
Ibid.--M.]

The assembly of such formidable powers by sea and land had revived the
hopes of young [49] Alexius; and both at Venice and Zara, he solicited
the arms of the crusaders, for his own restoration and his father's [50]
deliverance. The royal youth was recommended by Philip king of Germany:
his prayers and presence excited the compassion of the camp; and his
cause was embraced and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the doge
of Venice. A double alliance, and the dignity of Caesar, had connected
with the Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface: [51] he
expected to derive a kingdom from the important service; and the
more generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the inestimable
benefits of trade and dominion that might accrue to his country. [52]
Their influence procured a favorable audience for the ambassadors of
Alexius; and if the magnitude of his offers excited some suspicion,
the motives and rewards which he displayed might justify the delay and
diversion of those forces which had been consecrated to the deliverance
of Jerusalem. He promised in his own and his father's name, that as soon
as they should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they would
terminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves and
their people to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He engaged
to recompense the labors and merits of the crusaders, by the immediate
payment of two hundred thousand marks of silver; to accompany them
in person to Egypt; or, if it should be judged more advantageous, to
maintain, during a year, ten thousand men, and, during his life, five
hundred knights, for the service of the Holy Land. These tempting
conditions were accepted by the republic of Venice; and the eloquence
of the doge and marquis persuaded the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St.
Pol, with eight barons of France, to join in the glorious enterprise. A
treaty of offensive and defensive alliance was confirmed by their
oaths and seals; and each individual, according to his situation and
character, was swayed by the hope of public or private advantage; by
the honor of restoring an exiled monarch; or by the sincere and
probable opinion, that their efforts in Palestine would be fruitless and
unavailing, and that the acquisition of Constantinople must precede and
prepare the recovery of Jerusalem. But they were the chiefs or equals
of a valiant band of freemen and volunteers, who thought and acted
for themselves: the soldiers and clergy were divided; and, if a large
majority subscribed to the alliance, the numbers and arguments of the
dissidents were strong and respectable. [53] The boldest hearts were
appalled by the report of the naval power and impregnable strength of
Constantinople; and their apprehensions were disguised to the world,
and perhaps to themselves, by the more decent objections of religion
and duty. They alleged the sanctity of a vow, which had drawn them from
their families and homes to the rescue of the holy sepulchre; nor
should the dark and crooked counsels of human policy divert them from
a pursuit, the event of which was in the hands of the Almighty. Their
first offence, the attack of Zara, had been severely punished by the
reproach of their conscience and the censures of the pope; nor would
they again imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-Christians.
The apostle of Rome had pronounced; nor would they usurp the right
of avenging with the sword the schism of the Greeks and the doubtful
usurpation of the Byzantine monarch. On these principles or pretences,
many pilgrims, the most distinguished for their valor and piety,
withdrew from the camp; and their retreat was less pernicious than the
open or secret opposition of a discontented party, that labored, on
every occasion, to separate the army and disappoint the enterprise.

[Footnote 49: A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet de
Constantinople, as applied to young Alexius, on account of his youth,
like the _infants_ of Spain, and the _nobilissimus puer_ of the Romans.
The pages and _valets_ of the knights were as noble as themselves,
(Villehardouin and Ducange, No. 36.)]

[Footnote 50: The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin, _Sursac_,
(No. 35, &c.,) which may be derived from the French _Sire_, or the Greek
Kur (kurioV?) melted into his proper name; the further corruptions of
Tursac and Conserac will instruct us what license may have been used in
the old dynasties of Assyria and Egypt.]

[Footnote 51: Reinier and Conrad: the former married Maria, daughter
of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the husband of Theodora
Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and Alexius. Conrad abandoned
the Greek court and princess for the glory of defending Tyre against
Saladin, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 187, 203.)]

[Footnote 52: Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. iii. c. 9) accuses the doge
and Venetians as the first authors of the war against Constantinople,
and considers only as a kuma epi kumati, the arrival and shameful offers
of the royal exile. * Note: He admits, however, that the Angeli had
committed depredations on the Venetian trade, and the emperor himself
had refused the payment of part of the stipulated compensation for the
seizure of the Venetian merchandise by the emperor Manuel. Nicetas, in
loc.--M.]

[Footnote 53: Villehardouin and Gunther represent the sentiments of
the two parties. The abbot Martin left the army at Zara, proceeded to
Palestine, was sent ambassador to Constantinople, and became a reluctant
witness of the second siege.]

Notwithstanding this defection, the departure of the fleet and army was
vigorously pressed by the Venetians, whose zeal for the service of the
royal youth concealed a just resentment to his nation and family. They
were mortified by the recent preference which had been given to Pisa,
the rival of their trade; they had a long arrear of debt and injury to
liquidate with the Byzantine court; and Dandolo might not discourage
the popular tale, that he had been deprived of his eyes by the emperor
Manuel, who perfidiously violated the sanctity of an ambassador. A
similar armament, for ages, had not rode the Adriatic: it was composed
of one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels or _palanders_ for
the horses; two hundred and forty transports filled with men and arms;
seventy store-ships laden with provisions; and fifty stout galleys,
well prepared for the encounter of an enemy. [54] While the wind was
favorable, the sky serene, and the water smooth, every eye was fixed
with wonder and delight on the scene of military and naval pomp which
overspread the sea. [541] The shields of the knights and squires, at once
an ornament and a defence, were arranged on either side of the ships;
the banners of the nations and families were displayed from the stern;
our modern artillery was supplied by three hundred engines for casting
stones and darts: the fatigues of the way were cheered with the sound
of music; and the spirits of the adventurers were raised by the mutual
assurance, that forty thousand Christian heroes were equal to the
conquest of the world. [55] In the navigation [56] from Venice and Zara,
the fleet was successfully steered by the skill and experience of
the Venetian pilots: at Durazzo, the confederates first landed on the
territories of the Greek empire: the Isle of Corfu afforded a station
and repose; they doubled, without accident, the perilous cape of Malea,
the southern point of Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent in
the islands of Negropont and Andros; and cast anchor at Abydus on the
Asiatic side of the Hellespont. These preludes of conquest were easy and
bloodless: the Greeks of the provinces, without patriotism or courage,
were crushed by an irresistible force: the presence of the lawful heir
might justify their obedience; and it was rewarded by the modesty and
discipline of the Latins. As they penetrated through the Hellespont, the
magnitude of their navy was compressed in a narrow channel, and the face
of the waters was darkened with innumerable sails. They again expanded
in the basin of the Propontis, and traversed that placid sea, till
they approached the European shore, at the abbey of St. Stephen, three
leagues to the west of Constantinople. The prudent doge dissuaded them
from dispersing themselves in a populous and hostile land; and, as
their stock of provisions was reduced, it was resolved, in the season
of harvest, to replenish their store-ships in the fertile islands of
the Propontis. With this resolution, they directed their course: but a
strong gale, and their own impatience, drove them to the eastward; and
so near did they run to the shore and the city, that some volleys of
stones and darts were exchanged between the ships and the rampart. As
they passed along, they gazed with admiration on the capital of the
East, or, as it should seem, of the earth; rising from her seven hills,
and towering over the continents of Europe and Asia. The swelling domes
and lofty spires of five hundred palaces and churches were gilded by the
sun and reflected in the waters: the walls were crowded with soldiers
and spectators, whose numbers they beheld, of whose temper they were
ignorant; and each heart was chilled by the reflection, that, since the
beginning of the world, such an enterprise had never been undertaken by
such a handful of warriors. But the momentary apprehension was dispelled
by hope and valor; and every man, says the marshal of Champagne, glanced
his eye on the sword or lance which he must speedily use in the glorious
conflict. [57] The Latins cast anchor before Chalcedon; the mariners only
were left in the vessels: the soldiers, horses, and arms, were safely
landed; and, in the luxury of an Imperial palace, the barons tasted
the first fruits of their success. On the third day, the fleet and
army moved towards Scutari, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople: a
detachment of five hundred Greek horse was surprised and defeated by
fourscore French knights; and in a halt of nine days, the camp was
plentifully supplied with forage and provisions.

[Footnote 54: The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him the
motive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice the
memorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to accuse the copious
and more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. xxii.,) Blondus, Sabellicus, and Rhamnusius.]

[Footnote 541: This description rather belongs to the first setting sail
of the expedition from Venice, before the siege of Zara. The armament
did not return to Venice.--M.]

[Footnote 55: Villehardouin, No. 62. His feelings and expressions are
original: he often weeps, but he rejoices in the glories and perils of
war with a spirit unknown to a sedentary writer.]

[Footnote 56: In this voyage, almost all the geographical names are
corrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis, and all
Euba, is derived from its _Euripus_, _Evripo_, _Negri-po_, _Negropont_,
which dishonors our maps, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
263.)]

[Footnote 57: Et sachiez que il ni ot si hardi cui le cuer ne fremist,
(c. 66.).. Chascuns regardoit ses armes.... que par tems en arons
mestier, (c. 67.) Such is the honesty of courage.]

In relating the invasion of a great empire, it may seem strange that I
have not described the obstacles which should have checked the progress
of the strangers. The Greeks, in truth, were an unwarlike people; but
they were rich, industrious, and subject to the will of a single man:
had that man been capable of fear, when his enemies were at a distance,
or of courage, when they approached his person. The first rumor of his
nephew's alliance with the French and Venetians was despised by the
usurper Alexius: his flatterers persuaded him, that in this contempt he
was bold and sincere; and each evening, in the close of the banquet, he
thrice discomfited the Barbarians of the West. These Barbarians had
been justly terrified by the report of his naval power; and the sixteen
hundred fishing boats of Constantinople [58] could have manned a fleet,
to sink them in the Adriatic, or stop their entrance in the mouth of the
Hellespont. But all force may be annihilated by the negligence of the
prince and the venality of his ministers. The great duke, or admiral,
made a scandalous, almost a public, auction of the sails, the masts,
and the rigging: the royal forests were reserved for the more important
purpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded by the
eunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. [59] From his dream of
pride, Alexius was awakened by the siege of Zara, and the rapid advances
of the Latins; as soon as he saw the danger was real, he thought it
inevitable, and his vain presumption was lost in abject despondency and
despair. He suffered these contemptible Barbarians to pitch their camp
in the sight of the palace; and his apprehensions were thinly disguised
by the pomp and menace of a suppliant embassy. The sovereign of the
Romans was astonished (his ambassadors were instructed to say) at the
hostile appearance of the strangers. If these pilgrims were sincere in
their vow for the deliverance of Jerusalem, his voice must applaud, and
his treasures should assist, their pious design but should they dare to
invade the sanctuary of empire, their numbers, were they ten times more
considerable, should not protect them from his just resentment. The
answer of the doge and barons was simple and magnanimous. "In the cause
of honor and justice," they said, "we despise the usurper of Greece, his
threats, and his offers. _Our_ friendship and _his_ allegiance are due
to the lawful heir, to the young prince, who is seated among us, and to
his father, the emperor Isaac, who has been deprived of his sceptre, his
freedom, and his eyes, by the crime of an ungrateful brother. Let that
brother confess his guilt, and implore forgiveness, and we ourselves
will intercede, that he may be permitted to live in affluence and
security. But let him not insult us by a second message; our reply will
be made in arms, in the palace of Constantinople."

[Footnote 58: Eandem urbem plus in solis navibus piscatorum abundare,
quam illos in toto navigio. Habebat enim mille et sexcentas piscatorias
naves..... Bellicas autem sive mercatorias habebant infinitae
multitudinis et portum tutissimum. Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10.]

[Footnote 59: Kaqaper iervn alsewn, eipein de kai Jeojuteutwn paradeiswn
ejeid?onto toutwni. Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. iii. c. 9, p. 348.]

On the tenth day of their encampment at Scutari, the crusaders prepared
themselves, as soldiers and as Catholics, for the passage of the
Bosphorus. Perilous indeed was the adventure; the stream was broad and
rapid: in a calm the current of the Euxine might drive down the liquid
and unextinguishable fires of the Greeks; and the opposite shores of
Europe were defended by seventy thousand horse and foot in formidable
array. On this memorable day, which happened to be bright and pleasant,
the Latins were distributed in six battles or divisions; the first, or
vanguard, was led by the count of Flanders, one of the most powerful of
the Christian princes in the skill and number of his crossbows. The four
successive battles of the French were commanded by his brother Henry,
the counts of St. Pol and Blois, and Matthew of Montmorency; the last of
whom was honored by the voluntary service of the marshal and nobles of
Champagne. The sixth division, the rear-guard and reserve of the army,
was conducted by the marquis of Montferrat, at the head of the Germans
and Lombards. The chargers, saddled, with their long comparisons
dragging on the ground, were embarked in the flat _palanders_; [60] and
the knights stood by the side of their horses, in complete armor, their
helmets laced, and their lances in their hands. The numerous train of
sergeants [61] and archers occupied the transports; and each transport
was towed by the strength and swiftness of a galley. The six divisions
traversed the Bosphorus, without encountering an enemy or an obstacle:
to land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die was the resolution,
of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of the preeminence of
danger, the knights in their heavy armor leaped into the sea, when it
rose as high as their girdle; the sergeants and archers were animated
by their valor; and the squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the
palanders, led the horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could
mount, and form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greeks
had vanished from their sight: the timid Alexius gave the example to his
troops; and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions that the
Latins were informed that they had fought against an emperor. In the
first consternation of the flying enemy, they resolved, by a double
attack, to open the entrance of the harbor. The tower of Galata, [62] in
the suburb of Pera, was attacked and stormed by the French, while the
Venetians assumed the more difficult task of forcing the boom or chain
that was stretched from that tower to the Byzantine shore. After some
fruitless attempts, their intrepid perseverance prevailed: twenty ships
of war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either sunk or taken: the
enormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by the shears, or
broken by the weight, of the galleys; [63] and the Venetian fleet, safe
and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port of Constantinople. By these
daring achievements, a remnant of twenty thousand Latins solicited
the license of besieging a capital which contained above four hundred
thousand inhabitants, [64] able, though not willing, to bear arms
in defence of their country. Such an account would indeed suppose a
population of near two millions; but whatever abatement may be required
in the numbers of the Greeks, the _belief_ of those numbers will equally
exalt the fearless spirit of their assailants.

[Footnote 60: From the version of Vignere I adopt the well-sounding word
_palander_, which is still used, I believe, in the Mediterranean.
But had I written in French, I should have preserved the original and
expressive denomination of _vessiers_ or _huissiers_, from the _huis_ or
door which was let down as a draw-bridge; but which, at sea, was closed
into the side of the ship, (see Ducange au Villehardouin, No. 14, and
Joinville. p. 27, 28, edit. du Louvre.)]

[Footnote 61: To avoid the vague expressions of followers, &c., I use,
after Villehardouin, the word _sergeants_ for all horsemen who were not
knights. There were sergeants at arms, and sergeants at law; and if we
visit the parade and Westminster Hall, we may observe the strange result
of the distinction, (Ducange, Glossar. Latin, _Servientes_, &c., tom.
vi. p. 226--231.)]

[Footnote 62: It is needless to observe, that on the subject of Galata,
the chain, &c., Ducange is accurate and full. Consult likewise the
proper chapters of the C. P. Christiana of the same author. The
inhabitants of Galata were so vain and ignorant, that they applied to
themselves St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.]

[Footnote 63: The vessel that broke the chain was named the Eagle,
_Aquila_, (Dandolo, Chronicon, p. 322,) which Blondus (de Gestis Venet.)
has changed into _Aquilo_, the north wind. Ducange (Observations, No.
83) maintains the latter reading; but he had not seen the respectable
text of Dandolo, nor did he enough consider the topography of the
harbor. The south-east would have been a more effectual wind. (Note to
Wilken, vol. v. p. 215.)]

[Footnote 64: Quatre cens mil homes ou plus, (Villehardouin, No. 134,)
must be understood of _men_ of a military age. Le Beau (Hist. du. Bas
Empire, tom. xx. p. 417) allows Constantinople a million of inhabitants,
of whom 60,000 horse, and an infinite number of foot-soldiers. In its
present decay, the capital of the Ottoman empire may contain 400,000
souls, (Bell's Travels, vol. ii. p. 401, 402;) but as the Turks keep
no registers, and as circumstances are fallacious, it is impossible
to ascertain (Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 18, 19) the real
populousness of their cities.]

In the choice of the attack, the French and Venetians were divided by
their habits of life and warfare. The former affirmed with truth,
that Constantinople was most accessible on the side of the sea and the
harbor. The latter might assert with honor, that they had long enough
trusted their lives and fortunes to a frail bark and a precarious
element, and loudly demanded a trial of knighthood, a firm ground, and a
close onset, either on foot or on horseback. After a prudent compromise,
of employing the two nations by sea and land, in the service best suited
to their character, the fleet covering the army, they both proceeded
from the entrance to the extremity of the harbor: the stone bridge of
the river was hastily repaired; and the six battles of the French formed
their encampment against the front of the capital, the basis of the
triangle which runs about four miles from the port to the Propontis. [65]
On the edge of a broad ditch, at the foot of a lofty rampart, they had
leisure to contemplate the difficulties of their enterprise. The gates
to the right and left of their narrow camp poured forth frequent sallies
of cavalry and light-infantry, which cut off their stragglers, swept the
country of provisions, sounded the alarm five or six times in the
course of each day, and compelled them to plant a palisade, and sink an
intrenchment, for their immediate safety. In the supplies and convoys
the Venetians had been too sparing, or the Franks too voracious: the
usual complaints of hunger and scarcity were heard, and perhaps felt
their stock of flour would be exhausted in three weeks; and their
disgust of salt meat tempted them to taste the flesh of their
horses. The trembling usurper was supported by Theodore Lascaris,
his son-in-law, a valiant youth, who aspired to save and to rule his
country; the Greeks, regardless of that country, were awakened to the
defence of their religion; but their firmest hope was in the strength
and spirit of the Varangian guards, of the Danes and English, as they
are named in the writers of the times. [66] After ten days' incessant
labor, the ground was levelled, the ditch filled, the approaches of
the besiegers were regularly made, and two hundred and fifty engines of
assault exercised their various powers to clear the rampart, to batter
the walls, and to sap the foundations. On the first appearance of a
breach, the scaling-ladders were applied: the numbers that defended the
vantage ground repulsed and oppressed the adventurous Latins; but they
admired the resolution of fifteen knights and sergeants, who had
gained the ascent, and maintained their perilous station till they were
precipitated or made prisoners by the Imperial guards. On the side
of the harbor the naval attack was more successfully conducted by the
Venetians; and that industrious people employed every resource that was
known and practiced before the invention of gunpowder. A double line,
three bow-shots in front, was formed by the galleys and ships; and the
swift motion of the former was supported by the weight and loftiness of
the latter, whose decks, and poops, and turret, were the platforms of
military engines, that discharged their shot over the heads of the first
line. The soldiers, who leaped from the galleys on shore, immediately
planted and ascended their scaling-ladders, while the large ships,
advancing more slowly into the intervals, and lowering a draw-bridge,
opened a way through the air from their masts to the rampart. In the
midst of the conflict, the doge, a venerable and conspicuous form, stood
aloft in complete armor on the prow of his galley. The great standard
of St. Mark was displayed before him; his threats, promises, and
exhortations, urged the diligence of the rowers; his vessel was the
first that struck; and Dandolo was the first warrior on the shore. The
nations admired the magnanimity of the blind old man, without reflecting
that his age and infirmities diminished the price of life, and enhanced
the value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand, (for
the standard-bearer was probably slain,) the banner of the republic was
fixed on the rampart: twenty-five towers were rapidly occupied; and, by
the cruel expedient of fire, the Greeks were driven from the adjacent
quarter. The doge had despatched the intelligence of his success, when
he was checked by the danger of his confederates. Nobly declaring that
he would rather die with the pilgrims than gain a victory by their
destruction, Dandolo relinquished his advantage, recalled his troops,
and hastened to the scene of action. He found the six weary diminutive
_battles_ of the French encompassed by sixty squadrons of the Greek
cavalry, the least of which was more numerous than the largest of their
divisions. Shame and despair had provoked Alexius to the last effort of
a general sally; but he was awed by the firm order and manly aspect of
the Latins; and, after skirmishing at a distance, withdrew his troops in
the close of the evening. The silence or tumult of the night exasperated
his fears; and the timid usurper, collecting a treasure of ten thousand
pounds of gold, basely deserted his wife, his people, and his fortune;
threw himself into a bark; stole through the Bosphorus; and landed in
shameful safety in an obscure harbor of Thrace. As soon as they were
apprised of his flight, the Greek nobles sought pardon and peace in
the dungeon where the blind Isaac expected each hour the visit of the
executioner. Again saved and exalted by the vicissitudes of fortune, the
captive in his Imperial robes was replace on the throne, and surrounded
with prostrate slaves, whose real terror and affected joy he was
incapable of discerning. At the dawn of day, hostilities were suspended,
and the Latin chiefs were surprised by a message from the lawful and
reigning emperor, who was impatient to embrace his son, and to reward
his generous deliverers. [67]

[Footnote 65: On the most correct plans of Constantinople, I know not
how to measure more than 4000 paces. Yet Villehardouin computes the
space at three leagues, (No. 86.) If his eye were not deceived, he must
reckon by the old Gallic league of 1500 paces, which might still be used
in Champagne.]

[Footnote 66: The guards, the Varangi, are styled by Villehardouin, (No.
89, 95) Englois et Danois avec leurs haches. Whatever had been their
origin, a French pilgrim could not be mistaken in the nations of which
they were at that time composed.]

[Footnote 67: For the first siege and conquest of Constantinople, we may
read the original letter of the crusaders to Innocent III., Gesta, c.
91, p. 533, 534. Villehardouin, No. 75--99. Nicetas, in Alexio Comnen.
l. iii. c. 10, p. 349--352. Dandolo, in Chron. p. 322. Gunther, and his
abbot Martin, were not yet returned from their obstinate pilgrim age to
Jerusalem, or St. John d'Acre, where the greatest part of the company
had died of the plague.]




Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part III.

But these generous deliverers were unwilling to release their hostage,
till they had obtained from his father the payment, or at least the
promise, of their recompense. They chose four ambassadors, Matthew of
Montmorency, our historian the marshal of Champagne, and two Venetians,
to congratulate the emperor. The gates were thrown open on their
approach, the streets on both sides were lined with the battle axes of
the Danish and English guard: the presence-chamber glittered with gold
and jewels, the false substitute of virtue and power: by the side of the
blind Isaac his wife was seated, the sister of the king of Hungary: and
by her appearance, the noble matrons of Greece were drawn from their
domestic retirement, and mingled with the circle of senators and
soldiers. The Latins, by the mouth of the marshal, spoke like men
conscious of their merits, but who respected the work of their own
hands; and the emperor clearly understood, that his son's engagements
with Venice and the pilgrims must be ratified without hesitation
or delay. Withdrawing into a private chamber with the empress, a
chamberlain, an interpreter, and the four ambassadors, the father
of young Alexius inquired with some anxiety into the nature of his
stipulations. The submission of the Eastern empire to the pope, the
succor of the Holy Land, and a present contribution of two hundred
thousand marks of silver.--"These conditions are weighty," was his
prudent reply: "they are hard to accept, and difficult to perform. But
no conditions can exceed the measure of your services and deserts."
After this satisfactory assurance, the barons mounted on horseback, and
introduced the heir of Constantinople to the city and palace: his youth
and marvellous adventures engaged every heart in his favor, and Alexius
was solemnly crowned with his father in the dome of St. Sophia. In
the first days of his reign, the people, already blessed with the
restoration of plenty and peace, was delighted by the joyful catastrophe
of the tragedy; and the discontent of the nobles, their regret, and
their fears, were covered by the polished surface of pleasure and
loyalty The mixture of two discordant nations in the same capital might
have been pregnant with mischief and danger; and the suburb of Galata,
or Pera, was assigned for the quarters of the French and Venetians. But
the liberty of trade and familiar intercourse was allowed between the
friendly nations: and each day the pilgrims were tempted by devotion
or curiosity to visit the churches and palaces of Constantinople. Their
rude minds, insensible perhaps of the finer arts, were astonished by the
magnificent scenery: and the poverty of their native towns enhanced
the populousness and riches of the first metropolis of Christendom. [68]
Descending from his state, young Alexius was prompted by interest
and gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits to his Latin
allies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the French
sometimes forgot the emperor of the East. [69] In their most serious
conferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two churches must
be the result of patience and time; but avarice was less tractable than
zeal; and a larger sum was instantly disbursed to appease the wants, and
silence the importunity, of the crusaders. [70] Alexius was alarmed
by the approaching hour of their departure: their absence might
have relieved him from the engagement which he was yet incapable of
performing; but his friends would have left him, naked and alone, to the
caprice and prejudice of a perfidious nation. He wished to bribe their
stay, the delay of a year, by undertaking to defray their expense, and
to satisfy, in their name, the freight of the Venetian vessels. The
offer was agitated in the council of the barons; and, after a repetition
of their debates and scruples, a majority of votes again acquiesced in
the advice of the doge and the prayer of the young emperor. At the
price of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he prevailed on the marquis of
Montferrat to lead him with an army round the provinces of Europe; to
establish his authority, and pursue his uncle, while Constantinople
was awed by the presence of Baldwin and his confederates of France and
Flanders. The expedition was successful: the blind emperor exulted
in the success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of his
flatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from the
dungeon to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his sight, and watch
over the long prosperity of his reign. Yet the mind of the suspicious
old man was tormented by the rising glories of his son; nor could his
pride conceal from his envy, that, while his own name was pronounced
in faint and reluctant acclamations, the royal youth was the theme of
spontaneous and universal praise. [71]

[Footnote 68: Compare, in the rude energy of Villehardouin, (No.
66, 100,) the inside and outside views of Constantinople, and their
impression on the minds of the pilgrims: cette ville (says he) que
de toutes les autres ere souveraine. See the parallel passages of
Fulcherius Carnotensis, Hist. Hierosol. l. i. c. 4, and Will. Tyr. ii.
3, xx. 26.]

[Footnote 69: As they played at dice, the Latins took off his diadem,
and clapped on his head a woollen or hairy cap, to megaloprepeV kai
pagkleiston katerrupainen onoma, (Nicetas, p. 358.) If these merry
companions were Venetians, it was the insolence of trade and a
commonwealth.]

[Footnote 70: Villehardouin, No. 101. Dandolo, p. 322. The doge affirms,
that the Venetians were paid more slowly than the French; but he owns,
that the histories of the two nations differed on that subject. Had he
read Villehardouin? The Greeks complained, however, good totius Graeciae
opes transtulisset, (Gunther, Hist. C. P. c 13) See the lamentations and
invectives of Nicetas, (p. 355.)]

[Footnote 71: The reign of Alexius Comnenus occupies three books in
Nicetas, p. 291--352. The short restoration of Isaac and his son is
despatched in five chapters, p. 352--362.]

By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of nine
centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the Roman
empire was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of the West had
violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantine: their
Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as themselves: the well-known
vices of Isaac were rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities,
and the young Alexius was hated as an apostate, who had renounced the
manners and religion of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins
was divulged or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were
devoutly attached to their faith and superstition; and every convent,
and every shop, resounded with the danger of the church and the tyranny
of the pope. [72] An empty treasury could ill supply the demands of regal
luxury and foreign extortion: the Greeks refused to avert, by a general
tax, the impending evils of servitude and pillage; the oppression of
the rich excited a more dangerous and personal resentment; and if the
emperor melted the plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary,
he seemed to justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege. During the
absence of Marquis Boniface and his Imperial pupil, Constantinople was
visited with a calamity which might be justly imputed to the zeal and
indiscretion of the Flemish pilgrims. [73] In one of their visits to the
city, they were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or synagogue,
in which one God was worshipped, without a partner or a son. Their
effectual mode of controversy was to attack the infidels with the sword,
and their habitation with fire: but the infidels, and some Christian
neighbors, presumed to defend their lives and properties; and the flames
which bigotry had kindled, consumed the most orthodox and innocent
structures. During eight days and nights, the conflagration spread above
a league in front, from the harbor to the Propontis, over the thickest
and most populous regions of the city. It is not easy to count the
stately churches and palaces that were reduced to a smoking ruin, to
value the merchandise that perished in the trading streets, or to number
the families that were involved in the common destruction. By this
outrage, which the doge and the barons in vain affected to disclaim, the
name of the Latins became still more unpopular; and the colony of that
nation, above fifteen thousand persons, consulted their safety in a
hasty retreat from the city to the protection of their standard in the
suburb of Pera. The emperor returned in triumph; but the firmest and
most dexterous policy would have been insufficient to steer him through
the tempest, which overwhelmed the person and government of that unhappy
youth. His own inclination, and his father's advice, attached him to
his benefactors; but Alexius hesitated between gratitude and patriotism,
between the fear of his subjects and of his allies. [74] By his feeble
and fluctuating conduct he lost the esteem and confidence of both;
and, while he invited the marquis of Monferrat to occupy the palace,
he suffered the nobles to conspire, and the people to arm, for the
deliverance of their country. Regardless of his painful situation, the
Latin chiefs repeated their demands, resented his delays, suspected his
intentions, and exacted a decisive answer of peace or war. The haughty
summons was delivered by three French knights and three Venetian
deputies, who girded their swords, mounted their horses, pierced through
the angry multitude, and entered, with a fearful countenance, the
palace and presence of the Greek emperor. In a peremptory tone, they
recapitulated their services and his engagements; and boldly declared,
that unless their just claims were fully and immediately satisfied, they
should no longer hold him either as a sovereign or a friend. After this
defiance, the first that had ever wounded an Imperial ear, they departed
without betraying any symptoms of fear; but their escape from a servile
palace and a furious city astonished the ambassadors themselves; and
their return to the camp was the signal of mutual hostility.

[Footnote 72: When Nicetas reproaches Alexius for his impious league,
he bestows the harshest names on the pope's new religion, meizon
kai atopwtaton... parektrophn pistewV... tvn tou Papa pronomiwn
kainismon,... metaqesin te kai metapoihsin tvn palaivn 'RwmaioiV?eqvn,
(p. 348.) Such was the sincere language of every Greek to the last gasp
of the empire.]

[Footnote 73: Nicetas (p. 355) is positive in the charge, and specifies
the Flemings, (FlamioneV,) though he is wrong in supposing it an ancient
name. Villehardouin (No. 107) exculpates the barons, and is ignorant
(perhaps affectedly ignorant) of the names of the guilty.]

[Footnote 74: Compare the suspicions and complaints of Nicetas (p.
359--362) with the blunt charges of Baldwin of Flanders, (Gesta Innocent
III. c. 92, p. 534,) cum patriarcha et mole nobilium, nobis promises
perjurus et mendax.]

Among the Greeks, all authority and wisdom were overborne by the
impetuous multitude, who mistook their rage for valor, their numbers
for strength, and their fanaticism for the support and inspiration of
Heaven. In the eyes of both nations Alexius was false and contemptible;
the base and spurious race of the Angeli was rejected with clamorous
disdain; and the people of Constantinople encompassed the senate,
to demand at their hands a more worthy emperor. To every senator,
conspicuous by his birth or dignity, they successively presented the
purple: by each senator the deadly garment was repulsed: the contest
lasted three days; and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of
the members of the assembly, that fear and weaknesses were the guardians
of their loyalty. A phantom, who vanished in oblivion, was forcibly
proclaimed by the crowd: [75] but the author of the tumult, and the
leader of the war, was a prince of the house of Ducas; and his
common appellation of Alexius must be discriminated by the epithet of
Mourzoufle, [76] which in the vulgar idiom expressed the close junction
of his black and shaggy eyebrows. At once a patriot and a courtier, the
perfidious Mourzoufle, who was not destitute of cunning and courage,
opposed the Latins both in speech and action, inflamed the passions
and prejudices of the Greeks, and insinuated himself into the favor
and confidence of Alexius, who trusted him with the office of great
chamberlain, and tinged his buskins with the colors of royalty. At the
dead of night, he rushed into the bed-chamber with an affrighted aspect,
exclaiming, that the palace was attacked by the people and betrayed
by the guards. Starting from his couch, the unsuspecting prince threw
himself into the arms of his enemy, who had contrived his escape by a
private staircase. But that staircase terminated in a prison: Alexius
was seized, stripped, and loaded with chains; and, after tasting some
days the bitterness of death, he was poisoned, or strangled, or beaten
with clubs, at the command, or in the presence, of the tyrant.
The emperor Isaac Angelus soon followed his son to the grave; and
Mourzoufle, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime of hastening the
extinction of impotence and blindness.

[Footnote 75: His name was Nicholas Canabus: he deserved the praise of
Nicetas and the vengeance of Mourzoufle, (p. 362.)]

[Footnote 76: Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a favorite,
without knowing that he was a prince of the blood, _Angelus_ and
_Ducas_. Ducange, who pries into every corner, believes him to be the
son of Isaac Ducas Sebastocrator, and second cousin of young Alexius.]

The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Mourzoufle, had changed
the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the disagreement of allies
who overvalued their services, or neglected their obligations: the
French and Venetians forgot their complaints against Alexius, dropped a
tear on the untimely fate of their companion, and swore revenge against
the perfidious nation who had crowned his assassin. Yet the prudent doge
was still inclined to negotiate: he asked as a debt, a subsidy, or a
fine, fifty thousand pounds of gold, about two millions sterling; nor
would the conference have been abruptly broken, if the zeal, or policy,
of Mourzoufle had not refused to sacrifice the Greek church to the
safety of the state. [77] Amidst the invectives of his foreign and
domestic enemies, we may discern, that he was not unworthy of the
character which he had assumed, of the public champion: the second siege
of Constantinople was far more laborious than the first; the treasury
was replenished, and discipline was restored, by a severe inquisition
into the abuses of the former reign; and Mourzoufle, an iron mace in
his hand, visiting the posts, and affecting the port and aspect of a
warrior, was an object of terror to his soldiers, at least, and to his
kinsmen. Before and after the death of Alexius, the Greeks made two
vigorous and well-conducted attempts to burn the navy in the harbor; but
the skill and courage of the Venetians repulsed the fire-ships; and the
vagrant flames wasted themselves without injury in the sea. [78] In a
nocturnal sally the Greek emperor was vanquished by Henry, brother of
the count of Flanders: the advantages of number and surprise aggravated
the shame of his defeat: his buckler was found on the field of battle;
and the Imperial standard, [79] a divine image of the Virgin, was
presented, as a trophy and a relic to the Cistercian monks, the
disciples of St. Bernard. Near three months, without excepting the holy
season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes and preparations, before
the Latins were ready or resolved for a general assault. The land
fortifications had been found impregnable; and the Venetian pilots
represented, that, on the shore of the Propontis, the anchorage was
unsafe, and the ships must be driven by the current far away to the
straits of the Hellespont; a prospect not unpleasing to the reluctant
pilgrims, who sought every opportunity of breaking the army. From the
harbor, therefore, the assault was determined by the assailants,
and expected by the besieged; and the emperor had placed his scarlet
pavilions on a neighboring height, to direct and animate the efforts of
his troops. A fearless spectator, whose mind could entertain the ideas
of pomp and pleasure, might have admired the long array of two embattled
armies, which extended above half a league, the one on the ships and
galleys, the other on the walls and towers raised above the ordinary
level by several stages of wooden turrets. Their first fury was spent
in the discharge of darts, stones, and fire, from the engines; but the
water was deep; the French were bold; the Venetians were skilful; they
approached the walls; and a desperate conflict of swords, spears, and
battle-axes, was fought on the trembling bridges that grappled the
floating, to the stable, batteries. In more than a hundred places, the
assault was urged, and the defence was sustained; till the superiority
of ground and numbers finally prevailed, and the Latin trumpets sounded
a retreat. On the ensuing days, the attack was renewed with equal vigor,
and a similar event; and, in the night, the doge and the barons held a
council, apprehensive only for the public danger: not a voice pronounced
the words of escape or treaty; and each warrior, according to his
temper, embraced the hope of victory, or the assurance of a glorious
death. [80] By the experience of the former siege, the Greeks were
instructed, but the Latins were animated; and the knowledge that
Constantinople might be taken, was of more avail than the local
precautions which that knowledge had inspired for its defence. In the
third assault, two ships were linked together to double their strength;
a strong north wind drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes and
Soissons led the van; and the auspicious names of the _pilgrim_ and
the _paradise_ resounded along the line. [81] The episcopal banners were
displayed on the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been promised to
the first adventurers; and if their reward was intercepted by death,
their names have been immortalized by fame. [811] Four towers were scaled;
three gates were burst open; and the French knights, who might tremble
on the waves, felt themselves invincible on horseback on the solid
ground. Shall I relate that the thousands who guarded the emperor's
person fled on the approach, and before the lance, of a single warrior?
Their ignominious flight is attested by their countryman Nicetas: an
army of phantoms marched with the French hero, and he was magnified to a
giant in the eyes of the Greeks. [82] While the fugitives deserted their
posts and cast away their arms, the Latins entered the city under
the banners of their leaders: the streets and gates opened for their
passage; and either design or accident kindled a third conflagration,
which consumed in a few hours the measure of three of the largest cities
of France. [83] In the close of evening, the barons checked their
troops, and fortified their stations: They were awed by the extent and
populousness of the capital, which might yet require the labor of a
month, if the churches and palaces were conscious of their internal
strength. But in the morning, a suppliant procession, with crosses and
images, announced the submission of the Greeks, and deprecated the wrath
of the conquerors: the usurper escaped through the golden gate: the
palaces of Blachernae and Boucoleon were occupied by the count of
Flanders and the marquis of Montferrat; and the empire, which still bore
the name of Constantine, and the title of Roman, was subverted by the
arms of the Latin pilgrims. [84]

[Footnote 77: This negotiation, probable in itself, and attested by
Nicetas, (p 65,) is omitted as scandalous by the delicacy of Dandolo and
Villehardouin. * Note: Wilken places it before the death of Alexius, vol. v. p.
276.--M.]

[Footnote 78: Baldwin mentions both attempts to fire the fleet, (Gest.
c. 92, p. 534, 535;) Villehardouin, (No. 113--15) only describes the
first. It is remarkable that neither of these warriors observe any
peculiar properties in the Greek fire.]

[Footnote 79: Ducange (No. 119) pours forth a torrent of learning on the
_Gonfanon Imperial_. This banner of the Virgin is shown at Venice as a
trophy and relic: if it be genuine the pious doge must have cheated the
monks of Citeaux.]

[Footnote 80: Villehardouin (No. 126) confesses, that mult ere grant
peril; and Guntherus (Hist. C. P. c. 13) affirms, that nulla spes
victoriae arridere poterat. Yet the knight despises those who thought of
flight, and the monk praises his countrymen who were resolved on death.]

[Footnote 81: Baldwin, and all the writers, honor the names of these two
galleys, felici auspicio.]

[Footnote 811: Pietro Alberti, a Venetian noble and Andrew d'Amboise a
French knight.--M.]

[Footnote 82: With an allusion to Homer, Nicetas calls him enneorguioV,
nine orgyae, or eighteen yards high, a stature which would, indeed, have
excused the terror of the Greek. On this occasion, the historian seems
fonder of the marvellous than of his country, or perhaps of truth.
Baldwin exclaims in the words of the psalmist, persequitur unus ex nobis
centum alienos.]

[Footnote 83: Villehardouin (No. 130) is again ignorant of the authors
of _this_ more legitimate fire, which is ascribed by Gunther to a quidam
comes Teutonicus, (c. 14.) They seem ashamed, the incendiaries!]

[Footnote 84: For the second siege and conquest of Constantinople, see
Villehardouin (No. 113--132,) Baldwin's iid Epistle to Innocent III.,
(Gesta c. 92, p. 534--537,) with the whole reign of Mourzoufle, in
Nicetas, (p 363--375;) and borrowed some hints from Dandolo (Chron.
Venet. p. 323--330) and Gunther, (Hist. C. P. c. 14--18,) who added the
decorations of prophecy and vision. The former produces an oracle of
the Erythraean sibyl, of a great armament on the Adriatic, under a
blind chief, against Byzantium, &c. Curious enough, were the prediction
anterior to the fact.]

Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except those
of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by the laws of
war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as their general; and
the Greeks, who revered his name as that of their future sovereign, were
heard to exclaim in a lamentable tone, "Holy marquis-king, have mercy
upon us!" His prudence or compassion opened the gates of the city to the
fugitives; and he exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives
of their fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flowed down the
pages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand of his
unresisting countrymen; [85] and the greater part was massacred, not by
the strangers, but by the Latins, who had been driven from the city, and
who exercised the revenge of a triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles,
some were less mindful of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself
was indebted for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant.
Pope Innocent the Third accuses the pilgrims for respecting, in their
lust, neither age nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly
laments that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and incest,
were perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and holy nuns were
polluted by the grooms and peasants of the Catholic camp. [86] It is
indeed probable that the license of victory prompted and covered a
multitude of sins: but it is certain, that the capital of the East
contained a stock of venal or willing beauty, sufficient to satiate the
desires of twenty thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no
longer subject to the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis
of Montferrat was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of
Flanders was the mirror of chastity: they had forbidden, under pain
of death, the rape of married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the
proclamation was sometimes invoked by the vanquished [87] and respected
by the victors. Their cruelty and lust were moderated by the authority
of the chiefs, and feelings of the soldiers; for we are no longer
describing an irruption of the northern savages; and however ferocious
they might still appear, time, policy, and religion had civilized the
manners of the French, and still more of the Italians. But a free scope
was allowed to their avarice, which was glutted, even in the holy week,
by the pillage of Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by
any promise or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of
the Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might
lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A portable and
universal standard of exchange was found in the coined and uncoined
metals of gold and silver, which each captor, at home or abroad, might
convert into the possessions most suitable to his temper and situation.
Of the treasures, which trade and luxury had accumulated, the silks,
velvets, furs, the gems, spices, and rich movables, were the most
precious, as they could not be procured for money in the ruder countries
of Europe. An order of rapine was instituted; nor was the share of
each individual abandoned to industry or chance. Under the tremendous
penalties of perjury, excommunication, and death, the Latins were bound
to deliver their plunder into the common stock: three churches were
selected for the deposit and distribution of the spoil: a single share
was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a sergeant on horseback; four to
a knight; and larger proportions according to the rank and merit of
the barons and princes. For violating this sacred engagement, a knight
belonging to the count of St. Paul was hanged with his shield and coat
of arms round his neck; his example might render similar offenders more
artful and discreet; but avarice was more powerful than fear; and it
is generally believed that the secret far exceeded the acknowledged
plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the largest scale of
experience or expectation. [88] After the whole had been equally divided
between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand marks were deducted
to satisfy the debts of the former and the demands of the latter. The
residue of the French amounted to four hundred thousand marks of silver,
[89] about eight hundred thousand pounds sterling; nor can I better
appreciate the value of that sum in the public and private transactions
of the age, than by defining it as seven times the annual revenue of the
kingdom of England. [90]

[Footnote 85: Ceciderunt tamen ea die civium quasi duo millia, &c.,
(Gunther, c. 18.) Arithmetic is an excellent touchstone to try the
amplifications of passion and rhetoric.]

[Footnote 86: Quidam (says Innocent III., Gesta, c. 94, p. 538)
nec religioni, nec aetati, nec sexui pepercerunt: sed fornicationes,
adulteria, et incestus in oculis omnium exercentes, non solum maritatas
et viduas, sed et matronas et virgines Deoque dicatas, exposuerunt
spurcitiis garcionum. Villehardouin takes no notice of these common
incidents.]

[Footnote 87: Nicetas saved, and afterwards married, a noble virgin,
(p. 380,) whom a soldier, eti martusi polloiV onhdon epibrimwmenoV, had
almost violated in spite of the entolai, entalmata eu gegonotwn.]

[Footnote 88: Of the general mass of wealth, Gunther observes, ut de
pauperibus et advenis cives ditissimi redderentur, (Hist. C. P. c. 18;
(Villehardouin, (No. 132,) that since the creation, ne fu tant gaaignie
dans une ville; Baldwin, (Gesta, c. 92,) ut tantum tota non videatur
possidere Latinitas.]

[Footnote 89: Villehardouin, No. 133--135. Instead of 400,000, there
is a various reading of 500,000. The Venetians had offered to take the
whole booty, and to give 400 marks to each knight, 200 to each priest
and horseman, and 100 to each foot-soldier: they would have been great
losers, (Le Beau, Hist. du. Bas Empire tom. xx. p. 506. I know not from
whence.)]

[Footnote 90: At the council of Lyons (A.D. 1245) the English
ambassadors stated the revenue of the crown as below that of the foreign
clergy, which amounted to 60,000 marks a year, (Matthew Paris, p. 451
Hume's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 170.)]

In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of comparing the
narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the opposite feelings of the
marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine senator. [91] At the first view it
should seem that the wealth of Constantinople was only transferred from
one nation to another; and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks is
exactly balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the
miserable account of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss,
the pleasure to the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and
fallacious; the Greeks forever wept over the ruins of their country;
and their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery.
What benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires which
annihilated so vast a portion of the buildings and riches of the city?
What a stock of such things, as could neither be used nor transported,
was maliciously or wantonly destroyed! How much treasure was idly wasted
in gaming, debauchery, and riot! And what precious objects were bartered
for a vile price by the impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose
reward was stolen by the base industry of the last of the Greeks!
These alone, who had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the
revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is strongly
painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself His stately palace
had been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration; and the senator,
with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in another house
which he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of
this mean habitation that his friend, the Venetian merchant, guarded
in the disguise of a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate
flight, the relics of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In
a cold, wintry season, these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity,
departed on foot; his wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves
compelled them to carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and their
women, whom they placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their
beauty with dirt, instead of adorning it with paint and jewels Every
step was exposed to insult and danger: the threats of the strangers were
less painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were
now levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their mournful
pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles from the
capital. On the way they overtook the patriarch, without attendance
and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state of
apostolical poverty, which, had it been voluntary, might perhaps have
been meritorious. In the mean while, his desolate churches were profaned
by the licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping the
gems and pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups; their
tables, on which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the pictures
of Christ and the saints; and they trampled under foot the most
venerable objects of the Christian worship. In the cathedral of St.
Sophia, the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent asunder for the sake
of the golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches, was
broken in pieces and shared among the captors. Their mules and horses
were laden with the wrought silver and gilt carvings, which they tore
down from the doors and pulpit; and if the beasts stumbled under the
burden, they were stabbed by their impatient drivers, and the holy
pavement streamed with their impure blood. A prostitute was seated on
the throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she
is styled, sung and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and
processions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories of the royal
dead secure from violation: in the church of the Apostles, the tombs of
the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after six centuries
the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs of decay or
putrefaction. In the streets, the French and Flemings clothed themselves
and their horses in painted robes and flowing head-dresses of linen;
and the coarse intemperance of their feasts [92] insulted the splendid
sobriety of the East. To expose the arms of a people of scribes and
scholars, they affected to display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of
paper, without discerning that the instruments of science and valor were
_alike_ feeble and useless in the hands of the modern Greeks.

[Footnote 91: The disorders of the sack of Constantinople, and his own
adventures, are feelingly described by Nicetas, p. 367--369, and in the
Status Urb. C. P. p. 375--384. His complaints, even of sacrilege, are
justified by Innocent III., (Gesta, c. 92;) but Villehardouin does not
betray a symptom of pity or remorse.]

[Footnote 92: If I rightly apprehend the Greek of Nicetas's receipts,
their favorite dishes were boiled buttocks of beef, salt pork and peas,
and soup made of garlic and sharp or sour herbs, (p. 382.)]

Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to despise
the ignorance and to overlook the progress of the Latins. [93] In the
love of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious and
real; the Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors,
which they could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues of
Constantinople, we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectives
of the Byzantine historian. [94] We have seen how the rising city was
adorned by the vanity and despotism of the Imperial founder: in the
ruins of paganism, some gods and heroes were saved from the axe of
superstition; and the forum and hippodrome were dignified with the
relics of a better age. Several of these are described by Nicetas, [95]
in a florid and affected style; and from his descriptions I shall select
some interesting particulars. _1._ The victorious charioteers were cast
in bronze, at their own or the public charge, and fitly placed in the
hippodrome: they stood aloft in their chariots, wheeling round the
goal: the spectators could admire their attitude, and judge of the
resemblance; and of these figures, the most perfect might have been
transported from the Olympic stadium. _2._ The sphinx, river-horse, and
crocodile, denote the climate and manufacture of Egypt and the spoils of
that ancient province. _3._ The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus,
a subject alike pleasing to the _old_ and the _new_ Romans, but which
could really be treated before the decline of the Greek sculpture.
_4._ An eagle holding and tearing a serpent in his talons, a domestic
monument of the Byzantines, which they ascribed, not to a human artist,
but to the magic power of the philosopher Apollonius, who, by this
talisman, delivered the city from such venomous reptiles. _5._ An
ass and his driver, which were erected by Augustus in his colony of
Nicopolis, to commemorate a verbal omen of the victory of Actium. _6._
An equestrian statue which passed, in the vulgar opinion, for Joshua,
the Jewish conqueror, stretching out his hand to stop the course of the
descending sun. A more classical tradition recognized the figures of
Bellerophon and Pegasus; and the free attitude of the steed seemed to
mark that he trod on air, rather than on the earth. _7._ A square
and lofty obelisk of brass; the sides were embossed with a variety
of picturesque and rural scenes, birds singing; rustics laboring, or
playing on their pipes; sheep bleating; lambs skipping; the sea, and a
scene of fish and fishing; little naked cupids laughing, playing, and
pelting each other with apples; and, on the summit, a female figure,
turning with the slightest breath, and thence denominated _the wind's
attendant_. _8._ The Phrygian shepherd presenting to Venus the prize
of beauty, the apple of discord. _9._ The incomparable statue of Helen,
which is delineated by Nicetas in the words of admiration and love: her
well-turned feet, snowy arms, rosy lips, bewitching smiles, swimming
eyes, arched eyebrows, the harmony of her shape, the lightness of her
drapery, and her flowing locks that waved in the wind; a beauty that
might have moved her Barbarian destroyers to pity and remorse. _10._ The
manly or divine form of Hercules, [96] as he was restored to life by the
masterhand of Lysippus; of such magnitude, that his thumb was equal to
his waist, his leg to the stature, of a common man: [97] his chest ample,
his shoulders broad, his limbs strong and muscular, his hair curled, his
aspect commanding. Without his bow, or quiver, or club, his lion's skin
carelessly thrown over him, he was seated on an osier basket, his right
leg and arm stretched to the utmost, his left knee bent, and supporting
his elbow, his head reclining on his left hand, his countenance
indignant and pensive. _11._ A colossal statue of Juno, which had once
adorned her temple of Samos, the enormous head by four yoke of oxen was
laboriously drawn to the palace. _12._ Another colossus, of Pallas or
Minerva, thirty feet in height, and representing with admirable spirit
the attributes and character of the martial maid. Before we accuse the
Latins, it is just to remark, that this Pallas was destroyed after the
first siege, by the fear and superstition of the Greeks themselves.
[98] The other statues of brass which I have enumerated were broken and
melted by the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders: the cost and labor
were consumed in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in smoke; and
the remnant of base metal was coined into money for the payment of the
troops. Bronze is not the most durable of monuments: from the marble
forms of Phidias and Praxiteles, the Latins might turn aside with stupid
contempt; [99] but unless they were crushed by some accidental injury,
those useless stones stood secure on their pedestals. [100] The most
enlightened of the strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of
their countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the
search and seizure of the relics of the saints. [101] Immense was the
supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were scattered by
this revolution over the churches of Europe; and such was the increase
of pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch, perhaps, of more lucrative
plunder was imported from the East. [102] Of the writings of antiquity,
many that still existed in the twelfth century, are now lost. But the
pilgrims were not solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an
unknown tongue: the perishable substance of paper or parchment can only
be preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the Greeks
had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without computing the extent
of our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that have perished in
the triple fire of Constantinople. [103]

[Footnote 93: Nicetas uses very harsh expressions, par agrammatoiV
BarbaroiV, kai teleon analfabhtoiV, (Fragment, apud Fabric. Bibliot.
Graec. tom. vi. p. 414.) This reproach, it is true, applies most strongly
to their ignorance of Greek and of Homer. In their own language,
the Latins of the xiith and xiiith centuries were not destitute of
literature. See Harris's Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 9, 10, 11.]

[Footnote 94: Nicetas was of Chonae in Phrygia, (the old Colossae of St.
Paul:) he raised himself to the honors of senator, judge of the veil,
and great logothete; beheld the fall of the empire, retired to Nice, and
composed an elaborate history from the death of Alexius Comnenus to the
reign of Henry.]

[Footnote 95: A manuscript of Nicetas in the Bodleian library contains
this curious fragment on the statues of Constantinople, which fraud, or
shame, or rather carelessness, has dropped in the common editions. It
is published by Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 405--416,) and
immoderately praised by the late ingenious Mr. Harris of Salisbury,
(Philological Inquiries, p. iii. c. 5, p. 301--312.)]

[Footnote 96: To illustrate the statue of Hercules, Mr. Harris quotes
a Greek epigram, and engraves a beautiful gem, which does not, however,
copy the attitude of the statue: in the latter, Hercules had not his
club, and his right leg and arm were extended.]

[Footnote 97: I transcribe these proportions, which appear to me
inconsistent with each other; and may possibly show, that the boasted
taste of Nicetas was no more than affectation and vanity.]

[Footnote 98: Nicetas in Isaaco Angelo et Alexio, c. 3, p. 359. The
Latin editor very properly observes, that the historian, in his bombast
style, produces ex pulice elephantem.]

[Footnote 99: In two passages of Nicetas (edit. Paris, p. 360. Fabric.
p. 408) the Latins are branded with the lively reproach of oi tou kalou
anerastoi barbaroi, and their avarice of brass is clearly expressed.
Yet the Venetians had the merit of removing four bronze horses from
Constantinople to the place of St. Mark, (Sanuto, Vite del Dogi, in
Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxii. p. 534.)]

[Footnote 100: Winckelman, Hist. de l'Art. tom. iii. p. 269, 270.]

[Footnote 101: See the pious robbery of the abbot Martin, who
transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris, diocese of Basil,
(Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 19, 23, 24.) Yet in secreting this booty, the
saint incurred an excommunication, and perhaps broke his oath. (Compare
Wilken vol. v. p. 308.--M.)]

[Footnote 102: Fleury, Hist. Eccles tom. xvi. p. 139--145.]

[Footnote 103: I shall conclude this chapter with the notice of a modern
history, which illustrates the taking of Constantinople by the Latins;
but which has fallen somewhat late into my hands. Paolo Ramusio, the
son of the compiler of Voyages, was directed by the senate of Venice to
write the history of the conquest: and this order, which he received
in his youth, he executed in a mature age, by an elegant Latin work,
de Bello Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis per Gallos et
Venetos restitutis, (Venet. 1635, in folio.) Ramusio, or Rhamnusus,
transcribes and translates, sequitur ad unguem, a MS. of Villehardouin,
which he possessed; but he enriches his narrative with Greek and Latin
materials, and we are indebted to him for a correct state of the fleet,
the names of the fifty Venetian nobles who commanded the galleys of the
republic, and the patriot opposition of Pantaleon Barbus to the choice
of the doge for emperor.]




Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part I.

     Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians,--Five
     Latin Emperors Of The Houses Of Flanders And Courtenay.--
     Their Wars Against The Bulgarians And Greeks.--Weakness And
     Poverty Of The Latin Empire.--Recovery Of Constantinople By
     The Greeks.--General Consequences Of The Crusades.

After the death of the lawful princes, the French and Venetians,
confident of justice and victory, agreed to divide and regulate
their future possessions. [1] It was stipulated by treaty, that twelve
electors, six of either nation, should be nominated; that a majority
should choose the emperor of the East; and that, if the votes were
equal, the decision of chance should ascertain the successful candidate.
To him, with all the titles and prerogatives of the Byzantine throne,
they assigned the two palaces of Boucoleon and Blachernae, with a fourth
part of the Greek monarchy. It was defined that the three remaining
portions should be equally shared between the republic of Venice and the
barons of France; that each feudatory, with an honorable exception
for the doge, should acknowledge and perform the duties of homage and
military service to the supreme head of the empire; that the nation
which gave an emperor, should resign to their brethren the choice of a
patriarch; and that the pilgrims, whatever might be their impatience
to visit the Holy Land, should devote another year to the conquest and
defence of the Greek provinces. After the conquest of Constantinople
by the Latins, the treaty was confirmed and executed; and the first and
most important step was the creation of an emperor. The six electors
of the French nation were all ecclesiastics, the abbot of Loces, the
archbishop elect of Acre in Palestine, and the bishops of Troyes,
Soissons, Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, the last of whom exercised in the
camp the office of pope's legate: their profession and knowledge were
respectable; and as _they_ could not be the objects, they were best
qualified to be the authors of the choice. The six Venetians were the
principal servants of the state, and in this list the noble families of
Querini and Contarini are still proud to discover their ancestors.
The twelve assembled in the chapel of the palace; and after the solemn
invocation of the Holy Ghost, they proceeded to deliberate and vote. A
just impulse of respect and gratitude prompted them to crown the virtues
of the doge; his wisdom had inspired their enterprise; and the most
youthful knights might envy and applaud the exploits of blindness and
age. But the patriot Dandolo was devoid of all personal ambition, and
fully satisfied that he had been judged worthy to reign. His nomination
was overruled by the Venetians themselves: his countrymen, and perhaps
his friends, [2] represented, with the eloquence of truth, the mischiefs
that might arise to national freedom and the common cause, from the
union of two incompatible characters, of the first magistrate of a
republic and the emperor of the East. The exclusion of the doge left
room for the more equal merits of Boniface and Baldwin; and at their
names all meaner candidates respectfully withdrew. The marquis of
Montferrat was recommended by his mature age and fair reputation, by
the choice of the adventurers, and the wishes of the Greeks; nor can
I believe that Venice, the mistress of the sea, could be seriously
apprehensive of a petty lord at the foot of the Alps. [3] But the count
of Flanders was the chief of a wealthy and warlike people: he was
valiant, pious, and chaste; in the prime of life, since he was only
thirty-two years of age; a descendant of Charlemagne, a cousin of the
king of France, and a compeer of the prelates and barons who had yielded
with reluctance to the command of a foreigner. Without the chapel, these
barons, with the doge and marquis at their head, expected the decision
of the twelve electors. It was announced by the bishop of Soissons, in
the name of his colleagues: "Ye have sworn to obey the prince whom we
should choose: by our unanimous suffrage, Baldwin count of Flanders and
Hainault is now your sovereign, and the emperor of the East." He was
saluted with loud applause, and the proclamation was reechoed through
the city by the joy of the Latins, and the trembling adulation of the
Greeks. Boniface was the first to kiss the hand of his rival, and to
raise him on the buckler: and Baldwin was transported to the cathedral,
and solemnly invested with the purple buskins. At the end of three weeks
he was crowned by the legate, in the vacancy of the patriarch; but the
Venetian clergy soon filled the chapter of St. Sophia, seated Thomas
Morosini on the ecclesiastical throne, and employed every art to
perpetuate in their own nation the honors and benefices of the Greek
church. [4] Without delay the successor of Constantine instructed
Palestine, France, and Rome, of this memorable revolution. To Palestine
he sent, as a trophy, the gates of Constantinople, and the chain of
the harbor; [5] and adopted, from the Assise of Jerusalem, the laws or
customs best adapted to a French colony and conquest in the East. In his
epistles, the natives of France are encouraged to swell that colony,
and to secure that conquest, to people a magnificent city and a fertile
land, which will reward the labors both of the priest and the soldier.
He congratulates the Roman pontiff on the restoration of his authority
in the East; invites him to extinguish the Greek schism by his presence
in a general council; and implores his blessing and forgiveness for the
disobedient pilgrims. Prudence and dignity are blended in the answer of
Innocent. [6] In the subversion of the Byzantine empire, he arraigns the
vices of man, and adores the providence of God; the conquerors will be
absolved or condemned by their future conduct; the validity of their
treaty depends on the judgment of St. Peter; but he inculcates their
most sacred duty of establishing a just subordination of obedience
and tribute, from the Greeks to the Latins, from the magistrate to the
clergy, and from the clergy to the pope.

[Footnote 1: See the original treaty of partition, in the Venetian
Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo, p. 326--330, and the subsequent election in
Ville hardouin, No. 136--140, with Ducange in his Observations, and the
book of his Histoire de Constantinople sous l'Empire des Francois.]

[Footnote 2: After mentioning the nomination of the doge by a French
elector his kinsman Andrew Dandolo approves his exclusion, quidam
Venetorum fidelis et nobilis senex, usus oratione satis probabili, &c.,
which has been embroidered by modern writers from Blondus to Le Beau.]

[Footnote 3: Nicetas, (p. 384,) with the vain ignorance of a Greek,
describes the marquis of Montferrat as a _maritime_ power. Dampardian de
oikeisqai paralion. Was he deceived by the Byzantine theme of Lombardy
which extended along the coast of Calabria?]

[Footnote 4: They exacted an oath from Thomas Morosini to appoint no
canons of St. Sophia the lawful electors, except Venetians who had lived
ten years at Venice, &c. But the foreign clergy was envious, the pope
disapproved this national monopoly, and of the six Latin patriarchs of
Constantinople, only the first and the last were Venetians.]

[Footnote 5: Nicetas, p. 383.]

[Footnote 6: The Epistles of Innocent III. are a rich fund for
the ecclesiastical and civil institution of the Latin empire of
Constantinople; and the most important of these epistles (of which
the collection in 2 vols. in folio is published by Stephen Baluze) are
inserted in his Gesta, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii.
p. l. c. 94--105.]

In the division of the Greek provinces, [7] the share of the Venetians
was more ample than that of the Latin emperor. No more than one fourth
was appropriated to his domain; a clear moiety of the remainder was
reserved for Venice; and the other moiety was distributed among the
adventures of France and Lombardy. The venerable Dandolo was proclaimed
despot of Romania, and invested after the Greek fashion with the purple
buskins. He ended at Constantinople his long and glorious life; and if
the prerogative was personal, the title was used by his successors till
the middle of the fourteenth century, with the singular, though true,
addition of lords of one fourth and a half of the Roman empire. [8] The
doge, a slave of state, was seldom permitted to depart from the helm of
the republic; but his place was supplied by the _bail_, or regent, who
exercised a supreme jurisdiction over the colony of Venetians: they
possessed three of the eight quarters of the city; and his independent
tribunal was composed of six judges, four counsellors, two chamberlains
two fiscal advocates, and a constable. Their long experience of the
Eastern trade enabled them to select their portion with discernment:
they had rashly accepted the dominion and defence of Adrianople; but
it was the more reasonable aim of their policy to form a chain of
factories, and cities, and islands, along the maritime coast, from the
neighborhood of Ragusa to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. The labor
and cost of such extensive conquests exhausted their treasury: they
abandoned their maxims of government, adopted a feudal system, and
contented themselves with the homage of their nobles, [9] for the
possessions which these private vassals undertook to reduce and
maintain. And thus it was that the family of Sanut acquired the duchy
of Naxos, which involved the greatest part of the archipelago. For the
price of ten thousand marks, the republic purchased of the marquis of
Montferrat the fertile Island of Crete or Candia, with the ruins of a
hundred cities; [10] but its improvement was stinted by the proud and
narrow spirit of an aristocracy; [11] and the wisest senators would
confess that the sea, not the land, was the treasury of St. Mark. In
the moiety of the adventurers the marquis Boniface might claim the most
liberal reward; and, besides the Isle of Crete, his exclusion from the
throne was compensated by the royal title and the provinces beyond
the Hellespont. But he prudently exchanged that distant and difficult
conquest for the kingdom of Thessalonica Macedonia, twelve days' journey
from the capital, where he might be supported by the neighboring powers
of his brother-in-law the king of Hungary. His progress was hailed by
the voluntary or reluctant acclamations of the natives; and Greece, the
proper and ancient Greece, again received a Latin conqueror, [12] who
trod with indifference that classic ground. He viewed with a careless
eye the beauties of the valley of Tempe; traversed with a cautious
step the straits of Thermopylae; occupied the unknown cities of Thebes,
Athens, and Argos; and assaulted the fortifications of Corinth and
Napoli, [13] which resisted his arms. The lots of the Latin pilgrims were
regulated by chance, or choice, or subsequent exchange; and they abused,
with intemperate joy, their triumph over the lives and fortunes of a
great people. After a minute survey of the provinces, they weighed in
the scales of avarice the revenue of each district, the advantage of
the situation, and the ample on scanty supplies for the maintenance of
soldiers and horses. Their presumption claimed and divided the long-lost
dependencies of the Roman sceptre: the Nile and Euphrates rolled through
their imaginary realms; and happy was the warrior who drew for his prize
the palace of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. [14] I shall not descend
to the pedigree of families and the rent-roll of estates, but I wish
to specify that the counts of Blois and St. Pol were invested with the
duchy of Nice and the lordship of Demotica: [15] the principal fiefs were
held by the service of constable, chamberlain, cup-bearer, butler, and
chief cook; and our historian, Jeffrey of Villehardouin, obtained a fair
establishment on the banks of the Hebrus, and united the double office
of marshal of Champagne and Romania. At the head of his knights and
archers, each baron mounted on horseback to secure the possession of his
share, and their first efforts were generally successful. But the public
force was weakened by their dispersion; and a thousand quarrels must
arise under a law, and among men, whose sole umpire was the sword.
Within three months after the conquest of Constantinople, the emperor
and the king of Thessalonica drew their hostile followers into the
field; they were reconciled by the authority of the doge, the advice of
the marshal, and the firm freedom of their peers. [16]

[Footnote 7: In the treaty of partition, most of the names are corrupted
by the scribes: they might be restored, and a good map, suited to the
last age of the Byzantine empire, would be an improvement of geography.
But, alas D'Anville is no more!]

[Footnote 8: Their style was dominus quartae partis et dimidiae imperii
Romani, till Giovanni Dolfino, who was elected doge in the year of
1356, (Sanuto, p. 530, 641.) For the government of Constantinople, see
Ducange, Histoire de C. P. i. 37.]

[Footnote 9: Ducange (Hist. de C. P. ii. 6) has marked the conquests
made by the state or nobles of Venice of the Islands of Candia, Corfu,
Cephalonia, Zante, Naxos, Paros, Melos, Andros, Mycone, Syro, Cea, and
Lemnos.]

[Footnote 10: Boniface sold the Isle of Candia, August 12, A.D. 1204.
See the act in Sanuto, p. 533: but I cannot understand how it could be
his mother's portion, or how she could be the daughter of an emperor
Alexius.]

[Footnote 11: In the year 1212, the doge Peter Zani sent a colony to
Candia, drawn from every quarter of Venice. But in their savage manners
and frequent rebellions, the Candiots may be compared to the Corsicans
under the yoke of Genoa; and when I compare the accounts of Belon and
Tournefort, I cannot discern much difference between the Venetian and
the Turkish island.]

[Footnote 12: Villehardouin (No. 159, 160, 173--177) and Nicetas (p.
387--394) describe the expedition into Greece of the marquis Boniface.
The Choniate might derive his information from his brother Michael,
archbishop of Athens, whom he paints as an orator, a statesman, and a
saint. His encomium of Athens, and the description of Tempe, should be
published from the Bodleian MS. of Nicetas, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom.
vi. p. 405,) and would have deserved Mr. Harris's inquiries.]

[Footnote 13: Napoli de Romania, or Nauplia, the ancient seaport of
Argos, is still a place of strength and consideration, situate on a
rocky peninsula, with a good harbor, (Chandler's Travels into Greece, p.
227.)]

[Footnote 14: I have softened the expression of Nicetas, who strives
to expose the presumption of the Franks. See the Rebus post C. P.
expugnatam, p. 375--384.]

[Footnote 15: A city surrounded by the River Hebrus, and six leagues to
the south of Adrianople, received from its double wall the Greek name
of Didymoteichos, insensibly corrupted into Demotica and Dimot. I have
preferred the more convenient and modern appellation of Demotica. This
place was the last Turkish residence of Charles XII.]

[Footnote 16: Their quarrel is told by Villehardouin (No. 146--158) with
the spirit of freedom. The merit and reputation of the marshal are so
acknowledged by the Greek historian (p. 387) mega para touV tvn Dauinwn
dunamenou strateumasi: unlike some modern heroes, whose exploits are
only visible in their own memoirs. * Note: William de Champlite, brother
of the count of Dijon, assumed the title of Prince of Achaia: on the
death of his brother, he returned, with regret, to France, to assume his
paternal inheritance, and left Villehardouin his "_bailli_," on
condition that if he did not return within a year Villehardouin was to
retain an investiture. Brosset's Add. to Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 200. M.
Brosset adds, from the Greek chronicler edited by M. Buchon, the
somewhat unknightly trick by which Villehardouin disembarrassed himself
from the troublesome claim of Robert, the cousin of the count of Dijon.
to the succession. He contrived that Robert should arrive just fifteen
days too late; and with the general concurrence of the assembled knights
was himself invested with the principality. Ibid. p. 283. M.]

Two fugitives, who had reigned at Constantinople, still asserted the
title of emperor; and the subjects of their fallen throne might be moved
to pity by the misfortunes of the elder Alexius, or excited to revenge
by the spirit of Mourzoufle. A domestic alliance, a common interest, a
similar guilt, and the merit of extinguishing his enemies, a brother and
a nephew, induced the more recent usurper to unite with the former the
relics of his power. Mourzoufle was received with smiles and honors
in the camp of his father Alexius; but the wicked can never love, and
should rarely trust, their fellow-criminals; he was seized in the bath,
deprived of his eyes, stripped of his troops and treasures, and turned
out to wander an object of horror and contempt to those who with more
propriety could hate, and with more justice could punish, the assassin
of the emperor Isaac and his son. As the tyrant, pursued by fear or
remorse, was stealing over to Asia, he was seized by the Latins of
Constantinople, and condemned, after an open trial, to an ignominious
death. His judges debated the mode of his execution, the axe, the wheel,
or the stake; and it was resolved that Mourzoufle [17] should ascend
the Theodosian column, a pillar of white marble of one hundred and
forty-seven feet in height. [18] From the summit he was cast down
headlong, and dashed in pieces on the pavement, in the presence of
innumerable spectators, who filled the forum of Taurus, and admired
the accomplishment of an old prediction, which was explained by this
singular event. [19] The fate of Alexius is less tragical: he was sent
by the marquis a captive to Italy, and a gift to the king of the
Romans; but he had not much to applaud his fortune, if the sentence of
imprisonment and exile were changed from a fortress in the Alps to a
monastery in Asia. But his daughter, before the national calamity, had
been given in marriage to a young hero who continued the succession,
and restored the throne, of the Greek princes. [20] The valor of Theodore
Lascaris was signalized in the two sieges of Constantinople. After
the flight of Mourzoufle, when the Latins were already in the city, he
offered himself as their emperor to the soldiers and people; and his
ambition, which might be virtuous, was undoubtedly brave. Could he have
infused a soul into the multitude, they might have crushed the strangers
under their feet: their abject despair refused his aid; and Theodore
retired to breathe the air of freedom in Anatolia, beyond the immediate
view and pursuit of the conquerors. Under the title, at first of despot,
and afterwards of emperor, he drew to his standard the bolder spirits,
who were fortified against slavery by the contempt of life; and as every
means was lawful for the public safety implored without scruple the
alliance of the Turkish sultan Nice, where Theodore established his
residence, Prusa and Philadelphia, Smyrna and Ephesus, opened their
gates to their deliverer: he derived strength and reputation from his
victories, and even from his defeats; and the successor of Constantine
preserved a fragment of the empire from the banks of the Maeander to the
suburbs of Nicomedia, and at length of Constantinople. Another portion,
distant and obscure, was possessed by the lineal heir of the Comneni,
a son of the virtuous Manuel, a grandson of the tyrant Andronicus. His
name was Alexius; and the epithet of great [201] was applied perhaps to his
stature, rather than to his exploits. By the indulgence of the Angeli,
he was appointed governor or duke of Trebizond: [21] [211] his birth gave
him ambition, the revolution independence; and, without changing his
title, he reigned in peace from Sinope to the Phasis, along the coast
of the Black Sea. His nameless son and successor [212] is described as
the vassal of the sultan, whom he served with two hundred lances: that
Comnenian prince was no more than duke of Trebizond, and the title
of emperor was first assumed by the pride and envy of the grandson
of Alexius. In the West, a third fragment was saved from the common
shipwreck by Michael, a bastard of the house of Angeli, who, before the
revolution, had been known as a hostage, a soldier, and a rebel. His
flight from the camp of the marquis Boniface secured his freedom; by his
marriage with the governor's daughter, he commanded the important
place of Durazzo, assumed the title of despot, and founded a strong and
conspicuous principality in Epirus, AEtolia, and Thessaly, which have
ever been peopled by a warlike race. The Greeks, who had offered their
service to their new sovereigns, were excluded by the haughty Latins
[22] from all civil and military honors, as a nation born to tremble and
obey. Their resentment prompted them to show that they might have been
useful friends, since they could be dangerous enemies: their nerves were
braced by adversity: whatever was learned or holy, whatever was noble or
valiant, rolled away into the independent states of Trebizond, Epirus,
and Nice; and a single patrician is marked by the ambiguous praise of
attachment and loyalty to the Franks. The vulgar herd of the cities and
the country would have gladly submitted to a mild and regular servitude;
and the transient disorders of war would have been obliterated by some
years of industry and peace. But peace was banished, and industry was
crushed, in the disorders of the feudal system. The _Roman_ emperors
of Constantinople, if they were endowed with abilities, were armed with
power for the protection of their subjects: their laws were wise,
and their administration was simple. The Latin throne was filled by
a titular prince, the chief, and often the servant, of his licentious
confederates; the fiefs of the empire, from a kingdom to a castle, were
held and ruled by the sword of the barons; and their discord, poverty,
and ignorance, extended the ramifications of tyranny to the most
sequestered villages. The Greeks were oppressed by the double weight of
the priest, who were invested with temporal power, and of the soldier,
who was inflamed by fanatic hatred; and the insuperable bar of religion
and language forever separated the stranger and the native. As long
as the crusaders were united at Constantinople, the memory of their
conquest, and the terror of their arms, imposed silence on the captive
land: their dispersion betrayed the smallness of their numbers and the
defects of their discipline; and some failures and mischances revealed
the secret, that they were not invincible. As the fears of the Greeks
abated, their hatred increased. They murdered; they conspired; and
before a year of slavery had elapsed, they implored, or accepted, the
succor of a Barbarian, whose power they had felt, and whose gratitude
they trusted. [23]

[Footnote 17: See the fate of Mourzoufle in Nicetas, (p. 393,)
Villehardouin, (No. 141--145, 163,) and Guntherus, (c. 20, 21.) Neither
the marshal nor the monk afford a grain of pity for a tyrant or rebel,
whose punishment, however, was more unexampled than his crime.]

[Footnote 18: The column of Arcadius, which represents in basso relievo
his victories, or those of his father Theodosius, is still extant at
Constantinople. It is described and measured, Gyllius, (Topograph. iv.
7,) Banduri, (ad l. i. Antiquit. C. P. p. 507, &c.,) and Tournefort,
(Voyage du Levant, tom. ii. lettre xii. p. 231.) (Compare Wilken, note,
vol. v p. 388.--M.)]

[Footnote 19: The nonsense of Gunther and the modern Greeks concerning
this _columna fatidica_, is unworthy of notice; but it is singular
enough, that fifty years before the Latin conquest, the poet Tzetzes,
(Chiliad, ix. 277) relates the dream of a matron, who saw an army in the
forum, and a man sitting on the column, clapping his hands, and uttering
a loud exclamation. * Note: We read in the "Chronicle of the Conquest of
Constantinople, and of the Establishment of the French in the Morea,"
translated by J A Buchon, Paris, 1825, p. 64 that Leo VI., called the
Philosopher, had prophesied that a perfidious emperor should be
precipitated from the top of this column. The crusaders considered
themselves under an obligation to fulfil this prophecy. Brosset, note on
Le Beau, vol. xvii. p. 180. M Brosset announces that a complete edition
of this work, of which the original Greek of the first book only has
been published by M. Buchon in preparation, to form part of the new
series of the Byzantine historian.--M.]

[Footnote 20: The dynasties of Nice, Trebizond, and Epirus (of which
Nicetas saw the origin without much pleasure or hope) are learnedly
explored, and clearly represented, in the Familiae Byzantinae of Ducange.]

[Footnote 201: This was a title, not a personal appellation. Joinville
speaks of the "Grant Comnenie, et sire de Traffezzontes." Fallmerayer,
p. 82.--M.]

[Footnote 21: Except some facts in Pachymer and Nicephorus Gregoras,
which will hereafter be used, the Byzantine writers disdain to speak of
the empire of Trebizond, or principality of the _Lazi_; and among the
Latins, it is conspicuous only in the romancers of the xivth or xvth
centuries. Yet the indefatigable Ducange has dug out (Fam. Byz. p. 192)
two authentic passages in Vincent of Beauvais (l. xxxi. c. 144) and the
prothonotary Ogerius, (apud Wading, A.D. 1279, No. 4.)]

[Footnote 211: On the revolutions of Trebizond under the later empire
down to this period, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte des Kaiserthums von
Trapezunt, ch. iii. The wife of Manuel fled with her infant sons and
her treasure from the relentless enmity of Isaac Angelus. Fallmerayer
conjectures that her arrival enabled the Greeks of that region to make
head against the formidable Thamar, the Georgian queen of Teflis, p. 42.
They gradually formed a dominion on the banks of the Phasis, which
the distracted government of the Angeli neglected or were unable to
suppress. On the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Alexius
was joined by many noble fugitives from Constantinople. He had always
retained the names of Caesar and BasileuV. He now fixed the seat of his
empire at Trebizond; but he had never abandoned his pretensions to the
Byzantine throne, ch. iii. Fallmerayer appears to make out a triumphant
case as to the assumption of the royal title by Alexius the First. Since
the publication of M. Fallmerayer's work, (Muenchen, 1827,) M. Tafel has
published, at the end of the opuscula of Eustathius, a curious chronicle
of Trebizond by Michael Panaretas, (Frankfort, 1832.) It gives the
succession of the emperors, and some other curious circumstances of
their wars with the several Mahometan powers.--M.]

[Footnote 212: The successor of Alexius was his son-in-law Andronicus I.,
of the Comnenian family, surnamed Gidon. There were five successions
between Alexius and John, according to Fallmerayer, p. 103. The troops
of Trebizond fought in the army of Dschelaleddin, the Karismian, against
Alaleddin, the Seljukian sultan of Roum, but as allies rather than
vassals, p. 107. It was after the defeat of Dschelaleddin that they
furnished their contingent to Alai-eddin. Fallmerayer struggles in vain
to mitigate this mark of the subjection of the Comneni to the sultan. p.
116.--M.]

