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Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Volume 2
Author: Edward Gibbon
Commentator: H. H. Milman
Release Date: June 7, 2008 [EBook #732]
Last Updated: November 15, 2012
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ***
Produced by David Reed and David Widger
VOLUME TWO
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part I.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part II.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part III.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part IV.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part V.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part VI.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part VII.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.—Part VIII.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part I.
Foundation Of Constantinople.—Political System Constantine, And His Successors.—Military Discipline.—The Palace.—The Finances.Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part II.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part III.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part IV.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part VI.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part I.
Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of Constantius.Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part II.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part III.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part IV.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I.
Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.— Danger And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian Wars.—Victories Of Julian In Gaul.Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part IV.
The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or Catholic Church.Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part I.
Persecution Of Heresy.—The Schism Of The Donatists.—The Arian Controversy.—Athanasius.—Distracted State Of The Church And Empire Under Constantine And His Sons.— Toleration Of Paganism.Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part II.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part III.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part IV.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part V.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VI.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VII.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I.
Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part II.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part III.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part IV.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part I.
The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts To Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The Temple Of Jerusalem—His Artful Persecution Of The Christians.—Mutual Zeal And Injustice.Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part II.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part III.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part IV.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part V.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part I.
Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A Disgraceful Treaty.Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part II.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part III.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part IV.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part V.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part I.
The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of Valentinian, Who Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The Eastern And Western Empires.— Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And Ecclesiastical Administration.—Germany. —Britain.—Africa.—The East.— The Danube.—Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian And Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part II.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part III.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part IV.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part V.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part VI.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.—Part VII.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part I.
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From China To Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The Danube.—Gothic War.—Defeat And Death Of Valens.—Gratian Invests Theodosius With The Eastern Empire.—His Character And Success.—Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part II.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part III.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians,
From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. 1111
1111 (return)
[ The sixteenth chapter
I cannot help considering as a very ingenious and specious, but very
disgraceful extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the Roman
magistrates against the Christians. It is written in the most contemptibly
factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers; it is unworthy of a
philosopher and of humanity. Let the narrative of Cyprian's death be
examined. He had to relate the murder of an innocent man of advanced age,
and in a station deemed venerable by a considerable body of the
provincials of Africa, put to death because he refused to sacrifice to
Jupiter. Instead of pointing the indignation of posterity against such an
atrocious act of tyranny, he dwells, with visible art, on the small
circumstances of decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and
which he relates with as much parade as if they were the most important
particulars of the event. Dr. Robertson has been the subject of much blame
for his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish murderers and tyrants
in America. That the sixteenth chapter of Mr. G. did not excite the same
or greater disapprobation, is a proof of the unphilosophical and indeed
fanatical animosity against Christianity, which was so prevalent during
the latter part of the eighteenth century.—Mackintosh: see Life, i.
p. 244, 245.]
If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion, the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as austere lives of the greater number of those who during the first ages embraced the faith of the gospel, we should naturally suppose, that so benevolent a doctrine would have been received with due reverence, even by the unbelieving world; that the learned and the polite, however they may deride the miracles, would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and that the magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws, though they declined the active cares of war and government. If, on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new offence the Christians had committed, what new provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an inoffensive mode of faith and worship.
The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a more stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of Christianity. About fourscore years after the death of Christ, his innocent disciples were punished with death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most amiable and philosophic character, and according to the laws of an emperor distinguished by the wisdom and justice of his general administration. The apologies which were repeatedly addressed to the successors of Trajan are filled with the most pathetic complaints, that the Christians, who obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty, of conscience, were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire, excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and from the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme power, the governors of the church have been no less diligently employed in displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it be possible) a few authentic as well as interesting facts from an undigested mass of fiction and error, and to relate, in a clear and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the duration, and the most important circumstances of the persecutions to which the first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present chapter. 1222
1222 (return)
[ The history of the
first age of Christianity is only found in the Acts of the Apostles, and
in order to speak of the first persecutions experienced by the Christians,
that book should naturally have been consulted; those persecutions, then
limited to individuals and to a narrow sphere, interested only the
persecuted, and have been related by them alone. Gibbon making the
persecutions ascend no higher than Nero, has entirely omitted those which
preceded this epoch, and of which St. Luke has preserved the memory. The
only way to justify this omission was, to attack the authenticity of the
Acts of the Apostles; for, if authentic, they must necessarily be
consulted and quoted. Now, antiquity has left very few works of which the
authenticity is so well established as that of the Acts of the Apostles.
(See Lardner's Cred. of Gospel Hist. part iii.) It is therefore, without
sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence concerning the
narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not without importance.—G.]
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards the primitive Christians, which may appear the more specious and probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of Polytheism. It has already been observed, that the religious concord of the world was principally supported by the implicit assent and reverence which the nations of antiquity expressed for their respective traditions and ceremonies. It might therefore be expected, that they would unite with indignation against any sect or people which should separate itself from the communion of mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own, as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by mutual indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the accustomed tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly refused by the Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the treatment which they experienced from the Roman magistrates, will serve to explain how far these speculations are justified by facts, and will lead us to discover the true causes of the persecution of Christianity.
Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the reverence of the Roman princes and governors for the temple of Jerusalem, we shall only observe, that the destruction of the temple and city was accompanied and followed by every circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the conquerors, and authorize religious persecution by the most specious arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives; 1 and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but of human kind. 2 The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an idolatrous master; and by the flattering promise which they derived from their ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah would soon arise, destined to break their fetters, and to invest the favorites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of Israel, that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army, with which he resisted during two years the power of the emperor Hadrian. 3
1 (return)
[ In Cyrene, they massacred
220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many
of these unhappy victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to
which David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews
devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails like a
girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1145. * Note:
Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes on Dion Cassius think
that the hatred of the Romans against the Jews has led the historian to
exaggerate the cruelties committed by the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. p.
1146.—G.]
2 (return)
[ Without repeating the
well-known narratives of Josephus, we may learn from Dion, (l. lxix. p.
1162,) that in Hadrian's war 580,000 Jews were cut off by the sword,
besides an infinite number which perished by famine, by disease, and by
fire.]
3 (return)
[ For the sect of the
Zealots, see Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. i. c. 17; for the characters
of the Messiah, according to the Rabbis, l. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the
actions of Barchochebas, l. vii. c. 12. (Hist. of Jews iii. 115, &c.)—M.]
Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of the Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their apprehensions continued beyond the period of war and danger. By the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild temper of Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient privileges, and once more obtained the permission of circumcising their children, with the easy restraint, that they should never confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing mark of the Hebrew race. 4 The numerous remains of that people, though they were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed brethren an annual contribution. 5 New synagogues were frequently erected in the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts, and the festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law, or enjoined by the traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in the most solemn and public manner. 6 Such gentle treatment insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behavior of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They embraced every opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in trade; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations against the haughty kingdom of Edom. 7
4 (return)
[ It is to Modestinus, a
Roman lawyer (l. vi. regular.) that we are indebted for a distinct
knowledge of the Edict of Antoninus. See Casaubon ad Hist. August. p. 27.]
5 (return)
[ See Basnage, Histoire des
Juifs, l. iii. c. 2, 3. The office of Patriarch was suppressed by
Theodosius the younger.]
6 (return)
[ We need only mention the
Purim, or deliverance of the Jews from he rage of Haman, which, till the
reign of Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous
intemperance. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 17, l. viii. c. 6.]
7 (return)
[ According to the false
Josephus, Tsepho, the grandson of Esau, conducted into Italy the army of
Eneas, king of Carthage. Another colony of 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, 8111 or the language of their native country. 8
8 (return)
[ From the arguments of
Celsus, as they are represented and refuted by Origen, (l. v. p. 247—259,)
we may clearly discover the distinction that was made between the Jewish
people and the Christian sect. See, in the Dialogue of Minucius Felix, (c.
5, 6,) a fair and not inelegant description of the popular sentiments,
with regard to the desertion of the established worship.]
8111 (return)
[ In all this there is
doubtless much truth; yet does not the more important difference lie on
the surface? The Christians made many converts the Jews but few. Had the
Jewish been equally a proselyting religion would it not have encountered
as violent persecution?—M.]
The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate. They had separated themselves (they gloried in the confession) from every mode of superstition which was received in any part of the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they had substituted to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure and sublime idea which they entertained of the Supreme Being escaped the gross conception of the Pagan multitude, who were at a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was neither represented under any corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of altars and sacrifices. 9 The sages of Greece and Rome, who had elevated their minds to the contemplation of the existence and attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason or by vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the privilege of this philosophical devotion. 10 They were far from admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but they considered them as flowing from the original disposition of human nature; and they supposed that any popular mode of faith and worship which presumed to disclaim the assistance of the senses, would, in proportion as it receded from superstition, find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the fancy, and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men of wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian revelation, served only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that the principle, which they might have revered, of the Divine Unity, was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy speculations, of the new sectaries. The author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been attributed to Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own ignorance of the weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable nature of the divine perfections. 11
9 (return)
[ Cur nullas aras habent?
templa nulla? nulla nota simulacra!—Unde autem, vel quis ille, aut
ubi, Deus unicus, solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix, c. 10. The
Pagan interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of the Jews, who
had once a temple, altars, victims, &c.]
10 (return)
[ It is difficult (says
Plato) to attain, and dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God.
See the Theologie des Philosophes, in the Abbe d'Olivet's French
translation of Tully de Natura Deorum, tom. i. p. 275.]
11 (return)
[ The author of the
Philopatris perpetually treats the Christians as a company of dreaming
enthusiasts, &c.; and in one place he manifestly alludes to the vision
in which St. Paul was transported to the third heaven. In another place,
Triephon, who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism,
proposes a mysterious oath.]
It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Christianity should not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which seemed to offer any resemblance, however distant or imperfect, with the popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and of 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
12 (return)
[ 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.]
13 (return)
[ In the first and second
books of Origen, Celsus treats the birth and character of our Savior with
the most impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises Porphyry and Julian
for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a dead man of Palestine,
God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. iii. 23.]
The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of the criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed, that Roman policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any association among its subjects; and that the privileges of private corporations, though formed for the most harmless or beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand. 14 The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated themselves from the public worship, appeared of a much less innocent nature; they were illegal in their principle, and in their consequences might become dangerous; nor were the emperors conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when, for the peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes nocturnal meetings. 15 The pious disobedience of the Christians made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much more serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready submission, deeming their honor concerned in the execution of their commands, sometimes attempted, by rigorous punishments, to subdue this independent spirit, which boldly acknowledged an authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent and duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it everyday more deserving of his animadversion. We have already seen that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might connect themselves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which every where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind. Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities, 16 inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some danger, which would arise from the new sect, the more alarming as it was the more obscure. "Whatever," says Pliny, "may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment." 17
14 (return)
[ The emperor Trajan
refused to incorporate a company of 150 firemen, for the use of the city
of Nicomedia. He disliked all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43.]
15 (return)
[ The proconsul Pliny had
published a general edict against unlawful meetings. The prudence of the
Christians suspended their Agapae; but it was impossible for them to omit
the exercise of public worship.]
16 (return)
[ As the prophecies of the
Antichrist, approaching conflagration, &c., provoked those Pagans whom
they did not convert, they were mentioned with caution and reserve; and
the Montanists were censured for disclosing too freely the dangerous
secret. See Mosheim, 413.]
17 (return)
[ Neque enim dubitabam,
quodcunque esset quod faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,)
pervicacian certe et inflexibilem obstinationem lebere puniri.]
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were continued from choice. By imitating the awful secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. 18 But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was concluded, that they only concealed what they would have blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, the horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was asserted, "that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers." 19
18 (return)
[ See Mosheim's
Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 101, and Spanheim, Remarques sur les
Caesars de Julien, p. 468, &c.]
19 (return)
[ See Justin Martyr,
Apolog. i. 35, ii. 14. Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian,
Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9. Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 80, 31. The last of these
writers relates the accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial
manner. The answer of Tertullian is the boldest and most vigorous.]
But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary. The Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal from the voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates. They acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the crimes which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and they challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of probability, than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one can seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel, which so frequently restrain the use of the most lawful enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most abominable crimes; that a large society should resolve to dishonor itself in the eyes of its own members; and that a great number of persons of either sex, and every age and character, insensible to the fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those principles which nature and education had imprinted most deeply in their minds. 20 Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification, unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion, to gratify their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of Christianity. 21 Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon the church by the schismatics who had departed from its communion, 22 and it was confessed on all sides, that the most scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox faith from heretical pravity, might easily have imagined that their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common guilt. It was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the reputation, of the first Christians, that the magistrates sometimes proceeded with more temper and moderation than is usually consistent with religious zeal, and that they reported, as the impartial result of their judicial inquiry, that the sectaries, who had deserted the established worship, appeared to them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their manners; however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive superstition, the censure of the laws. 23
20 (return)
[ In the persecution of
Lyons, some Gentile slaves were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to
accuse their Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their
brethren of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and
contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. i.]
21 (return)
[ See Justin Martyr,
Apolog. i. 35. 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.]
22 (return)
[ When Tertullian became a
Montanist, he aspersed the morals of the church which he had so resolutely
defended. "Sed majoris est Agape, quia per hanc adolescentes tui cum
sororibus dormiunt, appendices scilicet 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.]
23 (return)
[ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 2)
expatiates on the fair and honorable testimony of Pliny, with much reason
and some declamation.]
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honorable office, if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the conduct of the emperors who appeared the least favorable to the primitive church, is by no means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who have employed the arm of violence and terror against the religious opinions of any part of their subjects. From their reflections, or even from their own feelings, a Charles V. or a Lewis XIV. might have acquired a just knowledge of the rights of conscience, of the obligation of faith, and of the innocence of error. But the princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to those principles which inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy of the Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they themselves discover in their own breasts any motive which would have prompted them to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural, submission to the sacred institutions of their country. The same reason which contributes to alleviate the guilt, must have tended to abate the vigor, of their persecutions. As they were actuated, not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by the temperate policy of legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and humanity must frequently have suspended, the execution of those laws which they enacted against the humble and obscure followers of Christ. From the general view of their character and motives we might naturally conclude: I. That a considerable time elapsed before they considered the new sectaries as an object deserving of the attention of government. II. That in the conviction of any of their subjects who were accused of so very singular a crime, they proceeded with caution and reluctance. III. That they were moderate in the use of punishments; and, IV. That the afflicted church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquility. Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the most copious and the most minute of the Pagan writers have shown to the affairs of the Christians, 24 it may still be in our power to confirm each of these probable suppositions, by the evidence of authentic facts.
24 (return)
[ In the various
compilation of the Augustan History, (a part of which was composed under
the reign of Constantine,) there are not six lines which relate to the
Christians; nor has the diligence of Xiphilin discovered their name in the
large history of Dion Cassius. * Note: The greater part of the Augustan
History is dedicated to Diocletian. This may account for the silence of
its authors concerning Christianity. The notices that occur are almost all
in the lives composed under the reign of Constantine. It may fairly be
concluded, from the language which he had into the mouth of 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.
25 (return)
[ An obscure passage of
Suetonius (in Claud. c. 25) may seem to offer a proof how strangely the
Jews and Christians of Rome were confounded with each other.]
26 (return)
[ See, in the xviiith and
xxvth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the behavior of Gallio,
proconsul of Achaia, and of Festus, procurator of Judea.]
27 (return)
[ In the time of Tertullian
and Clemens of Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom was confined to St.
Peter, St. Paul, and St. James. It was gradually bestowed on the rest of
the apostles, by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for the
theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote country beyond the
limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p. 81; and Tillemont, 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; 3111 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.
28 (return)
[ Tacit. Annal. xv. 38—44.
Sueton in Neron. c. 38. Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1014. Orosius, vii. 7.]
29 (return)
[ The price of wheat
(probably of the modius,) was reduced as low as terni Nummi; which would
be equivalent to about fifteen shillings the English quarter.]
30 (return)
[ We may observe, that the
rumor is mentioned by Tacitus with a very becoming distrust and
hesitation, whilst it is greedily transcribed by Suetonius, and solemnly
confirmed by Dion.]
31 (return)
[ This testimony is alone
sufficient to expose the anachronism of the Jews, who place the birth of
Christ near a century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. v. c. 14,
15.) We may learn from Josephus, (Antiquitat. xviii. 3,) that the
procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of Tiberius,
A. D. 27—37. As to the particular time of the death of Christ, a
very early tradition fixed it to the 25th of March, A. D. 29, under the
consulship of the two Gemini. (Tertullian adv. 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.]
3111 (return)
[ 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.]
32 (return)
[ Odio humani generis
convicti. These words may either signify the hatred of mankind towards the
Christians, or the hatred of the Christians towards mankind. I have
preferred the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus,
and to the popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see Luke xiv.
26) had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion. My interpretation is
justified by the authority of Lipsius; of the Italian, the French, and the
English translators of Tacitus; of Mosheim, (p. 102,) of Le Clerc,
(Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427,) of Dr. Lardner, (Testimonies, vol. i. p.
345,) and of the Bishop of Gloucester, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 38.)
But as the word convicti does not unite very happily with the rest of the
sentence, James Gronovius has preferred the reading of conjuncti, which is
authorized by the valuable MS. of Florence.]
33 (return)
[ Tacit. Annal xv. 44.]
34 (return)
[ Nardini Roma Antica, p.
487. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, l. iii. p. 449.]
But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero's persecution, till we have made some observations that may serve to remove the difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to throw some light on the subsequent history of the church.
1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had embraced a new and criminal superstition. 35 The latter may be proved by the consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the inimitable character of the style of Tacitus by his reputation, which guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they possessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of mankind. 36 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was born some years before the fire of Rome, 37 he could derive only from reading and conversation the knowledge of an event which happened during his infancy. Before he gave himself to the public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its full maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted from him the most early of those historical compositions which will delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After making a trial of his strength in the life of Agricola and the description of Germany, he conceived, and at length executed, a more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of Nerva introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus had destined for the occupation of his old age; 38 but when he took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was a more honorable or a less invidious office to record the vices of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years, in an immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the deepest observations and the most lively images, was an undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself during the greatest part of his life. In the last years of the reign of Trajan, whilst the victorious monarch extended the power of Rome beyond its ancient limits, the historian was describing, in the second and fourth books of his annals, the tyranny of Tiberius; 39 and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to the throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work, could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty years, it was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge himself in the description of the origin, the progress, and the character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge or prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the time of Hadrian. 3 Tacitus very frequently trusts to the curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply those intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct the cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity, as well as innocence, should have shielded them from his indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were a much fitter object for the suspicions of the emperor and of the people: nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his wife and mistress, the beautiful 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, 4211 which he might, with far greater truth and justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this conjecture, (for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident that the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero's persecution, was confined to the walls of Rome, 43 that the religious tenets of the Galilaeans or Christians, 431 were never made a subject of punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage had been usually directed against virtue and innocence.
35 (return)
[ Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16.
The epithet of malefica, which some sagacious commentators have translated
magical, is considered by the more rational Mosheim as only synonymous to
the exitiabilis of Tacitus.]
36 (return)
[ The passage concerning
Jesus Christ, which was inserted into the text of Josephus, between the
time of Origen and that of Eusebius, may furnish an example of no vulgar
forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the virtues, miracles, and
resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related. Josephus acknowledges that
he was the Messiah, and hesitates whether he should call him a man. If any
doubt can still remain concerning this celebrated passage, the reader may
examine the pointed objections of Le Fevre, (Havercamp. Joseph. tom. ii.
p. 267-273), the labored answers of Daubuz, (p. 187-232, and the masterly
reply (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.]
37 (return)
[ 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.]
38 (return)
[ Principatum Divi Nervae,
et imperium Trajani, uberiorem, securioremque materiam senectuti seposui.
Tacit. Hist. i.]
39 (return)
[ See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61,
iv. 4. * Note: The perusal of this passage of Tacitus alone is sufficient,
as I have already said, to show that the Christian sect was not so obscure
as not already to have been repressed, (repressa,) and that it did not
pass for innocent in the eyes of the Romans.—G.]
40 (return)
[ The player's name was
Aliturus. Through the same channel, Josephus, (de vita sua, c. 2,) about
two years before, had obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish
priests, who were prisoners at Rome.]
41 (return)
[ The learned Dr. Lardner
(Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol ii. p. 102, 103) has proved that the
name of Galilaeans was a very ancient, and perhaps the primitive
appellation of the Christians.]
42 (return)
[ Joseph. Antiquitat.
xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine des Juifs, p. 742 The sons of Judas were
crucified in the time of Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem
was taken, defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate
followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned their
swords against their wives their children, and at length against their own
breasts. They dies to the last man.]
4211 (return)
[ This conjecture is
entirely devoid, not merely of verisimilitude, but even of possibility.
Tacitus could not be deceived in appropriating to the Christians of Rome
the guilt and the sufferings which he might have attributed with far
greater truth to the followers of Judas the Gaulonite, for the latter
never went to Rome. Their revolt, their attempts, their opinions, their
wars, their punishment, had no other theatre but 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.]
43 (return)
[ See Dodwell. Paucitat.
Mart. l. xiii. The Spanish Inscription in Gruter. p. 238, No. 9, is a
manifest and acknowledged forgery contrived by that noted imposter.
Cyriacus of Ancona, to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards.
See Ferreras, Histoire D'Espagne, tom. i. p. 192.]
431 (return)
[ M. Guizot, on the
authority of Sulpicius Severus, ii. 37, and of Orosius, viii. 5, inclines
to the opinion of those who extend the persecution to the provinces.
Mosheim rather leans to that side on this much disputed question, (c.
xxxv.) Neander takes the view of Gibbon, which is in general that of the
most learned writers. There is indeed no evidence, which I can discover,
of its reaching the provinces; and the apparent security, at least as
regards his life, with which St. Paul pursued his travels during this
period, affords at least a strong inference against a rigid and general
inquisition against the Christians in other parts of the empire.—M.]
It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed, almost at the same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of Rome; 44 and it appears no less singular, that the tribute which devotion had destined to the former, should have been converted by the power of an assaulting victor to restore and adorn the splendor of the latter. 45 The emperors levied a general capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the sum assessed on the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the use for which it was designed, and the severity with which it was exacted, were considered as an intolerable grievance. 46 Since the officers of the revenue extended their unjust claim to many persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of the Jews, it was impossible that the Christians, who had so often sheltered themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now escape this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to contribute to the honor of that 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
44 (return)
[ The Capitol was burnt
during the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian, the 19th of
December, A. D. 69. On the 10th of August, A. D. 70, the temple of
Jerusalem was destroyed by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than
by those of the Romans.]
45 (return)
[ The new Capitol was
dedicated by Domitian. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 5. Plutarch in Poplicola,
tom. i. p. 230, edit. Bryant. The gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (above
two millions and a half.) It was the opinion of Martial, (l. ix. Epigram
3,) that if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter himself, even
though he had made a general auction of Olympus, would have been unable to
pay two shillings in the pound.]
46 (return)
[ With regard to the
tribute, see Dion Cassius, l. lxvi. p. 1082, with Reimarus's notes.
Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, tom. ii. p. 571; and Basnage, Histoire des
Juifs, l. vii. c. 2.]
47 (return)
[ Suetonius (in Domitian.
c. 12) had seen an old man of ninety publicly examined before the
procurator's tribunal. This is what Martial calls, Mentula tributis
damnata.]
48 (return)
[ This appellation was at
first understood in the most obvious sense, and it was supposed, that the
brothers of Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and Mary. A devout
respect for the virginity of the mother of God suggested to the Gnostics,
and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing a second
wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome) improved on that
hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph, and justified by many
similar examples the new interpretation that Jude, as well as Simon and
James, who were styled the brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first
cousins. See Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiat. tom. i. part iii.: and Beausobre,
Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. ii. c. 2.]
49 (return)
[ Thirty-nine, squares of a
hundred feet each, which, if strictly computed, would scarcely amount to
nine acres.]
50 (return)
[ Eusebius, iii. 20. The
story is taken from Hegesippus.]
But although the obscurity of the house of David might protect them from the suspicions of a tyrant, the present greatness of his own family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of Domitian, which could only be appeased by the blood of those Romans whom he either feared, or hated, or esteemed. Of the two sons of his uncle Flavius Sabinus, 51 the elder was soon convicted of treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore the name of Flavius Clemens, was indebted for his safety to his want of courage and ability. 52 The emperor for a long time, distinguished so harmless a kinsman by his favor and protection, bestowed on him his own niece Domitilla, adopted the children of that marriage to the hope of the succession, and invested their father with the honors of the consulship.
51 (return)
[ See the death and
character of Sabinus in Tacitus, (Hist. iii. 74 ) Sabinus was the elder
brother, and, till the accession of Vespasian, had been considered as the
principal support of the Flavium family]
52 (return)
[ Flavium Clementem
patruelem suum 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, 5411 assassinated the emperor in his palace. 55 The memory of Domitian was condemned by the senate; his acts were rescinded; his exiles recalled; and under the gentle administration of Nerva, while the innocent were restored to their rank and fortunes, even the most guilty either obtained pardon or escaped punishment. 56
53 (return)
[ The Isle of Pandataria,
according to Dion. Bruttius 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.]
54 (return)
[ 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.]
5411 (return)
[ This is an uncandid
sarcasm. There is nothing to connect Stephen with the religion of
Domitilla. He was a knave detected in the malversation of money—interceptarum
pecuniaram reus.—M.]
55 (return)
[ Suet. in Domit. c. 17.
Philostratus in Vit. Apollon. l. viii.]
56 (return)
[ Dion. l. lxviii. p. 1118.
Plin. Epistol. iv. 22.]
II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan, the younger Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the government of Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a loss to determine by what rule of justice or of law he should direct his conduct in the execution of an office the most repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at any judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose name alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their conviction, and the degree of their punishment. In this perplexity he had recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting to the wisdom of Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a favorable account of the new superstition, requesting the emperor, that he would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to instruct his ignorance. 57 The life of Pliny had been employed in the acquisition of learning, and in the business of the world.
Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded with distinction in the tribunals of Rome, 58 filled a place in the senate, had been invested with the honors of the consulship, and had formed very numerous connections with every order of men, both in Italy and in the provinces. From his ignorance therefore we may derive some useful information. We may assure ourselves, that when he accepted the government of Bithynia, there were no general laws or decrees of the senate in force against the Christians; that neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors, whose edicts were received into the civil and criminal jurisprudence, had publicly declared their intentions concerning the new sect; and that whatever proceedings had been carried on against the Christians, there were none of sufficient weight and authority to establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.
57 (return)
[ Plin. Epistol. x. 97. The
learned Mosheim expresses himself (p. 147, 232) with the highest
approbation of Pliny's moderate and candid temper. Notwithstanding Dr.
Lardner's suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. p. 46,)
I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or proceedings. *
Note: Yet the humane Pliny put two female attendants, probably deaconesses
to the torture, in order to ascertain the real nature of these suspicious
meetings: necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis, quae ministrae
dicebantor quid asset veri et per tormenta quaerere.—M.]
58 (return)
[ Plin. Epist. v. 8. He
pleaded his first cause A. D. 81; the year after the famous eruptions of
Mount Vesuvius, in which his uncle lost his life.]
The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding age have frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for justice and humanity as could be reconciled with his mistaken notions of religious policy. 59 Instead of displaying the implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the guilty. He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general plan; but he lays down two salutary rules, which often afforded relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though he directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency, from making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals. Nor was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed so invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place) the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary had frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances, which were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active party, to the censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended the character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they failed in their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of personal or superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over the most natural apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it cannot surely be imagined, 60 that accusations of so unpromising an appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. 6011
59 (return)
[ Plin. Epist. x. 98.
Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5) considers this rescript as a relaxation of the
ancient penal laws, "quas Trajanus exparte frustratus est:" and yet
Tertullian, in another part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of
prohibiting inquiries, and enjoining punishments.]
60 (return)
[ Eusebius (Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9) has preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has
likewise (c. 13) given us one still more favorable, under the name of
Antoninus; the authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The
second Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to the
accusations of Christians. * Note: Professor Hegelmayer has proved the
authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm. Hist. Theol. in
Edict. Imp. Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to.—G. ——Neander
doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my opinion, the internal
evidence is decisive against it.—M]
6011 (return)
[ The enactment of this
law affords strong presumption, that accusations of the "crime of
Christianity," were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so much
mistrust and caution by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate.
—M.]
The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the laws, affords a sufficient proof how effectually they disappointed the mischievous designs of private malice or superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or to escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games and festivals. On those occasions the inhabitants of the great cities of the empire were collected in the circus or the theatre, where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their religious worship, they recollected, that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and cast to the lions. 61 The provincial governors and magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually inclined to gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, of the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the danger of these tumultuous clamors and irregular accusations, which they justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians. 62
61 (return)
[ See Tertullian, (Apolog.
c. 40.) The acts of the martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a lively picture of
these tumults, which were usually fomented by the malice of the Jews.]
62 (return)
[ These regulations are
inserted in the above mentioned document of Hadrian and Pius. See the
apology of Melito, (apud Euseb. l iv 26)]
III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction, and the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by the testimony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary confession, still retained in their own power the alternative of life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as the actual resistance, which excited the indignation of the magistrate. He was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since, if they consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim, rather than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his tone according to the age, the sex, or the situation of the prisoners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes every circumstance which could render life more pleasing, or death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to entreat, them, that they would show some compassion to themselves, to their families, and to their friends. 63 If threats and persuasions proved ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and the rack were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and every art of cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared to the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The ancient apologists of Christianity have censured, with equal truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their persecutors who, contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted the use of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a denial, of the crime which was the object of their inquiry. 64 The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful solitudes, entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the Roman magistrates, disdaining every consideration of moral virtue or public decency, endeavored to seduce those whom they were unable to vanquish, and that by their orders the most brutal violence was offered to those whom they found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that females, who were prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, 6411 and called upon to determine whether they set a higher value on their religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonor even of an involuntary defeat. We should not indeed neglect to remark, that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of the church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and indecent fictions. 65
63 (return)
[ See the rescript of
Trajan, and the conduct of Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs
abound in these exhortations. Note: Pliny's test was the worship of the
gods, offerings to the statue of the emperor, and blaspheming Christ—praeterea
maledicerent Christo.—M.]
64 (return)
[ In particular, see
Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,) and Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.)
Their reasonings are almost the same; but we may discover, that one of
these apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician.]
6411 (return)
[ The more ancient as
well as authentic memorials of the church, relate many examples of the
fact, (of these severe trials,) which there is nothing to contradict.
Tertullian, among others, says, Nam proxime ad lenonem damnando
Christianam, potius quam ad leonem, confessi estis labem 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.]
65 (return)
[ See two instances of this
kind of torture in the Acta Sincere Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p.
160, 399. Jerome, in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story
of a young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and assaulted
by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the rising temptation by
biting off his tongue.]
The total disregard of truth and probability in the representation of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or fifth centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of their own times.
It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal resentment. 66 But it is certain, and we may appeal to the grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the authority of the emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands alone the jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude the severity of the laws. 67 Whenever they were invested with a discretionary power, 68 they used it much less for the oppression, than for the relief and benefit of the afflicted church. They were far from condemning all the Christians who were accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing with death all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most part, with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery in the mines, 69 they left the unhappy victims of their justice some reason to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore them, by a general pardon, to their former state. The martyrs, devoted to immediate execution by the Roman magistrates, appear to have been selected from the most opposite extremes. They were either bishops and presbyters, the persons the most distinguished among the Christians by their rank and influence, and whose example might strike terror into the whole sect; 70 or else they were the meanest and most abject among them, particularly those of the servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little value, and whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too careless an indifference. 71 The learned Origen, who, from his experience as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the history of the Christians, declares, in the most express terms, that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable. 72 His authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that formidable army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, 73 and whose marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of Holy Romance. 74 But the general assertion of Origen may be explained and confirmed by the particular testimony of his friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria, and under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men and seven women who suffered for the profession of the Christian name. 75
66 (return)
[ The conversion of his
wife provoked Claudius Herminianus, governor of Cappadocia, to treat the
Christians with uncommon severity. Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.]
67 (return)
[ Tertullian, in his
epistle to the governor of Africa, mentions several remarkable instances
of lenity and forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge.]
68 (return)
[ Neque enim in universum
aliquid quod quasi certam formam habeat, constitui potest; an expression
of Trajan, which gave a very great latitude to the governors of provinces.
* Note: Gibbon altogether forgets that Trajan fully approved of the course
pursued by Pliny. That course was, to order all who persevered in their
faith to be led to execution: perseverantes duci jussi.—M.]
69 (return)
[ In Metalla damnamur, in
insulas relegamur. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The mines of Numidia
contained nine bishops, with a proportionable number of their clergy and
people, to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and comfort.
See Cyprian. Epistol. 76, 77.]
70 (return)
[ Though we cannot receive
with entire confidence either the epistles, or the acts, of Ignatius,
(they may be found in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers,) yet we may
quote that bishop of Antioch as one of these exemplary martyrs. He was
sent in chains to Rome as a public spectacle, and when he arrived at
Troas, he received the pleasing intelligence, that the persecution of
Antioch was already at an end. * Note: The acts of Ignatius are generally
received as authentic, as are seven of his letters. Eusebius and St.
Jerome mention them: there are two editions; in one, the letters are
longer, and many passages appear to have been interpolated; the other
edition is that which contains the real letters of St. Ignatius; such at
least is the opinion of the wisest and most enlightened critics. (See
Lardner. Cred. of Gospel Hist.) Less, uber dis Religion, v. i. p. 529.
Usser. Diss. de Ign. Epist. Pearson, Vindic, 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.]
71 (return)
[ Among the martyrs of
Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,) the slave Blandina was distinguished by more
exquisite tortures. Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in the acts of
Felicitas and Perpetua, two were of a servile, and two others of a very
mean, condition.]
72 (return)
[ Origen. advers. Celsum,
l. iii. p. 116. His words deserve to be transcribed. * Note: The words
that follow should be quoted. "God not permitting that all his class of
men should be exterminated:" which appears to indicate that Origen thought
the number put to death inconsiderable only when compared to the numbers
who had survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the state of the
religion under Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, and Philip, who
had not persecuted the Christians. It was during the reign of the latter
that Origen wrote his books against Celsus.—G.]
73 (return)
[ If we recollect that all
the Plebeians of Rome were not Christians, and that all the Christians
were not saints and martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious
honors can be ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken from the
public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free and open trade,
some suspicions have arisen among the more learned Catholics. They now
require as a proof of sanctity and martyrdom, the letters B.M., a vial
full of red liquor supposed to be blood, or the figure of a palm-tree. But
the two former signs are of little weight, and with regard to the last, it
is observed by the critics, 1. That the figure, as it is called, of a
palm, is perhaps a cypress, and perhaps only a stop, the flourish of a
comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That the palm was the symbol
of victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the Christians it served as the
emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in general of a joyful resurrection.
See the epistle of P. Mabillon, on the worship of unknown saints, and
Muratori sopra le Antichita Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.]
74 (return)
[ As a specimen of these
legends, we may be satisfied with 10,000 Christian soldiers crucified in
one day, either by Trajan or Hadrian on Mount Ararat. See Baronius ad
Martyrologium Romanum; Tille mont, 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.]
75 (return)
[ Dionysius ap. Euseb l.
vi. c. 41 One of the seventeen was likewise accused of robbery. * Note:
Gibbon ought to have said, was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in
the Greek text. This Christian, named Nemesion, falsely accused of robbery
before the centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether foreign to his
character, but he was led before the governor as guilty of being a
Christian, and the governor inflicted upon him a double torture. (Euseb.
loc. cit.) It must be added, that Saint Dionysius only makes particular
mention of the principal martyrs, [this is very doubtful.—M.] and
that he says, in general, that the fury of the Pagans against the
Christians gave to Alexandria the appearance of a city taken by storm.
[This refers to plunder and ill usage, not to actual slaughter.—M.]
Finally it should be observed that Origen wrote before the persecution of
the emperor Decius.—G.]
During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent, the ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage, but even of Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions and resentment of the Pagan magistrates. His character as well as his station seemed to mark out that holy prelate as the most distinguished object of envy and danger. 76 The experience, however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove that our fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less imminent than those which temporal ambition is always prepared to encounter in the pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, with their families, their favorites, and their adherents, perished by the sword in the space of ten years, during which the bishop of Carthage guided by his authority and eloquence the councils of the African church. It was only in the third year of his administration, that he had reason, during a few months, to apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly demanded, that Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to the lions. Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary retreat, and the voice of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew himself into an obscure solitude, from whence he could maintain a constant correspondence with the clergy and people of Carthage; and, concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved his life, without relinquishing either his power or his reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the censure of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the most sacred duty. 77 The propriety of reserving himself for the future exigencies of the church, the example of several holy bishops, 78 and the divine admonitions, which, as he declares himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies, were the reasons alleged in his justification. 79 But his best apology may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which, about eight years afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion. The authentic history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most important circumstances, will convey the clearest information of the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions. 80
76 (return)
[ The letters of Cyprian
exhibit a very curious and original picture both of the man and of the
times. See likewise the two lives of Cyprian, composed with equal
accuracy, though with very different views; the one by Le Clerc
(Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. xii. p. 208-378,) the other by Tillemont,
Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iv part i. p. 76-459.]
77 (return)
[ See the polite but severe
epistle of the clergy of Rome to the bishop of Carthage. (Cyprian. Epist.
8, 9.) Pontius labors with the greatest care and diligence to justify his
master against the general censure.]
78 (return)
[ In particular those of
Dionysius of Alexandria, and Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Neo-Caesarea. See
Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 40; and Memoires de Tillemont, tom. iv.
part ii. p. 685.]
79 (return)
[ See Cyprian. Epist. 16,
and his life by Pontius.]
80 (return)
[ We have an original life
of Cyprian by the deacon Pontius, the companion of his exile, and the
spectator of his death; and we likewise possess the ancient proconsular
acts of his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each other,
and with probability; and what is somewhat remarkable, they are both
unsullied by any miraculous circumstances.]
When Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for the fourth time, Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian to appear in his private council-chamber. He there acquainted him with the Imperial mandate which he had just received, 81 that those who had abandoned the Roman religion should immediately return to the practice of the ceremonies of their ancestors. Cyprian replied without hesitation, that he was a Christian and a bishop, devoted to the worship of the true and only Deity, to whom he offered up his daily supplications for the safety and prosperity of the two emperors, his lawful sovereigns.
With modest confidence he pleaded the privilege of a citizen, in refusing to give any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal questions which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence of banishment was pronounced as the penalty of Cyprian's disobedience; and he was conducted without delay to Curubis, a free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a pleasant situation, a fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty miles from Carthage. 82 The exiled bishop enjoyed the conveniences of life and the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was diffused over Africa and Italy; an account of his behavior was published for the edification of the Christian world; 83 and his solitude was frequently interrupted by the letters, the visits, and the congratulations of the faithful. On the arrival of a new proconsul in the province the fortune of Cyprian appeared for some time to wear a still more favorable aspect. He was recalled from banishment; and though not yet permitted to return to Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the capital were assigned for the place of his residence. 84
81 (return)
[ It should seem that these
were circular orders, sent at the same time to all the governors.
Dionysius (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 11) relates the history of his own
banishment from Alexandria almost in the same manner. But as he escaped
and survived the persecution, we must account him either more or less
fortunate than Cyprian.]
82 (return)
[ See Plin. Hist. Natur. v.
3. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. part iii. p. 96. Shaw's Travels, p. 90; and
for the adjacent country, (which is terminated by Cape Bona, or the
promontory of Mercury,) l'Afrique de Marmol. tom. ii. p. 494. There are
the remains of an aqueduct near Curubis, or Curbis, at present altered
into Gurbes; and Dr. Shaw read an inscription, which styles that city
Colonia Fulvia. The deacon Pontius (in Vit. Cyprian. c. 12) calls it
"Apricum et competentem locum, hospitium pro voluntate secretum, et
quicquid apponi eis ante promissum est, qui regnum et justitiam Dei
quaerunt."]
83 (return)
[ See Cyprian. Epistol. 77,
edit. Fell.]
84 (return)
[ Upon his conversion, he
had sold those gardens for the benefit of the poor. The indulgence of God
(most probably the liberality of some Christian friend) restored them to
Cyprian. See Pontius, c. 15.]
At length, exactly one year 85 after Cyprian was first apprehended, Galerius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, received the Imperial warrant for the execution of the Christian teachers. The bishop of Carthage was sensible that he should be singled out for one of the first victims; and the frailty of nature tempted him to withdraw himself, by a secret flight, from the danger and the honor of martyrdom; 8511 but soon recovering that fortitude which his character required, he returned to his gardens, and patiently expected the ministers of death. Two officers of rank, who were intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian between them in a chariot, and as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they conducted him, not to a prison, but to a private house in Carthage, which belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was provided for the entertainment of the bishop, and his Christian friends were permitted for the last time to enjoy his society, whilst the streets were filled with a multitude of the faithful, anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate of their spiritual father. 86 In the morning he appeared before the tribunal of the proconsul, who, after informing himself of the name and situation of Cyprian, commanded him to offer sacrifice, and pressed him to reflect on the consequences of his disobedience. The refusal of Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the magistrate, when he had taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with some reluctance the sentence of death. It was conceived in the following terms: "That Thascius Cyprianus should be immediately beheaded, as the enemy of the gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a criminal association, which he had seduced into an impious resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors, Valerian and Gallienus." 87 The manner of his execution was the mildest and least painful that could be inflicted on a person convicted of any capital offence; nor was the use of torture admitted to obtain from the bishop of Carthage either the recantation of his principles or the discovery of his accomplices.
85 (return)
[ When Cyprian; a
twelvemonth before, was sent into exile, he dreamt that he should be put
to death the next day. The event made it necessary to explain that word,
as signifying a year. Pontius, c. 12.]
8511 (return)
[ This was not, as it
appears, the motive which induced St. Cyprian to conceal himself for a
short time; he was threatened to be carried to Utica; he preferred
remaining at Carthage, in order to suffer martyrdom in the midst of his
flock, and in order that his death might conduce to the edification of
those whom he had guided during life. Such, at least, is his own
explanation of his conduct in one of his letters: Cum perlatum ad nos
fuisset, fratres carissimi, frumentarios esse missos qui me Uticam per
ducerent, consilioque carissimorum persuasum est, ut de hortis interim
recederemus, justa interveniente 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]
86 (return)
[ Pontius (c. 15)
acknowledges that Cyprian, with whom he supped, passed the night custodia
delicata. The bishop exercised a last and very proper act of jurisdiction,
by directing that the younger females, who watched in the streets, should
be removed from the dangers and temptations of a nocturnal crowd. Act.
Preconsularia, c. 2.]
87 (return)
[ See the original sentence
in the Acts, c. 4; and in Pontius, c. 17 The latter expresses it in a more
rhetorical manner.]
As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of "We will die with him," arose at once among the listening multitude of Christians who waited before the palace gates. The generous effusions of their zeal and their affection were neither serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous to themselves. He was led away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without resistance and without insult, to the place of his execution, a spacious and level plain near the city, which was already filled with great numbers of spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were permitted to accompany their holy bishop. 8711 They assisted him in laying aside his upper garment, spread linen on the ground to catch the precious relics of his blood, and received his orders to bestow five-and-twenty pieces of gold on the executioner. The martyr then covered his face with his hands, and at one blow his head was separated from his body. His corpse remained during some hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the night it was removed, and transported in a triumphal procession, and with a splendid illumination, to the burial-place of the Christians. The funeral of Cyprian was publicly celebrated without receiving any interruption from the Roman magistrates; and those among the faithful, who had performed the last offices to his person and his memory, were secure from the danger of inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable, that of so great a multitude of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the first who was esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom. 88
8711 (return)
[ There is nothing in
the life of St. Cyprian, by Pontius, nor in the ancient manuscripts, which
can make us suppose that the presbyters and deacons in their clerical
character, and known to be such, had the permission to attend their holy
bishop. Setting aside all religious considerations, it is impossible not
to be surprised at the kind of complaisance with which the historian here
insists, in favor of the persecutors, on some mitigating circumstances
allowed at the death of a man whose only crime was maintaining his own
opinions with frankness and courage.—G.]
88 (return)
[ Pontius, c. 19. M. de
Tillemont (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.
89 (return)
[ Whatever opinion we may
entertain of the character or principles of Thomas Becket, we must
acknowledge that he suffered death with a constancy not unworthy of the
primitive martyrs. See Lord Lyttleton's History of Henry II. vol. ii. p.
592, &c.]
90 (return)
[ See in particular the
treatise of Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 87-98, edit. Fell. The learning of
Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprianic. xii. xiii.,) and the ingenuity of
Middleton, (Free Inquiry, p. 162, &c.,) have left scarcely any thing
to add concerning the merit, the honors, and the motives of the martyrs.]
91 (return)
[ Cyprian. Epistol. 5, 6,
7, 22, 24; and de Unitat. 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.
92 (return)
[ 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.]
93 (return)
[ 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.]
94 (return)
[ The story of Polyeuctes,
on which Corneille has founded a very beautiful tragedy, is one of the
most celebrated, though not perhaps the most authentic, instances of this
excessive zeal. We should observe, that the 60th canon of the council of
Illiberis refuses the title of martyrs to those who exposed themselves to
death, by publicly destroying the idols.]
95 (return)
[ See Epictetus, l. iv. c.
7, (though there is some doubt whether he alludes to the Christians.)
Marcus Antoninus de Rebus suis, l. xi. c. 3 Lucian in Peregrin.]
96 (return)
[ Tertullian ad Scapul. c.
5. The learned are divided between three persons of the same name, who
were all proconsuls of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this story to
Antoninus Pius, who was afterwards emperor; and who may have governed Asia
under the reign of Trajan.]
97 (return)
[ Mosheim, de Rebus Christ,
ante Constantin. p. 235.]
But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to inflame, this fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the more natural hopes and fears of the human heart, to the love of life, the apprehension of pain, and the horror of dissolution. The more prudent rulers of the church found themselves obliged to restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers, and to distrust a constancy which too often abandoned them in the hour of trial. 98 As the lives of the faithful became less mortified and austere, they were every day less ambitious of the honors of martyrdom; and the soldiers of Christ, instead of distinguishing themselves by voluntary deeds of heroism, frequently deserted their post, and fled in confusion before the enemy whom it was their duty to resist. There were three methods, however, of escaping the flames of persecution, which were not attended with an equal degree of guilt: first, indeed, was generally allowed to be innocent; the second was of a doubtful, or at least of a venial, nature; but the third implied a direct and criminal apostasy from the Christian faith.
98 (return)
[ See the Epistle of the
Church of Smyrna, ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. Liv. c. 15 * Note: The 15th
chapter of the 10th book of the Eccles. History of Eusebius treats
principally of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and mentions some other
martyrs. A single example of weakness is related; it is that of a Phrygian
named Quintus, who, appalled at the sight of the wild beasts and the
tortures, renounced his faith. This example proves little against the mass
of Christians, and this chapter of Eusebius furnished much stronger
evidence of their courage than of their timidity.—G——This
Quintus had, however, rashly and of his own accord appeared before the
tribunal; and the church of Smyrna condemn "his indiscreet ardor," coupled
as it was with weakness in the hour of trial.—M.]
I. A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an information was given to a Roman magistrate of any person within his jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the charge was communicated to the party accused, and that a convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic concerns, and to prepare an answer to the crime which was imputed to him. 99 If he entertained any doubt of his own constancy, such a delay afforded him the opportunity of preserving his life and honor by flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure retirement or some distant province, and of patiently expecting the return of peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon authorized by the advice and example of the most holy prelates; and seems to have been censured by few except by the Montanists, who deviated into heresy by their strict and obstinate adherence to the rigor of ancient discipline. 100
II.The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent than their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling certificates, (or libels, as they were called,) which attested, that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws, and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false declarations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in some measure their safety with their religion.101 A slight penance atoned for this profane dissimulation. 1011
III. In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their abjuration, by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering sacrifices. Some of these apostates had yielded on the first menace or exhortation of the magistrate; whilst the patience of others had been subdued by the length and repetition of tortures. The affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward remorse, while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to the altars of the gods. 102 But the disguise which fear had imposed, subsisted no longer than the present danger. As soon as the severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the churches were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents who detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with equal ardor, but with various success, their readmission into the society of Christians. 103 1031
99 (return)
[ In the second apology of
Justin, there is a particular and very curious instance of this legal
delay. The same indulgence was granted to accused Christians, in the
persecution of Decius: and Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly mentions the
"Dies negantibus 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.]
100 (return)
[ Tertullian considers
flight from persecution as an imperfect, but very criminal, apostasy, as
an impious attempt to elude the will of God, &c., &c. He has
written a treatise on this subject, (see p. 536—544, edit. Rigalt.,)
which is filled with the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent
declamation. It is, however, somewhat remarkable, that Tertullian did not
suffer martyrdom himself.]
101 (return)
[ The libellatici, who
are chiefly known by the writings of Cyprian, are described with the
utmost precision, in the copious commentary of Mosheim, p. 483—489.]
1011 (return)
[ The penance was not
so slight, for it was exactly the same with that of apostates who had
sacrificed to idols; it lasted several years. See Fleun Hist. Ecc. v. ii.
p. 171.—G.]
102 (return)
[ Plin. Epist. x. 97.
Dionysius Alexandrin. ap. Euseb. l. vi. c. 41. Ad prima statim verba
minantis inimici maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam prodidit: nec
prostratus est persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu seipsum
prostravit. Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many
priests, and even bishops.]
103 (return)
[ It was on this occasion
that Cyprian wrote his treatise De Lapsis, and many of his epistles. The
controversy concerning the treatment of penitent apostates, does not occur
among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe this to
the superiority of their faith and courage, or to our less intimate
knowledge of their history!]
1031 (return)
[ Pliny says, that the
greater part of the Christians persisted in avowing themselves to be so;
the reason for his consulting Trajan was the periclitantium numerus.
Eusebius (l. vi. c. 41) does not permit us to doubt that the number of
those who renounced their faith was infinitely below the number of those
who boldly confessed it. The prefect, he says and his assessors present at
the council, were alarmed at seeing the crowd of Christians; the judges
themselves trembled. Lastly, St. Cyprian informs us, that the greater part
of those who had appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius,
signalized their courage in that of Gallius. Steterunt fortes, et ipso
dolore 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.
104 (return)
[ See Mosheim, p. 97.
Sulpicius Severus was the first author of this computation; though he
seemed desirous of reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the
coming of the Antichrist.]
The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very singular, but at the same time very suspicious, instances of Imperial clemency; the edicts published by Tiberius, and by Marcus Antoninus, and designed not only to protect the innocence of the Christians, but even to proclaim those stupendous miracles which had attested the truth of their doctrine. The first of these examples is attended with some difficulties which might perplex a sceptical mind. 105 We are required to believe, that Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of death which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it appeared, a divine, person; and that, without acquiring the merit, he exposed himself to the danger of martyrdom; that Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion, immediately conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah among the gods of Rome; that his servile senate ventured to disobey the commands of their master; that Tiberius, instead of resenting their refusal, contented himself with protecting the Christians from the severity of the laws, many years before such laws were enacted, or before the church had assumed any distinct name or existence; and lastly, that the memory of this extraordinary transaction was preserved in the most public and authentic records, which escaped the knowledge of the historians of Greece and Rome, and were only visible to the eyes of an African Christian, who composed his apology one hundred and sixty years after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the seasonable tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have been celebrated by the eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any Christians in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some merit to the fervent prayers, which, in the moment of danger, they had offered up for their own and the public safety. But we are still assured by monuments of brass and marble, by the Imperial medals, and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince nor the people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. 106 During the whole course of his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign. 1061
105 (return)
[ The testimony given by
Pontius Pilate is first mentioned by Justin. The successive improvements
which the story acquired (as if has passed through the hands of
Tertullian, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours,
and the authors of the several editions of the acts of Pilate) are very
fairly stated by Dom Calmet Dissertat. sur l'Ecriture, tom. iii. p. 651,
&c.]
106 (return)
[ On this miracle, as it
is commonly called, of the thundering legion, see the admirable criticism
of Mr. Moyle, in his Works, vol. ii. p. 81—390.]
1061 (return)
[ Gibbon, with this
phrase, and that below, which admits the injustice of Marcus, has
dexterously glossed over one of the most remarkable facts in the early
Christian history, that the reign of the wisest and most humane of the
heathen emperors was the most fatal to the Christians. Most writers have
ascribed the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of his
character; Mosheim, to the influence of the philosophic party; but the
fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington, Hist. of the
Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to assert, that "this prince polluted
every year of a long reign with innocent blood;" but the causes as well as
the date of the persecutions authorized or permitted by Marcus are equally
uncertain. Of the Asiatic edict recorded by Melito. the date is unknown,
nor is it quite clear that it was an Imperial edict. If it was the act
under which Polycarp suffered, his martyrdom is placed by Ruinart in the
sixth, by Mosheim in the ninth, year of the reign of Marcus. The martyrs
of Vienne and Lyons are assigned by Dodwell to the seventh, by most
writers to the seventeenth. In fact, the commencement of the persecutions
of the Christians appears to synchronize exactly with the period of the
breaking out of the Marcomannic war, which seems to have alarmed the whole
empire, and the emperor himself, into a paroxysm of returning piety to
their gods, of which the Christians were the victims. See Jul, Capit.
Script. Hist August. p. 181, edit. 1661. It is remarkable that Tertullian
(Apologet. c. v.) distinctly asserts that Verus (M. Aurelius) issued no
edicts against the Christians, and almost positively exempts him from the
charge of persecution.—M. This remarkable synchronism, which
explains the persecutions under M Aurelius, is shown at length in Milman's
History of Christianity, book ii. v.—M. 1845.]
By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured under the government of a virtuous prince, immediately ceased on the accession of a tyrant; and as none except themselves had experienced the injustice of Marcus, so they alone were protected by the lenity of Commodus. The celebrated Marcia, the most favored of his concubines, and who at length contrived the murder of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular affection for the oppressed church; and though it was impossible that she could reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the gospel, she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians. 107 Under the gracious protection of Marcia, they passed in safety the thirteen years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire was established in the house of Severus, they formed a domestic but more honorable connection with the new court. The emperor was persuaded, that in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil, with which one of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor of Caracalla were Christians; 1071 and if that young prince ever betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an incident, which, however trifling, bore some relation to the cause of Christianity. 108 Under the reign of Severus, the fury of the populace was checked; the rigor of ancient laws was for some time suspended; and the provincial governors were satisfied with receiving an annual present from the churches within their jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their moderation. 109 The controversy concerning the precise time of the celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy against each other, and was considered as the most important business of this period of leisure and tranquillity. 110 Nor was the peace of the church interrupted, till the increasing numbers of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the attention, and to have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict, which, though it was designed to affect only the new converts, could not be carried into strict execution, without exposing to danger and punishment the most zealous of their teachers and missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we may still discover the indulgent spirit of Rome and of Polytheism, which so readily admitted every excuse in favor of those who practised the religious ceremonies of their fathers. 111
107 (return)
[ Dion Cassius, or rather
his abbreviator Xiphilin, l. lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has
explained the condition of the church under the reign of Commodus.]
1071 (return)
[ The Jews and
Christians contest the honor of having furnished a nurse is the fratricide
son of Severus Caracalla. Hist. of Jews, iii. 158.—M.]
108 (return)
[ Compare the life of
Caracalla in the Augustan History, with the epistle of Tertullian to
Scapula. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5,
&c.) considers the cure of Severus by the means of holy oil, with a
strong desire to convert it into a miracle.]
109 (return)
[ Tertullian de Fuga, c.
13. The present was made during the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a
matter of serious concern to Tertullian, that the faithful should be
confounded with the most infamous professions which purchased the
connivance of the government.]
110 (return)
[ Euseb. l. v. c. 23, 24.
Mosheim, p. 435—447.]
111 (return)
[ 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 1171
112 (return)
[ Sulpicius Severus, l.
ii. p. 384. This computation (allowing for a single exception) is
confirmed by the history of Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian.]
113 (return)
[ The antiquity of
Christian churches is discussed by Tillemont, (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.]
114 (return)
[ See the Augustan
History, p. 130. The emperor Alexander adopted their method of publicly
proposing the names of those persons who were candidates for ordination.
It is true that the honor of this practice is likewise attributed to the
Jews.]
115 (return)
[ Euseb. Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 21. Hieronym. de Script. Eccles. c. 54. 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.]
116 (return)
[ See the Augustan
History, p. 123. Mosheim (p. 465) seems to refine too much on the domestic
religion of Alexander. His design of building a public temple to Christ,
(Hist. August. p. 129,) and the objection which was suggested either to
him, or in similar circumstances to Hadrian, appear to have no other
foundation than an improbable report, invented by the Christians, and
credulously adopted by an historian of the age of Constantine.]
117 (return)
[ Euseb. l. vi. c. 28. It
may be presumed that the success of the Christians had exasperated the
increasing bigotry of the Pagans. Dion Cassius, who composed his history
under the former reign, had most probably intended for the use of his
master those counsels of persecution, which he ascribes to a better age,
and to and to the favorite of Augustus. Concerning this oration of
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]
1171 (return)
[ It is with good
reason that this massacre has been called a persecution, for it lasted
during the whole reign of Maximin, as may be seen in Eusebius. (l. vi. c.
28.) Rufinus expressly confirms it: Tribus annis a Maximino persecutione
commota, in quibus finem et persecutionis fecit et vitas Hist. l. vi. c.
19.—G.]
Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of his resentment against the Christians were of a very local and temporary nature, and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed as a devoted victim, was still reserved to convey the truths of the gospel to the ear of monarchs. 118 He addressed several edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to his wife, and to his mother; and as soon as that prince, who was born in the neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial sceptre, the Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public and even partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the church, gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his own times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the faith; 119 and afforded some grounds for a fable which was afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and penance from the guilt contracted by the murder of his innocent predecessor. 120 The fall of Philip introduced, with the change of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to the Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of Domitian, was represented as a state of perfect freedom and security, if compared with the rigorous treatment which they experienced under the short reign of Decius. 121 The virtues of that prince will scarcely allow us to suspect that he was actuated by a mean resentment against the favorites of his predecessor; and it is more reasonable to believe, that in the prosecution of his general design to restore the purity of Roman manners, he was desirous of delivering the empire from what he condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of the most considerable cities were removed by exile or death: the vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of Rome during sixteen months from proceeding to a new election; and it was the opinion of the Christians, that the emperor would more patiently endure a competitor for the purple, than a bishop in the capital. 122 Were it possible to suppose that the penetration of Decius had discovered pride under the disguise of humility, or that he could foresee the temporal dominion which might insensibly arise from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be less surprised, that he should consider the successors of St. Peter, as the most formidable rivals to those of Augustus.
118 (return)
[ Orosius, l. vii. c. 19,
mentions Origen as the object of Maximin's resentment; and Firmilianus, a
Cappadocian bishop of that age, gives a just and confined idea of this
persecution, (apud Cyprian Epist. 75.)]
119 (return)
[ The mention of those
princes who were publicly supposed to be Christians, as we find it in an
epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 10,) evidently
alludes to Philip and his family, and forms a contemporary evidence, that
such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian bishop, who lived at an
humble distance from the court of Rome, expresses himself with a becoming
diffidence concerning the truth of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which
were extant in the time of Eusebius, see l. vi. c. 36) would most probably
decide this curious rather than important question.]
120 (return)
[ Euseb. l. vi. c. 34.
The story, as is usual, has been embellished by succeeding writers, and is
confuted, with much superfluous learning, by Frederick Spanheim, (Opera
Varia, tom. ii. p. 400, &c.)]
121 (return)
[ Lactantius, de Mortibus
Persecutorum, c. 3, 4. After celebrating the felicity and increase of the
church, under a long succession of good princes, he adds, "Extitit post
annos plurimos, execrabile animal, Decius, qui vexaret Ecclesiam."]
122 (return)
[ Euseb. l. vi. c. 39.
Cyprian. Epistol. 55. The see of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom
of Fabianus, the 20th of January, A. D. 259, till the election of
Cornelius, the 4th of June, A. D. 251 Decius had probably left Rome, since
he was killed before the end of that year.]
The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor. In the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those princes who had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian faith. In the last three years and a half, listening to the insinuations of a minister addicted to the superstitions of Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the severity, of his predecessor Decius. 123 The accession of Gallienus, which increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to the church; and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their religion by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in such terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and public character. 124 The ancient laws, without being formally repealed, were suffered to sink into oblivion; and (excepting only some hostile intentions which are attributed to the emperor Aurelian 125 the disciples of Christ passed above forty years in a state of prosperity, far more dangerous to their virtue than the severest trials of persecution.
123 (return)
[ Euseb. l. vii. c. 10.
Mosheim (p. 548) has very clearly shown that the praefect Macrianus, and
the Egyptian Magus, are one and the same person.]
124 (return)
[ Eusebius (l. vii. c.
13) gives us a Greek version of this Latin edict, which seems to have been
very concise. By another edict, he directed that the Coemeteria should be
restored to the Christians.]
125 (return)
[ Euseb. l. vii. c. 30.
Lactantius de M. P. c. 6. Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177. Orosius, l. vii. c.
23. Their language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect, that we are
at a loss to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions before
he was assassinated. Most of the moderns (except Dodwell, Dissertat.
Cyprian. vi. 64) have seized the occasion of gaining a few extraordinary
martyrs. * Note: Dr. Lardner has detailed, with his usual impartiality,
all that has come down to us relating to the persecution of Aurelian, and
concludes by saying, "Upon more carefully examining the words of Eusebius,
and observing the accounts of other authors, learned men have generally,
and, as I think, very judiciously, determined, that Aurelian not only
intended, but did actually persecute: but his persecution was short, he
having died soon after the publication of his edicts." Heathen Test. c.
xxxvi.—Basmage positively pronounces the same opinion: Non
intentatum modo, sed executum quoque brevissimo tempore mandatum, nobis
infixum est in aniasis. Basn. Ann. 275, No. 2 and compare Pagi Ann. 272,
Nos. 4, 12, 27—G.]
The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the metropolitan see of Antioch, while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and Zenobia, may serve to illustrate the condition and character of the times. The wealth of that prelate was a sufficient evidence of his guilt, since it was neither derived from the inheritance of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts of honest industry. But Paul considered the service of the church as a very lucrative profession. 126 His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most opulent of the faithful, and converted to his own use a considerable part of the public revenue. By his pride and luxury, the Christian religion was rendered odious in the eyes of the Gentiles. His council chamber and his throne, the splendor with which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who solicited his attention, the multitude of letters and petitions to which he dictated his answers, and the perpetual hurry of business in which he was involved, were circumstances much better suited to the state of a civil magistrate, 127 than to the humility of a primitive bishop. When he harangued his people from the pulpit, Paul affected the figurative style and the theatrical gestures of an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral resounded with the loudest and most extravagant acclamations in the praise of his divine eloquence. Against those who resisted his power, or refused to flatter his vanity, the prelate of Antioch was arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; but he relaxed the discipline, and lavished the treasures of the church on his dependent clergy, who were permitted to imitate their master in the gratification of every sensual appetite. For Paul indulged himself very freely in the pleasures of the table, and he had received into the episcopal palace two young and beautiful women as the constant companions of his leisure moments. 128
126 (return)
[ Paul was better pleased
with the title of Ducenarius, than with that of bishop. The Ducenarius was
an Imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two hundred
Sestertia, or 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.]
127 (return)
[ Simony was not unknown
in those times; and the clergy some times bought what they intended to
sell. It appears that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy
matron, named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400
Folles. (Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every Follis
contained 125 pieces of silver, and the whole sum may be computed at about
2400l.]
128 (return)
[ If we are desirous of
extenuating the vices of Paul, we must suspect the assembled bishops of
the East of publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular epistles
addressed to all the churches of the empire, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 30.)]
Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata had preserved the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over the capital of Syria would have ended only with his life; and had a seasonable persecution intervened, an effort of courage might perhaps have placed him in the rank of saints and martyrs. 1281
Some nice and subtle errors, which he imprudently adopted and obstinately maintained, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern churches. 129
From Egypt to the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in motion. Several councils were held, confutations were published, excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous explanations were by turns accepted and refused, treaties were concluded and violated, and at length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who, without consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts, had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained above four years the possession of the episcopal house and office. 1291 The victory of Aurelian changed the face of the East, and the two contending parties, who applied to each other the epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or permitted to plead their cause before the tribunal of the conqueror. This public and very singular trial affords a convincing proof that the existence, the property, the privileges, and the internal policy of the Christians, were acknowledged, if not by the laws, at least by the magistrates, of the empire. As a Pagan and as a soldier, it could scarcely be expected that Aurelian should enter into the discussion, whether the sentiments of Paul or those of his adversaries were most agreeable to the true standard of the orthodox faith. His determination, however, was founded on the general principles of equity and reason. He considered the bishops of Italy as the most impartial and respectable judges among the Christians, and as soon as he was informed that they had unanimously approved the sentence of the council, he acquiesced in their opinion, and immediately gave orders that Paul should be compelled to relinquish the temporal possessions belonging to an office, of which, in the judgment of his brethren, he had been regularly deprived. But while we applaud the justice, we should not overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who was desirous of restoring and cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, by every means which could bind the interest or prejudices of any part of his subjects. 130
1281 (return)
[ It appears,
nevertheless, that the vices and immoralities of Paul of Samosata had much
weight in the sentence pronounced against him by the bishops. The object
of the letter, addressed by the synod to the bishops of Rome and
Alexandria, was to inform them of the change in the faith of Paul, the
altercations and discussions to which it had given rise, as well as of his
morals and the whole of his conduct. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. vii c. xxx—G.]
129 (return)
[ His heresy (like those
of Noetus and Sabellius, in the same century) tended to confound the
mysterious distinction of the divine persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c.]
1291 (return)
[ "Her favorite,
(Zenobia's,) Paul of Samosata, seems to have entertained some views of
attempting a union between Judaism and Christianity; both parties rejected
the unnatural alliance." Hist. of Jews, iii. 175, and Jost. Geschichte der
Israeliter, iv. 167. The protection of the severe Zenobia is the only
circumstance which may raise a doubt of the notorious immorality of Paul.—M.]
130 (return)
[ Euseb. Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. vii. c. 30. We are entirely indebted to him for the curious
story of Paul of Samosata.]
Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, the Christians still flourished in peace and prosperity; and notwithstanding a celebrated 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.
131 (return)
[ 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.]
132 (return)
[ The expression of
Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 15,) "sacrificio pollui coegit," implies their
antecedent conversion to the faith, but does not seem to justify the
assertion of Mosheim, (p. 912,) that they had been privately baptized.]
133 (return)
[ M. de Tillemont
(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.]
134 (return)
[ Lactantius, de M. P. c.
10.]
135 (return)
[ Eusebius, Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. viii. c. 1. The reader who consults the original will not
accuse me of heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years of
age at the accession of the emperor Diocletian.]
Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer might discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a more violent persecution than any which she had yet endured. The zeal and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the Polytheists from their supine indifference in the cause of those deities, whom custom and education had taught them to revere. The mutual provocations of a religious war, which had already continued above two hundred years, exasperated the animosity of the contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the rashness of a recent and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their countrymen of error, and to devote their ancestors to eternal misery. The habits of justifying the popular mythology against the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced in their minds some sentiments of faith and reverence for a system which they had been accustomed to consider with the most careless levity. The supernatural powers assumed by the church inspired at the same time terror and emulation. The followers of the established religion intrenched themselves behind a similar fortification of prodigies; invented new modes of sacrifice, of expiation, and of initiation; 136 attempted to revive the credit of their expiring oracles; 137 and listened with eager credulity to every impostor, who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders. 138 Both parties seemed to acknowledge the truth of those miracles which were claimed by their adversaries; and while they were contented with ascribing them to the arts of magic, and to the power of 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
136 (return)
[ We might quote, among a
great number of instances, the mysterious worship of Mythras, and the
Taurobolia; the latter of which became fashionable in the time of the
Antonines, (see a Dissertation of M. de Boze, in the 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.]
137 (return)
[ The impostor Alexander
very strongly recommended the oracle of Trophonius at Mallos, and those of
Apollo at Claros and Miletus, (Lucian, tom. ii. p. 236, edit. Reitz.) The
last of these, whose singular history would furnish a very curious
episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he published his edicts of
persecution, (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11.)]
138 (return)
[ Besides the ancient
stories of Pythagoras and Aristeas, the cures performed at the shrine of
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.]
139 (return)
[ It is seriously to be
lamented, that the Christian fathers, by acknowledging the supernatural,
or, as they deem it, the infernal part of Paganism, destroy with their own
hands the great advantage which we might otherwise derive from the liberal
concessions of our adversaries.]
140 (return)
[ Julian (p. 301, edit.
Spanheim) expresses a pious joy, that the providence of the gods had
extinguished the impious sects, and for the most part destroyed the books
of the Pyrrhonians and Epicuraeans, which had been very numerous, since
Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See Diogenes Laertius,
l. x. c. 26.]
141 (return)
[ Cumque alios audiam
mussitare indignanter, et dicere opportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur
ut 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.]
142 (return)
[ Lactantius (Divin.
Institut. l. v. c. 2, 3) gives a very clear and spirited account of two of
these philosophic adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry
against the Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in
Sicily about the year 270.]
143 (return)
[ See Socrates, Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 9, and Codex Justinian. l. i. i. l. s.]
Although the policy of Diocletian and the humanity of Constantius inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it was soon discovered that their two associates, Maximian and Galerius, entertained the most implacable aversion for the name and religion of the Christians. The minds of those princes had never been enlightened by science; education had never softened their temper. They owed their greatness to their swords, and in their most elevated fortune they still retained their superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the general administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which their benefactor had established; but they frequently found occasions of exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution, 144 for which the imprudent zeal of the Christians sometimes offered the most specious pretences. A sentence of death was executed upon Maximilianus, an African youth, who had been produced by his own father 1441 before the magistrate as a sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to embrace the profession of a soldier. 145 It could scarcely be expected that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival, that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal King, and that he renounced forever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. 146 Examples of such a nature savor much less of religious persecution than of martial or even civil law; but they served to alienate the mind of the emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, who dismissed a great number of Christian officers from their employments; and to authorize the opinion, that a sect of enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the public safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become dangerous, subjects of the empire.
144 (return)
[ Eusebius, l. viii. c.
4, c. 17. He limits the number of military martyrs, by a remarkable
expression, of which neither his Latin nor French translator have rendered
the energy. Notwithstanding the authority of Eusebius, and the silence of
Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, &c., it has been long
believed, that the 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.]
1441 (return)
[ M. Guizot criticizes
Gibbon's account of this incident. He supposes that Maximilian was not
"produced by his father as a recruit," but was obliged to appear by the
law, which compelled the sons of soldiers to serve at 21 years old. Was
not this a law of Constantine? Neither does this circumstance appear in
the acts. His father had clearly expected him to serve, as he had bought
him a new dress for the occasion; yet he refused to force the conscience
of his son. and when Maximilian was condemned to death, the father
returned home in joy, blessing God for having bestowed upon him such a
son.—M.]
145 (return)
[ See the Acta Sincera,
p. 299. The accounts of his martyrdom and that of Marcellus, bear every
mark of truth and authenticity.]
146 (return)
[ Acta Sincera, p. 302. *
Note: M. Guizot here justly observes, that it was the necessity of
sacrificing to the gods, which induced Marcellus to act in this manner.—M.]
After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes and the reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the palace of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity became the object of their secret consultations. 147 The experienced emperor was still inclined to pursue measures of lenity; and though he readily consented to exclude the Christians from holding any employments in the household or the army, he urged in the strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty of shedding the blood of those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length extorted 1471 from him the permission of summoning a council, composed of a few persons the most distinguished in the civil and military departments of the state.
The important question was agitated in their presence, and those ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the 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
147 (return)
[ De M. P. c. 11.
Lactantius (or whoever was the author of this little treatise) was, at
that time, an inhabitant of Nicomedia; but it seems difficult to conceive
how he could acquire so accurate a knowledge of what passed in the
Imperial cabinet. Note: * Lactantius, who was subsequently chosen by
Constantine to educate Crispus, might easily have learned these details
from Constantine himself, already of sufficient age to interest himself in
the affairs of the government, and in a position to obtain the best
information.—G. This assumes the doubtful point of the authorship of
the Treatise.—M.]
1471 (return)
[ This permission was
not extorted from Diocletian; he took the step of his own accord.
Lactantius says, in truth, Nec tamen deflectere potuit (Diocletianus)
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.]
148 (return)
[ The only circumstance
which we can discover, is the devotion and jealousy of the mother of
Galerius. She is described by Lactantius, as Deorum montium cultrix;
mulier admodum superstitiosa. She had a great influence over her son, and
was offended by the disregard of some of her Christian servants. * Note:
This disregard consisted in the Christians fasting and praying instead of
participating in the banquets and sacrifices which she celebrated with the
Pagans. Dapibus sacrificabat 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
149 (return)
[ 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.]
150 (return)
[ In our only MS. of
Lactantius, we read profectus; but reason, and the authority of all the
critics, allow us, instead of that word, which destroys the sense of the
passage, to substitute proefectus.]
151 (return)
[ Lactantius, de M. P. c.
12, gives a very lively picture of the destruction of the church.]
The next day the general edict of persecution was published; 152 and though Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had moderated the fury of Galerius, who proposed, that every one refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be burnt alive, the penalties inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians might be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual. It was enacted, that their churches, in all the provinces of the empire, should be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment of death was denounced against all who should presume to hold any secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature and genius of the Christian religion; and as they were not ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith were supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested the order, that the bishops and presbyters should deliver all their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates; who were commanded, under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public and solemn manner. By the same edict, the property of the church was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship, and to dissolve the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those perverse individuals who should still reject the religion of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which they themselves had suffered; and thus those unfortunate sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded from the benefits, of public justice. This new species of martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious, was, perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the faithful: nor can it be doubted that the passions and interest of mankind were disposed on this occasion to second the designs of the emperors. But the policy of a well-ordered government must sometimes have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Christians; 1521 nor was it possible for the Roman princes entirely to remove the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act of fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the rest of their subjects to the most alarming dangers. 153
152 (return)
[ Mosheim, (p. 922—926,)
from man scattered passages of Lactantius and Eusebius, has collected a
very just and accurate notion of this edict though he sometimes deviates
into conjecture and refinement.]
1521 (return)
[ This wants proof. The
edict of Diocletian was executed in all its right during the rest of his
reign. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l viii. c. 13.—G.]
153 (return)
[ Many ages afterwards,
Edward J. practised, with great success, the same mode of persecution
against the clergy of England. See Hume's History of England, vol. ii. p.
300, last 4to edition.]
This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public view, in the most conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by the hands of a Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the bitterest invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such impious and tyrannical governors. His offence, according to the mildest laws, amounted to treason, and deserved death. And if it be true that he was a person of rank and education, those circumstances could serve only to aggravate his guilt. He was burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners, zealous to revenge the personal insult which had been offered to the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in his countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that his conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws of prudence, admired the divine fervor of his zeal; and the excessive commendations which they lavished on the memory of their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression of terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian. 154
154 (return)
[ Lactantius only calls
him quidam, et si non recte, magno tamer animo, &c., c. 12. Eusebius
(l. viii. c. 5) adorns him with secular honora Neither have condescended
to mention his name; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under that of
John. See Tillemont, Memones 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
155 (return)
[ Lactantius de M. P. c.
13, 14. Potentissimi quondam Eunuchi necati, per quos Palatium et ipse
constabat. Eusebius (l. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel executions of the
eunuchs, Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthimius, bishop of Nicomedia;
and both those writers describe, in a vague but tragical manner, the
horrid scenes which were acted even in the Imperial presence.]
156 (return)
[ See Lactantius,
Eusebius, and Constantine, ad 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
157 (return)
[ Tillemont, Memoires
Ecclesiast. tom. v. part i. p. 43.]
158 (return)
[ See the Acta Sincera of
Ruinart, p. 353; those of Felix of Thibara, or Tibiur, appear much less
corrupted than in the other editions, which afford a lively specimen of
legendary license.]
159 (return)
[ See the first book of
Optatus of Milevis against the Donatiste, Paris, 1700, edit. Dupin. He
lived under the reign of Valens.]
The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were already so multiplied in the empire, that the most severe inquisition could no longer be attended with any fatal consequences; and even the sacrifice of those volumes, which, in every congregation, were preserved for public use, required the consent of some treacherous and unworthy Christians. But the ruin of the churches was easily effected by the authority of the government, and by the labor of the Pagans. In some provinces, however, the magistrates contented themselves with shutting up the places of religious worship. In others, they more literally complied with the terms of the edict; and after taking away the doors, the benches, and the pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral pile, they completely demolished the remainder of the edifice. 160 It is perhaps to this melancholy occasion that we should apply a very remarkable story, which is related with so many circumstances of variety and improbability, that it serves rather to excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a small town in Phrygia, of whose 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
160 (return)
[ The ancient monuments,
published at the end of Optatus, p. 261, &c. describe, in a very
circumstantial manner, the proceedings of the governors in the destruction
of churches. They made a minute inventory of the plate, &c., which
they found in them. That of the church of Cirta, in Numidia, is still
extant. It consisted of two chalices of gold, and six of silver; six urns,
one kettle, seven lamps, all likewise of silver; besides a large quantity
of brass utensils, and wearing apparel.]
161 (return)
[ Lactantius (Institut.
Divin. v. 11) confines the calamity to the conventiculum, with its
congregation. Eusebius (viii. 11) extends it to a whole city, and
introduces something very like a regular siege. His ancient Latin
translator, Rufinus, adds the important circumstance of the permission
given to the inhabitants of retiring from thence. As Phrygia reached to
the confines of Isauria, it is possible that the restless temper of those
independent barbarians may have contributed to this misfortune. Note:
Universum populum. Lact. Inst. Div. v. 11.—G.]
Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost as soon as excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded the enemies of the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate, that those troubles had been secretly fomented by the intrigues of the bishops, who had already forgotten their ostentatious professions of passive and unlimited obedience. 162
The resentment, or the fears, of Diocletian, at length transported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel edicts, 1621 his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By the first of these edicts, the governors of the provinces were directed to apprehend all persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the prisons, destined for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded to employ every method of severity, which might reclaim them from their odious superstition, and oblige them to return to the established worship of the gods. This rigorous order was extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole body of Christians, who were exposed to a violent and general persecution. 163
Instead of those salutary restraints, which had required the direct and solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as well as the interest of the Imperial officers to discover, to pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful. Heavy penalties were denounced against all who should presume to save a prescribed sectary from the just indignation of the gods, and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of this law, the virtuous courage of many of the Pagans, in concealing their friends or relations, affords an honorable proof, that the rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds the sentiments of nature and humanity. 164
162 (return)
[ Eusebius, l. viii. c.
6. M. de Valois (with some probability) thinks that he has discovered the
Syrian rebellion in an oration of Libanius; and that it was a rash attempt
of the tribune Eugenius, who with only five hundred men seized Antioch,
and might perhaps allure the Christians by the promise of religious
toleration. From Eusebius, (l. ix. c. 8,) as well as from Moses of
Chorene, (Hist. Armen. l. ii. 77, &c.,) it may be inferred, that
Christianity was already introduced into Armenia.]
1621 (return)
[ He had already passed
them in his first edict. It does not appear that resentment or fear had
any share in the new persecutions: perhaps they originated in
superstition, and a specious apparent respect for its ministers. The
oracle of Apollo, consulted by Diocletian, gave no answer; and said that
just men hindered it from speaking. Constantine, who assisted at the
ceremony, affirms, with an oath, that when questioned about these men, the
high priest named the Christians. "The Emperor eagerly seized on this
answer; and drew against the innocent a sword, destined only to punish the
guilty: he instantly issued edicts, written, if I may use the expression,
with a poniard; and ordered the judges to employ all their skill to invent
new modes of punishment. Euseb. Vit Constant. l. ii c 54."—G.]
163 (return)
[ See Mosheim, p. 938:
the text of Eusebius very plainly shows that the governors, whose powers
were enlarged, not restrained, by the new laws, could punish with death
the most obstinate Christians as an example to their brethren.]
164 (return)
[ Athanasius, p. 833, ap.
Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom v part i. 90.]
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.
165 (return)
[ Eusebius, l. viii. c.
13. Lactantius de M. P. c. 15. Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprian. xi. 75)
represents them as inconsistent with each other. But the former evidently
speaks of Constantius in the station of Caesar, and the latter of the same
prince in the rank of Augustus.]
166 (return)
[ Datianus is mentioned,
in Gruter's Inscriptions, as having determined the limits between the
territories of Pax Julia, and those of Ebora, both cities in the southern
part of Lusitania. If we recollect the neighborhood of those places to
Cape St. Vincent, we may suspect that the celebrated deacon and martyr of
that name had been inaccurately assigned by Prudentius, &c., to
Saragossa, or Valentia. See the pompous history of his sufferings, in the
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
167 (return)
[ Eusebius, l. viii. c.
11. Gruter, Inscrip. p. 1171, No. 18. Rufinus has mistaken the office of
Adauctus, as well as the place of his martyrdom. * Note: M. Guizot
suggests the powerful cunuchs of the palace. Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and
Andrew, admitted by Gibbon himself to have been put to death, p. 66.]
The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored peace to the churches of Italy and Africa; and the same tyrant who oppressed every other class of his subjects, showed himself just, humane, and even partial, towards the afflicted Christians. He depended on their gratitude and affection, and very naturally presumed, that the injuries which they had suffered, and the dangers which they still apprehended from his most inveterate enemy, would secure the fidelity of a party already considerable by their numbers and opulence. 168 Even the conduct of Maxentius towards the bishops of Rome and Carthage may be considered as the proof of his toleration, since it is probable that the most orthodox princes would adopt the same measures with regard to their established clergy. Marcellus, the former of these prelates, had thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe penance which he imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the late persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The rage of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the blood of the faithful was shed by each other's hands, and the exile of Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less eminent than his zeal, was found to be the only measure capable of restoring peace to the distracted church of Rome. 169 The behavior of Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been still more reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal palace; and though it was somewhat early to advance any claims of ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to deliver him up to the officers of justice. For this treasonable resistance, Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of receiving a legal sentence of death or banishment, he was permitted, after a short examination, to return to his diocese. 170 Such was the happy condition of the Christian subjects of Maxentius, that whenever they were desirous of procuring for their own use any bodies of martyrs, they were obliged to purchase them from the most distant provinces of the East. A story is related of Aglae, a Roman lady, descended from a consular family, and possessed of so ample an estate, that it required the management of seventy-three stewards. Among these Boniface was the favorite of his mistress; and as Aglae mixed love with devotion, it is reported that he was admitted to share her bed. Her fortune enabled her to gratify the pious desire of obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She intrusted Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large quantity of aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen and three covered chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far as Tarsus in Cilicia. 171
168 (return)
[ Eusebius, l. viii. c.
14. But as Maxentius was vanquished by Constantine, it suited the purpose
of Lactantius to place his death among those of the persecutors. * Note:
M. Guizot directly contradicts this statement of Gibbon, and appeals to
Eusebius. Maxentius, who assumed the power in Italy, pretended at first to
be a Christian, to gain the favor of the Roman people; he ordered his
ministers to cease to persecute the Christians, affecting a hypocritical
piety, in order to appear more mild than his predecessors; but his actions
soon proved that he was very different from what they had at first hoped.
The actions of Maxentius were those of a cruel tyrant, but not those of a
persecutor: the Christians, like the rest of his subjects, suffered from
his vices, but they were not oppressed as a sect. Christian females were
exposed to his lusts, as well as to the brutal violence of his colleague
Maximian, but they were not selected as Christians.—M.]
169 (return)
[ The epitaph of
Marcellus is to be found in Gruter, Inscrip. p 1172, No. 3, and it
contains all that we know of his history. Marcellinus and Marcellus, whose
names follow in the list of popes, are supposed by many critics to be
different persons; but the learned 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.]
170 (return)
[ Optatus contr.
Donatist. l. i. c. 17, 18. * Note: The words of Optatus are, Profectus
(Roman) causam dixit; jussus con reverti Carthaginem; perhaps, in pleading
his cause, he exculpated himself, since he received an order to return to
Carthage.—G.]
171 (return)
[ The Acts of the Passion
of St. Boniface, which abound in miracles and declamation, are published
by Ruinart, (p. 283—291,) both in Greek and Latin, from the
authority of very ancient manuscripts. Note: We are ignorant whether Aglae
and Boniface were Christians at the time of their unlawful connection. See
Tillemont. Mem, Eccles. Note on the Persecution of Domitian, tom. v. note
82. M. de Tillemont proves also that the history is doubtful.—G.
——Sir D. Dalrymple (Lord Hailes) calls the story of Aglae and
Boniface as of equal authority with our popular histories of Whittington
and Hickathrift. Christian Antiquities, ii. 64.—M.]
The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author of the persecution, was formidable to those Christians whom their misfortunes had placed within the limits of his dominions; and it may fairly be presumed that many persons of a middle rank, who were not confined by the chains either of wealth or of poverty, very frequently deserted their native country, and sought a refuge in the milder climate of the West. 1711 As long as he commanded only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he could with difficulty either find or make a considerable number of martyrs, in a warlike country, which had entertained the missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance than any other part of the empire. 172 But when Galerius had obtained the supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in their fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the provinces of Thrace and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate jurisdiction, but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where Maximin gratified his own inclination, by yielding a rigorous obedience to the stern commands of his benefactor. 173 The frequent disappointments of his ambitious views, the experience of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections which a lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to subdue their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the mischief that he had occasioned, he published in his own name, and in those of Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, which, after a pompous recital of the Imperial titles, proceeded in the following manner:—
1711 (return)
[ A little after this,
Christianity was propagated to the north of the Roman provinces, among the
tribes of Germany: a multitude of Christians, forced by the persecutions
of the Emperors to take refuge among the Barbarians, were received with
kindness. Euseb. de Vit. Constant. ii. 53. Semler Select. cap. H. E. p.
115. The Goths owed their first knowledge of Christianity to a young girl,
a prisoner of war; she continued in the midst of them her exercises of
piety; she fasted, prayed, and praised God day and night. When she was
asked what good would come of so much painful trouble she answered, "It is
thus that Christ, the Son of God, is to be honored." Sozomen, ii. c. 6.—G.]
172 (return)
[ During the four first
centuries, there exist few traces of either bishops or bishoprics in the
western Illyricum. It has been thought probable that the primate of Milan
extended his jurisdiction over Sirmium, the capital of that great
province. See the Geographia Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, p. 68-76, with
the observations of Lucas Holstenius.]
173 (return)
[ The viiith book of
Eusebius, as well as the supplement concerning the martyrs of Palestine,
principally relate to the persecution of Galerius and Maximin. The general
lamentations with which Lactantius opens the vth book of his Divine
Institutions allude to their cruelty.] "Among the important cares which
have occupied our mind for the utility and preservation of the empire, it
was our intention to correct and reestablish all things according to the
ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly
desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature, the deluded
Christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by
their fathers; and presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had
invented extravagant laws and opinions, according to the dictates of their
fancy, and had collected a various society from the different provinces of
our empire. The edicts, which we have published to enforce the worship of
the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to danger and distress,
many having suffered death, and many more, who still persist in their
impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we
are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted
clemency. We permit them therefore freely to profess their private
opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles without fear or
molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
established laws and government. By another rescript we shall signify our
intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope that our indulgence
will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the Deity whom
they adore, for our safety and prosperity for their own, and for that of
the republic." 174 It is not usually in the language of edicts
and manifestos that we should search for the real character or the secret
motives of princes; but as these were the words of a dying emperor, his
situation, perhaps, may be admitted as a pledge of his sincerity.
174 (return)
[ Eusebius (l. viii. c.
17) has given us a Greek version, and Lactantius (de M. P. c. 34) the
Latin original, of this memorable edict. Neither of these writers seems to
recollect how directly it contradicts whatever they have just affirmed of
the remorse and repentance of Galerius. Note: But Gibbon has answered this
by his just observation, that it is not in the language of edicts and
manifestos that we should search * * for the secre motives of princes.—M.]
When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, he was well assured that Licinius would readily comply with the inclinations of his friend and benefactor, and that any measures in favor of the Christians would obtain the approbation of Constantine. But the emperor would not venture to insert in the preamble the name of Maximin, whose consent was of the greatest importance, and who succeeded a few days afterwards to the provinces of Asia. In the first six months, however, of his new reign, Maximin affected to adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and though he never condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a public edict, Sabinus, his 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
175 (return)
[ 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
176 (return)
[ See Eusebius, l. viii.
c. 14, l. ix. c. 2—8. Lactantius de M. P. c. 36. These writers agree
in representing the arts of Maximin; but the former relates the execution
of several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi servos Dei
vetuit. * Note: It is easy to reconcile them; it is sufficient to quote
the entire text of Lactantius: Nam cum clementiam specie tenus
profiteretur, occidi servos Dei vetuit, debilitari jussit. Itaque
confessoribus effodiebantur oculi, amputabantur manus, nares vel 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
177 (return)
[ A few days before his
death, he published a very ample edict of toleration, in which he imputes
all the severities which the Christians suffered to the judges and
governors, who had misunderstood his intentions.See the edict of Eusebius,
l. ix. c. 10.]
In this general view of the persecution, which was first authorized by the edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of the Christian martyrs. It would have been an easy task, from the history of Eusebius, from the declamations of Lactantius, and from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series of horrid and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the variety of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more savage executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These melancholy scenes might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and miracles destined either to delay the death, to celebrate the triumph, or to discover the relics of those canonized saints who suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion. 178 Such an acknowledgment will naturally excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly violated one of the fundamental laws of history, has not paid a very strict regard to the observance of the other; and the suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of Eusebius, 1781 which was less tinctured with credulity, and more practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest or resentment, the rules of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to overturn the altars, to pour out imprecations against the emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his tribunal, it may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty could invent, or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted victims. 179 Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of the Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice, was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been. 1. The confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were permitted by the humanity or the negligence of their keepers to build chapels, and freely to profess their religion in the midst of those dreary habitations. 180 2. The bishops were obliged to check and to censure the forward zeal of the Christians, who voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the magistrates. Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glorious death. Others were allured by the hope that a short confinement would expiate the sins of a whole life; and others again were actuated by the less honorable motive of deriving a plentiful subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. 181 After the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs, whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength had been renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored, were extremely convenient for the purpose of removing every difficulty, and of silencing every objection. The most extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honor of the church, were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of ecclesiastical history.
178 (return)
[ Such is the fair
deduction from two remarkable passages in Eusebius, l. viii. c. 2, and de
Martyr. Palestin. c. 12. The prudence of the historian has exposed his own
character to censure and suspicion. It was well known that he himself had
been thrown into prison; and it was suggested that he had purchased his
deliverance by some dishonorable compliance. The reproach was urged in his
lifetime, and even in his presence, at the council of Tyre. See Tillemont,
Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. viii. part i. p. 67.]
1781 (return)
[ Historical criticism
does not consist in rejecting indiscriminately all the facts which do not
agree with a particular system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in which,
except at the last extremity, he will not consent to believe a martyrdom.
Authorities are to be weighed, not excluded from examination. Now, the
Pagan historians justify in many places the detail which have been
transmitted to us by the historians of the church, concerning the tortures
endured by the Christians. Celsus reproaches the Christians with holding
their assemblies in secret, on account of the fear inspired by their
sufferings, "for when you are arrested," he says, "you are dragged to
punishment: and, before you are put to death, you have to suffer all kinds
of tortures." Origen cont. Cels. l. i. ii. vi. viii. passing. Libanius,
the panegyrist of Julian, says, while speaking of the Christians. "Those
who followed a corrupt religion were in continual apprehensions; they
feared lest Julian should invent tortures still more refined than those to
which they had been exposed before, as mutilation, burning alive, &c.;
for the emperors had inflicted upon them all these barbarities." Lib.
Parent in Julian. ap. Fab. Bib. 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.]
179 (return)
[ The ancient, and
perhaps authentic, account of the sufferings of Tarachus and his
companions, (Acta Sincera Ruinart, p. 419—448,) is filled with
strong expressions of resentment and contempt, which could not fail of
irritating the magistrate. The behavior of 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.]
180 (return)
[ Euseb. de Martyr.
Palestin. c. 13.]
181 (return)
[ 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.]
The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and torture, are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of an artful orator, 1811 that we are naturally induced to inquire into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of persons who suffered death in consequence of the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors. The recent legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without condescending to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel. From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are assured, by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, 182 that no more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that honorable appellation. 1821 As we are unacquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and courage which prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw any useful inferences from the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify a very important and probable conclusion. According to the distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: 183 and since there were some governors, who from a real or affected clemency had preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful, 184 it is reasonable to believe, that the country which had given birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part of the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of Galerius and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen hundred, a number which, if it is equally divided between the ten years of the persecution, will allow an annual consumption of one hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicia, sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than they had ever been in any former persecution, this probable and moderate computation may teach us to estimate the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into the world.
1811 (return)
[ Perhaps there never
was an instance of an author committing so deliberately the fault which he
reprobates so strongly in others. What is the dexterous management of the
more inartificial historians of Christianity, in exaggerating the numbers
of the martyrs, compared to the unfair address with which Gibbon here
quietly dismisses from the account all the horrible and excruciating
tortures which fell short of death? The reader may refer to the xiith
chapter (book viii.) of Eusebius for the description and for the scenes of
these tortures.—M.]
182 (return)
[ Eusebius de Martyr.
Palestin. c. 13. He closes his narration by assuring us that these were
the martyrdoms inflicted in Palestine, during the whole course of the
persecution. The 9th chapter of his viiith book, which relates to the
province of Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our moderate
computation; but it will only lead us to admire the artful management of
the historian. Choosing for the scene of the most exquisite cruelty the
most remote and sequestered country of the Roman empire, he relates that
in Thebais from ten to one hundred persons had frequently suffered
martyrdom in the same day. But when he proceeds to mention his own journey
into Egypt, his language insensibly becomes more cautious and moderate.
Instead of a large, but definite number, he speaks of many Christians, and
most artfully selects two ambiguous words, which may signify either what
he had seen, or what he had heard; either the expectation, or the
execution of the punishment. Having thus provided a secure evasion, he
commits the equivocal passage to his readers and translators; justly
conceiving that their piety would induce them to prefer the most favorable
sense. There was perhaps some malice in the remark of Theodorus Metochita,
that all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with the Egyptians,
delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See Valesius ad loc.)]
1821 (return)
[ This calculation is
made from the martyrs, of whom Eusebius speaks by name; but he recognizes
a much greater number. Thus the ninth and tenth chapters of his work are
entitled, "Of Antoninus, Zebinus, Germanus, and other martyrs; of Peter
the monk. of Asclepius the Maroionite, and other martyrs." [Are these
vague contents of chapters very good authority?—M.] Speaking of
those who suffered under Diocletian, he says, "I will only relate the
death of one of these, from which, the reader may divine what befell the
rest." Hist. Eccl. viii. 6. [This relates only to the martyrs in the royal
household.—M.] Dodwell had made, before Gibbon, this calculation and
these objections; but Ruinart (Act. Mart. Pref p. 27, et seq.) has
answered him in a peremptory manner: Nobis constat Eusebium in historia
infinitos passim martyres admisisse. quamvis revera paucorum nomina
recensuerit. Nec alium Eusebii interpretem quam ipsummet Eusebium
proferimus, qui (l. iii. c. 33) ait sub Trajano plurimosa ex fidelibus
martyrii certamen subiisse (l. v. init.) sub Antonino et Vero
innumerabiles prope martyres per universum orbem enituisse affirmat. (L.
vi. c. 1.) Severum persecutionem concitasse refert, in qua per omnes
ubique locorum Ecclesias, ab athletis pro pietate certantibus, illustria
confecta fuerunt martyria. Sic de Decii, sic de Valeriani, persecutionibus
loquitur, 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.]
183 (return)
[ 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.]
184 (return)
[ Ut gloriari possint
nullam se innocentium poremisse, nam et ipse audivi aloquos gloriantes,
quia administratio sua, in hac paris merit incruenta. Lactant. Institur.
Divin v. 11.]
We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged, that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from the twelfth to the sixteenth century assumed the popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, 185 a man of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and country, at a time when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of intelligence, and increased the danger of detection.
If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of Protestants, who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of the fact itself should prevail over the weight of evidence; if Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and sufferings of the Reformers; 186 we shall be naturally led to inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit can be assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer, 1861 who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded predecessors of their gracious sovereign.
185 (return)
[ Grot. Annal. de Rebus
Belgicis, l. i. p. 12, edit. fol.]
186 (return)
[ Fra Paola (Istoria del
Concilio Tridentino, l. iii.) reduces the number of the Belgic martyrs to
50,000. In learning and moderation Fra Paola was not inferior to Grotius.
The priority of time gives some advantage to the evidence of the former,
which he loses, on the other hand, by the distance of Venice from the
Netherlands.]
1861 (return)
[ Eusebius and the
author of the Treatise de Mortibus Persecutorum. It is deeply to be
regretted that the history of this period rest so much on the loose and,
it must be admitted, by no means scrupulous authority of Eusebius.
Ecclesiastical history is a solemn and melancholy lesson that the best,
even the most sacred, cause will eventually the least departure from
truth!—M.]
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
2 (return)
[ 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
3 (return)
[ The Bosphorus has been
very minutely described by Dionysius of Byzantium, who lived in the time
of Domitian, (Hudson, Geograph Minor, tom. iii.,) and by Gilles or
Gyllius, a French traveller of the XVIth century. Tournefort (Lettre XV.)
seems to have used his own eyes, and the learning of Gyllius. Add Von
Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosphoros, 8vo.—M.]
4 (return)
[ There are very few
conjectures so happy as that of Le Clere, (Bibliotehque Universelle, tom.
i. p. 148,) who supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac or
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.]
5 (return)
[ The residence of Amycus
was in Asia, between the old and the new castles, at a place called Laurus
Insana. That of Phineus was in Europe, near the village of Mauromole and
the Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. l. ii. c. 23. Tournefort, Lettre XV.]
6 (return)
[ The deception was
occasioned by several pointed rocks, alternately sovered and abandoned by
the waves. At present there are two small islands, one towards either
shore; that of Europe is distinguished by the column of Pompey.]
7 (return)
[ The ancients computed one
hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen Roman miles. They measured only from
the new castles, but they carried the straits as far as the town of
Chalcedon.]
8 (return)
[ Ducas. Hist. c. 34.
Leunclavius Hist. Turcica Mussulmanica, l. xv. p. 577. Under the Greek
empire these castles were used as state prisons, under the tremendous name
of Lethe, or towers of oblivion.]
9 (return)
[ Darius engraved in Greek
and Assyrian letters, on two marble columns, the names of his subject
nations, and the amazing numbers of his land and sea forces. The
Byzantines afterwards transported these columns into the city, and used
them for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodotus, l. iv. c. 87.]
10 (return)
[ Namque arctissimo inter
Europam Asiamque divortio Byzantium in 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
11 (return)
[ Strabo, l. vii. p. 492,
[edit. Casaub.] Most of the antlers are now broken off; or, to speak less
figuratively, most of the recesses of the harbor are filled up. See Gill.
de Bosphoro Thracio, l. i. c. 5.]
12 (return)
[ Procopius de
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.]
13 (return)
[ See Ducange, C. P. l.
i. part i. c. 16, and his Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 289. The
chain was drawn from the Acropolis near the modern Kiosk, to the tower of
Galata; and was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.]
Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe and Asia, receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara, which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles.
Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. 14 They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli; where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is again contracted into a narrow channel.
14 (return)
[ Thevenot (Voyages au
Levant, part i. l. i. c. 14) contracts the measure to 125 small Greek
miles. Belon (Observations, l. ii. c. 1.) gives a good description of the
Propontis, but contents himself with the vague expression of one day and
one night's sail. When Sandy's (Travels, p. 21) talks of 150 furlongs in
length, as well as breadth we can only suppose some mistake of the press
in the text of that judicious traveller.]
The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. 15 But the narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the flood for the possession of his mistress. 16 It was here likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. 17 A sea contracted within such narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of broad, which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. 1711 But our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the remembrance of the sea; and his fancy painted those celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself into the 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
15 (return)
[ 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.]
16 (return)
[ The oblique distance
between Sestus and Abydus was thirty stadia. The improbable tale of Hero
and Leander is exposed by M. Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of
poets and medals by M. de la Nauze. See the 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.]
17 (return)
[ See the seventh book of
Herodotus, who has erected an elegant trophy to his own fame and to that
of his country. The review appears to have been made with tolerable
accuracy; but the vanity, first of the Persians, and afterwards of the
Greeks, was interested to magnify the armament and the victory. I should
much doubt whether the invaders have ever outnumbered the men of any
country which they attacked.]
1711 (return)
[ Gibbon does not
allow greater width between the two nearest points of the shores of the
Hellespont than between those of the Bosphorus; yet all the ancient
writers speak of the Hellespontic strait as broader than the other: they
agree in giving it seven stadia in its narrowest width, (Herod. in Melp.
c. 85. Polym. c. 34. Strabo, p. 591. Plin. iv. c. 12.) which make 875
paces. It is singular that Gibbon, who in the fifteenth note of this
chapter reproaches d'Anville with being fond of supposing new and perhaps
imaginary measures, has here adopted the peculiar measurement which
d'Anville has assigned to the stadium. This great geographer believes that
the ancients had a stadium of fifty-one toises, and it is that which he
applies to the walls of Babylon. Now, seven of these stadia are equal to
about 500 paces, 7 stadia = 2142 feet: 500 paces = 2135 feet 5 inches.—G.
See Rennell, Geog. of Herod. p. 121. Add Ukert, Geographie der Griechen
und Romer, v. i. p. 2, 71.—M.]
18 (return)
[ See Wood's Observations
on Homer, p. 320. I have, with pleasure, selected this remark from an
author who in general seems to have disappointed the expectation of the
public as a critic, and still more as a traveller. He had visited the
banks of the Hellespont; and had read Strabo; he ought to have consulted
the Roman itineraries. How was it possible for him to confound Ilium and
Alexandria Troas, (Observations, p. 340, 341,) two cities which were
sixteen miles distant from each other? * Note: Compare Walpole's Memoirs
on Turkey, v. i. p. 101. Dr. Clarke adopted Mr. Walpole's interpretation
of the salt Hellespont. But the old interpretation is more graphic and
Homeric. Clarke's Travels, ii. 70.—M.]
19 (return)
[ Demetrius of Scepsis
wrote sixty books on thirty lines of Homer's catalogue. The XIIIth Book of
Strabo is sufficient for our curiosity.]
20 (return)
[ Strabo, l. xiii. p.
595, [890, edit. Casaub.] The disposition of the ships, which were drawn
upon dry land, and the posts of Ajax and Achilles, are very clearly
described by Homer. See Iliad, ix. 220.]
21 (return)
[ Zosim. l. ii. [c. 30,]
p. 105. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Theophanes, p. 18. Nicephorus Callistus, l.
vii. p. 48. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 6. Zosimus places the new city
between Ilium and Alexandria, but this apparent difference may be
reconciled by the large extent of its circumference. Before the foundation
of Constantinople, Thessalonica is mentioned by Cedrenus, (p. 283,) and
Sardica by Zonaras, as the intended capital. They both suppose with very
little probability, that the emperor, if he had not been prevented by a
prodigy, would have repeated the mistake of the blind Chalcedonians.]
We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from her seven hills, 22 the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the approach on the side of the continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of Constantinople; and the prince who possessed those important passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which could supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without skill, and almost without labor. 23 But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean. Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying winds into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the commerce of the ancient world. 24
[See Basilica Of Constantinople]
22 (return)
[ Pocock's Description of
the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 127. His plan of the seven hills is clear
and accurate. That traveller is seldom unsatisfactory.]
23 (return)
[ See Belon,
Observations, c. 72—76. Among a variety of different species, the
Pelamides, a sort of Thunnies, were the most celebrated. We may learn from
Polybius, Strabo, and Tacitus, that the profits of the fishery constituted
the principal revenue of Byzantium.]
24 (return)
[ See the eloquent
description of Busbequius, epistol. i. p. 64. Est in Europa; habet in
conspectu Asiam, Egyptum. Africamque a 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
25 (return)
[ Datur haec venia
antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis, primordia urbium augustiora
faciat. T. Liv. in prooem.]
26 (return)
[ He says in one of his
laws, pro commoditate urbis quam aeteras nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus.
Cod. Theodos. l. xiii. tit. v. leg. 7.]
27 (return)
[ The Greeks, Theophanes,
Cedrenus, and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves
to vague and general expressions. For a more particular account of the
vision, we are obliged to have recourse to such Latin writers as William
of Malmesbury. See Ducange, C. P. l. i. p. 24, 25.]
28 (return)
[ See Plutarch in Romul.
tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan. Among other ceremonies, a large hole, which
had been dug for that purpose, was filled up with handfuls of earth, which
each of the settlers brought from the place of his birth, and thus adopted
his new country.]
