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The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon
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The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon
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The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 2
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part I.
Note: The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering as a
very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful extenuation of
the cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates against the
Christians. It is written in the most contemptibly factious
spirit of prejudice against the sufferers; it is unworthy of a
philosopher and of humanity. Let the narrative of Cyprian's
death be examined. He had to relate the murder of an innocent
man of advanced age, and in a station deemed venerable by a
considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put to death
because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing
the indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of
tyranny, he dwells, with visible art, on the small circumstances
of decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and which
he relates with as much parade as if they were the most important
particulars of the event.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians,
From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.
Dr. Robertson has been the subject of much blame for his
real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish murderers and tyrants
in America. That the sixteenth chapter of Mr. G. did not excite
the same or greater disapprobation, is a proof of the
unphilosophical and indeed fanatical animosity against
Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter part of
the eighteenth century. - Mackintosh: see Life, i. p. 244, 245.]
If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian
religion, the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as
well as austere lives of the greater number of those who during
the first ages embraced the faith of the gospel, we should
naturally suppose, that so benevolent a doctrine would have been
received with due reverence, even by the unbelieving world; that
the learned and the polite, however they may deride the miracles,
would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and that the
magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an
order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
though they declined the active cares of war and government. If,
on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of
Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the
people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the
Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new
offence the Christians had committed, what new provocation could
exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new
motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern
a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their
gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their
subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an
inoffensive mode of faith and worship.
The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have
assumed a more stern and intolerant character, to oppose the
progress of Christianity. About fourscore years after the death
of Christ, his innocent disciples were punished with death by the
sentence of a proconsul of the most amiable and philosophic
character, and according to the laws of an emperor distinguished
by the wisdom and justice of his general administration. The
apologies which were repeatedly addressed to the successors of
Trajan are filled with the most pathetic complaints, that the
Christians, who obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty,
of conscience, were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman
empire, excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious
government. The deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been
recorded with care; and from the time that Christianity was
invested with the supreme power, the governors of the church have
been no less diligently employed in displaying the cruelty, than
in imitating the conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To
separate (if it be possible) a few authentic as well as
interesting facts from an undigested mass of fiction and error,
and to relate, in a clear and rational manner, the causes, the
extent, the duration, and the most important circumstances of the
persecutions to which the first Christians were exposed, is the
design of the present chapter. ^*
[Footnote *: The history of the first age of Christianity is only
found in the Acts of the Apostles, and in order to speak of the
first persecutions experienced by the Christians, that book
should naturally have been consulted; those persecutions, then
limited to individuals and to a narrow sphere, interested only
the persecuted, and have been related by them alone. Gibbon
making the persecutions ascend no higher than Nero, has entirely
omitted those which preceded this epoch, and of which St. Luke
has preserved the memory. The only way to justify this omission
was, to attack the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles; for,
if authentic, they must necessarily be consulted and quoted.
Now, antiquity has left very few works of which the authenticity
is so well established as that of the Acts of the Apostles. (See
Lardner's Cred. of Gospel Hist. part iii.) It is therefore,
without sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence
concerning the narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not
without importance. - G.]
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear
animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are
seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or
candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often
escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are
placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A
reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards
the primitive Christians, which may appear the more specious and
probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of
Polytheism. It has already been observed, that the religious
concord of the world was principally supported by the implicit
assent and reverence which the nations of antiquity expressed for
their respective traditions and ceremonies. It might therefore
be expected, that they would unite with indignation against any
sect or people which should separate itself from the communion of
mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine
knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own,
as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by
mutual indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the
accustomed tribute. As the payment of this tribute was
inflexibly refused by the Jews, and by them alone, the
consideration of the treatment which they experienced from the
Roman magistrates, will serve to explain how far these
speculations are justified by facts, and will lead us to discover
the true causes of the persecution of Christianity.
Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the
reverence of the Roman princes and governors for the temple of
Jerusalem, we shall only observe, that the destruction of the
temple and city was accompanied and followed by every
circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the conquerors,
and authorize religious persecution by the most specious
arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the
reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a
fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke
out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is
shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they
committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where
they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting
natives; ^1 and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation
which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of
fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render
them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but
of human kind. ^2 The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the
opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an
idolatrous master; and by the flattering promise which they
derived from their ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah
would soon arise, destined to break their fetters, and to invest
the favorites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by
announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by
calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of
Israel, that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army,
with which he resisted during two years the power of the emperor
Hadrian. ^3
[Footnote 1: In Cyrene, they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus,
240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy
victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which
David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews
devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails
like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii.
p. 1145.
Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes on
Dion Cassius think that the hatred of the Romans against the Jews
has led the historian to exaggerate the cruelties committed by
the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. p. 1146. - G.]
[Footnote 2: Without repeating the well-known narratives of
Josephus, we may learn from Dion, (l. lxix. p. 1162,) that in
Hadrian's war 580,000 Jews were cut off by the sword, besides an
infinite number which perished by famine, by disease, and by
fire.]
[Footnote 3: For the sect of the Zealots, see Basnage, Histoire
des Juifs, l. i. c. 17; for the characters of the Messiah,
according to the Rabbis, l. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the actions of
Barchochebas, l. vii. c. 12. (Hist. of Jews iii. 115, &c.) - M.]
Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment
of the Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their
apprehensions continued beyond the period of war and danger. By
the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild temper of
Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient
privileges, and once more obtained the permission of circumcising
their children, with the easy restraint, that they should never
confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing mark of the
Hebrew race. ^4 The numerous remains of that people, though they
were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were
permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments
both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of
Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time
an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of
society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a
legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was
instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed
his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his
subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic
jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed brethren an
annual contribution. ^5 New synagogues were frequently erected in
the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts,
and the festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law,
or enjoined by the traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in
the most solemn and public manner. ^6 Such gentle treatment
insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened from
their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behavior
of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable
hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and
violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They
embraced every opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in
trade; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations
against the haughty kingdom of Edom. ^7
[Footnote 4: It is to Modestinus, a Roman lawyer (l. vi.
regular.) that we are indebted for a distinct knowledge of the
Edict of Antoninus. See Casaubon ad Hist. August. p. 27.]
[Footnote 5: See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. iii. c. 2, 3.
The office of Patriarch was suppressed by Theodosius the
younger.]
[Footnote 6: We need only mention the Purim, or deliverance of
the Jews from he rage of Haman, which, till the reign of
Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous
intemperance. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 17, l. viii.
c. 6.]
[Footnote 7: According to the false Josephus, Tsepho, the
grandson of Esau, conducted into Italy the army of Eneas, king of
Carthage. Another colony of Idumaeans, flying from the sword of
David, took refuge in the dominions of Romulus. For these, or
for other reasons of equal weight, the name of Edom was applied
by the Jews to the Roman empire.
Note: The false Josephus is a romancer of very modern date,
though some of these legends are probably more ancient. It may
be worth considering whether many of the stories in the Talmud
are not history in a figurative disguise, adopted from prudence.
The Jews might dare to say many things of Rome, under the
significant appellation of Edom, which they feared to utter
publicly. Later and more ignorant ages took literally, and
perhaps embellished, what was intelligible among the generation
to which it was addressed. Hist. of Jews, iii. 131.
The false Josephus has the inauguration of the emperor, with
the seven electors and apparently the pope assisting at the
coronation! Pref. page xxvi. - M.]
Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities
adored by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed,
however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must
have existed some other cause, which exposed the disciples of
Christ to those severities from which the posterity of Abraham
was exempt. The difference between them is simple and obvious;
but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the
highest importance. The Jews were a nation; the Christians were
a sect: and if it was natural for every community to respect the
sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on them
to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of oracles,
the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the laws,
unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their lofty
claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the Polytheists
to consider them as an odious and impure race. By disdaining the
intercourse of other nations, they might deserve their contempt.
The laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous or absurd;
yet, since they had been received during many ages by a large
society, his followers were justified by the example of mankind;
and it was universally acknowledged, that they had a right to
practise what it would have been criminal in them to neglect.
But this principle, which protected the Jewish synagogue,
afforded not any favor or security to the primitive church. By
embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians incurred the
supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They
dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the
religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously
despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or had
reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we may use the
expression) merely of a partial or local kind; since the pious
deserter who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt or Syria,
would equally disdain to seek an asylum in those of Athens or
Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt the
superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The
whole body of Christians unanimously refused to hold any
communion with the gods of Rome, of the empire, and of mankind.
It was in vain that the oppressed believer asserted the
inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though
his situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never
reach the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the
believing part of the Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it
was no less a matter of surprise, that any individuals should
entertain scruples against complying with the established mode of
worship, than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence to the
manners, the dress, or the language of their native country. ^8
^*
[Footnote 8: From the arguments of Celsus, as they are
represented and refuted by Origen, (l. v. p. 247 - 259,) we may
clearly discover the distinction that was made between the Jewish
people and the Christian sect. See, in the Dialogue of Minucius
Felix, (c. 5, 6,) a fair and not inelegant description of the
popular sentiments, with regard to the desertion of the
established worship.]
[Footnote *: In all this there is doubtless much truth; yet does
not the more important difference lie on the surface? The
Christians made many converts the Jews but few. Had the Jewish
been equally a proselyting religion would it not have encountered
as violent persecution? - M.]
The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment;
and the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but
dangerous imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred
in representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by
the most daring attack on the religious constitution of the
empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil
magistrate. They had separated themselves (they gloried in the
confession) from every mode of superstition which was received in
any part of the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it
was not altogether so evident what deity, or what form of
worship, they had substituted to the gods and temples of
antiquity. The pure and sublime idea which they entertained of
the Supreme Being escaped the gross conception of the Pagan
multitude, who were at a loss to discover a spiritual and
solitary God, that was neither represented under any corporeal
figure or visible symbol, nor was adored with the accustomed pomp
of libations and festivals, of altars and sacrifices. ^9 The
sages of Greece and Rome, who had elevated their minds to the
contemplation of the existence and attributes of the First Cause,
were induced by reason or by vanity to reserve for themselves and
their chosen disciples the privilege of this philosophical
devotion. ^10 They were far from admitting the prejudices of
mankind as the standard of truth, but they considered them as
flowing from the original disposition of human nature; and they
supposed that any popular mode of faith and worship which
presumed to disclaim the assistance of the senses, would, in
proportion as it receded from superstition, find itself incapable
of restraining the wanderings of the fancy, and the visions of
fanaticism. The careless glance which men of wit and learning
condescended to cast on the Christian revelation, served only to
confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that the
principle, which they might have revered, of the Divine Unity,
was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy
speculations, of the new sectaries. The author of a celebrated
dialogue, which has been attributed to Lucian, whilst he affects
to treat the mysterious subject of the Trinity in a style of
ridicule and contempt, betrays his own ignorance of the weakness
of human reason, and of the inscrutable nature of the divine
perfections. ^11
[Footnote 9: Cur nullas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota
simulacra! - Unde autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus,
solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix, c. 10. The Pagan
interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of the Jews,
who had once a temple, altars, victims, &c.]
[Footnote 10: It is difficult (says Plato) to attain, and
dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God. See the
Theologie des Philosophes, in the Abbe d'Olivet's French
translation of Tully de Natura Deorum, tom. i. p. 275.]
[Footnote 11: The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats
the Christians as a company of dreaming enthusiasts, &c.; and in
one place he manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul
was transported to the third heaven. In another place, Triephon,
who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism,
proposes a mysterious oath.]
It might appear less surprising, that the founder of
Christianity should not only be revered by his disciples as a
sage and a prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The
Polytheists were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which
seemed to offer any resemblance, however distant or imperfect,
with the popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of
Hercules, and of Aesculapius, had, in some measure, prepared
their imagination for the appearance of the Son of God under a
human form. ^12 But they were astonished that the Christians
should abandon the temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the
infancy of the world, had invented arts, instituted laws, and
vanquished the tyrants or monsters who infested the earth, in
order to choose for the exclusive object of their religious
worship an obscure teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a
barbarous people, had fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of
his own countrymen, or to the jealousy of the Roman government.
The Pagan multitude, reserving their gratitude for temporal
benefits alone, rejected the inestimable present of life and
immortality, which was offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth.
His mild constancy in the midst of cruel and voluntary
sufferings, his universal benevolence, and the sublime simplicity
of his actions and character, were insufficient, in the opinion
of those carnal men, to compensate for the want of fame, of
empire, and of success; and whilst they refused to acknowledge
his stupendous triumph over the powers of darkness and of the
grave, they misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal
birth, wandering life, and ignominious death, of the divine
Author of Christianity. ^13
[Footnote 12: According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c.
70-85,) the daemon who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the
prophecies, purposely contrived this resemblance, which might
deter, though by different means, both the people and the
philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.]
[Footnote 13: In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus
treats the birth and character of our Savior with the most
impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises Porphyry and
Julian for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a dead
man of Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist.
Ecclesiast. iii. 23.]
The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in
thus preferring his private sentiment to the national religion,
was aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of
the criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed,
that Roman policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust
any association among its subjects; and that the privileges of
private corporations, though formed for the most harmless or
beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand. ^14
The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated
themselves from the public worship, appeared of a much less
innocent nature; they were illegal in their principle, and in
their consequences might become dangerous; nor were the emperors
conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when, for the
peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes
nocturnal meetings. ^15 The pious disobedience of the Christians
made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much
more serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might
perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready
submission, deeming their honor concerned in the execution of
their commands, sometimes attempted, by rigorous punishments, to
subdue this independent spirit, which boldly acknowledged an
authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent and
duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it
everyday more deserving of his animadversion. We have already
seen that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had
insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every
city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their
family and country, that they might connect themselves in an
indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which every
where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind.
Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common
business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of
impending calamities, ^16 inspired the Pagans with the
apprehension of some danger, which would arise from the new sect,
the more alarming as it was the more obscure. "Whatever," says
Pliny, "may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible
obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment." ^17
[Footnote 14: The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company
of 150 firemen, for the use of the city of Nicomedia. He
disliked all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43.]
[Footnote 15: The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict
against unlawful meetings. The prudence of the Christians
suspended their Agapae; but it was impossible for them to omit
the exercise of public worship.]
[Footnote 16: As the prophecies of the Antichrist, approaching
conflagration, &c., provoked those Pagans whom they did not
convert, they were mentioned with caution and reserve; and the
Montanists were censured for disclosing too freely the dangerous
secret. See Mosheim, 413.]
[Footnote 17: Neque enim dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod
faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,) pervicacian certe et
inflexibilem obstinationem lebere puniri.]
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed
the offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and
necessity; but they were continued from choice. By imitating the
awful secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the
Christians had flattered themselves that they should render their
sacred institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan
world. ^18 But the event, as it often happens to the operations
of subtile policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations.
It was concluded, that they only concealed what they would have
blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an
opportunity for malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to
believe, the horrid tales which described the Christians as the
most wicked of human kind, who practised in their dark recesses
every abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who
solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of
every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or
to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was
asserted, "that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with
flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to
the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a
secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that
as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up
the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and
pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness
of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman
sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which
intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the
appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame
was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might
direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous
commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers." ^19
[Footnote 18: See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p.
101, and Spanheim, Remarques sur les Caesars de Julien, p. 468,
&c.]
[Footnote 19: See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35, ii. 14.
Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9.
Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 80, 31. The last of these writers
relates the accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial
manner. The answer of Tertullian is the boldest and most
vigorous.]
But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to
remove even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid
adversary. The Christians, with the intrepid security of
innocence, appeal from the voice of rumor to the equity of the
magistrates. They acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced
of the crimes which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy
of the most severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and
they challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal
truth and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of
probability, than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether
any one can seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of
the gospel, which so frequently restrain the use of the most
lawful enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most
abominable crimes; that a large society should resolve to
dishonor itself in the eyes of its own members; and that a great
number of persons of either sex, and every age and character,
insensible to the fear of death or infamy, should consent to
violate those principles which nature and education had imprinted
most deeply in their minds. ^20 Nothing, it should seem, could
weaken the force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a
justification, unless it were the injudicious conduct of the
apologists themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion,
to gratify their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the
church. It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes
boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same
incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the
orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the
Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of
the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might deviate into the
paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments of men,
and still governed by the precepts of Christianity. ^21
Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon the church by
the schismatics who had departed from its communion, ^22 and it
was confessed on all sides, that the most scandalous
licentiousness of manners prevailed among great numbers of those
who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan magistrate, who
possessed neither leisure nor abilities to discern the almost
imperceptible line which divides the orthodox faith from
heretical pravity, might easily have imagined that their mutual
animosity had extorted the discovery of their common guilt. It
was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the reputation, of
the first Christians, that the magistrates sometimes proceeded
with more temper and moderation than is usually consistent with
religious zeal, and that they reported, as the impartial result
of their judicial inquiry, that the sectaries, who had deserted
the established worship, appeared to them sincere in their
professions, and blameless in their manners; however they might
incur, by their absurd and excessive superstition, the censure of
the laws. ^23
[Footnote 20: In the persecution of Lyons, some Gentile slaves
were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to accuse their
Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their brethren
of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and
contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. i.]
[Footnote 21: See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35. Irenaeus adv.
Haeres. i. 24. Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. l. iii. p. 438.
Euseb. iv. 8. It would be tedious and disgusting to relate all
that the succeeding writers have imagined, all that Epiphanius
has received, and all that Tillemont has copied. M. de Beausobre
(Hist. du Manicheisme, l. ix. c. 8, 9) has exposed, with great
spirit, the disingenuous arts of Augustin and Pope Leo I.]
[Footnote 22: When Tertullian became a Montanist, he aspersed the
morals of the church which he had so resolutely defended. "Sed
majoris est Agape, quia per hanc adolescentes tui cum sororibus
dormiunt, appendices scilicet gulae lascivia et luxuria." De
Jejuniis c. 17. The 85th canon of the council of Illiberis
provides against the scandals which too often polluted the vigils
of the church, and disgraced the Christian name in the eyes of
unbelievers.]
[Footnote 23: Tertullian (Apolog. c. 2) expatiates on the fair
and honorable testimony of Pliny, with much reason and some
declamation.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part II.
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the
past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that
honorable office, if she condescended to plead the cause of
tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution. It must,
however, be acknowledged, that the conduct of the emperors who
appeared the least favorable to the primitive church, is by no
means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who have employed
the arm of violence and terror against the religious opinions of
any part of their subjects. From their reflections, or even from
their own feelings, a Charles V. or a Lewis XIV. might have
acquired a just knowledge of the rights of conscience, of the
obligation of faith, and of the innocence of error. But the
princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to those
principles which inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy
of the Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they
themselves discover in their own breasts any motive which would
have prompted them to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural,
submission to the sacred institutions of their country. The same
reason which contributes to alleviate the guilt, must have tended
to abate the vigor, of their persecutions. As they were
actuated, not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by the temperate
policy of legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and
humanity must frequently have suspended, the execution of those
laws which they enacted against the humble and obscure followers
of Christ. From the general view of their character and motives
we might naturally conclude: I. That a considerable time elapsed
before they considered the new sectaries as an object deserving
of the attention of government. II. That in the conviction of
any of their subjects who were accused of so very singular a
crime, they proceeded with caution and reluctance. III. That
they were moderate in the use of punishments; and, IV. That the
afflicted church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquility.
Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the most copious
and the most minute of the Pagan writers have shown to the
affairs of the Christians, ^24 it may still be in our power to
confirm each of these probable suppositions, by the evidence of
authentic facts.
[Footnote 24: In the various compilation of the Augustan History,
(a part of which was composed under the reign of Constantine,)
there are not six lines which relate to the Christians; nor has
the diligence of Xiphilin discovered their name in the large
history of Dion Cassius.
Note: The greater part of the Augustan History is dedicated
to Diocletian. This may account for the silence of its authors
concerning Christianity. The notices that occur are almost all
in the lives composed under the reign of Constantine. It may
fairly be concluded, from the language which he had into the
mouth of Maecenas, that Dion was an enemy to all innovations in
religion. (See Gibbon, infra, note 105.) In fact, when the
silence of Pagan historians is noticed, it should be remembered
how meagre and mutilated are all the extant histories of the
period -M.]
1. By the wise dispensation of Providence, a mysterious veil
was cast over the infancy of the church, which, till the faith of
the Christians was matured, and their numbers were multiplied,
served to protect them not only from the malice but even from the
knowledge of the Pagan world. The slow and gradual abolition of
the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe and innocent disguise to
the more early proselytes of the gospel. As they were, for the
greater part, of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished by
the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their devotions in
the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and received
both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine inspirations of the
Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had
been associated to the hope of Israel, were likewise confounded
under the garb and appearance of Jews, ^25 and as the Polytheists
paid less regard to articles of faith than to the external
worship, the new sect, which carefully concealed, or faintly
announced, its future greatness and ambition, was permitted to
shelter itself under the general toleration which was granted to
an ancient and celebrated people in the Roman empire. It was not
long, perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated with a
fiercer zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual
separation of their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the
synagogue; and they would gladly have extinguished the dangerous
heresy in the blood of its adherents. But the decrees of Heaven
had already disarmed their malice; and though they might
sometimes exert the licentious privilege of sedition, they no
longer possessed the administration of criminal justice; nor did
they find it easy to infuse into the calm breast of a Roman
magistrate the rancor of their own zeal and prejudice. The
provincial governors declared themselves ready to listen to any
accusation that might affect the public safety; but as soon as
they were informed that it was a question not of facts but of
words, a dispute relating only to the interpretation of the
Jewish laws and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of the
majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the obscure differences
which might arise among a barbarous and superstitious people.
The innocence of the first Christians was protected by ignorance
and contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan magistrate often
proved their most assured refuge against the fury of the
synagogue. ^26 If indeed we were disposed to adopt the traditions
of a too credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant
peregrinations, the wonderful achievements, and the various
deaths of the twelve apostles: but a more accurate inquiry will
induce us to doubt, whether any of those persons who had been
witnesses to the miracles of Christ were permitted, beyond the
limits of Palestine, to seal with their blood the truth of their
testimony. ^27 From the ordinary term of human life, it may very
naturally be presumed that most of them were deceased before the
discontent of the Jews broke out into that furious war, which was
terminated only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long period,
from the death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot
discover any traces of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be
found in the sudden, the transient, but the cruel persecution,
which was exercised by Nero against the Christians of the
capital, thirty-five years after the former, and only two years
before the latter, of those great events. The character of the
philosophic historian, to whom we are principally indebted for
the knowledge of this singular transaction, would alone be
sufficient to recommend it to our most attentive consideration.
[Footnote 25: An obscure passage of Suetonius (in Claud. c. 25)
may seem to offer a proof how strangely the Jews and Christians
of Rome were confounded with each other.]
[Footnote 26: See, in the xviiith and xxvth chapters of the Acts
of the Apostles, the behavior of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and
of Festus, procurator of Judea.]
[Footnote 27: In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of
Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St.
Paul, and St. James. It was gradually bestowed on the rest of
the apostles, by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected
for the theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote
country beyond the limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p.
81; and Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. i. part iii.]
In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the capital of the
empire was afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or
example of former ages. ^28 The monuments of Grecian art and of
Roman virtue, the trophies of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most
holy temples, and the most splendid palaces, were involved in one
common destruction. Of the fourteen regions or quarters into
which Rome was divided, four only subsisted entire, three were
levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven, which had
experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy
prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government
appears not to have neglected any of the precautions which might
alleviate the sense of so dreadful a calamity. The Imperial
gardens were thrown open to the distressed multitude, temporary
buildings were erected for their accommodation, and a plentiful
supply of corn and provisions was distributed at a very moderate
price. ^29 The most generous policy seemed to have dictated the
edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets and the
construction of private houses; and as it usually happens, in an
age of prosperity, the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a
few years, produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful
than the former. But all the prudence and humanity affected by
Nero on this occasion were insufficient to preserve him from the
popular suspicion. Every crime might be imputed to the assassin
of his wife and mother; nor could the prince who prostituted his
person and dignity on the theatre be deemed incapable of the most
extravagant folly. The voice of rumor accused the emperor as the
incendiary of his own capital; and as the most incredible stories
are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was
gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the
calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to
his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. ^30 To divert a
suspicion, which the power of despotism was unable to suppress,
the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some
fictitious criminals. "With this view," continues Tacitus, "he
inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men, who, under
the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with
deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ,
who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence
of the procurator Pontius Pilate. ^31 For a while this dire
superstition was checked; but it again burst forth; ^* and not
only spread itself over Judaea, the first seat of this
mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common
asylum which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever
is atrocious. The confessions of those who were seized
discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were
all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the
city, as for their hatred of human kind. ^32 They died in
torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and
derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the
skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others
again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as
torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of
Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was
accompanied with a horse-race and honored with the presence of
the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and
attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved
indeed the most exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence
was changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those
unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public
welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant." ^33 Those who
survey with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind, may
observe, that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican,
which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have
been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse
of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, ^34 a temple,
which far surpasses the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been
since erected by the Christian Pontiffs, who, deriving their
claim of universal dominion from an humble fisherman of Galilee,
have succeeded to the throne of the Caesars, given laws to the
barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual
jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the
Pacific Ocean.
[Footnote 28: Tacit. Annal. xv. 38 - 44. Sueton in Neron. c. 38.
Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1014. Orosius, vii. 7.]
[Footnote 29: The price of wheat (probably of the modius,) was
reduced as low as terni Nummi; which would be equivalent to about
fifteen shillings the English quarter.]
[Footnote 30: We may observe, that the rumor is mentioned by
Tacitus with a very becoming distrust and hesitation, whilst it
is greedily transcribed by Suetonius, and solemnly confirmed by
Dion.]
[Footnote 31: This testimony is alone sufficient to expose the
anachronism of the Jews, who place the birth of Christ near a
century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. v. c. 14, 15.)
We may learn from Josephus, (Antiquitat. xviii. 3,) that the
procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of
Tiberius, A. D. 27 - 37. As to the particular time of the death
of Christ, a very early tradition fixed it to the 25th of March,
A. D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini. (Tertullian
adv. Judaeos, c. 8.) This date, which is adopted by Pagi,
Cardinal Norris, and Le Clerc, seems at least as probable as the
vulgar aera, which is placed (I know not from what conjectures)
four years later.]
[Footnote *: This single phrase, Repressa in praesens exitiabilis
superstitio rursus erumpebat, proves that the Christians had
already attracted the attention of the government; and that Nero
was not the first to persecute them. I am surprised that more
stress has not been laid on the confirmation which the Acts of
the Apostles derive from these words of Tacitus, Repressa in
praesens, and rursus erumpebat. - G.
I have been unwilling to suppress this note, but surely the
expression of Tacitus refers to the expected extirpation of the
religion by the death of its founder, Christ. - M.]
[Footnote 32: Odio humani generis convicti. These words may
either signify the hatred of mankind towards the Christians, or
the hatred of the Christians towards mankind. I have preferred
the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus,
and to the popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see
Luke xiv. 26) had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion. My
interpretation is justified by the authority of Lipsius; of the
Italian, the French, and the English translators of Tacitus; of
Mosheim, (p. 102,) of Le Clerc, (Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427,) of
Dr. Lardner, (Testimonies, vol. i. p. 345,) and of the Bishop of
Gloucester, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 38.) But as the word
convicti does not unite very happily with the rest of the
sentence, James Gronovius has preferred the reading of conjuncti,
which is authorized by the valuable MS. of Florence.]
[Footnote 33: Tacit. Annal xv. 44.]
[Footnote 34: Nardini Roma Antica, p. 487. Donatus de Roma
Antiqua, l. iii. p. 449.]
But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero's
persecution, till we have made some observations that may serve
to remove the difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to
throw some light on the subsequent history of the church.
1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the
truth of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this
celebrated passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the
diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment
which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had
embraced a new and criminal superstition. ^35 The latter may be
proved by the consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the
inimitable character of the style of Tacitus by his reputation,
which guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud;
and by the purport of his narration, which accused the first
Christians of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that
they possessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the
rest of mankind. ^36 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that
Tacitus was born some years before the fire of Rome, ^37 he could
derive only from reading and conversation the knowledge of an
event which happened during his infancy. Before he gave himself
to the public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its
full maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a
grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted
from him the most early of those historical compositions which
will delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After
making a trial of his strength in the life of Agricola and the
description of Germany, he conceived, and at length executed, a
more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the
fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of
Nerva introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus
had destined for the occupation of his old age; ^38 but when he
took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was
a more honorable or a less invidious office to record the vices
of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning
monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the
actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To
collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years, in
an immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the
deepest observations and the most lively images, was an
undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself
during the greatest part of his life. In the last years of the
reign of Trajan, whilst the victorious monarch extended the power
of Rome beyond its ancient limits, the historian was describing,
in the second and fourth books of his annals, the tyranny of
Tiberius; ^39 and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to the
throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work,
could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero
towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty
years, it was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of
contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge
himself in the description of the origin, the progress, and the
character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge
or prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the
time of Hadrian. 3 Tacitus very frequently trusts to the
curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply those
intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme
conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore
presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct the
cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity,
as well as innocence, should have shielded them from his
indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were
numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were
a much fitter object for the suspicions of the emperor and of the
people: nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who
already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have
recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their
implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful
advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his
wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppaea, and a favorite player
of the race of Abraham, who had already employed their
intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people. ^40 In their room
it was necessary to offer some other victims, and it might easily
be suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were
innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new
and pernicious sect of Galilaeans, which was capable of the most
horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galilaeans, two
distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each
other in their manners and principles; the disciples who had
embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, ^41 and the zealots who
had followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. ^42 The former
were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of human kind; and
the only resemblance between them consisted in the same
inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their cause,
rendered them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of
Judas, who impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon
buried under the ruins of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known
by the more celebrated name of Christians, diffused themselves
over the Roman empire. How natural was it for Tacitus, in the
time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the guilt and
the sufferings, ^* which he might, with far greater truth and
justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost
extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this
conjecture, (for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident
that the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero's persecution, was
confined to the walls of Rome, ^43 ^! that the religious tenets
of the Galilaeans or Christians, were never made a subject of
punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their
sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty
and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them
to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage had been
usually directed against virtue and innocence.
[Footnote 35: Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet of malefica,
which some sagacious commentators have translated magical, is
considered by the more rational Mosheim as only synonymous to the
exitiabilis of Tacitus.]
[Footnote 36: The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was
inserted into the text of Josephus, between the time of Origen
and that of Eusebius, may furnish an example of no vulgar
forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the virtues,
miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related.
Josephus acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates
whether he should call him a man. If any doubt can still remain
concerning this celebrated passage, the reader may examine the
pointed objections of Le Fevre, (Havercamp. Joseph. tom. ii. p.
267-273, the labored answers of Daubuz, (p. 187-232, and the
masterly reply (Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. vii. p.
237-288) of an anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the
learned Abbe de Longuerue.
Note: The modern editor of Eusebius, Heinichen, has adopted,
and ably supported, a notion, which had before suggested itself
to the editor, that this passage is not altogether a forgery, but
interpolated with many additional clauses. Heinichen has
endeavored to disengage the original text from the foreign and
more recent matter. - M.]
[Footnote 37: See the lives of Tacitus by Lipsius and the Abbe de
la Bleterie, Dictionnaire de Bayle a l'article Particle Tacite,
and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin tem. Latin. tom. ii. p. 386, edit.
Ernest. Ernst.]
[Footnote 38: Principatum Divi Nervae, et imperium Trajani,
uberiorem, securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit.
Hist. i.]
[Footnote 39: See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4.
Note: The perusal of this passage of Tacitus alone is
sufficient, as I have already said, to show that the Christian
sect was not so obscure as not already to have been repressed,
(repressa,) and that it did not pass for innocent in the eyes of
the Romans. - G.]
[Footnote 40: The player's name was Aliturus. Through the same
channel, Josephus, (de vita sua, c. 2,) about two years before,
had obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish priests, who
were prisoners at Rome.]
[Footnote 41: The learned Dr. Lardner (Jewish and Heathen
Testimonies, vol ii. p. 102, 103) has proved that the name of
Galilaeans was a very ancient, and perhaps the primitive
appellation of the Christians.]
[Footnote 42: Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine
des Juifs, p. 742 The sons of Judas were crucified in the time of
Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem was taken,
defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate
followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned
their swords against their wives their children, and at length
against their own breasts. They dies to the last man.
[Footnote *: This conjecture is entirely devoid, not merely of
verisimilitude, but even of possibility. Tacitus could not be
deceived in appropriating to the Christians of Rome the guilt and
the sufferings which he might have attributed with far greater
truth to the followers of Judas the Gaulonite, for the latter
never went to Rome. Their revolt, their attempts, their
opinions, their wars, their punishment, had no other theatre but
Judaea (Basn. Hist. des. Juifs, t. i. p. 491.) Moreover the name
of Christians had long been given in Rome to the disciples of
Jesus; and Tacitus affirms too positively, refers too distinctly
to its etymology, to allow us to suspect any mistake on his part.
- G.
M. Guizot's expressions are not in the least too strong
against this strange imagination of Gibbon; it may be doubted
whether the followers of Judas were known as a sect under the
name of Galilaeans. - M.]
[Footnote 43: See Dodwell. Paucitat. Mart. l. xiii. The Spanish
Inscription in Gruter. p. 238, No. 9, is a manifest and
acknowledged forgery contrived by that noted imposter. Cyriacus
of Ancona, to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards.
See Ferreras, Histoire D'Espagne, tom. i. p. 192.]
[Footnote !: M. Guizot, on the authority of Sulpicius Severus,
ii. 37, and of Orosius, viii. 5, inclines to the opinion of those
who extend the persecution to the provinces. Mosheim rather
leans to that side on this much disputed question, (c. xxxv.)
Neander takes the view of Gibbon, which is in general that of the
most learned writers. There is indeed no evidence, which I can
discover, of its reaching the provinces; and the apparent
security, at least as regards his life, with which St. Paul
pursued his travels during this period, affords at least a strong
inference against a rigid and general inquisition against the
Christians in other parts of the empire. - M.]
It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed,
almost at the same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol
of Rome; ^44 and it appears no less singular, that the tribute
which devotion had destined to the former, should have been
converted by the power of an assaulting victor to restore and
adorn the splendor of the latter. ^45 The emperors levied a
general capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the sum
assessed on the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the
use for which it was designed, and the severity with which it was
exacted, were considered as an intolerable grievance. ^46 Since
the officers of the revenue extended their unjust claim to many
persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of the Jews,
it was impossible that the Christians, who had so often sheltered
themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now escape
this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the
slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to
contribute to the honor of that daemon who had assumed the
character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though
declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law of
Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were
detected by the decisive test of circumcision; ^47 nor were the
Roman magistrates at leisure to inquire into the difference of
their religious tenets. Among the Christians who were brought
before the tribunal of the emperor, or, as it seems more
probable, before that of the procurator of Judaea, two persons
are said to have appeared, distinguished by their extraction,
which was more truly noble than that of the greatest monarchs.
These were the grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, who himself was
the brother of Jesus Christ. ^48 Their natural pretensions to the
throne of David might perhaps attract the respect of the people,
and excite the jealousy of the governor; but the meanness of
their garb, and the simplicity of their answers, soon convinced
him that they were neither desirous nor capable of disturbing the
peace of the Roman empire. They frankly confessed their royal
origin, and their near relation to the Messiah; but they
disclaimed any temporal views, and professed that his kingdom,
which they devoutly expected, was purely of a spiritual and
angelic nature. When they were examined concerning their fortune
and occupation, they showed their hands, hardened with daily
labor, and declared that they derived their whole subsistence
from the cultivation of a farm near the village of Cocaba, of the
extent of about twenty-four English acres, ^49 and of the value
of nine thousand drachms, or three hundred pounds sterling. The
grandsons of St. Jude were dismissed with compassion and
contempt. ^50
[Footnote 44: The Capitol was burnt during the civil war between
Vitellius and Vespasian, the 19th of December, A. D. 69. On the
10th of August, A. D. 70, the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed
by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than by those of the
Romans.]
[Footnote 45: The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian. Sueton.
in Domitian. c. 5. Plutarch in Poplicola, tom. i. p. 230, edit.
Bryant. The gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (above two
millions and a half.) It was the opinion of Martial, (l. ix.
Epigram 3,) that if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter
himself, even though he had made a general auction of Olympus,
would have been unable to pay two shillings in the pound.]
[Footnote 46: With regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, l.
lxvi. p. 1082, with Reimarus's notes. Spanheim, de Usu
Numismatum, tom. ii. p. 571; and Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l.
vii. c. 2.]
[Footnote 47: Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 12) had seen an old man
of ninety publicly examined before the procurator's tribunal.
This is what Martial calls, Mentula tributis damnata.]
[Footnote 48: This appellation was at first understood in the
most obvious sense, and it was supposed, that the brothers of
Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and Mary. A devout respect
for the virginity of the mother of God suggested to the Gnostics,
and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing
a second wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome)
improved on that hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph,
and justified by many similar examples the new interpretation
that Jude, as well as Simon and James, who were styled the
brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See
Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiat. tom. i. part iii.: and Beausobre,
Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. ii. c. 2.]
[Footnote 49: Thirty-nine, squares of a hundred feet each, which,
if strictly computed, would scarcely amount to nine acres.]
[Footnote 50: Eusebius, iii. 20. The story is taken from
Hegesippus.]
But although the obscurity of the house of David might
protect them from the suspicions of a tyrant, the present
greatness of his own family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of
Domitian, which could only be appeased by the blood of those
Romans whom he either feared, or hated, or esteemed. Of the two
sons of his uncle Flavius Sabinus, ^51 the elder was soon
convicted of treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore
the name of Flavius Clemens, was indebted for his safety to his
want of courage and ability. ^52 The emperor for a long time,
distinguished so harmless a kinsman by his favor and protection,
bestowed on him his own niece Domitilla, adopted the children of
that marriage to the hope of the succession, and invested their
father with the honors of the consulship.
[Footnote 51: See the death and character of Sabinus in Tacitus,
(Hist. iii. 74 ) Sabinus was the elder brother, and, till the
accession of Vespasian, had been considered as the principal
support of the Flavium family]
[Footnote 52: Flavium Clementem patruelem suum contemptissimoe
inertice . . ex tenuissima suspicione interemit. Sueton. in
Domitian. c. 15.]
But he had scarcely finished the term of his annual
magistracy, when, on a slight pretence, he was condemned and
executed; Domitilla was banished to a desolate island on the
coast of Campania; ^53 and sentences either of death or of
confiscation were pronounced against a great number of who were
involved in the same accusation. The guilt imputed to their
charge was that of Atheism and Jewish manners; ^54 a singular
association of ideas, which cannot with any propriety be applied
except to the Christians, as they were obscurely and imperfectly
viewed by the magistrates and by the writers of that period. On
the strength of so probable an interpretation, and too eagerly
admitting the suspicions of a tyrant as an evidence of their
honorable crime, the church has placed both Clemens and Domitilla
among its first martyrs, and has branded the cruelty of Domitian
with the name of the second persecution. But this persecution
(if it deserves that epithet) was of no long duration. A few
months after the death of Clemens, and the banishment of
Domitilla, Stephen, a freedman belonging to the latter, who had
enjoyed the favor, but who had not surely embraced the faith, of
his mistress, ^* assassinated the emperor in his palace. ^55 The
memory of Domitian was condemned by the senate; his acts were
rescinded; his exiles recalled; and under the gentle
administration of Nerva, while the innocent were restored to
their rank and fortunes, even the most guilty either obtained
pardon or escaped punishment. ^56
[Footnote 53: The Isle of Pandataria, according to Dion.
Bruttius Praesens (apud Euseb. iii. 18) banishes her to that of
Pontia, which was not far distant from the other. That
difference, and a mistake, either of Eusebius or of his
transcribers, have given occasion to suppose two Domitillas, the
wife and the niece of Clemens. See Tillemont, Memoires
Ecclesiastiques, tom. ii. p. 224.]
[Footnote 54: Dion. l. lxvii. p. 1112. If the Bruttius Praesens,
from whom it is probable that he collected this account, was the
correspondent of Pliny, (Epistol. vii. 3,) we may consider him as
a contemporary writer.]
[Footnote *: This is an uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to
connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla. He was a knave
detected in the malversation of money - interceptarum pecuniaram
reus. - M.]
[Footnote 55: Suet. in Domit. c. 17. Philostratus in Vit.
Apollon. l. viii.]
[Footnote 56: Dion. l. lxviii. p. 1118. Plin. Epistol. iv. 22.]
II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan,
the younger Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the
government of Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a
loss to determine by what rule of justice or of law he should
direct his conduct in the execution of an office the most
repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at any
judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose lame
alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed
with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their
conviction, and the degree of their punishment. In this
perplexity he had recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting
to the wisdom of Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a
favorable account of the new superstition, requesting the
emperor, that he would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to
instruct his ignorance. ^57 The life of Pliny had been employed
in the acquisition of learning, and in the business of the world.
Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded with distinction in the
tribunals of Rome, ^58 filled a place in the senate, had been
invested with the honors of the consulship, and had formed very
numerous connections with every order of men, both in Italy and
in the provinces. From his ignorance therefore we may derive
some useful information. We may assure ourselves, that when he
accepted the government of Bithynia, there were no general laws
or decrees of the senate in force against the Christians; that
neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors, whose edicts
were received into the civil and criminal jurisprudence, had
publicly declared their intentions concerning the new sect; and
that whatever proceedings had been carried on against the
Christians, there were none of sufficient weight and authority to
establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.
[Footnote 57: Plin. Epistol. x. 97. The learned Mosheim
expresses himself (p. 147, 232) with the highest approbation of
Pliny's moderate and candid temper. Notwithstanding Dr. Lardner's
suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. p. 46,)
I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or
proceedings.
Note: Yet the humane Pliny put two female attendants,
probably deaconesses to the torture, in order to ascertain the
real nature of these suspicious meetings: necessarium credidi, ex
duabus ancillis, quae ministrae dicebantor quid asset veri et per
tormenta quaerere. - M.]
[Footnote 58: Plin. Epist. v. 8. He pleaded his first cause A.
D. 81; the year after the famous eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, in
which his uncle lost his life.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part III.
The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the
succeeding age have frequently appealed, discovers as much regard
for justice and humanity as could be reconciled with his mistaken
notions of religious policy. ^59 Instead of displaying the
implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most
minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his
victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect
the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the
guilty. He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general
plan; but he lays down two salutary rules, which often afforded
relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though he
directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally
convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency,
from making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals. Nor
was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too
repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly
requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of
Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open
accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed
so invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of
their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place)
the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary had
frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances,
which were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye
of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they
were exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active
party, to the censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and
to the ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended the
character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they failed in
their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital
penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor
Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of
personal or superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over
the most natural apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it
cannot surely be imagined, that accusations of so unpromising an
appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the
Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. ^60 ^*
[Footnote 59: Plin. Epist. x. 98. Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5)
considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal
laws, "quas Trajanus exparte frustratus est: " and yet
Tertullian, in another part of his Apology, exposes the
inconsistency of prohibiting inquiries, and enjoining
punishments.]
[Footnote 60: Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9) has
preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has likewise (c. 13) given us
one still more favorable, under the name of Antoninus; the
authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second
Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to
the accusations of Christians.
Note: Professor Hegelmayer has proved the authenticity of
the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm. Hist. Theol. in Edict. Imp.
Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to. - G.
Neander doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my
opinion, the internal evidence is decisive against it. - M]
[Footnote *: The enactment of this law affords strong
presumption, that accusations of the "crime of Christianity,"
were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so much mistrust
and caution by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate.
- M.]
The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of
the laws, affords a sufficient proof how effectually they
disappointed the mischievous designs of private malice or
superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the
restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of
individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or
to escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with
impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games
and festivals. On those occasions the inhabitants of the great
cities of the empire were collected in the circus or the theatre,
where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the
ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to extinguish
their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with
garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of
victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their
tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of
pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their
religious worship, they recollected, that the Christians alone
abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy
on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the
public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent
calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the
Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the
earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had
been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that
the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by
the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked
the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and
exasperated populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could
be observed; it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the
blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion
could be heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced
the Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the
severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the
most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended
and cast to the lions. ^61 The provincial governors and
magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually
inclined to gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, of
the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the
wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the danger of
these tumultuous clamors and irregular accusations, which they
justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the
equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of
Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the
multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict
or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the
enthusiasm of the Christians. ^62
[Footnote 61: See Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 40.) The acts of the
martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a lively picture of these tumults,
which were usually fomented by the malice of the Jews.]
[Footnote 62: These regulations are inserted in the above
mentioned document of Hadrian and Pius. See the apology of
Melito, (apud Euseb. l iv 26)]
III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of
conviction, and the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly
proved by the testimony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary
confession, still retained in their own power the alternative of
life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as the
actual resistance, which excited the indignation of the
magistrate. He was persuaded that he offered them an easy
pardon, since, if they consented to cast a few grains of incense
upon the altar, they were dismissed from the tribunal in safety
and with applause. It was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to
endeavor to reclaim, rather than to punish, those deluded
enthusiasts. Varying his tone according to the age, the sex, or
the situation of the prisoners, he frequently condescended to set
before their eyes every circumstance which could render life more
pleasing, or death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to
entreat, them, that they would show some compassion to
themselves, to their families, and to their friends. ^63 If
threats and persuasions proved ineffectual, he had often recourse
to violence; the scourge and the rack were called in to supply
the deficiency of argument, and every art of cruelty was employed
to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared to the Pagans,
such criminal, obstinacy. The ancient apologists of Christianity
have censured, with equal truth and severity, the irregular
conduct of their persecutors who, contrary to every principle of
judicial proceeding, admitted the use of torture, in order to
obtain, not a confession, but a denial, of the crime which was
the object of their inquiry. ^64 The monks of succeeding ages,
who, in their peaceful solitudes, entertained themselves with
diversifying the deaths and sufferings of the primitive martyrs,
have frequently invented torments of a much more refined and
ingenious nature. In particular, it has pleased them to suppose,
that the zeal of the Roman magistrates, disdaining every
consideration of moral virtue or public decency, endeavored to
seduce those whom they were unable to vanquish, and that by their
orders the most brutal violence was offered to those whom they
found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that females, who
were prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a
more severe trial, ^! and called upon to determine whether they
set a higher value on their religion or on their chastity. The
youths to whose licentious embraces they were abandoned, received
a solemn exhortation from the judge, to exert their most
strenuous efforts to maintain the honor of Venus against the
impious virgin who refused to burn incense on her altars. Their
violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the seasonable
interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste
spouses of Christ from the dishonor even of an involuntary
defeat. We should not indeed neglect to remark, that the more
ancient as well as authentic memorials of the church are seldom
polluted with these extravagant and indecent fictions. ^65
[Footnote 63: See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of
Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these
exhortations.
Note: Pliny's test was the worship of the gods, offerings to
the statue of the emperor, and blaspheming Christ - praeterea
maledicerent Christo. - M.]
[Footnote 64: In particular, see Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,)
and Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.) Their reasonings are
almost the same; but we may discover, that one of these
apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician.]
[Footnote !: The more ancient as well as authentic memorials of
the church, relate many examples of the fact, (of these severe
trials,) which there is nothing to contradict. Tertullian, among
others, says, Nam proxime ad lenonem damnando Christianam, potius
quam ad leonem, confessi estis labem pudicitiae apud nos
atrociorem omni poena et omni morte reputari, Apol. cap. ult.
Eusebius likewise says, "Other virgins, dragged to brothels, have
lost their life rather than defile their virtue." Euseb. Hist.
Ecc. viii. 14. - G.
The miraculous interpositions were the offspring of the
coarse imaginations of the monks. - M.]
[Footnote 65: See two instances of this kind of torture in the
Acta Sincere Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p. 160, 399.
Jerome, in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story
of a young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and
assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the
rising temptation by biting off his tongue.]
The total disregard of truth and probability in the
representation of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a
very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth
or fifth centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same
degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own
breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of their own times.
It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised
to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices
of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might
occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
resentment. ^66 But it is certain, and we may appeal to the
grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest
part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the
authority of the emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands
alone the jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved
like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected
the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts
of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of
persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to
the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude
the severity of the laws. ^67 Whenever they were invested with a
discretionary power, ^68 they used it much less for the
oppression, than for the relief and benefit of the afflicted
church. They were far from condemning all the Christians who
were accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing
with death all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence
to the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most
part, with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or
slavery in the mines, ^69 they left the unhappy victims of their
justice some reason to hope, that a prosperous event, the
accession, the marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might
speedily restore them, by a general pardon, to their former
state. The martyrs, devoted to immediate execution by the Roman
magistrates, appear to have been selected from the most opposite
extremes. They were either bishops and presbyters, the persons
the most distinguished among the Christians by their rank and
influence, and whose example might strike terror into the whole
sect; ^70 or else they were the meanest and most abject among
them, particularly those of the servile condition, whose lives
were esteemed of little value, and whose sufferings were viewed
by the ancients with too careless an indifference. ^71 The
learned Origen, who, from his experience as well as reading, was
intimately acquainted with the history of the Christians,
declares, in the most express terms, that the number of martyrs
was very inconsiderable. ^72 His authority would alone be
sufficient to annihilate that formidable army of martyrs, whose
relics, drawn for the most part from the catacombs of Rome, have
replenished so many churches, ^73 and whose marvellous
achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of Holy
Romance. ^74 But the general assertion of Origen may be explained
and confirmed by the particular testimony of his friend
Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria, and under the
rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men and seven
women who suffered for the profession of the Christian name. ^75
[Footnote 66: The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius
Herminianus, governor of Cappadocia, to treat the Christians with
uncommon severity. Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.]
[Footnote 67: Tertullian, in his epistle to the governor of
Africa, mentions several remarkable instances of lenity and
forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge.]
[Footnote 68: Neque enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam
formam habeat, constitui potest; an expression of Trajan, which
gave a very great latitude to the governors of provinces.
Note: Gibbon altogether forgets that Trajan fully approved
of the course pursued by Pliny. That course was, to order all
who persevered in their faith to be led to execution:
perseverantes duci jussi. - M.]
[Footnote 69: In Metalla damnamur, in insulas relegamur.
Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The mines of Numidia contained nine
bishops, with a proportionable number of their clergy and people,
to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and comfort.
See Cyprian. Epistol. 76, 77.]
[Footnote 70: Though we cannot receive with entire confidence
either the epistles, or the acts, of Ignatius, (they may be found
in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers,) yet we may quote that
bishop of Antioch as one of these exemplary martyrs. He was sent
in chains to Rome as a public spectacle, and when he arrived at
Troas, he received the pleasing intelligence, that the
persecution of Antioch was already at an end.
Note: The acts of Ignatius are generally received as
authentic, as are seven of his letters. Eusebius and St. Jerome
mention them: there are two editions; in one, the letters are
longer, and many passages appear to have been interpolated; the
other edition is that which contains the real letters of St.
Ignatius; such at least is the opinion of the wisest and most
enlightened critics. (See Lardner. Cred. of Gospel Hist.) Less,
uber dis Religion, v. i. p. 529. Usser. Diss. de Ign. Epist.
Pearson, Vindic, Ignatianae. It should be remarked, that it was
under the reign of Trajan that the bishop Ignatius was carried
from Antioch to Rome, to be exposed to the lions in the
amphitheatre, the year of J. C. 107, according to some; of 116,
according to others. - G.]
[Footnote 71: Among the martyrs of Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,)
the slave Blandina was distinguished by more exquisite tortures.
Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in the acts of Felicitas
and Perpetua, two were of a servile, and two others of a very
mean, condition.]
[Footnote 72: Origen. advers. Celsum, l. iii. p. 116. His words
deserve to be transcribed.
Note: The words that follow should be quoted. "God not
permitting that all his class of men should be exterminated: "
which appears to indicate that Origen thought the number put to
death inconsiderable only when compared to the numbers who had
survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the state of the
religion under Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, and
Philip, who had not persecuted the Christians. It was during the
reign of the latter that Origen wrote his books against Celsus. -
G.]
[Footnote 73: If we recollect that all the Plebeians of Rome were
not Christians, and that all the Christians were not saints and
martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious honors can
be ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken from the
public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free and open
trade, some suspicions have arisen among the more learned
Catholics. They now require as a proof of sanctity and
martyrdom, the letters B.M., a vial full of red liquor supposed
to be blood, or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former
signs are of little weight, and with regard to the last, it is
observed by the critics, 1. That the figure, as it is called, of
a palm, is perhaps a cypress, and perhaps only a stop, the
flourish of a comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That
the palm was the symbol of victory among the Pagans. 3. That
among the Christians it served as the emblem, not only of
martyrdom, but in general of a joyful resurrection. See the
epistle of P. Mabillon, on the worship of unknown saints, and
Muratori sopra le Antichita Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.]
[Footnote 74: As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied
with 10,000 Christian soldiers crucified in one day, either by
Trajan or Hadrian on Mount Ararat. See Baronius ad Martyrologium
Romanum; Tille mont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. part ii. p. 438;
and Geddes's Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation of
Mil., which may signify either soldiers or thousands, is said to
have occasioned some extraordinary mistakes.]
[Footnote 75: Dionysius ap. Euseb l. vi. c. 41 One of the
seventeen was likewise accused of robbery.
Note: Gibbon ought to have said, was falsely accused of
robbery, for so it is in the Greek text. This Christian, named
Nemesion, falsely accused of robbery before the centurion, was
acquitted of a crime altogether foreign to his character, but he
was led before the governor as guilty of being a Christian, and
the governor inflicted upon him a double torture. (Euseb. loc.
cit.) It must be added, that Saint Dionysius only makes
particular mention of the principal martyrs, [this is very
doubtful. - M.] and that he says, in general, that the fury of
the Pagans against the Christians gave to Alexandria the
appearance of a city taken by storm. [This refers to plunder and
ill usage, not to actual slaughter. - M.] Finally it should be
observed that Origen wrote before the persecution of the emperor
Decius. - G.]
During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the
eloquent, the ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of
Carthage, but even of Africa. He possessed every quality which
could engage the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the
suspicions and resentment of the Pagan magistrates. His character
as well as his station seemed to mark out that holy prelate as
the most distinguished object of envy and danger. ^76 The
experience, however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to
prove that our fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a
Christian bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were
less imminent than those which temporal ambition is always
prepared to encounter in the pursuit of honors. Four Roman
emperors, with their families, their favorites, and their
adherents, perished by the sword in the space of ten years,
during which the bishop of Carthage guided by his authority and
eloquence the councils of the African church. It was only in the
third year of his administration, that he had reason, during a
few months, to apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the
vigilance of the magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who
loudly demanded, that Cyprian, the leader of the Christians,
should be thrown to the lions. Prudence suggested the necessity
of a temporary retreat, and the voice of prudence was obeyed. He
withdrew himself into an obscure solitude, from whence he could
maintain a constant correspondence with the clergy and people of
Carthage; and, concealing himself till the tempest was past, he
preserved his life, without relinquishing either his power or his
reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the
censure of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the
reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which
they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the
most sacred duty. ^77 The propriety of reserving himself for the
future exigencies of the church, the example of several holy
bishops, ^78 and the divine admonitions, which, as he declares
himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies, were
the reasons alleged in his justification. ^79 But his best
apology may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which,
about eight years afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of
religion. The authentic history of his martyrdom has been
recorded with unusual candor and impartiality. A short abstract,
therefore, of its most important circumstances, will convey the
clearest information of the spirit, and of the forms, of the
Roman persecutions. ^80
[Footnote 76: The letters of Cyprian exhibit a very curious and
original picture both of the man and of the times. See likewise
the two lives of Cyprian, composed with equal accuracy, though
with very different views; the one by Le Clerc (Bibliotheque
Universelle, tom. xii. p. 208-378,) the other by Tillemont,
Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iv part i. p. 76-459.]
[Footnote 77: See the polite but severe epistle of the clergy of
Rome to the bishop of Carthage. (Cyprian. Epist. 8, 9.) Pontius
labors with the greatest care and diligence to justify his master
against the general censure.]
[Footnote 78: In particular those of Dionysius of Alexandria, and
Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Neo-Caesarea. See Euseb. Hist.
Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 40; and Memoires de Tillemont, tom. iv.
part ii. p. 685.]
[Footnote 79: See Cyprian. Epist. 16, and his life by Pontius.]
[Footnote 80: We have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon
Pontius, the companion of his exile, and the spectator of his
death; and we likewise possess the ancient proconsular acts of
his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each
other, and with probability; and what is somewhat remarkable,
they are both unsullied by any miraculous circumstances.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part IV.
When Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for
the fourth time, Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian
to appear in his private council-chamber. He there acquainted
him with the Imperial mandate which he had just received, ^81
that those who had abandoned the Roman religion should
immediately return to the practice of the ceremonies of their
ancestors. Cyprian replied without hesitation, that he was a
Christian and a bishop, devoted to the worship of the true and
only Deity, to whom he offered up his daily supplications for the
safety and prosperity of the two emperors, his lawful sovereigns.
With modest confidence he pleaded the privilege of a citizen, in
refusing to give any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal
questions which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence of
banishment was pronounced as the penalty of Cyprian's
disobedience; and he was conducted without delay to Curubis, a
free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a pleasant situation, a
fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty miles from
Carthage. ^82 The exiled bishop enjoyed the conveniences of life
and the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was diffused over
Africa and Italy; an account of his behavior was published for
the edification of the Christian world; ^83 and his solitude was
frequently interrupted by the letters, the visits, and the
congratulations of the faithful. On the arrival of a new
proconsul in the province the fortune of Cyprian appeared for
some time to wear a still more favorable aspect. He was recalled
from banishment; and though not yet permitted to return to
Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the capital were
assigned for the place of his residence. ^84
[Footnote 81: It should seem that these were circular orders,
sent at the same time to all the governors. Dionysius (ap.
Euseb. l. vii. c. 11) relates the history of his own banishment
from Alexandria almost in the same manner. But as he escaped and
survived the persecution, we must account him either more or less
fortunate than Cyprian.]
[Footnote 82: See Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 3. Cellarius, Geograph.
Antiq. part iii. p. 96. Shaw's Travels, p. 90; and for the
adjacent country, (which is terminated by Cape Bona, or the
promontory of Mercury,) l'Afrique de Marmol. tom. ii. p. 494.
There are the remains of an aqueduct near Curubis, or Curbis, at
present altered into Gurbes; and Dr. Shaw read an inscription,
which styles that city Colonia Fulvia. The deacon Pontius (in
Vit. Cyprian. c. 12) calls it "Apricum et competentem locum,
hospitium pro voluntate secretum, et quicquid apponi eis ante
promissum est, qui regnum et justitiam Dei quaerunt."]
[Footnote 83: See Cyprian. Epistol. 77, edit. Fell.]
[Footnote 84: Upon his conversion, he had sold those gardens for
the benefit of the poor. The indulgence of God (most probably
the liberality of some Christian friend) restored them to
Cyprian. See Pontius, c. 15.]
At length, exactly one year ^85 after Cyprian was first
apprehended, Galerius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, received the
Imperial warrant for the execution of the Christian teachers.
The bishop of Carthage was sensible that he should be singled out
for one of the first victims; and the frailty of nature tempted
him to withdraw himself, by a secret flight, from the danger and
the honor of martyrdom; ^* but soon recovering that fortitude
which his character required, he returned to his gardens, and
patiently expected the ministers of death. Two officers of rank,
who were intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian between
them in a chariot, and as the proconsul was not then at leisure,
they conducted him, not to a prison, but to a private house in
Carthage, which belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was
provided for the entertainment of the bishop, and his Christian
friends were permitted for the last time to enjoy his society,
whilst the streets were filled with a multitude of the faithful,
anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate of their spiritual
father. ^86 In the morning he appeared before the tribunal of the
proconsul, who, after informing himself of the name and situation
of Cyprian, commanded him to offer sacrifice, and pressed him to
reflect on the consequences of his disobedience. The refusal of
Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the magistrate, when he had
taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with some reluctance
the sentence of death. It was conceived in the following terms:
"That Thascius Cyprianus should be immediately beheaded, as the
enemy of the gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a
criminal association, which he had seduced into an impious
resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors, Valerian
and Gallienus." ^87 The manner of his execution was the mildest
and least painful that could be inflicted on a person convicted
of any capital offence; nor was the use of torture admitted to
obtain from the bishop of Carthage either the recantation of his
principles or the discovery of his accomplices.
[Footnote 85: When Cyprian; a twelvemonth before, was sent into
exile, he dreamt that he should be put to death the next day.
The event made it necessary to explain that word, as signifying a
year. Pontius, c. 12.]
[Footnote *: This was not, as it appears, the motive which
induced St. Cyprian to conceal himself for a short time; he was
threatened to be carried to Utica; he preferred remaining at
Carthage, in order to suffer martyrdom in the midst of his flock,
and in order that his death might conduce to the edification of
those whom he had guided during life. Such, at least, is his own
explanation of his conduct in one of his letters: Cum perlatum ad
nos fuisset, fratres carissimi, frumentarios esse missos qui me
Uticam per ducerent, consilioque carissimorum persuasum est, ut
de hortis interim recederemus, justa interveniente causa,
consensi; eo quod congruat episcopum in ea civitate, in qua
Ecclesiae dominicae praeest, illie. Dominum confiteri et plebem
universam praepositi praesentis confessione clarificari Ep. 83. -
G]
[Footnote 86: Pontius (c. 15) acknowledges that Cyprian, with
whom he supped, passed the night custodia delicata. The bishop
exercised a last and very proper act of jurisdiction, by
directing that the younger females, who watched in the streets,
should be removed from the dangers and temptations of a nocturnal
crowd. Act. Preconsularia, c. 2.]
[Footnote 87: See the original sentence in the Acts, c. 4; and in
Pontius, c. 17 The latter expresses it in a more rhetorical
manner.]
As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of "We
will die with him," arose at once among the listening multitude
of Christians who waited before the palace gates. The generous
effusions of their zeal and their affection were neither
serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous to themselves. He was led
away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without resistance
and without insult, to the place of his execution, a spacious and
level plain near the city, which was already filled with great
numbers of spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were
permitted to accompany their holy bishop. ^* They assisted him in
laying aside his upper garment, spread linen on the ground to
catch the precious relics of his blood, and received his orders
to bestow five-and-twenty pieces of gold on the executioner. The
martyr then covered his face with his hands, and at one blow his
head was separated from his body. His corpse remained during
some hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the
night it was removed, and transported in a triumphal procession,
and with a splendid illumination, to the burial-place of the
Christians. The funeral of Cyprian was publicly celebrated
without receiving any interruption from the Roman magistrates;
and those among the faithful, who had performed the last offices
to his person and his memory, were secure from the danger of
inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable, that of so great a
multitude of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the
first who was esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom.
^88
[Footnote *: There is nothing in the life of St. Cyprian, by
Pontius, nor in the ancient manuscripts, which can make us
suppose that the presbyters and deacons in their clerical
character, and known to be such, had the permission to attend
their holy bishop. Setting aside all religious considerations,
it is impossible not to be surprised at the kind of complaisance
with which the historian here insists, in favor of the
persecutors, on some mitigating circumstances allowed at the
death of a man whose only crime was maintaining his own opinions
with frankness and courage. - G.]
[Footnote 88: Pontius, c. 19. M. de Tillemont (Memoires, tom.
iv. part i. p. 450, note 50) is not pleased with so positive an
exclusion of any former martyr of the episcopal rank.
Note: M. de. Tillemont, as an honest writer, explains the
difficulties which he felt about the text of Pontius, and
concludes by distinctly stating, that without doubt there is some
mistake, and that Pontius must have meant only Africa Minor or
Carthage; for St. Cyprian, in his 58th (69th) letter addressed to
Pupianus, speaks expressly of many bishops his colleagues, qui
proscripti sunt, vel apprehensi in carcere et catenis fuerunt;
aut qui in exilium relegati, illustri itinere ed Dominum profecti
sunt; aut qui quibusdam locis animadversi, coeleses coronas de
Domini clarificatione sumpserunt. - G.]
It was in the choice of Cyprian, either to die a martyr, or
to live an apostate; but on the choice depended the alternative
of honor or infamy. Could we suppose that the bishop of Carthage
had employed the profession of the Christian faith only as the
instrument of his avarice or ambition, it was still incumbent on
him to support the character he had assumed; ^89 and if he
possessed the smallest degree of manly fortitude, rather to
expose himself to the most cruel tortures, than by a single act
to exchange the reputation of a whole life, for the abhorrence of
his Christian brethren, and the contempt of the Gentile world.
But if the zeal of Cyprian was supported by the sincere
conviction of the truth of those doctrines which he preached, the
crown of martyrdom must have appeared to him as an object of
desire rather than of terror. It is not easy to extract any
distinct ideas from the vague though eloquent declamations of the
Fathers, or to ascertain the degree of immortal glory and
happiness which they confidently promised to those who were so
fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of religion. ^90
They inculcated with becoming diligence, that the fire of
martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated every sin; that
while the souls of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass
through a slow and painful purification, the triumphant sufferers
entered into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in
the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the prophets,
they reigned with Christ, and acted as his assessors in the
universal judgment of mankind. The assurance of a lasting
reputation upon earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of
human nature, often served to animate the courage of the martyrs.
The honors which Rome or Athens bestowed on those citizens who
had fallen in the cause of their country, were cold and unmeaning
demonstrations of respect, when compared with the ardent
gratitude and devotion which the primitive church expressed
towards the victorious champions of the faith. The annual
commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed as a
sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious worship.
Among the Christians who had publicly confessed their religious
principles, those who (as it very frequently happened) had been
dismissed from the tribunal or the prisons of the Pagan
magistrates, obtained such honors as were justly due to their
imperfect martyrdom and their generous resolution. The most
pious females courted the permission of imprinting kisses on the
fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had
received. Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were
admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by their
spiritual pride and licentious manners, the preeminence which
their zeal and intrepidity had acquired. ^91 Distinctions like
these, whilst they display the exalted merit, betray the
inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who
died, for the profession of Christianity.
[Footnote 89: Whatever opinion we may entertain of the character
or principles of Thomas Becket, we must acknowledge that he
suffered death with a constancy not unworthy of the primitive
martyrs. See Lord Lyttleton's History of Henry II. vol. ii. p.
592, &c.]
[Footnote 90: See in particular the treatise of Cyprian de
Lapsis, p. 87- 98, edit. Fell. The learning of Dodwell
(Dissertat. Cyprianic. xii. xiii.,) and the ingenuity of
Middleton, (Free Inquiry, p. 162, &c.,) have left scarcely any
thing to add concerning the merit, the honors, and the motives of
the martyrs.]
[Footnote 91: Cyprian. Epistol. 5, 6, 7, 22, 24; and de Unitat.
Ecclesiae. The number of pretended martyrs has been very much
multiplied, by the custom which was introduced of bestowing that
honorable name on confessors.
Note: M. Guizot denies that the letters of Cyprian, to which
he refers, bear out the statement in the text. I cannot scruple
to admit the accuracy of Gibbon's quotation. To take only the
fifth letter, we find this passage: Doleo enim quando audio
quosdam improbe et insolenter discurrere, et ad ineptian vel ad
discordias vacare, Christi membra et jam Christum confessa per
concubitus illicitos inquinari, nec a diaconis aut presbyteris
regi posse, sed id agere ut per paucorum pravos et malos mores,
multorum et bonorum confessorum gloria honesta maculetur.
Gibbon's misrepresentation lies in the ambiguous expression "too
often." Were the epistles arranged in a different manner in the
edition consulted by M. Guizot? - M.]
The sober discretion of the present age will more readily
censure than admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the
fervor of the first Christians, who, according to the lively
expressions of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more
eagerness than his own contemporaries solicited a bishopric. ^92
The epistles which Ignatius composed as he was carried in chains
through the cities of Asia, breathe sentiments the most repugnant
to the ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly beseeches
the Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre,
they would not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession,
deprive him of the crown of glory; and he declares his resolution
to provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be employed
as the instruments of his death. ^93 Some stories are related of
the courage of martyrs, who actually performed what Ignatius had
intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the
executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the
fires which were kindled to consume them, and discovered a
sensation of joy and pleasure in the midst of the most exquisite
tortures. Several examples have been preserved of a zeal
impatient of those restraints which the emperors had provided for
the security of the church. The Christians sometimes supplied by
their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely
disturbed the public service of paganism, ^94 and rushing in
crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to
pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior
of the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the
ancient philosophers; but they seem to have considered it with
much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving
the motives which sometimes transported the fortitude of
believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they treated
such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate
despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy. ^95
"Unhappy men!" exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the
Christians of Asia; "unhappy men! if you are thus weary of your
lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices?"
^96 He was extremely cautious (as it is observed by a learned and
picus historian) of punishing men who had found no accusers but
themselves, the Imperial laws not having made any provision for
so unexpected a case: condemning therefore a few as a warning to
their brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation and
contempt. ^97 Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the
intrepid constancy of the faithful was productive of more
salutary effects on those minds which nature or grace had
disposed for the easy reception of religious truth. On these
melancholy occasions, there were many among the Gentiles who
pitied, who admired, and who were converted. The generous
enthusiasm was communicated from the sufferer to the spectators;
and the blood of martyrs, according to a well-known observation,
became the seed of the church.
[Footnote 92: Certatim gloriosa in certamina ruebatur; multique
avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quaerebantur, quam nunc
Episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur. Sulpicius Severus,
l. ii. He might have omitted the word nunc.]
[Footnote 93: See Epist. ad Roman. c. 4, 5, ap. Patres Apostol.
tom. ii. p. 27. It suited the purpose of Bishop Pearson (see
Vindiciae Ignatianae, part ii. c. 9) to justify, by a profusion
of examples and authorities, the sentiments of Ignatius.]
[Footnote 94: The story of Polyeuctes, on which Corneille has
founded a very beautiful tragedy, is one of the most celebrated,
though not perhaps the most authentic, instances of this
excessive zeal. We should observe, that the 60th canon of the
council of Illiberis refuses the title of martyrs to those who
exposed themselves to death, by publicly destroying the idols.]
[Footnote 95: See Epictetus, l. iv. c. 7, (though there is some
doubt whether he alludes to the Christians.) Marcus Antoninus de
Rebus suis, l. xi. c. 3 Lucian in Peregrin.]
[Footnote 96: Tertullian ad Scapul. c. 5. The learned are
divided between three persons of the same name, who were all
proconsuls of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this story to
Antoninus Pius, who was afterwards emperor; and who may have
governed Asia under the reign of Trajan.]
[Footnote 97: Mosheim, de Rebus Christ, ante Constantin. p. 235.]
But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to
inflame, this fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the
more natural hopes and fears of the human heart, to the love of
life, the apprehension of pain, and the horror of dissolution.
The more prudent rulers of the church found themselves obliged to
restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers, and to distrust
a constancy which too often abandoned them in the hour of trial.
^98 As the lives of the faithful became less mortified and
austere, they were every day less ambitious of the honors of
martyrdom; and the soldiers of Christ, instead of distinguishing
themselves by voluntary deeds of heroism, frequently deserted
their post, and fled in confusion before the enemy whom it was
their duty to resist. There were three methods, however, of
escaping the flames of persecution, which were not attended with
an equal degree of guilt: first, indeed, was generally allowed to
be innocent; the second was of a doubtful, or at least of a
venial, nature; but the third implied a direct and criminal
apostasy from the Christian faith.
[Footnote 98: See the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, ap. Euseb.
Hist. Eccles. Liv. c. 15
Note: The 15th chapter of the 10th book of the Eccles.
History of Eusebius treats principally of the martyrdom of St.
Polycarp, and mentions some other martyrs. A single example of
weakness is related; it is that of a Phrygian named Quintus, who,
appalled at the sight of the wild beasts and the tortures,
renounced his faith. This example proves little against the mass
of Christians, and this chapter of Eusebius furnished much
stronger evidence of their courage than of their timidity. - G
This Quintus had, however, rashly and of his own accord
appeared before the tribunal; and the church of Smyrna condemn
"his indiscreet ardor," coupled as it was with weakness in the
hour of trial. - M.]
I. A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that
whenever an information was given to a Roman magistrate of any
person within his jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the
Christians, the charge was communicated to the party accused, and
that a convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic
concerns, and to prepare an answer to the crime which was imputed
to him. ^99 If he entertained any doubt of his own constancy,
such a delay afforded him the opportunity of preserving his life
and honor by flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure
retirement or some distant province, and of patiently expecting
the return of peace and security. A measure so consonant to
reason was soon authorized by the advice and example of the most
holy prelates; and seems to have been censured by few except by
the Montanists, who deviated into heresy by their strict and
obstinate adherence to the rigor of ancient discipline. ^100 II.
The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent than
their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling
certificates, (or libels, as they were called,) which attested,
that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws,
and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false
declarations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to
silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in some
measure their safety with their religion. A slight penance atoned
for this profane dissimulation. ^101 ^* III. In every
persecution there were great numbers of unworthy Christians who
publicly disowned or renounced the faith which they had
professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their abjuration,
by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering sacrifices.
Some of these apostates had yielded on the first menace or
exhortation of the magistrate; whilst the patience of others had
been subdued by the length and repetition of tortures. The
affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward remorse,
while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to the altars
of the gods. ^102 But the disguise which fear had imposed,
subsisted no longer than the present danger. As soon as the
severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the churches
were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents who
detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with
equal ardor, but with various success, their readmission into the
society of Christians. ^103 ^!
[Footnote 99: In the second apology of Justin, there is a
particular and very curious instance of this legal delay. The
same indulgence was granted to accused Christians, in the
persecution of Decius: and Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly mentions
the "Dies negantibus praestitutus."
Note: The examples drawn by the historian from Justin Martyr
and Cyprian relate altogether to particular cases, and prove
nothing as to the general practice adopted towards the accused;
it is evident, on the contrary, from the same apology of St.
Justin, that they hardly ever obtained delay. "A man named
Lucius, himself a Christian, present at an unjust sentence passed
against a Christian by the judge Urbicus, asked him why he thus
punished a man who was neither adulterer nor robber, nor guilty
of any other crime but that of avowing himself a Christian."
Urbicus answered only in these words: "Thou also hast the
appearance of being a Christian." "Yes, without doubt," replied
Lucius. The judge ordered that he should be put to death on the
instant. A third, who came up, was condemned to be beaten with
rods. Here, then, are three examples where no delay was granted.
[Surely these acts of a single passionate and irritated judge
prove the general practice as little as those quoted by Gibbon. -
M.] There exist a multitude of others, such as those of Ptolemy,
Marcellus, &c. Justin expressly charges the judges with ordering
the accused to be executed without hearing the cause. The words
of St. Cyprian are as particular, and simply say, that he had
appointed a day by which the Christians must have renounced their
faith; those who had not done it by that time were condemned. -
G. This confirms the statement in the text. - M.]
[Footnote 100: Tertullian considers flight from persecution as an
imperfect, but very criminal, apostasy, as an impious attempt to
elude the will of God, &c., &c. He has written a treatise on
this subject, (see p. 536 - 544, edit. Rigalt.,) which is filled
with the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation.
It is, however, somewhat remarkable, that Tertullian did not
suffer martyrdom himself.]
[Footnote 101: The libellatici, who are chiefly known by the
writings of Cyprian, are described with the utmost precision, in
the copious commentary of Mosheim, p. 483 - 489.]
[Footnote *: The penance was not so slight, for it was exactly
the same with that of apostates who had sacrificed to idols; it
lasted several years. See Fleun Hist. Ecc. v. ii. p. 171. - G.]
[Footnote 102: Plin. Epist. x. 97. Dionysius Alexandrin. ap.
Euseb. l. vi. c. 41. Ad prima statim verba minantis inimici
maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam prodidit: nec prostratus est
persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu seipsum prostravit.
Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many priests,
and even bishops.]
[Footnote 103: It was on this occasion that Cyprian wrote his
treatise De Lapsis, and many of his epistles. The controversy
concerning the treatment of penitent apostates, does not occur
among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe
this to the superiority of their faith and courage, or to our
less intimate knowledge of their history!]
[Footnote !: Pliny says, that the greater part of the Christians
persisted in avowing themselves to be so; the reason for his
consulting Trajan was the periclitantium numerus. Eusebius (l.
vi. c. 41) does not permit us to doubt that the number of those
who renounced their faith was infinitely below the number of
those who boldly confessed it. The prefect, he says and his
assessors present at the council, were alarmed at seeing the
crowd of Christians; the judges themselves trembled. Lastly, St.
Cyprian informs us, that the greater part of those who had
appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius, signalized
their courage in that of Gallius. Steterunt fortes, et ipso
dolore poenitentiae facti ad praelium fortiores Epist. lx. p.
142. - G.]
IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the
conviction and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those
sectaries, in an extensive and arbitrary government, must still
in a great measure, have depended on their own behavior, the
circumstances of the times, and the temper of their supreme as
well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes provoke, and
prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the superstitious fury
of the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the provincial
governors either to enforce or to relax the execution of the
laws; and of these motives the most forcible was their regard not
only for the public edicts, but for the secret intentions of the
emperor, a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to
extinguish the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional
severities were exercised in the different parts of the empire,
the primitive Christians lamented and perhaps magnified their own
sufferings; but the celebrated number of ten persecutions has
been determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the fifth
century, who possessed a more distinct view of the prosperous or
adverse fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to that of
Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt,
and of the ten horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested this
calculation to their minds; and in their application of the faith
of prophecy to the truth of history, they were careful to select
those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the Christian
cause. ^104 But these transient persecutions served only to
revive the zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful;
and the moments of extraordinary rigor were compensated by much
longer intervals of peace and security. The indifference of some
princes, and the indulgence of others, permitted the Christians
to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an actual and public,
toleration of their religion.
[Footnote 104: See Mosheim, p. 97. Sulpicius Severus was the
first author of this computation; though he seemed desirous of
reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the coming of
the Antichrist.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part V.
The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very
singular, but at the same time very suspicious, instances of
Imperial clemency; the edicts published by Tiberius, and by
Marcus Antoninus, and designed not only to protect the innocence
of the Christians, but even to proclaim those stupendous miracles
which had attested the truth of their doctrine. The first of
these examples is attended with some difficulties which might
perplex a sceptical mind. ^105 We are required to believe, that
Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of
death which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it
appeared, a divine, person; and that, without acquiring the
merit, he exposed himself to the danger of martyrdom; that
Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion, immediately
conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah among the gods
of Rome; that his servile senate ventured to disobey the commands
of their master; that Tiberius, instead of resenting their
refusal, contented himself with protecting the Christians from
the severity of the laws, many years before such laws were
enacted, or before the church had assumed any distinct name or
existence; and lastly, that the memory of this extraordinary
transaction was preserved in the most public and authentic
records, which escaped the knowledge of the historians of Greece
and Rome, and were only visible to the eyes of an African
Christian, who composed his apology one hundred and sixty years
after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is
supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude
for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the
Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the seasonable
tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the
dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have been celebrated by the
eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any Christians
in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some merit
to the fervent prayers, which, in the moment of danger, they had
offered up for their own and the public safety. But we are still
assured by monuments of brass and marble, by the Imperial medals,
and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince nor the
people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since
they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of
Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. During the whole
course of his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a
philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign. ^106 ^*
[Footnote 105: The testimony given by Pontius Pilate is first
mentioned by Justin. The successive improvements which the story
acquired (as if has passed through the hands of Tertullian,
Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and
the authors of the several editions of the acts of Pilate) are
very fairly stated by Dom Calmet Dissertat. sur l'Ecriture, tom.
iii. p. 651, &c.]
[Footnote 106: On this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the
thundering legion, see the admirable criticism of Mr. Moyle, in
his Works, vol. ii. p. 81 - 390.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which
admits the injustice of Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one
of the most remarkable facts in the early Christian history, that
the reign of the wisest and most humane of the heathen emperors
was the most fatal to the Christians. Most writers have ascribed
the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of his
character; Mosheim, to the influence of the philosophic party;
but the fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington,
Hist. of the Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to assert, that
"this prince polluted every year of a long reign with innocent
blood;" but the causes as well as the date of the persecutions
authorized or permitted by Marcus are equally uncertain.
Of the Asiatic edict recorded by Melito. the date is
unknown, nor is it quite clear that it was an Imperial edict. If
it was the act under which Polycarp suffered, his martyrdom is
placed by Ruinart in the sixth, by Mosheim in the ninth, year of
the reign of Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are
assigned by Dodwell to the seventh, by most writers to the
seventeenth. In fact, the commencement of the persecutions of the
Christians appears to synchronize exactly with the period of the
breaking out of the Marcomannic war, which seems to have alarmed
the whole empire, and the emperor himself, into a paroxysm of
returning piety to their gods, of which the Christians were the
victims. See Jul, Capit. Script. Hist August. p. 181, edit.
1661. It is remarkable that Tertullian [Apologet. c. v.)
distinctly asserts that Verus (M. Aurelius) issued no edicts
against the Christians, and almost positively exempts him from
the charge of persecution. - M.
This remarkable synchronism, which explains the persecutions
under M Aurelius, is shown at length in Milman's History of
Christianity, book ii. v. - M. 1845.]
By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured
under the government of a virtuous prince, immediately ceased on
the accession of a tyrant; and as none except themselves had
experienced the injustice of Marcus, so they alone were protected
by the lenity of Commodus. The celebrated Marcia, the most
favored of his concubines, and who at length contrived the murder
of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular affection for the
oppressed church; and though it was impossible that she could
reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the gospel,
she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and
profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians.
^107 Under the gracious protection of Marcia, they passed in
safety the thirteen years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire
was established in the house of Severus, they formed a domestic
but more honorable connection with the new court. The emperor
was persuaded, that in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some
benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil, with
which one of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with
peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had
embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor of
Caracalla were Christians; ^* and if that young prince ever
betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an
incident, which, however trifling, bore some relation to the
cause of Christianity. ^108 Under the reign of Severus, the fury
of the populace was checked; the rigor of ancient laws was for
some time suspended; and the provincial governors were satisfied
with receiving an annual present from the churches within their
jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their
moderation. ^109 The controversy concerning the precise time of
the celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy
against each other, and was considered as the most important
business of this period of leisure and tranquillity. ^110 Nor was
the peace of the church interrupted, till the increasing numbers
of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the attention, and
to have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of
restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict,
which, though it was designed to affect only the new converts,
could not be carried into strict execution, without exposing to
danger and punishment the most zealous of their teachers and
missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we may still
discover the indulgent spirit of Rome and of Polytheism, which so
readily admitted every excuse in favor of those who practised the
religious ceremonies of their fathers. ^111
[Footnote 107: Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin,
l. lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has explained the
condition of the church under the reign of Commodus.]
[Footnote *: The Jews and Christians contest the honor of having
furnished a nurse is the fratricide son of Severus Caracalla.
Hist. of Jews, iii. 158. - M.]
[Footnote 108: Compare the life of Caracalla in the Augustan
History, with the epistle of Tertullian to Scapula. Dr. Jortin
(Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5, &c.) considers
the cure of Severus by the means of holy oil, with a strong
desire to convert it into a miracle.]
[Footnote 109: Tertullian de Fuga, c. 13. The present was made
during the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious
concern to Tertullian, that the faithful should be confounded
with the most infamous professions which purchased the connivance
of the government.]
[Footnote 110: Euseb. l. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, p. 435 - 447.]
[Footnote 111: Judaeos fieri sub gravi poena vetuit. Idem etiam
de Christianis sanxit. Hist. August. p. 70.]
But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the
authority of that emperor; and the Christians, after this
accidental tempest, enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years. ^112
Till this period they had usually held their assemblies in
private houses and sequestered places. They were now permitted
to erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of
religious worship; ^113 to purchase lands, even at Rome itself,
for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of
their ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time
in so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention
of the Gentiles. ^114 This long repose of the church was
accompanied with dignity. The reigns of those princes who
derived their extraction from the Asiatic provinces, proved the
most favorable to the Christians; the eminent persons of the
sect, instead of being reduced to implore the protection of a
slave or concubine, were admitted into the palace in the
honorable characters of priests and philosophers; and their
mysterious doctrines, which were already diffused among the
people, insensibly attracted the curiosity of their sovereign.
When the empress Mammaea passed through Antioch, she expressed a
desire of conversing with the celebrated Origen, the fame of
whose piety and learning was spread over the East. Origen obeyed
so flattering an invitation, and though he could not expect to
succeed in the conversion of an artful and ambitious woman, she
listened with pleasure to his eloquent exhortations, and
honorably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine. ^115 The
sentiments of Mammaea were adopted by her son Alexander, and the
philosophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but
injudicious regard for the Christian religion. In his domestic
chapel he placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of
Apollonius, and of Christ, as an honor justly due to those
respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the various modes
of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.
^116 A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed and
practised among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first
time, were seen at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when
the inhuman Maximin discharged his fury on the favorites and
servants of his unfortunate benefactor, a great number of
Christians of every rank and of both sexes, were involved the
promiscuous massacre, which, on their account, has improperly
received the name of Persecution. ^117 ^*
[Footnote 112: Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 384. This
computation (allowing for a single exception) is confirmed by the
history of Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian.]
[Footnote 113: The antiquity of Christian churches is discussed
by Tillemont, (Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iii. part ii. p.
68-72,) and by Mr. Moyle, (vol. i. p. 378-398.) The former refers
the first construction of them to the peace of Alexander Severus;
the latter, to the peace of Gallienus.]
[Footnote 114: See the Augustan History, p. 130. The emperor
Alexander adopted their method of publicly proposing the names of
those persons who were candidates for ordination. It is true
that the honor of this practice is likewise attributed to the
Jews.]
[Footnote 115: Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 21. Hieronym.
de Script. Eccles. c. 54. Mammaea was styled a holy and pious
woman, both by the Christians and the Pagans. From the former,
therefore, it was impossible that she should deserve that
honorable epithet.]
[Footnote 116: See the Augustan History, p. 123. Mosheim (p.
465) seems to refine too much on the domestic religion of
Alexander. His design of building a public temple to Christ,
(Hist. August. p. 129,) and the objection which was suggested
either to him, or in similar circumstances to Hadrian, appear to
have no other foundation than an improbable report, invented by
the Christians, and credulously adopted by an historian of the
age of Constantine.]
[Footnote 117: Euseb. l. vi. c. 28. It may be presumed that the
success of the Christians had exasperated the increasing bigotry
of the Pagans. Dion Cassius, who composed his history under the
former reign, had most probably intended for the use of his
master those counsels of persecution, which he ascribes to a
better age, and to and to the favorite of Augustus. Concerning
this oration of Maecenas, or rather of Dion, I may refer to my
own unbiased opinion, (vol. i. c. 1, note 25,) and to the Abbe de
la Bleterie (Memoires de l'Academie, tom. xxiv. p. 303 tom xxv.
p. 432.)
Note: If this be the case, Dion Cassius must have known the
Christians they must have been the subject of his particular
attention, since the author supposes that he wished his master to
profit by these "counsels of persecution." How are we to
reconcile this necessary consequence with what Gibbon has said of
the ignorance of Dion Cassius even of the name of the Christians?
(c. xvi. n. 24.) [Gibbon speaks of Dion's silence, not of his
ignorance. - M] The supposition in this note is supported by no
proof; it is probable that Dion Cassius has often designated the
Christians by the name of Jews. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. c
14, lxviii. l - G.
On this point I should adopt the view of Gibbon rather than
that of M Guizot. - M]
[Footnote *: It is with good reason that this massacre has been
called a persecution, for it lasted during the whole reign of
Maximin, as may be seen in Eusebius. (l. vi. c. 28.) Rufinus
expressly confirms it: Tribus annis a Maximino persecutione
commota, in quibus finem et persecutionis fecit et vitas Hist. l.
vi. c. 19. - G.]
Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the
effects of his resentment against the Christians were of a very
local and temporary nature, and the pious Origen, who had been
proscribed as a devoted victim, was still reserved to convey the
truths of the gospel to the ear of monarchs. ^118 He addressed
several edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to his wife, and
to his mother; and as soon as that prince, who was born in the
neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial sceptre, the
Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public and
even partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new
religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the
church, gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his
own times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the
faith; ^119 and afforded some grounds for a fable which was
afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and
penance from the guilt contracted by the murder of his innocent
predecessor. ^120 the fall of Philip introduced, with the change
of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to the
Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of
Domitian, was represented as a state of perfect freedom and
security, if compared with the rigorous treatment which they
experienced under the short reign of Decius. ^121 The virtues of
that prince will scarcely allow us to suspect that he was
actuated by a mean resentment against the favorites of his
predecessor; and it is more reasonable to believe, that in the
prosecution of his general design to restore the purity of Roman
manners, he was desirous of delivering the empire from what he
condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of
the most considerable cities were removed by exile or death: the
vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of Rome during
sixteen months from proceeding to a new election; and it was the
opinion of the Christians, that the emperor would more patiently
endure a competitor for the purple, than a bishop in the capital.
^122 Were it possible to suppose that the penetration of Decius
had discovered pride under the disguise of humility, or that he
could foresee the temporal dominion which might insensibly arise
from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be less
surprised, that he should consider the successors of St. Peter,
as the most formidable rivals to those of Augustus.
[Footnote 118: Orosius, l. vii. c. 19, mentions Origen as the
object of Maximin's resentment; and Firmilianus, a Cappadocian
bishop of that age, gives a just and confined idea of this
persecution, (apud Cyprian Epist. 75.)]
[Footnote 119: The mention of those princes who were publicly
supposed to be Christians, as we find it in an epistle of
Dionysius of Alexandria, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 10,) evidently
alludes to Philip and his family, and forms a contemporary
evidence, that such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian
bishop, who lived at an humble distance from the court of Rome,
expresses himself with a becoming diffidence concerning the truth
of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which were extant in the
time of Eusebius, see l. vi. c. 36) would most probably decide
this curious rather than important question.]
[Footnote 120: Euseb. l. vi. c. 34. The story, as is usual, has
been embellished by succeeding writers, and is confuted, with
much superfluous learning, by Frederick Spanheim, (Opera Varia,
tom. ii. p. 400, &c.)]
[Footnote 121: Lactantius, de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 3, 4.
After celebrating the felicity and increase of the church, under
a long succession of good princes, he adds, "Extitit post annos
plurimos, execrabile animal, Decius, qui vexaret Ecclesiam."]
[Footnote 122: Euseb. l. vi. c. 39. Cyprian. Epistol. 55. The
see of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom of Fabianus, the
20th of January, A. D. 259, till the election of Cornelius, the
4th of June, A. D. 251 Decius had probably left Rome, since he
was killed before the end of that year.]
The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity
and inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor.
In the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those
princes who had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian
faith. In the last three years and a half, listening to the
insinuations of a minister addicted to the superstitions of
Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the severity, of his
predecessor Decius. ^123 The accession of Gallienus, which
increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to the
church; and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their
religion by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in
such terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and public
character. ^124 The ancient laws, without being formally
repealed, were suffered to sink into oblivion; and (excepting
only some hostile intentions which are attributed to the emperor
Aurelian ^125) the disciples of Christ passed above forty years
in a state of prosperity, far more dangerous to their virtue than
the severest trials of persecution.
[Footnote 123: Euseb. l. vii. c. 10. Mosheim (p. 548) has very
clearly shown that the praefect Macrianus, and the Egyptian
Magus, are one and the same person.]
[Footnote 124: Eusebius (l. vii. c. 13) gives us a Greek version
of this Latin edict, which seems to have been very concise. By
another edict, he directed that the Coemeteria should be restored
to the Christians.]
[Footnote 125: Euseb. l. vii. c. 30. Lactantius de M. P. c. 6.
Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177. Orosius, l. vii. c. 23. Their
language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect, that we are at
a loss to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions
before he was assassinated. Most of the moderns (except Dodwell,
Dissertat. Cyprian. vi. 64) have seized the occasion of gaining a
few extraordinary martyrs.
Note: Dr. Lardner has detailed, with his usual impartiality,
all that has come down to us relating to the persecution of
Aurelian, and concludes by saying, "Upon more carefully examining
the words of Eusebius, and observing the accounts of other
authors, learned men have generally, and, as I think, very
judiciously, determined, that Aurelian not only intended, but did
actually persecute: but his persecution was short, he having died
soon after the publication of his edicts." Heathen Test. c.
xxxvi. - Basmage positively pronounces the same opinion: Non
intentatum modo, sed executum quoque brevissimo tempore mandatum,
nobis infixum est in aniasis. Basn. Ann. 275, No. 2 and compare
Pagi Ann. 272, Nos. 4, 12, 27 - G.]
The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the metropolitan
see of Antioch, while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and
Zenobia, may serve to illustrate the condition and character of
the times. The wealth of that prelate was a sufficient evidence
of his guilt, since it was neither derived from the inheritance
of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts of honest industry. But
Paul considered the service of the church as a very lucrative
profession. ^126 His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and
rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most
opulent of the faithful, and converted to his own use a
considerable part of the public revenue. By his pride and
luxury, the Christian religion was rendered odious in the eyes of
the Gentiles. His council chamber and his throne, the splendor
with which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who
solicited his attention, the multitude of letters and petitions
to which he dictated his answers, and the perpetual hurry of
business in which he was involved, were circumstances much better
suited to the state of a civil magistrate, ^127 than to the
humility of a primitive bishop. When he harangued his people
from the pulpit, Paul affected the figurative style and the
theatrical gestures of an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral
resounded with the loudest and most extravagant acclamations in
the praise of his divine eloquence. Against those who resisted
his power, or refused to flatter his vanity, the prelate of
Antioch was arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; but he relaxed the
discipline, and lavished the treasures of the church on his
dependent clergy, who were permitted to imitate their master in
the gratification of every sensual appetite. For Paul indulged
himself very freely in the pleasures of the table, and he had
received into the episcopal palace two young and beautiful women
as the constant companions of his leisure moments. ^128
[Footnote 126: Paul was better pleased with the title of
Ducenarius, than with that of bishop. The Ducenarius was an
Imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two hundred
Sestertia, or 1600l. a year. (See Salmatius ad Hist. August. p.
124.) Some critics suppose that the bishop of Antioch had
actually obtained such an office from Zenobia, while others
consider it only as a figurative expression of his pomp and
insolence.]
[Footnote 127: Simony was not unknown in those times; and the
clergy some times bought what they intended to sell. It appears
that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy matron,
named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400
Folles. (Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every
Follis contained 125 pieces of silver, and the whole sum may be
computed at about 2400l.]
[Footnote 128: If we are desirous of extenuating the vices of
Paul, we must suspect the assembled bishops of the East of
publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular epistles
addressed to all the churches of the empire, (ap. Euseb. l. vii.
c. 30.)]
Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata
had preserved the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over
the capital of Syria would have ended only with his life; and had
a seasonable persecution intervened, an effort of courage might
perhaps have placed him in the rank of saints and martyrs. ^*
Some nice and subtle errors, which he imprudently adopted and
obstinately maintained, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity,
excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern churches. ^129
From Egypt to the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in
motion. Several councils were held, confutations were published,
excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous explanations were by
turns accepted and refused, treaties were concluded and violated,
and at length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal
character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who
assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who, without
consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a
successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of
this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented
faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts,
had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained
above four years the possession of the episcopal house and
office. ^* The victory of Aurelian changed the face of the East,
and the two contending parties, who applied to each other the
epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or permitted
to plead their cause before the tribunal of the conqueror. This
public and very singular trial affords a convincing proof that
the existence, the property, the privileges, and the internal
policy of the Christians, were acknowledged, if not by the laws,
at least by the magistrates, of the empire. As a Pagan and as a
soldier, it could scarcely be expected that Aurelian should enter
into the discussion, whether the sentiments of Paul or those of
his adversaries were most agreeable to the true standard of the
orthodox faith. His determination, however, was founded on the
general principles of equity and reason. He considered the
bishops of Italy as the most impartial and respectable judges
among the Christians, and as soon as he was informed that they
had unanimously approved the sentence of the council, he
acquiesced in their opinion, and immediately gave orders that
Paul should be compelled to relinquish the temporal possessions
belonging to an office, of which, in the judgment of his
brethren, he had been regularly deprived. But while we applaud
the justice, we should not overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who
was desirous of restoring and cementing the dependence of the
provinces on the capital, by every means which could bind the
interest or prejudices of any part of his subjects. ^130
[Footnote *: It appears, nevertheless, that the vices and
immoralities of Paul of Samosata had much weight in the sentence
pronounced against him by the bishops. The object of the letter,
addressed by the synod to the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, was
to inform them of the change in the faith of Paul, the
altercations and discussions to which it had given rise, as well
as of his morals and the whole of his conduct. Euseb. Hist.
Eccl. l. vii c. xxx - G.]
[Footnote 129: His heresy (like those of Noetus and Sabellius, in
the same century) tended to confound the mysterious distinction
of the divine persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c.]
[Footnote *: "Her favorite, (Zenobia's,) Paul of Samosata, seems
to have entertained some views of attempting a union between
Judaism and Christianity; both parties rejected the unnatural
alliance." Hist. of Jews, iii. 175, and Jost. Geschichte der
Israeliter, iv. 167. The protection of the severe Zenobia is the
only circumstance which may raise a doubt of the notorious
immorality of Paul. - M.]
[Footnote 130: Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vii. c. 30. We are
entirely indebted to him for the curious story of Paul of
Samosata.]
Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, the
Christians still flourished in peace and prosperity; and
notwithstanding a celebrated aera of martyrs has been deduced
from the accession of Diocletian, ^131 the new system of policy,
introduced and maintained by the wisdom of that prince,
continued, during more than eighteen years, to breathe the
mildest and most liberal spirit of religious toleration. The
mind of Diocletian himself was less adapted indeed to speculative
inquiries, than to the active labors of war and government. His
prudence rendered him averse to any great innovation, and though
his temper was not very susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he
always maintained an habitual regard for the ancient deities of
the empire. But the leisure of the two empresses, of his wife
Prisca, and of Valeria, his daughter, permitted them to listen
with more attention and respect to the truths of Christianity,
which in every age has acknowledged its important obligations to
female devotion. ^132 The principal eunuchs, Lucian ^133 and
Dorotheus, Gorgonius and Andrew, who attended the person,
possessed the favor, and governed the household of Diocletian,
protected by their powerful influence the faith which they had
embraced. Their example was imitated by many of the most
considerable officers of the palace, who, in their respective
stations, had the care of the Imperial ornaments, of the robes,
of the furniture, of the jewels, and even of the private
treasury; and, though it might sometimes be incumbent on them to
accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in the temple, ^134 they
enjoyed, with their wives, their children, and their slaves, the
free exercise of the Christian religion. Diocletian and his
colleagues frequently conferred the most important offices on
those persons who avowed their abhorrence for the worship of the
gods, but who had displayed abilities proper for the service of
the state. The bishops held an honorable rank in their
respective provinces, and were treated with distinction and
respect, not only by the people, but by the magistrates
themselves. Almost in every city, the ancient churches were
found insufficient to contain the increasing multitude of
proselytes; and in their place more stately and capacious
edifices were erected for the public worship of the faithful.
The corruption of manners and principles, so forcibly lamented by
Eusebius, ^135 may be considered, not only as a consequence, but
as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians enjoyed and
abused under the reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had relaxed the
nerves of discipline. Fraud, envy, and malice prevailed in every
congregation. The presbyters aspired to the episcopal office,
which every day became an object more worthy of their ambition.
The bishops, who contended with each other for ecclesiastical
preeminence, appeared by their conduct to claim a secular and
tyrannical power in the church; and the lively faith which still
distinguished the Christians from the Gentiles, was shown much
less in their lives, than in their controversial writings.
[Footnote 131: The Aera of Martyrs, which is still in use among
the Copts and the Abyssinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of
August, A. D. 284; as the beginning of the Egyptian year was
nineteen days earlier than the real accession of Diocletian. See
Dissertation Preliminaire a l'Art de verifier les Dates.
Note: On the aera of martyrs see the very curious
dissertations of Mons Letronne on some recently discovered
inscriptions in Egypt and Nubis, p. 102, &c. - M.]
[Footnote 132: The expression of Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 15,)
"sacrificio pollui coegit," implies their antecedent conversion
to the faith, but does not seem to justify the assertion of
Mosheim, (p. 912,) that they had been privately baptized.]
[Footnote 133: M. de Tillemont (Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. v.
part i. p. 11, 12) has quoted from the Spicilegium of Dom Luc
d'Archeri a very curious instruction which Bishop Theonas
composed for the use of Lucian.]
[Footnote 134: Lactantius, de M. P. c. 10.]
[Footnote 135: Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. viii. c. 1. The
reader who consults the original will not accuse me of
heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years of age
at the accession of the emperor Diocletian.]
Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer
might discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a
more violent persecution than any which she had yet endured. The
zeal and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the
Polytheists from their supine indifference in the cause of those
deities, whom custom and education had taught them to revere.
The mutual provocations of a religious war, which had already
continued above two hundred years, exasperated the animosity of
the contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the rashness
of a recent and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their
countrymen of error, and to devote their ancestors to eternal
misery. The habits of justifying the popular mythology against
the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced in their minds
some sentiments of faith and reverence for a system which they
had been accustomed to consider with the most careless levity.
The supernatural powers assumed by the church inspired at the
same time terror and emulation. The followers of the established
religion intrenched themselves behind a similar fortification of
prodigies; invented new modes of sacrifice, of expiation, and of
initiation; ^136 attempted to revive the credit of their expiring
oracles; ^137 and listened with eager credulity to every
impostor, who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders.
^138 Both parties seemed to acknowledge the truth of those
miracles which were claimed by their adversaries; and while they
were contented with ascribing them to the arts of magic, and to
the power of daemons, they mutually concurred in restoring and
establishing the reign of superstition. ^139 Philosophy, her most
dangerous enemy, was now converted into her most useful ally.
The groves of the academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even the
portico of the Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different
schools of scepticism or impiety; ^140 and many among the Romans
were desirous that the writings of Cicero should be condemned and
suppressed by the authority of the senate. ^141 The prevailing
sect of the new Platonicians judged it prudent to connect
themselves with the priests, whom perhaps they despised, against
the Christians, whom they had reason to fear. These fashionable
Philosophers prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical
wisdom from the fictions of the Greek poets; instituted
mysterious rites of devotion for the use of their chosen
disciples; recommended the worship of the ancient gods as the
emblems or ministers of the Supreme Deity, and composed against
the faith of the gospel many elaborate treatises, ^142 which have
since been committed to the flames by the prudence of orthodox
emperors. ^143
[Footnote 136: We might quote, among a great number of instances,
the mysterious worship of Mythras, and the Taurobolia; the latter
of which became fashionable in the time of the Antonines, (see a
Dissertation of M. de Boze, in the Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 443.) The romance of Apuleius is as
full of devotion as of satire.
Note: On the extraordinary progress of the Mahriac rites, in
the West, see De Guigniaud's translation of Creuzer, vol. i. p.
365, and Note 9, tom. i. part 2, p. 738, &c. - M.]
[Footnote 137: The impostor Alexander very strongly recommended
the oracle of Trophonius at Mallos, and those of Apollo at Claros
and Miletus, (Lucian, tom. ii. p. 236, edit. Reitz.) The last of
these, whose singular history would furnish a very curious
episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he published his
edicts of persecution, (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11.)]
[Footnote 138: Besides the ancient stories of Pythagoras and
Aristeas, the cures performed at the shrine of Aesculapius, and
the fables related of Apollonius of Tyana, were frequently
opposed to the miracles of Christ; though I agree with Dr.
Lardner, (see Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 253, 352,) that when
Philostratus composed the life of Apollonius, he had no such
intention.]
[Footnote 139: It is seriously to be lamented, that the Christian
fathers, by acknowledging the supernatural, or, as they deem it,
the infernal part of Paganism, destroy with their own hands the
great advantage which we might otherwise derive from the liberal
concessions of our adversaries.]
[Footnote 140: Julian (p. 301, edit. Spanheim) expresses a pious
joy, that the providence of the gods had extinguished the impious
sects, and for the most part destroyed the books of the
Pyrrhonians and Epicuraeans, which had been very numerous, since
Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See Diogenes
Laertius, l. x. c. 26.]
[Footnote 141: Cumque alios audiam mussitare indignanter, et
dicere opportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut haec scripta,
quibus Christiana Religio comprobetur, et vetustatis opprimatur
auctoritas. Arnobius adversus Gentes, l. iii. p. 103, 104. He
adds very properly, Erroris convincite Ciceronem . . . nam
intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem,
non est Deum defendere sed veritatis testificationem timere.]
[Footnote 142: Lactantius (Divin. Institut. l. v. c. 2, 3) gives
a very clear and spirited account of two of these philosophic
adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry against
the Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in
Sicily about the year 270.]
[Footnote 143: See Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 9, and
Codex Justinian. l. i. i. l. s.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part VI.
Although the policy of Diocletian and the humanity of
Constantius inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of
toleration, it was soon discovered that their two associates,
Maximian and Galerius, entertained the most implacable aversion
for the name and religion of the Christians. The minds of those
princes had never been enlightened by science; education had
never softened their temper. They owed their greatness to their
swords, and in their most elevated fortune they still retained
their superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the
general administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws
which their benefactor had established; but they frequently found
occasions of exercising within their camp and palaces a secret
persecution, ^144 for which the imprudent zeal of the Christians
sometimes offered the most specious pretences. A sentence of
death was executed upon Maximilianus, an African youth, who had
been produced by his own father ^* before the magistrate as a
sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in
declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to embrace
the profession of a soldier. ^145 It could scarcely be expected
that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the
Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public
festival, that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the
ensigns of his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he
would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal King, and that he
renounced forever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of
an idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered
from their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was
examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of
Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was
condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. ^146 Examples
of such a nature savor much less of religious persecution than of
martial or even civil law; but they served to alienate the mind
of the emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, who
dismissed a great number of Christian officers from their
employments; and to authorize the opinion, that a sect of
enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the public
safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become
dangerous, subjects of the empire.
[Footnote 144: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 4, c. 17. He limits the
number of military martyrs, by a remarkable expression, of which
neither his Latin nor French translator have rendered the energy.
Notwithstanding the authority of Eusebius, and the silence of
Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, &c., it has been long
believed, that the Thebaean legion, consisting of 6000
Christians, suffered martyrdom by the order of Maximian, in the
valley of the Pennine Alps. The story was first published about
the middle of the 5th century, by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who
received it from certain persons, who received it from Isaac,
bishop of Geneva, who is said to have received it from Theodore,
bishop of Octodurum. The abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a
rich monument of the credulity of Sigismund, king of Burgundy.
See an excellent Dissertation in xxxvith volume of the
Bibliotheque Raisonnee, p. 427-454.]
[Footnote *: M. Guizot criticizes Gibbon's account of this
incident. He supposes that Maximilian was not "produced by his
father as a recruit," but was obliged to appear by the law, which
compelled the sons of soldiers to serve at 21 years old. Was not
this a law of Constantine? Neither does this circumstance appear
in the acts. His father had clearly expected him to serve, as he
had bought him a new dress for the occasion; yet he refused to
force the conscience of his son. and when Maximilian was
condemned to death, the father returned home in joy, blessing God
for having bestowed upon him such a son. - M.]
[Footnote 145: See the Acta Sincera, p. 299. The accounts of his
martyrdom and that of Marcellus, bear every mark of truth and
authenticity.]
[Footnote 146: Acta Sincera, p. 302.
Note: M. Guizot here justly observes, that it was the
necessity of sacrificing to the gods, which induced Marcellus to
act in this manner. - M.]
After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes
and the reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with
Diocletian in the palace of Nicomedia; and the fate of
Christianity became the object of their secret consultations.
^147 The experienced emperor was still inclined to pursue
measures of lenity; and though he readily consented to exclude
the Christians from holding any employments in the household or
the army, he urged in the strongest terms the danger as well as
cruelty of shedding the blood of those deluded fanatics.
Galerius at length extorted ^!! from him the permission of
summoning a council, composed of a few persons the most
distinguished in the civil and military departments of the state.
The important question was agitated in their presence, and those
ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on
them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of
the Caesar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every
topic which might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of
their sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they
represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance of the
empire was left imperfect, as long as an independent people was
permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart of the provinces.
The Christians, (it might specially be alleged,) renouncing the
gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a distinct
republic, which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired
any military force; but which was already governed by its own
laws and magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was
intimately connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies
of the bishops, to whose decrees their numerous and opulent
congregations yielded an implicit obedience. Arguments like
these may seem to have determined the reluctant mind of
Diocletian to embrace a new system of persecution; but though we
may suspect, it is not in our power to relate, the secret
intrigues of the palace, the private views and resentments, the
jealousy of women or eunuchs, and all those trifling but decisive
causes which so often influence the fate of empires, and the
councils of the wisest monarchs. ^148
[Footnote 147: De M. P. c. 11. Lactantius (or whoever was the
author of this little treatise) was, at that time, an inhabitant
of Nicomedia; but it seems difficult to conceive how he could
acquire so accurate a knowledge of what passed in the Imperial
cabinet.
Note: Lactantius, who was subsequently chosen by Constantine
to educate Crispus, might easily have learned these details from
Constantine himself, already of sufficient age to interest
himself in the affairs of the government, and in a position to
obtain the best information. - G.
This assumes the doubtful point of the authorship of the
Treatise. - M.]
[Footnote !!: This permission was not extorted from Diocletian;
he took the step of his own accord. Lactantius says, in truth,
Nec tamen deflectere potuit (Diocletianus) praecipitis hominis
insaniam; placuit ergo amicorum sententiam experiri. (De Mort.
Pers. c. 11.) But this measure was in accordance with the
artificial character of Diocletian, who wished to have the
appearance of doing good by his own impulse and evil by the
impulse of others. Nam erat hujus malitiae, cum bonum quid facere
decrevisse sine consilio faciebat, ut ipse laudaretur. Cum autem
malum. quoniam id reprehendendum sciebat, in consilium multos
advocabat, ut alioram culpao adscriberetur quicquid ipse
deliquerat. Lact. ib. Eutropius says likewise, Miratus callide
fuit, sagax praeterea et admodum subtilis ingenio, et qui
severitatem suam aliena invidia vellet explere. Eutrop. ix. c.
26. - G.
The manner in which the coarse and unfriendly pencil of the
author of the Treatise de Mort. Pers. has drawn the character of
Diocletian, seems inconsistent with this profound subtilty. Many
readers will perhaps agree with Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 148: The only circumstance which we can discover, is
the devotion and jealousy of the mother of Galerius. She is
described by Lactantius, as Deorum montium cultrix; mulier
admodum superstitiosa. She had a great influence over her son,
and was offended by the disregard of some of her Christian
servants.
Note: This disregard consisted in the Christians fasting and
praying instead of participating in the banquets and sacrifices
which she celebrated with the Pagans. Dapibus sacrificabat poene
quotidie ac vicariis suis epulis exhibebat. Christiani
abstinebant, et illa cum gentibus epulante, jejuniis hi et
oratiomibus insisteban; hine concepit odium Lact de Hist. Pers.
c. 11. - G.]
The pleasure of the emperors was at length signified to the
Christians, who, during the course of this melancholy winter, had
expected, with anxiety, the result of so many secret
consultations. The twenty-third of February, which coincided
with the Roman festival of the Terminalia, ^149 was appointed
(whether from accident or design) to set bounds to the progress
of Christianity. At the earliest dawn of day, the Praetorian
praefect, ^150 accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and
officers of the revenue, repaired to the principal church of
Nicomedia, which was situated on an eminence in the most populous
and beautiful part of the city. The doors were instantly broke
open; they rushed into the sanctuary; and as they searched in
vain for some visible object of worship, they were obliged to
content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of
the holy Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by
a numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of
battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the
destruction of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a
sacred edifice, which towered above the Imperial palace, and had
long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a
few hours levelled with the ground. ^151
[Footnote 149: The worship and festival of the god Terminus are
elegantly illustrated by M. de Boze, Mem. de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 50.]
[Footnote 150: In our only MS. of Lactantius, we read profectus;
but reason, and the authority of all the critics, allow us,
instead of that word, which destroys the sense of the passage, to
substitute proefectus.]
[Footnote 151: Lactantius, de M. P. c. 12, gives a very lively
picture of the destruction of the church.]
The next day the general edict of persecution was published;
^152 and though Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of
blood, had moderated the fury of Galerius, who proposed, that
every one refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be burnt
alive, the penalties inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians
might be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual. It was
enacted, that their churches, in all the provinces of the empire,
should be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment of
death was denounced against all who should presume to hold any
secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The
philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing
the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature
and genius of the Christian religion; and as they were not
ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith were
supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the
evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested
the order, that the bishops and presbyters should deliver all
their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates; who were
commanded, under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public
and solemn manner. By the same edict, the property of the church
was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might
consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the
Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or
granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After
taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship, and to
dissolve the government of the Christians, it was thought
necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the
condition of those perverse individuals who should still reject
the religion of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons
of a liberal birth were declared incapable of holding any honors
or employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of
freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the
protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to
determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But
the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which
they themselves had suffered; and thus those unfortunate
sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded
from the benefits, of public justice. This new species of
martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious,
was, perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the
faithful: nor can it be doubted that the passions and interest of
mankind were disposed on this occasion to second the designs of
the emperors. But the policy of a well-ordered government must
sometimes have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Christians;
^* nor was it possible for the Roman princes entirely to remove
the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act of
fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the
rest of their subjects to the most alarming dangers. ^153
[Footnote 152: Mosheim, (p. 922 - 926,) from man scattered
passages of Lactantius and Eusebius, has collected a very just
and accurate notion of this edict though he sometimes deviates
into conjecture and refinement.]
[Footnote *: This wants proof. The edict of Diocletian was
executed in all its right during the rest of his reign. Euseb.
Hist. Eccl. l viii. c. 13. - G.]
[Footnote 153: Many ages afterwards, Edward J. practised, with
great success, the same mode of persecution against the clergy of
England. See Hume's History of England, vol. ii. p. 300, last
4to edition.]
This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public view, in the
most conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by
the hands of a Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the
bitterest invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such
impious and tyrannical governors. His offence, according to the
mildest laws, amounted to treason, and deserved death. And if it
be true that he was a person of rank and education, those
circumstances could serve only to aggravate his guilt. He was
burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners,
zealous to revenge the personal insult which had been offered to
the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without
being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and
insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in
his countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that his
conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws of
prudence, admired the divine fervor of his zeal; and the
excessive commendations which they lavished on the memory of
their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression of
terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian. ^154
[Footnote 154: Lactantius only calls him quidam, et si non recte,
magno tamer animo, &c., c. 12. Eusebius (l. viii. c. 5) adorns
him with secular honora Neither have condescended to mention his
name; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under that of John.
See Tillemont, Memones Ecclesiastiques, tom. v. part ii. p. 320.]
His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a danger from
which he very narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days the palace
of Nicomedia, and even the bed-chamber of Diocletian, were twice
in flames; and though both times they were extinguished without
any material damage, the singular repetition of the fire was
justly considered as an evident proof that it had not been the
effect of chance or negligence. The suspicion naturally fell on
the Christians; and it was suggested, with some degree of
probability, that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their
present sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had
entered into a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the
eunuchs of the palace, against the lives of two emperors, whom
they detested as the irreconcilable enemies of the church of God.
Jealousy and resentment prevailed in every breast, but especially
in that of Diocletian. A great number of persons, distinguished
either by the offices which they had filled, or by the favor
which they had enjoyed, were thrown into prison. Every mode of
torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as city, was
polluted with many bloody executions. ^155 But as it was found
impossible to extort any discovery of this mysterious
transaction, it seems incumbent on us either to presume the
innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the sufferers. A few
days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself from Nicomedia,
declaring, that if he delayed his departure from that devoted
palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the rage of the Christians.
The ecclesiastical historians, from whom alone we derive a
partial and imperfect knowledge of this persecution, are at a
loss how to account for the fears and dangers of the emperors.
Two of these writers, a prince and a rhetorician, were eye-
witnesses of the fire of Nicomedia. The one ascribes it to
lightning, and the divine wrath; the other affirms, that it was
kindled by the malice of Galerius himself. ^156
[Footnote 155: Lactantius de M. P. c. 13, 14. Potentissimi
quondam Eunuchi necati, per quos Palatium et ipse constabat.
Eusebius (l. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel executions of the
eunuchs, Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthimius, bishop of
Nicomedia; and both those writers describe, in a vague but
tragical manner, the horrid scenes which were acted even in the
Imperial presence.]
[Footnote 156: See Lactantius, Eusebius, and Constantine, ad
Coetum Sanctorum, c. xxv. Eusebius confesses his ignorance of
the cause of this fire.
Note: As the history of these times affords us no example of
any attempts made by the Christians against their persecutors, we
have no reason, not the slightest probability, to attribute to
them the fire in the palace; and the authority of Constantine and
Lactantius remains to explain it. M. de Tillemont has shown how
they can be reconciled. Hist. des Empereurs, Vie de Diocletian,
xix. - G. Had it been done by a Christian, it would probably
have been a fanatic, who would have avowed and gloried in it.
Tillemont's supposition that the fire was first caused by
lightning, and fed and increased by the malice of Galerius, seems
singularly improbable. - M.]
As the edict against the Christians was designed for a
general law of the whole empire, and as Diocletian and Galerius,
though they might not wait for the consent, were assured of the
concurrence, of the Western princes, it would appear more
consonant to our ideas of policy, that the governors of all the
provinces should have received secret instructions to publish, on
one and the same day, this declaration of war within their
respective departments. It was at least to be expected, that the
convenience of the public highways and established posts would
have enabled the emperors to transmit their orders with the
utmost despatch from the palace of Nicomedia to the extremities
of the Roman world; and that they would not have suffered fifty
days to elapse, before the edict was published in Syria, and near
four months before it was signified to the cities of Africa. ^157
This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious temper of
Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the measures
of persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment
under his more immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders
and discontent which it must inevitably occasion in the distant
provinces. At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained
from the effusion of blood; but the use of every other severity
was permitted, and even recommended to their zeal; nor could the
Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of
their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies,
or to deliver their sacred books to the flames. The pious
obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop, appears to have
embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the government. The
curator of his city sent him in chains to the proconsul. The
proconsul transmitted him to the Praetorian praefect of Italy;
and Felix, who disdained even to give an evasive answer, was at
length beheaded at Venusia, in Lucania, a place on which the
birth of Horace has conferred fame. ^158 This precedent, and
perhaps some Imperial rescript, which was issued in consequence
of it, appeared to authorize the governors of provinces, in
punishing with death the refusal of the Christians to deliver up
their sacred books. There were undoubtedly many persons who
embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyrdom;
but there were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious
life, by discovering and betraying the holy Scripture into the
hands of infidels. A great number even of bishops and presbyters
acquired, by this criminal compliance, the opprobrious epithet of
Traditors; and their offence was productive of much present
scandal and of much future discord in the African church. ^159
[Footnote 157: Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. tom. v. part i. p.
43.]
[Footnote 158: See the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 353; those of
Felix of Thibara, or Tibiur, appear much less corrupted than in
the other editions, which afford a lively specimen of legendary
license.]
[Footnote 159: See the first book of Optatus of Milevis against
the Donatiste, Paris, 1700, edit. Dupin. He lived under the
reign of Valens.]
The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were
already so multiplied in the empire, that the most severe
inquisition could no longer be attended with any fatal
consequences; and even the sacrifice of those volumes, which, in
every congregation, were preserved for public use, required the
consent of some treacherous and unworthy Christians. But the
ruin of the churches was easily effected by the authority of the
government, and by the labor of the Pagans. In some provinces,
however, the magistrates contented themselves with shutting up
the places of religious worship. In others, they more literally
complied with the terms of the edict; and after taking away the
doors, the benches, and the pulpit, which they burnt as it were
in a funeral pile, they completely demolished the remainder of
the edifice. ^160 It is perhaps to this melancholy occasion that
we should apply a very remarkable story, which is related with so
many circumstances of variety and improbability, that it serves
rather to excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a small town
in Phrygia, of whose names as well as situation we are left
ignorant, it should seem that the magistrates and the body of the
people had embraced the Christian faith; and as some resistance
might be apprehended to the execution of the edict, the governor
of the province was supported by a numerous detachment of
legionaries. On their approach the citizens threw themselves
into the church, with the resolution either of defending by arms
that sacred edifice, or of perishing in its ruins. They
indignantly rejected the notice and permission which was given
them to retire, till the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate
refusal, set fire to the building on all sides, and consumed, by
this extraordinary kind of martyrdom, a great number of
Phrygians, with their wives and children. ^161
[Footnote 160: The ancient monuments, published at the end of
Optatus, p. 261, &c. describe, in a very circumstantial manner,
the proceedings of the governors in the destruction of churches.
They made a minute inventory of the plate, &c., which they found
in them. That of the church of Cirta, in Numidia, is still
extant. It consisted of two chalices of gold, and six of silver;
six urns, one kettle, seven lamps, all likewise of silver;
besides a large quantity of brass utensils, and wearing apparel.]
[Footnote 161: Lactantius (Institut. Divin. v. 11) confines the
calamity to the conventiculum, with its congregation. Eusebius
(viii. 11) extends it to a whole city, and introduces something
very like a regular siege. His ancient Latin translator, Rufinus,
adds the important circumstance of the permission given to the
inhabitants of retiring from thence. As Phrygia reached to the
confines of Isauria, it is possible that the restless temper of
those independent barbarians may have contributed to this
misfortune.
Note: Universum populum. Lact. Inst. Div. v. 11. - G.]
Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost
as soon as excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia,
afforded the enemies of the church a very plausible occasion to
insinuate, that those troubles had been secretly fomented by the
intrigues of the bishops, who had already forgotten their
ostentatious professions of passive and unlimited obedience. ^162
The resentment, or the fears, of Diocletian, at length
transported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had
hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel edicts,
^! his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By the first
of these edicts, the governors of the provinces were directed to
apprehend all persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the
prisons, destined for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with
a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and
exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded to
employ every method of severity, which might reclaim them from
their odious superstition, and oblige them to return to the
established worship of the gods. This rigorous order was
extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole body of Christians,
who were exposed to a violent and general persecution. ^163
Instead of those salutary restraints, which had required the
direct and solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as
well as the interest of the Imperial officers to discover, to
pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful.
Heavy penalties were denounced against all who should presume to
save a prescribed sectary from the just indignation of the gods,
and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of this
law, the virtuous courage of many of the Pagans, in concealing
their friends or relations, affords an honorable proof, that the
rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds the
sentiments of nature and humanity. ^164
[Footnote 162: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 6. M. de Valois (with some
probability) thinks that he has discovered the Syrian rebellion
in an oration of Libanius; and that it was a rash attempt of the
tribune Eugenius, who with only five hundred men seized Antioch,
and might perhaps allure the Christians by the promise of
religious toleration. From Eusebius, (l. ix. c. 8,) as well as
from Moses of Chorene, (Hist. Armen. l. ii. 77, &c.,) it may be
inferred, that Christianity was already introduced into Armenia.]
[Footnote !: He had already passed them in his first edict. It
does not appear that resentment or fear had any share in the new
persecutions: perhaps they originated in superstition, and a
specious apparent respect for its ministers. The oracle of
Apollo, consulted by Diocletian, gave no answer; and said that
just men hindered it from speaking. Constantine, who assisted at
the ceremony, affirms, with an oath, that when questioned about
these men, the high priest named the Christians. "The Emperor
eagerly seized on this answer; and drew against the innocent a
sword, destined only to punish the guilty: he instantly issued
edicts, written, if I may use the expression, with a poniard; and
ordered the judges to employ all their skill to invent new modes
of punishment. Euseb. Vit Constant. l. ii c 54." - G.]
[Footnote 163: See Mosheim, p. 938: the text of Eusebius very
plainly shows that the governors, whose powers were enlarged, not
restrained, by the new laws, could punish with death the most
obstinate Christians as an example to their brethren.]
[Footnote 164: Athanasius, p. 833, ap. Tillemont, Mem.
Ecclesiast. tom v part i. 90.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part VII.
Diocletian had no sooner published his edicts against the
Christians, than, as if he had been desirous of committing to
other hands the work of persecution, he divested himself of the
Imperial purple. The character and situation of his colleagues
and successors sometimes urged them to enforce and sometimes
inclined them to suspend, the execution of these rigorous laws;
nor can we acquire a just and distinct idea of this important
period of ecclesiastical history, unless we separately consider
the state of Christianity, in the different parts of the empire,
during the space of ten years, which elapsed between the first
edicts of Diocletian and the final peace of the church.
The mild and humane temper of Constantius was averse to the
oppression of any part of his subjects. The principal offices of
his palace were exercised by Christians. He loved their persons,
esteemed their fidelity, and entertained not any dislike to their
religious principles. But as long as Constantius remained in the
subordinate station of Caesar, it was not in his power openly to
reject the edicts of Diocletian, or to disobey the commands of
Maximian. His authority contributed, however, to alleviate the
sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented with
reluctance to the ruin of the churches; but he ventured to
protect the Christians themselves from the fury of the populace,
and from the rigor of the laws. The provinces of Gaul (under
which we may probably include those of Britain) were indebted for
the singular tranquillity which they enjoyed, to the gentle
interposition of their sovereign. ^165 But Datianus, the
president or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or
policy, chose rather to execute the public edicts of the
emperors, than to understand the secret intentions of
Constantius; and it can scarcely be doubted, that his provincial
administration was stained with the blood of a few martyrs. ^166
The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and independent
dignity of Augustus, gave a free scope to the exercise of his
virtues, and the shortness of his reign did not prevent him from
establishing a system of toleration, of which he left the precept
and the example to his son Constantine. His fortunate son, from
the first moment of his accession, declaring himself the
protector of the church, at length deserved the appellation of
the first emperor who publicly professed and established the
Christian religion. The motives of his conversion, as they may
variously be deduced from benevolence, from policy, from
conviction, or from remorse, and the progress of the revolution,
which, under his powerful influence and that of his sons,
rendered Christianity the reigning religion of the Roman empire,
will form a very interesting and important chapter in the present
volume of this history. At present it may be sufficient to
observe, that every victory of Constantine was productive of some
relief or benefit to the church.
[Footnote 165: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 13. Lactantius de M. P. c.
15. Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprian. xi. 75) represents them as
inconsistent with each other. But the former evidently speaks of
Constantius in the station of Caesar, and the latter of the same
prince in the rank of Augustus.]
[Footnote 166: Datianus is mentioned, in Gruter's Inscriptions,
as having determined the limits between the territories of Pax
Julia, and those of Ebora, both cities in the southern part of
Lusitania. If we recollect the neighborhood of those places to
Cape St. Vincent, we may suspect that the celebrated deacon and
martyr of that name had been inaccurately assigned by Prudentius,
&c., to Saragossa, or Valentia. See the pompous history of his
sufferings, in the Memoires de Tillemont, tom. v. part ii. p.
58-85. Some critics are of opinion, that the department of
Constantius, as Caesar, did not include Spain, which still
continued under the immediate jurisdiction of Maximian.]
The provinces of Italy and Africa experienced a short but
violent persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian were
strictly and cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who
had long hated the Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood
and violence. In the autumn of the first year of the
persecution, the two emperors met at Rome to celebrate their
triumph; several oppressive laws appear to have issued from their
secret consultations, and the diligence of the magistrates was
animated by the presence of their sovereigns., After Diocletian
had divested himself of the purple, Italy and Africa were
administered under the name of Severus, and were exposed, without
defence, to the implacable resentment of his master Galerius.
Among the martyrs of Rome, Adauctus deserves the notice of
posterity. He was of a noble family in Italy, and had raised
himself, through the successive honors of the palace, to the
important office of treasurer of the private Jemesnes. Adauctus
is the more remarkable for being the only person of rank and
distinction who appears to have suffered death, during the whole
course of this general persecution. ^167
[Footnote 167: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 11. Gruter, Inscrip. p.
1171, No. 18. Rufinus has mistaken the office of Adauctus, as
well as the place of his martyrdom.
Note: M. Guizot suggests the powerful cunuchs of the palace.
Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and Andrew, admitted by Gibbon himself to
have been put to death, p. 66.]
The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored peace to the
churches of Italy and Africa; and the same tyrant who oppressed
every other class of his subjects, showed himself just, humane,
and even partial, towards the afflicted Christians. He depended
on their gratitude and affection, and very naturally presumed,
that the injuries which they had suffered, and the dangers which
they still apprehended from his most inveterate enemy, would
secure the fidelity of a party already considerable by their
numbers and opulence. ^168 Even the conduct of Maxentius towards
the bishops of Rome and Carthage may be considered as the proof
of his toleration, since it is probable that the most orthodox
princes would adopt the same measures with regard to their
established clergy. Marcellus, the former of these prelates, had
thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe penance which he
imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the late
persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The
rage of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the
blood of the faithful was shed by each other's hands, and the
exile of Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less
eminent than his zeal, was found to be the only measure capable
of restoring peace to the distracted church of Rome. ^169 The
behavior of Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been
still more reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a
libel against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the
episcopal palace; and though it was somewhat early to advance any
claims of ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to
deliver him up to the officers of justice. For this treasonable
resistance, Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of
receiving a legal sentence of death or banishment, he was
permitted, after a short examination, to return to his diocese.
^170 Such was the happy condition of the Christian subjects of
Maxentius, that whenever they were desirous of procuring for
their own use any bodies of martyrs, they were obliged to
purchase them from the most distant provinces of the East. A
story is related of Aglae, a Roman lady, descended from a
consular family, and possessed of so ample an estate, that it
required the management of seventy-three stewards. Among these
Boniface was the favorite of his mistress; and as Aglae mixed
love with devotion, it is reported that he was admitted to share
her bed. Her fortune enabled her to gratify the pious desire of
obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She intrusted
Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large quantity of
aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen and three
covered chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far as Tarsus
in Cilicia. ^171
[Footnote 168: Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14. But as Maxentius was
vanquished by Constantine, it suited the purpose of Lactantius to
place his death among those of the persecutors.
Note: M. Guizot directly contradicts this statement of
Gibbon, and appeals to Eusebius. Maxentius, who assumed the
power in Italy, pretended at first to be a Christian, to gain the
favor of the Roman people; he ordered his ministers to cease to
persecute the Christians, affecting a hypocritical piety, in
order to appear more mild than his predecessors; but his actions
soon proved that he was very different from what they had at
first hoped." The actions of Maxentius were those of a cruel
tyrant,but not those of a persecutor: the Christians, like the
rest of his subjects, suffered from his vices, but they were not
oppressed as a sect. Christian females were exposed to his
lusts, as well as to the brutal violence of his colleague
Maximian, but they were not selected as Christians. - M.]
[Footnote 169: The epitaph of Marcellus is to be found in Gruter,
Inscrip. p 1172, No. 3, and it contains all that we know of his
history. Marcellinus and Marcellus, whose names follow in the
list of popes, are supposed by many critics to be different
persons; but the learned Abbe de Longuerue was convinced that
they were one and the same.
Veridicus rector lapsis quia crimina flere
Praedixit miseris, fuit omnibus hostis amarus.
Hinc furor, hinc odium; sequitur discordia, lites,
Seditio, caedes; solvuntur foedera pacis.
Crimen ob alterius, Christum qui in pace negavit
Finibus expulsus patriae est feritate Tyranni.
Haec breviter Damasus voluit comperta referre:
Marcelli populus meritum cognoscere posset.
We may observe that Damasus was made Bishop of Rome, A. D. 366.]
[Footnote 170: Optatus contr. Donatist. l. i. c. 17, 18.
Note: The words of Optatus are, Profectus (Roman) causam
dixit; jussus con reverti Carthaginem; perhaps, in pleading his
cause, he exculpated himself, since he received an order to
return to Carthage. - G.]
[Footnote 171: The Acts of the Passion of St. Boniface, which
abound in miracles and declamation, are published by Ruinart, (p.
283 - 291,) both in Greek and Latin, from the authority of very
ancient manuscripts.
Note: We are ignorant whether Aglae and Boniface were
Christians at the time of their unlawful connection. See
Tillemont. Mem, Eccles. Note on the Persecution of Domitian,
tom. v. note 82. M. de Tillemont proves also that the history is
doubtful. - G.
Sir D. Dalrymple (Lord Hailes) calls the story of Aglae and
Boniface as of equal authority with our popular histories of
Whittington and Hickathrift. Christian Antiquities, ii. 64. - M.]
The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal
author of the persecution, was formidable to those Christians
whom their misfortunes had placed within the limits of his
dominions; and it may fairly be presumed that many persons of a
middle rank, who were not confined by the chains either of wealth
or of poverty, very frequently deserted their native country, and
sought a refuge in the milder climate of the West. ^! As long as
he commanded only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he could
with difficulty either find or make a considerable number of
martyrs, in a warlike country, which had entertained the
missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance than
any other part of the empire. ^172 But when Galerius had obtained
the supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in
their fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the
provinces of Thrace and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate
jurisdiction, but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where
Maximin gratified his own inclination, by yielding a rigorous
obedience to the stern commands of his benefactor. ^173 The
frequent disappointments of his ambitious views, the experience
of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections which a
lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of
Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts
of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to
subdue their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the
mischief that he had occasioned, he published in his own name,
and in those of Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, which,
after a pompous recital of the Imperial titles, proceeded in the
following manner: -
[Footnote !: A little after this, Christianity was propagated to
the north of the Roman provinces, among the tribes of Germany: a
multitude of Christians, forced by the persecutions of the
Emperors to take refuge among the Barbarians, were received with
kindness. Euseb. de Vit. Constant. ii. 53. Semler Select. cap.
H. E. p. 115. The Goths owed their first knowledge of
Christianity to a young girl, a prisoner of war; she continued in
the midst of them her exercises of piety; she fasted, prayed, and
praised God day and night. When she was asked what good would
come of so much painful trouble she answered, "It is thus that
Christ, the Son of God, is to be honored." Sozomen, ii. c. 6. -
G.]
[Footnote 172: During the four first centuries, there exist few
traces of either bishops or bishoprics in the western Illyricum.
It has been thought probable that the primate of Milan extended
his jurisdiction over Sirmium, the capital of that great
province. See the Geographia Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, p.
68-76, with the observations of Lucas Holstenius.]
[Footnote 173: The viiith book of Eusebius, as well as the
supplement concerning the martyrs of Palestine, principally
relate to the persecution of Galerius and Maximin. The general
lamentations with which Lactantius opens the vth book of his
Divine Institutions allude to their cruelty.]
"Among the important cares which have occupied our mind for
the utility and preservation of the empire, it was our intention
to correct and reestablish all things according to the ancient
laws and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly
desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature, the
deluded Christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies
instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising the
practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and
opinions, according to the dictates of their fancy, and had
collected a various society from the different provinces of our
empire. The edicts, which we have published to enforce the
worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to
danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more,
who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of
any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to
those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit
them therefore freely to profess their private opinions, and to
assemble in their conventicles without fear or molestation,
provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
established laws and government. By another rescript we shall
signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope
that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their
prayers to the Deity whom they adore, for our safety and
prosperity for their own, and for that of the republic." ^174 It
is not usually in the language of edicts and manifestos that we
should search for the real character or the secret motives of
princes; but as these were the words of a dying emperor, his
situation, perhaps, may be admitted as a pledge of his sincerity.
[Footnote 174: Eusebius (l. viii. c. 17) has given us a Greek
version, and Lactantius (de M. P. c. 34) the Latin original, of
this memorable edict. Neither of these writers seems to recollect
how directly it contradicts whatever they have just affirmed of
the remorse and repentance of Galerius.
Note: But Gibbon has answered this by his just observation,
that it is not in the language of edicts and manifestos that we
should search * * for the secre motives of princes. - M.]
When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, he was
well assured that Licinius would readily comply with the
inclinations of his friend and benefactor, and that any measures
in favor of the Christians would obtain the approbation of
Constantine. But the emperor would not venture to insert in the
preamble the name of Maximin, whose consent was of the greatest
importance, and who succeeded a few days afterwards to the
provinces of Asia. In the first six months, however, of his new
reign, Maximin affected to adopt the prudent counsels of his
predecessor; and though he never condescended to secure the
tranquillity of the church by a public edict, Sabinus, his
Praetorian praefect, addressed a circular letter to all the
governors and magistrates of the provinces, expatiating on the
Imperial clemency, acknowledging the invincible obstinacy of the
Christians, and directing the officers of justice to cease their
ineffectual prosecutions, and to connive at the secret assemblies
of those enthusiasts. In consequence of these orders, great
numbers of Christians were released from prison, or delivered
from the mines. The confessors, singing hymns of triumph,
returned into their own countries; and those who had yielded to
the violence of the tempest, solicited with tears of repentance
their readmission into the bosom of the church. ^175
[Footnote 175: Eusebius, l. ix. c. 1. He inserts the epistle of
the praefect.]
But this treacherous calm was of short duration; nor could
the Christians of the East place any confidence in the character
of their sovereign. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling
passions of the soul of Maximin. The former suggested the means,
the latter pointed out the objects of persecution. The emperor
was devoted to the worship of the gods, to the study of magic,
and to the belief of oracles. The prophets or philosophers, whom
he revered as the favorites of Heaven, were frequently raised to
the government of provinces, and admitted into his most secret
councils. They easily convinced him that the Christians had been
indebted for their victories to their regular discipline, and
that the weakness of polytheism had principally flowed from a
want of union and subordination among the ministers of religion.
A system of government was therefore instituted, which was
evidently copied from the policy of the church. In all the great
cities of the empire, the temples were repaired and beautified by
the order of Maximin, and the officiating priests of the various
deities were subjected to the authority of a superior pontiff
destined to oppose the bishop, and to promote the cause of
paganism. These pontiffs acknowledged, in their turn, the
supreme jurisdiction of the metropolitans or high priests of the
province, who acted as the immediate vicegerents of the emperor
himself. A white robe was the ensign of their dignity; and these
new prelates were carefully selected from the most noble and
opulent families. By the influence of the magistrates, and of
the sacerdotal order, a great number of dutiful addresses were
obtained, particularly from the cities of Nicomedia, Antioch, and
Tyre, which artfully represented the well-known intentions of the
court as the general sense of the people; solicited the emperor
to consult the laws of justice rather than the dictates of his
clemency; expressed their abhorrence of the Christians, and
humbly prayed that those impious sectaries might at least be
excluded from the limits of their respective territories. The
answer of Maximin to the address which he obtained from the
citizens of Tyre is still extant. He praises their zeal and
devotion in terms of the highest satisfaction, descants on the
obstinate impiety of the Christians, and betrays, by the
readiness with which he consents to their banishment, that he
considered himself as receiving, rather than as conferring, an
obligation. The priests as well as the magistrates were
empowered to enforce the execution of his edicts, which were
engraved on tables of brass; and though it was recommended to
them to avoid the effusion of blood, the most cruel and
ignominious punishments were inflicted on the refractory
Christians. ^176
[Footnote 176: See Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14, l. ix. c. 2 - 8.
Lactantius de M. P. c. 36. These writers agree in representing
the arts of Maximin; but the former relates the execution of
several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi
servos Dei vetuit.
Note: It is easy to reconcile them; it is sufficient to
quote the entire text of Lactantius: Nam cum clementiam specie
tenus profiteretur, occidi servos Dei vetuit, debilitari jussit.
Itaque confessoribus effodiebantur oculi, amputabantur manus,
nares vel auriculae desecabantur. Haec ille moliens Constantini
litteris deterretur. Dissimulavit ergo, et tamen, si quis
inciderit. mari occulte mergebatur. This detail of torments
inflicted on the Christians easily reconciles Lactantius and
Eusebius. Those who died in consequence of their tortures, those
who were plunged into the sea, might well pass for martyrs. The
mutilation of the words of Lactantius has alone given rise to the
apparent contradiction. - G.
Eusebius. ch. vi., relates the public martyrdom of the aged
bishop of Emesa, with two others, who were thrown to the wild
beasts, the beheading of Peter, bishop of Alexandria, with
several others, and the death of Lucian, presbyter of Antioch,
who was carried to Numidia, and put to death in prison. The
contradiction is direct and undeniable, for although Eusebius may
have misplaced the former martyrdoms, it may be doubted whether
the authority of Maximin extended to Nicomedia till after the
death of Galerius. The last edict of toleration issued by
Maximin and published by Eusebius himself, Eccl. Hist. ix. 9.
confirms the statement of Lactantius. - M.]
The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the
severity of a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of
violence with such deliberate policy. But a few months had
scarcely elapsed before the edicts published by the two Western
emperors obliged Maximin to suspend the prosecution of his
designs: the civil war which he so rashly undertook against
Licinius employed all his attention; and the defeat and death of
Maximin soon delivered the church from the last and most
implacable of her enemies. ^177
[Footnote 177: A few days before his death, he published a very
ample edict of toleration, in which he imputes all the severities
which the Christians suffered to the judges and governors, who
had misunderstood his intentions.See the edict of Eusebius, l.
ix. c. 10.]
In this general view of the persecution, which was first
authorized by the edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely
refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of
the Christian martyrs. It would have been an easy task, from the
history of Eusebius, from the declamations of Lactantius, and
from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series of horrid
and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and
scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the
variety of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more
savage executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These
melancholy scenes might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and
miracles destined either to delay the death, to celebrate the
triumph, or to discover the relics of those canonized saints who
suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I
ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to
believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius
himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might
redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could
tend to the disgrace, of religion. ^178 Such an acknowledgment
will naturally excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly
violated one of the fundamental laws of history, has not paid a
very strict regard to the observance of the other; and the
suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of
Eusebius, ^* which was less tinctured with credulity, and more
practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his
contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the
magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest
or resentment, the rules of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to
overturn the altars, to pour out imprecations against the
emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his tribunal, it
may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty could
invent, or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted
victims. ^179 Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily
mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of the
Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice,
was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been.
1. The confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were
permitted by the humanity or the negligence of their keepers to
build chapels, and freely to profess their religion in the midst
of those dreary habitations. ^180 2. The bishops were obliged to
check and to censure the forward zeal of the Christians, who
voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the magistrates.
Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who
blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glorious
death. Others were allured by the hope that a short confinement
would expiate the sins of a whole life; and others again were
actuated by the less honorable motive of deriving a plentiful
subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms
which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. ^181
After the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest
as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the
merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of
time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and
the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs,
whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength had been
renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored,
were extremely convenient for the purpose of removing every
difficulty, and of silencing every objection. The most
extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honor of the church,
were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the
power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of
ecclesiastical history.
[Footnote 178: Such is the fair deduction from two remarkable
passages in Eusebius, l. viii. c. 2, and de Martyr. Palestin. c.
12. The prudence of the historian has exposed his own character
to censure and suspicion. It was well known that he himself had
been thrown into prison; and it was suggested that he had
purchased his deliverance by some dishonorable compliance. The
reproach was urged in his lifetime, and even in his presence, at
the council of Tyre. See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques,
tom. viii. part i. p. 67.]
[Footnote *: Historical criticism does not consist in rejecting
indiscriminately all the facts which do not agree with a
particular system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in which,
except at the last extremity, he will not consent to believe a
martyrdom. Authorities are to be weighed, not excluded from
examination. Now, the Pagan historians justify in many places
the detail which have been transmitted to us by the historians of
the church, concerning the tortures endured by the Christians.
Celsus reproaches the Christians with holding their assemblies in
secret, on account of the fear inspired by their sufferings, "for
when you are arrested," he says, "you are dragged to punishment:
and, before you are put to death, you have to suffer all kinds of
tortures." Origen cont. Cels. l. i. ii. vi. viii. passing.
Libanius, the panegyrist of Julian, says, while speaking of the
Christians.
Those who followed a corrupt religion were in continual
apprehensions; they feared lest Julian should invent tortures
still more refined than those to which they had been exposed
before, as mutilation, burning alive, &c.; for the emperors had
inflicted upon them all these barbarities." Lib. Parent in
Julian. ap. Fab. Bib. Graec. No. 9, No. 58, p. 283 - G.]
[Footnote *: This sentence of Gibbon has given rise to several
learned dissertation: Moller, de Fide Eusebii Caesar, &c.,
Havniae, 1813. Danzius, de Eusebio Caes. Hist. Eccl. Scriptore,
ejusque tide historica recte aestimanda, &c., Jenae, 1815.
Kestner Commentatio de Eusebii Hist. Eccles. conditoris
auctoritate et fide, &c. See also Reuterdahl, de Fontibus
Historiae Eccles. Eusebianae, Lond. Goth., 1826. Gibbon's
inference may appear stronger than the text will warrant, yet it
is difficult, after reading the passages, to dismiss all
suspicion of partiality from the mind. - M.]
[Footnote 179: The ancient, and perhaps authentic, account of the
sufferings of Tarachus and his companions, (Acta Sincera Ruinart,
p. 419 - 448,) is filled with strong expressions of resentment
and contempt, which could not fail of irritating the magistrate.
The behavior of Aedesius to Hierocles, praefect of Egypt, was
still more extraordinary. Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 5.
Note: M. Guizot states, that the acts of Tarachus and his
companion contain nothing that appears dictated by violent
feelings, (sentiment outre.) Nothing can be more painful than the
constant attempt of Gibbon throughout this discussion, to find
some flaw in the virtue and heroism of the martyrs, some
extenuation for the cruelty of the persecutors. But truth must
not be sacrificed even to well-grounded moral indignation.
Though the language of these martyrs is in great part that of
calm de fiance, of noble firmness, yet there are many expressions
which betray "resentment and contempt." "Children of Satan,
worshippers of Devils," is their common appellation of the
heathen. One of them calls the judge another, one curses, and
declares that he will curse the Emperors, as pestilential and
bloodthirsty tyrants, whom God will soon visit in his wrath. On
the other hand, though at first they speak the milder language of
persuasion, the cold barbarity of the judges and officers might
surely have called forth one sentence of abhorrence from Gibbon.
On the first unsatisfactory answer, "Break his jaw," is the order
of the judge. They direct and witness the most excruciating
tortures; the people, as M. Guizot observers, were so much
revolted by the cruelty of Maximus that when the martyrs appeared
in the amphitheatre, fear seized on all hearts, and general
murmurs against the unjust judge rank through the assembly. It
is singular, at least, that Gibbon should have quoted "as
probably authentic," acts so much embellished with miracle as
these of Tarachus are, particularly towards the end. - M.
Note: Scarcely were the authorities informed of this, than
the president of the province, a man, says Eusebius, harsh and
cruel, banished the confessors, some to Cyprus, others to
different parts of Palestine, and ordered them to be tormented by
being set to the most painful labors. Four of them, whom he
required to abjure their faith and refused, were burnt alive.
Euseb. de Mart. Palest. c. xiii. - G. Two of these were bishops;
a fifth, Silvanus, bishop of Gaza, was the last martyr; another,
named John was blinded, but used to officiate, and recite from
memory long passages of the sacred writings - M.]
[Footnote 180: Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13.]
[Footnote 181: Augustin. Collat. Carthagin. Dei, iii. c. 13, ap.
Tillanant, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. v. part i. p. 46. The
controversy with the Donatists, has reflected some, though
perhaps a partial, light on the history of the African church.]
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.
Part VIII.
The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain
and torture, are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil
of an artful orator, ^* that we are naturally induced to inquire
into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of
persons who suffered death in consequence of the edicts published
by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors. The recent
legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once
swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more
ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal
effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without condescending
to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were
permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel.
From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that
only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are assured,
by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, that
no more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that
honorable appellation. ^182 ^! As we are unacquainted with the
degree of episcopal zeal and courage which prevailed at that
time, it is not in our power to draw any useful inferences from
the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify a
very important and probable conclusion. According to the
distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as
the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: ^183 and since there
were some governors, who from a real or affected clemency had
preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful,
^184 it is reasonable to believe, that the country which had
given birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part
of the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of
Galerius and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to
about fifteen hundred, a number which, if it is equally divided
between the ten years of the persecution, will allow an annual
consumption of one hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same
proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain,
where, at the end of two or three years, the rigor of the penal
laws was either suspended or abolished, the multitude of
Christians in the Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment was
inflicted by a judicia, sentence, will be reduced to somewhat
less than two thousand persons. Since it cannot be doubted that
the Christians were more numerous, and their enemies more
exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than they had ever been
in any former persecution, this probable and moderate computation
may teach us to estimate the number of primitive saints and
martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the important purpose of
introducing Christianity into the world.
[Footnote *: Perhaps there never was an instance of an author
committing so deliberately the fault which he reprobates so
strongly in others. What is the dexterous management of the more
inartificial historians of Christianity, in exaggerating the
numbers of the martyrs, compared to the unfair address with which
Gibbon here quietly dismisses from the account all the horrible
and excruciating tortures which fell short of death? The reader
may refer to the xiith chapter (book viii.) of Eusebius for the
description and for the scenes of these tortures. - M.]
[Footnote 182: Eusebius de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. He closes
his narration by assuring us that these were the martyrdoms
inflicted in Palestine, during the whole course of the
persecution. The 9th chapter of his viiith book, which relates
to the province of Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our
moderate computation; but it will only lead us to admire the
artful management of the historian. Choosing for the scene of
the most exquisite cruelty the most remote and sequestered
country of the Roman empire, he relates that in Thebais from ten
to one hundred persons had frequently suffered martyrdom in the
same day. But when he proceeds to mention his own journey into
Egypt, his language insensibly becomes more cautious and
moderate. Instead of a large, but definite number, he speaks of
many Christians, and most artfully selects two ambiguous words,
which may signify either what he had seen, or what he had heard;
either the expectation, or the execution of the punishment.
Having thus provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal
passage to his readers and translators; justly conceiving that
their piety would induce them to prefer the most favorable sense.
There was perhaps some malice in the remark of Theodorus
Metochita, that all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with
the Egyptians, delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See
Valesius ad loc.)
[Footnote !: This calculation is made from the martyrs, of whom
Eusebius speaks by name; but he recognizes a much greater number.
Thus the ninth and tenth chapters of his work are entitled, "Of
Antoninus, Zebinus, Germanus, and other martyrs; of Peter the
monk. of Asclepius the Maroionite, and other martyrs." [Are
these vague contents of chapters very good authority? - M.]