[Footnote 22: The portrait of the French Latins is drawn in Nicetas
by the hand of prejudice and resentment: ouden tvn allwn eqnvn eiV
''AreoV?rga parasumbeblhsqai sjisin hneiconto all' oude tiV tvn caritwn
h tvn?mousvn para toiV barbaroiV toutoiV epexenizeto, kai para
touto oimai thn jusin hsan anhmeroi, kai ton xolon eixon tou logou
prstreconta. [P. 791 Ed. Bek.]

[Footnote 23: I here begin to use, with freedom and confidence, the
eight books of the Histoire de C. P. sous l'Empire des Francois, which
Ducange has given as a supplement to Villehardouin; and which, in a
barbarous style, deserves the praise of an original and classic work.]

The Latin conquerors had been saluted with a solemn and early embassy
from John, or Joannice, or Calo-John, the revolted chief of the
Bulgarians and Walachians. He deemed himself their brother, as the
votary of the Roman pontiff, from whom he had received the regal title
and a holy banner; and in the subversion of the Greek monarchy, he might
aspire to the name of their friend and accomplice. But Calo-John was
astonished to find, that the Count of Flanders had assumed the pomp
and pride of the successors of Constantine; and his ambassadors were
dismissed with a haughty message, that the rebel must deserve a pardon,
by touching with his forehead the footstool of the Imperial throne. His
resentment [24] would have exhaled in acts of violence and blood: his
cooler policy watched the rising discontent of the Greeks; affected
a tender concern for their sufferings; and promised, that their first
struggles for freedom should be supported by his person and kingdom.
The conspiracy was propagated by national hatred, the firmest band of
association and secrecy: the Greeks were impatient to sheathe their
daggers in the breasts of the victorious strangers; but the execution
was prudently delayed, till Henry, the emperor's brother, had
transported the flower of his troops beyond the Hellespont. Most of the
towns and villages of Thrace were true to the moment and the signal; and
the Latins, without arms or suspicion, were slaughtered by the vile and
merciless revenge of their slaves. From Demotica, the first scene of
the massacre, the surviving vassals of the count of St. Pol escaped to
Adrianople; but the French and Venetians, who occupied that city, were
slain or expelled by the furious multitude: the garrisons that could
effect their retreat fell back on each other towards the metropolis; and
the fortresses, that separately stood against the rebels, were ignorant
of each other's and of their sovereign's fate. The voice of fame and
fear announced the revolt of the Greeks and the rapid approach of their
Bulgarian ally; and Calo-John, not depending on the forces of his own
kingdom, had drawn from the Scythian wilderness a body of fourteen
thousand Comans, who drank, as it was said, the blood of their captives,
and sacrificed the Christians on the altars of their gods. [25]

[Footnote 24: In Calo-John's answer to the pope we may find his claims
and complaints, (Gesta Innocent III. c. 108, 109:) he was cherished at
Rome as the prodigal son.]

[Footnote 25: The Comans were a Tartar or Turkman horde, which encamped
in the xiith and xiiith centuries on the verge of Moldavia. The greater
part were pagans, but some were Mahometans, and the whole horde was
converted to Christianity (A.D. 1370) by Lewis, king of Hungary.]

Alarmed by this sudden and growing danger, the emperor despatched a
swift messenger to recall Count Henry and his troops; and had Baldwin
expected the return of his gallant brother, with a supply of twenty
thousand Armenians, he might have encountered the invader with equal
numbers and a decisive superiority of arms and discipline. But the
spirit of chivalry could seldom discriminate caution from cowardice; and
the emperor took the field with a hundred and forty knights, and their
train of archers and sergeants. The marshal, who dissuaded and obeyed,
led the vanguard in their march to Adrianople; the main body was
commanded by the count of Blois; the aged doge of Venice followed with
the rear; and their scanty numbers were increased from all sides by the
fugitive Latins. They undertook to besiege the rebels of Adrianople; and
such was the pious tendency of the crusades that they employed the holy
week in pillaging the country for their subsistence, and in framing
engines for the destruction of their fellow-Christians. But the Latins
were soon interrupted and alarmed by the light cavalry of the Comans,
who boldly skirmished to the edge of their imperfect lines: and
a proclamation was issued by the marshal of Romania, that, on the
trumpet's sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that none, under
pain of death, should abandon themselves to a desultory and dangerous
pursuit. This wise injunction was first disobeyed by the count of Blois,
who involved the emperor in his rashness and ruin. The Comans, of the
Parthian or Tartar school, fled before their first charge; but after
a career of two leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost
breathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the heavy
squadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field; the emperor
was made prisoner; and if the one disdained to fly, if the other
refused to yield, their personal bravery made a poor atonement for their
ignorance, or neglect, of the duties of a general. [26]

[Footnote 26: Nicetas, from ignorance or malice, imputes the defeat to
the cowardice of Dandolo, (p. 383;) but Villehardouin shares his own
glory with his venerable friend, qui viels home ere et gote ne veoit,
mais mult ere sages et preus et vigueros, (No. 193.) * Note: Gibbon
appears to me to have misapprehended the passage of Nicetas. He says,
"that principal and subtlest mischief. that primary cause of all the
horrible miseries suffered by the _Romans_," i. e. the Byzantines. It is
an effusion of malicious triumph against the Venetians, to whom he
always ascribes the capture of Constantinople.--M.]




Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part II.

Proud of his victory and his royal prize, the Bulgarian advanced to
relieve Adrianople and achieve the destruction of the Latins. They
must inevitably have been destroyed, if the marshal of Romania had not
displayed a cool courage and consummate skill; uncommon in all ages,
but most uncommon in those times, when war was a passion, rather than
a science. His grief and fears were poured into the firm and faithful
bosom of the doge; but in the camp he diffused an assurance of
safety, which could only be realized by the general belief. All day he
maintained his perilous station between the city and the Barbarians:
Villehardouin decamped in silence at the dead of night; and his masterly
retreat of three days would have deserved the praise of Xenophon and
the ten thousand. In the rear, the marshal supported the weight of the
pursuit; in the front, he moderated the impatience of the fugitives;
and wherever the Comans approached, they were repelled by a line of
impenetrable spears. On the third day, the weary troops beheld the sea,
the solitary town of Rodosta, [27] and their friends, who had landed from
the Asiatic shore. They embraced, they wept; but they united their arms
and counsels; and in his brother's absence, Count Henry assumed the
regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and caducity. [28]
If the Comans withdrew from the summer heats, seven thousand Latins, in
the hour of danger, deserted Constantinople, their brethren, and their
vows. Some partial success was overbalanced by the loss of one hundred
and twenty knights in the field of Rusium; and of the Imperial domain,
no more was left than the capital, with two or three adjacent fortresses
on the shores of Europe and Asia. The king of Bulgaria was resistless
and inexorable; and Calo-John respectfully eluded the demands of the
pope, who conjured his new proselyte to restore peace and the emperor to
the afflicted Latins. The deliverance of Baldwin was no longer, he said,
in the power of man: that prince had died in prison; and the manner of
his death is variously related by ignorance and credulity. The lovers
of a tragic legend will be pleased to hear, that the royal captive was
tempted by the amorous queen of the Bulgarians; that his chaste refusal
exposed him to the falsehood of a woman and the jealousy of a savage;
that his hands and feet were severed from his body; that his bleeding
trunk was cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses; and that he
breathed three days, before he was devoured by the birds of prey. [29]
About twenty years afterwards, in a wood of the Netherlands, a hermit
announced himself as the true Baldwin, the emperor of Constantinople,
and lawful sovereign of Flanders. He related the wonders of his escape,
his adventures, and his penance, among a people prone to believe and to
rebel; and, in the first transport, Flanders acknowledged her long-lost
sovereign. A short examination before the French court detected the
impostor, who was punished with an ignominious death; but the Flemings
still adhered to the pleasing error; and the countess Jane is accused
by the gravest historians of sacrificing to her ambition the life of an
unfortunate father. [30]

[Footnote 27: The truth of geography, and the original text of
Villehardouin, (No. 194,) place Rodosto three days' journey (trois
jornees) from Adrianople: but Vigenere, in his version, has most
absurdly substituted _trois heures_; and this error, which is not
corrected by Ducange has entrapped several moderns, whose names I shall
spare.]

[Footnote 28: The reign and end of Baldwin are related by Villehardouin
and Nicetas, (p. 386--416;) and their omissions are supplied by Ducange
in his Observations, and to the end of his first book.]

[Footnote 29: After brushing away all doubtful and improbable
circumstances, we may prove the death of Baldwin, 1. By the firm belief
of the French barons, (Villehardouin, No. 230.) 2. By the declaration
of Calo-John himself, who excuses his not releasing the captive emperor,
quia debitum carnis exsolverat cum carcere teneretur, (Gesta Innocent
III. c. 109.) * Note: Compare Von Raumer. Geschichte der Hohenstaufen,
vol. ii. p. 237. Petitot, in his preface to Villehardouin in the
Collection des Memoires, relatifs a l'Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 85,
expresses his belief in the first part of the "tragic legend."--M.]

[Footnote 30: See the story of this impostor from the French and Flemish
writers in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. iii. 9; and the ridiculous fables
that were believed by the monks of St. Alban's, in Matthew Paris, Hist.
Major, p. 271, 272.]

In all civilized hostility, a treaty is established for the exchange
or ransom of prisoners; and if their captivity be prolonged, their
condition is known, and they are treated according to their rank with
humanity or honor. But the savage Bulgarian was a stranger to the laws
of war: his prisons were involved in darkness and silence; and above a
year elapsed before the Latins could be assured of the death of Baldwin,
before his brother, the regent Henry, would consent to assume the title
of emperor. His moderation was applauded by the Greeks as an act of rare
and inimitable virtue. Their light and perfidious ambition was eager to
seize or anticipate the moment of a vacancy, while a law of succession,
the guardian both of the prince and people, was gradually defined and
confirmed in the hereditary monarchies of Europe. In the support of the
Eastern empire, Henry was gradually left without an associate, as the
heroes of the crusade retired from the world or from the war. The doge
of Venice, the venerable Dandolo, in the fulness of years and glory,
sunk into the grave. The marquis of Montferrat was slowly recalled
from the Peloponnesian war to the revenge of Baldwin and the defence
of Thessalonica. Some nice disputes of feudal homage and service were
reconciled in a personal interview between the emperor and the king;
they were firmly united by mutual esteem and the common danger; and
their alliance was sealed by the nuptials of Henry with the daughter of
the Italian prince. He soon deplored the loss of his friend and father.
At the persuasion of some faithful Greeks, Boniface made a bold and
successful inroad among the hills of Rhodope: the Bulgarians fled on his
approach; they assembled to harass his retreat. On the intelligence
that his rear was attacked, without waiting for any defensive armor,
he leaped on horseback, couched his lance, and drove the enemies before
him; but in the rash pursuit he was pierced with a mortal wound; and the
head of the king of Thessalonica was presented to Calo-John, who
enjoyed the honors, without the merit, of victory. It is here, at this
melancholy event, that the pen or the voice of Jeffrey of Villehardouin
seems to drop or to expire; [31] and if he still exercised his military
office of marshal of Romania, his subsequent exploits are buried in
oblivion. [32] The character of Henry was not unequal to his arduous
situation: in the siege of Constantinople, and beyond the Hellespont, he
had deserved the fame of a valiant knight and a skilful commander; and
his courage was tempered with a degree of prudence and mildness unknown
to his impetuous brother. In the double war against the Greeks of Asia
and the Bulgarians of Europe, he was ever the foremost on shipboard or
on horseback; and though he cautiously provided for the success of his
arms, the drooping Latins were often roused by his example to save and
to second their fearless emperor. But such efforts, and some supplies
of men and money from France, were of less avail than the errors, the
cruelty, and death, of their most formidable adversary. When the despair
of the Greek subjects invited Calo-John as their deliverer, they hoped
that he would protect their liberty and adopt their laws: they were soon
taught to compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to execrate the
savage conqueror, who no longer dissembled his intention of dispeopling
Thrace, of demolishing the cities, and of transplanting the inhabitants
beyond the Danube. Many towns and villages of Thrace were already
evacuated: a heap of ruins marked the place of Philippopolis, and a
similar calamity was expected at Demotica and Adrianople, by the first
authors of the revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the
throne of Henry; the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and
trust them. No more than four hundred knights, with their sergeants
and archers, could be assembled under his banner; and with this
slender force he fought [321] and repulsed the Bulgarian, who, besides his
infantry, was at the head of forty thousand horse. In this expedition,
Henry felt the difference between a hostile and a friendly country: the
remaining cities were preserved by his arms; and the savage, with
shame and loss, was compelled to relinquish his prey. The siege of
Thessalonica was the last of the evils which Calo-John inflicted or
suffered: he was stabbed in the night in his tent; and the general,
perhaps the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood, ascribed the
blow, with general applause, to the lance of St. Demetrius. [33] After
several victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an honorable peace
with the successor of the tyrant, and with the Greek princes of Nice and
Epirus. If he ceded some doubtful limits, an ample kingdom was reserved
for himself and his feudatories; and his reign, which lasted only ten
years, afforded a short interval of prosperity and peace. Far above the
narrow policy of Baldwin and Boniface, he freely intrusted to the Greeks
the most important offices of the state and army; and this liberality of
sentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as the princes of Nice
and Epirus had already learned to seduce and employ the mercenary valor
of the Latins. It was the aim of Henry to unite and reward his deserving
subjects, of every nation and language; but he appeared less solicitous
to accomplish the impracticable union of the two churches. Pelagius,
the pope's legate, who acted as the sovereign of Constantinople, had
interdicted the worship of the Greeks, and sternly imposed the payment
of tithes, the double procession of the Holy Ghost, and a blind
obedience to the Roman pontiff. As the weaker party, they pleaded
the duties of conscience, and implored the rights of toleration: "Our
bodies," they said, "are Caesar's, but our souls belong only to God." The
persecution was checked by the firmness of the emperor: [34] and if we
can believe that the same prince was poisoned by the Greeks themselves,
we must entertain a contemptible idea of the sense and gratitude of
mankind. His valor was a vulgar attribute, which he shared with ten
thousand knights; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose,
in a superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. In the
cathedral of St. Sophia he presumed to place his throne on the right
hand of the patriarch; and this presumption excited the sharpest censure
of Pope Innocent the Third. By a salutary edict, one of the first
examples of the laws of mortmain, he prohibited the alienation of fiefs:
many of the Latins, desirous of returning to Europe, resigned their
estates to the church for a spiritual or temporal reward; these holy
lands were immediately discharged from military service, and a colony
of soldiers would have been gradually transformed into a college of
priests. [35]

[Footnote 31: Villehardouin, No. 257. I quote, with regret, this
lamentable conclusion, where we lose at once the original history, and
the rich illustrations of Ducange. The last pages may derive some light
from Henry's two epistles to Innocent III., (Gesta, c. 106, 107.)]

[Footnote 32: The marshal was alive in 1212, but he probably died soon
afterwards, without returning to France, (Ducange, Observations sur
Villehardouin, p. 238.) His fief of Messinople, the gift of Boniface,
was the ancient Maximianopolis, which flourished in the time of Ammianus
Marcellinus, among the cities of Thrace, (No. 141.)]

[Footnote 321: There was no battle. On the advance of the Latins, John
suddenly broke up his camp and retreated. The Latins considered
this unexpected deliverance almost a miracle. Le Beau suggests the
probability that the detection of the Comans, who usually quitted the
camp during the heats of summer, may have caused the flight of the
Bulgarians. Nicetas, c. 8 Villebardouin, c. 225. Le Beau, vol. xvii. p.
242.--M.]

[Footnote 33: The church of this patron of Thessalonica was served by
the canons of the holy sepulchre, and contained a divine ointment which
distilled daily and stupendous miracles, (Ducange, Hist. de C. P. ii.
4.)]

[Footnote 34: Acropolita (c. 17) observes the persecution of the
legate, and the toleration of Henry, ('Erh, * as he calls him) kludwna
katestorese. Note: Or rather 'ErrhV.--M.]

[Footnote 35: See the reign of Henry, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l. i.
c. 35--41, l. ii. c. 1--22,) who is much indebted to the Epistles of the
Popes. Le Beau (Hist. du Bas Empire, tom. xxi. p. 120--122) has found,
perhaps in Doutreman, some laws of Henry, which determined the service
of fiefs, and the prerogatives of the emperor.]

The virtuous Henry died at Thessalonica, in the defence of that kingdom,
and of an infant, the son of his friend Boniface. In the two first
emperors of Constantinople the male line of the counts of Flanders was
extinct. But their sister Yolande was the wife of a French prince,
the mother of a numerous progeny; and one of her daughters had married
Andrew king of Hungary, a brave and pious champion of the cross. By
seating him on the Byzantine throne, the barons of Romania would have
acquired the forces of a neighboring and warlike kingdom; but the
prudent Andrew revered the laws of succession; and the princess Yolande,
with her husband Peter of Courtenay, count of Auxerre, was invited by
the Latins to assume the empire of the East. The royal birth of his
father, the noble origin of his mother, recommended to the barons of
France the first cousin of their king. His reputation was fair, his
possessions were ample, and in the bloody crusade against the Albigeois,
the soldiers and the priests had been abundantly satisfied of his zeal
and valor. Vanity might applaud the elevation of a French emperor
of Constantinople; but prudence must pity, rather than envy, his
treacherous and imaginary greatness. To assert and adorn his title,
he was reduced to sell or mortgage the best of his patrimony. By these
expedients, the liberality of his royal kinsman Philip Augustus, and the
national spirit of chivalry, he was enabled to pass the Alps at the
head of one hundred and forty knights, and five thousand five hundred
sergeants and archers. After some hesitation, Pope Honorius the Third
was persuaded to crown the successor of Constantine: but he performed
the ceremony in a church without the walls, lest he should seem to imply
or to bestow any right of sovereignty over the ancient capital of the
empire. The Venetians had engaged to transport Peter and his forces
beyond the Adriatic, and the empress, with her four children, to the
Byzantine palace; but they required, as the price of their service, that
he should recover Durazzo from the despot of Epirus. Michael Angelus, or
Comnenus, the first of his dynasty, had bequeathed the succession of
his power and ambition to Theodore, his legitimate brother, who
already threatened and invaded the establishments of the Latins. After
discharging his debt by a fruitless assault, the emperor raised the
siege to prosecute a long and perilous journey over land from Durazzo
to Thessalonica. He was soon lost in the mountains of Epirus: the passes
were fortified; his provisions exhausted; he was delayed and deceived by
a treacherous negotiation; and, after Peter of Courtenay and the Roman
legate had been arrested in a banquet, the French troops, without
leaders or hopes, were eager to exchange their arms for the delusive
promise of mercy and bread. The Vatican thundered; and the impious
Theodore was threatened with the vengeance of earth and heaven; but the
captive emperor and his soldiers were forgotten, and the reproaches of
the pope are confined to the imprisonment of his legate. No sooner
was he satisfied by the deliverance of the priests and a promise of
spiritual obedience, than he pardoned and protected the despot of
Epirus. His peremptory commands suspended the ardor of the Venetians and
the king of Hungary; and it was only by a natural or untimely death [36]
that Peter of Courtenay was released from his hopeless captivity. [37]

[Footnote 36: Acropolita (c. 14) affirms, that Peter of Courtenay died
by the sword, (ergon macairaV genesqai;) but from his dark expressions,
I should conclude a previous captivity, wV pantaV ardhn desmwtaV poihsai
sun pasi skeuesi. * The Chronicle of Auxerre delays the emperor's death
till the year 1219; and Auxerre is in the neighborhood of Courtenay.
Note: Whatever may have been the fact, this can hardly be made out
from the expressions of Acropolita.--M.]

[Footnote 37: See the reign and death of Peter of Courtenay, in Ducange,
(Hist. de C. P. l. ii. c. 22--28,) who feebly strives to excuse the
neglect of the emperor by Honorius III.]

The long ignorance of his fate, and the presence of the lawful
sovereign, of Yolande, his wife or widow, delayed the proclamation of
a new emperor. Before her death, and in the midst of her grief, she was
delivered of a son, who was named Baldwin, the last and most unfortunate
of the Latin princes of Constantinople. His birth endeared him to the
barons of Romania; but his childhood would have prolonged the troubles
of a minority, and his claims were superseded by the elder claims of his
brethren. The first of these, Philip of Courtenay, who derived from his
mother the inheritance of Namur, had the wisdom to prefer the substance
of a marquisate to the shadow of an empire; and on his refusal, Robert,
the second of the sons of Peter and Yolande, was called to the throne
of Constantinople. Warned by his father's mischance, he pursued his slow
and secure journey through Germany and along the Danube: a passage
was opened by his sister's marriage with the king of Hungary; and the
emperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch in the cathedral of St.
Sophia. But his reign was an aera of calamity and disgrace; and the
colony, as it was styled, of New France yielded on all sides to the
Greeks of Nice and Epirus. After a victory, which he owed to his
perfidy rather than his courage, Theodore Angelus entered the kingdom
of Thessalonica, expelled the feeble Demetrius, the son of the marquis
Boniface, erected his standard on the walls of Adrianople; and added, by
his vanity, a third or a fourth name to the list of rival emperors.
The relics of the Asiatic province were swept away by John Vataces, the
son-in-law and successor of Theodore Lascaris, and who, in a triumphant
reign of thirty-three years, displayed the virtues both of peace and
war. Under his discipline, the swords of the French mercenaries were the
most effectual instruments of his conquests, and their desertion from
the service of their country was at once a symptom and a cause of the
rising ascendant of the Greeks. By the construction of a fleet, he
obtained the command of the Hellespont, reduced the islands of Lesbos
and Rhodes, attacked the Venetians of Candia, and intercepted the rare
and parsimonious succors of the West. Once, and once only, the Latin
emperor sent an army against Vataces; and in the defeat of that army,
the veteran knights, the last of the original conquerors, were left on
the field of battle. But the success of a foreign enemy was less painful
to the pusillanimous Robert than the insolence of his Latin subjects,
who confounded the weakness of the emperor and of the empire. His
personal misfortunes will prove the anarchy of the government and the
ferociousness of the times. The amorous youth had neglected his Greek
bride, the daughter of Vataces, to introduce into the palace a beautiful
maid, of a private, though noble family of Artois; and her mother had
been tempted by the lustre of the purple to forfeit her engagements with
a gentleman of Burgundy. His love was converted into rage; he assembled
his friends, forced the palace gates, threw the mother into the sea,
and inhumanly cut off the nose and lips of the wife or concubine of
the emperor. Instead of punishing the offender, the barons avowed and
applauded the savage deed, [38] which, as a prince and as a man, it was
impossible that Robert should forgive. He escaped from the guilty city
to implore the justice or compassion of the pope: the emperor was coolly
exhorted to return to his station; before he could obey, he sunk under
the weight of grief, shame, and impotent resentment. [39]

[Footnote 38: Marinus Sanutus (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. p. 4,
c. 18, p. 73) is so much delighted with this bloody deed, that he has
transcribed it in his margin as a bonum exemplum. Yet he acknowledges
the damsel for the lawful wife of Robert.]

[Footnote 39: See the reign of Robert, in Ducange, (Hist. de C. P. l.
ii. c.--12.)]

It was only in the age of chivalry, that valor could ascend from a
private station to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople. The
titular kingdom of Jerusalem had devolved to Mary, the daughter of
Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat, and the granddaughter of Almeric
or Amaury. She was given to John of Brienne, of a noble family in
Champagne, by the public voice, and the judgment of Philip Augustus, who
named him as the most worthy champion of the Holy Land. [40] In the fifth
crusade, he led a hundred thousand Latins to the conquest of Egypt: by
him the siege of Damietta was achieved; and the subsequent failure
was justly ascribed to the pride and avarice of the legate. After the
marriage of his daughter with Frederic the Second, [41] he was provoked
by the emperor's ingratitude to accept the command of the army of the
church; and though advanced in life, and despoiled of royalty, the
sword and spirit of John of Brienne were still ready for the service
of Christendom. In the seven years of his brother's reign, Baldwin of
Courtenay had not emerged from a state of childhood, and the barons of
Romania felt the strong necessity of placing the sceptre in the hands of
a man and a hero. The veteran king of Jerusalem might have disdained the
name and office of regent; they agreed to invest him for his life
with the title and prerogatives of emperor, on the sole condition that
Baldwin should marry his second daughter, and succeed at a mature age
to the throne of Constantinople. The expectation, both of the Greeks and
Latins, was kindled by the renown, the choice, and the presence of John
of Brienne; and they admired his martial aspect, his green and vigorous
age of more than fourscore years, and his size and stature, which
surpassed the common measure of mankind. [42] But avarice, and the love
of ease, appear to have chilled the ardor of enterprise: [421] his troops
were disbanded, and two years rolled away without action or honor, till
he was awakened by the dangerous alliance of Vataces emperor of Nice,
and of Azan king of Bulgaria. They besieged Constantinople by sea and
land, with an army of one hundred thousand men, and a fleet of three
hundred ships of war; while the entire force of the Latin emperor
was reduced to one hundred and sixty knights, and a small addition of
sergeants and archers. I tremble to relate, that instead of defending
the city, the hero made a sally at the head of his cavalry; and that of
forty-eight squadrons of the enemy, no more than three escaped from the
edge of his invincible sword. Fired by his example, the infantry and
the citizens boarded the vessels that anchored close to the walls; and
twenty-five were dragged in triumph into the harbor of Constantinople.
At the summons of the emperor, the vassals and allies armed in her
defence; broke through every obstacle that opposed their passage; and,
in the succeeding year, obtained a second victory over the same enemies.
By the rude poets of the age, John of Brienne is compared to Hector,
Roland, and Judas Machabaeus: [43] but their credit, and his glory,
receive some abatement from the silence of the Greeks. The empire was
soon deprived of the last of her champions; and the dying monarch was
ambitious to enter paradise in the habit of a Franciscan friar. [44]

[Footnote 40: Rex igitur Franciae, deliberatione habita, respondit
nuntiis, se daturum hominem Syriae partibus aptum; in armis probum
(_preux_) in bellis securum, in agendis providum, Johannem comitem
Brennensem. Sanut. Secret. Fidelium, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4, p. 205 Matthew
Paris, p. 159.]

[Footnote 41: Giannone (Istoria Civile, tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 380--385)
discusses the marriage of Frederic II. with the daughter of John of
Brienne, and the double union of the crowns of Naples and Jerusalem.]

[Footnote 42: Acropolita, c. 27. The historian was at that time a boy,
and educated at Constantinople. In 1233, when he was eleven years old,
his father broke the Latin chain, left a splendid fortune, and escaped
to the Greek court of Nice, where his son was raised to the highest
honors.]

[Footnote 421: John de Brienne, elected emperor 1229, wasted two years in
preparations, and did not arrive at Constantinople till 1231. Two years
more glided away in inglorious inaction; he then made some ineffective
warlike expeditions. Constantinople was not besieged till 1234.--M.]

[Footnote 43: Philip Mouskes, bishop of Tournay, (A.D. 1274--1282,) has
composed a poem, or rather string of verses, in bad old Flemish French,
on the Latin emperors of Constantinople, which Ducange has published at
the end of Villehardouin; see p. 38, for the prowess of John of Brienne.
N'Aie, Ector, Roll' ne Ogiers
Ne Judas Machabeus li fiers
Tant ne fit d'armes en estors
Com fist li Rois Jehans cel jors
Et il defors et il dedans
La paru sa force et ses sens
Et li hardiment qu'il avoit.]

[Footnote 44: See the reign of John de Brienne, in Ducange, Hist. de C.
P. l. ii. c. 13--26.]

In the double victory of John of Brienne, I cannot discover the name
or exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age of military
service, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on the decease of his
adoptive father. [45] The royal youth was employed on a commission more
suitable to his temper; he was sent to visit the Western courts, of the
pope more especially, and of the king of France; to excite their pity by
the view of his innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies of
men or money for the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeated
these mendicant visits, in which he seemed to prolong his stay and
postpone his return; of the five-and-twenty years of his reign, a
greater number were spent abroad than at home; and in no place did the
emperor deem himself less free and secure than in his native country and
his capital. On some public occasions, his vanity might be soothed
by the title of Augustus, and by the honors of the purple; and at the
general council of Lyons, when Frederic the Second was excommunicated
and deposed, his Oriental colleague was enthroned on the right hand of
the pope. But how often was the exile, the vagrant, the Imperial beggar,
humbled with scorn, insulted with pity, and degraded in his own eyes and
those of the nations! In his first visit to England, he was stopped at
Dover by a severe reprimand, that he should presume, without leave, to
enter an independent kingdom. After some delay, Baldwin, however, was
permitted to pursue his journey, was entertained with cold civility, and
thankfully departed with a present of seven hundred marks. [46] From the
avarice of Rome he could only obtain the proclamation of a crusade, and
a treasure of indulgences; a coin whose currency was depreciated by too
frequent and indiscriminate abuse. His birth and misfortunes recommended
him to the generosity of his cousin Louis the Ninth; but the martial
zeal of the saint was diverted from Constantinople to Egypt and
Palestine; and the public and private poverty of Baldwin was alleviated,
for a moment, by the alienation of the marquisate of Namur and the
lordship of Courtenay, the last remains of his inheritance. [47] By such
shameful or ruinous expedients, he once more returned to Romania, with
an army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were doubled in the
apprehension of the Greeks. His first despatches to France and England
announced his victories and his hopes: he had reduced the country round
the capital to the distance of three days' journey; and if he succeeded
against an important, though nameless, city, (most probably Chiorli,)
the frontier would be safe and the passage accessible. But these
expectations (if Baldwin was sincere) quickly vanished like a dream: the
troops and treasures of France melted away in his unskilful hands; and
the throne of the Latin emperor was protected by a dishonorable alliance
with the Turks and Comans. To secure the former, he consented to bestow
his niece on the unbelieving sultan of Cogni; to please the latter, he
complied with their Pagan rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two
armies; and the contracting parties tasted each other's blood, as
a pledge of their fidelity. [48] In the palace, or prison, of
Constantinople, the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant houses
for winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the daily
expense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a scanty hand
by the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and heir, was pawned at
Venice as the security for a debt. [49] Thirst, hunger, and nakedness,
are positive evils: but wealth is relative; and a prince who would be
rich in a private station, may be exposed by the increase of his wants
to all the anxiety and bitterness of poverty.

[Footnote 45: See the reign of Baldwin II. till his expulsion from
Constantinople, in Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 1--34, the end l.
v. c. 1--33.]

[Footnote 46: Matthew Paris relates the two visits of Baldwin II. to the
English court, p. 396, 637; his return to Greece armata manu, p. 407
his letters of his nomen formidabile, &c., p. 481, (a passage which has
escaped Ducange;) his expulsion, p. 850.]

[Footnote 47: Louis IX. disapproved and stopped the alienation of
Courtenay (Ducange, l. iv. c. 23.) It is now annexed to the
royal demesne but granted for a term (_engage_) to the family of
Boulainvilliers. Courtenay, in the election of Nemours in the Isle de
France, is a town of 900 inhabitants, with the remains of a castle,
(Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom. xlv. p. 74--77.)]

[Footnote 48: Joinville, p. 104, edit. du Louvre. A Coman prince, who
died without baptism, was buried at the gates of Constantinople with a
live retinue of slaves and horses.]

[Footnote 49: Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Crucis, l. ii. p. iv. c. 18, p. 73.]




Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part III.

But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still
possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value from the
superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the true cross was
somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a long captivity among
the infidels might shed some suspicion on the fragments that were
produced in the East and West. But another relic of the Passion was
preserved in the Imperial chapel of Constantinople; and the crown of
thorns which had been placed on the head of Christ was equally precious
and authentic. It had formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors
to deposit, as a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their
honor and religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the
same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of Romania
borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty-four
pieces of gold [50] on the credit of the holy crown: they failed in the
performance of their contract; and a rich Venetian, Nicholas Querini,
undertook to satisfy their impatient creditors, on condition that the
relic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute property, if it
were not redeemed within a short and definite term. The barons apprised
their sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss and as the empire
could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling, Baldwin was
anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it with more
honor and emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. [51] Yet the
negotiation was attended with some delicacy. In the purchase of relics,
the saint would have started at the guilt of simony; but if the mode of
expression were changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the
gift, and acknowledge the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans,
were despatched to Venice to redeem and receive the holy crown which had
escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On opening a
wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge and barons, which were
applied on a shrine of silver; and within this shrine the monument
of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetians
yielded to justice and power: the emperor Frederic granted a free and
honorable passage; the court of France advanced as far as Troyes in
Champagne, to meet with devotion this inestimable relic: it was borne in
triumph through Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt;
and a free gift of ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to
his loss. The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor to
offer with the same generosity the remaining furniture of his chapel;
[52] a large and authentic portion of the true cross; the baby-linen of
the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the chain, of his Passion;
the rod of Moses, and part of the skull of St. John the Baptist. For
the reception of these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks were
expended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris,
on which the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth
of such remote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human
testimony, must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles which
they have performed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterate
ulcer was touched and cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown: [53]
the prodigy is attested by the most pious and enlightened Christians of
France; nor will the fact be easily disproved, except by those who are
armed with a general antidote against religious credulity. [54]

[Footnote 50: Under the words _Perparus_, _Perpera_, _Hyperperum_,
Ducange is short and vague: Monetae genus. From a corrupt passage of
Guntherus, (Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10,) I guess that the Perpera was
the nummus aureus, the fourth part of a mark of silver, or about ten
shillings sterling in value. In lead it would be too contemptible.]

[Footnote 51: For the translation of the holy crown, &c., from
Constantinople to Paris, see Ducange (Hist. de C. P. l. iv. c. 11--14,
24, 35) and Fleury, (Hist. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 201--204.)]

[Footnote 52: Melanges tires d'une Grande Bibliotheque, tom. xliii.
p. 201--205. The Lutrin of Boileau exhibits the inside, the soul
and manners of the _Sainte Chapelle_; and many facts relative to the
institution are collected and explained by his commentators, Brosset and
De St. Marc.]

[Footnote 53: It was performed A.D. 1656, March 24, on the niece of
Pascal; and that superior genius, with Arnauld, Nicole, &c., were on the
spot, to believe and attest a miracle which confounded the Jesuits,
and saved Port Royal, (uvres de Racine, tom. vi. p. 176--187, in his
eloquent History of Port Royal.)]

[Footnote 54: Voltaire (Siecle de Louis XIV. c. 37, uvres, tom. ix. p.
178, 179) strives to invalidate the fact: but Hume, (Essays, vol. ii.
p. 483, 484,) with more skill and success, seizes the battery, and turns
the cannon against his enemies.]

The Latins of Constantinople [55] were on all sides encompassed and
pressed; their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in the
division of their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this hope they
were deprived by the superior arms and policy of Vataces, emperor of
Nice. From the Propontis to the rocky coast of Pamphylia, Asia was
peaceful and prosperous under his reign; and the events of every
campaign extended his influence in Europe. The strong cities of the
hills of Macedonia and Thrace were rescued from the Bulgarians; and
their kingdom was circumscribed by its present and proper limits, along
the southern banks of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans could
no longer brook that a lord of Epirus, a Comnenian prince of the West,
should presume to dispute or share the honors of the purple; and the
humble Demetrius changed the color of his buskins, and accepted with
gratitude the appellation of despot. His own subjects were exasperated
by his baseness and incapacity; they implored the protection of their
supreme lord. After some resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica was
united to the empire of Nice; and Vataces reigned without a competitor
from the Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europe
revered his merit and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox creed,
it should seem that the pope would have abandoned without reluctance the
Latin throne of Constantinople. But the death of Vataces, the short and
busy reign of Theodore his son, and the helpless infancy of his grandson
John, suspended the restoration of the Greeks. In the next chapter,
I shall explain their domestic revolutions; in this place, it will
be sufficient to observe, that the young prince was oppressed by
the ambition of his guardian and colleague, Michael Palaeologus, who
displayed the virtues and vices that belong to the founder of a new
dynasty. The emperor Baldwin had flattered himself, that he might
recover some provinces or cities by an impotent negotiation. His
ambassadors were dismissed from Nice with mockery and contempt. At every
place which they named, Palaeologus alleged some special reason, which
rendered it dear and valuable in his eyes: in the one he was born; in
another he had been first promoted to military command; and in a third
he had enjoyed, and hoped long to enjoy, the pleasures of the chase.
"And what then do you propose to give us?" said the astonished deputies.
"Nothing," replied the Greek, "not a foot of land. If your master be
desirous of peace, let him pay me, as an annual tribute, the sum which
he receives from the trade and customs of Constantinople. On these
terms, I may allow him to reign. If he refuses, it is war. I am not
ignorant of the art of war, and I trust the event to God and my sword."
[56] An expedition against the despot of Epirus was the first prelude
of his arms. If a victory was followed by a defeat; if the race of the
Comneni or Angeli survived in those mountains his efforts and his reign;
the captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the Latins
of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring monarchy. The
republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the first of their naval
wars, the command of the sea and the commerce of the East. Pride and
interest attached the Venetians to the defence of Constantinople; their
rivals were tempted to promote the designs of her enemies, and the
alliance of the Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the
indignation of the Latin church. [57]

[Footnote 55: The gradual losses of the Latins may be traced in the
third fourth, and fifth books of the compilation of Ducange: but of
the Greek conquests he has dropped many circumstances, which may be
recovered from the larger history of George Acropolita, and the three
first books of Nicephorus, Gregoras, two writers of the Byzantine
series, who have had the good fortune to meet with learned editors Leo
Allatius at Rome, and John Boivin in the Academy of Inscriptions of
Paris.]

[Footnote 56: George Acropolita, c. 78, p. 89, 90. edit. Paris.]

[Footnote 57: The Greeks, ashamed of any foreign aid, disguise the
alliance and succor of the Genoese: but the fact is proved by the
testimony of J Villani (Chron. l. vi. c. 71, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. xiii. p. 202, 203) and William de Nangis, (Annales de
St. Louis, p. 248 in the Louvre Joinville,) two impartial foreigners;
and Urban IV threatened to deprive Genoa of her archbishop.]

Intent on his great object, the emperor Michael visited in person and
strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The remains of
the Latins were driven from their last possessions: he assaulted without
success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded with a perfidious baron,
who proved unwilling, or unable, to open the gates of the metropolis.
The next spring, his favorite general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he
had decorated with the title of Caesar, passed the Hellespont with
eight hundred horse and some infantry, [58] on a secret expedition. His
instructions enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to
risk any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city. The adjacent
territory between the Propontis and the Black Sea was cultivated by
a hardy race of peasants and outlaws, exercised in arms, uncertain
in their allegiance, but inclined by language, religion, and
present advantage, to the party of the Greeks. They were styled the
_volunteers_; [59] and by their free service the army of Alexius, with
the regulars of Thrace and the Coman auxiliaries, [60] was augmented
to the number of five-and-twenty thousand men. By the ardor of the
volunteers, and by his own ambition, the Caesar was stimulated to disobey
the precise orders of his master, in the just confidence that success
would plead his pardon and reward. The weakness of Constantinople, and
the distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar to the observation
of the volunteers; and they represented the present moment as the most
propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash youth, the new governor of
the Venetian colony, had sailed away with thirty galleys, and the best
of the French knights, on a wild expedition to Daphnusia, a town on the
Black Sea, at the distance of forty leagues; [601] and the remaining Latins
were without strength or suspicion. They were informed that Alexius
had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were lulled by the
smallness of his original numbers; and their imprudence had not watched
the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his main body to second
and support his operations, he might advance unperceived in the night
with a chosen detachment. While some applied scaling-ladders to the
lowest part of the walls, they were secure of an old Greek, who would
introduce their companions through a subterraneous passage into his
house; they could soon on the inside break an entrance through the
golden gate, which had been long obstructed; and the conqueror would
be in the heart of the city before the Latins were conscious of their
danger. After some debate, the Caesar resigned himself to the faith
of the volunteers; they were trusty, bold, and successful; and in
describing the plan, I have already related the execution and success.
[61] But no sooner had Alexius passed the threshold of the golden gate,
than he trembled at his own rashness; he paused, he deliberated; till
the desperate volunteers urged him forwards, by the assurance that in
retreat lay the greatest and most inevitable danger. Whilst the Caesar
kept his regulars in firm array, the Comans dispersed themselves on
all sides; an alarm was sounded, and the threats of fire and pillage
compelled the citizens to a decisive resolution. The Greeks of
Constantinople remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese merchants
their recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in arms; and
the air resounded with a general acclamation of "Long life and victory
to Michael and John, the august emperors of the Romans!" Their rival,
Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing danger could
not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city which he
deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret: he fled from the
palace to the seashore, where he descried the welcome sails of the
fleet returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia.
Constantinople was irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the
principal families embarked on board the Venetian galleys, and steered
for the Isle of Euba, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal fugitive
was entertained by the pope and Sicilian king with a mixture of contempt
and pity. From the loss of Constantinople to his death, he consumed
thirteen years, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his
restoration: the lesson had been familiar to his youth; nor was his last
exile more indigent or shameful than his three former pilgrimages to the
courts of Europe. His son Philip was the heir of an ideal empire;
and the pretensions of his daughter Catherine were transported by her
marriage to Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip the Fair, king of
France. The house of Courtenay was represented in the female line by
successive alliances, till the title of emperor of Constantinople, too
bulky and sonorous for a private name, modestly expired in silence and
oblivion. [62]

[Footnote 58: Some precautions must be used in reconciling the
discordant numbers; the 800 soldiers of Nicetas, the 25,000 of
Spandugino, (apud Ducange, l. v. c. 24;) the Greeks and Scythians of
Acropolita; and the numerous army of Michael, in the Epistles of Pope
Urban IV. (i. 129.)]

[Footnote 59: Qelhmatarioi. They are described and named by Pachymer,
(l. ii. c. 14.)]

[Footnote 60: It is needless to seek these Comans in the deserts of
Tartary, or even of Moldavia. A part of the horde had submitted to John
Vataces, and was probably settled as a nursery of soldiers on some waste
lands of Thrace, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 2.)]

[Footnote 601: According to several authorities, particularly Abulfaradj.
Chron. Arab. p. 336, this was a stratagem on the part of the Greeks to
weaken the garrison of Constantinople. The Greek commander offered to
surrender the town on the appearance of the Venetians.--M.]

[Footnote 61: The loss of Constantinople is briefly told by the Latins:
the conquest is described with more satisfaction by the Greeks; by
Acropolita, (c. 85,) Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 26, 27,) Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. iv. c. 1, 2) See Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 19--27.]

[Footnote 62: See the three last books (l. v.--viii.) and the
genealogical tables of Ducange. In the year 1382, the titular emperor
of Constantinople was James de Baux, duke of Andria in the kingdom of
Naples, the son of Margaret, daughter of Catherine de Valois, daughter
of Catharine, daughter of Philip, son of Baldwin II., (Ducange, l. viii.
c. 37, 38.) It is uncertain whether he left any posterity.]

After this narrative of the expeditions of the Latins to Palestine
and Constantinople, I cannot dismiss the subject without resolving the
general consequences on the countries that were the scene, and on the
nations that were the actors, of these memorable crusades. [63] As soon
as the arms of the Franks were withdrawn, the impression, though not
the memory, was erased in the Mahometan realms of Egypt and Syria. The
faithful disciples of the prophet were never tempted by a profane desire
to study the laws or language of the idolaters; nor did the simplicity
of their primitive manners receive the slightest alteration from their
intercourse in peace and war with the unknown strangers of the West. The
Greeks, who thought themselves proud, but who were only vain, showed a
disposition somewhat less inflexible. In the efforts for the recovery of
their empire, they emulated the valor, discipline, and tactics of
their antagonists. The modern literature of the West they might justly
despise; but its free spirit would instruct them in the rights of man;
and some institutions of public and private life were adopted from the
French. The correspondence of Constantinople and Italy diffused the
knowledge of the Latin tongue; and several of the fathers and classics
were at length honored with a Greek version. [64] But the national and
religious prejudices of the Orientals were inflamed by persecution, and
the reign of the Latins confirmed the separation of the two churches.

[Footnote 63: Abulfeda, who saw the conclusion of the crusades, speaks
of the kingdoms of the Franks, and those of the Negroes, as equally
unknown, (Prolegom. ad Geograph.) Had he not disdained the Latin
language, how easily might the Syrian prince have found books and
interpreters!]

[Footnote 64: A short and superficial account of these versions from
Latin into Greek is given by Huet, (de Interpretatione et de claris
Interpretibus p. 131--135.) Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople,
(A.D. 1327--1353) has translated Caesar's Commentaries, the Somnium
Scipionis, the Metamorphoses and Heroides of Ovid, &c., (Fabric. Bib.
Graec. tom. x. p. 533.)]

If we compare the aera of the crusades, the Latins of Europe with the
Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry,
and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the
scale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority
may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and
imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that
time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition,
the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits
from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the
world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the
more cultivated regions of the East. The first and most obvious progress
was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are strongly prompted
by the thirst of wealth, the calls of necessity, and the gratification
of the sense or vanity. Among the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a
captive or a pilgrim might sometimes observe the superior refinements
of Cairo and Constantinople: the first importer of windmills [65] was
the benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without
any grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the more
apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported into Italy
from Greece and Egypt. But the intellectual wants of the Latins were
more slowly felt and supplied; the ardor of studious curiosity was
awakened in Europe by different causes and more recent events; and,
in the age of the crusades, they viewed with careless indifference the
literature of the Greeks and Arabians. Some rudiments of mathematical
and medicinal knowledge might be imparted in practice and in figures;
necessity might produce some interpreters for the grosser business
of merchants and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not
diffused the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of
Europe. [66] If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom of the
Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity to understand
the original text of the gospel; and the same grammar would have
unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties of Homer. Yet in a reign
of sixty years, the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and
learning of their subjects; and the manuscripts were the only treasures
which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy. Aristotle was
indeed the oracle of the Western universities, but it was a barbarous
Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin
votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version, from the Jews
and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the crusades was a savage
fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause.
Each pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics
of Greece and Palestine; [67] and each relic was preceded and followed
by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was
corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the
establishment of the inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and
friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of
idolatry, flowed from the baleful fountain of the holy war. The active
spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion;
and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the
thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.

[Footnote 65: Windmills, first invented in the dry country of Asia
Minor, were used in Normandy as early as the year 1105, (Vie privee des
Francois, tom. i. p. 42, 43. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iv. p. 474.)]

[Footnote 66: See the complaints of Roger Bacon, (Biographia Britannica,
vol. i. p. 418, Kippis's edition.) If Bacon himself, or Gerbert,
understood _some_Greek, they were prodigies, and owed nothing to the
commerce of the East.]

[Footnote 67: Such was the opinion of the great Leibnitz, (uvres de
Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 458,) a master of the history of the middle ages.
I shall only instance the pedigree of the Carmelites, and the flight of
the house of Loretto, which were both derived from Palestine.]




Chapter LXI: Partition Of The Empire By The French And Venetians.--Part IV.

In the profession of Christianity, in the cultivation of a fertile land,
the northern conquerors of the Roman empire insensibly mingled with the
provincials, and rekindled the embers of the arts of antiquity. Their
settlements about the age of Charlemagne had acquired some degree
of order and stability, when they were overwhelmed by new swarms of
invaders, the Normans, Saracens, [68] and Hungarians, who replunged
the western countries of Europe into their former state of anarchy and
barbarism. About the eleventh century, the second tempest had subsided
by the expulsion or conversion of the enemies of Christendom: the tide
of civilization, which had so long ebbed, began to flow with a steady
and accelerated course; and a fairer prospect was opened to the hopes
and efforts of the rising generations. Great was the increase, and rapid
the progress, during the two hundred years of the crusades; and some
philosophers have applauded the propitious influence of these holy wars,
which appear to me to have checked rather than forwarded the maturity of
Europe. [69] The lives and labors of millions, which were buried in the
East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of
their native country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would
have overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been
enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence with
the climates of the East. In one respect I can indeed perceive the
accidental operation of the crusades, not so much in producing a benefit
as in removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe
was chained to the soil, without freedom, or property, or knowledge;
and the two orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were
comparatively small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. This
oppressive system was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swords
of the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker ages
as a salutary antidote: they prevented the total extinction of
letters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, sheltered the poor
and defenceless, and preserved or revived the peace and order of civil
society. But the independence, rapine, and discord of the feudal lords
were unmixed with any semblance of good; and every hope of industry and
improvement was crushed by the iron weight of the martial aristocracy.
Among the causes that undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuous
place must be allowed to the crusades. The estates of the barons were
dissipated, and their race was often extinguished, in these costly and
perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride those
charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured
the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually
restored a substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful part
of the community. The conflagration which destroyed the tall and barren
trees of the forest gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller
and nutritive plants of the soil. [691]

[Footnote 68: If I rank the Saracens with the Barbarians, it is only
relative to their wars, or rather inroads, in Italy and France, where
their sole purpose was to plunder and destroy.]

[Footnote 69: On this interesting subject, the progress of society in
Europe, a strong ray of philosophical light has broke from Scotland in
our own times; and it is with private, as well as public regard, that I
repeat the names of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith.]

[Footnote 691: On the consequences of the crusades, compare the valuable
Essay of Heeren, that of M. Choiseul d'Aillecourt, and a chapter of
Mr. Forster's "Mahometanism Unveiled." I may admire this gentleman's
learning and industry, without pledging myself to his wild theory of
prophets interpretation.--M.]


_Digression On The Family Of Courtenay._

The purple of three emperors, who have reigned at Constantinople, will
authorize or excuse a digression on the origin and singular fortunes
of the house of Courtenay, [70] in the three principal branches: I. Of
Edessa; II. Of France; and III. Of England; of which the last only has
survived the revolutions of eight hundred years.

[Footnote 70: I have applied, but not confined, myself to _A
genealogical History of the noble and illustrious Family of Courtenay,
by Ezra Cleaveland, Tutor to Sir William Courtenay, and Rector of
Honiton; Exon. 1735, in folio._ The first part is extracted from William
of Tyre; the second from Bouchet's French history; and the third from
various memorials, public, provincial, and private, of the Courtenays of
Devonshire The rector of Honiton has more gratitude than industry, and
more industry than criticism.]

I. Before the introduction of trade, which scatters riches, and of
knowledge, which dispels prejudice, the prerogative of birth is most
strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged. In every age, the laws and
manners of the Germans have discriminated the ranks of society; the
dukes and counts, who shared the empire of Charlemagne, converted
their office to an inheritance; and to his children, each feudal lord
bequeathed his honor and his sword. The proudest families are content
to lose, in the darkness of the middle ages, the tree of their pedigree,
which, however deep and lofty, must ultimately rise from a plebeian
root; and their historians must descend ten centuries below the
Christian aera, before they can ascertain any lineal succession by the
evidence of surnames, of arms, and of authentic records. With the first
rays of light, [71] we discern the nobility and opulence of Atho, a
French knight; his nobility, in the rank and title of a nameless father;
his opulence, in the foundation of the castle of Courtenay in the
district of Gatinois, about fifty-six miles to the south of Paris. From
the reign of Robert, the son of Hugh Capet, the barons of Courtenay are
conspicuous among the immediate vassals of the crown; and Joscelin, the
grandson of Atho and a noble dame, is enrolled among the heroes of the
first crusade. A domestic alliance (their mothers were sisters) attached
him to the standard of Baldwin of Bruges, the second count of Edessa;
a princely fief, which he was worthy to receive, and able to maintain,
announces the number of his martial followers; and after the departure
of his cousin, Joscelin himself was invested with the county of Edessa
on both sides of the Euphrates. By economy in peace, his territories
were replenished with Latin and Syrian subjects; his magazines with
corn, wine, and oil; his castles with gold and silver, with arms
and horses. In a holy warfare of thirty years, he was alternately a
conqueror and a captive: but he died like a soldier, in a horse litter
at the head of his troops; and his last glance beheld the flight of the
Turkish invaders who had presumed on his age and infirmities. His son
and successor, of the same name, was less deficient in valor than
in vigilance; but he sometimes forgot that dominion is acquired and
maintained by the same arms. He challenged the hostility of the Turks,
without securing the friendship of the prince of Antioch; and, amidst
the peaceful luxury of Turbessel, in Syria, [72] Joscelin neglected the
defence of the Christian frontier beyond the Euphrates. In his absence,
Zenghi, the first of the Atabeks, besieged and stormed his capital,
Edessa, which was feebly defended by a timorous and disloyal crowd of
Orientals: the Franks were oppressed in a bold attempt for its recovery,
and Courtenay ended his days in the prison of Aleppo. He still left a
fair and ample patrimony But the victorious Turks oppressed on all sides
the weakness of a widow and orphan; and, for the equivalent of an annual
pension, they resigned to the Greek emperor the charge of defending,
and the shame of losing, the last relics of the Latin conquest. The
countess-dowager of Edessa retired to Jerusalem with her two children;
the daughter, Agnes, became the wife and mother of a king; the son,
Joscelin the Third, accepted the office of seneschal, the first of the
kingdom, and held his new estates in Palestine by the service of fifty
knights. His name appears with honor in the transactions of peace and
war; but he finally vanishes in the fall of Jerusalem; and the name of
Courtenay, in this branch of Edessa, was lost by the marriage of his two
daughters with a French and German baron. [73]

[Footnote 71: The primitive record of the family is a passage of the
continuator of Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who wrote in the xiith century.
See his Chronicle, in the Historians of France, (tom. xi. p. 276.)]

[Footnote 72: Turbessel, or, as it is now styled, Telbesher, is fixed
by D'Anville four-and-twenty miles from the great passage over the
Euphrates at Zeugma.]

[Footnote 73: His possessions are distinguished in the Assises of
Jerusalem (c. B26) among the feudal tenures of the kingdom, which must
therefore have been collected between the years 1153 and 1187. His
pedigree may be found in the Lignages d'Outremer, c. 16.]

II. While Joscelin reigned beyond the Euphrates, his elder brother Milo,
the son of Joscelin, the son of Atho, continued, near the Seine, to
possess the castle of their fathers, which was at length inherited by
Rainaud, or Reginald, the youngest of his three sons. Examples of genius
or virtue must be rare in the annals of the oldest families; and, in a
remote age their pride will embrace a deed of rapine and violence;
such, however, as could not be perpetrated without some superiority of
courage, or, at least, of power. A descendant of Reginald of Courtenay
may blush for the public robber, who stripped and imprisoned several
merchants, after they had satisfied the king's duties at Sens and
Orleans. He will glory in the offence, since the bold offender could not
be compelled to obedience and restitution, till the regent and the count
of Champagne prepared to march against him at the head of an army. [74]
Reginald bestowed his estates on his eldest daughter, and his daughter
on the seventh son of King Louis the Fat; and their marriage was crowned
with a numerous offspring. We might expect that a private should have
merged in a royal name; and that the descendants of Peter of France
and Elizabeth of Courtenay would have enjoyed the titles and honors of
princes of the blood. But this legitimate claim was long neglected,
and finally denied; and the causes of their disgrace will represent the
story of this second branch. _1._ Of all the families now extant, the
most ancient, doubtless, and the most illustrious, is the house of
France, which has occupied the same throne above eight hundred years,
and descends, in a clear and lineal series of males, from the middle
of the ninth century. [75] In the age of the crusades, it was already
revered both in the East and West. But from Hugh Capet to the marriage
of Peter, no more than five reigns or generations had elapsed; and
so precarious was their title, that the eldest sons, as a necessary
precaution, were previously crowned during the lifetime of their
fathers. The peers of France have long maintained their precedency
before the younger branches of the royal line, nor had the princes of
the blood, in the twelfth century, acquired that hereditary lustre which
is now diffused over the most remote candidates for the succession. _2._
The barons of Courtenay must have stood high in their own estimation,
and in that of the world, since they could impose on the son of a king
the obligation of adopting for himself and all his descendants the name
and arms of their daughter and his wife. In the marriage of an heiress
with her inferior or her equal, such exchange often required and
allowed: but as they continued to diverge from the regal stem, the
sons of Louis the Fat were insensibly confounded with their maternal
ancestors; and the new Courtenays might deserve to forfeit the honors
of their birth, which a motive of interest had tempted them to renounce.
_3._ The shame was far more permanent than the reward, and a momentary
blaze was followed by a long darkness. The eldest son of these nuptials,
Peter of Courtenay, had married, as I have already mentioned, the sister
of the counts of Flanders, the two first emperors of Constantinople: he
rashly accepted the invitation of the barons of Romania; his two sons,
Robert and Baldwin, successively held and lost the remains of the Latin
empire in the East, and the granddaughter of Baldwin the Second again
mingled her blood with the blood of France and of Valois. To support the
expenses of a troubled and transitory reign, their patrimonial estates
were mortgaged or sold: and the last emperors of Constantinople depended
on the annual charity of Rome and Naples.

[Footnote 74: The rapine and satisfaction of Reginald de Courtenay, are
preposterously arranged in the Epistles of the abbot and regent Suger,
(cxiv. cxvi.,) the best memorials of the age, (Duchesne, Scriptores
Hist. Franc. tom. iv. p. 530.)]

[Footnote 75: In the beginning of the xith century, after naming the
father and grandfather of Hugh Capet, the monk Glaber is obliged to add,
cujus genus valde in-ante reperitur obscurum. Yet we are assured that
the great-grandfather of Hugh Capet was Robert the Strong count of
Anjou, (A.D. 863--873,) a noble Frank of Neustria, Neustricus...
generosae stirpis, who was slain in the defence of his country against
the Normans, dum patriae fines tuebatur. Beyond Robert, all is conjecture
or fable. It is a probable conjecture, that the third race descended
from the second by Childebrand, the brother of Charles Martel. It is an
absurd fable that the second was allied to the first by the marriage of
Ansbert, a Roman senator and the ancestor of St. Arnoul, with Blitilde,
a daughter of Clotaire I. The Saxon origin of the house of France is
an ancient but incredible opinion. See a judicious memoir of M. de
Foncemagne, (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p.
548--579.) He had promised to declare his own opinion in a second
memoir, which has never appeared.]

While the elder brothers dissipated their wealth in romantic adventures,
and the castle of Courtenay was profaned by a plebeian owner, the
younger branches of that adopted name were propagated and multiplied.
But their splendor was clouded by poverty and time: after the decease of
Robert, great butler of France, they descended from princes to barons;
the next generations were confounded with the simple gentry; the
descendants of Hugh Capet could no longer be visible in the rural lords
of Tanlay and of Champignelles. The more adventurous embraced without
dishonor the profession of a soldier: the least active and opulent might
sink, like their cousins of the branch of Dreux, into the condition of
peasants. Their royal descent, in a dark period of four hundred years,
became each day more obsolete and ambiguous; and their pedigree, instead
of being enrolled in the annals of the kingdom, must be painfully
searched by the minute diligence of heralds and genealogists. It was
not till the end of the sixteenth century, on the accession of a
family almost as remote as their own, that the princely spirit of the
Courtenays again revived; and the question of the nobility provoked them
to ascertain the royalty of their blood. They appealed to the justice
and compassion of Henry the Fourth; obtained a favorable opinion from
twenty lawyers of Italy and Germany, and modestly compared themselves to
the descendants of King David, whose prerogatives were not impaired by
the lapse of ages or the trade of a carpenter. [76] But every ear was
deaf, and every circumstance was adverse, to their lawful claims. The
Bourbon kings were justified by the neglect of the Valois; the princes
of the blood, more recent and lofty, disdained the alliance of his
humble kindred: the parliament, without denying their proofs, eluded
a dangerous precedent by an arbitrary distinction, and established
St. Louis as the first father of the royal line. [77] A repetition of
complaints and protests was repeatedly disregarded; and the hopeless
pursuit was terminated in the present century by the death of the
last male of the family. [78] Their painful and anxious situation was
alleviated by the pride of conscious virtue: they sternly rejected
the temptations of fortune and favor; and a dying Courtenay would have
sacrificed his son, if the youth could have renounced, for any temporal
interest, the right and title of a legitimate prince of the blood of
France. [79]

[Footnote 76: Of the various petitions, apologies, &c., published by the
princes of Courtenay, I have seen the three following, all in octavo:
1. De Stirpe et Origine Domus de Courtenay: addita sunt Responsa
celeberrimorum Europae Jurisconsultorum; Paris, 1607. 2. Representation
du Procede tenu a l'instance faicte devant le Roi, par Messieurs de
Courtenay, pour la conservation de l'Honneur et Dignite de leur Maison,
branche de la royalle Maison de France; a Paris, 1613. 3. Representation
du subject qui a porte Messieurs de Salles et de Fraville, de la Maison
de Courtenay, a se retirer hors du Royaume, 1614. It was a homicide, for
which the Courtenays expected to be pardoned, or tried, as princes of
the blood.]

[Footnote 77: The sense of the parliaments is thus expressed by Thuanus
Principis nomen nusquam in Gallia tributum, nisi iis qui per mares e
regibus nostris originem repetunt; qui nunc tantum a Ludovico none beatae
memoriae numerantur; nam _Cortini_ et Drocenses, a Ludovico crasso
genus ducentes, hodie inter eos minime recensentur. A distinction of
expediency rather than justice. The sanctity of Louis IX. could not
invest him with any special prerogative, and all the descendants of Hugh
Capet must be included in his original compact with the French nation.]

[Footnote 78: The last male of the Courtenays was Charles Roger, who
died in the year 1730, without leaving any sons. The last female was
Helene de Courtenay, who married Louis de Beaufremont. Her title of
Princesse du Sang Royal de France was suppressed (February 7th, 1737) by
an _arret_ of the parliament of Paris.]

[Footnote 79: The singular anecdote to which I allude is related in the
Recueil des Pieces interessantes et peu connues, (Maestricht, 1786, in 4
vols. 12mo.;) and the unknown editor quotes his author, who had received
it from Helene de Courtenay, marquise de Beaufremont.]

III. According to the old register of Ford Abbey, the Courtenays of
Devonshire are descended from Prince _Florus_, the second son of Peter,
and the grandson of Louis the Fat. [80] This fable of the grateful or
venal monks was too respectfully entertained by our antiquaries, Cambden
[81] and Dugdale: [82] but it is so clearly repugnant to truth and
time, that the rational pride of the family now refuses to accept this
imaginary founder. Their most faithful historians believe, that, after
giving his daughter to the king's son, Reginald of Courtenay abandoned
his possessions in France, and obtained from the English monarch a
second wife and a new inheritance. It is certain, at least, that Henry
the Second distinguished in his camps and councils a Reginald, of the
name and arms, and, as it may be fairly presumed, of the genuine race,
of the Courtenays of France. The right of wardship enabled a feudal lord
to reward his vassal with the marriage and estate of a noble heiress;
and Reginald of Courtenay acquired a fair establishment in Devonshire,
where his posterity has been seated above six hundred years. [83] From
a Norman baron, Baldwin de Brioniis, who had been invested by
the Conqueror, Hawise, the wife of Reginald, derived the honor of
Okehampton, which was held by the service of ninety-three knights; and a
female might claim the manly offices of hereditary viscount or sheriff,
and of captain of the royal castle of Exeter. Their son Robert married
the sister of the earl of Devon: at the end of a century, on the failure
of the family of Rivers, [84] his great-grandson, Hugh the Second,
succeeded to a title which was still considered as a territorial
dignity; and twelve earls of Devonshire, of the name of Courtenay, have
flourished in a period of two hundred and twenty years. They were ranked
among the chief of the barons of the realm; nor was it till after a
strenuous dispute, that they yielded to the fief of Arundel the first
place in the parliament of England: their alliances were contracted with
the noblest families, the Veres, Despensers, St. Johns, Talbots, Bohuns,
and even the Plantagenets themselves; and in a contest with John of
Lancaster, a Courtenay, bishop of London, and afterwards archbishop of
Canterbury, might be accused of profane confidence in the strength and
number of his kindred. In peace, the earls of Devon resided in their
numerous castles and manors of the west; their ample revenue was
appropriated to devotion and hospitality; and the epitaph of Edward,
surnamed from his misfortune, the _blind_, from his virtues, the _good_,
earl, inculcates with much ingenuity a moral sentence, which may,
however, be abused by thoughtless generosity. After a grateful
commemoration of the fifty-five years of union and happiness which he
enjoyed with Mabe his wife, the good earl thus speaks from the tomb:--

     "What we gave, we have;
     What we spent, we had;
     What we left, we lost." [85]

But their _losses_, in this sense, were far superior to their gifts and
expenses; and their heirs, not less than the poor, were the objects
of their paternal care. The sums which they paid for livery and seizin
attest the greatness of their possessions; and several estates have
remained in their family since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
In war, the Courtenays of England fulfilled the duties, and deserved the
honors, of chivalry. They were often intrusted to levy and command the
militia of Devonshire and Cornwall; they often attended their supreme
lord to the borders of Scotland; and in foreign service, for a
stipulated price, they sometimes maintained fourscore men-at-arms and
as many archers. By sea and land they fought under the standard of
the Edwards and Henries: their names are conspicuous in battles, in
tournaments, and in the original list of the Order of the Garter; three
brothers shared the Spanish victory of the Black Prince; and in the
lapse of six generations, the English Courtenays had learned to despise
the nation and country from which they derived their origin. In the
quarrel of the two roses, the earls of Devon adhered to the house of
Lancaster; and three brothers successively died either in the field or
on the scaffold. Their honors and estates were restored by Henry the
Seventh; a daughter of Edward the Fourth was not disgraced by the
nuptials of a Courtenay; their son, who was created Marquis of Exeter,
enjoyed the favor of his cousin Henry the Eighth; and in the camp of
Cloth of Gold, he broke a lance against the French monarch. But the
favor of Henry was the prelude of disgrace; his disgrace was the signal
of death; and of the victims of the jealous tyrant, the marquis of
Exeter is one of the most noble and guiltless. His son Edward lived a
prisoner in the Tower, and died in exile at Padua; and the secret love
of Queen Mary, whom he slighted, perhaps for the princess Elizabeth, has
shed a romantic color on the story of this beautiful youth. The relics
of his patrimony were conveyed into strange families by the marriages
of his four aunts; and his personal honors, as if they had been legally
extinct, were revived by the patents of succeeding princes. But there
still survived a lineal descendant of Hugh, the first earl of Devon,
a younger branch of the Courtenays, who have been seated at Powderham
Castle above four hundred years, from the reign of Edward the Third to
the present hour. Their estates have been increased by the grant and
improvement of lands in Ireland, and they have been recently restored to
the honors of the peerage. Yet the Courtenays still retain the plaintive
motto, which asserts the innocence, and deplores the fall, of their
ancient house. [86] While they sigh for past greatness, they are
doubtless sensible of present blessings: in the long series of
the Courtenay annals, the most splendid aera is likewise the most
unfortunate; nor can an opulent peer of Britain be inclined to envy the
emperors of Constantinople, who wandered over Europe to solicit alms for
the support of their dignity and the defence of their capital.

[Footnote 80: Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i. p. 786. Yet
this fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward III.
The profuse devotion of the three first generations to Ford Abbey was
followed by oppression on one side and ingratitude on the other; and in
the sixth generation, the monks ceased to register the births, actions,
and deaths of their patrons.]

[Footnote 81: In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of Devonshire.
His expression, e regio sanguine ortos, credunt, betrays, however, some
doubt or suspicion.]

[Footnote 82: In his Baronage, P. i. p. 634, he refers to his own
Monasticon. Should he not have corrected the register of Ford Abbey, and
annihilated the phantom Florus, by the unquestionable evidence of the
French historians?]

[Footnote 83: Besides the third and most valuable book of Cleaveland's
History, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our genealogical
science, (Baronage, P. i. p. 634--643.)]

[Footnote 84: This great family, de Ripuariis, de Redvers, de Rivers,
ended, in Edward the Fifth's time, in Isabella de Fortibus, a famous
and potent dowager, who long survived her brother and husband, (Dugdale,
Baronage, P i. p. 254--257.)]

[Footnote 85: Cleaveland p. 142. By some it is assigned to a Rivers
earl of Devon; but the English denotes the xvth, rather than the xiiith
century.]

[Footnote 86: _Ubi lapsus! Quid feci?_ a motto which was probably
adopted by the Powderham branch, after the loss of the earldom of
Devonshire, &c. The primitive arms of the Courtenays were, _Or_, _three
torteaux_, _Gules_, which seem to denote their affinity with Godfrey of
Bouillon, and the ancient counts of Boulogne.]




Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Part I.

     The Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Elevation
     And Reign Of Michael Palaeologus.--His False Union With The
     Pope And The Latin Church.--Hostile Designs Of Charles Of
     Anjou.--Revolt Of Sicily.--War Of The Catalans In Asia And
     Greece.--Revolutions And Present State Of Athens.

The loss of Constantinople restored a momentary vigor to the Greeks.
From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven into the field;
and the fragments of the falling monarchy were grasped by the hands of
the most vigorous or the most skilful candidates. In the long and barren
pages of the Byzantine annals, [1] it would not be an easy task to equal
the two characters of Theodore Lascaris and John Ducas Vataces, [2]
who replanted and upheld the Roman standard at Nice in Bithynia. The
difference of their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of their
situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded only
three cities and two thousand soldiers: his reign was the season of
generous and active despair: in every military operation he staked his
life and crown; and his enemies of the Hellespont and the Maeander, were
surprised by his celerity and subdued by his boldness. A victorious
reign of eighteen years expanded the principality of Nice to the
magnitude of an empire. The throne of his successor and son-in-law
Vataces was founded on a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more
plentiful resources; and it was the temper, as well as the interest, of
Vataces to calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure the
success, of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins, I have
briefly exposed the progress of the Greeks; the prudent and gradual
advances of a conqueror, who, in a reign of thirty-three years, rescued
the provinces from national and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all
sides the Imperial city, a leafless and sapless trunk, which must
full at the first stroke of the axe. But his interior and peaceful
administration is still more deserving of notice and praise. [3] The
calamities of the times had wasted the numbers and the substance of the
Greeks; the motives and the means of agriculture were extirpated; and
the most fertile lands were left without cultivation or inhabitants.
A portion of this vacant property was occupied and improved by the
command, and for the benefit, of the emperor: a powerful hand and a
vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful management, the minute
diligence of a private farmer: the royal domain became the garden and
granary of Asia; and without impoverishing the people, the sovereign
acquired a fund of innocent and productive wealth. According to the
nature of the soil, his lands were sown with corn or planted with vines;
the pastures were filled with horses and oxen, with sheep and hogs; and
when Vataces presented to the empress a crown of diamonds and pearls, he
informed her, with a smile, that this precious ornament arose from the
sale of the eggs of his innumerable poultry. The produce of his domain
was applied to the maintenance of his palace and hospitals, the calls
of dignity and benevolence: the lesson was still more useful than the
revenue: the plough was restored to its ancient security and honor; and
the nobles were taught to seek a sure and independent revenue from their
estates, instead of adorning their splendid beggary by the oppression of
the people, or (what is almost the same) by the favors of the court. The
superfluous stock of corn and cattle was eagerly purchased by the
Turks, with whom Vataces preserved a strict and sincere alliance; but he
discouraged the importation of foreign manufactures, the costly silks of
the East, and the curious labors of the Italian looms. "The demands of
nature and necessity," was he accustomed to say, "are indispensable; but
the influence of fashion may rise and sink at the breath of a monarch;"
and both his precept and example recommended simplicity of manners and
the use of domestic industry. The education of youth and the revival
of learning were the most serious objects of his care; and, without
deciding the precedency, he pronounced with truth, that a prince and a
philosopher [4] are the two most eminent characters of human society. His
first wife was Irene, the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more
illustrious by her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex, than
by the blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins, and
transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was
contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the emperor
Frederic [499] the Second; but as the bride had not attained the years of
puberty, Vataces placed in his solitary bed an Italian damsel of her
train; and his amorous weakness bestowed on the concubine the honors,
though not the title, of a lawful empress. His frailty was censured as
a flagitious and damnable sin by the monks; and their rude invectives
exercised and displayed the patience of the royal lover. A philosophic
age may excuse a single vice, which was redeemed by a crowd of virtues;
and in the review of his faults, and the more intemperate passions of
Lascaris, the judgment of their contemporaries was softened by gratitude
to the second founders of the empire. [5] The slaves of the Latins,
without law or peace, applauded the happiness of their brethren who had
resumed their national freedom; and Vataces employed the laudable policy
of convincing the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to
be enrolled in the number of his subjects.

[Footnote 1: For the reigns of the Nicene emperors, more especially of
John Vataces and his son, their minister, George Acropolita, is the only
genuine contemporary; but George Pachymer returned to Constantinople
with the Greeks at the age of nineteen, (Hanckius de Script. Byzant. c.
33, 34, p. 564--578. Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 448--460.) Yet
the history of Nicephorus Gregoras, though of the xivth century, is a
valuable narrative from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins.]

[Footnote 2: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 1) distinguishes between the
oxeia ormh of Lascaris, and the eustaqeia of Vataces. The two portraits
are in a very good style.]

[Footnote 3: Pachymer, l. i. c. 23, 24. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6. The
reader of the Byzantines must observe how rarely we are indulged with
such precious details.]

[Footnote 4: Monoi gar apantwn anqrwpwn onomastotatoi basileuV
kai jilosojoV, (Greg. Acropol. c. 32.) The emperor, in a familiar
conversation, examined and encouraged the studies of his future
logothete.]

[Footnote 499: Sister of Manfred, afterwards king of Naples. Nic. Greg. p.
45.--M.]

[Footnote 5: Compare Acropolita, (c. 18, 52,) and the two first books of
Nicephorus Gregoras.]

A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between John Vataces and his son
Theodore; between the founder who sustained the weight, and the heir
who enjoyed the splendor, of the Imperial crown. [6] Yet the character of
Theodore was not devoid of energy; he had been educated in the school of
his father, in the exercise of war and hunting; Constantinople was
yet spared; but in the three years of a short reign, he thrice led
his armies into the heart of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a
choleric and suspicious temper: the first of these may be ascribed to
the ignorance of control; and the second might naturally arise from
a dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march in
Bulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal ministers;
and the Greek logothete, George Acropolita, presumed to offend him
by the declaration of a free and honest opinion. The emperor half
unsheathed his cimeter; but his more deliberate rage reserved Acropolita
for a baser punishment. One of the first officers of the empire was
ordered to dismount, stripped of his robes, and extended on the ground
in the presence of the prince and army. In this posture he was chastised
with so many and such heavy blows from the clubs of two guards or
executioners, that when Theodore commanded them to cease, the great
logothete was scarcely able to rise and crawl away to his tent. After a
seclusion of some days, he was recalled by a peremptory mandate to his
seat in council; and so dead were the Greeks to the sense of honor and
shame, that it is from the narrative of the sufferer himself that we
acquire the knowledge of his disgrace. [7] The cruelty of the emperor was
exasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of a premature end,
and the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes
and limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of
passion; and before he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the
people, or at least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron
of the family of the Palaeologi had provoked his anger by refusing to
bestow her beauteous daughter on the vile plebeian who was recommended
by his caprice. Without regard to her birth or age, her body, as high
as the neck, was enclosed in a sack with several cats, who were
pricked with pins to irritate their fury against their unfortunate
fellow-captive. In his last hours the emperor testified a wish to
forgive and be forgiven, a just anxiety for the fate of John his son and
successor, who, at the age of eight years, was condemned to the dangers
of a long minority. His last choice intrusted the office of guardian
to the sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage of George
Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by the royal
favor and the public hatred. Since their connection with the Latins, the
names and privileges of hereditary rank had insinuated themselves into
the Greek monarchy; and the noble families [8] were provoked by the
elevation of a worthless favorite, to whose influence they imputed the
errors and calamities of the late reign. In the first council, after
the emperor's death, Muzalon, from a lofty throne, pronounced a labored
apology of his conduct and intentions: his modesty was subdued by a
unanimous assurance of esteem and fidelity; and his most inveterate
enemies were the loudest to salute him as the guardian and savior of
the Romans. Eight days were sufficient to prepare the execution of the
conspiracy. On the ninth, the obsequies of the deceased monarch were
solemnized in the cathedral of Magnesia, [9] an Asiatic city, where he
expired, on the banks of the Hermus, and at the foot of Mount Sipylus.
The holy rites were interrupted by a sedition of the guards; Muzalon,
his brothers, and his adherents, were massacred at the foot of the
altar; and the absent patriarch was associated with a new colleague,
with Michael Palaeologus, the most illustrious, in birth and merit, of
the Greek nobles. [10]

[Footnote 6: A Persian saying, that Cyrus was the _father_ and Darius
the _master_, of his subjects, was applied to Vataces and his son.
But Pachymer (l. i. c. 23) has mistaken the mild Darius for the cruel
Cambyses, despot or tyrant of his people. By the institution of taxes,
Darius had incurred the less odious, but more contemptible, name of
KaphloV, merchant or broker, (Herodotus, iii. 89.)]

[Footnote 7: Acropolita (c. 63) seems to admire his own firmness in
sustaining a beating, and not returning to council till he was called.
He relates the exploits of Theodore, and his own services, from c. 53 to
c. 74 of his history. See the third book of Nicephorus Gregoras.]

[Footnote 8: Pachymer (l. i. c. 21) names and discriminates fifteen or
twenty Greek families, kai osoi alloi, oiV h megalogenhV seira kai crush
sugkekrothto. Does he mean, by this decoration, a figurative or a real
golden chain? Perhaps, both.]

[Footnote 9: The old geographers, with Cellarius and D'Anville, and
our travellers, particularly Pocock and Chandler, will teach us to
distinguish the two Magnesias of Asia Minor, of the Maeander and of
Sipylus. The latter, our present object, is still flourishing for a
Turkish city, and lies eight hours, or leagues, to the north-east
of Smyrna, (Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxii. p.
365--370. Chandler's Travels into Asia Minor, p. 267.)]

[Footnote 10: See Acropolita, (c. 75, 76, &c.,) who lived too near the
times; Pachymer, (l. i. c. 13--25,) Gregoras, (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5.)]

