This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 17 Part 4 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the title of respectable, formed an intermediate class between the illustrious prefects and the honourable magistrates of the provinces. In this class the proconsuls of Asia, Achaea 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 prefects was almost the only mark of their dependence. But the civil government of the empire was distributed into 13 great dioceses each of which equaled 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 600 apparatus who would be styled at present either secretaries or clerks or ushers or messengers were employed in his immediate office. The place of Augustal prefect 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 11 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 12 vicars or vice-prefects 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. 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 116 provinces each of which supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these three were governed by pro-consuls, 37 by consulas, 5 by correctors and 71 by presidents. The appellations of these magistrates were different. They ranked in successive order. The ensigns of their dignity were curiously varied and the situation from accidental circumstances might be more or less agreeable or advantageous but they were all accepting only the pro-consuls alike included in the class of honourable persons and they were alike entrusted during the pleasure of the prince and under the authority of the prefects or their deputies with the administration of justice and the finances in their respective districts. The ponderous volumes of the codes and pandex 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. One, 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 authorised to indulge the condemned criminal with the choice of his own execution or to pronounce a sentence of the mildest and most honourable kind of exile. These prerogatives were reserved to the prefects who alone could impose the heavy fine of 50 pounds of gold. Their vice regents were confined to the trifling weight of a few ounces. 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 prefect. 2. As it was reasonably apprehended that the integrity of the judge might be biased that 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 and to prohibit the governor or his son from contracting marriage with a native or an inhabitant or from purchasing slaves, lands or houses within the extent of his jurisdiction. Notwithstanding these rigorous precautions the emperor Constantine after a reign of 25 years still deploys the venal and oppressive administration of justice and expresses the warmest indignation that the audience of the judge, his dispatch 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. 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 of the government of the republic. The rudiments of this lucrative science were taught in all the considerable cities of the eastern west but the most famous school was that of Beritus on the coast of Phoenicia which flourished above three centuries from the time of Alexander Severus the author perhaps of an institution so advantageous to his native country. After a regular course of education which lasted five years the students dispersed themselves through the provinces in search of fortune and honors nor could they want an inexhaustible supply of business in a great empire already corrupted by the multiplicity of laws of arts and of vices. The court of the Praetorian Prefect of the east could alone furnish employment for 150 advocates 64 of whom were distinguished by peculiar privileges and two of whom were annually chosen with a salary of 60 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 monstrous dignities of the state. 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 of equity 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 who with cunning rather than with skill exercised assorted and pernicious trade some of them procured admittance into families with 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 and the quatious 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. 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 majesty and in complete armour at the head of Roman legions. The influence of the revenue, the authority of law and the command of a military force was 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 100 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. To secure his throne and the public tranquility 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 prefects 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. 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 35 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 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 a rank of Counts or companions a title of honour or rather of favour 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 190 servants and 158 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 tranquility of the monarch the memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for another innovation which corrupted military discipline and prepared the ruin of the empire the 19 years which preceded his final victory over Likinius 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 and the borderers the troops of the court as they were improperly styled and the troops of the frontier 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 renovated 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 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 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 danger 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 favourites were in some measure disgraced by the title of honour which they were allowed to assume it was vain that Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword against the borderers who should dare desert their colours to connive at the inroads of the barbarians or to participate in the spoil the mischiefs which flow from injudicious councils are seldom removed by the application of partial severities and those succeeding princes laboured 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 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 provide 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 6000 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 20,000 persons 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 honours consisted only of 1000 or 1500 men 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 successes of Constantine might indulge their love of ostentation by issuing their orders to 132 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 a more particular enumeration drawn from the noticia 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 583 and that under the successes of Constantine the complete force of the military establishment was computed at 645,000 soldiers an effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient and the faculties of a later period 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 honour 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 monuments and indulgences which in the opinion of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and dangers of a military life yet although the statue was lowered although slaves at least by 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 valour were hence-forward granted under condition which contained the first rudiments of the feudal tenures that their sons who succeeded to the inheritance should devote themselves to the profession of arms as soon as they attained the age of manhood and their cowardly refusal was punished by the loss of honour of fortune or even of life but as the annual growth of the sons of the veterans brought 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 42 pieces of gold to which it was reduced ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers and the reluctance with which the government admitted of this alternative 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 and a peculiar name in the Latin language End of Chapter 17 Part 4 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 17 Part 5 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 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 learnt to despise their manners and to imitate their arts They have endured 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 entrusted 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 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 