Speaking of those who suffered under Diocletian, he says, "I will
only relate the death of one of these, from which, the reader may
divine what befell the rest." Hist. Eccl. viii. 6. [This relates
only to the martyrs in the royal household. - M.] Dodwell had
made, before Gibbon, this calculation and these objections; but
Ruinart (Act. Mart. Pref p. 27, et seq.) has answered him in a
peremptory manner: Nobis constat Eusebium in historia infinitos
passim martyres admisisse. quamvis revera paucorum nomina
recensuerit. Nec alium Eusebii interpretem quam ipsummet
Eusebium proferimus, qui (l. iii. c. 33) ait sub Trajano
plurimosa ex fidelibus martyrii certamen subiisse (l. v. init.)
sub Antonino et Vero innumerabiles prope martyres per universum
orbem enituisse affirmat. (L. vi. c. 1.) Severum persecutionem
concitasse refert, in qua per omnes ubique locorum Ecclesias, ab
athletis pro pietate certantibus, illustria confecta fuerunt
martyria. Sic de Decii, sic de Valeriani, persecutionibus
loquitur, quae an Dodwelli faveant conjectionibus judicet aequus
lector. Even in the persecutions which Gibbon has represented as
much more mild than that of Diocletian, the number of martyrs
appears much greater than that to which he limits the martyrs of
the latter: and this number is attested by incontestable
monuments. I will quote but one example. We find among the
letters of St. Cyprian one from Lucianus to Celerinus, written
from the depth of a prison, in which Lucianus names seventeen of
his brethren dead, some in the quarries, some in the midst of
tortures some of starvation in prison. Jussi sumus (he proceeds)
secundum prae ceptum imperatoris, fame et siti necari, et reclusi
sumus in duabus cellis, ta ut nos afficerent fame et siti et
ignis vapore. - G.]
[Footnote 183: When Palestine was divided into three, the
praefecture of the East contained forty-eight provinces. As the
ancient distinctions of nations were long since abolished, the
Romans distributed the provinces according to a general
proportion of their extent and opulence.]
[Footnote 184: Ut gloriari possint nullam se innocentium
poremisse, nam et ipse audivi aloquos gloriantes, quia
administratio sua, in hac paris merit incruenta. Lactant.
Institur. Divin v. 11.]
We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which
obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting,
without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or
devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still
be acknowledged, that the Christians, in the course of their
intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on
each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels.
During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the
Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city
extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the
Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected,
and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason,
was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from
the twelfth to the sixteenth century assumed the popular
character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence
the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and
benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres,
and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers
were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious
freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with
that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the
terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone, more
than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said
to have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this
extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, ^185 a man of genius
and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of
contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and
country, at a time when the invention of printing had facilitated
the means of intelligence, and increased the danger of detection.
If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of
Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of Protestants, who
were executed in a single province and a single reign, far
exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three
centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of
the fact itself should prevail over the weight of evidence; if
Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and
sufferings of the Reformers; ^186 we shall be naturally led to
inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and
imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit
can be assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer,
^* who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the
exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on
the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded
predecessors of their gracious sovereign.
[Footnote 185: Grot. Annal. de Rebus Belgicis, l. i. p. 12, edit.
fol.]
[Footnote 186: Fra Paola (Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, l.
iii.) reduces the number of the Belgic martyrs to 50,000. In
learning and moderation Fra Paola was not inferior to Grotius.
The priority of time gives some advantage to the evidence of the
former, which he loses, on the other hand, by the distance of
Venice from the Netherlands.]
[Footnote *: Eusebius and the author of the Treatise de Mortibus
Persecutorum. It is deeply to be regretted that the history of
this period rest so much on the loose and, it must be admitted,
by no means scrupulous authority of Eusebius. Ecclesiastical
history is a solemn and melancholy lesson that the best, even the
most sacred, cause will eventually the least departure from
truth! - M.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.
Part I.
Foundation Of Constantinople. - Political System
Constantine, And His Successors. - Military Discipline. - The
Palace. - The Finances.
The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the
greatness, and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of
Constantine. After a tranquil and prosperous reign, the
conquerer bequeathed to his family the inheritance of the Roman
empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a new religion; and the
innovations which he established have been embraced and
consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the great
Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but the
historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless
he diligently separates from each other the scenes which are
connected only by the order of time. He will describe the
political institutions that gave strength and stability to the
empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions
which hastened its decline. He will adopt the division unknown
to the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs: the victory
of the Christians, and their intestine discord, will supply
copious and distinct materials both for edification and for
scandal.
After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious
rival proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to
reign in future times, the mistress of the East, and to survive
the empire and religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of
pride or of policy, which first induced Diocletian to withdraw
himself from the ancient seat of government, had acquired
additional weight by the example of his successors, and the
habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded with the
dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy; and
the country of the Caesars was viewed with cold indifference by a
martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated
in the courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by
the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had received
Constantine as their deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts
which he sometimes condescended to address to the senate and
people of Rome; but they were seldom honored with the presence of
their new sovereign. During the vigor of his age, Constantine,
according to the various exigencies of peace and war, moved with
slow dignity, or with active diligence, along the frontiers of
his extensive dominions; and was always prepared to take the
field either against a foreign or a domestic enemy. But as he
gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the decline of
life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more
permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne.
In the choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the
confines of Europe and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the
barbarians who dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch
with an eye of jealousy the conduct of the Persian monarch, who
indignantly supported the yoke of an ignominious treaty. With
these views, Diocletian had selected and embellished the
residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was justly
abhorred by the protector of the church: and Constantine was not
insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might
perpetuate the glory of his own name. During the late operations
of the war against Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to
contemplate, both as a soldier and as a statesman, the
incomparable position of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly
it was guarded by nature against a hostile attack, whilst it was
accessible on every side to the benefits of commercial
intercourse. Many ages before Constantine, one of the most
judicious historians of antiquity ^1 had described the advantages
of a situation, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the
command of the sea, and the honors of a flourishing and
independent republic. ^2
[Footnote 1: Polybius, l. iv. p. 423, edit. Casaubon. He
observes that the peace of the Byzantines was frequently
disturbed, and the extent of their territory contracted, by the
inroads of the wild Thracians.]
[Footnote 2: The navigator Byzas, who was styled the son of
Neptune, founded the city 656 years before the Christian aera.
His followers were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was
afterwards rebuild and fortified by the Spartan general
Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange,
Constantinopolis, l. i part i. cap 15, 16. With regard to the
wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings
of Bithynia, we should trust none but the ancient writers who
lived before the greatness of the Imperial city had excited a
spirit of flattery and fiction.]
If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with
the august name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial
city may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The
obtuse point, which advances towards the east and the shores of
Asia, meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The
northern side of the city is bounded by the harbor; and the
southern is washed by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara. The basis
of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the
continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the
circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood.
The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine
flow with a rapid and incessant course towards the Mediterranean,
received the appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated
in the history, than in the fables, of antiquity. ^3 A crowd of
temples and of votive altars, profusely scattered along its steep
and woody banks, attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the
devotion of the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the
Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On
these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the palace of
Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; ^4 and of the sylvan
reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the
cestus. ^5 The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the
Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets,
had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by
the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of
profane curiosity. ^6 From the Cyanean rocks to the point and
harbor of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends
about sixteen miles, ^7 and its most ordinary breadth may be
computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe
and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the
foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter
Urius. The old castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command
the narrowest part of the channel in a place where the opposite
banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These
fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the Second,
when he meditated the siege of Constantinople: ^8 but the Turkish
conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand
years before his reign, continents by a bridge of boats. ^9 At a
small distance from the old castles we discover the little town
of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the
Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to
open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon.
The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a few years
before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who
overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has
been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt. ^10
[Footnote 3: The Bosphorus has been very minutely described by
Dionysius of Byzantium, who lived in the time of Domitian,
(Hudson, Geograph Minor, tom. iii.,) and by Gilles or Gyllius, a
French traveller of the XVIth century. Tournefort (Lettre XV.)
seems to have used his own eyes, and the learning of Gyllius.
[Add Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosphoros, 8vo. - M.]
[Footnote 4: There are very few conjectures so happy as that of
Le Clere, (Bibliotehque Universelle, tom. i. p. 148,) who
supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac or
Phoenician name of those insects, their noisy flight, the stench
and devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which
drives them into the sea, all contribute to form the striking
resemblance.]
[Footnote 5: The residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old
and the new castles, at a place called Laurus Insana. That of
Phineus was in Europe, near the village of Mauromole and the
Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. l. ii. c. 23. Tournefort,
Lettre XV.]
[Footnote 6: The deception was occasioned by several pointed
rocks, alternately sovered and abandoned by the waves. At
present there are two small islands, one towards either shore;
that of Europe is distinguished by the column of Pompey.]
[Footnote 7: The ancients computed one hundred and twenty stadia,
or fifteen Roman miles. They measured only from the new castles,
but they carried the straits as far as the town of Chalcedon.]
[Footnote 8: Ducas. Hist. c. 34. Leunclavius Hist. Turcica
Mussulmanica, l. xv. p. 577. Under the Greek empire these
castles were used as state prisons, under the tremendous name of
Lethe, or towers of oblivion.]
[Footnote 9: Darius engraved in Greek and Assyrian letters, on
two marble columns, the names of his subject nations, and the
amazing numbers of his land and sea forces. The Byzantines
afterwards transported these columns into the city, and used them
for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodotus, l. iv. c.
87.]
[Footnote 10: Namque arctissimo inter Europam Asiamque divortio
Byzantium in extrema Europa posuere Greci, quibus, Pythium
Apollinem consulentibus ubi conderent urbem, redditum oraculum
est, quaererent sedem oecerum terris adversam. Ea ambage
Chalcedonii monstrabantur quod priores illuc advecti, praevisa
locorum utilitate pejora legissent Tacit. Annal. xii. 63.]
The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an
arm of the Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the
denomination of the Golden Horn. The curve which it describes
might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it should seem,
with more propriety, to that of an ox. ^11 The epithet of golden
was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the
most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of
Constantinople. The River Lycus, formed by the conflux of two
little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the
periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that
convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely
felt in those seas, the constant depth of the harbor allows goods
to be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it
has been observed, that in many places the largest vessels may
rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns are
floating in the water. ^12 From the mouth of the Lycus to that of
the harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in
length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a
strong chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the
port and city from the attack of a hostile navy. ^13
[Footnote 11: Strabo, l. vii. p. 492, [edit. Casaub.] Most of the
antlers are now broken off; or, to speak less figuratively, most
of the recesses of the harbor are filled up. See Gill. de
Bosphoro Thracio, l. i. c. 5.]
[Footnote 12: Procopius de Aedificiis, l. i. c. 5. His
description is confirmed by modern travellers. See Thevenot,
part i. l. i. c. 15. Tournefort, Lettre XII. Niebuhr, Voyage
d'Arabie, p. 22.]
[Footnote 13: See Ducange, C. P. l. i. part i. c. 16, and his
Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 289. The chain was drawn from
the Acropolis near the modern Kiosk, to the tower of Galata; and
was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.]
Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of
Europe and Asia, receding on either side, enclose the sea of
Marmara, which was known to the ancients by the denomination of
Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the
entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles.
Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the
Propontis, amt at once descry the high lands of Thrace and
Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount
Olympus, covered with eternal snows. ^14 They leave on the left a
deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the
Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands
of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli;
where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is again
contracted into a narrow channel.
[Footnote 14: Thevenot (Voyages au Levant, part i. l. i. c. 14)
contracts the measure to 125 small Greek miles. Belon
(Observations, l. ii. c. 1.) gives a good description of the
Propontis, but contents himself with the vague expression of one
day and one night's sail. When Sandy's (Travels, p. 21) talks of
150 furlongs in length, as well as breadth we can only suppose
some mistake of the press in the text of that judicious
traveller.]
The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have
surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about
sixty miles for the winding course, and about three miles for the
ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. ^15 But the
narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the
old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus and Abydus. It
was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the
flood for the possession of his mistress. ^16 It was here
likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite
banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a
stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into
Europe a hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. ^17 A sea
contracted within such narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve
the singular epithet of broad, which Homer, as well as Orpheus,
has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. ^* But our ideas of
greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and especially
the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the
windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which
appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
the remembrance of the sea; and his fancy painted those
celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river
flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and inland
country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself
into the Aegean or Archipelago. ^18 Ancient Troy, ^19 seated on a
an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the mouth of the
Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of waters from
the tribute of those immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander.
The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore from
the Sigaean to the Rhaetean promontory; and the flanks of the
army were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the
banners of Agamemnon. The first of those promontories was
occupied by Achilles with his invincible myrmidons, and the
dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had
fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride, and to the
ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the
ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove
and of Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of Rhaeteum
celebrated his memory with divine honors. ^20 Before Constantine
gave a just preference to the situation of Byzantium, he had
conceived the design of erecting the seat of empire on this
celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived their fabulous
origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient Troy,
towards the Rhaetean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first
chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
relinquished the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the
Hellespont. ^21
[Footnote 15: See an admirable dissertation of M. d'Anville upon
the Hellespont or Dardanelles, in the Memoires tom. xxviii. p.
318 - 346. Yet even that ingenious geographer is too fond of
supposing new, and perhaps imaginary measures, for the purpose of
rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself. The stadia
employed by Herodotus in the description of the Euxine, the
Bosphorus, &c., (l. iv. c. 85,) must undoubtedly be all of the
same species; but it seems impossible to reconcile them either
with truth or with each other.]
[Footnote 16: The oblique distance between Sestus and Abydus was
thirty stadia. The improbable tale of Hero and Leander is
exposed by M. Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of poets
and medals by M. de la Nauze. See the Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. vii. Hist. p. 74. elem. p. 240.
Note: The practical illustration of the possibility of
Leander's feat by Lord Byron and other English swimmers is too
well known to need particularly reference - M.]
[Footnote 17: See the seventh book of Herodotus, who has erected
an elegant trophy to his own fame and to that of his country.
The review appears to have been made with tolerable accuracy; but
the vanity, first of the Persians, and afterwards of the Greeks,
was interested to magnify the armament and the victory. I should
much doubt whether the invaders have ever outnumbered the men of
any country which they attacked.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon does not allow greater width between the two
nearest points of the shores of the Hellespont than between those
of the Bosphorus; yet all the ancient writers speak of the
Hellespontic strait as broader than the other: they agree in
giving it seven stadia in its narrowest width, (Herod. in Melp.
c. 85. Polym. c. 34. Strabo, p. 591. Plin. iv. c. 12.) which
make 875 paces. It is singular that Gibbon, who in the fifteenth
note of this chapter reproaches d'Anville with being fond of
supposing new and perhaps imaginary measures, has here adopted
the peculiar measurement which d'Anville has assigned to the
stadium. This great geographer believes that the ancients had a
stadium of fifty-one toises, and it is that which he applies to
the walls of Babylon. Now, seven of these stadia are equal to
about 500 paces, 7 stadia = 2142 feet: 500 paces = 2135 feet 5
inches. - G. See Rennell, Geog. of Herod. p. 121. Add Ukert,
Geographie der Griechen und Romer, v. i. p. 2, 71. - M.]
[Footnote 18: See Wood's Observations on Homer, p. 320. I have,
with pleasure, selected this remark from an author who in general
seems to have disappointed the expectation of the public as a
critic, and still more as a traveller. He had visited the banks
of the Hellespont; and had read Strabo; he ought to have
consulted the Roman itineraries. How was it possible for him to
confound Ilium and Alexandria Troas, (Observations, p. 340, 341,)
two cities which were sixteen miles distant from each other?
Note: Compare Walpole's Memoirs on Turkey, v. i. p. 101. Dr.
Clarke adopted Mr. Walpole's interpretation of the salt
Hellespont. But the old interpretation is more graphic and
Homeric. Clarke's Travels, ii. 70. - M.]
[Footnote 19: Demetrius of Scepsis wrote sixty books on thirty
lines of Homer's catalogue. The XIIIth Book of Strabo is
sufficient for our curiosity.]
[Footnote 20: Strabo, l. xiii. p. 595, [890, edit. Casaub.] The
disposition of the ships, which were drawn upon dry land, and the
posts of Ajax and Achilles, are very clearly described by Homer.
See Iliad, ix. 220.]
[Footnote 21: Zosim. l. ii. [c. 30,] p. 105. Sozomen, l. ii. c.
3. Theophanes, p. 18. Nicephorus Callistus, l. vii. p. 48.
Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 6. Zosimus places the new city
between Ilium and Alexandria, but this apparent difference may be
reconciled by the large extent of its circumference. Before the
foundation of Constantinople, Thessalonica is mentioned by
Cedrenus, (p. 283,) and Sardica by Zonaras, as the intended
capital. They both suppose with very little probability, that
the emperor, if he had not been prevented by a prodigy, would
have repeated the mistake of the blind Chalcedonians.]
We are at present qualified to view the advantageous
position of Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by
nature for the centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated
in the forty-first degree of latitude, the Imperial city
commanded, from her seven hills, ^22 the opposite shores of
Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and temperate, the soil
fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the approach on the
side of the continent was of small extent and easy defence. The
Bosphorus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two gates
of Constantinople; and the prince who possessed those important
passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open
them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern
provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of
Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the
preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the
Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and
despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates
of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still
enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which
could supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous
inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which
languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a
rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful
harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an
inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in
their stated seasons, without skill, and almost without labor.
^23 But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for
trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial
riches of the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the
Mediterranean. Whatever rude commodities were collected in the
forests of Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the
Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the
skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and
spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying winds
into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted
the commerce of the ancient world. ^24
[See Basilica Of Constantinople]
[Footnote 22: Pocock's Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii.
p. 127. His plan of the seven hills is clear and accurate. That
traveller is seldom unsatisfactory.]
[Footnote 23: See Belon, Observations, c. 72 - 76. Among a
variety of different species, the Pelamides, a sort of Thunnies,
were the most celebrated. We may learn from Polybius, Strabo,
and Tacitus, that the profits of the fishery constituted the
principal revenue of Byzantium.]
[Footnote 24: See the eloquent description of Busbequius,
epistol. i. p. 64. Est in Europa; habet in conspectu Asiam,
Egyptum. Africamque a dextra: quae tametsi contiguae non sunt,
maris tamen navigandique commoditate veluti junguntur. A
sinistra vero Pontus est Euxinus, &c.]
The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in
a single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of
Constantine. But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable
has, in every age, been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on
the origin of great cities, ^25 the emperor was desirous of
ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain counsels
of human policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees of
divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to
instruct posterity, that in obedience to the commands of God, he
laid the everlasting foundations of Constantinople: ^26 and
though he has not condescended to relate in what manner the
celestial inspiration was communicated to his mind, the defect of
his modest silence has been liberally supplied by the ingenuity
of succeeding writers; who describe the nocturnal vision which
appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he slept within the
walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable
matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands
adorned with all the symbols of Imperial greatness. ^27 The
monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed,
without hesitation, the will of Heaven The day which gave birth
to a city or colony was celebrated by the Romans with such
ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous superstition; ^28
and though Constantine might omit some rites which savored too
strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was anxious to leave a
deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the
spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor
himself led the solemn procession; and directed the line, which
was traced as the boundary of the destined capital: till the
growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the
assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe, that he had
already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. "I shall
still advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the invisible
guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop." ^29 Without
presuming to investigate the nature or motives of this
extraordinary conductor, we shall content ourselves with the more
humble task of describing the extent and limits of
Constantinople. ^30
[Footnote 25: Datur haec venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana
divinis, primordia urbium augustiora faciat. T. Liv. in prooem.]
[Footnote 26: He says in one of his laws, pro commoditate urbis
quam aeteras nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus. Cod. Theodos. l.
xiii. tit. v. leg. 7.]
[Footnote 27: The Greeks, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and the author of
the Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves to vague and
general expressions. For a more particular account of the vision,
we are obliged to have recourse to such Latin writers as William
of Malmesbury. See Ducange, C. P. l. i. p. 24, 25.]
[Footnote 28: See Plutarch in Romul. tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan.
Among other ceremonies, a large hole, which had been dug for that
purpose, was filled up with handfuls of earth, which each of the
settlers brought from the place of his birth, and thus adopted
his new country.]
[Footnote 29: Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 9. This incident, though
borrowed from a suspected writer, is characteristic and
probable.]
[Footnote 30: See in the Memoires de l'Academie, tom. xxxv p. 747
- 758, a dissertation of M. d'Anville on the extent of
Constantinople. He takes the plan inserted in the Imperium
Orientale of Banduri as the most complete; but, by a series of
very nice observations, he reduced the extravagant proportion of
the scale, and instead of 9500, determines the circumference of
the city as consisting of about 7800 French toises.]
In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of
the Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the
seven hills, and cover about one hundred and fifty acres of our
own measure. The seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism is
erected on the foundations of a Grecian republic; but it may be
supposed that the Byzantines were tempted by the conveniency of
the harbor to extend their habitations on that side beyond the
modern limits of the Seraglio. The new walls of Constantine
stretched from the port to the Propontis across the enlarged
breadth of the triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from
the ancient fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they
enclosed five of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who
approach Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in
beautiful order. ^31 About a century after the death of the
founder, the new buildings, extending on one side up the harbor,
and on the other along the Propontis, already covered the narrow
ridge of the sixth, and the broad summit of the seventh hill.
The necessity of protecting those suburbs from the incessant
inroads of the barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to
surround his capital with an adequate and permanent enclosure of
walls. ^32 From the eastern promontory to the golden gate, the
extreme length of Constantinople was about three Roman miles; ^33
the circumference measured between ten and eleven; and the
surface might be computed as equal to about two thousand English
acres. It is impossible to justify the vain and credulous
exaggerations of modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched
the limits of Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the
European, and even of the Asiatic coast. ^34 But the suburbs of
Pera and Galata, though situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to
be considered as a part of the city; ^35 and this addition may
perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine historian, who
assigns sixteen Greek (about fourteen Roman) miles for the
circumference of his native city. ^36 Such an extent may not seem
unworthy of an Imperial residence. Yet Constantinople must yield
to Babylon and Thebes, ^37 to ancient Rome, to London, and even
to Paris. ^38
[Footnote 31: Codinus, Antiquitat. Const. p. 12. He assigns the
church of St. Anthony as the boundary on the side of the harbor.
It is mentioned in Ducange, l. iv. c. 6; but I have tried,
without success, to discover the exact place where it was
situated.]
[Footnote 32: The new wall of Theodosius was constructed in the
year 413. In 447 it was thrown down by an earthquake, and rebuilt
in three months by the diligence of the praefect Cyrus. The
suburb of the Blanchernae was first taken into the city in the
reign of Heraclius Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 10, 11.]
[Footnote 33: The measurement is expressed in the Notitia by
14,075 feet. It is reasonable to suppose that these were Greek
feet, the proportion of which has been ingeniously determined by
M. d'Anville. He compares the 180 feet with 78 Hashemite cubits,
which in different writers are assigned for the heights of St.
Sophia. Each of these cubits was equal to 27 French inches.]
[Footnote 34: The accurate Thevenot (l. i. c. 15) walked in one
hour and three quarters round two of the sides of the triangle,
from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the seven towers. D'Anville
examines with care, and receives with confidence, this decisive
testimony, which gives a circumference of ten or twelve miles.
The extravagant computation of Tournefort (Lettre XI) of
thirty-tour or thirty miles, without including Scutari, is a
strange departure from his usual character.]
[Footnote 35: The sycae, or fig-trees, formed the thirteenth
region, and were very much embellished by Justinian. It has
since borne the names of Pera and Galata. The etymology of the
former is obvious; that of the latter is unknown. See Ducange,
Const. l. i. c. 22, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. iv. c. 10.]
[Footnote 36: One hundred and eleven stadia, which may be
translated into modern Greek miles each of seven stadia, or 660,
sometimes only 600 French toises. See D'Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 53.]
[Footnote 37: When the ancient texts, which describe the size of
Babylon and Thebes, are settled, the exaggerations reduced, and
the measures ascertained, we find that those famous cities filled
the great but not incredible circumference of about twenty-five
or thirty miles. Compare D'Anville, Mem. de l'Academie, tom.
xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de l'Egypte, p. 201, 202.]
[Footnote 38: If we divide Constantinople and Paris into equal
squares of 50 French toises, the former contains 850, and the
latter 1160, of those divisions.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.
Part II.
The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an
eternal monument of the glories of his reign could employ in the
prosecution of that great work, the wealth, the labor, and all
that yet remained of the genius of obedient millions. Some
estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with Imperial
liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the allowance
of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the
construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. ^39
The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the
celebrated quarries of white marble in the little island of
Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready
to be conveyed, by the convenience of a short water carriage, to
the harbor of Byzantium. ^40 A multitude of laborers and
artificers urged the conclusion of the work with incessant toil:
but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered, that, in the
decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were
therefore directed to institute schools, to appoint professors,
and by the hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the
study and practice of architecture a sufficient number of
ingenious youths, who had received a liberal education. ^41 The
buildings of the new city were executed by such artificers as the
reign of Constantine could afford; but they were decorated by the
hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles and
Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus,
surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed
without defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his
commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their
most valuable ornaments. ^42 The trophies of memorable wars, the
objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the
gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times,
contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople; and gave
occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, ^43 who
observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting
except the souls of the illustrious men whom these admirable
monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the city
of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when
the human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that
we should seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.
[Footnote 39: Six hundred centenaries, or sixty thousand pounds'
weight of gold. This sum is taken from Codinus, Antiquit.
Const. p. 11; but unless that contemptible author had derived his
information from some purer sources, he would probably have been
unacquainted with so obsolete a mode of reckoning.]
[Footnote 40: For the forests of the Black Sea, consult
Tournefort, Lettre XVI. for the marble quarries of Proconnesus,
see Strabo, l. xiii. p. 588, (881, edit. Casaub.) The latter had
already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of
Cyzicus.]
[Footnote 41: See the Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iv. leg. 1.
This law is dated in the year 334, and was addressed to the
praefect of Italy, whose jurisdiction extended over Africa. The
commentary of Godefroy on the whole title well deserves to be
consulted.]
[Footnote 42: Constantinopolis dedicatur poene omnium urbium
nuditate. Hieronym. Chron. p. 181. See Codinus, p. 8, 9. The
author of the Antiquitat. Const. l. iii. (apud Banduri Imp.
Orient. tom. i. p. 41) enumerates Rome, Sicily, Antioch, Athens,
and a long list of other cities. The provinces of Greece and Asia
Minor may be supposed to have yielded the richest booty.]
[Footnote 43: Hist. Compend. p. 369. He describes the statue, or
rather bust, of Homer with a degree of taste which plainly
indicates that Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate
age.]
During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his
tent on the commanding eminence of the second hill. To
perpetuate the memory of his success, he chose the same
advantageous position for the principal Forum; ^44 which appears
to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical form. The two
opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which
enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the
centre of the Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a
mutilated fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the
burnt pillar. This column was erected on a pedestal of white
marble twenty feet high; and was composed of ten pieces of
porphyry, each of which measured about ten feet in height, and
about thirty-three in circumference. ^45 On the summit of the
pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood
the colossal statue of Apollo. It was a bronze, had been
transported either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was
supposed to be the work of Phidias. The artist had represented
the god of day, or, as it was afterwards interpreted, the emperor
Constantine himself, with a sceptre in his right hand, the globe
of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glittering on his
head. ^46 The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about
four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in breadth. ^47 The
space between the two metoe or goals were filled with statues and
obelisks; and we may still remark a very singular fragment of
antiquity; the bodies of three serpents, twisted into one pillar
of brass. Their triple heads had once supported the golden
tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the
temple of Delphi by the victorious Greeks. ^48 The beauty of the
Hippodrome has been long since defaced by the rude hands of the
Turkish conquerors; ^! but, under the similar appellation of
Atmeidan, it still serves as a place of exercise for their
horses. From the throne, whence the emperor viewed the
Circensian games, a winding staircase ^49 descended to the
palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the
residence of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a considerable extent of
ground upon the banks of the Propontis between the Hippodrome and
the church of St. Sophia. ^50 We might likewise celebrate the
baths, which still retained the name of Zeuxippus, after they had
been enriched, by the munificence of Constantine, with lofty
columns, various marbles, and above threescore statues of bronze.
^51 But we should deviate from the design of this history, if we
attempted minutely to describe the different buildings or
quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to observe, that
whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or
contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous
inhabitants, was contained within the walls of Constantinople. A
particular description, composed about a century after its
foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus,
two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three
private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight
aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the
meetings of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches,
fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred and
eighty-eight houses, which, for their size or beauty, deserved to
be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian inhabitants. ^52
[Footnote 44: Zosim. l. ii. p. 106. Chron. Alexandrin. vel
Paschal. p. 284, Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24. Even the last of
those writers seems to confound the Forum of Constantine with the
Augusteum, or court of the palace. I am not satisfied whether I
have properly distinguished what belongs to the one and the
other.]
[Footnote 45: The most tolerable account of this column is given
by Pocock. Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 131.
But it is still in many instances perplexed and unsatisfactory.]
[Footnote 46: Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24, p. 76, and his notes
ad Alexiad. p. 382. The statue of Constantine or Apollo was
thrown down under the reign of Alexius Comnenus.
Note: On this column (says M. von Hammer) Constantine, with
singular shamelessness, placed his own statue with the attributes
of Apollo and Christ. He substituted the nails of the Passion for
the rays of the sun. Such is the direct testimony of the author
of the Antiquit. Constantinop. apud Banduri. Constantine was
replaced by the "great and religious" Julian, Julian, by
Theodosius. A. D. 1412, the key stone was loosened by an
earthquake. The statue fell in the reign of Alexius Comnenus,
and was replaced by the cross. The Palladium was said to be
buried under the pillar. Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der
Bosporos, i. 162. - M.]
[Footnote 47: Tournefort (Lettre XII.) computes the Atmeidan at
four hundred paces. If he means geometrical paces of five feet
each, it was three hundred toises in length, about forty more
than the great circus of Rome. See D'Anville, Mesures
Itineraires, p. 73.]
[Footnote 48: The guardians of the most holy relics would rejoice
if they were able to produce such a chain of evidence as may be
alleged on this occasion. See Banduri ad Antiquitat. Const. p.
668. Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 13. 1. The original
consecration of the tripod and pillar in the temple of Delphi may
be proved from Herodotus and Pausanias. 2. The Pagan Zosimus
agrees with the three ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius,
Socrates, and Sozomen, that the sacred ornaments of the temple of
Delphi were removed to Constantinople by the order of
Constantine; and among these the serpentine pillar of the
Hippodrome is particularly mentioned. 3. All the European
travellers who have visited Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to
Pocock, describe it in the same place, and almost in the same
manner; the differences between them are occasioned only by the
injuries which it has sustained from the Turks. Mahomet the
Second broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with a stroke
of his battle axe Thevenot, l. i. c. 17.
Note: See note 75, ch. lxviii. for Dr. Clarke's rejection of
Thevenot's authority. Von Hammer, however, repeats the story of
Thevenot without questioning its authenticity. - M.]
[Footnote !: In 1808 the Janizaries revolted against the vizier
Mustapha Baisactar, who wished to introduce a new system of
military organization, besieged the quarter of the Hippodrome, in
which stood the palace of the viziers, and the Hippodrome was
consumed in the conflagration. - G.]
[Footnote 49: The Latin name Cochlea was adopted by the Greeks,
and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine history. Ducange,
Const. i. c. l, p. 104.]
[Footnote 50: There are three topographical points which indicate
the situation of the palace. 1. The staircase which connected it
with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A small artificial port on
the Propontis, from whence there was an easy ascent, by a flight
of marble steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augusteum
was a spacious court, one side of which was occupied by the front
of the palace, and another by the church of St. Sophia.]
[Footnote 51: Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths
were a part of old Byzantium. The difficulty of assigning their
true situation has not been felt by Ducange. History seems to
connect them with St. Sophia and the palace; but the original
plan inserted in Banduri places them on the other side of the
city, near the harbor. For their beauties, see Chron. Paschal.
p. 285, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 7. Christodorus (see
Antiquitat. Const. l. vii.) composed inscriptions in verse for
each of the statues. He was a Theban poet in genius as well as
in birth: -
Baeotum in crasso jurares aere natum.
Note: Yet, for his age, the description of the statues of
Hecuba and of Homer are by no means without merit. See Antholog.
Palat. (edit. Jacobs) i. 37 - M.]
[Footnote 52: See the Notitia. Rome only reckoned 1780 large
houses, domus; but the word must have had a more dignified
signification. No insulae are mentioned at Constantinople. The
old capital consisted of 42 streets, the new of 322.]
The populousness of his favored city was the next and most
serious object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages
which succeeded the translation of the empire, the remote and the
immediate consequences of that memorable event were strangely
confounded by the vanity of the Greeks and the credulity of the
Latins. ^53 It was asserted, and believed, that all the noble
families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian order, with
their innumerable attendants, had followed their emperor to the
banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient
capital; and that the lands of Italy, long since converted into
gardens, were at once deprived of cultivation and inhabitants.
^54 In the course of this history, such exaggerations will be
reduced to their just value: yet, since the growth of
Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of
mankind and of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial
colony was raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the
empire. Many opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern
provinces, were probably invited by Constantine to adopt for
their country the fortunate spot, which he had chosen for his own
residence. The invitations of a master are scarcely to be
distinguished from commands; and the liberality of the emperor
obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his
favorites the palaces which he had built in the several quarters
of the city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support of
their dignity, ^55 and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia
to grant hereditary estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a
house in the capital. ^56 But these encouragements and
obligations soon became superfluous, and were gradually
abolished. Wherever the seat of government is fixed, a
considerable part of the public revenue will be expended by the
prince himself, by his ministers, by the officers of justice, and
by the domestics of the palace. The most wealthy of the
provincials will be attracted by the powerful motives of interest
and duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third and more numerous
class of inhabitants will insensibly be formed, of servants, of
artificers, and of merchants, who derive their subsistence from
their own labor, and from the wants or luxury of the superior
ranks. In less than a century, Constantinople disputed with Rome
itself the preeminence of riches and numbers. New piles of
buildings, crowded together with too little regard to health or
convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow streets for
the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages. The
allotted space of ground was insufficient to contain the
increasing people; and the additional foundations, which, on
either side, were advanced into the sea, might alone have
composed a very considerable city. ^57
[Footnote 53: Liutprand, Legatio ad Imp. Nicephornm, p. 153. The
modern Greeks have strangely disfigured the antiquities of
Constantinople. We might excuse the errors of the Turkish or
Arabian writers; but it is somewhat astonishing, that the Greeks,
who had access to the authentic materials preserved in their own
language, should prefer fiction to truth, and loose tradition to
genuine history. In a single page of Codinus we may detect
twelve unpardonable mistakes; the reconciliation of Severus and
Niger, the marriage of their son and daughter, the siege of
Byzantium by the Macedonians, the invasion of the Gauls, which
recalled Severus to Rome, the sixty years which elapsed from his
death to the foundation of Constantinople, &c.]
[Footnote 54: Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c.
17.]
[Footnote 55: Themist. Orat. iii. p. 48, edit. Hardouin.
Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Zosim. l. ii. p. 107. Anonym. Valesian.
p. 715. If we could credit Codinus, (p. 10,) Constantine built
houses for the senators on the exact model of their Roman
palaces, and gratified them, as well as himself, with the
pleasure of an agreeable surprise; but the whole story is full of
fictions and inconsistencies.]
[Footnote 56: The law by which the younger Theodosius, in the
year 438, abolished this tenure, may be found among the Novellae
of that emperor at the end of the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. nov.
12. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 371) has
evidently mistaken the nature of these estates. With a grant
from the Imperial demesnes, the same condition was accepted as a
favor, which would justly have been deemed a hardship, if it had
been imposed upon private property.]
[Footnote 57: The passages of Zosimus, of Eunapius, of Sozomen,
and of Agathias, which relate to the increase of buildings and
inhabitants at Constantinople, are collected and connected by
Gyllius de Byzant. l. i. c. 3. Sidonius Apollinaris (in Panegyr.
Anthem. 56, p. 279, edit. Sirmond) describes the moles that were
pushed forwards into the sea, they consisted of the famous
Puzzolan sand, which hardens in the water.]
The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of
corn or bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the
poorest citizens of Rome from the necessity of labor. The
magnificence of the first Caesars was in some measure imitated by
the founder of Constantinople: ^58 but his liberality, however it
might excite the applause of the people, has in curred the
censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and conquerors
might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had
been purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by
Augustus, that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should
lose the memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine
could not be excused by any consideration either of public or
private interest; and the annual tribute of corn imposed upon
Egypt for the benefit of his new capital, was applied to feed a
lazy and insolent populace, at the expense of the husbandmen of
an industrious province. ^59 ^* Some other regulations of this
emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or
quarters, ^60 dignified the public council with the appellation
of senate, ^61 communicated to the citizens the privileges of
Italy, ^62 and bestowed on the rising city the title of Colony,
the first and most favored daughter of ancient Rome. The
venerable parent still maintained the legal and acknowledged
supremacy, which was due to her age, her dignity, and to the
remembrance of her former greatness. ^63
[Footnote 58: Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 9.
Codin. Antiquitat. Const. p. 8. It appears by Socrates, l. ii.
c. 13, that the daily allowance of the city consisted of eight
myriads of which we may either translate, with Valesius, by the
words modii of corn, or consider us expressive of the number of
loaves of bread.
Note: At Rome the poorer citizens who received these
gratuities were inscribed in a register; they had only a personal
right. Constantine attached the right to the houses in his new
capital, to engage the lower classes of the people to build their
houses with expedition. Codex Therodos. l. xiv. - G.]
[Footnote 59: See Cod. Theodos. l. xiii. and xiv., and Cod.
Justinian. Edict. xii. tom. ii. p. 648, edit. Genev. See the
beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de Bell.
Gildonico, ver. 46-64.
Cum subiit par Roma mihi, divisaque sumsit
Aequales aurora togas; Aegyptia rura
In partem cessere novam.]
[Footnote *: This was also at the expense of Rome. The emperor
ordered that the fleet of Alexandria should transport to
Constantinople the grain of Egypt which it carried before to
Rome: this grain supplied Rome during four months of the year.
Claudian has described with force the famine occasioned by this
measure: -
Haec nobis, haec ante dabas; nunc pabula tantum
Roma precor: miserere tuae; pater optime, gentis:
Extremam defende famem.
Claud. de Bell. Gildon. v. 34.
- G.
It was scarcely this measure. Gildo had cut off the African
as well as the Egyptian supplies. - M.]
[Footnote 60: The regions of Constantinople are mentioned in the
code of Justinian, and particularly described in the Notitia of
the younger Theodosius; but as the four last of them are not
included within the wall of Constantine, it may be doubted
whether this division of the city should be referred to the
founder.]
[Footnote 61: Senatum constituit secundi ordinis; Claros vocavit.
Anonym Valesian. p. 715. The senators of old Rome were styled
Clarissimi. See a curious note of Valesius ad Ammian.
Marcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epistle of Julian, it
should seem that the place of senator was considered as a burden,
rather than as an honor; but the Abbe de la Bleterie (Vie de
Jovien, tom. ii. p. 371) has shown that this epistle could not
relate to Constantinople. Might we not read, instead of the
celebrated name of the obscure but more probable word Bisanthe or
Rhoedestus, now Rhodosto, was a small maritime city of Thrace.
See Stephan. Byz. de Urbibus, p. 225, and Cellar. Geograph. tom.
i. p. 849.]
[Footnote 62: Cod. Theodos. l. xiv. 13. The commentary of
Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220) is long, but perplexed; nor indeed is
it easy to ascertain in what the Jus Italicum could consist,
after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole
empire.
Note: "This right, (the Jus Italicum,) which by most writers
is referred with out foundation to the personal condition of the
citizens, properly related to the city as a whole, and contained
two parts. First, the Roman or quiritarian property in the soil,
(commercium,) and its capability of mancipation, usucaption, and
vindication; moreover, as an inseparable consequence of this,
exemption from land-tax. Then, secondly, a free constitution in
the Italian form, with Duumvirs, Quinquennales. and Aediles, and
especially with Jurisdiction." Savigny, Geschichte des Rom.
Rechts i. p. 51 - M.]
[Footnote 63: Julian (Orat. i. p. 8) celebrates Constantinople as
not less superior to all other cities than she was inferior to
Rome itself. His learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75, 76)
justifies this language by several parallel and contemporary
instances. Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen, flourished
after the division of the empire between the two sons of
Theodosius, which established a perfect equality between the old
and the new capital.]
As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the
impatience of a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal
edifices were completed in a few years, or, according to another
account, in a few months; ^64 but this extraordinary diligence
should excite the less admiration, since many of the buildings
were finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that under the
succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from
impending ruin. ^65 But while they displayed the vigor and
freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the
dedication of his city. ^66 The games and largesses which crowned
the pomp of this memorable festival may easily be supposed; but
there is one circumstance of a more singular and permanent
nature, which ought not entirely to be overlooked. As often as
the birthday of the city returned, the statute of Constantine,
framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his right hand
a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in
their richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it
moved through the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne
of the reigning emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful
reverence adored the memory of his predecessor. ^67 At the
festival of the dedication, an edict, engraved on a column of
marble, bestowed the title of Second or New Rome on the city of
Constantine. ^68 But the name of Constantinople ^69 has prevailed
over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of fourteen
centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author. ^70
[Footnote 64: Codinus (Antiquitat. p. 8) affirms, that the
foundations of Constantinople were laid in the year of the world
5837, (A. D. 329,) on the 26th of September, and that the city
was dedicated the 11th of May, 5838, (A. D. 330.) He connects
those dates with several characteristic epochs, but they
contradict each other; the authority of Codinus is of little
weight, and the space which he assigns must appear insufficient.
The term of ten years is given us by Julian, (Orat. i. p. 8;) and
Spanheim labors to establish the truth of it, (p. 69-75,) by the
help of two passages from Themistius, (Orat. iv. p. 58,) and of
Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 9,) which form a period from the year
324 to the year 334. Modern critics are divided concerning this
point of chronology and their different sentiments are very
accurately described by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv.
p. 619-625.]
[Footnote 65: Themistius. Orat. iii. p. 47. Zosim. l. ii. p.
108. Constantine himself, in one of his laws, (Cod. Theod. l. xv.
tit. i.,) betrays his impatience.]
[Footnote 66: Cedrenus and Zonaras, faithful to the mode of
superstition which prevailed in their own times, assure us that
Constantinople was consecrated to the virgin Mother of God.]
[Footnote 67: The earliest and most complete account of this
extraordinary ceremony may be found in the Alexandrian Chronicle,
p. 285. Tillemont, and the other friends of Constantine, who are
offended with the air of Paganism which seems unworthy of a
Christian prince, had a right to consider it as doubtful, but
they were not authorized to omit the mention of it.]
[Footnote 68: Sozomen, l. ii. c. 2. Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 6.
Velut ipsius Romae filiam, is the expression of Augustin. de
Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 25.]
[Footnote 69: Eutropius, l. x. c. 8. Julian. Orat. i. p. 8.
Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 5. The name of Constantinople is extant
on the medals of Constantine.]
[Footnote 70: The lively Fontenelle (Dialogues des Morts, xii.)
affects to deride the vanity of human ambition, and seems to
triumph in the disappointment of Constantine, whose immortal name
is now lost in the vulgar appellation of Istambol, a Turkish
corruption of. Yet the original name is still preserved, 1. By
the nations of Europe. 2. By the modern Greeks. 3. By the
Arabs, whose writings are diffused over the wide extent of their
conquests in Asia and Africa. See D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque
Orientale, p. 275. 4. By the more learned Turks, and by the
emperor himself in his public mandates Cantemir's History of the
Othman Empire, p. 51.]
The foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with
the establishment of a new form of civil and military
administration. The distinct view of the complicated system of
policy, introduced by Diocletian, improved by Constantine, and
completed by his immediate successors, may not only amuse the
fancy by the singular picture of a great empire, but will tend to
illustrate the secret and internal causes of its rapid decay. In
the pursuit of any remarkable institution, we may be frequently
led into the more early or the more recent times of the Roman
history; but the proper limits of this inquiry will be included
within a period of about one hundred and thirty years, from the
accession of Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian
code; ^71 from which, as well as from the Notitia ^* of the East
and West, ^72 we derive the most copious and authentic
information of the state of the empire. This variety of objects
will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative; but the
interruption will be censured only by those readers who are
insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they
peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court,
or the accidental event of a battle.
[Footnote 71: The Theodosian code was promulgated A. D. 438. See
the Prolegomena of Godefroy, c. i. p. 185.]
[Footnote *: The Notitia Dignitatum Imperii is a description of
all the offices in the court and the state, of the legions, &c.
It resembles our court almanacs, (Red Books,) with this single
difference, that our almanacs name the persons in office, the
Notitia only the offices. It is of the time of the emperor
Theodosius II., that is to say, of the fifth century, when the
empire was divided into the Eastern and Western. It is probable
that it was not made for the first time, and that descriptions of
the same kind existed before. - G.]
[Footnote 72: Pancirolus, in his elaborate Commentary, assigns to
the Notitia a date almost similar to that of the Theodosian Code;
but his proofs, or rather conjectures, are extremely feeble. I
should be rather inclined to place this useful work between the
final division of the empire (A. D. 395) and the successful
invasion of Gaul by the barbarians, (A. D. 407.) See Histoire des
Anciens Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vii. p. 40.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.
Part III.
The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial
power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and
ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. ^73 But when they lost even
the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their
ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly
corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The
distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a
republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished
by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a
severe subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves
who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest
instruments of arbitrary power. This multitude of abject
dependants was interested in the support of the actual government
from the dread of a revolution, which might at once confound
their hopes and intercept the reward of their services. In this
divine hierarchy (for such it is frequently styled) every rank
was marked with the most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity
was displayed in a variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies,
which it was a study to learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. ^74
The purity of the Latin language was debased, by adopting, in the
intercourse of pride and flattery, a profusion of epithets, which
Tully would scarcely have understood, and which Augustus would
have rejected with indignation. The principal officers of the
empire were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with the
deceitful titles of your Sincerity, your Gravity, your
Excellency, your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude,
your illustrious and magnificent Highness. ^75 The codicils or
patents of their office were curiously emblazoned with such
emblems as were best adapted to explain its nature and high
dignity; the image or portrait of the reigning emperors; a
triumphal car; the book of mandates placed on a table, covered
with a rich carpet, and illuminated by four tapers; the
allegorical figures of the provinces which they governed; or the
appellations and standards of the troops whom they commanded Some
of these official ensigns were really exhibited in their hall of
audience; others preceded their pompous march whenever they
appeared in public; and every circumstance of their demeanor,
their dress, their ornaments, and their train, was calculated to
inspire a deep reverence for the representatives of supreme
majesty. By a philosophic observer, the system of the Roman
government might have been mistaken for a splendid theatre,
filled with players of every character and degree, who repeated
the language, and imitated the passions, of their original model.
^76
[Footnote 73: Scilicet externae superbiae sueto, non inerat
notitia nostri, (perhaps nostroe;) apud quos vis Imperii valet,
inania transmittuntur. Tacit. Annal. xv. 31. The gradation from
the style of freedom and simplicity, to that of form and
servitude, may be traced in the Epistles of Cicero, of Pliny, and
of Symmachus.]
[Footnote 74: The emperor Gratian, after confirming a law of
precedency published by Valentinian, the father of his Divinity,
thus continues: Siquis igitur indebitum sibi locum usurpaverit,
nulla se ignoratione defendat; sitque plane sacrilegii reus, qui
divina praecepta neglexerit. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. v. leg. 2.]
[Footnote 75: Consult the Notitia Dignitatum at the end of the
Theodosian code, tom. vi. p. 316.
Note: Constantin, qui remplaca le grand Patriciat par une
noblesse titree et qui changea avec d'autres institutions la
nature de la societe Latine, est le veritable fondateur de la
royaute moderne, dans ce quelle conserva de Romain.
Chateaubriand, Etud. Histor. Preface, i. 151. Manso, (Leben
Constantins des Grossen,) p. 153, &c., has given a lucid view of
the dignities and duties of the officers in the Imperial court. -
M.]
[Footnote 76: Pancirolus ad Notitiam utriusque Imperii, p. 39.
But his explanations are obscure, and he does not sufficiently
distinguish the painted emblems from the effective ensigns of
office.]
All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place
in the general state of the empire, were accurately divided into
three classes. 1. The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles, or
Respectable. And, 3. the Clarissimi; whom we may translate by
the word Honorable. In the times of Roman simplicity, the
last-mentioned epithet was used only as a vague expression of
deference, till it became at length the peculiar and appropriated
title of all who were members of the senate, ^77 and consequently
of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to govern the
provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and office,
might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the
senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new
appellation of Respectable; but the title of Illustrious was
always reserved to some eminent personages who were obeyed or
reverenced by the two subordinate classes. It was communicated
only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II. To the Praetorian
praefects, with the praefects of Rome and Constantinople; III. To
the masters-general of the cavalry and the infantry; and IV. To
the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their sacred
functions about the person of the emperor. ^78 Among those
illustrious magistrates who were esteemed coordinate with each
other, the seniority of appointment gave place to the union of
dignities. ^79 By the expedient of honorary codicils, the
emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors, might
sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of
impatient courtiers. ^80
[Footnote 77: In the Pandects, which may be referred to the
reigns of the Antonines, Clarissimus is the ordinary and legal
title of a senator.]
[Footnote 78: Pancirol. p. 12-17. I have not taken any notice of
the two inferior ranks, Prefectissimus and Egregius, which were
given to many persons who were not raised to the senatorial
dignity.]
[Footnote 79: Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi. The rules of
precedency are ascertained with the most minute accuracy by the
emperors, and illustrated with equal prolixity by their learned
interpreter.]
[Footnote 80: Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. xxii.]
I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates
of a free state, they derived their right to power from the
choice of the people. As long as the emperors condescended to
disguise the servitude which they imposed, the consuls were still
elected by the real or apparent suffrage of the senate. From the
reign of Diocletian, even these vestiges of liberty were
abolished, and the successful candidates who were invested with
the annual honors of the consulship, affected to deplore the
humiliating condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and the
Catos had been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass
through the tedious and expensive forms of a popular election,
and to expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal;
while their own happier fate had reserved them for an age and
government in which the rewards of virtue were assigned by the
unerring wisdom of a gracious sovereign. ^81 In the epistles
which the emperor addressed to the two consuls elect, it was
declared, that they were created by his sole authority. ^82 Their
names and portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory, were
dispersed over the empire as presents to the provinces, the
cities, the magistrates, the senate, and the people. ^83 Their
solemn inauguration was performed at the place of the Imperial
residence; and during a period of one hundred and twenty years,
Rome was constantly deprived of the presence of her ancient
magistrates. ^84
[Footnote 81: Ausonius (in Gratiarum Actione) basely expatiates
on this unworthy topic, which is managed by Mamertinus (Panegyr.
Vet. xi. [x.] 16, 19) with somewhat more freedom and ingenuity.]
[Footnote 82: Cum de Consulibus in annum creandis, solus mecum
volutarem .... te Consulem et designavi, et declaravi, et priorem
nuncupavi; are some of the expressions employed by the emperor
Gratian to his preceptor, the poet Ausonius.]
[Footnote 83: Immanesque. . . dentes
Qui secti ferro in tabulas auroque micantes,
Inscripti rutilum coelato Consule nomen
Per proceres et vulgus eant.
Claud. in ii. Cons. Stilichon. 456.
Montfaucon has represented some of these tablets or dypticks see
Supplement a l'Antiquite expliquee, tom. iii. p. 220.]
[Footnote 84: Consule laetatur post plurima seculo viso
Pallanteus apex: agnoscunt rostra curules
Auditas quondam proavis: desuetaque cingit
Regius auratis Fora fascibus Ulpia lictor.
Claud. in vi. Cons. Honorii, 643.
From the reign of Carus to the sixth consulship of Honorius,
there was an interval of one hundred and twenty years, during
which the emperors were always absent from Rome on the first day
of January. See the Chronologie de Tillemonte, tom. iii. iv. and
v.]
On the morning of the first of January, the consuls assumed
the ensigns of their dignity. Their dress was a robe of purple,
embroidered in silk and gold, and sometimes ornamented with
costly gems. ^85 On this solemn occasion they were attended by
the most eminent officers of the state and army, in the habit of
senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once formidable
axes, were borne before them by the lictors. ^86 The procession
moved from the palace ^87 to the Forum or principal square of the
city; where the consuls ascended their tribunal, and seated
themselves in the curule chairs, which were framed after the
fashion of ancient times. They immediately exercised an act of
jurisdiction, by the manumission of a slave, who was brought
before them for that purpose; and the ceremony was intended to
represent the celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author
of liberty and of the consulship, when he admitted among his
fellow-citizens the faithful Vindex, who had revealed the
conspiracy of the Tarquins. ^88 The public festival was continued
during several days in all the principal cities in Rome, from
custom; in Constantinople, from imitation in Carthage, Antioch,
and Alexandria, from the love of pleasure, and the superfluity of
wealth. ^89 In the two capitals of the empire the annual games of
the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre, ^90 cost four
thousand pounds of gold, (about) one hundred and sixty thousand
pounds sterling: and if so heavy an expense surpassed the
faculties or the inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the
sum was supplied from the Imperial treasury. ^91 As soon as the
consuls had discharged these customary duties, they were at
liberty to retire into the shade of private life, and to enjoy,
during the remainder of the year, the undisturbed contemplation
of their own greatness. They no longer presided in the national
councils; they no longer executed the resolutions of peace or
war. Their abilities (unless they were employed in more effective
offices) were of little moment; and their names served only as
the legal date of the year in which they had filled the chair of
Marius and of Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in
the last period of Roman servitude, that this empty name might be
compared, and even preferred, to the possession of substantial
power. The title of consul was still the most splendid object of
ambition, the noblest reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors
themselves, who disdained the faint shadow of the republic, were
conscious that they acquired an additional splendor and majesty
as often as they assumed the annual honors of the consular
dignity. ^92
[Footnote 85: See Claudian in Cons. Prob. et Olybrii, 178, &c.;
and in iv. Cons. Honorii, 585, &c.; though in the latter it is
not easy to separate the ornaments of the emperor from those of
the consul. Ausonius received from the liberality of Gratian a
vestis palmata, or robe of state, in which the figure of the
emperor Constantius was embroidered.
Cernis et armorum proceres legumque potentes:
Patricios sumunt habitus; et more Gabino
Discolor incedit legio, positisque parumper
Bellorum signis, sequitur vexilla Quirini.
Lictori cedunt aquilae, ridetque togatus
Miles, et in mediis effulget curia castris.
Claud. in iv. Cons. Honorii, 5.
- strictaque procul radiare secures.
In Cons. Prob. 229]
[Footnote 87: See Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxii. c. 7.]
[Footnote 88: Auspice mox laeto sonuit clamore tribunal;
Te fastos ineunte quater; solemnia ludit
Omina libertas; deductum Vindice morem
Lex servat, famulusque jugo laxatus herili
Ducitur, et grato remeat securior ictu.
Claud. in iv Cons. Honorii, 611]
[Footnote 89: Celebrant quidem solemnes istos dies omnes ubique
urbes quae sub legibus agunt; et Roma de more, et
Constantinopolis de imitatione, et Antiochia pro luxu, et
discincta Carthago, et domus fluminis Alexandria, sed Treviri
Principis beneficio. Ausonius in Grat. Actione.]
[Footnote 90: Claudian (in Cons. Mall. Theodori, 279-331)
describes, in a lively and fanciful manner, the various games of
the circus, the theatre, and the amphitheatre, exhibited by the
new consul. The sanguinary combats of gladiators had already
been prohibited.]
[Footnote 91: Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 26.]
[Footnote 92: In Consulatu honos sine labore suscipitur.
(Mamertin. in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 2.) This exalted idea of
the consulship is borrowed from an oration (iii. p. 107)
pronounced by Julian in the servile court of Constantius. See
the Abbe de la Bleterie, (Memoires de l'Academie, tom. xxiv. p.
289,) who delights to pursue the vestiges of the old
constitution, and who sometimes finds them in his copious fancy]
The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found
in any age or country, between the nobles and the people, is
perhaps that of the Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was
established in the first age of the Roman republic. Wealth and
honors, the offices of the state, and the ceremonies of religion,
were almost exclusively possessed by the former who, preserving
the purity of their blood with the most insulting jealousy, ^93
held their clients in a condition of specious vassalage. But
these distinctions, so incompatible with the spirit of a free
people, were removed, after a long struggle, by the persevering
efforts of the Tribunes. The most active and successful of the
Plebeians accumulated wealth, aspired to honors, deserved
triumphs, contracted alliances, and, after some generations,
assumed the pride of ancient nobility. ^94 The Patrician
families, on the other hand, whose original number was never
recruited till the end of the commonwealth, either failed in the
ordinary course of nature, or were extinguished in so many
foreign and domestic wars, or, through a want of merit or
fortune, insensibly mingled with the mass of the people. ^95 Very
few remained who could derive their pure and genuine origin from
the infancy of the city, or even from that of the republic, when
Caesar and Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian, created from the
body of the senate a competent number of new Patrician families,
in the hope of perpetuating an order, which was still considered
as honorable and sacred. ^96 But these artificial supplies (in
which the reigning house was always included) were rapidly swept
away by the rage of tyrants, by frequent revolutions, by the
change of manners, and by the intermixture of nations. ^97 Little
more was left when Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague
and imperfect tradition, that the Patricians had once been the
first of the Romans. To form a body of nobles, whose influence
may restrain, while it secures the authority of the monarch,
would have been very inconsistent with the character and policy
of Constantine; but had he seriously entertained such a design,
it might have exceeded the measure of his power to ratify, by an
arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the sanction of
time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of
Patricians, but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of
the annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all
the great officers of state, with the most familiar access to the
person of the prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them
for life; and as they were usually favorites, and ministers who
had grown old in the Imperial court, the true etymology of the
word was perverted by ignorance and flattery; and the Patricians
of Constantine were reverenced as the adopted Fathers of the
emperor and the republic. ^98
[Footnote 93: Intermarriages between the Patricians and Plebeians
were prohibited by the laws of the XII Tables; and the uniform
operations of human nature may attest that the custom survived
the law. See in Livy (iv. 1-6) the pride of family urged by the
consul, and the rights of mankind asserted by the tribune
Canuleius.]
[Footnote 94: See the animated picture drawn by Sallust, in the
Jugurthine war, of the pride of the nobles, and even of the
virtuous Metellus, who was unable to brook the idea that the
honor of the consulship should be bestowed on the obscure merit
of his lieutenant Marius. (c. 64.) Two hundred years before, the
race of the Metelli themselves were confounded among the
Plebeians of Rome; and from the etymology of their name of
Coecilius, there is reason to believe that those haughty nobles
derived their origin from a sutler.]
[Footnote 95: In the year of Rome 800, very few remained, not
only of the old Patrician families, but even of those which had
been created by Caesar and Augustus. (Tacit. Annal. xi. 25.) The
family of Scaurus (a branch of the Patrician Aemilii) was
degraded so low that his father, who exercised the trade of a
charcoal merchant, left him only teu slaves, and somewhat less
than three hundred pounds sterling. (Valerius Maximus, l. iv. c.
4, n. 11. Aurel. Victor in Scauro.) The family was saved from
oblivion by the merit of the son.]
[Footnote 96: Tacit. Annal. xi. 25. Dion Cassius, l. iii. p.
698. The virtues of Agricola, who was created a Patrician by the
emperor Vespasian, reflected honor on that ancient order; but his
ancestors had not any claim beyond an Equestrian nobility.]
[Footnote 97: This failure would have been almost impossible if
it were true, as Casaubon compels Aurelius Victor to affirm (ad
Sueton, in Caesar v. 24. See Hist. August p. 203 and Casaubon
Comment., p. 220) that Vespasian created at once a thousand
Patrician families. But this extravagant number is too much even
for the whole Senatorial order. unless we should include all the
Roman knights who were distinguished by the permission of wearing
the laticlave.]
[Footnote 98: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 118; and Godefroy ad Cod.
Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi.]
II. The fortunes of the Praetorian praefects were
essentially different from those of the consuls and Patricians.
The latter saw their ancient greatness evaporate in a vain title.
The former, rising by degrees from the most humble condition,
were invested with the civil and military administration of the
Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of Diocletian,
the guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the armies
and the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care;
and, like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the
seal, and with the other the standard, of the empire. The
ambition of the praefects, always formidable, and sometimes fatal
to the masters whom they served, was supported by the strength of
the Praetorian bands; but after those haughty troops had been
weakened by Diocletian, and finally suppressed by Constantine,
the praefects, who survived their fall, were reduced without
difficulty to the station of useful and obedient ministers. When
they were no longer responsible for the safety of the emperor's
person, they resigned the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
claimed and exercised over all the departments of the palace.
They were deprived by Constantine of all military command, as
soon as they had ceased to lead into the field, under their
immediate orders, the flower of the Roman troops; and at length,
by a singular revolution, the captains of the guards were
transformed into the civil magistrates of the provinces.
According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian, the
four princes had each their Praetorian praefect; and after the
monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he
still continued to create the same number of Four Praefects, and
intrusted to their care the same provinces which they already
administered. 1. The praefect of the East stretched his ample
jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject
to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the
Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of
Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia,
Macedonia, and Greece, once acknowledged the authority of the
praefect of Illyricum. 3. The power of the praefect of Italy was
not confined to the country from whence he derived his title; it
extended over the additional territory of Rhaetia as far as the
banks of the Danube, over the dependent islands of the
Mediterranean, and over that part of the continent of Africa
which lies between the confines of Cyrene and those of
Tingitania. 4. The praefect of the Gauls comprehended under that
plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain,
and his authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to the
foot of Mount Atlas. ^99
[Footnote 99: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 109, 110. If we had not
fortunately possessed this satisfactory account of the division
of the power and provinces of the Praetorian praefects, we should
frequently have been perplexed amidst the copious details of the
Code, and the circumstantial minuteness of the Notitia.]
After the Praetorian praefects had been dismissed from all
military command, the civil functions which they were ordained to
exercise over so many subject nations, were adequate to the
ambition and abilities of the most consummate ministers. To
their wisdom was committed the supreme administration of justice
and of the finances, the two objects which, in a state of peace,
comprehend almost all the respective duties of the sovereign and
of the people; of the former, to protect the citizens who are
obedient to the laws; of the latter, to contribute the share of
their property which is required for the expenses of the state.
The coin, the highways, the posts, the granaries, the
manufactures, whatever could interest the public prosperity, was
moderated by the authority of the Praetorian praefects. As the
immediate representatives of the Imperial majesty, they were
empowered to explain, to enforce, and on some occasions to
modify, the general edicts by their discretionary proclamations.
They watched over the conduct of the provincial governors,
removed the negligent, and inflicted punishments on the guilty.
From all the inferior jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter of
importance, either civil or criminal, might be brought before the
tribunal of the praefect; but his sentence was final and
absolute; and the emperors themselves refused to admit any
complaints against the judgment or the integrity of a magistrate
whom they honored with such unbounded confidence. ^100 His
appointments were suitable to his dignity; ^101 and if avarice
was his ruling passion, he enjoyed frequent opportunities of
collecting a rich harvest of fees, of presents, and of
perquisites. Though the emperors no longer dreaded the ambition
of their praefects, they were attentive to counterbalance the
power of this great office by the uncertainty and shortness of
its duration. ^102
[Footnote 100: See a law of Constantine himself. A praefectis
autem praetorio provocare, non sinimus. Cod. Justinian. l. vii.
tit. lxii. leg. 19. Charisius, a lawyer of the time of
Constantine, (Heinec. Hist. Romani, p. 349,) who admits this law
as a fundamental principle of jurisprudence, compares the
Praetorian praefects to the masters of the horse of the ancient
dictators. Pandect. l. i. tit. xi.]
[Footnote 101: When Justinian, in the exhausted condition of the
empire, instituted a Praetorian praefect for Africa, he allowed
him a salary of one hundred pounds of gold. Cod. Justinian. l.
i. tit. xxvii. leg. i.]
[Footnote 102: For this, and the other dignities of the empire,
it may be sufficient to refer to the ample commentaries of
Pancirolus and Godefroy, who have diligently collected and
accurately digested in their proper order all the legal and
historical materials. From those authors, Dr. Howell (History of
the World, vol. ii. p. 24-77) has deduced a very distinct
abridgment of the state of the Roman empire]
From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and
Constantinople were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the
Praetorian praefects. The immense size of the city, and the
experience of the tardy, ineffectual operation of the laws, had
furnished the policy of Augustus with a specious pretence for
introducing a new magistrate, who alone could restrain a servile
and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary power. ^103
Valerius Messalla was appointed the first praefect of Rome, that
his reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at
the end of a few days, that accomplished citizen ^104 resigned
his office, declaring, with a spirit worthy of the friend of
Brutus, that he found himself incapable of exercising a power
incompatible with public freedom. ^105 As the sense of liberty
became less exquisite, the advantages of order were more clearly
understood; and the praefect, who seemed to have been designed as
a terror only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to extend his
civil and criminal jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble
families of Rome. The praetors, annually created as the judges of
law and equity, could not long dispute the possession of the
Forum with a vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually
admitted into the confidence of the prince. Their courts were
deserted, their number, which had once fluctuated between twelve
and eighteen, ^106 was gradually reduced to two or three, and
their important functions were confined to the expensive
obligation ^107 of exhibiting games for the amusement of the
people. After the office of the Roman consuls had been changed
into a vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital,
the praefects assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were
soon acknowledged as the ordinary presidents of that venerable
assembly. They received appeals from the distance of one hundred
miles; and it was allowed as a principle of jurisprudence, that
all municipal authority was derived from them alone. ^108 In the
discharge of his laborious employment, the governor of Rome was
assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been originally
his equals, or even his superiors. The principal departments
were relative to the command of a numerous watch, established as
a safeguard against fires, robberies, and nocturnal disorders;
the custody and distribution of the public allowance of corn and
provisions; the care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common
sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the Tyber; the
inspection of the markets, the theatres, and of the private as
well as the public works. Their vigilance insured the three
principal objects of a regular police, safety, plenty, and
cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of government to
preserve the splendor and ornaments of the capital, a particular
inspector was appointed for the statues; the guardian, as it
were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the
extravagant computation of an old writer, was scarcely inferior
in number to the living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years
after the foundation of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was
created in that rising metropolis, for the same uses and with the
same powers. A perfect equality was established between the
dignity of the two municipal, and that of the four Praetorian
praefects. ^109
[Footnote 103: Tacit. Annal. vi. 11. Euseb. in Chron. p. 155.
Dion Cassius, in the oration of Maecenas, (l. lvii. p. 675,)
describes the prerogatives of the praefect of the city as they
were established in his own time.]
[Footnote 104: The fame of Messalla has been scarcely equal to
his merit. In the earliest youth he was recommended by Cicero to
the friendship of Brutus. He followed the standard of the
republic till it was broken in the fields of Philippi; he then
accepted and deserved the favor of the most moderate of the
conquerors; and uniformly asserted his freedom and dignity in the
court of Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was justified by the
conquest of Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of
eloquence with Cicero himself. Messalla cultivated every muse,
and was the patron of every man of genius. He spent his evenings
in philosophic conversation with Horace; assumed his place at
table between Delia and Tibullus; and amused his leisure by
encouraging the poetical talents of young Ovid.]
[Footnote 105: Incivilem esse potestatem contestans, says the
translator of Eusebius. Tacitus expresses the same idea in other
words; quasi nescius exercendi.]
[Footnote 106: See Lipsius, Excursus D. ad 1 lib. Tacit. Annal.]
[Footnote 107: Heineccii. Element. Juris Civilis secund ordinem
Pandect i. p. 70. See, likewise, Spanheim de Usu. Numismatum,
tom. ii. dissertat. x. p. 119. In the year 450, Marcian
published a law, that three citizens should be annually created
Praetors of Constantinople by the choice of the senate, but with
their own consent. Cod. Justinian. li. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 2.]
[Footnote 108: Quidquid igitur intra urbem admittitur, ad P. U.
videtur pertinere; sed et siquid intra contesimum milliarium.
Ulpian in Pandect l. i. tit. xiii. n. 1. He proceeds to
enumerate the various offices of the praefect, who, in the code
of Justinian, (l. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 3,) is declared to precede
and command all city magistrates sine injuria ac detrimento
honoris alieni.]
[Footnote 109: Besides our usual guides, we may observe that
Felix Cantelorius has written a separate treatise, De Praefecto
Urbis; and that many curious details concerning the police of
Rome and Constantinople are contained in the fourteenth book of
the Theodosian Code.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.
Part IV.
Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by
the title of Respectable, formed an intermediate class between
the illustrious praefects, and the honorable magistrates of the
provinces. In this class the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and
Africa, claimed a preeminence, which was yielded to the
remembrance of their ancient dignity; and the appeal from their
tribunal to that of the praefects was almost the only mark of
their dependence. ^110 But the civil government of the empire was
distributed into thirteen great Dioceses, each of which equalled
the just measure of a powerful kingdom. The first of these
dioceses was subject to the jurisdiction of the count of the
east; and we may convey some idea of the importance and variety
of his functions, by observing, that six hundred apparitors, who
would be styled at present either secretaries, or clerks, or
ushers, or messengers, were employed in his immediate office.
^111 The place of Augustal proefect of Egypt was no longer filled
by a Roman knight; but the name was retained; and the
extraordinary powers which the situation of the country, and the
temper of the inhabitants, had once made indispensable, were
still continued to the governor. The eleven remaining dioceses,
of Asiana, Pontica, and Thrace; of Macedonia, Dacia, and
Pannonia, or Western Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul,
Spain, and Britain; were governed by twelve vicars or
vice-proefects, ^112 whose name sufficiently explains the nature
and dependence of their office. It may be added, that the
lieutenant-generals of the Roman armies, the military counts and
dukes, who will be hereafter mentioned, were allowed the rank and
title of Respectable.
[Footnote 110: Eunapius affirms, that the proconsul of Asia was
independent of the praefect; which must, however, be understood
with some allowance. the jurisdiction of the vice-praefect he
most assuredly disclaimed. Pancirolus, p. 161.]
[Footnote 111: The proconsul of Africa had four hundred
apparitors; and they all received large salaries, either from the
treasury or the province See Pancirol. p. 26, and Cod. Justinian.
l. xii. tit. lvi. lvii.]
[Footnote 112: In Italy there was likewise the Vicar of Rome. It
has been much disputed whether his jurisdiction measured one
hundred miles from the city, or whether it stretched over the ten
thousand provinces of Italy.]
As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the
councils of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence
to divide the substance and to multiply the titles of power. The
vast countries which the Roman conquerors had united under the
same simple form of administration, were imperceptibly crumbled
into minute fragments; till at length the whole empire was
distributed into one hundred and sixteen provinces, each of which
supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these,
three were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven by consulars,
five by correctors, and seventy-one by presidents. The
appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in
successive order, the ensigns of and their situation, from
accidental circumstances, might be more or less agreeable or
advantageous. But they were all (excepting only the pro-consuls)
alike included in the class of honorable persons; and they were
alike intrusted, during the pleasure of the prince, and under the
authority of the praefects or their deputies, with the
administration of justice and the finances in their respective
districts. The ponderous volumes of the Codes and Pandects ^113
would furnish ample materials for a minute inquiry into the
system of provincial government, as in the space of six centuries
it was approved by the wisdom of the Roman statesmen and lawyers.
It may be sufficient for the historian to select two singular and
salutary provisions, intended to restrain the abuse of authority.
1. For the preservation of peace and order, the governors of the
provinces were armed with the sword of justice. They inflicted
corporal punishments, and they exercised, in capital offences,
the power of life and death. But they were not authorized to
indulge the condemned criminal with the choice of his own
execution, or to pronounce a sentence of the mildest and most
honorable kind of exile. These prerogatives were reserved to the
praefects, who alone could impose the heavy fine of fifty pounds
of gold: their vicegerents were confined to the trifling weight
of a few ounces. ^114 This distinction, which seems to grant the
larger, while it denies the smaller degree of authority, was
founded on a very rational motive. The smaller degree was
infinitely more liable to abuse. The passions of a provincial
magistrate might frequently provoke him into acts of oppression,
which affected only the freedom or the fortunes of the subject;
though, from a principle of prudence, perhaps of humanity, he
might still be terrified by the guilt of innocent blood. It may
likewise be considered, that exile, considerable fines, or the
choice of an easy death, relate more particularly to the rich and
the noble; and the persons the most exposed to the avarice or
resentment of a provincial magistrate, were thus removed from his
obscure persecution to the more august and impartial tribunal of
the Praetorian praefect. 2. As it was reasonably apprehended
that the integrity of the judge might be biased, if his interest
was concerned, or his affections were engaged, the strictest
regulations were established, to exclude any person, without the
special dispensation of the emperor, from the government of the
province where he was born; ^115 and to prohibit the governor or
his son from contracting marriage with a native, or an
inhabitant; ^116 or from purchasing slaves, lands, or houses,
within the extent of his jurisdiction. ^117 Notwithstanding these
rigorous precautions, the emperor Constantine, after a reign of
twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and oppressive
administration of justice, and expresses the warmest indignation
that the audience of the judge, his despatch of business, his
seasonable delays, and his final sentence, were publicly sold,
either by himself or by the officers of his court. The
continuance, and perhaps the impunity, of these crimes, is
attested by the repetition of impotent laws and ineffectual
menaces. ^118
[Footnote 113: Among the works of the celebrated Ulpian, there
was one in ten books, concerning the office of a proconsul, whose
duties in the most essential articles were the same as those of
an ordinary governor of a province.]
[Footnote 114: The presidents, or consulars, could impose only
two ounces; the vice-praefects, three; the proconsuls, count of
the east, and praefect of Egypt, six. See Heineccii Jur. Civil.
tom. i. p. 75. Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. xix. n. 8. Cod.
Justinian. l. i. tit. liv. leg. 4, 6.]
[Footnote 115: Ut nulli patriae suae administratio sine speciali
principis permissu permittatur. Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xli.
This law was first enacted by the emperor Marcus, after the
rebellion of Cassius. (Dion. l. lxxi.) The same regulation is
observed in China, with equal strictness, and with equal effect.]
[Footnote 116: Pandect. l. xxiii. tit. ii. n. 38, 57, 63.]
[Footnote 117: In jure continetur, ne quis in administratione
constitutus aliquid compararet. Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. xv.
leg. l. This maxim of common law was enforced by a series of
edicts (see the remainder of the title) from Constantine to
Justin. From this prohibition, which is extended to the meanest
officers of the governor, they except only clothes and
provisions. The purchase within five years may be recovered;
after which on information, it devolves to the treasury.]
[Footnote 118: Cessent rapaces jam nunc officialium manus;
cessent, inquam nam si moniti non cessaverint, gladiis
praecidentur, &c. Cod. Theod. l. i. tit. vii. leg. l. Zeno
enacted that all governors should remain in the province, to
answer any accusations, fifty days after the expiration of their
power. Cod Justinian. l. ii. tit. xlix. leg. l.]
All the civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of
the law. The celebrated Institutes of Justinian are addressed to
the youth of his dominions, who had devoted themselves to the
study of Roman jurisprudence; and the sovereign condescends to
animate their diligence, by the assurance that their skill and
ability would in time be rewarded by an adequate share in the
government of the republic. ^119 The rudiments of this lucrative
science were taught in all the considerable cities of the east
and west; but the most famous school was that of Berytus, ^120 on
the coast of Phoenicia; which flourished above three centuries
from the time of Alexander Severus, the author perhaps of an
institution so advantageous to his native country. After a
regular course of education, which lasted five years, the
students dispersed themselves through the provinces, in search of
fortune and honors; nor could they want an inexhaustible supply
of business great empire, already corrupted by the multiplicity
of laws, of arts, and of vices. The court of the Praetorian
praefect of the east could alone furnish employment for one
hundred and fifty advocates, sixty-four of whom were
distinguished by peculiar privileges, and two were annually
chosen, with a salary of sixty pounds of gold, to defend the
causes of the treasury. The first experiment was made of their
judicial talents, by appointing them to act occasionally as
assessors to the magistrates; from thence they were often raised
to preside in the tribunals before which they had pleaded. They
obtained the government of a province; and, by the aid of merit,
of reputation, or of favor, they ascended, by successive steps,
to the illustrious dignities of the state. ^121 In the practice
of the bar, these men had considered reason as the instrument of
dispute; they interpreted the laws according to the dictates of
private interest and the same pernicious habits might still
adhere to their characters in the public administration of the
state. The honor of a liberal profession has indeed been
vindicated by ancient and modern advocates, who have filled the
most important stations, with pure integrity and consummate
wisdom: but in the decline of Roman jurisprudence, the ordinary
promotion of lawyers was pregnant with mischief and disgrace.
The noble art, which had once been preserved as the sacred
inheritance of the patricians, was fallen into the hands of
freedmen and plebeians, ^122 who, with cunning rather than with
skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some of them
procured admittance into families for the purpose of fomenting
differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a harvest of
gain for themselves or their brethren. Others, recluse in their
chambers, maintained the dignity of legal professors, by
furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound the plainest
truths, and with arguments to color the most unjustifiable
pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the
advocates, who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid
and loquacious rhetoric. Careless of fame and of justice, they
are described, for the most part, as ignorant and rapacious
guides, who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, of
delay, and of disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series
of years, they were at length dismissed, when their patience and
fortune were almost exhausted. ^123
[Footnote 119: Summa igitur ope, et alacri studio has leges
nostras accipite; et vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite, ut spes
vos pulcherrima foveat; toto legitimo opere perfecto, posse etiam
nostram rempublicam in par tibus ejus vobis credendis gubernari.
Justinian in proem. Institutionum.]
[Footnote 120: The splendor of the school of Berytus, which
preserved in the east the language and jurisprudence of the
Romans, may be computed to have lasted from the third to the
middle of the sixth century Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.]
[Footnote 121: As in a former period I have traced the civil and
military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here insert the civil
honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by his
eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the
Praetorian praefect. 2. He governed one of the provinces of
Africa, either as president or consular, and deserved, by his
administration, the honor of a brass statue. 3. He was appointed
vicar, or vice-praefect, of Macedonia. 4. Quaestor. 5. Count of
the sacred largesses. 6. Praetorian praefect of the Gauls; whilst
he might yet be represented as a young man. 7. After a retreat,
perhaps a disgrace of many years, which Mallius (confounded by
some critics with the poet Manilius; see Fabricius Bibliothec.
Latin. Edit. Ernest. tom. i.c. 18, p. 501) employed in the study
of the Grecian philosophy he was named Praetorian praefect of
Italy, in the year 397. 8. While he still exercised that great
office, he was created, it the year 399, consul for the West; and
his name, on account of the infamy of his colleague, the eunuch
Eutropius, often stands alone in the Fasti. 9. In the year 408,
Mallius was appointed a second time Praetorian praefect of Italy.
Even in the venal panegyric of Claudian, we may discover the
merit of Mallius Theodorus, who, by a rare felicity, was the
intimate friend, both of Symmachus and of St. Augustin. See
Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 1110-1114.]
[Footnote 122: Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 20. Asterius
apud Photium, p. 1500.]
[Footnote 123: The curious passage of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,)
in which he paints the manners of contemporary lawyers, affords a
strange mixture of sound sense, false rhetoric, and extravagant
satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c. i. p. 185)
supports the historian by similar complaints and authentic facts.
In the fourth century, many camels might have been laden with
law-books. Eunapius in Vit. Aedesii, p. 72.]
III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the
governors, those at least of the Imperial provinces, were
invested with the full powers of the sovereign himself.
Ministers of peace and war, the distribution of rewards and
punishments depended on them alone, and they successively
appeared on their tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and
in complete armor at the head of the Roman legions. ^124 The
influence of the revenue, the authority of law, and the command
of a military force, concurred to render their power supreme and
absolute; and whenever they were tempted to violate their
allegiance, the loyal province which they involved in their
rebellion was scarcely sensible of any change in its political
state. From the time of Commodus to the reign of Constantine,
near one hundred governors might be enumerated, who, with various
success, erected the standard of revolt; and though the innocent
were too often sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes
prevented, by the suspicious cruelty of their master. ^125 To
secure his throne and the public tranquillity from these
formidable servants, Constantine resolved to divide the military
from the civil administration, and to establish, as a permanent
and professional distinction, a practice which had been adopted
only as an occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction
exercised by the Praetorian praefects over the armies of the
empire, was transferred to the two masters-general whom he
instituted, the one for the cavalry, the other for the infantry;
and though each of these illustrious officers was more peculiarly
responsible for the discipline of those troops which were under
his immediate inspection, they both indifferently commanded in
the field the several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which
were united in the same army. ^126 Their number was soon doubled
by the division of the east and west; and as separate generals of
the same rank and title were appointed on the four important
frontiers of the Rhine, of the Upper and the Lower Danube, and of
the Euphrates, the defence of the Roman empire was at length
committed to eight masters-general of the cavalry and infantry.
Under their orders, thirty-five military commanders were
stationed in the provinces: three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in
Spain, one in Italy, five on the Upper, and four on the Lower
Danube; in Asia, eight, three in Egypt, and four in Africa. The
titles of counts, and dukes, ^127 by which they were properly
distinguished, have obtained in modern languages so very
different a sense, that the use of them may occasion some
surprise. But it should be recollected, that the second of those
appellations is only a corruption of the Latin word, which was
indiscriminately applied to any military chief. All these
provincial generals were therefore dukes; but no more than ten
among them were dignified with the rank of counts or companions,
a title of honor, or rather of favor, which had been recently
invented in the court of Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign
which distinguished the office of the counts and dukes; and
besides their pay, they received a liberal allowance sufficient
to maintain one hundred and ninety servants, and one hundred and
fifty-eight horses. They were strictly prohibited from
interfering in any matter which related to the administration of
justice or the revenue; but the command which they exercised over
the troops of their department, was independent of the authority
of the magistrates. About the same time that Constantine gave a
legal sanction to the ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the
Roman empire the nice balance of the civil and the military
powers. The emulation, and sometimes the discord, which reigned
between two professions of opposite interests and incompatible
manners, was productive of beneficial and of pernicious
consequences. It was seldom to be expected that the general and
the civil governor of a province should either conspire for the
disturbance, or should unite for the service, of their country.
While the one delayed to offer the assistance which the other
disdained to solicit, the troops very frequently remained without
orders or without supplies; the public safety was betrayed, and
the defenceless subjects were left exposed to the fury of the
Barbarians. The divided administration which had been formed by
Constantine, relaxed the vigor of the state, while it secured the
tranquillity of the monarch.
[Footnote 124: See a very splendid example in the life of
Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The lieutenant of Britain was
intrusted with the same powers which Cicero, proconsul of
Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.]
[Footnote 125: The Abbe Dubos, who has examined with accuracy
(see Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p. 41-100, edit.
1742) the institutions of Augustus and of Constantine, observes,
that if Otho had been put to death the day before he executed his
conspiracy, Otho would now appear in history as innocent as
Corbulo.]
[Footnote 126: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 110. Before the end of the
reign of Constantius, the magistri militum were already increased
to four. See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.]
[Footnote 127: Though the military counts and dukes are
frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes, we must have
recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their number
and stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c., of the
counts in general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii. - xx., with
the commentary of Godefroy.]
The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for
another innovation, which corrupted military discipline and
prepared the ruin of the empire. The nineteen years which
preceded his final victory over Licinius, had been a period of
license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the
possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of
their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and the
principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective
dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their
countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of
these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the
conqueror wanted either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe
discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a fatal indulgence,
which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the military
order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
distinction was admitted between the Palatines ^128 and the
Borderers; the troops of the court, as they were improperly
styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former, elevated by
the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted,
except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their
tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most
flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of
quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their
profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They
were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or
enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became
careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and
apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the
empire, they trembled at the hostile approach of the Barbarians.
^129 The chain of fortifications which Diocletian and his
colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers, was
no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the
same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name
of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the
ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the
humiliating reflection, that they who were exposed to the
hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only
with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were
lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions
that were raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy
favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor
which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that
Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword
against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to
connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to participate in
the spoil. ^130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious
counsels are seldom removed by the application of partial
severities; and though succeeding princes labored to restore the
strength and numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till
the last moment of its dissolution, continued to languish under
the mortal wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted
by the hand of Constantine.
[Footnote 128: Zosimus, l ii. p. 111. The distinction between
the two classes of Roman troops, is very darkly expressed in the
historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult, however, the
copious paratitlon, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up of
the seventh book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii.
tit. i. leg. 18, l. viii. tit. i. leg. 10.]
[Footnote 129: Ferox erat in suos miles et rapax, ignavus vero in
hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4. He observes, that
they loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that their cups
were heavier than their swords.]
[Footnote 130: Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. i. leg. 1, tit. xii. leg.
i. See Howell's Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. That
learned historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors to
justify the character and policy of Constantine.]
The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of
reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and
of expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient,
seems to pervade the institutions of several princes, and
particularly those of Constantine. The martial pride of the
legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the scene of
rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits,
and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they
maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they
subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a
visible and important object in the military history of the Roman
empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were
shrunk to a very diminutive size; and when seven legions, with
some auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the
Persians, the total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes,
and the peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the
number of twenty thousand persons. ^131 From this fact, and from
similar examples, there is reason to believe, that the
constitution of the legionary troops, to which they partly owed
their valor and discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and
that the bands of Roman infantry, which still assumed the same
names and the same honors, consisted only of one thousand or
fifteen hundred men. ^132 The conspiracy of so many separate
detachments, each of which was awed by the sense of its own
weakness, could easily be checked; and the successors of
Constantine might indulge their love of ostentation, by issuing
their orders to one hundred and thirty-two legions, inscribed on
the muster-roll of their numerous armies. The remainder of their
troops was distributed into several hundred cohorts of infantry,
and squadrons of cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns,
were calculated to inspire terror, and to display the variety of
nations who marched under the Imperial standard. And not a
vestige was left of that severe simplicity, which, in the ages of
freedom and victory, had distinguished the line of battle of a
Roman army from the confused host of an Asiatic monarch. ^133 A
more particular enumeration, drawn from the Notitia, might
exercise the diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will
content himself with observing, that the number of permanent
stations or garrisons established on the frontiers of the empire,
amounted to five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the
successors of Constantine, the complete force of the military
establishment was computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand
soldiers. ^134 An effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a
more ancient, and the faculties of a later, period.
[Footnote 131: Ammian. l. xix. c. 2. He observes, (c. 5,) that
the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were like a handful
of water thrown on a great conflagration.]
[Footnote 132: Pancirolus ad Notitiam, p. 96. Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 491.]
[Footnote 133: Romana acies unius prope formae erat et hominum et
armorum genere. - Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus
dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii.
c. 39, 40. Flaminius, even before the event, had compared the
army of Antiochus to a supper in which the flesh of one vile
animal was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the Life
of Flaminius in Plutarch.]
[Footnote 134: Agathias, l. v. p. 157, edit. Louvre.]
In the various states of society, armies are recruited from
very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war;
the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of
duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are
animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious
inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the
service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of
punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted
by the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by
the invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the
opinion of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships
and dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was
lowered, ^135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were
indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable
difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of
volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and
coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the
free reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a
condition which contain the first rudiments of the feudal
tenures; that their sons, who succeeded to the inheritance,
should devote themselves to the profession of arms, as soon as
they attained the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was
punished by the lose of honor, of fortune, or even of life. ^136
But as the annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very
small proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men
were frequently required from the provinces, and every proprietor
was obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute,
or to purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The
sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was reduced
ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance
with which the government admitted of this alterative. ^137 Such
was the horror for the profession of a soldier, which had
affected the minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the
youth of Italy and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of
their right hand, to escape from being pressed into the service;
and this strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to
deserve the severe animadversion of the laws, ^138 and a peculiar
name in the Latin language. ^139
[Footnote 135: Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg.
3) fixes the standard at five feet seven inches, about five feet
four inches and a half, English measure. It had formerly been
five feet ten inches, and in the best corps, six Roman feet. Sed
tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures sequebantur militiam
armatam. Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.]
[Footnote 136: See the two titles, De Veteranis and De Filiis
Veteranorum, in the seventh book of the Theodosian Code. The age
at which their military service was required, varied from
twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans appeared
with a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two
horses gave them some valuable privileges]
[Footnote 137: Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 7. According
to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad loc.,) the same
emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold for a
recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that
slaves shall not be admitted inter optimas lectissimorum militum
turmas.]
[Footnote 138: The person and property of a Roman knight, who had
mutilated his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of
Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that
artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was
justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a
distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls.
(L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a
law addressed to the praefect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that
these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. Cod. Theod. l.
vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so
considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of
recruits. (Id. leg. 10.)]
[Footnote 139: They were called Murci. Murcidus is found in
Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who,
according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate
protection of the goddess Murcia. From this particular instance
of cowardice, murcare is used as synonymous to mutilare, by the
writers of the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and Valesius
ad Ammian. Marcellin, l. xv. c. 12]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.
Part V.
The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became
every day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The
most daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans,
who delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend
than to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the
auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions
themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,
they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate
their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride
of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the
knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she
supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who
displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception,
to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of
the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a
foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise.
They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their
countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of
allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the
guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable
correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of
sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of
Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,
who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with
their country, and who resented every personal affront as a
national indignity. ^140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected
of an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the
consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely
excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest
chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his
choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so
remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with
the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the
example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the
Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be
ranked among the first of the Romans. ^141 But as these hardy
veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of
the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the
powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable
separation of talents as well as of professions. The
accomplished citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose
characters could adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the
camp, or the schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act
with the same spirit, and with equal abilities.
[Footnote 140: Malarichus - adhibitis Francis quorum ea
tempestate in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur
tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.]
[Footnote 141: Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et
trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the
truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti of
the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single
Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that
prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of
the consulship.]
IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance
from the court diffused their delegated authority over the
provinces and armies, the emperor conferred the rank of
Illustrious on seven of his more immediate servants, to whose
fidelity he intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his
treasures. 1. The private apartments of the palace were governed
by a favorite eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was
styled the proepositus, or praefect of the sacred bed-chamber.
His duty was to attend the emperor in his hours of state, or in
those of amusement, and to perform about his person all those
menial services, which can only derive their splendor from the
influence of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to reign, the
great chamberlain (for such we may call him) was a useful and
humble domestic; but an artful domestic, who improves every
occasion of unguarded confidence, will insensibly acquire over a
feeble mind that ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying
virtue can seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of
Theodosius, who were invisible to their subjects, and
contemptible to their enemies, exalted the praefects of their
bed- chamber above the heads of all the ministers of the palace;
^142 and even his deputy, the first of the splendid train of
slaves who waited in the presence, was thought worthy to rank
before the respectable proconsuls of Greece or Asia. The
jurisdiction of the chamberlain was acknowledged by the counts,
or superintendents, who regulated the two important provinces of
the magnificence of the wardrobe, and of the luxury of the
Imperial table. ^143 2. The principal administration of public
affairs was committed to the diligence and abilities of the
master of the offices. ^144 He was the supreme magistrate of the
palace, inspected the discipline of the civil and military
schools, and received appeals from all parts of the empire, in
the causes which related to that numerous army of privileged
persons, who, as the servants of the court, had obtained for
themselves and families a right to decline the authority of the
ordinary judges. The correspondence between the prince and his
subjects was managed by the four scrinia, or offices of this
minister of state. The first was appropriated to memorials, the
second to epistles, the third to petitions, and the fourth to
papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of these was
directed by an inferior master of respectable dignity, and the
whole business was despatched by a hundred and forty-eight
secretaries, chosen for the most part from the profession of the
law, on account of the variety of abstracts of reports and
references which frequently occurred in the exercise of their
several functions. From a condescension, which in former ages
would have been esteemed unworthy the Roman majesty, a particular
secretary was allowed for the Greek language; and interpreters
were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the Barbarians; but
the department of foreign affairs, which constitutes so essential
a part of modern policy, seldom diverted the attention of the
master of the offices. His mind was more seriously engaged by
the general direction of the posts and arsenals of the empire.
There were thirty-four cities, fifteen in the East, and nineteen
in the West, in which regular companies of workmen were
perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armor, offensive
weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were deposited
in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered for the service of
the troops. 3. In the course of nine centuries, the office of
quaestor had experienced a very singular revolution. In the
infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were annually elected
by the people, to relieve the consuls from the invidious
management of the public treasure; ^145 a similar assistant was
granted to every proconsul, and to every praetor, who exercised a
military or provincial command; with the extent of conquest, the
two quaestors were gradually multiplied to the number of four, of
eight, of twenty, and, for a short time, perhaps, of forty; ^146
and the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which
gave them a seat in the senate, and a just hope of obtaining the
honors of the republic. Whilst Augustus affected to maintain the
freedom of election, he consented to accept the annual privilege
of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a certain
proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of
these distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in
the assemblies of the senate. ^147 The practice of Augustus was
imitated by succeeding princes; the occasional commission was
established as a permanent office; and the favored quaestor,
assuming a new and more illustrious character, alone survived the
suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues. ^148 As the
orations which he composed in the name of the emperor, ^149
acquired the force, and, at length, the form, of absolute edicts,
he was considered as the representative of the legislative power,
the oracle of the council, and the original source of the civil
jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat in the
supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the
Praetorian praefects, and the master of the offices; and he was
frequently requested to resolve the doubts of inferior judges:
but as he was not oppressed with a variety of subordinate
business, his leisure and talents were employed to cultivate that
dignified style of eloquence, which, in the corruption of taste
and language, still preserves the majesty of the Roman laws. ^150
In some respects, the office of the Imperial quaestor may be
compared with that of a modern chancellor; but the use of a great
seal, which seems to have been adopted by the illiterate
barbarians, was never introduced to attest the public acts of the
emperors. 4. The extraordinary title of count of the sacred
largesses was bestowed on the treasurer-general of the revenue,
with the intention perhaps of inculcating, that every payment
flowed from the voluntary bounty of the monarch. To conceive the
almost infinite detail of the annual and daily expense of the
civil and military administration in every part of a great
empire, would exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination.
The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed
into eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to
examine and control their respective operations. The multitude
of these agents had a natural tendency to increase; and it was
more than once thought expedient to dismiss to their native homes
the useless supernumeraries, who, deserting their honest labors,
had pressed with too much eagerness into the lucrative profession
of the finances. ^151 Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of whom
eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with
the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines
from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the mints,
in which they were converted into the current coin, and over the
public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were
deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the
empire was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all
the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the successive
operations of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed,
chiefly by women of a servile condition, for the use of the
palace and army. Twenty-six of these institutions are enumerated
in the West, where the arts had been more recently introduced,
and a still larger proportion may be allowed for the industrious
provinces of the East. ^152 5. Besides the public revenue, which
an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his
pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens,
possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by
the count or treasurer of the private estate. Some part had
perhaps been the ancient demesnes of kings and republics; some
accessions might be derived from the families which were
successively invested with the purple; but the most considerable
portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations and
forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the
provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile
soil of Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country
his fairest possessions, ^153 and either Constantine or his
successors embraced the occasion of justifying avarice by
religious zeal. They suppressed the rich temple of Comana, where
the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity of a
sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the
consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects
or slaves of the deity and her ministers. ^154 But these were not
the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot
of Mount Argaeus to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race
of horses, renowned above all others in the ancient world for
their majestic shape and incomparable swiftness. These sacred
animals, destined for the service of the palace and the Imperial
games, were protected by the laws from the profanation of a
vulgar master. ^155 The demesnes of Cappadocia were important
enough to require the inspection of a count; ^156 officers of an
inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire;
and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public,
treasurer were maintained in the exercise of their independent
functions, and encouraged to control the authority of the
provincial magistrates. ^157 6, 7. The chosen bands of cavalry
and infantry, which guarded the person of the emperor, were under
the immediate command of the two counts of the domestics. The
whole number consisted of three thousand five hundred men,
divided into seven schools, or troops, of five hundred each; and
in the East, this honorable service was almost entirely
appropriated to the Armenians. Whenever, on public ceremonies,
they were drawn up in the courts and porticos of the palace,
their lofty stature, silent order, and splendid arms of silver
and gold, displayed a martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman
majesty. ^158 From the seven schools two companies of horse and
foot were selected, of the protectors, whose advantageous station
was the hope and reward of the most deserving soldiers. They
mounted guard in the interior apartments, and were occasionally
despatched into the provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor
the orders of their master. ^159 The counts of the domestics had
succeeded to the office of the Praetorian praefects; like the
praefects, they aspired from the service of the palace to the
command of armies.
[Footnote 142: Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 8.]
[Footnote 143: By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the
military character of the first emperors, the steward of their
household was styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.)
Cassiodorus very seriously represents to him, that his own fame,
and that of the empire, must depend on the opinion which foreign
ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the
royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)]
[Footnote 144: Gutherius (de Officiis Domus Augustae, l. ii. c.
20, l. iii.) has very accurately explained the functions of the
master of the offices, and the constitution of the subordinate
scrinia. But he vainly attempts, on the most doubtful authority,
to deduce from the time of the Antonines, or even of Nero, the
origin of a magistrate who cannot be found in history before the
reign of Constantine.]
[Footnote 145: Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first
quaestors were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the
foundation of the republic; but he is of opinion, that they had,
long before that period, been annually appointed by the consuls,
and even by the kings. But this obscure point of antiquity is
contested by other writers.]
[Footnote 146: Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) seems to consider twenty
as the highest number of quaestors; and Dion (l. xliii. p 374)
insinuates, that if the dictator Caesar once created forty, it
was only to facilitate the payment of an immense debt of
gratitude. Yet the augmentation which he made of praetors
subsisted under the succeeding reigns.]
[Footnote 147: Sueton. in August. c. 65, and Torrent. ad loc.
Dion. Cas. p. 755.]
[Footnote 148: The youth and inexperience of the quaestors, who
entered on that important office in their twenty-fifth year,
(Lips. Excurs. ad Tacit. l. iii. D.,) engaged Augustus to remove
them from the management of the treasury; and though they were
restored by Claudius, they seem to have been finally dismissed by
Nero. (Tacit Annal. xiii. 29. Sueton. in Aug. c. 36, in Claud.
c. 24. Dion, p. 696, 961, &c. Plin. Epistol. x. 20, et alibi.)
In the provinces of the Imperial division, the place of the
quaestors was more ably supplied by the procurators, (Dion Cas.
p. 707. Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 15;) or, as they were
afterwards called, rationales. (Hist. August. p. 130.) But in
the provinces of the senate we may still discover a series of
quaestors till the reign of Marcus Antoninus. (See the
Inscriptions of Gruter, the Epistles of Pliny, and a decisive
fact in the Augustan History, p. 64.) From Ulpian we may learn,
(Pandect. l. i. tit. 13,) that under the government of the house
of Severus, their provincial administration was abolished; and in
the subsequent troubles, the annual or triennial elections of
quaestors must have naturally ceased.]
[Footnote 149: Cum patris nomine et epistolas ipse dictaret, et
edicta conscrib eret, orationesque in senatu recitaret, etiam
quaestoris vice. Sueton, in Tit. c. 6. The office must have
acquired new dignity, which was occasionally executed by the heir
apparent of the empire. Trajan intrusted the same care to
Hadrian, his quaestor and cousin. See Dodwell, Praelection.
Cambden, x. xi. p. 362-394.]
[Footnote 150: Terris edicta daturus;
Supplicibus responsa. - Oracula regis
Eloquio crevere tuo; nec dignius unquam
Majestas meminit sese Romana locutam.
Claudian in Consulat. Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise Symmachus
(Epistol. i. 17) and Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)]
[Footnote 151: Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l.
xii. tit. 24.]
[Footnote 152: In the departments of the two counts of the
treasury, the eastern part of the Notitia happens to be very
defective. It may be observed, that we had a treasury chest in
London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But Britain
was not thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul
alone possessed three of the former, and eight of the latter.]
[Footnote 153: Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 2, and Godefroy
ad loc.]
[Footnote 154: Strabon. Geograph. l. xxii. p. 809, [edit.
Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a colony from
that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President Des Brosses
(see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures
that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of
the east, the goddess of generation; a very different being
indeed from the goddess of war.]
[Footnote 155: Cod. Theod. l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico.
Godefroy has collected every circumstance of antiquity relative
to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds, the
Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about
sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between
Constantinople and Antioch.]
[Footnote 156: Justinian (Novell. 30) subjected the province of
the count of Cappadocia to the immediate authority of the
favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bed-chamber.]
[Footnote 157: Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 4, &c.]
[Footnote 158: Pancirolus, p. 102, 136. The appearance of these
military domestics is described in the Latin poem of Corippus, de
Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the Appendix
Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.]
[Footnote 159: Ammianus Marcellinus, who served so many years,
obtained only the rank of a protector. The first ten among these
honorable soldiers were Clarissimi.]
The perpetual intercourse between the court and the
provinces was facilitated by the construction of roads and the
institution of posts. But these beneficial establishments were
accidentally connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse.
Two or three hundred agents or messengers were employed, under
the jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the
names of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the
emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting
whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates
or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of
the monarch, ^160 and the scourge of the people. Under the warm
influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible
number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent
admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable
management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression.
These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the palace,
were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the
progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open
revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and
justice was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they
might securely aim their poisoned arrows at the breast either of
the guilty or the innocent, who had provoked their resentment, or
refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of Syria
perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to
the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or
Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the
malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
administration was conducted by those methods which extreme
necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were
diligently supplied by the use of torture. ^161
[Footnote 160: Xenophon, Cyropaed. l. viii. Brisson, de Regno
Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The emperors adopted with pleasure
this Persian metaphor.]
[Footnote 161: For the Agentes in Rebus, see Ammian. l. xv. c. 3,
l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with the curious annotations of
Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii. xxix. Among
the passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most
remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the
death of Julian.]
The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal
quaestion, as it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather
than approved, in the jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied
this sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose
sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty republicans in
the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent to
violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the
clearest evidence of his guilt. ^162 The annals of tyranny, from
the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian, circumstantially
relate the executions of many innocent victims; but, as long as
the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom
and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger
of ignominions torture. ^163 The conduct of the provincial
magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the
city, or the strict maxims of the civilians. They found the use
of torture established not only among the slaves of oriental
despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited
monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of
commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and
adorned the dignity of human kind. ^164 The acquiescence of the
provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to
usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort
from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their
guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction
of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The
apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and the
interest of the sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of
special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized,
the general use of torture. They protected all persons of
illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters,
professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families,
municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation,
and all children under the age of puberty. ^165 But a fatal maxim
was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in
the case of treason, which included every offence that the
subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards
the prince or republic, ^166 all privileges were suspended, and
all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the
safety of the emperor was avowedly preferred to every
consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of age and the
tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel
tortures; and the terrors of a malicious information, which might
select them as the accomplices, or even as the witnesses,
perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads
of the principal citizens of the Roman world. ^167
[Footnote 162: The Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the
sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of
torture. They strictly confine it to slaves; and Ulpian himself
is ready to acknowledge that Res est fragilis, et periculosa, et
quae veritatem fallat.]
[Footnote 163: In the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis
(libertina mulier) was the only person tortured; the rest were
intacti tormentis. It would be superfluous to add a weaker, and
it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit. Annal.
xv. 57.]
[Footnote 164: Dicendum . . . de Institutis Atheniensium,
Rhodiorum, doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod
acerbissimum est) liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit.
Orat. c. 34. We may learn from the trial of Philotas the
practice of the Macedonians. (Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604.
Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.]
[Footnote 165: Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81)
has collected these exemptions into one view.]
[Footnote 166: This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l.
xlviii. tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of
Caracalla, rather than to that of Alexander Severus. See the
Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam majestatis.]
[Footnote 167: Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to
justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of
treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus
with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of
the successors of Constantine. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv.
majestatis crimine omnibus aequa est conditio.]
These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined
to the smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous
situation was in some degree compensated by the enjoyment of
those advantages, either of nature or of fortune, which exposed
them to the jealousy of the monarch. The obscure millions of a
great empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from
the avarice of their masters, and their humble happiness is
principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes, which,
gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight
on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
philosopher ^168 has calculated the universal measure of the
public impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and
ventures to assert, that, according to an invariable law of
nature, it must always increase with the former, and diminish in
a just proportion to the latter. But this reflection, which
would tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is
contradicted at least by the history of the Roman empire; which
accuses the same princes of despoiling the senate of its
authority, and the provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing
all the various customs and duties on merchandises, which are
imperceptibly discharged by the apparent choice of the purchaser,
the policy of Constantine and his successors preferred a simple
and direct mode of taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an
arbitrary government. ^169
[Footnote 168: Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 13.]
[Footnote 169: Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 389) has seen this
importance with some degree of perplexity.]
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.
Part VI.
The name and use of the indictions, ^170 which serve to
ascertain the chronology of the middle ages, were derived from
the regular practice of the Roman tributes. ^171 The emperor
subscribed with his own hand, and in purple ink, the solemn
edict, or indiction, which was fixed up in the principal city of
each diocese, during two months previous to the first day of
September. And by a very easy connection of ideas, the word
indiction was transferred to the measure of tribute which it
prescribed, and to the annual term which it allowed for the
payment. This general estimate of the supplies was proportioned
to the real and imaginary wants of the state; but as often as the
expense exceeded the revenue, or the revenue fell short of the
computation, an additional tax, under the name of superindiction,
was imposed on the people, and the most valuable attribute of
sovereignty was communicated to the Praetorian praefects, who, on
some occasions, were permitted to provide for the unforeseen and
extraordinary exigencies of the public service. The execution of
these laws (which it would be tedious to pursue in their minute
and intricate detail) consisted of two distinct operations: the
resolving the general imposition into its constituent parts,
which were assessed on the provinces, the cities, and the
individuals of the Roman world; and the collecting the separate
contributions of the individuals, the cities, and the provinces,
till the accumulated sums were poured into the Imperial
treasuries. But as the account between the monarch and the
subject was perpetually open, and as the renewal of the demand
anticipated the perfect discharge of the preceding obligation,
the weighty machine of the finances was moved by the same hands
round the circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever was
honorable or important in the administration of the revenue, was
committed to the wisdom of the praefects, and their provincia.
representatives; the lucrative functions were claimed by a crowd
of subordinate officers, some of whom depended on the treasurer,
others on the governor of the province; and who, in the
inevitable conflicts of a perplexed jurisdiction, had frequent
opportunities of disputing with each other the spoils of the
people. The laborious offices, which could be productive only of
envy and reproach, of expense and danger, were imposed on the
Decurions, who formed the corporations of the cities, and whom
the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to sustain the
burdens of civil society. ^172 The whole landed property of the
empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch)
was the object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser
contracted the obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate
census, ^173 or survey, was the only equitable mode of
ascertaining the proportion which every citizen should be obliged
to contribute for the public service; and from the well-known
period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this
difficult and expensive operation was repeated at the regular
distance of fifteen years. The lands were measured by surveyors,
who were sent into the provinces; their nature, whether arable or
pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly reported; and an
estimate was made of their common value from the average produce
of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle constituted
an essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the
proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true state of their
affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the
intention of the legislator, were severely watched, and punished
as a capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason
and sacrilege. ^174 A large portion of the tribute was paid in
money; and of the current coin of the empire, gold alone could be
legally accepted. ^175 The remainder of the taxes, according to
the proportions determined by the annual indiction, was furnished
in a manner still more direct, and still more oppressive.
According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in
the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or
iron, was transported by the labor or at the expense of the
provincials ^* to the Imperial magazines, from whence they were
occasionally distributed for the use of the court, of the army,
and of two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. The commissioners
of the revenue were so frequently obliged to make considerable
purchases, that they were strictly prohibited from allowing any
compensation, or from receiving in money the value of those
supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive simplicity
of small communities, this method may be well adapted to collect
the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it is at once
susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost strictness,
which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must introduce a
perpetual contest between the power of oppression and the arts of
fraud. ^176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly
ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends to
disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive
some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission of
tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of paying.
According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy
province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the
delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between
the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus. Within
sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence
of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor of three
hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and
uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole
surface of the province. As the footsteps of the Barbarians had
not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,
which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the
administration of the Roman emperors. ^177
[Footnote 170: The cycle of indictions, which may be traced as
high as the reign of Constantius, or perhaps of his father,
Constantine, is still employed by the Papal court; but the
commencement of the year has been very reasonably altered to the
first of January. See l'Art de Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and
Dictionnaire Raison. de la Diplomatique, tom. ii. p. 25; two
accurate treatises, which come from the workshop of the
Benedictines.]
[Footnote *: It does not appear that the establishment of the
indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed before
he had been created Augustus at Rome, and the remission granted
by him to the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have
ventured while only Caesar, and under the necessity of courting
popular favor, to establish such an odious impost. Aurelius
Victor and Lactantius agree in designating Diocletian as the
author of this despotic institution. Aur. Vict. de Caes. c. 39.
Lactant. de Mort. Pers. c. 7 - G.]
[Footnote 171: The first twenty-eight titles of the eleventh book
of the Theodosian Code are filled with the circumstantial
regulations on the important subject of tributes; but they
suppose a clearer knowledge of fundamental principles than it is
at present in our power to attain.]
[Footnote 172: The title concerning the Decurions (l. xii. tit.
i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian Code; since it
contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct laws
to ascertain the duties and privileges of that useful order of
citizens.
Note: The Decurions were charged with assessing, according
to the census of property prepared by the tabularii, the payment
due from each proprietor. This odious office was authoritatively
imposed on the richest citizens of each town; they had no salary,
and all their compensation was, to be exempt from certain
corporal punishments, in case they should have incurred them.
The Decurionate was the ruin of all the rich. Hence they tried
every way of avoiding this dangerous honor; they concealed
themselves, they entered into military service; but their efforts
were unavailing; they were seized, they were compelled to become
Decurions, and the dread inspired by this title was termed
Impiety. - G.
The Decurions were mutually responsible; they were obliged
to undertake for pieces of ground abandoned by their owners on
account of the pressure of the taxes, and, finally, to make up
all deficiencies. Savigny chichte des Rom. Rechts, i. 25. - M.]
[Footnote 173: Habemus enim et hominum numerum qui delati sunt,
et agrun modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 6. See Cod.
Theod. l. xiii. tit. x. xi., with Godefroy's Commentary.]
[Footnote 174: Siquis sacrilega vitem falce succiderit, aut
feracium ramorum foetus hebetaverit, quo delinet fidem Censuum,
et mentiatur callide paupertatis ingenium, mox detectus capitale
subibit exitium, et bona ejus in Fisci jura migrabunt. Cod.
Theod. l. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 1. Although this law is not
without its studied obscurity, it is, however clear enough to
prove the minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of
the penalty.]
[Footnote 175: The astonishment of Pliny would have ceased.
Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus argentum semper imperitasse
non aurum. Hist Natur. xxxiii. 15.]
[Footnote *: The proprietors were not charged with the expense of
this transport in the provinces situated on the sea-shore or near
the great rivers, there were companies of boatmen, and of masters
of vessels, who had this commission, and furnished the means of
transport at their own expense. In return, they were themselves
exempt, altogether, or in part, from the indiction and other
imposts. They had certain privileges; particular regulations
determined their rights and obligations. (Cod. Theod. l. xiii.
tit. v. ix.) The transports by land were made in the same manner,
by the intervention of a privileged company called Bastaga; the
members were called Bastagarii Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. v. - G.]
[Footnote 176: Some precautions were taken (see Cod. Theod. l.
xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. l. x. tit. xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3)
to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their authority,
either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those who
had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against
Verres, (iii. de Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the
various arts of oppression, with regard to the weight, the price,
the quality, and the carriage. The avarice of an unlettered
governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent.]
[Footnote 177: Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 2, published
the 24th of March, A. D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two
months after the death of his father, Theodosius. He speaks of
528,042 Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the English
measure. The jugerum contained 28,800 square Roman feet.]
Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment
seemed to unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a
capitation. ^178 The returns which were sent of every province or
district, expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the
amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was
divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province
contained so many capita, or heads of tribute; and that each head
was rated at such a price, was universally received, not only in
the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value of a
tributary head must have varied, according to many accidental, or
at least fluctuating circumstances; but some knowledge has been
preserved of a very curious fact, the more important, since it
relates to one of the richest provinces of the Roman empire, and
which now flourishes as the most splendid of the European
kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius had exhausted
the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces of gold for
the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy of his
successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. ^179 A moderate
proportion between these opposite extremes of extraordinary
oppression and of transient indulgence, may therefore be fixed at
sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine pounds sterling, the common
standard, perhaps, of the impositions of Gaul. ^180 But this
calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts from whence it is
deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two difficulties to a thinking
mind, who will be at once surprised by the equality, and by the
enormity, of the capitation. An attempt to explain them may
perhaps reflect some light on the interesting subject of the
finances of the declining empire.
[Footnote 178: Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 116) argues with
weight and learning on the subject of the capitation; but while
he explains the caput, as a share or measure of property, he too
absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment.]
[Footnote 179: Quid profuerit (Julianus) anhelantibus extrema
penuria Gallis, hinc maxime claret, quod primitus partes eas
ingressus, pro capitibusingulis tributi nomine vicenos quinos
aureos reperit flagitari; discedens vero septenos tantum numera
universa complentes. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 5.]
[Footnote 180: In the calculation of any sum of money under
Constantine and his successors, we need only refer to the
excellent discourse of Mr. Greaves on the Denarius, for the proof
of the following principles; 1. That the ancient and modern Roman
pound, containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is about one
twelfth lighter than the English pound, which is composed of 5760
of the same grains. 2. That the pound of gold, which had once
been divided into forty-eight aurei, was at this time coined into
seventy-two smaller pieces of the same denomination. 3. That
five of these aurei were the legal tender for a pound of silver,
and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for
fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman,
or about thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4.
That the English pound of silver is coined into sixty-two
shillings. From these elements we may compute the Roman pound of
gold, the usual method of reckoning large sums, at forty pounds
sterling, and we may fix the currency of the aureus at somewhat
more than eleven shillings.
Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation of M. Letronne,
"Considerations Generales sur l'Evaluation des Monnaies Grecques
et Romaines" Paris, 1817 - M.]
I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable
constitution of human nature produces and maintains so unequal a
division of property, the most numerous part of the community
would be deprived of their subsistence, by the equal assessment
of a tax from which the sovereign would derive a very trifling
revenue. Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman
capitation; but in the practice, this unjust equality was no
longer felt, as the tribute was collected on the principle of a
real, not of a personal imposition. ^* Several indigent citizens
contributed to compose a single head, or share of taxation; while
the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone
represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical
request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the
Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris
personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the
Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that
he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting
off three of his heads. ^181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded
the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the
allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with
the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of
the country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families.
II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine
pounds sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul,
may be rendered more evident by the comparison of the present
state of the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute
monarch of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The
taxes of France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by
flattery, beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling,
which ought perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions
of inhabitants. ^182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of
fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations
of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal
proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above
fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four
times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their
Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found,
not so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and
silver, as in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and
in modern France. In a country where personal freedom is the
privilege of every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they
are levied on property or on consumption, may be fairly divided
among the whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of
the lands of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of
the Roman world, were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose
dependent condition was a less rigid servitude. ^183 In such a
state the poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who
enjoyed the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls of tribute
were filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed
the means of an honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence,
the comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies
the high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion
may be illustrated by the following example: The Aedui, one of
the most powerful and civilized tribes or cities of Gaul,
occupied an extent of territory, which now contains about five
hundred thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses
of Autun and Nevers; ^184 and with the probable accession of
those of Chalons and Macon, ^185 the population would amount to
eight hundred thousand souls. In the time of Constantine, the
territory of the Aedui afforded no more than twenty-five thousand
heads of capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by
that prince from the intolerable weight of tribute. ^186 A just
analogy would seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious
historian, ^187 that the free and tributary citizens did not
surpass the number of half a million; and if, in the ordinary
administration of government, their annual payments may be
computed at about four millions and a half of our money, it would
appear, that although the share of each individual was four times
as considerable, a fourth part only of the modern taxes of France
was levied on the Imperial province of Gaul. The exactions of
Constantius may be calculated at seven millions sterling, which
were reduced to two millions by the humanity or the wisdom of
Julian.
[Footnote *: Two masterly dissertations of M. Savigny, in the
Mem. of the Berlin Academy (1822 and 1823) have thrown new light
on the taxation system of the Empire. Gibbon, according to M.
Savigny, is mistaken in supposing that there was but one kind of
capitation tax; there was a land tax, and a capitation tax,
strictly so called. The land tax was, in its operation, a
proprietor's or landlord's tax. But, besides this, there was a
direct capitation tax on all who were not possessed of landed
property. This tax dates from the time of the Roman conquests;
its amount is not clearly known. Gradual exemptions released
different persons and classes from this tax. One edict exempts
painters. In Syria, all under twelve or fourteen, or above
sixty-five, were exempted; at a later period, all under twenty,
and all unmarried females; still later, all under twenty-five,
widows and nuns, soldiers, veterani and clerici - whole dioceses,
that of Thrace and Illyricum. Under Galerius and Licinius, the
plebs urbana became exempt; though this, perhaps, was only an
ordinance for the East. By degrees, however, the exemption was
extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and as it was strictly
capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were exempted it
fell at length altogether on the coloni and agricultural slaves.
These were registered in the same cataster (capitastrum) with the
land tax. It was paid by the proprietor, who raised it again
from his coloni and laborers. - M.]
[Footnote 181: Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum,
Hic capita ut vivam, tu mihi tolle tria.
Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii.
The reputation of Father Sirmond led me to expect more
satisfaction than I have found in his note (p. 144) on this
remarkable passage. The words, suo vel suorum nomine, betray the
perplexity of the commentator.]
[Footnote 182: This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is
founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and
marriages, collected by public authority, and now deposited in
the Controlee General at Paris. The annual average of births
throughout the whole kingdom, taken in five years, (from 1770 to
1774, both inclusive,) is 479,649 boys, and 449,269 girls, in all
928,918 children. The province of French Hainault alone
furnishes 9906 births; and we are assured, by an actual
enumeration of the people, annually repeated from the year 1773
to the year 1776, that upon an average, Hainault contains 257,097
inhabitants. By the rules of fair analogy, we might infer, that
the ordinary proportion of annual births to the whole people, is
about 1 to 26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868
persons of both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves
with the more moderate proportion of 1 to 25, the whole
population will amount to 23,222,950. From the diligent
researches of the French Government, (which are not unworthy of
our own imitation,) we may hope to obtain a still greater degree
of certainty on this important subject
Note: On no subject has so much valuable information been
collected since the time of Gibbon, as the statistics of the
different countries of Europe but much is still wanting as to our
own - M.]
[Footnote 183: Cod. Theod. l. v. tit. ix. x. xi. Cod. Justinian.
l. xi. tit. lxiii. Coloni appellantur qui conditionem debent
genitali solo, propter agriculturum sub dominio possessorum.
Augustin. de Civitate Dei, l. x. c. i.]
[Footnote 184: The ancient jurisdiction of (Augustodunum) Autun
in Burgundy, the capital of the Aedui, comprehended the adjacent
territory of (Noviodunum) Nevers. See D'Anville, Notice de
l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers
are now composed, the former of 610, and the latter of 160
parishes. The registers of births, taken during eleven years, in
476 parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and multiplied by
the moderate proportion of 25, (see Messance Recherches sur la
Population, p. 142,) may authorizes us to assign an average
number of 656 persons for each parish, which being again
multiplied by the 770 parishes of the dioceses of Nevers and
Autun, will produce the sum of 505,120 persons for the extent of
country which was once possessed by the Aedui.]
[Footnote 185: We might derive an additional supply of 301,750
inhabitants from the dioceses of Chalons (Cabillonum) and of
Macon, (Matisco,) since they contain, the one 200, and the other
260 parishes. This accession of territory might be justified by
very specious reasons. 1. Chalons and Macon were undoubtedly
within the original jurisdiction of the Aedui. (See D'Anville,
Notice, p. 187, 443.) 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they are
enumerated not as Civitates, but merely as Castra. 3. They do
not appear to have been episcopal seats before the fifth and
sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr.
Vet. viii. 7) which very forcibly deters me from extending the
territory of the Aedui, in the reign of Constantine, along the
beautiful banks of the navigable Saone.
Note: In this passage of Eumenius, Savigny supposes the
original number to have been 32,000: 7000 being discharged, there
remained 25,000 liable to the tribute. See Mem. quoted above. -
M.]
[Footnote 186: Eumenius in Panegyr Vet. viii. 11.]
[Footnote 187: L'Abbe du Bos, Hist. Critique de la M. F. tom. i.
p. 121]
But this tax, or capitation, on the proprietors of land,
would have suffered a rich and numerous class of free citizens to
escape. With the view of sharing that species of wealth which is
derived from art or labor, and which exists in money or in
merchandise, the emperors imposed a distinct and personal tribute
on the trading part of their subjects. ^188 Some exemptions, very
strictly confined both in time and place, were allowed to the
proprietors who disposed of the produce of their own estates.
Some indulgence was granted to the profession of the liberal
arts: but every other branch of commercial industry was affected
by the severity of the law. The honorable merchant of
Alexandria, who imported the gems and spices of India for the use
of the western world; the usurer, who derived from the interest
of money a silent and ignominious profit; the ingenious
manufacturer, the diligent mechanic, and even the most obscure
retailer of a sequestered village, were obliged to admit the
officers of the revenue into the partnership of their gain; and
the sovereign of the Roman empire, who tolerated the profession,
consented to share the infamous salary, of public prostitutes. ^!
As this general tax upon industry was collected every fourth
year, it was styled the Lustral Contribution: and the historian
Zosimus ^189 laments that the approach of the fatal period was
announced by the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were
often compelled by the impending scourge to embrace the most
abhorred and unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which
their property had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus
cannot indeed be justified from the charge of passion and
prejudice; but, from the nature of this tribute it seems
reasonable to conclude, that it was arbitrary in the
distribution, and extremely rigorous in the mode of collecting.
The secret wealth of commerce, and the precarious profits of art
or labor, are susceptible only of a discretionary valuation,
which is seldom disadvantageous to the interest of the treasury;
and as the person of the trader supplies the want of a visible
and permanent security, the payment of the imposition, which, in
the case of a land tax, may be obtained by the seizure of
property, can rarely be extorted by any other means than those of
corporal punishments. The cruel treatment of the insolvent
debtors of the state, is attested, and was perhaps mitigated by a
very humane edict of Constantine, who, disclaiming the use of
racks and of scourges, allots a spacious and airy prison for the
place of their confinement. ^190
[Footnote 188: See Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. i. and iv.]
[Footnote !: The emperor Theodosius put an end, by a law. to this
disgraceful source of revenue. (Godef. ad Cod. Theod. xiii. tit.
i. c. 1.) But before he deprived himself of it, he made sure of
some way of replacing this deficit. A rich patrician,
Florentius, indignant at this legalized licentiousness, had made
representations on the subject to the emperor. To induce him to
tolerate it no longer, he offered his own property to supply the
diminution of the revenue. The emperor had the baseness to
accept his offer - G.]
[Footnote 189: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115. There is probably as much
passion and prejudice in the attack of Zosimus, as in the
elaborate defence of the memory of Constantine by the zealous Dr.
Howell. Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 20.]
[Footnote 190: Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit vii. leg. 3.]
These general taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute
authority of the monarch; but the occasional offerings of the
coronary gold still retained the name and semblance of popular
consent. It was an ancient custom that the allies of the
republic, who ascribed their safety or deliverance to the success
of the Roman arms, and even the cities of Italy, who admired the
virtues of their victorious general, adorned the pomp of his
triumph by their voluntary gifts of crowns of gold, which after
the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of Jupiter, to remain
a lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The progress of
zeal and flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the
size, of these popular donations; and the triumph of Caesar was
enriched with two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two massy
crowns, whose weight amounted to twenty thousand four hundred and
fourteen pounds of gold. This treasure was immediately melted
down by the prudent dictator, who was satisfied that it would be
more serviceable to his soldiers than to the gods: his example
was imitated by his successors; and the custom was introduced of
exchanging these splendid ornaments for the more acceptable
present of the current gold coin of the empire. ^191 The
spontaneous offering was at length exacted as the debt of duty;
and instead of being confined to the occasion of a triumph, it
was supposed to be granted by the several cities and provinces of
the monarchy, as often as the emperor condescended to announce
his accession, his consulship, the birth of a son, the creation
of a Caesar, a victory over the Barbarians, or any other real or
imaginary event which graced the annals of his reign. The
peculiar free gift of the senate of Rome was fixed by custom at
sixteen hundred pounds of gold, or about sixty-four thousand
pounds sterling. The oppressed subjects celebrated their own
felicity, that their sovereign should graciously consent to
accept this feeble but voluntary testimony of their loyalty and
gratitude. ^192
[Footnote 191: See Lipsius de Magnitud. Romana, l. ii. c. 9. The
Tarragonese Spain presented the emperor Claudius with a crown of
gold of seven, and Gaul with another of nine, hundred pounds
weight. I have followed the rational emendation of Lipsius.
Note: This custom is of still earlier date, the Romans had
borrowed it from Greece. Who is not acquainted with the famous
oration of Demosthenes for the golden crown, which his citizens
wished to bestow, and Aeschines to deprive him of? - G.]
[Footnote 192: Cod. Theod. l. xii. tit. xiii. The senators were
supposed to be exempt from the Aurum Coronarium; but the Auri
Oblatio, which was required at their hands, was precisely of the
same nature.]
A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are
seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual
situation. The subjects of Constantine were incapable of
discerning the decline of genius and manly virtue, which so far
degraded them below the dignity of their ancestors; but they
could feel and lament the rage of tyranny, the relaxation of
discipline, and the increase of taxes. The impartial historian,
who acknowledges the justice of their complaints, will observe
some favorable circumstances which tended to alleviate the misery
of their condition. The threatening tempest of Barbarians, which
so soon subverted the foundations of Roman greatness, was still
repelled, or suspended, on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and
literature were cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society
were enjoyed, by the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the
globe. The forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil
administration contributed to restrain the irregular license of
the soldiers; and although the laws were violated by power, or
perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman
jurisprudence preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to
the despotic governments of the East. The rights of mankind
might derive some protection from religion and philosophy; and
the name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might sometimes
admonish, the successors of Augustus, that they did not reign
over a nation of Slaves or Barbarians. ^193
[Footnote 193: The great Theodosius, in his judicious advice to
his son, (Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii, 214, &c.,)
distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a
Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary for the one; birth might
suffice for the other.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.
Part I.
Character Of Constantine. - Gothic War. - Death Of
Constantine. - Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons. -
Persian War. - Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
Constans. - Usurpation Of Magnentius. - Civil War. - Victory Of
Constantius.
The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire,
and introduced such important changes into the civil and
religious constitution of his country, has fixed the attention,
and divided the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the
Christians, the deliverer of the church has been decorated with
every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the
discontent of the vanquished party has compared Constantine to
the most abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and
weakness, dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have
in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and
the character of Constantine is considered, even in the present
age, as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the
impartial union of those defects which are confessed by his
warmest admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by
his most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just
portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of
history should adopt without a blush. ^1 But it would soon
appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors,
and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a
figure monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its
proper and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the
different periods of the reign of Constantine.
[Footnote 1: On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant
tout le mal ru'en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu'en dit Zosime.
Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and
Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective.
The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose
character or situation variously tempered the influence of their
religious zeal.]
The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been
enriched by nature with her choices endowments. His stature was
lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his
strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise, and
from his earliest youth, to a very advanced season of life, he
preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence to
the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He delighted in
the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he
might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less
reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his station,
the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the hearts of
all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has been
suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was not
incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of
an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just
estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences
derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of
Constantine. In the despatch of business, his diligence was
indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost
continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in
giving audiences to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints
of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his
measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed
magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most
arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices
of education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field,
he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he
conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his
abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal
victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of
the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the
motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the
moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling
passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own
situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness
of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would
enable him to restore peace and order to tot the distracted
empire. In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had
engaged on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared
the undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom
and justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the
administration of Constantine. ^2
[Footnote 2: The virtues of Constantine are collected for the
most part from Eutropius and the younger Victor, two sincere
pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family. Even
Zosimus, and the Emperor Julian, acknowledge his personal courage
and military achievements.]
Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in
the plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a
few exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the
conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed
tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from
the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the
Roman princes. ^3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant
of the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into
the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of
Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired
his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating
into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or
raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The
general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years
of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of
real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by
the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and
prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of
Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various
innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an
increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his
festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the
oppression of the people was the only fund which could support
the magnificence of the sovereign. ^4 His unworthy favorites,
enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped
with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. ^5 A secret
but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained
the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The
dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose
to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind.
The Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of
Diocletian, assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the
person of Constantine. He is represented with false hair of
various colors, laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to
the times; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a
profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a
variegated flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with
flowers of gold. In such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the
youth and folly of Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the
wisdom of an aged monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran.
^6 A mind thus relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was
incapable of rising to that magnanimity which disdains suspicion,
and dares to forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may
perhaps be justified by the maxims of policy, as they are taught
in the schools of tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the
executions, or rather murders, which sullied the declining age of
Constantine, will suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of
a prince who could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of
justice, and the feelings of nature, to the dictates either of
his passions or of his interest.
[Footnote 3: See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore
optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient
Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am
inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written vix
mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the
wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses
the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb.
Trachala decem annis praestantissimds; duodecim sequentibus
latro; decem novissimis pupillus ob immouicas profusiones.]
[Footnote 4: Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering discourse
pronounced before the son of Constantine; and Caesares, p. 336.
Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople,
&c., may be quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the
profuseness of their founder.]
[Footnote 5: The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.
Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c.
8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv.
c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the
remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.]
[Footnote 6: Julian, in the Caesars, attempts to ridicule his
uncle. His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the
learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire,
p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that
Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this
admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.]
The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard
of Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his
domestic life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the
longest and most prosperous reigns, Augustus Trajan, and
Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and the frequent
revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any Imperial
family to grow up and multiply under the shade of the purple.
But the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first
ennobled by the Gothic Claudius, descended through several
generations; and Constantine himself derived from his royal
father the hereditary honors which he transmitted to his
children. The emperor had been twice married. Minervina, the
obscure but lawful object of his youthful attachment, ^7 had left
him only one son, who was called Crispus. By Fausta, the
daughter of Maximian, he had three daughters, and three sons
known by the kindred names of Constantine, Constantius, and
Constans. The unambitious brothers of the great Constantine,
Julius Constantius, Dalmatius, and Hannibalianus, ^8 were
permitted to enjoy the most honorable rank, and the most affluent
fortune, that could be consistent with a private station. The
youngest of the three lived without a name, and died without
posterity. His two elder brothers obtained in marriage the
daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated new branches of the
Imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards became the most
illustrious of the children of Julius Constantius, the Patrician.
The two sons of Dalmatius, who had been decorated with the vain
title of Censor, were named Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two
sisters of the great Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were
bestowed on Optatus and Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth
and of consular dignity. His third sister, Constantia, was
distinguished by her preeminence of greatness and of misery. She
remained the widow of the vanquished Licinius; and it was by her
entreaties, that an innocent boy, the offspring of their
marriage, preserved, for some time, his life, the title of
Caesar, and a precarious hope of the succession. Besides the
females, and the allies of the Flavian house, ten or twelve
males, to whom the language of modern courts would apply the
title of princes of the blood, seemed, according to the order of
their birth, to be destined either to inherit or to support the
throne of Constantine. But in less than thirty years, this
numerous and increasing family was reduced to the persons of
Constantius and Julian, who alone had survived a series of crimes
and calamities, such as the tragic poets have deplored in the
devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus. [Footnote 7: Zosimus and
Zonaras agree in representing Minervina as the concubine of
Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly rescued her
character, by producing a decisive passage from one of the
panegyrics: "Ab ipso fine pueritiae te matrimonii legibus
dedisti."]
[Footnote 8: Ducange (Familiae Byzantinae, p. 44) bestows on him,
after Zosimus, the name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely,
as it was already occupied by the elder brother. That of
Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal Chronicle, and is
approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 527.]
Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive
heir of the empire, is represented by impartial historians as an
amiable and accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at
least of his studies, was intrusted to Lactantius, the most
eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably qualified to
form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious
disciple. ^9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with
the title of Caesar, and the administration of the Gallic
provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early
occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the civil war
which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their
powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well
as conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the
Hellespont, so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of
Lacinius. This naval victory contributed to determine the event
of the war; and the names of Constantine and of Crispus were
united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects; who
loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his
illustrious son, a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image
of his father's perfections. The public favor, which seldom
accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over the youth of
Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,
of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of
a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with
reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented
murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor, they
fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as
public felicity. ^10
[Footnote 9: Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius may be
applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or
to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, Mem.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliotheque
Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel
History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.]
[Footnote 10: Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius
(x. 6) styles him "egregium virum;" and Julian (Orat. i.) very
plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the civil war. See
Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.]
This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of
Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient
of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of
his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he
resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from
dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that
while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of
Caesar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic
provinces, ^11 he, a prince of mature years, who had performed
such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his
father's court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every
calumny which the malice of his enemies could suggest. Under
such painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be
able to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we
may be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet
or perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and
who were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of
his resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this
time, manifestly indicates his real or affected suspicions, that
a secret conspiracy had been formed against his person and
government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he
invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his
magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate
favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he
himself will listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge
his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which discovers some
apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme Being
may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of
the empire. ^12
[Footnote 11: Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with
Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The year in which Constantius was
created Caesar seems to be more accurately fixed by the two
chronologists; but the historian who lived in his court could not
be ignorant of the day of the anniversary. For the appointment
of the new Caesar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian, Orat. i.
p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de Primaute
de l'Eglise, p. 1183.]
[Footnote 12: Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy suspected the
secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.]
The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation,
were sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the
friends and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is
there any reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had
promised an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy
of Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of
regard and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as
his most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the
customary vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young
Caesar; ^13 and as the people, who were not admitted into the
secrets of the palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his
dignity, a poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with
equal devotion the majesty of the father and that of the son. ^14
The time was now arrived for celebrating the august ceremony of
the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the emperor,
for that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where
the most splendid preparations had been made for his reception.
Every eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of
the general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation
was drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and
murder. ^15 In the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus
was apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the
tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.
The examination was short and private; ^16 and as it was thought
decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of
the Roman people, he was sent under a strong guard to Pola, in
Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, either by
the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operations of
poison. ^17 The Caesar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was
involved in the ruin of Crispus: ^18 and the stern jealousy of
Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite
sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only
crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of
these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,
the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death,
were buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop, who
has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his
hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic
events. ^19 Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,
whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of
Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one
of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in
the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgment
of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had
compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at
least of a degenerate son. ^20
[Footnote 13: Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv.
p. 610.]
[Footnote 14: His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of
his panegyric, written, according to the taste of the age, in
vile acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250,
Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l.
iv. c. 1.]
[Footnote 15: Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p.
28.]
[Footnote 16: The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign,
speaks with becoming caution. "Natu grandior incertum qua causa,
patris judicio occidisset." If we consult the succeeding writers,
Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus,
Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear
gradually to increase, as their means of information must have
diminished - a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical
disquisition.]
[Footnote 17: Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general
expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince;
but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of
an antithesis to Fausta's warm bath, chooses to administer a
draught of cold poison.]
[Footnote 18: Sororis filium, commodae indolis juvenem.
Eutropius, x. 6 May I not be permitted to conjecture that Crispus
had married Helena the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that
on the happy delivery of the princess, in the year 322, a general
pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code,
which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom.
iii. p. 267
Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The obscurity of
the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely allows any
inference, and there is extant but one meda which can be
attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.]
[Footnote 19: See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c.
19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii.
c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument
against the reality of the fact.]
[Footnote 20: Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii.
c. 10.]
The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged,
that the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder,
are reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the
common feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They
pretend, that as soon as the afflicted father discovered the
falsehood of the accusation by which his credulity had been so
fatally misled, he published to the world his repentance and
remorse; that he mourned forty days, during which he abstained
from the use of the bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life;
and that, for the lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a
golden statue of Crispus, with this memorable inscription: To my
son, whom I unjustly condemned. ^21 A tale so moral and so
interesting would deserve to be supported by less exceptionable
authority; but if we consult the more ancient and authentic
writers, they will inform us, that the repentance of Constantine
was manifested only in acts of blood and revenge; and that he
atoned for the murder of an innocent son, by the execution,
perhaps, of a guilty wife. They ascribe the misfortunes of
Crispus to the arts of his step-mother Fausta, whose implacable
hatred, or whose disappointed love, renewed in the palace of
Constantine the ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of Phaedra. ^22
Like the daughter of Minos, the daughter of Maximian accused her
son-in-law of an incestuous attempt on the chastity of his
father's wife; and easily obtained, from the jealousy of the
emperor, a sentence of death against a young prince, whom she
considered with reason as the most formidable rival of her own
children. But Helena, the aged mother of Constantine, lamented
and revenged the untimely fate of her grandson Crispus; nor was
it long before a real or pretended discovery was made, that
Fausta herself entertained a criminal connection with a slave
belonging to the Imperial stables. ^23 Her condemnation and
punishment were the instant consequences of the charge; and the
adulteress was suffocated by the steam of a bath, which, for that
purpose, had been heated to an extraordinary degree. ^24 By some
it will perhaps be thought, that the remembrance of a conjugal
union of twenty years, and the honor of their common offspring,
the destined heirs of the throne, might have softened the
obdurate heart of Constantine, and persuaded him to suffer his
wife, however guilty she might appear, to expiate her offences in
a solitary prison. But it seems a superfluous labor to weigh the
propriety, unless we could ascertain the truth, of this singular
event, which is attended with some circumstances of doubt and
perplexity. Those who have attacked, and those who have
defended, the character of Constantine, have alike disregarded
two very remarkable passages of two orations pronounced under the
succeeding reign. The former celebrates the virtues, the beauty,
and the fortune of the empress Fausta, the daughter, wife,
sister, and mother of so many princes. ^25 The latter asserts, in
explicit terms, that the mother of the younger Constantine, who
was slain three years after his father's death, survived to weep
over the fate of her son. ^26 Notwithstanding the positive
testimony of several writers of the Pagan as well as of the
Christian religion, there may still remain some reason to
believe, or at least to suspect, that Fausta escaped the blind
and suspicious cruelty of her husband. ^* The deaths of a son and
a nephew, with the execution of a great number of respectable,
and perhaps innocent friends, ^27 who were involved in their
fall, may be sufficient, however, to justify the discontent of
the Roman people, and to explain the satirical verses affixed to
the palace gate, comparing the splendid and bloody reigns of
Constantine and Nero. ^28
[Footnote 21: In order to prove that the statue was erected by
Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the
Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses,
Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary
histories he appeals with unblushing confidence.]
[Footnote 22: Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103) may be considered as our
original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints
from the ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure and
imperfect narrative.]
[Footnote 23: Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104,
116) imputes to Constantine the death of two wives, of the
innocent Fausta, and of an adulteress, who was the mother of his
three successors. According to Jerom, three or four years
elapsed between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The
elder Victor is prudently silent.]
[Footnote 24: If Fausta was put to death, it is reasonable to
believe that the private apartments of the palace were the scene
of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his fancy by
exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild
beasts.]
[Footnote 25: Julian. Orat. i. He seems to call her the mother
of Crispus. She might assume that title by adoption. At least,
she was not considered as his mortal enemy. Julian compares the
fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the Persian queen. A
Roman would have more naturally recollected the second Agrippina:
-
Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancetres:
Moi, fille, femme, soeur, et mere de vos maitres.]
[Footnote 26: Monod. in Constantin. Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop.
edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most divine and pious
of queens [Footnote *: Manso (Leben Constantins, p. 65) treats
this inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities to which he
appeals, with too much contempt, considering the general
scantiness of proof on this curious question. - M.]
[Footnote 27: Interfecit numerosos amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]
[Footnote 28: Saturni aurea saecula quis requirat?
Sunt haec gemmea, sed Neroniana.
Sidon. Apollinar. v. 8.
It is somewhat singular that these satirical lines should be
attributed, not to an obscure libeller, or a disappointed
patriot, but to Ablavius, prime minister and favorite of the
emperor. We may now perceive that the imprecations of the Roman
people were dictated by humanity, as well as by superstition.
Zosim. l. ii. p. 105.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.
Part II.
By the death of Crispus, the inheritance of the empire
seemed to devolve on the three sons of Fausta, who have been
already mentioned under the names of Constantine, of Constantius,
and of Constans. These young princes were successively invested
with the title of Caesar; and the dates of their promotion may be
referred to the tenth, the twentieth, and the thirtieth years of
the reign of their father. ^29 This conduct, though it tended to
multiply the future masters of the Roman world, might be excused
by the partiality of paternal affection; but it is not so easy to
understand the motives of the emperor, when he endangered the
safety both of his family and of his people, by the unnecessary
elevation of his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The
former was raised, by the title of Caesar, to an equality with
his cousins. In favor of the latter, Constantine invented the
new and singular appellation of Nobilissimus; ^30 to which he
annexed the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and gold.
But of the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the
empire, Hannibalianus alone was distinguished by the title of
King; a name which the subjects of Tiberius would have detested,
as the profane and cruel insult of capricious tyranny. The use
of such a title, even as it appears under the reign of
Constantine, is a strange and unconnected fact, which can
scarcely be admitted on the joint authority of Imperial medals
and contemporary writers. ^31
[Footnote 29: Euseb. Orat. in Constantin. c. 3. These dates are
sufficiently correct to justify the orator.]
[Footnote 30: Zosim. l. ii. p. 117. Under the predecessors of
Constantine, No bilissimus was a vague epithet, rather than a
legal and determined title.]
[Footnote 31: Adstruunt nummi veteres ac singulares. Spanheim de
Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. vol. ii. p. 357. Ammianus speaks
of this Roman king (l. xiv. c. l, and Valesius ad loc.) The
Valesian fragment styles him King of kings; and the Paschal
Chronicle acquires the weight of Latin evidence.]
[Footnote *: Hannibalianus is always designated in these authors
by the title of king. There still exist medals struck to his
honor, on which the same title is found, Fl. Hannibaliano Regi.
See Eckhel, Doct. Num. t. viii. 204. Armeniam nationesque circum
socias habebat, says Aur. Victor, p. 225. The writer means the
Lesser Armenia. Though it is not possible to question a fact
supported by such respectable authorities, Gibbon considers it
inexplicable and incredible. It is a strange abuse of the
privilege of doubting, to refuse all belief in a fact of such
little importance in itself, and attested thus formally by
contemporary authors and public monuments. St. Martin note to Le
Beau i. 341. - M.]
The whole empire was deeply interested in the education of
these five youths, the acknowledged successors of Constantine.
The exercise of the body prepared them for the fatigues of war
and the duties of active life. Those who occasionally mention the
education or talents of Constantius, allow that he excelled in
the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that he was a dexterous
archer, a skilful horseman, and a master of all the different
weapons used in the service either of the cavalry or of the
infantry. ^32 The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though
not perhaps with equal success, to improve the minds of the sons
and nephews of Constantine. ^33 The most celebrated professors of
the Christian faith, of the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman
jurisprudence, were invited by the liberality of the emperor, who
reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal
youths in the science of government, and the knowledge of
mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been formed
by adversity and experience. In the free intercourse of private
life, and amidst the dangers of the court of Galerius, he had
learned to command his own passions, to encounter those of his
equals, and to depend for his present safety and future greatness
on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct. His
destined successors had the misfortune of being born and educated
in the imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded with a train of
flatterers, they passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury,
and the expectation of a throne; nor would the dignity of their
rank permit them to descend from that elevated station from
whence the various characters of human nature appear to wear a
smooth and uniform aspect. The indulgence of Constantine
admitted them, at a very tender age, to share the administration
of the empire; and they studied the art of reigning, at the
expense of the people intrusted to their care. The younger
Constantine was appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his
brother Constantius exchanged that department, the ancient
patrimony of their father, for the more opulent, but less
martial, countries of the East. Italy, the Western Illyricum,
and Africa, were accustomed to revere Constans, the third of his
sons, as the representative of the great Constantine. He fixed
Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier, to which he annexed the
government of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. The city of
Caesarea was chosen for the residence of Hannibalianus; and the
provinces of Pontus, Cappadocia, and the Lesser Armenia, were
destined to form the extent of his new kingdom. For each of
these princes a suitable establishment was provided. A just
proportion of guards, of legions, and of auxiliaries, was
allotted for their respective dignity and defence. The ministers
and generals, who were placed about their persons, were such as
Constantine could trust to assist, and even to control, these
youthful sovereigns in the exercise of their delegated power. As
they advanced in years and experience, the limits of their
authority were insensibly enlarged: but the emperor always
reserved for himself the title of Augustus; and while he showed
the Caesars to the armies and provinces, he maintained every part
of the empire in equal obedience to its supreme head. ^34 The
tranquillity of the last fourteen years of his reign was scarcely
interrupted by the contemptible insurrection of a camel-driver in
the Island of Cyprus, ^35 or by the active part which the policy
of Constantine engaged him to assume in the wars of the Goths and
Sarmatians.
[Footnote 32: His dexterity in martial exercises is celebrated by
Julian, (Orat. i. p. 11, Orat. ii. p. 53,) and allowed by
Ammianus, (l. xxi. c. 16.)]
[Footnote 33: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 51. Julian,
Orat. i. p. 11-16, with Spanheim's elaborate Commentary.
Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 109. Constantius studied with laudable
diligence; but the dulness of his fancy prevented him from
succeeding in the art of poetry, or even of rhetoric.]
[Footnote 34: Eusebius, (l. iv. c. 51, 52,) with a design of
exalting the authority and glory of Constantine, affirms, that he
divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have divided
his patrimony. His distribution of the provinces may be
collected from Eutropius, the two Victors and the Valesian
fragment.]
[Footnote 35: Calocerus, the obscure leader of this rebellion, or
rather tumult, was apprehended and burnt alive in the
market-place of Tarsus, by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See the
elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful traditions
of Theophanes and Cedrenus.]
Among the different branches of the human race, the
Sarmatians form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite
the manners of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and
complexion of the ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to
the various accidents of peace and war, of alliance or conquest,
the Sarmatians were sometimes confined to the banks of the
Tanais; and they sometimes spread themselves over the immense
plains which lie between the Vistula and the Volga. ^36 The care
of their numerous flocks and herds, the pursuit of game, and the
exercises of war, or rather of rapine, directed the vagrant
motions of the Sarmatians. The movable camps or cities, the
ordinary residence of their wives and children, consisted only of
large wagons drawn by oxen, and covered in the form of tents.
The military strength of the nation was composed of cavalry; and
the custom of their warriors, to lead in their hand one or two
spare horses, enabled them to advance and to retreat with a rapid
diligence, which surprised the security, and eluded the pursuit,
of a distant enemy. ^37 Their poverty of iron prompted their rude
industry to invent a sort of cuirass, which was capable of
resisting a sword or javelin, though it was formed only of
horses' hoofs, cut into thin and polished slices, carefully laid
over each other in the manner of scales or feathers, and strongly
sewed upon an under garment of coarse linen. ^38 The offensive
arms of the Sarmatians were short daggers, long lances, and a
weighty bow vow with a quiver of arrows. They were reduced to
the necessity of employing fish- bones for the points of their
weapons; but the custom of dipping them in a venomous liquor,
that poisoned the wounds which they inflicted, is alone
sufficient to prove the most savage manners, since a people
impressed with a sense of humanity would have abhorred so cruel a
practice, and a nation skilled in the arts of war would have
disdained so impotent a resource. ^39 Whenever these Barbarians
issued from their deserts in quest of prey, their shaggy beards,
uncombed locks, the furs with which they were covered from head
to foot, and their fierce countenances, which seemed to express
the innate cruelty of their minds, inspired the more civilized
provincials of Rome with horror and dismay.
[Footnote 36: Cellarius has collected the opinions of the
ancients concerning the European and Asiatic Sarmatia; and M.
D'Anville has applied them to modern geography with the skill and
accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.]
[Footnote 37: Ammian. l. xvii. c. 12. The Sarmatian horses were
castrated to prevent the mischievous accidents which might happen
from the noisy and ungovernable passions of the males.]
[Footnote 38: Pausanius, l. i. p. 50,. edit. Kuhn. That
inquisitive traveller had carefully examined a Sarmatian cuirass,
which was preserved in the temple of Aesculapius at Athens.]
[Footnote 39: Aspicis et mitti sub adunco toxica ferro,
Et telum causas mortis habere duas.
Ovid, ex Ponto, l. iv. ep. 7, ver. 7.
See in the Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 236 -
271, a very curious dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom
was commonly extracted from the vegetable reign: but that
employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the
viper, and a mixture of human blood. The use of poisoned arms,
which has been spread over both worlds, never preserved a savage
tribe from the arms of a disciplined enemy.]
The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of
fame and luxury, was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen
banks of the Danube, where he was exposed, almost without
defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with whose
stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be
confounded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations,
^40 he describes in the most lively colors the dress and manners,
the arms and inroads, of the Getae and Sarmatians, who were
associated for the purposes of destruction; and from the accounts
of history there is some reason to believe that these Sarmatians
were the Jazygae, one of the most numerous and warlike tribes of
the nation. The allurements of plenty engaged them to seek a
permanent establishment on the frontiers of the empire. Soon
after the reign of Augustus, they obliged the Dacians, who
subsisted by fishing on the banks of the River Teyss or Tibiscus,
to retire into the hilly country, and to abandon to the
victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary,
which are bounded by the course of the Danube and the
semicircular enclosure of the Carpathian Mountains. ^41 In this
advantageous position, they watched or suspended the moment of
attack, as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by
presents; they gradually acquired the skill of using more
dangerous weapons, and although the Sarmatians did not illustrate
their name by any memorable exploits, they occasionally assisted
their eastern and western neighbors, the Goths and the Germans,
with a formidable body of cavalry. They lived under the
irregular aristocracy of their chieftains: ^42 but after they had
received into their bosom the fugitive Vandals, who yielded to
the pressure of the Gothic power, they seem to have chosen a king
from that nation, and from the illustrious race of the Astingi,
who had formerly dwelt on the hores of the northern ocean. ^43
[Footnote 40: The nine books of Poetical Epistles which Ovid
composed during the seven first years of his melancholy exile,
possess, beside the merit of elegance, a double value. They
exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular
circumstances; and they contain many curious observations, which
no Roman except Ovid, could have an opportunity of making. Every
circumstance which tends to illustrate the history of the
Barbarians, has been drawn together by the very accurate Count de
Buat. Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. iv. c. xvi. p.
286-317]
[Footnote 41: The Sarmatian Jazygae were settled on the banks of
Pathissus or Tibiscus, when Pliny, in the year 79, published his
Natural History. See l. iv. c. 25. In the time of Strabo and
Ovid, sixty or seventy years before, they appear to have
inhabited beyond the Getae, along the coast of the Euxine.]
[Footnote 42: Principes Sarmaturum Jazygum penes quos civitatis
regimen plebem quoque et vim equitum, qua sola valent,
offerebant. Tacit. Hist. iii. p. 5. This offer was made in the
civil war between Vitellino and Vespasian.]
[Footnote 43: This hypothesis of a Vandal king reigning over
Sarmatian subjects, seems necessary to reconcile the Goth
Jornandes with the Greek and Latin historians of Constantine. It
may be observed that Isidore, who lived in Spain under the
dominion of the Goths, gives them for enemies, not the Vandals,
but the Sarmatians. See his Chronicle in Grotius, p. 709.