Of those who are proud of their ancestors, the far greater part must be
content with local or domestic renown; and few there are who dare trust
the memorials of their family to the public annals of their country.
As early as the middle of the eleventh century, the noble race of the
Palaeologi [11] stands high and conspicuous in the Byzantine history: it
was the valiant George Palaeologus who placed the father of the Comneni
on the throne; and his kinsmen or descendants continue, in each
generation, to lead the armies and councils of the state. The purple
was not dishonored by their alliance, and had the law of succession, and
female succession, been strictly observed, the wife of Theodore Lascaris
must have yielded to her elder sister, the mother of Michael Palaeologus,
who afterwards raised his family to the throne. In his person, the
splendor of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier and
statesman: in his early youth he was promoted to the office of
_constable_ or commander of the French mercenaries; the private expense
of a day never exceeded three pieces of gold; but his ambition was
rapacious and profuse; and his gifts were doubled by the graces of his
conversation and manners. The love of the soldiers and people excited
the jealousy of the court, and Michael thrice escaped from the dangers
in which he was involved by his own imprudence or that of his friends.
I. Under the reign of Justice and Vataces, a dispute arose [12]
between two officers, one of whom accused the other of maintaining the
hereditary right of the Palaeologi The cause was decided, according to
the new jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat; the defendant was
overthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was guilty;
and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable speeches without the
approbation or knowledge of his patron Yet a cloud of suspicion hung
over the innocence of the constable; he was still pursued by the
whispers of malevolence; and a subtle courtier, the archbishop of
Philadelphia, urged him to accept the judgment of God in the fiery proof
of the ordeal. [13] Three days before the trial, the patient's arm was
enclosed in a bag, and secured by the royal signet; and it was incumbent
on him to bear a red-hot ball of iron three times from the altar to the
rails of the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury. Palaeologus
eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry. "I am a
soldier," said he, "and will boldly enter the lists with my accusers;
but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with the gift of
miracles. _Your_ piety, most holy prelate, may deserve the interposition
of Heaven, and from your hands I will receive the fiery globe, the
pledge of my innocence." The archbishop started; the emperor smiled; and
the absolution or pardon of Michael was approved by new rewards and
new services. II. In the succeeding reign, as he held the government of
Nice, he was secretly informed, that the mind of the absent prince was
poisoned with jealousy; and that death, or blindness, would be his final
reward. Instead of awaiting the return and sentence of Theodore, the
constable, with some followers, escaped from the city and the empire;
and though he was plundered by the Turkmans of the desert, he found a
hospitable refuge in the court of the sultan. In the ambiguous state
of an exile, Michael reconciled the duties of gratitude and loyalty:
drawing his sword against the Tartars; admonishing the garrisons of the
Roman limit; and promoting, by his influence, the restoration of peace,
in which his pardon and recall were honorably included. III. While
he guarded the West against the despot of Epirus, Michael was again
suspected and condemned in the palace; and such was his loyalty or
weakness, that he submitted to be led in chains above six hundred miles
from Durazzo to Nice. The civility of the messenger alleviated his
disgrace; the emperor's sickness dispelled his danger; and the
last breath of Theodore, which recommended his infant son, at once
acknowledged the innocence and the power of Palaeologus.

[Footnote 11: The pedigree of Palaeologus is explained by Ducange,
(Famil. Byzant. p. 230, &c.:) the events of his private life are related
by Pachymer (l. i. c. 7--12) and Gregoras (l. ii. 8, l. iii. 2, 4, l.
iv. 1) with visible favor to the father of the reigning dynasty.]

[Footnote 12: Acropolita (c. 50) relates the circumstances of this
curious adventure, which seem to have escaped the more recent writers.]

[Footnote 13: Pachymer, (l. i. c. 12,) who speaks with proper contempt
of this barbarous trial, affirms, that he had seen in his youth many
person who had sustained, without injury, the fiery ordeal. As a Greek,
he is credulous; but the ingenuity of the Greeks might furnish some
remedies of art or fraud against their own superstition, or that of
their tyrant.]

But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power was too
strongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair field that was
opened to his ambition. [14] In the council, after the death of Theodore,
he was the first to pronounce, and the first to violate, the oath of
allegiance to Muzalon; and so dexterous was his conduct, that he reaped
the benefit, without incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach,
of the subsequent massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced the
interests and passions of the candidates; turned their envy and hatred
from himself against each other, and forced every competitor to own,
that after his own claims, those of Palaeologus were best entitled to
the preference. Under the title of great duke, he accepted or assumed,
during a long minority, the active powers of government; the patriarch
was a venerable name; and the factious nobles were seduced, or
oppressed, by the ascendant of his genius. The fruits of the economy of
Vataces were deposited in a strong castle on the banks of the Hermus,
in the custody of the faithful Varangians: the constable retained his
command or influence over the foreign troops; he employed the guards
to possess the treasure, and the treasure to corrupt the guards; and
whatsoever might be the abuse of the public money, his character
was above the suspicion of private avarice. By himself, or by his
emissaries, he strove to persuade every rank of subjects, that their
own prosperity would rise in just proportion to the establishment of
his authority. The weight of taxes was suspended, the perpetual theme
of popular complaint; and he prohibited the trials by the ordeal and
judicial combat. These Barbaric institutions were already abolished or
undermined in France [15] and England; [16] and the appeal to the sword
offended the sense of a civilized, [17] and the temper of an unwarlike,
people. For the future maintenance of their wives and children, the
veterans were grateful: the priests and the philosophers applauded his
ardent zeal for the advancement of religion and learning; and his vague
promise of rewarding merit was applied by every candidate to his own
hopes. Conscious of the influence of the clergy, Michael successfully
labored to secure the suffrage of that powerful order. Their expensive
journey from Nice to Magnesia, afforded a decent and ample pretence: the
leading prelates were tempted by the liberality of his nocturnal visits;
and the incorruptible patriarch was flattered by the homage of his new
colleague, who led his mule by the bridle into the town, and removed to
a respectful distance the importunity of the crowd. Without renouncing
his title by royal descent, Palaeologus encouraged a free discussion into
the advantages of elective monarchy; and his adherents asked, with
the insolence of triumph, what patient would trust his health, or
what merchant would abandon his vessel, to the _hereditary_ skill of
a physician or a pilot? The youth of the emperor, and the impending
dangers of a minority, required the support of a mature and experienced
guardian; of an associate raised above the envy of his equals, and
invested with the name and prerogatives of royalty. For the interest
of the prince and people, without any selfish views for himself or
his family, the great duke consented to guard and instruct the son of
Theodore; but he sighed for the happy moment when he might restore to
his firmer hands the administration of his patrimony, and enjoy the
blessings of a private station. He was first invested with the title and
prerogatives of _despot_, which bestowed the purple ornaments and the
second place in the Roman monarchy. It was afterwards agreed that John
and Michael should be proclaimed as joint emperors, and raised on the
buckler, but that the preeminence should be reserved for the birthright
of the former. A mutual league of amity was pledged between the royal
partners; and in case of a rupture, the subjects were bound, by their
oath of allegiance, to declare themselves against the aggressor; an
ambiguous name, the seed of discord and civil war. Palaeologus was
content; but, on the day of the coronation, and in the cathedral of
Nice, his zealous adherents most vehemently urged the just priority of
his age and merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by postponing to
a more convenient opportunity the coronation of John Lascaris; and he
walked with a slight diadem in the train of his guardian, who alone
received the Imperial crown from the hands of the patriarch. It was
not without extreme reluctance that Arsenius abandoned the cause of his
pupil; out the Varangians brandished their battle-axes; a sign of assent
was extorted from the trembling youth; and some voices were heard,
that the life of a child should no longer impede the settlement of the
nation. A full harvest of honors and employments was distributed among
his friends by the grateful Palaeologus. In his own family he created a
despot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus was decorated
with the title of Caesar; and that veteran commander soon repaid the
obligation, by restoring Constantinople to the Greek emperor.

[Footnote 14: Without comparing Pachymer to Thucydides or Tacitus, I
will praise his narrative, (l. i. c. 13--32, l. ii. c. 1--9,) which
pursues the ascent of Palaeologus with eloquence, perspicuity, and
tolerable freedom. Acropolita is more cautious, and Gregoras more
concise.]

[Footnote 15: The judicial combat was abolished by St. Louis in his own
territories; and his example and authority were at length prevalent in
France, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 29.)]

[Footnote 16: In civil cases Henry II. gave an option to the defendant:
Glanville prefers the proof by evidence; and that by judicial combat
is reprobated in the Fleta. Yet the trial by battle has never been
abrogated in the English law, and it was ordered by the judges as late
as the beginning of the last century. * Note : And even demanded in
the present.--M.]

[Footnote 17: Yet an ingenious friend has urged to me in mitigation
of this practice, 1. _That_ in nations emerging from barbarism, it
moderates the license of private war and arbitrary revenge. 2. _That_ it
is less absurd than the trials by the ordeal, or boiling water, or the
cross, which it has contributed to abolish. 3. _That_ it served at least
as a test of personal courage; a quality so seldom united with a
base disposition, that the danger of a trial might be some check to a
malicious prosecutor, and a useful barrier against injustice supported
by power. The gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey might probably have
escaped his unmerited fate, had not his demand of the combat against his
accuser been overruled.]

It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the palace
and gardens of Nymphaeum, [18] near Smyrna, that the first messenger
arrived at the dead of night; and the stupendous intelligence was
imparted to Michael, after he had been gently waked by the tender
precaution of his sister Eulogia. The man was unknown or obscure; he
produced no letters from the victorious Caesar; nor could it easily
be credited, after the defeat of Vataces and the recent failure of
Palaeologus himself, that the capital had been surprised by a detachment
of eight hundred soldiers. As a hostage, the doubtful author was
confined, with the assurance of death or an ample recompense; and the
court was left some hours in the anxiety of hope and fear, till the
messengers of Alexius arrived with the authentic intelligence, and
displayed the trophies of the conquest, the sword and sceptre, [19] the
buskins and bonnet, [20] of the usurper Baldwin, which he had dropped in
his precipitate flight. A general assembly of the bishops, senators,
and nobles, was immediately convened, and never perhaps was an event
received with more heartfelt and universal joy. In a studied oration,
the new sovereign of Constantinople congratulated his own and the public
fortune. "There was a time," said he, "a far distant time, when the
Roman empire extended to the Adriatic, the Tigris, and the confines of
AEthiopia. After the loss of the provinces, our capital itself, in
these last and calamitous days, has been wrested from our hands by the
Barbarians of the West. From the lowest ebb, the tide of prosperity has
again returned in our favor; but our prosperity was that of fugitives
and exiles: and when we were asked, which was the country of the Romans,
we indicated with a blush the climate of the globe, and the quarter of
the heavens. The divine Providence has now restored to our arms the
city of Constantine, the sacred seat of religion and empire; and it will
depend on our valor and conduct to render this important acquisition the
pledge and omen of future victories." So eager was the impatience of
the prince and people, that Michael made his triumphal entry into
Constantinople only twenty days after the expulsion of the Latins.
The golden gate was thrown open at his approach; the devout conqueror
dismounted from his horse; and a miraculous image of Mary the
Conductress was borne before him, that the divine Virgin in person might
appear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the cathedral of St.
Sophia. But after the first transport of devotion and pride, he sighed
at the dreary prospect of solitude and ruin. The palace was defiled with
smoke and dirt, and the gross intemperance of the Franks; whole streets
had been consumed by fire, or were decayed by the injuries of time; the
sacred and profane edifices were stripped of their ornaments: and, as
if they were conscious of their approaching exile, the industry of the
Latins had been confined to the work of pillage and destruction. Trade
had expired under the pressure of anarchy and distress, and the numbers
of inhabitants had decreased with the opulence of the city. It was the
first care of the Greek monarch to reinstate the nobles in the palaces
of their fathers; and the houses or the ground which they occupied
were restored to the families that could exhibit a legal right of
inheritance. But the far greater part was extinct or lost; the vacant
property had devolved to the lord; he repeopled Constantinople by a
liberal invitation to the provinces; and the brave _volunteers_ were
seated in the capital which had been recovered by their arms. The French
barons and the principal families had retired with their emperor; but
the patient and humble crowd of Latins was attached to the country, and
indifferent to the change of masters. Instead of banishing the factories
of the Pisans, Venetians, and Genoese, the prudent conqueror accepted
their oaths of allegiance, encouraged their industry, confirmed their
privileges, and allowed them to live under the jurisdiction of their
proper magistrates. Of these nations, the Pisans and Venetians preserved
their respective quarters in the city; but the services and power of the
Genoese deserved at the same time the gratitude and the jealousy of the
Greeks. Their independent colony was first planted at the seaport town
of Heraclea in Thrace. They were speedily recalled, and settled in the
exclusive possession of the suburb of Galata, an advantageous post,
in which they revived the commerce, and insulted the majesty, of the
Byzantine empire. [21]

[Footnote 18: The site of Nymphaeum is not clearly defined in ancient or
modern geography. But from the last hours of Vataces, (Acropolita, c.
52,) it is evident the palace and gardens of his favorite residence
were in the neighborhood of Smyrna. Nymphaeum might be loosely placed in
Lydia, (Gregoras, l. vi. 6.)]

[Footnote 19: This sceptre, the emblem of justice and power, was a long
staff, such as was used by the heroes in Homer. By the latter Greeks
it was named _Dicanice_, and the Imperial sceptre was distinguished as
usual by the red or purple color.]

[Footnote 20: Acropolita affirms (c. 87,) that this "Onnet" was after the
French fashion; but from the ruby at the point or summit, Ducange (Hist.
de C. P. l. v. c. 28, 29) believes that it was the high-crowned hat of
the Greeks. Could Acropolita mistake the dress of his own court?]

[Footnote 21: See Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 28--33,) Acropolita, (c. 88,)
Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. iv. 7,) and for the treatment of the subject
Latins, Ducange, (l. v. c. 30, 31.)]

The recovery of Constantinople was celebrated as the aera of a new
empire: the conqueror, alone, and by the right of the sword, renewed his
coronation in the church of St. Sophia; and the name and honors of John
Lascaris, his pupil and lawful sovereign, were insensibly abolished. But
his claims still lived in the minds of the people; and the royal youth
must speedily attain the years of manhood and ambition. By fear or
conscience, Palaeologus was restrained from dipping his hands in innocent
and royal blood; but the anxiety of a usurper and a parent urged him to
secure his throne by one of those imperfect crimes so familiar to the
modern Greeks. The loss of sight incapacitated the young prince for the
active business of the world; instead of the brutal violence of tearing
out his eyes, the visual nerve was destroyed by the intense glare of a
red-hot basin, [22] and John Lascaris was removed to a distant castle,
where he spent many years in privacy and oblivion. Such cool and
deliberate guilt may seem incompatible with remorse; but if Michael
could trust the mercy of Heaven, he was not inaccessible to the
reproaches and vengeance of mankind, which he had provoked by cruelty
and treason. His cruelty imposed on a servile court the duties of
applause or silence; but the clergy had a right to speak in the name of
their invisible Master; and their holy legions were led by a prelate,
whose character was above the temptations of hope or fear. After a short
abdication of his dignity, Arsenius [23] had consented to ascend
the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople, and to preside in the
restoration of the church. His pious simplicity was long deceived by
the arts of Palaeologus; and his patience and submission might soothe the
usurper, and protect the safety of the young prince. On the news of his
inhuman treatment, the patriarch unsheathed the spiritual sword; and
superstition, on this occasion, was enlisted in the cause of humanity
and justice. In a synod of bishops, who were stimulated by the example
of his zeal, the patriarch pronounced a sentence of excommunication;
though his prudence still repeated the name of Michael in the public
prayers. The Eastern prelates had not adopted the dangerous maxims
of ancient Rome; nor did they presume to enforce their censures, by
deposing princes, or absolving nations from their oaths of allegiance.
But the Christian, who had been separated from God and the church,
became an object of horror; and, in a turbulent and fanatic capital,
that horror might arm the hand of an assassin, or inflame a sedition
of the people. Palaeologus felt his danger, confessed his guilt, and
deprecated his judge: the act was irretrievable; the prize was obtained;
and the most rigorous penance, which he solicited, would have raised the
sinner to the reputation of a saint. The unrelenting patriarch
refused to announce any means of atonement or any hopes of mercy; and
condescended only to pronounce, that for so great a crime, great indeed
must be the satisfaction. "Do you require," said Michael, "that I should
abdicate the empire?" and at these words, he offered, or seemed to
offer, the sword of state. Arsenius eagerly grasped this pledge of
sovereignty; but when he perceived that the emperor was unwilling to
purchase absolution at so dear a rate, he indignantly escaped to his
cell, and left the royal sinner kneeling and weeping before the door.
[24]

[Footnote 22: This milder invention for extinguishing the sight was
tried by the philosopher Democritus on himself, when he sought to
withdraw his mind from the visible world: a foolish story! The word
_abacinare_, in Latin and Italian, has furnished Ducange (Gloss. Lat.)
with an opportunity to review the various modes of blinding: the more
violent were scooping, burning with an iron, or hot vinegar, and binding
the head with a strong cord till the eyes burst from their sockets.
Ingenious tyrants!]

[Footnote 23: See the first retreat and restoration of Arsenius, in
Pachymer (l. ii. c. 15, l. iii. c. 1, 2) and Nicephorus Gregoras,
(l. iii. c. 1, l. iv. c. 1.) Posterity justly accused the ajeleia and
raqumia of Arsenius the virtues of a hermit, the vices of a minister,
(l. xii. c. 2.)]

[Footnote 24: The crime and excommunication of Michael are fairly told
by Pachymer (l. iii. c. 10, 14, 19, &c.) and Gregoras, (l. iv. c. 4.)
His confession and penance restored their freedom.]




Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Part II.

The danger and scandal of this excommunication subsisted above three
years, till the popular clamor was assuaged by time and repentance; till
the brethren of Arsenius condemned his inflexible spirit, so repugnant
to the unbounded forgiveness of the gospel. The emperor had artfully
insinuated, that, if he were still rejected at home, he might seek, in
the Roman pontiff, a more indulgent judge; but it was far more easy and
effectual to find or to place that judge at the head of the Byzantine
church. Arsenius was involved in a vague rumor of conspiracy and
disaffection; [248] some irregular steps in his ordination and government
were liable to censure; a synod deposed him from the episcopal office;
and he was transported under a guard of soldiers to a small island of
the Propontis. Before his exile, he sullenly requested that a strict
account might be taken of the treasures of the church; boasted, that his
sole riches, three pieces of gold, had been earned by transcribing the
psalms; continued to assert the freedom of his mind; and denied, with
his last breath, the pardon which was implored by the royal sinner. [25]
After some delay, Gregory, [259 bishop of Adrianople, was translated
to the Byzantine throne; but his authority was found insufficient to
support the absolution of the emperor; and Joseph, a reverend monk,
was substituted to that important function. This edifying scene was
represented in the presence of the senate and the people; at the end
of six years the humble penitent was restored to the communion of the
faithful; and humanity will rejoice, that a milder treatment of the
captive Lascaris was stipulated as a proof of his remorse. But the
spirit of Arsenius still survived in a powerful faction of the monks and
clergy, who persevered about forty-eight years in an obstinate schism.
Their scruples were treated with tenderness and respect by Michael and
his son; and the reconciliation of the Arsenites was the serious labor
of the church and state. In the confidence of fanaticism, they had
proposed to try their cause by a miracle; and when the two papers,
that contained their own and the adverse cause, were cast into a fiery
brazier, they expected that the Catholic verity would be respected by
the flames. Alas! the two papers were indiscriminately consumed, and
this unforeseen accident produced the union of a day, and renewed the
quarrel of an age. [26] The final treaty displayed the victory of
the Arsenites: the clergy abstained during forty days from all
ecclesiastical functions; a slight penance was imposed on the laity; the
body of Arsenius was deposited in the sanctuary; and, in the name of
the departed saint, the prince and people were released from the sins of
their fathers. [27]

[Footnote 248: Except the omission of a prayer for the emperor, the
charges against Arsenius were of different nature: he was accused of
having allowed the sultan of Iconium to bathe in vessels signed with the
cross, and to have admitted him to the church, though unbaptized, during
the service. It was pleaded, in favor of Arsenius, among other proofs of
the sultan's Christianity, that he had offered to eat ham. Pachymer,
l. iv. c. 4, p. 265. It was after his exile that he was involved in a
charge of conspiracy.--M.]

[Footnote 25: Pachymer relates the exile of Arsenius, (l. iv. c. 1--16:)
he was one of the commissaries who visited him in the desert island.
The last testament of the unforgiving patriarch is still extant, (Dupin,
Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. x. p. 95.)]

[Footnote 259: Pachymer calls him Germanus.--M.]

[Footnote 26: Pachymer (l. vii. c. 22) relates this miraculous trial
like a philosopher, and treats with similar contempt a plot of the
Arsenites, to hide a revelation in the coffin of some old saint, (l.
vii. c. 13.) He compensates this incredulity by an image that weeps,
another that bleeds, (l. vii. c. 30,) and the miraculous cures of a deaf
and a mute patient, (l. xi. c. 32.)]

[Footnote 27: The story of the Arsenites is spread through the thirteen
books of Pachymer. Their union and triumph are reserved for Nicephorus
Gregoras, (l. vii. c. 9,) who neither loves nor esteems these
sectaries.]

The establishment of his family was the motive, or at least the
pretence, of the crime of Palaeologus; and he was impatient to confirm
the succession, by sharing with his eldest son the honors of the purple.
Andronicus, afterwards surnamed the Elder, was proclaimed and crowned
emperor of the Romans, in the fifteenth year of his age; and, from the
first aera of a prolix and inglorious reign, he held that august title
nine years as the colleague, and fifty as the successor, of his father.
Michael himself, had he died in a private station, would have been
thought more worthy of the empire; and the assaults of his temporal and
spiritual enemies left him few moments to labor for his own fame or the
happiness of his subjects. He wrested from the Franks several of the
noblest islands of the Archipelago, Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes: his
brother Constantine was sent to command in Malvasia and Sparta; and the
eastern side of the Morea, from Argos and Napoli to Cape Thinners, was
repossessed by the Greeks. This effusion of Christian blood was
loudly condemned by the patriarch; and the insolent priest presumed to
interpose his fears and scruples between the arms of princes. But in
the prosecution of these western conquests, the countries beyond the
Hellespont were left naked to the Turks; and their depredations verified
the prophecy of a dying senator, that the recovery of Constantinople
would be the ruin of Asia. The victories of Michael were achieved by his
lieutenants; his sword rusted in the palace; and, in the transactions
of the emperor with the popes and the king of Naples, his political acts
were stained with cruelty and fraud. [28]

[Footnote 28: Of the xiii books of Pachymer, the first six (as the ivth
and vth of Nicephorus Gregoras) contain the reign of Michael, at the
time of whose death he was forty years of age. Instead of breaking,
like his editor the Pere Poussin, his history into two parts, I follow
Ducange and Cousin, who number the xiii. books in one series.]

I. The Vatican was the most natural refuge of a Latin emperor, who had
been driven from his throne; and Pope Urban the Fourth appeared to pity
the misfortunes, and vindicate the cause, of the fugitive Baldwin. A
crusade, with plenary indulgence, was preached by his command against
the schismatic Greeks: he excommunicated their allies and adherents;
solicited Louis the Ninth in favor of his kinsman; and demanded a tenth
of the ecclesiastical revenues of France and England for the service of
the holy war. [29] The subtle Greek, who watched the rising tempest of
the West, attempted to suspend or soothe the hostility of the pope, by
suppliant embassies and respectful letters; but he insinuated that the
establishment of peace must prepare the reconciliation and obedience of
the Eastern church. The Roman court could not be deceived by so gross
an artifice; and Michael was admonished, that the repentance of the
son should precede the forgiveness of the father; and that _faith_ (an
ambiguous word) was the only basis of friendship and alliance. After a
long and affected delay, the approach of danger, and the importunity of
Gregory the Tenth, compelled him to enter on a more serious negotiation:
he alleged the example of the great Vataces; and the Greek clergy, who
understood the intentions of their prince, were not alarmed by the first
steps of reconciliation and respect. But when he pressed the conclusion
of the treaty, they strenuously declared, that the Latins, though not in
name, were heretics in fact, and that they despised those strangers as
the vilest and most despicable portion of the human race. [30] It was
the task of the emperor to persuade, to corrupt, to intimidate the
most popular ecclesiastics, to gain the vote of each individual, and
alternately to urge the arguments of Christian charity and the public
welfare. The texts of the fathers and the arms of the Franks were
balanced in the theological and political scale; and without approving
the addition to the Nicene creed, the most moderate were taught to
confess, that the two hostile propositions of proceeding from the Father
by the Son, and of proceeding from the Father and the Son, might be
reduced to a safe and Catholic sense. [31] The supremacy of the pope was
a doctrine more easy to conceive, but more painful to acknowledge: yet
Michael represented to his monks and prelates, that they might submit
to name the Roman bishop as the first of the patriarchs; and that their
distance and discretion would guard the liberties of the Eastern church
from the mischievous consequences of the right of appeal. He protested
that he would sacrifice his life and empire rather than yield the
smallest point of orthodox faith or national independence; and this
declaration was sealed and ratified by a golden bull. The patriarch
Joseph withdrew to a monastery, to resign or resume his throne,
according to the event of the treaty: the letters of union and obedience
were subscribed by the emperor, his son Andronicus, and thirty-five
archbishops and metropolitans, with their respective synods; and the
episcopal list was multiplied by many dioceses which were annihilated
under the yoke of the infidels. An embassy was composed of some trusty
ministers and prelates: they embarked for Italy, with rich ornaments
and rare perfumes for the altar of St. Peter; and their secret orders
authorized and recommended a boundless compliance. They were received in
the general council of Lyons, by Pope Gregory the Tenth, at the head
of five hundred bishops. [32] He embraced with tears his long-lost and
repentant children; accepted the oath of the ambassadors, who abjured
the schism in the name of the two emperors; adorned the prelates with
the ring and mitre; chanted in Greek and Latin the Nicene creed with the
addition of _filioque_; and rejoiced in the union of the East and West,
which had been reserved for his reign. To consummate this pious work,
the Byzantine deputies were speedily followed by the pope's nuncios; and
their instruction discloses the policy of the Vatican, which could not
be satisfied with the vain title of supremacy. After viewing the temper
of the prince and people, they were enjoined to absolve the schismatic
clergy, who should subscribe and swear their abjuration and obedience;
to establish in all the churches the use of the perfect creed; to
prepare the entrance of a cardinal legate, with the full powers and
dignity of his office; and to instruct the emperor in the advantages
which he might derive from the temporal protection of the Roman pontiff.
[33]

[Footnote 29: Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 33, &c., from the
Epistles of Urban IV.]

[Footnote 30: From their mercantile intercourse with the Venetians and
Genoese, they branded the Latins as kaphloi and banausoi, (Pachymer,
l. v. c. 10.) "Some are heretics in name; others, like the Latins,
in fact," said the learned Veccus, (l. v. c. 12,) who soon afterwards
became a convert (c. 15, 16) and a patriarch, (c. 24.)]

[Footnote 31: In this class we may place Pachymer himself, whose copious
and candid narrative occupies the vth and vith books of his history. Yet
the Greek is silent on the council of Lyons, and seems to believe that
the popes always resided in Rome and Italy, (l. v. c. 17, 21.)]

[Footnote 32: See the acts of the council of Lyons in the year 1274.
Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. xviii. p. 181--199. Dupin, Bibliot.
Eccles. tom. x. p. 135.]

[Footnote 33: This curious instruction, which has been drawn with more
or less honesty by Wading and Leo Allatius from the archives of the
Vatican, is given in an abstract or version by Fleury, (tom. xviii. p.
252--258.)]

But they found a country without a friend, a nation in which the names
of Rome and Union were pronounced with abhorrence. The patriarch Joseph
was indeed removed: his place was filled by Veccus, an ecclesiastic of
learning and moderation; and the emperor was still urged by the same
motives, to persevere in the same professions. But in his private
language Palaeologus affected to deplore the pride, and to blame the
innovations, of the Latins; and while he debased his character by
this double hypocrisy, he justified and punished the opposition of
his subjects. By the joint suffrage of the new and the ancient Rome,
a sentence of excommunication was pronounced against the obstinate
schismatics; the censures of the church were executed by the sword of
Michael; on the failure of persuasion, he tried the arguments of prison
and exile, of whipping and mutilation; those touchstones, says an
historian, of cowards and the brave. Two Greeks still reigned in AEtolia,
Epirus, and Thessaly, with the appellation of despots: they had yielded
to the sovereign of Constantinople, but they rejected the chains of the
Roman pontiff, and supported their refusal by successful arms. Under
their protection, the fugitive monks and bishops assembled in hostile
synods; and retorted the name of heretic with the galling addition of
apostate: the prince of Trebizond was tempted to assume the forfeit
title of emperor; [339] and even the Latins of Negropont, Thebes, Athens,
and the Morea, forgot the merits of the convert, to join, with open or
clandestine aid, the enemies of Palaeologus. His favorite generals,
of his own blood, and family, successively deserted, or betrayed, the
sacrilegious trust. His sister Eulogia, a niece, and two female cousins,
conspired against him; another niece, Mary queen of Bulgaria, negotiated
his ruin with the sultan of Egypt; and, in the public eye, their treason
was consecrated as the most sublime virtue. [34] To the pope's nuncios,
who urged the consummation of the work, Palaeologus exposed a naked
recital of all that he had done and suffered for their sake. They were
assured that the guilty sectaries, of both sexes and every rank, had
been deprived of their honors, their fortunes, and their liberty; a
spreading list of confiscation and punishment, which involved many
persons, the dearest to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favor.
They were conducted to the prison, to behold four princes of the royal
blood chained in the four corners, and shaking their fetters in an agony
of grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards released; the
one by submission, the other by death: but the obstinacy of their two
companions was chastised by the loss of their eyes; and the Greeks,
the least adverse to the union, deplored that cruel and inauspicious
tragedy. [35] Persecutors must expect the hatred of those whom they
oppress; but they commonly find some consolation in the testimony of
their conscience, the applause of their party, and, perhaps, the success
of their undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was prompted
only by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself, to
despise his followers, and to esteem and envy the rebel champions by
whom he was detested and despised. While his violence was abhorred at
Constantinople, at Rome his slowness was arraigned, and his sincerity
suspected; till at length Pope Martin the Fourth excluded the Greek
emperor from the pale of a church, into which he was striving to reduce
a schismatic people. No sooner had the tyrant expired, than the union
was dissolved, and abjured by unanimous consent; the churches were
purified; the penitents were reconciled; and his son Andronicus, after
weeping the sins and errors of his youth most piously denied his father
the burial of a prince and a Christian. [36]

[Footnote 339: According to Fallmarayer he had always maintained this
title.--M.]

[Footnote 34: This frank and authentic confession of Michael's
distress is exhibited in barbarous Latin by Ogerius, who signs himself
Protonotarius Interpretum, and transcribed by Wading from the MSS. of
the Vatican, (A.D. 1278, No. 3.) His annals of the Franciscan order,
the Fratres Minores, in xvii. volumes in folio, (Rome, 1741,) I have now
accidentally seen among the waste paper of a bookseller.]

[Footnote 35: See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the chapters
1, 11, 16, 18, 24--27. He is the more credible, as he speaks of this
persecution with less anger than sorrow.]

[Footnote 36: Pachymer, l. vii. c. 1--ii. 17. The speech of Andronicus
the Elder (lib. xii. c. 2) is a curious record, which proves that if
the Greeks were the slaves of the emperor, the emperor was not less the
slave of superstition and the clergy.]

II. In the distress of the Latins, the walls and towers of
Constantinople had fallen to decay: they were restored and fortified by
the policy of Michael, who deposited a plenteous store of corn and salt
provisions, to sustain the siege which he might hourly expect from the
resentment of the Western powers. Of these, the sovereign of the Two
Sicilies was the most formidable neighbor: but as long as they were
possessed by Mainfroy, the bastard of Frederic the Second, his monarchy
was the bulwark, rather than the annoyance, of the Eastern empire. The
usurper, though a brave and active prince, was sufficiently employed
in the defence of his throne: his proscription by successive popes had
separated Mainfroy from the common cause of the Latins; and the forces
that might have besieged Constantinople were detained in a crusade
against the domestic enemy of Rome. The prize of her avenger, the crown
of the Two Sicilies, was won and worn by the brother of St Louis, by
Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who led the chivalry of France on
this holy expedition. [37] The disaffection of his Christian subjects
compelled Mainfroy to enlist a colony of Saracens whom his father had
planted in Apulia; and this odious succor will explain the defiance of
the Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. "Bear this
message," said Charles, "to the sultan of Nocera, that God and the sword
are umpire between us; and that he shall either send me to paradise,
or I will send him to the pit of hell." The armies met: and though I
am ignorant of Mainfroy's doom in the other world, in this he lost his
friends, his kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento.
Naples and Sicily were immediately peopled with a warlike race of
French nobles; and their aspiring leader embraced the future conquest of
Africa, Greece, and Palestine. The most specious reasons might point his
first arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palaeologus, diffident of
his own strength, repeatedly appealed from the ambition of Charles to
the humanity of St. Louis, who still preserved a just ascendant over the
mind of his ferocious brother. For a while the attention of that brother
was confined at home by the invasion of Conradin, the last heir to
the imperial house of Swabia; but the hapless boy sunk in the unequal
conflict; and his execution on a public scaffold taught the rivals of
Charles to tremble for their heads as well as their dominions. A second
respite was obtained by the last crusade of St. Louis to the African
coast; and the double motive of interest and duty urged the king of
Naples to assist, with his powers and his presence, the holy enterprise.
The death of St. Louis released him from the importunity of a virtuous
censor: the king of Tunis confessed himself the tributary and vassal of
the crown of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were free
to enlist under his banner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a
marriage united his interest with the house of Courtenay; his daughter
Beatrice was promised to Philip, son and heir of the emperor Baldwin; a
pension of six hundred ounces of gold was allowed for his maintenance;
and his generous father distributed among his aliens the kingdoms and
provinces of the East, reserving only Constantinople, and one day's
journey round the city for the imperial domain. [38] In this perilous
moment, Palaeologus was the most eager to subscribe the creed, and
implore the protection, of the Roman pontiff, who assumed, with
propriety and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common
father of the Christians. By his voice, the sword of Charles was chained
in the scabbard; and the Greek ambassadors beheld him, in the pope's
antechamber, biting his ivory sceptre in a transport of fury, and deeply
resenting the refusal to enfranchise and consecrate his arms. He appears
to have respected the disinterested mediation of Gregory the Tenth; but
Charles was insensibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas
the Third; and his attachment to his kindred, the Ursini family,
alienated the most strenuous champion from the service of the church.
The hostile league against the Greeks, of Philip the Latin emperor, the
king of the Two Sicilies, and the republic of Venice, was ripened into
execution; and the election of Martin the Fourth, a French pope, gave a
sanction to the cause. Of the allies, Philip supplied his name; Martin,
a bull of excommunication; the Venetians, a squadron of forty galleys;
and the formidable powers of Charles consisted of forty counts, ten
thousand men at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of more
than three hundred ships and transports. A distant day was appointed for
assembling this mighty force in the harbor of Brindisi; and a previous
attempt was risked with a detachment of three hundred knights, who
invaded Albania, and besieged the fortress of Belgrade. Their defeat
might amuse with a triumph the vanity of Constantinople; but the more
sagacious Michael, despairing of his arms, depended on the effects of
a conspiracy; on the secret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bowstring
[39] of the Sicilian tyrant.

[Footnote 37: The best accounts, the nearest the time, the most full
and entertaining, of the conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou, may
be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano Malespina, (c.
175--193,) and Giovanni Villani, (l. vii. c. 1--10, 25--30,) which are
published by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith volumes of the Historians
of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p. 56--72) he has abridged these great
events which are likewise described in the Istoria Civile of Giannone.
tom. l. xix. tom. iii. l. xx.]

[Footnote 38: Ducange, Hist. de C. P. l. v. c. 49--56, l. vi. c. 1--13.
See Pachymer, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 7--10, 25 l. vi. c. 30, 32, 33, and
Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. 5, l. v. 1, 6.]

[Footnote 39: The reader of Herodotus will recollect how miraculously
the Assyrian host of Sennacherib was disarmed and destroyed, (l. ii. c.
141.)]

Among the proscribed adherents of the house of Swabia, John of Procida
forfeited a small island of that name in the Bay of Naples. His birth
was noble, but his education was learned; and in the poverty of exile,
he was relieved by the practice of physic, which he had studied in the
school of Salerno. Fortune had left him nothing to lose, except life;
and to despise life is the first qualification of a rebel. Procida was
endowed with the art of negotiation, to enforce his reasons and disguise
his motives; and in his various transactions with nations and men, he
could persuade each party that he labored solely for _their_ interest.
The new kingdoms of Charles were afflicted by every species of fiscal
and military oppression; [40] and the lives and fortunes of his Italian
subjects were sacrificed to the greatness of their master and the
licentiousness of his followers. The hatred of Naples was repressed by
his presence; but the looser government of his vicegerents excited the
contempt, as well as the aversion, of the Sicilians: the island was
roused to a sense of freedom by the eloquence of Procida; and he
displayed to every baron his private interest in the common cause. In
the confidence of foreign aid, he successively visited the courts of
the Greek emperor, and of Peter king of Arragon, [41] who possessed the
maritime countries of Valentia and Catalonia. To the ambitious Peter a
crown was presented, which he might justly claim by his marriage with
the sister [419] of Mainfroy, and by the dying voice of Conradin, who from
the scaffold had cast a ring to his heir and avenger. Palaeologus was
easily persuaded to divert his enemy from a foreign war by a rebellion
at home; and a Greek subsidy of twenty-five thousand ounces of gold was
most profitably applied to arm a Catalan fleet, which sailed under a
holy banner to the specious attack of the Saracens of Africa. In the
disguise of a monk or beggar, the indefatigable missionary of revolt
flew from Constantinople to Rome, and from Sicily to Saragossa: the
treaty was sealed with the signet of Pope Nicholas himself, the enemy
of Charles; and his deed of gift transferred the fiefs of St. Peter from
the house of Anjou to that of Arragon. So widely diffused and so freely
circulated, the secret was preserved above two years with impenetrable
discretion; and each of the conspirators imbibed the maxim of Peter, who
declared that he would cut off his left hand if it were conscious of the
intentions of his right. The mine was prepared with deep and dangerous
artifice; but it may be questioned, whether the instant explosion of
Palermo were the effect of accident or design.

[Footnote 40: According to Sabas Malaspina, (Hist. Sicula, l. iii. c.
16, in Muratori, tom. viii. p. 832,) a zealous Guelph, the subjects of
Charles, who had reviled Mainfroy as a wolf, began to regret him as a
lamb; and he justifies their discontent by the oppressions of the French
government, (l. vi. c. 2, 7.) See the Sicilian manifesto in Nicholas
Specialis, (l. i. c. 11, in Muratori, tom. x. p. 930.)]

[Footnote 41: See the character and counsels of Peter, king of Arragon,
in Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. xiv. c. 6, tom. ii. p. 133.) The reader
for gives the Jesuit's defects, in favor, always of his style, and often
of his sense.]

[Footnote 419: Daughter. See Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 517.--M.]

On the vigil of Easter, a procession of the disarmed citizens visited
a church without the walls; and a noble damsel was rudely insulted by a
French soldier. [42] The ravisher was instantly punished with death; and
if the people was at first scattered by a military force, their numbers
and fury prevailed: the conspirators seized the opportunity; the flame
spread over the island; and eight thousand French were exterminated in
a promiscuous massacre, which has obtained the name of the Sicilian
Vespers. [43] From every city the banners of freedom and the church
were displayed: the revolt was inspired by the presence or the soul
of Procida and Peter of Arragon, who sailed from the African coast
to Palermo, was saluted as the king and savior of the isle. By the
rebellion of a people on whom he had so long trampled with impunity,
Charles was astonished and confounded; and in the first agony of grief
and devotion, he was heard to exclaim, "O God! if thou hast decreed
to humble me, grant me at least a gentle and gradual descent from the
pinnacle of greatness!" His fleet and army, which already filled the
seaports of Italy, were hastily recalled from the service of the Grecian
war; and the situation of Messina exposed that town to the first storm
of his revenge. Feeble in themselves, and yet hopeless of foreign
succor, the citizens would have repented, and submitted on the assurance
of full pardon and their ancient privileges. But the pride of the
monarch was already rekindled; and the most fervent entreaties of the
legate could extort no more than a promise, that he would forgive the
remainder, after a chosen list of eight hundred rebels had been yielded
to his discretion. The despair of the Messinese renewed their courage:
Peter of Arragon approached to their relief; [44] and his rival was
driven back by the failure of provision and the terrors of the equinox
to the Calabrian shore. At the same moment, the Catalan admiral, the
famous Roger de Loria, swept the channel with an invincible squadron:
the French fleet, more numerous in transports than in galleys, was
either burnt or destroyed; and the same blow assured the independence of
Sicily and the safety of the Greek empire. A few days before his death,
the emperor Michael rejoiced in the fall of an enemy whom he hated and
esteemed; and perhaps he might be content with the popular judgment,
that had they not been matched with each other, Constantinople and Italy
must speedily have obeyed the same master. [45] From this disastrous
moment, the life of Charles was a series of misfortunes: his capital was
insulted, his son was made prisoner, and he sunk into the grave without
recovering the Isle of Sicily, which, after a war of twenty years,
was finally severed from the throne of Naples, and transferred, as an
independent kingdom, to a younger branch of the house of Arragon. [46]

[Footnote 42: After enumerating the sufferings of his country, Nicholas
Specialis adds, in the true spirit of Italian jealousy, Quae omnia et
graviora quidem, ut arbitror, patienti animo Siculi tolerassent,
nisi (quod primum cunctis dominantibus cavendum est) alienas fminas
invasissent, (l. i. c. 2, p. 924.)]

[Footnote 43: The French were long taught to remember this bloody
lesson: "If I am provoked, (said Henry the Fourth,) I will breakfast
at Milan, and dine at Naples." "Your majesty (replied the Spanish
ambassador) may perhaps arrive in Sicily for vespers."]

[Footnote 44: This revolt, with the subsequent victory, are related by
two national writers, Bartholemy a Neocastro (in Muratori, tom. xiii.,)
and Nicholas Specialis (in Muratori, tom. x.,) the one a contemporary,
the other of the next century. The patriot Specialis disclaims the name
of rebellion, and all previous correspondence with Peter of Arragon,
(nullo communicato consilio,) who _happened_ to be with a fleet and army
on the African coast, (l. i. c. 4, 9.)]

[Footnote 45: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. v. c. 6) admires the wisdom of
Providence in this equal balance of states and princes. For the honor
of Palaeologus, I had rather this balance had been observed by an Italian
writer.]

[Footnote 46: See the Chronicle of Villani, the xith volume of the
Annali d'Italia of Muratori, and the xxth and xxist books of the Istoria
Civile of Giannone.]




Chapter LXII: Greek Emperors Of Nice And Constantinople.--Part III.

I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must remark
that, even in this world, the natural order of events will sometimes
afford the strong appearances of moral retribution. The first Palaeologus
had saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion
and blood; and from these scenes of discord uprose a generation of iron
men, who assaulted and endangered the empire of his son. In modern times
our debts and taxes are the secret poison which still corrodes the bosom
of peace: but in the weak and disorderly government of the middle ages,
it was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded armies. Too idle
to work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were accustomed to a life of
rapine: they could rob with more dignity and effect under a banner and
a chief; and the sovereign, to whom their service was useless, and
their presence importunate, endeavored to discharge the torrent on some
neighboring countries. After the peace of Sicily, many thousands of
Genoese, _Catalans_, [47] &c., who had fought, by sea and land, under
the standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into one nation by the
resemblance of their manners and interest. They heard that the Greek
provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks: they resolved to share the
harvest of pay and plunder: and Frederic king of Sicily most liberally
contributed the means of their departure. In a warfare of twenty years,
a ship, or a camp, was become their country; arms were their sole
profession and property; valor was the only virtue which they knew;
their women had imbibed the fearless temper of their lovers and
husbands: it was reported, that, with a stroke of their broadsword, the
Catalans could cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itself
was a powerful weapon. Roger de Flor [477] was the most popular of their
chiefs; and his personal merit overshadowed the dignity of his prouder
rivals of Arragon. The offspring of a marriage between a German
gentleman of the court of Frederic the Second and a damsel of Brindisi,
Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a pirate, and at length
the richest and most powerful admiral of the Mediterranean. He sailed
from Messina to Constantinople, with eighteen galleys, four great
ships, and eight thousand adventurers; [478] and his previous treaty was
faithfully accomplished by Andronicus the elder, who accepted with
joy and terror this formidable succor. A palace was allotted for his
reception, and a niece of the emperor was given in marriage to the
valiant stranger, who was immediately created great duke or admiral
of Romania. After a decent repose, he transported his troops over the
Propontis, and boldly led them against the Turks: in two bloody battles
thirty thousand of the Moslems were slain: he raised the siege of
Philadelphia, and deserved the name of the deliverer of Asia. But after
a short season of prosperity, the cloud of slavery and ruin again
burst on that unhappy province. The inhabitants escaped (says a Greek
historian) from the smoke into the flames; and the hostility of the
Turks was less pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. [479] The
lives and fortunes which they had rescued they considered as their own:
the willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcision
for the embraces of a Christian soldier: the exaction of fines and
supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary executions;
and, on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke besieged a city
of the Roman empire. [48] These disorders he excused by the wrongs and
passions of a victorious army; nor would his own authority or person
have been safe, had he dared to punish his faithful followers, who
were defrauded of the just and covenanted price of their services. The
threats and complaints of Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the
empire. His golden bull had invited no more than five hundred horse and
a thousand foot soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to
the East, had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his
bravest allies were content with three byzants or pieces of gold, for
their monthly pay, an ounce, or even two ounces, of gold were assigned
to the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount to near a
hundred pounds sterling: one of their chiefs had modestly rated at three
hundred thousand crowns the value of his _future_ merits; and above a
million had been issued from the treasury for the maintenance of these
costly mercenaries. A cruel tax had been imposed on the corn of the
husbandman: one third was retrenched from the salaries of the public
officers; and the standard of the coin was so shamefully debased, that
of the four-and-twenty parts only five were of pure gold. [49] At the
summons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no longer
supplied the materials of rapine; [496] but he refused to disperse his
troops; and while his style was respectful, his conduct was independent
and hostile. He protested, that if the emperor should march against
him, he would advance forty paces to kiss the ground before him; but in
rising from this prostrate attitude Roger had a life and sword at the
service of his friends. The great duke of Romania condescended to accept
the title and ornaments of Caesar; but he rejected the new proposal of
the government of Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, [497] on condition
that he should reduce his troops to the harmless number of three
thousand men. Assassination is the last resource of cowards. The
Caesar was tempted to visit the royal residence of Adrianople; in the
apartment, and before the eyes, of the empress he was stabbed by the
Alani guards; and though the deed was imputed to their private revenge,
[498] his countrymen, who dwelt at Constantinople in the security of peace,
were involved in the same proscription by the prince or people. The loss
of their leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who hoisted
the sails of flight, and were soon scattered round the coasts of the
Mediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans,
or French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on the
Hellespont, displayed the banners of Arragon, and offered to revenge and
justify their chief, by an equal combat of ten or a hundred warriors.
Instead of accepting this bold defiance, the emperor Michael, the son
and colleague of Andronicus, resolved to oppress them with the weight
of multitudes: every nerve was strained to form an army of thirteen
thousand horse and thirty thousand foot; and the Propontis was covered
with the ships of the Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea and
land, these mighty forces were encountered and overthrown by the despair
and discipline of the Catalans: the young emperor fled to the palace;
and an insufficient guard of light-horse was left for the protection
of the open country. Victory renewed the hopes and numbers of the
adventures: every nation was blended under the name and standard of the
_great company_; and three thousand Turkish proselytes deserted from the
Imperial service to join this military association. In the possession of
Gallipoli, [499] the Catalans intercepted the trade of Constantinople and
the Black Sea, while they spread their devastation on either side of
the Hellespont over the confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent their
approach, the greatest part of the Byzantine territory was laid waste
by the Greeks themselves: the peasants and their cattle retired into the
city; and myriads of sheep and oxen, for which neither place nor food
could be procured, were unprofitably slaughtered on the same day. Four
times the emperor Andronicus sued for peace, and four times he was
inflexibly repulsed, till the want of provisions, and the discord of the
chiefs, compelled the Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespont
and the neighborhood of the capital. After their separation from the
Turks, the remains of the great company pursued their march through
Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek a new establishment in the heart of
Greece. [50]

[Footnote 47: In this motley multitude, the Catalans and Spaniards,
the bravest of the soldiery, were styled by themselves and the Greeks
_Amogavares_. Moncada derives their origin from the Goths, and Pachymer
(l. xi. c. 22) from the Arabs; and in spite of national and religious
pride, I am afraid the latter is in the right.]

[Footnote 477: On Roger de Flor and his companions, see an historical
fragment, detailed and interesting, entitled "The Spaniards of the
Fourteenth Century," and inserted in "L'Espagne en 1808," a work
translated from the German, vol. ii. p. 167. This narrative enables us
to detect some slight errors which have crept into that of Gibbon.--G.]

[Footnote 478: The troops of Roger de Flor, according to his companions
Ramon de Montaner, were 1500 men at arms, 4000 Almogavares, and 1040
other foot, besides the sailors and mariners, vol. ii. p. 137.--M.]

[Footnote 479: Ramon de Montaner suppresses the cruelties and oppressions
of the Catalans, in which, perhaps, he shared.--M.]

[Footnote 48: Some idea may be formed of the population of these cities,
from the 36,000 inhabitants of Tralles, which, in the preceding reign,
was rebuilt by the emperor, and ruined by the Turks. (Pachymer, l. vi.
c. 20, 21.)]

[Footnote 49: I have collected these pecuniary circumstances from
Pachymer, (l. xi. c. 21, l. xii. c. 4, 5, 8, 14, 19,) who describes the
progressive degradation of the gold coin. Even in the prosperous times
of John Ducas Vataces, the byzants were composed in equal proportions
of the pure and the baser metal. The poverty of Michael Palaeologus
compelled him to strike a new coin, with nine parts, or carats, of gold,
and fifteen of copper alloy. After his death, the standard rose to ten
carats, till in the public distress it was reduced to the moiety. The
prince was relieved for a moment, while credit and commerce were forever
blasted. In France, the gold coin is of twenty-two carats, (one twelfth
alloy,) and the standard of England and Holland is still higher.]

[Footnote 496]: Roger de Flor, according to Ramon de Montaner, was recalled
from Natolia, on account of the war which had arisen on the death of
Asan, king of Bulgaria. Andronicus claimed the kingdom for his nephew,
the sons of Asan by his sister. Roger de Flor turned the tide of success
in favor of the emperor of Constantinople and made peace.--M.]

[Footnote 497: Andronicus paid the Catalans in the debased money, much to
their indignation.--M.]

[Footnote 498: According to Ramon de Montaner, he was murdered by order of
Kyr (kurioV) Michael, son of the emperor. p. 170.--M.]

[Footnote 499: Ramon de Montaner describes his sojourn at Gallipoli: Nous
etions si riches, que nous ne semions, ni ne labourions, ni ne faisions
enver des vins ni ne cultivions les vignes: et cependant tous les ans
nous recucillions tour ce qu'il nous fallait, en vin, froment et avoine.
p. 193. This lasted for five merry years. Ramon de Montaner is high
authority, for he was "chancelier et maitre rational de l'armee,"
(commissary of _rations_.) He was left governor; all the scribes of the
army remained with him, and with their aid he kept the books in
which were registered the number of horse and foot employed on each
expedition. According to this book the plunder was shared, of which he
had a fifth for his trouble. p. 197.--M.]

[Footnote 50: The Catalan war is most copiously related by Pachymer, in
the xith, xiith, and xiiith books, till he breaks off in the year
1308. Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 3--6) is more concise and complete.
Ducange, who adopts these adventurers as French, has hunted their
footsteps with his usual diligence, (Hist. de C. P. l. vi. c. 22--46.)
He quotes an Arragonese history, which I have read with pleasure,
and which the Spaniards extol as a model of style and composition,
(Expedicion de los Catalanes y Arragoneses contra Turcos y Griegos:
Barcelona, 1623 in quarto: Madrid, 1777, in octavo.) Don Francisco de
Moncada Conde de Ossona, may imitate Caesar or Sallust; he may
transcribe the Greek or Italian contemporaries: but he never quotes his
authorities, and I cannot discern any national records of the exploits
of his countrymen. * Note: Ramon de Montaner, one of the Catalans, who
accompanied Roger de Flor, and who was governor of Gallipoli, has
written, in Spanish, the history of this band of adventurers, to which
he belonged, and from which he separated when it left the Thracian
Chersonese to penetrate into Macedonia and Greece.--G.----The
autobiography of Ramon de Montaner has been published in French by M.
Buchon, in the great collection of Memoires relatifs a l'Histoire de
France. I quote this edition.--M.]

After some ages of oblivion, Greece was awakened to new misfortunes by
the arms of the Latins. In the two hundred and fifty years between the
first and the last conquest of Constantinople, that venerable land
was disputed by a multitude of petty tyrants; without the comforts of
freedom and genius, her ancient cities were again plunged in foreign and
intestine war; and, if servitude be preferable to anarchy, they might
repose with joy under the Turkish yoke. I shall not pursue the obscure
and various dynasties, that rose and fell on the continent or in the
isles; but our silence on the fate of Athens [51] would argue a strange
ingratitude to the first and purest school of liberal science and
amusement. In the partition of the empire, the principality of Athens
and Thebes was assigned to Otho de la Roche, a noble warrior of
Burgundy, [52] with the title of great duke, [53] which the Latins
understood in their own sense, and the Greeks more foolishly derived
from the age of Constantine. [54] Otho followed the standard of the
marquis of Montferrat: the ample state which he acquired by a miracle
of conduct or fortune, [55] was peaceably inherited by his son and two
grandsons, till the family, though not the nation, was changed, by the
marriage of an heiress into the elder branch of the house of Brienne.
The son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of
Athens; and, with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he invested
with fiefs, reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or neighboring
lords. But when he was informed of the approach and ambition of the
great company, he collected a force of seven hundred knights, six
thousand four hundred horse, and eight thousand foot, and boldly met
them on the banks of the River Cephisus in Botia. The Catalans amounted
to no more than three thousand five hundred horse, and four thousand
foot; but the deficiency of numbers was compensated by stratagem and
order. They formed round their camp an artificial inundation; the duke
and his knights advanced without fear or precaution on the verdant
meadow; their horses plunged into the bog; and he was cut in pieces,
with the greatest part of the French cavalry. His family and nation were
expelled; and his son Walter de Brienne, the titular duke of Athens, the
tyrant of Florence, and the constable of France, lost his life in the
field of Poitiers Attica and Botia were the rewards of the victorious
Catalans; they married the widows and daughters of the slain; and during
fourteen years, the great company was the terror of the Grecian states.
Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the house of
Arragon; and during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens, as
a government or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings of
Sicily. After the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of
the Accaioli, a family, plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and
sovereign in Greece. Athens, which they embellished with new buildings,
became the capital of a state, that extended over Thebes, Argos,
Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly; and their reign was finally
determined by Mahomet the Second, who strangled the last duke, and
educated his sons in the discipline and religion of the seraglio.

[Footnote 51: See the laborious history of Ducange, whose accurate table
of the French dynasties recapitulates the thirty-five passages, in which
he mentions the dukes of Athens.]

[Footnote 52: He is twice mentioned by Villehardouin with honor, (No.
151, 235;) and under the first passage, Ducange observes all that can be
known of his person and family.]

[Footnote 53: From these Latin princes of the xivth century, Boccace,
Chaucer. and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus _duke_ of Athens.
An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the most
distant times.]

[Footnote 54: The same Constantine gave to Sicily a king, to Russia the
_magnus dapifer_ of the empire, to Thebes the _primicerius_; and these
absurd fables are properly lashed by Ducange, (ad Nicephor. Greg. l.
vii. c. 5.) By the Latins, the lord of Thebes was styled, by corruption,
the Megas Kurios, or Grand Sire!]

[Footnote 55: _Quodam miraculo_, says Alberic. He was probably received
by Michael Choniates, the archbishop who had defended Athens against the
tyrant Leo Sgurus, (Nicetas urbs capta, p. 805, ed. Bek.) Michael was
the brother of the historian Nicetas; and his encomium of Athens is
still extant in MS. in the Bodleian library, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec tom.
vi. p. 405.) * Note: Nicetas says expressly that Michael surrendered the Acropolis to
the marquis.--M.]

Athens, [56] though no more than the shadow of her former self, still
contains about eight or ten thousand inhabitants; of these, three
fourths are Greeks in religion and language; and the Turks, who compose
the remainder, have relaxed, in their intercourse with the citizens,
somewhat of the pride and gravity of their national character. The
olive-tree, the gift of Minerva, flourishes in Attica; nor has the honey
of Mount Hymettus lost any part of its exquisite flavor: [57] but the
languid trade is monopolized by strangers, and the agriculture of a
barren land is abandoned to the vagrant Walachians. The Athenians
are still distinguished by the subtlety and acuteness of their
understandings; but these qualities, unless ennobled by freedom, and
enlightened by study, will degenerate into a low and selfish cunning:
and it is a proverbial saying of the country, "From the Jews of
Thessalonica, the Turks of Negropont, and the Greeks of Athens, good
Lord deliver us!" This artful people has eluded the tyranny of the
Turkish bashaws, by an expedient which alleviates their servitude
and aggravates their shame. About the middle of the last century, the
Athenians chose for their protector the Kislar Aga, or chief black
eunuch of the seraglio. This AEthiopian slave, who possesses the sultan's
ear, condescends to accept the tribute of thirty thousand crowns: his
lieutenant, the Waywode, whom he annually confirms, may reserve for
his own about five or six thousand more; and such is the policy of
the citizens, that they seldom fail to remove and punish an oppressive
governor. Their private differences are decided by the archbishop,
one of the richest prelates of the Greek church, since he possesses a
revenue of one thousand pounds sterling; and by a tribunal of the eight
_geronti_ or elders, chosen in the eight quarters of the city: the noble
families cannot trace their pedigree above three hundred years; but
their principal members are distinguished by a grave demeanor, a fur
cap, and the lofty appellation of _archon_. By some, who delight in
the contrast, the modern language of Athens is represented as the most
corrupt and barbarous of the seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek: [58]
this picture is too darkly colored: but it would not be easy, in the
country of Plato and Demosthenes, to find a reader or a copy of their
works. The Athenians walk with supine indifference among the glorious
ruins of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character, that
they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors. [59]

[Footnote 56: The modern account of Athens, and the Athenians, is
extracted from Spon, (Voyage en Grece, tom. ii. p. 79--199,) and
Wheeler, (Travels into Greece, p. 337--414,) Stuart, (Antiquities of
Athens, passim,) and Chandler, (Travels into Greece, p. 23--172.) The
first of these travellers visited Greece in the year 1676; the last,
1765; and ninety years had not produced much difference in the tranquil
scene.]

[Footnote 57: The ancients, or at least the Athenians, believed that
all the bees in the world had been propagated from Mount Hymettus.
They taught, that health might be preserved, and life prolonged, by the
external use of oil, and the internal use of honey, (Geoponica, l. xv. c
7, p. 1089--1094, edit. Niclas.)]

[Footnote 58: Ducange, Glossar. Graec. Praefat. p. 8, who quotes for his
author Theodosius Zygomalas, a modern grammarian. Yet Spon (tom. ii.
p. 194) and Wheeler, (p. 355,) no incompetent judges, entertain a more
favorable opinion of the Attic dialect.]

[Footnote 59: Yet we must not accuse them of corrupting the name of
Athens, which they still call Athini. From the eiV thn 'Aqhnhn, we have
formed our own barbarism of _Setines_. * Note: Gibbon did not foresee a
Bavarian prince on the throne of
Greece, with Athens as his capital.--M.]




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

     Civil Wars, And Ruin Of The Greek Empire.--Reigns Of
     Andronicus, The Elder And Younger, And John Palaeologus.--
     Regency, Revolt, Reign, And Abdication Of John Cantacuzene.--
     Establishment Of A Genoese Colony At Pera Or Galata.--Their
     Wars With The Empire And City Of Constantinople.

The long reign of Andronicus [1] the elder is chiefly memorable by the
disputes of the Greek church, the invasion of the Catalans, and the rise
of the Ottoman power. He is celebrated as the most learned and virtuous
prince of the age; but such virtue, and such learning, contributed
neither to the perfection of the individual, nor to the happiness of
society A slave of the most abject superstition, he was surrounded on
all sides by visible and invisible enemies; nor were the flames of hell
less dreadful to his fancy, than those of a Catalan or Turkish war.
Under the reign of the Palaeologi, the choice of the patriarch was the
most important business of the state; the heads of the Greek church were
ambitious and fanatic monks; and their vices or virtues, their
learning or ignorance, were equally mischievous or contemptible. By his
intemperate discipline, the patriarch Athanasius [2] excited the hatred
of the clergy and people: he was heard to declare, that the sinner
should swallow the last dregs of the cup of penance; and the foolish
tale was propagated of his punishing a sacrilegious ass that had tasted
the lettuce of a convent garden. Driven from the throne by the universal
clamor, Athanasius composed before his retreat two papers of a very
opposite cast. His public testament was in the tone of charity and
resignation; the private codicil breathed the direst anathemas against
the authors of his disgrace, whom he excluded forever from the communion
of the holy trinity, the angels, and the saints. This last paper he
enclosed in an earthen pot, which was placed, by his order, on the top
of one of the pillars, in the dome of St. Sophia, in the distant hope of
discovery and revenge. At the end of four years, some youths, climbing
by a ladder in search of pigeons' nests, detected the fatal secret; and,
as Andronicus felt himself touched and bound by the excommunication, he
trembled on the brink of the abyss which had been so treacherously dug
under his feet. A synod of bishops was instantly convened to debate
this important question: the rashness of these clandestine anathemas was
generally condemned; but as the knot could be untied only by the same
hand, as that hand was now deprived of the crosier, it appeared that
this posthumous decree was irrevocable by any earthly power. Some faint
testimonies of repentance and pardon were extorted from the author of
the mischief; but the conscience of the emperor was still wounded, and
he desired, with no less ardor than Athanasius himself, the restoration
of a patriarch, by whom alone he could be healed. At the dead of night,
a monk rudely knocked at the door of the royal bed-chamber, announcing
a revelation of plague and famine, of inundations and earthquakes.
Andronicus started from his bed, and spent the night in prayer, till he
felt, or thought that he felt, a slight motion of the earth. The emperor
on foot led the bishops and monks to the cell of Athanasius; and, after
a proper resistance, the saint, from whom this message had been
sent, consented to absolve the prince, and govern the church of
Constantinople. Untamed by disgrace, and hardened by solitude, the
shepherd was again odious to the flock, and his enemies contrived a
singular, and as it proved, a successful, mode of revenge. In the night,
they stole away the footstool or foot-cloth of his throne, which they
secretly replaced with the decoration of a satirical picture. The
emperor was painted with a bridle in his mouth, and Athanasius leading
the tractable beast to the feet of Christ. The authors of the libel were
detected and punished; but as their lives had been spared, the Christian
priest in sullen indignation retired to his cell; and the eyes of
Andronicus, which had been opened for a moment, were again closed by his
successor.

[Footnote 1: Andronicus himself will justify our freedom in the
invective, (Nicephorus Gregoras, l. i. c. i.,) which he pronounced
against historic falsehood. It is true, that his censure is more
pointedly urged against calumny than against adulation.]

[Footnote 2: For the anathema in the pigeon's nest, see Pachymer, (l.
ix. c. 24,) who relates the general history of Athanasius, (l. viii. c.
13--16, 20, 24, l. x. c. 27--29, 31--36, l. xi. c. 1--3, 5, 6, l. xiii.
c. 8, 10, 23, 35,) and is followed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. vi. c.
5, 7, l. vii. c. 1, 9,) who includes the second retreat of this second
Chrysostom.]

If this transaction be one of the most curious and important of a reign
of fifty years, I cannot at least accuse the brevity of my materials,
since I reduce into some few pages the enormous folios of Pachymer, [3]
Cantacuzene, [4] and Nicephorus Gregoras, [5] who have composed the prolix
and languid story of the times. The name and situation of the emperor
John Cantacuzene might inspire the most lively curiosity. His memorials
of forty years extend from the revolt of the younger Andronicus to his
own abdication of the empire; and it is observed, that, like Moses and
Caesar, he was the principal actor in the scenes which he describes. But
in this eloquent work we should vainly seek the sincerity of a hero or
a penitent. Retired in a cloister from the vices and passions of the
world, he presents not a confession, but an apology, of the life of
an ambitious statesman. Instead of unfolding the true counsels and
characters of men, he displays the smooth and specious surface of
events, highly varnished with his own praises and those of his friends.
Their motives are always pure; their ends always legitimate: they
conspire and rebel without any views of interest; and the violence which
they inflict or suffer is celebrated as the spontaneous effect of reason
and virtue.

[Footnote 3: Pachymer, in seven books, 377 folio pages, describes the
first twenty-six years of Andronicus the Elder; and marks the date of
his composition by the current news or lie of the day, (A.D. 1308.)
Either death or disgust prevented him from resuming the pen.]

[Footnote 4: After an interval of twelve years, from the conclusion of
Pachymer, Cantacuzenus takes up the pen; and his first book (c. 1--59,
p. 9--150) relates the civil war, and the eight last years of the elder
Andronicus. The ingenious comparison with Moses and Caesar is fancied by
his French translator, the president Cousin.]

[Footnote 5: Nicephorus Gregoras more briefly includes the entire life
and reign of Andronicus the elder, (l. vi. c. 1, p. 96--291.) This
is the part of which Cantacuzene complains as a false and malicious
representation of his conduct.]

After the example of the first of the Palaeologi, the elder Andronicus
associated his son Michael to the honors of the purple; and from the age
of eighteen to his premature death, that prince was acknowledged, above
twenty-five years, as the second emperor of the Greeks. [6] At the head
of an army, he excited neither the fears of the enemy, nor the jealousy
of the court; his modesty and patience were never tempted to compute
the years of his father; nor was that father compelled to repent of his
liberality either by the virtues or vices of his son. The son of Michael
was named Andronicus from his grandfather, to whose early favor he was
introduced by that nominal resemblance. The blossoms of wit and beauty
increased the fondness of the elder Andronicus; and, with the common
vanity of age, he expected to realize in the second, the hope which had
been disappointed in the first, generation. The boy was educated in the
palace as an heir and a favorite; and in the oaths and acclamations of
the people, the _august triad_ was formed by the names of the father,
the son, and the grandson. But the younger Andronicus was speedily
corrupted by his infant greatness, while he beheld with puerile
impatience the double obstacle that hung, and might long hang, over his
rising ambition. It was not to acquire fame, or to diffuse happiness,
that he so eagerly aspired: wealth and impunity were in his eyes the
most precious attributes of a monarch; and his first indiscreet demand
was the sovereignty of some rich and fertile island, where he might lead
a life of independence and pleasure. The emperor was offended by the
loud and frequent intemperance which disturbed his capital; the sums
which his parsimony denied were supplied by the Genoese usurers of Pera;
and the oppressive debt, which consolidated the interest of a faction,
could be discharged only by a revolution. A beautiful female, a matron
in rank, a prostitute in manners, had instructed the younger Andronicus
in the rudiments of love; but he had reason to suspect the nocturnal
visits of a rival; and a stranger passing through the street was pierced
by the arrows of his guards, who were placed in ambush at her door. That
stranger was his brother, Prince Manuel, who languished and died of his
wound; and the emperor Michael, their common father, whose health was in
a declining state, expired on the eighth day, lamenting the loss of
both his children. [7] However guiltless in his intention, the younger
Andronicus might impute a brother's and a father's death to the
consequence of his own vices; and deep was the sigh of thinking and
feeling men, when they perceived, instead of sorrow and repentance, his
ill-dissembled joy on the removal of two odious competitors. By these
melancholy events, and the increase of his disorders, the mind of
the elder emperor was gradually alienated; and, after many fruitless
reproofs, he transferred on another grandson [8] his hopes and affection.
The change was announced by the new oath of allegiance to the reigning
sovereign, and the _person_ whom he should appoint for his successor;
and the acknowledged heir, after a repetition of insults and complaints,
was exposed to the indignity of a public trial. Before the sentence,
which would probably have condemned him to a dungeon or a cell, the
emperor was informed that the palace courts were filled with the armed
followers of his grandson; the judgment was softened to a treaty of
reconciliation; and the triumphant escape of the prince encouraged the
ardor of the younger faction.

[Footnote 6: He was crowned May 21st, 1295, and died October 12th, 1320,
(Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 239.) His brother Theodore, by a second marriage,
inherited the marquisate of Montferrat, apostatized to the religion
and manners of the Latins, (oti kai gnwmh kai pistei kai schkati, kai
geneiwn koura kai pasin eqesin DatinoV hn akraijnhV. Nic. Greg. l. ix.
c. 1,) and founded a dynasty of Italian princes, which was extinguished
A.D. 1533, (Ducange, Fam. Byz. p. 249--253.)]

[Footnote 7: We are indebted to Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 1)
for the knowledge of this tragic adventure; while Cantacuzene more
discreetly conceals the vices of Andronicus the Younger, of which he was
the witness and perhaps the associate, (l. i. c. 1, &c.)]

[Footnote 8: His destined heir was Michael Catharus, the bastard of
Constantine his second son. In this project of excluding his grandson
Andronicus, Nicephorus Gregoras (l. viii. c. 3) agrees with Cantacuzene,
(l. i. c. 1, 2.)]

Yet the capital, the clergy, and the senate, adhered to the person, or
at least to the government, of the old emperor; and it was only in
the provinces, by flight, and revolt, and foreign succor, that the
malecontents could hope to vindicate their cause and subvert his throne.
The soul of the enterprise was the great domestic John Cantacuzene;
the sally from Constantinople is the first date of his actions and
memorials; and if his own pen be most descriptive of his patriotism, an
unfriendly historian has not refused to celebrate the zeal and ability
which he displayed in the service of the young emperor. [89] That prince
escaped from the capital under the pretence of hunting; erected his
standard at Adrianople; and, in a few days, assembled fifty thousand
horse and foot, whom neither honor nor duty could have armed against the
Barbarians. Such a force might have saved or commanded the empire; but
their counsels were discordant, their motions were slow and doubtful,
and their progress was checked by intrigue and negotiation. The quarrel
of the two Andronici was protracted, and suspended, and renewed, during
a ruinous period of seven years. In the first treaty, the relics of
the Greek empire were divided: Constantinople, Thessalonica, and
the islands, were left to the elder, while the younger acquired the
sovereignty of the greatest part of Thrace, from Philippi to the
Byzantine limit. By the second treaty, he stipulated the payment of his
troops, his immediate coronation, and an adequate share of the power and
revenue of the state. The third civil war was terminated by the surprise
of Constantinople, the final retreat of the old emperor, and the sole
reign of his victorious grandson. The reasons of this delay may be found
in the characters of the men and of the times. When the heir of the
monarchy first pleaded his wrongs and his apprehensions, he was heard
with pity and applause: and his adherents repeated on all sides the
inconsistent promise, that he would increase the pay of the soldiers and
alleviate the burdens of the people. The grievances of forty years were
mingled in his revolt; and the rising generation was fatigued by the
endless prospect of a reign, whose favorites and maxims were of other
times. The youth of Andronicus had been without spirit, his age was
without reverence: his taxes produced an unusual revenue of five hundred
thousand pounds; yet the richest of the sovereigns of Christendom was
incapable of maintaining three thousand horse and twenty galleys, to
resist the destructive progress of the Turks. [9] "How different," said
the younger Andronicus, "is my situation from that of the son of Philip!
Alexander might complain, that his father would leave him nothing to
conquer: alas! my grandsire will leave me nothing to lose." But the
Greeks were soon admonished, that the public disorders could not be
healed by a civil war; and that their young favorite was not destined to
be the savior of a falling empire. On the first repulse, his party was
broken by his own levity, their intestine discord, and the intrigues of
the ancient court, which tempted each malecontent to desert or betray
the cause of the rebellion. Andronicus the younger was touched with
remorse, or fatigued with business, or deceived by negotiation: pleasure
rather than power was his aim; and the license of maintaining a thousand
hounds, a thousand hawks, and a thousand huntsmen, was sufficient to
sully his fame and disarm his ambition.

[Footnote 89: The conduct of Cantacuzene, by his own showing, was
inexplicable. He was unwilling to dethrone the old emperor, and
dissuaded the immediate march on Constantinople. The young Andronicus,
he says, entered into his views, and wrote to warn the emperor of his
danger when the march was determined. Cantacuzenus, in Nov. Byz. Hist.
Collect. vol. i. p. 104, &c.--M.]

[Footnote 9: See Nicephorus Gregoras, l. viii. c. 6. The younger
Andronicus complained, that in four years and four months a sum
of 350,000 byzants of gold was due to him for the expenses of his
household, (Cantacuzen l. i. c. 48.) Yet he would have remitted the
debt, if he might have been allowed to squeeze the farmers of the
revenue.]

Let us now survey the catastrophe of this busy plot, and the final
situation of the principal actors. [10] The age of Andronicus was
consumed in civil discord; and, amidst the events of war and treaty, his
power and reputation continually decayed, till the fatal night in which
the gates of the city and palace were opened without resistance to
his grandson. His principal commander scorned the repeated warnings
of danger; and retiring to rest in the vain security of ignorance,
abandoned the feeble monarch, with some priests and pages, to the
terrors of a sleepless night. These terrors were quickly realized by the
hostile shouts, which proclaimed the titles and victory of Andronicus
the younger; and the aged emperor, falling prostrate before an image of
the Virgin, despatched a suppliant message to resign the sceptre, and
to obtain his life at the hands of the conqueror. The answer of his
grandson was decent and pious; at the prayer of his friends, the younger
Andronicus assumed the sole administration; but the elder still enjoyed
the name and preeminence of the first emperor, the use of the great
palace, and a pension of twenty-four thousand pieces of gold, one
half of which was assigned on the royal treasury, and the other on
the fishery of Constantinople. But his impotence was soon exposed to
contempt and oblivion; the vast silence of the palace was disturbed
only by the cattle and poultry of the neighborhood, [101] which roved with
impunity through the solitary courts; and a reduced allowance of ten
thousand pieces of gold [11] was all that he could ask, and more than he
could hope. His calamities were imbittered by the gradual extinction of
sight; his confinement was rendered each day more rigorous; and during
the absence and sickness of his grandson, his inhuman keepers, by the
threats of instant death, compelled him to exchange the purple for the
monastic habit and profession. The monk _Antony_ had renounced the pomp
of the world; yet he had occasion for a coarse fur in the winter season,
and as wine was forbidden by his confessor, and water by his physician,
the sherbet of Egypt was his common drink. It was not without difficulty
that the late emperor could procure three or four pieces to satisfy
these simple wants; and if he bestowed the gold to relieve the more
painful distress of a friend, the sacrifice is of some weight in
the scale of humanity and religion. Four years after his abdication,
Andronicus or Antony expired in a cell, in the seventy-fourth year of
his age: and the last strain of adulation could only promise a more
splendid crown of glory in heaven than he had enjoyed upon earth. [12] [121]

[Footnote 10: I follow the chronology of Nicephorus Gregoras, who is
remarkably exact. It is proved that Cantacuzene has mistaken the dates
of his own actions, or rather that his text has been corrupted by
ignorant transcribers.]

[Footnote 101: And the washerwomen, according to Nic. Gregoras, p.
431.--M.]

[Footnote 11: I have endeavored to reconcile the 24,000 pieces of
Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1) with the 10,000 of Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
ix. c. 2;) the one of whom wished to soften, the other to magnify, the
hardships of the old emperor.]

[Footnote 12: See Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. ix. 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, l. x. c.
1.) The historian had tasted of the prosperity, and shared the retreat,
of his benefactor; and that friendship which "waits or to the scaffold
or the cell," should not lightly be accused as "a hireling, a prostitute
to praise." * Note: But it may be accused of unparalleled absurdity. He
compares the extinction of the feeble old man to that of the sun: his
coffin is to be floated like Noah's ark by a deluge of tears.--M.]

[Footnote 121: Prodigies (according to Nic. Gregoras, p. 460) announced
the departure of the old and imbecile Imperial Monk from his earthly
prison.--M.]

Nor was the reign of the younger, more glorious or fortunate than that
of the elder, Andronicus. [13] He gathered the fruits of ambition; but
the taste was transient and bitter: in the supreme station he lost the
remains of his early popularity; and the defects of his character became
still more conspicuous to the world. The public reproach urged him to
march in person against the Turks; nor did his courage fail in the
hour of trial; but a defeat and a wound were the only trophies of his
expedition in Asia, which confirmed the establishment of the Ottoman
monarchy. The abuses of the civil government attained their full
maturity and perfection: his neglect of forms, and the confusion of
national dresses, are deplored by the Greeks as the fatal symptoms
of the decay of the empire. Andronicus was old before his time; the
intemperance of youth had accelerated the infirmities of age; and after
being rescued from a dangerous malady by nature, or physic, or the
Virgin, he was snatched away before he had accomplished his forty-fifth
year. He was twice married; and, as the progress of the Latins in arms
and arts had softened the prejudices of the Byzantine court, his two
wives were chosen in the princely houses of Germany and Italy. The
first, Agnes at home, Irene in Greece, was daughter of the duke of
Brunswick. Her father [14] was a petty lord [15] in the poor and savage
regions of the north of Germany: [16] yet he derived some revenue from
his silver mines; [17] and his family is celebrated by the Greeks as the
most ancient and noble of the Teutonic name. [18] After the death of this
childish princess, Andronicus sought in marriage Jane, the sister of
the count of Savoy; [19] and his suit was preferred to that of the French
king. [20] The count respected in his sister the superior majesty of a
Roman empress: her retinue was composed of knights and ladies; she
was regenerated and crowned in St. Sophia, under the more orthodox
appellation of Anne; and, at the nuptial feast, the Greeks and Italians
vied with each other in the martial exercises of tilts and tournaments.

[Footnote 13: The sole reign of Andronicus the younger is described by
Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 1--40, p. 191--339) and Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
ix c. 7--l. xi. c. 11, p. 262--361.)]

[Footnote 14: Agnes, or Irene, was the daughter of Duke Henry the
Wonderful, the chief of the house of Brunswick, and the fourth in
descent from the famous Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria,
and conqueror of the Sclavi on the Baltic coast. Her brother Henry was
surnamed the _Greek_, from his two journeys into the East: but these
journeys were subsequent to his sister's marriage; and I am ignorant
_how_ Agnes was discovered in the heart of Germany, and recommended
to the Byzantine court. (Rimius, Memoirs of the House of Brunswick, p.
126--137.]