29 (return)
[ Philostorgius, l. ii.
c. 9. This incident, though borrowed from a suspected writer, is
characteristic and probable.]
30 (return)
[ See in the 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
31 (return)
[ Codinus, Antiquitat.
Const. p. 12. He assigns the church of St. Anthony as the boundary on the
side of the harbor. It is mentioned in Ducange, l. iv. c. 6; but I have
tried, without success, to discover the exact place where it was
situated.]
32 (return)
[ The new wall of
Theodosius was constructed in the year 413. In 447 it was thrown down by
an earthquake, and rebuilt in three months by the diligence of the
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.]
33 (return)
[ The measurement is
expressed in the Notitia by 14,075 feet. It is reasonable to suppose that
these were Greek feet, the proportion of which has been ingeniously
determined by M. d'Anville. He compares the 180 feet with 78 Hashemite
cubits, which in different writers are assigned for the heights of St.
Sophia. Each of these cubits was equal to 27 French inches.]
34 (return)
[ The accurate Thevenot
(l. i. c. 15) walked in one hour and three quarters round two of the sides
of the triangle, from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the seven towers.
D'Anville examines with care, and receives with confidence, this decisive
testimony, which gives a circumference of ten or twelve miles. The
extravagant computation of Tournefort (Lettre XI) of thirty-tour or thirty
miles, without including Scutari, is a strange departure from his usual
character.]
35 (return)
[ The 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.]
36 (return)
[ One hundred and eleven
stadia, which may be translated into modern Greek miles each of seven
stadia, or 660, sometimes only 600 French toises. See D'Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 53.]
37 (return)
[ When the ancient texts,
which describe the size of Babylon and Thebes, are settled, the
exaggerations reduced, and the measures ascertained, we find that those
famous cities filled the great but not incredible circumference of about
twenty-five or thirty miles. Compare D'Anville, Mem. de l'Academie, tom.
xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de l'Egypte, p. 201, 202.]
38 (return)
[ If we divide
Constantinople and Paris into equal squares of 50 French toises, the
former contains 850, and the latter 1160, of those divisions.]
The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument of the glories of his reign could employ in the prosecution of that great work, the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with Imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the allowance of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. 39 The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the convenience of a short water carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. 40 A multitude of laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work with incessant toil: but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered, that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were therefore directed to institute schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the study and practice of architecture a sufficient number of ingenious youths, who had received a liberal education. 41 The buildings of the new city were executed by such artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus, surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed without defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable ornaments. 42 The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times, contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople; and gave occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, 43 who observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom these admirable monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the city of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when the human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that we should seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.
39 (return)
[ Six hundred
centenaries, or sixty thousand pounds' weight of gold. This sum is taken
from Codinus, Antiquit. Const. p. 11; but unless that contemptible author
had derived his information from some purer sources, he would probably
have been unacquainted with so obsolete a mode of reckoning.]
40 (return)
[ For the forests of the
Black Sea, consult Tournefort, Lettre XVI. for the marble quarries of
Proconnesus, see Strabo, l. xiii. p. 588, (881, edit. Casaub.) The latter
had already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of Cyzicus.]
41 (return)
[ See the Codex Theodos.
l. xiii. tit. iv. leg. 1. This law is dated in the year 334, and was
addressed to the praefect of Italy, whose jurisdiction extended over
Africa. The commentary of Godefroy on the whole title well deserves to be
consulted.]
42 (return)
[ 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.]
43 (return)
[ Hist. Compend. p. 369.
He describes the statue, or rather bust, of Homer with a degree of taste
which plainly indicates that Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate
age.]
During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal Forum; 44 which appears to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the centre of the Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the burnt pillar. This column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high; and was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in circumference. 45 On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of Apollo. It was a bronze, had been transported either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glittering on his head. 46 The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in breadth. 47 The space between the two 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; 4811 but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne, whence the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase 49 descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. 50 We might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained the name of Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by the munificence of Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above threescore statues of bronze. 51 But we should deviate from the design of this history, if we attempted minutely to describe the different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to observe, that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was contained within the walls of Constantinople. A particular description, composed about a century after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus, two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for their size or beauty, deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian inhabitants. 52
44 (return)
[ Zosim. l. ii. p. 106.
Chron. Alexandrin. vel Paschal. p. 284, Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24. Even
the last of those writers seems to confound the Forum of Constantine with
the Augusteum, or court of the palace. I am not satisfied whether I have
properly distinguished what belongs to the one and the other.]
45 (return)
[ The most tolerable
account of this column is given by Pocock. Description of the East, vol.
ii. part ii. p. 131. But it is still in many instances perplexed and
unsatisfactory.]
46 (return)
[ Ducange, Const. l. i.
c. 24, p. 76, and his notes ad Alexiad. p. 382. The statue of Constantine
or Apollo was thrown down under the reign of Alexius Comnenus. * Note: On
this column (says M. von Hammer) Constantine, with singular shamelessness,
placed his own statue with the attributes of Apollo and Christ. He
substituted the nails of the Passion for the rays of the sun. Such is the
direct testimony of the author of the Antiquit. Constantinop. apud
Banduri. Constantine was replaced by the "great and religious" Julian,
Julian, by Theodosius. A. D. 1412, the key stone was loosened by an
earthquake. The statue fell in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, and was
replaced by the cross. The Palladium was said to be buried under the
pillar. Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosporos, i. 162.—M.]
47 (return)
[ Tournefort (Lettre
XII.) computes the Atmeidan at four hundred paces. If he means geometrical
paces of five feet each, it was three hundred toises in length, about
forty more than the great circus of Rome. See D'Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 73.]
48 (return)
[ The guardians of the
most holy relics would rejoice if they were able to produce such a chain
of evidence as may be alleged on this occasion. See Banduri ad Antiquitat.
Const. p. 668. Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 13. 1. The original
consecration of the tripod and pillar in the temple of Delphi may be
proved from Herodotus and Pausanias. 2. The Pagan Zosimus agrees with the
three ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomen, that the
sacred ornaments of the temple of Delphi were removed to Constantinople by
the order of Constantine; and among these the serpentine pillar of the
Hippodrome is particularly mentioned. 3. All the European travellers who
have visited Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to Pocock, describe it in
the same place, and almost in the same manner; the differences between
them are occasioned only by the injuries which it has sustained from the
Turks. Mahomet the Second broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with
a stroke of his battle axe Thevenot, l. i. c. 17. * Note: See note 75, ch.
lxviii. for Dr. Clarke's rejection of Thevenot's authority. Von Hammer,
however, repeats the story of Thevenot without questioning its
authenticity.—M.]
4811 (return)
[ In 1808 the
Janizaries revolted against the vizier Mustapha Baisactar, who wished to
introduce a new system of military organization, besieged the quarter of
the Hippodrome, in which stood the palace of the viziers, and the
Hippodrome was consumed in the conflagration.—G.]
49 (return)
[ The Latin name Cochlea
was adopted by the Greeks, and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine
history. Ducange, Const. i. c. l, p. 104.]
50 (return)
[ There are three
topographical points which indicate the situation of the palace. 1. The
staircase which connected it with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A small
artificial port on the Propontis, from whence there was an easy ascent, by
a flight of marble steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augusteum
was a spacious court, one side of which was occupied by the front of the
palace, and another by the church of St. Sophia.]
51 (return)
[ Zeuxippus was an
epithet of Jupiter, and the baths were a part of old Byzantium. The
difficulty of assigning their true situation has not been felt by Ducange.
History seems to connect them with St. Sophia and the palace; but the
original plan inserted in Banduri places them on the other side of the
city, near the harbor. For their beauties, see Chron. Paschal. p. 285, and
Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 7. Christodorus (see Antiquitat. Const. l.
vii.) composed inscriptions in verse for each of the statues. He was a
Theban poet in genius as well as in birth:—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.]
52 (return)
[ 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
53 (return)
[ Liutprand, Legatio ad
Imp. Nicephornm, p. 153. The modern Greeks have strangely disfigured the
antiquities of Constantinople. We might excuse the errors of the Turkish
or Arabian writers; but it is somewhat astonishing, that the Greeks, who
had access to the authentic materials preserved in their own language,
should prefer fiction to truth, and loose tradition to genuine history. In
a single page of Codinus we may detect twelve unpardonable mistakes; the
reconciliation of Severus and Niger, the marriage of their son and
daughter, the siege of Byzantium by the Macedonians, the invasion of the
Gauls, which recalled Severus to Rome, the sixty years which elapsed from
his death to the foundation of Constantinople, &c.]
54 (return)
[ Montesquieu, Grandeur
et Decadence des Romains, c. 17.]
55 (return)
[ Themist. Orat. iii. p.
48, edit. Hardouin. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Zosim. l. ii. p. 107. Anonym.
Valesian. p. 715. If we could credit Codinus, (p. 10,) Constantine built
houses for the senators on the exact model of their Roman palaces, and
gratified them, as well as himself, with the pleasure of an agreeable
surprise; but the whole story is full of fictions and inconsistencies.]
56 (return)
[ The law by which the
younger Theodosius, in the year 438, abolished this tenure, may be found
among the 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.]
57 (return)
[ The passages of
Zosimus, of Eunapius, of Sozomen, and of Agathias, which relate to the
increase of buildings and inhabitants at Constantinople, are collected and
connected by Gyllius de Byzant. l. i. c. 3. Sidonius Apollinaris (in
Panegyr. Anthem. 56, p. 279, edit. Sirmond) describes the moles that were
pushed forwards into the sea, they consisted of the famous Puzzolan sand,
which hardens in the water.]
The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorest citizens of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first 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 5911 Some other regulations of this emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or quarters, 60 dignified the public council with the appellation of senate, 61 communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, 62 and bestowed on the rising city the title of Colony, the first and most favored daughter of ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and acknowledged supremacy, which was due to her age, her dignity, and to the remembrance of her former greatness. 63
58 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3.
Philostorg. l. ii. c. 9. Codin. Antiquitat. Const. p. 8. It appears by
Socrates, l. ii. c. 13, that the daily allowance of the city consisted of
eight myriads of which we may either translate, with Valesius, by the
words modii of corn, or consider us expressive of the number of loaves of
bread. * Note: At Rome the poorer citizens who received these gratuities
were inscribed in a register; they had only a personal right. Constantine
attached the right to the houses in his new capital, to engage the lower
classes of the people to build their houses with expedition. Codex
Therodos. l. xiv.—G.]
59 (return)
[ See Cod. Theodos. l.
xiii. and xiv., and Cod. Justinian. Edict. xii. tom. ii. p. 648, edit.
Genev. See the beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de
Bell. Gildonico, ver. 46-64.——Cum subiit par Roma mihi,
divisaque sumsit Aequales aurora togas; Aegyptia rura In partem cessere
novam.]
5911 (return)
[ This was also at
the expense of Rome. The emperor ordered that the fleet of Alexandria
should transport to Constantinople the grain of Egypt which it carried
before to Rome: this grain supplied Rome during four months of the year.
Claudian has described with force the famine occasioned by this measure:—
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.]
60 (return)
[ The regions of
Constantinople are mentioned in the code of Justinian, and particularly
described in the Notitia of the younger Theodosius; but as the four last
of them are not included within the wall of Constantine, it may be doubted
whether this division of the city should be referred to the founder.]
61 (return)
[ Senatum constituit
secundi ordinis; Claros vocavit. Anonym Valesian. p. 715. The senators of
old Rome were styled Clarissimi. See a curious note of Valesius ad Ammian.
Marcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epistle of Julian, it should seem
that the place of senator was considered as a burden, rather than as an
honor; but the 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.]
62 (return)
[ Cod. Theodos. l. xiv.
13. The commentary of Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220) is long, but perplexed;
nor indeed is it easy to ascertain in what the Jus Italicum could consist,
after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole empire. *
Note: "This right, (the Jus Italicum,) which by most writers is referred
with out foundation to the personal condition of the citizens, properly
related to the city as a whole, and contained two parts. First, the Roman
or quiritarian property in the soil, (commercium,) and its capability of
mancipation, usucaption, and vindication; moreover, as an inseparable
consequence of this, exemption from land-tax. Then, secondly, a free
constitution in the Italian form, with Duumvirs, Quinquennales. and
Aediles, and especially with Jurisdiction." Savigny, Geschichte des Rom.
Rechts i. p. 51—M.]
63 (return)
[ Julian (Orat. i. p. 8)
celebrates Constantinople as not less superior to all other cities than
she was inferior to Rome itself. His learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75,
76) justifies this language by several parallel and contemporary
instances. Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen, flourished after the
division of the empire between the two sons of Theodosius, which
established a perfect equality between the old and the new capital.]
As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were completed in a few years, or, according to another account, in a few months; 64 but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that under the succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from impending ruin. 65 But while they displayed the vigor and freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication of his city. 66 The games and largesses which crowned the pomp of this memorable festival may easily be supposed; but there is one circumstance of a more singular and permanent nature, which ought not entirely to be overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned, the 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
64 (return)
[ Codinus (Antiquitat. p.
8) affirms, that the foundations of Constantinople were laid in the year
of the world 5837, (A. D. 329,) on the 26th of September, and that the
city was dedicated the 11th of May, 5838, (A. D. 330.) He connects those
dates with several characteristic epochs, but they contradict each other;
the authority of Codinus is of little weight, and the space which he
assigns must appear insufficient. The term of ten years is given us by
Julian, (Orat. i. p. 8;) and Spanheim labors to establish the truth of it,
(p. 69-75,) by the help of two passages from Themistius, (Orat. iv. p.
58,) and of Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 9,) which form a period from the
year 324 to the year 334. Modern critics are divided concerning this point
of chronology and their different sentiments are very accurately described
by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 619-625.]
65 (return)
[ Themistius. Orat. iii.
p. 47. Zosim. l. ii. p. 108. Constantine himself, in one of his laws,
(Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit. i.,) betrays his impatience.]
66 (return)
[ Cedrenus and Zonaras,
faithful to the mode of superstition which prevailed in their own times,
assure us that Constantinople was consecrated to the virgin Mother of
God.]
67 (return)
[ The earliest and most
complete account of this extraordinary ceremony may be found in the
Alexandrian Chronicle, p. 285. Tillemont, and the other friends of
Constantine, who are offended with the air of Paganism which seems
unworthy of a Christian prince, had a right to consider it as doubtful,
but they were not authorized to omit the mention of it.]
68 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 2.
Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 6. Velut ipsius Romae filiam, is the expression of
Augustin. de Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 25.]
69 (return)
[ Eutropius, l. x. c. 8.
Julian. Orat. i. p. 8. Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 5. The name of
Constantinople is extant on the medals of Constantine.]
70 (return)
[ The lively Fontenelle
(Dialogues des Morts, xii.) affects to deride the vanity of human
ambition, and seems to triumph in the disappointment of Constantine, whose
immortal name is now lost in the vulgar appellation of Istambol, a Turkish
corruption of. 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 7111 of the East and West, 72 we derive the most copious and authentic information of the state of the empire. This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle.
71 (return)
[ The Theodosian code was
promulgated A. D. 438. See the Prolegomena of Godefroy, c. i. p. 185.]
7111 (return)
[ The Notitia
Dignitatum Imperii is a description of all the offices in the court and
the state, of the legions, &c. It resembles our court almanacs, (Red
Books,) with this single difference, that our almanacs name the persons in
office, the Notitia only the offices. It is of the time of the emperor
Theodosius II., that is to say, of the fifth century, when the empire was
divided into the Eastern and Western. It is probable that it was not made
for the first time, and that descriptions of the same kind existed before.—G.]
72 (return)
[ Pancirolus, in his
elaborate Commentary, assigns to the Notitia a date almost similar to that
of the Theodosian Code; but his proofs, or rather conjectures, are
extremely feeble. I should be rather inclined to place this useful work
between the final division of the empire (A. D. 395) and the successful
invasion of Gaul by the barbarians, (A. D. 407.) See Histoire des Anciens
Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vii. p. 40.]
The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. 73 But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power. This multitude of abject dependants was interested in the support of the actual government from the dread of a revolution, which might at once confound their hopes and intercept the reward of their services. In this divine hierarchy (for such it is frequently styled) every rank was marked with the most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was displayed in a variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study to learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. 74 The purity of the Latin language was debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride and flattery, a profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely have understood, and which Augustus would have rejected with indignation. The principal officers of the empire were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency, your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious and magnificent Highness. 75 The codicils or patents of their office were curiously emblazoned with such emblems as were best adapted to explain its nature and high dignity; the image or portrait of the reigning emperors; a triumphal car; the book of mandates placed on a table, covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by four tapers; the allegorical figures of the provinces which they governed; or the appellations and standards of the troops whom they commanded Some of these official ensigns were really exhibited in their hall of audience; others preceded their pompous march whenever they appeared in public; and every circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments, and their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer, the system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a splendid theatre, filled with players of every character and degree, who repeated the language, and imitated the passions, of their original model. 76
73 (return)
[ Scilicet 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.]
74 (return)
[ The emperor Gratian,
after confirming a law of precedency published by Valentinian, the father
of his Divinity, thus continues: Siquis igitur indebitum sibi locum
usurpaverit, nulla se ignoratione defendat; sitque plane sacrilegii reus,
qui divina praecepta neglexerit. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. v. leg. 2.]
75 (return)
[ Consult the Notitia
Dignitatum at the end of the Theodosian code, tom. vi. p. 316. * Note:
Constantin, qui remplaca le grand Patriciat par une noblesse titree et qui
changea avec d'autres institutions la nature de la societe Latine, est le
veritable fondateur de la royaute moderne, dans ce quelle conserva de
Romain. Chateaubriand, Etud. Histor. Preface, i. 151. Manso, (Leben
Constantins des Grossen,) p. 153, &c., has given a lucid view of the
dignities and duties of the officers in the Imperial court.—M.]
76 (return)
[ Pancirolus ad Notitiam
utriusque Imperii, p. 39. But his explanations are obscure, and he does
not sufficiently distinguish the painted emblems from the effective
ensigns of office.]
All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in the general state of the empire, were accurately divided into three classes. 1. The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles, or Respectable. And, 3. the Clarissimi; whom we may translate by the word Honorable. In the times of Roman simplicity, the last-mentioned epithet was used only as a vague expression of deference, till it became at length the peculiar and appropriated title of all who were members of the senate, 77 and consequently of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to govern the provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and office, might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new appellation of Respectable; but the title of Illustrious was always reserved to some eminent personages who were obeyed or reverenced by the two subordinate classes. It was communicated only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II. To the 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
77 (return)
[ In the Pandects, which
may be referred to the reigns of the Antonines, Clarissimus is the
ordinary and legal title of a senator.]
78 (return)
[ Pancirol. p. 12-17. I
have not taken any notice of the two inferior ranks, Prefectissimus and
Egregius, which were given to many persons who were not raised to the
senatorial dignity.]
79 (return)
[ Cod. Theodos. l. vi.
tit. vi. The rules of precedency are ascertained with the most minute
accuracy by the emperors, and illustrated with equal prolixity by their
learned interpreter.]
80 (return)
[ Cod. Theodos. l. vi.
tit. xxii.]
I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a free state, they derived their right to power from the choice of the people. As long as the emperors condescended to disguise the servitude which they imposed, the consuls were still elected by the real or apparent suffrage of the senate. From the reign of Diocletian, even these vestiges of liberty were abolished, and the successful candidates who were invested with the annual honors of the consulship, affected to deplore the humiliating condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and the Catos had been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass through the tedious and expensive forms of a popular election, and to expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while their own happier fate had reserved them for an age and government in which the rewards of virtue were assigned by the unerring wisdom of a gracious sovereign. 81 In the epistles which the emperor addressed to the two consuls elect, it was declared, that they were created by his sole authority. 82 Their names and portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory, were dispersed over the empire as presents to the provinces, the cities, the magistrates, the senate, and the people. 83 Their solemn inauguration was performed at the place of the Imperial residence; and during a period of one hundred and twenty years, Rome was constantly deprived of the presence of her ancient magistrates. 84
81 (return)
[ Ausonius (in Gratiarum
Actione) basely expatiates on this unworthy topic, which is managed by
Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 16, 19) with somewhat more freedom and
ingenuity.]
82 (return)
[ Cum de Consulibus in
annum creandis, solus mecum volutarem.... te Consulem et designavi, et
declaravi, et priorem nuncupavi; are some of the expressions employed by
the emperor Gratian to his preceptor, the poet Ausonius.]
83 (return)
[ Immanesque... dentes
Qui secti ferro in tabulas auroque micantes, Inscripti rutilum 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.]
84 (return)
[
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. The procession moved from the palace 87 to the Forum or principal square of the city; where the consuls ascended their tribunal, and seated themselves in the curule chairs, which were framed after the fashion of ancient times. They immediately exercised an act of jurisdiction, by the manumission of a slave, who was brought before them for that purpose; and the ceremony was intended to represent the celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author of liberty and of the consulship, when he admitted among his fellow-citizens the faithful Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of the Tarquins. 88 The public festival was continued during several days in all the principal cities in Rome, from custom; in Constantinople, from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from the love of pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. 89 In the two capitals of the empire the annual games of the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre, 90 cost four thousand pounds of gold, (about) one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling: and if so heavy an expense surpassed the faculties or the inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the sum was supplied from the Imperial treasury. 91 As soon as the consuls had discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire into the shade of private life, and to enjoy, during the remainder of the year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness. They no longer presided in the national councils; they no longer executed the resolutions of peace or war. Their abilities (unless they were employed in more effective offices) were of little moment; and their names served only as the legal date of the year in which they had filled the chair of Marius and of Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in the last period of Roman servitude, that this empty name might be compared, and even preferred, to the possession of substantial power. The title of consul was still the most splendid object of ambition, the noblest reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors themselves, who disdained the faint shadow of the republic, were conscious that they acquired an additional splendor and majesty as often as they assumed the annual honors of the consular dignity. 92
85 (return)
[ See Claudian in Cons.
Prob. et Olybrii, 178, &c.; and in iv. Cons. Honorii, 585, &c.;
though in the latter it is not easy to separate the ornaments of the
emperor from those of the consul. Ausonius received from the liberality of
Gratian a vestis palmata, or robe of state, in which the figure of the
emperor Constantius was embroidered. Cernis et armorum proceres legumque
potentes: Patricios sumunt habitus; et more Gabino Discolor incedit legio,
positisque parumper Bellorum signis, sequitur vexilla Quirini. Lictori
cedunt aquilae, ridetque togatus Miles, et in mediis effulget curia
castris. —Claud. in iv. Cons. Honorii, 5. —strictaque procul
radiare secures. —In Cons. Prob. 229]
87 (return)
[ See Valesius ad Ammian.
Marcellin. l. xxii. c. 7.]
88 (return)
[ Auspice mox 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]
89 (return)
[ 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.]
90 (return)
[ Claudian (in Cons.
Mall. Theodori, 279-331) describes, in a lively and fanciful manner, the
various games of the circus, the theatre, and the amphitheatre, exhibited
by the new consul. The sanguinary combats of gladiators had already been
prohibited.]
91 (return)
[ Procopius in Hist.
Arcana, c. 26.]
92 (return)
[ In Consulatu honos sine
labore suscipitur. (Mamertin. in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 2.) This exalted
idea of the consulship is borrowed from an oration (iii. p. 107)
pronounced by Julian in the servile court of Constantius. See the 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
93 (return)
[ Intermarriages between
the Patricians and Plebeians were prohibited by the laws of the XII
Tables; and the uniform operations of human nature may attest that the
custom survived the law. See in Livy (iv. 1-6) the pride of family urged
by the consul, and the rights of mankind asserted by the tribune
Canuleius.]
94 (return)
[ See the animated
picture drawn by Sallust, in the Jugurthine war, of the pride of the
nobles, and even of the virtuous Metellus, who was unable to brook the
idea that the honor of the consulship should be bestowed on the obscure
merit of his lieutenant Marius. (c. 64.) Two hundred years before, the
race of the Metelli themselves were confounded among the Plebeians of
Rome; and from the etymology of their name of Coecilius, there is reason
to believe that those haughty nobles derived their origin from a sutler.]
95 (return)
[ In the year of Rome
800, very few remained, not only of the old Patrician families, but even
of those which had been created by 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.]
96 (return)
[ Tacit. Annal. xi. 25.
Dion Cassius, l. iii. p. 698. The virtues of Agricola, who was created a
Patrician by the emperor Vespasian, reflected honor on that ancient order;
but his ancestors had not any claim beyond an Equestrian nobility.]
97 (return)
[ This failure would have
been almost impossible if it were true, as Casaubon compels Aurelius
Victor to affirm (ad Sueton, in 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.]
98 (return)
[ 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
99 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 109,
110. If we had not fortunately possessed this satisfactory account of the
division of the power and provinces of the 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
100 (return)
[ 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.]
101 (return)
[ 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.]
102 (return)
[ For this, and the
other dignities of the empire, it may be sufficient to refer to the ample
commentaries of Pancirolus and Godefroy, who have diligently collected and
accurately digested in their proper order all the legal and historical
materials. From those authors, Dr. Howell (History of the World, vol. ii.
p. 24-77) has deduced a very distinct abridgment of the state of the Roman
empire]
From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and Constantinople were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the 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
103 (return)
[ 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.]
104 (return)
[ The fame of Messalla
has been scarcely equal to his merit. In the earliest youth he was
recommended by Cicero to the friendship of Brutus. He followed the
standard of the republic till it was broken in the fields of Philippi; he
then accepted and deserved the favor of the most moderate of the
conquerors; and uniformly asserted his freedom and dignity in the court of
Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was justified by the conquest of
Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of eloquence with Cicero
himself. Messalla cultivated every muse, and was the patron of every man
of genius. He spent his evenings in philosophic conversation with Horace;
assumed his place at table between Delia and Tibullus; and amused his
leisure by encouraging the poetical talents of young Ovid.]
105 (return)
[ Incivilem esse
potestatem contestans, says the translator of Eusebius. Tacitus expresses
the same idea in other words; quasi nescius exercendi.]
106 (return)
[ See Lipsius, Excursus
D. ad 1 lib. Tacit. Annal.]
107 (return)
[ Heineccii. Element.
Juris Civilis secund ordinem Pandect i. p. 70. See, likewise, Spanheim de
Usu. Numismatum, tom. ii. dissertat. x. p. 119. In the year 450, Marcian
published a law, that three citizens should be annually created Praetors
of Constantinople by the choice of the senate, but with their own consent.
Cod. Justinian. li. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 2.]
108 (return)
[ Quidquid igitur intra
urbem admittitur, ad P. U. videtur pertinere; sed et siquid intra
contesimum milliarium. Ulpian in Pandect l. i. tit. xiii. n. 1. He
proceeds to enumerate the various offices of the 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.]
109 (return)
[ 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.]
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.
110 (return)
[ 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.]
111 (return)
[ The proconsul of
Africa had four hundred apparitors; and they all received large salaries,
either from the treasury or the province See Pancirol. p. 26, and Cod.
Justinian. l. xii. tit. lvi. lvii.]
112 (return)
[ In Italy there was
likewise the Vicar of Rome. It has been much disputed whether his
jurisdiction measured one hundred miles from the city, or whether it
stretched over the ten thousand provinces of Italy.]
As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the councils of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence to divide the substance and to multiply the titles of power. The vast countries which the Roman conquerors had united under the same simple form of administration, were imperceptibly crumbled into minute fragments; till at length the whole empire was distributed into one hundred and sixteen provinces, each of which supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these, three were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven by consulars, five by correctors, and seventy-one by presidents. The appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in successive order, 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
113 (return)
[ Among the works of
the celebrated Ulpian, there was one in ten books, concerning the office
of a proconsul, whose duties in the most essential articles were the same
as those of an ordinary governor of a province.]
114 (return)
[ The presidents, or
consulars, could impose only two ounces; the vice-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.]
115 (return)
[ 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.]
116 (return)
[ Pandect. l. xxiii.
tit. ii. n. 38, 57, 63.]
117 (return)
[ In jure continetur,
ne quis in administratione constitutus aliquid compararet. Cod. Theod. l.
viii. tit. xv. leg. l. This maxim of common law was enforced by a series
of edicts (see the remainder of the title) from Constantine to Justin.
From this prohibition, which is extended to the meanest officers of the
governor, they except only clothes and provisions. The purchase within
five years may be recovered; after which on information, it devolves to
the treasury.]
118 (return)
[ Cessent rapaces jam
nunc officialium manus; cessent, inquam nam si moniti non cessaverint,
gladiis 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
119 (return)
[ 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.]
120 (return)
[ The splendor of the
school of Berytus, which preserved in the east the language and
jurisprudence of the Romans, may be computed to have lasted from the third
to the middle of the sixth century Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.]
121 (return)
[ As in a former period
I have traced the civil and military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here
insert the civil honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by
his eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the
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.]
122 (return)
[ Mamertinus in
Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 20. Asterius apud Photium, p. 1500.]
123 (return)
[ The curious passage
of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,) in which he paints the manners of
contemporary lawyers, affords a strange mixture of sound sense, false
rhetoric, and extravagant satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c.
i. p. 185) supports the historian by similar complaints and authentic
facts. In the fourth century, many camels might have been laden with
law-books. Eunapius in Vit. 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.
124 (return)
[ See a very splendid
example in the life of Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The lieutenant of
Britain was intrusted with the same powers which Cicero, proconsul of
Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.]
125 (return)
[ The 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.]
126 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. ii. p.
110. Before the end of the reign of Constantius, the magistri militum were
already increased to four. See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.]
127 (return)
[ Though the military
counts and dukes are frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes,
we must have recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their
number and stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c., of
the counts in general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii.—xx., with the
commentary of Godefroy.]
The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for another innovation, which corrupted military discipline and prepared the ruin of the empire. The nineteen years which preceded his final victory over Licinius, had been a period of license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and the principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the conqueror wanted either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a fatal indulgence, which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the military order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal distinction was admitted between the Palatines 128 and the Borderers; the troops of the court, as they were improperly styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former, elevated by the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted, except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the empire, they trembled at the hostile approach of the Barbarians. 129 The chain of fortifications which Diocletian and his colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers, was no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the humiliating reflection, that they who were exposed to the hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions that were raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to participate in the spoil. 130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious counsels are seldom removed by the application of partial severities; and though succeeding princes labored to restore the strength and numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till the last moment of its dissolution, continued to languish under the mortal wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted by the hand of Constantine.
128 (return)
[ Zosimus, l ii. p.
111. The distinction between the two classes of Roman troops, is very
darkly expressed in the historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult,
however, the copious paratitlon, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up
of the seventh book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii. tit.
i. leg. 18, l. viii. tit. i. leg. 10.]
129 (return)
[ Ferox erat in suos
miles et rapax, ignavus vero in hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4.
He observes, that they loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that
their cups were heavier than their swords.]
130 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. vii.
tit. i. leg. 1, tit. xii. leg. i. See Howell's Hist. of the World, vol.
ii. p. 19. That learned historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors
to justify the character and policy of Constantine.]
The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and of expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient, seems to pervade the institutions of several princes, and particularly those of Constantine. The martial pride of the legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the scene of rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits, and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a visible and important object in the military history of the Roman empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk to a very diminutive size; and when seven legions, with some auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the Persians, the total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the number of twenty thousand persons. 131 From this fact, and from similar examples, there is reason to believe, that the constitution of the legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor and discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of Roman infantry, which still assumed the same names and the same honors, consisted only of one thousand or fifteen hundred men. 132 The conspiracy of so many separate detachments, each of which was awed by the sense of its own weakness, could easily be checked; and the successors of Constantine might indulge their love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one hundred and thirty-two legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their numerous armies. The remainder of their troops was distributed into several hundred cohorts of infantry, and squadrons of cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns, were calculated to inspire terror, and to display the variety of nations who marched under the Imperial standard. And not a vestige was left of that severe simplicity, which, in the ages of freedom and victory, had distinguished the line of battle of a Roman army from the confused host of an Asiatic monarch. 133 A more particular enumeration, drawn from the Notitia, might exercise the diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will content himself with observing, that the number of permanent stations or garrisons established on the frontiers of the empire, amounted to five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the successors of Constantine, the complete force of the military establishment was computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand soldiers. 134 An effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient, and the faculties of a later, period.
131 (return)
[ Ammian. l. xix. c. 2.
He observes, (c. 5,) that the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were
like a handful of water thrown on a great conflagration.]
132 (return)
[ Pancirolus ad
Notitiam, p. 96. Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p.
491.]
133 (return)
[ 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.]
134 (return)
[ Agathias, l. v. p.
157, edit. Louvre.]
In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by the invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was lowered, 135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition which contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that their sons, who succeeded to the inheritance, should devote themselves to the profession of arms, as soon as they attained the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was punished by the loss of honor, of fortune, or even of life. 136 But as the annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men were frequently required from the provinces, and every proprietor was obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was reduced ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which the government admitted of this 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
135 (return)
[ Valentinian (Cod.
Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 3) fixes the standard at five feet seven
inches, about five feet four inches and a half, English measure. It had
formerly been five feet ten inches, and in the best corps, six Roman feet.
Sed tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures sequebantur militiam armatam.
Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.]
136 (return)
[ See the two titles,
De Veteranis and De Filiis Veteranorum, in the seventh book of the
Theodosian Code. The age at which their military service was required,
varied from twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans appeared
with a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two horses gave
them some valuable privileges]
137 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. vii.
tit. xiii. leg. 7. According to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad
loc.,) the same emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold
for a recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that slaves
shall not be admitted inter optimas lectissimorum militum turmas.]
138 (return)
[ The person and
property of a Roman knight, who had mutilated his two sons, were sold at
public auction by order of Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The
moderation of that artful usurper proves, that this example of severity
was justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a distinction
between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls. (L. xv. c. 12.) Yet
only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a law addressed to the 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.)]
139 (return)
[ They were called
Murci. Murcidus is found in Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and
cowardly person, who, according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the
immediate protection of the goddess Murcia. From this particular instance
of cowardice, murcare is used as synonymous to mutilare, by the writers of
the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin,
l. xv. c. 12]
The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend than to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire, they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception, to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise. They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks, who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with their country, and who resented every personal affront as a national indignity. 140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be ranked among the first of the Romans. 141 But as these hardy veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable separation of talents as well as of professions. The accomplished citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act with the same spirit, and with equal abilities.
140 (return)
[ Malarichus—adhibitis
Francis quorum ea tempestate in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam
loquebatur tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.]
141 (return)
[ Barbaros omnium
primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c.
10. Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to
confirm the truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti
of the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single
Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that prince as
relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of the consulship.]
IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from the court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces and armies, the emperor conferred the rank of Illustrious on seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The private apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the 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.
142 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. vi.
tit. 8.]
143 (return)
[ By a very singular
metaphor, borrowed from the military character of the first emperors, the
steward of their household was styled the count of their camp, (comes
castrensis.) Cassiodorus very seriously represents to him, that his own
fame, and that of the empire, must depend on the opinion which foreign
ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the royal
table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)]
144 (return)
[ Gutherius (de
Officiis 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.]
145 (return)
[ 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.]
146 (return)
[ 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.]
147 (return)
[ Sueton. in August. c.
65, and Torrent. ad loc. Dion. Cas. p. 755.]
148 (return)
[ 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.]
149 (return)
[ 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.]
150 (return)
[ Terris edicta
daturus; Supplicibus responsa.—Oracula regis Eloquio crevere tuo;
nec dignius unquam Majestas meminit sese Romana locutam.——Claudian
in Consulat. Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise Symmachus (Epistol. i. 17)
and Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)]
151 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. vi.
tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l. xii. tit. 24.]
152 (return)
[ In the departments of
the two counts of the treasury, the eastern part of the Notitia happens to
be very defective. It may be observed, that we had a treasury chest in
London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But Britain was not
thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul alone possessed
three of the former, and eight of the latter.]
153 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. vi.
tit. xxx. leg. 2, and Godefroy ad loc.]
154 (return)
[ Strabon. Geograph. l.
xxii. p. 809, [edit. Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a
colony from that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President Des Brosses
(see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures that the
deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of the east, the
goddess of generation; a very different being indeed from the goddess of
war.]
155 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. x.
tit. vi. de Grege Dominico. Godefroy has collected every circumstance of
antiquity relative to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds,
the Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about
sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between Constantinople and
Antioch.]
156 (return)
[ Justinian (Novell.
30) subjected the province of the count of Cappadocia to the immediate
authority of the favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred
bed-chamber.]
157 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. vi.
tit. xxx. leg. 4, &c.]
158 (return)
[ Pancirolus, p. 102,
136. The appearance of these military domestics is described in the Latin
poem of Corippus, de Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the
Appendix Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.]
159 (return)
[ Ammianus Marcellinus,
who served so many years, obtained only the rank of a protector. The first
ten among these honorable soldiers were Clarissimi.]
The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three hundred agents or messengers were employed, under the jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of the monarch, 160 and the scourge of the people. Under the warm influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression. These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the palace, were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might securely aim their poisoned arrows at the breast either of the guilty or the innocent, who had provoked their resentment, or refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of Syria perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary administration was conducted by those methods which extreme necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were diligently supplied by the use of torture. 161
160 (return)
[ Xenophon, Cyropaed.
l. viii. Brisson, de Regno Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The emperors
adopted with pleasure this Persian metaphor.]
161 (return)
[ For the Agentes in
Rebus, see Ammian. l. xv. c. 3, l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with the
curious annotations of Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii.
xxix. Among the passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most
remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the death of
Julian.]
The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal 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
162 (return)
[ The Pandects (l.
xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the sentiments of the most celebrated
civilians on the subject of torture. They strictly confine it to slaves;
and Ulpian himself is ready to acknowledge that Res est fragilis, et
periculosa, et quae veritatem fallat.]
163 (return)
[ In the conspiracy of
Piso against Nero, Epicharis (libertina mulier) was the only person
tortured; the rest were intacti tormentis. It would be superfluous to add
a weaker, and it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit.
Annal. xv. 57.]
164 (return)
[ Dicendum... de
Institutis Atheniensium, Rhodiorum, doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam
(id quod acerbissimum est) liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit.
Orat. c. 34. We may learn from the trial of Philotas the practice of the
Macedonians. (Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.)]
165 (return)
[ Heineccius (Element.
Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81) has collected these exemptions into one
view.]
166 (return)
[ This definition of
the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted
to the court of Caracalla, rather than to that of Alexander Severus. See
the Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam majestatis.]
167 (return)
[ Arcadius Charisius is
the oldest lawyer quoted to justify the universal practice of torture in
all cases of treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by
Ammianus with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of
the successors of Constantine. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv.
majestatis crimine omnibus 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
168 (return)
[ Montesquieu, Esprit
des Loix, l. xii. c. 13.]
169 (return)
[ Mr. Hume (Essays,
vol. i. p. 389) has seen this importance with some degree of perplexity.]
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 17511 to the Imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed for the use of the court, of the army, and of two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently obliged to make considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive simplicity of small communities, this method may be well adapted to collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it is at once susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost strictness, which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and the arts of fraud. 176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus. Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole surface of the province. As the footsteps of the Barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the administration of the Roman emperors. 177
170 (return)
[ The cycle of
indictions, which may be traced as high as the reign of Constantius, or
perhaps of his father, Constantine, is still employed by the Papal court;
but the commencement of the year has been very reasonably altered to the
first of January. See l'Art de Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and
Dictionnaire Raison. de la Diplomatique, tom. ii. p. 25; two accurate
treatises, which come from the workshop of the Benedictines. ——
It does not appear that the establishment of the indiction is to be at
tributed to Constantine: it existed before he had been created Augustus at
Rome, and the remission granted by him to the city of Autun is the proof.
He would not have ventured while only 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.]
171 (return)
[ The first
twenty-eight titles of the eleventh book of the Theodosian Code are filled
with the circumstantial regulations on the important subject of tributes;
but they suppose a clearer knowledge of fundamental principles than it is
at present in our power to attain.]
172 (return)
[ The title concerning
the Decurions (l. xii. tit. i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian
Code; since it contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct
laws to ascertain the duties and privileges of that useful order of
citizens. * Note: The Decurions were charged with assessing, according to
the census of property prepared by the tabularii, the payment due from
each proprietor. This odious office was authoritatively imposed on the
richest citizens of each town; they had no salary, and all their
compensation was, to be exempt from certain corporal punishments, in case
they should have incurred them. The Decurionate was the ruin of all the
rich. Hence they tried every way of avoiding this dangerous honor; they
concealed themselves, they entered into military service; but their
efforts were unavailing; they were seized, they were compelled to become
Decurions, and the dread inspired by this title was termed Impiety.—G.
——The Decurions were mutually responsible; they were obliged
to undertake for pieces of ground abandoned by their owners on account of
the pressure of the taxes, and, finally, to make up all deficiencies.
Savigny chichte des Rom. Rechts, i. 25.—M.]
173 (return)
[ Habemus enim et
hominum numerum qui delati sunt, et agrun modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet.
viii. 6. See Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. x. xi., with Godefroy's
Commentary.]
174 (return)
[ Siquis 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.]
175 (return)
[ The astonishment of
Pliny would have ceased. Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus argentum
semper imperitasse non aurum. Hist Natur. xxxiii. 15.]
17511 (return)
[ The proprietors
were not charged with the expense of this transport in the provinces
situated on the sea-shore or near the great rivers, there were companies
of boatmen, and of masters of vessels, who had this commission, and
furnished the means of transport at their own expense. In return, they
were themselves exempt, altogether, or in part, from the indiction and
other imposts. They had certain privileges; particular regulations
determined their rights and obligations. (Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. v.
ix.) The transports by land were made in the same manner, by the
intervention of a privileged company called Bastaga; the members were
called Bastagarii Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. v.—G.]
176 (return)
[ Some precautions were
taken (see Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. l. x. tit.
xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3) to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their
authority, either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those
who had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against Verres,
(iii. de Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the various arts of
oppression, with regard to the weight, the price, the quality, and the
carriage. The avarice of an unlettered governor would supply the ignorance
of precept or precedent.]
177 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. xi.
tit. xxviii. leg. 2, published the 24th of March, A. D. 395, by the
emperor Honorius, only two months after the death of his father,
Theodosius. He speaks of 528,042 Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the
English measure. The jugerum contained 28,800 square Roman feet.]
Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment seemed to unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a capitation. 178 The returns which were sent of every province or district, expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province contained so many capita, or heads of tribute; and that each head was rated at such a price, was universally received, not only in the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value of a tributary head must have varied, according to many accidental, or at least fluctuating circumstances; but some knowledge has been preserved of a very curious fact, the more important, since it relates to one of the richest provinces of the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as the most splendid of the European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. 179 A moderate proportion between these opposite extremes of extraordinary oppression and of transient indulgence, may therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions of Gaul. 180 But this calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by the equality, and by the enormity, of the capitation. An attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire.
178 (return)
[ Godefroy (Cod. Theod.
tom. vi. p. 116) argues with weight and learning on the subject of the
capitation; but while he explains the caput, as a share or measure of
property, he too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment.]
179 (return)
[ Quid profuerit
(Julianus) anhelantibus 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.]
180 (return)
[ In the calculation of
any sum of money under Constantine and his successors, we need only refer
to the excellent discourse of Mr. Greaves on the Denarius, for the proof
of the following principles; 1. That the ancient and modern Roman pound,
containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is about one twelfth lighter than
the English pound, which is composed of 5760 of the same grains. 2. That
the pound of gold, which had once been divided into forty-eight aurei, was
at this time coined into seventy-two smaller pieces of the same
denomination. 3. That five of these aurei were the legal tender for a
pound of silver, and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for
fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman, or about
thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4. That the English pound
of silver is coined into sixty-two shillings. From these elements we may
compute the Roman pound of gold, the usual method of reckoning large sums,
at forty pounds sterling, and we may fix the currency of the aureus at
somewhat more than eleven shillings. * Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation
of M. Letronne, "Considerations 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. 18011 Several indigent citizens contributed to compose a single head, or share of taxation; while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting off three of his heads. 181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of the country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families. II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be rendered more evident by the comparison of the present state of the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute monarch of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The taxes of France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by flattery, beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling, which ought perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of inhabitants. 182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found, not so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in modern France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied on property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among the whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman world, were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent condition was a less rigid servitude. 183 In such a state the poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who enjoyed the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls of tribute were filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed the means of an honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion may be illustrated by the following example: The 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.
18011 (return)
[ Two masterly
dissertations of M. Savigny, in the Mem. of the Berlin Academy (1822 and
1823) have thrown new light on the taxation system of the Empire. Gibbon,
according to M. Savigny, is mistaken in supposing that there was but one
kind of capitation tax; there was a land tax, and a capitation tax,
strictly so called. The land tax was, in its operation, a proprietor's or
landlord's tax. But, besides this, there was a direct capitation tax on
all who were not possessed of landed property. This tax dates from the
time of the Roman conquests; its amount is not clearly known. Gradual
exemptions released different persons and classes from this tax. One edict
exempts painters. In Syria, all under twelve or fourteen, or above
sixty-five, were exempted; at a later period, all under twenty, and all
unmarried females; still later, all under twenty-five, widows and nuns,
soldiers, veterani and clerici—whole dioceses, that of Thrace and
Illyricum. Under Galerius and Licinius, the plebs urbana became exempt;
though this, perhaps, was only an ordinance for the East. By degrees,
however, the exemption was extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and
as it was strictly capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were
exempted it fell at length altogether on the coloni and agricultural
slaves. These were registered in the same cataster (capitastrum) with the
land tax. It was paid by the proprietor, who raised it again from his
coloni and laborers.—M.]
181 (return)
[
Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum,
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.]
182 (return)
[ This assertion,
however formidable it may seem, is founded on the original registers of
births, deaths, and marriages, collected by public authority, and now
deposited in the 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.]
183 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. v.
tit. ix. x. xi. Cod. Justinian. l. xi. tit. lxiii. Coloni appellantur qui
conditionem debent genitali solo, propter agriculturum sub dominio
possessorum. Augustin. de Civitate Dei, l. x. c. i.]
184 (return)
[ The ancient
jurisdiction of (Augustodunum) Autun in Burgundy, the capital of the
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.]
185 (return)
[ 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.]
186 (return)
[ Eumenius in Panegyr
Vet. viii. 11.]
187 (return)
[ 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. 18811 As this general tax upon industry was collected every fourth year, it was styled the Lustral Contribution: and the historian Zosimus 189 laments that the approach of the fatal period was announced by the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be justified from the charge of passion and prejudice; but, from the nature of this tribute it seems reasonable to conclude, that it was arbitrary in the distribution, and extremely rigorous in the mode of collecting. The secret wealth of commerce, and the precarious profits of art or labor, are susceptible only of a discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous to the interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader supplies the want of a visible and permanent security, the payment of the imposition, which, in the case of a land tax, may be obtained by the seizure of property, can rarely be extorted by any other means than those of corporal punishments. The cruel treatment of the insolvent debtors of the state, is attested, and was perhaps mitigated by a very humane edict of Constantine, who, disclaiming the use of racks and of scourges, allots a spacious and airy prison for the place of their confinement. 190
188 (return)
[ See Cod. Theod. l.
xiii. tit. i. and iv.]
18811 (return)
[ The emperor
Theodosius put an end, by a law. to this disgraceful source of revenue.
(Godef. ad Cod. Theod. xiii. tit. i. c. 1.) But before he deprived himself
of it, he made sure of some way of replacing this deficit. A rich
patrician, Florentius, indignant at this legalized licentiousness, had
made representations on the subject to the emperor. To induce him to
tolerate it no longer, he offered his own property to supply the
diminution of the revenue. The emperor had the baseness to accept his
offer—G.]
189 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. ii. p.
115. There is probably as much passion and prejudice in the attack of
Zosimus, as in the elaborate defence of the memory of Constantine by the
zealous Dr. Howell. Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 20.]
190 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. xi.
tit vii. leg. 3.]
These general taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute authority of the monarch; but the occasional offerings of the coronary gold still retained the name and semblance of popular consent. It was an ancient custom that the allies of the republic, who ascribed their safety or deliverance to the success of the Roman arms, and even the cities of Italy, who admired the virtues of their victorious general, adorned the pomp of his triumph by their voluntary gifts of crowns of gold, which after the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of Jupiter, to remain a lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The progress of zeal and flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the size, of these popular donations; and the triumph of 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
191 (return)
[ See Lipsius de
Magnitud. Romana, l. ii. c. 9. The Tarragonese Spain presented the emperor
Claudius with a crown of gold of seven, and Gaul with another of nine,
hundred pounds weight. I have followed the rational emendation of Lipsius.
* Note: This custom is of still earlier date, the Romans had borrowed it
from Greece. Who is not acquainted with the famous oration of Demosthenes
for the golden crown, which his citizens wished to bestow, and Aeschines
to deprive him of?—G.]
192 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. xii.
tit. xiii. The senators were supposed to be exempt from the Aurum
Coronarium; but the Auri Oblatio, which was required at their hands, was
precisely of the same nature.]
A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation. The subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the rage of tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase of taxes. The impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice of their complaints, will observe some favorable circumstances which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted the foundations of Roman greatness, was still repelled, or suspended, on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and literature were cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society were enjoyed, by the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the globe. The forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil administration contributed to restrain the irregular license of the soldiers; and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive some protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a nation of Slaves or Barbarians. 193
193 (return)
[ The great Theodosius,
in his judicious advice to his son, (Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii,
214, &c.,) distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a
Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary for the one; birth might suffice
for the other.]
Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of
Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.—
Persian War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of
Constantius.
The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and introduced such important changes into the civil and religious constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians, the deliverer of the church has been decorated with every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness, dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and the character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age, as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of history should adopt without a blush. 1 But it would soon appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different periods of the reign of Constantine.
1 (return)
[ On ne se trompera point
sur Constantin, en croyant tout le mal ru'en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien
qu'en dit Zosime. Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius
and Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective. The
intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose character or
situation variously tempered the influence of their religious zeal.]
The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been enriched by nature with her 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
2 (return)
[ The virtues of
Constantine are collected for the most part from Eutropius and the younger
Victor, two sincere pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family.
Even Zosimus, and the Emperor Julian, acknowledge his personal courage and
military achievements.]
Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in the plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the Roman princes. 3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the oppression of the people was the only fund which could support the magnificence of the sovereign. 4 His unworthy favorites, enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. 5 A secret but universal decay was felt in every part of the public administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian, assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of Constantine. He is represented with false hair of various colors, laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to the times; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. 6 A mind thus relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was incapable of rising to that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of his interest.
3 (return)
[ See Eutropius, x. 6. In
primo Imperii tempore optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From
the ancient Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am
inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written vix mediis; and
that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the wilful inadvertency of
transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses the general opinion by a vulgar
and indeed obscure proverb. Trachala decem annis praestantissimds;
duodecim sequentibus latro; decem novissimis pupillus ob immouicas
profusiones.]
4 (return)
[ Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in
a flattering discourse pronounced before the son of Constantine; and
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.]
5 (return)
[ The impartial Ammianus
deserves all our confidence. Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium
Constantinus. L. xvi. c. 8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit.
Constantin. l. iv. c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point
out the remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.]
6 (return)
[ Julian, in the 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.
7 (return)
[ Zosimus and Zonaras agree
in representing Minervina as the concubine of Constantine; but Ducange has
very gallantly rescued her character, by producing a decisive passage from
one of the panegyrics: "Ab ipso fine pueritiae te matrimonii legibus
dedisti."]
8 (return)
[ 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
9 (return)
[ Jerom. in Chron. The
poverty of Lactantius may be applied either to the praise of the
disinterested philosopher, or to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See
Tillemont, 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.]
10 (return)
[ Euseb. Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius (x. 6) styles him "egregium virum;" and
Julian (Orat. i.) very plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the
civil war. See Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.]
This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of 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
11 (return)
[ 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.]
12 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit.
iv. Godefroy suspected the secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii.
p. 9.]
The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is there any reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had promised an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy of Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the customary vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young 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
13 (return)
[ Ducange, Fam. Byzant.
p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 610.]
14 (return)
[ His name was Porphyrius
Optatianus. The date of his panegyric, written, according to the taste of
the age, in vile acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250,
Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l. iv. c. 1.]
15 (return)
[ Zosim. l. ii. p. 103.
Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 28.]
16 (return)
[ The elder Victor, who
wrote under the next reign, speaks with becoming caution. "Natu grandior
incertum qua causa, patris judicio occidisset." If we consult the
succeeding writers, Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom,
Zosimus, Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear
gradually to increase, as their means of information must have diminished—a
circumstance which frequently occurs in historical disquisition.]
17 (return)
[ Ammianus (l. xiv. c.
11) uses the general expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the
young prince; but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake
perhaps of an antithesis to Fausta's warm bath, chooses to administer a
draught of cold poison.]
18 (return)
[ Sororis filium,
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.]
19 (return)
[ See the life of
Constantine, particularly l. ii. c. 19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years
afterwards Evagrius (l. iii. c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a
vain argument against the reality of the fact.]
20 (return)
[ Histoire de Pierre le
Grand, par Voltaire, part ii. c. 10.]
The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, that the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the common feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They pretend, that as soon as the afflicted father discovered the falsehood of the accusation by which his credulity had been so fatally misled, he published to the world his repentance and remorse; that he mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of Crispus, with this memorable inscription: To my son, whom I unjustly condemned. 21 A tale so moral and so interesting would deserve to be supported by less exceptionable authority; but if we consult the more ancient and authentic writers, they will inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was manifested only in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the murder of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife. They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his step-mother Fausta, whose implacable hatred, or whose disappointed love, renewed in the palace of Constantine the ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of 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. 2611 The deaths of a son and a nephew, with the execution of a great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends, 27 who were involved in their fall, may be sufficient, however, to justify the discontent of the Roman people, and to explain the satirical verses affixed to the palace gate, comparing the splendid and bloody reigns of Constantine and Nero. 28
21 (return)
[ In order to prove that
the statue was erected by Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the
malice of the Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses,
Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary histories he
appeals with unblushing confidence.]
22 (return)
[ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103)
may be considered as our original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted
by a few hints from the ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure
and imperfect narrative.]
23 (return)
[ Philostorgius, l. ii.
c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104, 116) imputes to Constantine the death of two
wives, of the innocent Fausta, and of an adulteress, who was the mother of
his three successors. According to Jerom, three or four years elapsed
between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The elder Victor is
prudently silent.]
24 (return)
[ If Fausta was put to
death, it is reasonable to believe that the private apartments of the
palace were the scene of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his
fancy by exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild
beasts.]
25 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. He
seems to call her the mother of Crispus. She might assume that title by
adoption. At least, she was not considered as his mortal enemy. Julian
compares the fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the Persian queen.
A Roman would have more naturally recollected the second Agrippina: Et
moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancetres: Moi, fille, femme,soeur, et
mere de vos maitres.]
26 (return)
[ Monod. in Constantin.
Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop. edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the
most divine and pious of queens.]
2611 (return)
[ Manso (Leben
Constantins, p. 65) treats this inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities
to which he appeals, with too much contempt, considering the general
scantiness of proof on this curious question.—M.]
27 (return)
[ Interfecit numerosos
amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]
28 (return)
[ Saturni aurea 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.]
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 3111
29 (return)
[ Euseb. Orat. in
Constantin. c. 3. These dates are sufficiently correct to justify the
orator.]
30 (return)
[ Zosim. l. ii. p. 117.
Under the predecessors of Constantine, No bilissimus was a vague epithet,
rather than a legal and determined title.]
31 (return)
[ Adstruunt nummi veteres
ac singulares. Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. vol. ii. p. 357.
Ammianus speaks of this Roman king (l. xiv. c. l, and Valesius ad loc.)
The Valesian fragment styles him King of kings; and the Paschal Chronicle
acquires the weight of Latin evidence.]
3111 (return)
[ Hannibalianus is
always designated in these authors by the title of king. There still exist
medals struck to his honor, on which the same title is found, Fl.
Hannibaliano Regi. See Eckhel, Doct. Num. t. viii. 204. Armeniam
nationesque circum socias habebat, says Aur. Victor, p. 225. The writer
means the Lesser Armenia. Though it is not possible to question a fact
supported by such respectable authorities, Gibbon considers it
inexplicable and incredible. It is a strange abuse of the privilege of
doubting, to refuse all belief in a fact of such little importance in
itself, and attested thus formally by contemporary authors and public
monuments. St. Martin note to Le Beau i. 341.—M.]
The whole empire was deeply interested in the education of these five youths, the acknowledged successors of Constantine. The exercise of the body prepared them for the fatigues of war and the duties of active life. Those who occasionally mention the education or talents of Constantius, allow that he excelled in the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that he was a dexterous archer, a skilful horseman, and a master of all the different weapons used in the service either of the cavalry or of the infantry. 32 The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though not perhaps with equal success, to improve the minds of the sons and nephews of Constantine. 33 The most celebrated professors of the Christian faith, of the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman jurisprudence, were invited by the liberality of the emperor, who reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal youths in the science of government, and the knowledge of mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been formed by adversity and experience. In the free intercourse of private life, and amidst the dangers of the court of Galerius, he had learned to command his own passions, to encounter those of his equals, and to depend for his present safety and future greatness on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct. His destined successors had the misfortune of being born and educated in the imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded with a train of flatterers, they passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury, and the expectation of a throne; nor would the dignity of their rank permit them to descend from that elevated station from whence the various characters of human nature appear to wear a smooth and uniform aspect. The indulgence of Constantine admitted them, at a very tender age, to share the administration of the empire; and they studied the art of reigning, at the expense of the people intrusted to their care. The younger Constantine was appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his brother Constantius exchanged that department, the ancient patrimony of their father, for the more opulent, but less martial, countries of the East. Italy, the Western Illyricum, and Africa, were accustomed to revere Constans, the third of his sons, as the representative of the great Constantine. He fixed Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier, to which he annexed the government of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. The city of 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.
32 (return)
[ His dexterity in
martial exercises is celebrated by Julian, (Orat. i. p. 11, Orat. ii. p.
53,) and allowed by Ammianus, (l. xxi. c. 16.)]
33 (return)
[ Euseb. in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv. c. 51. Julian, Orat. i. p. 11-16, with Spanheim's
elaborate Commentary. Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 109. Constantius studied
with laudable diligence; but the dulness of his fancy prevented him from
succeeding in the art of poetry, or even of rhetoric.]
34 (return)
[ Eusebius, (l. iv. c.
51, 52,) with a design of exalting the authority and glory of Constantine,
affirms, that he divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have
divided his patrimony. His distribution of the provinces may be collected
from Eutropius, the two Victors and the Valesian fragment.]
35 (return)
[ Calocerus, the obscure
leader of this rebellion, or rather tumult, was apprehended and burnt
alive in the market-place of Tarsus, by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See
the elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful traditions of
Theophanes and Cedrenus.]
Among the different branches of the human race, the Sarmatians form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite the manners of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents of peace and war, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatians were sometimes confined to the banks of the Tanais; and they sometimes spread themselves over the immense plains which lie between the Vistula and the Volga. 36 The care of their numerous flocks and herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises of war, or rather of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The movable camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives and children, consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and covered in the form of tents. The military strength of the nation was composed of cavalry; and the custom of their warriors, to lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised the security, and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. 37 Their poverty of iron prompted their rude industry to invent a sort of cuirass, which was capable of resisting a sword or javelin, though it was formed only of horses' hoofs, cut into thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under garment of coarse linen. 38 The offensive arms of the Sarmatians were short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver of arrows. They were reduced to the necessity of employing fish-bones for the points of their weapons; but the custom of dipping them in a venomous liquor, that poisoned the wounds which they inflicted, is alone sufficient to prove the most savage manners, since a people impressed with a sense of humanity would have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in the arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource. 39 Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce countenances, which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome with horror and dismay.
36 (return)
[ Cellarius has collected
the opinions of the ancients concerning the European and Asiatic Sarmatia;
and M. D'Anville has applied them to modern geography with the skill and
accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.]
37 (return)
[ Ammian. l. xvii. c. 12.
The Sarmatian horses were castrated to prevent the mischievous accidents
which might happen from the noisy and ungovernable passions of the males.]
38 (return)
[ Pausanius, l. i. p.
50,. edit. Kuhn. That inquisitive traveller had carefully examined a
Sarmatian cuirass, which was preserved in the temple of Aesculapius at
Athens.]
39 (return)
[ Aspicis et mitti sub
adunco toxica ferro, Et telum causas mortis habere duas. Ovid, ex Ponto,
l. iv. ep. 7, ver. 7.——See in the Recherches sur les
Americains, tom. ii. p. 236—271, a very curious dissertation on
poisoned darts. The venom was commonly extracted from the vegetable reign:
but that employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the
viper, and a mixture of human blood.]
The use of poisoned arms, which has been spread over both worlds, never preserved a savage tribe from the arms of a disciplined enemy. The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of fame and luxury, was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where he was exposed, almost without defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be confounded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations, 40 he describes in the most lively colors the dress and manners, the arms and inroads, of the 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
40 (return)
[ The nine books of
Poetical Epistles which Ovid composed during the seven first years of his
melancholy exile, possess, beside the merit of elegance, a double value.
They exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular
circumstances; and they contain many curious observations, which no Roman
except Ovid, could have an opportunity of making. Every circumstance which
tends to illustrate the history of the Barbarians, has been drawn together
by the very accurate Count de Buat. Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de
l'Europe, tom. iv. c. xvi. p. 286-317]
41 (return)
[ The Sarmatian 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.]
42 (return)
[ Principes Sarmaturum
Jazygum penes quos civitatis regimen plebem quoque et vim equitum, qua
sola valent, offerebant. Tacit. Hist. iii. p. 5. This offer was made in
the civil war between Vitellino and Vespasian.]
43 (return)
[ This hypothesis of a
Vandal king reigning over Sarmatian subjects, seems necessary to reconcile
the Goth Jornandes with the Greek and Latin historians of Constantine. It
may be observed that Isidore, who lived in Spain under the dominion of the
Goths, gives them for enemies, not the Vandals, but the Sarmatians. See
his Chronicle in Grotius, p. 709. Note: I have already noticed the
confusion which must necessarily arise in history, when names purely
geographical, as this of Sarmatia, are taken for historical names
belonging to a single nation. We perceive it here; it has forced Gibbon to
suppose, without any reason but the necessity of extricating himself from
his perplexity, that the Sarmatians had taken a king from among the
Vandals; a supposition entirely contrary to the usages of Barbarians
Dacia, at this period, was occupied, not by Sarmatians, who have never
formed a distinct race, but by Vandals, whom the ancients have often
confounded under the general term Sarmatians. See Gatterer's
Welt-Geschiehte p. 464—G.]
This motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of contention, which perpetually arise on the confines of warlike and independent nations. The Vandal princes were stimulated by fear and revenge; the Gothic kings aspired to extend their dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the waters of the Maros, a small river which falls into the Teyss, were stained with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After some experience of the superior strength and numbers of their adversaries, the Sarmatians implored the protection of the Roman monarch, who beheld with pleasure the discord of the nations, but who was justly alarmed by the progress of the Gothic arms. As soon as Constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker party, the haughty Araric, king of the Goths, instead of expecting the attack of the legions, boldly passed the Danube, and spread terror and devastation through the province of 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. 4311 The event of a second and more successful action retrieved the honor of the Roman name; and the powers of art and discipline prevailed, after an obstinate contest, over the efforts of irregular valor. The broken army of the Goths abandoned the field of battle, the wasted province, and the passage of the Danube: and although the eldest of the sons of Constantine was permitted to supply the place of his father, the merit of the victory, which diffused universal joy, was ascribed to the auspicious counsels of the emperor himself.
4311 (return)
[ Gibbon states, that
Constantine was defeated by the Goths in a first battle. No ancient author
mentions such an event. It is, no doubt, a mistake in Gibbon. St Martin,
note to Le Beau. i. 324.—M.]
He contributed at least to improve this advantage, by his negotiations with the free and warlike people of Chersonesus, 44 whose capital, situate on the western coast of the Tauric or 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.
44 (return)
[ I may stand in need of
some apology for having used, without scruple, the authority of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in all that relates to the wars and
negotiations of the Chersonites. I am aware that he was a Greek of the
tenth century, and that his accounts of ancient history are frequently
confused and fabulous. But on this occasion his narrative is, for the most
part, consistent and probable nor is there much difficulty in conceiving
that an emperor might have access to some secret archives, which had
escaped the diligence of meaner historians. For the situation and history
of Chersone, see Peyssonel, des Peuples barbares qui ont habite les Bords
du Danube, c. xvi. 84-90. ——Gibbon has confounded the
inhabitants of the city of Cherson, the ancient Chersonesus, with the
people of the Chersonesus Taurica. If he had read with more attention the
chapter of Constantius Porphyrogenitus, from which this narrative is
derived, he would have seen that the author clearly distinguishes the
republic of Cherson from the rest of the Tauric Peninsula, then possessed
by the kings of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, and that the city of Cherson
alone furnished succors to the Romans. The English historian is also
mistaken in saying that the Stephanephoros of the Chersonites was a
perpetual magistrate; since it is easy to discover from the great number
of Stephanephoroi mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that they were
annual magistrates, like almost all those which governed the Grecian
republics. St. Martin, note to Le Beau i. 326.—M.]
Exasperated by this apparent neglect, the Sarmatians soon forgot, with the levity of barbarians, the services which they had so lately received, and the dangers which still threatened their safety. Their inroads on the territory of the empire provoked the indignation of Constantine to leave them to their fate; and he no longer opposed the ambition of Geberic, a renowned warrior, who had recently ascended the Gothic throne. Wisumar, the Vandal king, whilst alone, and unassisted, he defended his dominions with undaunted courage, was vanquished and slain in a decisive battle, which swept away the flower of the Sarmatian youth. 4411 The remainder of the nation embraced the desperate expedient of arming their slaves, a hardy race of hunters and herdsmen, by whose tumultuary aid they revenged their defeat, and expelled the invader from their confines. But they soon discovered that they had exchanged a foreign for a domestic enemy, more dangerous and more implacable. Enraged by their former servitude, elated by their present glory, the slaves, under the name of Limigantes, claimed and usurped the possession of the country which they had saved. Their masters, unable to withstand the ungoverned fury of the populace, preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of their servants. Some of the fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less ignominious dependence, under the hostile standard of the Goths. A more numerous band retired beyond the Carpathian Mountains, among the Quadi, their German allies, and were easily admitted to share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land. But the far greater part of the distressed nation turned their eyes towards the fruitful provinces of Rome. Imploring the protection and forgiveness of the emperor, they solemnly promised, as subjects in peace, and as soldiers in war, the most inviolable fidelity to the empire which should graciously receive them into its bosom. According to the maxims adopted by Probus and his successors, the offers of this barbarian colony were eagerly accepted; and a competent portion of lands in the provinces of Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Italy, were immediately assigned for the habitation and subsistence of three hundred thousand Sarmatians. 45 4511
4411 (return)
[ Gibbon supposes
that this war took place because Constantine had deducted a part of the
customary gratifications, granted by his predecessors to the Sarmatians.
Nothing of this kind appears in the authors. We see, on the contrary, that
after his victory, and to punish the Sarmatia is for the ravages they had
committed, he withheld the sums which it had been the custom to bestow.
St. Martin, note to Le Beau, i. 327.—M.]
45 (return)
[ The Gothic and
Sarmatian wars are related in so broken and imperfect a manner, that I
have been obliged to compare the following writers, who mutually supply,
correct, and illustrate each other. Those who will take the same trouble,
may acquire a right of criticizing my narrative. Ammianus, l. xvii. c. 12.
Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. Eutropius, x. 7. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c.
26. Julian Orat. i. p. 9, and Spanheim, Comment. p. 94. Hieronym. in
Chron. Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 6. Socrates, l. i. c. 18.
Sozomen, l. i. c. 8. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 108. Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c.
22. Isidorus in Chron. p. 709; in Hist. Gothorum Grotii. Constantin.
Porphyrogenitus de Administrat. Imperii, c. 53, p. 208, edit. Meursii.]
4511 (return)
[ Compare, on this
very obscure but remarkable war, Manso, Leben Coa xantius, p. 195—M.]
By chastising the pride of the Goths, and by accepting the homage of a suppliant nation, Constantine asserted the majesty of the Roman empire; and the ambassadors of 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
46 (return)
[ Eusebius (in Vit.
Const. l. iv. c. 50) remarks three circumstances relative to these
Indians. 1. They came from the shores of the eastern ocean; a description
which might be applied to the coast of China or Coromandel. 2. They
presented shining gems, and unknown animals. 3. They protested their kings
had erected statues to represent the supreme majesty of Constantine.]
47 (return)
[ Funus relatum in urbem
sui nominis, quod sane P. R. 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. 49
48 (return)
[ Eusebius (l. iv. c. 6)
terminates his narrative by this loyal declaration of the troops, and
avoids all the invidious circumstances of the subsequent massacre.]
49 (return)
[ The character of
Dalmatius is advantageously, though concisely drawn by Eutropius. (x. 9.)
Dalmatius 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.]
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
50 (return)
[ I have related this
singular anecdote on the authority of Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 16. But if
such a pretext was ever used by Constantius and his adherents, it was laid
aside with contempt, as soon as it served their immediate purpose.
Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) mention the oath which Constantius had taken
for the security of his kinsmen. ——The authority of
Philostorgius is so suspicious, as not to be sufficient to establish this
fact, which Gibbon has inserted in his history as certain, while in the
note he appears to doubt it.—G.]
51 (return)
[ Conjugia sobrinarum diu
ignorata, tempore addito percrebuisse. Tacit. Annal. xii. 6, and Lipsius
ad loc. The repeal of the ancient law, and the practice of five hundred
years, were insufficient to eradicate the prejudices of the Romans, who
still considered the marriages of cousins-german as a species of imperfect
incest. (Augustin de Civitate Dei, xv. 6;) and Julian, whose mind was
biased by superstition and resentment, stigmatizes these unnatural
alliances between his own cousins with the opprobrious epithet (Orat. vii.
p. 228.). The jurisprudence of the canons has since received and enforced
this prohibition, without being able to introduce it either into the civil
or the common law of Europe. See on the subject of these marriages,
Taylor's Civil Law, p. 331. Brouer de Jure Connub. l. ii. c. 12. Hericourt
des Loix 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.]
52 (return)
[ Julian (ad S. P.. Q.
Athen. p. 270) charges his cousin Constantius with the whole guilt of a
massacre, from which he himself so narrowly escaped. His assertion is
confirmed by Athanasius, who, for reasons of a very different nature, was
not less an enemy of Constantius, (tom. i. p. 856.) Zosimus joins in the
same accusation. But the three abbreviators, Eutropius and the Victors,
use very qualifying expressions: "sinente potius quam jubente;" "incertum
quo suasore;" "vi militum."]
The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division of the provinces; which was ratified in a personal interview of the three brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the 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
53 (return)
[ Euseb. in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv. c. 69. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 117. Idat. in Chron. See two
notes of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1086-1091. The reign
of the eldest brother at Constantinople is noticed only in the Alexandrian
Chronicle.]
While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian war. At the decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was filled by Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who, after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed the superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor was in the thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of youth, as the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality, had preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormouz remained pregnant at the time of her husband's death; and the uncertainty of the sex, as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes of the princes of the house of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil war were at length removed, by the positive assurance of the Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived, and would safely produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation.
A royal bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in the midst of the palace; the diadem was placed on the spot, which might be supposed to conceal the future heir of Artaxerxes, and the prostrate satraps adored the majesty of their invisible and insensible sovereign. 54 If any credit can be given to this marvellous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced by the manners of the people, and by the extraordinary duration of his reign, we must admire not only the fortune, but the genius, of Sapor. In the soft, sequestered education of a Persian harem, the royal youth could discover the importance of exercising the vigor of his mind and body; and, by his personal merit, deserved a throne, on which he had been seated, while he was yet unconscious of the duties and temptations of absolute power. His minority was exposed to the almost inevitable calamities of domestic discord; his capital was surprised and plundered by Thair, a powerful king of Yemen, or Arabia; and the majesty of the royal family was degraded by the captivity of a princess, the sister of the deceased king. But as soon as Sapor attained the age of manhood, the presumptuous Thair, his nation, and his country, fell beneath the first effort of the young warrior; who used his victory with so judicious a mixture of rigor and clemency, that he obtained from the fears and gratitude of the Arabs the title of Dhoulacnaf, or protector of the nation. 55 5511
54 (return)
[ Agathias, who lived in
the sixth century, is the author of this story, (l. iv. p. 135, edit.
Louvre.) He derived his information from some extracts of the Persian
Chronicles, obtained and translated by the interpreter Sergius, during his
embassy at that country. The coronation of the mother of Sapor is likewise
mentioned by Snikard, (Tarikh. p. 116,) and D'Herbelot (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.]
55 (return)
[ D'Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 764.]
5511 (return)
[ Gibbon, according
to Sir J. Malcolm, has greatly mistaken the derivation of this name; it
means Zoolaktaf, the Lord of the Shoulders, from his directing the
shoulders of his captives to be pierced and then dislocated by a string
passed through them. Eastern authors are agreed with respect to the origin
of this title. Malcolm, i. 84. Gibbon took his derivation from D'Herbelot,
who gives both, the latter on the authority of the Leb. Tarikh.—M.]
The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribe the virtues of a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire of revenging the disgrace of his fathers, and of wresting from the hands of the Romans the five provinces beyond the Tigris. The military fame of Constantine, and the real or apparent strength of his government, suspended the attack; and while the hostile conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment, his artful negotiations amused the patience of the Imperial court. The death of Constantine was the signal of war, 56 and the actual condition of the Syrian and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians by the prospect of a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example of the massacres of the palace diffused a spirit of licentiousness and sedition among the troops of the East, who were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience to a veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who, from the interview with his brothers in Pannonia, immediately hastened to the banks of the Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored to a sense of duty and discipline; but the season of anarchy had permitted Sapor to form the siege of Nisibis, and to occupy several of the mo st important fortresses of Mesopotamia. 57 In Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long enjoyed the peace and glory which he deserved by his valor and fidelity to the cause of Rome. 5711 The firm alliance which he maintained with Constantine was productive of spiritual as well as of temporal benefits; by the conversion of Tiridates, the character of a saint was applied to that of a hero, the Christian faith was preached and established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Caspian, and Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy and religion. But as many of the Armenian nobles still refused to abandon the plurality of their gods and of their wives, the public tranquillity was disturbed by a discontented faction, which insulted the feeble age of their sovereign, and impatiently expected the hour of his death. He died at length after a reign of fifty-six years, and the fortune of the Armenian monarchy expired with Tiridates. His lawful heir was driven into exile, the Christian priests were either murdered or expelled from their churches, the barbarous tribes of Albania were solicited to descend from their mountains; and two of the most powerful governors, usurping the ensigns or the powers of royalty, implored the assistance of Sapor, and opened the gates of their cities to the Persian garrisons. The Christian party, under the guidance of the Archbishop of Artaxata, the immediate successor of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had recourse to the piety of Constantius. After the troubles had continued about three years, Antiochus, one of the officers of the household, executed with success the Imperial commission of restoring Chosroes, 5712 the son of Tiridates, to the throne of his fathers, of distributing honors and rewards among the faithful servants of the house of Arsaces, and of proclaiming a general amnesty, which was accepted by the greater part of the rebellious satraps. But the Romans derived more honor than advantage from this revolution. Chosroes was a prince of a puny stature and a pusillanimous spirit. Unequal to the fatigues of war, averse to the society of mankind, he withdrew from his capital to a retired palace, which he built on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and in the centre of a shady grove; where he consumed his vacant hours in the rural sports of hunting and hawking. To secure this inglorious ease, he submitted to the conditions of peace which Sapor condescended to impose; the payment of an annual tribute, and the restitution of the fertile province of Atropatene, which the courage of Tiridates, and the victorious arms of Galerius, had annexed to the Armenian monarchy. 58 5811
56 (return)
[ Sextus Rufus, (c. 26,)
who on this occasion is no contemptible authority, affirms, that the
Persians sued in vain for peace, and that Constantine was preparing to
march against them: yet the superior weight of the testimony of Eusebius
obliges us to admit the preliminaries, if not the ratification, of the
treaty. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 420. ——Constantine
had endeavored to allay the fury of the prosecutions, which, at the
instigation of the Magi and the Jews, Sapor had commenced against the
Christians. Euseb Vit. Hist. Theod. i. 25. Sozom. ii. c. 8, 15.—M.]
57 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. p.
20.]
5711 (return)
[ Tiridates had
sustained a war against Maximin. caused by the hatred of the latter
against Christianity. Armenia was the first nation which embraced
Christianity. About the year 276 it was the religion of the king, the
nobles, and the people of Armenia. From St. Martin, Supplement to Le Beau,
v. i. p. 78.——Compare Preface to History of Vartan by
Professor Neumann, p ix.—M.]
5712 (return)
[ Chosroes was
restored probably by Licinius, between 314 and 319. There was an Antiochus
who was 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.]
58 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. p. 20,
21. Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 89, l. iii. c. 1—9, p. 226—240.
The perfect agreement between the vague hints of the contemporary orator,
and the circumstantial narrative of the national historian, gives light to
the former, and weight to the latter. For the credit of Moses, it may be
likewise observed, that the name of Antiochus is found a few years before
in a civil office of inferior dignity. See Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi.
p. 350.]
5811 (return)
[ Gibbon has
endeavored, in his History, to make use of the information furnished by
Moses of Chorene, the only Armenian historian then translated into Latin.
Gibbon has not perceived all the chronological difficulties which occur in
the narrative of that writer. He has not thought of all the critical
discussions which his text ought to undergo before it can be combined with
the relations of the western writers. From want of this attention, Gibbon
has made the facts which he has drawn from this source more erroneous than
they are in the original. This judgment applies to all which the English
historian has derived from the Armenian author. I have made the History of
Moses a subject of particular attention; and it is with confidence that I
offer the results, which I insert here, and which will appear in the
course of my notes. In order to form a judgment of the difference which
exists between me and Gibbon, I will content myself with remarking, that
throughout he has committed an anachronism of thirty years, from whence it
follows, that he assigns to the reign of Constantius many events which
took place during that of Constantine. He could not, therefore, discern
the true connection which exists between the Roman history and that of
Armenia, or form a correct notion of the reasons which induced
Constantine, at the close of his life, to make war upon the Persians, or
of the motives which detained Constantius so long in the East; he does not
even mention them. St. Martin, note on Le Beau, i. 406. I have inserted M.
St. Martin's observations, but I must add, that the chronology which he
proposes, is not generally received by Armenian scholars, not, I believe,
by Professor Neumann.—M.]
During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the provinces of the East were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian war. 5813 The irregular incursions of the light troops alternately spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and beyond the Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to those of Antioch; and this active service was performed by the Arabs of the desert, who were divided in their interest and affections; some of their independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of Sapor, whilst others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the emperor. 59 The more grave and important operations of the war were conducted with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and Persia encountered each other in nine bloody fields, in two of which Constantius himself commanded in person. 60 The event of the day was most commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the battle of Singara, their imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and decisive victory. The stationary troops of Singara 6011 retired on the approach of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges, and occupied near the village of Hilleh an advantageous camp, which, by the labor of his numerous pioneers, he surrounded in one day with a deep ditch and a lofty rampart. His formidable host, when it was drawn out in order of battle, covered the banks of the river, the adjacent heights, and the whole extent of a plain of above twelve miles, which separated the two armies. Both were alike impatient to engage; but the Barbarians, after a slight resistance, fled in disorder; unable to resist, or desirous to weary, the strength of the heavy legions, who, fainting with heat and thirst, pursued them across the plain, and cut in pieces a line of cavalry, clothed in complete armor, which had been posted before the gates of the camp to protect their retreat. Constantius, who was hurried along in the pursuit, attempted, without effect, to restrain the ardor of his troops, by representing to them the dangers of the approaching night, and the certainty of completing their success with the return of day. As they depended much more on their own valor than on the experience or the abilities of their chief, they silenced by their clamors his timid remonstrances; and rushing with fury to the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart, and dispersed themselves through the tents to recruit their exhausted strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. But the prudent Sapor had watched the moment of victory. His army, of which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had been spectators of the action, advanced in silence, and under the shadow of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by the illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed and licentious crowd. The sincerity of history 61 declares, that the Romans were vanquished with a dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the legions was exposed to the most intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of panegyric, confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal orators, so jealous of the fame of Constantius, relates, with amazing coolness, an act of such incredible cruelty, as, in the judgment of posterity, must imprint a far deeper stain on the honor of the Imperial name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his crown, had been made a captive in the Persian camp. The unhappy youth, who might have excited the compassion of the most savage enemy, was scourged, tortured, and publicly executed by the inhuman Romans. 62
5813 (return)
[ It was during this
war that a bold flatterer (whose name is unknown) published the
Itineraries of Alexander and Trajan, in order to direct the victorious
Constantius in the footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The
former of these has been published for the first time by M. Angelo Mai
(Milan, 1817, reprinted at Frankfort, 1818.) It adds so little to our
knowledge of Alexander's campaigns, that it only excites our regret that
it is not the Itinerary of Trajan, of whose eastern victories we have no
distinct record—M]
59 (return)
[ Ammianus (xiv. 4) gives
a lively description of the wandering and predatory life of the Saracens,
who stretched from the confines of Assyria to the cataracts of the Nile.
It appears from the adventures of Malchus, which Jerom has related in so
entertaining a manner, that the high road between Beraea and Edessa was
infested by these robbers. See Hieronym. tom. i. p. 256.]
60 (return)
[ We shall take from
Eutropius the general idea of the war. A Persis enim multa et gravia
perpessus, 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.]
6011 (return)
[ Now Sinjar, or the
River Claboras.—M.]
61 (return)
[ 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.]
62 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat. iii. p.
133, with Julian. Orat. i. p. 24, and Spanneism's Commentary, p. 179.]
Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the field, though nine repeated victories diffused among the nations the fame of his valor and conduct, he could not hope to succeed in the execution of his designs, while the fortified towns of Mesopotamia, and, above all, the strong and ancient city of Nisibis, remained in the possession of the Romans. In the space of twelve years, Nisibis, which, since the time of Lucullus, had been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained three memorable sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed monarch, after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a hundred days, was thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. 63 This large and populous city was situate about two days' journey from the Tigris, in the midst of a pleasant and fertile plain at the foot of Mount Masius. A treble enclosure of brick walls was defended by a deep ditch; 64 and the intrepid resistance of Count Lucilianus, and his garrison, was seconded by the desperate courage of the people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by the exhortations of their bishop, 65 inured to arms by the presence of danger, and convinced of the intentions of Sapor to plant a Persian colony in their room, and to lead them away into distant and barbarous captivity. The event of the two former sieges elated their confidence, and exasperated the haughty spirit of the Great King, who advanced a third time towards Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of Persia and India. The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the walls, were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans; and many days had vainly elapsed, when Sapor embraced a resolution worthy of an eastern monarch, who believed that the elements themselves were subject to his power. At the stated season of the melting of the snows in Armenia, the River Mygdonius, which divides the plain and the city of Nisibis, forms, like the Nile, 66 an inundation over the adjacent country. By the labor of the Persians, the course of the river was stopped below the town, and the waters were confined on every side by solid mounds of earth. On this artificial lake, a fleet of armed vessels filled with soldiers, and with engines which discharged stones of five hundred pounds weight, advanced in order of battle, and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops which defended the ramparts. 6611 The irresistible force of the waters was alternately fatal to the contending parties, till at length a portion of the walls, unable to sustain the accumulated pressure, gave way at once, and exposed an ample breach of one hundred and fifty feet. The Persians were instantly driven to the assault, and the fate of Nisibis depended on the event of the day. The heavy-armed cavalry, who led the van of a deep column, were embarrassed in the mud, and great numbers were drowned in the unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing waters. The elephants, made furious by their wounds, increased the disorder, and trampled down thousands of the Persian archers. The Great King, who, from an exalted throne, beheld the misfortunes of his arms, sounded, with reluctant indignation, the signal of the retreat, and suspended for some hours the prosecution of the attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the opportunity of the night; and the return of day discovered a new wall of six feet in height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the breach. Notwithstanding the disappointment of his hopes, and the loss of more than twenty thousand men, Sapor still pressed the reduction of Nisibis, with an obstinate firmness, which could have yielded only to the necessity of defending the eastern provinces of Persia against a formidable invasion of the 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.
63 (return)
[ See Julian. Orat. i. p.
27, Orat. ii. p. 62, &c., with the Commentary of Spanheim, (p.
188-202,) who illustrates the circumstances, and ascertains the time of
the three sieges of Nisibis. Their dates are likewise examined by
Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 668, 671, 674.) Something is
added from Zosimus, l. iii. p. 151, and the Alexandrine Chronicle, p.
290.]
64 (return)
[ Sallust. Fragment.
lxxxiv. edit. Brosses, and Plutarch in Lucull. tom. iii. p. 184. Nisibis
is now reduced to one hundred and fifty houses: the marshy lands produce
rice, and the fertile meadows, as far as Mosul and the Tigris, are covered
with the ruins of towns and allages. See Niebuhr, Voyages, tom. ii. p.
300-309.]
65 (return)
[ The miracles which
Theodoret (l. ii. c. 30) ascribes to St. James, Bishop of Edessa, were at
least performed in a worthy cause, the defence of his couutry. He appeared
on the walls under the figure of the Roman emperor, and sent an army of
gnats to sting the trunks of the elephants, and to discomfit the host of
the new Sennacherib.]
66 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. p. 27.
Though Niebuhr (tom. ii. p. 307) allows a very considerable swell to the
Mygdonius, over which he saw a bridge of twelve arches: it is difficult,
however, to understand this parallel of a trifling rivulet with a mighty
river. There are many circumstances obscure, and almost unintelligible, in
the description of these stupendous water-works.]
6611 (return)
[ Macdonald Kinnier
observes on these floating batteries, "As the elevation of place is
considerably above the level of the country in its immediate vicinity, and
the Mygdonius is a very insignificant stream, it is difficult to imagine
how this work could have been accomplished, even with the wonderful
resources which the king must have had at his disposal" Geographical
Memoir. p. 262.—M.]
67 (return)
[ We are obliged to
Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 11) for this invasion of the 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
68 (return)
[ The causes and the
events of this civil war are related with much perplexity and
contradiction. I have chiefly followed Zonaras and the younger Victor. The
monody (ad Calcem Eutrop. edit. Havercamp.) pronounced on the death of
Constantine, might have been very instructive; but prudence and false
taste engaged the orator to involve himself in vague declamation.]
The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years longer, and the revenge of his brother's death was reserved for the more ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of the system introduced by Constantine was displayed in the feeble administration of his sons; who, by their vices and weakness, soon lost the esteem and affections of their people. The pride assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his arms, was rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and application. His fond partiality towards some German captives, distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of scandal to the people; 69 and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier, who was himself of Barbarian extraction, was encouraged by the public discontent to assert the honor of the Roman name. 70 The chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians, who acknowledged Magnentius as their leader, maintained the most respectable and important station in the Imperial camp. The friendship of Marcellinus, count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a liberal hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced by the most specious arguments, that the republic summoned them to break the bonds of hereditary servitude; and, by the choice of an active and vigilant prince, to reward the same virtues which had raised the ancestors of the degenerate Constans from a private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the pretence of celebrating his son's birthday, gave a splendid entertainment to the illustrious and honorable persons of the court of Gaul, which then resided in the city of Autun. The intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till a very late hour of the night; and the unsuspecting guests were tempted to indulge themselves in a dangerous and guilty freedom of conversation. On a sudden the doors were thrown open, and Magnentius, who had retired for a few moments, returned into the apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The conspirators instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and Emperor. The surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes, and the mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly, prompted them to join their voices to the general acclamation. The guards hastened to take the oath of fidelity; the gates of the town were shut; and before the dawn of day, Magnentius became master of the troops and treasure of the palace and city of Autun. By his secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes of surprising the person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his favorite amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a more private and criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame allowed him, however, an instant for flight, though the desertion of his soldiers and subjects deprived him of the power of resistance. Before he could reach a seaport in Spain, where he intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena, 71 at the foot of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief, regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission by the murder of the son of Constantine. 72
69 (return)
[ Quarum (gentium)
obsides pretio 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.]
70 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. and
ii. Zosim. l. ii. p. 134. Victor in Epitome. There is reason to believe
that Magnentius was born in one of those Barbarian colonies which
Constantius Chlorus had established in Gaul, (see this History, vol. i. p.
414.) His behavior may remind us of the patriot earl of Leicester, the
famous Simon de Montfort, who could persuade the good people of England,
that he, a Frenchman by birth had taken arms to deliver them from foreign
favorites.]
71 (return)
[ This ancient city had
once flourished under the name of Illiberis (Pomponius Mela, ii. 5.) The
munificence of Constantine gave it new splendor, and his mother's name.
Helena (it is still called Elne) became the seat of a bishop, who long
afterwards transferred his residence to Perpignan, the capital of modern
Rousillon. See D'Anville. Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 380. Longuerue,
Description de la France, p. 223, and the Marca Hispanica, l. i. c. 2.]
72 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 119,
120. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 13, and the Abbreviators.]
As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but important revolution, the example of the court of Autun was imitated by the provinces of the West. The authority of Magnentius was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two great 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
73 (return)
[ Eutropius (x. 10)
describes Vetranio with more temper, and probably with more truth, than
either of the two Victors. Vetranio was born of obscure parents in the
wildest parts of Maesia; and so much had his education been neglected,
that, after his elevation, he studied the alphabet.]
74 (return)
[ The doubtful,
fluctuating conduct of Vetranio is described by Julian in his first
oration, and accurately explained by Spanheim, who discusses the situation
and behavior of Constantina.]
The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply affected the honor and safety of the Imperial house, recalled the arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the Persian war. He recommended the care of the East to his lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe, with a mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and indignation. On his arrival at Heraclea in Thrace, the emperor gave audience to the ambassadors of Magnentius and Vetranio. The first author of the conspiracy Marcellinus, who in some measure had bestowed the purple on his new master, boldly accepted this dangerous commission; and his three colleagues were selected from the illustrious personages of the state and army. These deputies were instructed to soothe the resentment, and to alarm the fears, of Constantius. They were empowered to offer him the friendship and alliance of the western princes, to cement their union by a double marriage; of Constantius with the daughter of Magnentius, and of Magnentius himself with the ambitious Constantina; and to acknowledge in the treaty the 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
75 (return)
[ See Peter the
Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationem p. 27.]
Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the duty, of the brother of Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The situation and character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures; and the policy of the Eastern emperor was directed to disunite his antagonists, and to separate the forces of Illyricum from the cause of rebellion. It was an easy task to deceive the frankness and simplicity of Vetranio, who, fluctuating some time between the opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the world the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as a legitimate and equal colleague in the empire, on condition that he would renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and appoint a place of interview on the frontiers of their respective provinces; where they might pledge their friendship by mutual vows of fidelity, and regulate by common consent the future operations of the civil war. In consequence of this agreement, Vetranio advanced to the city of Sardica, 76 at the head of twenty thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of infantry; a power so far superior to the forces of Constantius, that the Illyrian emperor appeared to command the life and fortunes of his rival, who, depending on the success of his private negotiations, had seduced the troops, and undermined the throne, of Vetranio. The chiefs, who had secretly embraced the party of Constantius, prepared in his favor a public spectacle, calculated to discover and inflame the passions of the multitude. 77 The united armies were commanded to assemble in a large plain near the city. In the centre, according to the rules of ancient discipline, a military tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from whence the emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to harangue the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and Barbarians, with drawn swords, or with erected spears, the squadrons of cavalry, and the cohorts of infantry, distinguished by the variety of their arms and ensigns, formed an immense circle round the tribunal; and the attentive silence which they preserved was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or of applause. In the presence of this formidable assembly, the two emperors were called upon to explain the situation of public affairs: the precedency of rank was yielded to the royal birth of Constantius; and though he was indifferently skilled in the arts of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The first part of his oration seemed to be pointed only against the tyrant of Gaul; but while he tragically lamented the cruel murder of Constans, he insinuated, that none, except a brother, could claim a right to the succession of his brother. He displayed, with some complacency, the glories of his Imperial race; and recalled to the memory of the troops the valor, the triumphs, the liberality of the great Constantine, to whose sons they had engaged their allegiance by an oath of fidelity, which the ingratitude of his most favored servants had tempted them to violate. The officers, who surrounded the tribunal, and were instructed to act their part in this extraordinary scene, confessed the irresistible power of reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from rank to rank; till the plain of Sardica resounded with the universal acclamation of "Away with these upstart usurpers! Long life and victory to the son of Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and conquer." The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection of his followers, in anxious and silent suspense. Instead of embracing the last refuge of generous despair, he tamely submitted to his fate; and taking the diadem from his head, in the view of both armies fell prostrate at the feet of his conqueror. Constantius used his victory with prudence and moderation; and raising from the ground the aged suppliant, whom he affected to style by the endearing name of Father, he gave him his hand to descend from the throne. The city of Prusa was assigned for the exile or retirement of the abdicated monarch, who lived six years in the enjoyment of ease and affluence. He often expressed his grateful sense of the goodness of Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity, advised his benefactor to resign the sceptre of the world, and to seek for content (where alone it could be found) in the peaceful obscurity of a private condition. 78
76 (return)
[ Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
xiii. p. 16. The position of Sardica, near the modern city of Sophia,
appears better suited to this interview than the situation of either
Naissus or Sirmium, where it is placed by Jerom, Socrates, and Sozomen.]
77 (return)
[ See the two first
orations of Julian, particularly p. 31; and Zosimus, l. ii. p. 122. The
distinct narrative of the historian serves to illustrate the diffuse but
vague descriptions of the orator.]
78 (return)
[ The younger Victor
assigns to his exile the emphatical appellation of "Voluptarium otium."
Socrates (l. ii. c. 28) is the voucher for the correspondence with the
emperor, which would seem to prove that Vetranio was indeed, prope ad
stultitiam simplicissimus.]
The behavior of Constantius on this memorable occasion was celebrated with some appearance of justice; and his courtiers compared the studied orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes addressed to the populace of Athens, with the victorious eloquence which had persuaded an armed multitude to desert and depose the object of their partial choice. 79 The approaching contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and bloody kind. The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of Franks and Saxons; of those provincials who supplied the strength of the legions, and of those barbarians who were dreaded as the most formidable enemies of the republic. The fertile plains 80 of the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the Danube, presented a spacious theatre; and the operations of the civil war were protracted during the summer months by the skill or timidity of the combatants. 81 Constantius had declared his intention of deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory, which, on the same auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline, rather than to invite, a general engagement.
It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he employed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest to an experienced officer. He carried by assault the important town of Siscia; made an attack on the city of Sirmium, which lay in the rear of the Imperial camp, attempted to force a passage over the Save into the eastern provinces of Illyricum; and cut in pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into the narrow passes of Adarne. During the greater part of the summer, the tyrant of Gaul showed himself master of the field. The troops of Constantius were harassed and dispirited; his reputation declined in the eye of the world; and his pride condescended to solicit a treaty of peace, which would have resigned to the assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. These offers were enforced by the eloquence of Philip the Imperial ambassador; and the council as well as the army of Magnentius were disposed to accept them. But the haughty usurper, careless of the remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. "That he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity," was the only answer which honor permitted the emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of his situation, that he no longer dared to retaliate the indignity which had been offered to his representative. The negotiation of Philip was not, however, ineffectual, since he determined Sylvanus the Frank, a general of merit and reputation, to desert with a considerable body of cavalry, a few days before the battle of Mursa.
79 (return)
[ Eum Constantius.....
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.]
80 (return)
[ Busbequius (p. 112)
traversed the Lower Hungary and Sclavonia at a time when they were reduced
almost to a desert, by the reciprocal hostilities of the Turks and
Christians. Yet he mentions with admiration the unconquerable fertility of
the soil; and observes that the height of the grass was sufficient to
conceal a loaded wagon from his sight. See likewise Browne's Travels, in
Harris's Collection, vol ii. p. 762 &c.]
81 (return)
[ Zosimus gives a very
large account of the war, and the negotiation, (l. ii. p. 123-130.) But as
he neither shows himself a soldier nor a politician, his narrative must be
weighed with attention, and received with caution.]
The city of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a bridge of boats, five miles in length, over the River Drave, and the adjacent morasses, 82 has been always considered as a place of importance in the wars of Hungary. Magnentius, directing his march towards Mursa, set fire to the gates, and, by a sudden assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The vigilance of the garrison extinguished the flames; the approach of Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the siege; and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which had taken post in an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle round Mursa was a naked and level plain: on this ground the army of Constantius formed, with the Drave on their right; while their left, either from the nature of their disposition, or from the superiority of their cavalry, extended far beyond the right flank of Magnentius. 83 The troops on both sides remained under arms, in anxious expectation, during the greatest part of the morning; and the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an eloquent speech, retired into a church at some distance from the field of battle, and committed to his generals the conduct of this decisive day. 84 They deserved his confidence by the valor and military skill which they exerted. They wisely began the action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank of the enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied, by the habits of discipline; and the Barbarians of Germany supported the renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon became general; was maintained with various and singular turns of fortune; and scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The signal victory which Constantius obtained is attributed to the arms of his cavalry. His cuirassiers are described as so many massy statues of steel, glittering with their scaly armor, and breaking with their ponderous lances the firm array of the Gallic legions. As soon as the legions gave way, the lighter and more active squadrons of the second line rode sword in hand into the intervals, and completed the disorder. In the mean while, the huge bodies of the Germans were exposed almost naked to the dexterity of the Oriental archers; and whole troops of those Barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate themselves into the broad and rapid stream of the Drave. 85 The number of the slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and the slaughter of the conquerors was more considerable than that of the vanquished; 86 a circumstance which proves the obstinacy of the contest, and justifies the observation of an ancient writer, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of Rome. 87 Notwithstanding the invectives of a servile orator, there is not the least reason to believe that the tyrant deserted his own standard in the beginning of the engagement. He seems to have displayed the virtues of a general and of a soldier till the day was irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession of the enemy. Magnentius then consulted his safety, and throwing away the Imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid flight from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian Alps. 88
82 (return)
[ This remarkable bridge,
which is flanked with towers, and supported on large wooden piles, was
constructed A. D. 1566, by Sultan Soliman, to facilitate the march of his
armies into Hungary.]
83 (return)
[ This position, and the
subsequent evolutions, are clearly, though concisely, described by Julian,
Orat. i. p. 36.]
84 (return)
[ Sulpicius Severus, l.
ii. p. 405. The emperor passed the day in prayer with Valens, the Arian
bishop of Mursa, who gained his confidence by announcing the success of
the battle. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1110) very
properly remarks the silence of Julian with regard to the personal prowess
of Constantius in the battle of Mursa. The silence of flattery is
sometimes equal to the most positive and authentic evidence.]
85 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. p. 36,
37; and Orat. ii. p. 59, 60. Zonaras, tom ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Zosimus, l.
ii. p. 130-133. The last of these celebrates the dexterity of the archer
Menelaus, who could discharge three arrows at the same time; an advantage
which, according to his apprehension of military affairs, materially
contributed to the victory of Constantius.]
86 (return)
[ According to Zonaras,
Constantius, out of 80,000 men, lost 30,000; and Magnentius lost 24,000
out of 36,000. The other articles of this account seem probable and
authentic, but the numbers of the tyrant's army must have been mistaken,
either by the author or his transcribers. Magnentius had collected the
whole force of the West, Romans and Barbarians, into one formidable body,
which cannot fairly be estimated at less than 100,000 men. Julian. Orat.
i. p. 34, 35.]
87 (return)
[ Ingentes R. I. vires 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.]
88 (return)
[ On this occasion, we
must prefer the unsuspected testimony of Zosimus and Zonaras to the
flattering assertions of Julian. The younger Victor paints the character
of Magnentius in a singular light: "Sermonis acer, animi tumidi, et
immodice timidus; artifex tamen ad occultandam 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
89 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. p. 38,
39. In that place, however, as well as in Oration ii. p. 97, he insinuates
the general disposition of the senate, the people, and the soldiers of
Italy, towards the party of the emperor.]
90 (return)
[ The elder Victor
describes, in a pathetic manner, the miserable condition of Rome: "Cujus
stolidum ingenium adeo P. R. patribusque exitio fuit, uti passim domus,
fora, 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.]
91 (return)
[ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133.
Victor in Epitome. The panegyrists of Constantius, with their usual
candor, forget to mention this accidental defeat.]
The pride of Magnentius was reduced, by repeated misfortunes, to sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. He first despatched a senator, in whose abilities he confided, and afterwards several bishops, whose holy character might obtain a more favorable audience, with the offer of resigning the purple, and the promise of devoting the remainder of his life to the service of the emperor. But Constantius, though he granted fair terms of pardon and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard of rebellion, 92 avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he prepared to overwhelm on every side by the effort of his victorious arms. An Imperial fleet acquired the easy possession of Africa and Spain, confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a considerable force, which passed the Pyrenees, and advanced towards Lyons, the last and fatal station of Magnentius. 93 The temper of the tyrant, which was never inclined to clemency, was urged by distress to exercise every act of oppression which could extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. 94 Their patience was at length exhausted; and Treves, the seat of 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, 9911 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
92 (return)
[ Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
xiii. p. 17. Julian, in several places of the two orations, expatiates on
the clemency of Constantius to the rebels.]
93 (return)
[ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133.
Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii. p. 74.]
94 (return)
[ Ammian. xv. 6. Zosim.
l. ii. p. 123. Julian, who (Orat. i. p. 40) unveighs against the cruel
effects of the tyrant's despair, mentions (Orat. i. p. 34) the oppressive
edicts which were dictated by his necessities, or by his avarice. His
subjects were compelled to purchase the Imperial demesnes; a doubtful and
dangerous species of property, which, in case of a revolution, might be
imputed to them as a treasonable usurpation.]
95 (return)
[ The medals of
Magnentius celebrate the victories of the two Augusti, and of the Caesar.
The Caesar was another brother, named Desiderius. See Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 757.]
96 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40,
ii. p. 74; with Spanheim, p. 263. His Commentary illustrates the
transactions of this civil war. Mons Seleuci was a small place in the
Cottian Alps, a few miles distant from Vapincum, or Gap, an episcopal city
of Dauphine. See D'Anville, Notice de la Gaule, p. 464; and Longuerue,
Description de la France, p. 327.—— The Itinerary of Antoninus
(p. 357, ed. Wess.) places Mons Seleucu twenty-four miles from Vapinicum,
(Gap,) and twenty-six from Lucus. (le Luc,) on the road to Die, (Dea
Vocontiorum.) The situation answers to Mont Saleon, a little place on the
right of the small river Buech, which falls into the Durance. Roman
antiquities have been found in this place. St. Martin. Note to Le Beau,
ii. 47.—M.]
97 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134.
Liban. Orat. x. p. 268, 269. The latter most vehemently arraigns this
cruel and selfish policy of Constantius.]
98 (return)
[ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40.
Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134. Socrates, l. ii. c. 32. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 7. The
younger Victor describes his death with some horrid circumstances:
Transfosso latere, ut erat vasti corporis, vulnere naribusque et ore
cruorem effundens, exspiravit. If we can give credit to Zonaras, the
tyrant, before he expired, had the pleasure of murdering, with his own
hand, his mother and his brother Desiderius.]
99 (return)
[ Julian (Orat. i. p. 58,
59) seems at a loss to determine, whether he inflicted on himself the
punishment of his crimes, whether he was drowned in the Drave, or whether
he was carried by the avenging daemons from the field of battle to his
destined place of eternal tortures.]
9911 (return)
[ This is scarcely
correct, ut erat in complicandis negotiis artifex dirum made ei Catenae
inditum est cognomentum. Amm. Mar. loc. cit.—M.]
100 (return)
[ Ammian. xiv. 5, xxi.
16.]
Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.—
Danger And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian
Wars.—Victories Of Julian In Gaul.
The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms served only to establish the reign of the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of Oriental jealousy and despotism, 1 were introduced into Greece and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. 2 Their progress was rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, 3 were gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors themselves. 4 Restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, 6 they multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which mankind had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species, appears to have degraded their character, and to have rendered them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be, of conceiving any generous sentiment, or of performing any worthy action. 7 But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery and intrigue; and they alternately governed the mind of Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. 8 Whilst he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense treasures by the sale of justice and of honors; to disgrace the most important dignities, by the promotion of those who had purchased at their hands the powers of oppression, 9 and to gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian, possessed some credit with this haughty favorite. 10 By his artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the house of Constantine.
1 (return)
[ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6)
imputes the first practice of castration to the cruel ingenuity of
Semiramis, who is supposed to have reigned above nineteen hundred years
before Christ. The use of eunuchs is of high antiquity, both in Asia and
Egypt. They are mentioned in the law of Moses, Deuteron. xxxiii. 1. See
Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c., Part i. l. i. c. 3.]
2 (return)
[ Eunuchum dixti velle te;
Quia 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.]
3 (return)
[ Miles.... spadonibus
Servire rugosis potest. Horat. Carm. v. 9, and Dacier ad loe. By the word
spado, the Romans very forcibly expressed their abhorrence of this
mutilated condition. The Greek appellation of eunuchs, which insensibly
prevailed, had a milder sound, and a more ambiguous sense.]