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 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 learnt to write, to speak and with equal abilities Besides the magistrates and the generals who, at a distance from the court, diffused their delegated authority over the provinces and the armies, the emperor confirmed the rank of illustrious on seven of his more immediate servants to whose fidelity he entrusted his safety or his councils or his treasures The private apartments of the palace were governed by a favourite eunuch who, in the language of that age was styled the propositus or prefect 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 splendour 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 proves 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 prefects of their bed-chamber above the heads of all the ministers of the palace and even his deputy The first of the splendid train of slaves which he 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 The principal administration of public affairs was committed to the diligence and abilities of the master of the offices who 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 of the 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 dispatched by 148 secretaries chosen for the most part from the profession of the law on account of the variety of abstracts 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 34 cities 15 in the east and 19 in the west in which regular companies of workmen were perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armour, offensive weapons of all sorts and military engines which were deposited in the arsenals and occasionally delivered for the service of the troops In the course of nine centuries the office of quite store 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 A similar assistant was granted to every pro consul and to every preter who exercised a military or provincial command With the extent of conquest stores were gradually multiplied to the number of four, of eight of twenty, and for a short time perhaps of forty and the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which gave them a seat in the senate and a just hope of obtaining the honours 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 The practice of Augustus was imitated by succeeding princes The occasional commission was established as a permanent office and the favoured quite store assuming a new and more illustrious character alone survived the suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues As the orations which he composed in the name of the emperor 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 prefects and the master of the offices and he was frequently requested by the courts 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 In some respects the office of the imperial quite store 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 the extraordinary title of count of the sacred largesse 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 who 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 super-numeraries who, deserting their honest labours had pressed with too much eagerness into the lucrative profession of the finances twenty-nine provincial receivers of whom eighteen were honoured 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 visited 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 dying 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 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 demeans 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 imperialist states 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 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 6,000 subjects or slaves of the deity and her ministers but these were not the valuable inhabitants the plains at stretch from the foot of Mount Argeus to the banks of the Tsaris 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 the demeans of Cappadocia were important enough to require the inspection of account 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 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 3,500 men divided into seven schools or troops of 500 each and in the east this honourable service was almost entirely appropriated to the Armenians whenever on public ceremonies they were drawn up in the courts and porticoes 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 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 dispatched into the provinces to execute with celerity and vigor the orders of their master the counts of the domestics had succeeded to the office of the praetorian prefects like the prefects they aspired from the service of the palace under the command of armies 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 200 or 300 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 the magistrates or of private citizens and were soon considered as the eyes of the monarch and the scourge of the people under the warm influence of a feeble reign they multiplied to the incredible number of 10,000 disdained the mild though frequent admonitions of the laws and considerable management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression these official spies who regularly corresponded with the palace were encouraged by favour 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 of 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 formers 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 the deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal question 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 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 the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger of ignominious torture 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 amongst 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 humankind the acquiescence of the provincial 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 to solicit and the interest of the sovereign engaged him to grant a variety of special exemptions which tacitly allowed and even authorised the general use of torture they protected all persons of illustrious or honourable 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 but a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire that in the case of treason which included every offence that subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince or republic 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 torches 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 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 to send with accelerated weight on the meaner and more indigent classes of society an ingenious philosopher has calculated the universal measure of the public in positions 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 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 the 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 End of Chapter 17 Part 5 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 17 Part 6 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon The name and use of the Indictions which served to ascertain the chronology of the Middle Ages were derived from the regular practice of the Roman Tributes 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 Darsis 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 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 Super Indiction was imposed on the people and the most valuable attribute of sovereignty was communicated to the Praetorian Prefets 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 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 honourable or important in the administration of the revenue was committed to the wisdom of the Prefets and their provincial 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 Jecurians who formed the corporations of the cities and whom the severity of the imperial laws had condemned to sustain the burdens of civil society The whole landed property of the empire without accepting 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 or survey was the only equitable mode of ascertaining the proportion which every citizen should be obliged to contribute for 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 15 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 number 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 The 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 A large portion of the tribute was paid in money and of the current coin of the empire gold alone could be legally accepted The remainder of the taxes according to the proportions determined by the annual indiction was furnished in a manner 