[Footnote 15: Henry the Wonderful was the founder of the branch of
Grubenhagen, extinct in the year 1596, (Rimius, p. 287.) He resided in
the castle of Wolfenbuttel, and possessed no more than a sixth part of
the allodial estates of Brunswick and Luneburgh, which the Guelph family
had saved from the confiscation of their great fiefs. The frequent
partitions among brothers had almost ruined the princely houses of
Germany, till that just, but pernicious, law was slowly superseded by
the right of primogeniture. The principality of Grubenhagen, one of
the last remains of the Hercynian forest, is a woody, mountainous,
and barren tract, (Busching's Geography, vol. vi. p. 270--286, English
translation.)]

[Footnote 16: The royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburgh will teach
us, how justly, in a much later period, the north of Germany deserved
the epithets of poor and barbarous. (Essai sur les Murs, &c.) In the
year 1306, in the woods of Luneburgh, some wild people of the Vened race
were allowed to bury alive their infirm and useless parents. (Rimius, p.
136.)]

[Footnote 17: The assertion of Tacitus, that Germany was destitute of
the precious metals, must be taken, even in his own time, with some
limitation, (Germania, c. 5. Annal. xi. 20.) According to Spener,
(Hist. Germaniae Pragmatica, tom. i. p. 351,) _Argentifodin_ in Hercyniis
montibus, imperante Othone magno (A.D. 968) primum apertae, largam etiam
opes augendi dederunt copiam: but Rimius (p. 258, 259) defers till the
year 1016 the discovery of the silver mines of Grubenhagen, or the Upper
Hartz, which were productive in the beginning of the xivth century, and
which still yield a considerable revenue to the house of Brunswick.]

[Footnote 18: Cantacuzene has given a most honorable testimony, hn d' ek
Germanvn auth Jugathr doukoV nti Mprouzouhk, (the modern Greeks employ
the nt for the d, and the mp for the b, and the whole will read in the
Italian idiom di Brunzuic,) tou par autoiV epijanestatou, kai?iamprothti
pantaV touV omojulouV uperballontoV. The praise is just in itself, and
pleasing to an English ear.]

[Footnote 19: Anne, or Jane, was one of the four daughters of Amedee
the Great, by a second marriage, and half-sister of his successor Edward
count of Savoy. (Anderson's Tables, p. 650. See Cantacuzene, l. i. c.
40--42.)]

[Footnote 20: That king, if the fact be true, must have been Charles
the Fair who in five years (1321--1326) was married to three wives,
(Anderson, p. 628.) Anne of Savoy arrived at Constantinople in February,
1326.]

The empress Anne of Savoy survived her husband: their son, John
Palaeologus, was left an orphan and an emperor in the ninth year of his
age; and his weakness was protected by the first and most deserving
of the Greeks. The long and cordial friendship of his father for John
Cantacuzene is alike honorable to the prince and the subject. It had
been formed amidst the pleasures of their youth: their families were
almost equally noble; [21] and the recent lustre of the purple was amply
compensated by the energy of a private education. We have seen that
the young emperor was saved by Cantacuzene from the power of his
grandfather; and, after six years of civil war, the same favorite
brought him back in triumph to the palace of Constantinople. Under the
reign of Andronicus the younger, the great domestic ruled the emperor
and the empire; and it was by his valor and conduct that the Isle of
Lesbos and the principality of AEtolia were restored to their ancient
allegiance. His enemies confess, that, among the public robbers,
Cantacuzene alone was moderate and abstemious; and the free and
voluntary account which he produces of his own wealth [22] may sustain
the presumption that he was devolved by inheritance, and not accumulated
by rapine. He does not indeed specify the value of his money, plate,
and jewels; yet, after a voluntary gift of two hundred vases of silver,
after much had been secreted by his friends and plundered by his foes,
his forfeit treasures were sufficient for the equipment of a fleet of
seventy galleys. He does not measure the size and number of his estates;
but his granaries were heaped with an incredible store of wheat and
barley; and the labor of a thousand yoke of oxen might cultivate,
according to the practice of antiquity, about sixty-two thousand five
hundred acres of arable land. [23] His pastures were stocked with two
thousand five hundred brood mares, two hundred camels, three hundred
mules, five hundred asses, five thousand horned cattle, fifty thousand
hogs, and seventy thousand sheep: [24] a precious record of rural
opulence, in the last period of the empire, and in a land, most probably
in Thrace, so repeatedly wasted by foreign and domestic hostility.
The favor of Cantacuzene was above his fortune. In the moments of
familiarity, in the hour of sickness, the emperor was desirous to level
the distance between them and pressed his friend to accept the diadem
and purple. The virtue of the great domestic, which is attested by his
own pen, resisted the dangerous proposal; but the last testament of
Andronicus the younger named him the guardian of his son, and the regent
of the empire.

[Footnote 21: The noble race of the Cantacuzeni (illustrious from the
xith century in the Byzantine annals) was drawn from the Paladins of
France, the heroes of those romances which, in the xiiith century, were
translated and read by the Greeks, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 258.)]

[Footnote 22: See Cantacuzene, (l. iii. c. 24, 30, 36.)]

[Footnote 23: Saserna, in Gaul, and Columella, in Italy or Spain, allow
two yoke of oxen, two drivers, and six laborers, for two hundred jugera
(125 English acres) of arable land, and three more men must be added if
there be much underwood, (Columella de Re Rustica, l. ii. c. 13, p 441,
edit. Gesner.)]

[Footnote 24: In this enumeration (l. iii. c. 30) the French translation
of the president Cousin is blotted with three palpable and essential
errors. 1. He omits the 1000 yoke of working oxen. 2. He interprets the
pentakosiai proV diaciliaiV, by the number of fifteen hundred. * 3. He
confounds myriads with chiliads, and gives Cantacuzene no more than 5000
hogs. Put not your trust in translations! Note: * There seems to be
another reading, ciliaiV. Niebuhr's edit. in
loc.--M.]

Had the regent found a suitable return of obedience and gratitude,
perhaps he would have acted with pure and zealous fidelity in the
service of his pupil. [25] A guard of five hundred soldiers watched over
his person and the palace; the funeral of the late emperor was decently
performed; the capital was silent and submissive; and five hundred
letters, which Cantacuzene despatched in the first month, informed
the provinces of their loss and their duty. The prospect of a tranquil
minority was blasted by the great duke or admiral Apocaucus, and to
exaggerate _his_ perfidy, the Imperial historian is pleased to magnify
his own imprudence, in raising him to that office against the advice of
his more sagacious sovereign. Bold and subtle, rapacious and profuse,
the avarice and ambition of Apocaucus were by turns subservient to each
other; and his talents were applied to the ruin of his country.
His arrogance was heightened by the command of a naval force and an
impregnable castle, and under the mask of oaths and flattery he secretly
conspired against his benefactor. The female court of the empress was
bribed and directed; he encouraged Anne of Savoy to assert, by the law
of nature, the tutelage of her son; the love of power was disguised by
the anxiety of maternal tenderness: and the founder of the Palaeologi had
instructed his posterity to dread the example of a perfidious guardian.
The patriarch John of Apri was a proud and feeble old man, encompassed
by a numerous and hungry kindred. He produced an obsolete epistle of
Andronicus, which bequeathed the prince and people to his pious care:
the fate of his predecessor Arsenius prompted him to prevent, rather
than punish, the crimes of a usurper; and Apocaucus smiled at the
success of his own flattery, when he beheld the Byzantine priest
assuming the state and temporal claims of the Roman pontiff. [26] Between
three persons so different in their situation and character, a private
league was concluded: a shadow of authority was restored to the senate;
and the people was tempted by the name of freedom. By this powerful
confederacy, the great domestic was assaulted at first with clandestine,
at length with open, arms. His prerogatives were disputed; his opinions
slighted; his friends persecuted; and his safety was threatened both in
the camp and city. In his absence on the public service, he was
accused of treason; proscribed as an enemy of the church and state; and
delivered with all his adherents to the sword of justice, the
vengeance of the people, and the power of the devil; his fortunes were
confiscated; his aged mother was cast into prison; [261] all his past
services were buried in oblivion; and he was driven by injustice to
perpetrate the crime of which he was accused. [27] From the review of
his preceding conduct, Cantacuzene appears to have been guiltless of any
treasonable designs; and the only suspicion of his innocence must arise
from the vehemence of his protestations, and the sublime purity which
he ascribes to his own virtue. While the empress and the patriarch
still affected the appearances of harmony, he repeatedly solicited the
permission of retiring to a private, and even a monastic, life. After
he had been declared a public enemy, it was his fervent wish to throw
himself at the feet of the young emperor, and to receive without a
murmur the stroke of the executioner: it was not without reluctance that
he listened to the voice of reason, which inculcated the sacred duty of
saving his family and friends, and proved that he could only save them
by drawing the sword and assuming the Imperial title.

[Footnote 25: See the regency and reign of John Cantacuzenus, and the
whole progress of the civil war, in his own history, (l. iii. c. 1--100,
p. 348--700,) and in that of Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. xii. c. 1--l. xv.
c. 9, p. 353--492.)]

[Footnote 26: He assumes the royal privilege of red shoes or buskins;
placed on his head a mitre of silk and gold; subscribed his epistles
with hyacinth or green ink, and claimed for the new, whatever
Constantine had given to the ancient, Rome, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 36.
Nic. Gregoras, l. xiv. c. 3.)]

[Footnote 261: She died there through persecution and neglect.--M.]

[Footnote 27: Nic. Gregoras (l. xii. c. 5) confesses the innocence and
virtues of Cantacuzenus, the guilt and flagitious vices of Apocaucus;
nor does he dissemble the motive of his personal and religious enmity
to the former; nun de dia kakian allwn, aitioV o praotatoV thV tvn olwn
edoxaV? eioai jqoraV. Note: The alloi were the religious enemies and
persecutors of Nicephorus.--M.]




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

In the strong city of Demotica, his peculiar domain, the emperor John
Cantacuzenus was invested with the purple buskins: his right leg was
clothed by his noble kinsmen, the left by the Latin chiefs, on whom he
conferred the order of knighthood. But even in this act of revolt, he
was still studious of loyalty; and the titles of John Palaeologus and
Anne of Savoy were proclaimed before his own name and that of his wife
Irene. Such vain ceremony is a thin disguise of rebellion, nor are there
perhaps any personal wrongs that can authorize a subject to take arms
against his sovereign: but the want of preparation and success may
confirm the assurance of the usurper, that this decisive step was the
effect of necessity rather than of choice. Constantinople adhered to
the young emperor; the king of Bulgaria was invited to the relief of
Adrianople: the principal cities of Thrace and Macedonia, after some
hesitation, renounced their obedience to the great domestic; and the
leaders of the troops and provinces were induced, by their private
interest, to prefer the loose dominion of a woman and a priest. [271] The
army of Cantacuzene, in sixteen divisions, was stationed on the banks
of the Melas to tempt or to intimidate the capital: it was dispersed
by treachery or fear; and the officers, more especially the mercenary
Latins, accepted the bribes, and embraced the service, of the Byzantine
court. After this loss, the rebel emperor (he fluctuated between the two
characters) took the road of Thessalonica with a chosen remnant; but
he failed in his enterprise on that important place; and he was closely
pursued by the great duke, his enemy Apocaucus, at the head of a
superior power by sea and land. Driven from the coast, in his march, or
rather flight, into the mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled his
troops to scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany his
broken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his trusty band
was diminished to two thousand, and at last to five hundred, volunteers.
The _cral_, [28] or despot of the Servians received him with general
hospitality; but the ally was insensibly degraded to a suppliant, a
hostage, a captive; and in this miserable dependence, he waited at the
door of the Barbarian, who could dispose of the life and liberty of a
Roman emperor. The most tempting offers could not persuade the cral to
violate his trust; but he soon inclined to the stronger side; and his
friend was dismissed without injury to a new vicissitude of hopes and
perils. Near six years the flame of discord burnt with various success
and unabated rage: the cities were distracted by the faction of the
nobles and the plebeians; the Cantacuzeni and Palaeologi: and the
Bulgarians, the Servians, and the Turks, were invoked on both sides
as the instruments of private ambition and the common ruin. The regent
deplored the calamities, of which he was the author and victim: and his
own experience might dictate a just and lively remark on the different
nature of foreign and civil war. "The former," said he, "is the external
warmth of summer, always tolerable, and often beneficial; the latter is
the deadly heat of a fever, which consumes without a remedy the vitals
of the constitution." [29]

[Footnote 271: Cantacuzene asserts, that in all the cities, the populace
were on the side of the emperor, the aristocracy on his. The
populace took the opportunity of rising and plundering the wealthy as
Cantacuzenites, vol. iii. c. 29 Ages of common oppression and ruin had
not extinguished these republican factions.--M.]

[Footnote 28: The princes of Servia (Ducange, Famil. Dalmaticae, &c.,
c. 2, 3, 4, 9) were styled Despots in Greek, and Cral in their native
idiom, (Ducange, Gloss. Graec. p. 751.) That title, the equivalent
of king, appears to be of Sclavonic origin, from whence it has been
borrowed by the Hungarians, the modern Greeks, and even by the Turks,
(Leunclavius, Pandect. Turc. p. 422,) who reserve the name of Padishah
for the emperor. To obtain the latter instead of the former is the
ambition of the French at Constantinople, (Aversissement a l'Histoire de
Timur Bec, p. 39.)]

[Footnote 29: Nic. Gregoras, l. xii. c. 14. It is surprising that
Cantacuzene has not inserted this just and lively image in his own
writings.]

The introduction of barbarians and savages into the contests of
civilized nations, is a measure pregnant with shame and mischief; which
the interest of the moment may compel, but which is reprobated by the
best principles of humanity and reason. It is the practice of both sides
to accuse their enemies of the guilt of the first alliances; and those
who fail in their negotiations are loudest in their censure of the
example which they envy and would gladly imitate. The Turks of Asia were
less barbarous perhaps than the shepherds of Bulgaria and Servia; but
their religion rendered them implacable foes of Rome and Christianity.
To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied with
each other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of Cantacuzene
obtained the preference: but the succor and victory were dearly
purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an infidel, the captivity
of many thousand Christians, and the passage of the Ottomans into
Europe, the last and fatal stroke in the fall of the Roman empire. The
inclining scale was decided in his favor by the death of Apocaucus, the
just though singular retribution of his crimes. A crowd of nobles or
plebeians, whom he feared or hated, had been seized by his orders in
the capital and the provinces; and the old palace of Constantine was
assigned as the place of their confinement. Some alterations in raising
the walls, and narrowing the cells, had been ingeniously contrived
to prevent their escape, and aggravate their misery; and the work
was incessantly pressed by the daily visits of the tyrant. His guards
watched at the gate, and as he stood in the inner court to overlook
the architects, without fear or suspicion, he was assaulted and
laid breathless on the ground, by two [291] resolute prisoners of the
Palaeologian race, [30] who were armed with sticks, and animated by
despair. On the rumor of revenge and liberty, the captive multitude
broke their fetters, fortified their prison, and exposed from the
battlements the tyrant's head, presuming on the favor of the people and
the clemency of the empress. Anne of Savoy might rejoice in the fall of
a haughty and ambitious minister, but while she delayed to resolve or
to act, the populace, more especially the mariners, were excited by the
widow of the great duke to a sedition, an assault, and a massacre. The
prisoners (of whom the far greater part were guiltless or inglorious of
the deed) escaped to a neighboring church: they were slaughtered at the
foot of the altar; and in his death the monster was not less bloody and
venomous than in his life. Yet his talents alone upheld the cause of the
young emperor; and his surviving associates, suspicious of each other,
abandoned the conduct of the war, and rejected the fairest terms of
accommodation. In the beginning of the dispute, the empress felt, and
complained, that she was deceived by the enemies of Cantacuzene: the
patriarch was employed to preach against the forgiveness of injuries;
and her promise of immortal hatred was sealed by an oath, under the
penalty of excommunication. [31] But Anne soon learned to hate without a
teacher: she beheld the misfortunes of the empire with the indifference
of a stranger: her jealousy was exasperated by the competition of a
rival empress; and on the first symptoms of a more yielding temper, she
threatened the patriarch to convene a synod, and degrade him from
his office. Their incapacity and discord would have afforded the most
decisive advantage; but the civil war was protracted by the weakness
of both parties; and the moderation of Cantacuzene has not escaped
the reproach of timidity and indolence. He successively recovered the
provinces and cities; and the realm of his pupil was measured by the
walls of Constantinople; but the metropolis alone counterbalanced the
rest of the empire; nor could he attempt that important conquest till he
had secured in his favor the public voice and a private correspondence.
An Italian, of the name of Facciolati, [32] had succeeded to the office
of great duke: the ships, the guards, and the golden gate, were subject
to his command; but his humble ambition was bribed to become the
instrument of treachery; and the revolution was accomplished without
danger or bloodshed. Destitute of the powers of resistance, or the hope
of relief, the inflexible Anne would have still defended the palace,
and have smiled to behold the capital in flames, rather than in the
possession of a rival. She yielded to the prayers of her friends and
enemies; and the treaty was dictated by the conqueror, who professed a
loyal and zealous attachment to the son of his benefactor. The marriage
of his daughter with John Palaeologus was at length consummated:
the hereditary right of the pupil was acknowledged; but the sole
administration during ten years was vested in the guardian. Two emperors
and three empresses were seated on the Byzantine throne; and a general
amnesty quieted the apprehensions, and confirmed the property, of the
most guilty subjects. The festival of the coronation and nuptials was
celebrated with the appearances of concord and magnificence, and both
were equally fallacious. During the late troubles, the treasures of
the state, and even the furniture of the palace, had been alienated or
embezzled; the royal banquet was served in pewter or earthenware; and
such was the proud poverty of the times, that the absence of gold and
jewels was supplied by the paltry artifices of glass and gilt-leather.
[33]

[Footnote 291: Nicephorus says four, p.734.]

[Footnote 30: The two avengers were both Palaeologi, who might resent,
with royal indignation, the shame of their chains. The tragedy of
Apocaucus may deserve a peculiar reference to Cantacuzene (l. iii. c.
86) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xiv. c. 10.)]

[Footnote 31: Cantacuzene accuses the patriarch, and spares the empress,
the mother of his sovereign, (l. iii. 33, 34,) against whom Nic.
Gregoras expresses a particular animosity, (l. xiv. 10, 11, xv. 5.) It
is true that they do not speak exactly of the same time.]

[Footnote 32: The traitor and treason are revealed by Nic. Gregoras,
(l. xv. c. 8;) but the name is more discreetly suppressed by his great
accomplice, (Cantacuzen. l. iii. c. 99.)]

[Footnote 33: Nic. Greg. l. xv. 11. There were, however, some true
pearls, but very thinly sprinkled. The rest of the stones had only
pantodaphn croian proV to diaugeV.]

I hasten to conclude the personal history of John Cantacuzene. [34] He
triumphed and reigned; but his reign and triumph were clouded by the
discontent of his own and the adverse faction. His followers might style
the general amnesty an act of pardon for his enemies, and of oblivion
for his friends: [35] in his cause their estates had been forfeited or
plundered; and as they wandered naked and hungry through the streets,
they cursed the selfish generosity of a leader, who, on the throne of
the empire, might relinquish without merit his private inheritance. The
adherents of the empress blushed to hold their lives and fortunes by the
precarious favor of a usurper; and the thirst of revenge was concealed
by a tender concern for the succession, and even the safety, of her son.
They were justly alarmed by a petition of the friends of Cantacuzene,
that they might be released from their oath of allegiance to the
Palaeologi, and intrusted with the defence of some cautionary towns; a
measure supported with argument and eloquence; and which was rejected
(says the Imperial historian) "by _my_ sublime, and almost incredible
virtue." His repose was disturbed by the sound of plots and seditions;
and he trembled lest the lawful prince should be stolen away by some
foreign or domestic enemy, who would inscribe his name and his wrongs in
the banners of rebellion. As the son of Andronicus advanced in the years
of manhood, he began to feel and to act for himself; and his rising
ambition was rather stimulated than checked by the imitation of his
father's vices. If we may trust his own professions, Cantacuzene labored
with honest industry to correct these sordid and sensual appetites, and
to raise the mind of the young prince to a level with his fortune. In
the Servian expedition, the two emperors showed themselves in cordial
harmony to the troops and provinces; and the younger colleague was
initiated by the elder in the mysteries of war and government. After the
conclusion of the peace, Palaeologus was left at Thessalonica, a royal
residence, and a frontier station, to secure by his absence the peace
of Constantinople, and to withdraw his youth from the temptations of a
luxurious capital. But the distance weakened the powers of control,
and the son of Andronicus was surrounded with artful or unthinking
companions, who taught him to hate his guardian, to deplore his exile,
and to vindicate his rights. A private treaty with the cral or despot
of Servia was soon followed by an open revolt; and Cantacuzene, on
the throne of the elder Andronicus, defended the cause of age and
prerogative, which in his youth he had so vigorously attacked. At his
request the empress-mother undertook the voyage of Thessalonica, and the
office of mediation: she returned without success; and unless Anne of
Savoy was instructed by adversity, we may doubt the sincerity, or at
least the fervor, of her zeal. While the regent grasped the sceptre with
a firm and vigorous hand, she had been instructed to declare, that the
ten years of his legal administration would soon elapse; and that, after
a full trial of the vanity of the world, the emperor Cantacuzene sighed
for the repose of a cloister, and was ambitious only of a heavenly
crown. Had these sentiments been genuine, his voluntary abdication would
have restored the peace of the empire, and his conscience would have
been relieved by an act of justice. Palaeologus alone was responsible for
his future government; and whatever might be his vices, they were
surely less formidable than the calamities of a civil war, in which the
Barbarians and infidels were again invited to assist the Greeks in their
mutual destruction. By the arms of the Turks, who now struck a deep and
everlasting root in Europe, Cantacuzene prevailed in the third contest
in which he had been involved; and the young emperor, driven from the
sea and land, was compelled to take shelter among the Latins of the Isle
of Tenedos. His insolence and obstinacy provoked the victor to a step
which must render the quarrel irreconcilable; and the association of
his son Matthew, whom he invested with the purple, established the
succession in the family of the Cantacuzeni. But Constantinople was
still attached to the blood of her ancient princes; and this last
injury accelerated the restoration of the rightful heir. A noble Genoese
espoused the cause of Palaeologus, obtained a promise of his sister, and
achieved the revolution with two galleys and two thousand five hundred
auxiliaries. Under the pretence of distress, they were admitted into the
lesser port; a gate was opened, and the Latin shout of, "Long life and
victory to the emperor, John Palaeologus!" was answered by a general
rising in his favor. A numerous and loyal party yet adhered to the
standard of Cantacuzene: but he asserts in his history (does he hope for
belief?) that his tender conscience rejected the assurance of conquest;
that, in free obedience to the voice of religion and philosophy, he
descended from the throne and embraced with pleasure the monastic habit
and profession. [36] So soon as he ceased to be a prince, his successor
was not unwilling that he should be a saint: the remainder of his life
was devoted to piety and learning; in the cells of Constantinople
and Mount Athos, the monk Joasaph was respected as the temporal and
spiritual father of the emperor; and if he issued from his retreat, it
was as the minister of peace, to subdue the obstinacy, and solicit the
pardon, of his rebellious son. [37]

[Footnote 34: From his return to Constantinople, Cantacuzene continues
his history and that of the empire, one year beyond the abdication of
his son Matthew, A.D. 1357, (l. iv. c. l--50, p. 705--911.) Nicephorus
Gregoras ends with the synod of Constantinople, in the year 1351, (l.
xxii. c. 3, p. 660; the rest, to the conclusion of the xxivth book, p.
717, is all controversy;) and his fourteen last books are still MSS. in
the king of France's library.]

[Footnote 35: The emperor (Cantacuzen. l. iv. c. 1) represents his own
virtues, and Nic. Gregoras (l. xv. c. 11) the complaints of his friends,
who suffered by its effects. I have lent them the words of our poor
cavaliers after the Restoration.]

[Footnote 36: The awkward apology of Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c. 39--42,)
who relates, with visible confusion, his own downfall, may be supplied
by the less accurate, but more honest, narratives of Matthew Villani (l.
iv. c. 46, in the Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xiv. p. 268) and Ducas, (c
10, 11.)]

[Footnote 37: Cantacuzene, in the year 1375, was honored with a letter
from the pope, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 250.) His death
is placed by a respectable authority on the 20th of November, 1411,
(Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 260.) But if he were of the age of his
companion Andronicus the Younger, he must have lived 116 years; a rare
instance of longevity, which in so illustrious a person would have
attracted universal notice.]

Yet in the cloister, the mind of Cantacuzene was still exercised by
theological war. He sharpened a controversial pen against the Jews
and Mahometans; [38] and in every state he defended with equal zeal the
divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question which consummates the
religious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of India, [39] and the
monks of the Oriental church, were alike persuaded, that in the total
abstraction of the faculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit
may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and
practice of the monasteries of Mount Athos [40] will be best represented
in the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. "When
thou art alone in thy cell," says the ascetic teacher, "shut thy door,
and seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain and
transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and
thy thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel;
and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first, all
will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, you
will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the
place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light."
This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an
empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the
pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was
confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive
how the divine essence could be a _material_ substance, or how an
_immaterial_ substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. But
in the reign of the younger Andronicus, these monasteries were visited
by Barlaam, [41] a Calabrian monk, who was equally skilled in philosophy
and theology; who possessed the language of the Greeks and Latins; and
whose versatile genius could maintain their opposite creeds, according
to the interest of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed
to the curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer and Barlaam
embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed the
soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresy
and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce or
dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and Gregory Palamas
introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation
of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an uncreated
and eternal light; and this beatific vision of the saints had been
manifested to the disciples on Mount Thabor, in the transfiguration
of Christ. Yet this distinction could not escape the reproach of
polytheism; the eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; and
Barlaam still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances,
a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of Mount
Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to Constantinople,
where his smooth and specious manners introduced him to the favor of the
great domestic and the emperor. The court and the city were involved
in this theological dispute, which flamed amidst the civil war; but
the doctrine of Barlaam was disgraced by his flight and apostasy: the
Palamites triumphed; and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri,
was deposed by the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In the
character of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the synod
of the Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, the
uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the reason
of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a single absurdity.
Many rolls of paper or parchment have been blotted; and the impenitent
sectaries, who refused to subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived
of the honors of Christian burial; but in the next age the question was
forgotten; nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were employed for
the extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. [42]

[Footnote 38: His four discourses, or books, were printed at Basil,
1543, (Fabric Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 473.) He composed them to
satisfy a proselyte who was assaulted with letters from his friends of
Ispahan. Cantacuzene had read the Koran; but I understand from Maracci
that he adopts the vulgar prejudices and fables against Mahomet and his
religion.]

[Footnote 39: See the Voyage de Bernier, tom. i. p. 127.]

[Footnote 40: Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 522, 523. Fleury,
Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 22, 24, 107--114, &c. The former unfolds the
causes with the judgment of a philosopher, the latter transcribes and
transcribes and translates with the prejudices of a Catholic priest.]

[Footnote 41: Basnage (in Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iv. p.
363--368) has investigated the character and story of Barlaam. The
duplicity of his opinions had inspired some doubts of the identity
of his person. See likewise Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. x. p.
427--432.)]

[Footnote 42: See Cantacuzene (l. ii. c. 39, 40, l. iv. c. 3, 23, 24,
25) and Nic. Gregoras, (l. xi. c. 10, l. xv. 3, 7, &c.,) whose last
books, from the xixth to xxivth, are almost confined to a subject so
interesting to the authors. Boivin, (in Vit. Nic. Gregorae,) from the
unpublished books, and Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. x. p. 462--473,)
or rather Montfaucon, from the MSS. of the Coislin library, have added
some facts and documents.]

For the conclusion of this chapter, I have reserved the Genoese war,
which shook the throne of Cantacuzene, and betrayed the debility of the
Greek empire. The Genoese, who, after the recovery of Constantinople,
were seated in the suburb of Pera or Galata, received that honorable
fief from the bounty of the emperor. They were indulged in the use of
their laws and magistrates; but they submitted to the duties of vassals
and subjects; the forcible word of _liegemen_[43] was borrowed from the
Latin jurisprudence; and their _podesta_, or chief, before he entered
on his office, saluted the emperor with loyal acclamations and vows of
fidelity. Genoa sealed a firm alliance with the Greeks; and, in case of
a defensive war, a supply of fifty empty galleys and a succor of fifty
galleys, completely armed and manned, was promised by the republic to
the empire. In the revival of a naval force, it was the aim of Michael
Palaeologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his vigorous
government contained the Genoese of Galata within those limits which
the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to exceed. A sailor
threatened that they should soon be masters of Constantinople, and slew
the Greek who resented this national affront; and an armed vessel, after
refusing to salute the palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the
Black Sea. Their countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the
long and open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperial
troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoese
implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless situation
which secured their obedience exposed them to the attack of their
Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder Andronicus, presumed to
violate the majesty of the throne. On the approach of their fleets, the
Genoese, with their families and effects, retired into the city: their
empty habitations were reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had
viewed the destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by
arms, but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous
to the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the dangerous
license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of introducing into
the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting lofty turrets; and of
mounting a train of military engines on the rampart. The narrow bounds
in which they had been circumscribed were insufficient for the growing
colony; each day they acquired some addition of landed property; and the
adjacent hills were covered with their villas and castles, which they
joined and protected by new fortifications. [44] The navigation and trade
of the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded the
narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea. In the reign
of Michael Palaeologus, their prerogative was acknowledged by the sultan
of Egypt, who solicited and obtained the liberty of sending an annual
ship for the purchase of slaves in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary:
a liberty pregnant with mischief to the Christian cause; since these
youths were transformed by education and discipline into the formidable
Mamalukes. [45] From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with
superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and their
industry supplied the Greeks with fish and corn; two articles of food
almost equally important to a superstitious people. The spontaneous
bounty of nature appears to have bestowed the harvests of Ukraine, the
produce of a rude and savage husbandry; and the endless exportation of
salt fish and caviare is annually renewed by the enormous sturgeons that
are caught at the mouth of the Don or Tanais, in their last station
of the rich mud and shallow water of the Maeotis. [46] The waters of the
Oxus, the Caspian, the Volga, and the Don, opened a rare and laborious
passage for the gems and spices of India; and after three months'
march the caravans of Carizme met the Italian vessels in the harbors
of Crimaea. [47] These various branches of trade were monopolized by the
diligence and power of the Genoese. Their rivals of Venice and Pisa
were forcibly expelled; the natives were awed by the castles and cities,
which arose on the foundations of their humble factories; and their
principal establishment of Caffa [48] was besieged without effect by the
Tartar powers. Destitute of a navy, the Greeks were oppressed by these
haughty merchants, who fed, or famished, Constantinople, according to
their interest. They proceeded to usurp the customs, the fishery, and
even the toll, of the Bosphorus; and while they derived from these
objects a revenue of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, a remnant of
thirty thousand was reluctantly allowed to the emperor. [49] The colony
of Pera or Galata acted, in peace and war, as an independent state; and,
as it will happen in distant settlements, the Genoese podesta too often
forgot that he was the servant of his own masters.

[Footnote 43: Pachymer (l. v. c. 10) very properly explains liziouV
(_ligios_) by?lidiouV. The use of these words in the Greek and Latin of
the feudal times may be amply understood from the Glossaries of Ducange,
(Graec. p. 811, 812. Latin. tom. iv. p. 109--111.)]

[Footnote 44: The establishment and progress of the Genoese at Pera, or
Galata, is described by Ducange (C. P. Christiana, l. i. p. 68, 69) from
the Byzantine historians, Pachymer, (l. ii. c. 35, l. v. 10, 30, l. ix.
15 l. xii. 6, 9,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. v. c. 4, l. vi. c. 11, l. ix.
c. 5, l. ix. c. 1, l. xv. c. 1, 6,) and Cantacuzene, (l. i. c. 12, l.
ii. c. 29, &c.)]

[Footnote 45: Both Pachymer (l. iii. c. 3, 4, 5) and Nic. Greg. (l. iv.
c. 7) understand and deplore the effects of this dangerous indulgence.
Bibars, sultan of Egypt, himself a Tartar, but a devout Mussulman,
obtained from the children of Zingis the permission to build a stately
mosque in the capital of Crimea, (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii.
p. 343.)]

[Footnote 46: Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 48) was assured at
Caffa, that these fishes were sometimes twenty-four or twenty-six feet
long, weighed eight or nine hundred pounds, and yielded three or
four quintals of caviare. The corn of the Bosphorus had supplied the
Athenians in the time of Demosthenes.]

[Footnote 47: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. p. 343, 344. Viaggi
di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 400. But this land or water carriage could
only be practicable when Tartary was united under a wise and powerful
monarch.]

[Footnote 48: Nic. Gregoras (l. xiii. c. 12) is judicious and well
informed on the trade and colonies of the Black Sea. Chardin describes
the present ruins of Caffa, where, in forty days, he saw above 400
sail employed in the corn and fish trade, (Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p.
46--48.)]

[Footnote 49: See Nic. Gregoras, l. xvii. c. 1.]

These usurpations were encouraged by the weakness of the elder
Andronicus, and by the civil wars that afflicted his age and the
minority of his grandson. The talents of Cantacuzene were employed to
the ruin, rather than the restoration, of the empire; and after his
domestic victory, he was condemned to an ignominious trial, whether the
Greeks or the Genoese should reign in Constantinople. The merchants
of Pera were offended by his refusal of some contiguous land,
some commanding heights, which they proposed to cover with new
fortifications; and in the absence of the emperor, who was detained at
Demotica by sickness, they ventured to brave the debility of a female
reign. A Byzantine vessel, which had presumed to fish at the mouth of
the harbor, was sunk by these audacious strangers; the fishermen
were murdered. Instead of suing for pardon, the Genoese demanded
satisfaction; required, in a haughty strain, that the Greeks should
renounce the exercise of navigation; and encountered with regular arms
the first sallies of the popular indignation. They instantly occupied
the debatable land; and by the labor of a whole people, of either sex
and of every age, the wall was raised, and the ditch was sunk, with
incredible speed. At the same time, they attacked and burnt two
Byzantine galleys; while the three others, the remainder of the Imperial
navy, escaped from their hands: the habitations without the gates,
or along the shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the
regent, of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the
city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public consternation: the
emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he yielded to the obstinacy
of his enemies, who rejected all reasonable terms, and to the ardor of
his subjects, who threatened, in the style of Scripture, to break them
in pieces like a potter's vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes,
that he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the
war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land, the
other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the evils of
a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had believed that a
few days would terminate the war, already murmured at their losses: the
succors from their mother-country were delayed by the factions of Genoa;
and the most cautious embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to
remove their families and effects from the scene of hostility. In
the spring, the Byzantine fleet, seven galleys and a train of smaller
vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbor, and steered in a single
line along the shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their sides to the
beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were composed of peasants and
mechanics; nor was their ignorance compensated by the native courage of
Barbarians: the wind was strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner
did the Greeks perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped
headlong into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The
troops that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck at
the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese were astonished,
and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their triumphant vessels,
crowned with flowers, and dragging after them the captive galleys,
repeatedly passed and repassed before the palace: the only virtue of the
emperor was patience; and the hope of revenge his sole consolation. Yet
the distress of both parties interposed a temporary agreement; and the
shame of the empire was disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power.
Summoning the chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the
trivial object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally
granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the seeming
custody of his officers. [50]

[Footnote 50: The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene (l. iv.
c. 11 with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras l. xvii. c.
1--7) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was less responsible
than the prince for the defeat of the fleet.]

But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to join
his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa and her
colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war, his moderation
was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants of Pera, who
discharged from their rampart a large stone that fell in the midst of
Constantinople. On his just complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudence
of their engineer; but the next day the insult was repeated; and they
exulted in a second proof that the royal city was not beyond the reach
of their artillery. Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the
Venetians; but the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the
balance of these opulent and powerful republics. [51] From the Straits
of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered each
other with various success; and a memorable battle was fought in the
narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It would not be an easy
task to reconcile the accounts of the Greeks, the Venetians, and
the Genoese; [52] and while I depend on the narrative of an impartial
historian, [53] I shall borrow from each nation the facts that redound
to their own disgrace, and the honor of their foes. The Venetians, with
their allies the Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their
fleet, with the poor addition of eight Byzantine galleys, amounted to
seventy-five sail: the Genoese did not exceed sixty-four; but in those
times their ships of war were distinguished by the superiority of their
size and strength. The names and families of their naval commanders,
Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the annals of their country; but
the personal merit of the former was eclipsed by the fame and abilities
of his rival. They engaged in tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary
conflict was continued from the dawn to the extinction of light.
The enemies of the Genoese applaud their prowess; the friends of the
Venetians are dissatisfied with their behavior; but all parties agree
in praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, [531] who, with many
wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation of the
fleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen Genoese
galleys, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by a double loss
of the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans, and two Greeks; [532]
and even the grief of the conquerors expressed the assurance and habit
of more decisive victories. Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring
into a fortified harbor, from whence, under the pretext of the orders of
the senate, he steered with a broken and flying squadron for the Isle
of Candia, and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In a
public epistle, [54] addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch employs
his eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two luminaries of
Italy. The orator celebrates the valor and victory of the Genoese,
the first of men in the exercise of naval war: he drops a tear on the
misfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but he exhorts them to pursue
with fire and sword the base and perfidious Greeks; to purge the
metropolis of the East from the heresy with which it was infected.
Deserted by their friends, the Greeks were incapable of resistance; and
three months after the battle, the emperor Cantacuzene solicited and
subscribed a treaty, which forever banished the Venetians and Catalans,
and granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of
dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soon
have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the ambition of the republic
had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power. A long
contest of one hundred and thirty years was determined by the triumph
of Venice; and the factions of the Genoese compelled them to seek for
domestic peace under the protection of a foreign lord, the duke of
Milan, or the French king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of
conquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated
the Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude of
Constantinople itself.

[Footnote 51: The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c.
18, p. 24, 25, 28--32,) who wishes to disguise what he dares not deny. I
regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is still in MS. at Paris. * Note:
This part of Nicephorus Gregoras has not been printed in the new
edition of the Byzantine Historians. The editor expresses a hope that
it may be undertaken by Hase. I should join in the regret of Gibbon,
if these books contain any historical information: if they are but
a continuation of the controversies which fill the last books in our
present copies, they may as well sleep their eternal sleep in MS. as in
print.--M.]

[Footnote 52: Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. xii. p. 144) refers to
the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the continuator
of Andrew Dandulus, tom. xii. p. 421, 422) and Genoa, (George Stella
Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092;) both which I have
diligently consulted in his great Collection of the Historians of
Italy.]

[Footnote 53: See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l. ii. c.
59, p. 145--147, c. 74, 75, p. 156, 157, in Muratori's Collection, tom.
xiv.]

[Footnote 531: Cantacuzene praises their bravery, but imputes their losses
to their ignorance of the seas: they suffered more by the breakers than
by the enemy, vol. iii. p. 224.--M.]

[Footnote 532: Cantacuzene says that the Genoese lost twenty-eight ships
with their crews, autandroi; the Venetians and Catalans sixteen,
the Imperials, none Cantacuzene accuses Pisani of cowardice, in not
following up the victory, and destroying the Genoese. But Pisani's
conduct, and indeed Cantacuzene's account of the battle, betray the
superiority of the Genoese.--M.]

[Footnote 54: The Abbe de Sade (Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom.
iii. p. 257--263) translates this letter, which he copied from a MS.
in the king of France's library. Though a servant of the duke of Milan,
Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and grief at the defeat and
despair of the Genoese in the following year, (p. 323--332.)]




Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part I.

     Conquests Of Zingis Khan And The Moguls From China To
     Poland.--Escape Of Constantinople And The Greeks.--Origin Of
     The Ottoman Turks In Bithynia.--Reigns And Victories Of
     Othman, Orchan, Amurath The First, And Bajazet The First.--
     Foundation And Progress Of The Turkish Monarchy In Asia And
     Europe.--Danger Of Constantinople And The Greek Empire.

From the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the cowardice
and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend to the victorious
Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by martial discipline,
religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the national character. The rise
and progress of the Ottomans, the present sovereigns of Constantinople,
are connected with the most important scenes of modern history; but they
are founded on a previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls
[100] and Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive
convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the surface of
the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to introduce the nations,
the immediate or remote authors of the fall of the Roman empire; nor can
I refuse myself to those events, which, from their uncommon magnitude,
will interest a philosophic mind in the history of blood. [1]

[Footnote 100: Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper name
of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux, their
neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also Beda.
This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against the French
Orientalists. See De Brosset. Note on Le Beau, tom. xxii p. 402.]

[Footnote 1: The reader is invited to review chapters xxii. to xxvi.,
and xxiii. to xxxviii., the manners of pastoral nations, the conquests
of Attila and the Huns, which were composed at a time when I entertained
the wish, rather than the hope, of concluding my history.]

From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea,
the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been poured. These ancient
seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied in the twelfth century by many
pastoral tribes, of the same descent and similar manners, which were
united and led to conquest by the formidable Zingis. [101] In his ascent
to greatness, that Barbarian (whose private appellation was Temugin) had
trampled on the necks of his equals. His birth was noble; but it was the
pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced his seventh ancestor
from the immaculate conception of a virgin. His father had reigned over
thirteen hordes, which composed about thirty or forty thousand families:
above two thirds refused to pay tithes or obedience to his infant
son; and at the age of thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his
rebellious subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and
to obey; but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth year
he had established his fame and dominion over the circumjacent tribes.
In a state of society, in which policy is rude and valor is universal,
the ascendant of one man must be founded on his power and resolution to
punish his enemies and recompense his friends. His first military league
was ratified by the simple rites of sacrificing a horse and tasting of a
running stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the
sweets and the bitters of life; and when he had shared among them his
horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his own hopes.
After his first victory, he placed seventy caldrons on the fire, and
seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast headlong into the boiling
water. The sphere of his attraction was continually enlarged by the
ruin of the proud and the submission of the prudent; and the boldest
chieftains might tremble, when they beheld, enchased in silver, the
skull of the khan of Keraites; [2] who, under the name of Prester John,
had corresponded with the Roman pontiff and the princes of Europe. The
ambition of Temugin condescended to employ the arts of superstition;
and it was from a naked prophet, who could ascend to heaven on a white
horse, that he accepted the title of Zingis, [3] the _most great_; and
a divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth. In a
general _couroultai_, or diet, he was seated on a felt, which was long
afterwards revered as a relic, and solemnly proclaimed great khan, or
emperor of the Moguls [4] and Tartars. [5] Of these kindred, though rival,
names, the former had given birth to the imperial race; and the latter
has been extended by accident or error over the spacious wilderness of
the north.

[Footnote 101: On the traditions of the early life of Zingis, see D'Ohson,
Hist des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte
des Ost-Mongolen, p. 66, &c., and Notes.--M.]

[Footnote 2: The khans of the Keraites were most probably incapable of
reading the pompous epistles composed in their name by the Nestorian
missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous wonders of an Indian
kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the Presbyter or Priest John) had
submitted to the rites of baptism and ordination, (Asseman, Bibliot
Orient tom. iii. p. ii. p. 487--503.)]

[Footnote 3: Since the history and tragedy of Voltaire, Gengis, at least
in French, seems to be the more fashionable spelling; but Abulghazi Khan
must have known the true name of his ancestor. His etymology appears
just: _Zin_, in the Mogul tongue, signifies _great_, and _gis_ is the
superlative termination, (Hist. Genealogique des Tatars, part iii. p.
194, 195.) From the same idea of magnitude, the appellation of _Zingis_
is bestowed on the ocean.]

[Footnote 4: The name of Moguls has prevailed among the Orientals, and
still adheres to the titular sovereign, the Great Mogul of Hindastan. *
Note: M. Remusat (sur les Langues Tartares, p. 233) justly observes,
that Timour was a Turk, not a Mogul, and, p. 242, that probably there
was not Mogul in the army of Baber, who established the Indian throne of
the "Great Mogul."--M.]

[Footnote 5: The Tartars (more properly Tatars) were descended from
Tatar Khan, the brother of Mogul Khan, (see Abulghazi, part i. and ii.,)
and once formed a horde of 70,000 families on the borders of Kitay, (p.
103--112.) In the great invasion of Europe (A.D. 1238) they seem to
have led the vanguard; and the similitude of the name of _Tartarei_,
recommended that of Tartars to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.) *
Note: This relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is fabulous, and
invented by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavored
to connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those of
the Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no trace of it in
the Chinese writers. Tabl. de l'Asie, p. 156.--M.]

The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was adapted
to the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise of foreign
hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on the crimes of
adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts of a horse or ox; and
the fiercest of men were mild and just in their intercourse with each
other. The future election of the great khan was vested in the princes
of his family and the heads of the tribes; and the regulations of the
chase were essential to the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The
victorious nation was held sacred from all servile labors, which were
abandoned to slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile except
the profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, who
were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by hundreds,
thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of a veteran
commander. Each officer and soldier was made responsible, under pain
of death, for the safety and honor of his companions; and the spirit of
conquest breathed in the law, that peace should never be granted unless
to a vanquished and suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis
that best deserves our wonder and applause. [501] The Catholic inquisitors
of Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been confounded
by the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the lessons of
philosophy, [6] and established by his laws a system of pure theism
and perfect toleration. His first and only article of faith was the
existence of one God, the Author of all good; who fills by his presence
the heavens and earth, which he has created by his power. The Tartars
and Moguls were addicted to the idols of their peculiar tribes; and many
of them had been converted by the foreign missionaries to the religions
of Moses, of Mahomet, and of Christ. These various systems in freedom
and concord were taught and practised within the precincts of the same
camp; and the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latin
priest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from service and tribute:
in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might trample the Koran
under his horse's feet, but the calm legislator respected the prophets
and pontiffs of the most hostile sects. The reason of Zingis was not
informed by books: the khan could neither read nor write; and, except
the tribe of the Igours, the greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars
were as illiterate as their sovereign. [601] The memory of their exploits
was preserved by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis,
these traditions were collected and transcribed; [7] the brevity of
their domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese, [8] Persians, [9]
Armenians, [10] Syrians, [11] Arabians, [12] Greeks, [13] Russians, [14]
Poles, [15] Hungarians, [16] and Latins; [17] and each nation will deserve
credit in the relation of their own disasters and defeats. [18]

[Footnote 501: Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an embassy to
Bogdosottnam-Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter to this effect:
"I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and my empire. Repair then
to me, and promote the present and future happiness of man: I will be
thy supporter and protector: let us establish a system of religion,
and unite it with the monarchy," &c. The high priest accepted the
invitation; and the Mongol history literally terms this step the _period
of the first respect for religion_; because the monarch, by his public
profession, made it the religion of the state. Klaproth. "Travels in
Caucasus," ch. 7, Eng. Trans. p. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his son and
successor Oegodah had, on account of their continual wars, much leisure
for the propagation of the religion of the Lama. By religion they
understand a distinct, independent, sacred moral code, which has but
one origin, one source, and one object. This notion they universally
propagate, and even believe that the brutes, and all created beings,
have a religion adapted to their sphere of action. The different forms
of the various religions they ascribe to the difference of individuals,
nations, and legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing against
any creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or of
their persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on the
other hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions, with perfect
resignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of others, nay, consider
them as a motive for increased ardor in prayer, ch. ix. p. 109.--M.]

[Footnote 6: A singular conformity may be found between the religious
laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of Carolina, in his
works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.)]

[Footnote 601: See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour minister of
Tchingis, in Abel Remusat's 2d series of Recherch. Asiat. vol. ii. p.
61. He taught the son of Tchingis to write: "He was the instructor of
the Moguls in writing, of which they were before ignorant;" and hence
the application of the Ouigour characters to the Mogul language cannot
be placed earlier than the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time of
Pa-sse-pa, who lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to that
of Thibet, was introduced under Khubilai.--M.]

[Footnote 7: In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of Persia,
the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these traditions, his vizier
Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian language, which has
been used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Genghizcan, p. 537--539.) The
Histoire Genealogique des Tatars (a Leyde, 1726, in 12mo., 2 tomes) was
translated by the Swedish prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of
Abulgasi Bahadur Khan, a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the
Usbeks of Charasm, or Carizme, (A.D. 1644--1663.) He is of most value
and credit for the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his
nine parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from
Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vth, vith,
and viith, the general history of his four sons and their posterity; the
viiith and ixth, the particular history of the descendants of Sheibani
Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar and Charasm.]

[Footnote 8: Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des
Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tiree de l'Histoire
de la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Societe de Jesus, Missionaire
a Peking; a Paris, 1739, in 4to. This translation is stamped with the
Chinese character of domestic accuracy and foreign ignorance.]

[Footnote 9: See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier Empereur des
Moguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, a Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a
work of ten years' labor, chiefly drawn from the Persian writers, among
whom Nisavi, the secretary of Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and
prejudices of a contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault
of the originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of
_Genghizcan_, _Mohammed_, _Gelaleddin_, &c., in the Bibliotheque
Orientale of D'Herbelot. * Note: The preface to the Hist. des Mongols,
(Paris, 1824) gives a catalogue of the Arabic and Persian authorities.--
M.]

[Footnote 10: Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and afterwards
a monk of Premontre, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii AEvi, tom. i. p.
34,) dictated in the French language, his book _de Tartaris_, his
old fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated into Latin, and is
inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynaeus, (Basil, 1555, in folio.) *
Note: A precis at the end of the new edition of Le Beau, Hist. des
Empereurs, vol. xvii., by M. Brosset, gives large extracts from
the accounts of the Armenian historians relating to the Mogul
conquests.--M.]

[Footnote 11: Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the
conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius, (vers. Pocock, Oxon.
1663, in 4to.;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls of Persia.
Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted some facts from his
Syriac writings, and the lives of the Jacobite maphrians, or primates of
the East.]

[Footnote 12: Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we may
distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in person,
under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.]

[Footnote 13: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the
necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He
describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of the
Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and corrupts the
names of Zingis and his sons.]

[Footnote 14: M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has described
the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the patriarch Nicon, and the
old chronicles.]

[Footnote 15: For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica et
Europaea of Matthew a Michou, or De Michovia, a canon and physician of
Cracow, (A.D. 1506,) inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grynaeus. Fabric
Bibliot. Latin. Mediae et Infimae AEtatis, tom. v. p. 56.]

[Footnote 16: I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general historian
(pars ii. c. 74, p. 150) in the 1st volume of the Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain the original narrative of
a contemporary, an eye-witness, and a sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari,
Varadiensis Capituli Canonici, Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super
Destructione Regni Hungariae Temporibus Belae IV. Regis per Tartaros
facta, p. 292--321;) the best picture that I have ever seen of all the
circumstances of a Barbaric invasion.]

[Footnote 17: Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic documents,
the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word _Tartari_ in his
copious Index.) From motives of zeal and curiosity, the court of the
great khan in the xiiith century was visited by two friars, John de
Plano Carpini, and William Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian
gentleman. The Latin relations of the two former are inserted in the
1st volume of Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third
(Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Medii AEvi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25) may
be found in the second tome of Ramusio.]

[Footnote 18: In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has
most amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom. iii. l.
xv.--xix., and in the collateral articles of the Seljukians of Roum,
tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians, l. xiv., and the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l.
xxi.; consult likewise the tables of the 1st volume. He is ever learned
and accurate; yet I am only indebted to him for a general view, and some
passages of Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. *
Note: To this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may be added
D'Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, (from Arabic and
Persian authorities,) Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost
Mongolen, St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious work, by Ssanang Ssetsen
Chungtaidschi, published in the original Mongol, was written after the
conversion of the nation to Buddhism: it is enriched with very valuable
notes by the editor and translator; but, unfortunately, is very barren
of information about the European and even the western Asiatic conquests
of the Mongols.--M.]




Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part II.

The arms of Zingis and his lieutenants successively reduced the hordes
of the desert, who pitched their tents between the wall of China and the
Volga; and the Mogul emperor became the monarch of the pastoral world,
the lord of many millions of shepherds and soldiers, who felt their
united strength, and were impatient to rush on the mild and wealthy
climates of the south. His ancestors had been the tributaries of the
Chinese emperors; and Temugin himself had been disgraced by a title of
honor and servitude. The court of Pekin was astonished by an embassy
from its former vassal, who, in the tone of the king of nations, exacted
the tribute and obedience which he had paid, and who affected to treat
the _son of heaven_ as the most contemptible of mankind. A haughty
answer disguised their secret apprehensions; and their fears were soon
justified by the march of innumerable squadrons, who pierced on all
sides the feeble rampart of the great wall. Ninety cities were stormed,
or starved, by the Moguls; ten only escaped; and Zingis, from a
knowledge of the filial piety of the Chinese, covered his vanguard with
their captive parents; an unworthy, and by degrees a fruitless, abuse of
the virtue of his enemies. His invasion was supported by the revolt of a
hundred thousand Khitans, who guarded the frontier: yet he listened to
a treaty; and a princess of China, three thousand horses, five hundred
youths, and as many virgins, and a tribute of gold and silk, were the
price of his retreat. In his second expedition, he compelled the Chinese
emperor to retire beyond the yellow river to a more southern residence.
The siege of Pekin [19] was long and laborious: the inhabitants were
reduced by famine to decimate and devour their fellow-citizens; when
their ammunition was spent, they discharged ingots of gold and silver
from their engines; but the Moguls introduced a mine to the centre of
the capital; and the conflagration of the palace burnt above thirty
days. China was desolated by Tartar war and domestic faction; and the
five northern provinces were added to the empire of Zingis.

[Footnote 19: More properly _Yen-king_, an ancient city, whose ruins
still appear some furlongs to the south-east of the modern _Pekin_,
which was built by Cublai Khan, (Gaubel, p. 146.) Pe-king and Nan-king
are vague titles, the courts of the north and of the south. The identity
and change of names perplex the most skilful readers of the Chinese
geography, (p. 177.) * Note: And likewise in Chinese history--see Abel
Remusat, Mel. Asiat. 2d tom. ii. p. 5.--M.]

In the West, he touched the dominions of Mohammed, sultan of Carizme,
who reigned from the Persian Gulf to the borders of India and Turkestan;
and who, in the proud imitation of Alexander the Great, forgot the
servitude and ingratitude of his fathers to the house of Seljuk. It was
the wish of Zingis to establish a friendly and commercial intercourse
with the most powerful of the Moslem princes: nor could he be tempted by
the secret solicitations of the caliph of Bagdad, who sacrificed to his
personal wrongs the safety of the church and state. A rash and inhuman
deed provoked and justified the Tartar arms in the invasion of the
southern Asia. [191] A caravan of three ambassadors and one hundred and
fifty merchants were arrested and murdered at Otrar, by the command of
Mohammed; nor was it till after a demand and denial of justice, till he
had prayed and fasted three nights on a mountain, that the Mogul emperor
appealed to the judgment of God and his sword. Our European battles,
says a philosophic writer, [20] are petty skirmishes, if compared to the
numbers that have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia. Seven hundred
thousand Moguls and Tartars are said to have marched under the standard
of Zingis and his four sons. In the vast plains that extend to the north
of the Sihon or Jaxartes, they were encountered by four hundred thousand
soldiers of the sultan; and in the first battle, which was suspended
by the night, one hundred and sixty thousand Carizmians were slain.
Mohammed was astonished by the multitude and valor of his enemies: he
withdrew from the scene of danger, and distributed his troops in the
frontier towns; trusting that the Barbarians, invincible in the field,
would be repulsed by the length and difficulty of so many regular
sieges. But the prudence of Zingis had formed a body of Chinese
engineers, skilled in the mechanic arts; informed perhaps of the secret
of gunpowder, and capable, under his discipline, of attacking a foreign
country with more vigor and success than they had defended their own.
The Persian historians will relate the sieges and reduction of Otrar,
Cogende, Bochara, Samarcand, Carizme, Herat, Merou, Nisabour, Balch,
and Candahar; and the conquest of the rich and populous countries of
Transoxiana, Carizme, and Chorazan. [204 The destructive hostilities of
Attila and the Huns have long since been elucidated by the example of
Zingis and the Moguls; and in this more proper place I shall be content
to observe, that, from the Caspian to the Indus, they ruined a tract of
many hundred miles, which was adorned with the habitations and labors of
mankind, and that five centuries have not been sufficient to repair the
ravages of four years. The Mogul emperor encouraged or indulged the fury
of his troops: the hope of future possession was lost in the ardor of
rapine and slaughter; and the cause of the war exasperated their native
fierceness by the pretence of justice and revenge. The downfall and
death of the sultan Mohammed, who expired, unpitied and alone, in a
desert island of the Caspian Sea, is a poor atonement for the calamities
of which he was the author. Could the Carizmian empire have been saved
by a single hero, it would have been saved by his son Gelaleddin, whose
active valor repeatedly checked the Moguls in the career of victory.
Retreating, as he fought, to the banks of the Indus, he was oppressed by
their innumerable host, till, in the last moment of despair, Gelaleddin
spurred his horse into the waves, swam one of the broadest and most
rapid rivers of Asia, and extorted the admiration and applause of Zingis
himself. It was in this camp that the Mogul conqueror yielded with
reluctance to the murmurs of his weary and wealthy troops, who sighed
for the enjoyment of their native land. Eucumbered with the spoils of
Asia, he slowly measured back his footsteps, betrayed some pity for the
misery of the vanquished, and declared his intention of rebuilding the
cities which had been swept away by the tempest of his arms. After he
had repassed the Oxus and Jaxartes, he was joined by two generals,
whom he had detached with thirty thousand horse, to subdue the western
provinces of Persia. They had trampled on the nations which opposed
their passage, penetrated through the gates of Derbent, traversed the
Volga and the desert, and accomplished the circuit of the Caspian Sea,
by an expedition which had never been attempted, and has never been
repeated. The return of Zingis was signalized by the overthrow of
the rebellious or independent kingdoms of Tartary; and he died in
the fulness of years and glory, with his last breath exhorting and
instructing his sons to achieve the conquest of the Chinese empire. [205]

[Footnote 191: See the particular account of this transaction, from the
Kholauesut el Akbaur, in Price, vol. ii. p. 402.--M.]

[Footnote 20: M. de Voltaire, Essai sur l'Histoire Generale, tom. iii.
c. 60, p. 8. His account of Zingis and the Moguls contains, as usual,
much general sense and truth, with some particular errors.]

[Footnote 204: Every where they massacred all classes, except the
artisans, whom they made slaves. Hist. des Mongols.--M.]

[Footnote 205: Their first duty, which he bequeathed to them, was to
massacre the king of Tangcoute and all the inhabitants of Ninhia, the
surrender of the city being already agreed upon, Hist. des Mongols. vol.
i. p. 286.--M.]

The harem of Zingis was composed of five hundred wives and concubines;
and of his numerous progeny, four sons, illustrious by their birth and
merit, exercised under their father the principal offices of peace and
war. Toushi was his great huntsman, Zagatai [21] his judge, Octai his
minister, and Tuli his general; and their names and actions are often
conspicuous in the history of his conquests. Firmly united for their
own and the public interest, the three brothers and their families were
content with dependent sceptres; and Octai, by general consent, was
proclaimed great khan, or emperor of the Moguls and Tartars. He was
succeeded by his son Gayuk, after whose death the empire devolved to
his cousins Mangou and Cublai, the sons of Tuli, and the grandsons of
Zingis. In the sixty-eight years of his four first successors, the
Mogul subdued almost all Asia, and a large portion of Europe. Without
confining myself to the order of time, without expatiating on the detail
of events, I shall present a general picture of the progress of their
arms; I. In the East; II. In the South; III. In the West; and IV. In the
North.

[Footnote 21: Zagatai gave his name to his dominions of Maurenahar,
or Transoxiana; and the Moguls of Hindostan, who emigrated from that
country, are styled Zagatais by the Persians. This certain etymology,
and the similar example of Uzbek, Nogai, &c., may warn us not absolutely
to reject the derivations of a national, from a personal, name. *
Note: See a curious anecdote of Tschagatai. Hist. des Mongols, p.
370.--M.]

I. Before the invasion of Zingis, China was divided into two empires or
dynasties of the North and South; [22] and the difference of origin and
interest was smoothed by a general conformity of laws, language, and
national manners. The Northern empire, which had been dismembered by
Zingis, was finally subdued seven years after his death. After the loss
of Pekin, the emperor had fixed his residence at Kaifong, a city many
leagues in circumference, and which contained, according to the Chinese
annals, fourteen hundred thousand families of inhabitants and fugitives.
He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and made his last stand
in a third capital, till at length the hopeless monarch, protesting his
innocence and accusing his fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave
orders, that, as soon as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be
kindled by his attendants. The dynasty of the _Song_, the native and
ancient sovereigns of the whole empire, survived about forty-five years
the fall of the Northern usurpers; and the perfect conquest was reserved
for the arms of Cublai. During this interval, the Moguls were often
diverted by foreign wars; and, if the Chinese seldom dared to meet
their victors in the field, their passive courage presented and endless
succession of cities to storm and of millions to slaughter. In the
attack and defence of places, the engines of antiquity and the Greek
fire were alternately employed: the use of gunpowder in cannon and bombs
appears as a familiar practice; [23] and the sieges were conducted by the
Mahometans and Franks, who had been liberally invited into the service
of Cublai. After passing the great river, the troops and artillery
were conveyed along a series of canals, till they invested the royal
residence of Hamcheu, or Quinsay, in the country of silk, the
most delicious climate of China. The emperor, a defenceless youth,
surrendered his person and sceptre; and before he was sent in exile into
Tartary, he struck nine times the ground with his forehead, to adore in
prayer or thanksgiving the mercy of the great khan. Yet the war (it was
now styled a rebellion) was still maintained in the southern provinces
from Hamcheu to Canton; and the obstinate remnant of independence and
hostility was transported from the land to the sea. But when the fleet
of the _Song_ was surrounded and oppressed by a superior armament, their
last champion leaped into the waves with his infant emperor in his
arms. "It is more glorious," he cried, "to die a prince, than to live a
slave." A hundred thousand Chinese imitated his example; and the whole
empire, from Tonkin to the great wall, submitted to the dominion of
Cublai. His boundless ambition aspired to the conquest of Japan: his
fleet was twice shipwrecked; and the lives of a hundred thousand
Moguls and Chinese were sacrificed in the fruitless expedition. But the
circumjacent kingdoms, Corea, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Pegu, Bengal, and
Thibet, were reduced in different degrees of tribute and obedience by
the effort or terror of his arms. He explored the Indian Ocean with
a fleet of a thousand ships: they sailed in sixty-eight days, most
probably to the Isle of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; and though
they returned not without spoil or glory, the emperor was dissatisfied
that the savage king had escaped from their hands.

[Footnote 22: In Marco Polo, and the Oriental geographers, the names of
Cathay and Mangi distinguish the northern and southern empires, which,
from A.D. 1234 to 1279, were those of the great khan, and of the
Chinese. The search of Cathay, after China had been found, excited and
misled our navigators of the sixteenth century, in their attempts to
discover the north-east passage.]

[Footnote 23: I depend on the knowledge and fidelity of the Pere Gaubil,
who translates the Chinese text of the annals of the Moguls or Yuen, (p.
71, 93, 153;) but I am ignorant at what time these annals were composed
and published. The two uncles of Marco Polo, who served as engineers
at the siege of Siengyangfou, * (l. ii. 61, in Ramusio, tom. ii. See
Gaubil, p. 155, 157) must have felt and related the effects of this
destructive powder, and their silence is a weighty, and almost decisive
objection. I entertain a suspicion, that their recent discovery was
carried from Europe to China by the caravans of the xvth century and
falsely adopted as an old national discovery before the arrival of the
Portuguese and Jesuits in the xvith. Yet the Pere Gaubil affirms, that
the use of gunpowder has been known to the Chinese above 1600 years. **
Note: * Sou-houng-kian-lou. Abel Remusat.--M.
Note: ** La poudre a canon et d'autres compositions inflammantes,
dont ils se servent pour construire des pieces d'artifice d'un effet
suprenant, leur etaient connues depuis tres long-temps, et l'on croit
que des bombardes et des pierriers, dont ils avaient enseigne l'usage
aux Tartares, ont pu donner en Europe l'idee d'artillerie, quoique la
forme des fusils et des canons dont ils se servent actuellement, leur
ait ete apportee par les Francs, ainsi que l'attestent les noms memes
qu'ils donnent a ces sortes d'armes. Abel Remusat, Melanges Asiat. 2d
ser. tom. i. p. 23.--M.]

II. The conquest of Hindostan by the Moguls was reserved in a later
period for the house of Timour; but that of Iran, or Persia, was
achieved by Holagou Khan, [231] the grandson of Zingis, the brother and
lieutenant of the two successive emperors, Mangou and Cublai. I shall
not enumerate the crowd of sultans, emirs, and atabeks, whom he trampled
into dust; but the extirpation of the _Assassins_, or Ismaelians [24] of
Persia, may be considered as a service to mankind. Among the hills
to the south of the Caspian, these odious sectaries had reigned with
impunity above a hundred and sixty years; and their prince, or Imam,
established his lieutenant to lead and govern the colony of Mount
Libanus, so famous and formidable in the history of the crusades. [25]
With the fanaticism of the Koran the Ismaelians had blended the Indian
transmigration, and the visions of their own prophets; and it was their
first duty to devote their souls and bodies in blind obedience to the
vicar of God. The daggers of his missionaries were felt both in the
East and West: the Christians and the Moslems enumerate, and persons
multiply, the illustrious victims that were sacrificed to the zeal,
avarice, or resentment of _the old man_ (as he was corruptly styled)
_of the mountain_. But these daggers, his only arms, were broken by the
sword of Holagou, and not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind,
except the word _assassin_, which, in the most odious sense, has been
adopted in the languages of Europe. The extinction of the Abbassides
cannot be indifferent to the spectators of their greatness and decline.
Since the fall of their Seljukian tyrants the caliphs had recovered
their lawful dominion of Bagdad and the Arabian Irak; but the city was
distracted by theological factions, and the commander of the faithful
was lost in a harem of seven hundred concubines. The invasion of the
Moguls he encountered with feeble arms and haughty embassies. "On the
divine decree," said the caliph Mostasem, "is founded the throne of the
sons of Abbas: and their foes shall surely be destroyed in this world
and in the next. Who is this Holagou that dares to rise against them?
If he be desirous of peace, let him instantly depart from the sacred
territory; and perhaps he may obtain from our clemency the pardon of
his fault." This presumption was cherished by a perfidious vizier, who
assured his master, that, even if the Barbarians had entered the city,
the women and children, from the terraces, would be sufficient to
overwhelm them with stones. But when Holagou touched the phantom, it
instantly vanished into smoke. After a siege of two months, Bagdad
was stormed and sacked by the Moguls; [* and their savage commander
pronounced the death of the caliph Mostasem, the last of the temporal
successors of Mahomet; whose noble kinsmen, of the race of Abbas, had
reigned in Asia above five hundred years. Whatever might be the designs
of the conqueror, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina [26] were protected
by the Arabian desert; but the Moguls spread beyond the Tigris and
Euphrates, pillaged Aleppo and Damascus, and threatened to join the
Franks in the deliverance of Jerusalem. Egypt was lost, had she been
defended only by her feeble offspring; but the Mamalukes had breathed in
their infancy the keenness of a Scythian air: equal in valor, superior
in discipline, they met the Moguls in many a well-fought field; and
drove back the stream of hostility to the eastward of the Euphrates. [261]
But it overflowed with resistless violence the kingdoms of Armenia [262]
and Anatolia, of which the former was possessed by the Christians, and
the latter by the Turks. The sultans of Iconium opposed some resistance
to the Mogul arms, till Azzadin sought a refuge among the Greeks of
Constantinople, and his feeble successors, the last of the Seljukian
dynasty, were finally extirpated by the khans of Persia. [263]

[Footnote 231: See the curious account of the expedition of Holagou,
translated from the Chinese, by M. Abel Remusat, Melanges Asiat. 2d ser.
tom. i. p. 171.--M.]

[Footnote 24: All that can be known of the Assassins of Persia and Syria
is poured from the copious, and even profuse, erudition of M. Falconet,
in two _Memoires_ read before the Academy of Inscriptions, (tom. xvii.
p. 127--170.) * Note: Von Hammer's History of the Assassins has now
thrown Falconet's Dissertation into the shade.--M.]

[Footnote 25: The Ismaelians of Syria, 40,000 Assassins, had acquired
or founded ten castles in the hills above Tortosa. About the year 1280,
they were extirpated by the Mamalukes.]

[Footnote 251: Compare Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 283, 307.
Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuege, vol. vii. p. 406. Price, Chronological
Retrospect, vol. ii. p. 217--223.--M.]

[Footnote 26: As a proof of the ignorance of the Chinese in foreign
transactions, I must observe, that some of their historians extend the
conquest of Zingis himself to Medina, the country of Mahomet, (Gaubil p.
42.)]

[Footnote 261: Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 410.--M.]

[Footnote 262: On the friendly relations of the Armenians with the Mongols
see Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuege, vol. vii. p. 402. They eagerly
desired an alliance against the Mahometan powers.--M.]

[Footnote 263: Trebizond escaped, apparently by the dexterous politics of
the sovereign, but it acknowledged the Mogul supremacy. Falmerayer, p.
172.--M.]

III. No sooner had Octai subverted the northern empire of China, than he
resolved to visit with his arms the most remote countries of the West.
Fifteen hundred thousand Moguls and Tartars were inscribed on the
military roll: of these the great khan selected a third, which he
intrusted to the command of his nephew Batou, the son of Tuli; who
reigned over his father's conquests to the north of the Caspian Sea.
[264] After a festival of forty days, Batou set forwards on this great
expedition; and such was the speed and ardor of his innumerable
squadrons, than in less than six years they had measured a line of
ninety degrees of longitude, a fourth part of the circumference of the
globe. The great rivers of Asia and Europe, the Volga and Kama, the Don
and Borysthenes, the Vistula and Danube, they either swam with their
horses or passed on the ice, or traversed in leathern boats, which
followed the camp, and transported their wagons and artillery. By
the first victories of Batou, the remains of national freedom were
eradicated in the immense plains of Turkestan and Kipzak. [27] In his
rapid progress, he overran the kingdoms, as they are now styled, of
Astracan and Cazan; and the troops which he detached towards Mount
Caucasus explored the most secret recesses of Georgia and Circassia. The
civil discord of the great dukes, or princes, of Russia, betrayed their
country to the Tartars. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and
both Moscow and Kiow, the modern and the ancient capitals, were reduced
to ashes; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and perhaps
indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years has imprinted on
the character of the Russians. The Tartars ravaged with equal fury
the countries which they hoped to possess, and those which they were
hastening to leave. From the permanent conquest of Russia they made a
deadly, though transient, inroad into the heart of Poland, and as far
as the borders of Germany. The cities of Lublin and Cracow were
obliterated: [271] they approached the shores of the Baltic; and in
the battle of Lignitz they defeated the dukes of Silesia, the Polish
palatines, and the great master of the Teutonic order, and filled nine
sacks with the right ears of the slain. From Lignitz, the extreme point
of their western march, they turned aside to the invasion of Hungary;
and the presence or spirit of Batou inspired the host of five hundred
thousand men: the Carpathian hills could not be long impervious to their
divided columns; and their approach had been fondly disbelieved till it
was irresistibly felt. The king, Bela the Fourth, assembled the military
force of his counts and bishops; but he had alienated the nation by
adopting a vagrant horde of forty thousand families of Comans, and these
savage guests were provoked to revolt by the suspicion of treachery and
the murder of their prince. The whole country north of the Danube was
lost in a day, and depopulated in a summer; and the ruins of cities and
churches were overspread with the bones of the natives, who expiated the
sins of their Turkish ancestors. An ecclesiastic, who fled from the sack
of Waradin, describes the calamities which he had seen, or suffered; and
the sanguinary rage of sieges and battles is far less atrocious than the
treatment of the fugitives, who had been allured from the woods under a
promise of peace and pardon and who were coolly slaughtered as soon as
they had performed the labors of the harvest and vintage. In the winter
the Tartars passed the Danube on the ice, and advanced to Gran or
Strigonium, a German colony, and the metropolis of the kingdom. Thirty
engines were planted against the walls; the ditches were filled with
sacks of earth and dead bodies; and after a promiscuous massacre, three
hundred noble matrons were slain in the presence of the khan. Of all
the cities and fortresses of Hungary, three alone survived the Tartar
invasion, and the unfortunate Bata hid his head among the islands of the
Adriatic.

[Footnote 264: See the curious extracts from the Mahometan writers, Hist.
des Mongols, p. 707.--M.]

[Footnote 27: The _Dashte Kipzak_, or plain of Kipzak, extends on
either side of the Volga, in a boundless space towards the Jaik and
Borysthenes, and is supposed to contain the primitive name and nation of
the Cossacks.]

[Footnote 271: Olmutz was gallantly and successfully defended by Stenberg,
Hist. des Mongols, p. 396.--M.]

The Latin world was darkened by this cloud of savage hostility: a
Russian fugitive carried the alarm to Sweden; and the remote nations of
the Baltic and the ocean trembled at the approach of the Tartars, [28]
whom their fear and ignorance were inclined to separate from the human
species. Since the invasion of the Arabs in the eighth century, Europe
had never been exposed to a similar calamity: and if the disciples
of Mahomet would have oppressed her religion and liberty, it might be
apprehended that the shepherds of Scythia would extinguish her cities,
her arts, and all the institutions of civil society. The Roman pontiff
attempted to appease and convert these invincible Pagans by a mission of
Franciscan and Dominican friars; but he was astonished by the reply of
the khan, that the sons of God and of Zingis were invested with a divine
power to subdue or extirpate the nations; and that the pope would be
involved in the universal destruction, unless he visited in person,
and as a suppliant, the royal horde. The emperor Frederic the Second
embraced a more generous mode of defence; and his letters to the kings
of France and England, and the princes of Germany, represented the
common danger, and urged them to arm their vassals in this just and
rational crusade. [29] The Tartars themselves were awed by the fame
and valor of the Franks; the town of Newstadt in Austria was bravely
defended against them by fifty knights and twenty crossbows; and they
raised the siege on the appearance of a German army. After wasting
the adjacent kingdoms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, Batou slowly
retreated from the Danube to the Volga to enjoyed the rewards of victory
in the city and palace of Serai, which started at his command from the
midst of the desert. [291]

[Footnote 28: In the year 1238, the inhabitants of Gothia (_Sweden_)
and Frise were prevented, by their fear of the Tartars, from sending, as
usual, their ships to the herring fishery on the coast of England; and
as there was no exportation, forty or fifty of these fish were sold for
a shilling, (Matthew Paris, p. 396.) It is whimsical enough, that the
orders of a Mogul khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should have
lowered the price of herrings in the English market.]

[Footnote 29: I shall copy his characteristic or flattering epithets of
the different countries of Europe: Furens ac fervens ad arma Germania,
strenuae militiae genitrix et alumna Francia, bellicosa et audax Hispania,
virtuosa viris et classe munita fertilis Anglia, impetuosis bellatoribus
referta Alemannia, navalis Dacia, indomita Italia, pacis ignara
Burgundia, inquieta Apulia, cum maris Graeci, Adriatici et Tyrrheni
insulis pyraticis et invictis, Creta, Cypro, Sicilia, cum Oceano
conterterminis insulis, et regionibus, cruenta Hybernia, cum agili
Wallia palustris Scotia, glacialis Norwegia, suam electam militiam sub
vexillo Crucis destinabunt, &c. (Matthew Paris, p. 498.)]

[Footnote 291: He was recalled by the death of Octai.--M.]

IV. Even the poor and frozen regions of the north attracted the arms of
the Moguls: Sheibani khan, the brother of the great Batou, led a
horde of fifteen thousand families into the wilds of Siberia; and his
descendants reigned at Tobolskoi above three centuries, till the Russian
conquest. The spirit of enterprise which pursued the course of the
Oby and Yenisei must have led to the discovery of the icy sea. After
brushing away the monstrous fables, of men with dogs' heads and cloven
feet, we shall find, that, fifteen years after the death of Zingis, the
Moguls were informed of the name and manners of the Samoyedes in the
neighborhood of the polar circle, who dwelt in subterraneous huts, and
derived their furs and their food from the sole occupation of hunting.
[30]

[Footnote 30: See Carpin's relation in Hackluyt, vol. i. p. 30. The
pedigree of the khans of Siberia is given by Abulghazi, (part viii. p.
485--495.) Have the Russians found no Tartar chronicles at Tobolskoi? *
Note: * See the account of the Mongol library in Bergman, Nomadische
Streifereyen, vol. iii. p. 185, 205, and Remusat, Hist. des
Langues Tartares, p. 327, and preface to Schmidt, Geschichte der
Ost-Mongolen.--M.]