4 (return)
[ We need only mention
Posides, a freedman and eunuch of Claudius, in whose favor the emperor
prostituted some of the most honorable rewards of military valor. See
Sueton. in Claudio, c. 28. Posides employed a great part of his wealth in
building.
Ut Spado vincebat Capitolia Nostra
Posides.
Juvenal. Sat. xiv.]
Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 7. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. p. 1107, l. lxviii. p. 1119.]
6 (return)
[ There is a passage in the
Augustan History, p. 137, in which Lampridius, whilst he praises Alexander
Severus and Constantine for restraining the tyranny of the eunuchs,
deplores the mischiefs which they occasioned in other reigns. Huc accedit
quod eunuchos nec in consiliis nec in ministeriis habuit; qui soli
principes perdunt, dum eos more gentium aut regum Persarum volunt vivere;
qui a populo etiam amicissimum semovent; qui internuntii sunt, aliud quam
respondetur, referentes; claudentes principem suum, et agentes ante omnia
ne quid sciat.]
7 (return)
[ Xenophon (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.]
8 (return)
[ See Ammianus Marcellinus,
l. xxi. c. 16, l. xxii. c. 4. The whole tenor of his impartial history
serves to justify the invectives of Mamertinus, of Libanius, and of Julian
himself, who have insulted the vices of the court of Constantius.]
9 (return)
[ Aurelius Victor censures
the negligence of his sovereign in choosing the governors of the
provinces, and the generals of the army, and concludes his history with a
very bold observation, as it is much more dangerous under a feeble reign
to attack the ministers than the master himself. "Uti verum absolvam
brevi, ut Imperatore ipso clarius ita apparitorum plerisque magis atrox
nihil."]
10 (return)
[ Apud quem (si vere dici
debeat) multum Constantius potuit. Ammian. l. xviii. c. 4.]
When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve, and the latter about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious and dependent life, from the affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. 11 Different cities of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of their exile and education; but as soon as their growing years excited the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum, near 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
11 (return)
[ Gregory Nazianzen
(Orat. iii. p. 90) reproaches the apostate with his ingratitude towards
Mark, bishop of Arethusa, who had contributed to save his life; and we
learn, though from a less respectable authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 916,) that Julian was concealed in the sanctuary of
a church. * Note: Gallus and Julian were not sons of the same mother.
Their father, Julius Constantius, had had Gallus by his first wife, named
Galla: Julian was the son of Basilina, whom he had espoused in a second
marriage. Tillemont. Hist. des Emp. Vie de Constantin. art. 3.—G.]
12 (return)
[ The most authentic
account of the education and adventures of Julian is contained in the
epistle or manifesto which he himself addressed to the senate and people
of Athens. Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis,) on the side of the Pagans, and
Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,) on that of the Christians, have preserved
several interesting circumstances.]
13 (return)
[ For the promotion of
Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus, and the two Victors. According to
Philostorgius, (l. iv. c. 1,) Theophilus, an Arian bishop, was the
witness, and, as it were, the guarantee of this solemn engagement. He
supported that character with generous firmness; but M. de Tillemont
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1120) thinks it very improbable that a
heretic should have possessed such virtue.]
14 (return)
[ Julian was at first
permitted to pursue his studies at Constantinople, but the reputation
which he acquired soon excited the jealousy of Constantius; and the young
prince was advised to withdraw himself to the less conspicuous scenes of
Bithynia and Ionia.]
The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the 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
15 (return)
[ See Julian. ad S. P. Q.
A. p. 271. Jerom. in Chron. Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall
copy the words of Eutropius, who wrote his abridgment about fifteen years
after the death of Gallus, when there was no longer any motive either to
flatter or to depreciate his character. "Multis incivilibus gestis Gallus
Caesar.... vir natura ferox et ad tyrannidem pronior, si suo jure imperare
licuisset."]
16 (return)
[ 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.]
17 (return)
[ His name was Clematius
of Alexandria, and his only crime was a refusal to gratify the desires of
his mother-in-law; who solicited his death, because she had been
disappointed of his love. Ammian. xiv. c. i.]
18 (return)
[ See in Ammianus (l.
xiv. c. 1, 7) a very ample detail of the cruelties of Gallus. His brother
Julian (p. 272) insinuates, that a secret conspiracy had been formed
against him; and Zosimus names (l. ii. p. 135) the persons engaged in it;
a minister of considerable rank, and two obscure agents, who were resolved
to make their fortune.]
As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world, Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel administration to which his choice had subjected the East; and the discovery of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch by the tyrant of Gaul, was employed to convince the public, that the emperor and the 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 1911 to visit and reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the invitation of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the 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
19 (return)
[ Zonaras, l. xiii. tom.
ii. p. 17, 18. The assassins had seduced a great number of legionaries;
but their designs were discovered and revealed by an old woman in whose
cottage they lodged.]
1911 (return)
[ The commission
seems to have been granted to Domitian alone. Montius interfered to
support his authority. Amm. Marc. loc. cit.—M]
20 (return)
[ In the present text of
Ammianus, we read Asper, quidem, sed ad lenitatem propensior; which forms
a sentence of contradictory nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript,
Valesius has rectified the first of these corruptions, and we perceive a
ray of light in the substitution of the word vafer. If we venture to
change lenitatem into lexitatem, this alteration of a single letter will
render the whole passage clear and consistent.]
21 (return)
[ Instead of being
obliged to collect scattered and imperfect hints from various sources, we
now enter into the full stream of the history of Ammianus, and need only
refer to the seventh and ninth chapters of his fourteenth book.
Philostorgius, however, (l. iii. c. 28) though partial to Gallus, should
not be entirely overlooked.]
After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his defence the troops and treasures of the East, he suffered himself to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the 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
22 (return)
[ She had preceded her
husband, but died of a fever on the road at a little place in Bithynia,
called Coenum Gallicanum.]
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, 2311 in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of the ensigns of 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
23 (return)
[ 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.]
2311 (return)
[ Pettau in Styria.—M
---- Rather to Flanonia. now Fianone, near Pola. St. Martin.—M.]
24 (return)
[ See the complete
narrative of the journey and death of Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11.
Julian complains that his brother was put to death without a trial;
attempts to justify, or at least to excuse, the cruel revenge which he had
inflicted on his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that he might
justly have been deprived of the purple.]
25 (return)
[ Philostorgius, l. iv.
c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 19. But the former was partial towards
an Arian monarch, and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism,
whatever he found in the writings of the ancients.]
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. 26 But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house of Constantine. 27 As the most effectual instrument of their providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous friendship of the empress Eusebia, 28 a woman of beauty and merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness, Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was advised to withdraw for a while into the neighborhood of Milan, till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts, he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from the recollection of the place where it has discovered and exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed, insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which was soon diffused over the Roman world. 29
26 (return)
[ See Ammianus Marcellin.
l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a
very lively and just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He
shows, however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating,
though in obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period which
cannot be reconciled with the truth of chronology.]
27 (return)
[ Julian has worked the
crimes and misfortunes of the family of Constantine into an allegorical
fable, which is happily conceived and agreeably related. It forms the
conclusion of the seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and
translated by the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p.
385-408.]
28 (return)
[ She was a native of
Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of a noble family, and the daughter, as well
as sister, of consuls. Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the
year 352. In a divided age, the historians of all parties agree in her
praises. See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.]
29 (return)
[ Libanius and Gregory
Nazianzen have exhausted the arts as well as the powers of their
eloquence, to represent Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of
tyrants. Gregory was his fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which
he so tragically describes, of the future wickedness of the apostate,
amount only to some bodily imperfections, and to some peculiarities in his
speech and manner. He protests, however, that he then foresaw and foretold
the calamities of the church and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p.
121, 122.)]
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress, resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the late 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
30 (return)
[ Succumbere tot
necessitatibus tamque crebris unum se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte
demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c. 8. He then expresses, in their own words,
the fattering assurances of the courtiers.]
31 (return)
[ Tantum a temperatis
moribus Juliani differens fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit,
Domitianum et Titum. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and
education of the two brothers, were so nearly the same, as to afford a
strong example of the innate difference of characters.]
32 (return)
[ Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137, 138.]
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his beloved retirement. 33 He trembled for his life, for his fame, and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached, with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with false and servile respect by the assassins of his family. Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes, embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince, amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 34
33 (return)
[ Julian. ad S. P. Q. A.
p. 275, 276. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods
had signified their will by repeated visions and omens. His piety then
forbade him to resist.]
34 (return)
[ Julian himself relates,
(p. 274) with some humor, the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his
downcast looks, and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into
a new world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.]
The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. 35 In a studied speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity of the republic, the necessity of naming a 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.
35 (return)
[ See Ammian. Marcellin.
l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in
Epitom. Eutrop. x. 14.]
36 (return)
[ Militares omnes
horrendo fragore scuta genibus illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium
plenum; nam contra cum hastis clypei feriuntur, 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
37 (return)
[ The word purple which
Homer had used as a vague but common epithet for death, was applied by
Julian to express, very aptly, the nature and object of his own
apprehensions.]
38 (return)
[ He represents, in the
most pathetic terms, (p. 277,) the distress of his new situation. The
provision for his table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the
young philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum assidue,
quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens 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.]
39 (return)
[ If we recollect that
Constantine, the father of Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a
mature old age, it will appear probable, that the daughter, though a
virgin, could not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon
afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod obstetrix
corrupta mercede, mox natum 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.]
40 (return)
[ Ammianus (xv. v.) was
perfectly well informed of the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself
was one of the few followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous
enterprise.]
The protection of the 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]
41 (return)
[ For the particulars of
the visit of Constantius to Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have
only to add, that Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and
that he composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.]
The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution, 42 he chose rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence. 43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable monuments of their power and victory; 44 but there remained one obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by Constantine to adorn his new city; 45 and, after being removed by his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria. The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose, and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome. 46 4611
42 (return)
[ Hormisdas, a fugitive
prince of Persia, observed to the emperor, that if he made such a horse,
he must think of preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.)
Another saying of Hormisdas is recorded, "that one thing only had
displeased him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere." If we
adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (displicuisse, instead of
placuisse,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman vanity. The contrary
sense would be that of a misanthrope.]
43 (return)
[ When Germanicus visited
the ancient monuments of Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to
him the meaning of these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it
seems probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these
natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the Egyptian
nation. See Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, vol. iii. p. 69-243.]
44 (return)
[ See Plin. Hist. Natur.
l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.]
45 (return)
[ Ammian. Marcellin l.
xvii. c. 4. He gives us a Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and
his commentator Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty
verses of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the obelisk.]
46 (return)
[ See Donat. Roma.
Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c. 12, and the learned, though confused,
Dissertation of 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.]
4611 (return)
[ It is doubtful
whether the obelisk transported by Constantius to Rome now exists. Even
from the text of Ammianus, it is uncertain whether the interpretation of
Hermapion refers to the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem
videmus in Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus,
long before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The
obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is ascribed
not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II. Champollion, 1. Lettre a M.
de Blacas, p. 32.—M]
The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military arts of their Sarmatian allies. 47 The garrisons of the frontiers were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with the preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march, penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi. The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy, released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment, of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube, against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms; but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes, established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite banks of the Danube; the 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! 4711 a word of defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats; and although Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this splendid success, received the name of Sarmaticus from the acclamations of his victorious army. 48
47 (return)
[ The events of this
Quadian and Sarmatian war are related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13,
xix. 11]
4711 (return)
[ Reinesius reads
Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War. Wagner note as a mm. Marc xix. ll.—M.]
48 (return)
[ Genti Sarmatarum magno
decori confidens apud eos regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous
oration pronounced by Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own
exploits with much vanity, and some truth]
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 4911 These overtures of peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he invested with that character, was honorably received in his passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon, (such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,) expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius 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.
49 (return)
[ Ammian. xvi. 9.]
4911 (return)
[ In Persian,
Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii. 177.—M.]
50 (return)
[ Ammianus (xvii. 5)
transcribes the haughty letter. Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.)
takes notice of the silken covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the
journey of the ambassador; and Peter the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p.
58) has informed us of his behavior.]
51 (return)
[ Ammianus, xvii. 5, and
Valesius ad loc. The sophist, or philosopher, (in that age these words
were almost synonymous,) was Eustathius the Cappadocian, the disciple of
Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil. Eunapius (in Vit. 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.]
52 (return)
[ Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8.
The decent and respectful behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general,
sets him in a very interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the
traitor with some compassion and esteem.]
53 (return)
[ This circumstance, as
it is noticed by Ammianus, serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l.
i. c. 133,) and the permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the
Persians have been addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have
triumphed over the law of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii. p.
462-472, and Voyages en Perse, tom, iii. p. 90.]
The military historian, 54 who was himself despatched to observe the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in the front, conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his left hand, the place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent tribes from the shores of the Caspian. 5411 The satraps and generals were distributed according to their several ranks, and the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental luxury, consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective men, inured to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor, had prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the summer in tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered that every precaution had been used which could retard their progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing his plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head of the Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara, convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification of his resentment. The following day Grumbates advanced towards the gates with a select body of troops, and required the instant surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a javelin, shot from one of the 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.
54 (return)
[ Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7,
8, 10.]
5411 (return)
[ These perhaps were
the barbarous tribes who inhabit the northern part of the present
Schirwan, the Albania of the ancients. This country, now inhabited by the
Lezghis, the terror of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the
same people, called by the ancients 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.
55 (return)
[ 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.]
56 (return)
[ Diarbekir, which is
styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in the public writings of the Turks, contains
above 16,000 houses, and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The
epithet of Kara is derived from the blackness of the stone which composes
the strong and ancient wall of Amida. ——In my 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.]
57 (return)
[ The operations of the
siege of Amida are very minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who
acted an honorable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when
the city was stormed by the Persians.]
58 (return)
[ Of these four nations,
the Albanians are too well known to require any description. The Segestans
[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 6111
59 (return)
[ Ammianus has marked the
chronology of this year by three signs, which do not perfectly coincide
with each other, or with the series of the history. 1 The corn was ripe
when Sapor invaded Mesopotamia; "Cum jam stipula flaveate turgerent;" a
circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally refer us
to the month of April or May. See Harmer's Observations on Scripture vol.
i. p. 41. Shaw's Travels, p. 335, edit 4to. 2. The progress of Sapor was
checked by the overflowing of the Euphrates, which generally happens in
July and August. Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle,
tom. i. p. 696. 3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of
seventy-three days, the autumn was far advanced. "Autumno 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.]
60 (return)
[ The account of these
sieges is given by Ammianus, xx. 6, 7. ——The Christian bishop
of Bezabde went to the camp of the king of Persia, to persuade him to
check the waste of human blood Amm. Mare xx. 7.—M.]
61 (return)
[ For the identity of
Virtha and Tecrit, see D'Anville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle
by Timur Bec or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian
biographer exaggerates the merit and difficulty of this exploit, which
delivered the caravans of Bagdad from a formidable gang of robbers.]
6111 (return)
[ St. Martin doubts
whether it lay so much to the south. "The word Girtha means in Syriac a
castle or fortress, and might be applied to many places."]
The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required and would have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, 62 Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the eunuchs; and the military command of the East was bestowed, by the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran, who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with the idle parade of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy, to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged, that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest defenders, who had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and Ursicinus himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East; and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed, with a powerful army, the siege of Becabde. The walls were shaken by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity; but it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the emperor to raise the siege, and ingloviously to retreat into his winter quarters at Antioch. 63 The pride of Constantius, and the ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.
62 (return)
[ Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6,
xix. 3, xx. 2) represents the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that
faithful attention which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality
may be suspected, yet the whole account is consistent and probable.]
63 (return)
[ Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso
vano incepto, hiematurus 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.
64 (return)
[ The ravages of the
Germans, and the distress of Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself.
Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c.
iv.)]
65 (return)
[ Ammianus, xvi. 8. This
name seems to be derived from the Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently
occurs in the histories of the middle age. Toxandria was a country of
woods and morasses, which extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to the
conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit. Galliar. p. 558.]
66 (return)
[ The paradox of P.
Daniel, that the Franks never obtained any permanent settlement on this
side of the Rhine before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning
and good sense by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their
uninterrupted possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty years before
the accession of Clovis. The Dissertation of M. Biet was crowned by the
Academy of Soissons, in the year 1736, and seems to have been justly
preferred to the discourse of his more celebrated competitor, the Abbe le
Boeuf, an antiquarian, whose name was happily expressive of his talents.]
Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather, as he expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, "O Plato, Plato, what a task for a philosopher!" Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men of business are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian with the noblest precepts and the most shining examples; had animated him with the love of virtue, the desire of fame, and the contempt of death. The habits of temperance recommended in the schools, are still more essential in the severe discipline of a camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the measure of his food and sleep. Rejecting with disdain the delicacies provided for his table, he satisfied his appetite with the coarse and common fare which was allotted to the meanest soldiers. During the rigor of a Gallic winter, he never suffered a fire in his bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted slumber, he frequently rose in the middle of the night from a carpet spread on the floor, to despatch any urgent business, to visit his rounds, or to steal a few moments for the prosecution of his favorite studies. 67 The precepts of eloquence, which he had hitherto practised on fancied topics of declamation, were more usefully applied to excite or to assuage the passions of an armed multitude: and although Julian, from his early habits of conversation and literature, was more familiarly acquainted with the beauties of the Greek language, he had attained a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. 68 Since Julian was not originally designed for the character of a legislator, or a judge, it is probable that the civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not engaged any considerable share of his attention: but he derived from his philosophic studies an inflexible regard for justice, tempered by a disposition to clemency; the knowledge of the general principles of equity and evidence, and the faculty of patiently investigating the most intricate and tedious questions which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various accidents of circumstance and character, and the unpractised student will often be perplexed in the application of the most perfect theory.
But in the acquisition of this important science, Julian was assisted by the active vigor of his own genius, as well as by the wisdom and experience of Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon conceived a sincere attachment for a prince so worthy of his friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity was adorned by the talent of insinuating the harshest truths without wounding the delicacy of a royal ear. 69
67 (return)
[ The private life of
Julian in Gaul, and the severe discipline which he embraced, are displayed
by Ammianus, (xvi. 5,) who professes to praise, and by Julian himself, who
affects to ridicule, (Misopogon, p. 340,) a conduct, which, in a prince of
the house of Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of mankind.]
68 (return)
[ Aderat Latine quoque
disserenti sufficiens sermo. Ammianus xvi. 5. But Julian, educated in the
schools of Greece, always considered the language of the Romans as a
foreign and popular dialect which he might use on necessary occasions.]
69 (return)
[ We are ignorant of the
actual office of this excellent minister, whom Julian afterwards created
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; 6911 and sometimes eluding, and sometimes resisting, the attacks of the Barbarians, who were masters of the field, he arrived with honor and safety at the camp near Rheims, where the Roman troops had been ordered to assemble. The aspect of their young prince revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they marched from Rheims in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had almost proved fatal to them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the knowledge of the country, secretly collected their scattered forces, and seizing the opportunity of a dark and rainy day, poured with unexpected fury on the rear-guard of the Romans. Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two legions were destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience that caution and vigilance are the most important lessons of the art of war. In a second and more successful action, he recovered and established his military fame; but as the agility of the Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his victory was neither bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to the banks of the Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne, convinced himself of the difficulties of the war, and retreated on the approach of winter, discontented with the court, with his army, and with his own success. 70 The power of the enemy was yet unbroken; and the 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.
6911 (return)
[ Aliis per Arbor—quibusdam
per Sedelaucum et Coram in debere firrantibus. Amm. Marc. xvi. 2. I do not
know what place can be meant by the mutilated name Arbor. Sedelanus is
Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Cote d'Or, six leagues from
Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the river of the same name,
between Autun and Nevera 4; Martin, ii. 162.—M. ——Note:
At Brocomages, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St. Martin, ii. 184.—M.]
70 (return)
[ Ammianus (xvi. 2, 3)
appears much better satisfied with the success of his first campaign than
Julian himself; who very fairly owns that he did nothing of consequence,
and that he fled before the enemy.]
The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his sword for this signal deliverance, was imbittered by the reflection, that he was abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted to destruction, by those who were bound to assist him, by every tie of honor and fidelity. Marcellus, master-general of the cavalry in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the jealous orders of the court, beheld with supine indifference the distress of Julian, and had restrained the troops under his command from marching to the relief of Sens. If the 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
71 (return)
[ Ammian. xvi. 7.
Libanius speaks rather more advantageously of the military talents of
Marcellus, Orat. x. p. 272. And Julian insinuates, that he would not have
been so easily recalled, unless he had given other reasons of offence to
the court, p. 278.]
72 (return)
[ Severus, non discors,
non arrogans, sed longa militiae frugalitate compertus; et eum recta
praeeuntem secuturus, ut duetorem morigeran miles. Ammian xvi. 11.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 140.]
73 (return)
[ On the design and
failure of the cooperation between Julian and Barbatio, see Ammianus (xvi.
11) and Libanius, (Orat. x. p. 273.) Note: Barbatio seems to have allowed
himself to be surprised and defeated—M.]
As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the Alemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to dispute the possession of that country, which they claimed as their own by the right of conquest and of treaties. They employed three days, and as many nights, in transporting over the Rhine their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example inspired. 74 He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received from a deserter, that the 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
74 (return)
[ 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.]
75 (return)
[ After the battle,
Julian ventured to revive the rigor of ancient discipline, by exposing
these fugitives in female apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In
the next campaign, these troops nobly retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 142.]
76 (return)
[ Julian himself (ad S.
P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks of the battle of Strasburgh with the modesty
of conscious merit; Zosimus compares it with the victory of Alexander over
Darius; and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those strokes of
military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct and success
of a single day.]
77 (return)
[ Ammianus, xvi. 12.
Libanius adds 2000 more to the number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But
these trifling differences disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom
Zosimus has sacrificed to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We
might attribute this extravagant number to the carelessness of
transcribers, if this credulous or partial historian had not swelled the
army of 35,000 Alemanni to an innumerable multitude of Barbarians,. It is
our own fault if this detection does not inspire us with proper distrust
on similar occasions.]
78 (return)
[ Ammian. xvi. 12.
Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.]
After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of the Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were seated nearer to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany; and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid valor, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the Barbarians. 79 Although they were strongly actuated by the allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of war; which they considered as the supreme honor and felicity of human nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to them as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which followed the battle of Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two castles on the Meuse. 80 In the midst of that severe season they sustained, with inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at length, exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the enemy, in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of escape, the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer or to die. The 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
79 (return)
[ Libanius (Orat. iii. p.
137) draws a very lively picture of the manners of the Franks.]
80 (return)
[ Ammianus, xvii. 2.
Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage
of Julian, has been induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a
thousand men; and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he
compares them to the Lacedaemonians, who were besieged and taken in the
Island of Sphatoria.]
81 (return)
[ Julian. ad S. P. Q.
Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. According to the expression of
Libanius, the emperor, which La Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p.
118) as an honest confession, and Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean
evasion, of the truth. Dom Bouquet, (Historiens de France, tom. i. p.
733,) by substituting another word, would suppress both the difficulty and
the spirit of this passage.]
82 (return)
[ Ammian. xvii. 8.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 146-150, (his narrative is darkened by a mixture of
fable,) and Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression. This
difference of treatment confirms the opinion that the Salian Franks were
permitted to retain the settlements in Toxandria. Note: A newly discovered
fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus probably transcribed, illustrates this
transaction. "Julian commanded the Romans to abstain from all hostile
measures against the Salians, neither to waste or ravage their own
country, for he called every country their own which was surrendered
without resistance or toil on the part of the conquerors." Mai, Script.
Vez Nov. Collect. ii. 256, and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant. Hist.]
83 (return)
[ This interesting story,
which Zosimus has abridged, is related by Eunapius, (in Excerpt.
Legationum, p. 15, 16, 17,) with all the amplifications of Grecian
rhetoric: but the silence of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself,
renders the truth of it extremely suspicious.]
It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after whose example, he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic war. 84 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.
84 (return)
[ Libanius, the friend of
Julian, clearly insinuates (Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed
the history of his Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to
have derived his information only from the Orations and the Epistles of
Julian. The discourse which is addressed to the Athenians contains an
accurate, though general, account of the war against the Germans.]
85 (return)
[ See Ammian. xvii. 1,
10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l. iii. p. 144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p.
280.]
As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an interval of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to his humane and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth of the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt and fortified by the order of Julian. 86 The vanquished Germans had submitted to the just but humiliating condition of preparing and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of Julian urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue, contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the 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
86 (return)
[ Ammian. xviii. 2.
Libanius, Orat. x. p. 279, 280. Of these seven posts, four are at present
towns of some consequence; Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and Nuyss. The other
three, 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.]
87 (return)
[ We may credit Julian
himself, (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 280,) who gives a very
particular account of the transaction. Zosimus adds two hundred vessels
more, (l. iii. p. 145.) If we compute the 600 corn ships of Julian at only
seventy tons each, they were capable of exporting 120,000 quarters, (see
Arbuthnot's Weights and Measures, p. 237;) and the country which could
bear so large an exportation, must already have attained an improved state
of agriculture.]
88 (return)
[ The troops once broke
out into a mutiny, immediately before the second passage of the Rhine.
Ammian. xvii. 9.]
A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the administration of Julian. 89 He devoted the leisure of his winter quarters to the offices of civil government; and affected to assume, with more pleasure, the character of a magistrate than that of a general. Before he took the field, he devolved on the provincial governors most of the public and private causes which had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves. Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. "Who will ever be found guilty," exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, "if it be enough to deny?" "And who," replied Julian, "will ever be innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?" In the general administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereign is commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius would have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from an oppressed and exhausted country. The prince who was invested with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes presume to correct the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to expose their corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of collection. But the management of the finances was more safely intrusted to Florentius, 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.
89 (return)
[ Ammian. xvi. 5, xviii.
1. Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 4]
90 (return)
[ Ammian. xvii. 3.
Julian. Epistol. xv. edit. Spanheim. Such a conduct almost justifies the
encomium of Mamertinus. Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt, ut aut Barbaros
domitet, aut civibus jura restituat, perpetuum professus, aut contra
hostem, aut contra vitia, certamen.]
His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, again flourished under the protection of the laws; and the 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.
91 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat.
Parental. in Imp. Julian. c. 38, in Fabricius Bibliothec. Graec. tom. vii.
p. 263, 264.]
92 (return)
[ See Julian. in
Misopogon, p. 340, 341. The primitive state of Paris is illustrated by
Henry Valesius, (ad Ammian. xx. 4,) his brother Hadrian Valesius, or de
Valois, and M. D'Anville, (in their respective Notitias of ancient Gaul,)
the 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.)]
93 (return)
[ Julian, in Misopogon,
p. 340. Leuce tia, or Lutetia, was the ancient name of the city, which,
according to the fashion of the fourth century, assumed the territorial
appellation of Parisii.]
94 (return)
[ Julian in Misopogon, p.
359, 360.]
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
1 (return)
[ Eusebius in Vit.
Constantin. l. iii. c. 63, 64, 65, 66.]
2 (return)
[ After some examination of
the various opinions of Tillemont, Beausobre, Lardner, &c., I am
convinced that Manes did not propagate his sect, even in Persia, before
the year 270. It is strange, that a philosophic and foreign heresy should
have penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot easily
reject the edict of Diocletian against the Manichaeans, which may be found
in Baronius. (Annal Eccl. A. D. 287.)]
3 (return)
[ 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.]
4 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit.
5, leg. 2. As the general law is not inserted in the Theodosian Code, it
probable that, in the year 438, the sects which it had condemned were
already extinct.]
5 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. i. c. 22.
Socrates, l. i. c. 10. These historians have been suspected, but I think
without reason, of an attachment to the Novatian doctrine. The emperor
said to the bishop, "Acesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by
yourself." Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed the ladder
of Acesius.]
The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the throne of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an imperfect proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the provinces of that great country, from the confines of Cyrene to the columns of Hercules, were distracted with religious discord. 6 The source of the division was derived from a double election in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and opulence, of the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. 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.
6 (return)
[ The best materials for
this part of ecclesiastical history may be found in the edition of Optatus
Milevitanus, published (Paris, 1700) by M. Dupin, who has enriched it with
critical notes, geographical discussions, original records, and an
accurate abridgment of the whole controversy. M. de Tillemont has bestowed
on the Donatists the greatest part of a volume, (tom. vi. part i.;) and I
am indebted to him for an ample collection of all the passages of his
favorite St. Augustin, which relate to those heretics.]
7 (return)
[ Schisma igitur illo
tempore 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
8 (return)
[ The councils of Arles, of
Nice, and of Trent, confirmed the wise and moderate practice of the church
of Rome. The Donatists, however, had the advantage of maintaining the
sentiment of Cyprian, and of a considerable part of the primitive church.
Vincentius Lirinesis (p. 532, ap. Tillemont, 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.]
9 (return)
[ See the sixth book of
Optatus Milevitanus, p. 91-100.]
10 (return)
[ 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, 1111 could not be perfectly understood, till after an assiduous study of thirty years. 12
11 (return)
[ 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.]
1111 (return)
[ This exposition of
the doctrine of Plato appears to me contrary to the true sense of that
philosopher's writings. The brilliant imagination which he carried into
metaphysical inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have
misled those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenor of his
works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system of this
philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato; he has
established no mysterious generation between the three pretended
principles which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he conceives only as
attributes of the Deity, or of matter, those ideas, of which it is
supposed that he made substances, real beings.——According to
Plato, God and matter existed from all eternity. Before the creation of
the world, matter had in itself a principle of motion, but without end or
laws: it is this principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the
world, because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and original
principle of motion is called soul. God wished to impress form upon
matter, that is to say, 1. To mould matter, and make it into a body; 2. To
regulate its motion, and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The
Deity, in this operation, could not act but according to the ideas
existing in his intelligence: their union filled this, and formed the
ideal type of the world. It is this ideal world, this divine intelligence,
existing with God from all eternity, and called by Plato which he is
supposed to personify, to substantialize; while an attentive examination
is sufficient to convince us that he has never assigned it an existence
external to the Deity, (hors de la 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.]
12 (return)
[ The modern guides who
lead me to the knowledge of the Platonic system are Cudworth, Basnage, Le
Clerc, and Brucker. As the learning of these writers was equal, and their
intention different, an inquisitive observer may derive instruction from
their disputes, and certainty from their agreement.]
The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the language and learning of Greece; and the theological system of Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some improvements, in the celebrated school of Alexandria. 13 A numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favor of the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. 14 While the bulk of the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and philosophical contemplation. 15 They cultivated with diligence, and embraced with ardor, the theological system of the Athenian sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked, as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired Wisdom of Solomon. 16 A similar union of the Mosaic faith and the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of Philo, which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of Augustus. 17 The material soul of the universe 18 might offend the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of God was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal Cause. 19
13 (return)
[ Brucker, Hist.
Philosoph. tom. i. p. 1349-1357. The Alexandrian school is celebrated by
Strabo (l. xvii.) and Ammianus, (xxii. 6.) Note: The philosophy of Plato
was not the only source of that professed in the school of Alexandria.
That city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were
assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of these three
people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much changed; the Jews,
who had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and whose
theological opinions had undergone great changes by this intercourse,
endeavored to reconcile Platonism with their new doctrine, and disfigured
it entirely: lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon
notions for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavored on
their side to reconcile their own with those of their neighbors. It is in
Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that we trace the influence of
Oriental philosophy rather than that of Platonism. We find in these books,
and in those of the later prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the
Jews before the Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germ
in Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus God
represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that
of darkness; the history of the good and bad angels; paradise and hell,
&c., are doctrines of which the origin, or at least the positive
determination, can only be referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato
supposed matter eternal; the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a
creation of God, who alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the
philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of the Jewish
theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental philosophy, however
little it may be known, is recognized at every instant. Thus, according to
the Zend Avesta, it is by the Word (honover) more ancient than the world,
that Ormuzd created the universe. This word is the logos of Philo,
consequently very different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato
never personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world: Philo
ventured this personification. The Deity, according to him, has a double
logos; the first is the ideal archetype of the world, the ideal world, the
first-born of the Deity; the second is the word itself of God, personified
under the image of a being acting to create the sensible world, and to
make it like to the ideal world: it is the second-born of God. Following
out his imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal
world, under the image of a celestial man, the primitive type of man, and
the sensible world under the image of another man less perfect than the
celestial man. Certain notions of the Oriental philosophy may have given
rise to this strange abuse of allegory, which it is sufficient to relate,
to show what alterations Platonism had already undergone, and what was
their source. Philo, moreover, of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one
whose Platonism is the most pure. It is from this mixture of Orientalism,
Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which had produced so many
theological and philosophical extravagancies, and in which Oriental
notions evidently predominate.—G.]
14 (return)
[ Joseph. Antiquitat, l.
xii. c. 1, 3. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vii. c. 7.]
15 (return)
[ For the origin of the
Jewish philosophy, see Eusebius, 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.]
16 (return)
[ See Calmet,
Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p. 277. The book of the Wisdom of
Solomon was received by many of the fathers as the work of that monarch:
and although rejected by the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it
has obtained, with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of
Trent.]
17 (return)
[ The Platonism of Philo,
which was famous to a proverb, is proved beyond a doubt by Le Clerc,
(Epist. Crit. viii. p. 211-228.) Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, l. iv. c. 5)
has clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were composed
before the death, and most probably before the birth, of Christ. In such a
time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is more astonishing than his
errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. i. p. 12.]
18 (return)
[ Mens agitat molem, et
magno se corpore miscet. Besides this material soul, Cudworth has
discovered (p. 562) in Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in
Plato himself, a superior, spiritual upercosmian soul of the universe. But
this double soul is exploded by Brucker, Basnage, and Le Clerc, as an idle
fancy of the latter Platonists.]
19 (return)
[ Petav. Dogmata
Theologica, tom. ii. l. viii. c. 2, p. 791. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s.
i. c. l. p. 8, 13. This notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was
freely adopted in the Christian theology. Tertullian (adv. Praxeam, c. 16)
has a remarkable and dangerous passage. After contrasting, with indiscreet
wit, the nature of God, and the actions of Jehovah, he concludes: Scilicet
ut 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.]
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
20 (return)
[ The Platonists admired
the beginning of the Gospel of St. John as containing an exact transcript
of their own principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. Amelius apud
Cyril. advers. Julian. l. viii. p. 283. But in the third and fourth
centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their Trinity by the
secret study of the Christian theology. Note: A short discussion on the
sense in which St. John has used the word Logos, will prove that he has
not borrowed it from the philosophy of Plato. The evangelist adopts this
word without previous explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries
were already familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know
the sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it generally
bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to the word logos by the
Jews of Palestine, the other by the school of Alexandria, particularly by
Philo. The Jews had feared at all times to pronounce the name of Jehovah;
they had formed a habit of designating God by one of his attributes; they
called him sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. By the word of the Lord
were the heavens made. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to allegories, they
often addressed themselves to this attribute of the Deity as a real being.
Solomon makes Wisdom say "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his
way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the
beginning, or ever the earth was." (Prov. viii. 22, 23.) Their residence
in Persia only increased this inclination to sustained allegories. In the
Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, we find
allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: "I came out of the
mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a cloud;... I alone
compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep...
The Creator created me from the beginning, before the world, and I shall
never fail." (Eccles. xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c.
vii. v. 9. [The latter book is clearly Alexandrian.—M.] We see from
this that the Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which
signify Wisdom, the Word, and which were translated into Greek, a simple
attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of which they did
not make a real particular being separate from the Deity. The school of
Alexandria, on the contrary, and Philo among the rest, mingling Greek with
Jewish and Oriental notions, and abandoning himself to his inclination to
mysticism, personified the logos, and represented it a distinct being,
created by God, and intermediate between God and man. This is the second
logos of Philo, that which acts from the beginning of the world, alone in
its kind, creator of the sensible world, formed by God according to the
ideal world which he had in himself, and which was the first logos, the
first- born of the Deity. The logos taken in this sense, then, was a
created being, but, anterior to the creation of the world, near to God,
and charged with his revelations to mankind.——Which of these
two senses is that which St. John intended to assign to the word logos in
the first chapter of his Gospel, and in all his writings? St. John was a
Jew, born and educated in Palestine; he had no knowledge, at least very
little, of the philosophy of the Greeks, and that of the Grecizing Jews:
he would naturally, then, attach to the word logos the sense attached to
it by the Jews of Palestine. If, in fact, we compare the attributes which
he assigns to the logos with those which are assigned to it in Proverbs,
in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we shall see that they are
the same. The Word was in the world, and the world was made by him; in him
was life, and the life was the light of men, (c. i. v. 10-14.) It is
impossible not to trace in this chapter the ideas which the Jews had
formed of the allegorized logos. The evangelist afterwards really
personifies that which his predecessors have personified only poetically;
for he affirms "that the Word became flesh," (v. 14.) It was to prove this
that he wrote. Closely examined, the ideas which he gives of the logos
cannot agree with those of Philo and the school of Alexandria; they
correspond, on the contrary, with those of the Jews of Palestine. Perhaps
St. John, employing a well-known term to explain a doctrine which was yet
unknown, has slightly altered the sense; it is this alteration which we
appear to discover on comparing different passages of his writings.——It
is worthy of remark, that the Jews of Palestine, who did not perceive this
alteration, could find nothing extraordinary in what St. John said of the
Logos; at least they comprehended it without difficulty, while the Greeks
and Grecizing Jews, on their part, brought to it prejudices and
preconceptions easily reconciled with those of the evangelist, who did not
expressly contradict them. This circumstance must have much favored the
progress of Christianity. Thus the fathers of the church in the two first
centuries and later, formed almost all in the school of Alexandria, gave
to the Logos of St. John a sense nearly similar to that which it received
from Philo. Their doctrine approached very near to that which in the
fourth century the council of Nice condemned in the person of Arius.—G.——M.
Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at Ephesus, the centre
of the mingling opinions of the East and West, which were gradually
growing up into Gnosticism. (See Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p.
154.) St. John's sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple
allegory ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the Oriental
impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth may be that St. John
took the familiar term, and, as it were infused into it the peculiar and
Christian sense in which it is used in his writings. —M.]
21 (return)
[ See Beausobre, Hist.
Critique du Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 377. The Gospel according to St. John
is supposed to have been published about seventy years after the death of
Christ.]
22 (return)
[ The sentiments of the
Ebionites are fairly stated by Mosheim (p. 331) and Le Clerc, (Hist.
Eccles. p. 535.) The Clementines, published among the apostolical fathers,
are attributed by the critics to one of these sectaries.]
23 (return)
[ Stanch polemics, like a
Bull, (Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 2,) insist on the orthodoxy of the
Nazarenes; which appears less pure and certain in the eyes of Mosheim, (p.
330.)]
24 (return)
[ The humble condition
and sufferings of Jesus have always been a stumbling-block to the Jews.
"Deus... contrariis coloribus Messiam depinxerat: futurus erat Rex, Judex,
Pastor," &c. See Limborch et Orobio Amica Collat. p. 8, 19, 53-76,
192-234. But this objection has obliged the believing Christians to lift
up their eyes to a spiritual and everlasting kingdom.]
25 (return)
[ Justin Martyr, Dialog.
cum Tryphonte, p. 143, 144. See Le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. p. 615. Bull and
his editor Grabe (Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 7, and Appendix) attempt to
distort either the sentiments or the words of Justin; but their violent
correction of the text is rejected even by the Benedictine editors.]
26 (return)
[ The Arians reproached
the orthodox party with borrowing their Trinity from the Valentinians and
Marcionites. See Beausobre, Hist. de Manicheisme, l. iii. c. 5, 7.]
27 (return)
[ Non dignum est ex utero
credere Deum, et Deum Christum.... non dignum est ut tanta majestas per
sordes et squalores muli eris transire credatur. The Gnostics asserted the
impurity of matter, and of marriage; and they were scandalized by the
gross interpretations of the fathers, and even of Augustin himself. See
Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 523, * Note: The greater part of the 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.]
28 (return)
[ 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.
29 (return)
[ Some proofs of the
respect which the Christians entertained for the person and doctrine of
Plato may be found in De la Mothe le Vayer, tom. v. p. 135, &c., edit.
1757; and Basnage, Hist. des Juifs tom. iv. p. 29, 79, &c.]
30 (return)
[ Doleo bona fide,
Platonem omnium 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.)]
31 (return)
[ 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.]
32 (return)
[ Athanasius, tom. i. p.
808. His expressions have an uncommon energy; and as he was writing to
monks, there could not be any occasion for him to affect a rational
language.]
I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which neither convinced the understanding, nor agitated the passions, of the Platonists themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the studious part of mankind. 33 But after the Logos had been revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired to contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it is the boast of Tertullian, 34 that a Christian mechanic could readily answer such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages. Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence. These speculations, instead of being treated as the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious business of the present, and the most useful preparation for a future, life. A theology, which it was incumbent to believe, which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous, and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic of private meditation and popular discourse. The cold indifference of philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of devotion; and even the metaphors of common language suggested the fallacious prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians, who abhorred the gross and impure generation of the Greek mythology, 35 were tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and paternal relations. The character of Son seemed to imply a perpetual subordination to the voluntary author of his existence; 36 but as the act of generation, in the most spiritual and abstracted sense, must be supposed to transmit the properties of a common nature, 37 they durst not presume to circumscribe the powers or the duration of the Son of an eternal and omnipotent Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ, the Christians of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of Pliny, that they invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have been perpetuated in every age and country, by the various sects who assume the name of his disciples. 38 Their tender reverence for the memory of Christ, and their horror for the profane worship of any created being, would have engaged them to assert the equal and absolute divinity of the Logos, if their rapid ascent towards the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and sole supremacy of the great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age, and before the origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is claimed, with equal confidence, by the orthodox and by the heretical parties; and the most inquisitive critics have fairly allowed, that if they had the good fortune of possessing the Catholic verity, they have delivered their conceptions in loose, inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory language. 39
33 (return)
[ In a treatise, which
professed to explain the opinions of the ancient philosophers concerning
the nature of the gods we might expect to discover the theological Trinity
of Plato. But Cicero very honestly confessed, that although he had
translated the Timaeus, he could never understand that mysterious
dialogue. See Hieronym. praef. ad l. xii. in Isaiam, tom. v. p. 154.]
34 (return)
[ Tertullian. in Apolog.
c. 46. See Bayle, Dictionnaire, au mot Simonide. His remarks on the
presumption of Tertullian are profound and interesting.]
35 (return)
[ Lactantius, iv. 8. Yet
the Probole, or Prolatio, which the most orthodox divines borrowed without
scruple from the Valentinians, and illustrated by the comparisons of a
fountain and stream, the sun and its rays, &c., either meant nothing,
or favored a material idea of the divine generation. See Beausobre, tom.
i. l. iii. c. 7, p. 548.]
36 (return)
[ Many of the primitive
writers have frankly confessed, that the Son owed his being to the will of
the Father.——See Clarke's Scripture Trinity, p. 280-287. On
the other hand, Athanasius and his followers seem unwilling to grant what
they are afraid to deny. The schoolmen extricate themselves from this
difficulty by the distinction of a preceding and a concomitant will.
Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. vi. c. 8, p. 587-603.]
37 (return)
[ See Petav. Dogm.
Theolog. tom. ii. l. ii. c. 10, p. 159.]
38 (return)
[ Carmenque Christo quasi
Deo dicere secum invicem. Plin. Epist. x. 97. The sense of Deus, Elohim,
in the ancient languages, is critically examined by Le Clerc, (Ars
Critica, p. 150-156,) and the propriety of worshipping a very excellent
creature is ably defended by the Socinian Emlyn, (Tracts, p. 29-36,
51-145.)]
39 (return)
[ See Daille de Usu
Patrum, and Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. x. p. 409. To arraign
the faith of the Ante-Nicene fathers, was the object, or at least has been
the effect, of the stupendous work of Petavius on the Trinity, (Dogm.
Theolog. tom. ii.;) nor has the deep impression been erased by the learned
defence of Bishop Bull. Note: Dr. Burton's work on the doctrine of the
Ante-Nicene fathers must be consulted by those who wish to obtain clear
notions on this subject.—M.]
II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance which distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the second was the authority of the church. The disciples of philosophy asserted the rights of intellectual freedom, and their respect for the sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute, which they offered to superior reason. But the Christians formed a numerous and disciplined society; and the jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates was strictly exercised over the minds of the faithful. The loose wanderings of the imagination were gradually confined by creeds and confessions; 40 the freedom of private judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods; the authority of a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank; and the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the censures of the church on those who deviated from the orthodox belief. But in an age of religious controversy, every act of oppression adds new force to the elastic vigor of the mind; and the zeal or obstinacy of a spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret motives of ambition or avarice. A metaphysical argument became the cause or pretence of political contests; the subtleties of the Platonic school were used as the badges of popular factions, and the distance which separated their respective tenets were enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long as the dark heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the Father with the Son, 41 the orthodox party might be excused if they adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the distinction, than to the equality, of the divine persons. But as soon as the heat of controversy had subsided, and the progress of the Sabellians was no longer an object of terror to the churches of Rome, of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological opinion began to flow with a gentle but steady motion towards the contrary extreme; and the most orthodox doctors allowed themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had been censured in the mouth of the sectaries. 42 After the edict of toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient seat of Platonism, the learned, the opulent, the tumultuous city of Alexandria; and the flame of religious discord was rapidly communicated from the schools to the clergy, the people, the province, and the East. The abstruse question of the eternity of the Logos was agitated in ecclesiastic conferences and popular sermons; and the heterodox opinions of Arius 43 were soon made public by his own zeal, and by that of his adversaries. His most implacable adversaries have acknowledged the learning and blameless life of that eminent presbyter, who, in a former election, had declared, and perhaps generously declined, his pretensions to the episcopal throne. 44 His competitor Alexander assumed the office of his judge. The important cause was argued before him; and if at first he seemed to hesitate, he at length pronounced his final sentence, as an absolute rule of faith. 45 The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist the authority of his angry bishop, was separated from the community of the church. But the pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a numerous party. He reckoned among his immediate followers two bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters, twelve deacons, and (what may appear almost incredible) seven hundred virgins. A large majority of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favor his cause; and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, the most learned of the Christian prelates; and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a statesman without forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of the prince and people was attracted by this theological dispute; and the decision, at the end of six years, 46 was referred to the supreme authority of the general council of Nice.
40 (return)
[ The most ancient creeds
were drawn up with the greatest latitude. See Bull, (Judicium Eccles.
Cathol.,) who tries to prevent Episcopius from deriving any advantage from
this observation.]
41 (return)
[ The heresies of
Praxeas, Sabellius, &c., are accurately explained by Mosheim (p. 425,
680-714.) Praxeas, who came to Rome about the end of the second century,
deceived, for some time, the simplicity of the bishop, and was confuted by
the pen of the angry Tertullian.]
42 (return)
[ Socrates acknowledges,
that the heresy of Arius proceeded from his strong desire to embrace an
opinion the most diametrically opposite to that of Sabellius.]
43 (return)
[ The figure and manners
of Arius, the character and numbers of his first proselytes, are painted
in very lively colors by Epiphanius, (tom. i. Haeres. lxix. 3, p. 729,)
and we cannot but regret that he should soon forget the historian, to
assume the task of controversy.]
44 (return)
[ See Philostorgius (l.
i. c. 3,) and Godefroy's ample Commentary. Yet the credibility of
Philostorgius is lessened, in the eyes of the orthodox, by his Arianism;
and in those of rational critics, by his passion, his prejudice, and his
ignorance.]
45 (return)
[ Sozomen (l. i. c. 15)
represents Alexander as indifferent, and even ignorant, in the beginning
of the controversy; while Socrates (l. i. c. 5) ascribes the origin of the
dispute to the vain curiosity of his theological speculations. Dr. Jortin
(Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 178) has censured, with
his usual freedom, the conduct of Alexander.]
46 (return)
[ The flames of Arianism
might burn for some time in secret; but there is reason to believe that
they burst out with violence as early as the year 319. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 774-780.]
When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously exposed to public debate, it might be observed, that the human understanding was capable of forming three district, though imperfect systems, concerning the nature of the Divine Trinity; and it was pronounced, that none of these systems, in a pure and absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error. 47 I. According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius and his disciples, the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous production, created from nothing by the will of the father. The Son, by whom all things were made, 48 had been begotten before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration; yet this duration was not infinite, 49 and there had been a time which preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos. On this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his glory. Visible image of invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable distance beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest archangels; yet he shone only with a reflected light, and, like the sons of the Romans emperors, who were invested with the titles of Caesar or Augustus, 50 he governed the universe in obedience to the will of his Father and Monarch. II. In the second hypothesis, the Logos possessed all the inherent, incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three coequal and coeternal beings, composed the Divine Essence; 51 and it would have implied contradiction, that any of them should not have existed, or that they should ever cease to exist. 52 The advocates of a system which seemed to establish three independent Deities, attempted to preserve the unity of the First Cause, so conspicuous in the design and order of the world, by the perpetual concord of their administration, and the essential agreement of their will. A faint resemblance of this unity of action may be discovered in the societies of men, and even of animals. The causes which disturb their harmony, proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of their faculties; but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom and goodness, cannot fail of choosing the same means for the accomplishment of the same ends. III. Three beings, who, by the self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine attributes in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in duration, infinite in space, and intimately present to each other, and to the whole universe; irresistibly force themselves on the astonished mind, as one and the same being, 53 who, in the economy of grace, as well as in that of nature, may manifest himself under different forms, and be considered under different aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trinity is refined into a trinity of names, and abstract modifications, that subsist only in the mind which conceives them. The Logos is no longer a person, but an attribute; and it is only in a figurative sense that the epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal reason, which was with God from the beginning, and by which, not by whom, all things were made. The incarnation of the Logos is reduced to a mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom, which filled the soul, and directed all the actions, of the man Jesus. Thus, after revolving around the theological circle, we are surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite had begun; and that the incomprehensible mystery which excites our adoration, eludes our inquiry. 54
47 (return)
[ Quid credidit? Certe,
aut tria nomina audiens tres Deos esse credidit, et idololatra effectus
est; aut in tribus vocabulis trinominem credens Deum, in Sabellii haeresim
incurrit; aut edoctus ab Arianis unum esse verum Deum Patrem, filium et
spiritum sanctum credidit creaturas. Aut extra haec quid credere potuerit
nescio. Hieronym adv. Luciferianos. Jerom reserves for the last the
orthodox system, which is more complicated and difficult.]
48 (return)
[ As the doctrine of
absolute creation from nothing was gradually introduced among the
Christians, (Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 165- 215,) the dignity of the workman
very naturally rose with that of the work.]
49 (return)
[ The metaphysics of Dr.
Clarke (Scripture Trinity, p. 276-280) could digest an eternal generation
from an infinite cause.]
50 (return)
[ This profane and absurd
simile is employed by several of the primitive fathers, particularly by
Athenagoras, in his Apology to the emperor Marcus and his son; and it is
alleged, without censure, by Bull himself. See Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect.
iii. c. 5, No. 4.]
51 (return)
[ See Cudworth's
Intellectual System, p. 559, 579. This dangerous hypothesis was
countenanced by the two Gregories, of Nyssa and Nazianzen, by Cyril of
Alexandria, John of Damascus, &c. See Cudworth, p. 603. Le Clerc,
Bibliotheque Universelle, tom xviii. p. 97-105.]
52 (return)
[ Augustin seems to envy
the freedom of the Philosophers. Liberis verbis loquuntur philosophi....
Nos autem non dicimus duo vel tria principia, duos vel tres Deos. De
Civitat. Dei, x. 23.]
53 (return)
[ Boetius, who was deeply
versed in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, explains the unity of the
Trinity by the indifference of the three persons. See the judicious
remarks of Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. xvi. p. 225, &c.]
54 (return)
[ If the Sabellians were
startled at this conclusion, they were driven another precipice into the
confession, that the Father was born of a virgin, that he had suffered on
the cross; and thus deserved the epithet of Patripassians, with which they
were branded by their adversaries. See the invectives of Tertullian
against Praxeas, and the temperate reflections of Mosheim, (p. 423, 681;)
and Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 6, p. 533.]
If the bishops of the council of Nice 55 had been permitted to follow the unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and his associates could scarcely have flattered themselves with the hopes of obtaining a majority of votes, in favor of an hypothesis so directly averse to the two most popular opinions of the Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of their situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues, which, in the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are seldom practised, or even praised, except by the weaker party. They recommended the exercise of Christian charity and moderation; urged the incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed the use of any terms or definitions which could not be found in the Scriptures; and offered, by very liberal concessions, to satisfy their adversaries without renouncing the integrity of their own principles. The victorious faction received all their proposals with haughty suspicion; and anxiously sought for some irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of which might involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A letter was publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the admission of the Homoousion, or Consubstantial, a word already familiar to the Platonists, was incompatible with the principles of their theological system. The fortunate opportunity was eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions of the synod; and, according to the lively expression of Ambrose, 56 they used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the scabbard, to cut off the head of the hated monster. The consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was established by the council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as a fundamental article of the Christian faith, by the consent of the Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But if the same word had not served to stigmatize the heretics, and to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the purpose of the majority, by whom it was introduced into the orthodox creed. This majority was divided into two parties, distinguished by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes seemed to overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of their principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious, consequences, which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal their differences; their animosity was softened by the healing counsels of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the use of the mysterious Homoousion, which either party was free to interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense, which, about fifty years before, had obliged the council of Antioch 57 to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who supported with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to consider the expression of substance as if it had been synonymous with that of nature; and they ventured to illustrate their meaning, by affirming that three men, as they belong to the same common species, are consubstantial, or homoousian to each other. 58 This pure and distinct equality was tempered, on the one hand, by the internal connection, and spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons; 59 and, on the other, by the preeminence of the Father, which was acknowledged as far as it is compatible with the independence of the Son. 60 Within these limits, the almost invisible and tremulous ball of orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond this consecrated ground, the heretics and the daemons lurked in ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war, rather than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics who degraded, were treated with more severity than those who annihilated, the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious madness of the Arians; 61 but he defended above twenty years the Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his respectable friend. 62
55 (return)
[ The transactions of the
council of Nice are related by the ancients, not only in a partial, but in
a very imperfect manner. Such a picture as Fra Paolo would have drawn, can
never be recovered; but such rude sketches as have been traced by the
pencil of bigotry, and that of reason, may be seen in Tillemont, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. v. p. 669-759,) and in Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Universelle,
tom. x p. 435-454.)]
56 (return)
[ We are indebted to
Ambrose (De Fide, l. iii.) knowledge of this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum
quod viderunt adversariis esse formidini; ut ipsis gladio, ipsum nefandae
caput haereseos.]
57 (return)
[ See Bull, Defens. Fid.
Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p. 25-36. He thinks it his duty to reconcile two
orthodox synods.]
58 (return)
[ According to Aristotle,
the stars were homoousian to each other. "That Homoousios means of one
substance in kind, hath been shown by Petavius, Curcellaeus, Cudworth, Le
Clerc, &c., and to prove it would be actum agere." This is the just
remark of Dr. Jortin, (vol. ii p. 212,) who examines the Arian controversy
with learning, candor, and ingenuity.]
59 (return)
[ See Petavius, (Dogm.
Theolog. tom. ii. l. iv. c. 16, p. 453, &c.,) Cudworth, (p. 559,)
Bull, (sect. iv. p. 285-290, edit. Grab.) The circumincessio, is perhaps
the deepest and darkest he whole theological abyss.]
60 (return)
[ The third section of
Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith, which some of his antagonists have
called nonsense, and others heresy, is consecrated to the supremacy of the
Father.]
61 (return)
[ The ordinary
appellation with which Athanasius and his followers chose to compliment
the Arians, was that of Ariomanites.]
62 (return)
[ Epiphanius, tom i.
Haeres. lxxii. 4, p. 837. See the adventures of Marcellus, in Tillemont,
(Mem. Eccles. tom. v. i. p. 880- 899.) His work, in one book, of the unity
of God, was answered in the three books, which are still extant, of
Eusebius.——After a long and careful examination, Petavius
(tom. ii. l. i. c. 14, p. 78) has reluctantly pronounced the condemnation
of Marcellus.]
The authority of a general council, to which the Arians themselves had been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners of the orthodox party the mysterious characters of the word Homoousion, which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some obscure disputes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and perpetuate the uniformity of faith, or at least of language. The consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved and obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any certain rule of faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the Arian chiefs, the fear of the laws or of the people, their reverence for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all the causes, human and divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a theological faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected eighteen different models of religion, 63 and avenged the violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, 64 who, from the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. 65 The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short interval, the angry passions of his soul; and in the following passage, of which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher. "It is a thing," says Hilary, "equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received, and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin." 66
63 (return)
[ Athanasius, in his
epistle concerning the Synods of Seleucia and Rimini, (tom. i. p.
886-905,) has given an ample list of Arian creeds, which has been enlarged
and improved by the labors of the indefatigable Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles.
tom. vi. p. 477.)]
64 (return)
[ Erasmus, with admirable
sense and freedom, has delineated the just character of Hilary. To revise
his text, to compose the annals of his life, and to justify his sentiments
and conduct, is the province of the Benedictine editors.]
65 (return)
[ Absque episcopo Eleusio
et paucis cum eo, ex majore parte Asianae decem provinciae, inter quas
consisto, vere Deum nesciunt. Atque utinam penitus nescirent! cum
procliviore enim venia ignorarent quam obtrectarent. Hilar. de Synodis,
sive de Fide Orientalium, c. 63, p. 1186, edit. Benedict. In the
celebrated parallel between atheism and superstition, the bishop of
Poitiers would have been surprised in the philosophic society of Bayle and
Plutarch.]
66 (return)
[ Hilarius ad
Constantium, l. i. c. 4, 5, p. 1227, 1228. This remarkable passage
deserved the attention of Mr. Locke, who has transcribed it (vol. iii. p.
470) into the model of his new common-place book.]
It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured, that I should swell this theological digression, by a minute examination of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the most part, disclaimed the odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing enough to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves without flowers, and of branches without fruit, would soon exhaust the patience, and disappoint the curiosity, of the laborious student. One question, which gradually arose from the Arian controversy, may, however, be noticed, as it served to produce and discriminate the three sects, who were united only by their common aversion to the Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked whether the Son was like unto the Father, the question was resolutely answered in the negative, by the heretics who adhered to the principles of Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy; which seem to establish an infinite difference between the Creator and the most excellent of his creatures. This obvious consequence was maintained by Aetius, 67 on whom the zeal of his adversaries bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His restless and aspiring spirit urged him to try almost every profession of human life. He was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman, a travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian, and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. 68 Armed with texts of Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle Aetius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even to persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and offended the piety of their most devoted followers. 2. The omnipotence of the Creator suggested a specious and respectful solution of the likeness of the Father and the Son; and faith might humbly receive what reason could not presume to deny, that the Supreme God might communicate his infinite perfections, and create a being similar only to himself. 69 These Arians were powerfully supported by the weight and abilities of their leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian interest, and who occupied the principal thrones of the East. They detested, perhaps with some affectation, the impiety of Aetius; they professed to believe, either without reserve, or according to the Scriptures, that the Son was different from all other creatures, and similar only to the Father. But they denied, the he was either of the same, or of a similar substance; sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and sometimes objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems to imply an adequate, or at least, a distinct, notion of the nature of the Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the doctrine of a similar substance, was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the council of Seleucia, 70 their opinion would have prevailed by a majority of one hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The Greek word, which was chosen to express this mysterious resemblance, bears so close an affinity to the orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it frequently happens, that the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the Catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, who in his Phrygian exile very wisely aimed at a coalition of parties, endeavors to prove that by a pious and faithful interpretation, 71 the Homoiousion may be reduced to a consubstantial sense. Yet he confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious aspect; and, as if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed them with the most unrelenting fury.
67 (return)
[ In Philostorgius (l.
iii. c. 15) the character and adventures of Aetius appear singular enough,
though they are carefully softened by the hand of a friend. The editor,
Godefroy, (p. 153,) who was more attached to his principles than to his
author, has collected the odious circumstances which his various
adversaries have preserved or invented.]
68 (return)
[ According to the
judgment of a man who respected both these sectaries, Aetius had been
endowed with a stronger understanding and Eunomius had acquired more art
and learning. (Philostorgius l. viii. c. 18.) The confession and apology
of Eunomius (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. viii. p. 258-305) is one of
the few heretical pieces which have escaped.]
69 (return)
[ Yet, according to the
opinion of Estius and Bull, (p. 297,) there is one power—that of
creation—which God cannot communicate to a creature. Estius, who so
accurately defined the limits of Omnipotence was a Dutchman by birth, and
by trade a scholastic divine. Dupin Bibliot. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 45.]
70 (return)
[ Sabinus ap. Socrat. (l.
ii. c. 39) had copied the acts: Athanasius and Hilary have explained the
divisions of this Arian synod; the other circumstances which are relative
to it are carefully collected by Baro and Tillemont]
71 (return)
[ Fideli et pia
intelligentia... De Synod. c. 77, p. 1193. In his his short apologetical
notes (first published by the Benedictines from a MS. of Chartres) he
observes, that he used this cautious expression, qui intelligerum et
impiam, p. 1206. See p. 1146. Philostorgius, who saw those objects through
a different medium, is inclined to forget the difference of the important
diphthong. See in particular viii. 17, and Godefroy, p. 352.]
The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the Arian controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom, supplied the clergy and people of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by religion. The inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit; their passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects, their minds were less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute; and such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that Hilary himself, above thirty years after the first general council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. 72 The Latins had received the rays of divine knowledge through the dark and doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of their native tongue was not always capable of affording just equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of the Platonic philosophy, 73 which had been consecrated, by the gospel or by the church, to express the mysteries of the Christian faith; and a verbal defect might introduce into the Latin theology a long train of error or perplexity. 74 But as the western provincials had the good fortune of deriving their religion from an orthodox source, they preserved with steadiness the doctrine which they had accepted with docility; and when the Arian pestilence approached their frontiers, they were supplied with the seasonable preservative of the Homoousion, by the paternal care of the Roman pontiff. Their sentiments and their temper were displayed in the memorable synod of Rimini, which surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, since it was composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared, that only fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though they affected to anathematize the name and memory, of Arius. But this inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of experience, and of discipline; and the minority was conducted by Valens and Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent their lives in the intrigues of courts and councils, and who had been trained under the Eusebian banner in the religious wars of the East. By their arguments and negotiations, they embarrassed, they confounded, they at last deceived, the honest simplicity of the Latin bishops; who suffered the palladium of the faith to be extorted from their hand by fraud and importunity, rather than by open violence. The council of Rimini was not allowed to separate, till the members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were inserted in the room of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion, that, according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself Arian. 75 But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner reached their respective dioceses, than they discovered their mistake, and repented of their weakness. The ignominious capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the Homoousian standard, which had been shaken but not overthrown, was more firmly replanted in all the churches of the West. 76
72 (return)
[ Testor Deumcoeli atque
terrae me cum neutrum audissem, semper tamen utrumque sensisse....
Regeneratus pridem et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicenam
nunquam nisi exsulaturus audivi. Hilar. de Synodis, c. xci. p. 1205. The
Benedictines are persuaded that he governed the diocese of Poitiers
several years before his exile.]
73 (return)
[ Seneca (Epist. lviii.)
complains that even the of the Platonists (the ens of the bolder
schoolmen) could not be expressed by a Latin noun.]
74 (return)
[ The preference which
the fourth council of the Lateran at length gave to a numerical rather
than a generical unity (See Petav. tom. ii. l. v. c. 13, p. 424) was
favored by the Latin language: seems to excite the idea of substance,
trinitas of qualities.]
75 (return)
[ Ingemuit totus orbis,
et Arianum se esse miratus est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer. tom. i. p. 145.]
76 (return)
[ The story of the
council of Rimini is very elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus, (Hist.
Sacra, l. ii. p. 419-430, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1647,) and by Jerom, in his
dialogue against the Luciferians. The design of the latter is to apologize
for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who were deceived, and who
repented.]
Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural revolutions of those theological disputes, which disturbed the peace of Christianity under the reigns of Constantine and of his sons. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes, of their subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the King of Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of an earthly monarch. The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded the provinces of the East, interrupted the triumph of Constantine; but the emperor continued for some time to view, with cool and careless indifference, the object of the dispute. As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the quarrels of theologians, he addressed to the contending parties, to Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle; 77 which may be ascribed, with far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a soldier and statesman, than to the dictates of any of his episcopal counsellors. He attributes the origin of the whole controversy to a trifling and subtle question, concerning an incomprehensible point of law, which was foolishly asked by the bishop, and imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments that the Christian people, who had the same God, the same religion, and the same worship, should be divided by such inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously recommend to the clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers; who could maintain their arguments without losing their temper, and assert their freedom without violating their friendship. The indifference and contempt of the sovereign would have been, perhaps, the most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if the popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism, could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind. But his ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce the impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the proselyte. He was provoked by the insults which had been offered to his statues; he was alarmed by the real, as well as the imaginary magnitude of the spreading mischief; and he extinguished the hope of peace and toleration, from the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance of the debate; his attention multiplied the arguments; and he exposed his person with a patient intrepidity, which animated the valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has been bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine, 78 a Roman general, whose religion might be still a subject of doubt, and whose mind had not been enlightened either by study or by inspiration, was indifferently qualified to discuss, in the Greek language, a metaphysical question, or an article of faith. But the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in the council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in favor of the orthodox party; and a well-timed insinuation, that the same Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately assisted the tyrant, 79 might exasperate him against their adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment of the synod, must prepare themselves for an immediate exile, annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two, protesting bishops. Eusebius of Caesarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous consent to the Homoousion; 80 and the wavering conduct of the Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his disgrace and exile. 81 The impious Arius was banished into one of the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings were condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment was denounced against those in whose possession they should be found. The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy, and the angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to inspire his subjects with the hatred which he had conceived against the enemies of Christ. 82
77 (return)
[ Eusebius, in Vit.
Constant. l. ii. c. 64-72. The principles of toleration and religious
indifference, contained in this epistle, have given great offence to
Baronius, Tillemont, &c., who suppose that the emperor had some evil
counsellor, either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow. See Cortin's Remarks,
tom. ii. p. 183. * Note: Heinichen (Excursus xi.) quotes with approbation
the term "golden words," applied by Ziegler to this moderate and tolerant
letter of Constantine. May an English clergyman venture to express his
regret that "the fine gold soon became dim" in the Christian church?—M.]
78 (return)
[ Eusebius in Vit.
Constantin. l. iii. c. 13.]
79 (return)
[ Theodoret has preserved
(l. i. c. 20) an epistle from Constantine to the people of Nicomedia, in
which the monarch declares himself the public accuser of one of his
subjects; he styles Eusebius and complains of his hostile behavior during
the civil war.]
80 (return)
[ See in Socrates, (l. i.
c. 8,) or rather in Theodoret, (l. i. c. 12,) an original letter of
Eusebius of Caesarea, in which he attempts to justify his subscribing the
Homoousion. The character of Eusebius has always been a problem; but those
who have read the second critical epistle of Le Clerc, (Ars Critica, tom.
iii. p. 30-69,) must entertain a very unfavorable opinion of the orthodoxy
and sincerity of the bishop of Caesarea.]
81 (return)
[ Athanasius, tom. i. p.
727. Philostorgius, l. i. c. 10, and Godefroy's Commentary, p. 41.]
82 (return)
[ Socrates, l. i. c. 9.
In his circular letters, which were addressed to the several cities,
Constantine employed against the heretics the arms of ridicule and comic
raillery.]
But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion instead of principle, three years from the council of Nice were scarcely elapsed before he discovered some symptoms of mercy, and even of indulgence, towards the proscribed sect, which was secretly protected by his favorite sister. The exiles were recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually resumed his influence over the mind of Constantine, was restored to the episcopal throne, from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was treated by the whole court with the respect which would have been due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by the synod of Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed impatient to repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute command, that he should be solemnly admitted to the communion in the cathedral of Constantinople. On the same day, which had been fixed for the triumph of Arius, he expired; and the strange and horrid circumstances of his death might excite a suspicion, that the orthodox saints had contributed more efficaciously than by their prayers, to deliver the church from the most formidable of her enemies. 83 The three principal leaders of the Catholics, Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of Constantinople were deposed on various f accusations, by the sentence of numerous councils; and were afterwards banished into distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors, who, in the last moments of his life, received the rites of baptism from the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government of Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of levity and weakness. But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems of theological warfare, might be deceived by the modest and specious professions of the heretics, whose sentiments he never perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius, and persecuted Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as the bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his own reign. 84
83 (return)
[ We derive the original
story from Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 670,) who expresses some reluctance to
stigmatize the memory of the dead. He might exaggerate; but the perpetual
commerce of Alexandria and Constantinople would have rendered it dangerous
to invent. Those who press the literal narrative of the death of Arius
(his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy) must make their option between
poison and miracle.]
84 (return)
[ The change in the
sentiments, or at least in the conduct, of Constantine, may be traced in
Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii. c. 23, l. iv. c. 41,) Socrates, (l.
i. c. 23-39,) Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 16-34,) Theodoret, (l. i. c. 14-34,) and
Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 1-17.) But the first of these writers was too
near the scene of action, and the others were too remote from it. It is
singular enough, that the important task of continuing the history of the
church should have been left for two laymen and a heretic.]
The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their childhood into the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the delay of their baptism, the example of their father. Like him they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which they had never been regularly initiated; 85 and the fate of the Trinitarian controversy depended, in a great measure, on the sentiments of Constantius; who inherited the provinces of the East, and acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Arian presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for his use the testament of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince, whose public counsels were always swayed by his domestic favorites. The eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison through the palace, and the dangerous infection was communicated by the female attendants to the guards, and by the empress to her unsuspicious husband. 86 The partiality which Constantius always expressed towards the Eusebian faction, was insensibly fortified by the dexterous management of their leaders; and his victory over the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination, as well as ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause of Arianism. While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, and the fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs under the walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the Arian bishop of the diocese, employed the most artful precautions to obtain such early intelligence as might secure either his favor or his escape. A secret chain of swift and trusty messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle; and while the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and insinuated with some presence of mind, that the glorious event had been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor ascribed his success to the merits and intercession of the bishop of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public and miraculous approbation of Heaven. 87 The Arians, who considered as their own the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to that of his father. 88 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed the description of a celestial cross, encircled with a splendid rainbow; which during the festival of Pentecost, about the third hour of the day, had appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the edification of the devout pilgrims, and the people of the holy city. 89 The size of the meteor was gradually magnified; and the Arian historian has ventured to affirm, that it was conspicuous to the two armies in the plains of Pannonia; and that the tyrant, who is purposely represented as an idolater, fled before the auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity. 90
85 (return)
[ Quia etiam tum
catechumenus sacramentum fidei merito videretiu potuisse nescire. Sulp.
Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 410.]
86 (return)
[ Socrates, l. ii. c. 2.
Sozomen, l. iii. c. 18. Athanas. tom. i. p. 813, 834. He observes that the
eunuchs are the natural enemies of the Son. Compare Dr. Jortin's Remarks
on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 3 with a certain genealogy in
Candide, (ch. iv.,) which ends with one of the first companions of
Christopher Columbus.]
87 (return)
[ Sulpicius Severus in
Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 405, 406.]
88 (return)
[ Cyril (apud Baron. A.
D. 353, No. 26) expressly observes that in the reign of Constantine, the
cross had been found in the bowels of the earth; but that it had appeared,
in the reign of Constantius, in the midst of the heavens. This opposition
evidently proves, that Cyril was ignorant of the stupendous miracle to
which the conversion of Constantine is attributed; and this ignorance is
the more surprising, since it was no more than twelve years after his
death that Cyril was consecrated bishop of Jerusalem, by the immediate
successor of Eusebius of Caesarea. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii.
p. 715.]
89 (return)
[ It is not easy to
determine how far the ingenuity of Cyril might be assisted by some natural
appearances of a solar halo.]
90 (return)
[ Philostorgius, l. iii.
c. 26. He is followed by the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, by
Cedrenus, and by Nicephorus. (See Gothofred. Dissert. p. 188.) They could
not refuse a miracle, even from the hand of an enemy.]
The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord, are always entitled to our notice; and a short passage of Ammianus, who served in the armies, and studied the character of Constantius, is perhaps of more value than many pages of theological invectives. "The Christian religion, which, in itself," says that moderate historian, "is plain and simple, he confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and promulgated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they call synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys." 91 Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample commentary on this remarkable passage, which justifies the rational apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the true faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving world. 92 As soon as the emperor was relieved from the terrors of the civil war, he devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the amusement or toils of controversy: the sword of the magistrate, and even of the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the theologian; and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice, it is readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were equal to his presumption. 93 The eunuchs, the women, and the bishops, who governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor, had inspired him with an insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid conscience was alarmed by the impiety of Aetius. The guilt of that atheist was aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate Gallus; and even the death of the Imperial ministers, who had been massacred at Antioch, were imputed to the suggestions of that dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius, which could neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed by faith, was blindly impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss, by his horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled the leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. 94 During the season of public business or festivity, he employed whole days, and even nights, in selecting the words, and weighing the syllables, which composed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of his meditations still pursued and occupied his slumbers: the incoherent dreams of the emperor were received as celestial visions, and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot the interest of their order for the gratification of their passions. The design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had engaged him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Asia, was repeatedly baffled by his own levity, by the divisions of the Arians, and by the resistance of the Catholics; and he resolved, as the last and decisive effort, imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient place, and perhaps some secret motives of policy, produced an alteration in the summons. The bishops of the East were directed to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while those of the West held their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of the Hadriatic; and instead of two or three deputies from each province, the whole episcopal body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate, separated without any definitive conclusion. The council of the West was protracted till the seventh month. Taurus, the Praetorian praefect was instructed not to dismiss the prelates till they should all be united in the same opinion; and his efforts were supported by the power of banishing fifteen of the most refractory, and a promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult an adventure. His prayers and threats, the authority of the sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the distress of cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless exile, at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West attended the emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of faith which established the likeness, without expressing the consubstantiality, of the Son of God. 95 But the triumph of Arianism had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy, whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt; and the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius.
91 (return)
[ So curious a passage
well deserves to be transcribed. Christianam religionem absolutam et
simplicem, anili superstitione confundens; in qua scrutanda perplexius,
quam componenda gravius excitaret discidia plurima; quae progressa fusius
aluit concertatione verborum, ut catervis antistium jumentis publicis
ultro citroque discarrentibus, per synodos (quas appellant) dum ritum
omnem ad suum sahere conantur (Valesius reads conatur) rei vehiculariae
concideret servos. Ammianus, xxi. 16.]
92 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. i. p.
870.]
93 (return)
[ Socrates, l. ii. c.
35-47. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 12-30. Theodore li. c. 18-32. Philostorg. l. iv.
c. 4—12, l. v. c. 1-4, l. vi. c. 1-5]
94 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. iv. c. 23.
Athanas. tom. i. p. 831. Tillemont (Mem Eccles. tom. vii. p. 947) has
collected several instances of the haughty fanaticism of Constantius from
the detached treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari. The very titles of these
treaties inspire zeal and terror; "Moriendum pro Dei Filio." "De Regibus
Apostaticis." "De non conveniendo cum Haeretico." "De non parcendo in Deum
delinquentibus."]
95 (return)
[ Sulp. Sever. Hist.
Sacra, l. ii. p. 418-430. The Greek historians were very ignorant of the
affairs of the West.]
We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object. The immortal name of Athanasius 96 will never be separated from the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose defence he consecrated every moment and every faculty of his being. Educated in the family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early progress of the Arian heresy: he exercised the important functions of secretary under the aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene council beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of the young deacon. In a time of public danger, the dull claims of age and of rank are sometimes superseded; and within five months after his return from Nice, the deacon Athanasius was seated on the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled that eminent station above forty-six years, and his long administration was spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of Arianism. Five times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province of the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory of his life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was patient of labor, jealous of fame, careless of safety; and although his mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and abilities, which would have qualified him, far better than the degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy. His learning was much less profound and extensive than that of Eusebius of Caesarea, and his rude eloquence could not be compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil; but whenever the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his sentiments, or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of speaking or writing, was clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has always been revered, in the orthodox school, as one of the most accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he was supposed to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, 97 and that of divination. 98 Some fortunate conjectures of future events, which impartial reasoners might ascribe to the experience and judgment of Athanasius, were attributed by his friends to heavenly inspiration, and imputed by his enemies to infernal magic.
96 (return)
[ We may regret that
Gregory Nazianzen composed a panegyric instead of a life of Athanasius;
but we should enjoy and improve the advantage of drawing our most
authentic materials from the rich fund of his own epistles and apologies,
(tom. i. p. 670-951.) I shall not imitate the example of Socrates, (l. ii.
c. l.) who published the first edition of the history, without giving
himself the trouble to consult the writings of Athanasius. Yet even
Socrates, the more curious Sozomen, and the learned Theodoret, connect the
life of Athanasius with the series of ecclesiastical history. The
diligence of Tillemont, (tom. viii,) and of the Benedictine editors, has
collected every fact, and examined every difficulty]
97 (return)
[ Sulpicius Severus
(Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 396) calls him a lawyer, a jurisconsult. This
character cannot now be discovered either in the life or writings of
Athanasius.]
98 (return)
[ Dicebatur enim
fatidicarum sortium fidem, quaeve augurales portenderent alites
scientissime callens aliquoties praedixisse futura. Ammianus, xv. 7. A
prophecy, or rather a joke, is related by Sozomen, (l. iv c. 10,) which
evidently proves (if the crows speak Latin) that Athanasius understood the
language of the crows.]
But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the prejudices and passions of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the knowledge of human nature was his first and most important science. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene which was incessantly shifting; and never failed to improve those decisive moments which are irrecoverably past before they are perceived by a common eye. The archbishop of Alexandria was capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command, and where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he might contend with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and while he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent leader. The election of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach of irregularity and precipitation; 99 but the propriety of his behavior conciliated the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived support, or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment of his parochial clergy; and the hundred bishops of Egypt adhered, with unshaken zeal, to the cause of Athanasius. In the modest equipage which pride and policy would affect, he frequently performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces, from the mouth of the Nile to the confines of Aethiopia; familiarly conversing with the meanest of the populace, and humbly saluting the saints and hermits of the desert. 100 Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose education and manners were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in the courts of princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends, or the esteem of his enemies.
99 (return)
[ The irregular
ordination of Athanasius was slightly mentioned in the councils which were
held against him. See Philostorg. l. ii. c. 11, and Godefroy, p. 71; but
it can scarcely be supposed that the assembly of the bishops of Egypt
would solemnly attest a public falsehood. Athanas. tom. i. p. 726.]
100 (return)
[ See the history of
the Fathers of the Desert, published by Rosweide; and Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vii., in the lives of Antony, Pachomius, &c. Athanasius
himself, who did not disdain to compose the life of his friend Antony, has
carefully observed how often the holy monk deplored and prophesied the
mischiefs of the Arian heresy Athanas. tom. ii. p. 492, 498, &c.]
In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted the great Constantine, who had repeatedly signified his will, that Arius should be restored to the Catholic communion. 101 The emperor respected, and might forgive, this inflexible resolution; and the faction who considered Athanasius as their most formidable enemy, was constrained to dissemble their hatred, and silently to prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors and suspicions, represented the archbishop as a proud and oppressive tyrant, and boldly accused him of violating the treaty which had been ratified in the Nicene council, with the schismatic followers of Meletius. 102 Athanasius had openly disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed to believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil power, to prosecute those odious sectaries: that he had sacrilegiously broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mareotis; that he had whipped or imprisoned six of their bishops; and that Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same party, had been murdered, or at least mutilated, by the cruel hand of the primate. 103 These charges, which affected his honor and his life, were referred by Constantine to his brother Dalmatius the censor, who resided at Antioch; the synods of Caesarea and Tyre were successively convened; and the bishops of the East were instructed to judge the cause of Athanasius, before they proceeded to consecrate the new church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem. The primate might be conscious of his innocence; but he was sensible that the same implacable spirit which had dictated the accusation, would direct the proceeding, and pronounce the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his enemies; despised the summons of the synod of Caesarea; and, after a long and artful delay, submitted to the peremptory commands of the emperor, who threatened to punish his criminal disobedience if he refused to appear in the council of Tyre. 104 Before Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed from Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the Meletians; and Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and his secret friend, was privately concealed in his train. The synod of Tyre was conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, with more passion, and with less art, than his learning and experience might promise; his numerous faction repeated the names of homicide and tyrant; and their clamors were encouraged by the seeming patience of Athanasius, who expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenius alive and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the other charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory replies; yet the archbishop was able to prove, that in the village, where he was accused of breaking a consecrated chalice, neither church nor altar nor chalice could really exist.
The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt and condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms: the synod appointed an episcopal commission of six delegates to collect evidence on the spot; and this measure which was vigorously opposed by the Egyptian bishops, opened new scenes of violence and perjury. 105 After the return of the deputies from Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced the final sentence of degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt. The decree, expressed in the fiercest language of malice and revenge, was communicated to the emperor and the Catholic church; and the bishops immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect, such as became their holy pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Christ. 106
101 (return)
[ At first Constantine
threatened in speaking, but requested in writing. His letters gradually
assumed a menacing tone; by while he required that the entrance of the
church should be open to all, he avoided the odious name of Arius.
Athanasius, like a skilful politician, has accurately marked these
distinctions, (tom. i. p. 788.) which allowed him some scope for excuse
and delay]
102 (return)
[ The Meletians in
Egypt, like the Donatists in Africa, were produced by an episcopal quarrel
which arose from the persecution. I have not leisure to pursue the obscure
controversy, which seems to have been misrepresented by the partiality of
Athanasius and the ignorance of Epiphanius. See Mosheim's General History
of the Church, vol. i. p. 201.]
103 (return)
[ The treatment of the
six bishops is specified by Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 25;) but Athanasius
himself, so copious on the subject of Arsenius and the chalice, leaves
this grave accusation without a reply. Note: This grave charge, if made,
(and it rests entirely on the authority of Soz omen,) seems to have been
silently dropped by the parties themselves: it is never alluded to in the
subsequent investigations. From Sozomen himself, who gives the unfavorable
report of the commission of inquiry sent to Egypt concerning the cup. it
does not appear that they noticed this accusation of personal violence.—M]
104 (return)
[ Athanas, tom. i. p.
788. Socrates, l. i.c. 28. Sozomen, l. ii. c 25. The emperor, in his
Epistle of Convocation, (Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 42,) seems to
prejudge some members of the clergy and it was more than probable that the
synod would apply those reproaches to Athanasius.]
105 (return)
[ See, in particular,
the second Apology of Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 763-808,) and his Epistles
to the Monks, (p. 808-866.) They are justified by original and authentic
documents; but they would inspire more confidence if he appeared less
innocent, and his enemies less absurd.]
106 (return)
[ Eusebius in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv. c. 41-47.]
But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been countenanced by the submission, or even by the presence, of Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment, whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request of a formal audience might have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine's return from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his surprise and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and awakened his conscience. 107 Constantine listened to the complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious attention; the members of the synod of Tyre were summoned to justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt of the primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable offence; a criminal design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet of Alexandria, which supplied the subsistence of the new capital. 108 The emperor was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be secured by the absence of a popular leader; but he refused to fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence, which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves, Athanasius passed about twenty eight months. The death of the emperor changed the face of public affairs and, amidst the general indulgence of a young reign, the primate was restored to his country by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who expressed a deep sense of the innocence and merit of his venerable guest. 109
107 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. i. p.
804. In a church dedicated to St. Athanasius this situation would afford a
better subject for a picture, than most of the stories of miracles and
martyrdoms.]
108 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. i. p.
729. Eunapius has related (in Vit. Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a
strange example of the cruelty and credulity of Constantine on a similar
occasion. The eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his
friendship, and provoked the resentment of Ablavius, his Praetorian
praefect. The corn-fleet was detained for want of a south wind; the people
of Constantinople were discontented; and Sopater was beheaded, on a charge
that he had bound the winds by the power of magic. Suidas adds, that
Constantine wished to prove, by this execution, that he had absolutely
renounced the superstition of the Gentiles.]
109 (return)
[ In his return he saw
Constantius twice, at Viminiacum, and at Caesarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas.
tom. i. p. 676.) Tillemont supposes that Constantine introduced him to the
meeting of the three royal brothers in Pannonia, (Memoires Eccles. tom.
viii. p. 69.)]
The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second persecution; and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the East, soon became the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch, under the specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still regulate the discipline of the orthodox Greeks. 110 It was decided, with some appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was seated on his throne; and Philagrius, 111 the praefect of Egypt, was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and military powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, and passed three years 112 as an exile and a suppliant on the holy threshold of the Vatican. 113 By the assiduous study of the Latin language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the western clergy; his decent flattery swayed and directed the haughty Julius; the Roman pontiff was persuaded to consider his appeal as the peculiar interest of the Apostolic see: and his innocence was unanimously declared in a council of fifty bishops of Italy. At the end of three years, the primate was summoned to the court of Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the influence of gold, 114 and the ministers of Constans advised their sovereign to require the convocation of an ecclesiastical assembly, which might act as the representatives of the Catholic church. Ninety-four bishops of the West, seventy-six bishops of the East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the two empires, but in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius. Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations; the Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to Philippopolis in Thrace; and the rival synods reciprocally hurled their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom they piously condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their decrees were published and ratified in their respective provinces: and Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a saint, was exposed as a criminal to the abhorrence of the East. 115 The council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism between the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the accidental difference of faith, and the permanent distinction of language.
110 (return)
[ See Beveridge,
Pandect. tom. i. p. 429-452, and tom. ii. Annotation. p. 182. Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 310-324. St. Hilary of Poitiers has mentioned
this synod of Antioch with too much favor and respect. He reckons
ninety-seven bishops.]
111 (return)
[ This magistrate, so
odious to Athanasius, is praised by Gregory Nazianzen, tom. i. Orat. xxi.
p. 390, 391.
Saepe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem.
For the credit of human nature, I am always pleased to discover some good qualities in those men whom party has represented as tyrants and monsters.]
112 (return)
[ The chronological
difficulties which perplex the residence of Athanasius at Rome, are
strenuously agitated by Valesius (Observat ad Calcem, tom. ii. Hist.
Eccles. l. i. c. 1-5) and Tillemont, (Men: Eccles. tom. viii. p. 674,
&c.) I have followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows
only one journey, after the intrusion Gregory.]
113 (return)
[ I cannot forbear
transcribing a judicious observation of Wetstein, (Prolegomen. N.S. p. 19:
) Si tamen Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus consulere, patebit jam inde a
seculo quarto, cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesiae Graeciae doctores in
duas partes scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia, numero, tantum non
aequales, eam partem quae vincere cupiebat Romam confugisse, majestatemque
pontificis comiter coluisse, eoque pacto oppressis per pontificem et
episcopos Latinos adversariis praevaluisse, atque orthodoxiam in conciliis
stabilivisse. Eam ob causam Athanasius, non sine comitatu, Roman petiit,
pluresque annos ibi haesit.]
114 (return)
[ Philostorgius, l.
iii. c. 12. If any corruption was used to promote the interest of
religion, an advocate of Athanasius might justify or excuse this
questionable conduct, by the example of Cato and Sidney; the former of
whom is said to have given, and the latter to have received, a bribe in
the cause of liberty.]
115 (return)
[ The canon which
allows appeals to the Roman pontiffs, has almost raised the council of
Sardica to the dignity of a general council; and its acts have been
ignorantly or artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See
Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 689, and Geddos's Tracts, vol. ii. p. 419-460.]
During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was frequently admitted to the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona, Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the diocese usually assisted at these interviews; the master of the offices stood before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment; and the uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by these respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly appeals. 116 Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone that became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences with the sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs and his Arian prelates; deplored the distress and danger of the Catholic church; and excited Constans to emulate the zeal and glory of his father. The emperor declared his resolution of employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the orthodox cause; and signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his brother Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria. 117 But this religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented by the timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the East condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had received three successive epistles full of the strongest assurances of the protection, the favor, and the esteem of his sovereign; who invited him to resume his episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating precaution of engaging his principal ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They were manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict orders which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their innocence, and to erase from the public registers the illegal proceedings which had been obtained during the prevalence of the Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had been given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the abject homage of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without deceiving his penetration. 118 At Antioch he saw the emperor Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing the Arians a single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the other cities of the empire, a similar toleration for his own party; a reply which might have appeared just and moderate in the mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority, which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and his fame was diffused from Aethiopia to Britain, over the whole extent of the Christian world. 119
116 (return)
[ As Athanasius
dispersed secret invectives against Constantius, (see the Epistle to the
Monks,) at the same time that he assured him of his profound respect, we
might distrust the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677.]
117 (return)
[ Notwithstanding the
discreet silence of Athanasius, and the manifest forgery of a letter
inserted by Socrates, these menaces are proved by the unquestionable
evidence of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of Constantius himself. See
Tillemont, tom. viii. p. 693]
118 (return)
[ I have always
entertained some doubts concerning the retraction of Ursacius and Valens,
(Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.) Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, and
to Athanasius himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that
they cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals who
confess their guilt and infamy; the other of enemies, who solicit on equal
terms an honorable reconciliation. * Note: I cannot quite comprehend the
ground of Gibbon's doubts. Athanasius distinctly asserts the fact of their
retractation. (Athan. Op. i. p. 124, edit. Benedict.) The epistles are
apparently translations from the Latin, if, in fact, more than the
substance of the epistles. That to Athanasius is brief, almost abrupt.
Their retractation is likewise mentioned in the address of the orthodox
bishops of Rimini to Constantius. Athan. de Synodis, Op t. i. p 723-M.]
119 (return)
[ The circumstances of
his second return may be collected from Athanasius himself, tom. i. p.
769, and 822, 843. Socrates, l. ii. c. 18, Sozomen, l. iii. c. 19.
Theodoret, l. ii. c. 11, 12. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12.]
But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness; and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a powerful and generous protector. The civil war between the assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans, which afflicted the empire above three years, secured an interval of repose to the Catholic church; and the two contending parties were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop, who, by the weight of his personal authority, might determine the fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was afterwards accused of holding a secret correspondence; 120 and the emperor Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father, the most reverend Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious rumors which were circulated by their common enemies, he had inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his deceased brother. 121 Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he clearly understood that the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous cause might perhaps be somewhat abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no longer contrived by the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry bishops, who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; 122 and the first winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of Gaul.
120 (return)
[ Athanasius (tom. i.
p. 677, 678) defends his innocence by pathetic complaints, solemn
assertions, and specious arguments. He admits that letters had been forged
in his name, but he requests that his own secretaries and those of the
tyrant might be examined, whether those letters had been written by the
former, or received by the latter.]
121 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. i. p.
825-844.]
122 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. i. p.
861. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. The emperor declared that he was more
desirous to subdue Athanasius, than he had been to vanquish Magnentius or
Sylvanus.]
If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order would have been executed without hesitation, by the ministers of open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large majority of the Eastern bishops, had never been expressly repealed; and as Athanasius had been once degraded from his episcopal dignity by the judgment of his brethren, every subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which the primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the Western church, engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations; and the important cause between the emperor and one of his subjects was solemnly debated, first in the synod of Arles, and afterwards in the great council of Milan, 123 which consisted of above three hundred bishops. Their integrity was gradually undermined by the arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified his revenge at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own passions, whilst he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised; honors, gifts, and immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; 124 and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the Catholic church. The friends of Athanasius were not, however, wanting to their leader, or to their cause. With a manly spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion and justice. They declared, that neither the hope of his favor, nor the fear of his displeasure, should prevail on them to join in the condemnation of an absent, an innocent, a respectable brother. 125 They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the honorable reestablishment of the archbishop of Alexandria, and the silence or recantation of his most clamorous adversaries. They alleged, that his innocence had been attested by the unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been acknowledged in the councils of Rome and Sardica, 126 by the impartial judgment of the Latin church. They deplored the hard condition of Athanasius, who, after enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation, and the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was again called upon to confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. Their language was specious; their conduct was honorable: but in this long and obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole empire on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to the more interesting object of defending or removing the intrepid champion of the Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise, in ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the orthodox bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the decrees of a general council, insisted on every occasion, and particularly at Milan, that their adversaries should purge themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius. 127
123 (return)
[ The affairs of the
council of Milan are so imperfectly and erroneously related by the Greek
writers, that we must rejoice in the supply of some letters of Eusebius,
extracted by Baronius from the archives of the church of Vercellae, and of
an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See Baronius,
A.D. 355, and Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 1415.]
124 (return)
[ The honors, presents,
feasts, which seduced so many bishops, are mentioned with indignation by
those who were too pure or too proud to accept them. "We combat (says
Hilary of Poitiers) against Constantius the Antichrist; who strokes the
belly instead of scourging the back;" qui non dorsa caedit; sed ventrem
palpat. Hilarius contra Constant c. 5, p. 1240.]
125 (return)
[ Something of this
opposition is mentioned by Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and
superficial knowledge of ecclesiastical history. Liberius... perseveranter
renitebatur, nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum saepe
exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id enim ille
Athanasio semper infestus, &c.]
126 (return)
[ More properly by the
orthodox part of the council of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties
had fairly voted, the division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont
(see tom. viii. p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority
should have proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries, the
principal of whom they immediately deposed.]
127 (return)
[ Sulp. Severus in
Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 412.]
But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of Athanasius) was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved, till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as of the Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent bishops: and all those who refused to submit their private opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves, Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellae, Lucifer of Cagliari and Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly distinguished. The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the empire; the personal merit and long experience of the venerable Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine, and the father of the Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the head of the Latin church: and their example, either of submission or resistance, would probable be imitated by the episcopal crowd. But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for some time ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years before under his grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own freedom. When he was banished to Beraea in Thrace, he sent back a large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his journey; and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty remark, that the emperor and his eunuchs might want that gold to pay their soldiers and their bishops. 128 The resolution of Liberius and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova, whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory, of an unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity itself was so deeply indebted. 129
128 (return)
[ The exile of Liberius
is mentioned by Ammianus, xv. 7. See Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas.
tom. i. p. 834-837. Hilar. Fragment l.]
129 (return)
[ The life of Osius is
collected by Tillemont, (tom. vii. p. 524-561,) who in the most
extravagant terms first admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of
Cordova. In the midst of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of
Athanasius may be distinguished from the blind and intemperate zeal of
Hilary.]
The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre on the firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated those illustrious exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most inhospitable spots of a great empire. 130 Yet they soon experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous tracts of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence of those cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. 131 Their consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters, and the liberal alms of their adherents, 132 and from the satisfaction which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and capricious taste of the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those who defended the consubstantiality, those who asserted the similar substance, and those who denied the likeness of the Son of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those adverse opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile; and, according to the difference of their temper, might either pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose present sufferings would never be compensated by future happiness.
130 (return)
[ The confessors of the
West were successively banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the
lonely places of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in
the possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the heretic Aetius
was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place of his
exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a district
inhabited by savages and infested by war and pestilence. Philostorg. l. v.
c. 2.]
131 (return)
[ See the cruel
treatment and strange obstinacy of Eusebius, in his own letters, published
by Baronius, A.D. 356, No. 92-102.]
132 (return)
[ Caeterum exules satis
constat, totius orbis studiis celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum
affatim congestas, legationibus quoque plebis Catholicae ex omnibus fere
provinciis frequentatos. Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i.
p. 836, 840.]
The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius himself. 133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, during which the Imperial court secretly labored, by the most insidious arts, to remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of Egypt, deserted and proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute of any foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute the order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which could restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and to a sense of the danger to which he might expose the second city, and the most fertile province, of the empire, if the people should persist in the resolution of defending, by force of arms, the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme caution afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with the equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to the task of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his episcopal throne; and they were obliged to conclude a treaty with the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it was stipulated, that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till the emperor's pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By this seeming moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege, or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and inflamed by religious zeal. 134 The position of Alexandria, between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach and landing of the troops; who were introduced into the heart of the city, before any effectual measures could be taken either to shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly invested the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a part of his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained the next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a successful irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages; and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither provoked nor revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and, under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with applause. The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and the apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success, Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the elected bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of the city to surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious death which he had so often deserved. 135
133 (return)
[ Ample materials for
the history of this third persecution of Athanasius may be found in his
own works. See particularly his very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i.
p. 673,) his first Apology for his flight (p. 701,) his prolix Epistle to
the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the original protest of the people of
Alexandria against the violences committed by Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen
(l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the narrative two or three luminous and
important circumstances.]
134 (return)
[ Athanasius had lately
sent for Antony, and some of his chosen monks. They descended from their
mountains, announced to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and
were honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the
city. Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii. 164, in
Vit. Patr. p. 524.]
135 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. i. p.
694. The emperor, or his Arian secretaries while they express their
resentment, betray their fears and esteem of Athanasius.]
Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our attention. On the memorable night when the church of St. Theonas was invested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity, the approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted by shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar. 136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and though he was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. 137
136 (return)
[ These minute
circumstances are curious, as they are literally transcribed from the
protest, which was publicly presented three days afterwards by the
Catholics of Alexandria. See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867]
137 (return)
[ The Jansenists have
often compared Athanasius and Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure
on the faith and zeal, the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors.
This concealed parallel is very dexterously managed by the Abbe de la
Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.]
The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes of Ethiopia, 13711 to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, praefects, tribunes, whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should dare to protect the public enemy. 138 But the deserts of Thebais were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils, were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence. 139 The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by a military force, which it was impossible to resist, they silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and supported their national character, that tortures could never wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was resolved not to disclose. 140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of superstition had peopled with daemons and savage monsters. The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various adventures might have furnished the subject of a very entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern, which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the treachery of a female slave; 141 and he was once concealed in a still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which he had been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her hospitable roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. 142 During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the formal declaration, that he saw the councils of Rimini and Seleucia, 143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings, which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies, which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the height of his prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, who had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and vanquished in the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an invisible hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor revenge; and the son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who experienced the strength of those principles, which, in the cause of religion, could resist the most violent exertions 144 of the civil power.
13711 (return)
[ These princes
were called Aeizanas and Saiazanas. Athanasius calls them the kings of
Axum. In the superscription of his letter, Constantius gives them no
title. Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia, (in 1806,)
discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting inscription
relating to these princes. It was erected to commemorate the victory of
Aeizanas over the Bougaitae, (St. Martin considers them the Blemmyes,
whose true name is Bedjah or Bodjah.) Aeizanas is styled king of the
Axumites, the Homerites, of Raeidan, of the Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites,
of Silea, of Tiamo, of the Bougaites. and of Kaei. It appears that at this
time the king of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the inhabitants
of Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he calls himself son of the
invincible Mars. Another brother besides Saiazanas, named Adephas, is
mentioned, though Aeizanas seems to have been sole king. See St. Martin,
note on Le Beau, ii. 151. Salt's Travels. De Sacy, note in Annales des
Voyages, xii. p. 53.—M.]
138 (return)
[ Hinc jam toto orbe
profugus Athanasius, nec ullus ci tutus ad latendum supererat locus.
Tribuni, Praefecti, Comites, exercitus quoque ad pervestigandum cum
moventur edictis Imperialibus; praemia dela toribus proponuntur, si quis
eum vivum, si id minus, caput certe Atha casii detulisset. Rufin. l. i. c.
16.]
139 (return)
[ Gregor. Nazianzen.
tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 384, 385. See Tillemont Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
176-410, 820-830.]
140 (return)
[ Et nulla tormentorum
vis inveneri, adhuc potuit, quae obdurato illius tractus latroni invito
elicere potuit, ut nomen proprium dicat Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad
locum.]
141 (return)
[ Rufin. l. i. c. 18.
Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This and the following story will be rendered
impossible, if we suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum
which he accidentally or occasionally had used.]
142 (return)
[ Paladius, (Hist.
Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum, p. 776,) the original author of this
anecdote, had conversed with the damsel, who in her old age still
remembered with pleasure so pious and honorable a connection. I cannot
indulge the delicacy of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c., who almost
reject a story so unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of
ecclesiastical history.]
143 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. i. p.
869. I agree with Tillemont, (tom. iii. p. 1197,) that his expressions
imply a personal, though perhaps secret visit to the synods.]
144 (return)
[ The epistle of
Athanasius to the monks is filled with reproaches, which the public must
feel to be true, (vol. i. p. 834, 856;) and, in compliment to his readers,
he has introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c.
The boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published his
invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but Lucifer sent his libels
to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward of martyrdom. See
Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.]
The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who were blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually followed by the intrusion of a stranger 145 into the episcopal chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, that they were not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by totally separating themselves from his communion. The first of these methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success, that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology or sacred hymn, which celebrates the glory of the Trinity, is susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative, particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, 146 were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the Nicene faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father, And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, 147 was triumphantly chanted by a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which inspired their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the election and consecration of a new episcopal pastor. 148 The revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders; and the same city was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius, by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who exercised their spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman government new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the elevation and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire, and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of Constantine.
145 (return)
[ Athanasius (tom. i.
p. 811) complains in general of this practice, which he afterwards
exemplifies (p. 861) in the pretended election of Faelix. Three eunuchs
represented the Roman people, and three prelates, who followed the court,
assumed the functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.]
146 (return)
[ Thomassin (Discipline
de l'Eglise, tom. i. l. ii. c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has collected many
curious facts concerning the origin and progress of church singing, both
in the East and West. * Note: Arius appears to have been the first who
availed himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the popular
ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and travellers, and set them
to common airs; "beguiling the ignorant, by the sweetness of his music,
into the impiety of his doctrines." Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers
used to parade the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom
arrayed against them a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8.—M.]
147 (return)
[ Philostorgius, l.
iii. c. 13. Godefroy has examined this subject with singular accuracy, (p.
147, &c.) There were three heterodox forms: "To the Father by the Son,
and in the Holy Ghost." "To the Father, and the Son in the Holy Ghost;"
and "To the Father in the Son and the Holy Ghost."]
148 (return)
[ After the exile of
Eustathius, under the reign of Constantine, the rigid party of the
orthodox formed a separation which afterwards degenerated into a schism,
and lasted about fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
35-54, 1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches, the
Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each other's communion,
continued for some time to join in prayer. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.]
I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great people; and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and the oblations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was invested on every side, and the praefect was commanded to seize the person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force. The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty, at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into rage. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into Thrace, a general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Faelix; who, by the influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken; and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed by the importunate solicitations of a people, who had preserved, as the last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of treating their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to undertake a commission, which in their hands would be less dangerous, and might prove more successful. The emperor received with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments: he admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved pastor to the most distant regions of the earth; and consented that the two bishops, Liberius and Faelix, should govern in peace their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments, of those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of a horse-race, was now directed towards a different object; and the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly exclaimed, "One God, One Christ, One Bishop!" The zeal of the Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction; the adherents of Faelix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the proscriptions of Sylla. 149
149 (return)
[ See, on this
ecclesiastical revolution of Rome, Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p.
834, 861. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever.
Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin.
Libell. p. 3, 4. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p.]
II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other great cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological disputes of the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the virtues, and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander, the episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station to which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven from his throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince; and the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount Taurus, 150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days without food, and at length strangled, by the order of Philip, one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. 151 The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both sides, in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had been intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry; but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes was consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults. 152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Praetorian praefect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In the most gentle and honorable terms, he required the attendance of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side of the praefect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops of guards with drawn swords. The military procession advanced towards the cathedral; the Arians and the Catholics eagerly rushed to occupy that important post; and three thousand one hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion of the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force, obtained a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by clamor and sedition; and the causes which appeared the least connected with the subject of dispute, were sufficient to nourish and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as their field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood, which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The writer who should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle, would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of zeal, and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople. 153
150 (return)
[ Cucusus was the last
stage of his life and sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on
the confines of Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has
occasioned some geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true
spot by the course of the Roman road from Caesarea to Anazarbus. See
Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar. p. 179, 703.]
151 (return)
[ Athanasius (tom. i.
p. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in the most positive terms, that Paul was
murdered; and appeals, not only to common fame, but even to the
unsuspicious testimony of Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he
acknowledges that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the
bishop of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates, (l.
ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal temper. presumes (l.
iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.]
152 (return)
[ Ammianus (xiv. 10)
refers to his own account of this tragic event. But we no longer possess
that part of his history. Note: The murder of Hermogenes took place at the
first expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople.—M.]
153 (return)
[ See Socrates, l. ii.
c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26, 27, 38, and Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l.
iv. c. ii. 21. The acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius
has made an abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430,) are an indifferent
copy of these historians; but a modern Greek, who could write the life of
a saint without adding fables and miracles, is entitled to some
commendation.]
The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and religion of their sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death, exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial vigor; and the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader, and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes, and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of Constantius against the Catholics which has not been judged worthy of a place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, and of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to relinquish the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The execution of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia Minor, was committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and military powers were directed to obey his commands; and the cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the support of the Homoiousion, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the reign, of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation, and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of baptism were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose, had been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or inhumanly compressed betweens harp and heavy boards. 154 The Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was informed, that a large district of Paphlagonia 155 was almost entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to convert or to extirpate them; and as he distrusted, on this occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he commanded a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels, and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country; and though many of the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in a concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of those of his eunuchs: "Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics, were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other provinces, towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly destroyed." 156
154 (return)
[ Socrates, l. ii. c.