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 labour or at the expense of the provincial 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 that an absolute monarchy must introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and the arts of fraud 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 Silaris Within 60 years after the death of Constantine and on the evidence of an actual survey an exemption was granted in favour of 330,000 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 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 The returns which were sent to the city province or district expressed the number of tributary subjects and the amount of the public in positions The latter of these sums was divided by the former and the estimate that such a province contained so many capital 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 and 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 25 pieces of gold for the annual tribute of every head The humane policy of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces 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 But this calculation or rather indeed the facts from whence it is deduced cannot fail of suggesting two difficulties to a striking 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 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 attacks from which the sovereign would derive a very trifling revenue Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman Capitation But in 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 Gerion 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 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded the customary wealth of a poet but if he had pursued the illusion 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 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 million sterling which ought perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of inhabitants 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 was 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 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 In such a state the poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who enjoyed the fruits of their labour and as the roles of tribute were filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed the means of an honourable 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 Aidaoui, one of the most powerful and civilised tribes or cities of Gaul occupied an extent of territory which now contains about 500,000 inhabitants in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Auta and Nevere and with the probable accession of those of Shallot and Macaul the population would amount to 800,000 souls In the time of Constantine the territory of the Aidaoui afforded no more than 25,000 heads of capitation of whom 7,000 were discharged by that prince from the intolerable weight of tribute A just analogy would seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian 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 7,000,000 sterling which were reduced to 2,000,000 by the humanity or the wisdom of Julian. But this tax or capitation on the proprietors of land would have suffered a rich and numerous of free citizens to escape. With the view of sharing that species of wealth which is derived from art or labour and which exists in money or in merchandise the emperors imposed a distinct and personal tribute on the trading part of their subjects. 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 merchants, but every other branch of commercial industry was affected by the severity of the law. The Honourable Merchant of Alexandria who imported the gems and spices of India for the use of the western world, the user 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's Osimus 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 Osimus 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 profits of art or labour are susceptible only of a discretion revaluation 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 scourges, are lots of spacious and airy prison for the place of their confinement. 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 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 2,822 massive crowns whose weight amounted to 20,414 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. The temple 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. 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 the provinces of the monarchy as often as the emperor condescended to announce his accession, the 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 1,600 pounds of gold or about 64,000 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. A people elated by pride or soured by discontent assailed them qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation. The subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline of genius and manny 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 favourable circumstances which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The threatening tempest of barbarians which so soon subverted the foundation 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 licence 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 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 successes of Augustus that they did not reign over a nation of slaves or barbarians. End of Chapter 17 Part 6 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Chapter 18 Part 1 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 18 Character of Constantine and His Sons Part 1 Character of Constantine 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 seed 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 panagyric. 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 but it would soon appear that the vain attempt to blame 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. The person, as well as the mind of Constantine, had been enriched by nature with her choiceless 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 railery 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 time. In the dispatch 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'd love 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 to be the ruling passion of his soul may be justified by the dangers of his own situation by the character of his rivals by the consciousness of superior merit and by the prospect that his success would enable him to restore peace and order to the distracted empire. In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius he had engaged on his side the inclinations of the people who compared the undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the administration of Constantine. Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tiber or even in the plains of Adrianople such as the character which with 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. 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 humankind. In that of Constantine we may contemplate a hero who had so long inspired his subjects with love his enemies with terror degenerating into a cruel and disillute 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 but with an increasing expense. The cost of his buildings, his courts, 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. His unworthy favorites enriched by the boundless liberality of their master usurped with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption a secret but universal decay was felt in every part of the public administration. In 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 his life he chose to affect served only to decrade him in the eyes of mankind. The Asiatic pomp which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian assumed an error of softness and effeminacy in the person of Constantine. He is represented with false hair of various colors laboriously arranged by the skill for 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 Elagalibus we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged monarch and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. 