While China, Syria, and Poland, were invaded at the same time by the
Moguls and Tartars, the authors of the mighty mischief were content with
the knowledge and declaration, that their word was the sword of death.
Like the first caliphs, the first successors of Zingis seldom appeared
in person at the head of their victorious armies. On the banks of the
Onon and Selinga, the royal or _golden horde_ exhibited the contrast
of simplicity and greatness; of the roasted sheep and mare's milk
which composed their banquets; and of a distribution in one day of five
hundred wagons of gold and silver. The ambassadors and princes of
Europe and Asia were compelled to undertake this distant and laborious
pilgrimage; and the life and reign of the great dukes of Russia, the
kings of Georgia and Armenia, the sultans of Iconium, and the emirs of
Persia, were decided by the frown or smile of the great khan. The sons
and grandsons of Zingis had been accustomed to the pastoral life; but
the village of Caracorum [31] was gradually ennobled by their election
and residence. A change of manners is implied in the removal of Octai
and Mangou from a tent to a house; and their example was imitated by the
princes of their family and the great officers of the empire. Instead of
the boundless forest, the enclosure of a park afforded the more indolent
pleasures of the chase; their new habitations were decorated with
painting and sculpture; their superfluous treasures were cast in
fountains, and basins, and statues of massy silver; and the artists of
China and Paris vied with each other in the service of the great khan.
[32] Caracorum contained two streets, the one of Chinese mechanics, the
other of Mahometan traders; and the places of religious worship, one
Nestorian church, two mosques, and twelve temples of various idols, may
represent in some degree the number and division of inhabitants. Yet a
French missionary declares, that the town of St. Denys, near Paris, was
more considerable than the Tartar capital; and that the whole palace of
Mangou was scarcely equal to a tenth part of that Benedictine abbey. The
conquests of Russia and Syria might amuse the vanity of the great khans;
but they were seated on the borders of China; the acquisition of that
empire was the nearest and most interesting object; and they might
learn from their pastoral economy, that it is for the advantage of the
shepherd to protect and propagate his flock. I have already celebrated
the wisdom and virtue of a Mandarin who prevented the desolation of
five populous and cultivated provinces. In a spotless administration
of thirty years, this friend of his country and of mankind continually
labored to mitigate, or suspend, the havoc of war; to save the
monuments, and to rekindle the flame, of science; to restrain the
military commander by the restoration of civil magistrates; and to
instil the love of peace and justice into the minds of the Moguls. He
struggled with the barbarism of the first conquerors; but his salutary
lessons produced a rich harvest in the second generation. [321] The
northern, and by degrees the southern, empire acquiesced in the
government of Cublai, the lieutenant, and afterwards the successor, of
Mangou; and the nation was loyal to a prince who had been educated
in the manners of China. He restored the forms of her venerable
constitution; and the victors submitted to the laws, the fashions, and
even the prejudices, of the vanquished people. This peaceful triumph,
which has been more than once repeated, may be ascribed, in a great
measure, to the numbers and servitude of the Chinese. The Mogul army
was dissolved in a vast and populous country; and their emperors adopted
with pleasure a political system, which gives to the prince the solid
substance of despotism, and leaves to the subject the empty names of
philosophy, freedom, and filial obedience. [322] Under the reign of Cublai,
letters and commerce, peace and justice, were restored; the great canal,
of five hundred miles, was opened from Nankin to the capital: he fixed
his residence at Pekin; and displayed in his court the magnificence of
the greatest monarch of Asia. Yet this learned prince declined from the
pure and simple religion of his great ancestor: he sacrificed to the
idol Fo; and his blind attachment to the lamas of Thibet and the bonzes
of China [33] provoked the censure of the disciples of Confucius. His
successors polluted the palace with a crowd of eunuchs, physicians, and
astrologers, while thirteen millions of their subjects were consumed in
the provinces by famine. One hundred and forty years after the death of
Zingis, his degenerate race, the dynasty of the Yuen, was expelled by
a revolt of the native Chinese; and the Mogul emperors were lost in the
oblivion of the desert. Before this revolution, they had forfeited
their supremacy over the dependent branches of their house, the khans of
Kipzak and Russia, the khans of Zagatai, or Transoxiana, and the khans
of Iran or Persia. By their distance and power, these royal lieutenants
had soon been released from the duties of obedience; and after the death
of Cublai, they scorned to accept a sceptre or a title from his unworthy
successors. According to their respective situations, they maintained
the simplicity of the pastoral life, or assumed the luxury of the cities
of Asia; but the princes and their hordes were alike disposed for the
reception of a foreign worship. After some hesitation between the Gospel
and the Koran, they conformed to the religion of Mahomet; and while they
adopted for their brethren the Arabs and Persians, they renounced all
intercourse with the ancient Moguls, the idolaters of China.

[Footnote 31: The Map of D'Anville and the Chinese Itineraries (De
Guignes, tom. i. part ii. p. 57) seem to mark the position of Holin,
or Caracorum, about six hundred miles to the north-west of Pekin. The
distance between Selinginsky and Pekin is near 2000 Russian versts,
between 1300 and 1400 English miles, (Bell's Travels, vol. ii. p. 67.)]

[Footnote 32: Rubruquis found at Caracorum his _countryman Guillaume
Boucher, orfevre de Paris_, who had executed for the khan a silver tree
supported by four lions, and ejecting four different liquors. Abulghazi
(part iv. p. 366) mentions the painters of Kitay or China.]

[Footnote 321: See the interesting sketch of the life of this minister
(Yelin-Thsouthsai) in the second volume of the second series of
Recherches Asiatiques, par A Remusat, p. 64.--M.]

[Footnote 322: Compare Hist. des Mongols, p. 616.--M.]

[Footnote 33: The attachment of the khans, and the hatred of the
mandarins, to the bonzes and lamas (Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine, tom. i.
p. 502, 503) seems to represent them as the priests of the same god,
of the Indian _Fo_, whose worship prevails among the sects of Hindostan
Siam, Thibet, China, and Japan. But this mysterious subject is still
lost in a cloud, which the researchers of our Asiatic Society may
gradually dispel.]




Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part III.

In this shipwreck of nations, some surprise may be excited by the escape
of the Roman empire, whose relics, at the time of the Mogul invasion,
were dismembered by the Greeks and Latins. Less potent than Alexander,
they were pressed, like the Macedonian, both in Europe and Asia, by
the shepherds of Scythia; and had the Tartars undertaken the siege,
Constantinople must have yielded to the fate of Pekin, Samarcand, and
Bagdad. The glorious and voluntary retreat of Batou from the Danube
was insulted by the vain triumph of the Franks and Greeks; [34] and in
a second expedition death surprised him in full march to attack the
capital of the Caesars. His brother Borga carried the Tartar arms into
Bulgaria and Thrace; but he was diverted from the Byzantine war by a
visit to Novogorod, in the fifty-seventh degree of latitude, where he
numbered the inhabitants and regulated the tributes of Russia. The
Mogul khan formed an alliance with the Mamalukes against his brethren
of Persia: three hundred thousand horse penetrated through the gates of
Derbend; and the Greeks might rejoice in the first example of domestic
war. After the recovery of Constantinople, Michael Palaeologus, [35] at
a distance from his court and army, was surprised and surrounded in a
Thracian castle, by twenty thousand Tartars. But the object of their
march was a private interest: they came to the deliverance of Azzadin,
the Turkish sultan; and were content with his person and the treasure of
the emperor. Their general Noga, whose name is perpetuated in the hordes
of Astracan, raised a formidable rebellion against Mengo Timour, the
third of the khans of Kipzak; obtained in marriage Maria, the natural
daughter of Palaeologus; and guarded the dominions of his friend and
father. The subsequent invasions of a Scythian cast were those of
outlaws and fugitives: and some thousands of Alani and Comans, who had
been driven from their native seats, were reclaimed from a vagrant life,
and enlisted in the service of the empire. Such was the influence in
Europe of the invasion of the Moguls. The first terror of their arms
secured, rather than disturbed, the peace of the Roman Asia. The sultan
of Iconium solicited a personal interview with John Vataces; and his
artful policy encouraged the Turks to defend their barrier against
the common enemy. [36] That barrier indeed was soon overthrown; and
the servitude and ruin of the Seljukians exposed the nakedness of the
Greeks. The formidable Holagou threatened to march to Constantinople at
the head of four hundred thousand men; and the groundless panic of
the citizens of Nice will present an image of the terror which he had
inspired. The accident of a procession, and the sound of a doleful
litany, "From the fury of the Tartars, good Lord, deliver us," had
scattered the hasty report of an assault and massacre. In the blind
credulity of fear, the streets of Nice were crowded with thousands of
both sexes, who knew not from what or to whom they fled; and some hours
elapsed before the firmness of the military officers could relieve
the city from this imaginary foe. But the ambition of Holagou and his
successors was fortunately diverted by the conquest of Bagdad, and a
long vicissitude of Syrian wars; their hostility to the Moslems inclined
them to unite with the Greeks and Franks; [37] and their generosity
or contempt had offered the kingdom of Anatolia as the reward of an
Armenian vassal. The fragments of the Seljukian monarchy were disputed
by the emirs who had occupied the cities or the mountains; but they all
confessed the supremacy of the khans of Persia; and he often interposed
his authority, and sometimes his arms, to check their depredations, and
to preserve the peace and balance of his Turkish frontier. The death
of Cazan, [38] one of the greatest and most accomplished princes of the
house of Zingis, removed this salutary control; and the decline of the
Moguls gave a free scope to the rise and progress of the Ottoman Empire.
[39]

[Footnote 34: Some repulse of the Moguls in Hungary (Matthew Paris, p.
545, 546) might propagate and color the report of the union and victory
of the kings of the Franks on the confines of Bulgaria. Abulpharagius
(Dynast. p. 310) after forty years, beyond the Tigris, might be easily
deceived.]

[Footnote 35: See Pachymer, l. iii. c. 25, and l. ix. c. 26, 27; and the
false alarm at Nice, l. iii. c. 27. Nicephorus Gregoras, l. iv. c. 6.]

[Footnote 36: G. Acropolita, p. 36, 37. Nic. Greg. l. ii. c. 6, l. iv.
c. 5.]

[Footnote 37: Abulpharagius, who wrote in the year 1284, declares that
the Moguls, since the fabulous defeat of Batou, had not attacked either
the Franks or Greeks; and of this he is a competent witness. Hayton
likewise, the Armenian prince, celebrates their friendship for himself
and his nation.]

[Footnote 38: Pachymer gives a splendid character of Cazan Khan, the
rival of Cyrus and Alexander, (l. xii. c. 1.) In the conclusion of his
history (l. xiii. c. 36) he _hopes_ much from the arrival of 30,000
Tochars, or Tartars, who were ordered by the successor of Cazan to
restrain the Turks of Bithynia, A.D. 1308.]

[Footnote 39: The origin of the Ottoman dynasty is illustrated by
the critical learning of Mm. De Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p.
329--337) and D'Anville, (Empire Turc, p. 14--22,) two inhabitants of
Paris, from whom the Orientals may learn the history and geography of
their own country. * Note: They may be still more enlightened by the
Geschichte des Osman Reiches, by M. von Hammer Purgstall of Vienna.--M.]

After the retreat of Zingis, the sultan Gelaleddin of Carizme had
returned from India to the possession and defence of his Persian
kingdoms. In the space of eleven years, than hero fought in person
fourteen battles; and such was his activity, that he led his cavalry in
seventeen days from Teflis to Kerman, a march of a thousand miles.
Yet he was oppressed by the jealousy of the Moslem princes, and the
innumerable armies of the Moguls; and after his last defeat, Gelaleddin
perished ignobly in the mountains of Curdistan. His death dissolved
a veteran and adventurous army, which included under the name of
Carizmians or Corasmins many Turkman hordes, that had attached
themselves to the sultan's fortune. The bolder and more powerful chiefs
invaded Syria, and violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem: the more
humble engaged in the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium; and among
these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had formerly
pitched their tents near the southern banks of the Oxus, in the plains
of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat remarkable, that the same spot
should have produced the first authors of the Parthian and Turkish
empires. At the head, or in the rear, of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah
was drowned in the passage of the Euphrates: his son Orthogrul became
the soldier and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the
banks of the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom he
governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the father
of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been melted into the
appellation of the caliph Othman; and if we describe that pastoral chief
as a shepherd and a robber, we must separate from those characters all
idea of ignominy and baseness. Othman possessed, and perhaps surpassed,
the ordinary virtues of a soldier; and the circumstances of time and
place were propitious to his independence and success. The Seljukian
dynasty was no more; and the distance and decline of the Mogul khans
soon enfranchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate on
the verge of the Greek empire: the Koran sanctified his _gazi_, or
holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked the
passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of
Bithynia. Till the reign of Palaeologus, these passes had been vigilantly
guarded by the militia of the country, who were repaid by their
own safety and an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolished their
privilege and assumed their office; but the tribute was rigorously
collected, the custody of the passes was neglected, and the hardy
mountaineers degenerated into a trembling crowd of peasants without
spirit or discipline. It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the year
twelve hundred and ninety-nine of the Christian aera, that Othman first
invaded the territory of Nicomedia; [40] and the singular accuracy of
the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive
growth of the monster. The annals of the twenty-seven years of his
reign would exhibit a repetition of the same inroads; and his hereditary
troops were multiplied in each campaign by the accession of captives and
volunteers. Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the most
useful and defensive posts; fortified the towns and castles which he
had first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life for the baths and
palaces of his infant capitals. But it was not till Othman was oppressed
by age and infirmities, that he received the welcome news of the
conquest of Prusa, which had been surrendered by famine or treachery to
the arms of his son Orchan. The glory of Othman is chiefly founded on
that of his descendants; but the Turks have transcribed or composed a
royal testament of his last counsels of justice and moderation. [41]

[Footnote 40: See Pachymer, l. x. c. 25, 26, l. xiii. c. 33, 34, 36;
and concerning the guard of the mountains, l. i. c. 3--6: Nicephorus
Gregoras, l. vii. c. l., and the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles,
the Athenian.]

[Footnote 41: I am ignorant whether the Turks have any writers older
than Mahomet II., * nor can I reach beyond a meagre chronicle (Annales
Turcici ad Annum 1550) translated by John Gaudier, and published by
Leunclavius, (ad calcem Laonic. Chalcond. p. 311--350,) with copious
pandects, or commentaries. The history of the Growth and Decay (A.D.
1300--1683) of the Othman empire was translated into English from the
Latin MS. of Demetrius Cantemir, prince of Moldavia, (London, 1734, in
folio.) The author is guilty of strange blunders in Oriental history;
but he was conversant with the language, the annals, and institutions
of the Turks. Cantemir partly draws his materials from the Synopsis of
Saadi Effendi of Larissa, dedicated in the year 1696 to Sultan Mustapha,
and a valuable abridgment of the original historians. In one of the
Ramblers, Dr. Johnson praises Knolles (a General History of the Turks to
the present Year. London, 1603) as the first of historians, unhappy only
in the choice of his subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial and
verbose compilation from Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of
speeches and battles, can either instruct or amuse an enlightened
age, which requires from the historian some tincture of philosophy and
criticism. Note: * We could have wished that M. von Hammer had given a
more clear and distinct reply to this question of Gibbon. In a note,
vol. i. p. 630. M. von Hammer shows that they had not only sheiks
(religious writers) and learned lawyers, but poets and authors on
medicine. But the inquiry of Gibbon obviously refers to historians. The
oldest of their historical works, of which V. Hammer makes use, is the
"Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade," i. e. the History of the Great Grandson of
Aaschik Pasha, who was a dervis and celebrated ascetic poet in the reign
of Murad (Amurath) I. Ahmed, the author of the work, lived during the
reign of Bajazet II., but, he says, derived much information from the
book of Scheik Jachshi, the son of Elias, who was Imaum to Sultan
Orchan, (the second Ottoman king) and who related, from the lips of his
father, the circumstances of the earliest Ottoman history. This book
(having searched for it in vain for five-and-twenty years) our author
found at length in the Vatican. All the other Turkish histories on his
list, as indeed this, were _written_ during the reign of Mahomet II. It
does not appear whether any of the rest cite earlier authorities of
equal value with that claimed by the "Tarichi Aaschik Paschasade."--M.
(in Quarterly Review, vol. xlix. p. 292.)]

From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true aera of the Ottoman
empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian subjects were
redeemed by a tribute or ransom of thirty thousand crowns of gold; and
the city, by the labors of Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mahometan
capital; Prusa was decorated with a mosque, a college, and a hospital,
of royal foundation; the Seljukian coin was changed for the name and
impression of the new dynasty: and the most skilful professors, of human
and divine knowledge, attracted the Persian and Arabian students from
the ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizier was
instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan; [411] and a different habit
distinguished the citizens from the peasants, the Moslems from the
infidels. All the troops of Othman had consisted of loose squadrons of
Turkman cavalry; who served without pay and fought without discipline:
but a regular body of infantry was first established and trained by the
prudence of his son. A great number of volunteers was enrolled with a
small stipend, but with the permission of living at home, unless they
were summoned to the field: their rude manners, and seditious temper,
disposed Orchan to educate his young captives as his soldiers and those
of the prophet; but the Turkish peasants were still allowed to mount on
horseback, and follow his standard, with the appellation and the hopes
of _freebooters_. [412] By these arts he formed an army of twenty-five
thousand Moslems: a train of battering engines was framed for the use
of sieges; and the first successful experiment was made on the cities
of Nice and Nicomedia. Orchan granted a safe-conduct to all who were
desirous of departing with their families and effects; but the widows of
the slain were given in marriage to the conquerors; and the sacrilegious
plunder, the books, the vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed at
Constantinople. The emperor Andronicus the Younger was vanquished and
wounded by the son of Othman: [42] [421] he subdued the whole province
or kingdom of Bithynia, as far as the shores of the Bosphorus and
Hellespont; and the Christians confessed the justice and clemency of a
reign which claimed the voluntary attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet
Orchan was content with the modest title of emir; and in the list of his
compeers, the princes of Roum or Anatolia, [43] his military forces were
surpassed by the emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, each of whom could
bring into the field an army of forty thousand men. Their domains were
situate in the heart of the Seljukian kingdom; but the holy warriors,
though of inferior note, who formed new principalities on the Greek
empire, are more conspicuous in the light of history. The maritime
country from the Propontis to the Maeander and the Isle of Rhodes,
so long threatened and so often pillaged, was finally lost about the
thirteenth year of Andronicus the Elder. [44] Two Turkish chieftains,
Sarukhan and Aidin, left their names to their conquests, and their
conquests to their posterity. The captivity or ruin of the _seven_
churches of Asia was consummated; and the barbarous lords of Ionia and
Lydia still trample on the monuments of classic and Christian antiquity.
In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of the first
angel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelations; [45]
the desolation is complete; and the temple of Diana, or the church of
Mary, will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus
and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and
foxes; Sardes is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet,
without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and
Pergamus; and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign
trade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved
by prophecy, or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the
emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens
defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years; and at length
capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies
and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect; a column in a scene
of ruins; a pleasing example, that the paths of honor and safety may
sometimes be the same. The servitude of Rhodes was delayed about two
centuries by the establishment of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem:
[46] under the discipline of the order, that island emerged into fame and
opulence; the noble and warlike monks were renowned by land and sea: and
the bulwark of Christendom provoked, and repelled, the arms of the Turks
and Saracens.

[Footnote 411: Von Hammer, Osm. Geschichte, vol. i. p. 82.--M.]

[Footnote 412: Ibid. p. 91.--M.]

[Footnote 42: Cantacuzene, though he relates the battle and heroic
flight of the younger Andronicus, (l. ii. c. 6, 7, 8,) dissembles by
his silence the loss of Prusa, Nice, and Nicomedia, which are fairly
confessed by Nicephorus Gregoras, (l. viii. 15, ix. 9, 13, xi. 6.) It
appears that Nice was taken by Orchan in 1330, and Nicomedia in 1339,
which are somewhat different from the Turkish dates.]

[Footnote 421: For the conquests of Orchan over the ten pachaliks, or
kingdoms of the Seljukians, in Asia Minor. see V. Hammer, vol. i. p.
112.--M.]

[Footnote 43: The partition of the Turkish emirs is extracted from
two contemporaries, the Greek Nicephorus Gregoras (l. vii. 1) and
the Arabian Marakeschi, (De Guignes, tom. ii. P. ii. p. 76, 77.) See
likewise the first book of Laonicus Chalcondyles.]

[Footnote 44: Pachymer, l. xiii. c. 13.]

[Footnote 45: See the Travels of Wheeler and Spon, of Pocock and
Chandler, and more particularly Smith's Survey of the Seven Churches
of Asia, p. 205--276. The more pious antiquaries labor to reconcile the
promises and threats of the author of the Revelations with the _present_
state of the seven cities. Perhaps it would be more prudent to confine
his predictions to the characters and events of his own times.]

[Footnote 46: Consult the ivth book of the Histoire de l'Ordre
de Malthe, par l'Abbe de Vertot. That pleasing writer betrays his
ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynian
hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.]

The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors of their
final ruin. During the civil wars of the elder and younger Andronicus,
the son of Othman achieved, almost without resistance, the conquest of
Bithynia; and the same disorders encouraged the Turkish emirs of Lydia
and Ionia to build a fleet, and to pillage the adjacent islands and the
sea-coast of Europe. In the defence of his life and honor, Cantacuzene
was tempted to prevent, or imitate, his adversaries, by calling to his
aid the public enemies of his religion and country. Amir, the son of
Aidin, concealed under a Turkish garb the humanity and politeness of
a Greek; he was united with the great domestic by mutual esteem and
reciprocal services; and their friendship is compared, in the vain
rhetoric of the times, to the perfect union of Orestes and Pylades.
[47] On the report of the danger of his friend, who was persecuted by
an ungrateful court, the prince of Ionia assembled at Smyrna a fleet of
three hundred vessels, with an army of twenty-nine thousand men; sailed
in the depth of winter, and cast anchor at the mouth of the Hebrus. From
thence, with a chosen band of two thousand Turks, he marched along
the banks of the river, and rescued the empress, who was besieged in
Demotica by the wild Bulgarians. At that disastrous moment, the life
or death of his beloved Cantacuzene was concealed by his flight into
Servia: but the grateful Irene, impatient to behold her deliverer,
invited him to enter the city, and accompanied her message with a
present of rich apparel and a hundred horses. By a peculiar strain of
delicacy, the Gentle Barbarian refused, in the absence of an unfortunate
friend, to visit his wife, or to taste the luxuries of the palace;
sustained in his tent the rigor of the winter; and rejected the
hospitable gift, that he might share the hardships of two thousand
companions, all as deserving as himself of that honor and distinction.
Necessity and revenge might justify his predatory excursions by sea and
land: he left nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his
fleet; and persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his
embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of the
season, the clamors of his independent troops, and the weight of his
spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war, the prince
of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms with those of the
emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened Constantinople. Calumny
might affix some reproach on his imperfect aid, his hasty departure,
and a bribe of ten thousand crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine
court; but his friend was satisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excused
by the more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary
dominions. The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope, the
king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St. John, in a
laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of Ionia; and Amir was
slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest from the Rhodian knights
the citadel of Smyrna. [48] Before his death, he generously recommended
another ally of his own nation; not more sincere or zealous than
himself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful succor, by his
situation along the Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the
prospect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia
was detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride of
Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he could obtain
the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably fulfil the duties of
a subject and a son. Parental tenderness was silenced by the voice
of ambition: the Greek clergy connived at the marriage of a Christian
princess with a sectary of Mahomet; and the father of Theodora
describes, with shameful satisfaction, the dishonor of the purple. [49]
A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambassadors, who disembarked
from thirty vessels, before his camp of Selybria. A stately pavilion was
erected, in which the empress Irene passed the night with her daughters.
In the morning, Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with
curtains of silk and gold: the troops were under arms; but the emperor
alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were suddenly withdrawn
to disclose the bride, or the victim, encircled by kneeling eunuchs and
hymeneal torches: the sound of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful
event; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song,
which was chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the
rites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord: but
it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in the
harem of Bursa; and her father celebrates her charity and devotion in
this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful establishment on the throne
of Constantinople, the Greek emperor visited his Turkish ally, who with
four sons, by various wives, expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic
shore. The two princes partook, with seeming cordiality, of the
pleasures of the banquet and the chase; and Theodora was permitted
to repass the Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her
mother. But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and
interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the enemies
of Cantacuzene.

[Footnote 47: Nicephorus Gregoras has expatiated with pleasure on
this amiable character, (l. xii. 7, xiii. 4, 10, xiv. 1, 9, xvi. 6.)
Cantacuzene speaks with honor and esteem of his ally, (l. iii. c. 56,
57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 86, 89, 95, 96;) but he seems ignorant of
his own sentimental passion for the Turks, and indirectly denies the
possibility of such unnatural friendship, (l. iv. c. 40.)]

[Footnote 48: After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence of
this fortress was imposed by Pope Gregory XI. on the knights of Rhodes,
(see Vertot, l. v.)]

[Footnote 49: See Cantacuzenus, l. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus Gregoras,
who, for the light of Mount Thabor, brands the emperor with the names
of tyrant and Herod, excuses, rather than blames, this Turkish marriage,
and alleges the passion and power of Orchan, eggutatoV, kai th dunamo?
touV kat' auton hdh PersikouV (Turkish) uperairwn SatrapaV, (l. xv.
5.) He afterwards celebrates his kingdom and armies. See his reign in
Cantemir, p. 24--30.]

In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince had inserted
a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him to sell his
prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into Asia. A naked crowd
of Christians of both sexes and every age, of priests and monks, of
matrons and virgins, was exposed in the public market; the whip was
frequently used to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indigent
Greeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the
worst evils of temporal and spiritual bondage [50] Cantacuzene was
reduced to subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have been
still more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks had
been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the entire
forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his father. Yet these
calamities were of a transient nature; as soon as the storm had passed
away, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at the
conclusion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was completely
evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in his last quarrel with his
pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which could
never be healed by his successors, and which is poorly expiated by his
theological dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own
history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final passage
of the Hellespont, [51] and describe the son of Orchan as a nocturnal
robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by stratagem a hostile
and unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of ten thousand horse, was
transported in the vessels, and entertained as the friend, of the Greek
emperor. In the civil wars of Romania, he performed some service and
perpetrated more mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filled
with a Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the
restitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful delays
between the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was valued at sixty
thousand crowns, and the first payment had been made when an earthquake
shook the walls and cities of the provinces; the dismantled places were
occupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, was
rebuilt and repeopled by the policy of Soliman. The abdication of
Cantacuzene dissolved the feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his
last advice admonished his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and to
compare their own weakness with the numbers and valor, the discipline
and enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels were despised by
the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the victories
of the Ottomans. But as he practised in the field the exercise of the
_jerid_, Soliman was killed by a fall from his horse; and the aged
Orchan wept and expired on the tomb of his valiant son. [511]

[Footnote 50: The most lively and concise picture of this captivity
may be found in the history of Ducas, (c. 8,) who fairly describes what
Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush!]

[Footnote 51: In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe,
Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish guides; nor
am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles, (l. i. p. 12, &c.)
They forget to consult the most authentic record, the ivth book
of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are still
manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. * Note: Von Hammer excuses the
silence with which the Turkish historians
pass over the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with the European
continent, of which he enumerates sixteen different occasions, as
if they disdained those peaceful incursions by which they gained
no conquest, and established no permanent footing on the Byzantine
territory. Of the romantic account of Soliman's first expedition, he
says, "As yet the prose of history had not asserted its right over
the poetry of tradition." This defence would scarcely be accepted as
satisfactory by the historian of the Decline and Fall.--M. (in Quarterly
Review, vol. xlix. p. 293.)]

[Footnote 511: In the 75th year of his age, the 35th of his reign. V.
Hammer. M.]




Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part IV.

But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their enemies;
and the Turkish cimeter was wielded with the same spirit by Amurath the
First, the son of Orchan, and the brother of Soliman. By the pale and
fainting light of the Byzantine annals, [52] we can discern, that he
subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace, from
the Hellespont to Mount Haemus, and the verge of the capital; and that
Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion
in Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her
foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaulted
by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till this fatal hour
had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the arms
of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amurath
postponed for a while this easy conquest; and his pride was satisfied
with the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John Palaeologus
and his four sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the
Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between
the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, and
Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often insulted the
majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his destructive
inroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or silver;
nor were their rustic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce or
decorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the soil have been
distinguished in every age by their hardiness of mind and body; and
they were converted by a prudent institution into the firmest and most
faithful supporters of the Ottoman greatness. [53] The vizier of Amurath
reminded his sovereign that, according to the Mahometan law, he was
entitled to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that the
duty might easily be levied, if vigilant officers were stationed in
Gallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select for his use the stoutest
and most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice was followed:
the edict was proclaimed; many thousands of the European captives were
educated in religion and arms; and the new militia was consecrated and
named by a celebrated dervis. Standing in the front of their ranks, he
stretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost soldier,
and his blessing was delivered in these words: "Let them be called
Janizaries, (_Yengi cheri_, or new soldiers;) may their countenance be
ever bright! their hand victorious! their sword keen! may their spear
always hang over the heads of their enemies! and wheresoever they go,
may they return with a _white face!_" [54] [541] Such was the origin of
these haughty troops, the terror of the nations, and sometimes of
the sultans themselves. Their valor has declined, their discipline is
relaxed, and their tumultuary array is incapable of contending with
the order and weapons of modern tactics; but at the time of their
institution, they possessed a decisive superiority in war; since
a regular body of infantry, in constant exercise and pay, was not
maintained by any of the princes of Christendom. The Janizaries fought
with the zeal of proselytes against their _idolatrous_ countrymen; and
in the battle of Cossova, the league and independence of the Sclavonian
tribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the field,
he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless
youths; and listened to the flattering reply of his vizier, that age and
wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. But
the sword of his Janizaries could not defend him from the dagger of
despair; a Servian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies, and
Amurath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound. [542] The grandson
of Othman was mild in his temper, modest in his apparel, and a lover
of learning and virtue; but the Moslems were scandalized at his absence
from public worship; and he was corrected by the firmness of the
mufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause: a mixture of
servitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental history. [55]

[Footnote 52: After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, there
follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza, Michael
Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking of
Constantinople.]

[Footnote 53: See Cantemir, p. 37--41, with his own large and curious
annotations.]

[Footnote 54: _White_ and _black_ face are common and proverbial
expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic _niger_
est, hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin sentence.]

[Footnote 541: According to Von Hammer. vol. i. p. 90, Gibbon and the
European writers assign too late a date to this enrolment of the
Janizaries. It took place not in the reign of Amurath, but in that of
his predecessor Orchan.--M.]

[Footnote 542: Ducas has related this as a deliberate act of self-devotion
on the part of a Servian noble who pretended to desert, and stabbed
Amurath during a conference which he had requested. The Italian
translator of Ducas, published by Bekker in the new edition of the
Byzantines, has still further heightened the romance. See likewise in
Von Hammer (Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 138) the popular Servian
account, which resembles that of Ducas, and may have been the source of
that of his Italian translator. The Turkish account agrees more nearly
with Gibbon; but the Servian, (Milosch Kohilovisch) while he lay
among the heap of the dead, pretended to have some secret to impart to
Amurath, and stabbed him while he leaned over to listen.--M.]

[Footnote 55: See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I., in
Cantemir, (p 33--45,) the first book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales
Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the sultan was
stabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was alleged to
Busbequius (Epist i. p. 98) as an excuse for the unworthy precaution
of pinioning, as if were, between two attendants, an ambassador's arms,
when he is introduced to the royal presence.]

The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath, is strongly
expressed in his surname of _Ilderim_, or the lightning; and he might
glory in an epithet, which was drawn from the fiery energy of his soul
and the rapidity of his destructive march. In the fourteen years of his
reign, [56] he incessantly moved at the head of his armies, from
Boursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates; and, though he
strenuously labored for the propagation of the law, he invaded, with
impartial ambition, the Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe
and Asia. From Angora to Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions of
Anatolia were reduced to his obedience: he stripped of their hereditary
possessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, of Aidin and
Sarukhan; and after the conquest of Iconium the ancient kingdom of the
Seljukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquests
of Bajazet less rapid or important in Europe. No sooner had he imposed a
regular form of servitude on the Servians and Bulgarians, than he
passed the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heart
of Moldavia. [57] Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace,
Macedonia, and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master: an obsequious
bishop led him through the gates of Thermopylae into Greece; and we may
observe, as a singular fact, that the widow of a Spanish chief, who
possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved his favor
by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish communication
between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and doubtful, till he
stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys, to command the Hellespont
and intercept the Latin succors of Constantinople. While the monarch
indulged his passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he
imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence;
and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of
his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice,
he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions, who
expected that in a few moments the fire would be kindled to reduce them
to ashes. His ministers trembled in silence: but an AEthiopian buffoon
presumed to insinuate the true cause of the evil; and future venality
was left without excuse, by annexing an adequate salary to the office
of cadhi. [58] The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the
Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan
from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamalukes:
[59] a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion; by
the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors of
the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the sultan was inflamed by the
obligation of deserving this august title; and he turned his arms
against the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkish
victories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son and
brother of the emperors of the West: his cause was that of Europe and
the church; and, on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of
France and Germany were eager to march under his standard and that of
the cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederate
army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted, that
if the sky should fall, they could uphold it on their lances. The
far greater part were slain or driven into the Danube; and Sigismond,
escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returned
after a long circuit to his exhausted kingdom. [60] In the pride of
victory, Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that he would
subdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy, and that he would
feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter at Rome.
His progress was checked, not by the miraculous interposition of the
apostle, not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long and
painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral, are sometimes
corrected by those of the physical, world; and an acrimonious humor
falling on a single fibre of one man, may prevent or suspend the misery
of nations.

[Footnote 56: The reign of Bajazet I., or Ilderim Bayazid, is contained
in Cantemir, (p. 46,) the iid book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales
Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an example, that the
conquerors and poets of every age have _felt_ the truth of a system
which derives the sublime from the principle of terror.]

[Footnote 57: Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great
Stephen over the Turks, (p. 47,) had composed the ancient and modern
state of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long promised, and
is still unpublished.]

[Footnote 58: Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality of the
cadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and if we distrust
the observations of our travellers, we may consult the feeling of the
Turks themselves, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229,
230.)]

[Footnote 59: The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history of Ben
Schounah, a contemporary Syrian, (De Guignes Hist. des Huns. tom. iv. p.
336.) destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi and Cantemir, (p. 14, 15,)
of the election of Othman to the dignity of sultan.]

[Footnote 60: See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l. ii. p.
379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century, was invited
into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that kingdom. Yet, if it
be extant and accessible, I should give the preference to some homely
chronicle of the time and country.]

Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrous
adventure of the French has procured us some memorials which illustrate
the victory and character of Bajazet. [61] The duke of Burgundy,
sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth, yielded to the
ardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and the fearless youth was
accompanied by four princes, his _cousins_, and those of the French
monarch. Their inexperience was guided by the Sire de Coucy, one of the
best and oldest captain of Christendom; [62] but the constable, admiral,
and marshal of France [63] commanded an army which did not exceed the
number of a thousand knights and squires. [631] These splendid names were
the source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might
aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national spirit
despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the persuasion that
Bajazet _would_ fly, or _must_ fall, they began to compute how soon they
should visit Constantinople and deliver the holy sepulchre. When their
scouts announced the approach of the Turks, the gay and thoughtless
youths were at table, already heated with wine; they instantly clasped
their armor, mounted their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard,
and resented as an affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have
deprived them of the right and honor of the foremost attack. The battle
of Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have obeyed
the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been gloriously won,
had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the French. They dispersed
the first line, consisting of the troops of Asia; forced a rampart
of stakes, which had been planted against the cavalry; broke, after
a bloody conflict, the Janizaries themselves; and were at length
overwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and
charged on all sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed
and secrecy of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, his
enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They accuse
his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the count of Nevers,
and four-and-twenty lords, [632] whose birth and riches were attested by
his Latin interpreters, the remainder of the French captives, who had
survived the slaughter of the day, were led before his throne; and, as
they refused to abjure their faith, were successively beheaded in
his presence. The sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravest
Janizaries; and if it be true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the
French had massacred their Turkish prisoners, [64] they might impute to
themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. [641] A knight, whose
life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris, that he
might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom of the noble
captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers, with the princes and
barons of France, were dragged along in the marches of the Turkish camp,
exposed as a grateful trophy to the Moslems of Europe and Asia, and
strictly confined at Boursa, as often as Bajazet resided in his capital.
The sultan was pressed each day to expiate with their blood the blood of
his martyrs; but he had pronounced that they should live, and either for
mercy or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of their
value and importance by the return of the messenger, and the gifts and
intercessions of the kings of France and of Cyprus. Lusignan presented
him with a gold saltcellar of curious workmanship, and of the price
of ten thousand ducats; and Charles the Sixth despatched by the way of
Hungary a cast of Norwegian hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet cloth,
of fine linen of Rheims, and of Arras tapestry, representing the battles
of the great Alexander. After much delay, the effect of distance rather
than of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of two hundred thousand
ducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes and barons:
the marshal Boucicault, a famous warrior, was of the number of the
fortunate; but the admiral of France had been slain in battle; and the
constable, with the Sire de Coucy, died in the prison of Boursa. This
heavy demand, which was doubled by incidental costs, fell chiefly on the
duke of Burgundy, or rather on his Flemish subjects, who were bound by
the feudal laws to contribute for the knighthood and captivity of the
eldest son of their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt, some
merchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the sum; a
lesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit are the links of
the society of nations. It had been stipulated in the treaty, that the
French captives should swear never to bear arms against the person of
their conqueror; but the ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet
himself. "I despise," said he to the heir of Burgundy, "thy oaths
and thy arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing the
disgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy powers,
proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will rejoice to meet
thee a second time in a field of battle." Before their departure, they
were indulged in the freedom and hospitality of the court of Boursa. The
French princes admired the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose hunting
and hawking equipage was composed of seven thousand huntsmen and seven
thousand falconers. [65] In their presence, and at his command, the belly
of one of his chamberlains was cut open, on a complaint against him for
drinking the goat's milk of a poor woman. The strangers were astonished
by this act of justice; but it was the justice of a sultan who disdains
to balance the weight of evidence, or to measure the degrees of guilt.

[Footnote 61: I should not complain of the labor of this work, if my
materials were always derived from such books as the chronicle of
honest Froissard, (vol. iv. c. 67, 72, 74, 79--83, 85, 87, 89,) who read
little, inquired much, and believed all. The original Memoires of the
Marechal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 22--28) add some facts, but they
are dry and deficient, if compared with the pleasant garrulity of
Froissard.]

[Footnote 62: An accurate Memoir on the Life of Enguerrand VII., Sire
de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben, (Hist. de l'Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and possessions were equally
considerable in France and England; and, in 1375, he led an army of
adventurers into Switzerland, to recover a large patrimony which he
claimed in right of his grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert
I. of Austria, (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p.
118--124.)]

[Footnote 63: That military office, so respectable at present, was still
more conspicuous when it was divided between two persons, (Daniel, Hist.
de la Milice Francoise, tom. ii. p. 5.) One of these, the marshal of
the crusade, was the famous Boucicault, who afterwards defended
Constantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in
the field of Azincour.]

[Footnote 631: Daru, Hist. de Venice, vol. ii. p. 104, makes the whole
French army amount to 10,000 men, of whom 1000 were knights. The curious
volume of Schiltberger, a German of Munich, who was taken prisoner
in the battle, (edit. Munich, 1813,) and which V. Hammer receives as
authentic, gives the whole number at 6000. See Schiltberger. Reise in
dem Orient. and V. Hammer, note, p. 610.--M.]

[Footnote 632: According to Schiltberger there were only twelve French
lords granted to the prayer of the "duke of Burgundy," and "Herr Stephan
Synther, and Johann von Bodem." Schiltberger, p. 13.--M.]

[Footnote 64: For this odious fact, the Abbe de Vertot quotes the Hist.
Anonyme de St. Denys, l. xvi. c. 10, 11. (Ordre de Malthe, tom. ii. p.
310.)]

[Footnote 641: See Schiltberger's very graphic account of the massacre.
He was led out to be slaughtered in cold blood with the rest f
the Christian prisoners, amounting to 10,000. He was spared at the
intercession of the son of Bajazet, with a few others, on account of
their extreme youth. No one under 20 years of age was put to death. The
"duke of Burgundy" was obliged to be a spectator of this butchery which
lasted from early in the morning till four o'clock, P. M. It ceased only
at the supplication of the leaders of Bajazet's army. Schiltberger, p.
14.--M.]

[Footnote 65: Sherefeddin Ali (Hist. de Timour Bec, l. v. c. 13) allows
Bajazet a round number of 12,000 officers and servants of the chase.
A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a hunting-match of
Timour, l. hounds with satin housings; 2. leopards with collars set with
jewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and 4, dogs from Europe, as strong as
African lions, (idem, l. vi. c. 15.) Bajazet was particularly fond of
flying his hawks at cranes, (Chalcondyles, l. ii. p. 85.)]

After his enfranchisement from an oppressive guardian, John Palaeologus
remained thirty-six years, the helpless, and, as it should seem, the
careless spectator of the public ruin. [66] Love, or rather lust, was his
only vigorous passion; and in the embraces of the wives and virgins of
the city, the Turkish slave forgot the dishonor of the emperor of the
_Romans_ Andronicus, his eldest son, had formed, at Adrianople, an
intimate and guilty friendship with Sauzes, the son of Amurath; and the
two youths conspired against the authority and lives of their parents.
The presence of Amurath in Europe soon discovered and dissipated their
rash counsels; and, after depriving Sauzes of his sight, the Ottoman
threatened his vassal with the treatment of an accomplice and an enemy,
unless he inflicted a similar punishment on his own son. Palaeologus
trembled and obeyed; and a cruel precaution involved in the same
sentence the childhood and innocence of John, the son of the criminal.
But the operation was so mildly, or so unskilfully, performed, that the
one retained the sight of an eye, and the other was afflicted only with
the infirmity of squinting. Thus excluded from the succession, the two
princes were confined in the tower of Anema; and the piety of Manuel,
the second son of the reigning monarch, was rewarded with the gift of
the Imperial crown. But at the end of two years, the turbulence of the
Latins and the levity of the Greeks, produced a revolution; [661] and the
two emperors were buried in the tower from whence the two prisoners were
exalted to the throne. Another period of two years afforded Palaeologus
and Manuel the means of escape: it was contrived by the magic or
subtlety of a monk, who was alternately named the angel or the devil:
they fled to Scutari; their adherents armed in their cause; and the two
Byzantine factions displayed the ambition and animosity with which Caesar
and Pompey had disputed the empire of the world. The Roman world was now
contracted to a corner of Thrace, between the Propontis and the Black
Sea, about fifty miles in length and thirty in breadth; a space of
ground not more extensive than the lesser principalities of Germany or
Italy, if the remains of Constantinople had not still represented the
wealth and populousness of a kingdom. To restore the public peace, it
was found necessary to divide this fragment of the empire; and while
Palaeologus and Manuel were left in possession of the capital, almost
all that lay without the walls was ceded to the blind princes, who fixed
their residence at Rhodosto and Selybria. In the tranquil slumber of
royalty, the passions of John Palaeologus survived his reason and his
strength: he deprived his favorite and heir of a blooming princess
of Trebizond; and while the feeble emperor labored to consummate his
nuptials, Manuel, with a hundred of the noblest Greeks, was sent on a
peremptory summons to the Ottoman _porte_. They served with honor in
the wars of Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Constantinople excited
his jealousy: he threatened their lives; the new works were instantly
demolished; and we shall bestow a praise, perhaps above the merit of
Palaeologus, if we impute this last humiliation as the cause of his
death.

[Footnote 66: For the reigns of John Palaeologus and his son Manuel, from
1354 to 1402, see Ducas, c. 9--15, Phranza, l. i. c. 16--21, and the ist
and iid books of Chalcondyles, whose proper subject is drowned in a sea
of episode.]

[Footnote 661: According to Von Hammer it was the power of Bajazet, vol.
i. p. 218.]

The earliest intelligence of that event was communicated to Manuel,
who escaped with speed and secrecy from the palace of Boursa to the
Byzantine throne. Bajazet affected a proud indifference at the loss of
this valuable pledge; and while he pursued his conquests in Europe and
Asia, he left the emperor to struggle with his blind cousin John of
Selybria, who, in eight years of civil war, asserted his right of
primogeniture. At length, the ambition of the victorious sultan pointed
to the conquest of Constantinople; but he listened to the advice of his
vizier, who represented that such an enterprise might unite the powers
of Christendom in a second and more formidable crusade. His epistle to
the emperor was conceived in these words: "By the divine clemency, our
invincible cimeter has reduced to our obedience almost all Asia,
with many and large countries in Europe, excepting only the city of
Constantinople; for beyond the walls thou hast nothing left. Resign
that city; stipulate thy reward; or tremble, for thyself and thy unhappy
people, at the consequences of a rash refusal." But his ambassadors
were instructed to soften their tone, and to propose a treaty, which
was subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of ten years was
purchased by an annual tribute of thirty thousand crowns of gold; the
Greeks deplored the public toleration of the law of Mahomet, and Bajazet
enjoyed the glory of establishing a Turkish cadhi, and founding a royal
mosque in the metropolis of the Eastern church. [67] Yet this truce was
soon violated by the restless sultan: in the cause of the prince of
Selybria, the lawful emperor, an army of Ottomans again threatened
Constantinople; and the distress of Manuel implored the protection of
the king of France. His plaintive embassy obtained much pity and some
relief; and the conduct of the succor was intrusted to the marshal
Boucicault, [68] whose religious chivalry was inflamed by the desire of
revenging his captivity on the infidels. He sailed with four ships of
war, from Aiguesmortes to the Hellespont; forced the passage, which was
guarded by seventeen Turkish galleys; landed at Constantinople a supply
of six hundred men-at-arms and sixteen hundred archers; and reviewed
them in the adjacent plain, without condescending to number or array the
multitude of Greeks. By his presence, the blockade was raised both by
sea and land; the flying squadrons of Bajazet were driven to a more
respectful distance; and several castles in Europe and Asia were stormed
by the emperor and the marshal, who fought with equal valor by each
other's side. But the Ottomans soon returned with an increase of
numbers; and the intrepid Boucicault, after a year's struggle, resolved
to evacuate a country which could no longer afford either pay or
provisions for his soldiers. The marshal offered to conduct Manuel to
the French court, where he might solicit in person a supply of men and
money; and advised, in the mean while, that, to extinguish all domestic
discord, he should leave his blind competitor on the throne. The
proposal was embraced: the prince of Selybria was introduced to the
capital; and such was the public misery, that the lot of the exile
seemed more fortunate than that of the sovereign. Instead of applauding
the success of his vassal, the Turkish sultan claimed the city as his
own; and on the refusal of the emperor John, Constantinople was more
closely pressed by the calamities of war and famine. Against such an
enemy prayers and resistance were alike unavailing; and the savage
would have devoured his prey, if, in the fatal moment, he had not been
overthrown by another savage stronger than himself. By the victory of
Timour or Tamerlane, the fall of Constantinople was delayed about
fifty years; and this important, though accidental, service may justly
introduce the life and character of the Mogul conqueror.

[Footnote 67: Cantemir, p. 50--53. Of the Greeks, Ducas alone (c. 13,
15) acknowledges the Turkish cadhi at Constantinople. Yet even Ducas
dissembles the mosque.]

[Footnote 68: Memoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre, dit _Boucicault_,
Marechal de France, partie ire c. 30, 35.]




Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.--Part I.

     Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane To The Throne Of
     Samarcand.--His Conquests In Persia, Georgia, Tartary
     Russia, India, Syria, And Anatolia.--His Turkish War.--
     Defeat And Captivity Of Bajazet.--Death Of Timour.--Civil
     War Of The Sons Of Bajazet.--Restoration Of The Turkish
     Monarchy By Mahomet The First.--Siege Of Constantinople By
     Amurath The Second.

The conquest and monarchy of the world was the first object of the
ambition of Timour. To live in the memory and esteem of future ages was
the second wish of his magnanimous spirit. All the civil and military
transactions of his reign were diligently recorded in the journals of
his secretaries: [1] the authentic narrative was revised by the persons
best informed of each particular transaction; and it is believed in
the empire and family of Timour, that the monarch himself composed
the _commentaries_ [2] of his life, and the _institutions_ [3] of his
government. [4] But these cares were ineffectual for the preservation of
his fame, and these precious memorials in the Mogul or Persian language
were concealed from the world, or, at least, from the knowledge of
Europe. The nations which he vanquished exercised a base and impotent
revenge; and ignorance has long repeated the tale of calumny, [5] which
had disfigured the birth and character, the person, and even the name,
of _Tamerlane_. [6] Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather than
debased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia; nor can
his lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he had the weakness to blush
at a natural, or perhaps an honorable, infirmity. [606]

[Footnote 1: These journals were communicated to Sherefeddin, or
Cherefeddin Ali, a native of Yezd, who composed in the Persian language
a history of Timour Beg, which has been translated into French by M.
Petit de la Croix, (Paris, 1722, in 4 vols. 12 mo.,) and has always
been my faithful guide. His geography and chronology are wonderfully
accurate; and he may be trusted for public facts, though he servilely
praises the virtue and fortune of the hero. Timour's attention to
procure intelligence from his own and foreign countries may be seen in
the Institutions, p. 215, 217, 349, 351.]

[Footnote 2: These Commentaries are yet unknown in Europe: but Mr. White
gives some hope that they may be imported and translated by his friend
Major Davy, who had read in the East this "minute and faithful narrative
of an interesting and eventful period." * Note: The manuscript of Major
Davy has been translated by Major Stewart, and published by the Oriental
Translation Committee of London. It contains the life of Timour, from
his birth to his forty-first year; but the last thirty years of western
war and conquest are wanting. Major Stewart intimates that two
manuscripts exist in this country containing the whole work, but excuses
himself, on account of his age, from undertaking the laborious task of
completing the translation. It is to be hoped that the European public
will be soon enabled to judge of the value and authenticity of the
Commentaries of the Caesar of the East. Major Stewart's work commences
with the Book of Dreams and Omens--a wild, but characteristic, chronicle
of Visions and Sortes Koranicae. Strange that a life of Timour should
awaken a reminiscence of the diary of Archbishop Laud! The early dawn
and the gradual expression of his not less splendid but more real
visions of ambition are touched with the simplicity of truth and nature.
But we long to escape from the petty feuds of the pastoral chieftain, to
the triumphs and the legislation of the conqueror of the world.--M.]

[Footnote 3: I am ignorant whether the original institution, in the
Turki or Mogul language, be still extant. The Persic version, with an
English translation, and most valuable index, was published (Oxford,
1783, in 4to.) by the joint labors of Major Davy and Mr. White, the
Arabic professor. This work has been since translated from the Persic
into French, (Paris, 1787,) by M. Langles, a learned Orientalist, who
has added the life of Timour, and many curious notes.]

[Footnote 4: Shaw Allum, the present Mogul, reads, values, but cannot
imitate, the institutions of his great ancestor. The English translator
relies on their internal evidence; but if any suspicions should arise
of fraud and fiction, they will not be dispelled by Major Davy's letter.
The Orientals have never cultivated the art of criticism; the patronage
of a prince, less honorable, perhaps, is not less lucrative than that of
a bookseller; nor can it be deemed incredible that a Persian, the _real_
author, should renounce the credit, to raise the value and price, of the
work.]

[Footnote 5: The original of the tale is found in the following work,
which is much esteemed for its florid elegance of style: _Ahmedis
Arabsiad_ (Ahmed Ebn Arabshah) _Vitae et Rerum gestarum Timuri. Arabice
et Latine. Edidit Samuel Henricus Manger. Franequer_, 1767, 2 tom.
in 4to. This Syrian author is ever a malicious, and often an ignorant
enemy: the very titles of his chapters are injurious; as how the wicked,
as how the impious, as how the viper, &c. The copious article of
Timur, in Bibliotheque Orientale, is of a mixed nature, as D'Herbelot
indifferently draws his materials (p. 877--888) from Khondemir Ebn
Schounah, and the Lebtarikh.]

[Footnote 6: _Demir_ or _Timour_ signifies in the Turkish language,
Iron; and it is the appellation of a lord or prince. By the change of
a letter or accent, it is changed into _Lenc_, or Lame; and a European
corruption confounds the two words in the name of Tamerlane. *
Note: According to the memoirs he was so called by a Shaikh, who, when
visited by his mother on his birth, was reading the verse of the Koran,
'Are you sure that he who dwelleth in heaven will not cause the earth
to swallow you up, and behold _it shall shake_, Tamurn." The Shaikh then
stopped and said, "We have named your son _Timur_," p. 21.--M.]

[Footnote 606: He was lamed by a wound at the siege of the capital of
Sistan. Sherefeddin, lib. iii. c. 17. p. 136. See Von Hammer, vol. i. p.
260.--M.]

In the eyes of the Moguls, who held the indefeasible succession of the
house of Zingis, he was doubtless a rebel subject; yet he sprang from
the noble tribe of Berlass: his fifth ancestor, Carashar Nevian, had
been the vizier [607] of Zagatai, in his new realm of Transoxiana; and in
the ascent of some generations, the branch of Timour is confounded, at
least by the females, [7] with the Imperial stem. [8] He was born forty
miles to the south of Samarcand in the village of Sebzar, in the
fruitful territory of Cash, of which his fathers were the hereditary
chiefs, as well as of a toman of ten thousand horse. [9] His birth [10]
was cast on one of those periods of anarchy, which announce the fall of
the Asiatic dynasties, and open a new field to adventurous ambition. The
khans of Zagatai were extinct; the emirs aspired to independence; and
their domestic feuds could only be suspended by the conquest and tyranny
of the khans of Kashgar, who, with an army of Getes or Calmucks, [11]
invaded the Transoxian kingdom. From the twelfth year of his age, Timour
had entered the field of action; in the twenty-fifth [111] he stood forth
as the deliverer of his country; and the eyes and wishes of the people
were turned towards a hero who suffered in their cause. The chiefs of
the law and of the army had pledged their salvation to support him with
their lives and fortunes; but in the hour of danger they were silent
and afraid; and, after waiting seven days on the hills of Samarcand,
he retreated to the desert with only sixty horsemen. The fugitives
were overtaken by a thousand Getes, whom he repulsed with incredible
slaughter, and his enemies were forced to exclaim, "Timour is a
wonderful man: fortune and the divine favor are with him." But in this
bloody action his own followers were reduced to ten, a number which was
soon diminished by the desertion of three Carizmians. [112] He wandered
in the desert with his wife, seven companions, and four horses; and
sixty-two days was he plunged in a loathsome dungeon, from whence he
escaped by his own courage and the remorse of the oppressor. After
swimming the broad and rapid steam of the Jihoon, or Oxus, he led,
during some months, the life of a vagrant and outlaw, on the borders
of the adjacent states. But his fame shone brighter in adversity; he
learned to distinguish the friends of his person, the associates of his
fortune, and to apply the various characters of men for their advantage,
and, above all, for his own. On his return to his native country,
Timour was successively joined by the parties of his confederates, who
anxiously sought him in the desert; nor can I refuse to describe, in
his pathetic simplicity, one of their fortunate encounters. He presented
himself as a guide to three chiefs, who were at the head of seventy
horse. "When their eyes fell upon me," says Timour, "they were
overwhelmed with joy; and they alighted from their horses; and they came
and kneeled; and they kissed my stirrup. I also came down from my horse,
and took each of them in my arms. And I put my turban on the head of
the first chief; and my girdle, rich in jewels and wrought with gold,
I bound on the loins of the second; and the third I clothed in my
own coat. And they wept, and I wept also; and the hour of prayer was
arrived, and we prayed. And we mounted our horses, and came to my
dwelling; and I collected my people, and made a feast." His trusty bands
were soon increased by the bravest of the tribes; he led them against a
superior foe; and, after some vicissitudes of war the Getes were finally
driven from the kingdom of Transoxiana. He had done much for his own
glory; but much remained to be done, much art to be exerted, and some
blood to be spilt, before he could teach his equals to obey him as their
master. The birth and power of emir Houssein compelled him to accept a
vicious and unworthy colleague, whose sister was the best beloved of his
wives. Their union was short and jealous; but the policy of Timour, in
their frequent quarrels, exposed his rival to the reproach of injustice
and perfidy; and, after a final defeat, Houssein was slain by some
sagacious friends, who presumed, for the last time, to disobey the
commands of their lord. [113] At the age of thirty-four, [12] and in a
general diet or _couroultai_, he was invested with _Imperial_ command,
but he affected to revere the house of Zingis; and while the emir Timour
reigned over Zagatai and the East, a nominal khan served as a private
officer in the armies of his servant. A fertile kingdom, five hundred
miles in length and in breadth, might have satisfied the ambition of a
subject; but Timour aspired to the dominion of the world; and before his
death, the crown of Zagatai was one of the twenty-seven crowns which
he had placed on his head. Without expatiating on the victories of
thirty-five campaigns; without describing the lines of march, which he
repeatedly traced over the continent of Asia; I shall briefly represent
his conquests in, I. Persia, II. Tartary, and, III. India, [13] and from
thence proceed to the more interesting narrative of his Ottoman war.

[Footnote 607: In the memoirs, the title Gurgan is in one place (p. 23)
interpreted the son-in-law; in another (p. 28) as Kurkan, great prince,
generalissimo, and prime minister of Jagtai.--M.]

[Footnote 7: After relating some false and foolish tales of Timour
_Lenc_, Arabshah is compelled to speak truth, and to own him for a
kinsman of Zingis, per mulieres, (as he peevishly adds,) laqueos Satanae,
(pars i. c. i. p. 25.) The testimony of Abulghazi Khan (P. ii. c. 5, P.
v. c. 4) is clear, unquestionable, and decisive.]

[Footnote 8: According to one of the pedigrees, the fourth ancestor of
Zingis, and the ninth of Timour, were brothers; and they agreed, that
the posterity of the elder should succeed to the dignity of khan, and
that the descendants of the younger should fill the office of their
minister and general. This tradition was at least convenient to justify
the _first_ steps of Timour's ambition, (Institutions, p. 24, 25, from
the MS. fragments of Timour's History.)]

[Footnote 9: See the preface of Sherefeddin, and Abulfeda's Geography,
(Chorasmiae, &c., Descriptio, p. 60, 61,) in the iiid volume of Hudson's
Minor Greek Geographers.]

[Footnote 10: See his nativity in Dr. Hyde, (Syntagma Dissertat. tom.
ii. p. 466,) as it was cast by the astrologers of his grandson Ulugh
Beg. He was born, A.D. 1336, April 9, 11º 57'. p. m., lat. 36. I know
not whether they can prove the great conjunction of the planets from
whence, like other conquerors and prophets, Timour derived the surname
of Saheb Keran, or master of the conjunctions, (Bibliot. Orient. p.
878.)]

[Footnote 11: In the Institutions of Timour, these subjects of the khan
of Kashgar are most improperly styled Ouzbegs, or Usbeks, a name which
belongs to another branch and country of Tartars, (Abulghazi, P. v.
c. v. P. vii. c. 5.) Could I be sure that this word is in the Turkish
original, I would boldly pronounce, that the Institutions were framed a
century after the death of Timour, since the establishment of the Usbeks
in Transoxiana. * Note: Col. Stewart observes, that the Persian
translator has sometimes made use of the name Uzbek by anticipation. He
observes, likewise, that these Jits (Getes) are not to be confounded
with the ancient Getae: they were unconverted Turks. Col. Tod (History of
Rajasthan, vol. i. p. 166) would identify the Jits with the ancient
race.--M.]

[Footnote 111: He was twenty-seven before he served his first wars under
the emir Houssein, who ruled over Khorasan and Mawerainnehr. Von Hammer,
vol. i. p. 262. Neither of these statements agrees with the Memoirs. At
twelve he was a boy. "I fancied that I perceived in myself all the signs
of greatness and wisdom, and whoever came to visit me, I received with
great hauteur and dignity." At seventeen he undertook the management
of the flocks and herds of the family, (p. 24.) At nineteen he became
religious, and "left off playing chess," made a kind of Budhist vow
never to injure living thing and felt his foot paralyzed from having
accidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30.) At twenty, thoughts of rebellion
and greatness rose in his mind; at twenty-one, he seems to have
performed his first feat of arms. He was a practised warrior when he
served, in his twenty-seventh year, under Emir Houssein.]

[Footnote 112: Compare Memoirs, page 61. The imprisonment is there stated
at fifty-three days. "At this time I made a vow to God that I would
never keep any person, whether guilty or innocent, for any length of
time, in prison or in chains." p. 63.--M.]

[Footnote 113: Timour, on one occasion, sent him this message: "He who
wishes to embrace the bride of royalty must kiss her across the edge
of the sharp sword," p. 83. The scene of the trial of Houssein, the
resistance of Timour gradually becoming more feeble, the vengeance
of the chiefs becoming proportionably more determined, is strikingly
portrayed. Mem. p 130.--M.]

[Footnote 12: The ist book of Sherefeddin is employed on the private
life of the hero: and he himself, or his secretary, (Institutions, p.
3--77,) enlarges with pleasure on the thirteen designs and enterprises
which most truly constitute his _personal_ merit. It even shines through
the dark coloring of Arabshah, (P. i. c. 1--12.)]

[Footnote 13: The conquests of Persia, Tartary, and India, are
represented in the iid and iiid books of Sherefeddin, and by Arabshah,
(c. 13--55.) Consult the excellent Indexes to the Institutions. *
Note: Compare the seventh book of Von Hammer, Geschichte des
Osmanischen Reiches.--M.]

I. For every war, a motive of safety or revenge, of honor or zeal,
of right or convenience, may be readily found in the jurisprudence of
conquerors. No sooner had Timour reunited to the patrimony of Zagatai
the dependent countries of Carizme and Candahar, than he turned his eyes
towards the kingdoms of Iran or Persia. From the Oxus to the Tigris,
that extensive country was left without a lawful sovereign since the
death of Abousaid, the last of the descendants of the great Holacou.
Peace and justice had been banished from the land above forty years;
and the Mogul invader might seem to listen to the cries of an oppressed
people. Their petty tyrants might have opposed him with confederate
arms: they separately stood, and successively fell; and the difference
of their fate was only marked by the promptitude of submission or the
obstinacy of resistance. Ibrahim, prince of Shirwan, or Albania, kissed
the footstool of the Imperial throne. His peace-offerings of silks,
horses, and jewels, were composed, according to the Tartar fashion, each
article of nine pieces; but a critical spectator observed, that there
were only eight slaves. "I myself am the ninth," replied Ibrahim, who
was prepared for the remark; and his flattery was rewarded by the smile
of Timour. [14] Shah Mansour, prince of Fars, or the proper Persia, was
one of the least powerful, but most dangerous, of his enemies. In a
battle under the walls of Shiraz, he broke, with three or four thousand
soldiers, the _coul_ or main body of thirty thousand horse, where
the emperor fought in person. No more than fourteen or fifteen guards
remained near the standard of Timour: he stood firm as a rock, and
received on his helmet two weighty strokes of a cimeter: [15] the Moguls
rallied; the head of Mansour was thrown at his feet; and he declared
his esteem of the valor of a foe, by extirpating all the males of so
intrepid a race. From Shiraz, his troops advanced to the Persian Gulf;
and the richness and weakness of Ormuz [16] were displayed in an annual
tribute of six hundred thousand dinars of gold. Bagdad was no longer
the city of peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of
Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The whole
course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the sources of
those rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered Edessa; and the
Turkmans of the black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegious
pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia, the native
Christians still braved the law and the sword of Mahomet, by three
expeditions he obtained the merit of the _gazie_, or holy war; and the
prince of Teflis became his proselyte and friend.

[Footnote 14: The reverence of the Tartars for the mysterious number of
_nine_ is declared by Abulghazi Khan, who, for that reason, divides his
Genealogical History into nine parts.]

[Footnote 15: According to Arabshah, (P. i. c. 28, p. 183,) the coward
Timour ran away to his tent, and hid himself from the pursuit of Shah
Mansour under the women's garments. Perhaps Sherefeddin (l. iii. c. 25)
has magnified his courage.]

[Footnote 16: The history of Ormuz is not unlike that of Tyre. The old
city, on the continent, was destroyed by the Tartars, and renewed in
a neighboring island, without fresh water or vegetation. The kings of
Ormuz, rich in the Indian trade and the pearl fishery, possessed large
territories both in Persia and Arabia; but they were at first the
tributaries of the sultans of Kerman, and at last were delivered (A.D.
1505) by the Portuguese tyrants from the tyranny of their own viziers,
(Marco Polo, l. i. c. 15, 16, fol. 7, 8. Abulfeda, Geograph. tabul. xi.
p. 261, 262, an original Chronicle of Ormuz, in Texeira, or Stevens's
History of Persia, p. 376--416, and the Itineraries inserted in the ist
volume of Ramusio, of Ludovico Barthema, (1503,) fol. 167, of Andrea
Corsali, (1517) fol. 202, 203, and of Odoardo Barbessa, (in 1516,) fol.
313--318.)]

II. A just retaliation might be urged for the invasion of Turkestan, or
the Eastern Tartary. The dignity of Timour could not endure the impunity
of the Getes: he passed the Sihoon, subdued the kingdom of Kashgar, and
marched seven times into the heart of their country. His most distant
camp was two months' journey, or four hundred and eighty leagues to the
north-east of Samarcand; and his emirs, who traversed the River Irtish,
engraved in the forests of Siberia a rude memorial of their exploits.
The conquest of Kipzak, or the Western Tartary, [17] was founded on the
double motive of aiding the distressed, and chastising the ungrateful.
Toctamish, a fugitive prince, was entertained and protected in his
court: the ambassadors of Auruss Khan were dismissed with a haughty
denial, and followed on the same day by the armies of Zagatai; and their
success established Toctamish in the Mogul empire of the North. But,
after a reign of ten years, the new khan forgot the merits and the
strength of his benefactor; the base usurper, as he deemed him, of the
sacred rights of the house of Zingis. Through the gates of Derbend,
he entered Persia at the head of ninety thousand horse: with the
innumerable forces of Kipzak, Bulgaria, Circassia, and Russia, he passed
the Sihoon, burnt the palaces of Timour, and compelled him, amidst
the winter snows, to contend for Samarcand and his life. After a mild
expostulation, and a glorious victory, the emperor resolved on revenge;
and by the east, and the west, of the Caspian, and the Volga, he
twice invaded Kipzak with such mighty powers, that thirteen miles were
measured from his right to his left wing. In a march of five months,
they rarely beheld the footsteps of man; and their daily subsistence
was often trusted to the fortune of the chase. At length the armies
encountered each other; but the treachery of the standard-bearer,
who, in the heat of action, reversed the Imperial standard of Kipzak,
determined the victory of the Zagatais; and Toctamish (I peak the
language of the Institutions) gave the tribe of Toushi to the wind
of desolation. [18] He fled to the Christian duke of Lithuania; again
returned to the banks of the Volga; and, after fifteen battles with a
domestic rival, at last perished in the wilds of Siberia. The pursuit of
a flying enemy carried Timour into the tributary provinces of Russia:
a duke of the reigning family was made prisoner amidst the ruins of his
capital; and Yeletz, by the pride and ignorance of the Orientals, might
easily be confounded with the genuine metropolis of the nation. Moscow
trembled at the approach of the Tartar, and the resistance would have
been feeble, since the hopes of the Russians were placed in a miraculous
image of the Virgin, to whose protection they ascribed the casual and
voluntary retreat of the conqueror. Ambition and prudence recalled him
to the South, the desolate country was exhausted, and the Mogul soldiers
were enriched with an immense spoil of precious furs, of linen of
Antioch, [19] and of ingots of gold and silver. [20] On the banks of the
Don, or Tanais, he received an humble deputation from the consuls
and merchants of Egypt, [21] Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and Biscay, who
occupied the commerce and city of Tana, or Azoph, at the mouth of the
river. They offered their gifts, admired his magnificence, and trusted
his royal word. But the peaceful visit of an emir, who explored
the state of the magazines and harbor, was speedily followed by the
destructive presence of the Tartars. The city was reduced to ashes; the
Moslems were pillaged and dismissed; but all the Christians, who had
not fled to their ships, were condemned either to death or slavery.
[22] Revenge prompted him to burn the cities of Serai and Astrachan, the
monuments of rising civilization; and his vanity proclaimed, that he had
penetrated to the region of perpetual daylight, a strange phenomenon,
which authorized his Mahometan doctors to dispense with the obligation
of evening prayer. [23]

[Footnote 17: Arabshah had travelled into Kipzak, and acquired a
singular knowledge of the geography, cities, and revolutions, of that
northern region, (P. i. c. 45--49.)]

[Footnote 18: Institutions of Timour, p. 123, 125. Mr. White, the
editor, bestows some animadversion on the superficial account of
Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c. 12, 13, 14,) who was ignorant of the designs of
Timour, and the true springs of action.]

[Footnote 19: The furs of Russia are more credible than the ingots. But
the linen of Antioch has never been famous: and Antioch was in ruins.
I suspect that it was some manufacture of Europe, which the Hanse
merchants had imported by the way of Novogorod.]

[Footnote 20: M. Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. ii. p. 247. Vie de
Timour, p. 64--67, before the French version of the Institutes) has
corrected the error of Sherefeddin, and marked the true limit of
Timour's conquests. His arguments are superfluous; and a simple appeal
to the Russian annals is sufficient to prove that Moscow, which six
years before had been taken by Toctamish, escaped the arms of a more
formidable invader.]

[Footnote 21: An Egyptian consul from Grand Cairo is mentioned in
Barbaro's voyage to Tana in 1436, after the city had been rebuilt,
(Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 92.)]

[Footnote 22: The sack of Azoph is described by Sherefeddin, (l. iii. c.
55,) and much more particularly by the author of an Italian chronicle,
(Andreas de Redusiis de Quero, in Chron. Tarvisiano, in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p. 802--805.) He had conversed with
the Mianis, two Venetian brothers, one of whom had been sent a deputy
to the camp of Timour, and the other had lost at Azoph three sons and
12,000 ducats.]

[Footnote 23: Sherefeddin only says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays of
the setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely separated by any
interval; a problem which may be solved in the latitude of Moscow, (the
56th degree,) with the aid of the Aurora Borealis, and a long summer
twilight. But a _day_ of forty days (Khondemir apud D'Herbelot, p. 880)
would rigorously confine us within the polar circle.]

III. When Timour first proposed to his princes and emirs the invasion of
India or Hindostan, [24] he was answered by a murmur of discontent: "The
rivers! and the mountains and deserts! and the soldiers clad in armor!
and the elephants, destroyers of men!" But the displeasure of the
emperor was more dreadful than all these terrors; and his superior
reason was convinced, that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect was
safe and easy in the execution. He was informed by his spies of the
weakness and anarchy of Hindostan: the soubahs of the provinces had
erected the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan
Mahmoud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mogul army moved
in three great divisions; and Timour observes with pleasure, that the
ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most fortunately corresponded
with the ninety-two names or epithets of the prophet Mahomet. [241] Between
the Jihoon and the Indus they crossed one of the ridges of mountains,
which are styled by the Arabian geographers The Stony Girdles of the
Earth. The highland robbers were subdued or extirpated; but great
numbers of men and horses perished in the snow; the emperor himself was
let down a precipice on a portable scaffold--the ropes were one hundred
and fifty cubits in length; and before he could reach the bottom, this
dangerous operation was five times repeated. Timour crossed the Indus
at the ordinary passage of Attok; and successively traversed, in the
footsteps of Alexander, the _Punjab_, or five rivers, [25] that fall into
the master stream. From Attok to Delhi, the high road measures no
more than six hundred miles; but the two conquerors deviated to the
south-east; and the motive of Timour was to join his grandson, who had
achieved by his command the conquest of Moultan. On the eastern bank of
the Hyphasis, on the edge of the desert, the Macedonian hero halted and
wept: the Mogul entered the desert, reduced the fortress of Batmir, and
stood in arms before the gates of Delhi, a great and flourishing city,
which had subsisted three centuries under the dominion of the Mahometan
kings. [251] The siege, more especially of the castle, might have been a
work of time; but he tempted, by the appearance of weakness, the sultan
Mahmoud and his vizier to descend into the plain, with ten thousand
cuirassiers, forty thousand of his foot-guards, and one hundred and
twenty elephants, whose tusks are said to have been armed with sharp
and poisoned daggers. Against these monsters, or rather against the
imagination of his troops, he condescended to use some extraordinary
precautions of fire and a ditch, of iron spikes and a rampart of
bucklers; but the event taught the Moguls to smile at their own fears;
and as soon as these unwieldy animals were routed, the inferior species
(the men of India) disappeared from the field. Timour made his triumphal
entry into the capital of Hindostan; and admired, with a view to
imitate, the architecture of the stately mosque; but the order or
license of a general pillage and massacre polluted the festival of
his victory. He resolved to purify his soldiers in the blood of the
idolaters, or Gentoos, who still surpass, in the proportion of ten to
one, the numbers of the Moslems. [252] In this pious design, he advanced
one hundred miles to the north-east of Delhi, passed the Ganges, fought
several battles by land and water, and penetrated to the famous rock of
Coupele, the statue of the cow, [253] that _seems_ to discharge the mighty
river, whose source is far distant among the mountains of Thibet. [26]
His return was along the skirts of the northern hills; nor could this
rapid campaign of one year justify the strange foresight of his emirs,
that their children in a warm climate would degenerate into a race of
Hindoos.

[Footnote 24: For the Indian war, see the Institutions, (p. 129--139,)
the fourth book of Sherefeddin, and the history of Ferishta, (in Dow,
vol. ii. p. 1--20,) which throws a general light on the affairs of
Hindostan.]

[Footnote 241: Gibbon (observes M. von Hammer) is mistaken in the
correspondence of the ninety-two squadrons of his army with the
ninety-two names of God: the names of God are ninety-nine. and Allah is
the hundredth, p. 286, note. But Gibbon speaks of the names or epithets
of Mahomet, not of God.--M.]

[Footnote 25: The rivers of the Punjab, the five eastern branches of the
Indus, have been laid down for the first time with truth and accuracy in
Major Rennel's incomparable map of Hindostan. In this Critical Memoir
he illustrates with judgment and learning the marches of Alexander and
Timour. * Note See vol. i. ch. ii. note 1.--M.]

[Footnote 251: They took, on their march, 100,000 slaves, Guebers they
were all murdered. V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 286. They are called idolaters.
Briggs's Ferishta, vol. i. p. 491.--M.]

[Footnote 252: See a curious passage on the destruction of the Hindoo
idols, Memoirs, p. 15.--M.]

[Footnote 253: Consult the very striking description of the Cow's Mouth by
Captain Hodgson, Asiat. Res. vol. xiv. p. 117. "A most wonderful scene.
The B'hagiratha or Ganges issues from under a very low arch at the foot
of the grand snow bed. My guide, an illiterate mountaineer compared the
pendent icicles to Mahodeva's hair." (Compare Poems, Quarterly Rev.
vol. xiv. p. 37, and at the end of my translation of Nala.) "Hindoos of
research may formerly have been here; and if so, I cannot think of any
place to which they might more aptly give the name of a cow's mouth than
to this extraordinary debouche."--M.]

[Footnote 26: The two great rivers, the Ganges and Burrampooter, rise in
Thibet, from the opposite ridges of the same hills, separate from each
other to the distance of 1200 miles, and, after a winding course of
2000 miles, again meet in one point near the Gulf of Bengal. Yet so
capricious is Fame, that the Burrampooter is a late discovery, while his
brother Ganges has been the theme of ancient and modern story Coupele,
the scene of Timour's last victory, must be situate near Loldong, 1100
miles from Calcutta; and in 1774, a British camp! (Rennel's Memoir, p.
7, 59, 90, 91, 99.)]

It was on the banks of the Ganges that Timour was informed, by his
speedy messengers, of the disturbances which had arisen on the confines
of Georgia and Anatolia, of the revolt of the Christians, and the
ambitious designs of the sultan Bajazet. His vigor of mind and body was
not impaired by sixty-three years, and innumerable fatigues; and, after
enjoying some tranquil months in the palace of Samarcand, he proclaimed
a new expedition of seven years into the western countries of Asia. [27]
To the soldiers who had served in the Indian war he granted the choice
of remaining at home, or following their prince; but the troops of
all the provinces and kingdoms of Persia were commanded to assemble at
Ispahan, and wait the arrival of the Imperial standard. It was first
directed against the Christians of Georgia, who were strong only in
their rocks, their castles, and the winter season; but these obstacles
were overcome by the zeal and perseverance of Timour: the rebels
submitted to the tribute or the Koran; and if both religions boasted of
their martyrs, that name is more justly due to the Christian prisoners,
who were offered the choice of abjuration or death. On his descent
from the hills, the emperor gave audience to the first ambassadors
of Bajazet, and opened the hostile correspondence of complaints and
menaces, which fermented two years before the final explosion. Between
two jealous and haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be
wanting. The Mogul and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the
neighborhood of Erzeroum, and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful limit
been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these ambitious monarchs
might accuse his rival of violating his territory, of threatening his
vassals, and protecting his rebels; and, by the name of rebels, each
understood the fugitive princes, whose kingdoms he had usurped,
and whose life or liberty he implacably pursued. The resemblance of
character was still more dangerous than the opposition of interest;
and in their victorious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and
Bajazet was ignorant of a superior. The first epistle [28] of the Mogul
emperor must have provoked, instead of reconciling, the Turkish sultan,
whose family and nation he affected to despise. [29] "Dost thou not know,
that the greatest part of Asia is subject to our arms and our laws?
that our invincible forces extend from one sea to the other? that the
potentates of the earth form a line before our gate? and that we have
compelled Fortune herself to watch over the prosperity of our empire.
What is the foundation of thy insolence and folly? Thou hast fought
some battles in the woods of Anatolia; contemptible trophies! Thou hast
obtained some victories over the Christians of Europe; thy sword was
blessed by the apostle of God; and thy obedience to the precept of the
Koran, in waging war against the infidels, is the sole consideration
that prevents us from destroying thy country, the frontier and bulwark
of the Moslem world. Be wise in time; reflect; repent; and avert the
thunder of our vengeance, which is yet suspended over thy head. Thou
art no more than a pismire; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants?
Alas! they will trample thee under their feet." In his replies, Bajazet
poured forth the indignation of a soul which was deeply stung by such
unusual contempt. After retorting the basest reproaches on the thief and
rebel of the desert, the Ottoman recapitulates his boasted victories in
Iran, Touran, and the Indies; and labors to prove, that Timour had never
triumphed unless by his own perfidy and the vices of his foes. "Thy
armies are innumerable: be they so; but what are the arrows of the
flying Tartar against the cimeters and battle-axes of my firm and
invincible Janizaries? I will guard the princes who have implored my
protection: seek them in my tents. The cities of Arzingan and Erzeroum
are mine; and unless the tribute be duly paid, I will demand the arrears
under the walls of Tauris and Sultania." The ungovernable rage of the
sultan at length betrayed him to an insult of a more domestic kind. "If
I fly from thy arms," said he, "may _my_ wives be thrice divorced from
my bed: but if thou hast not courage to meet me in the field, mayest
thou again receive _thy_ wives after they have thrice endured the
embraces of a stranger." [30] Any violation by word or deed of the
secrecy of the harem is an unpardonable offence among the Turkish
nations; [31] and the political quarrel of the two monarchs was
imbittered by private and personal resentment. Yet in his first
expedition, Timour was satisfied with the siege and destruction of Siwas
or Sebaste, a strong city on the borders of Anatolia; and he revenged
the indiscretion of the Ottoman, on a garrison of four thousand
Armenians, who were buried alive for the brave and faithful discharge of
their duty. [311] As a Mussulman, he seemed to respect the pious occupation
of Bajazet, who was still engaged in the blockade of Constantinople; and
after this salutary lesson, the Mogul conqueror checked his pursuit, and
turned aside to the invasion of Syria and Egypt. In these transactions,
the Ottoman prince, by the Orientals, and even by Timour, is styled the
_Kaissar of Roum_, the Caesar of the Romans; a title which, by a small
anticipation, might be given to a monarch who possessed the provinces,
and threatened the city, of the successors of Constantine. [32]

[Footnote 27: See the Institutions, p. 141, to the end of the 1st
book, and Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 1--16,) to the entrance of Timour into
Syria.]