Note: I have already noticed the confusion which must
necessarily arise in history, when names purely geographical, as
this of Sarmatia, are taken for historical names belonging to a
single nation. We perceive it here; it has forced Gibbon to
suppose, without any reason but the necessity of extricating
himself from his perplexity, that the Sarmatians had taken a king
from among the Vandals; a supposition entirely contrary to the
usages of Barbarians Dacia, at this period, was occupied, not by
Sarmatians, who have never formed a distinct race, but by
Vandals, whom the ancients have often confounded under the
general term Sarmatians. See Gatterer's Welt-Geschiehte p. 464 -
G.]
This motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of
contention, which perpetually arise on the confines of warlike
and independent nations. The Vandal princes were stimulated by
fear and revenge; the Gothic kings aspired to extend their
dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the
waters of the Maros, a small river which falls into the Teyss,
were stained with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After
some experience of the superior strength and numbers of their
adversaries, the Sarmatians implored the protection of the Roman
monarch, who beheld with pleasure the discord of the nations, but
who was justly alarmed by the progress of the Gothic arms. As
soon as Constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker
party, the haughty Araric, king of the Goths, instead of
expecting the attack of the legions, boldly passed the Danube,
and spread terror and devastation through the province of Maesia.
To oppose the inroad of this destroying host, the aged emperor
took the field in person; but on this occasion either his conduct
or his fortune betrayed the glory which he had acquired in so
many foreign and domestic wars. He had the mortification of
seeing his troops fly before an inconsiderable detachment of the
Barbarians, who pursued them to the edge of their fortified camp,
and obliged him to consult his safety by a precipitate and
ignominious retreat. ^* The event of a second and more successful
action retrieved the honor of the Roman name; and the powers of
art and discipline prevailed, after an obstinate contest, over
the efforts of irregular valor. The broken army of the Goths
abandoned the field of battle, the wasted province, and the
passage of the Danube: and although the eldest of the sons of
Constantine was permitted to supply the place of his father, the
merit of the victory, which diffused universal joy, was ascribed
to the auspicious counsels of the emperor himself.
[Footnote *: Gibbon states, that Constantine was defeated by the
Goths in a first battle. No ancient author mentions such an
event. It is, no doubt, a mistake in Gibbon. St Martin, note to
Le Beau. i. 324. - M.]
He contributed at least to improve this advantage, by his
negotiations with the free and warlike people of Chersonesus, ^44
whose capital, situate on the western coast of the Tauric or
Crimaean peninsula, still retained some vestiges of a Grecian
colony, and was governed by a perpetual magistrate, assisted by a
council of senators, emphatically styled the Fathers of the City.
The Chersonites were animated against the Goths, by the memory of
the wars, which, in the preceding century, they had maintained
with unequal forces against the invaders of their country. They
were connected with the Romans by the mutual benefits of
commerce; as they were supplied from the provinces of Asia with
corn and manufactures, which they purchased with their only
productions, salt, wax, and hides. Obedient to the requisition
of Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of their
magistrate Diogenes, a considerable army, of which the principal
strength consisted in cross-bows and military chariots. The
speedy march and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by diverting
the attention of the Goths, assisted the operations of the
Imperial generals. The Goths, vanquished on every side, were
driven into the mountains, where, in the course of a severe
campaign, above a hundred thousand were computed to have perished
by cold and hunger Peace was at length granted to their humble
supplications; the eldest son of Araric was accepted as the most
valuable hostage; and Constantine endeavored to convince their
chiefs, by a liberal distribution of honors and rewards, how far
the friendship of the Romans was preferable to their enmity. In
the expressions of his gratitude towards the faithful
Chersonites, the emperor was still more magnificent. The pride of
the nation was gratified by the splendid and almost royal
decorations bestowed on their magistrate and his successors. A
perpetual exemption from all duties was stipulated for their
vessels which traded to the ports of the Black Sea. A regular
subsidy was promised, of iron, corn, oil, and of every supply
which could be useful either in peace or war. But it was thought
that the Sarmatians were sufficiently rewarded by their
deliverance from impending ruin; and the emperor, perhaps with
too strict an economy, deducted some part of the expenses of the
war from the customary gratifications which were allowed to that
turbulent nation.
[Footnote 44: I may stand in need of some apology for having
used, without scruple, the authority of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, in all that relates to the wars and negotiations
of the Chersonites. I am aware that he was a Greek of the tenth
century, and that his accounts of ancient history are frequently
confused and fabulous. But on this occasion his narrative is,
for the most part, consistent and probable nor is there much
difficulty in conceiving that an emperor might have access to
some secret archives, which had escaped the diligence of meaner
historians. For the situation and history of Chersone, see
Peyssonel, des Peuples barbares qui ont habite les Bords du
Danube, c. xvi. 84-90.]
[Footnote !: Gibbon has confounded the inhabitants of the city of
Cherson, the ancient Chersonesus, with the people of the
Chersonesus Taurica. If he had read with more attention the
chapter of Constantius Porphyrogenitus, from which this narrative
is derived, he would have seen that the author clearly
distinguishes the republic of Cherson from the rest of the Tauric
Peninsula, then possessed by the kings of the Cimmerian
Bosphorus, and that the city of Cherson alone furnished succors
to the Romans. The English historian is also mistaken in saying
that the Stephanephoros of the Chersonites was a perpetual
magistrate; since it is easy to discover from the great number of
Stephanephoroi mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that
they were annual magistrates, like almost all those which
governed the Grecian republics. St. Martin, note to Le Beau i.
326. - M.]
Exasperated by this apparent neglect, the Sarmatians soon
forgot, with the levity of barbarians, the services which they
had so lately received, and the dangers which still threatened
their safety. Their inroads on the territory of the empire
provoked the indignation of Constantine to leave them to their
fate; and he no longer opposed the ambition of Geberic, a
renowned warrior, who had recently ascended the Gothic throne.
Wisumar, the Vandal king, whilst alone, and unassisted, he
defended his dominions with undaunted courage, was vanquished and
slain in a decisive battle, which swept away the flower of the
Sarmatian youth. ^* The remainder of the nation embraced the
desperate expedient of arming their slaves, a hardy race of
hunters and herdsmen, by whose tumultuary aid they revenged their
defeat, and expelled the invader from their confines. But they
soon discovered that they had exchanged a foreign for a domestic
enemy, more dangerous and more implacable. Enraged by their
former servitude, elated by their present glory, the slaves,
under the name of Limigantes, claimed and usurped the possession
of the country which they had saved. Their masters, unable to
withstand the ungoverned fury of the populace, preferred the
hardships of exile to the tyranny of their servants. Some of the
fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less ignominious dependence,
under the hostile standard of the Goths. A more numerous band
retired beyond the Carpathian Mountains, among the Quadi, their
German allies, and were easily admitted to share a superfluous
waste of uncultivated land. But the far greater part of the
distressed nation turned their eyes towards the fruitful
provinces of Rome. Imploring the protection and forgiveness of
the emperor, they solemnly promised, as subjects in peace, and as
soldiers in war, the most inviolable fidelity to the empire which
should graciously receive them into its bosom. According to the
maxims adopted by Probus and his successors, the offers of this
barbarian colony were eagerly accepted; and a competent portion
of lands in the provinces of Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, and
Italy, were immediately assigned for the habitation and
subsistence of three hundred thousand Sarmatians. ^45
[Footnote *: Gibbon supposes that this war took place because
Constantine had deducted a part of the customary gratifications,
granted by his predecessors to the Sarmatians. Nothing of this
kind appears in the authors. We see, on the contrary, that after
his victory, and to punish the Sarmatia is for the ravages they
had committed, he withheld the sums which it had been the custom
to bestow. St. Martin, note to Le Beau, i. 327. - M.]
[Footnote 45: The Gothic and Sarmatian wars are related in so
broken and imperfect a manner, that I have been obliged to
compare the following writers, who mutually supply, correct, and
illustrate each other. Those who will take the same trouble, may
acquire a right of criticizing my narrative. Ammianus, l. xvii.
c. 12. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. Eutropius, x. 7. Sextus Rufus
de Provinciis, c. 26. Julian Orat. i. p. 9, and Spanheim,
Comment. p. 94. Hieronym. in Chron. Euseb. in Vit. Constantin.
l. iv. c. 6. Socrates, l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. i. c. 8.
Zosimus, l. ii. p. 108. Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c. 22.
Isidorus in Chron. p. 709; in Hist. Gothorum Grotii. Constantin.
Porphyrogenitus de Administrat. Imperii, c. 53, p. 208, edit.
Meursii.]
[Footnote *: Compare, on this very obscure but remarkable war,
Manso, Leben Coa xantius, p. 195 - M.]
By chastising the pride of the Goths, and by accepting the
homage of a suppliant nation, Constantine asserted the majesty of
the Roman empire; and the ambassadors of Aethiopia, Persia, and
the most remote countries of India, congratulated the peace and
prosperity of his government. ^46 If he reckoned, among the
favors of fortune, the death of his eldest son, of his nephew,
and perhaps of his wife, he enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of
private as well as public felicity, till the thirtieth year of
his reign; a period which none of his predecessors, since
Augustus, had been permitted to celebrate. Constantine survived
that solemn festival about ten months; and at the mature age of
sixty-four, after a short illness, he ended his memorable life at
the palace of Aquyrion, in the suburbs of Nicomedia, whither he
had retired for the benefit of the air, and with the hope of
recruiting his exhausted strength by the use of the warm baths.
The excessive demonstrations of grief, or at least of mourning,
surpassed whatever had been practised on any former occasion.
Notwithstanding the claims of the senate and people of ancient
Rome, the corpse of the deceased emperor, according to his last
request, was transported to the city, which was destined to
preserve the name and memory of its founder. The body of
Constantine adorned with the vain symbols of greatness, the
purple and diadem, was deposited on a golden bed in one of the
apartments of the palace, which for that purpose had been
splendidly furnished and illuminated. The forms of the court
were strictly maintained. Every day, at the appointed hours, the
principal officers of the state, the army, and the household,
approaching the person of their sovereign with bended knees and a
composed countenance, offered their respectful homage as
seriously as if he had been still alive. From motives of policy,
this theatrical representation was for some time continued; nor
could flattery neglect the opportunity of remarking that
Constantine alone, by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven, had
reigned after his death. ^47
[Footnote 46: Eusebius (in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 50) remarks
three circumstances relative to these Indians. 1. They came from
the shores of the eastern ocean; a description which might be
applied to the coast of China or Coromandel. 2. They presented
shining gems, and unknown animals. 3. They protested their kings
had erected statues to represent the supreme majesty of
Constantine.]
[Footnote 47: Funus relatum in urbem sui nominis, quod sane P. R.
aegerrime tulit. Aurelius Victor. Constantine prepared for
himself a stately tomb in the church of the Holy Apostles.
Euseb. l. iv. c. 60. The best, and indeed almost the only
account of the sickness, death, and funeral of Constantine, is
contained in the fourth book of his Life by Eusebius.]
But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it
was soon discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is
seldom obeyed, when his subjects have no longer anything to hope
from his favor, or to dread from his resentment. The same
ministers and generals, who bowed with such referential awe
before the inanimate corpse of their deceased sovereign, were
engaged in secret consultations to exclude his two nephews,
Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, from the share which he had assigned
them in the succession of the empire. We are too imperfectly
acquainted with the court of Constantine to form any judgment of
the real motives which influenced the leaders of the conspiracy;
unless we should suppose that they were actuated by a spirit of
jealousy and revenge against the praefect Ablavius, a proud
favorite, who had long directed the counsels and abused the
confidence of the late emperor. The arguments, by which they
solicited the concurrence of the soldiers and people, are of a
more obvious nature; and they might with decency, as well as
truth, insist on the superior rank of the children of
Constantine, the danger of multiplying the number of sovereigns,
and the impending mischiefs which threatened the republic, from
the discord of so many rival princes, who were not connected by
the tender sympathy of fraternal affection. The intrigue was
conducted with zeal and secrecy, till a loud and unanimous
declaration was procured from the troops, that they would suffer
none except the sons of their lamented monarch to reign over the
Roman empire. ^48 The younger Dalmatius, who was united with his
collateral relations by the ties of friendship and interest, is
allowed to have inherited a considerable share of the abilities
of the great Constantine; but, on this occasion, he does not
appear to have concerted any measure for supporting, by arms, the
just claims which himself and his royal brother derived from the
liberality of their uncle. Astonished and overwhelmed by the
tide of popular fury, they seem to have remained, without the
power of flight or of resistance, in the hands of their
implacable enemies. Their fate was suspended till the arrival of
Constantius, the second, and perhaps the most favored, of the
sons of Constantine.
[Footnote 48: Eusebius (l. iv. c. 6) terminates his narrative by
this loyal declaration of the troops, and avoids all the
invidious circumstances of the subsequent massacre.]
[Footnote 49: The character of Dalmatius is advantageously,
though concisely drawn by Eutropius. (x. 9.) Dalmatius Ceasar
prosperrima indole, neque patrou absimilis, haud multo post
oppressus est factione militari. As both Jerom and the
Alexandrian Chronicle mention the third year of the Ceasar, which
did not commence till the 18th or 24th of September, A. D. 337,
it is certain that these military factions continued above four
months.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.
Part III.
The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of
his funeral to the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the
vicinity of his eastern station, could easily prevent the
diligence of his brothers, who resided in their distant
government of Italy and Gaul. As soon as he had taken possession
of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was to remove the
apprehensions of his kinsmen, by a solemn oath which he pledged
for their security. His next employment was to find some
specious pretence which might release his conscience from the
obligation of an imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made
subservient to the designs of cruelty; and a manifest forgery was
attested by a person of the most sacred character. From the
hands of the Bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius received a fatal
scroll, affirmed to be the genuine testament of his father; in
which the emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been
poisoned by his brothers; and conjured his sons to revenge his
death, and to consult their own safety, by the punishment of the
guilty. ^50 Whatever reasons might have been alleged by these
unfortunate princes to defend their life and honor against so
incredible an accusation, they were silenced by the furious
clamors of the soldiers, who declared themselves, at once, their
enemies, their judges, and their executioners. The spirit, and
even the forms of legal proceedings were repeatedly violated in a
promiscuous massacre; which involved the two uncles of
Constantius, seven of his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and
Hannibalianus were the most illustrious, the Patrician Optatus,
who had married a sister of the late emperor, and the Praefect
Ablavius, whose power and riches had inspired him with some hopes
of obtaining the purple. If it were necessary to aggravate the
horrors of this bloody scene, we might add, that Constantius
himself had espoused the daughter of his uncle Julius, and that
he had bestowed his sister in marriage on his cousin
Hannibalianus. These alliances, which the policy of Constantine,
regardless of the public prejudice, ^51 had formed between the
several branches of the Imperial house, served only to convince
mankind, that these princes were as cold to the endearments of
conjugal affection, as they were insensible to the ties of
consanguinity, and the moving entreaties of youth and innocence.
Of so numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone, the two
youngest children of Julius Constantius, were saved from the
hands of the assassins, till their rage, satiated with slaughter,
had in some measure subsided. The emperor Constantius, who, in
the absence of his brothers, was the most obnoxious to guilt and
reproach, discovered, on some future occasions, a faint and
transient remorse for those cruelties which the perfidious
counsels of his ministers, and the irresistible violence of the
troops, had extorted from his unexperienced youth. ^52
[Footnote 50: I have related this singular anecdote on the
authority of Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 16. But if such a pretext
was ever used by Constantius and his adherents, it was laid aside
with contempt, as soon as it served their immediate purpose.
Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) mention the oath which Constantius
had taken for the security of his kinsmen.]
[Footnote *: The authority of Philostorgius is so suspicious, as
not to be sufficient to establish this fact, which Gibbon has
inserted in his history as certain, while in the note he appears
to doubt it. - G.]
[Footnote 51: Conjugia sobrinarum diu ignorata, tempore addito
percrebuisse. Tacit. Annal. xii. 6, and Lipsius ad loc. The
repeal of the ancient law, and the practice of five hundred
years, were insufficient to eradicate the prejudices of the
Romans, who still considered the marriages of cousins-german as a
species of imperfect incest. (Augustin de Civitate Dei, xv. 6;)
and Julian, whose mind was biased by superstition and resentment,
stigmatizes these unnatural alliances between his own cousins
with the opprobrious epithet (Orat. vii. p. 228.). The
jurisprudence of the canons has since received and enforced this
prohibition, without being able to introduce it either into the
civil or the common law of Europe. See on the subject of these
marriages, Taylor's Civil Law, p. 331. Brouer de Jure Connub. l.
ii. c. 12. Hericourt des Loix Ecclesiastiques, part iii. c. 5.
Fleury, Institutions du Droit Canonique, tom. i. p. 331. Paris,
1767, and Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Trident, l. viii.]
[Footnote 52: Julian (ad S. P.. Q. Athen. p. 270) charges his
cousin Constantius with the whole guilt of a massacre, from which
he himself so narrowly escaped. His assertion is confirmed by
Athanasius, who, for reasons of a very different nature, was not
less an enemy of Constantius, (tom. i. p. 856.) Zosimus joins in
the same accusation. But the three abbreviators, Eutropius and
the Victors, use very qualifying expressions: "sinente potius
quam jubente;" "incertum quo suasore;" "vi militum."]
The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new
division of the provinces; which was ratified in a personal
interview of the three brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the
Caesars, obtained, with a certain preeminence of rank, the
possession of the new capital, which bore his own name and that
of his father. Thrace, and the countries of the East, were
allotted for the patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was
acknowledged as the lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the
Western Illyricum. The armies submitted to their hereditary
right; and they condescended, after some delay, to accept from
the Roman senate the title of Augustus. When they first assumed
the reins of government, the eldest of these princes was
twenty-one, the second twenty, and the third only seventeen,
years of age. ^53
[Footnote 53: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 69. Zosimus,
l. ii. p. 117. Idat. in Chron. See two notes of Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1086-1091. The reign of the eldest
brother at Constantinople is noticed only in the Alexandrian
Chronicle.]
While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards
of his brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate
troops of Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian
war. At the decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was
filled by Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of
Narses, who, after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed
the superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor was in the
thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of
youth, as the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality,
had preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormouz remained
pregnant at the time of her husband's death; and the uncertainty
of the sex, as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes
of the princes of the house of Sassan. The apprehensions of
civil war were at length removed, by the positive assurance of
the Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived, and would
safely produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the
Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation.
A royal bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in
the midst of the palace; the diadem was placed on the spot, which
might be supposed to conceal the future heir of Artaxerxes, and
the prostrate satraps adored the majesty of their invisible and
insensible sovereign. ^54 If any credit can be given to this
marvellous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced by the
manners of the people, and by the extraordinary duration of his
reign, we must admire not only the fortune, but the genius, of
Sapor. In the soft, sequestered education of a Persian harem,
the royal youth could discover the importance of exercising the
vigor of his mind and body; and, by his personal merit, deserved
a throne, on which he had been seated, while he was yet
unconscious of the duties and temptations of absolute power. His
minority was exposed to the almost inevitable calamities of
domestic discord; his capital was surprised and plundered by
Thair, a powerful king of Yemen, or Arabia; and the majesty of
the royal family was degraded by the captivity of a princess, the
sister of the deceased king. But as soon as Sapor attained the
age of manhood, the presumptuous Thair, his nation, and his
country, fell beneath the first effort of the young warrior; who
used his victory with so judicious a mixture of rigor and
clemency, that he obtained from the fears and gratitude of the
Arabs the title of Dhoulacnaf, or protector of the nation. ^55
[Footnote 54: Agathias, who lived in the sixth century, is the
author of this story, (l. iv. p. 135, edit. Louvre.) He derived
his information from some extracts of the Persian Chronicles,
obtained and translated by the interpreter Sergius, during his
embassy at that country. The coronation of the mother of Sapor
is likewise mentioned by Snikard, (Tarikh. p. 116,) and
D'Herbelot (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 703.)]
[Footnote *: The author of the Zenut-ul-Tarikh states, that the
lady herself affirmed her belief of this from the extraordinary
liveliness of the infant, and its lying on the right side. Those
who are sage on such subjects must determine what right she had
to be positive from these symptoms. Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i
83. - M.]
[Footnote 55: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 764.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon, according to Sir J. Malcolm, has greatly
mistaken the derivation of this name; it means Zoolaktaf, the
Lord of the Shoulders, from his directing the shoulders of his
captives to be pierced and then dislocated by a string passed
through them. Eastern authors are agreed with respect to the
origin of this title. Malcolm, i. 84. Gibbon took his
derivation from D'Herbelot, who gives both, the latter on the
authority of the Leb. Tarikh. - M.]
The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribe the
virtues of a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire
of revenging the disgrace of his fathers, and of wresting from
the hands of the Romans the five provinces beyond the Tigris.
The military fame of Constantine, and the real or apparent
strength of his government, suspended the attack; and while the
hostile conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment, his artful
negotiations amused the patience of the Imperial court. The
death of Constantine was the signal of war, ^56 and the actual
condition of the Syrian and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage
the Persians by the prospect of a rich spoil and an easy
conquest. The example of the massacres of the palace diffused a
spirit of licentiousness and sedition among the troops of the
East, who were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience
to a veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who,
from the interview with his brothers in Pannonia, immediately
hastened to the banks of the Euphrates, the legions were
gradually restored to a sense of duty and discipline; but the
season of anarchy had permitted Sapor to form the siege of
Nisibis, and to occupy several of the mo st important fortresses
of Mesopotamia. ^57 In Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long
enjoyed the peace and glory which he deserved by his valor and
fidelity to the cause of Rome. ^! The firm alliance which he
maintained with Constantine was productive of spiritual as well
as of temporal benefits; by the conversion of Tiridates, the
character of a saint was applied to that of a hero, the Christian
faith was preached and established from the Euphrates to the
shores of the Caspian, and Armenia was attached to the empire by
the double ties of policy and religion. But as many of the
Armenian nobles still refused to abandon the plurality of their
gods and of their wives, the public tranquillity was disturbed by
a discontented faction, which insulted the feeble age of their
sovereign, and impatiently expected the hour of his death. He
died at length after a reign of fifty- six years, and the fortune
of the Armenian monarchy expired with Tiridates. His lawful heir
was driven into exile, the Christian priests were either murdered
or expelled from their churches, the barbarous tribes of Albania
were solicited to descend from their mountains; and two of the
most powerful governors, usurping the ensigns or the powers of
royalty, implored the assistance of Sapor, and opened the gates
of their cities to the Persian garrisons. The Christian party,
under the guidance of the Archbishop of Artaxata, the immediate
successor of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had recourse to the
piety of Constantius. After the troubles had continued about
three years, Antiochus, one of the officers of the household,
executed with success the Imperial commission of restoring
Chosroes, ^* the son of Tiridates, to the throne of his fathers,
of distributing honors and rewards among the faithful servants of
the house of Arsaces, and of proclaiming a general amnesty, which
was accepted by the greater part of the rebellious satraps. But
the Romans derived more honor than advantage from this
revolution. Chosroes was a prince of a puny stature and a
pusillanimous spirit. Unequal to the fatigues of war, averse to
the society of mankind, he withdrew from his capital to a retired
palace, which he built on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and
in the centre of a shady grove; where he consumed his vacant
hours in the rural sports of hunting and hawking. To secure this
inglorious ease, he submitted to the conditions of peace which
Sapor condescended to impose; the payment of an annual tribute,
and the restitution of the fertile province of Atropatene, which
the courage of Tiridates, and the victorious arms of Galerius,
had annexed to the Armenian monarchy. ^58
[Footnote 56: Sextus Rufus, (c. 26,) who on this occasion is no
contemptible authority, affirms, that the Persians sued in vain
for peace, and that Constantine was preparing to march against
them: yet the superior weight of the testimony of Eusebius
obliges us to admit the preliminaries, if not the ratification,
of the treaty. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
420.]
[Footnote *: Constantine had endeavored to allay the fury of the
prosecutions, which, at the instigation of the Magi and the Jews,
Sapor had commenced against the Christians. Euseb Vit. Hist.
Theod. i. 25. Sozom. ii. c. 8, 15. - M.]
[Footnote 57: Julian. Orat. i. p. 20.]
[Footnote *: Tiridates had sustained a war against Maximin.
caused by the hatred of the latter against Christianity. Armenia
was the first nation which embraced Christianity. About the year
276 it was the religion of the king, the nobles, and the people
of Armenia. From St. Martin, Supplement to Le Beau, v. i. p. 78.
Compare Preface to History of Vartan by Professor Neumann, p ix.
- M.]
[Footnote *: Chosroes was restored probably by Licinius, between
314 and 319. There was an Antiochus who was praefectus vigilum at
Rome, as appears from the Theodosian Code, (l. iii. de inf. his
quae sub ty.,) in 326, and from a fragment of the same work
published by M. Amedee Peyron, in 319. He may before this have
been sent into Armenia. St. M. p. 407. [Is it not more probable
that Antiochus was an officer in the service of the Caesar who
ruled in the East? - M.] Chosroes was succeeded in the year 322
by his son Diran. Diran was a weak prince, and in the sixteenth
year of his reign. A. D. 337. was betrayed into the power of the
Persians by the treachery of his chamberlain and the Persian
governor of Atropatene or Aderbidjan. He was blinded: his wife
and his son Arsaces shared his captivity, but the princes and
nobles of Armenia claimed the protection of Rome; and this was
the cause of Constantine's declaration of war against the
Persians. - The king of Persia attempted to make himself master
of Armenia; but the brave resistance of the people, the advance
of Constantius, and a defeat which his army suffered at Oskha in
Armenia, and the failure before Nisibis, forced Shahpour to
submit to terms of peace. Varaz-Shahpour, the perfidious governor
of Atropatene, was flayed alive; Diran and his son were released
from captivity; Diran refused to ascend the throne, and retired
to an obscure retreat: his son Arsaces was crowned king of
Armenia. Arsaces pursued a vacillating policy between the
influence of Rome and Persia, and the war recommenced in the year
345. At least, that was the period of the expedition of
Constantius to the East. See St. Martin, additions to Le Beau,
i. 442. The Persians have made an extraordinary romance out of
the history of Shahpour, who went as a spy to Constantinople, was
taken, harnessed like a horse, and carried to witness the
devastation of his kingdom. Malcolm. 84 - M.]
[Footnote 58: Julian. Orat. i. p. 20, 21. Moses of Chorene, l.
ii. c. 89, l. iii. c. 1 - 9, p. 226 - 240. The perfect agreement
between the vague hints of the contemporary orator, and the
circumstantial narrative of the national historian, gives light
to the former, and weight to the latter. For the credit of Moses,
it may be likewise observed, that the name of Antiochus is found
a few years before in a civil office of inferior dignity. See
Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 350.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon has endeavored, in his History, to make use
of the information furnished by Moses of Chorene, the only
Armenian historian then translated into Latin. Gibbon has not
perceived all the chronological difficulties which occur in the
narrative of that writer. He has not thought of all the critical
discussions which his text ought to undergo before it can be
combined with the relations of the western writers. From want of
this attention, Gibbon has made the facts which he has drawn from
this source more erroneous than they are in the original. This
judgment applies to all which the English historian has derived
from the Armenian author. I have made the History of Moses a
subject of particular attention; and it is with confidence that I
offer the results, which I insert here, and which will appear in
the course of my notes. In order to form a judgment of the
difference which exists between me and Gibbon, I will content
myself with remarking, that throughout he has committed an
anachronism of thirty years, from whence it follows, that he
assigns to the reign of Constantius many events which took place
during that of Constantine. He could not, therefore, discern the
true connection which exists between the Roman history and that
of Armenia, or form a correct notion of the reasons which induced
Constantine, at the close of his life, to make war upon the
Persians, or of the motives which detained Constantius so long in
the East; he does not even mention them. St. Martin, note on Le
Beau, i. 406. I have inserted M. St. Martin's observations, but
I must add, that the chronology which he proposes, is not
generally received by Armenian scholars, not, I believe, by
Professor Neumann. - M.]
During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the
provinces of the East were afflicted by the calamities of the
Persian war. ^! The irregular incursions of the light troops
alternately spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and
beyond the Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to those of
Antioch; and this active service was performed by the Arabs of
the desert, who were divided in their interest and affections;
some of their independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of
Sapor, whilst others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the
emperor. ^59 The more grave and important operations of the war
were conducted with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and
Persia encountered each other in nine bloody fields, in two of
which Constantius himself commanded in person. ^60 The event of
the day was most commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the
battle of Singara, heir imprudent valor had almost achieved a
signal and decisive victory. The stationary troops of Singara ^*
retired on the approach of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over
three bridges, and occupied near the village of Hilleh an
advantageous camp, which, by the labor of his numerous pioneers,
he surrounded in one day with a deep ditch and a lofty rampart.
His formidable host, when it was drawn out in order of battle,
covered the banks of the river, the adjacent heights, and the
whole extent of a plain of above twelve miles, which separated
the two armies. Both were alike impatient to engage; but the
Barbarians, after a slight resistance, fled in disorder; unable
to resist, or desirous to weary, the strength of the heavy
legions, who, fainting with heat and thirst, pursued them across
the plain, and cut in pieces a line of cavalry, clothed in
complete armor, which had been posted before the gates of the
camp to protect their retreat. Constantius, who was hurried
along in the pursuit, attempted, without effect, to restrain the
ardor of his troops, by representing to them the dangers of the
approaching night, and the certainty of completing their success
with the return of day. As they depended much more on their own
valor than on the experience or the abilities of their chief,
they silenced by their clamors his timid remonstrances; and
rushing with fury to the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down
the rampart, and dispersed themselves through the tents to
recruit their exhausted strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest
of their labors. But the prudent Sapor had watched the moment of
victory. His army, of which the greater part, securely posted on
the heights, had been spectators of the action, advanced in
silence, and under the shadow of the night; and his Persian
archers, guided by the illumination of the camp, poured a shower
of arrows on a disarmed and licentious crowd. The sincerity of
history ^61 declares, that the Romans were vanquished with a
dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the legions
was exposed to the most intolerable hardships. Even the
tenderness of panegyric, confessing that the glory of the emperor
was sullied by the disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw
a veil over the circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet
one of those venal orators, so jealous of the fame of
Constantius, relates, with amazing coolness, an act of such
incredible cruelty, as, in the judgment of posterity, must
imprint a far deeper stain on the honor of the Imperial name.
The son of Sapor, the heir of his crown, had been made a captive
in the Persian camp. The unhappy youth, who might have excited
the compassion of the most savage enemy, was scourged, tortured,
and publicly executed by the inhuman Romans. ^62
[Footnote *: It was during this war that a bold flatterer (whose
name is unknown) published the Itineraries of Alexander and
Trajan, in order to direct the victorious Constantius in the
footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The former of
these has been published for the first time by M. Angelo Mai
(Milan, 1817, reprinted at Frankfort, 1818.) It adds so little to
our knowledge of Alexander's campaigns, that it only excites our
regret that it is not the Itinerary of Trajan, of whose eastern
victories we have no distinct record - M]
[Footnote 59: Ammianus (xiv. 4) gives a lively description of the
wandering and predatory life of the Saracens, who stretched from
the confines of Assyria to the cataracts of the Nile. It appears
from the adventures of Malchus, which Jerom has related in so
entertaining a manner, that the high road between Beraea and
Edessa was infested by these robbers. See Hieronym. tom. i. p.
256.]
[Footnote 60: We shall take from Eutropius the general idea of
the war. A Persis enim multa et gravia perpessus, saepe captis,
oppidis, obsessis urbibus, caesis exercitibus, nullumque ei
contra Saporem prosperum praelium fuit, nisi quod apud Singaram,
&c. This honest account is confirmed by the hints of Ammianus,
Rufus, and Jerom. The two first orations of Julian, and the
third oration of Libanius, exhibit a more flattering picture; but
the recantation of both those orators, after the death of
Constantius, while it restores us to the possession of the truth,
degrades their own character, and that of the emperor. The
Commentary of Spanheim on the first oration of Julian is
profusely learned. See likewise the judicious observations of
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 656.]
[Footnote *: Now Sinjar, or the River Claboras. - M.]
[Footnote 61: Acerrima nocturna concertatione pugnatum est,
nostrorum copiis ngenti strage confossis. Ammian. xviii. 5. See
likewise Eutropius, x. 10, and S. Rufus, c. 27.]
[Footnote *: The Persian historians, or romancers, do not mention
the battle of Singara, but make the captive Shahpour escape,
defeat, and take prisoner, the Roman emperor. The Roman captives
were forced to repair all the ravages they had committed, even to
replanting the smallest trees. Malcolm. i. 82. - M.]
[Footnote 62: Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 133, with Julian. Orat. i.
p. 24, and Spanneism's Commentary, p. 179.]
Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the
field, though nine repeated victories diffused among the nations
the fame of his valor and conduct, he could not hope to succeed
in the execution of his designs, while the fortified towns of
Mesopotamia, and, above all, the strong and ancient city of
Nisibis, remained in the possession of the Romans. In the space
of twelve years, Nisibis, which, since the time of Lucullus, had
been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained three
memorable sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed
monarch, after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a
hundred days, was thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. ^63
This large and populous city was situate about two days' journey
from the Tigris, in the midst of a pleasant and fertile plain at
the foot of Mount Masius. A treble enclosure of brick walls was
defended by a deep ditch; ^64 and the intrepid resistance of
Count Lucilianus, and his garrison, was seconded by the desperate
courage of the people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by
the exhortations of their bishop, ^65 inured to arms by the
presence of danger, and convinced of the intentions of Sapor to
plant a Persian colony in their room, and to lead them away into
distant and barbarous captivity. The event of the two former
sieges elated their confidence, and exasperated the haughty
spirit of the Great King, who advanced a third time towards
Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of Persia and India.
The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the walls,
were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans;
and many days had vainly elapsed, when Sapor embraced a
resolution worthy of an eastern monarch, who believed that the
elements themselves were subject to his power. At the stated
season of the melting of the snows in Armenia, the River
Mygdonius, which divides the plain and the city of Nisibis,
forms, like the Nile, ^66 an inundation over the adjacent
country. By the labor of the Persians, the course of the river
was stopped below the town, and the waters were confined on every
side by solid mounds of earth. On this artificial lake, a fleet
of armed vessels filled with soldiers, and with engines which
discharged stones of five hundred pounds weight, advanced in
order of battle, and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops
which defended the ramparts. ^* The irresistible force of the
waters was alternately fatal to the contending parties, till at
length a portion of the walls, unable to sustain the accumulated
pressure, gave way at once, and exposed an ample breach of one
hundred and fifty feet. The Persians were instantly driven to
the assault, and the fate of Nisibis depended on the event of the
day. The heavy-armed cavalry, who led the van of a deep column,
were embarrassed in the mud, and great numbers were drowned in
the unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing waters.
The elephants, made furious by their wounds, increased the
disorder, and trampled down thousands of the Persian archers.
The Great King, who, from an exalted throne, beheld the
misfortunes of his arms, sounded, with reluctant indignation, the
signal of the retreat, and suspended for some hours the
prosecution of the attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the
opportunity of the night; and the return of day discovered a new
wall of six feet in height, rising every moment to fill up the
interval of the breach. Notwithstanding the disappointment of
his hopes, and the loss of more than twenty thousand men, Sapor
still pressed the reduction of Nisibis, with an obstinate
firmness, which could have yielded only to the necessity of
defending the eastern provinces of Persia against a formidable
invasion of the Massagetae. ^67 Alarmed by this intelligence, he
hastily relinquished the siege, and marched with rapid diligence
from the banks of the Tigris to those of the Oxus. The danger
and difficulties of the Scythian war engaged him soon afterwards
to conclude, or at least to observe, a truce with the Roman
emperor, which was equally grateful to both princes; as
Constantius himself, after the death of his two brothers, was
involved, by the revolutions of the West, in a civil contest,
which required and seemed to exceed the most vigorous exertion of
his undivided strength.
[Footnote 63: See Julian. Orat. i. p. 27, Orat. ii. p. 62, &c.,
with the Commentary of Spanheim, (p. 188-202,) who illustrates
the circumstances, and ascertains the time of the three sieges of
Nisibis. Their dates are likewise examined by Tillemont, (Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 668, 671, 674.) Something is added
from Zosimus, l. iii. p. 151, and the Alexandrine Chronicle, p.
290.]
[Footnote 64: Sallust. Fragment. lxxxiv. edit. Brosses, and
Plutarch in Lucull. tom. iii. p. 184. Nisibis is now reduced to
one hundred and fifty houses: the marshy lands produce rice, and
the fertile meadows, as far as Mosul and the Tigris, are covered
with the ruins of towns and allages. See Niebuhr, Voyages, tom.
ii. p. 300-309.]
[Footnote 65: The miracles which Theodoret (l. ii. c. 30)
ascribes to St. James, Bishop of Edessa, were at least performed
in a worthy cause, the defence of his couutry. He appeared on
the walls under the figure of the Roman emperor, and sent an army
of gnats to sting the trunks of the elephants, and to discomfit
the host of the new Sennacherib.]
[Footnote 66: Julian. Orat. i. p. 27. Though Niebuhr (tom. ii.
p. 307) allows a very considerable swell to the Mygdonius, over
which he saw a bridge of twelve arches: it is difficult, however,
to understand this parallel of a trifling rivulet with a mighty
river. There are many circumstances obscure, and almost
unintelligible, in the description of these stupendous
water-works.]
[Footnote *: Macdonald Kinnier observes on these floating
batteries, "As the elevation of place is considerably above the
level of the country in its immediate vicinity, and the Mygdonius
is a very insignificant stream, it is difficult to imagine how
this work could have been accomplished, even with the wonderful
resources which the king must have had at his disposal"
Geographical Memoir. p. 262. - M.]
[Footnote 67: We are obliged to Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 11)
for this invasion of the Massagetae, which is perfectly
consistent with the general series of events to which we are
darkly led by the broken history of Ammianus.]
After the partition of the empire, three years had scarcely
elapsed before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to
convince mankind that they were incapable of contenting
themselves with the dominions which they were unqualified to
govern. The eldest of those princes soon complained, that he was
defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered
kinsmen; and though he might yield to the superior guilt and
merit of Constantius, he exacted from Constans the cession of the
African provinces, as an equivalent for the rich countries of
Macedonia and Greece, which his brother had acquired by the death
of Dalmatius. The want of sincerity, which Constantine
experienced in a tedious and fruitless negotiation, exasperated
the fierceness of his temper; and he eagerly listened to those
favorites, who suggested to him that his honor, as well as his
interest, was concerned in the prosecution of the quarrel. At
the head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than for
conquest, he suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constans, by
the way of the Julian Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt
the first effects of his resentment. The measures of Constans,
who then resided in Dacia, were directed with more prudence and
ability. On the news of his brother's invasion, he detached a
select and disciplined body of his Illyrian troops, proposing to
follow them in person, with the remainder of his forces. But the
conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural contest.
By the artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed
into an ambuscade, which had been concealed in a wood, where the
rash youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and
slain. His body, after it had been found in the obscure stream
of the Alsa, obtained the honors of an Imperial sepulchre; but
his provinces transferred their allegiance to the conqueror, who,
refusing to admit his elder brother Constantius to any share in
these new acquisitions, maintained the undisputed possession of
more than two thirds of the Roman empire. ^68
[Footnote 68: The causes and the events of this civil war are
related with much perplexity and contradiction. I have chiefly
followed Zonaras and the younger Victor. The monody (ad Calcem
Eutrop. edit. Havercamp.) pronounced on the death of Constantine,
might have been very instructive; but prudence and false taste
engaged the orator to involve himself in vague declamation.]
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.
Part IV.
The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years
longer, and the revenge of his brother's death was reserved for
the more ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The pernicious
tendency of the system introduced by Constantine was displayed in
the feeble administration of his sons; who, by their vices and
weakness, soon lost the esteem and affections of their people.
The pride assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his
arms, was rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and
application. His fond partiality towards some German captives,
distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of
scandal to the people; ^69 and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier,
who was himself of Barbarian extraction, was encouraged by the
public discontent to assert the honor of the Roman name. ^70 The
chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians, who acknowledged
Magnentius as their leader, maintained the most respectable and
important station in the Imperial camp. The friendship of
Marcellinus, count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a
liberal hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced
by the most specious arguments, that the republic summoned them
to break the bonds of hereditary servitude; and, by the choice of
an active and vigilant prince, to reward the same virtues which
had raised the ancestors of the degenerate Constans from a
private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the
conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the
pretence of celebrating his son's birthday, gave a splendid
entertainment to the illustrious and honorable persons of the
court of Gaul, which then resided in the city of Autun. The
intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till a very
late hour of the night; and the unsuspecting guests were tempted
to indulge themselves in a dangerous and guilty freedom of
conversation. On a sudden the doors were thrown open, and
Magnentius, who had retired for a few moments, returned into the
apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The conspirators
instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and Emperor.
The surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes,
and the mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly, prompted
them to join their voices to the general acclamation. The guards
hastened to take the oath of fidelity; the gates of the town were
shut; and before the dawn of day, Magnentius became master of the
troops and treasure of the palace and city of Autun. By his
secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes of surprising the
person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his
favorite amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a
more private and criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame
allowed him, however, an instant for flight, though the desertion
of his soldiers and subjects deprived him of the power of
resistance. Before he could reach a seaport in Spain, where he
intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena, ^71 at the foot
of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief,
regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission
by the murder of the son of Constantine. ^72
[Footnote 69: Quarum (gentium) obsides pretio quaesitos pueros
venustiore quod cultius habuerat libidine hujusmodi arsisse pro
certo habet. Had not the depraved taste of Constans been
publicly avowed, the elder Victor, who held a considerable office
in his brother's reign, would not have asserted it in such
positive terms.]
[Footnote 70: Julian. Orat. i. and ii. Zosim. l. ii. p. 134.
Victor in Epitome. There is reason to believe that Magnentius
was born in one of those Barbarian colonies which Constantius
Chlorus had established in Gaul, (see this History, vol. i. p.
414.) His behavior may remind us of the patriot earl of
Leicester, the famous Simon de Montfort, who could persuade the
good people of England, that he, a Frenchman by birth had taken
arms to deliver them from foreign favorites.]
[Footnote 71: This ancient city had once flourished under the
name of Illiberis (Pomponius Mela, ii. 5.) The munificence of
Constantine gave it new splendor, and his mother's name. Helena
(it is still called Elne) became the seat of a bishop, who long
afterwards transferred his residence to Perpignan, the capital of
modern Rousillon. See D'Anville. Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p.
380. Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 223, and the Marca
Hispanica, l. i. c. 2.]
[Footnote 72: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 119, 120. Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
xiii. p. 13, and the Abbreviators.]
As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but
important revolution, the example of the court of Autun was
imitated by the provinces of the West. The authority of
Magnentius was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two
great praefectures of Gaul and Italy; and the usurper prepared,
by every act of oppression, to collect a treasure, which might
discharge the obligation of an immense donative, and supply the
expenses of a civil war. The martial countries of Illyricum,
from the Danube to the extremity of Greece, had long obeyed the
government of Vetranio, an aged general, beloved for the
simplicity of his manners, and who had acquired some reputation
by his experience and services in war. ^73 Attached by habit, by
duty, and by gratitude, to the house of Constantine, he
immediately gave the strongest assurances to the only surviving
son of his late master, that he would expose, with unshaken
fidelity, his person and his troops, to inflict a just revenge on
the traitors of Gaul. But the legions of Vetranio were seduced,
rather than provoked, by the example of rebellion; their leader
soon betrayed a want of firmness, or a want of sincerity; and his
ambition derived a specious pretence from the approbation of the
princess Constantina. That cruel and aspiring woman, who had
obtained from the great Constantine, her father, the rank of
Augusta, placed the diadem with her own hands on the head of the
Illyrian general; and seemed to expect from his victory the
accomplishment of those unbounded hopes, of which she had been
disappointed by the death of her husband Hannibalianus. Perhaps
it was without the consent of Constantina, that the new emperor
formed a necessary, though dishonorable, alliance with the
usurper of the West, whose purple was so recently stained with
her brother's blood. ^74
[Footnote 73: Eutropius (x. 10) describes Vetranio with more
temper, and probably with more truth, than either of the two
Victors. Vetranio was born of obscure parents in the wildest
parts of Maesia; and so much had his education been neglected,
that, after his elevation, he studied the alphabet.]
[Footnote 74: The doubtful, fluctuating conduct of Vetranio is
described by Julian in his first oration, and accurately
explained by Spanheim, who discusses the situation and behavior
of Constantina.]
The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply
affected the honor and safety of the Imperial house, recalled the
arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the
Persian war. He recommended the care of the East to his
lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised
from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe, with a
mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and
indignation. On his arrival at Heraclea in Thrace, the emperor
gave audience to the ambassadors of Magnentius and Vetranio. The
first author of the conspiracy Marcellinus, who in some measure
had bestowed the purple on his new master, boldly accepted this
dangerous commission; and his three colleagues were selected from
the illustrious personages of the state and army. These deputies
were instructed to soothe the resentment, and to alarm the fears,
of Constantius. They were empowered to offer him the friendship
and alliance of the western princes, to cement their union by a
double marriage; of Constantius with the daughter of Magnentius,
and of Magnentius himself with the ambitious Constantina; and to
acknowledge in the treaty the preeminence of rank, which might
justly be claimed by the emperor of the East. Should pride and
mistaken piety urge him to refuse these equitable conditions, the
ambassadors were ordered to expatiate on the inevitable ruin
which must attend his rashness, if he ventured to provoke the
sovereigns of the West to exert their superior strength; and to
employ against him that valor, those abilities, and those
legions, to which the house of Constantine had been indebted for
so many triumphs. Such propositions and such arguments appeared
to deserve the most serious attention; the answer of Constantius
was deferred till the next day; and as he had reflected on the
importance of justifying a civil war in the opinion of the
people, he thus addressed his council, who listened with real or
affected credulity: "Last night," said he, "after I retired to
rest, the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse of
my murdered brother, rose before my eyes; his well-known voice
awakened me to revenge, forbade me to despair of the republic,
and assured me of the success and immortal glory which would
crown the justice of my arms." The authority of such a vision, or
rather of the prince who alleged it, silenced every doubt, and
excluded all negotiation. The ignominious terms of peace were
rejected with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant was
dismissed with the haughty answer of Constantius; his colleagues,
as unworthy of the privileges of the law of nations, were put in
irons; and the contending powers prepared to wage an implacable
war. ^75
[Footnote 75: See Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationem
p. 27.]
Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the duty, of the
brother of Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The
situation and character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures;
and the policy of the Eastern emperor was directed to disunite
his antagonists, and to separate the forces of Illyricum from the
cause of rebellion. It was an easy task to deceive the frankness
and simplicity of Vetranio, who, fluctuating some time between
the opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the world
the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the
snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as
a legitimate and equal colleague in the empire, on condition that
he would renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and
appoint a place of interview on the frontiers of their respective
provinces; where they might pledge their friendship by mutual
vows of fidelity, and regulate by common consent the future
operations of the civil war. In consequence of this agreement,
Vetranio advanced to the city of Sardica, ^76 at the head of
twenty thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of infantry; a
power so far superior to the forces of Constantius, that the
Illyrian emperor appeared to command the life and fortunes of his
rival, who, depending on the success of his private negotiations,
had seduced the troops, and undermined the throne, of Vetranio.
The chiefs, who had secretly embraced the party of Constantius,
prepared in his favor a public spectacle, calculated to discover
and inflame the passions of the multitude. ^77 The united armies
were commanded to assemble in a large plain near the city. In the
centre, according to the rules of ancient discipline, a military
tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from whence the
emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to
harangue the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and
Barbarians, with drawn swords, or with erected spears, the
squadrons of cavalry, and the cohorts of infantry, distinguished
by the variety of their arms and ensigns, formed an immense
circle round the tribunal; and the attentive silence which they
preserved was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or
of applause. In the presence of this formidable assembly, the
two emperors were called upon to explain the situation of public
affairs: the precedency of rank was yielded to the royal birth of
Constantius; and though he was indifferently skilled in the arts
of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult
circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The
first part of his oration seemed to be pointed only against the
tyrant of Gaul; but while he tragically lamented the cruel murder
of Constans, he insinuated, that none, except a brother, could
claim a right to the succession of his brother. He displayed,
with some complacency, the glories of his Imperial race; and
recalled to the memory of the troops the valor, the triumphs, the
liberality of the great Constantine, to whose sons they had
engaged their allegiance by an oath of fidelity, which the
ingratitude of his most favored servants had tempted them to
violate. The officers, who surrounded the tribunal, and were
instructed to act their part in this extraordinary scene,
confessed the irresistible power of reason and eloquence, by
saluting the emperor Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The
contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from rank to
rank; till the plain of Sardica resounded with the universal
acclamation of "Away with these upstart usurpers! Long life and
victory to the son of Constantine! Under his banners alone we
will fight and conquer." The shout of thousands, their menacing
gestures, the fierce clashing of their arms, astonished and
subdued the courage of Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection
of his followers, in anxious and silent suspense. Instead of
embracing the last refuge of generous despair, he tamely
submitted to his fate; and taking the diadem from his head, in
the view of both armies fell prostrate at the feet of his
conqueror. Constantius used his victory with prudence and
moderation; and raising from the ground the aged suppliant, whom
he affected to style by the endearing name of Father, he gave him
his hand to descend from the throne. The city of Prusa was
assigned for the exile or retirement of the abdicated monarch,
who lived six years in the enjoyment of ease and affluence. He
often expressed his grateful sense of the goodness of
Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity, advised his
benefactor to resign the sceptre of the world, and to seek for
content (where alone it could be found) in the peaceful obscurity
of a private condition. ^78
[Footnote 76: Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 16. The position of
Sardica, near the modern city of Sophia, appears better suited to
this interview than the situation of either Naissus or Sirmium,
where it is placed by Jerom, Socrates, and Sozomen.]
[Footnote 77: See the two first orations of Julian, particularly
p. 31; and Zosimus, l. ii. p. 122. The distinct narrative of the
historian serves to illustrate the diffuse but vague descriptions
of the orator.]
[Footnote 78: The younger Victor assigns to his exile the
emphatical appellation of "Voluptarium otium." Socrates (l. ii.
c. 28) is the voucher for the correspondence with the emperor,
which would seem to prove that Vetranio was indeed, prope ad
stultitiam simplicissimus.]
The behavior of Constantius on this memorable occasion was
celebrated with some appearance of justice; and his courtiers
compared the studied orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes
addressed to the populace of Athens, with the victorious
eloquence which had persuaded an armed multitude to desert and
depose the object of their partial choice. ^79 The approaching
contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and bloody kind.
The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at
the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of
Franks and Saxons; of those provincials who supplied the strength
of the legions, and of those barbarians who were dreaded as the
most formidable enemies of the republic. The fertile plains ^80
of the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the
Danube, presented a spacious theatre; and the operations of the
civil war were protracted during the summer months by the skill
or timidity of the combatants. ^81 Constantius had declared his
intention of deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a
name that would animate his troops by the remembrance of the
victory, which, on the same auspicious ground, had been obtained
by the arms of his father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable
fortifications with which the emperor encompassed his camp, he
appeared to decline, rather than to invite, a general engagement.
It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his
adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he
employed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and
stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest
to an experienced officer. He carried by assault the important
town of Siscia; made an attack on the city of Sirmium, which lay
in the rear of the Imperial camp, attempted to force a passage
over the Save into the eastern provinces of Illyricum; and cut in
pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into the
narrow passes of Adarne. During the greater part of the summer,
the tyrant of Gaul showed himself master of the field. The
troops of Constantius were harassed and dispirited; his
reputation declined in the eye of the world; and his pride
condescended to solicit a treaty of peace, which would have
resigned to the assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the
provinces beyond the Alps. These offers were enforced by the
eloquence of Philip the Imperial ambassador; and the council as
well as the army of Magnentius were disposed to accept them. But
the haughty usurper, careless of the remonstrances of his
friends, gave orders that Philip should be detained as a captive,
or, at least, as a hostage; while he despatched an officer to
reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to
insult him by the promise of a pardon if he would instantly
abdicate the purple. "That he should confide in the justice of
his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity," was the only
answer which honor permitted the emperor to return. But he was
so sensible of the difficulties of his situation, that he no
longer dared to retaliate the indignity which had been offered to
his representative. The negotiation of Philip was not, however,
ineffectual, since he determined Sylvanus the Frank, a general of
merit and reputation, to desert with a considerable body of
cavalry, a few days before the battle of Mursa.
[Footnote 79: Eum Constantius . . . . . facundiae vi dejectum
Imperio in pri vatum otium removit. Quae gloria post natum
Imperium soli proces sit eloquio clementiaque, &c. Aurelius
Victor, Julian, and Themistius (Orat. iii. and iv.) adorn this
exploit with all the artificial and gaudy coloring of their
rhetoric.]
[Footnote 80: Busbequius (p. 112) traversed the Lower Hungary and
Sclavonia at a time when they were reduced almost to a desert, by
the reciprocal hostilities of the Turks and Christians. Yet he
mentions with admiration the unconquerable fertility of the soil;
and observes that the height of the grass was sufficient to
conceal a loaded wagon from his sight. See likewise Browne's
Travels, in Harris's Collection, vol ii. p. 762 &c.]
[Footnote 81: Zosimus gives a very large account of the war, and
the negotiation, (l. ii. p. 123-130.) But as he neither shows
himself a soldier nor a politician, his narrative must be weighed
with attention, and received with caution.]
The city of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for
a bridge of boats, five miles in length, over the River Drave,
and the adjacent morasses, ^82 has been always considered as a
place of importance in the wars of Hungary. Magnentius,
directing his march towards Mursa, set fire to the gates, and, by
a sudden assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The
vigilance of the garrison extinguished the flames; the approach
of Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the
siege; and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could
embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which had
taken post in an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle
round Mursa was a naked and level plain: on this ground the army
of Constantius formed, with the Drave on their right; while their
left, either from the nature of their disposition, or from the
superiority of their cavalry, extended far beyond the right flank
of Magnentius. ^83 The troops on both sides remained under arms,
in anxious expectation, during the greatest part of the morning;
and the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an
eloquent speech, retired into a church at some distance from the
field of battle, and committed to his generals the conduct of
this decisive day. ^84 They deserved his confidence by the valor
and military skill which they exerted. They wisely began the
action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry
in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank
of the enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of
their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied, by the
habits of discipline; and the Barbarians of Germany supported the
renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon became
general; was maintained with various and singular turns of
fortune; and scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The
signal victory which Constantius obtained is attributed to the
arms of his cavalry. His cuirassiers are described as so many
massy statues of steel, glittering with their scaly armor, and
breaking with their ponderous lances the firm array of the Gallic
legions. As soon as the legions gave way, the lighter and more
active squadrons of the second line rode sword in hand into the
intervals, and completed the disorder. In the mean while, the
huge bodies of the Germans were exposed almost naked to the
dexterity of the Oriental archers; and whole troops of those
Barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate
themselves into the broad and rapid stream of the Drave. ^85 The
number of the slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and
the slaughter of the conquerors was more considerable than that
of the vanquished; ^86 a circumstance which proves the obstinacy
of the contest, and justifies the observation of an ancient
writer, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal
battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to
defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of
Rome. ^87 Notwithstanding the invectives of a servile orator,
there is not the least reason to believe that the tyrant deserted
his own standard in the beginning of the engagement. He seems to
have displayed the virtues of a general and of a soldier till the
day was irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession of the
enemy. Magnentius then consulted his safety, and throwing away
the Imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the
pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid
flight from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian
Alps. ^88
[Footnote 82: This remarkable bridge, which is flanked with
towers, and supported on large wooden piles, was constructed A.
D. 1566, by Sultan Soliman, to facilitate the march of his armies
into Hungary.]
[Footnote 83: This position, and the subsequent evolutions, are
clearly, though concisely, described by Julian, Orat. i. p. 36.]
[Footnote 84: Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 405. The emperor
passed the day in prayer with Valens, the Arian bishop of Mursa,
who gained his confidence by announcing the success of the
battle. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1110)
very properly remarks the silence of Julian with regard to the
personal prowess of Constantius in the battle of Mursa. The
silence of flattery is sometimes equal to the most positive and
authentic evidence.]
[Footnote 85: Julian. Orat. i. p. 36, 37; and Orat. ii. p. 59,
60. Zonaras, tom ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 130-133.
The last of these celebrates the dexterity of the archer
Menelaus, who could discharge three arrows at the same time; an
advantage which, according to his apprehension of military
affairs, materially contributed to the victory of Constantius.]
[Footnote 86: According to Zonaras, Constantius, out of 80,000
men, lost 30,000; and Magnentius lost 24,000 out of 36,000. The
other articles of this account seem probable and authentic, but
the numbers of the tyrant's army must have been mistaken, either
by the author or his transcribers. Magnentius had collected the
whole force of the West, Romans and Barbarians, into one
formidable body, which cannot fairly be estimated at less than
100,000 men. Julian. Orat. i. p. 34, 35.]
[Footnote 87: Ingentes R. I. vires ea dimicatione consumptae
sunt, ad quaelibet bella externa idoneae, quae multum triumphorum
possent securitatisque conferre. Eutropius, x. 13. The younger
Victor expresses himself to the same effect.]
[Footnote 88: On this occasion, we must prefer the unsuspected
testimony of Zosimus and Zonaras to the flattering assertions of
Julian. The younger Victor paints the character of Magnentius in
a singular light: "Sermonis acer, animi tumidi, et immodice
timidus; artifex tamen ad occultandam audaciae specie
formidinem." Is it most likely that in the battle of Mursa his
behavior was governed by nature or by art should incline for the
latter.]
The approach of winter supplied the indolence of Constantius
with specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war
till the ensuing spring. Magnentius had fixed his residence in
the city of Aquileia, and showed a seeming resolution to dispute
the passage of the mountains and morasses which fortified the
confines of the Venetian province. The surprisal of a castle in
the Alps by the secret march of the Imperialists, could scarcely
have determined him to relinquish the possession of Italy, if the
inclinations of the people had supported the cause of their
tyrant. ^89 But the memory of the cruelties exercised by his
ministers, after the unsuccessful revolt of Nepotian, had left a
deep impression of horror and resentment on the minds of the
Romans. That rash youth, the son of the princess Eutropia, and
the nephew of Constantine, had seen with indignation the sceptre
of the West usurped by a perfidious barbarian. Arming a
desperate troop of slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the
feeble guard of the domestic tranquillity of Rome, received the
homage of the senate, and assuming the title of Augustus,
precariously reigned during a tumult of twenty-eight days. The
march of some regular forces put an end to his ambitious hopes:
the rebellion was extinguished in the blood of Nepotian, of his
mother Eutropia, and of his adherents; and the proscription was
extended to all who had contracted a fatal alliance with the name
and family of Constantine. ^90 But as soon as Constantius, after
the battle of Mursa, became master of the sea-coast of Dalmatia,
a band of noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet in some
harbor of the Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his
victorious camp. By their secret intelligence with their
countrymen, Rome and the Italian cities were persuaded to display
the banners of Constantius on their walls. The grateful
veterans, enriched by the liberality of the father, signalized
their gratitude and loyalty to the son. The cavalry, the
legions, and the auxiliaries of Italy, renewed their oath of
allegiance to Constantius; and the usurper, alarmed by the
general desertion, was compelled, with the remains of his
faithful troops, to retire beyond the Alps into the provinces of
Gaul. The detachments, however, which were ordered either to
press or to intercept the flight of Magnentius, conducted
themselves with the usual imprudence of success; and allowed him,
in the plains of Pavia, an opportunity of turning on his
pursuers, and of gratifying his despair by the carnage of a
useless victory. ^91
[Footnote 89: Julian. Orat. i. p. 38, 39. In that place,
however, as well as in Oration ii. p. 97, he insinuates the
general disposition of the senate, the people, and the soldiers
of Italy, towards the party of the emperor.]
[Footnote 90: The elder Victor describes, in a pathetic manner,
the miserable condition of Rome: "Cujus stolidum ingenium adeo P.
R. patribusque exitio fuit, uti passim domus, fora, viae,
templaque, cruore, cadaveri busque opplerentur bustorum modo."
Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677) deplores the fate of several
illustrious victims, and Julian (Orat. ii p 58) execrates the
cruelty of Marcellinus, the implacable enemy of the house of
Constantine.]
[Footnote 91: Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Victor in Epitome. The
panegyrists of Constantius, with their usual candor, forget to
mention this accidental defeat.]
The pride of Magnentius was reduced, by repeated
misfortunes, to sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. He first
despatched a senator, in whose abilities he confided, and
afterwards several bishops, whose holy character might obtain a
more favorable audience, with the offer of resigning the purple,
and the promise of devoting the remainder of his life to the
service of the emperor. But Constantius, though he granted fair
terms of pardon and reconciliation to all who abandoned the
standard of rebellion, ^92 avowed his inflexible resolution to
inflict a just punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he
prepared to overwhelm on every side by the effort of his
victorious arms. An Imperial fleet acquired the easy possession
of Africa and Spain, confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish
nations, and landed a considerable force, which passed the
Pyrenees, and advanced towards Lyons, the last and fatal station
of Magnentius. ^93 The temper of the tyrant, which was never
inclined to clemency, was urged by distress to exercise every act
of oppression which could extort an immediate supply from the
cities of Gaul. ^94 Their patience was at length exhausted; and
Treves, the seat of Praetorian government, gave the signal of
revolt, by shutting her gates against Decentius, who had been
raised by his brother to the rank either of Caesar or of
Augustus. ^95 From Treves, Decentius was obliged to retire to
Sens, where he was soon surrounded by an army of Germans, whom
the pernicious arts of Constantius had introduced into the civil
dissensions of Rome. ^96 In the mean time, the Imperial troops
forced the passages of the Cottian Alps, and in the bloody combat
of Mount Seleucus irrevocably fixed the title of rebels on the
party of Magnentius. ^97 He was unable to bring another army into
the field; the fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and when he
appeared in public to animate them by his exhortations, he was
saluted with a unanimous shout of "Long live the emperor
Constantius!" The tyrant, who perceived that they were preparing
to deserve pardon and rewards by the sacrifice of the most
obnoxious criminal, prevented their design by falling on his
sword; ^98 a death more easy and more honorable than he could
hope to obtain from the hands of an enemy, whose revenge would
have been colored with the specious pretence of justice and
fraternal piety. The example of suicide was imitated by
Decentius, who strangled himself on the news of his brother's
death. The author of the conspiracy, Marcellinus, had long since
disappeared in the battle of Mursa, ^99 and the public
tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of the surviving
leaders of a guilty and unsuccessful faction. A severe
inquisition was extended over all who, either from choice or from
compulsion, had been involved in the cause of rebellion. Paul,
surnamed Catena from his superior skill in the judicial exercise
of tyranny, ^* was sent to explore the latent remains of the
conspiracy in the remote province of Britain. The honest
indignation expressed by Martin, vice-praefect of the island, was
interpreted as an evidence of his own guilt; and the governor was
urged to the necessity of turning against his breast the sword
with which he had been provoked to wound the Imperial minister.
The most innocent subjects of the West were exposed to exile and
confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid are always
cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy. ^100
[Footnote 92: Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Julian, in
several places of the two orations, expatiates on the clemency of
Constantius to the rebels.]
[Footnote 93: Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii.
p. 74.]
[Footnote 94: Ammian. xv. 6. Zosim. l. ii. p. 123. Julian, who
(Orat. i. p. 40) unveighs against the cruel effects of the
tyrant's despair, mentions (Orat. i. p. 34) the oppressive edicts
which were dictated by his necessities, or by his avarice. His
subjects were compelled to purchase the Imperial demesnes; a
doubtful and dangerous species of property, which, in case of a
revolution, might be imputed to them as a treasonable
usurpation.]
[Footnote 95: The medals of Magnentius celebrate the victories of
the two Augusti, and of the Caesar. The Caesar was another
brother, named Desiderius. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. iv. p. 757.]
[Footnote 96: Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii. p. 74; with Spanheim,
p. 263. His Commentary illustrates the transactions of this civil
war. Mons Seleuci was a small place in the Cottian Alps, a few
miles distant from Vapincum, or Gap, an episcopal city of
Dauphine. See D'Anville, Notice de la Gaule, p. 464; and
Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 327.]
[Footnote *: the Itinerary of Antoninus (p. 357, ed. Wess.)
places Mons Seleucu twenty-four miles from Vapinicum, (Gap,) and
twenty-six from Lucus. (le Luc,) on the road to Die, (Dea
Vocontiorum.) The situation answers to Mont Saleon, a little
place on the right of the small river Buech, which falls into the
Durance. Roman antiquities have been found in this place. St.
Martin. Note to Le Beau, ii. 47. - M.]
[Footnote 97: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134. Liban. Orat. x. p. 268,
269. The latter most vehemently arraigns this cruel and selfish
policy of Constantius.]
[Footnote 98: Julian. Orat. i. p. 40. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134.
Socrates, l. ii. c. 32. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 7. The younger
Victor describes his death with some horrid circumstances:
Transfosso latere, ut erat vasti corporis, vulnere naribusque et
ore cruorem effundens, exspiravit. If we can give credit to
Zonaras, the tyrant, before he expired, had the pleasure of
murdering, with his own hand, his mother and his brother
Desiderius.]
[Footnote 99: Julian (Orat. i. p. 58, 59) seems at a loss to
determine, whether he inflicted on himself the punishment of his
crimes, whether he was drowned in the Drave, or whether he was
carried by the avenging daemons from the field of battle to his
destined place of eternal tortures.]
[Footnote *: This is scarcely correct, ut erat in complicandis
negotiis artifex dirum made ei Catenae inditum est cognomentum.
Amm. Mar. loc. cit. - M.]
[Footnote 100: Ammian. xiv. 5, xxi. 16.]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.
Part I.
Constantius Sole Emperor. - Elevation And Death Of Gallus. -
Danger And Elevation Of Julian. - Sarmatian And Persian Wars. -
Victories Of Julian In Gaul.
The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the
victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute
of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his
generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms
served only to establish the reign of the eunuchs over the Roman
world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of Oriental
jealousy and despotism, ^1 were introduced into Greece and Rome
by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. ^2 Their progress was rapid;
and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been abhorred,
as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, ^3 were gradually
admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and of the
emperors themselves. ^4 Restrained by the severe edicts of
Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced
to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, ^6 they
multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly
acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the
secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which
mankind had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species,
appears to have degraded their character, and to have rendered
them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be, of
conceiving any generous sentiment, or of performing any worthy
action. ^7 But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery
and intrigue; and they alternately governed the mind of
Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. ^8
Whilst he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of
public prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the
complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense
treasures by the sale of justice and of honors; to disgrace the
most important dignities, by the promotion of those who had
purchased at their hands the powers of oppression, ^9 and to
gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who
arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these
slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who
ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that
Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian,
possessed some credit with this haughty favorite. ^10 By his
artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the
condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to
the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the
house of Constantine.
[Footnote 1: Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6) imputes the first practice
of castration to the cruel ingenuity of Semiramis, who is
supposed to have reigned above nineteen hundred years before
Christ. The use of eunuchs is of high antiquity, both in Asia
and Egypt. They are mentioned in the law of Moses, Deuteron.
xxxiii. 1. See Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c., Part i. l. i. c.
3.]
[Footnote 2: Eunuchum dixti velle te;
Quia solae utuntur his reginae -
Terent. Eunuch. act i. scene 2.
This play is translated from Meander, and the original must
have appeared soon after the eastern conquests of Alexander.]
[Footnote 3: Miles. . . . spadonibus
Servire rugosis potest.
Horat. Carm. v. 9, and Dacier ad loe.
By the word spado, the Romans very forcibly expressed their
abhorrence of this mutilated condition. The Greek appellation of
eunuchs, which insensibly prevailed, had a milder sound, and a
more ambiguous sense.]
[Footnote 4: We need only mention Posides, a freedman and eunuch
of Claudius, in whose favor the emperor prostituted some of the
most honorable rewards of military valor. See Sueton. in
Claudio, c. 28. Posides employed a great part of his wealth in
building.
Ut Spado vincebat Capitolia Nostra
Posides.
Juvenal. Sat. xiv.]
[Footnote 5: Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 7.
See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. p. 1107, l. lxviii. p. 1119.]
[Footnote 6: There is a passage in the Augustan History, p. 137,
in which Lampridius, whilst he praises Alexander Severus and
Constantine for restraining the tyranny of the eunuchs, deplores
the mischiefs which they occasioned in other reigns. Huc accedit
quod eunuchos nec in consiliis nec in ministeriis habuit; qui
soli principes perdunt, dum eos more gentium aut regum Persarum
volunt vivere; qui a populo etiam amicissimum semovent; qui
internuntii sunt, aliud quam respondetur, referentes; claudentes
principem suum, et agentes ante omnia ne quid sciat.]
[Footnote 7: Xenophon (Cyropaedia, l. viii. p. 540) has stated
the specious reasons which engaged Cyrus to intrust his person to
the guard of eunuchs. He had observed in animals, that although
the practice of castration might tame their ungovernable
fierceness, it did not diminish their strength or spirit; and he
persuaded himself, that those who were separated from the rest of
human kind, would be more firmly attached to the person of their
benefactor. But a long experience has contradicted the judgment
of Cyrus. Some particular instances may occur of eunuchs
distinguished by their fidelity, their valor, and their
abilities; but if we examine the general history of Persia,
India, and China, we shall find that the power of the eunuchs has
uniformly marked the decline and fall of every dynasty.]
[Footnote 8: See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxi. c. 16, l. xxii. c.
4. The whole tenor of his impartial history serves to justify
the invectives of Mamertinus, of Libanius, and of Julian himself,
who have insulted the vices of the court of Constantius.]
[Footnote 9: Aurelius Victor censures the negligence of his
sovereign in choosing the governors of the provinces, and the
generals of the army, and concludes his history with a very bold
observation, as it is much more dangerous under a feeble reign to
attack the ministers than the master himself. "Uti verum
absolvam brevi, ut Imperatore ipso clarius ita apparitorum
plerisque magis atrox nihil."]
[Footnote 10: Apud quem (si vere dici debeat) multum Constantius
potuit. Ammian. l. xviii. c. 4.]
When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were
saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve,
and the latter about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was
thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the
less difficulty a precarious and dependent life, from the
affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution
of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all
mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. ^11 ^* Different
cities of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of
their exile and education; but as soon as their growing years
excited the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to
secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum,
near Caesarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six
years' confinement, was partly such as they could hope from a
careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a
suspicious tyrant. ^12 Their prison was an ancient palace, the
residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation was pleasant,
the buildings of stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued
their studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition
of the most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed
to attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was
not unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they could not
disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of
freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society of all whom
they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their
melancholy hours in the company of slaves devoted to the commands
of a tyrant who had already injured them beyond the hope of
reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state
compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus,
in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Caesar,
and to cement this political connection by his marriage with the
princess Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two
princes mutually engaged their faith never to undertake any thing
to the prejudice of each other, they repaired without delay to
their respective stations. Constantius continued his march
towards the West, and Gallus fixed his residence at Antioch; from
whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five
great dioceses of the eastern praefecture. ^13 In this fortunate
change, the new Caesar was not unmindful of his brother Julian,
who obtained the honors of his rank, the appearances of liberty,
and the restitution of an ample patrimony. ^14
[Footnote 11: Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 90) reproaches the
apostate with his ingratitude towards Mark, bishop of Arethusa,
who had contributed to save his life; and we learn, though from a
less respectable authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
iv. p. 916,) that Julian was concealed in the sanctuary of a
church.
Note: Gallus and Julian were not sons of the same mother.
Their father, Julius Constantius, had had Gallus by his first
wife, named Galla: Julian was the son of Basilina, whom he had
espoused in a second marriage. Tillemont. Hist. des Emp. Vie de
Constantin. art. 3. - G.]
[Footnote 12: The most authentic account of the education and
adventures of Julian is contained in the epistle or manifesto
which he himself addressed to the senate and people of Athens.
Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis,) on the side of the Pagans, and
Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,) on that of the Christians, have
preserved several interesting circumstances.]
[Footnote 13: For the promotion of Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus,
and the two Victors. According to Philostorgius, (l. iv. c. 1,)
Theophilus, an Arian bishop, was the witness, and, as it were,
the guarantee of this solemn engagement. He supported that
character with generous firmness; but M. de Tillemont (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1120) thinks it very improbable that a
heretic should have possessed such virtue.]
[Footnote 14: Julian was at first permitted to pursue his studies
at Constantinople, but the reputation which he acquired soon
excited the jealousy of Constantius; and the young prince was
advised to withdraw himself to the less conspicuous scenes of
Bithynia and Ionia.]
The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and
even Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the
frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the Caesar
was incapable of reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne,
he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility to
compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper
naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was
soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance of what he had
endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy; and
the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who
approached his person, or were subject to his power. ^15
Constantina, his wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one
of the infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of
human blood. ^16 Instead of employing her influence to insinuate
the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the
fierce passions of her husband; and as she retained the vanity,
though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a pearl
necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an
innocent and virtuous nobleman. ^17 The cruelty of Gallus was
sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or
military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of
law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses
of Antioch, and the places of public resort, were besieged by
spies and informers; and the Caesar himself, concealed in a a
plebeian habit, very frequently condescended to assume that
odious character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with
the instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation
was diffused through the capital of Syria. The prince of the
East, as if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and
how little he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his
resentment the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and
his own courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of
incensing, by their secret correspondence, the timid and
suspicious mind of Constantius. But he forgot that he was
depriving himself of his only support, the affection of the
people; whilst he furnished the malice of his enemies with the
arms of truth, and afforded the emperor the fairest pretence of
exacting the forfeit of his purple, and of his life. ^18
[Footnote 15: See Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 271. Jerom. in
Chron. Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall copy the words
of Eutropius, who wrote his abridgment about fifteen years after
the death of Gallus, when there was no longer any motive either
to flatter or to depreciate his character. "Multis incivilibus
gestis Gallus Caesar . . . . vir natura ferox et ad tyrannidem
pronior, si suo jure imperare licuisset."]
[Footnote 16: Megaera quidem mortalis, inflammatrix saevientis
assidua, humani cruoris avida, &c. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c.
1. The sincerity of Ammianus would not suffer him to
misrepresent facts or characters, but his love of ambitious
ornaments frequently betrayed him into an unnatural vehemence of
expression.]
[Footnote 17: His name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only
crime was a refusal to gratify the desires of his mother-in-law;
who solicited his death, because she had been disappointed of his
love. Ammian. xiv. c. i.]
[Footnote 18: See in Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 1, 7) a very ample
detail of the cruelties of Gallus. His brother Julian (p. 272)
insinuates, that a secret conspiracy had been formed against him;
and Zosimus names (l. ii. p. 135) the persons engaged in it; a
minister of considerable rank, and two obscure agents, who were
resolved to make their fortune.]
As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman
world, Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel
administration to which his choice had subjected the East; and
the discovery of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch
by the tyrant of Gaul, was employed to convince the public, that
the emperor and the Caesar were united by the same interest, and
pursued by the same enemies. ^19 But when the victory was decided
in favor of Constantius, his dependent colleague became less
useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct
was severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately
resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to
remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and
dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular of
the province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been
massacred by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and
almost at the instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not
only as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on
the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious
rank, Domitian the Oriental praefect, and Montius, quaestor of
the palace, were empowered by a special commission ^* to visit
and reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave
towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest
arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the invitation
of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the praefect
disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin,
as well as that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch,
Domitian passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and
alleging a slight pretence of indisposition, continued several
days in sullen retirement, to prepare an inflammatory memorial,
which he transmitted to the Imperial court. Yielding at length to
the pressing solicitations of Gallus, the praefect condescended
to take his seat in council; but his first step was to signify a
concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Caesar should
immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself
would punish his delay or hesitation, by suspending the usual
allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter of
Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject,
expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to
the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms
of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the
imprudent behavior of Montius, a statesman whose arts and
experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his
disposition. ^20 The quaestor reproached Gallus in a haughty
language, that a prince who was scarcely authorized to remove a
municipal magistrate, should presume to imprison a Praetorian
praefect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers;
and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the
person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash
declaration of war, the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked
to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to
stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and
recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge.
His commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the
praefect and the quaestor, and tying their legs together with
ropes, they dragged them through the streets of the city,
inflicted a thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these
unhappy victims, and at last precipitated their mangled and
lifeless bodies into the stream of the Orontes. ^21
[Footnote 19: Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 17, 18. The
assassins had seduced a great number of legionaries; but their
designs were discovered and revealed by an old woman in whose
cottage they lodged.]
[Footnote *: The commission seems to have been granted to
Domitian alone. Montius interfered to support his authority.
Amm. Marc. loc. cit. - M]
[Footnote 20: In the present text of Ammianus, we read Asper,
quidem, sed ad lenitatem propensior; which forms a sentence of
contradictory nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript,
Valesius has rectified the first of these corruptions, and we
perceive a ray of light in the substitution of the word vafer.
If we venture to change lenitatem into lexitatem, this alteration
of a single letter will render the whole passage clear and
consistent.]
[Footnote 21: Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and
imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full
stream of the history of Ammianus, and need only refer to the
seventh and ninth chapters of his fourteenth book.
Philostorgius, however, (l. iii. c. 28) though partial to Gallus,
should not be entirely overlooked.]
After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of
Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his
innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince
was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead
of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his
defence the troops and treasures of the East, he suffered himself
to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who,
leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled
the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still
appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and
safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The
frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with
professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the Caesar to
discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his
colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the West
by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many
reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust.
But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of
resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the
tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier,
disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the
credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of
that princess completed the ruin in which he had been involved by
her impetuous passions. ^22
[Footnote 22: She had preceded her husband, but died of a fever
on the road at a little place in Bithynia, called Coenum
Gallicanum.]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.
Part II.
After a long delay, the reluctant Caesar set forwards on his
journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he
traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and
stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions
from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the
people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the
circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned
him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was
met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices
of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty
sallies of his despair. The persons despatched to secure the
provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations,
or affected disdain; and the troops, whose station lay along the
public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they
might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil
war. ^23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few
days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most
haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt
in that city, while the Caesar himself, with only ten
post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.
In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the
brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into
rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances
of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his
guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to
accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and
remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The
dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside
at Petovio, ^* in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the
suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of
soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by
rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the
close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of
the ensigns of Caesar, and hurried away to Pola, ^! in Istria, a
sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with
royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the
appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with
the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to
interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The
Caesar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all
the criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which
he was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife,
exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with
partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor
was easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with
the life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed,
despatched, and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his
hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the
vilest malefactor. ^24 Those who are inclined to palliate the
cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and
endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second
messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the
eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were
desirous of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of
the East. ^25
[Footnote 23: The Thebaean legions, which were then quartered at
Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their
services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38,
edit. Labb.) mentions three several legions which bore the name
of Thebaean. The zeal of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable
though celebrated legion, has tempted him on the slightest
grounds to deny the existence of a Thenaean legion in the Roman
armies. See Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto
edition.]
[Footnote *: Pettau in Styria. - M]
[Footnote *: Rather to Flanonia. now Fianone, near Pola. St.
Martin. - M.]
[Footnote 24: See the complete narrative of the journey and death
of Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his
brother was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or
at least to excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on
his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that he might
justly have been deprived of the purple.]
[Footnote 25: Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom.
ii. p. 19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch,
and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever
he found in the writings of the ancients.]
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all
the numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of
his royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his
retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a
strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above
seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same
ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his
eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His
looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant
curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he
had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. ^26
But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the
virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as
well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the
eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his
sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and
resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any
seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most
devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of
the gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of
destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house
of Constantine. ^27 As the most effectual instrument of their
providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous
friendship of the empress Eusebia, ^28 a woman of beauty and
merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind
of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful
conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness,
Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his
cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and,
notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger
of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder
sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects
of a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was
advised to withdraw for a while into the neighborhood of Milan,
till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for
the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his
earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the
language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the
Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his
wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of
courts, he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a
free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to
cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the
devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not
unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that
tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from
the recollection of the place where it has discovered and
exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of
manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed,
insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as
citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students
might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and
aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a
general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which
was soon diffused over the Roman world. ^29
[Footnote 26: See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian
himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and
just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows,
however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating,
though in obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period
which cannot be reconciled with the truth of chronology.]
[Footnote 27: Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the
family of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily
conceived and agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the
seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and translated
by the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.]
[Footnote 28: She was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of
a noble family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls.
Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In
a divided age, the historians of all parties agree in her
praises. See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.]
[Footnote 29: Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the
arts as well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent
Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory
was his fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which he so
tragically describes, of the future wickedness of the apostate,
amount only to some bodily imperfections, and to some
peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests, however,
that he then foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church
and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)]
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the
empress, resolute to achieve the generous design which she had
undertaken, was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The
death of the late Caesar had left Constantius invested with the
sole command, and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a
mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil discord could be
healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of
Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of
the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and
numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their
craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even
presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city
of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman
legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory,
again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the
emperor was indispensably required, both in the West and in the
East. For the first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged,
that his single strength was unequal to such an extent of care
and of dominion. ^30 Insensible to the voice of flattery, which
assured him that his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune,
would still continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened
with complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his
indolence, without offending his suspicious pride. As she
perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor's
mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite
characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been
compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. ^31 She accustomed
her husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious
disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by
the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honor
a subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands,
or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After
an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the
favorite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and
it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with
Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the
title of Caesar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. ^32
[Footnote 30: Succumbere tot necessitatibus tamque crebris unum
se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c.
8. He then expresses, in their own words, the fattering
assurances of the courtiers.]
[Footnote 31: Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens
fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et
Titum. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of
the two brothers, were so nearly the same, as to afford a strong
example of the innate difference of characters.]
[Footnote 32: Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137,
138.]
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably
accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he
appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of
undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his
beloved retirement. ^33 He trembled for his life, for his fame,
and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from
the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that
he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that
purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached,
with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth
conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with
false and servile respect by the assassins of his family.
Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes,
embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by
the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile
him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and
his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a
Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince,
amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. ^34
[Footnote 33: Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius,
Orat. x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods had
signified their will by repeated visions and omens. His piety
then forbade him to resist.]
[Footnote 34: Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humor,
the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast looks,
and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new
world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.]
The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to
consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they
were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the
consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with
the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of
Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty
tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the
same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. ^35 In a studied
speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor
represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity
of the republic, the necessity of naming a Caesar for the
administration of the West, and his own intention, if it was
agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the
purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The
approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur;
they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with
pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered
by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to
the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his
investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with
the tone of authority which his superior age and station
permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new Caesar to deserve,
by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave
his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which
should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their
separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech
was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their
shields against their knees; ^36 while the officers who
surrounded the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their
sense of the merits of the representative of Constantius.
[Footnote 35: See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop.
x. 14.]
[Footnote 36: Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus
illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra
cum hastis clypei feriuntur, irae documentum est et doloris. . .
. . Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori
reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam
decebat.]
The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot;
and during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a
verse of his favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his
fortune and to his fears. ^37 The four-and-twenty days which the
Caesar spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months
of his Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe
captivity; nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the
loss of freedom. ^38 His steps were watched, his correspondence
was intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the
visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics,
four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician,
and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a
valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who
studied the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend.
In the room of these faithful servants, a household was formed,
such indeed as became the dignity of a Caesar; but it was filled
with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any
attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they
were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might
require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute
instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the
distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under
the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of
a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he
aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by
the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his
marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia ^39
herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been
unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded
Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by
the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which
preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to
deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus
soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in
the Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by
several of the principal ministers, procured from him some
recommendatory letters; and erasing the whole of the contents,
except the signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters
of high and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of
his friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great
council of the civil and military officers, held in the presence
of the emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly
acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the
calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already
provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so
unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of
Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an
invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus,
a general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the
favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East.
Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a
similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the
standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous
friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was
assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal intention,
had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately
returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius
celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had
extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. ^40
[Footnote 37: The word purple which Homer had used as a vague
but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express,
very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.]
[Footnote 38: He represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p.
277,) the distress of his new situation. The provision for his
table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the young
philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum
assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manu sua
conscripserat, praelicenter disponens quid in convivio Caesaris
impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et
inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.]
[Footnote 39: If we recollect that Constantine, the father of
Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it
will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could
not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon
afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod
obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum praesecto plusquam
convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and
empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quaesitum
venenum bibere per fraudem illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset,
immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 10. Our
physicians will determine whether there exists such a poison.
For my own part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity
imputed the effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.]
[Footnote 40: Ammianus (xv. v.) was perfectly well informed of
the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself was one of the few
followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous enterprise.]
The protection of the Rhaetian frontier, and the persecution
of the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above
eighteen months after the departure of Julian. Before the
emperor returned into the East, he indulged his pride and
curiosity in a visit to the ancient capital. ^41 He proceeded
from Milan to Rome along the Aemilian and Flaminian ways, and as
soon as he approached within forty miles of the city, the march
of a prince who had never vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the
appearance of a triumphal procession. His splendid train was
composed of all the ministers of luxury; but in a time of
profound peace, he was encompassed by the glittering arms of the
numerous squadrons of his guards and cuirassiers. Their streaming
banners of silk, embossed with gold, and shaped in the form of
dragons, waved round the person of the emperor. Constantius sat
alone in a lofty car, resplendent with gold and precious gems;
and, except when he bowed his head to pass under the gates of the
cities, he affected a stately demeanor of inflexible, and, as it
might seem, of insensible gravity. The severe discipline of the
Persian youth had been introduced by the eunuchs into the
Imperial palace; and such were the habits of patience which they
had inculcated, that during a slow and sultry march, he was never
seen to move his hand towards his face, or to turn his eyes
either to the right or to the left. He was received by the
magistrates and senate of Rome; and the emperor surveyed, with
attention, the civil honors of the republic, and the consular
images of the noble families. The streets were lined with an
innumerable multitude. Their repeated acclamations expressed
their joy at beholding, after an absence of thirty-two years, the
sacred person of their sovereign, and Constantius himself
expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected surprise that the
human race should thus suddenly be collected on the same spot.
The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient palace of
Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the people from
the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended, assisted with
unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and accepted the
crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had been prepared
for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal cities. His
short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing the monuments
of art and power which were scattered over the seven hills and
the interjacent valleys. He admired the awful majesty of the
Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla and
Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy
greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture
of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above all,
the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;
acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to
magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the
world. The traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient
Rome, may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which
they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the
splendor of unsullied beauty.
[See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon]
[Footnote 41: For the particulars of the visit of Constantius to
Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to add, that
Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he
composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.]
The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this
journey excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the
Romans some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His
first idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue
which he had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had
maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution, ^42 he chose
rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian
obelisk. In a remote but polished age, which seems to have
preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of
these obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and
Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just
confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of
their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence.
^43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported
to Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable
monuments of their power and victory; ^44 but there remained one
obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long
time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by
Constantine to adorn his new city; ^45 and, after being removed
by his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple
of the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to
Alexandria. The death of Constantine suspended the execution of
his purpose, and this obelisk was destined by his son to the
ancient capital of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and
capaciousness was provided to convey this enormous weight of
granite, at least a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the
banks of the Nile to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of
Constantius was landed about three miles from the city, and
elevated, by the efforts of art and labor, in the great Circus of
Rome. ^46
[Footnote 42: Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of Persia, observed to
the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think of
preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying
of Hormisdas is recorded, "that one thing only had displeased
him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere." If we
adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (displicuisse,
instead of placuisse,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman
vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.]
[Footnote 43: When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of
Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of
these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems
probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these
natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the
Egyptian nation. See Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, vol.
iii. p. 69-243.]
[Footnote 44: See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.]
[Footnote 45: Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a
Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator
Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses
of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the
obelisk.]
[Footnote 46: See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c.
12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of Bargaeus on
Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Graevius's Roman
Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to
Pope Sixtus V., who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the
square before the patriarchal church of at. John Lateran.]
[Footnote *: It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by
Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus,
it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to
the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in
Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long
before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The
obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is
ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II.
Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32. - M]
The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the
alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian
provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable
loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of
Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the
light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads
of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have
exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military
arts of their Sarmatian allies. ^47 The garrisons of the
frontiers were insufficient to check their progress; and the
indolent monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the
extremities of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops,
to take the field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with
the preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious
prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a
bridge of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march,
penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and
severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on
the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to
sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive
subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages
as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which
was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the
clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more
obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was
crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant
tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who
might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the
Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the
Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious
compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from
their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who
formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy,
released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating
dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the
dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the
friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of
asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace
of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment,
of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the
vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was
attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the
Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube,
against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands
which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their
inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the
inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and
inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the
Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms;
but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude
stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of
their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes,
established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss
and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of
surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable
conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which
they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the
cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained
to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still
grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this
victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite
banks of the Danube; the Taifalae, a Gothic tribe engaged in the
service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the
Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by
hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the
heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration
revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the
depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence
on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In
this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to
die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,
enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed;
and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children,
repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth
of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency, which was
still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the
remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of
their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and
honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but
before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their
destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube,
exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting,
with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would
grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the
Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of
their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers,
who were ready to represent the honor and advantage of accepting
a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain
the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the
subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass
the Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a
large plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the
tribunal, and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of
mildness and dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe
into the air, exclaimed with a loud voice, Marha! Marha! ^* a
word of defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult.
They rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his
royal throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands;
but the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet,
allowed him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from
the confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a
treacherous surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and
discipline of the Romans; and the combat was only terminated by
the extinction of the name and nation of the Limigantes. The
free Sarmatians were reinstated in the possession of their
ancient seats; and although Constantius distrusted the levity of
their character, he entertained some hopes that a sense of
gratitude might influence their future conduct. He had remarked
the lofty stature and obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the
noblest of their chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King;
and Zizais proved that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere
and lasting attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who,
after this splendid success, received the name of Sarmaticus from
the acclamations of his victorious army. ^48
[Footnote 47: The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are
related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11]
[Footnote *: Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War. Wagner
note as a mm. Marc xix. ll. - M.]
[Footnote 48: Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud eos
regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by
Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much
vanity, and some truth]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.
Part III.
While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the
distance of three thousand miles, defended their extreme limits
against the Barbarians of the Danube and of the Oxus, their
intermediate frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid
war, and a precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of
Constantius, the Praetorian praefect Musonian, whose abilities
were disgraced by the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian,
duke of Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret
negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. ^49 ^! These overtures of
peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of
Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who
resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was
inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he
invested with that character, was honorably received in his
passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium
after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully
unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his
sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and
Moon, (such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,)
expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius Caesar,
had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of
Darius Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in
Macedonia, was the true and ancient boundary of his empire;
declaring, however, that as an evidence of his moderation, he
would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and
Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his
ancestors. He alleged, that, without the restitution of these
disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on
a solid and permanent basis; and he arrogantly threatened, that
if his ambassador returned in vain, he was prepared to take the
field in the spring, and to support the justice of his cause by
the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who was endowed
with the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as
was consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the
message. ^50 Both the style and substance were maturely weighed
in the Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following
answer: "Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of
his ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the
throne: he was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable
treaty; but it was highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose
to the sole and victorious emperor of the Roman world, the same
conditions of peace which he had indignantly rejected at the time
when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of the
East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should
recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in
battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of
the war." A few days after the departure of Narses, three
ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already
returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence
of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist, had been selected
for this important commission; and Constantius, who was secretly
anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes
that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity
of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, ^51 would persuade
the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But
the progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the
hostile arts of Antoninus, ^52 a Roman subject of Syria, who had
fled from oppression, and was admitted into the councils of
Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according to the
custom of the Persians, the most important business was
frequently discussed. ^53 The dexterous fugitive promoted his
interest by the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He
incessantly urged the ambition of his new master to embrace the
favorable opportunity when the bravest of the Palatine troops
were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube. He
pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces
of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by
the alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The
ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second
embassy, of a still more honorable rank, was detained in strict
confinement, and threatened either with death or exile.
[Footnote 49: Ammian. xvi. 9.]
[Footnote *: In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii. 177. -
M.]
[Footnote 50: Ammianus (xvii. 5) transcribes the haughty letter.
Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.) takes notice of the
silken covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the journey of the
ambassador; and Peter the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 58)
has informed us of his behavior.]
[Footnote 51: Ammianus, xvii. 5, and Valesius ad loc. The
sophist, or philosopher, (in that age these words were almost
synonymous,) was Eustathius the Cappadocian, the disciple of
Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil. Eunapius (in Vit.
Aedesii, p. 44-47) fondly attributes to this philosophic
ambassador the glory of enchanting the Barbarian king by the
persuasive charms of reason and eloquence. See Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 828, 1132.]
[Footnote 52: Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8. The decent and respectful
behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general, sets him in a
very interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the
traitor with some compassion and esteem.]
[Footnote 53: This circumstance, as it is noticed by Ammianus,
serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l. i. c. 133,) and
the permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the Persians
have been addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have
triumphed over the law of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii.
p. 462-472, and Voyages en Perse, tom, iii. p. 90.]
The military historian, ^54 who was himself despatched to
observe the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to
construct a bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an
eminence the plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon,
covered with men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in
the front, conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his
left hand, the place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates,
king of the Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged
and renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place
on his right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his
independent tribes from the shores of the Caspian. ^* The satraps
and generals were distributed according to their several ranks,
and the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental
luxury, consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective
men, inured to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of
Asia. The Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the
councils of Sapor, had prudently advised, that, instead of
wasting the summer in tedious and difficult sieges, he should
march directly to the Euphrates, and press forwards without delay
to seize the feeble and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the
Persians were no sooner advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia,
than they discovered that every precaution had been used which
could retard their progress, or defeat their design. The
inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places of
strength, the green forage throughout the country was set on
fire, the fords of the rivers were fortified by sharp stakes;
military engines were planted on the opposite banks, and a
seasonable swell of the waters of the Euphrates deterred the
Barbarians from attempting the ordinary passage of the bridge of
Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing his plan of operations,
then conducted the army by a longer circuit, but through a
fertile territory, towards the head of the Euphrates, where the
infant river is reduced to a shallow and accessible stream.
Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the strength of Nisibis;
but as he passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to try
whether the majesty of his presence would not awe the garrison
into immediate submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random
dart, which glanced against the royal tiara, convinced him of his
error; and the indignant monarch listened with impatience to the
advice of his ministers, who conjured him not to sacrifice the
success of his ambition to the gratification of his resentment.
The following day Grumbates advanced towards the gates with a
select body of troops, and required the instant surrender of the
city, as the only atonement which could be accepted for such an
act of rashness and insolence. His proposals were answered by a
general discharge, and his only son, a beautiful and valiant
youth, was pierced through the heart by a javelin, shot from one
of the balistae. The funeral of the prince of the Chionites was
celebrated according to the rites of the country; and the grief
of his aged father was alleviated by the solemn promise of Sapor,
that the guilty city of Amida should serve as a funeral pile to
expiate the death, and to perpetuate the memory, of his son.
[Footnote 54: Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7, 8, 10.]
[Footnote *: These perhaps were the barbarous tribes who inhabit
the northern part of the present Schirwan, the Albania of the
ancients. This country, now inhabited by the Lezghis, the terror
of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the same
people, called by the ancients Legae, by the Armenians Gheg, or
Leg. The latter represent them as constant allies of the
Persians in their wars against Armenia and the Empire. A little
after this period, a certain Schergir was their king, and it is
of him doubtless Ammianus Marcellinus speaks. St. Martin, ii.
285. - M.]
The ancient city of Amid or Amida, ^55 which sometimes
assumes the provincial appellation of Diarbekir, ^56 is
advantageously situate in a fertile plain, watered by the natural
and artificial channels of the Tigris, of which the least
inconsiderable stream bends in a semicircular form round the
eastern part of the city. The emperor Constantius had recently
conferred on Amida the honor of his own name, and the additional
fortifications of strong walls and lofty towers. It was provided
with an arsenal of military engines, and the ordinary garrison
had been reenforced to the amount of seven legions, when the
place was invested by the arms of Sapor. ^57 His first and most
sanguine hopes depended on the success of a general assault. To
the several nations which followed his standard, their respective
posts were assigned; the south to the Vertae; the north to the
Albanians; the east to the Chionites, inflamed with grief and
indignation; the west to the Segestans, the bravest of his
warriors, who covered their front with a formidable line of
Indian elephants. ^58 The Persians, on every side, supported
their efforts, and animated their courage; and the monarch
himself, careless of his rank and safety, displayed, in the
prosecution of the siege, the ardor of a youthful soldier. After
an obstinate combat, the Barbarians were repulsed; they
incessantly returned to the charge; they were again driven back
with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel legions of Gauls, who
had been banished into the East, signalized their undisciplined
courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart of the Persian camp.
In one of the fiercest of these repeated assaults, Amida was
betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who indicated to the
Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase, scooped out of the
rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris. Seventy chosen
archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to the third story
of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice; they elevated on
high the Persian banner, the signal of confidence to the
assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and if this devoted
band could have maintained their post a few minutes longer, the
reduction of the place might have been purchased by the sacrifice
of their lives. After Sapor had tried, without success, the
efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had recourse to the slower
but more certain operations of a regular siege, in the conduct of
which he was instructed by the skill of the Roman deserters. The
trenches were opened at a convenient distance, and the troops
destined for that service advanced under the portable cover of
strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and undermine the
foundations of the walls. Wooden towers were at the same time
constructed, and moved forwards on wheels, till the soldiers, who
were provided with every species of missile weapons, could engage
almost on level ground with the troops who defended the rampart.
Every mode of resistance which art could suggest, or courage
could execute, was employed in the defence of Amida, and the
works of Sapor were more than once destroyed by the fire of the
Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may be exhausted.
The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed their approaches;
a large preach was made by the battering-ram, and the strength of
the garrison, wasted by the sword and by disease, yielded to the
fury of the assault. The soldiers, the citizens, their wives,
their children, all who had not time to escape through the
opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors in a promiscuous
massacre.
[Footnote 55: For the description of Amida, see D'Herbelot,
Bebliotheque Orientale, p. Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 108.
Histoire de Timur Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed
Arabsiades, tom. i. p. 331, c. 43. Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i.
p. 301. Voyages d'Otter, tom. ii. p. 273, and Voyages de
Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of these travellers, a
learned and accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida, which
illustrates the operations of the siege.]
[Footnote 56: Diarbekir, which is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in
the public writings of the Turks, contains above 16,000 houses,
and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The epithet of
Kara is derived from the blackness of the stone which composes
the strong and ancient wall of Amida.]
[Footnote *: In my Mem. Hist. sur l'Armenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I
conceive that I have proved this city, still called, by the
Armenians, Dirkranagerd, the city of Tigranes, to be the same
with the famous Tigranocerta, of which the situation was unknown.
St. Martin, i. 432. On the siege of Amida, see St. Martin's
Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of Byzantium, nearly a contemporary,
(Armenian,) states that the Persians, on becoming masters of it,
destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus describes the city as of
no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non nimium amplae.) Besides
the ordinary population, and those who took refuge from the
country, it contained 20,000 soldiers. St. Martin, ii. 290.
This interpretation is extremely doubtful. Wagner (note on
Ammianus) considers the whole population to amount only to - M.]
[Footnote 57: The operations of the siege of Amida are very
minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an
honorable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when
the city was stormed by the Persians.]
[Footnote 58: Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well
known to require any description. The Segestans [Sacastene. St.
Martin.] inhabited a large and level country, which still
preserves their name, to the south of Khorasan, and the west of
Hindostan. (See Geographia Nubiensis. p. 133, and D'Herbelot,
Biblitheque Orientale, p. 797.) Notwithstanding the boasted
victory of Bahram, (vol. i. p. 410,) the Segestans, above
fourscore years afterwards, appear as an independent nation, the
ally of Persia. We are ignorant of the situation of the Vertae
and Chionites, but I am inclined to place them (at least the
latter) towards the confines of India and Scythia. See Ammian.
xvi. 9.]
[Footnote *: Klaproth considers the real Albanians the same with
the ancient Alani, and quotes a passage of the emperor Julian in
support of his opinion. They are the Ossetae, now inhabiting part
of Caucasus. Tableaux Hist. de l'Asie, p. 179, 180. - M.
The Vertae are still unknown. It is possible that the
Chionites are the same as the Huns. These people were already
known; and we find from Armenian authors that they were making,
at this period, incursions into Asia. They were often at war
with the Persians. The name was perhaps pronounced differently
in the East and in the West, and this prevents us from
recognizing it. St. Martin, ii. 177. - M.]
But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces.
As soon as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor
was at leisure to reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city,
he had lost the flower of his troops, and the most favorable
season for conquest. ^59 Thirty thousand of his veterans had
fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a
siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed
monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret
mortification. It is more than probable, that the inconstancy of
his Barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which
they had encountered such unexpected difficulties; and that the
aged king of the Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away
with horror from a scene of action where he had been deprived of
the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the
spirit of the army with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing
spring was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his
ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the East, he
was obliged to content himself with the reduction of two
fortified cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; ^60 the one
situate in the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small
peninsula, surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid
stream of the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size
to which they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were
made prisoners, and sent into remote captivity on the extreme
confines of Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the
conqueror abandoned that solitary and sequestered place; but he
carefully restored the fortifications of Bezabde, and fixed in
that important post a garrison or colony of veterans; amply
supplied with every means of defence, and animated by high
sentiments of honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the
campaign, the arms of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an
unsuccessful enterprise against Virtha, or Tecrit, a strong, or,
as it was universally esteemed till the age of Tamerlane, an
impregnable fortress of the independent Arabs. ^61
[Footnote 59: Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by
three signs, which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or
with the series of the history. 1 The corn was ripe when Sapor
invaded Mesopotamia; "Cum jam stipula flaveate turgerent;" a
circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally
refer us to the month of April or May. See Harmer's Observations
on Scripture vol. i. p. 41. Shaw's Travels, p. 335, edit 4to.
2. The progress of Sapor was checked by the overflowing of the
Euphrates, which generally happens in July and August. Plin.
Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 696.
3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three
days, the autumn was far advanced. "Autumno praecipiti
haedorumque improbo sidere exorto." To reconcile these apparent
contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian king,
some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the
seasons.]
[Footnote 60: The account of these sieges is given by Ammianus,
xx. 6, 7.]
[Footnote *: The Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the camp of
the king of Persia, to persuade him to check the waste of human
blood Amm. Mare xx. 7. - M.]
[Footnote 61: For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit, see
D'Anville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec
or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian
biographer exaggerates the merit and difficulty of this exploit,
which delivered the caravans of Bagdad from a formidable gang of
robbers.]
[Footnote *: St. Martin doubts whether it lay so much to the
south. "The word Girtha means in Syriac a castle or fortress, and
might be applied to many places."]
The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required
and would have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate
general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the
actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the
confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, ^62
Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the
eunuchs; and the military command of the East was bestowed, by
the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran,
who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the
experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same
jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched
to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the
labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his
unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the
walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with the idle parade
of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the
Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness
and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever
Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he
proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round
the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy,
to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve
the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged,
that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering
the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest
defenders, who had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in
the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and Ursicinus
himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was
punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his
military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the
prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured
lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were
suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy
task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a
foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of
the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East;
and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed,
with a powerful army, the siege of Becabde. The walls were
shaken by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the
battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity; but
it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the
garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the
emperor to raise the siege, and ingloviously to retreat into his
winter quarters at Antioch. ^63 The pride of Constantius, and the
ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any
materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while
the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had
intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in
the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.
[Footnote 62: Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6, xix. 3, xx. 2) represents
the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that faithful attention
which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be
suspected, yet the whole account is consistent and probable.]
[Footnote 63: Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano incepto, hiematurus
Antiochiae redit in Syriam aerumnosam, perpessus et ulcerum sed
et atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is thus that James Gronovius has
restored an obscure passage; and he thinks that this correction
alone would have deserved a new edition of his author: whose
sense may now be darkly perceived. I expected some additional
light from the recent labors of the learned Ernestus. (Lipsiae,
1773.)
Note: The late editor (Wagner) has nothing better to
suggest, and le menta with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti. - M.]
In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had
abandoned to the Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul,
which still acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous
swarm of Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by
presents and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual
grant of all the territories which they should be able to subdue.
^64 But the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus
imprudently provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon
discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these
formidable allies, after they had tasted the richness of the
Roman soil. Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and
rebellion, these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural
enemies all the subjects of the empire, who possessed any
property which they were desirous of acquiring Forty-five
flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires,
Strasburgh, &c., besides a far greater number of towns and
villages, were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes.
The Barbarians of Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their
ancestors, abhorred the confinement of walls, to which they
applied the odious names of prisons and sepulchres; and fixing
their independent habitations on the banks of rivers, the Rhine,
the Moselle, and the Meuse, they secured themselves against the
danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of large
trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The
Alemanni were established in the modern countries of Alsace and
Lorraine; the Franks occupied the island of the Batavians,
together with an extensive district of Brabant, which was then
known by the appellation of Toxandria, ^65 and may deserve to be
considered as the original seat of their Gallic monarchy. ^66
From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine, the conquests of
the Germans extended above forty miles to the west of that river,
over a country peopled by colonies of their own name and nation:
and the scene of their devastations was three times more
extensive than that of their conquests. At a still greater
distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and the
inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their
strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with
such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land
within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,
destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled
at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.
[Footnote 64: The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of
Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q.
Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c.
iv.)]
[Footnote 65: Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived
from the Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the
histories of the middle age. Toxandria was a country of woods
and morasses, which extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to
the conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit.
Galliar. p. 558.]
[Footnote 66: The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never
obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine
before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good
sense by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their
uninterrupted possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty
years before the accession of Clovis. The Dissertation of M.
Biet was crowned by the Academy of Soissons, in the year 1736,
and seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his
more celebrated competitor, the Abbe le Boeuf, an antiquarian,
whose name was happily expressive of his talents.]
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.
Part IV.
Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth
was appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or
rather, as he expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of
Imperial greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian,
in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms,
with the dead than with the living, left him in profound
ignorance of the practical arts of war and government; and when
he awkwardly repeated some military exercise which it was
necessary for him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, "O Plato,
Plato, what a task for a philosopher!" Yet even this speculative
philosophy, which men of business are too apt to despise, had
filled the mind of Julian with the noblest precepts and the most
shining examples; had animated him with the love of virtue, the
desire of fame, and the contempt of death. The habits of
temperance recommended in the schools, are still more essential
in the severe discipline of a camp. The simple wants of nature
regulated the measure of his food and sleep. Rejecting with
disdain the delicacies provided for his table, he satisfied his
appetite with the coarse and common fare which was allotted to
the meanest soldiers. During the rigor of a Gallic winter, he
never suffered a fire in his bed-chamber; and after a short and
interrupted slumber, he frequently rose in the middle of the
night from a carpet spread on the floor, to despatch any urgent
business, to visit his rounds, or to steal a few moments for the
prosecution of his favorite studies. ^67 The precepts of
eloquence, which he had hitherto practised on fancied topics of
declamation, were more usefully applied to excite or to assuage
the passions of an armed multitude: and although Julian, from his
early habits of conversation and literature, was more familiarly
acquainted with the beauties of the Greek language, he had
attained a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. ^68 Since
Julian was not originally designed for the character of a
legislator, or a judge, it is probable that the civil
jurisprudence of the Romans had not engaged any considerable
share of his attention: but he derived from his philosophic
studies an inflexible regard for justice, tempered by a
disposition to clemency; the knowledge of the general principles
of equity and evidence, and the faculty of patiently
investigating the most intricate and tedious questions which
could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of policy,
and the operations of war, must submit to the various accidents
of circumstance and character, and the unpractised student will
often be perplexed in the application of the most perfect theory.
But in the acquisition of this important science, Julian was
assisted by the active vigor of his own genius, as well as by the
wisdom and experience of Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon
conceived a sincere attachment for a prince so worthy of his
friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity was adorned by the
talent of insinuating the harshest truths without wounding the
delicacy of a royal ear. ^69
[Footnote 67: The private life of Julian in Gaul, and the severe
discipline which he embraced, are displayed by Ammianus, (xvi.
5,) who professes to praise, and by Julian himself, who affects
to ridicule, (Misopogon, p. 340,) a conduct, which, in a prince
of the house of Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of
mankind.]
[Footnote 68: Aderat Latine quoque disserenti sufficiens sermo.
Ammianus xvi. 5. But Julian, educated in the schools of Greece,
always considered the language of the Romans as a foreign and
popular dialect which he might use on necessary occasions.]
[Footnote 69: We are ignorant of the actual office of this
excellent minister, whom Julian afterwards created praefect of
Gaul. Sallust was speedly recalled by the jealousy of the
emperor; and we may still read a sensible but pedantic discourse,
(p. 240-252,) in which Julian deplores the loss of so valuable a
friend, to whom he acknowledges himself indebted for his
reputation. See La Bleterie, Preface a la Vie de lovien, p. 20.]
Immediately after Julian had received the purple at Milan,
he was sent into Gaul with a feeble retinue of three hundred and
sixty soldiers. At Vienna, where he passed a painful and anxious
winter in the hands of those ministers to whom Constantius had
intrusted the direction of his conduct, the Caesar was informed
of the siege and deliverance of Autun. That large and ancient
city, protected only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous garrison,
was saved by the generous resolution of a few veterans, who
resumed their arms for the defence of their country. In his
march from Autun, through the heart of the Gallic provinces,
Julian embraced with ardor the earliest opportunity of
signalizing his courage. At the head of a small body of archers
and heavy cavalry, he preferred the shorter but the more
dangerous of two roads; ^* and sometimes eluding, and sometimes
resisting, the attacks of the Barbarians, who were masters of the
field, he arrived with honor and safety at the camp near Rheims,
where the Roman troops had been ordered to assemble. The aspect
of their young prince revived the drooping spirits of the
soldiers, and they marched from Rheims in search of the enemy,
with a confidence which had almost proved fatal to them. The
Alemanni, familiarized to the knowledge of the country, secretly
collected their scattered forces, and seizing the opportunity of
a dark and rainy day, poured with unexpected fury on the
rear-guard of the Romans. Before the inevitable disorder could be
remedied, two legions were destroyed; and Julian was taught by
experience that caution and vigilance are the most important
lessons of the art of war. In a second and more successful
action, ^* he recovered and established his military fame; but as
the agility of the Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his
victory was neither bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however,
to the banks of the Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne,
convinced himself of the difficulties of the war, and retreated
on the approach of winter, discontented with the court, with his
army, and with his own success. ^70 The power of the enemy was
yet unbroken; and the Caesar had no sooner separated his troops,
and fixed his own quarters at Sens, in the centre of Gaul, than
he was surrounded and besieged, by a numerous host of Germans.
Reduced, in this extremity, to the resources of his own mind, he
displayed a prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all the
deficiencies of the place and garrison; and the Barbarians, at
the end of thirty days, were obliged to retire with disappointed
rage.
[Footnote *: Aliis per Arbor - quibusdam per Sedelaucum et Coram
in debere firrantibus. Amm. Marc. xvi. 2. I do not know what
place can be meant by the mutilated name Arbor. Sedelanus is
Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Cote d'Or, six
leagues from Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the
river of the same name, between Autun and Nevera 4; Martin, ii.
162. - M.
Note: At Brocomages, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St. Martin,
ii. 184. - M.]
[Footnote 70: Ammianus (xvi. 2, 3) appears much better satisfied
with the success of his first campaign than Julian himself; who
very fairly owns that he did nothing of consequence, and that he
fled before the enemy.]
The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his
sword for this signal deliverance, was imbittered by the
reflection, that he was abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted
to destruction, by those who were bound to assist him, by every
tie of honor and fidelity. Marcellus, master-general of the
cavalry in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the jealous orders of
the court, beheld with supine indifference the distress of
Julian, and had restrained the troops under his command from
marching to the relief of Sens. If the Caesar had dissembled in
silence so dangerous an insult, his person and authority would
have been exposed to the contempt of the world; and if an action
so criminal had been suffered to pass with impunity, the emperor
would have confirmed the suspicions, which received a very
specious color from his past conduct towards the princes of the
Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled, and gently dismissed
from his office. ^71 In his room Severus was appointed general of
the cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and
fidelity, who could advise with respect, and execute with zeal;
and who submitted, without reluctance to the supreme command
which Julian, by the inrerest of his patroness Eusebia, at length
obtained over the armies of Gaul. ^72 A very judicious plan of
operations was adopted for the approaching campaign. Julian
himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran bands, and of
some new levies which he had been permitted to form, boldly
penetrated into the centre of the German cantonments, and
carefully reestablished the fortifications of Saverne, in an
advantageous post, which would either check the incursions, or
intercept the retreat, of the enemy. At the same time, Barbatio,
general of the infantry, advanced from Milan with an army of
thirty thousand men, and passing the mountains, prepared to throw
a bridge over the Rhine, in the neighborhood of Basil. It was
reasonable to expect that the Alemanni, pressed on either side by
the Roman arms, would soon be forced to evacuate the provinces of
Gaul, and to hasten to the defence of their native country. But
the hopes of the campaign were defeated by the incapacity, or the
envy, or the secret instructions, of Barbatio; who acted as if he
had been the enemy of the Caesar, and the secret ally of the
Barbarians. The negligence with which he permitted a troop of
pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the gates
of his camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the
treasonable act of burning a number of boats, and a superfluous
stock of provisions, which would have been of the most essential
service to the army of Gaul, was an evidence of his hostile and
criminal intentions. The Germans despised an enemy who appeared
destitute either of power or of inclination to offend them; and
the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of the
expected support; and left him to extricate himself from a
hazardous situation, where he could neither remain with safety,
nor retire with honor. ^73
[Footnote 71: Ammian. xvi. 7. Libanius speaks rather more
advantageously of the military talents of Marcellus, Orat. x. p.
272. And Julian insinuates, that he would not have been so
easily recalled, unless he had given other reasons of offence to
the court, p. 278.]
[Footnote 72: Severus, non discors, non arrogans, sed longa
militiae frugalitate compertus; et eum recta praeeuntem
secuturus, ut duetorem morigeran miles. Ammian xvi. 11.
Zosimus, l. iii. p. 140.]
[Footnote 73: On the design and failure of the cooperation
between Julian and Barbatio, see Ammianus (xvi. 11) and Libanius,
(Orat. x. p. 273.)
Note: Barbatio seems to have allowed himself to be surprised
and defeated - M.]
As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion,
the Alemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed
to dispute the possession of that country, which they claimed as
their own by the right of conquest and of treaties. They
employed three days, and as many nights, in transporting over the
Rhine their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the
ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the
brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and
moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example
inspired. ^74 He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes
of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and
by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of
Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own
strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received
from a deserter, that the Caesar, with a feeble army of thirteen
thousand men, occupied a post about one-and-twenty miles from
their camp of Strasburgh. With this inadequate force, Julian
resolved to seek and to encounter the Barbarian host; and the
chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious and
uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties
of the Alemanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two
columns; the cavalry on the right, the infantry on the left; and
the day was so far spent when they appeared in sight of the
enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the battle till the
next morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their
exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of sleep and
food. Yielding, however, with some reluctance, to the clamors of
the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he exhorted
them to justify by their valor the eager impatience, which, in
case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets
of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military
shout was heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with
equal fury to the charge. The Caesar, who conducted in person his
right wing, depended on the dexterity of his archers, and the
weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks were instantly broken
by an irregular mixture of light horse and of light infantry, and
he had the mortification of beholding the flight of six hundred
of his most renowned cuirassiers. ^75 The fugitives were stopped
and rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who,
careless of his own safety, threw himself before them, and urging
every motive of shame and honor, led them back against the
victorious enemy. The conflict between the two lines of infantry
was obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed the superiority
of strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and
temper; and as the Barbarians, who served under the standard of
the empire, united the respective advantages of both parties,
their strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length
determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes,
and two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable
battle of Strasburgh, so glorious to the Caesar, ^76 and so
salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the
Alemanni were slain in the field, without including those who
were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they
attempted to swim across the river. ^77 Chnodomar himself was
surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave
companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death
the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military
pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous
pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt for the
abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the
vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the
cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor
this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an
honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could not long
survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile. ^78
[Footnote 74: Ammianus (xvi. 12) describes with his inflated
eloquence the figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens
ingenti robore lacertorum, ubi ardor proelii sperabatur immanis,
equo spumante sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidandae
vastitatis, armorumque nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et
miles, et utilis praeter caeteros ductor . . . Decentium Caesarem
superavit aequo marte congressus.]
[Footnote 75: After the battle, Julian ventured to revive the
rigor of ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in
female apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In the next
campaign, these troops nobly retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 142.]
[Footnote 76: Julian himself (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks
of the battle of Strasburgh with the modesty of conscious merit;.
Zosimus compares it with the victory of Alexander over Darius;
and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those strokes of
military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct
and success of a single day.]
[Footnote 77: Ammianus, xvi. 12. Libanius adds 2000 more to the
number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But these trifling
differences disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom Zosimus
has sacrificed to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We
might attribute this extravagant number to the carelessness of
transcribers, if this credulous or partial historian had not
swelled the army of 35,000 Alemanni to an innumerable multitude
of Barbarians,. It is our own fault if this detection does not
inspire us with proper distrust on similar occasions.]
[Footnote 78: Ammian. xvi. 12. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.]
After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of
the Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were
seated nearer to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany;
and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid
valor, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the
Barbarians. ^79 Although they were strongly actuated by the
allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of
war; which they considered as the supreme honor and felicity of
human nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely
hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to
them as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which
followed the battle of Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six
hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two castles on the
Meuse. ^80 In the midst of that severe season they sustained,
with inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at
length, exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of
the enemy, in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes
of escape, the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense
with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer or to die.
The Caesar immediately sent his captives to the court of
Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present, ^81
rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the
choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance
of this handful of Franks apprised Julian of the difficulties of
the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against
the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised and
astonished the active Barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to
provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly
pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him
in his winter quarters of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of
his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite
or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to
the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his
arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency,
and to obey the commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians
submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the
Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new
establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of
the Roman empire. ^82 The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths;
and perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the
Franks, with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of
the conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in
itself, and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who
ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the
tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son
of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A
mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the
sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented
in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by
a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate
at the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed
to have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and
as soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the
Caesar addressed the assembly in the following terms: "Behold the
son, the prince, whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault.
God and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still
preserve and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own
virtue, than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume
to violate the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the
republic will avenge the perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the
guilty." The Barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed
with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and admiration. ^83
[Footnote 79: Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137) draws a very lively
picture of the manners of the Franks.]
[Footnote 80: Ammianus, xvii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The
Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been
induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand men;
and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he
compares them to the Lacedaemonians, who were besieged and taken
in the Island of Sphatoria.]
[Footnote 81: Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat.
x. p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor,
which La Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an
honest confession, and Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean
evasion, of the truth. Dom Bouquet, (Historiens de France, tom.
i. p. 733,) by substituting another word, would suppress both the
difficulty and the spirit of this passage.]
[Footnote 82: Ammian. xvii. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 146-150, (his
narrative is darkened by a mixture of fable,) and Julian. ad S.
P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression. This difference of
treatment confirms the opinion that the Salian Franks were
permitted to retain the settlements in Toxandria.
Note: A newly discovered fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus
probably transcribed, illustrates this transaction. "Julian
commanded the Romans to abstain from all hostile measures against
the Salians, neither to waste or ravage their own country, for he
called every country their own which was surrendered without
resistance or toil on the part of the conquerors." Mai, Script.
Vez Nov. Collect. ii. 256, and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant.
Hist.]
[Footnote 83: This interesting story, which Zosimus has abridged,
is related by Eunapius, (in Excerpt. Legationum, p. 15, 16, 17,)
with all the amplifications of Grecian rhetoric: but the silence
of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself, renders the
truth of it extremely suspicious.]
It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces
of Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate
the glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors;
after whose example, he composed his own commentaries of the
Gallic war. ^84 Caesar has related, with conscious pride, the
manner in which he twice passed the Rhine. Julian could boast,
that before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the
Roman eagles beyond that great river in three successful
expeditions. ^85 The consternation of the Germans, after the
battle of Strasburgh, encouraged him to the first attempt; and
the reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the persuasive
eloquence of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which
he imposed on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on
either side of the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn
and cattle, felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal
houses, constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were
consumed by the flames; and the Caesar boldly advanced about ten
miles, till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable
forest, undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened
with secret snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The
ground was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing
an ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a
truce of ten months to the submissive Barbarians. At the
expiration of the truce, Julian undertook a second expedition
beyond the Rhine, to humble the pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two
of the kings of the Alemanni, who had been present at the battle
of Strasburgh. They promised to restore all the Roman captives
who yet remained alive; and as the Caesar had procured an exact
account from the cities and villages of Gaul, of the inhabitants
whom they had lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him,
with a degree of readiness and accuracy, which almost established
the belief of his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition
was still more splendid and important than the two former. The
Germans had collected their military powers, and moved along the
opposite banks of the river, with a design of destroying the
bridge, and of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this
judicious plan of defence was disconcerted by a skilful
diversion. Three hundred light-armed and active soldiers were
detached in forty small boats, to fall down the stream in
silence, and to land at some distance from the posts of the
enemy. They executed their orders with so much boldness and
celerity, that they had almost surprised the Barbarian chiefs,
who returned in the fearless confidence of intoxication from one
of their nocturnal festivals. Without repeating the uniform and
disgusting tale of slaughter and devastation, it is sufficient to
observe, that Julian dictated his own conditions of peace to six
of the haughtiest kings of the Alemanni, three of whom were
permitted to view the severe discipline and martial pomp of a
Roman camp. Followed by twenty thousand captives, whom he had
rescued from the chains of the Barbarians, the Caesar repassed
the Rhine, after terminating a war, the success of which has been
compared to the ancient glories of the Punic and Cimbric
victories.
[Footnote 84: Libanius, the friend of Julian, clearly insinuates
(Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed the history of his
Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to have
derived his information only from the Orations and the Epistles
of Julian. The discourse which is addressed to the Athenians
contains an accurate, though general, account of the war against
the Germans.]
[Footnote 85: See Ammian. xvii. 1, 10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l.
iii. p. 144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.]
As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an
interval of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to
his humane and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had
suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently
repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth
of the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt
and fortified by the order of Julian. ^86 The vanquished Germans
had submitted to the just but humiliating condition of preparing
and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of Julian
urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which
he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries
themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue,
contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the
Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the Caesar to provide for the
subsistence, as well as for the safety, of the inhabitants and of
the garrisons. The desertion of the former, and the mutiny of
the latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable consequences
of famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been
interrupted by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of
the continent were supplied, by his paternal care, from the
plenty of the adjacent island. Six hundred large barks, framed in
the forest of the Ardennes, made several voyages to the coast of
Britain; and returning from thence, laden with corn, sailed up
the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the several towns and
fortresses along the banks of the river. ^87 The arms of Julian
had restored a free and secure navigation, which Constantinius
had offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and of a
tributary present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor
parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted
with a lavish and trembling hand to the Barbarians. The
dexterity, as well as the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe
trial, when he took the field with a discontented army, which had
already served two campaigns, without receiving any regular pay
or any extraordinary donative. ^88
[Footnote 86: Ammian. xviii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 279, 280.
Of these seven posts, four are at present towns of some
consequence; Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and Nuyss. The other
three, Tricesimae, Quadriburgium, and Castra Herculis, or
Heraclea, no longer subsist; but there is room to believe, that
on the ground of Quadriburgium the Dutch have constructed the
fort of Schenk, a name so offensive to the fastidious delicacy of
Boileau. See D'Anville, Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 183.
Boileau, Epitre iv. and the notes.
Note: Tricesimae, Kellen, Mannert, quoted by Wagner.
Heraclea, Erkeleus in the district of Juliers. St. Martin, ii.
311. - M.]
[Footnote 87: We may credit Julian himself, (Orat. ad S. P. Q.
Atheniensem, p. 280,) who gives a very particular account of the
transaction. Zosimus adds two hundred vessels more, (l. iii. p.
145.) If we compute the 600 corn ships of Julian at only seventy
tons each, they were capable of exporting 120,000 quarters, (see
Arbuthnot's Weights and Measures, p. 237;) and the country which
could bear so large an exportation, must already have attained an
improved state of agriculture.]
[Footnote 88: The troops once broke out into a mutiny,
immediately before the second passage of the Rhine. Ammian.
xvii. 9.]
A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects
was the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the
administration of Julian. ^89 He devoted the leisure of his
winter quarters to the offices of civil government; and affected
to assume, with more pleasure, the character of a magistrate than
that of a general. Before he took the field, he devolved on the
provincial governors most of the public and private causes which
had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he
carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the
law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.
Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet
and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness
and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for
extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. "Who will
ever be found guilty," exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, "if it
be enough to deny?" "And who," replied Julian, "will ever be
innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?" In the general
administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereign is
commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius would
have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had
defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from
an oppressed and exhausted country. The prince who was invested
with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes presume to correct
the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to expose their
corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of
collection. But the management of the finances was more safely
intrusted to Florentius, praetorian praefect of Gaul, an
effeminate tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty
minister complained of the most decent and gentle opposition,
while Julian himself was rather inclined to censure the weakness
of his own behavior. The Caesar had rejected, with abhorrence, a
mandate for the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new
superindiction, which the praefect had offered for his signature;
and the faithful picture of the public misery, by which he had
been obliged to justify his refusal, offended the court of
Constantius. We may enjoy the pleasure of reading the sentiments
of Julian, as he expresses them with warmth and freedom in a
letter to one of his most intimate friends. After stating his
own conduct, he proceeds in the following terms: "Was it possible
for the disciple of Plato and Aristotle to act otherwise than I
have done? Could I abandon the unhappy subjects intrusted to my
care? Was I not called upon to defend them from the repeated
injuries of these unfeeling robbers? A tribune who deserts his
post is punished with death, and deprived of the honors of
burial. With what justice could I pronounce his sentence, if, in
the hour of danger, I myself neglected a duty far more sacred and
far more important? God has placed me in this elevated post; his
providence will guard and support me. Should I be condemned to
suffer, I shall derive comfort from the testimony of a pure and
upright conscience. Would to Heaven that I still possessed a
counsellor like Sallust! If they think proper to send me a
successor, I shall submit without reluctance; and had much rather
improve the short opportunity of doing good, than enjoy a long
and lasting impunity of evil." ^90 The precarious and dependent
situation of Julian displayed his virtues and concealed his
defects. The young hero who supported, in Gaul, the throne of
Constantius, was not permitted to reform the vices of the
government; but he had courage to alleviate or to pity the
distress of the people. Unless he had been able to revive the
martial spirit of the Romans, or to introduce the arts of
industry and refinement among their savage enemies, he could not
entertain any rational hopes of securing the public tranquillity,
either by the peace or conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of
Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads of the
Barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the Western Empire.
[Footnote 89: Ammian. xvi. 5, xviii. 1. Mamertinus in Panegyr.
Vet. xi. 4]
[Footnote 90: Ammian. xvii. 3. Julian. Epistol. xv. edit.
Spanheim. Such a conduct almost justifies the encomium of
Mamertinus. Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt, ut aut Barbaros
domitet, aut civibus jura restituat, perpetuum professus, aut
contra hostem, aut contra vitia, certamen.]
His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which
had been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian
war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived
with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce, again flourished under the protection of the laws; and
the curioe, or civil corporations, were again filled with useful
and respectable members: the youth were no longer apprehensive of
marriage; and married persons were no longer apprehensive of
posterity: the public and private festivals were celebrated with
customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse of the
provinces displayed the image of national prosperity. ^91 A mind
like that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which
he was the author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction
and complacency, the city of Paris; the seat of his winter
residence, and the object even of his partial affection. ^92 That
splendid capital, which now embraces an ample territory on either
side of the Seine, was originally confined to the small island in
the midst of the river, from whence the inhabitants derived a
supply of pure and salubrious water. The river bathed the foot
of the walls; and the town was accessible only by two wooden
bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but
on the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the
University, was insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with
a palace and amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of
Mars for the exercise of the Roman troops. The severity of the
climate was tempered by the neighborhood of the ocean; and with
some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine and
fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters,
the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that
floated down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the
blocks of white marble which were extracted from the quarries of
Phrygia. The licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled
to the memory of Julian the severe and simple manners of his
beloved Lutetia; ^93 where the amusements of the theatre were
unknown or despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate
Syrians with the brave and honest simplicity of the Gauls, and
almost forgave the intemperance, which was the only stain of the
Celtic character. ^94 If Julian could now revisit the capital of
France, he might converse with men of science and genius, capable
of understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he
might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose
martial spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of
luxury; and he must applaud the perfection of that inestimable
art, which softens and refines and embellishes the intercourse of
social life.
[Footnote 91: Libanius, Orat. Parental. in Imp. Julian. c. 38, in
Fabricius Bibliothec. Graec. tom. vii. p. 263, 264.]
[Footnote 92: See Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340, 341. The
primitive state of Paris is illustrated by Henry Valesius, (ad
Ammian. xx. 4,) his brother Hadrian Valesius, or de Valois, and
M. D'Anville, (in their respective Notitias of ancient Gaul,) the
Abbe de Longuerue, (Description de la France, tom. i. p. 12, 13,)
and M. Bonamy, (in the Mem. de l'Aca demie des Inscriptions, tom.
xv. p. 656-691.)]
[Footnote 93: Julian, in Misopogon, p. 340. Leuce tia, or
Lutetia, was the ancient name of the city, which, according to
the fashion of the fourth century, assumed the territorial
appellation of Parisii.]
[Footnote 94: Julian in Misopogon, p. 359, 360.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.
Part I.
The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of
Constantine. - Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The
Christian Or Catholic Church.
The public establishment of Christianity may be considered
as one of those important and domestic revolutions which excite
the most lively curiosity, and afford the most valuable
instruction. The victories and the civil policy of Constantine
no longer influence the state of Europe; but a considerable
portion of the globe still retains the impression which it
received from the conversion of that monarch; and the
ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by
an indissoluble chain, with the opinions, the passions, and the
interests of the present generation.
In the consideration of a subject which may be examined with
impartiality, but cannot be viewed with indifference, a
difficulty immediately arises of a very unexpected nature; that
of ascertaining the real and precise date of the conversion of
Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the midst of his court,
seems impatient ^1 to proclaim to the world the glorious example
of the sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign,
acknowledged and adored the majesty of the true and only God. ^2
The learned Eusebius has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the
miraculous sign which was displayed in the heavens whilst he
meditated and prepared the Italian expedition. ^3 The historian
Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the emperor had imbrued his
hands in the blood of his eldest son, before he publicly
renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors. ^4 The
perplexity produced by these discordant authorities is derived
from the behavior of Constantine himself. According to the
strictness of ecclesiastical language, the first of the Christian
emperors was unworthy of that name, till the moment of his death;
since it was only during his last illness that he received, as a
catechumen, the imposition of hands, ^5 and was afterwards
admitted, by the initiatory rites of baptism, into the number of
the faithful. ^6 The Christianity of Constantine must be allowed
in a much more vague and qualified sense; and the nicest accuracy
is required in tracing the slow and almost imperceptible
gradations by which the monarch declared himself the protector,
and at length the proselyte, of the church. It was an arduous
task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his education, to
acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand that
the truth of his revelation was incompatible with the worship of
the gods. The obstacles which he had probably experienced in his
own mind, instructed him to proceed with caution in the momentous
change of a national religion; and he insensibly discovered his
new opinions, as far as he could enforce them with safety and
with effect. During the whole course of his reign, the stream of
Christianity flowed with a gentle, though accelerated, motion:
but its general direction was sometimes checked, and sometimes
diverted, by the accidental circumstances of the times, and by
the prudence, or possibly by the caprice, of the monarch. His
ministers were permitted to signify the intentions of their
master in the various language which was best adapted to their
respective principles; ^7 and he artfully balanced the hopes and
fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two edicts;
the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, ^8
and the second directed the regular consultation of the
Aruspices. ^9 While this important revolution yet remained in
suspense, the Christians and the Pagans watched the conduct of
their sovereign with the same anxiety, but with very opposite
sentiments. The former were prompted by every motive of zeal, as
well as vanity, to exaggerate the marks of his favor, and the
evidences of his faith. The latter, till their just
apprehensions were changed into despair and resentment, attempted
to conceal from the world, and from themselves, that the gods of
Rome could no longer reckon the emperor in the number of their
votaries. The same passions and prejudices have engaged the
partial writers of the times to connect the public profession of
Christianity with the most glorious or the most ignominious aera
of the reign of Constantine.
[Footnote 1: The date of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius
has been accurately discussed, difficulties have been started,
solutions proposed, and an expedient imagined of two original
editions; the former published during the persecution of
Diocletian, the latter under that of Licinius. See Dufresnoy,
Prefat. p. v. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. vi. p. 465- 470.
Lardner's Credibility, part ii. vol. vii. p. 78-86. For my own
part, I am almost convinced that Lactantius dedicated his
Institutions to the sovereign of Gaul, at a time when Galerius,
Maximin, and even Licinius, persecuted the Christians; that is,
between the years 306 and 311.]
[Footnote 2: Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. l. vii. 27. The first
and most important of these passages is indeed wanting in
twenty-eight manuscripts; but it is found in nineteen. If we
weigh the comparative value of these manuscripts, one of 900
years old, in the king of France's library may be alleged in its
favor; but the passage is omitted in the correct manuscript of
Bologna, which the P. de Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or
seventh century (Diarium Italic. p. 489.) The taste of most of
the editors (except Isaeus; see Lactant. edit. Dufresnoy, tom. i.
p. 596) has felt the genuine style of Lactantius.]
[Footnote 3: Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 27-32.]
[Footnote 4: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.]
[Footnote 5: That rite was always used in making a catechumen,
(see Bingham's Antiquities. l. x. c. i. p. 419. Dom Chardon,
Hist. des Sacramens, tom. i. p. 62,) and Constantine received it
for the first time (Euseb. in Vit Constant. l. iv. c. 61)
immediately before his baptism and death. From the connection of
these two facts, Valesius (ad loc. Euseb.) has drawn the
conclusion which is reluctantly admitted by Tillemont, (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 628,) and opposed with feeble arguments by
Mosheim, (p. 968.)]
[Footnote 6: Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The
legend of Constantine's baptism at Rome, thirteen years before
his death, was invented in the eighth century, as a proper motive
for his donation. Such has been the gradual progress of
knowledge, that a story, of which Cardinal Baronius (Annual
Ecclesiast. A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared himself the unblushing
advocate, is now feebly supported, even within the verge of the
Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christianae, tom. ii. p. 232; a
work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 1751 by
Father Mamachi, a learned Dominican.]
[Footnote 7: The quaestor, or secretary, who composed the law of
the Theodosian Code, makes his master say with indifference,
"hominibus supradictae religionis," (l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 1.)
The minister of ecclesiastical affairs was allowed a more devout
and respectful style, the legal, most holy, and Catholic
worship.]
[Footnote 8: Cod. Theodos. l. ii. viii. tit. leg. 1. Cod.
Justinian. l. iii. tit. xii. leg. 3. Constantine styles the
Lord's day dies solis, a name which could not offend the ears of
his pagan subjects.]
[Footnote 9: Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. l. Godefroy, in
the character of a commentator, endeavors (tom. vi. p. 257) to
excuse Constantine; but the more zealous Baronius (Annal. Eccles.
A. D. 321, No. 17) censures his profane conduct with truth and
asperity.]
Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the
discourses or actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was
near forty years of age in the practice of the established
religion; ^10 and the same conduct which in the court of
Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear, could be ascribed only to
the inclination or policy of the sovereign of Gaul. His
liberality restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the
medals which issued from his Imperial mint are impressed with the
figures and attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and
Hercules; and his filial piety increased the council of Olympus
by the solemn apotheosis of his father Constantius. ^11 But the
devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the
genius of the Sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and
he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the God of
Light and Poetry. The unerring shafts of that deity, the
brightness of his eyes, his laurel wreath, immortal beauty, and
elegant accomplishments, seem to point him out as the patron of a
young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive
offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught
to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal
eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; and that, either
walking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens
of a long and victorious reign. The Sun was universally
celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine;
and the Pagans might reasonably expect that the insulted god
would pursue with unrelenting vengeance the impiety of his
ungrateful favorite. ^12
[Footnote 10: Theodoret. (l. i. c. 18) seems to insinuate that
Helena gave her son a Christian education; but we may be assured,
from the superior authority of Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l.
iii. c. 47,) that she herself was indebted to Constantine for the
knowledge of Christianity.]
[Footnote 11: See the medals of Constantine in Ducange and
Banduri. As few cities had retained the privilege of coining,
almost all the medals of that age issued from the mint under the
sanction of the Imperial authority.]
[Footnote 12: The panegyric of Eumenius, (vii. inter Panegyr.
Vet.,) which was pronounced a few months before the Italian war,
abounds with the most unexceptionable evidence of the Pagan
superstition of Constantine, and of his particular veneration for
Apollo, or the Sun; to which Julian alludes.]
As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over
the provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected by
the authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely
left to the gods the care of vindicating their own honor. If we
may credit the assertion of Constantine himself, he had been an
indignant spectator of the savage cruelties which were inflicted,
by the hands of Roman soldiers, on those citizens whose religion
was their only crime. ^13 In the East and in the West, he had
seen the different effects of severity and indulgence; and as the
former was rendered still more odious by the example of Galerius,
his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended to his imitation
by the authority and advice of a dying father. The son of
Constantius immediately suspended or repealed the edicts of
persecution, and granted the free exercise of their religious
ceremonies to all those who had already professed themselves
members of the church. They were soon encouraged to depend on
the favor as well as on the justice of their sovereign, who had
imbibed a secret and sincere reverence for the name of Christ,
and for the God of the Christians. ^14
[Footnote 13: Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 25. But it might
easily be shown, that the Greek translator has improved the sense
of the Latin original; and the aged emperor might recollect the
persecution of Diocletian with a more lively abhorrence than he
had actually felt to the days of his youth and Paganism.]
[Footnote 14: See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. viii. 13, l. ix. 9, and
in Vit. Const. l. i. c. 16, 17 Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. l.
Caecilius de Mort. Persecut. c. 25.]
About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor
made a solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the
celebrated edict of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic
church. In the personal interview of the two western princes,
Constantine, by the ascendant of genius and power, obtained the
ready concurrence of his colleague, Licinius; the union of their
names and authority disarmed the fury of Maximin; and after the
death of the tyrant of the East, the edict of Milan was received
as a general and fundamental law of the Roman world. ^15
[Footnote 15: Caecilius (de Mort. Persecut. c. 48) has preserved
the Latin original; and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 5) has
given a Greek translation of this perpetual edict, which refers
to some provisional regulations.]
The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of
all the civil and religious rights of which the Christians had
been so unjustly deprived. It was enacted that the places of
worship, and public lands, which had been confiscated, should be
restored to the church, without dispute, without delay, and
without expense; and this severe injunction was accompanied with
a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers had paid a fair
and adequate price, they should be indemnified from the Imperial
treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future
tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of
enlarged and equal toleration; and such an equality must have
been interpreted by a recent sect as an advantageous and
honorable distinction. The two emperors proclaim to the world,
that they have granted a free and absolute power to the
Christians, and to all others, of following the religion which
each individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has addicted
his mind, and which he may deem the best adapted to his own use.
They carefully explain every ambiguous word, remove every
exception, and exact from the governors of the provinces a strict
obedience to the true and simple meaning of an edict, which was
designed to establish and secure, without any limitation, the
claims of religious liberty. They condescend to assign two
weighty reasons which have induced them to allow this universal
toleration: the humane intention of consulting the peace and
happiness of their people; and the pious hope, that, by such a
conduct, they shall appease and propitiate the Deity, whose seat
is in heaven. They gratefully acknowledge the many signal proofs
which they have received of the divine favor; and they trust that
the same Providence will forever continue to protect the
prosperity of the prince and people. From these vague and
indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be
deduced, of a different, but not of an incompatible nature. The
mind of Constantine might fluctuate between the Pagan and the
Christian religions. According to the loose and complying
notions of Polytheism, he might acknowledge the God of the
Christians as one of the many deities who compose the hierarchy
of heaven. Or perhaps he might embrace the philosophic and
pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the variety of names, of
rites, and of opinions, all the sects, and all the nations of
mankind, are united in the worship of the common Father and
Creator of the universe. ^16
[Footnote 16: A panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or
eight months after the edict of Milan, (see Gothofred. Chronolog.
Legum, p. 7, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
246,) uses the following remarkable expression: "Summe rerum
sator, cujus tot nomina sant, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti,
quem enim te ipse dici velin, scire non possumus." (Panegyr. Vet.
ix. 26.) In explaining Constantine's progress in the faith,
Mosheim (p. 971, &c.) is ingenious, subtle, prolix.]
But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced
by views of temporal advantage, than by considerations of
abstract and speculative truth. The partial and increasing favor
of Constantine may naturally be referred to the esteem which he
entertained for the moral character of the Christians; and to a
persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel would inculcate
the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever latitude an
absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever
indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly
his interest that all his subjects should respect the natural and
civil obligations of society. But the operation of the wisest
laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue,
they cannot always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to
prohibit all that they condemn, nor can they always punish the
actions which they prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had
summoned to their aid the powers of education and of opinion.
But every principle which had once maintained the vigor and
purity of Rome and Sparta, was long since extinguished in a
declining and despotic empire. Philosophy still exercised her
temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of virtue
derived very feeble support from the influence of the Pagan
superstition. Under these discouraging circumstances, a prudent
magistrate might observe with pleasure the progress of a religion
which diffused among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal
system of ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition of
life; recommended as the will and reason of the supreme Deity,
and enforced by the sanction of eternal rewards or punishments.
The experience of Greek and Roman history could not inform the
world how far the system of national manners might be reformed
and improved by the precepts of a divine revelation; and
Constantine might listen with some confidence to the flattering,
and indeed reasonable, assurances of Lactantius. The eloquent
apologist seemed firmly to expect, and almost ventured to
promise, that the establishment of Christianity would restore the
innocence and felicity of the primitive age; that the worship of
the true God would extinguish war and dissension among those who
mutually considered themselves as the children of a common
parent; that every impure desire, every angry or selfish passion,
would be restrained by the knowledge of the gospel; and that the
magistrates might sheath the sword of justice among a people who
would be universally actuated by the sentiments of truth and
piety, of equity and moderation, of harmony and universal love.
^17
[Footnote 17: See the elegant description of Lactantius, (Divin
Institut. v. 8,) who is much more perspicuous and positive than
becomes a discreet prophet.]
The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the
yoke of authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in
the eyes of an absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful
of the evangelic virtues. ^18 The primitive Christians derived
the institution of civil government, not from the consent of the
people, but from the decrees of Heaven. The reigning emperor,
though he had usurped the sceptre by treason and murder,
immediately assumed the sacred character of vicegerent of the
Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the abuse of
his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their
oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who had violated every law of
nature and society. The humble Christians were sent into the
world as sheep among wolves; and since they were not permitted to
employ force even in the defence of their religion, they should
be still more criminal if they were tempted to shed the blood of
their fellow-creatures in disputing the vain privileges, or the
sordid possessions, of this transitory life. Faithful to the
doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero had preached
the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of the three
first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent of
the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they
experienced the rigor of persecution, they were never provoked
either to meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to
withdraw themselves into some remote and sequestered corner of
the globe. ^19 The Protestants of France, of Germany, and of
Britain, who asserted with such intrepid courage their civil and
religious freedom, have been insulted by the invidious comparison
between the conduct of the primitive and of the reformed
Christians. ^20 Perhaps, instead of censure, some applause may be
due to the superior sense and spirit of our ancestors, who had
convinced themselves that religion cannot abolish the unalienable
rights of human nature. ^21 Perhaps the patience of the primitive
church may be ascribed to its weakness, as well as to its virtue.
A sect of unwarlike plebeians, without leaders, without arms,
without fortifications, must have encountered inevitable
destruction in a rash and fruitless resistance to the master of
the Roman legions. But the Christians, when they deprecated the
wrath of Diocletian, or solicited the favor of Constantine, could
allege, with truth and confidence, that they held the principle
of passive obedience, and that, in the space of three centuries,
their conduct had always been conformable to their principles.
They might add, that the throne of the emperors would be
established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their
subjects, embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to
suffer and to obey.
[Footnote 18: The political system of the Christians is explained
by Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. i. c. 3, 4. Grotius was a
republican and an exile, but the mildness of his temper inclined
him to support the established powers.]
[Footnote 19: Tertullian. Apolog. c. 32, 34, 35, 36. Tamen
nunquam Albiniani, nec Nigriani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt
Christiani. Ad Scapulam, c. 2. If this assertion be strictly
true, it excludes the Christians of that age from all civil and
military employments, which would have compelled them to take an
active part in the service of their respective governors. See
Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 349.]
[Footnote 20: See the artful Bossuet, (Hist. des Variations des
Eglises Protestantes, tom. iii. p. 210-258.) and the malicious
Bayle, (tom ii. p. 820.) I name Bayle, for he was certainly the
author of the Avis aux Refugies; consult the Dictionnaire
Critique de Chauffepie, tom. i. part ii. p. 145.]
[Footnote 21: Buchanan is the earliest, or at least the most
celebrated, of the reformers, who has justified the theory of
resistance. See his Dialogue de Jure Regni apud Scotos, tom. ii.
p. 28, 30, edit. fol. Rudiman.]
In the general order of Providence, princes and tyrants are
considered as the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or to
chastise the nations of the earth. But sacred history affords
many illustrious examples of the more immediate interposition of
the Deity in the government of his chosen people. The sceptre and
the sword were committed to the hands of Moses, of Joshua, of
Gideon, of David, of the Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes
were the motive or the effect of the divine favor, the success of
their arms was destined to achieve the deliverance or the triumph
of the church. If the judges of Israel were occasional and
temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from the royal
unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and indefeasible
right, which could not be forfeited by their own vices, nor
recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The same
extraordinary providence, which was no longer confined to the
Jewish people, might elect Constantine and his family as the
protectors of the Christian world; and the devout Lactantius
announces, in a prophetic tone, the future glories of his long
and universal reign. ^22 Galerius and Maximin, Maxentius and
Licinius, were the rivals who shared with the favorite of heaven
the provinces of the empire. The tragic deaths of Galerius and
Maximin soon gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the sanguine
expectations, of the Christians. The success of Constantine
against Maxentius and Licinius removed the two formidable
competitors who still opposed the triumph of the second David,
and his cause might seem to claim the peculiar interposition of
Providence. The character of the Roman tyrant disgraced the
purple and human nature; and though the Christians might enjoy
his precarious favor, they were exposed, with the rest of his
subjects, to the effects of his wanton and capricious cruelty.
The conduct of Licinius soon betrayed the reluctance with which
he had consented to the wise and humane regulations of the edict
of Milan. The convocation of provincial synods was prohibited in
his dominions; his Christian officers were ignominiously
dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather danger, of a
general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered still
more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary
engagement. ^23 While the East, according to the lively
expression of Eusebius, was involved in the shades of infernal
darkness, the auspicious rays of celestial light warmed and
illuminated the provinces of the West. The piety of Constantine
was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the justice of his
arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of the
Christians, that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the
Lord of Hosts. The conquest of Italy produced a general edict of
toleration; and as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested
Constantine with the sole dominion of the Roman world, he
immediately, by circular letters, exhorted all his subjects to
imitate, without delay, the example of their sovereign, and to
embrace the divine truth of Christianity. ^24
[Footnote 22: Lactant Divin. Institut. i. l. Eusebius in the
course of his history, his life, and his oration, repeatedly
inculcates the divine right of Constantine to the empire.]
[Footnote 23: Our imperfect knowledge of the persecution of
Licinius is derived from Eusebius, (Hist. l. x. c. 8. Vit.
Constantin. l. i. c. 49-56, l. ii. c. 1, 2.) Aurelius Victor
mentions his cruelty in general terms.]
[Footnote 24: Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 24-42 48-60.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.
Part II.
The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was
intimately connected with the designs of Providence, instilled
into the minds of the Christians two opinions, which, by very
different means, assisted the accomplishment of the prophecy.
Their warm and active loyalty exhausted in his favor every
resource of human industry; and they confidently expected that
their strenuous efforts would be seconded by some divine and
miraculous aid. The enemies of Constantine have imputed to
interested motives the alliance which he insensibly contracted
with the Catholic church, and which apparently contributed to the
success of his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century,
the Christians still bore a very inadequate proportion to the
inhabitants of the empire; but among a degenerate people, who
viewed the change of masters with the indifference of slaves, the
spirit and union of a religious party might assist the popular
leader, to whose service, from a principle of conscience, they
had devoted their lives and fortunes. ^25 The example of his
father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to reward the
merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public
offices, he had the advantage of strengthening his government, by
the choice of ministers or generals, in whose fidelity he could
repose a just and unreserved confidence. By the influence of
these dignified missionaries, the proselytes of the new faith
must have multiplied in the court and army; the Barbarians of
Germany, who filled the ranks of the legions, were of a careless
temper, which acquiesced without resistance in the religion of
their commander; and when they passed the Alps, it may fairly be
presumed, that a great number of the soldiers had already
consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of
Constantine. ^26 The habits of mankind and the interests of
religion gradually abated the horror of war and bloodshed, which
had so long prevailed among the Christians; and in the councils
which were assembled under the gracious protection of
Constantine, the authority of the bishops was seasonably employed
to ratify the obligation of the military oath, and to inflict the
penalty of excommunication on those soldiers who threw away their
arms during the peace of the church. ^27 While Constantine, in
his own dominions, increased the number and zeal of his faithful
adherents, he could depend on the support of a powerful faction
in those provinces which were still possessed or usurped by his
rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused among the Christian
subjects of Maxentius and Licinius; and the resentment, which the
latter did not attempt to conceal, served only to engage them
still more deeply in the interest of his competitor. The regular
correspondence which connected the bishops of the most distant
provinces, enabled them freely to communicate their wishes and
their designs, and to transmit without danger any useful
intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might promote the
service of Constantine, who publicly declared that he had taken
up arms for the deliverance of the church. ^28
[Footnote 25: In the beginning of the last century, the Papists
of England were only a thirtieth, and the Protestants of France
only a fifteenth, part of the respective nations, to whom their
spirit and power were a constant object of apprehension. See the
relations which Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and
afterwards cardinal) transmitted to the court of Rome,
(Relazione, tom. ii. p. 211, 241.) Bentivoglio was curious, well
informed, but somewhat partial.]
[Footnote 26: This careless temper of the Germans appears almost
uniformly on the history of the conversion of each of the tribes.
The legions of Constantine were recruited with Germans, (Zosimus,
l. ii. p. 86;) and the court even of his father had been filled
with Christians. See the first book of the Life of Constantine,
by Eusebius.]