27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 21. The principal assistants of Macedonius, in
the work of persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus,
who were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their charity. I
cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the difference between the
Homoousion and Homoiousion, is almost invisible to the nicest theological
eye.]
155 (return)
[ We are ignorant of
the precise situation of Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of
legionaries, Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul,
use the indefinite terms of, which Nicephorus very properly translates
thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.]
156 (return)
[ Julian. Epist. lii.
p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]
While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name of Circumcellions, formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist party. 157 The severe execution of the laws of Constantine had excited a spirit of discontent and resistance, the strenuous efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity of the church, exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which had first occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their pretended successors. 158 The peasants who inhabited the villages of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; who were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but who were actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of some popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel, inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and weighty club, which they termed an Israelite; and the well-known sound of "Praise be to God," which they used as their cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the plea of necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence, indulged without control their intemperance and avarice, burnt the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a secure asylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds to their holy standard. When they were not resisted, they usually contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same treatment which might have been shown to the wild beasts of the desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the beginning of the present century, the example of the Circumcellions has been renewed in the persecution, the boldness, the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camisards; and if the fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce independence with more resolution and perseverance. 159
157 (return)
[ See Optatus
Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,) with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin,
and the original pieces at the end of his edition. The numerous
circumstances which Augustin has mentioned, of the fury of the
Circumcellions against others, and against themselves, have been
laboriously collected by Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and
he has often, though without design, exposed injuries which had provoked
those fanatics.]
158 (return)
[ It is amusing enough
to observe the language of opposite parties, when they speak of the same
men and things. Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an
orthodox synod, "Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu... qui imperavit
religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret unitatis, et
mitteret ministros sancti operis famulos Dei Paulum et Macarium."
Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313. "Ecce subito," (says the Donatist
author of the Passion of Marculus), "de Constantis regif tyrannica domo..
pollutum Macarianae persecutionis murmur increpuit, et duabus bestiis ad
Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum prorsus ac
dirum ecclesiae certamen indictum est; ut populus Christianus ad unionem
cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis militum gladiis et draconum
praesentibus signis, et tubarum vocibus cogeretur." Monument. p. 304.]
159 (return)
[ The Histoire des
Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo. Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as
accurate and impartial. It requires some attention to discover the
religion of the author.]
Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope of eternal happiness. 160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should east themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the number of religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character and principles of the Jewish nation.
160 (return)
[ The Donatist suicides
alleged in their justification the example of Razias, which is related in
the 14th chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.]
The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted the peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church, will confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; 161 and Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. 162 The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and daemons. Our calmer reason will reject such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the same proportion. On either side, the error might be innocent, the faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their passions were excited by similar objects; and they might alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by the intolerant spirit which has been extracted from the pure and simple maxims of the gospel.
161 (return)
[ Nullus infestas
hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus.
Ammian. xxii. 5.]
162 (return)
[ Gregor, Nazianzen,
Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont, tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.]
A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his own history the honorable epithets of political and philosophical, 163 accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of the empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of any public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed to their favorite hero the merit of a general persecution. 164 Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of the ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares, that those who still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial light, may freely enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns, as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of habit, of prejudice, and of superstition. 165 Without violating the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps, to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The partial acts of severity which he occasionally exercised, though they were secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were colored by the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of those who were discontented with their present condition. An ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests of the Nile were abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of several temples of Phoenicia; in which every mode of prostitution was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor of Venus. 166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils, of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the sacred property was confiscated; the statues of gods and heroes were transported, with rude familiarity, among a people who considered them as objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and silver were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops, and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying, at once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But these depredations were confined to a small part of the Roman world; and the provinces had been long since accustomed to endure the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert the established religion. 167
163 (return)
[ Histoire Politique et
Philosophique des Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i.
p. 9.]
164 (return)
[ According to
Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 45,) the emperor prohibited, both
in cities and in the country, the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. l
Socrates (l. i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have represented the
conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history; which has
been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius, (vii. 28.) Tum
deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus justo ordine et pio vicem
vertit edicto; siquidem statuit citra ullam hominum caedem, paganorum
templa claudi.]
165 (return)
[ See Eusebius in Vit.
Constantin. l. ii. c. 56, 60. In the sermon to the assembly of saints,
which the emperor pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he
declares to the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer
sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious worship.]
166 (return)
[ See Eusebius, in Vit.
Constantin. l. iii. c. 54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of
authority may be compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the
demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan Rome.]
167 (return)
[ Eusebius (in Vit.
Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10,
edit. Gothofred) both mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which
they viewed in very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that
"he made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal
worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred rites were
performed there." Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p.
140.]
The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father, with more zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences of rapine and oppression were insensibly multiplied; 168 every indulgence was shown to the illegal behavior of the Christians; every doubt was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and the demolition of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of the reign of Constans and Constantius. 169 The name of Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions. "It is our pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples be immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have the power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals." 170 But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this formidable edict was either composed without being published, or was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble, continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of succeeding princes. "That emperor," says Symmachus, "suffered the privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion, he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of antiquity." 171 The senate still presumed to consecrate, by solemn decrees, the divine memory of their sovereigns; and Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who were invested with a more absolute authority over the religion which they had deserted, than over that which they professed. 172
168 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxii. 4)
speaks of some court eunuchs who were spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius
says (Orat. pro Templ. p. 23) that the emperor often gave away a temple,
like a dog, or a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup; but the devout
philosopher takes care to observe that these sacrilegious favorites very
seldom prospered.]
169 (return)
[ See Gothofred. Cod.
Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262. Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl.
Graec. tom. vii. p. 235.]
170 (return)
[ Placuit omnibus locis
atque urbibus universis claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus
licentiam delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a
sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi perpetraverit,
gladio sternatur: facultates etiam perempti fisco decernimus vindicari: et
similiter adfligi rectores provinciarum si facinora vindicare neglexerint.
Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some
contradiction in the date of this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps,
by which the negligence of magistrates is punished by death and
confiscation. M. de la Bastie (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xv. p. 98)
conjectures, with a show of reason, that this was no more than the minutes
of a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found in Scriniis
Memoriae among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards inserted, as a
worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.]
171 (return)
[ Symmach. Epistol. x.
54.]
172 (return)
[ The fourth
Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, sur le Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs
Romains, (in the Mem. de l'Acad. tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned
and judicious performance, which explains the state, and prove the
toleration, of Paganism from Constantino to Gratian. The assertion of
Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical robe, is
confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on that subject are
almost silenced.]
The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of Paganism; 173 and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more immediately alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The extirpation of idolatry 174 might have been justified by the established principles of intolerance: but the hostile sects, which alternately reigned in the Imperial court were mutually apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the minds of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of authority and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on the side of Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed, before their victorious influence was universally felt. The religion which had so long and so lately been established in the Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to ancient custom. The honors of the state and army were indifferently bestowed on all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valor was still engaged in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was derived from very different causes, but they met with equal devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that the presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had secretly embraced the religion of his ancestors.
173 (return)
[ As I have freely
anticipated the use of pagans and paganism, I shall now trace the singular
revolutions of those celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so
familiar to the Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural
neighborhood, which frequented the same fountain, derived the common
appellation of pagus and pagans. (Festus sub voce, and Servius ad Virgil.
Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By an easy extension of the word, pagan and rural
became almost synonymous, (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxviii. 5;) and the meaner
rustics acquired that name, which has been corrupted into peasants in the
modern languages of Europe. 3. The amazing increase of the military order
introduced the necessity of a correlative term, (Hume's Essays, vol. i. p.
555;) and all the people who were not enlisted in the service of the
prince were branded with the contemptuous epithets of pagans. (Tacit.
Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal. Satir. 16. Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4.
The Christians were the soldiers of Christ; their adversaries, who refused
his sacrament, or military oath of baptism might deserve the metaphorical
name of pagans; and this popular reproach was introduced as early as the
reign of Valentinian (A. D. 365) into Imperial laws (Cod. Theodos. l. xvi.
tit. ii. leg. 18) and theological writings. 5. Christianity gradually
filled the cities of the empire: the old religion, in the time of
Prudentius (advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and Orosius, (in Praefat.
Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure villages; and the word pagans,
with its new signification, reverted to its primitive origin. 6. Since the
worship of Jupiter and his family has expired, the vacant title of pagans
has been successively applied to all the idolaters and polytheists of the
old and new world. 7. The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple,
on their mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest Unitarians were
branded with the unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See Gerard
Vossius, Etymologicon Linguae Latinae, in his works, tom. i. p. 420;
Godefroy's Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p. 250; and
Ducange, Mediae et Infimae Latinitat. Glossar.]
174 (return)
[ In the pure language
of Ionia and Athens were ancient and familiar words. The former expressed
a likeness, an apparition (Homer. Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an
image, created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort of
service or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the Hebrew
Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx. 4, 5) to the
religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of the Hellenists, or
Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred and ecclesiastical writers
and the reproach of idolatry has stigmatized that visible and abject mode
of superstition, which some sects of Christianity should not hastily
impute to the polytheists of Greece and Rome.]
Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His
March And Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil
Administration Of Julian.
While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still dreaded, the arms of the young Caesar; his soldiers were the companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As long as the fame of Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the palace, who were skilled in the language of satire, tried the efficacy of those arts which they had so often practised with success. They easily discovered, that his simplicity was not exempt from affectation: the ridiculous epithets of a hairy savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest despatches were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of a loquacious Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the art of war amidst the groves of the academy. 1 The voice of malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of victory; the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable reward of his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which, according to ancient custom, were addressed to the provinces, the name of Julian was omitted. "Constantius had made his dispositions in person; he had signalized his valor in the foremost ranks; his military conduct had secured the victory; and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to him on the field of battle," from which he was at that time distant about forty days' journey. 2 So extravagant a fable was incapable, however, of deceiving the public credulity, or even of satisfying the pride of the emperor himself. Secretly conscious that the applause and favor of the Romans accompanied the rising fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive the subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and candor. 3 Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated, that the virtues of the Caesar might instantly be converted into the most dangerous crimes, if the inconstant multitude should prefer their inclinations to their duty; or if the general of a victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety for the public safety; whilst in private, and perhaps in his own breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear, the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly conceived for the inimitable virtues of Julian.
1 (return)
[ Omnes qui plus poterant
in palatio, adulandi professores jam docti, recte consulta, prospereque
completa vertebant in deridiculum: talia sine modo strepentes insulse; in
odium venit cum victoriis suis; capella, non homo; ut hirsutum Julianum
carpentes, appellantesque loquacem talpam, et purpuratam simiam, et
litterionem Graecum: et his congruentia plurima atque vernacula principi
resonantes, audire haec taliaque gestienti, virtutes ejus obruere verbis
impudentibus conabantur, et segnem incessentes et timidum et umbratilem,
gestaque secus verbis comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11. *
Note: The philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius (says Eunapius
in a newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call his antagonist Sylla a
beast half lion and half fox. Constantius had nothing of the lion, but was
surrounded by a whole litter of foxes. Mai. Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii.
238. Niebuhr. Byzant. Hist. 66.—M.]
2 (return)
[ Ammian. xvi. 12. The
orator Themistius (iv. p. 56, 57) believed whatever was contained in the
Imperial letters, which were addressed to the senate of Constantinople
Aurelius Victor, who published his Abridgment in the last year of
Constantius, ascribes the German victories to the wisdom of the emperor,
and the fortune of the Caesar. Yet the historian, soon afterwards, was
indebted to the favor or esteem of Julian for the honor of a brass statue,
and the important offices of consular of the second Pannonia, and praefect
of the city, Ammian. xxi. 10.]
3 (return)
[ Callido nocendi
artificio, accusatoriam diritatem laudum titulis peragebant. .. Hae voces
fuerunt ad inflammanda odia probria omnibus potentiores. See Mamertin, in
Actione Gratiarum in Vet Panegyr. xi. 5, 6.]
The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design which was artfully concerted by the Imperial ministers. They resolved to disarm the Caesar; to recall those faithful troops who guarded his person and dignity; and to employ, in a distant war against the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans who had vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the fiercest nations of Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in his hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders, from the emperor, which they were directed to execute, and he was commanded not to oppose. Constantius signified his pleasure, that four entire legions, the Celtae, and Petulants, the Heruli, and the Batavians, should be separated from the standard of Julian, under which they had acquired their fame and discipline; that in each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest youths should be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march, and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. 4 The Caesar foresaw and lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated, that they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public faith of Rome, and the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged for the observance of this condition. Such an act of treachery and oppression would destroy the confidence, and excite the resentment, of the independent warriors of Germany, who considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as the most valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the general defence of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic and of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they despised, and perhaps hated, the emperor; they dreaded the laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of Asia. They claimed as their own the country which they had saved; and excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred and more immediate duty of protecting their families and friends.
The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from the knowledge of the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the provinces were exhausted of their military strength, the Germans would violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed, must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in the camp of the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of Constantius. If Julian complied with the orders which he had received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that of a people who deserved his affection. But a positive refusal was an act of rebellion, and a declaration of war. The inexorable jealousy of the emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious, nature of his commands, left not any room for a fair apology, or candid interpretation; and the dependent station of the Caesar scarcely allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the perplexity of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful counsels of Sallust, who had been removed from his office by the judicious malice of the eunuchs: he could not even enforce his representations by the concurrence of the ministers, who would have been afraid or ashamed to approve the ruin of Gaul. The moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, 5 the general of the cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations of Julian, who represented to him, that in every important measure, the presence of the praefect was indispensable in the council of the prince. In the mean while the Caesar was oppressed by the rude and importunate solicitations of the Imperial messengers, who presumed to suggest, that if he expected the return of his ministers, he would charge himself with the guilt of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution. Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the most serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of resigning the purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but which he could not abdicate with safety.
4 (return)
[ The minute interval,
which may be interposed, between the hyeme adulta and the primo vere of
Ammianus, (xx. l. 4,) instead of allowing a sufficient space for a march
of three thousand miles, would render the orders of Constantius as
extravagant as they were unjust. The troops of Gaul could not have reached
Syria till the end of autumn. The memory of Ammianus must have been
inaccurate, and his language incorrect. * Note: The late editor of
Ammianus attempts to vindicate his author from the charge of inaccuracy.
"It is clear, from the whole course of the narrative, that Constantius
entertained this design of demanding his troops from Julian, immediately
after the taking of Amida, in the autumn of the preceding year, and had
transmitted his orders into Gaul, before it was known that Lupicinus had
gone into Britain with the Herulians and Batavians." Wagner, note to Amm.
xx. 4. But it seems also clear that the troops were in winter quarters
(hiemabant) when the orders arrived. Ammianus can scarcely be acquitted of
incorrectness in his language at least.—M]
5 (return)
[ Ammianus, xx. l. The
valor of Lupicinus, and his military skill, are acknowledged by the
historian, who, in his affected language, accuses the general of exalting
the horns of his pride, bellowing in a tragic tone, and exciting a doubt
whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger from the Scots and
Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some thoughts of passing over
into the island.]
After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge, that obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and that the sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public welfare. He issued the necessary orders for carrying into execution the commands of Constantius; a part of the troops began their march for the Alps; and the detachments from the several garrisons moved towards their respective places of assembly. They advanced with difficulty through the trembling and affrighted crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity by silent despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of the soldiers, holding their infants in their arms, accused the desertion of their husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of tenderness, and of indignation. This scene of general distress afflicted the humanity of the Caesar; he granted a sufficient number of post-wagons to transport the wives and families of the soldiers, 6 endeavored to alleviate the hardships which he was constrained to inflict, and increased, by the most laudable arts, his own popularity, and the discontent of the exiled troops. The grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent to tent with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for the most daring acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their tribunes, a seasonable libel was secretly dispersed, which painted in lively colors the disgrace of the Caesar, the oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble vices of the tyrant of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished and alarmed by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the Caesar to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian; who proposed that they should not march through Paris, and suggested the danger and temptation of a last interview.
6 (return)
[ He granted them the
permission of the cursus clavularis, or clabularis. These post-wagons are
often mentioned in the Code, and were supposed to carry fifteen hundred
pounds weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.]
As soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the Caesar went out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been erected in a plain before the gates of the city. After distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank or merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself in a studied oration to the surrounding multitude: he celebrated their exploits with grateful applause; encouraged them to accept, with alacrity, the honor of serving under the eye of a powerful and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and venal acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence; and after a short pause, were dismissed to their quarters. The principal officers were entertained by the Caesar, who professed, in the warmest language of friendship, his desire and his inability to reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of his victories. They retired from the feast, full of grief and perplexity; and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore them from their beloved general and their native country. The only expedient which could prevent their separation was boldly agitated and approved the popular resentment was insensibly moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of complaint were heightened by passion, and their passions were inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their departure, the troops were indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of midnight, the impetuous multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in their hands, rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; 7 and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and irrevocable words, Julian Augustus! The prince, whose anxious suspense was interrupted by their disorderly acclamations, secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose zeal was irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace, seized, with respectful violence, the object of their choice, guarded Julian with drawn swords through the streets of Paris, placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts saluted him as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the propriety of resisting their treasonable designs; and of preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of violence. Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to individuals, he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed his indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their immortal victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would immediately return to their allegiance, he would undertake to obtain from the emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but even the revocation of the orders which had excited their resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt, chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian, than on the clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned into impatience, and their impatience into rage. The inflexible Caesar sustained, till the third hour of the day, their prayers, their reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield, till he had been repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must consent to reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and amidst the unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military collar, which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; 8 the ceremony was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and the new emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief retired into the most secret recesses of his apartment. 10
7 (return)
[ Most probably the palace
of the baths, (Thermarum,) of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists
in the Rue de la Harpe. The buildings covered a considerable space of the
modern quarter of the university; and the gardens, under the Merovingian
kings, communicated with the abbey of St. Germain des Prez. By the
injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient palace was reduced, in the
twelfth century, to a maze of ruins, whose dark recesses were the scene of
licentious love.
Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis;
Multiplici latebra scelerum tersura ruborem.
.... pereuntis saepe pudoris Celatura nefas,
Venerisque accommoda furtis.
(These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk of St. Alban's, about the year 1190. See Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such thefts might be less pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground. Bonamy, Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xv. p. 678-632]
8 (return)
[ Even in this tumultuous
moment, Julian attended to the forms of superstitious ceremony, and
obstinately refused the inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse
collar, which the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a
diadem. ----An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces of the
former one pound of the latter; the whole amounting to about five pounds
ten shillings of our money.]
10 (return)
[ For the whole narrative
of this revolt, we may appeal to authentic and original materials; Julian
himself, (ad S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 282, 283, 284,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p. 269-273,)
Ammianus, (xx. 4,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 151, 152, 153.) who, in the
reign of Julian, appears to follow the more respectable authority of
Eunapius. With such guides we might neglect the abbreviators and
ecclesiastical historians.]
The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence; out his innocence must appear extremely doubtful 11 in the eyes of those who have learned to suspect the motives and the professions of princes. His lively and active mind was susceptible of the various impressions of hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge, of duty and of ambition, of the love of fame, and of the fear of reproach. But it is impossible for us to calculate the respective weight and operation of these sentiments; or to ascertain the principles of action which might escape the observation, while they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian himself. The discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his enemies; their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of passion; and if Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under the appearances of chance, he must have employed the most consummate artifice without necessity, and probably without success. He solemnly declares, in the presence of Jupiter, of the Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the other deities, that till the close of the evening which preceded his elevation, he was utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; 12 and it may seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of a philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius was the enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods, might prompt him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the auspicious moment of his reign, which was predestined to restore the ancient religion of mankind. When Julian had received the intelligence of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a short slumber; and afterwards related to his friends that he had seen the genius of the empire waiting with some impatience at his door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his want of spirit and ambition. 13 Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a clear and manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of heaven and of the army. The conduct which disclaims the ordinary maxims of reason, excites our suspicion and eludes our inquiry. Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.
11 (return)
[ Eutropius, a
respectable witness, uses a doubtful expression, "consensu militum." (x.
15.) Gregory Nazianzen, whose ignorance night excuse his fanaticism,
directly charges the apostate with presumption, madness, and impious
rebellion, Orat. iii. p. 67.]
12 (return)
[ Julian. ad S. P. Q.
Athen. p. 284. The devout Abbe de la Bleterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is
almost inclined to respect the devout protestations of a Pagan.]
13 (return)
[ Ammian. xx. 5, with the
note of Lindenbrogius on the Genius of the empire. Julian himself, in a
confidential letter to his friend and physician, Oribasius, (Epist. xvii.
p. 384,) mentions another dream, to which, before the event, he gave
credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small plant striking
a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind of the Caesar must
have been agitated by the hopes and fears of his fortune. Zosimus (l. iii.
p. 155) relates a subsequent dream.]
To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his enemies, 14 to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which were formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which employed the first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although he was firmly resolved to maintain the station which he had assumed, he was still desirous of saving his country from the calamities of civil war, of declining a contest with the superior forces of Constantius, and of preserving his own character from the reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns of military and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the cause of their pupil, their leader, and their friend. He recapitulated their victories, lamented their sufferings, applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and checked their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of the East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce any views of conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil possession of the Gallic provinces. On this foundation he composed, in his own name, and in that of the army, a specious and moderate epistle, 15 which was delivered to Pentadius, his master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius; two ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe the dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with the modest appellation of Caesar; but Julian solicits in a peremptory, though respectful, manner, the confirmation of the title of Augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent. He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius; and engages to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from his choice a Praetorian praefect of approved discretion and fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes the emperor to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the arts of those venal flatterers, who subsist only by the discord of princes; and to embrace the offer of a fair and honorable treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and to the house of Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he already possessed. The delegated authority which he had long exercised over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was still obeyed under a name more independent and august. The soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution which was not stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace, and the clamors of the soldiers. 16
14 (return)
[ The difficult situation
of the prince of a rebellious army is finely described by Tacitus, (Hist.
1, 80-85.) But Otho had much more guilt, and much less abilities, than
Julian.]
15 (return)
[ To this ostensible
epistle he added, says Ammianus, private letters, objurgatorias et
mordaces, which the historian had not seen, and would not have published.
Perhaps they never existed.]
16 (return)
[ See the first
transactions of his reign, in Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286.
Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 49, 50, p. 273-275.]
The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the most vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held in readiness for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by the disorders of the times. The cruel persecutions of the faction of Magnentius had filled Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully accepted the offer of a general pardon from a prince whom they could trust, submitted to the restraints of military discipline, and retained only their implacable hatred to the person and government of Constantius. 17 As soon as the season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that they might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of a divided empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this enterprise, consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as soon as he could penetrate into a country, which former princes had considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the Barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil; surveyed, with peculiar attention, the territories which he had recovered from the hands of the Alemanni, passed through Besancon, 18 which had severely suffered from their fury, and fixed his headquarters at Vienna for the ensuing winter. The barrier of Gaul was improved and strengthened with additional fortifications; and Julian entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom he had so often vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the terror of his name. Vadomair 19 was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he esteemed or feared and while the subtle Barbarian affected to observe the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms threatened the state with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The policy of Julian condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni by his own arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman governors, was seized in the midst of the entertainment, and sent away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before the Barbarians were recovered from their amazement, the emperor appeared in arms on the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river, renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been already made by four preceding expeditions. 20
17 (return)
[ Liban. Orat. Parent. c.
50, p. 275, 276. A strange disorder, since it continued above seven years.
In the factions of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000
persons; and Isocrates assures Philip, that it would be easier to raise an
army from the vagabonds than from the cities. See Hume's Essays, tom. i.
p. 426, 427.]
18 (return)
[ Julian (Epist. xxxviii.
p. 414) gives a short description of Vesontio, or Besancon; a rocky
peninsula almost encircled by the River Doux; once a magnificent city,
filled with temples, &c., now reduced to a small town, emerging,
however, from its ruins.]
19 (return)
[ Vadomair entered into
the Roman service, and was promoted from a barbarian kingdom to the
military rank of duke of Phoenicia. He still retained the same artful
character, (Ammian. xxi. 4;) but under the reign of Valens, he signalized
his valor in the Armenian war, (xxix. 1.)]
20 (return)
[ Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3,
4. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 155.]
The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and affected delays of the provincial governors; they were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople to Caesarea in Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the presence of Constantius, they found that he had already conceived, from the despatches of his own officers, the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic army. The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures, the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and was at last fatal to herself. 21 The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to suspend the punishment of a private enemy: he continued his march towards the confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the conditions which might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of their offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous Caesar should expressly renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus, which he had accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to his former station of a limited and dependent minister; that he should vest the powers of the state and army in the hands of those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and that he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months were ineffectually consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the distance of three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served only to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war. He gave a public and military audience to the quaestor Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most flattering deference, that he was ready to resign the title of Augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those whom he acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of "Julian Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the people, of the republic which you have saved," thundered at once from every part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador of Constantius. A part of the letter was afterwards read, in which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he had invested with the honors of the purple; whom he had educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.
"An orphan!" interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by indulging his passions: "does the assassin of my family reproach me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those injuries which I have long studied to forget." The assembly was dismissed; and Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been protected from the popular fury, was sent back to his master with an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of the most vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, 22 made a public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius. 23
21 (return)
[ Her remains were sent
to Rome, and interred near those of her sister Constantina, in the suburb
of the Via Nomentana. Ammian. xxi. 1. Libanius has composed a very weak
apology, to justify his hero from a very absurd charge of poisoning his
wife, and rewarding her physician with his mother's jewels. (See the
seventh of seventeen new orations, published at Venice, 1754, from a MS.
in St. Mark's Library, p. 117-127.) Elpidius, the Praetorian praefect of
the East, to whose evidence the accuser of Julian appeals, is arraigned by
Libanius, as effeminate and ungrateful; yet the religion of Elpidius is
praised by Jerom, (tom. i. p. 243,) and his Ammianus (xxi. 6.)]
22 (return)
[ Feriarum die quem
celebrantes mense Januario, Christiani Epiphania dictitant, progressus in
eorum ecclesiam, solemniter numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2.
Zonaras observes, that it was on Christmas day, and his assertion is not
inconsistent; since the churches of Egypt, Asia, and perhaps Gaul,
celebrated on the same day (the sixth of January) the nativity and the
baptism of their Savior. The Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the
real date of his birth, fixed the solemn festival to the 25th of December,
the Brumalia, or winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the
birth of the sun. See Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, l.
xx. c. 4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheismo tom. ii. p.
690-700.]
23 (return)
[ The public and secret
negotiations between Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some
caution, from Julian himself. (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286.) Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 51, p. 276,) Ammianus, (xx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
154,) and even Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21, 22,) who, on this
occasion, appears to have possessed and used some valuable materials.]
The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the monarch, had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces of the West. The position of two magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of Constance, the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour, 24 was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the enemy who prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were still in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect that a people of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute to the expenses of the civil war. He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the soldiers; inspired them with a just confidence in their general, and in themselves; and exhorted them to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their fellow-citizens, and obedient to their officers. His spirited discourse was received with the loudest acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with alacrity, that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers, clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror of the Germans. 25 This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by affection rather than by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office of Praetorian praefect. That faithful minister, alone and unassisted, asserted the rights of Constantius, in the midst of an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After losing one of his hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the praefect with his Imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his followers, dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than was perhaps due to the virtue of an enemy. 26 The high office of Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul, which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise those virtues which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil. 27
24 (return)
[ Three hundred myriads,
or three millions of medimni, a corn measure familiar to the Athenians,
and which contained six Roman modii. Julian explains, like a soldier and a
statesman, the danger of his situation, and the necessity and advantages
of an offensive war, (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286, 287.)]
25 (return)
[ See his oration, and
the behavior of the troops, in Ammian. xxi. 5.]
26 (return)
[ He sternly refused his
hand to the suppliant praefect, whom he sent into Tuscany. (Ammian. xxi.
5.) Libanius, with savage fury, insults Nebridius, applauds the soldiers,
and almost censures the humanity of Julian. (Orat. Parent. c. 53, p.
278.)]
27 (return)
[ Ammian. xxi. 8. In this
promotion, Julian obeyed the law which he publicly imposed on himself.
Neque civilis quisquam judex nec militaris rector, alio quodam praeter
merita suffragante, ad potiorem veniat gradum. (Ammian. xx. 5.) Absence
did not weaken his regard for Sallust, with whose name (A. D. 363) he
honored the consulship.]
The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of a daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valor and to fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled and divided his army. 28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to advance through the midland parts of Rhaetia and Noricum. A similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus, prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways, through the Alps, and the northern confines of Italy. The instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards; to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube; 29 and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor, surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers, pursued his direct course, 30 without reflecting whether he traversed the territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines, 31 as it lay at anchor; secured a apply of coarse provisions sufficient to satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a Gallic army; and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind, carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; 32 and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia, 3211 only nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In the course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations, which were placed along the river, without indulging the temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports, which he could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow and irresolute measures for the purpose of collecting his troops, when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active officer, whom Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed forwards with some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his life or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits, than he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish his conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men, to expose his person in the midst of his enemies. "Reserve for your master Constantius these timid remonstrances," replied Julian, with a smile of contempt: "when I gave you my purple to kiss, I received you not as a counsellor, but as a suppliant." Conscious that success alone could justify his attempt, and that boldness only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most populous city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the long suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful acclamations of the army and people; who, crowned with flowers, and holding lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the circus; but, early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Haemus; which, almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the latter. 33 The defence of this important post was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian division, successfully executed the plan of the march and junction which their master had so ably conceived. 34
28 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxi. 8)
ascribes the same practice, and the same motive, to Alexander the Great
and other skilful generals.]
29 (return)
[ This wood was a part of
the great Hercynian forest, which, is the time of Caesar, stretched away
from the country of the Rauraci (Basil) into the boundless regions of the
north. See Cluver, Germania Antiqua. l. iii. c. 47.]
30 (return)
[ Compare Libanius, Orat.
Parent. c. 53, p. 278, 279, with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 68. Even
the saint admires the speed and secrecy of this march. A modern divine
might apply to the progress of Julian the lines which were originally
designed for another apostate:—
—So eagerly the fiend,
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.]
31 (return)
[ In that interval the
Notitia places two or three fleets, the Lauriacensis, (at Lauriacum, or
Lorch,) the Arlapensis, the Maginensis; and mentions five legions, or
cohorts, of Libernarii, who should be a sort of marines. Sect. lviii.
edit. Labb.]
32 (return)
[ Zosimus alone (l. iii.
p. 156) has specified this interesting circumstance. Mamertinus, (in
Panegyr. Vet. xi. 6, 7, 8,) who accompanied Julian, as count of the sacred
largesses, describes this voyage in a florid and picturesque manner,
challenges Triptolemus and the Argonauts of Greece, &c.]
3211 (return)
[ Banostar. Mannert.—M.]
33 (return)
[ The description of
Ammianus, which might be supported by collateral evidence, ascertains the
precise situation of the Angustine Succorum, or passes of Succi. M.
d'Anville, from the trifling resemblance of names, has placed them between
Sardica and Naissus. For my own justification I am obliged to mention the
only error which I have discovered in the maps or writings of that
admirable geographer.]
34 (return)
[ Whatever circumstances
we may borrow elsewhere, Ammianus (xx. 8, 9, 10) still supplies the series
of the narrative.]
The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the inclination of the people, extended far beyond the immediate effect of his arms. 35 The praefectures of Italy and Illyricum were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and as those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of the Year, the epithet of fugitive to the names of the two consuls. The provinces which had been deserted by their first magistrates acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who, conciliating the qualities of a soldier with those of a philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly, from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the Barbarians. 36 Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle to the senate and people of Athens 37 seems to have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his own times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading, in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus. His application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by Tertullus, praefect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his passionate invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed, "Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune." 38 An artful expression, which, according to the chance of war, might be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude of the usurper, or as a flattering confession, that a single act of such benefit to the state ought to atone for all the failings of Constantius.
35 (return)
[ Ammian. xxi. 9, 10.
Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 54, p. 279, 280. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 156, 157.]
36 (return)
[ Julian (ad S. P. Q.
Athen. p. 286) positively asserts, that he intercepted the letters of
Constantius to the Barbarians; and Libanius as positively affirms, that he
read them on his march to the troops and the cities. Yet Ammianus (xxi. 4)
expresses himself with cool and candid hesitation, si famoe solius
admittenda est fides. He specifies, however, an intercepted letter from
Vadomair to Constantius, which supposes an intimate correspondence between
them. "disciplinam non habet."]
37 (return)
[ Zosimus mentions his
epistles to the Athenians, the Corinthians, and the Lacedaemonians. The
substance was probably the same, though the address was properly varied.
The epistle to the Athenians is still extant, (p. 268-287,) and has
afforded much valuable information. It deserves the praises of the Abbe de
la Bleterie, (Pref. a l'Histoire de Jovien, p. 24, 25,) and is one of the
best manifestoes to be found in any language.]
38 (return)
[ Auctori tuo reverentiam
rogamus. Ammian. xxi. 10. It is amusing enough to observe the secret
conflicts of the senate between flattery and fear. See Tacit. Hist. i.
85.]
The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was speedily transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor, had obtained some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the anguish of his soul under the semblance of contempt, Constantius professed his intention of returning into Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his military expedition in any other light than that of a hunting party. 39 In the camp of Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army; slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Caesar; and ventured to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet them in the field, they would be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of their shout of onset. The speech of the emperor was received with military applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that his city might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. 40 A chosen detachment was despatched away in post-wagons, to secure, if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the recruits, the horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been prepared against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil war; and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary Gaudentius had occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the distress of Julian was increased by an unexpected event, which might have been productive of fatal consequences. Julian had received the submission of two legions and a cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected, with reason, the fidelity of those troops which had been distinguished by the emperor; and it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed state of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important scene of action. They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the confines of Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and the savage fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of their tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of Constantius on the walls of that impregnable city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the extent of the mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy; and the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence, and prosecuted with vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the yoke of discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill and perseverance; vited the rest of Italy to imitate the example of their courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of Julian, if he should be forced to yield to the superior numbers of the armies of the East. 41
39 (return)
[ Tanquam venaticiam
praedam caperet: hoc enim ad Jeniendum suorum metum subinde praedicabat.
Ammian. xxii. 7.]
40 (return)
[ See the speech and
preparations in Ammianus, xxi. 13. The vile Theodotus afterwards implored
and obtained his pardon from the merciful conqueror, who signified his
wish of diminishing his enemies and increasing the numbers of his friends,
(xxii. 14.)]
41 (return)
[ Ammian. xxi. 7, 11, 12.
He seems to describe, with superfluous labor, the operations of the siege
of Aquileia, which, on this occasion, maintained its impregnable fame.
Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 68) ascribes this accidental revolt to
the wisdom of Constantius, whose assured victory he announces with some
appearance of truth. Constantio quem credebat procul dubio fore victorem;
nemo enim omnium tunc ab hac constanti sententia discrepebat. Ammian. xxi.
7.]
But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of being himself destroyed: and the seasonable death of Constantius delivered the Roman empire from the calamities of civil war. The approach of winter could not detain the monarch at Antioch; and his favorites durst not oppose his impatient desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was perhaps occasioned by the agitation of his spirits, was increased by the fatigues of the journey; and Constantius was obliged to halt at the little town of Mopsucrene, twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a short illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his reign. 42 His genuine character, which was composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has been fully displayed in the preceding narrative of civil and ecclesiastical events. The long abuse of power rendered him a considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries; but as personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the last of the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world, with the remark, that he inherited the defects, without the abilities, of his father. Before Constantius expired, he is said to have named Julian for his successor; nor does it seem improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his last moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge. Eusebius, and his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the election of another emperor; but their intrigues were rejected with disdain, by an army which now abhorred the thought of civil discord; and two officers of rank were instantly despatched, to assure Julian, that every sword in the empire would be drawn for his service. The military designs of that prince, who had formed three different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this fortunate event. Without shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens, he escaped the dangers of a doubtful conflict, and acquired the advantages of a complete victory. Impatient to visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of the empire, he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of Haemus, and the cities of Thrace. When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of sixty miles, all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him; and he made his triumphal entry amidst the dutiful acclamations of the soldiers, the people, and the senate. At innumerable multitude pressed around him with eager respect and were perhaps disappointed when they beheld the small stature and simple garb of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had vanquished the Barbarians of Germany, and who had now traversed, in a successful career, the whole continent of Europe, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus. 43 A few days afterwards, when the remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the harbor, the subjects of Julian applauded the real or affected humanity of their sovereign. On foot, without his diadem, and clothed in a mourning habit, he accompanied the funeral as far as the church of the Holy Apostles, where the body was deposited: and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a selfish tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the tears of Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the injuries, and remembered only the obligations, which he had received from Constantius. 44 As soon as the legions of Aquileia were assured of the death of the emperor, they opened the gates of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their guilty leaders, obtained an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of Julian; who, in the thirty-second year of his age, acquired the undisputed possession of the Roman empire. 45
42 (return)
[ His death and character
are faithfully delineated by Ammianus, (xxi. 14, 15, 16;) and we are
authorized to despise and detest the foolish calumny of Gregory, (Orat.
iii. p. 68,) who accuses Julian of contriving the death of his benefactor.
The private repentance of the emperor, that he had spared and promoted
Julian, (p. 69, and Orat. xxi. p. 389,) is not improbable in itself, nor
incompatible with the public verbal testament which prudential
considerations might dictate in the last moments of his life. Note: Wagner
thinks this sudden change of sentiment altogether a fiction of the
attendant courtiers and chiefs of the army. who up to this time had been
hostile to Julian. Note in loco Ammian.—M.]
43 (return)
[ In describing the
triumph of Julian, Ammianus (xxii. l, 2) assumes the lofty tone of an
orator or poet; while Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 56, p. 281) sinks to the
grave simplicity of an historian.]
44 (return)
[ The funeral of
Constantius is described by Ammianus, (xxi. 16.) Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat.
iv. p. 119,) Mamertinus, in (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 27,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. lvi. p. 283,) and Philostorgius, (l. vi. c. 6, with Godefroy's
Dissertations, p. 265.) These writers, and their followers, Pagans,
Catholics, Arians, beheld with very different eyes both the dead and the
living emperor.]
45 (return)
[ The day and year of the
birth of Julian are not perfectly ascertained. The day is probably the
sixth of November, and the year must be either 331 or 332. Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 693. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 50. I
have preferred the earlier date.]
Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth, and the accidents of his life, never allowed him the freedom of choice. He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the academy, and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice, of Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world, and to posterity, for the happiness of millions. 46 Julian recollected with terror the observation of his master Plato, 47 that the government of our flocks and herds is always committed to beings of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine nature; that he should purify his soul from her mortal and terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites, enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue the wild beast, which, according to the lively metaphor of Aristotle, 48 seldom fails to ascend the throne of a despot. The throne of Julian, which the death of Constantius fixed on an independent basis, was the seat of reason, of virtue, and perhaps of vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and discharged with incessant diligence the duties, of his exalted station; and there were few among his subjects who would have consented to relieve him from the weight of the diadem, had they been obliged to submit their time and their actions to the rigorous laws which that philosophic emperor imposed on himself. One of his most intimate friends, 49 who had often shared the frugal simplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and sparing diet (which was usually of the vegetable kind) left his mind and body always free and active, for the various and important business of an author, a pontiff, a magistrate, a general, and a prince. In one and the same day, he gave audience to several ambassadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great number of letters to his generals, his civil magistrates, his private friends, and the different cities of his dominions. He listened to the memorials which had been received, considered the subject of the petitions, and signified his intentions more rapidly than they could be taken in short-hand by the diligence of his secretaries. He possessed such flexibility of thought, and such firmness of attention, that he could employ his hand to write, his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate; and pursue at once three several trains of ideas without hesitation, and without error. While his ministers reposed, the prince flew with agility from one labor to another, and, after a hasty dinner, retired into his library, till the public business, which he had appointed for the evening, summoned him to interrupt the prosecution of his studies. The supper of the emperor was still less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was never clouded by the fumes of indigestion; and except in the short interval of a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather than love, the chaste Julian never shared his bed with a female companion. 50 He was soon awakened by the entrance of fresh secretaries, who had slept the preceding day; and his servants were obliged to wait alternately while their indefatigable master allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment than the change of occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his uncle, his brother, and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste for the games of the Circus, under the specious pretence of complying with the inclinations of the people; and they frequently remained the greatest part of the day as idle spectators, and as a part of the splendid spectacle, till the ordinary round of twenty-four races 51 was completely finished. On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and after bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind. 52 By this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the short duration of his reign; and if the dates were less securely ascertained, we should refuse to believe, that only sixteen months elapsed between the death of Constantius and the departure of his successor for the Persian war. The actions of Julian can only be preserved by the care of the historian; but the portion of his voluminous writings, which is still extant, remains as a monument of the application, as well as of the genius, of the emperor. The Misopogon, the Caesars, several of his orations, and his elaborate work against the Christian religion, were composed in the long nights of the two winters, the former of which he passed at Constantinople, and the latter at Antioch.
46 (return)
[ Julian himself (p.
253-267) has expressed these philosophical ideas with much eloquence and
some affectation, in a very elaborate epistle to Themistius. The Abbe de
la Bleterie, (tom. ii. p. 146-193,) who has given an elegant translation,
is inclined to believe that it was the celebrated Themistius, whose
orations are still extant.]
47 (return)
[ Julian. ad Themist. p.
258. Petavius (not. p. 95) observes that this passage is taken from the
fourth book De Legibus; but either Julian quoted from memory, or his MSS.
were different from ours Xenophon opens the Cyropaedia with a similar
reflection.]
48 (return)
[ Aristot. ap. Julian. p.
261. The MS. of Vossius, unsatisfied with the single beast, affords the
stronger reading of which the experience of despotism may warrant.]
49 (return)
[ Libanius (Orat.
Parentalis, c. lxxxiv. lxxxv. p. 310, 311, 312) has given this interesting
detail of the private life of Julian. He himself (in Misopogon, p. 350)
mentions his vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite
of the people of Antioch.]
50 (return)
[ Lectulus... Vestalium
toris purior, is the praise which Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 13)
addresses to Julian himself. Libanius affirms, in sober peremptory
language, that Julian never knew a woman before his marriage, or after the
death of his wife, (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxviii. p. 313.) The chastity of
Julian is confirmed by the impartial testimony of Ammianus, (xxv. 4,) and
the partial silence of the Christians. Yet Julian ironically urges the
reproach of the people of Antioch, that he almost always (in Misopogon, p.
345) lay alone. This suspicious expression is explained by the Abbe de la
Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 103-109) with candor and
ingenuity.]
51 (return)
[ See Salmasius ad Sueton
in Claud. c. xxi. A twenty-fifth race, or missus, was added, to complete
the number of one hundred chariots, four of which, the four colors,
started each heat.
Centum quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus.
It appears, that they ran five or seven times round the Mota (Sueton in Domitian. c. 4;) and (from the measure of the Circus Maximus at Rome, the Hippodrome at Constantinople, &c.) it might be about a four mile course.]
52 (return)
[ Julian. in Misopogon,
p. 340. Julius Caesar had offended the Roman people by reading his
despatches during the actual race. Augustus indulged their taste, or his
own, by his constant attention to the important business of the Circus,
for which he professed the warmest inclination. Sueton. in August. c.
xlv.]
The reformation of the Imperial court was one of the first and most necessary acts of the government of Julian. 53 Soon after his entrance into the palace of Constantinople, he had occasion for the service of a barber. An officer, magnificently dressed, immediately presented himself. "It is a barber," exclaimed the prince, with affected surprise, "that I want, and not a receiver-general of the finances." 54 He questioned the man concerning the profits of his employment and was informed, that besides a large salary, and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed a daily allowance for twenty servants, and as many horses. A thousand barbers, a thousand cup-bearers, a thousand cooks, were distributed in the several offices of luxury; and the number of eunuchs could be compared only with the insects of a summer's day. The monarch who resigned to his subjects the superiority of merit and virtue, was distinguished by the oppressive magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings, and his train. The stately palaces erected by Constantine and his sons, were decorated with many colored marbles, and ornaments of massy gold. The most exquisite dainties were procured, to gratify their pride, rather than their taste; birds of the most distant climates, fish from the most remote seas, fruits out of their natural season, winter roses, and summer snows. 56 The domestic crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions; yet the smallest part of this costly multitude was subservient to the use, or even to the splendor, of the throne. The monarch was disgraced, and the people was injured, by the creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure, and even titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and the bribes which they extorted from those who feared their enmity, or solicited their favor, suddenly enriched these haughty menials. They abused their fortune, without considering their past, or their future, condition; and their rapine and venality could be equalled only by the extravagance of their dissipations. Their silken robes were embroidered with gold, their tables were served with delicacy and profusion; the houses which they built for their own use, would have covered the farm of an ancient consul; and the most honorable citizens were obliged to dismount from their horses, and respectfully to salute a eunuch whom they met on the public highway. The luxury of the palace excited the contempt and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the ground, who yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of nature; and who placed his vanity, not in emulating, but in despising, the pomp of royalty.
53 (return)
[ The reformation of the
palace is described by Ammianus, (xxii. 4,) Libanius, Orat. (Parent. c.
lxii. p. 288, &c.,) Mamertinus, in Panegyr. (Vet. xi. 11,) Socrates,
(l. iii. c. l.,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 24.)]
54 (return)
[ Ego non rationalem
jussi sed tonsorem acciri. Zonaras uses the less natural image of a
senator. Yet an officer of the finances, who was satisfied with wealth,
might desire and obtain the honors of the senate.]
56 (return)
[ The expressions of
Mamertinus are lively and forcible. Quis etiam prandiorum et caenarum
laboratas magnitudines Romanus populus sensit; cum quaesitissimae dapes
non gustu sed difficultatibus aestimarentur; miracula avium, longinqui
maris pisces, aheni temporis poma, aestivae nives, hybernae rosae]
By the total extirpation of a mischief which was magnified even beyond its real extent, he was impatient to relieve the distress, and to appease the murmurs of the people; who support with less uneasiness the weight of taxes, if they are convinced that the fruits of their industry are appropriated to the service of the state. But in the execution of this salutary work, Julian is accused of proceeding with too much haste and inconsiderate severity. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy the whole train of slaves and dependants, 57 without providing any just, or at least benevolent, exceptions, for the age, the services, or the poverty, of the faithful domestics of the Imperial family. Such indeed was the temper of Julian, who seldom recollected the fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that true virtue is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices.
The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so ridiculous in the person of Constantine, were consistently rejected by his philosophic successor. But with the fopperies, Julian affected to renounce the decencies of dress; and seemed to value himself for his neglect of the laws of cleanliness. In a satirical performance, which was designed for the public eye, the emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the length of his nails, and the inky blackness of his hands; protests, that although the greatest part of his body was covered with hair, the use of the razor was confined to his head alone; and celebrates, with visible complacency, the shaggy and populous 58 beard, which he fondly cherished, after the example of the philosophers of Greece. Had Julian consulted the simple dictates of reason, the first magistrate of the Romans would have scorned the affectation of Diogenes, as well as that of Darius.
57 (return)
[ Yet Julian himself was
accused of bestowing whole towns on the eunuchs, (Orat. vii. against
Polyclet. p. 117-127.) Libanius contents himself with a cold but positive
denial of the fact, which seems indeed to belong more properly to
Constantius. This charge, however, may allude to some unknown
circumstance.]
58 (return)
[ In the Misopogon (p.
338, 339) he draws a very singular picture of himself, and the following
words are strangely characteristic. The friends of the Abbe de la Bleterie
adjured him, in the name of the French nation, not to translate this
passage, so offensive to their delicacy, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p.
94.) Like him, I have contented myself with a transient allusion; but the
little animal which Julian names, is a beast familiar to man, and
signifies love.]
But the work of public reformation would have remained imperfect, if Julian had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the crimes, of his predecessor's reign. "We are now delivered," says he, in a familiar letter to one of his intimate friends, "we are now surprisingly delivered from the voracious jaws of the Hydra. 59 I do not mean to apply the epithet to my brother Constantius. He is no more; may the earth lie light on his head! But his artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some efforts of adulation. It is not, however, my intention, that even those men should be oppressed: they are accused, and they shall enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial trial." To conduct this inquiry, Julian named six judges of the highest rank in the state and army; and as he wished to escape the reproach of condemning his personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary tribunal at Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and transferred to the commissioners an absolute power to pronounce and execute their final sentence, without delay, and without appeal. The office of president was exercised by the venerable praefect of the East, a second Sallust, 60 whose virtues conciliated the esteem of Greek sophists, and of Christian bishops. He was assisted by the eloquent Mamertinus, 61 one of the consuls elect, whose merit is loudly celebrated by the doubtful evidence of his own applause. But the civil wisdom of two magistrates was overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four generals, Nevitta, Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio. Arbetio, whom the public would have seen with less surprise at the bar than on the bench, was supposed to possess the secret of the commission; the armed and angry leaders of the Jovian and Herculian bands encompassed the tribunal; and the judges were alternately swayed by the laws of justice, and by the clamors of faction. 62
59 (return)
[ Julian, epist. xxiii.
p. 389. He uses the words in writing to his friend Hermogenes, who, like
himself, was conversant with the Greek poets.]
60 (return)
[ The two Sallusts, the
praefect of Gaul, and the praefect of the East, must be carefully
distinguished, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 696.) I have used the
surname of Secundus, as a convenient epithet. The second Sallust extorted
the esteem of the Christians themselves; and Gregory Nazianzen, who
condemned his religion, has celebrated his virtues, (Orat. iii. p. 90.)
See a curious note of the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 363.
Note: Gibbonus secundum habet pro numero, quod tamen est viri agnomen
Wagner, nota in loc. Amm. It is not a mistake; it is rather an error in
taste. Wagner inclines to transfer the chief guilt to Arbetio.—M.]
61 (return)
[ Mamertinus praises the
emperor (xi. l.) for bestowing the offices of Treasurer and Praefect on a
man of wisdom, firmness, integrity, &c., like himself. Yet Ammianus
ranks him (xxi. l.) among the ministers of Julian, quorum merita norat et
fidem.]
62 (return)
[ The proceedings of this
chamber of justice are related by Ammianus, (xxii. 3,) and praised by
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 74, p. 299, 300.)]
The chamberlain Eusebius, who had so long abused the favor of Constantius, expiated, by an ignominious death, the insolence, the corruption, and cruelty of his servile reign. The executions of Paul and Apodemius (the former of whom was burnt alive) were accepted as an inadequate atonement by the widows and orphans of so many hundred Romans, whom those legal tyrants had betrayed and murdered. But justice herself (if we may use the pathetic expression of Ammianus) 63 appeared to weep over the fate of Ursulus, the treasurer of the empire; and his blood accused the ingratitude of Julian, whose distress had been seasonably relieved by the intrepid liberality of that honest minister. The rage of the soldiers, whom he had provoked by his indiscretion, was the cause and the excuse of his death; and the emperor, deeply wounded by his own reproaches and those of the public, offered some consolation to the family of Ursulus, by the restitution of his confiscated fortunes. Before the end of the year in which they had been adorned with the ensigns of the prefecture and consulship, 64 Taurus and Florentius were reduced to implore the clemency of the inexorable tribunal of Chalcedon. The former was banished to Vercellae in Italy, and a sentence of death was pronounced against the latter. A wise prince should have rewarded the crime of Taurus: the faithful minister, when he was no longer able to oppose the progress of a rebel, had taken refuge in the court of his benefactor and his lawful sovereign. But the guilt of Florentius justified the severity of the judges; and his escape served to display the magnanimity of Julian, who nobly checked the interested diligence of an informer, and refused to learn what place concealed the wretched fugitive from his just resentment. 65 Some months after the tribunal of Chalcedon had been dissolved, the praetorian vicegerent of Africa, the notary Gaudentius, and Artemius 66 duke of Egypt, were executed at Antioch. Artemius had reigned the cruel and corrupt tyrant of a great province; Gaudentius had long practised the arts of calumny against the innocent, the virtuous, and even the person of Julian himself. Yet the circumstances of their trial and condemnation were so unskillfully managed, that these wicked men obtained, in the public opinion, the glory of suffering for the obstinate loyalty with which they had supported the cause of Constantius. The rest of his servants were protected by a general act of oblivion; and they were left to enjoy with impunity the bribes which they had accepted, either to defend the oppressed, or to oppress the friendless. This measure, which, on the soundest principles of policy, may deserve our approbation, was executed in a manner which seemed to degrade the majesty of the throne. Julian was tormented by the importunities of a multitude, particularly of Egyptians, who loudly redemanded the gifts which they had imprudently or illegally bestowed; he foresaw the endless prosecution of vexatious suits; and he engaged a promise, which ought always to have been sacred, that if they would repair to Chalcedon, he would meet them in person, to hear and determine their complaints. But as soon as they were landed, he issued an absolute order, which prohibited the watermen from transporting any Egyptian to Constantinople; and thus detained his disappointed clients on the Asiatic shore till, their patience and money being utterly exhausted, they were obliged to return with indignant murmurs to their native country. 67
63 (return)
[ Ursuli vero necem ipsa
mihi videtur flesse justitia. Libanius, who imputes his death to the
soldiers, attempts to criminate the court of the largesses.]
64 (return)
[ Such respect was still
entertained for the venerable names of the commonwealth, that the public
was surprised and scandalized to hear Taurus summoned as a criminal under
the consulship of Taurus. The summons of his colleague Florentius was
probably delayed till the commencement of the ensuing year.]
65 (return)
[ Ammian. xx. 7.]
66 (return)
[ For the guilt and
punishment of Artemius, see Julian (Epist. x. p. 379) and Ammianus, (xxii.
6, and Vales, ad hoc.) The merit of Artemius, who demolished temples, and
was put to death by an apostate, has tempted the Greek and Latin churches
to honor him as a martyr. But as ecclesiastical history attests that he
was not only a tyrant, but an Arian, it is not altogether easy to justify
this indiscreet promotion. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1319.]
67 (return)
[ See Ammian. xxii. 6,
and Vales, ad locum; and the Codex Theodosianus, l. ii. tit. xxxix. leg.
i.; and Godefroy's Commentary, tom. i. p. 218, ad locum.]
The numerous army of spies, of agents, and informers enlisted by Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to interrupt that of millions, was immediately disbanded by his generous successor. Julian was slow in his suspicions, and gentle in his punishments; and his contempt of treason was the result of judgment, of vanity, and of courage. Conscious of superior merit, he was persuaded that few among his subjects would dare to meet him in the field, to attempt his life, or even to seat themselves on his vacant throne. The philosopher could excuse the hasty sallies of discontent; and the hero could despise the ambitious projects which surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash conspirators. A citizen of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a purple garment; and this indiscreet action, which, under the reign of Constantius, would have been considered as a capital offence, 68 was reported to Julian by the officious importunity of a private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry into the rank and character of his rival, despatched the informer with a present of a pair of purple slippers, to complete the magnificence of his Imperial habit. A more dangerous conspiracy was formed by ten of the domestic guards, who had resolved to assassinate Julian in the field of exercise near Antioch. Their intemperance revealed their guilt; and they were conducted in chains to the presence of their injured sovereign, who, after a lively representation of the wickedness and folly of their enterprise, instead of a death of torture, which they deserved and expected, pronounced a sentence of exile against the two principal offenders. The only instance in which Julian seemed to depart from his accustomed clemency, was the execution of a rash youth, who, with a feeble hand, had aspired to seize the reins of empire. But that youth was the son of Marcellus, the general of cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the Gallic war, had deserted the standard of the Caesar and the republic. Without appearing to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily confound the crime of the son and of the father; but he was reconciled by the distress of Marcellus, and the liberality of the emperor endeavored to heal the wound which had been inflicted by the hand of justice. 69
68 (return)
[ The president
Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur, &c., des Romains, c. xiv.
in his works, tom. iii. p. 448, 449,) excuses this minute and absurd
tyranny, by supposing that actions the most indifferent in our eyes might
excite, in a Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger. This strange
apology is supported by a strange misapprehension of the English laws,
"chez une nation.... ou il est defendu da boire a la sante d'une certaine
personne."]
69 (return)
[ The clemency of Julian,
and the conspiracy which was formed against his life at Antioch, are
described by Ammianus (xxii. 9, 10, and Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 99, p. 323.)]
Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. 70 From his studies he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on the caprice of a tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes mortified by the reflection, that the slaves who would not dare to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues. 71 He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental despotism, which Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of fourscore years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly diadem; 72 but he absolutely refused the title of Dominus, or Lord, 73 a word which was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin. The office, or rather the name, of consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with reverence the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which had been assumed by the prudence of Augustus was adopted by Julian from choice and inclination. On the calends of January, at break of day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta, hastened to the palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed of their approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to meet them, and compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the demonstrations of his affected humility. From the palace they proceeded to the senate. The emperor, on foot, marched before their litters; and the gazing multitude admired the image of ancient times, or secretly blamed a conduct, which, in their eyes, degraded the majesty of the purple. 74 But the behavior of Julian was uniformly supported. During the games of the Circus, he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of another magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of gold; and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the world, that he was subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens, to the laws, 75 and even to the forms, of the republic. The spirit of his administration, and his regard for the place of his nativity, induced Julian to confer on the senate of Constantinople the same honors, privileges, and authority, which were still enjoyed by the senate of ancient Rome. 76 A legal fiction was introduced, and gradually established, that one half of the national council had migrated into the East; and the despotic successors of Julian, accepting the title of Senators, acknowledged themselves the members of a respectable body, which was permitted to represent the majesty of the Roman name. From Constantinople, the attention of the monarch was extended to the municipal senates of the provinces. He abolished, by repeated edicts, the unjust and pernicious exemptions which had withdrawn so many idle citizens from the services of their country; and by imposing an equal distribution of public duties, he restored the strength, the splendor, or, according to the glowing expression of Libanius, 77 the soul of the expiring cities of his empire. The venerable age of Greece excited the most tender compassion in the mind of Julian, which kindled into rapture when he recollected the gods, the heroes, and the men superior to heroes and to gods, who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the monuments of their genius, or the example of their virtues. He relieved the distress, and restored the beauty, of the cities of Epirus and Peloponnesus. 78 Athens acknowledged him for her benefactor; Argos, for her deliverer. The pride of Corinth, again rising from her ruins with the honors of a Roman colony, exacted a tribute from the adjacent republics, for the purpose of defraying the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this tribute the cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had inherited from their remote ancestors the sacred office of perpetuating the Olympic, the Pythian, and the Nemean games, claimed a just exemption. The immunity of Elis and Delphi was respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos tempted the insolence of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its deputies were silenced by the decree of a provincial magistrate, who seems to have consulted only the interest of the capital in which he resided. Seven years after this sentence, Julian 79 allowed the cause to be referred to a superior tribunal; and his eloquence was interposed, most probably with success, in the defence of a city, which had been the royal seat of Agamemnon, 80 and had given to Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors. 81
70 (return)
[ According to some, says
Aristotle, (as he is quoted by Julian ad Themist. p. 261,) the form of
absolute government is contrary to nature. Both the prince and the
philosopher choose, how ever to involve this eternal truth in artful and
labored obscurity.]
71 (return)
[ That sentiment is
expressed almost in the words of Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.]
72 (return)
[ Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 95, p. 320,) who mentions the wish and design of Julian,
insinuates, in mysterious language that the emperor was restrained by some
particular revelation.]
73 (return)
[ Julian in Misopogon, p.
343. As he never abolished, by any public law, the proud appellations of
Despot, or Dominus, they are still extant on his medals, (Ducange, Fam.
Byzantin. p. 38, 39;) and the private displeasure which he affected to
express, only gave a different tone to the servility of the court. The
Abbe de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 99-102) has curiously
traced the origin and progress of the word Dominus under the Imperial
government.]
74 (return)
[ Ammian. xxii. 7. The
consul Mamertinus (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the
auspicious day, like an elegant slave, astonished and intoxicated by the
condescension of his master.]
75 (return)
[ Personal satire was
condemned by the laws of the twelve tables: Si male condiderit in quem
quis carmina, jus est Judiciumque—Horat. Sat. ii. 1. 82. ——-Julian
(in Misopogon, p. 337) owns himself subject to the law; and the Abbe de la
Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has eagerly embraced a
declaration so agreeable to his own system, and, indeed, to the true
spirit of the Imperial constitution.]
76 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. iii. p.
158.]
77 (return)
[ See Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 71, p. 296,) Ammianus, (xxii. 9,) and the Theodosian Code (l.
xii. tit. i. leg. 50-55.) with Godefroy's Commentary, (tom. iv. p.
390-402.) Yet the whole subject of the Curia, notwithstanding very ample
materials, still remains the most obscure in the legal history of the
empire.]
78 (return)
[ Quae paulo ante arida
et siti anhelantia visebantur, ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora,
Deambulacra, Gymnasia, laetis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies
festos, et celebrari veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari,
(Mamertin. xi. 9.) He particularly restored the city of Nicopolis and the
Actiac games, which had been instituted by Augustus.]
79 (return)
[ Julian. Epist. xxxv. p.
407-411. This epistle, which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is
omitted by the Abbe de la Bleterie, and strangely disfigured by the Latin
translator, who, by rendering tributum, and populus, directly contradicts
the sense of the original.]
80 (return)
[ He reigned in Mycenae
at the distance of fifty stadia, or six miles from Argos: but these
cities, which alternately flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets.
Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit. Amstel. 1707.]
81 (return)
[ Marsham, Canon. Chron.
p. 421. This pedigree from Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it
was allowed, after a strict inquiry, by the judges of the Olympic games,
(Herodot. l. v. c. 22,) at a time when the Macedonian kings were obscure
and unpopular in Greece. When the Achaean league declared against Philip,
it was thought decent that the deputies of Argos should retire, (T. Liv.
xxxii. 22.)]
The laborious administration of military and civil affairs, which were multiplied in proportion to the extent of the empire, exercised the abilities of Julian; but he frequently assumed the two characters of Orator 82 and of Judge, 83 which are almost unknown to the modern sovereigns of Europe. The arts of persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first Caesars, were neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers, whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators, whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which Constantius had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place where he could exhibit, with the most propriety, the maxims of a republican, and the talents of a rhetorician. He alternately practised, as in a school of declamation, the several modes of praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius has remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the simple, concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor, whose words descended like the flakes of a winter's snow, or the pathetic and forcible eloquence of Ulysses. The functions of a judge, which are sometimes incompatible with those of a prince, were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and discernment of his Praetorian praefects, he often placed himself by their side on the seat of judgment. The acute penetration of his mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable questions, and betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the agitation of his body, the earnest vehemence with which he maintained his opinion against the judges, the advocates, and their clients. But his knowledge of his own temper prompted him to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his friends and ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular sallies of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame, as well as the gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of Julian were almost always founded on the principles of justice; and he had the firmness to resist the two most dangerous temptations, which assault the tribunal of a sovereign, under the specious forms of compassion and equity. He decided the merits of the cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties; and the poor, whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to satisfy the just demands of a wealthy and noble adversary. He carefully distinguished the judge from the legislator; 84 and though he meditated a necessary reformation of the Roman jurisprudence, he pronounced sentence according to the strict and literal interpretation of those laws, which the magistrates were bound to execute, and the subjects to obey.
82 (return)
[ His eloquence is
celebrated by Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301,) who
distinctly mentions the orators of Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has
rashly asserted that Julian was the only prince, since Julius Caesar, who
harangued the senate. All the predecessors of Nero, (Tacit. Annal. xiii.
3,) and many of his successors, possessed the faculty of speaking in
public; and it might be proved by various examples, that they frequently
exercised it in the senate.]
83 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxi. 10) has
impartially stated the merits and defects of his judicial proceedings.
Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.) has seen only the fair
side, and his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the
duties, of the judge. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 120,) who
suppresses the virtues, and exaggerates even the venial faults of the
Apostate, triumphantly asks, whether such a judge was fit to be seated
between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in the Elysian Fields.]
84 (return)
[ Of the laws which
Julian enacted in a reign of sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted
into the codes of Theodosius and Justinian. (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p.
64-67.) The Abbe de la Bleterie (tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of
these laws to give an idea of Julian's Latin style, which is forcible and
elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.]
The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple, and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their obscurity. But the personal merit of Julian was, in some measure, independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life, by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have deserved, the highest honors of his profession; and Julian might have raised himself to the rank of minister, or general, of the state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if he had prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and sublime than that of Caesar; nor did he possess the consummate prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and his pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress, and to revive the spirit, of his subjects; and who endeavored always to connect authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction, and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his country, and that he deserved the empire of the world. 85
85 (return)
[
... Ductor fortissimus armis;
Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manuque
Consultor patriae; sed non consultor habendae
Religionis; amans tercentum millia Divum.
Pertidus ille Deo, sed non et perfidus orbi.
Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.
The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised the Christian post above his usual mediocrity.]
The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts
To Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The
Temple Of Jerusalem—His Artful Persecution Of The
Christians.—Mutual Zeal And Injustice.
The character of Apostate has injured the reputation of Julian; and the enthusiasm which clouded his virtues has exaggerated the real and apparent magnitude of his faults. Our partial ignorance may represent him as a philosophic monarch, who studied to protect, with an equal hand, the religious factions of the empire; and to allay the theological fever which had inflamed the minds of the people, from the edicts of Diocletian to the exile of Athanasius. A more accurate view of the character and conduct of Julian will remove this favorable prepossession for a prince who did not escape the general contagion of the times. We enjoy the singular advantage of comparing the pictures which have been delineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable enemies. The actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious and candid historian, the impartial spectator of his life and death. The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is confirmed by the public and private declarations of the emperor himself; and his various writings express the uniform tenor of his religious sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to dissemble rather than to affect. A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian; 1 the powers of an enlightened understanding were betrayed and corrupted by the influence of superstitious prejudice; and the phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor had a real and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and overturned the altars of those fabulous deities, engaged their votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes tempted by the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice. The triumph of the party, which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the signal was given by the sonorous trumpet 2 of Gregory Nazianzen. 3 The interesting nature of the events which were crowded into the short reign of this active emperor, deserve a just and circumstantial narrative. His motives, his counsels, and his actions, as far as they are connected with the history of religion, will be the subject of the present chapter.
1 (return)
[ I shall transcribe some
of his own expressions from a short religious discourse which the Imperial
pontiff composed to censure the bold impiety of a Cynic. Orat. vii. p.
212. The variety and copiousness of the Greek tongue seem inadequate to
the fervor of his devotion.]
2 (return)
[ The orator, with some
eloquence, much enthusiasm, and more vanity, addresses his discourse to
heaven and earth, to men and angels, to the living and the dead; and above
all, to the great Constantius, an odd Pagan expression. He concludes with
a bold assurance, that he has erected a monument not less durable, and
much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. See Greg. Nazianzen,
Orat. iii. p. 50, iv. p. 134.]
3 (return)
[ See this long invective,
which has been injudiciously divided into two orations in Gregory's works,
tom. i. p. 49-134, Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory and his friend
Basil, (iv. p. 133,) about six months after the death of Julian, when his
remains had been carried to Tarsus, (iv. p. 120;) but while Jovian was
still on the throne, (iii. p. 54, iv. p. 117) I have derived much
assistance from a French version and remarks, printed at Lyons, 1735.]
The cause of his strange and fatal apostasy may be derived from the early period of his life, when he was left an orphan in the hands of the murderers of his family. The names of Christ and of Constantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were soon associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible of the most lively impressions. The care of his infancy was intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 4 who was related to him on the side of his mother; and till Julian reached the twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian preceptors the education, not of a hero, but of a saint. The emperor, less jealous of a heavenly than of an earthly crown, contented himself with the imperfect character of a catechumen, while he bestowed the advantages of baptism 5 on the nephews of Constantine. 6 They were even admitted to the inferior offices of the ecclesiastical order; and Julian publicly read the Holy Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia. The study of religion, which they assiduously cultivated, appeared to produce the fairest fruits of faith and devotion. 7 They prayed, they fasted, they distributed alms to the poor, gifts to the clergy, and oblations to the tombs of the martyrs; and the splendid monument of St. Mamas, at Caesarea, was erected, or at least was undertaken, by the joint labor of Gallus and Julian. 8 They respectfully conversed with the bishops, who were eminent for superior sanctity, and solicited the benediction of the monks and hermits, who had introduced into Cappadocia the voluntary hardships of the ascetic life. 9 As the two princes advanced towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their religious sentiments, the difference of their characters. The dull and obstinate understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal, the doctrines of Christianity; which never influenced his conduct, or moderated his passions. The mild disposition of the younger brother was less repugnant to the precepts of the gospel; and his active curiosity might have been gratified by a theological system, which explains the mysterious essence of the Deity, and opens the boundless prospect of invisible and future worlds. But the independent spirit of Julian refused to yield the passive and unresisting obedience which was required, in the name of religion, by the haughty ministers of the church. Their speculative opinions were imposed as positive laws, and guarded by the terrors of eternal punishments; but while they prescribed the rigid formulary of the thoughts, the words, and the actions of the young prince; whilst they silenced his objections, and severely checked the freedom of his inquiries, they secretly provoked his impatient genius to disclaim the authority of his ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. 10 The fierce contests of the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of Christianity with that favorable attention which adds weight to the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of the prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the advocate of Paganism; under the specious excuse that, in the defence of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be more advantageously exercised and displayed.
4 (return)
[ Nicomediae ab Eusebio
educatus Episcopo, quem genere longius contingebat, (Ammian. xxii. 9.)
Julian never expresses any gratitude towards that Arian prelate; but he
celebrates his preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes his mode of
education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration for the
genius, and perhaps the religion of Homer. Misopogon, p. 351, 352.]
5 (return)
[ Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He
labored to effect that holy mark in the blood, perhaps of a Taurobolium.
Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 361, No. 3, 4.]
6 (return)
[ Julian himself (Epist.
li. p. 454) assures the Alexandrians that he had been a Christian (he must
mean a sincere one) till the twentieth year of his age.]
7 (return)
[ See his Christian, and
even ecclesiastical education, in Gregory, (iii. p. 58,) Socrates, (l.
iii. c. 1,) and Sozomen, (l. v. c. 2.) He escaped very narrowly from being
a bishop, and perhaps a saint.]
8 (return)
[ The share of the work
which had been allotted to Gallus, was prosecuted with vigor and success;
but the earth obstinately rejected and subverted the structures which were
imposed by the sacrilegious hand of Julian. Greg. iii. p. 59, 60, 61. Such
a partial earthquake, attested by many living spectators, would form one
of the clearest miracles in ecclesiastical story.]
9 (return)
[ The philosopher
(Fragment, p. 288,) ridicules the iron chains, &c, of these solitary
fanatics, (see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. ix. p. 661, 632,) who had
forgot that man is by nature a gentle and social animal. The Pagan
supposes, that because they had renounced the gods, they were possessed
and tormented by evil daemons.]
10 (return)
[ See Julian apud Cyril,
l. vi. p. 206, l. viii. p. 253, 262. "You persecute," says he, "those
heretics who do not mourn the dead man precisely in the way which you
approve." He shows himself a tolerable theologian; but he maintains that
the Christian Trinity is not derived from the doctrine of Paul, of Jesus,
or of Moses.]
As soon as Gallus was invested with the honors of the purple, Julian was permitted to breathe the air of freedom, of literature, and of Paganism. 11 The crowd of sophists, who were attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had formed a strict alliance between the learning and the religion of Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of Olympus, as they are painted by the immortal bard, imprint themselves on the minds which are the least addicted to superstitious credulity. Our familiar knowledge of their names and characters, their forms and attributes, seems to bestow on those airy beings a real and substantial existence; and the pleasing enchantment produces an imperfect and momentary assent of the imagination to those fables, which are the most repugnant to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion; the magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those artists who had expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the divine conceptions of the poet; the pomp of festivals and sacrifices; the successful arts of divination; the popular traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the ancient practice of two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in some measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with the most licentious scepticism. 12 Instead of an indivisible and regular system, which occupies the whole extent of the believing mind, the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose and flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest dimensions; and, by strange contradiction, he disdained the salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. One of the orations of Julian is consecrated to the honor of Cybele, the mother of the gods, who required from her effeminate priests the bloody sacrifice, so rashly performed by the madness of the Phrygian boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tyber, and the stupendous miracle, which convinced the senate and people of Rome that the lump of clay, which their ambassadors had transported over the seas, was endowed with life, and sentiment, and divine power. 13 For the truth of this prodigy he appeals to the public monuments of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the sacred traditions of their ancestors. 14
11 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat.
Parentalis, c. 9, 10, p. 232, &c. Greg. Nazianzen. Orat. iii. p 61.
Eunap. Vit. Sophist. in Maximo, p. 68, 69, 70, edit Commelin.]
12 (return)
[ A modern philosopher
has ingeniously compared the different operation of theism and polytheism,
with regard to the doubt or conviction which they produce in the human
mind. See Hume's Essays vol. ii. p. 444- 457, in 8vo. edit. 1777.]
13 (return)
[ The Idaean mother
landed in Italy about the end of the second Punic war. The miracle of
Claudia, either virgin or matron, who cleared her fame by disgracing the
graver modesty of the Roman Indies, is attested by a cloud of witnesses.
Their evidence is collected by Drakenborch, (ad Silium Italicum, xvii.
33;) but we may observe that Livy (xxix. 14) slides over the transaction
with discreet ambiguity.]
14 (return)
[ I cannot refrain from
transcribing the emphatical words of Julian: Orat. v. p. 161. Julian
likewise declares his firm belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which
dropped from heaven on the Quirinal hill; and pities the strange blindness
of the Christians, who preferred the cross to these celestial trophies.
Apud Cyril. l. vi. p. 194.]
But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and warmly encouraged, the superstition of the people, reserved for himself the privilege of a liberal interpretation; and silently withdrew from the foot of the altars into the sanctuary of the temple. The extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed, with a clear and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, instead of being scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, should diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had been disguised, by the prudence of antiquity, under the mask of folly and of fable. 15 The philosophers of the Platonic school, 16 Plotinus, Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to soften and harmonize the deformed features of Paganism. Julian himself, who was directed in the mysterious pursuit by Aedesius, the venerable successor of Iamblichus, aspired to the possession of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit his solemn asseverations, far above the empire of the world. 17 It was indeed a treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and every artist who flattered himself that he had extracted the precious ore from the surrounding dross, claimed an equal right of stamping the name and figure the most agreeable to his peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been already explained by Porphyry; but his labors served only to animate the pious industry of Julian, who invented and published his own allegory of that ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of interpretation, which might gratify the pride of the Platonists, exposed the vanity of their art. Without a tedious detail, the modern reader could not form a just idea of the strange allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn trifling, and the impenetrable obscurity of these sages, who professed to reveal the system of the universe. As the traditions of Pagan mythology were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty to select the most convenient circumstances; and as they translated an arbitrary cipher, they could extract from any fable any sense which was adapted to their favorite system of religion and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus was tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some physical truth; and the castration of Atys explained the revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of the human soul from vice and error. 18
15 (return)
[ See the principles of
allegory, in Julian, (Orat. vii. p. 216, 222.) His reasoning is less
absurd than that of some modern theologians, who assert that an
extravagant or contradictory doctrine must be divine; since no man alive
could have thought of inventing it.]
16 (return)
[ Eunapius has made these
sophists the subject of a partial and fanatical history; and the learned
Brucker (Hist. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 217-303) has employed much labor to
illustrate their obscure lives and incomprehensible doctrines.]
17 (return)
[ Julian, Orat. vii p
222. He swears with the most fervent and enthusiastic devotion; and
trembles, lest he should betray too much of these holy mysteries, which
the profane might deride with an impious Sardonic laugh.]
18 (return)
[ See the fifth oration
of Julian. But all the allegories which ever issued from the Platonic
school are not worth the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary
subject. The transition of Atys, from the wildest enthusiasm to sober,
pathetic complaint, for his irretrievable loss, must inspire a man with
pity, a eunuch with despair.]
The theological system of Julian appears to have contained the sublime and important principles of natural religion. But as the faith, which is not founded on revelation, must remain destitute of any firm assurance, the disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed into the habits of vulgar superstition; and the popular and philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have been confounded in the practice, the writings, and even in the mind of Julian. 19 The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the Eternal Cause of the universe, to whom he ascribed all the perfections of an infinite nature, invisible to the eyes and inaccessible to the understanding, of feeble mortals. The Supreme God had created, or rather, in the Platonic language, had generated, the gradual succession of dependent spirits, of gods, of daemons, of heroes, and of men; and every being which derived its existence immediately from the First Cause, received the inherent gift of immortality. That so precious an advantage might be lavished upon unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted to the skill and power of the inferior gods the office of forming the human body, and of arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. To the conduct of these divine ministers he delegated the temporal government of this lower world; but their imperfect administration is not exempt from discord or error. The earth and its inhabitants are divided among them, and the characters of Mars or Minerva, of Mercury or Venus, may be distinctly traced in the laws and manners of their peculiar votaries. As long as our immortal souls are confined in a mortal prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to solicit the favor, and to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of heaven; whose pride is gratified by the devotion of mankind; and whose grosser parts may be supposed to derive some nourishment from the fumes of sacrifice. 20 The inferior gods might sometimes condescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples, which were dedicated to their honor. They might occasionally visit the earth, but the heavens were the proper throne and symbol of their glory. The invariable order of the sun, moon, and stars, was hastily admitted by Julian, as a proof of their eternal duration; and their eternity was a sufficient evidence that they were the workmanship, not of an inferior deity, but of the Omnipotent King. In the system of Platonists, the visible was a type of the invisible world. The celestial bodies, as they were informed by a divine spirit, might be considered as the objects the most worthy of religious worship. The Sun, whose genial influence pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed the adoration of mankind, as the bright representative of the Logos, the lively, the rational, the beneficent image of the intellectual Father. 21
19 (return)
[ The true religion of
Julian may be deduced from the Caesars, p. 308, with Spanheim's notes and
illustrations, from the fragments in Cyril, l. ii. p. 57, 58, and
especially from the theological oration in Solem Regem, p. 130-158,
addressed in the confidence of friendship, to the praefect Sallust.]
20 (return)
[ Julian adopts this
gross conception by ascribing to his favorite Marcus Antoninus, (Caesares,
p. 333.) The Stoics and Platonists hesitated between the analogy of bodies
and the purity of spirits; yet the gravest philosophers inclined to the
whimsical fancy of Aristophanes and Lucian, that an unbelieving age might
starve the immortal gods. See Observations de Spanheim, p. 284, 444, &c.]
21 (return)
[ Julian. Epist. li. In
another place, (apud Cyril. l. ii. p. 69,) he calls the Sun God, and the
throne of God. Julian believed the Platonician Trinity; and only blames
the Christians for preferring a mortal to an immortal Logos.]
In every age, the absence of genuine inspiration is supplied by the strong illusions of enthusiasm, and the mimic arts of imposture. If, in the time of Julian, these arts had been practised only by the pagan priests, for the support of an expiring cause, some indulgence might perhaps be allowed to the interest and habits of the sacerdotal character. But it may appear a subject of surprise and scandal, that the philosophers themselves should have contributed to abuse the superstitious credulity of mankind, 22 and that the Grecian mysteries should have been supported by the magic or theurgy of the modern Platonists. They arrogantly pretended to control the order of nature, to explore the secrets of futurity, to command the service of the inferior daemons, to enjoy the view and conversation of the superior gods, and by disengaging the soul from her material bands, to reunite that immortal particle with the Infinite and Divine Spirit.
22 (return)
[ The sophists of
Eunapias perform as many miracles as the saints of the desert; and the
only circumstance in their favor is, that they are of a less gloomy
complexion. Instead of devils with horns and tails, Iamblichus evoked the
genii of love, Eros and Anteros, from two adjacent fountains. Two
beautiful boys issued from the water, fondly embraced him as their father,
and retired at his command, p. 26, 27.]
The devout and fearless curiosity of Julian tempted the philosophers with the hopes of an easy conquest; which, from the situation of their young proselyte, might be productive of the most important consequences. 23 Julian imbibed the first rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of Aedesius, who had fixed at Pergamus his wandering and persecuted school. But as the declining strength of that venerable sage was unequal to the ardor, the diligence, the rapid conception of his pupil, two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius, supplied, at his own desire, the place of their aged master. These philosophers seem to have prepared and distributed their respective parts; and they artfully contrived, by dark hints and affected disputes, to excite the impatient hopes of the aspirant, till they delivered him into the hands of their associate, Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the Theurgic science. By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at Ephesus, in the twentieth year of his age. His residence at Athens confirmed this unnatural alliance of philosophy and superstition.
He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of the Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges of their primaeval sanctity; and such was the zeal of Julian, that he afterwards invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court of Gaul, for the sole purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and sacrifices, the great work of his sanctification. As these ceremonies were performed in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the night, and as the inviolable secret of the mysteries was preserved by the discretion of the initiated, I shall not presume to describe the horrid sounds, and fiery apparitions, which were presented to the senses, or the imagination, of the credulous aspirant, 24 till the visions of comfort and knowledge broke upon him in a blaze of celestial light. 25 In the caverns of Ephesus and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere, deep, and unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes exhibit the vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may be observed, or at least suspected, in the characters of the most conscientious fanatics. From that moment he consecrated his life to the service of the gods; and while the occupations of war, of government, and of study, seemed to claim the whole measure of his time, a stated portion of the hours of the night was invariably reserved for the exercise of private devotion. The temperance which adorned the severe manners of the soldier and the philosopher was connected with some strict and frivolous rules of religious abstinence; and it was in honor of Pan or Mercury, of Hecate or Isis, that Julian, on particular days, denied himself the use of some particular food, which might have been offensive to his tutelar deities. By these voluntary fasts, he prepared his senses and his understanding for the frequent and familiar visits with which he was honored by the celestial powers. Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself, we may learn from his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that he lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses; that they descended upon earth to enjoy the conversation of their favorite hero; that they gently interrupted his slumbers by touching his hand or his hair; that they warned him of every impending danger, and conducted him, by their infallible wisdom, in every action of his life; and that he had acquired such an intimate knowledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules. 26 These sleeping or waking visions, the ordinary effects of abstinence and fanaticism, would almost degrade the emperor to the level of an Egyptian monk. But the useless lives of Antony or Pachomius were consumed in these vain occupations. Julian could break from the dream of superstition to arm himself for battle; and after vanquishing in the field the enemies of Rome, he calmly retired into his tent, to dictate the wise and salutary laws of an empire, or to indulge his genius in the elegant pursuits of literature and philosophy.
23 (return)
[ The dexterous
management of these sophists, who played their credulous pupil into each
other's hands, is fairly told by Eunapius (p. 69- 79) with unsuspecting
simplicity. The Abbe de la Bleterie understands, and neatly describes, the
whole comedy, (Vie de Julian, p. 61-67.)]
24 (return)
[ When Julian, in a
momentary panic, made the sign of the cross the daemons instantly
disappeared, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 71.) Gregory supposes that they
were frightened, but the priests declared that they were indignant. The
reader, according to the measure of his faith, will determine this
profound question.]
25 (return)
[ A dark and distant view
of the terrors and joys of initiation is shown by Dion Chrysostom,
Themistius, Proclus, and Stobaeus. The learned author of the Divine
Legation has exhibited their words, (vol. i. p. 239, 247, 248, 280, edit.
1765,) which he dexterously or forcibly applies to his own hypothesis.]
26 (return)
[ Julian's modesty
confined him to obscure and occasional hints: but Libanius expiates with
pleasure on the facts and visions of the religious hero. (Legat. ad
Julian. p. 157, and Orat. Parental. c. lxxxiii. p. 309, 310.)]
The important secret of the apostasy of Julian was intrusted to the fidelity of the initiated, with whom he was united by the sacred ties of friendship and religion. 27 The pleasing rumor was cautiously circulated among the adherents of the ancient worship; and his future greatness became the object of the hopes, the prayers, and the predictions of the Pagans, in every province of the empire. From the zeal and virtues of their royal proselyte, they fondly expected the cure of every evil, and the restoration of every blessing; and instead of disapproving of the ardor of their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously confessed, that he was ambitious to attain a situation in which he might be useful to his country and to his religion. But this religion was viewed with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose capricious passions altercately saved and threatened the life of Julian. The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited under a despotic government, which condescended to fear them; and if the Pagans were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their superstition, the rank of Julian would have excepted him from the general toleration. The apostate soon became the presumptive heir of the monarchy, and his death could alone have appeased the just apprehensions of the Christians. 28 But the young prince, who aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of a martyr, consulted his safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy temper of polytheism permitted him to join in the public worship of a sect which he inwardly despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy of his friend as a subject, not of censure, but of praise. "As the statues of the gods," says that orator, "which have been defiled with filth, are again placed in a magnificent temple, so the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of Julian, after it had been purified from the errors and follies of his education. His sentiments were changed; but as it would have been dangerous to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct still continued the same. Very different from the ass in Aesop, who disguised himself with a lion's hide, our lion was obliged to conceal himself under the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced the dictates of reason, to obey the laws of prudence and necessity." 29 The dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten years, from his secret initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of the civil war; when he declared himself at once the implacable enemy of Christ and of Constantius. This state of constraint might contribute to strengthen his devotion; and as soon as he had satisfied the obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, at the assemblies of the Christians, Julian returned, with the impatience of a lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense on the domestic chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as every act of dissimulation must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the profession of Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a religion which oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled him to hold a conduct repugnant to the noblest attributes of human nature, sincerity and courage.
27 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat. Parent.
c. x. p. 233, 234. Gallus had some reason to suspect the secret apostasy
of his brother; and in a letter, which may be received as genuine, he
exhorts Julian to adhere to the religion of their ancestors; an argument
which, as it should seem, was not yet perfectly ripe. See Julian, Op. p.
454, and Hist. de Jovien tom ii. p. 141.]
28 (return)
[ Gregory, (iii. p. 50,)
with inhuman zeal, censures Constantius for paring the infant apostate.
His French translator (p. 265) cautiously observes, that such expressions
must not be prises a la lettre.]
29 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat.
Parental. c ix. p. 233.]
The inclination of Julian might prefer the gods of Homer, and of the Scipios, to the new faith, which his uncle had established in the Roman empire; and in which he himself had been sanctified by the sacrament of baptism. But, as a philosopher, it was incumbent on him to justify his dissent from Christianity, which was supported by the number of its converts, by the chain of prophecy, the splendor of or miracles, and the weight of evidence. The elaborate work, 30 which he composed amidst the preparations of the Persian war, contained the substance of those arguments which he had long revolved in his mind. Some fragments have been transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehement Cyril of Alexandria; 31 and they exhibit a very singular mixture of wit and learning, of sophistry and fanaticism. The elegance of the style and the rank of the author, recommended his writings to the public attention; 32 and in the impious list of the enemies of Christianity, the celebrated name of Porphyry was effaced by the superior merit or reputation of Julian. The minds of the faithful were either seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed; and the pagans, who sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute, derived, from the popular work of their Imperial missionary, an inexhaustible supply of fallacious objections. But in the assiduous prosecution of these theological studies, the emperor of the Romans imbibed the illiberal prejudices and passions of a polemic divine. He contracted an irrevocable obligation to maintain and propagate his religious opinions; and whilst he secretly applauded the strength and dexterity with which he wielded the weapons of controversy, he was tempted to distrust the sincerity, or to despise the understandings, of his antagonists, who could obstinately resist the force of reason and eloquence.
30 (return)
[ Fabricius (Biblioth.
Graec. l. v. c. viii, p. 88-90) and Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv.
p. 44-47) have accurately compiled all that can now be discovered of
Julian's work against the Christians.]
31 (return)
[ About seventy years
after the death of Julian, he executed a task which had been feebly
attempted by Philip of Side, a prolix and contemptible writer. Even the
work of Cyril has not entirely satisfied the most favorable judges; and
the Abbe de la Bleterie (Preface a l'Hist. de Jovien, p. 30, 32) wishes
that some theologien philosophe (a strange centaur) would undertake the
refutation of Julian.]
32 (return)
[ Libanius, (Orat.
Parental. c. lxxxvii. p. 313,) who has been suspected of assisting his
friend, prefers this divine vindication (Orat. ix in necem Julian. p. 255,
edit. Morel.) to the writings of Porphyry. His judgment may be arraigned,
(Socrates, l. iii. c. 23,) but Libanius cannot be accused of flattery to a
dead prince.]
The Christians, who beheld with horror and indignation the apostasy of Julian, had much more to fear from his power than from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors. But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions were apparently disappointed, by the prudent humanity of a prince, 33 who was careful of his own fame, of the public peace, and of the rights of mankind. Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded, that if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. The reluctant victim may be dragged to the foot of the altar; but the heart still abhors and disclaims the sacrilegious act of the hand. Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by oppression; and, as soon as the persecution subsides, those who have yielded are restored as penitents, and those who have resisted are honored as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted the unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was sensible that he should stain his memory with the name of a tyrant, and add new glories to the Catholic church, which had derived strength and increase from the severity of the pagan magistrates. Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatized with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics. The pagans received a gracious permission, or rather an express order, to open All their temples; 34 and they were at once delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations, which they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of his sons. At the same time the bishops and clergy, who had been banished by the Arian monarch, were recalled from exile, and restored to their respective churches; the Donatists, the Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, and those who, with a more prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the Council of Nice. Julian, who understood and derided their theological disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects, that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the emperor to exclaim, "Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the Alemanni;" but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before he dismissed them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the union of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus has ascribed this affected clemency to the desire of fomenting the intestine divisions of the church, and the insidious design of undermining the foundations of Christianity, was inseparably connected with the zeal which Julian professed, to restore the ancient religion of the empire. 35
33 (return)
[ Libanius (Orat. Parent.
c. lviii. p. 283, 284) has eloquently explained the tolerating principles
and conduct of his Imperial friend. In a very remarkable epistle to the
people of Bostra, Julian himself (Epist. lii.) professes his moderation,
and betrays his zeal, which is acknowledged by Ammianus, and exposed by
Gregory (Orat. iii. p.72)]
34 (return)
[ In Greece the temples
of Minerva were opened by his express command, before the death of
Constantius, (Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 55, p. 280;) and Julian declares
himself a Pagan in his public manifesto to the Athenians. This
unquestionable evidence may correct the hasty assertion of Ammianus, who
seems to suppose Constantinople to be the place where he discovered his
attachment to the gods]
35 (return)
[ Ammianus, xxii. 5.
Sozomen, l. v. c. 5. Bestia moritur, tranquillitas redit.... omnes
episcopi qui de propriis sedibus fuerant exterminati per indulgentiam novi
principis ad acclesias redeunt. Jerom. adversus Luciferianos, tom. ii. p.
143. Optatus accuses the Donatists for owing their safety to an apostate,
(l. ii. c. 16, p. 36, 37, edit. Dupin.)]
As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to the custom of his predecessors, the character of supreme pontiff; not only as the most honorable title of Imperial greatness, but as a sacred and important office; the duties of which he was resolved to execute with pious diligence. As the business of the state prevented the emperor from joining every day in the public devotion of his subjects, he dedicated a domestic chapel to his tutelar deity the Sun; his gardens were filled with statues and altars of the gods; and each apartment of the palace displaced the appearance of a magnificent temple. Every morning he saluted the parent of light with a sacrifice; the blood of another victim was shed at the moment when the Sun sunk below the horizon; and the Moon, the Stars, and the Genii of the night received their respective and seasonable honors from the indefatigable devotion of Julian. On solemn festivals, he regularly visited the temple of the god or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly consecrated, and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and people by the example of his own zeal. Instead of maintaining the lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendor of his purple, and encompassed by the golden shields of his guards, Julian solicited, with respectful eagerness, the meanest offices which contributed to the worship of the gods. Amidst the sacred but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of female dancers, who were dedicated to the service of the temple, it was the business of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and, thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the consummate skill of an haruspex, imaginary signs of future events. The wisest of the Pagans censured this extravagant superstition, which affected to despise the restraints of prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince, who practised the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of religious worship consumed a very large portion of the revenue a constant supply of the scarcest and most beautiful birds was transported from distant climates, to bleed on the altars of the gods; a hundred oxen were frequently sacrificed by Julian on one and the same day; and it soon became a popular jest, that if he should return with conquest from the Persian war, the breed of horned cattle must infallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense may appear inconsiderable, when it is compared with the splendid presents which were offered either by the hand, or by order, of the emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in the Roman world; and with the sums allotted to repair and decorate the ancient temples, which had suffered the silent decay of time, or the recent injuries of Christian rapine. Encouraged by the example, the exhortations, the liberality, of their pious sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their neglected ceremonies. "Every part of the world," exclaims Libanius, with devout transport, "displayed the triumph of religion; and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for their joyous votaries." 36
36 (return)
[ The restoration of the
Pagan worship is described by Julian, (Misopogon, p. 346,) Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 60, p. 286, 287, and Orat. Consular. ad Julian. p. 245,
246, edit. Morel.,) Ammianus, (xxii. 12,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat.
iv. p. 121.) These writers agree in the essential, and even minute, facts;
but the different lights in which they view the extreme devotion of
Julian, are expressive of the gradations of self-applause, passionate
admiration, mild reproof, and partial invective.]
But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to the enterprise of restoring a religion which was destitute of theological principles, of moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline; which rapidly hastened to decay and dissolution, and was not susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. The jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after that office had been united with the Imperial dignity, comprehended the whole extent of the Roman empire. Julian named for his vicars, in the several provinces, the priests and philosophers whom he esteemed the best qualified to cooperate in the execution of his great design; and his pastoral letters, 37 if we may use that name, still represent a very curious sketch of his wishes and intentions. He directs, that in every city the sacerdotal order should be composed, without any distinction of birth and fortune, of those persons who were the most conspicuous for the love of the gods, and of men. "If they are guilty," continues he, "of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank, they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people. Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from the precincts of the temple; nor should a single day be suffered to elapse, without the prayers and the sacrifice, which they are obliged to offer for the prosperity of the state, and of individuals. The exercise of their sacred functions requires an immaculate purity, both of mind and body; and even when they are dismissed from the temple to the occupations of common life, it is incumbent on them to excel in decency and virtue the rest of their fellow-citizens. The priest of the gods should never be seen in theatres or taverns. His conversation should be chaste, his diet temperate, his friends of honorable reputation; and if he sometimes visits the Forum or the Palace, he should appear only as the advocate of those who have vainly solicited either justice or mercy. His studies should be suited to the sanctity of his profession. Licentious tales, or comedies, or satires, must be banished from his library, which ought solely to consist of historical or philosophical writings; of history, which is founded in truth, and of philosophy, which is connected with religion. The impious opinions of the Epicureans and sceptics deserve his abhorrence and contempt; 38 but he should diligently study the systems of Pythagoras, of Plato, and of the Stoics, which unanimously teach that there are gods; that the world is governed by their providence; that their goodness is the source of every temporal blessing; and that they have prepared for the human soul a future state of reward or punishment." The Imperial pontiff inculcates, in the most persuasive language, the duties of benevolence and hospitality; exhorts his inferior clergy to recommend the universal practice of those virtues; promises to assist their indigence from the public treasury; and declares his resolution of establishing hospitals in every city, where the poor should be received without any invidious distinction of country or of religion. Julian beheld with envy the wise and humane regulations of the church; and he very frankly confesses his intention to deprive the Christians of the applause, as well as advantage, which they had acquired by the exclusive practice of charity and beneficence. 39 The same spirit of imitation might dispose the emperor to adopt several ecclesiastical institutions, the use and importance of which were approved by the success of his enemies. But if these imaginary plans of reformation had been realized, the forced and imperfect copy would have been less beneficial to Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. 40 The Gentiles, who peaceably followed the customs of their ancestors, were rather surprised than pleased with the introduction of foreign manners; and in the short period of his reign, Julian had frequent occasions to complain of the want of fervor of his own party. 41
37 (return)
[ See Julian. Epistol.
xlix. lxii. lxiii., and a long and curious fragment, without beginning or
end, (p. 288-305.) The supreme pontiff derides the Mosaic history and the
Christian discipline, prefers the Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets, and
palliates, with the skill of a Jesuit the relative worship of images.]
38 (return)
[ The exultation of
Julian (p. 301) that these impious sects and even their writings, are
extinguished, may be consistent enough with the sacerdotal character; but
it is unworthy of a philosopher to wish that any opinions and arguments
the most repugnant to his own should be concealed from the knowledge of
mankind.]
39 (return)
[ Yet he insinuates, that
the Christians, under the pretence of charity, inveigled children from
their religion and parents, conveyed them on shipboard, and devoted those
victims to a life of poverty or pervitude in a remote country, (p. 305.)
Had the charge been proved it was his duty, not to complain, but to
punish.]
40 (return)
[ Gregory Nazianzen is
facetious, ingenious, and argumentative, (Orat. iii. p. 101, 102, &c.)
He ridicules the folly of such vain imitation; and amuses himself with
inquiring, what lessons, moral or theological, could be extracted from the
Grecian fables.]
41 (return)
[ He accuses one of his
pontiffs of a secret confederacy with the Christian bishops and
presbyters, (Epist. lxii.) &c. Epist. lxiii.]
The enthusiasm of Julian prompted him to embrace the friends of Jupiter as his personal friends and brethren; and though he partially overlooked the merit of Christian constancy, he admired and rewarded the noble perseverance of those Gentiles who had preferred the favor of the gods to that of the emperor. 42 If they cultivated the literature, as well as the religion, of the Greeks, they acquired an additional claim to the friendship of Julian, who ranked the Muses in the number of his tutelar deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety and learning were almost synonymous; 43 and a crowd of poets, of rhetoricians, and of philosophers, hastened to the Imperial court, to occupy the vacant places of the bishops, who had seduced the credulity of Constantius. His successor esteemed the ties of common initiation as far more sacred than those of consanguinity; he chose his favorites among the sages, who were deeply skilled in the occult sciences of magic and divination; and every impostor, who pretended to reveal the secrets of futurity, was assured of enjoying the present hour in honor and affluence. 44 Among the philosophers, Maximus obtained the most eminent rank in the friendship of his royal disciple, who communicated, with unreserved confidence, his actions, his sentiments, and his religious designs, during the anxious suspense of the civil war. 45 As soon as Julian had taken possession of the palace of Constantinople, he despatched an honorable and pressing invitation to Maximus, who then resided at Sardes in Lydia, with Chrysanthius, the associate of his art and studies. The prudent and superstitious Chrysanthius refused to undertake a journey which showed itself, according to the rules of divination, with the most threatening and malignant aspect: but his companion, whose fanaticism was of a bolder cast, persisted in his interrogations, till he had extorted from the gods a seeming consent to his own wishes, and those of the emperor. The journey of Maximus through the cities of Asia displayed the triumph of philosophic vanity; and the magistrates vied with each other in the honorable reception which they prepared for the friend of their sovereign. Julian was pronouncing an oration before the senate, when he was informed of the arrival of Maximus. The emperor immediately interrupted his discourse, advanced to meet him, and after a tender embrace, conducted him by the hand into the midst of the assembly; where he publicly acknowledged the benefits which he had derived from the instructions of the philosopher. Maximus, 46 who soon acquired the confidence, and influenced the councils of Julian, was insensibly corrupted by the temptations of a court. His dress became more splendid, his demeanor more lofty, and he was exposed, under a succeeding reign, to a disgraceful inquiry into the means by which the disciple of Plato had accumulated, in the short duration of his favor, a very scandalous proportion of wealth. Of the other philosophers and sophists, who were invited to the Imperial residence by the choice of Julian, or by the success of Maximus, few were able to preserve their innocence or their reputation. The liberal gifts of money, lands, and houses, were insufficient to satiate their rapacious avarice; and the indignation of the people was justly excited by the remembrance of their abject poverty and disinterested professions. The penetration of Julian could not always be deceived: but he was unwilling to despise the characters of those men whose talents deserved his esteem: he desired to escape the double reproach of imprudence and inconstancy; and he was apprehensive of degrading, in the eyes of the profane, the honor of letters and of religion. 47 48
42 (return)
[ He praises the fidelity
of Callixene, priestess of Ceres, who had been twice as constant as
Penelope, and rewards her with the priesthood of the Phrygian goddess at
Pessinus, (Julian. Epist. xxi.) He applauds the firmness of Sopater of
Hierapolis, who had been repeatedly pressed by Constantius and Gallus to
apostatize, (Epist. xxvii p. 401.)]
43 (return)
[ Orat. Parent. c. 77, p.
202. The same sentiment is frequently inculcated by Julian, Libanius, and
the rest of their party.]
44 (return)
[ The curiosity and
credulity of the emperor, who tried every mode of divination, are fairly
exposed by Ammianus, xxii. 12.]
45 (return)
[ Julian. Epist. xxxviii.
Three other epistles, (xv. xvi. xxxix.,) in the same style of friendship
and confidence, are addressed to the philosopher Maximus.]
46 (return)
[ Eunapius (in Maximo, p.
77, 78, 79, and in Chrysanthio, p. 147, 148) has minutely related these
anecdotes, which he conceives to be the most important events of the age.
Yet he fairly confesses the frailty of Maximus. His reception at
Constantinople is described by Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 86, p. 301) and
Ammianus, (xxii. 7.) * Note: Eunapius wrote a continuation of the History
of Dexippus. Some valuable fragments of this work have been recovered by
M. Mai, and reprinted in Niebuhr's edition of the Byzantine Historians.—M.]
47 (return)
[ Chrysanthius, who had
refused to quit Lydia, was created high priest of the province. His
cautious and temperate use of power secured him after the revolution; and
he lived in peace, while Maximus, Priscus, &c., were persecuted by the
Christian ministers. See the adventures of those fanatic sophists,
collected by Brucker, tom ii. p. 281-293.]
48 (return)
[ Sec Libanius (Orat.
Parent. c. 101, 102, p. 324, 325, 326) and Eunapius, (Vit. Sophist. in
Proaeresio, p. 126.) Some students, whose expectations perhaps were
groundless, or extravagant, retired in disgust, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. p.
120.) It is strange that we should not be able to contradict the title of
one of Tillemont's chapters, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 960,) "La
Cour de Julien est pleine de philosphes et de gens perdus."]
The favor of Julian was almost equally divided between the Pagans, who had firmly adhered to the worship of their ancestors, and the Christians, who prudently embraced the religion of their sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes 49 gratified the ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods. 50 A prince who had studied human nature, and who possessed the treasures of the Roman empire, could adapt his arguments, his promises, and his rewards, to every order of Christians; 51 and the merit of a seasonable conversion was allowed to supply the defects of a candidate, or even to expiate the guilt of a criminal. As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute power, Julian applied himself, with peculiar diligence, to corrupt the religion of his troops, without whose hearty concurrence every measure must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it was important. The legions of Gaul devoted themselves to the faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious leader; and even before the death of Constantius, he had the satisfaction of announcing to his friends, that they assisted with fervent devotion, and voracious appetite, at the sacrifices, which were repeatedly offered in his camp, of whole hecatombs of fat oxen. 52 The armies of the East, which had been trained under the standard of the cross, and of Constantius, required a more artful and expensive mode of persuasion. On the days of solemn and public festivals, the emperor received the homage, and rewarded the merit, of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with the military ensigns of Rome and the republic; the holy name of Christ was erased from the Labarum; and the symbols of war, of majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously blended, that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry, when he respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The soldiers passed successively in review; and each of them, before he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative, proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few grains of incense into the flame which burnt upon the altar. Some Christian confessors might resist, and others might repent; but the far greater number, allured by the prospect of gold, and awed by the presence of the emperor, contracted the criminal engagement; and their future perseverance in the worship of the gods was enforced by every consideration of duty and of interest.
By the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense of sums which would have purchased the service of half the nations of Scythia, Julian gradually acquired for his troops the imaginary protection of the gods, and for himself the firm and effectual support of the Roman legions. 53 It is indeed more than probable, that the restoration and encouragement of Paganism revealed a multitude of pretended Christians, who, from motives of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of the former reign; and who afterwards returned, with the same flexibility of conscience, to the faith which was professed by the successors of Julian.
49 (return)
[ Under the reign of
Lewis XIV. his subjects of every rank aspired to the glorious title of
Convertisseur, expressive of their zea and success in making proselytes.
The word and the idea are growing obsolete in France may they never be
introduced into England.]
50 (return)
[ See the strong
expressions of Libanius, which were probably those of Julian himself,
(Orat. Parent. c. 59, p. 285.)]
51 (return)
[ When Gregory Nazianzen
(Orat. x. p. 167) is desirous to magnify the Christian firmness of his
brother Caesarius, physician to the Imperial court, he owns that Caesarius
disputed with a formidable adversary. In his invectives he scarcely allows
any share of wit or courage to the apostate.]
52 (return)
[ Julian, Epist. xxxviii.
Ammianus, xxii. 12. Adeo ut in dies paene singulos milites carnis
distentiore sagina victitantes incultius, potusque aviditate correpti,
humeris impositi transeuntium per plateas, ex publicis aedibus..... ad sua
diversoria portarentur. The devout prince and the indignant historian
describe the same scene; and in Illyricum or Antioch, similar causes must
have produced similar effects.]