[Footnote 28: We have three copies of these hostile epistles in the
Institutions, (p. 147,) in Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 14,) and in Arabshah,
(tom. ii. c. 19 p. 183--201;) which agree with each other in the spirit
and substance rather than in the style. It is probable, that they have
been translated, with various latitude, from the Turkish original into
the Arabic and Persian tongues. * Note: Von Hammer considers the letter
which Gibbon inserted in the text to be spurious. On the various copies
of these letters, see his note, p 116.--M.]

[Footnote 29: The Mogul emir distinguishes himself and his countrymen by
the name of _Turks_, and stigmatizes the race and nation of Bajazet with
the less honorable epithet of _Turkmans_. Yet I do not understand how
the Ottomans could be descended from a Turkman sailor; those inland
shepherds were so remote from the sea, and all maritime affairs. *
Note: Price translated the word pilot or boatman.--M.]

[Footnote 30: According to the Koran, (c. ii. p. 27, and Sale's
Discourses, p. 134,) Mussulman who had thrice divorced his wife, (who
had thrice repeated the words of a divorce,) could not take her again,
till after she had been married _to_, and repudiated _by_, another
husband; an ignominious transaction, which it is needless to aggravate,
by supposing that the first husband must see her enjoyed by a second
before his face, (Rycaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, l. ii. c. 21.)]

[Footnote 31: The common delicacy of the Orientals, in never speaking
of their women, is ascribed in a much higher degree by Arabshah to the
Turkish nations; and it is remarkable enough, that Chalcondyles (l. ii.
p. 55) had some knowledge of the prejudice and the insult. *
Note: See Von Hammer, p. 308, and note, p. 621.--M.]

[Footnote 311: Still worse barbarities were perpetrated on these brave men.
Von Hammer, vol. i. p. 295.--M.]

[Footnote 32: For the style of the Moguls, see the Institutions, (p.
131, 147,) and for the Persians, the Bibliotheque Orientale, (p. 882;)
but I do not find that the title of Caesar has been applied by the
Arabians, or assumed by the Ottomans themselves.]




Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.--Part II.

The military republic of the Mamalukes still reigned in Egypt and Syria:
but the dynasty of the Turks was overthrown by that of the Circassians;
[33] and their favorite Barkok, from a slave and a prisoner, was raised
and restored to the throne. In the midst of rebellion and discord, he
braved the menaces, corresponded with the enemies, and detained the
ambassadors, of the Mogul, who patiently expected his decease, to
revenge the crimes of the father on the feeble reign of his son Farage.
The Syrian emirs [34] were assembled at Aleppo to repel the invasion:
they confided in the fame and discipline of the Mamalukes, in the temper
of their swords and lances of the purest steel of Damascus, in the
strength of their walled cities, and in the populousness of sixty
thousand villages; and instead of sustaining a siege, they threw open
their gates, and arrayed their forces in the plain. But these forces
were not cemented by virtue and union; and some powerful emirs had been
seduced to desert or betray their more loyal companions. Timour's front
was covered with a line of Indian elephants, whose turrets were filled
with archers and Greek fire: the rapid evolutions of his cavalry
completed the dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell back on each
other: many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in the entrance of the
great street; the Moguls entered with the fugitives; and after a short
defence, the citadel, the impregnable citadel of Aleppo, was surrendered
by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants and captives, Timour
distinguished the doctors of the law, whom he invited to the dangerous
honor of a personal conference. [35] The Mogul prince was a zealous
Mussulman; but his Persian schools had taught him to revere the memory
of Ali and Hosein; and he had imbibed a deep prejudice against the
Syrians, as the enemies of the son of the daughter of the apostle
of God. To these doctors he proposed a captious question, which the
casuists of Bochara, Samarcand, and Herat, were incapable of resolving.
"Who are the true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side, or on that
of my enemies?" But he was silenced, or satisfied, by the dexterity
of one of the cadhis of Aleppo, who replied in the words of Mahomet
himself, that the motive, not the ensign, constitutes the martyr; and
that the Moslems of either party, who fight only for the glory of God,
may deserve that sacred appellation. The true succession of the caliphs
was a controversy of a still more delicate nature; and the frankness of
a doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the emperor to exclaim,
"Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a
tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the prophet." A prudent
explanation restored his tranquillity; and he passed to a more familiar
topic of conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadhi.
"Fifty years."--"It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here
(continued Timour) a poor lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arm has the
Almighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of Iran, Touran, and the
Indies. I am not a man of blood; and God is my witness, that in all my
wars I have never been the aggressor, and that my enemies have
always been the authors of their own calamity." During this peaceful
conversation the streets of Aleppo streamed with blood, and reechoed
with the cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated
virgins. The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers might
stimulate their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by the
peremptory command of producing an adequate number of heads, which,
according to his custom, were curiously piled in columns and pyramids:
the Moguls celebrated the feast of victory, while the surviving Moslems
passed the night in tears and in chains. I shall not dwell on the
march of the destroyer from Aleppo to Damascus, where he was rudely
encountered, and almost overthrown, by the armies of Egypt. A retrograde
motion was imputed to his distress and despair: one of his nephews
deserted to the enemy; and Syria rejoiced in the tale of his defeat,
when the sultan was driven by the revolt of the Mamalukes to escape
with precipitation and shame to his palace of Cairo. Abandoned by their
prince, the inhabitants of Damascus still defended their walls; and
Timour consented to raise the siege, if they would adorn his retreat
with a gift or ransom; each article of nine pieces. But no sooner had
he introduced himself into the city, under color of a truce, than he
perfidiously violated the treaty; imposed a contribution of ten millions
of gold; and animated his troops to chastise the posterity of those
Syrians who had executed, or approved, the murder of the grandson
of Mahomet. A family which had given honorable burial to the head of
Hosein, and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to labor at Samarcand,
were alone reserved in the general massacre, and after a period of seven
centuries, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a Tartar was moved by
religious zeal to avenge the blood of an Arab. The losses and fatigues
of the campaign obliged Timour to renounce the conquest of Palestine
and Egypt; but in his return to the Euphrates he delivered Aleppo to the
flames; and justified his pious motive by the pardon and reward of two
thousand sectaries of Ali, who were desirous to visit the tomb of
his son. I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes which mark the
character of the Mogul hero; but I shall briefly mention, [36] that he
erected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety thousand heads; again
visited Georgia; encamped on the banks of Araxes; and proclaimed his
resolution of marching against the Ottoman emperor. Conscious of the
importance of the war, he collected his forces from every province:
eight hundred thousand men were enrolled on his military list; [37] but
the splendid commands of five, and ten, thousand horse, may be rather
expressive of the rank and pension of the chiefs, than of the genuine
number of effective soldiers. [38] In the pillage of Syria, the Moguls
had acquired immense riches: but the delivery of their pay and arrears
for seven years more firmly attached them to the Imperial standard.

[Footnote 33: See the reigns of Barkok and Pharadge, in M. De Guignes,
(tom. iv. l. xxii.,) who, from the Arabic texts of Aboulmahasen, Ebn
(Schounah, and Aintabi, has added some facts to our common stock of
materials.)]

[Footnote 34: For these recent and domestic transactions, Arabshah,
though a partial, is a credible, witness, (tom. i. c. 64--68, tom. ii.
c. 1--14.) Timour must have been odious to a Syrian; but the notoriety
of facts would have obliged him, in some measure, to respect his enemy
and himself. His bitters may correct the luscious sweets of Sherefeddin,
(l. v. c. 17--29.)]

[Footnote 35: These interesting conversations appear to have been copied
by Arabshah (tom. i. c. 68, p. 625--645) from the cadhi and historian
Ebn Schounah, a principal actor. Yet how could he be alive seventy-five
years afterwards? (D'Herbelot, p. 792.)]

[Footnote 36: The marches and occupations of Timour between the Syrian
and Ottoman wars are represented by Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 29--43) and
Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 15--18.)]

[Footnote 37: This number of 800,000 was extracted by Arabshah,
or rather by Ebn Schounah, ex rationario Timuri, on the faith of a
Carizmian officer, (tom. i. c. 68, p. 617;) and it is remarkable enough,
that a Greek historian (Phranza, l. i. c. 29) adds no more than 20,000
men. Poggius reckons 1,000,000; another Latin contemporary (Chron.
Tarvisianum, apud Muratori, tom. xix. p. 800) 1,100,000; and the
enormous sum of 1,600,000 is attested by a German soldier, who was
present at the battle of Angora, (Leunclav. ad Chalcondyl. l. iii.
p. 82.) Timour, in his Institutions, has not deigned to calculate his
troops, his subjects, or his revenues.]

[Footnote 38: A wide latitude of non-effectives was allowed by the
Great Mogul for his own pride and the benefit of his officers. Bernier's
patron was Penge-Hazari, commander of 5000 horse; of which he maintained
no more than 500, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 288, 289.)]

During this diversion of the Mogul arms, Bajazet had two years to
collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted of four
hundred thousand horse and foot, [39] whose merit and fidelity were of
an unequal complexion. We may discriminate the Janizaries, who have been
gradually raised to an establishment of forty thousand men; a national
cavalry, the Spahis of modern times; twenty thousand cuirassiers of
Europe, clad in black and impenetrable armor; the troops of Anatolia,
whose princes had taken refuge in the camp of Timour, and a colony
of Tartars, whom he had driven from Kipzak, and to whom Bajazet
had assigned a settlement in the plains of Adrianople. The fearless
confidence of the sultan urged him to meet his antagonist; and, as if he
had chosen that spot for revenge, he displayed his banner near the
ruins of the unfortunate Suvas. In the mean while, Timour moved from the
Araxes through the countries of Armenia and Anatolia: his boldness was
secured by the wisest precautions; his speed was guided by order
and discipline; and the woods, the mountains, and the rivers, were
diligently explored by the flying squadrons, who marked his road and
preceded his standard. Firm in his plan of fighting in the heart of
the Ottoman kingdom, he avoided their camp; dexterously inclined to the
left; occupied Caesarea; traversed the salt desert and the River Halys;
and invested Angora: while the sultan, immovable and ignorant in his
post, compared the Tartar swiftness to the crawling of a snail; [40] he
returned on the wings of indignation to the relief of Angora: and as
both generals were alike impatient for action, the plains round that
city were the scene of a memorable battle, which has immortalized the
glory of Timour and the shame of Bajazet. For this signal victory the
Mogul emperor was indebted to himself, to the genius of the moment, and
the discipline of thirty years. He had improved the tactics, without
violating the manners, of his nation, [41] whose force still consisted in
the missile weapons, and rapid evolutions, of a numerous cavalry. From
a single troop to a great army, the mode of attack was the same: a
foremost line first advanced to the charge, and was supported in a just
order by the squadrons of the great vanguard. The general's eye watched
over the field, and at his command the front and rear of the right and
left wings successively moved forwards in their several divisions, and
in a direct or oblique line: the enemy was pressed by eighteen or twenty
attacks; and each attack afforded a chance of victory. If they all
proved fruitless or unsuccessful, the occasion was worthy of the emperor
himself, who gave the signal of advancing to the standard and main body,
which he led in person. [42] But in the battle of Angora, the main body
itself was supported, on the flanks and in the rear, by the bravest
squadrons of the reserve, commanded by the sons and grandsons of Timour.
The conqueror of Hindostan ostentatiously showed a line of elephants,
the trophies, rather than the instruments, of victory; the use of
the Greek fire was familiar to the Moguls and Ottomans; but had they
borrowed from Europe the recent invention of gunpowder and cannon, the
artificial thunder, in the hands of either nation, must have turned the
fortune of the day. [43] In that day Bajazet displayed the qualities of
a soldier and a chief: but his genius sunk under a stronger ascendant;
and, from various motives, the greatest part of his troops failed him
in the decisive moment. His rigor and avarice [431] had provoked a mutiny
among the Turks; and even his son Soliman too hastily withdrew from the
field. The forces of Anatolia, loyal in their revolt, were drawn away to
the banners of their lawful princes. His Tartar allies had been tempted
by the letters and emissaries of Timour; [44] who reproached their
ignoble servitude under the slaves of their fathers; and offered to
their hopes the dominion of their new, or the liberty of their ancient,
country. In the right wing of Bajazet the cuirassiers of Europe charged,
with faithful hearts and irresistible arms: but these men of iron
were soon broken by an artful flight and headlong pursuit; and the
Janizaries, alone, without cavalry or missile weapons, were encompassed
by the circle of the Mogul hunters. Their valor was at length oppressed
by heat, thirst, and the weight of numbers; and the unfortunate sultan,
afflicted with the gout in his hands and feet, was transported from the
field on the fleetest of his horses. He was pursued and taken by the
titular khan of Zagatai; and, after his capture, and the defeat of the
Ottoman powers, the kingdom of Anatolia submitted to the conqueror,
who planted his standard at Kiotahia, and dispersed on all sides the
ministers of rapine and destruction. Mirza Mehemmed Sultan, the eldest
and best beloved of his grandsons, was despatched to Boursa, with thirty
thousand horse; and such was his youthful ardor, that he arrived with
only four thousand at the gates of the capital, after performing in five
days a march of two hundred and thirty miles. Yet fear is still more
rapid in its course; and Soliman, the son of Bajazet, had already passed
over to Europe with the royal treasure. The spoil, however, of the
palace and city was immense: the inhabitants had escaped; but the
buildings, for the most part of wood, were reduced to ashes From Boursa,
the grandson of Timour advanced to Nice, ever yet a fair and flourishing
city; and the Mogul squadrons were only stopped by the waves of the
Propontis. The same success attended the other mirzas and emirs in their
excursions; and Smyrna, defended by the zeal and courage of the Rhodian
knights, alone deserved the presence of the emperor himself. After an
obstinate defence, the place was taken by storm: all that breathed was
put to the sword; and the heads of the Christian heroes were launched
from the engines, on board of two carracks, or great ships of Europe,
that rode at anchor in the harbor. The Moslems of Asia rejoiced in their
deliverance from a dangerous and domestic foe; and a parallel was drawn
between the two rivals, by observing that Timour, in fourteen days,
had reduced a fortress which had sustained seven years the siege, or at
least the blockade, of Bajazet. [45]

[Footnote 39: Timour himself fixes at 400,000 men the Ottoman army,
(Institutions, p. 153,) which is reduced to 150,000 by Phranza, (l. i.
c. 29,) and swelled by the German soldier to 1,400,000. It is evident
that the Moguls were the more numerous.]

[Footnote 40: It may not be useless to mark the distances between Angora
and the neighboring cities, by the journeys of the caravans, each of
twenty or twenty-five miles; to Smyrna xx., to Kiotahia x., to Boursa
x., to Caesarea, viii., to Sinope x., to Nicomedia ix., to Constantinople
xii. or xiii., (see Tournefort, Voyage au Levant, tom. ii. lettre xxi.)]

[Footnote 41: See the Systems of Tactics in the Institutions, which the
English editors have illustrated with elaborate plans, (p. 373--407.)]

[Footnote 42: The sultan himself (says Timour) must then put the foot of
courage into the stirrup of patience. A Tartar metaphor, which is lost
in the English, but preserved in the French, version of the Institutes,
(p. 156, 157.)]

[Footnote 43: The Greek fire, on Timour's side, is attested by
Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 47;) but Voltaire's strange suspicion, that some
cannon, inscribed with strange characters, must have been sent by
that monarch to Delhi, is refuted by the universal silence of
contemporaries.]

[Footnote 431: See V. Hammer, vol. i. p. 310, for the singular hints
which were conveyed to him of the wisdom of unlocking his hoarded
treasures.--M.]

[Footnote 44: Timour has dissembled this secret and important
negotiation with the Tartars, which is indisputably proved by the joint
evidence of the Arabian, (tom. i. c. 47, p. 391,) Turkish, (Annal.
Leunclav. p. 321,) and Persian historians, (Khondemir, apud d'Herbelot,
p. 882.)]

[Footnote 45: For the war of Anatolia or Roum, I add some hints in the
Institutions, to the copious narratives of Sherefeddin (l. v. c. 44--65)
and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 20--35.) On this part only of Timour's
history it is lawful to quote the Turks, (Cantemir, p. 53--55, Annal.
Leunclav. p. 320--322,) and the Greeks, (Phranza, l. i. c. 59, Ducas, c.
15--17, Chalcondyles, l. iii.)]

The _iron cage_ in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Tamerlane, so long
and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable by
the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. [46] They appeal
with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, which has
been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I
shall collect and abridge a more specious narrative of this memorable
transaction. No sooner was Timour informed that the captive Ottoman was
at the door of his tent, than he graciously stepped forwards to receive
him, seated him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothing
pity for his rank and misfortune. "Alas!" said the emperor, "the decree
of fate is now accomplished by your own fault; it is the web which you
have woven, the thorns of the tree which yourself have planted. I wished
to spare, and even to assist, the champion of the Moslems; you braved
our threats; you despised our friendship; you forced us to enter
your kingdom with our invincible armies. Behold the event. Had you
vanquished, I am not ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myself
and my troops. But I disdain to retaliate: your life and honor are
secure; and I shall express my gratitude to God by my clemency to
man." The royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted the
humiliation of a robe of honor, and embraced with tears his son Mousa,
who, at his request, was sought and found among the captives of the
field. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a splendid pavilion; and the
respect of the guards could be surpassed only by their vigilance. On the
arrival of the harem from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina and
her daughter to their father and husband; but he piously required, that
the Servian princess, who had hitherto been indulged in the profession
of Christianity, should embrace without delay the religion of the
prophet. In the feast of victory, to which Bajazet was invited, the
Mogul emperor placed a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, with
a solemn assurance of restoring him with an increase of glory to the
throne of his ancestors. But the effect of his promise was disappointed
by the sultan's untimely death: amidst the care of the most skilful
physicians, he expired of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch of
Pisidia, about nine months after his defeat. The victor dropped a tear
over his grave: his body, with royal pomp, was conveyed to the mausoleum
which he had erected at Boursa; and his son Mousa, after receiving a
rich present of gold and jewels, of horses and arms, was invested by a
patent in red ink with the kingdom of Anatolia.

[Footnote 46: The scepticism of Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire Generale,
c. 88) is ready on this, as on every occasion, to reject a popular tale,
and to diminish the magnitude of vice and virtue; and on most occasions
his incredulity is reasonable.]

Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been extracted
from his own memorials, and dedicated to his son and grandson,
nineteen years after his decease; [47] and, at a time when the truth
was remembered by thousands, a manifest falsehood would have implied a
satire on his real conduct. Weighty indeed is this evidence, adopted
by all the Persian histories; [48] yet flattery, more especially in the
East, is base and audacious; and the harsh and ignominious treatment
of Bajazet is attested by a chain of witnesses, some of whom shall be
produced in the order of their time and country. _1._ The reader has not
forgot the garrison of French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behind
him for the defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to receive
the earliest and most faithful intelligence of the overthrow of their
great adversary; and it is more than probable, that some of them
accompanied the Greek embassy to the camp of Tamerlane. From their
account, the _hardships_ of the prison and death of Bajazet are affirmed
by the marshal's servant and historian, within the distance of seven
years. [49] _2._ The name of Poggius the Italian [50] is deservedly famous
among the revivers of learning in the fifteenth century. His elegant
dialogue on the vicissitudes of fortune [51] was composed in his fiftieth
year, twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane; [52]
whom he celebrates as not inferior to the illustrious Barbarians of
antiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius was informed by
several ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so apposite to
his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian confined like a wild
beast in an iron cage, and exhibited a spectacle to Asia. I might add
the authority of two Italian chronicles, perhaps of an earlier date,
which would prove at least that the same story, whether false or true,
was imported into Europe with the first tidings of the revolution. [53]
_3._ At the time when Poggius flourished at Rome, Ahmed Ebn Arabshah
composed at Damascus the florid and malevolent history of Timour,
for which he had collected materials in his journeys over Turkey and
Tartary. [54] Without any possible correspondence between the Latin and
the Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron cage; and their
agreement is a striking proof of their common veracity. Ahmed Arabshah
likewise relates another outrage, which Bajazet endured, of a more
domestic and tender nature. His indiscreet mention of women and divorces
was deeply resented by the jealous Tartar: in the feast of victory the
wine was served by female cupbearers, and the sultan beheld his own
concubines and wives confounded among the slaves, and exposed without a
veil to the eyes of intemperance. To escape a similar indignity, it is
said that his successors, except in a single instance, have abstained
from legitimate nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and belief, at least
in the sixteenth century, is asserted by the observing Busbequius, [55]
ambassador from the court of Vienna to the great Soliman. _4._ Such is
the separation of language, that the testimony of a Greek is not less
independent than that of a Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names of
Chalcondyles and Ducas, who flourished in the latter period, and who
speak in a less positive tone; but more attention is due to George
Phranza, [56] protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a year
before the battle of Angora. Twenty-two years after that event, he was
sent ambassador to Amurath the Second; and the historian might converse
with some veteran Janizaries, who had been made prisoners with the
sultan, and had themselves seen him in his iron cage. 5. The last
evidence, in every sense, is that of the Turkish annals, which have been
consulted or transcribed by Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir. [57] They
unanimously deplore the captivity of the iron cage; and some credit
may be allowed to national historians, who cannot stigmatize the Tartar
without uncovering the shame of their king and country.

[Footnote 47: See the History of Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 49, 52, 53, 59,
60.) This work was finished at Shiraz, in the year 1424, and dedicated
to Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of Timour, who reigned in
Farsistan in his father's lifetime.]

[Footnote 48: After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, &c., the
learned D'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882) may affirm, that this
fable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories; but his denial
of the visible testimony of Arabshah leaves some room to suspect his
accuracy.]

[Footnote 49: Et fut lui-meme (Bajazet) pris, et mene en prison, en
laquelle mourut de _dure mort!_ Memoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 37.
These Memoirs were composed while the marshal was still governor of
Genoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409, by a popular
insurrection, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 473, 474.)]

[Footnote 50: The reader will find a satisfactory account of the life
and writings of Poggius in the Poggiana, an entertaining work of
M. Lenfant, and in the Bibliotheca Latina Mediae et Infimae AEtatis of
Fabricius, (tom. v. p. 305--308.) Poggius was born in the year 1380, and
died in 1459.]

[Footnote 51: The dialogue de Varietate Fortunae, (of which a complete
and elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723, in 4to.,) was
composed a short time before the death of Pope Martin V., (p. 5,) and
consequently about the end of the year 1430.]

[Footnote 52: See a splendid and eloquent encomium of Tamerlane, p.
36--39 ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus castris.... Regem
vivum cepit, caveaque in modum ferae inclusum per omnem Asian circumtulit
egregium admirandumque spectaculum fortunae.]

[Footnote 53: The Chronicon Tarvisianum, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum tom. xix. p. 800,) and the Annales Estenses, (tom. xviii.
p. 974.) The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de Quero, and James de
Delayto, were both contemporaries, and both chancellors, the one of
Trevigi, the other of Ferrara. The evidence of the former is the most
positive.]

[Footnote 54: See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28, 34. He travelled in regiones
Rumaeas, A. H. 839, (A.D. 1435, July 27,) tom. i. c. 2, p. 13.]

[Footnote 55: Busbequius in Legatione Turcica, epist. i. p. 52. Yet his
respectable authority is somewhat shaken by the subsequent marriages
of Amurath II. with a Servian, and of Mahomet II. with an Asiatic,
princess, (Cantemir, p. 83, 93.)]

[Footnote 56: See the testimony of George Phranza, (l. i. c. 29,) and
his life in Hanckius (de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40.) Chalcondyles and
Ducas speak in general terms of Bajazet's _chains_.]

[Footnote 57: Annales Leunclav. p. 321. Pocock, Prolegomen. ad
Abulpharag Dynast. Cantemir, p. 55. * Note: Von Hammer, p. 318,
cites several authorities unknown to
Gibbon.--M.]

From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion may be
deduced. I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has faithfully described
the first ostentatious interview, in which the conqueror, whose spirits
were harmonized by success, affected the character of generosity. But
his mind was insensibly alienated by the unseasonable arrogance of
Bajazet; the complaints of his enemies, the Anatolian princes, were just
and vehement; and Timour betrayed a design of leading his royal captive
in triumph to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging
a mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul emperor to impose a harsher
restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might
be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution.
Timour had read in some fabulous history a similar treatment of one
of his predecessors, a king of Persia; and Bajazet was condemned to
represent the person, and expiate the guilt, of the Roman Caesar [58] [581]
But the strength of his mind and body fainted under the trial, and his
premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed to the severity
of Timour. He warred not with the dead: a tear and a sepulchre were all
that he could bestow on a captive who was delivered from his power; and
if Mousa, the son of Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the ruins of
Boursa, the greatest part of the province of Anatolia had been restored
by the conqueror to their lawful sovereigns.

[Footnote 58: Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, and
enclosed in the figure of a cow's hide by Maximian or Galerius Caesar.
Such is the fable related by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 421, vers.
Pocock). The recollection of the true history (Decline and Fall, &c.,
vol. ii. p 140--152) will teach us to appreciate the knowledge of the
Orientals of the ages which precede the Hegira.]

[Footnote 581: Von Hammer's explanation of this contested point is both
simple and satisfactory. It originates in a mistake in the meaning of
the Turkish word kafe, which means a covered litter or palanquin drawn
by two horses, and is generally used to convey the harem of an Eastern
monarch. In such a litter, with the lattice-work made of iron, Bajazet
either chose or was constrained to travel. This was either mistaken
for, or transformed by, ignorant relaters into a cage. The European
Schiltberger, the two oldest of the Turkish historians, and the most
valuable of the later compilers, Seadeddin, describe this litter.
Seadeddin discusses the question with some degree of historical
criticism, and ascribes the choice of such a vehicle to the indignant
state of Bajazet's mind, which would not brook the sight of his Tartar
conquerors. Von Hammer, p. 320.--M.]

From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to
Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of Timour: his armies
were invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might aspire
to conquer and convert the Christian kingdoms of the West, which already
trembled at his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land; but an
insuperable, though narrow, sea rolled between the two continents of
Europe and Asia; [59] and the lord of so many _tomans_, or myriads,
of horse, was not master of a single galley. The two passages of
the Bosphorus and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were
possessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this
great occasion, they forgot the difference of religion, to act with
union and firmness in the common cause: the double straits were
guarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately withheld the
transports which Timour demanded of either nation, under the pretence
of attacking their enemy. At the same time, they soothed his pride with
tributary gifts and suppliant embassies, and prudently tempted him
to retreat with the honors of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet,
implored his clemency for his father and himself; accepted, by a red
patent, the investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already
held by the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself
in person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor [60]
(either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute which he had
stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oath
of allegiance, from which he could absolve his conscience so soon as the
Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nations
ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic
compass; a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile
to the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and,
after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning
home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and perhaps
imaginary, danger was averted by the submission of the sultan of Egypt:
the honors of the prayer and the coin attested at Cairo the supremacy
of Timour; and a rare gift of a _giraffe_, or camelopard, and nine
ostriches, represented at Samarcand the tribute of the African world.
Our imagination is not less astonished by the portrait of a Mogul,
who, in his camp before Smyrna, meditates, and almost accomplishes, the
invasion of the Chinese empire. [61] Timour was urged to this enterprise
by national honor and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed of
Mussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal destruction of the
infidels; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he might best
secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols of China, founding
mosques in every city, and establishing the profession of faith in
one God, and his prophet Mahomet. The recent expulsion of the house of
Zingis was an insult on the Mogul name; and the disorders of the empire
afforded the fairest opportunity for revenge. The illustrious Hongvou,
founder of the dynasty of _Ming_, died four years before the battle of
Angora; and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate youth, was burnt in his
palace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war. [62]
Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the Sihoon a
numerous army, or rather colony, of his old and new subjects, to open
the road, to subdue the Pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to found cities
and magazines in the desert; and, by the diligence of his lieutenant, he
soon received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions,
from the source of the Irtish to the wall of China. During these
preparations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passed
the winter on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia;
and slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years and
nine months.

[Footnote 59: Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 25) describes, like a curious
traveller, the Straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To acquire a
just idea of these events, I have compared the narratives and prejudices
of the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and Arabians. The Spanish ambassador
mentions this hostile union of the Christians and Ottomans, (Vie de
Timour, p. 96.)]

[Footnote 60: Since the name of Caesar had been transferred to the
sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople (Sherefeddin, l.
v. c. 54) were confounded with the Christian _lords_ of Gallipoli,
Thessalonica, &c. under the title of _Tekkur_, which is derived by
corruption from the genitive tou kuriou, (Cantemir, p. 51.)]

[Footnote 61: See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 4, who marks, in a just
itinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 33) paints in
vague and rhetorical colors.]

[Footnote 62: Synopsis Hist. Sinicae, p. 74--76, (in the ivth part of
the Relations de Thevenot,) Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine, (tom. i. p. 507,
508, folio edition;) and for the Chronology of the Chinese emperors, De
Guignes, Hist. des Huns, (tom. i. p. 71, 72.)]




Chapter LXV: Elevation Of Timour Or Tamerlane, And His Death.--Part III.

On the throne of Samarcand, [63] he displayed, in a short repose, his
magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of the people;
distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments; employed his
riches in the architecture of palaces and temples; and gave audience to
the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, and Spain, the
last of whom presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of
the Oriental artists. The marriage of six of the emperor's grandsons was
esteemed an act of religion as well as of paternal tenderness; and the
pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. They were
celebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated with innumerable tents
and pavilions, which displayed the luxury of a great city and the spoils
of a victorious camp. Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the
kitchens; the plain was spread with pyramids of meat, and vases of
every liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited: the
orders of the state, and the nations of the earth, were marshalled at
the royal banquet; nor were the ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty
Persian) excluded from the feast; since even the _casses_, the smallest
of fish, find their place in the ocean. [64] The public joy was testified
by illuminations and masquerades; the trades of Samarcand passed in
review; and every trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, some
marvellous pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After the
marriage contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the bride-grooms and
their brides retired to the nuptial chambers: nine times, according to
the Asiatic fashion, they were dressed and undressed; and at each
change of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their heads, and
contemptuously abandoned to their attendants. A general indulgence
was proclaimed: every law was relaxed, every pleasure was allowed; the
people was free, the sovereign was idle; and the historian of Timour may
remark, that, after devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire,
the only happy period of his life were the two months in which he
ceased to exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of
government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of China:
the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand, the select and
veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage and provisions were
transported by five hundred great wagons, and an immense train of horses
and camels; and the troops might prepare for a long absence, since more
than six months were employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan from
Samarcand to Pekin. Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, could
retard the impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the
Sihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred miles,
from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighborhood of
Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue, and the
indiscreet use of iced water, accelerated the progress of his fever;
and the conqueror of Asia expired in the seventieth year of his age,
thirty-five years after he had ascended the throne of Zagatai. His
designs were lost; his armies were disbanded; China was saved; and
fourteen years after his decease, the most powerful of his children sent
an embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin. [65]

[Footnote 63: For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see
Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 1--30) and Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 36--47.)]

[Footnote 64: Sherefeddin (l. vi. c. 24) mentions the ambassadors of one
of the most potent sovereigns of Europe. We know that it was Henry III.
king of Castile; and the curious relation of his two embassies is still
extant, (Mariana, Hist. Hispan. l. xix. c. 11, tom. ii. p. 329, 330.
Avertissement a l'Hist. de Timur Bec, p. 28--33.) There appears likewise
to have been some correspondence between the Mogul emperor and the
court of Charles VII. king of France, (Histoire de France, par Velly et
Villaret, tom. xii. p. 336.)]

[Footnote 65: See the translation of the Persian account of their
embassy, a curious and original piece, (in the ivth part of the
Relations de Thevenot.) They presented the emperor of China with an old
horse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year 1419 that they
departed from the court of Herat, to which place they returned in 1422
from Pekin.]

The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West: his posterity is
still invested with the Imperial _title_; and the admiration of his
subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified in
some degree by the praise or confession of his bitterest enemies. [66]
Although he was lame of a hand and foot, his form and stature were not
unworthy of his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential to himself
and to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his
familiar discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of
the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian
and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on
topics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisure
hours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupted with new
refinements. [67] In his religion he was a zealous, though not perhaps
an orthodox, Mussulman; [68] but his sound understanding may tempt us to
believe, that a superstitious reverence for omens and prophecies, for
saints and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of policy. In
the government of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without
a rebel to oppose his power, a favorite to seduce his affections, or
a minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that
whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should never
be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously observed, that
the commands of anger and destruction were more strictly executed than
those of beneficence and favor. His sons and grandsons, of whom Timour
left six-and-thirty at his decease, were his first and most submissive
subjects; and whenever they deviated from their duty, they were
corrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the bastinade, and
afterwards restored to honor and command. Perhaps his heart was not
devoid of the social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his
friends and pardoning his enemies; but the rules of morality are founded
on the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud the _wisdom_
of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is not impoverished, and
for the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintain
the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to
protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness
from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain
the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the
husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and
moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the
taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of these
duties, he finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast,
that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy
and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and
unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to the West. Such was
his confidence of merit, that from this reformation he derived an excuse
for his victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following
observations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude;
and perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor was rather the
scourge than the benefactor of mankind. _1._ If some partial disorders,
some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the remedy
was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and
discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but
whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The
ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked
by his abominable trophies, by columns, or pyramids, of human heads.
Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa,
Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or utterly
destroyed, in his presence, and by his troops: and perhaps his
conscience would have been startled, if a priest or philosopher had
dared to number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the
establishment of peace and order. [69] _2._ His most destructive wars
were rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan, Kipzak,
Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without a
hope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces. From thence he
departed laden with spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awe
the contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient, natives. When
he had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he abandoned them
to the evils which his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were these
evils compensated by any present or possible benefits. _3._ The kingdoms
of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he labored to
cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his
peaceful labors were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the
absence of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges,
his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. The
public and private injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigor
of inquiry and punishment; and we must be content to praise the
_Institutions_ of Timour, as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy.
_4._ Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they
evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was the
ambition of his children and grandchildren; [70] the enemies of each
other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with some
glory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after _his_ decease, the scene
was again involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a
century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the
north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of Timour
would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree,
had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His
successors (the great Moguls [71]) extended their sway from the mountains
of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal.
Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved; their
treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richest
of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants,
of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.

[Footnote 66: From Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or softer colors
are borrowed from Sherefeddin, D'Herbelot, and the Institutions.]

[Footnote 67: His new system was multiplied from 32 pieces and 64
squares to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares; but, except in his court,
the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The Mogul emperor
was rather pleased than hurt with the victory of a subject: a chess
player will feel the value of this encomium!]

[Footnote 68: See Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah tom. ii. c. 96,
p. 801, 803) approves the impiety of Timour and the Moguls, who
almost preferred to the Koran the _Yacsa_, or Law of Zingis, (cui Deus
maledicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh had abolished the use and
authority of that Pagan code.]

[Footnote 69: Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I must
refer to an anticipation in the third volume of the Decline and Fall,
which in a single note (p. 234, note 25) accumulates nearly 300,000
heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in Rowe's play on
the fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of Timour's amiable
moderation (White's preface, p. 7.) Yet I can excuse a generous
enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the editor, of the
_Institutions_.]

[Footnote 70: Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and Arabshah,
and M. De Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. l. xx.) Fraser's History of
Nadir Shah, (p. 1--62.) The story of Timour's descendants is imperfectly
told; and the second and third parts of Sherefeddin are unknown.]

[Footnote 71: Shah Allum, the present Mogul, is in the fourteenth degree
from Timour, by Miran Shah, his third son. See the second volume of
Dow's History of Hindostan.]

Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The massy trunk was
bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane pass away, than it
again rose with fresh vigor and more lively vegetation. When Timour,
in every sense, had evacuated Anatolia, he left the cities without a
palace, a treasure, or a king. The open country was overspread with
hordes of shepherds and robbers of Tartar or Turkman origin; the recent
conquests of Bajazet were restored to the emirs, one of whom, in base
revenge, demolished his sepulchre; and his five sons were eager, by
civil discord, to consume the remnant of their patrimony. I shall
enumerate their names in the order of their age and actions. [72] _1._ It
is doubtful, whether I relate the story of the true _Mustapha_, or of an
impostor who personated that lost prince. He fought by his father's side
in the battle of Angora: but when the captive sultan was permitted to
inquire for his children, Mousa alone could be found; and the Turkish
historians, the slaves of the triumphant faction, are persuaded that his
brother was confounded among the slain. If Mustapha escaped from that
disastrous field, he was concealed twelve years from his friends and
enemies; till he emerged in Thessaly, and was hailed by a numerous
party, as the son and successor of Bajazet. His first defeat would have
been his last, had not the true, or false, Mustapha been saved by the
Greeks, and restored, after the decease of his brother Mahomet, to
liberty and empire. A degenerate mind seemed to argue his spurious
birth; and if, on the throne of Adrianople, he was adored as the Ottoman
sultan, his flight, his fetters, and an ignominious gibbet, delivered
the impostor to popular contempt. A similar character and claim was
asserted by several rival pretenders: thirty persons are said to have
suffered under the name of Mustapha; and these frequent executions may
perhaps insinuate, that the Turkish court was not perfectly secure of
the death of the lawful prince. _2._ After his father's captivity, Isa
[73] reigned for some time in the neighborhood of Angora, Sinope, and
the Black Sea; and his ambassadors were dismissed from the presence of
Timour with fair promises and honorable gifts. But their master was soon
deprived of his province and life, by a jealous brother, the sovereign
of Amasia; and the final event suggested a pious allusion, that the
law of Moses and Jesus, of _Isa_ and _Mousa_, had been abrogated by
the greater Mahomet. _3._ _Soliman_ is not numbered in the list of the
Turkish emperors: yet he checked the victorious progress of the Moguls;
and after their departure, united for a while the thrones of Adrianople
and Boursa. In war he was brave, active, and fortunate; his courage was
softened by clemency; but it was likewise inflamed by presumption,
and corrupted by intemperance and idleness. He relaxed the nerves of
discipline, in a government where either the subject or the sovereign
must continually tremble: his vices alienated the chiefs of the army and
the law; and his daily drunkenness, so contemptible in a prince and a
man, was doubly odious in a disciple of the prophet. In the slumber of
intoxication he was surprised by his brother Mousa; and as he fled from
Adrianople towards the Byzantine capital, Soliman was overtaken and
slain in a bath, [731] after a reign of seven years and ten months. _4._
The investiture of Mousa degraded him as the slave of the Moguls: his
tributary kingdom of Anatolia was confined within a narrow limit, nor
could his broken militia and empty treasury contend with the hardy and
veteran bands of the sovereign of Romania. Mousa fled in disguise from
the palace of Boursa; traversed the Propontis in an open boat; wandered
over the Walachian and Servian hills; and after some vain attempts,
ascended the throne of Adrianople, so recently stained with the blood
of Soliman. In a reign of three years and a half, his troops were
victorious against the Christians of Hungary and the Morea; but Mousa
was ruined by his timorous disposition and unseasonable clemency. After
resigning the sovereignty of Anatolia, he fell a victim to the perfidy
of his ministers, and the superior ascendant of his brother Mahomet.
_5._The final victory of Mahomet was the just recompense of his prudence
and moderation. Before his father's captivity, the royal youth had
been intrusted with the government of Amasia, thirty days' journey
from Constantinople, and the Turkish frontier against the Christians
of Trebizond and Georgia. The castle, in Asiatic warfare, was esteemed
impregnable; and the city of Amasia, [74] which is equally divided by
the River Iris, rises on either side in the form of an amphitheatre, and
represents on a smaller scale the image of Bagdad. In his rapid career,
Timour appears to have overlooked this obscure and contumacious angle of
Anatolia; and Mahomet, without provoking the conqueror, maintained his
silent independence, and chased from the province the last stragglers of
the Tartar host. [741] He relieved himself from the dangerous neighborhood
of Isa; but in the contests of their more powerful brethren his firm
neutrality was respected; till, after the triumph of Mousa, he stood
forth the heir and avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. Mahomet obtained
Anatolia by treaty, and Romania by arms; and the soldier who presented
him with the head of Mousa was rewarded as the benefactor of his
king and country. The eight years of his sole and peaceful reign were
usefully employed in banishing the vices of civil discord, and restoring
on a firmer basis the fabric of the Ottoman monarchy. His last care was
the choice of two viziers, Bajazet and Ibrahim, [75] who might guide the
youth of his son Amurath; and such was their union and prudence, that
they concealed above forty days the emperor's death, till the arrival of
his successor in the palace of Boursa. A new war was kindled in Europe
by the prince, or impostor, Mustapha; the first vizier lost his army
and his head; but the more fortunate Ibrahim, whose name and family are
still revered, extinguished the last pretender to the throne of Bajazet,
and closed the scene of domestic hostility.

[Footnote 72: The civil wars, from the death of Bajazet to that of
Mustapha, are related, according to the Turks, by Demetrius Cantemir,
(p. 58--82.) Of the Greeks, Chalcondyles, (l. iv. and v.,) Phranza, (l.
i. c. 30--32,) and Ducas, (c. 18--27,) the last is the most copious and
best informed.]

[Footnote 73: Arabshah, (tom. ii. c. 26,) whose testimony on this
occasion is weighty and valuable. The existence of Isa (unknown to the
Turks) is likewise confirmed by Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57.)]

[Footnote 731: He escaped from the bath, and fled towards Constantinople.
Five mothers from a village, Dugundschi, whose inhabitants had suffered
severely from the exactions of his officers, recognized and followed
him. Soliman shot two of them, the others discharged their arrows in
their turn the sultan fell and his head was cut off. V. Hammer, vol. i.
p. 349.--M.]

[Footnote 74: Arabshah, loc. citat. Abulfeda, Geograph. tab. xvii. p.
302. Busbequius, epist. i. p. 96, 97, in Itinere C. P. et Amasiano.]

[Footnote 741: See his nine battles. V. Hammer, p. 339.--M.]

[Footnote 75: The virtues of Ibrahim are praised by a contemporary
Greek, (Ducas, c. 25.) His descendants are the sole nobles in
Turkey: they content themselves with the administration of his pious
foundations, are excused from public offices, and receive two annual
visits from the sultan, (Cantemir, p. 76.)]

In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of the nation,
were strongly attached to the unity of the empire; and Romania and
Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private ambition, were animated by
a strong and invincible tendency of cohesion. Their efforts might
have instructed the Christian powers; and had they occupied, with a
confederate fleet, the Straits of Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least in
Europe, must have been speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West,
and the factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latins
from this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite, without
a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a momentary interest to
serve the common enemy of their religion. A colony of Genoese, [76] which
had been planted at Phocaea [77] on the Ionian coast, was enriched by
the lucrative monopoly of alum; [78] and their tranquillity, under the
Turkish empire, was secured by the annual payment of tribute. In the
last civil war of the Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold
and ambitious youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, with
seven stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan
and five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral's ship; which was
manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His life and liberty were
in their hands; nor can we, without reluctance, applaud the fidelity
of Adorno, who, in the midst of the passage, knelt before him, and
gratefully accepted a discharge of his arrears of tribute. They landed
in sight of Mustapha and Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed with
lances and battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople;
and this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the commerce and
colony of Phocaea.

[Footnote 76: See Pachymer, (l. v. c. 29,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
ii. c. 1,) Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57,) and Ducas, (c. 25.) The last of
these, a curious and careful observer, is entitled, from his birth
and station, to particular credit in all that concerns Ionia and the
islands. Among the nations that resorted to New Phocaea, he mentions the
English; ('Igglhnoi;) an early evidence of Mediterranean trade.]

[Footnote 77: For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of ancient
Phocaea, or rather the Phocaeans, consult the first book of Herodotus,
and the Geographical Index of his last and learned French translator, M.
Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299.)]

[Footnote 78: Phocaea is not enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxv. 52)
among the places productive of alum: he reckons Egypt as the first,
and for the second the Isle of Melos, whose alum mines are described by
Tournefort, (tom. i. lettre iv.,) a traveller and a naturalist. After
the loss of Phocaea, the Genoese, in 1459, found that useful mineral in
the Isle of Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad Ducam, c. 25.)]

If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the relief, of
the Greek emperor, he might be entitled to the praise and gratitude of
the Christians. [79] But a Mussulman, who carried into Georgia the sword
of persecution, and respected the holy warfare of Bajazet, was not
disposed to pity or succor the _idolaters_ of Europe. The Tartar
followed the impulse of ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinople
was the accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government,
it was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the church
and state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his return
from a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news of the
sad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and rejoiced by the
intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and the captivity of the
Ottoman. Manuel [80] immediately sailed from Modon in the Morea; ascended
the throne of Constantinople, and dismissed his blind competitor to an
easy exile in the Isle of Lesbos. The ambassadors of the son of Bajazet
were soon introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, their
tone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest the
Greeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe. Soliman saluted
the emperor by the name of father; solicited at his hands the government
or gift of Romania; and promised to deserve his favor by inviolable
friendship, and the restitution of Thessalonica, with the most important
places along the Strymon, the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance
of Soliman exposed the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa: the
Turks appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople; but they
were repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was guarded by some
foreign mercenaries, the Greeks must have wondered at their own triumph.
But, instead of prolonging the division of the Ottoman powers, the
policy or passion of Manuel was tempted to assist the most formidable of
the sons of Bajazet. He concluded a treaty with Mahomet, whose progress
was checked by the insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and
his troops were transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably
entertained in the capital; and his successful sally was the first step
to the conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by the prudence
and moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully discharged his own
obligations and those of Soliman, respected the laws of gratitude and
peace; and left the emperor guardian of his two younger sons, in the
vain hope of saving them from the jealous cruelty of their brother
Amurath. But the execution of his last testament would have offended the
national honor and religion; and the divan unanimously pronounced, that
the royal youths should never be abandoned to the custody and education
of a Christian dog. On this refusal, the Byzantine councils were
divided; but the age and caution of Manuel yielded to the presumption
of his son John; and they unsheathed a dangerous weapon of revenge, by
dismissing the true or false Mustapha, who had long been detained as a
captive and hostage, and for whose maintenance they received an annual
pension of three hundred thousand aspers. [81] At the door of his prison,
Mustapha subscribed to every proposal; and the keys of Gallipoli, or
rather of Europe, were stipulated as the price of his deliverance. But
no sooner was he seated on the throne of Romania, than he dismissed the
Greek ambassadors with a smile of contempt, declaring, in a pious tone,
that, at the day of judgment, he would rather answer for the violation
of an oath, than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands of
the infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals; from
whom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an injury; and the
victory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing spring, by the siege of
Constantinople. [82]

[Footnote 79: The writer who has the most abused this fabulous
generosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol. iii.
p. 349, 350, octavo edition,) that lover of exotic virtue. After the
conquest of Russia, &c., and the passage of the Danube, his Tartar hero
relieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city of Constantine. His
flattering pencil deviates in every line from the truth of history;
yet his pleasing fictions are more excusable than the gross errors of
Cantemir.]

[Footnote 80: For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I. and
Amurath II., see the Othman history of Cantemir, (p. 70--95,) and the
three Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who is still superior to
his rivals.]

[Footnote 81: The Turkish asper (from the Greek asproV) is, or was, a
piece of _white_ or silver money, at present much debased, but which was
formerly equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of a Venetian ducat or
sequin; and the 300,000 aspers, a princely allowance or royal tribute,
may be computed at 2500_l_. sterling, (Leunclav. Pandect. Turc. p.
406--408.) * Note: According to Von Hammer, this calculation is much too low. The
asper was a century before the time of which writes, the tenth part of a
ducat; for the same tribute which the Byzantine writers state at 300,000
aspers the Ottomans state at 30,000 ducats, about 15000l Note, vol. p.
636.--M.]

[Footnote 82: For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see the
particular and contemporary narrative of John Cananus, published by Leo
Allatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita, (p. 188--199.)]

The religious merit of subduing the city of the Caesars attracted from
Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom: their
military ardor was inflamed by the promise of rich spoils and beautiful
females; and the sultan's ambition was consecrated by the presence and
prediction of Seid Bechar, a descendant of the prophet, [83] who
arrived in the camp, on a mule, with a venerable train of five hundred
disciples. But he might blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failure
of his assurances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of two
hundred thousand Turks; their assaults were repelled by the sallies of
the Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old resources of defence
were opposed to the new engines of attack; and the enthusiasm of the
dervis, who was snatched to heaven in visionary converse with Mahomet,
was answered by the credulity of the Christians, who _beheld_ the Virgin
Mary, in a violet garment, walking on the rampart and animating their
courage. [84] After a siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursa
by a domestic revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and was
soon extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While he led his
Janizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the Byzantine empire
was indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty years. Manuel
sank into the grave; and John Palaeologus was permitted to reign, for an
annual tribute of three hundred thousand aspers, and the dereliction of
almost all that he held beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.

[Footnote 83: Cantemir, p. 80. Cananus, who describes Seid Bechar,
without naming him, supposes that the friend of Mahomet assumed in his
amours the privilege of a prophet, and that the fairest of the Greek
nuns were promised to the saint and his disciples.]

[Footnote 84: For this miraculous apparition, Cananus appeals to the
Mussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid Bechar?]

In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire, the first
merit must doubtless be assigned to the personal qualities of the
sultans; since, in human life, the most important scenes will depend on
the character of a single actor. By some shades of wisdom and virtue,
they may be discriminated from each other; but, except in a single
instance, a period of nine reigns, and two hundred and sixty-five years,
is occupied, from the elevation of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a
rare series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their subjects
with obedience and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothful
luxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the
council and the field: from early youth they were intrusted by their
fathers with the command of provinces and armies; and this manly
institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have
essentially contributed to the discipline and vigor of the monarchy.
The Ottomans cannot style themselves, like the Arabian caliphs, the
descendants or successors of the apostle of God; and the kindred which
they claim with the Tartar khans of the house of Zingis appears to be
founded in flattery rather than in truth. [85] Their origin is obscure;
but their sacred and indefeasible right, which no time can erase, and no
violence can infringe, was soon and unalterably implanted in the
minds of their subjects. A weak or vicious sultan may be deposed and
strangled; but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot: nor
has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawful
sovereign. [86]

[Footnote 85: See Ricaut, (l. i. c. 13.) The Turkish sultans assume the
title of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his Ottoman cousins.]

[Footnote 86: The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who was
slain at the battle of Salankanen in 1691, (Cantemir, p. 382,) presumed
to say that all the successors of Soliman had been fools or tyrants, and
that it was time to abolish the race, (Marsigli Stato Militaire, &c., p.
28.) This political heretic was a good Whig, and justified against
the French ambassador the revolution of England, (Mignot, Hist. des
Ottomans, tom. iii. p. 434.) His presumption condemns the singular
exception of continuing offices in the same family.]

While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually subverted by
a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious general in the camp, the
Ottoman succession has been confirmed by the practice of five centuries,
and is now incorporated with the vital principle of the Turkish nation.

To the spirit and constitution of that nation, a strong and singular
influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive subjects of Othman
were the four hundred families of wandering Turkmans, who had followed
his ancestors from the Oxus to the Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia
are still covered with the white and black tents of their rustic
brethren. But this original drop was dissolved in the mass of voluntary
and vanquished subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united by
the common ties of religion, language, and manners. In the cities, from
Erzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is common to all
the Moslems, the first and most honorable inhabitants; but they have
abandoned, at least in Romania, the villages, and the cultivation of
the land, to the Christian peasants. In the vigorous age of the Ottoman
government, the Turks were themselves excluded from all civil and
military honors; and a servile class, an artificial people, was raised
by the discipline of education to obey, to conquer, and to command.
[87] From the time of Orchan and the first Amurath, the sultans were
persuaded that a government of the sword must be renewed in each
generation with new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be sought, not
in effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and warlike natives of Europe.
The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia,
became the perpetual seminary of the Turkish army; and when the royal
fifth of the captives was diminished by conquest, an inhuman tax of
the fifth child, or of every fifth year, was rigorously levied on the
Christian families. At the age of twelve or fourteen years, the most
robust youths were torn from their parents; their names were enrolled in
a book; and from that moment they were clothed, taught, and maintained,
for the public service. According to the promise of their appearance,
they were selected for the royal schools of Boursa, Pera, and
Adrianople, intrusted to the care of the bashaws, or dispersed in
the houses of the Anatolian peasantry. It was the first care of their
masters to instruct them in the Turkish language: their bodies were
exercised by every labor that could fortify their strength; they learned
to wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the bow, and afterwards with
the musket; till they were drafted into the chambers and companies
of the Janizaries, and severely trained in the military or monastic
discipline of the order. The youths most conspicuous for birth, talents,
and beauty, were admitted into the inferior class of _Agiamoglans_, or
the more liberal rank of _Ichoglans_, of whom the former were attached
to the palace, and the latter to the person, of the prince. In four
successive schools, under the rod of the white eunuchs, the arts of
horsemanship and of darting the javelin were their daily exercise, while
those of a more studious cast applied themselves to the study of the
Koran, and the knowledge of the Arabic and Persian tongues. As they
advanced in seniority and merit, they were gradually dismissed to
military, civil, and even ecclesiastical employments: the longer their
stay, the higher was their expectation; till, at a mature period, they
were admitted into the number of the forty agas, who stood before the
sultan, and were promoted by his choice to the government of provinces
and the first honors of the empire. [88] Such a mode of institution was
admirably adapted to the form and spirit of a despotic monarchy. The
ministers and generals were, in the strictest sense, the slaves of the
emperor, to whose bounty they were indebted for their instruction and
support. When they left the seraglio, and suffered their beards to grow
as the symbol of enfranchisement, they found themselves in an important
office, without faction or friendship, without parents and without
heirs, dependent on the hand which had raised them from the dust, and
which, on the slightest displeasure, could break in pieces these statues
of glass, as they were aptly termed by the Turkish proverb. [89] In the
slow and painful steps of education, their characters and talents were
unfolded to a discerning eye: the _man_, naked and alone, was reduced to
the standard of his personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom to
choose, he possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice. The Ottoman
candidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence to those of action;
by the habits of submission to those of command. A similar spirit
was diffused among the troops; and their silence and sobriety, their
patience and modesty, have extorted the reluctant praise of their
Christian enemies. [90] Nor can the victory appear doubtful, if we
compare the discipline and exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of
birth, the independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies,
the mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance and
disorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe.

[Footnote 87: Chalcondyles (l. v.) and Ducas (c. 23) exhibit the rude
lineament of the Ottoman policy, and the transmutation of Christian
children into Turkish soldiers.]

[Footnote 88: This sketch of the Turkish education and discipline is
chiefly borrowed from Ricaut's State of the Ottoman Empire, the Stato
Militaire del' Imperio Ottomano of Count Marsigli, (in Haya, 1732,
in folio,) and a description of the Seraglio, approved by Mr. Greaves
himself, a curious traveller, and inserted in the second volume of his
works.]

[Footnote 89: From the series of cxv. viziers, till the siege of Vienna,
(Marsigli, p. 13,) their place may be valued at three years and a half
purchase.]

[Footnote 90: See the entertaining and judicious letters of Busbequius.]

The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire, and the adjacent
kingdoms, would have been some more powerful weapon, some discovery in
the art of war, that would give them a decisive superiority over their
Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands; such a discovery had
been made in the critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China or
Europe had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixture
of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a
tremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force
were compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be
expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise aera of
the invention and application of gunpowder [91] is involved in doubtful
traditions and equivocal language; yet we may clearly discern, that it
was known before the middle of the fourteenth century; and that before
the end of the same, the use of artillery in battles and sieges, by sea
and land, was familiar to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, France,
and England. [92] The priority of nations is of small account; none could
derive any exclusive benefit from their previous or superior knowledge;
and in the common improvement, they stood on the same level of relative
power and military science. Nor was it possible to circumscribe the
secret within the pale of the church; it was disclosed to the Turks by
the treachery of apostates and the selfish policy of rivals; and the
sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the talents of a
Christian engineer. The Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe,
must be accused as his preceptors; and it was probably by their hands
that his cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople.
[93] The first attempt was indeed unsuccessful; but in the general
warfare of the age, the advantage was on _their_ side, who were most
commonly the assailants: for a while the proportion of the attack and
defence was suspended; and this thundering artillery was pointed against
the walls and towers which had been erected only to resist the less
potent engines of antiquity. By the Venetians, the use of gunpowder was
communicated without reproach to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their
allies against the Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the
extremities of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to
his easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast the
rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow and laborious
advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher,
according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.

[Footnote 91: The first and second volumes of Dr. Watson's Chemical
Essays contain two valuable discourses on the discovery and composition
of gunpowder.]

[Footnote 92: On this subject modern testimonies cannot be trusted. The
original passages are collected by Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. i. p.
675, _Bombarda_.) But in the early doubtful twilight, the name, sound,
fire, and effect, that seem to express _our_ artillery, may be fairly
interpreted of the old engines and the Greek fire. For the English
cannon at Crecy, the authority of John Villani (Chron. l. xii. c.
65) must be weighed against the silence of Froissard. Yet Muratori
(Antiquit. Italiae Medii AEvi, tom. ii. Dissert. xxvi. p. 514, 515)
has produced a decisive passage from Petrarch, (De Remediis utriusque
Fortunae Dialog.,) who, before the year 1344, execrates this terrestrial
thunder, _nuper_ rara, _nunc_ communis. * Note:  Mr. Hallam makes
the following observation on the objection
thrown our by Gibbon: "The positive testimony of Villani, who
died within two years afterwards, and had manifestly obtained much
information as to the great events passing in France, cannot be
rejected. He ascribes a material effect to the cannon of Edward, Colpi
delle bombarde, which I suspect, from his strong expressions, had not
been employed before, except against stone walls. It seems, he says,
as if God thundered con grande uccisione di genti e efondamento di
cavalli." Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 510.--M.]

[Footnote 93: The Turkish cannon, which Ducas (c. 30) first introduces
before Belgrade, (A.D. 1436,) is mentioned by Chalcondyles (l. v. p.
123) in 1422, at the siege of Constantinople.]




Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part I.

     Applications Of The Eastern Emperors To The Popes.--Visits
     To The West, Of John The First, Manuel, And John The Second,
     Palaeologus.--Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches, Promoted
     By The Council Of Basil, And Concluded At Ferrara And
     Florence.--State Of Literature At Constantinople.--Its
     Revival In Italy By The Greek Fugitives.--Curiosity And
     Emulation Of The Latins.

In the four last centuries of the Greek emperors, their friendly or
hostile aspect towards the pope and the Latins may be observed as the
thermometer of their prosperity or distress; as the scale of the rise
and fall of the Barbarian dynasties. When the Turks of the house of
Seljuk pervaded Asia, and threatened Constantinople, we have seen, at
the council of Placentia, the suppliant ambassadors of Alexius imploring
the protection of the common father of the Christians. No sooner had
the arms of the French pilgrims removed the sultan from Nice to Iconium,
than the Greek princes resumed, or avowed, their genuine hatred and
contempt for the schismatics of the West, which precipitated the first
downfall of their empire. The date of the Mogul invasion is marked in
the soft and charitable language of John Vataces. After the recovery of
Constantinople, the throne of the first Palaeologus was encompassed
by foreign and domestic enemies; as long as the sword of Charles was
suspended over his head, he basely courted the favor of the Roman
pontiff; and sacrificed to the present danger his faith, his virtue, and
the affection of his subjects. On the decease of Michael, the prince
and people asserted the independence of their church, and the purity of
their creed: the elder Andronicus neither feared nor loved the Latins;
in his last distress, pride was the safeguard of superstition; nor could
he decently retract in his age the firm and orthodox declarations of
his youth. His grandson, the younger Andronicus, was less a slave in
his temper and situation; and the conquest of Bithynia by the Turks
admonished him to seek a temporal and spiritual alliance with the
Western princes. After a separation and silence of fifty years, a secret
agent, the monk Barlaam, was despatched to Pope Benedict the Twelfth;
and his artful instructions appear to have been drawn by the master-hand
of the great domestic. [1] "Most holy father," was he commissioned to
say, "the emperor is not less desirous than yourself of a union between
the two churches: but in this delicate transaction, he is obliged to
respect his own dignity and the prejudices of his subjects. The ways of
union are twofold; force and persuasion. Of force, the inefficacy has
been already tried; since the Latins have subdued the empire, without
subduing the minds, of the Greeks. The method of persuasion, though
slow, is sure and permanent. A deputation of thirty or forty of our
doctors would probably agree with those of the Vatican, in the love of
truth and the unity of belief; but on their return, what would be the
use, the recompense, of such an agreement? the scorn of their brethren,
and the reproaches of a blind and obstinate nation. Yet that nation
is accustomed to reverence the general councils, which have fixed the
articles of our faith; and if they reprobate the decrees of Lyons, it is
because the Eastern churches were neither heard nor represented in that
arbitrary meeting. For this salutary end, it will be expedient, and
even necessary, that a well-chosen legate should be sent into Greece,
to convene the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem; and, with their aid, to prepare a free and universal
synod. But at this moment," continued the subtle agent, "the empire is
assaulted and endangered by the Turks, who have occupied four of the
greatest cities of Anatolia. The Christian inhabitants have expressed a
wish of returning to their allegiance and religion; but the forces and
revenues of the emperor are insufficient for their deliverance: and the
Roman legate must be accompanied, or preceded, by an army of Franks,
to expel the infidels, and open a way to the holy sepulchre." If the
suspicious Latins should require some pledge, some previous effect of
the sincerity of the Greeks, the answers of Barlaam were perspicuous and
rational. "_1._ A general synod can alone consummate the union of
the churches; nor can such a synod be held till the three Oriental
patriarchs, and a great number of bishops, are enfranchised from the
Mahometan yoke. _2._ The Greeks are alienated by a long series of
oppression and injury: they must be reconciled by some act of brotherly
love, some effectual succor, which may fortify the authority and
arguments of the emperor, and the friends of the union. _3._ If some
difference of faith or ceremonies should be found incurable, the Greeks,
however, are the disciples of Christ; and the Turks are the common
enemies of the Christian name. The Armenians, Cyprians, and Rhodians,
are equally attacked; and it will become the piety of the French princes
to draw their swords in the general defence of religion. _4._ Should
the subjects of Andronicus be treated as the worst of schismatics, of
heretics, of pagans, a judicious policy may yet instruct the powers of
the West to embrace a useful ally, to uphold a sinking empire, to guard
the confines of Europe; and rather to join the Greeks against the
Turks, than to expect the union of the Turkish arms with the troops and
treasures of captive Greece." The reasons, the offers, and the demands,
of Andronicus were eluded with cold and stately indifference. The kings
of France and Naples declined the dangers and glory of a crusade; the
pope refused to call a new synod to determine old articles of faith;
and his regard for the obsolete claims of the Latin emperor and clergy
engaged him to use an offensive superscription,--"To the _moderator_ [2]
of the Greeks, and the persons who style themselves the patriarchs of
the Eastern churches." For such an embassy, a time and character less
propitious could not easily have been found. Benedict the Twelfth [3] was
a dull peasant, perplexed with scruples, and immersed in sloth and wine:
his pride might enrich with a third crown the papal tiara, but he was
alike unfit for the regal and the pastoral office.

[Footnote 1: This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe) from
the Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his Continuation of the
Annals of Baronius, (Romae, 1646--1677, in x. volumes in folio.) I have
contented myself with the Abbe Fleury, (Hist. Ecclesiastique. tom. xx.
p. 1--8,) whose abstracts I have always found to be clear, accurate, and
impartial.]

[Footnote 2: The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious; and
_moderator_, as synonymous to _rector_, _gubernator_, is a word of
classical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be found, not in the
Glossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of Robert Stephens.]

[Footnote 3: The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes the
danger of the _bark_, and the incapacity of the _pilot_. Haec inter,
vino madidus, aevo gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus, jamjam nutitat,
dormitat, jam somno praeceps, atque (utinam solus) ruit..... Heu quanto
felicius patrio terram sulcasset aratro, quam scalmum piscatorium
ascendisset! This satire engages his biographer to weigh the virtues and
vices of Benedict XII. which have been exaggerated by Guelphs and
Ghibe lines, by Papists and Protestants, (see Memoires sur la Vie de
Petrarque, tom. i. p. 259, ii. not. xv. p. 13--16.) He gave occasion to
the saying, Bibamus papaliter.]

After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were distracted by
intestine war, they could not presume to agitate a general union of
the Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had subdued and pardoned
his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or at least to extenuate, the
introduction of the Turks into Europe, and the nuptials of his
daughter with a Mussulman prince. Two officers of state, with a Latin
interpreter, were sent in his name to the Roman court, which was
transplanted to Avignon, on the banks of the Rhone, during a period of
seventy years: they represented the hard necessity which had urged him
to embrace the alliance of the miscreants, and pronounced by his command
the specious and edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement the
Sixth, [4] the successor of Benedict, received them with hospitality
and honor, acknowledged the innocence of their sovereign, excused his
distress, applauded his magnanimity, and displayed a clear knowledge of
the state and revolutions of the Greek empire, which he had imbibed
from the honest accounts of a Savoyard lady, an attendant of the empress
Anne. [5] If Clement was ill endowed with the virtues of a priest, he
possessed, however, the spirit and magnificence of a prince, whose
liberal hand distributed benefices and kingdoms with equal facility.
Under his reign Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his youth
he had surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the palace, nay, the
bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or polluted, by the visits of his
female favorites. The wars of France and England were adverse to the
holy enterprise; but his vanity was amused by the splendid idea; and the
Greek ambassadors returned with two Latin bishops, the ministers of the
pontiff. On their arrival at Constantinople, the emperor and the nuncios
admired each other's piety and eloquence; and their frequent conferences
were filled with mutual praises and promises, by which both parties were
amused, and neither could be deceived. "I am delighted," said the devout
Cantacuzene, "with the project of our holy war, which must redound to
my personal glory, as well as to the public benefit of Christendom. My
dominions will give a free passage to the armies of France: my troops,
my galleys, my treasures, shall be consecrated to the common cause;
and happy would be my fate, could I deserve and obtain the crown of
martyrdom. Words are insufficient to express the ardor with which I sigh
for the reunion of the scattered members of Christ. If my death could
avail, I would gladly present my sword and my neck: if the spiritual
phnix could arise from my ashes, I would erect the pile, and kindle the
flame with my own hands." Yet the Greek emperor presumed to observe,
that the articles of faith which divided the two churches had been
introduced by the pride and precipitation of the Latins: he disclaimed
the servile and arbitrary steps of the first Palaeologus; and firmly
declared, that he would never submit his conscience unless to the
decrees of a free and universal synod. "The situation of the times,"
continued he, "will not allow the pope and myself to meet either at Rome
or Constantinople; but some maritime city may be chosen on the verge of
the two empires, to unite the bishops, and to instruct the faithful, of
the East and West." The nuncios seemed content with the proposition; and
Cantacuzene affects to deplore the failure of his hopes, which were
soon overthrown by the death of Clement, and the different temper of
his successor. His own life was prolonged, but it was prolonged in a
cloister; and, except by his prayers, the humble monk was incapable of
directing the counsels of his pupil or the state. [6]

[Footnote 4: See the original Lives of Clement VI. in Muratori, (Script.
Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 550--589;) Matteo Villani, (Chron.
l. iii. c. 43, in Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 186,) who styles him, molto
cavallaresco, poco religioso; Fleury, (Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 126;)
and the Vie de Petrarque, (tom. ii. p. 42--45.) The abbe de Sade treats
him with the most indulgence; but _he_ is a gentleman as well as a
priest.]

[Footnote 5: Her name (most probably corrupted) was Zampea. She had
accompanied, and alone remained with her mistress at Constantinople,
where her prudence, erudition, and politeness deserved the praises of
the Greeks themselves, (Cantacuzen. l. i. c. 42.)]

[Footnote 6: See this whole negotiation in Cantacuzene, (l. iv. c. 9,)
who, amidst the praises and virtues which he bestows on himself, reveals
the uneasiness of a guilty conscience.]

Yet of all the Byzantine princes, that pupil, John Palaeologus, was the
best disposed to embrace, to believe, and to obey, the shepherd of the
West. His mother, Anne of Savoy, was baptized in the bosom of the
Latin church: her marriage with Andronicus imposed a change of name, of
apparel, and of worship, but her heart was still faithful to her country
and religion: she had formed the infancy of her son, and she governed
the emperor, after his mind, or at least his stature, was enlarged to
the size of man. In the first year of his deliverance and restoration,
the Turks were still masters of the Hellespont; the son of Cantacuzene
was in arms at Adrianople; and Palaeologus could depend neither on
himself nor on his people. By his mother's advice, and in the hope of
foreign aid, he abjured the rights both of the church and state; and
the act of slavery, [7] subscribed in purple ink, and sealed with the
_golden_ bull, was privately intrusted to an Italian agent. The first
article of the treaty is an oath of fidelity and obedience to Innocent
the Sixth and his successors, the supreme pontiffs of the Roman and
Catholic church. The emperor promises to entertain with due reverence
their legates and nuncios; to assign a palace for their residence, and
a temple for their worship; and to deliver his second son Manuel as
the hostage of his faith. For these condescensions he requires a prompt
succor of fifteen galleys, with five hundred men at arms, and a
thousand archers, to serve against his Christian and Mussulman enemies.
Palaeologus engages to impose on his clergy and people the same spiritual
yoke; but as the resistance of the Greeks might be justly foreseen, he
adopts the two effectual methods of corruption and education. The legate
was empowered to distribute the vacant benefices among the ecclesiastics
who should subscribe the creed of the Vatican: three schools were
instituted to instruct the youth of Constantinople in the language and
doctrine of the Latins; and the name of Andronicus, the heir of the
empire, was enrolled as the first student. Should he fail in the
measures of persuasion or force, Palaeologus declares himself unworthy
to reign; transferred to the pope all regal and paternal authority; and
invests Innocent with full power to regulate the family, the government,
and the marriage, of his son and successor. But this treaty was neither
executed nor published: the Roman galleys were as vain and imaginary as
the submission of the Greeks; and it was only by the secrecy that their
sovereign escaped the dishonor of this fruitless humiliation.

[Footnote 7: See this ignominious treaty in Fleury, (Hist. Eccles. p.
151--154,) from Raynaldus, who drew it from the Vatican archives. It was
not worth the trouble of a pious forgery.]

The tempest of the Turkish arms soon burst on his head; and after the
loss of Adrianople and Romania, he was enclosed in his capital, the
vassal of the haughty Amurath, with the miserable hope of being the last
devoured by the savage. In this abject state, Palaeologus embraced the
resolution of embarking for Venice, and casting himself at the feet of
the pope: he was the first of the Byzantine princes who had ever
visited the unknown regions of the West, yet in them alone he could seek
consolation or relief; and with less violation of his dignity he might
appear in the sacred college than at the Ottoman _Porte_. After a long
absence, the Roman pontiffs were returning from Avignon to the banks
of the Tyber: Urban the Fifth, [8] of a mild and virtuous character,
encouraged or allowed the pilgrimage of the Greek prince; and, within
the same year, enjoyed the glory of receiving in the Vatican the
two Imperial shadows who represented the majesty of Constantine and
Charlemagne. In this suppliant visit, the emperor of Constantinople,
whose vanity was lost in his distress, gave more than could be expected
of empty sounds and formal submissions. A previous trial was imposed;
and, in the presence of four cardinals, he acknowledged, as a true
Catholic, the supremacy of the pope, and the double procession of the
Holy Ghost. After this purification, he was introduced to a public
audience in the church of St. Peter: Urban, in the midst of the
cardinals, was seated on his throne; the Greek monarch, after three
genuflections, devoutly kissed the feet, the hands, and at length the
mouth, of the holy father, who celebrated high mass in his presence,
allowed him to lead the bridle of his mule, and treated him with a
sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The entertainment of Palaeologus was
friendly and honorable; yet some difference was observed between the
emperors of the East and West; [9] nor could the former be entitled to
the rare privilege of chanting the gospel in the rank of a deacon. [10]
In favor of his proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the
French king and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in
the general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The last
hope of the emperor was in an English mercenary, John Hawkwood, [11]
or Acuto, who, with a band of adventurers, the white brotherhood,
had ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria; sold his services to the
hostile states; and incurred a just excommunication by shooting his
arrows against the papal residence. A special license was granted to
negotiate with the outlaw, but the forces, or the spirit, of Hawkwood,
were unequal to the enterprise: and it was for the advantage, perhaps,
of Palaeologus to be disappointed of succor, that must have been costly,
that could not be effectual, and which might have been dangerous. [12]
The disconsolate Greek [13] prepared for his return, but even his return
was impeded by a most ignominious obstacle. On his arrival at Venice, he
had borrowed large sums at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty,
his creditors were impatient, and his person was detained as the best
security for the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent of
Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource; and even
by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from captivity and
disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of the disgrace, and
secretly pleased with the captivity of the emperor: the state was poor,
the clergy were obstinate; nor could some religious scruple be wanting
to excuse the guilt of his indifference and delay. Such undutiful
neglect was severely reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who
instantly sold or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice,
relieved his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible
for the debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king
distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith and
manners of the slothful Palaeologus had not been improved by his Roman
pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of any spiritual or
temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the Greeks and Latins. [14]

[Footnote 8: See the two first original Lives of Urban V., (in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 623, 635,) and the
Ecclesiastical Annals of Spondanus, (tom. i. p. 573, A.D. 1369, No. 7,)
and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xx. p. 223, 224.) Yet, from
some variations, I suspect the papal writers of slightly magnifying the
genuflections of Palaeologus.]

[Footnote 9: Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum. Yet his
title of Imperator Graecorum was no longer disputed, (Vit. Urban V. p.
623.)]

[Footnote 10: It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne, and
to them only on Christmas-day. On all other festivals these Imperial
deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass, with the book
and the _corporale_. Yet the abbe de Sade generously thinks that the
merits of Charles IV. might have entitled him, though not on the proper
day, (A.D. 1368, November 1,) to the whole privilege. He seems to affix
a just value on the privilege and the man, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii.
p. 735.)]

[Footnote 11: Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of
_Falcone in bosco_, (Matteo Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori, tom.
xv. p. 746,) suggests the English word _Hawkwood_, the true name of
our adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Anglican. inter
Scriptores Camdeni, p. 184.) After two-and-twenty victories, and one
defeat, he died, in 1394, general of the Florentines, and was buried
with such honors as the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch,
(Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212--371.)]

[Footnote 12: This torrent of English (by birth or service) overflowed
from France into Italy after the peace of Bretigny in 1630. Yet the
exclamation of Muratori (Annali, tom. xii. p. 197) is rather true than
civil. "Ci mancava ancor questo, che dopo essere calpestrata l'Italia
da tanti masnadieri Tedeschi ed Ungheri, venissero fin dall' Inghliterra
nuovi _cani_ a finire di divorarla."]

[Footnote 13: Chalcondyles, l. i. p. 25, 26. The Greek supposes his
journey to the king of France, which is sufficiently refuted by the
silence of the national historians. Nor am I much more inclined to
believe, that Palaeologus departed from Italy, valde bene consolatus et
contentus, (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)]

[Footnote 14: His return in 1370, and the coronation of Manuel, Sept.
25, 1373, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 241,) leaves some intermediate aera
for the conspiracy and punishment of Andronicus.]

Thirty years after the return of Palaeologus, his son and successor,
Manuel, from a similar motive, but on a larger scale, again visited the
countries of the West. In a preceding chapter I have related his treaty
with Bajazet, the violation of that treaty, the siege or blockade of
Constantinople, and the French succor under the command of the gallant
Boucicault. [15] By his ambassadors, Manuel had solicited the Latin
powers; but it was thought that the presence of a distressed monarch
would draw tears and supplies from the hardest Barbarians; [16] and the
marshal who advised the journey prepared the reception of the Byzantine
prince. The land was occupied by the Turks; but the navigation of Venice
was safe and open: Italy received him as the first, or, at least, as the
second, of the Christian princes; Manuel was pitied as the champion and
confessor of the faith; and the dignity of his behavior prevented that
pity from sinking into contempt. From Venice he proceeded to Padua and
Pavia; and even the duke of Milan, a secret ally of Bajazet, gave him
safe and honorable conduct to the verge of his dominions. [17] On the
confines of France [18] the royal officers undertook the care of his
person, journey, and expenses; and two thousand of the richest citizens,
in arms and on horseback, came forth to meet him as far as Charenton, in
the neighborhood of the capital. At the gates of Paris, he was saluted
by the chancellor and the parliament; and Charles the Sixth, attended by
his princes and nobles, welcomed his brother with a cordial embrace.
The successor of Constantine was clothed in a robe of white silk, and
mounted on a milk-white steed, a circumstance, in the French ceremonial,
of singular importance: the white color is considered as the symbol of
sovereignty; and, in a late visit, the German emperor, after a haughty
demand and a peevish refusal, had been reduced to content himself with
a black courser. Manuel was lodged in the Louvre; a succession of feasts
and balls, the pleasures of the banquet and the chase, were ingeniously
varied by the politeness of the French, to display their magnificence,
and amuse his grief: he was indulged in the liberty of his chapel; and
the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and possibly scandalized,
by the language, the rites, and the vestments, of his Greek clergy.
But the slightest glance on the state of the kingdom must teach him to
despair of any effectual assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though
he enjoyed some lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or
stupid insanity: the reins of government were alternately seized by his
brother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose factious
competition prepared the miseries of civil war. The former was a gay
youth, dissolved in luxury and love: the latter was the father of John
count of Nevers, who had so lately been ransomed from Turkish captivity;
and, if the fearless son was ardent to revenge his defeat, the more
prudent Burgundy was content with the cost and peril of the first
experiment. When Manuel had satiated the curiosity, and perhaps fatigued
the patience, of the French, he resolved on a visit to the adjacent
island. In his progress from Dover, he was entertained at Canterbury
with due reverence by the prior and monks of St. Austin; and, on
Blackheath, King Henry the Fourth, with the English court, saluted
the Greek hero, (I copy our old historian,) who, during many days, was
lodged and treated in London as emperor of the East. [19] But the state
of England was still more adverse to the design of the holy war. In the
same year, the hereditary sovereign had been deposed and murdered: the
reigning prince was a successful usurper, whose ambition was punished by
jealousy and remorse: nor could Henry of Lancaster withdraw his person
or forces from the defence of a throne incessantly shaken by conspiracy
and rebellion. He pitied, he praised, he feasted, the emperor of
Constantinople; but if the English monarch assumed the cross, it was
only to appease his people, and perhaps his conscience, by the merit or
semblance of his pious intention. [20] Satisfied, however, with gifts and
honors, Manuel returned to Paris; and, after a residence of two years
in the West, shaped his course through Germany and Italy, embarked at
Venice, and patiently expected, in the Morea, the moment of his ruin or
deliverance. Yet he had escaped the ignominious necessity of offering
his religion to public or private sale. The Latin church was distracted
by the great schism; the kings, the nations, the universities, of Europe
were divided in their obedience between the popes of Rome and Avignon;
and the emperor, anxious to conciliate the friendship of both parties,
abstained from any correspondence with the indigent and unpopular
rivals. His journey coincided with the year of the jubilee; but he
passed through Italy without desiring, or deserving, the plenary
indulgence which abolished the guilt or penance of the sins of the
faithful. The Roman pope was offended by this neglect; accused him of
irreverence to an image of Christ; and exhorted the princes of Italy to
reject and abandon the obstinate schismatic. [21]

[Footnote 15: Memoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 35, 36.]