[Footnote 27: De his qui arma projiciunt in pace, placuit eos
abstinere a communione. Council. Arelat. Canon. iii. The best
critics apply these words to the peace of the church.]
[Footnote 28: Eusebius always considers the second civil war
against Licinius as a sort of religious crusade. At the
invitation of the tyrant, some Christian officers had resumed
their zones; or, in other words, had returned to the military
service. Their conduct was afterwards censured by the twelfth
canon of the Council of Nice; if this particular application may
be received, instead of the lo se and general sense of the Greek
interpreters, Balsamor Zonaras, and Alexis Aristenus. See
Beveridge, Pandect. Eccles. Graec. tom. i. p. 72, tom. ii. p. 73
Annotation.]
The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the
emperor himself, had sharpened their swords while it satisfied
their conscience. They marched to battle with the full assurance,
that the same God, who had formerly opened a passage to the
Israelites through the waters of Jordan, and had thrown down the
walls of Jericho at the sound of the trumpets of Joshua, would
display his visible majesty and power in the victory of
Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical history is prepared
to affirm, that their expectations were justified by the
conspicuous miracle to which the conversion of the first
Christian emperor has been almost unanimously ascribed. The real
or imaginary cause of so important an event, deserves and demands
the attention of posterity; and I shall endeavor to form a just
estimate of the famous vision of Constantine, by a distinct
consideration of the standard, the dream, and the celestial sign;
by separating the historical, the natural, and the marvellous
parts of this extraordinary story, which, in the composition of a
specious argument, have been artfully confounded in one splendid
and brittle mass.
I. An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only
on slaves and strangers, became on object of horror in the eyes
of a Roman citizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of
ignominy, were closely united with the idea of the cross. ^29 The
piety, rather than the humanity, of Constantine soon abolished in
his dominions the punishment which the Savior of mankind had
condescended to suffer; ^30 but the emperor had already learned
to despise the prejudices of his education, and of his people,
before he could erect in the midst of Rome his own statue,
bearing a cross in its right hand; with an inscription which
referred the victory of his arms, and the deliverance of Rome, to
the virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and
courage. ^31 The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers
of Constantine; the cross glittered on their helmet, was engraved
on their shields, was interwoven into their banners; and the
consecrated emblems which adorned the person of the emperor
himself, were distinguished only by richer materials and more
exquisite workmanship. ^32 But the principal standard which
displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the Labarum, ^33 an
obscure, though celebrated name, which has been vainly derived
from almost all the languages of the world. It is described ^34
as a long pike intersected by a transversal beam. The silken
veil, which hung down from the beam, was curiously inwrought with
the images of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit
of the pike supported a crown of gold which enclosed the
mysterious monogram, at once expressive of the figure of the
cross, and the initial letters, of the name of Christ. ^35 The
safety of the labarum was intrusted to fifty guards, of approved
valor and fidelity; their station was marked by honors and
emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an
opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged
in the execution of their office, they were secure and
invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. In the second civil
war, Licinius felt and dreaded the power of this consecrated
banner, the sight of which, in the distress of battle, animated
the soldiers of Constantine with an invincible enthusiasm, and
scattered terror and dismay through the ranks of the adverse
legions. ^36 The Christian emperors, who respected the example of
Constantine, displayed in all their military expeditions the
standard of the cross; but when the degenerate successors of
Theodosius had ceased to appear in person at the head of their
armies, the labarum was deposited as a venerable but useless
relic in the palace of Constantinople. ^37 Its honors are still
preserved on the medals of the Flavian family. Their grateful
devotion has placed the monogram of Christ in the midst of the
ensigns of Rome. The solemn epithets of, safety of the republic,
glory of the army, restoration of public happiness, are equally
applied to the religious and military trophies; and there is
still extant a medal of the emperor Constantius, where the
standard of the labarum is accompanied with these memorable
words, By This Sign Thou Shalt Conquer. ^38
[Footnote 29: Nomen ipsum crucis absit non modo a corpore civium
Romano rum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus. Cicero pro
Raberio, c. 5. The Christian writers, Justin, Minucius Felix,
Tertullian, Jerom, and Maximus of Turin, have investigated with
tolerable success the figure or likeness of a cross in almost
every object of nature or art; in the intersection of the
meridian and equator, the human face, a bird flying, a man
swimming, a mast and yard, a plough, a standard, &c., &c., &c.
See Lipsius de Cruce, l. i. c. 9.]
[Footnote 30: See Aurelius Victor, who considers this law as one
of the examples of Constantine's piety. An edict so honorable to
Christianity deserved a place in the Theodosian Code, instead of
the indirect mention of it, which seems to result from the
comparison of the fifth and eighteenth titles of the ninth book.]
[Footnote 31: Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 40. This
statue, or at least the cross and inscription, may be ascribed
with more probability to the second, or even third, visit of
Constantine to Rome. Immediately after the defeat of Maxentius,
the minds of the senate and people were scarcely ripe for this
public monument.]
[Footnote 32: Agnoscas, regina, libens mea signa necesse est;
In quibus effigies crucis aut gemmata refulget
Aut longis solido ex auro praefertur in hastis.
Hoc signo invictus, transmissis Alpibus Ultor
Servitium solvit miserabile Constantinus.
Christus purpureum gemmanti textus in auro
Signabat Labarum, clypeorum insignia Christus
Scripserat; ardebat summis crux addita cristis.
Prudent. in Symmachum, l. ii. 464, 486.]
[Footnote 33: The derivation and meaning of the word Labarum or
Laborum, which is employed by Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose,
Prudentius, &c., still remain totally unknown, in spite of the
efforts of the critics, who have ineffectually tortured the
Latin, Greek, Spanish, Celtic, Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c.,
in search of an etymology. See Ducange, in Gloss. Med. et infim.
Latinitat. sub voce Labarum, and Godefroy, ad Cod. Theodos. tom.
ii. p. 143.]
[Footnote 34: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 30, 31.
Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 312, No. 26) has engraved a
representation of the Labarum.]
[Footnote 35: Transversa X litera, summo capite circumflexo,
Christum in scutis notat. Caecilius de M. P. c. 44, Cuper, (ad
M. P. in edit. Lactant. tom. ii. p. 500,) and Baronius (A. D.
312, No. 25) have engraved from ancient monuments several
specimens (as thus of these monograms) which became extremely
fashionable in the Christian world.]
[Footnote 36: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 7, 8, 9. He
introduces the Labarum before the Italian expedition; but his
narrative seems to indicate that it was never shown at the head
of an army till Constantine above ten years afterwards, declared
himself the enemy of Licinius, and the deliverer of the church.]
[Footnote 37: See Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxv. Sozomen, l. i. c.
2. Theophan. Chronograph. p. 11. Theophanes lived towards the
end of the eighth century, almost five hundred years after
Constantine. The modern Greeks were not inclined to display in
the field the standard of the empire and of Christianity; and
though they depended on every superstitious hope of defence, the
promise of victory would have appeared too bold a fiction.]
[Footnote 38: The Abbe du Voisin, p. 103, &c., alleges several of
these medals, and quotes a particular dissertation of a Jesuit
the Pere de Grainville, on this subject.]
II. In all occasions of danger and distress, it was the
practice of the primitive Christians to fortify their minds and
bodies by the sign of the cross, which they used, in all their
ecclesiastical rites, in all the daily occurrences of life, as an
infallible preservative against every species of spiritual or
temporal evil. ^39 The authority of the church might alone have
had sufficient weight to justify the devotion of Constantine, who
in the same prudent and gradual progress acknowledged the truth,
and assumed the symbol, of Christianity. But the testimony of a
contemporary writer, who in a formal treatise has avenged the
cause of religion, bestows on the piety of the emperor a more
awful and sublime character. He affirms, with the most perfect
confidence, that in the night which preceded the last battle
against Maxentius, Constantine was admonished in a dream ^* to
inscribe the shields of his soldiers with the celestial sign of
God, the sacred monogram of the name of Christ; that he executed
the commands of Heaven, and that his valor and obedience were
rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some
considerations might perhaps incline a sceptical mind to suspect
the judgment or the veracity of the rhetorician, whose pen,
either from zeal or interest, was devoted to the cause of the
prevailing faction. ^40 He appears to have published his deaths
of the persecutors at Nicomedia about three years after the Roman
victory; but the interval of a thousand miles, and a thousand
days, will allow an ample latitude for the invention of
declaimers, the credulity of party, and the tacit approbation of
the emperor himself who might listen without indignation to a
marvellous tale, which exalted his fame, and promoted his
designs. In favor of Licinius, who still dissembled his
animosity to the Christians, the same author has provided a
similar vision, of a form of prayer, which was communicated by an
angel, and repeated by the whole army before they engaged the
legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent repetition of
miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason
of mankind; ^41 but if the dream of Constantine is separately
considered, it may be naturally explained either by the policy or
the enthusiasm of the emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the
approaching day, which must decide the fate of the empire, was
suspended by a short and interrupted slumber, the venerable form
of Christ, and the well-known symbol of his religion, might
forcibly offer themselves to the active fancy of a prince who
reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly implored the power,
of the God of the Christians. As readily might a consummate
statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military
stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius
had employed with such art and effect. ^42 The praeternatural
origin of dreams was universally admitted by the nations of
antiquity, and a considerable part of the Gallic army was already
prepared to place their confidence in the salutary sign of the
Christian religion. The secret vision of Constantine could be
disproved only by the event; and the intrepid hero who had passed
the Alps and the Apennine, might view with careless despair the
consequences of a defeat under the walls of Rome. The senate and
people, exulting in their own deliverance from an odious tyrant,
acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed the powers
of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been obtained by
the protection of the gods. The triumphal arch, which was
erected about three years after the event, proclaims, in
ambiguous language, that by the greatness of his own mind, and by
an instinct or impulse of the Divinity, he had saved and avenged
the Roman republic. ^43 The Pagan orator, who had seized an
earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues of the conqueror,
supposes that he alone enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce
with the Supreme Being, who delegated the care of mortals to his
subordinate deities; and thus assigns a very plausible reason why
the subjects of Constantine should not presume to embrace the new
religion of their sovereign. ^44
[Footnote 39: Tertullian de Corona, c. 3. Athanasius, tom. i. p.
101. The learned Jesuit Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. l. xv. c. 9,
10) has collected many similar passages on the virtues of the
cross, which in the last age embarrassed our Protestant
disputants.]
[Footnote *: Manso has observed, that Gibbon ought not to have
separated the vision of Constantine from the wonderful apparition
in the sky, as the two wonders are closely connected in Eusebius.
Manso, Leben Constantine, p. 82 - M.]
[Footnote 40: Caecilius de M. P. c. 44. It is certain, that this
historical declamation was composed and published while Licinius,
sovereign of the East, still preserved the friendship of
Constantine and of the Christians. Every reader of taste must
perceive that the style is of a very different and inferior
character to that of Lactantius; and such indeed is the judgment
of Le Clerc and Lardner, (Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne, tom.
iii. p. 438. Credibility of the Gospel, &c., part ii. vol. vii.
p. 94.) Three arguments from the title of the book, and from the
names of Donatus and Caecilius, are produced by the advocates for
Lactantius. (See the P. Lestocq, tom. ii. p. 46-60.) Each of
these proofs is singly weak and defective; but their concurrence
has great weight. I have often fluctuated, and shall tamely
follow the Colbert Ms. in calling the author (whoever he was)
Caecilius.]
[Footnote 41: Caecilius de M. P. c. 46. There seems to be some
reason in the observation of M. de Voltaire, (Euvres, tom. xiv.
p. 307.) who ascribes to the success of Constantine the superior
fame of his Labarum above the angel of Licinius. Yet even this
angel is favorably entertained by Pagi, Tillemont, Fleury, &c.,
who are fond of increasing their stock of miracles.]
[Footnote 42: Besides these well-known examples, Tollius (Preface
to Boileau's translation of Longinus) has discovered a vision of
Antigonus, who assured his troops that he had seen a pentagon
(the symbol of safety) with these words, "In this conquer." But
Tollius has most inexcusably omitted to produce his authority,
and his own character, literary as well as moral, is not free
from reproach. (See Chauffepie, Dictionnaire Critique, tom. iv.
p. 460.) Without insisting on the silence of Diodorus Plutarch,
Justin, &c., it may be observed that Polyaenus, who in a separate
chapter (l. iv. c. 6) has collected nineteen military stratagems
of Antigonus, is totally ignorant of this remarkable vision.]
[Footnote 43: Instinctu Divinitatis, mentis magnitudine. The
inscription on the triumphal arch of Constantine, which has been
copied by Baronius, Gruter, &c., may still be perused by every
curious traveller.]
[Footnote 44: Habes profecto aliquid cum illa mente Divina
secretum; qua delegata nostra Diis Minoribus cura uni se tibi
dignatur ostendere Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]
III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the
dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even
of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude, that if the
eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the
understanding of the readers has much more frequently been
insulted by fiction. Every event, or appearance, or accident,
which seems to deviate from the ordinary course of nature, has
been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the Deity; and
the astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes given shape
and color, language and motion, to the fleeting but uncommon
meteors of the air. ^45 Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most
celebrated orators, who, in studied panegyrics, have labored to
exalt the glory of Constantine. Nine years after the Roman
victory, Nazarius ^46 describes an army of divine warriors, who
seemed to fall from the sky: he marks their beauty, their spirit,
their gigantic forms, the stream of light which beamed from their
celestial armor, their patience in suffering themselves to be
heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and their declaration that
they were sent, that they flew, to the assistance of the great
Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy, the Pagan orator
appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in whose presence he was then
speaking; and seems to hope that the ancient apparitions ^47
would now obtain credit from this recent and public event. The
Christian fable of Eusebius, which, in the space of twenty-six
years, might arise from the original dream, is cast in a much
more correct and elegant mould. In one of the marches of
Constantine, he is reported to have seen with his own eyes the
luminous trophy of the cross, placed above the meridian sun and
inscribed with the following words: By This Conquer. This
amazing object in the sky astonished the whole army, as well as
the emperor himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice of a
religion: but his astonishment was converted into faith by the
vision of the ensuing night. Christ appeared before his eyes; and
displaying the same celestial sign of the cross, he directed
Constantine to frame a similar standard, and to march, with an
assurance of victory, against Maxentius and all his enemies. ^48
The learned bishop of Caesarea appears to be sensible, that the
recent discovery of this marvellous anecdote would excite some
surprise and distrust among the most pious of his readers. Yet,
instead of ascertaining the precise circumstances of time and
place, which always serve to detect falsehood or establish truth;
^49 instead of collecting and recording the evidence of so many
living witnesses who must have been spectators of this stupendous
miracle; ^50 Eusebius contents himself with alleging a very
singular testimony; that of the deceased Constantine, who, many
years after the event, in the freedom of conversation, had
related to him this extraordinary incident of his own life, and
had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. The prudence and
gratitude of the learned prelate forbade him to suspect the
veracity of his victorious master; but he plainly intimates, that
in a fact of such a nature, he should have refused his assent to
any meaner authority. This motive of credibility could not
survive the power of the Flavian family; and the celestial sign,
which the Infidels might afterwards deride, ^51 was disregarded
by the Christians of the age which immediately followed the
conversion of Constantine. ^52 But the Catholic church, both of
the East and of the West, has adopted a prodigy which favors, or
seems to favor, the popular worship of the cross. The vision of
Constantine maintained an honorable place in the legend of
superstition, till the bold and sagacious spirit of criticism
presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, of
the first Christian emperor. ^53
[Footnote 45: M. Freret (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. iv. p. 411-437) explains, by physical causes, many of the
prodigies of antiquity; and Fabricius, who is abused by both
parties, vainly tries to introduce the celestial cross of
Constantine among the solar halos. Bibliothec. Graec. tom. iv. p.
8-29.
Note: The great difficulty in resolving it into a natural
phenomenon, arises from the inscription; even the most heated or
awe-struck imagination would hardly discover distinct and legible
letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may have been a
later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning which
the sign was construed to convey. Compare Heirichen, Excur in
locum Eusebii, and the authors quoted.]
[Footnote 46: Nazarius inter Panegyr. Vet. x. 14, 15. It is
unnecessary to name the moderns, whose undistinguishing and
ravenous appetite has swallowed even the Pagan bait of Nazarius.]
[Footnote 47: The apparitions of Castor and Pollux, particularly
to announce the Macedonian victory, are attested by historians
and public monuments. See Cicero de Natura Deorum, ii. 2, iii.
5, 6. Florus, ii. 12. Valerius Maximus, l. i. c. 8, No. 1. Yet
the most recent of these miracles is omitted, and indirectly
denied, by Livy, (xlv. i.)]
[Footnote 48: Eusebius, l. i. c. 28, 29, 30. The silence of the
same Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, is deeply felt by
those advocates for the miracle who are not absolutely callous.]
[Footnote 49: The narrative of Constantine seems to indicate,
that he saw the cross in the sky before he passed the Alps
against Maxentius. The scene has been fixed by provincial vanity
at Treves, Besancon, &c. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. iv. p. 573.]
[Footnote 50: The pious Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
1317) rejects with a sigh the useful Acts of Artemius, a veteran
and a martyr, who attests as an eye-witness to the vision of
Constantine.]
[Footnote 51: Gelasius Cyzic. in Act. Concil. Nicen. l. i. c. 4.]
[Footnote 52: The advocates for the vision are unable to produce
a single testimony from the Fathers of the fourth and fifth
centuries, who, in their voluminous writings, repeatedly
celebrate the triumph of the church and of Constantine. As these
venerable men had not any dislike to a miracle, we may suspect,
(and the suspicion is confirmed by the ignorance of Jerom,) that
they were all unacquainted with the life of Constantine by
Eusebius. This tract was recovered by the diligence of those who
translated or continued his Ecclesiastical History, and who have
represented in various colors the vision of the cross.]
[Footnote 53: Godefroy was the first, who, in the year 1643, (Not
ad Philostorgium, l. i. c. 6, p. 16,) expressed any doubt of a
miracle which had been supported with equal zeal by Cardinal
Baronius, and the Centuriators of Magdeburgh. Since that time,
many of the Protestant critics have inclined towards doubt and
disbelief. The objections are urged, with great force, by M.
Chauffepie, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom. iv. p. 6 - 11;) and, in
the year 1774, a doctor of Sorbonne, the Abbe du Veisin published
an apology, which deserves the praise of learning and moderation.
Note: The first Excursus of Heinichen (in Vitam Constantini,
p. 507) contains a full summary of the opinions and arguments of
the later writers who have discussed this interminable subject.
As to his conversion, where interest and inclination, state
policy, and, if not a sincere conviction of its truth, at least a
respect, an esteem, an awe of Christianity, thus coincided,
Constantine himself would probably have been unable to trace the
actual history of the workings of his own mind, or to assign its
real influence to each concurrent motive. - M]
The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age
will incline to believe, that in the account of his own
conversion, Constantine attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn
and deliberate perjury. They may not hesitate to pronounce, that
in the choice of a religion, his mind was determined only by a
sense of interest; and that (according to the expression of a
profane poet ^54) he used the altars of the church as a
convenient footstool to the throne of the empire. A conclusion
so harsh and so absolute is not, however, warranted by our
knowledge of human nature, of Constantine, or of Christianity.
In an age of religious fervor, the most artful statesmen are
observed to feel some part of the enthusiasm which they inspire,
and the most orthodox saints assume the dangerous privilege of
defending the cause of truth by the arms of deceit and falsehood.
Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as
of our practice; and the same motives of temporal advantage which
might influence the public conduct and professions of
Constantine, would insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a
religion so propitious to his fame and fortunes. His vanity was
gratified by the flattering assurance, that he had been chosen by
Heaven to reign over the earth; success had justified his divine
title to the throne, and that title was founded on the truth of
the Christian revelation. As real virtue is sometimes excited by
undeserved applause, the specious piety of Constantine, if at
first it was only specious, might gradually, by the influence of
praise, of habit, and of example, be matured into serious faith
and fervent devotion. The bishops and teachers of the new sect,
whose dress and manners had not qualified them for the residence
of a court, were admitted to the Imperial table; they accompanied
the monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant which one of
them, an Egyptian or a Spaniard, ^55 acquired over his mind, was
imputed by the Pagans to the effect of magic. ^56 Lactantius, who
has adorned the precepts of the gospel with the eloquence of
Cicero, ^57 and Eusebius, who has consecrated the learning and
philosophy of the Greeks to the service of religion, ^58 were
both received into the friendship and familiarity of their
sovereign; and those able masters of controversy could patiently
watch the soft and yielding moments of persuasion, and
dexterously apply the arguments which were the best adapted to
his character and understanding. Whatever advantages might be
derived from the acquisition of an Imperial proselyte, he was
distinguished by the splendor of his purple, rather than by the
superiority of wisdom, or virtue, from the many thousands of his
subjects who had embraced the doctrines of Christianity. Nor can
it be deemed incredible, that the mind of an unlettered soldier
should have yielded to the weight of evidence, which, in a more
enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued the reason of a
Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the incessant
labors of his great office, this soldier employed, or affected to
employ, the hours of the night in the diligent study of the
Scriptures, and the composition of theological discourses; which
he afterwards pronounced in the presence of a numerous and
applauding audience. In a very long discourse, which is still
extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs still
extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs of
religion; but he dwells with peculiar complacency on the
Sibylline verses, ^59 and the fourth eclogue of Virgil. ^60 Forty
years before the birth of Christ, the Mantuan bard, as if
inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had celebrated, with
all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the Virgin, the
fall of the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike child,
the offspring of the great Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt
of human kind, and govern the peaceful universe with the virtues
of his father; the rise and appearance of a heavenly race,
primitive nation throughout the world; and the gradual
restoration of the innocence and felicity of the golden age. The
poet was perhaps unconscious of the secret sense and object of
these sublime predictions, which have been so unworthily applied
to the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir; ^61 but if a more
splendid, and indeed specious interpretation of the fourth
eclogue contributed to the conversion of the first Christian
emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked among the most
successful missionaries of the gospel. ^62
[Footnote 54: Lors Constantin dit ces propres paroles:
J'ai renverse le culte des idoles:
Sur les debris de leurs temples fumans
Au Dieu du Ciel j'ai prodigue l'encens.
Mais tous mes soins pour sa grandeur supreme
N'eurent jamais d'autre objet que moi-meme;
Les saints autels n'etoient a mes regards
Qu'un marchepie du trone des Cesars.
L'ambition, la fureur, les delices
Etoient mes Dieux, avoient mes sacrifices.
L'or des Chretiens, leur intrigues, leur sang
Ont cimente ma fortune et mon rang.
The poem which contains these lines may be read with
pleasure, but cannot be named with decency.]
[Footnote 55: This favorite was probably the great Osius, bishop
of Cordova, who preferred the pastoral care of the whole church
to the government of a particular diocese. His character is
magnificently, though concisely, expressed by Athanasius, (tom.
i. p. 703.) See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 524-561.
Osius was accused, perhaps unjustly, of retiring from court with
a very ample fortune.]
[Footnote 56: See Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. passim) and
Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.]
[Footnote 57: The Christianity of Lactantius was of a moral
rather than of a mysterious cast. "Erat paene rudis (says the
orthodox Bull) disciplinae Christianae, et in rhetorica melius
quam in theologia versatus." Defensio Fidei Nicenae, sect. ii. c.
14.]
[Footnote 58: Fabricius, with his usual diligence, has collected
a list of between three and four hundred authors quoted in the
Evangelical Preparation of Eusebius. See Bibl. Graec. l. v. c.
4, tom. vi. p. 37-56.]
[Footnote 59: See Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 19 20. He
chiefly depends on a mysterious acrostic, composed in the sixth
age after the Deluge, by the Erythraean Sibyl, and translated by
Cicero into Latin. The initial letters of the thirty-four Greek
verses form this prophetic sentence: Jesus Christ, Son of God,
Savior of the World.]
[Footnote 60: In his paraphrase of Virgil, the emperor has
frequently assisted and improved the literal sense of the Latin
ext. See Blondel des Sibylles, l. i. c. 14, 15, 16.]
[Footnote 61: The different claims of an elder and younger son of
Pollio, of Julia, of Drusus, of Marcellus, are found to be
incompatible with chronology, history, and the good sense of
Virgil.]
[Footnote 62: See Lowth de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum Praelect. xxi.
p. 289- 293. In the examination of the fourth eclogue, the
respectable bishop of London has displayed learning, taste,
ingenuity, and a temperate enthusiasm, which exalts his fancy
without degrading his judgment.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.
Part III.
The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were
concealed from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechu mens,
with an affected secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and
curiosity. ^63 But the severe rules of discipline which the
prudence of the bishops had instituted, were relaxed by the same
prudence in favor of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so
important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale
of the church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit
dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had
contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian. Instead of
retiring from the congregation, when the voice of the deacon
dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the faithful,
disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and
intricate subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the
vigil of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a
partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and hierophant of the
Christian mysteries. ^64 The pride of Constantine might assume,
and his services had deserved, some extraordinary distinction:
and ill-timed rigor might have blasted the unripened fruits of
his conversion; and if the doors of the church had been strictly
closed against a prince who had deserted the altars of the gods,
the master of the empire would have been left destitute of any
form of religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously
disclaimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by
refusing to lead the military procession of the equestrian order,
and to offer the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline
Hill. ^65 Many years before his baptism and death, Constantine
had proclaimed to the world, that neither his person nor his
image should ever more be seen within the walls of an idolatrous
temple; while he distributed through the provinces a variety of
medals and pictures, which represented the emperor in an humble
and suppliant posture of Christian devotion. ^66
[Footnote 63: The distinction between the public and the secret
parts of divine service, the missa catechumenorum and the missa
fidelium, and the mysterious veil which piety or policy had cast
over the latter, are very judiciously explained by Thiers,
Exposition du Saint Sacrament, l. i. c. 8- 12, p. 59-91: but as,
on this subject, the Papists may reasonably be suspected, a
Protestant reader will depend with more confidence on the learned
Bingham, Antiquities, l. x. c. 5.]
[Footnote 64: See Eusebius in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 15-32, and
the whole tenor of Constantine's Sermon. The faith and devotion
of the emperor has furnished Batonics with a specious argument in
favor of his early baptism.
Note: Compare Heinichen, Excursus iv. et v., where these
questions are examined with candor and acuteness, and with
constant reference to the opinions of more modern writers. - M.]
[Footnote 65: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 105.]
[Footnote 66: Eusebius in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 15, 16.]
The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a
catechumen, cannot easily be explained or excused; but the delay
of his baptism may be justified by the maxims and the practice of
ecclesiastical antiquity. The sacrament of baptism ^67 was
regularly administered by the bishop himself, with his assistant
clergy, in the cathedral church of the diocese, during the fifty
days between the solemn festivals of Easter and Pentecost; and
this holy term admitted a numerous band of infants and adult
persons into the bosom of the church. The discretion of parents
often suspended the baptism of their children till they could
understand the obligations which they contracted: the severity of
ancient bishops exacted from the new converts a novitiate of two
or three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different
motives of a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom
impatient to assume the character of perfect and initiated
Christians. The sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain a
full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly
restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of
eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity, there
are many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite,
which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable
privilege, which could never be recovered. By the delay of their
baptism, they could venture freely to indulge their passions in
the enjoyments of this world, while they still retained in their
own hands the means of a sure and easy absolution. ^68 The
sublime theory of the gospel had made a much fainter impression
on the heart than on the understanding of Constantine himself.
He pursued the great object of his ambition through the dark and
bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory, he
abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his
fortune. Instead of asserting his just superiority above the
imperfect heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the
Antonines, the mature age of Constantine forfeited the reputation
which he had acquired in his youth. As he gradually advanced in
the knowledge of truth, he proportionally declined in the
practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in which he
convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or
rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone sufficient
to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus, ^69
who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his
father accepted from the ministers of christianity the expiation
which he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At the
time of the death of Crispus, the emperor could no longer
hesitate in the choice of a religion; he could no longer be
ignorant that the church was possessed of an infallible remedy,
though he chose to defer the application of it till the approach
of death had removed the temptation and danger of a relapse. The
bishops whom he summoned, in his last illness, to the palace of
Nicomedia, were edified by the fervor with which he requested and
received the sacrament of baptism, by the solemn protestation
that the remainder of his life should be worthy of a disciple of
Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial purple
after he had been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte.
The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance
the delay of baptism. ^70 Future tyrants were encouraged to
believe, that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long
reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of
regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously undermined
the foundations of moral virtue.
[Footnote 67: The theory and practice of antiquity, with regard
to the sacrament of baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom
Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 3-405; Dom Martenne de
Ritibus Ecclesiae Antiquis, tom. i.; and by Bingham, in the tenth
and eleventh books of his Christian Antiquities. One
circumstance may be observed, in which the modern churches have
materially departed from the ancient custom. The sacrament of
baptism (even when it was administered to infants) was
immediately followed by confirmation and the holy communion.]
[Footnote 68: The Fathers, who censured this criminal delay,
could not deny the certain and victorious efficacy even of a
death-bed baptism. The ingenious rhetoric of Chrysostom could
find only three arguments against these prudent Christians. 1.
That we should love and pursue virtue for her own sake, and not
merely for the reward. 2. That we may be surprised by death
without an opportunity of baptism. 3. That although we shall be
placed in heaven, we shall only twinkle like little stars, when
compared to the suns of righteousness who have run their
appointed course with labor, with success, and with glory.
Chrysos tom in Epist. ad Hebraeos, Homil. xiii. apud Chardon,
Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 49. I believe that this delay of
baptism, though attended with the most pernicious consequences,
was never condemned by any general or provincial council, or by
any public act or declaration of the church. The zeal of the
bishops was easily kindled on much slighter occasion.
Note: This passage of Chrysostom, though not in his more
forcible manner, is not quite fairly represented. He is stronger
in other places, in Act. Hom. xxiii. - and Hom. i. Compare,
likewise, the sermon of Gregory of Nysea on this subject, and
Gregory Nazianzen. After all, to those who believed in the
efficacy of baptism, what argument could be more conclusive, than
the danger of dying without it? Orat. xl. - M.]
[Footnote 69: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104. For this disingenuous
falsehood he has deserved and experienced the harshest treatment
from all the ecclesiastical writers, except Cardinal Baronius,
(A. D. 324, No. 15-28,) who had occasion to employ the infidel on
a particular service against the Arian Eusebius.
Note: Heyne, in a valuable note on this passage of Zosimus,
has shown decisively that this malicious way of accounting for
the conversion of Constantine was not an invention of Zosimus.
It appears to have been the current calumny eagerly adopted and
propagated by the exasperated Pagan party. Reitemeter, a later
editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent
edition, in the collection of the Byzantine historians, has a
disquisition on the passage, as candid, but not more conclusive
than some which have preceded him - M.]
[Footnote 70: Eusebius, l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The bishop of
Caesarea supposes the salvation of Constantine with the most
perfect confidence.]
The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and
excused the failings of a generous patron, who seated
Christianity on the throne of the Roman world; and the Greeks,
who celebrate the festival of the Imperial saint, seldom mention
the name of Constantine without adding the title of equal to the
Apostles. ^71 Such a comparison, if it allude to the character of
those divine missionaries, must be imputed to the extravagance of
impious flattery. But if the parallel be confined to the extent
and number of their evangelic victories the success of
Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles themselves.
By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal
disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of
Christianity; and its active and numerous ministers received a
free permission, a liberal encouragement, to recommend the
salutary truths of revelation by every argument which could
affect the reason or piety of mankind. The exact balance of the
two religions continued but a moment; and the piercing eye of
ambition and avarice soon discovered, that the profession of
Christianity might contribute to the interest of the present, as
well as of a future life. ^72 The hopes of wealth and honors, the
example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles,
diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which
usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities which
signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their
temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded
with popular donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried
in the singular advantage that Constantinople was never profaned
by the worship of idols. ^73 As the lower ranks of society are
governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any
eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by
dependent multitudes. ^74 The salvation of the common people was
purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that, in one year,
twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a
proportionable number of women and children, and that a white
garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the
emperor to every convert. ^75 The powerful influence of
Constantine was not circumscribed by the narrow limits of his
life, or of his dominions. The education which he bestowed on
his sons and nephews secured to the empire a race of princes,
whose faith was still more lively and sincere, as they imbibed,
in their earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the doctrine,
of Christianity. War and commerce had spread the knowledge of
the gospel beyond the confines of the Roman provinces; and the
Barbarians, who had disdained as humble and proscribed sect, soon
learned to esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by
the greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation, of the
globe. ^76 The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard
of Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the head of the
legions, and their fierce countrymen received at the same time
the lessons of faith and of humanity. The kings of Iberia and
Armenia ^* worshipped the god of their protector; and their
subjects, who have invariably preserved the name of Christians,
soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with their Roman
brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of
war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long
as peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting
spirit of the Magi was effectually restrained by the
interposition of Constantine. ^77 The rays of the gospel
illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews, who had
penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, ^78 opposed the progress of
Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some
measure facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic
revelation; and Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius,
^* who, in the time of Constantine, devoted his life to the
conversion of those sequestered regions. Under the reign of his
son Constantius, Theophilus, ^79 who was himself of Indian
extraction, was invested with the double character of ambassador
and bishop. He embarked on the Red Sea with two hundred horses
of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor
to the prince of the Sabaeans, or Homerites. Theophilus was
intrusted with many other useful or curious presents, which might
raise the admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the
Barbarians; and he successfully employed several years in a
pastoral visit to the churches of the torrid zone. ^80
[Footnote 71: See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
429. The Greeks, the Russians, and, in the darker ages, the
Latins themselves, have been desirous of placing Constantine in
the catalogue of saints.]
[Footnote 72: See the third and fourth books of his life. He was
accustomed to say, that whether Christ was preached in pretence,
or in truth, he should still rejoice, (l. iii. c. 58.)]
[Footnote 73: M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
374, 616) has defended, with strength and spirit, the virgin
purity of Constantinople against some malevolent insinuations of
the Pagan Zosimus.]
[Footnote 74: The author of the Histoire Politique et
Philosophique des deux Indes (tom. i. p. 9) condemns a law of
Constantine, which gave freedom to all the slaves who should
embrace Christianity. The emperor did indeed publish a law,
which restrained the Jews from circumcising, perhaps from
keeping, any Christian slave. (See Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l.
iv. c. 27, and Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ix., with Godefroy's
Commentary, tom. vi. p. 247.) But this imperfect exception
related only to the Jews, and the great body of slaves, who were
the property of Christian or Pagan masters, could not improve
their temporal condition by changing their religion. I am
ignorant by what guides the Abbe Raynal was deceived; as the
total absence of quotations is the unpardonable blemish of his
entertaining history.]
[Footnote 75: See Acta S Silvestri, and Hist. Eccles. Nicephor.
Callist. l. vii. c. 34, ap. Baronium Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324,
No. 67, 74. Such evidence is contemptible enough; but these
circumstances are in themselves so probable, that the learned Dr.
Howell (History of the World, vol. iii. p. 14) has not scrupled
to adopt them.]
[Footnote 76: The conversion of the Barbarians under the reign of
Constantine is celebrated by the ecclesiastical historians. (See
Sozomen, l. ii. c. 6, and Theodoret, l. i. c. 23, 24.) But
Rufinus, the Latin translator of Eusebius, deserves to be
considered as an original authority. His information was
curiously collected from one of the companions of the Apostle of
Aethiopia, and from Bacurius, an Iberian prince, who was count of
the domestics. Father Mamachi has given an ample compilation on
the progress of Christianity, in the first and second volumes of
his great but imperfect work.]
[Footnote *: According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia
(Georgia) was converted by the virgin Nino, who effected an
extraordinary cure on the wife of the king Mihran. The temple of
the god Aramazt, or Armaz, not far from the capital Mtskitha, was
destroyed, and the cross erected in its place. Le Beau, i. 202,
with St. Martin's Notes.
St. Martin has likewise clearly shown (St. Martin, Add. to
Le Beau, i. 291) Armenia was the first nation w hich embraced
Christianity, (Addition to Le Beau, i. 76. and Memoire sur
l'Armenie, i. 305.) Gibbon himself suspected this truth. -
"Instead of maintaining that the conversion of Armenia was not
attempted with any degree of success, till the sceptre was in the
hands of an orthodox emperor," I ought to have said, that the
seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last
and greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist the
labors of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of
the East, may dispute with Constantine the honor of being the
first sovereign who embraced the Christian religion Vindication]
[Footnote 77: See, in Eusebius, (in Vit. l. iv. c. 9,) the
pressing and pathetic epistle of Constantine in favor of his
Christian brethren of Persia.]
[Footnote 78: See Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. p. 182,
tom. viii. p. 333, tom. ix. p. 810. The curious diligence of
this writer pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities of the
globe.]
[Footnote *: Abba Salama, or Fremonatus, is mentioned in the
Tareek Negushti, chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. Salt's
Travels, vol. ii. p. 464. - M.]
[Footnote 79: Theophilus had been given in his infancy as a
hostage by his countrymen of the Isle of Diva, and was educated
by the Romans in learning and piety. The Maldives, of which
Male, or Diva, may be the capital, are a cluster of 1900 or 2000
minute islands in the Indian Ocean. The ancients were
imperfectly acquainted with the Maldives; but they are described
in the two Mahometan travellers of the ninth century, published
by Renaudot, Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 30, 31 D'Herbelot,
Bibliotheque Orientale p. 704. Hist. Generale des Voy ages, tom.
viii.]
[Footnote !: See the dissertation of M. Letronne on this
question. He conceives that Theophilus was born in the island of
Dahlak, in the Arabian Gulf. His embassy was to Abyssinia rather
than to India. Letronne, Materiaux pour l'Hist. du Christianisme
en Egypte Indie, et Abyssinie. Paris, 1832 3d Dissert. - M.]
[Footnote 80: Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 4, 5, 6, with Godefroy's
learned observations. The historical narrative is soon lost in
an inquiry concerning the seat of Paradise, strange monsters,
&c.]
The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed
in the important and dangerous change of the national religion.
The terrors of a military force silenced the faint and
unsupported murmurs of the Pagans, and there was reason to
expect, that the cheerful submission of the Christian clergy, as
well as people, would be the result of conscience and gratitude.
It was long since established, as a fundamental maxim of the
Roman constitution, that every rank of citizens was alike subject
to the laws, and that the care of religion was the right as well
as duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine and his successors
could not easily persuade themselves that they had forfeited, by
their conversion, any branch of the Imperial prerogatives, or
that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they
had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to
exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical order,
and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a
variety of titles, the authority which they assumed in the
government of the Catholic church.
But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal powers,
^81 which had never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece and
Rome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of
Christianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, from the
time of Numa to that of Augustus, had always been exercised by
one of the most eminent of the senators, was at length united to
the Imperial dignity. The first magistrate of the state, as
often as he was prompted by superstition or policy, performed
with his own hands the sacerdotal functions; ^82 nor was there
any order of priests, either at Rome or in the provinces, who
claimed a more sacred character among men, or a more intimate
communication with the gods. But in the Christian church, which
instrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual succession of
consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less
honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the
rails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the
faithful multitude. ^83 The emperor might be saluted as the
father of his people, but he owed a filial duty and reverence to
the fathers of the church; and the same marks of respect, which
Constantine had paid to the persons of saints and confessors,
were soon exacted by the pride of the episcopal order. ^84 A
secret conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical
jurisdictions embarrassed the operation of the Roman government;
and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and danger of
touching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. The
separation of men into the two orders of the clergy and of the
laity was, indeed, familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the
priests of India, of Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of Aethiopia,
of Egypt, and of Gaul, derived from a celestial origin the
temporal power and possessions which they had acquired. These
venerable institutions had gradually assimilated themselves to
the manners and government of their respective countries; ^85 but
the opposition or contempt of the civil power served to cement
the discipline of the primitive church. The Christians had been
obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise and distribute a
peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy of their
republic by a code of laws, which were ratified by the consent of
the people and the practice of three hundred years. When
Constantine embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to
contract a perpetual alliance with a distinct and independent
society; and the privileges granted or confirmed by that emperor,
or by his successors, were accepted, not as the precarious favors
of the court, but as the just and inalienable rights of the
ecclesiastical order.
[Footnote 81: See the epistle of Osius, ap. Athanasium, vol. i.
p. 840. The public remonstrance which Osius was forced to address
to the son, contained the same principles of ecclesiastical and
civil government which he had secretly instilled into the mind of
the father.]
[Footnote 82: M. de la Bastiel has evidently proved, that
Augustus and his successors exercised in person all the sacred
functions of pontifex maximus, of high priest, of the Roman
empire.]
[Footnote 83: Something of a contrary practice had insensibly
prevailed in the church of Constantinople; but the rigid Ambrose
commanded Theodosius to retire below the rails, and taught him to
know the difference between a king and a priest. See Theodoret,
l. v. c. 18.]
[Footnote 84: At the table of the emperor Maximus, Martin, bishop
of Tours, received the cup from an attendant, and gave it to the
presbyter, his companion, before he allowed the emperor to drink;
the empress waited on Martin at table. Sulpicius Severus, in
Vit. S Martin, c. 23, and Dialogue ii. 7. Yet it may be doubted,
whether these extraordinary compliments were paid to the bishop
or the saint. The honors usually granted to the former character
may be seen in Bingham's Antiquities, l. ii. c. 9, and Vales ad
Theodoret, l. iv. c. 6. See the haughty ceremonial which
Leontius, bishop of Tripoli, imposed on the empress. Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 754. (Patres Apostol. tom. ii.
p. 179.)]
[Footnote 85: Plutarch, in his treatise of Isis and Osiris,
informs us that the kings of Egypt, who were not already priests,
were initiated, after their election, into the sacerdotal order.]
The Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and
legal jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops; ^86 of whom one
thousand were seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in the
Latin, provinces of the empire. The extent and boundaries of
their respective dioceses had been variously and accidentally
decided by the zeal and success of the first missionaries, by the
wishes of the people, and by the propagation of the gospel.
Episcopal churches were closely planted along the banks of the
Nile, on the sea-coast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and
through the southern provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and
Spain, of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and
delegated their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate
duties of the pastoral office. ^87 A Christian diocese might be
spread over a province, or reduced to a village; but all the
bishops possessed an equal and indelible character: they all
derived the same powers and privileges from the apostles, from
the people, and from the laws. While the civil and military
professions were separated by the policy of Constantine, a new
and perpetual order of ecclesiastical ministers, always
respectable, sometimes dangerous, was established in the church
and state. The important review of their station and attributes
may be distributed under the following heads: I. Popular
Election. II. Ordination of the Clergy. III. Property. IV.
Civil Jurisdiction. V. Spiritual censures. VI. Exercise of
public oratory. VII. Privilege of legislative assemblies.
[Footnote 86: The numbers are not ascertained by any ancient
writer or original catalogue; for the partial lists of the
eastern churches are comparatively modern. The patient diligence
of Charles a Sto Paolo, of Luke Holstentius, and of Bingham, has
laboriously investigated all the episcopal sees of the Catholic
church, which was almost commensurate with the Roman empire. The
ninth book of the Christian antiquities is a very accurate map of
ecclesiastical geography.]
[Footnote 87: On the subject of rural bishops, or Chorepiscopi,
who voted in tynods, and conferred the minor orders, See
Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 447, &c., and
Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. v. p. 395, &c. They do not
appear till the fourth century; and this equivocal character,
which had excited the jealousy of the prelates, was abolished
before the end of the tenth, both in the East and the West.]
I. The freedom of election subsisted long after the legal
establishment of Christianity; ^88 and the subjects of Rome
enjoyed in the church the privilege which they had lost in the
republic, of choosing the magistrates whom they were bound to
obey. As soon as a bishop had closed his eyes, the metropolitan
issued a commission to one of his suffragans to administer the
vacant see, and prepare, within a limited time, the future
election. The right of voting was vested in the inferior clergy,
who were best qualified to judge of the merit of the candidates;
in the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were
distinguished by their rank or property; and finally in the whole
body of the people, who, on the appointed day, flocked in
multitudes from the most remote parts of the diocese, ^89 and
sometimes silenced by their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of
reason and the laws of discipline. These acclamations might
accidentally fix on the head of the most deserving competitor; of
some ancient presbyter, some holy monk, or some layman,
conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the episcopal chair was
solicited, especially in the great and opulent cities of the
empire, as a temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity. The
interested views, the selfish and angry passions, the arts of
perfidy and dissimulation, the secret corruption, the open and
even bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of
election in the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often
influenced the choice of the successors of the apostles. While
one of the candidates boasted the honors of his family, a second
allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful table, and a
third, more guilty than his rivals, offered to share the plunder
of the church among the accomplices of his sacrilegious hopes ^90
The civil as well as ecclesiastical laws attempted to exclude the
populace from this solemn and important transaction. The canons
of ancient discipline, by requiring several episcopal
qualifications, of age, station, &c., restrained, in some
measure, the indiscriminate caprice of the electors. The
authority of the provincial bishops, who were assembled in the
vacant church to consecrate the choice of the people, was
interposed to moderate their passions and to correct their
mistakes. The bishops could refuse to ordain an unworthy
candidate, and the rage of contending factions sometimes accepted
their impartial mediation. The submission, or the resistance, of
the clergy and people, on various occasions, afforded different
precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive laws
and provincial customs; ^91 but it was every where admitted, as a
fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop could be
imposed on an orthodox church, without the consent of its
members. The emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and
as the first citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might
effectually declare their wishes in the choice of a primate; but
those absolute monarchs respected the freedom of ecclesiastical
elections; and while they distributed and resumed the honors of
the state and army, they allowed eighteen hundred perpetual
magistrates to receive their important offices from the free
suffrages of the people. ^92 It was agreeable to the dictates of
justice, that these magistrates should not desert an honorable
station from which they could not be removed; but the wisdom of
councils endeavored, without much success, to enforce the
residence, and to prevent the translation, of bishops. The
discipline of the West was indeed less relaxed than that of the
East; but the same passions which made those regulations
necessary, rendered them ineffectual. The reproaches which angry
prelates have so vehemently urged against each other, serve only
to expose their common guilt, and their mutual indiscretion.
[Footnote 88: Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom, ii. l. ii.
c. 1-8, p. 673-721) has copiously treated of the election of
bishops during the five first centuries, both in the East and in
the West; but he shows a very partial bias in favor of the
episcopal aristocracy. Bingham, (l. iv. c. 2) is moderate; and
Chardon (Hist. des Sacremens tom. v. p. 108-128) is very clear
and concise.
Note: This freedom was extremely limited, and soon
annihilated; already, from the third century, the deacons were no
longer nominated by the members of the community, but by the
bishops. Although it appears by the letters of Cyprian, that
even in his time, no priest could be elected without the consent
of the community. (Ep. 68,) that election was far from being
altogether free. The bishop proposed to his parishioners the
candidate whom he had chosen, and they were permitted to make
such objections as might be suggested by his conduct and morals.
(St. Cyprian, Ep. 33.) They lost this last right towards the
middle of the fourth century. - G]
[Footnote 89: Incredibilis multitudo, non solum ex eo oppido,
(Tours,) sed etiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda
convenerat, &c. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Martin. c. 7. The
council of Laodicea, (canon xiii.) prohibits mobs and tumults;
and Justinian confines confined the right of election to the
nobility. Novel. cxxiii. l.]
[Footnote 90: The epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris (iv. 25, vii.
5, 9) exhibit some of the scandals of the Gallican church; and
Gaul was less polished and less corrupt than the East.]
[Footnote 91: A compromise was sometimes introduced by law or by
consent; either the bishops or the people chose one of the three
candidates who had been named by the other party.]
[Footnote 92: All the examples quoted by Thomassin (Discipline de
l'Eglise, tom. ii. l. iii. c. vi. p. 704-714) appear to be
extraordinary acts of power, and even of oppression. The
confirmation of the bishop of Alexandria is mentioned by
Philostorgius as a more regular proceeding. (Hist Eccles. l. ii.
ll.)
Note: The statement of Planck is more consistent with
history: "From the middle of the fourth century, the bishops of
some of the larger churches, particularly those of the Imperial
residence, were almost always chosen under the influence of the
court, and often directly and immediately nominated by the
emperor." Planck, Geschichte der Christlich-kirchlichen
Gesellschafteverfassung, verfassung, vol. i p 263. - M.]
II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of spiritual
generation: and this extraordinary privilege might compensate, in
some degree, for the painful celibacy ^93 which was imposed as a
virtue, as a duty, and at length as a positive obligation. The
religions of antiquity, which established a separate order of
priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe or family, to the
perpetual service of the gods. ^94 Such institutions were founded
for possession, rather than conquest. The children of the
priests enjoyed, with proud and indolent security, their sacred
inheritance; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the
cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But
the Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate,
who aspired to its heavenly promises or temporal possessions.
This office of priests, like that of soldiers or magistrates, was
strenuously exercised by those men, whose temper and abilities
had prompted them to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or
who had been selected by a discerning bishop, as the best
qualified to promote the glory and interest of the church. The
bishops ^95 (till the abuse was restrained by the prudence of the
laws) might constrain the reluctant, and protect the distressed;
and the imposition of hands forever bestowed some of the most
valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body of the
Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was
exempted ^* by the emperors from all service, private or public,
all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions,
which pressed on their fellow- citizens with intolerable weight;
and the duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full
discharge of their obligations to the republic. ^96 Each bishop
acquired an absolute and indefeasible right to the perpetual
obedience of the clerk whom he ordained: the clergy of each
episcopal church, with its dependent parishes, formed a regular
and permanent society; and the cathedrals of Constantinople ^97
and Carthage ^98 maintained their peculiar establishment of five
hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks ^99 and numbers
were insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times,
which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a
Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons,
sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and
doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to swell
the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and
privileges were extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly
supported the ecclesiastical throne. ^100 Six hundred parabolani,
or adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred
copiatoe, or grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople;
and the swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and
darkened the face of the Christian world.
[Footnote 93: The celibacy of the clergy during the first five or
six centuries, is a subject of discipline, and indeed of
controversy, which has been very diligently examined. See in
particular, Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. l. ii. c.
lx. lxi. p. 886-902, and Bingham's Antiquities, l. iv. c. 5. By
each of these learned but partial critics, one half of the truth
is produced, and the other is concealed.
Note: Compare Planck, (vol. i. p. 348.) This century, the
third, first brought forth the monks, or the spirit of monkery,
the celibacy of the clergy. Planck likewise observes, that from
the history of Eusebius alone, names of married bishops and
presbyters may be adduced by dozens. - M.]
[Footnote 94: Diodorus Siculus attests and approves the
hereditary succession of the priesthood among the Egyptians, the
Chaldeans, and the Indians, (l. i. p. 84, l. ii. p. 142, 153,
edit. Wesseling.) The magi are described by Ammianus as a very
numerous family: "Per saecula multa ad praesens una eademque
prosapia multitudo creata, Deorum cultibus dedicata." (xxiii. 6.)
Ausonius celebrates the Stirps Druidarum, (De Professorib.
Burdigal. iv.;) but we may infer from the remark of Caesar, (vi.
13,) that in the Celtic hierarchy, some room was left for choice
and emulation.]
[Footnote 95: The subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience,
&c., of the clergy, is laboriously discussed by Thomassin
(Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii. p. 1-83) and Bingham, (in the
4th book of his Antiquities, more especially the 4th, 6th, and
7th chapters.) When the brother of St. Jerom was ordained in
Cyprus, the deacons forcibly stopped his mouth, lest he should
make a solemn protestation, which might invalidate the holy
rites.]
[Footnote *: This exemption was very much limited. The municipal
offices were of two kinds; the one attached to the individual in
his character of inhabitant, the other in that of proprietor.
Constantine had exempted ecclesiastics from offices of the first
description. (Cod. Theod. xvi. t. ii. leg. 1, 2 Eusebius, Hist.
Eccles. l. x. c. vii.) They sought, also, to be exempted from
those of the second, (munera patrimoniorum.) The rich, to obtain
this privilege, obtained subordinate situations among the clergy.
Constantine published in 320 an edict, by which he prohibited the
more opulent citizens (decuriones and curiales) from embracing
the ecclesiastical profession, and the bishops from admitting new
ecclesiastics, before a place should be vacant by the death of
the occupant, (Godefroy ad Cod. Theod.t. xii. t. i. de Decur.)
Valentinian the First, by a rescript still more general enacted
that no rich citizen should obtain a situation in the church, (De
Episc 1. lxvii.) He also enacted that ecclesiastics, who wished
to be exempt from offices which they were bound to discharge as
proprietors, should be obliged to give up their property to their
relations. Cod Theodos l. xii t. i. leb. 49 - G.]
[Footnote 96: The charter of immunities, which the clergy
obtained from the Christian emperors, is contained in the 16th
book of the Theodosian code; and is illustrated with tolerable
candor by the learned Godefroy, whose mind was balanced by the
opposite prejudices of a civilian and a Protestant.]
[Footnote 97: Justinian. Novell. ciii. Sixty presbyters, or
priests, one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety
sub-deacons, one hundred and ten readers, twenty-five chanters,
and one hundred door-keepers; in all, five hundred and
twenty-five. This moderate number was fixed by the emperor to
relieve the distress of the church, which had been involved in
debt and usury by the expense of a much higher establishment.]
[Footnote 98: Universus clerus ecclesiae Carthaginiensis . . . .
fere quingenti vei amplius; inter quos quamplurima erant lectores
infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. v. 9, p. 78,
edit. Ruinart. This remnant of a more prosperous state still
subsisted under the oppression of the Vandals.]
[Footnote 99: The number of seven orders has been fixed in the
Latin church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the four
inferior ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and
useless titles.]
[Footnote 100: See Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 42, 43.
Godefroy's Commentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of
Alexandria, show the danger of these pious institutions, which
often disturbed the peace of that turbulent capital.]
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.
Part IV.
III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the
peace of the church. ^101 The Christians not only recovered the
lands and houses of which they had been stripped by the
persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they acquired a perfect title
to all the possessions which they had hitherto enjoyed by the
connivance of the magistrate. As soon as Christianity became the
religion of the emperor and the empire, the national clergy might
claim a decent and honorable maintenance; and the payment of an
annual tax might have delivered the people from the more
oppressive tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries.
But as the wants and expenses of the church increased with her
prosperity, the ecclesiastical order was still supported and
enriched by the voluntary oblations of the faithful. Eight years
after the edict of Milan, Constantine granted to all his subjects
the free and universal permission of bequeathing their fortunes
to the holy Catholic church; ^102 and their devout liberality,
which during their lives was checked by luxury or avarice, flowed
with a profuse stream at the hour of their death. The wealthy
Christians were encouraged by the example of their sovereign. An
absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be
charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed
that he should purchase the favor of Heaven, if he maintained the
idle at the expense of the industrious; and distributed among the
saints the wealth of the republic. The same messenger who carried
over to Africa the head of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an
epistle to Caecilian, bishop of Carthage. The emperor acquaints
him, that the treasurers of the province are directed to pay into
his hands the sum of three thousand folles, or eighteen thousand
pounds sterling, and to obey his further requisitions for the
relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania. ^103
The liberality of Constantine increased in a just proportion to
his faith, and to his vices. He assigned in each city a regular
allowance of corn, to supply the fund of ecclesiastical charity;
and the persons of both sexes who embraced the monastic life
became the peculiar favorites of their sovereign. The Christian
temples of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople &c.,
displayed the ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a
declining age to equal the perfect labors of antiquity. ^104 The
form of these religious edifices was simple and oblong; though
they might sometimes swell into the shape of a dome, and
sometimes branch into the figure of a cross. The timbers were
framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the roof was
covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the
columns, the pavement, were encrusted with variegated marbles.
The most precious ornaments of gold and silver, of silk and gems,
were profusely dedicated to the service of the altar; and this
specious magnificence was supported on the solid and perpetual
basis of landed property. In the space of two centuries, from
the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian, the eighteen
hundred churches of the empire were enriched by the frequent and
unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual income of
six hundred pounds sterling may be reasonably assigned to the
bishops, who were placed at an equal distance between riches and
poverty, ^105 but the standard of their wealth insensibly rose
with the dignity and opulence of the cities which they governed.
An authentic but imperfect ^106 rent-roll specifies some houses,
shops, gardens, and farms, which belonged to the three Basilicoe
of Rome, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John Lateran, in the
provinces of Italy, Africa, and the East. They produce, besides
a reserved rent of oil, linen, paper, aromatics, &c., a clear
annual revenue of twenty-two thousand pieces of gold, or twelve
thousand pounds sterling. In the age of Constantine and
Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no
longer deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and
people. The ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were divided
into four parts for the respective uses of the bishop himself, of
his inferior clergy, of the poor, and of the public worship; and
the abuse of this sacred trust was strictly and repeatedly
checked. ^107 The patrimony of the church was still subject to
all the public compositions of the state. ^108 The clergy of
Rome, Alexandria, Chessaionica, &c., might solicit and obtain
some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of the great
council of Rimini, which aspired to universal freedom, was
successfully resisted by the son of Constantine. ^109
[Footnote 101: The edict of Milan (de M. P. c. 48) acknowledges,
by reciting, that there existed a species of landed property, ad
jus corporis eorum, id est, ecclesiarum non hominum singulorum
pertinentia. Such a solemn declaration of the supreme magistrate
must have been received in all the tribunals as a maxim of civil
law.]
[Footnote 102: Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo
Catholicae (ecclesioe) venerabilique concilio, decedens bonorum
quod optavit relinquere. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 4.
This law was published at Rome, A. D. 321, at a time when
Constantine might foresee the probability of a rupture with the
emperor of the East.]
[Footnote 103: Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. 6; in Vit.
Constantin. l. iv. c. 28. He repeatedly expatiates on the
liberality of the Christian hero, which the bishop himself had an
opportunity of knowing, and even of lasting.]
[Footnote 104: Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 2, 3, 4. The
bishop of Caesarea who studied and gratified the taste of his
master, pronounced in public an elaborate description of the
church of Jerusalem, (in Vit Cons. l. vi. c. 46.) It no longer
exists, but he has inserted in the life of Constantine (l. iii.
c. 36) a short account of the architecture and ornaments. He
likewise mentions the church of the Holy Apostles at
Constantinople, (l. iv. c. 59.)]
[Footnote 105: See Justinian. Novell. cxxiii. 3. The revenue of
the patriarchs, and the most wealthy bishops, is not expressed:
the highest annual valuation of a bishopric is stated at thirty,
and the lowest at two, pounds of gold; the medium might be taken
at sixteen, but these valuations are much below the real value.]
[Footnote 106: See Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 58,
65, 70, 71.) Every record which comes from the Vatican is justly
suspected; yet these rent-rolls have an ancient and authentic
color; and it is at least evident, that, if forged, they were
forged in a period when farms not kingdoms, were the objects of
papal avarice.]
[Footnote 107: See Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii.
l. ii. c. 13, 14, 15, p. 689-706. The legal division of the
ecclesiastical revenue does not appear to have been established
in the time of Ambrose and Chrysostom. Simplicius and Gelasius,
who were bishops of Rome in the latter part of the fifth century,
mention it in their pastoral letters as a general law, which was
already confirmed by the custom of Italy.]
[Footnote 108: Ambrose, the most strenuous assertor of
ecclesiastical privileges, submits without a murmur to the
payment of the land tax. "Si tri butum petit Imperator, non
negamus; agri ecclesiae solvunt tributum solvimus quae sunt
Caesaris Caesari, et quae sunt Dei Deo; tributum Caesaris est;
non negatur." Baronius labors to interpret this tribute as an act
of charity rather than of duty, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 387;) but
the words, if not the intentions of Ambrose are more candidly
explained by Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. l. i.
c. 34. p. 668.]
[Footnote 109: In Ariminense synodo super ecclesiarum et
clericorum privilegiis tractatu habito, usque eo dispositio
progressa est, ut juqa quae viderentur ad ecclesiam pertinere, a
publica functione cessarent inquietudine desistente; quod nostra
videtur dudum sanctio repulsisse. Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ii.
leg. 15. Had the synod of Rimini carried this point, such
practical merit might have atoned for some speculative heresies.]
IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the
ruins of the civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the
gift of Constantine, ^110 the independent jurisdiction, which was
the fruit of time, of accident, and of their own industry. But
the liberality of the Christian emperors had actually endowed
them with some legal prerogatives, which secured and dignified
the sacerdotal character. ^111 1. Under a despotic government,
the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted the inestimable privilege
of being tried only by their peers; and even in a capital
accusation, a synod of their brethren were the sole judges of
their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was
inflamed by personal resentment or religious discord, might be
favorable, or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but
Constantine was satisfied, ^112 that secret impunity would be
less pernicious than public scandal: and the Nicene council was
edited by his public declaration, that if he surprised a bishop
in the act of adultery, he should cast his Imperial mantle over
the episcopal sinner. 2. The domestic jurisdiction of the
bishops was at once a privilege and a restraint of the
ecclesiastical order, whose civil causes were decently withdrawn
from the cognizance of a secular judge. Their venial offences
were not exposed to the shame of a public trial or punishment;
and the gentle correction which the tenderness of youth may
endure from its parents or instructors, was inflicted by the
temperate severity of the bishops. But if the clergy were guilty
of any crime which could not be sufficiently expiated by their
degradation from an honorable and beneficial profession, the
Roman magistrate drew the sword of justice, without any regard to
ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of the bishops was
ratified by a positive law; and the judges were instructed to
execute, without appeal or delay, the episcopal decrees, whose
validity had hitherto depended on the consent of the parties.
The conversion of the magistrates themselves, and of the whole
empire, might gradually remove the fears and scruples of the
Christians. But they still resorted to the tribunal of the
bishops, whose abilities and integrity they esteemed; and the
venerable Austin enjoyed the satisfaction of complaining that his
spiritual functions were perpetually interrupted by the invidious
labor of deciding the claim or the possession of silver and gold,
of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient privilege of sanctuary was
transferred to the Christian temples, and extended, by the
liberal piety of the younger Theodosius, to the precincts of
consecrated ground. ^113 The fugitive, and even guilty
suppliants,were permitted to implore either the justice, or the
mercy, of the Deity and his ministers. The rash violence of
despotism was suspended by the mild interposition of the church;
and the lives or fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be
protected by the mediation of the bishop.
[Footnote 110: From Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 27) and
Sozomen (l. i. c. 9) we are assured that the episcopal
jurisdiction was extended and confirmed by Constantine; but the
forgery of a famous edict, which was never fairly inserted in the
Theodosian Code (see at the end, tom. vi. p. 303,) is
demonstrated by Godefroy in the most satisfactory manner. It is
strange that M. de Montesquieu, who was a lawyer as well as a
philosopher, should allege this edict of Constantine (Esprit des
Loix, l. xxix. c. 16) without intimating any suspicion.]
[Footnote 111: The subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction has
been involved in a mist of passion, of prejudice, and of
interest. Two of the fairest books which have fallen into my
hands, are the Institutes of Canon Law, by the Abbe de Fleury,
and the Civil History of Naples, by Giannone. Their moderation
was the effect of situation as well as of temper. Fleury was a
French ecclesiastic, who respected the authority of the
parliaments; Giannone was an Italian lawyer, who dreaded the
power of the church. And here let me observe, that as the
general propositions which I advance are the result of many
particular and imperfect facts, I must either refer the reader to
those modern authors who have expressly treated the subject, or
swell these notes disproportioned size.]
[Footnote 112: Tillemont has collected from Rufinus, Theodoret,
&c., the sentiments and language of Constantine. Mem Eccles tom.
iii p. 749, 759.]
[Footnote 113: See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xlv. leg. 4. In the
works of Fra Paolo. (tom. iv. p. 192, &c.,) there is an
excellent discourse on the origin, claims, abuses, and limits of
sanctuaries. He justly observes, that ancient Greece might
perhaps contain fifteen or twenty axyla or sanctuaries; a number
which at present may be found in Italy within the walls of a
single city.]
V. The bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his
people The discipline of penance was digested into a system of
canonical jurisprudence, ^114 which accurately defined the duty
of private or public confession, the rules of evidence, the
degrees of guilt, and the measure of punishment. It was
impossible to execute this spiritual censure, if the Christian
pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the multitude,
respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of the
magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the
magistrate, without, controlling the administration of civil
government. Some considerations of religion, or loyalty, or
fear, protected the sacred persons of the emperors from the zeal
or resentment of the bishops; but they boldly censured and
excommunicated the subordinate tyrants, who were not invested
with the majesty of the purple. St. Athanasius excommunicated
one of the ministers of Egypt; and the interdict which he
pronounced, of fire and water, was solemnly transmitted to the
churches of Cappadocia. ^115 Under the reign of the younger
Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the
descendants of Hercules, ^116 filled the episcopal seat of
Ptolemais, near the ruins of ancient Cyrene, ^117 and the
philosophic bishop supported with dignity the character which he
had assumed with reluctance. ^118 He vanquished the monster of
Libya, the president Andronicus, who abused the authority of a
venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and
aggravated the guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege. ^119
After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty magistrate by
mild and religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to inflict the
last sentence of ecclesiastical justice, ^120 which devotes
Andronicus, with his associates and their families, to the
abhorrence of earth and heaven. The impenitent sinners, more
cruel than Phalaris or Sennacherib, more destructive than war,
pestilence, or a cloud of locusts, are deprived of the name and
privileges of Christians, of the participation of the sacraments,
and of the hope of Paradise. The bishop exhorts the clergy, the
magistrates, and the people, to renounce all society with the
enemies of Christ; to exclude them from their houses and tables;
and to refuse them the common offices of life, and the decent
rites of burial. The church of Ptolemais, obscure and
contemptible as she may appear, addresses this declaration to all
her sister churches of the world; and the profane who reject her
decrees, will be involved in the guilt and punishment of
Andronicus and his impious followers. These spiritual terrors
were enforced by a dexterous application to the Byzantine court;
the trembling president implored the mercy of the church; and the
descendants of Hercules enjoyed the satisfaction of raising a
prostrate tyrant from the ground. ^121 Such principles and such
examples insensibly prepared the triumph of the Roman pontiffs,
who have trampled on the necks of kings.
[Footnote 114: The penitential jurisprudence was continually
improved by the canons of the councils. But as many cases were
still left to the discretion of the bishops, they occasionally
published, after the example of the Roman Praetor, the rules of
discipline which they proposed to observe. Among the canonical
epistles of the fourth century, those of Basil the Great were the
most celebrated. They are inserted in the Pandects of Beveridge,
(tom. ii. p. 47-151,) and are translated by Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. iv. p. 219-277.]
[Footnote 115: Basil, Epistol. xlvii. in Baronius, (Annal.
Eccles. A. D. 370. N. 91,) who declares that he purposely relates
it, to convince govern that they were not exempt from a sentence
of excommunication his opinion, even a royal head is not safe
from the thunders of the Vatican; and the cardinal shows himself
much more consistent than the lawyers and theologians of the
Gallican church.]
[Footnote 116: The long series of his ancestors, as high as
Eurysthenes, the first Doric king of Sparta, and the fifth in
lineal descent from Hercules, was inscribed in the public
registers of Cyrene, a Lacedaemonian colony. (Synes. Epist.
lvii. p. 197, edit. Petav.) Such a pure and illustrious pedigree
of seventeen hundred years, without adding the royal ancestors of
Hercules, cannot be equalled in the history of mankind.]
[Footnote 117: Synesius (de Regno, p. 2) pathetically deplores
the fallen and ruined state of Cyrene. Ptolemais, a new city, 82
miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the metropolitan honors
of the Pentapolis, or Upper Libya, which were afterwards
transferred to Sozusa.]
[Footnote 118: Synesius had previously represented his own
disqualifications. He loved profane studies and profane sports;
he was incapable of supporting a life of celibacy; he disbelieved
the resurrection; and he refused to preach fables to the people
unless he might be permitted to philosophize at home. Theophilus
primate of Egypt, who knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary
compromise.]
[Footnote 119: The promotion of Andronicus was illegal; since he
was a native of Berenice, in the same province. The instruments
of torture are curiously specified; the press that variously
pressed on distended the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears,
and the lips of the victims.]
[Footnote 120: The sentence of excommunication is expressed in a
rhetorical style. (Synesius, Epist. lviii. p. 201-203.) The
method of involving whole families, though somewhat unjust, was
improved into national interdicts.]
[Footnote 121: See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. p. 186, 187. Epist.
lxxii. p. 218, 219 Epist. lxxxix. p. 230, 231.]
VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of
rude or artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated,
the firmest reason is moved, by the rapid communication of the
prevailing impulse; and each hearer is affected by his own
passions, and by those of the surrounding multitude. The ruin of
civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of Athens, and the
tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching which seems to
constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion, had not
been introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of
monarchs were never invaded by the harsh sound of popular
eloquence, till the pulpits of the empire were filled with sacred
orators, who possessed some advantages unknown to their profane
predecessors. ^122 The arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were
instantly opposed with equal arms, by skilful and resolute
antagonists; and the cause of truth and reason might derive an
accidental support from the conflict of hostile passions. The
bishop, or some distinguished presbyter, to whom he cautiously
delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the danger
of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds had
been prepared and subdued by the awful ceremonies of religion.
Such was the strict subordination of the Catholic church, that
the same concerted sounds might issue at once from a hundred
pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if they were tuned ^123 by the master
hand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate. The design of this
institution was laudable, but the fruits were not always
salutary. The preachers recommended the practice of the social
duties; but they exalted the perfection of monastic virtue, which
is painful to the individual, and useless to mankind. Their
charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish that the clergy
might be permitted to manage the wealth of the faithful, for the
benefit of the poor. The most sublime representations of the
attributes and laws of the Deity were sullied by an idle mixture
of metaphysical subleties, puerile rites, and fictitious
miracles: and they expatiated, with the most fervent zeal, on the
religious merit of hating the adversaries, and obeying the
ministers of the church. When the public peace was distracted by
heresy and schism, the sacred orators sounded the trumpet of
discord, and, perhaps, of sedition. The understandings of their
congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were
inflamed by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian
temples of Antioch or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to
inflict martyrdom. The corruption of taste and language is
strongly marked in the vehement declamations of the Latin
bishops; but the compositions of Gregory and Chrysostom have been
compared with the most splendid models of Attic, or at least of
Asiatic, eloquence. ^124
[Footnote 122: See Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii. l.
iii. c. 83, p. 1761-1770,) and Bingham, (Antiquities, vol. i. l.
xiv. c. 4, p. 688- 717.) Preaching was considered as the most
important office of the bishop but this function was sometimes
intrusted to such presbyters as Chrysoetom and Augustin.]
[Footnote 123: Queen Elizabeth used this expression, and
practised this art whenever she wished to prepossess the minds of
her people in favor of any extraordinary measure of government.
The hostile effects of this music were apprehended by her
successor, and severely felt by his son. "When pulpit, drum
ecclesiastic," &c. See Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud, p.
153.]
[Footnote 124: Those modest orators acknowledged, that, as they
were destitute of the gift of miracles, they endeavored to
acquire the arts of eloquence.]
VII. The representatives of the Christian republic were
regularly assembled in the spring and autumn of each year; and
these synods diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and
legislation through the hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman
world. ^125 The archbishop or metropolitan was empowered, by the
laws, to summon the suffragan bishops of his province; to revise
their conduct, to vindicate their rights, to declare their faith,
and to examine the merits of the candidates who were elected by
the clergy and people to supply the vacancies of the episcopal
college. The primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage,
and afterwards Constantinople, who exercised a more ample
jurisdiction, convened the numerous assembly of their dependent
bishops. But the convocation of great and extraordinary synods
was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Whenever the
emergencies of the church required this decisive measure, he
despatched a peremptory summons to the bishops, or the deputies
of each province, with an order for the use of post-horses, and a
competent allowance for the expenses of their journey. At an
early period, when Constantine was the protector, rather than the
proselyte, of Christianity, he referred the African controversy
to the council of Arles; in which the bishops of York of Treves,
of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and brethren, to debate
in their native tongue on the common interest of the Latin or
Western church. ^126 Eleven years afterwards, a more numerous and
celebrated assembly was convened at Nice in Bithynia, to
extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes which
had arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred
and eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent
master; the ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and
denomination, have been computed at two thousand and forty-eight
persons; ^127 the Greeks appeared in person; and the consent of
the Latins was expressed by the legates of the Roman pontiff.
The session, which lasted about two months, was frequently
honored by the presence of the emperor. Leaving his guards at the
door, he seated himself (with the permission of the council) on a
low stool in the midst of the hall. Constantine listened with
patience, and spoke with modesty: and while he influenced the
debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not the
judge, of the successors of the apostles, who had been
established as priests and as gods upon earth. ^128 Such profound
reverence of an absolute monarch towards a feeble and unarmed
assembly of his own subjects, can only be compared to the respect
with which the senate had been treated by the Roman princes who
adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the space of fifty years,
a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of human affairs
might have contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome, and
Constantine in the council of Nice. The fathers of the Capitol
and those of the church had alike degenerated from the virtues of
their founders; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted in the
public opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent
pride, and sometimes opposed with a manly spirit the wishes of
their sovereign. The progress of time and superstition erased
the memory of the weakness, the passion, the ignorance, which
disgraced these ecclesiastical synods; and the Catholic world has
unanimously submitted ^129 to the infallible decrees of the
general councils. ^130
[Footnote 125: The council of Nice, in the fourth, fifth, sixth,
and seventh canons, has made some fundamental regulations
concerning synods, metropolitan, and primates. The Nicene canons
have been variously tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged,
according to the interest of the clergy. The Suburbicarian
churches, assigned (by Rufinus) to the bishop of Rome, have been
made the subject of vehement controversy (See Sirmond, Opera,
tom. iv. p. 1-238.)]
[Footnote 126: We have only thirty-three or forty-seven episcopal
subscriptions: but Addo, a writer indeed of small account,
reckons six hundred bishops in the council of Arles. Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 422.]
[Footnote 127: See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 915, and Beausobre,
Hist. du Mani cheisme, tom i p. 529. The name of bishop, which
is given by Eusychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics, (Annal. tom. i.
p. 440, vers. Pocock,) must be extended far beyond the limits of
an orthodox or even episcopal ordination.]
[Footnote 128: See Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 6-21.
Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiastiques, tom. vi. p. 669-759.]
[Footnote 129: Sancimus igitur vicem legum obtinere, quae a
quatuor Sanctis Coueiliis . . . . expositae sunt act firmatae.
Praedictarum enim quat uor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas
Scripturas et regulas sicut leges observamus. Justinian. Novell.
cxxxi. Beveridge (ad Pandect. proleg. p. 2) remarks, that the
emperors never made new laws in ecclesiastical matters; and
Giannone observes, in a very different spirit, that they gave a
legal sanction to the canons of councils. Istoria Civile di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 136.]
[Footnote 130: See the article Concile in the Eucyclopedie, tom.
iii. p. 668-879, edition de Lucques. The author, M. de docteur
Bouchaud, has discussed, according to the principles of the
Gallican church, the principal questions which relate to the form
and constitution of general, national, and provincial councils.
The editors (see Preface, p. xvi.) have reason to be proud of
this article. Those who consult their immense compilation,
seldom depart so well satisfied.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.
Part I.
Persecution Of Heresy. - The Schism Of The Donatists. - The
Arian Controversy. - Athanasius. - Distracted State Of The Church
And Empire Under Constantine And His Sons. - Toleration Of
Paganism.
The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the
memory of a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their
interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, and
revenge; and the support of the orthodox faith was considered as
the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The
edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to
each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and
professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was
soon violated; with the knowledge of truth, the emperor imbibed
the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the
Catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of
Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the Heretics, who
presumed to dispute his opinions, or to oppose his commands, were
guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a
seasonable application of moderate severities might save those
unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not
a moment was lost in excluding the ministers and teachers of the
separated congregations from any share of the rewards and
immunities which the emperor had so liberally bestowed on the
orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under
the cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was
immediately followed by an edict which announced their total
destruction. ^1 After a preamble filled with passion and
reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the
Heretics, and confiscates their public property to the use either
of the revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom
the Imperial severity was directed, appear to have been the
adherents of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who
maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophecy; the Novatians,
who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the
Marcionites and Valentinians, under whose leading banners the
various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and
perhaps the Manichaeans, who had recently imported from Persia a
more artful composition of Oriental and Christian theology. ^2
The design of extirpating the name, or at least of restraining
the progress, of these odious Heretics, was prosecuted with vigor
and effect. Some of the penal regulations were copied from the
edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded
by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and
pleaded for the rights of humanity. Two immaterial circumstances
may serve, however, to prove that the mind of Constantine was not
entirely corrupted by the spirit of zeal and bigotry. Before he
condemned the Manichaeans and their kindred sects, he resolved to
make an accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious
principles. As if he distrusted the impartiality of his
ecclesiastical counsellors, this delicate commission was
intrusted to a civil magistrate, whose learning and moderation he
justly esteemed, and of whose venal character he was probably
ignorant. ^3 The emperor was soon convinced, that he had too
hastily proscribed the orthodox faith and the exemplary morals of
the Novatians, who had dissented from the church in some articles
of discipline which were not perhaps essential to salvation. By
a particular edict, he exempted them from the general penalties
of the law; ^4 allowed them to build a church at Constantinople,
respected the miracles of their saints, invited their bishop
Acesius to the council of Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow
tenets of his sect by a familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a
sovereign, must have been received with applause and gratitude.
^5
[Footnote 1: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 63, 64, 65,
66.]
[Footnote 2: After some examination of the various opinions of
Tillemont, Beausobre, Lardner, &c., I am convinced that Manes did
not propagate his sect, even in Persia, before the year 270. It
is strange, that a philosophic and foreign heresy should have
penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot
easily reject the edict of Diocletian against the Manichaeans,
which may be found in Baronius. (Annal Eccl. A. D. 287.)]
[Footnote 3: Constantinus enim, cum limatius superstitionum
quaeroret sectas, Manichaeorum et similium, &c. Ammian. xv. 15.
Strategius, who from this commission obtained the surname of
Musonianus, was a Christian of the Arian sect. He acted as one
of the counts at the council of Sardica. Libanius praises his
mildness and prudence. Vales. ad locum Ammian.]
[Footnote 4: Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 2. As the general
law is not inserted in the Theodosian Code, it probable that, in
the year 438, the sects which it had condemned were already
extinct.]
[Footnote 5: Sozomen, l. i. c. 22. Socrates, l. i. c. 10. These
historians have been suspected, but I think without reason, of an
attachment to the Novatian doctrine. The emperor said to the
bishop, "Acesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by
yourself." Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed
the ladder of Acesius.]
The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the
throne of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had
submitted Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to
edify an imperfect proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that
the provinces of that great country, from the confines of Cyrene
to the columns of Hercules, were distracted with religious
discord. ^6 The source of the division was derived from a double
election in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and
opulence, of the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. Caecilian
and Majorinus were the two rival prelates of Africa; and the
death of the latter soon made room for Donatus, who, by his
superior abilities and apparent virtues, was the firmest support
of his party. The advantage which Caecilian might claim from the
priority of his ordination, was destroyed by the illegal, or at
least indecent, haste, with which it had been performed, without
expecting the arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The authority
of these bishops, who, to the number of seventy, condemned
Caecilian, and consecrated Majorinus, is again weakened by the
infamy of some of their personal characters; and by the female
intrigues, sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings,
which are imputed to this Numidian council. ^7 The bishops of the
contending factions maintained, with equal ardor and obstinacy,
that their adversaries were degraded, or at least dishonored, by
the odious crime of delivering the Holy Scriptures to the
officers of Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as well as
from the story of this dark transaction, it may justly be
inferred, that the late persecution had imbittered the zeal,
without reforming the manners, of the African Christians. That
divided church was incapable of affording an impartial
judicature; the controversy was solemnly tried in five successive
tribunals, which were appointed by the emperor; and the whole
proceeding, from the first appeal to the final sentence, lasted
above three years. A severe inquisition, which was taken by the
Praetorian vicar, and the proconsul of Africa, the report of two
episcopal visitors who had been sent to Carthage, the decrees of
the councils of Rome and of Arles, and the supreme judgment of
Constantine himself in his sacred consistory, were all favorable
to the cause of Caecilian; and he was unanimously acknowledged by
the civil and ecclesiastical powers, as the true and lawful
primate of Africa. The honors and estates of the church were
attributed to his suffragan bishops, and it was not without
difficulty, that Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the
punishment of exile on the principal leaders of the Donatist
faction. As their cause was examined with attention, perhaps it
was determined with justice. Perhaps their complaint was not
without foundation, that the credulity of the emperor had been
abused by the insidious arts of his favorite Osius. The
influence of falsehood and corruption might procure the
condemnation of the innocent, or aggravate the sentence of the
guilty. Such an act, however, of injustice, if it concluded an
importunate dispute, might be numbered among the transient evils
of a despotic administration, which are neither felt nor
remembered by posterity.
[Footnote 6: The best materials for this part of ecclesiastical
history may be found in the edition of Optatus Milevitanus,
published (Paris, 1700) by M. Dupin, who has enriched it with
critical notes, geographical discussions, original records, and
an accurate abridgment of the whole controversy. M. de Tillemont
has bestowed on the Donatists the greatest part of a volume,
(tom. vi. part i.;) and I am indebted to him for an ample
collection of all the passages of his favorite St. Augustin,
which relate to those heretics.]
[Footnote 7: Schisma igitur illo tempore confusae mulieris
iracundia peperit; ambitus nutrivit; avaritia roboravit.
Optatus, l. i. c. 19. The language of Purpurius is that of a
furious madman. Dicitur te necasse lilios sororis tuae duos.
Purpurius respondit: Putas me terreri a te . . occidi; et occido
eos qui contra me faciunt. Acta Concil. Cirtenais, ad calc.
Optat. p. 274. When Caecilian was invited to an assembly of
bishops, Purpurius said to his brethren, or rather to his
accomplices, "Let him come hither to receive our imposition of
hands, and we will break his head by way of penance." Optat. l.
i. c. 19.]
But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely
deserves a place in history, was productive of a memorable schism
which afflicted the provinces of Africa above three hundred
years, and was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The
inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists
to refuse obedience to the usurpers, whose election they
disputed, and whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded from
the civil and religious communion of mankind, they boldly
excommunicated the rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious
party of Caecilian, and of the Traditors, from which he derived
his pretended ordination. They asserted with confidence, and
almost with exultation, that the Apostolical succession was
interrupted; that all the bishops of Europe and Asia were
infected by the contagion of guilt and schism; and that the
prerogatives of the Catholic church were confined to the chosen
portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved
inviolate the integrity of their faith and discipline. This
rigid theory was supported by the most uncharitable conduct.
Whenever they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant
provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites
of baptism ^8 and ordination; as they rejected the validity of
those which he had already received from the hands of heretics or
schismatics. Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants, were
subjected to the disgrace of a public penance, before they could
be admitted to the communion of the Donatists. If they obtained
possession of a church which had been used by their Catholic
adversaries, they purified the unhallowed building with the same
zealous care which a temple of idols might have required. They
washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which
was commonly of wood, melted the consecrated plate, and cast the
Holy Eucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy
which could provoke and perpetuate the animosity of religious
factions. ^9 Notwithstanding this irreconcilable aversion, the
two parties, who were mixed and separated in all the cities of
Africa, had the same language and manners, the same zeal and
learning, the same faith and worship. Proscribed by the civil
and ecclesiastical powers of the empire, the Donatists still
maintained in some provinces, particularly in Numidia, their
superior numbers; and four hundred bishops acknowledged the
jurisdiction of their primate. But the invincible spirit of the
sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals: and the bosom of their
schismatical church was torn by intestine divisions. A fourth
part of the Donatist bishops followed the independent standard of
the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary path which their first
leaders had marked out, continued to deviate from the great
society of mankind. Even the imperceptible sect of the Rogatians
could affirm, without a blush, that when Christ should descend to
judge the earth, he would find his true religion preserved only
in a few nameless villages of the Caesarean Mauritania. ^10
[Footnote 8: The councils of Arles, of Nice, and of Trent,
confirmed the wise and moderate practice of the church of Rome.
The Donatists, however, had the advantage of maintaining the
sentiment of Cyprian, and of a considerable part of the primitive
church. Vincentius Lirinesis (p. 532, ap. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 138) has explained why the Donatists are
eternally burning with the Devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in
heaven with Jesus Christ.]
[Footnote 9: See the sixth book of Optatus Milevitanus, p.
91-100.]
[Footnote 10: Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiastiques, tom. vi. part i.
p. 253. He laughs at their partial credulity. He revered
Augustin, the great doctor of the system of predestination.]
The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more
diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively
penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former
was an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom;
the latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the
abuse of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of
Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests both of the Romans
and Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological disputes
of Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted
respectfully to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce
the progress of reason and faith, of error and passion from the
school of Plato, to the decline and fall of the empire.
The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by
the traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, ^11 had
ventured to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he
had elevated his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first
self-existent, necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage
was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his essence
could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas
which compose the model of the intellectual world; how a Being
purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould
with a plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain
hope of extricating himself from these difficulties, which must
ever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce
Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold
modification - of the first cause, the reason, or Logos, and the
soul or spirit of the universe. His poetical imagination
sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions; the
three archical on original principles were represented in the
Platonic system as three Gods, united with each other by a
mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was
particularly considered under the more accessible character of
the Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the
world. Such appear to have been the secret doctrines which were
cautiously whispered in the gardens of the academy; and which,
according to the more recent disciples of Plato, ^* could not be
perfectly understood, till after an assiduous study of thirty
years. ^12
[Footnote 11: Plato Aegyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus
Barbaris numeros et coelestia acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v.
25. The Egyptians might still preserve the traditional creed of
the Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian
fathers, that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the
Jews; but this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure
state and unsocial manners of the Jewish people, whose scriptures
were not accessible to Greek curiosity till more than one hundred
years after the death of Plato. See Marsham Canon. Chron. p. 144
Le Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194.]
[Footnote *: This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears to
me contrary to the true sense of that philosopher's writings.
The brilliant imagination which he carried into metaphysical
inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled
those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenor of his
works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system
of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in
Plato; he has established no mysterious generation between the
three pretended principles which he is made to distinguish.
Finally, he conceives only as attributes of the Deity, or of
matter, those ideas, of which it is supposed that he made
substances, real beings.
According to Plato, God and matter existed from all
eternity. Before the creation of the world, matter had in itself
a principle of motion, but without end or laws: it is this
principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world,
because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and
original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to
impress form upon matter, that is to say, 1. To mould matter, and
make it into a body; 2. To regulate its motion, and subject it to
some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in this operation,
could not act but according to the ideas existing in his
intelligence: their union filled this, and formed the ideal type
of the world. It is this ideal world, this divine intelligence,
existing with God from all eternity, and called by Plato which he
is supposed to personify, to substantialize; while an attentive
examination is sufficient to convince us that he has never
assigned it an existence external to the Deity, (hors de la
Divinite,) and that he considered the as the aggregate of the
ideas of God, the divine understanding in its relation to the
world. The contrary opinion is irreconcilable with all his
philosophy: thus he says that to the idea of the Deity is
essentially united that of intelligence, of a logos. He would
thus have admitted a double logos; one inherent in the Deity as
an attribute, the other independently existing as a substance.
He affirms that the intelligence, the principle of order cannot
exist but as an attribute of a soul, the principle of motion and
of life, of which the nature is unknown to us. How, then,
according to this, could he consider the logos as a substance
endowed with an independent existence? In other places, he
explains it by these two words, knowledge, science, which signify
the attributes of the Deity. When Plato separates God, the ideal
archetype of the world and matter, it is to explain how,
according to his system, God has proceeded, at the creation, to
unite the principle of order which he had within himself, his
proper intelligence, the principle of motion, to the principle of
motion, the irrational soul which was in matter. When he speaks
of the place occupied by the ideal world, it is to designate the
divine intelligence, which is its cause. Finally, in no part of
his writings do we find a true personification of the pretended
beings of which he is said to have formed a trinity: and if this
personification existed, it would equally apply to many other
notions, of which might be formed many different trinities.
This error, into which many ancient as well as modern
interpreters of Plato have fallen, was very natural. Besides the
snares which were concealed in his figurative style; besides the
necessity of comprehending as a whole the system of his ideas,
and not to explain isolated passages, the nature of his doctrine
itself would conduce to this error. When Plato appeared, the
uncertainty of human knowledge, and the continual illusions of
the senses, were acknowledged, and had given rise to a general
scepticism. Socrates had aimed at raising morality above the
influence of this scepticism: Plato endeavored to save
metaphysics, by seeking in the human intellect a source of
certainty which the senses could not furnish. He invented the
system of innate ideas, of which the aggregate formed, according
to him, the ideal world, and affirmed that these ideas were real
attributes, not only attached to our conceptions of objects, but
to the nature of the objects themselves; a nature of which from
them we might obtain a knowledge. He gave, then, to these ideas
a positive existence as attributes; his commentators could easily
give them a real existence as substances; especially as the terms
which he used to designate them, essential beauty, essential
goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization,
(hypostasis.) - G.
We have retained this view of the original philosophy of
Plato, in which there is probably much truth. The genius of
Plato was rather metaphysical than impersonative: his poetry was
in his language, rather than, like that of the Orientals, in his
conceptions. - M.]
[Footnote 12: The modern guides who lead me to the knowledge of
the Platonic system are Cudworth, Basnage, Le Clerc, and Brucker.
As the learning of these writers was equal, and their intention
different, an inquisitive observer may derive instruction from
their disputes, and certainty from their agreement.]
The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the
language and learning of Greece; and the theological system of
Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some
improvements, in the celebrated school of Alexandria. ^13 A
numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favor of the
Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. ^14 While the bulk of
the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the
lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more
liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and
philosophical contemplation. ^15 They cultivated with diligence,
and embraced with ardor, the theological system of the Athenian
sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a
fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked,
as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels
which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One
hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical
treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of
the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and
unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the
inspired Wisdom of Solomon. ^16 A similar union of the Mosaic
faith and the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of
Philo, which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of
Augustus. ^17 The material soul of the universe ^18 might offend
the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the
Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of
God was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human
appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem
incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal
Cause. ^19
[Footnote 13: Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 1349-1357.
The Alexandrian school is celebrated by Strabo (l. xvii.) and
Ammianus, (xxii. 6.)
Note: The philosophy of Plato was not the only source of
that professed in the school of Alexandria. That city, in which
Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were assembled, was
the scene of a strange fusion of the system of these three
people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much changed;
the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental
notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone great
changes by this intercourse, endeavored to reconcile Platonism
with their new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely: lastly, the
Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions for which the
Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavored on their side
to reconcile their own with those of their neighbors. It is in
Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that we trace the
influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of Platonism.
We find in these books, and in those of the later prophets, as in
Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian
captivity, of which we do not discover the germ in Plato, but
which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus God
represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil
under that of darkness; the history of the good and bad angels;
paradise and hell, &c., are doctrines of which the origin, or at
least the positive determination, can only be referred to the
Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter eternal; the
Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation of God, who
alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the philosophy of
the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of the Jewish
theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental philosophy,
however little it may be known, is recognized at every instant.
Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the Word (honover)
more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created the universe.
This word is the logos of Philo, consequently very different from
that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never personified the
logos as the ideal archetype of the world: Philo ventured this
personification. The Deity, according to him, has a double
logos; the first is the ideal archetype of the world, the ideal
world, the first-born of the Deity; the second is the word itself
of God, personified under the image of a being acting to create
the sensible world, and to make it like to the ideal world: it is
the second-born of God. Following out his imaginations, Philo
went so far as to personify anew the ideal world, under the image
of a celestial man, the primitive type of man, and the sensible
world under the image of another man less perfect than the
celestial man. Certain notions of the Oriental philosophy may
have given rise to this strange abuse of allegory, which it is
sufficient to relate, to show what alterations Platonism had
already undergone, and what was their source. Philo, moreover, of
all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose Platonism is the
most pure. It is from this mixture of Orientalism, Platonism, and
Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which had produced so many
theological and philosophical extravagancies, and in which
Oriental notions evidently predominate. - G.]
[Footnote 14: Joseph. Antiquitat, l. xii. c. 1, 3. Basnage,
Hist. des Juifs, l. vii. c. 7.]
[Footnote 15: For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see
Eusebius, Praeparat. Evangel. viii. 9, 10. According to Philo,
the Therapeutae studied philosophy; and Brucker has proved (Hist.
Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 787) that they gave the preference to that
of Plato.]
[Footnote 16: See Calmet, Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p.
277. The book of the Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of
the fathers as the work of that monarch: and although rejected by
the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it has obtained,
with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of
Trent.]
[Footnote 17: The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a
proverb, is proved beyond a doubt by Le Clerc, (Epist. Crit.
viii. p. 211-228.) Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, l. iv. c. 5) has
clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were
composed before the death, and most probably before the birth, of
Christ. In such a time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is
more astonishing than his errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s.
i. c. i. p. 12.]
[Footnote 18: Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.
Besides this material soul, Cudworth has discovered (p. 562)
in Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in Plato
himself, a superior, spiritual upercosmian soul of the universe.
But this double soul is exploded by Brucker, Basnage, and Le
Clerc, as an idle fancy of the latter Platonists.]
[Footnote 19: Petav. Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. viii. c. 2,
p. 791. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. l. p. 8, 13. This
notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was freely adopted in
the Christian theology. Tertullian (adv. Praxeam, c. 16) has a
remarkable and dangerous passage. After contrasting, with
indiscreet wit, the nature of God, and the actions of Jehovah, he
concludes: Scilicet ut haec de filio Dei non credenda fuisse, si
non scripta essent; fortasse non credenda de l'atre licet
scripta.
Note: Tertullian is here arguing against the Patripassians;
those who asserted that the Father was born of the Virgin, died
and was buried. - M.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.
Part II.
The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority
of the school of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and
Greeks, were insufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious
doctrine, which might please, but could not satisfy, a rational
mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity, can alone
exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and the
theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the
philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycaeum,
if the name and divine attributes of the Logos had not been
confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of
the Evangelists. ^20 The Christian Revelation, which was
consummated under the reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world the
amazing secret, that the Logos, who was with God from the
beginning, and was God, who had made all things, and for whom all
things had been made, was incarnate in the person of Jesus of
Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and suffered death on
the cross. Besides the genera design of fixing on a perpetual
basis the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and
respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the
evangelic theologian a particular intention to confute two
opposite heresies, which disturbed the peace of the primitive
church. ^21 I. The faith of the Ebionites, ^22 perhaps of the
Nazarenes, ^23 was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as
the greatest of the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue
and power. They ascribed to his person and to his future reign
all the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which relate to the
spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. ^24
Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin; but they
obstinately rejected the preceding existence and divine
perfections of the Logos, or Son of God, which are so clearly
defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty years afterwards,
the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr with
less severity than they seem to deserve, ^25 formed a very
inconsiderable portion of the Christian name. II. The Gnostics,
who were distinguished by the epithet of Docetes, deviated into
the contrary extreme; and betrayed the human, while they asserted
the divine, nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato,
accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos, they readily
conceived that the brightest Aeon, or Emanation of the Deity,
might assume the outward shape and visible appearances of a
mortal; ^26 but they vainly pretended, that the imperfections of
matter are incompatible with the purity of a celestial substance.
While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, the
Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, that,
instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, ^27 he had
descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect
manhood; that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies, and of
his disciples; and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their
impotent rage on an ury phantom, who seemed to expire on the
cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead. ^28
[Footnote 20: The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel
of St. John as containing an exact transcript of their own
principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. Amelius apud
Cyril. advers. Julian. l. viii. p. 283. But in the third and
fourth centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve
their Trinity by the secret study of the Christian theology.
Note: A short discussion on the sense in which St. John has
used the word Logos, will prove that he has not borrowed it from
the philosophy of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word without
previous explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries
were already familiar, and which they could at once comprehend.
To know the sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which
it generally bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to
the word logos by the Jews of Palestine, the other by the school
of Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared at all
times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit
of designating God by one of his attributes; they called him
sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. By the word of the Lord
were the heavens made. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to
allegories, they often addressed themselves to this attribute of
the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say "The Lord
possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of
old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever
the earth was." (Prov. viii. 22, 23.) Their residence in Persia
only increased this inclination to sustained allegories. In the
Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, we
find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: "I
came out of the mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a
cloud; . . . I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked
in the bottom of the deep . . . The Creator created me from the
beginning, before the world, and I shall never fail." (Eccles.
xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii. v. 9. [The
latter book is clearly Alexandrian. - M.] We see from this that
the Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which
signify Wisdom, the Word, and which were translated into Greek, a
simple attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of
which they did not make a real particular being separate from the
Deity.
The school of Alexandria, on the contrary, and Philo among
the rest, mingling Greek with Jewish and Oriental notions, and
abandoning himself to his inclination to mysticism, personified
the logos, and represented it a distinct being, created by God,
and intermediate between God and man. This is the second logos
of Philo, that which acts from the beginning of the world, alone
in its kind, creator of the sensible world, formed by God
according to the ideal world which he had in himself, and which
was the first logos, the first-born of the Deity. The logos
taken in this sense, then, was a created being, but, anterior to
the creation of the world, near to God, and charged with his
revelations to mankind.
Which of these two senses is that which St. John intended to
assign to the word logos in the first chapter of his Gospel, and
in all his writings?
St. John was a Jew, born and educated in Palestine; he had
no knowledge, at least very little, of the philosophy of the
Greeks, and that of the Grecizing Jews: he would naturally, then,
attach to the word logos the sense attached to it by the Jews of
Palestine. If, in fact, we compare the attributes which he
assigns to the logos with those which are assigned to it in
Proverbs, in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we shall
see that they are the same. The Word was in the world, and the
world was made by him; in him was life, and the life was the
light of men, (c. i. v. 10-14.) It is impossible not to trace in
this chapter the ideas which the Jews had formed of the
allegorized logos. The evangelist afterwards really personifies
that which his predecessors have personified only poetically; for
he affirms "that the Word became flesh," (v. 14.) It was to prove
this that he wrote. Closely examined, the ideas which he gives
of the logos cannot agree with those of Philo and the school of
Alexandria; they correspond, on the contrary, with those of the
Jews of Palestine. Perhaps St. John, employing a well-known term
to explain a doctrine which was yet unknown, has slightly altered
the sense; it is this alteration which we appear to discover on
comparing different passages of his writings.
It is worthy of remark, that the Jews of Palestine, who did
not perceive this alteration, could find nothing extraordinary in
what St. John said of the Logos; at least they comprehended it
without difficulty, while the Greeks and Grecizing Jews, on their
part, brought to it prejudices and preconceptions easily
reconciled with those of the evangelist, who did not expressly
contradict them. This circumstance must have much favored the
progress of Christianity. Thus the fathers of the church in the
two first centuries and later, formed almost all in the school of
Alexandria, gave to the Logos of St. John a sense nearly similar
to that which it received from Philo. Their doctrine approached
very near to that which in the fourth century the council of Nice
condemned in the person of Arius. - G.
M. Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at
Ephesus, the centre of the mingling opinions of the East and
West, which were gradually growing up into Gnosticism. (See
Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St. John's sense
of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple allegory
ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the Oriental
impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth may be that
St. John took the familiar term, and, as it were infused into it
the peculiar and Christian sense in which it is used in his
writings. - M.]
[Footnote 21: See Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom.
i. p. 377. The Gospel according to St. John is supposed to have
been published about seventy years after the death of Christ.]
[Footnote 22: The sentiments of the Ebionites are fairly stated
by Mosheim (p. 331) and Le Clerc, (Hist. Eccles. p. 535.) The
Clementines, published among the apostolical fathers, are
attributed by the critics to one of these sectaries.]
[Footnote 23: Stanch polemics, like a Bull, (Judicium Eccles.
Cathol. c. 2,) insist on the orthodoxy of the Nazarenes; which
appears less pure and certain in the eyes of Mosheim, (p. 330.)]
[Footnote 24: The humble condition and sufferings of Jesus have
always been a stumbling-block to the Jews. "Deus . . .
contrariis coloribus Messiam depinxerat: futurus erat Rex, Judex,
Pastor," &c. See Limborch et Orobio Amica Collat. p. 8, 19,
53-76, 192-234. But this objection has obliged the believing
Christians to lift up their eyes to a spiritual and everlasting
kingdom.]
[Footnote 25: Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphonte, p. 143, 144.
See Le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. p. 615. Bull and his editor Grabe
(Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 7, and Appendix) attempt to distort
either the sentiments or the words of Justin; but their violent
correction of the text is rejected even by the Benedictine
editors.]
[Footnote 26: The Arians reproached the orthodox party with
borrowing their Trinity from the Valentinians and Marcionites.
See Beausobre, Hist. de Manicheisme, l. iii. c. 5, 7.]
[Footnote 27: Non dignum est ex utero credere Deum, et Deum
Christum .... non dignum est ut tanta majestas per sordes et
squalores muli eris transire credatur. The Gnostics asserted the
impurity of matter, and of marriage; and they were scandalized by
the gross interpretations of the fathers, and even of Augustin
himself. See Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 523,
Note: The greater part of the Docetae rejected the true
divinity of Jesus Christ, as well as his human nature. They
belonged to the Gnostics, whom some philosophers, in whose party
Gibbon has enlisted, make to derive their opinions from those of
Plato. These philosophers did not consider that Platonism had
undergone continual alterations, and that those who gave it some
analogy with the notions of the Gnostics were later in their
origin than most of the sects comprehended under this name
Mosheim has proved (in his Instit. Histor. Eccles. Major. s. i.
p. 136, sqq and p. 339, sqq.) that the Oriental philosophy,
combined with the cabalistical philosophy of the Jews, had given
birth to Gnosticism. The relations which exist between this
doctrine and the records which remain to us of that of the
Orientals, the Chaldean and Persian, have been the source of the
errors of the Gnostic Christians, who wished to reconcile their
ancient notions with their new belief. It is on this account
that, denying the human nature of Christ, they also denied his
intimate union with God, and took him for one of the substances
(aeons) created by God. As they believed in the eternity of
matter, and considered it to be the principle of evil, in
opposition to the Deity, the first cause and principle of good,
they were unwilling to admit that one of the pure substances, one
of the aeons which came forth from God, had, by partaking in the
material nature, allied himself to the principle of evil; and
this was their motive for rejecting the real humanity of Jesus
Christ. See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist. of Heresies in Germ. t. i. p.
217, sqq. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. p 639. - G.]
[Footnote 28: Apostolis adhuc in saeculo superstitibus apud
Judaeam Christi sanguine recente, et phanlasma corpus Domini
asserebatur. Cotelerius thinks (Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 24)
that those who will not allow the Docetes to have arisen in the
time of the Apostles, may with equal reason deny that the sun
shines at noonday. These Docetes, who formed the most
considerable party among the Gnostics, were so called, because
they granted only a seeming body to Christ.
Note: The name of Docetae was given to these sectaries only
in the course of the second century: this name did not designate
a sect, properly so called; it applied to all the sects who
taught the non- reality of the material body of Christ; of this
number were the Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Ophites, the
Marcionites, (against whom Tertullian wrote his book, De Carne
Christi,) and other Gnostics. In truth, Clement of Alexandria
(l. iii. Strom. c. 13, p. 552) makes express mention of a sect of
Docetae, and even names as one of its heads a certain Cassianus;
but every thing leads us to believe that it was not a distinct
sect. Philastrius (de Haeres, c. 31) reproaches Saturninus with
being a Docete. Irenaeus (adv. Haer. c. 23) makes the same
reproach against Basilides. Epiphanius and Philastrius, who have
treated in detail on each particular heresy, do not specially
name that of the Docetae. Serapion, bishop of Antioch, (Euseb.
Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 12,) and Clement of Alexandria, (l. vii.
Strom. p. 900,) appear to be the first who have used the generic
name. It is not found in any earlier record, though the error
which it points out existed even in the time of the Apostles.
See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist. of Her. v. i. p. 283. Tillemont,
Mempour servir a la Hist Eccles. ii. p. 50. Buddaeus de Eccles.
Apost. c. 5 & 7 - G.]
The divine sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the
fundamental principle of the theology of Plato, encouraged the
learned proselytes of the second and third centuries to admire
and study the writings of the Athenian sage, who had thus
marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries
of the Christian revelation. The respectable name of Plato was
used by the orthodox, ^29 and abused by the heretics, ^30 as the
common support of truth and error: the authority of his skilful
commentators, and the science of dialectics, were employed to
justify the remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the
discreet silence of the inspired writers. The same subtle and
profound questions concerning the nature, the generation, the
distinction, and the equality of the three divine persons of the
mysterious Triad, or Trinity, ^31 were agitated in the
philosophical and in the Christian schools of Alexandria. An
eager spirit of curiosity urged them to explore the secrets of
the abyss; and the pride of the professors, and of their
disciples, was satisfied with the sciences of words. But the
most sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius
himself, has candidly confessed, ^32 that whenever he forced his
understanding to meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his
toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the
more he thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote,
the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts. In every
step of the inquiry, we are compelled to feel and acknowledge the
immeasurable disproportion between the size of the object and the
capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the
notions of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere
to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as
soon as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual
generation; as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a
negative idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and
inevitable contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the
nature of the subject, they oppress, with the same insuperable
weight, the philosophic and the theological disputant; but we may
observe two essential and peculiar circumstances, which
discriminated the doctrines of the Catholic church from the
opinions of the Platonic school.
[Footnote 29: Some proofs of the respect which the Christians
entertained for the person and doctrine of Plato may be found in
De la Mothe le Vayer, tom. v. p. 135, &c., edit. 1757; and
Basnage, Hist. des Juifs tom. iv. p. 29, 79, &c.]
[Footnote 30: Doleo bona fide, Platonem omnium heraeticorum
condimentarium factum. Tertullian. de Anima, c. 23. Petavius
(Dogm. Theolog. tom. iii. proleg. 2) shows that this was a
general complaint. Beausobre (tom. i. l. iii. c. 9, 10) has
deduced the Gnostic errors from Platonic principles; and as, in
the school of Alexandria, those principles were blended with the
Oriental philosophy, (Brucker, tom. i. p. 1356,) the sentiment of
Beausobre may be reconciled with the opinion of Mosheim, (General
History of the Church, vol. i. p. 37.)]
[Footnote 31: If Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, (see Dupin,
Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 66,) was the first who
employed the word Triad, Trinity, that abstract term, which was
already familiar to the schools of philosophy, must have been
introduced into the theology of the Christians after the middle
of the second century.]
[Footnote 32: Athanasius, tom. i. p. 808. His expressions have
an uncommon energy; and as he was writing to monks, there could
not be any occasion for him to affect a rational language.]
I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal
education and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and
temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of
Alexandria, the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The
lofty speculations, which neither convinced the understanding,
nor agitated the passions, of the Platonists themselves, were
carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the
studious part of mankind. ^33 But after the Logos had been
revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the
religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was
embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province
of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex,
or occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the
least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired to
contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it is the boast
of Tertullian, ^34 that a Christian mechanic could readily answer
such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages.
Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference
between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may
indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of
weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and
dogmatic confidence. These speculations, instead of being
treated as the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most
serious business of the present, and the most useful preparation
for a future, life. A theology, which it was incumbent to
believe, which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be
dangerous, and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic
of private meditation and popular discourse. The cold
indifference of philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of
devotion; and even the metaphors of common language suggested the
fallacious prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians,
who abhorred the gross and impure generation of the Greek
mythology, ^35 were tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of
the filial and paternal relations. The character of Son seemed
to imply a perpetual subordination to the voluntary author of his
existence; ^36 but as the act of generation, in the most
spiritual and abstracted sense, must be supposed to transmit the
properties of a common nature, ^37 they durst not presume to
circumscribe the powers or the duration of the Son of an eternal
and omnipotent Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ,
the Christians of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of
Pliny, that they invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have
been perpetuated in every age and country, by the various sects
who assume the name of his disciples. ^38 Their tender reverence
for the memory of Christ, and their horror for the profane
worship of any created being, would have engaged them to assert
the equal and absolute divinity of the Logos, if their rapid
ascent towards the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly
checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and sole
supremacy of the great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The
suspense and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians
by these opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of
the theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic
age, and before the origin of the Arian controversy. Their
suffrage is claimed, with equal confidence, by the orthodox and
by the heretical parties; and the most inquisitive critics have
fairly allowed, that if they had the good fortune of possessing
the Catholic verity, they have delivered their conceptions in
loose, inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory language. ^39
[Footnote 33: In a treatise, which professed to explain the
opinions of the ancient philosophers concerning the nature of the
gods we might expect to discover the theological Trinity of
Plato. But Cicero very honestly confessed, that although he had
translated the Timaeus, he could never understand that mysterious
dialogue. See Hieronym. praef. ad l. xii. in Isaiam, tom. v. p.
154.]
[Footnote 34: Tertullian. in Apolog. c. 46. See Bayle,
Dictionnaire, au mot Simonide. His remarks on the presumption of
Tertullian are profound and interesting.]
[Footnote 35: Lactantius, iv. 8. Yet the Probole, or Prolatio,
which the most orthodox divines borrowed without scruple from the
Valentinians, and illustrated by the comparisons of a fountain
and stream, the sun and its rays, &c., either meant nothing, or
favored a material idea of the divine generation. See Beausobre,
tom. i. l. iii. c. 7, p. 548.]
[Footnote 36: Many of the primitive writers have frankly
confessed, that the Son owed his being to the will of the Father.
See Clarke's Scripture Trinity, p. 280-287. On the other hand,
Athanasius and his followers seem unwilling to grant what they
are afraid to deny. The schoolmen extricate themselves from this
difficulty by the distinction of a preceding and a concomitant
will. Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. vi. c. 8, p. 587-603.]
[Footnote 37: See Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. ii. c. 10, p.
159.]
[Footnote 38: Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem.
Plin. Epist. x. 97. The sense of Deus, Elohim, in the ancient
languages, is critically examined by Le Clerc, (Ars Critica, p.
150-156,) and the propriety of worshipping a very excellent
creature is ably defended by the Socinian Emlyn, (Tracts, p.
29-36, 51-145.)]
[Footnote 39: See Daille de Usu Patrum, and Le Clerc,
Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. x. p. 409. To arraign the faith
of the Ante-Nicene fathers, was the object, or at least has been
the effect, of the stupendous work of Petavius on the Trinity,
(Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii.;) nor has the deep impression been
erased by the learned defence of Bishop Bull.
Note: Dr. Burton's work on the doctrine of the Ante-Nicene
fathers must be consulted by those who wish to obtain clear
notions on this subject. - M.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.
Part III.
II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance
which distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the
second was the authority of the church. The disciples of
philosophy asserted the rights of intellectual freedom, and their
respect for the sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and
voluntary tribute, which they offered to superior reason. But the
Christians formed a numerous and disciplined society; and the
jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates was strictly exercised
over the minds of the faithful. The loose wanderings of the
imagination were gradually confined by creeds and confessions;
^40 the freedom of private judgment submitted to the public
wisdom of synods; the authority of a theologian was determined by
his ecclesiastical rank; and the episcopal successors of the
apostles inflicted the censures of the church on those who
deviated from the orthodox belief. But in an age of religious
controversy, every act of oppression adds new force to the
elastic vigor of the mind; and the zeal or obstinacy of a
spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret motives of
ambition or avarice. A metaphysical argument became the cause or
pretence of political contests; the subtleties of the Platonic
school were used as the badges of popular factions, and the
distance which separated their respective tenets were enlarged or
magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long as the dark
heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the Father
with the Son, ^41 the orthodox party might be excused if they
adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the distinction, than
to the equality, of the divine persons. But as soon as the heat
of controversy had subsided, and the progress of the Sabellians
was no longer an object of terror to the churches of Rome, of
Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological opinion began to
flow with a gentle but steady motion towards the contrary
extreme; and the most orthodox doctors allowed themselves the use
of the terms and definitions which had been censured in the mouth
of the sectaries. ^42 After the edict of toleration had restored
peace and leisure to the Christians, the Trinitarian controversy
was revived in the ancient seat of Platonism, the learned, the
opulent, the tumultuous city of Alexandria; and the flame of
religious discord was rapidly communicated from the schools to
the clergy, the people, the province, and the East. The abstruse
question of the eternity of the Logos was agitated in
ecclesiastic conferences and popular sermons; and the heterodox
opinions of Arius ^43 were soon made public by his own zeal, and
by that of his adversaries. His most implacable adversaries have
acknowledged the learning and blameless life of that eminent
presbyter, who, in a former election, had declared, and perhaps
generously declined, his pretensions to the episcopal throne. ^44
His competitor Alexander assumed the office of his judge. The
important cause was argued before him; and if at first he seemed
to hesitate, he at length pronounced his final sentence, as an
absolute rule of faith. ^45 The undaunted presbyter, who presumed
to resist the authority of his angry bishop, was separated from
the community of the church. But the pride of Arius was
supported by the applause of a numerous party. He reckoned among
his immediate followers two bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters,
twelve deacons, and (what may appear almost incredible) seven
hundred virgins. A large majority of the bishops of Asia
appeared to support or favor his cause; and their measures were
conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, the most learned of the
Christian prelates; and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had
acquired the reputation of a statesman without forfeiting that of
a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were opposed to the
synods of Egypt. The attention of the prince and people was
attracted by this theological dispute; and the decision, at the
end of six years, ^46 was referred to the supreme authority of
the general council of Nice.
[Footnote 40: The most ancient creeds were drawn up with the
greatest latitude. See Bull, (Judicium Eccles. Cathol.,) who
tries to prevent Episcopius from deriving any advantage from this
observation.]
[Footnote 41: The heresies of Praxeas, Sabellius, &c., are
accurately explained by Mosheim (p. 425, 680-714.) Praxeas, who
came to Rome about the end of the second century, deceived, for
some time, the simplicity of the bishop, and was confuted by the
pen of the angry Tertullian.]
[Footnote 42: Socrates acknowledges, that the heresy of Arius
proceeded from his strong desire to embrace an opinion the most
diametrically opposite to that of Sabellius.]
[Footnote 43: The figure and manners of Arius, the character and
numbers of his first proselytes, are painted in very lively
colors by Epiphanius, (tom. i. Haeres. lxix. 3, p. 729,) and we
cannot but regret that he should soon forget the historian, to
assume the task of controversy.]
[Footnote 44: See Philostorgius (l. i. c. 3,) and Godefroy's
ample Commentary. Yet the credibility of Philostorgius is
lessened, in the eyes of the orthodox, by his Arianism; and in
those of rational critics, by his passion, his prejudice, and his
ignorance.]
[Footnote 45: Sozomen (l. i. c. 15) represents Alexander as
indifferent, and even ignorant, in the beginning of the
controversy; while Socrates (l. i. c. 5) ascribes the origin of
the dispute to the vain curiosity of his theological
speculations. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,
vol. ii. p. 178) has censured, with his usual freedom, the
conduct of Alexander.]
[Footnote 46: The flames of Arianism might burn for some time in
secret; but there is reason to believe that they burst out with
violence as early as the year 319. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 774-780.]
When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously
exposed to public debate, it might be observed, that the human
understanding was capable of forming three district, though
imperfect systems, concerning the nature of the Divine Trinity;
and it was pronounced, that none of these systems, in a pure and
absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error. ^47 I.
According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius
and his disciples, the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous
production, created from nothing by the will of the father. The
Son, by whom all things were made, ^48 had been begotten before
all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be
compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration;
yet this duration was not infinite, ^49 and there had been a time
which preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos. On this
only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his ample
spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his glory. Visible image
of invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable distance
beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest archangels; yet he
shone only with a reflected light, and, like the sons of the
Romans emperors, who were invested with the titles of Caesar or
Augustus, ^50 he governed the universe in obedience to the will
of his Father and Monarch. II. In the second hypothesis, the
Logos possessed all the inherent, incommunicable perfections,
which religion and philosophy appropriate to the Supreme God.
Three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three coequal
and coeternal beings, composed the Divine Essence; ^51 and it
would have implied contradiction, that any of them should not
have existed, or that they should ever cease to exist. ^52 The
advocates of a system which seemed to establish three independent
Deities, attempted to preserve the unity of the First Cause, so
conspicuous in the design and order of the world, by the
perpetual concord of their administration, and the essential
agreement of their will. A faint resemblance of this unity of
action may be discovered in the societies of men, and even of
animals. The causes which disturb their harmony, proceed only
from the imperfection and inequality of their faculties; but the
omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom and goodness,
cannot fail of choosing the same means for the accomplishment of
the same ends. III. Three beings, who, by the self-derived
necessity of their existence, possess all the divine attributes
in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in duration, infinite
in space, and intimately present to each other, and to the whole
universe; irresistibly force themselves on the astonished mind,
as one and the same being, ^53 who, in the economy of grace, as
well as in that of nature, may manifest himself under different
forms, and be considered under different aspects. By this
hypothesis, a real substantial trinity is refined into a trinity
of names, and abstract modifications, that subsist only in the
mind which conceives them. The Logos is no longer a person, but
an attribute; and it is only in a figurative sense that the
epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal reason, which was
with God from the beginning, and by which, not by whom, all
things were made. The incarnation of the Logos is reduced to a
mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom, which filled the soul, and
directed all the actions, of the man Jesus. Thus, after
revolving around the theological circle, we are surprised to find
that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite had begun; and that
the incomprehensible mystery which excites our adoration, eludes
our inquiry. ^54
[Footnote 47: Quid credidit? Certe, aut tria nomina audiens tres
Deos esse credidit, et idololatra effectus est; aut in tribus
vocabulis trinominem credens Deum, in Sabellii haeresim incurrit;
aut edoctus ab Arianis unum esse verum Deum Patrem, filium et
spiritum sanctum credidit creaturas. Aut extra haec quid credere
potuerit nescio. Hieronym adv. Luciferianos. Jerom reserves for
the last the orthodox system, which is more complicated and
difficult.]
[Footnote 48: As the doctrine of absolute creation from nothing
was gradually introduced among the Christians, (Beausobre, tom.
ii. p. 165- 215,) the dignity of the workman very naturally rose
with that of the work.]
[Footnote 49: The metaphysics of Dr. Clarke (Scripture Trinity,
p. 276-280) could digest an eternal generation from an infinite
cause.]
[Footnote 50: This profane and absurd simile is employed by
several of the primitive fathers, particularly by Athenagoras, in
his Apology to the emperor Marcus and his son; and it is alleged,
without censure, by Bull himself. See Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect.
iii. c. 5, No. 4.]
[Footnote 51: See Cudworth's Intellectual System, p. 559, 579.
This dangerous hypothesis was countenanced by the two Gregories,
of Nyssa and Nazianzen, by Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus,
&c. See Cudworth, p. 603. Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle,
tom xviii. p. 97-105.]
[Footnote 52: Augustin seems to envy the freedom of the
Philosophers. Liberis verbis loquuntur philosophi . . . . Nos
autem non dicimus duo vel tria principia, duos vel tres Deos. De
Civitat. Dei, x. 23.]
[Footnote 53: Boetius, who was deeply versed in the philosophy of
Plato and Aristotle, explains the unity of the Trinity by the
indifference of the three persons. See the judicious remarks of
Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Choisie, tom. xvi. p. 225, &c.]
[Footnote 54: If the Sabellians were startled at this conclusion,
they were driven another precipice into the confession, that the
Father was born of a virgin, that he had suffered on the cross;
and thus deserved the epithet of Patripassians, with which they
were branded by their adversaries. See the invectives of
Tertullian against Praxeas, and the temperate reflections of
Mosheim, (p. 423, 681;) and Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 6, p.
533.]
If the bishops of the council of Nice ^55 had been permitted
to follow the unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and
his associates could scarcely have flattered themselves with the
hopes of obtaining a majority of votes, in favor of an hypothesis
so directly averse to the two most popular opinions of the
Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of their
situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues, which, in
the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are seldom
practised, or even praised, except by the weaker party. They
recommended the exercise of Christian charity and moderation;
urged the incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed
the use of any terms or definitions which could not be found in
the Scriptures; and offered, by very liberal concessions, to
satisfy their adversaries without renouncing the integrity of
their own principles. The victorious faction received all their
proposals with haughty suspicion; and anxiously sought for some
irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of which might
involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A
letter was publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their
patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the
admission of the Homoousion, or Consubstantial, a word already
familiar to the Platonists, was incompatible with the principles
of their theological system. The fortunate opportunity was
eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions of
the synod; and, according to the lively expression of Ambrose,
^56 they used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the
scabbard, to cut off the head of the hated monster. The
consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was established by
the council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as a
fundamental article of the Christian faith, by the consent of the
Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But
if the same word had not served to stigmatize the heretics, and
to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the
purpose of the majority, by whom it was introduced into the
orthodox creed. This majority was divided into two parties,
distinguished by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the
Tritheists and of the Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes
seemed to overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed
religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of their
principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious, consequences,
which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the
common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal
their differences; their animosity was softened by the healing
counsels of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the
use of the mysterious Homoousion, which either party was free to
interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian
sense, which, about fifty years before, had obliged the council
of Antioch ^57 to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it
to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial
affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints
of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory
Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who supported
with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to
consider the expression of substance as if it had been synonymous
with that of nature; and they ventured to illustrate their
meaning, by affirming that three men, as they belong to the same
common species, are consubstantial, or homoousian to each other.
^58 This pure and distinct equality was tempered, on the one
hand, by the internal connection, and spiritual penetration which
indissolubly unites the divine persons; ^59 and, on the other, by
the preeminence of the Father, which was acknowledged as far as
it is compatible with the independence of the Son. ^60 Within
these limits, the almost invisible and tremulous ball of
orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side,
beyond this consecrated ground, the heretics and the daemons
lurked in ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer.
But as the degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of
the war, rather than on the importance of the controversy, the
heretics who degraded, were treated with more severity than those
who annihilated, the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius
was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious madness
of the Arians; ^61 but he defended above twenty years the
Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was
compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to
mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his
respectable friend. ^62
[Footnote 55: The transactions of the council of Nice are related
by the ancients, not only in a partial, but in a very imperfect
manner. Such a picture as Fra Paolo would have drawn, can never
be recovered; but such rude sketches as have been traced by the
pencil of bigotry, and that of reason, may be seen in Tillemont,
(Mem. Eccles. tom. v. p. 669-759,) and in Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque
Universelle, tom. x p. 435-454.)]
[Footnote 56: We are indebted to Ambrose (De Fide, l. iii.
knowledge of this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum quod viderunt
adversariis esse formidini; ut ipsis gladio, ipsum nefandae caput
haereseos.]
[Footnote 57: See Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p.
25-36. He thinks it his duty to reconcile two orthodox synods.]
[Footnote 58: According to Aristotle, the stars were homoousian
to each other. "That Homoousios means of one substance in kind,
hath been shown by Petavius, Curcellaeus, Cudworth, Le Clerc,
&c., and to prove it would be actum agere." This is the just
remark of Dr. Jortin, (vol. ii p. 212,) who examines the Arian
controversy with learning, candor, and ingenuity.]
[Footnote 59: See Petavius, (Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. iv. c.
16, p. 453, &c.,) Cudworth, (p. 559,) Bull, (sect. iv. p.
285-290, edit. Grab.) The circumincessio, is perhaps the deepest
and darkest he whole theological abyss.]
[Footnote 60: The third section of Bull's Defence of the Nicene
Faith, which some of his antagonists have called nonsense, and
others heresy, is consecrated to the supremacy of the Father.]
[Footnote 61: The ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and
his followers chose to compliment the Arians, was that of
Ariomanites.]
[Footnote 62: Epiphanius, tom i. Haeres. lxxii. 4, p. 837. See
the adventures of Marcellus, in Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. v.
i. p. 880- 899.) His work, in one book, of the unity of God, was
answered in the three books, which are still extant, of Eusebius.
After a long and careful examination, Petavius (tom. ii. l. i. c.
14, p. 78) has reluctantly pronounced the condemnation of
Marcellus.]
The authority of a general council, to which the Arians
themselves had been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners
of the orthodox party the mysterious characters of the word
Homoousion, which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some
obscure disputes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and
perpetuate the uniformity of faith, or at least of language. The
consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved and
obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and
steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated
variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any
certain rule of faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the Arian
chiefs, the fear of the laws or of the people, their reverence
for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all the causes, human and
divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a theological
faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and
inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected
eighteen different models of religion, ^63 and avenged the
violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, ^64 who,
from the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to
extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental
clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of
Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very
few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. ^65
The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was
the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short interval,
the angry passions of his soul; and in the following passage, of
which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers
unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher. "It
is a thing," says Hilary, "equally deplorable and dangerous, that
there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines
as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are
faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain
them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received,
and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total
resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute
for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make
new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we
have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom
we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in
ourselves, or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing
one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's
ruin." ^66
[Footnote 63: Athanasius, in his epistle concerning the Synods of
Seleucia and Rimini, (tom. i. p. 886-905,) has given an ample
list of Arian creeds, which has been enlarged and improved by the
labors of the indefatigable Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
477.)]
[Footnote 64: Erasmus, with admirable sense and freedom, has
delineated the just character of Hilary. To revise his text, to
compose the annals of his life, and to justify his sentiments and
conduct, is the province of the Benedictine editors.]
[Footnote 65: Absque episcopo Eleusio et paucis cum eo, ex majore
parte Asianae decem provinciae, inter quas consisto, vere Deum
nesciunt. Atque utinam penitus nescirent! cum procliviore enim
venia ignorarent quam obtrectarent. Hilar. de Synodis, sive de
Fide Orientalium, c. 63, p. 1186, edit. Benedict. In the
celebrated parallel between atheism and superstition, the bishop
of Poitiers would have been surprised in the philosophic society
of Bayle and Plutarch.]
[Footnote 66: Hilarius ad Constantium, l. i. c. 4, 5, p. 1227,
1228. This remarkable passage deserved the attention of Mr.
Locke, who has transcribed it (vol. iii. p. 470) into the model
of his new common-place book.]
It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured,
that I should swell this theological digression, by a minute
examination of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the
most part, disclaimed the odious name of their parent Arius. It
is amusing enough to delineate the form, and to trace the
vegetation, of a singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves
without flowers, and of branches without fruit, would soon
exhaust the patience, and disappoint the curiosity, of the
laborious student. One question, which gradually arose from the
Arian controversy, may, however, be noticed, as it served to
produce and discriminate the three sects, who were united only by
their common aversion to the Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1.
If they were asked whether the Son was like unto the Father, the
question was resolutely answered in the negative, by the heretics
who adhered to the principles of Arius, or indeed to those of
philosophy; which seem to establish an infinite difference
between the Creator and the most excellent of his creatures.
This obvious consequence was maintained by Aetius, ^67 on whom
the zeal of his adversaries bestowed the surname of the Atheist.
His restless and aspiring spirit urged him to try almost every
profession of human life. He was successively a slave, or at
least a husbandman, a travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a
physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian, and at last the apostle
of a new church, which was propagated by the abilities of his
disciple Eunomius. ^68 Armed with texts of Scripture, and with
captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle
Aetius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it
was impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents
engaged the friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were
forced to renounce, and even to persecute, a dangerous ally, who,
by the accuracy of his reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in
the popular opinion, and offended the piety of their most devoted
followers. 2. The omnipotence of the Creator suggested a
specious and respectful solution of the likeness of the Father
and the Son; and faith might humbly receive what reason could not
presume to deny, that the Supreme God might communicate his
infinite perfections, and create a being similar only to himself.
^69 These Arians were powerfully supported by the weight and
abilities of their leaders, who had succeeded to the management
of the Eusebian interest, and who occupied the principal thrones
of the East. They detested, perhaps with some affectation, the
impiety of Aetius; they professed to believe, either without
reserve, or according to the Scriptures, that the Son was
different from all other creatures, and similar only to the
Father. But they denied, the he was either of the same, or of a
similar substance; sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and
sometimes objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems
to imply an adequate, or at least, a distinct, notion of the
nature of the Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the doctrine of
a similar substance, was the most numerous, at least in the
provinces of Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were
assembled in the council of Seleucia, ^70 their opinion would
have prevailed by a majority of one hundred and five to
forty-three bishops. The Greek word, which was chosen to express
this mysterious resemblance, bears so close an affinity to the
orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age have derided the
furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong
excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it
frequently happens, that the sounds and characters which approach
the nearest to each other accidentally represent the most
opposite ideas, the observation would be itself ridiculous, if it
were possible to mark any real and sensible distinction between
the doctrine of the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled,
and that of the Catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers,
who in his Phrygian exile very wisely aimed at a coalition of
parties, endeavors to prove that by a pious and faithful
interpretation, ^71 the Homoiousion may be reduced to a
consubstantial sense. Yet he confesses that the word has a dark
and suspicious aspect; and, as if darkness were congenial to
theological disputes, the Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors
of the church, assailed them with the most unrelenting fury.
[Footnote 67: In Philostorgius (l. iii. c. 15) the character and
adventures of Aetius appear singular enough, though they are
carefully softened by the hand of a friend. The editor,
Godefroy, (p. 153,) who was more attached to his principles than
to his author, has collected the odious circumstances which his
various adversaries have preserved or invented.]
[Footnote 68: According to the judgment of a man who respected
both these sectaries, Aetius had been endowed with a stronger
understanding and Eunomius had acquired more art and learning.
(Philostorgius l. viii. c. 18.) The confession and apology of
Eunomius (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. viii. p. 258-305) is
one of the few heretical pieces which have escaped.]
[Footnote 69: Yet, according to the opinion of Estius and Bull,
(p. 297,) there is one power - that of creation - which God
cannot communicate to a creature. Estius, who so accurately
defined the limits of Omnipotence was a Dutchman by birth, and by
trade a scholastic divine. Dupin Bibliot. Eccles. tom. xvii. p.
45.]
[Footnote 70: Sabinus ap. Socrat. (l. ii. c. 39) had copied the
acts: Athanasius and Hilary have explained the divisions of this
Arian synod; the other circumstances which are relative to it are
carefully collected by Baro and Tillemont]
[Footnote 71: Fideli et pia intelligentia. . . De Synod. c. 77,
p. 1193. In his his short apologetical notes (first published by
the Benedictines from a MS. of Chartres) he observes, that he
used this cautious expression, qui intelligerum et impiam, p.
1206. See p. 1146. Philostorgius, who saw those objects through
a different medium, is inclined to forget the difference of the
important diphthong. See in particular viii. 17, and Godefroy,
p. 352.]
The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the
language and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom
of the Arian controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic
system, a vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and
flexible idiom, supplied the clergy and people of the East with
an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions; and, in the
midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot the doubt
which is recommended by philosophy, and the submission which is
enjoined by religion. The inhabitants of the West were of a less
inquisitive spirit; their passions were not so forcibly moved by
invisible objects, their minds were less frequently exercised by
the habits of dispute; and such was the happy ignorance of the
Gallican church, that Hilary himself, above thirty years after
the first general council, was still a stranger to the Nicene
creed. ^72 The Latins had received the rays of divine knowledge
through the dark and doubtful medium of a translation. The
poverty and stubbornness of their native tongue was not always
capable of affording just equivalents for the Greek terms, for
the technical words of the Platonic philosophy, ^73 which had
been consecrated, by the gospel or by the church, to express the
mysteries of the Christian faith; and a verbal defect might
introduce into the Latin theology a long train of error or
perplexity. ^74 But as the western provincials had the good
fortune of deriving their religion from an orthodox source, they
preserved with steadiness the doctrine which they had accepted
with docility; and when the Arian pestilence approached their
frontiers, they were supplied with the seasonable preservative of
the Homoousion, by the paternal care of the Roman pontiff. Their
sentiments and their temper were displayed in the memorable synod
of Rimini, which surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, since
it was composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa,
Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it
appeared, that only fourscore prelates adhered to the party,
though they affected to anathematize the name and memory, of
Arius. But this inferiority was compensated by the advantages of
skill, of experience, and of discipline; and the minority was
conducted by Valens and Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who
had spent their lives in the intrigues of courts and councils,
and who had been trained under the Eusebian banner in the
religious wars of the East. By their arguments and negotiations,
they embarrassed, they confounded, they at last deceived, the
honest simplicity of the Latin bishops; who suffered the
palladium of the faith to be extorted from their hand by fraud
and importunity, rather than by open violence. The council of
Rimini was not allowed to separate, till the members had
imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in which some
expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were inserted in
the room of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion, that,
according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself Arian.
^75 But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner reached
their respective dioceses, than they discovered their mistake,
and repented of their weakness. The ignominious capitulation was
rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the Homoousian
standard, which had been shaken but not overthrown, was more
firmly replanted in all the churches of the West. ^76
[Footnote 72: Testor Deumcoeli atque terrae me cum neutrum
audissem, semper tamen utrumque sensisse. . . . Regeneratus
pridem et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicenam
nunquam nisi exsulaturus audivi. Hilar. de Synodis, c. xci. p.
1205. The Benedictines are persuaded that he governed the
diocese of Poitiers several years before his exile.]
[Footnote 73: Seneca (Epist. lviii.) complains that even the of
the Platonists (the ens of the bolder schoolmen) could not be
expressed by a Latin noun.]
[Footnote 74: The preference which the fourth council of the
Lateran at length gave to a numerical rather than a generical
unity (See Petav. tom. ii. l. v. c. 13, p. 424) was favored by
the Latin language: seems to excite the idea of substance,
trinitas of qualities.]
[Footnote 75: Ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum se esse miratus
est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer. tom. i. p. 145.]
[Footnote 76: The story of the council of Rimini is very
elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus, (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
419-430, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1647,) and by Jerom, in his dialogue
against the Luciferians. The design of the latter is to
apologize for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who were
deceived, and who repented.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.
Part IV.
Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural
revolutions of those theological disputes, which disturbed the
peace of Christianity under the reigns of Constantine and of his
sons. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism
over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes, of their
subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the
ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the King of
Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of
an earthly monarch.
The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded the provinces
of the East, interrupted the triumph of Constantine; but the
emperor continued for some time to view, with cool and careless
indifference, the object of the dispute. As he was yet ignorant
of the difficulty of appeasing the quarrels of theologians, he
addressed to the contending parties, to Alexander and to Arius, a
moderating epistle; ^77 which may be ascribed, with far greater
reason, to the untutored sense of a soldier and statesman, than
to the dictates of any of his episcopal counsellors. He
attributes the origin of the whole controversy to a trifling and
subtle question, concerning an incomprehensible point of law,
which was foolishly asked by the bishop, and imprudently resolved
by the presbyter. He laments that the Christian people, who had
the same God, the same religion, and the same worship, should be
divided by such inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously
recommend to the clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek
philosophers; who could maintain their arguments without losing
their temper, and assert their freedom without violating their
friendship. The indifference and contempt of the sovereign would
have been, perhaps, the most effectual method of silencing the
dispute, if the popular current had been less rapid and
impetuous, and if Constantine himself, in the midst of faction
and fanaticism, could have preserved the calm possession of his
own mind. But his ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to
seduce the impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal
of the proselyte. He was provoked by the insults which had been
offered to his statues; he was alarmed by the real, as well as
the imaginary magnitude of the spreading mischief; and he
extinguished the hope of peace and toleration, from the moment
that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the
same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance
of the debate; his attention multiplied the arguments; and he
exposed his person with a patient intrepidity, which animated the
valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has
been bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine, ^78 a
Roman general, whose religion might be still a subject of doubt,
and whose mind had not been enlightened either by study or by
inspiration, was indifferently qualified to discuss, in the Greek
language, a metaphysical question, or an article of faith. But
the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in
the council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in favor of the
orthodox party; and a well-timed insinuation, that the same
Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately
assisted the tyrant, ^79 might exasperate him against their
adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and
his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment
of the synod, must prepare themselves for an immediate exile,
annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from
seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two, protesting
bishops. Eusebius of Caesarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous
consent to the Homoousion; ^80 and the wavering conduct of the
Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his
disgrace and exile. ^81 The impious Arius was banished into one
of the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples
were branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his
writings were condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment
was denounced against those in whose possession they should be
found. The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy,
and the angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to
inspire his subjects with the hatred which he had conceived
against the enemies of Christ. ^82
[Footnote 77: Eusebius, in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 64-72. The
principles of toleration and religious indifference, contained in
this epistle, have given great offence to Baronius, Tillemont,
&c., who suppose that the emperor had some evil counsellor,
either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow. See Cortin's Remarks,
tom. ii. p. 183.
Note: Heinichen (Excursus xi.) quotes with approbation the
term "golden words," applied by Ziegler to this moderate and
tolerant letter of Constantine. May an English clergyman venture
to express his regret that "the fine gold soon became dim" in the
Christian church? - M.]
[Footnote 78: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 13.]
[Footnote 79: Theodoret has preserved (l. i. c. 20) an epistle
from Constantine to the people of Nicomedia, in which the monarch
declares himself the public accuser of one of his subjects; he
styles Eusebius and complains of his hostile behavior during the
civil war.]
[Footnote 80: See in Socrates, (l. i. c. 8,) or rather in
Theodoret, (l. i. c. 12,) an original letter of Eusebius of
Caesarea, in which he attempts to justify his subscribing the
Homoousion. The character of Eusebius has always been a problem;
but those who have read the second critical epistle of Le Clerc,
(Ars Critica, tom. iii. p. 30-69,) must entertain a very
unfavorable opinion of the orthodoxy and sincerity of the bishop
of Caesarea.]
[Footnote 81: Athanasius, tom. i. p. 727. Philostorgius, l. i.
c. 10, and Godefroy's Commentary, p. 41.]
[Footnote 82: Socrates, l. i. c. 9. In his circular letters,
which were addressed to the several cities, Constantine employed
against the heretics the arms of ridicule and comic raillery.]
But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by
passion instead of principle, three years from the council of
Nice were scarcely elapsed before he discovered some symptoms of
mercy, and even of indulgence, towards the proscribed sect, which
was secretly protected by his favorite sister. The exiles were
recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually resumed his influence over
the mind of Constantine, was restored to the episcopal throne,
from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was
treated by the whole court with the respect which would have been
due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by
the synod of Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed impatient to
repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute command, that he
should be solemnly admitted to the communion in the cathedral of
Constantinople. On the same day, which had been fixed for the
triumph of Arius, he expired; and the strange and horrid
circumstances of his death might excite a suspicion, that the
orthodox saints had contributed more efficaciously than by their
prayers, to deliver the church from the most formidable of her
enemies. ^83 The three principal leaders of the Catholics,
Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of
Constantinople were deposed on various f accusations, by the
sentence of numerous councils; and were afterwards banished into
distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors, who, in
the last moments of his life, received the rites of baptism from
the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government of
Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of levity and
weakness. But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems
of theological warfare, might be deceived by the modest and
specious professions of the heretics, whose sentiments he never
perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius, and
persecuted Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as
the bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his
own reign. ^84
[Footnote 83: We derive the original story from Athanasius, (tom.
i. p. 670,) who expresses some reluctance to stigmatize the
memory of the dead. He might exaggerate; but the perpetual
commerce of Alexandria and Constantinople would have rendered it
dangerous to invent. Those who press the literal narrative of
the death of Arius (his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy)
must make their option between poison and miracle.]
[Footnote 84: The change in the sentiments, or at least in the
conduct, of Constantine, may be traced in Eusebius, (in Vit.
Constant. l. iii. c. 23, l. iv. c. 41,) Socrates, (l. i. c.
23-39,) Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 16-34,) Theodoret, (l. i. c. 14-34,)
and Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 1-17.) But the first of these
writers was too near the scene of action, and the others were too
remote from it. It is singular enough, that the important task
of continuing the history of the church should have been left for
two laymen and a heretic.]
The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their
childhood into the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the
delay of their baptism, the example of their father. Like him
they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which
they had never been regularly initiated; ^85 and the fate of the
Trinitarian controversy depended, in a great measure, on the
sentiments of Constantius; who inherited the provinces of the
East, and acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Arian
presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for his use the testament
of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which
had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince, whose public
counsels were always swayed by his domestic favorites. The
eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison through the
palace, and the dangerous infection was communicated by the
female attendants to the guards, and by the empress to her
unsuspicious husband. ^86 The partiality which Constantius always
expressed towards the Eusebian faction, was insensibly fortified
by the dexterous management of their leaders; and his victory
over the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination, as well as
ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause of Arianism.
While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, and the
fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of
Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs
under the walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens,
the Arian bishop of the diocese, employed the most artful
precautions to obtain such early intelligence as might secure
either his favor or his escape. A secret chain of swift and
trusty messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle;
and while the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted
master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and
insinuated with some presence of mind, that the glorious event
had been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor
ascribed his success to the merits and intercession of the bishop
of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public and miraculous
approbation of Heaven. ^87 The Arians, who considered as their
own the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to that of
his father. ^88 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed
the description of a celestial cross, encircled with a splendid
rainbow; which during the festival of Pentecost, about the third
hour of the day, had appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the
edification of the devout pilgrims, and the people of the holy
city. ^89 The size of the meteor was gradually magnified; and the
Arian historian has ventured to affirm, that it was conspicuous
to the two armies in the plains of Pannonia; and that the tyrant,
who is purposely represented as an idolater, fled before the
auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity. ^90
[Footnote 85: Quia etiam tum catechumenus sacramentum fidei
merito videretiu potuisse nescire. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l.
ii. p. 410.]
[Footnote 86: Socrates, l. ii. c. 2. Sozomen, l. iii. c. 18.
Athanas. tom. i. p. 813, 834. He observes that the eunuchs are
the natural enemies of the Son. Compare Dr. Jortin's Remarks on
Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 3 with a certain genealogy in
Candide, (ch. iv.,) which ends with one of the first companions
of Christopher Columbus.]
[Footnote 87: Sulpicius Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 405,
406.]
[Footnote 88: Cyril (apud Baron. A. D. 353, No. 26) expressly
observes that in the reign of Constantine, the cross had been
found in the bowels of the earth; but that it had appeared, in
the reign of Constantius, in the midst of the heavens. This
opposition evidently proves, that Cyril was ignorant of the
stupendous miracle to which the conversion of Constantine is
attributed; and this ignorance is the more surprising, since it
was no more than twelve years after his death that Cyril was
consecrated bishop of Jerusalem, by the immediate successor of
Eusebius of Caesarea. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p.
715.]
[Footnote 89: It is not easy to determine how far the ingenuity
of Cyril might be assisted by some natural appearances of a solar
halo.]
[Footnote 90: Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 26. He is followed by
the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, by Cedrenus, and by
Nicephorus. See Gothofred. Dissert. p. 188.) They could not
refuse a miracle, even from the hand of an enemy.]
The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially
considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord, are
always entitled to our notice; and a short passage of Ammianus,
who served in the armies, and studied the character of
Constantius, is perhaps of more value than many pages of
theological invectives. "The Christian religion, which, in
itself," says that moderate historian, "is plain and simple, he
confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling
the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and
promulgated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain
curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of
bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they
call synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to
their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the
posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys."
^91 Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical
transactions of the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample
commentary on this remarkable passage, which justifies the
rational apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity
of the clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the
true faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the
unbelieving world. ^92 As soon as the emperor was relieved from
the terrors of the civil war, he devoted the leisure of his
winter quarters at Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to
the amusement or toils of controversy: the sword of the
magistrate, and even of the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce
the reasons of the theologian; and as he opposed the orthodox
faith of Nice, it is readily confessed that his incapacity and
ignorance were equal to his presumption. ^93 The eunuchs, the
women, and the bishops, who governed the vain and feeble mind of
the emperor, had inspired him with an insuperable dislike to the
Homoousion; but his timid conscience was alarmed by the impiety
of Aetius. The guilt of that atheist was aggravated by the
suspicious favor of the unfortunate Gallus; and even the death of
the Imperial ministers, who had been massacred at Antioch, were
imputed to the suggestions of that dangerous sophist. The mind
of Constantius, which could neither be moderated by reason, nor
fixed by faith, was blindly impelled to either side of the dark
and empty abyss, by his horror of the opposite extreme; he
alternately embraced and condemned the sentiments, he
successively banished and recalled the leaders, of the Arian and
Semi-Arian factions. ^94 During the season of public business or
festivity, he employed whole days, and even nights, in selecting
the words, and weighing the syllables, which composed his
fluctuating creeds. The subject of his meditations still pursued
and occupied his slumbers: the incoherent dreams of the emperor
were received as celestial visions, and he accepted with
complacency the lofty title of bishop of bishops, from those
ecclesiastics who forgot the interest of their order for the
gratification of their passions. The design of establishing a
uniformity of doctrine, which had engaged him to convene so many
synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Asia, was repeatedly
baffled by his own levity, by the divisions of the Arians, and by
the resistance of the Catholics; and he resolved, as the last and
decisive effort, imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general
council. The destructive earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty
of finding a convenient place, and perhaps some secret motives of
policy, produced an alteration in the summons. The bishops of the
East were directed to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while those
of the West held their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of
the Hadriatic; and instead of two or three deputies from each
province, the whole episcopal body was ordered to march. The
Eastern council, after consuming four days in fierce and
unavailing debate, separated without any definitive conclusion.
The council of the West was protracted till the seventh month.
Taurus, the Praetorian praefect was instructed not to dismiss the
prelates till they should all be united in the same opinion; and
his efforts were supported by the power of banishing fifteen of
the most refractory, and a promise of the consulship if he
achieved so difficult an adventure. His prayers and threats, the
authority of the sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius,
the distress of cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a
hopeless exile, at length extorted the reluctant consent of the
bishops of Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West
attended the emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he
enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of
faith which established the likeness, without expressing the
consubstantiality, of the Son of God. ^95 But the triumph of
Arianism had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy,
whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt; and
the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and
ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius.
[Footnote 91: So curious a passage well deserves to be
transcribed. Christianam religionem absolutam et simplicem, anili
superstitione confundens; in qua scrutanda perplexius, quam
componenda gravius excitaret discidia plurima; quae progressa
fusius aluit concertatione verborum, ut catervis antistium
jumentis publicis ultro citroque discarrentibus, per synodos
(quas appellant) dum ritum omnem ad suum sahere conantur
(Valesius reads conatur) rei vehiculariae concideret servos.
Ammianus, xxi. 16.]
[Footnote 92: Athanas. tom. i. p. 870.]
[Footnote 93: Socrates, l. ii. c. 35-47. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
12-30. Theodore li. c. 18-32. Philostorg. l. iv. c. 4 - 12, l.
v. c. 1-4, l. vi. c. 1-5]
[Footnote 94: Sozomen, l. iv. c. 23. Athanas. tom. i. p. 831.
Tillemont (Mem Eccles. tom. vii. p. 947) has collected several
instances of the haughty fanaticism of Constantius from the
detached treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari. The very titles of
these treaties inspire zeal and terror; "Moriendum pro Dei
Filio." "De Regibus Apostaticis." "De non conveniendo cum
Haeretico." "De non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus."]
[Footnote 95: Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 418-430. The
Greek historians were very ignorant of the affairs of the West.]
We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active
or speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what
obstacles may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when
it is inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object. The
immortal name of Athanasius ^96 will never be separated from the
Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose defence he consecrated
every moment and every faculty of his being. Educated in the
family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early progress
of the Arian heresy: he exercised the important functions of
secretary under the aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene
council beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of
the young deacon. In a time of public danger, the dull claims of
age and of rank are sometimes superseded; and within five months
after his return from Nice, the deacon Athanasius was seated on
the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled that eminent
station above forty-six years, and his long administration was
spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of Arianism. Five
times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he
passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province of
the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his
sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as
the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory of
his life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of
Alexandria was patient of labor, jealous of fame, careless of
safety; and although his mind was tainted by the contagion of
fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and
abilities, which would have qualified him, far better than the
degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great
monarchy. His learning was much less profound and extensive than
that of Eusebius of Caesarea, and his rude eloquence could not be
compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil; but
whenever the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his
sentiments, or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of
speaking or writing, was clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has
always been revered, in the orthodox school, as one of the most
accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he was supposed
to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal
character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, ^97 and that of
divination. ^98 Some fortunate conjectures of future events,
which impartial reasoners might ascribe to the experience and
judgment of Athanasius, were attributed by his friends to
heavenly inspiration, and imputed by his enemies to infernal
magic.
[Footnote 96: We may regret that Gregory Nazianzen composed a
panegyric instead of a life of Athanasius; but we should enjoy
and improve the advantage of drawing our most authentic materials
from the rich fund of his own epistles and apologies, (tom. i. p.
670-951.) I shall not imitate the example of Socrates, (l. ii. c.
l.) who published the first edition of the history, without
giving himself the trouble to consult the writings of Athanasius.
Yet even Socrates, the more curious Sozomen, and the learned
Theodoret, connect the life of Athanasius with the series of
ecclesiastical history. The diligence of Tillemont, (tom. viii,)
and of the Benedictine editors, has collected every fact, and
examined every difficulty]
[Footnote 97: Sulpicius Severus (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 396)
calls him a lawyer, a jurisconsult. This character cannot now be
discovered either in the life or writings of Athanasius.]
[Footnote 98: Dicebatur enim fatidicarum sortium fidem, quaeve
augurales portenderent alites scientissime callens aliquoties
praedixisse futura. Ammianus, xv. 7. A prophecy, or rather a
joke, is related by Sozomen, (l. iv c. 10,) which evidently
proves (if the crows speak Latin) that Athanasius understood the
language of the crows.]
But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the
prejudices and passions of every order of men, from the monk to
the emperor, the knowledge of human nature was his first and most
important science. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of
a scene which was incessantly shifting; and never failed to
improve those decisive moments which are irrecoverably past
before they are perceived by a common eye. The archbishop of
Alexandria was capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly
command, and where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he
might contend with power, and when he must withdraw from
persecution; and while he directed the thunders of the church
against heresy and rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of
his own party, the flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent
leader. The election of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach
of irregularity and precipitation; ^99 but the propriety of his
behavior conciliated the affections both of the clergy and of the
people. The Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the
defence of an eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he
always derived support, or at least consolation, from the
faithful attachment of his parochial clergy; and the hundred
bishops of Egypt adhered, with unshaken zeal, to the cause of
Athanasius. In the modest equipage which pride and policy would
affect, he frequently performed the episcopal visitation of his
provinces, from the mouth of the Nile to the confines of
Aethiopia; familiarly conversing with the meanest of the
populace, and humbly saluting the saints and hermits of the
desert. ^100 Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies, among
men whose education and manners were similar to his own, that
Athanasius displayed the ascendancy of his genius. He appeared
with easy and respectful firmness in the courts of princes; and
in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune he
never lost the confidence of his friends, or the esteem of his
enemies.
[Footnote 99: The irregular ordination of Athanasius was slightly
mentioned in the councils which were held against him. See
Philostorg. l. ii. c. 11, and Godefroy, p. 71; but it can
scarcely be supposed that the assembly of the bishops of Egypt
would solemnly attest a public falsehood. Athanas. tom. i. p.
726.]
[Footnote 100: See the history of the Fathers of the Desert,
published by Rosweide; and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii., in
the lives of Antony, Pachomius, &c. Athanasius himself, who did
not disdain to compose the life of his friend Antony, has
carefully observed how often the holy monk deplored and
prophesied the mischiefs of the Arian heresy Athanas. tom. ii. p.
492, 498, &c.]