53 (return)
[ Gregory (Orat. iii. p.
74, 75, 83-86) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxi. lxxxii. p. 307,
308,). The sophist owns and justifies the expense of these military
conversions.]
While the devout monarch incessantly labored to restore and propagate the religion of his ancestors, he embraced the extraordinary design of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a public epistle 54 to the nation or community of the Jews, dispersed through the provinces, he pities their misfortunes, condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope, that after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted to pay his grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of Jerusalem. The blind superstition, and abject slavery, of those unfortunate exiles, must excite the contempt of a philosophic emperor; but they deserved the friendship of Julian, by their implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren synagogue abhorred and envied the fecundity of the rebellious church; the power of the Jews was not equal to their malice; but their gravest rabbis approved the private murder of an apostate; 55 and their seditious clamors had often awakened the indolence of the Pagan magistrates. Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews became the subjects of their revolted children nor was it long before they experienced the bitterness of domestic tyranny. The civil immunities which had been granted, or confirmed, by Severus, were gradually repealed by the Christian princes; and a rash tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, 56 seemed to justify the lucrative modes of oppression which were invented by the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The Jewish patriarch, who was still permitted to exercise a precarious jurisdiction, held his residence at Tiberias; 57 and the neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the remains of a people who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of Hadrian was renewed and enforced; and they viewed from afar the walls of the holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the triumph of the cross and the devotion of the Christians. 58
54 (return)
[ Julian's epistle (xxv.)
is addressed to the community of the Jews. Aldus (Venet. 1499) has branded
it with an; but this stigma is justly removed by the subsequent editors,
Petavius and Spanheim. This epistle is mentioned by Sozomen, (l. v. c.
22,) and the purport of it is confirmed by Gregory, (Orat. iv. p. 111.)
and by Julian himself (Fragment. p. 295.)]
55 (return)
[ The Misnah denounced
death against those who abandoned the foundation. The judgment of zeal is
explained by Marsham (Canon. Chron. p. 161, 162, edit. fol. London, 1672)
and Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p. 120.) Constantine made a law
to protect Christian converts from Judaism. Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. viii.
leg. 1. Godefroy, tom. vi. p. 215.]
56 (return)
[ Et interea (during the
civil war of Magnentius) Judaeorum seditio, qui Patricium, nefarie in
regni speciem sustulerunt, oppressa. Aurelius Victor, in Constantio, c.
xlii. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 379, in 4to.]
57 (return)
[ The city and synagogue
of Tiberias are curiously described by Reland. Palestin. tom. ii. p.
1036-1042.]
58 (return)
[ Basnage has fully
illustrated the state of the Jews under Constantine and his successors,
(tom. viii. c. iv. p. 111-153.)]
In the midst of a rocky and barren country, the walls of Jerusalem 59 enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within an oval figure of about three English miles. 60 Towards the south, the upper town, and the fortress of David, were erected on the lofty ascent of Mount Sion: on the north side, the buildings of the lower town covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra; and a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah, and levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion was deserted; and the vacant space of the lower city was filled with the public and private edifices of the Aelian colony, which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy places were polluted with mountains of idolatry; and, either from design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the spot which had been sanctified by the death and resurrection of Christ. 61 6111 Almost three hundred years after those stupendous events, the profane chapel of Venus was demolished by the order of Constantine; and the removal of the earth and stones revealed the holy sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent church was erected on that mystic ground, by the first Christian emperor; and the effects of his pious munificence were extended to every spot which had been consecrated by the footstep of patriarchs, of prophets, and of the Son of God. 62
59 (return)
[ Reland (Palestin. l. i.
p. 309, 390, l. iii. p. 838) describes, with learning and perspicuity,
Jerusalem, and the face of the adjacent country.]
60 (return)
[ I have consulted a rare
and curious treatise of M. D'Anville, (sur l'Ancienne Jerusalem, Paris,
1747, p. 75.) The circumference of the ancient city (Euseb. Preparat.
Evangel. l. ix. c. 36) was 27 stadia, or 2550 toises. A plan, taken on the
spot, assigns no more than 1980 for the modern town. The circuit is
defined by natural landmarks, which cannot be mistaken or removed.]
61 (return)
[ See two curious
passages in Jerom, (tom. i. p. 102, tom. vi. p. 315,) and the ample
details of Tillemont, (Hist, des Empereurs, tom. i. p. 569. tom. ii. p.
289, 294, 4to edition.)]
6111 (return)
[ On the site of the
Holy Sepulchre, compare the chapter in Professor Robinson's Travels in
Palestine, which has renewed the old controversy with great vigor. To me,
this temple of Venus, said to have been erected by Hadrian to insult the
Christians, is not the least suspicious part of the whole legend.-M.
1845.]
62 (return)
[ Eusebius in Vit.
Constantin. l. iii. c. 25-47, 51-53. The emperor likewise built churches
at Bethlem, the Mount of Olives, and the oa of Mambre. The holy sepulchre
is described by Sandys, (Travels, p. 125-133,) and curiously delineated by
Le Bruyn, (Voyage au Levant, p. 28-296.)]
The passionate desire of contemplating the original monuments of their redemption attracted to Jerusalem a successive crowd of pilgrims, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the most distant countries of the East; 63 and their piety was authorized by the example of the empress Helena, who appears to have united the credulity of age with the warm feelings of a recent conversion. Sages and heroes, who have visited the memorable scenes of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the inspiration of the genius of the place; 64 and the Christian who knelt before the holy sepulchre, ascribed his lively faith, and his fervent devotion, to the more immediate influence of the Divine Spirit. The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of the clergy of Jerusalem, cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits. They fixed, by unquestionable tradition, the scene of each memorable event. They exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion of Christ; the nails and the lance that had pierced his hands, his feet, and his side; the crown of thorns that was planted on his head; the pillar at which he was scourged; and, above all, they showed the cross on which he suffered, and which was dug out of the earth in the reign of those princes, who inserted the symbol of Christianity in the banners of the Roman legions. 65 Such miracles as seemed necessary to account for its extraordinary preservation, and seasonable discovery, were gradually propagated without opposition. The custody of the true cross, which on Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify the curious devotion of the pilgrims, by the gift of small pieces, which they encased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph to their respective countries. But as this gainful branch of commerce must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient to suppose, that the marvelous wood possessed a secret power of vegetation; and that its substance, though continually diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired. 66 It might perhaps have been expected, that the influence of the place and the belief of a perpetual miracle, should have produced some salutary effects on the morals, as well as on the faith, of the people. Yet the most respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have been obliged to confess, not only that the streets of Jerusalem were filled with the incessant tumult of business and pleasure, 67 but that every species of vice—adultery, theft, idolatry, poisoning, murder—was familiar to the inhabitants of the holy city. 68 The wealth and preeminence of the church of Jerusalem excited the ambition of Arian, as well as orthodox, candidates; and the virtues of Cyril, who, since his death, has been honored with the title of Saint, were displayed in the exercise, rather than in the acquisition, of his episcopal dignity. 69
63 (return)
[ The Itinerary from
Bourdeaux to Jerusalem was composed in the year 333, for the use of
pilgrims; among whom Jerom (tom. i. p. 126) mentions the Britons and the
Indians. The causes of this superstitious fashion are discussed in the
learned and judicious preface of Wesseling. (Itinarar. p. 537-545.)
——Much curious information on this subject is collected in the
first chapter of Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuge.—M.]
64 (return)
[ Cicero (de Finibus, v.
1) has beautifully expressed the common sense of mankind.]
65 (return)
[ Baronius (Annal.
Eccles. A. D. 326, No. 42-50) and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p.
8-16) are the historians and champions of the miraculous invention of the
cross, under the reign of Constantine. Their oldest witnesses are
Paulinus, Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Ambrose, and perhaps Cyril of
Jerusalem. The silence of Eusebius, and the Bourdeaux pilgrim, which
satisfies those who think perplexes those who believe. See Jortin's
sensible remarks, vol. ii. p 238-248.]
66 (return)
[ This multiplication is
asserted by Paulinus, (Epist. xxxvi. See Dupin. Bibliot. Eccles. tom. iii.
p. 149,) who seems to have improved a rhetorical flourish of Cyril into a
real fact. The same supernatural privilege must have been communicated to
the Virgin's milk, (Erasmi Opera, tom. i. p. 778, Lugd. Batav. 1703, in
Colloq. de Peregrinat. Religionis ergo,) saints' heads, &c. and other
relics, which are repeated in so many different churches. * Note: Lord
Mahon, in a memoir read before the Society of Antiquaries, (Feb. 1831,)
has traced in a brief but interesting manner, the singular adventures of
the "true" cross. It is curious to inquire, what authority we have, except
of late tradition, for the Hill of Calvary. There is none in the sacred
writings; the uniform use of the common word, instead of any word
expressing assent or acclivity, is against the notion.—M.]
67 (return)
[ Jerom, (tom. i. p.
103,) who resided in the neighboring village of Bethlem, describes the
vices of Jerusalem from his personal experience.]
68 (return)
[ Gregor. Nyssen, apud
Wesseling, p. 539. The whole epistle, which condemns either the use or the
abuse of religious pilgrimage, is painful to the Catholic divines, while
it is dear and familiar to our Protestant polemics.]
69 (return)
[ He renounced his
orthodox ordination, officiated as a deacon, and was re-ordained by the
hands of the Arians. But Cyril afterwards changed with the times, and
prudently conformed to the Nicene faith. Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom.
viii.,) who treats his memory with tenderness and respect, has thrown his
virtues into the text, and his faults into the notes, in decent obscurity,
at the end of the volume.]
The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore the ancient glory of the temple of Jerusalem. 70 As the Christians were firmly persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruction had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic law, the Imperial sophist would have converted the success of his undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of prophecy, and the truth of revelation. 71 He was displeased with the spiritual worship of the synagogue; but he approved the institutions of Moses, who had not disdained to adopt many of the rites and ceremonies of Egypt. 72 The local and national deity of the Jews was sincerely adored by a polytheist, who desired only to multiply the number of the gods; 73 and such was the appetite of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation might be excited by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, at the feast of the dedication, twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. 74 These considerations might influence his designs; but the prospect of an immediate and important advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He resolved to erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a stately temple, which might eclipse the splendor of the church of the resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts, and resist the ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures of the Pagan government. Among the friends of the emperor (if the names of emperor, and of friend, are not incompatible) the first place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the virtuous and learned Alypius. 75 The humanity of Alypius was tempered by severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his abilities in the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in his poetical compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes of Sappho. This minister, to whom Julian communicated, without reserve, his most careless levities, and his most serious counsels, received an extraordinary commission to restore, in its pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the diligence of Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy mountain of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot their avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people. 76
70 (return)
[ Imperii sui memoriam
magnitudine operum gestiens propagare Ammian. xxiii. 1. The temple of
Jerusalem had been famous even among the Gentiles. They had many temples
in each city, (at Sichem five, at Gaza eight, at Rome four hundred and
twenty-four;) but the wealth and religion of the Jewish nation was centred
in one spot.]
71 (return)
[ The secret intentions
of Julian are revealed by the late bishop of Gloucester, the learned and
dogmatic Warburton; who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes
the motives and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled
Julian (2d edition, London, 1751) is strongly marked with all the
peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian school.]
72 (return)
[ I shelter myself behind
Maimonides, Marsham, Spencer, Le Clerc, Warburton, &c., who have
fairly derided the fears, the folly, and the falsehood of some
superstitious divines. See Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 25, &c.]
73 (return)
[ Julian (Fragment. p.
295) respectfully styles him, and mentions him elsewhere (Epist. lxiii.)
with still higher reverence. He doubly condemns the Christians for
believing, and for renouncing, the religion of the Jews. Their Deity was a
true, but not the only, God Apul Cyril. l. ix. p. 305, 306.]
74 (return)
[ 1 Kings, viii. 63. 2
Chronicles, vii. 5. Joseph. Antiquitat. Judaic. l. viii. c. 4, p. 431,
edit. Havercamp. As the blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be
inconvenient, Lightfoot, the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle.
Le Clerc (ad loca) is bold enough to suspect to fidelity of the numbers. *
Note: According to the historian Kotobeddym, quoted by Burckhardt,
(Travels in Arabia, p. 276,) the Khalif Mokteder sacrificed, during his
pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year of the Hejira 350, forty thousand camels
and cows, and fifty thousand sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand
oxen slain, and their carcasses given to the poor. Quarterly Review,
xiii.p.39—M.]
75 (return)
[ Julian, epist. xxix.
xxx. La Bleterie has neglected to translate the second of these epistles.]
76 (return)
[ See the zeal and
impatience of the Jews in Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 111) and
Theodoret. (l. iii. c. 20.)]
Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is now covered by a Mahometan mosque, 77 still continued to exhibit the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. Perhaps the absence and death of the emperor, and the new maxims of a Christian reign, might explain the interruption of an arduous work, which was attempted only in the last six months of the life of Julian. 78 But the Christians entertained a natural and pious expectation, that, in this memorable contest, the honor of religion would be vindicated by some signal miracle. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are attested, with some variations, by contemporary and respectable evidence. 79 This public event is described by Ambrose, 80 bishop of Milan, in an epistle to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the severe animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, 81 who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of his congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen, 82 who published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that this preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels; and his assertion, strange as it may seem is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus. 83 The philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues, without adopting the prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his judicious and candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem. "Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged, with vigor and diligence, the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned." 8311 Such authority should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet a philosopher may still require the original evidence of impartial and intelligent spectators. At this important crisis, any singular accident of nature would assume the appearance, and produce the effects of a real prodigy. This glorious deliverance would be speedily improved and magnified by the pious art of the clergy of Jerusalem, and the active credulity of the Christian world and, at the distance of twenty years, a Roman historian, care less of theological disputes, might adorn his work with the specious and splendid miracle. 84
77 (return)
[ Built by Omar, the
second Khalif, who died A. D. 644. This great mosque covers the whole
consecrated ground of the Jewish temple, and constitutes almost a square
of 760 toises, or one Roman mile in circumference. See D'Anville,
Jerusalem, p. 45.]
78 (return)
[ Ammianus records the
consults of the year 363, before he proceeds to mention the thoughts of
Julian. Templum. ... instaurare sumptibus cogitabat immodicis. Warburton
has a secret wish to anticipate the design; but he must have understood,
from former examples, that the execution of such a work would have
demanded many years.]
79 (return)
[ The subsequent
witnesses, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Philostorgius, &c., add
contradictions rather than authority. Compare the objections of Basnage
(Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p. 156-168) with Warburton's answers,
(Julian, p. 174-258.) The bishop has ingeniously explained the miraculous
crosses which appeared on the garments of the spectators by a similar
instance, and the natural effects of lightning.]
80 (return)
[ Ambros. tom. ii. epist.
xl. p. 946, edit. Benedictin. He composed this fanatic epistle (A. D. 388)
to justify a bishop who had been condemned by the civil magistrate for
burning a synagogue.]
81 (return)
[ Chrysostom, tom. i. p.
580, advers. Judaeos et Gentes, tom. ii. p. 574, de Sto Babyla, edit.
Montfaucon. I have followed the common and natural supposition; but the
learned Benedictine, who dates the composition of these sermons in the
year 383, is confident they were never pronounced from the pulpit.]
82 (return)
[ Greg. Nazianzen, Orat.
iv. p. 110-113.]
83 (return)
[ Ammian. xxiii. 1. Cum
itaque rei fortiter instaret Alypius, juvaretque provinciae rector,
metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes
fecere locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum; hocque modo
elemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum. Warburton labors (p.
60-90) to extort a confession of the miracle from the mouths of Julian and
Libanius, and to employ the evidence of a rabbi who lived in the fifteenth
century. Such witnesses can only be received by a very favorable judge.]
8311 (return)
[ Michaelis has given
an ingenious and sufficiently probable explanation of this remarkable
incident, which the positive testimony of Ammianus, a contemporary and a
pagan, will not permit us to call in question. It was suggested by a
passage in Tacitus. That historian, speaking of Jerusalem, says, [I omit
the first part of the quotation adduced by M. Guizot, which only by a most
extraordinary mistranslation of muri introrsus sinuati by "enfoncemens"
could be made to bear on the question.—M.] The Temple itself was a
kind of citadel, which had its own walls, superior in their workmanship
and construction to those of the city. The porticos themselves, which
surrounded the temple, were an excellent fortification. There was a
fountain of constantly running water; subterranean excavations under the
mountain; reservoirs and cisterns to collect the rain-water. Tac. Hist. v.
ii. 12. These excavations and reservoirs must have been very considerable.
The latter furnished water during the whole siege of Jerusalem to
1,100,000 inhabitants, for whom the fountain of Siloe could not have
sufficed, and who had no fresh rain-water, the siege having taken place
from the month of April to the month of August, a period of the year
during which it rarely rains in Jerusalem. As to the excavations, they
served after, and even before, the return of the Jews from Babylon, to
contain not only magazines of oil, wine, and corn, but also the treasures
which were laid up in the Temple. Josephus has related several incidents
which show their extent. When Jerusalem was on the point of being taken by
Titus, the rebel chiefs, placing their last hopes in these vast
subterranean cavities, formed a design of concealing themselves there, and
remaining during the conflagration of the city, and until the Romans had
retired to a distance. The greater part had not time to execute their
design; but one of them, Simon, the Son of Gioras, having provided himself
with food, and tools to excavate the earth descended into this retreat
with some companions: he remained there till Titus had set out for Rome:
under the pressure of famine he issued forth on a sudden in the very place
where the Temple had stood, and appeared in the midst of the Roman guard.
He was seized and carried to Rome for the triumph. His appearance made it
be suspected that other Jews might have chosen the same asylum; search was
made, and a great number discovered. Joseph. de Bell. Jud. l. vii. c. 2.
It is probable that the greater part of these excavations were the remains
of the time of Solomon, when it was the custom to work to a great extent
under ground: no other date can be assigned to them. The Jews, on their
return from the captivity, were too poor to undertake such works; and,
although Herod, on rebuilding the Temple, made some excavations, (Joseph.
Ant. Jud. xv. 11, vii.,) the haste with which that building was completed
will not allow us to suppose that they belonged to that period. Some were
used for sewers and drains, others served to conceal the immense treasures
of which Crassus, a hundred and twenty years before, plundered the Jews,
and which doubtless had been since replaced. The Temple was destroyed A.
C. 70; the attempt of Julian to rebuild it, and the fact related by
Ammianus, coincide with the year 363. There had then elapsed between these
two epochs an interval of near 300 years, during which the excavations,
choked up with ruins, must have become full of inflammable air. The
workmen employed by Julian as they were digging, arrived at the
excavations of the Temple; they would take torches to explore them; sudden
flames repelled those who approached; explosions were heard, and these
phenomena were renewed every time that they penetrated into new
subterranean passages. This explanation is confirmed by the relation of an
event nearly similar, by Josephus. King Herod having heard that immense
treasures had been concealed in the sepulchre of David, he descended into
it with a few confidential persons; he found in the first subterranean
chamber only jewels and precious stuffs: but having wished to penetrate
into a second chamber, which had been long closed, he was repelled, when
he opened it, by flames which killed those who accompanied him. (Ant. Jud.
xvi. 7, i.) As here there is no room for miracle, this fact may be
considered as a new proof of the veracity of that related by Ammianus and
the contemporary writers.—G. ——To the illustrations of
the extent of the subterranean chambers adduced by Michaelis, may be
added, that when John of Gischala, during the siege, surprised the Temple,
the party of Eleazar took refuge within them. Bell. Jud. vi. 3, i. The
sudden sinking of the hill of Sion when Jerusalem was occupied by
Barchocab, may have been connected with similar excavations. Hist. of
Jews, vol. iii. 122 and 186.—M. ——It is a fact now
popularly known, that when mines which have been long closed are opened,
one of two things takes place; either the torches are extinguished and the
men fall first into a swoor and soon die; or, if the air is inflammable, a
little flame is seen to flicker round the lamp, which spreads and
multiplies till the conflagration becomes general, is followed by an
explosion, and kill all who are in the way.—G.]
84 (return)
[ Dr. Lardner, perhaps
alone of the Christian critics, presumes to doubt the truth of this famous
miracle. (Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 47-71.)]
The silence of Jerom would lead to a suspicion that the same story which was celebrated at a distance, might be despised on the spot. * Note: Gibbon has forgotten Basnage, to whom Warburton replied.—M.
The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected with the ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to maintain the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing whether this universal toleration proceeded from his justice or his clemency. He affected to pity the unhappy Christians, who were mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a style of sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that the Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable appellation of Galilaeans. 85 He declared, that by the folly of the Galilaeans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics, contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been reduced to the brink of destruction; and he insinuates in a public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes be cured by salutary violence. 86 An ungenerous distinction was admitted into the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to the difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his subjects deserved his favor and friendship, while the other was entitled only to the common benefits that his justice could not refuse to an obedient people. According to a principle, pregnant with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred to the pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal allowances for the public revenue, which had been granted to the church by the piety of Constantine and his sons. The proud system of clerical honors and immunities, which had been constructed with so much art and labor, was levelled to the ground; the hopes of testamentary donations were intercepted by the rigor of the laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were confounded with the last and most ignominious class of the people. Such of these regulations as appeared necessary to check the ambition and avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated by the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished, on the sacerdotal order, must be confined to those priests who profess the religion of the state. But the will of the legislator was not exempt from prejudice and passion; and it was the object of the insidious policy of Julian, to deprive the Christians of all the temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world. 88
85 (return)
[ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii.
p. 81. And this law was confirmed by the invariable practice of Julian
himself. Warburton has justly observed (p. 35,) that the Platonists
believed in the mysterious virtue of words and Julian's dislike for the
name of Christ might proceed from superstition, as well as from contempt.]
86 (return)
[ Fragment. Julian. p.
288. He derides the (Epist. vii.,) and so far loses sight of the
principles of toleration, as to wish (Epist. xlii.).]
88 (return)
[ These laws, which
affected the clergy, may be found in the slight hints of Julian himself,
(Epist. lii.) in the vague declamations of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86,
87,) and in the positive assertions of Sozomen, (l. v. c. 5.)]
A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which prohibited the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric. 89 The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this partial and oppressive measure, might command, during his lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of Gatterers. Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church of the Galilaeans. 90 In all the cities of the Roman world, the education of the youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have included the physicians, and professors of all the liberal arts; and the emperor, who reserved to himself the approbation of the candidates, was authorized by the laws to corrupt, or to punish, the religious constancy of the most learned of the Christians. 91 As soon as the resignation of the more obstinate 92 teachers had established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan sophists, Julian invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred by their own scruples, or by those of their parents, from accepting this dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same time, relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would relapse into its primaeval simplicity, and that the theologians, who possessed an adequate share of the learning and eloquence of the age, would be succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of their own principles, or of exposing the various follies of Polytheism. 93
89 (return)
[ Inclemens.... perenni
obruendum silentio. Ammian. xxii. 10, ixv. 5.]
90 (return)
[ The edict itself, which
is still extant among the epistles of Julian, (xlii.,) may be compared
with the loose invectives of Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 96.) Tillemont (Mem.
Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1291-1294) has collected the seeming differences of
ancients and moderns. They may be easily reconciled. The Christians were
directly forbid to teach, they were indirectly forbid to learn; since they
would not frequent the schools of the Pagans.]
91 (return)
[ Codex Theodos. l. xiii.
tit. iii. de medicis et professoribus, leg. 5, (published the 17th of
June, received, at Spoleto in Italy, the 29th of July, A. D. 363,) with
Godefroy's Illustrations, tom. v. p. 31.]
92 (return)
[ Orosius celebrates
their disinterested resolution, Sicut a majori bus nostris compertum
habemus, omnes ubique propemodum... officium quam fidem deserere
maluerunt, vii. 30. Proaeresius, a Christian sophist, refused to accept
the partial favor of the emperor Hieronym. in Chron. p. 185, edit.
Scaliger. Eunapius in Proaeresio p. 126.]
93 (return)
[ They had recourse to
the expedient of composing books for their own schools. Within a few
months Apollinaris produced his Christian imitations of Homer, (a sacred
history in twenty-four books,) Pindar, Euripides, and Menander; and
Sozomen is satisfied, that they equalled, or excelled, the originals. *
Note: Socrates, however, implies that, on the death of Julian, they were
contemptuously thrown aside by the Christians. Socr. Hist. iii.16.—M.]
It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive the Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of power; but the injustice of excluding them from all offices of trust and profit seems to have been the result of his general policy, rather than the immediate consequence of any positive law. 94 Superior merit might deserve and obtain, some extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part of the Christian officers were gradually removed from their employments in the state, the army, and the provinces. The hopes of future candidates were extinguished by the declared partiality of a prince, who maliciously reminded them, that it was unlawful for a Christian to use the sword, either of justice, or of war; and who studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the pagans, who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors; and as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules of divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the approbation of mankind. 95 Under the administration of their enemies, the Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The temper of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation, which was exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the philosophic monarch from violating the laws of justice and toleration, which he himself had so recently established. But the provincial ministers of his authority were placed in a less conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their sovereign; and ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious tyranny against the sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled as long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was exercised in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of his officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards. 96
94 (return)
[ It was the instruction
of Julian to his magistrates, (Epist. vii.,). Sozomen (l. v. c. 18) and
Socrates (l. iii. c. 13) must be reduced to the standard of Gregory,
(Orat. iii. p. 95,) not less prone to exaggeration, but more restrained by
the actual knowledge of his contemporary readers.]
95 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat. Parent.
88, p. 814.]
96 (return)
[ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii.
p. 74, 91, 92. Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. The doret, l. iii. c. 6. Some
drawback may, however, be allowed for the violence of their zeal, not less
partial than the zeal of Julian]
The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which they were armed, was the law that obliged the Christians to make full and ample satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed under the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had not always expected the sanction of the public authority; and the bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the head of their congregation, to attack and demolish the fortresses of the prince of darkness. The consecrated lands, which had increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, were clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and on the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently erected their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to remove the church before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party, while the other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence. 97 After the ground was cleared, the restitution of those stately structures which had been levelled with the dust, and of the precious ornaments which had been converted to Christian uses, swelled into a very large account of damages and debt. The authors of the injury had neither the ability nor the inclination to discharge this accumulated demand: and the impartial wisdom of a legislator would have been displayed in balancing the adverse claims and complaints, by an equitable and temperate arbitration.
But the whole empire, and particularly the East, was thrown into confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the Pagan magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous privilege of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of his inadequate property, the person of the insolvent debtor. Under the preceding reign, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, 98 had labored in the conversion of his people with arms more effectual than those of persuasion. 99 The magistrates required the full value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant zeal: but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired only to bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of the slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged prelate, they inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard; and his naked body, annointed with honey, was suspended, in a net, between heaven and earth, and exposed to the stings of insects and the rays of a Syrian sun. 100 From this lofty station, Mark still persisted to glory in his crime, and to insult the impotent rage of his persecutors. He was at length rescued from their hands, and dismissed to enjoy the honor of his divine triumph. The Arians celebrated the virtue of their pious confessor; the Catholics ambitiously claimed his alliance; 101 and the Pagans, who might be susceptible of shame or remorse, were deterred from the repetition of such unavailing cruelty. 102 Julian spared his life: but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of Julian, 103 posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of praising the clemency, of the emperor.
97 (return)
[ If we compare the
gentle language of Libanius (Orat. Parent c. 60. p. 286) with the
passionate exclamations of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) we may find it
difficult to persuade ourselves that the two orators are really describing
the same events.]
98 (return)
[ Restan, or Arethusa, at
the equal distance of sixteen miles between Emesa (Hems) and Epiphania,
(Hamath,) was founded, or at least named, by Seleucus Nicator. Its
peculiar aera dates from the year of Rome 685, according to the medals of
the city. In the decline of the Seleucides, Emesa and Arethusa were
usurped by the Arab Sampsiceramus, whose posterity, the vassals of Rome,
were not extinguished in the reign of Vespasian.——See
D'Anville's Maps and Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 134. Wesseling,
Itineraria, p. 188, and Noris. Epoch Syro-Macedon, p. 80, 481, 482.]
99 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. v. c. 10.
It is surprising, that Gregory and Theodoret should suppress a
circumstance, which, in their eyes, must have enhanced the religious merit
of the confessor.]
100 (return)
[ The sufferings and
constancy of Mark, which Gregory has so tragically painted, (Orat. iii. p.
88-91,) are confirmed by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence of
Libanius. Epist. 730, p. 350, 351. Edit. Wolf. Amstel. 1738.]
101 (return)
[ Certatim eum sibi
(Christiani) vindicant. It is thus that La Croze and Wolfius (ad loc.)
have explained a Greek word, whose true signification had been mistaken by
former interpreters, and even by Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Ancienne et
Moderne, tom. iii. p. 371.) Yet Tillemont is strangely puzzled to
understand (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1390) how Gregory and Theodoret
could mistake a Semi-Arian bishop for a saint.]
102 (return)
[ See the probable
advice of Sallust, (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 90, 91.) Libanius
intercedes for a similar offender, lest they should find many Marks; yet
he allows, that if Orion had secreted the consecrated wealth, he deserved
to suffer the punishment of Marsyas; to be flayed alive, (Epist. 730, p.
349-351.)]
103 (return)
[ Gregory (Orat. iii.
p. 90) is satisfied that, by saving the apostate, Mark had deserved still
more than he had suffered.]
At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the Macedonian kings of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant places of devotion in the Pagan world. 104 A magnificent temple rose in honor of the god of light; and his colossal figure 105 almost filled the capacious sanctuary, which was enriched with gold and gems, and adorned by the skill of the Grecian artists. The deity was represented in a bending attitude, with a golden cup in his hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he supplicated the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous Daphne: for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient rites of Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A stream of prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of the Delphic oracle, flowed from the Castalian fountain of Daphne. 106 In the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special privilege, 107 which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games were celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue of thirty thousand pounds sterling was annually applied to the public pleasures. 108 The perpetual resort of pilgrims and spectators insensibly formed, in the neighborhood of the temple, the stately and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the splendor, without acquiring the title, of a provincial city. The temple and the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of ten miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every hill, preserved the verdure of the earth, and the temperature of the air; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odors; and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love. The vigorous youth pursued, like Apollo, the object of his desires; and the blushing maid was warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of unseasonable coyness. The soldier and the philosopher wisely avoided the temptation of this sensual paradise: 109 where pleasure, assuming the character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness of manly virtue. But the groves of Daphne continued for many ages to enjoy the veneration of natives and strangers; the privileges of the holy ground were enlarged by the munificence of succeeding emperors; and every generation added new ornaments to the splendor of the temple. 110
104 (return)
[ The grove and temple
of Daphne are described by Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1089, 1090, edit. Amstel.
1707,) Libanius, (Naenia, p. 185-188. Antiochic. Orat. xi. p. 380, 381,)
and Sozomen, (l. v. c. 19.) Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 581) and Casaubon (ad
Hist. August. p. 64) illustrate this curious subject.]
105 (return)
[ Simulacrum in eo
Olympiaci Jovis imitamenti aequiparans magnitudinem. Ammian. xxii. 13. The
Olympic Jupiter was sixty feet high, and his bulk was consequently equal
to that of a thousand men. See a curious Memoire of the Abbe Gedoyn,
(Academie des Inscriptions, tom. ix. p. 198.)]
106 (return)
[ Hadrian read the
history of his future fortunes on a leaf dipped in the Castalian stream; a
trick which, according to the physician Vandale, (de Oraculis, p. 281,
282,) might be easily performed by chemical preparations. The emperor
stopped the source of such dangerous knowledge; which was again opened by
the devout curiosity of Julian.]
107 (return)
[ It was purchased, A.
D. 44, in the year 92 of the aera of Antioch, (Noris. Epoch. Syro-Maced.
p. 139-174,) for the term of ninety Olympiads. But the Olympic games of
Antioch were not regularly celebrated till the reign of Commodus. See the
curious details in the Chronicle of John Malala, (tom. i. p. 290, 320,
372-381,) a writer whose merit and authority are confined within the
limits of his native city.]
108 (return)
[ Fifteen talents of
gold, bequeathed by Sosibius, who died in the reign of Augustus. The
theatrical merits of the Syrian cities in the reign of Constantine, are
computed in the Expositio totius Murd, p. 8, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor tom.
iii.)]
109 (return)
[ Avidio Cassio
Syriacas legiones dedi luxuria diffluentes et Daphnicis moribus. These are
the words of the emperor Marcus Antoninus in an original letter preserved
by his biographer in Hist. August. p. 41. Cassius dismissed or punished
every soldier who was seen at Daphne.]
110 (return)
[ Aliquantum agrorum
Daphnensibus dedit, (Pompey,) quo lucus ibi spatiosior fieret; delectatus
amoenitate loci et aquarum abundantiz, Eutropius, vi. 14. Sextus Rufus, de
Provinciis, c. 16.]
When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, hastened to adore the Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to the highest pitch of eagerness and impatience. His lively imagination anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of libations and of incense; a long procession of youths and virgins, clothed in white robes, the symbol of their innocence; and the tumultuous concourse of an innumerable people. But the zeal of Antioch was diverted, since the reign of Christianity, into a different channel. Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelar deity the emperor complains that he found only a single goose, provided at the expense of a priest, the pale and solitary in habitant of this decayed temple. 111 The altar was deserted, the oracle had been reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the introduction of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas 112 (a bishop of Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of Decius) had rested near a century in his grave, his body, by the order of Caesar Gallus, was transported into the midst of the grove of Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his remains; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians at Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their bishop; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution seemed to restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of St. Babylas was demolished, and new buildings were added to the mouldering edifice which had been raised by the piety of Syrian kings. But the first and most serious care of Julian was to deliver his oppressed deity from the odious presence of the dead and living Christians, who had so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud or enthusiasm. 113 The scene of infection was purified, according to the forms of ancient rituals; the bodies were decently removed; and the ministers of the church were permitted to convey the remains of St. Babylas to their former habitation within the walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have assuaged the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected, on this occasion, by the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car, that transported the relics of Babylas, was followed, and accompanied, and received, by an innumerable multitude; who chanted, with thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David the most expressive of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The return of the saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the religion of the emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his resentment. During the night which terminated this indiscreet procession, the temple of Daphne was in flames; the statue of Apollo was consumed; and the walls of the edifice were left a naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians of Antioch asserted, with religious confidence, that the powerful intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven against the devoted roof: but as Julian was reduced to the alternative of believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose, without hesitation, without evidence, but with some color of probability, to impute the fire of Daphne to the revenge of the Galilaeans. 114 Their offence, had it been sufficiently proved, might have justified the retaliation, which was immediately executed by the order of Julian, of shutting the doors, and confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch. To discover the criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of secreting the riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics were tortured; 115 and a Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret, was beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution. 116
111 (return)
[ Julian (Misopogon, p.
367, 362) discovers his own character with naivete, that unconscious
simplicity which always constitutes genuine humor.]
112 (return)
[ Babylas is named by
Eusebius in the succession of the bishops of Antioch, (Hist. Eccles. l.
vi. c. 29, 39.) His triumph over two emperors (the first fabulous, the
second historical) is diffusely celebrated by Chrysostom, (tom. ii. p.
536-579, edit. Montfaucon.) Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. iii. part ii. p.
287-302, 459-465) becomes almost a sceptic.]
113 (return)
[ Ecclesiastical
critics, particularly those who love relics, exult in the confession of
Julian (Misopogon, p. 361) and Libanius, (Laenia, p. 185,) that Apollo was
disturbed by the vicinity of one dead man. Yet Ammianus (xxii. 12) clears
and purifies the whole ground, according to the rites which the Athenians
formerly practised in the Isle of Delos.]
114 (return)
[ Julian (in Misopogon,
p. 361) rather insinuates, than affirms, their guilt. Ammianus (xxii. 13)
treats the imputation as levissimus rumor, and relates the story with
extraordinary candor.]
115 (return)
[ Quo tam atroci casu
repente consumpto, ad id usque e imperatoris ira provexit, ut quaestiones
agitare juberet solito acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity of the
magistrates of Antioch,) et majorem ecclesiam Antiochiae claudi. This
interdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity and
profanation; and the seasonable death of the principal actor, Julian's
uncle, is related with much superstitious complacency by the Abbe de la
Bleterie. Vie de Julien, p. 362-369.]
116 (return)
[ Besides the
ecclesiastical historians, who are more or less to be suspected, we may
allege the passion of St. Theodore, in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p.
591. The complaint of Julian gives it an original and authentic air.]
The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked by the frown of their sovereign; but when the father of his country declares himself the leader of a faction, the license of popular fury cannot easily be restrained, nor consistently punished. Julian, in a public composition, applauds the devotion and loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious inhabitants had destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres of the Galilaeans; and faintly complains, that they had revenged the injuries of the gods with less moderation than he should have recommended. 117 This imperfect and reluctant confession may appear to confirm the ecclesiastical narratives; that in the cities of Gaza, Ascalon, Caesarea, Heliopolis, &c., the Pagans abused, without prudence or remorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy objects of their cruelty were released from torture only by death; and as their mangled bodies were dragged through the streets, they were pierced (such was the universal rage) by the spits of cooks, and the distaffs of enraged women; and that the entrails of Christian priests and virgins, after they had been tasted by those bloody fanatics, were mixed with barley, and contemptuously thrown to the unclean animals of the city. 118 Such scenes of religious madness exhibit the most contemptible and odious picture of human nature; but the massacre of Alexandria attracts still more attention, from the certainty of the fact, the rank of the victims, and the splendor of the capital of Egypt.
117 (return)
[ Julian. Misopogon, p.
361.]
118 (return)
[ See Gregory
Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. p. 87.) Sozomen (l. v. c. 9) may be considered as
an original, though not impartial, witness. He was a native of Gaza, and
had conversed with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma, lived to
the age of a hundred, (l. vii. c. 28.) Philostorgius (l. vii. c. 4, with
Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 284) adds some tragic circumstances, of
Christians who were literally sacrificed at the altars of the gods, &c.]
George, 119 from his parents or his education, surnamed the Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller's shop. From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by the talents of a parasite; and the patrons, whom he assiduously flattered, procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his honor, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of Arianism. From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, he collected a valuable library of history rhetoric, philosophy, and theology, 120 and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance of the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian conqueror; and each moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. The Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant, qualified, by nature and education, to exercise the office of persecution; but he oppressed with an impartial hand the various inhabitants of his extensive diocese. The primate of Egypt assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty station; but he still betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction. The merchants of Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust, and almost universal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt, paper, funerals, &c.: and the spiritual father of a great people condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts of an informer. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the tax, which he suggested, on all the houses of the city; under an obsolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his successors, the Ptolemies and the Caesars, the perpetual property of the soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes of freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or insulted by the haughty prince, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening tone, "How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand?" Under the reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by the justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent struggle, that the civil and military powers of the state could restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious ministers, Count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master of the mint were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public prison. At the end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel; 12011 and the inactivity of the Athanasian party 121 was esteemed a shining example of evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept the future honors of these martyrs, who had been punished, like their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. 122 The fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church. 123 The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; 124 and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed 125 into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter. 126
119 (return)
[ The life and death of
George of Cappadocia are described by Ammianus, (xxii. 11,) Gregory of
Nazianzen, (Orat. xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390,) and Epiphanius, (Haeres.
lxxvi.) The invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit,
unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and impartial
infidel.]
120 (return)
[ After the massacre of
George, the emperor Julian repeatedly sent orders to preserve the library
for his own use, and to torture the slaves who might be suspected of
secreting any books. He praises the merit of the collection, from whence
he had borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued his
studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the works of the
Galiaeans might perish but he requires an exact account even of those
theological volumes lest other treatises more valuable should be
confounded in their less Julian. Epist. ix. xxxvi.]
12011 (return)
[ Julian himself
says, that they tore him to pieces like dogs, Epist. x.—M.]
121 (return)
[ Philostorgius, with
cautious malice, insinuates their guilt, l. vii. c. ii. Godefroy p. 267.]
122 (return)
[ Cineres projecit in
mare, id metuens ut clamabat, ne, collectis supremis, aedes illis
exstruerentur ut reliquis, qui deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere,
cruciabiles poenas, adusque gloriosam mortem intemerata fide progressi, et
nunc Martyres appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the
Arians, that George was not a martyr.]
123 (return)
[ Some Donatists
(Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303, edit. Dupin; and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and Priscillianists (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
viii. p. 517, in 4to.) have in like manner usurped the honors of the
Catholic saints and martyrs.]
124 (return)
[ The saints of
Cappadocia, Basil, and the Gregories, were ignorant of their holy
companion. Pope Gelasius, (A. D. 494,) the first Catholic who acknowledges
St. George, places him among the martyrs "qui Deo magis quam hominibus
noti sunt." He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some,
perhaps, not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant; and,
through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the combat which St.
George of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence of Queen Alexandria,
against the magician Afhanasius.]
125 (return)
[ This transformation
is not given as absolutely certain, but as extremely probable. See the
Longueruana, tom. i. p. 194. ——Note: The late Dr. Milner (the
Roman Catholic bishop) wrote a tract to vindicate the existence and the
orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I think, in
tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which makes it improbable
that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the Catholic church as a
saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by Gelasius may have been of Arian
origin, and designed to ingraft the story of their hero on the obscure
adventures of some earlier saint. See an Historical and Critical Inquiry
into the Existence and Character of Saint George, in a letter to the Earl
of Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner. F. S. A. London 1792.—M.]
126 (return)
[ A curious history of
the worship of St. George, from the sixth century, (when he was already
revered in Palestine, in Armenia at Rome, and at Treves in Gaul,) might be
extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2d edition, London,
1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists, (Act. Ss. Mens. April. tom.
iii. p. 100-163.) His fame and popularity in Europe, and especially in
England, proceeded from the Crusades.]
About the same time that Julian was informed of the tumult of Alexandria, he received intelligence from Edessa, that the proud and wealthy faction of the Arians had insulted the weakness of the Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be suffered with impunity in a well-regulated state. Without expecting the slow forms of justice, the exasperated prince directed his mandate to the magistrates of Edessa, 127 by which he confiscated the whole property of the church: the money was distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to the domain; and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most ungenerous irony. "I show myself," says Julian, "the true friend of the Galilaeans. Their admirable law has promised the kingdom of heaven to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence in the paths of virtue and salvation, when they are relieved by my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take care," pursued the monarch, in a more serious tone, "take care how you provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; and you will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, but fire and the sword." The tumults of Alexandria were doubtless of a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a Christian bishop had fallen by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle of Julian affords a very lively proof of the partial spirit of his administration. His reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are mingled with expressions of esteem and tenderness; and he laments, that, on this occasion, they should have departed from the gentle and generous manners which attested their Grecian extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable provocations which they had so long endured from the impious tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the principle, that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander, and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious pardon to the guilty city, for which he again feels the affection of a brother. 128
127 (return)
[ Julian. Epist.
xliii.]
128 (return)
[ Julian. Epist. x. He
allowed his friends to assuage his anger Ammian. xxii. 11.]
After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius, amidst the public acclamations, seated himself on the throne from whence his unworthy competitor had been precipitated: and as the zeal of the archbishop was tempered with discretion, the exercise of his authority tended not to inflame, but to reconcile, the minds of the people. His pastoral labors were not confined to the narrow limits of Egypt. The state of the Christian world was present to his active and capacious mind; and the age, the merit, the reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a moment of danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator. 129 Three years were not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the West had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession of Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded the unseasonable rigor of their orthodox brethren; and if their pride was stronger than their faith, they might throw themselves into the arms of the Arians, to escape the indignity of a public penance, which must degrade them to the condition of obscure laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the union and distinction of the divine persons, were agitated with some heat among the Catholic doctors; and the progress of this metaphysical controversy seemed to threaten a public and lasting division of the Greek and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a select synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had unwarily deviated into error, were admitted to the communion of the church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene Creed; without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the primate of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and Spain, of Italy and Greece, for the reception of this salutary measure; and, notwithstanding the opposition of some ardent spirits, 130 the fear of the common enemy promoted the peace and harmony of the Christians. 131
129 (return)
[ See Athanas. ad
Rufin. tom. ii. p. 40, 41, and Greg. Nazianzen Orat. iii. p. 395, 396; who
justly states the temperate zeal of the primate, as much more meritorious
than his prayers, his fasts, his persecutions, &c.]
130 (return)
[ I have not leisure to
follow the blind obstinacy of Lucifer of Cagliari. See his adventures in
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 900-926;) and observe how the color
of the narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor becomes a
schismatic.]
131 (return)
[ Assensus est huic
sententiae Occidens, et, per tam necessarium conilium, Satanae faucibus
mundus ereptus. The lively and artful dialogue of Jerom against the
Luciferians (tom. ii. p. 135-155) exhibits an original picture of the
ecclesiastical policy of the times.]
The skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved the season of tranquillity, before it was interrupted by the hostile edicts of the emperor. 132 Julian, who despised the Christians, honored Athanasius with his sincere and peculiar hatred. For his sake alone, he introduced an arbitrary distinction, repugnant at least to the spirit of his former declarations. He maintained, that the Galilaeans, whom he had recalled from exile, were not restored, by that general indulgence, to the possession of their respective churches; and he expressed his astonishment, that a criminal, who had been repeatedly condemned by the judgment of the emperors, should dare to insult the majesty of the laws, and insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria, without expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a punishment for the imaginary offence, he again banished Athanasius from the city; and he was pleased to suppose, that this act of justice would be highly agreeable to his pious subjects. The pressing solicitations of the people soon convinced him, that the majority of the Alexandrians were Christians; and that the greatest part of the Christians were firmly attached to the cause of their oppressed primate. But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead of persuading him to recall his decree, provoked him to extend to all Egypt the term of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal of the multitude rendered Julian still more inexorable: he was alarmed by the danger of leaving at the head of a tumultuous city, a daring and popular leader; and the language of his resentment discovers the opinion which he entertained of the courage and abilities of Athanasius. The execution of the sentence was still delayed, by the caution or negligence of Ecdicius, praefect of Egypt, who was at length awakened from his lethargy by a severe reprimand. "Though you neglect," says Julian, "to write to me on any other subject, at least it is your duty to inform me of your conduct towards Athanasius, the enemy of the gods. My intentions have been long since communicated to you. I swear by the great Serapis, that unless, on the calends of December, Athanasius has departed from Alexandria, nay, from Egypt, the officers of your government shall pay a fine of one hundred pounds of gold. You know my temper: I am slow to condemn, but I am still slower to forgive." This epistle was enforced by a short postscript, written with the emperor's own hand. "The contempt that is shown for all the gods fills me with grief and indignation. There is nothing that I should see, nothing that I should hear, with more pleasure, than the expulsion of Athanasius from all Egypt. The abominable wretch! Under my reign, the baptism of several Grecian ladies of the highest rank has been the effect of his persecutions." 133 The death of Athanasius was not expressly commanded; but the praefect of Egypt understood that it was safer for him to exceed, than to neglect, the orders of an irritated master. The archbishop prudently retired to the monasteries of the Desert; eluded, with his usual dexterity, the snares of the enemy; and lived to triumph over the ashes of a prince, who, in words of formidable import, had declared his wish that the whole venom of the Galilaean school were contained in the single person of Athanasius. 134 13411
132 (return)
[ Tillemont, who
supposes that George was massacred in August crowds the actions of
Athanasius into a narrow space, (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 360.) An
original fragment, published by the Marquis Maffei, from the old Chapter
library of Verona, (Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 60-92,) affords
many important dates, which are authenticated by the computation of
Egyptian months.]
133 (return)
[ I have preserved the
ambiguous sense of the last word, the ambiguity of a tyrant who wished to
find, or to create, guilt.]
134 (return)
[ The three epistles of
Julian, which explain his intentions and conduct with regard to
Athanasius, should be disposed in the following chronological order, xxvi.
x. vi. * See likewise, Greg. Nazianzen xxi. p. 393. Sozomen, l. v. c. 15.
Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, l iii. c. 9, and Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. viii. p. 361-368, who has used some materials prepared by the
Bollandists.]
13411 (return)
[ The sentence in
the text is from Epist. li. addressed to the people of Alexandria.—M.]
I have endeavored faithfully to represent the artful system by which Julian proposed to obtain the effects, without incurring the guilt, or reproach, of persecution. But if the deadly spirit of fanaticism perverted the heart and understanding of a virtuous prince, it must, at the same time, be confessed that the real sufferings of the Christians were inflamed and magnified by human passions and religious enthusiasm. The meekness and resignation which had distinguished the primitive disciples of the gospel, was the object of the applause, rather than of the imitation of their successors. The Christians, who had now possessed above forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, 135 and the habit of believing that the saints alone were entitled to reign over the earth. As soon as the enmity of Julian deprived the clergy of the privileges which had been conferred by the favor of Constantine, they complained of the most cruel oppression; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics was a subject of grief and scandal to the orthodox party. 136 The acts of violence, which were no longer countenanced by the magistrates, were still committed by the zeal of the people. At Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was overturned almost in the presence of the emperor; and in the city of Caesarea in Cappadocia, the temple of Fortune, the sole place of worship which had been left to the Pagans, was destroyed by the rage of a popular tumult. On these occasions, a prince, who felt for the honor of the gods, was not disposed to interrupt the course of justice; and his mind was still more deeply exasperated, when he found that the fanatics, who had deserved and suffered the punishment of incendiaries, were rewarded with the honors of martyrdom. 137 The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of the hostile designs of their sovereign; and, to their jealous apprehension, every circumstance of his government might afford some grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the ordinary administration of the laws, the Christians, who formed so large a part of the people, must frequently be condemned: but their indulgent brethren, without examining the merits of the cause, presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and imputed the severity of their judge to the partial malice of religious persecution. 138 These present hardships, intolerable as they might appear, were represented as a slight prelude of the impending calamities. The Christians considered Julian as a cruel and crafty tyrant; who suspended the execution of his revenge till he should return victorious from the Persian war. They expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign enemies of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of dissimulation; that the amphitheatre would stream with the blood of hermits and bishops; and that the Christians who still persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived of the common benefits of nature and society. 139 Every calumny 140 that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was credulously embraced by the fears and hatred of his adversaries; and their indiscreet clamors provoked the temper of a sovereign, whom it was their duty to respect, and their interest to flatter.
They still protested, that prayers and tears were their only weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they devoted to the justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with sullen resolution, that their submission was no longer the effect of weakness; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the patience, which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by persecution. It is impossible to determine how far the zeal of Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but if we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church, we shall be convinced, that before the emperor could have extinguished the religion of Christ, he must have involved his country in the horrors of a civil war. 141
135 (return)
[ See the fair
confession of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 61, 62.)]
136 (return)
[ Hear the furious and
absurd complaint of Optatus, (de Schismat Denatist. l. ii. c. 16, 17.)]
137 (return)
[ Greg. Nazianzen,
Orat. iii. p. 91, iv. p. 133. He praises the rioters of Caesarea. See
Sozomen, l. v. 4, 11. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 649, 650) owns,
that their behavior was not dans l'ordre commun: but he is perfectly
satisfied, as the great St. Basil always celebrated the festival of these
blessed martyrs.]
138 (return)
[ Julian determined a
lawsuit against the new Christian city at Maiuma, the port of Gaza; and
his sentence, though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never reversed by
his successors. Sozomen, l. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. tom. ii. p. 791.]
139 (return)
[ Gregory (Orat. iii.
p. 93, 94, 95. Orat. iv. p. 114) pretends to speak from the information of
Julian's confidants, whom Orosius (vii. 30) could not have seen.]
140 (return)
[ Gregory (Orat. iii.
p. 91) charges the Apostate with secret sacrifices of boys and girls; and
positively affirms, that the dead bodies were thrown into the Orontes. See
Theodoret, l. iii. c. 26, 27; and the equivocal candor of the Abbe de la
Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 351, 352. Yet contemporary malice could not
impute to Julian the troops of martyrs, more especially in the West, which
Baronius so greedily swallows, and Tillemont so faintly rejects, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1295-1315.)]
141 (return)
[ The resignation of
Gregory is truly edifying, (Orat. iv. p. 123, 124.) Yet, when an officer
of Julian attempted to seize the church of Nazianzus, he would have lost
his life, if he had not yielded to the zeal of the bishop and people,
(Orat. xix. p. 308.) See the reflections of Chrysostom, as they are
alleged by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 575.)]
Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition
Against The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat
And Death Of Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The
Roman Army By A Disgraceful Treaty.
The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of the Caesars, 1 is one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit. 2 During the freedom and equality of the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate, and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the table of the Caesars was spread below the Moon in the upper region of the air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis, into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the Caesars successively advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the vices, the defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who disguised the wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a Bacchanal. 3 As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of Mercury proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown should be the reward of superior merit. Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most illustrious candidates; the effeminate Constantine 4 was not excluded from this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the candidates was allowed to display the merit of his own exploits; but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of Marcus pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the springs of action, the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more decisive and conspicuous. 5 Alexander and Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame, or power, or pleasure had been the important object of their labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love, a virtuous mortal, who had practised on the throne the lessons of philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection, had aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The value of this agreeable composition (the Caesars of Julian) is enhanced by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors, subscribes, in every line, the censure or approbation of his own conduct.
1 (return)
[ See this fable or satire,
p. 306-336 of the Leipsig edition of Julian's works. The French version of
the learned Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and
correct; and his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c., are piled on each
other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages. The Abbe'
de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has more happily
expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the original, which he
illustrates with some concise and curious notes.]
2 (return)
[ Spanheim (in his preface)
has most learnedly discussed the etymology, origin, resemblance, and
disagreement of the Greek satyrs, a dramatic piece, which was acted after
the tragedy; and the Latin satires, (from Satura,) a miscellaneous
composition, either in prose or verse. But the Caesars of Julian are of
such an original cast, that the critic is perplexed to which class he
should ascribe them. * Note: See also Casaubon de Satira, with Rambach's
observations.—M.]
3 (return)
[ This mixed character of
Silenus is finely painted in the sixth eclogue of Virgil.]
4 (return)
[ Every impartial reader
must perceive and condemn the partiality of Julian against his uncle
Constantine, and the Christian religion. On this occasion, the
interpreters are compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their
allegiance, and to desert the cause of their author.]
5 (return)
[ Julian was secretly
inclined to prefer a Greek to a Roman. But when he seriously compared a
hero with a philosopher, he was sensible that mankind had much greater
obligations to Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.)]
In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful and benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was inflamed by the glory of Alexander; and he solicited, with equal ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause of the multitude. In the season of life when the powers of the mind and body enjoy the most active vigor, the emperor who was instructed by the experience, and animated by the success, of the German war, resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the East, from the continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, 6 had respectfully saluted the Roman purple. 7 The nations of the West esteemed and dreaded the personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and war. He despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube would be restrained from any future violation of the faith of treaties by the terror of his name, and the additional fortifications with which he strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor of Cyrus and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy of his arms; and he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to chastise the naughty nation which had so long resisted and insulted the majesty of Rome. 9 As soon as the Persian monarch was informed that the throne of Constantius was filed by a prince of a very different character, he condescended to make some artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation of peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness of Julian; who sternly declared, that he would never consent to hold a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins of the cities of Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt, that it was needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had determined to visit speedily the court of Persia. The impatience of the emperor urged the diligence of the military preparations. The generals were named; and Julian, marching from Constantinople through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch about eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent desire to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the indispensable duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his zeal to revive the worship of the gods; and by the advice of his wisest friends; who represented the necessity of allowing the salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore the exhausted strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays, of their sovereign. 10
6 (return)
[ Inde nationibus Indicis
certatim cum aonis optimates mittentibus.... ab usque Divis et Serendivis.
Ammian. xx. 7. This island, to which the names of Taprobana, Serendib, and
Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how imperfectly the seas
and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the Romans. 1. Under
the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed the customs of the Red Sea,
was accidentally driven by the winds upon this strange and undiscovered
coast: he conversed six months with the natives; and the king of Ceylon,
who heard, for the first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was
persuaded to send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2.
The geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen times,
the real size of this new world, which they extended as far as the
equator, and the neighborhood of China. * Note: The name of Diva gens or
Divorum regio, according to the probable conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois
Mem. Acad. p. 127,) was applied by the ancients to the whole eastern coast
of the Indian Peninsula, from Ceylon to the Canges. The name may be traced
in Devipatnam, Devidan, Devicotta, Divinelly, the point of Divy.——M.
Letronne, p.121, considers the freedman with his embassy from Ceylon to
have been an impostor.—M.]
7 (return)
[ These embassies had been
sent to Constantius. Ammianus, who unwarily deviates into gross flattery,
must have forgotten the length of the way, and the short duration of the
reign of Julian. ——Gothos saepe fallaces et perfidos; hostes
quaerere se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere mercators Galatas per
quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur. (Ammian. xxii. 7.)
Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic slaves threatened and subdued
their masters.]
9 (return)
[ Alexander reminds his
rival Caesar, who depreciated the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory,
that Crassus and Antony had felt the Persian arrows; and that the Romans,
in a war of three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province
of Mesopotamia or Assyria, (Caesares, p. 324.)]
10 (return)
[ The design of the
Persian war is declared by Ammianus, (xxii. 7, 12,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 79, 80, p. 305, 306,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 158,) and Socrates,
(l. iii. c. 19.)]
If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal connection with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. 11 The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were procured from the adjacent cities; 12 a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his subjects; and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor admire, the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained, and sometimes affected. The days of festivity, consecrated, by ancient custom, to the honor of the gods, were the only occasions in which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been first invented by their ancestors: 13 they contended themselves with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were scrupulously attached to the speculative doctrines of their religion. The church of Antioch was distracted by heresy and schism; but the Arians and the Athanasians, the followers of Meletius and those of Paulinus, 14 were actuated by the same pious hatred of their common adversary.
11 (return)
[ The Satire of Julian,
and the Homilies of St. Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture of Antioch.
The miniature which the Abbe de la Bleterie has copied from thence, (Vie
de Julian, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.]
12 (return)
[ Laodicea furnished
charioteers; Tyre and Berytus, comedians; Caesarea, pantomimes;
Heliopolis, singers; Gaza, gladiators, Ascalon, wrestlers; and Castabala,
rope-dancers. See the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third tome of
Hudson's Minor Geographers.]
13 (return)
[ The people of Antioch
ingenuously professed their attachment to the Chi, (Christ,) and the
Kappa, (Constantius.) Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.]
14 (return)
[ The schism of Antioch,
which lasted eighty-five years, (A. D. 330-415,) was inflamed, while
Julian resided in that city, by the indiscreet ordination of Paulinus. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 803 of the quarto edition, (Paris,
1701, &c,) which henceforward I shall quote.]
The strongest prejudice was entertained against the character of an apostate, the enemy and successor of a prince who had engaged the affections of a very numerous sect; and the removal of St. Babylas excited an implacable opposition to the person of Julian. His subjects complained, with superstitious indignation, that famine had pursued the emperor's steps from Constantinople to Antioch; and the discontent of a hungry people was exasperated by the injudicious attempt to relieve their distress. The inclemency of the season had affected the harvests of Syria; and the price of bread, 15 in the markets of Antioch, had naturally risen in proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair and reasonable proportion was soon violated by the rapacious arts of monopoly. In this unequal contest, in which the produce of the land is claimed by one party as his exclusive property, is used by another as a lucrative object of trade, and is required by a third for the daily and necessary support of life, all the profits of the intermediate agents are accumulated on the head of the defenceless customers. The hardships of their situation were exaggerated and increased by their own impatience and anxiety; and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually produced the appearances of a famine. When the luxurious citizens of Antioch complained of the high price of poultry and fish, Julian publicly declared, that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he acknowledged, that it was the duty of a sovereign to provide for the subsistence of his people. With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a very dangerous and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the value of corn. He enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should be sold at a price which had seldom been known in the most plentiful years; and that his own example might strengthen his laws, he sent into the market four hundred and twenty-two thousand modii, or measures, which were drawn by his order from the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis, and even of Egypt. The consequences might have been foreseen, and were soon felt. The Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich merchants; the proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the city the accustomed supply; and the small quantities that appeared in the market were secretly sold at an advanced and illegal price. Julian still continued to applaud his own policy, treated the complaints of the people as a vain and ungrateful murmur, and convinced Antioch that he had inherited the obstinacy, though not the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. 16 The remonstrances of the municipal senate served only to exasperate his inflexible mind. He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that the senators of Antioch who possessed lands, or were concerned in trade, had themselves contributed to the calamities of their country; and he imputed the disrespectful boldness which they assumed, to the sense, not of public duty, but of private interest. The whole body, consisting of two hundred of the most noble and wealthy citizens, were sent, under a guard, from the palace to the prison; and though they were permitted, before the close of evening, to return to their respective houses, 17 the emperor himself could not obtain the forgiveness which he had so easily granted. The same grievances were still the subject of the same complaints, which were industriously circulated by the wit and levity of the Syrian Greeks. During the licentious days of the Saturnalia, the streets of the city resounded with insolent songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the personal conduct, and even the beard, of the emperor; the spirit of Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates, and the applause of the multitude. 18 The disciple of Socrates was too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the monarch, endowed with a quick sensibility, and possessed of absolute power, refused his passions the gratification of revenge. A tyrant might have proscribed, without distinction, the lives and fortunes of the citizens of Antioch; and the unwarlike Syrians must have patiently submitted to the lust, the rapaciousness and the cruelty, of the faithful legions of Gaul. A milder sentence might have deprived the capital of the East of its honors and privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the subjects, of Julian, would have applauded an act of justice, which asserted the dignity of the supreme magistrate of the republic. 19 But instead of abusing, or exerting, the authority of the state, to revenge his personal injuries, Julian contented himself with an inoffensive mode of retaliation, which it would be in the power of few princes to employ. He had been insulted by satires and libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title of the Enemy of the Beard, an ironical confession of his own faults, and a severe satire on the licentious and effeminate manners of Antioch. This Imperial reply was publicly exposed before the gates of the palace; and the Misopogon 20 still remains a singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and the indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to laugh, he could not forgive. 21 His contempt was expressed, and his revenge might be gratified, by the nomination of a governor 22 worthy only of such subjects; and the emperor, forever renouncing the ungrateful city, proclaimed his resolution to pass the ensuing winter at Tarsus in Cilicia. 23
15 (return)
[ Julian states three
different proportions, of five, ten, or fifteen medii of wheat for one
piece of gold, according to the degrees of plenty and scarcity, (in
Misopogon, p. 369.) From this fact, and from some collateral examples, I
conclude, that under the successors of Constantine, the moderate price of
wheat was about thirty-two shillings the English quarter, which is equal
to the average price of the sixty-four first years of the present century.
See Arbuthnot's Tables of Coins, Weights, and Measures, p. 88, 89. Plin.
Hist. Natur. xviii. 12. Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii.
p. 718-721. Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations, vol. i. p 246. This last I am proud to quote as the work of a
sage and a friend.]
16 (return)
[ Nunquam a proposito
declinabat, Galli similis fratris, licet incruentus. Ammian. xxii. 14. The
ignorance of the most enlightened princes may claim some excuse; but we
cannot be satisfied with Julian's own defence, (in Misopogon, p. 363,
369,) or the elaborate apology of Libanius, (Orat. Parental c. xcvii. p.
321.)]
17 (return)
[ Their short and easy
confinement is gently touched by Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. xcviii. p.
322, 323.)]
18 (return)
[ Libanius, (ad
Antiochenos de Imperatoris ira, c. 17, 18, 19, in Fabricius, Bibliot.
Graec. tom. vii. p. 221-223,) like a skilful advocate, severely censures
the folly of the people, who suffered for the crime of a few obscure and
drunken wretches.]
19 (return)
[ Libanius (ad Antiochen.
c. vii. p. 213) reminds Antioch of the recent chastisement of Caesarea;
and even Julian (in Misopogon, p. 355) insinuates how severely Tarentum
had expiated the insult to the Roman ambassadors.]
20 (return)
[ On the subject of the
Misopogon, see Ammianus, (xxii. 14,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. xcix.
p. 323,) Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 133) and the Chronicle of
Antioch, by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 15, 16.) I have essential
obligations to the translation and notes of the Abbe de la Bleterie, (Vie
de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 1-138.)]
21 (return)
[ Ammianus very justly
remarks, Coactus dissimulare pro tempore ira sufflabatur interna. The
elaborate irony of Julian at length bursts forth into serious and direct
invective.]
22 (return)
[ Ipse autem Antiochiam
egressurus, Heliopoliten quendam Alexandrum Syriacae jurisdictioni
praefecit, turbulentum et saevum; dicebatque non illum meruisse, sed
Antiochensibus avaris et contumeliosis hujusmodi judicem convenire.
Ammian. xxiii. 2. Libanius, (Epist. 722, p. 346, 347,) who confesses to
Julian himself, that he had shared the general discontent, pretends that
Alexander was a useful, though harsh, reformer of the manners and religion
of Antioch.]
23 (return)
[ Julian, in Misopogon,
p. 364. Ammian. xxiii. 2, and Valesius, ad loc. Libanius, in a professed
oration, invites him to return to his loyal and penitent city of Antioch.]
Yet Antioch possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues might atone, in the opinion of Julian, for the vice and folly of his country. The sophist Libanius was born in the capital of the East; he publicly professed the arts of rhetoric and declamation at Nice, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Athens, and, during the remainder of his life, at Antioch. His school was assiduously frequented by the Grecian youth; his disciples, who sometimes exceeded the number of eighty, celebrated their incomparable master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who persecuted him from one city to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which Libanius ostentatiously displayed of his superior merit. The preceptors of Julian had extorted a rash but solemn assurance, that he would never attend the lectures of their adversary: the curiosity of the royal youth was checked and inflamed: he secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the most laborious of his domestic pupils. 24 When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners, and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople, Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference; required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment of a friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, 25 reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might disdain the acclamations of a venal court, who adored the Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the praise, the admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person, celebrated his fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of Libanius still exist; for the most part, they are the vain and idle compositions of an orator, who cultivated the science of words; the productions of a recluse student, whose mind, regardless of his contemporaries, was incessantly fixed on the Trojan war and the Athenian commonwealth. Yet the sophist of Antioch sometimes descended from this imaginary elevation; he entertained a various and elaborate correspondence; 26 he praised the virtues of his own times; he boldly arraigned the abuse of public and private life; and he eloquently pleaded the cause of Antioch against the just resentment of Julian and Theodosius. It is the common calamity of old age, 27 to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable; but Libanius experienced the peculiar misfortune of surviving the religion and the sciences, to which he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was an indignant spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his bigotry, which darkened the prospect of the visible world, did not inspire Libanius with any lively hopes of celestial glory and happiness. 28
24 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat. Parent.
c. vii. p. 230, 231.]
25 (return)
[ Eunapius reports, that
Libanius refused the honorary rank of Praetorian praefect, as less
illustrious than the title of Sophist, (in Vit. Sophist. p. 135.) The
critics have observed a similar sentiment in one of the epistles (xviii.
edit. Wolf) of Libanius himself.]
26 (return)
[ Near two thousand of
his letters—a mode of composition in which Libanius was thought to
excel—are still extant, and already published. The critics may
praise their subtle and elegant brevity; yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation
upon Phalaris, p. 48) might justly, though quaintly observe, that "you
feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse with some
dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk."]
27 (return)
[ His birth is assigned
to the year 314. He mentions the seventy-sixth year of his age, (A. D.
390,) and seems to allude to some events of a still later date.]
28 (return)
[ Libanius has composed
the vain, prolix, but curious narrative of his own life, (tom. ii. p.
1-84, edit. Morell,) of which Eunapius (p. 130-135) has left a concise and
unfavorable account. Among the moderns, Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. iv. p. 571-576,) Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p. 376-414,)
and Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, tom. iv. p. 127-163,) have illustrated
the character and writings of this famous sophist.]
The martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field in the beginning of the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt and reproach, the senate of Antioch, who accompanied the emperor beyond the limits of their own territory, to which he was resolved never to return. After a laborious march of two days, 29 he halted on the third at Beraea, or Aleppo, where he had the mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian; who received with cold and formal demonstrations of respect the eloquent sermon of the apostle of paganism. The son of one of the most illustrious citizens of Beraea, who had embraced, either from interest or conscience, the religion of the emperor, was disinherited by his angry parent. The father and the son were invited to the Imperial table. Julian, placing himself between them, attempted, without success, to inculcate the lesson and example of toleration; supported, with affected calmness, the indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to forget the sentiments of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length, turning towards the afflicted youth, "Since you have lost a father," said he, "for my sake, it is incumbent on me to supply his place." 30 The emperor was received in a manner much more agreeable to his wishes at Batnae, 3011 a small town pleasantly seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the city of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently prepared by the inhabitants of Batnae, who seemed attached to the worship of their tutelar deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the serious piety of Julian was offended by the tumult of their applause; and he too clearly discerned, that the smoke which arose from their altars was the incense of flattery, rather than of devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple which had sanctified, for so many ages, the city of Hierapolis, 31 no longer subsisted; and the consecrated wealth, which afforded a liberal maintenance to more than three hundred priests, might hasten its downfall. Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of embracing a philosopher and a friend, whose religious firmness had withstood the pressing and repeated solicitations of Constantius and Gallus, as often as those princes lodged at his house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the hurry of military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively and uniform. He had now undertaken an important and difficult war; and the anxiety of the event rendered him still more attentive to observe and register the most trifling presages, from which, according to the rules of divination, any knowledge of futurity could be derived. 32 He informed Libanius of his progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle, 33 which displays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship for the sophist of Antioch.
29 (return)
[ From Antioch to
Litarbe, on the territory of Chalcis, the road, over hills and through
morasses, was extremely bad; and the loose stones were cemented only with
sand, (Julian. epist. xxvii.) It is singular enough that the Romans should
have neglected the great communication between Antioch and the Euphrates.
See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 190 Bergier, Hist des Grands Chemins, tom. ii.
p. 100]
30 (return)
[ Julian alludes to this
incident, (epist. xxvii.,) which is more distinctly related by Theodoret,
(l. iii. c. 22.) The intolerant spirit of the father is applauded by
Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 534.) and even by La
Bleterie, (Vie de Julien, p. 413.)]
3011 (return)
[ This name, of
Syriac origin, is found in the Arabic, and means a place in a valley where
waters meet. Julian says, the name of the city is Barbaric, the situation
Greek. The geographer Abulfeda (tab. Syriac. p. 129, edit. Koehler) speaks
of it in a manner to justify the praises of Julian.—St. Martin.
Notes to Le Beau, iii. 56.—M.]
31 (return)
[ See the curious
treatise de Dea Syria, inserted among the works of Lucian, (tom. iii. p.
451-490, edit. Reitz.) The singular appellation of Ninus vetus (Ammian.
xiv. 8) might induce a suspicion, that Heirapolis had been the royal seat
of the Assyrians.]
32 (return)
[ Julian (epist. xxviii.)
kept a regular account of all the fortunate omens; but he suppresses the
inauspicious signs, which Ammianus (xxiii. 2) has carefully recorded.]
33 (return)
[ Julian. epist. xxvii.
p. 399-402.]
Hierapolis, 3311 situate almost on the banks of the Euphrates, 34 had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of boats, which was previously constructed. 35 If the inclinations of Julian had been similar to those of his predecessor, he might have wasted the active and important season of the year in the circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as the warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for his model, he advanced without delay to Carrhae, 36 a very ancient city of Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles from Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally employed in completing the immense preparations of the Persian war. The secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast; but as Carrhae is the point of separation of the two great roads, he could no longer conceal whether it was his design to attack the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of Sebastian, who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to direct their march towards Nisibis, and to secure the frontier from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before they attempted the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were left to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media and Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at the same time that he himself, advancing with equal steps along the banks of the Euphrates, should besiege the capital of the Persian monarchy. The success of this well-concerted plan depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the safety of his own dominions, might detach an army of four thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of the Romans. 37 But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, 38 king of Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more decent excuses of religion and gratitude. He expressed a pious attachment to the memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the praefect Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as the destined wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of a Barbarian king. 39 Tiranus professed the Christian religion; he reigned over a nation of Christians; and he was restrained, by every principle of conscience and interest, from contributing to the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the church. The alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion of Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as his slave, and as the enemy of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the Imperial mandates 40 awakened the secret indignation of a prince, who, in the humiliating state of dependence, was still conscious of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the lords of the East, and the rivals of the Roman power. 4011
3311 (return)
[ Or Bambyce, now
Bambouch; Manbedj Arab., or Maboug, Syr. It was twenty-four Roman miles
from the Euphrates.—M.]
34 (return)
[ I take the earliest
opportunity of acknowledging my obligations to M. d'Anville, for his
recent geography of the Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.,)
which particularly illustrates the expedition of Julian.]
35 (return)
[ There are three
passages within a few miles of each other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the
ancients; 2. Bir, frequented by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of
Menbigz, or Hierapolis, at the distance of four parasangs from the city.
——- Djisr Manbedj is the same with the ancient Zeugma. St.
Martin, iii. 58—M.]
36 (return)
[ Haran, or Carrhae, was
the ancient residence of the Sabaeans, and of Abraham. See the Index
Geographicus of Schultens, (ad calcem Vit. Saladin.,) a work from which I
have obtained much Oriental knowledge concerning the ancient and modern
geography of Syria and the adjacent countries. ——On an
inedited medal in the collection of the late M. Tochon. of the Academy of
Inscriptions, it is read Xappan. St. Martin. iii 60—M.]
37 (return)
[ See Xenophon. Cyropaed.
l. iii. p. 189, edit. Hutchinson. Artavasdes might have supplied Marc
Antony with 16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the Parthian manner,
(Plutarch, in M. Antonio. tom. v. p. 117.)]
38 (return)
[ Moses of Chorene (Hist.
Armeniac. l. iii. c. 11, p. 242) fixes his accession (A. D. 354) to the
17th year of Constantius. ——Arsaces Tiranus, or Diran, had
ceased to reign twenty-five years before, in 337. The intermediate changes
in Armenia, and the character of this Arsaces, the son of Diran, are
traced by M. St. Martin, at considerable length, in his supplement to Le
Beau, ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen Olympias maintained her
influence, Arsaces was faithful to the Roman and Christian alliance. On
the accession of Julian, the same influence made his fidelity to waver;
but Olympias having been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency
of Pharandcem, the former wife of Arsaces, another change took place in
Armenian politics unfavorable to the Christian interest. The patriarch
Narses retired from the impious court to a safe seclusion. Yet Pharandsem
was equally hostile to the Persian influence, and Arsaces began to support
with vigor the cause of Julian. He made an inroad into the Persian
dominions with a body of Rans and Alans as auxiliaries; wasted Aderbidgan
and Sapor, who had been defeated near Tauriz, was engaged in making head
against his troops in Persarmenia, at the time of the death of Julian.
Such is M. St. Martin's view, (ii. 276, et sqq.,) which rests on the
Armenian historians, Faustos of Byzantium, and Mezrob the biographer of
the Partriarch Narses. In the history of Armenia by Father Chamitch, and
translated by Avdall, Tiran is still king of Armenia, at the time of
Julian's death. F. Chamitch follows Moses of Chorene, The authority of
Gibbon.—M.]
39 (return)
[ Ammian. xx. 11.
Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) says, in general terms, that Constantius gave
to his brother's widow, an expression more suitable to a Roman than a
Christian.]
40 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxiii. 2)
uses a word much too soft for the occasion, monuerat. Muratori (Fabricius,
Bibliothec. Graec. tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian
to the satrap Arsaces; fierce, vulgar, and (though it might deceive
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist. de
Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339) translates and rejects it. Note: St. Martin
considers it genuine: the Armenian writers mention such a letter, iii. 37.—M.]
4011 (return)
[ Arsaces did not
abandon the Roman alliance, but gave it only feeble support. St. Martin,
iii. 41—M.]
The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to deceive the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The legions appeared to direct their march towards Nisibis and the Tigris. On a sudden they wheeled to the right; traversed the level and naked plain of Carrhae; and reached, on the third day, the banks of the Euphrates, where the strong town of Nicephorium, or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings. From thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety miles, along the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about one month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers of Circesium, 4012 the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the Caesars had ever led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand effective and well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry and infantry, of Romans and Barbarians, had been selected from the different provinces; and a just preeminence of loyalty and valor was claimed by the hardy Gauls, who guarded the throne and person of their beloved prince. A formidable body of Scythian auxiliaries had been transported from another climate, and almost from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refuse the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates 41 was crowded by a fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of the fleet was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were accompanied by an equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which might occasionally be connected into the form of temporary bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber, and partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and provisions. The vigilant humanity of Julian had embarked a very large magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use of the soldiers, but he prohibited the indulgence of wine; and rigorously stopped a long string of superfluous camels that attempted to follow the rear of the army. The River Chaboras falls into the Euphrates at Circesium; 42 and as soon as the trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little stream which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The custom of ancient discipline required a military oration; and Julian embraced every opportunity of displaying his eloquence. He animated the impatient and attentive legions by the example of the inflexible courage and glorious triumphs of their ancestors. He excited their resentment by a lively picture of the insolence of the Persians; and he exhorted them to imitate his firm resolution, either to extirpate that perfidious nation, or to devote his life in the cause of the republic. The eloquence of Julian was enforced by a donative of one hundred and thirty pieces of silver to every soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras was instantly cut away, to convince the troops that they must place their hopes of safety in the success of their arms. Yet the prudence of the emperor induced him to secure a remote frontier, perpetually exposed to the inroads of the hostile Arabs. A detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium, which completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular garrison of that important fortress. 43
4012 (return)
[ Kirkesia the
Carchemish of the Scriptures.—M.]
41 (return)
[ Latissimum flumen
Euphraten artabat. Ammian. xxiii. 3 Somewhat higher, at the fords of
Thapsacus, the river is four stadia or 800 yards, almost half an English
mile, broad. (Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 41, edit. Hutchinson, with
Foster's Observations, p. 29, &c., in the 2d volume of Spelman's
translation.) If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma is no more
than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335,) the enormous
difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the channel.]
42 (return)
[ Munimentum tutissimum
et fabre politum, Abora (the Orientals aspirate Chaboras or Chabour) et
Euphrates ambiunt flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian.
xxiii. 5.]
43 (return)
[ The enterprise and
armament of Julian are described by himself, (Epist. xxvii.,) Ammianus
Marcellinus, (xxiii. 3, 4, 5,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 108, 109, p.
332, 333,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 160, 161, 162) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. l,) and
John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 17.)]
From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy's country, 44 the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was disposed in three columns. 45 The strength of the infantry, and consequently of the whole army was placed in the centre, under the peculiar command of their master-general Victor. On the right, the brave Nevitta led a column of several legions along the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in sight of the fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column of cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthaeus were appointed generals of the horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas 46 are not undeserving of our notice. He was a Persian prince, of the royal race of the Sassanides, who, in the troubles of the minority of Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable court of the great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, and at length acquired the esteem, of his new masters; his valor and fidelity raised him to the military honors of the Roman service; and though a Christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction of convincing his ungrateful country, than at oppressed subject may prove the most dangerous enemy. Such was the disposition of the three principal columns. The front and flanks of the army were covered by Lucilianus with a flying detachment of fifteen hundred light-armed soldiers, whose active vigilance observed the most distant signs, and conveyed the earliest notice, of any hostile approach. Dagalaiphus, and Secundinus duke of Osrhoene, conducted the troops of the rear-guard; the baggage securely proceeded in the intervals of the columns; and the ranks, from a motive either of use or ostentation, were formed in such open order, that the whole line of march extended almost ten miles. The ordinary post of Julian was at the head of the centre column; but as he preferred the duties of a general to the state of a monarch, he rapidly moved, with a small escort of light cavalry, to the front, the rear, the flanks, wherever his presence could animate or protect the march of the Roman army. The country which they traversed from the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of Assyria, may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a dry and barren waste, which could never be improved by the most powerful arts of human industry. Julian marched over the same ground which had been trod above seven hundred years before by the footsteps of the younger Cyrus, and which is described by one of the companions of his expedition, the sage and heroic Xenophon. 47 "The country was a plain throughout, as even as the sea, and full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or reeds grew there, they had all an aromatic smell, but no trees could be seen. Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses, 48 appeared to be the only inhabitants of the desert; and the fatigues of the march were alleviated by the amusements of the chase." The loose sand of the desert was frequently raised by the wind into clouds of dust; and a great number of the soldiers of Julian, with their tents, were suddenly thrown to the ground by the violence of an unexpected hurricane.
44 (return)
[ Before he enters
Persia, Ammianus copiously describes (xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in
4to.) the eighteen great provinces, (as far as the Seric, or Chinese
frontiers,) which were subject to the Sassanides.]
45 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and
Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162, 163) rately expressed the order of march.]
46 (return)
[ The adventures of
Hormisdas are related with some mixture of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. p.
100-102; Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost
impossible that he should be the brother (frater germanus) of an eldest
and posthumous child: nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives him that
title. * Note: St. Martin conceives that he was an elder brother by
another mother who had several children, ii. 24—M.]
47 (return)
[ See the first book of
the Anabasis, p. 45, 46. This pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet
Xenophon's memory, perhaps many years after the expedition, has sometimes
betrayed him; and the distances which he marks are often larger than
either a soldier or a geographer will allow.]
48 (return)
[ Mr. Spelman, the
English translator of the Anabasis, (vol. i. p. 51,) confounds the
antelope with the roebuck, and the wild ass with the zebra.]
The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the antelopes and wild asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns and villages were pleasantly situated on the banks of the Euphrates, and in the islands which are occasionally formed by that river. The city of Annah, or Anatho, 49 the actual residence of an Arabian emir, is composed of two long streets, which enclose, within a natural fortification, a small island in the midst, and two fruitful spots on either side, of the Euphrates. The warlike inhabitants of Anatho showed a disposition to stop the march of a Roman emperor; till they were diverted from such fatal presumption by the mild exhortations of Prince Hormisdas, and the approaching terrors of the fleet and army. They implored, and experienced, the clemency of Julian, who transplanted the people to an advantageous settlement, near Chalcis in Syria, and admitted Pusaeus, the governor, to an honorable rank in his service and friendship. But the impregnable fortress of Thilutha could scorn the menace of a siege; and the emperor was obliged to content himself with an insulting promise, that, when he had subdued the interior provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no longer refuse to grace the triumph of the emperor. The inhabitants of the open towns, unable to resist, and unwilling to yield, fled with precipitation; and their houses, filled with spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian, who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, 4911 or Persian general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of Gassan, 50 incessantly hovered round the army; every straggler was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day less favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans arrived at Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall, which had been constructed by the ancient kings of Assyria, to secure their dominions from the incursions of the Medes. These preliminaries of the expedition of Julian appear to have employed about fifteen days; and we may compute near three hundred miles from the fortress of Circesium to the wall of Macepracta. 51
49 (return)
[ See Voyages de
Tavernier, part i. l. iii. p. 316, and more especially Viaggi di Pietro
della Valle, tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 671, &c. He was ignorant of the
old name and condition of Annah. Our blind travellers seldom possess any
previous knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort
deserve an honorable exception.]
4911 (return)
[ This is not a
title, but the name of a great Persian family. St. Martin, iii. 79.—M.]
50 (return)
[ Famosi nominis latro,
says Ammianus; a high encomium for an Arab. The tribe of Gassan had
settled on the edge of Syria, and reigned some time in Damascus, under a
dynasty of thirty-one kings, or emirs, from the time of Pompey to that of
the Khalif Omar. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 360. Pococke,
Specimen Hist. Arabicae, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces does not appear
in the list. * Note: Rodosaces-malek is king. St. Martin considers that
Gibbon has fallen into an error in bringing the tribe of Gassan to the
Euphrates. In Ammianus it is Assan. M. St. Martin would read Massanitarum,
the same with the Mauzanitae of Malala.—M.]
51 (return)
[ See Ammianus, (xxiv. 1,
2,) Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. 110, 111, p. 334,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
164-168.) * Note: This Syriac or Chaldaic has relation to its position; it
easily bears the signification of the division of the waters. M. St. M.
considers it the Missice of Pliny, v. 26. St. Martin, iii. 83.—M.]
The fertile province of Assyria, 52 which stretched beyond the Tigris, as far as the mountains of Media, 53 extended about four hundred miles from the ancient wall of Macepracta, to the territory of Basra, where the united streams of the Euphrates and Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian Gulf. 54 The whole country might have claimed the peculiar name of Mesopotamia; as the two rivers, which are never more distant than fifty, approach, between Bagdad and Babylon, within twenty-five miles, of each other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much labor in a soft and yielding soil connected the rivers, and intersected the plain of Assyria. The uses of these artificial canals were various and important. They served to discharge the superfluous waters from one river into the other, at the season of their respective inundations. Subdividing themselves into smaller and smaller branches, they refreshed the dry lands, and supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated the intercourse of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be speedily broke down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with the means of opposing a sudden deluge to the progress of an invading army. To the soil and climate of Assyria, nature had denied some of her choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree; 5411 but the food which supports the life of man, and particularly wheat and barley, were produced with inexhaustible fertility; and the husbandman, who committed his seed to the earth, was frequently rewarded with an increase of two, or even of three, hundred. The face of the country was interspersed with groves of innumerable palm-trees; 55 and the diligent natives celebrated, either in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were skilfully applied. Several manufactures, especially those of leather and linen, employed the industry of a numerous people, and afforded valuable materials for foreign trade; which appears, however, to have been conducted by the hands of strangers. Babylon had been converted into a royal park; but near the ruins of the ancient capital, new cities had successively arisen, and the populousness of the country was displayed in the multitude of towns and villages, which were built of bricks dried in the sun, and strongly cemented with bitumen; the natural and peculiar production of the Babylonian soil. While the successors of Cyrus reigned over Asia, the province of Syria alone maintained, during a third part of the year, the luxurious plenty of the table and household of the Great King. Four considerable villages were assigned for the subsistence of his Indian dogs; eight hundred stallions, and sixteen thousand mares, were constantly kept, at the expense of the country, for the royal stables; and as the daily tribute, which was paid to the satrap, amounted to one English bushe of silver, we may compute the annual revenue of Assyria at more than twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. 56
52 (return)
[ The description of
Assyria, is furnished by Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, &c.,) who sometimes
writes for children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo, (l. xvi.
p. 1070-1082,) and by Ammianus, (l.xxiii. c. 6.) The most useful of the
modern travellers are Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 226-258,) Otter, (tom.
ii. p. 35-69, and 189-224,) and Niebuhr, (tom. ii. p. 172-288.) Yet I much
regret that the Irak Arabi of Abulfeda has not been translated.]
53 (return)
[ Ammianus remarks, that
the primitive Assyria, which comprehended Ninus, (Nineveh,) and Arbela,
had assumed the more recent and peculiar appellation of Adiabene; and he
seems to fix Teredon, Vologesia, and Apollonia, as the extreme cities of
the actual province of Assyria.]
54 (return)
[ The two rivers unite at
Apamea, or Corna, (one hundred miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the
broad stream of the Pasitigris, or Shutul-Arab. The Euphrates formerly
reached the sea by a separate channel, which was obstructed and diverted
by the citizens of Orchoe, about twenty miles to the south-east of modern
Basra. (D'Anville, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom.xxx.
p. 171-191.)]
5411 (return)
[ We are informed by
Mr. Gibbon, that nature has denied to the soil an climate of Assyria some
of her choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might
have been the case ir the age of Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not so at
the present day; and it is a curious fact that the grape, the olive, and
the fig, are the most common fruits in the province, and may be seen in
every garden. Macdonald Kinneir, Geogr. Mem. on Persia 239—M.]
55 (return)
[ The learned Kaempfer,
as a botanist, an antiquary, and a traveller, has exhausted (Amoenitat.
Exoticae, Fasicul. iv. p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees.]
56 (return)
[ Assyria yielded to the
Persian satrap an Artaba of silver each day. The well-known proportion of
weights and measures (see Bishop Hooper's elaborate Inquiry,) the specific
gravity of water and silver, and the value of that metal, will afford,
after a short process, the annual revenue which I have stated. Yet the
Great King received no more than 1000 Euboic, or Tyrian, talents
(252,000l.) from Assyria. The comparison of two passages in Herodotus, (l.
i. c. 192, l. iii. c. 89-96) reveals an important difference between the
gross, and the net, revenue of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and
the gold or silver deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might
annually save three millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the seventeen
or eighteen millions raised upon the people.]
The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the calamities of war; and the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the acts of rapine and cruelty which had been committed by their haughty master in the Roman provinces. The trembling Assyrians summoned the rivers to their assistance; and completed, with their own hands, the ruin of their country. The roads were rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was poured into the camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian were obliged to contend with the most discouraging hardships. But every obstacle was surmounted by the perseverance of the legionaries, who were inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage was gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper channels; whole groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed along the broken parts of the road; and the army passed over the broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts, which were supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria presumed to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the severe penalty of their rashness. At the distance of fifty miles from the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, 5711 or Anbar, held the second rank in the province; a city, large, populous, and well fortified, surrounded with a double wall, almost encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and defended by the valor of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of Hormisdas were repulsed with contempt; and the ears of the Persian prince were wounded by a just reproach, that, unmindful of his royal birth, he conducted an army of strangers against his king and country. The Assyrians maintained their loyalty by a skilful, as well as vigorous, defence; till the lucky stroke of a battering-ram, having opened a large breach, by shattering one of the angles of the wall, they hastily retired into the fortifications of the interior citadel. The soldiers of Julian rushed impetuously into the town, and after the full gratification of every military appetite, Perisabor was reduced to ashes; and the engines which assaulted the citadel were planted on the ruins of the smoking houses. The contest was continued by an incessant and mutual discharge of missile weapons; and the superiority which the Romans might derive from the mechanical powers of their balistae and catapultae was counterbalanced by the advantage of the ground on the side of the besieged. But as soon as an Helepolis had been constructed, which could engage on equal terms with the loftiest ramparts, the tremendous aspect of a moving turret, that would leave no hope of resistance or mercy, terrified the defenders of the citadel into an humble submission; and the place was surrendered only two days after Julian first appeared under the walls of Perisabor. Two thousand five hundred persons, of both sexes, the feeble remnant of a flourishing people, were permitted to retire; the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms, and of splendid furniture, were partly distributed among the troops, and partly reserved for the public service; the useless stores were destroyed by fire or thrown into the stream of the Euphrates; and the fate of Amida was revenged by the total ruin of Perisabor.
5711 (return)
[ Libanius says that
it was a great city of Assyria, called after the name of the reigning
king. The orator of Antioch is not mistaken. The Persians and Syrians
called it Fyrouz Schapour or Fyrouz Schahbour; in Persian, the victory of
Schahpour. It owed that name to Sapor the First. It was before called
Anbar St. Martin, iii. 85.—M.]
The city or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was defended by sixteen large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong and solid walls of brick and bitumen, appears to have been constructed at the distance of eleven miles, as the safeguard of the capital of Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of leaving such an important fortress in his rear, immediately formed the siege of Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that purpose, into three divisions. Victor, at the head of the cavalry, and of a detachment of heavy-armed foot, was ordered to clear the country, as far as the banks of the Tigris, and the suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of the attack was assumed by Julian himself, who seemed to place his whole dependence in the military engines which he erected against the walls; while he secretly contrived a more efficacious method of introducing his troops into the heart of the city Under the direction of Nevitta and Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a considerable distance, and gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the incessant labor of the troops, a mine was carried under the foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals, by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he was ready to issue from his confinement into the streets of the hostile city. Julian checked their ardor, that he might insure their success; and immediately diverted the attention of the garrison, by the tumult and clamor of a general assault. The Persians, who, from their walls, contemptuously beheld the progress of an impotent attack, celebrated with songs of triumph the glory of Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that he might ascend the starry mansion of Ormusd, before he could hope to take the impregnable city of Maogamalcha. The city was already taken. History has recorded the name of a private soldier the first who ascended from the mine into a deserted tower. The passage was widened by his companions, who pressed forwards with impatient valor. Fifteen hundred enemies were already in the midst of the city. The astonished garrison abandoned the walls, and their only hope of safety; the gates were instantly burst open; and the revenge of the soldier, unless it were suspended by lust or avarice, was satiated by an undistinguishing massacre. The governor, who had yielded on a promise of mercy, was burnt alive, a few days afterwards, on a charge of having uttered some disrespectful words against the honor of Prince Hormisdas. The fortifications were razed to the ground; and not a vestige was left, that the city of Maogamalcha had ever existed. The neighborhood of the capital of Persia was adorned with three stately palaces, laboriously enriched with every production that could gratify the luxury and pride of an Eastern monarch. The pleasant situation of the gardens along the banks of the Tigris, was improved, according to the Persian taste, by the symmetry of flowers, fountains, and shady walks: and spacious parks were enclosed for the reception of the bears, lions, and wild boars, which were maintained at a considerable expense for the pleasure of the royal chase. The park walls were broken down, the savage game was abandoned to the darts of the soldiers, and the palaces of Sapor were reduced to ashes, by the command of the Roman emperor. Julian, on this occasion, showed himself ignorant, or careless, of the laws of civility, which the prudence and refinement of polished ages have established between hostile princes. Yet these wanton ravages need not excite in our breasts any vehement emotions of pity or resentment. A simple, naked statue, finished by the hand of a Grecian artist, is of more genuine value than all these rude and costly monuments of Barbaric labor; and, if we are more deeply affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life. 57
57 (return)
[ The operations of the
Assyrian war are circumstantially related by Ammianus, (xxiv. 2, 3, 4, 5,)
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 112-123, p. 335-347,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
168-180,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat iv. p. 113, 144.) The military
criticisms of the saint are devoutly copied by Tillemont, his faithful
slave.]
Julian was an object of hatred and terror to the Persian and the painters of that nation represented the invader of their country under the emblem of a furious lion, who vomited from his mouth a consuming fire. 58 To his friends and soldiers the philosophic hero appeared in a more amiable light; and his virtues were never more conspicuously displayed, than in the last and most active period of his life. He practised, without effort, and almost without merit, the habitual qualities of temperance and sobriety. According to the dictates of that artificial wisdom, which assumes an absolute dominion over the mind and body, he sternly refused himself the indulgence of the most natural appetites. 59 In the warm climate of Assyria, which solicited a luxurious people to the gratification of every sensual desire, 60 a youthful conqueror preserved his chastity pure and inviolate; nor was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive of curiosity, to visit his female captives of exquisite beauty, 61 who, instead of resisting his power, would have disputed with each other the honor of his embraces. With the same firmness that he resisted the allurements of love, he sustained the hardships of war. When the Romans marched through the flat and flooded country, their sovereign, on foot, at the head of his legions, shared their fatigues and animated their diligence. In every useful labor, the hand of Julian was prompt and strenuous; and the Imperial purple was wet and dirty as the coarse garment of the meanest soldier. The two sieges allowed him some remarkable opportunities of signalizing his personal valor, which, in the improved state of the military art, can seldom be exerted by a prudent general. The emperor stood before the citadel before the citadel of Perisabor, insensible of his extreme danger, and encouraged his troops to burst open the gates of iron, till he was almost overwhelmed under a cloud of missile weapons and huge stones, that were directed against his person. As he examined the exterior fortifications of Maogamalcha, two Persians, devoting themselves for their country, suddenly rushed upon him with drawn cimeters: the emperor dexterously received their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a steady and well-aimed thrust, laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet. The esteem of a prince who possesses the virtues which he approves, is the noblest recompense of a deserving subject; and the authority which Julian derived from his personal merit, enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of ancient discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior of three troops of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had lost their honor and one of their standards: and he distinguished with obsidional 62 crowns the valor of the foremost soldiers, who had ascended into the city of Maogamalcha.
After the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor was exercised by the insolent avarice of the army, who loudly complained, that their services were rewarded by a trifling donative of one hundred pieces of silver. His just indignation was expressed in the grave and manly language of a Roman. "Riches are the object of your desires; those riches are in the hands of the Persians; and the spoils of this fruitful country are proposed as the prize of your valor and discipline. Believe me," added Julian, "the Roman republic, which formerly possessed such immense treasures, is now reduced to want and wretchedness once our princes have been persuaded, by weak and interested ministers, to purchase with gold the tranquillity of the Barbarians. The revenue is exhausted; the cities are ruined; the provinces are dispeopled. For myself, the only inheritance that I have received from my royal ancestors is a soul incapable of fear; and as long as I am convinced that every real advantage is seated in the mind, I shall not blush to acknowledge an honorable poverty, which, in the days of ancient virtue, was considered as the glory of Fabricius. That glory, and that virtue, may be your own, if you will listen to the voice of Heaven and of your leader. But if you will rashly persist, if you are determined to renew the shameful and mischievous examples of old seditions, proceed. As it becomes an emperor who has filled the first rank among men, I am prepared to die, standing; and to despise a precarious life, which, every hour, may depend on an accidental fever. If I have been found unworthy of the command, there are now among you, (I speak it with pride and pleasure,) there are many chiefs whose merit and experience are equal to the conduct of the most important war. Such has been the temper of my reign, that I can retire, without regret, and without apprehension, to the obscurity of a private station" 63 The modest resolution of Julian was answered by the unanimous applause and cheerful obedience of the Romans, who declared their confidence of victory, while they fought under the banners of their heroic prince. Their courage was kindled by his frequent and familiar asseverations, (for such wishes were the oaths of Julian,) "So may I reduce the Persians under the yoke!" "Thus may I restore the strength and splendor of the republic!" The love of fame was the ardent passion of his soul: but it was not before he trampled on the ruins of Maogamalcha, that he allowed himself to say, "We have now provided some materials for the sophist of Antioch." 64
58 (return)
[ Libanius de ulciscenda
Juliani nece, c. 13, p. 162.]
59 (return)
[ The famous examples of
Cyrus, Alexander, and Scipio, were acts of justice. Julian's chastity was
voluntary, and, in his opinion, meritorious.]
60 (return)
[ Sallust (ap. Vet.
Scholiast. Juvenal. Satir. i. 104) observes, that nihil corruptius
moribus. The matrons and virgins of Babylon freely mingled with the men in
licentious banquets; and as they felt the intoxication of wine and love,
they gradually, and almost completely, threw aside the encumbrance of
dress; ad ultimum ima corporum velamenta projiciunt. Q. Curtius, v. 1.]
61 (return)
[ Ex virginibus autem
quae speciosae sunt captae, et in Perside, ubi faeminarum pulchritudo
excellit, nec contrectare aliquam votuit nec videre. Ammian. xxiv. 4. The
native race of Persians is small and ugly; but it has been improved by the
perpetual mixture of Circassian blood, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 97. Buffon,
Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 420.)]
62 (return)
[ Obsidionalibus coronis
donati. Ammian. xxiv. 4. Either Julian or his historian were unskillful
antiquaries. He should have given mural crowns. The obsidional were the
reward of a general who had delivered a besieged city, (Aulus Gellius,
Noct. Attic. v. 6.)]
63 (return)
[ I give this speech as
original and genuine. Ammianus might hear, could transcribe, and was
incapable of inventing, it. I have used some slight freedoms, and conclude
with the most forcibic sentence.]
64 (return)
[ Ammian. xxiv. 3.
Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 122, p. 346.]
The successful valor of Julian had triumphed over all the obstacles that opposed his march to the gates of Ctesiphon. But the reduction, or even the siege, of the capital of Persia, was still at a distance: nor can the military conduct of the emperor be clearly apprehended, without a knowledge of the country which was the theatre of his bold and skilful operations. 65 Twenty miles to the south of Bagdad, and on the eastern bank of the Tigris, the curiosity of travellers has observed some ruins of the palaces of Ctesiphon, which, in the time of Julian, was a great and populous city. The name and glory of the adjacent Seleucia were forever extinguished; and the only remaining quarter of that Greek colony had resumed, with the Assyrian language and manners, the primitive appellation of Coche. Coche was situate on the western side of the Tigris; but it was naturally considered as a suburb of Ctesiphon, with which we may suppose it to have been connected by a permanent bridge of boats.
The united parts contribute to form the common epithet of Al Modain, the cities, which the Orientals have bestowed on the winter residence of the Sassinadees; and the whole circumference of the Persian capital was strongly fortified by the waters of the river, by lofty walls, and by impracticable morasses. Near the ruins of Seleucia, the camp of Julian was fixed, and secured, by a ditch and rampart, against the sallies of the numerous and enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant country, the Romans were plentifully supplied with water and forage: and several forts, which might have embarrassed the motions of the army, submitted, after some resistance, to the efforts of their valor. The fleet passed from the Euphrates into an artificial derivation of that river, which pours a copious and navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance below the great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore the name of Nahar-Malcha, 66 the intermediate situation of Coche would have separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the rash attempt of steering against the current of the Tigris, and forcing their way through the midst of a hostile capital, must have been attended with the total destruction of the Roman navy. The prudence of the emperor foresaw the danger, and provided the remedy. As he had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in the same country, he soon recollected that his warlike predecessor had dug a new and navigable canal, which, leaving Coche on the right hand, conveyed the waters of the Nahar-Malcha into the river Tigris, at some distance above the cities. From the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or accident. By the indefatigable labor of the soldiers, a broad and deep channel was speedily prepared for the reception of the Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to interrupt the ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed impetuously into their new bed; and the Roman fleet, steering their triumphant course into the Tigris, derided the vain and ineffectual barriers which the Persians of Ctesiphon had erected to oppose their passage.
65 (return)
[ M. d'Anville, (Mem. de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxviii p. 246-259) has ascertained the
true position and distance of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Bagdad, &c.
The Roman traveller, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 650-780,)
seems to be the most intelligent spectator of that famous province. He is
a gentleman and a scholar, but intolerably vain and prolix.]
66 (return)
[ The Royal Canal
(Nahar-Malcha) might be successively restored, altered, divided, &c.,
(Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 453;) and these changes may serve
to explain the seeming contradictions of antiquity. In the time of Julian,
it must have fallen into the Euphrates below Ctesiphon.]
As it became necessary to transport the Roman army over the Tigris, another labor presented itself, of less toil, but of more danger, than the preceding expedition. The stream was broad and rapid; the ascent steep and difficult; and the intrenchments which had been formed on the ridge of the opposite bank, were lined with a numerous army of heavy cuirrasiers, dexterous archers, and huge elephants; who (according to the extravagant hyperbole of Libanius) could trample with the same ease a field of corn, or a legion of Romans. 67 In the presence of such an enemy, the construction of a bridge was impracticable; and the intrepid prince, who instantly seized the only possible expedient, concealed his design, till the moment of execution, from the knowledge of the Barbarians, of his own troops, and even of his generals themselves. Under the specious pretence of examining the state of the magazines, fourscore vessels 6711 were gradually unladen; and a select detachment, apparently destined for some secret expedition, was ordered to stand to their arms on the first signal. Julian disguised the silent anxiety of his own mind with smiles of confidence and joy; and amused the hostile nations with the spectacle of military games, which he insultingly celebrated under the walls of Coche. The day was consecrated to pleasure; but, as soon as the hour of supper was passed, the emperor summoned the generals to his tent, and acquainted them that he had fixed that night for the passage of the Tigris. They stood in silent and respectful astonishment; but, when the venerable Sallust assumed the privilege of his age and experience, the rest of the chiefs supported with freedom the weight of his prudent remonstrances. 68 Julian contented himself with observing, that conquest and safety depended on the attempt; that instead of diminishing, the number of their enemies would be increased, by successive reenforcements; and that a longer delay would neither contract the breadth of the stream, nor level the height of the bank. The signal was instantly given, and obeyed; the most impatient of the legionaries leaped into five vessels that lay nearest to the bank; and as they plied their oars with intrepid diligence, they were lost, after a few moments, in the darkness of the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. "Our fellow-soldiers," he eagerly exclaimed, "are already masters of the bank; see—they make the appointed signal; let us hasten to emulate and assist their courage." The united and rapid motion of a great fleet broke the violence of the current, and they reached the eastern shore of the Tigris with sufficient speed to extinguish the flames, and rescue their adventurous companions. The difficulties of a steep and lofty ascent were increased by the weight of armor, and the darkness of the night. A shower of stones, darts, and fire, was incessantly discharged on the heads of the assailants; who, after an arduous struggle, climbed the bank and stood victorious upon the rampart. As soon as they possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with his light infantry, had led the attack, 69 darted through the ranks a skilful and experienced eye: his bravest soldiers, according to the precepts of Homer, 70 were distributed in the front and rear: and all the trumpets of the Imperial army sounded to battle. The Romans, after sending up a military shout, advanced in measured steps to the animating notes of martial music; launched their formidable javelins; and rushed forwards with drawn swords, to deprive the Barbarians, by a closer onset, of the advantage of their missile weapons. The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours; till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leader, and the Surenas himself. They were pursued to the gates of Ctesiphon; and the conquerors might have entered the dismayed city, 71 if their general, Victor, who was dangerously wounded with an arrow, had not conjured them to desist from a rash attempt, which must be fatal, if it were not successful. On their side, the Romans acknowledged the loss of only seventy-five men; while they affirmed, that the Barbarians had left on the field of battle two thousand five hundred, or even six thousand, of their bravest soldiers. The spoil was such as might be expected from the riches and luxury of an Oriental camp; large quantities of silver and gold, splendid arms and trappings, and beds and tables of massy silver. 7111 The victorious emperor distributed, as the rewards of valor, some honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he, and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious events; and Julian soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that he had now reached the term of his prosperity. 72
67 (return)
[ Rien n'est beau que le
vrai; a maxim which should be inscribed on the desk of every rhetorician.]