[Footnote 16: His journey into the west of Europe is slightly, and I
believe reluctantly, noticed by Chalcondyles (l. ii. c. 44--50) and
Ducas, (c. 14.)]

[Footnote 17: Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 406. John Galeazzo
was the first and most powerful duke of Milan. His connection with
Bajazet is attested by Froissard; and he contributed to save and deliver
the French captives of Nicopolis.]

[Footnote 18: For the reception of Manuel at Paris, see Spondanus,
(Annal. Eccles. tom. i. p. 676, 677, A.D. 1400, No. 5,) who quotes
Juvenal des Ursins and the monk of St. Denys; and Villaret, (Hist. de
France, tom. xii. p. 331--334,) who quotes nobody according to the last
fashion of the French writers.]

[Footnote 19: A short note of Manuel in England is extracted by Dr. Hody
from a MS. at Lambeth, (de Graecis illustribus, p. 14,) C. P. Imperator,
diu variisque et horrendis Paganorum insultibus coarctatus, ut pro
eisdem resistentiam triumphalem perquireret, Anglorum Regem visitare
decrevit, &c. Rex (says Walsingham, p. 364) nobili apparatu... suscepit
(ut decuit) tantum Heroa, duxitque Londonias, et per multos dies
exhibuit gloriose, pro expensis hospitii sui solvens, et eum respiciens
tanto fastigio donativis. He repeats the same in his Upodigma Neustriae,
(p. 556.)]

[Footnote 20: Shakspeare begins and ends the play of Henry IV. with
that prince's vow of a crusade, and his belief that he should die in
Jerusalem.]

[Footnote 21: This fact is preserved in the Historia Politica, A.D.
1391--1478, published by Martin Crusius, (Turco Graecia, p. 1--43.)
The image of Christ, which the Greek emperor refused to worship, was
probably a work of sculpture.]




Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part II.

During the period of the crusades, the Greeks beheld with astonishment
and terror the perpetual stream of emigration that flowed, and continued
to flow, from the unknown climates of their West. The visits of their
last emperors removed the veil of separation, and they disclosed to
their eyes the powerful nations of Europe, whom they no longer presumed
to brand with the name of Barbarians. The observations of Manuel, and
his more inquisitive followers, have been preserved by a Byzantine
historian of the times: [22] his scattered ideas I shall collect
and abridge; and it may be amusing enough, perhaps instructive, to
contemplate the rude pictures of Germany, France, and England, whose
ancient and modern state are so familiar to _our_ minds. I. Germany
(says the Greek Chalcondyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the
ocean; and it stretches (a strange geography) from Prague in Bohemia to
the River Tartessus, and the Pyrenaean Mountains. [23] The soil, except
in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful; the air is salubrious; the
bodies of the natives are robust and healthy; and these cold regions are
seldom visited with the calamities of pestilence, or earthquakes. After
the Scythians or Tartars, the Germans are the most numerous of nations:
they are brave and patient; and were they united under a single head,
their force would be irresistible. By the gift of the pope, they have
acquired the privilege of choosing the Roman emperor; [24] nor is any
people more devoutly attached to the faith and obedience of the Latin
patriarch. The greatest part of the country is divided among the princes
and prelates; but Strasburg, Cologne, Hamburgh, and more than two
hundred free cities, are governed by sage and equal laws, according
to the will, and for the advantage, of the whole community. The use of
duels, or single combats on foot, prevails among them in peace and war:
their industry excels in all the mechanic arts; and the Germans may
boast of the invention of gunpowder and cannon, which is now diffused
over the greatest part of the world. II. The kingdom of France is spread
above fifteen or twenty days' journey from Germany to Spain, and from
the Alps to the British Ocean; containing many flourishing cities, and
among these Paris, the seat of the king, which surpasses the rest
in riches and luxury. Many princes and lords alternately wait in his
palace, and acknowledge him as their sovereign: the most powerful are
the dukes of Bretagne and Burgundy; of whom the latter possesses the
wealthy province of Flanders, whose harbors are frequented by the ships
and merchants of our own, and the more remote, seas. The French are
an ancient and opulent people; and their language and manners, though
somewhat different, are not dissimilar from those of the Italians. Vain
of the Imperial dignity of Charlemagne, of their victories over the
Saracens, and of the exploits of their heroes, Oliver and Rowland,
[25] they esteem themselves the first of the western nations; but this
foolish arrogance has been recently humbled by the unfortunate events of
their wars against the English, the inhabitants of the British island.
III. Britain, in the ocean, and opposite to the shores of Flanders,
may be considered either as one, or as three islands; but the whole
is united by a common interest, by the same manners, and by a similar
government. The measure of its circumference is five thousand stadia:
the land is overspread with towns and villages: though destitute of
wine, and not abounding in fruit-trees, it is fertile in wheat and
barley; in honey and wool; and much cloth is manufactured by the
inhabitants. In populousness and power, in richness and luxury, London,
[26] the metropolis of the isle, may claim a preeminence over all the
cities of the West. It is situate on the Thames, a broad and rapid
river, which at the distance of thirty miles falls into the Gallic
Sea; and the daily flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance and
departure to the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerful
and turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates by
a free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits of his
authority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often afflicted by
foreign conquest and domestic sedition: but the natives are bold and
hardy, renowned in arms and victorious in war. The form of their shields
or targets is derived from the Italians, that of their swords from the
Greeks; the use of the long bow is the peculiar and decisive advantage
of the English. Their language bears no affinity to the idioms of
the Continent: in the habits of domestic life, they are not easily
distinguished from their neighbors of France: but the most singular
circumstance of their manners is their disregard of conjugal honor
and of female chastity. In their mutual visits, as the first act of
hospitality, the guest is welcomed in the embraces of their wives and
daughters: among friends they are lent and borrowed without shame; nor
are the islanders offended at this strange commerce, and its inevitable
consequences. [27] Informed as we are of the customs of Old England and
assured of the virtue of our mothers, we may smile at the credulity, or
resent the injustice, of the Greek, who must have confounded a modest
salute [28] with a criminal embrace. But his credulity and injustice
may teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign and
remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that deviates
from the laws of nature and the character of man. [29]

[Footnote 22: The Greek and Turkish history of Laonicus Chalcondyles
ends with the winter of 1463; and the abrupt conclusion seems to mark,
that he laid down his pen in the same year. We know that he was an
Athenian, and that some contemporaries of the same name contributed
to the revival of the Greek language in Italy. But in his numerous
digressions, the modest historian has never introduced himself; and his
editor Leunclavius, as well as Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p.
474,) seems ignorant of his life and character. For his descriptions of
Germany, France, and England, see l. ii. p. 36, 37, 44--50.]

[Footnote 23: I shall not animadvert on the geographical errors of
Chalcondyles. In this instance, he perhaps followed, and mistook,
Herodotus, (l. ii. c. 33,) whose text may be explained, (Herodote de
Larcher, tom. ii. p. 219, 220,) or whose ignorance may be excused.
Had these modern Greeks never read Strabo, or any of their lesser
geographers?]

[Footnote 24: A citizen of new Rome, while new Rome survived, would have
scorned to dignify the German 'Rhx with titles of BasileuV or Autokratwr
'Rwmaiwn: but all pride was extinct in the bosom of Chalcondyles; and he
describes the Byzantine prince, and his subject, by the proper, though
humble, names of ''EllhneV and BasileuV 'Ellhnwn.]

[Footnote 25: Most of the old romances were translated in the xivth
century into French prose, and soon became the favorite amusement of the
knights and ladies in the court of Charles VI. If a Greek believed in
the exploits of Rowland and Oliver, he may surely be excused, since the
monks of St. Denys, the national historians, have inserted the fables of
Archbishop Turpin in their Chronicles of France.]

[Footnote 26: Londinh.... de te poliV dunamei te proecousa tvn en th
nhsw tauth pasvn polewn, olbw te kai th allh eudaimonia oudemiaV tvn
peoV esperan leipomenh. Even since the time of Fitzstephen, (the xiith
century,) London appears to have maintained this preeminence of wealth
and magnitude; and her gradual increase has, at least, kept pace with
the general improvement of Europe.]

[Footnote 27: If the double sense of the verb Kuw (osculor, and in utero
gero) be equivocal, the context and pious horror of Chalcondyles can
leave no doubt of his meaning and mistake, (p. 49.) *

Note: * I can discover no "pious horror" in the plain manner in which
Chalcondyles relates this strange usage. He says, oude aiscunun tovto
feoei eautoiV kuesqai taV te gunaikaV autvn kai taV qugateraV, yet these
are expression beyond what would be used, if the ambiguous word kuesqai
were taken in its more innocent sense. Nor can the phrase parecontai
taV eautvn gunaikaV en toiV epithdeioiV well bear a less coarse
interpretation. Gibbon is possibly right as to the origin of this
extraordinary mistake.--M.]

[Footnote 28: Erasmus (Epist. Fausto Andrelino) has a pretty passage on
the English fashion of kissing strangers on their arrival and departure,
from whence, however, he draws no scandalous inferences.]

[Footnote 29: Perhaps we may apply this remark to the community of
wives among the old Britons, as it is supposed by Caesar and Dion, (Dion
Cassius, l. lxii. tom. ii. p. 1007,) with Reimar's judicious annotation.
The _Arreoy_ of Otaheite, so certain at first, is become less visible
and scandalous, in proportion as we have studied the manners of that
gentle and amorous people.]

After his return, and the victory of Timour, Manuel reigned many years
in prosperity and peace. As long as the sons of Bajazet solicited his
friendship and spared his dominions, he was satisfied with the national
religion; and his leisure was employed in composing twenty theological
dialogues for its defence. The appearance of the Byzantine ambassadors
at the council of Constance, [30] announces the restoration of the
Turkish power, as well as of the Latin church: the conquest of the
sultans, Mahomet and Amurath, reconciled the emperor to the Vatican;
and the siege of Constantinople almost tempted him to acquiesce in the
double procession of the Holy Ghost. When Martin the Fifth ascended
without a rival the chair of St. Peter, a friendly intercourse of
letters and embassies was revived between the East and West. Ambition on
one side, and distress on the other, dictated the same decent language
of charity and peace: the artful Greek expressed a desire of marrying
his six sons to Italian princesses; and the Roman, not less artful,
despatched the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat, with a company
of noble virgins, to soften, by their charms, the obstinacy of the
schismatics. Yet under this mask of zeal, a discerning eye will
perceive that all was hollow and insincere in the court and church of
Constantinople. According to the vicissitudes of danger and repose, the
emperor advanced or retreated; alternately instructed and disavowed his
ministers; and escaped from the importunate pressure by urging the duty
of inquiry, the obligation of collecting the sense of his patriarchs
and bishops, and the impossibility of convening them at a time when
the Turkish arms were at the gates of his capital. From a review of the
public transactions it will appear that the Greeks insisted on three
successive measures, a succor, a council, and a final reunion, while
the Latins eluded the second, and only promised the first, as a
consequential and voluntary reward of the third. But we have an
opportunity of unfolding the most secret intentions of Manuel, as he
explained them in a private conversation without artifice or disguise.
In his declining age, the emperor had associated John Palaeologus, the
second of the name, and the eldest of his sons, on whom he devolved the
greatest part of the authority and weight of government. One day, in the
presence only of the historian Phranza, [31] his favorite chamberlain,
he opened to his colleague and successor the true principle of his
negotiations with the pope. [32] "Our last resource," said Manuel,
against the Turks, "is their fear of our union with the Latins, of the
warlike nations of the West, who may arm for our relief and for their
destruction. As often as you are threatened by the miscreants, present
this danger before their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means;
but ever delay and avoid the convocation of an assembly, which cannot
tend either to our spiritual or temporal emolument. The Latins are
proud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or retract;
and the attempt of a perfect union will confirm the schism, alienate
the churches, and leave us, without hope or defence, at the mercy of the
Barbarians." Impatient of this salutary lesson, the royal youth arose
from his seat, and departed in silence; and the wise monarch (continued
Phranza) casting his eyes on me, thus resumed his discourse: "My son
deems himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable age
does not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring spirit might
have suited the happier times of our ancestors; but the present state
requires not an emperor, but a cautious steward of the last relics of
our fortunes. Well do I remember the lofty expectations which he built
on our alliance with Mustapha; and much do I fear, that this rash
courage will urge the ruin of our house, and that even religion may
precipitate our downfall." Yet the experience and authority of Manuel
preserved the peace, and eluded the council; till, in the seventy-eighth
year of his age, and in the habit of a monk, he terminated his career,
dividing his precious movables among his children and the poor, his
physicians and his favorite servants. Of his six sons, [33] Andronicus
the Second was invested with the principality of Thessalonica, and died
of a leprosy soon after the sale of that city to the Venetians and
its final conquest by the Turks. Some fortunate incidents had restored
Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to the empire; and in his more prosperous
days, Manuel had fortified the narrow isthmus of six miles [34] with
a stone wall and one hundred and fifty-three towers. The wall was
overthrown by the first blast of the Ottomans; the fertile peninsula
might have been sufficient for the four younger brothers, Theodore and
Constantine, Demetrius and Thomas; but they wasted in domestic contests
the remains of their strength; and the least successful of the rivals
were reduced to a life of dependence in the Byzantine palace.

[Footnote 30: See Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom. ii.
p. 576; and or the ecclesiastical history of the times, the Annals of
Spondanus the Bibliotheque of Dupin, tom. xii., and xxist and xxiid
volumes of the History, or rather the Continuation, of Fleury.]

[Footnote 31: From his early youth, George Phranza, or Phranzes, was
employed in the service of the state and palace; and Hanckius (de
Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40) has collected his life from his own
writings. He was no more than four-and-twenty years of age at the death
of Manuel, who recommended him in the strongest terms to his successor:
Imprimis vero hunc Phranzen tibi commendo, qui ministravit mihi
fideliter et diligenter (Phranzes, l. ii. c. i.) Yet the emperor John
was cold, and he preferred the service of the despots of Peloponnesus.]

[Footnote 32: See Phranzes, l. ii. c. 13. While so many manuscripts
of the Greek original are extant in the libraries of Rome, Milan, the
Escurial, &c., it is a matter of shame and reproach, that we should be
reduced to the Latin version, or abstract, of James Pontanus, (ad calcem
Theophylact, Simocattae: Ingolstadt, 1604,) so deficient in accuracy and
elegance, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 615--620.) *

Note: * The Greek text of Phranzes was edited by F. C. Alter Vindobonae,
1796. It has been re-edited by Bekker for the new edition of the
Byzantines, Bonn, 1838.--M.]

[Footnote 33: See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 243--248.]

[Footnote 34: The exact measure of the Hexamilion, from sea to sea, was
3800 orgyiae, or _toises_, of six Greek feet, (Phranzes, l. i. c. 38,)
which would produce a Greek mile, still smaller than that of 660 French
_toises_, which is assigned by D'Anville, as still in use in Turkey.
Five miles are commonly reckoned for the breadth of the isthmus. See the
Travels of Spon, Wheeler and Chandler.]

The eldest of the sons of Manuel, John Palaeologus the Second, was
acknowledged, after his father's death, as the sole emperor of the
Greeks. He immediately proceeded to repudiate his wife, and to contract
a new marriage with the princess of Trebizond: beauty was in his eyes
the first qualification of an empress; and the clergy had yielded to his
firm assurance, that unless he might be indulged in a divorce, he would
retire to a cloister, and leave the throne to his brother Constantine.
The first, and in truth the only, victory of Palaeologus, was over a
Jew, [35] whom, after a long and learned dispute, he converted to the
Christian faith; and this momentous conquest is carefully recorded in
the history of the times. But he soon resumed the design of uniting the
East and West; and, regardless of his father's advice, listened, as it
should seem with sincerity, to the proposal of meeting the pope in
a general council beyond the Adriatic. This dangerous project was
encouraged by Martin the Fifth, and coldly entertained by his successor
Eugenius, till, after a tedious negotiation, the emperor received a
summons from the Latin assembly of a new character, the independent
prelates of Basil, who styled themselves the representatives and judges
of the Catholic church.

[Footnote 35: The first objection of the Jews is on the death of Christ:
if it were voluntary, Christ was a suicide; which the emperor parries
with a mystery. They then dispute on the conception of the Virgin,
the sense of the prophecies, &c., (Phranzes, l. ii. c. 12, a whole
chapter.)]

The Roman pontiff had fought and conquered in the cause of
ecclesiastical freedom; but the victorious clergy were soon exposed
to the tyranny of their deliverer; and his sacred character was
invulnerable to those arms which they found so keen and effectual
against the civil magistrate. Their great charter, the right of
election, was annihilated by appeals, evaded by trusts or commendams,
disappointed by reversionary grants, and superseded by previous and
arbitrary reservations. [36] A public auction was instituted in the court
of Rome: the cardinals and favorites were enriched with the spoils of
nations; and every country might complain that the most important
and valuable benefices were accumulated on the heads of aliens and
absentees. During their residence at Avignon, the ambition of the
popes subsided in the meaner passions of avarice [37] and luxury: they
rigorously imposed on the clergy the tributes of first-fruits and
tenths; but they freely tolerated the impunity of vice, disorder, and
corruption. These manifold scandals were aggravated by the great schism
of the West, which continued above fifty years. In the furious conflicts
of Rome and Avignon, the vices of the rivals were mutually exposed;
and their precarious situation degraded their authority, relaxed their
discipline, and multiplied their wants and exactions. To heal the
wounds, and restore the monarchy, of the church, the synods of Pisa and
Constance [38] were successively convened; but these great assemblies,
conscious of their strength, resolved to vindicate the privileges of the
Christian aristocracy. From a personal sentence against two pontiffs,
whom they rejected, and a third, their acknowledged sovereign, whom they
deposed, the fathers of Constance proceeded to examine the nature and
limits of the Roman supremacy; nor did they separate till they had
established the authority, above the pope, of a general council. It was
enacted, that, for the government and reformation of the church, such
assemblies should be held at regular intervals; and that each synod,
before its dissolution, should appoint the time and place of the
subsequent meeting. By the influence of the court of Rome, the next
convocation at Sienna was easily eluded; but the bold and vigorous
proceedings of the council of Basil [39] had almost been fatal to the
reigning pontiff, Eugenius the Fourth. A just suspicion of his design
prompted the fathers to hasten the promulgation of their first decree,
that the representatives of the church-militant on earth were invested
with a divine and spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians, without
excepting the pope; and that a general council could not be dissolved,
prorogued, or transferred, unless by their free deliberation and
consent. On the notice that Eugenius had fulminated a bull for that
purpose, they ventured to summon, to admonish, to threaten, to censure
the contumacious successor of St. Peter. After many delays, to allow
time for repentance, they finally declared, that, unless he submitted
within the term of sixty days, he was suspended from the exercise of all
temporal and ecclesiastical authority. And to mark their jurisdiction
over the prince as well as the priest, they assumed the government of
Avignon, annulled the alienation of the sacred patrimony, and protected
Rome from the imposition of new taxes. Their boldness was justified, not
only by the general opinion of the clergy, but by the support and power
of the first monarchs of Christendom: the emperor Sigismond declared
himself the servant and protector of the synod; Germany and France
adhered to their cause; the duke of Milan was the enemy of Eugenius; and
he was driven from the Vatican by an insurrection of the Roman people.
Rejected at the same time by temporal and spiritual subjects, submission
was his only choice: by a most humiliating bull, the pope repealed his
own acts, and ratified those of the council; incorporated his legates
and cardinals with that venerable body; and _seemed_ to resign himself
to the decrees of the supreme legislature. Their fame pervaded the
countries of the East: and it was in their presence that Sigismond
received the ambassadors of the Turkish sultan, [40] who laid at his feet
twelve large vases, filled with robes of silk and pieces of gold. The
fathers of Basil aspired to the glory of reducing the Greeks, as well as
the Bohemians, within the pale of the church; and their deputies invited
the emperor and patriarch of Constantinople to unite with an assembly
which possessed the confidence of the Western nations. Palaeologus was
not averse to the proposal; and his ambassadors were introduced with due
honors into the Catholic senate. But the choice of the place appeared
to be an insuperable obstacle, since he refused to pass the Alps, or
the sea of Sicily, and positively required that the synod should be
adjourned to some convenient city in Italy, or at least on the Danube.
The other articles of this treaty were more readily stipulated: it was
agreed to defray the travelling expenses of the emperor, with a train of
seven hundred persons, [41] to remit an immediate sum of eight thousand
ducats [42] for the accommodation of the Greek clergy; and in his absence
to grant a supply of ten thousand ducats, with three hundred archers and
some galleys, for the protection of Constantinople. The city of Avignon
advanced the funds for the preliminary expenses; and the embarkation was
prepared at Marseilles with some difficulty and delay.

[Footnote 36: In the treatise delle Materie Beneficiarie of Fra Paolo,
(in the ivth volume of the last, and best, edition of his works,) the
papal system is deeply studied and freely described. Should Rome and
her religion be annihilated, this golden volume may still survive, a
philosophical history, and a salutary warning.]

[Footnote 37: Pope John XXII. (in 1334) left behind him, at Avignon,
eighteen millions of gold florins, and the value of seven millions more
in plate and jewels. See the Chronicle of John Villani, (l. xi. c. 20,
in Muratori's Collection, tom. xiii. p. 765,) whose brother received the
account from the papal treasurers. A treasure of six or eight millions
sterling in the xivth century is enormous, and almost incredible.]

[Footnote 38: A learned and liberal Protestant, M. Lenfant, has given
a fair history of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil, in six
volumes in quarto; but the last part is the most hasty and imperfect,
except in the account of the troubles of Bohemia.]

[Footnote 39: The original acts or minutes of the council of Basil are
preserved in the public library, in twelve volumes in folio. Basil was a
free city, conveniently situate on the Rhine, and guarded by the arms
of the neighboring and confederate Swiss. In 1459, the university was
founded by Pope Pius II., (AEneas Sylvius,) who had been secretary to the
council. But what is a council, or a university, to the presses o Froben
and the studies of Erasmus?]

[Footnote 40: This Turkish embassy, attested only by Crantzius, is
related with some doubt by the annalist Spondanus, A.D. 1433, No. 25,
tom. i. p. 824.]

[Footnote 41: Syropulus, p. 19. In this list, the Greeks appear to
have exceeded the real numbers of the clergy and laity which afterwards
attended the emperor and patriarch, but which are not clearly specified
by the great ecclesiarch. The 75,000 florins which they asked in this
negotiation of the pope, (p. 9,) were more than they could hope or
want.]

[Footnote 42: I use indifferently the words _ducat_ and _florin_, which
derive their names, the former from the _dukes_ of Milan, the latter
from the republic of _Florence_. These gold pieces, the first that were
coined in Italy, perhaps in the Latin world, may be compared in weight
and value to one third of the English guinea.]

In his distress, the friendship of Palaeologus was disputed by the
ecclesiastical powers of the West; but the dexterous activity of a
monarch prevailed over the slow debates and inflexible temper of a
republic. The decrees of Basil continually tended to circumscribe the
despotism of the pope, and to erect a supreme and perpetual tribunal
in the church. Eugenius was impatient of the yoke; and the union of the
Greeks might afford a decent pretence for translating a rebellious synod
from the Rhine to the Po. The independence of the fathers was lost
if they passed the Alps: Savoy or Avignon, to which they acceded with
reluctance, were described at Constantinople as situate far beyond the
pillars of Hercules; [43] the emperor and his clergy were apprehensive
of the dangers of a long navigation; they were offended by a haughty
declaration, that after suppressing the _new_ heresy of the Bohemians,
the council would soon eradicate the _old_ heresy of the Greeks. [44] On
the side of Eugenius, all was smooth, and yielding, and respectful; and
he invited the Byzantine monarch to heal by his presence the schism of
the Latin, as well as of the Eastern, church. Ferrara, near the coast of
the Adriatic, was proposed for their amicable interview; and with some
indulgence of forgery and theft, a surreptitious decree was procured,
which transferred the synod, with its own consent, to that Italian city.
Nine galleys were equipped for the service at Venice, and in the Isle
of Candia; their diligence anticipated the slower vessels of Basil: the
Roman admiral was commissioned to burn, sink, and destroy; [45] and these
priestly squadrons might have encountered each other in the same seas
where Athens and Sparta had formerly contended for the preeminence of
glory. Assaulted by the importunity of the factions, who were ready to
fight for the possession of his person, Palaeologus hesitated before
he left his palace and country on a perilous experiment. His father's
advice still dwelt on his memory; and reason must suggest, that since
the Latins were divided among themselves, they could never unite in
a foreign cause. Sigismond dissuaded the unreasonable adventure; his
advice was impartial, since he adhered to the council; and it was
enforced by the strange belief, that the German Caesar would nominate
a Greek his heir and successor in the empire of the West. [46] Even the
Turkish sultan was a counsellor whom it might be unsafe to trust, but
whom it was dangerous to offend. Amurath was unskilled in the disputes,
but he was apprehensive of the union, of the Christians. From his own
treasures, he offered to relieve the wants of the Byzantine court; yet
he declared with seeming magnanimity, that Constantinople should
be secure and inviolate, in the absence of her sovereign. [47] The
resolution of Palaeologus was decided by the most splendid gifts and the
most specious promises: he wished to escape for a while from a scene of
danger and distress and after dismissing with an ambiguous answer the
messengers of the council, he declared his intention of embarking in the
Roman galleys. The age of the patriarch Joseph was more susceptible of
fear than of hope; he trembled at the perils of the sea, and expressed
his apprehension, that his feeble voice, with thirty perhaps of his
orthodox brethren, would be oppressed in a foreign land by the power
and numbers of a Latin synod. He yielded to the royal mandate, to the
flattering assurance, that he would be heard as the oracle of nations,
and to the secret wish of learning from his brother of the West, to
deliver the church from the yoke of kings. [48] The five _cross-bearers_,
or dignitaries, of St. Sophia, were bound to attend his person; and one
of these, the great ecclesiarch or preacher, Sylvester Syropulus, [49]
has composed a free and curious history [50] of the _false_ union. [51]
Of the clergy that reluctantly obeyed the summons of the emperor and the
patriarch, submission was the first duty, and patience the most useful
virtue. In a chosen list of twenty bishops, we discover the metropolitan
titles of Heracleae and Cyzicus, Nice and Nicomedia, Ephesus and
Trebizond, and the personal merit of Mark and Bessarion who, in the
confidence of their learning and eloquence, were promoted to the
episcopal rank. Some monks and philosophers were named to display the
science and sanctity of the Greek church; and the service of the choir
was performed by a select band of singers and musicians. The patriarchs
of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, appeared by their genuine or
fictitious deputies; the primate of Russia represented a national
church, and the Greeks might contend with the Latins in the extent of
their spiritual empire. The precious vases of St. Sophia were exposed
to the winds and waves, that the patriarch might officiate with becoming
splendor: whatever gold the emperor could procure, was expended in the
massy ornaments of his bed and chariot; [52] and while they affected to
maintain the prosperity of their ancient fortune, they quarrelled for
the division of fifteen thousand ducats, the first alms of the Roman
pontiff. After the necessary preparations, John Palaeologus, with a
numerous train, accompanied by his brother Demetrius, and the most
respectable persons of the church and state, embarked in eight vessels
with sails and oars which steered through the Turkish Straits of
Gallipoli to the Archipelago, the Morea, and the Adriatic Gulf. [53]

[Footnote 43: At the end of the Latin version of Phranzes, we read a
long Greek epistle or declamation of George of Trebizond, who advises
the emperor to prefer Eugenius and Italy. He treats with contempt the
schismatic assembly of Basil, the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who
had conspired to transport the chair of St. Peter beyond the Alps; oi
aqlioi (says he) se kai thn meta sou sunodon exw tvn 'Hrakleiwn sthlwn
kai pera Gadhrwn exaxousi. Was Constantinople unprovided with a map?]

[Footnote 44: Syropulus (p. 26--31) attests his own indignation, and
that of his countrymen; and the Basil deputies, who excused the rash
declaration, could neither deny nor alter an act of the council.]

[Footnote 45: Condolmieri, the pope's nephew and admiral, expressly
declared, oti orismon eceipara tou Papa ina polemhsh opou an eurh ta
katerga thV Sunodou, kai ei dunhqh, katadush, kai ajanish. The naval
orders of the synod were less peremptory, and, till the hostile
squadrons appeared, both parties tried to conceal their quarrel from the
Greeks.]

[Footnote 46: Syropulus mentions the hopes of Palaeologus, (p. 36,) and
the last advice of Sigismond,(p. 57.) At Corfu, the Greek emperor was
informed of his friend's death; had he known it sooner, he would have
returned home,(p. 79.)]

[Footnote 47: Phranzes himself, though from different motives, was of
the advice of Amurath, (l. ii. c. 13.) Utinam ne synodus ista unquam
fuisset, si tantes offensiones et detrimenta paritura erat. This Turkish
embassy is likewise mentioned by Syropulus, (p. 58;) and Amurath kept
his word. He might threaten, (p. 125, 219,) but he never attacked, the
city.]

[Footnote 48: The reader will smile at the simplicity with which he
imparted these hopes to his favorites: toiauthn plhrojorian schsein
hlpize kai dia tou Papa eqarrei eleuqervdai thn ekklhsian apo thV
apoteqeishV autou douleiaV para tou basilewV, (p. 92.) Yet it would have
been difficult for him to have practised the lessons of Gregory VII.]

[Footnote 49: The Christian name of Sylvester is borrowed from the Latin
calendar. In modern Greek, pouloV, as a diminutive, is added to the end
of words: nor can any reasoning of Creyghton, the editor, excuse his
changing into S_gur_opulus, (Sguros, fuscus,) the Syropulus of his own
manuscript, whose name is subscribed with his own hand in the acts
of the council of Florence. Why might not the author be of Syrian
extraction?]

[Footnote 50: From the conclusion of the history, I should fix the date
to the year 1444, four years after the synod, when great ecclesiarch
had abdicated his office, (section xii. p. 330--350.) His passions were
cooled by time and retirement; and, although Syropulus is often partial,
he is never intemperate.]

[Footnote 51: _Vera historia unionis non ver inter Graecos et Latinos_,
(_Haga Comitis_, 1660, in folio,) was first published with a loose and
florid version, by Robert Creyghton, chaplain to Charles II. in his
exile. The zeal of the editor has prefixed a polemic title, for the
beginning of the original is wanting. Syropulus may be ranked with the
best of the Byzantine writers for the merit of his narration, and even
of his style; but he is excluded from the orthodox collections of the
councils.]

[Footnote 52: Syropulus (p. 63) simply expresses his intention in' outw
pompawn en' 'ItaloiV megaV basileuV par ekeinvn nomizoito; and the Latin
of Creyghton may afford a specimen of his florid paraphrase. Ut pompa
circumductus noster Imperator Italiae populis aliquis deauratus Jupiter
crederetur, aut Crsus ex opulenta Lydia.]

[Footnote 53: Although I cannot stop to quote Syropulus for every fact,
I will observe that the navigation of the Greeks from Constantinople to
Venice and Ferrara is contained in the ivth section, (p. 67--100,) and
that the historian has the uncommon talent of placing each scene before
the reader's eye.]




Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part III.

After a tedious and troublesome navigation of seventy-seven days,
this religious squadron cast anchor before Venice; and their reception
proclaimed the joy and magnificence of that powerful republic. In the
command of the world, the modest Augustus had never claimed such honors
from his subjects as were paid to his feeble successor by an independent
state. Seated on the poop on a lofty throne, he received the visit, or,
in the Greek style, the _adoration_ of the doge and senators. [54]
They sailed in the Bucentaur, which was accompanied by twelve stately
galleys: the sea was overspread with innumerable gondolas of pomp and
pleasure; the air resounded with music and acclamations; the mariners,
and even the vessels, were dressed in silk and gold; and in all the
emblems and pageants, the Roman eagles were blended with the lions of
St. Mark. The triumphal procession, ascending the great canal, passed
under the bridge of the Rialto; and the Eastern strangers gazed with
admiration on the palaces, the churches, and the populousness of a city,
that seems to float on the bosom of the waves. [55] They sighed to behold
the spoils and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sack
of Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen days,
Palaeologus pursued his journey by land and water from Venice to Ferrara;
and on this occasion the pride of the Vatican was tempered by policy
to indulge the ancient dignity of the emperor of the East. He made his
entry on a _black_ horse; but a milk-white steed, whose trappings were
embroidered with golden eagles, was led before him; and the canopy
was borne over his head by the princes of Este, the sons or kinsmen
of Nicholas, marquis of the city, and a sovereign more powerful than
himself. [56] Palaeologus did not alight till he reached the bottom of the
staircase: the pope advanced to the door of the apartment; refused his
proffered genuflection; and, after a paternal embrace, conducted the
emperor to a seat on his left hand. Nor would the patriarch descend from
his galley, till a ceremony almost equal, had been stipulated between
the bishops of Rome and Constantinople. The latter was saluted by his
brother with a kiss of union and charity; nor would any of the Greek
ecclesiastics submit to kiss the feet of the Western primate. On the
opening of the synod, the place of honor in the centre was claimed by
the temporal and ecclesiastical chiefs; and it was only by alleging that
his predecessors had not assisted in person at Nice or Chalcedon, that
Eugenius could evade the ancient precedents of Constantine and Marcian.
After much debate, it was agreed that the right and left sides of the
church should be occupied by the two nations; that the solitary chair
of St. Peter should be raised the first of the Latin line; and that the
throne of the Greek emperor, at the head of his clergy, should be equal
and opposite to the second place, the vacant seat of the emperor of the
West. [57]

[Footnote 54: At the time of the synod, Phranzes was in Peloponnesus:
but he received from the despot Demetrius a faithful account of the
honorable reception of the emperor and patriarch both at Venice and
Ferrara, (Dux.... sedentem Imperatorem _adorat_,) which are more
slightly mentioned by the Latins, (l. ii. c. 14, 15, 16.)]

[Footnote 55: The astonishment of a Greek prince and a French ambassador
(Memoires de Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 18,) at the sight of
Venice, abundantly proves that in the xvth century it was the first and
most splendid of the Christian cities. For the spoils of Constantinople
at Venice, see Syropulus, (p. 87.)]

[Footnote 56: Nicholas III. of Este reigned forty-eight years, (A.D.
1393--1441,) and was lord of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Rovigo,
and Commachio. See his Life in Muratori, (Antichita Estense, tom. ii. p.
159--201.)]

[Footnote 57: The Latin vulgar was provoked to laughter at the strange
dresses of the Greeks, and especially the length of their garments,
their sleeves, and their beards; nor was the emperor distinguished,
except by the purple color, and his diadem or tiara, with a jewel on
the top, (Hody de Graecis Illustribus, p. 31.) Yet another spectator
confesses that the Greek fashion was piu grave e piu degna than the
Italian. (Vespasiano in Vit. Eugen. IV. in Muratori, tom. xxv. p. 261.)]

But as soon as festivity and form had given place to a more serious
treaty, the Greeks were dissatisfied with their journey, with
themselves, and with the pope. The artful pencil of his emissaries
had painted him in a prosperous state; at the head of the princes and
prelates of Europe, obedient at his voice, to believe and to arm. The
thin appearance of the universal synod of Ferrara betrayed his weakness:
and the Latins opened the first session with only five archbishops,
eighteen bishops, and ten abbots, the greatest part of whom were the
subjects or countrymen of the Italian pontiff. Except the duke of
Burgundy, none of the potentates of the West condescended to appear in
person, or by their ambassadors; nor was it possible to suppress the
judicial acts of Basil against the dignity and person of Eugenius, which
were finally concluded by a new election. Under these circumstances, a
truce or delay was asked and granted, till Palaeologus could expect from
the consent of the Latins some temporal reward for an unpopular union;
and after the first session, the public proceedings were adjourned
above six months. The emperor, with a chosen band of his favorites
and _Janizaries_, fixed his summer residence at a pleasant, spacious
monastery, six miles from Ferrara; forgot, in the pleasures of the
chase, the distress of the church and state; and persisted in destroying
the game, without listening to the just complaints of the marquis or the
husbandman. [58] In the mean while, his unfortunate Greeks were exposed
to all the miseries of exile and poverty; for the support of each
stranger, a monthly allowance was assigned of three or four gold
florins; and although the entire sum did not amount to seven hundred
florins, a long arrear was repeatedly incurred by the indigence or
policy of the Roman court. [59] They sighed for a speedy deliverance,
but their escape was prevented by a triple chain: a passport from their
superiors was required at the gates of Ferrara; the government of
Venice had engaged to arrest and send back the fugitives; and inevitable
punishment awaited them at Constantinople; excommunication, fines, and a
sentence, which did not respect the sacerdotal dignity, that they
should be stripped naked and publicly whipped. [60] It was only by the
alternative of hunger or dispute that the Greeks could be persuaded to
open the first conference; and they yielded with extreme reluctance to
attend from Ferrara to Florence the rear of a flying synod. This new
translation was urged by inevitable necessity: the city was visited
by the plague; the fidelity of the marquis might be suspected; the
mercenary troops of the duke of Milan were at the gates; and as they
occupied Romagna, it was not without difficulty and danger that the
pope, the emperor, and the bishops, explored their way through the
unfrequented paths of the Apennine. [61]

[Footnote 58: For the emperor's hunting, see Syropulus, (p. 143, 144,
191.) The pope had sent him eleven miserable hacks; but he bought a
strong and swift horse that came from Russia. The name of _Janizaries_
may surprise; but the name, rather than the institution, had passed from
the Ottoman, to the Byzantine, court, and is often used in the last age
of the empire.]

[Footnote 59: The Greeks obtained, with much difficulty, that instead of
provisions, money should be distributed, four florins _per_ month to the
persons of honorable rank, and three florins to their servants, with an
addition of thirty more to the emperor, twenty-five to the patriarch,
and twenty to the prince, or despot, Demetrius. The payment of the first
month amounted to 691 florins, a sum which will not allow us to reckon
above 200 Greeks of every condition. (Syropulus, p. 104, 105.) On the
20th October, 1438, there was an arrear of four months; in April, 1439,
of three; and of five and a half in July, at the time of the union, (p.
172, 225, 271.)]

[Footnote 60: Syropulus (p. 141, 142, 204, 221) deplores the
imprisonment of the Greeks, and the tyranny of the emperor and
patriarch.]

[Footnote 61: The wars of Italy are most clearly represented in the
xiiith vol. of the Annals of Muratori. The schismatic Greek, Syropulus,
(p. 145,) appears to have exaggerated the fear and disorder of the pope
in his retreat from Ferrara to Florence, which is proved by the acts to
have been somewhat more decent and deliberate.]

Yet all these obstacles were surmounted by time and policy. The violence
of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured the cause of
Eugenius; the nations of Europe abhorred the schism, and disowned the
election, of Felix the Fifth, who was successively a duke of Savoy, a
hermit, and a pope; and the great princes were gradually reclaimed by
his competitor to a favorable neutrality and a firm attachment. The
legates, with some respectable members, deserted to the Roman army,
which insensibly rose in numbers and reputation; the council of Basil
was reduced to thirty-nine bishops, and three hundred of the inferior
clergy; [62] while the Latins of Florence could produce the subscriptions
of the pope himself, eight cardinals, two patriarchs, eight archbishops,
fifty two bishops, and forty-five abbots, or chiefs of religious orders.
After the labor of nine months, and the debates of twenty-five sessions,
they attained the advantage and glory of the reunion of the Greeks. Four
principal questions had been agitated between the two churches; _1._
The use of unleavened bread in the communion of Christ's body. _2._
The nature of purgatory. _3._ The supremacy of the pope. And, _4._
The single or double procession of the Holy Ghost. The cause of either
nation was managed by ten theological champions: the Latins were
supported by the inexhaustible eloquence of Cardinal Julian; and Mark
of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold and able leaders of the
Greek forces. We may bestow some praise on the progress of human reason,
by observing that the first of these questions was now treated as an
immaterial rite, which might innocently vary with the fashion of the age
and country. With regard to the second, both parties were agreed in the
belief of an intermediate state of purgation for the venial sins of the
faithful; and whether their souls were purified by elemental fire was
a doubtful point, which in a few years might be conveniently settled on
the spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy appeared of a more
weighty and substantial kind; yet by the Orientals the Roman bishop had
ever been respected as the first of the five patriarchs; nor did they
scruple to admit, that his jurisdiction should be exercised agreeably to
the holy canons; a vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded by
occasional convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father
alone, or from the Father and the Son, was an article of faith which had
sunk much deeper into the minds of men; and in the sessions of Ferrara
and Florence, the Latin addition of _filioque_ was subdivided into two
questions, whether it were legal, and whether it were orthodox. Perhaps
it may not be necessary to boast on this subject of my own impartial
indifference; but I must think that the Greeks were strongly supported
by the prohibition of the council of Chalcedon, against adding any
article whatsoever to the creed of Nice, or rather of Constantinople.
[63] In earthly affairs, it is not easy to conceive how an assembly equal
of legislators can bind their successors invested with powers equal
to their own. But the dictates of inspiration must be true and
unchangeable; nor should a private bishop, or a provincial synod, have
presumed to innovate against the judgment of the Catholic church. On the
substance of the doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless: reason
is confounded by the procession of a deity: the gospel, which lay on the
altar, was silent; the various texts of the fathers might be corrupted
by fraud or entangled by sophistry; and the Greeks were ignorant of the
characters and writings of the Latin saints. [64] Of this at least we may
be sure, that neither side could be convinced by the arguments of their
opponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and a superficial
glance may be rectified by a clear and more perfect view of an object
adapted to our faculties. But the bishops and monks had been taught from
their infancy to repeat a form of mysterious words: their national and
personal honor depended on the repetition of the same sounds; and their
narrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of a public
dispute.

[Footnote 62: Syropulus is pleased to reckon seven hundred prelates in
the council of Basil. The error is manifest, and perhaps voluntary. That
extravagant number could not be supplied by _all_ the ecclesiastics of
every degree who were present at the council, nor by _all_ the absent
bishops of the West, who, expressly or tacitly, might adhere to its
decrees.]

[Footnote 63: The Greeks, who disliked the union, were unwilling to
sally from this strong fortress, (p. 178, 193, 195, 202, of Syropulus.)
The shame of the Latins was aggravated by their producing an old MS.
of the second council of Nice, with _filioque_ in the Nicene creed. A
palpable forgery! (p. 173.)]

[Footnote 64: 'WV egw (said an eminent Greek) otan eiV naon eiselqw
Datinwn ou proskunv tina tvn ekeise agiwn, epei oude gnwrizw tina,
(Syropulus, p. 109.) See the perplexity of the Greeks, (p. 217, 218,
252, 253, 273.)]

While they were most in a cloud of dust and darkness, the Pope and
emperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could alone accomplish
the purposes of their interview; and the obstinacy of public dispute was
softened by the arts of private and personal negotiation. The patriarch
Joseph had sunk under the weight of age and infirmities; his dying voice
breathed the counsels of charity and concord, and his vacant benefice
might tempt the hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active
obedience of the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and
Bessarion, was prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion to the
dignity of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had stood forth
the most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek church; and if the
apostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his country, [65] he appears in
ecclesiastical story a rare example of a patriot who was recommended to
court favor by loud opposition and well-timed compliance. With the aid
of his two spiritual coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments to
the general situation and personal characters of the bishops, and each
was successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues were
in the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins: an
episcopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon exhausted:
[66] the hopes of their return still depended on the ships of Venice and
the alms of Rome; and such was their indigence, that their arrears, the
payment of a debt, would be accepted as a favor, and might operate as
a bribe. [67] The danger and relief of Constantinople might excuse
some prudent and pious dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that the
obstinate heretics who should resist the consent of the East and West
would be abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of the
Roman pontiff. [68] In the first private assembly of the Greeks, the
formulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected by twelve,
members; but the five _cross-bearers_ of St. Sophia, who aspired to
represent the patriarch, were disqualified by ancient discipline; and
their right of voting was transferred to the obsequious train of monks,
grammarians, and profane laymen. The will of the monarch produced a
false and servile unanimity, and no more than two patriots had courage
to speak their own sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, the
emperor's brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness of
the union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for his
conscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and avowed
himself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed. [69] In the
treaty between the two nations, several forms of consent were proposed,
such as might satisfy the Latins, without dishonoring the Greeks; and
they weighed the scruples of words and syllables, till the theological
balance trembled with a slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican.
It was agreed (I must entreat the attention of the reader) that the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, as from one principle and
one substance; that he proceeds _by_ the Son, being of the same nature
and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father _and_ the Son, by
one _spiration_ and production. It is less difficult to understand the
articles of the preliminary treaty; that the pope should defray all the
expenses of the Greeks in their return home; that he should annually
maintain two galleys and three hundred soldiers for the defence of
Constantinople: that all the ships which transported pilgrims to
Jerusalem should be obliged to touch at that port; that as often as they
were required, the pope should furnish ten galleys for a year, or twenty
for six months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes of
Europe, if the emperor had occasion for land forces.

[Footnote 65: See the polite altercation of Marc and Bessarion in
Syropulus, (p. 257,) who never dissembles the vices of his own party,
and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins.]

[Footnote 66: For the poverty of the Greek bishops, see a remarkable
passage of Ducas, (c. 31.) One had possessed, for his whole property,
three old gowns, &c. By teaching one-and-twenty years in his monastery,
Bessarion himself had collected forty gold florins; but of these, the
archbishop had expended twenty-eight in his voyage from Peloponnesus,
and the remainder at Constantinople, (Syropulus, p. 127.)]

[Footnote 67: Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money before
they had subscribed the art of union, (p. 283:) yet he relates
some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and corruption are
positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.]

[Footnote 68: The Greeks most piteously express their own fears of exile
and perpetual slavery, (Syropul. p. 196;) and they were strongly moved
by the emperor's threats, (p. 260.)]

[Footnote 69: I had forgot another popular and orthodox protester: a
favorite bound, who usually lay quiet on the foot-cloth of the emperor's
throne but who barked most furiously while the act of union was reading
without being silenced by the soothing or the lashes of the royal
attendants, (Syropul. p. 265, 266.)]

The same year, and almost the same day, were marked by the deposition
of Eugenius at Basil; and, at Florence, by his reunion of the Greeks
and Latins. In the former synod, (which he styled indeed an assembly
of daemons,) the pope was branded with the guilt of simony, perjury,
tyranny, heresy, and schism; [70] and declared to be incorrigible in
his vices, unworthy of any title, and incapable of holding any
ecclesiastical office. In the latter, he was revered as the true and
holy vicar of Christ, who, after a separation of six hundred years, had
reconciled the Catholics of the East and West in one fold, and under one
shepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the emperor,
and the principal members of both churches; even by those who, like
Syropulus, [71] had been deprived of the right of voting. Two copies
might have sufficed for the East and West; but Eugenius was not
satisfied, unless four authentic and similar transcripts were signed and
attested as the monuments of his victory. [72] On a memorable day, the
sixth of July, the successors of St. Peter and Constantine ascended
their thrones the two nations assembled in the cathedral of Florence;
their representatives, Cardinal Julian and Bessarion archbishop of Nice,
appeared in the pulpit, and, after reading in their respective tongues
the act of union, they mutually embraced, in the name and the presence
of their applauding brethren. The pope and his ministers then officiated
according to the Roman liturgy; the creed was chanted with the addition
of _filioque_; the acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused by
their ignorance of the harmonious, but inarticulate sounds; [73] and the
more scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantine
rite. Yet the emperor and his clergy were not totally unmindful of
national honor. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it was
tacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in their creed or
ceremonies: they spared, and secretly respected, the generous firmness
of Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of the patriarch, they refused
to elect his successor, except in the cathedral of St. Sophia. In the
distribution of public and private rewards, the liberal pontiff exceeded
their hopes and his promises: the Greeks, with less pomp and pride,
returned by the same road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception at
Constantinople was such as will be described in the following chapter.
[74] The success of the first trial encouraged Eugenius to repeat the
same edifying scenes; and the deputies of the Armenians, the Maronites,
the Jacobites of Syria and Egypt, the Nestorians and the AEthiopians,
were successively introduced, to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, and
to announce the obedience and the orthodoxy of the East. These Oriental
embassies, unknown in the countries which they presumed to represent,
[75] diffused over the West the fame of Eugenius; and a clamor was
artfully propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland and
Savoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world. The vigor
of opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of despair: the council
of Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix, renouncing the tiara, again
withdrew to the devout or delicious hermitage of Ripaille. [76] A general
peace was secured by mutual acts of oblivion and indemnity: all ideas
of reformation subsided; the popes continued to exercise and abuse
their ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by the
mischiefs of a contested election. [77]

[Footnote 70: From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori's
Collection, (tom. iii. p. ii. tom. xxv.,) the manners of Eugenius IV.
appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His situation, exposed
to the world and to his enemies, was a restraint, and is a pledge.]

[Footnote 71: Syropulus, rather than subscribe, would have assisted,
as the least evil, at the ceremony of the union. He was compelled to
do both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly excuses his submission to the
emperor, (p. 290--292.)]

[Footnote 72: None of these original acts of union can at present be
produced. Of the ten MSS. that are preserved, (five at Rome, and the
remainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and London,) nine have
been examined by an accurate critic, (M. de Brequigny,) who condemns
them for the variety and imperfections of the Greek signatures. Yet
several of these may be esteemed as authentic copies, which were
subscribed at Florence, before (26th of August, 1439) the final
separation of the pope and emperor, (Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p. 287--311.)]

[Footnote 73: Hmin de wV ashmoi edokoun jwnai, (Syropul. p. 297.)]

[Footnote 74: In their return, the Greeks conversed at Bologna with
the ambassadors of England: and after some questions and answers,
these impartial strangers laughed at the pretended union of Florence,
(Syropul. p. 307.)]

[Footnote 75: So nugatory, or rather so fabulous, are these reunions
of the Nestorians, Jacobites, &c., that I have turned over, without
success, the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemannus, a faithful slave of
the Vatican.]

[Footnote 76: Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the southern
side of the Lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian abbey; and Mr.
Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148, of Baskerville's
edition of his works) has celebrated the place and the founder. AEneas
Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud the austere life of the ducal
hermit; but the French and Italian proverbs most unluckily attest the
popular opinion of his luxury.]

[Footnote 77: In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara, and
Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the xviith
and xviiith tome of the edition of Venice, and are closed by the
perspicuous, though partial, history of Augustin Patricius, an
Italian of the xvth century. They are digested and abridged by Dupin,
(Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. xii.,) and the continuator of Fleury, (tom.
xxii.;) and the respect of the Gallican church for the adverse parties
confines their members to an awkward moderation.]

The journeys of three emperors were unavailing for their temporal,
or perhaps their spiritual, salvation; but they were productive of a
beneficial consequence--the revival of the Greek learning in Italy, from
whence it was propagated to the last nations of the West and North. In
their lowest servitude and depression, the subjects of the Byzantine
throne were still possessed of a golden key that could unlock the
treasures of antiquity; of a musical and prolific language, that gives
a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of
philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the capital,
had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had doubtless
corrupted the form and substance of the national dialect; and ample
glossaries have been composed, to interpret a multitude of words, of
Arabic, Turkish, Sclavonian, Latin, or French origin. [78] But a purer
idiom was spoken in the court and taught in the college; and the
flourishing state of the language is described, and perhaps embellished,
by a learned Italian, [79] who, by a long residence and noble marriage,
[80] was naturalized at Constantinople about thirty years before the
Turkish conquest. "The vulgar speech," says Philelphus, [81] "has been
depraved by the people, and infected by the multitude of strangers
and merchants, who every day flock to the city and mingle with the
inhabitants. It is from the disciples of such a school that the Latin
language received the versions of Aristotle and Plato; so obscure
in sense, and in spirit so poor. But the Greeks who have escaped the
contagion, are those whom _we_ follow; and they alone are worthy of
our imitation. In familiar discourse, they still speak the tongue
of Aristophanes and Euripides, of the historians and philosophers of
Athens; and the style of their writings is still more elaborate and
correct. The persons who, by their birth and offices, are attached to
the Byzantine court, are those who maintain, with the least alloy,
the ancient standard of elegance and purity; and the native graces
of language most conspicuously shine among the noble matrons, who are
excluded from all intercourse with foreigners. With foreigners do I
say? They live retired and sequestered from the eyes of their
fellow-citizens. Seldom are they seen in the streets; and when they
leave their houses, it is in the dusk of evening, on visits to the
churches and their nearest kindred. On these occasions, they are on
horseback, covered with a veil, and encompassed by their parents, their
husbands, or their servants." [82]

[Footnote 78: In the first attempt, Meursius collected 3600
Graeco-barbarous words, to which, in a second edition, he subjoined 1800
more; yet what plenteous gleanings did he leave to Portius, Ducange,
Fabrotti, the Bollandists, &c.! (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. x. p. 101,
&c.) _Some_ Persic words may be found in Xenophon, and some Latin ones
in Plutarch; and such is the inevitable effect of war and commerce; but
the form and substance of the language were not affected by this slight
alloy.]

[Footnote 79: The life of Francis Philelphus, a sophist, proud,
restless, and rapacious, has been diligently composed by Lancelot
(Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 691--751) (Istoria
della Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. p. 282--294,) for the most
part from his own letters. His elaborate writings, and those of his
contemporaries, are forgotten; but their familiar epistles still
describe the men and the times.]

[Footnote 80: He married, and had perhaps debauched, the daughter
of John, and the granddaughter of Manuel Chrysoloras. She was young,
beautiful, and wealthy; and her noble family was allied to the Dorias of
Genoa and the emperors of Constantinople.]

[Footnote 81: Graeci quibus lingua depravata non sit.... ita loquuntur
vulgo hac etiam tempestate ut Aristophanes comicus, aut Euripides
tragicus, ut oratores omnes, ut historiographi, ut philosophi....
litterati autem homines et doctius et emendatius.... Nam viri aulici
veterem sermonis dignitatem atque elegantiam retinebant in primisque
ipsae nobiles mulieres; quibus cum nullum esset omnino cum viris
peregrinis commercium, merus ille ac purus Graecorum sermo servabatur
intactus, (Philelph. Epist. ad ann. 1451, apud Hodium, p. 188, 189.)
He observes in another passage, uxor illa mea Theodora locutione erat
admodum moderata et suavi et maxime Attica.]

[Footnote 82: Philelphus, absurdly enough, derives this Greek or
Oriental jealousy from the manners of ancient Rome.]

Among the Greeks a numerous and opulent clergy was dedicated to
the service of religion: their monks and bishops have ever been
distinguished by the gravity and austerity of their manners; nor were
they diverted, like the Latin priests, by the pursuits and pleasures of
a secular, and even military, life. After a large deduction for the
time and talent that were lost in the devotion, the laziness, and the
discord, of the church and cloister, the more inquisitive and ambitious
minds would explore the sacred and profane erudition of their native
language. The ecclesiastics presided over the education of youth; the
schools of philosophy and eloquence were perpetuated till the fall of
the empire; and it may be affirmed, that more books and more knowledge
were included within the walls of Constantinople, than could be
dispersed over the extensive countries of the West. [83] But an important
distinction has been already noticed: the Greeks were stationary or
retrograde, while the Latins were advancing with a rapid and progressive
motion. The nations were excited by the spirit of independence and
emulation; and even the little world of the Italian states contained
more people and industry than the decreasing circle of the Byzantine
empire. In Europe, the lower ranks of society were relieved from the
yoke of feudal servitude; and freedom is the first step to curiosity and
knowledge. The use, however rude and corrupt, of the Latin tongue
had been preserved by superstition; the universities, from Bologna to
Oxford, [84] were peopled with thousands of scholars; and their misguided
ardor might be directed to more liberal and manly studies. In the
resurrection of science, Italy was the first that cast away her shroud;
and the eloquent Petrarch, by his lessons and his example, may justly be
applauded as the first harbinger of day. A purer style of composition,
a more generous and rational strain of sentiment, flowed from the study
and imitation of the writers of ancient Rome; and the disciples of
Cicero and Virgil approached, with reverence and love, the sanctuary of
their Grecian masters. In the sack of Constantinople, the French, and
even the Venetians, had despised and destroyed the works of Lysippus and
Homer: the monuments of art may be annihilated by a single blow; but the
immortal mind is renewed and multiplied by the copies of the pen; and
such copies it was the ambition of Petrarch and his friends to possess
and understand. The arms of the Turks undoubtedly pressed the flight
of the Muses; yet we may tremble at the thought, that Greece might have
been overwhelmed, with her schools and libraries, before Europe had
emerged from the deluge of barbarism; that the seeds of science might
have been scattered by the winds, before the Italian soil was prepared
for their cultivation.

[Footnote 83: See the state of learning in the xiiith and xivth
centuries, in the learned and judicious Mosheim, (Instit. Hist. Eccles.
p. 434--440, 490--494.)]

[Footnote 84: At the end of the xvth century, there existed in Europe
about fifty universities, and of these the foundation of ten or twelve
is prior to the year 1300. They were crowded in proportion to their
scarcity. Bologna contained 10,000 students, chiefly of the civil law.
In the year 1357 the number at Oxford had decreased from 30,000 to 6000
scholars, (Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. iv. p. 478.) Yet even
this decrease is much superior to the present list of the members of the
university.]




Chapter LXVI: Union Of The Greek And Latin Churches.--Part IV.

The most learned Italians of the fifteenth century have confessed and
applauded the restoration of Greek literature, after a long oblivion of
many hundred years. [85] Yet in that country, and beyond the Alps, some
names are quoted; some profound scholars, who in the darker ages were
honorably distinguished by their knowledge of the Greek tongue; and
national vanity has been loud in the praise of such rare examples of
erudition. Without scrutinizing the merit of individuals, truth must
observe, that their science is without a cause, and without an effect;
that it was easy for them to satisfy themselves and their more ignorant
contemporaries; and that the idiom, which they had so marvellously
acquired was transcribed in few manuscripts, and was not taught in any
university of the West. In a corner of Italy, it faintly existed as
the popular, or at least as the ecclesiastical dialect. [86] The first
impression of the Doric and Ionic colonies has never been completely
erased: the Calabrian churches were long attached to the throne of
Constantinople: and the monks of St. Basil pursued their studies in
Mount Athos and the schools of the East. Calabria was the native country
of Barlaam, who has already appeared as a sectary and an ambassador; and
Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond the Alps, the memory, or
at least the writings, of Homer. [87] He is described, by Petrarch and
Boccace, [88] as a man of diminutive stature, though truly great in the
measure of learning and genius; of a piercing discernment, though of a
slow and painful elocution. For many ages (as they affirm) Greece
had not produced his equal in the knowledge of history, grammar, and
philosophy; and his merit was celebrated in the attestations of the
princes and doctors of Constantinople. One of these attestations
is still extant; and the emperor Cantacuzene, the protector of his
adversaries, is forced to allow, that Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato,
were familiar to that profound and subtle logician. [89] In the court of
Avignon, he formed an intimate connection with Petrarch, [90] the first
of the Latin scholars; and the desire of mutual instruction was the
principle of their literary commerce. The Tuscan applied himself with
eager curiosity and assiduous diligence to the study of the Greek
language; and in a laborious struggle with the dryness and difficulty
of the first rudiments, he began to reach the sense, and to feel the
spirit, of poets and philosophers, whose minds were congenial to his
own. But he was soon deprived of the society and lessons of this useful
assistant: Barlaam relinquished his fruitless embassy; and, on his
return to Greece, he rashly provoked the swarms of fanatic monks, by
attempting to substitute the light of reason to that of their navel.
After a separation of three years, the two friends again met in the
court of Naples: but the generous pupil renounced the fairest occasion
of improvement; and by his recommendation Barlaam was finally settled in
a small bishopric of his native Calabria. [91] The manifold avocations of
Petrarch, love and friendship, his various correspondence and frequent
journeys, the Roman laurel, and his elaborate compositions in prose and
verse, in Latin and Italian, diverted him from a foreign idiom; and as
he advanced in life, the attainment of the Greek language was the object
of his wishes rather than of his hopes. When he was about fifty years of
age, a Byzantine ambassador, his friend, and a master of both tongues,
presented him with a copy of Homer; and the answer of Petrarch is at one
expressive of his eloquence, gratitude, and regret. After celebrating
the generosity of the donor, and the value of a gift more precious in
his estimation than gold or rubies, he thus proceeds: "Your present of
the genuine and original text of the divine poet, the fountain of all
inventions, is worthy of yourself and of me: you have fulfilled
your promise, and satisfied my desires. Yet your liberality is still
imperfect: with Homer you should have given me yourself; a guide, who
could lead me into the fields of light, and disclose to my wondering
eyes the spacious miracles of the Iliad and Odyssey. But, alas! Homer
is dumb, or I am deaf; nor is it in my power to enjoy the beauty which
I possess. I have seated him by the side of Plato, the prince of
poets near the prince of philosophers; and I glory in the sight of
my illustrious guests. Of their immortal writings, whatever had been
translated into the Latin idiom, I had already acquired; but, if there
be no profit, there is some pleasure, in beholding these venerable
Greeks in their proper and national habit. I am delighted with the
aspect of Homer; and as often as I embrace the silent volume, I exclaim
with a sigh, Illustrious bard! with what pleasure should I listen to thy
song, if my sense of hearing were not obstructed and lost by the death
of one friend, and in the much-lamented absence of another. Nor do I yet
despair; and the example of Cato suggests some comfort and hope, since
it was in the last period of age that he attained the knowledge of the
Greek letters." [92]

[Footnote 85: Of those writers who professedly treat of the restoration
of the Greek learning in Italy, the two principal are Hodius, Dr.
Humphrey Hody, (de Graecis Illustribus, Linguae Graecae Literarumque
humaniorum Instauratoribus; Londini, 1742, in large octavo,) and
Tiraboschi, (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana, tom. v. p. 364--377,
tom. vii. p. 112--143.) The Oxford professor is a laborious scholar, but
the librarian of Modena enjoys the superiority of a modern and national
historian.]

[Footnote 86: In Calabria quae olim magna Graecia dicebatur, coloniis
Graecis repleta, remansit quaedam linguae veteris, cognitio, (Hodius, p.
2.) If it were eradicated by the Romans, it was revived and perpetuated
by the monks of St. Basil, who possessed seven convents at Rossano
alone, (Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 520.)]

[Footnote 87: Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans) vix,
non dicam libros sed nomen Homeri audiverunt. Perhaps, in that respect,
the xiiith century was less happy than the age of Charlemagne.]

[Footnote 88: See the character of Barlaam, in Boccace de Genealog.
Deorum, l. xv. c. 6.]

[Footnote 89: Cantacuzen. l. ii. c. 36.]

[Footnote 90: For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaam, and the two
interviews at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the excellent
Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p. 406--410, tom. ii. p.
74--77.]

[Footnote 91: The bishopric to which Barlaam retired, was the old Locri,
in the middle ages. Scta. Cyriaca, and by corruption Hieracium, Gerace,
(Dissert. Chorographica Italiae Medii AEvi, p. 312.) The dives opum of the
Norman times soon lapsed into poverty, since even the church was poor:
yet the town still contains 3000 inhabitants, (Swinburne, p. 340.)]

[Footnote 92: I will transcribe a passage from this epistle of Petrarch,
(Famil. ix. 2;) Donasti Homerum non in alienum sermonem violento alvea??
derivatum, sed ex ipsis Graeci eloquii scatebris, et qualis divino illi
profluxit ingenio.... Sine tua voce Homerus tuus apud me mutus, immo
vero ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel adspectu solo, ac saepe
illum amplexus atque suspirans dico, O magne vir, &c.]

The prize which eluded the efforts of Petrarch, was obtained by the
fortune and industry of his friend Boccace, [93] the father of the
Tuscan prose. That popular writer, who derives his reputation from the
Decameron, a hundred novels of pleasantry and love, may aspire to
the more serious praise of restoring in Italy the study of the Greek
language. In the year one thousand three hundred and sixty, a disciple
of Barlaam, whose name was Leo, or Leontius Pilatus, was detained in his
way to Avignon by the advice and hospitality of Boccace, who lodged the
stranger in his house, prevailed on the republic of Florence to allow
him an annual stipend, and devoted his leisure to the first Greek
professor, who taught that language in the Western countries of Europe.
The appearance of Leo might disgust the most eager disciple, he was
clothed in the mantle of a philosopher, or a mendicant; his countenance
was hideous; his face was overshadowed with black hair; his beard long
an uncombed; his deportment rustic; his temper gloomy and inconstant;
nor could he grace his discourse with the ornaments, or even the
perspicuity, of Latin elocution. But his mind was stored with a treasure
of Greek learning: history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were
alike at his command; and he read the poems of Homer in the schools
of Florence. It was from his explanation that Boccace composed [* and
transcribed a literal prose version of the Iliad and Odyssey, which
satisfied the thirst of his friend Petrarch, and which, perhaps, in
the succeeding century, was clandestinely used by Laurentius Valla,
the Latin interpreter. It was from his narratives that the same Boccace
collected the materials for his treatise on the genealogy of the
heathen gods, a work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which he
ostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite
the wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers. [94] The first
steps of learning are slow and laborious; no more than ten votaries of
Homer could be enumerated in all Italy; and neither Rome, nor Venice,
nor Naples, could add a single name to this studious catalogue. But
their numbers would have multiplied, their progress would have been
accelerated, if the inconstant Leo, at the end of three years, had
not relinquished an honorable and beneficial station. In his passage,
Petrarch entertained him at Padua a short time: he enjoyed the scholar,
but was justly offended with the gloomy and unsocial temper of the
man. Discontented with the world and with himself, Leo depreciated his
present enjoyments, while absent persons and objects were dear to
his imagination. In Italy he was a Thessalian, in Greece a native of
Calabria: in the company of the Latins he disdained their language,
religion, and manners: no sooner was he landed at Constantinople, than
he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and the elegance of Florence.
His Italian friends were deaf to his importunity: he depended on their
curiosity and indulgence, and embarked on a second voyage; but on his
entrance into the Adriatic, the ship was assailed by a tempest, and the
unfortunate teacher, who like Ulysses had fastened himself to the mast,
was struck dead by a flash of lightning. The humane Petrarch dropped a
tear on his disaster; but he was most anxious to learn whether some
copy of Euripides or Sophocles might not be saved from the hands of the
mariners. [95]

[Footnote 93: For the life and writings of Boccace, who was born in
1313, and died in 1375, Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin. Medii AEvi, tom. i. p.
248, &c.) and Tiraboschi (tom. v. p. 83, 439--451) may be consulted. The
editions, versions, imitations of his novels, are innumerable. Yet he
was ashamed to communicate that trifling, and perhaps scandalous, work
to Petrarch, his respectable friend, in whose letters and memoirs he
conspicuously appears.]

[Footnote *: This translation of Homer was by Pilatus, not by Boccacio.
See Hallam, Hist. of Lit. vol. i. p. 132.--M.]

[Footnote 94: Boccace indulges an honest vanity: Ostentationis causa
Graeca carmina adscripsi.... jure utor meo; meum est hoc decus, mea
gloria scilicet inter Etruscos Graecis uti carminibus. Nonne ego fui qui
Leontium Pilatum, &c., (de Genealogia Deorum, l. xv. c. 7, a work which,
though now forgotten, has run through thirteen or fourteen editions.)]

[Footnote 95: Leontius, or Leo Pilatus, is sufficiently made known by
Hody, (p. 2--11,) and the abbe de Sade, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p.
625--634, 670--673,) who has very happily caught the lively and dramatic
manner of his original.]

But the faint rudiments of Greek learning, which Petrarch had encouraged
and Boccace had planted, soon withered and expired. The succeeding
generation was content for a while with the improvement of Latin
eloquence; nor was it before the end of the fourteenth century that a
new and perpetual flame was rekindled in Italy. [96] Previous to his own
journey the emperor Manuel despatched his envoys and orators to implore
the compassion of the Western princes. Of these envoys, the most
conspicuous, or the most learned, was Manuel Chrysoloras, [97] of noble
birth, and whose Roman ancestors are supposed to have migrated with
the great Constantine. After visiting the courts of France and England,
where he obtained some contributions and more promises, the envoy was
invited to assume the office of a professor; and Florence had again
the honor of this second invitation. By his knowledge, not only of the
Greek, but of the Latin tongue, Chrysoloras deserved the stipend, and
surpassed the expectation, of the republic. His school was frequented
by a crowd of disciples of every rank and age; and one of these, in a
general history, has described his motives and his success. "At that
time," says Leonard Aretin, [98] "I was a student of the civil law;
but my soul was inflamed with the love of letters; and I bestowed some
application on the sciences of logic and rhetoric. On the arrival
of Manuel, I hesitated whether I should desert my legal studies, or
relinquish this golden opportunity; and thus, in the ardor of youth,
I communed with my own mind--Wilt thou be wanting to thyself and thy
fortune? Wilt thou refuse to be introduced to a familiar converse with
Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes; with those poets, philosophers, and
orators, of whom such wonders are related, and who are celebrated by
every age as the great masters of human science? Of professors and
scholars in civil law, a sufficient supply will always be found in our
universities; but a teacher, and such a teacher, of the Greek language,
if he once be suffered to escape, may never afterwards be retrieved.
Convinced by these reasons, I gave myself to Chrysoloras; and so strong
was my passion, that the lessons which I had imbibed in the day were the
constant object of my nightly dreams." [99] At the same time and place,
the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the domestic pupil
of Petrarch; [100] the Italians, who illustrated their age and country,
were formed in this double school; and Florence became the fruitful
seminary of Greek and Roman erudition. [101] The presence of the emperor
recalled Chrysoloras from the college to the court; but he afterwards
taught at Pavia and Rome with equal industry and applause. The remainder
of his life, about fifteen years, was divided between Italy and
Constantinople, between embassies and lessons. In the noble office of
enlightening a foreign nation, the grammarian was not unmindful of a
more sacred duty to his prince and country; and Emanuel Chrysoloras died
at Constance on a public mission from the emperor to the council.

[Footnote 96: Dr. Hody (p. 54) is angry with Leonard Aretin, Guarinus,
Paulus Jovius, &c., for affirming, that the Greek letters were restored
in Italy _post septingentos annos_; as if, says he, they had flourished
till the end of the viith century. These writers most probably reckoned
from the last period of the exarchate; and the presence of the Greek
magistrates and troops at Ravenna and Rome must have preserved, in some
degree, the use of their native tongue.]

[Footnote 97: See the article of Emanuel, or Manuel Chrysoloras, in Hody
(p 12--54) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vii. p. 113--118.) The precise date of
his arrival floats between the years 1390 and 1400, and is only confined
by the reign of Boniface IX.]

[Footnote 98: The name of _Aretinus_ has been assumed by five or six
natives of _Arezzo_ in Tuscany, of whom the most famous and the most
worthless lived in the xvith century. Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, the
disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator, and an historian,
the secretary of four successive popes, and the chancellor of
the republic of Florence, where he died A.D. 1444, at the age
of seventy-five, (Fabric. Bibliot. Medii AEvi, tom. i. p. 190 &c.
Tiraboschi, tom. vii. p. 33--38.)]

[Footnote 99: See the passage in Aretin. Commentario Rerum suo Tempore
in Italia gestarum, apud Hodium, p. 28--30.]

[Footnote 100: In this domestic discipline, Petrarch, who loved the
youth, often complains of the eager curiosity, restless temper, and
proud feelings, which announce the genius and glory of a riper age,
(Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 700--709.)]

[Footnote 101: Hinc Graecae Latinaeque scholae exortae sunt, Guarino
Philelpho, Leonardo Aretino, Caroloque, ac plerisque aliis tanquam ex
equo Trojano prodeuntibus, quorum emulatione multa ingenia deinceps ad
laudem excitata sunt, (Platina in Bonifacio IX.) Another Italian
writer adds the names of Paulus Petrus Vergerius, Omnibonus Vincentius,
Poggius, Franciscus Barbarus, &c. But I question whether a rigid
chronology would allow Chrysoloras _all_ these eminent scholars,
(Hodius, p. 25--27, &c.)]

After his example, the restoration of the Greek letters in Italy was
prosecuted by a series of emigrants, who were destitute of fortune, and
endowed with learning, or at least with language. From the terror
or oppression of the Turkish arms, the natives of Thessalonica and
Constantinople escaped to a land of freedom, curiosity, and wealth. The
synod introduced into Florence the lights of the Greek church, and the
oracles of the Platonic philosophy; and the fugitives who adhered to the
union, had the double merit of renouncing their country, not only for
the Christian, but for the catholic cause. A patriot, who sacrifices
his party and conscience to the allurements of favor, may be possessed,
however, of the private and social virtues: he no longer hears the
reproachful epithets of slave and apostate; and the consideration which
he acquires among his new associates will restore in his own eyes
the dignity of his character. The prudent conformity of Bessarion was
rewarded with the Roman purple: he fixed his residence in Italy; and the
Greek cardinal, the titular patriarch of Constantinople, was respected
as the chief and protector of his nation: [102] his abilities were
exercised in the legations of Bologna, Venice, Germany, and France;
and his election to the chair of St. Peter floated for a moment on the
uncertain breath of a conclave. [103] His ecclesiastical honors diffused
a splendor and preeminence over his literary merit and service: his
palace was a school; as often as the cardinal visited the Vatican, he
was attended by a learned train of both nations; [104] of men applauded
by themselves and the public; and whose writings, now overspread with
dust, were popular and useful in their own times. I shall not attempt to
enumerate the restorers of Grecian literature in the fifteenth century;
and it may be sufficient to mention with gratitude the names of Theodore
Gaza, of George of Trebizond, of John Argyropulus, and Demetrius
Chalcocondyles, who taught their native language in the schools of
Florence and Rome. Their labors were not inferior to those of Bessarion,
whose purple they revered, and whose fortune was the secret object of
their envy. But the lives of these grammarians were humble and obscure:
they had declined the lucrative paths of the church; their dress and
manners secluded them from the commerce of the world; and since they
were confined to the merit, they might be content with the rewards,
of learning. From this character, Janus Lascaris [105] will deserve an
exception. His eloquence, politeness, and Imperial descent, recommended
him to the French monarch; and in the same cities he was alternately
employed to teach and to negotiate. Duty and interest prompted them
to cultivate the study of the Latin language; and the most successful
attained the faculty of writing and speaking with fluency and elegance
in a foreign idiom. But they ever retained the inveterate vanity of
their country: their praise, or at least their esteem, was reserved for
the national writers, to whom they owed their fame and subsistence; and
they sometimes betrayed their contempt in licentious criticism or satire
on Virgil's poetry, and the oratory of Tully. [106] The superiority of
these masters arose from the familiar use of a living language; and
their first disciples were incapable of discerning how far they
had degenerated from the knowledge, and even the practice of their
ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, [107] which they introduced, was
banished from the schools by the reason of the succeeding age. Of the
power of the Greek accents they were ignorant; and those musical notes,
which, from an Attic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must have been the
secret soul of harmony, were to their eyes, as to our own, no more than
minute and unmeaning marks, in prose superfluous and troublesome in
verse. The art of grammar they truly possessed; the valuable fragments
of Apollonius and Herodian were transfused into their lessons; and their
treatises of syntax and etymology, though devoid of philosophic spirit,
are still useful to the Greek student. In the shipwreck of the Byzantine
libraries, each fugitive seized a fragment of treasure, a copy of some
author, who without his industry might have perished: the transcripts
were multiplied by an assiduous, and sometimes an elegant pen; and the
text was corrected and explained by their own comments, or those of
the elder scholiasts. The sense, though not the spirit, of the Greek
classics, was interpreted to the Latin world: the beauties of style
evaporate in a version; but the judgment of Theodore Gaza selected
the more solid works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and their natural
histories of animals and plants opened a rich fund of genuine and
experimental science.

[Footnote 102: See in Hody the article of Bessarion, (p. 136--177.)
Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and the rest of the Greeks whom
I have named or omitted, are inserted in their proper chapters of his
learned work. See likewise Tiraboschi, in the 1st and 2d parts of the
vith tome.]

[Footnote 103: The cardinals knocked at his door, but his conclavist
refused to interrupt the studies of Bessarion: "Nicholas," said he, "thy
respect has cost thee a hat, and me the tiara." *

Note: * Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. i. p. 75) considers that
Hody has refuted this "idle tale."--M.]

[Footnote 104: Such as George of Trebizond, Theodore Gaza, Argyropulus,
Andronicus of Thessalonica, Philelphus, Poggius, Blondus, Nicholas
Perrot, Valla, Campanus, Platina, &c. Viri (says Hody, with the pious
zeal of a scholar) (nullo aevo perituri, p. 156.)]

[Footnote 105: He was born before the taking of Constantinople, but his
honorable life was stretched far into the xvith century, (A.D. 1535.)
Leo X. and Francis I. were his noblest patrons, under whose auspices he
founded the Greek colleges of Rome and Paris, (Hody, p. 247--275.)
He left posterity in France; but the counts de Vintimille, and their
numerous branches, derive the name of Lascaris from a doubtful marriage
in the xiiith century with the daughter of a Greek emperor (Ducange,
Fam. Byzant. p. 224--230.)]

[Footnote 106: Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against
Tully, are preserved and refuted by Franciscus Floridus, who can find no
better names than Graeculus ineptus et impudens, (Hody, p. 274.) In our
own times, an English critic has accused the AEneid of containing multa
languida, nugatoria, spiritu et majestate carminis heroici defecta; many
such verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland, would have been ashamed
of owning, (praefat. ad Statii Sylvas, p. 21, 22.)]

[Footnote 107: Emanuel Chrysoloras, and his colleagues, are accused of
ignorance, envy, or avarice, (Sylloge, &c., tom. ii. p. 235.) The modern
Greeks pronounce the b as a V consonant, and confound three vowels, (h i
u,) and several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which
the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the university of
Cambridge: but the monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear the
bleating of sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or
a chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who
asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge
of Havercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740:) but it is
difficult to paint sounds by words: and in their reference to modern
use, they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We may
observe, that our peculiar pronunciation of the O, th, is approved by
Erasmus, (tom. ii. p. 130.)]