In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted the great
Constantine, who had repeatedly signified his will, that Arius
should be restored to the Catholic communion. ^101 The emperor
respected, and might forgive, this inflexible resolution; and the
faction who considered Athanasius as their most formidable enemy,
was constrained to dissemble their hatred, and silently to
prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors
and suspicions, represented the archbishop as a proud and
oppressive tyrant, and boldly accused him of violating the treaty
which had been ratified in the Nicene council, with the
schismatic followers of Meletius. ^102 Athanasius had openly
disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed
to believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil power,
to prosecute those odious sectaries: that he had sacrilegiously
broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mareotis; that he
had whipped or imprisoned six of their bishops; and that
Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same party, had been murdered,
or at least mutilated, by the cruel hand of the primate. ^103
These charges, which affected his honor and his life, were
referred by Constantine to his brother Dalmatius the censor, who
resided at Antioch; the synods of Caesarea and Tyre were
successively convened; and the bishops of the East were
instructed to judge the cause of Athanasius, before they
proceeded to consecrate the new church of the Resurrection at
Jerusalem. The primate might be conscious of his innocence; but
he was sensible that the same implacable spirit which had
dictated the accusation, would direct the proceeding, and
pronounce the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of
his enemies; despised the summons of the synod of Caesarea; and,
after a long and artful delay, submitted to the peremptory
commands of the emperor, who threatened to punish his criminal
disobedience if he refused to appear in the council of Tyre. ^104
Before Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed
from Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the
Meletians; and Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and his
secret friend, was privately concealed in his train. The synod
of Tyre was conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, with more passion,
and with less art, than his learning and experience might
promise; his numerous faction repeated the names of homicide and
tyrant; and their clamors were encouraged by the seeming patience
of Athanasius, who expected the decisive moment to produce
Arsenius alive and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The
nature of the other charges did not admit of such clear and
satisfactory replies; yet the archbishop was able to prove, that
in the village, where he was accused of breaking a consecrated
chalice, neither church nor altar nor chalice could really exist.
The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt and
condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise
their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms: the synod
appointed an episcopal commission of six delegates to collect
evidence on the spot; and this measure which was vigorously
opposed by the Egyptian bishops, opened new scenes of violence
and perjury. ^105 After the return of the deputies from
Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced the final
sentence of degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt.
The decree, expressed in the fiercest language of malice and
revenge, was communicated to the emperor and the Catholic church;
and the bishops immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect,
such as became their holy pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Christ.
^106
[Footnote 101: At first Constantine threatened in speaking, but
requested in writing. His letters gradually assumed a menacing
tone; by while he required that the entrance of the church should
be open to all, he avoided the odious name of Arius. Athanasius,
like a skilful politician, has accurately marked these
distinctions, (tom. i. p. 788.) which allowed him some scope for
excuse and delay]
[Footnote 102: The Meletians in Egypt, like the Donatists in
Africa, were produced by an episcopal quarrel which arose from
the persecution. I have not leisure to pursue the obscure
controversy, which seems to have been misrepresented by the
partiality of Athanasius and the ignorance of Epiphanius. See
Mosheim's General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 201.]
[Footnote 103: The treatment of the six bishops is specified by
Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 25;) but Athanasius himself, so copious on
the subject of Arsenius and the chalice, leaves this grave
accusation without a reply.
Note: This grave charge, if made, (and it rests entirely on
the authority of Soz omen,) seems to have been silently dropped
by the parties themselves: it is never alluded to in the
subsequent investigations. From Sozomen himself, who gives the
unfavorable report of the commission of inquiry sent to Egypt
concerning the cup. it does not appear that they noticed this
accusation of personal violence. - M]
[Footnote 104: Athanas, tom. i. p. 788. Socrates, l. i.c. 28.
Sozomen, l. ii. c 25. The emperor, in his Epistle of
Convocation, (Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 42,) seems to
prejudge some members of the clergy and it was more than probable
that the synod would apply those reproaches to Athanasius.]
[Footnote 105: See, in particular, the second Apology of
Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 763-808,) and his Epistles to the Monks,
(p. 808-866.) They are justified by original and authentic
documents; but they would inspire more confidence if he appeared
less innocent, and his enemies less absurd.]
[Footnote 106: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 41-47.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.
Part V.
But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not
been countenanced by the submission, or even by the presence, of
Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment,
whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and
before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the
intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to
hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request of a formal
audience might have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius
concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine's return
from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry
sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street
of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his surprise
and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the
importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary
respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the
courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and
awakened his conscience. ^107 Constantine listened to the
complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious
attention; the members of the synod of Tyre were summoned to
justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction
would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt
of the primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable
offence; a criminal design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet
of Alexandria, which supplied the subsistence of the new capital.
^108 The emperor was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be
secured by the absence of a popular leader; but he refused to
fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence,
which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a
jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the
remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves,
Athanasius passed about twenty eight months. The death of the
emperor changed the face of public affairs and, amidst the
general indulgence of a young reign, the primate was restored to
his country by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who
expressed a deep sense of the innocence and merit of his
venerable guest. ^109
[Footnote 107: Athanas. tom. i. p. 804. In a church dedicated to
St. Athanasius this situation would afford a better subject for a
picture, than most of the stories of miracles and martyrdoms.]
[Footnote 108: Athanas. tom. i. p. 729. Eunapius has related (in
Vit. Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a strange example of the
cruelty and credulity of Constantine on a similar occasion. The
eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his friendship,
and provoked the resentment of Ablavius, his Praetorian praefect.
The corn-fleet was detained for want of a south wind; the people
of Constantinople were discontented; and Sopater was beheaded, on
a charge that he had bound the winds by the power of magic.
Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to prove, by this execution,
that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the
Gentiles.]
[Footnote 109: In his return he saw Constantius twice, at
Viminiacum, and at Caesarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas. tom. i. p.
676.) Tillemont supposes that Constantine introduced him to the
meeting of the three royal brothers in Pannonia, (Memoires
Eccles. tom. viii. p. 69.)]
The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second
persecution; and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the
East, soon became the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety
bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch, under the
specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an
ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of
Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still regulate the
discipline of the orthodox Greeks. ^110 It was decided, with some
appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should
not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by
the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied
to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or
rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was
seated on his throne; and Philagrius, ^111 the praefect of Egypt,
was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and
military powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of
the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, and
passed three years ^112 as an exile and a suppliant on the holy
threshold of the Vatican. ^113 By the assiduous study of the
Latin language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the
western clergy; his decent flattery swayed and directed the
haughty Julius; the Roman pontiff was persuaded to consider his
appeal as the peculiar interest of the Apostolic see: and his
innocence was unanimously declared in a council of fifty bishops
of Italy. At the end of three years, the primate was summoned to
the court of Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the
indulgence of unlawful pleasures, still professed a lively regard
for the orthodox faith. The cause of truth and justice was
promoted by the influence of gold, ^114 and the ministers of
Constans advised their sovereign to require the convocation of an
ecclesiastical assembly, which might act as the representatives
of the Catholic church. Ninety-four bishops of the West,
seventy-six bishops of the East, encountered each other at
Sardica, on the verge of the two empires, but in the dominions of
the protector of Athanasius. Their debates soon degenerated into
hostile altercations; the Asiatics, apprehensive for their
personal safety, retired to Philippopolis in Thrace; and the
rival synods reciprocally hurled their spiritual thunders against
their enemies, whom they piously condemned as the enemies of the
true God. Their decrees were published and ratified in their
respective provinces: and Athanasius, who in the West was revered
as a saint, was exposed as a criminal to the abhorrence of the
East. ^115 The council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms of
discord and schism between the Greek and Latin churches which
were separated by the accidental difference of faith, and the
permanent distinction of language.
[Footnote 110: See Beveridge, Pandect. tom. i. p. 429-452, and
tom. ii. Annotation. p. 182. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
310-324. St. Hilary of Poitiers has mentioned this synod of
Antioch with too much favor and respect. He reckons ninety-seven
bishops.]
[Footnote 111: This magistrate, so odious to Athanasius, is
praised by Gregory Nazianzen, tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 390, 391.
Saepe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem.
For the credit of human nature, I am always pleased to discover
some good qualities in those men whom party has represented as
tyrants and monsters.]
[Footnote 112: The chronological difficulties which perplex the
residence of Athanasius at Rome, are strenuously agitated by
Valesius (Observat ad Calcem, tom. ii. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c.
1-5) and Tillemont, (Men: Eccles. tom. viii. p. 674, &c.) I have
followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows only one
journey, after the intrusion Gregory.]
[Footnote 113: I cannot forbear transcribing a judicious
observation of Wetstein, (Prolegomen. N.S. p. 19: ) Si tamen
Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus consulere, patebit jam inde a
seculo quarto, cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesiae Graeciae
doctores in duas partes scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia,
numero, tantum non aequales, eam partem quae vincere cupiebat
Romam confugisse, majestatemque pontificis comiter coluisse,
eoque pacto oppressis per pontificem et episcopos Latinos
adversariis praevaluisse, atque orthodoxiam in conciliis
stabilivisse. Eam ob causam Athanasius, non sine comitatu, Roman
petiit, pluresque annos ibi haesit.]
[Footnote 114: Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12. If any corruption
was used to promote the interest of religion, an advocate of
Athanasius might justify or excuse this questionable conduct, by
the example of Cato and Sidney; the former of whom is said to
have given, and the latter to have received, a bribe in the cause
of liberty.]
[Footnote 115: The canon which allows appeals to the Roman
pontiffs, has almost raised the council of Sardica to the dignity
of a general council; and its acts have been ignorantly or
artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See
Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 689, and Geddos's Tracts, vol. ii. p.
419-460.]
During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was
frequently admitted to the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi,
Milan, Verona, Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the
diocese usually assisted at these interviews; the master of the
offices stood before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment;
and the uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by
these respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly
appeals. ^116 Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and
respectful tone that became a subject and a bishop. In these
familiar conferences with the sovereign of the West, Athanasius
might lament the error of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned
the guilt of his eunuchs and his Arian prelates; deplored the
distress and danger of the Catholic church; and excited Constans
to emulate the zeal and glory of his father. The emperor
declared his resolution of employing the troops and treasures of
Europe in the orthodox cause; and signified, by a concise and
peremptory epistle to his brother Constantius, that unless he
consented to the immediate restoration of Athanasius, he himself,
with a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on the throne of
Alexandria. ^117 But this religious war, so horrible to nature,
was prevented by the timely compliance of Constantius; and the
emperor of the East condescended to solicit a reconciliation with
a subject whom he had injured. Athanasius waited with decent
pride, till he had received three successive epistles full of the
strongest assurances of the protection, the favor, and the esteem
of his sovereign; who invited him to resume his episcopal seat,
and who added the humiliating precaution of engaging his
principal ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions.
They were manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict
orders which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents
of Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their
innocence, and to erase from the public registers the illegal
proceedings which had been obtained during the prevalence of the
Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had been
given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate
proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of Thrace,
Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the abject homage
of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without
deceiving his penetration. ^118 At Antioch he saw the emperor
Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and
protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing
the Arians a single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the
other cities of the empire, a similar toleration for his own
party; a reply which might have appeared just and moderate in the
mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop
into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority,
which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and
his fame was diffused from Aethiopia to Britain, over the whole
extent of the Christian world. ^119
[Footnote 116: As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against
Constantius, (see the Epistle to the Monks,) at the same time
that he assured him of his profound respect, we might distrust
the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677.]
[Footnote 117: Notwithstanding the discreet silence of
Athanasius, and the manifest forgery of a letter inserted by
Socrates, these menaces are proved by the unquestionable evidence
of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of Constantius himself. See
Tillemont, tom. viii. p. 693]
[Footnote 118: I have always entertained some doubts concerning
the retraction of Ursacius and Valens, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.)
Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, and to Athanasius
himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that they
cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals
who confess their guilt and infamy; the other of enemies, who
solicit on equal terms an honorable reconciliation.
Note: I cannot quite comprehend the ground of Gibbon's
doubts. Athanasius distinctly asserts the fact of their
retractation. (Athan. Op. i. p. 124, edit. Benedict.) The
epistles are apparently translations from the Latin, if, in fact,
more than the substance of the epistles. That to Athanasius is
brief, almost abrupt. Their retractation is likewise mentioned
in the address of the orthodox bishops of Rimini to Constantius.
Athan. de Synodis, Op t. i. p 723-M.]
[Footnote 119: The circumstances of his second return may be
collected from Athanasius himself, tom. i. p. 769, and 822, 843.
Socrates, l. ii. c. 18, Sozomen, l. iii. c. 19. Theodoret, l. ii.
c. 11, 12. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12.]
But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity
of dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting
forgiveness; and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived
Athanasius of a powerful and generous protector. The civil war
between the assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans,
which afflicted the empire above three years, secured an interval
of repose to the Catholic church; and the two contending parties
were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop, who, by
the weight of his personal authority, might determine the
fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave
audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was
afterwards accused of holding a secret correspondence; ^120 and
the emperor Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father,
the most reverend Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious
rumors which were circulated by their common enemies, he had
inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his deceased
brother. ^121 Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the
primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to
abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he clearly understood that
the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the
fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous cause
might perhaps be somewhat abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no
longer contrived by the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry
bishops, who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The
monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long
suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; ^122 and the first
winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed
against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of
Gaul.
[Footnote 120: Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677, 678) defends his
innocence by pathetic complaints, solemn assertions, and specious
arguments. He admits that letters had been forged in his name,
but he requests that his own secretaries and those of the tyrant
might be examined, whether those letters had been written by the
former, or received by the latter.]
[Footnote 121: Athanas. tom. i. p. 825-844.]
[Footnote 122: Athanas. tom. i. p. 861. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16.
The emperor declared that he was more desirous to subdue
Athanasius, than he had been to vanquish Magnentius or Sylvanus.]
If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the
most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel
order would have been executed without hesitation, by the
ministers of open violence or of specious injustice. The
caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded in the
condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to
the world that the privileges of the church had already revived a
sense of order and freedom in the Roman government. The sentence
which was pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a
large majority of the Eastern bishops, had never been expressly
repealed; and as Athanasius had been once degraded from his
episcopal dignity by the judgment of his brethren, every
subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even
criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which
the primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the
Western church, engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of
the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin
bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations;
and the important cause between the emperor and one of his
subjects was solemnly debated, first in the synod of Arles, and
afterwards in the great council of Milan, ^123 which consisted of
above three hundred bishops. Their integrity was gradually
undermined by the arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the
eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified
his revenge at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own
passions, whilst he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption,
the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was
successfully practised; honors, gifts, and immunities were
offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; ^124 and
the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully
represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and
union of the Catholic church. The friends of Athanasius were
not, however, wanting to their leader, or to their cause. With a
manly spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less
dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private
conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion
and justice. They declared, that neither the hope of his favor,
nor the fear of his displeasure, should prevail on them to join
in the condemnation of an absent, an innocent, a respectable
brother. ^125 They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the
illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long
since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the
honorable reestablishment of the archbishop of Alexandria, and
the silence or recantation of his most clamorous adversaries.
They alleged, that his innocence had been attested by the
unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been acknowledged in the
councils of Rome and Sardica, ^126 by the impartial judgment of
the Latin church. They deplored the hard condition of
Athanasius, who, after enjoying so many years his seat, his
reputation, and the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was
again called upon to confute the most groundless and extravagant
accusations. Their language was specious; their conduct was
honorable: but in this long and obstinate contest, which fixed
the eyes of the whole empire on a single bishop, the
ecclesiastical factions were prepared to sacrifice truth and
justice to the more interesting object of defending or removing
the intrepid champion of the Nicene faith. The Arians still
thought it prudent to disguise, in ambiguous language, their real
sentiments and designs; but the orthodox bishops, armed with the
favor of the people, and the decrees of a general council,
insisted on every occasion, and particularly at Milan, that their
adversaries should purge themselves from the suspicion of heresy,
before they presumed to arraign the conduct of the great
Athanasius. ^127
[Footnote 123: The affairs of the council of Milan are so
imperfectly and erroneously related by the Greek writers, that we
must rejoice in the supply of some letters of Eusebius, extracted
by Baronius from the archives of the church of Vercellae, and of
an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See
Baronius, A.D. 355, and Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 1415.]
[Footnote 124: The honors, presents, feasts, which seduced so
many bishops, are mentioned with indignation by those who were
too pure or too proud to accept them. "We combat (says Hilary of
Poitiers) against Constantius the Antichrist; who strokes the
belly instead of scourging the back;" qui non dorsa caedit; sed
ventrem palpat. Hilarius contra Constant c. 5, p. 1240.]
[Footnote 125: Something of this opposition is mentioned by
Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and superficial knowledge of
ecclesiastical history. Liberius . . . perseveranter renitebatur,
nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum saepe
exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id
enim ille Athanasio semper infestus, &c.]
[Footnote 126: More properly by the orthodox part of the council
of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties had fairly voted, the
division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont (see tom.
viii. p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority
should have proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries,
the principal of whom they immediately deposed.]
[Footnote 127: Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 412.]
But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of
Athanasius) was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal
majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved,
till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and
deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as of the
Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to
subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with
the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of
consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent
bishops: and all those who refused to submit their private
opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of
Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who
affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among
those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and
exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves,
Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellae, Lucifer of Cagliari
and Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly
distinguished. The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the
capital of the empire; the personal merit and long experience of
the venerable Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great
Constantine, and the father of the Nicene faith, placed those
prelates at the head of the Latin church: and their example,
either of submission or resistance, would probable be imitated by
the episcopal crowd. But the repeated attempts of the emperor to
seduce or to intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for
some time ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to
suffer under Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years
before under his grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence
of his sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his
own freedom. When he was banished to Beraea in Thrace, he sent
back a large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of
his journey; and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty
remark, that the emperor and his eunuchs might want that gold to
pay their soldiers and their bishops. ^128 The resolution of
Liberius and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of
exile and confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by
some criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a
seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to
extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova,
whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps
impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent
triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to
treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory,
of an unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity
itself was so deeply indebted. ^129
[Footnote 128: The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus,
xv. 7. See Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas. tom. i. p.
834-837. Hilar. Fragment l.]
[Footnote 129: The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont, (tom.
vii. p. 524-561,) who in the most extravagant terms first
admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. In the
midst of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of
Athanasius may be distinguished from the blind and intemperate
zeal of Hilary.]
The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre
on the firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken
fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The
ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the
benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated those illustrious
exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most
inhospitable spots of a great empire. ^130 Yet they soon
experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous
tracts of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence
of those cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without
restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. ^131 Their
consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and
independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters, and the
liberal alms of their adherents, ^132 and from the satisfaction
which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of
the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and
capricious taste of the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he
offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard
of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those
who defended the consubstantiality, those who asserted the
similar substance, and those who denied the likeness of the Son
of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those adverse
opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile; and,
according to the difference of their temper, might either pity or
insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose present
sufferings would never be compensated by future happiness.
[Footnote 130: The confessors of the West were successively
banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places
of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in the
possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the heretic Aetius
was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place
of his exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a
district inhabited by savages and infested by war and pestilence.
Philostorg. l. v. c. 2.]
[Footnote 131: See the cruel treatment and strange obstinacy of
Eusebius, in his own letters, published by Baronius, A.D. 356,
No. 92-102.]
[Footnote 132: Caeterum exules satis constat, totius orbis
studiis celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum affatim congestas,
legationibus quoque plebis Catholicae ex omnibus fere provinciis
frequentatos. Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i.
p. 836, 840.]
The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West
were designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of
Athanasius himself. ^133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed,
during which the Imperial court secretly labored, by the most
insidious arts, to remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw
the allowance which supplied his popular liberality. But when
the primate of Egypt, deserted and proscribed by the Latin
church, was left destitute of any foreign support, Constantius
despatched two of his secretaries with a verbal commission to
announce and execute the order of his banishment. As the justice
of the sentence was publicly avowed by the whole party, the only
motive which could restrain Constantius from giving his
messengers the sanction of a written mandate, must be imputed to
his doubt of the event; and to a sense of the danger to which he
might expose the second city, and the most fertile province, of
the empire, if the people should persist in the resolution of
defending, by force of arms, the innocence of their spiritual
father. Such extreme caution afforded Athanasius a specious
pretence respectfully to dispute the truth of an order, which he
could not reconcile, either with the equity, or with the former
declarations, of his gracious master. The civil powers of Egypt
found themselves inadequate to the task of persuading or
compelling the primate to abdicate his episcopal throne; and they
were obliged to conclude a treaty with the popular leaders of
Alexandria, by which it was stipulated, that all proceedings and
all hostilities should be suspended till the emperor's pleasure
had been more distinctly ascertained. By this seeming
moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false and fatal
security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of Libya,
advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege, or
rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and
inflamed by religious zeal. ^134 The position of Alexandria,
between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach
and landing of the troops; who were introduced into the heart of
the city, before any effectual measures could be taken either to
shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At
the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of
the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand
soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly
invested the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a
part of his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal
devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the
impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every
horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies
of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained the
next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the
Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a
successful irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The
other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages;
and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the
insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of
a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may
deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither
provoked nor revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with
cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged
and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and,
under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private
resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with applause.
The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and
discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom
they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and
the apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of
rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined
successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The
usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was
placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had
been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important
design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the
tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and
of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which
had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than
ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success,
Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By
a public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the
deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his
blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the
virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the elected
bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of the city to
surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares
his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the
seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from
justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious
death which he had so often deserved. ^135
[Footnote 133: Ample materials for the history of this third
persecution of Athanasius may be found in his own works. See
particularly his very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i. p.
673,) his first Apology for his flight (p. 701,) his prolix
Epistle to the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the original protest of
the people of Alexandria against the violences committed by
Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen (l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the
narrative two or three luminous and important circumstances.]
[Footnote 134: Athanasius had lately sent for Antony, and some of
his chosen monks. They descended from their mountains, announced
to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and were
honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the
city. Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii.
164, in Vit. Patr. p. 524.]
[Footnote 135: Athanas. tom. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his
Arian secretaries while they express their resentment, betray
their fears and esteem of Athanasius.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.
Part VI.
Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent
dangers; and the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and
fix our attention. On the memorable night when the church of St.
Theonas was invested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop,
seated on his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity,
the approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted
by shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling
congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting
one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the
God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The
doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged
among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed
forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms
was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar.
^136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks
and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly
refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in
safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of
the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and though he
was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he
was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he
still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager
search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian
guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable
present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt
disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six
years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. ^137
[Footnote 136: These minute circumstances are curious, as they
are literally transcribed from the protest, which was publicly
presented three days afterwards by the Catholics of Alexandria.
See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867]
[Footnote 137: The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and
Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal,
the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This concealed
parallel is very dexterously managed by the Abbe de la Bleterie,
Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.]
The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole
extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had
endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes
of Ethiopia, ^* to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and
sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, praefects, tribunes,
whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a
fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was
excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to
the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and
the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should
dare to protect the public enemy. ^138 But the deserts of Thebais
were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who
preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their
sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus
received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the
patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest
institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as
the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded
themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils,
were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the
dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence.
^139 The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate
places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the
Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the
well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and
determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants
of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by
a military force, which it was impossible to resist, they
silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and
supported their national character, that tortures could never
wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was
resolved not to disclose. ^140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for
whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a
uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer
approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious
hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached
the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of
superstition had peopled with daemons and savage monsters. The
retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of
Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the
monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and
as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate
connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the
diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert,
to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to
the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various
adventures might have furnished the subject of a very
entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern,
which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the
treachery of a female slave; ^141 and he was once concealed in a
still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only
twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for
her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related
the story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the
appearance of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing
with hasty steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which
he had been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her
hospitable roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the
sacred pledge which was intrusted to her prudence and courage.
Without imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted
Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his
safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a
servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied
him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his
correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of
suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint
whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a
female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions.
^142 During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius
repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the
formal declaration, that he saw the councils of Rimini and
Seleucia, ^143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present
at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of
personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and
improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a
prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and
Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every
seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible
retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war
against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings,
which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed
to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public
apologies, which he addressed to the emperor himself, he
sometimes affected the praise of moderation; whilst at the same
time, in secret and vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius
as a weak and wicked prince, the executioner of his family, the
tyrant of the republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the
height of his prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had
chastised the rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of
Sylvanus, who had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and
vanquished in the field the legions of Magnentius, received from
an invisible hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor
revenge; and the son of Constantine was the first of the
Christian princes who experienced the strength of those
principles, which, in the cause of religion, could resist the
most violent exertions ^144 of the civil power.
[Footnote *: These princes were called Aeizanas and Saiazanas.
Athanasius calls them the kings of Axum. In the superscription of
his letter, Constantius gives them no title. Mr. Salt, during
his first journey in Ethiopia, (in 1806,) discovered, in the
ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting inscription relating
to these princes. It was erected to commemorate the victory of
Aeizanas over the Bougaitae, (St. Martin considers them the
Blemmyes, whose true name is Bedjah or Bodjah.) Aeizanas is
styled king of the Axumites, the Homerites, of Raeidan, of the
Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites, of Silea, of Tiamo, of the
Bougaites. and of Kaei. It appears that at this time the king
of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the inhabitants of
Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he calls himself son of the
invincible Mars. Another brother besides Saiazanas, named
Adephas, is mentioned, though Aeizanas seems to have been sole
king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii. 151. Salt's Travels.
De Sacy, note in Annales des Voyages, xii. p. 53. - M.]
[Footnote 138: Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nec ullus
ci tutus ad latendum supererat locus. Tribuni, Praefecti,
Comites, exercitus quoque ad pervestigandum cum moventur edictis
Imperialibus; praemia dela toribus proponuntur, si quis eum
vivum, si id minus, caput certe Atha casii detulisset. Rufin. l.
i. c. 16.]
[Footnote 139: Gregor. Nazianzen. tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 384,
385. See Tillemont Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 176-410, 820-830.]
[Footnote 140: Et nulla tormentorum vis inveneri, adhuc potuit,
quae obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut
nomen proprium dicat Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad locum.]
[Footnote 141: Rufin. l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This
and the following story will be rendered impossible, if we
suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum which he
accidentally or occasionally had used.]
[Footnote 142: Paladius, (Hist. Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum,
p. 776,) the original author of this anecdote, had conversed with
the damsel, who in her old age still remembered with pleasure so
pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the delicacy
of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c., who almost reject a story
so unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical
history.]
[Footnote 143: Athanas. tom. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont,
(tom. iii. p. 1197,) that his expressions imply a personal,
though perhaps secret visit to the synods.]
[Footnote 144: The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled
with reproaches, which the public must feel to be true, (vol. i.
p. 834, 856;) and, in compliment to his readers, he has
introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c. The
boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published
his invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but Lucifer
sent his libels to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward
of martyrdom. See Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.]
The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable
bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at
least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject
of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who
were blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted
the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually
followed by the intrusion of a stranger ^145 into the episcopal
chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was
violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary
usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were
suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, that they
were not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical
governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by totally
separating themselves from his communion. The first of these
methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success,
that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology
or sacred hymn, which celebrates the glory of the Trinity, is
susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the
substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be
expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative,
particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, ^146
were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and
Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the
Nicene faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from
the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were
stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father,
And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, ^147 was triumphantly chanted by
a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the
purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the
throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which inspired
their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox
party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the
presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the
election and consecration of a new episcopal pastor. ^148 The
revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders; and
the same city was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius,
by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who exercised their
spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and
alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the
church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman
government new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil
society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and
the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the elevation
and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that
his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a
popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and
Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire,
and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of
Constantine.
[Footnote 145: Athanasius (tom. i. p. 811) complains in general
of this practice, which he afterwards exemplifies (p. 861) in the
pretended election of Faelix. Three eunuchs represented the
Roman people, and three prelates, who followed the court, assumed
the functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.]
[Footnote 146: Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. l. ii.
c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has collected many curious facts
concerning the origin and progress of church singing, both in the
East and West.
Note: Arius appears to have been the first who availed
himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the popular
ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and travellers, and
set them to common airs; "beguiling the ignorant, by the
sweetness of his music, into the impiety of his doctrines."
Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers used to parade the streets
of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom arrayed against them
a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8. - M.]
[Footnote 147: Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has
examined this subject with singular accuracy, (p. 147, &c.) There
were three heterodox forms: "To the Father by the Son, and in the
Holy Ghost." "To the Father, and the Son in the Holy Ghost;" and
"To the Father in the Son and the Holy Ghost."]
[Footnote 148: After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of
Constantine, the rigid party of the orthodox formed a separation
which afterwards degenerated into a schism, and lasted about
fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 35-54,
1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches,
the Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each other's
communion, continued for some time to join in prayer.
Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.]
I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station
and his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great
people; and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and
the oblations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had
secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded
apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost
precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was
invested on every side, and the praefect was commanded to seize
the person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force.
The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty,
at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of
the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into
rage. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into
Thrace, a general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome
bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert
their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Faelix; who, by
the influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and
consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of
two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken;
and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed by the
importunate solicitations of a people, who had preserved, as the
last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of treating
their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of
the senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their
husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to
undertake a commission, which in their hands would be less
dangerous, and might prove more successful. The emperor received
with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity
were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments:
he admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved
pastor to the most distant regions of the earth; and consented
that the two bishops, Liberius and Faelix, should govern in peace
their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were
so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments, of
those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly
read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of
accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager
vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of
a horse-race, was now directed towards a different object; and
the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly
exclaimed, "One God, One Christ, One Bishop!" The zeal of the
Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words
alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited
soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to
accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him
to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual
resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the
permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction;
the adherents of Faelix were inhumanly murdered in the streets,
in the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and
the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed
the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the
proscriptions of Sylla. ^149
[Footnote 149: See, on this ecclesiastical revolution of Rome,
Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p. 834, 861. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. p. 3, 4.
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p.]
II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under
the reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other
great cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful
faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who
ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological disputes of
the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being
born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the
East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the
whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the
virtues, and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of
that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander,
the episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By
their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station
to which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius
was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a
prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment
to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar
among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the
Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven
from his throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the
violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince; and
the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his
rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy
deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount
Taurus, ^150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days
without food, and at length strangled, by the order of Philip,
one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. ^151
The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this
ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both
sides, in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The
commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had
been intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry;
but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose
in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes was
consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by
the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he
expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults.
^152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Praetorian
praefect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In
the most gentle and honorable terms, he required the attendance
of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private
communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay
ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while
the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their
bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They
soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the
palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side
of the praefect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by
troops of guards with drawn swords. The military procession
advanced towards the cathedral; the Arians and the Catholics
eagerly rushed to occupy that important post; and three thousand
one hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion
of the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force,
obtained a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by
clamor and sedition; and the causes which appeared the least
connected with the subject of dispute, were sufficient to nourish
and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which
the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a
ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains
into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious
measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole
party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions
immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as
their field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians
has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that
the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood,
which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The writer
who should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle,
would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it
must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of
zeal, and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of
passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would
have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople.
^153
[Footnote 150: Cucusus was the last stage of his life and
sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on the confines
of Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has occasioned
some geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true
spot by the course of the Roman road from Caesarea to Anazarbus.
See Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar.
p. 179, 703.]
[Footnote 151: Athanasius (tom. i. p. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in
the most positive terms, that Paul was murdered; and appeals, not
only to common fame, but even to the unsuspicious testimony of
Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he acknowledges
that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the bishop
of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates,
(l. ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal temper.
presumes (l. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.]
[Footnote 152: Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of
this tragic event. But we no longer possess that part of his
history.
Note: The murder of Hermogenes took place at the first
expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople. - M.]
[Footnote 153: See Socrates, l. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26,
27, 38, and Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l. iv. c. ii. 21. The
acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius has made an
abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430,) are an indifferent copy
of these historians; but a modern Greek, who could write the life
of a saint without adding fables and miracles, is entitled to
some commendation.]
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.
Part VII.
The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which
did not always require the provocations of guilt and resistance,
was justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the
criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and
religion of their sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death,
exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial vigor; and
the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader,
and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes,
and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of
Constantius against the Catholics which has not been judged
worthy of a place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to
communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with
Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, and
of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to relinquish
the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from
holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The
execution of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia
Minor, was committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and
military powers were directed to obey his commands; and the
cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the support of
the Homoiousion, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the
reign, of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were
administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation,
and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of baptism
were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose, had
been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths
of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the
consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of
tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or
inhumanly compressed betweens harp and heavy boards. ^154 The
Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their
firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be
confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was
informed, that a large district of Paphlagonia ^155 was almost
entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to
convert or to extirpate them; and as he distrusted, on this
occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he commanded
a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels,
and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual
dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and
religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country;
and though many of the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman
legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only
with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an
ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the
field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in
a concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities
which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the
reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of
those of his eunuchs: "Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and
driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled
heretics, were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus, and at
Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other
provinces, towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly
destroyed. ^156
[Footnote 154: Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
21. The principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of
persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who
were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their
charity. I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the
difference between the Homoousion and Homoiousion, is almost
invisible to the nicest theological eye.]
[Footnote 155: We are ignorant of the precise situation of
Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of legionaries,
Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul, use
the indefinite terms of, which Nicephorus very properly
translates thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.]
[Footnote 156: Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]
While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the
vitals of the empire, the African provinces were infested by
their peculiar enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name
of Circumcellions, formed the strength and scandal of the
Donatist party. ^157 The severe execution of the laws of
Constantine had excited a spirit of discontent and resistance,
the strenuous efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity
of the church, exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which
had first occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and
corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and
Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast
between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their
pretended successors. ^158 The peasants who inhabited the
villages of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who
had been imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman
laws; who were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but
who were actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause
of their Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile
of their bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the
interruption of their secret assemblies. The violence of the
officers of justice, who were usually sustained by a military
guard, was sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood
of some popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the
quarrel, inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of
revenging the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty
and rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked
their fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated
the criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their
native villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable
gangs on the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged
the habits of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was
consecrated by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the
doctors of the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed
the title of captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as
they were indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a
huge and weighty club, which they termed an Israelite; and the
well-known sound of "Praise be to God," which they used as their
cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of
Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the plea of
necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence,
indulged without control their intemperance and avarice, burnt
the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious
tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and
the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the
Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of
mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a
secure asylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds
to their holy standard. When they were not resisted, they
usually contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest
opposition provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some
Catholic priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were
tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton
barbarity. The spirit of the Circumcellions was not always
exerted against their defenceless enemies; they engaged, and
sometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody
action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with
unsuccessful valor, an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry.
The Donatists who were taken in arms, received, and they soon
deserved, the same treatment which might have been shown to the
wild beasts of the desert. The captives died, without a murmur,
either by the sword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of
retaliation were multiplied in a rapid proportion, which
aggravated the horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of
mutual forgiveness. In the beginning of the present century, the
example of the Circumcellions has been renewed in the
persecution, the boldness, the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the
Camisards; and if the fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of
Numidia, by their military achievements, the Africans maintained
their fierce independence with more resolution and perseverance.
^159
[Footnote 157: See Optatus Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,)
with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin, and the original pieces at
the end of his edition. The numerous circumstances which
Augustin has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions against
others, and against themselves, have been laboriously collected
by Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and he has often,
though without design, exposed injuries which had provoked those
fanatics.]
[Footnote 158: It is amusing enough to observe the language of
opposite parties, when they speak of the same men and things.
Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an
orthodox synod, "Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu . . .
qui imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum
gereret unitatis, et mitteret ministros sancti operis famulos Dei
Paulum et Macarium." Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313.
"Ecce subito," (says the Donatist author of the Passion of
Marculus, "de Constantis regif tyrannica domo . . pollutum
Macarianae persecutionis murmur increpuit, et duabus bestiis ad
Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum
prorsus ac dirum ecclesiae certamen indictum est; ut populus
Christianus ad unionem cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis
militum gladiis et draconum praesentibus signis, et tubarum
vocibus cogeretur. Monument. p. 304.]
[Footnote 159: The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo.
Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as accurate and impartial.
It requires some attention to discover the religion of the
author.]
Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny,
but the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very
extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them
in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any
country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed
with the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they
deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they
perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of
devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope
of eternal happiness. ^160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the
festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design
of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the
insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way
into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to
give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently
stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to
inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if
they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they
refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were
disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on
which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should
east themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many
precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the number of
religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate
enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God,
and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial
philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that
inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character
and principles of the Jewish nation.
[Footnote 160: The Donatist suicides alleged in their
justification the example of Razias, which is related in the 14th
chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.]
The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which
distracted the peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church,
will confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the
complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had
convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each
other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; ^161 and
Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of
heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a
nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. ^162 The fierce and
partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves,
and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the
battle of the angels and daemons. Our calmer reason will reject
such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will
impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good
and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the
appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in
the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and
fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the
same proportion. On either side, the error might be innocent,
the faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their
passions were excited by similar objects; and they might
alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The
metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not
influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by
the intolerant spirit which has been extracted from the pure and
simple maxims of the gospel.
[Footnote 161: Nullus infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi
ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5.]
[Footnote 162: Gregor, Nazianzen, Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont,
tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.]
A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed
to his own history the honorable epithets of political and
philosophical, ^163 accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu,
for neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of
the empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the
Pagan worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part
of his subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of
any public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for
the rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the
ambiguous testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly
ascribed to their favorite hero the merit of a general
persecution. ^164 Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which
would have blazed in the front of the Imperial codes, we may
safely appeal to the original epistle, which Constantine
addressed to the followers of the ancient religion; at a time
when he no longer disguised his conversion, nor dreaded the
rivals of his throne. He invites and exhorts, in the most
pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman empire to imitate the
example of their master; but he declares, that those who still
refuse to open their eyes to the celestial light, may freely
enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A report, that the
ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is formally contradicted
by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns, as the principle of
his moderation, the invincible force of habit, of prejudice, and
of superstition. ^165 Without violating the sanctity of his
promise, without alarming the fears of the Pagans, the artful
monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps, to undermine the
irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The partial acts of
severity which he occasionally exercised, though they were
secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were colored by the
fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while
Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform
the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the
wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous
penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which
excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of
those who were discontented with their present condition. An
ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been
publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests
of the Nile were abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties
of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of
several temples of Phoenicia; in which every mode of prostitution
was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor of
Venus. ^166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some
measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils,
of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the sacred property
was confiscated; the statues of gods and heroes were transported,
with rude familiarity, among a people who considered them as
objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and silver
were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops,
and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying,
at once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But
these depredations were confined to a small part of the Roman
world; and the provinces had been long since accustomed to endure
the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and
proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert
the established religion. ^167
[Footnote 163: Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i. p. 9.]
[Footnote 164: According to Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii.
c. 45,) the emperor prohibited, both in cities and in the
country, the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. l Socrates
(l. i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have represented the
conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history;
which has been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius,
(vii. 28.) Tum deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus justo
ordine et pio vicem vertit edicto; siquidem statuit citra ullam
hominum caedem, paganorum templa claudi.]
[Footnote 165: See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 56, 60.
In the sermon to the assembly of saints, which the emperor
pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to
the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer
sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious
worship.]
[Footnote 166: See Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c.
54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of authority may be
compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the
demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan
Rome.]
[Footnote 167: Eusebius (in Vit. Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and
Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10, edit. Gothofred) both
mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which they viewed in
very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that "he
made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal
worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred
rites were performed there." Lardner's Jewish and Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140.]
The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their
father, with more zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences
of rapine and oppression were insensibly multiplied; ^168 every
indulgence was shown to the illegal behavior of the Christians;
every doubt was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and
the demolition of the temples was celebrated as one of the
auspicious events of the reign of Constans and Constantius. ^169
The name of Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might
have superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions. "It is
our pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples
be immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have
the power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all
our subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should
be guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance,
and after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the
public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors
of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals." ^170
But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this
formidable edict was either composed without being published, or
was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and
the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble,
continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during
the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well
as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great
number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and
the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of
festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the
connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the
supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the
temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended
by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of
succeeding princes. "That emperor," says Symmachus, "suffered
the privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he
bestowed the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted
the customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public
rites and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different
religion, he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred
worship of antiquity." ^171 The senate still presumed to
consecrate, by solemn decrees, the divine memory of their
sovereigns; and Constantine himself was associated, after his
death, to those gods whom he had renounced and insulted during
his life. The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign
pontiff, which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by
Augustus, were accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian
emperors; who were invested with a more absolute authority over
the religion which they had deserted, than over that which they
professed. ^172
[Footnote 168: Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs
who were spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius says (Orat. pro
Templ. p. 23) that the emperor often gave away a temple, like a
dog, or a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup; but the devout
philosopher takes care to observe that these sacrilegious
favorites very seldom prospered.]
[Footnote 169: See Gothofred. Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.
Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl. Graec. tom. vii. p.
235.]
[Footnote 170: Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus universis
claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam
delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a
sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi
perpetraverit, gladio sternatur: facultates etiam perempti fisco
decernimus vindicari: et similiter adfligi rectores provinciarum
si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x.
leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date
of this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the
negligence of magistrates is punished by death and confiscation.
M. de la Bastie (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xv. p. 98) conjectures,
with a show of reason, that this was no more than the minutes of
a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found in
Scriniis Memoriae among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards
inserted, as a worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.]
[Footnote 171: Symmach. Epistol. x. 54.]
[Footnote 172: The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, sur le
Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs Romains, (in the Mem. de
l'Acad. tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned and judicious
performance, which explains the state, and prove the toleration,
of Paganism from Constantino to Gratian. The assertion of
Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical
robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on
that subject are almost silenced.]
The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of
Paganism; ^173 and the holy war against the infidels was less
vigorously prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more
immediately alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic
rebellion. The extirpation of idolatry ^174 might have been
justified by the established principles of intolerance: but the
hostile sects, which alternately reigned in the Imperial court
were mutually apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps
exasperating, the minds of a powerful, though declining faction.
Every motive of authority and fashion, of interest and reason,
now militated on the side of Christianity; but two or three
generations elapsed, before their victorious influence was
universally felt. The religion which had so long and so lately
been established in the Roman empire was still revered by a
numerous people, less attached indeed to speculative opinion,
than to ancient custom. The honors of the state and army were
indifferently bestowed on all the subjects of Constantine and
Constantius; and a considerable portion of knowledge and wealth
and valor was still engaged in the service of polytheism. The
superstition of the senator and of the peasant, of the poet and
the philosopher, was derived from very different causes, but they
met with equal devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal
was insensibly provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed
sect; and their hopes were revived by the well-grounded
confidence, that the presumptive heir of the empire, a young and
valiant hero, who had delivered Gaul from the arms of the
Barbarians, had secretly embraced the religion of his ancestors.
[Footnote 173: As I have freely anticipated the use of pagans and
paganism, I shall now trace the singular revolutions of those
celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so familiar to the
Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural neighborhood, which
frequented the same fountain, derived the common appellation of
pagus and pagans. (Festus sub voce, and Servius ad Virgil.
Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By an easy extension of the word, pagan and
rural became almost synonymous, (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxviii. 5;)
and the meaner rustics acquired that name, which has been
corrupted into peasants in the modern languages of Europe. 3.
The amazing increase of the military order introduced the
necessity of a correlative term, (Hume's Essays, vol. i. p. 555;)
and all the people who were not enlisted in the service of the
prince were branded with the contemptuous epithets of pagans.
(Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal. Satir. 16. Tertullian de
Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The Christians were the soldiers of Christ;
their adversaries, who refused his sacrament, or military oath of
baptism might deserve the metaphorical name of pagans; and this
popular reproach was introduced as early as the reign of
Valentinian (A. D. 365) into Imperial laws (Cod. Theodos. l. xvi.
tit. ii. leg. 18) and theological writings. 5. Christianity
gradually filled the cities of the empire: the old religion, in
the time of Prudentius (advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and
Orosius, (in Praefat. Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure
villages; and the word pagans, with its new signification,
reverted to its primitive origin. 6. Since the worship of Jupiter
and his family has expired, the vacant title of pagans has been
successively applied to all the idolaters and polytheists of the
old and new world. 7. The Latin Christians bestowed it, without
scruple, on their mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest
Unitarians were branded with the unjust reproach of idolatry and
paganism. See Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon Linguae Latinae, in
his works, tom. i. p. 420; Godefroy's Commentary on the
Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p. 250; and Ducange, Mediae et Infimae
Latinitat. Glossar.]
[Footnote 174: In the pure language of Ionia and Athens were
ancient and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an
apparition (Homer. Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an image,
created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort of
service or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the Hebrew
Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx. 4, 5) to
the religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of the
Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred and
ecclesiastical writers and the reproach of idolatry has
stigmatized that visible and abject mode of superstition, which
some sects of Christianity should not hastily impute to the
polytheists of Greece and Rome.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.
Part I
Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul. - His
March And Success. - The Death Of Constantius. - Civil
Administration Of Julian.
While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of
eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with
transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of
Constantius. The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still
dreaded, the arms of the young Caesar; his soldiers were the
companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the
blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his
elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly
considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court.
As long as the fame of Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the
palace, who were skilled in the language of satire, tried the
efficacy of those arts which they had so often practised with
success. They easily discovered, that his simplicity was not
exempt from affectation: the ridiculous epithets of a hairy
savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the
dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest
despatches were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of
a loquacious Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the
art of war amidst the groves of the academy. ^1 The voice of
malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of victory;
the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be
painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was
meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable
reward of his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which,
according to ancient custom, were addressed to the provinces, the
name of Julian was omitted. "Constantius had made his
dispositions in person; he had signalized his valor in the
foremost ranks; his military conduct had secured the victory; and
the captive king of the barbarians was presented to him on the
field of battle," from which he was at that time distant about
forty days' journey. ^2 So extravagant a fable was incapable,
however, of deceiving the public credulity, or even of satisfying
the pride of the emperor himself. Secretly conscious that the
applause and favor of the Romans accompanied the rising fortunes
of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive the
subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their
mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and
candor. ^3 Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they
acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior
talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated, that
the virtues of the Caesar might instantly be converted into the
most dangerous crimes, if the inconstant multitude should prefer
their inclinations to their duty; or if the general of a
victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the
hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears
of Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable
anxiety for the public safety; whilst in private, and perhaps in
his own breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation
of fear, the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly
conceived for the inimitable virtues of Julian.
[Footnote 1: Omnes qui plus poterant in palatio, adulandi
professores jam docti, recte consulta, prospereque completa
vertebant in deridiculum: talia sine modo strepentes insulse; in
odium venit cum victoriis suis; capella, non homo; ut hirsutum
Julianum carpentes, appellantesque loquacem talpam, et purpuratam
simiam, et litterionem Graecum: et his congruentia plurima atque
vernacula principi resonantes, audire haec taliaque gestienti,
virtutes ejus obruere verbis impudentibus conabantur, et segnem
incessentes et timidum et umbratilem, gestaque secus verbis
comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11.
Note: The philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius
(says Eunapius in a newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call
his antagonist Sylla a beast half lion and half fox. Constantius
had nothing of the lion, but was surrounded by a whole litter of
foxes. Mai. Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii. 238. Niebuhr. Byzant.
Hist. 66. - M.]
[Footnote 2: Ammian. xvi. 12. The orator Themistius (iv. p. 56,
57) believed whatever was contained in the Imperial letters,
which were addressed to the senate of Constantinople Aurelius
Victor, who published his Abridgment in the last year of
Constantius, ascribes the German victories to the wisdom of the
emperor, and the fortune of the Caesar. Yet the historian, soon
afterwards, was indebted to the favor or esteem of Julian for the
honor of a brass statue, and the important offices of consular of
the second Pannonia, and praefect of the city, Ammian. xxi. 10.]
[Footnote 3: Callido nocendi artificio, accusatoriam diritatem
laudum titulis peragebant. . . Hae voces fuerunt ad inflammanda
odia probria omnibus potentiores. See Mamertin, in Actione
Gratiarum in Vet Panegyr. xi. 5, 6.]
The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger
of the eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the
design which was artfully concerted by the Imperial ministers.
They resolved to disarm the Caesar; to recall those faithful
troops who guarded his person and dignity; and to employ, in a
distant war against the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans who
had vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the fiercest nations
of Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter
quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in his
hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders, from the
emperor, which they were directed to execute, and he was
commanded not to oppose. Constantius signified his pleasure,
that four entire legions, the Celtae, and Petulants, the Heruli,
and the Batavians, should be separated from the standard of
Julian, under which they had acquired their fame and discipline;
that in each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest
youths should be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the
strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march,
and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of
the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. ^4 The Caesar foresaw
and lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the
auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated,
that they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public
faith of Rome, and the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged
for the observance of this condition. Such an act of treachery
and oppression would destroy the confidence, and excite the
resentment, of the independent warriors of Germany, who
considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as
the most valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who
enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the
general defence of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard
with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic and
of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the
climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they
despised, and perhaps hated, the emperor; they dreaded the
laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of
Asia. They claimed as their own the country which they had
saved; and excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred
and more immediate duty of protecting their families and friends.
The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from the knowledge of
the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the provinces
were exhausted of their military strength, the Germans would
violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and
notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of
a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed,
must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in
the camp of the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of
Constantius. If Julian complied with the orders which he had
received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that of a people
who deserved his affection. But a positive refusal was an act of
rebellion, and a declaration of war. The inexorable jealousy of
the emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious, nature of his
commands, left not any room for a fair apology, or candid
interpretation; and the dependent station of the Caesar scarcely
allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the
perplexity of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful
counsels of Sallust, who had been removed from his office by the
judicious malice of the eunuchs: he could not even enforce his
representations by the concurrence of the ministers, who would
have been afraid or ashamed to approve the ruin of Gaul. The
moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, ^5 the general of the
cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of
the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the
assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt
statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this
dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations
of Julian, who represented to him, that in every important
measure, the presence of the praefect was indispensable in the
council of the prince. In the mean while the Caesar was
oppressed by the rude and importunate solicitations of the
Imperial messengers, who presumed to suggest, that if he expected
the return of his ministers, he would charge himself with the
guilt of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the
execution. Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian
expressed, in the most serious terms, his wish, and even his
intention, of resigning the purple, which he could not preserve
with honor, but which he could not abdicate with safety.
[Footnote 4: The minute interval, which may be interposed,
between the hyeme adulta and the primo vere of Ammianus, (xx. l.
4,) instead of allowing a sufficient space for a march of three
thousand miles, would render the orders of Constantius as
extravagant as they were unjust. The troops of Gaul could not
have reached Syria till the end of autumn. The memory of
Ammianus must have been inaccurate, and his language incorrect.
Note: The late editor of Ammianus attempts to vindicate his
author from the charge of inaccuracy. "It is clear, from the
whole course of the narrative, that Constantius entertained this
design of demanding his troops from Julian, immediately after the
taking of Amida, in the autumn of the preceding year, and had
transmitted his orders into Gaul, before it was known that
Lupicinus had gone into Britain with the Herulians and
Batavians." Wagner, note to Amm. xx. 4. But it seems also clear
that the troops were in winter quarters (hiemabant) when the
orders arrived. Ammianus can scarcely be acquitted of
incorrectness in his language at least. - M]
[Footnote 5: Ammianus, xx. l. The valor of Lupicinus, and his
military skill, are acknowledged by the historian, who, in his
affected language, accuses the general of exalting the horns of
his pride, bellowing in a tragic tone, and exciting a doubt
whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger from the
Scots and Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some
thoughts of passing over into the island.]
After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to
acknowledge, that obedience was the virtue of the most eminent
subject, and that the sovereign alone was entitled to judge of
the public welfare. He issued the necessary orders for carrying
into execution the commands of Constantius; a part of the troops
began their march for the Alps; and the detachments from the
several garrisons moved towards their respective places of
assembly. They advanced with difficulty through the trembling and
affrighted crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their
pity by silent despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of
the soldiers, holding their infants in their arms, accused the
desertion of their husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of
tenderness, and of indignation. This scene of general distress
afflicted the humanity of the Caesar; he granted a sufficient
number of post-wagons to transport the wives and families of the
soldiers, ^6 endeavored to alleviate the hardships which he was
constrained to inflict, and increased, by the most laudable arts,
his own popularity, and the discontent of the exiled troops. The
grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent
to tent with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for
the most daring acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their
tribunes, a seasonable libel was secretly dispersed, which
painted in lively colors the disgrace of the Caesar, the
oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble vices of the tyrant
of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished and alarmed
by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the
Caesar to hasten the departure of the troops; but they
imprudently rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian;
who proposed that they should not march through Paris, and
suggested the danger and temptation of a last interview.
[Footnote 6: He granted them the permission of the cursus
clavularis, or clabularis. These post-wagons are often mentioned
in the Code, and were supposed to carry fifteen hundred pounds
weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.]
As soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the
Caesar went out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which
had been erected in a plain before the gates of the city. After
distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank or
merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself in
a studied oration to the surrounding multitude: he celebrated
their exploits with grateful applause; encouraged them to accept,
with alacrity, the honor of serving under the eye of a powerful
and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of
Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The
soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an
indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and
venal acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence; and after a
short pause, were dismissed to their quarters. The principal
officers were entertained by the Caesar, who professed, in the
warmest language of friendship, his desire and his inability to
reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of his
victories. They retired from the feast, full of grief and
perplexity; and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore
them from their beloved general and their native country. The
only expedient which could prevent their separation was boldly
agitated and approved the popular resentment was insensibly
moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of
complaint were heightened by passion, and their passions were
inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their departure, the troops
were indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of midnight,
the impetuous multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in
their hands, rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; ^7
and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and
irrevocable words, Julian Augustus! The prince, whose anxious
suspense was interrupted by their disorderly acclamations,
secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was
in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents
of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose
zeal was irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace,
seized, with respectful violence, the object of their choice,
guarded Julian with drawn swords through the streets of Paris,
placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts saluted him
as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the
propriety of resisting their treasonable designs; and of
preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of violence.
Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to individuals,
he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed his
indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their
immortal victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would
immediately return to their allegiance, he would undertake to
obtain from the emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but
even the revocation of the orders which had excited their
resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt,
chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian, than on the
clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned into
impatience, and their impatience into rage. The inflexible
Caesar sustained, till the third hour of the day, their prayers,
their reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield, till he
had been repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must
consent to reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and
amidst the unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military
collar, which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a
diadem; ^8 the ceremony was concluded by the promise of a
moderate donative; and the new emperor, overwhelmed with real or
affected grief retired into the most secret recesses of his
apartment. ^10
[Footnote 7: Most probably the palace of the baths, (Thermarum,)
of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in the Rue de la
Harpe. The buildings covered a considerable space of the modern
quarter of the university; and the gardens, under the Merovingian
kings, communicated with the abbey of St. Germain des Prez. By
the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient palace was
reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins, whose dark
recesses were the scene of licentious love.
Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis;
Multiplici latebra scelerum tersura ruborem.
.... pereuntis saepe pudoris
Celatura nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis.
(These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a
poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk of St.
Alban's, about the year 1190. See Warton's History of English
Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such thefts might be less
pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the
Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground.
Bonamy, Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xv. p. 678-632]
[Footnote 8: Even in this tumultuous moment, Julian attended to
the forms of superstitious ceremony, and obstinately refused the
inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse collar, which
the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a
diadem.]
[Footnote 9: An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces
of the former one pound of the latter; the whole amounting to
about five pounds ten shillings of our money.]
[Footnote 10: For the whole narrative of this revolt, we may
appeal to authentic and original materials; Julian himself, (ad
S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 282, 283, 284,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p.
269-273,) Ammianus, (xx. 4,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 151, 152,
153.) who, in the reign of Julian, appears to follow the more
respectable authority of Eunapius. With such guides we might
neglect the abbreviators and ecclesiastical historians.]
The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence;
out his innocence must appear extremely doubtful ^11 in the eyes
of those who have learned to suspect the motives and the
professions of princes. His lively and active mind was
susceptible of the various impressions of hope and fear, of
gratitude and revenge, of duty and of ambition, of the love of
fame, and of the fear of reproach. But it is impossible for us
to calculate the respective weight and operation of these
sentiments; or to ascertain the principles of action which might
escape the observation, while they guided, or rather impelled,
the steps of Julian himself. The discontent of the troops was
produced by the malice of his enemies; their tumult was the
natural effect of interest and of passion; and if Julian had
tried to conceal a deep design under the appearances of chance,
he must have employed the most consummate artifice without
necessity, and probably without success. He solemnly declares,
in the presence of Jupiter, of the Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and
of all the other deities, that till the close of the evening
which preceded his elevation, he was utterly ignorant of the
designs of the soldiers; ^12 and it may seem ungenerous to
distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of a philosopher. Yet
the superstitious confidence that Constantius was the enemy, and
that he himself was the favorite, of the gods, might prompt him
to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the auspicious moment
of his reign, which was predestined to restore the ancient
religion of mankind. When Julian had received the intelligence
of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a short slumber; and
afterwards related to his friends that he had seen the genius of
the empire waiting with some impatience at his door, pressing for
admittance, and reproaching his want of spirit and ambition. ^13
Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his prayers to the great
Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a clear and manifest omen,
that he should submit to the will of heaven and of the army. The
conduct which disclaims the ordinary maxims of reason, excites
our suspicion and eludes our inquiry. Whenever the spirit of
fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated
itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital
principles of virtue and veracity.
[Footnote 11: Eutropius, a respectable witness, uses a doubtful
expression, "consensu militum." (x. 15.) Gregory Nazianzen, whose
ignorance night excuse his fanaticism, directly charges the
apostate with presumption, madness, and impious rebellion, Orat.
iii. p. 67.]
[Footnote 12: Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 284. The devout Abbe
de la Bleterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is almost inclined to
respect the devout protestations of a Pagan.]
[Footnote 13: Ammian. xx. 5, with the note of Lindenbrogius on
the Genius of the empire. Julian himself, in a confidential
letter to his friend and physician, Oribasius, (Epist. xvii. p.
384,) mentions another dream, to which, before the event, he gave
credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small plant
striking a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind
of the Caesar must have been agitated by the hopes and fears of
his fortune. Zosimus (l. iii. p. 155) relates a subsequent
dream.]
To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of
his enemies, ^14 to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises
which were formed against his life and dignity, were the cares
which employed the first days of the reign of the new emperor.
Although he was firmly resolved to maintain the station which he
had assumed, he was still desirous of saving his country from the
calamities of civil war, of declining a contest with the superior
forces of Constantius, and of preserving his own character from
the reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns
of military and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field
of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the
cause of their pupil, their leader, and their friend. He
recapitulated their victories, lamented their sufferings,
applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and checked
their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had
obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of
the East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce
any views of conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil
possession of the Gallic provinces. On this foundation he
composed, in his own name, and in that of the army, a specious
and moderate epistle, ^15 which was delivered to Pentadius, his
master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius; two
ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe
the dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with
the modest appellation of Caesar; but Julian solicits in a
peremptory, though respectful, manner, the confirmation of the
title of Augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own
election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and
violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent.
He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius; and engages
to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his
army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from
his choice a Praetorian praefect of approved discretion and
fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his
other civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue,
and the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He
admonishes the emperor to consult the dictates of justice; to
distrust the arts of those venal flatterers, who subsist only by
the discord of princes; and to embrace the offer of a fair and
honorable treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and to the
house of Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more
than he already possessed. The delegated authority which he had
long exercised over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain,
was still obeyed under a name more independent and august. The
soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution which was not
stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a
fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected
to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant
offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of
merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace, and
the clamors of the soldiers. ^16
[Footnote 14: The difficult situation of the prince of a
rebellious army is finely described by Tacitus, (Hist. 1, 80-85.)
But Otho had much more guilt, and much less abilities, than
Julian.]
[Footnote 15: To this ostensible epistle he added, says Ammianus,
private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian
had not seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never
existed.]
[Footnote 16: See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian.
ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban.
Orat. Parent. c. 49, 50, p. 273-275.]
The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by
the most vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian
held in readiness for immediate action, was recruited and
augmented by the disorders of the times. The cruel persecutions
of the faction of Magnentius had filled Gaul with numerous bands
of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully accepted the offer of a
general pardon from a prince whom they could trust, submitted to
the restraints of military discipline, and retained only their
implacable hatred to the person and government of Constantius.
^17 As soon as the season of the year permitted Julian to take
the field, he appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge
over the Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to
chastise the perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who
presumed that they might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of
a divided empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this
enterprise, consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had
conquered, as soon as he could penetrate into a country, which
former princes had considered as inaccessible. After he had
given peace to the Barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the
fortifications along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil; surveyed,
with peculiar attention, the territories which he had recovered
from the hands of the Alemanni, passed through Besancon, ^18
which had severely suffered from their fury, and fixed his
headquarters at Vienna for the ensuing winter. The barrier of
Gaul was improved and strengthened with additional
fortifications; and Julian entertained some hopes that the
Germans, whom he had so often vanquished, might, in his absence,
be restrained by the terror of his name. Vadomair ^19 was the
only prince of the Alemanni whom he esteemed or feared and while
the subtle Barbarian affected to observe the faith of treaties,
the progress of his arms threatened the state with an
unseasonable and dangerous war. The policy of Julian
condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni by his own
arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had
incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman governors, was
seized in the midst of the entertainment, and sent away prisoner
into the heart of Spain. Before the Barbarians were recovered
from their amazement, the emperor appeared in arms on the banks
of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river, renewed the deep
impressions of terror and respect which had been already made by
four preceding expeditions. ^20
[Footnote 17: Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 50, p. 275, 276. A strange
disorder, since it continued above seven years. In the factions
of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000 persons;
and Isocrates assures Philip, that it would be easier to raise an
army from the vagabonds than from the cities. See Hume's Essays,
tom. i. p. 426, 427.]
[Footnote 18: Julian (Epist. xxxviii. p. 414) gives a short
description of Vesontio, or Besancon; a rocky peninsula almost
encircled by the River Doux; once a magnificent city, filled with
temples, &c., now reduced to a small town, emerging, however,
from its ruins.]
[Footnote 19: Vadomair entered into the Roman service, and was
promoted from a barbarian kingdom to the military rank of duke of
Phoenicia. He still retained the same artful character, (Ammian.
xxi. 4;) but under the reign of Valens, he signalized his valor
in the Armenian war, (xxix. 1.)]
[Footnote 20: Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3, 4. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
155.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.
Part II.
The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute,
with the utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in
their passage through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by
the tedious and affected delays of the provincial governors; they
were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople to Caesarea
in Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the
presence of Constantius, they found that he had already
conceived, from the despatches of his own officers, the most
unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic
army. The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling
messengers were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the
looks, gestures, the furious language of the monarch, expressed
the disorder of his soul. The domestic connection, which might
have reconciled the brother and the husband of Helena, was
recently dissolved by the death of that princess, whose pregnancy
had been several times fruitless, and was at last fatal to
herself. ^21 The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the last
moment of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which
she had conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have
moderated the resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was
abandoned to his own passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs.
But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to suspend the
punishment of a private enemy: he continued his march towards the
confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the
conditions which might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to
the clemency of their offended sovereign. He required, that the
presumptuous Caesar should expressly renounce the appellation and
rank of Augustus, which he had accepted from the rebels; that he
should descend to his former station of a limited and dependent
minister; that he should vest the powers of the state and army in
the hands of those officers who were appointed by the Imperial
court; and that he should trust his safety to the assurances of
pardon, which were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and
one of the Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months were
ineffectually consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the
distance of three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and,
as soon as Julian perceived that his modest and respectful
behavior served only to irritate the pride of an implacable
adversary, he boldly resolved to commit his life and fortune to
the chance of a civil war. He gave a public and military
audience to the quaestor Leonas: the haughty epistle of
Constantius was read to the attentive multitude; and Julian
protested, with the most flattering deference, that he was ready
to resign the title of Augustus, if he could obtain the consent
of those whom he acknowledged as the authors of his elevation.
The faint proposal was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations
of "Julian Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the
army, of the people, of the republic which you have saved,"
thundered at once from every part of the field, and terrified the
pale ambassador of Constantius. A part of the letter was
afterwards read, in which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude
of Julian, whom he had invested with the honors of the purple;
whom he had educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he
had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.
"An orphan!" interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by
indulging his passions: "does the assassin of my family reproach
me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those
injuries which I have long studied to forget." The assembly was
dismissed; and Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been
protected from the popular fury, was sent back to his master with
an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of the most
vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and of
resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might
be considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who,
some weeks before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the
Epiphany, ^22 made a public declaration that he committed the
care of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly
renounced the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius.
^23
[Footnote 21: Her remains were sent to Rome, and interred near
those of her sister Constantina, in the suburb of the Via
Nomentana. Ammian. xxi. 1. Libanius has composed a very weak
apology, to justify his hero from a very absurd charge of
poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his mother's
jewels. (See the seventh of seventeen new orations, published at
Venice, 1754, from a MS. in St. Mark's Library, p. 117-127.)
Elpidius, the Praetorian praefect of the East, to whose evidence
the accuser of Julian appeals, is arraigned by Libanius, as
effeminate and ungrateful; yet the religion of Elpidius is
praised by Jerom, (tom. i. p. 243,) and his Ammianus (xxi. 6.)]
[Footnote 22: Feriarum die quem celebrantes mense Januario,
Christiani Epiphania dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam,
solemniter numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2. Zonaras
observes, that it was on Christmas day, and his assertion is not
inconsistent; since the churches of Egypt, Asia, and perhaps
Gaul, celebrated on the same day (the sixth of January) the
nativity and the baptism of their Savior. The Romans, as
ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his birth, fixed
the solemn festival to the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or
winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of
the sun. See Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, l.
xx. c. 4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheismo tom. ii.
p. 690-700.]
[Footnote 23: The public and secret negotiations between
Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some caution, from
Julian himself. (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286.) Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. 51, p. 276,) Ammianus, (xx. 9,) Zosimus, (l.
iii. p. 154,) and even Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21,
22,) who, on this occasion, appears to have possessed and used
some valuable materials.]
The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate
resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his
adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the
monarch, had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces
of the West. The position of two magazines, one of them
collected on the banks of the Lake of Constance, the other formed
at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the march of
two armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which
consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather
flour, ^24 was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers
of the enemy who prepared to surround him. But the Imperial
legions were still in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube
was feebly guarded; and if Julian could occupy, by a sudden
incursion, the important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect
that a people of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that
the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute to the
expenses of the civil war. He proposed this bold enterprise to
the assembly of the soldiers; inspired them with a just
confidence in their general, and in themselves; and exhorted them
to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the enemy,
moderate to their fellow-citizens, and obedient to their
officers. His spirited discourse was received with the loudest
acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against
Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared
with alacrity, that they would follow Julian to the farthest
extremities of Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was
administered; and the soldiers, clashing their shields, and
pointing their drawn swords to their throats, devoted themselves,
with horrid imprecations, to the service of a leader whom they
celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror of the
Germans. ^25 This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated
by affection rather than by duty, was singly opposed by
Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office of Praetorian
praefect. That faithful minister, alone and unassisted, asserted
the rights of Constantius, in the midst of an armed and angry
multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen an honorable, but
useless sacrifice. After losing one of his hands by the stroke
of a sword, he embraced the knees of the prince whom he had
offended. Julian covered the praefect with his Imperial mantle,
and, protecting him from the zeal of his followers, dismissed him
to his own house, with less respect than was perhaps due to the
virtue of an enemy. ^26 The high office of Nebridius was bestowed
on Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul, which were now delivered
from the intolerable oppression of taxes, enjoyed the mild and
equitable administration of the friend of Julian, who was
permitted to practise those virtues which he had instilled into
the mind of his pupil. ^27
[Footnote 24: Three hundred myriads, or three millions of
medimni, a corn measure familiar to the Athenians, and which
contained six Roman modii. Julian explains, like a soldier and a
statesman, the danger of his situation, and the necessity and
advantages of an offensive war, (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286,
287.)]
[Footnote 25: See his oration, and the behavior of the troops, in
Ammian. xxi. 5.]
[Footnote 26: He sternly refused his hand to the suppliant
praefect, whom he sent into Tuscany. (Ammian. xxi. 5.) Libanius,
with savage fury, insults Nebridius, applauds the soldiers, and
almost censures the humanity of Julian. (Orat. Parent. c. 53, p.
278.)]
[Footnote 27: Ammian. xxi. 8. In this promotion, Julian obeyed
the law which he publicly imposed on himself. Neque civilis
quisquam judex nec militaris rector, alio quodam praeter merita
suffragante, ad potiorem veniat gradum. (Ammian. xx. 5.) Absence
did not weaken his regard for Sallust, with whose name (A. D.
363) he honored the consulship.]
The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his
troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of
a daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as
far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer
accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valor and to
fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled and divided
his army. ^28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was
directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to
advance through the midland parts of Rhaetia and Noricum. A
similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and
Jovinus, prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways,
through the Alps, and the northern confines of Italy. The
instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and
precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns,
which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily
be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against
the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;
to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude
examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of
their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their
sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had
reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected
three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their
leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head
of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of
the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the
Danube; ^29 and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to
the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor,
surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and
morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers, pursued his
direct course, ^30 without reflecting whether he traversed the
territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length
emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he
designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted
stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines, ^31 as it lay
at anchor; secured a apply of coarse provisions sufficient to
satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a Gallic army;
and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The
labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind,
carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; ^32
and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia, ^* only
nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any
certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In
the course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian
was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted
the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit
of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations,
which were placed along the river, without indulging the
temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The
banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators,
who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the
event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a
young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head
of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the
rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of
Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports,
which he could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some
slow and irresolute measures for the purpose of collecting his
troops, when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active officer,
whom Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed forwards
with some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his
life or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to
the presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground,
and dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy
his faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits,
than he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish
his conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men,
to expose his person in the midst of his enemies. "Reserve for
your master Constantius these timid remonstrances," replied
Julian, with a smile of contempt: "when I gave you my purple to
kiss, I received you not as a counsellor, but as a suppliant."
Conscious that success alone could justify his attempt, and that
boldness only could command success, he instantly advanced, at
the head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and
most populous city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the
long suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful
acclamations of the army and people; who, crowned with flowers,
and holding lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their
acknowledged sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were
devoted to the public joy, which was celebrated by the games of
the circus; but, early on the morning of the third day, Julian
marched to occupy the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of
Mount Haemus; which, almost in the midway between Sirmium and
Constantinople, separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by
an abrupt descent towards the former, and a gentle declivity on
the side of the latter. ^33 The defence of this important post
was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals
of the Italian division, successfully executed the plan of the
march and junction which their master had so ably conceived. ^34
[Footnote 28: Ammianus (xxi. 8) ascribes the same practice, and
the same motive, to Alexander the Great and other skilful
generals.]
[Footnote 29: This wood was a part of the great Hercynian forest,
which, is the time of Caesar, stretched away from the country of
the Rauraci (Basil) into the boundless regions of the north. See
Cluver, Germania Antiqua. l. iii. c. 47.]
[Footnote 30: Compare Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 53, p. 278, 279,
with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 68. Even the saint admires
the speed and secrecy of this march. A modern divine might apply
to the progress of Julian the lines which were originally
designed for another apostate: -
- So eagerly the fiend,
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.]
[Footnote 31: In that interval the Notitia places two or three
fleets, the Lauriacensis, (at Lauriacum, or Lorch,) the
Arlapensis, the Maginensis; and mentions five legions, or
cohorts, of Libernarii, who should be a sort of marines. Sect.
lviii. edit. Labb.]
[Footnote 32: Zosimus alone (l. iii. p. 156) has specified this
interesting circumstance. Mamertinus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 6,
7, 8,) who accompanied Julian, as count of the sacred largesses,
describes this voyage in a florid and picturesque manner,
challenges Triptolemus and the Argonauts of Greece, &c.]
[Footnote *: Banostar. Mannert. - M.]
[Footnote 33: The description of Ammianus, which might be
supported by collateral evidence, ascertains the precise
situation of the Angustine Succorum, or passes of Succi. M.
d'Anville, from the trifling resemblance of names, has placed
them between Sardica and Naissus. For my own justification I am
obliged to mention the only error which I have discovered in the
maps or writings of that admirable geographer.]
[Footnote 34: Whatever circumstances we may borrow elsewhere,
Ammianus (xx. 8, 9, 10) still supplies the series of the
narrative.]
The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the
inclination of the people, extended far beyond the immediate
effect of his arms. ^35 The praefectures of Italy and Illyricum
were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that
important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and as
those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of
Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his
temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of
the Year, the epithet of fugitive to the names of the two
consuls. The provinces which had been deserted by their first
magistrates acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who,
conciliating the qualities of a soldier with those of a
philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and
in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly,
from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to
the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own
conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and
solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the
one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the
Barbarians. ^36 Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the
reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well
as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not
only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His
epistle to the senate and people of Athens ^37 seems to have been
dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit
his actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his
own times, with the same humble deference as if he had been
pleading, in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the
Areopagus. His application to the senate of Rome, which was
still permitted to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was
agreeable to the forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was
summoned by Tertullus, praefect of the city; the epistle of
Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his
claims were admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique
censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his passionate
invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with less
satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present,
unanimously exclaimed, "Respect, we beseech you, the author of
your own fortune." ^38 An artful expression, which, according to
the chance of war, might be differently explained; as a manly
reproof of the ingratitude of the usurper, or as a flattering
confession, that a single act of such benefit to the state ought
to atone for all the failings of Constantius.
[Footnote 35: Ammian. xxi. 9, 10. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 54,
p. 279, 280. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 156, 157.]
[Footnote 36: Julian (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286) positively
asserts, that he intercepted the letters of Constantius to the
Barbarians; and Libanius as positively affirms, that he read them
on his march to the troops and the cities. Yet Ammianus (xxi. 4)
expresses himself with cool and candid hesitation, si famoe
solius admittenda est fides. He specifies, however, an
intercepted letter from Vadomair to Constantius, which supposes
an intimate correspondence between them. "disciplinam non
habet."]
[Footnote 37: Zosimus mentions his epistles to the Athenians, the
Corinthians, and the Lacedaemonians. The substance was probably
the same, though the address was properly varied. The epistle to
the Athenians is still extant, (p. 268-287,) and has afforded
much valuable information. It deserves the praises of the Abbe
de la Bleterie, (Pref. a l'Histoire de Jovien, p. 24, 25,) and is
one of the best manifestoes to be found in any language.]
[Footnote 38: Auctori tuo reverentiam rogamus. Ammian. xxi. 10.
It is amusing enough to observe the secret conflicts of the
senate between flattery and fear. See Tacit. Hist. i. 85.]
The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian
was speedily transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of
Sapor, had obtained some respite from the Persian war.
Disguising the anguish of his soul under the semblance of
contempt, Constantius professed his intention of returning into
Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his
military expedition in any other light than that of a hunting
party. ^39 In the camp of Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated
this design to his army; slightly mentioned the guilt and
rashness of the Caesar; and ventured to assure them, that if the
mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet them in the field, they would
be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes, and the irresistible
weight of their shout of onset. The speech of the emperor was
received with military applause, and Theodotus, the president of
the council of Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation,
that his city might be adorned with the head of the vanquished
rebel. ^40 A chosen detachment was despatched away in
post-wagons, to secure, if it were yet possible, the pass of
Succi; the recruits, the horses, the arms, and the magazines,
which had been prepared against Sapor, were appropriated to the
service of the civil war; and the domestic victories of
Constantius inspired his partisans with the most sanguine
assurances of success. The notary Gaudentius had occupied in his
name the provinces of Africa; the subsistence of Rome was
intercepted; and the distress of Julian was increased by an
unexpected event, which might have been productive of fatal
consequences. Julian had received the submission of two legions
and a cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he
suspected, with reason, the fidelity of those troops which had
been distinguished by the emperor; and it was thought expedient,
under the pretence of the exposed state of the Gallic frontier,
to dismiss them from the most important scene of action. They
advanced, with reluctance, as far as the confines of Italy; but
as they dreaded the length of the way, and the savage fierceness
of the Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of their
tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of
Constantius on the walls of that impregnable city. The vigilance
of Julian perceived at once the extent of the mischief, and the
necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By his order, Jovinus
led back a part of the army into Italy; and the siege of Aquileia
was formed with diligence, and prosecuted with vigor. But the
legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the yoke of discipline,
conducted the defence of the place with skill and perseverance;
vited the rest of Italy to imitate the example of their courage
and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of Julian, if he should
be forced to yield to the superior numbers of the armies of the
East. ^41
[Footnote 39: Tanquam venaticiam praedam caperet: hoc enim ad
Jeniendum suorum metum subinde praedicabat. Ammian. xxii. 7.]
[Footnote 40: See the speech and preparations in Ammianus, xxi.
13. The vile Theodotus afterwards implored and obtained his
pardon from the merciful conqueror, who signified his wish of
diminishing his enemies and increasing the numbers of his
friends, (xxii. 14.)]
[Footnote 41: Ammian. xxi. 7, 11, 12. He seems to describe, with
superfluous labor, the operations of the siege of Aquileia,
which, on this occasion, maintained its impregnable fame.
Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 68) ascribes this accidental
revolt to the wisdom of Constantius, whose assured victory he
announces with some appearance of truth. Constantio quem
credebat procul dubio fore victorem; nemo enim omnium tunc ab hac
constanti sententia discrepebat. Ammian. xxi. 7.]
But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel
alternative which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of
being himself destroyed: and the seasonable death of Constantius
delivered the Roman empire from the calamities of civil war. The
approach of winter could not detain the monarch at Antioch; and
his favorites durst not oppose his impatient desire of revenge.
A slight fever, which was perhaps occasioned by the agitation of
his spirits, was increased by the fatigues of the journey; and
Constantius was obliged to halt at the little town of Mopsucrene,
twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a short
illness, in the forty- fifth year of his age, and the
twenty-fourth of his reign. ^42 His genuine character, which was
composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has
been fully displayed in the preceding narrative of civil and
ecclesiastical events. The long abuse of power rendered him a
considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries; but as
personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the
last of the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world,
with the remark, that he inherited the defects, without the
abilities, of his father. Before Constantius expired, he is said
to have named Julian for his successor; nor does it seem
improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and
tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his
last moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge.
Eusebius, and his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to
prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the election of another
emperor; but their intrigues were rejected with disdain, by an
army which now abhorred the thought of civil discord; and two
officers of rank were instantly despatched, to assure Julian,
that every sword in the empire would be drawn for his service.
The military designs of that prince, who had formed three
different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this
fortunate event. Without shedding the blood of his
fellow-citizens, he escaped the dangers of a doubtful conflict,
and acquired the advantages of a complete victory. Impatient to
visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of the empire,
he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of Haemus, and the
cities of Thrace. When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of
sixty miles, all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him;
and he made his triumphal entry amidst the dutiful acclamations
of the soldiers, the people, and the senate. At innumerable
multitude pressed around him with eager respect and were perhaps
disappointed when they beheld the small stature and simple garb
of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had vanquished the
Barbarians of Germany, and who had now traversed, in a successful
career, the whole continent of Europe, from the shores of the
Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus. ^43 A few days afterwards,
when the remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the
harbor, the subjects of Julian applauded the real or affected
humanity of their sovereign. On foot, without his diadem, and
clothed in a mourning habit, he accompanied the funeral as far as
the church of the Holy Apostles, where the body was deposited:
and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a selfish
tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the
tears of Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the
injuries, and remembered only the obligations, which he had
received from Constantius. ^44 As soon as the legions of Aquileia
were assured of the death of the emperor, they opened the gates
of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their guilty leaders,
obtained an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of Julian;
who, in the thirty-second year of his age, acquired the
undisputed possession of the Roman empire. ^45
[Footnote 42: His death and character are faithfully delineated
by Ammianus, (xxi. 14, 15, 16;) and we are authorized to despise
and detest the foolish calumny of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 68,)
who accuses Julian of contriving the death of his benefactor.
The private repentance of the emperor, that he had spared and
promoted Julian, (p. 69, and Orat. xxi. p. 389,) is not
improbable in itself, nor incompatible with the public verbal
testament which prudential considerations might dictate in the
last moments of his life.
Note: Wagner thinks this sudden change of sentiment
altogether a fiction of the attendant courtiers and chiefs of the
army. who up to this time had been hostile to Julian. Note in
loco Ammian. - M.]
[Footnote 43: In describing the triumph of Julian, Ammianus
(xxii. l, 2) assumes the lofty tone of an orator or poet; while
Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 56, p. 281) sinks to the grave
simplicity of an historian.]
[Footnote 44: The funeral of Constantius is described by
Ammianus, (xxi. 16.) Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 119,)
Mamertinus, in (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 27,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
c. lvi. p. 283,) and Philostorgius, (l. vi. c. 6, with Godefroy's
Dissertations, p. 265.) These writers, and their followers,
Pagans, Catholics, Arians, beheld with very different eyes both
the dead and the living emperor.]
[Footnote 45: The day and year of the birth of Julian are not
perfectly ascertained. The day is probably the sixth of
November, and the year must be either 331 or 332. Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 693. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p.
50. I have preferred the earlier date.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.
Part III.
Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages
of action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth, and the
accidents of his life, never allowed him the freedom of choice.
He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the
academy, and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at
first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice, of
Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of
Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world,
and to posterity, for the happiness of millions. ^46 Julian
recollected with terror the observation of his master Plato, ^47
that the government of our flocks and herds is always committed
to beings of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations
requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the
genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who
presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine
nature; that he should purify his soul from her mortal and
terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites,
enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue
the wild beast, which, according to the lively metaphor of
Aristotle, ^48 seldom fails to ascend the throne of a despot. The
throne of Julian, which the death of Constantius fixed on an
independent basis, was the seat of reason, of virtue, and perhaps
of vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and
discharged with incessant diligence the duties, of his exalted
station; and there were few among his subjects who would have
consented to relieve him from the weight of the diadem, had they
been obliged to submit their time and their actions to the
rigorous laws which that philosophic emperor imposed on himself.
One of his most intimate friends, ^49 who had often shared the
frugal simplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and
sparing diet (which was usually of the vegetable kind) left his
mind and body always free and active, for the various and
important business of an author, a pontiff, a magistrate, a
general, and a prince. In one and the same day, he gave audience
to several ambassadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great number of
letters to his generals, his civil magistrates, his private
friends, and the different cities of his dominions. He listened
to the memorials which had been received, considered the subject
of the petitions, and signified his intentions more rapidly than
they could be taken in short-hand by the diligence of his
secretaries. He possessed such flexibility of thought, and such
firmness of attention, that he could employ his hand to write,
his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate; and pursue at once
three several trains of ideas without hesitation, and without
error. While his ministers reposed, the prince flew with agility
from one labor to another, and, after a hasty dinner, retired
into his library, till the public business, which he had
appointed for the evening, summoned him to interrupt the
prosecution of his studies. The supper of the emperor was still
less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was never
clouded by the fumes of indigestion; and except in the short
interval of a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather
than love, the chaste Julian never shared his bed with a female
companion. ^50 He was soon awakened by the entrance of fresh
secretaries, who had slept the preceding day; and his servants
were obliged to wait alternately while their indefatigable master
allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment than the change of
occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his uncle, his brother,
and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste for the games of the
Circus, under the specious pretence of complying with the
inclinations of the people; and they frequently remained the
greatest part of the day as idle spectators, and as a part of the
splendid spectacle, till the ordinary round of twenty-four races
^51 was completely finished. On solemn festivals, Julian, who
felt and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous
amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and after
bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he
hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who
considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the
advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind. ^52
By this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the short duration
of his reign; and if the dates were less securely ascertained, we
should refuse to believe, that only sixteen months elapsed
between the death of Constantius and the departure of his
successor for the Persian war. The actions of Julian can only be
preserved by the care of the historian; but the portion of his
voluminous writings, which is still extant, remains as a monument
of the application, as well as of the genius, of the emperor.
The Misopogon, the Caesars, several of his orations, and his
elaborate work against the Christian religion, were composed in
the long nights of the two winters, the former of which he passed
at Constantinople, and the latter at Antioch.
[Footnote 46: Julian himself (p. 253-267) has expressed these
philosophical ideas with much eloquence and some affectation, in
a very elaborate epistle to Themistius. The Abbe de la Bleterie,
(tom. ii. p. 146-193,) who has given an elegant translation, is
inclined to believe that it was the celebrated Themistius, whose
orations are still extant.]
[Footnote 47: Julian. ad Themist. p. 258. Petavius (not. p. 95)
observes that this passage is taken from the fourth book De
Legibus; but either Julian quoted from memory, or his MSS. were
different from ours Xenophon opens the Cyropaedia with a similar
reflection.]
[Footnote 48: Aristot. ap. Julian. p. 261. The MS. of Vossius,
unsatisfied with the single beast, affords the stronger reading
of which the experience of despotism may warrant.]
[Footnote 49: Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. lxxxiv. lxxxv. p.
310, 311, 312) has given this interesting detail of the private
life of Julian. He himself (in Misopogon, p. 350) mentions his
vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite of
the people of Antioch.]
[Footnote 50: Lectulus . . . Vestalium toris purior, is the
praise which Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 13) addresses to
Julian himself. Libanius affirms, in sober peremptory language,
that Julian never knew a woman before his marriage, or after the
death of his wife, (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxviii. p. 313.) The
chastity of Julian is confirmed by the impartial testimony of
Ammianus, (xxv. 4,) and the partial silence of the Christians.
Yet Julian ironically urges the reproach of the people of
Antioch, that he almost always in Misopogon, p. 345) lay alone.
This suspicious expression is explained by the Abbe de la
Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 103-109) with candor and
ingenuity.]
[Footnote 51: See Salmasius ad Sueton in Claud. c. xxi. A
twenty-fifth race, or missus, was added, to complete the number
of one hundred chariots, four of which, the four colors, started
each heat.
Centum quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus.
It appears, that they ran five or seven times round the Mota
(Sueton in Domitian. c. 4;) and (from the measure of the Circus
Maximus at Rome, the Hippodrome at Constantinople, &c.) it might
be about a four mile course.]
[Footnote 52: Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340. Julius Caesar had
offended the Roman people by reading his despatches during the
actual race. Augustus indulged their taste, or his own, by his
constant attention to the important business of the Circus, for
which he professed the warmest inclination. Sueton. in August. c.
xlv.]
The reformation of the Imperial court was one of the first
and most necessary acts of the government of Julian. ^53 Soon
after his entrance into the palace of Constantinople, he had
occasion for the service of a barber. An officer, magnificently
dressed, immediately presented himself. "It is a barber,"
exclaimed the prince, with affected surprise, "that I want, and
not a receiver-general of the finances." ^54 He questioned the
man concerning the profits of his employment and was informed,
that besides a large salary, and some valuable perquisites, he
enjoyed a daily allowance for twenty servants, and as many
horses. A thousand barbers, a thousand cup-bearers, a thousand
cooks, were distributed in the several offices of luxury; and the
number of eunuchs could be compared only with the insects of a
summer's day. The monarch who resigned to his subjects the
superiority of merit and virtue, was distinguished by the
oppressive magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings,
and his train. The stately palaces erected by Constantine and
his sons, were decorated with many colored marbles, and ornaments
of massy gold. The most exquisite dainties were procured, to
gratify their pride, rather than their taste; birds of the most
distant climates, fish from the most remote seas, fruits out of
their natural season, winter roses, and summer snows. ^56 The
domestic crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the
legions; yet the smallest part of this costly multitude was
subservient to the use, or even to the splendor, of the throne.
The monarch was disgraced, and the people was injured, by the
creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure, and even
titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might
purchase the privilege of being maintained, without the necessity
of labor, from the public revenue. The waste of an enormous
household, the increase of fees and perquisites, which were soon
claimed as a lawful debt, and the bribes which they extorted from
those who feared their enmity, or solicited their favor, suddenly
enriched these haughty menials. They abused their fortune,
without considering their past, or their future, condition; and
their rapine and venality could be equalled only by the
extravagance of their dissipations. Their silken robes were
embroidered with gold, their tables were served with delicacy and
profusion; the houses which they built for their own use, would
have covered the farm of an ancient consul; and the most
honorable citizens were obliged to dismount from their horses,
and respectfully to salute a eunuch whom they met on the public
highway. The luxury of the palace excited the contempt and
indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the ground, who
yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of nature; and
who placed his vanity, not in emulating, but in despising, the
pomp of royalty.
[Footnote 53: The reformation of the palace is described by
Ammianus, (xxii. 4,) Libanius, Orat. (Parent. c. lxii. p. 288,
&c.,) Mamertinus, in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 11,) Socrates, (l. iii. c.
l.,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 24.)]
[Footnote 54: Ego non rationalem jussi sed tonsorem acciri.
Zonaras uses the less natural image of a senator. Yet an officer
of the finances, who was satisfied with wealth, might desire and
obtain the honors of the senate.]
[Footnote 56: The expressions of Mamertinus are lively and
forcible. Quis etiam prandiorum et caenarum laboratas
magnitudines Romanus populus sensit; cum quaesitissimae dapes non
gustu sed difficultatibus aestimarentur; miracula avium,
longinqui maris pisces, aheni temporis poma, aestivae nives,
hybernae rosae]
By the total extirpation of a mischief which was magnified
even beyond its real extent, he was impatient to relieve the
distress, and to appease the murmurs of the people; who support
with less uneasiness the weight of taxes, if they are convinced
that the fruits of their industry are appropriated to the service
of the state. But in the execution of this salutary work, Julian
is accused of proceeding with too much haste and inconsiderate
severity. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of
Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy
the whole train of slaves and dependants, ^57 without providing
any just, or at least benevolent, exceptions, for the age, the
services, or the poverty, of the faithful domestics of the
Imperial family. Such indeed was the temper of Julian, who
seldom recollected the fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that true
virtue is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices.
The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and
paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so
ridiculous in the person of Constantine, were consistently
rejected by his philosophic successor. But with the fopperies,
Julian affected to renounce the decencies of dress; and seemed to
value himself for his neglect of the laws of cleanliness. In a
satirical performance, which was designed for the public eye, the
emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the
length of his nails, and the inky blackness of his hands;
protests, that although the greatest part of his body was covered
with hair, the use of the razor was confined to his head alone;
and celebrates, with visible complacency, the shaggy and populous
^58 beard, which he fondly cherished, after the example of the
philosophers of Greece. Had Julian consulted the simple dictates
of reason, the first magistrate of the Romans would have scorned
the affectation of Diogenes, as well as that of Darius.
[Footnote 57: Yet Julian himself was accused of bestowing whole
towns on the eunuchs, (Orat. vii. against Polyclet. p. 117-127.)
Libanius contents himself with a cold but positive denial of the
fact, which seems indeed to belong more properly to Constantius.
This charge, however, may allude to some unknown circumstance.]
[Footnote 58: In the Misopogon (p. 338, 339) he draws a very
singular picture of himself, and the following words are
strangely characteristic. The friends of the Abbe de la Bleterie
adjured him, in the name of the French nation, not to translate
this passage, so offensive to their delicacy, (Hist. de Jovien,
tom. ii. p. 94.) Like him, I have contented myself with a
transient allusion; but the little animal which Julian names, is
a beast familiar to man, and signifies love.]
But the work of public reformation would have remained
imperfect, if Julian had only corrected the abuses, without
punishing the crimes, of his predecessor's reign. "We are now
delivered," says he, in a familiar letter to one of his intimate
friends, "we are now surprisingly delivered from the voracious
jaws of the Hydra. ^59 I do not mean to apply the epithet to my
brother Constantius. He is no more; may the earth lie light on
his head! But his artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive
and exasperate a prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised
without some efforts of adulation. It is not, however, my
intention, that even those men should be oppressed: they are
accused, and they shall enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial
trial." To conduct this inquiry, Julian named six judges of the
highest rank in the state and army; and as he wished to escape
the reproach of condemning his personal enemies, he fixed this
extraordinary tribunal at Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus; and transferred to the commissioners an absolute power
to pronounce and execute their final sentence, without delay, and
without appeal. The office of president was exercised by the
venerable praefect of the East, a second Sallust, ^60 whose
virtues conciliated the esteem of Greek sophists, and of
Christian bishops. He was assisted by the eloquent Mamertinus,
^61 one of the consuls elect, whose merit is loudly celebrated by
the doubtful evidence of his own applause. But the civil wisdom
of two magistrates was overbalanced by the ferocious violence of
four generals, Nevitta, Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio. Arbetio,
whom the public would have seen with less surprise at the bar
than on the bench, was supposed to possess the secret of the
commission; the armed and angry leaders of the Jovian and
Herculian bands encompassed the tribunal; and the judges were
alternately swayed by the laws of justice, and by the clamors of
faction. ^62
[Footnote 59: Julian, epist. xxiii. p. 389. He uses the words in
writing to his friend Hermogenes, who, like himself, was
conversant with the Greek poets.]
[Footnote 60: The two Sallusts, the praefect of Gaul, and the
praefect of the East, must be carefully distinguished, (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 696.) I have used the surname of Secundus,
as a convenient epithet. The second Sallust extorted the esteem
of the Christians themselves; and Gregory Nazianzen, who
condemned his religion, has celebrated his virtues, (Orat. iii.
p. 90.) See a curious note of the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de
Julien, p. 363.
Note: Gibbonus secundum habet pro numero, quod tamen est
viri agnomen Wagner, nota in loc. Amm. It is not a mistake; it
is rather an error in taste. Wagner inclines to transfer the
chief guilt to Arbetio. - M.]
[Footnote 61: Mamertinus praises the emperor (xi. l.) for
bestowing the offices of Treasurer and Praefect on a man of
wisdom, firmness, integrity, &c., like himself. Yet Ammianus
ranks him (xxi. l.) among the ministers of Julian, quorum merita
norat et fidem.]
[Footnote 62: The proceedings of this chamber of justice are
related by Ammianus, (xxii. 3,) and praised by Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 74, p. 299, 300.)]
The chamberlain Eusebius, who had so long abused the favor
of Constantius, expiated, by an ignominious death, the insolence,
the corruption, and cruelty of his servile reign. The executions
of Paul and Apodemius (the former of whom was burnt alive) were
accepted as an inadequate atonement by the widows and orphans of
so many hundred Romans, whom those legal tyrants had betrayed and
murdered. But justice herself (if we may use the pathetic
expression of Ammianus ^63) appeared to weep over the fate of
Ursulus, the treasurer of the empire; and his blood accused the
ingratitude of Julian, whose distress had been seasonably
relieved by the intrepid liberality of that honest minister. The
rage of the soldiers, whom he had provoked by his indiscretion,
was the cause and the excuse of his death; and the emperor,
deeply wounded by his own reproaches and those of the public,
offered some consolation to the family of Ursulus, by the
restitution of his confiscated fortunes. Before the end of the
year in which they had been adorned with the ensigns of the
prefecture and consulship, ^64 Taurus and Florentius were reduced
to implore the clemency of the inexorable tribunal of Chalcedon.
The former was banished to Vercellae in Italy, and a sentence of
death was pronounced against the latter. A wise prince should
have rewarded the crime of Taurus: the faithful minister, when he
was no longer able to oppose the progress of a rebel, had taken
refuge in the court of his benefactor and his lawful sovereign.
But the guilt of Florentius justified the severity of the judges;
and his escape served to display the magnanimity of Julian, who
nobly checked the interested diligence of an informer, and
refused to learn what place concealed the wretched fugitive from
his just resentment. ^65 Some months after the tribunal of
Chalcedon had been dissolved, the praetorian vicegerent of
Africa, the notary Gaudentius, and Artemius ^66 duke of Egypt,
were executed at Antioch. Artemius had reigned the cruel and
corrupt tyrant of a great province; Gaudentius had long practised
the arts of calumny against the innocent, the virtuous, and even
the person of Julian himself. Yet the circumstances of their
trial and condemnation were so unskillfully managed, that these
wicked men obtained, in the public opinion, the glory of
suffering for the obstinate loyalty with which they had supported
the cause of Constantius. The rest of his servants were
protected by a general act of oblivion; and they were left to
enjoy with impunity the bribes which they had accepted, either to
defend the oppressed, or to oppress the friendless. This
measure, which, on the soundest principles of policy, may deserve
our approbation, was executed in a manner which seemed to degrade
the majesty of the throne. Julian was tormented by the
importunities of a multitude, particularly of Egyptians, who
loudly redemanded the gifts which they had imprudently or
illegally bestowed; he foresaw the endless prosecution of
vexatious suits; and he engaged a promise, which ought always to
have been sacred, that if they would repair to Chalcedon, he
would meet them in person, to hear and determine their
complaints. But as soon as they were landed, he issued an
absolute order, which prohibited the watermen from transporting
any Egyptian to Constantinople; and thus detained his
disappointed clients on the Asiatic shore till, their patience
and money being utterly exhausted, they were obliged to return
with indignant murmurs to their native country. ^67
[Footnote 63: Ursuli vero necem ipsa mihi videtur flesse
justitia. Libanius, who imputes his death to the soldiers,
attempts to criminate the court of the largesses.]
[Footnote 64: Such respect was still entertained for the
venerable names of the commonwealth, that the public was
surprised and scandalized to hear Taurus summoned as a criminal
under the consulship of Taurus. The summons of his colleague
Florentius was probably delayed till the commencement of the
ensuing year.]
[Footnote 65: Ammian. xx. 7.]
[Footnote 66: For the guilt and punishment of Artemius, see
Julian (Epist. x. p. 379) and Ammianus, (xxii. 6, and Vales, ad
hoc.) The merit of Artemius, who demolished temples, and was put
to death by an apostate, has tempted the Greek and Latin churches
to honor him as a martyr. But as ecclesiastical history attests
that he was not only a tyrant, but an Arian, it is not altogether
easy to justify this indiscreet promotion. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1319.]
[Footnote 67: See Ammian. xxii. 6, and Vales, ad locum; and the
Codex Theodosianus, l. ii. tit. xxxix. leg. i.; and Godefroy's
Commentary, tom. i. p. 218, ad locum.]
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.
Part IV.
The numerous army of spies, of agents, and informers
enlisted by Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to
interrupt that of millions, was immediately disbanded by his
generous successor. Julian was slow in his suspicions, and
gentle in his punishments; and his contempt of treason was the
result of judgment, of vanity, and of courage. Conscious of
superior merit, he was persuaded that few among his subjects
would dare to meet him in the field, to attempt his life, or even
to seat themselves on his vacant throne. The philosopher could
excuse the hasty sallies of discontent; and the hero could
despise the ambitious projects which surpassed the fortune or the
abilities of the rash conspirators. A citizen of Ancyra had
prepared for his own use a purple garment; and this indiscreet
action, which, under the reign of Constantius, would have been
considered as a capital offence, ^68 was reported to Julian by
the officious importunity of a private enemy. The monarch, after
making some inquiry into the rank and character of his rival,
despatched the informer with a present of a pair of purple
slippers, to complete the magnificence of his Imperial habit. A
more dangerous conspiracy was formed by ten of the domestic
guards, who had resolved to assassinate Julian in the field of
exercise near Antioch. Their intemperance revealed their guilt;
and they were conducted in chains to the presence of their
injured sovereign, who, after a lively representation of the
wickedness and folly of their enterprise, instead of a death of
torture, which they deserved and expected, pronounced a sentence
of exile against the two principal offenders. The only instance
in which Julian seemed to depart from his accustomed clemency,
was the execution of a rash youth, who, with a feeble hand, had
aspired to seize the reins of empire. But that youth was the son
of Marcellus, the general of cavalry, who, in the first campaign
of the Gallic war, had deserted the standard of the Caesar and
the republic. Without appearing to indulge his personal
resentment, Julian might easily confound the crime of the son and
of the father; but he was reconciled by the distress of
Marcellus, and the liberality of the emperor endeavored to heal
the wound which had been inflicted by the hand of justice. ^69
[Footnote 68: The president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la
Grandeur, &c., des Romains, c. xiv. in his works, tom. iii. p.
448, 449,) excuses this minute and absurd tyranny, by supposing
that actions the most indifferent in our eyes might excite, in a
Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger. This strange apology
is supported by a strange misapprehension of the English laws,
"chez une nation . . . . ou il est defendu da boire a la sante
d'une certaine personne."]
[Footnote 69: The clemency of Julian, and the conspiracy which
was formed against his life at Antioch, are described by Ammianus
(xxii. 9, 10, and Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
99, p. 323.)]
Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. ^70
From his studies he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and
heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on the caprice of a
tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes
mortified by the reflection, that the slaves who would not dare
to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues.
^71 He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental despotism, which
Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of fourscore
years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition
prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had
frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a
costly diadem; ^72 but he absolutely refused the title of
Dominus, or Lord, ^73 a word which was grown so familiar to the
ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile
and humiliating origin. The office, or rather the name, of
consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with reverence
the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which had been
assumed by the prudence of Augustus was adopted by Julian from
choice and inclination. On the calends of January, at break of
day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta, hastened to the
palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed of their
approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to meet
them, and compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the
demonstrations of his affected humility. From the palace they
proceeded to the senate. The emperor, on foot, marched before
their litters; and the gazing multitude admired the image of
ancient times, or secretly blamed a conduct, which, in their
eyes, degraded the majesty of the purple. ^74 But the behavior of
Julian was uniformly supported. During the games of the Circus,
he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a
slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded
that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of another magistrate,
he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of gold; and
embraced this public occasion of declaring to the world, that he
was subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens, to the laws,
^75 and even to the forms, of the republic. The spirit of his
administration, and his regard for the place of his nativity,
induced Julian to confer on the senate of Constantinople the same
honors, privileges, and authority, which were still enjoyed by
the senate of ancient Rome. ^76 A legal fiction was introduced,
and gradually established, that one half of the national council
had migrated into the East; and the despotic successors of
Julian, accepting the title of Senators, acknowledged themselves
the members of a respectable body, which was permitted to
represent the majesty of the Roman name. From Constantinople,
the attention of the monarch was extended to the municipal
senates of the provinces. He abolished, by repeated edicts, the
unjust and pernicious exemptions which had withdrawn so many idle
citizens from the services of their country; and by imposing an
equal distribution of public duties, he restored the strength,
the splendor, or, according to the glowing expression of
Libanius, ^77 the soul of the expiring cities of his empire. The
venerable age of Greece excited the most tender compassion in the
mind of Julian, which kindled into rapture when he recollected
the gods, the heroes, and the men superior to heroes and to gods,
who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the monuments of
their genius, or the example of their virtues. He relieved the
distress, and restored the beauty, of the cities of Epirus and
Peloponnesus. ^78 Athens acknowledged him for her benefactor;
Argos, for her deliverer. The pride of Corinth, again rising
from her ruins with the honors of a Roman colony, exacted a
tribute from the adjacent republics, for the purpose of defraying
the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the
amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this
tribute the cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had
inherited from their remote ancestors the sacred office of
perpetuating the Olympic, the Pythian, and the Nemean games,
claimed a just exemption. The immunity of Elis and Delphi was
respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos tempted
the insolence of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its
deputies were silenced by the decree of a provincial magistrate,
who seems to have consulted only the interest of the capital in
which he resided. Seven years after this sentence, Julian ^79
allowed the cause to be referred to a superior tribunal; and his
eloquence was interposed, most probably with success, in the
defence of a city, which had been the royal seat of Agamemnon,
^80 and had given to Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors.
^81
[Footnote 70: According to some, says Aristotle, (as he is quoted
by Julian ad Themist. p. 261,) the form of absolute government is
contrary to nature. Both the prince and the philosopher choose,
how ever to involve this eternal truth in artful and labored
obscurity.]
[Footnote 71: That sentiment is expressed almost in the words of
Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.]
[Footnote 72: Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 95, p. 320,) who
mentions the wish and design of Julian, insinuates, in mysterious
language that the emperor was restrained by some particular
revelation.]
[Footnote 73: Julian in Misopogon, p. 343. As he never
abolished, by any public law, the proud appellations of Despot,
or Dominus, they are still extant on his medals, (Ducange, Fam.
Byzantin. p. 38, 39;) and the private displeasure which he
affected to express, only gave a different tone to the servility
of the court. The Abbe de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii.
p. 99-102) has curiously traced the origin and progress of the
word Dominus under the Imperial government.]
[Footnote 74: Ammian. xxii. 7. The consul Mamertinus (in
Panegyr. Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the auspicious day, like
an elegant slave, astonished and intoxicated by the condescension
of his master.]
[Footnote 75: Personal satire was condemned by the laws of the
twelve tables:
Si male condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est
Judiciumque -
Horat. Sat. ii. 1. 82.
Julian (in Misopogon, p. 337) owns himself subject to the law;
and the Abbe de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has
eagerly embraced a declaration so agreeable to his own system,
and, indeed, to the true spirit of the Imperial constitution.]
[Footnote 76: Zosimus, l. iii. p. 158.]
[Footnote 77: See Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 71, p. 296,)
Ammianus, (xxii. 9,) and the Theodosian Code (l. xii. tit. i.
leg. 50-55.) with Godefroy's Commentary, (tom. iv. p. 390-402.)
Yet the whole subject of the Curia, notwithstanding very ample
materials, still remains the most obscure in the legal history of
the empire.]
[Footnote 78: Quae paulo ante arida et siti anhelantia
visebantur, ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora, Deambulacra,
Gymnasia, laetis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies festos,
et celebrari veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari,
(Mamertin. xi. 9.) He particularly restored the city of Nicopolis
and the Actiac games, which had been instituted by Augustus.]
[Footnote 79: Julian. Epist. xxxv. p. 407-411. This epistle,
which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is omitted by the
Abbe de la Bleterie, and strangely disfigured by the Latin
translator, who, by rendering tributum, and populus, directly
contradicts the sense of the original.]
[Footnote 80: He reigned in Mycenae at the distance of fifty
stadia, or six miles from Argos: but these cities, which
alternately flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets.
Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit. Amstel. 1707.]
[Footnote 81: Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 421. This pedigree from
Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it was allowed, after
a strict inquiry, by the judges of the Olympic games, (Herodot.
l. v. c. 22,) at a time when the Macedonian kings were obscure
and unpopular in Greece. When the Achaean league declared
against Philip, it was thought decent that the deputies of Argos
should retire, (T. Liv. xxxii. 22.)]
The laborious administration of military and civil affairs,
which were multiplied in proportion to the extent of the empire,
exercised the abilities of Julian; but he frequently assumed the
two characters of Orator ^82 and of Judge, ^83 which are almost
unknown to the modern sovereigns of Europe. The arts of
persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first Caesars, were
neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their
successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers,
whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators,
whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which
Constantius had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place
where he could exhibit, with the most propriety, the maxims of a
republican, and the talents of a rhetorician. He alternately
practised, as in a school of declamation, the several modes of
praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius has
remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the
simple, concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor,
whose words descended like the flakes of a winter's snow, or the
pathetic and forcible eloquence of Ulysses. The functions of a
judge, which are sometimes incompatible with those of a prince,
were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an
amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and
discernment of his Praetorian praefects, he often placed himself
by their side on the seat of judgment. The acute penetration of
his mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the
chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of
facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot
the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable
questions, and betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the
agitation of his body, the earnest vehemence with which he
maintained his opinion against the judges, the advocates, and
their clients. But his knowledge of his own temper prompted him
to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his friends and
ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular
sallies of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame,
as well as the gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of
Julian were almost always founded on the principles of justice;
and he had the firmness to resist the two most dangerous
temptations, which assault the tribunal of a sovereign, under the
specious forms of compassion and equity. He decided the merits
of the cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties;
and the poor, whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to
satisfy the just demands of a wealthy and noble adversary. He
carefully distinguished the judge from the legislator; ^84 and
though he meditated a necessary reformation of the Roman
jurisprudence, he pronounced sentence according to the strict and
literal interpretation of those laws, which the magistrates were
bound to execute, and the subjects to obey.
[Footnote 82: His eloquence is celebrated by Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301,) who distinctly mentions the
orators of Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has rashly asserted
that Julian was the only prince, since Julius Caesar, who
harangued the senate. All the predecessors of Nero, (Tacit.
Annal. xiii. 3,) and many of his successors, possessed the
faculty of speaking in public; and it might be proved by various
examples, that they frequently exercised it in the senate.]
[Footnote 83: Ammianus (xxi. 10) has impartially stated the
merits and defects of his judicial proceedings. Libanius (Orat.
Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.) has seen only the fair side, and
his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the
duties, of the judge. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 120,) who
suppresses the virtues, and exaggerates even the venial faults of
the Apostate, triumphantly asks, whether such a judge was fit to
be seated between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in the Elysian Fields.]
[Footnote 84: Of the laws which Julian enacted in a reign of
sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted into the codes of
Theodosius and Justinian. (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p. 64-67.)
The Abbe de la Bleterie (tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of
these laws to give an idea of Julian's Latin style, which is
forcible and elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.]
The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their
purple, and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to
the lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their
obscurity. But the personal merit of Julian was, in some
measure, independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his
choice of life, by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and
intense application, he would have obtained, or at least he would
have deserved, the highest honors of his profession; and Julian
might have raised himself to the rank of minister, or general, of
the state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous
caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if he had
prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the
same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the
reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When
we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the
portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and
perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and
sublime than that of Caesar; nor did he possess the consummate
prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady
and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and
consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and
prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and
twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans
beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and
his pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress, and to revive
the spirit, of his subjects; and who endeavored always to connect
authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction,
and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the
superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to
confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his
country, and that he deserved the empire of the world. ^85
[Footnote 85: . . . Ductor fortissimus armis;
Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manuque
Consultor patriae; sed non consultor habendae
Religionis; amans tercentum millia Divum.
Pertidus ille Deo, sed non et perfidus orbi.
Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.
The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised
the Christian post above his usual mediocrity.]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.
Part I.
The Religion Of Julian. - Universal Toleration. - He
Attempts To Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship - To Rebuild The
Temple Of Jerusalem - His Artful Persecution Of The Christians. -
Mutual Zeal And Injustice.
The character of Apostate has injured the reputation of
Julian; and the enthusiasm which clouded his virtues has
exaggerated the real and apparent magnitude of his faults. Our
partial ignorance may represent him as a philosophic monarch, who
studied to protect, with an equal hand, the religious factions of
the empire; and to allay the theological fever which had inflamed
the minds of the people, from the edicts of Diocletian to the
exile of Athanasius. A more accurate view of the character and
conduct of Julian will remove this favorable prepossession for a
prince who did not escape the general contagion of the times. We
enjoy the singular advantage of comparing the pictures which have
been delineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable
enemies. The actions of Julian are faithfully related by a
judicious and candid historian, the impartial spectator of his
life and death. The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is
confirmed by the public and private declarations of the emperor
himself; and his various writings express the uniform tenor of
his religious sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to
dissemble rather than to affect. A devout and sincere attachment
for the gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling passion of
Julian; ^1 the powers of an enlightened understanding were
betrayed and corrupted by the influence of superstitious
prejudice; and the phantoms which existed only in the mind of the
emperor had a real and pernicious effect on the government of the
empire. The vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the
worship, and overturned the altars of those fabulous deities,
engaged their votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with
a very numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes
tempted by the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to
violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice. The triumph
of the party, which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of
infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has
been overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the
signal was given by the sonorous trumpet ^2 of Gregory Nazianzen.
^3 The interesting nature of the events which were crowded into
the short reign of this active emperor, deserve a just and
circumstantial narrative. His motives, his counsels, and his
actions, as far as they are connected with the history of
religion, will be the subject of the present chapter.
[Footnote 1: I shall transcribe some of his own expressions from
a short religious discourse which the Imperial pontiff composed
to censure the bold impiety of a Cynic. Orat. vii. p. 212. The
variety and copiousness of the Greek tongue seem inadequate to
the fervor of his devotion.]
[Footnote 2: The orator, with some eloquence, much enthusiasm,
and more vanity, addresses his discourse to heaven and earth, to
men and angels, to the living and the dead; and above all, to the
great Constantius, an odd Pagan expression.) He concludes with a
bold assurance, that he has erected a monument not less durable,
and much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. See Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 50, iv. p. 134.]
[Footnote 3: See this long invective, which has been
injudiciously divided into two orations in Gregory's works, tom.
i. p. 49-134, Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory and his
friend Basil, (iv. p. 133,) about six months after the death of
Julian, when his remains had been carried to Tarsus, (iv. p.
120;) but while Jovian was still on the throne, (iii. p. 54, iv.
p. 117) I have derived much assistance from a French version and
remarks, printed at Lyons, 1735.]
The cause of his strange and fatal apostasy may be derived
from the early period of his life, when he was left an orphan in
the hands of the murderers of his family. The names of Christ
and of Constantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were
soon associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible
of the most lively impressions. The care of his infancy was
intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, ^4 who was related to
him on the side of his mother; and till Julian reached the
twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian
preceptors the education, not of a hero, but of a saint. The
emperor, less jealous of a heavenly than of an earthly crown,
contented himself with the imperfect character of a catechumen,
while he bestowed the advantages of baptism ^5 on the nephews of
Constantine. ^6 They were even admitted to the inferior offices
of the ecclesiastical order; and Julian publicly read the Holy
Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia. The study of religion,
which they assiduously cultivated, appeared to produce the
fairest fruits of faith and devotion. ^7 They prayed, they
fasted, they distributed alms to the poor, gifts to the clergy,
and oblations to the tombs of the martyrs; and the splendid
monument of St. Mamas, at Caesarea, was erected, or at least was
undertaken, by the joint labor of Gallus and Julian. ^8 They
respectfully conversed with the bishops, who were eminent for
superior sanctity, and solicited the benediction of the monks and
hermits, who had introduced into Cappadocia the voluntary
hardships of the ascetic life. ^9 As the two princes advanced
towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their religious
sentiments, the difference of their characters. The dull and
obstinate understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal,
the doctrines of Christianity; which never influenced his
conduct, or moderated his passions. The mild disposition of the
younger brother was less repugnant to the precepts of the gospel;
and his active curiosity might have been gratified by a
theological system, which explains the mysterious essence of the
Deity, and opens the boundless prospect of invisible and future
worlds. But the independent spirit of Julian refused to yield
the passive and unresisting obedience which was required, in the
name of religion, by the haughty ministers of the church. Their
speculative opinions were imposed as positive laws, and guarded
by the terrors of eternal punishments; but while they prescribed
the rigid formulary of the thoughts, the words, and the actions
of the young prince; whilst they silenced his objections, and
severely checked the freedom of his inquiries, they secretly
provoked his impatient genius to disclaim the authority of his
ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia,
amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. ^10 The fierce
contests of the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of
their creeds, and the profane motives which appeared to actuate
their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian,
that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which
they so fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs
of Christianity with that favorable attention which adds weight
to the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and
disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he
already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young
princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of
the prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the
advocate of Paganism; under the specious excuse that, in the
defence of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be
more advantageously exercised and displayed.
[Footnote 4: Nicomediae ab Eusebio educatus Episcopo, quem genere
longius contingebat, (Ammian. xxii. 9.) Julian never expresses
any gratitude towards that Arian prelate; but he celebrates his
preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes his mode of
education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration
for the genius, and perhaps the religion of Homer. Misopogon, p.
351, 352.]
[Footnote 5: Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He labored to effect that
holy mark in the blood, perhaps of a Taurobolium. Baron. Annal.
Eccles. A. D. 361, No. 3, 4.]
[Footnote 6: Julian himself (Epist. li. p. 454) assures the
Alexandrians that he had been a Christian (he must mean a sincere
one) till the twentieth year of his age.]
[Footnote 7: See his Christian, and even ecclesiastical
education, in Gregory, (iii. p. 58,) Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,)
and Sozomen, (l. v. c. 2.) He escaped very narrowly from being a
bishop, and perhaps a saint.]
[Footnote 8: The share of the work which had been allotted to
Gallus, was prosecuted with vigor and success; but the earth
obstinately rejected and subverted the structures which were
imposed by the sacrilegious hand of Julian. Greg. iii. p. 59,
60, 61. Such a partial earthquake, attested by many living
spectators, would form one of the clearest miracles in
ecclesiastical story.]
[Footnote 9: The philosopher (Fragment, p. 288,) ridicules the
iron chains, &c, of these solitary fanatics, (see Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. ix. p. 661, 632,) who had forgot that man is by
nature a gentle and social animal. The Pagan supposes, that
because they had renounced the gods, they were possessed and
tormented by evil daemons.]
[Footnote 10: See Julian apud Cyril, l. vi. p. 206, l. viii. p.
253, 262. "You persecute," says he, "those heretics who do not
mourn the dead man precisely in the way which you approve." He
shows himself a tolerable theologian; but he maintains that the
Christian Trinity is not derived from the doctrine of Paul, of
Jesus, or of Moses.]
As soon as Gallus was invested with the honors of the
purple, Julian was permitted to breathe the air of freedom, of
literature, and of Paganism. ^11 The crowd of sophists, who were
attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had
formed a strict alliance between the learning and the religion of
Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the
original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to
the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of
Olympus, as they are painted by the immortal bard, imprint
themselves on the minds which are the least addicted to
superstitious credulity. Our familiar knowledge of their names
and characters, their forms and attributes, seems to bestow on
those airy beings a real and substantial existence; and the
pleasing enchantment produces an imperfect and momentary assent
of the imagination to those fables, which are the most repugnant
to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every
circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion; the
magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those
artists who had expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the
divine conceptions of the poet; the pomp of festivals and
sacrifices; the successful arts of divination; the popular
traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the ancient practice of
two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in some
measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the
devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with the most
licentious scepticism. ^12 Instead of an indivisible and regular
system, which occupies the whole extent of the believing mind,
the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose and
flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to
define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed
which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest
dimensions; and, by strange contradiction, he disdained the
salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering
of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. One of the
orations of Julian is consecrated to the honor of Cybele, the
mother of the gods, who required from her effeminate priests the
bloody sacrifice, so rashly performed by the madness of the
Phrygian boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a
blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the
shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tyber, and the stupendous
miracle, which convinced the senate and people of Rome that the
lump of clay, which their ambassadors had transported over the
seas, was endowed with life, and sentiment, and divine power. ^13
For the truth of this prodigy he appeals to the public monuments
of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and
affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the sacred
traditions of their ancestors. ^14
[Footnote 11: Libanius, Orat. Parentalis, c. 9, 10, p. 232, &c.
Greg. Nazianzen. Orat. iii. p 61. Eunap. Vit. Sophist. in
Maximo, p. 68, 69, 70, edit Commelin.]
[Footnote 12: A modern philosopher has ingeniously compared the
different operation of theism and polytheism, with regard to the
doubt or conviction which they produce in the human mind. See
Hume's Essays vol. ii. p. 444- 457, in 8vo. edit. 1777.]
[Footnote 13: The Idaean mother landed in Italy about the end of
the second Punic war. The miracle of Claudia, either virgin or
matron, who cleared her fame by disgracing the graver modesty of
the Roman Indies, is attested by a cloud of witnesses. Their
evidence is collected by Drakenborch, (ad Silium Italicum, xvii.
33;) but we may observe that Livy (xxix. 14) slides over the
transaction with discreet ambiguity.]
[Footnote 14: I cannot refrain from transcribing the emphatical
words of Julian: Orat. v. p. 161. Julian likewise declares his
firm belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which dropped from
heaven on the Quirinal hill; and pities the strange blindness of
the Christians, who preferred the cross to these celestial
trophies. Apud Cyril. l. vi. p. 194.]
But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and
warmly encouraged, the superstition of the people, reserved for
himself the privilege of a liberal interpretation; and silently
withdrew from the foot of the altars into the sanctuary of the
temple. The extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed,
with a clear and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, instead
of being scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, should
diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had been disguised,
by the prudence of antiquity, under the mask of folly and of
fable. ^15 The philosophers of the Platonic school, ^16 Plotinus,
Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most
skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to
soften and harmonize the deformed features of Paganism. Julian
himself, who was directed in the mysterious pursuit by Aedesius,
the venerable successor of Iamblichus, aspired to the possession
of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit his solemn
asseverations, far above the empire of the world. ^17 It was
indeed a treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and
every artist who flattered himself that he had extracted the
precious ore from the surrounding dross, claimed an equal right
of stamping the name and figure the most agreeable to his
peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been already
explained by Porphyry; but his labors served only to animate the
pious industry of Julian, who invented and published his own
allegory of that ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of
interpretation, which might gratify the pride of the Platonists,
exposed the vanity of their art. Without a tedious detail, the
modern reader could not form a just idea of the strange
allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn trifling, and the
impenetrable obscurity of these sages, who professed to reveal
the system of the universe. As the traditions of Pagan mythology
were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty
to select the most convenient circumstances; and as they
translated an arbitrary cipher, they could extract from any fable
any sense which was adapted to their favorite system of religion
and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus was
tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some
physical truth; and the castration of Atys explained the
revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of
the human soul from vice and error. ^18
[Footnote 15: See the principles of allegory, in Julian, (Orat.
vii. p. 216, 222.) His reasoning is less absurd than that of some
modern theologians, who assert that an extravagant or
contradictory doctrine must be divine; since no man alive could
have thought of inventing it.]
[Footnote 16: Eunapius has made these sophists the subject of a
partial and fanatical history; and the learned Brucker (Hist.
Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 217-303) has employed much labor to
illustrate their obscure lives and incomprehensible doctrines.]
[Footnote 17: Julian, Orat. vii p 222. He swears with the most
fervent and enthusiastic devotion; and trembles, lest he should
betray too much of these holy mysteries, which the profane might
deride with an impious Sardonic laugh.]
[Footnote 18: See the fifth oration of Julian. But all the
allegories which ever issued from the Platonic school are not
worth the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary
subject. The transition of Atys, from the wildest enthusiasm to
sober, pathetic complaint, for his irretrievable loss, must
inspire a man with pity, a eunuch with despair.]
The theological system of Julian appears to have contained
the sublime and important principles of natural religion. But as
the faith, which is not founded on revelation, must remain
destitute of any firm assurance, the disciple of Plato
imprudently relapsed into the habits of vulgar superstition; and
the popular and philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have
been confounded in the practice, the writings, and even in the
mind of Julian. ^19 The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the
Eternal Cause of the universe, to whom he ascribed all the
perfections of an infinite nature, invisible to the eyes and
inaccessible to the understanding, of feeble mortals. The
Supreme God had created, or rather, in the Platonic language, had
generated, the gradual succession of dependent spirits, of gods,
of daemons, of heroes, and of men; and every being which derived
its existence immediately from the First Cause, received the
inherent gift of immortality. That so precious an advantage
might be lavished upon unworthy objects, the Creator had
intrusted to the skill and power of the inferior gods the office
of forming the human body, and of arranging the beautiful harmony
of the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. To the
conduct of these divine ministers he delegated the temporal
government of this lower world; but their imperfect
administration is not exempt from discord or error. The earth
and its inhabitants are divided among them, and the characters of
Mars or Minerva, of Mercury or Venus, may be distinctly traced in
the laws and manners of their peculiar votaries. As long as our
immortal souls are confined in a mortal prison, it is our
interest, as well as our duty, to solicit the favor, and to
deprecate the wrath, of the powers of heaven; whose pride is
gratified by the devotion of mankind; and whose grosser parts may
be supposed to derive some nourishment from the fumes of
sacrifice. ^20 The inferior gods might sometimes condescend to
animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples, which were
dedicated to their honor. They might occasionally visit the
earth, but the heavens were the proper throne and symbol of their
glory. The invariable order of the sun, moon, and stars, was
hastily admitted by Julian, as a proof of their eternal duration;
and their eternity was a sufficient evidence that they were the
workmanship, not of an inferior deity, but of the Omnipotent
King. In the system of Platonists, the visible was a type of the
invisible world. The celestial bodies, as they were informed by
a divine spirit, might be considered as the objects the most
worthy of religious worship. The Sun, whose genial influence
pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed the adoration
of mankind, as the bright representative of the Logos, the
lively, the rational, the beneficent image of the intellectual
Father. ^21
[Footnote 19: The true religion of Julian may be deduced from the
Caesars, p. 308, with Spanheim's notes and illustrations, from
the fragments in Cyril, l. ii. p. 57, 58, and especially from the
theological oration in Solem Regem, p. 130-158, addressed in the
confidence of friendship, to the praefect Sallust.]
[Footnote 20: Julian adopts this gross conception by ascribing to
his favorite Marcus Antoninus, (Caesares, p. 333.) The Stoics and
Platonists hesitated between the analogy of bodies and the purity
of spirits; yet the gravest philosophers inclined to the
whimsical fancy of Aristophanes and Lucian, that an unbelieving
age might starve the immortal gods. See Observations de
Spanheim, p. 284, 444, &c.]
[Footnote 21: Julian. Epist. li. In another place, (apud Cyril.
l. ii. p. 69,) he calls the Sun God, and the throne of God.
Julian believed the Platonician Trinity; and only blames the
Christians for preferring a mortal to an immortal Logos.]
In every age, the absence of genuine inspiration is supplied
by the strong illusions of enthusiasm, and the mimic arts of
imposture. If, in the time of Julian, these arts had been
practised only by the pagan priests, for the support of an
expiring cause, some indulgence might perhaps be allowed to the
interest and habits of the sacerdotal character. But it may
appear a subject of surprise and scandal, that the philosophers
themselves should have contributed to abuse the superstitious
credulity of mankind, ^22 and that the Grecian mysteries should
have been supported by the magic or theurgy of the modern
Platonists. They arrogantly pretended to control the order of
nature, to explore the secrets of futurity, to command the
service of the inferior daemons, to enjoy the view and
conversation of the superior gods, and by disengaging the soul
from her material bands, to reunite that immortal particle with
the Infinite and Divine Spirit.
[Footnote 22: The sophists of Eunapias perform as many miracles
as the saints of the desert; and the only circumstance in their
favor is, that they are of a less gloomy complexion. Instead of
devils with horns and tails, Iamblichus evoked the genii of love,
Eros and Anteros, from two adjacent fountains. Two beautiful
boys issued from the water, fondly embraced him as their father,
and retired at his command, p. 26, 27.]
The devout and fearless curiosity of Julian tempted the
philosophers with the hopes of an easy conquest; which, from the
situation of their young proselyte, might be productive of the
most important consequences. ^23 Julian imbibed the first
rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of Aedesius,
who had fixed at Pergamus his wandering and persecuted school.
But as the declining strength of that venerable sage was unequal
to the ardor, the diligence, the rapid conception of his pupil,
two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius,
supplied, at his own desire, the place of their aged master.
These philosophers seem to have prepared and distributed their
respective parts; and they artfully contrived, by dark hints and
affected disputes, to excite the impatient hopes of the aspirant,
till they delivered him into the hands of their associate,
Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the Theurgic
science. By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at Ephesus,
in the twentieth year of his age. His residence at Athens
confirmed this unnatural alliance of philosophy and superstition.
He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation into the
mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of the
Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges of their primaeval
sanctity; and such was the zeal of Julian, that he afterwards
invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court of Gaul, for the sole
purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and sacrifices, the
great work of his sanctification. As these ceremonies were
performed in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the
night, and as the inviolable secret of the mysteries was
preserved by the discretion of the initiated, I shall not presume
to describe the horrid sounds, and fiery apparitions, which were
presented to the senses, or the imagination, of the credulous
aspirant, ^24 till the visions of comfort and knowledge broke
upon him in a blaze of celestial light. ^25 In the caverns of
Ephesus and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with
sincere, deep, and unalterable enthusiasm; though he might
sometimes exhibit the vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy,
which may be observed, or at least suspected, in the characters
of the most conscientious fanatics. From that moment he
consecrated his life to the service of the gods; and while the
occupations of war, of government, and of study, seemed to claim
the whole measure of his time, a stated portion of the hours of
the night was invariably reserved for the exercise of private
devotion. The temperance which adorned the severe manners of the
soldier and the philosopher was connected with some strict and
frivolous rules of religious abstinence; and it was in honor of
Pan or Mercury, of Hecate or Isis, that Julian, on particular
days, denied himself the use of some particular food, which might
have been offensive to his tutelar deities. By these voluntary
fasts, he prepared his senses and his understanding for the
frequent and familiar visits with which he was honored by the
celestial powers. Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian
himself, we may learn from his faithful friend, the orator
Libanius, that he lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods
and goddesses; that they descended upon earth to enjoy the
conversation of their favorite hero; that they gently interrupted
his slumbers by touching his hand or his hair; that they warned
him of every impending danger, and conducted him, by their
infallible wisdom, in every action of his life; and that he had
acquired such an intimate knowledge of his heavenly guests, as
readily to distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva,
and the form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules. ^26 These
sleeping or waking visions, the ordinary effects of abstinence
and fanaticism, would almost degrade the emperor to the level of
an Egyptian monk. But the useless lives of Antony or Pachomius
were consumed in these vain occupations. Julian could break from
the dream of superstition to arm himself for battle; and after
vanquishing in the field the enemies of Rome, he calmly retired
into his tent, to dictate the wise and salutary laws of an
empire, or to indulge his genius in the elegant pursuits of
literature and philosophy.
[Footnote 23: The dexterous management of these sophists, who
played their credulous pupil into each other's hands, is fairly
told by Eunapius (p. 69- 79) with unsuspecting simplicity. The
Abbe de la Bleterie understands, and neatly describes, the whole
comedy, (Vie de Julian, p. 61-67.)]
[Footnote 24: When Julian, in a momentary panic, made the sign of
the cross the daemons instantly disappeared, (Greg. Naz. Orat.
iii. p. 71.) Gregory supposes that they were frightened, but the
priests declared that they were indignant. The reader, according
to the measure of his faith, will determine this profound
question.]
[Footnote 25: A dark and distant view of the terrors and joys of
initiation is shown by Dion Chrysostom, Themistius, Proclus, and
Stobaeus. The learned author of the Divine Legation has
exhibited their words, (vol. i. p. 239, 247, 248, 280, edit.
1765,) which he dexterously or forcibly applies to his own
hypothesis.]
[Footnote 26: Julian's modesty confined him to obscure and
occasional hints: but Libanius expiates with pleasure on the
facts and visions of the religious hero. (Legat. ad Julian. p.
157, and Orat. Parental. c. lxxxiii. p. 309, 310.)]
The important secret of the apostasy of Julian was intrusted
to the fidelity of the initiated, with whom he was united by the
sacred ties of friendship and religion. ^27 The pleasing rumor
was cautiously circulated among the adherents of the ancient
worship; and his future greatness became the object of the hopes,
the prayers, and the predictions of the Pagans, in every province
of the empire. From the zeal and virtues of their royal
proselyte, they fondly expected the cure of every evil, and the
restoration of every blessing; and instead of disapproving of the
ardor of their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously confessed, that
he was ambitious to attain a situation in which he might be
useful to his country and to his religion. But this religion was
viewed with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose
capricious passions altercately saved and threatened the life of
Julian. The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited
under a despotic government, which condescended to fear them; and
if the Pagans were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their
superstition, the rank of Julian would have excepted him from the
general toleration. The apostate soon became the presumptive
heir of the monarchy, and his death could alone have appeased the
just apprehensions of the Christians. ^28 But the young prince,
who aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of a martyr,
consulted his safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy
temper of polytheism permitted him to join in the public worship
of a sect which he inwardly despised. Libanius has considered
the hypocrisy of his friend as a subject, not of censure, but of
praise. "As the statues of the gods," says that orator, "which
have been defiled with filth, are again placed in a magnificent
temple, so the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of Julian,
after it had been purified from the errors and follies of his
education. His sentiments were changed; but as it would have
been dangerous to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct still
continued the same. Very different from the ass in Aesop, who
disguised himself with a lion's hide, our lion was obliged to
conceal himself under the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced
the dictates of reason, to obey the laws of prudence and
necessity." ^29 The dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten
years, from his secret initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of
the civil war; when he declared himself at once the implacable
enemy of Christ and of Constantius. This state of constraint
might contribute to strengthen his devotion; and as soon as he
had satisfied the obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals,
at the assemblies of the Christians, Julian returned, with the
impatience of a lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense on
the domestic chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as every act of
dissimulation must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the
profession of Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a
religion which oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled
him to hold a conduct repugnant to the noblest attributes of
human nature, sincerity and courage.
[Footnote 27: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. x. p. 233, 234. Gallus
had some reason to suspect the secret apostasy of his brother;
and in a letter, which may be received as genuine, he exhorts
Julian to adhere to the religion of their ancestors; an argument
which, as it should seem, was not yet perfectly ripe. See
Julian, Op. p. 454, and Hist. de Jovien tom ii. p. 141.]
[Footnote 28: Gregory, (iii. p. 50,) with inhuman zeal, censures
Constantius for paring the infant apostate. His French
translator (p. 265) cautiously observes, that such expressions
must not be prises a la lettre.]
[Footnote 29: Libanius, Orat. Parental. c ix. p. 233.]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.
Part II.
The inclination of Julian might prefer the gods of Homer,
and of the Scipios, to the new faith, which his uncle had
established in the Roman empire; and in which he himself had been
sanctified by the sacrament of baptism. But, as a philosopher,
it was incumbent on him to justify his dissent from Christianity,
which was supported by the number of its converts, by the chain
of prophecy, the splendor of or miracles, and the weight of
evidence. The elaborate work, ^30 which he composed amidst the
preparations of the Persian war, contained the substance of those
arguments which he had long revolved in his mind. Some fragments
have been transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the
vehement Cyril of Alexandria; ^31 and they exhibit a very
singular mixture of wit and learning, of sophistry and
fanaticism. The elegance of the style and the rank of the
author, recommended his writings to the public attention; ^32 and
in the impious list of the enemies of Christianity, the
celebrated name of Porphyry was effaced by the superior merit or
reputation of Julian. The minds of the faithful were either
seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed; and the pagans, who
sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute, derived,
from the popular work of their Imperial missionary, an
inexhaustible supply of fallacious objections. But in the
assiduous prosecution of these theological studies, the emperor
of the Romans imbibed the illiberal prejudices and passions of a
polemic divine. He contracted an irrevocable obligation to
maintain and propagate his religious opinions; and whilst he
secretly applauded the strength and dexterity with which he
wielded the weapons of controversy, he was tempted to distrust
the sincerity, or to despise the understandings, of his
antagonists, who could obstinately resist the force of reason and
eloquence.
[Footnote 30: Fabricius (Biblioth. Graec. l. v. c. viii, p.
88-90) and Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 44-47) have
accurately compiled all that can now be discovered of Julian's
work against the Christians.]
[Footnote 31: About seventy years after the death of Julian, he
executed a task which had been feebly attempted by Philip of
Side, a prolix and contemptible writer. Even the work of Cyril
has not entirely satisfied the most favorable judges; and the
Abbe de la Bleterie (Preface a l'Hist. de Jovien, p. 30, 32)
wishes that some theologien philosophe (a strange centaur) would
undertake the refutation of Julian.]
[Footnote 32: Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. lxxxvii. p. 313,) who
has been suspected of assisting his friend, prefers this divine
vindication (Orat. ix in necem Julian. p. 255, edit. Morel.) to
the writings of Porphyry. His judgment may be arraigned,
(Socrates, l. iii. c. 23,) but Libanius cannot be accused of
flattery to a dead prince.]
The Christians, who beheld with horror and indignation the
apostasy of Julian, had much more to fear from his power than
from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his
fervent zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames
of persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies
of the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent
some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been
unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors.
But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions
were apparently disappointed, by the prudent humanity of a
prince, ^33 who was careful of his own fame, of the public peace,
and of the rights of mankind. Instructed by history and
reflection, Julian was persuaded, that if the diseases of the
body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel
nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. The
reluctant victim may be dragged to the foot of the altar; but the
heart still abhors and disclaims the sacrilegious act of the
hand. Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by
oppression; and, as soon as the persecution subsides, those who
have yielded are restored as penitents, and those who have
resisted are honored as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted
the unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was
sensible that he should stain his memory with the name of a
tyrant, and add new glories to the Catholic church, which had
derived strength and increase from the severity of the pagan
magistrates. Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of
disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the
world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a
philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman
world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only
hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive
them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they
stigmatized with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics.
The pagans received a gracious permission, or rather an express
order, to open All their temples; ^34 and they were at once
delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations,
which they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of
his sons. At the same time the bishops and clergy, who had been
banished by the Arian monarch, were recalled from exile, and
restored to their respective churches; the Donatists, the
Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, and those who, with a
more prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the Council
of Nice. Julian, who understood and derided their theological
disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects,
that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious
encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the
emperor to exclaim, "Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the
Alemanni;" but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with
more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the
powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at
least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before he dismissed
them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the
union of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus has ascribed
this affected clemency to the desire of fomenting the intestine
divisions of the church, and the insidious design of undermining
the foundations of Christianity, was inseparably connected with
the zeal which Julian professed, to restore the ancient religion
of the empire. ^35
[Footnote 33: Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. lviii. p. 283, 284 has
eloquently explained the tolerating principles and conduct of his
Imperial friend. In a very remarkable epistle to the people of
Bostra, Julian himself (Epist. lii.) professes his moderation,
and betrays his zeal, which is acknowledged by Ammianus, and
exposed by Gregory (Orat. iii. p.72)]
[Footnote 34: In Greece the temples of Minerva were opened by his
express command, before the death of Constantius, (Liban. Orat.
Parent. c. 55, p. 280;) and Julian declares himself a Pagan in
his public manifesto to the Athenians. This unquestionable
evidence may correct the hasty assertion of Ammianus, who seems
to suppose Constantinople to be the place where he discovered his
attachment to the gods]
[Footnote 35: Ammianus, xxii. 5. Sozomen, l. v. c. 5. Bestia
moritur, tranquillitas redit .... omnes episcopi qui de propriis
sedibus fuerant exterminati per indulgentiam novi principis ad
acclesias redeunt. Jerom. adversus Luciferianos, tom. ii. p.
143. Optatus accuses the Donatists for owing their safety to an
apostate, (l. ii. c. 16, p. 36, 37, edit. Dupin.)]
As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to
the custom of his predecessors, the character of supreme pontiff;
not only as the most honorable title of Imperial greatness, but
as a sacred and important office; the duties of which he was
resolved to execute with pious diligence. As the business of the
state prevented the emperor from joining every day in the public
devotion of his subjects, he dedicated a domestic chapel to his
tutelar deity the Sun; his gardens were filled with statues and
altars of the gods; and each apartment of the palace displaced
the appearance of a magnificent temple. Every morning he saluted
the parent of light with a sacrifice; the blood of another victim
was shed at the moment when the Sun sunk below the horizon; and
the Moon, the Stars, and the Genii of the night received their
respective and seasonable honors from the indefatigable devotion
of Julian. On solemn festivals, he regularly visited the temple
of the god or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly consecrated,
and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and
people by the example of his own zeal. Instead of maintaining
the lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendor of
his purple, and encompassed by the golden shields of his guards,
Julian solicited, with respectful eagerness, the meanest offices
which contributed to the worship of the gods. Amidst the sacred
but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of
female dancers, who were dedicated to the service of the temple,
it was the business of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the
fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and,
thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring
animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the
consummate skill of an haruspex, imaginary signs of future
events. The wisest of the Pagans censured this extravagant
superstition, which affected to despise the restraints of
prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince, who practised
the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of religious worship
consumed a very large portion of the revenue a constant supply of
the scarcest and most beautiful birds was transported from
distant climates, to bleed on the altars of the gods; a hundred
oxen were frequently sacrificed by Julian on one and the same
day; and it soon became a popular jest, that if he should return
with conquest from the Persian war, the breed of horned cattle
must infallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense may appear
inconsiderable, when it is compared with the splendid presents
which were offered either by the hand, or by order, of the
emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in the Roman
world; and with the sums allotted to repair and decorate the
ancient temples, which had suffered the silent decay of time, or
the recent injuries of Christian rapine. Encouraged by the
example, the exhortations, the liberality, of their pious
sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their
neglected ceremonies. "Every part of the world," exclaims
Libanius, with devout transport, "displayed the triumph of
religion; and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding
victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and
prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer
and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and
the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for
their joyous votaries." ^36
[Footnote 36: The restoration of the Pagan worship is described
by Julian, (Misopogon, p. 346,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 60,
p. 286, 287, and Orat. Consular. ad Julian. p. 245, 246, edit.
Morel.,) Ammianus, (xxii. 12,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv.
p. 121.) These writers agree in the essential, and even minute,
facts; but the different lights in which they view the extreme
devotion of Julian, are expressive of the gradations of
self-applause, passionate admiration, mild reproof, and partial
invective.]
But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to the
enterprise of restoring a religion which was destitute of
theological principles, of moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical
discipline; which rapidly hastened to decay and dissolution, and
was not susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. The
jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after that
office had been united with the Imperial dignity, comprehended
the whole extent of the Roman empire. Julian named for his
vicars, in the several provinces, the priests and philosophers
whom he esteemed the best qualified to cooperate in the execution
of his great design; and his pastoral letters, ^37 if we may use
that name, still represent a very curious sketch of his wishes
and intentions. He directs, that in every city the sacerdotal
order should be composed, without any distinction of birth and
fortune, of those persons who were the most conspicuous for the
love of the gods, and of men. "If they are guilty," continues
he, "of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or
degraded by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain
their rank, they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates
and people. Their humility may be shown in the plainness of
their domestic garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy
vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to officiate
before the altar, they ought not, during the appointed number of
days, to depart from the precincts of the temple; nor should a
single day be suffered to elapse, without the prayers and the
sacrifice, which they are obliged to offer for the prosperity of
the state, and of individuals. The exercise of their sacred
functions requires an immaculate purity, both of mind and body;
and even when they are dismissed from the temple to the
occupations of common life, it is incumbent on them to excel in
decency and virtue the rest of their fellow-citizens. The priest
of the gods should never be seen in theatres or taverns. His
conversation should be chaste, his diet temperate, his friends of
honorable reputation; and if he sometimes visits the Forum or the
Palace, he should appear only as the advocate of those who have
vainly solicited either justice or mercy. His studies should be
suited to the sanctity of his profession. Licentious tales, or
comedies, or satires, must be banished from his library, which
ought solely to consist of historical or philosophical writings;
of history, which is founded in truth, and of philosophy, which
is connected with religion. The impious opinions of the
Epicureans and sceptics deserve his abhorrence and contempt; ^38
but he should diligently study the systems of Pythagoras, of
Plato, and of the Stoics, which unanimously teach that there are
gods; that the world is governed by their providence; that their
goodness is the source of every temporal blessing; and that they
have prepared for the human soul a future state of reward or
punishment." The Imperial pontiff inculcates, in the most
persuasive language, the duties of benevolence and hospitality;
exhorts his inferior clergy to recommend the universal practice
of those virtues; promises to assist their indigence from the
public treasury; and declares his resolution of establishing
hospitals in every city, where the poor should be received
without any invidious distinction of country or of religion.
Julian beheld with envy the wise and humane regulations of the
church; and he very frankly confesses his intention to deprive
the Christians of the applause, as well as advantage, which they
had acquired by the exclusive practice of charity and
beneficence. ^39 The same spirit of imitation might dispose the
emperor to adopt several ecclesiastical institutions, the use and
importance of which were approved by the success of his enemies.
But if these imaginary plans of reformation had been realized,
the forced and imperfect copy would have been less beneficial to
Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. ^40 The Gentiles, who
peaceably followed the customs of their ancestors, were rather
surprised than pleased with the introduction of foreign manners;
and in the short period of his reign, Julian had frequent
occasions to complain of the want of fervor of his own party. ^41
[Footnote 37: See Julian. Epistol. xlix. lxii. lxiii., and a long
and curious fragment, without beginning or end, (p. 288-305.) The
supreme pontiff derides the Mosaic history and the Christian
discipline, prefers the Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets, and
palliates, with the skill of a Jesuit the relative worship of
images.]
[Footnote 38: The exultation of Julian (p. 301) that these
impious sects and even their writings, are extinguished, may be
consistent enough with the sacerdotal character; but it is
unworthy of a philosopher to wish that any opinions and arguments
the most repugnant to his own should be concealed from the
knowledge of mankind.]
[Footnote 39: Yet he insinuates, that the Christians, under the
pretence of charity, inveigled children from their religion and
parents, conveyed them on shipboard, and devoted those victims to
a life of poverty or pervitude in a remote country, (p. 305.) Had
the charge been proved it was his duty, not to complain, but to
punish.]
[Footnote 40: Gregory Nazianzen is facetious, ingenious, and
argumentative, (Orat. iii. p. 101, 102, &c.) He ridicules the
folly of such vain imitation; and amuses himself with inquiring,
what lessons, moral or theological, could be extracted from the
Grecian fables.]
[Footnote 41: He accuses one of his pontiffs of a secret
confederacy with the Christian bishops and presbyters, (Epist.
lxii.) &c. Epist. lxiii.]
The enthusiasm of Julian prompted him to embrace the friends
of Jupiter as his personal friends and brethren; and though he
partially overlooked the merit of Christian constancy, he admired
and rewarded the noble perseverance of those Gentiles who had
preferred the favor of the gods to that of the emperor. ^42 If
they cultivated the literature, as well as the religion, of the
Greeks, they acquired an additional claim to the friendship of
Julian, who ranked the Muses in the number of his tutelar
deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety and
learning were almost synonymous; ^43 and a crowd of poets, of
rhetoricians, and of philosophers, hastened to the Imperial
court, to occupy the vacant places of the bishops, who had
seduced the credulity of Constantius. His successor esteemed the
ties of common initiation as far more sacred than those of
consanguinity; he chose his favorites among the sages, who were
deeply skilled in the occult sciences of magic and divination;
and every impostor, who pretended to reveal the secrets of
futurity, was assured of enjoying the present hour in honor and
affluence. ^44 Among the philosophers, Maximus obtained the most
eminent rank in the friendship of his royal disciple, who
communicated, with unreserved confidence, his actions, his
sentiments, and his religious designs, during the anxious
suspense of the civil war. ^45 As soon as Julian had taken
possession of the palace of Constantinople, he despatched an
honorable and pressing invitation to Maximus, who then resided at
Sardes in Lydia, with Chrysanthius, the associate of his art and
studies. The prudent and superstitious Chrysanthius refused to
undertake a journey which showed itself, according to the rules
of divination, with the most threatening and malignant aspect:
but his companion, whose fanaticism was of a bolder cast,
persisted in his interrogations, till he had extorted from the
gods a seeming consent to his own wishes, and those of the
emperor. The journey of Maximus through the cities of Asia
displayed the triumph of philosophic vanity; and the magistrates
vied with each other in the honorable reception which they
prepared for the friend of their sovereign. Julian was
pronouncing an oration before the senate, when he was informed of
the arrival of Maximus. The emperor immediately interrupted his
discourse, advanced to meet him, and after a tender embrace,
conducted him by the hand into the midst of the assembly; where
he publicly acknowledged the benefits which he had derived from
the instructions of the philosopher. Maximus, ^46 who soon
acquired the confidence, and influenced the councils of Julian,
was insensibly corrupted by the temptations of a court. His
dress became more splendid, his demeanor more lofty, and he was
exposed, under a succeeding reign, to a disgraceful inquiry into
the means by which the disciple of Plato had accumulated, in the
short duration of his favor, a very scandalous proportion of
wealth. Of the other philosophers and sophists, who were invited
to the Imperial residence by the choice of Julian, or by the
success of Maximus, few were able to preserve their innocence or
their reputation. The liberal gifts of money, lands, and houses,
were insufficient to satiate their rapacious avarice; and the
indignation of the people was justly excited by the remembrance
of their abject poverty and disinterested professions. The
penetration of Julian could not always be deceived: but he was
unwilling to despise the characters of those men whose talents
deserved his esteem: he desired to escape the double reproach of
imprudence and inconstancy; and he was apprehensive of degrading,
in the eyes of the profane, the honor of letters and of religion.
^48
[Footnote 42: He praises the fidelity of Callixene, priestess of
Ceres, who had been twice as constant as Penelope, and rewards
her with the priesthood of the Phrygian goddess at Pessinus,
(Julian. Epist. xxi.) He applauds the firmness of Sopater of
Hierapolis, who had been repeatedly pressed by Constantius and
Gallus to apostatize, (Epist. xxvii p. 401.)]
[Footnote 43: Orat. Parent. c. 77, p. 202. The same sentiment is
frequently inculcated by Julian, Libanius, and the rest of their
party.]
[Footnote 44: The curiosity and credulity of the emperor, who
tried every mode of divination, are fairly exposed by Ammianus,
xxii. 12.]
[Footnote 45: Julian. Epist. xxxviii. Three other epistles, (xv.
xvi. xxxix.,) in the same style of friendship and confidence, are
addressed to the philosopher Maximus.]
[Footnote 46: Eunapius (in Maximo, p. 77, 78, 79, and in
Chrysanthio, p. 147, 148) has minutely related these anecdotes,
which he conceives to be the most important events of the age.
Yet he fairly confesses the frailty of Maximus. His reception at
Constantinople is described by Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 86, p.
301) and Ammianus, (xxii. 7.)
Note: Eunapius wrote a continuation of the History of
Dexippus. Some valuable fragments of this work have been
recovered by M. Mai, and reprinted in Niebuhr's edition of the
Byzantine Historians. - M.]
[Footnote 47: Chrysanthius, who had refused to quit Lydia, was
created high priest of the province. His cautious and temperate
use of power secured him after the revolution; and he lived in
peace, while Maximus, Priscus, &c., were persecuted by the
Christian ministers. See the adventures of those fanatic
sophists, collected by Brucker, tom ii. p. 281-293.]
[Footnote 48: Sec Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 101, 102, p. 324,
325, 326) and Eunapius, (Vit. Sophist. in Proaeresio, p. 126.)
Some students, whose expectations perhaps were groundless, or
extravagant, retired in disgust, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. p. 120.)
It is strange that we should not be able to contradict the title
of one of Tillemont's chapters, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
960,) "La Cour de Julien est pleine de philosphes et de gens
perdus."]
The favor of Julian was almost equally divided between the
Pagans, who had firmly adhered to the worship of their ancestors,
and the Christians, who prudently embraced the religion of their
sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes ^49 gratified the
ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was
heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he
could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city
greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor
of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his
subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods. ^50
A prince who had studied human nature, and who possessed the
treasures of the Roman empire, could adapt his arguments, his
promises, and his rewards, to every order of Christians; ^51 and
the merit of a seasonable conversion was allowed to supply the
defects of a candidate, or even to expiate the guilt of a
criminal. As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute
power, Julian applied himself, with peculiar diligence, to
corrupt the religion of his troops, without whose hearty
concurrence every measure must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and
the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it
was important. The legions of Gaul devoted themselves to the
faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious leader;
and even before the death of Constantius, he had the satisfaction
of announcing to his friends, that they assisted with fervent
devotion, and voracious appetite, at the sacrifices, which were
repeatedly offered in his camp, of whole hecatombs of fat oxen.