6711 (return)
[ This is a mistake;
each vessel (according to Zosimus two, according to Ammianus five) had
eighty men. Amm. xxiv. 6, with Wagner's note. Gibbon must have read
octogenas for octogenis. The five vessels selected for this service were
remarkably large and strong provision transports. The strength of the
fleet remained with Julian to carry over the army—M.]
68 (return)
[ Libanius alludes to the
most powerful of the generals. I have ventured to name Sallust. Ammianus
says, of all the leaders, quod acri metu territ acrimetu territi duces
concordi precatu precaut fieri prohibere tentarent. * Note: It is evident
that Gibbon has mistaken the sense of Libanius; his words can only apply
to a commander of a detachment, not to so eminent a person as the Praefect
of the East. St. Martin, iii. 313.—-M.]
69 (return)
[ Hinc Imperator....
(says Ammianus) ipse cum levis armaturae auxiliis per prima postremaque
discurrens, &c. Yet Zosimus, his friend, does not allow him to pass
the river till two days after the battle.]
70 (return)
[ Secundum Homericam
dispositionem. A similar disposition is ascribed to the wise Nestor, in
the fourth book of the Iliad; and Homer was never absent from the mind of
Julian.]
71 (return)
[ Persas terrore subito
miscuerunt, versisque agminibus totius gentis, apertas Ctesiphontis portas
victor miles intrasset, ni major praedarum occasio fuisset, quam cura
victoriae, (Sextus Rufus de Provinciis c. 28.) Their avarice might dispose
them to hear the advice of Victor.]
7111 (return)
[ The suburbs of
Ctesiphon, according to a new fragment of Eunapius, were so full of
provisions, that the soldiers were in danger of suffering from excess.
Mai, p. 260. Eunapius in Niebuhr. Nov. Byz. Coll. 68. Julian exhibited
warlike dances and games in his camp to recreate the soldiers Ibid.—M.]
72 (return)
[ The labor of the canal,
the passage of the Tigris, and the victory, are described by Ammianus,
(xxiv. 5, 6,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 124-128, p. 347-353,) Greg.
Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 115,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 181-183,) and Sextus
Rufus, (de Provinciis, c. 28.)]
On the second day after the battle, the domestic guards, the Jovians and Herculians, and the remaining troops, which composed near two thirds of the whole army, were securely wafted over the Tigris. 73 While the Persians beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon the desolation of the adjacent country, Julian cast many an anxious look towards the North, in full expectation, that as he himself had victoriously penetrated to the capital of Sapor, the march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian and Procopius, would be executed with the same courage and diligence. His expectations were disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian king, who permitted, and most probably directed, the desertion of his auxiliary troops from the camp of the Romans; 74 and by the dissensions of the two generals, who were incapable of forming or executing any plan for the public service. When the emperor had relinquished the hope of this important reenforcement, he condescended to hold a council of war, and approved, after a full debate, the sentiment of those generals, who dissuaded the siege of Ctesiphon, as a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. It is not easy for us to conceive, by what arts of fortification a city thrice besieged and taken by the predecessors of Julian could be rendered impregnable against an army of sixty thousand Romans, commanded by a brave and experienced general, and abundantly supplied with ships, provisions, battering engines, and military stores. But we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and contempt of danger, which formed the character of Julian, that he was not discouraged by any trivial or imaginary obstacles. 75 At the very time when he declined the siege of Ctesiphon, he rejected, with obstinacy and disdain, the most flattering offers of a negotiation of peace. Sapor, who had been so long accustomed to the tardy ostentation of Constantius, was surprised by the intrepid diligence of his successor. As far as the confines of India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant provinces were ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without delay, to the assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army into the field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his palaces, and the slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended the passage of the Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the dust; he took his repasts on the ground; and the disorder of his hair expressed the grief and anxiety of his mind. Perhaps he would not have refused to purchase, with one half of his kingdom, the safety of the remainder; and he would have gladly subscribed himself, in a treaty of peace, the faithful and dependent ally of the Roman conqueror. Under the pretence of private business, a minister of rank and confidence was secretly despatched to embrace the knees of Hormisdas, and to request, in the language of a suppliant, that he might be introduced into the presence of the emperor. The Sassanian prince, whether he listened to the voice of pride or humanity, whether he consulted the sentiments of his birth, or the duties of his situation, was equally inclined to promote a salutary measure, which would terminate the calamities of Persia, and secure the triumph of Rome. He was astonished by the inflexible firmness of a hero, who remembered, most unfortunately for himself and for his country, that Alexander had uniformly rejected the propositions of Darius. But as Julian was sensible, that the hope of a safe and honorable peace might cool the ardor of his troops, he earnestly requested that Hormisdas would privately dismiss the minister of Sapor, and conceal this dangerous temptation from the knowledge of the camp. 76
73 (return)
[ The fleet and army were
formed in three divisions, of which the first only had passed during the
night.]
74 (return)
[ Moses of Chorene (Hist.
Armen. l. iii. c. 15, p. 246) supplies us with a national tradition, and a
spurious letter. I have borrowed only the leading circumstance, which is
consistent with truth, probability, and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 131,
p. 355.)]
75 (return)
[ Civitas inexpugnabilis,
facinus audax et importunum. Ammianus, xxiv. 7. His fellow-soldier,
Eutropius, turns aside from the difficulty, Assyriamque populatus, castra
apud Ctesiphontem stativa aliquandiu habuit: remeansbue victor, &c. x.
16. Zosimus is artful or ignorant, and Socrates inaccurate.]
76 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat. Parent.
c. 130, p. 354, c. 139, p. 361. Socrates, l. iii. c. 21. The
ecclesiastical historian imputes the refusal of peace to the advice of
Maximus. Such advice was unworthy of a philosopher; but the philosopher
was likewise a magician, who flattered the hopes and passions of his
master.]
The honor, as well as interest, of Julian, forbade him to consume his time under the impregnable walls of Ctesiphon and as often as he defied the Barbarians, who defended the city, to meet him on the open plain, they prudently replied, that if he desired to exercise his valor, he might seek the army of the Great King. He felt the insult, and he accepted the advice. Instead of confining his servile march to the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, he resolved to imitate the adventurous spirit of Alexander, and boldly to advance into the inland provinces, till he forced his rival to contend with him, perhaps in the plains of Arbela, for the empire of Asia. The magnanimity of Julian was applauded and betrayed, by the arts of a noble Persian, who, in the cause of his country, had generously submitted to act a part full of danger, of falsehood, and of shame. 77 With a train of faithful followers, he deserted to the Imperial camp; exposed, in a specious tale, the injuries which he had sustained; exaggerated the cruelty of Sapor, the discontent of the people, and the weakness of the monarchy; and confidently offered himself as the hostage and guide of the Roman march. The most rational grounds of suspicion were urged, without effect, by the wisdom and experience of Hormisdas; and the credulous Julian, receiving the traitor into his bosom, was persuaded to issue a hasty order, which, in the opinion of mankind, appeared to arraign his prudence, and to endanger his safety. He destroyed, in a single hour, the whole navy, which had been transported above five hundred miles, at so great an expense of toil, of treasure, and of blood. Twelve, or, at the most, twenty-two small vessels were saved, to accompany, on carriages, the march of the army, and to form occasional bridges for the passage of the rivers. A supply of twenty days' provisions was reserved for the use of the soldiers; and the rest of the magazines, with a fleet of eleven hundred vessels, which rode at anchor in the Tigris, were abandoned to the flames, by the absolute command of the emperor. The Christian bishops, Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness of the Apostate, who executed, with his own hands, the sentence of divine justice. Their authority, of less weight, perhaps, in a military question, is confirmed by the cool judgment of an experienced soldier, who was himself spectator of the conflagration, and who could not disapprove the reluctant murmurs of the troops. 78 Yet there are not wanting some specious, and perhaps solid, reasons, which might justify the resolution of Julian. The navigation of the Euphrates never ascended above Babylon, nor that of the Tigris above Opis. 79 The distance of the last-mentioned city from the Roman camp was not very considerable: and Julian must soon have renounced the vain and impracticable attempt of forcing upwards a great fleet against the stream of a rapid river, 80 which in several places was embarrassed by natural or artificial cataracts. 81 The power of sails and oars was insufficient; it became necessary to tow the ships against the current of the river; the strength of twenty thousand soldiers was exhausted in this tedious and servile labor, and if the Romans continued to march along the banks of the Tigris, they could only expect to return home without achieving any enterprise worthy of the genius or fortune of their leader. If, on the contrary, it was advisable to advance into the inland country, the destruction of the fleet and magazines was the only measure which could save that valuable prize from the hands of the numerous and active troops which might suddenly be poured from the gates of Ctesiphon. Had the arms of Julian been victorious, we should now admire the conduct, as well as the courage, of a hero, who, by depriving his soldiers of the hopes of a retreat, left them only the alternative of death or conquest. 82
77 (return)
[ The arts of this new
Zopyrus (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 115, 116) may derive some credit
from the testimony of two abbreviators, (Sextus Rufus and Victor,) and the
casual hints of Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357) and Ammianus,
(xxiv. 7.) The course of genuine history is interrupted by a most
unseasonable chasm in the text of Ammianus.]
78 (return)
[ See Ammianus, (xxiv.
7,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. 132, 133, p. 356, 357,) Zosimus, (l.
iii. p. 183,) Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 26) Gregory, (Orat. iv. p.
116,) and Augustin, (de Civitate Dei, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 21.) Of these
Libanius alone attempts a faint apology for his hero; who, according to
Ammianus, pronounced his own condemnation by a tardy and ineffectual
attempt to extinguish the flames.]
79 (return)
[ Consult Herodotus, (l.
i. c. 194,) Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1074,) and Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p.
152.)]
80 (return)
[ A celeritate Tigris
incipit vocari, ita appellant Medi sagittam. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 31.]
81 (return)
[ One of these dikes,
which produces an artificial cascade or cataract, is described by
Tavernier (part i. l. ii. p. 226) and Thevenot, (part ii. l. i. p. 193.)
The Persians, or Assyrians, labored to interrupt the navigation of the
river, (Strabo, l. xv. p. 1075. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 98,
99.)]
82 (return)
[ Recollect the
successful and applauded rashness of Agathocles and Cortez, who burnt
their ships on the coast of Africa and Mexico.]
The cumbersome train of artillery and wagons, which retards the operations of a modern army, were in a great measure unknown in the camps of the Romans. 83 Yet, in every age, the subsistence of sixty thousand men must have been one of the most important cares of a prudent general; and that subsistence could only be drawn from his own or from the enemy's country. Had it been possible for Julian to maintain a bridge of communication on the Tigris, and to preserve the conquered places of Assyria, a desolated province could not afford any large or regular supplies, in a season of the year when the lands were covered by the inundation of the Euphrates, 84 and the unwholesome air was darkened with swarms of innumerable insects. 85 The appearance of the hostile country was far more inviting. The extensive region that lies between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media, was filled with villages and towns; and the fertile soil, for the most part, was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved, the inhabitants deserted the open villages, and took shelter in the fortified towns; the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method of defence can only be executed by the enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice. On the present occasion the zeal and obedience of the Persians seconded the commands of Sapor; and the emperor was soon reduced to the scanty stock of provisions, which continually wasted in his hands. Before they were entirely consumed, he might still have reached the wealthy and unwarlike cities of Ecbatana or Susa, by the effort of a rapid and well-directed march; 86 but he was deprived of this last resource by his ignorance of the roads, and by the perfidy of his guides. The Romans wandered several days in the country to the eastward of Bagdad; the Persian deserter, who had artfully led them into the spare, escaped from their resentment; and his followers, as soon as they were put to the torture, confessed the secret of the conspiracy. The visionary conquests of Hyrcania and India, which had so long amused, now tormented, the mind of Julian. Conscious that his own imprudence was the cause of the public distress, he anxiously balanced the hopes of safety or success, without obtaining a satisfactory answer, either from gods or men. At length, as the only practicable measure, he embraced the resolution of directing his steps towards the banks of the Tigris, with the design of saving the army by a hasty march to the confines of Corduene; a fertile and friendly province, which acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. The desponding troops obeyed the signal of the retreat, only seventy days after they had passed the Chaboras, with the sanguine expectation of subverting the throne of Persia. 87
83 (return)
[ See the judicious
reflections of the author of the Essai sur la Tactique, tom. ii. p.
287-353, and the learned remarks of M. Guichardt Nouveaux Memoires
Militaires, tom. i. p. 351-382, on the baggage and subsistence of the
Roman armies.]
84 (return)
[ The Tigris rises to the
south, the Euphrates to the north, of the Armenian mountains. The former
overflows in March, the latter in July. These circumstances are well
explained in the Geographical Dissertation of Foster, inserted in
Spelman's Expedition of Cyras, vol. ii. p. 26.]
85 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxiv. 8)
describes, as he had felt, the inconveniency of the flood, the heat, and
the insects. The lands of Assyria, oppressed by the Turks, and ravaged by
the Curds or Arabs, yield an increase of ten, fifteen, and twenty fold,
for the seed which is cast into the ground by the wretched and unskillful
husbandmen. Voyage de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 279, 285.]
86 (return)
[ Isidore of Charax
(Mansion. Parthic. p. 5, 6, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) reckons
129 schaeni from Seleucia, and Thevenot, (part i. l. i. ii. p. 209-245,)
128 hours of march from Bagdad to Ecbatana, or Hamadan. These measures
cannot exceed an ordinary parasang, or three Roman miles.]
87 (return)
[ The march of Julian
from Ctesiphon is circumstantially, but not clearly, described by
Ammianus, (xxiv. 7, 8,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357,) and
Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 183.) The two last seem ignorant that their conqueror
was retreating; and Libanius absurdly confines him to the banks of the
Tigris.]
As long as the Romans seemed to advance into the country, their march was observed and insulted from a distance, by several bodies of Persian cavalry; who, showing themselves sometimes in loose, and sometimes in close order, faintly skirmished with the advanced guards. These detachments were, however, supported by a much greater force; and the heads of the columns were no sooner pointed towards the Tigris than a cloud of dust arose on the plain. The Romans, who now aspired only to the permission of a safe and speedy retreat, endeavored to persuade themselves, that this formidable appearance was occasioned by a troop of wild asses, or perhaps by the approach of some friendly Arabs. They halted, pitched their tents, fortified their camp, passed the whole night in continual alarms; and discovered at the dawn of day, that they were surrounded by an army of Persians. This army, which might be considered only as the van of the Barbarians, was soon followed by the main body of cuirassiers, archers, and elephants, commanded by Meranes, a general of rank and reputation. He was accompanied by two of the king's sons, and many of the principal satraps; and fame and expectation exaggerated the strength of the remaining powers, which slowly advanced under the conduct of Sapor himself. As the Romans continued their march, their long array, which was forced to bend or divide, according to the varieties of the ground, afforded frequent and favorable opportunities to their vigilant enemies. The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they were repeatedly repulsed with firmness; and the action at Maronga, which almost deserved the name of a battle, was marked by a considerable loss of satraps and elephants, perhaps of equal value in the eyes of their monarch. These splendid advantages were not obtained without an adequate slaughter on the side of the Romans: several officers of distinction were either killed or wounded; and the emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger, inspired and guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his person, and exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive arms, which still constituted the strength and safety of the Romans, disabled them from making any long or effectual pursuit; and as the horsemen of the East were trained to dart their javelins, and shoot their arrows, at full speed, and in every possible direction, 88 the cavalry of Persia was never more formidable than in the moment of a rapid and disorderly flight. But the most certain and irreparable loss of the Romans was that of time. The hardy veterans, accustomed to the cold climate of Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry heat of an Assyrian summer; their vigor was exhausted by the incessant repetition of march and combat; and the progress of the army was suspended by the precautions of a slow and dangerous retreat, in the presence of an active enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply diminished, the value and price of subsistence increased in the Roman camp. 89 Julian, who always contented himself with such food as a hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed, for the use of the troops, the provisions of the Imperial household, and whatever could be spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the tribunes and generals. But this feeble relief served only to aggravate the sense of the public distress; and the Romans began to entertain the most gloomy apprehensions that, before they could reach the frontiers of the empire, they should all perish, either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians. 90
88 (return)
[ Chardin, the most
judicious of modern travellers, describes (tom. ii. p. 57, 58, &c.,
edit. in 4to.) the education and dexterity of the Persian horsemen.
Brissonius (de Regno Persico, p. 650 651, &c.,) has collected the
testimonies of antiquity.]
89 (return)
[ In Mark Antony's
retreat, an attic choenix sold for fifty drachmae, or, in other words, a
pound of flour for twelve or fourteen shillings barley bread was sold for
its weight in silver. It is impossible to peruse the interesting narrative
of Plutarch, (tom. v. p. 102-116,) without perceiving that Mark Antony and
Julian were pursued by the same enemies, and involved in the same
distress.]
90 (return)
[ Ammian. xxiv. 8, xxv.
1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 184, 185, 186. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 134, 135,
p. 357, 358, 359. The sophist of Antioch appears ignorant that the troops
were hungry.]
While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties of his situation, the silent hours of the night were still devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; nor can it be thought surprising, that the Genius of the empire should once more appear before him, covering with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of abundance, and slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started from his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which shot athwart the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war; 91 the council which he summoned, of Tuscan Haruspices, 92 unanimously pronounced that he should abstain from action; but on this occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent than superstition; and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. The army marched through a hilly country; and the hills had been secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led the van with the skill and attention of a consummate general; he was alarmed by the intelligence that his rear was suddenly attacked. The heat of the weather had tempted him to lay aside his cuirass; but he snatched a shield from one of his attendants, and hastened, with a sufficient reenforcement, to the relief of the rear-guard. A similar danger recalled the intrepid prince to the defence of the front; and, as he galloped through the columns, the centre of the left was attacked, and almost overpowered by the furious charge of the Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge body was soon defeated, by the well-timed evolution of the light infantry, who aimed their weapons, with dexterity and effect, against the backs of the horsemen, and the legs of the elephants. The Barbarians fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated the pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards, scattered and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and enemies, reminded their fearless sovereign that he was without armor; and conjured him to decline the fall of the impending ruin. As they exclaimed, 93 a cloud of darts and arrows was discharged from the flying squadrons; and a javelin, after razing the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and fixed in the inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the deadly weapon from his side; but his fingers were cut by the sharpness of the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards flew to his relief; and the wounded emperor was gently raised from the ground, and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle into an adjacent tent. The report of the melancholy event passed from rank to rank; but the grief of the Romans inspired them with invincible valor, and the desire of revenge. The bloody and obstinate conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they were separated by the total darkness of the night. The Persians derived some honor from the advantage which they obtained against the left wing, where Anatolius, master of the offices, was slain, and the praefect Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of the day was adverse to the Barbarians. They abandoned the field; their two generals, Meranes and Nohordates, 94 fifty nobles or satraps, and a multitude of their bravest soldiers; and the success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have been improved into a decisive and useful victory.
91 (return)
[ Ammian. xxv. 2. Julian
had sworn in a passion, nunquam se Marti sacra facturum, (xxiv. 6.) Such
whimsical quarrels were not uncommon between the gods and their insolent
votaries; and even the prudent Augustus, after his fleet had been twice
shipwrecked, excluded Neptune from the honors of public processions. See
Hume's Philosophical Reflections. Essays, vol. ii. p. 418.]
92 (return)
[ They still retained the
monopoly of the vain but lucrative science, which had been invented in
Hetruria; and professed to derive their knowledge of signs and omens from
the ancient books of Tarquitius, a Tuscan sage.]
93 (return)
[ Clambant hinc inde
candidati (see the note of Valesius) quos terror, ut fugientium molem
tanquam ruinam male compositi culminis declinaret. Ammian. xxv 3.]
94 (return)
[ Sapor himself declared
to the Romans, that it was his practice to comfort the families of his
deceased satraps, by sending them, as a present, the heads of the guards
and officers who had not fallen by their master's side. Libanius, de nece
Julian. ulcis. c. xiii. p. 163.]
The first words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from the fainting fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood, were expressive of his martial spirit. He called for his horse and arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His remaining strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and the surgeons, who examined his wound, discovered the symptoms of approaching death. He employed the awful moments with the firm temper of a hero and a sage; the philosophers who had accompanied him in this fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian with the prison of Socrates; and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or curiosity, had assembled round his couch, listened with respectful grief to the funeral oration of their dying emperor. 95 "Friends and fellow-soldiers, the seasonable period of my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than the body; and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the subject of joy, rather than of affliction. I have learned from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety; 96 and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal stroke that secures me from the danger of disgracing a character, which has hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of the Divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate. Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have considered the happiness of the people as the end of government. Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I had acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an honorable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or to decline, the stroke of fate. This much I have attempted to say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the approach of death. I shall cautiously refrain from any word that may tend to influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. My choice might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be ratified by the consent of the army, it might be fatal to the person whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen, express my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with the government of a virtuous sovereign." After this discourse, which Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, he distributed, by a military testament, 97 the remains of his private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that Anatolius was killed; and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency, the loss of his friend. At the same time he reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators; and conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince, who in a few moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars. 98 The spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with fresh violence; his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling of the veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and, as soon as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the hour of midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and about eight months, from the death of Constantius. In his last moments he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his life. 99
95 (return)
[ The character and
situation of Julian might countenance the suspicion that he had previously
composed the elaborate oration, which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed.
The version of the Abbe de la Bleterie is faithful and elegant. I have
followed him in expressing the Platonic idea of emanations, which is
darkly insinuated in the original.]
96 (return)
[ Herodotus (l. i. c.
31,) has displayed that doctrine in an agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter,
(in the 16th book of the Iliad,) who laments with tears of blood the death
of Sarpedon his son, had a very imperfect notion of happiness or glory
beyond the grave.]
97 (return)
[ The soldiers who made
their verbal or nuncupatory testaments, upon actual service, (in
procinctu,) were exempted from the formalities of the Roman law. See
Heineccius, (Antiquit. Jur. Roman. tom. i. p. 504,) and Montesquieu,
(Esprit des Loix, l. xxvii.)]
98 (return)
[ This union of the human
soul with the divine aethereal substance of the universe, is the ancient
doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato: but it seems to exclude any personal or
conscious immortality. See Warburton's learned and rational observations.
Divine Legation, vol ii. p. 199-216.]
99 (return)
[ The whole relation of
the death of Julian is given by Ammianus, (xxv. 3,) an intelligent
spectator. Libanius, who turns with horror from the scene, has supplied
some circumstances, (Orat. Parental. c 136-140, p. 359-362.) The calumnies
of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may now be silently
despised. * Note: A very remarkable fragment of Eunapius describes, not
without spirit, the struggle between the terror of the army on account of
their perilous situation, and their grief for the death of Julian. "Even
the vulgar felt that they would soon provide a general, but such a general
as Julian they would never find, even though a god in the form of man—Julian,
who, with a mind equal to the divinity, triumphed over the evil
propensities of human nature,—* * who held commerce with immaterial
beings while yet in the material body—who condescended to rule
because a ruler was necessary to the welfare of mankind." Mai, Nov. Coll.
ii. 261. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 69.]
The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the empire, may, in some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who had neglected to secure the future execution of his designs, by the timely and judicious nomination of an associate and successor. But the royal race of Constantius Chlorus was reduced to his own person; and if he entertained any serious thoughts of investing with the purple the most worthy among the Romans, he was diverted from his resolution by the difficulty of the choice, the jealousy of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural presumption of health, of youth, and of prosperity. His unexpected death left the empire without a master, and without an heir, in a state of perplexity and danger, which, in the space of fourscore years, had never been experienced, since the election of Diocletian. In a government which had almost forgotten the distinction of pure and noble blood, the superiority of birth was of little moment; the claims of official rank were accidental and precarious; and the candidates, who might aspire to ascend the vacant throne could be supported only by the consciousness of personal merit, or by the hopes of popular favor. But the situation of a famished army, encompassed on all sides by a host of Barbarians, shortened the moments of grief and deliberation. In this scene of terror and distress, the body of the deceased prince, according to his own directions, was decently embalmed; and, at the dawn of day, the generals convened a military senate, at which the commanders of the legions, and the officers both of cavalry and infantry, were invited to assist. Three or four hours of the night had not passed away without some secret cabals; and when the election of an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction began to agitate the assembly. Victor and Arinthaeus collected the remains of the court of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached themselves to the Gallic chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal consequences might be apprehended from the discord of two factions, so opposite in their character and interest, in their maxims of government, and perhaps in their religious principles. The superior virtues of Sallust could alone reconcile their divisions, and unite their suffrages; and the venerable praefect would immediately have been declared the successor of Julian, if he himself, with sincere and modest firmness, had not alleged his age and infirmities, so unequal to the weight of the diadem. The generals, who were surprised and perplexed by his refusal, showed some disposition to adopt the salutary advice of an inferior officer, 100 that they should act as they would have acted in the absence of the emperor; that they should exert their abilities to extricate the army from the present distress; and, if they were fortunate enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they should proceed with united and deliberate counsels in the election of a lawful sovereign. While they debated, a few voices saluted Jovian, who was no more than first 101 of the domestics, with the names of Emperor and Augustus. The tumultuary acclamation 10111 was instantly repeated by the guards who surrounded the tent, and passed, in a few minutes, to the extremities of the line. The new prince, astonished with his own fortune was hastily invested with the Imperial ornaments, and received an oath of fidelity from the generals, whose favor and protection he so lately solicited. The strongest recommendation of Jovian was the merit of his father, Count Varronian, who enjoyed, in honorable retirement, the fruit of his long services. In the obscure freedom of a private station, the son indulged his taste for wine and women; yet he supported, with credit, the character of a Christian 102 and a soldier. Without being conspicuous for any of the ambitious qualifications which excite the admiration and envy of mankind, the comely person of Jovian, his cheerful temper, and familiar wit, had gained the affection of his fellow-soldiers; and the generals of both parties acquiesced in a popular election, which had not been conducted by the arts of their enemies. The pride of this unexpected elevation was moderated by the just apprehension, that the same day might terminate the life and reign of the new emperor. The pressing voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and the first orders issued by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had expired, were to prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans from their actual distress. 103
100 (return)
[ Honoratior aliquis
miles; perhaps Ammianus himself. The modest and judicious historian
describes the scene of the election, at which he was undoubtedly present,
(xxv. 5.)]
101 (return)
[ The primus or
primicerius enjoyed the dignity of a senator, and though only a tribune,
he ranked with the military dukes. Cod. Theodosian. l. vi. tit. xxiv.
These privileges are perhaps more recent than the time of Jovian.]
10111 (return)
[ The soldiers
supposed that the acclamations proclaimed the name of Julian, restored, as
they fondly thought, to health, not that of Jovian. loc.—M.]
102 (return)
[ The ecclesiastical
historians, Socrates, (l. iii. c. 22,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 3,) and
Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 1,) ascribe to Jovian the merit of a confessor under
the preceding reign; and piously suppose that he refused the purple, till
the whole army unanimously exclaimed that they were Christians. Ammianus,
calmly pursuing his narrative, overthrows the legend by a single sentence.
Hostiis pro Joviano extisque inspectis, pronuntiatum est, &c., xxv.
6.]
103 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxv. 10)
has drawn from the life an impartial portrait of Jovian; to which the
younger Victor has added some remarkable strokes. The Abbe de la Bleterie
(Histoire de Jovien, tom. i. p. 1-238) has composed an elaborate history
of his short reign; a work remarkably distinguished by elegance of style,
critical disquisition, and religious prejudice.]
The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his fears; and the degree of fear may be accurately measured by the joy with which he celebrates his deliverance. The welcome news of the death of Julian, which a deserter revealed to the camp of Sapor, inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden confidence of victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps the ten thousand Immortals, 104 to second and support the pursuit; and discharged the whole weight of his united forces on the rear-guard of the Romans. The rear-guard was thrown into disorder; the renowned legions, which derived their titles from Diocletian, and his warlike colleague, were broke and trampled down by the elephants; and three tribunes lost their lives in attempting to stop the flight of their soldiers. The battle was at length restored by the persevering valor of the Romans; the Persians were repulsed with a great slaughter of men and elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a long summer's day, arrived, in the evening, at Samara, on the banks of the Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. 105 On the ensuing day, the Barbarians, instead of harassing the march, attacked the camp, of Jovian; which had been seated in a deep and sequestered valley. From the hills, the archers of Persia insulted and annoyed the wearied legionaries; and a body of cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the Praetorian gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict, near the Imperial tent. In the succeeding night, the camp of Carche was protected by the lofty dikes of the river; and the Roman army, though incessantly exposed to the vexatious pursuit of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the city of Dura, 106 four days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on their left; their hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and the impatient soldiers, who had fondly persuaded themselves that the frontiers of the empire were not far distant, requested their new sovereign, that they might be permitted to hazard the passage of the river. With the assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian endeavored to check their rashness; by representing, that if they possessed sufficient skill and vigor to stem the torrent of a deep and rapid stream, they would only deliver themselves naked and defenceless to the Barbarians, who had occupied the opposite banks, Yielding at length to their clamorous importunities, he consented, with reluctance, that five hundred Gauls and Germans, accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and Danube, should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve either as an encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the army. In the silence of the night, they swam the Tigris, surprised an unguarded post of the enemy, and displayed at the dawn of day the signal of their resolution and fortune. The success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the promises of his architects, who propose to construct a floating bridge of the inflated skins of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered with a floor of earth and fascines. 107 Two important days were spent in the ineffectual labor; and the Romans, who already endured the miseries of famine, cast a look of despair on the Tigris, and upon the Barbarians; whose numbers and obstinacy increased with the distress of the Imperial army. 108
104 (return)
[ Regius equitatus. It
appears, from Irocopius, that the Immortals, so famous under Cyrus and his
successors, were revived, if we may use that improper word, by the
Sassanides. Brisson de Regno Persico, p. 268, &c.]
105 (return)
[ The obscure villages
of the inland country are irrecoverably lost; nor can we name the field of
battle where Julian fell: but M. D'Anville has demonstrated the precise
situation of Sumere, Carche, and Dura, along the banks of the Tigris,
(Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 248 L'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 95, 97.)
In the ninth century, Sumere, or Samara, became, with a slight change of
name, the royal residence of the khalifs of the house of Abbas. * Note:
Sormanray, called by the Arabs Samira, where D'Anville placed Samara, is
too much to the south; and is a modern town built by Caliph Morasen.
Serra-man-rai means, in Arabic, it rejoices every one who sees it. St.
Martin, iii. 133.—M.]
106 (return)
[ Dura was a fortified
place in the wars of Antiochus against the rebels of Media and Persia,
(Polybius, l. v. c. 48, 52, p. 548, 552 edit. Casaubon, in 8vo.)]
107 (return)
[ A similar expedient
was proposed to the leaders of the ten thousand, and wisely rejected.
Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iii. p. 255, 256, 257. It appears, from our modern
travellers, that rafts floating on bladders perform the trade and
navigation of the Tigris.]
108 (return)
[ The first military
acts of the reign of Jovian are related by Ammianus, (xxv. 6,) Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 146, p. 364,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 189, 190, 191.)
Though we may distrust the fairness of Libanius, the ocular testimony of
Eutropius (uno a Persis atque altero proelio victus, x. 17) must incline
us to suspect that Ammianus had been too jealous of the honor of the Roman
arms.]
In this hopeless condition, the fainting spirits of the Romans were revived by the sound of peace. The transient presumption of Sapor had vanished: he observed, with serious concern, that, in the repetition of doubtful combats, he had lost his most faithful and intrepid nobles, his bravest troops, and the greatest part of his train of elephants: and the experienced monarch feared to provoke the resistance of despair, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the unexhausted powers of the Roman empire; which might soon advance to elieve, or to revenge, the successor of Julian. The Surenas himself, accompanied by another satrap, appeared in the camp of Jovian; 109 and declared, that the clemency of his sovereign was not averse to signify the conditions on which he would consent to spare and to dismiss the Caesar with the relics of his captive army. 10911 The hopes of safety subdued the firmness of the Romans; the emperor was compelled, by the advice of his council, and the cries of his soldiers, to embrace the offer of peace; 10912 and the praefect Sallust was immediately sent, with the general Arinthaeus, to understand the pleasure of the Great King. The crafty Persian delayed, under various pretenses, the conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties, required explanations, suggested expedients, receded from his concessions, increased his demands, and wasted four days in the arts of negotiation, till he had consumed the stock of provisions which yet remained in the camp of the Romans. Had Jovian been capable of executing a bold and prudent measure, he would have continued his march, with unremitting diligence; the progress of the treaty would have suspended the attacks of the Barbarians; and, before the expiration of the fourth day, he might have safely reached the fruitful province of Corduene, at the distance only of one hundred miles. 110 The irresolute emperor, instead of breaking through the toils of the enemy, expected his fate with patient resignation; and accepted the humiliating conditions of peace, which it was no longer in his power to refuse. The five provinces beyond the Tigris, which had been ceded by the grandfather of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy. He acquired, by a single article, the impregnable city of Nisibis; which had sustained, in three successive sieges, the effort of his arms. Singara, and the castle of the Moors, one of the strongest places of Mesopotamia, were likewise dismembered from the empire. It was considered as an indulgence, that the inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with their effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted, that the Romans should forever abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia. 11011 A peace, or rather a long truce, of thirty years, was stipulated between the hostile nations; the faith of the treaty was ratified by solemn oaths and religious ceremonies; and hostages of distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered to secure the performance of the conditions. 111
109 (return)
[ Sextus Rufus (de
Provinciis, c. 29) embraces a poor subterfuge of national vanity. Tanta
reverentia nominis Romani fuit, ut a Persis primus de pace sermo
haberetur. —-He is called Junius by John Malala; the same, M. St.
Martin conjectures, with a satrap of Gordyene named Jovianus, or
Jovinianus; mentioned in Ammianus Marcellinus, xviii. 6.—M.]
10911 (return)
[ The Persian
historians couch the message of Shah-pour in these Oriental terms: "I have
reassembled my numerous army. I am resolved to revenge my subjects, who
have been plundered, made captives, and slain. It is for this that I have
bared my arm, and girded my loins. If you consent to pay the price of the
blood which has been shed, to deliver up the booty which has been
plundered, and to restore the city of Nisibis, which is in Irak, and
belongs to our empire, though now in your possession, I will sheathe the
sword of war; but should you refuse these terms, the hoofs of my horse,
which are hard as steel, shall efface the name of the Romans from the
earth; and my glorious cimeter, that destroys like fire, shall exterminate
the people of your empire." These authorities do not mention the death of
Julian. Malcolm's Persia, i. 87.—M.]
10912 (return)
[ The Paschal
chronicle, not, as M. St. Martin says, supported by John Malala, places
the mission of this ambassador before the death of Julian. The king of
Persia was then in Persarmenia, ignorant of the death of Julian; he only
arrived at the army subsequent to that event. St. Martin adopts this view,
and finds or extorts support for it, from Libanius and Ammianus, iii. 158.—M.]
110 (return)
[ It is presumptuous to
controvert the opinion of Ammianus, a soldier and a spectator. Yet it is
difficult to understand how the mountains of Corduene could extend over
the plains of Assyria, as low as the conflux of the Tigris and the great
Zab; or how an army of sixty thousand men could march one hundred miles in
four days. Note: * Yet this appears to be the case (in modern maps: ) the
march is the difficulty.—M.]
11011 (return)
[ Sapor availed
himself, a few years after, of the dissolution of the alliance between the
Romans and the Armenians. See St. M. iii. 163.—M.]
111 (return)
[ The treaty of Dura is
recorded with grief or indignation by Ammianus, (xxv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 142, p. 364,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 190, 191,) Gregory
Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 117, 118, who imputes the distress to Julian, the
deliverance to Jovian,) and Eutropius, (x. 17.) The last-mentioned writer,
who was present in military station, styles this peace necessarium quidem
sed ignoblem.]
The sophist of Antioch, who saw with indignation the sceptre of his hero in the feeble hand of a Christian successor, professes to admire the moderation of Sapor, in contenting himself with so small a portion of the Roman empire. If he had stretched as far as the Euphrates the claims of his ambition, he might have been secure, says Libanius, of not meeting with a refusal. If he had fixed, as the boundary of Persia, the Orontes, the Cydnus, the Sangarius, or even the Thracian Bosphorus, flatterers would not have been wanting in the court of Jovian to convince the timid monarch, that his remaining provinces would still afford the most ample gratifications of power and luxury. 112 Without adopting in its full force this malicious insinuation, we must acknowledge, that the conclusion of so ignominious a treaty was facilitated by the private ambition of Jovian. The obscure domestic, exalted to the throne by fortune, rather than by merit, was impatient to escape from the hands of the Persians, that he might prevent the designs of Procopius, who commanded the army of Mesopotamia, and establish his doubtful reign over the legions and provinces which were still ignorant of the hasty and tumultuous choice of the camp beyond the Tigris. 113 In the neighborhood of the same river, at no very considerable distance from the fatal station of Dura, 114 the ten thousand Greeks, without generals, or guides, or provisions, were abandoned, above twelve hundred miles from their native country, to the resentment of a victorious monarch. The difference of their conduct and success depended much more on their character than on their situation. Instead of tamely resigning themselves to the secret deliberations and private views of a single person, the united councils of the Greeks were inspired by the generous enthusiasm of a popular assembly; where the mind of each citizen is filled with the love of glory, the pride of freedom, and the contempt of death. Conscious of their superiority over the Barbarians in arms and discipline, they disdained to yield, they refused to capitulate: every obstacle was surmounted by their patience, courage, and military skill; and the memorable retreat of the ten thousand exposed and insulted the weakness of the Persian monarchy. 115
112 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat.
Parent. c. 143, p. 364, 365.]
113 (return)
[ Conditionibus.....
dispendiosis Romanae reipublicae impositis.... quibus cupidior regni quam
gloriae Jovianus, imperio rudis, adquievit. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c.
29. La Bleterie has expressed, in a long, direct oration, these specious
considerations of public and private interest, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i.
p. 39, &c.)]
114 (return)
[ The generals were
murdered on the bauks of the Zabatus, (Ana basis, l. ii. p. 156, l. iii.
p. 226,) or great Zab, a river of Assyria, 400 feet broad, which falls
into the Tigris fourteen hours below Mosul. The error of the Greeks
bestowed on the greater and lesser Zab the names of the Walf, (Lycus,) and
the Goat, (Capros.) They created these animals to attend the Tiger of the
East.]
115 (return)
[ The Cyropoedia is
vague and languid; the Anabasis circumstance and animated. Such is the
eternal difference between fiction and truth.]
As the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor might perhaps have stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans should be plentifully supplied; 116 and that they should be permitted to pass the Tigris on the bridge which was constructed by the hands of the Persians. But, if Jovian presumed to solicit those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by the haughty tyrant of the East, whose clemency had pardoned the invaders of his country. The Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers of the march; but the generals and troops of Sapor respected the cessation of arms; and Jovian was suffered to explore the most convenient place for the passage of the river. The small vessels, which had been saved from the conflagration of the fleet, performed the most essential service. They first conveyed the emperor and his favorites; and afterwards transported, in many successive voyages, a great part of the army. But, as every man was anxious for his personal safety, and apprehensive of being left on the hostile shore, the soldiers, who were too impatient to wait the slow returns of the boats, boldly ventured themselves on light hurdles, or inflated skins; and, drawing after them their horses, attempted, with various success, to swim across the river. Many of these daring adventurers were swallowed by the waves; many others, who were carried along by the violence of the stream, fell an easy prey to the avarice or cruelty of the wild Arabs: and the loss which the army sustained in the passage of the Tigris, was not inferior to the carnage of a day of battle. As soon as the Romans were landed on the western bank, they were delivered from the hostile pursuit of the Barbarians; but, in a laborious march of two hundred miles over the plains of Mesopotamia, they endured the last extremities of thirst and hunger. They were obliged to traverse the sandy desert, which, in the extent of seventy miles, did not afford a single blade of sweet grass, nor a single spring of fresh water; and the rest of the inhospitable waste was untrod by the footsteps either of friends or enemies. Whenever a small measure of flour could be discovered in the camp, twenty pounds weight were greedily purchased with ten pieces of gold: 117 the beasts of burden were slaughtered and devoured; and the desert was strewed with the arms and baggage of the Roman soldiers, whose tattered garments and meagre countenances displayed their past sufferings and actual misery. A small convoy of provisions advanced to meet the army as far as the castle of Ur; and the supply was the more grateful, since it declared the fidelity of Sebastian and Procopius. At Thilsaphata, 118 the emperor most graciously received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the remains of a once flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the walls of Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had already proclaimed, in the language of flattery, his election, his treaty, and his return; and the new prince had taken the most effectual measures to secure the allegiance of the armies and provinces of Europe, by placing the military command in the hands of those officers, who, from motives of interest, or inclination, would firmly support the cause of their benefactor. 119
116 (return)
[ According to Rufinus,
an immediate supply of provisions was stipulated by the treaty, and
Theodoret affirms, that the obligation was faithfully discharged by the
Persians. Such a fact is probable but undoubtedly false. See Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 702.]
117 (return)
[ We may recollect some
lines of Lucan, (Pharsal. iv. 95,) who describes a similar distress of
Caesar's army in Spain:— ——Saeva fames aderat—Miles
eget: toto censu non prodigus emit Exiguam Cererem. Proh lucri pallida
tabes! Non deest prolato jejunus venditor auro. See Guichardt (Nouveaux
Memoires Militaires, tom. i. p. 370-382.) His analysis of the two
campaigns in Spain and Africa is the noblest monument that has ever been
raised to the fame of Caesar.]
118 (return)
[ M. d'Anville (see his
Maps, and l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 92, 93) traces their march, and
assigns the true position of Hatra, Ur, and Thilsaphata, which Ammianus
has mentioned. ——He does not complain of the Samiel, the
deadly hot wind, which Thevenot (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 192) so much
dreaded. ——Hatra, now Kadhr. Ur, Kasr or Skervidgi.
Thilsaphata is unknown—M.]
119 (return)
[ The retreat of Jovian
is described by Ammianus, (xxv. 9,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 143, p.
365,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 194.)]
The friends of Julian had confidently announced the success of his expedition. They entertained a fond persuasion that the temples of the gods would be enriched with the spoils of the East; that Persia would be reduced to the humble state of a tributary province, governed by the laws and magistrates of Rome; that the Barbarians would adopt the dress, and manners, and language of their conquerors; and that the youth of Ecbatana and Susa would study the art of rhetoric under Grecian masters. 120 The progress of the arms of Julian interrupted his communication with the empire; and, from the moment that he passed the Tigris, his affectionate subjects were ignorant of the fate and fortunes of their prince. Their contemplation of fancied triumphs was disturbed by the melancholy rumor of his death; and they persisted to doubt, after they could no longer deny, the truth of that fatal event. 121 The messengers of Jovian promulgated the specious tale of a prudent and necessary peace; the voice of fame, louder and more sincere, revealed the disgrace of the emperor, and the conditions of the ignominious treaty. The minds of the people were filled with astonishment and grief, with indignation and terror, when they were informed, that the unworthy successor of Julian relinquished the five provinces which had been acquired by the victory of Galerius; and that he shamefully surrendered to the Barbarians the important city of Nisibis, the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the East. 122 The deep and dangerous question, how far the public faith should be observed, when it becomes incompatible with the public safety, was freely agitated in popular conversation; and some hopes were entertained that the emperor would redeem his pusillanimous behavior by a splendid act of patriotic perfidy. The inflexible spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the unequal conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor, by delivering the guilty general into the hands of the Barbarians, the greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would have cheerfully acquiesced in the precedent of ancient times. 123
120 (return)
[ Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 145, p. 366.) Such were the natural hopes and wishes of a
rhetorician.]
121 (return)
[ The people of
Carrhae, a city devoted to Paganism, buried the inauspicious messenger
under a pile of stones, (Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196.) Libanius, when he
received the fatal intelligence, cast his eye on his sword; but he
recollected that Plato had condemned suicide, and that he must live to
compose the Panegyric of Julian, (Libanius de Vita sua, tom. ii. p. 45,
46.)]
122 (return)
[ Ammianus and
Eutropius may be admitted as fair and credible witnesses of the public
language and opinions. The people of Antioch reviled an ignominious peace,
which exposed them to the Persians, on a naked and defenceless frontier,
(Excerpt. Valesiana, p. 845, ex Johanne Antiocheno.)]
123 (return)
[ The Abbe de la
Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 212-227.) though a severe casuist,
has pronounced that Jovian was not bound to execute his promise; since he
could not dismember the empire, nor alienate, without their consent, the
allegiance of his people. I have never found much delight or instruction
in such political metaphysics.]
But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his constitutional authority, was the absolute master of the laws and arms of the state; and the same motives which had forced him to subscribe, now pressed him to execute, the treaty of peace. He was impatient to secure an empire at the expense of a few provinces; and the respectable names of religion and honor concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian. Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants, decency, as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the palace of Nisibis; but the next morning after his arrival. Bineses, the ambassador of Persia, entered the place, displayed from the citadel the standard of the Great King, and proclaimed, in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that fatal moment, had confided in the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves at his feet. They conjured him not to abandon, or, at least, not to deliver, a faithful colony to the rage of a Barbarian tyrant, exasperated by the three successive defeats which he had experienced under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed arms and courage to repel the invaders of their country: they requested only the permission of using them in their own defence; and, as soon as they had asserted their independence, they should implore the favor of being again admitted into the ranks of his subjects. Their arguments, their eloquence, their tears, were ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some confusion, the sanctity of oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he accepted the present of a crown of gold, convinced the citizens of their hopeless condition, the advocate Sylvanus was provoked to exclaim, "O emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the cities of your dominions!" Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the habits of a prince, 124 was displeased with freedom, and offended with truth: and as he reasonably supposed, that the discontent of the people might incline them to submit to the Persian government, he published an edict, under pain of death, that they should leave the city within the term of three days. Ammianus has delineated in lively colors the scene of universal despair, which he seems to have viewed with an eye of compassion. 125 The martial youth deserted, with indignant grief, the walls which they had so gloriously defended: the disconsolate mourner dropped a last tear over the tomb of a son or husband, which must soon be profaned by the rude hand of a Barbarian master; and the aged citizen kissed the threshold, and clung to the doors, of the house where he had passed the cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The highways were crowded with a trembling multitude: the distinctions of rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the general calamity. Every one strove to bear away some fragment from the wreck of his fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate service of an adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects. The savage insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the hardships of these unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however, in a new-built quarter of Amida; and that rising city, with the reenforcement of a very considerable colony, soon recovered its former splendor, and became the capital of Mesopotamia. 126 Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the evacuation of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the restitution of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory and the fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has justly been considered as a memorable aera in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The predecessors of Jovian had sometimes relinquished the dominion of distant and unprofitable provinces; but, since the foundation of the city, the genius of Rome, the god Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of the republic, had never retired before the sword of a victorious enemy. 127
124 (return)
[ At Nisibis he
performed a royal act. A brave officer, his namesake, who had been thought
worthy of the purple, was dragged from supper, thrown into a well, and
stoned to death without any form of trial or evidence of guilt. Anomian.
xxv. 8.]
125 (return)
[ See xxv. 9, and
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 194, 195.]
126 (return)
[ Chron. Paschal. p.
300. The ecclesiastical Notitie may be consulted.]
127 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. iii. p.
192, 193. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c. 29. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l.
iv. c. 29. This general position must be applied and interpreted with some
caution.]
After Jovian had performed those engagements which the voice of his people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away from the scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole court to enjoy the luxury of Antioch. 128 Without consulting the dictates of religious zeal, he was prompted, by humanity and gratitude, to bestow the last honors on the remains of his deceased sovereign: 129 and Procopius, who sincerely bewailed the loss of his kinsman, was removed from the command of the army, under the decent pretence of conducting the funeral. The corpse of Julian was transported from Nisibis to Tarsus, in a slow march of fifteen days; and, as it passed through the cities of the East, was saluted by the hostile factions, with mournful lamentations and clamorous insults. The Pagans already placed their beloved hero in the rank of those gods whose worship he had restored; while the invectives of the Christians pursued the soul of the Apostate to hell, and his body to the grave. 130 One party lamented the approaching ruin of their altars; the other celebrated the marvellous deliverance of their church. The Christians applauded, in lofty and ambiguous strains, the stroke of divine vengeance, which had been so long suspended over the guilty head of Julian. They acknowledge, that the death of the tyrant, at the instant he expired beyond the Tigris, was revealed to the saints of Egypt, Syria, and Cappadocia; 131 and instead of suffering him to fall by the Persian darts, their indiscretion ascribed the heroic deed to the obscure hand of some mortal or immortal champion of the faith. 132 Such imprudent declarations were eagerly adopted by the malice, or credulity, of their adversaries; 133 who darkly insinuated, or confidently asserted, that the governors of the church had instigated and directed the fanaticism of a domestic assassin. 134 Above sixteen years after the death of Julian, the charge was solemnly and vehemently urged, in a public oration, addressed by Libanius to the emperor Theodosius. His suspicions are unsupported by fact or argument; and we can only esteem the generous zeal of the sophist of Antioch for the cold and neglected ashes of his friend. 135
128 (return)
[ Ammianus, xxv. 9.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196. He might be edax, vino Venerique indulgens. But I
agree with La Bleterie (tom. i. p. 148-154) in rejecting the foolish
report of a Bacchanalian riot (ap. Suidam) celebrated at Antioch, by the
emperor, his wife, and a troop of concubines.]
129 (return)
[ The Abbe de la
Bleterie (tom. i. p. 156-209) handsomely exposes the brutal bigotry of
Baronius, who would have thrown Julian to the dogs, ne cespititia quidem
sepultura dignus.]
130 (return)
[ Compare the sophist
and the saint, (Libanius, Monod. tom. ii. p. 251, and Orat. Parent. c.
145, p. 367, c. 156, p. 377, with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p.
125-132.) The Christian orator faintly mutters some exhortations to
modesty and forgiveness; but he is well satisfied, that the real
sufferings of Julian will far exceed the fabulous torments of Ixion or
Tantalus.]
131 (return)
[ Tillemont (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 549) has collected these visions. Some saint or
angel was observed to be absent in the night, on a secret expedition,
&c.]
132 (return)
[ Sozomen (l. vi. 2)
applauds the Greek doctrine of tyrannicide; but the whole passage, which a
Jesuit might have translated, is prudently suppressed by the president
Cousin.]
133 (return)
[ Immediately after the
death of Julian, an uncertain rumor was scattered, telo cecidisse Romano.
It was carried, by some deserters to the Persian camp; and the Romans were
reproached as the assassins of the emperor by Sapor and his subjects,
(Ammian. xxv. 6. Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. xiii. p. 162,
163.) It was urged, as a decisive proof, that no Persian had appeared to
claim the promised reward, (Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 141, p. 363.) But the
flying horseman, who darted the fatal javelin, might be ignorant of its
effect; or he might be slain in the same action. Ammianus neither feels
nor inspires a suspicion.]
134 (return)
[ This dark and
ambiguous expression may point to Athanasius, the first, without a rival,
of the Christian clergy, (Libanius de ulcis. Jul. nece, c. 5, p. 149. La
Bleterie, Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 179.)]
135 (return)
[ The orator
(Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p. 145-179) scatters suspicions,
demands an inquiry, and insinuates, that proofs might still be obtained.
He ascribes the success of the Huns to the criminal neglect of revenging
Julian's death.]
It was an ancient custom in the funerals, as well as in the triumphs, of the Romans, that the voice of praise should be corrected by that of satire and ridicule; and that, in the midst of the splendid pageants, which displayed the glory of the living or of the dead, their imperfections should not be concealed from the eyes of the world. 136 This custom was practised in the funeral of Julian. The comedians, who resented his contempt and aversion for the theatre, exhibited, with the applause of a Christian audience, the lively and exaggerated representation of the faults and follies of the deceased emperor. His various character and singular manners afforded an ample scope for pleasantry and ridicule. 137 In the exercise of his uncommon talents, he often descended below the majesty of his rank. Alexander was transformed into Diogenes; the philosopher was degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue was sullied by excessive vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace, and endangered the safety, of a mighty empire; and his irregular sallies were the less entitled to indulgence, as they appeared to be the laborious efforts of art, or even of affectation. The remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in Cilicia; but his stately tomb, which arose in that city, on the banks of the cold and limpid Cydnus, 138 was displeasing to the faithful friends, who loved and revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The philosopher expressed a very reasonable wish, that the disciple of Plato might have reposed amidst the groves of the academy; 139 while the soldier exclaimed, in bolder accents, that the ashes of Julian should have been mingled with those of Caesar, in the field of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman virtue. 140 The history of princes does not very frequently renew the examples of a similar competition.
136 (return)
[ At the funeral of
Vespasian, the comedian who personated that frugal emperor, anxiously
inquired how much it cost. Fourscore thousand pounds, (centies.) Give me
the tenth part of the sum, and throw my body into the Tiber. Sueton, in
Vespasian, c. 19, with the notes of Casaubon and Gronovius.]
137 (return)
[ Gregory (Orat. iv. p.
119, 120) compares this supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral
honors of Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir
of angels.]
138 (return)
[ Quintus Curtius, l.
iii. c. 4. The luxuriancy of his descriptions has been often censured. Yet
it was almost the duty of the historian to describe a river, whose waters
had nearly proved fatal to Alexander.]
139 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat.
Parent. c. 156, p. 377. Yet he acknowledges with gratitude the liberality
of the two royal brothers in decorating the tomb of Julian, (de ulcis.
Jul. nece, c. 7, p. 152.)]
140 (return)
[ Cujus suprema et
cineres, si qui tunc juste consuleret, non Cydnus videre deberet, quamvis
gratissimus amnis et liquidus: sed ad perpetuandam gloriam recte factorum
praeterlambere Tiberis, intersecans urbem aeternam, divorumque veterum
monumenta praestringens Ammian. xxv. 10.]
The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of
Valentinian, Who Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes
The Final Division Of The Eastern And Western Empires.—
Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And Ecclesiastical
Administration.—Germany. —Britain.—Africa.—The East.—
The Danube.—Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian
And Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.
The death of Julian had left the public affairs of the empire in a very doubtful and dangerous situation. The Roman army was saved by an inglorious, perhaps a necessary treaty; 1 and the first moments of peace were consecrated by the pious Jovian to restore the domestic tranquility of the church and state. The indiscretion of his predecessor, instead of reconciling, had artfully fomented the religious war: and the balance which he affected to preserve between the hostile factions, served only to perpetuate the contest, by the vicissitudes of hope and fear, by the rival claims of ancient possession and actual favor. The Christians had forgotten the spirit of the gospel; and the Pagans had imbibed the spirit of the church. In private families, the sentiments of nature were extinguished by the blind fury of zeal and revenge: the majesty of the laws was violated or abused; the cities of the East were stained with blood; and the most implacable enemies of the Romans were in the bosom of their country. Jovian was educated in the profession of Christianity; and as he marched from Nisibis to Antioch, the banner of the Cross, the Labarum of Constantine, which was again displayed at the head of the legions, announced to the people the faith of their new emperor. As soon as he ascended the throne, he transmitted a circular epistle to all the governors of provinces; in which he confessed the divine truth, and secured the legal establishment, of the Christian religion. The insidious edicts of Julian were abolished; the ecclesiastical immunities were restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended to lament, that the distress of the times obliged him to diminish the measure of charitable distributions. 2 The Christians were unanimous in the loud and sincere applause which they bestowed on the pious successor of Julian. But they were still ignorant what creed, or what synod, he would choose for the standard of orthodoxy; and the peace of the church immediately revived those eager disputes which had been suspended during the season of persecution. The episcopal leaders of the contending sects, convinced, from experience, how much their fate would depend on the earliest impressions that were made on the mind of an untutored soldier, hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The highways of the East were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian, and Semi-Arian, and Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the holy race: the apartments of the palace resounded with their clamors; and the ears of the prince were assaulted, and perhaps astonished, by the singular mixture of metaphysical argument and passionate invective. 3 The moderation of Jovian, who recommended concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the sentence of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of indifference: but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at length discovered and declared, by the reverence which he expressed for the celestial 4 virtues of the great Athanasius. The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrant's death. The acclamations of the people seated him once more on the archiepiscopal throne; and he wisely accepted, or anticipated, the invitation of Jovian. The venerable figure of Athanasius, his calm courage, and insinuating eloquence, sustained the reputation which he had already acquired in the courts of four successive princes. 5 As soon as he had gained the confidence, and secured the faith, of the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to his diocese, and continued, with mature counsels and undiminished vigor, to direct, ten years longer, 6 the ecclesiastical government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Catholic church. Before his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his orthodox devotion would be rewarded with a long and peaceful reign. Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he should be allowed either the merit of a successful prediction, or the excuse of a grateful though ineffectual prayer. 7
1 (return)
[ The medals of Jovian
adorn him with victories, laurel crowns, and prostrate captives. Ducange,
Famil. Byzantin. p. 52. Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys
herself with her own hands.]
2 (return)
[ Jovian restored to the
church a forcible and comprehensive expression, (Philostorgius, l. viii.
c. 5, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 329. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 3.) The
new law which condemned the rape or marriage of nuns (Cod. Theod. l. ix.
tit. xxv. leg. 2) is exaggerated by Sozomen; who supposes, that an amorous
glance, the adultery of the heart, was punished with death by the
evangelic legislator.]
3 (return)
[ Compare Socrates, l. iii.
c. 25, and Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 6, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p.
330.]
4 (return)
[ The word celestial
faintly expresses the impious and extravagant flattery of the emperor to
the archbishop. (See the original epistle in Athanasius, tom. ii. p. 33.)
Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. p. 392) celebrates the friendship of Jovian
and Athanasius. The primate's journey was advised by the Egyptian monks,
(Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 221.)]
5 (return)
[ Athanasius, at the court
of Antioch, is agreeably represented by La Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien,
tom. i. p. 121-148;) he translates the singular and original conferences
of the emperor, the primate of Egypt, and the Arian deputies. The Abbe is
not satisfied with the coarse pleasantry of Jovian; but his partiality for
Athanasius assumes, in his eyes, the character of justice.]
6 (return)
[ The true area of his
death is perplexed with some difficulties, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
viii. p. 719-723.) But the date (A. D. 373, May 2) which seems the most
consistent with history and reason, is ratified by his authentic life,
(Maffei Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 81.)]
7 (return)
[ See the observations of
Valesius and Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 38) on
the original letter of Athanasius; which is preserved by Theodoret, (l.
iv. c. 3.) In some Mss. this indiscreet promise is omitted; perhaps by the
Catholics, jealous of the prophetic fame of their leader.]
The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight; and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions which were supported by the spirit of the times, and the zeal and numbers of the most powerful sect. 8 Under his reign, Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the. In many cities, the temples were shut or deserted: the philosophers who had abused their transient favor, thought it prudent to shave their beards, and disguise their profession; and the Christians rejoiced, that they were now in a condition to forgive, or to revenge, the injuries which they had suffered under the preceding reign. 9 The consternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and gracious edict of toleration; in which Jovian explicitly declared, that although he should severely punish the sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. The memory of this law has been preserved by the orator Themistius, who was deputed by the senate of Constantinople to express their royal devotion for the new emperor. Themistius expatiates on the clemency of the Divine Nature, the facility of human error, the rights of conscience, and the independence of the mind; and, with some eloquence, inculcates the principles of philosophical toleration; whose aid Superstition herself, in the hour of her distress, is not ashamed to implore. He justly observes, that in the recent changes, both religions had been alternately disgraced by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple, and from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians. 10
8 (return)
[ Athanasius (apud
Theodoret, l. iv. c. 3) magnifies the number of the orthodox, who composed
the whole world. This assertion was verified in the space of thirty and
forty years.]
9 (return)
[ Socrates, l. iii. c. 24.
Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 131) and Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c.
148, p. 369) expresses the living sentiments of their respective
factions.]
10 (return)
[ Themistius, Orat. v. p.
63-71, edit. Harduin, Paris, 1684. The Abbe de la Bleterie judiciously
remarks, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 199,) that Sozomen has forgot the
general toleration; and Themistius the establishment of the Catholic
religion. Each of them turned away from the object which he disliked, and
wished to suppress the part of the edict the least honorable, in his
opinion, to the emperor.]
In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now returned to Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred miles; in which they had endured all the hardships of war, of famine, and of climate. Notwithstanding their services, their fatigues, and the approach of winter, the timid and impatient Jovian allowed only, to the men and horses, a respite of six weeks. The emperor could not sustain the indiscreet and malicious raillery of the people of Antioch. 11 He was impatient to possess the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the ambition of some competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance of Europe. But he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his authority was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Atlantic Ocean. By the first letters which he despatched from the camp of Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of Gaul and Illyricum to Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of the nation of the Franks; and to his father-in-law, Count Lucillian, who had formerly distinguished his courage and conduct in the defence of Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to which he thought himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at Rheims, in an accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. 12 But the moderation of Jovinus, master-general of the cavalry, who forgave the intention of his disgrace, soon appeased the tumult, and confirmed the uncertain minds of the soldiers. The oath of fidelity was administered and taken, with loyal acclamations; and the deputies of the Western armies 13 saluted their new sovereign as he descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana in Cappadocia. From Tyana he continued his hasty march to Ancyra, capital of the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed, with his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship. 14 Dadastana, 15 an obscure town, almost at an equal distance between Ancyra and Nice, was marked for the fatal term of his journey and life. After indulging himself with a plentiful, perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed. The cause of this sudden death was variously understood. By some it was ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms, which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome moisture of the fresh plaster. 16 But the want of a regular inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were soon forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which countenanced the malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt. 17 The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be interred with his predecessors, and the sad procession was met on the road by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her tears in the embraces of an Imperial husband. Her disappointment and grief were imbittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness. Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of Nobilissimus, and the vain ensigns of the consulship. Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother expected every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from her arms, to appease, with his blood, the suspicions of the reigning prince. 18
11 (return)
[ Johan. Antiochen. in
Excerpt. Valesian. p. 845. The libels of Antioch may be admitted on very
slight evidence.]
12 (return)
[ Compare Ammianus, (xxv.
10,) who omits the name of the Batarians, with Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 197,)
who removes the scene of action from Rheims to Sirmium.]
13 (return)
[ Quos capita scholarum
ordo castrensis appellat. Ammian. xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.]
14 (return)
[ Cugus vagitus,
pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod
mox accidit protendebat. Augustus and his successors respectfully
solicited a dispensation of age for the sons or nephews whom they raised
to the consulship. But the curule chair of the first Brutus had never been
dishonored by an infant.]
15 (return)
[ The Itinerary of
Antoninus fixes Dadastana 125 Roman miles from Nice; 117 from Ancyra,
(Wesseling, Itinerar. p. 142.) The pilgrim of Bourdeaux, by omitting some
stages, reduces the whole space from 242 to 181 miles. Wesseling, p. 574.
* Note: Dadastana is supposed to be Castabat.—M.]
16 (return)
[ See Ammianus, (xxv.
10,) Eutropius, (x. 18.) who might likewise be present, Jerom, (tom. i. p.
26, ad Heliodorum.) Orosius, (vii. 31,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 6,) Zosimus,
(l. iii. p. 197, 198,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 28, 29.) We
cannot expect a perfect agreement, and we shall not discuss minute
differences.]
17 (return)
[ Ammianus, unmindful of
his usual candor and good sense, compares the death of the harmless Jovian
to that of the second Africanus, who had excited the fears and resentment
of the popular faction.]
18 (return)
[ Chrysostom, tom. i. p.
336, 344, edit. Montfaucon. The Christian orator attempts to comfort a
widow by the examples of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of
nine emperors (including the Caesar Gallus) who had reigned in his time,
only two (Constantine and Constantius) died a natural death. Such vague
consolations have never wiped away a single tear.]
After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world remained ten days, 19 without a master. The ministers and generals still continued to meet in council; to exercise their respective functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was chosen for the place of the election. 20 In a solemn assembly of the civil and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again unanimously offered to the praefect Sallust. He enjoyed the glory of a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father were alleged in favor of his son, the praefect, with the firmness of a disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble age of the one, and the unexperienced youth of the other, were equally incapable of the laborious duties of government. Several candidates were proposed; and, after weighing the objections of character or situation, they were successively rejected; but, as soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained the sincere approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian 21 was the son of Count Gratian, a native of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who from an obscure condition had raised himself, by matchless strength and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa and Britain; from which he retired with an ample fortune and suspicious integrity. The rank and services of Gratian contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the promotion of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying those solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly countenance, deeply marked with the impression of sense and spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear; and to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian preserved his own and the public esteem. The avocations of a military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of literature; 2111 he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which he discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace, by the contempt which he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; 22 and it should seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however, and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; 23 and in the various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The celerity and success with which he executed an important commission, recommended him to the favor of Jovian; and to the honorable command of the second school, or company, of Targetiers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly summoned, without guilt and without intrigue, to assume, in the forty-third year of his age, the absolute government of the Roman empire.
19 (return)
[ Ten days appear
scarcely sufficient for the march and election. But it may be observed, 1.
That the generals might command the expeditious use of the public posts
for themselves, their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for
the ease of the cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head of
the column might arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at Ancyra.]
20 (return)
[ Ammianus, xxvi. 1.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 198. Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 8, and Godefroy,
Dissertat. p. 334. Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some
curious and authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to
the praefect Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Dagalaiphus count of
the domestics, and the patrician Datianus, whose pressing recommendations
from Ancyra had a weighty influence in the election.]
21 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxx. 7, 9)
and the younger Victor have furnished the portrait of Valentinian, which
naturally precedes and illustrates the history of his reign. * Note:
Symmachus, in a fragment of an oration published by M. Mai, describes
Valentinian as born among the snows of Illyria, and habituated to military
labor amid the heat and dust of Libya: genitus in frigoribus, educatus is
solibus Sym. Orat. Frag. edit. Niebuhr, p. 5.—M.]
2111 (return)
[ According to
Ammianus, he wrote elegantly, and was skilled in painting and modelling.
Scribens decore, venusteque pingens et fingens. xxx. 7.—M.]
22 (return)
[ At Antioch, where he
was obliged to attend the emperor to the table, he struck a priest, who
had presumed to purify him with lustral water, (Sozomen, l. vi. c. 6.
Theodoret, l. iii. c. 15.) Such public defiance might become Valentinian;
but it could leave no room for the unworthy delation of the philosopher
Maximus, which supposes some more private offence, (Zosimus, l. iv. p.
200, 201.)]
23 (return)
[ Socrates, l. iv. A
previous exile to Melitene, or Thebais (the first might be possible,) is
interposed by Sozomen (l. vi. c. 6) and Philostorgius, (l. vii. c. 7, with
Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 293.)]
The invitation of the ministers and generals at Nice was of little moment, unless it were confirmed by the voice of the army.
The aged Sallust, who had long observed the irregular fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, under pain of death, that none of those persons, whose rank in the service might excite a party in their favor, should appear in public on the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the intercalation of the Bissextile. 24 At length, when the hour was supposed to be propitious, Valentinian showed himself from a lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was applauded; and the new prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple, amidst the acclamation of the troops, who were disposed in martial order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his hand to address the armed multitude, a busy whisper was accidentally started in the ranks, and insensibly swelled into a loud and imperious clamor, that he should name, without delay, a colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of Valentinian obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed the assembly: "A few minutes since it was in your power, fellow-soldiers, to have left me in the obscurity of a private station. Judging, from the testimony of my past life, that I deserved to reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now my duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The weight of the universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of a feeble mortal. I am conscious of the limits of my abilities, and the uncertainty of my life; and far from declining, I am anxious to solicit, the assistance of a worthy colleague. But, where discord may be fatal, the choice of a faithful friend requires mature and serious deliberation. That deliberation shall be my care. Let your conduct be dutiful and consistent. Retire to your quarters; refresh your minds and bodies; and expect the accustomed donative on the accession of a new emperor." 25 The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master.
Their angry clamors subsided into silent reverence; and Valentinian, encompassed with the eagles of the legions, and the various banners of the cavalry and infantry, was conducted, in warlike pomp, to the palace of Nice. As he was sensible, however, of the importance of preventing some rash declaration of the soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their real sentiments were concisely expressed by the generous freedom of Dagalaiphus. "Most excellent prince," said that officer, "if you consider only your family, you have a brother; if you love the republic, look round for the most deserving of the Romans." 26 The emperor, who suppressed his displeasure, without altering his intention, slowly proceeded from Nice to Nicomedia and Constantinople. In one of the suburbs of that capital, 27 thirty days after his own elevation, he bestowed the title of Augustus on his brother Valens; 2711 and as the boldest patriots were convinced, that their opposition, without being serviceable to their country, would be fatal to themselves, the declaration of his absolute will was received with silent submission. Valens was now in the thirty-sixth year of his age; but his abilities had never been exercised in any employment, military or civil; and his character had not inspired the world with any sanguine expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which recommended him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace of the empire; devout and grateful attachment to his benefactor, whose superiority of genius, as well as of authority, Valens humbly and cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his life. 28
24 (return)
[ Ammianus, in a long,
because unseasonable, digression, (xxvi. l, and Valesius, ad locum,)
rashly supposes that he understands an astronomical question, of which his
readers are ignorant. It is treated with more judgment and propriety by
Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 20) and Macrobius, (Saturnal. i. c. 12-16.)
The appellation of Bissextile, which marks the inauspicious year,
(Augustin. ad Januarium, Epist. 119,) is derived from the repetition of
the sixth day of the calends of March.]
25 (return)
[ Valentinian's first
speech is in Ammianus, (xxvi. 2;) concise and sententious in
Philostorgius, (l. viii. c. 8.)]
26 (return)
[ Si tuos amas, Imperator
optime, habes fratrem; si Rempublicam quaere quem vestias. Ammian. xxvi.
4. In the division of the empire, Valentinian retained that sincere
counsellor for himself, (c.6.)]
27 (return)
[ In suburbano, Ammian.
xxvi. 4. The famous Hebdomon, or field of Mars, was distant from
Constantinople either seven stadia, or seven miles. See Valesius, and his
brother, ad loc., and Ducange, Const. l. ii. p. 140, 141, 172, 173.]
2711 (return)
[ Symmachus praises
the liberality of Valentinian in raising his brother at once to the rank
of Augustus, not training him through the slow and probationary degree of
Caesar. Exigui animi vices munerum partiuntur, liberalitas desideriis
nihil reliquit. Symm. Orat. p. 7. edit. Niebuhr, 1816, reprinted from Mai.—M.]
28 (return)
[ Participem quidem
legitimum potestatis; sed in modum apparitoris morigerum, ut progrediens
aperiet textus. Ammian. xxvi. 4.]
Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the administration of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had been injured or oppressed under the reign of Julian, were invited to support their public accusations. The silence of mankind attested the spotless integrity of the praefect Sallust; 29 and his own pressing solicitations, that he might be permitted to retire from the business of the state, were rejected by Valentinian with the most honorable expressions of friendship and esteem. But among the favorites of the late emperor, there were many who had abused his credulity or superstition; and who could no longer hope to be protected either by favor or justice. 30 The greater part of the ministers of the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were removed from their respective stations; yet the eminent merit of some officers was distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and, notwithstanding the opposite clamors of zeal and resentment, the whole proceedings of this delicate inquiry appear to have been conducted with a reasonable share of wisdom and moderation. 31 The festivity of a new reign received a short and suspicious interruption from the sudden illness of the two princes; but as soon as their health was restored, they left Constantinople in the beginning of the spring. In the castle, or palace, of Mediana, only three miles from Naissus, they executed the solemn and final division of the Roman empire. 32 Valentinian bestowed on his brother the rich praefecture of the East, from the Lower Danube to the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his immediate government the warlike 3211 praefectures of Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, from the extremity of Greece to the Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart of Caledonia to the foot of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration remained on its former basis; but a double supply of generals and magistrates was required for two councils, and two courts: the division was made with a just regard to their peculiar merit and situation, and seven master-generals were soon created, either of the cavalry or infantry. When this important business had been amicably transacted, Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last time. The emperor of the West established his temporary residence at Milan; and the emperor of the East returned to Constantinople, to assume the dominion of fifty provinces, of whose language he was totally ignorant. 33
29 (return)
[ Notwithstanding the
evidence of Zonaras, Suidas, and the Paschal Chronicle, M. de Tillemont
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 671) wishes to disbelieve those stories,
si avantageuses a un payen.]
30 (return)
[ Eunapius celebrates and
exaggerates the sufferings of Maximus. (p. 82, 83;) yet he allows that the
sophist or magician, the guilty favorite of Julian, and the personal enemy
of Valentinian, was dismissed on the payment of a small fine.]
31 (return)
[ The loose assertions of
a general disgrace (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 201), are detected and refuted by
Tillemont, (tom. v. p. 21.)]
32 (return)
[ Ammianus, xxvi. 5.]
3211 (return)
[ Ipae supra impacati
Rhen semibarbaras ripas raptim vexilla constituens * * Princeps creatus ad
difficilem militiam revertisti. Symm. Orat. 81.—M.]
33 (return)
[ Ammianus says, in
general terms, subagrestis ingenii, nec bellicis nec liberalibus studiis
eruditus. Ammian. xxxi. 14. The orator Themistius, with the genuine
impertinence of a Greek, wishes for the first time to speak the Latin
language, the dialect of his sovereign. Orat. vi. p. 71.]
The tranquility of the East was soon disturbed by rebellion; and the throne of Valens was threatened by the daring attempts of a rival whose affinity to the emperor Julian 34 was his sole merit, and had been his only crime. Procopius had been hastily promoted from the obscure station of a tribune, and a notary, to the joint command of the army of Mesopotamia; the public opinion already named him as the successor of a prince who was destitute of natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated by his friends, or his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at Carrhae, had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial purple. 35 He endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive behavior, to disarm the jealousy of Jovian; resigned, without a contest, his military command; and retired, with his wife and family, to cultivate the ample patrimony which he possessed in the province of Cappadocia. These useful and innocent occupations were interrupted by the appearance of an officer with a band of soldiers, who, in the name of his new sovereigns, Valentinian and Valens, was despatched to conduct the unfortunate Procopius either to a perpetual prison or an ignominious death. His presence of mind procured him a longer respite, and a more splendid fate. Without presuming to dispute the royal mandate, he requested the indulgence of a few moments to embrace his weeping family; and while the vigilance of his guards was relaxed by a plentiful entertainment, he dexterously escaped to the sea-coast of the Euxine, from whence he passed over to the country of Bosphorus. In that sequestered region he remained many months, exposed to the hardships of exile, of solitude, and of want; his melancholy temper brooding over his misfortunes, and his mind agitated by the just apprehension, that, if any accident should discover his name, the faithless Barbarians would violate, without much scruple, the laws of hospitality. In a moment of impatience and despair, Procopius embarked in a merchant vessel, which made sail for Constantinople; and boldly aspired to the rank of a sovereign, because he was not allowed to enjoy the security of a subject. At first he lurked in the villages of Bithynia, continually changing his habitation and his disguise. 36 By degrees he ventured into the capital, trusted his life and fortune to the fidelity of two friends, a senator and a eunuch, and conceived some hopes of success, from the intelligence which he obtained of the actual state of public affairs. The body of the people was infected with a spirit of discontent: they regretted the justice and the abilities of Sallust, who had been imprudently dismissed from the praefecture of the East. They despised the character of Valens, which was rude without vigor, and feeble without mildness. They dreaded the influence of his father-in-law, the patrician Petronius, a cruel and rapacious minister, who rigorously exacted all the arrears of tribute that might remain unpaid since the reign of the emperor Aurelian. The circumstances were propitious to the designs of a usurper. The hostile measures of the Persians required the presence of Valens in Syria: from the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were in motion; and the capital was occasionally filled with the soldiers who passed or repassed the Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of Gaul were persuaded to listen to the secret proposals of the conspirators; which were recommended by the promise of a liberal donative; and, as they still revered the memory of Julian, they easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near the baths of Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple garment, more suitable to a player than to a monarch, appeared, as if he rose from the dead, in the midst of Constantinople. The soldiers, who were prepared for his reception, saluted their trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows of fidelity. Their numbers were soon increased by a band of sturdy peasants, collected from the adjacent country; and Procopius, shielded by the arms of his adherents, was successively conducted to the tribunal, the senate, and the palace. During the first moments of his tumultuous reign, he was astonished and terrified by the gloomy silence of the people; who were either ignorant of the cause, or apprehensive of the event. But his military strength was superior to any actual resistance: the malecontents flocked to the standard of rebellion; the poor were excited by the hopes, and the rich were intimidated by the fear, of a general pillage; and the obstinate credulity of the multitude was once more deceived by the promised advantages of a revolution. The magistrates were seized; the prisons and arsenals broke open; the gates, and the entrance of the harbor, were diligently occupied; and, in a few hours, Procopius became the absolute, though precarious, master of the Imperial city. 3611 The usurper improved this unexpected success with some degree of courage and dexterity. He artfully propagated the rumors and opinions the most favorable to his interest; while he deluded the populace by giving audience to the frequent, but imaginary, ambassadors of distant nations. The large bodies of troops stationed in the cities of Thrace and the fortresses of the Lower Danube, were gradually involved in the guilt of rebellion: and the Gothic princes consented to supply the sovereign of Constantinople with the formidable strength of several thousand auxiliaries. His generals passed the Bosphorus, and subdued, without an effort, the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of Bithynia and Asia. After an honorable defence, the city and island of Cyzicus yielded to his power; the renowned legions of the Jovians and Herculeans embraced the cause of the usurper, whom they were ordered to crush; and, as the veterans were continually augmented with new levies, he soon appeared at the head of an army, whose valor, as well as numbers, were not unequal to the greatness of the contest. The son of Hormisdas, 37 a youth of spirit and ability, condescended to draw his sword against the lawful emperor of the East; and the Persian prince was immediately invested with the ancient and extraordinary powers of a Roman Proconsul. The alliance of Faustina, the widow of the emperor Constantius, who intrusted herself and her daughter to the hands of the usurper, added dignity and reputation to his cause. The princess Constantia, who was then about five years of age, accompanied, in a litter, the march of the army. She was shown to the multitude in the arms of her adopted father; and, as often as she passed through the ranks, the tenderness of the soldiers was inflamed into martial fury: 38 they recollected the glories of the house of Constantine, and they declared, with loyal acclamation, that they would shed the last drop of their blood in the defence of the royal infant. 39
34 (return)
[ The uncertain degree of
alliance, or consanguinity, is expressed by the words, cognatus,
consobrinus, (see Valesius ad Ammian. xxiii. 3.) The mother of Procopius
might be a sister of Basilina and Count Julian, the mother and uncle of
the Apostate. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 49.]
35 (return)
[ Ammian. xxiii. 3, xxvi.
6. He mentions the report with much hesitation: susurravit obscurior fama;
nemo enim dicti auctor exstitit verus. It serves, however, to remark, that
Procopius was a Pagan. Yet his religion does not appear to have promoted,
or obstructed, his pretensions.]
36 (return)
[ One of his retreats was
a country-house of Eunomius, the heretic. The master was absent, innocent,
ignorant; yet he narrowly escaped a sentence of death, and was banished
into the remote parts of Mauritania, (Philostorg. l. ix. c. 5, 8, and
Godefroy's Dissert. p. 369-378.)]
3611 (return)
[ It may be
suspected, from a fragment of Eunapius, that the heathen and philosophic
party espoused the cause of Procopius. Heraclius, the Cynic, a man who had
been honored by a philosophic controversy with Julian, striking the ground
with his staff, incited him to courage with the line of Homer Eunapius.
Mai, p. 207 or in Niebuhr's edition, p. 73.—M.]
37 (return)
[ Hormisdae maturo juveni
Hormisdae regalis illius filio, potestatem Proconsulis detulit; et
civilia, more veterum, et bella, recturo. Ammian. xxvi. 8. The Persian
prince escaped with honor and safety, and was afterwards (A. D. 380)
restored to the same extraordinary office of proconsul of Bithynia,
(Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 204) I am ignorant whether the
race of Sassan was propagated. I find (A. D. 514) a pope Hormisdas; but he
was a native of Frusino, in Italy, (Pagi Brev. Pontific. tom. i. p. 247)]
38 (return)
[ The infant rebel was
afterwards the wife of the emperor Gratian but she died young, and
childless. See Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 48, 59.]
39 (return)
[ Sequimini culminis
summi prosapiam, was the language of Procopius, who affected to despise
the obscure birth, and fortuitous election of the upstart Pannonian.
Ammian. xxvi. 7.]
In the mean while Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful intelligence of the revolt of the East. 3911 The difficulties of a German was forced him to confine his immediate care to the safety of his own dominions; and, as every channel of communication was stopped or corrupted, he listened, with doubtful anxiety, to the rumors which were industriously spread, that the defeat and death of Valens had left Procopius sole master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not dead: but on the news of the rebellion, which he received at Caesarea, he basely despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the Imperial purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and ruin by the firmness of his ministers, and their abilities soon decided in his favor the event of the civil war. In a season of tranquillity, Sallust had resigned without a murmur; but as soon as the public safety was attacked, he ambitiously solicited the preeminence of toil and danger; and the restoration of that virtuous minister to the praefecture of the East, was the first step which indicated the repentance of Valens, and satisfied the minds of the people. The reign of Procopius was apparently supported by powerful armies and obedient provinces. But many of the principal officers, military as well as civil, had been urged, either by motives of duty or interest, to withdraw themselves from the guilty scene; or to watch the moment of betraying, and deserting, the cause of the usurper. Lupicinus advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions of Syria to the aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and valor, excelled all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop a superior body of the rebels. When he beheld the faces of the soldiers who had served under his banner, he commanded them, with a loud voice, to seize and deliver up their pretended leader; and such was the ascendant of his genius, that this extraordinary order was instantly obeyed. 40 Arbetio, a respectable veteran of the great Constantine, who had been distinguished by the honors of the consulship, was persuaded to leave his retirement, and once more to conduct an army into the field. In the heat of action, calmly taking off his helmet, he showed his gray hairs and venerable countenance: saluted the soldiers of Procopius by the endearing names of children and companions, and exhorted them no longer to support the desperate cause of a contemptible tyrant; but to follow their old commander, who had so often led them to honor and victory. In the two engagements of Thyatira 41 and Nacolia, the unfortunate Procopius was deserted by his troops, who were seduced by the instructions and example of their perfidious officers. After wandering some time among the woods and mountains of Phyrgia, he was betrayed by his desponding followers, conducted to the Imperial camp, and immediately beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate of an unsuccessful usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by the conqueror, under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and indignation of mankind. 42
3911 (return)
[ Symmachus describes
his embarrassment. "The Germans are the common enemies of the state,
Procopius the private foe of the Emperor; his first care must be victory,
his second revenge." Symm. Orat. p. 11.—M.]
40 (return)
[ Et dedignatus hominem
superare certamine despicabilem, auctoritatis et celsi fiducia corporis
ipsis hostibus jussit, suum vincire rectorem: atque ita turmarum,
antesignanus umbratilis comprensus suorum manibus. The strength and beauty
of Arintheus, the new Hercules, are celebrated by St. Basil, who supposed
that God had created him as an inimitable model of the human species. The
painters and sculptors could not express his figure: the historians
appeared fabulous when they related his exploits, (Ammian. xxvi. and
Vales. ad loc.)]
41 (return)
[ The same field of
battle is placed by Ammianus in Lycia, and by Zosimus at Thyatira, which
are at the distance of 150 miles from each other. But Thyatira alluitur
Lyco, (Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 31, Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p.
79;) and the transcribers might easily convert an obscure river into a
well-known province. * Note: Ammianus and Zosimus place the last battle at
Nacolia in Phrygia; Ammianus altogether omits the former battle near
Thyatira. Procopius was on his march (iter tendebat) towards Lycia. See
Wagner's note, in c.—M.]
42 (return)
[ The adventures,
usurpation, and fall of Procopius, are related, in a regular series, by
Ammianus, (xxvi. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 203-210.) They
often illustrate, and seldom contradict, each other. Themistius (Orat.
vii. p. 91, 92) adds some base panegyric; and Euna pius (p. 83, 84) some
malicious satire. ——Symmachus joins with Themistius in
praising the clemency of Valens dic victoriae moderatus est, quasi contra
se nemo pugnavit. Symm. Orat. p. 12.—M.]
Such indeed are the common and natural fruits of despotism and rebellion. But the inquisition into the crime of magic, 4211 which, under the reign of the two brothers, was so rigorously prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or of the depravity of mankind. 43 Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal pride, that, in the present age, the enlightened part of Europe has abolished 44 a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in every climate of the globe, and adhered to every system of religious opinions. 45 The nations, and the sects, of the Roman world, admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the reality of that infernal art, 46 which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant daemons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. 47 The arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion, and by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually proscribed, and continually practised. 48 An imaginary cause as capable of producing the most serious and mischievous effects. The dark predictions of the death of an emperor, or the success of a conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate the hopes of ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity; and the intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of treason and sacrilege. 49 Such vain terrors disturbed the peace of society, and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless flame which insensibly melted a waxen image, might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. 50 From the infusion of those herbs, which were supposed to possess a supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the use of more substantial poison; and the folly of mankind sometimes became the instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious crimes. As soon as the zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of Valens and Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to another charge, too frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic guilt; a charge of a softer and less malignant nature, for which the pious, though excessive, rigor of Constantine had recently decreed the punishment of death. 51 This deadly and incoherent mixture of treason and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and aggravation, which in these proceedings appear to have been confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges. They easily discovered that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from the respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained with perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity; but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, were seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who were appointed to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the flight, or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The wealthiest families were ruined by fines and confiscations; the most innocent citizens trembled for their safety; and we may form some notion of the magnitude of the evil, from the extravagant assertion of an ancient writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces, the prisoners, the exiles, and the fugitives, formed the greatest part of the inhabitants. 52
4211 (return)
[ This infamous
inquisition into sorcery and witchcraft has been of greater influence on
human affairs than is commonly supposed. The persecutions against
philosophers and their libraries was carried on with so much fury, that
from this time (A. D. 374) the names of the Gentile philosophers became
almost extinct; and the Christian philosophy and religion, particularly in
the East, established their ascendency. I am surprised that Gibbon has not
made this observation. Heyne, Note on Zosimus, l. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides
vast heaps of manuscripts publicly destroyed throughout the East, men of
letters burned their whole libraries, lest some fatal volume should expose
them to the malice of the informers and the extreme penalty of the law.
Amm. Marc. xxix. 11.—M.]
43 (return)
[ Libanius de ulciscend.
Julian. nece, c. ix. p. 158, 159. The sophist deplores the public frenzy,
but he does not (after their deaths) impeach the justice of the emperors.]
44 (return)
[ The French and English
lawyers, of the present age, allow the theory, and deny the practice, of
witchcraft, (Denisart, Recueil de Decisions de Jurisprudence, au mot
Sorciers, tom. iv. p. 553. Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 60.) As
private reason always prevents, or outstrips, public wisdom, the president
Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 5, 6) rejects the existence of
magic.]
45 (return)
[ See Oeuvres de Bayle,
tom. iii. p. 567-589. The sceptic of Rotterdam exhibits, according to his
custom, a strange medley of loose knowledge and lively wit.]
46 (return)
[ The Pagans
distinguished between good and bad magic, the Theurgic and the Goetic,
(Hist. de l'Academie, &c., tom. vii. p. 25.) But they could not have
defended this obscure distinction against the acute logic of Bayle. In the
Jewish and Christian system, all daemons are infernal spirits; and all
commerce with them is idolatry, apostasy &c., which deserves death and
damnation.]
47 (return)
[ The Canidia of Horace
(Carm. l. v. Od. 5, with Dacier's and Sanadon's illustrations) is a vulgar
witch. The Erictho of Lucan (Pharsal. vi. 430-830) is tedious, disgusting,
but sometimes sublime. She chides the delay of the Furies, and threatens,
with tremendous obscurity, to pronounce their real names; to reveal the
true infernal countenance of Hecate; to invoke the secret powers that lie
below hell, &c.]
48 (return)
[ Genus hominum
potentibus infidum, sperantibus fallax, quod in civitate nostra et
vetabitur semper et retinebitur. Tacit. Hist. i. 22. See Augustin. de
Civitate Dei, l. viii. c. 19, and the Theodosian Code l. ix. tit. xvi.,
with Godefroy's Commentary.]
49 (return)
[ The persecution of
Antioch was occasioned by a criminal consultation. The twenty-four letters
of the alphabet were arranged round a magic tripod: and a dancing ring,
which had been placed in the centre, pointed to the four first letters in
the name of the future emperor, O. E. O Triangle. Theodorus (perhaps with
many others, who owned the fatal syllables) was executed. Theodosius
succeeded. Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 353-372) has
copiously and fairly examined this dark transaction of the reign of
Valens.]
50 (return)
[
Limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit Uno eodemque igni—Virgil. Bucolic. viii. 80. Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea figit. —Ovid. in Epist. Hypsil. ad Jason 91.
Such vain incantations could affect the mind, and increase the disease of Germanicus. Tacit. Annal. ii. 69.]
51 (return)
[ See Heineccius,
Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. ii. p. 353, &c. Cod. Theodosian. l. ix.
tit. 7, with Godefroy's Commentary.]
52 (return)
[ The cruel persecution
of Rome and Antioch is described, and most probably exaggerated, by
Ammianus (xxvii. 1. xxix. 1, 2) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 216-218.) The
philosopher Maximus, with some justice, was involved in the charge of
magic, (Eunapius in Vit. Sophist. p. 88, 89;) and young Chrysostom, who
had accidentally found one of the proscribed books, gave himself up for
lost, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 340.)]
When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious Romans, who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the first Caesars, the art of the historian, or the merit of the sufferers, excites in our breast the most lively sensations of terror, of admiration, and of pity. The coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy. But as our attention is no longer engaged by the contrast of freedom and servitude, of recent greatness and of actual misery, we should turn with horror from the frequent executions, which disgraced, both at Rome and Antioch, the reign of the two brothers. 53 Valens was of a timid, 54 and Valentinian of a choleric, disposition. 55 An anxious regard to his personal safety was the ruling principle of the administration of Valens. In the condition of a subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe, the hand of the oppressor; and when he ascended the throne, he reasonably expected, that the same fears, which had subdued his own mind, would secure the patient submission of his people. The favorites of Valens obtained, by the privilege of rapine and confiscation, the wealth which his economy would have refused. 56 They urged, with persuasive eloquence, that, in all cases of treason, suspicion is equivalent to proof; that the power supposes the intention, of mischief; that the intention is not less criminal than the act; and that a subject no longer deserves to live, if his life may threaten the safety, or disturb the repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused; but he would have silenced the informers with a contemptuous smile, had they presumed to alarm his fortitude by the sound of danger. They praised his inflexible love of justice; and, in the pursuit of justice, the emperor was easily tempted to consider clemency as a weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he wrestled with his equals, in the bold competition of an active and ambitious life, Valentinian was seldom injured, and never insulted, with impunity: if his prudence was arraigned, his spirit was applauded; and the proudest and most powerful generals were apprehensive of provoking the resentment of a fearless soldier. After he became master of the world, he unfortunately forgot, that where no resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted; and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and magnanimity, he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time when they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household, or of his empire, slight, or even imaginary, offences—a hasty word, a casual omission, an involuntary delay—were chastised by a sentence of immediate death. The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, "Strike off his head;" "Burn him alive;" "Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;" 57 and his most favored ministers soon understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or suspend, the execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The repeated gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind of Valentinian against pity and remorse; and the sallies of passion were confirmed by the habits of cruelty. 58 He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul.
Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence, and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor; and when Innocence had earned her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native woods. 59
53 (return)
[ Consult the six last
books of Ammianus, and more particularly the portraits of the two royal
brothers, (xxx. 8, 9, xxxi. 14.) Tillemont has collected (tom. v. p.
12-18, p. 127-133) from all antiquity their virtues and vices.]
54 (return)
[ The younger Victor
asserts, that he was valde timidus: yet he behaved, as almost every man
would do, with decent resolution at the head of an army. The same
historian attempts to prove that his anger was harmless. Ammianus
observes, with more candor and judgment, incidentia crimina ad contemptam
vel laesam principis amplitudinem trahens, in sanguinem saeviebat.]
55 (return)
[ Cum esset ad
acerbitatem naturae calore propensior. .. poenas perignes augebat et
gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See xxvii. 7]
56 (return)
[ I have transferred the
reproach of avarice from Valens to his servant. Avarice more properly
belongs to ministers than to kings; in whom that passion is commonly
extinguished by absolute possession.]
57 (return)
[ He sometimes expressed
a sentence of death with a tone of pleasantry: "Abi, Comes, et muta ei
caput, qui sibi mutari provinciam cupit." A boy, who had slipped too
hastily a Spartan bound; an armorer, who had made a polished cuirass that
wanted some grains of the legitimate weight, &c., were the victims of
his fury.]
58 (return)
[ The innocents of Milan
were an agent and three apparitors, whom Valentinian condemned for
signifying a legal summons. Ammianus (xxvii. 7) strangely supposes, that
all who had been unjustly executed were worshipped as martyrs by the
Christians. His impartial silence does not allow us to believe, that the
great chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt alive for an act of oppression,
(Chron. Paschal. p. 392.) * Note: Ammianus does not say that they were
worshipped as martyrs. Onorum memoriam apud Mediolanum colentes nunc usque
Christiani loculos ubi sepulti sunt, ad innocentes appellant. Wagner's
note in loco. Yet if the next paragraph refers to that transaction, which
is not quite clear. Gibbon is right.—M.]
59 (return)
[ Ut bene meritam in
sylvas jussit abire Innoxiam. Ammian. xxix. and Valesius ad locum.]
But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens was not agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the tyrant resumed the sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the father of his country. The dispassionate judgment of the Western emperor could clearly perceive, and accurately pursue, his own and the public interest; and the sovereign of the East, who imitated with equal docility the various examples which he received from his elder brother, was sometimes guided by the wisdom and virtue of the praefect Sallust. Both princes invariably retained, in the purple, the chaste and temperate simplicity which had adorned their private life; and, under their reign, the pleasures of the court never cost the people a blush or a sigh. They gradually reformed many of the abuses of the times of Constantius; judiciously adopted and improved the designs of Julian and his successor; and displayed a style and spirit of legislation which might inspire posterity with the most favorable opinion of their character and government. It is not from the master of Innocence, that we should expect the tender regard for the welfare of his subjects, which prompted Valentinian to condemn the exposition of new-born infants; 60 and to establish fourteen skilful physicians, with stipends and privileges, in the fourteen quarters of Rome. The good sense of an illiterate soldier founded a useful and liberal institution for the education of youth, and the support of declining science. 61 It was his intention, that the arts of rhetoric and grammar should be taught in the Greek and Latin languages, in the metropolis of every province; and as the size and dignity of the school was usually proportioned to the importance of the city, the academies of Rome and Constantinople claimed a just and singular preeminence. The fragments of the literary edicts of Valentinian imperfectly represent the school of Constantinople, which was gradually improved by subsequent regulations. That school consisted of thirty-one professors in different branches of learning. One philosopher, and two lawyers; five sophists, and ten grammarians for the Greek, and three orators, and ten grammarians for the Latin tongue; besides seven scribes, or, as they were then styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens supplied the public library with fair and correct copies of the classic writers. The rule of conduct, which was prescribed to the students, is the more curious, as it affords the first outlines of the form and discipline of a modern university. It was required, that they should bring proper certificates from the magistrates of their native province. Their names, professions, and places of abode, were regularly entered in a public register.
The studious youth were severely prohibited from wasting their time in feasts, or in the theatre; and the term of their education was limited to the age of twenty. The praefect of the city was empowered to chastise the idle and refractory by stripes or expulsion; and he was directed to make an annual report to the master of the offices, that the knowledge and abilities of the scholars might be usefully applied to the public service. The institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the benefits of peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the establishment of the Defensors; 62 freely elected as the tribunes and advocates of the people, to support their rights, and to expose their grievances, before the tribunals of the civil magistrates, or even at the foot of the Imperial throne. The finances were diligently administered by two princes, who had been so long accustomed to the rigid economy of a private fortune; but in the receipt and application of the revenue, a discerning eye might observe some difference between the government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded, that royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression, and his ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual distress, the future strength and prosperity of his people. Instead of increasing the weight of taxes, which, in the space of forty years, had been gradually doubled, he reduced, in the first years of his reign, one fourth of the tribute of the East. 63 Valentinian appears to have been less attentive and less anxious to relieve the burdens of his people. He might reform the abuses of the fiscal administration; but he exacted, without scruple, a very large share of the private property; as he was convinced, that the revenues, which supported the luxury of individuals, would be much more advantageously employed for the defence and improvement of the state. The subjects of the East, who enjoyed the present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their prince. The solid but less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and acknowledged by the subsequent generation. 64
60 (return)
[ See the Code of
Justinian, l. viii. tit. lii. leg. 2. Unusquisque sabolem suam nutriat.
Quod si exponendam putaverit animadversioni quae constituta est
subjacebit. For the present I shall not interfere in the dispute between
Noodt and Binkershoek; how far, or how long this unnatural practice had
been condemned or abolished by law philosophy, and the more civilized
state of society.]
61 (return)
[ These salutary
institutions are explained in the Theodosian Code, l. xiii. tit. iii. De
Professoribus et Medicis, and l. xiv. tit. ix. De Studiis liberalibus
Urbis Romoe. Besides our usual guide, (Godefroy,) we may consult Giannone,
(Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 105-111,) who has treated the interesting
subject with the zeal and curiosity of a man of latters who studies his
domestic history.]
62 (return)
[ Cod. Theodos. l. i.
tit. xi. with Godefroy's Paratitlon, which diligently gleans from the rest
of the code.]
63 (return)
[ Three lines of Ammianus
(xxxi. 14) countenance a whole oration of Themistius, (viii. p. 101-120,)
full of adulation, pedantry, and common-place morality. The eloquent M.
Thomas (tom. i. p. 366-396) has amused himself with celebrating the
virtues and genius of Themistius, who was not unworthy of the age in which
he lived.]
64 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 202.
Ammian. xxx. 9. His reformation of costly abuses might entitle him to the
praise of, in provinciales admodum parcus, tributorum ubique molliens
sarcinas. By some his frugality was styled avarice, (Jerom. Chron. p.
186)]
But the most honorable circumstance of the character of Valentinian, is the firm and temperate impartiality which he uniformly preserved in an age of religious contention. His strong sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined, with respectful indifference, the subtle questions of theological debate. The government of the Earth claimed his vigilance, and satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered that he was the disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the sovereign of the clergy. Under the reign of an apostate, he had signalized his zeal for the honor of Christianity: he allowed to his subjects the privilege which he had assumed for himself; and they might accept, with gratitude and confidence, the general toleration which was granted by a prince addicted to passion, but incapable of fear or of disguise. 65 The Pagans, the Jews, and all the various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or popular insult; nor was any mode of worship prohibited by Valentinian, except those secret and criminal practices, which abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of vice and disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly punished, was more strictly proscribed: but the emperor admitted a formal distinction to protect the ancient methods of divination, which were approved by the senate, and exercised by the Tuscan haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the most rational Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he immediately admitted the petition of Praetextatus, proconsul of Achaia, who represented, that the life of the Greeks would become dreary and comfortless, if they were deprived of the invaluable blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries. Philosophy alone can boast, (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy,) that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism. But this truce of twelve years, which was enforced by the wise and vigorous government of Valentinian, by suspending the repetition of mutual injuries, contributed to soften the manners, and abate the prejudices, of the religious factions.
65 (return)
[ Testes sunt leges a me
in exordio Imperii mei datae; quibus unicuique quod animo imbibisset
colendi libera facultas tributa est. Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit. xvi. leg.
9. To this declaration of Valentinian, we may add the various testimonies
of Ammianus, (xxx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 204,) and Sozomen, (l. vi. c.
7, 21.) Baronius would naturally blame such rational toleration, (Annal.
Eccles A. D. 370, No. 129-132, A. D. 376, No. 3, 4.) ——Comme
il s'etait prescrit pour regle de ne point se meler de disputes de
religion, son histoire est presque entierement degagee des affaires
ecclesiastiques. Le Beau. iii. 214.—M.]
The friend of toleration was unfortunately placed at a distance from the scene of the fiercest controversies. As soon as the Christians of the West had extricated themselves from the snares of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the slumber of orthodoxy; and the small remains of the Arian party, that still subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, might be considered rather as objects of contempt than of resentment. But in the provinces of the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the strength and numbers of the hostile factions were more equally balanced; and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war. The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives; and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius still reigned at Alexandria; the thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macelonian, or Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret reluctance to embrace the divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the splendor of the triumph; and the declaration of Valens, who, in the first years of his reign, had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an important victory on the side of Arianism. The two brothers had passed their private life in the condition of catechumens; but the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit the sacrament of baptism, before he exposed his person to the dangers of a Gothic war. He naturally addressed himself to Eudoxus, 66 6611 bishop of the Imperial city; and if the ignorant monarch was instructed by that Arian pastor in the principles of heterodox theology, his misfortune, rather than his guilt, was the inevitable consequence of his erroneous choice. Whatever had been the determination of the emperor, he must have offended a numerous party of his Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the Homoousians and of the Arians believed, that, if they were not suffered to reign, they were most cruelly injured and oppressed. After he had taken this decisive step, it was extremely difficult for him to preserve either the virtue, or the reputation of impartiality. He never aspired, like Constantius, to the fame of a profound theologian; but as he had received with simplicity and respect the tenets of Euxodus, Valens resigned his conscience to the direction of his ecclesiastical guides, and promoted, by the influence of his authority, the reunion of the Athanasian heretics to the body of the Catholic church. At first, he pitied their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy; and he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an object of hatred. 67 The feeble mind of Valens was always swayed by the persons with whom he familiarly conversed; and the exile or imprisonment of a private citizen are the favors the most readily granted in a despotic court. Such punishments were frequently inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian party; and the misfortune of fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople, who, perhaps accidentally, were burned on shipboard, was imputed to the cruel and premeditated malice of the emperor, and his Arian ministers. In every contest, the Catholics (if we may anticipate that name) were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults, and of those of their adversaries. In every election, the claims of the Arian candidate obtained the preference; and if they were opposed by the majority of the people, he was usually supported by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even by the terrors of a military force. The enemies of Athanasius attempted to disturb the last years of his venerable age; and his temporary retreat to his father's sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth exile. But the zeal of a great people, who instantly flew to arms, intimidated the praefect: and the archbishop was permitted to end his life in peace and in glory, after a reign of forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the signal of the persecution of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who forcibly seated the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal throne, purchased the favor of the reigning party, by the blood and sufferings of their Christian brethren. The free toleration of the heathen and Jewish worship was bitterly lamented, as a circumstance which aggravated the misery of the Catholics, and the guilt of the impious tyrant of the East. 68
66 (return)
[ Eudoxus was of a mild
and timid disposition. When he baptized Valens, (A. D. 367,) he must have
been extremely old; since he had studied theology fifty-five years before,
under Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 14-16, l.
iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, p 82, 206, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. v. p.
471-480, &c.]
6611 (return)
[ Through the
influence of his wife say the ecclesiastical writers.—M.]
67 (return)
[ Gregory Nazianzen
(Orat. xxv. p. 432) insults the persecuting spirit of the Arians, as an
infallible symptom of error and heresy.]
68 (return)
[ This sketch of the
ecclesiastical government of Valens is drawn from Socrates, (l. iv.,)
Sozomen, (l. vi.,) Theodoret, (l. iv.,) and the immense compilations of
Tillemont, (particularly tom. vi. viii. and ix.)]
The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of persecution on the memory of Valens; and the character of a prince who derived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a feeble understanding and a pusillanimous temper, scarcely deserves the labor of an apology. Yet candor may discover some reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical ministers of Valens often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of their master; and that the real measure of facts has been very liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy credulity of his antagonists. 69 1. The silence of Valentinian may suggest a probable argument that the partial severities, which were exercised in the name and provinces of his colleague, amounted only to some obscure and inconsiderable deviations from the established system of religious toleration: and the judicious historian, who has praised the equal temper of the elder brother, has not thought himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of the West with the cruel persecution of the East. 70 2. Whatever credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent Basil, archbishop of Caesarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the management of the Trinitarian cause. 71 The circumstantial narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers of Basil; and as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric and miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or was apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with inflexible pride, 72 the truth of his opinions, and the dignity of his rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted at the solemn service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of banishment, subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the use of a hospital, which Basil had lately founded in the neighborhood of Caesarea. 73 3. I am not able to discover, that any law (such as Theodosius afterwards enacted against the Arians) was published by Valens against the Athanasian sectaries; and the edict which excited the most violent clamors, may not appear so extremely reprehensible. The emperor had observed, that several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy disposition under the pretence of religion, had associated themselves with the monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of the East to drag them from their solitude; and to compel these deserters of society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their temporal possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men and citizens. 74 The ministers of Valens seem to have extended the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of enlisting the young and ablebodied monks in the Imperial armies. A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of Nitria, 75 which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers were conducted by Arian priests; and it is reported, that a considerable slaughter was made in the monasteries which disobeyed the commands of their sovereign. 76
69 (return)
[ Dr. Jortin (Remarks on
Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 78) has already conceived and
intimated the same suspicion.]