Yet the fleeting shadows of metaphysics were pursued with more curiosity
and ardor. After a long oblivion, Plato was revived in Italy by a
venerable Greek, [108] who taught in the house of Cosmo of Medicis.
While the synod of Florence was involved in theological debate, some
beneficial consequences might flow from the study of his elegant
philosophy: his style is the purest standard of the Attic dialect, and
his sublime thoughts are sometimes adapted to familiar conversation, and
sometimes adorned with the richest colors of poetry and eloquence. The
dialogues of Plato are a dramatic picture of the life and death of a
sage; and, as often as he descends from the clouds, his moral system
inculcates the love of truth, of our country, and of mankind. The
precept and example of Socrates recommended a modest doubt and liberal
inquiry; and if the Platonists, with blind devotion, adored the visions
and errors of their divine master, their enthusiasm might correct
the dry, dogmatic method of the Peripatetic school. So equal, yet
so opposite, are the merits of Plato and Aristotle, that they may
be balanced in endless controversy; but some spark of freedom may be
produced by the collision of adverse servitude. The modern Greeks were
divided between the two sects: with more fury than skill they fought
under the banner of their leaders; and the field of battle was removed
in their flight from Constantinople to Rome. But this philosophical
debate soon degenerated into an angry and personal quarrel of
grammarians; and Bessarion, though an advocate for Plato, protected the
national honor, by interposing the advice and authority of a mediator.
In the gardens of the Medici, the academical doctrine was enjoyed by the
polite and learned: but their philosophic society was quickly dissolved;
and if the writings of the Attic sage were perused in the closet, the
more powerful Stagyrite continued to reign, the oracle of the church and
school. [109]

[Footnote 108: George Gemistus Pletho, a various and voluminous writer,
the master of Bessarion, and all the Platonists of the times. He visited
Italy in his old age, and soon returned to end his days in Peloponnesus.
See the curious Diatribe of Leo Allatius de Georgiis, in Fabricius.
(Bibliot. Graec. tom. x. p. 739--756.)]

[Footnote 109: The state of the Platonic philosophy in Italy is
illustrated by Boivin, (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p.
715--729,) and Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 259--288.)]

I have fairly represented the literary merits of the Greeks; yet it must
be confessed, that they were seconded and surpassed by the ardor of the
Latins. Italy was divided into many independent states; and at that time
it was the ambition of princes and republics to vie with each other in
the encouragement and reward of literature. The fame of Nicholas the
Fifth [110] has not been adequate to his merits. From a plebeian origin
he raised himself by his virtue and learning: the character of the man
prevailed over the interest of the pope; and he sharpened those weapons
which were soon pointed against the Roman church. [111] He had been the
friend of the most eminent scholars of the age: he became their patron;
and such was the humility of his manners, that the change was scarcely
discernible either to them or to himself. If he pressed the acceptance
of a liberal gift, it was not as the measure of desert, but as the proof
of benevolence; and when modest merit declined his bounty, "Accept it,"
would he say, with a consciousness of his own worth: "ye will not always
have a Nicholas among you." The influence of the holy see pervaded
Christendom; and he exerted that influence in the search, not of
benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, from
the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dusty
manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and wherever the original could
not be removed, a faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for
his use. The Vatican, the old repository for bulls and legends, for
superstition and forgery, was daily replenished with more precious
furniture; and such was the industry of Nicholas, that in a reign
of eight years he formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his
munificence the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon,
Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo's
Geography, of the Iliad, of the most valuable works of Plato and
Aristotle, of Ptolemy and Theophrastus, and of the fathers of the Greek
church. The example of the Roman pontiff was preceded or imitated by a
Florentine merchant, who governed the republic without arms and without
a title. Cosmo of Medicis [112] was the father of a line of princes,
whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration of
learning: his credit was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated
to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and
London: and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported
in the same vessel. The genius and education of his grandson Lorenzo
rendered him not only a patron, but a judge and candidate, in the
literary race. In his palace, distress was entitled to relief, and merit
to reward: his leisure hours were delightfully spent in the Platonic
academy; he encouraged the emulation of Demetrius Chalcocondyles and
Angelo Politian; and his active missionary Janus Lascaris returned from
the East with a treasure of two hundred manuscripts, fourscore of which
were as yet unknown in the libraries of Europe. [113] The rest of Italy
was animated by a similar spirit, and the progress of the nation repaid
the liberality of their princes. The Latins held the exclusive property
of their own literature; and these disciples of Greece were soon capable
of transmitting and improving the lessons which they had imbibed. After
a short succession of foreign teachers, the tide of emigration subsided;
but the language of Constantinople was spread beyond the Alps and the
natives of France, Germany, and England, [114] imparted to their country
the sacred fire which they had kindled in the schools of Florence and
Rome. [115] In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the
gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill: the Greek authors,
forgotten on the banks of the Ilissus, have been illustrated on those
of the Elbe and the Thames: and Bessarion or Gaza might have envied the
superior science of the Barbarians; the accuracy of Budaeus, the taste
of Erasmus, the copiousness of Stephens, the erudition of Scaliger, the
discernment of Reiske, or of Bentley. On the side of the Latins, the
discovery of printing was a casual advantage: but this useful art has
been applied by Aldus, and his innumerable successors, to perpetuate and
multiply the works of antiquity. [116] A single manuscript imported from
Greece is revived in ten thousand copies; and each copy is fairer than
the original. In this form, Homer and Plato would peruse with more
satisfaction their own writings; and their scholiasts must resign the
prize to the labors of our Western editors.

[Footnote 110: See the Life of Nicholas V. by two contemporary authors,
Janottus Manettus, (tom. iii. P. ii. p. 905--962,) and Vespasian of
Florence, (tom. xxv. p. 267--290,) in the collection of Muratori; and
consult Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 46--52, 109,) and Hody in the
articles of Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, &c.]

[Footnote 111: Lord Bolingbroke observes, with truth and spirit, that
the popes in this instance, were worse politicians than the muftis, and
that the charm which had bound mankind for so many ages was broken by
the magicians themselves, (Letters on the Study of History, l. vi. p.
165, 166, octavo edition, 1779.)]

[Footnote 112: See the literary history of Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis,
in Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. l. i. c. 2,) who bestows a due measure
of praise on Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples, the dukes of Milan,
Ferrara Urbino, &c. The republic of Venice has deserved the least from
the gratitude of scholars.]

[Footnote 113: Tiraboschi, (tom. vi. P. i. p. 104,) from the preface
of Janus Lascaris to the Greek Anthology, printed at Florence, 1494.
Latebant (says Aldus in his preface to the Greek orators, apud Hodium,
p. 249) in Atho Thraciae monte. Eas Lascaris.... in Italiam reportavit.
Miserat enim ipsum Laurentius ille Medices in Graeciam ad inquirendos
simul, et quantovis emendos pretio bonos libros. It is remarkable
enough, that the research was facilitated by Sultan Bajazet II.]

[Footnote 114: The Greek language was introduced into the university of
Oxford in the last years of the xvth century, by Grocyn, Linacer, and
Latimer, who had all studied at Florence under Demetrius Chalcocondyles.
See Dr. Knight's curious Life of Erasmus. Although a stout academical
patriot, he is forced to acknowledge that Erasmus learned Greek at
Oxford, and taught it at Cambridge.]

[Footnote 115: The jealous Italians were desirous of keeping a monopoly
of Greek learning. When Aldus was about to publish the Greek scholiasts
on Sophocles and Euripides, Cave, (said they,) cave hoc facias, ne
_Barbari_ istis adjuti domi maneant, et pauciores in Italiam ventitent,
(Dr. Knight, in his Life of Erasmus, p. 365, from Beatus Rhemanus.)]

[Footnote 116: The press of Aldus Manutius, a Roman, was established at
Venice about the year 1494: he printed above sixty considerable works
of Greek literature, almost all for the first time; several containing
different treatises and authors, and of several authors, two, three, or
four editions, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p. 605, &c.) Yet
his glory must not tempt us to forget, that the first Greek book, the
Grammar of Constantine Lascaris, was printed at Milan in 1476; and that
the Florence Homer of 1488 displays all the luxury of the typographical
art. See the Annales Typographical of Mattaire, and the Bibliographie
Instructive of De Bure, a knowing bookseller of Paris.]

Before the revival of classic literature, the Barbarians in Europe were
immersed in ignorance; and their vulgar tongues were marked with the
rudeness and poverty of their manners. The students of the more perfect
idioms of Rome and Greece were introduced to a new world of light and
science; to the society of the free and polished nations of antiquity;
and to a familiar converse with those immortal men who spoke the sublime
language of eloquence and reason. Such an intercourse must tend to
refine the taste, and to elevate the genius, of the moderns; and yet,
from the first experiments, it might appear that the study of the
ancients had given fetters, rather than wings, to the human mind.
However laudable, the spirit of imitation is of a servile cast; and the
first disciples of the Greeks and Romans were a colony of strangers in
the midst of their age and country. The minute and laborious diligence
which explored the antiquities of remote times might have improved or
adorned the present state of society, the critic and metaphysician were
the slaves of Aristotle; the poets, historians, and orators, were proud
to repeat the thoughts and words of the Augustan age: the works of
nature were observed with the eyes of Pliny and Theophrastus; and some
Pagan votaries professed a secret devotion to the gods of Homer and
Plato. [117] The Italians were oppressed by the strength and number of
their ancient auxiliaries: the century after the deaths of Petrarch and
Boccace was filled with a crowd of Latin imitators, who decently repose
on our shelves; but in that aera of learning it will not be easy to
discern a real discovery of science, a work of invention or eloquence,
in the popular language of the country. [118] But as soon as it had been
deeply saturated with the celestial dew, the soil was quickened into
vegetation and life; the modern idioms were refined; the classics of
Athens and Rome inspired a pure taste and a generous emulation; and in
Italy, as afterwards in France and England, the pleasing reign of poetry
and fiction was succeeded by the light of speculative and experimental
philosophy. Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the
education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be
exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor
may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate,
the works of his predecessors.

[Footnote 117: I will select three singular examples of this classic
enthusiasm. I. At the synod of Florence, Gemistus Pletho said, in
familiar conversation to George of Trebizond, that in a short time
mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the Koran, for a
religion similar to that of the Gentiles, (Leo Allatius, apud Fabricium,
tom. x. p. 751.) 2. Paul II. persecuted the Roman academy, which had
been founded by Pomponius Laetus; and the principal members were accused
of heresy, impiety, and _paganism_, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. i. p.
81, 82.) 3. In the next century, some scholars and poets in France
celebrated the success of Jodelle's tragedy of Cleopatra, by a festival
of Bacchus, and, as it is said, by the sacrifice of a goat, (Bayle,
Dictionnaire, Jodelle. Fontenelle, tom. iii. p. 56--61.) Yet the spirit
of bigotry might often discern a serious impiety in the sportive play of
fancy and learning.]

[Footnote 118: The survivor Boccace died in the year 1375; and we cannot
place before 1480 the composition of the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci
and the Orlando Innamorato of Boyardo, (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. P. ii. p.
174--177.)]




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

     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--Reign And Character Of
     Amurath The Second.--Crusade Of Ladislaus, King Of Hungary.--
     His Defeat And Death.--John Huniades.--Scanderbeg.--
     Constantine Palaeologus, Last Emperor Of The East.

The respective merits of Rome and Constantinople are compared and
celebrated by an eloquent Greek, the father of the Italian schools. [1]
The view of the ancient capital, the seat of his ancestors, surpassed
the most sanguine expectations of Emanuel Chrysoloras; and he no longer
blamed the exclamation of an old sophist, that Rome was the habitation,
not of men, but of gods. Those gods, and those men, had long since
vanished; but to the eye of liberal enthusiasm, the majesty of ruin
restored the image of her ancient prosperity. The monuments of the
consuls and Caesars, of the martyrs and apostles, engaged on all sides
the curiosity of the philosopher and the Christian; and he confessed
that in every age the arms and the religion of Rome were destined to
reign over the earth. While Chrysoloras admired the venerable beauties
of the mother, he was not forgetful of his native country, her fairest
daughter, her Imperial colony; and the Byzantine patriot expatiates
with zeal and truth on the eternal advantages of nature, and the more
transitory glories of art and dominion, which adorned, or had adorned,
the city of Constantine. Yet the perfection of the copy still redounds
(as he modestly observes) to the honor of the original, and parents are
delighted to be renewed, and even excelled, by the superior merit of
their children. "Constantinople," says the orator, "is situate on a
commanding point, between Europe and Asia, between the Archipelago and
the Euxine. By her interposition, the two seas, and the two continents,
are united for the common benefit of nations; and the gates of commerce
may be shut or opened at her command. The harbor, encompassed on all
sides by the sea, and the continent, is the most secure and capacious
in the world. The walls and gates of Constantinople may be compared
with those of Babylon: the towers many; each tower is a solid and
lofty structure; and the second wall, the outer fortification, would be
sufficient for the defence and dignity of an ordinary capital. A broad
and rapid stream may be introduced into the ditches and the artificial
island may be encompassed, like Athens, [2] by land or water." Two strong
and natural causes are alleged for the perfection of the model of new
Rome. The royal founder reigned over the most illustrious nations of the
globe; and in the accomplishment of his designs, the power of the Romans
was combined with the art and science of the Greeks. Other cities have
been reared to maturity by accident and time: their beauties are mingled
with disorder and deformity; and the inhabitants, unwilling to remove
from their natal spot, are incapable of correcting the errors of their
ancestors, and the original vices of situation or climate. But the free
idea of Constantinople was formed and executed by a single mind; and the
primitive model was improved by the obedient zeal of the subjects and
successors of the first monarch. The adjacent isles were stored with
an inexhaustible supply of marble; but the various materials were
transported from the most remote shores of Europe and Asia; and
the public and private buildings, the palaces, churches, aqueducts,
cisterns, porticos, columns, baths, and hippodromes, were adapted to
the greatness of the capital of the East. The superfluity of wealth was
spread along the shores of Europe and Asia; and the Byzantine territory,
as far as the Euxine, the Hellespont, and the long wall, might be
considered as a populous suburb and a perpetual garden. In this
flattering picture, the past and the present, the times of prosperity
and decay, are art fully confounded; but a sigh and a confession escape,
from the orator, that his wretched country was the shadow and sepulchre
of its former self. The works of ancient sculpture had been defaced
by Christian zeal or Barbaric violence; the fairest structures were
demolished; and the marbles of Paros or Numidia were burnt for lime, or
applied to the meanest uses. Of many a statue, the place was marked by
an empty pedestal; of many a column, the size was determined by a broken
capital; the tombs of the emperors were scattered on the ground; the
stroke of time was accelerated by storms and earthquakes; and the vacant
space was adorned, by vulgar tradition, with fabulous monuments of gold
and silver. From these wonders, which lived only in memory or belief, he
distinguishes, however, the porphyry pillar, the column and colossus of
Justinian, [3] and the church, more especially the dome, of St. Sophia;
the best conclusion, since it could not be described according to its
merits, and after it no other object could deserve to be mentioned. But
he forgets that, a century before, the trembling fabrics of the colossus
and the church had been saved and supported by the timely care of
Andronicus the Elder. Thirty years after the emperor had fortified
St. Sophia with two new buttresses or pyramids, the eastern hemisphere
suddenly gave way: and the images, the altars, and the sanctuary, were
crushed by the falling ruin. The mischief indeed was speedily repaired;
the rubbish was cleared by the incessant labor of every rank and age;
and the poor remains of riches and industry were consecrated by the
Greeks to the most stately and venerable temple of the East. [4]

[Footnote 1: The epistle of Emanuel Chrysoloras to the emperor John
Palaeologus will not offend the eye or ear of a classical student, (ad
calcem Codini de Antiquitatibus C. P. p. 107--126.) The superscription
suggests a chronological remark, that John Palaeologus II. was associated
in the empire before the year 1414, the date of Chrysoloras's death.
A still earlier date, at least 1408, is deduced from the age of his
youngest sons, Demetrius and Thomas, who were both _Porphyrogeniti_
(Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 244, 247.)]

[Footnote 2: Somebody observed that the city of Athens might be
circumnavigated, (tiV eipen tin polin tvn Aqhnaiwn dunasqai kai
paraplein kai periplein.) But what may be true in a rhetorical sense of
Constantinople, cannot be applied to the situation of Athens, five
miles from the sea, and not intersected or surrounded by any navigable
streams.]

[Footnote 3: Nicephorus Gregoras has described the Colossus of
Justinian, (l. vii. 12:) but his measures are false and inconsistent.
The editor Boivin consulted his friend Girardon; and the sculptor gave
him the true proportions of an equestrian statue. That of Justinian was
still visible to Peter Gyllius, not on the column, but in the outward
court of the seraglio; and he was at Constantinople when it was melted
down, and cast into a brass cannon, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 17.)]

[Footnote 4: See the decay and repairs of St. Sophia, in Nicephorus
Gregoras (l. vii. 12, l. xv. 2.) The building was propped by Andronicus
in 1317, the eastern hemisphere fell in 1345. The Greeks, in their
pompous rhetoric, exalt the beauty and holiness of the church, an
earthly heaven the abode of angels, and of God himself, &c.]

The last hope of the falling city and empire was placed in the harmony
of the mother and daughter, in the maternal tenderness of Rome, and the
filial obedience of Constantinople. In the synod of Florence, the Greeks
and Latins had embraced, and subscribed, and promised; but these signs
of friendship were perfidious or fruitless; [5] and the baseless fabric
of the union vanished like a dream. [6] The emperor and his prelates
returned home in the Venetian galleys; but as they touched at the Morea
and the Isles of Corfu and Lesbos, the subjects of the Latins complained
that the pretended union would be an instrument of oppression. No sooner
did they land on the Byzantine shore, than they were saluted, or rather
assailed, with a general murmur of zeal and discontent. During their
absence, above two years, the capital had been deprived of its civil and
ecclesiastical rulers; fanaticism fermented in anarchy; the most furious
monks reigned over the conscience of women and bigots; and the hatred
of the Latin name was the first principle of nature and religion. Before
his departure for Italy, the emperor had flattered the city with the
assurance of a prompt relief and a powerful succor; and the clergy,
confident in their orthodoxy and science, had promised themselves and
their flocks an easy victory over the blind shepherds of the West. The
double disappointment exasperated the Greeks; the conscience of the
subscribing prelates was awakened; the hour of temptation was past; and
they had more to dread from the public resentment, than they could hope
from the favor of the emperor or the pope. Instead of justifying their
conduct, they deplored their weakness, professed their contrition,
and cast themselves on the mercy of God and of their brethren. To
the reproachful question, what had been the event or the use of their
Italian synod? they answered with sighs and tears, "Alas! we have made
a new faith; we have exchanged piety for impiety; we have betrayed the
immaculate sacrifice; and we are become _Azymites_." (The Azymites were
those who celebrated the communion with unleavened bread; and I must
retract or qualify the praise which I have bestowed on the growing
philosophy of the times.) "Alas! we have been seduced by distress, by
fraud, and by the hopes and fears of a transitory life. The hand
that has signed the union should be cut off; and the tongue that has
pronounced the Latin creed deserves to be torn from the root." The best
proof of their repentance was an increase of zeal for the most
trivial rites and the most incomprehensible doctrines; and an absolute
separation from all, without excepting their prince, who preserved some
regard for honor and consistency. After the decease of the patriarch
Joseph, the archbishops of Heraclea and Trebizond had courage to
refuse the vacant office; and Cardinal Bessarion preferred the warm and
comfortable shelter of the Vatican. The choice of the emperor and his
clergy was confined to Metrophanes of Cyzicus: he was consecrated in
St. Sophia, but the temple was vacant. The cross-bearers abdicated
their service; the infection spread from the city to the villages; and
Metrophanes discharged, without effect, some ecclesiastical thunders
against a nation of schismatics. The eyes of the Greeks were directed to
Mark of Ephesus, the champion of his country; and the sufferings of the
holy confessor were repaid with a tribute of admiration and applause.
His example and writings propagated the flame of religious discord; age
and infirmity soon removed him from the world; but the gospel of Mark
was not a law of forgiveness; and he requested with his dying breath,
that none of the adherents of Rome might attend his obsequies or pray
for his soul.

[Footnote 5: The genuine and original narrative of Syropulus (p.
312--351) opens the schism from the first _office_ of the Greeks at
Venice to the general opposition at Constantinople, of the clergy and
people.]

[Footnote 6: On the schism of Constantinople, see Phranza, (l. ii. c.
17,) Laonicus Chalcondyles, (l. vi. p. 155, 156,) and Ducas, (c. 31;)
the last of whom writes with truth and freedom. Among the moderns we
may distinguish the continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii. p. 338, &c., 401,
420, &c.,) and Spondanus, (A.D. 1440--50.) The sense of the latter
is drowned in prejudice and passion, as soon as Rome and religion are
concerned.]

The schism was not confined to the narrow limits of the Byzantine
empire. Secure under the Mamaluke sceptre, the three patriarchs of
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, assembled a numerous synod; disowned
their representatives at Ferrara and Florence; condemned the creed and
council of the Latins; and threatened the emperor of Constantinople
with the censures of the Eastern church. Of the sectaries of the
Greek communion, the Russians were the most powerful, ignorant, and
superstitious. Their primate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from
Florence to Moscow, [7] to reduce the independent nation under the Roman
yoke. But the Russian bishops had been educated at Mount Athos; and
the prince and people embraced the theology of their priests. They were
scandalized by the title, the pomp, the Latin cross of the legate, the
friend of those impious men who shaved their beards, and performed the
divine office with gloves on their hands and rings on their fingers:
Isidore was condemned by a synod; his person was imprisoned in a
monastery; and it was with extreme difficulty that the cardinal could
escape from the hands of a fierce and fanatic people. [8] The Russians
refused a passage to the missionaries of Rome who aspired to convert
the Pagans beyond the Tanais; [9] and their refusal was justified by the
maxim, that the guilt of idolatry is less damnable than that of schism.
The errors of the Bohemians were excused by their abhorrence for the
pope; and a deputation of the Greek clergy solicited the friendship of
those sanguinary enthusiasts. [10] While Eugenius triumphed in the union
and orthodoxy of the Greeks, his party was contracted to the walls, or
rather to the palace of Constantinople. The zeal of Palaeologus had been
excited by interest; it was soon cooled by opposition: an attempt to
violate the national belief might endanger his life and crown; not could
the pious rebels be destitute of foreign and domestic aid. The sword of
his brother Demetrius, who in Italy had maintained a prudent and popular
silence, was half unsheathed in the cause of religion; and Amurath, the
Turkish sultan, was displeased and alarmed by the seeming friendship of
the Greeks and Latins.

[Footnote 7: Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow, but the Greeks subject
to Poland have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to Lemberg, or
Leopold, (Herbestein, in Ramusio, tom. ii. p. 127.) On the other hand,
the Russians transferred their spiritual obedience to the archbishop,
who became, in 1588, the patriarch, of Moscow, (Levesque Hist. de
Russie, tom. iii. p. 188, 190, from a Greek MS. at Turin, Iter et
labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii.)]

[Footnote 8: The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom.
ii. p. 242--247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives. The scenes
of Ferrara and Florence are described by ignorance and passion; but the
Russians are credible in the account of their own prejudices.]

[Footnote 9: The Shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanaeans and
Gymnosophists, has been driven by the more popular Bramins from India
into the northern deserts: the naked philosophers were compelled to wrap
themselves in fur; but they insensibly sunk into wizards and physicians.
The Mordvans and Tcheremisses in the European Russia adhere to this
religion, which is formed on the earthly model of one king or God,
his ministers or angels, and the rebellious spirits who oppose his
government. As these tribes of the Volga have no images, they might
more justly retort on the Latin missionaries the name of idolaters,
(Levesque, Hist. des Peuples soumis a la Domination des Russes, tom. i.
p. 194--237, 423--460.)]

[Footnote 10: Spondanus, Annal. Eccles. tom ii. A.D. 1451, No. 13. The
epistle of the Greeks with a Latin version, is extant in the college
library at Prague.]

"Sultan Murad, or Amurath, lived forty-nine, and reigned thirty years,
six months, and eight days. He was a just and valiant prince, of a great
soul, patient of labors, learned, merciful, religious, charitable; a
lover and encourager of the studious, and of all who excelled in any art
or science; a good emperor and a great general. No man obtained more or
greater victories than Amurath; Belgrade alone withstood his attacks. [101]
Under his reign, the soldier was ever victorious, the citizen rich and
secure. If he subdued any country, his first care was to build mosques
and caravansaras, hospitals, and colleges. Every year he gave a thousand
pieces of gold to the sons of the Prophet; and sent two thousand five
hundred to the religious persons of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem." [11]
This portrait is transcribed from the historian of the Othman empire:
but the applause of a servile and superstitious people has been lavished
on the worst of tyrants; and the virtues of a sultan are often the vices
most useful to himself, or most agreeable to his subjects. A nation
ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the
flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the
character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy,
of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be rejected, few acts of
obedience will be found impossible; and guilt must tremble, where
innocence cannot always be secure. The tranquillity of the people, and
the discipline of the troops, were best maintained by perpetual action
in the field; war was the trade of the Janizaries; and those who
survived the peril, and divided the spoil, applauded the generous
ambition of their sovereign. To propagate the true religion, was the
duty of a faithful Mussulman: the unbelievers were _his_ enemies, and
those of the Prophet; and, in the hands of the Turks, the cimeter was
the only instrument of conversion. Under these circumstances, however,
the justice and moderation of Amurath are attested by his conduct, and
acknowledged by the Christians themselves; who consider a prosperous
reign and a peaceful death as the reward of his singular merits. In the
vigor of his age and military power, he seldom engaged in war till he
was justified by a previous and adequate provocation: the victorious
sultan was disarmed by submission; and in the observance of treaties,
his word was inviolate and sacred. [12] The Hungarians were commonly
the aggressors; he was provoked by the revolt of Scanderbeg; and the
perfidious Caramanian was twice vanquished, and twice pardoned, by the
Ottoman monarch. Before he invaded the Morea, Thebes had been surprised
by the despot: in the conquest of Thessalonica, the grandson of Bajazet
might dispute the recent purchase of the Venetians; and after the first
siege of Constantinople, the sultan was never tempted, by the distress,
the absence, or the injuries of Palaeologus, to extinguish the dying
light of the Byzantine empire.

[Footnote 101: See the siege and massacre at Thessalonica. Von Hammer vol.
i p. 433.--M.]

[Footnote 11: See Cantemir, History of the Othman Empire, p. 94. Murad,
or Morad, may be more correct: but I have preferred the popular name
to that obscure diligence which is rarely successful in translating an
Oriental, into the Roman, alphabet.]

[Footnote 12: See Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 186, 198,) Ducas, (c. 33,)
and Marinus Barletius, (in Vit. Scanderbeg, p. 145, 146.) In his good
faith towards the garrison of Sfetigrade, he was a lesson and example to
his son Mahomet.]

But the most striking feature in the life and character of Amurath is
the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were not his
motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must praise the royal
philosopher, [13] who at the age of forty could discern the vanity of
human greatness. Resigning the sceptre to his son, he retired to the
pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he retired to the society of saints
and hermits. It was not till the fourth century of the Hegira, that the
religion of Mahomet had been corrupted by an institution so adverse
to his genius; but in the age of the crusades, the various orders of
Dervises were multiplied by the example of the Christian, and even the
Latin, monks. [14] The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and
turn round [141] in endless rotation with the fanatics, who mistook the
giddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. [15] But he was
soon awakened from his dreams of enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion;
and his obedient son was the foremost to urge the public danger and
the wishes of the people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, the
Janizaries fought and conquered but he withdrew from the field of Varna,
again to pray, to fast, and to turn round with his Magnesian brethren.
These pious occupations were again interrupted by the danger of the
state. A victorious army disdained the inexperience of their youthful
ruler: the city of Adrianople was abandoned to rapine and slaughter;
and the unanimous divan implored his presence to appease the tumult,
and prevent the rebellion, of the Janizaries. At the well-known voice
of their master, they trembled and obeyed; and the reluctant sultan was
compelled to support his splendid servitude, till at the end of four
years, he was relieved by the angel of death. Age or disease, misfortune
or caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne; and
they have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step. But Amurath
alone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial of empire and
solitude, has _repeated_ his preference of a private life.

[Footnote 13: Voltaire (Essai sur l'Histoire Generale, c. 89, p. 283,
284) admires _le Philosophe Turc:_ would he have bestowed the same
praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a monastery? In his way,
Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant bigot.]

[Footnote 14: See the articles _Dervische_, _Fakir_, _Nasser_,
_Rohbaniat_, in D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale. Yet the subject is
superficially treated from the Persian and Arabian writers. It is among
the Turks that these orders have principally flourished.]

[Footnote 141: Gibbon has fallen into a remarkable error. The unmonastic
retreat of Amurath was that of an epicurean rather than of a dervis;
more like that of Sardanapalus than of Charles the Fifth. Profane, not
divine, love was its chief occupation: the only dance, that described by
Horace as belonging to the country, motus doceri gaudet Ionicos. See Von
Hammer note, p. 652.--M.]

[Footnote 15: Ricaut (in the Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p.
242--268) affords much information, which he drew from his personal
conversation with the heads of the dervises, most of whom ascribed
their origin to the time of Orchan. He does not mention the _Zichid_ of
Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 286,) among whom Amurath retired: the _Seids_
of that author are the descendants of Mahomet.]

After the departure of his Greek brethren, Eugenius had not been
unmindful of their temporal interest; and his tender regard for the
Byzantine empire was animated by a just apprehension of the Turks, who
approached, and might soon invade, the borders of Italy. But the spirit
of the crusades had expired; and the coldness of the Franks was not less
unreasonable than their headlong passion. In the eleventh century, a
fanatic monk could precipitate Europe on Asia for the recovery of the
holy sepulchre; but in the fifteenth, the most pressing motives of
religion and policy were insufficient to unite the Latins in the defence
of Christendom. Germany was an inexhaustible storehouse of men and arms:
[16] but that complex and languid body required the impulse of a
vigorous hand; and Frederic the Third was alike impotent in his
personal character and his Imperial dignity. A long war had impaired the
strength, without satiating the animosity, of France and England: [17]
but Philip duke of Burgundy was a vain and magnificent prince; and
he enjoyed, without danger or expense, the adventurous piety of his
subjects, who sailed, in a gallant fleet, from the coast of Flanders
to the Hellespont. The maritime republics of Venice and Genoa were
less remote from the scene of action; and their hostile fleets were
associated under the standard of St. Peter. The kingdoms of Hungary and
Poland, which covered as it were the interior pale of the Latin church,
were the most nearly concerned to oppose the progress of the Turks. Arms
were the patrimony of the Scythians and Sarmatians; and these nations
might appear equal to the contest, could they point, against the common
foe, those swords that were so wantonly drawn in bloody and domestic
quarrels. But the same spirit was adverse to concord and obedience:
a poor country and a limited monarch are incapable of maintaining a
standing force; and the loose bodies of Polish and Hungarian horse were
not armed with the sentiments and weapons which, on some occasions, have
given irresistible weight to the French chivalry. Yet, on this side, the
designs of the Roman pontiff, and the eloquence of Cardinal Julian,
his legate, were promoted by the circumstances of the times: [18] by
the union of the two crowns on the head of Ladislaus, [19] a young and
ambitious soldier; by the valor of a hero, whose name, the name of John
Huniades, was already popular among the Christians, and formidable to
the Turks. An endless treasure of pardons and indulgences was scattered
by the legate; many private warriors of France and Germany enlisted
under the holy banner; and the crusade derived some strength, or at
least some reputation, from the new allies both of Europe and Asia.
A fugitive despot of Servia exaggerated the distress and ardor of the
Christians beyond the Danube, who would unanimously rise to vindicate
their religion and liberty. The Greek emperor, [20] with a spirit unknown
to his fathers, engaged to guard the Bosphorus, and to sally from
Constantinople at the head of his national and mercenary troops. The
sultan of Caramania [21] announced the retreat of Amurath, and a powerful
diversion in the heart of Anatolia; and if the fleets of the West could
occupy at the same moment the Straits of the Hellespont, the Ottoman
monarchy would be dissevered and destroyed. Heaven and earth must
rejoice in the perdition of the miscreants; and the legate, with prudent
ambiguity, instilled the opinion of the invisible, perhaps the visible,
aid of the Son of God, and his divine mother.

[Footnote 16: In the year 1431, Germany raised 40,000 horse,
men-at-arms, against the Hussites of Bohemia, (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile
de Basle, tom. i. p. 318.) At the siege of Nuys, on the Rhine, in 1474,
the princes, prelates, and cities, sent their respective quotas; and the
bishop of Munster (qui n'est pas des plus grands) furnished 1400 horse,
6000 foot, all in green, with 1200 wagons. The united armies of the king
of England and the duke of Burgundy scarcely equalled one third of this
German host, (Memoires de Philippe de Comines, l. iv. c. 2.) At present,
six or seven hundred thousand men are maintained in constant pay and
admirable discipline by the powers of Germany.]

[Footnote 17: It was not till the year 1444, that France and England
could agree on a truce of some months. (See Rymer's Fdera, and the
chronicles of both nations.)]

[Footnote 18: In the Hungarian crusade, Spondanus (Annal. Eccles. A.D.
1443, 1444) has been my leading guide. He has diligently read, and
critically compared, the Greek and Turkish materials, the historians of
Hungary, Poland, and the West. His narrative is perspicuous and where
he can be free from a religious bias, the judgment of Spondanus is not
contemptible.]

[Footnote 19: I have curtailed the harsh letter (Wladislaus) which
most writers affix to his name, either in compliance with the Polish
pronunciation, or to distinguish him from his rival the infant Ladislaus
of Austria. Their competition for the crown of Hungary is described by
Callimachus, (l. i. ii. p. 447--486,) Bonfinius, (Decad. iii. l. iv.,)
Spondanus, and Lenfant.]

[Footnote 20: The Greek historians, Phranza, Chalcondyles, and Ducas, do
not ascribe to their prince a very active part in this crusade, which he
seems to have promoted by his wishes, and injured by his fears.]

[Footnote 21: Cantemir (p. 88) ascribes to his policy the original plan,
and transcribes his animating epistle to the king of Hungary. But the
Mahometan powers are seldom it formed of the state of Christendom and
the situation and correspondence of the knights of Rhodes must connect
them with the sultan of Caramania.]

Of the Polish and Hungarian diets, a religious war was the unanimous
cry; and Ladislaus, after passing the Danube, led an army of his
confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgarian
kingdom. In this expedition they obtained two signal victories, which
were justly ascribed to the valor and conduct of Huniades. In the first,
with a vanguard of ten thousand men, he surprised the Turkish camp; in
the second, he vanquished and made prisoner the most renowned of their
generals, who possessed the double advantage of ground and numbers. The
approach of winter, and the natural and artificial obstacles of Mount
Haemus, arrested the progress of the hero, who measured a narrow interval
of six days' march from the foot of the mountains to the hostile towers
of Adrianople, and the friendly capital of the Greek empire. The retreat
was undisturbed; and the entrance into Buda was at once a military and
religious triumph. An ecclesiastical procession was followed by the king
and his warriors on foot: he nicely balanced the merits and rewards of
the two nations; and the pride of conquest was blended with the humble
temper of Christianity. Thirteen bashaws, nine standards, and four
thousand captives, were unquestionable trophies; and as all were
willing to believe, and none were present to contradict, the crusaders
multiplied, with unblushing confidence, the myriads of Turks whom they
had left on the field of battle. [22] The most solid proof, and the most
salutary consequence, of victory, was a deputation from the divan
to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to ransom the prisoners, and to
evacuate the Hungarian frontier. By this treaty, the rational objects
of the war were obtained: the king, the despot, and Huniades himself, in
the diet of Segedin, were satisfied with public and private emolument;
a truce of ten years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and
Mahomet, who swore on the Gospel and the Koran, attested the word of God
as the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy. In the place of the
Gospel, the Turkish ministers had proposed to substitute the Eucharist,
the real presence of the Catholic deity; but the Christians refused to
profane their holy mysteries; and a superstitious conscience is less
forcibly bound by the spiritual energy, than by the outward and visible
symbols of an oath. [23]

[Footnote 22: In their letters to the emperor Frederic III. the
Hungarians slay 80,000 Turks in one battle; but the modest Julian
reduces the slaughter to 6000 or even 2000 infidels, (AEneas Sylvius in
Europ. c. 5, and epist. 44, 81, apud Spondanum.)]

[Footnote 23: See the origin of the Turkish war, and the first
expedition of Ladislaus, in the vth and vith books of the iiid decad of
Bonfinius, who, in his division and style, copies Livy with tolerable
success Callimachus (l. ii p. 487--496) is still more pure and
authentic.]

During the whole transaction, the cardinal legate had observed a sullen
silence, unwilling to approve, and unable to oppose, the consent of
the king and people. But the diet was not dissolved before Julian was
fortified by the welcome intelligence, that Anatolia was invaded by the
Caramanian, and Thrace by the Greek emperor; that the fleets of Genoa,
Venice, and Burgundy, were masters of the Hellespont; and that the
allies, informed of the victory, and ignorant of the treaty, of
Ladislaus, impatiently waited for the return of his victorious army.
"And is it thus," exclaimed the cardinal, [24] "that you will desert
their expectations and your own fortune? It is to them, to your God, and
your fellow-Christians, that you have pledged your faith; and that prior
obligation annihilates a rash and sacrilegious oath to the enemies of
Christ. His vicar on earth is the Roman pontiff; without whose sanction
you can neither promise nor perform. In his name I absolve your perjury
and sanctify your arms: follow my footsteps in the paths of glory
and salvation; and if still ye have scruples, devolve on my head the
punishment and the sin." This mischievous casuistry was seconded by his
respectable character, and the levity of popular assemblies: war was
resolved, on the same spot where peace had so lately been sworn; and, in
the execution of the treaty, the Turks were assaulted by the Christians;
to whom, with some reason, they might apply the epithet of Infidels.
The falsehood of Ladislaus to his word and oath was palliated by the
religion of the times: the most perfect, or at least the most popular,
excuse would have been the success of his arms and the deliverance of
the Eastern church. But the same treaty which should have bound his
conscience had diminished his strength. On the proclamation of the
peace, the French and German volunteers departed with indignant murmurs:
the Poles were exhausted by distant warfare, and perhaps disgusted with
foreign command; and their palatines accepted the first license, and
hastily retired to their provinces and castles. Even Hungary was divided
by faction, or restrained by a laudable scruple; and the relics of
the crusade that marched in the second expedition were reduced to an
inadequate force of twenty thousand men. A Walachian chief, who joined
the royal standard with his vassals, presumed to remark that their
numbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that sometimes attended the
sultan; and the gift of two horses of matchless speed might admonish
Ladislaus of his secret foresight of the event. But the despot of
Servia, after the restoration of his country and children, was tempted
by the promise of new realms; and the inexperience of the king, the
enthusiasm of the legate, and the martial presumption of Huniades
himself, were persuaded that every obstacle must yield to the invincible
virtue of the sword and the cross. After the passage of the Danube, two
roads might lead to Constantinople and the Hellespont: the one direct,
abrupt, and difficult through the mountains of Haemus; the other more
tedious and secure, over a level country, and along the shores of the
Euxine; in which their flanks, according to the Scythian discipline,
might always be covered by a movable fortification of wagons. The latter
was judiciously preferred: the Catholics marched through the plains of
Bulgaria, burning, with wanton cruelty, the churches and villages of
the Christian natives; and their last station was at Warna, near the
sea-shore; on which the defeat and death of Ladislaus have bestowed a
memorable name. [25]

[Footnote 24: I do not pretend to warrant the literal accuracy of
Julian's speech, which is variously worded by Callimachus, (l. iii.
p. 505--507,) Bonfinius, (dec. iii. l. vi. p. 457, 458,) and other
historians, who might indulge their own eloquence, while they represent
one of the orators of the age. But they all agree in the advice and
arguments for perjury, which in the field of controversy are fiercely
attacked by the Protestants, and feebly defended by the Catholics. The
latter are discouraged by the misfortune of Warna.]

[Footnote 25: Warna, under the Grecian name of Odessus, was a colony of
the Milesians, which they denominated from the hero Ulysses, (Cellarius,
tom. i. p. 374. D'Anville, tom. i. p. 312.) According to Arrian's
Periplus of the Euxine, (p. 24, 25, in the first volume of Hudson's
Geographers,) it was situate 1740 stadia, or furlongs, from the mouth
of the Danube, 2140 from Byzantium, and 360 to the north of a ridge of
promontory of Mount Haemus, which advances into the sea.]




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

It was on this fatal spot, that, instead of finding a confederate fleet
to second their operations, they were alarmed by the approach of Amurath
himself, who had issued from his Magnesian solitude, and transported the
forces of Asia to the defence of Europe. According to some writers, the
Greek emperor had been awed, or seduced, to grant the passage of the
Bosphorus; and an indelible stain of corruption is fixed on the Genoese,
or the pope's nephew, the Catholic admiral, whose mercenary connivance
betrayed the guard of the Hellespont. From Adrianople, the sultan
advanced by hasty marches, at the head of sixty thousand men; and when
the cardinal, and Huniades, had taken a nearer survey of the numbers
and order of the Turks, these ardent warriors proposed the tardy and
impracticable measure of a retreat. The king alone was resolved to
conquer or die; and his resolution had almost been crowned with a
glorious and salutary victory. The princes were opposite to each other
in the centre; and the Beglerbegs, or generals of Anatolia and Romania,
commanded on the right and left, against the adverse divisions of the
despot and Huniades. The Turkish wings were broken on the first onset:
but the advantage was fatal; and the rash victors, in the heat of the
pursuit, were carried away far from the annoyance of the enemy, or
the support of their friends. When Amurath beheld the flight of his
squadrons, he despaired of his fortune and that of the empire: a veteran
Janizary seized his horse's bridle; and he had magnanimity to pardon
and reward the soldier who dared to perceive the terror, and arrest
the flight, of his sovereign. A copy of the treaty, the monument of
Christian perfidy, had been displayed in the front of battle; and it is
said, that the sultan in his distress, lifting his eyes and his hands to
heaven, implored the protection of the God of truth; and called on the
prophet Jesus himself to avenge the impious mockery of his name and
religion. [26] With inferior numbers and disordered ranks, the king of
Hungary rushed forward in the confidence of victory, till his career was
stopped by the impenetrable phalanx of the Janizaries. If we may credit
the Ottoman annals, his horse was pierced by the javelin of Amurath;
[27] he fell among the spears of the infantry; and a Turkish soldier
proclaimed with a loud voice, "Hungarians, behold the head of your
king!" The death of Ladislaus was the signal of their defeat. On his
return from an intemperate pursuit, Huniades deplored his error, and the
public loss; he strove to rescue the royal body, till he was overwhelmed
by the tumultuous crowd of the victors and vanquished; and the last
efforts of his courage and conduct were exerted to save the remnant
of his Walachian cavalry. Ten thousand Christians were slain in the
disastrous battle of Warna: the loss of the Turks, more considerable
in numbers, bore a smaller proportion to their total strength; yet the
philosophic sultan was not ashamed to confess, that his ruin must be the
consequence of a second and similar victory. [271] At his command a column
was erected on the spot where Ladislaus had fallen; but the modest
inscription, instead of accusing the rashness, recorded the valor, and
bewailed the misfortune, of the Hungarian youth. [28]

[Footnote 26: Some Christian writers affirm, that he drew from his bosom
the host or wafer on which the treaty had _not_ been sworn. The Moslems
suppose, with more simplicity, an appeal to God and his prophet Jesus,
which is likewise insinuated by Callimachus, (l. iii. p. 516. Spondan.
A.D. 1444, No. 8.)]

[Footnote 27: A critic will always distrust these _spolia opima_ of
a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so easy for
flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.) Callimachus (l. iii. p. 517)
more simply and probably affirms, supervenitibus Janizaris, telorum
multitudine, non jam confossus est, quam obrutus.]

[Footnote 271: Compare Von Hammer, p. 463.--M.]

[Footnote 28: Besides some valuable hints from AEneas Sylvius, which
are diligently collected by Spondanus, our best authorities are three
historians of the xvth century, Philippus Callimachus, (de Rebus a
Vladislao Polonorum atque Hungarorum Rege gestis, libri iii. in Bel.
Script. Rerum Hungaricarum, tom. i. p. 433--518,) Bonfinius, (decad.
iii. l. v. p. 460--467,) and Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 165--179.) The
two first were Italians, but they passed their lives in Poland and
Hungary, (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Med. et Infimae AEtatis, tom. i. p.
324. Vossius, de Hist. Latin. l. iii. c. 8, 11. Bayle, Dictionnaire,
Bonfinius.) A small tract of Faelix Petancius, chancellor of Segnia, (ad
calcem Cuspinian. de Caesaribus, p. 716--722,) represents the theatre of
the war in the xvth century.]

Before I lose sight of the field of Warna, I am tempted to pause on the
character and story of two principal actors, the cardinal Julian and
John Huniades. Julian [29] Caesarini was born of a noble family of Rome:
his studies had embraced both the Latin and Greek learning, both the
sciences of divinity and law; and his versatile genius was equally
adapted to the schools, the camp, and the court. No sooner had he been
invested with the Roman purple, than he was sent into Germany to arm
the empire against the rebels and heretics of Bohemia. The spirit of
persecution is unworthy of a Christian; the military profession ill
becomes a priest; but the former is excused by the times; and the latter
was ennobled by the courage of Julian, who stood dauntless and alone
in the disgraceful flight of the German host. As the pope's legate, he
opened the council of Basil; but the president soon appeared the most
strenuous champion of ecclesiastical freedom; and an opposition of
seven years was conducted by his ability and zeal. After promoting the
strongest measures against the authority and person of Eugenius, some
secret motive of interest or conscience engaged him to desert on a
sudden the popular party. The cardinal withdrew himself from Basil to
Ferrara; and, in the debates of the Greeks and Latins, the two nations
admired the dexterity of his arguments and the depth of his theological
erudition. [30] In his Hungarian embassy, we have already seen the
mischievous effects of his sophistry and eloquence, of which Julian
himself was the first victim. The cardinal, who performed the duties
of a priest and a soldier, was lost in the defeat of Warna. The
circumstances of his death are variously related; but it is believed,
that a weighty encumbrance of gold impeded his flight, and tempted the
cruel avarice of some Christian fugitives.

[Footnote 29: M. Lenfant has described the origin (Hist. du Concile
de Basle, tom. i. p. 247, &c.) and Bohemian campaign (p. 315, &c.) of
Cardinal Julian. His services at Basil and Ferrara, and his unfortunate
end, are occasionally related by Spondanus, and the continuator of
Fleury.]

[Footnote 30: Syropulus honorably praises the talent of an enemy, (p.
117:) toiauta tina eipen o IoulianoV peplatusmenwV agan kai logikwV, kai
met episthmhV kai deinothtoV 'RhtprikhV.]

From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit of John
Huniades promoted him to the command of the Hungarian armies. His father
was a Walachian, his mother a Greek: her unknown race might possibly
ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the claims of the
Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the place of his
nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with the
patricians of ancient Rome. [31] In his youth he served in the wars of
Italy, and was retained, with twelve horsemen, by the bishop of Zagrab:
the valor of the _white knight_ [32] was soon conspicuous; he increased
his fortunes by a noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of
the Hungarian borders he won in the same year three battles against
the Turks. By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of
Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and office
of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian's crusades added two
Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress the fatal errors
of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and minority of Ladislaus
of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was elected supreme captain and
governor of Hungary; and if envy at first was silenced by terror, a
reign of twelve years supposes the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet
the idea of a consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the
white knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of
desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without shame; and
his military life is composed of a romantic alternative of victories and
escapes. By the Turks, who employed his name to frighten their perverse
children, he was corruptly denominated _Jancus Lain_, or the Wicked:
their hatred is the proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded
was inaccessible to their arms; and they felt him most daring and
formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country
irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive war,
four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heart
of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova, sustained, till the third day,
the shock of the Ottoman army, four times more numerous than his own. As
he fled alone through the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by
two robbers; but while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck,
he recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and, after
new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence an afflicted
kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of his life was the
defence of Belgrade against the powers of Mahomet the Second in person.
After a siege of forty days, the Turks, who had already entered the
town, were compelled to retreat; and the joyful nations celebrated
Huniades and Belgrade as the bulwarks of Christendom. [33] About a
month after this great deliverance, the champion expired; and his most
splendid epitaph is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he
could no longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had
triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throne, Matthias
Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected and crowned by
the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous and long: Matthias
aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a saint: but his purest merit is
the encouragement of learning; and the Latin orators and historians,
who were invited from Italy by the son, have shed the lustre of their
eloquence on the father's character. [34]

[Footnote 31: See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. iv. p. 423. Could the
Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without a
blush, the absurd flattery which confounded the name of a Walachian
village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a single branch of
the Valerian family at Rome?]

[Footnote 32: Philip de Comines, (Memoires, l. vi. c. 13,) from the
tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but under the
whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne, (Valachia.) The Greek
Chalcondyles, and the Turkish annals of Leunclavius, presume to accuse
his fidelity or valor.]

[Footnote 33: See Bonfinius (decad. iii. l. viii. p. 492) and Spondanus,
(A.D. 456, No. 1--7.) Huniades shared the glory of the defence of
Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in their respective
narratives, neither the saint nor the hero condescend to take notice of
his rival's merit.]

[Footnote 34: See Bonfinius, decad. iii. l. viii.--decad. iv. l. viii.
The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of Matthias
Corvinus are curious and critical, (A.D. 1464, No. 1, 1475, No. 6, 1476,
No. 14--16, 1490, No. 4, 5.) Italian fame was the object of his vanity.
His actions are celebrated in the Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p.
322--412) of Peter Ranzanus, a Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings
are registered by Galestus Martius of Narni, (528--568,) and we have a
particular narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three
tracts are all contained in the first vol. of Bel's Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum.]

In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are commonly
associated; [35] and they are both entitled to our notice, since their
occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the Greek empire.
John Castriot, the father of Scanderbeg, [36] was the hereditary prince
of a small district of Epirus or Albania, between the mountains and
the Adriatic Sea. Unable to contend with the sultan's power, Castriot
submitted to the hard conditions of peace and tribute: he delivered
his four sons as the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths,
after receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the
Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish policy.
[37] The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd of slaves;
and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed cannot be verified
or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the suspicion is in a great
measure removed by the kind and paternal treatment of George Castriot,
the fourth brother, who, from his tender youth, displayed the strength
and spirit of a soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar and two
Persians, who carried a proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended
him to the favor of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg,
(_Iskender beg_,) or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of
his glory and servitude. His father's principality was reduced into a
province; but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of
Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of the first
dignities of the empire. He served with honor in the wars of Europe and
Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, who
supposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while he
fell with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes. The glory of Huniades
is without reproach: he fought in the defence of his religion and
country; but the enemies who applaud the patriot, have branded his rival
with the name of traitor and apostate. In the eyes of the Christian,
the rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father's wrongs, the
ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and the
slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though tardy, zeal,
with which he asserted the faith and independence of his ancestors. But
he had imbibed from his ninth year the doctrines of the Koran; he was
ignorant of the Gospel; the religion of a soldier is determined by
authority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive what new illumination at
the age of forty [38] could be poured into his soul. His motives would be
less exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken his
chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a long
oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every year of
obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the sultan and his
subject. If Scanderbeg had long harbored the belief of Christianity
and the intention of revolt, a worthy mind must condemn the base
dissimulation, that could serve only to betray, that could promise only
to be forsworn, that could actively join in the temporal and spiritual
perdition of so many thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise
a secret correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard
of the Turkish army? shall we excuse the desertion of his standard, a
treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the enemies of
his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye of Scanderbeg was
fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal secretary: with the dagger at his
breast, he extorted a firman or patent for the government of Albania;
and the murder of the guiltless scribe and his train prevented the
consequences of an immediate discovery. With some bold companions,
to whom he had revealed his design he escaped in the night, by rapid
marches, from the field or battle to his paternal mountains. The gates
of Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he command
the fortress, than George Castriot dropped the mask of dissimulation;
abjured the prophet and the sultan, and proclaimed himself the avenger
of his family and country. The names of religion and liberty provoked
a general revolt: the Albanians, a martial race, were unanimous to live
and die with their hereditary prince; and the Ottoman garrisons were
indulged in the choice of martyrdom or baptism. In the assembly of the
states of Epirus, Scanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war; and
each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion of men
and money. From these contributions, from his patrimonial estate, and
from the valuable salt-pits of Selina, he drew an annual revenue of two
hundred thousand ducats; [39] and the entire sum, exempt from the demands
of luxury, was strictly appropriated to the public use. His manners were
popular; but his discipline was severe; and every superfluous vice was
banished from his camp: his example strengthened his command; and under
his conduct, the Albanians were invincible in their own opinion and that
of their enemies. The bravest adventurers of France and Germany were
allured by his fame and retained in his service: his standing militia
consisted of eight thousand horse and seven thousand foot; the horses
were small, the men were active; but he viewed with a discerning eye the
difficulties and resources of the mountains; and, at the blaze of the
beacons, the whole nation was distributed in the strongest posts. With
such unequal arms Scanderbeg resisted twenty-three years the powers
of the Ottoman empire; and two conquerors, Amurath the Second, and his
greater son, were repeatedly baffled by a rebel, whom they pursued
with seeming contempt and implacable resentment. At the head of sixty
thousand horse and forty thousand Janizaries, Amurath entered Albania:
he might ravage the open country, occupy the defenceless towns, convert
the churches into mosques, circumcise the Christian youths, and punish
with death his adult and obstinate captives: but the conquests of
the sultan were confined to the petty fortress of Sfetigrade; and the
garrison, invincible to his arms, was oppressed by a paltry artifice and
a superstitious scruple. [40] Amurath retired with shame and loss from
the walls of Croya, the castle and residence of the Castriots; the
march, the siege, the retreat, were harassed by a vexatious, and almost
invisible, adversary; [41] and the disappointment might tend to imbitter,
perhaps to shorten, the last days of the sultan. [42] In the fulness
of conquest, Mahomet the Second still felt at his bosom this domestic
thorn: his lieutenants were permitted to negotiate a truce; and the
Albanian prince may justly be praised as a firm and able champion of
his national independence. The enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has
ranked him with the names of Alexander and Pyrrhus; nor would they blush
to acknowledge their intrepid countryman: but his narrow dominion, and
slender powers, must leave him at an humble distance below the heroes
of antiquity, who triumphed over the East and the Roman legions. His
splendid achievements, the bashaws whom he encountered, the armies
that he discomfited, and the three thousand Turks who were slain by
his single hand, must be weighed in the scales of suspicious criticism.
Against an illiterate enemy, and in the dark solitude of Epirus, his
partial biographers may safely indulge the latitude of romance: but
their fictions are exposed by the light of Italian history; and they
afford a strong presumption against their own truth, by a fabulous tale
of his exploits, when he passed the Adriatic with eight hundred horse to
the succor of the king of Naples. [43] Without disparagement to his fame,
they might have owned, that he was finally oppressed by the Ottoman
powers: in his extreme danger he applied to Pope Pius the Second for
a refuge in the ecclesiastical state; and his resources were almost
exhausted, since Scanderbeg died a fugitive at Lissus, on the
Venetian territory. [44] His sepulchre was soon violated by the Turkish
conquerors; but the Janizaries, who wore his bones enchased in a
bracelet, declared by this superstitious amulet their involuntary
reverence for his valor. The instant ruin of his country may redound to
the hero's glory; yet, had he balanced the consequences of submission
and resistance, a patriot perhaps would have declined the unequal
contest which must depend on the life and genius of one man. Scanderbeg
might indeed be supported by the rational, though fallacious, hope, that
the pope, the king of Naples, and the Venetian republic, would join in
the defence of a free and Christian people, who guarded the sea-coast
of the Adriatic, and the narrow passage from Greece to Italy. His
infant son was saved from the national shipwreck; the Castriots [45] were
invested with a Neapolitan dukedom, and their blood continues to flow
in the noblest families of the realm. A colony of Albanian fugitives
obtained a settlement in Calabria, and they preserve at this day the
language and manners of their ancestors. [46]

[Footnote 35: They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his pleasing
Essay on Heroic Virtue, (Works, vol. iii. p. 385,) among the seven
chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal crown; Belisarius,
Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first prince of Orange, Alexander
duke of Parma, John Huniades, and George Castriot, or Scanderbeg.]

[Footnote 36: I could wish for some simple authentic memoirs of a friend
of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the time, and the
place. In the old and national history of Marinus Barletius, a priest of
Scodra, (de Vita. Moribus, et Rebus gestis Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri
xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in fol.,) his gaudy and cumbersome robes
are stuck with many false jewels. See likewise Chalcondyles, l vii. p.
185, l. viii. p. 229.]

[Footnote 37: His circumcision, education, &c., are marked by Marinus
with brevity and reluctance, (l. i. p. 6, 7.)]

[Footnote 38: Since Scanderbeg died A.D. 1466, in the lxiiid year of his
age, (Marinus, l. xiii. p. 370,) he was born in 1403; since he was torn
from his parents by the Turks, when he was _novennis_, (Marinus, l. i.
p. 1, 6,) that event must have happened in 1412, nine years before the
accession of Amurath II., who must have inherited, not acquired the
Albanian slave. Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A.D. 1431,
No. 31, 1443, No. 14.]

[Footnote 39: His revenue and forces are luckily given by Marinus, (l.
ii. p. 44.)]

[Footnote 40: There were two Dibras, the upper and lower, the Bulgarian
and Albanian: the former, 70 miles from Croya, (l. i. p. 17,) was
contiguous to the fortress of Sfetigrade, whose inhabitants refused to
drink from a well into which a dead dog had traitorously been cast, (l.
v. p. 139, 140.) We want a good map of Epirus.]

[Footnote 41: Compare the Turkish narrative of Cantemir (p. 92) with the
pompous and prolix declamation in the ivth, vth, and vith books of
the Albanian priest, who has been copied by the tribe of strangers and
moderns.]

[Footnote 42: In honor of his hero, Barletius (l. vi. p. 188--192)
kills the sultan by disease indeed, under the walls of Croya. But this
audacious fiction is disproved by the Greeks and Turks, who agree in the
time and manner of Amurath's death at Adrianople.]

[Footnote 43: See the marvels of his Calabrian expedition in the ixth
and xth books of Marinus Barletius, which may be rectified by the
testimony or silence of Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. xiii. p. 291,)
and his original authors, (Joh. Simonetta de Rebus Francisci Sfortiae, in
Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. xxi. p. 728, et alios.) The Albanian
cavalry, under the name of _Stradiots_, soon became famous in the wars
of Italy, (Memoires de Comines, l. viii. c. 5.)]

[Footnote 44: Spondanus, from the best evidence, and the most rational
criticism, has reduced the giant Scanderbeg to the human size, (A.D.
1461, No. 20, 1463, No. 9, 1465, No. 12, 13, 1467, No. 1.) His own
letter to the pope, and the testimony of Phranza, (l. iii. c. 28,) a
refugee in the neighboring isle of Corfu, demonstrate his last distress,
which is awkwardly concealed by Marinus Barletius, (l. x.)]

[Footnote 45: See the family of the Castriots, in Ducange, (Fam.
Dalmaticae, &c, xviii. p. 348--350.)]

[Footnote 46: This colony of Albanese is mentioned by Mr. Swinburne,
(Travels into the Two Sicilies, vol. i. p. 350--354.)]

In the long career of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I have
reached at length the last reign of the princes of Constantinople, who
so feebly sustained the name and majesty of the Caesars. On the decease
of John Palaeologus, who survived about four years the Hungarian crusade,
[47] the royal family, by the death of Andronicus and the monastic
profession of Isidore, was reduced to three princes, Constantine,
Demetrius, and Thomas, the surviving sons of the emperor Manuel.
Of these the first and the last were far distant in the Morea; but
Demetrius, who possessed the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs,
at the head of a party: his ambition was not chilled by the public
distress; and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics had
already disturbed the peace of his country. The funeral of the late
emperor was accelerated with singular and even suspicious haste: the
claim of Demetrius to the vacant throne was justified by a trite and
flimsy sophism, that he was born in the purple, the eldest son of his
father's reign. But the empress-mother, the senate and soldiers, the
clergy and people, were unanimous in the cause of the lawful successor:
and the despot Thomas, who, ignorant of the change, accidentally
returned to the capital, asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his
absent brother. An ambassador, the historian Phranza, was immediately
despatched to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor
and dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the
Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching downfall
of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious deputies, the
Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of Constantine. In the
spring he sailed from the Morea, escaped the encounter of a Turkish
squadron, enjoyed the acclamations of his subjects, celebrated the
festival of a new reign, and exhausted by his donatives the treasure, or
rather the indigence, of the state. The emperor immediately resigned to
his brothers the possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of
the two princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother's
presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next
occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of
Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the distance
between an hereditary monarch and an elective magistrate; and in
their subsequent distress, the chief of that powerful republic was not
unmindful of the affront. Constantine afterwards hesitated between the
royal families of Trebizond and Georgia; and the embassy of Phranza
represents in his public and private life the last days of the Byzantine
empire. [48]

[Footnote 47: The Chronology of Phranza is clear and authentic; but
instead of four years and seven months, Spondanus (A.D. 1445, No. 7,)
assigns seven or eight years to the reign of the last Constantine
which he deduces from a spurious epistle of Eugenius IV. to the king of
AEthiopia.]

[Footnote 48: Phranza (l. iii. c. 1--6) deserves credit and esteem.]

The _protovestiare_, or great chamberlain, Phranza sailed from
Constantinople as the minister of a bridegroom; and the relics of wealth
and luxury were applied to his pompous appearance. His numerous retinue
consisted of nobles and guards, of physicians and monks: he was attended
by a band of music; and the term of his costly embassy was protracted
above two years. On his arrival in Georgia or Iberia, the natives from
the towns and villages flocked around the strangers; and such was
their simplicity, that they were delighted with the effects, without
understanding the cause, of musical harmony. Among the crowd was an old
man, above a hundred years of age, who had formerly been carried away a
captive by the Barbarians, [49] and who amused his hearers with a tale of
the wonders of India, [50] from whence he had returned to Portugal by
an unknown sea. [51] From this hospitable land, Phranza proceeded to the
court of Trebizond, where he was informed by the Greek prince of the
recent decease of Amurath. Instead of rejoicing in the deliverance,
the experienced statesman expressed his apprehension, that an ambitious
youth would not long adhere to the sage and pacific system of his
father. After the sultan's decease, his Christian wife, Maria, [52]
the daughter of the Servian despot, had been honorably restored to her
parents; on the fame of her beauty and merit, she was recommended by the
ambassador as the most worthy object of the royal choice; and Phranza
recapitulates and refutes the specious objections that might be raised
against the proposal. The majesty of the purple would ennoble an unequal
alliance; the bar of affinity might be removed by liberal alms and the
dispensation of the church; the disgrace of Turkish nuptials had been
repeatedly overlooked; and, though the fair Maria was nearly fifty years
of age, she might yet hope to give an heir to the empire. Constantine
listened to the advice, which was transmitted in the first ship that
sailed from Trebizond; but the factions of the court opposed his
marriage; and it was finally prevented by the pious vow of the sultana,
who ended her days in the monastic profession. Reduced to the first
alternative, the choice of Phranza was decided in favor of a Georgian
princess; and the vanity of her father was dazzled by the glorious
alliance. Instead of demanding, according to the primitive and national
custom, a price for his daughter, [53] he offered a portion of fifty-six
thousand, with an annual pension of five thousand, ducats; and the
services of the ambassador were repaid by an assurance, that, as his
son had been adopted in baptism by the emperor, the establishment of his
daughter should be the peculiar care of the empress of Constantinople.
On the return of Phranza, the treaty was ratified by the Greek monarch,
who with his own hand impressed three vermilion crosses on the golden
bull, and assured the Georgian envoy that in the spring his galleys
should conduct the bride to her Imperial palace. But Constantine
embraced his faithful servant, not with the cold approbation of a
sovereign, but with the warm confidence of a friend, who, after a long
absence, is impatient to pour his secrets into the bosom of his friend.
"Since the death of my mother and of Cantacuzene, who alone advised me
without interest or passion, [54] I am surrounded," said the emperor,
"by men whom I can neither love nor trust, nor esteem. You are not a
stranger to Lucas Notaras, the great admiral; obstinately attached to
his own sentiments, he declares, both in private and public, that his
sentiments are the absolute measure of my thoughts and actions. The rest
of the courtiers are swayed by their personal or factious views; and how
can I consult the monks on questions of policy and marriage? I have yet
much employment for your diligence and fidelity. In the spring you shall
engage one of my brothers to solicit the succor of the Western powers;
from the Morea you shall sail to Cyprus on a particular commission;
and from thence proceed to Georgia to receive and conduct the future
empress."--"Your commands," replied Phranza, "are irresistible; but
deign, great sir," he added, with a serious smile, "to consider, that
if I am thus perpetually absent from my family, my wife may be tempted
either to seek another husband, or to throw herself into a monastery."
After laughing at his apprehensions, the emperor more gravely consoled
him by the pleasing assurance that _this_ should be his last service
abroad, and that he destined for his son a wealthy and noble heiress;
for himself, the important office of great logothete, or principal
minister of state. The marriage was immediately stipulated: but the
office, however incompatible with his own, had been usurped by the
ambition of the admiral. Some delay was requisite to negotiate a consent
and an equivalent; and the nomination of Phranza was half declared,
and half suppressed, lest it might be displeasing to an insolent and
powerful favorite. The winter was spent in the preparations of his
embassy; and Phranza had resolved, that the youth his son should embrace
this opportunity of foreign travel, and be left, on the appearance of
danger, with his maternal kindred of the Morea. Such were the private
and public designs, which were interrupted by a Turkish war, and finally
buried in the ruins of the empire.

[Footnote 49: Suppose him to have been captured in 1394, in Timour's
first war in Georgia, (Sherefeddin, l. iii. c. 50;) he might follow his
Tartar master into Hindostan in 1398, and from thence sail to the spice
islands.]

[Footnote 50: The happy and pious Indians lived a hundred and fifty
years, and enjoyed the most perfect productions of the vegetable and
mineral kingdoms. The animals were on a large scale: dragons seventy
cubits, ants (the _formica Indica_) nine inches long, sheep like
elephants, elephants like sheep. Quidlibet audendi, &c.]

[Footnote 51: He sailed in a country vessel from the spice islands
to one of the ports of the exterior India; invenitque navem grandem
_Ibericam_ qua in _Portugalliam_ est delatus. This passage, composed in
1477, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 30,) twenty years before the discovery of the
Cape of Good Hope, is spurious or wonderful. But this new geography is
sullied by the old and incompatible error which places the source of the
Nile in India.]

[Footnote 52: Cantemir, (p. 83,) who styles her the daughter of Lazarus
Ogli, and the Helen of the Servians, places her marriage with Amurath
in the year 1424. It will not easily be believed, that in six-and-twenty
years' cohabitation, the sultan corpus ejus non tetigit. After the
taking of Constantinople, she fled to Mahomet II., (Phranza, l. iii. c.
22.)]

[Footnote 53: The classical reader will recollect the offers of
Agamemnon, (Iliad, c. v. 144,) and the general practice of antiquity.]

[Footnote 54: Cantacuzene (I am ignorant of his relation to the emperor
of that name) was great domestic, a firm assertor of the Greek creed,
and a brother of the queen of Servia, whom he visited with the character
of ambassador, (Syropulus, p. 37, 38, 45.)]




Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern
Empire.--Part I.

     Reign And Character Of Mahomet The Second.--Siege, Assault,
     And Final Conquest, Of Constantinople By The Turks.--Death
     Of Constantine Palaeologus.--Servitude Of The Greeks.--
     Extinction Of The Roman Empire In The East.--Consternation
     Of Europe.--Conquests And Death Of Mahomet The Second.

The siege of Constantinople by the Turks attracts our first attention to
the person and character of the great destroyer. Mahomet the Second
[1] was the son of the second Amurath; and though his mother has been
decorated with the titles of Christian and princess, she is more
probably confounded with the numerous concubines who peopled from every
climate the harem of the sultan. His first education and sentiments
were those of a devout Mussulman; and as often as he conversed with an
infidel, he purified his hands and face by the legal rites of ablution.
Age and empire appear to have relaxed this narrow bigotry: his aspiring
genius disdained to acknowledge a power above his own; and in his looser
hours he presumed (it is said) to brand the prophet of Mecca as a robber
and impostor. Yet the sultan persevered in a decent reverence for the
doctrine and discipline of the Koran: [2] his private indiscretion
must have been sacred from the vulgar ear; and we should suspect the
credulity of strangers and sectaries, so prone to believe that a mind
which is hardened against truth must be armed with superior contempt
for absurdity and error. Under the tuition of the most skilful masters,
Mahomet advanced with an early and rapid progress in the paths of
knowledge; and besides his native tongue it is affirmed that he spoke or
understood five languages, [3] the Arabic, the Persian, the Chaldaean or
Hebrew, the Latin, and the Greek. The Persian might indeed contribute to
his amusement, and the Arabic to his edification; and such studies are
familiar to the Oriental youth. In the intercourse of the Greeks and
Turks, a conqueror might wish to converse with the people over which he
was ambitious to reign: his own praises in Latin poetry [4] or prose
[5] might find a passage to the royal ear; but what use or merit could
recommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth dialect of his
Hebrew slaves? The history and geography of the world were familiar to
his memory: the lives of the heroes of the East, perhaps of the West, [6]
excited his emulation: his skill in astrology is excused by the folly
of the times, and supposes some rudiments of mathematical science; and
a profane taste for the arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation and
reward of the painters of Italy. [7] But the influence of religion and
learning were employed without effect on his savage and licentious
nature. I will not transcribe, nor do I firmly believe, the stories of
his fourteen pages, whose bellies were ripped open in search of a stolen
melon; or of the beauteous slave, whose head he severed from her body,
to convince the Janizaries that their master was not the votary of love.
[701] His sobriety is attested by the silence of the Turkish annals,
which accuse three, and three only, of the Ottoman line of the vice of
drunkenness. [8] But it cannot be denied that his passions were at once
furious and inexorable; that in the palace, as in the field, a torrent
of blood was spilt on the slightest provocation; and that the noblest
of the captive youth were often dishonored by his unnatural lust. In the
Albanian war he studied the lessons, and soon surpassed the example, of
his father; and the conquest of two empires, twelve kingdoms, and
two hundred cities, a vain and flattering account, is ascribed to his
invincible sword. He was doubtless a soldier, and possibly a general;
Constantinople has sealed his glory; but if we compare the means,
the obstacles, and the achievements, Mahomet the Second must blush to
sustain a parallel with Alexander or Timour. Under his command, the
Ottoman forces were always more numerous than their enemies; yet their
progress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic; and his arms
were checked by Huniades and Scanderbeg, by the Rhodian knights and by
the Persian king.

[Footnote 1: For the character of Mahomet II. it is dangerous to trust
either the Turks or the Christians. The most moderate picture appears to
be drawn by Phranza, (l. i. c. 33,) whose resentment had cooled in
age and solitude; see likewise Spondanus, (A.D. 1451, No. 11,) and
the continuator of Fleury, (tom. xxii. p. 552,) the _Elogia_ of Paulus
Jovius, (l. iii. p. 164--166,) and the Dictionnaire de Bayle, (tom. iii.
p. 273--279.)]

[Footnote 2: Cantemir, (p. 115.) and the mosques which he founded,
attest his public regard for religion. Mahomet freely disputed with the
Gennadius on the two religions, (Spond. A.D. 1453, No. 22.)]

[Footnote 3: Quinque linguas praeter suam noverat, Graecam, Latinam,
Chaldaicam, Persicam. The Latin translator of Phranza has dropped the
Arabic, which the Koran must recommend to every Mussulman. *
Note: It appears in the original Greek text, p. 95, edit. Bonn.--M.]

[Footnote 4: Philelphus, by a Latin ode, requested and obtained
the liberty of his wife's mother and sisters from the conqueror of
Constantinople. It was delivered into the sultan's hands by the envoys
of the duke of Milan. Philelphus himself was suspected of a design of
retiring to Constantinople; yet the orator often sounded the trumpet of
holy war, (see his Life by M. Lancelot, in the Memoires de l'Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 718, 724, &c.)]

[Footnote 5: Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his xii.
books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of bombs. By
his patron Sigismund Malatesta, prince of Rimini, it had been addressed
with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.]

[Footnote 6: According to Phranza, he assiduously studied the lives and
actions of Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and Theodosius. I have read
somewhere, that Plutarch's Lives were translated by his orders into the
Turkish language. If the sultan himself understood Greek, it must have
been for the benefit of his subjects. Yet these lives are a school of
freedom as well as of valor. *
Note: Von Hammer disdainfully rejects this fable of Mahomet's knowledge
of languages. Knolles adds, that he delighted in reading the history of
Alexander the Great, and of Julius Caesar. The former, no doubt, was the
Persian legend, which, it is remarkable, came back to Europe, and was
popular throughout the middle ages as the "Romaunt of Alexander." The
founder of the Imperial dynasty of Rome, according to M. Von Hammer, is
altogether unknown in the East. Mahomet was a great patron of Turkish
literature: the romantic poems of Persia were translated, or imitated,
under his patronage. Von Hammer vol ii. p. 268.--M.]

[Footnote 7: The famous Gentile Bellino, whom he had invited from
Venice, was dismissed with a chain and collar of gold, and a purse
of 3000 ducats. With Voltaire I laugh at the foolish story of a
slave purposely beheaded to instruct the painter in the action of the
muscles.]

[Footnote 701: This story, the subject of Johnson's Irene, is rejected by
M. Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 208. The German historian's general
estimate of Mahomet's character agrees in its more marked features with
Gibbon's.--M.]

[Footnote 8: These Imperial drunkards were Soliman I., Selim II., and
Amurath IV., (Cantemir, p. 61.) The sophis of Persia can produce a more
regular succession; and in the last age, our European travellers were
the witnesses and companions of their revels.]

In the reign of Amurath, he twice tasted of royalty, and twice descended
from the throne: his tender age was incapable of opposing his father's
restoration, but never could he forgive the viziers who had recommended
that salutary measure. His nuptials were celebrated with the daughter
of a Turkman emir; and, after a festival of two months, he departed
from Adrianople with his bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia.
Before the end of six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message from
the divan, which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinous
spirit of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their obedience:
he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at the distance of a
mile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs, the imams and cadhis, the
soldiers and the people, fell prostrate before the new sultan. They
affected to weep, they affected to rejoice: he ascended the throne at
the age of twenty-one years, and removed the cause of sedition by
the death, the inevitable death, of his infant brothers. [9] [901] The
ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate his
accession and solicit his friendship; and to all he spoke the language
of moderation and peace. The confidence of the Greek emperor was
revived by the solemn oaths and fair assurances with which he sealed
the ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain on the banks of the
Strymon was assigned for the annual payment of three hundred thousand
aspers, the pension of an Ottoman prince, who was detained at his
request in the Byzantine court. Yet the neighbors of Mahomet might
tremble at the severity with which a youthful monarch reformed the pomp
of his father's household: the expenses of luxury were applied to those
of ambition, and a useless train of seven thousand falconers was either
dismissed from his service, or enlisted in his troops. [902] In the first
summer of his reign, he visited with an army the Asiatic provinces;
but after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted the submission, of the
Caramanian, that he might not be diverted by the smallest obstacle from
the execution of his great design. [10]

[Footnote 9: Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved from
his cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of Callistus
Othomannus. The emperor Frederic III. presented him with an estate
in Austria, where he ended his life; and Cuspinian, who in his youth
conversed with the aged prince at Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom,
(de Caesaribus, p. 672, 673.)]

[Footnote 901: Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object of his
especial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501.--M.]

[Footnote 902: The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a gift on the
accession of a new sovereign, p. 504.--M.]

[Footnote 10: See the accession of Mahomet II. in Ducas, (c. 33,)
Phranza, (l. i. c. 33, l. iii. c. 2,) Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 199,)
and Cantemir, (p. 96.)]

The Mahometan, and more especially the Turkish casuists, have pronounced
that no promise can bind the faithful against the interest and duty of
their religion; and that the sultan may abrogate his own treaties and
those of his predecessors. The justice and magnanimity of Amurath had
scorned this immoral privilege; but his son, though the proudest of
men, could stoop from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation
and deceit. Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: he
incessantly sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks,
by their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatal
rupture. [11] Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their ambassadors
pursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the increase, of their
annual stipend: the divan was importuned by their complaints, and the
vizier, a secret friend of the Christians, was constrained to deliver
the sense of his brethren. "Ye foolish and miserable Romans," said
Calil, "we know your devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger!
The scrupulous Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young
conqueror, whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and if
you escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which yet
delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to affright us by
vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive Orchan, crown him sultan
of Romania; call the Hungarians from beyond the Danube; arm against us
the nations of the West; and be assured, that you will only provoke and
precipitate your ruin." But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmed
by the stern language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteous
audience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet
assured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress the
grievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks. No sooner had
he repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a mandate to suppress their
pension, and to expel their officers from the banks of the Strymon: in
this measure he betrayed a hostile mind; and the second order announced,
and in some degree commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrow
pass of the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised by
his grandfather; in the opposite situation, on the European side, he
resolved to erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand masons were
commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named Asomaton, about five
miles from the Greek metropolis. [12] Persuasion is the resource of
the feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade: the ambassadors of the
emperor attempted, without success, to divert Mahomet from the execution
of his design. They represented, that his grandfather had solicited the
permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories; but that
this double fortification, which would command the strait, could only
tend to violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the Latins who
traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps to annihilate the subsistence
of the city. "I form the enterprise," replied the perfidious sultan,
"against the city; but the empire of Constantinople is measured by her
walls. Have you forgot the distress to which my father was reduced when
you formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our country
by land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French galleys? Amurath
was compelled to force the passage of the Bosphorus; and your strength
was not equal to your malevolence. I was then a child at Adrianople;
the Moslems trembled; and, for a while, the _Gabours_ [13] insulted our
disgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the field of Warna, he
vowed to erect a fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty
to accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control my
actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as the
shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is
deserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king, that the present
Ottoman is far different from his predecessors; that _his_ resolutions
surpass _their_ wishes; and that _he_ performs more _than_ they could
resolve. Return in safety--but the next who delivers a similar message
may expect to be flayed alive." After this declaration, Constantine,
the first of the Greeks in spirit as in rank, [14] had determined to
unsheathe the sword, and to resist the approach and establishment of the
Turks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and
ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous,
and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience and
long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an
aggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own safety, and
the destruction of a fort which could not long be maintained in the
neighborhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, the
fears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled
away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed;
and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till the
arrival of the spring and the sultan decide the assurance of their ruin.

[Footnote 11: Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I shall
observe, that except the short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius, I have
not been able to obtain any Turkish account of this conquest; such an
account as we possess of