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 Lachinius 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 sully 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 interests. The same fortune which so invariably followed that standard of Constantine seemed to secure the hopes in comforts of his domestic life who in 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 ennobled by the Gothic Claudius descended through several generations and Constantine himself derived from his royal father the honorary honors which he transmitted to his children. The emperor had been twice married Minerva, the obscure but lawful object of his youthful attachment 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 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 Opatius and Apatianus two senators of noble birth of consular dignity. His third sister, Constantia was distinguished by her preeminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of the vanquished Lachinius 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 secession. Besides the females, the allies of the Flavian house, ten or twelve males to whom the language of modern courts would apply the title of the princess 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 30 years this numerous and increasing family was reduced to the persons of Constantius and Julian who alone survived a series of crimes and calamities such as the tragic poets have deplored in the devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus. 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 entrusted to Lachinius the most eloquent of the Christians a preceptor admirably qualified to form the taste and excite the virtues of his illustrious disciple. At the age of seventeen Crispus was invested with the title of Caesar in 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 the conduct displayed by the latter enforcing the straits of the Hellespot so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of Lachinius. 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'd 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 luster over the youth of Crispus. He deserved the esteem and he engaged the affections of the court the army and of the people. The experience 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. This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of Constantine who both as a father and as a king was inpatient 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 circumstances. He, a prince of mature years who had performed with such recent and signal services instead of being raised in the superior rank of Augustus was confined almost a prisoner to his father's court and exposed without power or defense 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 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 in government. By all the allurements of honors he invites and formers 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 the informers who complied with so liberal an invitation were sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends and adherents of Christmas 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 the son and to consider as his most irreconcilable enemy. Metals were struck with the customary vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young Caesar 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. The time was now arrived to celebrate the Auguste ceremony of the 20th 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 the ceremony into simulation was drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder. At the festival the unfortunate Christmas was apprehended by the 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 and 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. The Caesar Lachinius a youth of amiable manners was involved in the ruin of Christmas 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 form of their trial and the circumstances of their death were buried in mysterious obscurity and the courtly bishop who is celebrated in elaborate work the virtues and piety of his hero observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic events. Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind whilst it imprints an indelible strain on the memory of Constantine must remind us of the very different behavior of one of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Tsar 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 commendation of a criminal or at least of a degenerate son. The innocence of Christmas was so universally acknowledged that the modern Greeks who adore the memory of their founder are reduced to palliate the guilt of a parasite 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 which by his credulity had been so fatally misled he published to the world his repentance and remorse that he mourned for 40 days during which he abstained from the use of the bath and of all the ordinary comforts of life and that for the lasting instruction of posterity the golden statue of Christmas with this memorable inscription to my son whom I unjustly condemned a tale so moral and so interesting would deserve to be supported by less exceptional 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 perhaps of a guilty wife they ascribed the misfortunes of Christmas to the arts of his stepmother Fausta whose implacable hatred or whose disappointed love renewed in the palace of Constantine the ancient tragedy of Hippolytus and Phydra 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 the mercy of the emperor a sentence of death against a young prince whom she considered with reason is 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 pretend discovery was made that Fausta herself entertained a criminal connection with the slave belonging to the imperial stables her condemnation and punishment were the instant consequences of the charge and the adulterous was suffocated by the steam of a bath which for that purpose had been heated to an extraordinary degree by some it will perhaps be thought that the resemblance of a conjugal union of twenty years and the honor of their common offspring the dust and airs 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 offenses in a solitary prison but it seems the 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 emperor's Fausta the daughter, wife sister and mother of so many princes the latter asserts an 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 notwithstanding the positive testimony of several writers of the pagan palace 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 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 End of Chapter 18 Part 1 Chapter 18 Part 2 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 18 Character of Constantine and his sons Part 2 Read by Claude Banta Harrisburg, Pennsylvania July 2007 By the death of Christmas 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 Constance The taxes were successively invested with the title of Caesar and the dates of their promotion may be referred to the 10th, the 20th and the 30th years of the reign of their father This conduct, though attended 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 Hannibalanus The former was raised by the title of Caesar to inequality with his cousins in favor of the latter Constantine invented the new and singular appellation of Nobilisimus to which he annexed the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and gold But the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the empire Hannibalanus alone was distinguished by the title of king a name which the subjects of Tiberius would have distested 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 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 mentioned 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 skillful horseman and a master of all the different weapons of this either of the cavalry or of the infantry The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though not perhaps with equal success to improve the minds of the sons and nephews of Constantine 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 in the science of the 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 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 dignity of their rank permit them to descend from the elevated station from once 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 entrusted to their care The younger Constantine was appointed to hold this court in Gal His brother Constantius engaged that department the ancient patrimony of their father for the more opulent but less martial countries of the east Italy the provinces of western Illyricum and Africa were accustomed to Revere Constance the third of his sons as the representative of the great Constantine He fixed Dalmatias 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 Hannibalanus and the provinces of Pontus Cappadocia and lesser Armenia were destined to form the extent of his new kingdom 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 defense 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 40 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 The tranquility of the last 14 years of