^52 The armies of the East, which had been trained under the
standard of the cross, and of Constantius, required a more artful
and expensive mode of persuasion. On the days of solemn and
public festivals, the emperor received the homage, and rewarded
the merit, of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with
the military ensigns of Rome and the republic; the holy name of
Christ was erased from the Labarum; and the symbols of war, of
majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously blended,
that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry, when he
respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The
soldiers passed successively in review; and each of them, before
he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative,
proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few
grains of incense into the flame which burnt upon the altar.
Some Christian confessors might resist, and others might repent;
but the far greater number, allured by the prospect of gold, and
awed by the presence of the emperor, contracted the criminal
engagement; and their future perseverance in the worship of the
gods was enforced by every consideration of duty and of interest.
By the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense of
sums which would have purchased the service of half the nations
of Scythia, Julian gradually acquired for his troops the
imaginary protection of the gods, and for himself the firm and
effectual support of the Roman legions. ^53 It is indeed more
than probable, that the restoration and encouragement of Paganism
revealed a multitude of pretended Christians, who, from motives
of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of the
former reign; and who afterwards returned, with the same
flexibility of conscience, to the faith which was professed by
the successors of Julian.
[Footnote 49: Under the reign of Lewis XIV. his subjects of every
rank aspired to the glorious title of Convertisseur, expressive
of their zea and success in making proselytes. The word and the
idea are growing obsolete in France may they never be introduced
into England.]
[Footnote 50: See the strong expressions of Libanius, which were
probably those of Julian himself, (Orat. Parent. c. 59, p. 285.)]
[Footnote 51: When Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. x. p. 167) is
desirous to magnify the Christian firmness of his brother
Caesarius, physician to the Imperial court, he owns that
Caesarius disputed with a formidable adversary. In his
invectives he scarcely allows any share of wit or courage to the
apostate.]
[Footnote 52: Julian, Epist. xxxviii. Ammianus, xxii. 12. Adeo
ut in dies paene singulos milites carnis distentiore sagina
victitantes incultius, potusque aviditate correpti, humeris
impositi transeuntium per plateas, ex publicis aedibus . . . . .
ad sua diversoria portarentur. The devout prince and the
indignant historian describe the same scene; and in Illyricum or
Antioch, similar causes must have produced similar effects.]
[Footnote 53: Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 74, 75, 83-86) and Libanius,
(Orat. Parent. c. lxxxi. lxxxii. p. 307, 308,). The sophist owns
and justifies the expense of these military conversions.]
While the devout monarch incessantly labored to restore and
propagate the religion of his ancestors, he embraced the
extraordinary design of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a
public epistle ^54 to the nation or community of the Jews,
dispersed through the provinces, he pities their misfortunes,
condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares
himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope,
that after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted
to pay his grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of
Jerusalem. The blind superstition, and abject slavery, of those
unfortunate exiles, must excite the contempt of a philosophic
emperor; but they deserved the friendship of Julian, by their
implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren synagogue
abhorred and envied the fecundity of the rebellious church; the
power of the Jews was not equal to their malice; but their
gravest rabbis approved the private murder of an apostate; ^55
and their seditious clamors had often awakened the indolence of
the Pagan magistrates. Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews
became the subjects of their revolted children nor was it long
before they experienced the bitterness of domestic tyranny. The
civil immunities which had been granted, or confirmed, by
Severus, were gradually repealed by the Christian princes; and a
rash tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, ^56 seemed to
justify the lucrative modes of oppression which were invented by
the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The Jewish
patriarch, who was still permitted to exercise a precarious
jurisdiction, held his residence at Tiberias; ^57 and the
neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the remains of a
people who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of
Hadrian was renewed and enforced; and they viewed from afar the
walls of the holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the
triumph of the cross and the devotion of the Christians. ^58
[Footnote 54: Julian's epistle (xxv.) is addressed to the
community of the Jews. Aldus (Venet. 1499) has branded it with
an; but this stigma is justly removed by the subsequent editors,
Petavius and Spanheim. This epistle is mentioned by Sozomen, (l.
v. c. 22,) and the purport of it is confirmed by Gregory, (Orat.
iv. p. 111.) and by Julian himself (Fragment. p. 295.)]
[Footnote 55: The Misnah denounced death against those who
abandoned the foundation. The judgment of zeal is explained by
Marsham (Canon. Chron. p. 161, 162, edit. fol. London, 1672) and
Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p. 120.) Constantine made a
law to protect Christian converts from Judaism. Cod. Theod. l.
xvi. tit. viii. leg. 1. Godefroy, tom. vi. p. 215.]
[Footnote 56: Et interea (during the civil war of Magnentius)
Judaeorum seditio, qui Patricium, nefarie in regni speciem
sustulerunt, oppressa. Aurelius Victor, in Constantio, c. xlii.
See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 379, in 4to.]
[Footnote 57: The city and synagogue of Tiberias are curiously
described by Reland. Palestin. tom. ii. p. 1036-1042.]
[Footnote 58: Basnage has fully illustrated the state of the Jews
under Constantine and his successors, (tom. viii. c. iv. p.
111-153.)]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.
Part III.
In the midst of a rocky and barren country, the walls of
Jerusalem ^59 enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within
an oval figure of about three English miles. ^60 Towards the
south, the upper town, and the fortress of David, were erected on
the lofty ascent of Mount Sion: on the north side, the buildings
of the lower town covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra; and
a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah, and
levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple
of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple
by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over
the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction.
Sion was deserted; and the vacant space of the lower city was
filled with the public and private edifices of the Aelian colony,
which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The
holy places were polluted with mountains of idolatry; and, either
from design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the
spot which had been sanctified by the death and resurrection of
Christ. ^61 ^* Almost three hundred years after those stupendous
events, the profane chapel of Venus was demolished by the order
of Constantine; and the removal of the earth and stones revealed
the holy sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent church
was erected on that mystic ground, by the first Christian
emperor; and the effects of his pious munificence were extended
to every spot which had been consecrated by the footstep of
patriarchs, of prophets, and of the Son of God. ^62
[Footnote 59: Reland (Palestin. l. i. p. 309, 390, l. iii. p.
838) describes, with learning and perspicuity, Jerusalem, and the
face of the adjacent country.]
[Footnote 60: I have consulted a rare and curious treatise of M.
D'Anville, (sur l'Ancienne Jerusalem, Paris, 1747, p. 75.) The
circumference of the ancient city (Euseb. Preparat. Evangel. l.
ix. c. 36) was 27 stadia, or 2550 toises. A plan, taken on the
spot, assigns no more than 1980 for the modern town. The circuit
is defined by natural landmarks, which cannot be mistaken or
removed.]
[Footnote 61: See two curious passages in Jerom, (tom. i. p. 102,
tom. vi. p. 315,) and the ample details of Tillemont, (Hist, des
Empereurs, tom. i. p. 569. tom. ii. p. 289, 294, 4to edition.)]
[Footnote *: On the site of the Holy Sepulchre, compare the
chapter in Professor Robinson's Travels in Palestine, which has
renewed the old controversy with great vigor. To me, this temple
of Venus, said to have been erected by Hadrian to insult the
Christians, is not the least suspicious part of the whole legend.
- M. 1845.]
[Footnote 62: Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 25-47,
51-53. The emperor likewise built churches at Bethlem, the Mount
of Olives, and the oa of Mambre. The holy sepulchre is described
by Sandys, (Travels, p. 125-133,) and curiously delineated by Le
Bruyn, (Voyage au Levant, p. 28-296.)]
The passionate desire of contemplating the original
monuments of their redemption attracted to Jerusalem a successive
crowd of pilgrims, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the
most distant countries of the East; ^63 and their piety was
authorized by the example of the empress Helena, who appears to
have united the credulity of age with the warm feelings of a
recent conversion. Sages and heroes, who have visited the
memorable scenes of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the
inspiration of the genius of the place; ^64 and the Christian who
knelt before the holy sepulchre, ascribed his lively faith, and
his fervent devotion, to the more immediate influence of the
Divine Spirit. The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of the clergy of
Jerusalem, cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits. They
fixed, by unquestionable tradition, the scene of each memorable
event. They exhibited the instruments which had been used in the
passion of Christ; the nails and the lance that had pierced his
hands, his feet, and his side; the crown of thorns that was
planted on his head; the pillar at which he was scourged; and,
above all, they showed the cross on which he suffered, and which
was dug out of the earth in the reign of those princes, who
inserted the symbol of Christianity in the banners of the Roman
legions. ^65 Such miracles as seemed necessary to account for its
extraordinary preservation, and seasonable discovery, were
gradually propagated without opposition. The custody of the true
cross, which on Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people,
was intrusted to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might
gratify the curious devotion of the pilgrims, by the gift of
small pieces, which they encased in gold or gems, and carried
away in triumph to their respective countries. But as this
gainful branch of commerce must soon have been annihilated, it
was found convenient to suppose, that the marvelous wood
possessed a secret power of vegetation; and that its substance,
though continually diminished, still remained entire and
unimpaired. ^66 It might perhaps have been expected, that the
influence of the place and the belief of a perpetual miracle,
should have produced some salutary effects on the morals, as well
as on the faith, of the people. Yet the most respectable of the
ecclesiastical writers have been obliged to confess, not only
that the streets of Jerusalem were filled with the incessant
tumult of business and pleasure, ^67 but that every species of
vice - adultery, theft, idolatry, poisoning, murder - was
familiar to the inhabitants of the holy city. ^68 The wealth and
preeminence of the church of Jerusalem excited the ambition of
Arian, as well as orthodox, candidates; and the virtues of Cyril,
who, since his death, has been honored with the title of Saint,
were displayed in the exercise, rather than in the acquisition,
of his episcopal dignity. ^69
[Footnote 63: The Itinerary from Bourdeaux to Jerusalem was
composed in the year 333, for the use of pilgrims; among whom
Jerom (tom. i. p. 126) mentions the Britons and the Indians. The
causes of this superstitious fashion are discussed in the learned
and judicious preface of Wesseling. (Itinarar. p. 537-545.)]
[Footnote *: Much curious information on this subject is
collected in the first chapter of Wilken, Geschichte der
Kreuzzuge. - M.]
[Footnote 64: Cicero (de Finibus, v. 1) has beautifully expressed
the common sense of mankind.]
[Footnote 65: Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 326, No. 42-50) and
Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 8-16) are the historians and
champions of the miraculous invention of the cross, under the
reign of Constantine. Their oldest witnesses are Paulinus,
Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Ambrose, and perhaps Cyril of
Jerusalem. The silence of Eusebius, and the Bourdeaux pilgrim,
which satisfies those who think perplexes those who believe. See
Jortin's sensible remarks, vol. ii. p 238-248.]
[Footnote 66: This multiplication is asserted by Paulinus,
(Epist. xxxvi. See Dupin. Bibliot. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 149,) who
seems to have improved a rhetorical flourish of Cyril into a real
fact. The same supernatural privilege must have been
communicated to the Virgin's milk, (Erasmi Opera, tom. i. p. 778,
Lugd. Batav. 1703, in Colloq. de Peregrinat. Religionis ergo,)
saints' heads, &c. and other relics, which are repeated in so
many different churches.
Note: Lord Mahon, in a memoir read before the Society of
Antiquaries, (Feb. 1831,) has traced in a brief but interesting
manner, the singular adventures of the "true" cross. It is
curious to inquire, what authority we have, except of late
tradition, for the Hill of Calvary. There is none in the sacred
writings; the uniform use of the common word, instead of any word
expressing assent or acclivity, is against the notion. - M.]
[Footnote 67: Jerom, (tom. i. p. 103,) who resided in the
neighboring village of Bethlem, describes the vices of Jerusalem
from his personal experience.]
[Footnote 68: Gregor. Nyssen, apud Wesseling, p. 539. The whole
epistle, which condemns either the use or the abuse of religious
pilgrimage, is painful to the Catholic divines, while it is dear
and familiar to our Protestant polemics.]
[Footnote 69: He renounced his orthodox ordination, officiated as
a deacon, and was re-ordained by the hands of the Arians. But
Cyril afterwards changed with the times, and prudently conformed
to the Nicene faith. Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii.,) who
treats his memory with tenderness and respect, has thrown his
virtues into the text, and his faults into the notes, in decent
obscurity, at the end of the volume.]
The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to
restore the ancient glory of the temple of Jerusalem. ^70 As the
Christians were firmly persuaded that a sentence of everlasting
destruction had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the
Mosaic law, the Imperial sophist would have converted the success
of his undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of
prophecy, and the truth of revelation. ^71 He was displeased with
the spiritual worship of the synagogue; but he approved the
institutions of Moses, who had not disdained to adopt many of the
rites and ceremonies of Egypt. ^72 The local and national deity
of the Jews was sincerely adored by a polytheist, who desired
only to multiply the number of the gods; ^73 and such was the
appetite of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation might
be excited by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, at the feast
of the dedication, twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and
twenty thousand sheep. ^74 These considerations might influence
his designs; but the prospect of an immediate and important
advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the
remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He resolved to
erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a
stately temple, which might eclipse the splendor of the church of
the resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an
order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts,
and resist the ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite
a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always
prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures
of the Pagan government. Among the friends of the emperor (if the
names of emperor, and of friend, are not incompatible) the first
place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the virtuous and
learned Alypius. ^75 The humanity of Alypius was tempered by
severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his
abilities in the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in
his poetical compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes
of Sappho. This minister, to whom Julian communicated, without
reserve, his most careless levities, and his most serious
counsels, received an extraordinary commission to restore, in its
pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the diligence of
Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the
governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the
Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy
mountain of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and
exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire
of rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion
of the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men
forgot their avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and
pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and
the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every
purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a
share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch
were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people. ^76
[Footnote 70: Imperii sui memoriam magnitudine operum gestiens
propagare Ammian. xxiii. 1. The temple of Jerusalem had been
famous even among the Gentiles. They had many temples in each
city, (at Sichem five, at Gaza eight, at Rome four hundred and
twenty-four;) but the wealth and religion of the Jewish nation
was centred in one spot.]
[Footnote 71: The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the
late bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton;
who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives
and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled Julian
(2d edition, London, 1751) is strongly marked with all the
peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian school.]
[Footnote 72: I shelter myself behind Maimonides, Marsham,
Spencer, Le Clerc, Warburton, &c., who have fairly derided the
fears, the folly, and the falsehood of some superstitious
divines. See Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 25, &c.]
[Footnote 73: Julian (Fragment. p. 295) respectfully styles him,
and mentions him elsewhere (Epist. lxiii.) with still higher
reverence. He doubly condemns the Christians for believing, and
for renouncing, the religion of the Jews. Their Deity was a true,
but not the only, God Apul Cyril. l. ix. p. 305, 306.]
[Footnote 74: 1 Kings, viii. 63. 2 Chronicles, vii. 5. Joseph.
Antiquitat. Judaic. l. viii. c. 4, p. 431, edit. Havercamp. As
the blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient,
Lightfoot, the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le
Clerc (ad loca) is bold enough to suspect to fidelity of the
numbers.
Note: According to the historian Kotobeddym, quoted by
Burckhardt, (Travels in Arabia, p. 276,) the Khalif Mokteder
sacrificed, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year of the
Hejira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
carcasses given to the poor. Quarterly Review, xiii.p.39 - M.]
[Footnote 75: Julian, epist. xxix. xxx. La Bleterie has
neglected to translate the second of these epistles.]
[Footnote 76: See the zeal and impatience of the Jews in Gregory
Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 111) and Theodoret. (l. iii. c. 20.)]
Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and
enthusiasm were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish
temple, which is now covered by a Mahometan mosque, ^77 still
continued to exhibit the same edifying spectacle of ruin and
desolation. Perhaps the absence and death of the emperor, and
the new maxims of a Christian reign, might explain the
interruption of an arduous work, which was attempted only in the
last six months of the life of Julian. ^78 But the Christians
entertained a natural and pious expectation, that, in this
memorable contest, the honor of religion would be vindicated by
some signal miracle. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery
eruption, which overturned and scattered the new foundations of
the temple, are attested, with some variations, by contemporary
and respectable evidence. ^79 This public event is described by
Ambrose, ^80 bishop of Milan, in an epistle to the emperor
Theodosius, which must provoke the severe animadversion of the
Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, ^81 who might appeal to the
memory of the elder part of his congregation at Antioch; and by
Gregory Nazianzen, ^82 who published his account of the miracle
before the expiration of the same year. The last of these writers
has boldly declared, that this preternatural event was not
disputed by the infidels; and his assertion, strange as it may
seem is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus
Marcellinus. ^83 The philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues,
without adopting the prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in
his judicious and candid history of his own times, the
extraordinary obstacles which interrupted the restoration of the
temple of Jerusalem. "Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor
of the province, urged, with vigor and diligence, the execution
of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the
foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the
place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and
blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this
manner obstinately and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them
to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned." ^* Such authority
should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an incredulous,
mind. Yet a philosopher may still require the original evidence
of impartial and intelligent spectators. At this important
crisis, any singular accident of nature would assume the
appearance, and produce the effects of a real prodigy. This
glorious deliverance would be speedily improved and magnified by
the pious art of the clergy of Jerusalem, and the active
credulity of the Christian world and, at the distance of twenty
years, a Roman historian, care less of theological disputes,
might adorn his work with the specious and splendid miracle. ^84
[Footnote 77: Built by Omar, the second Khalif, who died A. D.
644. This great mosque covers the whole consecrated ground of
the Jewish temple, and constitutes almost a square of 760 toises,
or one Roman mile in circumference. See D'Anville, Jerusalem, p.
45.]
[Footnote 78: Ammianus records the consults of the year 363,
before he proceeds to mention the thoughts of Julian. Templum .
. . instaurare sumptibus cogitabat immodicis. Warburton has a
secret wish to anticipate the design; but he must have
understood, from former examples, that the execution of such a
work would have demanded many years.]
[Footnote 79: The subsequent witnesses, Socrates, Sozomen,
Theodoret, Philostorgius, &c., add contradictions rather than
authority. Compare the objections of Basnage (Hist. des Juifs,
tom. viii. p. 156-168) with Warburton's answers, (Julian, p.
174-258.) The bishop has ingeniously explained the miraculous
crosses which appeared on the garments of the spectators by a
similar instance, and the natural effects of lightning.]
[Footnote 80: Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xl. p. 946, edit.
Benedictin. He composed this fanatic epistle (A. D. 388) to
justify a bishop who had been condemned by the civil magistrate
for burning a synagogue.]
[Footnote 81: Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 580, advers. Judaeos et
Gentes, tom. ii. p. 574, de Sto Babyla, edit. Montfaucon. I have
followed the common and natural supposition; but the learned
Benedictine, who dates the composition of these sermons in the
year 383, is confident they were never pronounced from the
pulpit.]
[Footnote 82: Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 110-113.]
[Footnote 83: Ammian. xxiii. 1. Cum itaque rei fortiter instaret
Alypius, juvaretque provinciae rector, metuendi globi flammarum
prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes fecere locum
exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum; hocque modo elemento
destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum. Warburton labors (p.
60-90) to extort a confession of the miracle from the mouths of
Julian and Libanius, and to employ the evidence of a rabbi who
lived in the fifteenth century. Such witnesses can only be
received by a very favorable judge.]
[Footnote *: Michaelis has given an ingenious and sufficiently
probable explanation of this remarkable incident, which the
positive testimony of Ammianus, a contemporary and a pagan, will
not permit us to call in question. It was suggested by a passage
in Tacitus. That historian, speaking of Jerusalem, says, [I omit
the first part of the quotation adduced by M. Guizot, which only
by a most extraordinary mistranslation of muri introrsus sinuati
by "enfoncemens" could be made to bear on the question. - M.] The
Temple itself was a kind of citadel, which had its own walls,
superior in their workmanship and construction to those of the
city. The porticos themselves, which surrounded the temple, were
an excellent fortification. There was a fountain of constantly
running water; subterranean excavations under the mountain;
reservoirs and cisterns to collect the rain-water." Tac. Hist. v.
ii. 12. These excavations and reservoirs must have been very
considerable. The latter furnished water during the whole siege
of Jerusalem to 1,100,000 inhabitants, for whom the fountain of
Siloe could not have sufficed, and who had no fresh rain-water,
the siege having taken place from the month of April to the month
of August, a period of the year during which it rarely rains in
Jerusalem. As to the excavations, they served after, and even
before, the return of the Jews from Babylon, to contain not only
magazines of oil, wine, and corn, but also the treasures which
were laid up in the Temple. Josephus has related several
incidents which show their extent. When Jerusalem was on the
point of being taken by Titus, the rebel chiefs, placing their
last hopes in these vast subterranean cavities, formed a design
of concealing themselves there, and remaining during the
conflagration of the city, and until the Romans had retired to a
distance. The greater part had not time to execute their design;
but one of them, Simon, the Son of Gioras, having provided
himself with food, and tools to excavate the earth descended into
this retreat with some companions: he remained there till Titus
had set out for Rome: under the pressure of famine he issued
forth on a sudden in the very place where the Temple had stood,
and appeared in the midst of the Roman guard. He was seized and
carried to Rome for the triumph. His appearance made it be
suspected that other Jews might have chosen the same asylum;
search was made, and a great number discovered. Joseph. de Bell.
Jud. l. vii. c. 2. It is probable that the greater part of these
excavations were the remains of the time of Solomon, when it was
the custom to work to a great extent under ground: no other date
can be assigned to them. The Jews, on their return from the
captivity, were too poor to undertake such works; and, although
Herod, on rebuilding the Temple, made some excavations, (Joseph.
Ant. Jud. xv. 11, vii.,) the haste with which that building was
completed will not allow us to suppose that they belonged to that
period. Some were used for sewers and drains, others served to
conceal the immense treasures of which Crassus, a hundred and
twenty years before, plundered the Jews, and which doubtless had
been since replaced. The Temple was destroyed A. C. 70; the
attempt of Julian to rebuild it, and the fact related by
Ammianus, coincide with the year 363. There had then elapsed
between these two epochs an interval of near 300 years, during
which the excavations, choked up with ruins, must have become
full of inflammable air. The workmen employed by Julian as they
were digging, arrived at the excavations of the Temple; they
would take torches to explore them; sudden flames repelled those
who approached; explosions were heard, and these phenomena were
renewed every time that they penetrated into new subterranean
passages. ^* This explanation is confirmed by the relation of an
event nearly similar, by Josephus. King Herod having heard that
immense treasures had been concealed in the sepulchre of David,
he descended into it with a few confidential persons; he found in
the first subterranean chamber only jewels and precious stuffs:
but having wished to penetrate into a second chamber, which had
been long closed, he was repelled, when he opened it, by flames
which killed those who accompanied him. (Ant. Jud. xvi. 7, i.)
As here there is no room for miracle, this fact may be considered
as a new proof of the veracity of that related by Ammianus and
the contemporary writers. - G.
To the illustrations of the extent of the subterranean
chambers adduced by Michaelis, may be added, that when John of
Gischala, during the siege, surprised the Temple, the party of
Eleazar took refuge within them. Bell. Jud. vi. 3, i. The sudden
sinking of the hill of Sion when Jerusalem was occupied by
Barchocab, may have been connected with similar excavations.
Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. 122 and 186. - M.
[Footnote *: It is a fact now popularly known, that when mines
which have been long closed are opened, one of two things takes
place; either the torches are extinguished and the men fall first
into a swoor and soon die; or, if the air is inflammable, a
little flame is seen to flicker round the lamp, which spreads and
multiplies till the conflagration becomes general, is followed by
an explosion, and kill all who are in the way. - G.]
[Footnote 84: Dr. Lardner, perhaps alone of the Christian
critics, presumes to doubt the truth of this famous miracle.
(Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 47-71.)]
The silence of Jerom would lead to a suspicion that the same
story which was celebrated at a distance, might be despised on
the spot.
Note: Gibbon has forgotten Basnage, to whom Warburton replied. -
M.]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.
Part IV.
The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected
with the ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to
maintain the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing
whether this universal toleration proceeded from his justice or
his clemency. He affected to pity the unhappy Christians, who
were mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but
his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by
hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a style of
sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever
it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that
the Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he
countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable
appellation of Galilaeans. ^85 He declared, that by the folly of
the Galilaeans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics,
contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been
reduced to the brink of destruction; and he insinuates in a
public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes be cured by
salutary violence. ^86 An ungenerous distinction was admitted
into the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to the
difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his
subjects deserved his favor and friendship, while the other was
entitled only to the common benefits that his justice could not
refuse to an obedient people. According to a principle, pregnant
with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred to the
pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal
allowances for the public revenue, which had been granted to the
church by the piety of Constantine and his sons. The proud
system of clerical honors and immunities, which had been
constructed with so much art and labor, was levelled to the
ground; the hopes of testamentary donations were intercepted by
the rigor of the laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were
confounded with the last and most ignominious class of the
people. Such of these regulations as appeared necessary to check
the ambition and avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon
afterwards imitated by the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The
peculiar distinctions which policy has bestowed, or superstition
has lavished, on the sacerdotal order, must be confined to those
priests who profess the religion of the state. But the will of
the legislator was not exempt from prejudice and passion; and it
was the object of the insidious policy of Julian, to deprive the
Christians of all the temporal honors and advantages which
rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world. ^88
[Footnote 85: Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 81. And this law was
confirmed by the invariable practice of Julian himself.
Warburton has justly observed (p. 35,) that the Platonists
believed in the mysterious virtue of words and Julian's dislike
for the name of Christ might proceed from superstition, as well
as from contempt.]
[Footnote 86: Fragment. Julian. p. 288. He derides the (Epist.
vii.,) and so far loses sight of the principles of toleration, as
to wish (Epist. xlii.).]
[Footnote 88: These laws, which affected the clergy, may be found
in the slight hints of Julian himself, (Epist. lii.) in the vague
declamations of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) and in the
positive assertions of Sozomen, (l. v. c. 5.)]
A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law
which prohibited the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar
and rhetoric. ^89 The motives alleged by the emperor to justify
this partial and oppressive measure, might command, during his
lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of Gatterers.
Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be
indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the
Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the
merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the
advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they
refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to
content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church
of the Galilaeans. ^90 In all the cities of the Roman world, the
education of the youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and
rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the
public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable
privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have included the
physicians, and professors of all the liberal arts; and the
emperor, who reserved to himself the approbation of the
candidates, was authorized by the laws to corrupt, or to punish,
the religious constancy of the most learned of the Christians.
^91 As soon as the resignation of the more obstinate ^92 teachers
had established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan sophists,
Julian invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to
the public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds
would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the
greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred by their
own scruples, or by those of their parents, from accepting this
dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same time,
relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason
to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would
relapse into its primaeval simplicity, and that the theologians,
who possessed an adequate share of the learning and eloquence of
the age, would be succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant
fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of their own
principles, or of exposing the various follies of Polytheism. ^93
[Footnote 89: Inclemens. . . . perenni obruendum silentio.
Ammian. xxii. 10, ixv. 5.]
[Footnote 90: The edict itself, which is still extant among the
epistles of Julian, (xlii.,) may be compared with the loose
invectives of Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 96.) Tillemont (Mem. Eccles.
tom. vii. p. 1291-1294) has collected the seeming differences of
ancients and moderns. They may be easily reconciled. The
Christians were directly forbid to teach, they were indirectly
forbid to learn; since they would not frequent the schools of the
Pagans.]
[Footnote 91: Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iii. de medicis et
professoribus, leg. 5, (published the 17th of June, received, at
Spoleto in Italy, the 29th of July, A. D. 363,) with Godefroy's
Illustrations, tom. v. p. 31.]
[Footnote 92: Orosius celebrates their disinterested resolution,
Sicut a majori bus nostris compertum habemus, omnes ubique
propemodum . . . officium quam fidem deserere maluerunt, vii. 30.
Proaeresius, a Christian sophist, refused to accept the partial
favor of the emperor Hieronym. in Chron. p. 185, edit. Scaliger.
Eunapius in Proaeresio p. 126.]
[Footnote 93: They had recourse to the expedient of composing
books for their own schools. Within a few months Apollinaris
produced his Christian imitations of Homer, (a sacred history in
twenty-four books,) Pindar, Euripides, and Menander; and Sozomen
is satisfied, that they equalled, or excelled, the originals.
Note: Socrates, however, implies that, on the death of
Julian, they were contemptuously thrown aside by the Christians.
Socr. Hist. iii.16. - M.]
It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive
the Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of
power; but the injustice of excluding them from all offices of
trust and profit seems to have been the result of his general
policy, rather than the immediate consequence of any positive
law. ^94 Superior merit might deserve and obtain, some
extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part of the Christian
officers were gradually removed from their employments in the
state, the army, and the provinces. The hopes of future
candidates were extinguished by the declared partiality of a
prince, who maliciously reminded them, that it was unlawful for a
Christian to use the sword, either of justice, or of war; and who
studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of
idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the pagans,
who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors;
and as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules
of divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most
agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the approbation of
mankind. ^95 Under the administration of their enemies, the
Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The temper
of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation,
which was exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the
philosophic monarch from violating the laws of justice and
toleration, which he himself had so recently established. But
the provincial ministers of his authority were placed in a less
conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they
consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their
sovereign; and ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious
tyranny against the sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to
confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled as
long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was
exercised in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of
his officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards. ^96
[Footnote 94: It was the instruction of Julian to his
magistrates, (Epist. vii.,). Sozomen (l. v. c. 18) and Socrates
(l. iii. c. 13) must be reduced to the standard of Gregory,
(Orat. iii. p. 95,) not less prone to exaggeration, but more
restrained by the actual knowledge of his contemporary readers.]
[Footnote 95: Libanius, Orat. Parent. 88, p. 814.]
[Footnote 96: Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 74, 91, 92. Socrates, l.
iii. c. 14. The doret, l. iii. c. 6. Some drawback may, however,
be allowed for the violence of their zeal, not less partial than
the zeal of Julian]
The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which they
were armed, was the law that obliged the Christians to make full
and ample satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed
under the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had
not always expected the sanction of the public authority; and the
bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the
head of their congregation, to attack and demolish the fortresses
of the prince of darkness. The consecrated lands, which had
increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, were
clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and on
the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently
erected their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to
remove the church before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice
and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party, while the
other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence. ^97 After
the ground was cleared, the restitution of those stately
structures which had been levelled with the dust, and of the
precious ornaments which had been converted to Christian uses,
swelled into a very large account of damages and debt. The
authors of the injury had neither the ability nor the inclination
to discharge this accumulated demand: and the impartial wisdom of
a legislator would have been displayed in balancing the adverse
claims and complaints, by an equitable and temperate arbitration.
But the whole empire, and particularly the East, was thrown into
confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the Pagan
magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous
privilege of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of
his inadequate property, the person of the insolvent debtor.
Under the preceding reign, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, ^98 had
labored in the conversion of his people with arms more effectual
than those of persuasion. ^99 The magistrates required the full
value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant
zeal: but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired
only to bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of the
slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged prelate, they
inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard; and his naked body,
annointed with honey, was suspended, in a net, between heaven and
earth, and exposed to the stings of insects and the rays of a
Syrian sun. ^100 From this lofty station, Mark still persisted to
glory in his crime, and to insult the impotent rage of his
persecutors. He was at length rescued from their hands, and
dismissed to enjoy the honor of his divine triumph. The Arians
celebrated the virtue of their pious confessor; the Catholics
ambitiously claimed his alliance; ^101 and the Pagans, who might
be susceptible of shame or remorse, were deterred from the
repetition of such unavailing cruelty. ^102 Julian spared his
life: but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of
Julian, ^103 posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of
praising the clemency, of the emperor.
[Footnote 97: If we compare the gentle language of Libanius
(Orat. Parent c. 60. p. 286) with the passionate exclamations of
Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) we may find it difficult to
persuade ourselves that the two orators are really describing the
same events.]
[Footnote 98: Restan, or Arethusa, at the equal distance of
sixteen miles between Emesa (Hems) and Epiphania, (Hamath,) was
founded, or at least named, by Seleucus Nicator. Its peculiar
aera dates from the year of Rome 685, according to the medals of
the city. In the decline of the Seleucides, Emesa and Arethusa
were usurped by the Arab Sampsiceramus, whose posterity, the
vassals of Rome, were not extinguished in the reign of Vespasian.
See D'Anville's Maps and Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 134.
Wesseling, Itineraria, p. 188, and Noris. Epoch Syro-Macedon, p.
80, 481, 482.]
[Footnote 99: Sozomen, l. v. c. 10. It is surprising, that
Gregory and Theodoret should suppress a circumstance, which, in
their eyes, must have enhanced the religious merit of the
confessor.]
[Footnote 100: The sufferings and constancy of Mark, which
Gregory has so tragically painted, (Orat. iii. p. 88-91,) are
confirmed by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence of
Libanius. Epist. 730, p. 350, 351. Edit. Wolf. Amstel. 1738.]
[Footnote 101: Certatim eum sibi (Christiani) vindicant. It is
thus that La Croze and Wolfius (ad loc.) have explained a Greek
word, whose true signification had been mistaken by former
interpreters, and even by Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Ancienne et
Moderne, tom. iii. p. 371.) Yet Tillemont is strangely puzzled to
understand (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1390) how Gregory and
Theodoret could mistake a Semi-Arian bishop for a saint.]
[Footnote 102: See the probable advice of Sallust, (Greg.
Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 90, 91.) Libanius intercedes for a
similar offender, lest they should find many Marks; yet he
allows, that if Orion had secreted the consecrated wealth, he
deserved to suffer the punishment of Marsyas; to be flayed alive,
(Epist. 730, p. 349-351.)]
[Footnote 103: Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 90) is satisfied that, by
saving the apostate, Mark had deserved still more than he had
suffered.]
At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the Macedonian
kings of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant
places of devotion in the Pagan world. ^104 A magnificent temple
rose in honor of the god of light; and his colossal figure ^105
almost filled the capacious sanctuary, which was enriched with
gold and gems, and adorned by the skill of the Grecian artists.
The deity was represented in a bending attitude, with a golden
cup in his hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he
supplicated the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and
beauteous Daphne: for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the
fancy of the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from
the banks of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient
rites of Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A
stream of prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of
the Delphic oracle, flowed from the Castalian fountain of Daphne.
^106 In the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special
privilege, ^107 which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic
games were celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue
of thirty thousand pounds sterling was annually applied to the
public pleasures. ^108 The perpetual resort of pilgrims and
spectators insensibly formed, in the neighborhood of the temple,
the stately and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the
splendor, without acquiring the title, of a provincial city. The
temple and the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of
laurels and cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of
ten miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and
impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest water,
issuing from every hill, preserved the verdure of the earth, and
the temperature of the air; the senses were gratified with
harmonious sounds and aromatic odors; and the peaceful grove was
consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love. The vigorous
youth pursued, like Apollo, the object of his desires; and the
blushing maid was warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the
folly of unseasonable coyness. The soldier and the philosopher
wisely avoided the temptation of this sensual paradise: ^109
where pleasure, assuming the character of religion, imperceptibly
dissolved the firmness of manly virtue. But the groves of Daphne
continued for many ages to enjoy the veneration of natives and
strangers; the privileges of the holy ground were enlarged by the
munificence of succeeding emperors; and every generation added
new ornaments to the splendor of the temple. ^110
[Footnote 104: The grove and temple of Daphne are described by
Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1089, 1090, edit. Amstel. 1707,) Libanius,
(Naenia, p. 185-188. Antiochic. Orat. xi. p. 380, 381,) and
Sozomen, (l. v. c. 19.) Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 581) and Casaubon
(ad Hist. August. p. 64) illustrate this curious subject.]
[Footnote 105: Simulacrum in eo Olympiaci Jovis imitamenti
aequiparans magnitudinem. Ammian. xxii. 13. The Olympic Jupiter
was sixty feet high, and his bulk was consequently equal to that
of a thousand men. See a curious Memoire of the Abbe Gedoyn,
(Academie des Inscriptions, tom. ix. p. 198.)]
[Footnote 106: Hadrian read the history of his future fortunes on
a leaf dipped in the Castalian stream; a trick which, according
to the physician Vandale, (de Oraculis, p. 281, 282,) might be
easily performed by chemical preparations. The emperor stopped
the source of such dangerous knowledge; which was again opened by
the devout curiosity of Julian.]
[Footnote 107: It was purchased, A. D. 44, in the year 92 of the
aera of Antioch, (Noris. Epoch. Syro-Maced. p. 139-174,) for the
term of ninety Olympiads. But the Olympic games of Antioch were
not regularly celebrated till the reign of Commodus. See the
curious details in the Chronicle of John Malala, tom. i. p. 290,
320, 372-381,) a writer whose merit and authority are confined
within the limits of his native city.]
[Footnote 108: Fifteen talents of gold, bequeathed by Sosibius,
who died in the reign of Augustus. The theatrical merits of the
Syrian cities in the reign of Constantine, are computed in the
Expositio totius Murd, p. 8, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor tom. iii.)]
[Footnote 109: Avidio Cassio Syriacas legiones dedi luxuria
diffluentes et Daphnicis moribus. These are the words of the
emperor Marcus Antoninus in an original letter preserved by his
biographer in Hist. August. p. 41. Cassius dismissed or punished
every soldier who was seen at Daphne.]
[Footnote 110: Aliquantum agrorum Daphnensibus dedit, (Pompey,)
quo lucus ibi spatiosior fieret; delectatus amoenitate loci et
aquarum abundantiz, Eutropius, vi. 14. Sextus Rufus, de
Provinciis, c. 16.]
When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, hastened to
adore the Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to the
highest pitch of eagerness and impatience. His lively
imagination anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of
libations and of incense; a long procession of youths and
virgins, clothed in white robes, the symbol of their innocence;
and the tumultuous concourse of an innumerable people. But the
zeal of Antioch was diverted, since the reign of Christianity,
into a different channel. Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen
sacrificed by the tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelar deity
the emperor complains that he found only a single goose, provided
at the expense of a priest, the pale and solitary in habitant of
this decayed temple. ^111 The altar was deserted, the oracle had
been reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the
introduction of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas ^112
(a bishop of Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of
Decius) had rested near a century in his grave, his body, by the
order of Caesar Gallus, was transported into the midst of the
grove of Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his
remains; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the
maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians
at Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their
bishop; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted
and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution seemed to
restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of St. Babylas was
demolished, and new buildings were added to the mouldering
edifice which had been raised by the piety of Syrian kings. But
the first and most serious care of Julian was to deliver his
oppressed deity from the odious presence of the dead and living
Christians, who had so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud
or enthusiasm. ^113 The scene of infection was purified,
according to the forms of ancient rituals; the bodies were
decently removed; and the ministers of the church were permitted
to convey the remains of St. Babylas to their former habitation
within the walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might
have assuaged the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected,
on this occasion, by the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car,
that transported the relics of Babylas, was followed, and
accompanied, and received, by an innumerable multitude; who
chanted, with thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David the
most expressive of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The
return of the saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult
on the religion of the emperor, who exerted his pride to
dissemble his resentment. During the night which terminated this
indiscreet procession, the temple of Daphne was in flames; the
statue of Apollo was consumed; and the walls of the edifice were
left a naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians of
Antioch asserted, with religious confidence, that the powerful
intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven
against the devoted roof: but as Julian was reduced to the
alternative of believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose,
without hesitation, without evidence, but with some color of
probability, to impute the fire of Daphne to the revenge of the
Galilaeans. ^114 Their offence, had it been sufficiently proved,
might have justified the retaliation, which was immediately
executed by the order of Julian, of shutting the doors, and
confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch. To discover
the criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of
secreting the riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics
were tortured; ^115 and a Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret,
was beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this
hasty act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or
affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would
tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution. ^116
[Footnote 111: Julian (Misopogon, p. 367, 362) discovers his own
character with naivete, that unconscious simplicity which always
constitutes genuine humor.]
[Footnote 112: Babylas is named by Eusebius in the succession of
the bishops of Antioch, (Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 29, 39.) His
triumph over two emperors (the first fabulous, the second
historical) is diffusely celebrated by Chrysostom, (tom. ii. p.
536-579, edit. Montfaucon.) Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. iii.
part ii. p. 287-302, 459-465) becomes almost a sceptic.]
[Footnote 113: Ecclesiastical critics, particularly those who
love relics, exult in the confession of Julian (Misopogon, p.
361) and Libanius, (Laenia, p. 185,) that Apollo was disturbed by
the vicinity of one dead man. Yet Ammianus (xxii. 12) clears and
purifies the whole ground, according to the rites which the
Athenians formerly practised in the Isle of Delos.]
[Footnote 114: Julian (in Misopogon, p. 361) rather insinuates,
than affirms, their guilt. Ammianus (xxii. 13) treats the
imputation as levissimus rumor, and relates the story with
extraordinary candor.]
[Footnote 115: Quo tam atroci casu repente consumpto, ad id usque
e imperatoris ira provexit, ut quaestiones agitare juberet solito
acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity of the magistrates of
Antioch,) et majorem ecclesiam Antiochiae claudi. This
interdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity
and profanation; and the seasonable death of the principal actor,
Julian's uncle, is related with much superstitious complacency by
the Abbe de la Bleterie. Vie de Julien, p. 362-369.]
[Footnote 116: Besides the ecclesiastical historians, who are
more or less to be suspected, we may allege the passion of St.
Theodore, in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 591. The complaint
of Julian gives it an original and authentic air.]
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.
Part V.
The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked by
the frown of their sovereign; but when the father of his country
declares himself the leader of a faction, the license of popular
fury cannot easily be restrained, nor consistently punished.
Julian, in a public composition, applauds the devotion and
loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious inhabitants had
destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres of the Galilaeans;
and faintly complains, that they had revenged the injuries of the
gods with less moderation than he should have recommended. ^117
This imperfect and reluctant confession may appear to confirm the
ecclesiastical narratives; that in the cities of Gaza, Ascalon,
Caesarea, Heliopolis, &c., the Pagans abused, without prudence or
remorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy
objects of their cruelty were released from torture only by
death; and as their mangled bodies were dragged through the
streets, they were pierced (such was the universal rage) by the
spits of cooks, and the distaffs of enraged women; and that the
entrails of Christian priests and virgins, after they had been
tasted by those bloody fanatics, were mixed with barley, and
contemptuously thrown to the unclean animals of the city. ^118
Such scenes of religious madness exhibit the most contemptible
and odious picture of human nature; but the massacre of
Alexandria attracts still more attention, from the certainty of
the fact, the rank of the victims, and the splendor of the
capital of Egypt.
[Footnote 117: Julian. Misopogon, p. 361.]
[Footnote 118: See Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. p. 87.) Sozomen
(l. v. c. 9) may be considered as an original, though not
impartial, witness. He was a native of Gaza, and had conversed
with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma, lived to the
age of a hundred, (l. vii. c. 28.) Philostorgius (l. vii. c. 4,
with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 284) adds some tragic
circumstances, of Christians who were literally sacrificed at the
altars of the gods, &c.]
George, ^119 from his parents or his education, surnamed the
Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller's
shop. From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by
the talents of a parasite; and the patrons, whom he assiduously
flattered, procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative
commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His
employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated
wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his
malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to
escape from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in
which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his
honor, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of
Arianism. From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, he
collected a valuable library of history rhetoric, philosophy, and
theology, ^120 and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted
George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance
of the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian conqueror; and each
moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. The
Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant,
qualified, by nature and education, to exercise the office of
persecution; but he oppressed with an impartial hand the various
inhabitants of his extensive diocese. The primate of Egypt
assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty station; but he still
betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction. The
merchants of Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust, and
almost universal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt,
paper, funerals, &c.: and the spiritual father of a great people
condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts of an
informer. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the
tax, which he suggested, on all the houses of the city; under an
obsolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his
successors, the Ptolemies and the Caesars, the perpetual property
of the soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes
of freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the
rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or insulted by
the haughty prince, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening
tone, "How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand?"
Under the reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or
rather by the justice, of the people; and it was not without a
violent struggle, that the civil and military powers of the state
could restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The
messenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian,
announced the downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of
his obsequious ministers, Count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master
of the mint were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public
prison. At the end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced
open by the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the
tedious forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and
men expired under their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the
archbishop and his associates were carried in triumph through the
streets on the back of a camel; ^* and the inactivity of the
Athanasian party ^121 was esteemed a shining example of
evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches were
thrown into the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult
declared their resolution to disappoint the devotion of the
Christians, and to intercept the future honors of these martyrs,
who had been punished, like their predecessors, by the enemies of
their religion. ^122 The fears of the Pagans were just, and their
precautions ineffectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop
obliterated the memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was
dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of
those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the
Catholic church. ^123 The odious stranger, disguising every
circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a
saint, and a Christian hero; ^124 and the infamous George of
Cappadocia has been transformed ^125 into the renowned St. George
of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter.
^126
[Footnote 119: The life and death of George of Cappadocia are
described by Ammianus, (xxii. 11,) Gregory of Nazianzen, (Orat.
xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390,) and Epiphanius, (Haeres. lxxvi.) The
invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit,
unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and
impartial infidel.]
[Footnote 120: After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian
repeatedly sent orders to preserve the library for his own use,
and to torture the slaves who might be suspected of secreting any
books. He praises the merit of the collection, from whence he
had borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued
his studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the works
of the Galiaeans might perish but he requires an exact account
even of those theological volumes lest other treatises more
valuable should be confounded in their less Julian. Epist. ix.
xxxvi.]
[Footnote *: Julian himself says, that they tore him to pieces
like dogs, Epist. x. - M.]
[Footnote 121: Philostorgius, with cautious malice, insinuates
their guilt, l. vii. c. ii. Godefroy p. 267.]
[Footnote 122: Cineres projecit in mare, id metuens ut clamabat,
ne, collectis supremis, aedes illis exstruerentur ut reliquis,
qui deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere, cruciabiles poenas,
adusque gloriosam mortem intemerata fide progressi, et nunc
Martyres appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the
Arians, that George was not a martyr.]
[Footnote 123: Some Donatists (Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303, edit.
Dupin; and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and
Priscillianists (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 517, in
4to.) have in like manner usurped the honors of the Catholic
saints and martyrs.]
[Footnote 124: The saints of Cappadocia, Basil, and the
Gregories, were ignorant of their holy companion. Pope Gelasius,
(A. D. 494,) the first Catholic who acknowledges St. George,
places him among the martyrs "qui Deo magis quam hominibus noti
sunt." He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some,
perhaps, not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant;
and, through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the
combat which St. George of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence
of Queen Alexandria, against the magician Afhanasius.]
[Footnote 125: This transformation is not given as absolutely
certain, but as extremely probable. See the Longueruana, tom. i.
p. 194.
Note: The late Dr. Milner (the Roman Catholic bishop) wrote
a tract to vindicate the existence and the orthodoxy of the
tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I think, in tracing the
worship of St. George up to a period which makes it improbable
that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the Catholic
church as a saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by Gelasius
may have been of Arian origin, and designed to ingraft the story
of their hero on the obscure adventures of some earlier saint.
See an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence and
Character of Saint George, in a letter to the Earl of Leicester,
by the Rev. J. Milner. F. S. A. London 1792. - M.]
[Footnote 126: A curious history of the worship of St. George,
from the sixth century, (when he was already revered in
Palestine, in Armenia at Rome, and at Treves in Gaul,) might be
extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2d edition,
London, 1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists, (Act. Ss.
Mens. April. tom. iii. p. 100-163.) His fame and popularity in
Europe, and especially in England, proceeded from the Crusades.]
About the same time that Julian was informed of the tumult
of Alexandria, he received intelligence from Edessa, that the
proud and wealthy faction of the Arians had insulted the weakness
of the Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to
be suffered with impunity in a well-regulated state. Without
expecting the slow forms of justice, the exasperated prince
directed his mandate to the magistrates of Edessa, ^127 by which
he confiscated the whole property of the church: the money was
distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to the
domain; and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most
ungenerous irony. "I show myself," says Julian, "the true friend
of the Galilaeans. Their admirable law has promised the kingdom
of heaven to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence
in the paths of virtue and salvation, when they are relieved by
my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take care,"
pursued the monarch, in a more serious tone, "take care how you
provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I
will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; and you
will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, but
fire and the sword." The tumults of Alexandria were doubtless of
a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a Christian bishop had
fallen by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle of
Julian affords a very lively proof of the partial spirit of his
administration. His reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are
mingled with expressions of esteem and tenderness; and he
laments, that, on this occasion, they should have departed from
the gentle and generous manners which attested their Grecian
extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had
committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he
recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable
provocations which they had so long endured from the impious
tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the principle,
that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence
of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander,
and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious
pardon to the guilty city, for which he again feels the affection
of a brother. ^128
[Footnote 127: Julian. Epist. xliii.]
[Footnote 128: Julian. Epist. x. He allowed his friends to
assuage his anger Ammian. xxii. 11.]
After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius,
amidst the public acclamations, seated himself on the throne from
whence his unworthy competitor had been precipitated: and as the
zeal of the archbishop was tempered with discretion, the exercise
of his authority tended not to inflame, but to reconcile, the
minds of the people. His pastoral labors were not confined to
the narrow limits of Egypt. The state of the Christian world was
present to his active and capacious mind; and the age, the merit,
the reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a moment
of danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator. ^129 Three
years were not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of
the West had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the
Confession of Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they
dreaded the unseasonable rigor of their orthodox brethren; and if
their pride was stronger than their faith, they might throw
themselves into the arms of the Arians, to escape the indignity
of a public penance, which must degrade them to the condition of
obscure laymen. At the same time the domestic differences
concerning the union and distinction of the divine persons, were
agitated with some heat among the Catholic doctors; and the
progress of this metaphysical controversy seemed to threaten a
public and lasting division of the Greek and Latin churches. By
the wisdom of a select synod, to which the name and presence of
Athanasius gave the authority of a general council, the bishops,
who had unwarily deviated into error, were admitted to the
communion of the church, on the easy condition of subscribing the
Nicene Creed; without any formal acknowledgment of their past
fault, or any minute definition of their scholastic opinions.
The advice of the primate of Egypt had already prepared the
clergy of Gaul and Spain, of Italy and Greece, for the reception
of this salutary measure; and, notwithstanding the opposition of
some ardent spirits, ^130 the fear of the common enemy promoted
the peace and harmony of the Christians. ^131
[Footnote 129: See Athanas. ad Rufin. tom. ii. p. 40, 41, and
Greg. Nazianzen Orat. iii. p. 395, 396; who justly states the
temperate zeal of the primate, as much more meritorious than his
prayers, his fasts, his persecutions, &c.]
[Footnote 130: I have not leisure to follow the blind obstinacy
of Lucifer of Cagliari. See his adventures in Tillemont, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. vii. p. 900-926;) and observe how the color of the
narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor becomes a
schismatic.]
[Footnote 131: Assensus est huic sententiae Occidens, et, per tam
necessarium conilium, Satanae faucibus mundus ereptus. The
lively and artful dialogue of Jerom against the Luciferians (tom.
ii. p. 135-155) exhibits an original picture of the
ecclesiastical policy of the times.]
The skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved
the season of tranquillity, before it was interrupted by the
hostile edicts of the emperor. ^132 Julian, who despised the
Christians, honored Athanasius with his sincere and peculiar
hatred. For his sake alone, he introduced an arbitrary
distinction, repugnant at least to the spirit of his former
declarations. He maintained, that the Galilaeans, whom he had
recalled from exile, were not restored, by that general
indulgence, to the possession of their respective churches; and
he expressed his astonishment, that a criminal, who had been
repeatedly condemned by the judgment of the emperors, should dare
to insult the majesty of the laws, and insolently usurp the
archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria, without expecting the orders
of his sovereign. As a punishment for the imaginary offence, he
again banished Athanasius from the city; and he was pleased to
suppose, that this act of justice would be highly agreeable to
his pious subjects. The pressing solicitations of the people
soon convinced him, that the majority of the Alexandrians were
Christians; and that the greatest part of the Christians were
firmly attached to the cause of their oppressed primate. But the
knowledge of their sentiments, instead of persuading him to
recall his decree, provoked him to extend to all Egypt the term
of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal of the multitude rendered
Julian still more inexorable: he was alarmed by the danger of
leaving at the head of a tumultuous city, a daring and popular
leader; and the language of his resentment discovers the opinion
which he entertained of the courage and abilities of Athanasius.
The execution of the sentence was still delayed, by the caution
or negligence of Ecdicius, praefect of Egypt, who was at length
awakened from his lethargy by a severe reprimand. "Though you
neglect," says Julian, "to write to me on any other subject, at
least it is your duty to inform me of your conduct towards
Athanasius, the enemy of the gods. My intentions have been long
since communicated to you. I swear by the great Serapis, that
unless, on the calends of December, Athanasius has departed from
Alexandria, nay, from Egypt, the officers of your government
shall pay a fine of one hundred pounds of gold. You know my
temper: I am slow to condemn, but I am still slower to forgive."
This epistle was enforced by a short postscript, written with the
emperor's own hand. "The contempt that is shown for all the gods
fills me with grief and indignation. There is nothing that I
should see, nothing that I should hear, with more pleasure, than
the expulsion of Athanasius from all Egypt. The abominable
wretch! Under my reign, the baptism of several Grecian ladies of
the highest rank has been the effect of his persecutions." ^133
The death of Athanasius was not expressly commanded; but the
praefect of Egypt understood that it was safer for him to exceed,
than to neglect, the orders of an irritated master. The
archbishop prudently retired to the monasteries of the Desert;
eluded, with his usual dexterity, the snares of the enemy; and
lived to triumph over the ashes of a prince, who, in words of
formidable import, had declared his wish that the whole venom of
the Galilaean school were contained in the single person of
Athanasius. ^134
[Footnote 132: Tillemont, who supposes that George was massacred
in August crowds the actions of Athanasius into a narrow space,
(Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 360.) An original fragment, published
by the Marquis Maffei, from the old Chapter library of Verona,
(Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 60-92,) affords many
important dates, which are authenticated by the computation of
Egyptian months.]
[Footnote 133: I have preserved the ambiguous sense of the last
word, the ambiguity of a tyrant who wished to find, or to create,
guilt.]
[Footnote 134: The three epistles of Julian, which explain his
intentions and conduct with regard to Athanasius, should be
disposed in the following chronological order, xxvi. x. vi. * See
likewise, Greg. Nazianzen xxi. p. 393. Sozomen, l. v. c. 15.
Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, l iii. c. 9, and Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 361-368, who has used some materials
prepared by the Bollandists.]
[Footnote *: The sentence in the text is from Epist. li.
addressed to the people of Alexandria. - M.]
I have endeavored faithfully to represent the artful system
by which Julian proposed to obtain the effects, without incurring
the guilt, or reproach, of persecution. But if the deadly spirit
of fanaticism perverted the heart and understanding of a virtuous
prince, it must, at the same time, be confessed that the real
sufferings of the Christians were inflamed and magnified by human
passions and religious enthusiasm. The meekness and resignation
which had distinguished the primitive disciples of the gospel,
was the object of the applause, rather than of the imitation of
their successors. The Christians, who had now possessed above
forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the
empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, ^135 and
the habit of believing that the saints alone were entitled to
reign over the earth. As soon as the enmity of Julian deprived
the clergy of the privileges which had been conferred by the
favor of Constantine, they complained of the most cruel
oppression; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics was
a subject of grief and scandal to the orthodox party. ^136 The
acts of violence, which were no longer countenanced by the
magistrates, were still committed by the zeal of the people. At
Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was overturned almost in the
presence of the emperor; and in the city of Caesarea in
Cappadocia, the temple of Fortune, the sole place of worship
which had been left to the Pagans, was destroyed by the rage of a
popular tumult. On these occasions, a prince, who felt for the
honor of the gods, was not disposed to interrupt the course of
justice; and his mind was still more deeply exasperated, when he
found that the fanatics, who had deserved and suffered the
punishment of incendiaries, were rewarded with the honors of
martyrdom. ^137 The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of
the hostile designs of their sovereign; and, to their jealous
apprehension, every circumstance of his government might afford
some grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the ordinary
administration of the laws, the Christians, who formed so large a
part of the people, must frequently be condemned: but their
indulgent brethren, without examining the merits of the cause,
presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and imputed the
severity of their judge to the partial malice of religious
persecution. ^138 These present hardships, intolerable as they
might appear, were represented as a slight prelude of the
impending calamities. The Christians considered Julian as a
cruel and crafty tyrant; who suspended the execution of his
revenge till he should return victorious from the Persian war.
They expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign
enemies of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of
dissimulation; that the amphitheatre would stream with the blood
of hermits and bishops; and that the Christians who still
persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived of
the common benefits of nature and society. ^139 Every calumny
^140 that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was
credulously embraced by the fears and hatred of his adversaries;
and their indiscreet clamors provoked the temper of a sovereign,
whom it was their duty to respect, and their interest to flatter.
They still protested, that prayers and tears were their only
weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they devoted to
the justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with sullen
resolution, that their submission was no longer the effect of
weakness; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the
patience, which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by
persecution. It is impossible to determine how far the zeal of
Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but
if we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church,
we shall be convinced, that before the emperor could have
extinguished the religion of Christ, he must have involved his
country in the horrors of a civil war. ^141
[Footnote 135: See the fair confession of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p.
61, 62.)]
[Footnote 136: Hear the furious and absurd complaint of Optatus,
(de Schismat Denatist. l. ii. c. 16, 17.)]
[Footnote 137: Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 91, iv. p. 133. He
praises the rioters of Caesarea. See Sozomen, l. v. 4, 11.
Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 649, 650) owns, that their
behavior was not dans l'ordre commun: but he is perfectly
satisfied, as the great St. Basil always celebrated the festival
of these blessed martyrs.]
[Footnote 138: Julian determined a lawsuit against the new
Christian city at Maiuma, the port of Gaza; and his sentence,
though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never reversed by his
successors. Sozomen, l. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. tom. ii. p.
791.]
[Footnote 139: Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 93, 94, 95. Orat. iv. p.
114) pretends to speak from the information of Julian's
confidants, whom Orosius (vii. 30) could not have seen.]
[Footnote 140: Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 91) charges the Apostate
with secret sacrifices of boys and girls; and positively affirms,
that the dead bodies were thrown into the Orontes. See
Theodoret, l. iii. c. 26, 27; and the equivocal candor of the
Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 351, 352. Yet contemporary
malice could not impute to Julian the troops of martyrs, more
especially in the West, which Baronius so greedily swallows, and
Tillemont so faintly rejects, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
1295-1315.)]
[Footnote 141: The resignation of Gregory is truly edifying,
(Orat. iv. p. 123, 124.) Yet, when an officer of Julian attempted
to seize the church of Nazianzus, he would have lost his life, if
he had not yielded to the zeal of the bishop and people, (Orat.
xix. p. 308.) See the reflections of Chrysostom, as they are
alleged by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 575.)]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.
Part I.
Residence Of Julian At Antioch. - His Successful Expedition
Against The Persians. - Passage Of The Tigris - The Retreat And
Death Of Julian. - Election Of Jovian. - He Saves The Roman Army
By A Disgraceful Treaty.
The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name
of the Caesars, ^1 is one of the most agreeable and instructive
productions of ancient wit. ^2 During the freedom and equality of
the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the
deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate,
and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial
people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals
were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the
table of the Caesars was spread below the Moon in the upper
region of the air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the
society of gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable
Nemesis, into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the Caesars
successively advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the
vices, the defects, the blemishes of their respective characters,
were maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who
disguised the wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a
Bacchanal. ^3 As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of
Mercury proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown
should be the reward of superior merit. Julius Caesar, Augustus,
Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most
illustrious candidates; the effeminate Constantine ^4 was not
excluded from this honorable competition, and the great Alexander
was invited to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes.
Each of the candidates was allowed to display the merit of his
own exploits; but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest
silence of Marcus pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate
orations of his haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful
contest proceeded to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the
springs of action, the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared
still more decisive and conspicuous. ^5 Alexander and Caesar,
Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush,
that fame, or power, or pleasure had been the important object of
their labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and
love, a virtuous mortal, who had practised on the throne the
lessons of philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection,
had aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The
value of this agreeable composition (the Caesars of Julian) is
enhanced by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates,
with freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors,
subscribes, in every line, the censure or approbation of his own
conduct.
[Footnote 1: See this fable or satire, p. 306-336 of the Leipsig
edition of Julian's works. The French version of the learned
Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and correct;
and his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c., are piled on each
other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages.
The Abbe' de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has
more happily expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the
original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious
notes.]
[Footnote 2: Spanheim (in his preface) has most learnedly
discussed the etymology, origin, resemblance, and disagreement of
the Greek satyrs, a dramatic piece, which was acted after the
tragedy; and the Latin satires, (from Satura,) a miscellaneous
composition, either in prose or verse. But the Caesars of Julian
are of such an original cast, that the critic is perplexed to
which class he should ascribe them.
Note: See also Casaubon de Satira, with Rambach's
observations. - M.]
[Footnote 3: This mixed character of Silenus is finely painted in
the sixth eclogue of Virgil.]
[Footnote 4: Every impartial reader must perceive and condemn the
partiality of Julian against his uncle Constantine, and the
Christian religion. On this occasion, the interpreters are
compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their
allegiance, and to desert the cause of their author.]
[Footnote 5: Julian was secretly inclined to prefer a Greek to a
Roman. But when he seriously compared a hero with a philosopher,
he was sensible that mankind had much greater obligations to
Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.)]
In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the
useful and benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious
spirit was inflamed by the glory of Alexander; and he solicited,
with equal ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause of the
multitude. In the season of life when the powers of the mind and
body enjoy the most active vigor, the emperor who was instructed
by the experience, and animated by the success, of the German
war, resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and
memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the East, from the
continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, ^6 had respectfully
saluted the Roman purple. ^7 The nations of the West esteemed and
dreaded the personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and war.
He despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied
that the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube would be restrained
from any future violation of the faith of treaties by the terror
of his name, and the additional fortifications with which he
strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor
of Cyrus and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy
of his arms; and he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to
chastise the naughty nation which had so long resisted and
insulted the majesty of Rome. ^9 As soon as the Persian monarch
was informed that the throne of Constantius was filed by a prince
of a very different character, he condescended to make some
artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation of
peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness of
Julian; who sternly declared, that he would never consent to hold
a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins of the cities of
Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt, that it was
needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had determined to
visit speedily the court of Persia. The impatience of the
emperor urged the diligence of the military preparations. The
generals were named; and Julian, marching from Constantinople
through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch about
eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent
desire to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the
indispensable duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his
zeal to revive the worship of the gods; and by the advice of his
wisest friends; who represented the necessity of allowing the
salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore the exhausted
strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of
the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing
spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously
disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays, of their
sovereign. ^10
[Footnote 6: Inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum aonis optimates
mittentibus . . . . ab usque Divis et Serendivis. Ammian. xx. 7.
This island, to which the names of Taprobana, Serendib, and
Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how imperfectly
the seas and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the
Romans. 1. Under the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed
the customs of the Red Sea, was accidentally driven by the winds
upon this strange and undiscovered coast: he conversed six months
with the natives; and the king of Ceylon, who heard, for the
first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was persuaded to
send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2.
The geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen
times, the real size of this new world, which they extended as
far as the equator, and the neighborhood of China.
Note: The name of Diva gens or Divorum regio, according to
the probable conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois Mem. Acad. p.
127,) was applied by the ancients to the whole eastern coast of
the Indian Peninsula, from Ceylon to the Canges. The name may be
traced in Devipatnam, Devidan, Devicotta, Divinelly, the point of
Divy.
M. Letronne, p.121, considers the freedman with his embassy
from Ceylon to have been an impostor. - M.]
[Footnote 7: These embassies had been sent to Constantius.
Ammianus, who unwarily deviates into gross flattery, must have
forgotten the length of the way, and the short duration of the
reign of Julian.]
[Footnote 8: Gothos saepe fallaces et perfidos; hostes quaerere
se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere mercators Galatas per
quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur. (Ammian.
xxii. 7.) Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic slaves
threatened and subdued their masters.]
[Footnote 9: Alexander reminds his rival Caesar, who depreciated
the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory, that Crassus and Antony
had felt the Persian arrows; and that the Romans, in a war of
three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province of
Mesopotamia or Assyria, (Caesares, p. 324.)]
[Footnote 10: The design of the Persian war is declared by
Ammianus, (xxii. 7, 12,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 79, 80, p.
305, 306,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 158,) and Socrates, (l. iii. c.
19.)]
If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal
connection with the capital of the East would be productive of
mutual satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very
false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of
Antioch. ^11 The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to
the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and
the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the
hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law,
pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and
furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch.
The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues
were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty
and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the
capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or
rather passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were
procured from the adjacent cities; ^12 a considerable share of
the revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the
magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was
considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The
rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was
insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his
subjects; and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor
admire, the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained, and
sometimes affected. The days of festivity, consecrated, by
ancient custom, to the honor of the gods, were the only occasions
in which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those
festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch
could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the
people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been
first invented by their ancestors: ^13 they contended themselves
with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were scrupulously
attached to the speculative doctrines of their religion. The
church of Antioch was distracted by heresy and schism; but the
Arians and the Athanasians, the followers of Meletius and those
of Paulinus, ^14 were actuated by the same pious hatred of their
common adversary.
[Footnote 11: The Satire of Julian, and the Homilies of St.
Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture of Antioch. The miniature
which the Abbe de la Bleterie has copied from thence, (Vie de
Julian, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.]
[Footnote 12: Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus,
comedians; Caesarea, pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza,
gladiators, Ascalon, wrestlers; and Castabala, rope-dancers. See
the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third tome of Hudson's
Minor Geographers.]
[Footnote 13: The people of Antioch ingenuously professed their
attachment to the Chi, (Christ,) and the Kappa, (Constantius.)
Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.]
[Footnote 14: The schism of Antioch, which lasted eighty-five
years, (A. D. 330-415,) was inflamed, while Julian resided in
that city, by the indiscreet ordination of Paulinus. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 803 of the quarto edition,
(Paris, 1701, &c,) which henceforward I shall quote.]
The strongest prejudice was entertained against the
character of an apostate, the enemy and successor of a prince who
had engaged the affections of a very numerous sect; and the
removal of St. Babylas excited an implacable opposition to the
person of Julian. His subjects complained, with superstitious
indignation, that famine had pursued the emperor's steps from
Constantinople to Antioch; and the discontent of a hungry people
was exasperated by the injudicious attempt to relieve their
distress. The inclemency of the season had affected the harvests
of Syria; and the price of bread, ^15 in the markets of Antioch,
had naturally risen in proportion to the scarcity of corn. But
the fair and reasonable proportion was soon violated by the
rapacious arts of monopoly. In this unequal contest, in which
the produce of the land is claimed by one party as his exclusive
property, is used by another as a lucrative object of trade, and
is required by a third for the daily and necessary support of
life, all the profits of the intermediate agents are accumulated
on the head of the defenceless customers. The hardships of their
situation were exaggerated and increased by their own impatience
and anxiety; and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually
produced the appearances of a famine. When the luxurious
citizens of Antioch complained of the high price of poultry and
fish, Julian publicly declared, that a frugal city ought to be
satisfied with a regular supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he
acknowledged, that it was the duty of a sovereign to provide for
the subsistence of his people. With this salutary view, the
emperor ventured on a very dangerous and doubtful step, of
fixing, by legal authority, the value of corn. He enacted, that,
in a time of scarcity, it should be sold at a price which had
seldom been known in the most plentiful years; and that his own
example might strengthen his laws, he sent into the market four
hundred and twenty- two thousand modii, or measures, which were
drawn by his order from the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis,
and even of Egypt. The consequences might have been foreseen,
and were soon felt. The Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich
merchants; the proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the
city the accustomed supply; and the small quantities that
appeared in the market were secretly sold at an advanced and
illegal price. Julian still continued to applaud his own policy,
treated the complaints of the people as a vain and ungrateful
murmur, and convinced Antioch that he had inherited the
obstinacy, though not the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. ^16 The
remonstrances of the municipal senate served only to exasperate
his inflexible mind. He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that
the senators of Antioch who possessed lands, or were concerned in
trade, had themselves contributed to the calamities of their
country; and he imputed the disrespectful boldness which they
assumed, to the sense, not of public duty, but of private
interest. The whole body, consisting of two hundred of the most
noble and wealthy citizens, were sent, under a guard, from the
palace to the prison; and though they were permitted, before the
close of evening, to return to their respective houses, ^17 the
emperor himself could not obtain the forgiveness which he had so
easily granted. The same grievances were still the subject of
the same complaints, which were industriously circulated by the
wit and levity of the Syrian Greeks. During the licentious days
of the Saturnalia, the streets of the city resounded with
insolent songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the
personal conduct, and even the beard, of the emperor; the spirit
of Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates,
and the applause of the multitude. ^18 The disciple of Socrates
was too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the
monarch, endowed with a quick sensibility, and possessed of
absolute power, refused his passions the gratification of
revenge. A tyrant might have proscribed, without distinction,
the lives and fortunes of the citizens of Antioch; and the
unwarlike Syrians must have patiently submitted to the lust, the
rapaciousness and the cruelty, of the faithful legions of Gaul.
A milder sentence might have deprived the capital of the East of
its honors and privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the
subjects, of Julian, would have applauded an act of justice,
which asserted the dignity of the supreme magistrate of the
republic. ^19 But instead of abusing, or exerting, the authority
of the state, to revenge his personal injuries, Julian contented
himself with an inoffensive mode of retaliation, which it would
be in the power of few princes to employ. He had been insulted
by satires and libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title
of the Enemy of the Beard, an ironical confession of his own
faults, and a severe satire on the licentious and effeminate
manners of Antioch. This Imperial reply was publicly exposed
before the gates of the palace; and the Misopogon ^20 still
remains a singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the
humanity, and the indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to
laugh, he could not forgive. ^21 His contempt was expressed, and
his revenge might be gratified, by the nomination of a governor
^22 worthy only of such subjects; and the emperor, forever
renouncing the ungrateful city, proclaimed his resolution to pass
the ensuing winter at Tarsus in Cilicia. ^23
[Footnote 15: Julian states three different proportions, of five,
ten, or fifteen medii of wheat for one piece of gold, according
to the degrees of plenty and scarcity, (in Misopogon, p. 369.)
From this fact, and from some collateral examples, I conclude,
that under the successors of Constantine, the moderate price of
wheat was about thirty-two shillings the English quarter, which
is equal to the average price of the sixty-four first years of
the present century. See Arbuthnot's Tables of Coins, Weights,
and Measures, p. 88, 89. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 12. Mem. de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 718-721. Smith's
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol.
i. p 246. This last I am proud to quote as the work of a sage
and a friend.]
[Footnote 16: Nunquam a proposito declinabat, Galli similis
fratris, licet incruentus. Ammian. xxii. 14. The ignorance of
the most enlightened princes may claim some excuse; but we cannot
be satisfied with Julian's own defence, (in Misopogon, p. 363,
369,) or the elaborate apology of Libanius, (Orat. Parental c.
xcvii. p. 321.)]
[Footnote 17: Their short and easy confinement is gently touched
by Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. xcviii. p. 322, 323.)]
[Footnote 18: Libanius, (ad Antiochenos de Imperatoris ira, c.
17, 18, 19, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p. 221-223,)
like a skilful advocate, severely censures the folly of the
people, who suffered for the crime of a few obscure and drunken
wretches.]
[Footnote 19: Libanius (ad Antiochen. c. vii. p. 213) reminds
Antioch of the recent chastisement of Caesarea; and even Julian
(in Misopogon, p. 355) insinuates how severely Tarentum had
expiated the insult to the Roman ambassadors.]
[Footnote 20: On the subject of the Misopogon, see Ammianus,
(xxii. 14,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. xcix. p. 323,)
Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 133) and the Chronicle of
Antioch, by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 15, 16.) I have essential
obligations to the translation and notes of the Abbe de la
Bleterie, (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 1-138.)]
[Footnote 21: Ammianus very justly remarks, Coactus dissimulare
pro tempore ira sufflabatur interna. The elaborate irony of
Julian at length bursts forth into serious and direct invective.]
[Footnote 22: Ipse autem Antiochiam egressurus, Heliopoliten
quendam Alexandrum Syriacae jurisdictioni praefecit, turbulentum
et saevum; dicebatque non illum meruisse, sed Antiochensibus
avaris et contumeliosis hujusmodi judicem convenire. Ammian.
xxiii. 2. Libanius, (Epist. 722, p. 346, 347,) who confesses to
Julian himself, that he had shared the general discontent,
pretends that Alexander was a useful, though harsh, reformer of
the manners and religion of Antioch.]
[Footnote 23: Julian, in Misopogon, p. 364. Ammian. xxiii. 2,
and Valesius, ad loc. Libanius, in a professed oration, invites
him to return to his loyal and penitent city of Antioch.]
Yet Antioch possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues
might atone, in the opinion of Julian, for the vice and folly of
his country. The sophist Libanius was born in the capital of the
East; he publicly professed the arts of rhetoric and declamation
at Nice, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Athens, and, during the
remainder of his life, at Antioch. His school was assiduously
frequented by the Grecian youth; his disciples, who sometimes
exceeded the number of eighty, celebrated their incomparable
master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who persecuted him from
one city to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which
Libanius ostentatiously displayed of his superior merit. The
preceptors of Julian had extorted a rash but solemn assurance,
that he would never attend the lectures of their adversary: the
curiosity of the royal youth was checked and inflamed: he
secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and
gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the
most laborious of his domestic pupils. ^24 When Julian ascended
the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the
Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the
Grecian purity of taste, of manners, and of religion. The
emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the
discreet pride of his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the
foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople,
Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from
court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference;
required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his
sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the
obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment
of a friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting
to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, ^25
reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with
which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might
disdain the acclamations of a venal court, who adored the
Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the praise, the
admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent
philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person, celebrated
his fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of
Libanius still exist; for the most part, they are the vain and
idle compositions of an orator, who cultivated the science of
words; the productions of a recluse student, whose mind,
regardless of his contemporaries, was incessantly fixed on the
Trojan war and the Athenian commonwealth. Yet the sophist of
Antioch sometimes descended from this imaginary elevation; he
entertained a various and elaborate correspondence; ^26 he
praised the virtues of his own times; he boldly arraigned the
abuse of public and private life; and he eloquently pleaded the
cause of Antioch against the just resentment of Julian and
Theodosius. It is the common calamity of old age, ^27 to lose
whatever might have rendered it desirable; but Libanius
experienced the peculiar misfortune of surviving the religion and
the sciences, to which he had consecrated his genius. The friend
of Julian was an indignant spectator of the triumph of
Christianity; and his bigotry, which darkened the prospect of the
visible world, did not inspire Libanius with any lively hopes of
celestial glory and happiness. ^28
[Footnote 24: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. vii. p. 230, 231.]
[Footnote 25: Eunapius reports, that Libanius refused the
honorary rank of Praetorian praefect, as less illustrious than
the title of Sophist, (in Vit. Sophist. p. 135.) The critics have
observed a similar sentiment in one of the epistles (xviii. edit.
Wolf) of Libanius himself.]
[Footnote 26: Near two thousand of his letters - a mode of
composition in which Libanius was thought to excel - are still
extant, and already published. The critics may praise their
subtle and elegant brevity; yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation upon
Phalaris, p. 48) might justly, though quaintly observe, that "you
feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse
with some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk."]
[Footnote 27: His birth is assigned to the year 314. He mentions
the seventy-sixth year of his age, (A. D. 390,) and seems to
allude to some events of a still later date.]
[Footnote 28: Libanius has composed the vain, prolix, but curious
narrative of his own life, (tom. ii. p. 1-84, edit. Morell,) of
which Eunapius (p. 130-135) has left a concise and unfavorable
account. Among the moderns, Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. iv. p. 571-576,) Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii. p.
376-414,) and Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, tom. iv. p.
127-163,) have illustrated the character and writings of this
famous sophist.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.
Part II.
The martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field
in the beginning of the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt
and reproach, the senate of Antioch, who accompanied the emperor
beyond the limits of their own territory, to which he was
resolved never to return. After a laborious march of two days,
^29 he halted on the third at Beraea, or Aleppo, where he had the
mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian; who
received with cold and formal demonstrations of respect the
eloquent sermon of the apostle of paganism. The son of one of
the most illustrious citizens of Beraea, who had embraced, either
from interest or conscience, the religion of the emperor, was
disinherited by his angry parent. The father and the son were
invited to the Imperial table. Julian, placing himself between
them, attempted, without success, to inculcate the lesson and
example of toleration; supported, with affected calmness, the
indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to forget the
sentiments of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length,
turning towards the afflicted youth, "Since you have lost a
father," said he, "for my sake, it is incumbent on me to supply
his place." ^30 The emperor was received in a manner much more
agreeable to his wishes at Batnae, ^* a small town pleasantly
seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the city
of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently
prepared by the inhabitants of Batnae, who seemed attached to the
worship of their tutelar deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the
serious piety of Julian was offended by the tumult of their
applause; and he too clearly discerned, that the smoke which
arose from their altars was the incense of flattery, rather than
of devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple which had
sanctified, for so many ages, the city of Hierapolis, ^31 no
longer subsisted; and the consecrated wealth, which afforded a
liberal maintenance to more than three hundred priests, might
hasten its downfall. Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of
embracing a philosopher and a friend, whose religious firmness
had withstood the pressing and repeated solicitations of
Constantius and Gallus, as often as those princes lodged at his
house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the hurry of
military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar
correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively
and uniform. He had now undertaken an important and difficult
war; and the anxiety of the event rendered him still more
attentive to observe and register the most trifling presages,
from which, according to the rules of divination, any knowledge
of futurity could be derived. ^32 He informed Libanius of his
progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle, ^33 which
displays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship
for the sophist of Antioch.
[Footnote 29: From Antioch to Litarbe, on the territory of
Chalcis, the road, over hills and through morasses, was extremely
bad; and the loose stones were cemented only with sand, (Julian.
epist. xxvii.) It is singular enough that the Romans should have
neglected the great communication between Antioch and the
Euphrates. See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 190 Bergier, Hist des
Grands Chemins, tom. ii. p. 100]
[Footnote 30: Julian alludes to this incident, (epist. xxvii.,)
which is more distinctly related by Theodoret, (l. iii. c. 22.)
The intolerant spirit of the father is applauded by Tillemont,
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 534.) and even by La Bleterie,
(Vie de Julien, p. 413.)]
[Footnote *: This name, of Syriac origin, is found in the Arabic,
and means a place in a valley where waters meet. Julian says,
the name of the city is Barbaric, the situation Greek. The
geographer Abulfeda (tab. Syriac. p. 129, edit. Koehler) speaks
of it in a manner to justify the praises of Julian. - St. Martin.
Notes to Le Beau, iii. 56. - M.]
[Footnote 31: See the curious treatise de Dea Syria, inserted
among the works of Lucian, (tom. iii. p. 451-490, edit. Reitz.)
The singular appellation of Ninus vetus (Ammian. xiv. 8) might
induce a suspicion, that Heirapolis had been the royal seat of
the Assyrians.]
[Footnote 32: Julian (epist. xxviii.) kept a regular account of
all the fortunate omens; but he suppresses the inauspicious
signs, which Ammianus (xxiii. 2) has carefully recorded.]
[Footnote 33: Julian. epist. xxvii. p. 399-402.]
Hierapolis, ^* situate almost on the banks of the Euphrates,
^34 had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman
troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of
boats, which was previously constructed. ^35 If the inclinations
of Julian had been similar to those of his predecessor, he might
have wasted the active and important season of the year in the
circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as the
warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for
his model, he advanced without delay to Carrhae, ^36 a very
ancient city of Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles
from Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of
Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally employed in
completing the immense preparations of the Persian war. The
secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast;
but as Carrhae is the point of separation of the two great roads,
he could no longer conceal whether it was his design to attack
the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of
the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand
men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of
Sebastian, who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to
direct their march towards Nisibis, and to secure the frontier
from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before they attempted
the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were left
to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that
after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media
and Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at
the same time that he himself, advancing with equal steps along
the banks of the Euphrates, should besiege the capital of the
Persian monarchy. The success of this well-concerted plan
depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready
assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the
safety of his own dominions, might detach an army of four
thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of
the Romans. ^37 But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, ^38 king of
Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father
Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as
the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger
and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more
decent excuses of religion and gratitude. He expressed a pious
attachment to the memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had
received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the praefect
Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as
the destined wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of
a Barbarian king. ^39 Tiranus professed the Christian religion;
he reigned over a nation of Christians; and he was restrained, by
every principle of conscience and interest, from contributing to
the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the church. The
alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion of
Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as his slave, and as the
enemy of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the
Imperial mandates ^40 awakened the secret indignation of a
prince, who, in the humiliating state of dependence, was still
conscious of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the lords of
the East, and the rivals of the Roman power. ^!
[Footnote *: Or Bambyce, now Bambouch; Manbedj Arab., or Maboug,
Syr. It was twenty-four Roman miles from the Euphrates. - M.]
[Footnote 34: I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging my
obligations to M. d'Anville, for his recent geography of the
Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.,) which particularly
illustrates the expedition of Julian.]
[Footnote 35: There are three passages within a few miles of each
other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the ancients; 2. Bir, frequented
by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of Menbigz, or Hierapolis, at
the distance of four parasangs from the city.]
[Footnote *: Djisr Manbedj is the same with the ancient Zeugma.
St. Martin, iii. 58 - M.]
[Footnote 36: Haran, or Carrhae, was the ancient residence of the
Sabaeans, and of Abraham. See the Index Geographicus of
Schultens, (ad calcem Vit. Saladin.,) a work from which I have
obtained much Oriental knowledge concerning the ancient and
modern geography of Syria and the adjacent countries.]
[Footnote *: On an inedited medal in the collection of the late
M. Tochon. of the Academy of Inscriptions, it is read Xappan.
St. Martin. iii 60 - M.]
[Footnote 37: See Xenophon. Cyropaed. l. iii. p. 189, edit.
Hutchinson. Artavasdes might have supplied Marc Antony with
16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the Parthian manner,
(Plutarch, in M. Antonio. tom. v. p. 117.)]
[Footnote 38: Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armeniac. l. iii. c. 11, p.
242) fixes his accession (A. D. 354) to the 17th year of
Constantius.]
[Footnote *: Arsaces Tiranus, or Diran, had ceased to reign
twenty- five years before, in 337. The intermediate changes in
Armenia, and the character of this Arsaces, the son of Diran, are
traced by M. St. Martin, at considerable length, in his
supplement to Le Beau, ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen
Olympias maintained her influence, Arsaces was faithful to the
Roman and Christian alliance. On the accession of Julian, the
same influence made his fidelity to waver; but Olympias having
been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency of
Pharandcem, the former wife of Arsaces, another change took place
in Armenian politics unfavorable to the Christian interest. The
patriarch Narses retired from the impious court to a safe
seclusion. Yet Pharandsem was equally hostile to the Persian
influence, and Arsaces began to support with vigor the cause of
Julian. He made an inroad into the Persian dominions with a body
of Rans and Alans as auxiliaries; wasted Aderbidgan and Sapor,
who had been defeated near Tauriz, was engaged in making head
against his troops in Persarmenia, at the time of the death of
Julian. Such is M. St. Martin's view, (ii. 276, et sqq.,) which
rests on the Armenian historians, Faustos of Byzantium, and
Mezrob the biographer of the Partriarch Narses. In the history
of Armenia by Father Chamitch, and translated by Avdall, Tiran is
still king of Armenia, at the time of Julian's death. F.
Chamitch follows Moses of Chorene, The authority of Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 39: Ammian. xx. 11. Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) says,
in general terms, that Constantius gave to his brother's widow,
an expression more suitable to a Roman than a Christian.]
[Footnote 40: Ammianus (xxiii. 2) uses a word much too soft for
the occasion, monuerat. Muratori (Fabricius, Bibliothec. Graec.
tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian to the
satrap Arsaces; fierce, vulgar, and (though it might deceive
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist.
de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339) translates and rejects it.
Note: St. Martin considers it genuine: the Armenian writers
mention such a letter, iii. 37. - M.]
[Footnote *: Arsaces did not abandon the Roman alliance, but gave
it only feeble support. St. Martin, iii. 41 - M.]
The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived
to deceive the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The
legions appeared to direct their march towards Nisibis and the
Tigris. On a sudden they wheeled to the right; traversed the
level and naked plain of Carrhae; and reached, on the third day,
the banks of the Euphrates, where the strong town of Nicephorium,
or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings. From
thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety miles, along
the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about one
month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers
of Circesium, ^* the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The
army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the Caesars had
ever led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand
effective and well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of
cavalry and infantry, of Romans and Barbarians, had been selected
from the different provinces; and a just preeminence of loyalty
and valor was claimed by the hardy Gauls, who guarded the throne
and person of their beloved prince. A formidable body of
Scythian auxiliaries had been transported from another climate,
and almost from another world, to invade a distant country, of
whose name and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine
and war allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of
Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded,
while he sternly refuse the payment of the accustomed subsidies.
The broad channel of the Euphrates ^41 was crowded by a fleet of
eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to
satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of
the fleet was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were
accompanied by an equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which
might occasionally be connected into the form of temporary
bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber,
and partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost
inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and
provisions. The vigilant humanity of Julian had embarked a very
large magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use of the
soldiers, but he prohibited the indulgence of wine; and
rigorously stopped a long string of superfluous camels that
attempted to follow the rear of the army. The River Chaboras
falls into the Euphrates at Circesium; ^42 and as soon as the
trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little
stream which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The
custom of ancient discipline required a military oration; and
Julian embraced every opportunity of displaying his eloquence.
He animated the impatient and attentive legions by the example of
the inflexible courage and glorious triumphs of their ancestors.
He excited their resentment by a lively picture of the insolence
of the Persians; and he exhorted them to imitate his firm
resolution, either to extirpate that perfidious nation, or to
devote his life in the cause of the republic. The eloquence of
Julian was enforced by a donative of one hundred and thirty
pieces of silver to every soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras
was instantly cut away, to convince the troops that they must
place their hopes of safety in the success of their arms. Yet
the prudence of the emperor induced him to secure a remote
frontier, perpetually exposed to the inroads of the hostile
Arabs. A detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium,
which completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular
garrison of that important fortress. ^43
[Footnote *: Kirkesia the Carchemish of the Scriptures. - M.]
[Footnote 41: Latissimum flumen Euphraten artabat. Ammian.
xxiii. 3 Somewhat higher, at the fords of Thapsacus, the river is
four stadia or 800 yards, almost half an English mile, broad.
(Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 41, edit. Hutchinson, with Foster's
Observations, p. 29, &c., in the 2d volume of Spelman's
translation.) If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma
is no more than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335,)
the enormous difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the
channel.]
[Footnote 42: Munimentum tutissimum et fabre politum, Abora (the
Orientals aspirate Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt
flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5.]
[Footnote 43: The enterprise and armament of Julian are described
by himself, (Epist. xxvii.,) Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 3, 4,
5,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 108, 109, p. 332, 333,) Zosimus,
(l. iii. p. 160, 161, 162) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. l,) and John
Malala, (tom. ii. p. 17.)]
From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy's country,
^44 the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march
was disposed in three columns. ^45 The strength of the infantry,
and consequently of the whole army was placed in the centre,
under the peculiar command of their master-general Victor. On
the right, the brave Nevitta led a column of several legions
along the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in sight of
the fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the
column of cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthaeus were appointed
generals of the horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas
^46 are not undeserving of our notice. He was a Persian prince,
of the royal race of the Sassanides, who, in the troubles of the
minority of Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable
court of the great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the
compassion, and at length acquired the esteem, of his new
masters; his valor and fidelity raised him to the military honors
of the Roman service; and though a Christian, he might indulge
the secret satisfaction of convincing his ungrateful country,
than at oppressed subject may prove the most dangerous enemy.
Such was the disposition of the three principal columns. The
front and flanks of the army were covered by Lucilianus with a
flying detachment of fifteen hundred light-armed soldiers, whose
active vigilance observed the most distant signs, and conveyed
the earliest notice, of any hostile approach. Dagalaiphus, and
Secundinus duke of Osrhoene, conducted the troops of the
rear-guard; the baggage securely proceeded in the intervals of
the columns; and the ranks, from a motive either of use or
ostentation, were formed in such open order, that the whole line
of march extended almost ten miles. The ordinary post of Julian
was at the head of the centre column; but as he preferred the
duties of a general to the state of a monarch, he rapidly moved,
with a small escort of light cavalry, to the front, the rear, the
flanks, wherever his presence could animate or protect the march
of the Roman army. The country which they traversed from the
Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of Assyria, may be considered
as a part of the desert of Arabia, a dry and barren waste, which
could never be improved by the most powerful arts of human
industry. Julian marched over the same ground which had been trod
above seven hundred years before by the footsteps of the younger
Cyrus, and which is described by one of the companions of his
expedition, the sage and heroic Xenophon. ^47 "The country was a
plain throughout, as even as the sea, and full of wormwood; and
if any other kind of shrubs or reeds grew there, they had all an
aromatic smell, but no trees could be seen. Bustards and
ostriches, antelopes and wild asses, ^48 appeared to be the only
inhabitants of the desert; and the fatigues of the march were
alleviated by the amusements of the chase." The loose sand of the
desert was frequently raised by the wind into clouds of dust; and
a great number of the soldiers of Julian, with their tents, were
suddenly thrown to the ground by the violence of an unexpected
hurricane.
[Footnote 44: Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously
describes (xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen
great provinces, (as far as the Seric, or Chinese frontiers,)
which were subject to the Sassanides.]
[Footnote 45: Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162,
163) rately expressed the order of march.]
[Footnote 46: The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some
mixture of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. p. 100-102; Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost impossible that he
should be the brother (frater germanus) of an eldest and
posthumous child: nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives him
that title.
Note: St. Martin conceives that he was an elder brother by
another mother who had several children, ii. 24 - M.]
[Footnote 47: See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46.
This pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet Xenophon's
memory, perhaps many years after the expedition, has sometimes
betrayed him; and the distances which he marks are often larger
than either a soldier or a geographer will allow.]
[Footnote 48: Mr. Spelman, the English translator of the
Anabasis, (vol. i. p. 51,) confounds the antelope with the
roebuck, and the wild ass with the zebra.]
The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the
antelopes and wild asses of the desert; but a variety of populous
towns and villages were pleasantly situated on the banks of the
Euphrates, and in the islands which are occasionally formed by
that river. The city of Annah, or Anatho, ^49 the actual
residence of an Arabian emir, is composed of two long streets,
which enclose, within a natural fortification, a small island in
the midst, and two fruitful spots on either side, of the
Euphrates. The warlike inhabitants of Anatho showed a
disposition to stop the march of a Roman emperor; till they were
diverted from such fatal presumption by the mild exhortations of
Prince Hormisdas, and the approaching terrors of the fleet and
army. They implored, and experienced, the clemency of Julian,
who transplanted the people to an advantageous settlement, near
Chalcis in Syria, and admitted Pusaeus, the governor, to an
honorable rank in his service and friendship. But the
impregnable fortress of Thilutha could scorn the menace of a
siege; and the emperor was obliged to content himself with an
insulting promise, that, when he had subdued the interior
provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no longer refuse to grace the
triumph of the emperor. The inhabitants of the open towns,
unable to resist, and unwilling to yield, fled with
precipitation; and their houses, filled with spoil and
provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian, who
massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some
defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, ^* or Persian
general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of
Gassan, ^50 incessantly hovered round the army; every straggler
was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant
Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the
Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day
less favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans
arrived at Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall,
which had been constructed by the ancient kings of Assyria, to
secure their dominions from the incursions of the Medes. These
preliminaries of the expedition of Julian appear to have employed
about fifteen days; and we may compute near three hundred miles
from the fortress of Circesium to the wall of Macepracta. ^1
[Footnote 49: See Voyages de Tavernier, part i. l. iii. p. 316,
and more especially Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. lett.
xvii. p. 671, &c. He was ignorant of the old name and condition
of Annah. Our blind travellers seldom possess any previous
knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort
deserve an honorable exception.]
[Footnote *: This is not a title, but the name of a great Persian
family. St. Martin, iii. 79. - M.]
[Footnote 50: Famosi nominis latro, says Ammianus; a high
encomium for an Arab. The tribe of Gassan had settled on the
edge of Syria, and reigned some time in Damascus, under a dynasty
of thirty-one kings, or emirs, from the time of Pompey to that of
the Khalif Omar. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 360.
Pococke, Specimen Hist. Arabicae, p. 75-78. The name of
Rodosaces does not appear in the list.
Note: Rodosaces-malek is king. St. Martin considers that
Gibbon has fallen into an error in bringing the tribe of Gassan
to the Euphrates. In Ammianus it is Assan. M. St. Martin would
read Massanitarum, the same with the Mauzanitae of Malala. - M.]
[Footnote 51: See Ammianus, (xxiv. 1, 2,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parental. c. 110, 111, p. 334,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 164-168.)
Note: This Syriac or Chaldaic has relation to its position;
it easily bears the signification of the division of the waters.
M. St. M. considers it the Missice of Pliny, v. 26. St. Martin,
iii. 83. - M.]
The fertile province of Assyria, ^52 which stretched beyond
the Tigris, as far as the mountains of Media, ^53 extended about
four hundred miles from the ancient wall of Macepracta, to the
territory of Basra, where the united streams of the Euphrates and
Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian Gulf. ^54 The whole
country might have claimed the peculiar name of Mesopotamia; as
the two rivers, which are never more distant than fifty,
approach, between Bagdad and Babylon, within twenty-five miles,
of each other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much
labor in a soft and yielding soil connected the rivers, and
intersected the plain of Assyria. The uses of these artificial
canals were various and important. They served to discharge the
superfluous waters from one river into the other, at the season
of their respective inundations. Subdividing themselves into
smaller and smaller branches, they refreshed the dry lands, and
supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated the
intercourse of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be
speedily broke down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with
the means of opposing a sudden deluge to the progress of an
invading army. To the soil and climate of Assyria, nature had
denied some of her choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the
fig-tree; ^* but the food which supports the life of man, and
particularly wheat and barley, were produced with inexhaustible
fertility; and the husbandman, who committed his seed to the
earth, was frequently rewarded with an increase of two, or even
of three, hundred. The face of the country was interspersed with
groves of innumerable palm-trees; ^55 and the diligent natives
celebrated, either in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty
uses to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and
the fruit, were skilfully applied. Several manufactures,
especially those of leather and linen, employed the industry of a
numerous people, and afforded valuable materials for foreign
trade; which appears, however, to have been conducted by the
hands of strangers. Babylon had been converted into a royal
park; but near the ruins of the ancient capital, new cities had
successively arisen, and the populousness of the country was
displayed in the multitude of towns and villages, which were
built of bricks dried in the sun, and strongly cemented with
bitumen; the natural and peculiar production of the Babylonian
soil. While the successors of Cyrus reigned over Asia, the
province of Syria alone maintained, during a third part of the
year, the luxurious plenty of the table and household of the
Great King. Four considerable villages were assigned for the
subsistence of his Indian dogs; eight hundred stallions, and
sixteen thousand mares, were constantly kept, at the expense of
the country, for the royal stables; and as the daily tribute,
which was paid to the satrap, amounted to one English bushe of
silver, we may compute the annual revenue of Assyria at more than
twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. ^56
[Footnote 52: The description of Assyria, is furnished by
Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, &c.,) who sometimes writes for
children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo, (l. xvi. p.
1070-1082,) and by Ammianus, (l.xxiii. c. 6.) The most useful of
the modern travellers are Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 226-258,)
Otter, (tom. ii. p. 35-69, and 189-224,) and Niebuhr, (tom. ii.
p. 172-288.) Yet I much regret that the Irak Arabi of Abulfeda
has not been translated.]
[Footnote 53: Ammianus remarks, that the primitive Assyria, which
comprehended Ninus, (Nineveh,) and Arbela, had assumed the more
recent and peculiar appellation of Adiabene; and he seems to fix
Teredon, Vologesia, and Apollonia, as the extreme cities of the
actual province of Assyria.]
[Footnote 54: The two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one
hundred miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of
the Pasitigris, or Shutul- Arab. The Euphrates formerly reached
the sea by a separate channel, which was obstructed and diverted
by the citizens of Orchoe, about twenty miles to the south-east
of modern Basra. (D'Anville, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des
Inscriptions, tom.xxx. p. 171-191.)]
[Footnote *: We are informed by Mr. Gibbon, that nature has
denied to the soil an climate of Assyria some of her choicest
gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have
been the case ir the age of Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not
so at the present day; and it is a curious fact that the grape,
the olive, and the fig, are the most common fruits in the
province, and may be seen in every garden. Macdonald Kinneir,
Geogr. Mem. on Persia 239 - M.]
[Footnote 55: The learned Kaempfer, as a botanist, an antiquary,
and a traveller, has exhausted (Amoenitat. Exoticae, Fasicul. iv.
p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees.]
[Footnote 56: Assyria yielded to the Persian satrap an Artaba of
silver each day. The well-known proportion of weights and
measures (see Bishop Hooper's elaborate Inquiry,) the specific
gravity of water and silver, and the value of that metal, will
afford, after a short process, the annual revenue which I have
stated. Yet the Great King received no more than 1000 Euboic, or
Tyrian, talents (252,000l.) from Assyria. The comparison of two
passages in Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, l. iii. c. 89-96) reveals
an important difference between the gross, and the net, revenue
of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and the gold or silver
deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might annually save
three millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the seventeen or
eighteen millions raised upon the people.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.
Part III.
The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the
calamities of war; and the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless
people the acts of rapine and cruelty which had been committed by
their haughty master in the Roman provinces. The trembling
Assyrians summoned the rivers to their assistance; and completed,
with their own hands, the ruin of their country. The roads were
rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was poured into the
camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian were obliged
to contend with the most discouraging hardships. But every
obstacle was surmounted by the perseverance of the legionaries,
who were inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt
themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage
was gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper
channels; whole groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed
along the broken parts of the road; and the army passed over the
broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts, which were
supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria
presumed to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both
paid the severe penalty of their rashness. At the distance of
fifty miles from the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, ^*
or Anbar, held the second rank in the province; a city, large,
populous, and well fortified, surrounded with a double wall,
almost encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and defended by
the valor of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of Hormisdas
were repulsed with contempt; and the ears of the Persian prince
were wounded by a just reproach, that, unmindful of his royal
birth, he conducted an army of strangers against his king and
country. The Assyrians maintained their loyalty by a skilful, as
well as vigorous, defence; till the lucky stroke of a
battering-ram, having opened a large breach, by shattering one of
the angles of the wall, they hastily retired into the
fortifications of the interior citadel. The soldiers of Julian
rushed impetuously into the town, and after the full
gratification of every military appetite, Perisabor was reduced
to ashes; and the engines which assaulted the citadel were
planted on the ruins of the smoking houses. The contest was
continued by an incessant and mutual discharge of missile
weapons; and the superiority which the Romans might derive from
the mechanical powers of their balistae and catapultae was
counterbalanced by the advantage of the ground on the side of the
besieged. But as soon as an Helepolis had been constructed, which
could engage on equal terms with the loftiest ramparts, the
tremendous aspect of a moving turret, that would leave no hope of
resistance or mercy, terrified the defenders of the citadel into
an humble submission; and the place was surrendered only two days
after Julian first appeared under the walls of Perisabor. Two
thousand five hundred persons, of both sexes, the feeble remnant
of a flourishing people, were permitted to retire; the plentiful
magazines of corn, of arms, and of splendid furniture, were
partly distributed among the troops, and partly reserved for the
public service; the useless stores were destroyed by fire or
thrown into the stream of the Euphrates; and the fate of Amida
was revenged by the total ruin of Perisabor.
[Footnote *: Libanius says that it was a great city of Assyria,
called after the name of the reigning king. The orator of
Antioch is not mistaken. The Persians and Syrians called it
Fyrouz Schapour or Fyrouz Schahbour; in Persian, the victory of
Schahpour. It owed that name to Sapor the First. It was before
called Anbar St. Martin, iii. 85. - M.]
The city or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was
defended by sixteen large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong
and solid walls of brick and bitumen, appears to have been
constructed at the distance of eleven miles, as the safeguard of
the capital of Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of leaving such
an important fortress in his rear, immediately formed the siege
of Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that
purpose, into three divisions. Victor, at the head of the
cavalry, and of a detachment of heavy-armed foot, was ordered to
clear the country, as far as the banks of the Tigris, and the
suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of the attack was assumed by
Julian himself, who seemed to place his whole dependence in the
military engines which he erected against the walls; while he
secretly contrived a more efficacious method of introducing his
troops into the heart of the city Under the direction of Nevitta
and Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a considerable
distance, and gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the
ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the
incessant labor of the troops, a mine was carried under the
foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals,
by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single
file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till
their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he
was ready to issue from his confinement into the streets of the
hostile city. Julian checked their ardor, that he might insure
their success; and immediately diverted the attention of the
garrison, by the tumult and clamor of a general assault. The
Persians, who, from their walls, contemptuously beheld the
progress of an impotent attack, celebrated with songs of triumph
the glory of Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that he
might ascend the starry mansion of Ormusd, before he could hope
to take the impregnable city of Maogamalcha. The city was
already taken. History has recorded the name of a private
soldier the first who ascended from the mine into a deserted
tower. The passage was widened by his companions, who pressed
forwards with impatient valor. Fifteen hundred enemies were
already in the midst of the city. The astonished garrison
abandoned the walls, and their only hope of safety; the gates
were instantly burst open; and the revenge of the soldier, unless
it were suspended by lust or avarice, was satiated by an
undistinguishing massacre. The governor, who had yielded on a
promise of mercy, was burnt alive, a few days afterwards, on a
charge of having uttered some disrespectful words against the
honor of Prince Hormisdas. ^* The fortifications were razed to
the ground; and not a vestige was left, that the city of
Maogamalcha had ever existed. The neighborhood of the capital of
Persia was adorned with three stately palaces, laboriously
enriched with every production that could gratify the luxury and
pride of an Eastern monarch. The pleasant situation of the
gardens along the banks of the Tigris, was improved, according to
the Persian taste, by the symmetry of flowers, fountains, and
shady walks: and spacious parks were enclosed for the reception
of the bears, lions, and wild boars, which were maintained at a
considerable expense for the pleasure of the royal chase. The
park walls were broken down, the savage game was abandoned to the
darts of the soldiers, and the palaces of Sapor were reduced to
ashes, by the command of the Roman emperor. Julian, on this
occasion, showed himself ignorant, or careless, of the laws of
civility, which the prudence and refinement of polished ages have
established between hostile princes. Yet these wanton ravages
need not excite in our breasts any vehement emotions of pity or
resentment. A simple, naked statue, finished by the hand of a
Grecian artist, is of more genuine value than all these rude and
costly monuments of Barbaric labor; and, if we are more deeply
affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a
cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate
of the miseries of human life. ^57
[Footnote *: And as guilty of a double treachery, having first
engaged to surrender the city, and afterwards valiantly defended
it. Gibbon, perhaps, should have noticed this charge, though he
may have rejected it as improbable Compare Zosimus. iii. 23. -
M.]
[Footnote 57: The operations of the Assyrian war are
circumstantially related by Ammianus, (xxiv. 2, 3, 4, 5,)
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 112- 123, p. 335-347,) Zosimus, (l.
iii. p. 168-180,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat iv. p. 113, 144.)
The military criticisms of the saint are devoutly copied by
Tillemont, his faithful slave.]
Julian was an object of hatred and terror to the Persian and
the painters of that nation represented the invader of their
country under the emblem of a furious lion, who vomited from his
mouth a consuming fire. ^58 To his friends and soldiers the
philosophic hero appeared in a more amiable light; and his
virtues were never more conspicuously displayed, than in the last
and most active period of his life. He practised, without
effort, and almost without merit, the habitual qualities of
temperance and sobriety. According to the dictates of that
artificial wisdom, which assumes an absolute dominion over the
mind and body, he sternly refused himself the indulgence of the
most natural appetites. ^59 In the warm climate of Assyria, which
solicited a luxurious people to the gratification of every
sensual desire, ^60 a youthful conqueror preserved his chastity
pure and inviolate; nor was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive
of curiosity, to visit his female captives of exquisite beauty,
^61 who, instead of resisting his power, would have disputed with
each other the honor of his embraces. With the same firmness
that he resisted the allurements of love, he sustained the
hardships of war. When the Romans marched through the flat and
flooded country, their sovereign, on foot, at the head of his
legions, shared their fatigues and animated their diligence. In
every useful labor, the hand of Julian was prompt and strenuous;
and the Imperial purple was wet and dirty as the coarse garment
of the meanest soldier. The two sieges allowed him some
remarkable opportunities of signalizing his personal valor,
which, in the improved state of the military art, can seldom be
exerted by a prudent general. The emperor stood before the
citadel before the citadel of Perisabor, insensible of his
extreme danger, and encouraged his troops to burst open the gates
of iron, till he was almost overwhelmed under a cloud of missile
weapons and huge stones, that were directed against his person.
As he examined the exterior fortifications of Maogamalcha, two
Persians, devoting themselves for their country, suddenly rushed
upon him with drawn cimeters: the emperor dexterously received
their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a steady and
well-aimed thrust, laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet.
The esteem of a prince who possesses the virtues which he
approves, is the noblest recompense of a deserving subject; and
the authority which Julian derived from his personal merit,
enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of ancient
discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior
of three troops of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas,
had lost their honor and one of their standards: and he
distinguished with obsidional ^62 crowns the valor of the
foremost soldiers, who had ascended into the city of Maogamalcha.
After the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor was
exercised by the insolent avarice of the army, who loudly
complained, that their services were rewarded by a trifling
donative of one hundred pieces of silver. His just indignation
was expressed in the grave and manly language of a Roman.
"Riches are the object of your desires; those riches are in the
hands of the Persians; and the spoils of this fruitful country
are proposed as the prize of your valor and discipline. Believe
me," added Julian, "the Roman republic, which formerly possessed
such immense treasures, is now reduced to want and wretchedness
once our princes have been persuaded, by weak and interested
ministers, to purchase with gold the tranquillity of the
Barbarians. The revenue is exhausted; the cities are ruined; the
provinces are dispeopled. For myself, the only inheritance that
I have received from my royal ancestors is a soul incapable of
fear; and as long as I am convinced that every real advantage is
seated in the mind, I shall not blush to acknowledge an honorable
poverty, which, in the days of ancient virtue, was considered as
the glory of Fabricius. That glory, and that virtue, may be your
own, if you will listen to the voice of Heaven and of your
leader. But if you will rashly persist, if you are determined to
renew the shameful and mischievous examples of old seditions,
proceed. As it becomes an emperor who has filled the first rank
among men, I am prepared to die, standing; and to despise a
precarious life, which, every hour, may depend on an accidental
fever. If I have been found unworthy of the command, there are
now among you, (I speak it with pride and pleasure,) there are
many chiefs whose merit and experience are equal to the conduct
of the most important war. Such has been the temper of my reign,
that I can retire, without regret, and without apprehension, to
the obscurity of a private station" ^63 The modest resolution of
Julian was answered by the unanimous applause and cheerful
obedience of the Romans, who declared their confidence of
victory, while they fought under the banners of their heroic
prince. Their courage was kindled by his frequent and familiar
asseverations, (for such wishes were the oaths of Julian,) "So
may I reduce the Persians under the yoke!" "Thus may I restore
the strength and splendor of the republic!" The love of fame was
the ardent passion of his soul: but it was not before he trampled
on the ruins of Maogamalcha, that he allowed himself to say, "We
have now provided some materials for the sophist of Antioch." ^64
[Footnote 58: Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. 13, p.
162.]
[Footnote 59: The famous examples of Cyrus, Alexander, and
Scipio, were acts of justice. Julian's chastity was voluntary,
and, in his opinion, meritorious.]
[Footnote 60: Sallust (ap. Vet. Scholiast. Juvenal. Satir. i.
104) observes, that nihil corruptius moribus. The matrons and
virgins of Babylon freely mingled with the men in licentious
banquets; and as they felt the intoxication of wine and love,
they gradually, and almost completely, threw aside the
encumbrance of dress; ad ultimum ima corporum velamenta
projiciunt. Q. Curtius, v. 1.]
[Footnote 61: Ex virginibus autem quae speciosae sunt captae, et
in Perside, ubi faeminarum pulchritudo excellit, nec contrectare
aliquam votuit nec videre. Ammian. xxiv. 4. The native race of
Persians is small and ugly; but it has been improved by the
perpetual mixture of Circassian blood, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 97.
Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 420.)]
[Footnote 62: Obsidionalibus coronis donati. Ammian. xxiv. 4.
Either Julian or his historian were unskillful antiquaries. He
should have given mural crowns. The obsidional were the reward
of a general who had delivered a besieged city, (Aulus Gellius,
Noct. Attic. v. 6.)]
[Footnote 63: I give this speech as original and genuine.
Ammianus might hear, could transcribe, and was incapable of
inventing, it. I have used some slight freedoms, and conclude
with the most forcibic sentence.]
[Footnote 64: Ammian. xxiv. 3. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 122,
p. 346.]
The successful valor of Julian had triumphed over all the
obstacles that opposed his march to the gates of Ctesiphon. But
the reduction, or even the siege, of the capital of Persia, was
still at a distance: nor can the military conduct of the emperor
be clearly apprehended, without a knowledge of the country which
was the theatre of his bold and skilful operations. ^65 Twenty
miles to the south of Bagdad, and on the eastern bank of the
Tigris, the curiosity of travellers has observed some ruins of
the palaces of Ctesiphon, which, in the time of Julian, was a
great and populous city. The name and glory of the adjacent
Seleucia were forever extinguished; and the only remaining
quarter of that Greek colony had resumed, with the Assyrian
language and manners, the primitive appellation of Coche. Coche
was situate on the western side of the Tigris; but it was
naturally considered as a suburb of Ctesiphon, with which we may
suppose it to have been connected by a permanent bridge of boats.
The united parts contribute to form the common epithet of Al
Modain, the cities, which the Orientals have bestowed on the
winter residence of the Sassinadees; and the whole circumference
of the Persian capital was strongly fortified by the waters of
the river, by lofty walls, and by impracticable morasses. Near
the ruins of Seleucia, the camp of Julian was fixed, and secured,
by a ditch and rampart, against the sallies of the numerous and
enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant
country, the Romans were plentifully supplied with water and
forage: and several forts, which might have embarrassed the
motions of the army, submitted, after some resistance, to the
efforts of their valor. The fleet passed from the Euphrates into
an artificial derivation of that river, which pours a copious and
navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance below the
great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore
the name of Nahar-Malcha, ^66 the intermediate situation of Coche
would have separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the rash
attempt of steering against the current of the Tigris, and
forcing their way through the midst of a hostile capital, must
have been attended with the total destruction of the Roman navy.
The prudence of the emperor foresaw the danger, and provided the
remedy. As he had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in
the same country, he soon recollected that his warlike
predecessor had dug a new and navigable canal, which, leaving
Coche on the right hand, conveyed the waters of the Nahar- Malcha
into the river Tigris, at some distance above the cities. From
the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges
of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or
accident. By the indefatigable labor of the soldiers, a broad
and deep channel was speedily prepared for the reception of the
Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to interrupt the
ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed
impetuously into their new bed; and the Roman fleet, steering
their triumphant course into the Tigris, derided the vain and
ineffectual barriers which the Persians of Ctesiphon had erected
to oppose their passage.
[Footnote 65: M. d'Anville, (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions,
tom. xxxviii p. 246-259) has ascertained the true position and
distance of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Bagdad, &c. The Roman
traveller, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 650-780,)
seems to be the most intelligent spectator of that famous
province. He is a gentleman and a scholar, but intolerably vain
and prolix.]
[Footnote 66: The Royal Canal (Nahar-Malcha) might be
successively restored, altered, divided, &c., (Cellarius,
Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 453;) and these changes may serve to
explain the seeming contradictions of antiquity. In the time of
Julian, it must have fallen into the Euphrates below Ctesiphon.]
As it became necessary to transport the Roman army over the
Tigris, another labor presented itself, of less toil, but of more
danger, than the preceding expedition. The stream was broad and
rapid; the ascent steep and difficult; and the intrenchments
which had been formed on the ridge of the opposite bank, were
lined with a numerous army of heavy cuirrasiers, dexterous
archers, and huge elephants; who (according to the extravagant
hyperbole of Libanius) could trample with the same ease a field
of corn, or a legion of Romans. ^67 In the presence of such an
enemy, the construction of a bridge was impracticable; and the
intrepid prince, who instantly seized the only possible
expedient, concealed his design, till the moment of execution,
from the knowledge of the Barbarians, of his own troops, and even
of his generals themselves. Under the specious pretence of
examining the state of the magazines, fourscore vessels ^* were
gradually unladen; and a select detachment, apparently destined
for some secret expedition, was ordered to stand to their arms on
the first signal. Julian disguised the silent anxiety of his own
mind with smiles of confidence and joy; and amused the hostile
nations with the spectacle of military games, which he
insultingly celebrated under the walls of Coche. The day was
consecrated to pleasure; but, as soon as the hour of supper was
passed, the emperor summoned the generals to his tent, and
acquainted them that he had fixed that night for the passage of
the Tigris. They stood in silent and respectful astonishment;
but, when the venerable Sallust assumed the privilege of his age
and experience, the rest of the chiefs supported with freedom the
weight of his prudent remonstrances. ^68 Julian contented himself
with observing, that conquest and safety depended on the attempt;
that instead of diminishing, the number of their enemies would be
increased, by successive reenforcements; and that a longer delay
would neither contract the breadth of the stream, nor level the
height of the bank. The signal was instantly given, and obeyed;
the most impatient of the legionaries leaped into five vessels
that lay nearest to the bank; and as they plied their oars with
intrepid diligence, they were lost, after a few moments, in the
darkness of the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and
Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in
attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously
converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. "Our
fellow-soldiers," he eagerly exclaimed, "are already masters of
the bank; see - they make the appointed signal; let us hasten to
emulate and assist their courage." The united and rapid motion of
a great fleet broke the violence of the current, and they reached
the eastern shore of the Tigris with sufficient speed to
extinguish the flames, and rescue their adventurous companions.
The difficulties of a steep and lofty ascent were increased by
the weight of armor, and the darkness of the night. A shower of
stones, darts, and fire, was incessantly discharged on the heads
of the assailants; who, after an arduous struggle, climbed the
bank and stood victorious upon the rampart. As soon as they
possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with his light
infantry, had led the attack, ^69 darted through the ranks a
skilful and experienced eye: his bravest soldiers, according to
the precepts of Homer, ^70 were distributed in the front and
rear: and all the trumpets of the Imperial army sounded to
battle. The Romans, after sending up a military shout, advanced
in measured steps to the animating notes of martial music;
launched their formidable javelins; and rushed forwards with
drawn swords, to deprive the Barbarians, by a closer onset, of
the advantage of their missile weapons. The whole engagement
lasted above twelve hours; till the gradual retreat of the
Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the
shameful example was given by the principal leader, and the
Surenas himself. They were pursued to the gates of Ctesiphon;
and the conquerors might have entered the dismayed city, ^71 if
their general, Victor, who was dangerously wounded with an arrow,
had not conjured them to desist from a rash attempt, which must
be fatal, if it were not successful. On their side, the Romans
acknowledged the loss of only seventy-five men; while they
affirmed, that the Barbarians had left on the field of battle two
thousand five hundred, or even six thousand, of their bravest
soldiers. The spoil was such as might be expected from the riches
and luxury of an Oriental camp; large quantities of silver and
gold, splendid arms and trappings, and beds and tables of massy
silver. ^* The victorious emperor distributed, as the rewards of
valor, some honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns;
which he, and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the
wealth of Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of
war, but the appearances of the victims threatened the most
inauspicious events; and Julian soon discovered, by less
ambiguous signs, that he had now reached the term of his
prosperity. ^72
[Footnote 67: Rien n'est beau que le vrai; a maxim which should
be inscribed on the desk of every rhetorician.]
[Footnote *: This is a mistake; each vessel (according to Zosimus
two, according to Ammianus five) had eighty men. Amm. xxiv. 6,
with Wagner's note. Gibbon must have read octogenas for
octogenis. The five vessels selected for this service were
remarkably large and strong provision transports. The strength
of the fleet remained with Julian to carry over the army - M.]
[Footnote 68: Libanius alludes to the most powerful of the
generals. I have ventured to name Sallust. Ammianus says, of
all the leaders, quod acri metu territ acrimetu territi duces
concordi precatu precaut fieri prohibere tentarent.
Note: It is evident that Gibbon has mistaken the sense of
Libanius; his words can only apply to a commander of a
detachment, not to so eminent a person as the Praefect of the
East. St. Martin, iii. 313. - M.]
[Footnote 69: Hinc Imperator . . . . (says Ammianus) ipse cum
levis armaturae auxiliis per prima postremaque discurrens, &c.
Yet Zosimus, his friend, does not allow him to pass the river
till two days after the battle.]
[Footnote 70: Secundum Homericam dispositionem. A similar
disposition is ascribed to the wise Nestor, in the fourth book of
the Iliad; and Homer was never absent from the mind of Julian.]
[Footnote 71: Persas terrore subito miscuerunt, versisque
agminibus totius gentis, apertas Ctesiphontis portas victor miles
intrasset, ni major praedarum occasio fuisset, quam cura
victoriae, (Sextus Rufus de Provinciis c. 28.) Their avarice
might dispose them to hear the advice of Victor.]
[Footnote *: The suburbs of Ctesiphon, according to a new
fragment of Eunapius, were so full of provisions, that the
soldiers were in danger of suffering from excess. Mai, p. 260.
Eunapius in Niebuhr. Nov. Byz. Coll. 68. Julian exhibited warlike
dances and games in his camp to recreate the soldiers Ibid. - M.]
[Footnote 72: The labor of the canal, the passage of the Tigris,
and the victory, are described by Ammianus, (xxiv. 5, 6,)
Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 124-128, p. 347-353,) Greg.
Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 115,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 181-183,) and
Sextus Rufus, (de Provinciis, c. 28.)]
On the second day after the battle, the domestic guards, the
Jovians and Herculians, and the remaining troops, which composed
near two thirds of the whole army, were securely wafted over the
Tigris. ^73 While the Persians beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon
the desolation of the adjacent country, Julian cast many an
anxious look towards the North, in full expectation, that as he
himself had victoriously penetrated to the capital of Sapor, the
march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian and Procopius,
would be executed with the same courage and diligence. His
expectations were disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian
king, who permitted, and most probably directed, the desertion of
his auxiliary troops from the camp of the Romans; ^74 and by the
dissensions of the two generals, who were incapable of forming or
executing any plan for the public service. When the emperor had
relinquished the hope of this important reenforcement, he
condescended to hold a council of war, and approved, after a full
debate, the sentiment of those generals, who dissuaded the siege
of Ctesiphon, as a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. It is
not easy for us to conceive, by what arts of fortification a city
thrice besieged and taken by the predecessors of Julian could be
rendered impregnable against an army of sixty thousand Romans,
commanded by a brave and experienced general, and abundantly
supplied with ships, provisions, battering engines, and military
stores. But we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and
contempt of danger, which formed the character of Julian, that he
was not discouraged by any trivial or imaginary obstacles. ^75 At
the very time when he declined the siege of Ctesiphon, he
rejected, with obstinacy and disdain, the most flattering offers
of a negotiation of peace. Sapor, who had been so long
accustomed to the tardy ostentation of Constantius, was surprised
by the intrepid diligence of his successor. As far as the
confines of India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant
provinces were ordered to assemble their troops, and to march,
without delay, to the assistance of their monarch. But their
preparations were dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor
could lead an army into the field, he received the melancholy
intelligence of the devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his
palaces, and the slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended
the passage of the Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in
the dust; he took his repasts on the ground; and the disorder of
his hair expressed the grief and anxiety of his mind. Perhaps he
would not have refused to purchase, with one half of his kingdom,
the safety of the remainder; and he would have gladly subscribed
himself, in a treaty of peace, the faithful and dependent ally of
the Roman conqueror. Under the pretence of private business, a
minister of rank and confidence was secretly despatched to
embrace the knees of Hormisdas, and to request, in the language
of a suppliant, that he might be introduced into the presence of
the emperor. The Sassanian prince, whether he listened to the
voice of pride or humanity, whether he consulted the sentiments
of his birth, or the duties of his situation, was equally
inclined to promote a salutary measure, which would terminate the
calamities of Persia, and secure the triumph of Rome. He was
astonished by the inflexible firmness of a hero, who remembered,
most unfortunately for himself and for his country, that
Alexander had uniformly rejected the propositions of Darius. But
as Julian was sensible, that the hope of a safe and honorable
peace might cool the ardor of his troops, he earnestly requested
that Hormisdas would privately dismiss the minister of Sapor, and
conceal this dangerous temptation from the knowledge of the camp.
^76
[Footnote 73: The fleet and army were formed in three divisions,
of which the first only had passed during the night.]
[Footnote 74: Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 15, p.
246) supplies us with a national tradition, and a spurious
letter. I have borrowed only the leading circumstance, which is
consistent with truth, probability, and Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
c. 131, p. 355.)]
[Footnote 75: Civitas inexpugnabilis, facinus audax et
importunum. Ammianus, xxiv. 7. His fellow-soldier, Eutropius,
turns aside from the difficulty, Assyriamque populatus, castra
apud Ctesiphontem stativa aliquandiu habuit: remeansbue victor,
&c. x. 16. Zosimus is artful or ignorant, and Socrates
inaccurate.]
[Footnote 76: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 130, p. 354, c. 139, p.
361. Socrates, l. iii. c. 21. The ecclesiastical historian
imputes the refusal of peace to the advice of Maximus. Such
advice was unworthy of a philosopher; but the philosopher was
likewise a magician, who flattered the hopes and passions of his
master.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.
Part IV.
The honor, as well as interest, of Julian, forbade him to
consume his time under the impregnable walls of Ctesiphon and as
often as he defied the Barbarians, who defended the city, to meet
him on the open plain, they prudently replied, that if he desired
to exercise his valor, he might seek the army of the Great King.
He felt the insult, and he accepted the advice. Instead of
confining his servile march to the banks of the Euphrates and
Tigris, he resolved to imitate the adventurous spirit of
Alexander, and boldly to advance into the inland provinces, till
he forced his rival to contend with him, perhaps in the plains of
Arbela, for the empire of Asia. The magnanimity of Julian was
applauded and betrayed, by the arts of a noble Persian, who, in
the cause of his country, had generously submitted to act a part
full of danger, of falsehood, and of shame. ^77 With a train of
faithful followers, he deserted to the Imperial camp; exposed, in
a specious tale, the injuries which he had sustained; exaggerated
the cruelty of Sapor, the discontent of the people, and the
weakness of the monarchy; and confidently offered himself as the
hostage and guide of the Roman march. The most rational grounds
of suspicion were urged, without effect, by the wisdom and
experience of Hormisdas; and the credulous Julian, receiving the
traitor into his bosom, was persuaded to issue a hasty order,
which, in the opinion of mankind, appeared to arraign his
prudence, and to endanger his safety. He destroyed, in a single
hour, the whole navy, which had been transported above five
hundred miles, at so great an expense of toil, of treasure, and
of blood. Twelve, or, at the most, twenty-two small vessels were
saved, to accompany, on carriages, the march of the army, and to
form occasional bridges for the passage of the rivers. A supply
of twenty days' provisions was reserved for the use of the
soldiers; and the rest of the magazines, with a fleet of eleven
hundred vessels, which rode at anchor in the Tigris, were
abandoned to the flames, by the absolute command of the emperor.
The Christian bishops, Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness
of the Apostate, who executed, with his own hands, the sentence
of divine justice. Their authority, of less weight, perhaps, in
a military question, is confirmed by the cool judgment of an
experienced soldier, who was himself spectator of the
conflagration, and who could not disapprove the reluctant murmurs
of the troops. ^78 Yet there are not wanting some specious, and
perhaps solid, reasons, which might justify the resolution of
Julian. The navigation of the Euphrates never ascended above
Babylon, nor that of the Tigris above Opis. ^79 The distance of
the last-mentioned city from the Roman camp was not very
considerable: and Julian must soon have renounced the vain and
impracticable attempt of forcing upwards a great fleet against
the stream of a rapid river, ^80 which in several places was
embarrassed by natural or artificial cataracts. ^81 The power of
sails and oars was insufficient; it became necessary to tow the
ships against the current of the river; the strength of twenty
thousand soldiers was exhausted in this tedious and servile
labor, and if the Romans continued to march along the banks of
the Tigris, they could only expect to return home without
achieving any enterprise worthy of the genius or fortune of their
leader. If, on the contrary, it was advisable to advance into
the inland country, the destruction of the fleet and magazines
was the only measure which could save that valuable prize from
the hands of the numerous and active troops which might suddenly
be poured from the gates of Ctesiphon. Had the arms of Julian
been victorious, we should now admire the conduct, as well as the
courage, of a hero, who, by depriving his soldiers of the hopes
of a retreat, left them only the alternative of death or
conquest. ^82
[Footnote 77: The arts of this new Zopyrus (Greg. Nazianzen,
Orat. iv. p. 115, 116) may derive some credit from the testimony
of two abbreviators, (Sextus Rufus and Victor,) and the casual
hints of Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357) and Ammianus,
(xxiv. 7.) The course of genuine history is interrupted by a most
unseasonable chasm in the text of Ammianus.]
[Footnote 78: See Ammianus, (xxiv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat.
Parentalis, c. 132, 133, p. 356, 357,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 183,)
Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 26) Gregory, (Orat. iv. p. 116,)
and Augustin, (de Civitate Dei, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 21.) Of
these Libanius alone attempts a faint apology for his hero; who,
according to Ammianus, pronounced his own condemnation by a tardy
and ineffectual attempt to extinguish the flames.]
[Footnote 79: Consult Herodotus, (l. i. c. 194,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
p. 1074,) and Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 152.)]
[Footnote 80: A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari, ita appellant
Medi sagittam. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 31.]
[Footnote 81: One of these dikes, which produces an artificial
cascade or cataract, is described by Tavernier (part i. l. ii. p.
226) and Thevenot, (part ii. l. i. p. 193.) The Persians, or
Assyrians, labored to interrupt the navigation of the river,
(Strabo, l. xv. p. 1075. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p.
98, 99.)]
[Footnote 82: Recollect the successful and applauded rashness of
Agathocles and Cortez, who burnt their ships on the coast of
Africa and Mexico.]
The cumbersome train of artillery and wagons, which retards
the operations of a modern army, were in a great measure unknown
in the camps of the Romans. ^83 Yet, in every age, the
subsistence of sixty thousand men must have been one of the most
important cares of a prudent general; and that subsistence could
only be drawn from his own or from the enemy's country. Had it
been possible for Julian to maintain a bridge of communication on
the Tigris, and to preserve the conquered places of Assyria, a
desolated province could not afford any large or regular
supplies, in a season of the year when the lands were covered by
the inundation of the Euphrates, ^84 and the unwholesome air was
darkened with swarms of innumerable insects. ^85 The appearance
of the hostile country was far more inviting. The extensive
region that lies between the River Tigris and the mountains of
Media, was filled with villages and towns; and the fertile soil,
for the most part, was in a very improved state of cultivation.
Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two
forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily
procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or avarice of the
natives. But, on the approach of the Romans, the rich and
smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved, the
inhabitants deserted the open villages, and took shelter in the
fortified towns; the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe
corn were consumed with fire; and, as soon as the flames had
subsided which interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the
melancholy face of a smoking and naked desert. This desperate
but effectual method of defence can only be executed by the
enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to their
property; or by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which
consults the public safety without submitting to their
inclinations the liberty of choice. On the present occasion the
zeal and obedience of the Persians seconded the commands of
Sapor; and the emperor was soon reduced to the scanty stock of
provisions, which continually wasted in his hands. Before they
were entirely consumed, he might still have reached the wealthy
and unwarlike cities of Ecbatana or Susa, by the effort of a
rapid and well-directed march; ^86 but he was deprived of this
last resource by his ignorance of the roads, and by the perfidy
of his guides. The Romans wandered several days in the country
to the eastward of Bagdad; the Persian deserter, who had artfully
led them into the spare, escaped from their resentment; and his
followers, as soon as they were put to the torture, confessed the
secret of the conspiracy. The visionary conquests of Hyrcania
and India, which had so long amused, now tormented, the mind of
Julian. Conscious that his own imprudence was the cause of the
public distress, he anxiously balanced the hopes of safety or
success, without obtaining a satisfactory answer, either from
gods or men. At length, as the only practicable measure, he
embraced the resolution of directing his steps towards the banks
of the Tigris, with the design of saving the army by a hasty
march to the confines of Corduene; a fertile and friendly
province, which acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. The
desponding troops obeyed the signal of the retreat, only seventy
days after they had passed the Chaboras, with the sanguine
expectation of subverting the throne of Persia. ^87
[Footnote 83: See the judicious reflections of the author of the
Essai sur la Tactique, tom. ii. p. 287-353, and the learned
remarks of M. Guichardt Nouveaux Memoires Militaires, tom. i. p.
351-382, on the baggage and subsistence of the Roman armies.]
[Footnote 84: The Tigris rises to the south, the Euphrates to the
north, of the Armenian mountains. The former overflows in March,
the latter in July. These circumstances are well explained in the
Geographical Dissertation of Foster, inserted in Spelman's
Expedition of Cyras, vol. ii. p. 26.]
[Footnote 85: Ammianus (xxiv. 8) describes, as he had felt, the
inconveniency of the flood, the heat, and the insects. The lands
of Assyria, oppressed by the Turks, and ravaged by the Curds or
Arabs, yield an increase of ten, fifteen, and twenty fold, for
the seed which is cast into the ground by the wretched and
unskillful husbandmen. Voyage de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 279, 285.]
[Footnote 86: Isidore of Charax (Mansion. Parthic. p. 5, 6, in
Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) reckons 129 schaeni from
Seleucia, and Thevenot, (part i. l. i. ii. p. 209-245,) 128 hours
of march from Bagdad to Ecbatana, or Hamadan. These measures
cannot exceed an ordinary parasang, or three Roman miles.]
[Footnote 87: The march of Julian from Ctesiphon is
circumstantially, but not clearly, described by Ammianus, (xxiv.
7, 8,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357,) and Zosimus, (l.
iii. p. 183.) The two last seem ignorant that their conqueror was
retreating; and Libanius absurdly confines him to the banks of
the Tigris.]
As long as the Romans seemed to advance into the country,
their march was observed and insulted from a distance, by several
bodies of Persian cavalry; who, showing themselves sometimes in
loose, and sometimes in close order, faintly skirmished with the
advanced guards. These detachments were, however, supported by a
much greater force; and the heads of the columns were no sooner
pointed towards the Tigris than a cloud of dust arose on the
plain. The Romans, who now aspired only to the permission of a
safe and speedy retreat, endeavored to persuade themselves, that
this formidable appearance was occasioned by a troop of wild
asses, or perhaps by the approach of some friendly Arabs. They
halted, pitched their tents, fortified their camp, passed the
whole night in continual alarms; and discovered at the dawn of
day, that they were surrounded by an army of Persians. This
army, which might be considered only as the van of the
Barbarians, was soon followed by the main body of cuirassiers,
archers, and elephants, commanded by Meranes, a general of rank
and reputation. He was accompanied by two of the king's sons,
and many of the principal satraps; and fame and expectation
exaggerated the strength of the remaining powers, which slowly
advanced under the conduct of Sapor himself. As the Romans
continued their march, their long array, which was forced to bend
or divide, according to the varieties of the ground, afforded
frequent and favorable opportunities to their vigilant enemies.
The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they were repeatedly
repulsed with firmness; and the action at Maronga, which almost
deserved the name of a battle, was marked by a considerable loss
of satraps and elephants, perhaps of equal value in the eyes of
their monarch. These splendid advantages were not obtained
without an adequate slaughter on the side of the Romans: several
officers of distinction were either killed or wounded; and the
emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger, inspired and
guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his person,
and exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive
arms, which still constituted the strength and safety of the
Romans, disabled them from making any long or effectual pursuit;
and as the horsemen of the East were trained to dart their
javelins, and shoot their arrows, at full speed, and in every
possible direction, ^88 the cavalry of Persia was never more
formidable than in the moment of a rapid and disorderly flight.
But the most certain and irreparable loss of the Romans was that
of time. The hardy veterans, accustomed to the cold climate of
Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry heat of an Assyrian
summer; their vigor was exhausted by the incessant repetition of
march and combat; and the progress of the army was suspended by
the precautions of a slow and dangerous retreat, in the presence
of an active enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply
diminished, the value and price of subsistence increased in the
Roman camp. ^89 Julian, who always contented himself with such
food as a hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed, for
the use of the troops, the provisions of the Imperial household,
and whatever could be spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the
tribunes and generals. But this feeble relief served only to
aggravate the sense of the public distress; and the Romans began
to entertain the most gloomy apprehensions that, before they
could reach the frontiers of the empire, they should all perish,
either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians. ^90
[Footnote 88: Chardin, the most judicious of modern travellers,
describes (tom. ii. p. 57, 58, &c., edit. in 4to.) the education
and dexterity of the Persian horsemen. Brissonius (de Regno
Persico, p. 650 651, &c.,) has collected the testimonies of
antiquity.]
[Footnote 89: In Mark Antony's retreat, an attic choenix sold for
fifty drachmae, or, in other words, a pound of flour for twelve
or fourteen shillings barley bread was sold for its weight in
silver. It is impossible to peruse the interesting narrative of
Plutarch, (tom. v. p. 102-116,) without perceiving that Mark
Antony and Julian were pursued by the same enemies, and involved
in the same distress.]
[Footnote 90: Ammian. xxiv. 8, xxv. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 184,
185, 186. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 134, 135, p. 357, 358, 359.
The sophist of Antioch appears ignorant that the troops were
hungry.]
While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable
difficulties of his situation, the silent hours of the night were
still devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he closed his
eyes in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated
with painful anxiety; nor can it be thought surprising, that the
Genius of the empire should once more appear before him, covering
with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of abundance, and
slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started from
his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with
the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which
shot athwart the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced
that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war; ^91
the council which he summoned, of Tuscan Haruspices, ^92
unanimously pronounced that he should abstain from action; but on
this occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent than
superstition; and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. The
army marched through a hilly country; and the hills had been
secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led the van with the
skill and attention of a consummate general; he was alarmed by
the intelligence that his rear was suddenly attacked. The heat
of the weather had tempted him to lay aside his cuirass; but he
snatched a shield from one of his attendants, and hastened, with
a sufficient reenforcement, to the relief of the rear-guard. A
similar danger recalled the intrepid prince to the defence of the
front; and, as he galloped through the columns, the centre of the
left was attacked, and almost overpowered by the furious charge
of the Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge body was soon
defeated, by the well-timed evolution of the light infantry, who
aimed their weapons, with dexterity and effect, against the backs
of the horsemen, and the legs of the elephants. The Barbarians
fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated the
pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards,
scattered and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and
enemies, reminded their fearless sovereign that he was without
armor; and conjured him to decline the fall of the impending
ruin. As they exclaimed, ^93 a cloud of darts and arrows was
discharged from the flying squadrons; and a javelin, after razing
the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and fixed in the
inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the deadly
weapon from his side; but his fingers were cut by the sharpness
of the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards
flew to his relief; and the wounded emperor was gently raised
from the ground, and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle
into an adjacent tent. The report of the melancholy event passed
from rank to rank; but the grief of the Romans inspired them with
invincible valor, and the desire of revenge. The bloody and
obstinate conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they
were separated by the total darkness of the night. The Persians
derived some honor from the advantage which they obtained against
the left wing, where Anatolius, master of the offices, was slain,
and the praefect Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of
the day was adverse to the Barbarians. They abandoned the field;
their two generals, Meranes and Nohordates, ^94 fifty nobles or
satraps, and a multitude of their bravest soldiers; and the
success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have been
improved into a decisive and useful victory.
[Footnote 91: Ammian. xxv. 2. Julian had sworn in a passion,
nunquam se Marti sacra facturum, (xxiv. 6.) Such whimsical
quarrels were not uncommon between the gods and their insolent
votaries; and even the prudent Augustus, after his fleet had been
twice shipwrecked, excluded Neptune from the honors of public
processions. See Hume's Philosophical Reflections. Essays, vol.
ii. p. 418.]
[Footnote 92: They still retained the monopoly of the vain but
lucrative science, which had been invented in Hetruria; and
professed to derive their knowledge of signs and omens from the
ancient books of Tarquitius, a Tuscan sage.]
[Footnote 93: Clambant hinc inde candidati (see the note of
Valesius) quos terror, ut fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male
compositi culminis declinaret. Ammian. xxv 3.]
[Footnote 94: Sapor himself declared to the Romans, that it was
his practice to comfort the families of his deceased satraps, by
sending them, as a present, the heads of the guards and officers
who had not fallen by their master's side. Libanius, de nece
Julian. ulcis. c. xiii. p. 163.]
The first words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from
the fainting fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood,
were expressive of his martial spirit. He called for his horse
and arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His
remaining strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and the
surgeons, who examined his wound, discovered the symptoms of
approaching death. He employed the awful moments with the firm
temper of a hero and a sage; the philosophers who had accompanied
him in this fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian with
the prison of Socrates; and the spectators, whom duty, or
friendship, or curiosity, had assembled round his couch, listened
with respectful grief to the funeral oration of their dying
emperor. ^95 "Friends and fellow- soldiers, the seasonable period
of my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the
cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have
learned from philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than
the body; and that the separation of the nobler substance should
be the subject of joy, rather than of affliction. I have learned
from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of
piety; ^96 and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal
stroke that secures me from the danger of disgracing a character,
which has hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die
without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to
reflect on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm
with confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of
the Divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and
immaculate. Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of
despotism, I have considered the happiness of the people as the
end of government. Submitting my actions to the laws of
prudence, of justice, and of moderation, I have trusted the event
to the care of Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels,
as long as peace was consistent with the public welfare; but when
the imperious voice of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed
my person to the dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge
(which I had acquired from the art of divination) that I was
destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute of
gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish
by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy,
or by the slow tortures of lingering disease. He has given me,
in the midst of an honorable career, a splendid and glorious
departure from this world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally
base, to solicit, or to decline, the stroke of fate. This much I
have attempted to say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the
approach of death. I shall cautiously refrain from any word that
may tend to influence your suffrages in the election of an
emperor. My choice might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it
should not be ratified by the consent of the army, it might be
fatal to the person whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a
good citizen, express my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed
with the government of a virtuous sovereign." After this
discourse, which Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of
voice, he distributed, by a military testament, ^97 the remains
of his private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was
not present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that
Anatolius was killed; and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency,
the loss of his friend. At the same time he reproved the
immoderate grief of the spectators; and conjured them not to
disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince, who in a few
moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars. ^98 The
spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical
argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature
of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body,
most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with
fresh violence; his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling
of the veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and, as soon
as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the hour of
midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the
thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and
about eight months, from the death of Constantius. In his last
moments he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love of
virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his
life. ^99
[Footnote 95: The character and situation of Julian might
countenance the suspicion that he had previously composed the
elaborate oration, which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed.
The version of the Abbe de la Bleterie is faithful and elegant.
I have followed him in expressing the Platonic idea of
emanations, which is darkly insinuated in the original.]
[Footnote 96: Herodotus (l. i. c. 31,) has displayed that
doctrine in an agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter, (in the 16th
book of the Iliad,) who laments with tears of blood the death of
Sarpedon his son, had a very imperfect notion of happiness or
glory beyond the grave.]
[Footnote 97: The soldiers who made their verbal or nuncupatory
testaments, upon actual service, (in procinctu,) were exempted
from the formalities of the Roman law. See Heineccius,
(Antiquit. Jur. Roman. tom. i. p. 504,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit
des Loix, l. xxvii.)]
[Footnote 98: This union of the human soul with the divine
aethereal substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of
Pythagoras and Plato: but it seems to exclude any personal or
conscious immortality. See Warburton's learned and rational
observations. Divine Legation, vol ii. p. 199-216.]
[Footnote 99: The whole relation of the death of Julian is given
by Ammianus, (xxv. 3,) an intelligent spectator. Libanius, who
turns with horror from the scene, has supplied some
circumstances, (Orat. Parental. c 136-140, p. 359-362.) The
calumnies of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may
now be silently despised.
Note: A very remarkable fragment of Eunapius describes, not
without spirit, the struggle between the terror of the army on
account of their perilous situation, and their grief for the
death of Julian. "Even the vulgar felt that they would soon
provide a general, but such a general as Julian they would never
find, even though a god in the form of man - Julian, who, with a
mind equal to the divinity, triumphed over the evil propensities
of human nature, - * * who held commerce with immaterial beings
while yet in the material body - who condescended to rule because
a ruler was necessary to the welfare of mankind." Mai, Nov. Coll.
ii. 261. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 69.]
The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the
empire, may, in some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who
had neglected to secure the future execution of his designs, by
the timely and judicious nomination of an associate and
successor. But the royal race of Constantius Chlorus was reduced
to his own person; and if he entertained any serious thoughts of
investing with the purple the most worthy among the Romans, he
was diverted from his resolution by the difficulty of the choice,
the jealousy of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural
presumption of health, of youth, and of prosperity. His
unexpected death left the empire without a master, and without an
heir, in a state of perplexity and danger, which, in the space of
fourscore years, had never been experienced, since the election
of Diocletian. In a government which had almost forgotten the
distinction of pure and noble blood, the superiority of birth was
of little moment; the claims of official rank were accidental and
precarious; and the candidates, who might aspire to ascend the
vacant throne could be supported only by the consciousness of
personal merit, or by the hopes of popular favor. But the
situation of a famished army, encompassed on all sides by a host
of Barbarians, shortened the moments of grief and deliberation.
In this scene of terror and distress, the body of the deceased
prince, according to his own directions, was decently embalmed;
and, at the dawn of day, the generals convened a military senate,
at which the commanders of the legions, and the officers both of
cavalry and infantry, were invited to assist. Three or four
hours of the night had not passed away without some secret
cabals; and when the election of an emperor was proposed, the
spirit of faction began to agitate the assembly. Victor and
Arinthaeus collected the remains of the court of Constantius; the
friends of Julian attached themselves to the Gallic chiefs,
Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal consequences might be
apprehended from the discord of two factions, so opposite in
their character and interest, in their maxims of government, and
perhaps in their religious principles. The superior virtues of
Sallust could alone reconcile their divisions, and unite their
suffrages; and the venerable praefect would immediately have been
declared the successor of Julian, if he himself, with sincere and
modest firmness, had not alleged his age and infirmities, so
unequal to the weight of the diadem. The generals, who were
surprised and perplexed by his refusal, showed some disposition
to adopt the salutary advice of an inferior officer, ^100 that
they should act as they would have acted in the absence of the
emperor; that they should exert their abilities to extricate the
army from the present distress; and, if they were fortunate
enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they should proceed
with united and deliberate counsels in the election of a lawful
sovereign. While they debated, a few voices saluted Jovian, who
was no more than first ^101 of the domestics, with the names of
Emperor and Augustus. The tumultuary acclamation ^* was
instantly repeated by the guards who surrounded the tent, and
passed, in a few minutes, to the extremities of the line. The
new prince, astonished with his own fortune was hastily invested
with the Imperial ornaments, and received an oath of fidelity
from the generals, whose favor and protection he so lately
solicited. The strongest recommendation of Jovian was the merit
of his father, Count Varronian, who enjoyed, in honorable
retirement, the fruit of his long services. In the obscure
freedom of a private station, the son indulged his taste for wine
and women; yet he supported, with credit, the character of a
Christian ^102 and a soldier. Without being conspicuous for any
of the ambitious qualifications which excite the admiration and
envy of mankind, the comely person of Jovian, his cheerful
temper, and familiar wit, had gained the affection of his
fellow-soldiers; and the generals of both parties acquiesced in a
popular election, which had not been conducted by the arts of
their enemies. The pride of this unexpected elevation was
moderated by the just apprehension, that the same day might
terminate the life and reign of the new emperor. The pressing
voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and the first orders
issued by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had expired,
were to prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans
from their actual distress. ^103
[Footnote 100: Honoratior aliquis miles; perhaps Ammianus
himself. The modest and judicious historian describes the scene
of the election, at which he was undoubtedly present, (xxv. 5.)]
[Footnote 101: The primus or primicerius enjoyed the dignity of a
senator, and though only a tribune, he ranked with the military
dukes. Cod. Theodosian. l. vi. tit. xxiv. These privileges are
perhaps more recent than the time of Jovian.]
[Footnote *: The soldiers supposed that the acclamations
proclaimed the name of Julian, restored, as they fondly thought,
to health, not that of Jovian. loc. - M.]
[Footnote 102: The ecclesiastical historians, Socrates, (l. iii.
c. 22,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 3,) and Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 1,)
ascribe to Jovian the merit of a confessor under the preceding
reign; and piously suppose that he refused the purple, till the
whole army unanimously exclaimed that they were Christians.
Ammianus, calmly pursuing his narrative, overthrows the legend by
a single sentence. Hostiis pro Joviano extisque inspectis,
pronuntiatum est, &c., xxv. 6.]
[Footnote 103: Ammianus (xxv. 10) has drawn from the life an
impartial portrait of Jovian; to which the younger Victor has
added some remarkable strokes. The Abbe de la Bleterie (Histoire
de Jovien, tom. i. p. 1-238) has composed an elaborate history of
his short reign; a work remarkably distinguished by elegance of
style, critical disquisition, and religious prejudice.]
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.
Part V.
The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his
fears; and the degree of fear may be accurately measured by the
joy with which he celebrates his deliverance. The welcome news
of the death of Julian, which a deserter revealed to the camp of
Sapor, inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden confidence
of victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps
the ten thousand Immortals, ^104 to second and support the
pursuit; and discharged the whole weight of his united forces on
the rear- guard of the Romans. The rear-guard was thrown into
disorder; the renowned legions, which derived their titles from
Diocletian, and his warlike colleague, were broke and trampled
down by the elephants; and three tribunes lost their lives in
attempting to stop the flight of their soldiers. The battle was
at length restored by the persevering valor of the Romans; the
Persians were repulsed with a great slaughter of men and
elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a long
summer's day, arrived, in the evening, at Samara, on the banks of
the Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. ^105 On the
ensuing day, the Barbarians, instead of harassing the march,
attacked the camp, of Jovian; which had been seated in a deep and
sequestered valley. From the hills, the archers of Persia
insulted and annoyed the wearied legionaries; and a body of
cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the
Praetorian gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict,
near the Imperial tent. In the succeeding night, the camp of
Carche was protected by the lofty dikes of the river; and the
Roman army, though incessantly exposed to the vexatious pursuit
of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the city of Dura, ^106
four days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on
their left; their hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and
the impatient soldiers, who had fondly persuaded themselves that
the frontiers of the empire were not far distant, requested their
new sovereign, that they might be permitted to hazard the passage
of the river. With the assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian
endeavored to check their rashness; by representing, that if they
possessed sufficient skill and vigor to stem the torrent of a
deep and rapid stream, they would only deliver themselves naked
and defenceless to the Barbarians, who had occupied the opposite
banks, Yielding at length to their clamorous importunities, he
consented, with reluctance, that five hundred Gauls and Germans,
accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and
Danube, should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve
either as an encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the
army. In the silence of the night, they swam the Tigris,
surprised an unguarded post of the enemy, and displayed at the
dawn of day the signal of their resolution and fortune. The
success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the
promises of his architects, who propose to construct a floating
bridge of the inflated skins of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered
with a floor of earth and fascines. ^107 Two important days were
spent in the ineffectual labor; and the Romans, who already
endured the miseries of famine, cast a look of despair on the
Tigris, and upon the Barbarians; whose numbers and obstinacy
increased with the distress of the Imperial army. ^108
[Footnote 104: Regius equitatus. It appears, from Irocopius,
that the Immortals, so famous under Cyrus and his successors,
were revived, if we may use that improper word, by the
Sassanides. Brisson de Regno Persico, p. 268, &c.]
[Footnote 105: The obscure villages of the inland country are
irrecoverably lost; nor can we name the field of battle where
Julian fell: but M. D'Anville has demonstrated the precise
situation of Sumere, Carche, and Dura, along the banks of the
Tigris, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 248 L'Euphrate et le
Tigre, p. 95, 97.) In the ninth century, Sumere, or Samara,
became, with a slight change of name, the royal residence of the
khalifs of the house of Abbas.
Note: Sormanray, called by the Arabs Samira, where D'Anville
placed Samara, is too much to the south; and is a modern town
built by Caliph Morasen. Serra-man-rai means, in Arabic, it
rejoices every one who sees it. St. Martin, iii. 133. - M.]
[Footnote 106: Dura was a fortified place in the wars of
Antiochus against the rebels of Media and Persia, (Polybius, l.
v. c. 48, 52, p. 548, 552 edit. Casaubon, in 8vo.)]
[Footnote 107: A similar expedient was proposed to the leaders of
the ten thousand, and wisely rejected. Xenophon, Anabasis, l.
iii. p. 255, 256, 257. It appears, from our modern travellers,
that rafts floating on bladders perform the trade and navigation
of the Tigris.]
[Footnote 108: The first military acts of the reign of Jovian are
related by Ammianus, (xxv. 6,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 146,
p. 364,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 189, 190, 191.) Though we may
distrust the fairness of Libanius, the ocular testimony of
Eutropius (uno a Persis atque altero proelio victus, x. 17) must
incline us to suspect that Ammianus had been too jealous of the
honor of the Roman arms.]
In this hopeless condition, the fainting spirits of the
Romans were revived by the sound of peace. The transient
presumption of Sapor had vanished: he observed, with serious
concern, that, in the repetition of doubtful combats, he had lost
his most faithful and intrepid nobles, his bravest troops, and
the greatest part of his train of elephants: and the experienced
monarch feared to provoke the resistance of despair, the
vicissitudes of fortune, and the unexhausted powers of the Roman
empire; which might soon advance to elieve, or to revenge, the
successor of Julian. The Surenas himself, accompanied by another
satrap, ^* appeared in the camp of Jovian; ^109 and declared,
that the clemency of his sovereign was not averse to signify the
conditions on which he would consent to spare and to dismiss the
Caesar with the relics of his captive army. ^! The hopes of
safety subdued the firmness of the Romans; the emperor was
compelled, by the advice of his council, and the cries of his
soldiers, to embrace the offer of peace; ^!! and the praefect
Sallust was immediately sent, with the general Arinthaeus, to
understand the pleasure of the Great King. The crafty Persian
delayed, under various pretenses, the conclusion of the
agreement; started difficulties, required explanations, suggested
expedients, receded from his concessions, increased his demands,
and wasted four days in the arts of negotiation, till he had
consumed the stock of provisions which yet remained in the camp
of the Romans. Had Jovian been capable of executing a bold and
prudent measure, he would have continued his march, with
unremitting diligence; the progress of the treaty would have
suspended the attacks of the Barbarians; and, before the
expiration of the fourth day, he might have safely reached the
fruitful province of Corduene, at the distance only of one
hundred miles. ^110 The irresolute emperor, instead of breaking
through the toils of the enemy, expected his fate with patient
resignation; and accepted the humiliating conditions of peace,
which it was no longer in his power to refuse. The five
provinces beyond the Tigris, which had been ceded by the
grandfather of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy. He
acquired, by a single article, the impregnable city of Nisibis;
which had sustained, in three successive sieges, the effort of
his arms. Singara, and the castle of the Moors, one of the
strongest places of Mesopotamia, were likewise dismembered from
the empire. It was considered as an indulgence, that the
inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with
their effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted, that the
Romans should forever abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia.