70 (return)
[ This reflection is so
obvious and forcible, that Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, 33,) delays the
persecution till after the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other
hand, supposes, (l. iii. c. 32,) that it was appeased by a philosophical
oration, which Themistius pronounced in the year 374, (Orat. xii. p. 154,
in Latin only.) Such contradictions diminish the evidence, and reduce the
term, of the persecution of Valens.]
71 (return)
[ Tillemont, whom I
follow and abridge, has extracted (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 153-167) the
most authentic circumstances from the Panegyrics of the two Gregories; the
brother, and the friend, of Basil. The letters of Basil himself (Dupin,
Bibliotheque, Ecclesiastique, tom. ii. p. 155-180) do not present the
image of a very lively persecution.]
72 (return)
[ Basilius Caesariensis
episcopus Cappadociae clarus habetur... qui multa continentiae et ingenii
bona uno superbiae malo perdidit. This irreverent passage is perfectly in
the style and character of St. Jerom. It does not appear in Scaliger's
edition of his Chronicle; but Isaac Vossius found it in some old Mss.
which had not been reformed by the monks.]
73 (return)
[ This noble and
charitable foundation (almost a new city) surpassed in merit, if not in
greatness, the pyramids, or the walls of Babylon. It was principally
intended for the reception of lepers, (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. xx. p.
439.)]
74 (return)
[ Cod. Theodos. l. xii.
tit. i. leg. 63. Godefroy (tom. iv. p. 409-413) performs the duty of a
commentator and advocate. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 808)
supposes a second law to excuse his orthodox friends, who had
misrepresented the edict of Valens, and suppressed the liberty of choice.]
75 (return)
[ See D'Anville,
Description de l'Egypte, p. 74. Hereafter I shall consider the monastic
institutions.]
76 (return)
[ Socrates, l. iv. c. 24,
25. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33. Jerom. in Chron. p. 189, and tom. ii. p. 212.
The monks of Egypt performed many miracles, which prove the truth of their
faith. Right, says Jortin, (Remarks, vol iv. p. 79,) but what proves the
truth of those miracles.]
The strict regulations which have been framed by the wisdom of modern legislators to restrain the wealth and avarice of the clergy, may be originally deduced from the example of the emperor Valentinian. His edict, 77 addressed to Damasus, bishop of Rome, was publicly read in the churches of the city. He admonished the ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses of widows and virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of the civil judge. The director was no longer permitted to receive any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality of his spiritual-daughter: every testament contrary to this edict was declared null and void; and the illegal donation was confiscated for the use of the treasury. By a subsequent regulation, it should seem, that the same provisions were extended to nuns and bishops; and that all persons of the ecclesiastical order were rendered incapable of receiving any testamentary gifts, and strictly confined to the natural and legal rights of inheritance. As the guardian of domestic happiness and virtue, Valentinian applied this severe remedy to the growing evil. In the capital of the empire, the females of noble and opulent houses possessed a very ample share of independent property: and many of those devout females had embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not only with the cold assent of the understanding, but with the warmth of affection, and perhaps with the eagerness of fashion. They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; and renounced, for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was chosen to direct their timorous conscience, and to amuse the vacant tenderness of their heart: and the unbounded confidence, which they hastily bestowed, was often abused by knaves and enthusiasts; who hastened from the extremities of the East, to enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the privileges of the monastic profession. By their contempt of the world, they insensibly acquired its most desirable advantages; the lively attachment, perhaps of a young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an opulent household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The immense fortunes of the Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish alms and expensive pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had assigned himself the first, or possibly the sole place, in the testament of his spiritual daughter, still presumed to declare, with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that he was only the instrument of charity, and the steward of the poor. The lucrative, but disgraceful, trade, 78 which was exercised by the clergy to defraud the expectations of the natural heirs, had provoked the indignation of a superstitious age: and two of the most respectable of the Latin fathers very honestly confess, that the ignominious edict of Valentinian was just and necessary; and that the Christian priests had deserved to lose a privilege, which was still enjoyed by comedians, charioteers, and the ministers of idols. But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest; and Jerom, or Ambrose, might patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the specious names of piety and patriotism. 79
77 (return)
[ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi.
tit. ii. leg. 20. Godefroy, (tom. vi. p. 49,) after the example of
Baronius, impartially collects all that the fathers have said on the
subject of this important law; whose spirit was long afterwards revived by
the emperor Frederic II., Edward I. of England, and other Christian
princes who reigned after the twelfth century.]
78 (return)
[ The expressions which I
have used are temperate and feeble, if compared with the vehement
invectives of Jerom, (tom. i. p. 13, 45, 144, &c.) In his turn he was
reproached with the guilt which he imputed to his brother monks; and the
Sceleratus, the Versipellis, was publicly accused as the lover of the
widow Paula, (tom. ii. p. 363.) He undoubtedly possessed the affection,
both of the mother and the daughter; but he declares that he never abused
his influence to any selfish or sensual purpose.]
79 (return)
[ Pudet dicere,
sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigae, et scorta, haereditates capiunt:
solis clericis ac monachis hac lege prohibetur. Et non prohibetur a
persecutoribus, sed a principibus Christianis. Nec de lege queror; sed
doleo cur meruerimus hanc legem. Jerom (tom. i. p. 13) discreetly
insinuates the secret policy of his patron Damasus.]
Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was constrained to stigmatize the avarice of his clergy by the publication of the law of Valentinian, had the good sense, or the good fortune, to engage in his service the zeal and abilities of the learned Jerom; and the grateful saint has celebrated the merit and purity of a very ambiguous character. 80 But the splendid vices of the church of Rome, under the reign of Valentinian and Damasus, have been curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers his impartial sense in these expressive words: "The praefecture of Juventius was accompanied with peace and plenty, but the tranquillity of his government was soon disturbed by a bloody sedition of the distracted people. The ardor of Damasus and Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers; and the praefect, unable to resist or appease the tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies 81 were found in the Basilica of Sicininus, 82 where the Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it was long before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most obstinate contests. The successful candidate is secure, that he will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; 83 that, as soon as his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of Rome; 84 and that the sumptuousness of the Imperial table will not equal the profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste, and at the expense, of the Roman pontiffs. How much more rationally (continues the honest Pagan) would those pontiffs consult their true happiness, if, instead of alleging the greatness of the city as an excuse for their manners, they would imitate the exemplary life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety, whose mean apparel and downcast looks, recommend their pure and modest virtue to the Deity and his true worshippers!" 85 The schism of Damasus and Ursinus was extinguished by the exile of the latter; and the wisdom of the praefect Praetextatus 86 restored the tranquillity of the city. Praetextatus was a philosophic Pagan, a man of learning, of taste, and politeness; who disguised a reproach in the form of a jest, when he assured Damasus, that if he could obtain the bishopric of Rome, he himself would immediately embrace the Christian religion. 87 This lively picture of the wealth and luxury of the popes in the fourth century becomes the more curious, as it represents the intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the apostolic fishermen, and the royal state of a temporal prince, whose dominions extend from the confines of Naples to the banks of the Po.
80 (return)
[ Three words of Jerom,
sanctoe memorioe Damasus (tom. ii. p. 109,) wash away all his stains, and
blind the devout eyes of Tillemont. (Mem Eccles. tom. viii. p. 386-424.)]
81 (return)
[ Jerom himself is forced
to allow, crudelissimae interfectiones diversi sexus perpetratae, (in
Chron. p. 186.) But an original libel, or petition of two presbyters of
the adverse party, has unaccountably escaped. They affirm that the doors
of the Basilica were burnt, and that the roof was untiled; that Damasus
marched at the head of his own clergy, grave-diggers, charioteers, and
hired gladiators; that none of his party were killed, but that one hundred
and sixty dead bodies were found. This petition is published by the P.
Sirmond, in the first volume of his work.]
82 (return)
[ The Basilica of
Sicininus, or Liberius, is probably the church of Sancta Maria Maggiore,
on the Esquiline hill. Baronius, A. D. 367 No. 3; and Donatus, Roma
Antiqua et Nova, l. iv. c. 3, p. 462.]
83 (return)
[ The enemies of Damasus
styled him Auriscalpius Matronarum the ladies' ear-scratcher.]
84 (return)
[ Gregory Nazianzen
(Orat. xxxii. p. 526) describes the pride and luxury of the prelates who
reigned in the Imperial cities; their gilt car, fiery steeds, numerous
train, &c. The crowd gave way as to a wild beast.]
85 (return)
[ Ammian. xxvii. 3.
Perpetuo Numini, verisque ejus cultoribus. The incomparable pliancy of a
polytheist!]
86 (return)
[ Ammianus, who makes a
fair report of his praefecture (xxvii. 9) styles him praeclarae indolis,
gravitatisque senator, (xxii. 7, and Vales. ad loc.) A curious inscription
(Grutor MCII. No. 2) records, in two columns, his religious and civil
honors. In one line he was Pontiff of the Sun, and of Vesta, Augur,
Quindecemvir, Hierophant, &c., &c. In the other, 1. Quaestor
candidatus, more probably titular. 2. Praetor. 3. Corrector of Tuscany and
Umbria. 4. Consular of Lusitania. 5. Proconsul of Achaia. 6. Praefect of
Rome. 7. Praetorian praefect of Italy. 8. Of Illyricum. 9. Consul elect;
but he died before the beginning of the year 385. See Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom v. p. 241, 736.]
87 (return)
[ Facite me Romanae urbis
episcopum; et ero protinus Christianus (Jerom, tom. ii. p. 165.) It is
more than probable that Damasus would not have purchased his conversion at
such a price.]
When the suffrage of the generals and of the army committed the sceptre of the Roman empire to the hands of Valentinian, his reputation in arms, his military skill and experience, and his rigid attachment to the forms, as well as spirit, of ancient discipline, were the principal motives of their judicious choice.
The eagerness of the troops, who pressed him to nominate his colleague, was justified by the dangerous situation of public affairs; and Valentinian himself was conscious, that the abilities of the most active mind were unequal to the defence of the distant frontiers of an invaded monarchy. As soon as the death of Julian had relieved the Barbarians from the terror of his name, the most sanguine hopes of rapine and conquest excited the nations of the East, of the North, and of the South. Their inroads were often vexatious, and sometimes formidable; but, during the twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, his firmness and vigilance protected his own dominions; and his powerful genius seemed to inspire and direct the feeble counsels of his brother. Perhaps the method of annals would more forcibly express the urgent and divided cares of the two emperors; but the attention of the reader, likewise, would be distracted by a tedious and desultory narrative. A separate view of the five great theatres of war; I. Germany; II. Britain; III. Africa; IV. The East; and, V. The Danube; will impress a more distinct image of the military state of the empire under the reigns of Valentinian and Valens.
I. The ambassadors of the Alemanni had been offended by the harsh and haughty behavior of Ursacius, master of the offices; 88 who by an act of unseasonable parsimony, had diminished the value, as well as the quantity, of the presents to which they were entitled, either from custom or treaty, on the accession of a new emperor. They expressed, and they communicated to their countrymen, their strong sense of the national affront. The irascible minds of the chiefs were exasperated by the suspicion of contempt; and the martial youth crowded to their standard. Before Valentinian could pass the Alps, the villages of Gaul were in flames; before his general Degalaiphus could encounter the Alemanni, they had secured the captives and the spoil in the forests of Germany. In the beginning of the ensuing year, the military force of the whole nation, in deep and solid columns, broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the severity of a northern winter. Two Roman counts were defeated and mortally wounded; and the standard of the Heruli and Batavians fell into the hands of the Heruli and Batavians fell into the hands of the conquerors, who displayed, with insulting shouts and menaces, the trophy of their victory. The standard was recovered; but the Batavians had not redeemed the shame of their disgrace and flight in the eyes of their severe judge. It was the opinion of Valentinian, that his soldiers must learn to fear their commander, before they could cease to fear the enemy. The troops were solemnly assembled; and the trembling Batavians were enclosed within the circle of the Imperial army. Valentinian then ascended his tribunal; and, as if he disdained to punish cowardice with death, he inflicted a stain of indelible ignominy on the officers, whose misconduct and pusillanimity were found to be the first occasion of the defeat. The Batavians were degraded from their rank, stripped of their arms, and condemned to be sold for slaves to the highest bidder. At this tremendous sentence, the troops fell prostrate on the ground, deprecated the indignation of their sovereign, and protested, that, if he would indulge them in another trial, they would approve themselves not unworthy of the name of Romans, and of his soldiers. Valentinian, with affected reluctance, yielded to their entreaties; the Batavians resumed their arms, and with their arms, the invincible resolution of wiping away their disgrace in the blood of the Alemanni. 89 The principal command was declined by Dagalaiphus; and that experienced general, who had represented, perhaps with too much prudence, the extreme difficulties of the undertaking, had the mortification, before the end of the campaign, of seeing his rival Jovinus convert those difficulties into a decisive advantage over the scattered forces of the Barbarians. At the head of a well-disciplined army of cavalry, infantry, and light troops, Jovinus advanced, with cautious and rapid steps, to Scarponna, 90 9011 in the territory of Metz, where he surprised a large division of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to their arms; and flushed his soldiers with the confidence of an easy and bloodless victory. Another division, or rather army, of the enemy, after the cruel and wanton devastation of the adjacent country, reposed themselves on the shady banks of the Moselle. Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a general, made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans. Some were bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were combing their long and flaxen hair; others again were swallowing large draughts of rich and delicious wine. On a sudden they heard the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the enemy in their camp. Astonishment produced disorder; disorder was followed by flight and dismay; and the confused multitude of the bravest warriors was pierced by the swords and javelins of the legionaries and auxiliaries. The fugitives escaped to the third, and most considerable, camp, in the Catalonian plains, near Chalons in Champagne: the straggling detachments were hastily recalled to their standard; and the Barbarian chiefs, alarmed and admonished by the fate of their companions, prepared to encounter, in a decisive battle, the victorious forces of the lieutenant of Valentinian. The bloody and obstinate conflict lasted a whole summer's day, with equal valor, and with alternate success. The Romans at length prevailed, with the loss of about twelve hundred men. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain, four thousand were wounded; and the brave Jovinus, after chasing the flying remnant of their host as far as the banks of the Rhine, returned to Paris, to receive the applause of his sovereign, and the ensigns of the consulship for the ensuing year. 91 The triumph of the Romans was indeed sullied by their treatment of the captive king, whom they hung on a gibbet, without the knowledge of their indignant general. This disgraceful act of cruelty, which might be imputed to the fury of the troops, was followed by the deliberate murder of Withicab, the son of Vadomair; a German prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but of a daring and formidable spirit. The domestic assassin was instigated and protected by the Romans; 92 and the violation of the laws of humanity and justice betrayed their secret apprehension of the weakness of the declining empire. The use of the dagger is seldom adopted in public councils, as long as they retain any confidence in the power of the sword.
88 (return)
[ Ammian, xxvi. 5.
Valesius adds a long and good note on the master of the offices.]
89 (return)
[ Ammian. xxvii. 1.
Zosimus, l. iv. p. 208. The disgrace of the Batavians is suppressed by the
contemporary soldier, from a regard for military honor, which could not
affect a Greek rhetorician of the succeeding age.]
90 (return)
[ See D'Anville, Notice
de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 587. The name of the Moselle, which is not
specified by Ammianus, is clearly understood by Mascou, (Hist. of the
Ancient Germans, vii. 2)]
9011 (return)
[ Charpeigne on the
Moselle. Mannert—M.]
91 (return)
[ The battles are
described by Ammianus, (xxvii. 2,) and by Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 209,) who
supposes Valentinian to have been present.]
92 (return)
[ Studio solicitante
nostrorum, occubuit. Ammian xxvii. 10.]
While the Alemanni appeared to be humbled by their recent calamities, the pride of Valentinian was mortified by the unexpected surprisal of Moguntiacum, or Mentz, the principal city of the Upper Germany. In the unsuspicious moment of a Christian festival, 9211 Rando, a bold and artful chieftain, who had long meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the Rhine; entered the defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives of either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on the whole body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of Italy and Illyricum, was ordered to invade their country, most probably on the side of Rhaetia. The emperor in person, accompanied by his son Gratian, passed the Rhine at the head of a formidable army, which was supported on both flanks by Jovinus and Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry of the West. The Alemanni, unable to prevent the devastation of their villages, fixed their camp on a lofty, and almost inaccessible, mountain, in the modern duchy of Wirtemberg, and resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger by the intrepid curiosity with which he persisted to explore some secret and unguarded path. A troop of Barbarians suddenly rose from their ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behind him his armor-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the Roman troops encompassed and ascended the mountain of Solicinium on three different sides. 9212 Every step which they gained, increased their ardor, and abated the resistance of the enemy: and after their united forces had occupied the summit of the hill, they impetuously urged the Barbarians down the northern descent, where Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their retreat. After this signal victory, Valentinian returned to his winter quarters at Treves; where he indulged the public joy by the exhibition of splendid and triumphal games. 93 But the wise monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany, confined his attention to the important and laborious defence of the Gallic frontier, against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a stream of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the most distant tribes of the North. 94 The banks of the Rhine 9411 from its source to the straits of the ocean, were closely planted with strong castles and convenient towers; new works, and new arms, were invented by the ingenuity of a prince who was skilled in the mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of Roman and Barbarian youth were severely trained in all the exercises of war. The progress of the work, which was sometimes opposed by modest representations, and sometimes by hostile attempts, secured the tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years of the administration of Valentinian. 95
9211 (return)
[ Probably Easter.
Wagner.—M.]
9212 (return)
[ Mannert is unable
to fix the position of Solicinium. Haefelin (in Comm Acad Elect. Palat. v.
14) conjectures Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg. See Wagner's note. St.
Martin, Sultz in Wirtemberg, near the sources of the Neckar St. Martin,
iii. 339.—M.]
93 (return)
[ The expedition of
Valentinian is related by Ammianus, (xxvii. 10;) and celebrated by
Ausonius, (Mosell. 421, &c.,) who foolishly supposes, that the Romans
were ignorant of the sources of the Danube.]
94 (return)
[ Immanis enim natio, jam
inde ab incunabulis primis varietate casuum imminuta; ita saepius
adolescit, ut fuisse longis saeculis aestimetur intacta. Ammianus, xxviii.
5. The Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 370)
ascribes the fecundity of the Alemanni to their easy adoption of
strangers. ——Note: "This explanation," says Mr. Malthus, "only
removes the difficulty a little farther off. It makes the earth rest upon
the tortoise, but does not tell us on what the tortoise rests. We may
still ask what northern reservoir supplied this incessant stream of daring
adventurers. Montesquieu's solution of the problem will, I think, hardly
be admitted, (Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c. 16, p. 187.) * * * The
whole difficulty, however, is at once removed, if we apply to the German
nations, at that time, a fact which is so generally known to have occurred
in America, and suppose that, when not checked by wars and famine, they
increased at a rate that would double their numbers in twenty-five or
thirty years. The propriety, and even the necessity, of applying this rate
of increase to the inhabitants of ancient Germany, will strikingly appear
from that most valuable picture of their manners which has been left us by
Tacitus, (Tac. de Mor. Germ. 16 to 20.) * * * With these manners, and a
habit of enterprise and emigration, which would naturally remove all fears
about providing for a family, it is difficult to conceive a society with a
stronger principle of increase in it, and we see at once that prolific
source of armies and colonies against which the force of the Roman empire
so long struggled with difficulty, and under which it ultimately sunk. It
is not probable that, for two periods together, or even for one, the
population within the confines of Germany ever doubled itself in
twenty-five years. Their perpetual wars, the rude state of agriculture,
and particularly the very strange custom adopted by most of the tribes of
marking their barriers by extensive deserts, would prevent any very great
actual increase of numbers. At no one period could the country be called
well peopled, though it was often redundant in population. * * * Instead
of clearing their forests, draining their swamps, and rendering their soil
fit to support an extended population, they found it more congenial to
their martial habits and impatient dispositions to go in quest of food, of
plunder, or of glory, into other countries." Malthus on Population, i. p.
128.—G.]
9411 (return)
[ The course of the
Neckar was likewise strongly guarded. The hyperbolical eulogy of Symmachus
asserts that the Neckar first became known to the Romans by the conquests
and fortifications of Valentinian. Nunc primum victoriis tuis externus
fluvius publicatur. Gaudeat servitute, captivus innotuit. Symm. Orat. p.
22.—M.]
95 (return)
[ Ammian. xxviii. 2.
Zosimus, l. iv. p. 214. The younger Victor mentions the mechanical genius
of Valentinian, nova arma meditari fingere terra seu limo simulacra.]
That prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise maxims of Diocletian, was studious to foment and excite the intestine divisions of the tribes of Germany. About the middle of the fourth century, the countries, perhaps of Lusace and Thuringia, on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague dominion of the Burgundians; a warlike and numerous people, 9511 of the Vandal race, 96 whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing province. The most remarkable circumstance in the ancient manners of the Burgundians appears to have been the difference of their civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation of Hendinos was given to the king or general, and the title of Sinistus to the high priest, of the nation. The person of the priest was sacred, and his dignity perpetual; but the temporal government was held by a very precarious tenure. If the events of war accuses the courage or conduct of the king, he was immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects made him responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of the seasons, which seemed to fall more properly within the sacerdotal department. 97 The disputed possession of some salt-pits 98 engaged the Alemanni and the Burgundians in frequent contests: the latter were easily tempted, by the secret solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their fabulous descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been left to garrison the fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with mutual credulity, as it was conducive to mutual interest. 99 An army of fourscore thousand Burgundians soon appeared on the banks of the Rhine; and impatiently required the support and subsidies which Valentinian had promised: but they were amused with excuses and delays, till at length, after a fruitless expectation, they were compelled to retire. The arms and fortifications of the Gallic frontier checked the fury of their just resentment; and their massacre of the captives served to imbitter the hereditary feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The inconstancy of a wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of Valentinian to intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance of power would have been equally overturned by the extirpation of either of the German nations. Among the princes of the Alemanni, Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered band, condescended to pass the Rhine, marched fifty miles into the country, and would infallibly have seized the object of his pursuit, if his judicious measures had not been defeated by the impatience of the troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honor of a personal conference with the emperor; and the favors which he received, fixed him, till the hour of his death, a steady and sincere friend of the republic. 100
9511 (return)
[ According to the
general opinion, the Burgundians formed a Gothic o Vandalic tribe, who,
from the banks of the Lower Vistula, made incursions, on one side towards
Transylvania, on the other towards the centre of Germany. All that remains
of the Burgundian language is Gothic. * * * Nothing in their customs
indicates a different origin. Malte Brun, Geog. tom. i. p. 396. (edit.
1831.)—M.]
96 (return)
[ Bellicosos et pubis
immensae viribus affluentes; et ideo metuendos finitimis universis.
Ammian. xxviii. 5.]
97 (return)
[ I am always apt to
suspect historians and travellers of improving extraordinary facts into
general laws. Ammianus ascribes a similar custom to Egypt; and the Chinese
have imputed it to the Ta-tsin, or Roman empire, (De Guignes, Hist. des
Huns, tom. ii. part. 79.)]
98 (return)
[ Salinarum finiumque
causa Alemannis saepe jurgabant. Ammian xxviii. 5. Possibly they disputed
the possession of the Sala, a river which produced salt, and which had
been the object of ancient contention. Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57, and Lipsius
ad loc.]
99 (return)
[ Jam inde temporibus
priscis sobolem se esse Romanam Burgundii sciunt: and the vague tradition
gradually assumed a more regular form, (Oros. l. vii. c. 32.) It is
annihilated by the decisive authority of Pliny, who composed the History
of Drusus, and served in Germany, (Plin. Secund. Epist. iii. 5,) within
sixty years after the death of that hero. Germanorum genera quinque;
Vindili, quorum pars Burgundiones, &c., (Hist. Natur. iv. 28.)]
100 (return)
[ The wars and
negotiations relative to the Burgundians and Alemanni, are distinctly
related by Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxviii. 5, xxix 4, xxx. 3.) Orosius, (l.
vii. c. 32,) and the Chronicles of Jerom and Cassiodorus, fix some dates,
and add some circumstances.]
The land was covered by the fortifications of Valentinian; but the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain was exposed to the depredations of the Saxons. That celebrated name, in which we have a dear and domestic interest, escaped the notice of Tacitus; and in the maps of Ptolemy, it faintly marks the narrow neck of the Cimbric peninsula, and three small islands towards the mouth of the Elbe. 101 This contracted territory, the present duchy of Sleswig, or perhaps of Holstein, was incapable of pouring forth the inexhaustible swarms of Saxons who reigned over the ocean, who filled the British island with their language, their laws, and their colonies; and who so long defended the liberty of the North against the arms of Charlemagne. 102 The solution of this difficulty is easily derived from the similar manners, and loose constitution, of the tribes of Germany; which were blended with each other by the slightest accidents of war or friendship. The situation of the native Saxons disposed them to embrace the hazardous professions of fishermen and pirates; and the success of their first adventures would naturally excite the emulation of their bravest countrymen, who were impatient of the gloomy solitude of their woods and mountains. Every tide might float down the Elbe whole fleets of canoes, filled with hardy and intrepid associates, who aspired to behold the unbounded prospect of the ocean, and to taste the wealth and luxury of unknown worlds. It should seem probable, however, that the most numerous auxiliaries of the Saxons were furnished by the nations who dwelt along the shores of the Baltic. They possessed arms and ships, the art of navigation, and the habits of naval war; but the difficulty of issuing through the northern columns of Hercules 103 (which, during several months of the year, are obstructed with ice) confined their skill and courage within the limits of a spacious lake. The rumor of the successful armaments which sailed from the mouth of the Elbe, would soon provoke them to cross the narrow isthmus of Sleswig, and to launch their vessels on the great sea. The various troops of pirates and adventurers, who fought under the same standard, were insensibly united in a permanent society, at first of rapine, and afterwards of government. A military confederation was gradually moulded into a national body, by the gentle operation of marriage and consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who solicited the alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons. If the fact were not established by the most unquestionable evidence, we should appear to abuse the credulity of our readers, by the description of the vessels in which the Saxon pirates ventured to sport in the waves of the German Ocean, the British Channel, and the Bay of Biscay. The keel of their large flat-bottomed boats were framed of light timber, but the sides and upper works consisted only of wicker, with a covering of strong hides. 104 In the course of their slow and distant navigations, they must always have been exposed to the danger, and very frequently to the misfortune, of shipwreck; and the naval annals of the Saxons were undoubtedly filled with the accounts of the losses which they sustained on the coasts of Britain and Gaul. But the daring spirit of the pirates braved the perils both of the sea and of the shore: their skill was confirmed by the habits of enterprise; the meanest of their mariners was alike capable of handling an oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a vessel, and the Saxons rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. 105 After they had acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the West, they extended the scene of their depredations, and the most sequestered places had no reason to presume on their security. The Saxon boats drew so little water that they could easily proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great rivers; their weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on wagons from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered the mouth of the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the rapid stream of the Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer, who found his strength, or his abilities, unequal to the task, implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and outnumbered, were forced to relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They stipulated only a safe and honorable retreat; and the condition was readily granted by the Roman general, who meditated an act of perfidy, 106 imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained alive, and in arms, to revenge the fate of their countrymen. The premature eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in a deep valley, betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps have fallen the victims of their own treachery, if a large body of cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise of the combat, had not hastily advanced to extricate their companions, and to overwhelm the undaunted valor of the Saxons. Some of the prisoners were saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their blood in the amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains, that twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves with their own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the public. Yet the polite and philosophic citizens of Rome were impressed with the deepest horror, when they were informed, that the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tithe of their human spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the barbarous sacrifice. 107
101 (return)
[ At the northern
extremity of the peninsula, (the Cimbric promontory of Pliny, iv. 27,)
Ptolemy fixes the remnant of the Cimbri. He fills the interval between the
Saxons and the Cimbri with six obscure tribes, who were united, as early
as the sixth century, under the national appellation of Danes. See Cluver.
German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 21, 22, 23.]
102 (return)
[ M. D'Anville
(Establissement des Etats de l'Europe, &c., p. 19-26) has marked the
extensive limits of the Saxony of Charlemagne.]
103 (return)
[ The fleet of Drusus
had failed in their attempt to pass, or even to approach, the Sound,
(styled, from an obvious resemblance, the columns of Hercules,) and the
naval enterprise was never resumed, (Tacit. de Moribus German. c. 34.) The
knowledge which the Romans acquired of the naval powers of the Baltic, (c.
44, 45) was obtained by their land journeys in search of amber.]
104 (return)
[ Quin et Aremoricus
piratam Saxona tractus Sperabat; cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum Ludus;
et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 369.
The genius of Caesar imitated, for a particular service, these rude, but light vessels, which were likewise used by the natives of Britain. (Comment. de Bell. Civil. i. 51, and Guichardt, Nouveaux Memoires Militaires, tom. ii. p. 41, 42.) The British vessels would now astonish the genius of Caesar.]
105 (return)
[ The best original
account of the Saxon pirates may be found in Sidonius Apollinaris, (l.
viii. epist. 6, p. 223, edit. Sirmond,) and the best commentary in the
Abbe du Bos, (Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Francoise, &c. tom. i. l.
i. c. 16, p. 148-155. See likewise p. 77, 78.)]
106 (return)
[ Ammian. (xxviii. 5)
justifies this breach of faith to pirates and robbers; and Orosius (l.
vii. c. 32) more clearly expresses their real guilt; virtute atque
agilitate terribeles.]
107 (return)
[ Symmachus (l. ii.
epist. 46) still presumes to mention the sacred name of Socrates and
philosophy. Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, might condemn, (l. viii. epist.
6,) with less inconsistency, the human sacrifices of the Saxons.]
II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of Scandinavians and Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and amused the credulity, of our rude ancestors, have insensibly vanished in the light of science and philosophy. 108 The present age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion, that the islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from the adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent, to the extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin was distinctly preserved, in the perpetual resemblance of language, of religion, and of manners; and the peculiar characters of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to the influence of accidental and local circumstances. 109 The Roman Province was reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful servitude; the rights of savage freedom were contracted to the narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that northern region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine, between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts, 110 who have since experienced a very different fortune. The power, and almost the memory, of the Picts have been extinguished by their successful rivals; and the Scots, after maintaining for ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by an equal and voluntary union, the honors of the English name. The hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinctions of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills, and the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may be considered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a rude state of tillage, was capable of producing a considerable quantity of corn; and the epithet of cruitnich, or wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt or envy of the carnivorous highlander. The cultivation of the earth might introduce a more accurate separation of property, and the habits of a sedentary life; but the love of arms and rapine was still the ruling passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped themselves for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the Romans, by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies with gaudy colors and fantastic figures. The western part of Caledonia irregularly rises into wild and barren hills, which scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman, and are most profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were condemned to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as they seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired the expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is said to be equivalent to that of wanderers, or vagrants. The inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of food in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect their country, are plentifully supplied with fish; and they gradually ventured to cast their nets in the waves of the ocean. The vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely scattered along the western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity, and improved their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea, and of steering their nocturnal course by the light of the well-known stars. The two bold headlands of Caledonia almost touch the shores of a spacious island, which obtained, from its luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of Green; and has preserved, with a slight alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland. It is probable, that in some remote period of antiquity, the fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hungry Scots; and that the strangers of the North, who had dared to encounter the arms of the legions, spread their conquests over the savage and unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is certain, that, in the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots, and that the kindred tribes, who were often associated in military enterprise, were deeply affected by the various accidents of their mutual fortunes. They long cherished the lively tradition of their common name and origin; and the missionaries of the Isle of Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North Britain, established the vain opinion, that their Irish countrymen were the natural, as well as spiritual, fathers of the Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has been preserved by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light over the darkness of the eighth century. On this slight foundation, a huge superstructure of fable was gradually reared, by the bards and the monks; two orders of men, who equally abused the privilege of fiction. The Scottish nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their Irish genealogy; and the annals of a long line of imaginary kings have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius, and the classic elegance of Buchanan. 111
108 (return)
[ In the beginning of
the last century, the learned Camden was obliged to undermine, with
respectful scepticism, the romance of Brutus, the Trojan; who is now
buried in silent oblivion with Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, and her
numerous progeny. Yet I am informed, that some champions of the Milesian
colony may still be found among the original natives of Ireland. A people
dissatisfied with their present condition, grasp at any visions of their
past or future glory.]
109 (return)
[ Tacitus, or rather
his father-in-law, Agricola, might remark the German or Spanish complexion
of some British tribes. But it was their sober, deliberate opinion: "In
universum tamen aestimanti Gallos cicinum solum occupasse credibile est.
Eorum sacra deprehendas.... ermo haud multum diversus," (in Vit. Agricol.
c. xi.) Caesar had observed their common religion, (Comment. de Bello
Gallico, vi. 13;) and in his time the emigration from the Belgic Gaul was
a recent, or at least an historical event, (v. 10.) Camden, the British
Strabo, has modestly ascertained our genuine antiquities, (Britannia, vol.
i. Introduction, p. ii.—xxxi.)]
110 (return)
[ In the dark and
doubtful paths of Caledonian antiquity, I have chosen for my guides two
learned and ingenious Highlanders, whom their birth and education had
peculiarly qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the
Origin and Antiquities, &c., of the Caledonians, by Dr. John
Macpherson, London 1768, in 4to.; and Introduction to the History of Great
Britain and Ireland, by James Macpherson, Esq., London 1773, in 4to.,
third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a minister in the Isle of Sky: and it is a
circumstance honorable for the present age, that a work, replete with
erudition and criticism, should have been composed in the most remote of
the Hebrides.]
111 (return)
[ The Irish descent of
the Scots has been revived in the last moments of its decay, and
strenuously supported, by the Rev. Mr. Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester,
vol. i. p. 430, 431; and Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c.,
p. 154-293) Yet he acknowledges, 1. That the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus
(A.D. 340) were already settled in Caledonia; and that the Roman authors
do not afford any hints of their emigration from another country. 2. That
all the accounts of such emigrations, which have been asserted or
received, by Irish bards, Scotch historians, or English antiquaries,
(Buchanan, Camden, Usher, Stillingfleet, &c.,) are totally fabulous.
3. That three of the Irish tribes, which are mentioned by Ptolemy, (A.D.
150,) were of Caledonian extraction. 4. That a younger branch of
Caledonian princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and possessed the
monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining difference
between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and obscure. The
genuine history, which he produces, of a Fergus, the cousin of Ossian, who
was transplanted (A.D. 320) from Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a
conjectural supplement to the Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of
Richard of Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century. The lively
spirit of the learned and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget
the nature of a question, which he so vehemently debates, and so
absolutely decides. * Note: This controversy has not slumbered since the
days of Gibbon. We have strenuous advocates of the Phoenician origin of
the Irish, and each of the old theories, with several new ones, maintains
its partisans. It would require several pages fairly to bring down the
dispute to our own days, and perhaps we should be no nearer to any
satisfactory theory than Gibbon was.]
Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive inroads of the Scots and Picts required the presence of his youngest son, who reigned in the Western empire. Constans visited his British dominions: but we may form some estimate of the importance of his achievements, by the language of panegyric, which celebrates only his triumph over the elements or, in other words, the good fortune of a safe and easy passage from the port of Boulogne to the harbor of Sandwich. 112 The calamities which the afflicted provincials continued to experience, from foreign war and domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient relief which they might obtain from the virtues of Julian, was soon lost by the absence and death of their benefactor. The sums of gold and silver, which had been painfully collected, or liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops, were intercepted by the avarice of the commanders; discharges, or, at least, exemptions, from the military service, were publicly sold; the distress of the soldiers, who were injuriously deprived of their legal and scanty subsistence, provoked them to frequent desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed, and the highways were infested with robbers. 113 The oppression of the good, and the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to diffuse through the island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and every ambitious subject, every desperate exile, might entertain a reasonable hope of subverting the weak and distracted government of Britain. The hostile tribes of the North, who detested the pride and power of the King of the World, suspended their domestic feuds; and the Barbarians of the land and sea, the Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, spread themselves with rapid and irresistible fury, from the wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent. Every production of art and nature, every object of convenience and luxury, which they were incapable of creating by labor or procuring by trade, was accumulated in the rich and fruitful province of Britain. 114 A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest. From the age of Constantine to the Plantagenets, this rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and hardy Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems to inspire the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage ignorance of the virtues of peace, and of the laws of war. Their southern neighbors have felt, and perhaps exaggerated, the cruel depredations of the Scots and Picts; 115 and a valiant tribe of Caledonia, the Attacotti, 116 the enemies, and afterwards the soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said, that they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts. 117 If, in the neighborhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas; and to encourage the pleasing hope, that New Zealand may produce, in some future age, the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere.
112 (return)
[ Hyeme tumentes ac
saevientes undas calcastis Oceani sub remis vestris;... insperatam
imperatoris faciem Britannus expavit. Julius Fermicus Maternus de Errore
Profan. Relig. p. 464. edit. Gronov. ad calcem Minuc. Fael. See Tillemont,
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 336.)]
113 (return)
[ Libanius, Orat.
Parent. c. xxxix. p. 264. This curious passage has escaped the diligence
of our British antiquaries.]
114 (return)
[ The Caledonians
praised and coveted the gold, the steeds, the lights, &c., of the
stranger. See Dr. Blair's Dissertation on Ossian, vol ii. p. 343; and Mr.
Macpherson's Introduction, p. 242-286.]
115 (return)
[ Lord Lyttelton has
circumstantially related, (History of Henry II. vol. i. p. 182,) and Sir
David Dalrymple has slightly mentioned, (Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p.
69,) a barbarous inroad of the Scots, at a time (A.D. 1137) when law,
religion, and society must have softened their primitive manners.]
116 (return)
[ Attacotti bellicosa
hominum natio. Ammian. xxvii. 8. Camden (Introduct. p. clii.) has restored
their true name in the text of Jerom. The bands of Attacotti, which Jerom
had seen in Gaul, were afterwards stationed in Italy and Illyricum,
(Notitia, S. viii. xxxix. xl.)]
117 (return)
[ Cum ipse
adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Attacottos (or Scotos) gentem Britannicam
humanis vesci carnibus; et cum per silvas porcorum greges, et armentorum
percudumque reperiant, pastorum nates et feminarum papillas solere
abscindere; et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari. Such is the evidence
of Jerom, (tom. ii. p. 75,) whose veracity I find no reason to question. *
Note: See Dr. Parr's works, iii. 93, where he questions the propriety of
Gibbon's translation of this passage. The learned doctor approves of the
version proposed by a Mr. Gaches, who would make out that it was the
delicate parts of the swine and the cattle, which were eaten by these
ancestors of the Scotch nation. I confess that even to acquit them of this
charge. I cannot agree to the new version, which, in my opinion, is
directly contrary both to the meaning of the words, and the general sense
of the passage. But I would suggest, did Jerom, as a boy, accompany these
savages in any of their hunting expeditions? If he did not, how could he
be an eye-witness of this practice? The Attacotti in Gaul must have been
in the service of Rome. Were they permitted to indulge these cannibal
propensities at the expense, not of the flocks, but of the shepherds of
the provinces? These sanguinary trophies of plunder would scarce'y have
been publicly exhibited in a Roman city or a Roman camp. I must leave the
hereditary pride of our northern neighbors at issue with the veracity of
St. Jerom.]
Every messenger who escaped across the British Channel, conveyed the most melancholy and alarming tidings to the ears of Valentinian; and the emperor was soon informed that the two military commanders of the province had been surprised and cut off by the Barbarians. Severus, count of the domestics, was hastily despatched, and as suddenly recalled, by the court of Treves. The representations of Jovinus served only to indicate the greatness of the evil; and, after a long and serious consultation, the defence, or rather the recovery, of Britain was intrusted to the abilities of the brave Theodosius. The exploits of that general, the father of a line of emperors, have been celebrated, with peculiar complacency, by the writers of the age: but his real merit deserved their applause; and his nomination was received, by the army and province, as a sure presage of approaching victory. He seized the favorable moment of navigation, and securely landed the numerous and veteran bands of the Heruli and Batavians, the Jovians and the Victors. In his march from Sandwich to London, Theodosius defeated several parties of the Barbarians, released a multitude of captives, and, after distributing to his soldiers a small portion of the spoil, established the fame of disinterested justice, by the restitution of the remainder to the rightful proprietors. The citizens of London, who had almost despaired of their safety, threw open their gates; and as soon as Theodosius had obtained from the court of Treves the important aid of a military lieutenant, and a civil governor, he executed, with wisdom and vigor, the laborious task of the deliverance of Britain. The vagrant soldiers were recalled to their standard; an edict of amnesty dispelled the public apprehensions; and his cheerful example alleviated the rigor of martial discipline. The scattered and desultory warfare of the Barbarians, who infested the land and sea, deprived him of the glory of a signal victory; but the prudent spirit, and consummate art, of the Roman general, were displayed in the operations of two campaigns, which successively rescued every part of the province from the hands of a cruel and rapacious enemy. The splendor of the cities, and the security of the fortifications, were diligently restored, by the paternal care of Theodosius; who with a strong hand confined the trembling Caledonians to the northern angle of the island; and perpetuated, by the name and settlement of the new province of Valentia, the glories of the reign of Valentinian. 118 The voice of poetry and panegyric may add, perhaps with some degree of truth, that the unknown regions of Thule were stained with the blood of the Picts; that the oars of Theodosius dashed the waves of the Hyperborean ocean; and that the distant Orkneys were the scene of his naval victory over the Saxon pirates. 119 He left the province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation; and was immediately promoted to the rank of master-general of the cavalry, by a prince who could applaud, without envy, the merit of his servants. In the important station of the Upper Danube, the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated the armies of the Alemanni, before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of Africa.
118 (return)
[ Ammianus has
concisely represented (xx. l. xxvi. 4, xxvii. 8 xxviii. 3) the whole
series of the British war.]
119 (return)
[ Horrescit....
ratibus.... impervia Thule. Ille.... nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit.
Scotumque vago mucrone secutus, Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas.
Claudian, in iii. Cons. Honorii, ver. 53, &c—Madurunt Saxone
fuso Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule, Scotorum cumulos flevit
glacialis Ierne. In iv. Cons. Hon. ver. 31, &c. ——-See
likewise Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 5.) But it is not easy to
appreciate the intrinsic value of flattery and metaphor. Compare the
British victories of Bolanus (Statius, Silv. v. 2) with his real
character, (Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 16.)]
III. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs the people to consider him as the accomplice, of his ministers. The military command of Africa had been long exercised by Count Romanus, and his abilities were not inadequate to his station; but, as sordid interest was the sole motive of his conduct, he acted, on most occasions, as if he had been the enemy of the province, and the friend of the Barbarians of the desert. The three flourishing cities of Oea, Leptis, and Sobrata, which, under the name of Tripoli, had long constituted a federal union, 120 were obliged, for the first time, to shut their gates against a hostile invasion; several of their most honorable citizens were surprised and massacred; the villages, and even the suburbs, were pillaged; and the vines and fruit trees of that rich territory were extirpated by the malicious savages of Getulia. The unhappy provincials implored the protection of Romanus; but they soon found that their military governor was not less cruel and rapacious than the Barbarians. As they were incapable of furnishing the four thousand camels, and the exorbitant present, which he required, before he would march to the assistance of Tripoli; his demand was equivalent to a refusal, and he might justly be accused as the author of the public calamity. In the annual assembly of the three cities, they nominated two deputies, to lay at the feet of Valentinian the customary offering of a gold victory; and to accompany this tribute of duty, rather than of gratitude, with their humble complaint, that they were ruined by the enemy, and betrayed by their governor. If the severity of Valentinian had been rightly directed, it would have fallen on the guilty head of Romanus. But the count, long exercised in the arts of corruption, had despatched a swift and trusty messenger to secure the venal friendship of Remigius, master of the offices. The wisdom of the Imperial council was deceived by artifice; and their honest indignation was cooled by delay. At length, when the repetition of complaint had been justified by the repetition of public misfortunes, the notary Palladius was sent from the court of Treves, to examine the state of Africa, and the conduct of Romanus. The rigid impartiality of Palladius was easily disarmed: he was tempted to reserve for himself a part of the public treasure, which he brought with him for the payment of the troops; and from the moment that he was conscious of his own guilt, he could no longer refuse to attest the innocence and merit of the count. The charge of the Tripolitans was declared to be false and frivolous; and Palladius himself was sent back from Treves to Africa, with a special commission to discover and prosecute the authors of this impious conspiracy against the representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed with so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the citizens of Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege of eight days, to contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to censure the behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence was pronounced, without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong cruelty of Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed to pity the distress of the province, was publicly executed at Utica; four distinguished citizens were put to death, as the accomplices of the imaginary fraud; and the tongues of two others were cut out, by the express order of the emperor. Romanus, elated by impunity, and irritated by resistance, was still continued in the military command; till the Africans were provoked, by his avarice, to join the rebellious standard of Firmus, the Moor. 121
120 (return)
[ Ammianus frequently
mentions their concilium annuum, legitimum, &c. Leptis and Sabrata are
long since ruined; but the city of Oea, the native country of Apuleius,
still flourishes under the provincial denomination of Tripoli. See
Cellarius (Geograph. Antiqua, tom. ii. part ii. p. 81,) D'Anville,
(Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 71, 72,) and Marmol, (Arrique, tom. ii.
p. 562.)]
121 (return)
[ Ammian. xviii. 6.
Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p 25, 676) has discussed the
chronological difficulties of the history of Count Romanus.]
His father Nabal was one of the richest and most powerful of the Moorish princes, who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. But as he left, either by his wives or concubines, a very numerous posterity, the wealthy inheritance was eagerly disputed; and Zamma, one of his sons, was slain in a domestic quarrel by his brother Firmus. The implacable zeal, with which Romanus prosecuted the legal revenge of this murder, could be ascribed only to a motive of avarice, or personal hatred; but, on this occasion, his claims were just; his influence was weighty; and Firmus clearly understood, that he must either present his neck to the executioner, or appeal from the sentence of the Imperial consistory, to his sword, and to the people. 122 He was received as the deliverer of his country; and, as soon as it appeared that Romanus was formidable only to a submissive province, the tyrant of Africa became the object of universal contempt. The ruin of Caesarea, which was plundered and burnt by the licentious Barbarians, convinced the refractory cities of the danger of resistance; the power of Firmus was established, at least in the provinces of Mauritania and Numidia; and it seemed to be his only doubt whether he should assume the diadem of a Moorish king, or the purple of a Roman emperor. But the imprudent and unhappy Africans soon discovered, that, in this rash insurrection, they had not sufficiently consulted their own strength, or the abilities of their leader. Before he could procure any certain intelligence, that the emperor of the West had fixed the choice of a general, or that a fleet of transports was collected at the mouth of the Rhone, he was suddenly informed that the great Theodosius, with a small band of veterans, had landed near Igilgilis, or Gigeri, on the African coast; and the timid usurper sunk under the ascendant of virtue and military genius. Though Firmus possessed arms and treasures, his despair of victory immediately reduced him to the use of those arts, which, in the same country, and in a similar situation, had formerly been practised by the crafty Jugurtha. He attempted to deceive, by an apparent submission, the vigilance of the Roman general; to seduce the fidelity of his troops; and to protract the duration of the war, by successively engaging the independent tribes of Africa to espouse his quarrel, or to protect his flight. Theodosius imitated the example, and obtained the success, of his predecessor Metellus. When Firmus, in the character of a suppliant, accused his own rashness, and humbly solicited the clemency of the emperor, the lieutenant of Valentinian received and dismissed him with a friendly embrace: but he diligently required the useful and substantial pledges of a sincere repentance; nor could he be persuaded, by the assurances of peace, to suspend, for an instant, the operations of an active war. A dark conspiracy was detected by the penetration of Theodosius; and he satisfied, without much reluctance, the public indignation, which he had secretly excited. Several of the guilty accomplices of Firmus were abandoned, according to ancient custom, to the tumult of a military execution; many more, by the amputation of both their hands, continued to exhibit an instructive spectacle of horror; the hatred of the rebels was accompanied with fear; and the fear of the Roman soldiers was mingled with respectful admiration. Amidst the boundless plains of Getulia, and the innumerable valleys of Mount Atlas, it was impossible to prevent the escape of Firmus; and if the usurper could have tired the patience of his antagonist, he would have secured his person in the depth of some remote solitude, and expected the hopes of a future revolution. He was subdued by the perseverance of Theodosius; who had formed an inflexible determination, that the war should end only by the death of the tyrant; and that every nation of Africa, which presumed to support his cause, should be involved in his ruin. At the head of a small body of troops, which seldom exceeded three thousand five hundred men, the Roman general advanced, with a steady prudence, devoid of rashness or of fear, into the heart of a country, where he was sometimes attacked by armies of twenty thousand Moors. The boldness of his charge dismayed the irregular Barbarians; they were disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly retreats; they were continually baffled by the unknown resources of the military art; and they felt and confessed the just superiority which was assumed by the leader of a civilized nation. When Theodosius entered the extensive dominions of Igmazen, king of the Isaflenses, the haughty savage required, in words of defiance, his name, and the object of his expedition. "I am," replied the stern and disdainful count, "I am the general of Valentinian, the lord of the world; who has sent me hither to pursue and punish a desperate robber. Deliver him instantly into my hands; and be assured, that if thou dost not obey the commands of my invincible sovereign, thou, and the people over whom thou reignest, shall be utterly extirpated." 12211 As soon as Igmazen was satisfied, that his enemy had strength and resolution to execute the fatal menace, he consented to purchase a necessary peace by the sacrifice of a guilty fugitive. The guards that were placed to secure the person of Firmus deprived him of the hopes of escape; and the Moorish tyrant, after wine had extinguished the sense of danger, disappointed the insulting triumph of the Romans, by strangling himself in the night. His dead body, the only present which Igmazen could offer to the conqueror, was carelessly thrown upon a camel; and Theodosius, leading back his victorious troops to Sitifi, was saluted by the warmest acclamations of joy and loyalty. 123
122 (return)
[ The Chronology of
Ammianus is loose and obscure; and Orosius (i. vii. c. 33, p. 551, edit.
Havercamp) seems to place the revolt of Firmus after the deaths of
Valentinian and Valens. Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p. 691)
endeavors to pick his way. The patient and sure-foot mule of the Alps may
be trusted in the most slippery paths.]
12211 (return)
[ The war was
longer protracted than this sentence would lead us to suppose: it was not
till defeated more than once that Igmazen yielded Amm. xxix. 5.—M]
123 (return)
[ Ammian xxix. 5. The
text of this long chapter (fifteen quarto pages) is broken and corrupted;
and the narrative is perplexed by the want of chronological and
geographical landmarks.]
Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus; it was restored by the virtues of Theodosius; and our curiosity may be usefully directed to the inquiry of the respective treatment which the two generals received from the Imperial court. The authority of Count Romanus had been suspended by the master-general of the cavalry; and he was committed to safe and honorable custody till the end of the war. His crimes were proved by the most authentic evidence; and the public expected, with some impatience, the decree of severe justice. But the partial and powerful favor of Mellobaudes encouraged him to challenge his legal judges, to obtain repeated delays for the purpose of procuring a crowd of friendly witnesses, and, finally, to cover his guilty conduct, by the additional guilt of fraud and forgery. About the same time, the restorer of Britain and Africa, on a vague suspicion that his name and services were superior to the rank of a subject, was ignominiously beheaded at Carthage. Valentinian no longer reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the impunity of Romanus, may justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers, who abused the confidence, and deceived the inexperienced youth, of his sons. 124
124 (return)
[ Ammian xxviii. 4.
Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 551, 552. Jerom. in Chron. p. 187.]
If the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been fortunately bestowed on the British exploits of Theodosius, we should have traced, with eager curiosity, the distinct and domestic footsteps of his march. But the tedious enumeration of the unknown and uninteresting tribes of Africa may be reduced to the general remark, that they were all of the swarthy race of the Moors; that they inhabited the back settlements of the Mauritanian and Numidian province, the country, as they have since been termed by the Arabs, of dates and of locusts; 125 and that, as the Roman power declined in Africa, the boundary of civilized manners and cultivated land was insensibly contracted. Beyond the utmost limits of the Moors, the vast and inhospitable desert of the South extends above a thousand miles to the banks of the Niger. The ancients, who had a very faint and imperfect knowledge of the great peninsula of Africa, were sometimes tempted to believe, that the torrid zone must ever remain destitute of inhabitants; 126 and they sometimes amused their fancy by filling the vacant space with headless men, or rather monsters; 127 with horned and cloven-footed satyrs; 128 with fabulous centaurs; 129 and with human pygmies, who waged a bold and doubtful warfare against the cranes. 130 Carthage would have trembled at the strange intelligence that the countries on either side of the equator were filled with innumerable nations, who differed only in their color from the ordinary appearance of the human species: and the subjects of the Roman empire might have anxiously expected, that the swarms of Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce and equally formidable. These gloomy terrors would indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance with the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the negroes does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or of their pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind, their passions and appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged in frequent acts of hostility. 131 But their rude ignorance has never invented any effectual weapons of defence, or of destruction; they appear incapable of forming any extensive plans of government, or conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their mental faculties has been discovered and abused by the nations of the temperate zone. Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked from the coast of Guinea, never to return to their native country; but they are embarked in chains; 132 and this constant emigration, which, in the space of two centuries, might have furnished armies to overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of Europe, and the weakness of Africa.
125 (return)
[ Leo Africanus (in the
Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 78-83) has traced a curious picture of the
people and the country; which are more minutely described in the Afrique
de Marmol, tom. iii. p. 1-54.]
126 (return)
[ This uninhabitable
zone was gradually reduced by the improvements of ancient geography, from
forty-five to twenty-four, or even sixteen degrees of latitude. See a
learned and judicious note of Dr. Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p.
426.]
127 (return)
[ Intra, si credere
libet, vix jam homines et magis semiferi... Blemmyes, Satyri, &c.
Pomponius Mela, i. 4, p. 26, edit. Voss. in 8vo. Pliny philosophically
explains (vi. 35) the irregularities of nature, which he had credulously
admitted, (v. 8.)]
128 (return)
[ If the satyr was the
Orang-outang, the great human ape, (Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43,
&c.,) one of that species might actually be shown alive at Alexandria,
in the reign of Constantine. Yet some difficulty will still remain about
the conversation which St. Anthony held with one of these pious savages,
in the desert of Thebais. (Jerom. in Vit. Paul. Eremit. tom. i. p. 238.)]
129 (return)
[ St. Anthony likewise
met one of these monsters; whose existence was seriously asserted by the
emperor Claudius. The public laughed; but his praefect of Egypt had the
address to send an artful preparation, the embalmed corpse of a
Hippocentaur, which was preserved almost a century afterwards in the
Imperial palace. See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. vii. 3,) and the judicious
observations of Freret. (Memoires de l'Acad. tom. vii. p. 321, &c.)]
130 (return)
[ The fable of the
pygmies is as old as Homer, (Iliad. iii. 6) The pygmies of India and
Aethiopia were (trispithami) twenty-seven inches high. Every spring their
cavalry (mounted on rams and goats) marched, in battle array, to destroy
the cranes' eggs, aliter (says Pliny) futuris gregibus non resisti. Their
houses were built of mud, feathers, and egg-shells. See Pliny, (vi. 35,
vii. 2,) and Strabo, (l. ii. p. 121.)]
131 (return)
[ The third and fourth
volumes of the valuable Histoire des Voyages describe the present state of
the Negroes. The nations of the sea-coast have been polished by European
commerce; and those of the inland country have been improved by Moorish
colonies. * Note: The martial tribes in chain armor, discovered by Denham,
are Mahometan; the great question of the inferiority of the African tribes
in their mental faculties will probably be experimentally resolved before
the close of the century; but the Slave Trade still continues, and will,
it is to be feared, till the spirit of gain is subdued by the spirit of
Christian humanity.—M.]
132 (return)
[ Histoire
Philosophique et Politique, &c., tom. iv. p. 192.]
IV. The ignominious treaty, which saved the army of Jovian, had been faithfully executed on the side of the Romans; and as they had solemnly renounced the sovereignty and alliance of Armenia and Iberia, those tributary kingdoms were exposed, without protection, to the arms of the Persian monarch. 133 Sapor entered the Armenian territories at the head of a formidable host of cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary foot; but it was the invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and negotiation, and to consider falsehood and perjury as the most powerful instruments of regal policy. He affected to praise the prudent and moderate conduct of the king of Armenia; and the unsuspicious Tiranus was persuaded, by the repeated assurances of insidious friendship, to deliver his person into the hands of a faithless and cruel enemy. In the midst of a splendid entertainment, he was bound in chains of silver, as an honor due to the blood of the Arsacides; and, after a short confinement in the Tower of Oblivion at Ecbatana, he was released from the miseries of life, either by his own dagger, or by that of an assassin. 13311 The kingdom of Armenia was reduced to the state of a Persian province; the administration was shared between a distinguished satrap and a favorite eunuch; and Sapor marched, without delay, to subdue the martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the king of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa 134 was the only place of Armenia 13411 which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms. The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the avarice of Sapor; but the danger of Olympias, the wife or widow of the Armenian king, excited the public compassion, and animated the desperate valor of her subjects and soldiers. 13412 The Persians were surprised and repulsed under the walls of Artogerassa, by a bold and well-concerted sally of the besieged. But the forces of Sapor were continually renewed and increased; the hopeless courage of the garrison was exhausted; the strength of the walls yielded to the assault; and the proud conqueror, after wasting the rebellious city with fire and sword, led away captive an unfortunate queen; who, in a more auspicious hour, had been the destined bride of the son of Constantine. 135 Yet if Sapor already triumphed in the easy conquest of two dependent kingdoms, he soon felt, that a country is unsubdued as long as the minds of the people are actuated by a hostile and contumacious spirit. The satraps, whom he was obliged to trust, embraced the first opportunity of regaining the affection of their countrymen, and of signalizing their immortal hatred to the Persian name. Since the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians, these nations considered the Christians as the favorites, and the Magians as the adversaries, of the Supreme Being: the influence of the clergy, over a superstitious people was uniformly exerted in the cause of Rome; and as long as the successors of Constantine disputed with those of Artaxerxes the sovereignty of the intermediate provinces, the religious connection always threw a decisive advantage into the scale of the empire. A numerous and active party acknowledged Para, the son of Tiranus, as the lawful sovereign of Armenia, and his title to the throne was deeply rooted in the hereditary succession of five hundred years. By the unanimous consent of the Iberians, the country was equally divided between the rival princes; and Aspacuras, who owed his diadem to the choice of Sapor, was obliged to declare, that his regard for his children, who were detained as hostages by the tyrant, was the only consideration which prevented him from openly renouncing the alliance of Persia. The emperor Valens, who respected the obligations of the treaty, and who was apprehensive of involving the East in a dangerous war, ventured, with slow and cautious measures, to support the Roman party in the kingdoms of Iberia and Armenia. 13511 Twelve legions established the authority of Sauromaces on the banks of the Cyrus. The Euphrates was protected by the valor of Arintheus. A powerful army, under the command of Count Trajan, and of Vadomair, king of the Alemanni, fixed their camp on the confines of Armenia. But they were strictly enjoined not to commit the first hostilities, which might be understood as a breach of the treaty: and such was the implicit obedience of the Roman general, that they retreated, with exemplary patience, under a shower of Persian arrows till they had clearly acquired a just title to an honorable and legitimate victory. Yet these appearances of war insensibly subsided in a vain and tedious negotiation. The contending parties supported their claims by mutual reproaches of perfidy and ambition; and it should seem, that the original treaty was expressed in very obscure terms, since they were reduced to the necessity of making their inconclusive appeal to the partial testimony of the generals of the two nations, who had assisted at the negotiations. 136 The invasion of the Goths and Huns which soon afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman empire, exposed the provinces of Asia to the arms of Sapor. But the declining age, and perhaps the infirmities, of the monarch suggested new maxims of tranquillity and moderation. His death, which happened in the full maturity of a reign of seventy years, changed in a moment the court and councils of Persia; and their attention was most probably engaged by domestic troubles, and the distant efforts of a Carmanian war. 137 The remembrance of ancient injuries was lost in the enjoyment of peace. The kingdoms of Armenia and Iberia were permitted, by the mutual,though tacit consent of both empires, to resume their doubtful neutrality. In the first years of the reign of Theodosius, a Persian embassy arrived at Constantinople, to excuse the unjustifiable measures of the former reign; and to offer, as the tribute of friendship, or even of respect, a splendid present of gems, of silk, and of Indian elephants. 138
133 (return)
[ The evidence of
Ammianus is original and decisive, (xxvii. 12.) Moses of Chorene, (l. iii.
c. 17, p. 249, and c. 34, p. 269,) and Procopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i.
c. 5, p. 17, edit. Louvre,) have been consulted: but those historians who
confound distinct facts, repeat the same events, and introduce strange
stories, must be used with diffidence and caution. Note: The statement of
Ammianus is more brief and succinct, but harmonizes with the more
complicated history developed by M. St. Martin from the Armenian writers,
and from Procopius, who wrote, as he states from Armenian authorities.—M.]
13311 (return)
[ According to M.
St. Martin, Sapor, though supported by the two apostate Armenian princes,
Meroujan the Ardzronnian and Vahan the Mamigonian, was gallantly resisted
by Arsaces, and his brave though impious wife Pharandsem. His troops were
defeated by Vasag, the high constable of the kingdom. (See M. St. Martin.)
But after four years' courageous defence of his kingdom, Arsaces was
abandoned by his nobles, and obliged to accept the perfidious hospitality
of Sapor. He was blinded and imprisoned in the "Castle of Oblivion;" his
brave general Vasag was flayed alive; his skin stuffed and placed near the
king in his lonely prison. It was not till many years after (A.D. 371)
that he stabbed himself, according to the romantic story, (St. M. iii.
387, 389,) in a paroxysm of excitement at his restoration to royal honors.
St. Martin, Additions to Le Beau, iii. 283, 296.—M.]
134 (return)
[ Perhaps Artagera, or
Ardis; under whose walls Caius, the grandson of Augustus, was wounded.
This fortress was situate above Amida, near one of the sources of the
Tigris. See D'Anville, Geographie Ancienue, tom. ii. p. 106. * Note: St.
Martin agrees with Gibbon, that it was the same fortress with Ardis Note,
p. 373.—M.]
13411 (return)
[ Artaxata,
Vagharschabad, or Edchmiadzin, Erovantaschad, and many other cities, in
all of which there was a considerable Jewish population were taken and
destroyed.—M.]
13412 (return)
[ Pharandsem, not
Olympias, refusing the orders of her captive husband to surrender herself
to Sapor, threw herself into Artogerassa St. Martin, iii. 293, 302. She
defended herself for fourteen months, till famine and disease had left few
survivors out of 11,000 soldiers and 6000 women who had taken refuge in
the fortress. She then threw open the gates with her own hand. M. St.
Martin adds, what even the horrors of Oriental warfare will scarcely
permit us to credit, that she was exposed by Sapor on a public scaffold to
the brutal lusts of his soldiery, and afterwards empaled, iii. 373, &c.—M.]
135 (return)
[ Tillemont (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 701) proves, from chronology, that Olympias must
have been the mother of Para. Note *: An error according to St. M. 273.—M.]
13511 (return)
[ According to
Themistius, quoted by St. Martin, he once advanced to the Tigris, iii.
436.—M.]
136 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxvii. 12,
xix. 1. xxx. 1, 2) has described the events, without the dates, of the
Persian war. Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 28, p. 261, c. 31,
p. 266, c. 35, p. 271) affords some additional facts; but it is extremely
difficult to separate truth from fable.]
137 (return)
[ Artaxerxes was the
successor and brother (the cousin-german) of the great Sapor; and the
guardian of his son, Sapor III. (Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, edit. Louvre.)
See the Universal History, vol. xi. p. 86, 161. The authors of that
unequal work have compiled the Sassanian dynasty with erudition and
diligence; but it is a preposterous arrangement to divide the Roman and
Oriental accounts into two distinct histories. * Note: On the war of Sapor
with the Bactrians, which diverted from Armenia, see St. M. iii. 387.—M.]
138 (return)
[ Pacatus in Panegyr.
Vet. xii. 22, and Orosius, l. vii. c. 34. Ictumque tum foedus est, quo
universus Oriens usque ad num (A. D. 416) tranquillissime fruitur.]
In the general picture of the affairs of the East under the reign of Valens, the adventures of Para form one of the most striking and singular objects. The noble youth, by the persuasion of his mother Olympias, had escaped through the Persian host that besieged Artogerassa, and implored the protection of the emperor of the East. By his timid councils, Para was alternately supported, and recalled, and restored, and betrayed. The hopes of the Armenians were sometimes raised by the presence of their natural sovereign, 13811 and the ministers of Valens were satisfied, that they preserved the integrity of the public faith, if their vassal was not suffered to assume the diadem and title of King. But they soon repented of their own rashness. They were confounded by the reproaches and threats of the Persian monarch. They found reason to distrust the cruel and inconstant temper of Para himself; who sacrificed, to the slightest suspicions, the lives of his most faithful servants, and held a secret and disgraceful correspondence with the assassin of his father and the enemy of his country. Under the specious pretence of consulting with the emperor on the subject of their common interest, Para was persuaded to descend from the mountains of Armenia, where his party was in arms, and to trust his independence and safety to the discretion of a perfidious court. The king of Armenia, for such he appeared in his own eyes and in those of his nation, was received with due honors by the governors of the provinces through which he passed; but when he arrived at Tarsus in Cilicia, his progress was stopped under various pretences; his motions were watched with respectful vigilance, and he gradually discovered, that he was a prisoner in the hands of the Romans. Para suppressed his indignation, dissembled his fears, and after secretly preparing his escape, mounted on horseback with three hundred of his faithful followers. The officer stationed at the door of his apartment immediately communicated his flight to the consular of Cilicia, who overtook him in the suburbs, and endeavored without success, to dissuade him from prosecuting his rash and dangerous design. A legion was ordered to pursue the royal fugitive; but the pursuit of infantry could not be very alarming to a body of light cavalry; and upon the first cloud of arrows that was discharged into the air, they retreated with precipitation to the gates of Tarsus. After an incessant march of two days and two nights, Para and his Armenians reached the banks of the Euphrates; but the passage of the river which they were obliged to swim, 13812 was attended with some delay and some loss. The country was alarmed; and the two roads, which were only separated by an interval of three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback, under the command of a count and a tribune. Para must have yielded to superior force, if the accidental arrival of a friendly traveller had not revealed the danger and the means of escape. A dark and almost impervious path securely conveyed the Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had left behind him the count and the tribune, while they patiently expected his approach along the public highways. They returned to the Imperial court to excuse their want of diligence or success; and seriously alleged, that the king of Armenia, who was a skilful magician, had transformed himself and his followers, and passed before their eyes under a borrowed shape. 13813 After his return to his native kingdom, Para still continued to profess himself the friend and ally of the Romans: but the Romans had injured him too deeply ever to forgive, and the secret sentence of his death was signed in the council of Valens. The execution of the bloody deed was committed to the subtle prudence of Count Trajan; and he had the merit of insinuating himself into the confidence of the credulous prince, that he might find an opportunity of stabbing him to the heart Para was invited to a Roman banquet, which had been prepared with all the pomp and sensuality of the East; the hall resounded with cheerful music, and the company was already heated with wine; when the count retired for an instant, drew his sword, and gave the signal of the murder. A robust and desperate Barbarian instantly rushed on the king of Armenia; and though he bravely defended his life with the first weapon that chance offered to his hand, the table of the Imperial general was stained with the royal blood of a guest, and an ally. Such were the weak and wicked maxims of the Roman administration, that, to attain a doubtful object of political interest the laws of nations, and the sacred rights of hospitality were inhumanly violated in the face of the world. 139
13811 (return)
[ On the reconquest
of Armenia by Para, or rather by Mouschegh, the Mamigonian see St. M. iii.
375, 383.—M.]
13812 (return)
[ On planks floated
by bladders.—M.]
13813 (return)
[ It is curious
enough that the Armenian historian, Faustus of Byzandum, represents Para
as a magician. His impious mother Pharandac had devoted him to the demons
on his birth. St. M. iv. 23.—M.]
139 (return)
[ See in Ammianus (xxx.
1) the adventures of Para. Moses of Chorene calls him Tiridates; and tells
a long, and not improbable story of his son Gnelus, who afterwards made
himself popular in Armenia, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning
king, (l. iii. c 21, &c., p. 253, &c.) * Note: This note is a
tissue of mistakes. Tiridates and Para are two totally different persons.
Tiridates was the father of Gnel first husband of Pharandsem, the mother
of Para. St. Martin, iv. 27—M.]
V. During a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans secured their frontiers, and the Goths extended their dominions. The victories of the great Hermanric, 140 king of the Ostrogoths, and the most noble of the race of the Amali, have been compared, by the enthusiasm of his countrymen, to the exploits of Alexander; with this singular, and almost incredible, difference, that the martial spirit of the Gothic hero, instead of being supported by the vigor of youth, was displayed with glory and success in the extreme period of human life, between the age of fourscore and one hundred and ten years. The independent tribes were persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the sovereign of the Gothic nation: the chiefs of the Visigoths, or Thervingi, renounced the royal title, and assumed the more humble appellation of Judges; and, among those judges, Athanaric, Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the most illustrious, by their personal merit, as well as by their vicinity to the Roman provinces. These domestic conquests, which increased the military power of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious designs. He invaded the adjacent countries of the North; and twelve considerable nations, whose names and limits cannot be accurately defined, successively yielded to the superiority of the Gothic arms 141 The Heruli, who inhabited the marshy lands near the lake Maeotis, were renowned for their strength and agility; and the assistance of their light infantry was eagerly solicited, and highly esteemed, in all the wars of the Barbarians. But the active spirit of the Heruli was subdued by the slow and steady perseverance of the Goths; and, after a bloody action, in which the king was slain, the remains of that warlike tribe became a useful accession to the camp of Hermanric.
He then marched against the Venedi; unskilled in the use of arms, and formidable only by their numbers, which filled the wide extent of the plains of modern Poland. The victorious Goths, who were not inferior in numbers, prevailed in the contest, by the decisive advantages of exercise and discipline. After the submission of the Venedi, the conqueror advanced, without resistance, as far as the confines of the Aestii; 142 an ancient people, whose name is still preserved in the province of Esthonia. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were supported by the labors of agriculture, enriched by the trade of amber, and consecrated by the peculiar worship of the Mother of the Gods. But the scarcity of iron obliged the Aestian warriors to content themselves with wooden clubs; and the reduction of that wealthy country is ascribed to the prudence, rather than to the arms, of Hermanric. His dominions, which extended from the Danube to the Baltic, included the native seats, and the recent acquisitions, of the Goths; and he reigned over the greatest part of Germany and Scythia with the authority of a conqueror, and sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant. But he reigned over a part of the globe incapable of perpetuating and adorning the glory of its heroes. The name of Hermanric is almost buried in oblivion; his exploits are imperfectly known; and the Romans themselves appeared unconscious of the progress of an aspiring power which threatened the liberty of the North, and the peace of the empire. 143
140 (return)
[ The concise account
of the reign and conquests of Hermanric seems to be one of the valuable
fragments which Jornandes (c 28) borrowed from the Gothic histories of
Ablavius, or Cassiodorus.]
141 (return)
[ M. d. Buat. (Hist.
des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 311-329) investigates, with more
industry than success, the nations subdued by the arms of Hermanric. He
denies the existence of the Vasinobroncoe, on account of the immoderate
length of their name. Yet the French envoy to Ratisbon, or Dresden, must
have traversed the country of the Mediomatrici.]
142 (return)
[ The edition of
Grotius (Jornandes, p. 642) exhibits the name of Aestri. But reason and
the Ambrosian MS. have restored the Aestii, whose manners and situation
are expressed by the pencil of Tacitus, (Germania, c. 45.)]
143 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxxi. 3)
observes, in general terms, Ermenrichi.... nobilissimi Regis, et per multa
variaque fortiter facta, vicinigentibus formidati, &c.]
The Goths had contracted an hereditary attachment for the Imperial house of Constantine, of whose power and liberality they had received so many signal proofs. They respected the public peace; and if a hostile band sometimes presumed to pass the Roman limit, their irregular conduct was candidly ascribed to the ungovernable spirit of the Barbarian youth. Their contempt for two new and obscure princes, who had been raised to the throne by a popular election, inspired the Goths with bolder hopes; and, while they agitated some design of marching their confederate force under the national standard, 144 they were easily tempted to embrace the party of Procopius; and to foment, by their dangerous aid, the civil discord of the Romans. The public treaty might stipulate no more than ten thousand auxiliaries; but the design was so zealously adopted by the chiefs of the Visigoths, that the army which passed the Danube amounted to the number of thirty thousand men. 145 They marched with the proud confidence, that their invincible valor would decide the fate of the Roman empire; and the provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight of the Barbarians, who displayed the insolence of masters and the licentiousness of enemies. But the intemperance which gratified their appetites, retarded their progress; and before the Goths could receive any certain intelligence of the defeat and death of Procopius, they perceived, by the hostile state of the country, that the civil and military powers were resumed by his successful rival. A chain of posts and fortifications, skilfully disposed by Valens, or the generals of Valens, resisted their march, prevented their retreat, and intercepted their subsistence. The fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and suspended by hunger; they indignantly threw down their arms at the feet of the conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the numerous captives were distributed in all the cities of the East; and the provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage appearance, ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength with these formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been the object of their terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric alone could deserve so lofty a title) was grieved and exasperated by this national calamity. His ambassadors loudly complained, at the court of Valens, of the infraction of the ancient and solemn alliance, which had so long subsisted between the Romans and the Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty of allies, by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian; they required the immediate restitution of the noble captives; and they urged a very singular claim, that the Gothic generals marching in arms, and in hostile array, were entitled to the sacred character and privileges of ambassadors. The decent, but peremptory, refusal of these extravagant demands, was signified to the Barbarians by Victor, master-general of the cavalry; who expressed, with force and dignity, the just complaints of the emperor of the East. 146 The negotiation was interrupted; and the manly exhortations of Valentinian encouraged his timid brother to vindicate the insulted majesty of the empire. 147
144 (return)
[ Valens. ... docetur
relationibus Ducum, gentem Gothorum, ea tempestate intactam ideoque
saevissimam, conspirantem in unum, ad pervadenda parari collimitia
Thraciarum. Ammian. xxi. 6.]
145 (return)
[ M. de Buat (Hist. des
Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 332) has curiously ascertained the real
number of these auxiliaries. The 3000 of Ammianus, and the 10,000 of
Zosimus, were only the first divisions of the Gothic army. * Note: M. St.
Martin (iii. 246) denies that there is any authority for these numbers.—M.]
146 (return)
[ The march, and
subsequent negotiation, are described in the Fragments of Eunapius,
(Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, edit. Louvre.) The provincials who afterwards
became familiar with the Barbarians, found that their strength was more
apparent than real. They were tall of stature; but their legs were clumsy,
and their shoulders were narrow.]
147 (return)
[ Valens enim, ut
consulto placuerat fratri, cujus regebatur arbitrio, arma concussit in
Gothos ratione justa permotus. Ammianus (xxvii. 4) then proceeds to
describe, not the country of the Goths, but the peaceful and obedient
province of Thrace, which was not affected by the war.]
The splendor and magnitude of this Gothic war are celebrated by a contemporary historian: 148 but the events scarcely deserve the attention of posterity, except as the preliminary steps of the approaching decline and fall of the empire. Instead of leading the nations of Germany and Scythia to the banks of the Danube, or even to the gates of Constantinople, the aged monarch of the Goths resigned to the brave Athanaric the danger and glory of a defensive war, against an enemy, who wielded with a feeble hand the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats was established upon the Danube; the presence of Valens animated his troops; and his ignorance of the art of war was compensated by personal bravery, and a wise deference to the advice of Victor and Arintheus, his masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. The operations of the campaign were conducted by their skill and experience; but they found it impossible to drive the Visigoths from their strong posts in the mountains; and the devastation of the plains obliged the Romans themselves to repass the Danube on the approach of winter. The incessant rains, which swelled the waters of the river, produced a tacit suspension of arms, and confined the emperor Valens, during the whole course of the ensuing summer, to his camp of Marcianopolis. The third year of the war was more favorable to the Romans, and more pernicious to the Goths. The interruption of trade deprived the Barbarians of the objects of luxury, which they already confounded with the necessaries of life; and the desolation of a very extensive tract of country threatened them with the horrors of famine. Athanaric was provoked, or compelled, to risk a battle, which he lost, in the plains; and the pursuit was rendered more bloody by the cruel precaution of the victorious generals, who had promised a large reward for the head of every Goth that was brought into the Imperial camp. The submission of the Barbarians appeased the resentment of Valens and his council: the emperor listened with satisfaction to the flattering and eloquent remonstrance of the senate of Constantinople, which assumed, for the first time, a share in the public deliberations; and the same generals, Victor and Arintheus, who had successfully directed the conduct of the war, were empowered to regulate the conditions of peace. The freedom of trade, which the Goths had hitherto enjoyed, was restricted to two cities on the Danube; the rashness of their leaders was severely punished by the suppression of their pensions and subsidies; and the exception, which was stipulated in favor of Athanaric alone, was more advantageous than honorable to the Judge of the Visigoths. Athanaric, who, on this occasion, appears to have consulted his private interest, without expecting the orders of his sovereign, supported his own dignity, and that of his tribe, in the personal interview which was proposed by the ministers of Valens. He persisted in his declaration, that it was impossible for him, without incurring the guilt of perjury, ever to set his foot on the territory of the empire; and it is more than probable, that his regard for the sanctity of an oath was confirmed by the recent and fatal examples of Roman treachery. The Danube, which separated the dominions of the two independent nations, was chosen for the scene of the conference. The emperor of the East, and the Judge of the Visigoths, accompanied by an equal number of armed followers, advanced in their respective barges to the middle of the stream. After the ratification of the treaty, and the delivery of hostages, Valens returned in triumph to Constantinople; and the Goths remained in a state of tranquillity about six years; till they were violently impelled against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of Scythians, who appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the North. 149
148 (return)
[ Eunapius, in Excerpt.
Legat. p. 18, 19. The Greek sophist must have considered as one and the
same war, the whole series of Gothic history till the victories and peace
of Theodosius.]
149 (return)
[ The Gothic war is
described by Ammianus, (xxvii. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 211-214,) and
Themistius, (Orat. x. p. 129-141.) The orator Themistius was sent from the
senate of Constantinople to congratulate the victorious emperor; and his
servile eloquence compares Valens on the Danube to Achilles in the
Scamander. Jornandes forgets a war peculiar to the Visi-Goths, and
inglorious to the Gothic name, (Mascon's Hist. of the Germans, vii. 3.)]
The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother the command of the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate care the defence of the Rhaetian and Illyrian provinces, which spread so many hundred miles along the greatest of the European rivers. The active policy of Valentinian was continually employed in adding new fortifications to the security of the frontier: but the abuse of this policy provoked the just resentment of the Barbarians. The Quadi complained, that the ground for an intended fortress had been marked out on their territories; and their complaints were urged with so much reason and moderation, that Equitius, master-general of Illyricum, consented to suspend the prosecution of the work, till he should be more clearly informed of the will of his sovereign. This fair occasion of injuring a rival, and of advancing the fortune of his son, was eagerly embraced by the inhuman Maximin, the praefect, or rather tyrant, of Gaul. The passions of Valentinian were impatient of control; and he credulously listened to the assurances of his favorite, that if the government of Valeria, and the direction of the work, were intrusted to the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the emperor should no longer be importuned with the audacious remonstrances of the Barbarians. The subjects of Rome, and the natives of Germany, were insulted by the arrogance of a young and worthless minister, who considered his rapid elevation as the proof and reward of his superior merit. He affected, however, to receive the modest application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi, with some attention and regard: but this artful civility concealed a dark and bloody design, and the credulous prince was persuaded to accept the pressing invitation of Marcellinus. I am at a loss how to vary the narrative of similar crimes; or how to relate, that, in the course of the same year, but in remote parts of the empire, the inhospitable table of two Imperial generals was stained with the royal blood of two guests and allies, inhumanly murdered by their order, and in their presence. The fate of Gabinius, and of Para, was the same: but the cruel death of their sovereign was resented in a very different manner by the servile temper of the Armenians, and the free and daring spirit of the Germans. The Quadi were much declined from that formidable power, which, in the time of Marcus Antoninus, had spread terror to the gates of Rome. But they still possessed arms and courage; their courage was animated by despair, and they obtained the usual reenforcement of the cavalry of their Sarmatian allies. So improvident was the assassin Marcellinus, that he chose the moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn away, to suppress the revolt of Firmus; and the whole province was exposed, with a very feeble defence, to the rage of the exasperated Barbarians. They invaded Pannonia in the season of harvest; unmercifully destroyed every object of plunder which they could not easily transport; and either disregarded, or demolished, the empty fortifications. The princess Constantia, the daughter of the emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of the great Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid, who had innocently supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She traversed the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her person was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by the active zeal of Messala, governor of the provinces. As soon as he was informed that the village, where she stopped only to dine, was almost encompassed by the Barbarians, he hastily placed her in his own chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-twenty miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure, if the Quadi and Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay allowed Probus, the Praetorian praefect, sufficient time to recover his own spirits, and to revive the courage of the citizens. He skilfully directed their strenuous efforts to repair and strengthen the decayed fortifications; and procured the seasonable and effectual assistance of a company of archers, to protect the capital of the Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in their attempts against the walls of Sirmium, the indignant Barbarians turned their arms against the master general of the frontier, to whom they unjustly attributed the murder of their king. Equitius could bring into the field no more than two legions; but they contained the veteran strength of the Maesian and Pannonian bands. The obstinacy with which they disputed the vain honors of rank and precedency, was the cause of their destruction; and while they acted with separate forces and divided councils, they were surprised and slaughtered by the active vigor of the Sarmatian horse. The success of this invasion provoked the emulation of the bordering tribes; and the province of Maesia would infallibly have been lost, if young Theodosius, the duke, or military commander, of the frontier, had not signalized, in the defeat of the public enemy, an intrepid genius, worthy of his illustrious father, and of his future greatness. 150
150 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxix. 6)
and Zosimus (I. iv. p. 219, 220) carefully mark the origin and progress of
the Quadic and Sarmatian war.]
The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was deeply affected by the calamities of Illyricum; but the lateness of the season suspended the execution of his designs till the ensuing spring. He marched in person, with a considerable part of the forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle: and to the suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way, he returned a doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached the scene of action, he should examine, and pronounce. When he arrived at Sirmium, he gave audience to the deputies of the Illyrian provinces; who loudly congratulated their own felicity under the auspicious government of Probus, his Praetorian praefect. 151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these demonstrations of their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked the deputy of Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity, 152 whether he was freely sent by the wishes of the province. "With tears and groans am I sent," replied Iphicles, "by a reluctant people." The emperor paused: but the impunity of his ministers established the pernicious maxim, that they might oppress his subjects, without injuring his service. A strict inquiry into their conduct would have relieved the public discontent. The severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinius, was the only measure which could restore the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honor of the Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the provocation, remembered only the injury, and advanced into the country of the Quadi with an insatiate thirst of blood and revenge. The extreme devastation, and promiscuous massacre, of a savage war, were justified, in the eyes of the emperor, and perhaps in those of the world, by the cruel equity of retaliation: 153 and such was the discipline of the Romans, and the consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the Danube without the loss of a single man. As he had resolved to complete the destruction of the Quadi by a second campaign, he fixed his winter quarters at Bregetio, on the Danube, near the Hungarian city of Presburg. While the operations of war were suspended by the severity of the weather, the Quadi made an humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their conqueror; and, at the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their ambassadors were introduced into the Imperial council. They approached the throne with bended bodies and dejected countenances; and without daring to complain of the murder of their king, they affirmed, with solemn oaths, that the late invasion was the crime of some irregular robbers, which the public council of the nation condemned and abhorred. The answer of the emperor left them but little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He reviled, in the most intemperate language, their baseness, their ingratitude, their insolence. His eyes, his voice, his color, his gestures, expressed the violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his whole frame was agitated with convulsive passion, a large blood vessel suddenly burst in his body; and Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few minutes, the emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the last; and struggling, without success, to declare his intentions to the generals and ministers, who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about fifty-four years of age; and he wanted only one hundred days to accomplish the twelve years of his reign. 154
151 (return)
[ Ammianus, (xxx. 5,)
who acknowledges the merit, has censured, with becoming asperity, the
oppressive administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and
continued the Chronicle of Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xii. p. 53, 626,) he expressed the truth, or at least the
public opinion of his country, in the following words: "Probus P. P.
Illyrici inquissimus tributorum exactionibus, ante provincias quas
regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur, erasit." (Chron. edit. Scaliger, p.
187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint afterwards formed an intimate and
tender friendship with the widow of Probus; and the name of Count Equitius
with less propriety, but without much injustice, has been substituted in
the text.]
152 (return)
[ Julian (Orat. vi. p.
198) represents his friend Iphicles, as a man of virtue and merit, who had
made himself ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and
manners of the Cynics.]
153 (return)
[ Ammian. xxx. v.
Jerom, who exaggerates the misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even
this last consolation of revenge. Genitali vastato solo et inultam patriam
derelinquens, (tom. i. p. 26.)]
154 (return)
[ See, on the death of
Valentinian, Ammianus, (xxx. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Victor, (in
Epitom.,) Socrates, (l. iv. c. 31,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 187, and tom.
i. p. 26, ad Heliodor.) There is much variety of circumstances among them;
and Ammianus is so eloquent, that he writes nonsense.]
The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an ecclesiastical historian. 155 "The empress Severa (I relate the fable) admitted into her familiar society the lovely Justina, the daughter of an Italian governor: her admiration of those naked charms, which she had often seen in the bath, was expressed with such lavish and imprudent praise, that the emperor was tempted to introduce a second wife into his bed; and his public edict extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic privilege which he had assumed for himself." But we may be assured, from the evidence of reason as well as history, that the two marriages of Valentinian, with Severa, and with Justina, were successively contracted; and that he used the ancient permission of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws, though it was condemned by the church Severa was the mother of Gratian, who seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him to the undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the free and honorable choice of his fellow-soldiers. Before he had attained the ninth year of his age, the royal youth received from the hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem, with the title of Augustus; the election was solemnly ratified by the consent and applause of the armies of Gaul; 156 and the name of Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and Valens, in all the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his marriage with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of Valentinian acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian family; which, in a series of three Imperial generations, were sanctified by time, religion, and the reverence of the people. At the death of his father, the royal youth was in the seventeenth year of his age; and his virtues already justified the favorable opinion of the army and the people. But Gratian resided, without apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the distance of many hundred miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of Bregetio. The passions, which had been so long suppressed by the presence of a master, immediately revived in the Imperial council; and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an infant, was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They contrived the most honorable pretences to remove the popular leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have asserted the claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity of extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been left in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was respectively invited to appear in the camp, with the son of the deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the death of Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name, who was only four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the legions; and solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the titles and ensigns of supreme power. The impending dangers of a civil war were seasonably prevented by the wise and moderate conduct of the emperor Gratian. He cheerfully accepted the choice of the army; declared that he should always consider the son of Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the empress, with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at Milan, in the fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he assumed the more arduous command of the countries beyond the Alps. Gratian dissembled his resentment till he could safely punish, or disgrace, the authors of the conspiracy; and though he uniformly behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant colleague, he gradually confounded, in the administration of the Western empire, the office of a guardian with the authority of a sovereign. The government of the Roman world was exercised in the united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder brother, never obtained any weight or influence in the councils of the West. 157
155 (return)
[ Socrates (l. iv. c.
31) is the only original witness of this foolish story, so repugnant to
the laws and manners of the Romans, that it scarcely deserved the formal
and elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy, (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xxx. p.
394-405.) Yet I would preserve the natural circumstance of the bath;
instead of following Zosimus who represents Justina as an old woman, the
widow of Magnentius.]
156 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxvii. 6)
describes the form of this military election, and august investiture.
Valentinian does not appear to have consulted, or even informed, the
senate of Rome.]
157 (return)
[ Ammianus, xxx. 10.
Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223. Tillemont has proved (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 707-709) that Gratian reignea in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum.
I have endeavored to express his authority over his brother's dominions,
as he used it, in an ambiguous style.]
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From
China To Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The
Danube.—Gothic War.—Defeat And Death Of Valens.—Gratian
Invests Theodosius With The Eastern Empire.—His Character
And Success.—Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.
In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake. The impression was communicated to the waters; the shores of the Mediterranean were left dry, by the sudden retreat of the sea; great quantities of fish were caught with the hand; large vessels were stranded on the mud; and a curious spectator 1 amused his eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the various appearance of valleys and mountains, which had never, since the formation of the globe, been exposed to the sun. But the tide soon returned, with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of Egypt: large boats were transported, and lodged on the roofs of houses, or at the distance of two miles from the shore; the people, with their habitations, were swept away by the waters; and the city of Alexandria annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty thousand persons had lost their lives in the inundation. This calamity, the report of which was magnified from one province to another, astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination enlarged the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the preceding earthquakes, which had subverted the cities of Palestine and Bithynia: they considered these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities, and their fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms of a declining empire and a sinking world. 2 It was the fashion of the times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the human mind; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish, according to the color of their respective prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake; or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin and error. Without presuming to discuss the truth or propriety of these lofty speculations, the historian may content himself with an observation, which seems to be justified by experience, that man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements. 3 The mischievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge, a hurricane, or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very inconsiderable portion to the ordinary calamities of war, as they are now moderated by the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse their own leisure, and exercise the courage of their subjects, in the practice of the military art. But the laws and manners of modern nations protect the safety and freedom of the vanquished soldier; and the peaceful citizen has seldom reason to complain, that his life, or even his fortune, is exposed to the rage of war. In the disastrous period of the fall of the Roman empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the happiness and security of each individual were personally attacked; and the arts and labors of ages were rudely defaced by the Barbarians of Scythia and Germany. The invasion of the Huns precipitated on the provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in less than forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a way, by the success of their arms, to the inroads of so many hostile tribes, more savage than themselves. The original principle of motion was concealed in the remote countries of the North; and the curious observation of the pastoral life of the Scythians, 4 or Tartars, 5 will illustrate the latent cause of these destructive emigrations.
1 (return)
[ Such is the bad taste of
Ammianus, (xxvi. 10,) that it is not easy to distinguish his facts from
his metaphors. Yet he positively affirms, that he saw the rotten carcass
of a ship, ad Modon, in Peloponnesus.]
2 (return)
[ The earthquakes and
inundations are variously described by Libanius, (Orat. de ulciscenda
Juliani nece, c. x., in Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. tom. vii. p. 158, with a
learned note of Olearius,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c.
2,) Cedrenus, (p. 310, 314,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 186, and tom. i. p.
250, in Vit. Hilarion.) Epidaurus must have been overwhelmed, had not the
prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an Egyptian monk, on the beach. He
made the sign of the Cross; the mountain-wave stopped, bowed, and
returned.]
3 (return)
[ Dicaearchus, the
Peripatetic, composed a formal treatise, to prove this obvious truth;
which is not the most honorable to the human species. (Cicero, de
Officiis, ii. 5.)]
4 (return)
[ The original Scythians of
Herodotus (l. iv. c. 47—57, 99—101) were confined, by the
Danube and the Palus Maeotis, within a square of 4000 stadia, (400 Roman
miles.) See D'Anville (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xxxv. p. 573—591.)
Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. ii. p. 155, edit. Wesseling) has marked the
gradual progress of the name and nation.]
5 (return)
[ The Tatars, or Tartars,
were a primitive tribe, the rivals, and at length the subjects, of the
Moguls. In the victorious armies of Zingis Khan, and his successors, the
Tartars formed the vanguard; and the name, which first reached the ears of
foreigners, was applied to the whole nation, (Freret, in the Hist. de
l'Academie, tom. xviii. p. 60.) In speaking of all, or any of the northern
shepherds of Europe, or Asia, I indifferently use the appellations of
Scythians or Tartars. * Note: The Moguls, (Mongols,) according to M.
Klaproth, are a tribe of the Tartar nation. Tableaux Hist. de l'Asie, p.
154.—M.]
The different characters that mark the civilized nations of the globe, may be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of reason; which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the manners and opinions of a European, or a Chinese. But the operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to each other. The uniform stability of their manners is the natural consequence of the imperfection of their faculties. Reduced to a similar situation, their wants, their desires, their enjoyments, still continue the same: and the influence of food or climate, which, in a more improved state of society, is suspended, or subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully contributes to form, and to maintain, the national character of Barbarians. In every age, the immense plains of Scythia, or Tartary, have been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life. In every age, the Scythians, and Tartars, have been renowned for their invincible courage and rapid conquests. The thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds of the North; and their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. 6 On this occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life. To illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider a nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the three important articles of, I. Their diet; II. Their habitations; and, III. Their exercises. The narratives of antiquity are justified by the experience of modern times; 7 and the banks of the Borysthenes, of the Volga, or of the Selinga, will indifferently present the same uniform spectacle of similar and native manners. 8
6 (return)
[ Imperium Asiae ter
quaesivere: ipsi perpetuo ab alieno imperio, aut intacti aut invicti,
mansere. Since the time of Justin, (ii. 2,) they have multiplied this
account. Voltaire, in a few words, (tom. x. p. 64, Hist. Generale, c.
156,) has abridged the Tartar conquests. Oft o'er the trembling nations
from afar, Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war. Note *: Gray.—M.]
7 (return)
[ The fourth book of
Herodotus affords a curious though imperfect, portrait of the Scythians.
Among the moderns, who describe the uniform scene, the Khan of Khowaresm,
Abulghazi Bahadur, expresses his native feelings; and his genealogical
history of the Tartars has been copiously illustrated by the French and
English editors. Carpin, Ascelin, and Rubruquis (in the Hist. des Voyages,
tom. vii.) represent the Moguls of the fourteenth century. To these guides
I have added Gerbillon, and the other Jesuits, (Description de la China
par du Halde, tom. iv.,) who accurately surveyed the Chinese Tartary; and
that honest and intelligent traveller, Bell, of Antermony, (two volumes in
4to. Glasgow, 1763.) * Note: Of the various works published since the time
of Gibbon, which throw fight on the nomadic population of Central Asia,
may be particularly remarked the Travels and Dissertations of Pallas; and
above all, the very curious work of Bergman, Nomadische Streifereyen.
Riga, 1805.—M.]
8 (return)
[ The Uzbecks are the most
altered from their primitive manners; 1. By the profession of the
Mahometan religion; and 2. By the possession of the cities and harvests of
the great Bucharia.]
I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary and wholesome food of a civilized people, can be obtained only by the patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy savages, who dwell between the tropics, are plentifully nourished by the liberality of nature; but in the climates of the North, a nation of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful practitioners of the medical art will determine (if they are able to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be affected by the use of animal, or of vegetable, food; and whether the common association of carniverous and cruel deserves to be considered in any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary, prejudice of humanity. 9 Yet, if it be true, that the sentiment of compassion is imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of domestic cruelty, we may observe, that the horrid objects which are disguised by the arts of European refinement, are exhibited in their naked and most disgusting simplicity in the tent of a Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are slaughtered by the same hand from which they were accustomed to receive their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little preparation, on the table of their unfeeling murderer. In the military profession, and especially in the conduct of a numerous army, the exclusive use of animal food appears to be productive of the most solid advantages. Corn is a bulky and perishable commodity; and the large magazines, which are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of our troops, must be slowly transported by the labor of men or horses. But the flocks and herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars, afford a sure and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far greater part of the uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the grass is quick and luxuriant; and there are few places so extremely barren, that the hardy cattle of the North cannot find some tolerable pasture.
The supply is multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing appetite, and patient abstinence, of the Tartars. They indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals that have been killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horseflesh, which in every age and country has been proscribed by the civilized nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness; and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the Barbarians. Many are the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or dried in the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of little balls of cheese, or rather of hard curd, which they occasionally dissolve in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support, for many days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior. But this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve, and the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate are the most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity, that can be offered to the Tartars; and the only example of their industry seems to consist in the art of extracting from mare's milk a fermented liquor, which possesses a very strong power of intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the savages, both of the old and new world, experience the alternate vicissitudes of famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured to sustain, without much inconvenience, the opposite extremes of hunger and of intemperance.
9 (return)
[ Il est certain que les
grands mangeurs de viande sont en general cruels et feroces plus que les
autres hommes. Cette observation est de tous les lieux, et de tous les
temps: la barbarie Angloise est connue, &c. Emile de Rousseau, tom. i.
p. 274. Whatever we may think of the general observation, we shall not
easily allow the truth of his example. The good-natured complaints of
Plutarch, and the pathetic lamentations of Ovid, seduce our reason, by
exciting our sensibility.]
II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people of soldiers and husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an extensive and cultivated country; and some time must elapse before the warlike youth of Greece or Italy could be assembled under the same standard, either to defend their own confines, or to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life. The pastoral manners of the Scythians seem to unite the different advantages of simplicity and refinement. The individuals of the same tribe are constantly assembled, but they are assembled in a camp; and the native spirit of these dauntless shepherds is animated by mutual support and emulation. The houses of the Tartars are no more than small tents, of an oval form, which afford a cold and dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of both sexes. The palaces of the rich consist of wooden huts, of such a size that they may be conveniently fixed on large wagons, and drawn by a team perhaps of twenty or thirty oxen. The flocks and herds, after grazing all day in the adjacent pastures, retire, on the approach of night, within the protection of the camp. The necessity of preventing the most mischievous confusion, in such a perpetual concourse of men and animals, must gradually introduce, in the distribution, the order, and the guard, of the encampment, the rudiments of the military art. As soon as the forage of a certain district is consumed, the tribe, or rather army, of shepherds, makes a regular march to some fresh pastures; and thus acquires, in the ordinary occupations of the pastoral life, the practical knowledge of one of the most important and difficult operations of war. The choice of stations is regulated by the difference of the seasons: in the summer, the Tartars advance towards the North, and pitch their tents on the banks of a river, or, at least, in the neighborhood of a running stream. But in the winter, they return to the South, and shelter their camp, behind some convenient eminence, against the winds, which are chilled in their passage over the bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These manners are admirably adapted to diffuse, among the wandering tribes, the spirit of emigration and conquest. The connection between the people and their territory is of so frail a texture, that it may be broken by the slightest accident. The camp, and not the soil, is the native country of the genuine Tartar. Within the precincts of that camp, his family, his companions, his property, are always included; and, in the most distant marches, he is still surrounded by the objects which are dear, or valuable, or familiar in his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the fear, or the resentment of injury, the impatience of servitude, have, in every age, been sufficient causes to urge the tribes of Scythia boldly to advance into some unknown countries, where they might hope to find a more plentiful subsistence or a less formidable enemy. The revolutions of the North have frequently determined the fate of the South; and in the conflict of hostile nations, the victor and the vanquished have alternately drove, and been driven, from the confines of China to those of Germany. 10 These great emigrations, which have been sometimes executed with almost incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the peculiar nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of Tartary is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated. 11 In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with a bed of snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes may securely traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their cattle, the smooth and hard surface of an immense plain.
10 (return)
[ These Tartar
emigrations have been discovered by M. de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom.
i. ii.) a skilful and laborious interpreter of the Chinese language; who
has thus laid open new and important scenes in the history of mankind.]
11 (return)
[ A plain in the Chinese
Tartary, only eighty leagues from the great wall, was found by the
missionaries to be three thousand geometrical paces above the level of the
sea. Montesquieu, who has used, and abused, the relations of travellers,
deduces the revolutions of Asia from this important circumstance, that
heat and cold, weakness and strength, touch each other without any
temperate zone, (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c. 3.)]
III. The pastoral life, compared with the labors of agriculture and manufactures, is undoubtedly a life of idleness; and as the most honorable shepherds of the Tartar race devolve on their captives the domestic management of the cattle, their own leisure is seldom disturbed by any servile and assiduous cares. But this leisure, instead of being devoted to the soft enjoyments of love and harmony, is use fully spent in the violent and sanguinary exercise of the chase. The plains of Tartary are filled with a strong and serviceable breed of horses, which are easily trained for the purposes of war and hunting. The Scythians of every age have been celebrated as bold and skilful riders; and constant practice had seated them so firmly on horseback, that they were supposed by strangers to perform the ordinary duties of civil life, to eat, to drink, and even to sleep, without dismounting from their steeds. They excel in the dexterous management of the lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn with a nervous arm; and the weighty arrow is directed to its object with unerring aim and irresistible force. These arrows are often pointed against the harmless animals of the desert, which increase and multiply in the absence of their most formidable enemy; the hare, the goat, the roebuck, the fallow-deer, the stag, the elk, and the antelope. The vigor and patience, both of the men and horses, are continually exercised by the fatigues of the chase; and the plentiful supply of game contributes to the subsistence, and even luxury, of a Tartar camp. But the exploits of the hunters of Scythia are not confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious beasts; they boldly encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns against his pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of the bear, and provoke the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket. Where there is danger, there may be glory; and the mode of hunting, which opens the fairest field to the exertions of valor, may justly be considered as the image, and as the school, of war. The general hunting matches, the pride and delight of the Tartar princes, compose an instructive exercise for their numerous cavalry. A circle is drawn, of many miles in circumference, to encompass the game of an extensive district; and the troops that form the circle regularly advance towards a common centre; where the captive animals, surrounded on every side, are abandoned to the darts of the hunters. In this march, which frequently continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb the hills, to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress. They acquire the habit of directing their eye, and their steps, to a remote object; of preserving their intervals of suspending or accelerating their pace, according to the motions of the troops on their right and left; and of watching and repeating the signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical school, the most important lesson of the military art; the prompt and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To employ against a human enemy the same patience and valor, the same skill and discipline, is the only alteration which is required in real war; and the amusements of the chase serve as a prelude to the conquest of an empire. 12
12 (return)
[ Petit de la Croix (Vie
de Gengiscan, l. iii. c. 6) represents the full glory and extent of the
Mogul chase. The Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor
Khamhi when he hunted in Tartary, Duhalde, (Description de la Chine, tom.
iv. p. 81, 290, &c., folio edit.) His grandson, Kienlong, who unites
the Tartar discipline with the laws and learning of China, describes
(Eloge de Moukden, p. 273—285) as a poet the pleasures which he had
often enjoyed as a sportsman.]
The political society of the ancient Germans has the appearance of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of Scythia, distinguished by the modern appellation of Hords, assume the form of a numerous and increasing family; which, in the course of successive generations, has been propagated from the same original stock. The meanest, and most ignorant, of the Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the inestimable treasure of their genealogy; and whatever distinctions of rank may have been introduced, by the unequal distribution of pastoral wealth, they mutually respect themselves, and each other, as the descendants of the first founder of the tribe. The custom, which still prevails, of adopting the bravest and most faithful of the captives, may countenance the very probable suspicion, that this extensive consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and fictitious. But the useful prejudice, which has obtained the sanction of time and opinion, produces the effects of truth; the haughty Barbarians yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience to the head of their blood; and their chief, or mursa, as the representative of their great father, exercises the authority of a judge in peace, and of a leader in war. In the original state of the pastoral world, each of the mursas (if we may continue to use a modern appellation) acted as the independent chief of a large and separate family; and the limits of their peculiar territories were gradually fixed by superior force, or mutual consent. But the constant operation of various and permanent causes contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national communities, under the command of a supreme head. The weak were desirous of support, and the strong were ambitious of dominion; the power, which is the result of union, oppressed and collected the divided force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the vanquished were freely admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most valiant chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers under the formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled by the superiority, either of merit or of power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals; and the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal descendants of the renowned Zingis. 13 But, as it is the indispensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike subjects into the field, the claims of an infant are often disregarded; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his age and valor, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the tribes, to support the dignity of the national monarch, and of their peculiar chief; and each of those contributions amounts to the tithe, both of their property, and of their spoil. A Tartar sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his people; and as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a much larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the rustic splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most favored of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes refused to the stern mandates of authority. The manners of his subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood and rapine, might excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as would excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia. The immediate jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the limits of his own tribe; and the exercise of his royal prerogative has been moderated by the ancient institution of a national council. The Coroulai, 14 or Diet, of the Tartars, was regularly held in the spring and autumn, in the midst of a plain; where the princes of the reigning family, and the mursas of the respective tribes, may conveniently assemble on horseback, with their martial and numerous trains; and the ambitious monarch, who reviewed the strength, must consult the inclination of an armed people. The rudiments of a feudal government may be discovered in the constitution of the Scythian or Tartar nations; but the perpetual conflict of those hostile nations has sometimes terminated in the establishment of a powerful and despotic empire. The victor, enriched by the tribute, and fortified by the arms of dependent kings, has spread his conquests over Europe or Asia: the successful shepherds of the North have submitted to the confinement of arts, of laws, and of cities; and the introduction of luxury, after destroying the freedom of the people, has undermined the foundations of the throne. 15
13 (return)
[ See the second volume
of the Genealogical History of the Tartars; and the list of the Khans, at
the end of the life of Geng's, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or
Tamerlane, one of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the
regal appellation of Khan and the conqueror of Asia contented himself with
the title of Emir or Sultan. Abulghazi, part v. c. 4. D'Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orien tale, p. 878.]