his reign was scarcely interrupted by the contemptible insurrection of a camel diver in the island of Cyprus or by the active part which the policy of Constantine to assume in the wars of the Goths and Sarmatians 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 Tanius and sometimes spread themselves over the immense plains which lie between the Vistula and the Volga The care of their numerous flocks and herds the pursuit of game and the exercise of war or rather rapine directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians The movable camps or cities the ordinary residents of their wives and children consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen The military strength of the nation was composed of cavalry and the custom of their warriors to lead in their head one or two spare horses enabled them to advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence which surprised the security and alerted the pursuit of a distant enemy Their poverty of iron prompted the rude industry to invent a sort of caress which was capable of resisting a sword or javelin which was only of horses' hoofs cut into thin and polished slices carefully laid over each other in the manner of scales or feathers and strongly suit up upon a garment of coarse linen The offensive arms of the Sarmatians were short daggers, long lances and a weighty bow-bow with a quiver of arrows They were reduced to the necessity of employing fishbones for the points of their weapons But the custom of dipping them in venomous liquor and 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 Whenever these barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of prayer their shaggy beards, uncomlocks the furs with which they were covered from head to foot seemed to express the innate cruelty of their minds Inspire the more civilized provincials of Rome with horror and dismay 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 defense to the fury of these monsters of the desert which whose stern discipline he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be confounded In his pathetic but sometimes unmanly lamentations he describes in the most lively colors the dress and manners the arms and inroads of the Gite and Sarmatians who were associated for the purpose of destruction and from the accounts of history there is some reason to believe that these Sarmatians were the jazzy gay 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 Tice or Tibiscus to retire to the hilly country and to abandon to the victorious Salmations the fertile plains of the upper Hungary which are bounded by the course of the Danube and semicircular enclosure of the Carpathian mountains In this advantageous position they watched or suspended the moment of attack as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by presence 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 but after they had received into their bosom the fugitive vandals who yielded to the pressure of the Gothic power they seemed to have chosen a king from that nation and from the illustrious race of the Astonji who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the northern ocean The 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 Uxan to the frontiers of Germany and the waters of Maros a small river which falls into the Tice 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 their Roman monarch who beheld with pleasure the discord of the nations but who was justly alarmed by the Gothic arms As soon as Constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker party the Hade Ararik 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 Macea 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 in so many foreign and domestic wars He had the mortification of seeing his troops fly before an inconsiderable detachment of the barbarians who beserved them to the edge of the fortified camp and obliged him to consult his safety by a precipitate an agnonomous retreat The event of a second and more successful action required 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 victory which diffused universal joy was ascribed to the auspicious council of the emperor himself He contributed at least to improve this advantage by his negotiations with the free and warlike people of Sharnosis whose capital situated on the western coast of the Torek or Crimean 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 Shersenites were animated against the Goths by the memory of the wars which in the preceding century 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 whose principal strength consisted in the crossbows and military chariots The speedy march and intrepid attack of the Shersenites 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 this was at length granted to their humble supplications The eldest son of Araric was accepted as a 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 Shersenites 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 subsidiary 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 the dereliverance 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 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 threaten their safety Their inroads on the territory of the Empire broke the indignation of Constantine to leave them to their fate and he no longer opposed the ambition of Jaberic a renowned warrior who had recently ascended the Gothic throne Weissamar, 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 hearty race of hunters and herdsmen by whose tumultary 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 were acclaimed and usurped the possession of the country which they had saved Their masters, unable to resist the ungoverned fury of the populace preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of their servants Some of the fugitive formations solicited a less agnonomous dependence under the hostile standard of the Goths A more numerous band retried beyond the Carmpathian mountains among the Cadi and were easily admitted to share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land But a 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 inviolate 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 300,000 Sarmatians By chastising the pride of the Goths and by accepting the homage of a suppliant nation Constantine assembled the majesty of the Roman Empire and the ambassadors of Ethiopia, Persia, and the most remote countries of India congratulated the peace and prosperity of this government If he reckoned among the favors of Fortune, the death of his elder son, of his nephew and perhaps his wife he enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of private as well as public felicity till the 30th year of his reign a period which none of his predecessors since Augustus had been permitted to celebrate Constantine survived that solemn festival about 10 months at the mature age of 64 after a short illness he ended his memorable life at the Palace of Acreon in the suburbs of Nicomedia wither he had retired for the benefit of the air and with the hope of recruiting his exhausted strength by the use of warm baths the excessive demonstrations of grief or at least of mourning surpassed whatever had been practiced 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 gold 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 the sovereign with bended knees and a composed countenance offered their respectful homage to the fact that they had still been alive for 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 but this reign could subsist only an empty pageantry and it was soon discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is seldom obeyed and the monarchs 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 Hannibalanus from the share which he had assigned them in the secession of the empire we are too imperfectly acquainted with the court of Constantine and we do not form any judgment on 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 perfect Alblavius a proud favorite who had long directed the councils 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 insist on the superior rank of the children of Constantine the danger of multiplying the number of sovereigns and the impending mischiefs which threaten the republic from the discord of so many rival princes who were not connected by the tender sympathy of eternal 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 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 that just claims which himself and his royal brother derived from the liberality of their uncle astonished and overawed 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