^!!! A peace, or rather a long truce, of thirty years, was
stipulated between the hostile nations; the faith of the treaty
was ratified by solemn oaths and religious ceremonies; and
hostages of distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered to
secure the performance of the conditions. ^111
[Footnote 109: Sextus Rufus (de Provinciis, c. 29) embraces a
poor subterfuge of national vanity. Tanta reverentia nominis
Romani fuit, ut a Persis primus de pace sermo haberetur.]
[Footnote *: He is called Junius by John Malala; the same, M. St.
Martin conjectures, with a satrap of Gordyene named Jovianus, or
Jovinianus; mentioned in Ammianus Marcellinus, xviii. 6. - M.]
[Footnote !: The Persian historians couch the message of
Shah-pour in these Oriental terms: "I have reassembled my
numerous army. I am resolved to revenge my subjects, who have
been plundered, made captives, and slain. It is for this that I
have bared my arm, and girded my loins. If you consent to pay
the price of the blood which has been shed, to deliver up the
booty which has been plundered, and to restore the city of
Nisibis, which is in Irak, and belongs to our empire, though now
in your possession, I will sheathe the sword of war; but should
you refuse these terms, the hoofs of my horse, which are hard as
steel, shall efface the name of the Romans from the earth; and my
glorious cimeter, that destroys like fire, shall exterminate the
people of your empire." These authorities do not mention the
death of Julian. Malcolm's Persia, i. 87. - M.]
[Footnote !!: The Paschal chronicle, not, as M. St. Martin says,
supported by John Malala, places the mission of this ambassador
before the death of Julian. The king of Persia was then in
Persarmenia, ignorant of the death of Julian; he only arrived at
the army subsequent to that event. St. Martin adopts this view,
and finds or extorts support for it, from Libanius and Ammianus,
iii. 158. - M.]
[Footnote 110: It is presumptuous to controvert the opinion of
Ammianus, a soldier and a spectator. Yet it is difficult to
understand how the mountains of Corduene could extend over the
plains of Assyria, as low as the conflux of the Tigris and the
great Zab; or how an army of sixty thousand men could march one
hundred miles in four days.
Note: Yet this appears to be the case (in modern maps: ) the
march is the difficulty. - M.]
[Footnote !!!: Sapor availed himself, a few years after, of the
dissolution of the alliance between the Romans and the Armenians.
See St. M. iii. 163. - M.]
[Footnote 111: The treaty of Dura is recorded with grief or
indignation by Ammianus, (xxv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
142, p. 364,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 190, 191,) Gregory Nazianzen,
(Orat. iv. p. 117, 118, who imputes the distress to Julian, the
deliverance to Jovian,) and Eutropius, (x. 17.) The
last-mentioned writer, who was present in military station,
styles this peace necessarium quidem sed ignoblem.]
The sophist of Antioch, who saw with indignation the sceptre
of his hero in the feeble hand of a Christian successor,
professes to admire the moderation of Sapor, in contenting
himself with so small a portion of the Roman empire. If he had
stretched as far as the Euphrates the claims of his ambition, he
might have been secure, says Libanius, of not meeting with a
refusal. If he had fixed, as the boundary of Persia, the
Orontes, the Cydnus, the Sangarius, or even the Thracian
Bosphorus, flatterers would not have been wanting in the court of
Jovian to convince the timid monarch, that his remaining
provinces would still afford the most ample gratifications of
power and luxury. ^112 Without adopting in its full force this
malicious insinuation, we must acknowledge, that the conclusion
of so ignominious a treaty was facilitated by the private
ambition of Jovian. The obscure domestic, exalted to the throne
by fortune, rather than by merit, was impatient to escape from
the hands of the Persians, that he might prevent the designs of
Procopius, who commanded the army of Mesopotamia, and establish
his doubtful reign over the legions and provinces which were
still ignorant of the hasty and tumultuous choice of the camp
beyond the Tigris. ^113 In the neighborhood of the same river, at
no very considerable distance from the fatal station of Dura,
^114 the ten thousand Greeks, without generals, or guides, or
provisions, were abandoned, above twelve hundred miles from their
native country, to the resentment of a victorious monarch. The
difference of their conduct and success depended much more on
their character than on their situation. Instead of tamely
resigning themselves to the secret deliberations and private
views of a single person, the united councils of the Greeks were
inspired by the generous enthusiasm of a popular assembly; where
the mind of each citizen is filled with the love of glory, the
pride of freedom, and the contempt of death. Conscious of their
superiority over the Barbarians in arms and discipline, they
disdained to yield, they refused to capitulate: every obstacle
was surmounted by their patience, courage, and military skill;
and the memorable retreat of the ten thousand exposed and
insulted the weakness of the Persian monarchy. ^115
[Footnote 112: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 364, 365.]
[Footnote 113: Conditionibus . . . . . dispendiosis Romanae
reipublicae impositis . . . . quibus cupidior regni quam gloriae
Jovianus, imperio rudis, adquievit. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis,
c. 29. La Bleterie has expressed, in a long, direct oration,
these specious considerations of public and private interest,
(Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p. 39, &c.)]
[Footnote 114: The generals were murdered on the bauks of the
Zabatus, (Ana basis, l. ii. p. 156, l. iii. p. 226,) or great
Zab, a river of Assyria, 400 feet broad, which falls into the
Tigris fourteen hours below Mosul. The error of the Greeks
bestowed on the greater and lesser Zab the names of the Walf,
(Lycus,) and the Goat, (Capros.) They created these animals to
attend the Tiger of the East.]
[Footnote 115: The Cyropoedia is vague and languid; the Anabasis
circumstance and animated. Such is the eternal difference
between fiction and truth.]
As the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor
might perhaps have stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans
should be plentifully supplied; ^116 and that they should be
permitted to pass the Tigris on the bridge which was constructed
by the hands of the Persians. But, if Jovian presumed to solicit
those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by the haughty
tyrant of the East, whose clemency had pardoned the invaders of
his country. The Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers
of the march; but the generals and troops of Sapor respected the
cessation of arms; and Jovian was suffered to explore the most
convenient place for the passage of the river. The small
vessels, which had been saved from the conflagration of the
fleet, performed the most essential service. They first conveyed
the emperor and his favorites; and afterwards transported, in
many successive voyages, a great part of the army. But, as every
man was anxious for his personal safety, and apprehensive of
being left on the hostile shore, the soldiers, who were too
impatient to wait the slow returns of the boats, boldly ventured
themselves on light hurdles, or inflated skins; and, drawing
after them their horses, attempted, with various success, to swim
across the river. Many of these daring adventurers were
swallowed by the waves; many others, who were carried along by
the violence of the stream, fell an easy prey to the avarice or
cruelty of the wild Arabs: and the loss which the army sustained
in the passage of the Tigris, was not inferior to the carnage of
a day of battle. As soon as the Romans were landed on the western
bank, they were delivered from the hostile pursuit of the
Barbarians; but, in a laborious march of two hundred miles over
the plains of Mesopotamia, they endured the last extremities of
thirst and hunger. They were obliged to traverse the sandy
desert, which, in the extent of seventy miles, did not afford a
single blade of sweet grass, nor a single spring of fresh water;
and the rest of the inhospitable waste was untrod by the
footsteps either of friends or enemies. Whenever a small measure
of flour could be discovered in the camp, twenty pounds weight
were greedily purchased with ten pieces of gold: ^117 the beasts
of burden were slaughtered and devoured; and the desert was
strewed with the arms and baggage of the Roman soldiers, whose
tattered garments and meagre countenances displayed their past
sufferings and actual misery. A small convoy of provisions
advanced to meet the army as far as the castle of Ur; and the
supply was the more grateful, since it declared the fidelity of
Sebastian and Procopius. At Thilsaphata, ^118 the emperor most
graciously received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the remains
of a once flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the
walls of Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had already
proclaimed, in the language of flattery, his election, his
treaty, and his return; and the new prince had taken the most
effectual measures to secure the allegiance of the armies and
provinces of Europe, by placing the military command in the hands
of those officers, who, from motives of interest, or inclination,
would firmly support the cause of their benefactor. ^119
[Footnote 116: According to Rufinus, an immediate supply of
provisions was stipulated by the treaty, and Theodoret affirms,
that the obligation was faithfully discharged by the Persians.
Such a fact is probable but undoubtedly false. See Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 702.]
[Footnote 117: We may recollect some lines of Lucan, (Pharsal.
iv. 95,) who describes a similar distress of Caesar's army in
Spain: -
Saeva fames aderat -
Miles eget: toto censu non prodigus emit
Exiguam Cererem. Proh lucri pallida tabes!
Non deest prolato jejunus venditor auro.
See Guichardt (Nouveaux Memoires Militaires, tom. i. p. 370-382.)
His analysis of the two campaigns in Spain and Africa is the
noblest monument that has ever been raised to the fame of
Caesar.]
[Footnote 118: M. d'Anville (see his Maps, and l'Euphrate et le
Tigre, p. 92, 93) traces their march, and assigns the true
position of Hatra, Ur, and Thilsaphata, which Ammianus has
mentioned. ^* He does not complain of the Samiel, the deadly hot
wind, which Thevenot (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 192) so much
dreaded.]
[Footnote *: Hatra, now Kadhr. Ur, Kasr or Skervidgi.
Thilsaphata is unknown - M.]
[Footnote 119: The retreat of Jovian is described by Ammianus,
(xxv. 9,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 365,) and Zosimus,
(l. iii. p. 194.)]
The friends of Julian had confidently announced the success
of his expedition. They entertained a fond persuasion that the
temples of the gods would be enriched with the spoils of the
East; that Persia would be reduced to the humble state of a
tributary province, governed by the laws and magistrates of Rome;
that the Barbarians would adopt the dress, and manners, and
language of their conquerors; and that the youth of Ecbatana and
Susa would study the art of rhetoric under Grecian masters. ^120
The progress of the arms of Julian interrupted his communication
with the empire; and, from the moment that he passed the Tigris,
his affectionate subjects were ignorant of the fate and fortunes
of their prince. Their contemplation of fancied triumphs was
disturbed by the melancholy rumor of his death; and they
persisted to doubt, after they could no longer deny, the truth of
that fatal event. ^121 The messengers of Jovian promulgated the
specious tale of a prudent and necessary peace; the voice of
fame, louder and more sincere, revealed the disgrace of the
emperor, and the conditions of the ignominious treaty. The minds
of the people were filled with astonishment and grief, with
indignation and terror, when they were informed, that the
unworthy successor of Julian relinquished the five provinces
which had been acquired by the victory of Galerius; and that he
shamefully surrendered to the Barbarians the important city of
Nisibis, the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the East. ^122
The deep and dangerous question, how far the public faith should
be observed, when it becomes incompatible with the public safety,
was freely agitated in popular conversation; and some hopes were
entertained that the emperor would redeem his pusillanimous
behavior by a splendid act of patriotic perfidy. The inflexible
spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the unequal
conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive
armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor,
by delivering the guilty general into the hands of the
Barbarians, the greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would
have cheerfully acquiesced in the precedent of ancient times.
^123
[Footnote 120: Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 366.) Such
were the natural hopes and wishes of a rhetorician.]
[Footnote 121: The people of Carrhae, a city devoted to Paganism,
buried the inauspicious messenger under a pile of stones,
(Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196.) Libanius, when he received the fatal
intelligence, cast his eye on his sword; but he recollected that
Plato had condemned suicide, and that he must live to compose the
Panegyric of Julian, (Libanius de Vita sua, tom. ii. p. 45, 46.)]
[Footnote 122: Ammianus and Eutropius may be admitted as fair and
credible witnesses of the public language and opinions. The
people of Antioch reviled an ignominious peace, which exposed
them to the Persians, on a naked and defenceless frontier,
(Excerpt. Valesiana, p. 845, ex Johanne Antiocheno.)]
[Footnote 123: The Abbe de la Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i.
p. 212- 227.) though a severe casuist, has pronounced that Jovian
was not bound to execute his promise; since he could not
dismember the empire, nor alienate, without their consent, the
allegiance of his people. I have never found much delight or
instruction in such political metaphysics.]
But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his
constitutional authority, was the absolute master of the laws and
arms of the state; and the same motives which had forced him to
subscribe, now pressed him to execute, the treaty of peace. He
was impatient to secure an empire at the expense of a few
provinces; and the respectable names of religion and honor
concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian.
Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants,
decency, as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the
palace of Nisibis; but the next morning after his arrival.
Bineses, the ambassador of Persia, entered the place, displayed
from the citadel the standard of the Great King, and proclaimed,
in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The
principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that fatal moment, had
confided in the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves
at his feet. They conjured him not to abandon, or, at least, not
to deliver, a faithful colony to the rage of a Barbarian tyrant,
exasperated by the three successive defeats which he had
experienced under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed
arms and courage to repel the invaders of their country: they
requested only the permission of using them in their own defence;
and, as soon as they had asserted their independence, they should
implore the favor of being again admitted into the ranks of his
subjects. Their arguments, their eloquence, their tears, were
ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some confusion, the sanctity
of oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he accepted the
present of a crown of gold, convinced the citizens of their
hopeless condition, the advocate Sylvanus was provoked to
exclaim, "O emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the cities
of your dominions!" Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the
habits of a prince, ^124 was displeased with freedom, and
offended with truth: and as he reasonably supposed, that the
discontent of the people might incline them to submit to the
Persian government, he published an edict, under pain of death,
that they should leave the city within the term of three days.
Ammianus has delineated in lively colors the scene of universal
despair, which he seems to have viewed with an eye of compassion.
^125 The martial youth deserted, with indignant grief, the walls
which they had so gloriously defended: the disconsolate mourner
dropped a last tear over the tomb of a son or husband, which must
soon be profaned by the rude hand of a Barbarian master; and the
aged citizen kissed the threshold, and clung to the doors, of the
house where he had passed the cheerful and careless hours of
infancy. The highways were crowded with a trembling multitude:
the distinctions of rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the
general calamity. Every one strove to bear away some fragment
from the wreck of his fortunes; and as they could not command the
immediate service of an adequate number of horses or wagons, they
were obliged to leave behind them the greatest part of their
valuable effects. The savage insensibility of Jovian appears to
have aggravated the hardships of these unhappy fugitives. They
were seated, however, in a new-built quarter of Amida; and that
rising city, with the reenforcement of a very considerable
colony, soon recovered its former splendor, and became the
capital of Mesopotamia. ^126 Similar orders were despatched by
the emperor for the evacuation of Singara and the castle of the
Moors; and for the restitution of the five provinces beyond the
Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory and the fruits of his victory;
and this ignominious peace has justly been considered as a
memorable aera in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The
predecessors of Jovian had sometimes relinquished the dominion of
distant and unprofitable provinces; but, since the foundation of
the city, the genius of Rome, the god Terminus, who guarded the
boundaries of the republic, had never retired before the sword of
a victorious enemy. ^127
[Footnote 124: At Nisibis he performed a royal act. A brave
officer, his namesake, who had been thought worthy of the purple,
was dragged from supper, thrown into a well, and stoned to death
without any form of trial or evidence of guilt. Anomian. xxv.
8.]
[Footnote 125: See xxv. 9, and Zosimus, l. iii. p. 194, 195.]
[Footnote 126: Chron. Paschal. p. 300. The ecclesiastical
Notitie may be consulted.]
[Footnote 127: Zosimus, l. iii. p. 192, 193. Sextus Rufus de
Provinciis, c. 29. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. iv. c. 29. This
general position must be applied and interpreted with some
caution.]
After Jovian had performed those engagements which the voice
of his people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away
from the scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole
court to enjoy the luxury of Antioch. ^128 Without consulting the
dictates of religious zeal, he was prompted, by humanity and
gratitude, to bestow the last honors on the remains of his
deceased sovereign: ^129 and Procopius, who sincerely bewailed
the loss of his kinsman, was removed from the command of the
army, under the decent pretence of conducting the funeral. The
corpse of Julian was transported from Nisibis to Tarsus, in a
slow march of fifteen days; and, as it passed through the cities
of the East, was saluted by the hostile factions, with mournful
lamentations and clamorous insults. The Pagans already placed
their beloved hero in the rank of those gods whose worship he had
restored; while the invectives of the Christians pursued the soul
of the Apostate to hell, and his body to the grave. ^130 One
party lamented the approaching ruin of their altars; the other
celebrated the marvellous deliverance of their church. The
Christians applauded, in lofty and ambiguous strains, the stroke
of divine vengeance, which had been so long suspended over the
guilty head of Julian. They acknowledge, that the death of the
tyrant, at the instant he expired beyond the Tigris, was revealed
to the saints of Egypt, Syria, and Cappadocia; ^131 and instead
of suffering him to fall by the Persian darts, their indiscretion
ascribed the heroic deed to the obscure hand of some mortal or
immortal champion of the faith. ^132 Such imprudent declarations
were eagerly adopted by the malice, or credulity, of their
adversaries; ^133 who darkly insinuated, or confidently asserted,
that the governors of the church had instigated and directed the
fanaticism of a domestic assassin. ^134 Above sixteen years after
the death of Julian, the charge was solemnly and vehemently
urged, in a public oration, addressed by Libanius to the emperor
Theodosius. His suspicions are unsupported by fact or argument;
and we can only esteem the generous zeal of the sophist of
Antioch for the cold and neglected ashes of his friend. ^135
[Footnote 128: Ammianus, xxv. 9. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196. He
might be edax, vino Venerique indulgens. But I agree with La
Bleterie (tom. i. p. 148-154) in rejecting the foolish report of
a Bacchanalian riot (ap. Suidam) celebrated at Antioch, by the
emperor, his wife, and a troop of concubines.]
[Footnote 129: The Abbe de la Bleterie (tom. i. p. 156-209)
handsomely exposes the brutal bigotry of Baronius, who would have
thrown Julian to the dogs, ne cespititia quidem sepultura
dignus.]
[Footnote 130: Compare the sophist and the saint, (Libanius,
Monod. tom. ii. p. 251, and Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 367, c. 156,
p. 377, with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 125-132.) The
Christian orator faintly mutters some exhortations to modesty and
forgiveness; but he is well satisfied, that the real sufferings
of Julian will far exceed the fabulous torments of Ixion or
Tantalus.]
[Footnote 131: Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 549)
has collected these visions. Some saint or angel was observed to
be absent in the night, on a secret expedition, &c.]
[Footnote 132: Sozomen (l. vi. 2) applauds the Greek doctrine of
tyrannicide; but the whole passage, which a Jesuit might have
translated, is prudently suppressed by the president Cousin.]
[Footnote 133: Immediately after the death of Julian, an
uncertain rumor was scattered, telo cecidisse Romano. It was
carried, by some deserters to the Persian camp; and the Romans
were reproached as the assassins of the emperor by Sapor and his
subjects, (Ammian. xxv. 6. Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece,
c. xiii. p. 162, 163.) It was urged, as a decisive proof, that no
Persian had appeared to claim the promised reward, (Liban. Orat.
Parent. c. 141, p. 363.) But the flying horseman, who darted the
fatal javelin, might be ignorant of its effect; or he might be
slain in the same action. Ammianus neither feels nor inspires a
suspicion.]
[Footnote 134: This dark and ambiguous expression may point to
Athanasius, the first, without a rival, of the Christian clergy,
(Libanius de ulcis. Jul. nece, c. 5, p. 149. La Bleterie, Hist.
de Jovien, tom. i. p. 179.)]
[Footnote 135: The orator (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. vii.
p. 145-179) scatters suspicions, demands an inquiry, and
insinuates, that proofs might still be obtained. He ascribes the
success of the Huns to the criminal neglect of revenging Julian's
death.]
It was an ancient custom in the funerals, as well as in the
triumphs, of the Romans, that the voice of praise should be
corrected by that of satire and ridicule; and that, in the midst
of the splendid pageants, which displayed the glory of the living
or of the dead, their imperfections should not be concealed from
the eyes of the world. ^136 This custom was practised in the
funeral of Julian. The comedians, who resented his contempt and
aversion for the theatre, exhibited, with the applause of a
Christian audience, the lively and exaggerated representation of
the faults and follies of the deceased emperor. His various
character and singular manners afforded an ample scope for
pleasantry and ridicule. ^137 In the exercise of his uncommon
talents, he often descended below the majesty of his rank.
Alexander was transformed into Diogenes; the philosopher was
degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue was sullied by
excessive vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace, and
endangered the safety, of a mighty empire; and his irregular
sallies were the less entitled to indulgence, as they appeared to
be the laborious efforts of art, or even of affectation. The
remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in Cilicia; but his
stately tomb, which arose in that city, on the banks of the cold
and limpid Cydnus, ^138 was displeasing to the faithful friends,
who loved and revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The
philosopher expressed a very reasonable wish, that the disciple
of Plato might have reposed amidst the groves of the academy;
^139 while the soldier exclaimed, in bolder accents, that the
ashes of Julian should have been mingled with those of Caesar, in
the field of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman
virtue. ^140 The history of princes does not very frequently
renew the examples of a similar competition.
[Footnote 136: At the funeral of Vespasian, the comedian who
personated that frugal emperor, anxiously inquired how much it
cost. Fourscore thousand pounds, (centies.) Give me the tenth
part of the sum, and throw my body into the Tiber. Sueton, in
Vespasian, c. 19, with the notes of Casaubon and Gronovius.]
[Footnote 137: Gregory (Orat. iv. p. 119, 120) compares this
supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral honors of
Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir
of angels.]
[Footnote 138: Quintus Curtius, l. iii. c. 4. The luxuriancy of
his descriptions has been often censured. Yet it was almost the
duty of the historian to describe a river, whose waters had
nearly proved fatal to Alexander.]
[Footnote 139: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 156, p. 377. Yet he
acknowledges with gratitude the liberality of the two royal
brothers in decorating the tomb of Julian, (de ulcis. Jul. nece,
c. 7, p. 152.)]
[Footnote 140: Cujus suprema et cineres, si qui tunc juste
consuleret, non Cydnus videre deberet, quamvis gratissimus amnis
et liquidus: sed ad perpetuandam gloriam recte factorum
praeterlambere Tiberis, intersecans urbem aeternam, divorumque
veterum monumenta praestringens Ammian. xxv. 10.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part I.
The Government And Death Of Jovian. - Election Of
Valentinian, Who Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The
Final Division Of The Eastern And Western Empires. - Revolt Of
Procopius. - Civil And Ecclesiastical Administration. - Germany.
- Britain. - Africa. - The East. - The Danube. - Death Of
Valentinian. - His Two Sons, Gratian And Valentinian II., Succeed
To The Western Empire.
The death of Julian had left the public affairs of the
empire in a very doubtful and dangerous situation. The Roman
army was saved by an inglorious, perhaps a necessary treaty; ^1
and the first moments of peace were consecrated by the pious
Jovian to restore the domestic tranquility of the church and
state. The indiscretion of his predecessor, instead of
reconciling, had artfully fomented the religious war: and the
balance which he affected to preserve between the hostile
factions, served only to perpetuate the contest, by the
vicissitudes of hope and fear, by the rival claims of ancient
possession and actual favor. The Christians had forgotten the
spirit of the gospel; and the Pagans had imbibed the spirit of
the church. In private families, the sentiments of nature were
extinguished by the blind fury of zeal and revenge: the majesty
of the laws was violated or abused; the cities of the East were
stained with blood; and the most implacable enemies of the Romans
were in the bosom of their country. Jovian was educated in the
profession of Christianity; and as he marched from Nisibis to
Antioch, the banner of the Cross, the Labarum of Constantine,
which was again displayed at the head of the legions, announced
to the people the faith of their new emperor. As soon as he
ascended the throne, he transmitted a circular epistle to all the
governors of provinces; in which he confessed the divine truth,
and secured the legal establishment, of the Christian religion.
The insidious edicts of Julian were abolished; the ecclesiastical
immunities were restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended to
lament, that the distress of the times obliged him to diminish
the measure of charitable distributions. ^2 The Christians were
unanimous in the loud and sincere applause which they bestowed on
the pious successor of Julian. But they were still ignorant what
creed, or what synod, he would choose for the standard of
orthodoxy; and the peace of the church immediately revived those
eager disputes which had been suspended during the season of
persecution. The episcopal leaders of the contending sects,
convinced, from experience, how much their fate would depend on
the earliest impressions that were made on the mind of an
untutored soldier, hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch.
The highways of the East were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian,
and Semi- Arian, and Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip
each other in the holy race: the apartments of the palace
resounded with their clamors; and the ears of the prince were
assaulted, and perhaps astonished, by the singular mixture of
metaphysical argument and passionate invective. ^3 The moderation
of Jovian, who recommended concord and charity, and referred the
disputants to the sentence of a future council, was interpreted
as a symptom of indifference: but his attachment to the Nicene
creed was at length discovered and declared, by the reverence
which he expressed for the celestial ^4 virtues of the great
Athanasius. The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of
seventy, had issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of
the tyrant's death. The acclamations of the people seated him
once more on the archiepiscopal throne; and he wisely accepted,
or anticipated, the invitation of Jovian. The venerable figure
of Athanasius, his calm courage, and insinuating eloquence,
sustained the reputation which he had already acquired in the
courts of four successive princes. ^5 As soon as he had gained
the confidence, and secured the faith, of the Christian emperor,
he returned in triumph to his diocese, and continued, with mature
counsels and undiminished vigor, to direct, ten years longer, ^6
the ecclesiastical government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the
Catholic church. Before his departure from Antioch, he assured
Jovian that his orthodox devotion would be rewarded with a long
and peaceful reign. Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he
should be allowed either the merit of a successful prediction, or
the excuse of a grateful though ineffectual prayer. ^7
[Footnote 1: The medals of Jovian adorn him with victories,
laurel crowns, and prostrate captives. Ducange, Famil. Byzantin.
p. 52. Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with
her own hands.]
[Footnote 2: Jovian restored to the church a forcible and
comprehensive expression, (Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 5, with
Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 329. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 3.) The new
law which condemned the rape or marriage of nuns (Cod. Theod. l.
ix. tit. xxv. leg. 2) is exaggerated by Sozomen; who supposes,
that an amorous glance, the adultery of the heart, was punished
with death by the evangelic legislator.]
[Footnote 3: Compare Socrates, l. iii. c. 25, and Philostorgius,
l. viii. c. 6, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 330.]
[Footnote 4: The word celestial faintly expresses the impious and
extravagant flattery of the emperor to the archbishop. (See the
original epistle in Athanasius, tom. ii. p. 33.) Gregory
Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. p. 392) celebrates the friendship of Jovian
and Athanasius. The primate's journey was advised by the
Egyptian monks, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 221.)]
[Footnote 5: Athanasius, at the court of Antioch, is agreeably
represented by La Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p.
121-148;) he translates the singular and original conferences of
the emperor, the primate of Egypt, and the Arian deputies. The
Abbe is not satisfied with the coarse pleasantry of Jovian; but
his partiality for Athanasius assumes, in his eyes, the character
of justice.]
[Footnote 6: The true area of his death is perplexed with some
difficulties, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 719-723.)
But the date (A. D. 373, May 2) which seems the most consistent
with history and reason, is ratified by his authentic life,
(Maffei Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 81.)]
[Footnote 7: See the observations of Valesius and Jortin (Remarks
on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 38) on the original letter
of Athanasius; which is preserved by Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 3.) In
some Mss. this indiscreet promise is omitted; perhaps by the
Catholics, jealous of the prophetic fame of their leader.]
The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide
the natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible
weight; and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious
opinions which were supported by the spirit of the times, and the
zeal and numbers of the most powerful sect. ^8 Under his reign,
Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as
the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of
Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts
of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the. In many cities, the
temples were shut or deserted: the philosophers who had abused
their transient favor, thought it prudent to shave their beards,
and disguise their profession; and the Christians rejoiced, that
they were now in a condition to forgive, or to revenge, the
injuries which they had suffered under the preceding reign. ^9
The consternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and
gracious edict of toleration; in which Jovian explicitly
declared, that although he should severely punish the
sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with
freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. The
memory of this law has been preserved by the orator Themistius,
who was deputed by the senate of Constantinople to express their
royal devotion for the new emperor. Themistius expatiates on the
clemency of the Divine Nature, the facility of human error, the
rights of conscience, and the independence of the mind; and, with
some eloquence, inculcates the principles of philosophical
toleration; whose aid Superstition herself, in the hour of her
distress, is not ashamed to implore. He justly observes, that in
the recent changes, both religions had been alternately disgraced
by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those
votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a
reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple, and
from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians.
^10
[Footnote 8: Athanasius (apud Theodoret, l. iv. c. 3) magnifies
the number of the orthodox, who composed the whole world. This
assertion was verified in the space of thirty and forty years.]
[Footnote 9: Socrates, l. iii. c. 24. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat.
iv. p. 131) and Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. 148, p. 369)
expresses the living sentiments of their respective factions.]
[Footnote 10: Themistius, Orat. v. p. 63-71, edit. Harduin,
Paris, 1684. The Abbe de la Bleterie judiciously remarks, (Hist.
de Jovien, tom. i. p. 199,) that Sozomen has forgot the general
toleration; and Themistius the establishment of the Catholic
religion. Each of them turned away from the object which he
disliked, and wished to suppress the part of the edict the least
honorable, in his opinion, to the emperor.]
In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now
returned to Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred
miles; in which they had endured all the hardships of war, of
famine, and of climate. Notwithstanding their services, their
fatigues, and the approach of winter, the timid and impatient
Jovian allowed only, to the men and horses, a respite of six
weeks. The emperor could not sustain the indiscreet and malicious
raillery of the people of Antioch. ^11 He was impatient to
possess the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the ambition
of some competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance of
Europe. But he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his
authority was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus to the
Atlantic Ocean. By the first letters which he despatched from
the camp of Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of
Gaul and Illyricum to Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of
the nation of the Franks; and to his father-in-law, Count
Lucillian, who had formerly distinguished his courage and conduct
in the defence of Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to
which he thought himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at
Rheims, in an accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. ^12 But
the moderation of Jovinus, master- general of the cavalry, who
forgave the intention of his disgrace, soon appeased the tumult,
and confirmed the uncertain minds of the soldiers. The oath of
fidelity was administered and taken, with loyal acclamations; and
the deputies of the Western armies ^13 saluted their new
sovereign as he descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana
in Cappadocia. From Tyana he continued his hasty march to
Ancyra, capital of the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed,
with his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship. ^14
Dadastana, ^15 an obscure town, almost at an equal distance
between Ancyra and Nice, was marked for the fatal term of his
journey and life. After indulging himself with a plentiful,
perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next
morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed. The cause
of this sudden death was variously understood. By some it was
ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either
by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms,
which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he
was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which
extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome
moisture of the fresh plaster. ^16 But the want of a regular
inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were
soon forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which
countenanced the malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt.
^17 The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be interred
with his predecessors, and the sad procession was met on the road
by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still
wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her
tears in the embraces of an Imperial husband. Her disappointment
and grief were imbittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness.
Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been
placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of
Nobilissimus, and the vain ensigns of the consulship.
Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his
grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by
the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an
emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had
already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother
expected every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from
her arms, to appease, with his blood, the suspicions of the
reigning prince. ^18
[Footnote 11: Johan. Antiochen. in Excerpt. Valesian. p. 845.
The libels of Antioch may be admitted on very slight evidence.]
[Footnote 12: Compare Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) who omits the name of
the Batarians, with Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 197,) who removes the
scene of action from Rheims to Sirmium.]
[Footnote 13: Quos capita scholarum ordo castrensis appellat.
Ammian. xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.]
[Footnote 14: Cugus vagitus, pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in
curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod mox accidit protendebat.
Augustus and his successors respectfully solicited a dispensation
of age for the sons or nephews whom they raised to the
consulship. But the curule chair of the first Brutus had never
been dishonored by an infant.]
[Footnote 15: The Itinerary of Antoninus fixes Dadastana 125
Roman miles from Nice; 117 from Ancyra, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p.
142.) The pilgrim of Bourdeaux, by omitting some stages, reduces
the whole space from 242 to 181 miles. Wesseling, p. 574.
Note: Dadastana is supposed to be Castabat. - M.]
[Footnote 16: See Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) Eutropius, (x. 18.) who
might likewise be present, Jerom, (tom. i. p. 26, ad Heliodorum.)
Orosius, (vii. 31,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
197, 198,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 28, 29.) We cannot
expect a perfect agreement, and we shall not discuss minute
differences.]
[Footnote 17: Ammianus, unmindful of his usual candor and good
sense, compares the death of the harmless Jovian to that of the
second Africanus, who had excited the fears and resentment of the
popular faction.]
[Footnote 18: Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 336, 344, edit. Montfaucon.
The Christian orator attempts to comfort a widow by the examples
of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of nine emperors
(including the Caesar Gallus) who had reigned in his time, only
two (Constantine and Constantius) died a natural death. Such
vague consolations have never wiped away a single tear.]
After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world
remained ten days, ^19 without a master. The ministers and
generals still continued to meet in council; to exercise their
respective functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably
to conduct the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was
chosen for the place of the election. ^20 In a solemn assembly of
the civil and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again
unanimously offered to the praefect Sallust. He enjoyed the
glory of a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father
were alleged in favor of his son, the praefect, with the firmness
of a disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the
feeble age of the one, and the unexperienced youth of the other,
were equally incapable of the laborious duties of government.
Several candidates were proposed; and, after weighing the
objections of character or situation, they were successively
rejected; but, as soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced,
the merit of that officer united the suffrages of the whole
assembly, and obtained the sincere approbation of Sallust
himself. Valentinian ^21 was the son of Count Gratian, a native
of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who from an obscure condition had raised
himself, by matchless strength and dexterity, to the military
commands of Africa and Britain; from which he retired with an
ample fortune and suspicious integrity. The rank and services of
Gratian contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the
promotion of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of
displaying those solid and useful qualifications, which raised
his character above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers.
The person of Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His
manly countenance, deeply marked with the impression of sense and
spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear;
and to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of
Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy
constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which
restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian
preserved his own and the public esteem. The avocations of a
military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of
literature; ^* he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the
arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never
disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the
occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with
bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were
the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished
by the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which
he discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time
of Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace, by the contempt
which he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; ^22 and it
should seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and
unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military
spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however,
and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; ^23 and in
the various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation
which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The
celerity and success with which he executed an important
commission, recommended him to the favor of Jovian; and to the
honorable command of the second school, or company, of
Targetiers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch,
he had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly
summoned, without guilt and without intrigue, to assume, in the
forty-third year of his age, the absolute government of the Roman
empire.
[Footnote 19: Ten days appear scarcely sufficient for the march
and election. But it may be observed, 1. That the generals might
command the expeditious use of the public posts for themselves,
their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for the
ease of the cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head
of the column might arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at
Ancyra.]
[Footnote 20: Ammianus, xxvi. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 198.
Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 334.
Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some curious and
authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to the
praefect Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Dagalaiphus count
of the domestics, and the patrician Datianus, whose pressing
recommendations from Ancyra had a weighty influence in the
election.]
[Footnote 21: Ammianus (xxx. 7, 9) and the younger Victor have
furnished the portrait of Valentinian, which naturally precedes
and illustrates the history of his reign.
Note: Symmachus, in a fragment of an oration published by M.
Mai, describes Valentinian as born among the snows of Illyria,
and habituated to military labor amid the heat and dust of Libya:
genitus in frigoribus, educatus is solibus Sym. Orat. Frag. edit.
Niebuhr, p. 5. - M.]
[Footnote *: According to Ammianus, he wrote elegantly, and was
skilled in painting and modelling. Scribens decore, venusteque
pingens et fingens. xxx. 7. - M.]
[Footnote 22: At Antioch, where he was obliged to attend the
emperor to the table, he struck a priest, who had presumed to
purify him with lustral water, (Sozomen, l. vi. c. 6. Theodoret,
l. iii. c. 15.) Such public defiance might become Valentinian;
but it could leave no room for the unworthy delation of the
philosopher Maximus, which supposes some more private offence,
(Zosimus, l. iv. p. 200, 201.)]
[Footnote 23: Socrates, l. iv. A previous exile to Melitene, or
Thebais (the first might be possible,) is interposed by Sozomen
(l. vi. c. 6) and Philostorgius, (l. vii. c. 7, with Godefroy's
Dissertations, p. 293.)]
The invitation of the ministers and generals at Nice was of
little moment, unless it were confirmed by the voice of the army.
The aged Sallust, who had long observed the irregular
fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, under pain of
death, that none of those persons, whose rank in the service
might excite a party in their favor, should appear in public on
the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of
ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to
this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the
intercalation of the Bissextile. ^24 At length, when the hour was
supposed to be propitious, Valentinian showed himself from a
lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was applauded; and the new
prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple,
amidst the acclamation of the troops, who were disposed in
martial order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth
his hand to address the armed multitude, a busy whisper was
accidentally started in the ranks, and insensibly swelled into a
loud and imperious clamor, that he should name, without delay, a
colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of Valentinian
obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed
the assembly: "A few minutes since it was in your power,
fellow-soldiers, to have left me in the obscurity of a private
station. Judging, from the testimony of my past life, that I
deserved to reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now
my duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The
weight of the universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of
a feeble mortal. I am conscious of the limits of my abilities,
and the uncertainty of my life; and far from declining, I am
anxious to solicit, the assistance of a worthy colleague. But,
where discord may be fatal, the choice of a faithful friend
requires mature and serious deliberation. That deliberation
shall be my care. Let your conduct be dutiful and consistent.
Retire to your quarters; refresh your minds and bodies; and
expect the accustomed donative on the accession of a new
emperor." ^25 The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of
satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master.
Their angry clamors subsided into silent reverence; and
Valentinian, encompassed with the eagles of the legions, and the
various banners of the cavalry and infantry, was conducted, in
warlike pomp, to the palace of Nice. As he was sensible,
however, of the importance of preventing some rash declaration of
the soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their
real sentiments were concisely expressed by the generous freedom
of Dagalaiphus. "Most excellent prince," said that officer, "if
you consider only your family, you have a brother; if you love
the republic, look round for the most deserving of the Romans."
^26 The emperor, who suppressed his displeasure, without altering
his intention, slowly proceeded from Nice to Nicomedia and
Constantinople. In one of the suburbs of that capital, ^27
thirty days after his own elevation, he bestowed the title of
Augustus on his brother Valens; ^* and as the boldest patriots
were convinced, that their opposition, without being serviceable
to their country, would be fatal to themselves, the declaration
of his absolute will was received with silent submission. Valens
was now in the thirty-sixth year of his age; but his abilities
had never been exercised in any employment, military or civil;
and his character had not inspired the world with any sanguine
expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which
recommended him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace
of the empire; devout and grateful attachment to his benefactor,
whose superiority of genius, as well as of authority, Valens
humbly and cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his life.
^28
[Footnote 24: Ammianus, in a long, because unseasonable,
digression, (xxvi. l, and Valesius, ad locum,) rashly supposes
that he understands an astronomical question, of which his
readers are ignorant. It is treated with more judgment and
propriety by Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 20) and Macrobius,
(Saturnal. i. c. 12-16.) The appellation of Bissextile, which
marks the inauspicious year, (Augustin. ad Januarium, Epist.
119,) is derived from the repetition of the sixth day of the
calends of March.]
[Footnote 25: Valentinian's first speech is in Ammianus, (xxvi.
2;) concise and sententious in Philostorgius, (l. viii. c. 8.)]
[Footnote 26: Si tuos amas, Imperator optime, habes fratrem; si
Rempublicam quaere quem vestias. Ammian. xxvi. 4. In the
division of the empire, Valentinian retained that sincere
counsellor for himself, (c.6.)]
[Footnote 27: In suburbano, Ammian. xxvi. 4. The famous
Hebdomon, or field of Mars, was distant from Constantinople
either seven stadia, or seven miles. See Valesius, and his
brother, ad loc., and Ducange, Const. l. ii. p. 140, 141, 172,
173.]
[Footnote *: Symmachus praises the liberality of Valentinian in
raising his brother at once to the rank of Augustus, not training
him through the slow and probationary degree of Caesar. Exigui
animi vices munerum partiuntur, liberalitas desideriis nihil
reliquit. Symm. Orat. p. 7. edit. Niebuhr, 1816, reprinted from
Mai. - M.]
[Footnote 28: Participem quidem legitimum potestatis; sed in
modum apparitoris morigerum, ut progrediens aperiet textus.
Ammian. xxvi. 4.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part II.
Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the
administration of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had
been injured or oppressed under the reign of Julian, were invited
to support their public accusations. The silence of mankind
attested the spotless integrity of the praefect Sallust; ^29 and
his own pressing solicitations, that he might be permitted to
retire from the business of the state, were rejected by
Valentinian with the most honorable expressions of friendship and
esteem. But among the favorites of the late emperor, there were
many who had abused his credulity or superstition; and who could
no longer hope to be protected either by favor or justice. ^30
The greater part of the ministers of the palace, and the
governors of the provinces, were removed from their respective
stations; yet the eminent merit of some officers was
distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and, notwithstanding the
opposite clamors of zeal and resentment, the whole proceedings of
this delicate inquiry appear to have been conducted with a
reasonable share of wisdom and moderation. ^31 The festivity of a
new reign received a short and suspicious interruption from the
sudden illness of the two princes; but as soon as their health
was restored, they left Constantinople in the beginning of the
spring. In the castle, or palace, of Mediana, only three miles
from Naissus, they executed the solemn and final division of the
Roman empire. ^32 Valentinian bestowed on his brother the rich
praefecture of the East, from the Lower Danube to the confines of
Persia; whilst he reserved for his immediate government the
warlike ^* praefectures of Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, from the
extremity of Greece to the Caledonian rampart, and from the
rampart of Caledonia to the foot of Mount Atlas. The provincial
administration remained on its former basis; but a double supply
of generals and magistrates was required for two councils, and
two courts: the division was made with a just regard to their
peculiar merit and situation, and seven master-generals were soon
created, either of the cavalry or infantry. When this important
business had been amicably transacted, Valentinian and Valens
embraced for the last time. The emperor of the West established
his temporary residence at Milan; and the emperor of the East
returned to Constantinople, to assume the dominion of fifty
provinces, of whose language he was totally ignorant. ^33
[Footnote 29: Notwithstanding the evidence of Zonaras, Suidas,
and the Paschal Chronicle, M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 671) wishes to disbelieve those stories, si
avantageuses a un payen.]
[Footnote 30: Eunapius celebrates and exaggerates the sufferings
of Maximus. (p. 82, 83;) yet he allows that the sophist or
magician, the guilty favorite of Julian, and the personal enemy
of Valentinian, was dismissed on the payment of a small fine.]
[Footnote 31: The loose assertions of a general disgrace
(Zosimus, l. iv. p. 201, are detected and refuted by Tillemont,
(tom. v. p. 21.)]
[Footnote 32: Ammianus, xxvi. 5.]
[Footnote *: Ipae supra impacati Rhen semibarbaras ripas raptim
vexilla constituens * * Princeps creatus ad difficilem militiam
revertisti. Symm. Orat. 81. - M.]
[Footnote 33: Ammianus says, in general terms, subagrestis
ingenii, nec bellicis nec liberalibus studiis eruditus. Ammian.
xxxi. 14. The orator Themistius, with the genuine impertinence
of a Greek, wishes for the first time to speak the Latin
language, the dialect of his sovereign. Orat. vi. p. 71.]
The tranquility of the East was soon disturbed by rebellion;
and the throne of Valens was threatened by the daring attempts of
a rival whose affinity to the emperor Julian ^34 was his sole
merit, and had been his only crime. Procopius had been hastily
promoted from the obscure station of a tribune, and a notary, to
the joint command of the army of Mesopotamia; the public opinion
already named him as the successor of a prince who was destitute
of natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated by his friends,
or his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at
Carrhae, had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial
purple. ^35 He endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive
behavior, to disarm the jealousy of Jovian; resigned, without a
contest, his military command; and retired, with his wife and
family, to cultivate the ample patrimony which he possessed in
the province of Cappadocia. These useful and innocent
occupations were interrupted by the appearance of an officer with
a band of soldiers, who, in the name of his new sovereigns,
Valentinian and Valens, was despatched to conduct the unfortunate
Procopius either to a perpetual prison or an ignominious death.
His presence of mind procured him a longer respite, and a more
splendid fate. Without presuming to dispute the royal mandate,
he requested the indulgence of a few moments to embrace his
weeping family; and while the vigilance of his guards was relaxed
by a plentiful entertainment, he dexterously escaped to the
sea-coast of the Euxine, from whence he passed over to the
country of Bosphorus. In that sequestered region he remained
many months, exposed to the hardships of exile, of solitude, and
of want; his melancholy temper brooding over his misfortunes, and
his mind agitated by the just apprehension, that, if any accident
should discover his name, the faithless Barbarians would violate,
without much scruple, the laws of hospitality. In a moment of
impatience and despair, Procopius embarked in a merchant vessel,
which made sail for Constantinople; and boldly aspired to the
rank of a sovereign, because he was not allowed to enjoy the
security of a subject. At first he lurked in the villages of
Bithynia, continually changing his habitation and his disguise.
^36 By degrees he ventured into the capital, trusted his life and
fortune to the fidelity of two friends, a senator and a eunuch,
and conceived some hopes of success, from the intelligence which
he obtained of the actual state of public affairs. The body of
the people was infected with a spirit of discontent: they
regretted the justice and the abilities of Sallust, who had been
imprudently dismissed from the praefecture of the East. They
despised the character of Valens, which was rude without vigor,
and feeble without mildness. They dreaded the influence of his
father-in- law, the patrician Petronius, a cruel and rapacious
minister, who rigorously exacted all the arrears of tribute that
might remain unpaid since the reign of the emperor Aurelian. The
circumstances were propitious to the designs of a usurper. The
hostile measures of the Persians required the presence of Valens
in Syria: from the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were in
motion; and the capital was occasionally filled with the soldiers
who passed or repassed the Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of
Gaul were persuaded to listen to the secret proposals of the
conspirators; which were recommended by the promise of a liberal
donative; and, as they still revered the memory of Julian, they
easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his
proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near
the baths of Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple
garment, more suitable to a player than to a monarch, appeared,
as if he rose from the dead, in the midst of Constantinople. The
soldiers, who were prepared for his reception, saluted their
trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows of fidelity. Their
numbers were soon increased by a band of sturdy peasants,
collected from the adjacent country; and Procopius, shielded by
the arms of his adherents, was successively conducted to the
tribunal, the senate, and the palace. During the first moments
of his tumultuous reign, he was astonished and terrified by the
gloomy silence of the people; who were either ignorant of the
cause, or apprehensive of the event. But his military strength
was superior to any actual resistance: the malecontents flocked
to the standard of rebellion; the poor were excited by the hopes,
and the rich were intimidated by the fear, of a general pillage;
and the obstinate credulity of the multitude was once more
deceived by the promised advantages of a revolution. The
magistrates were seized; the prisons and arsenals broke open; the
gates, and the entrance of the harbor, were diligently occupied;
and, in a few hours, Procopius became the absolute, though
precarious, master of the Imperial city. ^* The usurper improved
this unexpected success with some degree of courage and
dexterity. He artfully propagated the rumors and opinions the
most favorable to his interest; while he deluded the populace by
giving audience to the frequent, but imaginary, ambassadors of
distant nations. The large bodies of troops stationed in the
cities of Thrace and the fortresses of the Lower Danube, were
gradually involved in the guilt of rebellion: and the Gothic
princes consented to supply the sovereign of Constantinople with
the formidable strength of several thousand auxiliaries. His
generals passed the Bosphorus, and subdued, without an effort,
the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of Bithynia and Asia. After an
honorable defence, the city and island of Cyzicus yielded to his
power; the renowned legions of the Jovians and Herculeans
embraced the cause of the usurper, whom they were ordered to
crush; and, as the veterans were continually augmented with new
levies, he soon appeared at the head of an army, whose valor, as
well as numbers, were not unequal to the greatness of the
contest. The son of Hormisdas, ^37 a youth of spirit and
ability, condescended to draw his sword against the lawful
emperor of the East; and the Persian prince was immediately
invested with the ancient and extraordinary powers of a Roman
Proconsul. The alliance of Faustina, the widow of the emperor
Constantius, who intrusted herself and her daughter to the hands
of the usurper, added dignity and reputation to his cause. The
princess Constantia, who was then about five years of age,
accompanied, in a litter, the march of the army. She was shown to
the multitude in the arms of her adopted father; and, as often as
she passed through the ranks, the tenderness of the soldiers was
inflamed into martial fury: ^38 they recollected the glories of
the house of Constantine, and they declared, with loyal
acclamation, that they would shed the last drop of their blood in
the defence of the royal infant. ^39
[Footnote 34: The uncertain degree of alliance, or consanguinity,
is expressed by the words, cognatus, consobrinus, (see Valesius
ad Ammian. xxiii. 3.) The mother of Procopius might be a sister
of Basilina and Count Julian, the mother and uncle of the
Apostate. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 49.]
[Footnote 35: Ammian. xxiii. 3, xxvi. 6. He mentions the report
with much hesitation: susurravit obscurior fama; nemo enim dicti
auctor exstitit verus. It serves, however, to remark, that
Procopius was a Pagan. Yet his religion does not appear to have
promoted, or obstructed, his pretensions.]
[Footnote 36: One of his retreats was a country-house of
Eunomius, the heretic. The master was absent, innocent,
ignorant; yet he narrowly escaped a sentence of death, and was
banished into the remote parts of Mauritania, (Philostorg. l. ix.
c. 5, 8, and Godefroy's Dissert. p. 369- 378.)]
[Footnote *: It may be suspected, from a fragment of Eunapius,
that the heathen and philosophic party espoused the cause of
Procopius. Heraclius, the Cynic, a man who had been honored by a
philosophic controversy with Julian, striking the ground with his
staff, incited him to courage with the line of Homer Eunapius.
Mai, p. 207 or in Niebuhr's edition, p. 73. - M.]
[Footnote 37: Hormisdae maturo juveni Hormisdae regalis illius
filio, potestatem Proconsulis detulit; et civilia, more veterum,
et bella, recturo. Ammian. xxvi. 8. The Persian prince escaped
with honor and safety, and was afterwards (A. D. 380) restored to
the same extraordinary office of proconsul of Bithynia,
(Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 204) I am ignorant
whether the race of Sassan was propagated. I find (A. D. 514) a
pope Hormisdas; but he was a native of Frusino, in Italy, (Pagi
Brev. Pontific. tom. i. p. 247)]
[Footnote 38: The infant rebel was afterwards the wife of the
emperor Gratian but she died young, and childless. See Ducange,
Fam. Byzantin. p. 48, 59.]
[Footnote 39: Sequimini culminis summi prosapiam, was the
language of Procopius, who affected to despise the obscure birth,
and fortuitous election of the upstart Pannonian. Ammian. xxvi.
7.]
In the mean while Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by
the doubtful intelligence of the revolt of the East. ^* The
difficulties of a German was forced him to confine his immediate
care to the safety of his own dominions; and, as every channel of
communication was stopped or corrupted, he listened, with
doubtful anxiety, to the rumors which were industriously spread,
that the defeat and death of Valens had left Procopius sole
master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not dead: but on the
news of the rebellion, which he received at Caesarea, he basely
despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the
usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the
Imperial purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and
ruin by the firmness of his ministers, and their abilities soon
decided in his favor the event of the civil war. In a season of
tranquillity, Sallust had resigned without a murmur; but as soon
as the public safety was attacked, he ambitiously solicited the
preeminence of toil and danger; and the restoration of that
virtuous minister to the praefecture of the East, was the first
step which indicated the repentance of Valens, and satisfied the
minds of the people. The reign of Procopius was apparently
supported by powerful armies and obedient provinces. But many of
the principal officers, military as well as civil, had been
urged, either by motives of duty or interest, to withdraw
themselves from the guilty scene; or to watch the moment of
betraying, and deserting, the cause of the usurper. Lupicinus
advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions of Syria to the
aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and valor,
excelled all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop a
superior body of the rebels. When he beheld the faces of the
soldiers who had served under his banner, he commanded them, with
a loud voice, to seize and deliver up their pretended leader; and
such was the ascendant of his genius, that this extraordinary
order was instantly obeyed. ^40 Arbetio, a respectable veteran of
the great Constantine, who had been distinguished by the honors
of the consulship, was persuaded to leave his retirement, and
once more to conduct an army into the field. In the heat of
action, calmly taking off his helmet, he showed his gray hairs
and venerable countenance: saluted the soldiers of Procopius by
the endearing names of children and companions, and exhorted them
no longer to support the desperate cause of a contemptible
tyrant; but to follow their old commander, who had so often led
them to honor and victory. In the two engagements of Thyatira
^41 and Nacolia, the unfortunate Procopius was deserted by his
troops, who were seduced by the instructions and example of their
perfidious officers. After wandering some time among the woods
and mountains of Phyrgia, he was betrayed by his desponding
followers, conducted to the Imperial camp, and immediately
beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate of an unsuccessful
usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by the
conqueror, under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and
indignation of mankind. ^42
[Footnote *: Symmachus describes his embarrassment. "The Germans
are the common enemies of the state, Procopius the private foe of
the Emperor; his first care must be victory, his second revenge."
Symm. Orat. p. 11. - M.]
[Footnote 40: Et dedignatus hominem superare certamine
despicabilem, auctoritatis et celsi fiducia corporis ipsis
hostibus jussit, suum vincire rectorem: atque ita turmarum,
antesignanus umbratilis comprensus suorum manibus. The strength
and beauty of Arintheus, the new Hercules, are celebrated by St.
Basil, who supposed that God had created him as an inimitable
model of the human species. The painters and sculptors could not
express his figure: the historians appeared fabulous when they
related his exploits, (Ammian. xxvi. and Vales. ad loc.)]
[Footnote 41: The same field of battle is placed by Ammianus in
Lycia, and by Zosimus at Thyatira, which are at the distance of
150 miles from each other. But Thyatira alluitur Lyco, (Plin.
Hist. Natur. v. 31, Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 79;)
and the transcribers might easily convert an obscure river into a
well-known province.
Note: Ammianus and Zosimus place the last battle at Nacolia
in Phrygia; Ammianus altogether omits the former battle near
Thyatira. Procopius was on his march (iter tendebat) towards
Lycia. See Wagner's note, in c. - M.]
[Footnote 42: The adventures, usurpation, and fall of Procopius,
are related, in a regular series, by Ammianus, (xxvi. 6, 7, 8, 9,
10,) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 203-210.) They often illustrate, and
seldom contradict, each other. Themistius (Orat. vii. p. 91, 92)
adds some base panegyric; and Euna pius (p. 83, 84) some
malicious satire.]
[Footnote !: Symmachus joins with Themistius in praising the
clemency of Valens dic victoriae moderatus est, quasi contra se
nemo pugnavit. Symm. Orat. p. 12. - M.]
Such indeed are the common and natural fruits of despotism
and rebellion. But the inquisition into the crime of magic, ^!!
which, under the reign of the two brothers, was so rigorously
prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal
symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or of the depravity
of mankind. ^43 Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal pride,
that, in the present age, the enlightened part of Europe has
abolished ^44 a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in
every climate of the globe, and adhered to every system of
religious opinions. ^45 The nations, and the sects, of the Roman
world, admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the
reality of that infernal art, ^46 which was able to control the
eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the
human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and
incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could
extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul,
blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant
daemons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest
inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of
earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of
malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers,
who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. ^47 The
arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion, and
by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most
imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually
proscribed, and continually practised. ^48 An imaginary cause as
capable of producing the most serious and mischievous effects.
The dark predictions of the death of an emperor, or the success
of a conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate the hopes of
ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity; and the
intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of
treason and sacrilege. ^49 Such vain terrors disturbed the peace
of society, and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless
flame which insensibly melted a waxen image, might derive a
powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the
person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. ^50 From
the infusion of those herbs, which were supposed to possess a
supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the use of more
substantial poison; and the folly of mankind sometimes became the
instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious crimes. As soon
as the zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of
Valens and Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to
another charge, too frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic
guilt; a charge of a softer and less malignant nature, for which
the pious, though excessive, rigor of Constantine had recently
decreed the punishment of death. ^51 This deadly and incoherent
mixture of treason and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded
infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and
aggravation, which in these proceedings appear to have been
confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges. They
easily discovered that the degree of their industry and
discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to
the number of executions that were furnished from the respective
tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they
pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted
such evidence as was stained with perjury, or procured by
torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most
respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually
opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious
informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity;
but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended
accomplices, were seldom permitted to receive the price of his
infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the
aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and
Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in
ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who were appointed
to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and
indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the
flight, or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The
wealthiest families were ruined by fines and confiscations; the
most innocent citizens trembled for their safety; and we may form
some notion of the magnitude of the evil, from the extravagant
assertion of an ancient writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces,
the prisoners, the exiles, and the fugitives, formed the greatest
part of the inhabitants. ^52
[Footnote !!: This infamous inquisition into sorcery and
witchcraft has been of greater influence on human affairs than is
commonly supposed. The persecutions against philosophers and
their libraries was carried on with so much fury, that from this
time (A. D. 374) the names of the Gentile philosophers became
almost extinct; and the Christian philosophy and religion,
particularly in the East, established their ascendency. I am
surprised that Gibbon has not made this observation. Heyne, Note
on Zosimus, l. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides vast heaps of manuscripts
publicly destroyed throughout the East, men of letters burned
their whole libraries, lest some fatal volume should expose them
to the malice of the informers and the extreme penalty of the
law. Amm. Marc. xxix. 11. - M.]
[Footnote 43: Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. ix. p. 158,
159. The sophist deplores the public frenzy, but he does not
(after their deaths) impeach the justice of the emperors.]
[Footnote 44: The French and English lawyers, of the present age,
allow the theory, and deny the practice, of witchcraft,
(Denisart, Recueil de Decisions de Jurisprudence, au mot
Sorciers, tom. iv. p. 553. Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv.
p. 60.) As private reason always prevents, or outstrips, public
wisdom, the president Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 5,
6) rejects the existence of magic.]
[Footnote 45: See Oeuvres de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 567-589. The
sceptic of Rotterdam exhibits, according to his custom, a strange
medley of loose knowledge and lively wit.]
[Footnote 46: The Pagans distinguished between good and bad
magic, the Theurgic and the Goetic, (Hist. de l'Academie, &c.,
tom. vii. p. 25.) But they could not have defended this obscure
distinction against the acute logic of Bayle. In the Jewish and
Christian system, all daemons are infernal spirits; and all
commerce with them is idolatry, apostasy &c., which deserves
death and damnation.]
[Footnote 47: The Canidia of Horace (Carm. l. v. Od. 5, with
Dacier's and Sanadon's illustrations) is a vulgar witch. The
Erictho of Lucan (Pharsal. vi. 430-830) is tedious, disgusting,
but sometimes sublime. She chides the delay of the Furies, and
threatens, with tremendous obscurity, to pronounce their real
names; to reveal the true infernal countenance of Hecate; to
invoke the secret powers that lie below hell, &c.]
[Footnote 48: Genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus
fallax, quod in civitate nostra et vetabitur semper et
retinebitur. Tacit. Hist. i. 22. See Augustin. de Civitate Dei,
l. viii. c. 19, and the Theodosian Code l. ix. tit. xvi., with
Godefroy's Commentary.]
[Footnote 49: The persecution of Antioch was occasioned by a
criminal consultation. The twenty-four letters of the alphabet
were arranged round a magic tripod: and a dancing ring, which had
been placed in the centre, pointed to the four first letters in
the name of the future emperor, O. E. O Triangle. Theodorus
(perhaps with many others, who owned the fatal syllables) was
executed. Theodosius succeeded. Lardner (Heathen Testimonies,
vol. iv. p. 353-372) has copiously and fairly examined this dark
transaction of the reign of Valens.]
[Footnote 50: Limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit
Uno eodemque igni - Virgil. Bucolic. viii. 80.
Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea figit.
Ovid. in Epist. Hypsil. ad Jason 91.
Such vain incantations could affect the mind, and increase the
disease of Germanicus. Tacit. Annal. ii. 69.]
[Footnote 51: See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. ii.
p. 353, &c. Cod. Theodosian. l. ix. tit. 7, with Godefroy's
Commentary.]
[Footnote 52: The cruel persecution of Rome and Antioch is
described, and most probably exaggerated, by Ammianus (xxvii. 1.
xxix. 1, 2) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 216-218.) The philosopher
Maximus, with some justice, was involved in the charge of magic,
(Eunapius in Vit. Sophist. p. 88, 89;) and young Chrysostom, who
had accidentally found one of the proscribed books, gave himself
up for lost, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 340.)]
When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and
illustrious Romans, who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the
first Caesars, the art of the historian, or the merit of the
sufferers, excites in our breast the most lively sensations of
terror, of admiration, and of pity. The coarse and
undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody
figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy. But as our
attention is no longer engaged by the contrast of freedom and
servitude, of recent greatness and of actual misery, we should
turn with horror from the frequent executions, which disgraced,
both at Rome and Antioch, the reign of the two brothers. ^53
Valens was of a timid, ^54 and Valentinian of a choleric,
disposition. ^55 An anxious regard to his personal safety was the
ruling principle of the administration of Valens. In the
condition of a subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe, the
hand of the oppressor; and when he ascended the throne, he
reasonably expected, that the same fears, which had subdued his
own mind, would secure the patient submission of his people. The
favorites of Valens obtained, by the privilege of rapine and
confiscation, the wealth which his economy would have refused.
^56 They urged, with persuasive eloquence, that, in all cases of
treason, suspicion is equivalent to proof; that the power
supposes the intention, of mischief; that the intention is not
less criminal than the act; and that a subject no longer deserves
to live, if his life may threaten the safety, or disturb the
repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was
sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused; but he would have
silenced the informers with a contemptuous smile, had they
presumed to alarm his fortitude by the sound of danger. They
praised his inflexible love of justice; and, in the pursuit of
justice, the emperor was easily tempted to consider clemency as a
weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he wrestled with
his equals, in the bold competition of an active and ambitious
life, Valentinian was seldom injured, and never insulted, with
impunity: if his prudence was arraigned, his spirit was
applauded; and the proudest and most powerful generals were
apprehensive of provoking the resentment of a fearless soldier.
After he became master of the world, he unfortunately forgot,
that where no resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted;
and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and magnanimity,
he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time when
they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless
objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household,
or of his empire, slight, or even imaginary, offences - a hasty
word, a casual omission, an involuntary delay - were chastised by
a sentence of immediate death. The expressions which issued the
most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were,
"Strike off his head;" "Burn him alive;" "Let him be beaten with
clubs till he expires;" ^57 and his most favored ministers soon
understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or suspend, the
execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve
themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The
repeated gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind
of Valentinian against pity and remorse; and the sallies of
passion were confirmed by the habits of cruelty. ^58 He could
behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture
and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants
whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of
Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was
rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul.
Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations
of Innocence, and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the
favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always
placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused
his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and
devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned
to their rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected
by the Roman emperor; and when Innocence had earned her
discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the faithful
animal was again restored to the freedom of her native woods. ^59
[Footnote 53: Consult the six last books of Ammianus, and more
particularly the portraits of the two royal brothers, (xxx. 8, 9,
xxxi. 14.) Tillemont has collected (tom. v. p. 12-18, p. 127-133)
from all antiquity their virtues and vices.]
[Footnote 54: The younger Victor asserts, that he was valde
timidus: yet he behaved, as almost every man would do, with
decent resolution at the head of an army. The same historian
attempts to prove that his anger was harmless. Ammianus observes,
with more candor and judgment, incidentia crimina ad contemptam
vel laesam principis amplitudinem trahens, in sanguinem
saeviebat.]
[Footnote 55: Cum esset ad acerbitatem naturae calore propensior.
. poenas perignes augebat et gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See
xxvii. 7]
[Footnote 56: I have transferred the reproach of avarice from
Valens to his servant. Avarice more properly belongs to
ministers than to kings; in whom that passion is commonly
extinguished by absolute possession.]
[Footnote 57: He sometimes expressed a sentence of death with a
tone of pleasantry: "Abi, Comes, et muta ei caput, qui sibi
mutari provinciam cupit." A boy, who had slipped too hastily a
Spartan bound; an armorer, who had made a polished cuirass that
wanted some grains of the legitimate weight, &c., were the
victims of his fury.]
[Footnote 58: The innocents of Milan were an agent and three
apparitors, whom Valentinian condemned for signifying a legal
summons. Ammianus (xxvii. 7) strangely supposes, that all who
had been unjustly executed were worshipped as martyrs by the
Christians. His impartial silence does not allow us to believe,
that the great chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt alive for an act of
oppression, (Chron. Paschal. p. 392.)
Note: Ammianus does not say that they were worshipped as
martyrs. Onorum memoriam apud Mediolanum colentes nunc usque
Christiani loculos ubi sepulti sunt, ad innocentes appellant.
Wagner's note in loco. Yet if the next paragraph refers to that
transaction, which is not quite clear. Gibbon is right. - M.]
[Footnote 59: Ut bene meritam in sylvas jussit abire Innoxiam.
Ammian. xxix. and Valesius ad locum.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part III.
But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of
Valens was not agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage,
the tyrant resumed the sentiments, or at least the conduct, of
the father of his country. The dispassionate judgment of the
Western emperor could clearly perceive, and accurately pursue,
his own and the public interest; and the sovereign of the East,
who imitated with equal docility the various examples which he
received from his elder brother, was sometimes guided by the
wisdom and virtue of the praefect Sallust. Both princes
invariably retained, in the purple, the chaste and temperate
simplicity which had adorned their private life; and, under their
reign, the pleasures of the court never cost the people a blush
or a sigh. They gradually reformed many of the abuses of the
times of Constantius; judiciously adopted and improved the
designs of Julian and his successor; and displayed a style and
spirit of legislation which might inspire posterity with the most
favorable opinion of their character and government. It is not
from the master of Innocence, that we should expect the tender
regard for the welfare of his subjects, which prompted
Valentinian to condemn the exposition of new-born infants; ^60
and to establish fourteen skilful physicians, with stipends and
privileges, in the fourteen quarters of Rome. The good sense of
an illiterate soldier founded a useful and liberal institution
for the education of youth, and the support of declining science.
^61 It was his intention, that the arts of rhetoric and grammar
should be taught in the Greek and Latin languages, in the
metropolis of every province; and as the size and dignity of the
school was usually proportioned to the importance of the city,
the academies of Rome and Constantinople claimed a just and
singular preeminence. The fragments of the literary edicts of
Valentinian imperfectly represent the school of Constantinople,
which was gradually improved by subsequent regulations. That
school consisted of thirty-one professors in different branches
of learning. One philosopher, and two lawyers; five sophists,
and ten grammarians for the Greek, and three orators, and ten
grammarians for the Latin tongue; besides seven scribes, or, as
they were then styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens
supplied the public library with fair and correct copies of the
classic writers. The rule of conduct, which was prescribed to the
students, is the more curious, as it affords the first outlines
of the form and discipline of a modern university. It was
required, that they should bring proper certificates from the
magistrates of their native province. Their names, professions,
and places of abode, were regularly entered in a public register.
The studious youth were severely prohibited from wasting their
time in feasts, or in the theatre; and the term of their
education was limited to the age of twenty. The praefect of the
city was empowered to chastise the idle and refractory by stripes
or expulsion; and he was directed to make an annual report to the
master of the offices, that the knowledge and abilities of the
scholars might be usefully applied to the public service. The
institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the benefits of
peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the
establishment of the Defensors; ^62 freely elected as the
tribunes and advocates of the people, to support their rights,
and to expose their grievances, before the tribunals of the civil
magistrates, or even at the foot of the Imperial throne. The
finances were diligently administered by two princes, who had
been so long accustomed to the rigid economy of a private
fortune; but in the receipt and application of the revenue, a
discerning eye might observe some difference between the
government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded,
that royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression,
and his ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual
distress, the future strength and prosperity of his people.
Instead of increasing the weight of taxes, which, in the space of
forty years, had been gradually doubled, he reduced, in the first
years of his reign, one fourth of the tribute of the East. ^63
Valentinian appears to have been less attentive and less anxious
to relieve the burdens of his people. He might reform the abuses
of the fiscal administration; but he exacted, without scruple, a
very large share of the private property; as he was convinced,
that the revenues, which supported the luxury of individuals,
would be much more advantageously employed for the defence and
improvement of the state. The subjects of the East, who enjoyed
the present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their prince.
The solid but less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and
acknowledged by the subsequent generation. ^64
[Footnote 60: See the Code of Justinian, l. viii. tit. lii. leg.
2. Unusquisque sabolem suam nutriat. Quod si exponendam
putaverit animadversioni quae constituta est subjacebit. For the
present I shall not interfere in the dispute between Noodt and
Binkershoek; how far, or how long this unnatural practice had
been condemned or abolished by law philosophy, and the more
civilized state of society.]
[Footnote 61: These salutary institutions are explained in the
Theodosian Code, l. xiii. tit. iii. De Professoribus et Medicis,
and l. xiv. tit. ix. De Studiis liberalibus Urbis Romoe. Besides
our usual guide, (Godefroy,) we may consult Giannone, (Istoria di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 105-111,) who has treated the interesting
subject with the zeal and curiosity of a man of latters who
studies his domestic history.]
[Footnote 62: Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. xi. with Godefroy's
Paratitlon, which diligently gleans from the rest of the code.]
[Footnote 63: Three lines of Ammianus (xxxi. 14) countenance a
whole oration of Themistius, (viii. p. 101-120,) full of
adulation, pedantry, and common-place morality. The eloquent M.
Thomas (tom. i. p. 366-396) has amused himself with celebrating
the virtues and genius of Themistius, who was not unworthy of the
age in which he lived.]
[Footnote 64: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 202. Ammian. xxx. 9. His
reformation of costly abuses might entitle him to the praise of,
in provinciales admodum parcus, tributorum ubique molliens
sarcinas. By some his frugality was styled avarice, (Jerom.
Chron. p. 186)]
But the most honorable circumstance of the character of
Valentinian, is the firm and temperate impartiality which he
uniformly preserved in an age of religious contention. His
strong sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined,
with respectful indifference, the subtle questions of theological
debate. The government of the Earth claimed his vigilance, and
satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered that he was the
disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the sovereign
of the clergy. Under the reign of an apostate, he had signalized
his zeal for the honor of Christianity: he allowed to his
subjects the privilege which he had assumed for himself; and they
might accept, with gratitude and confidence, the general
toleration which was granted by a prince addicted to passion, but
incapable of fear or of disguise. ^65 The Pagans, the Jews, and
all the various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of
Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or
popular insult; nor was any mode of worship prohibited by
Valentinian, except those secret and criminal practices, which
abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of vice and
disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly punished, was
more strictly proscribed: but the emperor admitted a formal
distinction to protect the ancient methods of divination, which
were approved by the senate, and exercised by the Tuscan
haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the most
rational Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he
immediately admitted the petition of Praetextatus, proconsul of
Achaia, who represented, that the life of the Greeks would become
dreary and comfortless, if they were deprived of the invaluable
blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries. Philosophy alone can
boast, (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy,)
that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the
latent and deadly principle of fanaticism. But this truce of
twelve years, which was enforced by the wise and vigorous
government of Valentinian, by suspending the repetition of mutual
injuries, contributed to soften the manners, and abate the
prejudices, of the religious factions.
[Footnote 65: Testes sunt leges a me in exordio Imperii mei
datae; quibus unicuique quod animo imbibisset colendi libera
facultas tributa est. Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit. xvi. leg. 9. To
this declaration of Valentinian, we may add the various
testimonies of Ammianus, (xxx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 204,) and
Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 7, 21.) Baronius would naturally blame such
rational toleration, (Annal. Eccles A. D. 370, No. 129-132, A. D.
376, No. 3, 4.)]
[Footnote *: Comme il s'etait prescrit pour regle de ne point se
meler de disputes de religion, son histoire est presque
entierement degagee des affaires ecclesiastiques. Le Beau. iii.
214. - M.]
The friend of toleration was unfortunately placed at a
distance from the scene of the fiercest controversies. As soon
as the Christians of the West had extricated themselves from the
snares of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the
slumber of orthodoxy; and the small remains of the Arian party,
that still subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, might be considered
rather as objects of contempt than of resentment. But in the
provinces of the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of
Thebais, the strength and numbers of the hostile factions were
more equally balanced; and this equality, instead of recommending
the counsels of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of
religious war. The monks and bishops supported their arguments
by invectives; and their invectives were sometimes followed by
blows. Athanasius still reigned at Alexandria; the thrones of
Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and
every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult.
The Homoousians were fortified by the reconciliation of
fifty-nine Macelonian, or Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret
reluctance to embrace the divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the
splendor of the triumph; and the declaration of Valens, who, in
the first years of his reign, had imitated the impartial conduct
of his brother, was an important victory on the side of Arianism.
The two brothers had passed their private life in the condition
of catechumens; but the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit
the sacrament of baptism, before he exposed his person to the
dangers of a Gothic war. He naturally addressed himself to
Eudoxus, ^66 ^* bishop of the Imperial city; and if the ignorant
monarch was instructed by that Arian pastor in the principles of
heterodox theology, his misfortune, rather than his guilt, was
the inevitable consequence of his erroneous choice. Whatever had
been the determination of the emperor, he must have offended a
numerous party of his Christian subjects; as the leaders both of
the Homoousians and of the Arians believed, that, if they were
not suffered to reign, they were most cruelly injured and
oppressed. After he had taken this decisive step, it was
extremely difficult for him to preserve either the virtue, or the
reputation of impartiality. He never aspired, like Constantius,
to the fame of a profound theologian; but as he had received with
simplicity and respect the tenets of Euxodus, Valens resigned his
conscience to the direction of his ecclesiastical guides, and
promoted, by the influence of his authority, the reunion of the
Athanasian heretics to the body of the Catholic church. At
first, he pitied their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at
their obstinacy; and he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom
he was an object of hatred. ^67 The feeble mind of Valens was
always swayed by the persons with whom he familiarly conversed;
and the exile or imprisonment of a private citizen are the favors
the most readily granted in a despotic court. Such punishments
were frequently inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian party;
and the misfortune of fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople,
who, perhaps accidentally, were burned on shipboard, was imputed
to the cruel and premeditated malice of the emperor, and his
Arian ministers. In every contest, the Catholics (if we may
anticipate that name) were obliged to pay the penalty of their
own faults, and of those of their adversaries. In every
election, the claims of the Arian candidate obtained the
preference; and if they were opposed by the majority of the
people, he was usually supported by the authority of the civil
magistrate, or even by the terrors of a military force. The
enemies of Athanasius attempted to disturb the last years of his
venerable age; and his temporary retreat to his father's
sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth exile. But the zeal of
a great people, who instantly flew to arms, intimidated the
praefect: and the archbishop was permitted to end his life in
peace and in glory, after a reign of forty-seven years. The
death of Athanasius was the signal of the persecution of Egypt;
and the Pagan minister of Valens, who forcibly seated the
worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal throne, purchased the
favor of the reigning party, by the blood and sufferings of their
Christian brethren. The free toleration of the heathen and
Jewish worship was bitterly lamented, as a circumstance which
aggravated the misery of the Catholics, and the guilt of the
impious tyrant of the East. ^68
[Footnote 66: Eudoxus was of a mild and timid disposition. When
he baptized Valens, (A. D. 367,) he must have been extremely old;
since he had studied theology fifty-five years before, under
Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 14-16,
l. iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, p 82, 206, and Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. v. p. 471-480, &c.]
[Footnote *: Through the influence of his wife say the
ecclesiastical writers. - M.]
[Footnote 67: Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxv. p. 432) insults the
persecuting spirit of the Arians, as an infallible symptom of
error and heresy.]
[Footnote 68: This sketch of the ecclesiastical government of
Valens is drawn from Socrates, (l. iv.,) Sozomen, (l. vi.,)
Theodoret, (l. iv.,) and the immense compilations of Tillemont,
(particularly tom. vi. viii. and ix.)]
The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of
persecution on the memory of Valens; and the character of a
prince who derived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a
feeble understanding and a pusillanimous temper, scarcely
deserves the labor of an apology. Yet candor may discover some
reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical ministers of Valens
often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of their
master; and that the real measure of facts has been very
liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy
credulity of his antagonists. ^69 1. The silence of Valentinian
may suggest a probable argument that the partial severities,
which were exercised in the name and provinces of his colleague,
amounted only to some obscure and inconsiderable deviations from
the established system of religious toleration: and the judicious
historian, who has praised the equal temper of the elder brother,
has not thought himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of
the West with the cruel persecution of the East. ^70 2. Whatever
credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the
character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most
distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent
Basil, archbishop of Caesarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in
the management of the Trinitarian cause. ^71 The circumstantial
narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers of Basil;
and as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric and
miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the
Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or was
apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the
province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with
inflexible pride, ^72 the truth of his opinions, and the dignity
of his rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience
and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted at the solemn
service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of
banishment, subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the
use of a hospital, which Basil had lately founded in the
neighborhood of Caesarea. ^73 3. I am not able to discover, that
any law (such as Theodosius afterwards enacted against the
Arians) was published by Valens against the Athanasian sectaries;
and the edict which excited the most violent clamors, may not
appear so extremely reprehensible. The emperor had observed,
that several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy disposition
under the pretence of religion, had associated themselves with
the monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of the East to drag
them from their solitude; and to compel these deserters of
society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their
temporal possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men
and citizens. ^74 The ministers of Valens seem to have extended
the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of
enlisting the young and ablebodied monks in the Imperial armies.
A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three
thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of
Nitria, ^75 which was peopled by five thousand monks. The
soldiers were conducted by Arian priests; and it is reported,
that a considerable slaughter was made in the monasteries which
disobeyed the commands of their sovereign. ^76
[Footnote 69: Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
iv. p. 78) has already conceived and intimated the same
suspicion.]
[Footnote 70: This reflection is so obvious and forcible, that
Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, 33,) delays the persecution till after
the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other hand, supposes,
(l. iii. c. 32,) that it was appeased by a philosophical oration,
which Themistius pronounced in the year 374, (Orat. xii. p. 154,
in Latin only.) Such contradictions diminish the evidence, and
reduce the term, of the persecution of Valens.]
[Footnote 71: Tillemont, whom I follow and abridge, has extracted
(Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 153-167) the most authentic
circumstances from the Panegyrics of the two Gregories; the
brother, and the friend, of Basil. The letters of Basil himself
(Dupin, Bibliotheque, Ecclesiastique, tom. ii. p. 155-180) do not
present the image of a very lively persecution.]
[Footnote 72: Basilius Caesariensis episcopus Cappadociae clarus
habetur ... qui multa continentiae et ingenii bona uno superbiae
malo perdidit. This irreverent passage is perfectly in the style
and character of St. Jerom. It does not appear in Scaliger's
edition of his Chronicle; but Isaac Vossius found it in some old
Mss. which had not been reformed by the monks.]
[Footnote 73: This noble and charitable foundation (almost a new
city) surpassed in merit, if not in greatness, the pyramids, or
the walls of Babylon. It was principally intended for the
reception of lepers, (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. xx. p. 439.)]
[Footnote 74: Cod. Theodos. l. xii. tit. i. leg. 63. Godefroy
(tom. iv. p. 409-413) performs the duty of a commentator and
advocate. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 808) supposes a
second law to excuse his orthodox friends, who had misrepresented
the edict of Valens, and suppressed the liberty of choice.]
[Footnote 75: See D'Anville, Description de l'Egypte, p. 74.
Hereafter I shall consider the monastic institutions.]
[Footnote 76: Socrates, l. iv. c. 24, 25. Orosius, l. vii. c.
33. Jerom. in Chron. p. 189, and tom. ii. p. 212. The monks of
Egypt performed many miracles, which prove the truth of their
faith. Right, says Jortin, (Remarks, vol iv. p. 79,) but what
proves the truth of those miracles.]
The strict regulations which have been framed by the wisdom
of modern legislators to restrain the wealth and avarice of the
clergy, may be originally deduced from the example of the emperor
Valentinian. His edict, ^77 addressed to Damasus, bishop of
Rome, was publicly read in the churches of the city. He
admonished the ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses
of widows and virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the
animadversion of the civil judge. The director was no longer
permitted to receive any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from
the liberality of his spiritual-daughter: every testament
contrary to this edict was declared null and void; and the
illegal donation was confiscated for the use of the treasury. By
a subsequent regulation, it should seem, that the same provisions
were extended to nuns and bishops; and that all persons of the
ecclesiastical order were rendered incapable of receiving any
testamentary gifts, and strictly confined to the natural and
legal rights of inheritance. As the guardian of domestic
happiness and virtue, Valentinian applied this severe remedy to
the growing evil. In the capital of the empire, the females of
noble and opulent houses possessed a very ample share of
independent property: and many of those devout females had
embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not only with the cold
assent of the understanding, but with the warmth of affection,
and perhaps with the eagerness of fashion. They sacrificed the
pleasures of dress and luxury; and renounced, for the praise of
chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal society. Some
ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was chosen to direct
their timorous conscience, and to amuse the vacant tenderness of
their heart: and the unbounded confidence, which they hastily
bestowed, was often abused by knaves and enthusiasts; who
hastened from the extremities of the East, to enjoy, on a
splendid theatre, the privileges of the monastic profession. By
their contempt of the world, they insensibly acquired its most
desirable advantages; the lively attachment, perhaps of a young
and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an opulent household,
and the respectful homage of the slaves, the freedmen, and the
clients of a senatorial family. The immense fortunes of the
Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish alms and expensive
pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had assigned himself the
first, or possibly the sole place, in the testament of his
spiritual daughter, still presumed to declare, with the smooth
face of hypocrisy, that he was only the instrument of charity,
and the steward of the poor. The lucrative, but disgraceful,
trade, ^78 which was exercised by the clergy to defraud the
expectations of the natural heirs, had provoked the indignation
of a superstitious age: and two of the most respectable of the
Latin fathers very honestly confess, that the ignominious edict
of Valentinian was just and necessary; and that the Christian
priests had deserved to lose a privilege, which was still enjoyed
by comedians, charioteers, and the ministers of idols. But the
wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a
contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest; and
Jerom, or Ambrose, might patiently acquiesce in the justice of an
ineffectual or salutary law. If the ecclesiastics were checked
in the pursuit of personal emolument, they would exert a more
laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church; and
dignify their covetousness with the specious names of piety and
patriotism. ^79
[Footnote 77: Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 20. Godefroy,
(tom. vi. p. 49,) after the example of Baronius, impartially
collects all that the fathers have said on the subject of this
important law; whose spirit was long afterwards revived by the
emperor Frederic II., Edward I. of England, and other Christian
princes who reigned after the twelfth century.]
[Footnote 78: The expressions which I have used are temperate and
feeble, if compared with the vehement invectives of Jerom, (tom.
i. p. 13, 45, 144, &c.) In his turn he was reproached with the
guilt which he imputed to his brother monks; and the Sceleratus,
the Versipellis, was publicly accused as the lover of the widow
Paula, (tom. ii. p. 363.) He undoubtedly possessed the affection,
both of the mother and the daughter; but he declares that he
never abused his influence to any selfish or sensual purpose.]
[Footnote 79: Pudet dicere, sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigae,
et scorta, haereditates capiunt: solis clericis ac monachis hac
lege prohibetur. Et non prohibetur a persecutoribus, sed a
principibus Christianis. Nec de lege queror; sed doleo cur
meruerimus hanc legem. Jerom (tom. i. p. 13) discreetly
insinuates the secret policy of his patron Damasus.]
Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was constrained to stigmatize
the avarice of his clergy by the publication of the law of
Valentinian, had the good sense, or the good fortune, to engage
in his service the zeal and abilities of the learned Jerom; and
the grateful saint has celebrated the merit and purity of a very
ambiguous character. ^80 But the splendid vices of the church of
Rome, under the reign of Valentinian and Damasus, have been
curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers his
impartial sense in these expressive words: "The praefecture of
Juventius was accompanied with peace and plenty, but the
tranquillity of his government was soon disturbed by a bloody
sedition of the distracted people. The ardor of Damasus and
Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary
measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of
party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of
their followers; and the praefect, unable to resist or appease
the tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into
the suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory
remained on the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven
dead bodies ^81 were found in the Basilica of Sicininus, ^82
where the Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it was
long before the angry minds of the people resumed their
accustomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the
capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize should
inflame the desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest
and most obstinate contests. The successful candidate is secure,
that he will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; ^83 that,
as soon as his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance,
he may proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of Rome; ^84
and that the sumptuousness of the Imperial table will not equal
the profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste,
and at the expense, of the Roman pontiffs. How much more
rationally (continues the honest Pagan) would those pontiffs
consult their true happiness, if, instead of alleging the
greatness of the city as an excuse for their manners, they would
imitate the exemplary life of some provincial bishops, whose
temperance and sobriety, whose mean apparel and downcast looks,
recommend their pure and modest virtue to the Deity and his true
worshippers!" ^85 The schism of Damasus and Ursinus was
extinguished by the exile of the latter; and the wisdom of the
praefect Praetextatus ^86 restored the tranquillity of the city.
Praetextatus was a philosophic Pagan, a man of learning, of
taste, and politeness; who disguised a reproach in the form of a
jest, when he assured Damasus, that if he could obtain the
bishopric of Rome, he himself would immediately embrace the
Christian religion. ^87 This lively picture of the wealth and
luxury of the popes in the fourth century becomes the more
curious, as it represents the intermediate degree between the
humble poverty of the apostolic fishermen, and the royal state of
a temporal prince, whose dominions extend from the confines of
Naples to the banks of the Po.
[Footnote 80: Three words of Jerom, sanctoe memorioe Damasus
(tom. ii. p. 109,) wash away all his stains, and blind the devout
eyes of Tillemont. (Mem Eccles. tom. viii. p. 386-424.)]
[Footnote 81: Jerom himself is forced to allow, crudelissimae
interfectiones diversi sexus perpetratae, (in Chron. p. 186.) But
an original libel, or petition of two presbyters of the adverse
party, has unaccountably escaped. They affirm that the doors of
the Basilica were burnt, and that the roof was untiled; that
Damasus marched at the head of his own clergy, grave-diggers,
charioteers, and hired gladiators; that none of his party were
killed, but that one hundred and sixty dead bodies were found.
This petition is published by the P. Sirmond, in the first volume
of his work.]
[Footnote 82: The Basilica of Sicininus, or Liberius, is probably
the church of Sancta Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline hill.
Baronius, A. D. 367 No. 3; and Donatus, Roma Antiqua et Nova, l.
iv. c. 3, p. 462.]
[Footnote 83: The enemies of Damasus styled him Auriscalpius
Matronarum the ladies' ear-scratcher.]
[Footnote 84: Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxxii. p. 526) describes
the pride and luxury of the prelates who reigned in the Imperial
cities; their gilt car, fiery steeds, numerous train, &c. The
crowd gave way as to a wild beast.]
[Footnote 85: Ammian. xxvii. 3. Perpetuo Numini, verisque ejus
cultoribus. The incomparable pliancy of a polytheist!]
[Footnote 86: Ammianus, who makes a fair report of his
praefecture (xxvii. 9) styles him praeclarae indolis,
gravitatisque senator, (xxii. 7, and Vales. ad loc.) A curious
inscription (Grutor MCII. No. 2) records, in two columns, his
religious and civil honors. In one line he was Pontiff of the
Sun, and of Vesta, Augur, Quindecemvir, Hierophant, &c., &c. In
the other, 1. Quaestor candidatus, more probably titular. 2.
Praetor. 3. Corrector of Tuscany and Umbria. 4. Consular of
Lusitania. 5. Proconsul of Achaia. 6. Praefect of Rome. 7.
Praetorian praefect of Italy. 8. Of Illyricum. 9. Consul elect;
but he died before the beginning of the year 385. See Tillemont,
Hist. des Empereurs, tom v. p. 241, 736.]
[Footnote 87: Facite me Romanae urbis episcopum; et ero protinus
Christianus (Jerom, tom. ii. p. 165.) It is more than probable
that Damasus would not have purchased his conversion at such a
price.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part IV.
When the suffrage of the generals and of the army committed
the sceptre of the Roman empire to the hands of Valentinian, his
reputation in arms, his military skill and experience, and his
rigid attachment to the forms, as well as spirit, of ancient
discipline, were the principal motives of their judicious choice.
The eagerness of the troops, who pressed him to nominate his
colleague, was justified by the dangerous situation of public
affairs; and Valentinian himself was conscious, that the
abilities of the most active mind were unequal to the defence of
the distant frontiers of an invaded monarchy. As soon as the
death of Julian had relieved the Barbarians from the terror of
his name, the most sanguine hopes of rapine and conquest excited
the nations of the East, of the North, and of the South. Their
inroads were often vexatious, and sometimes formidable; but,
during the twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, his firmness
and vigilance protected his own dominions; and his powerful
genius seemed to inspire and direct the feeble counsels of his
brother. Perhaps the method of annals would more forcibly
express the urgent and divided cares of the two emperors; but the
attention of the reader, likewise, would be distracted by a
tedious and desultory narrative. A separate view of the five
great theatres of war; I. Germany; II. Britain; III. Africa;
IV. The East; and, V. The Danube; will impress a more distinct
image of the military state of the empire under the reigns of
Valentinian and Valens.
I. The ambassadors of the Alemanni had been offended by the
harsh and haughty behavior of Ursacius, master of the offices;
^88 who by an act of unseasonable parsimony, had diminished the
value, as well as the quantity, of the presents to which they
were entitled, either from custom or treaty, on the accession of
a new emperor. They expressed, and they communicated to their
countrymen, their strong sense of the national affront. The
irascible minds of the chiefs were exasperated by the suspicion
of contempt; and the martial youth crowded to their standard.
Before Valentinian could pass the Alps, the villages of Gaul were
in flames; before his general Degalaiphus could encounter the
Alemanni, they had secured the captives and the spoil in the
forests of Germany. In the beginning of the ensuing year, the
military force of the whole nation, in deep and solid columns,
broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the severity of a
northern winter. Two Roman counts were defeated and mortally
wounded; and the standard of the Heruli and Batavians fell into
the hands of the Heruli and Batavians fell into the hands of the
conquerors, who displayed, with insulting shouts and menaces, the
trophy of their victory. The standard was recovered; but the
Batavians had not redeemed the shame of their disgrace and flight
in the eyes of their severe judge. It was the opinion of
Valentinian, that his soldiers must learn to fear their
commander, before they could cease to fear the enemy. The troops
were solemnly assembled; and the trembling Batavians were
enclosed within the circle of the Imperial army. Valentinian
then ascended his tribunal; and, as if he disdained to punish
cowardice with death, he inflicted a stain of indelible ignominy
on the officers, whose misconduct and pusillanimity were found to
be the first occasion of the defeat. The Batavians were degraded
from their rank, stripped of their arms, and condemned to be sold
for slaves to the highest bidder. At this tremendous sentence,
the troops fell prostrate on the ground, deprecated the
indignation of their sovereign, and protested, that, if he would
indulge them in another trial, they would approve themselves not
unworthy of the name of Romans, and of his soldiers. Valentinian,
with affected reluctance, yielded to their entreaties; the
Batavians resumed their arms, and with their arms, the invincible
resolution of wiping away their disgrace in the blood of the
Alemanni. ^89 The principal command was declined by Dagalaiphus;
and that experienced general, who had represented, perhaps with
too much prudence, the extreme difficulties of the undertaking,
had the mortification, before the end of the campaign, of seeing
his rival Jovinus convert those difficulties into a decisive
advantage over the scattered forces of the Barbarians. At the
head of a well-disciplined army of cavalry, infantry, and light
troops, Jovinus advanced, with cautious and rapid steps, to
Scarponna, ^90 ^* in the territory of Metz, where he surprised a
large division of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to
their arms; and flushed his soldiers with the confidence of an
easy and bloodless victory. Another division, or rather army, of
the enemy, after the cruel and wanton devastation of the adjacent
country, reposed themselves on the shady banks of the Moselle.
Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a general,
made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he
could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans.
Some were bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were
combing their long and flaxen hair; others again were swallowing
large draughts of rich and delicious wine. On a sudden they
heard the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the enemy in their
camp. Astonishment produced disorder; disorder was followed by
flight and dismay; and the confused multitude of the bravest
warriors was pierced by the swords and javelins of the
legionaries and auxiliaries. The fugitives escaped to the third,
and most considerable, camp, in the Catalonian plains, near
Chalons in Champagne: the straggling detachments were hastily
recalled to their standard; and the Barbarian chiefs, alarmed and
admonished by the fate of their companions, prepared to
encounter, in a decisive battle, the victorious forces of the
lieutenant of Valentinian. The bloody and obstinate conflict
lasted a whole summer's day, with equal valor, and with alternate
success. The Romans at length prevailed, with the loss of about
twelve hundred men. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain,
four thousand were wounded; and the brave Jovinus, after chasing
the flying remnant of their host as far as the banks of the
Rhine, returned to Paris, to receive the applause of his
sovereign, and the ensigns of the consulship for the ensuing
year. ^91 The triumph of the Romans was indeed sullied by their
treatment of the captive king, whom they hung on a gibbet,
without the knowledge of their indignant general. This
disgraceful act of cruelty, which might be imputed to the fury of
the troops, was followed by the deliberate murder of Withicab,
the son of Vadomair; a German prince, of a weak and sickly
constitution, but of a daring and formidable spirit. The
domestic assassin was instigated and protected by the Romans; ^92
and the violation of the laws of humanity and justice betrayed
their secret apprehension of the weakness of the declining
empire. The use of the dagger is seldom adopted in public
councils, as long as they retain any confidence in the power of
the sword.
[Footnote 88: Ammian, xxvi. 5. Valesius adds a long and good
note on the master of the offices.]
[Footnote 89: Ammian. xxvii. 1. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 208. The
disgrace of the Batavians is suppressed by the contemporary
soldier, from a regard for military honor, which could not affect
a Greek rhetorician of the succeeding age.]
[Footnote 90: See D'Anville, Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 587.
The name of the Moselle, which is not specified by Ammianus, is
clearly understood by Mascou, (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, vii.
2)]
[Footnote *: Charpeigne on the Moselle. Mannert - M.]
[Footnote 91: The battles are described by Ammianus, (xxvii. 2,)
and by Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 209,) who supposes Valentinian to have
been present.]
[Footnote 92: Studio solicitante nostrorum, occubuit. Ammian
xxvii. 10.]
While the Alemanni appeared to be humbled by their recent
calamities, the pride of Valentinian was mortified by the
unexpected surprisal of Moguntiacum, or Mentz, the principal city
of the Upper Germany. In the unsuspicious moment of a Christian
festival, ^* Rando, a bold and artful chieftain, who had long
meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the Rhine; entered the
defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives of
either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on
the whole body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of
Italy and Illyricum, was ordered to invade their country, most
probably on the side of Rhaetia. The emperor in person,
accompanied by his son Gratian, passed the Rhine at the head of a
formidable army, which was supported on both flanks by Jovinus
and Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry
of the West. The Alemanni, unable to prevent the devastation of
their villages, fixed their camp on a lofty, and almost
inaccessible, mountain, in the modern duchy of Wirtemberg, and
resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of
Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger by the intrepid
curiosity with which he persisted to explore some secret and
unguarded path. A troop of Barbarians suddenly rose from their
ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down
a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behind him his
armor-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold
and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the
Roman troops encompassed and ascended the mountain of Solicinium
on three different sides. ^! Every step which they gained,
increased their ardor, and abated the resistance of the enemy:
and after their united forces had occupied the summit of the
hill, they impetuously urged the Barbarians down the northern
descent, where Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their
retreat. After this signal victory, Valentinian returned to his
winter quarters at Treves; where he indulged the public joy by
the exhibition of splendid and triumphal games. ^93 But the wise
monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany, confined
his attention to the important and laborious defence of the
Gallic frontier, against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a
stream of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the
most distant tribes of the North. ^94 The banks of the Rhine ^!!
from its source to the straits of the ocean, were closely planted
with strong castles and convenient towers; new works, and new
arms, were invented by the ingenuity of a prince who was skilled
in the mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of Roman and
Barbarian youth were severely trained in all the exercises of
war. The progress of the work, which was sometimes opposed by
modest representations, and sometimes by hostile attempts,
secured the tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years
of the administration of Valentinian. ^95
[Footnote *: Probably Easter. Wagner. - M.]
[Footnote !: Mannert is unable to fix the position of Solicinium.
Haefelin (in Comm Acad Elect. Palat. v. 14) conjectures
Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg. See Wagner's note. St. Martin,
Sultz in Wirtemberg, near the sources of the Neckar St. Martin,
iii. 339. - M.]
[Footnote 93: The expedition of Valentinian is related by
Ammianus, (xxvii. 10;) and celebrated by Ausonius, (Mosell. 421,
&c.,) who foolishly supposes, that the Romans were ignorant of
the sources of the Danube.]
[Footnote 94: Immanis enim natio, jam inde ab incunabulis primis
varietate casuum imminuta; ita saepius adolescit, ut fuisse
longis saeculis aestimetur intacta. Ammianus, xxviii. 5. The
Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p. 370)
ascribes the fecundity of the Alemanni to their easy adoption of
strangers.
Note: "This explanation," says Mr. Malthus, "only removes
the difficulty a little farther off. It makes the earth rest
upon the tortoise, but does not tell us on what the tortoise
rests. We may still ask what northern reservoir supplied this
incessant stream of daring adventurers. Montesquieu's solution of
the problem will, I think, hardly be admitted, (Grandeur et
Decadence des Romains, c. 16, p. 187.) * * * The whole
difficulty, however, is at once removed, if we apply to the
German nations, at that time, a fact which is so generally known
to have occurred in America, and suppose that, when not checked
by wars and famine, they increased at a rate that would double
their numbers in twenty-five or thirty years. The propriety, and
even the necessity, of applying this rate of increase to the
inhabitants of ancient Germany, will strikingly appear from that
most valuable picture of their manners which has been left us by
Tacitus, (Tac. de Mor. Germ. 16 to 20.) * * * With these manners,
and a habit of enterprise and emigration, which would naturally
remove all fears about providing for a family, it is difficult to
conceive a society with a stronger principle of increase in it,
and we see at once that prolific source of armies and colonies
against which the force of the Roman empire so long struggled
with difficulty, and under which it ultimately sunk. It is not
probable that, for two periods together, or even for one, the
population within the confines of Germany ever doubled itself in
twenty- five years. Their perpetual wars, the rude state of
agriculture, and particularly the very strange custom adopted by
most of the tribes of marking their barriers by extensive
deserts, would prevent any very great actual increase of numbers.
At no one period could the country be called well peopled, though
it was often redundant in population. * * * Instead of clearing
their forests, draining their swamps, and rendering their soil
fit to support an extended population, they found it more
congenial to their martial habits and impatient dispositions to
go in quest of food, of plunder, or of glory, into other
countries." Malthus on Population, i. p. 128. - G.]
[Footnote !!!: The course of the Neckar was likewise strongly
guarded. The hyperbolical eulogy of Symmachus asserts that the
Neckar first became known to the Romans by the conquests and
fortifications of Valentinian. Nunc primum victoriis tuis
externus fluvius publicatur. Gaudeat servitute, captivus
innotuit. Symm. Orat. p. 22. - M.]
[Footnote 95: Ammian. xxviii. 2. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 214. The
younger Victor mentions the mechanical genius of Valentinian,
nova arma meditari fingere terra seu limo simulacra.]
That prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise
maxims of Diocletian, was studious to foment and excite the
intestine divisions of the tribes of Germany. About the middle
of the fourth century, the countries, perhaps of Lusace and
Thuringia, on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague
dominion of the Burgundians; a warlike and numerous people, ^* of
the Vandal race, ^96 whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a
powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing
province. The most remarkable circumstance in the ancient
manners of the Burgundians appears to have been the difference of
their civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation of
Hendinos was given to the king or general, and the title of
Sinistus to the high priest, of the nation. The person of the
priest was sacred, and his dignity perpetual; but the temporal
government was held by a very precarious tenure. If the events
of war accuses the courage or conduct of the king, he was
immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects made him
responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of
the seasons, which seemed to fall more properly within the
sacerdotal department. ^97 The disputed possession of some
salt-pits ^98 engaged the Alemanni and the Burgundians in
frequent contests: the latter were easily tempted, by the secret
solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their
fabulous descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been
left to garrison the fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with
mutual credulity, as it was conducive to mutual interest. ^99 An
army of fourscore thousand Burgundians soon appeared on the banks
of the Rhine; and impatiently required the support and subsidies
which Valentinian had promised: but they were amused with excuses
and delays, till at length, after a fruitless expectation, they
were compelled to retire. The arms and fortifications of the
Gallic frontier checked the fury of their just resentment; and
their massacre of the captives served to imbitter the hereditary
feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The inconstancy of a
wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of
circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of
Valentinian to intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance
of power would have been equally overturned by the extirpation of
either of the German nations. Among the princes of the Alemanni,
Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a
soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The
emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered band, condescended
to pass the Rhine, marched fifty miles into the country, and
would infallibly have seized the object of his pursuit, if his
judicious measures had not been defeated by the impatience of the
troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honor of a
personal conference with the emperor; and the favors which he
received, fixed him, till the hour of his death, a steady and
sincere friend of the republic. ^100
[Footnote *: According to the general opinion, the Burgundians
formed a Gothic o Vandalic tribe, who, from the banks of the
Lower Vistula, made incursions, on one side towards Transylvania,
on the other towards the centre of Germany. All that remains of
the Burgundian language is Gothic. * * * Nothing in their customs
indicates a different origin. Malte Brun, Geog. tom. i. p. 396.
(edit. 1831.) - M.]
[Footnote 96: Bellicosos et pubis immensae viribus affluentes; et
ideo metuendos finitimis universis. Ammian. xxviii. 5.]
[Footnote 97: I am always apt to suspect historians and
travellers of improving extraordinary facts into general laws.
Ammianus ascribes a similar custom to Egypt; and the Chinese have
imputed it to the Ta-tsin, or Roman empire, (De Guignes, Hist.
des Huns, tom. ii. part. 79.)]
[Footnote 98: Salinarum finiumque causa Alemannis saepe
jurgabant. Ammian xxviii. 5. Possibly they disputed the
possession of the Sala, a river which produced salt, and which
had been the object of ancient contention. Tacit. Annal. xiii.
57, and Lipsius ad loc.]
[Footnote 99: Jam inde temporibus priscis sobolem se esse Romanam
Burgundii sciunt: and the vague tradition gradually assumed a
more regular form, (Oros. l. vii. c. 32.) It is annihilated by
the decisive authority of Pliny, who composed the History of
Drusus, and served in Germany, (Plin. Secund. Epist. iii. 5,)
within sixty years after the death of that hero. Germanorum
genera quinque; Vindili, quorum pars Burgundiones, &c., (Hist.
Natur. iv. 28.)]
[Footnote 100: The wars and negotiations relative to the
Burgundians and Alemanni, are distinctly related by Ammianus
Marcellinus, (xxviii. 5, xxix 4, xxx. 3.) Orosius, (l. vii. c.
32,) and the Chronicles of Jerom and Cassiodorus, fix some dates,
and add some circumstances.]
The land was covered by the fortifications of Valentinian;
but the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain was exposed to the
depredations of the Saxons. That celebrated name, in which we
have a dear and domestic interest, escaped the notice of Tacitus;
and in the maps of Ptolemy, it faintly marks the narrow neck of
the Cimbric peninsula, and three small islands towards the mouth
of the Elbe. ^101 This contracted territory, the present duchy of
Sleswig, or perhaps of Holstein, was incapable of pouring forth
the inexhaustible swarms of Saxons who reigned over the ocean,
who filled the British island with their language, their laws,
and their colonies; and who so long defended the liberty of the
North against the arms of Charlemagne. ^102 The solution of this
difficulty is easily derived from the similar manners, and loose
constitution, of the tribes of Germany; which were blended with
each other by the slightest accidents of war or friendship. The
situation of the native Saxons disposed them to embrace the
hazardous professions of fishermen and pirates; and the success
of their first adventures would naturally excite the emulation of
their bravest countrymen, who were impatient of the gloomy
solitude of their woods and mountains. Every tide might float
down the Elbe whole fleets of canoes, filled with hardy and
intrepid associates, who aspired to behold the unbounded prospect
of the ocean, and to taste the wealth and luxury of unknown
worlds. It should seem probable, however, that the most numerous
auxiliaries of the Saxons were furnished by the nations who dwelt
along the shores of the Baltic. They possessed arms and ships,
the art of navigation, and the habits of naval war; but the
difficulty of issuing through the northern columns of Hercules
^103 (which, during several months of the year, are obstructed
with ice) confined their skill and courage within the limits of a
spacious lake. The rumor of the successful armaments which sailed
from the mouth of the Elbe, would soon provoke them to cross the
narrow isthmus of Sleswig, and to launch their vessels on the
great sea. The various troops of pirates and adventurers, who
fought under the same standard, were insensibly united in a
permanent society, at first of rapine, and afterwards of
government. A military confederation was gradually moulded into
a national body, by the gentle operation of marriage and
consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who solicited the
alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons. If the fact
were not established by the most unquestionable evidence, we
should appear to abuse the credulity of our readers, by the
description of the vessels in which the Saxon pirates ventured to
sport in the waves of the German Ocean, the British Channel, and
the Bay of Biscay. The keel of their large flat- bottomed boats
were framed of light timber, but the sides and upper works
consisted only of wicker, with a covering of strong hides. ^104
In the course of their slow and distant navigations, they must
always have been exposed to the danger, and very frequently to
the misfortune, of shipwreck; and the naval annals of the Saxons
were undoubtedly filled with the accounts of the losses which
they sustained on the coasts of Britain and Gaul. But the daring
spirit of the pirates braved the perils both of the sea and of
the shore: their skill was confirmed by the habits of enterprise;
the meanest of their mariners was alike capable of handling an
oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a vessel, and the Saxons
rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their
design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. ^105 After they
had acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of
the West, they extended the scene of their depredations, and the
most sequestered places had no reason to presume on their
security. The Saxon boats drew so little water that they could
easily proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great rivers;
their weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on
wagons from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered
the mouth of the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the
rapid stream of the Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the
reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were
afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the
defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer,
who found his strength, or his abilities, unequal to the task,
implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the
infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and outnumbered, were forced to
relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall
and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They
stipulated only a safe and honorable retreat; and the condition
was readily granted by the Roman general, who meditated an act of
perfidy, ^106 imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained
alive, and in arms, to revenge the fate of their countrymen. The
premature eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in
a deep valley, betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps
have fallen the victims of their own treachery, if a large body
of cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise of the combat, had not
hastily advanced to extricate their companions, and to overwhelm
the undaunted valor of the Saxons. Some of the prisoners were
saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their blood in the
amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains, that
twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves
with their own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the
public. Yet the polite and philosophic citizens of Rome were
impressed with the deepest horror, when they were informed, that
the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tithe of their human
spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the
barbarous sacrifice. ^107
[Footnote 101: At the northern extremity of the peninsula, (the
Cimbric promontory of Pliny, iv. 27,) Ptolemy fixes the remnant
of the Cimbri. He fills the interval between the Saxons and the
Cimbri with six obscure tribes, who were united, as early as the
sixth century, under the national appellation of Danes. See
Cluver. German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 21, 22, 23.]
[Footnote 102: M. D'Anville (Establissement des Etats de
l'Europe, &c., p. 19-26) has marked the extensive limits of the
Saxony of Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 103: The fleet of Drusus had failed in their attempt to
pass, or even to approach, the Sound, (styled, from an obvious
resemblance, the columns of Hercules,) and the naval enterprise
was never resumed, (Tacit. de Moribus German. c. 34.) The
knowledge which the Romans acquired of the naval powers of the
Baltic, (c. 44, 45) was obtained by their land journeys in search
of amber.]
[Footnote 104: Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus
Sperabat; cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum
Ludus; et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo
Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 369.
The genius of Caesar imitated, for a particular service, these
rude, but light vessels, which were likewise used by the natives
of Britain. (Comment. de Bell. Civil. i. 51, and Guichardt,
Nouveaux Memoires Militaires, tom. ii. p. 41, 42.) The British
vessels would now astonish the genius of Caesar.]
[Footnote 105: The best original account of the Saxon pirates may
be found in Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. viii. epist. 6, p. 223,
edit. Sirmond,) and the best commentary in the Abbe du Bos,
(Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Francoise, &c. tom. i. l. i. c.
16, p. 148-155. See likewise p. 77, 78.)]
[Footnote 106: Ammian. (xxviii. 5) justifies this breach of faith
to pirates and robbers; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 32) more clearly
expresses their real guilt; virtute atque agilitate terribeles.]
[Footnote 107: Symmachus (l. ii. epist. 46) still presumes to
mention the sacred name of Socrates and philosophy. Sidonius,
bishop of Clermont, might condemn, (l. viii. epist. 6,) with less
inconsistency, the human sacrifices of the Saxons.]
II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of
Scandinavians and Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and
amused the credulity, of our rude ancestors, have insensibly
vanished in the light of science and philosophy. ^108 The present
age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion, that the
islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from
the adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent, to the
extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin
was distinctly preserved, in the perpetual resemblance of
language, of religion, and of manners; and the peculiar
characters of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to
the influence of accidental and local circumstances. ^109 The
Roman Province was reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful
servitude; the rights of savage freedom were contracted to the
narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that northern
region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine,
between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts, ^110
who have since experienced a very different fortune. The power,
and almost the memory, of the Picts have been extinguished by
their successful rivals; and the Scots, after maintaining for
ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by
an equal and voluntary union, the honors of the English name. The
hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinctions
of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills,
and the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of
Caledonia may be considered as a level and fertile country,
which, even in a rude state of tillage, was capable of producing
a considerable quantity of corn; and the epithet of cruitnich, or
wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt or envy of the carnivorous
highlander. The cultivation of the earth might introduce a more
accurate separation of property, and the habits of a sedentary
life; but the love of arms and rapine was still the ruling
passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped themselves
for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the
Romans, by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies
with gaudy colors and fantastic figures. The western part of
Caledonia irregularly rises into wild and barren hills, which
scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman, and are most
profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were
condemned to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as
they seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired
the expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is
said to be equivalent to that of wanderers, or vagrants. The
inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of
food in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect
their country, are plentifully supplied with fish; and they
gradually ventured to cast their nets in the waves of the ocean.
The vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely scattered along the
western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity, and improved
their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or
rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea,
and of steering their nocturnal course by the light of the
well-known stars. The two bold headlands of Caledonia almost
touch the shores of a spacious island, which obtained, from its
luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of Green; and has preserved,
with a slight alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland.
It is probable, that in some remote period of antiquity, the
fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hungry Scots; and
that the strangers of the North, who had dared to encounter the
arms of the legions, spread their conquests over the savage and
unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is certain, that, in
the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and
the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots, and that the
kindred tribes, who were often associated in military enterprise,
were deeply affected by the various accidents of their mutual
fortunes. They long cherished the lively tradition of their
common name and origin; and the missionaries of the Isle of
Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North
Britain, established the vain opinion, that their Irish
countrymen were the natural, as well as spiritual, fathers of the
Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has been
preserved by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light
over the darkness of the eighth century. On this slight
foundation, a huge superstructure of fable was gradually reared,
by the bards and the monks; two orders of men, who equally abused
the privilege of fiction. The Scottish nation, with mistaken
pride, adopted their Irish genealogy; and the annals of a long
line of imaginary kings have been adorned by the fancy of
Boethius, and the classic elegance of Buchanan. ^111
[Footnote 108: In the beginning of the last century, the learned
Camden was obliged to undermine, with respectful scepticism, the
romance of Brutus, the Trojan; who is now buried in silent
oblivion with Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, and her numerous
progeny. Yet I am informed, that some champions of the Milesian
colony may still be found among the original natives of Ireland.
A people dissatisfied with their present condition, grasp at any
visions of their past or future glory.]
[Footnote 109: Tacitus, or rather his father-in-law, Agricola,
might remark the German or Spanish complexion of some British
tribes. But it was their sober, deliberate opinion: "In
universum tamen aestimanti Gallos cicinum solum occupasse
credibile est. Eorum sacra deprehendas. . . . ermo haud multum
diversus," (in Vit. Agricol. c. xi.) Caesar had observed their
common religion, (Comment. de Bello Gallico, vi. 13;) and in his
time the emigration from the Belgic Gaul was a recent, or at
least an historical event, (v. 10.) Camden, the British Strabo,
has modestly ascertained our genuine antiquities, (Britannia,
vol. i. Introduction, p. ii. - xxxi.)]
[Footnote 110: In the dark and doubtful paths of Caledonian
antiquity, I have chosen for my guides two learned and ingenious
Highlanders, whom their birth and education had peculiarly
qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the
Origin and Antiquities, &c., of the Caledonians, by Dr. John
Macpherson, London 1768, in 4to.; and Introduction to the History
of Great Britain and Ireland, by James Macpherson, Esq., London
1773, in 4to., third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a minister in the
Isle of Sky: and it is a circumstance honorable for the present
age, that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should
have been composed in the most remote of the Hebrides.]
[Footnote 111: The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived in
the last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported, by the
Rev. Mr. Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i. p. 430, 431; and
Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c., p. 154-293) Yet he
acknowledges, 1. That the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D.
340) were already settled in Caledonia; and that the Roman
authors do not afford any hints of their emigration from another
country. 2. That all the accounts of such emigrations, which
have been asserted or received, by Irish bards, Scotch
historians, or English antiquaries, (Buchanan, Camden, Usher,
Stillingfleet, &c.,) are totally fabulous. 3. That three of the
Irish tribes, which are mentioned by Ptolemy, (A.D. 150,) were of
Caledonian extraction. 4. That a younger branch of Caledonian
princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and possessed the
monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining
difference between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and
obscure. The genuine history, which he produces, of a Fergus, the
cousin of Ossian, who was transplanted (A.D. 320) from Ireland to
Caledonia, is built on a conjectural supplement to the Erse
poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of Cirencester, a monk
of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the learned and
ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of a
question, which he so vehemently debates, and so absolutely
decides.
Note: This controversy has not slumbered since the days of
Gibbon. We have strenuous advocates of the Phoenician origin of
the Irish, and each of the old theories, with several new ones,
maintains its partisans. It would require several pages fairly
to bring down the dispute to our own days, and perhaps we should
be no nearer to any satisfactory theory than Gibbon was.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part V.
Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive
inroads of the Scots and Picts required the presence of his
youngest son, who reigned in the Western empire. Constans
visited his British dominions: but we may form some estimate of
the importance of his achievements, by the language of panegyric,
which celebrates only his triumph over the elements or, in other
words, the good fortune of a safe and easy passage from the port
of Boulogne to the harbor of Sandwich. ^112 The calamities which
the afflicted provincials continued to experience, from foreign
war and domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and
corrupt administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the
transient relief which they might obtain from the virtues of
Julian, was soon lost by the absence and death of their
benefactor. The sums of gold and silver, which had been
painfully collected, or liberally transmitted, for the payment of
the troops, were intercepted by the avarice of the commanders;
discharges, or, at least, exemptions, from the military service,
were publicly sold; the distress of the soldiers, who were
injuriously deprived of their legal and scanty subsistence,
provoked them to frequent desertion; the nerves of discipline
were relaxed, and the highways were infested with robbers. ^113
The oppression of the good, and the impunity of the wicked,
equally contributed to diffuse through the island a spirit of
discontent and revolt; and every ambitious subject, every
desperate exile, might entertain a reasonable hope of subverting
the weak and distracted government of Britain. The hostile
tribes of the North, who detested the pride and power of the King
of the World, suspended their domestic feuds; and the Barbarians
of the land and sea, the Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, spread
themselves with rapid and irresistible fury, from the wall of
Antoninus to the shores of Kent. Every production of art and
nature, every object of convenience and luxury, which they were
incapable of creating by labor or procuring by trade, was
accumulated in the rich and fruitful province of Britain. ^114 A
philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race,
but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational
provocation than the vanity of conquest. From the age of
Constantine to the Plantagenets, this rapacious spirit continued
to instigate the poor and hardy Caledonians; but the same people,
whose generous humanity seems to inspire the songs of Ossian, was
disgraced by a savage ignorance of the virtues of peace, and of
the laws of war. Their southern neighbors have felt, and perhaps
exaggerated, the cruel depredations of the Scots and Picts; ^115
and a valiant tribe of Caledonia, the Attacotti, ^116 the
enemies, and afterwards the soldiers, of Valentinian, are
accused, by an eye-witness, of delighting in the taste of human
flesh. When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said, that
they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that they
curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of
males and females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts.
^117 If, in the neighborhood of the commercial and literary town
of Glasgow, a race of cannibals has really existed, we may
contemplate, in the period of the Scottish history, the opposite
extremes of savage and civilized life. Such reflections tend to
enlarge the circle of our ideas; and to encourage the pleasing
hope, that New Zealand may produce, in some future age, the Hume
of the Southern Hemisphere.
[Footnote 112: Hyeme tumentes ac saevientes undas calcastis
Oceani sub remis vestris; . . . insperatam imperatoris faciem
Britannus expavit. Julius Fermicus Maternus de Errore Profan.
Relig. p. 464. edit. Gronov. ad calcem Minuc. Fael. See
Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 336.)]
[Footnote 113: Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. xxxix. p. 264. This
curious passage has escaped the diligence of our British
antiquaries.]
[Footnote 114: The Caledonians praised and coveted the gold, the
steeds, the lights, &c., of the stranger. See Dr. Blair's
Dissertation on Ossian, vol ii. p. 343; and Mr. Macpherson's
Introduction, p. 242-286.]
[Footnote 115: Lord Lyttelton has circumstantially related,
(History of Henry II. vol. i. p. 182,) and Sir David Dalrymple
has slightly mentioned, (Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 69,) a
barbarous inroad of the Scots, at a time (A.D. 1137) when law,
religion, and society must have softened their primitive
manners.]
[Footnote 116: Attacotti bellicosa hominum natio. Ammian. xxvii.
8. Camden (Introduct. p. clii.) has restored their true name in
the text of Jerom. The bands of Attacotti, which Jerom had seen
in Gaul, were afterwards stationed in Italy and Illyricum,
(Notitia, S. viii. xxxix. xl.)]
[Footnote 117: Cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim
Attacottos (or Scotos) gentem Britannicam humanis vesci carnibus;
et cum per silvas porcorum greges, et armentorum percudumque
reperiant, pastorum nates et feminarum papillas solere
abscindere; et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari. Such is the
evidence of Jerom, (tom. ii. p. 75,) whose veracity I find no
reason to question.
Note: See Dr. Parr's works, iii. 93, where he questions the
propriety of Gibbon's translation of this passage. The learned
doctor approves of the version proposed by a Mr. Gaches, who
would make out that it was the delicate parts of the swine and
the cattle, which were eaten by these ancestors of the Scotch
nation. I confess that even to acquit them of this charge. I
cannot agree to the new version, which, in my opinion, is
directly contrary both to the meaning of the words, and the
general sense of the passage. But I would suggest, did Jerom, as
a boy, accompany these savages in any of their hunting
expeditions? If he did not, how could he be an eye-witness of
this practice? The Attacotti in Gaul must have been in the
service of Rome. Were they permitted to indulge these cannibal
propensities at the expense, not of the flocks, but of the
shepherds of the provinces? These sanguinary trophies of plunder
would scarce'y have been publicly exhibited in a Roman city or a
Roman camp. I must leave the hereditary pride of our northern
neighbors at issue with the veracity of St. Jerom.]
Every messenger who escaped across the British Channel,
conveyed the most melancholy and alarming tidings to the ears of
Valentinian; and the emperor was soon informed that the two
military commanders of the province had been surprised and cut
off by the Barbarians. Severus, count of the domestics, was
hastily despatched, and as suddenly recalled, by the court of
Treves. The representations of Jovinus served only to indicate
the greatness of the evil; and, after a long and serious
consultation, the defence, or rather the recovery, of Britain was
intrusted to the abilities of the brave Theodosius. The exploits
of that general, the father of a line of emperors, have been
celebrated, with peculiar complacency, by the writers of the age:
but his real merit deserved their applause; and his nomination
was received, by the army and province, as a sure presage of
approaching victory. He seized the favorable moment of
navigation, and securely landed the numerous and veteran bands of
the Heruli and Batavians, the Jovians and the Victors. In his
march from Sandwich to London, Theodosius defeated several
parties of the Barbarians, released a multitude of captives, and,
after distributing to his soldiers a small portion of the spoil,
established the fame of disinterested justice, by the restitution
of the remainder to the rightful proprietors. The citizens of
London, who had almost despaired of their safety, threw open
their gates; and as soon as Theodosius had obtained from the
court of Treves the important aid of a military lieutenant, and a
civil governor, he executed, with wisdom and vigor, the laborious
task of the deliverance of Britain. The vagrant soldiers were
recalled to their standard; an edict of amnesty dispelled the
public apprehensions; and his cheerful example alleviated the
rigor of martial discipline. The scattered and desultory warfare
of the Barbarians, who infested the land and sea, deprived him of
the glory of a signal victory; but the prudent spirit, and
consummate art, of the Roman general, were displayed in the
operations of two campaigns, which successively rescued every
part of the province from the hands of a cruel and rapacious
enemy. The splendor of the cities, and the security of the
fortifications, were diligently restored, by the paternal care of
Theodosius; who with a strong hand confined the trembling
Caledonians to the northern angle of the island; and perpetuated,
by the name and settlement of the new province of Valentia, the
glories of the reign of Valentinian. ^118 The voice of poetry and
panegyric may add, perhaps with some degree of truth, that the
unknown regions of Thule were stained with the blood of the
Picts; that the oars of Theodosius dashed the waves of the
Hyperborean ocean; and that the distant Orkneys were the scene of
his naval victory over the Saxon pirates. ^119 He left the
province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation; and was
immediately promoted to the rank of master-general of the
cavalry, by a prince who could applaud, without envy, the merit
of his servants. In the important station of the Upper Danube,
the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated the armies of the
Alemanni, before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of Africa.
[Footnote 118: Ammianus has concisely represented (xx. l. xxvi.
4, xxvii. 8 xxviii. 3) the whole series of the British war.]
[Footnote 119: Horrescit . . . . ratibus . . . . impervia
Thule. Ille . . . . nec falso nomine Pictos
Edomuit. Scotumque vago mucrone secutus,
Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas.
Claudian, in iii. Cons. Honorii, ver. 53, &c
- Madurunt Saxone fuso
Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule,
Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne.
In iv. Cons. Hon. ver. 31, &c.
See likewise Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 5.) But it is not
easy to appreciate the intrinsic value of flattery and metaphor.
Compare the British victories of Bolanus (Statius, Silv. v. 2)
with his real character, (Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 16.)]
III. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs the
people to consider him as the accomplice, of his ministers. The
military command of Africa had been long exercised by Count
Romanus, and his abilities were not inadequate to his station;
but, as sordid interest was the sole motive of his conduct, he
acted, on most occasions, as if he had been the enemy of the
province, and the friend of the Barbarians of the desert. The
three flourishing cities of Oea, Leptis, and Sobrata, which,
under the name of Tripoli, had long constituted a federal union,
^120 were obliged, for the first time, to shut their gates
against a hostile invasion; several of their most honorable
citizens were surprised and massacred; the villages, and even the
suburbs, were pillaged; and the vines and fruit trees of that
rich territory were extirpated by the malicious savages of
Getulia. The unhappy provincials implored the protection of
Romanus; but they soon found that their military governor was not
less cruel and rapacious than the Barbarians. As they were
incapable of furnishing the four thousand camels, and the
exorbitant present, which he required, before he would march to
the assistance of Tripoli; his demand was equivalent to a
refusal, and he might justly be accused as the author of the
public calamity. In the annual assembly of the three cities,
they nominated two deputies, to lay at the feet of Valentinian
the customary offering of a gold victory; and to accompany this
tribute of duty, rather than of gratitude, with their humble
complaint, that they were ruined by the enemy, and betrayed by
their governor. If the severity of Valentinian had been rightly
directed, it would have fallen on the guilty head of Romanus.
But the count, long exercised in the arts of corruption, had
despatched a swift and trusty messenger to secure the venal
friendship of Remigius, master of the offices. The wisdom of the
Imperial council was deceived by artifice; and their honest
indignation was cooled by delay. At length, when the repetition
of complaint had been justified by the repetition of public
misfortunes, the notary Palladius was sent from the court of
Treves, to examine the state of Africa, and the conduct of
Romanus. The rigid impartiality of Palladius was easily
disarmed: he was tempted to reserve for himself a part of the
public treasure, which he brought with him for the payment of the
troops; and from the moment that he was conscious of his own
guilt, he could no longer refuse to attest the innocence and
merit of the count. The charge of the Tripolitans was declared
to be false and frivolous; and Palladius himself was sent back
from Treves to Africa, with a special commission to discover and
prosecute the authors of this impious conspiracy against the
representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed
with so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the
citizens of Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege of eight
days, to contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to
censure the behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence
was pronounced, without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong
cruelty of Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had
presumed to pity the distress of the province, was publicly
executed at Utica; four distinguished citizens were put to death,
as the accomplices of the imaginary fraud; and the tongues of two
others were cut out, by the express order of the emperor.
Romanus, elated by impunity, and irritated by resistance, was
still continued in the military command; till the Africans were
provoked, by his avarice, to join the rebellious standard of
Firmus, the Moor. ^121.
[Footnote 120: Ammianus frequently mentions their concilium
annuum, legitimum, &c. Leptis and Sabrata are long since ruined;
but the city of Oea, the native country of Apuleius, still
flourishes under the provincial denomination of Tripoli. See
Cellarius (Geograph. Antiqua, tom. ii. part ii. p. 81,)
D'Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 71, 72,) and
Marmol, (Arrique, tom. ii. p. 562.)]
[Footnote 121: Ammian. xviii. 6. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p 25, 676) has discussed the chronological difficulties
of the history of Count Romanus.]
His father Nabal was one of the richest and most powerful of
the Moorish princes, who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. But
as he left, either by his wives or concubines, a very numerous
posterity, the wealthy inheritance was eagerly disputed; and
Zamma, one of his sons, was slain in a domestic quarrel by his
brother Firmus. The implacable zeal, with which Romanus
prosecuted the legal revenge of this murder, could be ascribed
only to a motive of avarice, or personal hatred; but, on this
occasion, his claims were just; his influence was weighty; and
Firmus clearly understood, that he must either present his neck
to the executioner, or appeal from the sentence of the Imperial
consistory, to his sword, and to the people. ^122 He was received
as the deliverer of his country; and, as soon as it appeared that
Romanus was formidable only to a submissive province, the tyrant
of Africa became the object of universal contempt. The ruin of
Caesarea, which was plundered and burnt by the licentious
Barbarians, convinced the refractory cities of the danger of
resistance; the power of Firmus was established, at least in the
provinces of Mauritania and Numidia; and it seemed to be his only
doubt whether he should assume the diadem of a Moorish king, or
the purple of a Roman emperor. But the imprudent and unhappy
Africans soon discovered, that, in this rash insurrection, they
had not sufficiently consulted their own strength, or the
abilities of their leader. Before he could procure any certain
intelligence, that the emperor of the West had fixed the choice
of a general, or that a fleet of transports was collected at the
mouth of the Rhone, he was suddenly informed that the great
Theodosius, with a small band of veterans, had landed near
Igilgilis, or Gigeri, on the African coast; and the timid usurper
sunk under the ascendant of virtue and military genius. Though
Firmus possessed arms and treasures, his despair of victory
immediately reduced him to the use of those arts, which, in the
same country, and in a similar situation, had formerly been
practised by the crafty Jugurtha. He attempted to deceive, by an
apparent submission, the vigilance of the Roman general; to
seduce the fidelity of his troops; and to protract the duration
of the war, by successively engaging the independent tribes of
Africa to espouse his quarrel, or to protect his flight.
Theodosius imitated the example, and obtained the success, of his
predecessor Metellus. When Firmus, in the character of a
suppliant, accused his own rashness, and humbly solicited the
clemency of the emperor, the lieutenant of Valentinian received
and dismissed him with a friendly embrace: but he diligently
required the useful and substantial pledges of a sincere
repentance; nor could he be persuaded, by the assurances of
peace, to suspend, for an instant, the operations of an active
war. A dark conspiracy was detected by the penetration of
Theodosius; and he satisfied, without much reluctance, the public
indignation, which he had secretly excited. Several of the
guilty accomplices of Firmus were abandoned, according to ancient
custom, to the tumult of a military execution; many more, by the
amputation of both their hands, continued to exhibit an
instructive spectacle of horror; the hatred of the rebels was
accompanied with fear; and the fear of the Roman soldiers was
mingled with respectful admiration. Amidst the boundless plains
of Getulia, and the innumerable valleys of Mount Atlas, it was
impossible to prevent the escape of Firmus; and if the usurper
could have tired the patience of his antagonist, he would have
secured his person in the depth of some remote solitude, and
expected the hopes of a future revolution. He was subdued by the
perseverance of Theodosius; who had formed an inflexible
determination, that the war should end only by the death of the
tyrant; and that every nation of Africa, which presumed to
support his cause, should be involved in his ruin. At the head
of a small body of troops, which seldom exceeded three thousand
five hundred men, the Roman general advanced, with a steady
prudence, devoid of rashness or of fear, into the heart of a
country, where he was sometimes attacked by armies of twenty
thousand Moors. The boldness of his charge dismayed the irregular
Barbarians; they were disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly
retreats; they were continually baffled by the unknown resources
of the military art; and they felt and confessed the just
superiority which was assumed by the leader of a civilized
nation. When Theodosius entered the extensive dominions of
Igmazen, king of the Isaflenses, the haughty savage required, in
words of defiance, his name, and the object of his expedition.
"I am," replied the stern and disdainful count, "I am the general
of Valentinian, the lord of the world; who has sent me hither to
pursue and punish a desperate robber. Deliver him instantly into
my hands; and be assured, that if thou dost not obey the commands
of my invincible sovereign, thou, and the people over whom thou
reignest, shall be utterly extirpated." ^* As soon as Igmazen was
satisfied, that his enemy had strength and resolution to execute
the fatal menace, he consented to purchase a necessary peace by
the sacrifice of a guilty fugitive. The guards that were placed
to secure the person of Firmus deprived him of the hopes of
escape; and the Moorish tyrant, after wine had extinguished the
sense of danger, disappointed the insulting triumph of the
Romans, by strangling himself in the night. His dead body, the
only present which Igmazen could offer to the conqueror, was
carelessly thrown upon a camel; and Theodosius, leading back his
victorious troops to Sitifi, was saluted by the warmest
acclamations of joy and loyalty. ^123
[Footnote 122: The Chronology of Ammianus is loose and obscure;
and Orosius (i. vii. c. 33, p. 551, edit. Havercamp) seems to
place the revolt of Firmus after the deaths of Valentinian and
Valens. Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p. 691) endeavors to
pick his way. The patient and sure-foot mule of the Alps may be
trusted in the most slippery paths.]
[Footnote *: The war was longer protracted than this sentence
would lead us to suppose: it was not till defeated more than once
that Igmazen yielded Amm. xxix. 5. - M]
[Footnote 123: Ammian xxix. 5. The text of this long chapter
(fifteen quarto pages) is broken and corrupted; and the narrative
is perplexed by the want of chronological and geographical
landmarks.]
Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus; it was
restored by the virtues of Theodosius; and our curiosity may be
usefully directed to the inquiry of the respective treatment
which the two generals received from the Imperial court. The
authority of Count Romanus had been suspended by the
master-general of the cavalry; and he was committed to safe and
honorable custody till the end of the war. His crimes were
proved by the most authentic evidence; and the public expected,
with some impatience, the decree of severe justice. But the
partial and powerful favor of Mellobaudes encouraged him to
challenge his legal judges, to obtain repeated delays for the
purpose of procuring a crowd of friendly witnesses, and, finally,
to cover his guilty conduct, by the additional guilt of fraud and
forgery. About the same time, the restorer of Britain and
Africa, on a vague suspicion that his name and services were
superior to the rank of a subject, was ignominiously beheaded at
Carthage. Valentinian no longer reigned; and the death of
Theodosius, as well as the impunity of Romanus, may justly be
imputed to the arts of the ministers, who abused the confidence,
and deceived the inexperienced youth, of his sons. ^124
[Footnote 124: Ammian xxviii. 4. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 551,
552. Jerom. in Chron. p. 187.]
If the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been
fortunately bestowed on the British exploits of Theodosius, we
should have traced, with eager curiosity, the distinct and
domestic footsteps of his march. But the tedious enumeration of
the unknown and uninteresting tribes of Africa may be reduced to
the general remark, that they were all of the swarthy race of the
Moors; that they inhabited the back settlements of the
Mauritanian and Numidian province, the country, as they have
since been termed by the Arabs, of dates and of locusts; ^125 and
that, as the Roman power declined in Africa, the boundary of
civilized manners and cultivated land was insensibly contracted.
Beyond the utmost limits of the Moors, the vast and inhospitable
desert of the South extends above a thousand miles to the banks
of the Niger. The ancients, who had a very faint and imperfect
knowledge of the great peninsula of Africa, were sometimes
tempted to believe, that the torrid zone must ever remain
destitute of inhabitants; ^126 and they sometimes amused their
fancy by filling the vacant space with headless men, or rather
monsters; ^127 with horned and cloven-footed satyrs; ^128 with
fabulous centaurs; ^129 and with human pygmies, who waged a bold
and doubtful warfare against the cranes. ^130 Carthage would have
trembled at the strange intelligence that the countries on either
side of the equator were filled with innumerable nations, who
differed only in their color from the ordinary appearance of the
human species: and the subjects of the Roman empire might have
anxiously expected, that the swarms of Barbarians, which issued
from the North, would soon be encountered from the South by new
swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce and equally formidable.
These gloomy terrors would indeed have been dispelled by a more
intimate acquaintance with the character of their African
enemies. The inaction of the negroes does not seem to be the
effect either of their virtue or of their pusillanimity. They
indulge, like the rest of mankind, their passions and appetites;
and the adjacent tribes are engaged in frequent acts of
hostility. ^131 But their rude ignorance has never invented any
effectual weapons of defence, or of destruction; they appear
incapable of forming any extensive plans of government, or
conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their mental faculties
has been discovered and abused by the nations of the temperate
zone. Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked from the coast
of Guinea, never to return to their native country; but they are
embarked in chains; ^132 and this constant emigration, which, in
the space of two centuries, might have furnished armies to
overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of Europe, and the weakness
of Africa.
[Footnote 125: Leo Africanus (in the Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i.
fol. 78-83) has traced a curious picture of the people and the
country; which are more minutely described in the Afrique de
Marmol, tom. iii. p. 1-54.]
[Footnote 126: This uninhabitable zone was gradually reduced by
the improvements of ancient geography, from forty-five to
twenty-four, or even sixteen degrees of latitude. See a learned
and judicious note of Dr. Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p.
426.]
[Footnote 127: Intra, si credere libet, vix jam homines et magis
semiferi ... Blemmyes, Satyri, &c. Pomponius Mela, i. 4, p. 26,
edit. Voss. in 8vo. Pliny philosophically explains (vi. 35) the
irregularities of nature, which he had credulously admitted, (v.
8.)]
[Footnote 128: If the satyr was the Orang-outang, the great human
ape, (Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43, &c.,) one of that
species might actually be shown alive at Alexandria, in the reign
of Constantine. Yet some difficulty will still remain about the
conversation which St. Anthony held with one of these pious
savages, in the desert of Thebais. (Jerom. in Vit. Paul. Eremit.
tom. i. p. 238.)]
[Footnote 129: St. Anthony likewise met one of these monsters;
whose existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius.
The public laughed; but his praefect of Egypt had the address to
send an artful preparation, the embalmed corpse of a
Hippocentaur, which was preserved almost a century afterwards in
the Imperial palace. See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. vii. 3,) and the
judicious observations of Freret. (Memoires de l'Acad. tom. vii.
p. 321, &c.)]
[Footnote 130: The fable of the pygmies is as old as Homer,
(Iliad. iii. 6) The pygmies of India and Aethiopia were
(trispithami) twenty-seven inches high. Every spring their
cavalry (mounted on rams and goats) marched, in battle array, to
destroy the cranes' eggs, aliter (says Pliny) futuris gregibus
non resisti. Their houses were built of mud, feathers, and egg-
shells. See Pliny, (vi. 35, vii. 2,) and Strabo, (l. ii. p.
121.)]
[Footnote 131: The third and fourth volumes of the valuable
Histoire des Voyages describe the present state of the Negroes.
The nations of the sea- coast have been polished by European
commerce; and those of the inland country have been improved by
Moorish colonies.
Note: The martial tribes in chain armor, discovered by
Denham, are Mahometan; the great question of the inferiority of
the African tribes in their mental faculties will probably be
experimentally resolved before the close of the century; but the
Slave Trade still continues, and will, it is to be feared, till
the spirit of gain is subdued by the spirit of Christian
humanity. - M.]
[Footnote 132: Histoire Philosophique et Politique, &c., tom. iv.
p. 192.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part VI.
IV. The ignominious treaty, which saved the army of Jovian,
had been faithfully executed on the side of the Romans; and as
they had solemnly renounced the sovereignty and alliance of
Armenia and Iberia, those tributary kingdoms were exposed,
without protection, to the arms of the Persian monarch. ^133
Sapor entered the Armenian territories at the head of a
formidable host of cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary
foot; but it was the invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and
negotiation, and to consider falsehood and perjury as the most
powerful instruments of regal policy. He affected to praise the
prudent and moderate conduct of the king of Armenia; and the
unsuspicious Tiranus was persuaded, by the repeated assurances of
insidious friendship, to deliver his person into the hands of a
faithless and cruel enemy. In the midst of a splendid
entertainment, he was bound in chains of silver, as an honor due
to the blood of the Arsacides; and, after a short confinement in
the Tower of Oblivion at Ecbatana, he was released from the
miseries of life, either by his own dagger, or by that of an
assassin. ^* The kingdom of Armenia was reduced to the state of a
Persian province; the administration was shared between a
distinguished satrap and a favorite eunuch; and Sapor marched,
without delay, to subdue the martial spirit of the Iberians.
Sauromaces, who reigned in that country by the permission of the
emperors, was expelled by a superior force; and, as an insult on
the majesty of Rome, the king of kings placed a diadem on the
head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa
^134 was the only place of Armenia ^!! which presumed to resist
the efforts of his arms. The treasure deposited in that strong
fortress tempted the avarice of Sapor; but the danger of
Olympias, the wife or widow of the Armenian king, excited the
public compassion, and animated the desperate valor of her
subjects and soldiers. ^!!! The Persians were surprised and
repulsed under the walls of Artogerassa, by a bold and
well-concerted sally of the besieged. But the forces of Sapor
were continually renewed and increased; the hopeless courage of
the garrison was exhausted; the strength of the walls yielded to
the assault; and the proud conqueror, after wasting the
rebellious city with fire and sword, led away captive an
unfortunate queen; who, in a more auspicious hour, had been the
destined bride of the son of Constantine. ^135 Yet if Sapor
already triumphed in the easy conquest of two dependent kingdoms,
he soon felt, that a country is unsubdued as long as the minds of
the people are actuated by a hostile and contumacious spirit.
The satraps, whom he was obliged to trust, embraced the first
opportunity of regaining the affection of their countrymen, and
of signalizing their immortal hatred to the Persian name. Since
the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians, these nations
considered the Christians as the favorites, and the Magians as
the adversaries, of the Supreme Being: the influence of the
clergy, over a superstitious people was uniformly exerted in the
cause of Rome; and as long as the successors of Constantine
disputed with those of Artaxerxes the sovereignty of the
intermediate provinces, the religious connection always threw a
decisive advantage into the scale of the empire. A numerous and
active party acknowledged Para, the son of Tiranus, as the lawful
sovereign of Armenia, and his title to the throne was deeply
rooted in the hereditary succession of five hundred years. By
the unanimous consent of the Iberians, the country was equally
divided between the rival princes; and Aspacuras, who owed his
diadem to the choice of Sapor, was obliged to declare, that his
regard for his children, who were detained as hostages by the
tyrant, was the only consideration which prevented him from
openly renouncing the alliance of Persia. The emperor Valens,
who respected the obligations of the treaty, and who was
apprehensive of involving the East in a dangerous war, ventured,
with slow and cautious measures, to support the Roman party in
the kingdoms of Iberia and Armenia. ^!!!! Twelve legions
established the authority of Sauromaces on the banks of the
Cyrus. The Euphrates was protected by the valor of Arintheus. A
powerful army, under the command of Count Trajan, and of
Vadomair, king of the Alemanni, fixed their camp on the confines
of Armenia. But they were strictly enjoined not to commit the
first hostilities, which might be understood as a breach of the
treaty: and such was the implicit obedience of the Roman general,
that they retreated, with exemplary patience, under a shower of
Persian arrows till they had clearly acquired a just title to an
honorable and legitimate victory. Yet these appearances of war
insensibly subsided in a vain and tedious negotiation. The
contending parties supported their claims by mutual reproaches of
perfidy and ambition; and it should seem, that the original
treaty was expressed in very obscure terms, since they were
reduced to the necessity of making their inconclusive appeal to
the partial testimony of the generals of the two nations, who had
assisted at the negotiations. ^136 The invasion of the Goths and
Huns which soon afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman
empire, exposed the provinces of Asia to the arms of Sapor. But
the declining age, and perhaps the infirmities, of the monarch
suggested new maxims of tranquillity and moderation. His death,
which happened in the full maturity of a reign of seventy years,
changed in a moment the court and councils of Persia; and their
attention was most probably engaged by domestic troubles, and the
distant efforts of a Carmanian war. ^137 The remembrance of
ancient injuries was lost in the enjoyment of peace. The
kingdoms of Armenia and Iberia were permitted, by the
mutual,though tacit consent of both empires, to resume their
doubtful neutrality. In the first years of the reign of
Theodosius, a Persian embassy arrived at Constantinople, to
excuse the unjustifiable measures of the former reign; and to
offer, as the tribute of friendship, or even of respect, a
splendid present of gems, of silk, and of Indian elephants. ^138
[Footnote 133: The evidence of Ammianus is original and decisive,
(xxvii. 12.) Moses of Chorene, (l. iii. c. 17, p. 249, and c. 34,
p. 269,) and Procopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 5, p. 17,
edit. Louvre,) have been consulted: but those historians who
confound distinct facts, repeat the same events, and introduce
strange stories, must be used with diffidence and caution.
Note: The statement of Ammianus is more brief and succinct,
but harmonizes with the more complicated history developed by M.
St. Martin from the Armenian writers, and from Procopius, who
wrote, as he states from Armenian authorities. - M.]
[Footnote *: According to M. St. Martin, Sapor, though supported
by the two apostate Armenian princes, Meroujan the Ardzronnian
and Vahan the Mamigonian, was gallantly resisted by Arsaces, and
his brave though impious wife Pharandsem. His troops were
defeated by Vasag, the high constable of the kingdom. (See M.
St. Martin.) But after four years' courageous defence of his
kingdom, Arsaces was abandoned by his nobles, and obliged to
accept the perfidious hospitality of Sapor. He was blinded and
imprisoned in the "Castle of Oblivion;" his brave general Vasag
was flayed alive; his skin stuffed and placed near the king in
his lonely prison. It was not till many years after (A.D. 371)
that he stabbed himself, according to the romantic story, (St. M.
iii. 387, 389,) in a paroxysm of excitement at his restoration to
royal honors. St. Martin, Additions to Le Beau, iii. 283, 296. -
M.]
[Footnote 134: Perhaps Artagera, or Ardis; under whose walls
Caius, the grandson of Augustus, was wounded. This fortress was
situate above Amida, near one of the sources of the Tigris. See
D'Anville, Geographie Ancienue, tom. ii. p. 106.
Note: St. Martin agrees with Gibbon, that it was the same
fortress with Ardis Note, p. 373. - M.]
[Footnote !!: Artaxata, Vagharschabad, or Edchmiadzin,
Erovantaschad, and many other cities, in all of which there was a
considerable Jewish population were taken and destroyed. - M.]
[Footnote !!!: Pharandsem, not Olympias, refusing the orders of
her captive husband to surrender herself to Sapor, threw herself
into Artogerassa St. Martin, iii. 293, 302. She defended herself
for fourteen months, till famine and disease had left few
survivors out of 11,000 soldiers and 6000 women who had taken
refuge in the fortress. She then threw open the gates with her
own hand. M. St. Martin adds, what even the horrors of Oriental
warfare will scarcely permit us to credit, that she was exposed
by Sapor on a public scaffold to the brutal lusts of his
soldiery, and afterwards empaled, iii. 373, &c. - M.]
[Footnote 135: Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 701)
proves, from chronology, that Olympias must have been the mother
of Para.
Note *: An error according to St. M. 273. - M.]
[Footnote !!!!: According to Themistius, quoted by St. Martin, he
once advanced to the Tigris, iii. 436. - M.]
[Footnote 136: Ammianus (xxvii. 12, xix. 1. xxx. 1, 2) has
described the events, without the dates, of the Persian war.
Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 28, p. 261, c. 31, p.
266, c. 35, p. 271) affords some additional facts; but it is
extremely difficult to separate truth from fable.]
[Footnote 137: Artaxerxes was the successor and brother (the
cousin-german) of the great Sapor; and the guardian of his son,
Sapor III. (Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, edit. Louvre.) See the
Universal History, vol. xi. p. 86, 161. The authors of that
unequal work have compiled the Sassanian dynasty with erudition
and diligence; but it is a preposterous arrangement to divide the
Roman and Oriental accounts into two distinct histories.
Note: On the war of Sapor with the Bactrians, which diverted
from Armenia, see St. M. iii. 387. - M.]
[Footnote 138: Pacatus in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 22, and Orosius, l.
vii. c. 34. Ictumque tum foedus est, quo universus Oriens usque
ad num (A. D. 416) tranquillissime fruitur.]
In the general picture of the affairs of the East under the
reign of Valens, the adventures of Para form one of the most
striking and singular objects. The noble youth, by the
persuasion of his mother Olympias, had escaped through the
Persian host that besieged Artogerassa, and implored the
protection of the emperor of the East. By his timid councils,
Para was alternately supported, and recalled, and restored, and
betrayed. The hopes of the Armenians were sometimes raised by
the presence of their natural sovereign, ^* and the ministers of
Valens were satisfied, that they preserved the integrity of the
public faith, if their vassal was not suffered to assume the
diadem and title of King. But they soon repented of their own
rashness. They were confounded by the reproaches and threats of
the Persian monarch. They found reason to distrust the cruel and
inconstant temper of Para himself; who sacrificed, to the
slightest suspicions, the lives of his most faithful servants,
and held a secret and disgraceful correspondence with the
assassin of his father and the enemy of his country. Under the
specious pretence of consulting with the emperor on the subject
of their common interest, Para was persuaded to descend from the
mountains of Armenia, where his party was in arms, and to trust
his independence and safety to the discretion of a perfidious
court. The king of Armenia, for such he appeared in his own eyes
and in those of his nation, was received with due honors by the
governors of the provinces through which he passed; but when he
arrived at Tarsus in Cilicia, his progress was stopped under
various pretences; his motions were watched with respectful
vigilance, and he gradually discovered, that he was a prisoner in
the hands of the Romans. Para suppressed his indignation,
dissembled his fears, and after secretly preparing his escape,
mounted on horseback with three hundred of his faithful
followers. The officer stationed at the door of his apartment
immediately communicated his flight to the consular of Cilicia,
who overtook him in the suburbs, and endeavored without success,
to dissuade him from prosecuting his rash and dangerous design.
A legion was ordered to pursue the royal fugitive; but the
pursuit of infantry could not be very alarming to a body of light
cavalry; and upon the first cloud of arrows that was discharged
into the air, they retreated with precipitation to the gates of
Tarsus. After an incessant march of two days and two nights,
Para and his Armenians reached the banks of the Euphrates; but
the passage of the river which they were obliged to swim, ^** was
attended with some delay and some loss. The country was alarmed;
and the two roads, which were only separated by an interval of
three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback,
under the command of a count and a tribune. Para must have
yielded to superior force, if the accidental arrival of a
friendly traveller had not revealed the danger and the means of
escape. A dark and almost impervious path securely conveyed the
Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had left behind him
the count and the tribune, while they patiently expected his
approach along the public highways. They returned to the
Imperial court to excuse their want of diligence or success; and
seriously alleged, that the king of Armenia, who was a skilful
magician, had transformed himself and his followers, and passed
before their eyes under a borrowed shape. ^! After his return to
his native kingdom, Para still continued to profess himself the
friend and ally of the Romans: but the Romans had injured him too
deeply ever to forgive, and the secret sentence of his death was
signed in the council of Valens. The execution of the bloody
deed was committed to the subtle prudence of Count Trajan; and he
had the merit of insinuating himself into the confidence of the
credulous prince, that he might find an opportunity of stabbing
him to the heart Para was invited to a Roman banquet, which had
been prepared with all the pomp and sensuality of the East; the
hall resounded with cheerful music, and the company was already
heated with wine; when the count retired for an instant, drew his
sword, and gave the signal of the murder. A robust and desperate
Barbarian instantly rushed on the king of Armenia; and though he
bravely defended his life with the first weapon that chance
offered to his hand, the table of the Imperial general was
stained with the royal blood of a guest, and an ally. Such were
the weak and wicked maxims of the Roman administration, that, to
attain a doubtful object of political interest the laws of
nations, and the sacred rights of hospitality were inhumanly
violated in the face of the world. ^139
[Footnote *: On the reconquest of Armenia by Para, or rather by
Mouschegh, the Mamigonian see St. M. iii. 375, 383. - M.]
[Footnote **: On planks floated by bladders. - M.]
[Footnote !: It is curious enough that the Armenian historian,
Faustus of Byzandum, represents Para as a magician. His impious
mother Pharandac had devoted him to the demons on his birth. St.
M. iv. 23. - M.]
[Footnote 139: See in Ammianus (xxx. 1) the adventures of Para.
Moses of Chorene calls him Tiridates; and tells a long, and not
improbable story of his son Gnelus, who afterwards made himself
popular in Armenia, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning
king, (l. iii. c 21, &c., p. 253, &c.)
Note: This note is a tissue of mistakes. Tiridates and Para
are two totally different persons. Tiridates was the father of
Gnel first husband of Pharandsem, the mother of Para. St.
Martin, iv. 27 - M.]
V. During a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans
secured their frontiers, and the Goths extended their dominions.