14 (return)
[ See the Diets of the
ancient Huns, (De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 26,) and a curious description of
those of Zingis, (Vie de Gengiscan, l. i. c. 6, l. iv. c. 11.) Such
assemblies are frequently mentioned in the Persian history of Timur;
though they served only to countenance the resolutions of their master.]
15 (return)
[ Montesquieu labors to
explain a difference, which has not existed, between the liberty of the
Arabs, and the perpetual slavery of the Tartars. (Esprit des Loix, l.
xvii. c. 5, l. xviii. c. 19, &c.)]
The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the frequent and remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The modern Tartars are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors; 16 and our knowledge of the history of the Scythians is derived from their intercourse with the learned and civilized nations of the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese. The Greeks, who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies along the sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of Scythia; from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as the frozen Maeotis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount Caucasus, which, in the language of poetry, was described as the utmost boundary of the earth. They celebrated, with simple credulity, the virtues of the pastoral life: 17 they entertained a more rational apprehension of the strength and numbers of the warlike Barbarians, 18 who contemptuously baffled the immense armament of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. 19 The Persian monarchs had extended their western conquests to the banks of the Danube, and the limits of European Scythia. The eastern provinces of their empire were exposed to the Scythians of Asia; the wild inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and the Jaxartes, two mighty rivers, which direct their course towards the Caspian Sea. The long and memorable quarrel of Iran and Touran is still the theme of history or romance: the famous, perhaps the fabulous, valor of the Persian heroes, Rustan and Asfendiar, was signalized, in the defence of their country, against the Afrasiabs of the North; 20 and the invincible spirit of the same Barbarians resisted, on the same ground, the victorious arms of Cyrus and Alexander. 21 In the eyes of the Greeks and Persians, the real geography of Scythia was bounded, on the East, by the mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant prospect of the extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by ignorance, or perplexed by fiction. But those inaccessible regions are the ancient residence of a powerful and civilized nation, 22 which ascends, by a probable tradition, above forty centuries; 23 and which is able to verify a series of near two thousand years, by the perpetual testimony of accurate and contemporary historians. 24 The annals of China 25 illustrate the state and revolutions of the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the enemies, and sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose policy has uniformly opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the Barbarians of the North. From the mouth of the Danube to the Sea of Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be so easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary climate, instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the smoke that issues from the earth, or rather from the snow, betrays the subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the Samoides: the want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by the use of reindeer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of the earth insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and diminutive savages, who tremble at the sound of arms. 26
16 (return)
[ Abulghasi Khan, in the
two first parts of his Genealogical History, relates the miserable tales
and traditions of the Uzbek Tartars concerning the times which preceded
the reign of Zingis. * Note: The differences between the various pastoral
tribes and nations comprehended by the ancients under the vague name of
Scythians, and by Gibbon under inst of Tartars, have received some, and
still, perhaps, may receive more, light from the comparisons of their
dialects and languages by modern scholars.—M]
17 (return)
[ In the thirteenth book
of the Iliad, Jupiter turns away his eyes from the bloody fields of Troy,
to the plains of Thrace and Scythia. He would not, by changing the
prospect, behold a more peaceful or innocent scene.]
18 (return)
[ Thucydides, l. ii. c.
97.]
19 (return)
[ See the fourth book of
Herodotus. When Darius advanced into the Moldavian desert, between the
Danube and the Niester, the king of the Scythians sent him a mouse, a
frog, a bird, and five arrows; a tremendous allegory!]
20 (return)
[ These wars and heroes
may be found under their respective titles, in the Bibliotheque Orientale
of D'Herbelot. They have been celebrated in an epic poem of sixty thousand
rhymed couplets, by Ferdusi, the Homer of Persia. See the history of Nadir
Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must lament that Mr. Jones has suspended the
pursuit of Oriental learning. Note: Ferdusi is yet imperfectly known to
European readers. An abstract of the whole poem has been published by
Goerres in German, under the title "das Heldenbuch des Iran." In English,
an abstract with poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has appeared,
under the auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to translate a poet a man
must be a poet. The best account of the poem is in an article by Von
Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher, 1820: or perhaps in a masterly article in
Cochrane's Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A splendid and critical
edition of the whole work has been published by a very learned English
Orientalist, Captain Macan, at the expense of the king of Oude. As to the
number of 60,000 couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p. 39) states that he
never saw a MS. containing more than 56,685, including doubtful and
spurious passages and episodes.—M. * Note: The later studies of Sir
W. Jones were more in unison with the wishes of the public, thus expressed
by Gibbon.—M.]
21 (return)
[ The Caspian Sea, with
its rivers and adjacent tribes, are laboriously illustrated in the Examen
Critique des Historiens d'Alexandre, which compares the true geography,
and the errors produced by the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks.]
22 (return)
[ The original seat of
the nation appears to have been in the Northwest of China, in the
provinces of Chensi and Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the
principal town was still a movable camp; the villages were thinly
scattered; more land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise
of hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts; Petcheli
(where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern provinces were peopled
with Indian savages. The dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) gave the
empire its actual form and extent.]
23 (return)
[ The aera of the Chinese
monarchy has been variously fixed from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ;
and the year 2637 has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the authority
of the present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain duration
of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that lies beyond them, as
far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi, or Hoangti. Sematsien dates
his authentic chronology from the year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of
Confucius (thirty-one of which have been verified) were observed between
the years 722 and 480 before Christ. The historical period of China does
not ascend above the Greek Olympiads.]
24 (return)
[ After several ages of
anarchy and despotism, the dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the
aera of the revival of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were
restored; the characters were improved and fixed; and the future
preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of ink, paper,
and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before Christ, Sematsien
published the first history of China. His labors were illustrated, and
continued, by a series of one hundred and eighty historians. The substance
of their works is still extant; and the most considerable of them are now
deposited in the king of France's library.]
25 (return)
[ China has been
illustrated by the labors of the French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and
Messrs. Freret and De Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three
preceding notes is extracted from the Chou-king, with the preface and
notes of M. de Guignes, Paris, 1770. The Tong-Kien-Kang-Mou, translated by
P. de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Generale de la Chine, tom. i. p.
xlix.—cc.; the Memoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom. i.
p. 1—323; tom. ii. p. 5—364; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p.
4—131, tom. v. p. 345—362; and the Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377—402; tom. xv. p. 495—564; tom.
xviii. p. 178—295; xxxvi. p. 164—238.]
26 (return)
[ See the Histoire
Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii., and the Genealogical History, vol. ii.
p. 620—664.]
The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the empire of Rome, had been formidable, in a much earlier period, to the empire of China. 27 Their ancient, perhaps their original, seat was an extensive, though dry and barren, tract of country, immediately on the north side of the great wall. Their place is at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of the Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred thousand families. 28 But the valor of the Huns had extended the narrow limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who assumed the appellation of Tanjou, gradually became the conquerors, and the sovereigns of a formidable empire. Towards the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean; and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish, in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued, in a single expedition, twenty-six nations; the Igours, 29 distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were in the number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of human events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled the victorious Parthians from the invasion of Syria. 30 On the side of the North, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia. The Northren Sea was fixed as the remote boundary of their empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores the patriot Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, 31 may be transferred, with much more probability, to the Baikal, a capacious basin, above three hundred miles in length, which disdains the modest appellation of a lake 32 and which actually communicates with the seas of the North, by the long course of the Angara, the Tongusha, and the Jenissea. The submission of so many distant nations might flatter the pride of the Tanjou; but the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment of the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third century 3211 before the Christian aera, a wall of fifteen hundred miles in length was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China against the inroads of the Huns; 33 but this stupendous work, which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with which they managed their bows and their horses: by their hardy patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished, and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese army. The emperor Kaoti, 34 a soldier of fortune, whose personal merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the Huns with those veteran troops which had been trained in the civil wars of China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and, after a siege of seven days, the monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced to purchase his deliverance by an ignominious capitulation. The successors of Kaoti, whose lives were dedicated to the arts of peace, or the luxury of the palace, submitted to a more permanent disgrace. They too hastily confessed the insufficiency of arms and fortifications. They were too easily convinced, that while the blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the Huns, the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their head, and the cuirass on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labor of ineffectual marches. 35 A regular payment of money, and silk, was stipulated as the condition of a temporary and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a real tribute, under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised by the emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there still remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which violated the sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The hardships of the savage life, which destroy in their infancy the children who are born with a less healthy and robust constitution, introduced a remarkable disproportion between the numbers of the two sexes. The Tartars are an ugly and even deformed race; and while they consider their own women as the instruments of domestic labor, their desires, or rather their appetites, are directed to the enjoyment of more elegant beauty. A select band of the fairest maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude embraces of the Huns; 36 and the alliance of the haughty Tanjous was secured by their marriage with the genuine, or adopted, daughters of the Imperial family, which vainly attempted to escape the sacrilegious pollution. The situation of these unhappy victims is described in the verses of a Chinese princess, who laments that she had been condemned by her parents to a distant exile, under a Barbarian husband; who complains that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh her only food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses, in a strain of pathetic simplicity, the natural wish, that she were transformed into a bird, to fly back to her dear country; the object of her tender and perpetual regret. 37
27 (return)
[ M. de Guignes (tom. ii.
p. 1—124) has given the original history of the ancient Hiong-nou,
or Huns. The Chinese geography of their country (tom. i. part. p. lv.—lxiii.)
seems to comprise a part of their conquests. * Note: The theory of De
Guignes on the early history of the Huns is, in general, rejected by
modern writers. De Guignes advanced no valid proof of the identity of the
Hioung-nou of the Chinese writers with the Huns, except the similarity of
name. Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, p. 252,) Klaproth,
(Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 246,) St. Martin, iv. 61, and A.
Remusat, (Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, D. P. xlvi, and p. 328;
though in the latter passage he considers the theory of De Guignes not
absolutely disproved,) concur in considering the Huns as belonging to the
Finnish stock, distinct from the Moguls the Mandscheus, and the Turks. The
Hiong-nou, according to Klaproth, were Turks. The names of the Hunnish
chiefs could not be pronounced by a Turk; and, according to the same
author, the Hioung-nou, which is explained in Chinese as detestable
slaves, as early as the year 91 J. C., were dispersed by the Chinese, and
assumed the name of Yue-po or Yue-pan. M. St. Martin does not consider it
impossible that the appellation of Hioung-nou may have belonged to the
Huns. But all agree in considering the Madjar or Magyar of modern Hungary
the descendants of the Huns. Their language (compare Gibbon, c. lv. n. 22)
is nearly related to the Lapponian and Vogoul. The noble forms of the
modern Hungarians, so strongly contrasted with the hideous pictures which
the fears and the hatred of the Romans give of the Huns, M. Klaproth
accounts for by the intermingling with other races, Turkish and Slavonian.
The present state of the question is thus stated in the last edition of
Malte Brun, and a new and ingenious hypothesis suggested to resolve all
the difficulties of the question. Were the Huns Finns? This obscure
question has not been debated till very recently, and is yet very far from
being decided. We are of opinion that it will be so hereafter in the same
manner as that with regard to the Scythians. We shall trace in the
portrait of Attila a dominant tribe or Mongols, or Kalmucks, with all the
hereditary ugliness of that race; but in the mass of the Hunnish army and
nation will be recognized the Chuni and the Ounni of the Greek Geography.
the Kuns of the Hungarians, the European Huns, and a race in close
relationship with the Flemish stock. Malte Brun, vi. p. 94. This theory is
more fully and ably developed, p. 743. Whoever has seen the emperor of
Austria's Hungarian guard, will not readily admit their descent from the
Huns described by Sidonius Appolinaris.—M]
28 (return)
[ See in Duhalde (tom.
iv. p. 18—65) a circumstantial description, with a correct map, of
the country of the Mongous.]
29 (return)
[ The Igours, or Vigours,
were divided into three branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and
the last class was despised by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c.
7. * Note: On the Ouigour or Igour characters, see the work of M. A.
Remusat, Sur les Langues Tartares. He conceives the Ouigour alphabet of
sixteen letters to have been formed from the Syriac, and introduced by the
Nestorian Christians.—Ch. ii. M.]
30 (return)
[ Memoires de l'Academie
des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 17—33. The comprehensive view of M.
de Guignes has compared these distant events.]
31 (return)
[ The fame of Sovou, or
So-ou, his merit, and his singular adventurers, are still celebrated in
China. See the Eloge de Moukden, p. 20, and notes, p. 241—247; and
Memoires sur la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317—360.]
32 (return)
[ See Isbrand Ives in
Harris's Collection, vol. ii. p. 931; Bell's Travels, vol. i. p. 247—254;
and Gmelin, in the Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. 283—329.
They all remark the vulgar opinion that the holy sea grows angry and
tempestuous if any one presumes to call it a lake. This grammatical nicety
often excites a dispute between the absurd superstition of the mariners
and the absurd obstinacy of travellers.]
3211 (return)
[ 224 years before
Christ. It was built by Chi-hoang-ti of the Dynasty Thsin. It is from
twenty to twenty-five feet high. Ce monument, aussi gigantesque
qu'impuissant, arreterait bien les incursions de quelques Nomades; mais il
n'a jamais empeche les invasions des Turcs, des Mongols, et des Mandchous.
Abe Remusat Rech. Asiat. 2d ser. vol. i. p. 58—M.]
33 (return)
[ The construction of the
wall of China is mentioned by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and De Guignes,
(tom. ii. p. 59.)]
34 (return)
[ See the life of
Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist, de la Chine, published at Paris, 1777,
&c., tom. i. p. 442—522. This voluminous work is the translation
(by the P. de Mailla) of the Tong- Kien-Kang-Mou, the celebrated
abridgment of the great History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his
continuators.]
35 (return)
[ See a free and ample
memorial, presented by a Mandarin to the emperor Venti, (before Christ 180—157,)
in Duhalde, (tom. ii. p. 412—426,) from a collection of State papers
marked with the red pencil by Kamhi himself, (p. 354—612.) Another
memorial from the minister of war (Kang-Mou, tom. ii. p 555) supplies some
curious circumstances of the manners of the Huns.]
36 (return)
[ A supply of women is
mentioned as a customary article of treaty and tribute, (Hist. de la
Conquete de la Chine, par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187,
with the note of the editor.)]
37 (return)
[ De Guignes, Hist. des
Huns, tom. ii. p. 62.]
The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the pastoral tribes of the North: the forces of the Huns were not inferior to those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their ambition might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But their pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the arms and policy of Vouti, 38 the fifth emperor of the powerful dynasty of the Han. In his long reign of fifty- four years, the Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and manners of China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were enlarged, from the great river of Kiang, to the port of Canton. Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated many hundred miles into the country of the Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is impossible to form magazines, and difficult to transport a sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians, thirty thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their master. These losses, however, were compensated by splendid and decisive success. The Chinese generals improved the superiority which they derived from the temper of their arms, their chariots of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The camp of the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance; and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which was preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns than the effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or allured by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged themselves the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength, might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of the great and populous cities of China. 39 The desertion of his subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited nation. He was received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the honors that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese vanity. 40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception; his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family; and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence. After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed from their allegiance and seized the favorable moments of war and rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by fear and ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained, with the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service of the empire was secured by weakness, and the desire of revenge. From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the North continued to languish about fifty years; till they were oppressed on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud inscription 41 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain, announced to posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, 42 a tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end of the first century of the Christian aera. 43
38 (return)
[ See the reign of the
emperor Vouti, in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 1—98. His various and
inconsistent character seems to be impartially drawn.]
39 (return)
[ This expression is used
in the memorial to the emperor Venti, (Duhalde, tom. ii. p. 411.) Without
adopting the exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may
rationally allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the
South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more populous.]
40 (return)
[ See the Kang-Mou, tom.
iii. p. 150, and the subsequent events under the proper years. This
memorable festival is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and explained in
a note by the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90.]
41 (return)
[ This inscription was
composed on the spot by Parkou, President of the Tribunal of History
(Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 392.) Similar monuments have been discovered in
many parts of Tartary, (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122.)]
42 (return)
[ M. de Guignes (tom. i.
p. 189) has inserted a short account of the Sienpi.]
43 (return)
[ The aera of the Huns is
placed, by the Chinese, 1210 years before Christ. But the series of their
kings does not commence till the year 230, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p.
21, 123.)]
The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the various influence of character and situation. 44 Above one hundred thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most pusillanimous of the people, were contented to remain in their native country, to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight hords, about two hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more honorable servitude, retired towards the South; implored the protection of the emperors of China; and were permitted to inhabit, and to guard, the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns maintained, in their adverse fortune, the undaunted spirit of their ancestors. The Western world was open to their valor; and they resolved, under the conduct of their hereditary chieftains, to conquer and subdue some remote country, which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi, and to the laws of China. 45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the Chinese geography; but we are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles, which directed their march towards the Oxus, and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian; where they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites, or Nepthalites. 4511 Their manners were softened, and even their features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate, and their long residence in a flourishing province, 46 which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. 47 The white Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizme, has since enjoyed a temporary splendor, was the residence of the king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the only vestige of their ancient barbarism, was the custom which obliged all the companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who had shared the liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive in the same grave. 48 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces of Persia, involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the power of that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith of treaties; in war, she dictates of humanity; and their memorable victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the moderation, as well as the valor, of the Barbarians. The second division of their countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced towards the North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate, and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the imperfect rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the native fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their intercourse with the savage tribes, who were compared, with some propriety, to the wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon rejected the hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each horde was governed by its peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council directed the public measures of the whole nation. As late as the thirteenth century, their transient residence on the eastern banks of the Volga was attested by the name of Great Hungary. 49 In the winter, they descended with their flocks and herds towards the mouth of that mighty river; and their summer excursions reached as high as the latitude of Saratoff, or perhaps the conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the black Calmucks, 50 who remained about a century under the protection of Russia; and who have since returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire. The march, and the return, of those wandering Tartars, whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families, illustrate the distant emigrations of the ancient Huns. 51
44 (return)
[ The various accidents,
the downfall, and the flight of the Huns, are related in the Kang-Mou,
tom. iii. p. 88, 91, 95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each horde may
be due to their losses and divisions.]
45 (return)
[ M. de Guignes has
skilfully traced the footsteps of the Huns through the vast deserts of
Tartary, (tom. ii. p. 123, 277, &c., 325, &c.)]
4511 (return)
[ The Armenian
authors often mention this people under the name of Hepthal. St. Martin
considers that the name of Nepthalites is an error of a copyist. St.
Martin, iv. 254.—M.]
46 (return)
[ Mohammed, sultan of
Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and
his moguls. The Oriental historians (see D'Herbelot, Petit de la Croix,
&c.,) celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful
country which he desolated. In the next century, the same provinces of
Chorasmia and Nawaralnahr were described by Abulfeda, (Hudson, Geograph.
Minor. tom. iii.) Their actual misery may be seen in the Genealogical
History of the Tartars, p. 423—469.]
47 (return)
[ Justin (xli. 6) has
left a short abridgment of the Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry
I should ascribe the new and extraordinary trade, which transported the
merchandises of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus,
the Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea, were
possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See l'Esprit des Loix, l.
xxi.)]
48 (return)
[ Procopius de Bell.
Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]
49 (return)
[ In the thirteenth
century, the monk Rubruquis (who traversed the immense plain of Kipzak, in
his journey to the court of the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name
of Hungary, with the traces of a common language and origin, (Hist. des
Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)]
50 (return)
[ Bell, (vol. i. p. 29—34,)
and the editors of the Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have described the
Calmucks of the Volga in the beginning of the present century.]
51 (return)
[ This great
transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or Torgouts, happened in the year
1771. The original narrative of Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China,
which was intended for the inscription of a column, has been translated by
the missionaries of Pekin, (Memoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p. 401—418.)
The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of the Son of Heaven,
and the Father of his People.]
It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the same force which had driven them from their native seats, still continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe. The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies, which extended above three thousand miles from East to West, 52 must have gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the territories, of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very natural suspicion, that the Huns of the North derived a considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to the dominion of China; that the bravest warriors marched away in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and that, as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by the common hardships of their adverse fortune. 53 The Huns, with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni were confounded among their vassals. Towards the North, they penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as far as the confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Samartic and German blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, 5311 to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those formidable Barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship; the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their horses; and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities of age, and the tortures of lingering disease. 54 On the banks of the Tanais, the military power of the Huns and the Alani encountered each other with equal valor, but with unequal success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or submission. 55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where they still preserve their name and their independence. Another colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores of the Baltic; associated themselves with the Northern tribes of Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the Huns, who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies, proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade the limits of the Gothic empire.
52 (return)
[ The Khan-Mou (tom. iii.
p. 447) ascribes to their conquests a space of 14,000 lis. According to
the present standard, 200 lis (or more accurately 193) are equal to one
degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds three miles
of China. But there are strong reasons to believe that the ancient li
scarcely equalled one half of the modern. See the elaborate researches of
M. D'Anville, a geographer who is not a stranger in any age or climate of
the globe. (Memoires de l'Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Itineraires, p.
154-167.)]
53 (return)
[ See Histoire des Huns,
tom. ii. p. 125—144. The subsequent history (p. 145—277) of
three or four Hunnic dynasties evidently proves that their martial spirit
was not impaired by a long residence in China.]
5311 (return)
[ Compare M.
Klaproth's curious speculations on the Alani. He supposes them to have
been the people, known by the Chinese, at the time of their first
expeditions to the West, under the name of Yath-sai or A-lanna, the Alanan
of Persian tradition, as preserved in Ferdusi; the same, according to
Ammianus, with the Massagetae, and with the Albani. The remains of the
nation still exist in the Ossetae of Mount Caucasus. Klaproth, Tableaux
Historiques de l'Asie, p. 174.—M. Compare Shafarik Slawische
alterthumer, i. p. 350.—M. 1845.]
54 (return)
[ Utque hominibus quietis
et placidis otium est voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvent et bella.
Judicatur ibi beatus qui in proelio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam
et fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos, conviciis
atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must think highly of the
conquerors of such men.]
55 (return)
[ On the subject of the
Alani, see Ammianus, (xxxi. 2,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M.
de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical
History of the Tartars, (tom. ii. p. 617.)]
The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and reputation, the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable approach of a host of unknown enemies, 56 on whom his barbarous subjects might, without injustice, bestow the epithet of Barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid motions, and the implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and dreaded, and magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their fields and villages consumed with flames, and deluged with indiscriminate slaughter. To these real terrors they added the surprise and abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. 5611 These savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs and to the misshapen figures, the Termini, which were often placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age. 57 A fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners; that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the offspring of this execrable conjunction. 58 The tale, so full of horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous hatred of the Goths; but, while it gratified their hatred, it increased their fear, since the posterity of daemons and witches might be supposed to inherit some share of the praeternatural powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents. Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united forces of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the chiefs of the Roxolani 59 had formerly deserted the standard of Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers of that unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge.
The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the dangerous wound which he received from their daggers; but the conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and the public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some Scythian mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax; two warriors of approved valor and fiedlity, who, by cautious marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester; a considerable river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric, more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed the camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing the victorious Barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to provoke. The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the weight of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their military skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of Athanaric. While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks of the Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous detachment of cavalry, who, by the light of the moon, had passed the river in a fordable place; and it was not without the utmost efforts of courage and conduct, that he was able to effect his retreat towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had already formed a new and judicious plan of defensive war; and the strong lines, which he was preparing to construct between the mountains, the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the extensive and fertile territory that bears the modern name of Walachia, from the destructive inroads of the Huns. 60 But the hopes and measures of the Judge of the Visigoths was soon disappointed, by the trembling impatience of his dismayed countrymen; who were persuaded by their fears, that the interposition of the Danube was the only barrier that could save them from the rapid pursuit, and invincible valor, of the Barbarians of Scythia. Under the command of Fritigern and Alavivus, 61 the body of the nation hastily advanced to the banks of the great river, and implored the protection of the Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric himself, still anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired, with a band of faithful followers, into the mountainous country of Caucaland; which appears to have been guarded, and almost concealed, by the impenetrable forests of Transylvania. 62 6211
56 (return)
[ As we are possessed of
the authentic history of the Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or
to refute, the fables which misrepresent their origin and progress, their
passage of the mud or water of the Maeotis, in pursuit of an ox or stag,
les Indes qu'ils avoient decouvertes, &c., (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 224.
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5. Jornandes, c. 24.
Grandeur et Decadence, &c., des Romains, c. 17.)]
5611 (return)
[ Art added to their
native ugliness; in fact, it is difficult to ascribe the proper share in
the features of this hideous picture to nature, to the barbarous skill
with which they were self-disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the
Romans. Their noses were flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were
gashed by an iron instrument, that the scars might look more fearful, and
prevent the growth of the beard. Jornandes and Sidonius Apollinaris:—
Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia nares,
Ut galeis cedant.
Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly, their height of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned.
Stant pectora vasta,
Insignes humer, succincta sub ilibus alvus.
Forma quidem pediti media est, procera sed extat
Si cernas equites, sic longi saepe putantur
Si sedeant.]
57 (return)
[ Prodigiosae formae, et
pandi; ut bipedes existimes bestias; vel quales in commarginandis
pontibus, effigiati stipites dolantur incompte. Ammian. xxxi. i. Jornandes
(c. 24) draws a strong caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavenda
nigredine... quaedam deformis offa, non fecies; habensque magis puncta
quam lumina. See Buffon. Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. 380.]
58 (return)
[ This execrable origin,
which Jornandes (c. 24) describes with the rancor of a Goth, might be
originally derived from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. l.
iv. c. 9, &c.)]
59 (return)
[ The Roxolani may be the
fathers of the the Russians, (D'Anville, Empire de Russie, p. 1—10,)
whose residence (A.D. 862) about Novogrod Veliki cannot be very remote
from that which the Geographer of Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46, v. 28, 30)
assigns to the Roxolani, (A.D. 886.) * Note: See, on the origin of the
Russ, Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p. 78—M.]
60 (return)
[ The text of Ammianus
seems to be imperfect or corrupt; but the nature of the ground explains,
and almost defines, the Gothic rampart. Memoires de l'Academie, &c.,
tom. xxviii. p. 444—462.]
61 (return)
[ M. de Buat (Hist. des
Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 407) has conceived a strange idea, that
Alavivus was the same person as Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop; and that
Ulphilas, the grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince
of the Goths.]
62 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxxi. 3) and
Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic
empire by the Huns.]
6211 (return)
[ The most probable
opinion as to the position of this land is that of M. Malte-Brun. He
thinks that Caucaland is the territory of the Cacoenses, placed by Ptolemy
(l. iii. c. 8) towards the Carpathian Mountains, on the side of the
present Transylvania, and therefore the canton of Cacava, to the south of
Hermanstadt, the capital of the principality. Caucaland it is evident, is
the Gothic form of these different names. St. Martin, iv 103.—M.]
After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some appearance of glory and success, he made a progress through his dominions of Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the capital of Syria. The five years 63 which he spent at Antioch was employed to watch, from a secure distance, the hostile designs of the Persian monarch; to check the depredations of the Saracens and Isaurians; 64 to enforce, by arguments more prevalent than those of reason and eloquence, the belief of the Arian theology; and to satisfy his anxious suspicions by the promiscuous execution of the innocent and the guilty. But the attention of the emperor was most seriously engaged, by the important intelligence which he received from the civil and military officers who were intrusted with the defence of the Danube. He was informed, that the North was agitated by a furious tempest; that the irruption of the Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had subverted the power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of that warlike nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space of many miles along the banks of the river. With outstretched arms, and pathetic lamentations, they loudly deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger; acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested, that if the gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to obey the laws, and to guard the limits, of the republic. These assurances were confirmed by the ambassadors of the Goths, 6411 who impatiently expected from the mouth of Valens an answer that must finally determine the fate of their unhappy countrymen. The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year; and as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favorite resources of feeble and timid minds, who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence. As long as the same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the subject of modern deliberation. But the most experienced statesman of Europe has never been summoned to consider the propriety, or the danger, of admitting, or rejecting, an innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven by despair and hunger to solicit a settlement on the territories of a civilized nation. When that important proposition, so essentially connected with the public safety, was referred to the ministers of Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they soon acquiesced in the flattering sentiment which seemed the most favorable to the pride, the indolence, and the avarice of their sovereign. The slaves, who were decorated with the titles of praefects and generals, dissembled or disregarded the terrors of this national emigration; so extremely different from the partial and accidental colonies, which had been received on the extreme limits of the empire. But they applauded the liberality of fortune, which had conducted, from the most distant countries of the globe, a numerous and invincible army of strangers, to defend the throne of Valens; who might now add to the royal treasures the immense sums of gold supplied by the provincials to compensate their annual proportion of recruits. The prayers of the Goths were granted, and their service was accepted by the Imperial court: and orders were immediately despatched to the civil and military governors of the Thracian diocese, to make the necessary preparations for the passage and subsistence of a great people, till a proper and sufficient territory could be allotted for their future residence. The liberality of the emperor was accompanied, however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions, which prudence might justify on the side of the Romans; but which distress alone could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they passed the Danube, they were required to deliver their arms: and it was insisted, that their children should be taken from them, and dispersed through the provinces of Asia; where they might be civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to secure the fidelity of their parents.
63 (return)
[ The Chronology of
Ammianus is obscure and imperfect. Tillemont has labored to clear and
settle the annals of Valens.]
64 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 223.
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 38. The Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of
Asia Minor, as far as the neighborhood of Constantinople. Basil, Epist.
cel. apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 106.]
6411 (return)
[ Sozomen and
Philostorgius say that the bishop Ulphilas was one of these ambassadors.—M.]
During the suspense of a doubtful and distant negotiation, the impatient Goths made some rash attempts to pass the Danube, without the permission of the government, whose protection they had implored. Their motions were strictly observed by the vigilance of the troops which were stationed along the river and their foremost detachments were defeated with considerable slaughter; yet such were the timid councils of the reign of Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in the execution of their duty, were punished by the loss of their employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The Imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the Danube the whole body of the Gothic nation; 65 but the execution of this order was a task of labor and difficulty. The stream of the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, 66 had been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous passage, many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with indefatigable toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted by the officers of Valens, that not a single Barbarian, of those who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be left on the opposite shore. It was thought expedient that an accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable task: 67 and the principal historian of the age most seriously affirms, that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men: and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed this formidable emigration, must have amounted to near a million of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages. The children of the Goths, those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated from the multitude. They were conducted, without delay, to the distant seats assigned for their residence and education; and as the numerous train of hostages or captives passed through the cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and martial figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. 6711 But the stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the most important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded. The Barbarians, who considered their arms as the ensigns of honor and the pledges of safety, were disposed to offer a price, which the lust or avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted to accept. To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented, with some reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their daughters; the charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy, secured the connivance of the inspectors; who sometimes cast an eye of covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of their new allies, 68 or who sacrificed their duty to the mean consideration of filling their farms with cattle, and their houses with slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were permitted to enter the boats; and when their strength was collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp which was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower Maesia, assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of the Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their infant king, appeared soon afterwards on the Northern banks of the Danube; and immediately despatched their ambassadors to the court of Antioch, to solicit, with the same professions of allegiance and gratitude, the same favor which had been granted to the suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of Valens suspended their progress, and discovered the repentance, the suspicions, and the fears, of the Imperial council.
65 (return)
[ The passage of the
Danube is exposed by Ammianus, (xxxi. 3, 4,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 223,
224,) Eunapius in Excerpt. Legat. (p. 19, 20,) and Jornandes, (c. 25, 26.)
Ammianus declares (c. 5) that he means only, ispas rerum digerere
summitates. But he often takes a false measure of their importance; and
his superfluous prolixity is disagreeably balanced by his unseasonable
brevity.]
66 (return)
[ Chishull, a curious
traveller, has remarked the breadth of the Danube, which he passed to the
south of Bucharest near the conflux of the Argish, (p. 77.) He admires the
beauty and spontaneous plenty of Maesia, or Bulgaria.]
67 (return)
[
Quem sci scire velit,
Libyci velit aequoris idem
Discere quam multae
Zephyro turbentur harenae.
Ammianus has inserted, in his prose, these lines of Virgil, (Georgia l. ii. 105,) originally designed by the poet to express the impossibility of numbering the different sorts of vines. See Plin. Hist. Natur l. xiv.]
6711 (return)
[ A very curious, but
obscure, passage of Eunapius, appears to me to have been misunderstood by
M. Mai, to whom we owe its discovery. The substance is as follows: "The
Goths transported over the river their native deities, with their priests
of both sexes; but concerning their rites they maintained a deep and
'adamantine silence.' To the Romans they pretended to be generally
Christians, and placed certain persons to represent bishops in a
conspicuous manner on their wagons. There was even among them a sort of
what are called monks, persons whom it was not difficult to mimic; it was
enough to wear black raiment, to be wicked, and held in respect."
(Eunapius hated the "black-robed monks," as appears in another passage,
with the cordial detestation of a heathen philosopher.) "Thus, while they
faithfully but secretly adhered to their own religion, the Romans were
weak enough to suppose them perfect Christians." Mai, 277. Eunapius in
Niebuhr, 82.—M]
68 (return)
[ Eunapius and Zosimus
curiously specify these articles of Gothic wealth and luxury. Yet it must
be presumed, that they were the manufactures of the provinces; which the
Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war; or as the gifts, or
merchandise, of peace.]
An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required the firmest temper, and the most dexterous management. The daily subsistence of near a million of extraordinary subjects could be supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might continually be interrupted by mistake or accident. The insolence, or the indignation, of the Goths, if they conceived themselves to be the objects either of fear or of contempt, might urge them to the most desperate extremities; and the fortune of the state seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the integrity, of the generals of Valens. At this important crisis, the military government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in whose venal minds the slightest hope of private emolument outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning the pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.
Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and satisfying, with decent liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied an ungenerous and oppressive tax on the wants of the hungry Barbarians. The vilest food was sold at an extravagant price; and, in the room of wholesome and substantial provisions, the markets were filled with the flesh of dogs, and of unclean animals, who had died of disease. To obtain the valuable acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave; and a small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of a precious, but useless metal, 69 when their property was exhausted, they continued this necessary traffic by the sale of their sons and daughters; and notwithstanding the love of freedom, which animated every Gothic breast, they submitted to the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their children to be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a state of wretched and helpless independence. The most lively resentment is excited by the tyranny of pretended benefactors, who sternly exact the debt of gratitude which they have cancelled by subsequent injuries: a spirit of discontent insensibly arose in the camp of the Barbarians, who pleaded, without success, the merit of their patient and dutiful behavior; and loudly complained of the inhospitable treatment which they had received from their new allies. They beheld around them the wealth and plenty of a fertile province, in the midst of which they suffered the intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the means of relief, and even of revenge, were in their hands; since the rapaciousness of their tyrants had left to an injured people the possession and the use of arms. The clamors of a multitude, untaught to disguise their sentiments, announced the first symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid and guilty minds of Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who substituted the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from their dangerous station on the frontiers of the empire; and to disperse them, in separate quarters of cantonment, through the interior provinces. As they were conscious how ill they had deserved the respect, or confidence, of the Barbarians, they diligently collected, from every side, a military force, that might urge the tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had not yet renounced the title, or the duties, of Roman subjects. But the generals of Valens, while their attention was solely directed to the discontented Visigoths, imprudently disarmed the ships and the fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube. The fatal oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping from the pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and vessels as could be hastily procured, the leaders of the Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their king and their army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the territories of the empire. 70
69 (return)
[ Decem libras; the word
silver must be understood. Jornandes betrays the passions and prejudices
of a Goth. The servile Geeks, Eunapius and Zosimus, disguise the Roman
oppression, and execrate the perfidy of the Barbarians. Ammianus, a
patriot historian, slightly, and reluctantly, touches on the odious
subject. Jerom, who wrote almost on the spot, is fair, though concise. Per
avaritaim aximi ducis, ad rebellionem fame coacti sunt, (in Chron.) *
Note: A new passage from the history of Eunapius is nearer to the truth.
'It appeared to our commanders a legitimate source of gain to be bribed by
the Barbarians: Edit. Niebuhr, p. 82.—M.]
70 (return)
[ Ammianus, xxxi. 4, 5.]
Under the name of Judges, Alavivus and Fritigern were the leaders of the Visigoths in peace and war; and the authority which they derived from their birth was ratified by the free consent of the nation. In a season of tranquility, their power might have been equal, as well as their rank; but, as soon as their countrymen were exasperated by hunger and oppression, the superior abilities of Fritigern assumed the military command, which he was qualified to exercise for the public welfare. He restrained the impatient spirit of the Visigoths till the injuries and the insults of their tyrants should justify their resistance in the opinion of mankind: but he was not disposed to sacrifice any solid advantages for the empty praise of justice and moderation. Sensible of the benefits which would result from the union of the Gothic powers under the same standard, he secretly cultivated the friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while he professed an implicit obedience to the orders of the Roman generals, he proceeded by slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the capital of the Lower Maesia, about seventy miles from the banks of the Danube. On that fatal spot, the flames of discord and mutual hatred burst forth into a dreadful conflagration. Lupicinus had invited the Gothic chiefs to a splendid entertainment; and their martial train remained under arms at the entrance of the palace. But the gates of the city were strictly guarded, and the Barbarians were sternly excluded from the use of a plentiful market, to which they asserted their equal claim of subjects and allies. Their humble prayers were rejected with insolence and derision; and as their patience was now exhausted, the townsmen, the soldiers, and the Goths, were soon involved in a conflict of passionate altercation and angry reproaches. A blow was imprudently given; a sword was hastily drawn; and the first blood that was spilt in this accidental quarrel, became the signal of a long and destructive war. In the midst of noise and brutal intemperance, Lupicinus was informed, by a secret messenger, that many of his soldiers were slain, and despoiled of their arms; and as he was already inflamed by wine, and oppressed by sleep he issued a rash command, that their death should be revenged by the massacre of the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus.
The clamorous shouts and dying groans apprised Fritigern of his extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and intrepid spirit of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment of deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. "A trifling dispute," said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle tone of voice, "appears to have arisen between the two nations; but it may be productive of the most dangerous consequences, unless the tumult is immediately pacified by the assurance of our safety, and the authority of our presence." At these words, Fritigern and his companions drew their swords, opened their passage through the unresisting crowd, which filled the palace, the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis, and, mounting their horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished Romans. The generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful acclamations of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the resolution was executed without delay: the banners of the nation were displayed according to the custom of their ancestors; and the air resounded with the harsh and mournful music of the Barbarian trumpet. 71 The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected on this sudden emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach about nine miles from Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the talents of the general were found to be of more prevailing efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the troops. The valor of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius of Fritigern, that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the ranks of the Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and standards, his tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle; and their useless courage served only to protect the ignominious flight of their leader. "That successful day put an end to the distress of the Barbarians, and the security of the Romans: from that day, the Goths, renouncing the precarious condition of strangers and exiles, assumed the character of citizens and masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the possessors of land, and held, in their own right, the northern provinces of the empire, which are bounded by the Danube." Such are the words of the Gothic historian, 72 who celebrates, with rude eloquence, the glory of his countrymen. But the dominion of the Barbarians was exercised only for the purposes of rapine and destruction. As they had been deprived, by the ministers of the emperor, of the common benefits of nature, and the fair intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects of the empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated by the ruin of the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration of their villages, and the massacre, or captivity, of their innocent families. The report of the Gothic victory was soon diffused over the adjacent country; and while it filled the minds of the Romans with terror and dismay, their own hasty imprudence contributed to increase the forces of Fritigern, and the calamities of the province. Some time before the great emigration, a numerous body of Goths, under the command of Suerid and Colias, had been received into the protection and service of the empire. 73 They were encamped under the walls of Hadrianople; but the ministers of Valens were anxious to remove them beyond the Hellespont, at a distance from the dangerous temptation which might so easily be communicated by the neighborhood, and the success, of their countrymen. The respectful submission with which they yielded to the order of their march, might be considered as a proof of their fidelity; and their moderate request of a sufficient allowance of provisions, and of a delay of only two days was expressed in the most dutiful terms. But the first magistrate of Hadrianople, incensed by some disorders which had been committed at his country-house, refused this indulgence; and arming against them the inhabitants and manufacturers of a populous city, he urged, with hostile threats, their instant departure. The Barbarians stood silent and amazed, till they were exasperated by the insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the populace: but when patience or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the undisciplined multitude, inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their flying enemies, and despoiled them of the splendid armor, 74 which they were unworthy to bear. The resemblance of their sufferings and their actions soon united this victorious detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops of Colias and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged themselves under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the siege of Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison informed the Barbarians, that in the attack of regular fortifications, the efforts of unskillful courage are seldom effectual. Their general acknowledged his error, raised the siege, declared that "he was at peace with stone walls," 75 and revenged his disappointment on the adjacent country. He accepted, with pleasure, the useful reenforcement of hardy workmen, who labored in the gold mines of Thrace, 76 for the emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling master: 77 and these new associates conducted the Barbarians, through the secret paths, to the most sequestered places, which had been chosen to secure the inhabitants, the cattle, and the magazines of corn. With the assistance of such guides, nothing could remain impervious or inaccessible; resistance was fatal; flight was impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless innocence seldom found mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the course of these depredations, a great number of the children of the Goths, who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender interviews, which might have revived and cherished in their minds some sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager attention, to the complaints of their captive children, who had suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry passions of their masters, and the same cruelties, the same indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters of the Romans. 78
71 (return)
[ Vexillis de more
sublatis, auditisque trisie sonantibus classicis. Ammian. xxxi. 5. These
are the rauca cornua of Claudian, (in Rufin. ii. 57,) the large horns of
the Uri, or wild bull; such as have been more recently used by the Swiss
Cantons of Uri and Underwald. (Simler de Republica Helvet, l. ii. p. 201,
edit. Fuselin. Tigur 1734.) Their military horn is finely, though perhaps
casually, introduced in an original narrative of the battle of Nancy,
(A.D. 1477.) "Attendant le combat le dit cor fut corne par trois fois,
tant que le vent du souffler pouvoit durer: ce qui esbahit fort Monsieur
de Bourgoigne; car deja a Morat l'avoit ouy." (See the Pieces
Justificatives in the 4to. edition of Philippe de Comines, tom. iii. p.
493.)]
72 (return)
[ Jornandes de Rebus
Geticis, c. 26, p. 648, edit. Grot. These splendidi panm (they are
comparatively such) are undoubtedly transcribed from the larger histories
of Priscus, Ablavius, or Cassiodorus.]
73 (return)
[ Cum populis suis longe
ante suscepti. We are ignorant of the precise date and circumstances of
their transmigration.]
74 (return)
[ An Imperial manufacture
of shields, &c., was established at Hadrianople; and the populace were
headed by the Fabricenses, or workmen. (Vales. ad Ammian. xxxi. 6.)]
75 (return)
[ Pacem sibi esse cum
parietibus memorans. Ammian. xxxi. 7.]
76 (return)
[ These mines were in the
country of the Bessi, in the ridge of mountains, the Rhodope, that runs
between Philippi and Philippopolis; two Macedonian cities, which derived
their name and origin from the father of Alexander. From the mines of
Thrace he annually received the value, not the weight, of a thousand
talents, (200,000l.,) a revenue which paid the phalanx, and corrupted the
orators of Greece. See Diodor. Siculus, tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 88, edit.
Wesseling. Godefroy's Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. iii. p. 496.
Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 676, 857. D Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. i. p. 336.]
77 (return)
[ As those unhappy
workmen often ran away, Valens had enacted severe laws to drag them from
their hiding-places. Cod. Theodosian, l. x. tit xix leg. 5, 7.]
78 (return)
[ See Ammianus, xxxi. 5,
6. The historian of the Gothic war loses time and space, by an
unseasonable recapitulation of the ancient inroads of the Barbarians.]
The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced into the heart of the empire a nation of enemies; but the Visigoths might even yet have been reconciled, by the manly confession of past errors, and the sincere performance of former engagements. These healing and temperate measures seemed to concur with the timorous disposition of the sovereign of the East: but, on this occasion alone, Valens was brave; and his unseasonable bravery was fatal to himself and to his subjects. He declared his intention of marching from Antioch to Constantinople, to subdue this dangerous rebellion; and, as he was not ignorant of the difficulties of the enterprise, he solicited the assistance of his nephew, the emperor Gratian, who commanded all the forces of the West. The veteran troops were hastily recalled from the defence of Armenia; that important frontier was abandoned to the discretion of Sapor; and the immediate conduct of the Gothic war was intrusted, during the absence of Valens, to his lieutenants Trajan and Profuturus, two generals who indulged themselves in a very false and favorable opinion of their own abilities. On their arrival in Thrace, they were joined by Richomer, count of the domestics; and the auxiliaries of the West, that marched under his banner, were composed of the Gallic legions, reduced indeed, by a spirit of desertion, to the vain appearances of strength and numbers. In a council of war, which was influenced by pride, rather than by reason, it was resolved to seek, and to encounter, the Barbarians, who lay encamped in the spacious and fertile meadows, near the most southern of the six mouths of the Danube. 79 Their camp was surrounded by the usual fortification of wagons; 80 and the Barbarians, secure within the vast circle of the enclosure, enjoyed the fruits of their valor, and the spoils of the province. In the midst of riotous intemperance, the watchful Fritigern observed the motions, and penetrated the designs, of the Romans. He perceived, that the numbers of the enemy were continually increasing: and, as he understood their intention of attacking his rear, as soon as the scarcity of forage should oblige him to remove his camp, he recalled to their standard his predatory detachments, which covered the adjacent country. As soon as they descried the flaming beacons, 81 they obeyed, with incredible speed, the signal of their leader: the camp was filled with the martial crowd of Barbarians; their impatient clamors demanded the battle, and their tumultuous zeal was approved and animated by the spirit of their chiefs. The evening was already far advanced; and the two armies prepared themselves for the approaching combat, which was deferred only till the dawn of day.
While the trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the Goths was confirmed by the mutual obligation of a solemn oath; and as they advanced to meet the enemy, the rude songs, which celebrated the glory of their forefathers, were mingled with their fierce and dissonant outcries, and opposed to the artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill was displayed by Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding eminence; but the bloody conflict, which began and ended with the light, was maintained on either side, by the personal and obstinate efforts of strength, valor, and agility. The legions of Armenia supported their fame in arms; but they were oppressed by the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude the left wing of the Romans was thrown into disorder and the field was strewed with their mangled carcasses. This partial defeat was balanced, however, by partial success; and when the two armies, at a late hour of the evening, retreated to their respective camps, neither of them could claim the honors, or the effects, of a decisive victory. The real loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in proportion to the smallness of their numbers; but the Goths were so deeply confounded and dismayed by this vigorous, and perhaps unexpected, resistance, that they remained seven days within the circle of their fortifications. Such funeral rites, as the circumstances of time and place would admit, were piously discharged to some officers of distinguished rank; but the indiscriminate vulgar was left unburied on the plain. Their flesh was greedily devoured by the birds of prey, who in that age enjoyed very frequent and delicious feasts; and several years afterwards the white and naked bones, which covered the wide extent of the fields, presented to the eyes of Ammianus a dreadful monument of the battle of Salices. 82
79 (return)
[ The Itinerary of
Antoninus (p. 226, 227, edit. Wesseling) marks the situation of this place
about sixty miles north of Tomi, Ovid's exile; and the name of Salices
(the willows) expresses the nature of the soil.]
80 (return)
[ This circle of wagons,
the Carrago, was the usual fortification of the Barbarians. (Vegetius de
Re Militari, l. iii. c. 10. Valesius ad Ammian. xxxi. 7.) The practice and
the name were preserved by their descendants as late as the fifteenth
century. The Charroy, which surrounded the Ost, is a word familiar to the
readers of Froissard, or Comines.]
81 (return)
[ Statim ut accensi
malleoli. I have used the literal sense of real torches or beacons; but I
almost suspect, that it is only one of those turgid metaphors, those false
ornaments, that perpetually disfigure to style of Ammianus.]
82 (return)
[ Indicant nunc usque
albentes ossibus campi. Ammian. xxxi. 7. The historian might have viewed
these plains, either as a soldier, or as a traveller. But his modesty has
suppressed the adventures of his own life subsequent to the Persian wars
of Constantius and Julian. We are ignorant of the time when he quitted the
service, and retired to Rome, where he appears to have composed his
History of his Own Times.]
The progress of the Goths had been checked by the doubtful event of that bloody day; and the Imperial generals, whose army would have been consumed by the repetition of such a contest, embraced the more rational plan of destroying the Barbarians by the wants and pressure of their own multitudes. They prepared to confine the Visigoths in the narrow angle of land between the Danube, the desert of Scythia, and the mountains of Haemus, till their strength and spirit should be insensibly wasted by the inevitable operation of famine. The design was prosecuted with some conduct and success: the Barbarians had almost exhausted their own magazines, and the harvests of the country; and the diligence of Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry, was employed to improve the strength, and to contract the extent, of the Roman fortifications. His labors were interrupted by the alarming intelligence, that new swarms of Barbarians had passed the unguarded Danube, either to support the cause, or to imitate the example, of Fritigern. The just apprehension, that he himself might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of hostile and unknown nations, compelled Saturninus to relinquish the siege of the Gothic camp; and the indignant Visigoths, breaking from their confinement, satiated their hunger and revenge by the repeated devastation of the fruitful country, which extends above three hundred miles from the banks of the Danube to the straits of the Hellespont. 83 The sagacious Fritigern had successfully appealed to the passions, as well as to the interest, of his Barbarian allies; and the love of rapine, and the hatred of Rome, seconded, or even prevented, the eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented a strict and useful alliance with the great body of his countrymen, who obeyed Alatheus and Saphrax as the guardians of their infant king: the long animosity of rival tribes was suspended by the sense of their common interest; the independent part of the nation was associated under one standard; and the chiefs of the Ostrogoths appear to have yielded to the superior genius of the general of the Visigoths. He obtained the formidable aid of the Taifalae, 8311 whose military renown was disgraced and polluted by the public infamy of their domestic manners. Every youth, on his entrance into the world, was united by the ties of honorable friendship, and brutal love, to some warrior of the tribe; nor could he hope to be released from this unnatural connection, till he had approved his manhood by slaying, in single combat, a huge bear, or a wild boar of the forest. 84 But the most powerful auxiliaries of the Goths were drawn from the camp of those enemies who had expelled them from their native seats. The loose subordination, and extensive possessions, of the Huns and the Alani, delayed the conquests, and distracted the councils, of that victorious people. Several of the hords were allured by the liberal promises of Fritigern; and the rapid cavalry of Scythia added weight and energy to the steady and strenuous efforts of the Gothic infantry. The Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor of Valentinian, enjoyed and increased the general confusion; and a seasonable irruption of the Alemanni, into the provinces of Gaul, engaged the attention, and diverted the forces, of the emperor of the West. 85
83 (return)
[ Ammian. xxxi. 8.]
8311 (return)
[ The Taifalae, who
at this period inhabited the country which now forms the principality of
Wallachia, were, in my opinion, the last remains of the great and powerful
nation of the Dacians, (Daci or Dahae.) which has given its name to these
regions, over which they had ruled so long. The Taifalae passed with the
Goths into the territory of the empire. A great number of them entered the
Roman service, and were quartered in different provinces. They are
mentioned in the Notitia Imperii. There was a considerable body in the
country of the Pictavi, now Poithou. They long retained their manners and
language, and caused the name of the Theofalgicus pagus to be given to the
district they inhabited. Two places in the department of La Vendee,
Tiffanges and La Tiffardiere, still preserve evident traces of this
denomination. St. Martin, iv. 118.—M.]
84 (return)
[ Hanc Taifalorum gentem
turpem, et obscenae vitae flagitiis ita accipimus mersam; ut apud eos
nefandi concubitus foedere copulentur mares puberes, aetatis viriditatem
in eorum pollutis usibus consumpturi. Porro, siqui jam adultus aprum
exceperit solus, vel interemit ursum immanem, colluvione liberatur
incesti. Ammian. xxxi. 9. ——Among the Greeks, likewise, more
especially among the Cretans, the holy bands of friendship were confirmed,
and sullied, by unnatural love.]
85 (return)
[ Ammian. xxxi. 8, 9.
Jerom (tom. i. p. 26) enumerates the nations and marks a calamitous period
of twenty years. This epistle to Heliodorus was composed in the year 397,
(Tillemont, Mem. Eccles tom xii. p. 645.)]
One of the most dangerous inconveniences of the introduction of the Barbarians into the army and the palace, was sensibly felt in their correspondence with their hostile countrymen; to whom they imprudently, or maliciously, revealed the weakness of the Roman empire. A soldier, of the lifeguards of Gratian, was of the nation of the Alemanni, and of the tribe of the Lentienses, who dwelt beyond the Lake of Constance. Some domestic business obliged him to request a leave of absence. In a short visit to his family and friends, he was exposed to their curious inquiries: and the vanity of the loquacious soldier tempted him to display his intimate acquaintance with the secrets of the state, and the designs of his master. The intelligence, that Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of Gaul, and of the West, to the assistance of his uncle Valens, pointed out to the restless spirit of the Alemanni the moment, and the mode, of a successful invasion. The enterprise of some light detachments, who, in the month of February, passed the Rhine upon the ice, was the prelude of a more important war. The boldest hopes of rapine, perhaps of conquest, outweighed the considerations of timid prudence, or national faith. Every forest, and every village, poured forth a band of hardy adventurers; and the great army of the Alemanni, which, on their approach, was estimated at forty thousand men by the fears of the people, was afterwards magnified to the number of seventy thousand by the vain and credulous flattery of the Imperial court. The legions, which had been ordered to march into Pannonia, were immediately recalled, or detained, for the defence of Gaul; the military command was divided between Nanienus and Mellobaudes; and the youthful emperor, though he respected the long experience and sober wisdom of the former, was much more inclined to admire, and to follow, the martial ardor of his colleague; who was allowed to unite the incompatible characters of count of the domestics, and of king of the Franks. His rival Priarius, king of the Alemanni, was guided, or rather impelled, by the same headstrong valor; and as their troops were animated by the spirit of their leaders, they met, they saw, they encountered each other, near the town of Argentaria, or Colmar, 86 in the plains of Alsace. The glory of the day was justly ascribed to the missile weapons, and well-practised evolutions, of the Roman soldiers; the Alemanni, who long maintained their ground, were slaughtered with unrelenting fury; five thousand only of the Barbarians escaped to the woods and mountains; and the glorious death of their king on the field of battle saved him from the reproaches of the people, who are always disposed to accuse the justice, or policy, of an unsuccessful war. After this signal victory, which secured the peace of Gaul, and asserted the honor of the Roman arms, the emperor Gratian appeared to proceed without delay on his Eastern expedition; but as he approached the confines of the Alemanni, he suddenly inclined to the left, surprised them by his unexpected passage of the Rhine, and boldly advanced into the heart of their country. The Barbarians opposed to his progress the obstacles of nature and of courage; and still continued to retreat, from one hill to another, till they were satisfied, by repeated trials, of the power and perseverance of their enemies. Their submission was accepted as a proof, not indeed of their sincere repentance, but of their actual distress; and a select number of their brave and robust youth was exacted from the faithless nation, as the most substantial pledge of their future moderation. The subjects of the empire, who had so often experienced that the Alemanni could neither be subdued by arms, nor restrained by treaties, might not promise themselves any solid or lasting tranquillity: but they discovered, in the virtues of their young sovereign, the prospect of a long and auspicious reign. When the legions climbed the mountains, and scaled the fortifications of the Barbarians, the valor of Gratian was distinguished in the foremost ranks; and the gilt and variegated armor of his guards was pierced and shattered by the blows which they had received in their constant attachment to the person of their sovereign. At the age of nineteen, the son of Valentinian seemed to possess the talents of peace and war; and his personal success against the Alemanni was interpreted as a sure presage of his Gothic triumphs. 87
86 (return)
[ The field of battle,
Argentaria or Argentovaria, is accurately fixed by M. D'Anville (Notice de
l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 96—99) at twenty-three Gallic leagues, or
thirty-four and a half Roman miles to the south of Strasburg. From its
ruins the adjacent town of Colmar has arisen. Note: It is rather Horburg,
on the right bank of the River Ill, opposite to Colmar. From Schoepflin,
Alsatia Illustrata. St. Martin, iv. 121.—M.]
87 (return)
[ The full and impartial
narrative of Ammianus (xxxi. 10) may derive some additional light from the
Epitome of Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the History of Orosius, (l.
vii. c. 33, p. 552, edit. Havercamp.)]
While Gratian deserved and enjoyed the applause of his subjects, the emperor Valens, who, at length, had removed his court and army from Antioch, was received by the people of Constantinople as the author of the public calamity. Before he had reposed himself ten days in the capital, he was urged by the licentious clamors of the Hippodrome to march against the Barbarians, whom he had invited into his dominions; and the citizens, who are always brave at a distance from any real danger, declared, with confidence, that, if they were supplied with arms, they alone would undertake to deliver the province from the ravages of an insulting foe. 88 The vain reproaches of an ignorant multitude hastened the downfall of the Roman empire; they provoked the desperate rashness of Valens; who did not find, either in his reputation or in his mind, any motives to support with firmness the public contempt. He was soon persuaded, by the successful achievements of his lieutenants, to despise the power of the Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now collected in the neighborhood of Hadrianople. The march of the Taifalae had been intercepted by the valiant Frigeric: the king of those licentious Barbarians was slain in battle; and the suppliant captives were sent into distant exile to cultivate the lands of Italy, which were assigned for their settlement in the vacant territories of Modena and Parma. 89 The exploits of Sebastian, 90 who was recently engaged in the service of Valens, and promoted to the rank of master-general of the infantry, were still more honorable to himself, and useful to the republic. He obtained the permission of selecting three hundred soldiers from each of the legions; and this separate detachment soon acquired the spirit of discipline, and the exercise of arms, which were almost forgotten under the reign of Valens. By the vigor and conduct of Sebastian, a large body of the Goths were surprised in their camp; and the immense spoil, which was recovered from their hands, filled the city of Hadrianople, and the adjacent plain. The splendid narratives, which the general transmitted of his own exploits, alarmed the Imperial court by the appearance of superior merit; and though he cautiously insisted on the difficulties of the Gothic war, his valor was praised, his advice was rejected; and Valens, who listened with pride and pleasure to the flattering suggestions of the eunuchs of the palace, was impatient to seize the glory of an easy and assured conquest. His army was strengthened by a numerous reenforcement of veterans; and his march from Constantinople to Hadrianople was conducted with so much military skill, that he prevented the activity of the Barbarians, who designed to occupy the intermediate defiles, and to intercept either the troops themselves, or their convoys of provisions. The camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls of Hadrianople, was fortified, according to the practice of the Romans, with a ditch and rampart; and a most important council was summoned, to decide the fate of the emperor and of the empire. The party of reason and of delay was strenuously maintained by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of experience, the native fierceness of the Sarmatian character; while Sebastian, with the flexible and obsequious eloquence of a courtier, represented every precaution, and every measure, that implied a doubt of immediate victory, as unworthy of the courage and majesty of their invincible monarch. The ruin of Valens was precipitated by the deceitful arts of Fritigern, and the prudent admonitions of the emperor of the West. The advantages of negotiating in the midst of war were perfectly understood by the general of the Barbarians; and a Christian ecclesiastic was despatched, as the holy minister of peace, to penetrate, and to perplex, the councils of the enemy. The misfortunes, as well as the provocations, of the Gothic nation, were forcibly and truly described by their ambassador; who protested, in the name of Fritigern, that he was still disposed to lay down his arms, or to employ them only in the defence of the empire; if he could secure for his wandering countrymen a tranquil settlement on the waste lands of Thrace, and a sufficient allowance of corn and cattle. But he added, in a whisper of confidential friendship, that the exasperated Barbarians were averse to these reasonable conditions; and that Fritigern was doubtful whether he could accomplish the conclusion of the treaty, unless he found himself supported by the presence and terrors of an Imperial army. About the same time, Count Richomer returned from the West to announce the defeat and submission of the Alemanni, to inform Valens that his nephew advanced by rapid marches at the head of the veteran and victorious legions of Gaul, and to request, in the name of Gratian and of the republic, that every dangerous and decisive measure might be suspended, till the junction of the two emperors should insure the success of the Gothic war. But the feeble sovereign of the East was actuated only by the fatal illusions of pride and jealousy. He disdained the importunate advice; he rejected the humiliating aid; he secretly compared the ignominious, at least the inglorious, period of his own reign, with the fame of a beardless youth; and Valens rushed into the field, to erect his imaginary trophy, before the diligence of his colleague could usurp any share of the triumphs of the day.
88 (return)
[ Moratus paucissimos
dies, seditione popularium levium pulsus Ammian. xxxi. 11. Socrates (l.
iv. c. 38) supplies the dates and some circumstances. * Note: Compare
fragment of Eunapius. Mai, 272, in Niebuhr, p. 77.—M]
89 (return)
[ Vivosque omnes circa
Mutinam, Regiumque, et Parmam, Italica oppida, rura culturos exterminavit.
Ammianus, xxxi. 9. Those cities and districts, about ten years after the
colony of the Taifalae, appear in a very desolate state. See Muratori,
Dissertazioni sopra le Antichita Italiane, tom. i. Dissertat. xxi. p.
354.]
90 (return)
[ Ammian. xxxi. 11.
Zosimus, l. iv. p. 228—230. The latter expatiates on the desultory
exploits of Sebastian, and despatches, in a few lines, the important
battle of Hadrianople. According to the ecclesiastical critics, who hate
Sebastian, the praise of Zosimus is disgrace, (Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 121.) His prejudice and ignorance undoubtedly render
him a very questionable judge of merit.]
On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked among the most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, 91 the emperor Valens, leaving, under a strong guard, his baggage and military treasure, marched from Hadrianople to attack the Goths, who were encamped about twelve miles from the city. 92 By some mistake of the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right wing, or column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst the left was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace, made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun, were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic camp; the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the dangerous commission, was applauded; and the count of the domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had proceeded some way in the space between the two armies, when he was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same moment, the flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose return was anxiously expected by the general of the Goths, descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept across the plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous, but irresistible charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be described in a few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to extricate a body of foot, encompassed, on an open plain, by superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a narrow space, where it was impossible for them to extend their ranks, or even to use, with effect, their swords and javelins. In the midst of tumult, of slaughter, and of dismay, the emperor, deserted by his guards and wounded, as it was supposed, with an arrow, sought protection among the Lancearii and the Mattiarii, who still maintained their ground with some appearance of order and firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost, unless the person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated by their exhortation, advanced to his relief: they found only a bloody spot, covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled bodies, without being able to discover their unfortunate prince, either among the living or the dead. Their search could not indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the circumstances with which some historians have related the death of the emperor.
By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field of battle to a neighboring cottage, where they attempted to dress his wound, and to provide for his future safety. But this humble retreat was instantly surrounded by the enemy: they tried to force the door, they were provoked by a discharge of arrows from the roof, till at length, impatient of delay, they set fire to a pile of dry magots, and consumed the cottage with the Roman emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a youth, who dropped from the window, alone escaped, to attest the melancholy tale, and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize which they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly sustained in the fields of Cannae. 93 Two master-generals of the cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the palace, and thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain; and the death of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two thirds of the Roman army were destroyed: and the darkness of the night was esteemed a very favorable circumstance, as it served to conceal the flight of the multitude, and to protect the more orderly retreat of Victor and Richomer, who alone, amidst the general consternation, maintained the advantage of calm courage and regular discipline. 94
91 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxxi. 12, 13)
almost alone describes the councils and actions which were terminated by
the fatal battle of Hadrianople. We might censure the vices of his style,
the disorder and perplexity of his narrative: but we must now take leave
of this impartial historian; and reproach is silenced by our regret for
such an irreparable loss.]
92 (return)
[ The difference of the
eight miles of Ammianus, and the twelve of Idatius, can only embarrass
those critics (Valesius ad loc.,) who suppose a great army to be a
mathematical point, without space or dimensions.]
93 (return)
[ Nec ulla annalibus,
praeter Cannensem pugnam, ita ad internecionem res legitur gesta. Ammian.
xxxi. 13. According to the grave Polybius, no more than 370 horse, and
3,000 foot, escaped from the field of Cannae: 10,000 were made prisoners;
and the number of the slain amounted to 5,630 horse, and 70,000 foot,
(Polyb. l. iii. p 371, edit. Casaubon, 8vo.) Livy (xxii. 49) is somewhat
less bloody: he slaughters only 2,700 horse, and 40,000 foot. The Roman
army was supposed to consist of 87,200 effective men, (xxii. 36.)]
94 (return)
[ We have gained some
faint light from Jerom, (tom. i. p. 26 and in Chron. p. 188,) Victor, (in
Epitome,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 33, p. 554,) Jornandes, (c. 27,) Zosimus,
(l. iv. p. 230,) Socrates, (l. iv. c. 38,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 40,)
Idatius, (in Chron.) But their united evidence, if weighed against
Ammianus alone, is light and unsubstantial.]
While the impressions of grief and terror were still recent in the minds of men, the most celebrated rhetorician of the age composed the funeral oration of a vanquished army, and of an unpopular prince, whose throne was already occupied by a stranger. "There are not wanting," says the candid Libanius, "those who arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute the public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the troops. For my own part, I reverence the memory of their former exploits: I reverence the glorious death, which they bravely received, standing, and fighting in their ranks: I reverence the field of battle, stained with their blood, and the blood of the Barbarians. Those honorable marks have been already washed away by the rains; but the lofty monuments of their bones, the bones of generals, of centurions, and of valiant warriors, claim a longer period of duration. The king himself fought and fell in the foremost ranks of the battle. His attendants presented him with the fleetest horses of the Imperial stable, that would soon have carried him beyond the pursuit of the enemy. They vainly pressed him to reserve his important life for the future service of the republic. He still declared that he was unworthy to survive so many of the bravest and most faithful of his subjects; and the monarch was nobly buried under a mountain of the slain. Let none, therefore, presume to ascribe the victory of the Barbarians to the fear, the weakness, or the imprudence, of the Roman troops. The chiefs and the soldiers were animated by the virtue of their ancestors, whom they equalled in discipline and the arts of war. Their generous emulation was supported by the love of glory, which prompted them to contend at the same time with heat and thirst, with fire and the sword; and cheerfully to embrace an honorable death, as their refuge against flight and infamy. The indignation of the gods has been the only cause of the success of our enemies." The truth of history may disclaim some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle: but the fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still more to the generosity, of the sophist of Antioch. 95
95 (return)
[ Libanius de ulciscend.
Julian. nece, c. 3, in Fabricius, Bibliot Graec. tom. vii. p. 146—148.]
The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that the richest part of the Imperial spoil had been within the walls of Hadrianople. They hastened to possess the reward of their valor; but they were encountered by the remains of a vanquished army, with an intrepid resolution, which was the effect of their despair, and the only hope of their safety. The walls of the city, and the ramparts of the adjacent camp, were lined with military engines, that threw stones of an enormous weight; and astonished the ignorant Barbarians by the noise, and velocity, still more than by the real effects, of the discharge. The soldiers, the citizens, the provincials, the domestics of the palace, were united in the danger, and in the defence: the furious assault of the Goths was repulsed; their secret arts of treachery and treason were discovered; and, after an obstinate conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced, by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies, the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude: the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of the woods and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling fugitives, who sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum and Macedonia; and the faithful officers of the household, and the treasury, cautiously proceeded in search of the emperor, of whose death they were still ignorant. The tide of the Gothic inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of Constantinople. The Barbarians were surprised with the splendid appearance of the capital of the East, the height and extent of the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted citizens who crowded the ramparts, and the various prospect of the sea and land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the inaccessible beauties of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the gates by a party of Saracens, 96 who had been fortunately engaged in the service of Valens. The cavalry of Scythia was forced to yield to the admirable swiftness and spirit of the Arabian horses: their riders were skilled in the evolutions of irregular war; and the Northern Barbarians were astonished and dismayed, by the inhuman ferocity of the Barbarians of the South.
A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, expressed a horrid delight, while he sucked the blood of his vanquished enemy. 97 The army of the Goths, laden with the spoils of the wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly moved, from the Bosphorus, to the mountains which form the western boundary of Thrace. The important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear, or the misconduct, of Maurus; and the Barbarians, who no longer had any resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished troops of the East, spread themselves over the face of a fertile and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy and the Hadriatic Sea. 98
96 (return)
[ Valens had gained, or
rather purchased, the friendship of the Saracens, whose vexatious inroads
were felt on the borders of Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt. The Christian
faith had been lately introduced among a people, reserved, in a future
age, to propagate another religion, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
v. p. 104, 106, 141. Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 593.)]
97 (return)
[ Crinitus quidam, nudus
omnia praeter pubem, subraunum et ugubre strepens. Ammian. xxxi. 16, and
Vales. ad loc. The Arabs often fought naked; a custom which may be
ascribed to their sultry climate, and ostentatious bravery. The
description of this unknown savage is the lively portrait of Derar, a name
so dreadful to the Christians of Syria. See Ockley's Hist. of the
Saracens, vol. i. p. 72, 84, 87.]
98 (return)
[ The series of events
may still be traced in the last pages of Ammianus, (xxxi. 15, 16.)
Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 227, 231,) whom we are now reduced to cherish,
misplaces the sally of the Arabs before the death of Valens. Eunapius (in
Excerpt. Legat. p. 20) praises the fertility of Thrace, Macedonia, &c.]
The Romans, who so coolly, and so concisely, mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, 99 reserve their compassion, and their eloquence, for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded, and desolated, by the arms of the successful Barbarians. The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, 100 might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners: but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader. The same censure may be applied, though not perhaps in an equal degree, to the profane, and the ecclesiastical, writers of this unhappy period; that their minds were inflamed by popular and religious animosity; and that the true size and color of every object is falsified by the exaggerations of their corrupt eloquence. The vehement Jerom 101 might justly deplore the calamities inflicted by the Goths, and their barbarous allies, on his native country of Pannonia, and the wide extent of the provinces, from the walls of Constantinople to the foot of the Julian Alps; the rapes, the massacres, the conflagrations; and, above all, the profanation of the churches, that were turned into stables, and the contemptuous treatment of the relics of holy martyrs. But the Saint is surely transported beyond the limits of nature and history, when he affirms, "that, in those desert countries, nothing was left except the sky and the earth; that, after the destruction of the cities, and the extirpation of the human race, the land was overgrown with thick forests and inextricable brambles; and that the universal desolation, announced by the prophet Zephaniah, was accomplished, in the scarcity of the beasts, the birds, and even of the fish." These complaints were pronounced about twenty years after the death of Valens; and the Illyrian provinces, which were constantly exposed to the invasion and passage of the Barbarians, still continued, after a calamitous period of ten centuries, to supply new materials for rapine and destruction. Could it even be supposed, that a large tract of country had been left without cultivation and without inhabitants, the consequences might not have been so fatal to the inferior productions of animated nature. The useful and feeble animals, which are nourished by the hand of man, might suffer and perish, if they were deprived of his protection; but the beasts of the forest, his enemies or his victims, would multiply in the free and undisturbed possession of their solitary domain. The various tribes that people the air, or the waters, are still less connected with the fate of the human species; and it is highly probable that the fish of the Danube would have felt more terror and distress, from the approach of a voracious pike, than from the hostile inroad of a Gothic army.
99 (return)
[ Observe with how much
indifference Caesar relates, in the Commentaries of the Gallic war, that
he put to death the whole senate of the Veneti, who had yielded to his
mercy, (iii. 16;) that he labored to extirpate the whole nation of the
Eburones, (vi. 31;) that forty thousand persons were massacred at Bourges
by the just revenge of his soldiers, who spared neither age nor sex, (vii.
27,) &c.]
100 (return)
[ Such are the accounts
of the sack of Magdeburgh, by the ecclesiastic and the fisherman, which
Mr. Harte has transcribed, (Hist. of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 313—320,)
with some apprehension of violating the dignity of history.]
101 (return)
[ Et vastatis urbibus,
hominibusque interfectis, solitudinem et raritatem bestiarum quoque fieri,
et volatilium, pisciumque: testis Illyricum est, testis Thracia, testis in
quo ortus sum solum, (Pannonia;) ubi praeter coelum et terram, et
crescentes vepres, et condensa sylvarum cuncta perierunt. Tom. vii. p.
250, l, Cap. Sophonias and tom. i. p. 26.]
Whatever may have been the just measure of the calamities of Europe, there was reason to fear that the same calamities would soon extend to the peaceful countries of Asia. The sons of the Goths had been judiciously distributed through the cities of the East; and the arts of education were employed to polish, and subdue, the native fierceness of their temper. In the space of about twelve years, their numbers had continually increased; and the children, who, in the first emigration, were sent over the Hellespont, had attained, with rapid growth, the strength and spirit of perfect manhood. 102 It was impossible to conceal from their knowledge the events of the Gothic war; and, as those daring youths had not studied the language of dissimulation, they betrayed their wish, their desire, perhaps their intention, to emulate the glorious example of their fathers The danger of the times seemed to justify the jealous suspicions of the provincials; and these suspicions were admitted as unquestionable evidence, that the Goths of Asia had formed a secret and dangerous conspiracy against the public safety. The death of Valens had left the East without a sovereign; and Julius, who filled the important station of master-general of the troops, with a high reputation of diligence and ability, thought it his duty to consult the senate of Constantinople; which he considered, during the vacancy of the throne, as the representative council of the nation. As soon as he had obtained the discretionary power of acting as he should judge most expedient for the good of the republic, he assembled the principal officers, and privately concerted effectual measures for the execution of his bloody design. An order was immediately promulgated, that, on a stated day, the Gothic youth should assemble in the capital cities of their respective provinces; and, as a report was industriously circulated, that they were summoned to receive a liberal gift of lands and money, the pleasing hope allayed the fury of their resentment, and, perhaps, suspended the motions of the conspiracy. On the appointed day, the unarmed crowd of the Gothic youth was carefully collected in the square or Forum; the streets and avenues were occupied by the Roman troops, and the roofs of the houses were covered with archers and slingers. At the same hour, in all the cities of the East, the signal was given of indiscriminate slaughter; and the provinces of Asia were delivered by the cruel prudence of Julius, from a domestic enemy, who, in a few months, might have carried fire and sword from the Hellespont to the Euphrates. 103 The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that, or any other, consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
102 (return)
[ Eunapius (in Excerpt.
Legat. p. 20) foolishly supposes a praeternatural growth of the young
Goths, that he may introduce Cadmus's armed men, who sprang from the
dragon's teeth, &c. Such was the Greek eloquence of the times.]
103 (return)
[ Ammianus evidently
approves this execution, efficacia velox et salutaris, which concludes his
work, (xxxi. 16.) Zosimus, who is curious and copious, (l. iv. p. 233—236,)
mistakes the date, and labors to find the reason, why Julius did not
consult the emperor Theodosius who had not yet ascended the throne of the
East.]
The emperor Gratian was far advanced on his march towards the plains of Hadrianople, when he was informed, at first by the confused voice of fame, and afterwards by the more accurate reports of Victor and Richomer, that his impatient colleague had been slain in battle, and that two thirds of the Roman army were exterminated by the sword of the victorious Goths. Whatever resentment the rash and jealous vanity of his uncle might deserve, the resentment of a generous mind is easily subdued by the softer emotions of grief and compassion; and even the sense of pity was soon lost in the serious and alarming consideration of the state of the republic. Gratian was too late to assist, he was too weak to revenge, his unfortunate colleague; and the valiant and modest youth felt himself unequal to the support of a sinking world. A formidable tempest of the Barbarians of Germany seemed ready to burst over the provinces of Gaul; and the mind of Gratian was oppressed and distracted by the administration of the Western empire. In this important crisis, the government of the East, and the conduct of the Gothic war, required the undivided attention of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested with such ample command would not long have preserved his fidelity to a distant benefactor; and the Imperial council embraced the wise and manly resolution of conferring an obligation, rather than of yielding to an insult. It was the wish of Gratian to bestow the purple as the reward of virtue; but, at the age of nineteen, it is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme rank, to understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He attempted to weigh, with an impartial hand, their various merits and defects; and, whilst he checked the rash confidence of ambition, he distrusted the cautious wisdom which despaired of the republic. As each moment of delay diminished something of the power and resources of the future sovereign of the East, the situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The choice of Gratian was soon declared in favor of an exile, whose father, only three years before, had suffered, under the sanction of his authority, an unjust and ignominious death. The great Theodosius, a name celebrated in history, and dear to the Catholic church, 104 was summoned to the Imperial court, which had gradually retreated from the confines of Thrace to the more secure station of Sirmium. Five months after the death of Valens, the emperor Gratian produced before the assembled troops his colleague and their master; who, after a modest, perhaps a sincere, resistance, was compelled to accept, amidst the general acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and the equal title of Augustus. 105 The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, over which Valens had reigned, were resigned to the administration of the new emperor; but, as he was specially intrusted with the conduct of the Gothic war, the Illyrian praefecture was dismembered; and the two great dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia were added to the dominions of the Eastern empire. 106
104 (return)
[ A life of Theodosius
the Great was composed in the last century, (Paris, 1679, in 4to-1680,
12mo.,) to inflame the mind of the young Dauphin with Catholic zeal. The
author, Flechier, afterwards bishop of Nismes, was a celebrated preacher;
and his history is adorned, or tainted, with pulpit eloquence; but he
takes his learning from Baronius, and his principles from St. Ambrose and
St Augustin.]
105 (return)
[ The birth, character,
and elevation of Theodosius are marked in Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii.
10, 11, 12,) Themistius, (Orat. xiv. p. 182,) (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 231,)
Augustin. (de Civitat. Dei. v. 25,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 34,) Sozomen, (l.
vii. c. 2,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 2,) Theodoret, (l. v. c. 5,)
Philostorgius, (l. ix. c. 17, with Godefroy, p. 393,) the Epitome of
Victor, and the Chronicles of Prosper, Idatius, and Marcellinus, in the
Thesaurus Temporum of Scaliger. * Note: Add a hostile fragment of
Eunapius. Mai, p. 273, in Niebuhr, p 178—M.]
106 (return)
[ Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 716, &c.]
The same province, and perhaps the same city, 107 which had given to the throne the virtues of Trajan, and the talents of Hadrian, was the orignal seat of another family of Spaniards, who, in a less fortunate age, possessed, near fourscore years, the declining empire of Rome. 108 They emerged from the obscurity of municipal honors by the active spirit of the elder Theodosius, a general whose exploits in Britain and Africa have formed one of the most splendid parts of the annals of Valentinian. The son of that general, who likewise bore the name of Theodosius, was educated, by skilful preceptors, in the liberal studies of youth; but he was instructed in the art of war by the tender care and severe discipline of his father. 109 Under the standard of such a leader, young Theodosius sought glory and knowledge, in the most distant scenes of military action; inured his constitution to the difference of seasons and climates; distinguished his valor by sea and land; and observed the various warfare of the Scots, the Saxons, and the Moors. His own merit, and the recommendation of the conqueror of Africa, soon raised him to a separate command; and, in the station of Duke of Misaea, he vanquished an army of Sarmatians; saved the province; deserved the love of the soldiers; and provoked the envy of the court. 110 His rising fortunes were soon blasted by the disgrace and execution of his illustrious father; and Theodosius obtained, as a favor, the permission of retiring to a private life in his native province of Spain. He displayed a firm and temperate character in the ease with which he adapted himself to this new situation. His time was almost equally divided between the town and country; the spirit, which had animated his public conduct, was shown in the active and affectionate performance of every social duty; and the diligence of the soldier was profitably converted to the improvement of his ample patrimony, 111 which lay between Valladolid and Segovia, in the midst of a fruitful district, still famous for a most exquisite breed of sheep. 112 From the innocent, but humble labors of his farm, Theodosius was transported, in less than four months, to the throne of the Eastern empire; and the whole period of the history of the world will not perhaps afford a similar example, of an elevation at the same time so pure and so honorable. The princes who peaceably inherit the sceptre of their fathers, claim and enjoy a legal right, the more secure as it is absolutely distinct from the merits of their personal characters. The subjects, who, in a monarchy, or a popular state, acquire the possession of supreme power, may have raised themselves, by the superiority either of genius or virtue, above the heads of their equals; but their virtue is seldom exempt from ambition; and the cause of the successful candidate is frequently stained by the guilt of conspiracy, or civil war. Even in those governments which allow the reigning monarch to declare a colleague or a successor, his partial choice, which may be influenced by the blindest passions, is often directed to an unworthy object But the most suspicious malignity cannot ascribe to Theodosius, in his obscure solitude of Caucha, the arts, the desires, or even the hopes, of an ambitious statesman; and the name of the Exile would long since have been forgotten, if his genuine and distinguished virtues had not left a deep impression in the Imperial court. During the season of prosperity, he had been neglected; but, in the public distress, his superior merit was universally felt and acknowledged. What confidence must have been reposed in his integrity, since Gratian could trust, that a pious son would forgive, for the sake of the republic, the murder of his father! What expectations must have been formed of his abilities to encourage the hope, that a single man could save, and restore, the empire of the East! Theodosius was invested with the purple in the thirty-third year of his age. The vulgar gazed with admiration on the manly beauty of his face, and the graceful majesty of his person, which they were pleased to compare with the pictures and medals of the emperor Trajan; whilst intelligent observers discovered, in the qualities of his heart and understanding, a more important resemblance to the best and greatest of the Roman princes.
107 (return)
[ Italica, founded by
Scipio Africanus for his wounded veterans of Italy. The ruins still
appear, about a league above Seville, but on the opposite bank of the
river. See the Hispania Illustrata of Nonius, a short though valuable
treatise, c. xvii. p. 64—67.]
108 (return)
[ I agree with
Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 726) in suspecting the royal
pedigree, which remained a secret till the promotion of Theodosius. Even
after that event, the silence of Pacatus outweighs the venal evidence of
Themistius, Victor, and Claudian, who connect the family of Theodosius
with the blood of Trajan and Hadrian.]
109 (return)
[ Pacatas compares, and
consequently prefers, the youth of Theodosius to the military education of
Alexander, Hannibal, and the second Africanus; who, like him, had served
under their fathers, (xii. 8.)]
110 (return)
[ Ammianus (xxix. 6)
mentions this victory of Theodosius Junior Dux Maesiae, prima etiam tum
lanugine juvenis, princeps postea perspectissimus. The same fact is
attested by Themistius and Zosimus but Theodoret, (l. v. c. 5,) who adds
some curious circumstances, strangely applies it to the time of the
interregnum.]
111 (return)
[ Pacatus (in Panegyr.
Vet. xii. 9) prefers the rustic life of Theodosius to that of Cincinnatus;
the one was the effect of choice, the other of poverty.]
112 (return)
[ M. D'Anville
(Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 25) has fixed the situation of Caucha, or
Coca, in the old province of Gallicia, where Zosimus and Idatius have
placed the birth, or patrimony, of Theodosius.]
It is not without the most sincere regret, that I must now take leave of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the history of his own times, without indulging the prejudices and passions, which usually affect the mind of a contemporary. Ammianus Marcellinus, who terminates his useful work with the defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more glorious subject of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence of the rising generation. 113 The rising generation was not disposed to accept his advice or to imitate his example; 114 and, in the study of the reign of Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate the partial narrative of Zosimus, by the obscure hints of fragments and chronicles, by the figurative style of poetry or panegyric, and by the precarious assistance of the ecclesiastical writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation. Conscious of these disadvantages, which will continue to involve a considerable portion of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I shall proceed with doubtful and timorous steps. Yet I may boldly pronounce, that the battle of Hadrianople was never revenged by any signal or decisive victory of Theodosius over the Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal orators may be confirmed by the observation of the condition and circumstances of the times. The fabric of a mighty state, which has been reared by the labors of successive ages, could not be overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the calamity. The loss of forty thousand Romans, who fell in the plains of Hadrianople, might have been soon recruited in the populous provinces of the East, which contained so many millions of inhabitants. The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest, and most common, quality of human nature; and sufficient skill to encounter an undisciplined foe might have been speedily taught by the care of the surviving centurions. If the Barbarians were mounted on the horses, and equipped with the armor, of their vanquished enemies, the numerous studs of Cappadocia and Spain would have supplied new squadrons of cavalry; the thirty-four arsenals of the empire were plentifully stored with magazines of offensive and defensive arms: and the wealth of Asia might still have yielded an ample fund for the expenses of the war. But the effects which were produced by the battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the Barbarians and of the Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the latter, far beyond the limits of a single day. A Gothic chief was heard to declare, with insolent moderation, that, for his own part, he was fatigued with slaughter: but that he was astonished how a people, who fled before him like a flock of sheep, could still presume to dispute the possession of their treasures and provinces. 115 The same terrors which the name of the Huns had spread among the Gothic tribes, were inspired, by the formidable name of the Goths, among the subjects and soldiers of the Roman empire. 116 If Theodosius, hastily collecting his scattered forces, had led them into the field to encounter a victorious enemy, his army would have been vanquished by their own fears; and his rashness could not have been excused by the chance of success. But the great Theodosius, an epithet which he honorably deserved on this momentous occasion, conducted himself as the firm and faithful guardian of the republic. He fixed his head-quarters at Thessalonica, the capital of the Macedonian diocese; 117 from whence he could watch the irregular motions of the Barbarians, and direct the operations of his lieutenants, from the gates of Constantinople to the shores of the Hadriatic. The fortifications and garrisons of the cities were strengthened; and the troops, among whom a sense of order and discipline was revived, were insensibly emboldened by the confidence of their own safety. From these secure stations, they were encouraged to make frequent sallies on the Barbarians, who infested the adjacent country; and, as they were seldom allowed to engage, without some decisive superiority, either of ground or of numbers, their enterprises were, for the most part, successful; and they were soon convinced, by their own experience, of the possibility of vanquishing their invincible enemies. The detachments of these separate garrisons were generally united into small armies; the same cautious measures were pursued, according to an extensive and well-concerted plan of operations; the events of each day added strength and spirit to the Roman arms; and the artful diligence of the emperor, who circulated the most favorable reports of the success of the war, contributed to subdue the pride of the Barbarians, and to animate the hopes and courage of his subjects. If, instead of this faint and imperfect outline, we could accurately represent the counsels and actions of Theodosius, in four successive campaigns, there is reason to believe, that his consummate skill would deserve the applause of every military reader. The republic had formerly been saved by the delays of Fabius; and, while the splendid trophies of Scipio, in the field of Zama, attract the eyes of posterity, the camps and marches of the dictator among the hills of the Campania, may claim a juster proportion of the solid and independent fame, which the general is not compelled to share, either with fortune or with his troops. Such was likewise the merit of Theodosius; and the infirmities of his body, which most unseasonably languished under a long and dangerous disease, could not oppress the vigor of his mind, or divert his attention from the public service. 118
113 (return)
[ Let us hear Ammianus
himself. Haec, ut miles quondam et Graecus, a principatu Cassaris Nervae
exorsus, adusque Valentis inter, pro virium explicavi mensura: opus
veritatem professum nun quam, ut arbitror, sciens, silentio ausus
corrumpere vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores aetate, doctrinisque
florentes. Quos id, si libuerit, aggressuros, procudere linguas ad majores
moneo stilos. Ammian. xxxi. 16. The first thirteen books, a superficial
epitome of two hundred and fifty-seven years, are now lost: the last
eighteen, which contain no more than twenty-five years, still preserve the
copious and authentic history of his own times.]
114 (return)
[ Ammianus was the last
subject of Rome who composed a profane history in the Latin language. The
East, in the next century, produced some rhetorical historians, Zosimus,
Olympiedorus, Malchus, Candidus &c. See Vossius de Historicis Graecis,
l. ii. c. 18, de Historicis Latinis l. ii. c. 10, &c.]
115 (return)
[ Chrysostom, tom. i.
p. 344, edit. Montfaucon. I have verified and examined this passage: but I
should never, without the aid of Tillemont, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p.
152,) have detected an historical anecdote, in a strange medley of moral
and mystic exhortations, addressed, by the preacher of Antioch, to a young
widow.]
116 (return)
[ Eunapius, in Excerpt.
Legation. p. 21.]
117 (return)
[ See Godefroy's
Chronology of the Laws. Codex Theodos tom. l. Prolegomen. p. xcix.—civ.]
118 (return)
[ Most writers insist
on the illness, and long repose, of Theodosius, at Thessalonica: Zosimus,
to diminish his glory; Jornandes, to favor the Goths; and the
ecclesiastical writers, to introduce his baptism.]
The deliverance and peace of the Roman provinces 119 was the work of prudence, rather than of valor: the prudence of Theodosius was seconded by fortune: and the emperor never failed to seize, and to improve, every favorable circumstance. As long as the superior genius of Fritigern preserved the union, and directed the motions of the Barbarians, their power was not inadequate to the conquest of a great empire. The death of that hero, the predecessor and master of the renowned Alaric, relieved an impatient multitude from the intolerable yoke of discipline and discretion. The Barbarians, who had been restrained by his authority, abandoned themselves to the dictates of their passions; and their passions were seldom uniform or consistent. An army of conquerors was broken into many disorderly bands of savage robbers; and their blind and irregular fury was not less pernicious to themselves, than to their enemies. Their mischievous disposition was shown in the destruction of every object which they wanted strength to remove, or taste to enjoy; and they often consumed, with improvident rage, the harvests, or the granaries, which soon afterwards became necessary for their own subsistence. A spirit of discord arose among the independent tribes and nations, which had been united only by the bands of a loose and voluntary alliance. The troops of the Huns and the Alani would naturally upbraid the flight of the Goths; who were not disposed to use with moderation the advantages of their fortune; the ancient jealousy of the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths could not long be suspended; and the haughty chiefs still remembered the insults and injuries, which they had reciprocally offered, or sustained, while the nation was seated in the countries beyond the Danube. The progress of domestic faction abated the more diffusive sentiment of national animosity; and the officers of Theodosius were instructed to purchase, with liberal gifts and promises, the retreat or service of the discontented party. The acquisition of Modar, a prince of the royal blood of the Amali, gave a bold and faithful champion to the cause of Rome. The illustrious deserter soon obtained the rank of master-general, with an important command; surprised an army of his countrymen, who were immersed in wine and sleep; and, after a cruel slaughter of the astonished Goths, returned with an immense spoil, and four thousand wagons, to the Imperial camp. 120 In the hands of a skilful politician, the most different means may be successfully applied to the same ends; and the peace of the empire, which had been forwarded by the divisions, was accomplished by the reunion, of the Gothic nation. Athanaric, who had been a patient spectator of these extraordinary events, was at length driven, by the chance of arms, from the dark recesses of the woods of Caucaland. He no longer hesitated to pass the Danube; and a very considerable part of the subjects of Fritigern, who already felt the inconveniences of anarchy, were easily persuaded to acknowledge for their king a Gothic Judge, whose birth they respected, and whose abilities they had frequently experienced. But age had chilled the daring spirit of Athanaric; and, instead of leading his people to the field of battle and victory, he wisely listened to the fair proposal of an honorable and advantageous treaty. Theodosius, who was acquainted with the merit and power of his new ally, condescended to meet him at the distance of several miles from Constantinople; and entertained him in the Imperial city, with the confidence of a friend, and the magnificence of a monarch. "The Barbarian prince observed, with curious attention, the variety of objects which attracted his notice, and at last broke out into a sincere and passionate exclamation of wonder. I now behold (said he) what I never could believe, the glories of this stupendous capital! And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed, and he admired, the commanding situation of the city, the strength and beauty of the walls and public edifices, the capacious harbor, crowded with innumerable vessels, the perpetual concourse of distant nations, and the arms and discipline of the troops. Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the emperor of the Romans is a god upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who dares to lift his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood." 121 The Gothic king did not long enjoy this splendid and honorable reception; and, as temperance was not the virtue of his nation, it may justly be suspected, that his mortal disease was contracted amidst the pleasures of the Imperial banquets. But the policy of Theodosius derived more solid benefit from the death, than he could have expected from the most faithful services, of his ally. The funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his memory; and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and decent grief, of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the Roman empire. 122 The submission of so great a body of the Visigoths was productive of the most salutary consequences; and the mixed influence of force, of reason, and of corruption, became every day more powerful, and more extensive. Each independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty, from the apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose him, alone and unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the conqueror. The general, or rather the final, capitulation of the Goths, may be dated four years, one month, and twenty-five days, after the defeat and death of the emperor Valens. 123
119 (return)
[ Compare Themistius
(Orat, xiv. p. 181) with Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232,) Jornandes, (c. xxvii. p.
649,) and the prolix Commentary of M. de Buat, (Hist. de Peuples, &c.,
tom. vi. p. 477—552.) The Chronicles of Idatius and Marcellinus
allude, in general terms, to magna certamina, magna multaque praelia. The
two epithets are not easily reconciled.]
120 (return)
[ Zosimus (l. iv. p.
232) styles him a Scythian, a name which the more recent Greeks seem to
have appropriated to the Goths.]
121 (return)
[ The reader will not
be displeased to see the original words of Jornandes, or the author whom
he transcribed. Regiam urbem ingressus est, miransque, En, inquit, cerno
quod saepe incredulus audiebam, famam videlicet tantae urbis. Et huc illuc
oculos volvens, nunc situm urbis, commeatumque navium, nunc moenia clara
pro spectans, miratur; populosque diversarum gentium, quasi fonte in uno e
diversis partibus scaturiente unda, sic quoque militem ordinatum
aspiciens; Deus, inquit, sine dubio est terrenus Imperator, et quisquis
adversus eum manum moverit, ipse sui sanguinis reus existit Jornandes (c.
xxviii. p. 650) proceeds to mention his death and funeral.]
122 (return)
[ Jornandes, c. xxviii.
p. 650. Even Zosimus (l. v. p. 246) is compelled to approve the generosity
of Theodosius, so honorable to himself, and so beneficial to the public.]
123 (return)
[ The short, but
authentic, hints in the Fasti of Idatius (Chron. Scaliger. p. 52) are
stained with contemporary passion. The fourteenth oration of Themistius is
a compliment to Peace, and the consul Saturninus, (A.D. 383.)]
The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved from the oppressive weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the voluntary retreat of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit had prompted them to seek new scenes of rapine and glory. Their destructive course was pointed towards the West; but we must be satisfied with a very obscure and imperfect knowledge of their various adventures. The Ostrogoths impelled several of the German tribes on the provinces of Gaul; concluded, and soon violated, a treaty with the emperor Gratian; advanced into the unknown countries of the North; and, after an interval of more than four years, returned, with accumulated force, to the banks of the Lower Danube. Their troops were recruited with the fiercest warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the soldiers, or at least the historians, of the empire, no longer recognized the name and countenances of their former enemies. 124 The general who commanded the military and naval powers of the Thracian frontier, soon perceived that his superiority would be disadvantageous to the public service; and that the Barbarians, awed by the presence of his fleet and legions, would probably defer the passage of the river till the approaching winter. The dexterity of the spies, whom he sent into the Gothic camp, allured the Barbarians into a fatal snare. They were persuaded that, by a bold attempt, they might surprise, in the silence and darkness of the night, the sleeping army of the Romans; and the whole multitude was hastily embarked in a fleet of three thousand canoes. 125 The bravest of the Ostrogoths led the van; the main body consisted of the remainder of their subjects and soldiers; and the women and children securely followed in the rear. One of the nights without a moon had been selected for the execution of their design; and they had almost reached the southern bank of the Danube, in the firm confidence that they should find an easy landing and an unguarded camp. But the progress of the Barbarians was suddenly stopped by an unexpected obstacle a triple line of vessels, strongly connected with each other, and which formed an impenetrable chain of two miles and a half along the river. While they struggled to force their way in the unequal conflict, their right flank was overwhelmed by the irresistible attack of a fleet of galleys, which were urged down the stream by the united impulse of oars and of the tide. The weight and velocity of those ships of war broke, and sunk, and dispersed, the rude and feeble canoes of the Barbarians; their valor was ineffectual; and Alatheus, the king, or general, of the Ostrogoths, perished with his bravest troops, either by the sword of the Romans, or in the waves of the Danube. The last division of this unfortunate fleet might regain the opposite shore; but the distress and disorder of the multitude rendered them alike incapable, either of action or counsel; and they soon implored the clemency of the victorious enemy. On this occasion, as well as on many others, it is a difficult task to reconcile the passions and prejudices of the writers of the age of Theodosius. The partial and malignant historian, who misrepresents every action of his reign, affirms, that the emperor did not appear in the field of battle till the Barbarians had been vanquished by the valor and conduct of his lieutenant Promotus. 126 The flattering poet, who celebrated, in the court of Honorius, the glory of the father and of the son, ascribes the victory to the personal prowess of Theodosius; and almost insinuates, that the king of the Ostrogoths was slain by the hand of the emperor. 127 The truth of history might perhaps be found in a just medium between these extreme and contradictory assertions.
124 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. iv. p.
252.]
125 (return)
[ I am justified, by
reason and example, in applying this Indian name to the the Barbarians,
the single trees hollowed into the shape of a boat. Zosimus, l. iv. p.
253. Ausi Danubium quondam tranare Gruthungi In lintres fregere nemus: ter
mille ruebant Per fluvium plenae cuneis immanibus alni. Claudian, in iv.
Cols. Hon. 623.]
126 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. iv. p.
252—255. He too frequently betrays his poverty of judgment by
disgracing the most serious narratives with trifling and incredible
circumstances.]
127 (return)
[—Odothaei Regis
opima Retulit—Ver. 632. The opima were the spoils which a Roman
general could only win from the king, or general, of the enemy, whom he
had slain with his own hands: and no more than three such examples are
celebrated in the victorious ages of Rome.]
The original treaty which fixed the settlement of the Goths, ascertained their privileges, and stipulated their obligations, would illustrate the history of Theodosius and his successors. The series of their history has imperfectly preserved the spirit and substance of this single agreement. 128 The ravages of war and tyranny had provided many large tracts of fertile but uncultivated land for the use of those Barbarians who might not disdain the practice of agriculture. A numerous colony of the Visigoths was seated in Thrace; the remains of the Ostrogoths were planted in Phrygia and Lydia; their immediate wants were supplied by a distribution of corn and cattle; and their future industry was encouraged by an exemption from tribute, during a certain term of years. The Barbarians would have deserved to feel the cruel and perfidious policy of the Imperial court, if they had suffered themselves to be dispersed through the provinces. They required, and they obtained, the sole possession of the villages and districts assigned for their residence; they still cherished and propagated their native manners and language; asserted, in the bosom of despotism, the freedom of their domestic government; and acknowledged the sovereignty of the emperor, without submitting to the inferior jurisdiction of the laws and magistrates of Rome. The hereditary chiefs of the tribes and families were still permitted to command their followers in peace and war; but the royal dignity was abolished; and the generals of the Goths were appointed and removed at the pleasure of the emperor. An army of forty thousand Goths was maintained for the perpetual service of the empire of the East; and those haughty troops, who assumed the title of Foederati, or allies, were distinguished by their gold collars, liberal pay, and licentious privileges. Their native courage was improved by the use of arms and the knowledge of discipline; and, while the republic was guarded, or threatened, by the doubtful sword of the Barbarians, the last sparks of the military flame were finally extinguished in the minds of the Romans. 129 Theodosius had the address to persuade his allies, that the conditions of peace, which had been extorted from him by prudence and necessity, were the voluntary expressions of his sincere friendship for the Gothic nation. 130 A different mode of vindication or apology was opposed to the complaints of the people; who loudly censured these shameful and dangerous concessions. 131 The calamities of the war were painted in the most lively colors; and the first symptoms of the return of order, of plenty, and security, were diligently exaggerated. The advocates of Theodosius could affirm, with some appearance of truth and reason, that it was impossible to extirpate so many warlike tribes, who were rendered desperate by the loss of their native country; and that the exhausted provinces would be revived by a fresh supply of soldiers and husbandmen. The Barbarians still wore an angry and hostile aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage the hope, that they would acquire the habits of industry and obedience; that their manners would be polished by time, education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman people. 132
128 (return)
[ See Themistius, Orat.
xvi. p. 211. Claudian (in Eutrop. l. ii. 112) mentions the Phrygian
colony:——Ostrogothis colitur mistisque Gruthungis Phyrx ager——and
then proceeds to name the rivers of Lydia, the Pactolus, and Herreus.]
129 (return)
[ Compare Jornandes,
(c. xx. 27,) who marks the condition and number of the Gothic Foederati,
with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 258,) who mentions their golden collars; and
Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 37,) who applauds, with false or foolish
joy, their bravery and discipline.]
130 (return)
[ Amator pacis
generisque Gothorum, is the praise bestowed by the Gothic historian, (c.
xxix.,) who represents his nation as innocent, peaceable men, slow to
anger, and patient of injuries. According to Livy, the Romans conquered
the world in their own defence.]
131 (return)
[ Besides the partial
invectives of Zosimus, (always discontented with the Christian reigns,)
see the grave representations which Synesius addresses to the emperor
Arcadius, (de Regno, p. 25, 26, edit. Petav.) The philosophic bishop of
Cyrene was near enough to judge; and he was sufficiently removed from the
temptation of fear or flattery.]
132 (return)
[ Themistius (Orat.
xvi. p. 211, 212) composes an elaborate and rational apology, which is
not, however, exempt from the puerilities of Greek rhetoric. Orpheus could
only charm the wild beasts of Thrace; but Theodosius enchanted the men and
women, whose predecessors in the same country had torn Orpheus in pieces,
&c.]
Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the conquerors of the Roman empire. Their rude and insolent behavior expressed their contempt of the citizens and provincials, whom they insulted with impunity. 133 To the zeal and valor of the Barbarians Theodosius was indebted for the success of his arms: but their assistance was precarious; and they were sometimes seduced, by a treacherous and inconstant disposition, to abandon his standard, at the moment when their service was the most essential. During the civil war against Maximus, a great number of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of Macedonia, wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch to expose his person, and exert his power, to suppress the rising flame of rebellion. 134 The public apprehensions were fortified by the strong suspicion, that these tumults were not the effect of accidental passion, but the result of deep and premeditated design. It was generally believed, that the Goths had signed the treaty of peace with a hostile and insidious spirit; and that their chiefs had previously bound themselves, by a solemn and secret oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to maintain the fairest show of loyalty and friendship, and to watch the favorable moment of rapine, of conquest, and of revenge. But as the minds of the Barbarians were not insensible to the power of gratitude, several of the Gothic leaders sincerely devoted themselves to the service of the empire, or, at least, of the emperor; the whole nation was insensibly divided into two opposite factions, and much sophistry was employed in conversation and dispute, to compare the obligations of their first, and second, engagements. The Goths, who considered themselves as the friends of peace, of justice, and of Rome, were directed by the authority of Fravitta, a valiant and honorable youth, distinguished above the rest of his countrymen by the politeness of his manners, the liberality of his sentiments, and the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous faction adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, 13411 who inflamed the passions, and asserted the independence, of his warlike followers. On one of the solemn festivals, when the chiefs of both parties were invited to the Imperial table, they were insensibly heated by wine, till they forgot the usual restraints of discretion and respect, and betrayed, in the presence of Theodosius, the fatal secret of their domestic disputes. The emperor, who had been the reluctant witness of this extraordinary controversy, dissembled his fears and resentment, and soon dismissed the tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and exasperated by the insolence of his rival, whose departure from the palace might have been the signal of a civil war, boldly followed him; and, drawing his sword, laid Priulf dead at his feet. Their companions flew to arms; and the faithful champion of Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers, if he had not been protected by the seasonable interposition of the Imperial guards. 135 Such were the scenes of Barbaric rage, which disgraced the palace and table of the Roman emperor; and, as the impatient Goths could only be restrained by the firm and temperate character of Theodosius, the public safety seemed to depend on the life and abilities of a single man. 136
133 (return)
[ Constantinople was
deprived half a day of the public allowance of bread, to expiate the
murder of a Gothic soldier: was the guilt of the people. Libanius, Orat.
xii. p. 394, edit. Morel.]
134 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. iv. p.
267-271. He tells a long and ridiculous story of the adventurous prince,
who roved the country with only five horsemen, of a spy whom they
detected, whipped, and killed in an old woman's cottage, &c.]
13411 (return)
[ Eunapius.—M.]
135 (return)
[ Compare Eunapius (in
Excerpt. Legat. p. 21, 22) with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 279.) The difference
of circumstances and names must undoubtedly be applied to the same story.
Fravitta, or Travitta, was afterwards consul, (A.D. 401.) and still
continued his faithful services to the eldest son of Theodosius.
(Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 467.)]
136 (return)
[ Les Goths ravagerent
tout depuis le Danube jusqu'au Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son
armee; et ne repasserent le Danube, que pour abandonner l'affreuse
solitude qu'ils avoient faite, (Oeuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 479.
Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Decadence des
Romains, c. xvii.) The president Montesquieu seems ignorant that the
Goths, after the defeat of Valens, never abandoned the Roman territory. It
is now thirty years, says Claudian, (de Bello Getico, 166, &c., A.D.
404,) Ex quo jam patrios gens haec oblita Triones, Atque Istrum transvecta
semel, vestigia fixit Threicio funesta solo—the error is
inexcusable; since it disguises the principal and immediate cause of the
fall of the Western empire of Rome.]
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