The victories of the great Hermanric, ^140 king of the
Ostrogoths, and the most noble of the race of the Amali, have
been compared, by the enthusiasm of his countrymen, to the
exploits of Alexander; with this singular, and almost incredible,
difference, that the martial spirit of the Gothic hero, instead
of being supported by the vigor of youth, was displayed with
glory and success in the extreme period of human life, between
the age of fourscore and one hundred and ten years. The
independent tribes were persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge
the king of the Ostrogoths as the sovereign of the Gothic nation:
the chiefs of the Visigoths, or Thervingi, renounced the royal
title, and assumed the more humble appellation of Judges; and,
among those judges, Athanaric, Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the
most illustrious, by their personal merit, as well as by their
vicinity to the Roman provinces. These domestic conquests, which
increased the military power of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious
designs. He invaded the adjacent countries of the North; and
twelve considerable nations, whose names and limits cannot be
accurately defined, successively yielded to the superiority of
the Gothic arms ^141 The Heruli, who inhabited the marshy lands
near the lake Maeotis, were renowned for their strength and
agility; and the assistance of their light infantry was eagerly
solicited, and highly esteemed, in all the wars of the
Barbarians. But the active spirit of the Heruli was subdued by
the slow and steady perseverance of the Goths; and, after a
bloody action, in which the king was slain, the remains of that
warlike tribe became a useful accession to the camp of Hermanric.
He then marched against the Venedi; unskilled in the use of arms,
and formidable only by their numbers, which filled the wide
extent of the plains of modern Poland. The victorious Goths, who
were not inferior in numbers, prevailed in the contest, by the
decisive advantages of exercise and discipline. After the
submission of the Venedi, the conqueror advanced, without
resistance, as far as the confines of the Aestii; ^142 an ancient
people, whose name is still preserved in the province of
Esthonia. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were
supported by the labors of agriculture, enriched by the trade of
amber, and consecrated by the peculiar worship of the Mother of
the Gods. But the scarcity of iron obliged the Aestian warriors
to content themselves with wooden clubs; and the reduction of
that wealthy country is ascribed to the prudence, rather than to
the arms, of Hermanric. His dominions, which extended from the
Danube to the Baltic, included the native seats, and the recent
acquisitions, of the Goths; and he reigned over the greatest part
of Germany and Scythia with the authority of a conqueror, and
sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant. But he reigned over a
part of the globe incapable of perpetuating and adorning the
glory of its heroes. The name of Hermanric is almost buried in
oblivion; his exploits are imperfectly known; and the Romans
themselves appeared unconscious of the progress of an aspiring
power which threatened the liberty of the North, and the peace of
the empire. ^143
[Footnote 140: The concise account of the reign and conquests of
Hermanric seems to be one of the valuable fragments which
Jornandes (c 28) borrowed from the Gothic histories of Ablavius,
or Cassiodorus.]
[Footnote 141: M. d. Buat. (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom.
vi. p. 311- 329) investigates, with more industry than success,
the nations subdued by the arms of Hermanric. He denies the
existence of the Vasinobroncoe, on account of the immoderate
length of their name. Yet the French envoy to Ratisbon, or
Dresden, must have traversed the country of the Mediomatrici.]
[Footnote 142: The edition of Grotius (Jornandes, p. 642)
exhibits the name of Aestri. But reason and the Ambrosian MS.
have restored the Aestii, whose manners and situation are
expressed by the pencil of Tacitus, (Germania, c. 45.)]
[Footnote 143: Ammianus (xxxi. 3) observes, in general terms,
Ermenrichi .... nobilissimi Regis, et per multa variaque fortiter
facta, vicinigentibus formidati, &c.]
The Goths had contracted an hereditary attachment for the
Imperial house of Constantine, of whose power and liberality they
had received so many signal proofs. They respected the public
peace; and if a hostile band sometimes presumed to pass the Roman
limit, their irregular conduct was candidly ascribed to the
ungovernable spirit of the Barbarian youth. Their contempt for
two new and obscure princes, who had been raised to the throne by
a popular election, inspired the Goths with bolder hopes; and,
while they agitated some design of marching their confederate
force under the national standard, ^144 they were easily tempted
to embrace the party of Procopius; and to foment, by their
dangerous aid, the civil discord of the Romans. The public
treaty might stipulate no more than ten thousand auxiliaries; but
the design was so zealously adopted by the chiefs of the
Visigoths, that the army which passed the Danube amounted to the
number of thirty thousand men. ^145 They marched with the proud
confidence, that their invincible valor would decide the fate of
the Roman empire; and the provinces of Thrace groaned under the
weight of the Barbarians, who displayed the insolence of masters
and the licentiousness of enemies. But the intemperance which
gratified their appetites, retarded their progress; and before
the Goths could receive any certain intelligence of the defeat
and death of Procopius, they perceived, by the hostile state of
the country, that the civil and military powers were resumed by
his successful rival. A chain of posts and fortifications,
skilfully disposed by Valens, or the generals of Valens, resisted
their march, prevented their retreat, and intercepted their
subsistence. The fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and
suspended by hunger; they indignantly threw down their arms at
the feet of the conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the
numerous captives were distributed in all the cities of the East;
and the provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage
appearance, ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength
with these formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been
the object of their terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric
alone could deserve so lofty a title) was grieved and exasperated
by this national calamity. His ambassadors loudly complained, at
the court of Valens, of the infraction of the ancient and solemn
alliance, which had so long subsisted between the Romans and the
Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty of allies,
by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian;
they required the immediate restitution of the noble captives;
and they urged a very singular claim, that the Gothic generals
marching in arms, and in hostile array, were entitled to the
sacred character and privileges of ambassadors. The decent, but
peremptory, refusal of these extravagant demands, was signified
to the Barbarians by Victor, master-general of the cavalry; who
expressed, with force and dignity, the just complaints of the
emperor of the East. ^146 The negotiation was interrupted; and
the manly exhortations of Valentinian encouraged his timid
brother to vindicate the insulted majesty of the empire. ^147
[Footnote 144: Valens . . . . docetur relationibus Ducum, gentem
Gothorum, ea tempestate intactam ideoque saevissimam,
conspirantem in unum, ad pervadenda parari collimitia Thraciarum.
Ammian. xxi. 6.]
[Footnote 145: M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom.
vi. p. 332) has curiously ascertained the real number of these
auxiliaries. The 3000 of Ammianus, and the 10,000 of Zosimus,
were only the first divisions of the Gothic army.
Note: M. St. Martin (iii. 246) denies that there is any
authority for these numbers. - M.]
[Footnote 146: The march, and subsequent negotiation, are
described in the Fragments of Eunapius, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 18,
edit. Louvre.) The provincials who afterwards became familiar
with the Barbarians, found that their strength was more apparent
than real. They were tall of stature; but their legs were
clumsy, and their shoulders were narrow.]
[Footnote 147: Valens enim, ut consulto placuerat fratri, cujus
regebatur arbitrio, arma concussit in Gothos ratione justa
permotus. Ammianus (xxvii. 4) then proceeds to describe, not the
country of the Goths, but the peaceful and obedient province of
Thrace, which was not affected by the war.]
The splendor and magnitude of this Gothic war are celebrated
by a contemporary historian: ^148 but the events scarcely deserve
the attention of posterity, except as the preliminary steps of
the approaching decline and fall of the empire. Instead of
leading the nations of Germany and Scythia to the banks of the
Danube, or even to the gates of Constantinople, the aged monarch
of the Goths resigned to the brave Athanaric the danger and glory
of a defensive war, against an enemy, who wielded with a feeble
hand the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats was
established upon the Danube; the presence of Valens animated his
troops; and his ignorance of the art of war was compensated by
personal bravery, and a wise deference to the advice of Victor
and Arintheus, his masters-general of the cavalry and infantry.
The operations of the campaign were conducted by their skill and
experience; but they found it impossible to drive the Visigoths
from their strong posts in the mountains; and the devastation of
the plains obliged the Romans themselves to repass the Danube on
the approach of winter. The incessant rains, which swelled the
waters of the river, produced a tacit suspension of arms, and
confined the emperor Valens, during the whole course of the
ensuing summer, to his camp of Marcianopolis. The third year of
the war was more favorable to the Romans, and more pernicious to
the Goths. The interruption of trade deprived the Barbarians of
the objects of luxury, which they already confounded with the
necessaries of life; and the desolation of a very extensive tract
of country threatened them with the horrors of famine. Athanaric
was provoked, or compelled, to risk a battle, which he lost, in
the plains; and the pursuit was rendered more bloody by the cruel
precaution of the victorious generals, who had promised a large
reward for the head of every Goth that was brought into the
Imperial camp. The submission of the Barbarians appeased the
resentment of Valens and his council: the emperor listened with
satisfaction to the flattering and eloquent remonstrance of the
senate of Constantinople, which assumed, for the first time, a
share in the public deliberations; and the same generals, Victor
and Arintheus, who had successfully directed the conduct of the
war, were empowered to regulate the conditions of peace. The
freedom of trade, which the Goths had hitherto enjoyed, was
restricted to two cities on the Danube; the rashness of their
leaders was severely punished by the suppression of their
pensions and subsidies; and the exception, which was stipulated
in favor of Athanaric alone, was more advantageous than honorable
to the Judge of the Visigoths. Athanaric, who, on this occasion,
appears to have consulted his private interest, without expecting
the orders of his sovereign, supported his own dignity, and that
of his tribe, in the personal interview which was proposed by the
ministers of Valens. He persisted in his declaration, that it
was impossible for him, without incurring the guilt of perjury,
ever to set his foot on the territory of the empire; and it is
more than probable, that his regard for the sanctity of an oath
was confirmed by the recent and fatal examples of Roman
treachery. The Danube, which separated the dominions of the two
independent nations, was chosen for the scene of the conference.
The emperor of the East, and the Judge of the Visigoths,
accompanied by an equal number of armed followers, advanced in
their respective barges to the middle of the stream. After the
ratification of the treaty, and the delivery of hostages, Valens
returned in triumph to Constantinople; and the Goths remained in
a state of tranquillity about six years; till they were violently
impelled against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of
Scythians, who appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the
North. ^149
[Footnote 148: Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, 19. The Greek
sophist must have considered as one and the same war, the whole
series of Gothic history till the victories and peace of
Theodosius.]
[Footnote 149: The Gothic war is described by Ammianus, (xxvii.
6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 211-214,) and Themistius, (Orat. x. p.
129-141.) The orator Themistius was sent from the senate of
Constantinople to congratulate the victorious emperor; and his
servile eloquence compares Valens on the Danube to Achilles in
the Scamander. Jornandes forgets a war peculiar to the
Visi-Goths, and inglorious to the Gothic name, (Mascon's Hist. of
the Germans, vii. 3.)]
The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother the
command of the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate care the
defence of the Rhaetian and Illyrian provinces, which spread so
many hundred miles along the greatest of the European rivers.
The active policy of Valentinian was continually employed in
adding new fortifications to the security of the frontier: but
the abuse of this policy provoked the just resentment of the
Barbarians. The Quadi complained, that the ground for an
intended fortress had been marked out on their territories; and
their complaints were urged with so much reason and moderation,
that Equitius, master-general of Illyricum, consented to suspend
the prosecution of the work, till he should be more clearly
informed of the will of his sovereign. This fair occasion of
injuring a rival, and of advancing the fortune of his son, was
eagerly embraced by the inhuman Maximin, the praefect, or rather
tyrant, of Gaul. The passions of Valentinian were impatient of
control; and he credulously listened to the assurances of his
favorite, that if the government of Valeria, and the direction of
the work, were intrusted to the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the
emperor should no longer be importuned with the audacious
remonstrances of the Barbarians. The subjects of Rome, and the
natives of Germany, were insulted by the arrogance of a young and
worthless minister, who considered his rapid elevation as the
proof and reward of his superior merit. He affected, however, to
receive the modest application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi,
with some attention and regard: but this artful civility
concealed a dark and bloody design, and the credulous prince was
persuaded to accept the pressing invitation of Marcellinus. I am
at a loss how to vary the narrative of similar crimes; or how to
relate, that, in the course of the same year, but in remote parts
of the empire, the inhospitable table of two Imperial generals
was stained with the royal blood of two guests and allies,
inhumanly murdered by their order, and in their presence. The
fate of Gabinius, and of Para, was the same: but the cruel death
of their sovereign was resented in a very different manner by the
servile temper of the Armenians, and the free and daring spirit
of the Germans. The Quadi were much declined from that
formidable power, which, in the time of Marcus Antoninus, had
spread terror to the gates of Rome. But they still possessed arms
and courage; their courage was animated by despair, and they
obtained the usual reenforcement of the cavalry of their
Sarmatian allies. So improvident was the assassin Marcellinus,
that he chose the moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn
away, to suppress the revolt of Firmus; and the whole province
was exposed, with a very feeble defence, to the rage of the
exasperated Barbarians. They invaded Pannonia in the season of
harvest; unmercifully destroyed every object of plunder which
they could not easily transport; and either disregarded, or
demolished, the empty fortifications. The princess Constantia,
the daughter of the emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of
the great Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid,
who had innocently supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the
destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She traversed
the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her
person was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by
the active zeal of Messala, governor of the provinces. As soon
as he was informed that the village, where she stopped only to
dine, was almost encompassed by the Barbarians, he hastily placed
her in his own chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the
gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-twenty
miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure, if the Quadi and
Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general
consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay allowed
Probus, the Praetorian praefect, sufficient time to recover his
own spirits, and to revive the courage of the citizens. He
skilfully directed their strenuous efforts to repair and
strengthen the decayed fortifications; and procured the
seasonable and effectual assistance of a company of archers, to
protect the capital of the Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in
their attempts against the walls of Sirmium, the indignant
Barbarians turned their arms against the master general of the
frontier, to whom they unjustly attributed the murder of their
king. Equitius could bring into the field no more than two
legions; but they contained the veteran strength of the Maesian
and Pannonian bands. The obstinacy with which they disputed the
vain honors of rank and precedency, was the cause of their
destruction; and while they acted with separate forces and
divided councils, they were surprised and slaughtered by the
active vigor of the Sarmatian horse. The success of this
invasion provoked the emulation of the bordering tribes; and the
province of Maesia would infallibly have been lost, if young
Theodosius, the duke, or military commander, of the frontier, had
not signalized, in the defeat of the public enemy, an intrepid
genius, worthy of his illustrious father, and of his future
greatness. ^150
[Footnote 150: Ammianus (xxix. 6) and Zosimus (I. iv. p. 219,
220) carefully mark the origin and progress of the Quadic and
Sarmatian war.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part VII.
The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was
deeply affected by the calamities of Illyricum; but the lateness
of the season suspended the execution of his designs till the
ensuing spring. He marched in person, with a considerable part
of the forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle: and to the
suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way,
he returned a doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached the
scene of action, he should examine, and pronounce. When he
arrived at Sirmium, he gave audience to the deputies of the
Illyrian provinces; who loudly congratulated their own felicity
under the auspicious government of Probus, his Praetorian
praefect. ^151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these
demonstrations of their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked
the deputy of Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity,
^152 whether he was freely sent by the wishes of the province.
"With tears and groans am I sent," replied Iphicles, "by a
reluctant people." The emperor paused: but the impunity of his
ministers established the pernicious maxim, that they might
oppress his subjects, without injuring his service. A strict
inquiry into their conduct would have relieved the public
discontent. The severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinius,
was the only measure which could restore the confidence of the
Germans, and vindicate the honor of the Roman name. But the
haughty monarch was incapable of the magnanimity which dares to
acknowledge a fault. He forgot the provocation, remembered only
the injury, and advanced into the country of the Quadi with an
insatiate thirst of blood and revenge. The extreme devastation,
and promiscuous massacre, of a savage war, were justified, in the
eyes of the emperor, and perhaps in those of the world, by the
cruel equity of retaliation: ^153 and such was the discipline of
the Romans, and the consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian
repassed the Danube without the loss of a single man. As he had
resolved to complete the destruction of the Quadi by a second
campaign, he fixed his winter quarters at Bregetio, on the
Danube, near the Hungarian city of Presburg. While the
operations of war were suspended by the severity of the weather,
the Quadi made an humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their
conqueror; and, at the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their
ambassadors were introduced into the Imperial council. They
approached the throne with bended bodies and dejected
countenances; and without daring to complain of the murder of
their king, they affirmed, with solemn oaths, that the late
invasion was the crime of some irregular robbers, which the
public council of the nation condemned and abhorred. The answer
of the emperor left them but little to hope from his clemency or
compassion. He reviled, in the most intemperate language, their
baseness, their ingratitude, their insolence. His eyes, his
voice, his color, his gestures, expressed the violence of his
ungoverned fury; and while his whole frame was agitated with
convulsive passion, a large blood vessel suddenly burst in his
body; and Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his
attendants. Their pious care immediately concealed his situation
from the crowd; but, in a few minutes, the emperor of the West
expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the last;
and struggling, without success, to declare his intentions to the
generals and ministers, who surrounded the royal couch.
Valentinian was about fifty-four years of age; and he wanted only
one hundred days to accomplish the twelve years of his reign.
^154
[Footnote 151: Ammianus, (xxx. 5,) who acknowledges the merit,
has censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive
administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and
continued the Chronicle of Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 53, 626,) he expressed the truth, or at
least the public opinion of his country, in the following words:
"Probus P. P. Illyrici inquissimus tributorum exactionibus, ante
provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur, erasit."
(Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint
afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the
widow of Probus; and the name of Count Equitius with less
propriety, but without much injustice, has been substituted in
the text.]
[Footnote 152: Julian (Orat. vi. p. 198) represents his friend
Iphicles, as a man of virtue and merit, who had made himself
ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and
manners of the Cynics.]
[Footnote 153: Ammian. xxx. v. Jerom, who exaggerates the
misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even this last consolation
of revenge. Genitali vastato solo et inultam patriam
derelinquens, (tom. i. p. 26.)]
[Footnote 154: See, on the death of Valentinian, Ammianus, (xxx.
6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Victor, (in Epitom.,) Socrates, (l.
iv. c. 31,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 187, and tom. i. p. 26, ad
Heliodor.) There is much variety of circumstances among them; and
Ammianus is so eloquent, that he writes nonsense.]
The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an
ecclesiastical historian. ^155 "The empress Severa (I relate the
fable) admitted into her familiar society the lovely Justina, the
daughter of an Italian governor: her admiration of those naked
charms, which she had often seen in the bath, was expressed with
such lavish and imprudent praise, that the emperor was tempted to
introduce a second wife into his bed; and his public edict
extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic
privilege which he had assumed for himself." But we may be
assured, from the evidence of reason as well as history, that the
two marriages of Valentinian, with Severa, and with Justina, were
successively contracted; and that he used the ancient permission
of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws, though it was
condemned by the church Severa was the mother of Gratian, who
seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him to the
undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the eldest
son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the free and
honorable choice of his fellow- soldiers. Before he had attained
the ninth year of his age, the royal youth received from the
hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem, with
the title of Augustus; the election was solemnly ratified by the
consent and applause of the armies of Gaul; ^156 and the name of
Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and Valens, in all
the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his marriage
with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of Valentinian
acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian family; which,
in a series of three Imperial generations, were sanctified by
time, religion, and the reverence of the people. At the death of
his father, the royal youth was in the seventeenth year of his
age; and his virtues already justified the favorable opinion of
the army and the people. But Gratian resided, without
apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the distance of
many hundred miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of
Bregetio. The passions, which had been so long suppressed by the
presence of a master, immediately revived in the Imperial
council; and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an
infant, was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who
commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They
contrived the most honorable pretences to remove the popular
leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have asserted the
claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity of
extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a
bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been
left in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was
respectively invited to appear in the camp, with the son of the
deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the death of
Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name, who was only
four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the
legions; and solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the
titles and ensigns of supreme power. The impending dangers of a
civil war were seasonably prevented by the wise and moderate
conduct of the emperor Gratian. He cheerfully accepted the
choice of the army; declared that he should always consider the
son of Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the
empress, with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at
Milan, in the fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he
assumed the more arduous command of the countries beyond the
Alps. Gratian dissembled his resentment till he could safely
punish, or disgrace, the authors of the conspiracy; and though he
uniformly behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant
colleague, he gradually confounded, in the administration of the
Western empire, the office of a guardian with the authority of a
sovereign. The government of the Roman world was exercised in
the united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble
emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder
brother, never obtained any weight or influence in the councils
of the West. ^157
[Footnote 155: Socrates (l. iv. c. 31) is the only original
witness of this foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and
manners of the Romans, that it scarcely deserved the formal and
elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy, (Mem. de l'Academie, tom.
xxx. p. 394-405.) Yet I would preserve the natural circumstance
of the bath; instead of following Zosimus who represents Justina
as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius.]
[Footnote 156: Ammianus (xxvii. 6) describes the form of this
military election, and august investiture. Valentinian does not
appear to have consulted, or even informed, the senate of Rome.]
[Footnote 157: Ammianus, xxx. 10. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223.
Tillemont has proved (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707-709)
that Gratian reignea in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have
endeavored to express his authority over his brother's dominions,
as he used it, in an ambiguous style.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part I.
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations. - Progress Of The Huns,
From China To Europe. - Flight Of The Goths. - They Pass The
Danube. - Gothic War. - Defeat And Death Of Valens. - Gratian
Invests Theodosius With The Eastern Empire. - His Character And
Success. - Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.
In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens,
on the morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part
of the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive
earthquake. The impression was communicated to the waters; the
shores of the Mediterranean were left dry, by the sudden retreat
of the sea; great quantities of fish were caught with the hand;
large vessels were stranded on the mud; and a curious spectator
^1 amused his eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the
various appearance of valleys and mountains, which had never,
since the formation of the globe, been exposed to the sun. But
the tide soon returned, with the weight of an immense and
irresistible deluge, which was severely felt on the coasts of
Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of Egypt: large boats were
transported, and lodged on the roofs of houses, or at the
distance of two miles from the shore; the people, with their
habitations, were swept away by the waters; and the city of
Alexandria annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty
thousand persons had lost their lives in the inundation. This
calamity, the report of which was magnified from one province to
another, astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome; and their
affrighted imagination enlarged the real extent of a momentary
evil. They recollected the preceding earthquakes, which had
subverted the cities of Palestine and Bithynia: they considered
these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful
calamities, and their fearful vanity was disposed to confound the
symptoms of a declining empire and a sinking world. ^2 It was the
fashion of the times to attribute every remarkable event to the
particular will of the Deity; the alterations of nature were
connected, by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical
opinions of the human mind; and the most sagacious divines could
distinguish, according to the color of their respective
prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an
earthquake; or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of
the progress of sin and error. Without presuming to discuss the
truth or propriety of these lofty speculations, the historian may
content himself with an observation, which seems to be justified
by experience, that man has much more to fear from the passions
of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the
elements. ^3 The mischievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge,
a hurricane, or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very
inconsiderable portion to the ordinary calamities of war, as they
are now moderated by the prudence or humanity of the princes of
Europe, who amuse their own leisure, and exercise the courage of
their subjects, in the practice of the military art. But the
laws and manners of modern nations protect the safety and freedom
of the vanquished soldier; and the peaceful citizen has seldom
reason to complain, that his life, or even his fortune, is
exposed to the rage of war. In the disastrous period of the fall
of the Roman empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of
Valens, the happiness and security of each individual were
personally attacked; and the arts and labors of ages were rudely
defaced by the Barbarians of Scythia and Germany. The invasion
of the Huns precipitated on the provinces of the West the Gothic
nation, which advanced, in less than forty years, from the Danube
to the Atlantic, and opened a way, by the success of their arms,
to the inroads of so many hostile tribes, more savage than
themselves. The original principle of motion was concealed in
the remote countries of the North; and the curious observation of
the pastoral life of the Scythians, ^4 or Tartars, ^5 will
illustrate the latent cause of these destructive emigrations.
[Footnote 1: Such is the bad taste of Ammianus, (xxvi. 10,) that
it is not easy to distinguish his facts from his metaphors. Yet
he positively affirms, that he saw the rotten carcass of a ship,
ad Modon, in Peloponnesus.]
[Footnote 2: The earthquakes and inundations are variously
described by Libanius, (Orat. de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. x.,
in Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. tom. vii. p. 158, with a learned note
of Olearius,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 2,)
Cedrenus, (p. 310, 314,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 186, and tom.
i. p. 250, in Vit. Hilarion.) Epidaurus must have been
overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an
Egyptian monk, on the beach. He made the sign of the Cross; the
mountain- wave stopped, bowed, and returned.]
[Footnote 3: Dicaearchus, the Peripatetic, composed a formal
treatise, to prove this obvious truth; which is not the most
honorable to the human species. (Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5.)]
[Footnote 4: The original Scythians of Herodotus (l. iv. c. 47 -
57, 99 - 101) were confined, by the Danube and the Palus Maeotis,
within a square of 4000 stadia, (400 Roman miles.) See D'Anville
(Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xxxv. p. 573 - 591.) Diodorus Siculus
(tom. i. l. ii. p. 155, edit. Wesseling) has marked the gradual
progress of the name and nation.]
[Footnote 5: The Tatars, or Tartars, were a primitive tribe, the
rivals, and at length the subjects, of the Moguls. In the
victorious armies of Zingis Khan, and his successors, the Tartars
formed the vanguard; and the name, which first reached the ears
of foreigners, was applied to the whole nation, (Freret, in the
Hist. de l'Academie, tom. xviii. p. 60.) In speaking of all, or
any of the northern shepherds of Europe, or Asia, I indifferently
use the appellations of Scythians or Tartars.
Note: The Moguls, (Mongols,) according to M. Klaproth, are a
tribe of the Tartar nation. Tableaux Hist. de l'Asie, p. 154. -
M.]
The different characters that mark the civilized nations of
the globe, may be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of reason;
which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the
manners and opinions of a European, or a Chinese. But the
operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of
reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a
quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage
tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of
animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to
each other. The uniform stability of their manners is the
natural consequence of the imperfection of their faculties.
Reduced to a similar situation, their wants, their desires, their
enjoyments, still continue the same: and the influence of food or
climate, which, in a more improved state of society, is
suspended, or subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully
contributes to form, and to maintain, the national character of
Barbarians. In every age, the immense plains of Scythia, or
Tartary, have been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and
shepherds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and
whose restless spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary
life. In every age, the Scythians, and Tartars, have been
renowned for their invincible courage and rapid conquests. The
thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds
of the North; and their arms have spread terror and devastation
over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. ^6 On this
occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is
forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with
some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral manners, which
have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and
innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits
of a military life. To illustrate this observation, I shall now
proceed to consider a nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the
three important articles of, I. Their diet; II. Their
habitations; and, III. Their exercises. The narratives of
antiquity are justified by the experience of modern times; ^7 and
the banks of the Borysthenes, of the Volga, or of the Selinga,
will indifferently present the same uniform spectacle of similar
and native manners. ^8
[Footnote 6: Imperium Asiae ter quaesivere: ipsi perpetuo ab
alieno imperio, aut intacti aut invicti, mansere. Since the time
of Justin, (ii. 2,) they have multiplied this account. Voltaire,
in a few words, (tom. x. p. 64, Hist. Generale, c. 156,) has
abridged the Tartar conquests.
Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar,
Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war. ^*
Note *: Gray. - M.]
[Footnote 7: The fourth book of Herodotus affords a curious
though imperfect, portrait of the Scythians. Among the moderns,
who describe the uniform scene, the Khan of Khowaresm, Abulghazi
Bahadur, expresses his native feelings; and his genealogical
history of the Tartars has been copiously illustrated by the
French and English editors. Carpin, Ascelin, and Rubruquis (in
the Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii.) represent the Moguls of the
fourteenth century. To these guides I have added Gerbillon, and
the other Jesuits, (Description de la China par du Halde, tom.
iv.,) who accurately surveyed the Chinese Tartary; and that
honest and intelligent traveller, Bell, of Antermony, (two
volumes in 4to. Glasgow, 1763.)
Note: Of the various works published since the time of
Gibbon, which throw fight on the nomadic population of Central
Asia, may be particularly remarked the Travels and Dissertations
of Pallas; and above all, the very curious work of Bergman,
Nomadische Streifereyen. Riga, 1805. - M.]
[Footnote 8: The Uzbecks are the most altered from their
primitive manners; 1. By the profession of the Mahometan
religion; and 2. By the possession of the cities and harvests of
the great Bucharia.]
I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the
ordinary and wholesome food of a civilized people, can be
obtained only by the patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the
happy savages, who dwell between the tropics, are plentifully
nourished by the liberality of nature; but in the climates of the
North, a nation of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and
herds. The skilful practitioners of the medical art will
determine (if they are able to determine) how far the temper of
the human mind may be affected by the use of animal, or of
vegetable, food; and whether the common association of
carniverous and cruel deserves to be considered in any other
light than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary, prejudice of
humanity. ^9 Yet, if it be true, that the sentiment of compassion
is imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of domestic
cruelty, we may observe, that the horrid objects which are
disguised by the arts of European refinement, are exhibited in
their naked and most disgusting simplicity in the tent of a
Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are slaughtered by the
same hand from which they were accustomed to receive their daily
food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little
preparation, on the table of their unfeeling murderer. In the
military profession, and especially in the conduct of a numerous
army, the exclusive use of animal food appears to be productive
of the most solid advantages. Corn is a bulky and perishable
commodity; and the large magazines, which are indispensably
necessary for the subsistence of our troops, must be slowly
transported by the labor of men or horses. But the flocks and
herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars, afford a sure
and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far greater part
of the uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the grass is quick
and luxuriant; and there are few places so extremely barren, that
the hardy cattle of the North cannot find some tolerable pasture.
The supply is multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing
appetite, and patient abstinence, of the Tartars. They
indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals that have been
killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horseflesh, which
in every age and country has been proscribed by the civilized
nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness;
and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military
operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in
their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of
spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble
the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the Barbarians. Many are
the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a
camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest
part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or
dried in the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they
provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of little balls of
cheese, or rather of hard curd, which they occasionally dissolve
in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support, for many
days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior.
But this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve,
and the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most
voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate
are the most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity,
that can be offered to the Tartars; and the only example of their
industry seems to consist in the art of extracting from mare's
milk a fermented liquor, which possesses a very strong power of
intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the savages, both of the
old and new world, experience the alternate vicissitudes of
famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured to sustain,
without much inconvenience, the opposite extremes of hunger and
of intemperance.
[Footnote 9: Il est certain que les grands mangeurs de viande
sont en general cruels et feroces plus que les autres hommes.
Cette observation est de tous les lieux, et de tous les temps: la
barbarie Angloise est connue, &c. Emile de Rousseau, tom. i. p.
274. Whatever we may think of the general observation, we shall
not easily allow the truth of his example. The good-natured
complaints of Plutarch, and the pathetic lamentations of Ovid,
seduce our reason, by exciting our sensibility.]
II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people
of soldiers and husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an
extensive and cultivated country; and some time must elapse
before the warlike youth of Greece or Italy could be assembled
under the same standard, either to defend their own confines, or
to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The progress
of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large
multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no
longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state
of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life. The
pastoral manners of the Scythians seem to unite the different
advantages of simplicity and refinement. The individuals of the
same tribe are constantly assembled, but they are assembled in a
camp; and the native spirit of these dauntless shepherds is
animated by mutual support and emulation. The houses of the
Tartars are no more than small tents, of an oval form, which
afford a cold and dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of
both sexes. The palaces of the rich consist of wooden huts, of
such a size that they may be conveniently fixed on large wagons,
and drawn by a team perhaps of twenty or thirty oxen. The flocks
and herds, after grazing all day in the adjacent pastures,
retire, on the approach of night, within the protection of the
camp. The necessity of preventing the most mischievous
confusion, in such a perpetual concourse of men and animals, must
gradually introduce, in the distribution, the order, and the
guard, of the encampment, the rudiments of the military art. As
soon as the forage of a certain district is consumed, the tribe,
or rather army, of shepherds, makes a regular march to some fresh
pastures; and thus acquires, in the ordinary occupations of the
pastoral life, the practical knowledge of one of the most
important and difficult operations of war. The choice of
stations is regulated by the difference of the seasons: in the
summer, the Tartars advance towards the North, and pitch their
tents on the banks of a river, or, at least, in the neighborhood
of a running stream. But in the winter, they return to the
South, and shelter their camp, behind some convenient eminence,
against the winds, which are chilled in their passage over the
bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These manners are admirably
adapted to diffuse, among the wandering tribes, the spirit of
emigration and conquest. The connection between the people and
their territory is of so frail a texture, that it may be broken
by the slightest accident. The camp, and not the soil, is the
native country of the genuine Tartar. Within the precincts of
that camp, his family, his companions, his property, are always
included; and, in the most distant marches, he is still
surrounded by the objects which are dear, or valuable, or
familiar in his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the fear, or the
resentment of injury, the impatience of servitude, have, in every
age, been sufficient causes to urge the tribes of Scythia boldly
to advance into some unknown countries, where they might hope to
find a more plentiful subsistence or a less formidable enemy.
The revolutions of the North have frequently determined the fate
of the South; and in the conflict of hostile nations, the victor
and the vanquished have alternately drove, and been driven, from
the confines of China to those of Germany. ^10 These great
emigrations, which have been sometimes executed with almost
incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the peculiar
nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of Tartary
is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate zone might
reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the
height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East,
more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the
quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated.
^11 In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that
discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy
Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with a bed of
snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes may securely
traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their cattle,
the smooth and hard surface of an immense plain.
[Footnote 10: These Tartar emigrations have been discovered by M.
de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. ii.) a skilful and
laborious interpreter of the Chinese language; who has thus laid
open new and important scenes in the history of mankind.]
[Footnote 11: A plain in the Chinese Tartary, only eighty leagues
from the great wall, was found by the missionaries to be three
thousand geometrical paces above the level of the sea.
Montesquieu, who has used, and abused, the relations of
travellers, deduces the revolutions of Asia from this important
circumstance, that heat and cold, weakness and strength, touch
each other without any temperate zone, (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii.
c. 3.)]
III. The pastoral life, compared with the labors of
agriculture and manufactures, is undoubtedly a life of idleness;
and as the most honorable shepherds of the Tartar race devolve on
their captives the domestic management of the cattle, their own
leisure is seldom disturbed by any servile and assiduous cares.
But this leisure, instead of being devoted to the soft enjoyments
of love and harmony, is use fully spent in the violent and
sanguinary exercise of the chase. The plains of Tartary are
filled with a strong and serviceable breed of horses, which are
easily trained for the purposes of war and hunting. The
Scythians of every age have been celebrated as bold and skilful
riders; and constant practice had seated them so firmly on
horseback, that they were supposed by strangers to perform the
ordinary duties of civil life, to eat, to drink, and even to
sleep, without dismounting from their steeds. They excel in the
dexterous management of the lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn
with a nervous arm; and the weighty arrow is directed to its
object with unerring aim and irresistible force. These arrows
are often pointed against the harmless animals of the desert,
which increase and multiply in the absence of their most
formidable enemy; the hare, the goat, the roebuck, the
fallow-deer, the stag, the elk, and the antelope. The vigor and
patience, both of the men and horses, are continually exercised
by the fatigues of the chase; and the plentiful supply of game
contributes to the subsistence, and even luxury, of a Tartar
camp. But the exploits of the hunters of Scythia are not
confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious beasts; they
boldly encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns against his
pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of the bear, and provoke
the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket. Where
there is danger, there may be glory; and the mode of hunting,
which opens the fairest field to the exertions of valor, may
justly be considered as the image, and as the school, of war. The
general hunting matches, the pride and delight of the Tartar
princes, compose an instructive exercise for their numerous
cavalry. A circle is drawn, of many miles in circumference, to
encompass the game of an extensive district; and the troops that
form the circle regularly advance towards a common centre; where
the captive animals, surrounded on every side, are abandoned to
the darts of the hunters. In this march, which frequently
continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb the hills,
to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without
interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress.
They acquire the habit of directing their eye, and their steps,
to a remote object; of preserving their intervals of suspending
or accelerating their pace, according to the motions of the
troops on their right and left; and of watching and repeating the
signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical
school, the most important lesson of the military art; the prompt
and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To
employ against a human enemy the same patience and valor, the
same skill and discipline, is the only alteration which is
required in real war; and the amusements of the chase serve as a
prelude to the conquest of an empire. ^12
[Footnote 12: Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, l. iii. c. 6)
represents the full glory and extent of the Mogul chase. The
Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor Khamhi when
he hunted in Tartary, Duhalde, Description de la Chine, tom. iv.
p. 81, 290, &c., folio edit.) His grandson, Kienlong, who unites
the Tartar discipline with the laws and learning of China,
describes (Eloge de Moukden, p. 273 - 285) as a poet the
pleasures which he had often enjoyed as a sportsman.]
The political society of the ancient Germans has the
appearance of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The
tribes of Scythia, distinguished by the modern appellation of
Hords, assume the form of a numerous and increasing family;
which, in the course of successive generations, has been
propagated from the same original stock. The meanest, and most
ignorant, of the Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the
inestimable treasure of their genealogy; and whatever
distinctions of rank may have been introduced, by the unequal
distribution of pastoral wealth, they mutually respect
themselves, and each other, as the descendants of the first
founder of the tribe. The custom, which still prevails, of
adopting the bravest and most faithful of the captives, may
countenance the very probable suspicion, that this extensive
consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and fictitious. But
the useful prejudice, which has obtained the sanction of time and
opinion, produces the effects of truth; the haughty Barbarians
yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience to the head of their
blood; and their chief, or mursa, as the representative of their
great father, exercises the authority of a judge in peace, and of
a leader in war. In the original state of the pastoral world,
each of the mursas (if we may continue to use a modern
appellation) acted as the independent chief of a large and
separate family; and the limits of their peculiar territories
were gradually fixed by superior force, or mutual consent. But
the constant operation of various and permanent causes
contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national communities,
under the command of a supreme head. The weak were desirous of
support, and the strong were ambitious of dominion; the power,
which is the result of union, oppressed and collected the divided
force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the vanquished were freely
admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most valiant
chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers under the
formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most successful
of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he
was entitled by the superiority, either of merit or of power. He
was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals; and
the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of
Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of
hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the
founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who
reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal
descendants of the renowned Zingis. ^13 But, as it is the
indispensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike
subjects into the field, the claims of an infant are often
disregarded; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his age and
valor, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his
predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the
tribes, to support the dignity of the national monarch, and of
their peculiar chief; and each of those contributions amounts to
the tithe, both of their property, and of their spoil. A Tartar
sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his people; and
as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a much
larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the rustic
splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most
favored of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle
influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes
refused to the stern mandates of authority. The manners of his
subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood and rapine, might
excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as would
excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a
despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia.
The immediate jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the
limits of his own tribe; and the exercise of his royal
prerogative has been moderated by the ancient institution of a
national council. The Coroulai, ^14 or Diet, of the Tartars, was
regularly held in the spring and autumn, in the midst of a plain;
where the princes of the reigning family, and the mursas of the
respective tribes, may conveniently assemble on horseback, with
their martial and numerous trains; and the ambitious monarch, who
reviewed the strength, must consult the inclination of an armed
people. The rudiments of a feudal government may be discovered
in the constitution of the Scythian or Tartar nations; but the
perpetual conflict of those hostile nations has sometimes
terminated in the establishment of a powerful and despotic
empire. The victor, enriched by the tribute, and fortified by
the arms of dependent kings, has spread his conquests over Europe
or Asia: the successful shepherds of the North have submitted to
the confinement of arts, of laws, and of cities; and the
introduction of luxury, after destroying the freedom of the
people, has undermined the foundations of the throne. ^15
[Footnote 13: See the second volume of the Genealogical History
of the Tartars; and the list of the Khans, at the end of the life
of Geng's, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or Tamerlane,
one of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the regal
appellation of Khan and the conqueror of Asia contented himself
with the title of Emir or Sultan. Abulghazi, part v. c. 4.
D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orien tale, p. 878.]
[Footnote 14: See the Diets of the ancient Huns, (De Guignes,
tom. ii. p. 26,) and a curious description of those of Zingis,
(Vie de Gengiscan, l. i. c. 6, l. iv. c. 11.) Such assemblies are
frequently mentioned in the Persian history of Timur; though they
served only to countenance the resolutions of their master.]
[Footnote 15: Montesquieu labors to explain a difference, which
has not existed, between the liberty of the Arabs, and the
perpetual slavery of the Tartars. (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c.
5, l. xviii. c. 19, &c.)]
The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the
frequent and remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The
modern Tartars are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors;
^16 and our knowledge of the history of the Scythians is derived
from their intercourse with the learned and civilized nations of
the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese. The
Greeks, who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies
along the sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of
Scythia; from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as
the frozen Maeotis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount
Caucasus, which, in the language of poetry, was described as the
utmost boundary of the earth. They celebrated, with simple
credulity, the virtues of the pastoral life: ^17 they entertained
a more rational apprehension of the strength and numbers of the
warlike Barbarians, ^18 who contemptuously baffled the immense
armament of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. ^19 The Persian
monarchs had extended their western conquests to the banks of the
Danube, and the limits of European Scythia. The eastern
provinces of their empire were exposed to the Scythians of Asia;
the wild inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and the
Jaxartes, two mighty rivers, which direct their course towards
the Caspian Sea. The long and memorable quarrel of Iran and
Touran is still the theme of history or romance: the famous,
perhaps the fabulous, valor of the Persian heroes, Rustan and
Asfendiar, was signalized, in the defence of their country,
against the Afrasiabs of the North; ^20 and the invincible spirit
of the same Barbarians resisted, on the same ground, the
victorious arms of Cyrus and Alexander. ^21 In the eyes of the
Greeks and Persians, the real geography of Scythia was bounded,
on the East, by the mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant
prospect of the extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was
clouded by ignorance, or perplexed by fiction. But those
inaccessible regions are the ancient residence of a powerful and
civilized nation, ^22 which ascends, by a probable tradition,
above forty centuries; ^23 and which is able to verify a series
of near two thousand years, by the perpetual testimony of
accurate and contemporary historians. ^24 The annals of China ^25
illustrate the state and revolutions of the pastoral tribes,
which may still be distinguished by the vague appellation of
Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the enemies, and sometimes
the conquerors, of a great empire; whose policy has uniformly
opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the Barbarians of the
North. From the mouth of the Danube to the Sea of Japan, the
whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and ten degrees,
which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five thousand
miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be so
easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth
degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance
above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is
stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary
climate, instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the
smoke that issues from the earth, or rather from the snow,
betrays the subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the
Samoides: the want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by
the use of reindeer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of the
earth insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and
diminutive savages, who tremble at the sound of arms. ^26
[Footnote 16: Abulghasi Khan, in the two first parts of his
Genealogical History, relates the miserable tales and traditions
of the Uzbek Tartars concerning the times which preceded the
reign of Zingis.
Note: The differences between the various pastoral tribes
and nations comprehended by the ancients under the vague name of
Scythians, and by Gibbon under inst of Tartars, have received
some, and still, perhaps, may receive more, light from the
comparisons of their dialects and languages by modern scholars. -
M]
[Footnote 17: In the thirteenth book of the Iliad, Jupiter turns
away his eyes from the bloody fields of Troy, to the plains of
Thrace and Scythia. He would not, by changing the prospect,
behold a more peaceful or innocent scene.]
[Footnote 18: Thucydides, l. ii. c. 97.]
[Footnote 19: See the fourth book of Herodotus. When Darius
advanced into the Moldavian desert, between the Danube and the
Niester, the king of the Scythians sent him a mouse, a frog, a
bird, and five arrows; a tremendous allegory!]
[Footnote 20: These wars and heroes may be found under their
respective titles, in the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot.
They have been celebrated in an epic poem of sixty thousand
rhymed couplets, by Ferdusi, the Homer of Persia. See the
history of Nadir Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must lament that
Mr. Jones has suspended the pursuit of Oriental learning.
Note: Ferdusi is yet imperfectly known to European readers.
An abstract of the whole poem has been published by Goerres in
German, under the title "das Heldenbuch des Iran." In English, an
abstract with poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has
appeared, under the auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to
translate a poet a man must be a poet. The best account of the
poem is in an article by Von Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher,
1820: or perhaps in a masterly article in Cochrane's Foreign
Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A splendid and critical edition
of the whole work has been published by a very learned English
Orientalist, Captain Macan, at the expense of the king of Oude.
As to the number of 60,000 couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p.
39) states that he never saw a MS. containing more than 56,685,
including doubtful and spurious passages and episodes. - M.
Note: The later studies of Sir W. Jones were more in unison
with the wishes of the public, thus expressed by Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 21: The Caspian Sea, with its rivers and adjacent
tribes, are laboriously illustrated in the Examen Critique des
Historiens d'Alexandre, which compares the true geography, and
the errors produced by the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks.]
[Footnote 22: The original seat of the nation appears to have
been in the Northwest of China, in the provinces of Chensi and
Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was
still a movable camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more
land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of
hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts;
Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern
provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the
Han (before Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and
extent.]
[Footnote 23: The aera of the Chinese monarchy has been variously
fixed from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ; and the year 2637
has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the authority of the
present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain
duration of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that
lies beyond them, as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi,
or Hoangti. Sematsien dates his authentic chronology from the
year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of Confucius (thirty- one of
which have been verified) were observed between the years 722 and
480 before Christ. The historical period of China does not
ascend above the Greek Olympiads.]
[Footnote 24: After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the
dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the aera of the
revival of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were
restored; the characters were improved and fixed; and the future
preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of
ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before
Christ, Sematsien published the first history of China. His
labors were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one
hundred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is
still extant; and the most considerable of them are now deposited
in the king of France's library.]
[Footnote 25: China has been illustrated by the labors of the
French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and De
Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is
extracted from the Chou-king, with the preface and notes of M. de
Guignes, Paris, 1770. The Tong-Kien- Kang-Mou, translated by P.
de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Generale de la Chine, tom. i.
p. xlix. - cc.; the Memoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom.
i. p. 1 - 323; tom. ii. p. 5 - 364; the Histoire des Huns, tom.
i. p. 4 - 131, tom. v. p. 345 - 362; and the Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377 - 402; tom. xv. p.
495 - 564; tom. xviii. p. 178 - 295; xxxvi. p. 164 - 238.]
[Footnote 26: See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii.,
and the Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620 - 664.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part II.
The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the
empire of Rome, had been formidable, in a much earlier period, to
the empire of China. ^27 Their ancient, perhaps their original,
seat was an extensive, though dry and barren, tract of country,
immediately on the north side of the great wall. Their place is
at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of the
Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred
thousand families. ^28 But the valor of the Huns had extended the
narrow limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who
assumed the appellation of Tanjou, gradually became the
conquerors, and the sovereigns of a formidable empire. Towards
the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean;
and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and
the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the
standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish,
in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more
numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued,
in a single expedition, twenty-six nations; the Igours, ^29
distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were
in the number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of
human events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled
the victorious Parthians from the invasion of Syria. ^30 On the
side of the North, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the
power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or
witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve
a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia.
The Northren Sea was fixed as the remote boundary of their
empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores the patriot
Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, ^31 may be
transferred, with much more probability, to the Baikal, a
capacious basin, above three hundred miles in length, which
disdains the modest appellation of a lake ^32 and which actually
communicates with the seas of the North, by the long course of
the Angara, the Tongusha, and the Jenissea. The submission of so
many distant nations might flatter the pride of the Tanjou; but
the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment of
the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third
century ^! before the Christian aera, a wall of fifteen hundred
miles in length was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China
against the inroads of the Huns; ^33 but this stupendous work,
which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has
never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The
cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three
hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with
which they managed their bows and their horses: by their hardy
patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the
incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by
torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most
lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of
the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished,
and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese
army. The emperor Kaoti, ^34 a soldier of fortune, whose
personal merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the
Huns with those veteran troops which had been trained in the
civil wars of China. But he was soon surrounded by the
Barbarians; and, after a siege of seven days, the monarch,
hopeless of relief, was reduced to purchase his deliverance by an
ignominious capitulation. The successors of Kaoti, whose lives
were dedicated to the arts of peace, or the luxury of the palace,
submitted to a more permanent disgrace. They too hastily
confessed the insufficiency of arms and fortifications. They
were too easily convinced, that while the blazing signals
announced on every side the approach of the Huns, the Chinese
troops, who slept with the helmet on their head, and the cuirass
on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labor of
ineffectual marches. ^35 A regular payment of money, and silk,
was stipulated as the condition of a temporary and precarious
peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a real tribute,
under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised by the
emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there still
remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which violated
the sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The hardships of the
savage life, which destroy in their infancy the children who are
born with a less healthy and robust constitution, introduced a
remarkable disproportion between the numbers of the two sexes.
The Tartars are an ugly and even deformed race; and while they
consider their own women as the instruments of domestic labor,
their desires, or rather their appetites, are directed to the
enjoyment of more elegant beauty. A select band of the fairest
maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude embraces of the
Huns; ^36 and the alliance of the haughty Tanjous was secured by
their marriage with the genuine, or adopted, daughters of the
Imperial family, which vainly attempted to escape the
sacrilegious pollution. The situation of these unhappy victims
is described in the verses of a Chinese princess, who laments
that she had been condemned by her parents to a distant exile,
under a Barbarian husband; who complains that sour milk was her
only drink, raw flesh her only food, a tent her only palace; and
who expresses, in a strain of pathetic simplicity, the natural
wish, that she were transformed into a bird, to fly back to her
dear country; the object of her tender and perpetual regret. ^37
[Footnote 27: M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1 - 124) has given the
original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chinese
geography of their country (tom. i. part. p. lv. - lxiii.) seems
to comprise a part of their conquests.
Note: The theory of De Guignes on the early history of the
Huns is, in general, rejected by modern writers. De Guignes
advanced no valid proof of the identity of the Hioung-nou of the
Chinese writers with the Huns, except the similarity of name.
Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, p. 252,)
Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 246,) St. Martin,
iv. 61, and A. Remusat, (Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, D.
P. xlvi, and p. 328; though in the latter passage he considers
the theory of De Guignes not absolutely disproved,) concur in
considering the Huns as belonging to the Finnish stock, distinct
from the Moguls the Mandscheus, and the Turks. The Hiong-nou,
according to Klaproth, were Turks. The names of the Hunnish
chiefs could not be pronounced by a Turk; and, according to the
same author, the Hioung-nou, which is explained in Chinese as
detestable slaves, as early as the year 91 J. C., were dispersed
by the Chinese, and assumed the name of Yue-po or Yue-pan. M. St.
Martin does not consider it impossible that the appellation of
Hioung-nou may have belonged to the Huns. But all agree in
considering the Madjar or Magyar of modern Hungary the
descendants of the Huns. Their language (compare Gibbon, c. lv.
n. 22) is nearly related to the Lapponian and Vogoul. The noble
forms of the modern Hungarians, so strongly contrasted with the
hideous pictures which the fears and the hatred of the Romans
give of the Huns, M. Klaproth accounts for by the intermingling
with other races, Turkish and Slavonian. The present state of the
question is thus stated in the last edition of Malte Brun, and a
new and ingenious hypothesis suggested to resolve all the
difficulties of the question.
Were the Huns Finns? This obscure question has not been
debated till very recently, and is yet very far from being
decided. We are of opinion that it will be so hereafter in the
same manner as that with regard to the Scythians. We shall trace
in the portrait of Attila a dominant tribe or Mongols, or
Kalmucks, with all the hereditary ugliness of that race; but in
the mass of the Hunnish army and nation will be recognized the
Chuni and the Ounni of the Greek Geography. the Kuns of the
Hungarians, the European Huns, and a race in close relationship
with the Flemish stock. Malte Brun, vi. p. 94. This theory is
more fully and ably developed, p. 743. Whoever has seen the
emperor of Austria's Hungarian guard, will not readily admit
their descent from the Huns described by Sidonius Appolinaris. -
M]
[Footnote 28: See in Duhalde (tom. iv. p. 18 - 65) a
circumstantial description, with a correct map, of the country of
the Mongous.]
[Footnote 29: The Igours, or Vigours, were divided into three
branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and the last class
was despised by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c. 7.
Note: On the Ouigour or Igour characters, see the work of M.
A. Remusat, Sur les Langues Tartares. He conceives the Ouigour
alphabet of sixteen letters to have been formed from the Syriac,
and introduced by the Nestorian Christians. - Ch. ii. M.]
[Footnote 30: Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.
p. 17 - 33. The comprehensive view of M. de Guignes has compared
these distant events.]
[Footnote 31: The fame of Sovou, or So-ou, his merit, and his
singular adventurers, are still celebrated in China. See the
Eloge de Moukden, p. 20, and notes, p. 241 - 247; and Memoires
sur la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317 - 360.]
[Footnote 32: See Isbrand Ives in Harris's Collection, vol. ii.
p. 931; Bell's Travels, vol. i. p. 247 - 254; and Gmelin, in the
Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. 283 - 329. They all
remark the vulgar opinion that the holy sea grows angry and
tempestuous if any one presumes to call it a lake. This
grammatical nicety often excites a dispute between the absurd
superstition of the mariners and the absurd obstinacy of
travellers.]
[Footnote !: 224 years before Christ. It was built by
Chi-hoang-ti of the Dynasty Thsin. It is from twenty to
twenty-five feet high. Ce monument, aussi gigantesque
qu'impuissant, arreterait bien les incursions de quelques
Nomades; mais il n'a jamais empeche les invasions des Turcs, des
Mongols, et des Mandchous. Abe Remusat Rech. Asiat. 2d ser. vol.
i. p. 58 - M.]
[Footnote 33: The construction of the wall of China is mentioned
by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and De Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 59.)]
[Footnote 34: See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist,
de la Chine, published at Paris, 1777, &c., tom. i. p. 442 - 522.
This voluminous work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of
the Tong-Kien- Kang-Mou, the celebrated abridgment of the great
History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his continuators.]
[Footnote 35: See a free and ample memorial, presented by a
Mandarin to the emperor Venti, (before Christ 180 - 157,) in
Duhalde, (tom. ii. p. 412 - 426,) from a collection of State
papers marked with the red pencil by Kamhi himself, (p. 354 -
612.) Another memorial from the minister of war (Kang- Mou, tom.
ii. p 555) supplies some curious circumstances of the manners of
the Huns.]
[Footnote 36: A supply of women is mentioned as a customary
article of treaty and tribute, (Hist. de la Conquete de la Chine,
par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187, with the note
of the editor.)]
[Footnote 37: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 62.]
The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the
pastoral tribes of the North: the forces of the Huns were not
inferior to those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their
ambition might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But
their pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the
arms and policy of Vouti, ^38 the fifth emperor of the powerful
dynasty of the Han. In his long reign of fifty-four years, the
Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and
manners of China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were
enlarged, from the great river of Kiang, to the port of Canton.
Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a
defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated many hundred miles into
the country of the Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is
impossible to form magazines, and difficult to transport a
sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were
repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred
and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians,
thirty thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their
master. These losses, however, were compensated by splendid and
decisive success. The Chinese generals improved the superiority
which they derived from the temper of their arms, their chariots
of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The camp of
the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance;
and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through
the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his
subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which
was preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed
much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns than the
effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary
nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or
allured by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most
considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed
the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged themselves
the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the
implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty
people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength,
might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of
the great and populous cities of China. ^39 The desertion of his
subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled
the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent
sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited nation.
He was received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the
troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the
honors that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese
vanity. ^40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception;
his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family;
and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the
ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of
meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on
his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of
China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his
successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted
a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence.
After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed
from their allegiance and seized the favorable moments of war and
rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it
was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate
kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by fear
and ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which
composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained,
with the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of
the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service
of the empire was secured by weakness, and the desire of revenge.
From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the North
continued to languish about fifty years; till they were oppressed
on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud
inscription ^41 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain,
announced to posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven
hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, ^42 a
tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had
formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign
of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end
of the first century of the Christian aera. ^43
[Footnote 38: See the reign of the emperor Vouti, in the
Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 1 - 98. His various and inconsistent
character seems to be impartially drawn.]
[Footnote 39: This expression is used in the memorial to the
emperor Venti, (Duhalde, tom. ii. p. 411.) Without adopting the
exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may rationally
allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the
South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more
populous.]
[Footnote 40: See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the
subsequent events under the proper years. This memorable
festival is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and explained in
a note by the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90.]
[Footnote 41: This inscription was composed on the spot by
Parkou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii.
p. 392.) Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of
Tartary, (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122.)]
[Footnote 42: M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short
account of the Sienpi.]
[Footnote 43: The aera of the Huns is placed, by the Chinese,
1210 years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not
commence till the year 230, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21,
123.)]
The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the
various influence of character and situation. ^44 Above one
hundred thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most
pusillanimous of the people, were contented to remain in their
native country, to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and
to mingle with the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight
hords, about two hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more
honorable servitude, retired towards the South; implored the
protection of the emperors of China; and were permitted to
inhabit, and to guard, the extreme frontiers of the province of
Chansi and the territory of Ortous. But the most warlike and
powerful tribes of the Huns maintained, in their adverse fortune,
the undaunted spirit of their ancestors. The Western world was
open to their valor; and they resolved, under the conduct of
their hereditary chieftains, to conquer and subdue some remote
country, which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi,
and to the laws of China. ^45 The course of their emigration soon
carried them beyond the mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the
Chinese geography; but we are able to distinguish the two great
divisions of these formidable exiles, which directed their march
towards the Oxus, and towards the Volga. The first of these
colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive
plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian; where
they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites,
or Nepthalites. ^* Their manners were softened, and even their
features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the
climate, and their long residence in a flourishing province, ^46
which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of
Greece. ^47 The white Huns, a name which they derived from the
change of their complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of
Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizme, has
since enjoyed a temporary splendor, was the residence of the
king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people.
Their luxury was maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the
only vestige of their ancient barbarism, was the custom which
obliged all the companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who
had shared the liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive
in the same grave. ^48 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces
of Persia, involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the
power of that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith
of treaties; in war, she dictates of humanity; and their
memorable victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the
moderation, as well as the valor, of the Barbarians. The second
division of their countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced
towards the North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a
colder climate, and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled
them to exchange the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the
imperfect rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the
native fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their
intercourse with the savage tribes, who were compared, with some
propriety, to the wild beasts of the desert. Their independent
spirit soon rejected the hereditary succession of the Tanjous;
and while each horde was governed by its peculiar mursa, their
tumultuary council directed the public measures of the whole
nation. As late as the thirteenth century, their transient
residence on the eastern banks of the Volga was attested by the
name of Great Hungary. ^49 In the winter, they descended with
their flocks and herds towards the mouth of that mighty river;
and their summer excursions reached as high as the latitude of
Saratoff, or perhaps the conflux of the Kama. Such at least were
the recent limits of the black Calmucks, ^50 who remained about a
century under the protection of Russia; and who have since
returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the Chinese
empire. The march, and the return, of those wandering Tartars,
whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families,
illustrate the distant emigrations of the ancient Huns. ^51
[Footnote 44: The various accidents, the downfall, and the flight
of the Huns, are related in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91,
95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each horde may be due to their
losses and divisions.]
[Footnote 45: M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of
the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary, (tom. ii. p. 123,
277, &c., 325, &c.)]
[Footnote *: The Armenian authors often mention this people under
the name of Hepthal. St. Martin considers that the name of
Nepthalites is an error of a copyist. St. Martin, iv. 254. - M.]
[Footnote 46: Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana
when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his moguls. The
Oriental historians (see D'Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.,)
celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful
country which he desolated. In the next century, the same
provinces of Chorasmia and Nawaralnahr were described by
Abulfeda, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.) Their actual
misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p.
423 - 469.]
[Footnote 47: Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the
Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the
new and extraordinary trade, which transported the merchandises
of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the
Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea,
were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See
l'Esprit des Loix, l. xxi.)]
[Footnote 48: Procopius de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]
[Footnote 49: In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who
traversed the immense plain of Kipzak, in his journey to the
court of the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name of Hungary,
with the traces of a common language and origin, Hist. des
Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)]
[Footnote 50: Bell, (vol. i. p. 29 - 34,) and the editors of the
Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have described the Calmucks of
the Volga in the beginning of the present century.]
[Footnote 51: This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or
Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of
Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for
the inscription of a column, has been translated by the
missionaries of Pekin, (Memoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p. 401 -
418.) The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of the
Son of Heaven, and the Father of his People.]
It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which
elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the
Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the
Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the
same force which had driven them from their native seats, still
continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe.
The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies, which extended
above three thousand miles from East to West, ^52 must have
gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would
inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the
territories, of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of
those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the
understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very
natural suspicion, that the Huns of the North derived a
considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the
South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to
the dominion of China; that the bravest warriors marched away in
search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and that, as
they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by
the common hardships of their adverse fortune. ^53 The Huns, with
their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their
dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga,
and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a
pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of
the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the
Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name
and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their
conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni
were confounded among their vassals. Towards the North, they
penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages
who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of
human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as far as the
confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Samartic and German
blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, ^* to
whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a
yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They
were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their
manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those
formidable Barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in
the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic
slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine
as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed
in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship;
the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their
horses; and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the
pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities of
age, and the tortures of lingering disease. ^54 On the banks of
the Tanais, the military power of the Huns and the Alani
encountered each other with equal valor, but with unequal
success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of
the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation
were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or
submission. ^55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the
mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where
they still preserve their name and their independence. Another
colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores
of the Baltic; associated themselves with the Northern tribes of
Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and
Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced
the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the Huns,
who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies,
proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade
the limits of the Gothic empire.
[Footnote 52: The Khan-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their
conquests a space of 14,000 lis. According to the present
standard, 200 lis (or more accurately 193) are equal to one
degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds
three miles of China. But there are strong reasons to believe
that the ancient li scarcely equalled one half of the modern.
See the elaborate researches of M. D'Anville, a geographer who is
not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (Memoires de
l'Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Itineraires, p. 154-167.]
[Footnote 53: See Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125 - 144. The
subsequent history (p. 145 - 277) of three or four Hunnic
dynasties evidently proves that their martial spirit was not
impaired by a long residence in China.]
[Footnote *: Compare M. Klaproth's curious speculations on the
Alani. He supposes them to have been the people, known by the
Chinese, at the time of their first expeditions to the West,
under the name of Yath-sai or A-lanna, the Alanan of Persian
tradition, as preserved in Ferdusi; the same, according to
Ammianus, with the Massagetae, and with the Albani. The remains
of the nation still exist in the Ossetae of Mount Caucasus.
Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 174. - M. Compare
Shafarik Slawische alterthumer, i. p. 350. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 54: Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est
voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvent et bella. Judicatur ibi
beatus qui in proelio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et
fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos,
conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must
think highly of the conquerors of such men.]
[Footnote 55: On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus, (xxxi.
2,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M. de Guignes, (Hist.
des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical History of the
Tartars, (tom. ii. p. 617.)]
The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the
Baltic to the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and
reputation, the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by
the formidable approach of a host of unknown enemies, ^56 on whom
his barbarous subjects might, without injustice, bestow the
epithet of Barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid
motions, and the implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and
dreaded, and magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their
fields and villages consumed with flames, and deluged with
indiscriminate slaughter. To these real terrors they added the
surprise and abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice,
the uncouth gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. ^*
These savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some
resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs
and to the misshapen figures, the Termini, which were often
placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from
the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat
noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as
they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either
the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age. ^57 A
fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners;
that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly
practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the
desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the
offspring of this execrable conjunction. ^58 The tale, so full of
horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous
hatred of the Goths; but, while it gratified their hatred, it
increased their fear, since the posterity of daemons and witches
might be supposed to inherit some share of the praeternatural
powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents.
Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united
forces of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his
vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to
second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the
chiefs of the Roxolani ^59 had formerly deserted the standard of
Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife
of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers
of that unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge.
The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the
dangerous wound which he received from their daggers; but the
conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and the
public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of
jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his
own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of
Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some Scythian
mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of
the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a
decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the
royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the
subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the
infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax;
two warriors of approved valor and fiedlity, who, by cautious
marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the
Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester; a considerable
river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire
of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric,
more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed
the camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing
the victorious Barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to
provoke. The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the
weight of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their
military skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of
Athanaric. While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks
of the Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous
detachment of cavalry, who, by the light of the moon, had passed
the river in a fordable place; and it was not without the utmost
efforts of courage and conduct, that he was able to effect his
retreat towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had
already formed a new and judicious plan of defensive war; and the
strong lines, which he was preparing to construct between the
mountains, the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the
extensive and fertile territory that bears the modern name of
Walachia, from the destructive inroads of the Huns. ^60 But the
hopes and measures of the Judge of the Visigoths was soon
disappointed, by the trembling impatience of his dismayed
countrymen; who were persuaded by their fears, that the
interposition of the Danube was the only barrier that could save
them from the rapid pursuit, and invincible valor, of the
Barbarians of Scythia. Under the command of Fritigern and
Alavivus, ^61 the body of the nation hastily advanced to the
banks of the great river, and implored the protection of the
Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric himself, still anxious to
avoid the guilt of perjury, retired, with a band of faithful
followers, into the mountainous country of Caucaland; which
appears to have been guarded, and almost concealed, by the
impenetrable forests of Transylvania. ^62 ^*
[Footnote 56: As we are possessed of the authentic history of the
Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or to refute, the fables
which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of
the mud or water of the Maeotis, in pursuit of an ox or stag, les
Indes qu'ils avoient decouvertes, &c., (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 224.
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5.
Jornandes, c. 24. Grandeur et Decadence, &c., des Romains, c.
17.)]
[Footnote *: Art added to their native ugliness; in fact, it is
difficult to ascribe the proper share in the features of this
hideous picture to nature, to the barbarous skill with which they
were self-disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the Romans.
Their noses were flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were
gashed by an iron instrument, that the scars might look more
fearful, and prevent the growth of the beard. Jornandes and
Sidonius Apollinaris: -
Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia nares,
Ut galeis cedant.
Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly, their height
of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned.
Stant pectora vasta,
Insignes humer, succincta sub ilibus alvus.
Forma quidem pediti media est, procera sed extat
Si cernas equites, sic longi saepe putantur
Si sedeant.]
[Footnote 57: Prodigiosae formae, et pandi; ut bipedes existimes
bestias; vel quales in commarginandis pontibus, effigiati
stipites dolantur incompte. Ammian. xxxi. i. Jornandes (c. 24)
draws a strong caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavenda
nigredine ... quaedam deformis offa, non fecies; habensque magis
puncta quam lumina. See Buffon. Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. 380.]
[Footnote 58: This execrable origin, which Jornandes (c. 24)
describes with the rancor of a Goth, might be originally derived
from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. l. iv. c. 9,
&c.)]
[Footnote 59: The Roxolani may be the fathers of the the
Russians, (D'Anville, Empire de Russie, p. 1 - 10,) whose
residence (A.D. 862) about Novogrod Veliki cannot be very remote
from that which the Geographer of Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46, v.
28, 30) assigns to the Roxolani, (A.D. 886.)
Note: See, on the origin of the Russ, Schlozer, Nordische
Geschichte, p. 78 - M.]
[Footnote 60: The text of Ammianus seems to be imperfect or
corrupt; but the nature of the ground explains, and almost
defines, the Gothic rampart. Memoires de l'Academie, &c., tom.
xxviii. p. 444 - 462.]
[Footnote 61: M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi.
p. 407) has conceived a strange idea, that Alavivus was the same
person as Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop; and that Ulphilas, the
grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince of
the Goths.]
[Footnote 62: Ammianus (xxxi. 3) and Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis,
c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.]
[Footnote *: The most probable opinion as to the position of this
land is that of M. Malte-Brun. He thinks that Caucaland is the
territory of the Cacoenses, placed by Ptolemy (l. iii. c. 8)
towards the Carpathian Mountains, on the side of the present
Transylvania, and therefore the canton of Cacava, to the south of
Hermanstadt, the capital of the principality. Caucaland it is
evident, is the Gothic form of these different names. St.
Martin, iv 103. - M.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part III.
After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some
appearance of glory and success, he made a progress through his
dominions of Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the
capital of Syria. The five years ^63 which he spent at Antioch
was employed to watch, from a secure distance, the hostile
designs of the Persian monarch; to check the depredations of the
Saracens and Isaurians; ^64 to enforce, by arguments more
prevalent than those of reason and eloquence, the belief of the
Arian theology; and to satisfy his anxious suspicions by the
promiscuous execution of the innocent and the guilty. But the
attention of the emperor was most seriously engaged, by the
important intelligence which he received from the civil and
military officers who were intrusted with the defence of the
Danube. He was informed, that the North was agitated by a
furious tempest; that the irruption of the Huns, an unknown and
monstrous race of savages, had subverted the power of the Goths;
and that the suppliant multitudes of that warlike nation, whose
pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space of many miles
along the banks of the river. With outstretched arms, and
pathetic lamentations, they loudly deplored their past
misfortunes and their present danger; acknowledged that their
only hope of safety was in the clemency of the Roman government;
and most solemnly protested, that if the gracious liberality of
the emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of
Thrace, they should ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest
obligations of duty and gratitude, to obey the laws, and to guard
the limits, of the republic. These assurances were confirmed by
the ambassadors of the Goths, ^* who impatiently expected from
the mouth of Valens an answer that must finally determine the
fate of their unhappy countrymen. The emperor of the East was no
longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother,
whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year; and
as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and
peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favorite resources of
feeble and timid minds, who consider the use of dilatory and
ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate
prudence. As long as the same passions and interests subsist
among mankind, the questions of war and peace, of justice and
policy, which were debated in the councils of antiquity, will
frequently present themselves as the subject of modern
deliberation. But the most experienced statesman of Europe has
never been summoned to consider the propriety, or the danger, of
admitting, or rejecting, an innumerable multitude of Barbarians,
who are driven by despair and hunger to solicit a settlement on
the territories of a civilized nation. When that important
proposition, so essentially connected with the public safety, was
referred to the ministers of Valens, they were perplexed and
divided; but they soon acquiesced in the flattering sentiment
which seemed the most favorable to the pride, the indolence, and
the avarice of their sovereign. The slaves, who were decorated
with the titles of praefects and generals, dissembled or
disregarded the terrors of this national emigration; so extremely
different from the partial and accidental colonies, which had
been received on the extreme limits of the empire. But they
applauded the liberality of fortune, which had conducted, from
the most distant countries of the globe, a numerous and
invincible army of strangers, to defend the throne of Valens; who
might now add to the royal treasures the immense sums of gold
supplied by the provincials to compensate their annual proportion
of recruits. The prayers of the Goths were granted, and their
service was accepted by the Imperial court: and orders were
immediately despatched to the civil and military governors of the
Thracian diocese, to make the necessary preparations for the
passage and subsistence of a great people, till a proper and
sufficient territory could be allotted for their future
residence. The liberality of the emperor was accompanied,
however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions, which prudence
might justify on the side of the Romans; but which distress alone
could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they passed the
Danube, they were required to deliver their arms: and it was
insisted, that their children should be taken from them, and
dispersed through the provinces of Asia; where they might be
civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to
secure the fidelity of their parents.
[Footnote 63: The Chronology of Ammianus is obscure and
imperfect. Tillemont has labored to clear and settle the annals
of Valens.]
[Footnote 64: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 223. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 38.
The Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of Asia Minor, as
far as the neighborhood of Constantinople. Basil, Epist. cel.
apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 106.]
[Footnote *: Sozomen and Philostorgius say that the bishop
Ulphilas was one of these ambassadors. - M.]
During the suspense of a doubtful and distant negotiation,
the impatient Goths made some rash attempts to pass the Danube,
without the permission of the government, whose protection they
had implored. Their motions were strictly observed by the
vigilance of the troops which were stationed along the river and
their foremost detachments were defeated with considerable
slaughter; yet such were the timid councils of the reign of
Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in
the execution of their duty, were punished by the loss of their
employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The
Imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the
Danube the whole body of the Gothic nation; ^65 but the execution
of this order was a task of labor and difficulty. The stream of
the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, ^66 had
been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous passage,
many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the
current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was
provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with
indefatigable toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted
by the officers of Valens, that not a single Barbarian, of those
who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be
left on the opposite shore. It was thought expedient that an
accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the
persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and
dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable
task: ^67 and the principal historian of the age most seriously
affirms, that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which
had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous
antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the
evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed
the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men:
and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of
children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed
this formidable emigration, must have amounted to near a million
of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages. The children of the
Goths, those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated
from the multitude. They were conducted, without delay, to the
distant seats assigned for their residence and education; and as
the numerous train of hostages or captives passed through the
cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and martial
figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. ^* But
the stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the most
important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded. The Barbarians,
who considered their arms as the ensigns of honor and the pledges
of safety, were disposed to offer a price, which the lust or
avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted to accept.
To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented, with some
reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their daughters; the
charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy, secured the
connivance of the inspectors; who sometimes cast an eye of
covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of their
new allies, ^68 or who sacrificed their duty to the mean
consideration of filling their farms with cattle, and their
houses with slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were
permitted to enter the boats; and when their strength was
collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp which
was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower Maesia,
assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of
the Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their
infant king, appeared soon afterwards on the Northern banks of
the Danube; and immediately despatched their ambassadors to the
court of Antioch, to solicit, with the same professions of
allegiance and gratitude, the same favor which had been granted
to the suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of Valens
suspended their progress, and discovered the repentance, the
suspicions, and the fears, of the Imperial council.
[Footnote 65: The passage of the Danube is exposed by Ammianus,
(xxxi. 3, 4,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 223, 224,) Eunapius in Excerpt.
Legat. (p. 19, 20,) and Jornandes, (c. 25, 26.) Ammianus declares
(c. 5) that he means only, ispas rerum digerere summitates. But
he often takes a false measure of their importance; and his
superfluous prolixity is disagreeably balanced by his
unseasonable brevity.]
[Footnote 66: Chishull, a curious traveller, has remarked the
breadth of the Danube, which he passed to the south of Bucharest
near the conflux of the Argish, (p. 77.) He admires the beauty
and spontaneous plenty of Maesia, or Bulgaria.]
[Footnote 67: Quem sci scire velit, Libyci velit aequoris idem
Discere quam multae Zephyro turbentur harenae.
Ammianus has inserted, in his prose, these lines of Virgil,
(Georgia l. ii. 105,) originally designed by the poet to express
the impossibility of numbering the different sorts of vines. See
Plin. Hist. Natur l. xiv.]
[Footnote *: A very curious, but obscure, passage of Eunapius,
appears to me to have been misunderstood by M. Mai, to whom we
owe its discovery. The substance is as follows: "The Goths
transported over the river their native deities, with their
priests of both sexes; but concerning their rites they maintained
a deep and 'adamantine silence.' To the Romans they pretended to
be generally Christians, and placed certain persons to represent
bishops in a conspicuous manner on their wagons. There was even
among them a sort of what are called monks, persons whom it was
not difficult to mimic; it was enough to wear black raiment, to
be wicked, and held in respect." (Eunapius hated the "black-robed
monks," as appears in another passage, with the cordial
detestation of a heathen philosopher.) "Thus, while they
faithfully but secretly adhered to their own religion, the Romans
were weak enough to suppose them perfect Christians." Mai, 277.
Eunapius in Niebuhr, 82. - M]
[Footnote 68: Eunapius and Zosimus curiously specify these
articles of Gothic wealth and luxury. Yet it must be presumed,
that they were the manufactures of the provinces; which the
Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war; or as the gifts, or
merchandise, of peace.]
An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required
the firmest temper, and the most dexterous management. The daily
subsistence of near a million of extraordinary subjects could be
supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might
continually be interrupted by mistake or accident. The
insolence, or the indignation, of the Goths, if they conceived
themselves to be the objects either of fear or of contempt, might
urge them to the most desperate extremities; and the fortune of
the state seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the
integrity, of the generals of Valens. At this important crisis,
the military government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and
Maximus, in whose venal minds the slightest hope of private
emolument outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and
whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning
the pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.
Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and satisfying,
with decent liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied an
ungenerous and oppressive tax on the wants of the hungry
Barbarians. The vilest food was sold at an extravagant price;
and, in the room of wholesome and substantial provisions, the
markets were filled with the flesh of dogs, and of unclean
animals, who had died of disease. To obtain the valuable
acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the
possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave; and a
small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of
a precious, but useless metal, ^69 when their property was
exhausted, they continued this necessary traffic by the sale of
their sons and daughters; and notwithstanding the love of
freedom, which animated every Gothic breast, they submitted to
the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their children to
be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a state
of wretched and helpless independence. The most lively
resentment is excited by the tyranny of pretended benefactors,
who sternly exact the debt of gratitude which they have cancelled
by subsequent injuries: a spirit of discontent insensibly arose
in the camp of the Barbarians, who pleaded, without success, the
merit of their patient and dutiful behavior; and loudly
complained of the inhospitable treatment which they had received
from their new allies. They beheld around them the wealth and
plenty of a fertile province, in the midst of which they suffered
the intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the means of
relief, and even of revenge, were in their hands; since the
rapaciousness of their tyrants had left to an injured people the
possession and the use of arms. The clamors of a multitude,
untaught to disguise their sentiments, announced the first
symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid and guilty minds of
Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who substituted
the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary
counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from
their dangerous station on the frontiers of the empire; and to
disperse them, in separate quarters of cantonment, through the
interior provinces. As they were conscious how ill they had
deserved the respect, or confidence, of the Barbarians, they
diligently collected, from every side, a military force, that
might urge the tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had not
yet renounced the title, or the duties, of Roman subjects. But
the generals of Valens, while their attention was solely directed
to the discontented Visigoths, imprudently disarmed the ships and
the fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube.
The fatal oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and
Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping
from the pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and
vessels as could be hastily procured, the leaders of the
Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their king and their
army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the
territories of the empire. ^70
[Footnote 69: Decem libras; the word silver must be understood.
Jornandes betrays the passions and prejudices of a Goth. The
servile Geeks, Eunapius and Zosimus, disguise the Roman
oppression, and execrate the perfidy of the Barbarians.
Ammianus, a patriot historian, slightly, and reluctantly, touches
on the odious subject. Jerom, who wrote almost on the spot, is
fair, though concise. Per avaritaim aximi ducis, ad rebellionem
fame coacti sunt, (in Chron.)
Note: A new passage from the history of Eunapius is nearer
to the truth. 'It appeared to our commanders a legitimate source
of gain to be bribed by the Barbarians: Edit. Niebuhr, p. 82. -
M.]
[Footnote 70: Ammianus, xxxi. 4, 5.]
Under the name of Judges, Alavivus and Fritigern were the
leaders of the Visigoths in peace and war; and the authority
which they derived from their birth was ratified by the free
consent of the nation. In a season of tranquility, their power
might have been equal, as well as their rank; but, as soon as
their countrymen were exasperated by hunger and oppression, the
superior abilities of Fritigern assumed the military command,
which he was qualified to exercise for the public welfare. He
restrained the impatient spirit of the Visigoths till the
injuries and the insults of their tyrants should justify their
resistance in the opinion of mankind: but he was not disposed to
sacrifice any solid advantages for the empty praise of justice
and moderation. Sensible of the benefits which would result from
the union of the Gothic powers under the same standard, he
secretly cultivated the friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while
he professed an implicit obedience to the orders of the Roman
generals, he proceeded by slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the
capital of the Lower Maesia, about seventy miles from the banks
of the Danube. On that fatal spot, the flames of discord and
mutual hatred burst forth into a dreadful conflagration.
Lupicinus had invited the Gothic chiefs to a splendid
entertainment; and their martial train remained under arms at the
entrance of the palace. But the gates of the city were strictly
guarded, and the Barbarians were sternly excluded from the use of
a plentiful market, to which they asserted their equal claim of
subjects and allies. Their humble prayers were rejected with
insolence and derision; and as their patience was now exhausted,
the townsmen, the soldiers, and the Goths, were soon involved in
a conflict of passionate altercation and angry reproaches. A
blow was imprudently given; a sword was hastily drawn; and the
first blood that was spilt in this accidental quarrel, became the
signal of a long and destructive war. In the midst of noise and
brutal intemperance, Lupicinus was informed, by a secret
messenger, that many of his soldiers were slain, and despoiled of
their arms; and as he was already inflamed by wine, and oppressed
by sleep he issued a rash command, that their death should be
revenged by the massacre of the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus.
The clamorous shouts and dying groans apprised Fritigern of his
extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and intrepid spirit
of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment of
deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. "A
trifling dispute," said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle
tone of voice, "appears to have arisen between the two nations;
but it may be productive of the most dangerous consequences,
unless the tumult is immediately pacified by the assurance of our
safety, and the authority of our presence." At these words,
Fritigern and his companions drew their swords, opened their
passage through the unresisting crowd, which filled the palace,
the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis, and, mounting their
horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished Romans.
The generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful
acclamations of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the
resolution was executed without delay: the banners of the nation
were displayed according to the custom of their ancestors; and
the air resounded with the harsh and mournful music of the
Barbarian trumpet. ^71 The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had
dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still
presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the
Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected
on this sudden emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach
about nine miles from Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the
talents of the general were found to be of more prevailing
efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the troops. The
valor of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius of
Fritigern, that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the
ranks of the Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and
standards, his tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of
battle; and their useless courage served only to protect the
ignominious flight of their leader. "That successful day put an
end to the distress of the Barbarians, and the security of the
Romans: from that day, the Goths, renouncing the precarious
condition of strangers and exiles, assumed the character of
citizens and masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the
possessors of land, and held, in their own right, the northern
provinces of the empire, which are bounded by the Danube." Such
are the words of the Gothic historian, ^72 who celebrates, with
rude eloquence, the glory of his countrymen. But the dominion of
the Barbarians was exercised only for the purposes of rapine and
destruction. As they had been deprived, by the ministers of the
emperor, of the common benefits of nature, and the fair
intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on the
subjects of the empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated
by the ruin of the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the
conflagration of their villages, and the massacre, or captivity,
of their innocent families. The report of the Gothic victory was
soon diffused over the adjacent country; and while it filled the
minds of the Romans with terror and dismay, their own hasty
imprudence contributed to increase the forces of Fritigern, and
the calamities of the province. Some time before the great
emigration, a numerous body of Goths, under the command of Suerid
and Colias, had been received into the protection and service of
the empire. ^73 They were encamped under the walls of
Hadrianople; but the ministers of Valens were anxious to remove
them beyond the Hellespont, at a distance from the dangerous
temptation which might so easily be communicated by the
neighborhood, and the success, of their countrymen. The
respectful submission with which they yielded to the order of
their march, might be considered as a proof of their fidelity;
and their moderate request of a sufficient allowance of
provisions, and of a delay of only two days was expressed in the
most dutiful terms. But the first magistrate of Hadrianople,
incensed by some disorders which had been committed at his
country-house, refused this indulgence; and arming against them
the inhabitants and manufacturers of a populous city, he urged,
with hostile threats, their instant departure. The Barbarians
stood silent and amazed, till they were exasperated by the
insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the populace: but when
patience or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the undisciplined
multitude, inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their
flying enemies, and despoiled them of the splendid armor, ^74
which they were unworthy to bear. The resemblance of their
sufferings and their actions soon united this victorious
detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops of Colias
and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged
themselves under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the
siege of Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison
informed the Barbarians, that in the attack of regular
fortifications, the efforts of unskillful courage are seldom
effectual. Their general acknowledged his error, raised the
siege, declared that "he was at peace with stone walls," ^75 and
revenged his disappointment on the adjacent country. He
accepted, with pleasure, the useful reenforcement of hardy
workmen, who labored in the gold mines of Thrace, ^76 for the
emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling master: ^77 and
these new associates conducted the Barbarians, through the secret
paths, to the most sequestered places, which had been chosen to
secure the inhabitants, the cattle, and the magazines of corn.
With the assistance of such guides, nothing could remain
impervious or inaccessible; resistance was fatal; flight was
impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless innocence
seldom found mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the course
of these depredations, a great number of the children of the
Goths, who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the
embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender interviews,
which might have revived and cherished in their minds some
sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native
fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager
attention, to the complaints of their captive children, who had
suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry
passions of their masters, and the same cruelties, the same
indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters
of the Romans. ^78
[Footnote 71: Vexillis de more sublatis, auditisque trisie
sonantibus classicis. Ammian. xxxi. 5. These are the rauca
cornua of Claudian, (in Rufin. ii. 57,) the large horns of the
Uri, or wild bull; such as have been more recently used by the
Swiss Cantons of Uri and Underwald. (Simler de Republica Helvet,
l. ii. p. 201, edit. Fuselin. Tigur 1734.) Their military horn
is finely, though perhaps casually, introduced in an original
narrative of the battle of Nancy, (A.D. 1477.) "Attendant le
combat le dit cor fut corne par trois fois, tant que le vent du
souffler pouvoit durer: ce qui esbahit fort Monsieur de
Bourgoigne; car deja a Morat l'avoit ouy." (See the Pieces
Justificatives in the 4to. edition of Philippe de Comines, tom.
iii. p. 493.)]
[Footnote 72: Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 26, p. 648, edit.
Grot. These splendidi panm (they are comparatively such) are
undoubtedly transcribed from the larger histories of Priscus,
Ablavius, or Cassiodorus.]
[Footnote 73: Cum populis suis longe ante suscepti. We are
ignorant of the precise date and circumstances of their
transmigration.]
[Footnote 74: An Imperial manufacture of shields, &c., was
established at Hadrianople; and the populace were headed by the
Fabricenses, or workmen. (Vales. ad Ammian. xxxi. 6.)]
[Footnote 75: Pacem sibi esse cum parietibus memorans. Ammian.
xxxi. 7.]
[Footnote 76: These mines were in the country of the Bessi, in
the ridge of mountains, the Rhodope, that runs between Philippi
and Philippopolis; two Macedonian cities, which derived their
name and origin from the father of Alexander. From the mines of
Thrace he annually received the value, not the weight, of a
thousand talents, (200,000l.,) a revenue which paid the phalanx,
and corrupted the orators of Greece. See Diodor. Siculus, tom.
ii. l. xvi. p. 88, edit. Wesseling. Godefroy's Commentary on the
Theodosian Code, tom. iii. p. 496. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq.
tom. i. p. 676, 857. D Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
336.]
[Footnote 77: As those unhappy workmen often ran away, Valens had
enacted severe laws to drag them from their hiding-places. Cod.
Theodosian, l. x. tit xix leg. 5, 7.]
[Footnote 78: See Ammianus, xxxi. 5, 6. The historian of the
Gothic war loses time and space, by an unseasonable
recapitulation of the ancient inroads of the Barbarians.]
The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced
into the heart of the empire a nation of enemies; but the
Visigoths might even yet have been reconciled, by the manly
confession of past errors, and the sincere performance of former
engagements. These healing and temperate measures seemed to
concur with the timorous disposition of the sovereign of the
East: but, on this occasion alone, Valens was brave; and his
unseasonable bravery was fatal to himself and to his subjects.
He declared his intention of marching from Antioch to
Constantinople, to subdue this dangerous rebellion; and, as he
was not ignorant of the difficulties of the enterprise, he
solicited the assistance of his nephew, the emperor Gratian, who
commanded all the forces of the West. The veteran troops were
hastily recalled from the defence of Armenia; that important
frontier was abandoned to the discretion of Sapor; and the
immediate conduct of the Gothic war was intrusted, during the
absence of Valens, to his lieutenants Trajan and Profuturus, two
generals who indulged themselves in a very false and favorable
opinion of their own abilities. On their arrival in Thrace, they
were joined by Richomer, count of the domestics; and the
auxiliaries of the West, that marched under his banner, were
composed of the Gallic legions, reduced indeed, by a spirit of
desertion, to the vain appearances of strength and numbers. In a
council of war, which was influenced by pride, rather than by
reason, it was resolved to seek, and to encounter, the
Barbarians, who lay encamped in the spacious and fertile meadows,
near the most southern of the six mouths of the Danube. ^79 Their
camp was surrounded by the usual fortification of wagons; ^80 and
the Barbarians, secure within the vast circle of the enclosure,
enjoyed the fruits of their valor, and the spoils of the
province. In the midst of riotous intemperance, the watchful
Fritigern observed the motions, and penetrated the designs, of
the Romans. He perceived, that the numbers of the enemy were
continually increasing: and, as he understood their intention of
attacking his rear, as soon as the scarcity of forage should
oblige him to remove his camp, he recalled to their standard his
predatory detachments, which covered the adjacent country. As
soon as they descried the flaming beacons, ^81 they obeyed, with
incredible speed, the signal of their leader: the camp was filled
with the martial crowd of Barbarians; their impatient clamors
demanded the battle, and their tumultuous zeal was approved and
animated by the spirit of their chiefs. The evening was already
far advanced; and the two armies prepared themselves for the
approaching combat, which was deferred only till the dawn of day.
While the trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the
Goths was confirmed by the mutual obligation of a solemn oath;
and as they advanced to meet the enemy, the rude songs, which
celebrated the glory of their forefathers, were mingled with
their fierce and dissonant outcries, and opposed to the
artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill was
displayed by Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding
eminence; but the bloody conflict, which began and ended with the
light, was maintained on either side, by the personal and
obstinate efforts of strength, valor, and agility. The legions
of Armenia supported their fame in arms; but they were oppressed
by the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude the left wing
of the Romans was thrown into disorder and the field was strewed
with their mangled carcasses. This partial defeat was balanced,
however, by partial success; and when the two armies, at a late
hour of the evening, retreated to their respective camps, neither
of them could claim the honors, or the effects, of a decisive
victory. The real loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in
proportion to the smallness of their numbers; but the Goths were
so deeply confounded and dismayed by this vigorous, and perhaps
unexpected, resistance, that they remained seven days within the
circle of their fortifications. Such funeral rites, as the
circumstances of time and place would admit, were piously
discharged to some officers of distinguished rank; but the
indiscriminate vulgar was left unburied on the plain. Their
flesh was greedily devoured by the birds of prey, who in that age
enjoyed very frequent and delicious feasts; and several years
afterwards the white and naked bones, which covered the wide
extent of the fields, presented to the eyes of Ammianus a
dreadful monument of the battle of Salices. ^82
[Footnote 79: The Itinerary of Antoninus (p. 226, 227, edit.
Wesseling) marks the situation of this place about sixty miles
north of Tomi, Ovid's exile; and the name of Salices (the
willows) expresses the nature of the soil.]
[Footnote 80: This circle of wagons, the Carrago, was the usual
fortification of the Barbarians. (Vegetius de Re Militari, l.
iii. c. 10. Valesius ad Ammian. xxxi. 7.) The practice and the
name were preserved by their descendants as late as the fifteenth
century. The Charroy, which surrounded the Ost, is a word
familiar to the readers of Froissard, or Comines.]
[Footnote 81: Statim ut accensi malleoli. I have used the
literal sense of real torches or beacons; but I almost suspect,
that it is only one of those turgid metaphors, those false
ornaments, that perpetually disfigure to style of Ammianus.]
[Footnote 82: Indicant nunc usque albentes ossibus campi.
Ammian. xxxi. 7. The historian might have viewed these plains,
either as a soldier, or as a traveller. But his modesty has
suppressed the adventures of his own life subsequent to the
Persian wars of Constantius and Julian. We are ignorant of the
time when he quitted the service, and retired to Rome, where he
appears to have composed his History of his Own Times.]
The progress of the Goths had been checked by the doubtful
event of that bloody day; and the Imperial generals, whose army
would have been consumed by the repetition of such a contest,
embraced the more rational plan of destroying the Barbarians by
the wants and pressure of their own multitudes. They prepared to
confine the Visigoths in the narrow angle of land between the
Danube, the desert of Scythia, and the mountains of Haemus, till
their strength and spirit should be insensibly wasted by the
inevitable operation of famine. The design was prosecuted with
some conduct and success: the Barbarians had almost exhausted
their own magazines, and the harvests of the country; and the
diligence of Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry, was
employed to improve the strength, and to contract the extent, of
the Roman fortifications. His labors were interrupted by the
alarming intelligence, that new swarms of Barbarians had passed
the unguarded Danube, either to support the cause, or to imitate
the example, of Fritigern. The just apprehension, that he
himself might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of
hostile and unknown nations, compelled Saturninus to relinquish
the siege of the Gothic camp; and the indignant Visigoths,
breaking from their confinement, satiated their hunger and
revenge by the repeated devastation of the fruitful country,
which extends above three hundred miles from the banks of the
Danube to the straits of the Hellespont. ^83 The sagacious
Fritigern had successfully appealed to the passions, as well as
to the interest, of his Barbarian allies; and the love of rapine,
and the hatred of Rome, seconded, or even prevented, the
eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented a strict and useful
alliance with the great body of his countrymen, who obeyed
Alatheus and Saphrax as the guardians of their infant king: the
long animosity of rival tribes was suspended by the sense of
their common interest; the independent part of the nation was
associated under one standard; and the chiefs of the Ostrogoths
appear to have yielded to the superior genius of the general of
the Visigoths. He obtained the formidable aid of the Taifalae,
^* whose military renown was disgraced and polluted by the public
infamy of their domestic manners. Every youth, on his entrance
into the world, was united by the ties of honorable friendship,
and brutal love, to some warrior of the tribe; nor could he hope
to be released from this unnatural connection, till he had
approved his manhood by slaying, in single combat, a huge bear,
or a wild boar of the forest. ^84 But the most powerful
auxiliaries of the Goths were drawn from the camp of those
enemies who had expelled them from their native seats. The loose
subordination, and extensive possessions, of the Huns and the
Alani, delayed the conquests, and distracted the councils, of
that victorious people. Several of the hords were allured by the
liberal promises of Fritigern; and the rapid cavalry of Scythia
added weight and energy to the steady and strenuous efforts of
the Gothic infantry. The Sarmatians, who could never forgive the
successor of Valentinian, enjoyed and increased the general
confusion; and a seasonable irruption of the Alemanni, into the
provinces of Gaul, engaged the attention, and diverted the
forces, of the emperor of the West. ^85
[Footnote 83: Ammian. xxxi. 8.]
[Footnote *: The Taifalae, who at this period inhabited the
country which now forms the principality of Wallachia, were, in
my opinion, the last remains of the great and powerful nation of
the Dacians, (Daci or Dahae.) which has given its name to these
regions, over which they had ruled so long. The Taifalae passed
with the Goths into the territory of the empire. A great number
of them entered the Roman service, and were quartered in
different provinces. They are mentioned in the Notitia Imperii.
There was a considerable body in the country of the Pictavi, now
Poithou. They long retained their manners and language, and
caused the name of the Theofalgicus pagus to be given to the
district they inhabited. Two places in the department of La
Vendee, Tiffanges and La Tiffardiere, still preserve evident
traces of this denomination. St. Martin, iv. 118. - M.]
[Footnote 84: Hanc Taifalorum gentem turpem, et obscenae vitae
flagitiis ita accipimus mersam; ut apud eos nefandi concubitus
foedere copulentur mares puberes, aetatis viriditatem in eorum
pollutis usibus consumpturi. Porro, siqui jam adultus aprum
exceperit solus, vel interemit ursum immanem, colluvione
liberatur incesti. Ammian. xxxi. 9.
Among the Greeks, likewise, more especially among the
Cretans, the holy bands of friendship were confirmed, and
sullied, by unnatural love.]
[Footnote 85: Ammian. xxxi. 8, 9. Jerom (tom. i. p. 26)
enumerates the nations and marks a calamitous period of twenty
years. This epistle to Heliodorus was composed in the year 397,
(Tillemont, Mem. Eccles tom xii. p. 645.)]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part IV.
One of the most dangerous inconveniences of the introduction
of the Barbarians into the army and the palace, was sensibly felt
in their correspondence with their hostile countrymen; to whom
they imprudently, or maliciously, revealed the weakness of the
Roman empire. A soldier, of the lifeguards of Gratian, was of
the nation of the Alemanni, and of the tribe of the Lentienses,
who dwelt beyond the Lake of Constance. Some domestic business
obliged him to request a leave of absence. In a short visit to
his family and friends, he was exposed to their curious
inquiries: and the vanity of the loquacious soldier tempted him
to display his intimate acquaintance with the secrets of the
state, and the designs of his master. The intelligence, that
Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of Gaul, and of
the West, to the assistance of his uncle Valens, pointed out to
the restless spirit of the Alemanni the moment, and the mode, of
a successful invasion. The enterprise of some light detachments,
who, in the month of February, passed the Rhine upon the ice, was
the prelude of a more important war. The boldest hopes of
rapine, perhaps of conquest, outweighed the considerations of
timid prudence, or national faith. Every forest, and every
village, poured forth a band of hardy adventurers; and the great
army of the Alemanni, which, on their approach, was estimated at
forty thousand men by the fears of the people, was afterwards
magnified to the number of seventy thousand by the vain and
credulous flattery of the Imperial court. The legions, which had
been ordered to march into Pannonia, were immediately recalled,
or detained, for the defence of Gaul; the military command was
divided between Nanienus and Mellobaudes; and the youthful
emperor, though he respected the long experience and sober wisdom
of the former, was much more inclined to admire, and to follow,
the martial ardor of his colleague; who was allowed to unite the
incompatible characters of count of the domestics, and of king of
the Franks. His rival Priarius, king of the Alemanni, was
guided, or rather impelled, by the same headstrong valor; and as
their troops were animated by the spirit of their leaders, they
met, they saw, they encountered each other, near the town of
Argentaria, or Colmar, ^86 in the plains of Alsace. The glory of
the day was justly ascribed to the missile weapons, and
well-practised evolutions, of the Roman soldiers; the Alemanni,
who long maintained their ground, were slaughtered with
unrelenting fury; five thousand only of the Barbarians escaped to
the woods and mountains; and the glorious death of their king on
the field of battle saved him from the reproaches of the people,
who are always disposed to accuse the justice, or policy, of an
unsuccessful war. After this signal victory, which secured the
peace of Gaul, and asserted the honor of the Roman arms, the
emperor Gratian appeared to proceed without delay on his Eastern
expedition; but as he approached the confines of the Alemanni, he
suddenly inclined to the left, surprised them by his unexpected
passage of the Rhine, and boldly advanced into the heart of their
country. The Barbarians opposed to his progress the obstacles of
nature and of courage; and still continued to retreat, from one
hill to another, till they were satisfied, by repeated trials, of
the power and perseverance of their enemies. Their submission
was accepted as a proof, not indeed of their sincere repentance,
but of their actual distress; and a select number of their brave
and robust youth was exacted from the faithless nation, as the
most substantial pledge of their future moderation. The subjects
of the empire, who had so often experienced that the Alemanni
could neither be subdued by arms, nor restrained by treaties,
might not promise themselves any solid or lasting tranquillity:
but they discovered, in the virtues of their young sovereign, the
prospect of a long and auspicious reign. When the legions
climbed the mountains, and scaled the fortifications of the
Barbarians, the valor of Gratian was distinguished in the
foremost ranks; and the gilt and variegated armor of his guards
was pierced and shattered by the blows which they had received in
their constant attachment to the person of their sovereign. At
the age of nineteen, the son of Valentinian seemed to possess the
talents of peace and war; and his personal success against the
Alemanni was interpreted as a sure presage of his Gothic
triumphs. ^87
[Footnote 86: The field of battle, Argentaria or Argentovaria, is
accurately fixed by M. D'Anville (Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p.
96 - 99) at twenty-three Gallic leagues, or thirty-four and a
half Roman miles to the south of Strasburg. From its ruins the
adjacent town of Colmar has arisen.
Note: It is rather Horburg, on the right bank of the River
Ill, opposite to Colmar. From Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata.
St. Martin, iv. 121. - M.]
[Footnote 87: The full and impartial narrative of Ammianus (xxxi.
10) may derive some additional light from the Epitome of Victor,
the Chronicle of Jerom, and the History of Orosius, (l. vii. c.
33, p. 552, edit. Havercamp.)]
While Gratian deserved and enjoyed the applause of his
subjects, the emperor Valens, who, at length, had removed his
court and army from Antioch, was received by the people of
Constantinople as the author of the public calamity. Before he
had reposed himself ten days in the capital, he was urged by the
licentious clamors of the Hippodrome to march against the
Barbarians, whom he had invited into his dominions; and the
citizens, who are always brave at a distance from any real
danger, declared, with confidence, that, if they were supplied
with arms, they alone would undertake to deliver the province
from the ravages of an insulting foe. ^88 The vain reproaches of
an ignorant multitude hastened the downfall of the Roman empire;
they provoked the desperate rashness of Valens; who did not find,
either in his reputation or in his mind, any motives to support
with firmness the public contempt. He was soon persuaded, by the
successful achievements of his lieutenants, to despise the power
of the Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now
collected in the neighborhood of Hadrianople. The march of the
Taifalae had been intercepted by the valiant Frigeric: the king
of those licentious Barbarians was slain in battle; and the
suppliant captives were sent into distant exile to cultivate the
lands of Italy, which were assigned for their settlement in the
vacant territories of Modena and Parma. ^89 The exploits of
Sebastian, ^90 who was recently engaged in the service of Valens,
and promoted to the rank of master-general of the infantry, were
still more honorable to himself, and useful to the republic. He
obtained the permission of selecting three hundred soldiers from
each of the legions; and this separate detachment soon acquired
the spirit of discipline, and the exercise of arms, which were
almost forgotten under the reign of Valens. By the vigor and
conduct of Sebastian, a large body of the Goths were surprised in
their camp; and the immense spoil, which was recovered from their
hands, filled the city of Hadrianople, and the adjacent plain.
The splendid narratives, which the general transmitted of his own
exploits, alarmed the Imperial court by the appearance of
superior merit; and though he cautiously insisted on the
difficulties of the Gothic war, his valor was praised, his advice
was rejected; and Valens, who listened with pride and pleasure to
the flattering suggestions of the eunuchs of the palace, was
impatient to seize the glory of an easy and assured conquest.
His army was strengthened by a numerous reenforcement of
veterans; and his march from Constantinople to Hadrianople was
conducted with so much military skill, that he prevented the
activity of the Barbarians, who designed to occupy the
intermediate defiles, and to intercept either the troops
themselves, or their convoys of provisions. The camp of Valens,
which he pitched under the walls of Hadrianople, was fortified,
according to the practice of the Romans, with a ditch and
rampart; and a most important council was summoned, to decide the
fate of the emperor and of the empire. The party of reason and
of delay was strenuously maintained by Victor, who had corrected,
by the lessons of experience, the native fierceness of the
Sarmatian character; while Sebastian, with the flexible and
obsequious eloquence of a courtier, represented every precaution,
and every measure, that implied a doubt of immediate victory, as
unworthy of the courage and majesty of their invincible monarch.
The ruin of Valens was precipitated by the deceitful arts of
Fritigern, and the prudent admonitions of the emperor of the
West. The advantages of negotiating in the midst of war were
perfectly understood by the general of the Barbarians; and a
Christian ecclesiastic was despatched, as the holy minister of
peace, to penetrate, and to perplex, the councils of the enemy.
The misfortunes, as well as the provocations, of the Gothic
nation, were forcibly and truly described by their ambassador;
who protested, in the name of Fritigern, that he was still
disposed to lay down his arms, or to employ them only in the
defence of the empire; if he could secure for his wandering
countrymen a tranquil settlement on the waste lands of Thrace,
and a sufficient allowance of corn and cattle. But he added, in
a whisper of confidential friendship, that the exasperated
Barbarians were averse to these reasonable conditions; and that
Fritigern was doubtful whether he could accomplish the conclusion
of the treaty, unless he found himself supported by the presence
and terrors of an Imperial army. About the same time, Count
Richomer returned from the West to announce the defeat and
submission of the Alemanni, to inform Valens that his nephew
advanced by rapid marches at the head of the veteran and
victorious legions of Gaul, and to request, in the name of
Gratian and of the republic, that every dangerous and decisive
measure might be suspended, till the junction of the two emperors
should insure the success of the Gothic war. But the feeble
sovereign of the East was actuated only by the fatal illusions of
pride and jealousy. He disdained the importunate advice; he
rejected the humiliating aid; he secretly compared the
ignominious, at least the inglorious, period of his own reign,
with the fame of a beardless youth; and Valens rushed into the
field, to erect his imaginary trophy, before the diligence of his
colleague could usurp any share of the triumphs of the day.
[Footnote 88: Moratus paucissimos dies, seditione popularium
levium pulsus Ammian. xxxi. 11. Socrates (l. iv. c. 38) supplies
the dates and some circumstances.
Note: Compare fragment of Eunapius. Mai, 272, in Niebuhr,
p. 77. - M]
[Footnote 89: Vivosque omnes circa Mutinam, Regiumque, et Parmam,
Italica oppida, rura culturos exterminavit. Ammianus, xxxi. 9.
Those cities and districts, about ten years after the colony of
the Taifalae, appear in a very desolate state. See Muratori,
Dissertazioni sopra le Antichita Italiane, tom. i. Dissertat.
xxi. p. 354.]
[Footnote 90: Ammian. xxxi. 11. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 228 - 230.
The latter expatiates on the desultory exploits of Sebastian, and
despatches, in a few lines, the important battle of Hadrianople.
According to the ecclesiastical critics, who hate Sebastian, the
praise of Zosimus is disgrace, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
tom. v. p. 121.) His prejudice and ignorance undoubtedly render
him a very questionable judge of merit.]
On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be
marked among the most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, ^91 the
emperor Valens, leaving, under a strong guard, his baggage and
military treasure, marched from Hadrianople to attack the Goths,
who were encamped about twelve miles from the city. ^92 By some
mistake of the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right
wing, or column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst
the left was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were
compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their
pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion
and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to
forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to
practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace,
made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the
Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun,
were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The
emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic camp;
the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the
dangerous commission, was applauded; and the count of the
domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had
proceeded some way in the space between the two armies, when he
was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and
imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded
a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with
rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same
moment, the flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose
return was anxiously expected by the general of the Goths,
descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept across the
plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous, but irresistible
charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of
Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be
described in a few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry
was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful
evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to
extricate a body of foot, encompassed, on an open plain, by
superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by
the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a
narrow space, where it was impossible for them to extend their
ranks, or even to use, with effect, their swords and javelins.
In the midst of tumult, of slaughter, and of dismay, the emperor,
deserted by his guards and wounded, as it was supposed, with an
arrow, sought protection among the Lancearii and the Mattiarii,
who still maintained their ground with some appearance of order
and firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who
perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost, unless
the person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated
by their exhortation, advanced to his relief: they found only a
bloody spot, covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled
bodies, without being able to discover their unfortunate prince,
either among the living or the dead. Their search could not
indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the circumstances
with which some historians have related the death of the emperor.
By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field
of battle to a neighboring cottage, where they attempted to dress
his wound, and to provide for his future safety. But this humble
retreat was instantly surrounded by the enemy: they tried to
force the door, they were provoked by a discharge of arrows from
the roof, till at length, impatient of delay, they set fire to a
pile of dry magots, and consumed the cottage with the Roman
emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a
youth, who dropped from the window, alone escaped, to attest the
melancholy tale, and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize
which they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of
brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of
Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed
in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly
sustained in the fields of Cannae. ^93 Two master-generals of the
cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the palace, and
thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain; and the death
of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as
well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two thirds of
the Roman army were destroyed: and the darkness of the night was
esteemed a very favorable circumstance, as it served to conceal
the flight of the multitude, and to protect the more orderly
retreat of Victor and Richomer, who alone, amidst the general
consternation, maintained the advantage of calm courage and
regular discipline. ^94
[Footnote 91: Ammianus (xxxi. 12, 13) almost alone describes the
councils and actions which were terminated by the fatal battle of
Hadrianople. We might censure the vices of his style, the
disorder and perplexity of his narrative: but we must now take
leave of this impartial historian; and reproach is silenced by
our regret for such an irreparable loss.]
[Footnote 92: The difference of the eight miles of Ammianus, and
the twelve of Idatius, can only embarrass those critics (Valesius
ad loc.,) who suppose a great army to be a mathematical point,
without space or dimensions.]
[Footnote 93: Nec ulla annalibus, praeter Cannensem pugnam, ita
ad internecionem res legitur gesta. Ammian. xxxi. 13. According
to the grave Polybius, no more than 370 horse, and 3,000 foot,
escaped from the field of Cannae: 10,000 were made prisoners; and
the number of the slain amounted to 5,630 horse, and 70,000 foot,
(Polyb. l. iii. p 371, edit. Casaubon, 8vo.) Livy (xxii. 49) is
somewhat less bloody: he slaughters only 2,700 horse, and 40,000
foot. The Roman army was supposed to consist of 87,200 effective
men, (xxii. 36.)]
[Footnote 94: We have gained some faint light from Jerom, (tom.
i. p. 26 and in Chron. p. 188,) Victor, (in Epitome,) Orosius,
(l. vii. c. 33, p. 554,) Jornandes, (c. 27,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p.
230,) Socrates, (l. iv. c. 38,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 40,) Idatius,
(in Chron.) But their united evidence, if weighed against
Ammianus alone, is light and unsubstantial.]
While the impressions of grief and terror were still recent
in the minds of men, the most celebrated rhetorician of the age
composed the funeral oration of a vanquished army, and of an
unpopular prince, whose throne was already occupied by a
stranger. "There are not wanting," says the candid Libanius,
"those who arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute the
public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the
troops. For my own part, I reverence the memory of their former
exploits: I reverence the glorious death, which they bravely
received, standing, and fighting in their ranks: I reverence the
field of battle, stained with their blood, and the blood of the
Barbarians. Those honorable marks have been already washed away
by the rains; but the lofty monuments of their bones, the bones
of generals, of centurions, and of valiant warriors, claim a
longer period of duration. The king himself fought and fell in
the foremost ranks of the battle. His attendants presented him
with the fleetest horses of the Imperial stable, that would soon
have carried him beyond the pursuit of the enemy. They vainly
pressed him to reserve his important life for the future service
of the republic. He still declared that he was unworthy to
survive so many of the bravest and most faithful of his subjects;
and the monarch was nobly buried under a mountain of the slain.
Let none, therefore, presume to ascribe the victory of the
Barbarians to the fear, the weakness, or the imprudence, of the
Roman troops. The chiefs and the soldiers were animated by the
virtue of their ancestors, whom they equalled in discipline and
the arts of war. Their generous emulation was supported by the
love of glory, which prompted them to contend at the same time
with heat and thirst, with fire and the sword; and cheerfully to
embrace an honorable death, as their refuge against flight and
infamy. The indignation of the gods has been the only cause of
the success of our enemies." The truth of history may disclaim
some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled
with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle:
but the fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still
more to the generosity, of the sophist of Antioch. ^95
[Footnote 95: Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. 3, in
Fabricius, Bibliot Graec. tom. vii. p. 146 - 148.]
The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory;
but their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery,
that the richest part of the Imperial spoil had been within the
walls of Hadrianople. They hastened to possess the reward of
their valor; but they were encountered by the remains of a
vanquished army, with an intrepid resolution, which was the
effect of their despair, and the only hope of their safety. The
walls of the city, and the ramparts of the adjacent camp, were
lined with military engines, that threw stones of an enormous
weight; and astonished the ignorant Barbarians by the noise, and
velocity, still more than by the real effects, of the discharge.
The soldiers, the citizens, the provincials, the domestics of the
palace, were united in the danger, and in the defence: the
furious assault of the Goths was repulsed; their secret arts of
treachery and treason were discovered; and, after an obstinate
conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced,
by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the
treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with
the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty
and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of
justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies,
the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene
of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude:
the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of the woods
and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling
fugitives, who sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum
and Macedonia; and the faithful officers of the household, and
the treasury, cautiously proceeded in search of the emperor, of
whose death they were still ignorant. The tide of the Gothic
inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of
Constantinople. The Barbarians were surprised with the splendid
appearance of the capital of the East, the height and extent of
the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted citizens who
crowded the ramparts, and the various prospect of the sea and
land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the inaccessible
beauties of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the
gates by a party of Saracens, ^96 who had been fortunately
engaged in the service of Valens. The cavalry of Scythia was
forced to yield to the admirable swiftness and spirit of the
Arabian horses: their riders were skilled in the evolutions of
irregular war; and the Northern Barbarians were astonished and
dismayed, by the inhuman ferocity of the Barbarians of the South.
A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the
hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, expressed a
horrid delight, while he sucked the blood of his vanquished
enemy. ^97 The army of the Goths, laden with the spoils of the
wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly moved, from
the Bosphorus, to the mountains which form the western boundary
of Thrace. The important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear,
or the misconduct, of Maurus; and the Barbarians, who no longer
had any resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished
troops of the East, spread themselves over the face of a fertile
and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy and the
Hadriatic Sea. ^98
[Footnote 96: Valens had gained, or rather purchased, the
friendship of the Saracens, whose vexatious inroads were felt on
the borders of Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt. The Christian
faith had been lately introduced among a people, reserved, in a
future age, to propagate another religion, (Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 104, 106, 141. Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
593.)]
[Footnote 97: Crinitus quidam, nudus omnia praeter pubem,
subraunum et ugubre strepens. Ammian. xxxi. 16, and Vales. ad
loc. The Arabs often fought naked; a custom which may be
ascribed to their sultry climate, and ostentatious bravery. The
description of this unknown savage is the lively portrait of
Derar, a name so dreadful to the Christians of Syria. See
Ockley's Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 72, 84, 87.]
[Footnote 98: The series of events may still be traced in the
last pages of Ammianus, (xxxi. 15, 16.) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 227,
231,) whom we are now reduced to cherish, misplaces the sally of
the Arabs before the death of Valens. Eunapius (in Excerpt.
Legat. p. 20) praises the fertility of Thrace, Macedonia, &c.]
The Romans, who so coolly, and so concisely, mention the
acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, ^99 reserve
their compassion, and their eloquence, for their own sufferings,
when the provinces were invaded, and desolated, by the arms of
the successful Barbarians. The simple circumstantial narrative
(did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the
misfortunes of a single family, ^100 might exhibit an interesting
and instructive picture of human manners: but the tedious
repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the
attention of the most patient reader. The same censure may be
applied, though not perhaps in an equal degree, to the profane,
and the ecclesiastical, writers of this unhappy period; that
their minds were inflamed by popular and religious animosity; and
that the true size and color of every object is falsified by the
exaggerations of their corrupt eloquence. The vehement Jerom
^101 might justly deplore the calamities inflicted by the Goths,
and their barbarous allies, on his native country of Pannonia,
and the wide extent of the provinces, from the walls of
Constantinople to the foot of the Julian Alps; the rapes, the
massacres, the conflagrations; and, above all, the profanation of
the churches, that were turned into stables, and the contemptuous
treatment of the relics of holy martyrs. But the Saint is surely
transported beyond the limits of nature and history, when he
affirms, "that, in those desert countries, nothing was left
except the sky and the earth; that, after the destruction of the
cities, and the extirpation of the human race, the land was
overgrown with thick forests and inextricable brambles; and that
the universal desolation, announced by the prophet Zephaniah, was
accomplished, in the scarcity of the beasts, the birds, and even
of the fish." These complaints were pronounced about twenty years
after the death of Valens; and the Illyrian provinces, which were
constantly exposed to the invasion and passage of the Barbarians,
still continued, after a calamitous period of ten centuries, to
supply new materials for rapine and destruction. Could it even
be supposed, that a large tract of country had been left without
cultivation and without inhabitants, the consequences might not
have been so fatal to the inferior productions of animated
nature. The useful and feeble animals, which are nourished by
the hand of man, might suffer and perish, if they were deprived
of his protection; but the beasts of the forest, his enemies or
his victims, would multiply in the free and undisturbed
possession of their solitary domain. The various tribes that
people the air, or the waters, are still less connected with the
fate of the human species; and it is highly probable that the
fish of the Danube would have felt more terror and distress, from
the approach of a voracious pike, than from the hostile inroad of
a Gothic army.
[Footnote 99: Observe with how much indifference Caesar relates,
in the Commentaries of the Gallic war, that he put to death the
whole senate of the Veneti, who had yielded to his mercy, (iii.
16;) that he labored to extirpate the whole nation of the
Eburones, (vi. 31;) that forty thousand persons were massacred at
Bourges by the just revenge of his soldiers, who spared neither
age nor sex, (vii. 27,) &c.]
[Footnote 100: Such are the accounts of the sack of Magdeburgh,
by the ecclesiastic and the fisherman, which Mr. Harte has
transcribed, (Hist. of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 313 - 320,)
with some apprehension of violating the dignity of history.]
[Footnote 101: Et vastatis urbibus, hominibusque interfectis,
solitudinem et raritatem bestiarum quoque fieri, et volatilium,
pisciumque: testis Illyricum est, testis Thracia, testis in quo
ortus sum solum, (Pannonia;) ubi praeter coelum et terram, et
crescentes vepres, et condensa sylvarum cuncta perierunt. Tom.
vii. p. 250, l, Cap. Sophonias and tom. i. p. 26.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part V.
Whatever may have been the just measure of the calamities of
Europe, there was reason to fear that the same calamities would
soon extend to the peaceful countries of Asia. The sons of the
Goths had been judiciously distributed through the cities of the
East; and the arts of education were employed to polish, and
subdue, the native fierceness of their temper. In the space of
about twelve years, their numbers had continually increased; and
the children, who, in the first emigration, were sent over the
Hellespont, had attained, with rapid growth, the strength and
spirit of perfect manhood. ^102 It was impossible to conceal from
their knowledge the events of the Gothic war; and, as those
daring youths had not studied the language of dissimulation, they
betrayed their wish, their desire, perhaps their intention, to
emulate the glorious example of their fathers The danger of the
times seemed to justify the jealous suspicions of the
provincials; and these suspicions were admitted as unquestionable
evidence, that the Goths of Asia had formed a secret and
dangerous conspiracy against the public safety. The death of
Valens had left the East without a sovereign; and Julius, who
filled the important station of master-general of the troops,
with a high reputation of diligence and ability, thought it his
duty to consult the senate of Constantinople; which he
considered, during the vacancy of the throne, as the
representative council of the nation. As soon as he had obtained
the discretionary power of acting as he should judge most
expedient for the good of the republic, he assembled the
principal officers, and privately concerted effectual measures
for the execution of his bloody design. An order was immediately
promulgated, that, on a stated day, the Gothic youth should
assemble in the capital cities of their respective provinces;
and, as a report was industriously circulated, that they were
summoned to receive a liberal gift of lands and money, the
pleasing hope allayed the fury of their resentment, and, perhaps,
suspended the motions of the conspiracy. On the appointed day,
the unarmed crowd of the Gothic youth was carefully collected in
the square or Forum; the streets and avenues were occupied by the
Roman troops, and the roofs of the houses were covered with
archers and slingers. At the same hour, in all the cities of the
East, the signal was given of indiscriminate slaughter; and the
provinces of Asia were delivered by the cruel prudence of Julius,
from a domestic enemy, who, in a few months, might have carried
fire and sword from the Hellespont to the Euphrates. ^103 The
urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly
authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that, or
any other, consideration may operate to dissolve the natural
obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I
still desire to remain ignorant.
[Footnote 102: Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 20) foolishly
supposes a praeternatural growth of the young Goths, that he may
introduce Cadmus's armed men, who sprang from the dragon's teeth,
&c. Such was the Greek eloquence of the times.]
[Footnote 103: Ammianus evidently approves this execution,
efficacia velox et salutaris, which concludes his work, (xxxi.
16.) Zosimus, who is curious and copious, (l. iv. p. 233 - 236,)
mistakes the date, and labors to find the reason, why Julius did
not consult the emperor Theodosius who had not yet ascended the
throne of the East.]
The emperor Gratian was far advanced on his march towards
the plains of Hadrianople, when he was informed, at first by the
confused voice of fame, and afterwards by the more accurate
reports of Victor and Richomer, that his impatient colleague had
been slain in battle, and that two thirds of the Roman army were
exterminated by the sword of the victorious Goths. Whatever
resentment the rash and jealous vanity of his uncle might
deserve, the resentment of a generous mind is easily subdued by
the softer emotions of grief and compassion; and even the sense
of pity was soon lost in the serious and alarming consideration
of the state of the republic. Gratian was too late to assist, he
was too weak to revenge, his unfortunate colleague; and the
valiant and modest youth felt himself unequal to the support of a
sinking world. A formidable tempest of the Barbarians of Germany
seemed ready to burst over the provinces of Gaul; and the mind of
Gratian was oppressed and distracted by the administration of the
Western empire. In this important crisis, the government of the
East, and the conduct of the Gothic war, required the undivided
attention of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested with
such ample command would not long have preserved his fidelity to
a distant benefactor; and the Imperial council embraced the wise
and manly resolution of conferring an obligation, rather than of
yielding to an insult. It was the wish of Gratian to bestow the
purple as the reward of virtue; but, at the age of nineteen, it
is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme rank, to
understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He
attempted to weigh, with an impartial hand, their various merits
and defects; and, whilst he checked the rash confidence of
ambition, he distrusted the cautious wisdom which despaired of
the republic. As each moment of delay diminished something of
the power and resources of the future sovereign of the East, the
situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The
choice of Gratian was soon declared in favor of an exile, whose
father, only three years before, had suffered, under the sanction
of his authority, an unjust and ignominious death. The great
Theodosius, a name celebrated in history, and dear to the
Catholic church, ^104 was summoned to the Imperial court, which
had gradually retreated from the confines of Thrace to the more
secure station of Sirmium. Five months after the death of
Valens, the emperor Gratian produced before the assembled troops
his colleague and their master; who, after a modest, perhaps a
sincere, resistance, was compelled to accept, amidst the general
acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and the equal title of
Augustus. ^105 The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, over
which Valens had reigned, were resigned to the administration of
the new emperor; but, as he was specially intrusted with the
conduct of the Gothic war, the Illyrian praefecture was
dismembered; and the two great dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia
were added to the dominions of the Eastern empire. ^106
[Footnote 104: A life of Theodosius the Great was composed in the
last century, (Paris, 1679, in 4to-1680, 12mo.,) to inflame the
mind of the young Dauphin with Catholic zeal. The author,
Flechier, afterwards bishop of Nismes, was a celebrated preacher;
and his history is adorned, or tainted, with pulpit eloquence;
but he takes his learning from Baronius, and his principles from
St. Ambrose and St Augustin.]
[Footnote 105: The birth, character, and elevation of Theodosius
are marked in Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 10, 11, 12,)
Themistius, (Orat. xiv. p. 182,) Zosimus, l. iv. p. 231,)
Augustin. (de Civitat. Dei. v. 25,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 34,)
Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 2,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 2,) Theodoret, (l.
v. c. 5,) Philostorgius, (l. ix. c. 17, with Godefroy, p. 393,)
the Epitome of Victor, and the Chronicles of Prosper, Idatius,
and Marcellinus, in the Thesaurus Temporum of Scaliger.
Note: Add a hostile fragment of Eunapius. Mai, p. 273, in
Niebuhr, p 178 - M.]
[Footnote 106: Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 716,
&c.]
The same province, and perhaps the same city, ^107 which had
given to the throne the virtues of Trajan, and the talents of
Hadrian, was the orignal seat of another family of Spaniards,
who, in a less fortunate age, possessed, near fourscore years,
the declining empire of Rome. ^108 They emerged from the
obscurity of municipal honors by the active spirit of the elder
Theodosius, a general whose exploits in Britain and Africa have
formed one of the most splendid parts of the annals of
Valentinian. The son of that general, who likewise bore the name
of Theodosius, was educated, by skilful preceptors, in the
liberal studies of youth; but he was instructed in the art of war
by the tender care and severe discipline of his father. ^109
Under the standard of such a leader, young Theodosius sought
glory and knowledge, in the most distant scenes of military
action; inured his constitution to the difference of seasons and
climates; distinguished his valor by sea and land; and observed
the various warfare of the Scots, the Saxons, and the Moors. His
own merit, and the recommendation of the conqueror of Africa,
soon raised him to a separate command; and, in the station of
Duke of Misaea, he vanquished an army of Sarmatians; saved the
province; deserved the love of the soldiers; and provoked the
envy of the court. ^110 His rising fortunes were soon blasted by
the disgrace and execution of his illustrious father; and
Theodosius obtained, as a favor, the permission of retiring to a
private life in his native province of Spain. He displayed a
firm and temperate character in the ease with which he adapted
himself to this new situation. His time was almost equally
divided between the town and country; the spirit, which had
animated his public conduct, was shown in the active and
affectionate performance of every social duty; and the diligence
of the soldier was profitably converted to the improvement of his
ample patrimony, ^111 which lay between Valladolid and Segovia,
in the midst of a fruitful district, still famous for a most
exquisite breed of sheep. ^112 From the innocent, but humble
labors of his farm, Theodosius was transported, in less than four
months, to the throne of the Eastern empire; and the whole period
of the history of the world will not perhaps afford a similar
example, of an elevation at the same time so pure and so
honorable. The princes who peaceably inherit the sceptre of
their fathers, claim and enjoy a legal right, the more secure as
it is absolutely distinct from the merits of their personal
characters. The subjects, who, in a monarchy, or a popular
state, acquire the possession of supreme power, may have raised
themselves, by the superiority either of genius or virtue, above
the heads of their equals; but their virtue is seldom exempt from
ambition; and the cause of the successful candidate is frequently
stained by the guilt of conspiracy, or civil war. Even in those
governments which allow the reigning monarch to declare a
colleague or a successor, his partial choice, which may be
influenced by the blindest passions, is often directed to an
unworthy object But the most suspicious malignity cannot ascribe
to Theodosius, in his obscure solitude of Caucha, the arts, the
desires, or even the hopes, of an ambitious statesman; and the
name of the Exile would long since have been forgotten, if his
genuine and distinguished virtues had not left a deep impression
in the Imperial court. During the season of prosperity, he had
been neglected; but, in the public distress, his superior merit
was universally felt and acknowledged. What confidence must have
been reposed in his integrity, since Gratian could trust, that a
pious son would forgive, for the sake of the republic, the murder
of his father! What expectations must have been formed of his
abilities to encourage the hope, that a single man could save,
and restore, the empire of the East! Theodosius was invested with
the purple in the thirty-third year of his age. The vulgar gazed
with admiration on the manly beauty of his face, and the graceful
majesty of his person, which they were pleased to compare with
the pictures and medals of the emperor Trajan; whilst intelligent
observers discovered, in the qualities of his heart and
understanding, a more important resemblance to the best and
greatest of the Roman princes.
[Footnote 107: Italica, founded by Scipio Africanus for his
wounded veterans of Italy. The ruins still appear, about a
league above Seville, but on the opposite bank of the river. See
the Hispania Illustrata of Nonius, a short though valuable
treatise, c. xvii. p. 64 - 67.]
[Footnote 108: I agree with Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
v. p. 726) in suspecting the royal pedigree, which remained a
secret till the promotion of Theodosius. Even after that event,
the silence of Pacatus outweighs the venal evidence of
Themistius, Victor, and Claudian, who connect the family of
Theodosius with the blood of Trajan and Hadrian.]
[Footnote 109: Pacatas compares, and consequently prefers, the
youth of Theodosius to the military education of Alexander,
Hannibal, and the second Africanus; who, like him, had served
under their fathers, (xii. 8.)]
[Footnote 110: Ammianus (xxix. 6) mentions this victory of
Theodosius Junior Dux Maesiae, prima etiam tum lanugine juvenis,
princeps postea perspectissimus. The same fact is attested by
Themistius and Zosimus but Theodoret, (l. v. c. 5,) who adds some
curious circumstances, strangely applies it to the time of the
interregnum.]
[Footnote 111: Pacatus (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 9) prefers the
rustic life of Theodosius to that of Cincinnatus; the one was the
effect of choice, the other of poverty.]
[Footnote 112: M. D'Anville (Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 25)
has fixed the situation of Caucha, or Coca, in the old province
of Gallicia, where Zosimus and Idatius have placed the birth, or
patrimony, of Theodosius.]
It is not without the most sincere regret, that I must now
take leave of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed
the history of his own times, without indulging the prejudices
and passions, which usually affect the mind of a contemporary.
Ammianus Marcellinus, who terminates his useful work with the
defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more glorious subject
of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence of the
rising generation. ^113 The rising generation was not disposed to
accept his advice or to imitate his example; ^114 and, in the
study of the reign of Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate
the partial narrative of Zosimus, by the obscure hints of
fragments and chronicles, by the figurative style of poetry or
panegyric, and by the precarious assistance of the ecclesiastical
writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to
despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation.
Conscious of these disadvantages, which will continue to involve
a considerable portion of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire, I shall proceed with doubtful and timorous steps. Yet I
may boldly pronounce, that the battle of Hadrianople was never
revenged by any signal or decisive victory of Theodosius over the
Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal orators may
be confirmed by the observation of the condition and
circumstances of the times. The fabric of a mighty state, which
has been reared by the labors of successive ages, could not be
overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power
of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the
calamity. The loss of forty thousand Romans, who fell in the
plains of Hadrianople, might have been soon recruited in the
populous provinces of the East, which contained so many millions
of inhabitants. The courage of a soldier is found to be the
cheapest, and most common, quality of human nature; and
sufficient skill to encounter an undisciplined foe might have
been speedily taught by the care of the surviving centurions. If
the Barbarians were mounted on the horses, and equipped with the
armor, of their vanquished enemies, the numerous studs of
Cappadocia and Spain would have supplied new squadrons of
cavalry; the thirty-four arsenals of the empire were plentifully
stored with magazines of offensive and defensive arms: and the
wealth of Asia might still have yielded an ample fund for the
expenses of the war. But the effects which were produced by the
battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the Barbarians and of the
Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the
latter, far beyond the limits of a single day. A Gothic chief
was heard to declare, with insolent moderation, that, for his own
part, he was fatigued with slaughter: but that he was astonished
how a people, who fled before him like a flock of sheep, could
still presume to dispute the possession of their treasures and
provinces. ^115 The same terrors which the name of the Huns had
spread among the Gothic tribes, were inspired, by the formidable
name of the Goths, among the subjects and soldiers of the Roman
empire. ^116 If Theodosius, hastily collecting his scattered
forces, had led them into the field to encounter a victorious
enemy, his army would have been vanquished by their own fears;
and his rashness could not have been excused by the chance of
success. But the great Theodosius, an epithet which he honorably
deserved on this momentous occasion, conducted himself as the
firm and faithful guardian of the republic. He fixed his
head-quarters at Thessalonica, the capital of the Macedonian
diocese; ^117 from whence he could watch the irregular motions of
the Barbarians, and direct the operations of his lieutenants,
from the gates of Constantinople to the shores of the Hadriatic.
The fortifications and garrisons of the cities were strengthened;
and the troops, among whom a sense of order and discipline was
revived, were insensibly emboldened by the confidence of their
own safety. From these secure stations, they were encouraged to
make frequent sallies on the Barbarians, who infested the
adjacent country; and, as they were seldom allowed to engage,
without some decisive superiority, either of ground or of
numbers, their enterprises were, for the most part, successful;
and they were soon convinced, by their own experience, of the
possibility of vanquishing their invincible enemies. The
detachments of these separate garrisons were generally united
into small armies; the same cautious measures were pursued,
according to an extensive and well-concerted plan of operations;
the events of each day added strength and spirit to the Roman
arms; and the artful diligence of the emperor, who circulated the
most favorable reports of the success of the war, contributed to
subdue the pride of the Barbarians, and to animate the hopes and
courage of his subjects. If, instead of this faint and imperfect
outline, we could accurately represent the counsels and actions
of Theodosius, in four successive campaigns, there is reason to
believe, that his consummate skill would deserve the applause of
every military reader. The republic had formerly been saved by
the delays of Fabius; and, while the splendid trophies of Scipio,
in the field of Zama, attract the eyes of posterity, the camps
and marches of the dictator among the hills of the Campania, may
claim a juster proportion of the solid and independent fame,
which the general is not compelled to share, either with fortune
or with his troops. Such was likewise the merit of Theodosius;
and the infirmities of his body, which most unseasonably
languished under a long and dangerous disease, could not oppress
the vigor of his mind, or divert his attention from the public
service. ^118
[Footnote 113: Let us hear Ammianus himself. Haec, ut miles
quondam et Graecus, a principatu Cassaris Nervae exorsus, adusque
Valentis inter, pro virium explicavi mensura: opus veritatem
professum nun quam, ut arbitror, sciens, silentio ausus
corrumpere vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores aetate,
doctrinisque florentes. Quos id, si libuerit, aggressuros,
procudere linguas ad majores moneo stilos. Ammian. xxxi. 16. The
first thirteen books, a superficial epitome of two hundred and
fifty- seven years, are now lost: the last eighteen, which
contain no more than twenty-five years, still preserve the
copious and authentic history of his own times.]
[Footnote 114: Ammianus was the last subject of Rome who composed
a profane history in the Latin language. The East, in the next
century, produced some rhetorical historians, Zosimus,
Olympiedorus, Malchus, Candidus &c. See Vossius de Historicis
Graecis, l. ii. c. 18, de Historicis Latinis l. ii. c. 10, &c.]
[Footnote 115: Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 344, edit. Montfaucon. I
have verified and examined this passage: but I should never,
without the aid of Tillemont, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 152,)
have detected an historical anecdote, in a strange medley of
moral and mystic exhortations, addressed, by the preacher of
Antioch, to a young widow.]
[Footnote 116: Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legation. p. 21.]
[Footnote 117: See Godefroy's Chronology of the Laws. Codex
Theodos tom. l. Prolegomen. p. xcix. - civ.]
[Footnote 118: Most writers insist on the illness, and long
repose, of Theodosius, at Thessalonica: Zosimus, to diminish his
glory; Jornandes, to favor the Goths; and the ecclesiastical
writers, to introduce his baptism.]
The deliverance and peace of the Roman provinces ^119 was
the work of prudence, rather than of valor: the prudence of
Theodosius was seconded by fortune: and the emperor never failed
to seize, and to improve, every favorable circumstance. As long
as the superior genius of Fritigern preserved the union, and
directed the motions of the Barbarians, their power was not
inadequate to the conquest of a great empire. The death of that
hero, the predecessor and master of the renowned Alaric, relieved
an impatient multitude from the intolerable yoke of discipline
and discretion. The Barbarians, who had been restrained by his
authority, abandoned themselves to the dictates of their
passions; and their passions were seldom uniform or consistent.
An army of conquerors was broken into many disorderly bands of
savage robbers; and their blind and irregular fury was not less
pernicious to themselves, than to their enemies. Their
mischievous disposition was shown in the destruction of every
object which they wanted strength to remove, or taste to enjoy;
and they often consumed, with improvident rage, the harvests, or
the granaries, which soon afterwards became necessary for their
own subsistence. A spirit of discord arose among the independent
tribes and nations, which had been united only by the bands of a
loose and voluntary alliance. The troops of the Huns and the
Alani would naturally upbraid the flight of the Goths; who were
not disposed to use with moderation the advantages of their
fortune; the ancient jealousy of the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths
could not long be suspended; and the haughty chiefs still
remembered the insults and injuries, which they had reciprocally
offered, or sustained, while the nation was seated in the
countries beyond the Danube. The progress of domestic faction
abated the more diffusive sentiment of national animosity; and
the officers of Theodosius were instructed to purchase, with
liberal gifts and promises, the retreat or service of the
discontented party. The acquisition of Modar, a prince of the
royal blood of the Amali, gave a bold and faithful champion to
the cause of Rome. The illustrious deserter soon obtained the
rank of master-general, with an important command; surprised an
army of his countrymen, who were immersed in wine and sleep; and,
after a cruel slaughter of the astonished Goths, returned with an
immense spoil, and four thousand wagons, to the Imperial camp.
^120 In the hands of a skilful politician, the most different
means may be successfully applied to the same ends; and the peace
of the empire, which had been forwarded by the divisions, was
accomplished by the reunion, of the Gothic nation. Athanaric, who
had been a patient spectator of these extraordinary events, was
at length driven, by the chance of arms, from the dark recesses
of the woods of Caucaland. He no longer hesitated to pass the
Danube; and a very considerable part of the subjects of
Fritigern, who already felt the inconveniences of anarchy, were
easily persuaded to acknowledge for their king a Gothic Judge,
whose birth they respected, and whose abilities they had
frequently experienced. But age had chilled the daring spirit of
Athanaric; and, instead of leading his people to the field of
battle and victory, he wisely listened to the fair proposal of an
honorable and advantageous treaty. Theodosius, who was
acquainted with the merit and power of his new ally, condescended
to meet him at the distance of several miles from Constantinople;
and entertained him in the Imperial city, with the confidence of
a friend, and the magnificence of a monarch. "The Barbarian
prince observed, with curious attention, the variety of objects
which attracted his notice, and at last broke out into a sincere
and passionate exclamation of wonder. I now behold (said he)
what I never could believe, the glories of this stupendous
capital! And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed, and he
admired, the commanding situation of the city, the strength and
beauty of the walls and public edifices, the capacious harbor,
crowded with innumerable vessels, the perpetual concourse of
distant nations, and the arms and discipline of the troops.
Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the emperor of the Romans is a god
upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who dares to lift his hand
against him, is guilty of his own blood." ^121 The Gothic king
did not long enjoy this splendid and honorable reception; and, as
temperance was not the virtue of his nation, it may justly be
suspected, that his mortal disease was contracted amidst the
pleasures of the Imperial banquets. But the policy of Theodosius
derived more solid benefit from the death, than he could have
expected from the most faithful services, of his ally. The
funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the
capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his
memory; and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and
decent grief, of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the
Roman empire. ^122 The submission of so great a body of the
Visigoths was productive of the most salutary consequences; and
the mixed influence of force, of reason, and of corruption,
became every day more powerful, and more extensive. Each
independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty, from
the apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose him, alone
and unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the conqueror.
The general, or rather the final, capitulation of the Goths, may
be dated four years, one month, and twenty-five days, after the
defeat and death of the emperor Valens. ^123
[Footnote 119: Compare Themistius (Orat, xiv. p. 181) with
Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232,) Jornandes, (c. xxvii. p. 649,) and the
prolix Commentary of M. de Buat, (Hist. de Peuples, &c., tom. vi.
p. 477 - 552.) The Chronicles of Idatius and Marcellinus allude,
in general terms, to magna certamina, magna multaque praelia.
The two epithets are not easily reconciled.]
[Footnote 120: Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232) styles him a Scythian, a
name which the more recent Greeks seem to have appropriated to
the Goths.]
[Footnote 121: The reader will not be displeased to see the
original words of Jornandes, or the author whom he transcribed.
Regiam urbem ingressus est, miransque, En, inquit, cerno quod
saepe incredulus audiebam, famam videlicet tantae urbis. Et huc
illuc oculos volvens, nunc situm urbis, commeatumque navium, nunc
moenia clara pro spectans, miratur; populosque diversarum
gentium, quasi fonte in uno e diversis partibus scaturiente unda,
sic quoque militem ordinatum aspiciens; Deus, inquit, sine dubio
est terrenus Imperator, et quisquis adversus eum manum moverit,
ipse sui sanguinis reus existit Jornandes (c. xxviii. p. 650)
proceeds to mention his death and funeral.]
[Footnote 122: Jornandes, c. xxviii. p. 650. Even Zosimus (l. v.
p. 246) is compelled to approve the generosity of Theodosius, so
honorable to himself, and so beneficial to the public.]
[Footnote 123: The short, but authentic, hints in the Fasti of
Idatius (Chron. Scaliger. p. 52) are stained with contemporary
passion. The fourteenth oration of Themistius is a compliment to
Peace, and the consul Saturninus, (A.D. 383.)]
The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved from
the oppressive weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the
voluntary retreat of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit
had prompted them to seek new scenes of rapine and glory. Their
destructive course was pointed towards the West; but we must be
satisfied with a very obscure and imperfect knowledge of their
various adventures. The Ostrogoths impelled several of the
German tribes on the provinces of Gaul; concluded, and soon
violated, a treaty with the emperor Gratian; advanced into the
unknown countries of the North; and, after an interval of more
than four years, returned, with accumulated force, to the banks
of the Lower Danube. Their troops were recruited with the
fiercest warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the soldiers, or at
least the historians, of the empire, no longer recognized the
name and countenances of their former enemies. ^124 The general
who commanded the military and naval powers of the Thracian
frontier, soon perceived that his superiority would be
disadvantageous to the public service; and that the Barbarians,
awed by the presence of his fleet and legions, would probably
defer the passage of the river till the approaching winter. The
dexterity of the spies, whom he sent into the Gothic camp,
allured the Barbarians into a fatal snare. They were persuaded
that, by a bold attempt, they might surprise, in the silence and
darkness of the night, the sleeping army of the Romans; and the
whole multitude was hastily embarked in a fleet of three thousand
canoes. ^125 The bravest of the Ostrogoths led the van; the main
body consisted of the remainder of their subjects and soldiers;
and the women and children securely followed in the rear. One of
the nights without a moon had been selected for the execution of
their design; and they had almost reached the southern bank of
the Danube, in the firm confidence that they should find an easy
landing and an unguarded camp. But the progress of the
Barbarians was suddenly stopped by an unexpected obstacle a
triple line of vessels, strongly connected with each other, and
which formed an impenetrable chain of two miles and a half along
the river. While they struggled to force their way in the
unequal conflict, their right flank was overwhelmed by the
irresistible attack of a fleet of galleys, which were urged down
the stream by the united impulse of oars and of the tide. The
weight and velocity of those ships of war broke, and sunk, and
dispersed, the rude and feeble canoes of the Barbarians; their
valor was ineffectual; and Alatheus, the king, or general, of the
Ostrogoths, perished with his bravest troops, either by the sword
of the Romans, or in the waves of the Danube. The last division
of this unfortunate fleet might regain the opposite shore; but
the distress and disorder of the multitude rendered them alike
incapable, either of action or counsel; and they soon implored
the clemency of the victorious enemy. On this occasion, as well
as on many others, it is a difficult task to reconcile the
passions and prejudices of the writers of the age of Theodosius.
The partial and malignant historian, who misrepresents every
action of his reign, affirms, that the emperor did not appear in
the field of battle till the Barbarians had been vanquished by
the valor and conduct of his lieutenant Promotus. ^126 The
flattering poet, who celebrated, in the court of Honorius, the
glory of the father and of the son, ascribes the victory to the
personal prowess of Theodosius; and almost insinuates, that the
king of the Ostrogoths was slain by the hand of the emperor. ^127
The truth of history might perhaps be found in a just medium
between these extreme and contradictory assertions.
[Footnote 124: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252.]
[Footnote 125: I am justified, by reason and example, in applying
this Indian name to the the Barbarians, the single trees hollowed
into the shape of a boat. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 253.]
Ausi Danubium quondam tranare Gruthungi
In lintres fregere nemus: ter mille ruebant
Per fluvium plenae cuneis immanibus alni.
Claudian, in iv. Cols. Hon. 623.]
[Footnote 126: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252 - 255. He too frequently
betrays his poverty of judgment by disgracing the most serious
narratives with trifling and incredible circumstances.]
[Footnote 127: - Odothaei Regis opima
Retulit - Ver. 632.
The opima were the spoils which a Roman general could only win
from the king, or general, of the enemy, whom he had slain with
his own hands: and no more than three such examples are
celebrated in the victorious ages of Rome.]
The original treaty which fixed the settlement of the Goths,
ascertained their privileges, and stipulated their obligations,
would illustrate the history of Theodosius and his successors.
The series of their history has imperfectly preserved the spirit
and substance of this single agreement. ^128 The ravages of war
and tyranny had provided many large tracts of fertile but
uncultivated land for the use of those Barbarians who might not
disdain the practice of agriculture. A numerous colony of the
Visigoths was seated in Thrace; the remains of the Ostrogoths
were planted in Phrygia and Lydia; their immediate wants were
supplied by a distribution of corn and cattle; and their future
industry was encouraged by an exemption from tribute, during a
certain term of years. The Barbarians would have deserved to
feel the cruel and perfidious policy of the Imperial court, if
they had suffered themselves to be dispersed through the
provinces. They required, and they obtained, the sole possession
of the villages and districts assigned for their residence; they
still cherished and propagated their native manners and language;
asserted, in the bosom of despotism, the freedom of their
domestic government; and acknowledged the sovereignty of the
emperor, without submitting to the inferior jurisdiction of the
laws and magistrates of Rome. The hereditary chiefs of the
tribes and families were still permitted to command their
followers in peace and war; but the royal dignity was abolished;
and the generals of the Goths were appointed and removed at the
pleasure of the emperor. An army of forty thousand Goths was
maintained for the perpetual service of the empire of the East;
and those haughty troops, who assumed the title of Foederati, or
allies, were distinguished by their gold collars, liberal pay,
and licentious privileges. Their native courage was improved by
the use of arms and the knowledge of discipline; and, while the
republic was guarded, or threatened, by the doubtful sword of the
Barbarians, the last sparks of the military flame were finally
extinguished in the minds of the Romans. ^129 Theodosius had the
address to persuade his allies, that the conditions of peace,
which had been extorted from him by prudence and necessity, were
the voluntary expressions of his sincere friendship for the
Gothic nation. ^130 A different mode of vindication or apology
was opposed to the complaints of the people; who loudly censured
these shameful and dangerous concessions. ^131 The calamities of
the war were painted in the most lively colors; and the first
symptoms of the return of order, of plenty, and security, were
diligently exaggerated. The advocates of Theodosius could
affirm, with some appearance of truth and reason, that it was
impossible to extirpate so many warlike tribes, who were rendered
desperate by the loss of their native country; and that the
exhausted provinces would be revived by a fresh supply of
soldiers and husbandmen. The Barbarians still wore an angry and
hostile aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage
the hope, that they would acquire the habits of industry and
obedience; that their manners would be polished by time,
education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their
posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman
people. ^132
[Footnote 128: See Themistius, Orat. xvi. p. 211. Claudian (in
Eutrop. l. ii. 112) mentions the Phrygian colony: -
- Ostrogothis colitur mistisque Gruthungis
Phyrx ager -
and then proceeds to name the rivers of Lydia, the Pactolus,
and Herreus.]
[Footnote 129: Compare Jornandes, (c. xx. 27,) who marks the
condition and number of the Gothic Foederati, with Zosimus, (l.
iv. p. 258,) who mentions their golden collars; and Pacatus, (in
Panegyr. Vet. xii. 37,) who applauds, with false or foolish joy,
their bravery and discipline.]
[Footnote 130: Amator pacis generisque Gothorum, is the praise
bestowed by the Gothic historian, (c. xxix.,) who represents his
nation as innocent, peaceable men, slow to anger, and patient of
injuries. According to Livy, the Romans conquered the world in
their own defence.]
[Footnote 131: Besides the partial invectives of Zosimus, (always
discontented with the Christian reigns,) see the grave
representations which Synesius addresses to the emperor Arcadius,
(de Regno, p. 25, 26, edit. Petav.) The philosophic bishop of
Cyrene was near enough to judge; and he was sufficiently removed
from the temptation of fear or flattery.]
[Footnote 132: Themistius (Orat. xvi. p. 211, 212) composes an
elaborate and rational apology, which is not, however, exempt
from the puerilities of Greek rhetoric. Orpheus could only charm
the wild beasts of Thrace; but Theodosius enchanted the men and
women, whose predecessors in the same country had torn Orpheus in
pieces, &c.]
Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine
expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the
Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the
conquerors of the Roman empire. Their rude and insolent behavior
expressed their contempt of the citizens and provincials, whom
they insulted with impunity. ^133 To the zeal and valor of the
Barbarians Theodosius was indebted for the success of his arms:
but their assistance was precarious; and they were sometimes
seduced, by a treacherous and inconstant disposition, to abandon
his standard, at the moment when their service was the most
essential. During the civil war against Maximus, a great number
of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of Macedonia,
wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch
to expose his person, and exert his power, to suppress the rising
flame of rebellion. ^134 The public apprehensions were fortified
by the strong suspicion, that these tumults were not the effect
of accidental passion, but the result of deep and premeditated
design. It was generally believed, that the Goths had signed the
treaty of peace with a hostile and insidious spirit; and that
their chiefs had previously bound themselves, by a solemn and
secret oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to maintain the
fairest show of loyalty and friendship, and to watch the
favorable moment of rapine, of conquest, and of revenge. But as
the minds of the Barbarians were not insensible to the power of
gratitude, several of the Gothic leaders sincerely devoted
themselves to the service of the empire, or, at least, of the
emperor; the whole nation was insensibly divided into two
opposite factions, and much sophistry was employed in
conversation and dispute, to compare the obligations of their
first, and second, engagements. The Goths, who considered
themselves as the friends of peace, of justice, and of Rome, were
directed by the authority of Fravitta, a valiant and honorable
youth, distinguished above the rest of his countrymen by the
politeness of his manners, the liberality of his sentiments, and
the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous faction
adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, ^* who inflamed the
passions, and asserted the independence, of his warlike
followers. On one of the solemn festivals, when the chiefs of
both parties were invited to the Imperial table, they were
insensibly heated by wine, till they forgot the usual restraints
of discretion and respect, and betrayed, in the presence of
Theodosius, the fatal secret of their domestic disputes. The
emperor, who had been the reluctant witness of this extraordinary
controversy, dissembled his fears and resentment, and soon
dismissed the tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and
exasperated by the insolence of his rival, whose departure from
the palace might have been the signal of a civil war, boldly
followed him; and, drawing his sword, laid Priulf dead at his
feet. Their companions flew to arms; and the faithful champion
of Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers, if he had
not been protected by the seasonable interposition of the
Imperial guards. ^135 Such were the scenes of Barbaric rage,
which disgraced the palace and table of the Roman emperor; and,
as the impatient Goths could only be restrained by the firm and
temperate character of Theodosius, the public safety seemed to
depend on the life and abilities of a single man. ^136
[Footnote 133: Constantinople was deprived half a day of the
public allowance of bread, to expiate the murder of a Gothic
soldier: was the guilt of the people. Libanius, Orat. xii. p.
394, edit. Morel.]
[Footnote 134: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 267-271. He tells a long and
ridiculous story of the adventurous prince, who roved the country
with only five horsemen, of a spy whom they detected, whipped,
and killed in an old woman's cottage, &c.]
[Footnote *: Eunapius. - M.]
[Footnote 135: Compare Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 21, 22)
with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 279.) The difference of circumstances
and names must undoubtedly be applied to the same story.
Fravitta, or Travitta, was afterwards consul, (A.D. 401.) and
still continued his faithful services to the eldest son of
Theodosius. (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 467.)]
[Footnote 136: Les Goths ravagerent tout depuis le Danube
jusqu'au Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son armee; et ne
repasserent le Danube, que pour abandonner l'affreuse solitude
qu'ils avoient faite, (Oeuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 479.
Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Decadence
des Romains, c. xvii.) The president Montesquieu seems ignorant
that the Goths, after the defeat of Valens, never abandoned the
Roman territory. It is now thirty years, says Claudian, (de Bello
Getico, 166, &c., A.D. 404,)
Ex quo jam patrios gens haec oblita Triones,
Atque Istrum transvecta semel, vestigia fixit
Threicio funesta solo -
the error is inexcusable; since it disguises the principal and
immediate cause of the fall of the Western empire of Rome.]
End of
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Volume 2:
The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
